Security Cleared Contract Job Trends in England

Security Clearance
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for Security Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 3 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 3 3
Rank change year-on-year +1 0 +3
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 8,349 4,538 7,098
As % of all contract jobs in England 23.45% 18.14% 18.73%
As % of the Qualifications category 68.49% 59.59% 60.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,697 2,926 4,505
10th Percentile £356 £313 £352
25th Percentile £445 £440 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -2.65%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £706 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -2.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 736 250 489
10th Percentile £17.69 £21.25 £18.00
25th Percentile £20.35 £25.56 £31.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -58.08% +6.21% -5.85%
75th Percentile £67.50 £68.42 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £77.59 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £57.12 £56.49
% change year-on-year -54.89% +1.12% -5.85%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
England

Security Cleared falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in England.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 12,190 7,616 11,780
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.25% 30.44% 31.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,103 4,719 7,262
10th Percentile £325 £285 £290
25th Percentile £422 £413 £424
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £730 £738
UK median daily rate £517 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.60% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 946 391 910
10th Percentile £16.17 £20.12 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.35 £25.26 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.20 £50.00 £40.28
Median % change year-on-year -49.61% +24.15% -17.81%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.34 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.00 £82.50 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £42.21 £40.28
% change year-on-year -38.94% +4.79% -19.45%

Security Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Security Cleared relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Security Cleared job vacancy trend in England

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Security Cleared.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Cleared in England over the 6 months to 3 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Security Cleared in England

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Security Cleared.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Cleared in England over the 6 months to 3 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Cleared in England

Security Cleared
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Security Cleared within the England region over the 6 months to 3 March 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +5 2,899 £530 +0.95% 499
South East +1 1,826 £525 -4.55% 523
South West 0 1,310 £550 -0.09% 347
Midlands +4 852 £492 -10.55% 146
North of England -2 819 £492 +2.50% 214
West Midlands +3 681 £495 -10.16% 108
North West 0 533 £500 +5.26% 137
East of England +1 346 £498 -0.50% 152
East Midlands +2 169 £425 -17.07% 37
Yorkshire -8 168 £498 -5.24% 45
North East +1 145 £450 -10.00% 33
Security Cleared
UK

Security Cleared
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 317 (3.80%) Confluence
2 203 (2.43%) SharePoint
3 134 (1.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 133 (1.59%) SAS
5 65 (0.78%) Apache
5 65 (0.78%) Apache Spark
6 43 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
7 38 (0.46%) nginx
8 34 (0.41%) WebLogic
9 31 (0.37%) Skype for Business
10 20 (0.24%) Jupyter
11 15 (0.18%) CMS
11 15 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
12 14 (0.17%) Tuxedo
13 9 (0.11%) IIS
13 9 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
14 7 (0.084%) OpenStack
14 7 (0.084%) Tomcat
15 6 (0.072%) ArcGIS
16 5 (0.060%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 247 (2.96%) Microsoft Office
2 187 (2.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 118 (1.41%) Microsoft Project
4 68 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 41 (0.49%) MS Visio
6 29 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.096%) Simulink
8 6 (0.072%) Oracle Smart View
9 5 (0.060%) Siemens NX
10 4 (0.048%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.048%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.048%) Sketch
10 4 (0.048%) Windchill
11 3 (0.036%) AutoCAD
12 2 (0.024%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.024%) CATIA
12 2 (0.024%) Lectora
12 2 (0.024%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.024%) PTC Creo
12 2 (0.024%) Trello
Business Applications
1 126 (1.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (0.44%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 29 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
4 26 (0.31%) Remedy ITSM
5 24 (0.29%) Teamcenter
6 19 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
6 19 (0.23%) SAP MM
7 15 (0.18%) Maximo
8 13 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
8 13 (0.16%) SAP PP
8 13 (0.16%) SAP QM
9 12 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
9 12 (0.14%) SAP VC
10 11 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
10 11 (0.13%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 11 (0.13%) SAP HCM
10 11 (0.13%) SAP WM
11 9 (0.11%) Oracle General Ledger
11 9 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
11 9 (0.11%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 1,373 (16.45%) AWS
2 1,371 (16.42%) Azure
3 360 (4.31%) GitHub
4 357 (4.28%) GCP
5 308 (3.69%) Power Platform
6 306 (3.67%) Azure DevOps
7 296 (3.55%) Microsoft 365
8 230 (2.75%) Serverless
9 225 (2.69%) Entra ID
10 184 (2.20%) Amazon S3
11 180 (2.16%) GitHub Actions
12 170 (2.04%) OpenShift
13 149 (1.78%) AWS Lambda
14 124 (1.49%) Amazon EC2
15 110 (1.32%) AWS CloudFormation
16 107 (1.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 101 (1.21%) IaaS
18 100 (1.20%) PaaS
19 98 (1.17%) Amazon EKS
19 98 (1.17%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 405 (4.85%) Firewall
2 268 (3.21%) DNS
3 201 (2.41%) Network Security
4 179 (2.14%) WAN
5 162 (1.94%) VPN
6 144 (1.72%) LAN
7 131 (1.57%) TCP/IP
8 130 (1.56%) BGP
9 126 (1.51%) DHCP
10 92 (1.10%) Wireless
11 90 (1.08%) OSPF
12 84 (1.01%) VLAN
13 72 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
14 64 (0.77%) MPLS
15 51 (0.61%) IPsec
16 49 (0.59%) SAN
17 46 (0.55%) Cisco ISE
17 46 (0.55%) SSL
18 40 (0.48%) Skype
19 39 (0.47%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 227 (2.72%) PostgreSQL
2 221 (2.65%) Power BI
3 146 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
4 128 (1.53%) SQL Server
5 105 (1.26%) Metadata
6 95 (1.14%) Oracle Database
7 89 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
8 84 (1.01%) NoSQL
9 81 (0.97%) MongoDB
10 79 (0.95%) Relational Database
11 68 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
12 66 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
13 58 (0.69%) Pentaho
14 50 (0.60%) Data Lake
14 50 (0.60%) MySQL
15 45 (0.54%) Big Data
16 44 (0.53%) Amazon Redshift
16 44 (0.53%) Tableau
17 36 (0.43%) DynamoDB
17 36 (0.43%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 527 (6.31%) JIRA
2 429 (5.14%) Git
3 368 (4.41%) Jenkins
4 312 (3.74%) GitLab
5 98 (1.17%) Selenium
6 78 (0.93%) JUnit
7 77 (0.92%) Postman
8 58 (0.69%) Cypress.io
9 51 (0.61%) SonarQube
10 49 (0.59%) Bitbucket
11 45 (0.54%) Maven
12 44 (0.53%) Oracle APEX
13 42 (0.50%) Artifactory
13 42 (0.50%) Cucumber
14 36 (0.43%) Rational DOORS
15 33 (0.40%) REST Assured
16 32 (0.38%) Mockito
17 28 (0.34%) Visual Studio
18 26 (0.31%) JMeter
19 24 (0.29%) Metasploit
General
1 2,119 (25.38%) Public Sector
2 2,036 (24.39%) Social Skills
3 709 (8.49%) Analytical Skills
4 602 (7.21%) Finance
5 317 (3.80%) Military
6 236 (2.83%) Documentation Skills
7 187 (2.24%) Aerospace
8 170 (2.04%) Telecoms
9 169 (2.02%) Manufacturing
10 130 (1.56%) Legal
11 120 (1.44%) Organisational Skills
12 113 (1.35%) Marketing
13 107 (1.28%) Electronics
14 106 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
14 106 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
15 93 (1.11%) Banking
16 69 (0.83%) Law
17 45 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 44 (0.53%) Police
19 34 (0.41%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,165 (13.95%) Architect
2 799 (9.57%) Developer
3 706 (8.46%) Senior
4 644 (7.71%) Analyst
5 490 (5.87%) Consultant
6 479 (5.74%) Lead
7 364 (4.36%) DevOps Engineer
8 306 (3.67%) Data Engineer
9 244 (2.92%) Network Engineer
10 227 (2.72%) Business Analyst
11 223 (2.67%) Support Engineer
12 218 (2.61%) Software Engineer
13 205 (2.46%) Technical Architect
14 188 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
15 164 (1.96%) Tester
16 150 (1.80%) Project Manager
17 149 (1.78%) Azure Engineer
18 147 (1.76%) Administrator
19 141 (1.69%) AWS Engineer
20 140 (1.68%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 321 (3.84%) REST
2 195 (2.34%) Node.js
3 188 (2.25%) Spring
4 176 (2.11%) React
5 160 (1.92%) Kafka
6 141 (1.69%) LDAP
6 141 (1.69%) SOAP
6 141 (1.69%) Spring Boot
7 138 (1.65%) JSON
8 122 (1.46%) .NET
9 109 (1.31%) AngularJS
9 109 (1.31%) HTML
10 103 (1.23%) RESTful
11 95 (1.14%) Web Services
12 94 (1.13%) OAuth
13 93 (1.11%) Oracle Fusion
14 89 (1.07%) CSS
15 86 (1.03%) PySpark
16 84 (1.01%) XML
17 79 (0.95%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 270 (3.23%) Data Centre
2 255 (3.05%) Product Ownership
3 236 (2.83%) Cloud Native
4 219 (2.62%) Onboarding
5 197 (2.36%) PKI
6 149 (1.78%) Management Information System
7 129 (1.55%) Security Posture
8 111 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
9 105 (1.26%) Legacy Systems
10 104 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
11 95 (1.14%) Replication
12 70 (0.84%) Hybrid Cloud
12 70 (0.84%) Public Cloud
13 63 (0.75%) Cyber Threat
13 63 (0.75%) Security Operations Centre
14 62 (0.74%) Distributed Systems
15 61 (0.73%) Driving Licence
16 51 (0.61%) Clustering
17 46 (0.55%) Data Structures
18 45 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 810 (9.70%) Windows
2 616 (7.38%) Linux
3 209 (2.50%) Windows Server
4 149 (1.78%) Windows 10
5 122 (1.46%) Android
6 107 (1.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 106 (1.27%) Unix
8 65 (0.78%) Mac OS
9 47 (0.56%) Apple iOS
10 44 (0.53%) Ubuntu
11 34 (0.41%) VMS
12 24 (0.29%) CentOS
12 24 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
13 21 (0.25%) Windows 7
14 19 (0.23%) Solaris
15 17 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
16 12 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
17 8 (0.096%) Windows Server 2003
17 8 (0.096%) Windows Server 2008
18 7 (0.084%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,631 (19.54%) Agile
2 1,286 (15.40%) DevOps
3 1,123 (13.45%) CI/CD
4 1,054 (12.62%) Problem-Solving
5 768 (9.20%) Stakeholder Management
6 736 (8.82%) Migration
7 668 (8.00%) Continuous Improvement
8 577 (6.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 537 (6.43%) Cybersecurity
10 518 (6.20%) ITIL
11 505 (6.05%) Infrastructure as Code
12 472 (5.65%) Test Automation
13 458 (5.49%) Roadmaps
14 449 (5.38%) Analytics
15 433 (5.19%) Containerisation
16 407 (4.87%) Scrum
17 405 (4.85%) Software Engineering
18 399 (4.78%) Business Intelligence
19 397 (4.76%) Service Management
20 372 (4.46%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 985 (11.80%) Python
2 715 (8.56%) SQL
3 543 (6.50%) PowerShell
4 466 (5.58%) Java
5 367 (4.40%) JavaScript
6 213 (2.55%) Bash
7 175 (2.10%) TypeScript
8 171 (2.05%) C#
9 97 (1.16%) C++
10 93 (1.11%) PL/SQL
11 91 (1.09%) Shell Script
12 78 (0.93%) Go
13 59 (0.71%) C
14 50 (0.60%) Ada
14 50 (0.60%) Ruby
15 48 (0.57%) Scala
16 40 (0.48%) Bicep
17 37 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
18 30 (0.36%) ABAP
19 28 (0.34%) Perl
Qualifications
1 6,348 (76.03%) SC Cleared
2 1,449 (17.36%) DV Cleared
3 410 (4.91%) Degree
4 251 (3.01%) BPSS Clearance
5 162 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
6 156 (1.87%) CISSP
7 119 (1.43%) CCNP
8 118 (1.41%) Azure Certification
9 113 (1.35%) AWS Certification
10 110 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
11 95 (1.14%) CISM
12 73 (0.87%) Computer Science Degree
13 71 (0.85%) CCNA
14 62 (0.74%) ITIL Certification
15 60 (0.72%) TOGAF Certification
16 47 (0.56%) PMP
17 46 (0.55%) ISTQB
18 44 (0.53%) GIAC
18 44 (0.53%) PMI Certification
18 44 (0.53%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 293 (3.51%) QA
2 265 (3.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 251 (3.01%) NIST
4 216 (2.59%) Data Quality
5 188 (2.25%) NCSC
6 167 (2.00%) GDPR
7 149 (1.78%) Accessibility
8 116 (1.39%) SLA
9 102 (1.22%) PMO
10 61 (0.73%) GRC
11 52 (0.62%) JSP 440
12 42 (0.50%) WCAG
13 41 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
14 39 (0.47%) Def Stans
15 32 (0.38%) NIST 800
15 32 (0.38%) PCI DSS
16 30 (0.36%) COBIT
17 23 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 23 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 20 (0.24%) RMADS
System Software
1 580 (6.95%) Docker
2 464 (5.56%) Active Directory
3 226 (2.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 77 (0.92%) VMware NSX
5 63 (0.75%) vSphere
6 57 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
6 57 (0.68%) VMware ESXi
7 53 (0.63%) Hyper-V
8 22 (0.26%) Firmware
9 21 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
10 20 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
11 18 (0.22%) BitLocker
12 16 (0.19%) NFS
12 16 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 11 (0.13%) Postfix
14 10 (0.12%) Squid
15 8 (0.096%) vCloud
16 6 (0.072%) Virtual Servers
17 5 (0.060%) Microsoft App-V
17 5 (0.060%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 748 (8.96%) Kubernetes
2 679 (8.13%) Terraform
3 288 (3.45%) Ansible
4 209 (2.50%) Grafana
5 168 (2.01%) Prometheus
6 104 (1.25%) Single Sign-On
7 95 (1.14%) SCCM
8 89 (1.07%) vCenter Server
9 81 (0.97%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 66 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
11 65 (0.78%) Argo
12 41 (0.49%) FortiGate
13 38 (0.46%) Podman
14 37 (0.44%) Packer
15 30 (0.36%) OPNET
15 30 (0.36%) Puppet
16 29 (0.35%) Kibana
17 27 (0.32%) Progress Chef
18 25 (0.30%) Nmap
19 23 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 978 (11.71%) Microsoft
2 485 (5.81%) Oracle
3 415 (4.97%) VMware
4 400 (4.79%) Cisco
5 374 (4.48%) SAP
6 363 (4.35%) ServiceNow
7 205 (2.46%) Splunk
8 176 (2.11%) Red Hat
9 130 (1.56%) Juniper
10 129 (1.55%) Palo Alto
11 126 (1.51%) Databricks
11 126 (1.51%) Google
12 121 (1.45%) CyberArk
13 116 (1.39%) Atlassian
14 109 (1.31%) Salesforce
15 92 (1.10%) Dell
16 77 (0.92%) Talend
17 76 (0.91%) HP
18 75 (0.90%) F5
18 75 (0.90%) IBM