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 22 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 9,845 4,949 6,775
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.95% 18.13% 19.16%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.58% 58.62% 62.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,925 3,205 4,467
10th Percentile £380 £338 £350
25th Percentile £450 £450 £452
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £531 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.19% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £626 £625 £646
90th Percentile £722 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £533 £530 £550
% change year-on-year +0.47% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 754 435 505
10th Percentile £19.33 £18.51 £15.50
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.22
Median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +152.49% -56.26% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80.00 £59.45 £71.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.07 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £25.15 £55.04
% change year-on-year +148.51% -54.30% -8.27%

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 14,150 8,443 10,837
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.54% 30.93% 30.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,548 5,329 6,840
10th Percentile £350 £283 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £719 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £525
% change year-on-year +0.38% -0.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,053 615 885
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.30 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +113.44% -41.16% -23.76%
75th Percentile £75.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -25.00%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 July 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 +7 3,489 £540 +2.86% 628
South East +1 2,447 £550 - 503
South West 0 1,290 £538 -6.52% 358
North of England +2 1,076 £500 - 304
Midlands +3 969 £469 -6.20% 142
West Midlands +2 827 £469 -6.20% 104
North West +1 569 £525 - 170
East of England +2 310 £575 +9.52% 125
Yorkshire +3 297 £500 +1.63% 73
North East 0 239 £475 -5.00% 62
East Midlands +1 129 £418 -12.11% 38
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
1 348 (3.53%) Confluence
2 238 (2.42%) SharePoint
3 160 (1.63%) SAS
4 117 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
5 88 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 81 (0.82%) Apache Spark
7 78 (0.79%) Apache
8 42 (0.43%) nginx
9 35 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 33 (0.34%) Jupyter
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 18 (0.18%) Oracle Application Server
13 16 (0.16%) CMS
13 16 (0.16%) IIS
13 16 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 13 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
15 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
16 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
16 11 (0.11%) Skype for Business
17 9 (0.091%) Documentum
Applications
1 181 (1.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 124 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
3 89 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
4 70 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 39 (0.40%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.13%) Simulink
8 12 (0.12%) AutoCAD
8 12 (0.12%) Revit
8 12 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
9 10 (0.10%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.061%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.061%) Sketch
11 5 (0.051%) Notepad++
12 4 (0.041%) Trello
13 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.020%) CATIA
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
14 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
14 2 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 120 (1.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 65 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
3 41 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 36 (0.37%) Teamcenter
5 30 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 28 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
7 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
8 21 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
9 15 (0.15%) Primavera
10 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
11 12 (0.12%) iTrent
11 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
12 11 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 11 (0.11%) Oracle Payroll
13 10 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
13 10 (0.10%) SAP HR
14 9 (0.091%) Salesforce CRM
14 9 (0.091%) SAP ERP
15 8 (0.081%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 1,742 (17.69%) Azure
2 1,621 (16.47%) AWS
3 405 (4.11%) Azure DevOps
4 401 (4.07%) GitHub
5 397 (4.03%) Power Platform
6 349 (3.54%) GCP
7 268 (2.72%) Microsoft 365
8 253 (2.57%) GitHub Actions
9 248 (2.52%) Entra ID
10 236 (2.40%) Serverless
11 217 (2.20%) Amazon S3
12 165 (1.68%) AWS Lambda
13 149 (1.51%) Amazon EC2
14 139 (1.41%) OCI
15 137 (1.39%) SaaS
16 136 (1.38%) OpenShift
17 132 (1.34%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 124 (1.26%) PaaS
19 118 (1.20%) Amazon EKS
20 112 (1.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 422 (4.29%) Firewall
2 332 (3.37%) DNS
3 217 (2.20%) Network Security
4 208 (2.11%) WAN
5 181 (1.84%) LAN
5 181 (1.84%) VPN
6 169 (1.72%) DHCP
7 138 (1.40%) BGP
8 125 (1.27%) TCP/IP
9 113 (1.15%) OSPF
10 108 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
11 99 (1.01%) VLAN
12 83 (0.84%) Wireless
13 59 (0.60%) IPsec
13 59 (0.60%) MPLS
14 58 (0.59%) SAN
15 57 (0.58%) SD-WAN
16 55 (0.56%) VSAN
16 55 (0.56%) VXLAN
17 48 (0.49%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 298 (3.03%) Power BI
2 245 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
3 244 (2.48%) SQL Server
4 225 (2.29%) Data Warehouse
5 148 (1.50%) Oracle Database
6 131 (1.33%) Metadata
7 103 (1.05%) Data Lake
8 101 (1.03%) Relational Database
9 96 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
10 81 (0.82%) Pentaho
11 79 (0.80%) MySQL
12 78 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
13 74 (0.75%) MongoDB
14 71 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
15 62 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
15 62 (0.63%) NoSQL
16 57 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
16 57 (0.58%) Tableau
17 39 (0.40%) Big Data
18 38 (0.39%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 549 (5.58%) JIRA
2 456 (4.63%) Git
3 394 (4.00%) GitLab
4 371 (3.77%) Jenkins
5 101 (1.03%) Selenium
6 78 (0.79%) SonarQube
7 76 (0.77%) JUnit
8 61 (0.62%) Postman
9 54 (0.55%) Rational DOORS
10 53 (0.54%) JMeter
11 51 (0.52%) Maven
12 47 (0.48%) Cucumber
13 41 (0.42%) Mockito
14 38 (0.39%) Zephyr
15 37 (0.38%) Artifactory
15 37 (0.38%) Bitbucket
15 37 (0.38%) Visual Studio
16 36 (0.37%) REST Assured
17 33 (0.34%) Cypress.io
18 31 (0.31%) Gatling
General
1 2,064 (20.96%) Public Sector
2 2,007 (20.39%) Social Skills
3 738 (7.50%) Analytical Skills
4 679 (6.90%) Finance
5 331 (3.36%) Military
6 271 (2.75%) Aerospace
7 251 (2.55%) Documentation Skills
8 154 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
9 146 (1.48%) Legal
10 127 (1.29%) Telecoms
11 123 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
12 122 (1.24%) Banking
13 92 (0.93%) Law
14 88 (0.89%) Police
15 78 (0.79%) Manufacturing
16 70 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 69 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
18 42 (0.43%) Marketing
19 36 (0.37%) Aviation
19 36 (0.37%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,439 (14.62%) Architect
2 1,017 (10.33%) Developer
3 879 (8.93%) Senior
4 857 (8.70%) Lead
5 625 (6.35%) Analyst
6 465 (4.72%) Consultant
7 460 (4.67%) Data Engineer
8 400 (4.06%) DevOps Engineer
9 344 (3.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 291 (2.96%) Software Engineer
11 267 (2.71%) Technical Architect
12 239 (2.43%) Network Engineer
13 233 (2.37%) Security Architect
14 232 (2.36%) Solutions Architect
15 195 (1.98%) Java Developer
16 192 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
17 188 (1.91%) Business Analyst
18 186 (1.89%) Data Architect
19 185 (1.88%) Project Manager
20 184 (1.87%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 343 (3.48%) REST
2 232 (2.36%) Spring
3 194 (1.97%) Spring Boot
4 172 (1.75%) .NET
5 170 (1.73%) Kafka
6 165 (1.68%) React
7 158 (1.60%) RESTful
8 146 (1.48%) Node.js
9 143 (1.45%) SOAP
10 121 (1.23%) JSON
11 116 (1.18%) AngularJS
12 100 (1.02%) Web Services
13 93 (0.94%) OAuth
14 91 (0.92%) HTML
15 84 (0.85%) PySpark
16 79 (0.80%) XML
17 78 (0.79%) LDAP
18 71 (0.72%) OpenID
19 67 (0.68%) CSS
19 67 (0.68%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 390 (3.96%) Cloud Native
2 336 (3.41%) Onboarding
3 315 (3.20%) Product Ownership
4 273 (2.77%) Data Centre
5 175 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
6 150 (1.52%) Management Information System
7 143 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
8 142 (1.44%) PKI
9 117 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
10 107 (1.09%) CMDB
11 102 (1.04%) Replication
12 101 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
13 98 (1.00%) Hybrid Cloud
14 97 (0.99%) Data Structures
15 91 (0.92%) Clustering
16 85 (0.86%) Security Posture
17 80 (0.81%) Public Cloud
18 75 (0.76%) Virtual Team
19 73 (0.74%) Security Operations Centre
20 70 (0.71%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 813 (8.26%) Windows
2 683 (6.94%) Linux
3 267 (2.71%) Windows Server
4 202 (2.05%) Unix
5 136 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 88 (0.89%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.80%) Android
8 60 (0.61%) Solaris
9 44 (0.45%) Apple iOS
9 44 (0.45%) Mac OS
10 33 (0.34%) AIX
11 32 (0.33%) Ubuntu
12 31 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
13 29 (0.29%) CentOS
14 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 15 (0.15%) VMS
16 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
16 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
17 10 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
17 10 (0.10%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,040 (20.72%) Agile
2 1,504 (15.28%) DevOps
3 1,377 (13.99%) CI/CD
4 1,069 (10.86%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,054 (10.71%) Problem-Solving
6 1,053 (10.70%) Continuous Improvement
7 872 (8.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 763 (7.75%) Migration
9 748 (7.60%) Infrastructure as Code
10 682 (6.93%) ITIL
11 673 (6.84%) Cybersecurity
12 591 (6.00%) Analytics
12 591 (6.00%) Test Automation
13 583 (5.92%) Software Engineering
14 581 (5.90%) Containerisation
15 571 (5.80%) Roadmaps
16 526 (5.34%) Decision-Making
17 522 (5.30%) AI
18 517 (5.25%) Data Modelling
19 480 (4.88%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 1,041 (10.57%) Python
2 941 (9.56%) SQL
3 665 (6.75%) Java
4 461 (4.68%) PowerShell
5 300 (3.05%) JavaScript
6 246 (2.50%) Bash
7 203 (2.06%) C#
8 142 (1.44%) PL/SQL
9 141 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 83 (0.84%) Shell Script
11 82 (0.83%) Bicep
12 80 (0.81%) C++
13 61 (0.62%) C
14 49 (0.50%) Go
15 42 (0.43%) Kotlin
16 40 (0.41%) Scala
17 39 (0.40%) Apex Code
18 37 (0.38%) Ruby
19 36 (0.37%) Ada
20 34 (0.35%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 7,386 (75.02%) SC Cleared
2 2,007 (20.39%) DV Cleared
3 405 (4.11%) Degree
4 337 (3.42%) BPSS Clearance
5 181 (1.84%) Cisco Certification
6 162 (1.65%) CISSP
7 142 (1.44%) Azure Certification
8 125 (1.27%) Microsoft Certification
9 112 (1.14%) AWS Certification
10 95 (0.96%) PMI Certification
11 94 (0.95%) CISM
12 92 (0.93%) PMP
13 89 (0.90%) CCNP
14 75 (0.76%) CCNA
15 72 (0.73%) ISTQB
16 60 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 56 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
18 45 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
19 44 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
20 36 (0.37%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 368 (3.74%) QA
2 303 (3.08%) Data Quality
3 274 (2.78%) NIST
4 267 (2.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 212 (2.15%) Accessibility
6 211 (2.14%) NCSC
7 195 (1.98%) PMO
8 152 (1.54%) GDPR
9 107 (1.09%) GRC
10 99 (1.01%) SLA
11 62 (0.63%) WCAG
12 56 (0.57%) JSP 440
13 46 (0.47%) NIST 800
14 43 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
15 28 (0.28%) Def Stans
16 26 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
17 25 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 23 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 22 (0.22%) RMADS
20 20 (0.20%) COBIT
System Software
1 638 (6.48%) Docker
2 450 (4.57%) Active Directory
3 341 (3.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 131 (1.33%) VMware ESXi
4 131 (1.33%) VMware NSX
5 97 (0.99%) vSphere
6 88 (0.89%) Hyper-V
7 76 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
8 43 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
9 34 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
10 28 (0.28%) Firmware
11 21 (0.21%) vCloud
12 20 (0.20%) NFS
13 18 (0.18%) BitLocker
13 18 (0.18%) Postfix
13 18 (0.18%) Squid
14 8 (0.081%) KVM
14 8 (0.081%) Microsoft App-V
14 8 (0.081%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 7 (0.071%) UAG
Systems Management
1 819 (8.32%) Terraform
2 773 (7.85%) Kubernetes
3 366 (3.72%) Ansible
4 236 (2.40%) Grafana
5 183 (1.86%) Prometheus
6 129 (1.31%) vCenter Server
7 87 (0.88%) SCCM
8 70 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
9 63 (0.64%) Argo
10 58 (0.59%) SCOM
11 55 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
12 48 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
13 47 (0.48%) FortiGate
14 46 (0.47%) Puppet
15 31 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 31 (0.31%) Data Guard
16 29 (0.29%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
18 27 (0.27%) Podman
19 23 (0.23%) WSUS
Vendors
1 1,137 (11.55%) Microsoft
2 744 (7.56%) Oracle
3 504 (5.12%) VMware
4 474 (4.81%) ServiceNow
5 344 (3.49%) SAP
6 290 (2.95%) Cisco
7 192 (1.95%) Splunk
8 182 (1.85%) Google
9 171 (1.74%) Databricks
10 141 (1.43%) Red Hat
11 126 (1.28%) Salesforce
12 122 (1.24%) Talend
13 112 (1.14%) IBM
13 112 (1.14%) Informatica
14 103 (1.05%) Palo Alto
15 98 (1.00%) Juniper
16 92 (0.93%) SolarWinds
17 87 (0.88%) F5
18 80 (0.81%) Citrix
19 79 (0.80%) Fortinet