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 9 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,059 5,103 6,390
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.98% 18.35% 19.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.27% 58.61% 62.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,076 3,288 4,269
10th Percentile £380 £350 £358
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.09% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £537 £536 £550
% change year-on-year +0.19% -2.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 776 473 452
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.51 £15.50
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £58.30
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -56.86% -2.83%
75th Percentile £81.73 £54.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.63 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £25.15 £55.16
% change year-on-year +151.03% -54.41% -8.06%

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 14,522 8,707 10,146
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.74% 31.30% 30.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,784 5,476 6,481
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £431 £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 £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,124 659 755
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.10 £15.13
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.88 £79.00
UK median hourly rate £50.24 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +99.77% -41.51% -21.82%

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 9 August 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 9 August 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 9 August 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 3,569 £550 +3.77% 866
South East +1 2,446 £560 +4.19% 624
South West 0 1,347 £538 -6.52% 489
North of England +2 1,129 £500 +0.05% 372
Midlands +1 984 £469 -8.40% 171
West Midlands +1 850 £469 -8.93% 123
North West +2 607 £525 - 228
East of England 0 322 £550 - 165
Yorkshire +1 304 £500 +1.63% 71
North East 0 242 £475 -5.00% 76
East Midlands 0 122 £438 -5.30% 48
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
1 360 (3.58%) Confluence
2 253 (2.52%) SharePoint
3 172 (1.71%) SAS
4 111 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 85 (0.85%) Apache Spark
7 79 (0.79%) Apache
8 35 (0.35%) nginx
9 32 (0.32%) Jupyter
9 32 (0.32%) WebLogic
10 22 (0.22%) Oracle Application Server
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 16 (0.16%) CMS
12 16 (0.16%) IIS
12 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
13 15 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
14 13 (0.13%) Skype for Business
15 12 (0.12%) JBoss
16 11 (0.11%) Tuxedo
17 10 (0.099%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 193 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 128 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
3 96 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
4 76 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 36 (0.36%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.15%) AutoCAD
7 15 (0.15%) Revit
8 14 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
9 13 (0.13%) Simulink
10 9 (0.089%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.060%) Sketch
12 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
13 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.030%) Trello
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
14 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
14 2 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 123 (1.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 77 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 43 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Teamcenter
6 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 25 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
8 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
9 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payroll
9 16 (0.16%) Primavera
10 15 (0.15%) Findur
11 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
12 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
13 12 (0.12%) iTrent
13 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
14 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
14 11 (0.11%) SAP HR
15 10 (0.099%) Salesforce CRM
15 10 (0.099%) SAP ERP
15 10 (0.099%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,837 (18.26%) Azure
2 1,684 (16.74%) AWS
3 448 (4.45%) Azure DevOps
4 433 (4.30%) Power Platform
5 432 (4.29%) GitHub
6 383 (3.81%) GCP
7 280 (2.78%) Microsoft 365
8 278 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
9 259 (2.57%) Entra ID
10 251 (2.50%) Serverless
11 222 (2.21%) Amazon S3
12 174 (1.73%) AWS Lambda
13 158 (1.57%) OCI
14 147 (1.46%) SaaS
15 146 (1.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 144 (1.43%) Amazon EC2
17 135 (1.34%) OpenShift
18 126 (1.25%) PaaS
19 123 (1.22%) Amazon EKS
20 112 (1.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 431 (4.28%) Firewall
2 346 (3.44%) DNS
3 206 (2.05%) WAN
4 205 (2.04%) Network Security
5 180 (1.79%) LAN
6 174 (1.73%) DHCP
7 173 (1.72%) VPN
8 136 (1.35%) BGP
9 128 (1.27%) TCP/IP
10 113 (1.12%) Wi-Fi
11 107 (1.06%) OSPF
12 97 (0.96%) VLAN
13 82 (0.82%) Wireless
14 66 (0.66%) VSAN
15 62 (0.62%) IPsec
16 57 (0.57%) VXLAN
17 56 (0.56%) MPLS
18 55 (0.55%) SD-WAN
19 54 (0.54%) SSL
20 53 (0.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 321 (3.19%) Power BI
2 260 (2.58%) SQL Server
3 249 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
4 243 (2.42%) PostgreSQL
5 147 (1.46%) Oracle Database
6 134 (1.33%) Metadata
7 114 (1.13%) Data Lake
8 104 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
9 98 (0.97%) Relational Database
10 91 (0.90%) Pentaho
11 90 (0.89%) Oracle Reports
12 81 (0.81%) MySQL
12 81 (0.81%) NoSQL
13 76 (0.76%) MongoDB
14 60 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
15 59 (0.59%) Tableau
16 58 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
17 55 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
18 43 (0.43%) Big Data
19 41 (0.41%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 567 (5.64%) JIRA
2 493 (4.90%) Git
3 406 (4.04%) GitLab
4 393 (3.91%) Jenkins
5 105 (1.04%) Selenium
6 77 (0.77%) SonarQube
7 71 (0.71%) JUnit
8 62 (0.62%) Postman
9 58 (0.58%) Maven
10 56 (0.56%) Rational DOORS
11 52 (0.52%) JMeter
12 46 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 43 (0.43%) Mockito
14 41 (0.41%) Visual Studio
14 41 (0.41%) Zephyr
15 39 (0.39%) Bitbucket
16 35 (0.35%) Cypress.io
17 33 (0.33%) Artifactory
18 32 (0.32%) Gradle
19 31 (0.31%) REST Assured
General
1 2,115 (21.03%) Social Skills
2 2,087 (20.75%) Public Sector
3 786 (7.81%) Analytical Skills
4 696 (6.92%) Finance
5 340 (3.38%) Military
6 283 (2.81%) Aerospace
7 243 (2.42%) Documentation Skills
8 152 (1.51%) Influencing Skills
9 140 (1.39%) Organisational Skills
10 139 (1.38%) Legal
11 131 (1.30%) Telecoms
12 126 (1.25%) Banking
13 98 (0.97%) Law
14 93 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 88 (0.87%) Police
16 85 (0.85%) Manufacturing
17 73 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
18 43 (0.43%) Marketing
19 39 (0.39%) Retail
20 37 (0.37%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,509 (15.00%) Architect
2 1,055 (10.49%) Developer
3 932 (9.27%) Senior
4 902 (8.97%) Lead
5 601 (5.97%) Analyst
6 520 (5.17%) Consultant
7 485 (4.82%) Data Engineer
8 385 (3.83%) DevOps Engineer
9 370 (3.68%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 295 (2.93%) Software Engineer
11 265 (2.63%) Technical Architect
12 246 (2.45%) Solutions Architect
13 238 (2.37%) Security Architect
14 236 (2.35%) Network Engineer
15 218 (2.17%) Data Architect
16 199 (1.98%) Administrator
17 198 (1.97%) Delivery Manager
17 198 (1.97%) Java Developer
18 189 (1.88%) Project Manager
19 180 (1.79%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 373 (3.71%) REST
2 222 (2.21%) Spring
3 192 (1.91%) .NET
4 187 (1.86%) Spring Boot
5 181 (1.80%) Kafka
6 172 (1.71%) RESTful
7 171 (1.70%) React
8 150 (1.49%) SOAP
9 143 (1.42%) Node.js
10 129 (1.28%) JSON
11 125 (1.24%) AngularJS
12 105 (1.04%) Web Services
13 103 (1.02%) OAuth
14 102 (1.01%) HTML
15 89 (0.88%) XML
16 87 (0.86%) PySpark
17 76 (0.76%) CSS
18 72 (0.72%) Oracle Fusion
19 69 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
20 67 (0.67%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 418 (4.16%) Cloud Native
2 355 (3.53%) Onboarding
3 324 (3.22%) Product Ownership
4 280 (2.78%) Data Centre
5 181 (1.80%) Legacy Systems
6 155 (1.54%) Management Information System
7 148 (1.47%) PKI
8 141 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
9 119 (1.18%) CMDB
10 118 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
11 116 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
12 106 (1.05%) Hybrid Cloud
13 104 (1.03%) Clustering
13 104 (1.03%) Data Structures
14 99 (0.98%) Replication
15 84 (0.84%) Public Cloud
16 80 (0.80%) Security Operations Centre
17 77 (0.77%) Cyber Threat
18 76 (0.76%) Operational Technology
19 75 (0.75%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 861 (8.56%) Windows
2 707 (7.03%) Linux
3 303 (3.01%) Windows Server
4 207 (2.06%) Unix
5 143 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 99 (0.98%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.79%) Android
8 63 (0.63%) Solaris
9 44 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 40 (0.40%) Apple iOS
11 39 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.34%) AIX
13 31 (0.31%) CentOS
14 30 (0.30%) Ubuntu
15 20 (0.20%) VMS
16 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
17 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
18 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.12%) Embedded Linux
19 12 (0.12%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,113 (21.01%) Agile
2 1,553 (15.44%) DevOps
3 1,451 (14.42%) CI/CD
4 1,156 (11.49%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,125 (11.18%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,075 (10.69%) Problem-Solving
7 929 (9.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 807 (8.02%) Migration
9 804 (7.99%) Infrastructure as Code
10 695 (6.91%) Cybersecurity
11 691 (6.87%) ITIL
12 651 (6.47%) Analytics
13 627 (6.23%) Test Automation
14 607 (6.03%) Software Engineering
15 604 (6.00%) Containerisation
16 596 (5.93%) Roadmaps
17 570 (5.67%) AI
18 562 (5.59%) Data Modelling
19 547 (5.44%) Technical Leadership
20 535 (5.32%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 1,111 (11.04%) Python
2 1,007 (10.01%) SQL
3 683 (6.79%) Java
4 493 (4.90%) PowerShell
5 338 (3.36%) JavaScript
6 272 (2.70%) Bash
7 225 (2.24%) C#
8 151 (1.50%) PL/SQL
9 150 (1.49%) TypeScript
10 95 (0.94%) Bicep
11 84 (0.84%) C++
12 82 (0.82%) Shell Script
13 66 (0.66%) C
14 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
15 43 (0.43%) Go
16 41 (0.41%) Groovy
16 41 (0.41%) Scala
17 38 (0.38%) Apex Code
18 36 (0.36%) Ruby
19 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,564 (75.20%) SC Cleared
2 2,041 (20.29%) DV Cleared
3 420 (4.18%) Degree
4 367 (3.65%) BPSS Clearance
5 176 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
6 174 (1.73%) CISSP
7 153 (1.52%) Azure Certification
8 140 (1.39%) Microsoft Certification
9 119 (1.18%) AWS Certification
10 104 (1.03%) CISM
11 101 (1.00%) PMI Certification
12 98 (0.97%) PMP
13 77 (0.77%) CCNP
14 74 (0.74%) ISTQB
15 71 (0.71%) CCNA
16 63 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 59 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
18 47 (0.47%) TOGAF Certification
19 42 (0.42%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 42 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 398 (3.96%) QA
2 327 (3.25%) Data Quality
3 268 (2.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 268 (2.66%) NIST
4 219 (2.18%) PMO
5 214 (2.13%) NCSC
6 212 (2.11%) Accessibility
7 155 (1.54%) GDPR
8 119 (1.18%) GRC
9 115 (1.14%) SLA
10 66 (0.66%) WCAG
11 59 (0.59%) JSP 440
12 45 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
13 43 (0.43%) NIST 800
14 32 (0.32%) Def Stans
15 30 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
16 28 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 25 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 19 (0.19%) RMADS
19 18 (0.18%) COBIT
System Software
1 670 (6.66%) Docker
2 479 (4.76%) Active Directory
3 368 (3.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 142 (1.41%) VMware NSX
5 131 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
6 110 (1.09%) vSphere
7 97 (0.96%) Hyper-V
8 77 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
9 44 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
10 38 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
11 30 (0.30%) Firmware
12 23 (0.23%) vCloud
13 19 (0.19%) BitLocker
14 16 (0.16%) Postfix
15 12 (0.12%) NFS
15 12 (0.12%) Squid
16 8 (0.080%) KVM
16 8 (0.080%) Virtual Servers
17 7 (0.070%) Microsoft App-V
18 6 (0.060%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 858 (8.53%) Terraform
2 795 (7.90%) Kubernetes
3 390 (3.88%) Ansible
4 226 (2.25%) Grafana
5 175 (1.74%) Prometheus
6 130 (1.29%) vCenter Server
7 104 (1.03%) SCCM
8 85 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
9 69 (0.69%) SCOM
10 63 (0.63%) Argo
11 53 (0.53%) Oracle RMAN
12 52 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
13 51 (0.51%) Puppet
14 42 (0.42%) FortiGate
15 35 (0.35%) Data Guard
16 31 (0.31%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
18 26 (0.26%) WSUS
19 24 (0.24%) Podman
19 24 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,227 (12.20%) Microsoft
2 790 (7.85%) Oracle
3 531 (5.28%) VMware
4 497 (4.94%) ServiceNow
5 371 (3.69%) SAP
6 287 (2.85%) Cisco
7 202 (2.01%) Google
8 187 (1.86%) Splunk
9 180 (1.79%) Databricks
10 143 (1.42%) Red Hat
11 132 (1.31%) Salesforce
12 120 (1.19%) Talend
13 115 (1.14%) IBM
14 108 (1.07%) Informatica
15 104 (1.03%) Palo Alto
16 97 (0.96%) Juniper
17 90 (0.89%) SolarWinds
18 87 (0.86%) F5
18 87 (0.86%) Remedy
19 81 (0.81%) Dynatrace