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 8 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 3 3
Rank change year-on-year +1 0 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,284 5,346 5,873
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.23% 19.11% 18.19%
As % of the Qualifications category 68.88% 59.85% 61.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,192 3,456 3,699
10th Percentile £400 £335 £355
25th Percentile £463 £447 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.33% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £550 £537 £550
% change year-on-year +2.42% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 815 559 338
10th Percentile £20.50 £18.51 £21.33
25th Percentile £29.07 £18.87 £36.44
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -59.17% +2.67%
75th Percentile £77.88 £39.22 £72.50
90th Percentile £91.31 £71.05 £83.99
UK median hourly rate £63.31 £25.15 £60.00
% change year-on-year +151.72% -58.08% -

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 14,931 8,933 9,612
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.28% 31.92% 29.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,955 5,663 5,831
10th Percentile £351 £290 £313
25th Percentile £448 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £712 £734
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,283 739 516
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £19.57
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.24
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -52.10% -2.36%
75th Percentile £73.46 £43.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.84
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.43% -10.88%

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 8 October 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 8 October 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 8 October 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 +6 3,690 £550 +2.33% 1,656
South East +1 2,258 £570 +8.57% 1,187
South West 0 1,377 £550 - 793
North of England +2 1,317 £515 -1.44% 720
Midlands 0 922 £481 -7.33% 423
North West +1 798 £530 -3.68% 414
West Midlands 0 774 £475 -8.65% 274
East of England 0 439 £550 - 416
Yorkshire +1 294 £492 - 120
North East 0 245 £466 -11.19% 188
East Midlands 0 140 £500 +9.59% 146
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
1 331 (3.22%) Confluence
2 236 (2.29%) SharePoint
3 133 (1.29%) SAS
4 104 (1.01%) Microsoft Exchange
5 95 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
6 93 (0.90%) Apache Spark
7 90 (0.88%) Apache
8 40 (0.39%) nginx
9 36 (0.35%) CMS
10 31 (0.30%) Jupyter
11 29 (0.28%) WebLogic
12 22 (0.21%) Skype for Business
13 20 (0.19%) Tomcat
14 17 (0.17%) Oracle Application Server
15 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
16 15 (0.15%) IIS
17 11 (0.11%) JBoss
17 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
17 11 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
18 10 (0.097%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 185 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 128 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
3 92 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
4 90 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 29 (0.28%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
7 21 (0.20%) AutoCAD
8 19 (0.18%) Revit
8 19 (0.18%) Windchill
9 18 (0.18%) SOLIDWORKS
10 9 (0.088%) Chatbot
10 9 (0.088%) Simulink
11 7 (0.068%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.049%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.049%) Sketch
13 4 (0.039%) OrCAD
13 4 (0.039%) Trello
14 2 (0.019%) Gliffy
14 2 (0.019%) Houdini
14 2 (0.019%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 128 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 79 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 54 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
4 41 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
5 37 (0.36%) Teamcenter
6 30 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 29 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
8 26 (0.25%) SAP PSCD
9 25 (0.24%) Oracle Payroll
10 22 (0.21%) SAP FI
11 17 (0.17%) SAP HR
12 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
13 14 (0.14%) SAP CO
14 13 (0.13%) Maximo
14 13 (0.13%) NetSuite
14 13 (0.13%) Primavera
14 13 (0.13%) SAP BRIM
15 12 (0.12%) SAP GRC
15 12 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
15 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,840 (17.89%) Azure
2 1,666 (16.20%) AWS
3 451 (4.39%) Azure DevOps
4 437 (4.25%) Power Platform
5 419 (4.07%) GitHub
6 392 (3.81%) GCP
7 302 (2.94%) Entra ID
8 298 (2.90%) Microsoft 365
9 291 (2.83%) GitHub Actions
10 232 (2.26%) Serverless
11 205 (1.99%) Amazon S3
12 164 (1.59%) AWS Lambda
13 156 (1.52%) OCI
14 144 (1.40%) SaaS
15 143 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 143 (1.39%) Amazon EKS
16 141 (1.37%) OpenShift
17 126 (1.23%) Amazon EC2
18 110 (1.07%) PowerApps
19 105 (1.02%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 402 (3.91%) Firewall
2 342 (3.33%) DNS
3 226 (2.20%) Network Security
4 178 (1.73%) VPN
5 169 (1.64%) WAN
6 166 (1.61%) DHCP
7 132 (1.28%) LAN
8 130 (1.26%) TCP/IP
9 117 (1.14%) BGP
10 112 (1.09%) Wi-Fi
11 85 (0.83%) VLAN
12 76 (0.74%) OSPF
13 74 (0.72%) Wireless
14 59 (0.57%) SSL
15 58 (0.56%) MPLS
15 58 (0.56%) VSAN
16 57 (0.55%) SAN
17 56 (0.54%) IPsec
18 49 (0.48%) SD-WAN
19 43 (0.42%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 305 (2.97%) Power BI
2 240 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
3 238 (2.31%) SQL Server
4 219 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
5 181 (1.76%) Metadata
6 166 (1.61%) Oracle Database
7 120 (1.17%) Relational Database
8 117 (1.14%) Data Lake
9 100 (0.97%) MongoDB
10 97 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
11 93 (0.90%) MySQL
12 87 (0.85%) NoSQL
13 68 (0.66%) Pentaho
14 65 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
15 57 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
16 53 (0.52%) Amazon Athena
17 49 (0.48%) Big Data
18 48 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
19 40 (0.39%) Tableau
20 37 (0.36%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 529 (5.14%) JIRA
2 496 (4.82%) Git
3 449 (4.37%) GitLab
4 427 (4.15%) Jenkins
5 132 (1.28%) Selenium
6 74 (0.72%) Postman
7 72 (0.70%) SonarQube
8 70 (0.68%) Cucumber
9 69 (0.67%) JUnit
9 69 (0.67%) Maven
10 63 (0.61%) JMeter
11 44 (0.43%) Gradle
12 40 (0.39%) Mockito
13 37 (0.36%) Gatling
14 36 (0.35%) Cypress.io
14 36 (0.35%) REST Assured
14 36 (0.35%) Visual Studio
15 35 (0.34%) Artifactory
16 33 (0.32%) Rational DOORS
16 33 (0.32%) Zephyr
General
1 2,360 (22.95%) Social Skills
2 2,063 (20.06%) Public Sector
3 848 (8.25%) Analytical Skills
4 689 (6.70%) Finance
5 414 (4.03%) Military
6 345 (3.35%) Aerospace
7 252 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
8 215 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
9 181 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
10 165 (1.60%) Manufacturing
11 150 (1.46%) Telecoms
12 134 (1.30%) Legal
13 129 (1.25%) Banking
14 123 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 112 (1.09%) Law
16 111 (1.08%) Police
17 62 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
18 48 (0.47%) Local Government
19 42 (0.41%) Marketing
20 40 (0.39%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,583 (15.39%) Architect
2 976 (9.49%) Senior
3 968 (9.41%) Developer
4 950 (9.24%) Lead
5 603 (5.86%) Analyst
6 584 (5.68%) Consultant
7 429 (4.17%) DevOps Engineer
8 427 (4.15%) Data Engineer
9 359 (3.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 269 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
11 254 (2.47%) Security Architect
12 253 (2.46%) Data Architect
13 248 (2.41%) Technical Architect
14 228 (2.22%) Software Engineer
15 215 (2.09%) Network Engineer
16 212 (2.06%) Administrator
17 189 (1.84%) Cloud Engineer
18 184 (1.79%) Designer
19 183 (1.78%) Java Developer
20 181 (1.76%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 899 (8.74%) Terraform
2 415 (4.04%) REST
3 214 (2.08%) Kafka
4 202 (1.96%) Spring
5 184 (1.79%) Spring Boot
6 166 (1.61%) React
7 160 (1.56%) RESTful
8 159 (1.55%) SOAP
9 157 (1.53%) .NET
10 129 (1.25%) Node.js
11 126 (1.23%) JSON
12 123 (1.20%) OAuth
13 118 (1.15%) HTML
14 109 (1.06%) XML
15 98 (0.95%) Middleware
16 95 (0.92%) AngularJS
16 95 (0.92%) Web Services
17 92 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
18 90 (0.88%) CSS
19 89 (0.87%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 466 (4.53%) Cloud Native
2 409 (3.98%) Onboarding
3 328 (3.19%) Product Ownership
4 261 (2.54%) Data Centre
5 192 (1.87%) Management Information System
6 166 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
7 162 (1.58%) PKI
8 160 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
9 146 (1.42%) CMDB
10 126 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
11 113 (1.10%) Cyber Threat
12 109 (1.06%) Distributed Systems
13 108 (1.05%) Replication
14 107 (1.04%) Operational Technology
15 99 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
16 86 (0.84%) Security Posture
17 84 (0.82%) Security Operations Centre
18 81 (0.79%) Data Structures
19 80 (0.78%) Clustering
20 77 (0.75%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 906 (8.81%) Windows
2 712 (6.92%) Linux
3 350 (3.40%) Windows Server
4 203 (1.97%) Unix
5 143 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 135 (1.31%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.77%) Solaris
8 62 (0.60%) Android
9 43 (0.42%) CentOS
10 41 (0.40%) Mac OS
11 39 (0.38%) Ubuntu
12 35 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
13 26 (0.25%) Apple iOS
14 25 (0.24%) AIX
15 24 (0.23%) Windows 7
16 21 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
17 20 (0.19%) VMS
18 17 (0.17%) Rocky
19 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
20 10 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,135 (20.76%) Agile
2 1,556 (15.13%) DevOps
3 1,546 (15.03%) CI/CD
4 1,485 (14.44%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,311 (12.75%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,124 (10.93%) Problem-Solving
7 1,043 (10.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 914 (8.89%) Infrastructure as Code
9 831 (8.08%) Migration
10 813 (7.91%) Cybersecurity
11 725 (7.05%) ITIL
12 688 (6.69%) Roadmaps
13 676 (6.57%) AI
13 676 (6.57%) Test Automation
14 663 (6.45%) Technical Leadership
15 652 (6.34%) Containerisation
16 646 (6.28%) Decision-Making
17 628 (6.11%) Analytics
18 593 (5.77%) Software Engineering
19 565 (5.49%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 1,192 (11.59%) Python
2 956 (9.30%) SQL
3 649 (6.31%) Java
4 550 (5.35%) PowerShell
5 364 (3.54%) JavaScript
6 319 (3.10%) Bash
7 184 (1.79%) C#
8 180 (1.75%) TypeScript
9 122 (1.19%) PL/SQL
10 118 (1.15%) Bicep
11 68 (0.66%) Shell Script
12 58 (0.56%) C++
13 57 (0.55%) Go
14 56 (0.54%) Groovy
15 47 (0.46%) Scala
16 46 (0.45%) C
17 44 (0.43%) Kotlin
18 33 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 27 (0.26%) ABAP
19 27 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 7,706 (74.93%) SC Cleared
2 2,117 (20.59%) DV Cleared
3 480 (4.67%) BPSS Clearance
4 455 (4.42%) Degree
5 201 (1.95%) CISSP
6 168 (1.63%) Azure Certification
7 151 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
8 150 (1.46%) AWS Certification
9 148 (1.44%) Microsoft Certification
10 118 (1.15%) CISM
11 94 (0.91%) PMI Certification
12 86 (0.84%) ISTQB
13 84 (0.82%) PMP
14 76 (0.74%) CCNP
15 69 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
16 53 (0.52%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 49 (0.48%) CCNA
18 46 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
19 44 (0.43%) (ISC)2 CCSP
20 41 (0.40%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 470 (4.57%) QA
2 341 (3.32%) Data Quality
3 304 (2.96%) NIST
4 292 (2.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 265 (2.58%) NCSC
6 242 (2.35%) Accessibility
7 214 (2.08%) PMO
8 157 (1.53%) SLA
9 147 (1.43%) GDPR
10 143 (1.39%) GRC
11 70 (0.68%) WCAG
12 49 (0.48%) JSP 440
13 43 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials
14 39 (0.38%) NIST 800
15 35 (0.34%) Def Stans
16 33 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 25 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
18 22 (0.21%) ISO 9001
19 21 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
20 19 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 697 (6.78%) Docker
2 580 (5.64%) Active Directory
3 404 (3.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 134 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
5 126 (1.23%) VMware NSX
6 124 (1.21%) vSphere
7 122 (1.19%) Hyper-V
8 82 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
9 45 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
10 39 (0.38%) Firmware
11 34 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
12 24 (0.23%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.23%) vCloud
13 21 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
14 14 (0.14%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 13 (0.13%) NFS
16 11 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 10 (0.097%) KVM
18 9 (0.088%) Squid
19 8 (0.078%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 860 (8.36%) Kubernetes
2 411 (4.00%) Ansible
3 233 (2.27%) Grafana
4 167 (1.62%) Prometheus
5 135 (1.31%) SCCM
6 122 (1.19%) vCenter Server
7 98 (0.95%) Microsoft Intune
8 92 (0.89%) SCOM
9 60 (0.58%) Argo
10 49 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
11 48 (0.47%) Kibana
12 42 (0.41%) Puppet
13 34 (0.33%) Data Guard
13 34 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
14 30 (0.29%) VxRail
15 28 (0.27%) Control-M
15 28 (0.27%) Istio
16 26 (0.25%) NetBackup
17 24 (0.23%) Failover Clustering
17 24 (0.23%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 1,404 (13.65%) Microsoft
2 817 (7.94%) Oracle
3 546 (5.31%) VMware
4 456 (4.43%) ServiceNow
5 387 (3.76%) SAP
6 257 (2.50%) Google
7 252 (2.45%) Cisco
8 193 (1.88%) Splunk
9 168 (1.63%) Databricks
10 117 (1.14%) Red Hat
11 114 (1.11%) Palo Alto
12 108 (1.05%) Salesforce
13 100 (0.97%) Informatica
14 94 (0.91%) Dynatrace
15 92 (0.89%) IBM
16 90 (0.88%) CyberArk
16 90 (0.88%) Remedy
17 86 (0.84%) Talend
18 69 (0.67%) Citrix
18 69 (0.67%) SolarWinds