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

6 months to
12 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 10,055 5,092 6,415
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.06% 18.40% 19.25%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.51% 58.57% 63.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,098 3,273 4,271
10th Percentile £380 £350 £356
25th Percentile £453 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.09% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £635 £625 £649
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £537 £534 £550
% change year-on-year +0.66% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 772 472 455
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.51 £15.50
25th Percentile £26.19 £18.87 £24.17
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £58.49
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -57.00% -2.52%
75th Percentile £81.73 £53.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £56.50
% change year-on-year +152.49% -55.49% -5.83%

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 14,466 8,694 10,180
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.73% 31.41% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,766 5,465 6,478
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 1,121 663 761
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.37 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £79.17
UK median hourly rate £51.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +104.77% -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 12 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 12 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 12 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 3,567 £550 +3.77% 1,257
South East +1 2,445 £560 +4.19% 784
South West 0 1,343 £538 -6.52% 685
North of England +3 1,149 £500 +0.05% 587
Midlands +1 975 £469 -8.74% 240
West Midlands +1 848 £469 -8.93% 182
North West +2 625 £525 - 378
East of England 0 321 £550 +0.46% 280
Yorkshire +2 307 £492 +0.51% 119
North East 0 241 £475 -5.00% 110
East Midlands -2 115 £438 -10.15% 57
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
2 250 (2.49%) SharePoint
3 170 (1.69%) SAS
4 113 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
5 88 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 83 (0.83%) Apache Spark
7 78 (0.78%) Apache
8 34 (0.34%) nginx
9 32 (0.32%) WebLogic
10 30 (0.30%) Jupyter
11 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
12 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
13 20 (0.20%) Skype for Business
14 16 (0.16%) CMS
14 16 (0.16%) IIS
14 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
15 14 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
16 12 (0.12%) JBoss
17 11 (0.11%) Tuxedo
18 10 (0.099%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 188 (1.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 131 (1.30%) Microsoft Office
3 95 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
4 76 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 34 (0.34%) MS Visio
6 26 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.15%) AutoCAD
7 15 (0.15%) Revit
8 14 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
9 13 (0.13%) Simulink
10 9 (0.090%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.060%) Sketch
12 5 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
13 3 (0.030%) Trello
13 3 (0.030%) Windchill
14 2 (0.020%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 120 (1.19%) SAP S/4HANA
2 78 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
3 44 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
4 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 32 (0.32%) Teamcenter
6 26 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
7 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
8 18 (0.18%) Oracle Payroll
9 16 (0.16%) Primavera
10 15 (0.15%) Findur
11 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
12 13 (0.13%) SAP HR
12 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
13 12 (0.12%) iTrent
13 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
14 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
15 10 (0.099%) Salesforce CRM
15 10 (0.099%) SAP ERP
15 10 (0.099%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,824 (18.14%) Azure
2 1,689 (16.80%) AWS
3 449 (4.47%) Azure DevOps
4 437 (4.35%) GitHub
5 433 (4.31%) Power Platform
6 380 (3.78%) GCP
7 285 (2.83%) GitHub Actions
8 275 (2.73%) Microsoft 365
9 256 (2.55%) Entra ID
10 252 (2.51%) Serverless
11 221 (2.20%) Amazon S3
12 175 (1.74%) AWS Lambda
13 159 (1.58%) OCI
14 151 (1.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 149 (1.48%) SaaS
16 144 (1.43%) Amazon EC2
17 137 (1.36%) OpenShift
18 123 (1.22%) PaaS
19 121 (1.20%) Amazon EKS
20 116 (1.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 426 (4.24%) Firewall
2 350 (3.48%) DNS
3 211 (2.10%) WAN
4 203 (2.02%) Network Security
5 184 (1.83%) LAN
6 180 (1.79%) DHCP
7 174 (1.73%) VPN
8 135 (1.34%) BGP
9 128 (1.27%) TCP/IP
10 117 (1.16%) Wi-Fi
11 105 (1.04%) OSPF
12 102 (1.01%) VLAN
13 81 (0.81%) Wireless
14 66 (0.66%) VSAN
15 60 (0.60%) IPsec
16 56 (0.56%) MPLS
17 55 (0.55%) VXLAN
18 54 (0.54%) SD-WAN
18 54 (0.54%) SSL
19 53 (0.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 317 (3.15%) Power BI
2 259 (2.58%) SQL Server
3 255 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
4 251 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
5 147 (1.46%) Oracle Database
6 132 (1.31%) Metadata
7 113 (1.12%) Data Lake
8 112 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
9 101 (1.00%) Relational Database
10 92 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
11 91 (0.91%) Pentaho
12 87 (0.87%) MySQL
13 81 (0.81%) MongoDB
14 78 (0.78%) NoSQL
15 60 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
15 60 (0.60%) Tableau
16 55 (0.55%) Amazon Athena
17 54 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
18 43 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
18 43 (0.43%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 570 (5.67%) JIRA
2 501 (4.98%) Git
3 413 (4.11%) GitLab
4 409 (4.07%) Jenkins
5 107 (1.06%) Selenium
6 76 (0.76%) SonarQube
7 72 (0.72%) JUnit
7 72 (0.72%) Postman
8 60 (0.60%) JMeter
9 59 (0.59%) Rational DOORS
10 56 (0.56%) Maven
11 49 (0.49%) Cucumber
12 45 (0.45%) Zephyr
13 42 (0.42%) Mockito
13 42 (0.42%) Visual Studio
14 40 (0.40%) Bitbucket
15 35 (0.35%) Cypress.io
16 33 (0.33%) Artifactory
17 32 (0.32%) Gatling
17 32 (0.32%) Gradle
General
1 2,115 (21.03%) Social Skills
2 2,074 (20.63%) Public Sector
3 778 (7.74%) Analytical Skills
4 696 (6.92%) Finance
5 335 (3.33%) Military
6 288 (2.86%) Aerospace
7 240 (2.39%) Documentation Skills
8 159 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
9 143 (1.42%) Organisational Skills
10 138 (1.37%) Legal
11 137 (1.36%) Telecoms
12 131 (1.30%) Banking
13 100 (0.99%) Law
14 96 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 90 (0.90%) Police
16 84 (0.84%) Manufacturing
17 73 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
18 43 (0.43%) Marketing
19 41 (0.41%) Retail
20 36 (0.36%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,488 (14.80%) Architect
2 1,051 (10.45%) Developer
3 945 (9.40%) Senior
4 904 (8.99%) Lead
5 591 (5.88%) Analyst
6 527 (5.24%) Consultant
7 480 (4.77%) Data Engineer
8 391 (3.89%) DevOps Engineer
9 377 (3.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 295 (2.93%) Software Engineer
11 259 (2.58%) Technical Architect
12 242 (2.41%) Solutions Architect
13 234 (2.33%) Network Engineer
14 233 (2.32%) Security Architect
15 215 (2.14%) Data Architect
16 204 (2.03%) Delivery Manager
17 200 (1.99%) Administrator
18 195 (1.94%) Java Developer
19 188 (1.87%) Project Manager
20 182 (1.81%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 377 (3.75%) REST
2 223 (2.22%) Spring
3 195 (1.94%) .NET
4 189 (1.88%) Kafka
5 188 (1.87%) Spring Boot
6 171 (1.70%) React
7 169 (1.68%) RESTful
8 153 (1.52%) SOAP
9 142 (1.41%) Node.js
10 128 (1.27%) JSON
11 123 (1.22%) AngularJS
12 111 (1.10%) Web Services
13 104 (1.03%) HTML
14 103 (1.02%) OAuth
15 88 (0.88%) XML
16 86 (0.86%) PySpark
17 76 (0.76%) CSS
18 74 (0.74%) Oracle Fusion
19 71 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
20 69 (0.69%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 422 (4.20%) Cloud Native
2 347 (3.45%) Onboarding
3 323 (3.21%) Product Ownership
4 274 (2.73%) Data Centre
5 177 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
6 153 (1.52%) Management Information System
7 149 (1.48%) PKI
8 141 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
9 121 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
10 119 (1.18%) CMDB
11 116 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
12 108 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
13 102 (1.01%) Clustering
13 102 (1.01%) Data Structures
14 101 (1.00%) Replication
15 85 (0.85%) Public Cloud
16 80 (0.80%) Security Operations Centre
17 79 (0.79%) Cyber Threat
18 76 (0.76%) Operational Technology
19 73 (0.73%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 865 (8.60%) Windows
2 707 (7.03%) Linux
3 301 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 202 (2.01%) Unix
5 141 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 110 (1.09%) Windows 10
7 77 (0.77%) Android
8 65 (0.65%) Solaris
9 43 (0.43%) Mac OS
10 38 (0.38%) Apple iOS
10 38 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
11 34 (0.34%) AIX
12 31 (0.31%) CentOS
13 29 (0.29%) Ubuntu
14 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
15 18 (0.18%) VMS
16 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
17 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
18 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
19 14 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,128 (21.16%) Agile
2 1,560 (15.51%) DevOps
3 1,467 (14.59%) CI/CD
4 1,181 (11.75%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,137 (11.31%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,054 (10.48%) Problem-Solving
7 934 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 816 (8.12%) Infrastructure as Code
8 816 (8.12%) Migration
9 686 (6.82%) Cybersecurity
10 684 (6.80%) ITIL
11 643 (6.39%) Analytics
12 640 (6.36%) Test Automation
13 608 (6.05%) Software Engineering
14 605 (6.02%) Containerisation
15 592 (5.89%) Roadmaps
16 564 (5.61%) AI
17 559 (5.56%) Data Modelling
18 548 (5.45%) Technical Leadership
19 534 (5.31%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 1,114 (11.08%) Python
2 1,010 (10.04%) SQL
3 681 (6.77%) Java
4 507 (5.04%) PowerShell
5 346 (3.44%) JavaScript
6 278 (2.76%) Bash
7 225 (2.24%) C#
8 151 (1.50%) PL/SQL
9 149 (1.48%) TypeScript
10 96 (0.95%) Bicep
11 85 (0.85%) C++
12 80 (0.80%) Shell Script
13 66 (0.66%) C
14 46 (0.46%) Go
15 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
16 43 (0.43%) Groovy
17 41 (0.41%) Scala
18 36 (0.36%) Ruby
19 35 (0.35%) Apex Code
20 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,570 (75.29%) SC Cleared
2 2,029 (20.18%) DV Cleared
3 415 (4.13%) Degree
4 368 (3.66%) BPSS Clearance
5 174 (1.73%) CISSP
6 171 (1.70%) Cisco Certification
7 153 (1.52%) Azure Certification
8 141 (1.40%) Microsoft Certification
9 122 (1.21%) AWS Certification
10 106 (1.05%) CISM
11 101 (1.00%) PMI Certification
12 97 (0.96%) PMP
13 83 (0.83%) ISTQB
14 73 (0.73%) CCNP
15 68 (0.68%) CCNA
16 63 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 59 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
18 43 (0.43%) TOGAF Certification
19 41 (0.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 41 (0.41%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 404 (4.02%) QA
2 324 (3.22%) Data Quality
3 261 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 261 (2.60%) NIST
4 219 (2.18%) PMO
5 214 (2.13%) NCSC
6 213 (2.12%) Accessibility
7 152 (1.51%) GDPR
8 119 (1.18%) SLA
9 117 (1.16%) GRC
10 65 (0.65%) WCAG
11 59 (0.59%) JSP 440
12 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
13 43 (0.43%) NIST 800
14 32 (0.32%) Def Stans
15 30 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
16 29 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 24 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 19 (0.19%) RMADS
19 18 (0.18%) COBIT
System Software
1 677 (6.73%) Docker
2 479 (4.76%) Active Directory
3 366 (3.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 142 (1.41%) VMware NSX
5 130 (1.29%) VMware ESXi
6 112 (1.11%) vSphere
7 97 (0.96%) Hyper-V
8 76 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
9 43 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
10 40 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
11 30 (0.30%) Firmware
12 26 (0.26%) BitLocker
13 23 (0.23%) vCloud
14 16 (0.16%) Postfix
15 12 (0.12%) NFS
16 11 (0.11%) Squid
17 9 (0.090%) Virtual Servers
18 8 (0.080%) KVM
19 7 (0.070%) Embedded Firmware
19 7 (0.070%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 868 (8.63%) Terraform
2 805 (8.01%) Kubernetes
3 393 (3.91%) Ansible
4 234 (2.33%) Grafana
5 179 (1.78%) Prometheus
6 129 (1.28%) vCenter Server
7 116 (1.15%) SCCM
8 84 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
9 69 (0.69%) SCOM
10 62 (0.62%) Argo
11 52 (0.52%) Oracle RMAN
12 51 (0.51%) Puppet
12 51 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
13 41 (0.41%) FortiGate
14 35 (0.35%) Data Guard
15 31 (0.31%) Progress Chef
16 28 (0.28%) Nagios
16 28 (0.28%) WSUS
17 25 (0.25%) Control-M
18 24 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,238 (12.31%) Microsoft
2 800 (7.96%) Oracle
3 529 (5.26%) VMware
4 496 (4.93%) ServiceNow
5 373 (3.71%) SAP
6 282 (2.80%) Cisco
7 204 (2.03%) Google
8 188 (1.87%) Splunk
9 181 (1.80%) Databricks
10 139 (1.38%) Red Hat
11 130 (1.29%) Salesforce
12 124 (1.23%) IBM
13 117 (1.16%) Talend
14 110 (1.09%) Informatica
15 100 (0.99%) Palo Alto
16 93 (0.92%) Juniper
17 88 (0.88%) Remedy
18 87 (0.87%) F5
19 86 (0.86%) SolarWinds
20 84 (0.84%) Dynatrace