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

6 months to
24 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 9,996 5,150 6,359
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.88% 18.56% 19.14%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.19% 58.84% 62.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,051 3,318 4,201
10th Percentile £385 £350 £360
25th Percentile £456 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.47% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £538 £534 £550
% change year-on-year +0.75% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 751 497 417
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.51 £15.06
25th Percentile £28.88 £18.87 £22.58
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -58.08% -
75th Percentile £80.55 £52.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £64.00 £25.15 £57.50
% change year-on-year +154.47% -56.26% -4.17%

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 14,448 8,752 10,107
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.63% 31.55% 30.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,716 5,505 6,397
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £437 £413 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,127 683 690
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.22 £14.95
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.46
Median hourly rate £53.00 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +110.74% -48.21% -11.71%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.12
UK median hourly rate £49.25 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +95.83% -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 24 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 24 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 24 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 3,544 £550 +3.77% 525
South East +1 2,387 £563 +4.65% 514
South West 0 1,361 £545 -2.01% 381
North of England +3 1,212 £511 +2.29% 284
Midlands 0 901 £469 -8.93% 156
West Midlands +1 773 £469 -8.89% 115
North West +4 694 £525 -0.94% 156
East of England 0 334 £550 - 140
Yorkshire +3 304 £492 - 61
North East 0 238 £475 -5.00% 72
East Midlands -3 119 £438 -12.45% 41
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
1 352 (3.52%) Confluence
2 255 (2.55%) SharePoint
3 160 (1.60%) SAS
4 114 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 83 (0.83%) Apache Spark
7 80 (0.80%) Apache
8 32 (0.32%) nginx
9 29 (0.29%) Jupyter
10 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
11 22 (0.22%) Skype for Business
11 22 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 18 (0.18%) Tomcat
13 17 (0.17%) CMS
13 17 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
14 16 (0.16%) IIS
15 14 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
16 13 (0.13%) JBoss
17 10 (0.10%) NetWeaver
18 9 (0.090%) Documentum
Applications
1 181 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 134 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
3 98 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
4 85 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 32 (0.32%) MS Visio
6 25 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.16%) AutoCAD
7 16 (0.16%) Revit
8 15 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
9 13 (0.13%) Simulink
10 8 (0.080%) Chatbot
11 7 (0.070%) Windchill
12 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
12 6 (0.060%) Sketch
13 5 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
14 3 (0.030%) Trello
15 2 (0.020%) Houdini
15 2 (0.020%) InDesign
15 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 122 (1.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 74 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
3 47 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
4 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 29 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
7 28 (0.28%) Teamcenter
8 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
9 21 (0.21%) Oracle Payroll
10 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 16 (0.16%) Primavera
11 14 (0.14%) SAP HR
12 13 (0.13%) Findur
13 12 (0.12%) iTrent
13 12 (0.12%) SAP FI
13 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 12 (0.12%) Temenos T24
14 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
14 11 (0.11%) SAP GRC
15 10 (0.10%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,870 (18.71%) Azure
2 1,641 (16.42%) AWS
3 471 (4.71%) Azure DevOps
4 439 (4.39%) Power Platform
5 425 (4.25%) GitHub
6 382 (3.82%) GCP
7 281 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
8 276 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
9 263 (2.63%) Entra ID
10 244 (2.44%) Serverless
11 199 (1.99%) Amazon S3
12 166 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
13 153 (1.53%) OCI
14 151 (1.51%) SaaS
15 132 (1.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 130 (1.30%) OpenShift
17 120 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
17 120 (1.20%) PaaS
18 119 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
19 107 (1.07%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 419 (4.19%) Firewall
2 344 (3.44%) DNS
3 201 (2.01%) WAN
4 197 (1.97%) Network Security
5 180 (1.80%) VPN
6 175 (1.75%) DHCP
7 169 (1.69%) LAN
8 133 (1.33%) BGP
8 133 (1.33%) TCP/IP
9 121 (1.21%) Wi-Fi
10 102 (1.02%) VLAN
11 94 (0.94%) OSPF
12 79 (0.79%) Wireless
13 68 (0.68%) VSAN
14 59 (0.59%) IPsec
15 58 (0.58%) MPLS
16 57 (0.57%) SD-WAN
17 52 (0.52%) SAN
18 51 (0.51%) SSL
19 44 (0.44%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 315 (3.15%) Power BI
2 255 (2.55%) SQL Server
3 237 (2.37%) PostgreSQL
4 236 (2.36%) Data Warehouse
5 146 (1.46%) Oracle Database
6 137 (1.37%) Metadata
7 115 (1.15%) Data Lake
8 108 (1.08%) Relational Database
9 98 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
10 85 (0.85%) NoSQL
11 84 (0.84%) MySQL
12 83 (0.83%) MongoDB
13 80 (0.80%) Oracle Reports
14 74 (0.74%) Pentaho
15 59 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
16 58 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
17 54 (0.54%) Tableau
18 51 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
19 44 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
19 44 (0.44%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 552 (5.52%) JIRA
2 474 (4.74%) Git
3 412 (4.12%) GitLab
4 392 (3.92%) Jenkins
5 108 (1.08%) Selenium
6 73 (0.73%) SonarQube
7 67 (0.67%) Postman
8 61 (0.61%) JUnit
9 55 (0.55%) JMeter
10 53 (0.53%) Maven
11 51 (0.51%) Rational DOORS
12 44 (0.44%) Cucumber
13 43 (0.43%) Visual Studio
14 40 (0.40%) Bitbucket
15 39 (0.39%) Mockito
16 37 (0.37%) Zephyr
17 36 (0.36%) Cypress.io
18 35 (0.35%) Gradle
19 33 (0.33%) Artifactory
19 33 (0.33%) Gatling
General
1 2,130 (21.31%) Social Skills
2 2,000 (20.01%) Public Sector
3 787 (7.87%) Analytical Skills
4 697 (6.97%) Finance
5 336 (3.36%) Military
6 293 (2.93%) Aerospace
7 247 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
8 175 (1.75%) Influencing Skills
9 152 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
10 146 (1.46%) Telecoms
11 136 (1.36%) Banking
12 134 (1.34%) Legal
13 105 (1.05%) Law
14 104 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 99 (0.99%) Manufacturing
16 90 (0.90%) Police
17 62 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
18 44 (0.44%) Marketing
19 43 (0.43%) Retail
20 34 (0.34%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,505 (15.06%) Architect
2 1,018 (10.18%) Developer
3 943 (9.43%) Lead
4 935 (9.35%) Senior
5 564 (5.64%) Consultant
6 558 (5.58%) Analyst
7 450 (4.50%) Data Engineer
8 396 (3.96%) DevOps Engineer
9 380 (3.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 281 (2.81%) Software Engineer
11 269 (2.69%) Technical Architect
12 246 (2.46%) Solutions Architect
13 238 (2.38%) Network Engineer
14 225 (2.25%) Security Architect
15 224 (2.24%) Data Architect
16 191 (1.91%) Administrator
16 191 (1.91%) Delivery Manager
17 187 (1.87%) Project Manager
18 184 (1.84%) Java Developer
19 183 (1.83%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 862 (8.62%) Terraform
2 375 (3.75%) REST
3 202 (2.02%) .NET
3 202 (2.02%) Spring
4 190 (1.90%) Kafka
5 175 (1.75%) React
5 175 (1.75%) Spring Boot
6 169 (1.69%) RESTful
7 151 (1.51%) SOAP
8 132 (1.32%) Node.js
9 128 (1.28%) JSON
10 119 (1.19%) AngularJS
11 116 (1.16%) HTML
12 113 (1.13%) Web Services
13 108 (1.08%) OAuth
14 91 (0.91%) XML
15 86 (0.86%) PySpark
16 82 (0.82%) CSS
17 78 (0.78%) Oracle Fusion
18 74 (0.74%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 438 (4.38%) Cloud Native
2 364 (3.64%) Onboarding
3 328 (3.28%) Product Ownership
4 259 (2.59%) Data Centre
5 170 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
6 152 (1.52%) PKI
7 150 (1.50%) Management Information System
8 130 (1.30%) Distributed Systems
9 128 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
10 127 (1.27%) CMDB
11 117 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
12 112 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
13 103 (1.03%) Replication
14 99 (0.99%) Data Structures
15 89 (0.89%) Clustering
16 87 (0.87%) Security Operations Centre
17 86 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
18 81 (0.81%) Public Cloud
19 77 (0.77%) Operational Technology
20 71 (0.71%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 868 (8.68%) Windows
2 699 (6.99%) Linux
3 316 (3.16%) Windows Server
4 197 (1.97%) Unix
5 135 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 119 (1.19%) Windows 10
7 65 (0.65%) Android
8 60 (0.60%) Solaris
9 46 (0.46%) Mac OS
10 35 (0.35%) CentOS
11 34 (0.34%) Ubuntu
12 33 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
13 32 (0.32%) AIX
14 29 (0.29%) Apple iOS
15 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
16 19 (0.19%) VMS
17 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
17 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
18 15 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
19 12 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,105 (21.06%) Agile
2 1,556 (15.57%) DevOps
3 1,462 (14.63%) CI/CD
4 1,246 (12.46%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,157 (11.57%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,038 (10.38%) Problem-Solving
7 964 (9.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 838 (8.38%) Infrastructure as Code
9 810 (8.10%) Migration
10 736 (7.36%) Cybersecurity
11 696 (6.96%) ITIL
12 633 (6.33%) Test Automation
13 625 (6.25%) Analytics
14 601 (6.01%) Roadmaps
15 599 (5.99%) Containerisation
16 598 (5.98%) Software Engineering
17 577 (5.77%) AI
17 577 (5.77%) Technical Leadership
18 548 (5.48%) Decision-Making
19 529 (5.29%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 1,106 (11.06%) Python
2 967 (9.67%) SQL
3 650 (6.50%) Java
4 523 (5.23%) PowerShell
5 352 (3.52%) JavaScript
6 278 (2.78%) Bash
7 229 (2.29%) C#
8 160 (1.60%) TypeScript
9 132 (1.32%) PL/SQL
10 107 (1.07%) Bicep
11 80 (0.80%) C++
12 69 (0.69%) Shell Script
13 65 (0.65%) C
14 45 (0.45%) Groovy
15 41 (0.41%) Go
15 41 (0.41%) Kotlin
16 38 (0.38%) Scala
17 35 (0.35%) Apex Code
18 34 (0.34%) Ruby
19 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,497 (75.00%) SC Cleared
2 2,019 (20.20%) DV Cleared
3 426 (4.26%) Degree
4 368 (3.68%) BPSS Clearance
5 182 (1.82%) CISSP
6 163 (1.63%) Cisco Certification
7 159 (1.59%) Azure Certification
8 143 (1.43%) Microsoft Certification
9 125 (1.25%) AWS Certification
10 116 (1.16%) CISM
11 99 (0.99%) PMI Certification
12 97 (0.97%) PMP
13 80 (0.80%) ISTQB
14 79 (0.79%) CCNP
15 67 (0.67%) CCNA
16 66 (0.66%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 63 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
18 42 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
19 41 (0.41%) VCAP
20 40 (0.40%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 426 (4.26%) QA
2 316 (3.16%) Data Quality
3 276 (2.76%) NIST
4 269 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 236 (2.36%) NCSC
6 222 (2.22%) PMO
7 216 (2.16%) Accessibility
8 152 (1.52%) GDPR
9 132 (1.32%) SLA
10 130 (1.30%) GRC
11 66 (0.66%) WCAG
12 60 (0.60%) JSP 440
13 43 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
14 42 (0.42%) NIST 800
15 34 (0.34%) Def Stans
16 29 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 26 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
17 26 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 21 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
19 18 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 659 (6.59%) Docker
2 501 (5.01%) Active Directory
3 374 (3.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 144 (1.44%) VMware NSX
5 136 (1.36%) VMware ESXi
6 117 (1.17%) vSphere
7 106 (1.06%) Hyper-V
8 77 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
9 40 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
10 39 (0.39%) Oracle RAC
11 34 (0.34%) Firmware
12 26 (0.26%) BitLocker
12 26 (0.26%) vCloud
13 13 (0.13%) Postfix
14 11 (0.11%) NFS
14 11 (0.11%) Squid
15 10 (0.10%) Virtual Servers
16 9 (0.090%) KVM
17 8 (0.080%) Embedded Firmware
17 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 804 (8.04%) Kubernetes
2 398 (3.98%) Ansible
3 222 (2.22%) Grafana
4 172 (1.72%) Prometheus
5 134 (1.34%) vCenter Server
6 120 (1.20%) SCCM
7 81 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
8 74 (0.74%) SCOM
9 61 (0.61%) Argo
10 51 (0.51%) Puppet
11 50 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
12 47 (0.47%) Oracle RMAN
13 35 (0.35%) Data Guard
14 34 (0.34%) Progress Chef
15 27 (0.27%) Control-M
15 27 (0.27%) Istio
15 27 (0.27%) Nagios
15 27 (0.27%) WSUS
16 26 (0.26%) FortiGate
17 25 (0.25%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,298 (12.99%) Microsoft
2 782 (7.82%) Oracle
3 542 (5.42%) VMware
4 467 (4.67%) ServiceNow
5 388 (3.88%) SAP
6 281 (2.81%) Cisco
7 216 (2.16%) Google
8 184 (1.84%) Splunk
9 182 (1.82%) Databricks
10 128 (1.28%) Red Hat
11 126 (1.26%) Salesforce
12 118 (1.18%) IBM
13 109 (1.09%) Palo Alto
14 101 (1.01%) Informatica
15 98 (0.98%) Talend
16 82 (0.82%) Remedy
17 79 (0.79%) Dynatrace
18 75 (0.75%) Juniper
19 73 (0.73%) SolarWinds
20 70 (0.70%) Citrix