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

6 months to
30 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 9,954 5,014 6,551
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.02% 18.23% 19.23%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.52% 58.57% 62.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,989 3,247 4,354
10th Percentile £381 £339 £352
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.20% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £633 £625 £644
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £535 £530 £550
% change year-on-year +0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 770 456 483
10th Percentile £19.33 £18.51 £15.50
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.11
Median hourly rate £64.09 £25.15 £57.44
Median % change year-on-year +154.83% -56.22% -4.27%
75th Percentile £80.04 £56.00 £72.11
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £25.15 £55.00
% change year-on-year +151.03% -54.27% -8.33%

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 14,318 8,560 10,412
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.68% 31.12% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,655 5,401 6,622
10th Percentile £350 £290 £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 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,090 641 811
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.75 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +117.69% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.79 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.30%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 3,523 £548 +4.38% 626
South East +1 2,446 £550 +2.33% 498
South West 0 1,322 £538 -6.52% 328
North of England +2 1,115 £502 +0.35% 271
Midlands +3 963 £469 -6.20% 154
West Midlands +1 826 £469 -6.20% 113
North West 0 601 £525 -0.38% 152
East of England 0 324 £552 +3.18% 132
Yorkshire +3 300 £500 +1.63% 57
North East 0 238 £475 -5.00% 63
East Midlands +1 125 £428 -7.57% 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
1 359 (3.61%) Confluence
2 247 (2.48%) SharePoint
3 168 (1.69%) SAS
4 112 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
5 88 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 86 (0.86%) Apache Spark
7 80 (0.80%) Apache
8 37 (0.37%) nginx
9 34 (0.34%) WebLogic
10 31 (0.31%) Jupyter
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 20 (0.20%) Oracle Application Server
13 16 (0.16%) IIS
13 16 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
13 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
14 15 (0.15%) CMS
15 13 (0.13%) Skype for Business
16 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
17 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
18 10 (0.10%) JBoss
Applications
1 190 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 126 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
3 99 (0.99%) Microsoft Project
4 73 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 36 (0.36%) MS Visio
6 24 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.14%) AutoCAD
7 14 (0.14%) Revit
7 14 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
8 13 (0.13%) Simulink
9 9 (0.090%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.060%) Sketch
11 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
12 4 (0.040%) Trello
13 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
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 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 71 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
3 42 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
4 35 (0.35%) Teamcenter
5 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 23 (0.23%) SAP PSCD
7 20 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
8 16 (0.16%) Primavera
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
10 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payroll
11 13 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
11 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
12 12 (0.12%) iTrent
12 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
13 11 (0.11%) SAP HR
14 10 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
14 10 (0.10%) SAP ERP
15 9 (0.090%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,781 (17.89%) Azure
2 1,661 (16.69%) AWS
3 425 (4.27%) Azure DevOps
4 419 (4.21%) Power Platform
5 413 (4.15%) GitHub
6 367 (3.69%) GCP
7 271 (2.72%) Microsoft 365
8 261 (2.62%) GitHub Actions
9 242 (2.43%) Entra ID
9 242 (2.43%) Serverless
10 222 (2.23%) Amazon S3
11 169 (1.70%) AWS Lambda
12 150 (1.51%) OCI
13 145 (1.46%) Amazon EC2
14 143 (1.44%) SaaS
15 138 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 131 (1.32%) OpenShift
17 126 (1.27%) PaaS
18 120 (1.21%) Amazon EKS
19 112 (1.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 423 (4.25%) Firewall
2 331 (3.33%) DNS
3 209 (2.10%) Network Security
4 206 (2.07%) WAN
5 179 (1.80%) LAN
6 169 (1.70%) VPN
7 165 (1.66%) DHCP
8 137 (1.38%) BGP
9 120 (1.21%) TCP/IP
10 112 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
11 109 (1.10%) OSPF
12 99 (0.99%) VLAN
13 84 (0.84%) Wireless
14 61 (0.61%) IPsec
15 60 (0.60%) VSAN
16 58 (0.58%) MPLS
17 56 (0.56%) SD-WAN
17 56 (0.56%) VXLAN
18 54 (0.54%) SAN
19 51 (0.51%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 314 (3.15%) Power BI
2 249 (2.50%) SQL Server
3 244 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 233 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
5 143 (1.44%) Oracle Database
6 125 (1.26%) Metadata
7 110 (1.11%) Data Lake
8 98 (0.98%) Relational Database
9 97 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
10 87 (0.87%) Pentaho
11 83 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
12 81 (0.81%) MySQL
13 71 (0.71%) MongoDB
13 71 (0.71%) NoSQL
14 63 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
14 63 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
15 57 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
15 57 (0.57%) Tableau
16 44 (0.44%) Big Data
17 41 (0.41%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 563 (5.66%) JIRA
2 469 (4.71%) Git
3 392 (3.94%) GitLab
4 377 (3.79%) Jenkins
5 98 (0.98%) Selenium
6 77 (0.77%) SonarQube
7 75 (0.75%) JUnit
8 59 (0.59%) Postman
9 57 (0.57%) Maven
10 53 (0.53%) Rational DOORS
11 52 (0.52%) JMeter
12 47 (0.47%) Cucumber
13 43 (0.43%) Mockito
14 38 (0.38%) Visual Studio
14 38 (0.38%) Zephyr
15 37 (0.37%) Bitbucket
16 35 (0.35%) Artifactory
17 32 (0.32%) Cypress.io
17 32 (0.32%) REST Assured
18 29 (0.29%) Gatling
General
1 2,095 (21.05%) Public Sector
2 2,053 (20.62%) Social Skills
3 752 (7.55%) Analytical Skills
4 700 (7.03%) Finance
5 346 (3.48%) Military
6 273 (2.74%) Aerospace
7 243 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
8 160 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
9 142 (1.43%) Legal
10 131 (1.32%) Organisational Skills
11 130 (1.31%) Telecoms
12 121 (1.22%) Banking
13 98 (0.98%) Law
14 91 (0.91%) Police
15 83 (0.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 81 (0.81%) Manufacturing
17 76 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
18 39 (0.39%) Marketing
19 37 (0.37%) Retail
20 35 (0.35%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 1,476 (14.83%) Architect
2 1,039 (10.44%) Developer
3 918 (9.22%) Senior
4 880 (8.84%) Lead
5 612 (6.15%) Analyst
6 499 (5.01%) Consultant
7 473 (4.75%) Data Engineer
8 391 (3.93%) DevOps Engineer
9 356 (3.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 296 (2.97%) Software Engineer
11 260 (2.61%) Technical Architect
12 241 (2.42%) Solutions Architect
13 240 (2.41%) Network Engineer
14 238 (2.39%) Security Architect
15 200 (2.01%) Java Developer
16 197 (1.98%) Data Architect
17 193 (1.94%) Delivery Manager
18 190 (1.91%) Project Manager
19 187 (1.88%) Administrator
20 184 (1.85%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 362 (3.64%) REST
2 223 (2.24%) Spring
3 187 (1.88%) Spring Boot
4 182 (1.83%) .NET
5 172 (1.73%) Kafka
6 171 (1.72%) React
7 161 (1.62%) RESTful
8 153 (1.54%) SOAP
9 144 (1.45%) Node.js
10 129 (1.30%) JSON
11 124 (1.25%) AngularJS
12 105 (1.05%) Web Services
13 102 (1.02%) OAuth
14 94 (0.94%) HTML
15 88 (0.88%) PySpark
16 83 (0.83%) XML
17 69 (0.69%) CSS
17 69 (0.69%) Oracle Fusion
18 67 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
19 66 (0.66%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 408 (4.10%) Cloud Native
2 349 (3.51%) Onboarding
3 317 (3.18%) Product Ownership
4 281 (2.82%) Data Centre
5 179 (1.80%) Legacy Systems
6 155 (1.56%) Management Information System
7 147 (1.48%) PKI
8 145 (1.46%) Distributed Systems
9 120 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
10 113 (1.14%) CMDB
11 108 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
12 102 (1.02%) Data Structures
13 100 (1.00%) Clustering
14 98 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
15 91 (0.91%) Replication
16 80 (0.80%) Public Cloud
17 77 (0.77%) Security Posture
18 76 (0.76%) Virtual Team
19 73 (0.73%) Security Operations Centre
20 71 (0.71%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 829 (8.33%) Windows
2 692 (6.95%) Linux
3 284 (2.85%) Windows Server
4 204 (2.05%) Unix
5 142 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 93 (0.93%) Windows 10
7 82 (0.82%) Android
8 64 (0.64%) Solaris
9 43 (0.43%) Mac OS
10 41 (0.41%) Apple iOS
11 36 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.34%) AIX
13 30 (0.30%) CentOS
14 29 (0.29%) Ubuntu
15 17 (0.17%) VMS
15 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
16 14 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
17 13 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
18 11 (0.11%) Rocky
19 10 (0.10%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,082 (20.92%) Agile
2 1,517 (15.24%) DevOps
3 1,402 (14.08%) CI/CD
4 1,118 (11.23%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,098 (11.03%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,059 (10.64%) Problem-Solving
7 897 (9.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 771 (7.75%) Migration
9 765 (7.69%) Infrastructure as Code
10 684 (6.87%) ITIL
11 674 (6.77%) Cybersecurity
12 620 (6.23%) Analytics
13 600 (6.03%) Software Engineering
14 593 (5.96%) Test Automation
15 591 (5.94%) Containerisation
16 579 (5.82%) Roadmaps
17 550 (5.53%) AI
18 541 (5.44%) Data Modelling
18 541 (5.44%) Decision-Making
19 505 (5.07%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 1,085 (10.90%) Python
2 967 (9.71%) SQL
3 675 (6.78%) Java
4 467 (4.69%) PowerShell
5 317 (3.18%) JavaScript
6 256 (2.57%) Bash
7 212 (2.13%) C#
8 149 (1.50%) PL/SQL
9 141 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 89 (0.89%) Bicep
11 84 (0.84%) Shell Script
12 77 (0.77%) C++
13 61 (0.61%) C
14 48 (0.48%) Go
15 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
16 40 (0.40%) Scala
17 39 (0.39%) Apex Code
17 39 (0.39%) Groovy
18 36 (0.36%) Ruby
19 33 (0.33%) Ada
Qualifications
1 7,481 (75.16%) SC Cleared
2 2,032 (20.41%) DV Cleared
3 413 (4.15%) Degree
4 349 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
5 177 (1.78%) Cisco Certification
6 158 (1.59%) CISSP
7 148 (1.49%) Azure Certification
8 131 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
9 116 (1.17%) AWS Certification
10 99 (0.99%) PMI Certification
11 94 (0.94%) PMP
12 91 (0.91%) CISM
13 83 (0.83%) CCNP
14 74 (0.74%) CCNA
15 72 (0.72%) ISTQB
16 63 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 57 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
18 45 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
19 43 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
20 38 (0.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 384 (3.86%) QA
2 319 (3.20%) Data Quality
3 268 (2.69%) NIST
4 263 (2.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 214 (2.15%) Accessibility
6 207 (2.08%) NCSC
6 207 (2.08%) PMO
7 153 (1.54%) GDPR
8 118 (1.19%) GRC
9 113 (1.14%) SLA
10 63 (0.63%) WCAG
11 58 (0.58%) JSP 440
12 47 (0.47%) NIST 800
13 41 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
14 30 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
15 28 (0.28%) Def Stans
15 28 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 23 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 19 (0.19%) RMADS
18 16 (0.16%) COBIT
System Software
1 649 (6.52%) Docker
2 461 (4.63%) Active Directory
3 350 (3.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 137 (1.38%) VMware NSX
5 131 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
6 104 (1.04%) vSphere
7 90 (0.90%) Hyper-V
8 74 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
9 42 (0.42%) Oracle RAC
10 36 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
11 28 (0.28%) Firmware
12 22 (0.22%) vCloud
13 20 (0.20%) BitLocker
14 18 (0.18%) Postfix
15 15 (0.15%) NFS
16 13 (0.13%) Squid
17 9 (0.090%) KVM
18 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
19 7 (0.070%) UAG
20 6 (0.060%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 835 (8.39%) Terraform
2 773 (7.77%) Kubernetes
3 375 (3.77%) Ansible
4 228 (2.29%) Grafana
5 176 (1.77%) Prometheus
6 130 (1.31%) vCenter Server
7 96 (0.96%) SCCM
8 77 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
9 67 (0.67%) Argo
10 61 (0.61%) SCOM
11 50 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
11 50 (0.50%) Puppet
12 47 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
13 42 (0.42%) FortiGate
14 33 (0.33%) Data Guard
15 29 (0.29%) Progress Chef
16 28 (0.28%) Nagios
17 25 (0.25%) Podman
18 24 (0.24%) WSUS
19 23 (0.23%) Control-M
Vendors
1 1,160 (11.65%) Microsoft
2 776 (7.80%) Oracle
3 514 (5.16%) VMware
4 492 (4.94%) ServiceNow
5 370 (3.72%) SAP
6 286 (2.87%) Cisco
7 189 (1.90%) Google
8 184 (1.85%) Splunk
9 175 (1.76%) Databricks
10 142 (1.43%) Red Hat
11 134 (1.35%) Salesforce
12 125 (1.26%) Talend
13 114 (1.15%) Informatica
14 111 (1.12%) IBM
15 101 (1.01%) Palo Alto
16 99 (0.99%) Juniper
17 90 (0.90%) SolarWinds
18 86 (0.86%) F5
19 80 (0.80%) Remedy
20 78 (0.78%) Citrix