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

6 months to
3 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 9,989 5,067 6,406
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.02% 18.24% 19.21%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.40% 58.54% 62.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,014 3,272 4,290
10th Percentile £383 £340 £353
25th Percentile £453 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.05% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £639
90th Percentile £725 £700 £735
UK median daily rate £537 £534 £550
% change year-on-year +0.66% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 769 460 456
10th Percentile £19.33 £18.51 £15.36
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.22
Median hourly rate £64.09 £25.15 £57.77
Median % change year-on-year +154.83% -56.47% -3.71%
75th Percentile £80.00 £55.12 £72.37
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 14,394 8,655 10,183
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.73% 31.16% 30.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,690 5,457 6,502
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 1,107 649 767
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -45.18% -16.58%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.27 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.16 £78.30
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -22.77%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 3,533 £550 +4.76% 871
South East +1 2,455 £560 +4.19% 696
South West 0 1,326 £538 -6.52% 479
North of England +2 1,129 £505 +1.00% 384
Midlands +3 962 £469 -6.20% 220
West Midlands +1 827 £469 -6.20% 169
North West 0 610 £525 - 222
East of England 0 323 £552 +5.14% 150
Yorkshire +3 303 £500 +1.63% 91
North East +1 240 £475 -5.00% 74
East Midlands 0 123 £428 -7.57% 49
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
1 358 (3.58%) Confluence
2 245 (2.45%) SharePoint
3 167 (1.67%) SAS
4 110 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
5 87 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
6 85 (0.85%) Apache Spark
7 80 (0.80%) Apache
8 36 (0.36%) 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%) CMS
13 16 (0.16%) IIS
13 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
14 15 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
15 13 (0.13%) Skype for Business
16 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
17 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
18 10 (0.10%) JBoss
Applications
1 189 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 126 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
3 97 (0.97%) Microsoft Project
4 72 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 35 (0.35%) MS Visio
6 25 (0.25%) 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 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 73 (0.73%) Remedy ITSM
3 41 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 34 (0.34%) Teamcenter
6 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 23 (0.23%) SAP PSCD
8 21 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
9 15 (0.15%) Primavera
10 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
10 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payroll
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
14 10 (0.10%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,799 (18.01%) Azure
2 1,675 (16.77%) AWS
3 435 (4.35%) Azure DevOps
4 425 (4.25%) Power Platform
5 419 (4.19%) GitHub
6 374 (3.74%) GCP
7 271 (2.71%) Microsoft 365
8 267 (2.67%) GitHub Actions
9 249 (2.49%) Entra ID
9 249 (2.49%) Serverless
10 225 (2.25%) Amazon S3
11 173 (1.73%) AWS Lambda
12 153 (1.53%) OCI
13 147 (1.47%) Amazon EC2
14 145 (1.45%) SaaS
15 139 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 129 (1.29%) OpenShift
17 128 (1.28%) PaaS
18 121 (1.21%) Amazon EKS
19 111 (1.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 426 (4.26%) Firewall
2 335 (3.35%) DNS
3 206 (2.06%) WAN
4 205 (2.05%) Network Security
5 180 (1.80%) LAN
6 168 (1.68%) DHCP
6 168 (1.68%) VPN
7 138 (1.38%) BGP
8 121 (1.21%) TCP/IP
9 113 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
10 109 (1.09%) OSPF
11 99 (0.99%) VLAN
12 84 (0.84%) Wireless
13 63 (0.63%) IPsec
14 62 (0.62%) VSAN
15 57 (0.57%) MPLS
16 56 (0.56%) SD-WAN
16 56 (0.56%) VXLAN
17 53 (0.53%) SAN
17 53 (0.53%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 317 (3.17%) Power BI
2 250 (2.50%) SQL Server
3 244 (2.44%) PostgreSQL
4 233 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
5 143 (1.43%) Oracle Database
6 127 (1.27%) Metadata
7 111 (1.11%) Data Lake
8 98 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
9 96 (0.96%) Relational Database
10 85 (0.85%) Pentaho
11 83 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
12 80 (0.80%) MySQL
13 74 (0.74%) MongoDB
13 74 (0.74%) NoSQL
14 62 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
14 62 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
15 57 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
15 57 (0.57%) Tableau
16 43 (0.43%) Big Data
16 43 (0.43%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 567 (5.68%) JIRA
2 475 (4.76%) Git
3 394 (3.94%) GitLab
4 382 (3.82%) Jenkins
5 99 (0.99%) Selenium
6 77 (0.77%) SonarQube
7 75 (0.75%) JUnit
8 58 (0.58%) Maven
8 58 (0.58%) Postman
9 55 (0.55%) Rational DOORS
10 51 (0.51%) JMeter
11 47 (0.47%) Cucumber
12 45 (0.45%) Mockito
13 39 (0.39%) Visual Studio
14 38 (0.38%) Bitbucket
15 37 (0.37%) Zephyr
16 35 (0.35%) Artifactory
17 34 (0.34%) Cypress.io
18 33 (0.33%) REST Assured
19 31 (0.31%) Gradle
General
1 2,096 (20.98%) Public Sector
2 2,061 (20.63%) Social Skills
3 760 (7.61%) Analytical Skills
4 697 (6.98%) Finance
5 339 (3.39%) Military
6 273 (2.73%) Aerospace
7 243 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
8 158 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
9 143 (1.43%) Legal
10 130 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
10 130 (1.30%) Telecoms
11 120 (1.20%) Banking
12 96 (0.96%) Law
13 90 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 88 (0.88%) Police
15 81 (0.81%) Manufacturing
16 76 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
17 41 (0.41%) Marketing
18 38 (0.38%) Retail
19 36 (0.36%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 1,488 (14.90%) Architect
2 1,055 (10.56%) Developer
3 929 (9.30%) Senior
4 893 (8.94%) Lead
5 615 (6.16%) Analyst
6 510 (5.11%) Consultant
7 469 (4.70%) Data Engineer
8 388 (3.88%) DevOps Engineer
9 365 (3.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 300 (3.00%) Software Engineer
11 258 (2.58%) Technical Architect
12 240 (2.40%) Security Architect
13 239 (2.39%) Network Engineer
13 239 (2.39%) Solutions Architect
14 207 (2.07%) Data Architect
15 203 (2.03%) Java Developer
16 200 (2.00%) Delivery Manager
17 188 (1.88%) Administrator
17 188 (1.88%) Project Manager
18 183 (1.83%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 368 (3.68%) REST
2 226 (2.26%) Spring
3 191 (1.91%) Spring Boot
4 186 (1.86%) .NET
5 175 (1.75%) Kafka
6 174 (1.74%) React
7 166 (1.66%) RESTful
8 152 (1.52%) SOAP
9 147 (1.47%) Node.js
10 128 (1.28%) JSON
11 125 (1.25%) AngularJS
12 106 (1.06%) Web Services
13 103 (1.03%) OAuth
14 95 (0.95%) HTML
15 88 (0.88%) PySpark
16 82 (0.82%) XML
17 70 (0.70%) CSS
18 69 (0.69%) Oracle Fusion
19 68 (0.68%) Elastic Stack
20 67 (0.67%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 410 (4.10%) Cloud Native
2 348 (3.48%) Onboarding
3 319 (3.19%) Product Ownership
4 282 (2.82%) Data Centre
5 178 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
6 154 (1.54%) Management Information System
7 151 (1.51%) PKI
8 144 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
9 119 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
10 113 (1.13%) CMDB
11 111 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
12 102 (1.02%) Data Structures
13 101 (1.01%) Clustering
14 98 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
15 93 (0.93%) Replication
16 82 (0.82%) Public Cloud
17 78 (0.78%) Cyber Threat
18 76 (0.76%) Virtual Team
19 75 (0.75%) Security Operations Centre
19 75 (0.75%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 834 (8.35%) Windows
2 698 (6.99%) Linux
3 288 (2.88%) Windows Server
4 203 (2.03%) Unix
5 142 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 94 (0.94%) Windows 10
7 81 (0.81%) Android
8 64 (0.64%) Solaris
9 44 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 41 (0.41%) Apple iOS
11 37 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
12 35 (0.35%) AIX
13 30 (0.30%) CentOS
14 29 (0.29%) Ubuntu
15 17 (0.17%) VMS
15 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
16 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
17 14 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
18 12 (0.12%) Rocky
19 11 (0.11%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,102 (21.04%) Agile
2 1,531 (15.33%) DevOps
3 1,420 (14.22%) CI/CD
4 1,128 (11.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,111 (11.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,065 (10.66%) Problem-Solving
7 905 (9.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 778 (7.79%) Infrastructure as Code
9 775 (7.76%) Migration
10 687 (6.88%) Cybersecurity
11 680 (6.81%) ITIL
12 623 (6.24%) Analytics
13 604 (6.05%) Software Engineering
14 597 (5.98%) Test Automation
15 593 (5.94%) Containerisation
16 584 (5.85%) Roadmaps
17 555 (5.56%) AI
18 547 (5.48%) Data Modelling
19 538 (5.39%) Decision-Making
20 521 (5.22%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 1,085 (10.86%) Python
2 974 (9.75%) SQL
3 678 (6.79%) Java
4 472 (4.73%) PowerShell
5 324 (3.24%) JavaScript
6 260 (2.60%) Bash
7 215 (2.15%) C#
8 150 (1.50%) PL/SQL
9 147 (1.47%) TypeScript
10 91 (0.91%) Bicep
11 81 (0.81%) Shell Script
12 80 (0.80%) C++
13 63 (0.63%) C
14 45 (0.45%) Go
15 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
16 40 (0.40%) Apex Code
16 40 (0.40%) Groovy
16 40 (0.40%) Scala
17 36 (0.36%) Ruby
18 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,508 (75.16%) SC Cleared
2 2,030 (20.32%) DV Cleared
3 418 (4.18%) Degree
4 351 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
5 177 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
6 162 (1.62%) CISSP
7 147 (1.47%) Azure Certification
8 135 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
9 118 (1.18%) AWS Certification
10 101 (1.01%) PMI Certification
11 96 (0.96%) CISM
11 96 (0.96%) PMP
12 81 (0.81%) CCNP
13 75 (0.75%) CCNA
14 70 (0.70%) ISTQB
15 63 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 58 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
17 44 (0.44%) TOGAF Certification
18 43 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
19 38 (0.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 386 (3.86%) QA
2 317 (3.17%) Data Quality
3 272 (2.72%) NIST
4 267 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 215 (2.15%) Accessibility
6 209 (2.09%) NCSC
7 208 (2.08%) PMO
8 154 (1.54%) GDPR
9 116 (1.16%) GRC
9 116 (1.16%) SLA
10 65 (0.65%) WCAG
11 57 (0.57%) JSP 440
12 48 (0.48%) NIST 800
13 44 (0.44%) 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 17 (0.17%) COBIT
System Software
1 658 (6.59%) Docker
2 469 (4.70%) Active Directory
3 356 (3.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 139 (1.39%) VMware NSX
5 132 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
6 106 (1.06%) vSphere
7 92 (0.92%) Hyper-V
8 74 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
9 43 (0.43%) 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 13 (0.13%) NFS
15 13 (0.13%) Squid
16 9 (0.090%) KVM
17 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
18 7 (0.070%) UAG
19 6 (0.060%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 839 (8.40%) Terraform
2 778 (7.79%) Kubernetes
3 377 (3.77%) Ansible
4 225 (2.25%) Grafana
5 174 (1.74%) Prometheus
6 130 (1.30%) vCenter Server
7 99 (0.99%) SCCM
8 79 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
9 66 (0.66%) Argo
10 64 (0.64%) SCOM
11 51 (0.51%) Oracle RMAN
12 50 (0.50%) Puppet
13 48 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
14 42 (0.42%) FortiGate
15 34 (0.34%) Data Guard
16 29 (0.29%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
18 25 (0.25%) Podman
19 24 (0.24%) VxRail
19 24 (0.24%) WSUS
Vendors
1 1,175 (11.76%) Microsoft
2 773 (7.74%) Oracle
3 522 (5.23%) VMware
4 491 (4.92%) ServiceNow
5 370 (3.70%) SAP
6 287 (2.87%) Cisco
7 196 (1.96%) Google
8 182 (1.82%) Splunk
9 177 (1.77%) Databricks
10 141 (1.41%) Red Hat
11 136 (1.36%) Salesforce
12 121 (1.21%) Talend
13 111 (1.11%) IBM
14 110 (1.10%) Informatica
15 100 (1.00%) Juniper
15 100 (1.00%) Palo Alto
16 89 (0.89%) SolarWinds
17 86 (0.86%) F5
18 83 (0.83%) Remedy
19 79 (0.79%) Citrix