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

6 months to
10 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 10,011 5,108 6,390
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.98% 18.35% 19.25%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.33% 58.63% 63.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,050 3,292 4,272
10th Percentile £380 £350 £356
25th Percentile £453 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £649
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £537 £535 £550
% change year-on-year +0.37% -2.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 772 473 455
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.51 £15.50
25th Percentile £25.77 £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 £54.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.63 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £25.15 £56.15
% change year-on-year +151.03% -55.21% -6.43%

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 14,439 8,712 10,137
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.70% 31.30% 30.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,726 5,478 6,479
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 1,121 661 761
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.79 £78.75
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -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 10 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 10 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 10 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 3,551 £550 +3.77% 918
South East +1 2,433 £560 +4.19% 647
South West 0 1,341 £538 -6.52% 497
North of England +2 1,128 £507 +1.30% 382
Midlands +1 977 £469 -8.40% 175
West Midlands +1 845 £469 -8.93% 127
North West +2 609 £525 - 238
East of England 0 322 £550 - 178
Yorkshire +1 302 £500 +1.63% 71
North East 0 241 £475 -5.00% 76
East Midlands -1 120 £438 -5.30% 48
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 (3.59%) Confluence
2 252 (2.52%) SharePoint
3 169 (1.69%) SAS
4 110 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
5 88 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 85 (0.85%) Apache Spark
7 79 (0.79%) Apache
8 35 (0.35%) nginx
9 32 (0.32%) Jupyter
9 32 (0.32%) WebLogic
10 22 (0.22%) Oracle Application Server
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 16 (0.16%) CMS
12 16 (0.16%) IIS
12 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
13 15 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
14 13 (0.13%) Skype for Business
15 12 (0.12%) JBoss
16 11 (0.11%) Tuxedo
17 10 (0.100%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 193 (1.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 125 (1.25%) Microsoft Office
3 97 (0.97%) Microsoft Project
4 76 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 34 (0.34%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.27%) 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%) Notepad++
13 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
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
1 123 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 77 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 43 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 31 (0.31%) Teamcenter
6 26 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
7 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
8 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payroll
8 16 (0.16%) Primavera
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
10 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
11 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
12 12 (0.12%) iTrent
12 12 (0.12%) SAP HR
12 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
14 10 (0.100%) Salesforce CRM
14 10 (0.100%) SAP ERP
14 10 (0.100%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,824 (18.22%) Azure
2 1,676 (16.74%) AWS
3 446 (4.46%) Azure DevOps
4 434 (4.34%) Power Platform
5 429 (4.29%) GitHub
6 380 (3.80%) GCP
7 279 (2.79%) Microsoft 365
8 275 (2.75%) GitHub Actions
9 255 (2.55%) Entra ID
10 251 (2.51%) Serverless
11 220 (2.20%) Amazon S3
12 174 (1.74%) AWS Lambda
13 158 (1.58%) OCI
14 149 (1.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 147 (1.47%) SaaS
16 144 (1.44%) Amazon EC2
17 134 (1.34%) OpenShift
18 125 (1.25%) PaaS
19 123 (1.23%) Amazon EKS
20 115 (1.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 427 (4.27%) Firewall
2 345 (3.45%) DNS
3 204 (2.04%) WAN
4 202 (2.02%) Network Security
5 178 (1.78%) LAN
6 174 (1.74%) DHCP
7 172 (1.72%) VPN
8 134 (1.34%) BGP
9 128 (1.28%) TCP/IP
10 112 (1.12%) Wi-Fi
11 106 (1.06%) OSPF
12 97 (0.97%) VLAN
13 82 (0.82%) Wireless
14 66 (0.66%) VSAN
15 61 (0.61%) IPsec
16 56 (0.56%) VXLAN
17 55 (0.55%) MPLS
17 55 (0.55%) SD-WAN
18 54 (0.54%) SSL
19 53 (0.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 320 (3.20%) Power BI
2 259 (2.59%) SQL Server
3 247 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
4 246 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
5 144 (1.44%) Oracle Database
6 133 (1.33%) Metadata
7 114 (1.14%) Data Lake
8 107 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
9 98 (0.98%) Relational Database
10 91 (0.91%) Pentaho
11 90 (0.90%) Oracle Reports
12 84 (0.84%) MySQL
13 81 (0.81%) NoSQL
14 79 (0.79%) MongoDB
15 60 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
16 59 (0.59%) Tableau
17 56 (0.56%) Amazon Athena
18 55 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
19 43 (0.43%) Big Data
20 41 (0.41%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 565 (5.64%) JIRA
2 495 (4.94%) Git
3 406 (4.06%) GitLab
4 392 (3.92%) Jenkins
5 104 (1.04%) Selenium
6 76 (0.76%) SonarQube
7 71 (0.71%) JUnit
8 62 (0.62%) Postman
9 58 (0.58%) Maven
10 57 (0.57%) Rational DOORS
11 52 (0.52%) JMeter
12 46 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 43 (0.43%) Mockito
14 41 (0.41%) Visual Studio
14 41 (0.41%) Zephyr
15 39 (0.39%) Bitbucket
16 34 (0.34%) Cypress.io
17 33 (0.33%) Artifactory
18 32 (0.32%) Gradle
19 31 (0.31%) Gatling
General
1 2,110 (21.08%) Social Skills
2 2,071 (20.69%) Public Sector
3 778 (7.77%) Analytical Skills
4 692 (6.91%) Finance
5 336 (3.36%) Military
6 285 (2.85%) Aerospace
7 236 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
8 153 (1.53%) Influencing Skills
9 141 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
10 138 (1.38%) Legal
11 131 (1.31%) Telecoms
12 126 (1.26%) Banking
13 97 (0.97%) Law
14 95 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 88 (0.88%) Police
16 85 (0.85%) Manufacturing
17 73 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
18 43 (0.43%) Marketing
19 39 (0.39%) Retail
20 36 (0.36%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,495 (14.93%) Architect
2 1,052 (10.51%) Developer
3 936 (9.35%) Senior
4 903 (9.02%) Lead
5 593 (5.92%) Analyst
6 523 (5.22%) Consultant
7 483 (4.82%) Data Engineer
8 382 (3.82%) DevOps Engineer
9 370 (3.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 292 (2.92%) Software Engineer
11 263 (2.63%) Technical Architect
12 243 (2.43%) Solutions Architect
13 235 (2.35%) Security Architect
14 233 (2.33%) Network Engineer
15 217 (2.17%) Data Architect
16 202 (2.02%) Administrator
17 198 (1.98%) Delivery Manager
18 197 (1.97%) Java Developer
19 187 (1.87%) Project Manager
20 181 (1.81%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 372 (3.72%) REST
2 222 (2.22%) Spring
3 194 (1.94%) .NET
4 187 (1.87%) Spring Boot
5 181 (1.81%) Kafka
6 171 (1.71%) React
6 171 (1.71%) RESTful
7 150 (1.50%) SOAP
8 143 (1.43%) Node.js
9 129 (1.29%) JSON
10 124 (1.24%) AngularJS
11 107 (1.07%) Web Services
12 103 (1.03%) OAuth
13 102 (1.02%) HTML
14 89 (0.89%) XML
15 87 (0.87%) PySpark
16 76 (0.76%) CSS
17 72 (0.72%) Oracle Fusion
18 69 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
19 67 (0.67%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 412 (4.12%) Cloud Native
2 351 (3.51%) Onboarding
3 322 (3.22%) Product Ownership
4 278 (2.78%) Data Centre
5 178 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
6 153 (1.53%) Management Information System
7 147 (1.47%) PKI
8 140 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
9 119 (1.19%) CMDB
10 118 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
11 116 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
12 105 (1.05%) Hybrid Cloud
13 104 (1.04%) Clustering
14 102 (1.02%) Data Structures
14 102 (1.02%) Replication
15 84 (0.84%) Public Cloud
16 80 (0.80%) Security Operations Centre
17 77 (0.77%) Cyber Threat
18 76 (0.76%) Operational Technology
19 75 (0.75%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 854 (8.53%) Windows
2 696 (6.95%) Linux
3 298 (2.98%) Windows Server
4 204 (2.04%) Unix
5 140 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 98 (0.98%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.79%) Android
8 63 (0.63%) Solaris
9 44 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 40 (0.40%) Apple iOS
11 38 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.34%) AIX
13 31 (0.31%) CentOS
14 29 (0.29%) Ubuntu
15 19 (0.19%) VMS
16 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
17 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
18 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.12%) Embedded Linux
19 12 (0.12%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,101 (20.99%) Agile
2 1,548 (15.46%) DevOps
3 1,447 (14.45%) CI/CD
4 1,156 (11.55%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,124 (11.23%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,067 (10.66%) Problem-Solving
7 925 (9.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 806 (8.05%) Migration
9 803 (8.02%) Infrastructure as Code
10 686 (6.85%) ITIL
11 685 (6.84%) Cybersecurity
12 647 (6.46%) Analytics
13 626 (6.25%) Test Automation
14 603 (6.02%) Software Engineering
15 602 (6.01%) Containerisation
16 593 (5.92%) Roadmaps
17 565 (5.64%) AI
18 559 (5.58%) Data Modelling
19 543 (5.42%) Technical Leadership
20 532 (5.31%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 1,098 (10.97%) Python
2 1,006 (10.05%) SQL
3 681 (6.80%) Java
4 491 (4.90%) PowerShell
5 337 (3.37%) JavaScript
6 270 (2.70%) Bash
7 226 (2.26%) C#
8 151 (1.51%) PL/SQL
9 149 (1.49%) TypeScript
10 94 (0.94%) Bicep
11 84 (0.84%) C++
12 82 (0.82%) Shell Script
13 65 (0.65%) C
14 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
15 43 (0.43%) Go
16 41 (0.41%) Groovy
16 41 (0.41%) Scala
17 38 (0.38%) Apex Code
18 36 (0.36%) Ruby
19 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,534 (75.26%) SC Cleared
2 2,025 (20.23%) DV Cleared
3 414 (4.14%) Degree
4 366 (3.66%) BPSS Clearance
5 173 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
5 173 (1.73%) CISSP
6 152 (1.52%) Azure Certification
7 139 (1.39%) Microsoft Certification
8 121 (1.21%) AWS Certification
9 104 (1.04%) CISM
10 101 (1.01%) PMI Certification
11 98 (0.98%) PMP
12 74 (0.74%) CCNP
12 74 (0.74%) ISTQB
13 69 (0.69%) CCNA
14 63 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 59 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
16 46 (0.46%) TOGAF Certification
17 42 (0.42%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 42 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 396 (3.96%) QA
2 325 (3.25%) Data Quality
3 263 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 261 (2.61%) NIST
5 218 (2.18%) PMO
6 214 (2.14%) NCSC
7 211 (2.11%) Accessibility
8 155 (1.55%) GDPR
9 118 (1.18%) GRC
10 116 (1.16%) SLA
11 65 (0.65%) WCAG
12 59 (0.59%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 43 (0.43%) NIST 800
15 32 (0.32%) Def Stans
16 30 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
17 28 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 24 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 19 (0.19%) RMADS
20 18 (0.18%) COBIT
System Software
1 669 (6.68%) Docker
2 474 (4.73%) Active Directory
3 365 (3.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 142 (1.42%) VMware NSX
5 130 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
6 110 (1.10%) vSphere
7 95 (0.95%) Hyper-V
8 76 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
9 44 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
10 38 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
11 30 (0.30%) Firmware
12 23 (0.23%) vCloud
13 19 (0.19%) BitLocker
14 16 (0.16%) Postfix
15 12 (0.12%) NFS
15 12 (0.12%) Squid
16 8 (0.080%) KVM
16 8 (0.080%) Virtual Servers
17 7 (0.070%) Microsoft App-V
18 6 (0.060%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 857 (8.56%) Terraform
2 792 (7.91%) Kubernetes
3 387 (3.87%) Ansible
4 225 (2.25%) Grafana
5 175 (1.75%) Prometheus
6 129 (1.29%) vCenter Server
7 103 (1.03%) SCCM
8 85 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
9 69 (0.69%) SCOM
10 62 (0.62%) Argo
11 53 (0.53%) Oracle RMAN
12 52 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
13 51 (0.51%) Puppet
14 42 (0.42%) FortiGate
15 35 (0.35%) Data Guard
16 31 (0.31%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
18 26 (0.26%) WSUS
19 24 (0.24%) Podman
19 24 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,225 (12.24%) Microsoft
2 784 (7.83%) Oracle
3 525 (5.24%) VMware
4 493 (4.92%) ServiceNow
5 376 (3.76%) SAP
6 283 (2.83%) Cisco
7 201 (2.01%) Google
8 185 (1.85%) Splunk
9 177 (1.77%) Databricks
10 139 (1.39%) Red Hat
11 132 (1.32%) Salesforce
12 117 (1.17%) Talend
13 115 (1.15%) IBM
14 108 (1.08%) Informatica
15 102 (1.02%) Palo Alto
16 96 (0.96%) Juniper
17 90 (0.90%) SolarWinds
18 87 (0.87%) F5
18 87 (0.87%) Remedy
19 81 (0.81%) Dynatrace