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 16 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 3 3
Rank change year-on-year +1 0 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,441 5,448 5,837
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.30% 19.31% 18.21%
As % of the Qualifications category 68.64% 60.35% 61.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,259 3,520 3,665
10th Percentile £400 £328 £350
25th Percentile £463 £446 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.33% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £550 £535 £550
% change year-on-year +2.80% -2.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 850 579 331
10th Percentile £20.50 £18.22 £21.25
25th Percentile £29.07 £18.87 £35.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -59.17% +2.67%
75th Percentile £78.75 £37.13 £70.25
90th Percentile £91.31 £71.29 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £64.00 £25.15 £58.30
% change year-on-year +154.47% -56.86% -2.83%

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 15,212 9,028 9,550
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.49% 32.01% 29.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,090 5,750 5,801
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £447 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £734
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,351 763 495
10th Percentile £17.20 £17.87 £19.51
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.11
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -52.10% -2.17%
75th Percentile £74.00 £43.00 £69.22
90th Percentile £91.00 £73.50 £75.34
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.49%

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 16 October 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 16 October 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 16 October 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 +5 3,760 £550 +0.92% 1,248
South East +1 2,287 £575 +9.52% 760
South West 0 1,383 £550 - 530
North of England +2 1,318 £515 -0.94% 541
Midlands 0 944 £475 -8.39% 292
North West +2 804 £530 -3.68% 295
West Midlands 0 791 £475 -8.65% 194
East of England 0 453 £550 - 280
Yorkshire -1 292 £492 - 100
North East 0 240 £470 -10.48% 148
East Midlands +2 145 £500 +11.11% 98
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
1 332 (3.18%) Confluence
2 234 (2.24%) SharePoint
3 150 (1.44%) SAS
4 99 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
5 95 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
6 92 (0.88%) Apache
7 89 (0.85%) Apache Spark
8 40 (0.38%) CMS
9 38 (0.36%) nginx
10 31 (0.30%) Jupyter
11 30 (0.29%) WebLogic
12 22 (0.21%) Skype for Business
13 19 (0.18%) Tomcat
14 15 (0.14%) IIS
14 15 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
15 13 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
16 11 (0.11%) JBoss
16 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
16 11 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
17 9 (0.086%) Documentum
Applications
1 188 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 127 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
3 93 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
4 90 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 29 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 29 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
6 21 (0.20%) AutoCAD
6 21 (0.20%) Windchill
7 19 (0.18%) Revit
8 18 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
9 10 (0.096%) Simulink
10 9 (0.086%) Chatbot
11 7 (0.067%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.048%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.048%) Sketch
13 4 (0.038%) OrCAD
13 4 (0.038%) Trello
14 3 (0.029%) PTC Creo
15 2 (0.019%) Gliffy
15 2 (0.019%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 135 (1.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 81 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
3 55 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
4 45 (0.43%) Teamcenter
5 43 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 30 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 28 (0.27%) Oracle Payroll
8 27 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
9 25 (0.24%) SAP PSCD
10 22 (0.21%) SAP FI
11 18 (0.17%) SAP HR
12 16 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
13 14 (0.13%) SAP CO
14 13 (0.12%) Maximo
14 13 (0.12%) NetSuite
14 13 (0.12%) Primavera
14 13 (0.12%) SAP BRIM
14 13 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
15 12 (0.11%) SAP PP
15 12 (0.11%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,864 (17.85%) Azure
2 1,679 (16.08%) AWS
3 467 (4.47%) Azure DevOps
4 438 (4.20%) Power Platform
5 421 (4.03%) GitHub
6 380 (3.64%) GCP
7 308 (2.95%) Entra ID
8 296 (2.83%) Microsoft 365
9 288 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
10 227 (2.17%) Serverless
11 204 (1.95%) Amazon S3
12 160 (1.53%) AWS Lambda
12 160 (1.53%) OCI
13 146 (1.40%) Amazon EKS
13 146 (1.40%) OpenShift
14 144 (1.38%) SaaS
15 143 (1.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 127 (1.22%) Amazon EC2
17 110 (1.05%) PowerApps
18 107 (1.02%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 403 (3.86%) Firewall
2 338 (3.24%) DNS
3 229 (2.19%) Network Security
4 182 (1.74%) VPN
5 168 (1.61%) WAN
6 165 (1.58%) DHCP
7 133 (1.27%) LAN
8 130 (1.25%) TCP/IP
9 116 (1.11%) BGP
10 111 (1.06%) Wi-Fi
11 84 (0.80%) VLAN
12 79 (0.76%) Wireless
13 75 (0.72%) OSPF
14 59 (0.57%) SAN
14 59 (0.57%) SSL
15 58 (0.56%) MPLS
16 57 (0.55%) IPsec
17 56 (0.54%) VSAN
18 51 (0.49%) SD-WAN
19 44 (0.42%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 305 (2.92%) Power BI
2 236 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
2 236 (2.26%) SQL Server
3 205 (1.96%) Data Warehouse
4 182 (1.74%) Metadata
5 166 (1.59%) Oracle Database
6 125 (1.20%) Relational Database
7 121 (1.16%) Data Lake
8 102 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
9 99 (0.95%) MySQL
10 98 (0.94%) MongoDB
11 78 (0.75%) NoSQL
12 72 (0.69%) Pentaho
13 56 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
14 55 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
15 48 (0.46%) Amazon Athena
16 46 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
17 45 (0.43%) Big Data
18 41 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
19 37 (0.35%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 529 (5.07%) JIRA
2 502 (4.81%) Git
3 452 (4.33%) GitLab
4 434 (4.16%) Jenkins
5 126 (1.21%) Selenium
6 71 (0.68%) Cucumber
6 71 (0.68%) Postman
6 71 (0.68%) SonarQube
7 69 (0.66%) JUnit
8 67 (0.64%) Maven
9 65 (0.62%) JMeter
10 45 (0.43%) Gradle
11 40 (0.38%) Mockito
12 37 (0.35%) REST Assured
13 36 (0.34%) Cypress.io
13 36 (0.34%) Visual Studio
14 34 (0.33%) Gatling
14 34 (0.33%) Rational DOORS
15 33 (0.32%) Artifactory
16 29 (0.28%) Bitbucket
General
1 2,426 (23.24%) Social Skills
2 2,100 (20.11%) Public Sector
3 891 (8.53%) Analytical Skills
4 706 (6.76%) Finance
5 427 (4.09%) Military
6 377 (3.61%) Aerospace
7 258 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
8 225 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
9 192 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
10 178 (1.70%) Manufacturing
11 150 (1.44%) Telecoms
12 141 (1.35%) Legal
13 128 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 126 (1.21%) Banking
15 113 (1.08%) Police
16 109 (1.04%) Law
17 63 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
18 52 (0.50%) Local Government
19 44 (0.42%) Aviation
20 42 (0.40%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 1,616 (15.48%) Architect
2 1,004 (9.62%) Senior
3 958 (9.18%) Developer
4 952 (9.12%) Lead
5 629 (6.02%) Analyst
6 601 (5.76%) Consultant
7 433 (4.15%) Data Engineer
8 427 (4.09%) DevOps Engineer
9 360 (3.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 280 (2.68%) Solutions Architect
11 260 (2.49%) Security Architect
12 256 (2.45%) Data Architect
13 254 (2.43%) Technical Architect
14 225 (2.15%) Software Engineer
15 215 (2.06%) Administrator
16 213 (2.04%) Network Engineer
17 192 (1.84%) Delivery Manager
18 185 (1.77%) Cloud Engineer
18 185 (1.77%) Designer
19 178 (1.70%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 912 (8.73%) Terraform
2 429 (4.11%) REST
3 213 (2.04%) Kafka
4 195 (1.87%) Spring
5 179 (1.71%) Spring Boot
6 172 (1.65%) SOAP
7 168 (1.61%) React
8 164 (1.57%) RESTful
9 152 (1.46%) .NET
10 124 (1.19%) Node.js
11 122 (1.17%) JSON
12 121 (1.16%) OAuth
13 115 (1.10%) HTML
14 113 (1.08%) XML
15 106 (1.02%) Middleware
16 97 (0.93%) Web Services
17 93 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
18 92 (0.88%) LDAP
19 91 (0.87%) AngularJS
20 88 (0.84%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 469 (4.49%) Cloud Native
2 409 (3.92%) Onboarding
3 339 (3.25%) Product Ownership
4 261 (2.50%) Data Centre
5 202 (1.93%) Management Information System
6 167 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
7 162 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
7 162 (1.55%) PKI
8 153 (1.47%) CMDB
9 125 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
10 115 (1.10%) Cyber Threat
11 113 (1.08%) Replication
12 110 (1.05%) Operational Technology
13 102 (0.98%) Distributed Systems
14 100 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
15 88 (0.84%) Data Structures
15 88 (0.84%) Security Posture
16 83 (0.79%) Security Operations Centre
17 78 (0.75%) Clustering
18 74 (0.71%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 908 (8.70%) Windows
2 706 (6.76%) Linux
3 348 (3.33%) Windows Server
4 192 (1.84%) Unix
5 140 (1.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 134 (1.28%) Windows 10
7 75 (0.72%) Solaris
8 59 (0.57%) Android
9 44 (0.42%) CentOS
10 43 (0.41%) macOS
11 41 (0.39%) Ubuntu
12 34 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
13 26 (0.25%) Apple iOS
14 25 (0.24%) AIX
15 24 (0.23%) Windows 7
16 22 (0.21%) Windows Server 2012
17 21 (0.20%) VMS
18 18 (0.17%) Rocky
19 13 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
20 11 (0.11%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,160 (20.69%) Agile
2 1,578 (15.11%) CI/CD
3 1,569 (15.03%) DevOps
4 1,551 (14.85%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,366 (13.08%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,141 (10.93%) Problem-Solving
7 1,064 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 929 (8.90%) Infrastructure as Code
9 853 (8.17%) Migration
10 823 (7.88%) Cybersecurity
11 738 (7.07%) ITIL
12 705 (6.75%) Roadmaps
13 688 (6.59%) Test Automation
14 686 (6.57%) AI
15 671 (6.43%) Technical Leadership
16 668 (6.40%) Containerisation
17 658 (6.30%) Decision-Making
18 632 (6.05%) Analytics
19 607 (5.81%) Software Engineering
20 581 (5.56%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 1,194 (11.44%) Python
2 975 (9.34%) SQL
3 634 (6.07%) Java
4 548 (5.25%) PowerShell
5 362 (3.47%) JavaScript
6 318 (3.05%) Bash
7 183 (1.75%) TypeScript
8 181 (1.73%) C#
9 122 (1.17%) Bicep
10 121 (1.16%) PL/SQL
11 70 (0.67%) Shell Script
12 58 (0.56%) C++
12 58 (0.56%) Groovy
13 48 (0.46%) Go
14 47 (0.45%) C
15 45 (0.43%) Kotlin
16 39 (0.37%) Scala
17 35 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 29 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
19 28 (0.27%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 7,824 (74.94%) SC Cleared
2 2,155 (20.64%) DV Cleared
3 499 (4.78%) BPSS Clearance
4 458 (4.39%) Degree
5 201 (1.93%) CISSP
6 172 (1.65%) Azure Certification
7 159 (1.52%) AWS Certification
8 149 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
8 149 (1.43%) Microsoft Certification
9 125 (1.20%) CISM
10 97 (0.93%) ISTQB
11 92 (0.88%) PMI Certification
12 83 (0.79%) PMP
13 75 (0.72%) CCNP
13 75 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
14 52 (0.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 49 (0.47%) CCNA
16 48 (0.46%) TOGAF Certification
17 43 (0.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 40 (0.38%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 485 (4.65%) QA
2 363 (3.48%) Data Quality
3 297 (2.84%) NIST
4 291 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 268 (2.57%) NCSC
6 251 (2.40%) Accessibility
7 213 (2.04%) PMO
8 163 (1.56%) GDPR
8 163 (1.56%) SLA
9 143 (1.37%) GRC
10 74 (0.71%) WCAG
11 47 (0.45%) JSP 440
12 42 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
13 39 (0.37%) Def Stans
14 37 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 35 (0.34%) NIST 800
16 31 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
17 23 (0.22%) ISO 9001
18 19 (0.18%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 18 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 702 (6.72%) Docker
2 577 (5.53%) Active Directory
3 400 (3.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 132 (1.26%) VMware ESXi
5 125 (1.20%) vSphere
6 123 (1.18%) VMware NSX
7 121 (1.16%) Hyper-V
8 84 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
9 45 (0.43%) Firmware
9 45 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
10 34 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
11 24 (0.23%) BitLocker
11 24 (0.23%) vCloud
12 20 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
13 14 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 13 (0.12%) NFS
15 11 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 10 (0.096%) KVM
17 9 (0.086%) Embedded Firmware
17 9 (0.086%) Squid
Systems Management
1 872 (8.35%) Kubernetes
2 412 (3.95%) Ansible
3 230 (2.20%) Grafana
4 166 (1.59%) Prometheus
5 139 (1.33%) SCCM
6 120 (1.15%) vCenter Server
7 102 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
8 91 (0.87%) SCOM
9 62 (0.59%) Argo
10 49 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
11 45 (0.43%) Kibana
12 40 (0.38%) Puppet
13 34 (0.33%) Data Guard
13 34 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
14 31 (0.30%) VxRail
15 29 (0.28%) Istio
16 28 (0.27%) Control-M
17 27 (0.26%) NetBackup
18 25 (0.24%) Progress Chef
19 24 (0.23%) Nagios
Vendors
1 1,435 (13.74%) Microsoft
2 807 (7.73%) Oracle
3 541 (5.18%) VMware
4 457 (4.38%) ServiceNow
5 407 (3.90%) SAP
6 252 (2.41%) Google
7 250 (2.39%) Cisco
8 190 (1.82%) Splunk
9 174 (1.67%) Databricks
10 114 (1.09%) Red Hat
11 111 (1.06%) Palo Alto
12 106 (1.02%) Salesforce
13 99 (0.95%) Informatica
14 95 (0.91%) Dynatrace
15 93 (0.89%) IBM
15 93 (0.89%) Remedy
16 86 (0.82%) Talend
17 84 (0.80%) CyberArk
18 71 (0.68%) Citrix
19 69 (0.66%) SolarWinds