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

6 months to
16 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 10,095 5,135 6,393
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.01% 18.48% 19.26%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.35% 58.73% 63.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,123 3,286 4,268
10th Percentile £381 £350 £358
25th Percentile £455 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £537 £534 £550
% change year-on-year +0.61% -2.95% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 769 486 448
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.51 £15.42
25th Percentile £28.00 £18.87 £24.11
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £58.43
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -56.96% -2.61%
75th Percentile £82.12 £54.94 £72.01
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.39 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £64.09 £25.15 £55.80
% change year-on-year +154.83% -54.93% -7.00%

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 14,556 8,744 10,132
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.74% 31.46% 30.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,821 5,471 6,463
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 £526
% change year-on-year - -0.24% -4.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,125 677 751
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.32 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £51.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +102.78% -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 16 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 16 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 16 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 3,560 £550 +3.77% 886
South East +1 2,463 £560 +4.19% 671
South West 0 1,362 £538 -6.48% 510
North of England +2 1,150 £510 +2.00% 369
Midlands 0 963 £469 -8.93% 179
West Midlands +1 835 £469 -8.93% 135
North West +2 633 £525 -0.94% 236
East of England 0 331 £550 - 177
Yorkshire +2 302 £492 - 61
North East 0 239 £475 -3.80% 75
East Midlands -2 116 £444 -8.92% 43
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
1 354 (3.51%) Confluence
2 257 (2.55%) SharePoint
3 173 (1.71%) SAS
4 112 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
5 87 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
6 82 (0.81%) Apache Spark
7 78 (0.77%) Apache
8 32 (0.32%) nginx
9 29 (0.29%) Jupyter
10 28 (0.28%) WebLogic
11 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
12 20 (0.20%) Skype for Business
13 19 (0.19%) Tomcat
14 17 (0.17%) CMS
14 17 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
15 16 (0.16%) IIS
16 14 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
17 12 (0.12%) JBoss
18 11 (0.11%) Tuxedo
19 10 (0.099%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 189 (1.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 137 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
3 95 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
4 84 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 33 (0.33%) 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 9 (0.089%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.059%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.059%) Sketch
11 6 (0.059%) Windchill
12 5 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
13 3 (0.030%) Trello
14 2 (0.020%) Lectora
14 2 (0.020%) NUKE
14 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 121 (1.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 80 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
3 46 (0.46%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 32 (0.32%) Teamcenter
6 26 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
7 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
8 19 (0.19%) Oracle Payroll
9 16 (0.16%) Primavera
10 15 (0.15%) Findur
10 15 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
11 13 (0.13%) SAP HR
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 FI
14 10 (0.099%) Salesforce CRM
14 10 (0.099%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,851 (18.34%) Azure
2 1,686 (16.70%) AWS
3 456 (4.52%) Azure DevOps
4 439 (4.35%) Power Platform
5 433 (4.29%) GitHub
6 385 (3.81%) GCP
7 281 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
7 281 (2.78%) Microsoft 365
8 258 (2.56%) Entra ID
9 247 (2.45%) Serverless
10 207 (2.05%) Amazon S3
11 169 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
12 159 (1.58%) OCI
13 152 (1.51%) SaaS
14 140 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 137 (1.36%) OpenShift
16 131 (1.30%) Amazon EC2
17 123 (1.22%) PaaS
18 119 (1.18%) Amazon EKS
19 107 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 430 (4.26%) Firewall
2 352 (3.49%) DNS
3 212 (2.10%) WAN
4 201 (1.99%) Network Security
5 183 (1.81%) LAN
6 182 (1.80%) DHCP
7 177 (1.75%) VPN
8 138 (1.37%) BGP
9 131 (1.30%) TCP/IP
10 120 (1.19%) Wi-Fi
11 105 (1.04%) OSPF
12 100 (0.99%) VLAN
13 79 (0.78%) Wireless
14 67 (0.66%) VSAN
15 61 (0.60%) IPsec
16 57 (0.56%) MPLS
17 56 (0.55%) SD-WAN
18 54 (0.53%) SSL
18 54 (0.53%) VXLAN
19 51 (0.51%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 320 (3.17%) Power BI
2 264 (2.62%) SQL Server
3 254 (2.52%) PostgreSQL
4 251 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
5 145 (1.44%) Oracle Database
6 135 (1.34%) Metadata
7 113 (1.12%) Data Lake
8 107 (1.06%) Relational Database
9 103 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
10 92 (0.91%) Pentaho
11 91 (0.90%) Oracle Reports
12 90 (0.89%) MySQL
13 83 (0.82%) MongoDB
14 79 (0.78%) NoSQL
15 59 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
15 59 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
16 58 (0.57%) Tableau
17 49 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
18 45 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
19 43 (0.43%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 564 (5.59%) JIRA
2 492 (4.87%) Git
3 415 (4.11%) GitLab
4 407 (4.03%) Jenkins
5 109 (1.08%) Selenium
6 75 (0.74%) SonarQube
7 73 (0.72%) Postman
8 70 (0.69%) JUnit
9 60 (0.59%) JMeter
10 59 (0.58%) Rational DOORS
11 55 (0.54%) Maven
12 49 (0.49%) Cucumber
13 45 (0.45%) Zephyr
14 43 (0.43%) Visual Studio
15 40 (0.40%) Mockito
16 38 (0.38%) Bitbucket
17 34 (0.34%) Cypress.io
18 33 (0.33%) Artifactory
18 33 (0.33%) Gatling
18 33 (0.33%) Gradle
General
1 2,139 (21.19%) Social Skills
2 2,059 (20.40%) Public Sector
3 793 (7.86%) Analytical Skills
4 700 (6.93%) Finance
5 333 (3.30%) Military
6 300 (2.97%) Aerospace
7 245 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
8 165 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
9 142 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
10 140 (1.39%) Telecoms
11 135 (1.34%) Legal
12 134 (1.33%) Banking
13 103 (1.02%) Law
14 102 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 91 (0.90%) Manufacturing
15 91 (0.90%) Police
16 65 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
17 44 (0.44%) Marketing
18 41 (0.41%) Retail
19 35 (0.35%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 1,504 (14.90%) Architect
2 1,040 (10.30%) Developer
3 946 (9.37%) Senior
4 914 (9.05%) Lead
5 583 (5.78%) Analyst
6 537 (5.32%) Consultant
7 480 (4.75%) Data Engineer
8 389 (3.85%) DevOps Engineer
9 377 (3.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 290 (2.87%) Software Engineer
11 265 (2.63%) Technical Architect
12 245 (2.43%) Solutions Architect
13 241 (2.39%) Network Engineer
14 230 (2.28%) Security Architect
15 217 (2.15%) Data Architect
16 200 (1.98%) Delivery Manager
17 198 (1.96%) Administrator
18 194 (1.92%) Java Developer
19 185 (1.83%) Project Manager
20 184 (1.82%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 375 (3.71%) REST
2 216 (2.14%) Spring
3 199 (1.97%) .NET
4 186 (1.84%) Kafka
5 182 (1.80%) Spring Boot
6 171 (1.69%) RESTful
7 170 (1.68%) React
8 153 (1.52%) SOAP
9 139 (1.38%) Node.js
10 126 (1.25%) JSON
11 121 (1.20%) AngularJS
12 112 (1.11%) Web Services
13 107 (1.06%) HTML
14 105 (1.04%) OAuth
15 91 (0.90%) XML
16 83 (0.82%) PySpark
17 76 (0.75%) CSS
18 75 (0.74%) Oracle Fusion
19 70 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
20 68 (0.67%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 428 (4.24%) Cloud Native
2 362 (3.59%) Onboarding
3 330 (3.27%) Product Ownership
4 270 (2.67%) Data Centre
5 170 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
6 155 (1.54%) Management Information System
7 153 (1.52%) PKI
8 140 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
9 124 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
10 121 (1.20%) CMDB
11 116 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
12 107 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
13 103 (1.02%) Replication
14 102 (1.01%) Clustering
15 100 (0.99%) Data Structures
16 90 (0.89%) Security Operations Centre
17 85 (0.84%) Cyber Threat
18 83 (0.82%) Public Cloud
19 76 (0.75%) Operational Technology
20 74 (0.73%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 877 (8.69%) Windows
2 710 (7.03%) Linux
3 304 (3.01%) Windows Server
4 204 (2.02%) Unix
5 138 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 114 (1.13%) Windows 10
7 78 (0.77%) Android
8 62 (0.61%) Solaris
9 45 (0.45%) Mac OS
10 39 (0.39%) Apple iOS
11 36 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.34%) CentOS
13 33 (0.33%) AIX
14 32 (0.32%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
16 18 (0.18%) VMS
17 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
18 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
19 14 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
20 13 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,143 (21.23%) Agile
2 1,564 (15.49%) DevOps
3 1,467 (14.53%) CI/CD
4 1,224 (12.12%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,154 (11.43%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,065 (10.55%) Problem-Solving
7 961 (9.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 827 (8.19%) Migration
9 823 (8.15%) Infrastructure as Code
10 711 (7.04%) Cybersecurity
11 701 (6.94%) ITIL
12 650 (6.44%) Test Automation
13 647 (6.41%) Analytics
14 613 (6.07%) Roadmaps
15 606 (6.00%) Containerisation
16 603 (5.97%) Software Engineering
17 581 (5.76%) AI
18 562 (5.57%) Technical Leadership
19 561 (5.56%) Data Modelling
20 541 (5.36%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 1,120 (11.09%) Python
2 1,010 (10.00%) SQL
3 675 (6.69%) Java
4 519 (5.14%) PowerShell
5 349 (3.46%) JavaScript
6 280 (2.77%) Bash
7 225 (2.23%) C#
8 150 (1.49%) TypeScript
9 148 (1.47%) PL/SQL
10 97 (0.96%) Bicep
11 85 (0.84%) C++
12 74 (0.73%) Shell Script
13 66 (0.65%) C
14 46 (0.46%) Go
15 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
16 43 (0.43%) Groovy
17 41 (0.41%) Scala
18 35 (0.35%) Apex Code
18 35 (0.35%) Ruby
19 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,578 (75.07%) SC Cleared
2 2,047 (20.28%) DV Cleared
3 424 (4.20%) Degree
4 364 (3.61%) BPSS Clearance
5 184 (1.82%) CISSP
6 167 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
7 154 (1.53%) Azure Certification
8 145 (1.44%) Microsoft Certification
9 121 (1.20%) AWS Certification
10 117 (1.16%) CISM
11 101 (1.00%) PMI Certification
12 99 (0.98%) PMP
13 85 (0.84%) ISTQB
14 72 (0.71%) CCNP
15 67 (0.66%) CCNA
16 63 (0.62%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 60 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
18 42 (0.42%) TOGAF Certification
19 41 (0.41%) ITIL Certification
20 38 (0.38%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 421 (4.17%) QA
2 322 (3.19%) Data Quality
3 271 (2.68%) NIST
4 264 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 229 (2.27%) NCSC
6 219 (2.17%) Accessibility
7 214 (2.12%) PMO
8 152 (1.51%) GDPR
9 118 (1.17%) GRC
10 116 (1.15%) SLA
11 65 (0.64%) WCAG
12 62 (0.61%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 43 (0.43%) NIST 800
15 33 (0.33%) Def Stans
16 29 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 27 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
18 25 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 19 (0.19%) RMADS
20 18 (0.18%) COBIT
System Software
1 670 (6.64%) Docker
2 492 (4.87%) Active Directory
3 366 (3.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 144 (1.43%) VMware NSX
5 131 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
6 113 (1.12%) vSphere
7 97 (0.96%) Hyper-V
8 77 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
9 42 (0.42%) Oracle RAC
9 42 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
10 31 (0.31%) Firmware
11 26 (0.26%) BitLocker
12 25 (0.25%) vCloud
13 15 (0.15%) Postfix
14 11 (0.11%) NFS
14 11 (0.11%) Squid
15 9 (0.089%) Virtual Servers
16 8 (0.079%) KVM
17 7 (0.069%) Embedded Firmware
17 7 (0.069%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 866 (8.58%) Terraform
2 813 (8.05%) Kubernetes
3 399 (3.95%) Ansible
4 231 (2.29%) Grafana
5 178 (1.76%) Prometheus
6 131 (1.30%) vCenter Server
7 116 (1.15%) SCCM
8 85 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
9 71 (0.70%) SCOM
10 62 (0.61%) Argo
11 51 (0.51%) Oracle RMAN
12 50 (0.50%) Puppet
13 49 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
14 39 (0.39%) FortiGate
15 36 (0.36%) Data Guard
16 32 (0.32%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
17 28 (0.28%) WSUS
18 26 (0.26%) Control-M
19 25 (0.25%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,281 (12.69%) Microsoft
2 806 (7.98%) Oracle
3 537 (5.32%) VMware
4 486 (4.81%) ServiceNow
5 379 (3.75%) SAP
6 283 (2.80%) Cisco
7 213 (2.11%) Google
8 193 (1.91%) Splunk
9 182 (1.80%) Databricks
10 134 (1.33%) Red Hat
11 129 (1.28%) Salesforce
12 120 (1.19%) IBM
13 118 (1.17%) Talend
14 110 (1.09%) Informatica
15 103 (1.02%) Palo Alto
16 92 (0.91%) Juniper
17 90 (0.89%) Remedy
18 85 (0.84%) F5
18 85 (0.84%) SolarWinds
19 83 (0.82%) Dynatrace