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

6 months to
18 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 10,059 5,100 6,378
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.99% 18.47% 19.25%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.35% 58.67% 63.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,104 3,262 4,251
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 £538 £534 £550
% change year-on-year +0.70% -2.95% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 769 485 435
10th Percentile £19.78 £18.51 £15.15
25th Percentile £28.69 £18.87 £23.29
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £59.50
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -57.73% -0.83%
75th Percentile £82.12 £54.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £64.09 £25.15 £56.69
% change year-on-year +154.83% -55.64% -5.51%

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 14,505 8,692 10,104
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.71% 31.48% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,788 5,433 6,445
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £433 £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 1,131 676 728
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.03
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 £67.56
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.65
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 18 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 18 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 18 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 3,541 £550 +3.77% 523
South East +1 2,444 £560 +4.19% 516
South West 0 1,361 £540 -6.09% 387
North of England +3 1,172 £510 +2.00% 282
Midlands 0 945 £469 -8.93% 150
West Midlands +1 817 £469 -8.93% 107
North West +3 656 £525 -0.94% 171
East of England 0 339 £550 - 142
Yorkshire 0 301 £492 - 50
North East 0 239 £475 -3.80% 64
East Midlands -2 117 £450 -5.26% 42
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
1 346 (3.44%) Confluence
2 258 (2.56%) SharePoint
3 169 (1.68%) SAS
4 112 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
5 85 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 80 (0.80%) Apache Spark
7 77 (0.77%) Apache
8 33 (0.33%) nginx
9 29 (0.29%) Jupyter
10 24 (0.24%) WebLogic
11 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
12 20 (0.20%) Skype for Business
12 20 (0.20%) Tomcat
13 17 (0.17%) CMS
13 17 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
14 16 (0.16%) IIS
15 14 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
16 13 (0.13%) JBoss
17 11 (0.11%) Tuxedo
18 10 (0.099%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 188 (1.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 137 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
3 98 (0.97%) Microsoft Project
4 84 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 31 (0.31%) MS Visio
6 26 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.16%) AutoCAD
7 16 (0.16%) Revit
8 15 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
9 13 (0.13%) Simulink
10 8 (0.080%) Chatbot
11 7 (0.070%) Windchill
12 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
12 6 (0.060%) Sketch
13 5 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
14 3 (0.030%) Trello
15 2 (0.020%) Houdini
15 2 (0.020%) InDesign
15 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 119 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 80 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
3 48 (0.48%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 31 (0.31%) Teamcenter
7 27 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
8 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
9 20 (0.20%) Oracle Payroll
10 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 16 (0.16%) Primavera
11 15 (0.15%) Findur
12 14 (0.14%) SAP HR
13 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
14 12 (0.12%) iTrent
14 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
15 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
15 11 (0.11%) SAP ERP
15 11 (0.11%) SAP FI
16 10 (0.099%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,851 (18.40%) Azure
2 1,662 (16.52%) AWS
3 460 (4.57%) Azure DevOps
4 437 (4.34%) Power Platform
5 427 (4.24%) GitHub
6 384 (3.82%) GCP
7 282 (2.80%) Microsoft 365
8 279 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
9 261 (2.59%) Entra ID
10 243 (2.42%) Serverless
11 201 (2.00%) Amazon S3
12 166 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
13 161 (1.60%) OCI
14 152 (1.51%) SaaS
15 136 (1.35%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 136 (1.35%) OpenShift
16 126 (1.25%) Amazon EC2
17 123 (1.22%) PaaS
18 117 (1.16%) Amazon EKS
19 106 (1.05%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 422 (4.20%) Firewall
2 344 (3.42%) DNS
3 200 (1.99%) Network Security
3 200 (1.99%) WAN
4 178 (1.77%) VPN
5 175 (1.74%) DHCP
6 171 (1.70%) LAN
7 131 (1.30%) TCP/IP
8 125 (1.24%) BGP
9 120 (1.19%) Wi-Fi
10 99 (0.98%) VLAN
11 92 (0.91%) OSPF
12 80 (0.80%) Wireless
13 67 (0.67%) VSAN
14 61 (0.61%) IPsec
15 57 (0.57%) MPLS
16 55 (0.55%) SD-WAN
16 55 (0.55%) SSL
17 51 (0.51%) SAN
18 44 (0.44%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 318 (3.16%) Power BI
2 267 (2.65%) SQL Server
3 249 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
4 247 (2.46%) Data Warehouse
5 148 (1.47%) Oracle Database
6 135 (1.34%) Metadata
7 115 (1.14%) Data Lake
8 107 (1.06%) Relational Database
9 101 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
10 91 (0.90%) MySQL
10 91 (0.90%) Oracle Reports
11 89 (0.88%) Pentaho
12 81 (0.81%) NoSQL
13 80 (0.80%) MongoDB
14 59 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
15 57 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
15 57 (0.57%) Tableau
16 47 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
17 45 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
18 43 (0.43%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 557 (5.54%) JIRA
2 490 (4.87%) Git
3 416 (4.14%) GitLab
4 407 (4.05%) Jenkins
5 108 (1.07%) Selenium
6 74 (0.74%) SonarQube
7 73 (0.73%) Postman
8 70 (0.70%) JUnit
9 60 (0.60%) Rational DOORS
10 58 (0.58%) JMeter
11 55 (0.55%) Maven
12 46 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 45 (0.45%) Zephyr
14 43 (0.43%) Visual Studio
15 41 (0.41%) Mockito
16 37 (0.37%) Bitbucket
17 34 (0.34%) Artifactory
18 33 (0.33%) Cypress.io
18 33 (0.33%) Gatling
18 33 (0.33%) Gradle
General
1 2,129 (21.17%) Social Skills
2 2,034 (20.22%) Public Sector
3 785 (7.80%) Analytical Skills
4 705 (7.01%) Finance
5 329 (3.27%) Military
6 306 (3.04%) Aerospace
7 242 (2.41%) Documentation Skills
8 166 (1.65%) Influencing Skills
9 144 (1.43%) Organisational Skills
10 139 (1.38%) Telecoms
11 135 (1.34%) Banking
11 135 (1.34%) Legal
12 104 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 104 (1.03%) Law
13 95 (0.94%) Manufacturing
14 89 (0.88%) Police
15 65 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
16 44 (0.44%) Marketing
17 42 (0.42%) Retail
18 34 (0.34%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 1,505 (14.96%) Architect
2 1,036 (10.30%) Developer
3 946 (9.40%) Senior
4 913 (9.08%) Lead
5 567 (5.64%) Analyst
6 545 (5.42%) Consultant
7 471 (4.68%) Data Engineer
8 384 (3.82%) DevOps Engineer
9 380 (3.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 285 (2.83%) Software Engineer
11 266 (2.64%) Technical Architect
12 245 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
13 235 (2.34%) Network Engineer
14 228 (2.27%) Security Architect
15 220 (2.19%) Data Architect
16 199 (1.98%) Administrator
16 199 (1.98%) Delivery Manager
17 191 (1.90%) Java Developer
18 186 (1.85%) Project Manager
19 182 (1.81%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 378 (3.76%) REST
2 205 (2.04%) Spring
3 203 (2.02%) .NET
4 183 (1.82%) Kafka
5 175 (1.74%) Spring Boot
6 172 (1.71%) RESTful
7 167 (1.66%) React
8 153 (1.52%) SOAP
9 136 (1.35%) Node.js
10 125 (1.24%) JSON
11 119 (1.18%) AngularJS
12 114 (1.13%) Web Services
13 107 (1.06%) HTML
13 107 (1.06%) OAuth
14 92 (0.91%) XML
15 82 (0.82%) PySpark
16 79 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
17 76 (0.76%) CSS
18 71 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
19 70 (0.70%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 427 (4.24%) Cloud Native
2 361 (3.59%) Onboarding
3 328 (3.26%) Product Ownership
4 260 (2.58%) Data Centre
5 168 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
6 156 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 147 (1.46%) PKI
8 136 (1.35%) Distributed Systems
9 125 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
10 124 (1.23%) CMDB
11 118 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
12 108 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
13 106 (1.05%) Replication
14 99 (0.98%) Data Structures
15 92 (0.91%) Clustering
16 89 (0.88%) Security Operations Centre
17 86 (0.85%) Cyber Threat
18 82 (0.82%) Public Cloud
19 75 (0.75%) Operational Technology
20 74 (0.74%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 874 (8.69%) Windows
2 711 (7.07%) Linux
3 315 (3.13%) Windows Server
4 206 (2.05%) Unix
5 140 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 119 (1.18%) Windows 10
7 75 (0.75%) Android
8 62 (0.62%) Solaris
9 45 (0.45%) Mac OS
10 37 (0.37%) CentOS
10 37 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
11 36 (0.36%) Apple iOS
12 35 (0.35%) Ubuntu
13 32 (0.32%) AIX
14 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
15 18 (0.18%) VMS
15 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
16 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2012
17 14 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
17 14 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,126 (21.14%) Agile
2 1,562 (15.53%) DevOps
3 1,462 (14.53%) CI/CD
4 1,225 (12.18%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,157 (11.50%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,047 (10.41%) Problem-Solving
7 961 (9.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 825 (8.20%) Infrastructure as Code
9 821 (8.16%) Migration
10 717 (7.13%) Cybersecurity
11 701 (6.97%) ITIL
12 649 (6.45%) Analytics
12 649 (6.45%) Test Automation
13 614 (6.10%) Roadmaps
14 605 (6.01%) Containerisation
15 596 (5.93%) Software Engineering
16 574 (5.71%) AI
17 563 (5.60%) Technical Leadership
18 552 (5.49%) Data Modelling
19 541 (5.38%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 1,106 (11.00%) Python
2 996 (9.90%) SQL
3 662 (6.58%) Java
4 520 (5.17%) PowerShell
5 347 (3.45%) JavaScript
6 276 (2.74%) Bash
7 229 (2.28%) C#
8 149 (1.48%) TypeScript
9 141 (1.40%) PL/SQL
10 99 (0.98%) Bicep
11 85 (0.85%) C++
12 73 (0.73%) Shell Script
13 65 (0.65%) C
14 45 (0.45%) Go
15 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
16 43 (0.43%) Groovy
17 39 (0.39%) Scala
18 35 (0.35%) Apex Code
18 35 (0.35%) Ruby
19 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,559 (75.15%) SC Cleared
2 2,034 (20.22%) DV Cleared
3 425 (4.23%) Degree
4 369 (3.67%) BPSS Clearance
5 183 (1.82%) CISSP
6 158 (1.57%) Cisco Certification
7 155 (1.54%) Azure Certification
8 146 (1.45%) Microsoft Certification
9 120 (1.19%) AWS Certification
10 115 (1.14%) CISM
11 102 (1.01%) PMI Certification
12 100 (0.99%) PMP
13 88 (0.87%) ISTQB
14 71 (0.71%) CCNP
15 67 (0.67%) CCNA
16 63 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 60 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
18 42 (0.42%) TOGAF Certification
19 41 (0.41%) ITIL Certification
20 38 (0.38%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 423 (4.21%) QA
2 317 (3.15%) Data Quality
3 270 (2.68%) NIST
4 266 (2.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 234 (2.33%) NCSC
6 218 (2.17%) Accessibility
7 217 (2.16%) PMO
8 152 (1.51%) GDPR
9 125 (1.24%) GRC
10 120 (1.19%) SLA
11 65 (0.65%) WCAG
12 62 (0.62%) JSP 440
13 45 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
14 40 (0.40%) NIST 800
15 32 (0.32%) 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
1 664 (6.60%) Docker
2 504 (5.01%) Active Directory
3 374 (3.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 143 (1.42%) VMware NSX
5 133 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
6 115 (1.14%) vSphere
7 105 (1.04%) Hyper-V
8 77 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
9 43 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
10 42 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
11 31 (0.31%) Firmware
12 26 (0.26%) BitLocker
13 25 (0.25%) vCloud
14 15 (0.15%) Postfix
15 11 (0.11%) NFS
15 11 (0.11%) Squid
16 10 (0.099%) Virtual Servers
17 8 (0.080%) KVM
18 7 (0.070%) Embedded Firmware
18 7 (0.070%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 860 (8.55%) Terraform
2 809 (8.04%) Kubernetes
3 400 (3.98%) Ansible
4 228 (2.27%) Grafana
5 174 (1.73%) Prometheus
6 131 (1.30%) vCenter Server
7 118 (1.17%) SCCM
8 86 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
9 72 (0.72%) SCOM
10 61 (0.61%) Argo
11 52 (0.52%) Oracle RMAN
11 52 (0.52%) Puppet
12 49 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
13 36 (0.36%) Data Guard
14 33 (0.33%) Progress Chef
15 28 (0.28%) FortiGate
15 28 (0.28%) WSUS
16 27 (0.27%) Nagios
17 26 (0.26%) Control-M
18 25 (0.25%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,290 (12.82%) Microsoft
2 813 (8.08%) Oracle
3 545 (5.42%) VMware
4 473 (4.70%) ServiceNow
5 383 (3.81%) SAP
6 275 (2.73%) Cisco
7 214 (2.13%) Google
8 181 (1.80%) Splunk
9 177 (1.76%) Databricks
10 134 (1.33%) Red Hat
11 128 (1.27%) Salesforce
12 121 (1.20%) IBM
13 115 (1.14%) Talend
14 106 (1.05%) Informatica
15 105 (1.04%) Palo Alto
16 88 (0.87%) Remedy
17 82 (0.82%) Dynatrace
18 81 (0.81%) Juniper
19 77 (0.77%) Citrix
20 76 (0.76%) F5