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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 9,851 4,928 6,926
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.00% 18.11% 19.15%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.53% 58.61% 62.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,935 3,189 4,534
10th Percentile £380 £350 £350
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.40% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £719 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £531 £530 £550
% change year-on-year +0.21% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 749 423 527
10th Percentile £18.61 £18.50 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £57.44
Median % change year-on-year +152.49% -56.22% -4.27%
75th Percentile £80.00 £60.00 £71.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £82.17
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £25.15 £55.00
% change year-on-year +148.51% -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 14,167 8,408 11,082
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.63% 30.90% 30.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,562 5,303 6,947
10th Percentile £350 £288 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £717 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,053 605 942
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.25
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £54.00 £27.13 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +99.08% -36.92% -21.82%
75th Percentile £74.50 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.96 £76.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.74 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +101.76% -40.82% -24.47%

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 17 July 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 17 July 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 17 July 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 3,508 £538 +2.48% 535
South East +1 2,411 £550 - 539
South West 0 1,300 £538 -6.52% 356
North of England +2 1,075 £500 - 260
Midlands +3 961 £469 -6.20% 163
West Midlands +1 821 £469 -8.00% 118
North West 0 573 £525 - 157
East of England +2 323 £552 +5.14% 118
Yorkshire +2 297 £500 +1.63% 62
North East 0 234 £480 -4.00% 42
East Midlands -1 127 £418 -12.11% 45
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
1 356 (3.61%) Confluence
2 234 (2.38%) SharePoint
3 153 (1.55%) SAS
4 120 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 80 (0.81%) Apache Spark
7 77 (0.78%) Apache
8 43 (0.44%) nginx
9 33 (0.33%) Jupyter
10 30 (0.30%) WebLogic
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 18 (0.18%) Oracle Application Server
13 17 (0.17%) CMS
13 17 (0.17%) IIS
14 16 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
15 12 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
15 12 (0.12%) Skype for Business
15 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
16 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
17 9 (0.091%) Documentum
Applications
1 174 (1.77%) Microsoft Excel
2 127 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
3 85 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
4 71 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 40 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.14%) Simulink
8 12 (0.12%) AutoCAD
8 12 (0.12%) Revit
8 12 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
9 10 (0.10%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.061%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.061%) Sketch
11 5 (0.051%) Notepad++
12 4 (0.041%) Trello
13 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.020%) CATIA
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
14 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
14 2 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 112 (1.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 65 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
3 42 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 38 (0.39%) Teamcenter
5 29 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 27 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
7 26 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
8 23 (0.23%) SAP PSCD
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
9 15 (0.15%) Primavera
9 15 (0.15%) Temenos T24
10 12 (0.12%) iTrent
10 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
11 11 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
11 11 (0.11%) SAP ERP
12 10 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
12 10 (0.10%) Maximo
12 10 (0.10%) Oracle Payroll
12 10 (0.10%) SAP HR
13 9 (0.091%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,737 (17.63%) Azure
2 1,636 (16.61%) AWS
3 407 (4.13%) Azure DevOps
4 400 (4.06%) GitHub
4 400 (4.06%) Power Platform
5 349 (3.54%) GCP
6 261 (2.65%) Microsoft 365
7 255 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
8 248 (2.52%) Entra ID
9 240 (2.44%) Serverless
10 223 (2.26%) Amazon S3
11 168 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
12 152 (1.54%) Amazon EC2
13 142 (1.44%) OCI
14 140 (1.42%) OpenShift
15 138 (1.40%) SaaS
16 130 (1.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 122 (1.24%) PaaS
18 112 (1.14%) Amazon EKS
19 110 (1.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 420 (4.26%) Firewall
2 332 (3.37%) DNS
3 223 (2.26%) Network Security
4 211 (2.14%) WAN
5 185 (1.88%) LAN
6 176 (1.79%) VPN
7 169 (1.72%) DHCP
8 139 (1.41%) BGP
9 116 (1.18%) TCP/IP
10 114 (1.16%) OSPF
11 108 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
12 101 (1.03%) VLAN
13 82 (0.83%) Wireless
14 59 (0.60%) IPsec
14 59 (0.60%) MPLS
15 58 (0.59%) SD-WAN
16 56 (0.57%) SAN
17 54 (0.55%) VSAN
17 54 (0.55%) VXLAN
18 49 (0.50%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 299 (3.04%) Power BI
2 247 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
3 242 (2.46%) SQL Server
4 226 (2.29%) Data Warehouse
5 151 (1.53%) Oracle Database
6 126 (1.28%) Metadata
7 105 (1.07%) Relational Database
8 104 (1.06%) Data Lake
9 99 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
10 81 (0.82%) Pentaho
11 78 (0.79%) MySQL
11 78 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
12 75 (0.76%) MongoDB
13 71 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
14 63 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
15 61 (0.62%) NoSQL
16 58 (0.59%) Amazon Athena
17 57 (0.58%) Tableau
18 41 (0.42%) Big Data
19 38 (0.39%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 554 (5.62%) JIRA
2 451 (4.58%) Git
3 397 (4.03%) GitLab
4 372 (3.78%) Jenkins
5 101 (1.03%) Selenium
6 76 (0.77%) SonarQube
7 75 (0.76%) JUnit
8 64 (0.65%) Postman
9 57 (0.58%) Rational DOORS
10 52 (0.53%) JMeter
11 47 (0.48%) Maven
12 45 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 40 (0.41%) Mockito
14 38 (0.39%) Artifactory
14 38 (0.39%) REST Assured
15 37 (0.38%) Bitbucket
15 37 (0.38%) Visual Studio
15 37 (0.38%) Zephyr
16 33 (0.33%) Cypress.io
17 29 (0.29%) Gatling
General
1 2,076 (21.07%) Public Sector
2 2,017 (20.48%) Social Skills
3 735 (7.46%) Analytical Skills
4 678 (6.88%) Finance
5 329 (3.34%) Military
6 270 (2.74%) Aerospace
7 259 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
8 150 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
9 145 (1.47%) Legal
10 128 (1.30%) Telecoms
11 124 (1.26%) Banking
12 119 (1.21%) Organisational Skills
13 92 (0.93%) Law
14 80 (0.81%) Police
15 75 (0.76%) Manufacturing
16 69 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 69 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
17 43 (0.44%) Marketing
18 37 (0.38%) Aviation
19 36 (0.37%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,428 (14.50%) Architect
2 1,013 (10.28%) Developer
3 876 (8.89%) Senior
4 848 (8.61%) Lead
5 629 (6.39%) Analyst
6 464 (4.71%) Data Engineer
7 463 (4.70%) Consultant
8 402 (4.08%) DevOps Engineer
9 334 (3.39%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 295 (2.99%) Software Engineer
11 272 (2.76%) Technical Architect
12 240 (2.44%) Network Engineer
13 230 (2.33%) Solutions Architect
14 228 (2.31%) Security Architect
15 197 (2.00%) Java Developer
16 195 (1.98%) Business Analyst
17 193 (1.96%) Delivery Manager
18 188 (1.91%) Project Manager
19 185 (1.88%) Administrator
20 182 (1.85%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 339 (3.44%) REST
2 234 (2.38%) Spring
3 196 (1.99%) Spring Boot
4 176 (1.79%) .NET
5 170 (1.73%) React
6 166 (1.69%) Kafka
7 163 (1.65%) RESTful
8 147 (1.49%) Node.js
9 140 (1.42%) SOAP
10 118 (1.20%) JSON
11 115 (1.17%) AngularJS
12 100 (1.02%) OAuth
13 94 (0.95%) Web Services
14 93 (0.94%) LDAP
15 91 (0.92%) HTML
16 86 (0.87%) PySpark
17 78 (0.79%) OpenID
18 76 (0.77%) XML
19 69 (0.70%) Elastic Stack
20 68 (0.69%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 399 (4.05%) Cloud Native
2 336 (3.41%) Onboarding
3 323 (3.28%) Product Ownership
4 279 (2.83%) Data Centre
5 172 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
6 143 (1.45%) Management Information System
7 140 (1.42%) Distributed Systems
7 140 (1.42%) PKI
8 113 (1.15%) Replication
8 113 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
9 108 (1.10%) CMDB
10 95 (0.96%) Data Structures
10 95 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
11 94 (0.95%) Clustering
12 90 (0.91%) Hybrid Cloud
13 87 (0.88%) Security Posture
14 82 (0.83%) Public Cloud
15 75 (0.76%) Virtual Team
16 74 (0.75%) Security Operations Centre
17 71 (0.72%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 809 (8.21%) Windows
2 676 (6.86%) Linux
3 263 (2.67%) Windows Server
4 195 (1.98%) Unix
5 135 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 88 (0.89%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.80%) Android
8 57 (0.58%) Solaris
9 46 (0.47%) Apple iOS
10 44 (0.45%) Mac OS
11 32 (0.32%) AIX
12 30 (0.30%) Ubuntu
13 29 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
14 27 (0.27%) CentOS
15 16 (0.16%) VMS
15 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
16 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
17 10 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
18 9 (0.091%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,035 (20.66%) Agile
2 1,520 (15.43%) DevOps
3 1,385 (14.06%) CI/CD
4 1,064 (10.80%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,056 (10.72%) Problem-Solving
6 1,047 (10.63%) Continuous Improvement
7 861 (8.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 770 (7.82%) Migration
9 751 (7.62%) Infrastructure as Code
10 679 (6.89%) ITIL
11 672 (6.82%) Cybersecurity
12 587 (5.96%) Test Automation
13 586 (5.95%) Analytics
14 582 (5.91%) Software Engineering
15 576 (5.85%) Containerisation
16 567 (5.76%) Roadmaps
17 527 (5.35%) Data Modelling
18 522 (5.30%) Decision-Making
19 512 (5.20%) AI
20 480 (4.87%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 1,050 (10.66%) Python
2 944 (9.58%) SQL
3 663 (6.73%) Java
4 468 (4.75%) PowerShell
5 296 (3.00%) JavaScript
6 238 (2.42%) Bash
7 204 (2.07%) C#
8 143 (1.45%) TypeScript
9 140 (1.42%) PL/SQL
10 84 (0.85%) Shell Script
11 81 (0.82%) C++
12 71 (0.72%) Bicep
13 65 (0.66%) C
14 52 (0.53%) Go
15 42 (0.43%) Kotlin
16 41 (0.42%) Scala
17 40 (0.41%) Apex Code
18 39 (0.40%) Ada
19 38 (0.39%) Ruby
20 35 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 7,390 (75.02%) SC Cleared
2 2,000 (20.30%) DV Cleared
3 396 (4.02%) Degree
4 329 (3.34%) BPSS Clearance
5 182 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
6 162 (1.64%) CISSP
7 142 (1.44%) Azure Certification
8 122 (1.24%) Microsoft Certification
9 117 (1.19%) AWS Certification
10 92 (0.93%) CISM
10 92 (0.93%) PMI Certification
11 90 (0.91%) CCNP
12 89 (0.90%) PMP
13 76 (0.77%) CCNA
14 68 (0.69%) ISTQB
15 62 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 57 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
17 49 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
18 44 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
19 36 (0.37%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 379 (3.85%) QA
2 301 (3.06%) Data Quality
3 283 (2.87%) NIST
4 274 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 216 (2.19%) NCSC
6 203 (2.06%) Accessibility
7 189 (1.92%) PMO
8 158 (1.60%) GDPR
9 100 (1.02%) GRC
10 99 (1.00%) SLA
11 55 (0.56%) JSP 440
12 54 (0.55%) WCAG
13 46 (0.47%) NIST 800
14 43 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
15 32 (0.32%) Def Stans
16 24 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 23 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
18 22 (0.22%) RMADS
19 21 (0.21%) COBIT
20 20 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 642 (6.52%) Docker
2 450 (4.57%) Active Directory
3 336 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 133 (1.35%) VMware NSX
5 130 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
6 100 (1.02%) vSphere
7 86 (0.87%) Hyper-V
8 78 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
9 43 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
10 34 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
11 30 (0.30%) Firmware
12 21 (0.21%) vCloud
13 20 (0.20%) NFS
14 19 (0.19%) BitLocker
15 18 (0.18%) Postfix
15 18 (0.18%) Squid
16 8 (0.081%) Microsoft App-V
16 8 (0.081%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 7 (0.071%) KVM
17 7 (0.071%) UAG
Systems Management
1 819 (8.31%) Terraform
2 779 (7.91%) Kubernetes
3 364 (3.70%) Ansible
4 236 (2.40%) Grafana
5 184 (1.87%) Prometheus
6 128 (1.30%) vCenter Server
7 82 (0.83%) SCCM
8 64 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
9 62 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
10 60 (0.61%) Argo
11 55 (0.56%) SCOM
12 48 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
13 47 (0.48%) FortiGate
14 45 (0.46%) Puppet
15 42 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 31 (0.31%) Data Guard
17 29 (0.29%) Progress Chef
18 28 (0.28%) Nagios
19 25 (0.25%) Podman
20 23 (0.23%) WSUS
Vendors
1 1,132 (11.49%) Microsoft
2 734 (7.45%) Oracle
3 499 (5.07%) VMware
4 473 (4.80%) ServiceNow
5 336 (3.41%) SAP
6 295 (2.99%) Cisco
7 199 (2.02%) Splunk
8 178 (1.81%) Google
9 168 (1.71%) Databricks
10 139 (1.41%) Red Hat
11 131 (1.33%) Salesforce
12 122 (1.24%) Talend
13 112 (1.14%) IBM
14 111 (1.13%) Informatica
15 105 (1.07%) Palo Alto
16 100 (1.02%) Juniper
17 91 (0.92%) SolarWinds
18 88 (0.89%) F5
19 82 (0.83%) Citrix
20 81 (0.82%) Fortinet