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

6 months to
27 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 9,918 4,993 6,610
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.04% 18.09% 19.24%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.63% 58.49% 62.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,962 3,230 4,403
10th Percentile £380 £338 £353
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.47% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £630 £625 £646
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £535 £530 £550
% change year-on-year +0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 763 446 483
10th Percentile £18.79 £18.51 £15.28
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year +152.49% -55.79% -5.19%
75th Percentile £80.03 £57.44 £71.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.39 £80.00
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 14,243 8,536 10,508
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.65% 30.92% 30.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,596 5,387 6,690
10th Percentile £350 £285 £325
25th Percentile £430 £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 £719 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £522 £525
% change year-on-year +0.62% -0.62% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,074 632 821
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.75 £66.74
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.20 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -23.82%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 3,518 £545 +3.81% 592
South East +1 2,453 £550 +1.22% 490
South West 0 1,300 £538 -6.52% 334
North of England +2 1,099 £500 - 289
Midlands +3 971 £469 -6.20% 163
West Midlands +1 830 £469 -6.20% 117
North West -1 586 £525 -0.38% 165
East of England +2 315 £575 +9.52% 124
Yorkshire +1 303 £500 +1.63% 61
North East 0 237 £475 -5.00% 64
East Midlands 0 129 £421 -9.05% 46
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
1 358 (3.61%) Confluence
2 246 (2.48%) SharePoint
3 165 (1.66%) SAS
4 115 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
5 88 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 84 (0.85%) Apache Spark
7 80 (0.81%) Apache
8 37 (0.37%) nginx
9 35 (0.35%) WebLogic
10 32 (0.32%) Jupyter
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 18 (0.18%) Oracle Application Server
13 16 (0.16%) CMS
13 16 (0.16%) IIS
13 16 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 15 (0.15%) Palantir Foundry
15 13 (0.13%) Skype for Business
16 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
17 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
18 9 (0.091%) Documentum
Applications
1 189 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 125 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
3 96 (0.97%) Microsoft Project
4 74 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 39 (0.39%) MS Visio
6 23 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.13%) AutoCAD
7 13 (0.13%) Revit
7 13 (0.13%) Simulink
7 13 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
8 9 (0.091%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.060%) Sketch
10 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
11 4 (0.040%) Trello
12 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.020%) Lectora
13 2 (0.020%) NUKE
13 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.020%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 121 (1.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 68 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
3 43 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 36 (0.36%) Teamcenter
5 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
6 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 23 (0.23%) SAP PSCD
8 21 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
9 16 (0.16%) Primavera
10 15 (0.15%) Findur
11 13 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
11 13 (0.13%) Oracle Payroll
11 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
12 12 (0.12%) iTrent
12 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 10 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
13 10 (0.10%) NetSuite
13 10 (0.10%) SAP HR
14 9 (0.091%) Salesforce CRM
14 9 (0.091%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,766 (17.81%) Azure
2 1,650 (16.64%) AWS
3 421 (4.24%) Power Platform
4 418 (4.21%) Azure DevOps
5 405 (4.08%) GitHub
6 359 (3.62%) GCP
7 272 (2.74%) Microsoft 365
8 254 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
9 244 (2.46%) Entra ID
10 239 (2.41%) Serverless
11 220 (2.22%) Amazon S3
12 167 (1.68%) AWS Lambda
13 150 (1.51%) OCI
14 145 (1.46%) Amazon EC2
15 141 (1.42%) SaaS
16 138 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 132 (1.33%) OpenShift
18 128 (1.29%) PaaS
19 118 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
20 112 (1.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 421 (4.24%) Firewall
2 322 (3.25%) DNS
3 214 (2.16%) Network Security
4 209 (2.11%) WAN
5 182 (1.84%) LAN
6 173 (1.74%) VPN
7 162 (1.63%) DHCP
8 140 (1.41%) BGP
9 118 (1.19%) TCP/IP
10 112 (1.13%) OSPF
10 112 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
11 99 (1.00%) VLAN
12 83 (0.84%) Wireless
13 62 (0.63%) IPsec
14 59 (0.59%) MPLS
15 57 (0.57%) SAN
15 57 (0.57%) VSAN
16 56 (0.56%) SD-WAN
17 55 (0.55%) VXLAN
18 51 (0.51%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 314 (3.17%) Power BI
2 250 (2.52%) SQL Server
3 243 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 234 (2.36%) Data Warehouse
5 148 (1.49%) Oracle Database
6 134 (1.35%) Metadata
7 109 (1.10%) Data Lake
8 102 (1.03%) Relational Database
9 99 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
10 84 (0.85%) Pentaho
11 80 (0.81%) Oracle Reports
12 79 (0.80%) MySQL
13 73 (0.74%) MongoDB
14 69 (0.70%) NoSQL
15 64 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
15 64 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
16 57 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
17 56 (0.56%) Tableau
18 43 (0.43%) Big Data
19 40 (0.40%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 562 (5.67%) JIRA
2 467 (4.71%) Git
3 394 (3.97%) GitLab
4 376 (3.79%) Jenkins
5 102 (1.03%) Selenium
6 76 (0.77%) JUnit
7 73 (0.74%) SonarQube
8 61 (0.62%) Postman
9 56 (0.56%) Maven
10 54 (0.54%) Rational DOORS
11 53 (0.53%) JMeter
12 48 (0.48%) Cucumber
13 42 (0.42%) Mockito
14 38 (0.38%) Visual Studio
14 38 (0.38%) Zephyr
15 37 (0.37%) Bitbucket
16 36 (0.36%) REST Assured
17 35 (0.35%) Artifactory
18 33 (0.33%) Cypress.io
19 32 (0.32%) Gatling
General
1 2,101 (21.18%) Public Sector
2 2,038 (20.55%) Social Skills
3 753 (7.59%) Analytical Skills
4 698 (7.04%) Finance
5 337 (3.40%) Military
6 271 (2.73%) Aerospace
7 244 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
8 156 (1.57%) Influencing Skills
9 144 (1.45%) Legal
10 131 (1.32%) Organisational Skills
11 129 (1.30%) Telecoms
12 123 (1.24%) Banking
13 99 (1.00%) Law
14 88 (0.89%) Police
15 80 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 80 (0.81%) Manufacturing
16 72 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
17 43 (0.43%) Marketing
18 36 (0.36%) Retail
19 35 (0.35%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 1,465 (14.77%) Architect
2 1,026 (10.34%) Developer
3 890 (8.97%) Senior
4 879 (8.86%) Lead
5 619 (6.24%) Analyst
6 482 (4.86%) Consultant
7 462 (4.66%) Data Engineer
8 398 (4.01%) DevOps Engineer
9 351 (3.54%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 290 (2.92%) Software Engineer
11 263 (2.65%) Technical Architect
12 243 (2.45%) Network Engineer
13 237 (2.39%) Solutions Architect
14 234 (2.36%) Security Architect
15 199 (2.01%) Data Architect
16 196 (1.98%) Java Developer
17 191 (1.93%) Delivery Manager
18 188 (1.90%) Project Manager
19 185 (1.87%) Business Analyst
20 184 (1.86%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 356 (3.59%) REST
2 228 (2.30%) Spring
3 193 (1.95%) Spring Boot
4 180 (1.81%) .NET
5 172 (1.73%) Kafka
6 166 (1.67%) React
7 160 (1.61%) RESTful
8 147 (1.48%) SOAP
9 144 (1.45%) Node.js
10 127 (1.28%) JSON
11 118 (1.19%) AngularJS
12 105 (1.06%) Web Services
13 98 (0.99%) OAuth
14 93 (0.94%) HTML
15 87 (0.88%) PySpark
16 81 (0.82%) XML
17 70 (0.71%) Oracle Fusion
18 69 (0.70%) CSS
18 69 (0.70%) Elastic Stack
19 64 (0.65%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 398 (4.01%) Cloud Native
2 340 (3.43%) Onboarding
3 314 (3.17%) Product Ownership
4 278 (2.80%) Data Centre
5 177 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
6 152 (1.53%) Management Information System
7 146 (1.47%) PKI
8 144 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
9 122 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
10 108 (1.09%) CMDB
11 106 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
12 103 (1.04%) Data Structures
13 98 (0.99%) Clustering
13 98 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
14 93 (0.94%) Replication
15 82 (0.83%) Security Posture
16 79 (0.80%) Public Cloud
17 73 (0.74%) Security Operations Centre
17 73 (0.74%) Virtual Team
18 70 (0.71%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 817 (8.24%) Windows
2 688 (6.94%) Linux
3 271 (2.73%) Windows Server
4 201 (2.03%) Unix
5 139 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 89 (0.90%) Windows 10
7 78 (0.79%) Android
8 61 (0.62%) Solaris
9 44 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 43 (0.43%) Apple iOS
11 34 (0.34%) AIX
12 31 (0.31%) Ubuntu
12 31 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
13 29 (0.29%) CentOS
14 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 15 (0.15%) VMS
16 12 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
17 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
18 10 (0.10%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,066 (20.83%) Agile
2 1,521 (15.34%) DevOps
3 1,396 (14.08%) CI/CD
4 1,096 (11.05%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,072 (10.81%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,061 (10.70%) Problem-Solving
7 893 (9.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 779 (7.85%) Migration
9 757 (7.63%) Infrastructure as Code
10 681 (6.87%) ITIL
11 670 (6.76%) Cybersecurity
12 607 (6.12%) Analytics
13 600 (6.05%) Test Automation
14 593 (5.98%) Containerisation
15 586 (5.91%) Software Engineering
16 574 (5.79%) Roadmaps
17 541 (5.45%) AI
18 534 (5.38%) Decision-Making
19 532 (5.36%) Data Modelling
20 500 (5.04%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 1,062 (10.71%) Python
2 961 (9.69%) SQL
3 673 (6.79%) Java
4 460 (4.64%) PowerShell
5 310 (3.13%) JavaScript
6 247 (2.49%) Bash
7 214 (2.16%) C#
8 145 (1.46%) PL/SQL
9 140 (1.41%) TypeScript
10 87 (0.88%) Bicep
11 85 (0.86%) Shell Script
12 77 (0.78%) C++
13 60 (0.60%) C
14 48 (0.48%) Go
15 42 (0.42%) Kotlin
16 40 (0.40%) Scala
17 39 (0.39%) Apex Code
18 38 (0.38%) Groovy
19 36 (0.36%) Ruby
20 34 (0.34%) Ada
Qualifications
1 7,443 (75.05%) SC Cleared
2 2,028 (20.45%) DV Cleared
3 411 (4.14%) Degree
4 347 (3.50%) BPSS Clearance
5 179 (1.80%) Cisco Certification
6 158 (1.59%) CISSP
7 144 (1.45%) Azure Certification
8 128 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
9 114 (1.15%) AWS Certification
10 99 (1.00%) PMI Certification
11 94 (0.95%) PMP
12 92 (0.93%) CISM
13 87 (0.88%) CCNP
14 75 (0.76%) CCNA
15 70 (0.71%) ISTQB
16 59 (0.59%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 56 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
18 45 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
18 45 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
19 37 (0.37%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 377 (3.80%) QA
2 312 (3.15%) Data Quality
3 268 (2.70%) NIST
4 260 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 217 (2.19%) Accessibility
6 204 (2.06%) NCSC
6 204 (2.06%) PMO
7 156 (1.57%) GDPR
8 112 (1.13%) GRC
9 105 (1.06%) SLA
10 63 (0.64%) WCAG
11 58 (0.58%) JSP 440
12 46 (0.46%) NIST 800
13 43 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
14 28 (0.28%) Def Stans
14 28 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
15 27 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 21 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 19 (0.19%) RMADS
18 17 (0.17%) COBIT
System Software
1 644 (6.49%) Docker
2 451 (4.55%) Active Directory
3 345 (3.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 133 (1.34%) VMware NSX
5 131 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
6 99 (1.00%) vSphere
7 88 (0.89%) Hyper-V
8 74 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
9 43 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
10 35 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
11 28 (0.28%) Firmware
12 22 (0.22%) vCloud
13 19 (0.19%) BitLocker
14 18 (0.18%) NFS
14 18 (0.18%) Postfix
15 13 (0.13%) Squid
16 8 (0.081%) KVM
16 8 (0.081%) Microsoft App-V
17 7 (0.071%) UAG
18 6 (0.060%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 828 (8.35%) Terraform
2 770 (7.76%) Kubernetes
3 370 (3.73%) Ansible
4 232 (2.34%) Grafana
5 180 (1.81%) Prometheus
6 129 (1.30%) vCenter Server
7 90 (0.91%) SCCM
8 72 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
9 66 (0.67%) Argo
10 60 (0.60%) SCOM
11 50 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
12 49 (0.49%) Puppet
13 48 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
14 42 (0.42%) FortiGate
15 33 (0.33%) Data Guard
16 30 (0.30%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
18 26 (0.26%) Podman
19 23 (0.23%) Control-M
19 23 (0.23%) WSUS
Vendors
1 1,149 (11.58%) Microsoft
2 765 (7.71%) Oracle
3 511 (5.15%) VMware
4 486 (4.90%) ServiceNow
5 353 (3.56%) SAP
6 288 (2.90%) Cisco
7 186 (1.88%) Google
7 186 (1.88%) Splunk
8 176 (1.77%) Databricks
9 138 (1.39%) Red Hat
10 128 (1.29%) Salesforce
11 122 (1.23%) Talend
12 114 (1.15%) Informatica
13 112 (1.13%) IBM
14 102 (1.03%) Palo Alto
15 97 (0.98%) Juniper
16 91 (0.92%) SolarWinds
17 86 (0.87%) F5
18 81 (0.82%) Citrix
19 79 (0.80%) Remedy