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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +2 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,322 5,268 5,871
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.17% 18.85% 18.18%
As % of the Qualifications category 68.90% 59.53% 61.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,223 3,439 3,733
10th Percentile £397 £340 £355
25th Percentile £463 £450 £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 £537 £550
% change year-on-year +2.42% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 806 545 342
10th Percentile £20.50 £18.51 £21.25
25th Percentile £30.18 £18.87 £37.10
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £61.75
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -59.27% +2.92%
75th Percentile £78.06 £35.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £91.31 £71.15 £84.86
UK median hourly rate £63.48 £25.15 £60.00
% change year-on-year +152.41% -58.08% -

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 14,981 8,849 9,583
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.18% 31.67% 29.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,004 5,631 5,829
10th Percentile £350 £300 £319
25th Percentile £445 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £530 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,255 722 532
10th Percentile £17.65 £17.87 £18.13
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.00
Median hourly rate £51.50 £25.15 £53.00
Median % change year-on-year +104.77% -52.55% +0.95%
75th Percentile £74.00 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £73.63 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £46.80 £25.15 £48.78
% change year-on-year +86.08% -48.44% -8.82%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +6 3,674 £550 +2.33% 1,551
South East +1 2,273 £565 +7.62% 963
South West 0 1,402 £550 - 814
North of England +3 1,307 £515 -1.90% 705
Midlands 0 945 £475 -8.39% 368
West Midlands 0 803 £475 -8.43% 242
North West +1 789 £530 -4.07% 426
East of England 0 437 £574 +4.36% 433
Yorkshire +1 292 £492 +0.20% 117
North East 0 246 £466 -11.19% 169
East Midlands -1 134 £500 +8.11% 125
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
1 329 (3.19%) Confluence
2 249 (2.41%) SharePoint
3 143 (1.39%) SAS
4 115 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
5 97 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
6 93 (0.90%) Apache Spark
7 92 (0.89%) Apache
8 33 (0.32%) CMS
8 33 (0.32%) nginx
9 32 (0.31%) Jupyter
10 29 (0.28%) WebLogic
11 22 (0.21%) Skype for Business
12 19 (0.18%) Oracle Application Server
12 19 (0.18%) Tomcat
13 16 (0.16%) IIS
13 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
14 11 (0.11%) JBoss
14 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
15 10 (0.097%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 10 (0.097%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 188 (1.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 136 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
3 93 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
4 92 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 29 (0.28%) MS Visio
6 25 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 21 (0.20%) AutoCAD
8 19 (0.18%) Revit
9 18 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
9 18 (0.17%) Windchill
10 9 (0.087%) Chatbot
10 9 (0.087%) Simulink
11 7 (0.068%) Adobe XD
12 6 (0.058%) Sketch
13 5 (0.048%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 5 (0.048%) Notepad++
14 4 (0.039%) OrCAD
14 4 (0.039%) Trello
15 2 (0.019%) Gliffy
15 2 (0.019%) Houdini
Business Applications
1 129 (1.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 80 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
3 54 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
4 40 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 35 (0.34%) Teamcenter
6 30 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 28 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
8 26 (0.25%) SAP PSCD
9 25 (0.24%) Oracle Payroll
10 20 (0.19%) SAP FI
11 18 (0.17%) SAP HR
12 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
13 15 (0.15%) Maximo
14 13 (0.13%) Primavera
14 13 (0.13%) SAP CO
15 12 (0.12%) NetSuite
15 12 (0.12%) SAP BRIM
15 12 (0.12%) SAP GRC
15 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
16 11 (0.11%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 1,841 (17.84%) Azure
2 1,678 (16.26%) AWS
3 444 (4.30%) Power Platform
4 438 (4.24%) Azure DevOps
5 403 (3.90%) GitHub
6 390 (3.78%) GCP
7 310 (3.00%) Microsoft 365
8 287 (2.78%) Entra ID
9 283 (2.74%) GitHub Actions
10 233 (2.26%) Serverless
11 210 (2.03%) Amazon S3
12 170 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
13 152 (1.47%) OCI
14 147 (1.42%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 146 (1.41%) SaaS
16 141 (1.37%) Amazon EKS
16 141 (1.37%) OpenShift
17 124 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
18 108 (1.05%) PowerApps
19 102 (0.99%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 404 (3.91%) Firewall
2 350 (3.39%) DNS
3 220 (2.13%) Network Security
4 179 (1.73%) WAN
5 172 (1.67%) VPN
6 169 (1.64%) DHCP
7 140 (1.36%) LAN
8 124 (1.20%) TCP/IP
9 119 (1.15%) BGP
10 113 (1.09%) Wi-Fi
11 90 (0.87%) VLAN
12 79 (0.77%) OSPF
13 78 (0.76%) Wireless
14 62 (0.60%) SSL
15 60 (0.58%) VSAN
16 58 (0.56%) IPsec
16 58 (0.56%) SAN
17 57 (0.55%) MPLS
18 52 (0.50%) SD-WAN
19 43 (0.42%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 313 (3.03%) Power BI
2 238 (2.31%) SQL Server
3 236 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
4 227 (2.20%) Data Warehouse
5 181 (1.75%) Metadata
6 162 (1.57%) Oracle Database
7 116 (1.12%) Data Lake
8 115 (1.11%) Relational Database
9 95 (0.92%) MongoDB
10 94 (0.91%) MySQL
11 92 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
12 85 (0.82%) NoSQL
13 72 (0.70%) Oracle Reports
14 63 (0.61%) Pentaho
15 61 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
16 57 (0.55%) Amazon Athena
17 49 (0.47%) Big Data
17 49 (0.47%) Tableau
18 46 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
19 38 (0.37%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 536 (5.19%) JIRA
2 481 (4.66%) Git
3 447 (4.33%) GitLab
4 412 (3.99%) Jenkins
5 131 (1.27%) Selenium
6 76 (0.74%) Postman
7 72 (0.70%) SonarQube
8 68 (0.66%) JUnit
9 67 (0.65%) Cucumber
9 67 (0.65%) Maven
10 60 (0.58%) JMeter
11 42 (0.41%) Gradle
12 40 (0.39%) Mockito
13 37 (0.36%) REST Assured
14 36 (0.35%) Gatling
14 36 (0.35%) Zephyr
15 35 (0.34%) Artifactory
15 35 (0.34%) Cypress.io
15 35 (0.34%) Visual Studio
16 31 (0.30%) Rational DOORS
General
1 2,340 (22.67%) Social Skills
2 2,031 (19.68%) Public Sector
3 847 (8.21%) Analytical Skills
4 689 (6.68%) Finance
5 408 (3.95%) Military
6 328 (3.18%) Aerospace
7 253 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
8 211 (2.04%) Influencing Skills
9 177 (1.71%) Organisational Skills
10 151 (1.46%) Manufacturing
10 151 (1.46%) Telecoms
11 133 (1.29%) Legal
12 132 (1.28%) Banking
13 125 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 111 (1.08%) Law
15 99 (0.96%) Police
16 65 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
17 45 (0.44%) Local Government
18 42 (0.41%) Marketing
19 40 (0.39%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,600 (15.50%) Architect
2 967 (9.37%) Developer
3 965 (9.35%) Senior
4 948 (9.18%) Lead
5 587 (5.69%) Consultant
6 580 (5.62%) Analyst
7 436 (4.22%) Data Engineer
8 419 (4.06%) DevOps Engineer
9 379 (3.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 263 (2.55%) Solutions Architect
11 258 (2.50%) Technical Architect
12 253 (2.45%) Data Architect
13 248 (2.40%) Security Architect
14 233 (2.26%) Software Engineer
15 224 (2.17%) Network Engineer
16 210 (2.03%) Administrator
17 195 (1.89%) Cloud Engineer
18 194 (1.88%) Designer
19 188 (1.82%) Java Developer
20 182 (1.76%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 888 (8.60%) Terraform
2 404 (3.91%) REST
3 214 (2.07%) Kafka
4 209 (2.02%) Spring
5 190 (1.84%) Spring Boot
6 162 (1.57%) SOAP
7 159 (1.54%) .NET
7 159 (1.54%) React
8 158 (1.53%) RESTful
9 128 (1.24%) Node.js
10 125 (1.21%) JSON
11 117 (1.13%) OAuth
12 113 (1.09%) HTML
13 107 (1.04%) XML
14 97 (0.94%) Web Services
15 95 (0.92%) Middleware
16 94 (0.91%) AngularJS
17 88 (0.85%) Oracle Fusion
18 86 (0.83%) CSS
19 85 (0.82%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 459 (4.45%) Cloud Native
2 403 (3.90%) Onboarding
3 325 (3.15%) Product Ownership
4 266 (2.58%) Data Centre
5 177 (1.71%) Management Information System
6 162 (1.57%) PKI
7 159 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
8 154 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
9 143 (1.39%) CMDB
10 121 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
11 109 (1.06%) Cyber Threat
11 109 (1.06%) Distributed Systems
12 104 (1.01%) Operational Technology
13 103 (1.00%) Replication
13 103 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
14 86 (0.83%) Security Posture
15 85 (0.82%) Security Operations Centre
16 83 (0.80%) Data Structures
17 82 (0.79%) Clustering
18 81 (0.78%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 915 (8.86%) Windows
2 708 (6.86%) Linux
3 353 (3.42%) Windows Server
4 213 (2.06%) Unix
5 144 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 133 (1.29%) Windows 10
7 81 (0.78%) Solaris
8 65 (0.63%) Android
9 45 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 43 (0.42%) CentOS
11 38 (0.37%) Ubuntu
12 35 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
13 30 (0.29%) Apple iOS
14 29 (0.28%) AIX
15 24 (0.23%) Windows 7
16 21 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
17 19 (0.18%) VMS
18 16 (0.16%) Rocky
19 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
20 10 (0.097%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,158 (20.91%) Agile
2 1,542 (14.94%) DevOps
3 1,520 (14.73%) CI/CD
4 1,468 (14.22%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,288 (12.48%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,115 (10.80%) Problem-Solving
7 1,038 (10.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 900 (8.72%) Infrastructure as Code
9 853 (8.26%) Migration
10 794 (7.69%) Cybersecurity
11 722 (6.99%) ITIL
12 671 (6.50%) AI
13 663 (6.42%) Roadmaps
14 661 (6.40%) Technical Leadership
14 661 (6.40%) Test Automation
15 643 (6.23%) Decision-Making
16 639 (6.19%) Containerisation
17 620 (6.01%) Analytics
18 590 (5.72%) Software Engineering
19 558 (5.41%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 1,176 (11.39%) Python
2 958 (9.28%) SQL
3 660 (6.39%) Java
4 540 (5.23%) PowerShell
5 353 (3.42%) JavaScript
6 306 (2.96%) Bash
7 185 (1.79%) C#
8 179 (1.73%) TypeScript
9 124 (1.20%) PL/SQL
10 109 (1.06%) Bicep
11 71 (0.69%) Shell Script
12 59 (0.57%) C++
13 55 (0.53%) Go
14 48 (0.47%) C
14 48 (0.47%) Groovy
15 47 (0.46%) Scala
16 44 (0.43%) Kotlin
17 31 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 27 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
19 26 (0.25%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 7,732 (74.91%) SC Cleared
2 2,124 (20.58%) DV Cleared
3 455 (4.41%) BPSS Clearance
4 445 (4.31%) Degree
5 195 (1.89%) CISSP
6 171 (1.66%) Azure Certification
7 159 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
8 154 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
9 144 (1.40%) AWS Certification
10 114 (1.10%) CISM
11 99 (0.96%) PMI Certification
12 90 (0.87%) PMP
13 87 (0.84%) ISTQB
14 81 (0.78%) CCNP
15 64 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
16 60 (0.58%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 53 (0.51%) CCNA
18 44 (0.43%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 44 (0.43%) TOGAF Certification
19 41 (0.40%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 464 (4.50%) QA
2 335 (3.25%) Data Quality
3 302 (2.93%) NIST
4 286 (2.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 261 (2.53%) NCSC
6 247 (2.39%) Accessibility
7 219 (2.12%) PMO
8 159 (1.54%) SLA
9 146 (1.41%) GDPR
10 143 (1.39%) GRC
11 70 (0.68%) WCAG
12 50 (0.48%) JSP 440
13 45 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 40 (0.39%) NIST 800
15 35 (0.34%) Def Stans
16 30 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 26 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
18 21 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 20 (0.19%) ISO 9001
20 19 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 687 (6.66%) Docker
2 584 (5.66%) Active Directory
3 406 (3.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 141 (1.37%) VMware ESXi
5 132 (1.28%) VMware NSX
6 127 (1.23%) vSphere
7 126 (1.22%) Hyper-V
8 84 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
9 43 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
10 40 (0.39%) Firmware
11 34 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
12 26 (0.25%) BitLocker
13 25 (0.24%) vCloud
14 21 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
15 15 (0.15%) NFS
16 13 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
17 11 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
18 10 (0.097%) KVM
18 10 (0.097%) Postfix
19 9 (0.087%) Squid
Systems Management
1 844 (8.18%) Kubernetes
2 408 (3.95%) Ansible
3 232 (2.25%) Grafana
4 173 (1.68%) Prometheus
5 129 (1.25%) SCCM
5 129 (1.25%) vCenter Server
6 94 (0.91%) SCOM
7 91 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
8 59 (0.57%) Argo
9 50 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
10 44 (0.43%) Puppet
11 42 (0.41%) Kibana
12 35 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
13 34 (0.33%) Data Guard
14 30 (0.29%) VxRail
15 29 (0.28%) Istio
16 28 (0.27%) Control-M
17 27 (0.26%) NetBackup
18 25 (0.24%) Nagios
18 25 (0.24%) WSUS
Vendors
1 1,386 (13.43%) Microsoft
2 819 (7.93%) Oracle
3 552 (5.35%) VMware
4 470 (4.55%) ServiceNow
5 391 (3.79%) SAP
6 269 (2.61%) Cisco
7 254 (2.46%) Google
8 199 (1.93%) Splunk
9 167 (1.62%) Databricks
10 119 (1.15%) Red Hat
11 113 (1.09%) Palo Alto
12 108 (1.05%) Salesforce
13 96 (0.93%) IBM
14 95 (0.92%) Informatica
15 91 (0.88%) Remedy
16 90 (0.87%) CyberArk
17 87 (0.84%) Dynatrace
18 83 (0.80%) Talend
19 73 (0.71%) SolarWinds
20 71 (0.69%) Citrix