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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 3 3
Rank change year-on-year +1 0 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,442 5,422 5,844
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.29% 19.26% 18.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 68.74% 60.21% 61.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,256 3,508 3,672
10th Percentile £400 £329 £350
25th Percentile £463 £445 £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 845 568 332
10th Percentile £20.50 £18.22 £21.37
25th Percentile £29.07 £18.87 £35.94
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -59.17% +2.67%
75th Percentile £78.70 £35.50 £70.25
90th Percentile £91.31 £71.31 £77.38
UK median hourly rate £63.48 £25.15 £58.34
% change year-on-year +152.41% -56.89% -2.77%

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 15,190 9,005 9,567
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.43% 31.99% 29.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,079 5,740 5,811
10th Percentile £351 £300 £313
25th Percentile £447 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £733
UK median daily rate £532 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.24% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,339 751 499
10th Percentile £17.24 £17.87 £19.97
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.23
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -52.10% -2.17%
75th Percentile £73.46 £43.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.50 £75.27
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.49%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +5 3,753 £550 +1.85% 1,387
South East +1 2,293 £575 +9.52% 818
South West 0 1,384 £550 - 561
North of England +2 1,322 £512 -1.55% 556
Midlands 0 948 £475 -8.39% 307
North West +2 804 £530 -4.12% 315
West Midlands 0 795 £475 -8.65% 199
East of England 0 453 £550 - 312
Yorkshire -1 296 £488 -0.91% 98
North East 0 240 £470 -10.48% 144
East Midlands +2 145 £500 +9.59% 108
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
1 331 (3.17%) Confluence
2 241 (2.31%) SharePoint
3 150 (1.44%) SAS
4 106 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
5 95 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
6 92 (0.88%) Apache
7 90 (0.86%) Apache Spark
8 40 (0.38%) CMS
8 40 (0.38%) nginx
9 31 (0.30%) Jupyter
10 30 (0.29%) WebLogic
11 22 (0.21%) Skype for Business
12 20 (0.19%) Tomcat
13 16 (0.15%) Oracle Application Server
14 15 (0.14%) IIS
14 15 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
15 11 (0.11%) JBoss
15 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
15 11 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 9 (0.086%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 189 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 127 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
3 93 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
4 90 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 29 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 29 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
6 21 (0.20%) AutoCAD
6 21 (0.20%) Windchill
7 19 (0.18%) Revit
8 18 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
9 10 (0.096%) Simulink
10 9 (0.086%) Chatbot
11 7 (0.067%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.048%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.048%) Sketch
13 4 (0.038%) OrCAD
13 4 (0.038%) Trello
14 3 (0.029%) PTC Creo
15 2 (0.019%) Gliffy
15 2 (0.019%) Houdini
Business Applications
1 134 (1.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 79 (0.76%) Remedy ITSM
3 54 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
4 45 (0.43%) Teamcenter
5 43 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 30 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 28 (0.27%) Oracle Payroll
8 27 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
9 25 (0.24%) SAP PSCD
10 22 (0.21%) SAP FI
11 18 (0.17%) SAP HR
12 16 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
13 14 (0.13%) SAP CO
14 13 (0.12%) Maximo
14 13 (0.12%) NetSuite
14 13 (0.12%) Primavera
14 13 (0.12%) SAP BRIM
14 13 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
15 12 (0.11%) SAP PP
15 12 (0.11%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,864 (17.85%) Azure
2 1,677 (16.06%) AWS
3 463 (4.43%) Azure DevOps
4 438 (4.19%) Power Platform
5 423 (4.05%) GitHub
6 380 (3.64%) GCP
7 308 (2.95%) Entra ID
8 303 (2.90%) Microsoft 365
9 292 (2.80%) GitHub Actions
10 227 (2.17%) Serverless
11 201 (1.92%) Amazon S3
12 160 (1.53%) AWS Lambda
13 157 (1.50%) OCI
14 150 (1.44%) SaaS
15 145 (1.39%) OpenShift
16 144 (1.38%) Amazon EKS
17 143 (1.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 124 (1.19%) Amazon EC2
19 110 (1.05%) PowerApps
20 107 (1.02%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 404 (3.87%) Firewall
2 344 (3.29%) DNS
3 227 (2.17%) Network Security
4 181 (1.73%) VPN
5 168 (1.61%) WAN
6 166 (1.59%) DHCP
7 132 (1.26%) LAN
8 130 (1.24%) TCP/IP
9 116 (1.11%) BGP
10 110 (1.05%) Wi-Fi
11 85 (0.81%) VLAN
12 79 (0.76%) Wireless
13 75 (0.72%) OSPF
14 59 (0.57%) SAN
14 59 (0.57%) SSL
15 58 (0.56%) MPLS
16 57 (0.55%) IPsec
16 57 (0.55%) VSAN
17 51 (0.49%) SD-WAN
18 44 (0.42%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 304 (2.91%) Power BI
2 237 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
3 236 (2.26%) SQL Server
4 209 (2.00%) Data Warehouse
5 179 (1.71%) Metadata
6 167 (1.60%) Oracle Database
7 122 (1.17%) Relational Database
8 119 (1.14%) Data Lake
9 98 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
9 98 (0.94%) MongoDB
10 97 (0.93%) MySQL
11 80 (0.77%) NoSQL
12 75 (0.72%) Pentaho
13 60 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
14 56 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
15 48 (0.46%) Amazon Athena
16 46 (0.44%) Big Data
17 45 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
18 40 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
19 37 (0.35%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 531 (5.09%) JIRA
2 502 (4.81%) Git
3 449 (4.30%) GitLab
4 439 (4.20%) Jenkins
5 127 (1.22%) Selenium
6 72 (0.69%) Postman
7 71 (0.68%) Cucumber
7 71 (0.68%) SonarQube
8 69 (0.66%) JUnit
8 69 (0.66%) Maven
9 65 (0.62%) JMeter
10 45 (0.43%) Gradle
11 40 (0.38%) Mockito
12 38 (0.36%) Gatling
13 37 (0.35%) REST Assured
14 36 (0.34%) Cypress.io
14 36 (0.34%) Visual Studio
15 34 (0.33%) Rational DOORS
16 33 (0.32%) Artifactory
17 29 (0.28%) Bitbucket
General
1 2,425 (23.22%) Social Skills
2 2,101 (20.12%) Public Sector
3 885 (8.48%) Analytical Skills
4 702 (6.72%) Finance
5 428 (4.10%) Military
6 374 (3.58%) Aerospace
7 259 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
8 222 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
9 190 (1.82%) Organisational Skills
10 178 (1.70%) Manufacturing
11 151 (1.45%) Telecoms
12 140 (1.34%) Legal
13 128 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 126 (1.21%) Banking
15 113 (1.08%) Police
16 109 (1.04%) Law
17 63 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
18 51 (0.49%) Local Government
19 43 (0.41%) Aviation
20 41 (0.39%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 1,611 (15.43%) Architect
2 997 (9.55%) Senior
3 966 (9.25%) Developer
4 949 (9.09%) Lead
5 630 (6.03%) Analyst
6 599 (5.74%) Consultant
7 434 (4.16%) Data Engineer
8 426 (4.08%) DevOps Engineer
9 364 (3.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 279 (2.67%) Solutions Architect
11 260 (2.49%) Security Architect
12 256 (2.45%) Data Architect
13 252 (2.41%) Technical Architect
14 224 (2.15%) Software Engineer
15 219 (2.10%) Administrator
16 215 (2.06%) Network Engineer
17 191 (1.83%) Delivery Manager
18 185 (1.77%) Cloud Engineer
18 185 (1.77%) Designer
19 177 (1.70%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 912 (8.73%) Terraform
2 431 (4.13%) REST
3 215 (2.06%) Kafka
4 194 (1.86%) Spring
5 177 (1.70%) Spring Boot
6 172 (1.65%) SOAP
7 167 (1.60%) React
8 163 (1.56%) RESTful
9 153 (1.47%) .NET
10 127 (1.22%) OAuth
11 126 (1.21%) JSON
12 125 (1.20%) Node.js
13 117 (1.12%) HTML
14 113 (1.08%) XML
15 106 (1.02%) Middleware
16 96 (0.92%) Web Services
17 93 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
18 91 (0.87%) LDAP
19 90 (0.86%) AngularJS
19 90 (0.86%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 471 (4.51%) Cloud Native
2 411 (3.94%) Onboarding
3 341 (3.27%) Product Ownership
4 263 (2.52%) Data Centre
5 204 (1.95%) Management Information System
6 167 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
7 162 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
7 162 (1.55%) PKI
8 152 (1.46%) CMDB
9 126 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
10 115 (1.10%) Cyber Threat
11 112 (1.07%) Replication
12 111 (1.06%) Operational Technology
13 102 (0.98%) Distributed Systems
14 99 (0.95%) Self-Motivation
15 88 (0.84%) Data Structures
15 88 (0.84%) Security Posture
16 83 (0.79%) Security Operations Centre
17 78 (0.75%) Clustering
18 74 (0.71%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 913 (8.74%) Windows
2 706 (6.76%) Linux
3 353 (3.38%) Windows Server
4 194 (1.86%) Unix
5 142 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 134 (1.28%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.76%) Solaris
8 60 (0.57%) Android
9 44 (0.42%) CentOS
10 43 (0.41%) macOS
11 41 (0.39%) Ubuntu
12 36 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
13 25 (0.24%) AIX
13 25 (0.24%) Apple iOS
14 24 (0.23%) Windows 7
15 23 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
16 21 (0.20%) VMS
17 18 (0.17%) Rocky
18 15 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
19 11 (0.11%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,164 (20.72%) Agile
2 1,579 (15.12%) CI/CD
3 1,572 (15.05%) DevOps
4 1,540 (14.75%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,364 (13.06%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,141 (10.93%) Problem-Solving
7 1,059 (10.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 926 (8.87%) Infrastructure as Code
9 864 (8.27%) Migration
10 828 (7.93%) Cybersecurity
11 741 (7.10%) ITIL
12 707 (6.77%) Roadmaps
13 690 (6.61%) Test Automation
14 684 (6.55%) AI
15 670 (6.42%) Technical Leadership
16 669 (6.41%) Containerisation
17 656 (6.28%) Decision-Making
18 631 (6.04%) Analytics
19 604 (5.78%) Software Engineering
20 583 (5.58%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 1,199 (11.48%) Python
2 969 (9.28%) SQL
3 638 (6.11%) Java
4 549 (5.26%) PowerShell
5 363 (3.48%) JavaScript
6 319 (3.05%) Bash
7 184 (1.76%) TypeScript
8 180 (1.72%) C#
9 122 (1.17%) Bicep
10 120 (1.15%) PL/SQL
11 70 (0.67%) Shell Script
12 57 (0.55%) C++
12 57 (0.55%) Groovy
13 48 (0.46%) Go
14 46 (0.44%) C
15 45 (0.43%) Kotlin
16 44 (0.42%) Scala
17 33 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 28 (0.27%) ABAP
18 28 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 7,827 (74.96%) SC Cleared
2 2,156 (20.65%) DV Cleared
3 494 (4.73%) BPSS Clearance
4 460 (4.41%) Degree
5 201 (1.92%) CISSP
6 172 (1.65%) Azure Certification
7 159 (1.52%) AWS Certification
8 149 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
8 149 (1.43%) Microsoft Certification
9 125 (1.20%) CISM
10 97 (0.93%) ISTQB
11 92 (0.88%) PMI Certification
12 83 (0.79%) PMP
13 75 (0.72%) CCNP
14 74 (0.71%) Computer Science Degree
15 52 (0.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 49 (0.47%) CCNA
17 48 (0.46%) TOGAF Certification
18 43 (0.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 40 (0.38%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 480 (4.60%) QA
2 358 (3.43%) Data Quality
3 298 (2.85%) NIST
4 291 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 270 (2.59%) NCSC
6 250 (2.39%) Accessibility
7 212 (2.03%) PMO
8 162 (1.55%) GDPR
8 162 (1.55%) SLA
9 143 (1.37%) GRC
10 74 (0.71%) WCAG
11 47 (0.45%) JSP 440
12 42 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
13 39 (0.37%) Def Stans
14 37 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 36 (0.34%) NIST 800
16 31 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
17 23 (0.22%) ISO 9001
18 21 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 19 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 703 (6.73%) Docker
2 585 (5.60%) Active Directory
3 404 (3.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 134 (1.28%) VMware ESXi
5 126 (1.21%) vSphere
6 124 (1.19%) VMware NSX
7 123 (1.18%) Hyper-V
8 84 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
9 45 (0.43%) Firmware
9 45 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
10 34 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
11 24 (0.23%) BitLocker
11 24 (0.23%) vCloud
12 20 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
13 14 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 13 (0.12%) NFS
15 11 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 10 (0.096%) KVM
17 9 (0.086%) Embedded Firmware
17 9 (0.086%) Squid
Systems Management
1 874 (8.37%) Kubernetes
2 408 (3.91%) Ansible
3 229 (2.19%) Grafana
4 165 (1.58%) Prometheus
5 139 (1.33%) SCCM
6 121 (1.16%) vCenter Server
7 101 (0.97%) Microsoft Intune
8 92 (0.88%) SCOM
9 60 (0.57%) Argo
10 53 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
11 46 (0.44%) Kibana
12 40 (0.38%) Puppet
13 34 (0.33%) Data Guard
13 34 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
14 31 (0.30%) VxRail
15 29 (0.28%) Istio
16 28 (0.27%) Control-M
17 27 (0.26%) NetBackup
18 24 (0.23%) Nagios
18 24 (0.23%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 1,438 (13.77%) Microsoft
2 812 (7.78%) Oracle
3 547 (5.24%) VMware
4 456 (4.37%) ServiceNow
5 405 (3.88%) SAP
6 257 (2.46%) Google
7 253 (2.42%) Cisco
8 190 (1.82%) Splunk
9 173 (1.66%) Databricks
10 116 (1.11%) Red Hat
11 111 (1.06%) Palo Alto
12 106 (1.02%) Salesforce
13 99 (0.95%) Informatica
14 95 (0.91%) Dynatrace
15 93 (0.89%) IBM
16 91 (0.87%) Remedy
17 89 (0.85%) Talend
18 84 (0.80%) CyberArk
19 71 (0.68%) Citrix
20 69 (0.66%) SolarWinds