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

6 months to
26 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 9,973 5,105 6,344
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.83% 18.53% 19.10%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.07% 58.82% 62.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,043 3,292 4,185
10th Percentile £385 £350 £360
25th Percentile £456 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.47% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £643
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £538 £535 £550
% change year-on-year +0.51% -2.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 748 498 417
10th Percentile £19.75 £18.51 £15.06
25th Percentile £28.50 £18.87 £22.58
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -58.08% -
75th Percentile £80.01 £50.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £88.32 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £57.50
% change year-on-year +152.49% -56.26% -4.17%

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 14,440 8,679 10,087
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.61% 31.50% 30.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,717 5,462 6,379
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,124 682 686
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.14 £14.74
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -48.21% -11.71%
75th Percentile £75.00 £54.94 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.59
UK median hourly rate £48.81 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +94.08% -44.11% -18.18%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 3,556 £550 +3.77% 532
South East +1 2,369 £563 +4.65% 417
South West 0 1,352 £549 -1.15% 431
North of England +3 1,226 £511 +2.10% 272
Midlands 0 890 £470 -8.74% 146
West Midlands +1 762 £470 -8.74% 103
North West +4 704 £530 -0.09% 146
East of England 0 333 £550 - 158
Yorkshire +2 307 £500 +2.04% 57
North East 0 239 £475 -5.00% 73
East Midlands -2 119 £438 -10.21% 43
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
1 347 (3.48%) Confluence
2 254 (2.55%) SharePoint
3 156 (1.56%) SAS
4 114 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 83 (0.83%) Apache Spark
7 81 (0.81%) Apache
8 32 (0.32%) nginx
9 29 (0.29%) Jupyter
10 24 (0.24%) WebLogic
11 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
12 22 (0.22%) Skype for Business
13 19 (0.19%) Tomcat
14 16 (0.16%) CMS
14 16 (0.16%) IIS
14 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
15 14 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
16 13 (0.13%) JBoss
17 9 (0.090%) Documentum
17 9 (0.090%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 181 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 134 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
3 98 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
4 85 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 32 (0.32%) MS Visio
6 24 (0.24%) 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
10 8 (0.080%) Windchill
11 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.060%) Sketch
12 5 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
13 3 (0.030%) Trello
14 2 (0.020%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 117 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 74 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
3 48 (0.48%) Oracle ERP
4 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 30 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
7 25 (0.25%) Teamcenter
8 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
9 21 (0.21%) Oracle Payroll
10 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 16 (0.16%) Primavera
11 15 (0.15%) SAP HR
12 13 (0.13%) Findur
13 12 (0.12%) iTrent
13 12 (0.12%) SAP FI
13 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 12 (0.12%) Temenos T24
14 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
14 11 (0.11%) SAP GRC
15 10 (0.10%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,875 (18.80%) Azure
2 1,636 (16.40%) AWS
3 470 (4.71%) Azure DevOps
4 439 (4.40%) Power Platform
5 424 (4.25%) GitHub
6 383 (3.84%) GCP
7 281 (2.82%) Microsoft 365
8 277 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
9 265 (2.66%) Entra ID
10 243 (2.44%) Serverless
11 199 (2.00%) Amazon S3
12 166 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
13 151 (1.51%) OCI
13 151 (1.51%) SaaS
14 133 (1.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 130 (1.30%) OpenShift
16 120 (1.20%) Amazon EKS
17 118 (1.18%) Amazon EC2
18 115 (1.15%) PaaS
19 107 (1.07%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 413 (4.14%) Firewall
2 339 (3.40%) DNS
3 200 (2.01%) WAN
4 197 (1.98%) Network Security
5 181 (1.81%) VPN
6 172 (1.72%) DHCP
7 166 (1.66%) LAN
8 133 (1.33%) BGP
9 124 (1.24%) TCP/IP
10 118 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
11 96 (0.96%) VLAN
12 94 (0.94%) OSPF
13 74 (0.74%) Wireless
14 65 (0.65%) VSAN
15 60 (0.60%) IPsec
16 58 (0.58%) MPLS
17 57 (0.57%) SD-WAN
18 52 (0.52%) SSL
19 50 (0.50%) SAN
20 44 (0.44%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 316 (3.17%) Power BI
2 254 (2.55%) SQL Server
3 232 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
4 230 (2.31%) PostgreSQL
5 148 (1.48%) Oracle Database
6 142 (1.42%) Metadata
7 116 (1.16%) Data Lake
8 108 (1.08%) Relational Database
9 98 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
10 87 (0.87%) NoSQL
11 86 (0.86%) MongoDB
12 85 (0.85%) MySQL
13 73 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
14 71 (0.71%) Pentaho
15 58 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
16 56 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
17 54 (0.54%) Tableau
18 52 (0.52%) Elasticsearch
19 44 (0.44%) Big Data
20 43 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 542 (5.43%) JIRA
2 470 (4.71%) Git
3 414 (4.15%) GitLab
4 383 (3.84%) Jenkins
5 108 (1.08%) Selenium
6 72 (0.72%) SonarQube
7 64 (0.64%) Postman
8 63 (0.63%) JUnit
9 55 (0.55%) JMeter
10 53 (0.53%) Maven
11 52 (0.52%) Rational DOORS
12 44 (0.44%) Cucumber
13 38 (0.38%) Mockito
14 36 (0.36%) Cypress.io
14 36 (0.36%) Visual Studio
15 35 (0.35%) Gradle
16 34 (0.34%) Bitbucket
17 33 (0.33%) Artifactory
17 33 (0.33%) Gatling
17 33 (0.33%) Zephyr
General
1 2,138 (21.44%) Social Skills
2 1,990 (19.95%) Public Sector
3 782 (7.84%) Analytical Skills
4 695 (6.97%) Finance
5 340 (3.41%) Military
6 296 (2.97%) Aerospace
7 246 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
8 175 (1.75%) Influencing Skills
9 154 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
10 147 (1.47%) Telecoms
11 136 (1.36%) Banking
12 133 (1.33%) Legal
13 105 (1.05%) Law
14 104 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 95 (0.95%) Manufacturing
16 91 (0.91%) Police
17 56 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
18 44 (0.44%) Marketing
18 44 (0.44%) Retail
19 34 (0.34%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,512 (15.16%) Architect
2 1,003 (10.06%) Developer
3 949 (9.52%) Lead
4 932 (9.35%) Senior
5 567 (5.69%) Consultant
6 562 (5.64%) Analyst
7 443 (4.44%) Data Engineer
8 397 (3.98%) DevOps Engineer
9 379 (3.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 269 (2.70%) Technical Architect
11 267 (2.68%) Software Engineer
12 248 (2.49%) Solutions Architect
13 232 (2.33%) Network Engineer
14 228 (2.29%) Data Architect
15 224 (2.25%) Security Architect
16 195 (1.96%) Administrator
17 193 (1.94%) Delivery Manager
18 184 (1.84%) Azure Engineer
18 184 (1.84%) Project Manager
19 181 (1.81%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 859 (8.61%) Terraform
2 372 (3.73%) REST
3 205 (2.06%) Spring
4 195 (1.96%) .NET
5 190 (1.91%) Kafka
6 178 (1.78%) Spring Boot
7 175 (1.75%) React
8 166 (1.66%) RESTful
9 147 (1.47%) SOAP
10 128 (1.28%) Node.js
11 127 (1.27%) JSON
12 110 (1.10%) HTML
12 110 (1.10%) OAuth
13 109 (1.09%) AngularJS
14 105 (1.05%) Web Services
15 90 (0.90%) XML
16 86 (0.86%) PySpark
17 81 (0.81%) CSS
18 76 (0.76%) Oracle Fusion
19 73 (0.73%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 437 (4.38%) Cloud Native
2 361 (3.62%) Onboarding
3 330 (3.31%) Product Ownership
4 258 (2.59%) Data Centre
5 171 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
6 155 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 152 (1.52%) PKI
8 134 (1.34%) CMDB
9 130 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
10 127 (1.27%) Distributed Systems
11 115 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
12 113 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
13 102 (1.02%) Replication
14 98 (0.98%) Data Structures
15 86 (0.86%) Clustering
15 86 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
16 84 (0.84%) Cyber Threat
16 84 (0.84%) Public Cloud
17 78 (0.78%) Operational Technology
18 70 (0.70%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 865 (8.67%) Windows
2 691 (6.93%) Linux
3 320 (3.21%) Windows Server
4 195 (1.96%) Unix
5 137 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 124 (1.24%) Windows 10
7 64 (0.64%) Android
8 60 (0.60%) Solaris
9 46 (0.46%) Mac OS
10 37 (0.37%) CentOS
11 34 (0.34%) Ubuntu
12 33 (0.33%) AIX
12 33 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
13 27 (0.27%) Apple iOS
14 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
15 19 (0.19%) VMS
16 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
16 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
17 15 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
18 13 (0.13%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,083 (20.89%) Agile
2 1,541 (15.45%) DevOps
3 1,443 (14.47%) CI/CD
4 1,268 (12.71%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,158 (11.61%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,039 (10.42%) Problem-Solving
7 979 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 839 (8.41%) Infrastructure as Code
9 807 (8.09%) Migration
10 741 (7.43%) Cybersecurity
11 702 (7.04%) ITIL
12 624 (6.26%) Analytics
12 624 (6.26%) Test Automation
13 601 (6.03%) Roadmaps
14 594 (5.96%) Containerisation
15 582 (5.84%) AI
16 580 (5.82%) Software Engineering
17 579 (5.81%) Technical Leadership
18 553 (5.54%) Decision-Making
19 531 (5.32%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 1,097 (11.00%) Python
2 949 (9.52%) SQL
3 643 (6.45%) Java
4 521 (5.22%) PowerShell
5 337 (3.38%) JavaScript
6 272 (2.73%) Bash
7 215 (2.16%) C#
8 158 (1.58%) TypeScript
9 131 (1.31%) PL/SQL
10 108 (1.08%) Bicep
11 72 (0.72%) C++
12 68 (0.68%) Shell Script
13 64 (0.64%) C
14 45 (0.45%) Groovy
15 41 (0.41%) Go
15 41 (0.41%) Kotlin
16 38 (0.38%) Scala
17 35 (0.35%) Apex Code
18 34 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 33 (0.33%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 7,480 (75.00%) SC Cleared
2 2,017 (20.22%) DV Cleared
3 423 (4.24%) Degree
4 376 (3.77%) BPSS Clearance
5 180 (1.80%) CISSP
6 158 (1.58%) Azure Certification
7 151 (1.51%) Cisco Certification
8 145 (1.45%) Microsoft Certification
9 121 (1.21%) AWS Certification
10 115 (1.15%) CISM
11 100 (1.00%) PMI Certification
12 97 (0.97%) PMP
13 78 (0.78%) ISTQB
14 71 (0.71%) CCNP
15 61 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 59 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
17 58 (0.58%) CCNA
18 42 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
19 41 (0.41%) VCAP
20 40 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 421 (4.22%) QA
2 321 (3.22%) Data Quality
3 273 (2.74%) NIST
4 266 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 235 (2.36%) NCSC
6 223 (2.24%) PMO
7 214 (2.15%) Accessibility
8 154 (1.54%) GDPR
9 135 (1.35%) SLA
10 130 (1.30%) GRC
11 66 (0.66%) WCAG
12 61 (0.61%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 40 (0.40%) NIST 800
15 32 (0.32%) Def Stans
16 29 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 26 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
18 24 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 21 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
20 19 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 658 (6.60%) Docker
2 507 (5.08%) Active Directory
3 373 (3.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 140 (1.40%) VMware NSX
5 134 (1.34%) VMware ESXi
6 116 (1.16%) vSphere
7 108 (1.08%) Hyper-V
8 76 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
9 40 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
9 40 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
10 34 (0.34%) Firmware
11 26 (0.26%) BitLocker
11 26 (0.26%) vCloud
12 12 (0.12%) Postfix
13 11 (0.11%) NFS
13 11 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
14 10 (0.10%) Squid
15 9 (0.090%) KVM
16 8 (0.080%) Citrix Hypervisor
16 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 796 (7.98%) Kubernetes
2 392 (3.93%) Ansible
3 221 (2.22%) Grafana
4 173 (1.73%) Prometheus
5 132 (1.32%) vCenter Server
6 122 (1.22%) SCCM
7 81 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
8 74 (0.74%) SCOM
9 61 (0.61%) Argo
10 49 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
11 48 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
11 48 (0.48%) Puppet
12 37 (0.37%) Data Guard
13 31 (0.31%) Progress Chef
14 27 (0.27%) Control-M
14 27 (0.27%) Istio
14 27 (0.27%) Nagios
14 27 (0.27%) WSUS
15 26 (0.26%) Kibana
16 25 (0.25%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 1,300 (13.04%) Microsoft
2 778 (7.80%) Oracle
3 536 (5.37%) VMware
4 464 (4.65%) ServiceNow
5 387 (3.88%) SAP
6 280 (2.81%) Cisco
7 216 (2.17%) Google
8 188 (1.89%) Splunk
9 183 (1.83%) Databricks
10 127 (1.27%) Red Hat
11 125 (1.25%) Salesforce
12 118 (1.18%) IBM
13 107 (1.07%) Palo Alto
14 99 (0.99%) Informatica
15 95 (0.95%) Talend
16 82 (0.82%) Remedy
17 80 (0.80%) Dynatrace
18 76 (0.76%) Juniper
19 73 (0.73%) SolarWinds
20 70 (0.70%) F5