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

6 months to
9 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 10,284 5,381 5,894
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.25% 19.15% 18.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 68.92% 59.95% 61.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,185 3,485 3,706
10th Percentile £400 £336 £352
25th Percentile £463 £447 £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 820 564 340
10th Percentile £20.50 £18.31 £21.25
25th Percentile £29.07 £18.87 £36.81
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -59.17% +2.67%
75th Percentile £78.55 £38.94 £72.50
90th Percentile £91.31 £71.00 £83.70
UK median hourly rate £64.05 £25.15 £60.00
% change year-on-year +154.65% -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 14,922 8,976 9,645
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.29% 31.95% 29.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,941 5,696 5,843
10th Percentile £353 £290 £313
25th Percentile £448 £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 £732
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,292 746 518
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £19.20
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.29
Median hourly rate £49.50 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +96.82% -52.10% -2.36%
75th Percentile £73.81 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.50 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.52%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 3,682 £550 +1.85% 1,732
South East +1 2,262 £570 +8.57% 1,011
South West 0 1,379 £550 - 755
North of England +2 1,308 £515 -1.03% 714
Midlands 0 930 £475 -8.39% 409
North West +1 792 £525 -4.55% 407
West Midlands 0 781 £475 -8.65% 269
East of England 0 441 £550 - 478
Yorkshire -1 293 £492 - 124
North East 0 241 £470 -10.48% 185
East Midlands 0 141 £500 +11.11% 138
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
1 330 (3.21%) Confluence
2 237 (2.30%) SharePoint
3 133 (1.29%) SAS
4 106 (1.03%) Microsoft Exchange
5 97 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
6 93 (0.90%) Apache Spark
7 92 (0.89%) Apache
8 40 (0.39%) nginx
9 37 (0.36%) CMS
10 31 (0.30%) Jupyter
11 29 (0.28%) WebLogic
12 22 (0.21%) Skype for Business
13 20 (0.19%) Tomcat
14 17 (0.17%) Oracle Application Server
15 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
16 15 (0.15%) IIS
17 11 (0.11%) JBoss
17 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
17 11 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
18 9 (0.088%) Documentum
Applications
1 185 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 128 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
3 91 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
4 90 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 29 (0.28%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
7 21 (0.20%) AutoCAD
8 19 (0.18%) Revit
8 19 (0.18%) Windchill
9 18 (0.18%) SOLIDWORKS
10 9 (0.088%) Chatbot
10 9 (0.088%) Simulink
11 7 (0.068%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.049%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.049%) Sketch
13 4 (0.039%) OrCAD
13 4 (0.039%) Trello
14 2 (0.019%) Gliffy
14 2 (0.019%) Houdini
14 2 (0.019%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 132 (1.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 79 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 54 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
4 42 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
5 39 (0.38%) Teamcenter
6 30 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 29 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
8 26 (0.25%) Oracle Payroll
8 26 (0.25%) SAP PSCD
9 22 (0.21%) SAP FI
10 18 (0.18%) SAP HR
11 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
12 14 (0.14%) SAP CO
13 13 (0.13%) Maximo
13 13 (0.13%) NetSuite
13 13 (0.13%) Primavera
13 13 (0.13%) SAP BRIM
13 13 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
14 12 (0.12%) SAP GRC
14 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,838 (17.87%) Azure
2 1,658 (16.12%) AWS
3 451 (4.39%) Azure DevOps
4 437 (4.25%) Power Platform
5 419 (4.07%) GitHub
6 387 (3.76%) GCP
7 303 (2.95%) Entra ID
8 300 (2.92%) Microsoft 365
9 292 (2.84%) GitHub Actions
10 230 (2.24%) Serverless
11 204 (1.98%) Amazon S3
12 162 (1.58%) AWS Lambda
13 156 (1.52%) OCI
14 143 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 143 (1.39%) Amazon EKS
15 142 (1.38%) SaaS
16 141 (1.37%) OpenShift
17 124 (1.21%) Amazon EC2
18 110 (1.07%) PowerApps
19 105 (1.02%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 403 (3.92%) Firewall
2 344 (3.35%) DNS
3 226 (2.20%) Network Security
4 180 (1.75%) VPN
5 169 (1.64%) WAN
6 166 (1.61%) DHCP
7 132 (1.28%) LAN
8 130 (1.26%) TCP/IP
9 116 (1.13%) BGP
10 112 (1.09%) Wi-Fi
11 85 (0.83%) VLAN
12 75 (0.73%) OSPF
12 75 (0.73%) Wireless
13 59 (0.57%) MPLS
13 59 (0.57%) SSL
14 58 (0.56%) VSAN
15 57 (0.55%) SAN
16 56 (0.54%) IPsec
17 50 (0.49%) SD-WAN
18 43 (0.42%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 304 (2.96%) Power BI
2 239 (2.32%) PostgreSQL
3 232 (2.26%) SQL Server
4 218 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
5 178 (1.73%) Metadata
6 166 (1.61%) Oracle Database
7 120 (1.17%) Relational Database
8 117 (1.14%) Data Lake
9 101 (0.98%) MongoDB
10 98 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
11 95 (0.92%) MySQL
12 87 (0.85%) NoSQL
13 70 (0.68%) Pentaho
14 65 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
15 57 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
16 51 (0.50%) Amazon Athena
17 49 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
17 49 (0.48%) Big Data
18 39 (0.38%) Tableau
19 37 (0.36%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 527 (5.12%) JIRA
2 493 (4.79%) Git
3 448 (4.36%) GitLab
4 426 (4.14%) Jenkins
5 132 (1.28%) Selenium
6 75 (0.73%) Postman
7 72 (0.70%) SonarQube
8 70 (0.68%) Cucumber
9 69 (0.67%) JUnit
9 69 (0.67%) Maven
10 63 (0.61%) JMeter
11 44 (0.43%) Gradle
12 40 (0.39%) Mockito
13 37 (0.36%) Gatling
14 36 (0.35%) Cypress.io
14 36 (0.35%) REST Assured
14 36 (0.35%) Visual Studio
15 34 (0.33%) Zephyr
16 33 (0.32%) Artifactory
16 33 (0.32%) Rational DOORS
General
1 2,369 (23.04%) Social Skills
2 2,064 (20.07%) Public Sector
3 853 (8.29%) Analytical Skills
4 689 (6.70%) Finance
5 413 (4.02%) Military
6 348 (3.38%) Aerospace
7 255 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
8 215 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
9 181 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
10 166 (1.61%) Manufacturing
11 151 (1.47%) Telecoms
12 135 (1.31%) Legal
13 125 (1.22%) Banking
14 122 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 111 (1.08%) Law
16 109 (1.06%) Police
17 62 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
18 50 (0.49%) Local Government
19 41 (0.40%) Marketing
20 40 (0.39%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,587 (15.43%) Architect
2 976 (9.49%) Senior
3 966 (9.39%) Developer
4 946 (9.20%) Lead
5 611 (5.94%) Analyst
6 587 (5.71%) Consultant
7 427 (4.15%) Data Engineer
8 424 (4.12%) DevOps Engineer
9 358 (3.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 269 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
11 256 (2.49%) Security Architect
12 253 (2.46%) Data Architect
13 251 (2.44%) Technical Architect
14 228 (2.22%) Software Engineer
15 216 (2.10%) Network Engineer
16 215 (2.09%) Administrator
17 186 (1.81%) Cloud Engineer
18 181 (1.76%) Delivery Manager
18 181 (1.76%) Designer
19 179 (1.74%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 897 (8.72%) Terraform
2 419 (4.07%) REST
3 215 (2.09%) Kafka
4 200 (1.94%) Spring
5 182 (1.77%) Spring Boot
6 168 (1.63%) React
7 164 (1.59%) RESTful
7 164 (1.59%) SOAP
8 156 (1.52%) .NET
9 129 (1.25%) Node.js
10 125 (1.22%) OAuth
11 123 (1.20%) JSON
12 119 (1.16%) HTML
13 108 (1.05%) XML
14 100 (0.97%) Middleware
15 95 (0.92%) AngularJS
15 95 (0.92%) Web Services
16 92 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
17 90 (0.88%) CSS
17 90 (0.88%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 462 (4.49%) Cloud Native
2 409 (3.98%) Onboarding
3 331 (3.22%) Product Ownership
4 260 (2.53%) Data Centre
5 191 (1.86%) Management Information System
6 163 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
7 162 (1.58%) PKI
8 159 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
9 147 (1.43%) CMDB
10 126 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
11 114 (1.11%) Cyber Threat
12 112 (1.09%) Replication
13 108 (1.05%) Operational Technology
14 107 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
15 99 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
16 86 (0.84%) Security Posture
17 84 (0.82%) Security Operations Centre
18 81 (0.79%) Data Structures
19 77 (0.75%) Clustering
20 76 (0.74%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 902 (8.77%) Windows
2 702 (6.83%) Linux
3 351 (3.41%) Windows Server
4 196 (1.91%) Unix
5 142 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 135 (1.31%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.77%) Solaris
8 60 (0.58%) Android
9 43 (0.42%) CentOS
10 39 (0.38%) Mac OS
10 39 (0.38%) Ubuntu
11 36 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
12 25 (0.24%) AIX
12 25 (0.24%) Apple iOS
13 24 (0.23%) Windows 7
14 23 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
15 21 (0.20%) VMS
16 17 (0.17%) Rocky
17 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
18 10 (0.097%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,129 (20.70%) Agile
2 1,547 (15.04%) DevOps
3 1,544 (15.01%) CI/CD
4 1,489 (14.48%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,311 (12.75%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,124 (10.93%) Problem-Solving
7 1,041 (10.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 913 (8.88%) Infrastructure as Code
9 834 (8.11%) Migration
10 814 (7.92%) Cybersecurity
11 727 (7.07%) ITIL
12 683 (6.64%) Roadmaps
13 674 (6.55%) AI
13 674 (6.55%) Test Automation
14 661 (6.43%) Technical Leadership
15 650 (6.32%) Containerisation
16 644 (6.26%) Decision-Making
17 628 (6.11%) Analytics
18 596 (5.80%) Software Engineering
19 569 (5.53%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 1,186 (11.53%) Python
2 950 (9.24%) SQL
3 645 (6.27%) Java
4 548 (5.33%) PowerShell
5 367 (3.57%) JavaScript
6 317 (3.08%) Bash
7 182 (1.77%) C#
8 180 (1.75%) TypeScript
9 120 (1.17%) PL/SQL
10 119 (1.16%) Bicep
11 67 (0.65%) Shell Script
12 57 (0.55%) C++
13 56 (0.54%) Groovy
14 55 (0.53%) Go
15 48 (0.47%) Scala
16 45 (0.44%) C
17 44 (0.43%) Kotlin
18 33 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 28 (0.27%) ABAP
20 27 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 7,708 (74.95%) SC Cleared
2 2,119 (20.60%) DV Cleared
3 480 (4.67%) BPSS Clearance
4 450 (4.38%) Degree
5 199 (1.94%) CISSP
6 167 (1.62%) Azure Certification
7 150 (1.46%) AWS Certification
8 149 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
9 148 (1.44%) Microsoft Certification
10 120 (1.17%) CISM
11 93 (0.90%) PMI Certification
12 87 (0.85%) ISTQB
13 83 (0.81%) PMP
14 75 (0.73%) CCNP
15 68 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
16 53 (0.52%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 49 (0.48%) CCNA
18 47 (0.46%) TOGAF Certification
19 43 (0.42%) (ISC)2 CCSP
20 41 (0.40%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 470 (4.57%) QA
2 340 (3.31%) Data Quality
3 299 (2.91%) NIST
4 289 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 266 (2.59%) NCSC
6 243 (2.36%) Accessibility
7 211 (2.05%) PMO
8 158 (1.54%) SLA
9 147 (1.43%) GDPR
10 144 (1.40%) GRC
11 70 (0.68%) WCAG
12 48 (0.47%) JSP 440
13 41 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
14 37 (0.36%) NIST 800
15 36 (0.35%) Def Stans
16 33 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 26 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
18 22 (0.21%) ISO 9001
19 21 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
20 19 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 692 (6.73%) Docker
2 580 (5.64%) Active Directory
3 404 (3.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 134 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
5 125 (1.22%) VMware NSX
5 125 (1.22%) vSphere
6 121 (1.18%) Hyper-V
7 82 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
8 45 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
9 39 (0.38%) Firmware
10 34 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
11 24 (0.23%) BitLocker
11 24 (0.23%) vCloud
12 21 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
13 14 (0.14%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 13 (0.13%) NFS
15 11 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 10 (0.097%) KVM
17 9 (0.088%) Squid
18 8 (0.078%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 855 (8.31%) Kubernetes
2 406 (3.95%) Ansible
3 233 (2.27%) Grafana
4 167 (1.62%) Prometheus
5 136 (1.32%) SCCM
6 122 (1.19%) vCenter Server
7 99 (0.96%) Microsoft Intune
8 92 (0.89%) SCOM
9 60 (0.58%) Argo
10 51 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
11 48 (0.47%) Kibana
12 40 (0.39%) Puppet
13 34 (0.33%) Data Guard
13 34 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
14 30 (0.29%) VxRail
15 28 (0.27%) Control-M
15 28 (0.27%) Istio
16 27 (0.26%) NetBackup
17 24 (0.23%) Nagios
17 24 (0.23%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 1,407 (13.68%) Microsoft
2 816 (7.93%) Oracle
3 545 (5.30%) VMware
4 456 (4.43%) ServiceNow
5 397 (3.86%) SAP
6 257 (2.50%) Google
7 251 (2.44%) Cisco
8 193 (1.88%) Splunk
9 168 (1.63%) Databricks
10 116 (1.13%) Red Hat
11 113 (1.10%) Palo Alto
12 108 (1.05%) Salesforce
13 99 (0.96%) Informatica
14 94 (0.91%) Dynatrace
15 93 (0.90%) IBM
16 91 (0.88%) Remedy
17 87 (0.85%) Talend
18 86 (0.84%) CyberArk
19 70 (0.68%) Citrix
19 70 (0.68%) SolarWinds