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 24 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 3 3
Rank change year-on-year +1 0 +3
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 8,173 4,585 7,045
As % of all contract jobs in England 23.36% 18.06% 18.66%
As % of the Qualifications category 68.17% 59.83% 59.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,591 2,940 4,470
10th Percentile £356 £325 £355
25th Percentile £445 £440 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £548 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.20% -0.36% -3.41%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £701 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £539 £550
% change year-on-year -2.60% -2.00% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 711 245 482
10th Percentile £17.69 £21.25 £19.99
25th Percentile £20.00 £26.25 £39.21
Median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £56.69
Median % change year-on-year -58.08% +5.84% -5.52%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £77.38 £83.39
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £56.75 £57.32
% change year-on-year -55.68% -1.00% -4.47%

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 11,989 7,663 11,745
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.27% 30.19% 31.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,972 4,719 7,248
10th Percentile £325 £294 £290
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 922 381 891
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £19.13 £25.26 £20.90
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% +12.36% -4.30%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.99 £82.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.25 £44.00
% change year-on-year -37.52% -8.52% -7.37%

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 24 February 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 24 February 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 24 February 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 2,830 £530 +0.95% 484
South East +1 1,759 £525 -4.55% 571
South West 0 1,304 £550 -2.35% 338
Midlands +4 834 £500 -9.09% 178
North of England -2 824 £497 +1.40% 194
West Midlands +2 659 £500 -9.26% 133
North West 0 531 £500 +5.26% 109
East of England +1 341 £498 -0.50% 153
East Midlands +1 173 £425 -16.05% 45
Yorkshire -5 173 £500 -4.76% 42
North East 0 147 £450 -10.00% 44
South Coast - 1 - -
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
1 300 (3.67%) Confluence
2 198 (2.42%) SharePoint
3 134 (1.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 126 (1.54%) SAS
5 68 (0.83%) Apache
6 65 (0.80%) Apache Spark
7 41 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
8 38 (0.46%) nginx
9 35 (0.43%) WebLogic
10 33 (0.40%) Skype for Business
11 20 (0.24%) Jupyter
12 17 (0.21%) Palantir Foundry
13 15 (0.18%) CMS
14 11 (0.13%) Tuxedo
15 8 (0.098%) IIS
15 8 (0.098%) OpenStack
16 7 (0.086%) Oracle Workflow
16 7 (0.086%) Tomcat
17 6 (0.073%) ArcGIS
18 5 (0.061%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 245 (3.00%) Microsoft Office
2 180 (2.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 115 (1.41%) Microsoft Project
4 68 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 39 (0.48%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.11%) Simulink
8 5 (0.061%) Siemens NX
8 5 (0.061%) Windchill
9 4 (0.049%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.049%) Chatbot
9 4 (0.049%) Oracle Smart View
9 4 (0.049%) Sketch
10 3 (0.037%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.024%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.024%) CATIA
11 2 (0.024%) Lectora
11 2 (0.024%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 2 (0.024%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.024%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 124 (1.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (0.45%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 28 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
4 25 (0.31%) Remedy ITSM
5 22 (0.27%) Teamcenter
6 20 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
7 19 (0.23%) SAP MM
8 15 (0.18%) Maximo
9 13 (0.16%) SAP QM
9 13 (0.16%) SAP WM
10 12 (0.15%) Oracle Assets
10 12 (0.15%) SAP PP
10 12 (0.15%) SAP VC
11 11 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
11 11 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
11 11 (0.13%) SAP EWM
11 11 (0.13%) SAP HCM
12 10 (0.12%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
13 9 (0.11%) Oracle General Ledger
13 9 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 1,344 (16.44%) AWS
2 1,340 (16.40%) Azure
3 350 (4.28%) GitHub
4 345 (4.22%) GCP
5 297 (3.63%) Power Platform
6 295 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
7 293 (3.58%) Microsoft 365
8 227 (2.78%) Serverless
9 213 (2.61%) Entra ID
10 181 (2.21%) Amazon S3
11 175 (2.14%) GitHub Actions
12 168 (2.06%) OpenShift
13 148 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
14 122 (1.49%) Amazon EC2
15 108 (1.32%) AWS CloudFormation
16 107 (1.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 98 (1.20%) IaaS
18 97 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
19 95 (1.16%) OCI
20 94 (1.15%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 400 (4.89%) Firewall
2 267 (3.27%) DNS
3 203 (2.48%) Network Security
4 175 (2.14%) WAN
5 164 (2.01%) VPN
6 139 (1.70%) LAN
7 131 (1.60%) BGP
8 126 (1.54%) TCP/IP
9 125 (1.53%) DHCP
10 89 (1.09%) OSPF
11 86 (1.05%) Wireless
12 82 (1.00%) VLAN
13 69 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
14 67 (0.82%) MPLS
15 55 (0.67%) IPsec
16 51 (0.62%) SAN
17 49 (0.60%) SSL
18 45 (0.55%) Cisco ISE
19 42 (0.51%) Skype
20 37 (0.45%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 214 (2.62%) PostgreSQL
2 213 (2.61%) Power BI
3 134 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
4 119 (1.46%) SQL Server
5 103 (1.26%) Metadata
6 94 (1.15%) Oracle Database
7 88 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
8 85 (1.04%) MongoDB
9 83 (1.02%) NoSQL
10 76 (0.93%) Relational Database
11 69 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
12 63 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
13 55 (0.67%) Pentaho
14 50 (0.61%) Data Lake
15 47 (0.58%) Big Data
15 47 (0.58%) MySQL
16 43 (0.53%) Tableau
17 37 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
18 35 (0.43%) DynamoDB
18 35 (0.43%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 501 (6.13%) JIRA
2 413 (5.05%) Git
3 354 (4.33%) Jenkins
4 306 (3.74%) GitLab
5 101 (1.24%) Selenium
6 78 (0.95%) Postman
7 76 (0.93%) JUnit
8 59 (0.72%) Cypress.io
9 49 (0.60%) SonarQube
10 45 (0.55%) Artifactory
10 45 (0.55%) Oracle APEX
11 43 (0.53%) Maven
12 40 (0.49%) Bitbucket
12 40 (0.49%) Cucumber
13 35 (0.43%) Mockito
14 34 (0.42%) REST Assured
15 29 (0.35%) Rational DOORS
16 24 (0.29%) JMeter
16 24 (0.29%) Metasploit
17 22 (0.27%) Burp Suite
General
1 2,077 (25.41%) Public Sector
2 2,002 (24.50%) Social Skills
3 699 (8.55%) Analytical Skills
4 582 (7.12%) Finance
5 315 (3.85%) Military
6 238 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
7 174 (2.13%) Telecoms
8 172 (2.10%) Aerospace
9 167 (2.04%) Manufacturing
10 126 (1.54%) Legal
11 115 (1.41%) Marketing
11 115 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
12 110 (1.35%) Electronics
13 103 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
14 100 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
15 84 (1.03%) Banking
16 67 (0.82%) Law
17 44 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (0.49%) Police
19 34 (0.42%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,146 (14.02%) Architect
2 769 (9.41%) Developer
3 693 (8.48%) Senior
4 624 (7.63%) Analyst
5 481 (5.89%) Consultant
6 465 (5.69%) Lead
7 367 (4.49%) DevOps Engineer
8 289 (3.54%) Data Engineer
9 235 (2.88%) Network Engineer
10 226 (2.77%) Support Engineer
11 220 (2.69%) Business Analyst
12 202 (2.47%) Software Engineer
12 202 (2.47%) Technical Architect
13 183 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
14 163 (1.99%) Tester
15 148 (1.81%) Azure Engineer
16 142 (1.74%) Administrator
17 141 (1.73%) AWS Engineer
18 139 (1.70%) Project Manager
19 136 (1.66%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 321 (3.93%) REST
2 185 (2.26%) Node.js
3 182 (2.23%) Spring
4 173 (2.12%) React
5 165 (2.02%) Kafka
6 144 (1.76%) JSON
7 140 (1.71%) LDAP
8 139 (1.70%) Spring Boot
9 138 (1.69%) SOAP
10 104 (1.27%) .NET
11 97 (1.19%) RESTful
12 96 (1.17%) HTML
13 92 (1.13%) OAuth
14 91 (1.11%) AngularJS
14 91 (1.11%) Oracle Fusion
15 88 (1.08%) CSS
15 88 (1.08%) XML
16 87 (1.06%) PySpark
16 87 (1.06%) Web Services
17 76 (0.93%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 269 (3.29%) Data Centre
2 242 (2.96%) Product Ownership
3 228 (2.79%) Cloud Native
4 215 (2.63%) Onboarding
5 198 (2.42%) PKI
6 149 (1.82%) Management Information System
7 129 (1.58%) Security Posture
8 107 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
9 106 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
10 104 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
11 93 (1.14%) Replication
12 69 (0.84%) Hybrid Cloud
13 66 (0.81%) Driving Licence
14 65 (0.80%) Public Cloud
15 64 (0.78%) Cyber Threat
15 64 (0.78%) Security Operations Centre
16 58 (0.71%) Distributed Systems
17 45 (0.55%) Clustering
17 45 (0.55%) Private Cloud
18 43 (0.53%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 806 (9.86%) Windows
2 624 (7.63%) Linux
3 210 (2.57%) Windows Server
4 155 (1.90%) Windows 10
5 117 (1.43%) Android
6 113 (1.38%) Unix
7 108 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 65 (0.80%) Mac OS
9 45 (0.55%) Apple iOS
10 42 (0.51%) Ubuntu
11 35 (0.43%) VMS
12 24 (0.29%) CentOS
12 24 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
13 21 (0.26%) Windows 7
14 19 (0.23%) Solaris
15 17 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
16 14 (0.17%) Mac OS X
17 12 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
18 8 (0.098%) Windows Server 2003
18 8 (0.098%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,565 (19.15%) Agile
2 1,237 (15.14%) DevOps
3 1,078 (13.19%) CI/CD
4 1,046 (12.80%) Problem-Solving
5 742 (9.08%) Stakeholder Management
6 718 (8.79%) Migration
7 632 (7.73%) Continuous Improvement
8 566 (6.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 538 (6.58%) Cybersecurity
10 512 (6.26%) ITIL
11 498 (6.09%) Infrastructure as Code
12 469 (5.74%) Test Automation
13 439 (5.37%) Roadmaps
14 438 (5.36%) Analytics
15 427 (5.22%) Containerisation
16 399 (4.88%) Service Management
17 395 (4.83%) Business Intelligence
18 387 (4.74%) Scrum
19 385 (4.71%) Software Engineering
20 356 (4.36%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 974 (11.92%) Python
2 674 (8.25%) SQL
3 539 (6.59%) PowerShell
4 468 (5.73%) Java
5 347 (4.25%) JavaScript
6 211 (2.58%) Bash
7 168 (2.06%) TypeScript
8 145 (1.77%) C#
9 89 (1.09%) PL/SQL
10 88 (1.08%) C++
11 87 (1.06%) Shell Script
12 78 (0.95%) Go
13 59 (0.72%) C
14 49 (0.60%) Ada
15 48 (0.59%) Scala
16 46 (0.56%) Ruby
17 39 (0.48%) Bicep
18 36 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
19 31 (0.38%) ABAP
19 31 (0.38%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 6,228 (76.20%) SC Cleared
2 1,434 (17.55%) DV Cleared
3 396 (4.85%) Degree
4 251 (3.07%) BPSS Clearance
5 154 (1.88%) CISSP
6 147 (1.80%) Cisco Certification
7 120 (1.47%) Azure Certification
8 115 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
9 112 (1.37%) CCNP
10 108 (1.32%) AWS Certification
11 95 (1.16%) CISM
12 68 (0.83%) Computer Science Degree
13 61 (0.75%) CCNA
13 61 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
14 60 (0.73%) TOGAF Certification
15 45 (0.55%) GIAC
16 43 (0.53%) CEH
16 43 (0.53%) ISTQB
16 43 (0.53%) PMP
17 41 (0.50%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 277 (3.39%) QA
2 262 (3.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 246 (3.01%) NIST
4 208 (2.54%) Data Quality
5 190 (2.32%) NCSC
6 163 (1.99%) GDPR
7 148 (1.81%) Accessibility
8 114 (1.39%) SLA
9 93 (1.14%) PMO
10 56 (0.69%) GRC
11 52 (0.64%) JSP 440
12 44 (0.54%) WCAG
13 41 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
14 37 (0.45%) Def Stans
15 32 (0.39%) PCI DSS
16 30 (0.37%) COBIT
16 30 (0.37%) NIST 800
17 22 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 21 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 19 (0.23%) RMADS
System Software
1 574 (7.02%) Docker
2 468 (5.73%) Active Directory
3 232 (2.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 75 (0.92%) VMware NSX
5 64 (0.78%) vSphere
6 58 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
7 57 (0.70%) Hyper-V
7 57 (0.70%) VMware ESXi
8 24 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
9 22 (0.27%) Firmware
10 18 (0.22%) BitLocker
10 18 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
11 16 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 15 (0.18%) NFS
13 10 (0.12%) Postfix
13 10 (0.12%) Squid
14 8 (0.098%) vCloud
15 7 (0.086%) Virtual Servers
16 5 (0.061%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 5 (0.061%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 734 (8.98%) Kubernetes
2 673 (8.23%) Terraform
3 282 (3.45%) Ansible
4 201 (2.46%) Grafana
5 164 (2.01%) Prometheus
6 105 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
7 96 (1.17%) SCCM
8 92 (1.13%) vCenter Server
9 82 (1.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 64 (0.78%) Argo
10 64 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
11 39 (0.48%) Podman
12 37 (0.45%) FortiGate
12 37 (0.45%) Packer
13 31 (0.38%) Kibana
14 30 (0.37%) OPNET
15 28 (0.34%) Puppet
16 26 (0.32%) Nmap
17 25 (0.31%) Progress Chef
18 23 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 967 (11.83%) Microsoft
2 471 (5.76%) Oracle
3 412 (5.04%) VMware
4 407 (4.98%) Cisco
5 374 (4.58%) SAP
6 351 (4.29%) ServiceNow
7 208 (2.54%) Splunk
8 172 (2.10%) Red Hat
9 132 (1.62%) Juniper
10 129 (1.58%) Palo Alto
11 123 (1.50%) Databricks
11 123 (1.50%) Google
12 121 (1.48%) CyberArk
13 111 (1.36%) Atlassian
14 109 (1.33%) Salesforce
15 90 (1.10%) Dell
16 78 (0.95%) SolarWinds
17 75 (0.92%) HP
18 73 (0.89%) F5
19 72 (0.88%) Talend