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 28 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 9,942 4,975 6,602
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.05% 18.13% 19.23%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.63% 58.57% 62.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,978 3,220 4,396
10th Percentile £380 £338 £353
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.47% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £630 £625 £646
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £535 £530 £550
% change year-on-year +0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 770 449 483
10th Percentile £19.32 £18.51 £15.28
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £64.05 £25.15 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year +154.65% -55.79% -5.19%
75th Percentile £80.04 £57.24 £71.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.16 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £62.75 £25.15 £55.00
% change year-on-year +149.50% -54.27% -8.33%

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 14,278 8,494 10,497
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.67% 30.96% 30.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,622 5,357 6,681
10th Percentile £350 £289 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £722 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £525
% change year-on-year +0.48% -0.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,083 634 820
10th Percentile £17.97 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.75 £66.74
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.11 £77.55
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.88%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 3,518 £545 +3.81% 624
South East +1 2,461 £550 +1.30% 513
South West 0 1,310 £538 -6.52% 362
North of England +2 1,105 £500 - 295
Midlands +3 974 £469 -6.20% 168
West Midlands +1 834 £469 -6.20% 123
North West 0 590 £525 -0.38% 162
East of England +1 319 £563 +5.14% 139
Yorkshire +3 303 £500 +1.63% 61
North East 0 239 £475 -5.00% 72
East Midlands 0 128 £424 -8.38% 45
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
1 360 (3.62%) Confluence
2 249 (2.50%) SharePoint
3 169 (1.70%) SAS
4 114 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
5 88 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 84 (0.84%) Apache Spark
7 80 (0.80%) Apache
8 37 (0.37%) nginx
9 35 (0.35%) WebLogic
10 32 (0.32%) Jupyter
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 20 (0.20%) Oracle Application Server
13 16 (0.16%) IIS
13 16 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 15 (0.15%) CMS
14 15 (0.15%) Palantir Foundry
15 13 (0.13%) Skype for Business
16 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
17 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
18 9 (0.091%) Documentum
Applications
1 191 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 125 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
3 99 (1.00%) Microsoft Project
4 74 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 40 (0.40%) MS Visio
6 24 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.13%) AutoCAD
7 13 (0.13%) Revit
7 13 (0.13%) Simulink
7 13 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
8 9 (0.091%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.060%) Sketch
10 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
11 4 (0.040%) Trello
12 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.020%) Lectora
13 2 (0.020%) NUKE
13 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.020%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 121 (1.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 68 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
3 41 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
4 36 (0.36%) Teamcenter
5 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
6 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 23 (0.23%) SAP PSCD
8 21 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
9 16 (0.16%) Primavera
10 15 (0.15%) Findur
11 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payroll
12 13 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
12 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
13 12 (0.12%) iTrent
13 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
14 10 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
14 10 (0.10%) NetSuite
14 10 (0.10%) SAP HR
15 9 (0.091%) Salesforce CRM
15 9 (0.091%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,771 (17.81%) Azure
2 1,651 (16.61%) AWS
3 423 (4.25%) Azure DevOps
4 422 (4.24%) Power Platform
5 409 (4.11%) GitHub
6 359 (3.61%) GCP
7 276 (2.78%) Microsoft 365
8 259 (2.61%) GitHub Actions
9 244 (2.45%) Entra ID
10 241 (2.42%) Serverless
11 220 (2.21%) Amazon S3
12 167 (1.68%) AWS Lambda
13 148 (1.49%) OCI
14 144 (1.45%) Amazon EC2
15 143 (1.44%) SaaS
16 139 (1.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 129 (1.30%) OpenShift
18 127 (1.28%) PaaS
19 118 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
20 112 (1.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 420 (4.22%) Firewall
2 322 (3.24%) DNS
3 214 (2.15%) Network Security
4 210 (2.11%) WAN
5 183 (1.84%) LAN
6 172 (1.73%) VPN
7 162 (1.63%) DHCP
8 142 (1.43%) BGP
9 118 (1.19%) TCP/IP
10 114 (1.15%) Wi-Fi
11 112 (1.13%) OSPF
12 100 (1.01%) VLAN
13 83 (0.83%) Wireless
14 64 (0.64%) IPsec
15 60 (0.60%) MPLS
16 57 (0.57%) VSAN
17 56 (0.56%) SD-WAN
18 55 (0.55%) SAN
18 55 (0.55%) VXLAN
19 51 (0.51%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 316 (3.18%) Power BI
2 251 (2.52%) SQL Server
3 245 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
4 235 (2.36%) Data Warehouse
5 147 (1.48%) Oracle Database
6 134 (1.35%) Metadata
7 109 (1.10%) Data Lake
8 100 (1.01%) Relational Database
9 98 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
10 86 (0.87%) Pentaho
11 83 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
12 81 (0.81%) MySQL
13 71 (0.71%) MongoDB
14 70 (0.70%) NoSQL
15 64 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
15 64 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
16 57 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
17 55 (0.55%) Tableau
18 43 (0.43%) Big Data
19 40 (0.40%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 567 (5.70%) JIRA
2 471 (4.74%) Git
3 393 (3.95%) GitLab
4 377 (3.79%) Jenkins
5 100 (1.01%) Selenium
6 77 (0.77%) JUnit
7 76 (0.76%) SonarQube
8 59 (0.59%) Postman
9 57 (0.57%) Maven
10 54 (0.54%) Rational DOORS
11 52 (0.52%) JMeter
12 48 (0.48%) Cucumber
13 43 (0.43%) Mockito
14 38 (0.38%) Visual Studio
14 38 (0.38%) Zephyr
15 37 (0.37%) Bitbucket
16 35 (0.35%) Artifactory
17 34 (0.34%) REST Assured
18 33 (0.33%) Cypress.io
19 30 (0.30%) Gatling
General
1 2,109 (21.21%) Public Sector
2 2,046 (20.58%) Social Skills
3 755 (7.59%) Analytical Skills
4 696 (7.00%) Finance
5 339 (3.41%) Military
6 273 (2.75%) Aerospace
7 246 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
8 160 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
9 144 (1.45%) Legal
10 133 (1.34%) Organisational Skills
11 129 (1.30%) Telecoms
12 120 (1.21%) Banking
13 99 (1.00%) Law
14 89 (0.90%) Police
15 81 (0.81%) Manufacturing
16 80 (0.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 71 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
18 43 (0.43%) Marketing
19 36 (0.36%) Retail
20 35 (0.35%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 1,478 (14.87%) Architect
2 1,039 (10.45%) Developer
3 901 (9.06%) Senior
4 875 (8.80%) Lead
5 614 (6.18%) Analyst
6 486 (4.89%) Consultant
7 465 (4.68%) Data Engineer
8 394 (3.96%) DevOps Engineer
9 353 (3.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 292 (2.94%) Software Engineer
11 262 (2.64%) Technical Architect
12 243 (2.44%) Network Engineer
13 239 (2.40%) Solutions Architect
14 235 (2.36%) Security Architect
15 203 (2.04%) Data Architect
16 199 (2.00%) Java Developer
17 193 (1.94%) Delivery Manager
18 188 (1.89%) Project Manager
19 185 (1.86%) Designer
20 183 (1.84%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 357 (3.59%) REST
2 227 (2.28%) Spring
3 192 (1.93%) Spring Boot
4 181 (1.82%) .NET
5 170 (1.71%) Kafka
5 170 (1.71%) React
6 161 (1.62%) RESTful
7 148 (1.49%) SOAP
8 144 (1.45%) Node.js
9 127 (1.28%) JSON
10 123 (1.24%) AngularJS
11 105 (1.06%) Web Services
12 100 (1.01%) OAuth
13 94 (0.95%) HTML
14 87 (0.88%) PySpark
15 82 (0.82%) XML
16 70 (0.70%) CSS
17 69 (0.69%) Oracle Fusion
18 68 (0.68%) Elastic Stack
19 65 (0.65%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 402 (4.04%) Cloud Native
2 346 (3.48%) Onboarding
3 315 (3.17%) Product Ownership
4 279 (2.81%) Data Centre
5 178 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
6 154 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 145 (1.46%) PKI
8 143 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
9 122 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
10 109 (1.10%) CMDB
10 109 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
11 104 (1.05%) Data Structures
12 97 (0.98%) Clustering
12 97 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
13 91 (0.92%) Replication
14 81 (0.81%) Public Cloud
15 79 (0.79%) Security Posture
16 76 (0.76%) Virtual Team
17 73 (0.73%) Security Operations Centre
18 70 (0.70%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 820 (8.25%) Windows
2 685 (6.89%) Linux
3 276 (2.78%) Windows Server
4 202 (2.03%) Unix
5 138 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 91 (0.92%) Windows 10
7 81 (0.81%) Android
8 61 (0.61%) Solaris
9 44 (0.44%) Apple iOS
9 44 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 34 (0.34%) AIX
11 31 (0.31%) Ubuntu
11 31 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
12 29 (0.29%) CentOS
13 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
14 15 (0.15%) VMS
15 12 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
16 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
17 10 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
17 10 (0.10%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,075 (20.87%) Agile
2 1,523 (15.32%) DevOps
3 1,400 (14.08%) CI/CD
4 1,102 (11.08%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,080 (10.86%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,058 (10.64%) Problem-Solving
7 898 (9.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 778 (7.83%) Migration
9 763 (7.67%) Infrastructure as Code
10 683 (6.87%) ITIL
11 668 (6.72%) Cybersecurity
12 615 (6.19%) Analytics
13 599 (6.02%) Test Automation
14 593 (5.96%) Containerisation
14 593 (5.96%) Software Engineering
15 575 (5.78%) Roadmaps
16 545 (5.48%) AI
17 539 (5.42%) Decision-Making
18 538 (5.41%) Data Modelling
19 500 (5.03%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 1,067 (10.73%) Python
2 960 (9.66%) SQL
3 677 (6.81%) Java
4 461 (4.64%) PowerShell
5 315 (3.17%) JavaScript
6 245 (2.46%) Bash
7 214 (2.15%) C#
8 147 (1.48%) PL/SQL
9 141 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 87 (0.88%) Bicep
11 84 (0.84%) Shell Script
12 77 (0.77%) C++
13 60 (0.60%) C
14 48 (0.48%) Go
15 42 (0.42%) Kotlin
16 40 (0.40%) Scala
17 39 (0.39%) Apex Code
18 38 (0.38%) Groovy
19 36 (0.36%) Ruby
20 34 (0.34%) Ada
Qualifications
1 7,468 (75.12%) SC Cleared
2 2,036 (20.48%) DV Cleared
3 416 (4.18%) Degree
4 350 (3.52%) BPSS Clearance
5 179 (1.80%) Cisco Certification
6 157 (1.58%) CISSP
7 145 (1.46%) Azure Certification
8 130 (1.31%) Microsoft Certification
9 114 (1.15%) AWS Certification
10 99 (1.00%) PMI Certification
11 94 (0.95%) PMP
12 91 (0.92%) CISM
13 86 (0.87%) CCNP
14 75 (0.75%) CCNA
15 70 (0.70%) ISTQB
16 59 (0.59%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 56 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
18 45 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
19 44 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
20 38 (0.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 382 (3.84%) QA
2 318 (3.20%) Data Quality
3 268 (2.70%) NIST
4 262 (2.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 216 (2.17%) Accessibility
6 207 (2.08%) PMO
7 204 (2.05%) NCSC
8 154 (1.55%) GDPR
9 114 (1.15%) GRC
10 110 (1.11%) SLA
11 63 (0.63%) WCAG
12 58 (0.58%) JSP 440
13 47 (0.47%) NIST 800
14 43 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
15 29 (0.29%) Def Stans
15 29 (0.29%) Government Security Classifications
16 28 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 22 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 19 (0.19%) RMADS
19 17 (0.17%) COBIT
System Software
1 645 (6.49%) Docker
2 451 (4.54%) Active Directory
3 343 (3.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 133 (1.34%) VMware NSX
5 132 (1.33%) VMware ESXi
6 100 (1.01%) vSphere
7 89 (0.90%) Hyper-V
8 74 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
9 43 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
10 36 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
11 28 (0.28%) Firmware
12 22 (0.22%) vCloud
13 20 (0.20%) BitLocker
14 18 (0.18%) Postfix
15 17 (0.17%) NFS
16 13 (0.13%) Squid
17 8 (0.080%) KVM
17 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
18 7 (0.070%) UAG
19 6 (0.060%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 835 (8.40%) Terraform
2 769 (7.73%) Kubernetes
3 367 (3.69%) Ansible
4 229 (2.30%) Grafana
5 176 (1.77%) Prometheus
6 130 (1.31%) vCenter Server
7 94 (0.95%) SCCM
8 79 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
9 66 (0.66%) Argo
10 60 (0.60%) SCOM
11 50 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
12 49 (0.49%) Puppet
13 47 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
14 42 (0.42%) FortiGate
15 33 (0.33%) Data Guard
16 29 (0.29%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
18 26 (0.26%) Podman
19 23 (0.23%) Control-M
19 23 (0.23%) WSUS
Vendors
1 1,157 (11.64%) Microsoft
2 769 (7.73%) Oracle
3 509 (5.12%) VMware
4 488 (4.91%) ServiceNow
5 355 (3.57%) SAP
6 288 (2.90%) Cisco
7 187 (1.88%) Google
8 185 (1.86%) Splunk
9 177 (1.78%) Databricks
10 139 (1.40%) Red Hat
11 130 (1.31%) Salesforce
12 124 (1.25%) Talend
13 114 (1.15%) Informatica
14 112 (1.13%) IBM
15 103 (1.04%) Palo Alto
16 97 (0.98%) Juniper
17 90 (0.91%) SolarWinds
18 86 (0.87%) F5
19 81 (0.81%) Citrix
20 79 (0.79%) Remedy