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

6 months to
9 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 9,845 4,912 7,082
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.02% 18.20% 19.00%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.54% 58.97% 62.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,929 3,200 4,625
10th Percentile £380 £338 £353
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £719 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £530 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.03% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 759 402 547
10th Percentile £18.31 £18.51 £14.50
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year +152.49% -55.79% -5.19%
75th Percentile £77.50 £62.24 £71.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £80.85
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £25.15 £55.25
% change year-on-year +148.51% -54.48% -7.92%

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 14,157 8,330 11,399
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.66% 30.87% 30.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,544 5,248 7,087
10th Percentile £350 £283 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.23% -2.36%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £640
90th Percentile £718 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,061 577 998
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.19 £20.00 £20.74
Median hourly rate £53.00 £27.76 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +90.92% -34.68% -22.73%
75th Percentile £74.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.50 £76.25 £75.55
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £27.38 £40.94
% change year-on-year +82.65% -33.13% -25.56%

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 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 9 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 9 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 3,492 £538 +2.38% 726
South East +1 2,395 £550 - 648
South West 0 1,322 £538 -6.52% 627
North of England +2 1,057 £500 - 352
Midlands +3 962 £469 -6.25% 162
West Midlands +2 822 £470 -8.02% 118
North West 0 570 £525 +4.79% 194
East of England +2 338 £550 +10.00% 162
Yorkshire +2 279 £500 +1.63% 67
North East +1 236 £475 -5.00% 92
East Midlands -1 128 £418 -12.11% 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
1 352 (3.58%) Confluence
2 227 (2.31%) SharePoint
3 148 (1.50%) SAS
4 123 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
5 90 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
6 83 (0.84%) Apache
7 82 (0.83%) Apache Spark
8 39 (0.40%) nginx
9 36 (0.37%) Jupyter
10 33 (0.34%) WebLogic
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 18 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 17 (0.17%) Oracle Application Server
14 16 (0.16%) CMS
14 16 (0.16%) IIS
15 14 (0.14%) Skype for Business
16 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
17 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
17 11 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
18 9 (0.091%) Documentum
Applications
1 163 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 128 (1.30%) Microsoft Office
3 84 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
4 66 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 42 (0.43%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.14%) Simulink
8 12 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
9 11 (0.11%) AutoCAD
9 11 (0.11%) Revit
10 10 (0.10%) Chatbot
11 5 (0.051%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.051%) Notepad++
12 4 (0.041%) Sketch
13 2 (0.020%) CATIA
13 2 (0.020%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.020%) Lectora
13 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.020%) Siemens NX
13 2 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 106 (1.08%) SAP S/4HANA
2 62 (0.63%) Remedy ITSM
3 44 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
4 34 (0.35%) Teamcenter
5 30 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 26 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
7 25 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
8 23 (0.23%) SAP PSCD
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
9 15 (0.15%) Primavera
9 15 (0.15%) Temenos T24
10 13 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
11 12 (0.12%) iTrent
11 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
12 11 (0.11%) SAP ERP
13 10 (0.10%) Maximo
13 10 (0.10%) SAP HR
14 9 (0.091%) Integrated Workplace Management System
14 9 (0.091%) Oracle Payroll
14 9 (0.091%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,724 (17.51%) Azure
2 1,649 (16.75%) AWS
3 392 (3.98%) Power Platform
4 391 (3.97%) GitHub
5 387 (3.93%) Azure DevOps
6 344 (3.49%) GCP
7 259 (2.63%) Microsoft 365
8 252 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
9 250 (2.54%) Entra ID
10 239 (2.43%) Serverless
11 222 (2.25%) Amazon S3
12 166 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
13 151 (1.53%) Amazon EC2
14 146 (1.48%) OCI
15 143 (1.45%) SaaS
16 142 (1.44%) OpenShift
17 131 (1.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 131 (1.33%) PaaS
18 113 (1.15%) Amazon EKS
19 110 (1.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 415 (4.22%) Firewall
2 323 (3.28%) DNS
3 229 (2.33%) Network Security
4 213 (2.16%) WAN
5 189 (1.92%) LAN
6 172 (1.75%) VPN
7 166 (1.69%) DHCP
8 141 (1.43%) BGP
9 117 (1.19%) OSPF
10 110 (1.12%) Wi-Fi
11 107 (1.09%) VLAN
12 105 (1.07%) TCP/IP
13 80 (0.81%) Wireless
14 62 (0.63%) MPLS
14 62 (0.63%) SD-WAN
15 55 (0.56%) SAN
15 55 (0.56%) VXLAN
16 51 (0.52%) BIG-IP
17 50 (0.51%) IPsec
18 46 (0.47%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 296 (3.01%) Power BI
2 245 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
3 231 (2.35%) SQL Server
4 222 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
5 147 (1.49%) Oracle Database
6 120 (1.22%) Metadata
7 104 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
7 104 (1.06%) Data Lake
8 100 (1.02%) Relational Database
9 84 (0.85%) Pentaho
10 79 (0.80%) MongoDB
11 78 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
12 77 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
12 77 (0.78%) MySQL
13 68 (0.69%) Amazon Redshift
14 66 (0.67%) NoSQL
15 61 (0.62%) Amazon Athena
16 58 (0.59%) Tableau
17 42 (0.43%) Big Data
18 40 (0.41%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 550 (5.59%) JIRA
2 445 (4.52%) Git
3 411 (4.17%) GitLab
4 379 (3.85%) Jenkins
5 106 (1.08%) Selenium
6 80 (0.81%) JUnit
7 72 (0.73%) SonarQube
8 68 (0.69%) Postman
9 59 (0.60%) Rational DOORS
10 53 (0.54%) JMeter
11 49 (0.50%) Cucumber
12 43 (0.44%) Maven
13 42 (0.43%) Mockito
14 40 (0.41%) Artifactory
14 40 (0.41%) REST Assured
15 39 (0.40%) Bitbucket
16 37 (0.38%) Zephyr
17 36 (0.37%) Cypress.io
18 35 (0.36%) Visual Studio
19 29 (0.29%) WebDriver
General
1 2,083 (21.16%) Public Sector
2 2,017 (20.49%) Social Skills
3 714 (7.25%) Analytical Skills
4 677 (6.88%) Finance
5 328 (3.33%) Military
6 271 (2.75%) Aerospace
6 271 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
7 147 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
8 144 (1.46%) Legal
9 128 (1.30%) Banking
10 123 (1.25%) Telecoms
11 107 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
12 95 (0.96%) Law
13 79 (0.80%) Police
14 76 (0.77%) Manufacturing
15 74 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
16 66 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 39 (0.40%) Marketing
18 37 (0.38%) Retail
19 36 (0.37%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,430 (14.53%) Architect
2 1,008 (10.24%) Developer
3 850 (8.63%) Senior
4 823 (8.36%) Lead
5 623 (6.33%) Analyst
6 467 (4.74%) Data Engineer
7 453 (4.60%) Consultant
8 414 (4.21%) DevOps Engineer
9 328 (3.33%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 305 (3.10%) Software Engineer
11 283 (2.87%) Technical Architect
12 244 (2.48%) Network Engineer
13 229 (2.33%) Security Architect
13 229 (2.33%) Solutions Architect
14 200 (2.03%) Project Manager
15 198 (2.01%) Business Analyst
15 198 (2.01%) Java Developer
16 194 (1.97%) Delivery Manager
17 186 (1.89%) Administrator
18 179 (1.82%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 328 (3.33%) REST
2 238 (2.42%) Spring
3 194 (1.97%) Spring Boot
4 171 (1.74%) React
5 169 (1.72%) .NET
6 164 (1.67%) Kafka
7 157 (1.59%) Node.js
8 152 (1.54%) RESTful
9 138 (1.40%) SOAP
10 118 (1.20%) JSON
11 112 (1.14%) AngularJS
12 103 (1.05%) OAuth
13 102 (1.04%) LDAP
14 92 (0.93%) Web Services
15 90 (0.91%) PySpark
16 86 (0.87%) HTML
17 78 (0.79%) XML
18 77 (0.78%) OpenID
19 73 (0.74%) Elastic Stack
20 70 (0.71%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 390 (3.96%) Cloud Native
2 324 (3.29%) Onboarding
3 323 (3.28%) Product Ownership
4 280 (2.84%) Data Centre
5 167 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
6 144 (1.46%) Management Information System
7 143 (1.45%) PKI
8 136 (1.38%) Distributed Systems
9 110 (1.12%) Replication
10 109 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
11 104 (1.06%) CMDB
12 93 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
13 90 (0.91%) Clustering
14 89 (0.90%) Data Structures
15 87 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
15 87 (0.88%) Security Posture
16 78 (0.79%) Public Cloud
17 74 (0.75%) Security Operations Centre
17 74 (0.75%) Virtual Team
18 71 (0.72%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 816 (8.29%) Windows
2 679 (6.90%) Linux
3 265 (2.69%) Windows Server
4 193 (1.96%) Unix
5 133 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 88 (0.89%) Windows 10
7 78 (0.79%) Android
8 55 (0.56%) Solaris
9 46 (0.47%) Apple iOS
10 43 (0.44%) Mac OS
11 32 (0.33%) Ubuntu
12 31 (0.31%) AIX
13 28 (0.28%) CentOS
14 25 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
15 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
16 15 (0.15%) VMS
17 14 (0.14%) Windows 7
18 11 (0.11%) Embedded Linux
18 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
18 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,013 (20.45%) Agile
2 1,524 (15.48%) DevOps
3 1,392 (14.14%) CI/CD
4 1,045 (10.61%) Problem-Solving
5 1,040 (10.56%) Stakeholder Management
6 1,014 (10.30%) Continuous Improvement
7 836 (8.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 763 (7.75%) Migration
9 734 (7.46%) Infrastructure as Code
10 672 (6.83%) Cybersecurity
11 662 (6.72%) ITIL
12 601 (6.10%) Test Automation
13 587 (5.96%) Software Engineering
14 575 (5.84%) Containerisation
15 572 (5.81%) Roadmaps
16 571 (5.80%) Analytics
17 526 (5.34%) Decision-Making
18 509 (5.17%) Data Modelling
19 507 (5.15%) AI
20 470 (4.77%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 1,042 (10.58%) Python
2 933 (9.48%) SQL
3 668 (6.79%) Java
4 461 (4.68%) PowerShell
5 293 (2.98%) JavaScript
6 227 (2.31%) Bash
7 202 (2.05%) C#
8 149 (1.51%) TypeScript
9 136 (1.38%) PL/SQL
10 88 (0.89%) C++
11 86 (0.87%) Shell Script
12 67 (0.68%) Bicep
12 67 (0.68%) C
13 54 (0.55%) Go
14 46 (0.47%) Ada
15 40 (0.41%) Apex Code
15 40 (0.41%) Kotlin
15 40 (0.41%) Ruby
15 40 (0.41%) Scala
16 34 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 7,381 (74.97%) SC Cleared
2 1,978 (20.09%) DV Cleared
3 395 (4.01%) Degree
4 314 (3.19%) BPSS Clearance
5 188 (1.91%) Cisco Certification
6 165 (1.68%) CISSP
7 135 (1.37%) Azure Certification
8 117 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
9 107 (1.09%) AWS Certification
10 97 (0.99%) CCNP
11 96 (0.98%) CISM
12 87 (0.88%) PMP
13 85 (0.86%) PMI Certification
14 80 (0.81%) CCNA
15 66 (0.67%) ISTQB
16 59 (0.60%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 57 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
18 48 (0.49%) ITIL Certification
19 44 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
20 38 (0.39%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 385 (3.91%) QA
2 296 (3.01%) Data Quality
3 290 (2.95%) NIST
4 287 (2.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 216 (2.19%) NCSC
6 198 (2.01%) Accessibility
7 177 (1.80%) PMO
8 168 (1.71%) GDPR
9 100 (1.02%) SLA
10 91 (0.92%) GRC
11 61 (0.62%) JSP 440
12 49 (0.50%) WCAG
13 44 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
13 44 (0.45%) NIST 800
14 34 (0.35%) Def Stans
15 25 (0.25%) RMADS
16 24 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 23 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
17 23 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 21 (0.21%) COBIT
System Software
1 641 (6.51%) Docker
2 442 (4.49%) Active Directory
3 320 (3.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 123 (1.25%) VMware ESXi
5 121 (1.23%) VMware NSX
6 93 (0.94%) vSphere
7 85 (0.86%) Hyper-V
8 76 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
9 40 (0.41%) Oracle RAC
10 33 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
11 32 (0.33%) Firmware
12 23 (0.23%) BitLocker
12 23 (0.23%) vCloud
13 20 (0.20%) NFS
14 19 (0.19%) Postfix
15 18 (0.18%) Squid
16 11 (0.11%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 9 (0.091%) Microsoft App-V
18 7 (0.071%) KVM
18 7 (0.071%) UAG
Systems Management
1 810 (8.23%) Terraform
2 790 (8.02%) Kubernetes
3 356 (3.62%) Ansible
4 240 (2.44%) Grafana
5 189 (1.92%) Prometheus
6 120 (1.22%) vCenter Server
7 85 (0.86%) SCCM
8 69 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
9 64 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
10 59 (0.60%) Argo
11 51 (0.52%) SCOM
12 49 (0.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 47 (0.48%) FortiGate
14 46 (0.47%) Puppet
15 44 (0.45%) Oracle RMAN
16 30 (0.30%) Progress Chef
17 29 (0.29%) Podman
18 28 (0.28%) Data Guard
19 26 (0.26%) Nagios
20 25 (0.25%) Kibana
Vendors
1 1,100 (11.17%) Microsoft
2 722 (7.33%) Oracle
3 493 (5.01%) VMware
4 463 (4.70%) ServiceNow
5 321 (3.26%) SAP
6 307 (3.12%) Cisco
7 199 (2.02%) Splunk
8 173 (1.76%) Databricks
9 164 (1.67%) Google
10 136 (1.38%) Red Hat
11 129 (1.31%) Talend
12 128 (1.30%) Salesforce
13 113 (1.15%) IBM
14 105 (1.07%) Informatica
15 101 (1.03%) Palo Alto
16 99 (1.01%) Juniper
17 89 (0.90%) SolarWinds
18 87 (0.88%) F5
19 86 (0.87%) Citrix
20 84 (0.85%) Fortinet