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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 3 3
Rank change year-on-year +2 0 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 9,282 4,446 6,868
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.28% 18.70% 18.79%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.73% 59.34% 61.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,460 2,950 4,516
10th Percentile £378 £340 £350
25th Percentile £450 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 777 273 494
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £22.63 £24.66 £21.46
Median hourly rate £55.00 £40.00 £55.53
Median % change year-on-year +37.50% -27.96% -7.46%
75th Percentile £74.26 £66.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £79.74 £83.51
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £32.50 £55.04
% change year-on-year +69.23% -40.95% -8.27%

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 13,312 7,492 11,168
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.95% 31.51% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,924 4,776 6,929
10th Percentile £350 £278 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £714 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £530
% change year-on-year +0.43% -1.37% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,009 422 982
10th Percentile £17.04 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.27 £18.15
Median hourly rate £47.50 £35.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.71% -12.50% -26.31%
75th Percentile £73.00 £67.44 £62.28
90th Percentile £85.27 £80.91 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 27 May 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 +6 3,305 £525 - 493
South East +1 2,243 £550 - 469
South West 0 1,285 £538 -6.52% 375
North of England 0 928 £500 - 270
Midlands +3 873 £470 -10.48% 134
West Midlands +3 748 £470 -10.48% 106
North West -1 525 £504 +0.70% 154
East of England +2 382 £550 +10.00% 125
Yorkshire -7 235 £488 -1.71% 56
North East +1 206 £475 -1.04% 61
East Midlands -3 118 £450 -5.26% 28
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
1 337 (3.63%) Confluence
2 208 (2.24%) SharePoint
3 123 (1.33%) SAS
4 122 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
5 76 (0.82%) Apache Spark
6 72 (0.78%) Apache
7 62 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
8 33 (0.36%) nginx
8 33 (0.36%) WebLogic
9 26 (0.28%) Jupyter
10 18 (0.19%) IIS
10 18 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
11 17 (0.18%) Tomcat
12 15 (0.16%) Skype for Business
13 14 (0.15%) CMS
13 14 (0.15%) Oracle Application Server
13 14 (0.15%) Tuxedo
14 8 (0.086%) Apache Superset
14 8 (0.086%) ArcGIS
14 8 (0.086%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 166 (1.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 165 (1.78%) Microsoft Office
3 87 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
4 77 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 38 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.13%) Simulink
8 8 (0.086%) AutoCAD
9 7 (0.075%) SOLIDWORKS
10 6 (0.065%) Revit
11 5 (0.054%) Notepad++
12 4 (0.043%) Siemens NX
13 3 (0.032%) Adobe XD
13 3 (0.032%) Chatbot
13 3 (0.032%) Sketch
13 3 (0.032%) Windchill
14 2 (0.022%) CATIA
14 2 (0.022%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.022%) Lectora
14 2 (0.022%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 85 (0.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 50 (0.54%) Remedy ITSM
3 40 (0.43%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 31 (0.33%) Teamcenter
5 27 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
5 27 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.15%) Maximo
7 14 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
8 13 (0.14%) Findur
9 12 (0.13%) iTrent
9 12 (0.13%) SAP PSCD
9 12 (0.13%) Temenos T24
10 9 (0.097%) Integrated Workplace Management System
10 9 (0.097%) Oracle Assets
10 9 (0.097%) SAP ERP
10 9 (0.097%) SAP HCM
11 8 (0.086%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 8 (0.086%) Primavera
11 8 (0.086%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,588 (17.11%) Azure
2 1,514 (16.31%) AWS
3 368 (3.96%) GitHub
4 367 (3.95%) GCP
5 343 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
6 338 (3.64%) Power Platform
7 232 (2.50%) Entra ID
8 226 (2.43%) Microsoft 365
8 226 (2.43%) Serverless
9 212 (2.28%) GitHub Actions
10 188 (2.03%) Amazon S3
11 155 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
12 137 (1.48%) Amazon EC2
13 132 (1.42%) PaaS
14 126 (1.36%) OpenShift
15 118 (1.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 116 (1.25%) OCI
17 111 (1.20%) SaaS
18 105 (1.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 100 (1.08%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 433 (4.66%) Firewall
2 276 (2.97%) DNS
3 221 (2.38%) Network Security
3 221 (2.38%) WAN
4 202 (2.18%) LAN
5 158 (1.70%) VPN
6 148 (1.59%) BGP
7 147 (1.58%) DHCP
8 127 (1.37%) OSPF
9 107 (1.15%) VLAN
9 107 (1.15%) Wi-Fi
10 100 (1.08%) TCP/IP
11 84 (0.90%) Wireless
12 63 (0.68%) MPLS
13 59 (0.64%) SAN
13 59 (0.64%) Structured Cabling
14 57 (0.61%) VXLAN
15 54 (0.58%) IPsec
16 51 (0.55%) SD-WAN
17 48 (0.52%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 256 (2.76%) Power BI
2 216 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
3 203 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
4 195 (2.10%) SQL Server
5 116 (1.25%) Metadata
6 113 (1.22%) Oracle Database
7 102 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
8 92 (0.99%) Data Lake
9 89 (0.96%) MongoDB
10 80 (0.86%) Relational Database
11 78 (0.84%) NoSQL
12 76 (0.82%) Pentaho
13 70 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
13 70 (0.75%) Oracle Reports
14 64 (0.69%) MySQL
15 61 (0.66%) Tableau
16 57 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
16 57 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
17 52 (0.56%) Amazon Athena
18 42 (0.45%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 530 (5.71%) JIRA
2 393 (4.23%) Git
3 358 (3.86%) GitLab
4 350 (3.77%) Jenkins
5 99 (1.07%) Selenium
6 74 (0.80%) Postman
7 68 (0.73%) JUnit
8 61 (0.66%) SonarQube
9 59 (0.64%) Rational DOORS
10 51 (0.55%) Artifactory
11 46 (0.50%) JMeter
12 41 (0.44%) Bitbucket
13 40 (0.43%) Cucumber
14 39 (0.42%) Maven
15 38 (0.41%) Mockito
16 35 (0.38%) Visual Studio
17 33 (0.36%) REST Assured
18 31 (0.33%) Cypress.io
18 31 (0.33%) Zephyr
19 25 (0.27%) Gatling
General
1 1,973 (21.26%) Public Sector
2 1,918 (20.66%) Social Skills
3 652 (7.02%) Analytical Skills
4 629 (6.78%) Finance
5 325 (3.50%) Military
6 262 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
7 239 (2.57%) Aerospace
8 138 (1.49%) Legal
9 114 (1.23%) Banking
10 113 (1.22%) Telecoms
11 107 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
12 102 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
13 95 (1.02%) Manufacturing
14 89 (0.96%) Law
15 78 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
16 54 (0.58%) Marketing
16 54 (0.58%) Police
17 50 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 41 (0.44%) Electronics
18 41 (0.44%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,363 (14.68%) Architect
2 847 (9.13%) Developer
3 790 (8.51%) Senior
4 666 (7.18%) Lead
5 644 (6.94%) Analyst
6 453 (4.88%) Data Engineer
7 419 (4.51%) Consultant
8 414 (4.46%) DevOps Engineer
9 278 (3.00%) Network Engineer
9 278 (3.00%) Software Engineer
10 275 (2.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 265 (2.85%) Technical Architect
12 234 (2.52%) Business Analyst
13 215 (2.32%) Project Manager
14 209 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
15 192 (2.07%) Azure Engineer
16 181 (1.95%) Security Architect
17 175 (1.89%) Administrator
17 175 (1.89%) Designer
18 173 (1.86%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 295 (3.18%) REST
2 210 (2.26%) Spring
3 175 (1.89%) Spring Boot
4 168 (1.81%) React
5 158 (1.70%) Node.js
6 156 (1.68%) .NET
7 155 (1.67%) Kafka
8 147 (1.58%) LDAP
9 139 (1.50%) SOAP
10 136 (1.47%) RESTful
11 112 (1.21%) AngularJS
12 110 (1.19%) JSON
13 101 (1.09%) Web Services
14 99 (1.07%) PySpark
15 89 (0.96%) OAuth
16 82 (0.88%) Oracle Fusion
17 80 (0.86%) HTML
18 79 (0.85%) XML
19 69 (0.74%) Middleware
20 68 (0.73%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 318 (3.43%) Cloud Native
2 302 (3.25%) Product Ownership
3 289 (3.11%) Data Centre
4 264 (2.84%) Onboarding
5 146 (1.57%) PKI
6 144 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 130 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
8 119 (1.28%) Security Posture
9 115 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
10 114 (1.23%) Replication
11 111 (1.20%) Distributed Systems
12 93 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
13 85 (0.92%) Clustering
14 82 (0.88%) Data Structures
15 80 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
16 69 (0.74%) Security Operations Centre
17 68 (0.73%) Public Cloud
18 67 (0.72%) CMDB
18 67 (0.72%) Operational Technology
19 64 (0.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 759 (8.18%) Windows
2 641 (6.91%) Linux
3 232 (2.50%) Windows Server
4 174 (1.87%) Unix
5 113 (1.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 84 (0.90%) Android
6 84 (0.90%) Windows 10
7 51 (0.55%) Apple iOS
8 45 (0.48%) Solaris
9 37 (0.40%) Mac OS
10 35 (0.38%) Ubuntu
11 26 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
12 24 (0.26%) AIX
13 23 (0.25%) CentOS
13 23 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
14 21 (0.23%) VMS
15 15 (0.16%) Windows 7
16 12 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
17 9 (0.097%) Windows Server 2003
17 9 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,811 (19.51%) Agile
2 1,410 (15.19%) DevOps
3 1,234 (13.29%) CI/CD
4 984 (10.60%) Problem-Solving
5 910 (9.80%) Stakeholder Management
6 841 (9.06%) Continuous Improvement
7 763 (8.22%) Migration
8 695 (7.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 629 (6.78%) Infrastructure as Code
10 585 (6.30%) ITIL
11 582 (6.27%) Cybersecurity
12 537 (5.79%) Test Automation
13 526 (5.67%) Analytics
14 524 (5.65%) Software Engineering
15 508 (5.47%) Roadmaps
16 490 (5.28%) Containerisation
17 479 (5.16%) Data Modelling
18 438 (4.72%) Decision-Making
19 419 (4.51%) Scrum
20 411 (4.43%) AI
Programming Languages
1 973 (10.48%) Python
2 854 (9.20%) SQL
3 564 (6.08%) Java
4 496 (5.34%) PowerShell
5 281 (3.03%) JavaScript
6 195 (2.10%) C#
7 181 (1.95%) Bash
8 139 (1.50%) TypeScript
9 100 (1.08%) PL/SQL
10 89 (0.96%) C++
11 85 (0.92%) Shell Script
12 62 (0.67%) Go
13 59 (0.64%) Scala
14 56 (0.60%) C
15 53 (0.57%) Bicep
16 47 (0.51%) Ruby
17 43 (0.46%) Ada
18 41 (0.44%) Apex Code
19 35 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
19 35 (0.38%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 6,970 (75.09%) SC Cleared
2 1,795 (19.34%) DV Cleared
3 405 (4.36%) Degree
4 253 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
5 192 (2.07%) Cisco Certification
6 160 (1.72%) CISSP
7 121 (1.30%) Azure Certification
7 121 (1.30%) CCNP
8 103 (1.11%) CISM
9 93 (1.00%) AWS Certification
10 91 (0.98%) Microsoft Certification
11 81 (0.87%) CCNA
12 75 (0.81%) PMP
13 67 (0.72%) PMI Certification
14 61 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
15 58 (0.62%) ISTQB
16 52 (0.56%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 50 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
18 48 (0.52%) GIAC
19 41 (0.44%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 344 (3.71%) QA
2 277 (2.98%) NIST
3 273 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 266 (2.87%) Data Quality
5 191 (2.06%) NCSC
6 166 (1.79%) Accessibility
7 156 (1.68%) GDPR
8 153 (1.65%) PMO
9 103 (1.11%) SLA
10 65 (0.70%) GRC
11 60 (0.65%) JSP 440
12 54 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 38 (0.41%) NIST 800
14 36 (0.39%) WCAG
15 31 (0.33%) Def Stans
16 28 (0.30%) RMADS
17 25 (0.27%) PCI DSS
18 21 (0.23%) COBIT
18 21 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
18 21 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 558 (6.01%) Docker
2 435 (4.69%) Active Directory
3 268 (2.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 102 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
5 92 (0.99%) VMware NSX
6 77 (0.83%) vSphere
7 73 (0.79%) Hyper-V
8 63 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
9 35 (0.38%) Firmware
10 27 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
11 24 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
12 21 (0.23%) BitLocker
13 20 (0.22%) NFS
13 20 (0.22%) vCloud
14 19 (0.20%) Postfix
15 16 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 15 (0.16%) Squid
17 8 (0.086%) Microsoft App-V
18 7 (0.075%) KVM
19 6 (0.065%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 713 (7.68%) Kubernetes
2 704 (7.58%) Terraform
3 336 (3.62%) Ansible
4 233 (2.51%) Grafana
5 190 (2.05%) Prometheus
6 108 (1.16%) vCenter Server
7 82 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
8 71 (0.76%) SCCM
9 59 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 50 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
11 47 (0.51%) FortiGate
12 46 (0.50%) Argo
13 40 (0.43%) Puppet
14 38 (0.41%) Podman
15 34 (0.37%) SCOM
16 33 (0.36%) Oracle RMAN
17 31 (0.33%) Progress Chef
18 29 (0.31%) Nagios
19 22 (0.24%) Packer
19 22 (0.24%) WSUS
Vendors
1 960 (10.34%) Microsoft
2 591 (6.37%) Oracle
3 463 (4.99%) VMware
4 372 (4.01%) ServiceNow
5 338 (3.64%) Cisco
6 307 (3.31%) SAP
7 209 (2.25%) Splunk
8 183 (1.97%) Databricks
9 155 (1.67%) Red Hat
10 148 (1.59%) Google
11 123 (1.33%) Palo Alto
12 121 (1.30%) Talend
13 115 (1.24%) Salesforce
14 111 (1.20%) IBM
15 104 (1.12%) Juniper
16 93 (1.00%) CyberArk
17 86 (0.93%) F5
17 86 (0.93%) Informatica
18 83 (0.89%) Fortinet
19 75 (0.81%) Citrix