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

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 9,254 4,463 6,976
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.15% 18.60% 18.99%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.57% 59.15% 62.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,455 2,950 4,556
10th Percentile £378 £340 £353
25th Percentile £450 £450 £457
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £537 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £714 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 769 287 516
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.31 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.68 £24.66 £21.46
Median hourly rate £57.35 £38.00 £56.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.92% -32.74% -5.84%
75th Percentile £74.68 £65.88 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.36 £80.00 £84.45
UK median hourly rate £57.00 £32.50 £55.80
% change year-on-year +75.38% -41.76% -7.00%

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 13,302 7,545 11,240
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.84% 31.45% 30.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,925 4,767 6,956
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 £713 £742
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £530
% change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,006 450 1,002
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.35 £18.84
Median hourly rate £48.28 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.54% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.94 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.01 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +53.85% -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 4 June 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 4 June 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 4 June 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 3,318 £525 - 568
South East +1 2,220 £550 - 547
South West 0 1,249 £538 -6.52% 441
North of England 0 954 £500 - 292
Midlands +2 883 £469 -10.67% 148
West Midlands +3 760 £470 -10.49% 107
North West -1 525 £514 +2.75% 168
East of England +2 372 £550 +10.00% 157
Yorkshire -5 246 £488 -2.50% 64
North East +1 217 £475 -1.04% 61
East Midlands -5 116 £424 -17.32% 41
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
1 333 (3.60%) Confluence
2 212 (2.29%) SharePoint
3 135 (1.46%) SAS
4 122 (1.32%) Microsoft Exchange
5 81 (0.88%) Apache Spark
6 79 (0.85%) Apache
6 79 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
7 37 (0.40%) nginx
8 35 (0.38%) Jupyter
9 30 (0.32%) WebLogic
10 20 (0.22%) Tomcat
11 18 (0.19%) IIS
11 18 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 15 (0.16%) CMS
12 15 (0.16%) Skype for Business
13 14 (0.15%) Oracle Application Server
14 10 (0.11%) NetWeaver
14 10 (0.11%) Tuxedo
15 8 (0.086%) Apache Superset
15 8 (0.086%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 155 (1.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 137 (1.48%) Microsoft Office
3 73 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 66 (0.71%) Microsoft Project
5 39 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.15%) Simulink
8 8 (0.086%) SOLIDWORKS
9 7 (0.076%) AutoCAD
9 7 (0.076%) Revit
10 5 (0.054%) Notepad++
11 4 (0.043%) Siemens NX
12 3 (0.032%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.032%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.032%) Sketch
12 3 (0.032%) Windchill
13 2 (0.022%) CATIA
13 2 (0.022%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.022%) Lectora
13 2 (0.022%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 91 (0.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 55 (0.59%) Remedy ITSM
3 33 (0.36%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 30 (0.32%) Teamcenter
5 29 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
6 27 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
7 15 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
8 14 (0.15%) Findur
8 14 (0.15%) Maximo
8 14 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
9 13 (0.14%) SAP PSCD
10 12 (0.13%) iTrent
10 12 (0.13%) Temenos T24
11 9 (0.097%) Integrated Workplace Management System
11 9 (0.097%) Oracle Assets
11 9 (0.097%) Primavera
11 9 (0.097%) SAP ERP
11 9 (0.097%) SAP HCM
12 8 (0.086%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 8 (0.086%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 1,602 (17.31%) Azure
2 1,533 (16.57%) AWS
3 371 (4.01%) GitHub
4 360 (3.89%) GCP
5 347 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
6 345 (3.73%) Power Platform
7 233 (2.52%) Serverless
8 232 (2.51%) Microsoft 365
9 226 (2.44%) Entra ID
10 221 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
11 197 (2.13%) Amazon S3
12 163 (1.76%) AWS Lambda
13 144 (1.56%) Amazon EC2
14 137 (1.48%) PaaS
15 125 (1.35%) OpenShift
16 123 (1.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 118 (1.28%) SaaS
18 115 (1.24%) OCI
19 104 (1.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 96 (1.04%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 422 (4.56%) Firewall
2 279 (3.01%) DNS
3 228 (2.46%) Network Security
4 215 (2.32%) WAN
5 196 (2.12%) LAN
6 160 (1.73%) VPN
7 151 (1.63%) DHCP
8 142 (1.53%) BGP
9 121 (1.31%) OSPF
10 108 (1.17%) VLAN
10 108 (1.17%) Wi-Fi
11 98 (1.06%) TCP/IP
12 79 (0.85%) Wireless
13 60 (0.65%) MPLS
14 57 (0.62%) SAN
14 57 (0.62%) VXLAN
15 52 (0.56%) SD-WAN
16 50 (0.54%) Structured Cabling
17 48 (0.52%) Ethernet VPN
17 48 (0.52%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 258 (2.79%) Power BI
2 222 (2.40%) PostgreSQL
3 209 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
4 192 (2.07%) SQL Server
5 125 (1.35%) Oracle Database
6 114 (1.23%) Metadata
7 104 (1.12%) Amazon RDS
8 96 (1.04%) Data Lake
9 83 (0.90%) MongoDB
10 81 (0.88%) Relational Database
11 80 (0.86%) Pentaho
12 74 (0.80%) Oracle Reports
13 72 (0.78%) NoSQL
14 70 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
15 65 (0.70%) MySQL
16 61 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
17 58 (0.63%) Tableau
18 57 (0.62%) Amazon Athena
19 49 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
20 42 (0.45%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 522 (5.64%) JIRA
2 404 (4.37%) Git
3 374 (4.04%) GitLab
4 354 (3.83%) Jenkins
5 103 (1.11%) Selenium
6 76 (0.82%) JUnit
7 74 (0.80%) Postman
8 62 (0.67%) SonarQube
9 59 (0.64%) Rational DOORS
10 52 (0.56%) Artifactory
11 49 (0.53%) JMeter
12 45 (0.49%) Cucumber
13 42 (0.45%) Bitbucket
14 39 (0.42%) Maven
14 39 (0.42%) Mockito
15 36 (0.39%) Zephyr
16 35 (0.38%) Visual Studio
17 32 (0.35%) REST Assured
18 31 (0.33%) Cypress.io
19 28 (0.30%) WebDriver
General
1 1,955 (21.13%) Public Sector
2 1,903 (20.56%) Social Skills
3 646 (6.98%) Analytical Skills
4 618 (6.68%) Finance
5 306 (3.31%) Military
6 269 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
7 245 (2.65%) Aerospace
8 139 (1.50%) Legal
9 118 (1.28%) Banking
10 109 (1.18%) Telecoms
11 107 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
12 95 (1.03%) Organisational Skills
13 91 (0.98%) Law
14 87 (0.94%) Manufacturing
15 76 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
16 56 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 56 (0.61%) Police
17 50 (0.54%) Marketing
18 39 (0.42%) Retail
19 37 (0.40%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,346 (14.55%) Architect
2 850 (9.19%) Developer
3 785 (8.48%) Senior
4 679 (7.34%) Lead
5 635 (6.86%) Analyst
6 460 (4.97%) Data Engineer
7 418 (4.52%) DevOps Engineer
8 413 (4.46%) Consultant
9 281 (3.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 273 (2.95%) Software Engineer
11 266 (2.87%) Technical Architect
12 265 (2.86%) Network Engineer
13 233 (2.52%) Business Analyst
14 220 (2.38%) Solutions Architect
15 206 (2.23%) Project Manager
16 187 (2.02%) Azure Engineer
16 187 (2.02%) Security Architect
17 181 (1.96%) Delivery Manager
18 177 (1.91%) Administrator
19 176 (1.90%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 297 (3.21%) REST
2 210 (2.27%) Spring
3 173 (1.87%) Spring Boot
4 167 (1.80%) React
5 154 (1.66%) .NET
6 153 (1.65%) Node.js
7 149 (1.61%) Kafka
8 146 (1.58%) LDAP
9 140 (1.51%) SOAP
10 131 (1.42%) RESTful
11 108 (1.17%) AngularJS
11 108 (1.17%) JSON
12 100 (1.08%) Web Services
13 95 (1.03%) PySpark
14 88 (0.95%) OAuth
15 80 (0.86%) HTML
16 77 (0.83%) XML
17 74 (0.80%) Middleware
18 71 (0.77%) Oracle Fusion
19 67 (0.72%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 336 (3.63%) Cloud Native
2 303 (3.27%) Product Ownership
3 283 (3.06%) Data Centre
4 262 (2.83%) Onboarding
5 147 (1.59%) Management Information System
6 141 (1.52%) PKI
7 131 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
8 118 (1.28%) Security Posture
9 117 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
10 115 (1.24%) Distributed Systems
11 114 (1.23%) Replication
12 93 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
13 86 (0.93%) Clustering
14 81 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
15 80 (0.86%) Data Structures
16 74 (0.80%) Public Cloud
17 72 (0.78%) Security Operations Centre
18 68 (0.73%) Operational Technology
19 67 (0.72%) CMDB
20 65 (0.70%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 750 (8.10%) Windows
2 631 (6.82%) Linux
3 241 (2.60%) Windows Server
4 174 (1.88%) Unix
5 115 (1.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 84 (0.91%) Windows 10
7 80 (0.86%) Android
8 52 (0.56%) Apple iOS
9 50 (0.54%) Solaris
10 36 (0.39%) Mac OS
11 32 (0.35%) Ubuntu
12 25 (0.27%) AIX
12 25 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
13 24 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
14 23 (0.25%) CentOS
15 20 (0.22%) VMS
16 15 (0.16%) Windows 7
17 12 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
18 11 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,817 (19.63%) Agile
2 1,423 (15.38%) DevOps
3 1,255 (13.56%) CI/CD
4 961 (10.38%) Problem-Solving
5 918 (9.92%) Stakeholder Management
6 872 (9.42%) Continuous Improvement
7 774 (8.36%) Migration
8 717 (7.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 652 (7.05%) Infrastructure as Code
10 593 (6.41%) Cybersecurity
11 568 (6.14%) ITIL
12 554 (5.99%) Test Automation
13 542 (5.86%) Analytics
14 526 (5.68%) Software Engineering
15 517 (5.59%) Roadmaps
16 498 (5.38%) Containerisation
17 478 (5.17%) Data Modelling
18 449 (4.85%) Decision-Making
19 429 (4.64%) Scrum
20 421 (4.55%) AI
Programming Languages
1 971 (10.49%) Python
2 862 (9.31%) SQL
3 567 (6.13%) Java
4 491 (5.31%) PowerShell
5 272 (2.94%) JavaScript
6 197 (2.13%) C#
7 177 (1.91%) Bash
8 136 (1.47%) TypeScript
9 104 (1.12%) PL/SQL
10 89 (0.96%) C++
11 85 (0.92%) Shell Script
12 57 (0.62%) Go
13 55 (0.59%) Bicep
13 55 (0.59%) C
13 55 (0.59%) Scala
14 45 (0.49%) Ada
15 44 (0.48%) Ruby
16 43 (0.46%) Apex Code
17 36 (0.39%) MATLAB
18 34 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 6,974 (75.36%) SC Cleared
2 1,771 (19.14%) DV Cleared
3 383 (4.14%) Degree
4 256 (2.77%) BPSS Clearance
5 183 (1.98%) Cisco Certification
6 160 (1.73%) CISSP
7 122 (1.32%) Azure Certification
8 111 (1.20%) CCNP
9 104 (1.12%) CISM
10 95 (1.03%) Microsoft Certification
11 90 (0.97%) AWS Certification
12 77 (0.83%) CCNA
13 74 (0.80%) PMP
14 67 (0.72%) PMI Certification
15 62 (0.67%) ISTQB
16 61 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
17 56 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 53 (0.57%) ITIL Certification
19 46 (0.50%) GIAC
20 35 (0.38%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 350 (3.78%) QA
2 275 (2.97%) NIST
3 269 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 266 (2.87%) Data Quality
5 185 (2.00%) NCSC
6 167 (1.80%) Accessibility
7 154 (1.66%) GDPR
8 153 (1.65%) PMO
9 106 (1.15%) SLA
10 63 (0.68%) GRC
11 59 (0.64%) JSP 440
12 52 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
13 38 (0.41%) NIST 800
14 36 (0.39%) WCAG
15 32 (0.35%) Def Stans
16 28 (0.30%) RMADS
17 22 (0.24%) COBIT
17 22 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
17 22 (0.24%) PCI DSS
18 21 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 563 (6.08%) Docker
2 427 (4.61%) Active Directory
3 279 (3.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 107 (1.16%) VMware ESXi
5 94 (1.02%) VMware NSX
6 78 (0.84%) vSphere
7 75 (0.81%) Hyper-V
8 66 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
9 34 (0.37%) Firmware
10 29 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
11 21 (0.23%) BitLocker
12 20 (0.22%) vCloud
13 19 (0.21%) NFS
13 19 (0.21%) Postfix
14 18 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
15 16 (0.17%) Squid
16 15 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 8 (0.086%) Microsoft App-V
18 7 (0.076%) KVM
19 6 (0.065%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 721 (7.79%) Terraform
2 707 (7.64%) Kubernetes
3 337 (3.64%) Ansible
4 230 (2.49%) Grafana
5 187 (2.02%) Prometheus
6 110 (1.19%) vCenter Server
7 79 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
8 72 (0.78%) SCCM
9 57 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 54 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
11 47 (0.51%) FortiGate
12 43 (0.46%) Argo
13 39 (0.42%) Puppet
14 37 (0.40%) Podman
14 37 (0.40%) SCOM
15 35 (0.38%) Oracle RMAN
16 29 (0.31%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.30%) Nagios
18 21 (0.23%) vMotion
18 21 (0.23%) WSUS
Vendors
1 967 (10.45%) Microsoft
2 612 (6.61%) Oracle
3 462 (4.99%) VMware
4 368 (3.98%) ServiceNow
5 327 (3.53%) Cisco
6 303 (3.27%) SAP
7 213 (2.30%) Splunk
8 179 (1.93%) Databricks
9 150 (1.62%) Google
10 148 (1.60%) Red Hat
11 124 (1.34%) Talend
12 119 (1.29%) Palo Alto
13 116 (1.25%) Salesforce
14 114 (1.23%) IBM
15 101 (1.09%) Juniper
16 93 (1.00%) CyberArk
17 88 (0.95%) Informatica
18 84 (0.91%) F5
18 84 (0.91%) Fortinet
19 80 (0.86%) Dynatrace