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 19 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 3 4
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +5
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 6,345 5,610 7,028
As % of all contract jobs in England 20.88% 18.19% 17.88%
As % of the Qualifications category 62.65% 61.10% 60.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,168 3,531 4,385
10th Percentile £325 £350 £369
25th Percentile £450 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% - -2.22%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £715 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £530 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -3.64% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 672 293 478
10th Percentile £18.51 £21.25 £19.99
25th Percentile £19.08 £31.25 £46.05
Median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -58.08% - -
75th Percentile £52.81 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -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 10,128 9,182 11,667
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.33% 29.78% 29.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,545 5,606 7,414
10th Percentile £304 £313 £308
25th Percentile £417 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £526 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.19% -4.36% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £720 £734 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 900 424 713
10th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.21 £27.00 £26.78
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.63 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -50.32% -5.37% +18.89%
75th Percentile £50.31 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £53.67
% change year-on-year -44.11% -16.15% +19.26%

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 19 November 2025.

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 19 November 2025.

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 19 November 2025. 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 +1 2,091 £550 - 752
South East -1 1,202 £513 -6.82% 786
South West 0 1,088 £550 -4.35% 577
North of England -2 764 £515 +8.42% 210
Midlands +1 678 £519 -9.83% 191
West Midlands 0 524 £520 -9.57% 154
North West +1 498 £536 +12.84% 144
East of England +2 282 £525 +1.20% 300
Yorkshire -9 167 £500 +7.24% 35
East Midlands -1 139 £456 -8.75% 35
North East 0 106 £475 +5.09% 32
South Coast -1 2 - -
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
1 251 (3.96%) Confluence
2 171 (2.70%) SharePoint
3 116 (1.83%) Microsoft Exchange
4 95 (1.50%) SAS
5 87 (1.37%) Apache
6 54 (0.85%) nginx
7 48 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
8 39 (0.61%) Skype for Business
9 31 (0.49%) Apache Spark
10 25 (0.39%) IIS
11 22 (0.35%) CMS
12 18 (0.28%) WebLogic
13 15 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
14 11 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2010
14 11 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2013
14 11 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 10 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2003
15 10 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2007
15 10 (0.16%) Office Communications Server
16 8 (0.13%) Documentum
Applications
1 196 (3.09%) Microsoft Office
2 138 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 70 (1.10%) Microsoft Project
4 34 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 33 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 22 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.27%) Siemens NX
8 14 (0.22%) Simulink
9 11 (0.17%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 7 (0.11%) Sketch
11 6 (0.095%) Adobe Illustrator
11 6 (0.095%) Photoshop
12 5 (0.079%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.079%) FrameMaker
12 5 (0.079%) Oracle Smart View
12 5 (0.079%) PTC Creo
12 5 (0.079%) Stateflow
12 5 (0.079%) Trello
12 5 (0.079%) Windchill
13 4 (0.063%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 140 (2.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.52%) Remedy ITSM
3 27 (0.43%) SAP WM
4 26 (0.41%) SAP EWM
5 23 (0.36%) Teamcenter
6 22 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
6 22 (0.35%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 20 (0.32%) Maximo
8 18 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
8 18 (0.28%) Primavera
9 16 (0.25%) SAP HCM
9 16 (0.25%) SAP MM
10 15 (0.24%) SAP PS
11 13 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
12 12 (0.19%) SAP QM
12 12 (0.19%) SAP VC
13 11 (0.17%) SAP EHS
14 10 (0.16%) SAP HR
14 10 (0.16%) SAP Payroll
15 9 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 1,056 (16.64%) AWS
2 1,018 (16.04%) Azure
3 313 (4.93%) Microsoft 365
4 301 (4.74%) GitHub
5 239 (3.77%) Power Platform
6 228 (3.59%) Azure DevOps
7 222 (3.50%) GCP
8 177 (2.79%) Serverless
9 167 (2.63%) Amazon S3
10 148 (2.33%) Entra ID
11 143 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
12 139 (2.19%) SaaS
13 119 (1.88%) OpenShift
14 111 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
15 107 (1.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 102 (1.61%) AWS CloudFormation
17 98 (1.54%) AWS Lambda
18 82 (1.29%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 78 (1.23%) Power Automate
20 71 (1.12%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 349 (5.50%) Firewall
2 252 (3.97%) DNS
3 169 (2.66%) VPN
4 140 (2.21%) Network Security
5 122 (1.92%) WAN
6 102 (1.61%) TCP/IP
7 95 (1.50%) BGP
8 90 (1.42%) DHCP
9 88 (1.39%) LAN
10 85 (1.34%) Wireless
11 75 (1.18%) SSL
12 63 (0.99%) SAN
13 60 (0.95%) MPLS
14 59 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
15 56 (0.88%) VLAN
16 54 (0.85%) IPsec
17 49 (0.77%) Cisco ISE
18 45 (0.71%) HTTP
19 43 (0.68%) SMTP
20 42 (0.66%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 200 (3.15%) PostgreSQL
2 160 (2.52%) Power BI
3 83 (1.31%) Amazon RDS
3 83 (1.31%) MongoDB
4 79 (1.25%) SQL Server
5 74 (1.17%) Oracle Database
6 68 (1.07%) Data Warehouse
7 65 (1.02%) NoSQL
7 65 (1.02%) Relational Database
8 61 (0.96%) Metadata
9 41 (0.65%) Big Data
9 41 (0.65%) Pentaho
10 39 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
11 38 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
11 38 (0.60%) MySQL
12 36 (0.57%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 35 (0.55%) Data Lake
14 31 (0.49%) Redis
15 30 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
16 28 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 451 (7.11%) JIRA
2 367 (5.78%) Git
3 353 (5.56%) Jenkins
4 244 (3.85%) GitLab
5 72 (1.13%) Selenium
6 65 (1.02%) SonarQube
7 57 (0.90%) JUnit
8 54 (0.85%) Cypress.io
9 48 (0.76%) Postman
10 47 (0.74%) Bitbucket
11 44 (0.69%) Oracle APEX
12 36 (0.57%) Artifactory
13 34 (0.54%) Maven
14 31 (0.49%) Cucumber
14 31 (0.49%) Mockito
15 23 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
15 23 (0.36%) REST Assured
15 23 (0.36%) Vagrant
16 21 (0.33%) Metasploit
16 21 (0.33%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,754 (27.64%) Public Sector
2 1,671 (26.34%) Social Skills
3 573 (9.03%) Analytical Skills
4 461 (7.27%) Finance
5 243 (3.83%) Military
6 206 (3.25%) Telecoms
7 189 (2.98%) Manufacturing
8 153 (2.41%) Documentation Skills
9 144 (2.27%) Electronics
10 132 (2.08%) Marketing
11 123 (1.94%) Aerospace
12 94 (1.48%) Organisational Skills
13 93 (1.47%) Legal
14 84 (1.32%) Banking
15 75 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
15 75 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
16 68 (1.07%) Law
17 41 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 41 (0.65%) Police
18 40 (0.63%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 823 (12.97%) Architect
2 629 (9.91%) Developer
3 530 (8.35%) Consultant
4 485 (7.64%) Senior
5 415 (6.54%) Analyst
6 386 (6.08%) Lead
7 264 (4.16%) DevOps Engineer
8 234 (3.69%) Support Engineer
9 196 (3.09%) Network Engineer
10 151 (2.38%) Solutions Architect
11 148 (2.33%) Data Engineer
12 138 (2.17%) SAP Consultant
13 131 (2.06%) AWS Engineer
14 121 (1.91%) IT Engineer
15 118 (1.86%) Platform Engineer
16 115 (1.81%) Administrator
16 115 (1.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 115 (1.81%) Technical Architect
17 112 (1.77%) Security Engineer
17 112 (1.77%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 253 (3.99%) REST
2 162 (2.55%) React
3 160 (2.52%) Node.js
4 142 (2.24%) Kafka
5 126 (1.99%) JSON
6 118 (1.86%) SOAP
7 108 (1.70%) HTML
8 102 (1.61%) Spring
9 100 (1.58%) XML
10 93 (1.47%) RESTful
11 92 (1.45%) Web Services
12 91 (1.43%) AngularJS
13 90 (1.42%) CSS
14 82 (1.29%) .NET
15 81 (1.28%) Spring Boot
16 70 (1.10%) OAuth
17 68 (1.07%) LDAP
18 55 (0.87%) Elastic Stack
19 54 (0.85%) SAML
20 49 (0.77%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 199 (3.14%) Data Centre
2 197 (3.10%) Onboarding
3 184 (2.90%) PKI
4 157 (2.47%) Cloud Native
5 150 (2.36%) Management Information System
6 130 (2.05%) Product Ownership
7 103 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
8 75 (1.18%) Driving Licence
8 75 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
9 69 (1.09%) Replication
10 67 (1.06%) Security Operations Centre
11 66 (1.04%) Cyber Threat
12 61 (0.96%) Security Posture
13 58 (0.91%) Enterprise Software
13 58 (0.91%) Hybrid Cloud
14 56 (0.88%) CMDB
15 54 (0.85%) Private Cloud
16 50 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
17 41 (0.65%) Distributed Systems
17 41 (0.65%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 747 (11.77%) Windows
2 503 (7.93%) Linux
3 178 (2.81%) Windows Server
4 174 (2.74%) Windows 10
5 98 (1.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 89 (1.40%) Android
7 86 (1.36%) Mac OS
8 82 (1.29%) Unix
9 46 (0.72%) VMS
10 33 (0.52%) Ubuntu
11 31 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
12 30 (0.47%) Apple iOS
13 28 (0.44%) Amazon Linux
14 24 (0.38%) CentOS
15 23 (0.36%) Windows 7
16 20 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
17 19 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
18 18 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
19 14 (0.22%) Mac OS X
20 9 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,272 (20.05%) Agile
2 970 (15.29%) DevOps
3 868 (13.68%) CI/CD
4 791 (12.47%) Problem-Solving
5 627 (9.88%) Migration
6 499 (7.86%) Stakeholder Management
7 442 (6.97%) Cybersecurity
8 431 (6.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 419 (6.60%) ITIL
10 402 (6.34%) Continuous Improvement
10 402 (6.34%) Infrastructure as Code
11 381 (6.00%) Service Management
12 371 (5.85%) Business Intelligence
13 346 (5.45%) Test Automation
14 341 (5.37%) Workflow
15 333 (5.25%) Containerisation
16 329 (5.19%) Analytics
17 319 (5.03%) Scrum
18 289 (4.55%) Roadmaps
19 282 (4.44%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 829 (13.07%) Python
2 501 (7.90%) SQL
3 430 (6.78%) PowerShell
4 402 (6.34%) Java
5 332 (5.23%) JavaScript
6 228 (3.59%) Bash
7 154 (2.43%) TypeScript
8 117 (1.84%) C#
9 91 (1.43%) C++
10 78 (1.23%) Go
11 68 (1.07%) PL/SQL
12 63 (0.99%) C
13 59 (0.93%) Shell Script
14 48 (0.76%) Perl
15 37 (0.58%) ABAP
16 30 (0.47%) Groovy
17 28 (0.44%) Ada
18 27 (0.43%) Bicep
19 26 (0.41%) MATLAB
19 26 (0.41%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 4,865 (76.67%) SC Cleared
2 1,084 (17.08%) DV Cleared
3 313 (4.93%) Degree
4 260 (4.10%) BPSS Clearance
5 127 (2.00%) CISSP
6 122 (1.92%) Microsoft Certification
7 109 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
8 104 (1.64%) Azure Certification
9 90 (1.42%) AWS Certification
10 82 (1.29%) CCNP
11 71 (1.12%) CISM
12 52 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
13 51 (0.80%) Computer Science Degree
14 42 (0.66%) CCNA
15 39 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 36 (0.57%) CEH
16 36 (0.57%) CHECK Team Member
17 32 (0.50%) OSCP
18 30 (0.47%) MCSE
19 28 (0.44%) CHECK Team Leader
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 202 (3.18%) QA
2 193 (3.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 191 (3.01%) NIST
4 157 (2.47%) NCSC
5 131 (2.06%) SLA
6 121 (1.91%) GDPR
7 107 (1.69%) Data Quality
8 102 (1.61%) Accessibility
9 51 (0.80%) PMO
10 50 (0.79%) JSP 440
11 39 (0.61%) NIST 800
12 36 (0.57%) WCAG
13 31 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 30 (0.47%) GRC
15 29 (0.46%) Def Stans
16 27 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
17 24 (0.38%) RMADS
18 22 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
19 18 (0.28%) COBIT
20 15 (0.24%) HIPAA
System Software
1 516 (8.13%) Docker
2 394 (6.21%) Active Directory
3 207 (3.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 68 (1.07%) VMware ESXi
5 67 (1.06%) vSphere
6 64 (1.01%) VMware NSX
7 47 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
8 40 (0.63%) Firmware
9 34 (0.54%) Hyper-V
10 27 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
11 21 (0.33%) DFS Replication
12 20 (0.32%) Postfix
13 16 (0.25%) NFS
14 15 (0.24%) Dovecot
15 11 (0.17%) Squid
16 10 (0.16%) BitLocker
16 10 (0.16%) Brightmail
16 10 (0.16%) ISA Server
17 9 (0.14%) Terminal Services
18 8 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 600 (9.46%) Kubernetes
2 563 (8.87%) Terraform
3 278 (4.38%) Ansible
4 157 (2.47%) Grafana
5 131 (2.06%) Prometheus
6 107 (1.69%) SCCM
7 87 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
8 77 (1.21%) Microsoft Intune
9 61 (0.96%) vCenter Server
10 54 (0.85%) Argo
11 51 (0.80%) Packer
12 49 (0.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 35 (0.55%) Kibana
14 33 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
15 27 (0.43%) FortiGate
16 26 (0.41%) SCOM
17 24 (0.38%) Consul
17 24 (0.38%) Nessus
18 22 (0.35%) Nmap
18 22 (0.35%) vRealize
Vendors
1 859 (13.54%) Microsoft
2 428 (6.75%) SAP
3 415 (6.54%) Cisco
4 346 (5.45%) VMware
5 338 (5.33%) Oracle
6 300 (4.73%) ServiceNow
7 178 (2.81%) Splunk
8 156 (2.46%) Juniper
9 126 (1.99%) Red Hat
10 101 (1.59%) Google
11 94 (1.48%) HP
12 91 (1.43%) Palo Alto
13 90 (1.42%) Dell
14 88 (1.39%) Atlassian
15 80 (1.26%) Salesforce
16 77 (1.21%) IBM
17 73 (1.15%) SolarWinds
18 72 (1.13%) F5
19 69 (1.09%) Apple
20 64 (1.01%) CyberArk