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

6 months to
24 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 9,897 4,958 6,740
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.02% 18.12% 19.28%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.60% 58.56% 62.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,948 3,210 4,457
10th Percentile £380 £338 £350
25th Percentile £450 £450 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.93% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £630 £625 £646
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £533 £530 £550
% change year-on-year +0.62% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 760 439 501
10th Percentile £19.16 £18.51 £15.50
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.22
Median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +152.49% -56.26% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80.00 £58.75 £71.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £25.15 £55.16
% change year-on-year +148.51% -54.41% -8.06%

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 14,220 8,466 10,727
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.63% 30.94% 30.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,578 5,343 6,791
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £430 £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 £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £521 £525
% change year-on-year +0.86% -0.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,069 622 866
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.38
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.28
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -41.51% -23.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £59.98 £66.62
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -25.00%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 3,510 £545 +3.81% 617
South East +1 2,443 £550 +1.22% 520
South West 0 1,302 £538 -6.52% 391
North of England +2 1,089 £500 +0.05% 314
Midlands +3 974 £469 -6.20% 160
West Midlands +2 833 £469 -6.20% 115
North West 0 580 £525 - 164
East of England +2 312 £575 +9.52% 145
Yorkshire +2 299 £500 +1.63% 71
North East 0 237 £475 -5.00% 80
East Midlands 0 128 £418 -9.73% 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
1 352 (3.56%) Confluence
2 240 (2.42%) SharePoint
3 164 (1.66%) SAS
4 116 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
5 88 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 84 (0.85%) Apache Spark
7 80 (0.81%) Apache
8 37 (0.37%) nginx
9 35 (0.35%) WebLogic
10 32 (0.32%) Jupyter
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 18 (0.18%) Oracle Application Server
13 16 (0.16%) CMS
13 16 (0.16%) IIS
13 16 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 14 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
15 12 (0.12%) Skype for Business
15 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
16 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
17 9 (0.091%) Documentum
Applications
1 185 (1.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 125 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
3 93 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
4 71 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 39 (0.39%) MS Visio
6 22 (0.22%) 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 (0.061%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.061%) Sketch
10 5 (0.051%) Notepad++
11 4 (0.040%) Trello
12 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.020%) CATIA
13 2 (0.020%) InDesign
13 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 121 (1.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 67 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
3 41 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
4 36 (0.36%) Teamcenter
5 33 (0.33%) 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 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
12 12 (0.12%) iTrent
12 12 (0.12%) Oracle Payroll
12 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 11 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
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 1,759 (17.77%) Azure
2 1,640 (16.57%) AWS
3 415 (4.19%) Azure DevOps
4 410 (4.14%) Power Platform
5 406 (4.10%) GitHub
6 357 (3.61%) GCP
7 271 (2.74%) Microsoft 365
8 256 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
9 249 (2.52%) Entra ID
10 234 (2.36%) Serverless
11 218 (2.20%) Amazon S3
12 163 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
13 144 (1.45%) Amazon EC2
13 144 (1.45%) OCI
14 139 (1.40%) SaaS
15 137 (1.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 131 (1.32%) OpenShift
17 126 (1.27%) PaaS
18 118 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
19 111 (1.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 422 (4.26%) Firewall
2 326 (3.29%) DNS
3 216 (2.18%) Network Security
4 210 (2.12%) WAN
5 183 (1.85%) LAN
6 175 (1.77%) VPN
7 167 (1.69%) DHCP
8 139 (1.40%) BGP
9 120 (1.21%) TCP/IP
10 114 (1.15%) OSPF
11 112 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
12 100 (1.01%) VLAN
13 83 (0.84%) Wireless
14 61 (0.62%) IPsec
15 58 (0.59%) MPLS
15 58 (0.59%) SAN
16 57 (0.58%) SD-WAN
16 57 (0.58%) VSAN
17 55 (0.56%) VXLAN
18 48 (0.48%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 307 (3.10%) Power BI
2 247 (2.50%) SQL Server
3 245 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
4 233 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
5 148 (1.50%) Oracle Database
6 135 (1.36%) Metadata
7 108 (1.09%) Data Lake
8 103 (1.04%) Relational Database
9 98 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
10 83 (0.84%) Pentaho
11 78 (0.79%) MySQL
11 78 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
12 74 (0.75%) MongoDB
13 68 (0.69%) NoSQL
14 65 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
15 64 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
16 57 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
17 56 (0.57%) Tableau
18 41 (0.41%) Big Data
19 38 (0.38%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 553 (5.59%) JIRA
2 463 (4.68%) Git
3 394 (3.98%) GitLab
4 373 (3.77%) Jenkins
5 102 (1.03%) Selenium
6 76 (0.77%) JUnit
7 73 (0.74%) SonarQube
8 61 (0.62%) Postman
9 54 (0.55%) Rational DOORS
10 53 (0.54%) JMeter
10 53 (0.54%) Maven
11 48 (0.48%) Cucumber
12 41 (0.41%) Mockito
13 38 (0.38%) Visual Studio
13 38 (0.38%) Zephyr
14 36 (0.36%) Artifactory
14 36 (0.36%) Bitbucket
14 36 (0.36%) REST Assured
15 33 (0.33%) Cypress.io
16 32 (0.32%) Gatling
General
1 2,093 (21.15%) Public Sector
2 2,019 (20.40%) Social Skills
3 744 (7.52%) Analytical Skills
4 688 (6.95%) Finance
5 337 (3.41%) Military
6 270 (2.73%) Aerospace
7 242 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
8 153 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
9 145 (1.47%) Legal
10 130 (1.31%) Telecoms
11 128 (1.29%) Organisational Skills
12 121 (1.22%) Banking
13 99 (1.00%) Law
14 88 (0.89%) Police
15 80 (0.81%) Manufacturing
16 76 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 71 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
18 41 (0.41%) Marketing
19 36 (0.36%) Aviation
19 36 (0.36%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,449 (14.64%) Architect
2 1,024 (10.35%) Developer
3 884 (8.93%) Senior
4 873 (8.82%) Lead
5 623 (6.29%) Analyst
6 475 (4.80%) Consultant
7 463 (4.68%) Data Engineer
8 398 (4.02%) DevOps Engineer
9 346 (3.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 289 (2.92%) Software Engineer
11 263 (2.66%) Technical Architect
12 243 (2.46%) Network Engineer
13 235 (2.37%) Security Architect
14 234 (2.36%) Solutions Architect
15 195 (1.97%) Java Developer
16 193 (1.95%) Data Architect
17 192 (1.94%) Delivery Manager
18 188 (1.90%) Business Analyst
18 188 (1.90%) Project Manager
19 184 (1.86%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 355 (3.59%) REST
2 231 (2.33%) Spring
3 194 (1.96%) Spring Boot
4 175 (1.77%) .NET
5 171 (1.73%) Kafka
6 167 (1.69%) React
7 162 (1.64%) RESTful
8 146 (1.48%) Node.js
9 144 (1.45%) SOAP
10 125 (1.26%) JSON
11 118 (1.19%) AngularJS
12 101 (1.02%) Web Services
13 95 (0.96%) OAuth
14 93 (0.94%) HTML
15 87 (0.88%) PySpark
16 80 (0.81%) XML
17 69 (0.70%) CSS
17 69 (0.70%) Elastic Stack
17 69 (0.70%) Oracle Fusion
18 64 (0.65%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 397 (4.01%) Cloud Native
2 336 (3.39%) Onboarding
3 313 (3.16%) Product Ownership
4 275 (2.78%) Data Centre
5 178 (1.80%) Legacy Systems
6 152 (1.54%) Management Information System
7 145 (1.47%) Distributed Systems
8 144 (1.45%) PKI
9 120 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
10 106 (1.07%) CMDB
11 102 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
12 101 (1.02%) Data Structures
13 98 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
14 97 (0.98%) Replication
15 94 (0.95%) Clustering
16 85 (0.86%) Security Posture
17 80 (0.81%) Public Cloud
18 75 (0.76%) Virtual Team
19 72 (0.73%) Security Operations Centre
20 71 (0.72%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 819 (8.28%) Windows
2 686 (6.93%) Linux
3 269 (2.72%) Windows Server
4 201 (2.03%) Unix
5 138 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 89 (0.90%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.80%) Android
8 60 (0.61%) Solaris
9 44 (0.44%) Apple iOS
9 44 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 33 (0.33%) 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 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
15 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
16 10 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
16 10 (0.10%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,063 (20.84%) Agile
2 1,515 (15.31%) DevOps
3 1,391 (14.05%) CI/CD
4 1,085 (10.96%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,063 (10.74%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,054 (10.65%) Problem-Solving
7 885 (8.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 779 (7.87%) Migration
9 754 (7.62%) Infrastructure as Code
10 681 (6.88%) ITIL
11 671 (6.78%) Cybersecurity
12 604 (6.10%) Analytics
13 600 (6.06%) Test Automation
14 592 (5.98%) Containerisation
15 587 (5.93%) Software Engineering
16 569 (5.75%) Roadmaps
17 536 (5.42%) AI
18 532 (5.38%) Decision-Making
19 528 (5.33%) Data Modelling
20 491 (4.96%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 1,061 (10.72%) Python
2 956 (9.66%) SQL
3 673 (6.80%) Java
4 466 (4.71%) PowerShell
5 310 (3.13%) JavaScript
6 248 (2.51%) Bash
7 208 (2.10%) C#
8 143 (1.44%) PL/SQL
9 141 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 86 (0.87%) Bicep
11 85 (0.86%) Shell Script
12 78 (0.79%) C++
13 61 (0.62%) C
14 48 (0.48%) Go
15 42 (0.42%) Kotlin
16 40 (0.40%) Scala
17 38 (0.38%) Apex Code
18 37 (0.37%) Ruby
19 36 (0.36%) Groovy
20 34 (0.34%) Ada
Qualifications
1 7,436 (75.13%) SC Cleared
2 2,020 (20.41%) DV Cleared
3 409 (4.13%) Degree
4 340 (3.44%) BPSS Clearance
5 180 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
6 161 (1.63%) CISSP
7 144 (1.45%) Azure Certification
8 128 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
9 114 (1.15%) AWS Certification
10 99 (1.00%) PMI Certification
11 95 (0.96%) PMP
12 94 (0.95%) CISM
13 88 (0.89%) CCNP
14 75 (0.76%) CCNA
15 72 (0.73%) ISTQB
16 59 (0.60%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 56 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
18 45 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
19 44 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
20 36 (0.36%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 379 (3.83%) QA
2 311 (3.14%) Data Quality
3 269 (2.72%) NIST
4 261 (2.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 216 (2.18%) Accessibility
6 206 (2.08%) NCSC
7 198 (2.00%) PMO
8 156 (1.58%) GDPR
9 110 (1.11%) GRC
10 100 (1.01%) SLA
11 63 (0.64%) WCAG
12 57 (0.58%) JSP 440
13 46 (0.46%) NIST 800
14 43 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
15 28 (0.28%) Def Stans
15 28 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
16 25 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 21 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 19 (0.19%) RMADS
19 17 (0.17%) COBIT
System Software
1 644 (6.51%) Docker
2 455 (4.60%) Active Directory
3 344 (3.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 133 (1.34%) VMware NSX
5 130 (1.31%) VMware ESXi
6 99 (1.00%) vSphere
7 89 (0.90%) Hyper-V
8 74 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
9 41 (0.41%) Oracle RAC
10 35 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
11 28 (0.28%) Firmware
12 21 (0.21%) vCloud
13 19 (0.19%) BitLocker
13 19 (0.19%) NFS
14 18 (0.18%) Postfix
15 13 (0.13%) Squid
16 8 (0.081%) KVM
16 8 (0.081%) Microsoft App-V
17 7 (0.071%) UAG
18 6 (0.061%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 825 (8.34%) Terraform
2 770 (7.78%) Kubernetes
3 370 (3.74%) Ansible
4 229 (2.31%) Grafana
5 178 (1.80%) Prometheus
6 128 (1.29%) vCenter Server
7 90 (0.91%) SCCM
8 72 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
9 63 (0.64%) Argo
10 59 (0.60%) SCOM
11 49 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
12 48 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
13 47 (0.47%) Puppet
14 42 (0.42%) FortiGate
15 31 (0.31%) Data Guard
16 29 (0.29%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
18 27 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
19 26 (0.26%) Podman
20 23 (0.23%) WSUS
Vendors
1 1,147 (11.59%) Microsoft
2 757 (7.65%) Oracle
3 508 (5.13%) VMware
4 479 (4.84%) ServiceNow
5 349 (3.53%) SAP
6 288 (2.91%) Cisco
7 189 (1.91%) Splunk
8 186 (1.88%) Google
9 176 (1.78%) Databricks
10 137 (1.38%) Red Hat
11 127 (1.28%) Salesforce
12 123 (1.24%) Talend
13 114 (1.15%) Informatica
14 112 (1.13%) IBM
15 104 (1.05%) Palo Alto
16 96 (0.97%) Juniper
17 92 (0.93%) SolarWinds
18 86 (0.87%) F5
19 81 (0.82%) Citrix
20 78 (0.79%) Remedy