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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +2 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,001 5,097 6,287
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.93% 18.61% 19.02%
As % of the Qualifications category 68.98% 59.21% 62.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,066 3,294 4,133
10th Percentile £390 £350 £360
25th Percentile £458 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £549 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.14% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £700 £735
UK median daily rate £540 £537 £550
% change year-on-year +0.56% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 744 499 397
10th Percentile £20.50 £18.51 £15.64
25th Percentile £33.93 £18.87 £26.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -58.08% -
75th Percentile £80.00 £47.12 £72.50
90th Percentile £89.55 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £64.00 £25.15 £58.43
% change year-on-year +154.47% -56.96% -2.61%

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 14,499 8,608 10,014
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.79% 31.43% 30.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,763 5,423 6,299
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £711 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,128 676 648
10th Percentile £18.26 £18.17 £15.24
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £23.37
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -49.70% -8.36%
75th Percentile £74.00 £52.81 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.38 £79.42
UK median hourly rate £48.77 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +93.90% -47.05% -13.64%

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 2 September 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 2 September 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 2 September 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 3,555 £550 +3.77% 1,502
South East +1 2,328 £564 +4.98% 826
South West 0 1,376 £550 -0.90% 764
North of England +3 1,242 £515 +2.83% 638
Midlands 0 908 £475 -7.77% 267
West Midlands +1 773 £475 -7.77% 173
North West +3 729 £530 -1.17% 420
East of England 0 343 £550 - 362
Yorkshire 0 298 £500 +1.63% 115
North East 0 237 £475 -5.00% 124
East Midlands -1 126 £450 -7.69% 94
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
1 344 (3.44%) Confluence
2 247 (2.47%) SharePoint
3 152 (1.52%) SAS
4 113 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
5 91 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
6 86 (0.86%) Apache
6 86 (0.86%) Apache Spark
7 32 (0.32%) nginx
8 31 (0.31%) Jupyter
9 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
10 22 (0.22%) Skype for Business
10 22 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 19 (0.19%) Tomcat
12 17 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
13 16 (0.16%) CMS
14 15 (0.15%) IIS
15 13 (0.13%) JBoss
15 13 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
16 9 (0.090%) Documentum
16 9 (0.090%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 181 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 135 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
3 98 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
4 91 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 29 (0.29%) MS Visio
6 23 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.17%) AutoCAD
7 17 (0.17%) Revit
8 16 (0.16%) SOLIDWORKS
9 13 (0.13%) Simulink
10 8 (0.080%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.080%) Windchill
11 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.060%) Sketch
12 5 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
13 3 (0.030%) OrCAD
13 3 (0.030%) Trello
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 124 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 77 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 48 (0.48%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 28 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
7 26 (0.26%) Teamcenter
8 22 (0.22%) Oracle Payroll
8 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
9 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 16 (0.16%) SAP HR
10 15 (0.15%) Primavera
11 14 (0.14%) SAP FI
12 13 (0.13%) Findur
13 12 (0.12%) iTrent
13 12 (0.12%) SAP GRC
13 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
14 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
14 11 (0.11%) Temenos T24
15 10 (0.100%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,856 (18.56%) Azure
2 1,672 (16.72%) AWS
3 454 (4.54%) Azure DevOps
4 436 (4.36%) Power Platform
5 421 (4.21%) GitHub
6 381 (3.81%) GCP
7 284 (2.84%) Microsoft 365
8 278 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
9 256 (2.56%) Entra ID
10 243 (2.43%) Serverless
11 201 (2.01%) Amazon S3
12 171 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
13 154 (1.54%) SaaS
14 153 (1.53%) OCI
15 138 (1.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 133 (1.33%) OpenShift
17 125 (1.25%) Amazon EKS
18 119 (1.19%) Amazon EC2
19 103 (1.03%) PaaS
20 102 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 421 (4.21%) Firewall
2 342 (3.42%) DNS
3 205 (2.05%) Network Security
4 200 (2.00%) WAN
5 188 (1.88%) VPN
6 174 (1.74%) DHCP
7 161 (1.61%) LAN
8 133 (1.33%) BGP
9 127 (1.27%) TCP/IP
10 117 (1.17%) Wi-Fi
11 100 (1.00%) VLAN
12 94 (0.94%) OSPF
13 77 (0.77%) Wireless
14 64 (0.64%) IPsec
14 64 (0.64%) VSAN
15 62 (0.62%) SSL
16 60 (0.60%) SD-WAN
17 59 (0.59%) MPLS
18 55 (0.55%) SAN
19 45 (0.45%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 314 (3.14%) Power BI
2 253 (2.53%) SQL Server
3 235 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
4 227 (2.27%) Data Warehouse
5 159 (1.59%) Metadata
6 154 (1.54%) Oracle Database
7 117 (1.17%) Relational Database
8 115 (1.15%) Data Lake
9 96 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
10 93 (0.93%) MySQL
11 87 (0.87%) MongoDB
12 86 (0.86%) NoSQL
13 76 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
14 70 (0.70%) Pentaho
15 59 (0.59%) Amazon Athena
16 56 (0.56%) Tableau
17 53 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
18 52 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
19 43 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
19 43 (0.43%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 534 (5.34%) JIRA
2 473 (4.73%) Git
3 425 (4.25%) GitLab
4 388 (3.88%) Jenkins
5 113 (1.13%) Selenium
6 71 (0.71%) SonarQube
7 68 (0.68%) Postman
8 64 (0.64%) JUnit
9 55 (0.55%) JMeter
10 54 (0.54%) Maven
11 47 (0.47%) Cucumber
12 39 (0.39%) Gradle
12 39 (0.39%) Rational DOORS
13 38 (0.38%) Mockito
14 36 (0.36%) Cypress.io
15 35 (0.35%) Zephyr
16 33 (0.33%) REST Assured
17 32 (0.32%) Artifactory
17 32 (0.32%) Gatling
17 32 (0.32%) Visual Studio
General
1 2,185 (21.85%) Social Skills
2 1,995 (19.95%) Public Sector
3 795 (7.95%) Analytical Skills
4 677 (6.77%) Finance
5 361 (3.61%) Military
6 289 (2.89%) Aerospace
7 249 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
8 185 (1.85%) Influencing Skills
9 154 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
10 149 (1.49%) Telecoms
11 139 (1.39%) Banking
12 129 (1.29%) Legal
13 110 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 107 (1.07%) Law
15 99 (0.99%) Manufacturing
16 90 (0.90%) Police
17 55 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
18 44 (0.44%) Marketing
18 44 (0.44%) Retail
19 40 (0.40%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,528 (15.28%) Architect
2 970 (9.70%) Developer
3 943 (9.43%) Lead
4 934 (9.34%) Senior
5 570 (5.70%) Consultant
6 555 (5.55%) Analyst
7 449 (4.49%) Data Engineer
8 403 (4.03%) DevOps Engineer
9 376 (3.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 268 (2.68%) Technical Architect
11 263 (2.63%) Software Engineer
12 246 (2.46%) Solutions Architect
13 244 (2.44%) Data Architect
14 229 (2.29%) Network Engineer
15 225 (2.25%) Security Architect
16 195 (1.95%) Administrator
17 189 (1.89%) Delivery Manager
18 184 (1.84%) Cloud Engineer
19 180 (1.80%) Java Developer
20 177 (1.77%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 865 (8.65%) Terraform
2 373 (3.73%) REST
3 206 (2.06%) Spring
4 194 (1.94%) Kafka
5 184 (1.84%) Spring Boot
6 178 (1.78%) .NET
6 178 (1.78%) React
7 165 (1.65%) RESTful
8 145 (1.45%) SOAP
9 129 (1.29%) JSON
10 127 (1.27%) Node.js
11 108 (1.08%) HTML
12 104 (1.04%) OAuth
13 102 (1.02%) AngularJS
14 97 (0.97%) Web Services
15 91 (0.91%) XML
16 88 (0.88%) PySpark
17 85 (0.85%) CSS
18 76 (0.76%) Middleware
18 76 (0.76%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 448 (4.48%) Cloud Native
2 369 (3.69%) Onboarding
3 313 (3.13%) Product Ownership
4 261 (2.61%) Data Centre
5 171 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
6 165 (1.65%) Management Information System
7 152 (1.52%) PKI
8 138 (1.38%) CMDB
9 136 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
10 123 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
11 116 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
12 111 (1.11%) Replication
13 110 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
14 92 (0.92%) Cyber Threat
15 86 (0.86%) Data Structures
15 86 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
16 85 (0.85%) Operational Technology
17 83 (0.83%) Clustering
17 83 (0.83%) Public Cloud
18 74 (0.74%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 884 (8.84%) Windows
2 698 (6.98%) Linux
3 343 (3.43%) Windows Server
4 199 (1.99%) Unix
5 141 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 128 (1.28%) Windows 10
7 64 (0.64%) Solaris
8 62 (0.62%) Android
9 48 (0.48%) Mac OS
10 39 (0.39%) CentOS
11 35 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.34%) Ubuntu
13 33 (0.33%) AIX
14 26 (0.26%) Apple iOS
15 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
16 19 (0.19%) VMS
16 19 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
17 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
18 16 (0.16%) Rocky
19 15 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,092 (20.92%) Agile
2 1,518 (15.18%) DevOps
3 1,453 (14.53%) CI/CD
4 1,298 (12.98%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,189 (11.89%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,056 (10.56%) Problem-Solving
7 987 (9.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 857 (8.57%) Infrastructure as Code
9 813 (8.13%) Migration
10 754 (7.54%) Cybersecurity
11 714 (7.14%) ITIL
12 635 (6.35%) Test Automation
13 618 (6.18%) Analytics
14 614 (6.14%) Roadmaps
15 606 (6.06%) Containerisation
16 605 (6.05%) Technical Leadership
17 601 (6.01%) AI
18 582 (5.82%) Software Engineering
19 567 (5.67%) Decision-Making
20 542 (5.42%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 1,145 (11.45%) Python
2 945 (9.45%) SQL
3 646 (6.46%) Java
4 528 (5.28%) PowerShell
5 336 (3.36%) JavaScript
6 289 (2.89%) Bash
7 192 (1.92%) C#
8 162 (1.62%) TypeScript
9 131 (1.31%) PL/SQL
10 108 (1.08%) Bicep
11 68 (0.68%) Shell Script
12 66 (0.66%) C++
13 59 (0.59%) C
14 45 (0.45%) Groovy
15 43 (0.43%) Go
16 39 (0.39%) Scala
17 37 (0.37%) Kotlin
18 32 (0.32%) Apex Code
19 31 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
20 29 (0.29%) R
Qualifications
1 7,512 (75.11%) SC Cleared
2 2,046 (20.46%) DV Cleared
3 417 (4.17%) Degree
4 384 (3.84%) BPSS Clearance
5 185 (1.85%) CISSP
6 160 (1.60%) Azure Certification
7 151 (1.51%) Cisco Certification
8 150 (1.50%) Microsoft Certification
9 130 (1.30%) AWS Certification
10 116 (1.16%) CISM
11 99 (0.99%) PMI Certification
12 95 (0.95%) PMP
13 80 (0.80%) ISTQB
14 73 (0.73%) CCNP
15 62 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
15 62 (0.62%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 55 (0.55%) CCNA
17 42 (0.42%) TOGAF Certification
18 41 (0.41%) VCAP
19 40 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 435 (4.35%) QA
2 322 (3.22%) Data Quality
3 280 (2.80%) NIST
4 273 (2.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 234 (2.34%) NCSC
6 221 (2.21%) PMO
7 214 (2.14%) Accessibility
8 151 (1.51%) GDPR
9 140 (1.40%) SLA
10 129 (1.29%) GRC
11 69 (0.69%) WCAG
12 59 (0.59%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 41 (0.41%) NIST 800
15 34 (0.34%) Def Stans
16 25 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 24 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 20 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
19 19 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
19 19 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 666 (6.66%) Docker
2 528 (5.28%) Active Directory
3 386 (3.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 139 (1.39%) VMware NSX
5 138 (1.38%) VMware ESXi
6 119 (1.19%) vSphere
7 114 (1.14%) Hyper-V
8 77 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
9 41 (0.41%) Firmware
10 40 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
11 39 (0.39%) Oracle RAC
12 27 (0.27%) vCloud
13 25 (0.25%) BitLocker
14 11 (0.11%) Postfix
14 11 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
15 10 (0.100%) NFS
15 10 (0.100%) Squid
16 9 (0.090%) Citrix Hypervisor
16 9 (0.090%) KVM
17 8 (0.080%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 803 (8.03%) Kubernetes
2 404 (4.04%) Ansible
3 224 (2.24%) Grafana
4 174 (1.74%) Prometheus
5 135 (1.35%) vCenter Server
6 128 (1.28%) SCCM
7 87 (0.87%) SCOM
8 82 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
9 63 (0.63%) Argo
10 49 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
11 48 (0.48%) Puppet
12 46 (0.46%) Oracle RMAN
13 37 (0.37%) Data Guard
14 30 (0.30%) Progress Chef
15 29 (0.29%) Kibana
16 28 (0.28%) Control-M
16 28 (0.28%) WSUS
17 27 (0.27%) Nagios
18 25 (0.25%) Istio
19 24 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,308 (13.08%) Microsoft
2 790 (7.90%) Oracle
3 553 (5.53%) VMware
4 473 (4.73%) ServiceNow
5 392 (3.92%) SAP
6 282 (2.82%) Cisco
7 221 (2.21%) Google
8 201 (2.01%) Splunk
9 185 (1.85%) Databricks
10 128 (1.28%) Red Hat
11 124 (1.24%) Salesforce
12 115 (1.15%) Palo Alto
13 110 (1.10%) IBM
14 98 (0.98%) Informatica
15 97 (0.97%) Talend
16 86 (0.86%) Remedy
17 82 (0.82%) Dynatrace
18 76 (0.76%) SolarWinds
19 75 (0.75%) CyberArk
20 73 (0.73%) Juniper