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 7 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,054 5,051 6,416
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.03% 18.31% 19.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.36% 58.47% 62.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,073 3,262 4,274
10th Percentile £381 £350 £353
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.09% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £642
90th Percentile £725 £700 £737
UK median daily rate £537 £535 £550
% change year-on-year +0.37% -2.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 774 459 457
10th Percentile £19.33 £18.51 £15.39
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.22
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -56.26% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80.84 £55.00 £72.33
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.88 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £25.15 £55.00
% change year-on-year +151.03% -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 14,495 8,639 10,197
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.76% 31.31% 30.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,767 5,446 6,482
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £431 £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 £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,116 646 767
10th Percentile £17.97 £18.13 £15.01
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.25 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +115.71% -45.54% -16.04%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.93 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.02 £78.30
UK median hourly rate £51.75 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +105.77% -41.51% -22.77%

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 7 August 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 7 August 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 7 August 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 3,562 £550 +3.77% 870
South East +1 2,462 £560 +4.19% 627
South West 0 1,345 £538 -6.52% 484
North of England +2 1,125 £502 +0.35% 371
Midlands +2 977 £469 -8.40% 175
West Midlands +1 844 £469 -8.54% 130
North West +3 606 £525 - 230
East of England 0 320 £550 +0.92% 167
Yorkshire +2 302 £500 +1.63% 70
North East 0 241 £475 -5.00% 75
East Midlands 0 121 £438 -5.30% 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
1 359 (3.57%) Confluence
2 252 (2.51%) SharePoint
3 171 (1.70%) SAS
4 111 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 84 (0.84%) Apache Spark
7 79 (0.79%) Apache
8 35 (0.35%) nginx
9 32 (0.32%) Jupyter
9 32 (0.32%) WebLogic
10 21 (0.21%) Oracle Application Server
10 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
11 16 (0.16%) CMS
11 16 (0.16%) IIS
11 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
12 15 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
13 13 (0.13%) Skype for Business
14 11 (0.11%) Tuxedo
15 10 (0.099%) JBoss
15 10 (0.099%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 193 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 128 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
3 95 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
4 76 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 36 (0.36%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.15%) AutoCAD
7 15 (0.15%) Revit
8 14 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
9 12 (0.12%) Simulink
10 9 (0.090%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.060%) Sketch
12 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
13 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.030%) Trello
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
14 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
14 2 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 123 (1.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 77 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 43 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 32 (0.32%) Teamcenter
6 25 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
7 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
8 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payroll
8 16 (0.16%) Primavera
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
10 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
11 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
12 12 (0.12%) iTrent
12 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
13 11 (0.11%) SAP HR
14 10 (0.099%) Salesforce CRM
14 10 (0.099%) SAP ERP
14 10 (0.099%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,827 (18.17%) Azure
2 1,675 (16.66%) AWS
3 445 (4.43%) Azure DevOps
4 433 (4.31%) Power Platform
5 425 (4.23%) GitHub
6 378 (3.76%) GCP
7 277 (2.76%) Microsoft 365
8 272 (2.71%) GitHub Actions
9 255 (2.54%) Entra ID
10 250 (2.49%) Serverless
11 221 (2.20%) Amazon S3
12 173 (1.72%) AWS Lambda
13 157 (1.56%) OCI
14 146 (1.45%) SaaS
15 144 (1.43%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 143 (1.42%) Amazon EC2
17 134 (1.33%) OpenShift
18 127 (1.26%) PaaS
19 122 (1.21%) Amazon EKS
20 110 (1.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 427 (4.25%) Firewall
2 345 (3.43%) DNS
3 205 (2.04%) WAN
4 204 (2.03%) Network Security
5 178 (1.77%) LAN
6 174 (1.73%) DHCP
7 171 (1.70%) VPN
8 136 (1.35%) BGP
9 127 (1.26%) TCP/IP
10 113 (1.12%) Wi-Fi
11 107 (1.06%) OSPF
12 96 (0.95%) VLAN
13 81 (0.81%) Wireless
14 66 (0.66%) VSAN
15 63 (0.63%) IPsec
16 57 (0.57%) MPLS
17 56 (0.56%) VXLAN
18 55 (0.55%) SD-WAN
19 54 (0.54%) SSL
20 53 (0.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 322 (3.20%) Power BI
2 260 (2.59%) SQL Server
3 245 (2.44%) Data Warehouse
4 242 (2.41%) PostgreSQL
5 146 (1.45%) Oracle Database
6 133 (1.32%) Metadata
7 113 (1.12%) Data Lake
8 101 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
9 98 (0.97%) Relational Database
10 91 (0.91%) Pentaho
11 88 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
12 81 (0.81%) NoSQL
13 80 (0.80%) MySQL
14 75 (0.75%) MongoDB
15 60 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
16 58 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
17 57 (0.57%) Elasticsearch
17 57 (0.57%) Tableau
18 41 (0.41%) Big Data
18 41 (0.41%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 567 (5.64%) JIRA
2 490 (4.87%) Git
3 402 (4.00%) GitLab
4 386 (3.84%) Jenkins
5 103 (1.02%) Selenium
6 75 (0.75%) SonarQube
7 71 (0.71%) JUnit
8 58 (0.58%) Maven
8 58 (0.58%) Postman
9 56 (0.56%) Rational DOORS
10 49 (0.49%) JMeter
11 45 (0.45%) Cucumber
12 43 (0.43%) Mockito
13 41 (0.41%) Visual Studio
14 40 (0.40%) Zephyr
15 38 (0.38%) Bitbucket
16 34 (0.34%) Cypress.io
17 33 (0.33%) Artifactory
18 32 (0.32%) Gradle
19 31 (0.31%) REST Assured
General
1 2,107 (20.96%) Social Skills
2 2,079 (20.68%) Public Sector
3 780 (7.76%) Analytical Skills
4 702 (6.98%) Finance
5 339 (3.37%) Military
6 287 (2.85%) Aerospace
7 242 (2.41%) Documentation Skills
8 153 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
9 139 (1.38%) Legal
9 139 (1.38%) Organisational Skills
10 131 (1.30%) Telecoms
11 125 (1.24%) Banking
12 97 (0.96%) Law
13 92 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 88 (0.88%) Police
15 81 (0.81%) Manufacturing
16 74 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
17 43 (0.43%) Marketing
18 39 (0.39%) Retail
19 36 (0.36%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 1,502 (14.94%) Architect
2 1,055 (10.49%) Developer
3 934 (9.29%) Senior
4 901 (8.96%) Lead
5 607 (6.04%) Analyst
6 518 (5.15%) Consultant
7 483 (4.80%) Data Engineer
8 385 (3.83%) DevOps Engineer
9 371 (3.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 295 (2.93%) Software Engineer
11 262 (2.61%) Technical Architect
12 244 (2.43%) Solutions Architect
13 240 (2.39%) Security Architect
14 236 (2.35%) Network Engineer
15 214 (2.13%) Data Architect
16 200 (1.99%) Delivery Manager
17 199 (1.98%) Java Developer
18 196 (1.95%) Administrator
19 189 (1.88%) Project Manager
20 181 (1.80%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 370 (3.68%) REST
2 223 (2.22%) Spring
3 191 (1.90%) .NET
4 187 (1.86%) Spring Boot
5 177 (1.76%) Kafka
6 172 (1.71%) React
7 171 (1.70%) RESTful
8 147 (1.46%) SOAP
9 144 (1.43%) Node.js
10 127 (1.26%) JSON
11 124 (1.23%) AngularJS
12 103 (1.02%) OAuth
12 103 (1.02%) Web Services
13 101 (1.00%) HTML
14 88 (0.88%) XML
15 87 (0.87%) PySpark
16 76 (0.76%) CSS
17 72 (0.72%) Oracle Fusion
18 67 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
18 67 (0.67%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 416 (4.14%) Cloud Native
2 355 (3.53%) Onboarding
3 323 (3.21%) Product Ownership
4 280 (2.78%) Data Centre
5 180 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
6 156 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 150 (1.49%) PKI
8 141 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
9 119 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
10 115 (1.14%) CMDB
10 115 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
11 106 (1.05%) Hybrid Cloud
12 105 (1.04%) Data Structures
13 103 (1.02%) Clustering
14 96 (0.95%) Replication
15 84 (0.84%) Public Cloud
16 79 (0.79%) Security Operations Centre
17 78 (0.78%) Cyber Threat
18 75 (0.75%) Virtual Team
19 73 (0.73%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 856 (8.51%) Windows
2 698 (6.94%) Linux
3 302 (3.00%) Windows Server
4 205 (2.04%) Unix
5 141 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 97 (0.96%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.79%) Android
8 63 (0.63%) Solaris
9 44 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 40 (0.40%) Apple iOS
11 39 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.34%) AIX
13 31 (0.31%) CentOS
14 30 (0.30%) Ubuntu
15 19 (0.19%) VMS
16 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
17 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
18 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.12%) Rocky
19 12 (0.12%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,112 (21.01%) Agile
2 1,550 (15.42%) DevOps
3 1,441 (14.33%) CI/CD
4 1,149 (11.43%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,122 (11.16%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,073 (10.67%) Problem-Solving
7 922 (9.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 798 (7.94%) Infrastructure as Code
9 795 (7.91%) Migration
10 690 (6.86%) ITIL
11 689 (6.85%) Cybersecurity
12 647 (6.44%) Analytics
13 622 (6.19%) Test Automation
14 608 (6.05%) Software Engineering
15 600 (5.97%) Containerisation
16 595 (5.92%) Roadmaps
17 566 (5.63%) AI
18 555 (5.52%) Data Modelling
19 541 (5.38%) Technical Leadership
20 534 (5.31%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 1,104 (10.98%) Python
2 1,004 (9.99%) SQL
3 681 (6.77%) Java
4 494 (4.91%) PowerShell
5 334 (3.32%) JavaScript
6 271 (2.70%) Bash
7 223 (2.22%) C#
8 151 (1.50%) PL/SQL
9 149 (1.48%) TypeScript
10 95 (0.94%) Bicep
11 83 (0.83%) C++
12 82 (0.82%) Shell Script
13 65 (0.65%) C
14 44 (0.44%) Go
14 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
15 41 (0.41%) Groovy
15 41 (0.41%) Scala
16 38 (0.38%) Apex Code
17 36 (0.36%) Ruby
18 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,549 (75.08%) SC Cleared
2 2,054 (20.43%) DV Cleared
3 417 (4.15%) Degree
4 362 (3.60%) BPSS Clearance
5 175 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
6 170 (1.69%) CISSP
7 152 (1.51%) Azure Certification
8 139 (1.38%) Microsoft Certification
9 118 (1.17%) AWS Certification
10 101 (1.00%) CISM
11 100 (0.99%) PMI Certification
12 97 (0.96%) PMP
13 77 (0.77%) CCNP
14 73 (0.73%) ISTQB
15 71 (0.71%) CCNA
16 63 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 59 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
18 47 (0.47%) TOGAF Certification
19 42 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
20 41 (0.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 393 (3.91%) QA
2 325 (3.23%) Data Quality
3 269 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 269 (2.68%) NIST
4 217 (2.16%) PMO
5 211 (2.10%) NCSC
6 209 (2.08%) Accessibility
7 155 (1.54%) GDPR
8 118 (1.17%) GRC
9 116 (1.15%) SLA
10 66 (0.66%) WCAG
11 57 (0.57%) JSP 440
12 45 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
13 44 (0.44%) NIST 800
14 32 (0.32%) Def Stans
15 30 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
16 28 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 25 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 19 (0.19%) RMADS
19 18 (0.18%) COBIT
System Software
1 667 (6.63%) Docker
2 477 (4.74%) Active Directory
3 364 (3.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 142 (1.41%) VMware NSX
5 132 (1.31%) VMware ESXi
6 110 (1.09%) vSphere
7 96 (0.95%) Hyper-V
8 77 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
9 44 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
10 36 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
11 28 (0.28%) Firmware
12 24 (0.24%) vCloud
13 20 (0.20%) BitLocker
14 16 (0.16%) Postfix
15 12 (0.12%) NFS
15 12 (0.12%) Squid
16 8 (0.080%) KVM
16 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
17 6 (0.060%) Corosync
17 6 (0.060%) UAG
Systems Management
1 853 (8.48%) Terraform
2 789 (7.85%) Kubernetes
3 390 (3.88%) Ansible
4 223 (2.22%) Grafana
5 174 (1.73%) Prometheus
6 132 (1.31%) vCenter Server
7 101 (1.00%) SCCM
8 82 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
9 69 (0.69%) SCOM
10 62 (0.62%) Argo
11 53 (0.53%) Oracle RMAN
12 52 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
13 50 (0.50%) Puppet
14 42 (0.42%) FortiGate
15 35 (0.35%) Data Guard
16 31 (0.31%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
18 26 (0.26%) WSUS
19 24 (0.24%) Podman
19 24 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,217 (12.10%) Microsoft
2 786 (7.82%) Oracle
3 528 (5.25%) VMware
4 496 (4.93%) ServiceNow
5 369 (3.67%) SAP
6 284 (2.82%) Cisco
7 201 (2.00%) Google
8 184 (1.83%) Splunk
9 179 (1.78%) Databricks
10 139 (1.38%) Red Hat
11 132 (1.31%) Salesforce
12 120 (1.19%) Talend
13 111 (1.10%) IBM
14 108 (1.07%) Informatica
15 102 (1.01%) Palo Alto
16 99 (0.98%) Juniper
17 90 (0.90%) SolarWinds
18 87 (0.87%) F5
18 87 (0.87%) Remedy
19 79 (0.79%) Dynatrace