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

6 months to
29 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 10,078 5,151 6,274
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.96% 18.56% 19.03%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.11% 59.05% 62.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,115 3,333 4,133
10th Percentile £385 £350 £360
25th Percentile £456 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.40% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £640
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 745 499 400
10th Percentile £20.20 £18.51 £15.71
25th Percentile £30.38 £18.87 £24.18
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 £89.48 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.75 £25.15 £58.30
% change year-on-year +153.48% -56.86% -2.83%

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 14,583 8,723 9,979
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.77% 31.44% 30.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,799 5,506 6,299
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,124 678 654
10th Percentile £18.26 £18.19 £15.23
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -49.70% -9.09%
75th Percentile £74.76 £53.69 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.67
UK median hourly rate £48.61 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +93.28% -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 29 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 29 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 29 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 3,599 £550 +3.77% 1,446
South East +1 2,372 £565 +5.12% 813
South West 0 1,376 £550 -0.90% 755
North of England +3 1,239 £513 +1.87% 650
Midlands 0 912 £474 -8.06% 267
West Midlands +1 775 £475 -7.77% 179
North West +3 715 £530 -1.17% 416
East of England 0 333 £550 - 331
Yorkshire 0 307 £500 +1.63% 135
North East 0 241 £475 -5.00% 119
East Midlands -1 128 £450 -7.69% 88
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
1 345 (3.42%) Confluence
2 254 (2.52%) SharePoint
3 155 (1.54%) SAS
4 116 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
5 91 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 84 (0.83%) Apache Spark
7 83 (0.82%) Apache
8 32 (0.32%) nginx
9 31 (0.31%) Jupyter
10 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
10 23 (0.23%) Skype for Business
11 22 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 19 (0.19%) Tomcat
13 17 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
14 16 (0.16%) CMS
15 15 (0.15%) IIS
16 13 (0.13%) JBoss
17 12 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
18 9 (0.089%) Documentum
18 9 (0.089%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 181 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 136 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
3 97 (0.96%) Microsoft Project
4 88 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 30 (0.30%) 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 (0.079%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.079%) 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 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 75 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
3 47 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
4 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 31 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
7 27 (0.27%) Teamcenter
8 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
9 21 (0.21%) Oracle Payroll
10 16 (0.16%) SAP HR
11 15 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
11 15 (0.15%) Primavera
12 14 (0.14%) SAP FI
13 13 (0.13%) Findur
14 12 (0.12%) iTrent
14 12 (0.12%) SAP GRC
14 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
14 12 (0.12%) Temenos T24
15 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
16 10 (0.099%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,882 (18.67%) Azure
2 1,667 (16.54%) AWS
3 465 (4.61%) Azure DevOps
4 440 (4.37%) Power Platform
5 431 (4.28%) GitHub
6 385 (3.82%) GCP
7 289 (2.87%) Microsoft 365
8 283 (2.81%) GitHub Actions
9 269 (2.67%) Entra ID
10 248 (2.46%) Serverless
11 202 (2.00%) Amazon S3
12 170 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
13 153 (1.52%) OCI
14 151 (1.50%) SaaS
15 137 (1.36%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 135 (1.34%) OpenShift
17 124 (1.23%) Amazon EKS
18 121 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
19 113 (1.12%) PaaS
20 105 (1.04%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 424 (4.21%) Firewall
2 344 (3.41%) DNS
3 205 (2.03%) Network Security
4 202 (2.00%) WAN
5 194 (1.92%) VPN
6 174 (1.73%) DHCP
7 165 (1.64%) LAN
8 133 (1.32%) BGP
9 127 (1.26%) TCP/IP
10 119 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
11 98 (0.97%) VLAN
12 94 (0.93%) OSPF
13 77 (0.76%) Wireless
14 67 (0.66%) VSAN
15 63 (0.63%) IPsec
16 59 (0.59%) MPLS
16 59 (0.59%) SD-WAN
17 56 (0.56%) SSL
18 54 (0.54%) SAN
19 44 (0.44%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 316 (3.14%) Power BI
2 257 (2.55%) SQL Server
3 232 (2.30%) PostgreSQL
4 231 (2.29%) Data Warehouse
5 155 (1.54%) Oracle Database
6 153 (1.52%) Metadata
7 116 (1.15%) Data Lake
8 112 (1.11%) Relational Database
9 98 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
10 89 (0.88%) NoSQL
11 87 (0.86%) MySQL
12 86 (0.85%) MongoDB
13 75 (0.74%) Oracle Reports
14 72 (0.71%) Pentaho
15 58 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
16 57 (0.57%) Tableau
17 54 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
18 53 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
19 45 (0.45%) Big Data
20 43 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 536 (5.32%) JIRA
2 471 (4.67%) Git
3 424 (4.21%) GitLab
4 390 (3.87%) Jenkins
5 110 (1.09%) Selenium
6 73 (0.72%) SonarQube
7 68 (0.67%) Postman
8 63 (0.63%) JUnit
9 55 (0.55%) JMeter
10 54 (0.54%) Maven
11 45 (0.45%) Cucumber
12 43 (0.43%) Rational DOORS
13 37 (0.37%) Gradle
13 37 (0.37%) Mockito
14 36 (0.36%) Cypress.io
15 35 (0.35%) Zephyr
16 34 (0.34%) Artifactory
17 33 (0.33%) Visual Studio
18 32 (0.32%) Gatling
18 32 (0.32%) REST Assured
General
1 2,178 (21.61%) Social Skills
2 2,016 (20.00%) Public Sector
3 789 (7.83%) Analytical Skills
4 699 (6.94%) Finance
5 356 (3.53%) Military
6 295 (2.93%) Aerospace
7 250 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
8 185 (1.84%) Influencing Skills
9 154 (1.53%) Organisational Skills
10 150 (1.49%) Telecoms
11 141 (1.40%) Banking
12 131 (1.30%) Legal
13 108 (1.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 107 (1.06%) Law
15 101 (1.00%) Manufacturing
16 91 (0.90%) Police
17 54 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
18 44 (0.44%) Marketing
18 44 (0.44%) Retail
19 38 (0.38%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,536 (15.24%) Architect
2 990 (9.82%) Developer
3 957 (9.50%) Lead
4 944 (9.37%) Senior
5 582 (5.77%) Consultant
6 566 (5.62%) Analyst
7 449 (4.46%) Data Engineer
8 404 (4.01%) DevOps Engineer
9 386 (3.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 273 (2.71%) Technical Architect
11 264 (2.62%) Software Engineer
12 246 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
13 238 (2.36%) Data Architect
14 233 (2.31%) Network Engineer
15 227 (2.25%) Security Architect
16 193 (1.92%) Administrator
17 192 (1.91%) Delivery Manager
18 188 (1.87%) Cloud Engineer
19 184 (1.83%) Azure Engineer
20 181 (1.80%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 881 (8.74%) Terraform
2 378 (3.75%) REST
3 206 (2.04%) Spring
4 195 (1.93%) Kafka
5 184 (1.83%) .NET
6 181 (1.80%) Spring Boot
7 178 (1.77%) React
8 167 (1.66%) RESTful
9 151 (1.50%) SOAP
10 130 (1.29%) JSON
10 130 (1.29%) Node.js
11 109 (1.08%) OAuth
12 107 (1.06%) HTML
13 104 (1.03%) Web Services
14 103 (1.02%) AngularJS
15 92 (0.91%) XML
16 86 (0.85%) PySpark
17 84 (0.83%) CSS
18 75 (0.74%) Oracle Fusion
19 74 (0.73%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 446 (4.43%) Cloud Native
2 364 (3.61%) Onboarding
3 323 (3.21%) Product Ownership
4 267 (2.65%) Data Centre
5 173 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
6 161 (1.60%) Management Information System
7 154 (1.53%) PKI
8 136 (1.35%) CMDB
9 134 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
10 124 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
11 117 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
12 116 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
13 110 (1.09%) Replication
14 91 (0.90%) Data Structures
15 87 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
16 86 (0.85%) Security Operations Centre
17 84 (0.83%) Clustering
17 84 (0.83%) Public Cloud
18 83 (0.82%) Operational Technology
19 72 (0.71%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 877 (8.70%) Windows
2 703 (6.98%) Linux
3 332 (3.29%) Windows Server
4 193 (1.92%) Unix
5 141 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 128 (1.27%) Windows 10
7 61 (0.61%) Android
7 61 (0.61%) Solaris
8 48 (0.48%) Mac OS
9 38 (0.38%) CentOS
10 36 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
11 35 (0.35%) Ubuntu
12 34 (0.34%) AIX
13 26 (0.26%) Apple iOS
14 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
15 20 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
16 19 (0.19%) VMS
16 19 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
17 15 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
18 13 (0.13%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,101 (20.85%) Agile
2 1,544 (15.32%) DevOps
3 1,453 (14.42%) CI/CD
4 1,299 (12.89%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,174 (11.65%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,056 (10.48%) Problem-Solving
7 1,000 (9.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 864 (8.57%) Infrastructure as Code
9 825 (8.19%) Migration
10 761 (7.55%) Cybersecurity
11 714 (7.08%) ITIL
12 636 (6.31%) Test Automation
13 628 (6.23%) Analytics
14 614 (6.09%) Roadmaps
15 603 (5.98%) Containerisation
16 601 (5.96%) Technical Leadership
17 594 (5.89%) AI
18 582 (5.77%) Software Engineering
19 569 (5.65%) Decision-Making
20 541 (5.37%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 1,136 (11.27%) Python
2 950 (9.43%) SQL
3 649 (6.44%) Java
4 537 (5.33%) PowerShell
5 339 (3.36%) JavaScript
6 286 (2.84%) Bash
7 206 (2.04%) C#
8 160 (1.59%) TypeScript
9 131 (1.30%) PL/SQL
10 109 (1.08%) Bicep
11 67 (0.66%) C++
11 67 (0.66%) Shell Script
12 60 (0.60%) C
13 45 (0.45%) Groovy
14 44 (0.44%) Go
15 39 (0.39%) Kotlin
16 38 (0.38%) Scala
17 34 (0.34%) Apex Code
17 34 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 31 (0.31%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 7,568 (75.09%) SC Cleared
2 2,054 (20.38%) DV Cleared
3 427 (4.24%) Degree
4 383 (3.80%) BPSS Clearance
5 184 (1.83%) CISSP
6 160 (1.59%) Azure Certification
7 152 (1.51%) Cisco Certification
8 150 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
9 128 (1.27%) AWS Certification
10 117 (1.16%) CISM
11 102 (1.01%) PMI Certification
12 99 (0.98%) PMP
13 78 (0.77%) ISTQB
14 72 (0.71%) CCNP
15 63 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 62 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
17 57 (0.57%) CCNA
18 43 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
19 42 (0.42%) TOGAF Certification
19 42 (0.42%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 430 (4.27%) QA
2 324 (3.21%) Data Quality
3 283 (2.81%) NIST
4 274 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 242 (2.40%) NCSC
6 222 (2.20%) PMO
7 214 (2.12%) Accessibility
8 153 (1.52%) GDPR
9 139 (1.38%) SLA
10 133 (1.32%) GRC
11 67 (0.66%) WCAG
12 62 (0.62%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 43 (0.43%) NIST 800
15 34 (0.34%) Def Stans
16 31 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 26 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
18 24 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 19 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
19 19 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 671 (6.66%) Docker
2 527 (5.23%) Active Directory
3 387 (3.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 142 (1.41%) VMware NSX
5 136 (1.35%) VMware ESXi
6 120 (1.19%) vSphere
7 115 (1.14%) Hyper-V
8 76 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
9 41 (0.41%) Firmware
10 40 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
10 40 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
11 26 (0.26%) BitLocker
11 26 (0.26%) vCloud
12 11 (0.11%) NFS
12 11 (0.11%) Postfix
12 11 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
13 10 (0.099%) Squid
14 9 (0.089%) KVM
15 8 (0.079%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 8 (0.079%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 816 (8.10%) Kubernetes
2 407 (4.04%) Ansible
3 226 (2.24%) Grafana
4 177 (1.76%) Prometheus
5 135 (1.34%) vCenter Server
6 127 (1.26%) SCCM
7 83 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
8 80 (0.79%) SCOM
9 64 (0.64%) Argo
10 50 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
11 49 (0.49%) Puppet
12 47 (0.47%) Oracle RMAN
13 37 (0.37%) Data Guard
14 31 (0.31%) Progress Chef
15 29 (0.29%) Kibana
16 28 (0.28%) Control-M
16 28 (0.28%) Istio
16 28 (0.28%) Nagios
17 27 (0.27%) WSUS
18 25 (0.25%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,323 (13.13%) Microsoft
2 786 (7.80%) Oracle
3 553 (5.49%) VMware
4 471 (4.67%) ServiceNow
5 393 (3.90%) SAP
6 285 (2.83%) Cisco
7 223 (2.21%) Google
8 197 (1.95%) Splunk
9 185 (1.84%) Databricks
10 132 (1.31%) Red Hat
11 124 (1.23%) Salesforce
12 117 (1.16%) IBM
13 115 (1.14%) Palo Alto
14 98 (0.97%) Informatica
14 98 (0.97%) Talend
15 84 (0.83%) Remedy
16 81 (0.80%) Dynatrace
17 76 (0.75%) Juniper
17 76 (0.75%) SolarWinds
18 73 (0.72%) F5