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

6 months to
27 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 9,980 5,125 6,337
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.83% 18.57% 19.09%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.07% 58.81% 62.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,039 3,301 4,171
10th Percentile £385 £350 £359
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 £738
UK median daily rate £540 £535 £550
% change year-on-year +0.93% -2.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 748 499 416
10th Percentile £19.75 £18.51 £15.05
25th Percentile £28.50 £18.87 £22.56
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -58.08% -
75th Percentile £80.00 £49.38 £72.50
90th Percentile £89.08 £74.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £57.50
% change year-on-year +152.49% -56.26% -4.17%

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 14,450 8,714 10,070
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.61% 31.58% 30.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,709 5,477 6,357
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 £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 1,123 684 680
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.15 £14.45
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -48.21% -11.71%
75th Percentile £75.00 £54.81 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £79.25
UK median hourly rate £48.00 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +90.85% -44.11% -18.18%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 3,554 £550 +3.77% 1,427
South East +1 2,358 £563 +4.65% 850
South West 0 1,363 £549 -1.08% 766
North of England +3 1,231 £512 +2.39% 611
Midlands 0 892 £470 -8.74% 261
West Midlands +1 764 £470 -8.74% 178
North West +4 710 £530 - 374
East of England 0 332 £550 - 330
Yorkshire +2 306 £500 +2.04% 131
North East 0 239 £475 -5.00% 127
East Midlands -2 119 £438 -10.21% 83
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 (3.45%) Confluence
2 256 (2.57%) SharePoint
3 155 (1.55%) SAS
4 116 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 83 (0.83%) Apache Spark
7 80 (0.80%) Apache
8 32 (0.32%) nginx
9 29 (0.29%) 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 16 (0.16%) CMS
13 16 (0.16%) IIS
13 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
14 13 (0.13%) JBoss
14 13 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
15 9 (0.090%) Documentum
15 9 (0.090%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 184 (1.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 135 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
3 99 (0.99%) Microsoft Project
4 86 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 30 (0.30%) MS Visio
6 24 (0.24%) 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%) Trello
14 2 (0.020%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 119 (1.19%) SAP S/4HANA
2 75 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
3 47 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
4 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 30 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
7 27 (0.27%) Teamcenter
8 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
9 21 (0.21%) Oracle Payroll
10 15 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
10 15 (0.15%) Primavera
10 15 (0.15%) SAP HR
11 13 (0.13%) Findur
11 13 (0.13%) SAP FI
12 12 (0.12%) iTrent
12 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
12 12 (0.12%) Temenos T24
13 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
13 11 (0.11%) SAP GRC
14 10 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,869 (18.73%) Azure
2 1,636 (16.39%) AWS
3 468 (4.69%) Azure DevOps
4 441 (4.42%) Power Platform
5 420 (4.21%) GitHub
6 381 (3.82%) GCP
7 285 (2.86%) Microsoft 365
8 275 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
9 266 (2.67%) Entra ID
10 244 (2.44%) Serverless
11 198 (1.98%) Amazon S3
12 166 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
13 150 (1.50%) OCI
14 148 (1.48%) SaaS
15 133 (1.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 131 (1.31%) OpenShift
17 121 (1.21%) Amazon EKS
18 118 (1.18%) Amazon EC2
19 114 (1.14%) PaaS
20 107 (1.07%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 411 (4.12%) Firewall
2 337 (3.38%) DNS
3 198 (1.98%) Network Security
4 196 (1.96%) WAN
5 180 (1.80%) VPN
6 171 (1.71%) DHCP
7 163 (1.63%) LAN
8 131 (1.31%) BGP
9 123 (1.23%) TCP/IP
10 117 (1.17%) Wi-Fi
11 95 (0.95%) VLAN
12 92 (0.92%) OSPF
13 73 (0.73%) Wireless
14 65 (0.65%) VSAN
15 60 (0.60%) IPsec
16 58 (0.58%) MPLS
17 56 (0.56%) SD-WAN
18 52 (0.52%) SAN
18 52 (0.52%) SSL
19 43 (0.43%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 317 (3.18%) Power BI
2 255 (2.56%) SQL Server
3 231 (2.31%) Data Warehouse
4 228 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
5 150 (1.50%) Oracle Database
6 145 (1.45%) Metadata
7 116 (1.16%) Data Lake
8 109 (1.09%) Relational Database
9 97 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
10 88 (0.88%) NoSQL
11 86 (0.86%) MongoDB
12 85 (0.85%) MySQL
13 73 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
14 70 (0.70%) Pentaho
15 57 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
16 55 (0.55%) Amazon Redshift
17 54 (0.54%) Tableau
18 53 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
19 44 (0.44%) Big Data
20 43 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 537 (5.38%) JIRA
2 469 (4.70%) Git
3 415 (4.16%) GitLab
4 383 (3.84%) Jenkins
5 107 (1.07%) Selenium
6 72 (0.72%) SonarQube
7 64 (0.64%) Postman
8 63 (0.63%) JUnit
9 54 (0.54%) JMeter
9 54 (0.54%) Maven
10 48 (0.48%) Rational DOORS
11 45 (0.45%) Cucumber
12 37 (0.37%) Mockito
13 36 (0.36%) Cypress.io
13 36 (0.36%) Gradle
14 34 (0.34%) Bitbucket
14 34 (0.34%) Visual Studio
15 33 (0.33%) Artifactory
15 33 (0.33%) Gatling
15 33 (0.33%) Zephyr
General
1 2,138 (21.42%) Social Skills
2 1,994 (19.98%) Public Sector
3 780 (7.82%) Analytical Skills
4 693 (6.94%) Finance
5 344 (3.45%) Military
6 292 (2.93%) Aerospace
7 246 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
8 176 (1.76%) Influencing Skills
9 152 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
10 149 (1.49%) Telecoms
11 134 (1.34%) Banking
12 132 (1.32%) Legal
13 106 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 106 (1.06%) Law
14 96 (0.96%) Manufacturing
15 92 (0.92%) Police
16 56 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
17 43 (0.43%) Marketing
17 43 (0.43%) Retail
18 34 (0.34%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,516 (15.19%) Architect
2 1,001 (10.03%) Developer
3 949 (9.51%) Lead
4 931 (9.33%) Senior
5 568 (5.69%) Consultant
6 557 (5.58%) Analyst
7 443 (4.44%) Data Engineer
8 398 (3.99%) DevOps Engineer
9 381 (3.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 270 (2.71%) Technical Architect
11 266 (2.67%) Software Engineer
12 245 (2.45%) Solutions Architect
13 232 (2.32%) Data Architect
14 229 (2.29%) Network Engineer
15 224 (2.24%) Security Architect
16 196 (1.96%) Administrator
17 190 (1.90%) Delivery Manager
18 183 (1.83%) Azure Engineer
19 182 (1.82%) Java Developer
20 181 (1.81%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 860 (8.62%) Terraform
2 379 (3.80%) REST
3 205 (2.05%) Spring
4 192 (1.92%) Kafka
5 189 (1.89%) .NET
6 179 (1.79%) Spring Boot
7 177 (1.77%) React
8 167 (1.67%) RESTful
9 154 (1.54%) SOAP
10 130 (1.30%) Node.js
11 128 (1.28%) JSON
12 111 (1.11%) OAuth
13 108 (1.08%) HTML
14 105 (1.05%) AngularJS
14 105 (1.05%) Web Services
15 92 (0.92%) XML
16 86 (0.86%) PySpark
17 84 (0.84%) CSS
18 75 (0.75%) Oracle Fusion
19 73 (0.73%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 437 (4.38%) Cloud Native
2 359 (3.60%) Onboarding
3 328 (3.29%) Product Ownership
4 257 (2.58%) Data Centre
5 172 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
6 153 (1.53%) Management Information System
7 151 (1.51%) PKI
8 135 (1.35%) CMDB
9 131 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
10 125 (1.25%) Distributed Systems
11 115 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
12 114 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
13 107 (1.07%) Replication
14 96 (0.96%) Data Structures
15 85 (0.85%) Security Operations Centre
16 84 (0.84%) Clustering
16 84 (0.84%) Cyber Threat
17 83 (0.83%) Public Cloud
18 81 (0.81%) Operational Technology
19 70 (0.70%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 861 (8.63%) Windows
2 693 (6.94%) Linux
3 323 (3.24%) Windows Server
4 191 (1.91%) Unix
5 137 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 125 (1.25%) Windows 10
7 61 (0.61%) Android
8 60 (0.60%) Solaris
9 47 (0.47%) Mac OS
10 38 (0.38%) CentOS
11 35 (0.35%) Ubuntu
11 35 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
12 33 (0.33%) AIX
13 26 (0.26%) Apple iOS
14 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
15 19 (0.19%) VMS
15 19 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
16 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
17 15 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
18 13 (0.13%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,074 (20.78%) Agile
2 1,537 (15.40%) DevOps
3 1,441 (14.44%) CI/CD
4 1,266 (12.69%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,150 (11.52%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,036 (10.38%) Problem-Solving
7 980 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 838 (8.40%) Infrastructure as Code
9 808 (8.10%) Migration
10 740 (7.41%) Cybersecurity
11 700 (7.01%) ITIL
12 628 (6.29%) Analytics
13 623 (6.24%) Test Automation
14 599 (6.00%) Roadmaps
15 594 (5.95%) Containerisation
16 585 (5.86%) AI
17 581 (5.82%) Technical Leadership
18 580 (5.81%) Software Engineering
19 557 (5.58%) Decision-Making
20 536 (5.37%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 1,102 (11.04%) Python
2 941 (9.43%) SQL
3 647 (6.48%) Java
4 524 (5.25%) PowerShell
5 340 (3.41%) JavaScript
6 275 (2.76%) Bash
7 212 (2.12%) C#
8 158 (1.58%) TypeScript
9 130 (1.30%) PL/SQL
10 108 (1.08%) Bicep
11 70 (0.70%) C++
12 66 (0.66%) Shell Script
13 61 (0.61%) C
14 45 (0.45%) Groovy
15 43 (0.43%) Go
16 39 (0.39%) Kotlin
17 38 (0.38%) Scala
18 35 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 34 (0.34%) Apex Code
20 31 (0.31%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 7,479 (74.94%) SC Cleared
2 2,026 (20.30%) DV Cleared
3 421 (4.22%) Degree
4 383 (3.84%) BPSS Clearance
5 179 (1.79%) CISSP
6 158 (1.58%) Azure Certification
7 147 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
8 145 (1.45%) Microsoft Certification
9 123 (1.23%) AWS Certification
10 114 (1.14%) CISM
11 99 (0.99%) PMI Certification
12 96 (0.96%) PMP
13 78 (0.78%) ISTQB
14 70 (0.70%) CCNP
15 61 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 59 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
17 57 (0.57%) CCNA
18 42 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
19 41 (0.41%) VCAP
20 40 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 422 (4.23%) QA
2 324 (3.25%) Data Quality
3 272 (2.73%) NIST
4 265 (2.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 234 (2.34%) NCSC
6 224 (2.24%) PMO
7 214 (2.14%) Accessibility
8 153 (1.53%) GDPR
9 138 (1.38%) SLA
10 129 (1.29%) GRC
11 67 (0.67%) WCAG
12 61 (0.61%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 39 (0.39%) NIST 800
15 32 (0.32%) 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
1 658 (6.59%) Docker
2 512 (5.13%) Active Directory
3 375 (3.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 139 (1.39%) VMware NSX
5 135 (1.35%) VMware ESXi
6 116 (1.16%) vSphere
7 110 (1.10%) Hyper-V
8 75 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
9 40 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
9 40 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
10 37 (0.37%) Firmware
11 26 (0.26%) BitLocker
11 26 (0.26%) vCloud
12 11 (0.11%) Postfix
12 11 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
13 10 (0.10%) NFS
13 10 (0.10%) Squid
14 9 (0.090%) KVM
15 8 (0.080%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 800 (8.02%) Kubernetes
2 393 (3.94%) Ansible
3 219 (2.19%) Grafana
4 172 (1.72%) Prometheus
5 133 (1.33%) vCenter Server
6 122 (1.22%) SCCM
7 80 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
8 76 (0.76%) SCOM
9 61 (0.61%) Argo
10 50 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
11 48 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
11 48 (0.48%) Puppet
12 37 (0.37%) Data Guard
13 31 (0.31%) Progress Chef
14 29 (0.29%) Kibana
15 28 (0.28%) Control-M
15 28 (0.28%) Nagios
16 27 (0.27%) Istio
16 27 (0.27%) WSUS
17 25 (0.25%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,304 (13.07%) Microsoft
2 774 (7.76%) Oracle
3 539 (5.40%) VMware
4 470 (4.71%) ServiceNow
5 389 (3.90%) SAP
6 278 (2.79%) Cisco
7 220 (2.20%) Google
8 187 (1.87%) Splunk
9 183 (1.83%) Databricks
10 127 (1.27%) Red Hat
11 124 (1.24%) Salesforce
12 120 (1.20%) IBM
13 106 (1.06%) Palo Alto
14 97 (0.97%) Informatica
15 94 (0.94%) Talend
16 84 (0.84%) Remedy
17 80 (0.80%) Dynatrace
18 73 (0.73%) Juniper
19 72 (0.72%) SolarWinds
20 69 (0.69%) CyberArk