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

6 months to
5 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 10,015 5,049 6,438
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.05% 18.29% 19.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.38% 58.44% 62.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,041 3,259 4,290
10th Percentile £381 £350 £353
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £639
90th Percentile £725 £700 £735
UK median daily rate £537 £534 £550
% change year-on-year +0.66% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 771 459 456
10th Percentile £19.33 £18.51 £15.36
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.22
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £57.77
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -56.47% -3.71%
75th Percentile £80.63 £55.00 £72.37
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £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 14,434 8,639 10,227
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.78% 31.29% 30.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,729 5,432 6,499
10th Percentile £350 £293 £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 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,110 647 765
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £14.97
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -45.54% -16.04%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.26 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.32 £78.45
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.21%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 3,546 £550 +4.76% 923
South East +1 2,449 £560 +4.19% 679
South West 0 1,334 £538 -6.52% 565
North of England +2 1,128 £503 +0.60% 459
Midlands +3 977 £469 -6.20% 245
West Midlands +1 847 £469 -8.22% 192
North West +2 612 £525 - 295
East of England 0 320 £550 +4.76% 167
Yorkshire +3 303 £500 +1.63% 91
North East +1 237 £478 -4.50% 75
East Midlands -1 118 £438 -5.41% 52
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
1 363 (3.62%) Confluence
2 250 (2.50%) SharePoint
3 171 (1.71%) SAS
4 110 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
5 87 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
6 82 (0.82%) Apache Spark
7 78 (0.78%) Apache
8 36 (0.36%) nginx
9 34 (0.34%) WebLogic
10 31 (0.31%) Jupyter
11 21 (0.21%) Oracle Application Server
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 16 (0.16%) CMS
12 16 (0.16%) IIS
12 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
13 15 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
14 13 (0.13%) Skype for Business
15 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
16 10 (0.100%) JBoss
16 10 (0.100%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 191 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 127 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
3 95 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
4 75 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 36 (0.36%) MS Visio
6 25 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.14%) AutoCAD
7 14 (0.14%) Revit
8 13 (0.13%) 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
1 124 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 75 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
3 42 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 34 (0.34%) Teamcenter
6 33 (0.33%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 23 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
7 23 (0.23%) SAP PSCD
8 16 (0.16%) Primavera
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
9 15 (0.15%) Oracle Payroll
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 (0.100%) Salesforce CRM
14 10 (0.100%) SAP ERP
14 10 (0.100%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,812 (18.09%) Azure
2 1,671 (16.68%) AWS
3 441 (4.40%) Azure DevOps
4 430 (4.29%) Power Platform
5 420 (4.19%) GitHub
6 376 (3.75%) GCP
7 275 (2.75%) Microsoft 365
8 267 (2.67%) GitHub Actions
9 251 (2.51%) Entra ID
10 249 (2.49%) Serverless
11 224 (2.24%) Amazon S3
12 172 (1.72%) AWS Lambda
13 156 (1.56%) OCI
14 147 (1.47%) Amazon EC2
15 145 (1.45%) SaaS
16 141 (1.41%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 132 (1.32%) OpenShift
18 127 (1.27%) PaaS
19 122 (1.22%) Amazon EKS
20 110 (1.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 426 (4.25%) Firewall
2 339 (3.38%) DNS
3 208 (2.08%) WAN
4 206 (2.06%) Network Security
5 181 (1.81%) LAN
6 170 (1.70%) DHCP
6 170 (1.70%) VPN
7 139 (1.39%) BGP
8 123 (1.23%) TCP/IP
9 113 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
10 110 (1.10%) OSPF
11 98 (0.98%) VLAN
12 83 (0.83%) Wireless
13 65 (0.65%) VSAN
14 63 (0.63%) IPsec
15 58 (0.58%) MPLS
16 56 (0.56%) SD-WAN
16 56 (0.56%) VXLAN
17 54 (0.54%) SAN
18 53 (0.53%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 320 (3.20%) Power BI
2 253 (2.53%) SQL Server
3 243 (2.43%) PostgreSQL
4 239 (2.39%) Data Warehouse
5 144 (1.44%) Oracle Database
6 131 (1.31%) Metadata
7 111 (1.11%) Data Lake
8 99 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
9 98 (0.98%) Relational Database
10 90 (0.90%) Pentaho
11 85 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
12 81 (0.81%) NoSQL
13 78 (0.78%) MySQL
14 75 (0.75%) MongoDB
15 60 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
16 59 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
17 58 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
18 56 (0.56%) Tableau
19 43 (0.43%) DynamoDB
20 41 (0.41%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 569 (5.68%) JIRA
2 484 (4.83%) Git
3 394 (3.93%) GitLab
4 385 (3.84%) Jenkins
5 100 (1.00%) Selenium
6 77 (0.77%) SonarQube
7 74 (0.74%) JUnit
8 59 (0.59%) Maven
9 58 (0.58%) Postman
10 55 (0.55%) Rational DOORS
11 50 (0.50%) JMeter
12 46 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 45 (0.45%) Mockito
14 39 (0.39%) Visual Studio
15 38 (0.38%) Bitbucket
16 37 (0.37%) Zephyr
17 34 (0.34%) Artifactory
17 34 (0.34%) Cypress.io
18 32 (0.32%) Gradle
18 32 (0.32%) REST Assured
General
1 2,091 (20.88%) Social Skills
2 2,086 (20.83%) Public Sector
3 771 (7.70%) Analytical Skills
4 699 (6.98%) Finance
5 338 (3.37%) Military
6 282 (2.82%) Aerospace
7 244 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
8 157 (1.57%) Influencing Skills
9 141 (1.41%) Legal
10 133 (1.33%) Organisational Skills
11 132 (1.32%) Telecoms
12 124 (1.24%) Banking
13 97 (0.97%) Law
14 91 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 88 (0.88%) Police
16 82 (0.82%) Manufacturing
17 75 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
18 42 (0.42%) Marketing
19 39 (0.39%) Retail
20 36 (0.36%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 1,496 (14.94%) Architect
2 1,054 (10.52%) Developer
3 934 (9.33%) Senior
4 896 (8.95%) Lead
5 614 (6.13%) Analyst
6 516 (5.15%) Consultant
7 480 (4.79%) Data Engineer
8 385 (3.84%) DevOps Engineer
9 364 (3.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 300 (3.00%) Software Engineer
11 261 (2.61%) Technical Architect
12 241 (2.41%) Security Architect
12 241 (2.41%) Solutions Architect
13 239 (2.39%) Network Engineer
14 212 (2.12%) Data Architect
15 202 (2.02%) Java Developer
16 201 (2.01%) Delivery Manager
17 192 (1.92%) Administrator
18 187 (1.87%) Project Manager
19 180 (1.80%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 371 (3.70%) REST
2 226 (2.26%) Spring
3 190 (1.90%) .NET
3 190 (1.90%) Spring Boot
4 174 (1.74%) Kafka
5 173 (1.73%) React
6 171 (1.71%) RESTful
7 150 (1.50%) SOAP
8 147 (1.47%) Node.js
9 127 (1.27%) AngularJS
9 127 (1.27%) JSON
10 105 (1.05%) Web Services
11 104 (1.04%) OAuth
12 98 (0.98%) HTML
13 87 (0.87%) PySpark
14 85 (0.85%) XML
15 74 (0.74%) CSS
16 71 (0.71%) Oracle Fusion
17 68 (0.68%) OpenID
18 67 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 418 (4.17%) Cloud Native
2 350 (3.49%) Onboarding
3 321 (3.21%) Product Ownership
4 283 (2.83%) Data Centre
5 181 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
6 155 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 150 (1.50%) PKI
8 143 (1.43%) Distributed Systems
9 115 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
10 113 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
11 112 (1.12%) CMDB
12 105 (1.05%) Data Structures
13 103 (1.03%) Hybrid Cloud
14 102 (1.02%) Clustering
15 95 (0.95%) Replication
16 83 (0.83%) Public Cloud
17 77 (0.77%) Cyber Threat
18 75 (0.75%) Virtual Team
19 74 (0.74%) Security Operations Centre
20 73 (0.73%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 843 (8.42%) Windows
2 702 (7.01%) Linux
3 293 (2.93%) Windows Server
4 206 (2.06%) Unix
5 142 (1.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 95 (0.95%) Windows 10
7 80 (0.80%) Android
8 64 (0.64%) Solaris
9 45 (0.45%) Mac OS
10 41 (0.41%) Apple iOS
11 37 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
12 35 (0.35%) AIX
13 31 (0.31%) CentOS
14 30 (0.30%) Ubuntu
15 17 (0.17%) VMS
15 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
16 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
17 14 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
18 12 (0.12%) Rocky
19 11 (0.11%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,106 (21.03%) Agile
2 1,545 (15.43%) DevOps
3 1,427 (14.25%) CI/CD
4 1,140 (11.38%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,119 (11.17%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,075 (10.73%) Problem-Solving
7 916 (9.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 786 (7.85%) Infrastructure as Code
8 786 (7.85%) Migration
9 686 (6.85%) Cybersecurity
10 683 (6.82%) ITIL
11 635 (6.34%) Analytics
12 608 (6.07%) Software Engineering
13 605 (6.04%) Test Automation
14 599 (5.98%) Containerisation
15 592 (5.91%) Roadmaps
16 569 (5.68%) AI
17 552 (5.51%) Data Modelling
18 538 (5.37%) Decision-Making
19 527 (5.26%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 1,088 (10.86%) Python
2 985 (9.84%) SQL
3 679 (6.78%) Java
4 481 (4.80%) PowerShell
5 325 (3.25%) JavaScript
6 264 (2.64%) Bash
7 218 (2.18%) C#
8 150 (1.50%) PL/SQL
9 148 (1.48%) TypeScript
10 96 (0.96%) Bicep
11 82 (0.82%) Shell Script
12 80 (0.80%) C++
13 62 (0.62%) C
14 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
15 43 (0.43%) Go
16 40 (0.40%) Groovy
16 40 (0.40%) Scala
17 39 (0.39%) Apex Code
18 36 (0.36%) Ruby
19 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,522 (75.11%) SC Cleared
2 2,040 (20.37%) DV Cleared
3 420 (4.19%) Degree
4 356 (3.55%) BPSS Clearance
5 179 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
6 165 (1.65%) CISSP
7 148 (1.48%) Azure Certification
8 136 (1.36%) Microsoft Certification
9 118 (1.18%) AWS Certification
10 100 (1.00%) PMI Certification
11 97 (0.97%) CISM
12 96 (0.96%) PMP
13 81 (0.81%) CCNP
14 75 (0.75%) CCNA
15 70 (0.70%) ISTQB
16 64 (0.64%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 61 (0.61%) Computer Science Degree
18 45 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
19 43 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
20 40 (0.40%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 390 (3.89%) QA
2 323 (3.23%) Data Quality
3 270 (2.70%) NIST
4 268 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 213 (2.13%) Accessibility
6 211 (2.11%) PMO
7 210 (2.10%) NCSC
8 154 (1.54%) GDPR
9 117 (1.17%) GRC
10 114 (1.14%) SLA
11 67 (0.67%) WCAG
12 58 (0.58%) JSP 440
13 45 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
14 44 (0.44%) NIST 800
15 30 (0.30%) Def Stans
15 30 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
16 28 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 23 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 19 (0.19%) RMADS
19 17 (0.17%) COBIT
System Software
1 665 (6.64%) Docker
2 470 (4.69%) Active Directory
3 359 (3.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 142 (1.42%) VMware NSX
5 131 (1.31%) VMware ESXi
6 109 (1.09%) vSphere
7 95 (0.95%) Hyper-V
8 75 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
9 43 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
10 36 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
11 27 (0.27%) Firmware
12 23 (0.23%) vCloud
13 20 (0.20%) BitLocker
14 18 (0.18%) Postfix
15 13 (0.13%) NFS
15 13 (0.13%) Squid
16 9 (0.090%) KVM
17 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
18 6 (0.060%) Corosync
18 6 (0.060%) UAG
Systems Management
1 844 (8.43%) Terraform
2 786 (7.85%) Kubernetes
3 383 (3.82%) Ansible
4 225 (2.25%) Grafana
5 174 (1.74%) Prometheus
6 130 (1.30%) vCenter Server
7 98 (0.98%) SCCM
8 79 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
9 65 (0.65%) Argo
10 64 (0.64%) SCOM
11 51 (0.51%) Oracle RMAN
12 50 (0.50%) Puppet
13 49 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
14 43 (0.43%) FortiGate
15 34 (0.34%) Data Guard
16 29 (0.29%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
18 25 (0.25%) Podman
18 25 (0.25%) WSUS
19 23 (0.23%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,191 (11.89%) Microsoft
2 781 (7.80%) Oracle
3 524 (5.23%) VMware
4 493 (4.92%) ServiceNow
5 370 (3.69%) SAP
6 286 (2.86%) Cisco
7 199 (1.99%) Google
8 183 (1.83%) Splunk
9 180 (1.80%) Databricks
10 142 (1.42%) Red Hat
11 133 (1.33%) Salesforce
12 120 (1.20%) Talend
13 111 (1.11%) IBM
14 108 (1.08%) Informatica
15 101 (1.01%) Palo Alto
16 100 (1.00%) Juniper
17 91 (0.91%) SolarWinds
18 86 (0.86%) F5
19 84 (0.84%) Remedy
20 78 (0.78%) Citrix