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 3 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 9,244 4,457 7,006
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.17% 18.62% 18.97%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.60% 59.16% 62.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,448 2,949 4,581
10th Percentile £377 £348 £353
25th Percentile £450 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £537 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £714 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 774 283 518
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.24 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.68 £24.66 £21.46
Median hourly rate £57.35 £40.00 £56.69
Median % change year-on-year +43.38% -29.44% -5.51%
75th Percentile £74.68 £66.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.33 £80.00 £84.45
UK median hourly rate £55.50 £32.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year +70.77% -42.47% -5.85%

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 13,282 7,534 11,288
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.85% 31.47% 30.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,913 4,770 6,994
10th Percentile £350 £280 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £650
90th Percentile £721 £713 £745
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £530
% change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,011 444 1,006
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.27 £18.57
Median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £73.46 £66.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.01 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £48.50 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.23% -18.75% -27.27%

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 3 June 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 3 June 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 3 June 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 3,308 £525 - 552
South East +1 2,214 £550 - 552
South West 0 1,248 £538 -4.44% 449
North of England 0 949 £500 - 292
Midlands +3 884 £469 -10.67% 159
West Midlands +3 761 £470 -10.54% 112
North West -1 524 £514 +2.75% 178
East of England +2 377 £550 +10.00% 149
Yorkshire -6 243 £488 -1.71% 57
North East +1 216 £475 -1.04% 58
East Midlands -4 116 £434 -15.37% 47
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
1 331 (3.58%) Confluence
2 212 (2.29%) SharePoint
3 132 (1.43%) SAS
4 122 (1.32%) Microsoft Exchange
5 79 (0.85%) Apache Spark
6 77 (0.83%) Apache
7 73 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
8 36 (0.39%) nginx
9 32 (0.35%) Jupyter
10 29 (0.31%) WebLogic
11 19 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 18 (0.19%) IIS
12 18 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
13 15 (0.16%) Skype for Business
14 14 (0.15%) CMS
14 14 (0.15%) Oracle Application Server
15 10 (0.11%) Tuxedo
16 9 (0.097%) NetWeaver
17 8 (0.087%) Apache Superset
17 8 (0.087%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 157 (1.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 140 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
3 74 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 68 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
5 39 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.15%) Simulink
8 8 (0.087%) SOLIDWORKS
9 7 (0.076%) AutoCAD
9 7 (0.076%) Revit
10 5 (0.054%) Notepad++
11 4 (0.043%) Siemens NX
12 3 (0.032%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.032%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.032%) Sketch
12 3 (0.032%) Windchill
13 2 (0.022%) CATIA
13 2 (0.022%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.022%) Lectora
13 2 (0.022%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 89 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 52 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
3 34 (0.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 30 (0.32%) Teamcenter
5 29 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
6 27 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
7 15 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
8 14 (0.15%) Findur
8 14 (0.15%) Maximo
8 14 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
9 13 (0.14%) SAP PSCD
10 12 (0.13%) iTrent
10 12 (0.13%) Temenos T24
11 9 (0.097%) Integrated Workplace Management System
11 9 (0.097%) Oracle Assets
11 9 (0.097%) Primavera
11 9 (0.097%) SAP ERP
11 9 (0.097%) SAP HCM
12 8 (0.087%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 8 (0.087%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 1,598 (17.29%) Azure
2 1,525 (16.50%) AWS
3 366 (3.96%) GitHub
4 363 (3.93%) GCP
5 346 (3.74%) Azure DevOps
6 342 (3.70%) Power Platform
7 233 (2.52%) Serverless
8 229 (2.48%) Microsoft 365
9 227 (2.46%) Entra ID
10 216 (2.34%) GitHub Actions
11 196 (2.12%) Amazon S3
12 161 (1.74%) AWS Lambda
13 144 (1.56%) Amazon EC2
14 133 (1.44%) PaaS
15 124 (1.34%) OpenShift
16 122 (1.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 117 (1.27%) OCI
17 117 (1.27%) SaaS
18 104 (1.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 94 (1.02%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 425 (4.60%) Firewall
2 277 (3.00%) DNS
3 227 (2.46%) Network Security
4 219 (2.37%) WAN
5 199 (2.15%) LAN
6 158 (1.71%) VPN
7 150 (1.62%) DHCP
8 145 (1.57%) BGP
9 124 (1.34%) OSPF
10 111 (1.20%) Wi-Fi
11 108 (1.17%) VLAN
12 98 (1.06%) TCP/IP
13 80 (0.87%) Wireless
14 60 (0.65%) MPLS
15 57 (0.62%) SAN
15 57 (0.62%) VXLAN
16 54 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
17 52 (0.56%) SD-WAN
18 51 (0.55%) IPsec
19 48 (0.52%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 257 (2.78%) Power BI
2 219 (2.37%) PostgreSQL
3 209 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
4 191 (2.07%) SQL Server
5 122 (1.32%) Oracle Database
6 114 (1.23%) Metadata
7 104 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
8 96 (1.04%) Data Lake
9 84 (0.91%) MongoDB
10 81 (0.88%) Relational Database
11 80 (0.87%) Pentaho
12 74 (0.80%) Oracle Reports
13 73 (0.79%) NoSQL
14 69 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
15 64 (0.69%) MySQL
16 62 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
17 59 (0.64%) Tableau
18 57 (0.62%) Amazon Athena
19 50 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
20 41 (0.44%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 519 (5.61%) JIRA
2 402 (4.35%) Git
3 372 (4.02%) GitLab
4 350 (3.79%) Jenkins
5 103 (1.11%) Selenium
6 74 (0.80%) JUnit
6 74 (0.80%) Postman
7 62 (0.67%) SonarQube
8 59 (0.64%) Rational DOORS
9 52 (0.56%) Artifactory
10 49 (0.53%) JMeter
11 45 (0.49%) Cucumber
12 40 (0.43%) Bitbucket
13 39 (0.42%) Maven
13 39 (0.42%) Mockito
14 36 (0.39%) Zephyr
15 35 (0.38%) Visual Studio
16 32 (0.35%) REST Assured
17 31 (0.34%) Cypress.io
18 28 (0.30%) WebDriver
General
1 1,955 (21.15%) Public Sector
2 1,899 (20.54%) Social Skills
3 641 (6.93%) Analytical Skills
4 619 (6.70%) Finance
5 306 (3.31%) Military
6 268 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
7 245 (2.65%) Aerospace
8 140 (1.51%) Legal
9 113 (1.22%) Banking
10 111 (1.20%) Telecoms
11 106 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
12 97 (1.05%) Organisational Skills
13 91 (0.98%) Manufacturing
14 90 (0.97%) Law
15 76 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
16 56 (0.61%) Police
17 54 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 51 (0.55%) Marketing
19 39 (0.42%) Electronics
19 39 (0.42%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,346 (14.56%) Architect
2 847 (9.16%) Developer
3 786 (8.50%) Senior
4 672 (7.27%) Lead
5 634 (6.86%) Analyst
6 459 (4.97%) Data Engineer
7 415 (4.49%) Consultant
7 415 (4.49%) DevOps Engineer
8 281 (3.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 272 (2.94%) Software Engineer
10 270 (2.92%) Technical Architect
11 269 (2.91%) Network Engineer
12 232 (2.51%) Business Analyst
13 216 (2.34%) Solutions Architect
14 209 (2.26%) Project Manager
15 187 (2.02%) Azure Engineer
15 187 (2.02%) Security Architect
16 175 (1.89%) Delivery Manager
17 174 (1.88%) Administrator
17 174 (1.88%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 292 (3.16%) REST
2 206 (2.23%) Spring
3 169 (1.83%) Spring Boot
4 166 (1.80%) React
5 154 (1.67%) .NET
6 152 (1.64%) Node.js
7 147 (1.59%) Kafka
7 147 (1.59%) LDAP
8 138 (1.49%) SOAP
9 130 (1.41%) RESTful
10 109 (1.18%) AngularJS
10 109 (1.18%) JSON
11 99 (1.07%) Web Services
12 98 (1.06%) PySpark
13 88 (0.95%) OAuth
14 78 (0.84%) HTML
15 76 (0.82%) XML
16 73 (0.79%) Middleware
16 73 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
17 67 (0.72%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 333 (3.60%) Cloud Native
2 302 (3.27%) Product Ownership
3 289 (3.13%) Data Centre
4 264 (2.86%) Onboarding
5 146 (1.58%) Management Information System
6 141 (1.53%) PKI
7 131 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
8 120 (1.30%) Security Posture
9 118 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
10 114 (1.23%) Replication
11 113 (1.22%) Distributed Systems
12 92 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
13 86 (0.93%) Clustering
14 81 (0.88%) Data Structures
14 81 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
15 72 (0.78%) Public Cloud
15 72 (0.78%) Security Operations Centre
16 70 (0.76%) CMDB
17 68 (0.74%) Operational Technology
18 65 (0.70%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 744 (8.05%) Windows
2 630 (6.82%) Linux
3 236 (2.55%) Windows Server
4 171 (1.85%) Unix
5 115 (1.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 84 (0.91%) Windows 10
7 80 (0.87%) Android
8 52 (0.56%) Apple iOS
9 50 (0.54%) Solaris
10 36 (0.39%) Mac OS
11 32 (0.35%) Ubuntu
12 25 (0.27%) AIX
12 25 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
13 24 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
14 23 (0.25%) CentOS
15 20 (0.22%) VMS
16 15 (0.16%) Windows 7
17 12 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
18 11 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,804 (19.52%) Agile
2 1,415 (15.31%) DevOps
3 1,249 (13.51%) CI/CD
4 960 (10.39%) Problem-Solving
5 915 (9.90%) Stakeholder Management
6 861 (9.31%) Continuous Improvement
7 773 (8.36%) Migration
8 711 (7.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 646 (6.99%) Infrastructure as Code
10 593 (6.41%) Cybersecurity
11 567 (6.13%) ITIL
12 548 (5.93%) Test Automation
13 540 (5.84%) Analytics
14 524 (5.67%) Software Engineering
15 515 (5.57%) Roadmaps
16 494 (5.34%) Containerisation
17 479 (5.18%) Data Modelling
18 448 (4.85%) Decision-Making
19 425 (4.60%) Scrum
20 415 (4.49%) AI
Programming Languages
1 971 (10.50%) Python
2 858 (9.28%) SQL
3 559 (6.05%) Java
4 490 (5.30%) PowerShell
5 273 (2.95%) JavaScript
6 196 (2.12%) C#
7 179 (1.94%) Bash
8 135 (1.46%) TypeScript
9 101 (1.09%) PL/SQL
10 89 (0.96%) C++
11 83 (0.90%) Shell Script
12 58 (0.63%) Go
13 56 (0.61%) C
13 56 (0.61%) Scala
14 55 (0.59%) Bicep
15 45 (0.49%) Ada
15 45 (0.49%) Ruby
16 43 (0.47%) Apex Code
17 36 (0.39%) MATLAB
18 35 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 6,968 (75.38%) SC Cleared
2 1,758 (19.02%) DV Cleared
3 387 (4.19%) Degree
4 256 (2.77%) BPSS Clearance
5 186 (2.01%) Cisco Certification
6 159 (1.72%) CISSP
7 120 (1.30%) Azure Certification
8 114 (1.23%) CCNP
9 103 (1.11%) CISM
10 93 (1.01%) Microsoft Certification
11 91 (0.98%) AWS Certification
12 79 (0.85%) CCNA
13 74 (0.80%) PMP
14 67 (0.72%) PMI Certification
15 61 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
16 60 (0.65%) ISTQB
17 54 (0.58%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 52 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
19 46 (0.50%) GIAC
20 34 (0.37%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 348 (3.76%) QA
2 275 (2.97%) NIST
3 271 (2.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 268 (2.90%) Data Quality
5 187 (2.02%) NCSC
6 167 (1.81%) Accessibility
7 155 (1.68%) GDPR
8 154 (1.67%) PMO
9 105 (1.14%) SLA
10 63 (0.68%) GRC
11 59 (0.64%) JSP 440
12 52 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
13 38 (0.41%) NIST 800
14 36 (0.39%) WCAG
15 32 (0.35%) Def Stans
16 28 (0.30%) RMADS
17 22 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
17 22 (0.24%) PCI DSS
18 21 (0.23%) COBIT
18 21 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 560 (6.06%) Docker
2 426 (4.61%) Active Directory
3 276 (2.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 105 (1.14%) VMware ESXi
5 94 (1.02%) VMware NSX
6 76 (0.82%) vSphere
7 74 (0.80%) Hyper-V
8 65 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
9 34 (0.37%) Firmware
10 29 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
11 21 (0.23%) BitLocker
12 20 (0.22%) vCloud
13 19 (0.21%) NFS
13 19 (0.21%) Postfix
14 17 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
15 16 (0.17%) Squid
16 15 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 8 (0.087%) Microsoft App-V
18 7 (0.076%) KVM
19 6 (0.065%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 715 (7.73%) Terraform
2 706 (7.64%) Kubernetes
3 339 (3.67%) Ansible
4 232 (2.51%) Grafana
5 189 (2.04%) Prometheus
6 108 (1.17%) vCenter Server
7 79 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
8 69 (0.75%) SCCM
9 57 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 52 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
11 47 (0.51%) FortiGate
12 43 (0.47%) Argo
13 40 (0.43%) Puppet
14 37 (0.40%) Podman
15 35 (0.38%) Oracle RMAN
16 34 (0.37%) SCOM
17 30 (0.32%) Progress Chef
18 28 (0.30%) Nagios
19 21 (0.23%) Packer
19 21 (0.23%) WSUS
Vendors
1 960 (10.39%) Microsoft
2 606 (6.56%) Oracle
3 460 (4.98%) VMware
4 369 (3.99%) ServiceNow
5 332 (3.59%) Cisco
6 305 (3.30%) SAP
7 211 (2.28%) Splunk
8 181 (1.96%) Databricks
9 149 (1.61%) Red Hat
10 148 (1.60%) Google
11 124 (1.34%) Talend
12 123 (1.33%) Palo Alto
13 114 (1.23%) Salesforce
14 113 (1.22%) IBM
15 101 (1.09%) Juniper
16 93 (1.01%) CyberArk
17 88 (0.95%) Informatica
18 84 (0.91%) F5
18 84 (0.91%) Fortinet
19 78 (0.84%) Dynatrace