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

6 months to
20 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 10,013 5,117 6,391
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.94% 18.54% 19.27%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.16% 58.71% 63.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,074 3,288 4,247
10th Percentile £381 £350 £360
25th Percentile £456 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.09% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £538 £534 £550
% change year-on-year +0.75% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 746 491 431
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.51 £15.10
25th Percentile £28.50 £18.87 £22.54
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -58.08% -
75th Percentile £80.04 £54.25 £72.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £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 14,478 8,715 10,116
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.72% 31.58% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,761 5,469 6,435
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £435 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £528
% change year-on-year +0.48% -1.04% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,111 682 721
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.14 £14.88
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £53.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +110.74% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.87 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 3,540 £550 +3.77% 657
South East +1 2,417 £560 +4.19% 559
South West 0 1,359 £540 -2.91% 443
North of England +3 1,188 £510 +2.00% 315
Midlands 0 918 £469 -8.47% 161
West Midlands +1 791 £469 -8.74% 120
North West +3 669 £525 -0.94% 185
East of England 0 332 £550 - 182
Yorkshire 0 303 £492 - 67
North East 0 240 £475 -3.80% 68
East Midlands -2 116 £438 -10.15% 41
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
1 348 (3.48%) Confluence
2 259 (2.59%) SharePoint
3 158 (1.58%) SAS
4 113 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
5 88 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 82 (0.82%) Apache Spark
7 79 (0.79%) Apache
8 34 (0.34%) nginx
9 29 (0.29%) Jupyter
10 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
10 23 (0.23%) WebLogic
11 21 (0.21%) Skype for Business
12 20 (0.20%) Tomcat
13 17 (0.17%) CMS
13 17 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
14 16 (0.16%) IIS
15 14 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
16 13 (0.13%) JBoss
17 11 (0.11%) Tuxedo
18 10 (0.100%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 183 (1.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 135 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
3 98 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
4 84 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 32 (0.32%) MS Visio
6 26 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.16%) AutoCAD
7 16 (0.16%) Revit
8 15 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
9 13 (0.13%) Simulink
10 8 (0.080%) Chatbot
11 7 (0.070%) Windchill
12 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
12 6 (0.060%) Sketch
13 5 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
14 3 (0.030%) Trello
15 2 (0.020%) Houdini
15 2 (0.020%) InDesign
15 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 120 (1.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 75 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
3 47 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 29 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
6 29 (0.29%) Teamcenter
7 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
8 20 (0.20%) Oracle Payroll
9 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 16 (0.16%) Primavera
10 14 (0.14%) SAP HR
11 13 (0.13%) Findur
12 12 (0.12%) iTrent
12 12 (0.12%) SAP FI
12 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
12 12 (0.12%) Temenos T24
13 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
14 10 (0.100%) Salesforce CRM
14 10 (0.100%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,856 (18.54%) Azure
2 1,650 (16.48%) AWS
3 468 (4.67%) Azure DevOps
4 435 (4.34%) Power Platform
5 427 (4.26%) GitHub
6 382 (3.82%) GCP
7 283 (2.83%) Microsoft 365
8 277 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
9 264 (2.64%) Entra ID
10 244 (2.44%) Serverless
11 200 (2.00%) Amazon S3
12 165 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
13 154 (1.54%) OCI
14 152 (1.52%) SaaS
15 135 (1.35%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 131 (1.31%) OpenShift
17 125 (1.25%) Amazon EC2
18 121 (1.21%) PaaS
19 120 (1.20%) Amazon EKS
20 105 (1.05%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 421 (4.20%) Firewall
2 347 (3.47%) DNS
3 203 (2.03%) Network Security
4 202 (2.02%) WAN
5 178 (1.78%) VPN
6 177 (1.77%) DHCP
7 173 (1.73%) LAN
8 132 (1.32%) TCP/IP
9 131 (1.31%) BGP
10 122 (1.22%) Wi-Fi
11 101 (1.01%) VLAN
12 95 (0.95%) OSPF
13 78 (0.78%) Wireless
14 70 (0.70%) VSAN
15 59 (0.59%) IPsec
16 58 (0.58%) MPLS
17 56 (0.56%) SD-WAN
18 53 (0.53%) SSL
19 52 (0.52%) SAN
20 44 (0.44%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 314 (3.14%) Power BI
2 266 (2.66%) SQL Server
3 245 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 242 (2.42%) Data Warehouse
5 145 (1.45%) Oracle Database
6 136 (1.36%) Metadata
7 115 (1.15%) Data Lake
8 106 (1.06%) Relational Database
9 99 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
10 90 (0.90%) MySQL
11 88 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
12 84 (0.84%) NoSQL
13 83 (0.83%) MongoDB
14 79 (0.79%) Pentaho
15 59 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
16 58 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
17 53 (0.53%) Tableau
18 50 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
19 44 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
20 42 (0.42%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 552 (5.51%) JIRA
2 477 (4.76%) Git
3 418 (4.17%) GitLab
4 399 (3.98%) Jenkins
5 103 (1.03%) Selenium
6 75 (0.75%) Postman
7 73 (0.73%) SonarQube
8 62 (0.62%) JUnit
9 55 (0.55%) JMeter
10 54 (0.54%) Maven
10 54 (0.54%) Rational DOORS
11 45 (0.45%) Zephyr
12 43 (0.43%) Cucumber
12 43 (0.43%) Visual Studio
13 41 (0.41%) Bitbucket
13 41 (0.41%) Mockito
14 36 (0.36%) Cypress.io
15 34 (0.34%) Artifactory
15 34 (0.34%) Gradle
16 33 (0.33%) Gatling
General
1 2,125 (21.22%) Social Skills
2 2,023 (20.20%) Public Sector
3 782 (7.81%) Analytical Skills
4 700 (6.99%) Finance
5 332 (3.32%) Military
6 294 (2.94%) Aerospace
7 247 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
8 173 (1.73%) Influencing Skills
9 146 (1.46%) Organisational Skills
10 143 (1.43%) Telecoms
11 135 (1.35%) Banking
12 133 (1.33%) Legal
13 105 (1.05%) Law
14 104 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 97 (0.97%) Manufacturing
16 92 (0.92%) Police
17 65 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
18 45 (0.45%) Marketing
19 43 (0.43%) Retail
20 34 (0.34%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,502 (15.00%) Architect
2 1,028 (10.27%) Developer
3 943 (9.42%) Senior
4 924 (9.23%) Lead
5 555 (5.54%) Analyst
6 554 (5.53%) Consultant
7 453 (4.52%) Data Engineer
8 391 (3.90%) DevOps Engineer
9 380 (3.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 282 (2.82%) Software Engineer
11 263 (2.63%) Technical Architect
12 244 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
13 238 (2.38%) Network Engineer
14 226 (2.26%) Security Architect
15 221 (2.21%) Data Architect
16 194 (1.94%) Administrator
16 194 (1.94%) Delivery Manager
17 187 (1.87%) Java Developer
18 186 (1.86%) Project Manager
19 180 (1.80%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 867 (8.66%) Terraform
2 378 (3.78%) REST
3 202 (2.02%) .NET
3 202 (2.02%) Spring
4 185 (1.85%) Kafka
5 175 (1.75%) Spring Boot
6 172 (1.72%) RESTful
7 171 (1.71%) React
8 153 (1.53%) SOAP
9 133 (1.33%) Node.js
10 124 (1.24%) JSON
11 118 (1.18%) AngularJS
12 113 (1.13%) Web Services
13 111 (1.11%) HTML
14 108 (1.08%) OAuth
15 91 (0.91%) XML
16 83 (0.83%) PySpark
17 79 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
18 78 (0.78%) CSS
19 72 (0.72%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 434 (4.33%) Cloud Native
2 361 (3.61%) Onboarding
3 327 (3.27%) Product Ownership
4 262 (2.62%) Data Centre
5 169 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
6 153 (1.53%) Management Information System
7 149 (1.49%) PKI
8 134 (1.34%) Distributed Systems
9 130 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
10 125 (1.25%) CMDB
11 118 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
12 112 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
13 106 (1.06%) Replication
14 97 (0.97%) Data Structures
15 93 (0.93%) Clustering
16 89 (0.89%) Security Operations Centre
17 87 (0.87%) Cyber Threat
18 78 (0.78%) Public Cloud
19 74 (0.74%) Operational Technology
20 73 (0.73%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 874 (8.73%) Windows
2 705 (7.04%) Linux
3 317 (3.17%) Windows Server
4 199 (1.99%) Unix
5 139 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 120 (1.20%) Windows 10
7 72 (0.72%) Android
8 62 (0.62%) Solaris
9 46 (0.46%) Mac OS
10 37 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
11 36 (0.36%) CentOS
12 34 (0.34%) Apple iOS
13 33 (0.33%) Ubuntu
14 32 (0.32%) AIX
15 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
16 19 (0.19%) VMS
16 19 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
17 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2012
18 14 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
18 14 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,116 (21.13%) Agile
2 1,562 (15.60%) DevOps
3 1,466 (14.64%) CI/CD
4 1,234 (12.32%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,150 (11.49%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,038 (10.37%) Problem-Solving
7 960 (9.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 833 (8.32%) Infrastructure as Code
9 820 (8.19%) Migration
10 723 (7.22%) Cybersecurity
11 697 (6.96%) ITIL
12 635 (6.34%) Test Automation
13 633 (6.32%) Analytics
14 603 (6.02%) Roadmaps
15 600 (5.99%) Containerisation
16 597 (5.96%) Software Engineering
17 576 (5.75%) AI
18 562 (5.61%) Technical Leadership
19 547 (5.46%) Decision-Making
20 535 (5.34%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 1,103 (11.02%) Python
2 985 (9.84%) SQL
3 655 (6.54%) Java
4 524 (5.23%) PowerShell
5 351 (3.51%) JavaScript
6 281 (2.81%) Bash
7 229 (2.29%) C#
8 155 (1.55%) TypeScript
9 140 (1.40%) PL/SQL
10 102 (1.02%) Bicep
11 81 (0.81%) C++
12 68 (0.68%) Shell Script
13 65 (0.65%) C
14 44 (0.44%) Go
14 44 (0.44%) Groovy
15 43 (0.43%) Kotlin
16 39 (0.39%) Scala
17 35 (0.35%) Apex Code
18 34 (0.34%) Ruby
19 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,512 (75.02%) SC Cleared
2 2,037 (20.34%) DV Cleared
3 422 (4.21%) Degree
4 370 (3.70%) BPSS Clearance
5 181 (1.81%) CISSP
6 160 (1.60%) Cisco Certification
7 155 (1.55%) Azure Certification
8 147 (1.47%) Microsoft Certification
9 124 (1.24%) AWS Certification
10 113 (1.13%) CISM
11 99 (0.99%) PMI Certification
12 97 (0.97%) PMP
13 85 (0.85%) ISTQB
14 74 (0.74%) CCNP
15 67 (0.67%) CCNA
16 66 (0.66%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 60 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
18 42 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
19 41 (0.41%) VCAP
20 40 (0.40%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 428 (4.27%) QA
2 312 (3.12%) Data Quality
3 270 (2.70%) NIST
4 266 (2.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 234 (2.34%) NCSC
6 220 (2.20%) PMO
7 218 (2.18%) Accessibility
8 153 (1.53%) GDPR
9 127 (1.27%) GRC
10 123 (1.23%) SLA
11 65 (0.65%) WCAG
12 61 (0.61%) JSP 440
13 43 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
14 41 (0.41%) NIST 800
15 33 (0.33%) Def Stans
16 30 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 26 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
17 26 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 20 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
19 19 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 662 (6.61%) Docker
2 500 (4.99%) Active Directory
3 378 (3.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 146 (1.46%) VMware NSX
5 137 (1.37%) VMware ESXi
6 119 (1.19%) vSphere
7 106 (1.06%) Hyper-V
8 78 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
9 41 (0.41%) Oracle RAC
10 40 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
11 31 (0.31%) Firmware
12 26 (0.26%) BitLocker
13 25 (0.25%) vCloud
14 14 (0.14%) Postfix
15 11 (0.11%) NFS
15 11 (0.11%) Squid
16 10 (0.100%) Virtual Servers
17 8 (0.080%) KVM
17 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
18 7 (0.070%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 808 (8.07%) Kubernetes
2 406 (4.05%) Ansible
3 226 (2.26%) Grafana
4 172 (1.72%) Prometheus
5 135 (1.35%) vCenter Server
6 120 (1.20%) SCCM
7 85 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
8 72 (0.72%) SCOM
9 61 (0.61%) Argo
10 52 (0.52%) Puppet
11 50 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
12 49 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
13 35 (0.35%) Data Guard
14 34 (0.34%) Progress Chef
15 28 (0.28%) FortiGate
15 28 (0.28%) Nagios
15 28 (0.28%) WSUS
16 26 (0.26%) Control-M
17 25 (0.25%) Istio
17 25 (0.25%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,296 (12.94%) Microsoft
2 800 (7.99%) Oracle
3 547 (5.46%) VMware
4 467 (4.66%) ServiceNow
5 381 (3.81%) SAP
6 277 (2.77%) Cisco
7 215 (2.15%) Google
8 182 (1.82%) Splunk
9 181 (1.81%) Databricks
10 133 (1.33%) Red Hat
11 126 (1.26%) Salesforce
12 118 (1.18%) IBM
13 106 (1.06%) Palo Alto
14 105 (1.05%) Talend
15 99 (0.99%) Informatica
16 83 (0.83%) Dynatrace
16 83 (0.83%) Remedy
17 78 (0.78%) Juniper
18 75 (0.75%) SolarWinds
19 73 (0.73%) F5