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 4 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +2 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,031 5,048 6,166
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.98% 18.55% 18.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.04% 59.17% 62.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,087 3,275 4,046
10th Percentile £390 £350 £360
25th Percentile £459 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £549 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.14% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £700 £735
UK median daily rate £540 £535 £550
% change year-on-year +0.93% -2.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 741 488 380
10th Percentile £20.50 £18.51 £17.00
25th Percentile £31.50 £18.87 £30.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £61.33
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -58.99% +2.22%
75th Percentile £79.00 £43.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £90.00 £73.75 £80.06
UK median hourly rate £64.09 £25.15 £59.50
% change year-on-year +154.83% -57.73% -0.83%

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 14,529 8,532 9,830
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.84% 31.35% 30.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,788 5,389 6,172
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £634 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £711 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,123 659 620
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.22 £15.99
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -52.10% -3.78%
75th Percentile £74.00 £50.00 £69.70
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +89.03% -48.21% -11.71%

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 4 September 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 4 September 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 4 September 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 3,576 £550 +3.77% 1,509
South East +1 2,304 £564 +4.98% 850
South West 0 1,392 £550 -0.45% 755
North of England +3 1,246 £515 +3.00% 608
Midlands 0 909 £475 -7.77% 273
West Midlands +1 772 £475 -7.77% 189
North West +2 732 £530 - 405
East of England 0 348 £550 - 397
Yorkshire +2 299 £500 +2.04% 115
North East 0 236 £475 -5.00% 109
East Midlands -1 128 £450 -7.69% 84
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
1 335 (3.34%) Confluence
2 248 (2.47%) SharePoint
3 152 (1.52%) SAS
4 115 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
5 91 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
6 90 (0.90%) Apache
7 86 (0.86%) Apache Spark
8 32 (0.32%) nginx
9 31 (0.31%) Jupyter
10 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
10 23 (0.23%) WebLogic
11 22 (0.22%) Skype for Business
12 19 (0.19%) Tomcat
13 18 (0.18%) IIS
14 17 (0.17%) CMS
14 17 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
15 13 (0.13%) JBoss
15 13 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
16 9 (0.090%) Documentum
16 9 (0.090%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 181 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 136 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
3 98 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
4 90 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 27 (0.27%) 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 (0.080%) 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 4 (0.040%) Trello
14 3 (0.030%) OrCAD
15 2 (0.020%) Houdini
15 2 (0.020%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 124 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 77 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 47 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
4 36 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
5 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 27 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 24 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
8 22 (0.22%) Oracle Payroll
8 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
9 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 16 (0.16%) SAP HR
10 15 (0.15%) Primavera
11 14 (0.14%) SAP FI
12 13 (0.13%) Findur
13 12 (0.12%) iTrent
13 12 (0.12%) SAP GRC
13 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
14 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
14 11 (0.11%) Temenos T24
15 10 (0.100%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,847 (18.41%) Azure
2 1,681 (16.76%) AWS
3 449 (4.48%) Azure DevOps
4 430 (4.29%) Power Platform
5 424 (4.23%) GitHub
6 381 (3.80%) GCP
7 291 (2.90%) Microsoft 365
8 282 (2.81%) GitHub Actions
9 255 (2.54%) Entra ID
10 246 (2.45%) Serverless
11 207 (2.06%) Amazon S3
12 174 (1.73%) AWS Lambda
13 155 (1.55%) SaaS
14 152 (1.52%) OCI
15 140 (1.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 133 (1.33%) OpenShift
17 125 (1.25%) Amazon EKS
18 120 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
19 104 (1.04%) PaaS
20 103 (1.03%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 418 (4.17%) Firewall
2 341 (3.40%) DNS
3 206 (2.05%) Network Security
4 195 (1.94%) WAN
5 181 (1.80%) VPN
6 173 (1.72%) DHCP
7 156 (1.56%) LAN
8 129 (1.29%) BGP
9 125 (1.25%) TCP/IP
10 117 (1.17%) Wi-Fi
11 98 (0.98%) VLAN
12 90 (0.90%) OSPF
13 81 (0.81%) Wireless
14 65 (0.65%) VSAN
15 64 (0.64%) IPsec
16 62 (0.62%) SSL
17 57 (0.57%) SD-WAN
18 56 (0.56%) MPLS
19 55 (0.55%) SAN
20 45 (0.45%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 311 (3.10%) Power BI
2 252 (2.51%) SQL Server
3 240 (2.39%) PostgreSQL
4 228 (2.27%) Data Warehouse
5 163 (1.62%) Metadata
6 156 (1.56%) Oracle Database
7 118 (1.18%) Relational Database
8 117 (1.17%) Data Lake
9 98 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
10 92 (0.92%) MongoDB
11 89 (0.89%) MySQL
12 87 (0.87%) NoSQL
13 77 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
14 70 (0.70%) Pentaho
15 59 (0.59%) Amazon Athena
16 56 (0.56%) Tableau
17 53 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
18 48 (0.48%) Amazon Redshift
19 44 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
20 43 (0.43%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 534 (5.32%) JIRA
2 479 (4.78%) Git
3 428 (4.27%) GitLab
4 392 (3.91%) Jenkins
5 115 (1.15%) Selenium
6 72 (0.72%) SonarQube
7 67 (0.67%) Postman
8 66 (0.66%) JUnit
9 56 (0.56%) JMeter
10 55 (0.55%) Maven
11 48 (0.48%) Cucumber
12 39 (0.39%) Gradle
12 39 (0.39%) Mockito
13 35 (0.35%) Cypress.io
13 35 (0.35%) Zephyr
14 34 (0.34%) Rational DOORS
15 33 (0.33%) Gatling
15 33 (0.33%) REST Assured
16 32 (0.32%) Artifactory
17 30 (0.30%) Visual Studio
General
1 2,203 (21.96%) Social Skills
2 2,002 (19.96%) Public Sector
3 811 (8.08%) Analytical Skills
4 673 (6.71%) Finance
5 369 (3.68%) Military
6 284 (2.83%) Aerospace
7 248 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
8 186 (1.85%) Influencing Skills
9 158 (1.58%) Organisational Skills
10 148 (1.48%) Telecoms
11 139 (1.39%) Banking
12 131 (1.31%) Legal
13 114 (1.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 108 (1.08%) Law
15 98 (0.98%) Manufacturing
16 91 (0.91%) Police
17 55 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
18 45 (0.45%) Marketing
19 44 (0.44%) Retail
20 40 (0.40%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,541 (15.36%) Architect
2 972 (9.69%) Developer
3 948 (9.45%) Lead
4 931 (9.28%) Senior
5 569 (5.67%) Consultant
6 562 (5.60%) Analyst
7 445 (4.44%) Data Engineer
8 409 (4.08%) DevOps Engineer
9 375 (3.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 267 (2.66%) Technical Architect
11 260 (2.59%) Software Engineer
12 248 (2.47%) Data Architect
13 246 (2.45%) Solutions Architect
14 229 (2.28%) Network Engineer
15 228 (2.27%) Security Architect
16 193 (1.92%) Administrator
17 186 (1.85%) Delivery Manager
18 184 (1.83%) Cloud Engineer
19 181 (1.80%) Java Developer
20 176 (1.75%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 867 (8.64%) Terraform
2 380 (3.79%) REST
3 207 (2.06%) Spring
4 196 (1.95%) Kafka
5 185 (1.84%) Spring Boot
6 177 (1.76%) React
7 175 (1.74%) .NET
8 167 (1.66%) RESTful
9 151 (1.51%) SOAP
10 134 (1.34%) JSON
11 129 (1.29%) Node.js
12 108 (1.08%) HTML
13 106 (1.06%) OAuth
14 104 (1.04%) AngularJS
15 98 (0.98%) Web Services
16 93 (0.93%) XML
17 86 (0.86%) PySpark
18 85 (0.85%) CSS
19 81 (0.81%) Oracle Fusion
20 79 (0.79%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 451 (4.50%) Cloud Native
2 378 (3.77%) Onboarding
3 307 (3.06%) Product Ownership
4 265 (2.64%) Data Centre
5 169 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
5 169 (1.68%) Management Information System
6 152 (1.52%) PKI
7 141 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
8 138 (1.38%) CMDB
9 123 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
10 116 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
11 112 (1.12%) Replication
11 112 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
12 96 (0.96%) Cyber Threat
13 87 (0.87%) Security Operations Centre
14 86 (0.86%) Operational Technology
15 85 (0.85%) Clustering
15 85 (0.85%) Data Structures
16 82 (0.82%) Public Cloud
17 74 (0.74%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 881 (8.78%) Windows
2 693 (6.91%) Linux
3 343 (3.42%) Windows Server
4 200 (1.99%) Unix
5 139 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 127 (1.27%) Windows 10
7 64 (0.64%) Solaris
8 63 (0.63%) Android
9 46 (0.46%) Mac OS
10 39 (0.39%) CentOS
11 35 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.34%) Ubuntu
13 30 (0.30%) AIX
14 26 (0.26%) Apple iOS
15 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
16 20 (0.20%) VMS
17 19 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
18 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
19 16 (0.16%) Rocky
20 14 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,099 (20.93%) Agile
2 1,520 (15.15%) DevOps
3 1,464 (14.59%) CI/CD
4 1,321 (13.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,203 (11.99%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,068 (10.65%) Problem-Solving
7 986 (9.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 863 (8.60%) Infrastructure as Code
9 824 (8.21%) Migration
10 761 (7.59%) Cybersecurity
11 719 (7.17%) ITIL
12 639 (6.37%) Test Automation
13 620 (6.18%) Roadmaps
14 616 (6.14%) Analytics
15 613 (6.11%) Containerisation
16 611 (6.09%) Technical Leadership
17 608 (6.06%) AI
18 584 (5.82%) Software Engineering
19 573 (5.71%) Decision-Making
20 552 (5.50%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 1,147 (11.43%) Python
2 943 (9.40%) SQL
3 649 (6.47%) Java
4 530 (5.28%) PowerShell
5 336 (3.35%) JavaScript
6 290 (2.89%) Bash
7 190 (1.89%) C#
8 166 (1.65%) TypeScript
9 133 (1.33%) PL/SQL
10 109 (1.09%) Bicep
11 68 (0.68%) Shell Script
12 62 (0.62%) C++
13 55 (0.55%) C
14 46 (0.46%) Groovy
15 44 (0.44%) Go
16 40 (0.40%) Scala
17 38 (0.38%) Kotlin
18 31 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 29 (0.29%) Apex Code
19 29 (0.29%) R
Qualifications
1 7,534 (75.11%) SC Cleared
2 2,058 (20.52%) DV Cleared
3 414 (4.13%) Degree
4 387 (3.86%) BPSS Clearance
5 186 (1.85%) CISSP
6 158 (1.58%) Azure Certification
7 153 (1.53%) Cisco Certification
8 150 (1.50%) Microsoft Certification
9 133 (1.33%) AWS Certification
10 114 (1.14%) CISM
11 100 (1.00%) PMI Certification
12 95 (0.95%) PMP
13 80 (0.80%) ISTQB
14 75 (0.75%) CCNP
15 62 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
15 62 (0.62%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 55 (0.55%) CCNA
17 43 (0.43%) TOGAF Certification
18 41 (0.41%) ITIL Certification
18 41 (0.41%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 447 (4.46%) QA
2 326 (3.25%) Data Quality
3 282 (2.81%) NIST
4 277 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 238 (2.37%) NCSC
6 223 (2.22%) PMO
7 217 (2.16%) Accessibility
8 151 (1.51%) GDPR
9 144 (1.44%) SLA
10 130 (1.30%) GRC
11 69 (0.69%) WCAG
12 59 (0.59%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 42 (0.42%) NIST 800
15 35 (0.35%) Def Stans
16 25 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 24 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 20 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
19 19 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
19 19 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 673 (6.71%) Docker
2 532 (5.30%) Active Directory
3 387 (3.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 139 (1.39%) VMware NSX
5 138 (1.38%) VMware ESXi
6 121 (1.21%) vSphere
7 120 (1.20%) Hyper-V
8 83 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
9 41 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
10 40 (0.40%) Firmware
11 38 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
12 27 (0.27%) vCloud
13 25 (0.25%) BitLocker
14 14 (0.14%) NFS
15 11 (0.11%) Postfix
15 11 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
16 10 (0.100%) Squid
17 9 (0.090%) Citrix Hypervisor
17 9 (0.090%) KVM
18 8 (0.080%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 812 (8.09%) Kubernetes
2 400 (3.99%) Ansible
3 222 (2.21%) Grafana
4 175 (1.74%) Prometheus
5 135 (1.35%) vCenter Server
6 126 (1.26%) SCCM
7 87 (0.87%) SCOM
8 84 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
9 62 (0.62%) Argo
10 49 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
11 48 (0.48%) Puppet
12 45 (0.45%) Oracle RMAN
13 36 (0.36%) Data Guard
14 30 (0.30%) Progress Chef
15 29 (0.29%) Kibana
16 28 (0.28%) Control-M
16 28 (0.28%) WSUS
17 25 (0.25%) Istio
17 25 (0.25%) Nagios
18 24 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,309 (13.05%) Microsoft
2 796 (7.94%) Oracle
3 552 (5.50%) VMware
4 478 (4.77%) ServiceNow
5 391 (3.90%) SAP
6 282 (2.81%) Cisco
7 223 (2.22%) Google
8 197 (1.96%) Splunk
9 187 (1.86%) Databricks
10 127 (1.27%) Red Hat
11 122 (1.22%) Salesforce
12 116 (1.16%) Palo Alto
13 104 (1.04%) IBM
14 98 (0.98%) Informatica
15 94 (0.94%) Talend
16 87 (0.87%) Remedy
17 85 (0.85%) Dynatrace
18 77 (0.77%) CyberArk
19 73 (0.73%) SolarWinds
20 72 (0.72%) Juniper