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

6 months to
28 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 10,025 5,112 6,329
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.90% 18.56% 19.08%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.12% 58.89% 62.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,081 3,296 4,166
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 £638
90th Percentile £725 £700 £736
UK median daily rate £540 £537 £550
% change year-on-year +0.56% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 746 495 414
10th Percentile £20.25 £18.51 £15.03
25th Percentile £30.66 £18.87 £22.94
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -58.08% -
75th Percentile £80.00 £48.11 £72.50
90th Percentile £89.08 £73.75 £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 14,504 8,680 10,054
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.69% 31.51% 30.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,747 5,462 6,346
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £426
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 1,125 677 675
10th Percentile £18.26 £18.13 £14.29
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 £53.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +93.72% -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 28 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 28 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 28 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 3,576 £550 +3.77% 1,404
South East +1 2,364 £564 +4.98% 820
South West 0 1,365 £549 -1.08% 747
North of England +3 1,235 £513 +1.87% 594
Midlands 0 905 £473 -8.16% 275
West Midlands +1 769 £475 -7.77% 180
North West +4 712 £530 -0.93% 368
East of England 0 333 £550 - 321
Yorkshire +1 307 £500 +1.63% 124
North East 0 240 £475 -5.00% 123
East Midlands -1 127 £450 -7.69% 95
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
1 341 (3.40%) Confluence
2 253 (2.52%) 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 81 (0.81%) 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 17 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
14 16 (0.16%) CMS
15 15 (0.15%) IIS
16 13 (0.13%) JBoss
17 12 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
18 9 (0.090%) Documentum
18 9 (0.090%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 181 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 136 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
3 98 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
4 87 (0.87%) 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%) OrCAD
13 3 (0.030%) Trello
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 121 (1.21%) 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 31 (0.31%) 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 14 (0.14%) SAP FI
12 13 (0.13%) Findur
13 12 (0.12%) iTrent
13 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 12 (0.12%) Temenos T24
14 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
14 11 (0.11%) SAP GRC
15 10 (0.100%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,872 (18.67%) Azure
2 1,647 (16.43%) AWS
3 464 (4.63%) Azure DevOps
4 438 (4.37%) Power Platform
5 424 (4.23%) GitHub
6 384 (3.83%) GCP
7 287 (2.86%) Microsoft 365
8 278 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
9 268 (2.67%) Entra ID
10 244 (2.43%) Serverless
11 197 (1.97%) Amazon S3
12 168 (1.68%) AWS Lambda
13 151 (1.51%) OCI
14 148 (1.48%) SaaS
15 134 (1.34%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 134 (1.34%) OpenShift
16 121 (1.21%) Amazon EKS
17 118 (1.18%) Amazon EC2
18 113 (1.13%) PaaS
19 105 (1.05%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 419 (4.18%) Firewall
2 342 (3.41%) DNS
3 201 (2.00%) Network Security
4 198 (1.98%) WAN
5 188 (1.88%) VPN
6 173 (1.73%) DHCP
7 164 (1.64%) LAN
8 131 (1.31%) BGP
9 126 (1.26%) TCP/IP
10 118 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
11 95 (0.95%) VLAN
12 92 (0.92%) OSPF
13 76 (0.76%) Wireless
14 67 (0.67%) VSAN
15 61 (0.61%) IPsec
16 58 (0.58%) MPLS
17 56 (0.56%) SD-WAN
18 54 (0.54%) SAN
19 53 (0.53%) SSL
20 44 (0.44%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 315 (3.14%) Power BI
2 256 (2.55%) SQL Server
3 229 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
4 227 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
5 152 (1.52%) Oracle Database
6 147 (1.47%) Metadata
7 116 (1.16%) Data Lake
8 110 (1.10%) Relational Database
9 97 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
10 89 (0.89%) NoSQL
11 86 (0.86%) MongoDB
12 85 (0.85%) MySQL
13 73 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
14 71 (0.71%) Pentaho
15 57 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
16 55 (0.55%) Tableau
17 53 (0.53%) Amazon Redshift
17 53 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
18 44 (0.44%) Big Data
19 43 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 533 (5.32%) JIRA
2 469 (4.68%) Git
3 419 (4.18%) GitLab
4 385 (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%) Maven
10 53 (0.53%) JMeter
11 47 (0.47%) Rational DOORS
12 44 (0.44%) Cucumber
13 37 (0.37%) Mockito
14 36 (0.36%) Cypress.io
14 36 (0.36%) Gradle
15 34 (0.34%) Artifactory
15 34 (0.34%) Visual Studio
16 33 (0.33%) Zephyr
17 32 (0.32%) Gatling
17 32 (0.32%) REST Assured
General
1 2,159 (21.54%) Social Skills
2 2,000 (19.95%) Public Sector
3 788 (7.86%) Analytical Skills
4 695 (6.93%) Finance
5 351 (3.50%) Military
6 295 (2.94%) Aerospace
7 249 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
8 180 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
9 153 (1.53%) Organisational Skills
10 149 (1.49%) Telecoms
11 133 (1.33%) Banking
12 131 (1.31%) Legal
13 107 (1.07%) Law
14 106 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 98 (0.98%) Manufacturing
16 92 (0.92%) Police
17 55 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
18 44 (0.44%) Marketing
18 44 (0.44%) Retail
19 37 (0.37%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,523 (15.19%) Architect
2 994 (9.92%) Developer
3 953 (9.51%) Lead
4 937 (9.35%) Senior
5 576 (5.75%) Consultant
6 559 (5.58%) Analyst
7 446 (4.45%) Data Engineer
8 401 (4.00%) DevOps Engineer
9 384 (3.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 271 (2.70%) Technical Architect
11 266 (2.65%) Software Engineer
12 247 (2.46%) Solutions Architect
13 233 (2.32%) Data Architect
13 233 (2.32%) Network Engineer
14 226 (2.25%) Security Architect
15 192 (1.92%) Administrator
16 190 (1.90%) Delivery Manager
17 186 (1.86%) Cloud Engineer
18 184 (1.84%) Azure Engineer
19 181 (1.81%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 873 (8.71%) Terraform
2 377 (3.76%) REST
3 205 (2.04%) Spring
4 193 (1.93%) Kafka
5 186 (1.86%) .NET
6 179 (1.79%) Spring Boot
7 178 (1.78%) React
8 167 (1.67%) RESTful
9 150 (1.50%) SOAP
10 130 (1.30%) Node.js
11 128 (1.28%) JSON
12 109 (1.09%) OAuth
13 108 (1.08%) HTML
14 104 (1.04%) AngularJS
14 104 (1.04%) Web Services
15 92 (0.92%) XML
16 86 (0.86%) PySpark
17 85 (0.85%) CSS
18 75 (0.75%) Oracle Fusion
19 72 (0.72%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 443 (4.42%) Cloud Native
2 362 (3.61%) Onboarding
3 324 (3.23%) Product Ownership
4 265 (2.64%) Data Centre
5 172 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
6 159 (1.59%) Management Information System
7 152 (1.52%) PKI
8 135 (1.35%) CMDB
9 131 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
10 124 (1.24%) Distributed Systems
11 116 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
12 115 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
13 108 (1.08%) Replication
14 94 (0.94%) Data Structures
15 87 (0.87%) Cyber Threat
16 86 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
17 84 (0.84%) Clustering
17 84 (0.84%) Public Cloud
18 83 (0.83%) Operational Technology
19 72 (0.72%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 872 (8.70%) Windows
2 698 (6.96%) Linux
3 329 (3.28%) Windows Server
4 192 (1.92%) Unix
5 141 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 126 (1.26%) Windows 10
7 61 (0.61%) Android
7 61 (0.61%) Solaris
8 48 (0.48%) Mac OS
9 38 (0.38%) CentOS
10 36 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
11 35 (0.35%) Ubuntu
12 34 (0.34%) AIX
13 26 (0.26%) Apple iOS
14 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
15 19 (0.19%) VMS
15 19 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
15 19 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
16 15 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
17 13 (0.13%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,081 (20.76%) Agile
2 1,536 (15.32%) DevOps
3 1,441 (14.37%) CI/CD
4 1,280 (12.77%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,161 (11.58%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,049 (10.46%) Problem-Solving
7 988 (9.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 850 (8.48%) Infrastructure as Code
9 819 (8.17%) Migration
10 757 (7.55%) Cybersecurity
11 711 (7.09%) ITIL
12 625 (6.23%) Analytics
13 623 (6.21%) Test Automation
14 604 (6.02%) Roadmaps
15 598 (5.97%) Containerisation
16 590 (5.89%) AI
17 588 (5.87%) Technical Leadership
18 581 (5.80%) Software Engineering
19 562 (5.61%) Decision-Making
20 535 (5.34%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 1,121 (11.18%) Python
2 944 (9.42%) SQL
3 646 (6.44%) Java
4 535 (5.34%) PowerShell
5 337 (3.36%) JavaScript
6 285 (2.84%) Bash
7 210 (2.09%) C#
8 160 (1.60%) TypeScript
9 129 (1.29%) PL/SQL
10 108 (1.08%) Bicep
11 68 (0.68%) C++
11 68 (0.68%) Shell Script
12 60 (0.60%) C
13 45 (0.45%) Groovy
14 44 (0.44%) Go
15 39 (0.39%) Kotlin
16 38 (0.38%) Scala
17 34 (0.34%) Apex Code
17 34 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 31 (0.31%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 7,523 (75.04%) SC Cleared
2 2,042 (20.37%) DV Cleared
3 425 (4.24%) Degree
4 380 (3.79%) BPSS Clearance
5 184 (1.84%) CISSP
6 159 (1.59%) Azure Certification
7 150 (1.50%) Cisco Certification
8 149 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
9 126 (1.26%) AWS Certification
10 117 (1.17%) CISM
11 102 (1.02%) PMI Certification
12 99 (0.99%) PMP
13 78 (0.78%) ISTQB
14 71 (0.71%) CCNP
15 63 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 60 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
17 57 (0.57%) CCNA
18 43 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
19 42 (0.42%) VCAP
20 41 (0.41%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 423 (4.22%) QA
2 324 (3.23%) Data Quality
3 280 (2.79%) NIST
4 270 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 240 (2.39%) NCSC
6 222 (2.21%) PMO
7 214 (2.13%) Accessibility
8 153 (1.53%) GDPR
9 139 (1.39%) SLA
10 132 (1.32%) GRC
11 67 (0.67%) WCAG
12 61 (0.61%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 42 (0.42%) NIST 800
15 34 (0.34%) 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
1 664 (6.62%) Docker
2 519 (5.18%) Active Directory
3 386 (3.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 142 (1.42%) VMware NSX
5 136 (1.36%) VMware ESXi
6 120 (1.20%) vSphere
7 115 (1.15%) Hyper-V
8 75 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
9 41 (0.41%) Firmware
9 41 (0.41%) Oracle RAC
10 40 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
11 26 (0.26%) BitLocker
11 26 (0.26%) vCloud
12 11 (0.11%) NFS
12 11 (0.11%) Postfix
12 11 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
13 10 (0.100%) Squid
14 9 (0.090%) KVM
15 8 (0.080%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 808 (8.06%) Kubernetes
2 401 (4.00%) Ansible
3 223 (2.22%) Grafana
4 175 (1.75%) Prometheus
5 135 (1.35%) vCenter Server
6 124 (1.24%) SCCM
7 82 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
8 79 (0.79%) SCOM
9 64 (0.64%) Argo
10 50 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
11 49 (0.49%) Puppet
12 48 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
13 37 (0.37%) Data Guard
14 31 (0.31%) Progress Chef
15 29 (0.29%) Kibana
16 28 (0.28%) Control-M
16 28 (0.28%) Istio
16 28 (0.28%) Nagios
17 27 (0.27%) WSUS
18 25 (0.25%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,314 (13.11%) Microsoft
2 778 (7.76%) Oracle
3 551 (5.50%) VMware
4 471 (4.70%) ServiceNow
5 388 (3.87%) SAP
6 282 (2.81%) Cisco
7 223 (2.22%) Google
8 193 (1.93%) Splunk
9 184 (1.84%) Databricks
10 132 (1.32%) Red Hat
11 123 (1.23%) Salesforce
12 119 (1.19%) IBM
13 114 (1.14%) Palo Alto
14 96 (0.96%) Informatica
15 95 (0.95%) Talend
16 84 (0.84%) Remedy
17 80 (0.80%) Dynatrace
18 75 (0.75%) SolarWinds
19 74 (0.74%) Juniper
20 70 (0.70%) F5