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

6 months to
25 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 9,535 4,621 7,069
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.96% 18.41% 18.88%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.50% 59.09% 61.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,704 3,026 4,606
10th Percentile £380 £338 £356
25th Percentile £450 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 750 337 543
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.45 £14.50
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £63.14 £25.50 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +147.59% -55.65% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £86.20 £77.98 £83.75
UK median hourly rate £60.91 £25.15 £56.50
% change year-on-year +142.19% -55.49% -5.83%

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 13,720 7,820 11,416
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.60% 31.15% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,266 4,932 7,035
10th Percentile £350 £280 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.23% -2.36%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 500 1,020
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.05
25th Percentile £23.49 £20.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 £29.27 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +79.36% -31.13% -22.73%
75th Percentile £73.75 £64.52 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.39 £77.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £28.58 £40.94
% change year-on-year +74.98% -30.20% -25.73%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 3,392 £525 - 411
South East +1 2,301 £550 - 442
South West 0 1,313 £538 -4.44% 310
North of England +2 986 £500 - 246
Midlands +2 919 £469 -9.37% 117
West Midlands +2 794 £469 -10.58% 74
North West 0 529 £525 +5.00% 147
East of England +2 352 £550 +10.00% 107
Yorkshire -3 256 £500 +1.63% 58
North East +1 230 £475 -1.04% 46
East Midlands -4 114 £438 -7.89% 43
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
1 336 (3.52%) Confluence
2 217 (2.28%) SharePoint
3 142 (1.49%) SAS
4 122 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
5 88 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
6 81 (0.85%) Apache Spark
7 78 (0.82%) Apache
8 40 (0.42%) Jupyter
9 39 (0.41%) nginx
10 29 (0.30%) WebLogic
11 21 (0.22%) Tomcat
12 19 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
13 16 (0.17%) CMS
13 16 (0.17%) IIS
14 15 (0.16%) Oracle Application Server
15 14 (0.15%) Skype for Business
16 12 (0.13%) Tuxedo
17 11 (0.12%) NetWeaver
18 9 (0.094%) ArcGIS
19 8 (0.084%) Apache Superset
Applications
1 157 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 129 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
3 77 (0.81%) Microsoft Project
4 72 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 39 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.15%) Simulink
6 14 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
8 10 (0.10%) AutoCAD
8 10 (0.10%) Revit
9 9 (0.094%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.052%) Notepad++
11 4 (0.042%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.031%) Sketch
13 2 (0.021%) CATIA
13 2 (0.021%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.021%) Lectora
13 2 (0.021%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.021%) Siemens NX
13 2 (0.021%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 98 (1.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 58 (0.61%) Remedy ITSM
3 44 (0.46%) Oracle ERP
4 32 (0.34%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 30 (0.31%) Teamcenter
6 28 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
7 21 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 16 (0.17%) SAP PSCD
9 15 (0.16%) Findur
9 15 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 14 (0.15%) Maximo
11 12 (0.13%) iTrent
11 12 (0.13%) Primavera
11 12 (0.13%) Temenos T24
12 11 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 10 (0.10%) SAP ERP
14 9 (0.094%) Integrated Workplace Management System
14 9 (0.094%) Oracle Assets
14 9 (0.094%) Salesforce CRM
14 9 (0.094%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 1,656 (17.37%) Azure
2 1,626 (17.05%) AWS
3 375 (3.93%) Azure DevOps
4 374 (3.92%) GitHub
5 366 (3.84%) Power Platform
6 351 (3.68%) GCP
7 248 (2.60%) Serverless
8 244 (2.56%) Entra ID
8 244 (2.56%) Microsoft 365
9 233 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
10 211 (2.21%) Amazon S3
11 170 (1.78%) AWS Lambda
12 151 (1.58%) Amazon EC2
13 138 (1.45%) OpenShift
14 137 (1.44%) SaaS
15 132 (1.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 130 (1.36%) PaaS
17 126 (1.32%) OCI
18 109 (1.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 100 (1.05%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 408 (4.28%) Firewall
2 290 (3.04%) DNS
3 219 (2.30%) Network Security
4 205 (2.15%) WAN
5 187 (1.96%) LAN
6 161 (1.69%) VPN
7 153 (1.60%) DHCP
8 134 (1.41%) BGP
9 113 (1.19%) OSPF
10 111 (1.16%) Wi-Fi
11 101 (1.06%) VLAN
12 93 (0.98%) TCP/IP
13 80 (0.84%) Wireless
14 61 (0.64%) MPLS
15 58 (0.61%) SD-WAN
16 54 (0.57%) VXLAN
17 52 (0.55%) SAN
18 51 (0.53%) IPsec
19 50 (0.52%) BIG-IP
20 49 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 275 (2.88%) Power BI
2 241 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
3 220 (2.31%) Data Warehouse
4 214 (2.24%) SQL Server
5 140 (1.47%) Oracle Database
6 119 (1.25%) Metadata
7 106 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
7 106 (1.11%) Data Lake
8 98 (1.03%) Relational Database
9 84 (0.88%) Pentaho
10 82 (0.86%) MongoDB
11 74 (0.78%) MySQL
12 73 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
12 73 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
13 67 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
14 66 (0.69%) NoSQL
15 61 (0.64%) Amazon Athena
16 58 (0.61%) Tableau
17 43 (0.45%) DynamoDB
18 42 (0.44%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 533 (5.59%) JIRA
2 428 (4.49%) Git
3 410 (4.30%) GitLab
4 374 (3.92%) Jenkins
5 103 (1.08%) Selenium
6 81 (0.85%) JUnit
7 72 (0.76%) SonarQube
8 68 (0.71%) Postman
9 58 (0.61%) Rational DOORS
10 53 (0.56%) JMeter
11 51 (0.53%) Cucumber
12 43 (0.45%) Artifactory
12 43 (0.45%) Mockito
13 42 (0.44%) Maven
14 41 (0.43%) Bitbucket
15 38 (0.40%) Visual Studio
16 37 (0.39%) Zephyr
17 36 (0.38%) REST Assured
18 33 (0.35%) Cypress.io
19 30 (0.31%) WebDriver
General
1 2,036 (21.35%) Public Sector
2 1,930 (20.24%) Social Skills
3 663 (6.95%) Analytical Skills
4 641 (6.72%) Finance
5 321 (3.37%) Military
6 273 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
7 270 (2.83%) Aerospace
8 142 (1.49%) Legal
9 132 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
10 123 (1.29%) Banking
11 110 (1.15%) Telecoms
12 97 (1.02%) Law
13 96 (1.01%) Organisational Skills
14 78 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
15 76 (0.80%) Manufacturing
16 67 (0.70%) Police
17 66 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 45 (0.47%) Marketing
19 39 (0.41%) Aviation
20 37 (0.39%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,393 (14.61%) Architect
2 945 (9.91%) Developer
3 823 (8.63%) Senior
4 757 (7.94%) Lead
5 614 (6.44%) Analyst
6 458 (4.80%) Data Engineer
7 424 (4.45%) Consultant
8 415 (4.35%) DevOps Engineer
9 302 (3.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 300 (3.15%) Software Engineer
11 283 (2.97%) Technical Architect
12 253 (2.65%) Network Engineer
13 229 (2.40%) Solutions Architect
14 206 (2.16%) Business Analyst
14 206 (2.16%) Project Manager
14 206 (2.16%) Security Architect
15 191 (2.00%) Delivery Manager
16 182 (1.91%) Java Developer
17 179 (1.88%) Administrator
17 179 (1.88%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 293 (3.07%) REST
2 229 (2.40%) Spring
3 186 (1.95%) Spring Boot
4 173 (1.81%) React
5 163 (1.71%) .NET
6 155 (1.63%) Node.js
7 150 (1.57%) Kafka
8 144 (1.51%) RESTful
9 126 (1.32%) SOAP
10 122 (1.28%) LDAP
11 112 (1.17%) AngularJS
12 110 (1.15%) JSON
13 96 (1.01%) PySpark
14 95 (1.00%) OAuth
15 89 (0.93%) Web Services
16 86 (0.90%) HTML
17 76 (0.80%) XML
18 75 (0.79%) OpenID
19 68 (0.71%) Middleware
19 68 (0.71%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 374 (3.92%) Cloud Native
2 328 (3.44%) Product Ownership
3 298 (3.13%) Onboarding
4 280 (2.94%) Data Centre
5 151 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
6 150 (1.57%) Management Information System
7 135 (1.42%) PKI
8 132 (1.38%) Distributed Systems
9 107 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
10 104 (1.09%) Replication
10 104 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
11 100 (1.05%) Security Posture
12 88 (0.92%) CMDB
13 87 (0.91%) Hybrid Cloud
14 85 (0.89%) Clustering
14 85 (0.89%) Data Structures
15 75 (0.79%) Public Cloud
16 71 (0.74%) Security Operations Centre
17 67 (0.70%) Operational Technology
18 66 (0.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 771 (8.09%) Windows
2 636 (6.67%) Linux
3 243 (2.55%) Windows Server
4 175 (1.84%) Unix
5 123 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 82 (0.86%) Windows 10
7 75 (0.79%) Android
8 49 (0.51%) Solaris
9 47 (0.49%) Apple iOS
10 37 (0.39%) Mac OS
11 33 (0.35%) Ubuntu
12 28 (0.29%) AIX
13 23 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
14 22 (0.23%) CentOS
15 19 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
16 16 (0.17%) VMS
17 14 (0.15%) Windows 7
18 11 (0.12%) Embedded Linux
18 11 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
18 11 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,925 (20.19%) Agile
2 1,475 (15.47%) DevOps
3 1,322 (13.86%) CI/CD
4 999 (10.48%) Problem-Solving
5 995 (10.44%) Stakeholder Management
6 955 (10.02%) Continuous Improvement
7 771 (8.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 765 (8.02%) Migration
9 702 (7.36%) Infrastructure as Code
10 627 (6.58%) Cybersecurity
11 597 (6.26%) ITIL
12 581 (6.09%) Software Engineering
13 580 (6.08%) Test Automation
14 557 (5.84%) Analytics
15 551 (5.78%) Containerisation
16 538 (5.64%) Roadmaps
17 495 (5.19%) Decision-Making
18 489 (5.13%) Data Modelling
19 476 (4.99%) AI
20 452 (4.74%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 1,002 (10.51%) Python
2 907 (9.51%) SQL
3 618 (6.48%) Java
4 451 (4.73%) PowerShell
5 282 (2.96%) JavaScript
6 206 (2.16%) C#
7 194 (2.03%) Bash
8 150 (1.57%) TypeScript
9 125 (1.31%) PL/SQL
10 88 (0.92%) C++
11 86 (0.90%) Shell Script
12 70 (0.73%) Bicep
13 65 (0.68%) C
14 55 (0.58%) Go
15 48 (0.50%) Ada
16 43 (0.45%) Scala
17 40 (0.42%) Apex Code
17 40 (0.42%) Ruby
18 35 (0.37%) MATLAB
19 33 (0.35%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 7,198 (75.49%) SC Cleared
2 1,848 (19.38%) DV Cleared
3 385 (4.04%) Degree
4 284 (2.98%) BPSS Clearance
5 185 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
6 160 (1.68%) CISSP
7 126 (1.32%) Azure Certification
8 108 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
9 102 (1.07%) AWS Certification
10 101 (1.06%) CCNP
11 98 (1.03%) CISM
12 80 (0.84%) PMP
13 79 (0.83%) PMI Certification
14 78 (0.82%) CCNA
15 65 (0.68%) ISTQB
16 57 (0.60%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 55 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
18 48 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
19 40 (0.42%) GIAC
20 35 (0.37%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 372 (3.90%) QA
2 293 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 289 (3.03%) NIST
4 287 (3.01%) Data Quality
5 214 (2.24%) NCSC
6 182 (1.91%) Accessibility
7 173 (1.81%) PMO
8 169 (1.77%) GDPR
9 99 (1.04%) SLA
10 83 (0.87%) GRC
11 60 (0.63%) JSP 440
12 45 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
13 44 (0.46%) WCAG
14 42 (0.44%) NIST 800
15 33 (0.35%) Def Stans
16 28 (0.29%) RMADS
17 24 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
17 24 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 22 (0.23%) COBIT
19 19 (0.20%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 606 (6.36%) Docker
2 430 (4.51%) Active Directory
3 289 (3.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 112 (1.17%) VMware ESXi
5 106 (1.11%) VMware NSX
6 78 (0.82%) Hyper-V
7 77 (0.81%) vSphere
8 71 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
9 32 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
10 31 (0.33%) Firmware
11 23 (0.24%) BitLocker
11 23 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
12 21 (0.22%) vCloud
13 19 (0.20%) Postfix
14 18 (0.19%) NFS
15 15 (0.16%) Squid
16 14 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 9 (0.094%) Microsoft App-V
18 6 (0.063%) Corosync
18 6 (0.063%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 774 (8.12%) Terraform
2 761 (7.98%) Kubernetes
3 332 (3.48%) Ansible
4 225 (2.36%) Grafana
5 184 (1.93%) Prometheus
6 108 (1.13%) vCenter Server
7 78 (0.82%) SCCM
8 75 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
9 58 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
10 53 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 48 (0.50%) Argo
11 48 (0.50%) FortiGate
12 41 (0.43%) Puppet
13 39 (0.41%) Oracle RMAN
13 39 (0.41%) SCOM
14 35 (0.37%) Podman
15 28 (0.29%) Progress Chef
16 24 (0.25%) Nagios
17 23 (0.24%) Kibana
17 23 (0.24%) WSUS
Vendors
1 1,016 (10.66%) Microsoft
2 672 (7.05%) Oracle
3 462 (4.85%) VMware
4 407 (4.27%) ServiceNow
5 306 (3.21%) Cisco
6 303 (3.18%) SAP
7 194 (2.03%) Splunk
8 173 (1.81%) Databricks
9 159 (1.67%) Google
10 148 (1.55%) Red Hat
11 129 (1.35%) Talend
12 125 (1.31%) Salesforce
13 114 (1.20%) IBM
14 105 (1.10%) Palo Alto
15 102 (1.07%) Informatica
16 93 (0.98%) Juniper
17 84 (0.88%) F5
17 84 (0.88%) SolarWinds
18 81 (0.85%) Fortinet
19 78 (0.82%) Dynatrace