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 11 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 9,884 4,932 7,031
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.95% 18.19% 19.04%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.38% 58.90% 62.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,959 3,209 4,600
10th Percentile £380 £338 £350
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
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 £530 £530 £550
% change year-on-year - -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 760 408 545
10th Percentile £18.31 £18.51 £14.72
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £57.44
Median % change year-on-year +152.49% -56.22% -4.27%
75th Percentile £77.50 £62.31 £71.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £80.99
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £25.15 £55.80
% change year-on-year +148.51% -54.93% -7.00%

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 14,247 8,374 11,297
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.64% 30.89% 30.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,611 5,284 7,039
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £715 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £524 £525
% change year-on-year +0.24% -0.24% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,061 587 982
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.17
25th Percentile £25.24 £20.00 £20.98
Median hourly rate £53.90 £28.00 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +92.50% -34.88% -21.82%
75th Percentile £74.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £86.11 £76.63 £76.92
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £27.45 £41.50
% change year-on-year +82.15% -33.86% -24.72%

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 11 July 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 11 July 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 11 July 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 3,513 £538 +2.38% 602
South East +1 2,392 £550 - 577
South West 0 1,327 £538 -6.52% 386
North of England +2 1,068 £502 +0.35% 240
Midlands +3 967 £469 -6.20% 151
West Midlands +2 827 £470 -7.84% 109
North West 0 577 £525 +4.90% 138
East of England +2 338 £550 +4.76% 116
Yorkshire +1 282 £500 +1.63% 59
North East +1 239 £475 -3.06% 44
East Midlands -1 127 £418 -12.11% 42
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
1 356 (3.60%) Confluence
2 228 (2.31%) SharePoint
3 150 (1.52%) SAS
4 123 (1.24%) Microsoft Exchange
5 90 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
6 83 (0.84%) Apache
7 82 (0.83%) Apache Spark
8 39 (0.39%) nginx
9 35 (0.35%) Jupyter
10 33 (0.33%) WebLogic
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 17 (0.17%) CMS
12 17 (0.17%) IIS
12 17 (0.17%) Oracle Application Server
12 17 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
13 14 (0.14%) Skype for Business
14 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
15 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
15 11 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
16 9 (0.091%) Documentum
Applications
1 165 (1.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 130 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
3 83 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
4 67 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 42 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.14%) Simulink
8 12 (0.12%) AutoCAD
8 12 (0.12%) Revit
8 12 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
9 10 (0.10%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.051%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.051%) Notepad++
11 4 (0.040%) Sketch
12 2 (0.020%) CATIA
12 2 (0.020%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.020%) Lectora
12 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.020%) Siemens NX
12 2 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 106 (1.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 62 (0.63%) Remedy ITSM
3 45 (0.46%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Teamcenter
5 29 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 26 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
7 25 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
8 23 (0.23%) SAP PSCD
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
9 15 (0.15%) Primavera
9 15 (0.15%) Temenos T24
10 12 (0.12%) iTrent
10 12 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
10 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
11 11 (0.11%) SAP ERP
12 10 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
12 10 (0.10%) Maximo
12 10 (0.10%) SAP HR
13 9 (0.091%) Oracle Payroll
13 9 (0.091%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,739 (17.59%) Azure
2 1,666 (16.86%) AWS
3 397 (4.02%) Power Platform
4 393 (3.98%) GitHub
5 392 (3.97%) Azure DevOps
6 349 (3.53%) GCP
7 262 (2.65%) Microsoft 365
8 253 (2.56%) Entra ID
9 252 (2.55%) GitHub Actions
10 244 (2.47%) Serverless
11 225 (2.28%) Amazon S3
12 169 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
13 152 (1.54%) Amazon EC2
14 146 (1.48%) OCI
15 143 (1.45%) OpenShift
16 142 (1.44%) SaaS
17 133 (1.35%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 126 (1.27%) PaaS
19 114 (1.15%) Amazon EKS
20 110 (1.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 412 (4.17%) Firewall
2 326 (3.30%) DNS
3 227 (2.30%) Network Security
4 213 (2.15%) WAN
5 188 (1.90%) LAN
6 169 (1.71%) VPN
7 167 (1.69%) DHCP
8 140 (1.42%) BGP
9 116 (1.17%) OSPF
10 110 (1.11%) Wi-Fi
11 106 (1.07%) TCP/IP
12 105 (1.06%) VLAN
13 80 (0.81%) Wireless
14 62 (0.63%) MPLS
14 62 (0.63%) SD-WAN
15 56 (0.57%) SAN
16 54 (0.55%) VXLAN
17 51 (0.52%) BIG-IP
18 50 (0.51%) IPsec
19 46 (0.47%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 299 (3.03%) Power BI
2 250 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
3 236 (2.39%) SQL Server
4 223 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
5 147 (1.49%) Oracle Database
6 123 (1.24%) Metadata
7 105 (1.06%) Data Lake
7 105 (1.06%) Relational Database
8 104 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
9 84 (0.85%) Pentaho
10 81 (0.82%) MySQL
11 79 (0.80%) MongoDB
12 78 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
13 76 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
14 69 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
15 66 (0.67%) NoSQL
16 61 (0.62%) Amazon Athena
17 58 (0.59%) Tableau
18 42 (0.42%) Big Data
19 41 (0.41%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 553 (5.59%) JIRA
2 456 (4.61%) Git
3 414 (4.19%) GitLab
4 384 (3.89%) Jenkins
5 106 (1.07%) Selenium
6 81 (0.82%) JUnit
7 75 (0.76%) SonarQube
8 69 (0.70%) Postman
9 59 (0.60%) Rational DOORS
10 53 (0.54%) JMeter
11 49 (0.50%) Cucumber
11 49 (0.50%) Maven
12 43 (0.44%) Mockito
13 40 (0.40%) Artifactory
13 40 (0.40%) REST Assured
14 39 (0.39%) Bitbucket
15 37 (0.37%) Visual Studio
15 37 (0.37%) Zephyr
16 36 (0.36%) Cypress.io
17 29 (0.29%) WebDriver
General
1 2,100 (21.25%) Public Sector
2 2,025 (20.49%) Social Skills
3 727 (7.36%) Analytical Skills
4 680 (6.88%) Finance
5 331 (3.35%) Military
6 274 (2.77%) Documentation Skills
7 270 (2.73%) Aerospace
8 147 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
9 145 (1.47%) Legal
10 128 (1.30%) Banking
11 124 (1.25%) Telecoms
12 111 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
13 95 (0.96%) Law
14 80 (0.81%) Police
15 77 (0.78%) Manufacturing
16 72 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
17 70 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 41 (0.41%) Marketing
19 37 (0.37%) Aviation
19 37 (0.37%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,427 (14.44%) Architect
2 1,021 (10.33%) Developer
3 857 (8.67%) Senior
4 836 (8.46%) Lead
5 631 (6.38%) Analyst
6 469 (4.75%) Data Engineer
7 455 (4.60%) Consultant
8 417 (4.22%) DevOps Engineer
9 331 (3.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 307 (3.11%) Software Engineer
11 279 (2.82%) Technical Architect
12 239 (2.42%) Network Engineer
13 230 (2.33%) Security Architect
14 227 (2.30%) Solutions Architect
15 204 (2.06%) Business Analyst
16 201 (2.03%) Java Developer
17 199 (2.01%) Project Manager
18 196 (1.98%) Delivery Manager
19 187 (1.89%) Administrator
20 175 (1.77%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 333 (3.37%) REST
2 247 (2.50%) Spring
3 200 (2.02%) Spring Boot
4 174 (1.76%) React
5 173 (1.75%) .NET
6 168 (1.70%) Kafka
7 161 (1.63%) Node.js
8 159 (1.61%) RESTful
9 138 (1.40%) SOAP
10 119 (1.20%) JSON
11 112 (1.13%) AngularJS
12 106 (1.07%) OAuth
13 102 (1.03%) LDAP
14 93 (0.94%) HTML
15 92 (0.93%) PySpark
15 92 (0.93%) Web Services
16 78 (0.79%) OpenID
16 78 (0.79%) XML
17 73 (0.74%) Elastic Stack
18 71 (0.72%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 400 (4.05%) Cloud Native
2 330 (3.34%) Onboarding
3 321 (3.25%) Product Ownership
4 276 (2.79%) Data Centre
5 171 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
6 146 (1.48%) Management Information System
7 139 (1.41%) Distributed Systems
8 138 (1.40%) PKI
9 113 (1.14%) Replication
10 109 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
11 105 (1.06%) CMDB
12 94 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
13 89 (0.90%) Clustering
13 89 (0.90%) Data Structures
14 87 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
14 87 (0.88%) Security Posture
15 80 (0.81%) Public Cloud
16 76 (0.77%) Security Operations Centre
17 74 (0.75%) Virtual Team
18 73 (0.74%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 820 (8.30%) Windows
2 682 (6.90%) Linux
3 264 (2.67%) Windows Server
4 192 (1.94%) Unix
5 135 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 90 (0.91%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.80%) Android
8 53 (0.54%) Solaris
9 47 (0.48%) Apple iOS
10 43 (0.44%) Mac OS
11 32 (0.32%) AIX
11 32 (0.32%) Ubuntu
12 29 (0.29%) CentOS
13 26 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
14 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 15 (0.15%) VMS
16 13 (0.13%) Windows 7
17 11 (0.11%) Embedded Linux
17 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
17 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,025 (20.49%) Agile
2 1,537 (15.55%) DevOps
3 1,414 (14.31%) CI/CD
4 1,058 (10.70%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,055 (10.67%) Problem-Solving
6 1,029 (10.41%) Continuous Improvement
7 843 (8.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 764 (7.73%) Migration
9 744 (7.53%) Infrastructure as Code
10 679 (6.87%) Cybersecurity
11 663 (6.71%) ITIL
12 600 (6.07%) Test Automation
13 591 (5.98%) Software Engineering
14 582 (5.89%) Containerisation
15 578 (5.85%) Analytics
16 575 (5.82%) Roadmaps
17 528 (5.34%) Decision-Making
18 515 (5.21%) Data Modelling
19 510 (5.16%) AI
20 474 (4.80%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 1,055 (10.67%) Python
2 942 (9.53%) SQL
3 678 (6.86%) Java
4 459 (4.64%) PowerShell
5 303 (3.07%) JavaScript
6 231 (2.34%) Bash
7 204 (2.06%) C#
8 149 (1.51%) TypeScript
9 136 (1.38%) PL/SQL
10 88 (0.89%) C++
11 86 (0.87%) Shell Script
12 69 (0.70%) Bicep
13 67 (0.68%) C
14 55 (0.56%) Go
15 46 (0.47%) Ada
16 41 (0.41%) Apex Code
17 40 (0.40%) Kotlin
17 40 (0.40%) Ruby
17 40 (0.40%) Scala
18 35 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 7,415 (75.02%) SC Cleared
2 1,979 (20.02%) DV Cleared
3 396 (4.01%) Degree
4 326 (3.30%) BPSS Clearance
5 184 (1.86%) Cisco Certification
6 165 (1.67%) CISSP
7 139 (1.41%) Azure Certification
8 120 (1.21%) Microsoft Certification
9 111 (1.12%) AWS Certification
10 94 (0.95%) CISM
11 93 (0.94%) CCNP
12 86 (0.87%) PMP
13 85 (0.86%) PMI Certification
14 77 (0.78%) CCNA
15 69 (0.70%) ISTQB
16 59 (0.60%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 57 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
18 48 (0.49%) ITIL Certification
19 45 (0.46%) TOGAF Certification
20 38 (0.38%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 390 (3.95%) QA
2 300 (3.04%) Data Quality
3 293 (2.96%) NIST
4 287 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 222 (2.25%) NCSC
6 203 (2.05%) Accessibility
7 179 (1.81%) PMO
8 171 (1.73%) GDPR
9 102 (1.03%) SLA
10 94 (0.95%) GRC
11 61 (0.62%) JSP 440
12 52 (0.53%) WCAG
13 45 (0.46%) NIST 800
14 44 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
15 34 (0.34%) Def Stans
16 25 (0.25%) RMADS
17 24 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 23 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
18 23 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 21 (0.21%) COBIT
System Software
1 651 (6.59%) Docker
2 444 (4.49%) Active Directory
3 321 (3.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 123 (1.24%) VMware ESXi
5 120 (1.21%) VMware NSX
6 93 (0.94%) vSphere
7 86 (0.87%) Hyper-V
8 77 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
9 40 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
10 33 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
11 32 (0.32%) Firmware
12 22 (0.22%) BitLocker
13 20 (0.20%) NFS
13 20 (0.20%) vCloud
14 19 (0.19%) Postfix
15 18 (0.18%) Squid
16 10 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 8 (0.081%) Microsoft App-V
18 7 (0.071%) KVM
18 7 (0.071%) UAG
Systems Management
1 818 (8.28%) Terraform
2 800 (8.09%) Kubernetes
3 358 (3.62%) Ansible
4 240 (2.43%) Grafana
5 189 (1.91%) Prometheus
6 119 (1.20%) vCenter Server
7 86 (0.87%) SCCM
8 69 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
9 64 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
10 59 (0.60%) Argo
11 51 (0.52%) SCOM
12 49 (0.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 47 (0.48%) FortiGate
14 45 (0.46%) Oracle RMAN
14 45 (0.46%) Puppet
15 30 (0.30%) Progress Chef
16 28 (0.28%) Data Guard
16 28 (0.28%) Podman
17 25 (0.25%) Kibana
17 25 (0.25%) Nagios
Vendors
1 1,109 (11.22%) Microsoft
2 726 (7.35%) Oracle
3 492 (4.98%) VMware
4 467 (4.72%) ServiceNow
5 323 (3.27%) SAP
6 298 (3.01%) Cisco
7 201 (2.03%) Splunk
8 174 (1.76%) Databricks
9 167 (1.69%) Google
10 136 (1.38%) Red Hat
11 130 (1.32%) Salesforce
12 129 (1.31%) Talend
13 113 (1.14%) IBM
14 105 (1.06%) Informatica
15 99 (1.00%) Palo Alto
16 95 (0.96%) Juniper
17 88 (0.89%) SolarWinds
18 86 (0.87%) F5
19 85 (0.86%) Citrix
20 82 (0.83%) Fortinet