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 14 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 3 3
Rank change year-on-year +1 0 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,433 5,422 5,802
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.28% 19.28% 18.16%
As % of the Qualifications category 68.82% 60.26% 61.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,262 3,512 3,639
10th Percentile £400 £329 £350
25th Percentile £463 £446 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.33% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £550 £537 £550
% change year-on-year +2.42% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 839 567 329
10th Percentile £20.50 £18.22 £21.35
25th Percentile £29.60 £18.87 £37.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -59.17% +2.67%
75th Percentile £78.70 £35.50 £70.25
90th Percentile £91.31 £71.00 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £64.00 £25.15 £58.38
% change year-on-year +154.47% -56.92% -2.71%

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 15,159 8,998 9,504
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.37% 31.99% 29.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,075 5,727 5,766
10th Percentile £353 £293 £313
25th Percentile £448 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £711 £732
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,324 751 494
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £19.88
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.62
Median hourly rate £48.83 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +94.14% -52.10% -2.17%
75th Percentile £74.00 £43.00 £69.45
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.50 £75.35
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.52%

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 14 October 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 14 October 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 14 October 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 +5 3,730 £550 +1.85% 1,316
South East +1 2,300 £575 +9.52% 764
South West 0 1,383 £550 - 532
North of England +2 1,320 £511 -1.64% 528
Midlands 0 956 £475 -8.08% 273
West Midlands 0 806 £473 -9.04% 184
North West +2 802 £525 -4.98% 297
East of England 0 456 £550 - 238
Yorkshire -2 296 £488 -0.91% 93
North East 0 240 £470 -10.48% 139
East Midlands +1 142 £500 +11.11% 89
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
1 338 (3.24%) Confluence
2 241 (2.31%) SharePoint
3 152 (1.46%) SAS
4 106 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
5 97 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 93 (0.89%) Apache Spark
7 92 (0.88%) Apache
8 41 (0.39%) nginx
9 39 (0.37%) CMS
10 31 (0.30%) Jupyter
11 30 (0.29%) WebLogic
12 22 (0.21%) Skype for Business
13 20 (0.19%) Tomcat
14 17 (0.16%) Oracle Application Server
15 15 (0.14%) IIS
15 15 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
16 11 (0.11%) JBoss
16 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
16 11 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
17 9 (0.086%) Documentum
Applications
1 190 (1.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 126 (1.21%) Microsoft Office
3 94 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
4 91 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 29 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 29 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
6 21 (0.20%) AutoCAD
6 21 (0.20%) Windchill
7 19 (0.18%) Revit
8 18 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
9 10 (0.096%) Simulink
10 9 (0.086%) Chatbot
11 7 (0.067%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.048%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.048%) Sketch
13 4 (0.038%) OrCAD
13 4 (0.038%) Trello
14 3 (0.029%) PTC Creo
15 2 (0.019%) Gliffy
15 2 (0.019%) Houdini
Business Applications
1 134 (1.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 80 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 54 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
4 44 (0.42%) Teamcenter
5 43 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 30 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 28 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
7 28 (0.27%) Oracle Payroll
8 25 (0.24%) SAP PSCD
9 22 (0.21%) SAP FI
10 18 (0.17%) SAP HR
11 16 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
12 14 (0.13%) SAP CO
13 13 (0.12%) Maximo
13 13 (0.12%) NetSuite
13 13 (0.12%) Primavera
13 13 (0.12%) SAP BRIM
13 13 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
14 12 (0.12%) SAP PP
14 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,860 (17.83%) Azure
2 1,684 (16.14%) AWS
3 459 (4.40%) Azure DevOps
4 439 (4.21%) Power Platform
5 426 (4.08%) GitHub
6 385 (3.69%) GCP
7 306 (2.93%) Entra ID
8 301 (2.89%) Microsoft 365
9 297 (2.85%) GitHub Actions
10 230 (2.20%) Serverless
11 203 (1.95%) Amazon S3
12 162 (1.55%) AWS Lambda
13 157 (1.50%) OCI
14 146 (1.40%) SaaS
15 145 (1.39%) OpenShift
16 144 (1.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 144 (1.38%) Amazon EKS
17 124 (1.19%) Amazon EC2
18 110 (1.05%) PowerApps
19 107 (1.03%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 404 (3.87%) Firewall
2 344 (3.30%) DNS
3 227 (2.18%) Network Security
4 179 (1.72%) VPN
5 168 (1.61%) WAN
6 166 (1.59%) DHCP
7 133 (1.27%) LAN
8 130 (1.25%) TCP/IP
9 115 (1.10%) BGP
10 112 (1.07%) Wi-Fi
11 83 (0.80%) VLAN
12 79 (0.76%) Wireless
13 74 (0.71%) OSPF
14 59 (0.57%) SAN
15 58 (0.56%) MPLS
15 58 (0.56%) SSL
16 57 (0.55%) VSAN
17 56 (0.54%) IPsec
18 50 (0.48%) SD-WAN
19 43 (0.41%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 307 (2.94%) Power BI
2 238 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
3 232 (2.22%) SQL Server
4 217 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
5 180 (1.73%) Metadata
6 168 (1.61%) Oracle Database
7 121 (1.16%) Relational Database
8 120 (1.15%) Data Lake
9 100 (0.96%) MongoDB
10 98 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
11 95 (0.91%) MySQL
12 87 (0.83%) NoSQL
13 79 (0.76%) Pentaho
14 64 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
15 56 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
16 50 (0.48%) Amazon Athena
17 49 (0.47%) Big Data
18 48 (0.46%) Amazon Aurora
19 39 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
19 39 (0.37%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 539 (5.17%) JIRA
2 503 (4.82%) Git
3 451 (4.32%) GitLab
4 441 (4.23%) Jenkins
5 131 (1.26%) Selenium
6 76 (0.73%) Postman
7 73 (0.70%) SonarQube
8 71 (0.68%) Cucumber
9 70 (0.67%) JUnit
9 70 (0.67%) Maven
10 64 (0.61%) JMeter
11 45 (0.43%) Gradle
12 41 (0.39%) Mockito
13 38 (0.36%) Gatling
14 37 (0.35%) REST Assured
15 36 (0.35%) Cypress.io
15 36 (0.35%) Visual Studio
16 34 (0.33%) Rational DOORS
17 33 (0.32%) Artifactory
17 33 (0.32%) Zephyr
General
1 2,419 (23.19%) Social Skills
2 2,090 (20.03%) Public Sector
3 881 (8.44%) Analytical Skills
4 701 (6.72%) Finance
5 424 (4.06%) Military
6 367 (3.52%) Aerospace
7 258 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
8 221 (2.12%) Influencing Skills
9 187 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
10 173 (1.66%) Manufacturing
11 150 (1.44%) Telecoms
12 140 (1.34%) Legal
13 127 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 126 (1.21%) Banking
15 113 (1.08%) Police
16 110 (1.05%) Law
17 62 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
18 50 (0.48%) Local Government
19 41 (0.39%) Aviation
19 41 (0.39%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 1,614 (15.47%) Architect
2 995 (9.54%) Senior
3 972 (9.32%) Developer
4 944 (9.05%) Lead
5 634 (6.08%) Analyst
6 599 (5.74%) Consultant
7 439 (4.21%) Data Engineer
8 424 (4.06%) DevOps Engineer
9 363 (3.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 278 (2.66%) Solutions Architect
11 260 (2.49%) Security Architect
12 257 (2.46%) Data Architect
13 252 (2.42%) Technical Architect
14 223 (2.14%) Software Engineer
15 217 (2.08%) Administrator
16 215 (2.06%) Network Engineer
17 189 (1.81%) Delivery Manager
18 188 (1.80%) Cloud Engineer
19 185 (1.77%) Designer
20 179 (1.72%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 911 (8.73%) Terraform
2 431 (4.13%) REST
3 214 (2.05%) Kafka
4 196 (1.88%) Spring
5 179 (1.72%) Spring Boot
6 171 (1.64%) SOAP
7 168 (1.61%) React
8 162 (1.55%) RESTful
9 153 (1.47%) .NET
10 127 (1.22%) Node.js
10 127 (1.22%) OAuth
11 125 (1.20%) JSON
12 120 (1.15%) HTML
13 112 (1.07%) XML
14 105 (1.01%) Middleware
15 99 (0.95%) Web Services
16 95 (0.91%) AngularJS
17 93 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
18 92 (0.88%) CSS
19 91 (0.87%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 470 (4.50%) Cloud Native
2 410 (3.93%) Onboarding
3 338 (3.24%) Product Ownership
4 266 (2.55%) Data Centre
5 200 (1.92%) Management Information System
6 168 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
7 162 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
7 162 (1.55%) PKI
8 152 (1.46%) CMDB
9 126 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
10 115 (1.10%) Cyber Threat
11 111 (1.06%) Operational Technology
11 111 (1.06%) Replication
12 105 (1.01%) Distributed Systems
13 98 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
14 86 (0.82%) Data Structures
14 86 (0.82%) Security Posture
15 83 (0.80%) Security Operations Centre
16 78 (0.75%) Clustering
17 76 (0.73%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 911 (8.73%) Windows
2 708 (6.79%) Linux
3 350 (3.35%) Windows Server
4 194 (1.86%) Unix
5 143 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 134 (1.28%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.76%) Solaris
8 60 (0.58%) Android
9 44 (0.42%) CentOS
10 43 (0.41%) macOS
11 41 (0.39%) Ubuntu
12 36 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
13 25 (0.24%) AIX
13 25 (0.24%) Apple iOS
14 24 (0.23%) Windows 7
15 23 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
16 21 (0.20%) VMS
17 18 (0.17%) Rocky
18 15 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
19 11 (0.11%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,165 (20.75%) Agile
2 1,577 (15.12%) CI/CD
3 1,569 (15.04%) DevOps
4 1,527 (14.64%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,350 (12.94%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,142 (10.95%) Problem-Solving
7 1,057 (10.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 926 (8.88%) Infrastructure as Code
9 864 (8.28%) Migration
10 827 (7.93%) Cybersecurity
11 740 (7.09%) ITIL
12 700 (6.71%) Roadmaps
13 696 (6.67%) Test Automation
14 684 (6.56%) AI
15 670 (6.42%) Technical Leadership
16 667 (6.39%) Containerisation
17 655 (6.28%) Decision-Making
18 633 (6.07%) Analytics
19 601 (5.76%) Software Engineering
20 584 (5.60%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 1,206 (11.56%) Python
2 972 (9.32%) SQL
3 644 (6.17%) Java
4 551 (5.28%) PowerShell
5 368 (3.53%) JavaScript
6 322 (3.09%) Bash
7 184 (1.76%) TypeScript
8 179 (1.72%) C#
9 121 (1.16%) Bicep
10 120 (1.15%) PL/SQL
11 69 (0.66%) Shell Script
12 57 (0.55%) C++
12 57 (0.55%) Groovy
13 49 (0.47%) Go
14 46 (0.44%) C
14 46 (0.44%) Scala
15 45 (0.43%) Kotlin
16 33 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 28 (0.27%) ABAP
17 28 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 7,815 (74.91%) SC Cleared
2 2,156 (20.67%) DV Cleared
3 492 (4.72%) BPSS Clearance
4 454 (4.35%) Degree
5 201 (1.93%) CISSP
6 168 (1.61%) Azure Certification
7 158 (1.51%) AWS Certification
8 149 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
8 149 (1.43%) Microsoft Certification
9 124 (1.19%) CISM
10 96 (0.92%) ISTQB
11 93 (0.89%) PMI Certification
12 83 (0.80%) PMP
13 75 (0.72%) CCNP
14 70 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
15 52 (0.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 49 (0.47%) CCNA
17 47 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
18 43 (0.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 40 (0.38%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 477 (4.57%) QA
2 355 (3.40%) Data Quality
3 300 (2.88%) NIST
4 292 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 272 (2.61%) NCSC
6 249 (2.39%) Accessibility
7 214 (2.05%) PMO
8 162 (1.55%) GDPR
8 162 (1.55%) SLA
9 144 (1.38%) GRC
10 74 (0.71%) WCAG
11 47 (0.45%) JSP 440
12 41 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
13 38 (0.36%) Def Stans
14 37 (0.35%) NIST 800
15 36 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 31 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
17 23 (0.22%) ISO 9001
18 21 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 19 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 704 (6.75%) Docker
2 581 (5.57%) Active Directory
3 402 (3.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 133 (1.27%) VMware ESXi
5 126 (1.21%) vSphere
6 124 (1.19%) VMware NSX
7 122 (1.17%) Hyper-V
8 84 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
9 45 (0.43%) Firmware
9 45 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
10 34 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
11 24 (0.23%) BitLocker
11 24 (0.23%) vCloud
12 20 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
13 14 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 13 (0.12%) NFS
15 11 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 10 (0.096%) KVM
17 9 (0.086%) Embedded Firmware
17 9 (0.086%) Squid
Systems Management
1 870 (8.34%) Kubernetes
2 409 (3.92%) Ansible
3 233 (2.23%) Grafana
4 167 (1.60%) Prometheus
5 138 (1.32%) SCCM
6 120 (1.15%) vCenter Server
7 100 (0.96%) Microsoft Intune
8 92 (0.88%) SCOM
9 60 (0.58%) Argo
10 52 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
11 48 (0.46%) Kibana
12 40 (0.38%) Puppet
13 34 (0.33%) Data Guard
13 34 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
14 31 (0.30%) VxRail
15 28 (0.27%) Control-M
16 27 (0.26%) Istio
16 27 (0.26%) NetBackup
17 24 (0.23%) Nagios
17 24 (0.23%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 1,430 (13.71%) Microsoft
2 819 (7.85%) Oracle
3 544 (5.21%) VMware
4 460 (4.41%) ServiceNow
5 405 (3.88%) SAP
6 258 (2.47%) Google
7 254 (2.43%) Cisco
8 192 (1.84%) Splunk
9 172 (1.65%) Databricks
10 117 (1.12%) Red Hat
11 112 (1.07%) Palo Alto
12 107 (1.03%) Salesforce
13 99 (0.95%) Informatica
14 95 (0.91%) Talend
15 94 (0.90%) Dynatrace
16 93 (0.89%) IBM
17 92 (0.88%) Remedy
18 84 (0.81%) CyberArk
19 71 (0.68%) Citrix
20 70 (0.67%) SolarWinds