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

6 months to
1 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 9,254 4,520 6,988
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.13% 18.65% 18.97%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.46% 59.25% 62.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,450 2,989 4,575
10th Percentile £377 £348 £353
25th Percentile £450 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £537 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £714 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 777 282 513
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.63 £24.66 £21.46
Median hourly rate £55.00 £40.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year +37.50% -29.19% -5.85%
75th Percentile £74.26 £66.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.00 £84.44
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £32.50 £55.80
% change year-on-year +69.23% -41.76% -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 13,322 7,629 11,268
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.85% 31.47% 30.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,938 4,831 6,988
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £650
90th Percentile £723 £713 £745
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £530
% change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,007 447 1,001
10th Percentile £17.11 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.27 £18.35
Median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.25%
75th Percentile £73.00 £66.63 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.25 £81.01 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £48.61 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.57% -18.75% -27.27%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +6 3,306 £525 - 591
South East +1 2,222 £550 - 555
South West 0 1,259 £538 -4.44% 444
North of England 0 942 £500 - 311
Midlands +3 875 £470 -10.49% 157
West Midlands +3 750 £470 -10.48% 119
North West -1 522 £514 +2.75% 185
East of England +2 384 £550 +10.00% 145
Yorkshire -7 239 £488 -1.71% 67
North East +1 213 £475 -1.04% 60
East Midlands -2 118 £444 -13.41% 38
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
1 328 (3.54%) Confluence
2 210 (2.27%) SharePoint
3 123 (1.33%) SAS
4 122 (1.32%) Microsoft Exchange
5 80 (0.86%) Apache Spark
6 77 (0.83%) Apache
7 69 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
8 34 (0.37%) nginx
9 33 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 31 (0.33%) Jupyter
11 18 (0.19%) IIS
11 18 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 17 (0.18%) Tomcat
13 15 (0.16%) Skype for Business
14 14 (0.15%) CMS
14 14 (0.15%) Oracle Application Server
14 14 (0.15%) Tuxedo
15 9 (0.097%) NetWeaver
16 8 (0.086%) Apache Superset
16 8 (0.086%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 161 (1.74%) Microsoft Excel
2 149 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
3 77 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
4 76 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 38 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.15%) Simulink
8 8 (0.086%) SOLIDWORKS
9 7 (0.076%) AutoCAD
9 7 (0.076%) Revit
10 5 (0.054%) Notepad++
11 4 (0.043%) Siemens NX
12 3 (0.032%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.032%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.032%) Sketch
12 3 (0.032%) Windchill
13 2 (0.022%) CATIA
13 2 (0.022%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.022%) Lectora
13 2 (0.022%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 88 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 52 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
3 36 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 30 (0.32%) Teamcenter
5 27 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
6 26 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
7 16 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
8 14 (0.15%) Maximo
8 14 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
9 13 (0.14%) Findur
9 13 (0.14%) SAP PSCD
10 12 (0.13%) iTrent
10 12 (0.13%) Temenos T24
11 9 (0.097%) Integrated Workplace Management System
11 9 (0.097%) Oracle Assets
11 9 (0.097%) Primavera
11 9 (0.097%) SAP ERP
11 9 (0.097%) SAP HCM
12 8 (0.086%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 8 (0.086%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 1,583 (17.11%) Azure
2 1,516 (16.38%) AWS
3 368 (3.98%) GitHub
4 361 (3.90%) GCP
5 344 (3.72%) Azure DevOps
6 336 (3.63%) Power Platform
7 230 (2.49%) Microsoft 365
7 230 (2.49%) Serverless
8 225 (2.43%) Entra ID
9 216 (2.33%) GitHub Actions
10 192 (2.07%) Amazon S3
11 158 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
12 140 (1.51%) Amazon EC2
13 130 (1.40%) PaaS
14 125 (1.35%) OpenShift
15 119 (1.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 115 (1.24%) OCI
17 113 (1.22%) SaaS
18 104 (1.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 93 (1.00%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 424 (4.58%) Firewall
2 277 (2.99%) DNS
3 222 (2.40%) Network Security
4 218 (2.36%) WAN
5 199 (2.15%) LAN
6 158 (1.71%) VPN
7 150 (1.62%) DHCP
8 144 (1.56%) BGP
9 123 (1.33%) OSPF
10 111 (1.20%) Wi-Fi
11 108 (1.17%) VLAN
12 100 (1.08%) TCP/IP
13 80 (0.86%) Wireless
14 60 (0.65%) MPLS
15 59 (0.64%) SAN
16 56 (0.61%) VXLAN
17 55 (0.59%) Structured Cabling
18 51 (0.55%) IPsec
18 51 (0.55%) SD-WAN
19 47 (0.51%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 253 (2.73%) Power BI
2 218 (2.36%) PostgreSQL
3 202 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
4 190 (2.05%) SQL Server
5 117 (1.26%) Oracle Database
6 113 (1.22%) Metadata
7 103 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
8 92 (0.99%) Data Lake
9 86 (0.93%) MongoDB
10 81 (0.88%) Relational Database
11 77 (0.83%) Pentaho
12 74 (0.80%) NoSQL
13 70 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
14 68 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
15 64 (0.69%) MySQL
16 60 (0.65%) Tableau
17 58 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
18 54 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
19 51 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
20 41 (0.44%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 523 (5.65%) JIRA
2 392 (4.24%) Git
3 364 (3.93%) GitLab
4 349 (3.77%) Jenkins
5 99 (1.07%) Selenium
6 73 (0.79%) Postman
7 71 (0.77%) JUnit
8 62 (0.67%) SonarQube
9 59 (0.64%) Rational DOORS
10 52 (0.56%) Artifactory
11 48 (0.52%) JMeter
12 42 (0.45%) Cucumber
13 40 (0.43%) Bitbucket
14 39 (0.42%) Maven
14 39 (0.42%) Mockito
15 35 (0.38%) Visual Studio
16 33 (0.36%) Zephyr
17 31 (0.33%) Cypress.io
17 31 (0.33%) REST Assured
18 24 (0.26%) Gatling
General
1 1,952 (21.09%) Public Sector
2 1,902 (20.55%) Social Skills
3 644 (6.96%) Analytical Skills
4 620 (6.70%) Finance
5 312 (3.37%) Military
6 267 (2.89%) Documentation Skills
7 241 (2.60%) Aerospace
8 140 (1.51%) Legal
9 113 (1.22%) Banking
10 110 (1.19%) Telecoms
11 108 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
12 101 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
13 89 (0.96%) Law
13 89 (0.96%) Manufacturing
14 77 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
15 55 (0.59%) Police
16 54 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 51 (0.55%) Marketing
18 39 (0.42%) Electronics
18 39 (0.42%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,345 (14.53%) Architect
2 844 (9.12%) Developer
3 782 (8.45%) Senior
4 664 (7.18%) Lead
5 646 (6.98%) Analyst
6 456 (4.93%) Data Engineer
7 413 (4.46%) Consultant
8 412 (4.45%) DevOps Engineer
9 281 (3.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 276 (2.98%) Software Engineer
11 269 (2.91%) Network Engineer
12 265 (2.86%) Technical Architect
13 233 (2.52%) Business Analyst
14 214 (2.31%) Project Manager
15 213 (2.30%) Solutions Architect
16 186 (2.01%) Security Architect
17 185 (2.00%) Azure Engineer
18 177 (1.91%) Designer
19 175 (1.89%) Delivery Manager
20 174 (1.88%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 293 (3.17%) REST
2 207 (2.24%) Spring
3 171 (1.85%) Spring Boot
4 168 (1.82%) React
5 153 (1.65%) .NET
5 153 (1.65%) Node.js
6 149 (1.61%) Kafka
7 147 (1.59%) LDAP
8 139 (1.50%) SOAP
9 131 (1.42%) RESTful
10 112 (1.21%) AngularJS
11 110 (1.19%) JSON
12 102 (1.10%) Web Services
13 95 (1.03%) PySpark
14 90 (0.97%) OAuth
15 79 (0.85%) HTML
15 79 (0.85%) Oracle Fusion
15 79 (0.85%) XML
16 69 (0.75%) Middleware
16 69 (0.75%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 326 (3.52%) Cloud Native
2 300 (3.24%) Product Ownership
3 290 (3.13%) Data Centre
4 264 (2.85%) Onboarding
5 144 (1.56%) Management Information System
6 141 (1.52%) PKI
7 130 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
8 118 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
8 118 (1.28%) Security Posture
9 114 (1.23%) Replication
10 113 (1.22%) Distributed Systems
11 92 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
12 86 (0.93%) Clustering
13 80 (0.86%) Data Structures
13 80 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
14 73 (0.79%) Public Cloud
15 69 (0.75%) CMDB
15 69 (0.75%) Security Operations Centre
16 67 (0.72%) Operational Technology
17 64 (0.69%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 757 (8.18%) Windows
2 641 (6.93%) Linux
3 235 (2.54%) Windows Server
4 176 (1.90%) Unix
5 115 (1.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 83 (0.90%) Windows 10
7 81 (0.88%) Android
8 51 (0.55%) Apple iOS
9 48 (0.52%) Solaris
10 36 (0.39%) Mac OS
11 35 (0.38%) Ubuntu
12 25 (0.27%) AIX
12 25 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
13 23 (0.25%) CentOS
13 23 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
14 20 (0.22%) VMS
15 15 (0.16%) Windows 7
16 12 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
17 10 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
18 9 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,802 (19.47%) Agile
2 1,413 (15.27%) DevOps
3 1,238 (13.38%) CI/CD
4 968 (10.46%) Problem-Solving
5 911 (9.84%) Stakeholder Management
6 854 (9.23%) Continuous Improvement
7 770 (8.32%) Migration
8 706 (7.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 643 (6.95%) Infrastructure as Code
10 585 (6.32%) Cybersecurity
11 572 (6.18%) ITIL
12 540 (5.84%) Test Automation
13 531 (5.74%) Analytics
14 526 (5.68%) Software Engineering
15 512 (5.53%) Roadmaps
16 490 (5.30%) Containerisation
17 479 (5.18%) Data Modelling
18 447 (4.83%) Decision-Making
19 422 (4.56%) Scrum
20 408 (4.41%) AI
Programming Languages
1 971 (10.49%) Python
2 851 (9.20%) SQL
3 559 (6.04%) Java
4 491 (5.31%) PowerShell
5 275 (2.97%) JavaScript
6 195 (2.11%) C#
7 181 (1.96%) Bash
8 138 (1.49%) TypeScript
9 101 (1.09%) PL/SQL
10 88 (0.95%) C++
11 85 (0.92%) Shell Script
12 59 (0.64%) Go
13 57 (0.62%) Scala
14 55 (0.59%) Bicep
14 55 (0.59%) C
15 48 (0.52%) Ruby
16 45 (0.49%) Ada
17 42 (0.45%) Apex Code
18 36 (0.39%) MATLAB
19 35 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 6,972 (75.34%) SC Cleared
2 1,774 (19.17%) DV Cleared
3 397 (4.29%) Degree
4 252 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
5 186 (2.01%) Cisco Certification
6 157 (1.70%) CISSP
7 120 (1.30%) Azure Certification
8 114 (1.23%) CCNP
9 101 (1.09%) CISM
10 93 (1.00%) Microsoft Certification
11 90 (0.97%) AWS Certification
12 79 (0.85%) CCNA
13 74 (0.80%) PMP
14 65 (0.70%) PMI Certification
15 61 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
16 59 (0.64%) ISTQB
17 55 (0.59%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 52 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
19 46 (0.50%) GIAC
20 35 (0.38%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 341 (3.68%) QA
2 274 (2.96%) NIST
3 270 (2.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 268 (2.90%) Data Quality
5 185 (2.00%) NCSC
6 167 (1.80%) Accessibility
7 153 (1.65%) GDPR
8 151 (1.63%) PMO
9 104 (1.12%) SLA
10 63 (0.68%) GRC
11 59 (0.64%) JSP 440
12 52 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
13 38 (0.41%) NIST 800
14 36 (0.39%) WCAG
15 32 (0.35%) Def Stans
16 28 (0.30%) RMADS
17 22 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
18 21 (0.23%) COBIT
18 21 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 21 (0.23%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 558 (6.03%) Docker
2 429 (4.64%) Active Directory
3 273 (2.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 104 (1.12%) VMware ESXi
5 96 (1.04%) VMware NSX
6 76 (0.82%) vSphere
7 73 (0.79%) Hyper-V
8 64 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
9 34 (0.37%) Firmware
10 28 (0.30%) Oracle RAC
11 21 (0.23%) BitLocker
12 20 (0.22%) vCloud
13 19 (0.21%) NFS
13 19 (0.21%) Postfix
14 18 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
15 16 (0.17%) Squid
16 15 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 8 (0.086%) Microsoft App-V
18 7 (0.076%) KVM
19 6 (0.065%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 709 (7.66%) Terraform
2 706 (7.63%) Kubernetes
3 334 (3.61%) Ansible
4 230 (2.49%) Grafana
5 187 (2.02%) Prometheus
6 109 (1.18%) vCenter Server
7 81 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
8 69 (0.75%) SCCM
9 59 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 50 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
11 47 (0.51%) FortiGate
12 45 (0.49%) Argo
13 39 (0.42%) Puppet
14 37 (0.40%) Podman
15 34 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
15 34 (0.37%) SCOM
16 30 (0.32%) Progress Chef
17 29 (0.31%) Nagios
18 21 (0.23%) Packer
18 21 (0.23%) WSUS
Vendors
1 958 (10.35%) Microsoft
2 599 (6.47%) Oracle
3 461 (4.98%) VMware
4 369 (3.99%) ServiceNow
5 330 (3.57%) Cisco
6 303 (3.27%) SAP
7 212 (2.29%) Splunk
8 181 (1.96%) Databricks
9 153 (1.65%) Red Hat
10 148 (1.60%) Google
11 122 (1.32%) Palo Alto
12 121 (1.31%) Talend
13 114 (1.23%) Salesforce
14 111 (1.20%) IBM
15 101 (1.09%) Juniper
16 93 (1.00%) CyberArk
17 85 (0.92%) Informatica
18 83 (0.90%) F5
18 83 (0.90%) Fortinet
19 78 (0.84%) Dynatrace