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

6 months to
29 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 9,883 5,014 6,551
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.04% 18.23% 19.23%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.63% 58.57% 62.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,942 3,247 4,354
10th Percentile £381 £339 £352
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.37% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £633 £625 £644
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £535 £530 £550
% change year-on-year +0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 764 456 483
10th Percentile £19.33 £18.51 £15.50
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.11
Median hourly rate £64.55 £25.15 £57.44
Median % change year-on-year +156.64% -56.22% -4.27%
75th Percentile £80.41 £56.00 £72.11
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £25.15 £55.00
% change year-on-year +151.03% -54.27% -8.33%

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 14,193 8,560 10,412
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.66% 31.12% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,579 5,401 6,622
10th Percentile £350 £290 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £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 1,073 641 811
10th Percentile £18.20 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.79 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.30%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 3,491 £548 +4.38% 627
South East +1 2,440 £550 +2.33% 499
South West 0 1,311 £538 -6.52% 339
North of England +2 1,107 £501 +0.10% 281
Midlands +3 958 £469 -6.20% 164
West Midlands +1 822 £469 -6.20% 123
North West 0 595 £525 -0.38% 155
East of England 0 321 £563 +5.14% 129
Yorkshire +3 299 £500 +1.63% 60
North East 0 237 £475 -5.00% 66
East Midlands +1 124 £428 -7.57% 41
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
1 357 (3.61%) Confluence
2 246 (2.49%) SharePoint
3 167 (1.69%) SAS
4 112 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
5 87 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 86 (0.87%) Apache Spark
7 80 (0.81%) Apache
8 37 (0.37%) nginx
9 34 (0.34%) WebLogic
10 31 (0.31%) Jupyter
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 20 (0.20%) Oracle Application Server
13 16 (0.16%) IIS
13 16 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 15 (0.15%) CMS
14 15 (0.15%) Palantir Foundry
15 13 (0.13%) Skype for Business
16 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
17 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
18 10 (0.10%) JBoss
Applications
1 188 (1.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 122 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
3 99 (1.00%) Microsoft Project
4 73 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 35 (0.35%) MS Visio
6 24 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.13%) AutoCAD
7 13 (0.13%) Revit
7 13 (0.13%) Simulink
7 13 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
8 9 (0.091%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.061%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.061%) Sketch
10 5 (0.051%) Notepad++
11 4 (0.040%) Trello
12 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.020%) Houdini
13 2 (0.020%) InDesign
13 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 122 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 71 (0.72%) Remedy ITSM
3 42 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
4 35 (0.35%) Teamcenter
5 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 23 (0.23%) SAP PSCD
7 20 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
8 16 (0.16%) Primavera
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
10 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payroll
11 13 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
11 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
12 12 (0.12%) iTrent
12 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
14 10 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
14 10 (0.10%) SAP HR
15 9 (0.091%) Salesforce CRM
15 9 (0.091%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,769 (17.90%) Azure
2 1,647 (16.66%) AWS
3 422 (4.27%) Azure DevOps
4 417 (4.22%) Power Platform
5 407 (4.12%) GitHub
6 362 (3.66%) GCP
7 269 (2.72%) Microsoft 365
8 259 (2.62%) GitHub Actions
9 240 (2.43%) Entra ID
10 239 (2.42%) Serverless
11 220 (2.23%) Amazon S3
12 168 (1.70%) AWS Lambda
13 147 (1.49%) OCI
14 144 (1.46%) Amazon EC2
15 143 (1.45%) SaaS
16 138 (1.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 129 (1.31%) OpenShift
18 125 (1.26%) PaaS
19 118 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
20 111 (1.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 418 (4.23%) Firewall
2 327 (3.31%) DNS
3 209 (2.11%) Network Security
4 206 (2.08%) WAN
5 179 (1.81%) LAN
6 168 (1.70%) VPN
7 164 (1.66%) DHCP
8 137 (1.39%) BGP
9 120 (1.21%) TCP/IP
10 112 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
11 109 (1.10%) OSPF
12 99 (1.00%) VLAN
13 83 (0.84%) Wireless
14 61 (0.62%) IPsec
15 59 (0.60%) VSAN
16 58 (0.59%) MPLS
17 56 (0.57%) SD-WAN
17 56 (0.57%) VXLAN
18 54 (0.55%) SAN
19 51 (0.52%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 313 (3.17%) Power BI
2 249 (2.52%) SQL Server
3 244 (2.47%) PostgreSQL
4 231 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
5 142 (1.44%) Oracle Database
6 125 (1.26%) Metadata
7 110 (1.11%) Data Lake
8 98 (0.99%) Relational Database
9 97 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
10 87 (0.88%) Pentaho
11 83 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
12 81 (0.82%) MySQL
13 70 (0.71%) MongoDB
14 69 (0.70%) NoSQL
15 63 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
15 63 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
16 57 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
17 56 (0.57%) Tableau
18 44 (0.45%) Big Data
19 41 (0.41%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 562 (5.69%) JIRA
2 467 (4.73%) Git
3 390 (3.95%) GitLab
4 375 (3.79%) Jenkins
5 98 (0.99%) Selenium
6 76 (0.77%) SonarQube
7 75 (0.76%) JUnit
8 59 (0.60%) Postman
9 57 (0.58%) Maven
10 53 (0.54%) Rational DOORS
11 51 (0.52%) JMeter
12 47 (0.48%) Cucumber
13 43 (0.44%) Mockito
14 38 (0.38%) Zephyr
15 37 (0.37%) Bitbucket
15 37 (0.37%) Visual Studio
16 35 (0.35%) Artifactory
17 32 (0.32%) Cypress.io
17 32 (0.32%) REST Assured
18 29 (0.29%) Gatling
General
1 2,080 (21.05%) Public Sector
2 2,037 (20.61%) Social Skills
3 744 (7.53%) Analytical Skills
4 694 (7.02%) Finance
5 341 (3.45%) Military
6 272 (2.75%) Aerospace
7 241 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
8 160 (1.62%) Influencing Skills
9 141 (1.43%) Legal
10 131 (1.33%) Organisational Skills
11 127 (1.29%) Telecoms
12 118 (1.19%) Banking
13 98 (0.99%) Law
14 91 (0.92%) Police
15 83 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 79 (0.80%) Manufacturing
17 75 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
18 39 (0.39%) Marketing
19 36 (0.36%) Retail
20 35 (0.35%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 1,462 (14.79%) Architect
2 1,032 (10.44%) Developer
3 909 (9.20%) Senior
4 875 (8.85%) Lead
5 604 (6.11%) Analyst
6 493 (4.99%) Consultant
7 470 (4.76%) Data Engineer
8 391 (3.96%) DevOps Engineer
9 354 (3.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 294 (2.97%) Software Engineer
11 260 (2.63%) Technical Architect
12 239 (2.42%) Network Engineer
12 239 (2.42%) Solutions Architect
13 235 (2.38%) Security Architect
14 197 (1.99%) Java Developer
15 194 (1.96%) Data Architect
16 193 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
17 190 (1.92%) Project Manager
18 186 (1.88%) Administrator
19 184 (1.86%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 357 (3.61%) REST
2 223 (2.26%) Spring
3 187 (1.89%) Spring Boot
4 180 (1.82%) .NET
5 172 (1.74%) Kafka
6 169 (1.71%) React
7 160 (1.62%) RESTful
8 152 (1.54%) SOAP
9 142 (1.44%) Node.js
10 128 (1.30%) JSON
11 123 (1.24%) AngularJS
12 105 (1.06%) Web Services
13 101 (1.02%) OAuth
14 94 (0.95%) HTML
15 88 (0.89%) PySpark
16 83 (0.84%) XML
17 69 (0.70%) CSS
17 69 (0.70%) Oracle Fusion
18 66 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
19 65 (0.66%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 404 (4.09%) Cloud Native
2 345 (3.49%) Onboarding
3 316 (3.20%) Product Ownership
4 281 (2.84%) Data Centre
5 179 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
6 152 (1.54%) Management Information System
7 146 (1.48%) PKI
8 143 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
9 119 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
10 110 (1.11%) CMDB
11 108 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
12 101 (1.02%) Data Structures
13 99 (1.00%) Clustering
14 97 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
15 89 (0.90%) Replication
16 80 (0.81%) Public Cloud
17 76 (0.77%) Security Posture
17 76 (0.77%) Virtual Team
18 73 (0.74%) Security Operations Centre
19 70 (0.71%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 822 (8.32%) Windows
2 687 (6.95%) Linux
3 281 (2.84%) Windows Server
4 204 (2.06%) Unix
5 141 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 91 (0.92%) Windows 10
7 78 (0.79%) Android
8 64 (0.65%) Solaris
9 43 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 41 (0.41%) Apple iOS
11 36 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.34%) AIX
13 30 (0.30%) CentOS
14 29 (0.29%) Ubuntu
15 17 (0.17%) VMS
15 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
16 14 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
17 13 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
18 11 (0.11%) Rocky
19 10 (0.10%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,067 (20.91%) Agile
2 1,512 (15.30%) DevOps
3 1,393 (14.09%) CI/CD
4 1,101 (11.14%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,088 (11.01%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,051 (10.63%) Problem-Solving
7 891 (9.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 768 (7.77%) Migration
9 761 (7.70%) Infrastructure as Code
10 681 (6.89%) ITIL
11 666 (6.74%) Cybersecurity
12 616 (6.23%) Analytics
13 594 (6.01%) Software Engineering
14 591 (5.98%) Test Automation
15 589 (5.96%) Containerisation
16 575 (5.82%) Roadmaps
17 540 (5.46%) AI
18 537 (5.43%) Decision-Making
19 534 (5.40%) Data Modelling
20 502 (5.08%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 1,075 (10.88%) Python
2 961 (9.72%) SQL
3 670 (6.78%) Java
4 462 (4.67%) PowerShell
5 313 (3.17%) JavaScript
6 252 (2.55%) Bash
7 208 (2.10%) C#
8 147 (1.49%) PL/SQL
9 139 (1.41%) TypeScript
10 87 (0.88%) Bicep
11 84 (0.85%) Shell Script
12 76 (0.77%) C++
13 60 (0.61%) C
14 48 (0.49%) Go
15 42 (0.42%) Kotlin
16 40 (0.40%) Scala
17 39 (0.39%) Apex Code
17 39 (0.39%) Groovy
18 36 (0.36%) Ruby
19 33 (0.33%) Ada
Qualifications
1 7,423 (75.11%) SC Cleared
2 2,024 (20.48%) DV Cleared
3 411 (4.16%) Degree
4 344 (3.48%) BPSS Clearance
5 177 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
6 158 (1.60%) CISSP
7 147 (1.49%) Azure Certification
8 131 (1.33%) Microsoft Certification
9 115 (1.16%) AWS Certification
10 99 (1.00%) PMI Certification
11 94 (0.95%) PMP
12 91 (0.92%) CISM
13 83 (0.84%) CCNP
14 74 (0.75%) CCNA
15 70 (0.71%) ISTQB
16 62 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 57 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
18 45 (0.46%) TOGAF Certification
19 43 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
20 37 (0.37%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 380 (3.84%) QA
2 315 (3.19%) Data Quality
3 266 (2.69%) NIST
4 260 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 212 (2.15%) Accessibility
6 207 (2.09%) PMO
7 204 (2.06%) NCSC
8 153 (1.55%) GDPR
9 115 (1.16%) GRC
10 111 (1.12%) SLA
11 62 (0.63%) WCAG
12 58 (0.59%) JSP 440
13 47 (0.48%) NIST 800
14 41 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
15 30 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
16 28 (0.28%) Def Stans
16 28 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 23 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 19 (0.19%) RMADS
19 16 (0.16%) COBIT
System Software
1 643 (6.51%) Docker
2 456 (4.61%) Active Directory
3 349 (3.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 135 (1.37%) VMware NSX
5 130 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
6 102 (1.03%) vSphere
7 89 (0.90%) Hyper-V
8 74 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
9 42 (0.42%) Oracle RAC
10 36 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
11 28 (0.28%) Firmware
12 22 (0.22%) vCloud
13 20 (0.20%) BitLocker
14 18 (0.18%) Postfix
15 15 (0.15%) NFS
16 13 (0.13%) Squid
17 9 (0.091%) KVM
18 8 (0.081%) Microsoft App-V
19 7 (0.071%) UAG
20 6 (0.061%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 829 (8.39%) Terraform
2 766 (7.75%) Kubernetes
3 371 (3.75%) Ansible
4 227 (2.30%) Grafana
5 176 (1.78%) Prometheus
6 129 (1.31%) vCenter Server
7 95 (0.96%) SCCM
8 76 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
9 65 (0.66%) Argo
10 61 (0.62%) SCOM
11 50 (0.51%) Oracle RMAN
11 50 (0.51%) Puppet
12 46 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
13 42 (0.42%) FortiGate
14 33 (0.33%) Data Guard
15 29 (0.29%) Progress Chef
16 28 (0.28%) Nagios
17 25 (0.25%) Podman
18 24 (0.24%) WSUS
19 23 (0.23%) Control-M
Vendors
1 1,149 (11.63%) Microsoft
2 772 (7.81%) Oracle
3 511 (5.17%) VMware
4 489 (4.95%) ServiceNow
5 365 (3.69%) SAP
6 285 (2.88%) Cisco
7 187 (1.89%) Google
8 183 (1.85%) Splunk
9 175 (1.77%) Databricks
10 141 (1.43%) Red Hat
11 133 (1.35%) Salesforce
12 125 (1.26%) Talend
13 114 (1.15%) Informatica
14 111 (1.12%) IBM
15 101 (1.02%) Palo Alto
16 99 (1.00%) Juniper
17 90 (0.91%) SolarWinds
18 86 (0.87%) F5
19 80 (0.81%) Remedy
20 78 (0.79%) Citrix