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 3 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +2 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,026 5,098 6,227
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.97% 18.62% 19.00%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.02% 59.20% 62.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,085 3,300 4,092
10th Percentile £390 £350 £358
25th Percentile £459 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £549 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.14% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £700 £734
UK median daily rate £540 £537 £550
% change year-on-year +0.56% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 744 500 391
10th Percentile £20.50 £18.51 £15.73
25th Percentile £33.13 £18.87 £26.63
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -58.08% -
75th Percentile £79.00 £47.22 £72.50
90th Percentile £89.93 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £58.49
% change year-on-year +152.49% -57.00% -2.52%

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 14,527 8,611 9,917
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.84% 31.46% 30.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,784 5,431 6,235
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £634 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £707 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,128 677 639
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.18 £15.45
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £23.77
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -49.70% -8.36%
75th Percentile £74.00 £53.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £48.18
% change year-on-year +89.03% -47.80% -12.40%

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 3 September 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 3 September 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 3 September 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 3,571 £550 +3.77% 1,505
South East +1 2,318 £564 +4.98% 845
South West 0 1,383 £550 -0.90% 767
North of England +3 1,246 £515 +2.83% 635
Midlands 0 915 £475 -7.77% 276
West Midlands +1 779 £475 -7.77% 189
North West +2 733 £530 - 419
East of England 0 344 £550 - 379
Yorkshire +2 299 £500 +1.63% 119
North East 0 236 £475 -5.00% 118
East Midlands -2 127 £450 -10.00% 87
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
1 342 (3.41%) Confluence
2 250 (2.49%) SharePoint
3 152 (1.52%) SAS
4 115 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
5 91 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
6 90 (0.90%) Apache
7 87 (0.87%) Apache Spark
8 32 (0.32%) nginx
9 31 (0.31%) Jupyter
10 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
11 22 (0.22%) Skype for Business
11 22 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 19 (0.19%) Tomcat
13 17 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
14 16 (0.16%) CMS
15 14 (0.14%) IIS
16 13 (0.13%) JBoss
16 13 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
17 9 (0.090%) Documentum
17 9 (0.090%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 182 (1.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 136 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
3 98 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
4 91 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 27 (0.27%) MS Visio
6 24 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.17%) AutoCAD
7 17 (0.17%) Revit
8 16 (0.16%) SOLIDWORKS
9 13 (0.13%) Simulink
10 8 (0.080%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.080%) Windchill
11 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.060%) Sketch
12 5 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
13 3 (0.030%) OrCAD
13 3 (0.030%) Trello
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 124 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 77 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 47 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 27 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
6 27 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 22 (0.22%) Oracle Payroll
7 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
8 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
8 16 (0.16%) SAP HR
9 15 (0.15%) Primavera
10 14 (0.14%) SAP FI
11 13 (0.13%) Findur
12 12 (0.12%) iTrent
12 12 (0.12%) SAP GRC
12 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
13 11 (0.11%) Temenos T24
14 10 (0.100%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,851 (18.46%) Azure
2 1,681 (16.77%) AWS
3 449 (4.48%) Azure DevOps
4 435 (4.34%) Power Platform
5 425 (4.24%) GitHub
6 382 (3.81%) GCP
7 289 (2.88%) Microsoft 365
8 282 (2.81%) GitHub Actions
9 255 (2.54%) Entra ID
10 245 (2.44%) Serverless
11 206 (2.05%) Amazon S3
12 173 (1.73%) AWS Lambda
13 155 (1.55%) SaaS
14 152 (1.52%) OCI
15 139 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 133 (1.33%) OpenShift
17 126 (1.26%) Amazon EKS
18 120 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
19 104 (1.04%) PaaS
20 102 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 421 (4.20%) Firewall
2 343 (3.42%) DNS
3 207 (2.06%) Network Security
4 197 (1.96%) WAN
5 186 (1.86%) VPN
6 175 (1.75%) DHCP
7 160 (1.60%) LAN
8 132 (1.32%) BGP
9 126 (1.26%) TCP/IP
10 117 (1.17%) Wi-Fi
11 100 (1.00%) VLAN
12 93 (0.93%) OSPF
13 80 (0.80%) Wireless
14 64 (0.64%) IPsec
14 64 (0.64%) VSAN
15 62 (0.62%) SSL
16 58 (0.58%) MPLS
16 58 (0.58%) SD-WAN
17 55 (0.55%) SAN
18 45 (0.45%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 314 (3.13%) Power BI
2 251 (2.50%) SQL Server
3 241 (2.40%) PostgreSQL
4 228 (2.27%) Data Warehouse
5 160 (1.60%) Metadata
6 157 (1.57%) Oracle Database
7 118 (1.18%) Relational Database
8 117 (1.17%) Data Lake
9 97 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
10 91 (0.91%) MongoDB
10 91 (0.91%) MySQL
11 87 (0.87%) NoSQL
12 77 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
13 71 (0.71%) Pentaho
14 59 (0.59%) Amazon Athena
15 56 (0.56%) Tableau
16 53 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
17 50 (0.50%) Amazon Redshift
18 44 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
19 43 (0.43%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 537 (5.36%) JIRA
2 476 (4.75%) Git
3 427 (4.26%) GitLab
4 391 (3.90%) Jenkins
5 113 (1.13%) Selenium
6 72 (0.72%) SonarQube
7 67 (0.67%) Postman
8 65 (0.65%) JUnit
9 55 (0.55%) JMeter
9 55 (0.55%) Maven
10 47 (0.47%) Cucumber
11 39 (0.39%) Gradle
11 39 (0.39%) Mockito
12 35 (0.35%) Cypress.io
12 35 (0.35%) Rational DOORS
12 35 (0.35%) Zephyr
13 33 (0.33%) REST Assured
14 32 (0.32%) Artifactory
14 32 (0.32%) Gatling
15 30 (0.30%) Visual Studio
General
1 2,200 (21.94%) Social Skills
2 2,005 (20.00%) Public Sector
3 803 (8.01%) Analytical Skills
4 677 (6.75%) Finance
5 364 (3.63%) Military
6 285 (2.84%) Aerospace
7 251 (2.50%) Documentation Skills
8 185 (1.85%) Influencing Skills
9 158 (1.58%) Organisational Skills
10 149 (1.49%) Telecoms
11 140 (1.40%) Banking
12 130 (1.30%) Legal
13 112 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 107 (1.07%) Law
15 98 (0.98%) Manufacturing
16 91 (0.91%) Police
17 55 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
18 45 (0.45%) Marketing
19 44 (0.44%) Retail
20 40 (0.40%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,535 (15.31%) Architect
2 972 (9.69%) Developer
3 947 (9.45%) Lead
4 934 (9.32%) Senior
5 571 (5.70%) Consultant
6 559 (5.58%) Analyst
7 446 (4.45%) Data Engineer
8 408 (4.07%) DevOps Engineer
9 374 (3.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 267 (2.66%) Technical Architect
11 261 (2.60%) Software Engineer
12 245 (2.44%) Data Architect
12 245 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
13 231 (2.30%) Network Engineer
14 226 (2.25%) Security Architect
15 194 (1.93%) Administrator
16 186 (1.86%) Delivery Manager
17 184 (1.84%) Cloud Engineer
18 181 (1.81%) Java Developer
19 177 (1.77%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 868 (8.66%) Terraform
2 378 (3.77%) REST
3 207 (2.06%) Spring
4 196 (1.95%) Kafka
5 185 (1.85%) Spring Boot
6 177 (1.77%) React
7 175 (1.75%) .NET
8 165 (1.65%) RESTful
9 150 (1.50%) SOAP
10 129 (1.29%) JSON
11 127 (1.27%) Node.js
12 108 (1.08%) HTML
13 104 (1.04%) OAuth
14 102 (1.02%) AngularJS
15 98 (0.98%) Web Services
16 92 (0.92%) XML
17 88 (0.88%) PySpark
18 85 (0.85%) CSS
19 77 (0.77%) Middleware
19 77 (0.77%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 452 (4.51%) Cloud Native
2 373 (3.72%) Onboarding
3 309 (3.08%) Product Ownership
4 264 (2.63%) Data Centre
5 171 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
6 165 (1.65%) Management Information System
7 152 (1.52%) PKI
8 140 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
9 138 (1.38%) CMDB
10 123 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
11 116 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
12 112 (1.12%) Replication
12 112 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
13 92 (0.92%) Cyber Threat
14 86 (0.86%) Data Structures
14 86 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
15 85 (0.85%) Clustering
15 85 (0.85%) Operational Technology
16 83 (0.83%) Public Cloud
17 75 (0.75%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 882 (8.80%) Windows
2 696 (6.94%) Linux
3 344 (3.43%) Windows Server
4 199 (1.98%) Unix
5 141 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 127 (1.27%) Windows 10
7 64 (0.64%) Solaris
8 63 (0.63%) Android
9 48 (0.48%) Mac OS
10 39 (0.39%) CentOS
11 35 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.34%) Ubuntu
13 32 (0.32%) AIX
14 26 (0.26%) Apple iOS
15 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
16 19 (0.19%) VMS
16 19 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
17 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
18 16 (0.16%) Rocky
19 15 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,097 (20.92%) Agile
2 1,523 (15.19%) DevOps
3 1,461 (14.57%) CI/CD
4 1,314 (13.11%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,198 (11.95%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,065 (10.62%) Problem-Solving
7 989 (9.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 862 (8.60%) Infrastructure as Code
9 818 (8.16%) Migration
10 760 (7.58%) Cybersecurity
11 722 (7.20%) ITIL
12 636 (6.34%) Test Automation
13 619 (6.17%) Roadmaps
14 618 (6.16%) Analytics
15 611 (6.09%) Containerisation
16 607 (6.05%) Technical Leadership
17 602 (6.00%) AI
18 583 (5.81%) Software Engineering
19 570 (5.69%) Decision-Making
20 543 (5.42%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 1,147 (11.44%) Python
2 942 (9.40%) SQL
3 651 (6.49%) Java
4 528 (5.27%) PowerShell
5 334 (3.33%) JavaScript
6 290 (2.89%) Bash
7 190 (1.90%) C#
8 165 (1.65%) TypeScript
9 132 (1.32%) PL/SQL
10 108 (1.08%) Bicep
11 68 (0.68%) Shell Script
12 63 (0.63%) C++
13 56 (0.56%) C
14 46 (0.46%) Groovy
15 44 (0.44%) Go
16 40 (0.40%) Kotlin
16 40 (0.40%) Scala
17 31 (0.31%) Apex Code
17 31 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 29 (0.29%) R
Qualifications
1 7,525 (75.05%) SC Cleared
2 2,052 (20.47%) DV Cleared
3 415 (4.14%) Degree
4 383 (3.82%) BPSS Clearance
5 187 (1.87%) CISSP
6 160 (1.60%) Azure Certification
7 152 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
8 149 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
9 135 (1.35%) AWS Certification
10 116 (1.16%) CISM
11 100 (1.00%) PMI Certification
12 95 (0.95%) PMP
13 80 (0.80%) ISTQB
14 74 (0.74%) CCNP
15 62 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
15 62 (0.62%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 55 (0.55%) CCNA
17 44 (0.44%) TOGAF Certification
18 41 (0.41%) ITIL Certification
18 41 (0.41%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 441 (4.40%) QA
2 325 (3.24%) Data Quality
3 282 (2.81%) NIST
4 276 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 237 (2.36%) NCSC
6 223 (2.22%) PMO
7 216 (2.15%) Accessibility
8 153 (1.53%) GDPR
9 144 (1.44%) SLA
10 128 (1.28%) GRC
11 69 (0.69%) WCAG
12 60 (0.60%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 41 (0.41%) NIST 800
15 34 (0.34%) Def Stans
16 25 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 24 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 20 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
19 19 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
19 19 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 673 (6.71%) Docker
2 529 (5.28%) Active Directory
3 386 (3.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 138 (1.38%) VMware ESXi
4 138 (1.38%) VMware NSX
5 120 (1.20%) vSphere
6 116 (1.16%) Hyper-V
7 79 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
8 41 (0.41%) Firmware
8 41 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
9 39 (0.39%) Oracle RAC
10 27 (0.27%) vCloud
11 25 (0.25%) BitLocker
12 11 (0.11%) Postfix
12 11 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
13 10 (0.100%) NFS
13 10 (0.100%) Squid
14 9 (0.090%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 9 (0.090%) KVM
15 8 (0.080%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 809 (8.07%) Kubernetes
2 405 (4.04%) Ansible
3 224 (2.23%) Grafana
4 176 (1.76%) Prometheus
5 135 (1.35%) vCenter Server
6 126 (1.26%) SCCM
7 87 (0.87%) SCOM
8 84 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
9 63 (0.63%) Argo
10 48 (0.48%) Puppet
10 48 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
11 46 (0.46%) Oracle RMAN
12 37 (0.37%) Data Guard
13 30 (0.30%) Progress Chef
14 29 (0.29%) Kibana
15 28 (0.28%) Control-M
15 28 (0.28%) WSUS
16 26 (0.26%) Nagios
17 25 (0.25%) Istio
18 24 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,313 (13.10%) Microsoft
2 792 (7.90%) Oracle
3 552 (5.51%) VMware
4 476 (4.75%) ServiceNow
5 392 (3.91%) SAP
6 284 (2.83%) Cisco
7 222 (2.21%) Google
8 201 (2.00%) Splunk
9 186 (1.86%) Databricks
10 128 (1.28%) Red Hat
11 123 (1.23%) Salesforce
12 115 (1.15%) Palo Alto
13 106 (1.06%) IBM
14 98 (0.98%) Informatica
15 96 (0.96%) Talend
16 87 (0.87%) Remedy
17 84 (0.84%) Dynatrace
18 76 (0.76%) CyberArk
19 75 (0.75%) SolarWinds
20 73 (0.73%) Juniper