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

6 months to
13 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 10,381 5,384 5,805
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.30% 19.29% 18.16%
As % of the Qualifications category 68.87% 60.25% 61.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,224 3,486 3,641
10th Percentile £400 £325 £350
25th Percentile £463 £445 £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 831 567 331
10th Percentile £20.50 £18.22 £21.25
25th Percentile £29.07 £18.87 £36.63
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 £70.75
90th Percentile £91.31 £71.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £64.05 £25.15 £58.38
% change year-on-year +154.65% -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 15,073 8,936 9,512
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.38% 32.01% 29.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,009 5,683 5,769
10th Percentile £353 £292 £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 £712 £732
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,315 751 497
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £19.62
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.41
Median hourly rate £48.81 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +94.08% -52.10% -1.87%
75th Percentile £74.00 £43.00 £69.69
90th Percentile £90.60 £72.50 £75.74
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.35%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 3,718 £550 +0.92% 1,363
South East +1 2,286 £572 +8.95% 750
South West 0 1,378 £550 - 523
North of England +2 1,310 £512 -1.46% 536
Midlands 0 954 £475 -8.39% 285
West Midlands 0 804 £474 -8.85% 190
North West +1 797 £525 -4.98% 295
East of England 0 450 £550 - 231
Yorkshire -1 294 £488 -0.91% 92
North East 0 237 £470 -10.48% 150
East Midlands +1 142 £500 +9.59% 94
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 (3.26%) Confluence
2 241 (2.32%) SharePoint
3 150 (1.44%) SAS
4 105 (1.01%) Microsoft Exchange
5 98 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
6 94 (0.91%) Apache Spark
7 93 (0.90%) Apache
8 40 (0.39%) nginx
9 39 (0.38%) 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 (0.087%) Documentum
Applications
1 189 (1.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 126 (1.21%) Microsoft Office
3 94 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
4 91 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 29 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 29 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
6 21 (0.20%) AutoCAD
7 20 (0.19%) Windchill
8 19 (0.18%) Revit
9 18 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
10 10 (0.096%) Simulink
11 9 (0.087%) Chatbot
12 7 (0.067%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.048%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 5 (0.048%) Sketch
14 4 (0.039%) OrCAD
14 4 (0.039%) Trello
15 2 (0.019%) Gliffy
15 2 (0.019%) NUKE
15 2 (0.019%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 133 (1.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 79 (0.76%) Remedy ITSM
3 54 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
4 43 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
5 42 (0.40%) Teamcenter
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 (0.13%) Maximo
13 13 (0.13%) NetSuite
13 13 (0.13%) Primavera
13 13 (0.13%) SAP BRIM
13 13 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
14 12 (0.12%) SAP PP
14 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,854 (17.86%) Azure
2 1,675 (16.14%) AWS
3 458 (4.41%) Azure DevOps
4 437 (4.21%) Power Platform
5 425 (4.09%) GitHub
6 385 (3.71%) GCP
7 303 (2.92%) Entra ID
8 300 (2.89%) Microsoft 365
9 297 (2.86%) GitHub Actions
10 229 (2.21%) Serverless
11 203 (1.96%) Amazon S3
12 162 (1.56%) AWS Lambda
13 157 (1.51%) OCI
14 145 (1.40%) SaaS
15 144 (1.39%) Amazon EKS
15 144 (1.39%) OpenShift
16 143 (1.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 124 (1.19%) Amazon EC2
18 110 (1.06%) PowerApps
19 105 (1.01%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 402 (3.87%) Firewall
2 345 (3.32%) DNS
3 228 (2.20%) Network Security
4 179 (1.72%) VPN
5 167 (1.61%) DHCP
5 167 (1.61%) WAN
6 132 (1.27%) LAN
7 130 (1.25%) TCP/IP
8 115 (1.11%) BGP
9 111 (1.07%) Wi-Fi
10 84 (0.81%) VLAN
11 77 (0.74%) Wireless
12 74 (0.71%) OSPF
13 59 (0.57%) SAN
14 58 (0.56%) MPLS
14 58 (0.56%) SSL
15 57 (0.55%) VSAN
16 56 (0.54%) IPsec
17 49 (0.47%) SD-WAN
18 43 (0.41%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 306 (2.95%) Power BI
2 238 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
3 233 (2.24%) SQL Server
4 219 (2.11%) Data Warehouse
5 178 (1.71%) Metadata
6 168 (1.62%) Oracle Database
7 122 (1.18%) Relational Database
8 119 (1.15%) Data Lake
9 100 (0.96%) MongoDB
10 97 (0.93%) Amazon RDS
11 95 (0.92%) MySQL
12 87 (0.84%) NoSQL
13 77 (0.74%) Pentaho
14 65 (0.63%) 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 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
20 38 (0.37%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 538 (5.18%) JIRA
2 499 (4.81%) Git
3 450 (4.33%) GitLab
4 437 (4.21%) Jenkins
5 132 (1.27%) Selenium
6 77 (0.74%) Postman
7 72 (0.69%) SonarQube
8 71 (0.68%) Cucumber
9 70 (0.67%) JUnit
9 70 (0.67%) Maven
10 64 (0.62%) JMeter
11 45 (0.43%) Gradle
12 41 (0.39%) Mockito
13 38 (0.37%) Gatling
14 37 (0.36%) REST Assured
15 36 (0.35%) Cypress.io
15 36 (0.35%) Visual Studio
16 34 (0.33%) Rational DOORS
16 34 (0.33%) Zephyr
17 33 (0.32%) Artifactory
General
1 2,407 (23.19%) Social Skills
2 2,081 (20.05%) Public Sector
3 876 (8.44%) Analytical Skills
4 696 (6.70%) Finance
5 423 (4.07%) Military
6 360 (3.47%) Aerospace
7 256 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
8 219 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
9 184 (1.77%) Organisational Skills
10 171 (1.65%) Manufacturing
11 149 (1.44%) Telecoms
12 139 (1.34%) Legal
13 126 (1.21%) Banking
13 126 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 111 (1.07%) Police
15 110 (1.06%) Law
16 62 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
17 50 (0.48%) Local Government
18 41 (0.39%) Aviation
18 41 (0.39%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 1,609 (15.50%) Architect
2 990 (9.54%) Senior
3 965 (9.30%) Developer
4 943 (9.08%) Lead
5 632 (6.09%) Analyst
6 597 (5.75%) Consultant
7 437 (4.21%) Data Engineer
8 422 (4.07%) DevOps Engineer
9 364 (3.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 278 (2.68%) Solutions Architect
11 258 (2.49%) Security Architect
12 256 (2.47%) Data Architect
13 252 (2.43%) Technical Architect
14 222 (2.14%) Software Engineer
15 217 (2.09%) Administrator
16 214 (2.06%) Network Engineer
17 186 (1.79%) Cloud Engineer
17 186 (1.79%) Delivery Manager
18 181 (1.74%) Designer
19 178 (1.71%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 908 (8.75%) Terraform
2 428 (4.12%) REST
3 214 (2.06%) Kafka
4 194 (1.87%) Spring
5 177 (1.71%) Spring Boot
6 170 (1.64%) SOAP
7 168 (1.62%) React
8 160 (1.54%) RESTful
9 151 (1.45%) .NET
10 126 (1.21%) Node.js
10 126 (1.21%) OAuth
11 124 (1.19%) JSON
12 118 (1.14%) HTML
13 111 (1.07%) XML
14 105 (1.01%) Middleware
15 96 (0.92%) Web Services
16 94 (0.91%) AngularJS
17 93 (0.90%) Oracle Fusion
18 90 (0.87%) CSS
18 90 (0.87%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 468 (4.51%) Cloud Native
2 411 (3.96%) Onboarding
3 338 (3.26%) Product Ownership
4 265 (2.55%) Data Centre
5 196 (1.89%) Management Information System
6 168 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
7 162 (1.56%) PKI
8 161 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
9 151 (1.45%) CMDB
10 126 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
11 115 (1.11%) Cyber Threat
12 111 (1.07%) Operational Technology
12 111 (1.07%) Replication
13 104 (1.00%) Distributed Systems
14 99 (0.95%) Self-Motivation
15 86 (0.83%) Security Posture
16 84 (0.81%) Data Structures
17 83 (0.80%) Security Operations Centre
18 78 (0.75%) Clustering
19 76 (0.73%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 907 (8.74%) Windows
2 704 (6.78%) Linux
3 350 (3.37%) Windows Server
4 194 (1.87%) Unix
5 143 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 135 (1.30%) 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 10 (0.096%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,152 (20.73%) Agile
2 1,567 (15.09%) CI/CD
3 1,562 (15.05%) DevOps
4 1,520 (14.64%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,337 (12.88%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,140 (10.98%) Problem-Solving
7 1,052 (10.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 923 (8.89%) Infrastructure as Code
9 858 (8.27%) Migration
10 823 (7.93%) Cybersecurity
11 735 (7.08%) ITIL
12 696 (6.70%) Roadmaps
13 692 (6.67%) Test Automation
14 682 (6.57%) AI
15 667 (6.43%) Technical Leadership
16 663 (6.39%) Containerisation
17 653 (6.29%) Decision-Making
18 632 (6.09%) Analytics
19 596 (5.74%) Software Engineering
20 579 (5.58%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 1,202 (11.58%) Python
2 969 (9.33%) SQL
3 641 (6.17%) Java
4 549 (5.29%) PowerShell
5 366 (3.53%) JavaScript
6 321 (3.09%) Bash
7 183 (1.76%) TypeScript
8 177 (1.71%) C#
9 120 (1.16%) PL/SQL
10 119 (1.15%) Bicep
11 69 (0.66%) Shell Script
12 56 (0.54%) C++
12 56 (0.54%) Groovy
13 49 (0.47%) Go
14 47 (0.45%) Scala
15 45 (0.43%) C
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 7,774 (74.89%) SC Cleared
2 2,144 (20.65%) DV Cleared
3 491 (4.73%) BPSS Clearance
4 453 (4.36%) Degree
5 200 (1.93%) CISSP
6 168 (1.62%) Azure Certification
7 156 (1.50%) AWS Certification
8 149 (1.44%) Microsoft Certification
9 148 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
10 123 (1.18%) CISM
11 95 (0.92%) ISTQB
12 92 (0.89%) PMI Certification
13 82 (0.79%) PMP
14 74 (0.71%) CCNP
15 69 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
16 52 (0.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 49 (0.47%) CCNA
18 47 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
19 43 (0.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
20 40 (0.39%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 474 (4.57%) QA
2 351 (3.38%) Data Quality
3 297 (2.86%) NIST
4 291 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 271 (2.61%) NCSC
6 244 (2.35%) Accessibility
7 214 (2.06%) PMO
8 161 (1.55%) GDPR
8 161 (1.55%) SLA
9 144 (1.39%) GRC
10 72 (0.69%) WCAG
11 47 (0.45%) JSP 440
12 41 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
13 37 (0.36%) NIST 800
14 36 (0.35%) Def Stans
14 36 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 30 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
16 23 (0.22%) ISO 9001
17 21 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 19 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 701 (6.75%) Docker
2 577 (5.56%) Active Directory
3 403 (3.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 132 (1.27%) VMware ESXi
5 125 (1.20%) vSphere
6 124 (1.19%) VMware NSX
7 121 (1.17%) Hyper-V
8 84 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
9 45 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
10 42 (0.40%) Firmware
11 34 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
12 24 (0.23%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.23%) vCloud
13 20 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
14 14 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 13 (0.13%) NFS
16 11 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 10 (0.096%) KVM
18 9 (0.087%) Squid
19 8 (0.077%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 865 (8.33%) Kubernetes
2 409 (3.94%) Ansible
3 232 (2.23%) Grafana
4 166 (1.60%) Prometheus
5 138 (1.33%) SCCM
6 120 (1.16%) vCenter Server
7 100 (0.96%) Microsoft Intune
8 92 (0.89%) SCOM
9 59 (0.57%) Argo
10 52 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
11 47 (0.45%) Kibana
12 40 (0.39%) 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 1,423 (13.71%) Microsoft
2 820 (7.90%) Oracle
3 544 (5.24%) VMware
4 459 (4.42%) ServiceNow
5 404 (3.89%) SAP
6 257 (2.48%) Google
7 252 (2.43%) Cisco
8 192 (1.85%) Splunk
9 172 (1.66%) Databricks
10 116 (1.12%) Red Hat
11 112 (1.08%) Palo Alto
12 107 (1.03%) Salesforce
13 99 (0.95%) Informatica
14 94 (0.91%) Talend
15 93 (0.90%) Dynatrace
15 93 (0.90%) IBM
16 91 (0.88%) Remedy
17 83 (0.80%) CyberArk
18 71 (0.68%) Citrix
19 70 (0.67%) SolarWinds