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 6 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,041 5,064 6,421
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.06% 18.33% 19.19%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.43% 58.52% 62.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,058 3,272 4,277
10th Percentile £381 £350 £353
25th Percentile £453 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.05% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £640
90th Percentile £725 £700 £735
UK median daily rate £537 £534 £550
% change year-on-year +0.56% -2.91% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 777 460 458
10th Percentile £19.33 £18.51 £15.42
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.29
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £57.77
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -56.47% -3.71%
75th Percentile £80.20 £55.12 £72.33
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.08 £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 14,463 8,654 10,217
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.77% 31.32% 30.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,743 5,451 6,492
10th Percentile £350 £300 £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 1,119 648 769
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.06
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -45.54% -16.04%
75th Percentile £75.00 £57.69 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.93 £78.15
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.21%

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 6 August 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 6 August 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 6 August 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 3,551 £550 +4.76% 849
South East +1 2,453 £560 +4.19% 627
South West 0 1,343 £538 -6.52% 467
North of England +2 1,131 £502 +0.35% 365
Midlands +3 980 £469 -8.40% 172
West Midlands +1 849 £469 -8.54% 128
North West +2 611 £525 - 219
East of England 0 320 £550 +2.80% 153
Yorkshire +2 303 £500 +1.63% 71
North East 0 241 £478 -4.50% 78
East Midlands 0 119 £438 -5.35% 44
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
1 364 (3.63%) Confluence
2 252 (2.51%) SharePoint
3 171 (1.70%) SAS
4 112 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 83 (0.83%) Apache Spark
7 79 (0.79%) Apache
8 36 (0.36%) nginx
9 33 (0.33%) WebLogic
10 31 (0.31%) Jupyter
11 21 (0.21%) Oracle Application Server
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 16 (0.16%) CMS
12 16 (0.16%) IIS
12 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
13 15 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
14 13 (0.13%) Skype for Business
15 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
16 10 (0.100%) JBoss
16 10 (0.100%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 195 (1.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 130 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
3 97 (0.97%) Microsoft Project
4 77 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 36 (0.36%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.15%) AutoCAD
7 15 (0.15%) Revit
8 14 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
9 12 (0.12%) Simulink
10 9 (0.090%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.060%) Sketch
12 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
13 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.030%) Trello
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
14 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
14 2 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 124 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 76 (0.76%) Remedy ITSM
3 42 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 34 (0.34%) Teamcenter
6 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 23 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
8 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
9 16 (0.16%) Primavera
10 15 (0.15%) Findur
10 15 (0.15%) Oracle Payroll
11 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
12 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
13 12 (0.12%) iTrent
13 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
14 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
14 11 (0.11%) SAP HR
15 10 (0.100%) Salesforce CRM
15 10 (0.100%) SAP ERP
15 10 (0.100%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,820 (18.13%) Azure
2 1,677 (16.70%) AWS
3 441 (4.39%) Azure DevOps
4 430 (4.28%) Power Platform
5 423 (4.21%) GitHub
6 378 (3.76%) GCP
7 277 (2.76%) Microsoft 365
8 269 (2.68%) GitHub Actions
9 253 (2.52%) Entra ID
10 251 (2.50%) Serverless
11 224 (2.23%) Amazon S3
12 174 (1.73%) AWS Lambda
13 156 (1.55%) OCI
14 147 (1.46%) Amazon EC2
15 146 (1.45%) SaaS
16 144 (1.43%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 132 (1.31%) OpenShift
18 127 (1.26%) PaaS
19 123 (1.22%) Amazon EKS
20 110 (1.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 425 (4.23%) Firewall
2 344 (3.43%) DNS
3 205 (2.04%) Network Security
3 205 (2.04%) WAN
4 178 (1.77%) LAN
5 171 (1.70%) DHCP
6 169 (1.68%) VPN
7 137 (1.36%) BGP
8 125 (1.24%) TCP/IP
9 112 (1.12%) Wi-Fi
10 108 (1.08%) OSPF
11 97 (0.97%) VLAN
12 82 (0.82%) Wireless
13 65 (0.65%) VSAN
14 63 (0.63%) IPsec
15 57 (0.57%) MPLS
16 56 (0.56%) VXLAN
17 55 (0.55%) SD-WAN
18 54 (0.54%) SAN
18 54 (0.54%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 322 (3.21%) Power BI
2 254 (2.53%) SQL Server
3 244 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
4 242 (2.41%) PostgreSQL
5 144 (1.43%) Oracle Database
6 131 (1.30%) Metadata
7 113 (1.13%) Data Lake
8 101 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
9 98 (0.98%) Relational Database
10 91 (0.91%) Pentaho
11 88 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
12 81 (0.81%) NoSQL
13 78 (0.78%) MySQL
14 73 (0.73%) MongoDB
15 60 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
16 59 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
17 58 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
18 57 (0.57%) Tableau
19 43 (0.43%) DynamoDB
20 41 (0.41%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 572 (5.70%) JIRA
2 488 (4.86%) Git
3 401 (3.99%) GitLab
4 387 (3.85%) Jenkins
5 100 (1.00%) Selenium
6 78 (0.78%) SonarQube
7 74 (0.74%) JUnit
8 60 (0.60%) Maven
9 59 (0.59%) Postman
10 56 (0.56%) Rational DOORS
11 50 (0.50%) JMeter
12 46 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 45 (0.45%) Mockito
14 40 (0.40%) Zephyr
15 39 (0.39%) Visual Studio
16 38 (0.38%) Bitbucket
17 34 (0.34%) Artifactory
17 34 (0.34%) Cypress.io
18 32 (0.32%) Gradle
18 32 (0.32%) REST Assured
General
1 2,102 (20.93%) Social Skills
2 2,084 (20.75%) Public Sector
3 771 (7.68%) Analytical Skills
4 704 (7.01%) Finance
5 340 (3.39%) Military
6 283 (2.82%) Aerospace
7 245 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
8 154 (1.53%) Influencing Skills
9 140 (1.39%) Legal
10 139 (1.38%) Organisational Skills
11 130 (1.29%) Telecoms
12 123 (1.22%) Banking
13 97 (0.97%) Law
14 92 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 87 (0.87%) Police
16 84 (0.84%) Manufacturing
17 76 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
18 43 (0.43%) Marketing
19 39 (0.39%) Retail
20 36 (0.36%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 1,500 (14.94%) Architect
2 1,055 (10.51%) Developer
3 933 (9.29%) Senior
4 899 (8.95%) Lead
5 613 (6.10%) Analyst
6 517 (5.15%) Consultant
7 483 (4.81%) Data Engineer
8 384 (3.82%) DevOps Engineer
9 366 (3.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 299 (2.98%) Software Engineer
11 262 (2.61%) Technical Architect
12 241 (2.40%) Security Architect
12 241 (2.40%) Solutions Architect
13 237 (2.36%) Network Engineer
14 214 (2.13%) Data Architect
15 201 (2.00%) Java Developer
16 200 (1.99%) Delivery Manager
17 193 (1.92%) Administrator
18 188 (1.87%) Project Manager
19 179 (1.78%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 370 (3.68%) REST
2 225 (2.24%) Spring
3 189 (1.88%) Spring Boot
4 188 (1.87%) .NET
5 174 (1.73%) Kafka
6 173 (1.72%) React
7 171 (1.70%) RESTful
8 150 (1.49%) SOAP
9 147 (1.46%) Node.js
10 127 (1.26%) AngularJS
11 125 (1.24%) JSON
12 105 (1.05%) Web Services
13 103 (1.03%) OAuth
14 99 (0.99%) HTML
15 87 (0.87%) PySpark
16 83 (0.83%) XML
17 75 (0.75%) CSS
18 71 (0.71%) Oracle Fusion
19 68 (0.68%) OpenID
20 67 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 417 (4.15%) Cloud Native
2 354 (3.53%) Onboarding
3 322 (3.21%) Product Ownership
4 280 (2.79%) Data Centre
5 180 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
6 156 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 150 (1.49%) PKI
8 143 (1.42%) Distributed Systems
9 117 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
10 114 (1.14%) CMDB
11 113 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
12 105 (1.05%) Data Structures
13 103 (1.03%) Clustering
14 102 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
15 95 (0.95%) Replication
16 83 (0.83%) Public Cloud
17 78 (0.78%) Cyber Threat
18 77 (0.77%) Security Operations Centre
19 75 (0.75%) Virtual Team
20 73 (0.73%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 851 (8.48%) Windows
2 700 (6.97%) Linux
3 298 (2.97%) Windows Server
4 208 (2.07%) Unix
5 140 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 96 (0.96%) Windows 10
7 80 (0.80%) Android
8 64 (0.64%) Solaris
9 45 (0.45%) Mac OS
10 41 (0.41%) Apple iOS
11 39 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
12 35 (0.35%) AIX
13 31 (0.31%) CentOS
14 30 (0.30%) Ubuntu
15 19 (0.19%) VMS
16 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
17 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
18 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.12%) Rocky
19 12 (0.12%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,119 (21.10%) Agile
2 1,548 (15.42%) DevOps
3 1,433 (14.27%) CI/CD
4 1,148 (11.43%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,117 (11.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,073 (10.69%) Problem-Solving
7 917 (9.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 794 (7.91%) Migration
9 789 (7.86%) Infrastructure as Code
10 688 (6.85%) Cybersecurity
11 685 (6.82%) ITIL
12 641 (6.38%) Analytics
13 615 (6.12%) Test Automation
14 613 (6.10%) Software Engineering
15 602 (6.00%) Containerisation
16 592 (5.90%) Roadmaps
17 569 (5.67%) AI
18 553 (5.51%) Data Modelling
19 535 (5.33%) Decision-Making
19 535 (5.33%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 1,096 (10.92%) Python
2 993 (9.89%) SQL
3 679 (6.76%) Java
4 485 (4.83%) PowerShell
5 327 (3.26%) JavaScript
6 269 (2.68%) Bash
7 217 (2.16%) C#
8 151 (1.50%) PL/SQL
9 148 (1.47%) TypeScript
10 96 (0.96%) Bicep
11 82 (0.82%) Shell Script
12 81 (0.81%) C++
13 63 (0.63%) C
14 44 (0.44%) Go
14 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
15 41 (0.41%) Groovy
16 40 (0.40%) Scala
17 39 (0.39%) Apex Code
18 36 (0.36%) Ruby
19 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,533 (75.02%) SC Cleared
2 2,053 (20.45%) DV Cleared
3 418 (4.16%) Degree
4 358 (3.57%) BPSS Clearance
5 177 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
6 168 (1.67%) CISSP
7 152 (1.51%) Azure Certification
8 138 (1.37%) Microsoft Certification
9 120 (1.20%) AWS Certification
10 100 (1.00%) PMI Certification
11 99 (0.99%) CISM
12 97 (0.97%) PMP
13 78 (0.78%) CCNP
14 73 (0.73%) CCNA
14 73 (0.73%) ISTQB
15 64 (0.64%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 59 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
17 46 (0.46%) TOGAF Certification
18 43 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
19 41 (0.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 398 (3.96%) QA
2 324 (3.23%) Data Quality
3 268 (2.67%) NIST
4 267 (2.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 217 (2.16%) PMO
6 210 (2.09%) Accessibility
7 208 (2.07%) NCSC
8 154 (1.53%) GDPR
9 119 (1.19%) GRC
10 115 (1.15%) SLA
11 66 (0.66%) WCAG
12 56 (0.56%) JSP 440
13 45 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
14 44 (0.44%) NIST 800
15 32 (0.32%) Def Stans
16 30 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
17 28 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 24 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 19 (0.19%) RMADS
20 17 (0.17%) COBIT
System Software
1 667 (6.64%) Docker
2 476 (4.74%) Active Directory
3 363 (3.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 141 (1.40%) VMware NSX
5 132 (1.31%) VMware ESXi
6 109 (1.09%) vSphere
7 96 (0.96%) Hyper-V
8 75 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
9 44 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
10 36 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
11 27 (0.27%) Firmware
12 24 (0.24%) vCloud
13 20 (0.20%) BitLocker
14 18 (0.18%) Postfix
15 13 (0.13%) NFS
15 13 (0.13%) Squid
16 9 (0.090%) KVM
17 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
18 6 (0.060%) Corosync
18 6 (0.060%) UAG
Systems Management
1 848 (8.45%) Terraform
2 785 (7.82%) Kubernetes
3 387 (3.85%) Ansible
4 225 (2.24%) Grafana
5 174 (1.73%) Prometheus
6 132 (1.31%) vCenter Server
7 99 (0.99%) SCCM
8 80 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
9 66 (0.66%) SCOM
10 63 (0.63%) Argo
11 53 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
12 52 (0.52%) Oracle RMAN
13 50 (0.50%) Puppet
14 43 (0.43%) FortiGate
15 35 (0.35%) Data Guard
16 31 (0.31%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
18 26 (0.26%) WSUS
19 24 (0.24%) Podman
20 23 (0.23%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,207 (12.02%) Microsoft
2 783 (7.80%) Oracle
3 528 (5.26%) VMware
4 494 (4.92%) ServiceNow
5 370 (3.68%) SAP
6 283 (2.82%) Cisco
7 201 (2.00%) Google
8 184 (1.83%) Splunk
9 180 (1.79%) Databricks
10 141 (1.40%) Red Hat
11 133 (1.32%) Salesforce
12 120 (1.20%) Talend
13 110 (1.10%) IBM
14 108 (1.08%) Informatica
15 102 (1.02%) Palo Alto
16 99 (0.99%) Juniper
17 90 (0.90%) SolarWinds
18 86 (0.86%) F5
18 86 (0.86%) Remedy
19 80 (0.80%) Dynatrace