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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 9,286 4,450 6,942
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.20% 18.60% 18.91%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.57% 59.20% 61.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,468 2,953 4,573
10th Percentile £380 £340 £353
25th Percentile £450 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £719 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 781 278 501
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.33 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.63 £24.66 £21.46
Median hourly rate £55.00 £40.00 £55.80
Median % change year-on-year +37.50% -28.32% -7.00%
75th Percentile £74.26 £66.94 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.00 £83.75
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £32.50 £55.25
% change year-on-year +69.23% -41.18% -7.92%

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 13,348 7,517 11,216
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.92% 31.42% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,953 4,781 6,985
10th Percentile £350 £278 £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 £624 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £748
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £530
% change year-on-year +0.91% -1.84% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,014 437 989
10th Percentile £17.11 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.27 £18.32
Median hourly rate £47.52 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.22% -18.75% -25.93%
75th Percentile £73.00 £67.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £81.01 £75.60
UK median hourly rate £48.05 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +47.85% -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 29 May 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 May 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 May 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 3,322 £525 - 470
South East +1 2,229 £550 - 470
South West 0 1,274 £538 -4.44% 358
North of England 0 940 £500 - 251
Midlands +3 872 £470 -10.50% 132
West Midlands +3 747 £470 -10.48% 104
North West -1 524 £513 +2.50% 149
East of England +2 383 £550 +7.32% 125
Yorkshire -5 242 £484 -2.47% 51
North East +1 211 £475 -1.04% 52
East Midlands -2 118 £444 -6.58% 28
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
1 333 (3.59%) Confluence
2 210 (2.26%) SharePoint
3 123 (1.32%) SAS
4 122 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
5 77 (0.83%) Apache Spark
6 74 (0.80%) Apache
7 65 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
8 34 (0.37%) nginx
9 33 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 28 (0.30%) 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 8 (0.086%) Apache Superset
15 8 (0.086%) ArcGIS
15 8 (0.086%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 163 (1.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 157 (1.69%) Microsoft Office
3 81 (0.87%) Microsoft Project
4 78 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 38 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.14%) Simulink
8 9 (0.097%) AutoCAD
9 8 (0.086%) SOLIDWORKS
10 7 (0.075%) Revit
11 5 (0.054%) Notepad++
12 4 (0.043%) Siemens NX
13 3 (0.032%) Adobe XD
13 3 (0.032%) Chatbot
13 3 (0.032%) Sketch
13 3 (0.032%) Windchill
14 2 (0.022%) CATIA
14 2 (0.022%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.022%) Lectora
14 2 (0.022%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 85 (0.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 52 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
3 38 (0.41%) 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%) SAP ERP
11 9 (0.097%) SAP HCM
12 8 (0.086%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 8 (0.086%) Primavera
12 8 (0.086%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,584 (17.06%) Azure
2 1,520 (16.37%) AWS
3 368 (3.96%) GitHub
4 362 (3.90%) GCP
5 344 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
6 335 (3.61%) Power Platform
7 231 (2.49%) Entra ID
7 231 (2.49%) Microsoft 365
8 229 (2.47%) Serverless
9 214 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
10 191 (2.06%) Amazon S3
11 158 (1.70%) AWS Lambda
12 139 (1.50%) Amazon EC2
13 131 (1.41%) PaaS
14 124 (1.34%) OpenShift
15 118 (1.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 115 (1.24%) OCI
17 112 (1.21%) SaaS
18 107 (1.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 94 (1.01%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 430 (4.63%) Firewall
2 277 (2.98%) DNS
3 222 (2.39%) Network Security
4 219 (2.36%) WAN
5 200 (2.15%) LAN
6 159 (1.71%) VPN
7 151 (1.63%) DHCP
8 143 (1.54%) BGP
9 123 (1.32%) OSPF
10 111 (1.20%) Wi-Fi
11 108 (1.16%) VLAN
12 100 (1.08%) TCP/IP
13 82 (0.88%) Wireless
14 62 (0.67%) MPLS
15 59 (0.64%) SAN
16 56 (0.60%) VXLAN
17 55 (0.59%) Structured Cabling
18 51 (0.55%) SD-WAN
19 50 (0.54%) IPsec
20 47 (0.51%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 252 (2.71%) Power BI
2 215 (2.32%) PostgreSQL
3 203 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
4 191 (2.06%) SQL Server
5 116 (1.25%) Oracle Database
6 114 (1.23%) Metadata
7 103 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
8 92 (0.99%) Data Lake
9 87 (0.94%) MongoDB
10 81 (0.87%) Relational Database
11 76 (0.82%) Pentaho
12 75 (0.81%) NoSQL
13 70 (0.75%) Oracle Reports
14 68 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
15 64 (0.69%) MySQL
16 60 (0.65%) Tableau
17 58 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
18 53 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
19 51 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
20 41 (0.44%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 528 (5.69%) JIRA
2 393 (4.23%) Git
3 359 (3.87%) GitLab
4 349 (3.76%) Jenkins
5 98 (1.06%) Selenium
6 74 (0.80%) Postman
7 69 (0.74%) JUnit
8 61 (0.66%) SonarQube
9 59 (0.64%) Rational DOORS
10 52 (0.56%) Artifactory
11 46 (0.50%) JMeter
12 41 (0.44%) Bitbucket
13 40 (0.43%) Cucumber
14 39 (0.42%) Maven
14 39 (0.42%) Mockito
15 35 (0.38%) Visual Studio
16 33 (0.36%) Zephyr
17 32 (0.34%) REST Assured
18 31 (0.33%) Cypress.io
19 24 (0.26%) Gatling
General
1 1,957 (21.07%) Public Sector
2 1,914 (20.61%) Social Skills
3 648 (6.98%) Analytical Skills
4 628 (6.76%) Finance
5 319 (3.44%) Military
6 267 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
7 240 (2.58%) Aerospace
8 141 (1.52%) Legal
9 113 (1.22%) Banking
10 112 (1.21%) Telecoms
11 106 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
12 101 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
13 91 (0.98%) Manufacturing
14 90 (0.97%) Law
15 77 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
16 54 (0.58%) Police
17 53 (0.57%) Marketing
18 52 (0.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 41 (0.44%) Electronics
20 40 (0.43%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,363 (14.68%) Architect
2 846 (9.11%) Developer
3 779 (8.39%) Senior
4 668 (7.19%) Lead
5 648 (6.98%) Analyst
6 454 (4.89%) Data Engineer
7 414 (4.46%) Consultant
8 412 (4.44%) DevOps Engineer
9 279 (3.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 277 (2.98%) Software Engineer
11 275 (2.96%) Network Engineer
12 263 (2.83%) Technical Architect
13 234 (2.52%) Business Analyst
14 215 (2.32%) Project Manager
15 214 (2.30%) Solutions Architect
16 187 (2.01%) Security Architect
17 186 (2.00%) Azure Engineer
18 179 (1.93%) Designer
19 174 (1.87%) Administrator
20 173 (1.86%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 292 (3.14%) REST
2 209 (2.25%) Spring
3 173 (1.86%) Spring Boot
4 168 (1.81%) React
5 156 (1.68%) Node.js
6 153 (1.65%) .NET
7 151 (1.63%) Kafka
8 146 (1.57%) LDAP
9 138 (1.49%) SOAP
10 133 (1.43%) RESTful
11 111 (1.20%) AngularJS
12 109 (1.17%) JSON
13 102 (1.10%) Web Services
14 94 (1.01%) PySpark
15 89 (0.96%) OAuth
16 79 (0.85%) HTML
16 79 (0.85%) Oracle Fusion
16 79 (0.85%) XML
17 69 (0.74%) Middleware
18 68 (0.73%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 324 (3.49%) Cloud Native
2 303 (3.26%) Product Ownership
3 290 (3.12%) Data Centre
4 263 (2.83%) Onboarding
5 146 (1.57%) PKI
6 144 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 130 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
8 118 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
8 118 (1.27%) Security Posture
9 114 (1.23%) Replication
10 112 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
11 91 (0.98%) 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 (0.74%) CMDB
15 69 (0.74%) Security Operations Centre
16 67 (0.72%) Operational Technology
17 64 (0.69%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 763 (8.22%) Windows
2 643 (6.92%) Linux
3 234 (2.52%) Windows Server
4 176 (1.90%) Unix
5 114 (1.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 84 (0.90%) Windows 10
7 82 (0.88%) Android
8 51 (0.55%) Apple iOS
9 46 (0.50%) Solaris
10 36 (0.39%) Mac OS
10 36 (0.39%) Ubuntu
11 25 (0.27%) AIX
11 25 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
12 23 (0.25%) CentOS
12 23 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
13 20 (0.22%) VMS
14 15 (0.16%) Windows 7
15 12 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
16 9 (0.097%) Windows Server 2003
16 9 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,804 (19.43%) Agile
2 1,416 (15.25%) DevOps
3 1,234 (13.29%) CI/CD
4 972 (10.47%) Problem-Solving
5 910 (9.80%) Stakeholder Management
6 849 (9.14%) Continuous Improvement
7 770 (8.29%) Migration
8 701 (7.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 639 (6.88%) Infrastructure as Code
10 583 (6.28%) Cybersecurity
11 581 (6.26%) ITIL
12 537 (5.78%) Test Automation
13 530 (5.71%) Analytics
14 526 (5.66%) Software Engineering
15 513 (5.52%) Roadmaps
16 486 (5.23%) Containerisation
17 477 (5.14%) Data Modelling
18 446 (4.80%) Decision-Making
19 421 (4.53%) Scrum
20 406 (4.37%) AI
Programming Languages
1 969 (10.44%) Python
2 850 (9.15%) SQL
3 562 (6.05%) Java
4 491 (5.29%) PowerShell
5 277 (2.98%) JavaScript
6 197 (2.12%) C#
7 181 (1.95%) Bash
8 140 (1.51%) TypeScript
9 101 (1.09%) PL/SQL
10 87 (0.94%) C++
11 85 (0.92%) Shell Script
12 61 (0.66%) Go
13 57 (0.61%) Scala
14 55 (0.59%) Bicep
15 54 (0.58%) C
16 48 (0.52%) Ruby
17 45 (0.48%) Ada
18 41 (0.44%) Apex Code
19 36 (0.39%) MATLAB
20 35 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 6,988 (75.25%) SC Cleared
2 1,788 (19.25%) DV Cleared
3 400 (4.31%) Degree
4 254 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 189 (2.04%) Cisco Certification
6 158 (1.70%) CISSP
7 119 (1.28%) Azure Certification
8 117 (1.26%) CCNP
9 101 (1.09%) CISM
10 93 (1.00%) Microsoft Certification
11 92 (0.99%) AWS Certification
12 79 (0.85%) CCNA
13 74 (0.80%) PMP
14 66 (0.71%) PMI Certification
15 60 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
16 59 (0.64%) ISTQB
17 55 (0.59%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 52 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
19 48 (0.52%) GIAC
20 39 (0.42%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 343 (3.69%) QA
2 277 (2.98%) NIST
3 273 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 268 (2.89%) Data Quality
5 187 (2.01%) NCSC
6 168 (1.81%) Accessibility
7 155 (1.67%) GDPR
8 151 (1.63%) PMO
9 104 (1.12%) SLA
10 64 (0.69%) GRC
11 61 (0.66%) JSP 440
12 54 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 38 (0.41%) NIST 800
14 36 (0.39%) WCAG
15 32 (0.34%) Def Stans
16 29 (0.31%) RMADS
17 23 (0.25%) PCI DSS
18 22 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
19 21 (0.23%) COBIT
19 21 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 556 (5.99%) Docker
2 432 (4.65%) Active Directory
3 272 (2.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 104 (1.12%) VMware ESXi
5 96 (1.03%) VMware NSX
6 77 (0.83%) vSphere
7 73 (0.79%) Hyper-V
8 63 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
9 35 (0.38%) Firmware
10 28 (0.30%) Oracle RAC
11 21 (0.23%) BitLocker
12 20 (0.22%) vCloud
12 20 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
13 19 (0.20%) NFS
13 19 (0.20%) Postfix
14 16 (0.17%) Squid
15 15 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 8 (0.086%) Microsoft App-V
17 7 (0.075%) KVM
18 6 (0.065%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 710 (7.65%) Terraform
2 703 (7.57%) Kubernetes
3 335 (3.61%) Ansible
4 230 (2.48%) Grafana
5 187 (2.01%) Prometheus
6 110 (1.18%) vCenter Server
7 81 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
8 69 (0.74%) SCCM
9 59 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 50 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
11 47 (0.51%) FortiGate
12 44 (0.47%) Argo
13 39 (0.42%) Puppet
14 37 (0.40%) Podman
15 34 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
16 33 (0.36%) SCOM
17 30 (0.32%) Progress Chef
18 29 (0.31%) Nagios
19 22 (0.24%) Packer
19 22 (0.24%) WSUS
Vendors
1 960 (10.34%) Microsoft
2 595 (6.41%) Oracle
3 463 (4.99%) VMware
4 371 (4.00%) ServiceNow
5 336 (3.62%) Cisco
6 304 (3.27%) SAP
7 211 (2.27%) Splunk
8 180 (1.94%) Databricks
9 153 (1.65%) Red Hat
10 148 (1.59%) Google
11 122 (1.31%) Palo Alto
12 121 (1.30%) Talend
13 114 (1.23%) Salesforce
14 111 (1.20%) IBM
15 102 (1.10%) Juniper
16 93 (1.00%) CyberArk
17 85 (0.92%) Informatica
18 84 (0.90%) F5
18 84 (0.90%) Fortinet
19 77 (0.83%) Dynatrace