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

6 months to
15 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 9,814 4,908 6,988
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.94% 18.09% 19.06%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.47% 58.61% 62.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,899 3,180 4,563
10th Percentile £380 £350 £350
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £529 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.58% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £717 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £530 £530 £550
% change year-on-year - -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 756 415 542
10th Percentile £19.27 £18.51 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £64.09 £25.15 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +154.83% -56.26% -4.17%
75th Percentile £79.00 £60.00 £71.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.47 £83.32
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £25.15 £55.80
% change year-on-year +151.03% -54.93% -7.00%

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 14,126 8,374 11,204
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.57% 30.86% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,529 5,279 6,996
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.16% -2.44%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £715 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,056 595 976
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.21
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £20.98
Median hourly rate £54.25 £27.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +97.27% -36.05% -21.82%
75th Percentile £74.26 £61.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.56 £76.07 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £26.81 £41.50
% change year-on-year +95.80% -35.39% -24.93%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 £538 +2.38% 559
South East +1 2,394 £550 - 542
South West 0 1,306 £538 -6.52% 366
North of England +2 1,071 £500 - 269
Midlands +3 948 £469 -8.04% 178
West Midlands +2 811 £470 -8.27% 123
North West 0 572 £525 - 155
East of England +2 329 £551 +5.00% 127
Yorkshire 0 292 £500 +1.63% 73
North East +1 235 £475 -5.00% 42
East Midlands -2 124 £418 -12.11% 54
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
1 355 (3.62%) Confluence
2 233 (2.37%) SharePoint
3 149 (1.52%) SAS
4 122 (1.24%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
6 80 (0.82%) Apache Spark
7 79 (0.80%) Apache
8 42 (0.43%) nginx
9 33 (0.34%) Jupyter
10 30 (0.31%) WebLogic
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 18 (0.18%) Oracle Application Server
13 17 (0.17%) IIS
14 16 (0.16%) CMS
14 16 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
15 13 (0.13%) Skype for Business
16 12 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
16 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
17 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
18 9 (0.092%) Documentum
Applications
1 169 (1.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 126 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
3 86 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
4 71 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 40 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.14%) Simulink
8 12 (0.12%) AutoCAD
8 12 (0.12%) Revit
8 12 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
9 10 (0.10%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.051%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.051%) Notepad++
10 5 (0.051%) Sketch
11 2 (0.020%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.020%) CATIA
11 2 (0.020%) InDesign
11 2 (0.020%) Lectora
11 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
11 2 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 110 (1.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 63 (0.64%) Remedy ITSM
3 45 (0.46%) Oracle ERP
4 37 (0.38%) Teamcenter
5 29 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 26 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
7 25 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
8 23 (0.23%) SAP PSCD
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
9 15 (0.15%) Primavera
9 15 (0.15%) Temenos T24
10 12 (0.12%) iTrent
10 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
11 11 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
11 11 (0.11%) SAP ERP
12 10 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
12 10 (0.10%) Maximo
12 10 (0.10%) Oracle Payroll
12 10 (0.10%) SAP HR
13 9 (0.092%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,716 (17.49%) Azure
2 1,632 (16.63%) AWS
3 398 (4.06%) Azure DevOps
4 394 (4.01%) GitHub
4 394 (4.01%) Power Platform
5 344 (3.51%) GCP
6 260 (2.65%) Microsoft 365
7 256 (2.61%) GitHub Actions
8 247 (2.52%) Entra ID
9 241 (2.46%) Serverless
10 220 (2.24%) Amazon S3
11 168 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
12 153 (1.56%) Amazon EC2
13 143 (1.46%) OCI
14 142 (1.45%) OpenShift
15 136 (1.39%) SaaS
16 131 (1.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 124 (1.26%) PaaS
18 113 (1.15%) Amazon EKS
19 111 (1.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 411 (4.19%) Firewall
2 327 (3.33%) DNS
3 222 (2.26%) Network Security
4 207 (2.11%) WAN
5 183 (1.86%) LAN
6 172 (1.75%) VPN
7 167 (1.70%) DHCP
8 141 (1.44%) BGP
9 114 (1.16%) OSPF
9 114 (1.16%) TCP/IP
10 109 (1.11%) Wi-Fi
11 102 (1.04%) VLAN
12 79 (0.80%) Wireless
13 62 (0.63%) MPLS
14 60 (0.61%) SD-WAN
15 54 (0.55%) SAN
15 54 (0.55%) VXLAN
16 53 (0.54%) IPsec
17 49 (0.50%) BIG-IP
18 48 (0.49%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 297 (3.03%) Power BI
2 247 (2.52%) PostgreSQL
3 240 (2.45%) SQL Server
4 222 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
5 147 (1.50%) Oracle Database
6 118 (1.20%) Metadata
7 104 (1.06%) Relational Database
8 102 (1.04%) Data Lake
9 99 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
10 80 (0.82%) Pentaho
11 78 (0.79%) MySQL
11 78 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
12 76 (0.77%) MongoDB
13 73 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
14 63 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
15 61 (0.62%) NoSQL
16 58 (0.59%) Amazon Athena
17 57 (0.58%) Tableau
18 42 (0.43%) Big Data
19 39 (0.40%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 549 (5.59%) JIRA
2 450 (4.59%) Git
3 399 (4.07%) GitLab
4 378 (3.85%) Jenkins
5 105 (1.07%) Selenium
6 77 (0.78%) JUnit
7 76 (0.77%) SonarQube
8 68 (0.69%) Postman
9 57 (0.58%) Rational DOORS
10 52 (0.53%) JMeter
11 48 (0.49%) Maven
12 47 (0.48%) Cucumber
13 40 (0.41%) Mockito
14 39 (0.40%) Artifactory
14 39 (0.40%) REST Assured
15 38 (0.39%) Bitbucket
16 37 (0.38%) Cypress.io
16 37 (0.38%) Zephyr
17 35 (0.36%) Visual Studio
18 29 (0.30%) WebDriver
General
1 2,076 (21.15%) Public Sector
2 1,999 (20.37%) Social Skills
3 723 (7.37%) Analytical Skills
4 673 (6.86%) Finance
5 327 (3.33%) Military
6 272 (2.77%) Aerospace
7 260 (2.65%) Documentation Skills
8 148 (1.51%) Influencing Skills
9 142 (1.45%) Legal
10 126 (1.28%) Banking
11 121 (1.23%) Telecoms
12 114 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
13 93 (0.95%) Law
14 79 (0.80%) Police
15 78 (0.79%) Manufacturing
16 70 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
17 68 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 43 (0.44%) Marketing
19 37 (0.38%) Retail
20 35 (0.36%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 1,421 (14.48%) Architect
2 1,017 (10.36%) Developer
3 860 (8.76%) Senior
4 838 (8.54%) Lead
5 633 (6.45%) Analyst
6 462 (4.71%) Consultant
7 457 (4.66%) Data Engineer
8 415 (4.23%) DevOps Engineer
9 335 (3.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 297 (3.03%) Software Engineer
11 275 (2.80%) Technical Architect
12 234 (2.38%) Network Engineer
13 226 (2.30%) Security Architect
13 226 (2.30%) Solutions Architect
14 199 (2.03%) Java Developer
15 196 (2.00%) Business Analyst
16 192 (1.96%) Delivery Manager
17 189 (1.93%) Project Manager
18 187 (1.91%) Administrator
19 179 (1.82%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 333 (3.39%) REST
2 240 (2.45%) Spring
3 199 (2.03%) Spring Boot
4 175 (1.78%) .NET
5 170 (1.73%) React
6 166 (1.69%) Kafka
7 161 (1.64%) RESTful
8 151 (1.54%) Node.js
9 139 (1.42%) SOAP
10 120 (1.22%) JSON
11 113 (1.15%) AngularJS
12 102 (1.04%) OAuth
13 98 (1.00%) LDAP
14 92 (0.94%) HTML
15 91 (0.93%) Web Services
16 87 (0.89%) PySpark
17 77 (0.78%) XML
18 76 (0.77%) OpenID
19 70 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
20 67 (0.68%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 397 (4.05%) Cloud Native
2 324 (3.30%) Onboarding
3 319 (3.25%) Product Ownership
4 275 (2.80%) Data Centre
5 171 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
6 139 (1.42%) PKI
7 138 (1.41%) Management Information System
8 137 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
9 114 (1.16%) Replication
10 111 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
11 104 (1.06%) CMDB
12 94 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
13 91 (0.93%) Clustering
13 91 (0.93%) Data Structures
14 87 (0.89%) Hybrid Cloud
14 87 (0.89%) Security Posture
15 79 (0.80%) Public Cloud
16 76 (0.77%) Security Operations Centre
16 76 (0.77%) Virtual Team
17 72 (0.73%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 801 (8.16%) Windows
2 673 (6.86%) Linux
3 261 (2.66%) Windows Server
4 191 (1.95%) Unix
5 135 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 86 (0.88%) Windows 10
7 78 (0.79%) Android
8 55 (0.56%) Solaris
9 46 (0.47%) Apple iOS
10 43 (0.44%) Mac OS
11 32 (0.33%) Ubuntu
12 31 (0.32%) AIX
13 28 (0.29%) CentOS
13 28 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
14 15 (0.15%) VMS
14 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
15 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
15 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
16 10 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
16 10 (0.10%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,010 (20.48%) Agile
2 1,524 (15.53%) DevOps
3 1,380 (14.06%) CI/CD
4 1,048 (10.68%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,045 (10.65%) Problem-Solving
6 1,024 (10.43%) Continuous Improvement
7 837 (8.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 757 (7.71%) Migration
9 748 (7.62%) Infrastructure as Code
10 676 (6.89%) Cybersecurity
11 664 (6.77%) ITIL
12 594 (6.05%) Test Automation
13 582 (5.93%) Software Engineering
14 581 (5.92%) Analytics
15 577 (5.88%) Containerisation
16 565 (5.76%) Roadmaps
17 518 (5.28%) Decision-Making
18 512 (5.22%) Data Modelling
19 503 (5.13%) AI
20 472 (4.81%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 1,042 (10.62%) Python
2 932 (9.50%) SQL
3 671 (6.84%) Java
4 462 (4.71%) PowerShell
5 296 (3.02%) JavaScript
6 234 (2.38%) Bash
7 204 (2.08%) C#
8 145 (1.48%) TypeScript
9 137 (1.40%) PL/SQL
10 82 (0.84%) Shell Script
11 81 (0.83%) C++
12 69 (0.70%) Bicep
13 65 (0.66%) C
14 51 (0.52%) Go
15 44 (0.45%) Ada
16 41 (0.42%) Kotlin
16 41 (0.42%) Scala
17 40 (0.41%) Apex Code
18 38 (0.39%) Ruby
19 35 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 7,351 (74.90%) SC Cleared
2 1,992 (20.30%) DV Cleared
3 390 (3.97%) Degree
4 324 (3.30%) BPSS Clearance
5 182 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
6 160 (1.63%) CISSP
7 141 (1.44%) Azure Certification
8 119 (1.21%) Microsoft Certification
9 115 (1.17%) AWS Certification
10 92 (0.94%) CCNP
11 90 (0.92%) CISM
12 88 (0.90%) PMP
13 87 (0.89%) PMI Certification
14 76 (0.77%) CCNA
15 68 (0.69%) ISTQB
16 60 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 55 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
18 48 (0.49%) ITIL Certification
19 43 (0.44%) TOGAF Certification
20 38 (0.39%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 388 (3.95%) QA
2 294 (3.00%) Data Quality
3 282 (2.87%) NIST
4 276 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 216 (2.20%) NCSC
6 206 (2.10%) Accessibility
7 186 (1.90%) PMO
8 161 (1.64%) GDPR
9 98 (1.00%) SLA
10 97 (0.99%) GRC
11 55 (0.56%) JSP 440
12 53 (0.54%) WCAG
13 46 (0.47%) NIST 800
14 43 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
15 35 (0.36%) Def Stans
16 23 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
16 23 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 23 (0.23%) RMADS
17 21 (0.21%) COBIT
18 20 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 643 (6.55%) Docker
2 444 (4.52%) Active Directory
3 330 (3.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 128 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
5 124 (1.26%) VMware NSX
6 95 (0.97%) vSphere
7 84 (0.86%) Hyper-V
8 78 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
9 42 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
10 34 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
11 30 (0.31%) Firmware
12 20 (0.20%) BitLocker
12 20 (0.20%) NFS
12 20 (0.20%) vCloud
13 19 (0.19%) Postfix
14 18 (0.18%) Squid
15 8 (0.082%) Microsoft App-V
15 8 (0.082%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 7 (0.071%) KVM
16 7 (0.071%) UAG
Systems Management
1 815 (8.30%) Terraform
2 778 (7.93%) Kubernetes
3 359 (3.66%) Ansible
4 237 (2.41%) Grafana
5 186 (1.90%) Prometheus
6 125 (1.27%) vCenter Server
7 81 (0.83%) SCCM
8 64 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
9 63 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
10 59 (0.60%) Argo
11 54 (0.55%) SCOM
12 47 (0.48%) FortiGate
12 47 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
13 45 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 45 (0.46%) Puppet
14 30 (0.31%) Data Guard
14 30 (0.31%) Progress Chef
15 27 (0.28%) Nagios
16 26 (0.26%) Podman
17 23 (0.23%) Kibana
Vendors
1 1,110 (11.31%) Microsoft
2 727 (7.41%) Oracle
3 490 (4.99%) VMware
4 471 (4.80%) ServiceNow
5 334 (3.40%) SAP
6 293 (2.99%) Cisco
7 200 (2.04%) Splunk
8 173 (1.76%) Google
9 167 (1.70%) Databricks
10 138 (1.41%) Red Hat
11 127 (1.29%) Salesforce
12 121 (1.23%) Talend
13 110 (1.12%) IBM
14 101 (1.03%) Informatica
15 99 (1.01%) Palo Alto
16 96 (0.98%) Juniper
17 90 (0.92%) SolarWinds
18 84 (0.86%) F5
19 83 (0.85%) Citrix
20 79 (0.80%) Fortinet