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

6 months to
8 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 10,088 5,049 6,396
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.04% 18.29% 19.19%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.34% 58.40% 62.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,093 3,257 4,264
10th Percentile £381 £350 £356
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.09% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £537 £535 £550
% change year-on-year +0.37% -2.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 779 460 458
10th Percentile £19.34 £18.51 £15.42
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.52
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -56.26% -4.17%
75th Percentile £81.39 £55.12 £72.33
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £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 14,548 8,645 10,169
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.78% 31.31% 30.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,802 5,441 6,475
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 £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,120 646 767
10th Percentile £17.97 £18.13 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.25 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +115.71% -45.54% -16.04%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.93 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £78.30
UK median hourly rate £51.75 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +105.77% -41.51% -22.00%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 3,577 £550 +3.77% 863
South East +1 2,465 £560 +4.19% 621
South West 0 1,347 £538 -6.52% 480
North of England +2 1,129 £501 +0.10% 367
Midlands +2 985 £469 -8.40% 167
West Midlands +1 850 £469 -8.74% 121
North West +2 608 £525 - 225
East of England 0 322 £550 - 164
Yorkshire +3 304 £500 +1.63% 72
North East 0 241 £475 -5.00% 74
East Midlands 0 123 £438 -5.30% 46
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
1 360 (3.57%) Confluence
2 253 (2.51%) SharePoint
3 172 (1.70%) SAS
4 111 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 85 (0.84%) Apache Spark
7 79 (0.78%) Apache
8 35 (0.35%) nginx
9 32 (0.32%) Jupyter
9 32 (0.32%) WebLogic
10 22 (0.22%) 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 11 (0.11%) JBoss
15 11 (0.11%) Tuxedo
16 10 (0.099%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 193 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 128 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
3 96 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
4 76 (0.75%) 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 13 (0.13%) Simulink
10 9 (0.089%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.059%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.059%) 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
1 123 (1.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 78 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 43 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 32 (0.32%) Teamcenter
6 25 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
7 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
8 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payroll
8 16 (0.16%) Primavera
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
10 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
11 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
12 12 (0.12%) iTrent
12 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
13 11 (0.11%) SAP HR
14 10 (0.099%) Salesforce CRM
14 10 (0.099%) SAP ERP
14 10 (0.099%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,837 (18.21%) Azure
2 1,685 (16.70%) AWS
3 448 (4.44%) Azure DevOps
4 434 (4.30%) Power Platform
5 432 (4.28%) GitHub
6 383 (3.80%) GCP
7 280 (2.78%) Microsoft 365
8 278 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
9 259 (2.57%) Entra ID
10 251 (2.49%) Serverless
11 222 (2.20%) Amazon S3
12 174 (1.72%) AWS Lambda
13 158 (1.57%) OCI
14 147 (1.46%) SaaS
15 146 (1.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 144 (1.43%) Amazon EC2
17 134 (1.33%) OpenShift
18 128 (1.27%) PaaS
19 123 (1.22%) Amazon EKS
20 112 (1.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 432 (4.28%) Firewall
2 347 (3.44%) DNS
3 207 (2.05%) WAN
4 205 (2.03%) Network Security
5 180 (1.78%) LAN
6 175 (1.73%) DHCP
7 174 (1.72%) VPN
8 137 (1.36%) BGP
9 128 (1.27%) TCP/IP
10 113 (1.12%) Wi-Fi
11 107 (1.06%) OSPF
12 97 (0.96%) VLAN
13 82 (0.81%) Wireless
14 66 (0.65%) VSAN
15 63 (0.62%) IPsec
16 57 (0.57%) MPLS
16 57 (0.57%) VXLAN
17 55 (0.55%) SD-WAN
18 54 (0.54%) SSL
19 53 (0.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 322 (3.19%) Power BI
2 261 (2.59%) SQL Server
3 249 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
4 244 (2.42%) PostgreSQL
5 147 (1.46%) Oracle Database
6 134 (1.33%) Metadata
7 114 (1.13%) Data Lake
8 104 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
9 98 (0.97%) Relational Database
10 91 (0.90%) Pentaho
11 90 (0.89%) Oracle Reports
12 81 (0.80%) MySQL
12 81 (0.80%) NoSQL
13 76 (0.75%) MongoDB
14 60 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
15 59 (0.58%) Tableau
16 58 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
17 57 (0.57%) Elasticsearch
18 42 (0.42%) Big Data
19 41 (0.41%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 569 (5.64%) JIRA
2 493 (4.89%) Git
3 406 (4.02%) GitLab
4 393 (3.90%) Jenkins
5 105 (1.04%) Selenium
6 76 (0.75%) SonarQube
7 71 (0.70%) JUnit
8 62 (0.61%) Postman
9 58 (0.57%) Maven
10 56 (0.56%) Rational DOORS
11 52 (0.52%) JMeter
12 46 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 43 (0.43%) Mockito
14 41 (0.41%) Visual Studio
14 41 (0.41%) Zephyr
15 39 (0.39%) Bitbucket
16 35 (0.35%) Cypress.io
17 33 (0.33%) Artifactory
18 32 (0.32%) Gradle
19 31 (0.31%) REST Assured
General
1 2,127 (21.08%) Social Skills
2 2,088 (20.70%) Public Sector
3 788 (7.81%) Analytical Skills
4 702 (6.96%) Finance
5 340 (3.37%) Military
6 286 (2.84%) Aerospace
7 243 (2.41%) Documentation Skills
8 153 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
9 140 (1.39%) Legal
9 140 (1.39%) Organisational Skills
10 131 (1.30%) Telecoms
11 126 (1.25%) Banking
12 99 (0.98%) Law
13 93 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 88 (0.87%) Police
15 84 (0.83%) Manufacturing
16 74 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
17 43 (0.43%) Marketing
18 39 (0.39%) Retail
19 36 (0.36%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 1,511 (14.98%) Architect
2 1,055 (10.46%) Developer
3 936 (9.28%) Senior
4 903 (8.95%) Lead
5 606 (6.01%) Analyst
6 522 (5.17%) Consultant
7 484 (4.80%) Data Engineer
8 385 (3.82%) DevOps Engineer
9 371 (3.68%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 295 (2.92%) Software Engineer
11 265 (2.63%) Technical Architect
12 245 (2.43%) Solutions Architect
13 241 (2.39%) Security Architect
14 237 (2.35%) Network Engineer
15 217 (2.15%) Data Architect
16 200 (1.98%) Delivery Manager
17 198 (1.96%) Administrator
18 197 (1.95%) Java Developer
19 189 (1.87%) Project Manager
20 182 (1.80%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 374 (3.71%) REST
2 223 (2.21%) Spring
3 192 (1.90%) .NET
4 187 (1.85%) Spring Boot
5 182 (1.80%) Kafka
6 172 (1.70%) RESTful
7 171 (1.70%) React
8 150 (1.49%) SOAP
9 144 (1.43%) Node.js
10 129 (1.28%) JSON
11 124 (1.23%) AngularJS
12 105 (1.04%) Web Services
13 103 (1.02%) OAuth
14 102 (1.01%) HTML
15 89 (0.88%) XML
16 87 (0.86%) PySpark
17 76 (0.75%) CSS
18 72 (0.71%) Oracle Fusion
19 69 (0.68%) Elastic Stack
20 67 (0.66%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 418 (4.14%) Cloud Native
2 355 (3.52%) Onboarding
3 324 (3.21%) Product Ownership
4 281 (2.79%) Data Centre
5 181 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
6 156 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 151 (1.50%) PKI
8 141 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
9 120 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
10 119 (1.18%) CMDB
11 118 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
12 106 (1.05%) Hybrid Cloud
13 104 (1.03%) Clustering
13 104 (1.03%) Data Structures
14 99 (0.98%) Replication
15 84 (0.83%) Public Cloud
16 81 (0.80%) Security Operations Centre
17 78 (0.77%) Cyber Threat
18 75 (0.74%) Operational Technology
18 75 (0.74%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 864 (8.56%) Windows
2 707 (7.01%) Linux
3 305 (3.02%) Windows Server
4 207 (2.05%) Unix
5 142 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 99 (0.98%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.78%) Android
8 63 (0.62%) Solaris
9 44 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 40 (0.40%) Apple iOS
11 39 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.34%) AIX
13 31 (0.31%) CentOS
14 30 (0.30%) Ubuntu
15 20 (0.20%) VMS
16 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
17 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
18 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.12%) Embedded Linux
19 12 (0.12%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,122 (21.03%) Agile
2 1,555 (15.41%) DevOps
3 1,451 (14.38%) CI/CD
4 1,161 (11.51%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,130 (11.20%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,079 (10.70%) Problem-Solving
7 932 (9.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 807 (8.00%) Migration
9 804 (7.97%) Infrastructure as Code
10 697 (6.91%) Cybersecurity
11 695 (6.89%) ITIL
12 649 (6.43%) Analytics
13 627 (6.22%) Test Automation
14 607 (6.02%) Software Engineering
15 604 (5.99%) Containerisation
16 599 (5.94%) Roadmaps
17 570 (5.65%) AI
18 562 (5.57%) Data Modelling
19 547 (5.42%) Technical Leadership
20 538 (5.33%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 1,111 (11.01%) Python
2 1,008 (9.99%) SQL
3 683 (6.77%) Java
4 496 (4.92%) PowerShell
5 339 (3.36%) JavaScript
6 272 (2.70%) Bash
7 226 (2.24%) C#
8 151 (1.50%) PL/SQL
9 150 (1.49%) TypeScript
10 95 (0.94%) Bicep
11 84 (0.83%) C++
12 82 (0.81%) Shell Script
13 66 (0.65%) C
14 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
15 43 (0.43%) Go
16 41 (0.41%) Groovy
16 41 (0.41%) Scala
17 38 (0.38%) Apex Code
18 36 (0.36%) Ruby
19 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,577 (75.11%) SC Cleared
2 2,055 (20.37%) DV Cleared
3 419 (4.15%) Degree
4 366 (3.63%) BPSS Clearance
5 176 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
6 174 (1.72%) CISSP
7 153 (1.52%) Azure Certification
8 140 (1.39%) Microsoft Certification
9 119 (1.18%) AWS Certification
10 104 (1.03%) CISM
11 101 (1.00%) PMI Certification
12 98 (0.97%) PMP
13 77 (0.76%) CCNP
14 74 (0.73%) ISTQB
15 71 (0.70%) CCNA
16 63 (0.62%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 59 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
18 47 (0.47%) TOGAF Certification
19 42 (0.42%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 42 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 397 (3.94%) QA
2 327 (3.24%) Data Quality
3 272 (2.70%) NIST
4 270 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 219 (2.17%) PMO
6 215 (2.13%) NCSC
7 212 (2.10%) Accessibility
8 155 (1.54%) GDPR
9 119 (1.18%) GRC
10 116 (1.15%) SLA
11 66 (0.65%) WCAG
12 59 (0.58%) 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 25 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 19 (0.19%) RMADS
20 18 (0.18%) COBIT
System Software
1 671 (6.65%) Docker
2 481 (4.77%) Active Directory
3 368 (3.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 142 (1.41%) VMware NSX
5 132 (1.31%) VMware ESXi
6 110 (1.09%) vSphere
7 98 (0.97%) Hyper-V
8 77 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
9 44 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
10 38 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
11 30 (0.30%) Firmware
12 24 (0.24%) vCloud
13 20 (0.20%) BitLocker
14 16 (0.16%) Postfix
15 12 (0.12%) NFS
15 12 (0.12%) Squid
16 8 (0.079%) KVM
16 8 (0.079%) Microsoft App-V
16 8 (0.079%) Virtual Servers
17 6 (0.059%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 859 (8.52%) Terraform
2 795 (7.88%) Kubernetes
3 391 (3.88%) Ansible
4 226 (2.24%) Grafana
5 175 (1.73%) Prometheus
6 132 (1.31%) vCenter Server
7 104 (1.03%) SCCM
8 85 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
9 69 (0.68%) SCOM
10 62 (0.61%) Argo
11 53 (0.53%) Oracle RMAN
12 52 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
13 51 (0.51%) Puppet
14 42 (0.42%) 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
19 24 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,228 (12.17%) Microsoft
2 790 (7.83%) Oracle
3 533 (5.28%) VMware
4 499 (4.95%) ServiceNow
5 371 (3.68%) SAP
6 287 (2.84%) Cisco
7 202 (2.00%) Google
8 187 (1.85%) Splunk
9 180 (1.78%) Databricks
10 141 (1.40%) Red Hat
11 132 (1.31%) Salesforce
12 120 (1.19%) Talend
13 115 (1.14%) IBM
14 108 (1.07%) Informatica
15 104 (1.03%) Palo Alto
16 99 (0.98%) Juniper
17 90 (0.89%) SolarWinds
18 88 (0.87%) Remedy
19 87 (0.86%) F5
20 81 (0.80%) Dynatrace