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

6 months to
18 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 9,884 4,935 6,910
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.97% 18.13% 19.14%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.48% 58.70% 62.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,950 3,200 4,525
10th Percentile £380 £338 £350
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.40% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £719 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £531 £530 £550
% change year-on-year +0.21% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 757 422 522
10th Percentile £18.54 £18.50 £15.25
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £57.47
Median % change year-on-year +152.49% -56.24% -4.22%
75th Percentile £79.00 £60.00 £71.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £81.18
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £25.15 £55.04
% change year-on-year +148.51% -54.30% -8.27%

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 14,226 8,407 11,056
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.61% 30.88% 30.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,595 5,311 6,932
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.28% -2.32%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £717 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.10% -0.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,061 603 934
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.26
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £54.00 £26.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +103.77% -38.37% -22.17%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.96 £76.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £51.22 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +103.66% -40.82% -24.71%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 3,516 £538 +2.48% 500
South East +1 2,424 £550 +1.22% 458
South West 0 1,300 £538 -6.52% 300
North of England +2 1,081 £500 - 248
Midlands +2 963 £469 -6.20% 137
West Midlands +1 823 £469 -6.20% 97
North West 0 576 £525 - 137
East of England +2 327 £552 +5.14% 111
Yorkshire +2 298 £500 +1.63% 60
North East 0 236 £480 -4.00% 52
East Midlands -1 127 £418 -12.11% 40
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
1 356 (3.60%) Confluence
2 236 (2.39%) SharePoint
3 154 (1.56%) SAS
4 120 (1.21%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 81 (0.82%) Apache Spark
7 78 (0.79%) Apache
8 44 (0.45%) nginx
9 33 (0.33%) Jupyter
10 30 (0.30%) WebLogic
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 18 (0.18%) Oracle Application Server
13 17 (0.17%) CMS
13 17 (0.17%) IIS
14 16 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
15 12 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
15 12 (0.12%) Skype for Business
15 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
16 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
17 9 (0.091%) Documentum
Applications
1 177 (1.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 127 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
3 85 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
4 71 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 40 (0.40%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.21%) 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 6 (0.061%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.061%) Sketch
11 5 (0.051%) Notepad++
12 4 (0.040%) Trello
13 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.020%) CATIA
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
14 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
14 2 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 113 (1.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 65 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
3 42 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 38 (0.38%) Teamcenter
5 29 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 27 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
7 26 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
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 (0.091%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,748 (17.69%) Azure
2 1,639 (16.58%) AWS
3 410 (4.15%) Azure DevOps
4 402 (4.07%) Power Platform
5 401 (4.06%) GitHub
6 350 (3.54%) GCP
7 261 (2.64%) Microsoft 365
8 254 (2.57%) GitHub Actions
9 251 (2.54%) Entra ID
10 242 (2.45%) Serverless
11 223 (2.26%) Amazon S3
12 169 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
13 153 (1.55%) Amazon EC2
14 142 (1.44%) OCI
15 139 (1.41%) OpenShift
16 138 (1.40%) SaaS
17 131 (1.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 123 (1.24%) PaaS
19 113 (1.14%) Amazon EKS
20 112 (1.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 425 (4.30%) Firewall
2 336 (3.40%) DNS
3 225 (2.28%) Network Security
4 211 (2.13%) WAN
5 184 (1.86%) LAN
6 181 (1.83%) VPN
7 173 (1.75%) DHCP
8 139 (1.41%) BGP
9 122 (1.23%) TCP/IP
10 114 (1.15%) OSPF
11 108 (1.09%) Wi-Fi
12 101 (1.02%) VLAN
13 82 (0.83%) Wireless
14 59 (0.60%) IPsec
14 59 (0.60%) MPLS
15 58 (0.59%) SD-WAN
16 56 (0.57%) SAN
17 54 (0.55%) VSAN
17 54 (0.55%) VXLAN
18 49 (0.50%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 300 (3.04%) Power BI
2 247 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
3 242 (2.45%) SQL Server
4 227 (2.30%) Data Warehouse
5 149 (1.51%) Oracle Database
6 130 (1.32%) Metadata
7 105 (1.06%) Relational Database
8 104 (1.05%) Data Lake
9 99 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
10 81 (0.82%) Pentaho
11 78 (0.79%) MySQL
11 78 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
12 75 (0.76%) MongoDB
13 71 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
14 63 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
15 61 (0.62%) NoSQL
16 58 (0.59%) Amazon Athena
17 57 (0.58%) Tableau
18 41 (0.41%) Big Data
19 38 (0.38%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 555 (5.62%) JIRA
2 456 (4.61%) Git
3 398 (4.03%) GitLab
4 371 (3.75%) Jenkins
5 101 (1.02%) Selenium
6 76 (0.77%) SonarQube
7 75 (0.76%) JUnit
8 64 (0.65%) Postman
9 57 (0.58%) Rational DOORS
10 52 (0.53%) JMeter
11 47 (0.48%) Maven
12 45 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 40 (0.40%) Mockito
14 38 (0.38%) Artifactory
14 38 (0.38%) REST Assured
15 37 (0.37%) Bitbucket
15 37 (0.37%) Visual Studio
15 37 (0.37%) Zephyr
16 33 (0.33%) Cypress.io
17 29 (0.29%) Gatling
General
1 2,087 (21.11%) Public Sector
2 2,029 (20.53%) Social Skills
3 740 (7.49%) Analytical Skills
4 682 (6.90%) Finance
5 331 (3.35%) Military
6 272 (2.75%) Aerospace
7 259 (2.62%) Documentation Skills
8 152 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
9 147 (1.49%) Legal
10 129 (1.31%) Telecoms
11 124 (1.25%) Banking
12 119 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
13 93 (0.94%) Law
14 83 (0.84%) Police
15 75 (0.76%) Manufacturing
16 70 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 69 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
18 43 (0.44%) Marketing
19 37 (0.37%) Aviation
20 36 (0.36%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,436 (14.53%) Architect
2 1,019 (10.31%) Developer
3 885 (8.95%) Senior
4 847 (8.57%) Lead
5 631 (6.38%) Analyst
6 467 (4.72%) Data Engineer
7 465 (4.70%) Consultant
8 403 (4.08%) DevOps Engineer
9 337 (3.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 296 (2.99%) Software Engineer
11 272 (2.75%) Technical Architect
12 242 (2.45%) Network Engineer
13 232 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
14 229 (2.32%) Security Architect
15 198 (2.00%) Java Developer
16 196 (1.98%) Business Analyst
17 193 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
18 188 (1.90%) Project Manager
19 183 (1.85%) Administrator
19 183 (1.85%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 341 (3.45%) REST
2 236 (2.39%) Spring
3 198 (2.00%) Spring Boot
4 177 (1.79%) .NET
5 171 (1.73%) React
6 167 (1.69%) Kafka
7 165 (1.67%) RESTful
8 147 (1.49%) Node.js
9 140 (1.42%) SOAP
10 119 (1.20%) JSON
11 115 (1.16%) AngularJS
12 99 (1.00%) OAuth
13 96 (0.97%) Web Services
14 91 (0.92%) HTML
14 91 (0.92%) LDAP
15 86 (0.87%) PySpark
16 77 (0.78%) OpenID
17 76 (0.77%) XML
18 69 (0.70%) Elastic Stack
19 68 (0.69%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 401 (4.06%) Cloud Native
2 340 (3.44%) Onboarding
3 326 (3.30%) Product Ownership
4 279 (2.82%) Data Centre
5 175 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
6 149 (1.51%) Management Information System
7 143 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
8 140 (1.42%) PKI
9 114 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
10 112 (1.13%) Replication
11 107 (1.08%) CMDB
12 95 (0.96%) Data Structures
12 95 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
12 95 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
13 94 (0.95%) Clustering
14 87 (0.88%) Security Posture
15 84 (0.85%) Public Cloud
16 77 (0.78%) Virtual Team
17 74 (0.75%) Security Operations Centre
18 70 (0.71%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 813 (8.23%) Windows
2 684 (6.92%) Linux
3 267 (2.70%) Windows Server
4 197 (1.99%) Unix
5 136 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 88 (0.89%) Windows 10
7 80 (0.81%) Android
8 58 (0.59%) Solaris
9 46 (0.47%) Apple iOS
10 44 (0.45%) Mac OS
11 32 (0.32%) AIX
12 30 (0.30%) Ubuntu
13 29 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
14 27 (0.27%) CentOS
15 16 (0.16%) VMS
15 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
16 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
17 10 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
18 9 (0.091%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,044 (20.68%) Agile
2 1,528 (15.46%) DevOps
3 1,394 (14.10%) CI/CD
4 1,072 (10.85%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,062 (10.74%) Problem-Solving
6 1,052 (10.64%) Continuous Improvement
7 866 (8.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 771 (7.80%) Migration
9 757 (7.66%) Infrastructure as Code
10 683 (6.91%) ITIL
11 675 (6.83%) Cybersecurity
12 592 (5.99%) Analytics
13 590 (5.97%) Test Automation
14 585 (5.92%) Software Engineering
15 579 (5.86%) Containerisation
16 569 (5.76%) Roadmaps
17 530 (5.36%) Data Modelling
18 526 (5.32%) Decision-Making
19 515 (5.21%) AI
20 482 (4.88%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 1,051 (10.63%) Python
2 947 (9.58%) SQL
3 666 (6.74%) Java
4 473 (4.79%) PowerShell
5 297 (3.00%) JavaScript
6 243 (2.46%) Bash
7 206 (2.08%) C#
8 143 (1.45%) TypeScript
9 140 (1.42%) PL/SQL
10 84 (0.85%) Shell Script
11 82 (0.83%) C++
12 78 (0.79%) Bicep
13 65 (0.66%) C
14 52 (0.53%) Go
15 42 (0.42%) Kotlin
15 42 (0.42%) Scala
16 40 (0.40%) Apex Code
17 39 (0.39%) Ada
18 38 (0.38%) Ruby
19 35 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 7,414 (75.01%) SC Cleared
2 2,006 (20.30%) DV Cleared
3 400 (4.05%) Degree
4 333 (3.37%) BPSS Clearance
5 181 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
6 164 (1.66%) CISSP
7 142 (1.44%) Azure Certification
8 124 (1.25%) Microsoft Certification
9 117 (1.18%) AWS Certification
10 94 (0.95%) CISM
11 93 (0.94%) PMI Certification
12 90 (0.91%) PMP
13 89 (0.90%) CCNP
14 76 (0.77%) CCNA
15 68 (0.69%) ISTQB
16 62 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 57 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
18 49 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
19 44 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
20 36 (0.36%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 378 (3.82%) QA
2 301 (3.05%) Data Quality
3 282 (2.85%) NIST
4 274 (2.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 217 (2.20%) NCSC
6 206 (2.08%) Accessibility
7 190 (1.92%) PMO
8 157 (1.59%) GDPR
9 101 (1.02%) GRC
10 99 (1.00%) SLA
11 56 (0.57%) WCAG
12 55 (0.56%) JSP 440
13 46 (0.47%) NIST 800
14 43 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
15 32 (0.32%) Def Stans
16 25 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
17 24 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 22 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 22 (0.22%) RMADS
19 21 (0.21%) COBIT
System Software
1 643 (6.51%) Docker
2 454 (4.59%) Active Directory
3 336 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 133 (1.35%) VMware NSX
5 130 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
6 100 (1.01%) vSphere
7 86 (0.87%) Hyper-V
8 78 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
9 43 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
10 34 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
11 30 (0.30%) Firmware
12 21 (0.21%) vCloud
13 20 (0.20%) NFS
14 19 (0.19%) BitLocker
15 18 (0.18%) Postfix
15 18 (0.18%) Squid
16 8 (0.081%) Microsoft App-V
16 8 (0.081%) Slurm Workload Manager
17 7 (0.071%) KVM
17 7 (0.071%) UAG
Systems Management
1 828 (8.38%) Terraform
2 781 (7.90%) Kubernetes
3 370 (3.74%) Ansible
4 237 (2.40%) Grafana
5 185 (1.87%) Prometheus
6 128 (1.30%) vCenter Server
7 85 (0.86%) SCCM
8 67 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
9 62 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
10 60 (0.61%) Argo
11 55 (0.56%) SCOM
12 48 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
13 47 (0.48%) FortiGate
14 45 (0.46%) Puppet
15 41 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 31 (0.31%) Data Guard
17 29 (0.29%) Progress Chef
18 28 (0.28%) Nagios
19 25 (0.25%) Podman
20 23 (0.23%) WSUS
Vendors
1 1,143 (11.56%) Microsoft
2 734 (7.43%) Oracle
3 500 (5.06%) VMware
4 473 (4.79%) ServiceNow
5 337 (3.41%) SAP
6 295 (2.98%) Cisco
7 198 (2.00%) Splunk
8 180 (1.82%) Google
9 170 (1.72%) Databricks
10 140 (1.42%) Red Hat
11 131 (1.33%) Salesforce
12 122 (1.23%) Talend
13 112 (1.13%) IBM
14 111 (1.12%) Informatica
15 105 (1.06%) Palo Alto
16 100 (1.01%) Juniper
17 91 (0.92%) SolarWinds
18 88 (0.89%) F5
19 82 (0.83%) Citrix
20 81 (0.82%) Fortinet