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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 9,440 4,571 7,139
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.96% 18.42% 18.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.47% 59.05% 61.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,607 2,989 4,657
10th Percentile £380 £338 £356
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £537 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 754 330 531
10th Percentile £18.20 £18.22 £14.27
25th Percentile £25.15 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £62.25 £29.27 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year +112.68% -48.55% -5.19%
75th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.50 £80.10 £83.75
UK median hourly rate £60.33 £27.13 £56.15
% change year-on-year +122.41% -51.69% -6.97%

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 13,589 7,741 11,519
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.61% 31.20% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,142 4,871 7,111
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,031 499 1,015
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.68 £20.24 £20.06
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.32 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +73.15% -26.52% -24.97%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.65%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 3,372 £525 - 500
South East +1 2,261 £550 - 530
South West 0 1,293 £538 -4.44% 436
North of England +2 978 £500 - 272
Midlands +2 911 £469 -10.24% 133
West Midlands +2 791 £469 -10.67% 85
North West 0 531 £525 +5.00% 157
East of England +2 361 £550 +10.00% 111
Yorkshire -5 250 £500 +1.63% 63
North East +1 228 £480 - 56
East Midlands -6 109 £431 -11.67% 48
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
1 343 (3.63%) Confluence
2 215 (2.28%) SharePoint
3 143 (1.51%) SAS
4 121 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
5 83 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 79 (0.84%) Apache Spark
7 77 (0.82%) Apache
8 41 (0.43%) Jupyter
9 37 (0.39%) nginx
10 29 (0.31%) WebLogic
11 21 (0.22%) Tomcat
12 18 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
13 16 (0.17%) IIS
14 15 (0.16%) CMS
14 15 (0.16%) Oracle Application Server
15 14 (0.15%) Skype for Business
16 12 (0.13%) Tuxedo
17 11 (0.12%) NetWeaver
18 9 (0.095%) ArcGIS
19 8 (0.085%) Apache Superset
Applications
1 157 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 129 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
3 76 (0.81%) Microsoft Project
4 72 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 39 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.15%) Simulink
8 10 (0.11%) SOLIDWORKS
9 9 (0.095%) AutoCAD
9 9 (0.095%) Chatbot
9 9 (0.095%) Revit
10 5 (0.053%) Notepad++
11 4 (0.042%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.032%) Sketch
13 2 (0.021%) CATIA
13 2 (0.021%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.021%) Lectora
13 2 (0.021%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.021%) Siemens NX
13 2 (0.021%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 97 (1.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 57 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
3 41 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 32 (0.34%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 30 (0.32%) Teamcenter
6 28 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
7 18 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
8 16 (0.17%) SAP PSCD
9 15 (0.16%) Findur
9 15 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 14 (0.15%) Maximo
11 12 (0.13%) iTrent
11 12 (0.13%) Primavera
11 12 (0.13%) Temenos T24
12 10 (0.11%) SAP ERP
13 9 (0.095%) Integrated Workplace Management System
13 9 (0.095%) Oracle Assets
13 9 (0.095%) Salesforce CRM
13 9 (0.095%) SAP HR
14 8 (0.085%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 1,631 (17.28%) Azure
2 1,585 (16.79%) AWS
3 370 (3.92%) GitHub
4 366 (3.88%) Azure DevOps
5 364 (3.86%) Power Platform
6 345 (3.65%) GCP
7 241 (2.55%) Serverless
8 238 (2.52%) Entra ID
8 238 (2.52%) Microsoft 365
9 224 (2.37%) GitHub Actions
10 208 (2.20%) Amazon S3
11 168 (1.78%) AWS Lambda
12 153 (1.62%) Amazon EC2
13 135 (1.43%) PaaS
14 131 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 128 (1.36%) OpenShift
16 127 (1.35%) SaaS
17 122 (1.29%) OCI
18 107 (1.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 101 (1.07%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 403 (4.27%) Firewall
2 271 (2.87%) DNS
3 220 (2.33%) Network Security
4 205 (2.17%) WAN
5 184 (1.95%) LAN
6 159 (1.68%) VPN
7 149 (1.58%) DHCP
8 134 (1.42%) BGP
9 113 (1.20%) OSPF
10 111 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
11 100 (1.06%) VLAN
12 87 (0.92%) TCP/IP
13 82 (0.87%) Wireless
14 59 (0.63%) MPLS
15 54 (0.57%) SD-WAN
15 54 (0.57%) VXLAN
16 51 (0.54%) SAN
17 49 (0.52%) Structured Cabling
18 48 (0.51%) IPsec
19 47 (0.50%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 273 (2.89%) Power BI
2 232 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
3 222 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
4 208 (2.20%) SQL Server
5 137 (1.45%) Oracle Database
6 116 (1.23%) Metadata
7 108 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
8 107 (1.13%) Data Lake
9 95 (1.01%) Relational Database
10 83 (0.88%) Pentaho
11 79 (0.84%) MongoDB
12 73 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
12 73 (0.77%) MySQL
12 73 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
13 67 (0.71%) NoSQL
14 66 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
15 61 (0.65%) Amazon Athena
16 59 (0.63%) Tableau
17 44 (0.47%) Azure SQL Database
18 43 (0.46%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 540 (5.72%) JIRA
2 423 (4.48%) Git
3 397 (4.21%) GitLab
4 363 (3.85%) Jenkins
5 102 (1.08%) Selenium
6 80 (0.85%) JUnit
7 70 (0.74%) SonarQube
8 69 (0.73%) Postman
9 57 (0.60%) Rational DOORS
10 52 (0.55%) JMeter
11 50 (0.53%) Cucumber
12 45 (0.48%) Artifactory
13 41 (0.43%) Bitbucket
13 41 (0.43%) Mockito
14 40 (0.42%) Maven
15 37 (0.39%) Zephyr
16 36 (0.38%) Visual Studio
17 34 (0.36%) Cypress.io
17 34 (0.36%) REST Assured
18 30 (0.32%) WebDriver
General
1 2,018 (21.38%) Public Sector
2 1,914 (20.28%) Social Skills
3 647 (6.85%) Analytical Skills
4 634 (6.72%) Finance
5 319 (3.38%) Military
6 271 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
7 264 (2.80%) Aerospace
8 141 (1.49%) Legal
9 120 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
10 119 (1.26%) Banking
11 103 (1.09%) Telecoms
12 98 (1.04%) Law
13 89 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
14 77 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
15 73 (0.77%) Manufacturing
16 66 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 64 (0.68%) Police
18 46 (0.49%) Marketing
19 40 (0.42%) Aviation
20 39 (0.41%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,372 (14.53%) Architect
2 908 (9.62%) Developer
3 816 (8.64%) Senior
4 725 (7.68%) Lead
5 622 (6.59%) Analyst
6 461 (4.88%) Data Engineer
7 426 (4.51%) DevOps Engineer
8 424 (4.49%) Consultant
9 292 (3.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 283 (3.00%) Software Engineer
11 271 (2.87%) Technical Architect
12 258 (2.73%) Network Engineer
13 227 (2.40%) Solutions Architect
14 221 (2.34%) Business Analyst
15 209 (2.21%) Project Manager
16 201 (2.13%) Security Architect
17 192 (2.03%) Delivery Manager
18 186 (1.97%) Administrator
19 183 (1.94%) Azure Engineer
20 173 (1.83%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 292 (3.09%) REST
2 217 (2.30%) Spring
3 183 (1.94%) Spring Boot
4 171 (1.81%) React
5 159 (1.68%) .NET
6 147 (1.56%) Node.js
7 145 (1.54%) Kafka
8 140 (1.48%) RESTful
9 129 (1.37%) LDAP
10 128 (1.36%) SOAP
11 113 (1.20%) AngularJS
12 107 (1.13%) JSON
13 95 (1.01%) OAuth
13 95 (1.01%) Web Services
14 92 (0.97%) PySpark
15 86 (0.91%) HTML
16 74 (0.78%) OpenID
17 72 (0.76%) XML
18 71 (0.75%) Middleware
19 69 (0.73%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 360 (3.81%) Cloud Native
2 316 (3.35%) Product Ownership
3 282 (2.99%) Onboarding
4 275 (2.91%) Data Centre
5 150 (1.59%) Management Information System
6 148 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
7 135 (1.43%) PKI
8 125 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
9 112 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
10 106 (1.12%) Security Posture
11 104 (1.10%) Replication
12 102 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
13 85 (0.90%) Data Structures
14 84 (0.89%) Clustering
15 83 (0.88%) CMDB
16 77 (0.82%) Hybrid Cloud
17 74 (0.78%) Public Cloud
18 71 (0.75%) Operational Technology
19 70 (0.74%) Security Operations Centre
20 65 (0.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 752 (7.97%) Windows
2 618 (6.55%) Linux
3 241 (2.55%) Windows Server
4 177 (1.88%) Unix
5 110 (1.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 78 (0.83%) Windows 10
7 72 (0.76%) Android
8 52 (0.55%) Solaris
9 48 (0.51%) Apple iOS
10 35 (0.37%) Mac OS
11 30 (0.32%) Ubuntu
12 27 (0.29%) AIX
13 25 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
14 22 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
15 21 (0.22%) CentOS
16 17 (0.18%) VMS
17 14 (0.15%) Windows 7
18 11 (0.12%) Embedded Linux
18 11 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,880 (19.92%) Agile
2 1,464 (15.51%) DevOps
3 1,291 (13.68%) CI/CD
4 968 (10.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 966 (10.23%) Problem-Solving
6 914 (9.68%) Continuous Improvement
7 773 (8.19%) Migration
8 761 (8.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 686 (7.27%) Infrastructure as Code
10 605 (6.41%) Cybersecurity
11 578 (6.12%) Test Automation
12 566 (6.00%) ITIL
13 554 (5.87%) Software Engineering
14 547 (5.79%) Analytics
15 531 (5.63%) Containerisation
16 530 (5.61%) Roadmaps
17 489 (5.18%) Data Modelling
18 478 (5.06%) Decision-Making
19 451 (4.78%) AI
20 438 (4.64%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 971 (10.29%) Python
2 898 (9.51%) SQL
3 594 (6.29%) Java
4 461 (4.88%) PowerShell
5 272 (2.88%) JavaScript
6 204 (2.16%) C#
7 183 (1.94%) Bash
8 142 (1.50%) TypeScript
9 118 (1.25%) PL/SQL
10 84 (0.89%) Shell Script
11 83 (0.88%) C++
12 66 (0.70%) Bicep
13 63 (0.67%) C
14 54 (0.57%) Go
15 46 (0.49%) Scala
16 45 (0.48%) Ada
17 43 (0.46%) Apex Code
18 42 (0.44%) Ruby
19 35 (0.37%) MATLAB
20 32 (0.34%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 7,131 (75.54%) SC Cleared
2 1,817 (19.25%) DV Cleared
3 380 (4.03%) Degree
4 276 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
5 181 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
6 156 (1.65%) CISSP
7 124 (1.31%) Azure Certification
8 105 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
9 101 (1.07%) AWS Certification
9 101 (1.07%) CISM
10 98 (1.04%) CCNP
11 82 (0.87%) CCNA
12 80 (0.85%) PMP
13 78 (0.83%) PMI Certification
14 64 (0.68%) ISTQB
15 55 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
16 51 (0.54%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 48 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
18 41 (0.43%) GIAC
19 34 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 367 (3.89%) QA
2 285 (3.02%) NIST
3 284 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 282 (2.99%) Data Quality
5 204 (2.16%) NCSC
6 178 (1.89%) Accessibility
7 170 (1.80%) PMO
8 165 (1.75%) GDPR
9 105 (1.11%) SLA
10 80 (0.85%) GRC
11 60 (0.64%) JSP 440
12 49 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
13 43 (0.46%) WCAG
14 41 (0.43%) NIST 800
15 33 (0.35%) Def Stans
16 29 (0.31%) RMADS
17 23 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
17 23 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 22 (0.23%) COBIT
19 19 (0.20%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 586 (6.21%) Docker
2 429 (4.54%) Active Directory
3 280 (2.97%) VMware Infrastructure
4 110 (1.17%) VMware ESXi
5 99 (1.05%) VMware NSX
6 77 (0.82%) Hyper-V
7 75 (0.79%) vSphere
8 66 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
9 32 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
10 31 (0.33%) Firmware
11 24 (0.25%) BitLocker
12 21 (0.22%) vCloud
13 19 (0.20%) NFS
13 19 (0.20%) Postfix
13 19 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
14 16 (0.17%) Squid
15 15 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 10 (0.11%) Microsoft App-V
17 6 (0.064%) Corosync
17 6 (0.064%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 756 (8.01%) Terraform
2 723 (7.66%) Kubernetes
3 322 (3.41%) Ansible
4 224 (2.37%) Grafana
5 182 (1.93%) Prometheus
6 110 (1.17%) vCenter Server
7 79 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
8 71 (0.75%) SCCM
9 57 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 55 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
11 48 (0.51%) FortiGate
12 47 (0.50%) Argo
13 41 (0.43%) Puppet
14 39 (0.41%) Oracle RMAN
14 39 (0.41%) SCOM
15 37 (0.39%) Podman
16 27 (0.29%) Progress Chef
17 25 (0.26%) Nagios
18 24 (0.25%) vMotion
19 21 (0.22%) WSUS
Vendors
1 988 (10.47%) Microsoft
2 661 (7.00%) Oracle
3 452 (4.79%) VMware
4 395 (4.18%) ServiceNow
5 315 (3.34%) Cisco
6 303 (3.21%) SAP
7 198 (2.10%) Splunk
8 173 (1.83%) Databricks
9 144 (1.53%) Google
10 138 (1.46%) Red Hat
11 128 (1.36%) Talend
12 125 (1.32%) Salesforce
13 116 (1.23%) IBM
14 110 (1.17%) Palo Alto
15 98 (1.04%) Informatica
16 97 (1.03%) Juniper
17 85 (0.90%) F5
18 82 (0.87%) Fortinet
19 80 (0.85%) SolarWinds
20 78 (0.83%) CyberArk