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

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 3 3
Rank change year-on-year +1 0 +3
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 8,342 4,653 7,077
As % of all contract jobs in England 23.48% 18.12% 18.72%
As % of the Qualifications category 68.42% 59.63% 60.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,699 2,986 4,498
10th Percentile £357 £315 £356
25th Percentile £445 £438 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -3.08%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £703 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 733 255 477
10th Percentile £17.69 £21.25 £19.99
25th Percentile £20.28 £25.38 £38.39
Median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -58.08% +6.21% -5.85%
75th Percentile £66.50 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.90 £76.81 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £55.75 £56.89
% change year-on-year -54.89% -2.00% -5.19%

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 12,192 7,803 11,764
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.32% 30.38% 31.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,114 4,810 7,262
10th Percentile £325 £290 £290
25th Percentile £422 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £726 £738
UK median daily rate £517 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.52% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 942 397 896
10th Percentile £16.17 £20.22 £14.25
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.26 £20.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £49.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -48.67% +15.29% -10.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.19 £82.35 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.47 £40.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -37.11% -4.71% -13.27%

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 28 February 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 28 February 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 28 February 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 +5 2,895 £530 +0.95% 390
South East +1 1,808 £525 -4.55% 491
South West 0 1,320 £550 -2.22% 276
Midlands +4 851 £492 -10.55% 134
North of England -2 823 £498 +3.65% 168
West Midlands +2 679 £495 -10.16% 101
North West 0 535 £500 +5.26% 101
East of England +1 349 £498 -0.50% 122
East Midlands +2 170 £425 -16.05% 33
Yorkshire -7 169 £500 -4.76% 34
North East +1 146 £450 -10.00% 34
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
1 320 (3.84%) Confluence
2 203 (2.43%) SharePoint
3 135 (1.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 132 (1.58%) SAS
5 67 (0.80%) Apache
6 65 (0.78%) Apache Spark
7 42 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
8 39 (0.47%) nginx
9 35 (0.42%) WebLogic
10 32 (0.38%) Skype for Business
11 20 (0.24%) Jupyter
12 18 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
13 15 (0.18%) CMS
14 14 (0.17%) Tuxedo
15 9 (0.11%) IIS
15 9 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
16 7 (0.084%) OpenStack
16 7 (0.084%) Tomcat
17 6 (0.072%) ArcGIS
18 5 (0.060%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 248 (2.97%) Microsoft Office
2 184 (2.21%) Microsoft Excel
3 117 (1.40%) Microsoft Project
4 68 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 41 (0.49%) MS Visio
6 28 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.11%) Simulink
8 6 (0.072%) Oracle Smart View
9 5 (0.060%) Siemens NX
9 5 (0.060%) Windchill
10 4 (0.048%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.048%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.048%) Sketch
11 3 (0.036%) AutoCAD
12 2 (0.024%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.024%) CATIA
12 2 (0.024%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 2 (0.024%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.024%) Stateflow
12 2 (0.024%) Trello
Business Applications
1 129 (1.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (0.44%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 29 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
4 26 (0.31%) Remedy ITSM
5 25 (0.30%) Teamcenter
6 19 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
6 19 (0.23%) SAP MM
7 16 (0.19%) Maximo
8 13 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
8 13 (0.16%) SAP PP
8 13 (0.16%) SAP QM
9 12 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
9 12 (0.14%) SAP VC
9 12 (0.14%) SAP WM
10 11 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
10 11 (0.13%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 11 (0.13%) SAP HCM
11 10 (0.12%) SAP EWM
12 9 (0.11%) Oracle General Ledger
12 9 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 1,378 (16.52%) Azure
2 1,375 (16.48%) AWS
3 359 (4.30%) GitHub
4 354 (4.24%) GCP
5 308 (3.69%) Azure DevOps
5 308 (3.69%) Power Platform
6 298 (3.57%) Microsoft 365
7 232 (2.78%) Serverless
8 224 (2.69%) Entra ID
9 185 (2.22%) Amazon S3
10 180 (2.16%) GitHub Actions
11 170 (2.04%) OpenShift
12 149 (1.79%) AWS Lambda
13 125 (1.50%) Amazon EC2
14 110 (1.32%) AWS CloudFormation
15 108 (1.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 100 (1.20%) IaaS
17 99 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
18 98 (1.17%) PaaS
19 97 (1.16%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 405 (4.85%) Firewall
2 274 (3.28%) DNS
3 200 (2.40%) Network Security
4 177 (2.12%) WAN
5 162 (1.94%) VPN
6 143 (1.71%) LAN
7 135 (1.62%) TCP/IP
8 130 (1.56%) DHCP
9 129 (1.55%) BGP
10 92 (1.10%) Wireless
11 89 (1.07%) OSPF
12 88 (1.05%) VLAN
13 73 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
14 64 (0.77%) MPLS
15 51 (0.61%) IPsec
16 49 (0.59%) SAN
17 46 (0.55%) Cisco ISE
17 46 (0.55%) SSL
18 41 (0.49%) Skype
19 38 (0.46%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 229 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
2 220 (2.64%) Power BI
3 145 (1.74%) Data Warehouse
4 125 (1.50%) SQL Server
5 105 (1.26%) Metadata
6 93 (1.11%) Oracle Database
7 90 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
8 83 (0.99%) MongoDB
8 83 (0.99%) NoSQL
9 78 (0.94%) Relational Database
10 70 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
11 66 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
12 59 (0.71%) Pentaho
13 51 (0.61%) Data Lake
13 51 (0.61%) MySQL
14 47 (0.56%) Big Data
15 43 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
15 43 (0.52%) Tableau
16 36 (0.43%) DynamoDB
16 36 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 529 (6.34%) JIRA
2 430 (5.15%) Git
3 371 (4.45%) Jenkins
4 312 (3.74%) GitLab
5 100 (1.20%) Selenium
6 78 (0.94%) JUnit
6 78 (0.94%) Postman
7 58 (0.70%) Cypress.io
8 51 (0.61%) SonarQube
9 48 (0.58%) Bitbucket
10 45 (0.54%) Maven
10 45 (0.54%) Oracle APEX
11 44 (0.53%) Artifactory
11 44 (0.53%) Cucumber
12 35 (0.42%) REST Assured
13 34 (0.41%) Rational DOORS
14 33 (0.40%) Mockito
15 27 (0.32%) Visual Studio
16 26 (0.31%) JMeter
17 24 (0.29%) Metasploit
General
1 2,113 (25.33%) Public Sector
2 2,040 (24.45%) Social Skills
3 712 (8.54%) Analytical Skills
4 600 (7.19%) Finance
5 316 (3.79%) Military
6 239 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
7 183 (2.19%) Aerospace
8 171 (2.05%) Manufacturing
9 169 (2.03%) Telecoms
10 131 (1.57%) Legal
11 120 (1.44%) Organisational Skills
12 113 (1.35%) Marketing
13 108 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
14 107 (1.28%) Electronics
15 105 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
16 90 (1.08%) Banking
17 69 (0.83%) Law
18 45 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 41 (0.49%) Police
20 35 (0.42%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,171 (14.04%) Architect
2 802 (9.61%) Developer
3 701 (8.40%) Senior
4 634 (7.60%) Analyst
5 490 (5.87%) Consultant
6 476 (5.71%) Lead
7 365 (4.38%) DevOps Engineer
8 304 (3.64%) Data Engineer
9 242 (2.90%) Network Engineer
10 227 (2.72%) Support Engineer
11 224 (2.69%) Business Analyst
12 217 (2.60%) Software Engineer
13 205 (2.46%) Technical Architect
14 188 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
15 168 (2.01%) Tester
16 149 (1.79%) Azure Engineer
16 149 (1.79%) Project Manager
17 147 (1.76%) Administrator
18 142 (1.70%) AWS Engineer
19 139 (1.67%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 327 (3.92%) REST
2 195 (2.34%) Node.js
3 189 (2.27%) Spring
4 176 (2.11%) React
5 165 (1.98%) Kafka
6 144 (1.73%) Spring Boot
7 142 (1.70%) LDAP
8 141 (1.69%) SOAP
9 140 (1.68%) JSON
10 122 (1.46%) .NET
11 109 (1.31%) AngularJS
12 108 (1.29%) HTML
13 102 (1.22%) RESTful
14 96 (1.15%) Web Services
15 95 (1.14%) OAuth
16 93 (1.11%) Oracle Fusion
17 88 (1.05%) CSS
18 87 (1.04%) PySpark
18 87 (1.04%) XML
19 79 (0.95%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 268 (3.21%) Data Centre
2 253 (3.03%) Product Ownership
3 235 (2.82%) Cloud Native
4 219 (2.63%) Onboarding
5 197 (2.36%) PKI
6 149 (1.79%) Management Information System
7 129 (1.55%) Security Posture
8 109 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
9 106 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
9 106 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
10 95 (1.14%) Replication
11 71 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
12 69 (0.83%) Public Cloud
13 65 (0.78%) Cyber Threat
13 65 (0.78%) Driving Licence
14 64 (0.77%) Distributed Systems
15 63 (0.76%) Security Operations Centre
16 50 (0.60%) Clustering
17 45 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
18 44 (0.53%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 817 (9.79%) Windows
2 625 (7.49%) Linux
3 210 (2.52%) Windows Server
4 153 (1.83%) Windows 10
5 122 (1.46%) Android
6 109 (1.31%) Unix
7 108 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 65 (0.78%) Mac OS
9 48 (0.58%) Apple iOS
10 44 (0.53%) Ubuntu
11 35 (0.42%) VMS
12 24 (0.29%) CentOS
12 24 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
13 21 (0.25%) Windows 7
14 19 (0.23%) Solaris
15 17 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
16 12 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
17 9 (0.11%) Mac OS X
18 8 (0.096%) Windows Server 2003
18 8 (0.096%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,638 (19.64%) Agile
2 1,285 (15.40%) DevOps
3 1,128 (13.52%) CI/CD
4 1,062 (12.73%) Problem-Solving
5 768 (9.21%) Stakeholder Management
6 734 (8.80%) Migration
7 663 (7.95%) Continuous Improvement
8 575 (6.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 542 (6.50%) Cybersecurity
10 521 (6.25%) ITIL
11 505 (6.05%) Infrastructure as Code
12 477 (5.72%) Test Automation
13 455 (5.45%) Roadmaps
14 450 (5.39%) Analytics
15 437 (5.24%) Containerisation
16 412 (4.94%) Scrum
17 410 (4.91%) Software Engineering
18 404 (4.84%) Service Management
19 399 (4.78%) Business Intelligence
20 372 (4.46%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 989 (11.86%) Python
2 712 (8.54%) SQL
3 544 (6.52%) PowerShell
4 476 (5.71%) Java
5 369 (4.42%) JavaScript
6 214 (2.57%) Bash
7 175 (2.10%) TypeScript
8 166 (1.99%) C#
9 99 (1.19%) C++
10 94 (1.13%) PL/SQL
11 90 (1.08%) Shell Script
12 78 (0.94%) Go
13 62 (0.74%) C
14 51 (0.61%) Ada
15 49 (0.59%) Ruby
16 48 (0.58%) Scala
17 41 (0.49%) Bicep
18 37 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
19 31 (0.37%) ABAP
20 29 (0.35%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 6,352 (76.14%) SC Cleared
2 1,445 (17.32%) DV Cleared
3 410 (4.91%) Degree
4 251 (3.01%) BPSS Clearance
5 161 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
6 156 (1.87%) CISSP
7 125 (1.50%) Azure Certification
8 120 (1.44%) CCNP
9 117 (1.40%) Microsoft Certification
10 114 (1.37%) AWS Certification
11 96 (1.15%) CISM
12 72 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
13 71 (0.85%) CCNA
14 62 (0.74%) ITIL Certification
15 60 (0.72%) TOGAF Certification
16 46 (0.55%) ISTQB
16 46 (0.55%) PMP
17 44 (0.53%) GIAC
17 44 (0.53%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 43 (0.52%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 294 (3.52%) QA
2 266 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 253 (3.03%) NIST
4 216 (2.59%) Data Quality
5 190 (2.28%) NCSC
6 167 (2.00%) GDPR
7 152 (1.82%) Accessibility
8 115 (1.38%) SLA
9 99 (1.19%) PMO
10 58 (0.70%) GRC
11 53 (0.64%) JSP 440
12 44 (0.53%) WCAG
13 41 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
14 39 (0.47%) Def Stans
15 33 (0.40%) NIST 800
16 32 (0.38%) PCI DSS
17 30 (0.36%) COBIT
18 23 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 23 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 21 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 582 (6.98%) Docker
2 468 (5.61%) Active Directory
3 232 (2.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 77 (0.92%) VMware NSX
5 63 (0.76%) vSphere
6 58 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
7 57 (0.68%) Hyper-V
7 57 (0.68%) VMware ESXi
8 23 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
9 22 (0.26%) Firmware
10 19 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
11 18 (0.22%) BitLocker
12 16 (0.19%) NFS
12 16 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 12 (0.14%) Postfix
14 11 (0.13%) Squid
15 8 (0.096%) vCloud
16 7 (0.084%) Virtual Servers
17 5 (0.060%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 5 (0.060%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 748 (8.97%) Kubernetes
2 681 (8.16%) Terraform
3 287 (3.44%) Ansible
4 209 (2.51%) Grafana
5 168 (2.01%) Prometheus
6 105 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
7 96 (1.15%) SCCM
8 90 (1.08%) vCenter Server
9 81 (0.97%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 66 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
11 65 (0.78%) Argo
12 40 (0.48%) FortiGate
13 38 (0.46%) Podman
14 36 (0.43%) Packer
15 30 (0.36%) OPNET
15 30 (0.36%) Puppet
16 29 (0.35%) Kibana
17 27 (0.32%) Progress Chef
18 25 (0.30%) Nmap
19 23 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 989 (11.86%) Microsoft
2 486 (5.83%) Oracle
3 419 (5.02%) VMware
4 403 (4.83%) Cisco
5 376 (4.51%) SAP
6 366 (4.39%) ServiceNow
7 206 (2.47%) Splunk
8 175 (2.10%) Red Hat
9 130 (1.56%) Palo Alto
10 129 (1.55%) Juniper
11 126 (1.51%) Databricks
12 125 (1.50%) Google
13 122 (1.46%) CyberArk
14 117 (1.40%) Atlassian
15 109 (1.31%) Salesforce
16 90 (1.08%) Dell
17 78 (0.94%) Talend
18 75 (0.90%) Aruba
18 75 (0.90%) HP
18 75 (0.90%) SolarWinds