SC Cleared Contract Job Trends in London

Security Check (SC) Clearance
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in London with a requirement for SC Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 16 17
Rank change year-on-year +10 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 2,653 1,402 1,659
As % of all contract jobs in London 14.97% 11.18% 9.30%
As % of the Qualifications category 52.18% 43.69% 38.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,032 1,051 1,231
10th Percentile £400 £363 £358
25th Percentile £463 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.70%
75th Percentile £630 £613 £638
90th Percentile £730 £700 £750
England median daily rate £525 £525 £536
% change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 8 21
10th Percentile £20.87 £23.86 £13.87
25th Percentile £25.04 £24.66 £17.88
Median hourly rate £45.00 £30.83 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +45.96% +40.14% -57.69%
75th Percentile £76.58 £39.01 -
90th Percentile - £56.27 £24.75
England median hourly rate £47.52 £52.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year -9.49% +5.00% -13.24%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
London

SC 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 London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 5,084 3,209 4,293
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 28.68% 25.58% 24.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,634 2,168 2,903
10th Percentile £363 £350 £325
25th Percentile £442 £431 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year - -2.78% -6.09%
75th Percentile £638 £653 £661
90th Percentile £745 £755 £775
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 60 111
10th Percentile £20.74 £19.20 £14.25
25th Percentile £25.24 £22.27 £20.74
Median hourly rate £53.50 £29.07 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +84.04% +11.81% -42.54%
75th Percentile £76.58 £55.50 £43.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £69.72 £68.75
England median hourly rate £47.50 £45.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +5.56% +12.50% -23.51%

SC Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SC Cleared relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

SC Cleared job vacancy trend in London

SC Cleared
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing SC Cleared.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing SC Cleared

SC Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SC Cleared in London over the 6 months to 1 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SC Cleared in London

SC Cleared
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing SC Cleared.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing SC Cleared

SC Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SC Cleared in London over the 6 months to 1 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SC Cleared in London

SC Cleared
Contract Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SC Cleared within the London region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
Central London +14 363 £550 - 73
South London +1 159 £521 +4.10% 9
East London +7 13 £725 -3.33% 15
West London -17 9 - - 10
SC Cleared
England

SC Cleared
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London 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
1 116 (4.37%) Confluence
2 63 (2.37%) SharePoint
3 48 (1.81%) Apache Spark
4 28 (1.06%) Apache
4 28 (1.06%) nginx
5 24 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
6 19 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
7 12 (0.45%) Tomcat
8 5 (0.19%) JBoss
8 5 (0.19%) MQSeries
9 4 (0.15%) SAS
9 4 (0.15%) WebLogic
10 3 (0.11%) Camunda
10 3 (0.11%) Drupal
10 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
11 2 (0.075%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.075%) Appian
11 2 (0.075%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.075%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.075%) WordPress
Applications
1 38 (1.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (0.72%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
4 14 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.075%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.038%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.038%) Maya
8 1 (0.038%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.038%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 17 (0.64%) Oracle ERP
2 16 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.41%) Findur
5 9 (0.34%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.34%) Temenos T24
6 8 (0.30%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 7 (0.26%) SAP HR
8 6 (0.23%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.19%) Teamcenter
10 3 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.11%) SAP GRC
10 3 (0.11%) SAP HCM
11 2 (0.075%) Oracle Assets
11 2 (0.075%) Oracle Cash Management
11 2 (0.075%) Oracle FAH
11 2 (0.075%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 2 (0.075%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 670 (25.25%) Azure
2 646 (24.35%) AWS
3 193 (7.27%) GitHub
4 162 (6.11%) Azure DevOps
5 148 (5.58%) GCP
6 141 (5.31%) Power Platform
7 130 (4.90%) Serverless
8 107 (4.03%) Amazon S3
8 107 (4.03%) GitHub Actions
9 101 (3.81%) AWS Lambda
10 78 (2.94%) Entra ID
11 70 (2.64%) Microsoft 365
12 65 (2.45%) AWS CloudFormation
13 64 (2.41%) Amazon EC2
14 60 (2.26%) OCI
15 58 (2.19%) Azure Data Factory
16 55 (2.07%) Azure AKS
16 55 (2.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 51 (1.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 50 (1.88%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 75 (2.83%) Firewall
2 65 (2.45%) DNS
3 37 (1.39%) LAN
4 34 (1.28%) Network Security
5 32 (1.21%) WAN
6 31 (1.17%) VPN
7 18 (0.68%) TCP/IP
8 17 (0.64%) DHCP
9 16 (0.60%) Kerberos
9 16 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
9 16 (0.60%) Wireless
10 14 (0.53%) MPLS
11 13 (0.49%) BGP
11 13 (0.49%) NAS
11 13 (0.49%) SAN
12 12 (0.45%) DKIM
12 12 (0.45%) DMARC
13 10 (0.38%) HTTP
13 10 (0.38%) OpenVPN
14 9 (0.34%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (3.58%) Power BI
2 77 (2.90%) Data Warehouse
3 73 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
4 50 (1.88%) SQL Server
5 47 (1.77%) Data Lake
6 45 (1.70%) Azure SQL Database
7 44 (1.66%) NoSQL
8 41 (1.55%) Amazon RDS
9 39 (1.47%) Metadata
10 38 (1.43%) Elasticsearch
11 36 (1.36%) Amazon Athena
12 32 (1.21%) Relational Database
13 28 (1.06%) Tableau
14 27 (1.02%) Amazon Redshift
14 27 (1.02%) Delta Lake
15 22 (0.83%) Big Data
16 21 (0.79%) Oracle Database
17 13 (0.49%) MongoDB
18 11 (0.41%) DynamoDB
18 11 (0.41%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 171 (6.45%) JIRA
2 167 (6.29%) Git
3 129 (4.86%) Jenkins
4 87 (3.28%) GitLab
5 29 (1.09%) Selenium
6 24 (0.90%) Postman
7 23 (0.87%) JUnit
8 20 (0.75%) Cypress.io
9 18 (0.68%) Artifactory
10 17 (0.64%) Mockito
10 17 (0.64%) SonarQube
11 16 (0.60%) Bitbucket
12 12 (0.45%) JMeter
13 9 (0.34%) Cucumber
14 8 (0.30%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.30%) Liquibase
15 7 (0.26%) Maven
15 7 (0.26%) Visual Studio
16 6 (0.23%) Gradle
16 6 (0.23%) REST Assured
General
1 701 (26.42%) Public Sector
2 531 (20.02%) Social Skills
3 248 (9.35%) Finance
4 166 (6.26%) Analytical Skills
5 78 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
6 62 (2.34%) Banking
7 47 (1.77%) Military
8 42 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
9 35 (1.32%) Telecoms
10 33 (1.24%) Police
11 31 (1.17%) Law
12 27 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 25 (0.94%) Legal
13 25 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
14 22 (0.83%) Retail
15 18 (0.68%) Organisational Skills
16 13 (0.49%) Manufacturing
17 10 (0.38%) Marketing
18 6 (0.23%) Electronics
19 5 (0.19%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 480 (18.09%) Architect
2 347 (13.08%) Developer
3 237 (8.93%) Senior
4 216 (8.14%) DevOps Engineer
5 203 (7.65%) Lead
6 198 (7.46%) Analyst
7 179 (6.75%) Data Engineer
8 125 (4.71%) Consultant
9 122 (4.60%) Azure Engineer
10 112 (4.22%) Business Analyst
11 82 (3.09%) Solutions Architect
12 79 (2.98%) AWS Engineer
13 75 (2.83%) Technical Architect
14 59 (2.22%) Delivery Manager
14 59 (2.22%) Java Developer
15 57 (2.15%) Cloud Engineer
16 56 (2.11%) Security Architect
17 55 (2.07%) Designer
18 54 (2.04%) AWS DevOps
19 53 (2.00%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 144 (5.43%) REST
2 100 (3.77%) Spring
3 75 (2.83%) LDAP
4 73 (2.75%) SOAP
4 73 (2.75%) Spring Boot
5 68 (2.56%) Kafka
6 67 (2.53%) PySpark
7 66 (2.49%) React
8 58 (2.19%) .NET
8 58 (2.19%) JSON
8 58 (2.19%) Node.js
9 53 (2.00%) Oracle Fusion
10 50 (1.88%) RESTful
11 49 (1.85%) Web Services
12 48 (1.81%) AngularJS
13 47 (1.77%) HTML
14 35 (1.32%) OAuth
15 31 (1.17%) SAML
16 30 (1.13%) OpenID
17 29 (1.09%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 156 (5.88%) Cloud Native
2 80 (3.02%) Product Ownership
3 78 (2.94%) Onboarding
4 63 (2.37%) Security Posture
5 54 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
6 52 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
7 44 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
8 40 (1.51%) Data Centre
9 36 (1.36%) Distributed Systems
10 35 (1.32%) Replication
11 32 (1.21%) Management Information System
12 29 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
12 29 (1.09%) PKI
13 26 (0.98%) Public Cloud
14 23 (0.87%) CMDB
15 18 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
15 18 (0.68%) Hybrid Cloud
16 17 (0.64%) Data Structures
17 14 (0.53%) AI Agents
18 12 (0.45%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 116 (4.37%) Linux
2 106 (4.00%) Windows
3 34 (1.28%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.94%) Android
5 20 (0.75%) Mac OS
6 18 (0.68%) Windows 10
7 16 (0.60%) VMS
8 15 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 15 (0.57%) Unix
9 10 (0.38%) Apple iOS
9 10 (0.38%) Solaris
9 10 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
12 4 (0.15%) Amazon Linux
12 4 (0.15%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.075%) AIX
13 2 (0.075%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 621 (23.41%) DevOps
2 583 (21.98%) Agile
3 499 (18.81%) CI/CD
4 340 (12.82%) Infrastructure as Code
5 292 (11.01%) Stakeholder Management
6 265 (9.99%) Migration
7 228 (8.59%) Containerisation
7 228 (8.59%) Problem-Solving
8 211 (7.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 196 (7.39%) Continuous Improvement
10 178 (6.71%) Data Modelling
11 162 (6.11%) Analytics
12 158 (5.96%) Test Automation
13 153 (5.77%) AI
14 147 (5.54%) Microservices
15 146 (5.50%) Decision-Making
16 144 (5.43%) Technical Leadership
17 138 (5.20%) Cybersecurity
18 137 (5.16%) Data Pipeline
19 130 (4.90%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 368 (13.87%) Python
2 299 (11.27%) SQL
3 203 (7.65%) Java
4 159 (5.99%) PowerShell
5 113 (4.26%) JavaScript
6 82 (3.09%) C#
7 60 (2.26%) Bash
8 57 (2.15%) TypeScript
9 40 (1.51%) Scala
10 39 (1.47%) Ruby
11 29 (1.09%) Apex Code
12 26 (0.98%) Bicep
12 26 (0.98%) R
13 22 (0.83%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.72%) Go
15 17 (0.64%) PL/SQL
16 11 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.41%) Groovy
17 9 (0.34%) Kotlin
18 7 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,653 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 127 (4.79%) DV Cleared
3 69 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
4 66 (2.49%) Degree
5 60 (2.26%) Azure Certification
6 58 (2.19%) AWS Certification
7 32 (1.21%) CISSP
8 20 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
9 18 (0.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 18 (0.68%) Cisco Certification
9 18 (0.68%) CISM
10 16 (0.60%) GIAC
10 16 (0.60%) PMP
11 14 (0.53%) CTC Cleared
12 13 (0.49%) PMI Certification
13 11 (0.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 11 (0.41%) ISTQB
13 11 (0.41%) TOGAF Certification
14 9 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
14 9 (0.34%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (4.45%) Data Quality
2 93 (3.51%) QA
3 67 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 60 (2.26%) NCSC
5 52 (1.96%) Accessibility
6 46 (1.73%) GDPR
6 46 (1.73%) NIST
7 42 (1.58%) PMO
8 18 (0.68%) WCAG
9 15 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 14 (0.53%) GRC
11 10 (0.38%) Government Security Classifications
12 8 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials
12 8 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 8 (0.30%) SLA
13 6 (0.23%) NIST 800
14 4 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
14 4 (0.15%) COBIT
14 4 (0.15%) PCI DSS
15 3 (0.11%) P3O
System Software
1 246 (9.27%) Docker
2 95 (3.58%) Active Directory
3 36 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
5 20 (0.75%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.45%) VMware NSX
7 10 (0.38%) Squid
7 10 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (0.38%) vSphere
8 9 (0.34%) NFS
9 6 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
10 5 (0.19%) Postfix
11 4 (0.15%) Varnish
11 4 (0.15%) XenApp
11 4 (0.15%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.11%) Sendmail
13 2 (0.075%) Virtual Desktop
14 1 (0.038%) Ceph
14 1 (0.038%) OpenAM
14 1 (0.038%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 370 (13.95%) Terraform
2 316 (11.91%) Kubernetes
3 84 (3.17%) Ansible
4 69 (2.60%) Prometheus
5 67 (2.53%) Grafana
6 43 (1.62%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (0.79%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 14 (0.53%) Consul
9 13 (0.49%) FortiGate
9 13 (0.49%) Packer
10 12 (0.45%) Puppet
11 11 (0.41%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.41%) SCCM
12 7 (0.26%) Kibana
12 7 (0.26%) Kustomize
13 6 (0.23%) vRealize
14 5 (0.19%) Argo
14 5 (0.19%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.19%) vMotion
15 4 (0.15%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 278 (10.48%) Microsoft
2 148 (5.58%) Oracle
3 106 (4.00%) Databricks
4 94 (3.54%) ServiceNow
5 65 (2.45%) Salesforce
5 65 (2.45%) VMware
6 57 (2.15%) SAP
7 50 (1.88%) CyberArk
8 49 (1.85%) Google
8 49 (1.85%) Splunk
9 41 (1.55%) Cisco
10 34 (1.28%) BeyondTrust
10 34 (1.28%) Centrify
11 33 (1.24%) IBM
12 29 (1.09%) Dynatrace
13 26 (0.98%) Okta
13 26 (0.98%) Red Hat
14 21 (0.79%) MuleSoft
15 18 (0.68%) Fortinet
15 18 (0.68%) Palo Alto