Security Cleared Contract Job Trends in London

Security Clearance
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in London with a requirement for Security Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 16 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 10 9
Rank change year-on-year +5 -1 +7
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 2,726 1,838 2,276
As % of all contract jobs in London 17.88% 13.64% 12.30%
As % of the Qualifications category 60.89% 54.06% 50.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,028 1,205 1,585
10th Percentile £400 £363 £365
25th Percentile £459 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £713 £750
England median daily rate £525 £548 £550
% change year-on-year -4.20% -0.36% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 17 45
10th Percentile £20.24 £19.23 £15.31
25th Percentile £24.12 £24.66 £19.99
Median hourly rate £25.77 £35.00 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.37% +42.86% -51.00%
75th Percentile £76.58 £39.04 £65.00
90th Percentile - £102.69 £83.55
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £58.30
% change year-on-year -58.08% +2.92% -2.83%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
London

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 London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 4,477 3,400 4,517
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 29.37% 25.24% 24.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,172 2,126 3,021
10th Percentile £363 £350 £325
25th Percentile £430 £450 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £536 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.64% -4.35%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £650
90th Percentile £750 £772 £770
England median daily rate £520 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 59 129
10th Percentile £19.94 £21.45 £14.27
25th Percentile £25.15 £24.66 £19.99
Median hourly rate £35.00 £37.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +7.14% -6.67%
75th Percentile £65.88 £57.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £76.58 £79.36 £83.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £47.37 £45.88
% change year-on-year -46.91% +3.25% +1.96%

Security Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in London

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

Security Cleared job vacancy trend in London

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Trend in London

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

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

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Cleared in London over the 6 months to 16 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Security Cleared in London

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Trend in London

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

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

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Cleared in London over the 6 months to 16 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Cleared in London

Security 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 Security Cleared within the London region over the 6 months to 16 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
Central London +6 342 £530 +0.95% 79
South London +2 127 £521 +4.10% 20
East London +6 11 £638 +145.19% 11
West London -21 10 - - 19
North London -4 2 £510 +26.08% 3
Security Cleared
England

Security 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
1 113 (4.15%) Confluence
2 61 (2.24%) SharePoint
3 44 (1.61%) Apache Spark
4 33 (1.21%) nginx
5 30 (1.10%) Apache
6 24 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
7 22 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.62%) Palantir Foundry
9 10 (0.37%) SAS
10 4 (0.15%) Camunda
10 4 (0.15%) CMS
10 4 (0.15%) Tomcat
11 3 (0.11%) JBoss
11 3 (0.11%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.11%) MQSeries
11 3 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.11%) Traefik
12 2 (0.073%) IIS
12 2 (0.073%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.073%) WordPress
Applications
1 39 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
2 38 (1.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
4 15 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.15%) Adobe XD
6 4 (0.15%) Oracle Smart View
6 4 (0.15%) Sketch
7 3 (0.11%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 2 (0.073%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.073%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.037%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.037%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.037%) InVision
9 1 (0.037%) Maya
9 1 (0.037%) OmniGraffle
9 1 (0.037%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.037%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.037%) Trello
9 1 (0.037%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 24 (0.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.77%) Oracle ERP
3 15 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.33%) SAP WM
5 8 (0.29%) SAP EWM
6 7 (0.26%) Oracle General Ledger
6 7 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.22%) Oracle FAH
7 6 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 6 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.15%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.15%) SAP HCM
9 4 (0.15%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.15%) Teamcenter
10 3 (0.11%) Oracle Assets
10 3 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.11%) SAP PS
11 2 (0.073%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 636 (23.33%) AWS
1 636 (23.33%) Azure
2 178 (6.53%) GitHub
3 166 (6.09%) Power Platform
4 150 (5.50%) Serverless
5 137 (5.03%) GCP
6 131 (4.81%) Azure DevOps
7 107 (3.93%) Amazon S3
7 107 (3.93%) AWS Lambda
8 91 (3.34%) Microsoft 365
9 88 (3.23%) GitHub Actions
10 86 (3.15%) Entra ID
11 66 (2.42%) AWS CloudFormation
11 66 (2.42%) OCI
12 61 (2.24%) Amazon EKS
13 58 (2.13%) PaaS
14 55 (2.02%) Azure Data Factory
15 54 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
15 54 (1.98%) IaaS
15 54 (1.98%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 89 (3.26%) Firewall
2 63 (2.31%) Network Security
3 61 (2.24%) DNS
4 35 (1.28%) LAN
4 35 (1.28%) VPN
4 35 (1.28%) WAN
5 28 (1.03%) TCP/IP
6 25 (0.92%) Wireless
7 22 (0.81%) DHCP
8 19 (0.70%) BGP
8 19 (0.70%) SAN
9 18 (0.66%) NAS
9 18 (0.66%) SSL
10 17 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
11 16 (0.59%) Kerberos
12 13 (0.48%) OSPF
13 12 (0.44%) MPLS
13 12 (0.44%) VLAN
14 11 (0.40%) HTTP
15 10 (0.37%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (4.15%) Power BI
2 98 (3.60%) PostgreSQL
3 74 (2.71%) Data Warehouse
4 53 (1.94%) NoSQL
5 44 (1.61%) Azure SQL Database
5 44 (1.61%) SQL Server
6 39 (1.43%) Amazon RDS
7 38 (1.39%) Metadata
8 36 (1.32%) Data Lake
8 36 (1.32%) Oracle Database
9 33 (1.21%) Elasticsearch
10 32 (1.17%) Amazon Athena
11 30 (1.10%) Big Data
11 30 (1.10%) Relational Database
12 29 (1.06%) Amazon Redshift
13 21 (0.77%) Tableau
14 20 (0.73%) Delta Lake
15 18 (0.66%) MongoDB
16 16 (0.59%) DynamoDB
17 15 (0.55%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 182 (6.68%) JIRA
2 172 (6.31%) Git
3 111 (4.07%) Jenkins
4 92 (3.37%) GitLab
5 35 (1.28%) Postman
6 33 (1.21%) Selenium
7 28 (1.03%) Cypress.io
8 25 (0.92%) JUnit
9 21 (0.77%) Bitbucket
10 16 (0.59%) Artifactory
11 12 (0.44%) SonarQube
12 11 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.40%) Mockito
13 9 (0.33%) JMeter
13 9 (0.33%) Maven
14 8 (0.29%) REST Assured
14 8 (0.29%) Visual Studio
14 8 (0.29%) Visual Studio Code
15 7 (0.26%) Gradle
15 7 (0.26%) MLflow
General
1 827 (30.34%) Public Sector
2 654 (23.99%) Social Skills
3 255 (9.35%) Finance
4 230 (8.44%) Analytical Skills
5 73 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
6 69 (2.53%) Military
7 56 (2.05%) Banking
8 54 (1.98%) Telecoms
9 49 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
10 41 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
11 33 (1.21%) Law
12 31 (1.14%) Legal
13 27 (0.99%) Police
14 26 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 25 (0.92%) Manufacturing
15 25 (0.92%) Marketing
16 18 (0.66%) Electronics
17 16 (0.59%) Organisational Skills
18 11 (0.40%) Aerospace
18 11 (0.40%) Retail
Job Titles
1 434 (15.92%) Architect
2 340 (12.47%) Developer
3 271 (9.94%) Senior
4 216 (7.92%) Analyst
5 202 (7.41%) DevOps Engineer
6 163 (5.98%) Lead
7 161 (5.91%) Data Engineer
8 150 (5.50%) Consultant
9 106 (3.89%) Business Analyst
10 95 (3.48%) Azure Engineer
11 77 (2.82%) AWS Engineer
12 75 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
13 68 (2.49%) Technical Architect
14 60 (2.20%) Security Architect
15 55 (2.02%) AWS DevOps
16 52 (1.91%) Full-Stack Developer
17 51 (1.87%) AWS DevOps Engineer
18 48 (1.76%) Tester
19 47 (1.72%) Delivery Manager
19 47 (1.72%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 167 (6.13%) REST
2 90 (3.30%) SOAP
3 87 (3.19%) JSON
3 87 (3.19%) Kafka
4 83 (3.04%) React
5 82 (3.01%) Node.js
6 81 (2.97%) Spring
7 76 (2.79%) LDAP
8 69 (2.53%) PySpark
9 64 (2.35%) Oracle Fusion
10 55 (2.02%) CSS
10 55 (2.02%) HTML
11 53 (1.94%) Spring Boot
12 50 (1.83%) .NET
13 47 (1.72%) RESTful
14 46 (1.69%) OAuth
14 46 (1.69%) XML
15 44 (1.61%) AngularJS
16 43 (1.58%) Web Services
17 36 (1.32%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 130 (4.77%) Cloud Native
2 79 (2.90%) Onboarding
3 72 (2.64%) Product Ownership
4 62 (2.27%) Security Posture
5 59 (2.16%) PKI
6 58 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
7 55 (2.02%) Legacy Systems
8 53 (1.94%) Data Centre
9 43 (1.58%) Management Information System
9 43 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
10 34 (1.25%) Replication
11 28 (1.03%) Public Cloud
12 25 (0.92%) Security Operations Centre
13 23 (0.84%) AI Agents
13 23 (0.84%) Cyber Threat
14 22 (0.81%) Data Protection Act
15 21 (0.77%) Distributed Systems
16 18 (0.66%) Greenfield Project
16 18 (0.66%) Hybrid Cloud
17 17 (0.62%) Cyber Defence
Operating Systems
1 150 (5.50%) Linux
2 133 (4.88%) Windows
3 37 (1.36%) Mac OS
4 34 (1.25%) Android
5 31 (1.14%) Windows Server
6 26 (0.95%) VMS
7 25 (0.92%) Windows 10
8 20 (0.73%) Unix
9 19 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.37%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.22%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.15%) Amazon Linux
13 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2003
14 3 (0.11%) Solaris
15 2 (0.073%) AIX
15 2 (0.073%) CentOS
15 2 (0.073%) Windows Server 2008
16 1 (0.037%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 566 (20.76%) Agile
2 546 (20.03%) DevOps
3 461 (16.91%) CI/CD
4 351 (12.88%) Problem-Solving
5 274 (10.05%) Infrastructure as Code
6 265 (9.72%) Stakeholder Management
7 238 (8.73%) Migration
8 220 (8.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 211 (7.74%) Cybersecurity
10 170 (6.24%) Containerisation
11 169 (6.20%) Data Modelling
12 164 (6.02%) Continuous Improvement
13 161 (5.91%) AI
14 152 (5.58%) Test Automation
15 151 (5.54%) Analytics
16 149 (5.47%) Business Intelligence
17 138 (5.06%) Microservices
17 138 (5.06%) Roadmaps
18 127 (4.66%) Decision-Making
19 125 (4.59%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 429 (15.74%) Python
2 276 (10.12%) SQL
3 175 (6.42%) PowerShell
4 173 (6.35%) Java
5 153 (5.61%) JavaScript
6 79 (2.90%) TypeScript
7 73 (2.68%) C#
8 66 (2.42%) Bash
9 43 (1.58%) Scala
10 30 (1.10%) Ruby
11 28 (1.03%) Go
12 21 (0.77%) Apex Code
13 16 (0.59%) R
14 15 (0.55%) Bicep
15 14 (0.51%) C++
16 11 (0.40%) Shell Script
17 9 (0.33%) PL/SQL
18 8 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
19 7 (0.26%) C
20 6 (0.22%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 2,249 (82.50%) SC Cleared
2 328 (12.03%) DV Cleared
3 98 (3.60%) Degree
4 69 (2.53%) BPSS Clearance
5 56 (2.05%) AWS Certification
6 50 (1.83%) Azure Certification
7 43 (1.58%) CISSP
8 27 (0.99%) CISM
9 26 (0.95%) CHECK Team Leader
10 25 (0.92%) Cisco Certification
11 23 (0.84%) CHECK Team Member
12 19 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 19 (0.70%) GIAC
13 17 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.55%) ISTQB
15 14 (0.51%) CCNP
15 14 (0.51%) CEH
15 14 (0.51%) CompTIA Security+
15 14 (0.51%) TOGAF Certification
15 14 (0.51%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (4.00%) Data Quality
2 87 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 84 (3.08%) QA
4 69 (2.53%) NCSC
4 69 (2.53%) NIST
5 65 (2.38%) Accessibility
6 60 (2.20%) GDPR
7 20 (0.73%) WCAG
8 19 (0.70%) PMO
9 18 (0.66%) GRC
10 15 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 15 (0.55%) SLA
11 9 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
12 7 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 6 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
13 6 (0.22%) HIPAA
13 6 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 6 (0.22%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.22%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 251 (9.21%) Docker
2 112 (4.11%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
5 20 (0.73%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (0.40%) Squid
8 10 (0.37%) VMware NSX
9 8 (0.29%) NFS
10 7 (0.26%) vSphere
11 6 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
12 5 (0.18%) BitLocker
12 5 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.15%) Microsoft App-V
13 4 (0.15%) Postfix
13 4 (0.15%) XenApp
13 4 (0.15%) XenDesktop
14 3 (0.11%) DFS Replication
14 3 (0.11%) Dovecot
15 2 (0.073%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 340 (12.47%) Terraform
2 306 (11.23%) Kubernetes
3 77 (2.82%) Ansible
4 47 (1.72%) Grafana
5 46 (1.69%) Single Sign-On
6 44 (1.61%) Prometheus
7 25 (0.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 21 (0.77%) Argo
9 19 (0.70%) SCCM
10 17 (0.62%) Consul
11 14 (0.51%) Packer
12 13 (0.48%) FortiGate
12 13 (0.48%) vRealize
13 11 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
13 11 (0.40%) vCenter Server
13 11 (0.40%) vMotion
14 10 (0.37%) Jamf Pro
15 8 (0.29%) EMC VPLEX
15 8 (0.29%) Kibana
15 8 (0.29%) Puppet
Vendors
1 300 (11.01%) Microsoft
2 166 (6.09%) Oracle
3 88 (3.23%) Databricks
4 87 (3.19%) SAP
4 87 (3.19%) ServiceNow
5 75 (2.75%) VMware
6 65 (2.38%) Splunk
7 59 (2.16%) Salesforce
8 57 (2.09%) CyberArk
9 55 (2.02%) Cisco
10 39 (1.43%) Google
11 34 (1.25%) BeyondTrust
11 34 (1.25%) Centrify
11 34 (1.25%) Red Hat
12 32 (1.17%) Apple
13 31 (1.14%) Palo Alto
14 28 (1.03%) IBM
15 27 (0.99%) Dynatrace
15 27 (0.99%) Foundry
16 25 (0.92%) HP