Security Cleared Contract Job Trends in the North West

Security Clearance
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the North West with a requirement for Security Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 24 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 2 2
Rank change year-on-year 0 0 +3
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 539 408 481
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 20.81% 19.46% 17.16%
As % of the Qualifications category 60.49% 60.00% 55.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 369 222 350
10th Percentile £313 £286 £355
25th Percentile £425 £385 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +8.42% -13.64% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £550 £644
90th Percentile £702 £671 £719
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -3.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 20 42
10th Percentile £16.17 £25.26 £14.50
25th Percentile £25.15 £37.00 £34.25
Median hourly rate £52.78 £47.59 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +10.90% +3.05% +53.93%
75th Percentile £68.09 £73.86 £60.69
90th Percentile £74.26 £85.80 £73.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £59.50 £58.30
% change year-on-year -57.73% +2.06% -2.83%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
North West

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 the North West.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 891 680 863
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 34.40% 32.43% 30.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 608 371 541
10th Percentile £224 £250 £255
25th Percentile £381 £365 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £533
Median % change year-on-year - -10.80% +5.39%
75th Percentile £588 £563 £650
90th Percentile £686 £656 £720
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 39 90
10th Percentile £18.90 £23.74 £14.50
25th Percentile £25.15 £28.50 £25.50
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% -23.53% +46.55%
75th Percentile £66.25 £51.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.92 £65.13
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £47.50
% change year-on-year -45.54% -2.78% +5.56%

Security Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Security Cleared job vacancy trend in the North West

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Security Cleared.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Cleared in the North West over the 6 months to 24 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Security Cleared in the North West

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Security Cleared.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Cleared in the North West over the 6 months to 24 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Cleared in the North West

Security Cleared
Contract Job Locations in the North West

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 North West region over the 6 months to 24 January 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
Manchester -2 164 £500 +8.11% 86
Cumbria 0 118 £500 - 8
Cheshire +4 115 £598 +48.57% 18
Lancashire 0 105 £550 +49.86% 45
Merseyside -5 27 £500 -4.31% 8
Security Cleared
England

Security Cleared
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 21 (3.90%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (1.67%) SharePoint
2 9 (1.67%) Skype for Business
3 8 (1.48%) Confluence
4 4 (0.74%) Apache
4 4 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.56%) MTS
6 2 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.37%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.37%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.37%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.19%) CMS
7 1 (0.19%) SAS
Applications
1 26 (4.82%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.56%) Siemens NX
5 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.19%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 60 (11.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.86%) SAP EHS
2 10 (1.86%) SAP VC
3 9 (1.67%) SAP MM
3 9 (1.67%) SAP QM
4 3 (0.56%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
5 2 (0.37%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.19%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.19%) SAP SD
6 1 (0.19%) SAP Travel Management
6 1 (0.19%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 68 (12.62%) AWS
2 48 (8.91%) Azure
3 32 (5.94%) Microsoft 365
4 22 (4.08%) GCP
5 18 (3.34%) SaaS
6 15 (2.78%) Power Platform
7 12 (2.23%) GitHub
8 11 (2.04%) Serverless
9 10 (1.86%) Entra ID
10 9 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (1.30%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 7 (1.30%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.11%) Amazon EC2
12 6 (1.11%) Amazon EKS
12 6 (1.11%) Amazon S3
12 6 (1.11%) Amazon SQS
12 6 (1.11%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.93%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (0.93%) OneDrive
13 5 (0.93%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 62 (11.50%) Firewall
2 32 (5.94%) VLAN
3 30 (5.57%) WAN
4 29 (5.38%) Wi-Fi
5 24 (4.45%) Network Security
6 23 (4.27%) DNS
7 16 (2.97%) LAN
7 16 (2.97%) VPN
8 15 (2.78%) SAN
9 14 (2.60%) TCP/IP
10 13 (2.41%) BGP
10 13 (2.41%) Cisco ISE
10 13 (2.41%) NetScaler
11 11 (2.04%) DHCP
12 9 (1.67%) Skype
13 8 (1.48%) Software-Defined Networking
13 8 (1.48%) Unified Communications
14 7 (1.30%) Internet
14 7 (1.30%) WebEx
14 7 (1.30%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.78%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (1.86%) NoSQL
2 10 (1.86%) Power BI
2 10 (1.86%) SAP HANA
3 9 (1.67%) MySQL
3 9 (1.67%) Relational Database
4 7 (1.30%) Data Warehouse
4 7 (1.30%) DynamoDB
4 7 (1.30%) MongoDB
5 6 (1.11%) Redis
6 5 (0.93%) BigQuery
6 5 (0.93%) SQL Server
7 4 (0.74%) Metadata
7 4 (0.74%) RDBMS
8 3 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
8 3 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (0.56%) Big Data
9 2 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.37%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.37%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 26 (4.82%) Git
1 26 (4.82%) GitLab
2 15 (2.78%) JIRA
3 13 (2.41%) Jenkins
4 6 (1.11%) SonarQube
5 5 (0.93%) Rational DOORS
6 3 (0.56%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.56%) Cypress.io
6 3 (0.56%) Postman
7 2 (0.37%) Gradle
7 2 (0.37%) Grunt
7 2 (0.37%) gulp
7 2 (0.37%) Jasmine
7 2 (0.37%) JMeter
7 2 (0.37%) Maven
7 2 (0.37%) Mockito
7 2 (0.37%) MSI
7 2 (0.37%) Selenium
7 2 (0.37%) SonarLint
8 1 (0.19%) InstallShield
General
1 171 (31.73%) Public Sector
2 121 (22.45%) Social Skills
3 35 (6.49%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (6.12%) Finance
5 19 (3.53%) Manufacturing
6 18 (3.34%) Military
7 17 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (2.04%) Telecoms
9 10 (1.86%) Electronics
9 10 (1.86%) Legal
10 9 (1.67%) Marketing
11 7 (1.30%) Aerospace
11 7 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 6 (1.11%) Banking
13 5 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.56%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
15 1 (0.19%) Aviation
15 1 (0.19%) Corporate Banking
15 1 (0.19%) Law
Job Titles
1 74 (13.73%) Consultant
2 73 (13.54%) Architect
3 46 (8.53%) Senior
4 45 (8.35%) Developer
5 44 (8.16%) Network Engineer
6 39 (7.24%) Analyst
6 39 (7.24%) SAP Consultant
7 25 (4.64%) Technical Architect
8 23 (4.27%) Management Consultant
9 21 (3.90%) Administrator
9 21 (3.90%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 19 (3.53%) Lead
11 17 (3.15%) DevOps Engineer
12 16 (2.97%) Platform Engineer
13 14 (2.60%) IT Support
13 14 (2.60%) Support Engineer
14 13 (2.41%) Business Analyst
15 12 (2.23%) AWS Engineer
16 11 (2.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 11 (2.04%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.90%) SAP Fiori
2 15 (2.78%) RESTful
2 15 (2.78%) Spring Boot
3 14 (2.60%) 802.1X
3 14 (2.60%) JSON
3 14 (2.60%) Spring
4 12 (2.23%) Node.js
4 12 (2.23%) Web Services
4 12 (2.23%) XML
5 11 (2.04%) HTML
6 10 (1.86%) BAPI
6 10 (1.86%) REST
7 9 (1.67%) CSS
8 8 (1.48%) Kafka
9 7 (1.30%) React
9 7 (1.30%) SOAP
10 6 (1.11%) AngularJS
10 6 (1.11%) Hibernate
10 6 (1.11%) OAuth
10 6 (1.11%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 54 (10.02%) Data Centre
2 31 (5.75%) Onboarding
3 30 (5.57%) Product Ownership
4 12 (2.23%) Cyber Threat
4 12 (2.23%) Replication
5 10 (1.86%) Clustering
6 9 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (1.30%) Cloud Native
8 6 (1.11%) Driving Licence
9 5 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (0.93%) Fibre Optics
9 5 (0.93%) Low-Code
9 5 (0.93%) Video Conferencing
10 4 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (0.74%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (0.74%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (0.74%) Mobile App
10 4 (0.74%) Operational Technology
10 4 (0.74%) SCADA
11 3 (0.56%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 70 (12.99%) Windows
2 35 (6.49%) Linux
3 23 (4.27%) Windows 10
3 23 (4.27%) Windows Server
4 15 (2.78%) Unix
5 11 (2.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (1.67%) Solaris
6 9 (1.67%) Windows 7
7 8 (1.48%) Android
8 7 (1.30%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.74%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.37%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.19%) VMS
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (11.87%) Agile
2 62 (11.50%) Problem-Solving
3 53 (9.83%) Stakeholder Management
4 51 (9.46%) CI/CD
5 50 (9.28%) DevOps
6 49 (9.09%) Cybersecurity
7 45 (8.35%) ITSM
8 43 (7.98%) Migration
9 42 (7.79%) Service Management
10 39 (7.24%) Containerisation
11 35 (6.49%) Continuous Improvement
12 34 (6.31%) High Availability
13 33 (6.12%) Project Delivery
13 33 (6.12%) Validation
14 29 (5.38%) Disaster Recovery
14 29 (5.38%) User Experience
15 28 (5.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 28 (5.19%) Test Automation
16 25 (4.64%) Mentoring
16 25 (4.64%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 64 (11.87%) Python
2 45 (8.35%) PowerShell
3 36 (6.68%) Java
4 22 (4.08%) Bash
5 16 (2.97%) Perl
6 13 (2.41%) JavaScript
7 12 (2.23%) SQL
7 12 (2.23%) TypeScript
8 11 (2.04%) ABAP
9 9 (1.67%) VB
9 9 (1.67%) VBScript
10 5 (0.93%) C++
11 4 (0.74%) C
11 4 (0.74%) Go
11 4 (0.74%) Ruby
12 2 (0.37%) AWK
12 2 (0.37%) C#
12 2 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.37%) PHP
12 2 (0.37%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 399 (74.03%) SC Cleared
2 65 (12.06%) BPSS Clearance
3 43 (7.98%) DV Cleared
4 34 (6.31%) Degree
5 26 (4.82%) CCNP
5 26 (4.82%) Cisco Certification
6 19 (3.53%) CCNA
7 11 (2.04%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (1.86%) Computer Science Degree
9 9 (1.67%) CCDP
9 9 (1.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 8 (1.48%) CISSP
10 8 (1.48%) MCSA
10 8 (1.48%) MCSE
10 8 (1.48%) VCAP
11 7 (1.30%) CISM
12 6 (1.11%) DBS Check
12 6 (1.11%) ITIL Certification
13 5 (0.93%) CompTIA Security+
13 5 (0.93%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (4.45%) NIST
2 15 (2.78%) Accessibility
3 12 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (1.67%) Data Quality
4 9 (1.67%) SLA
5 7 (1.30%) NCSC
6 6 (1.11%) JSP 440
7 5 (0.93%) QA
8 4 (0.74%) IEC 61508
8 4 (0.74%) ISO 26262
8 4 (0.74%) WCAG
9 3 (0.56%) GDPR
9 3 (0.56%) IEC 62304
9 3 (0.56%) IFRS
10 2 (0.37%) IEC 61131
10 2 (0.37%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.37%) PMO
10 2 (0.37%) PSD2
11 1 (0.19%) GRC
11 1 (0.19%) SOC 2
System Software
1 35 (6.49%) Docker
2 28 (5.19%) Active Directory
3 19 (3.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (1.86%) vSphere
5 9 (1.67%) BitLocker
5 9 (1.67%) Virtual Machines
5 9 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.74%) Firmware
7 2 (0.37%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 36 (6.68%) Kubernetes
2 34 (6.31%) Terraform
3 26 (4.82%) SCCM
4 16 (2.97%) Ansible
5 14 (2.60%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (2.04%) vCenter Server
7 6 (1.11%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 6 (1.11%) Norton AntiVirus
8 5 (0.93%) Grafana
9 4 (0.74%) Nessus
9 4 (0.74%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.56%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.37%) Packer
12 1 (0.19%) AirWatch
12 1 (0.19%) Cisco CUCM
12 1 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
12 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
12 1 (0.19%) QRadar
12 1 (0.19%) SELinux
12 1 (0.19%) vRealize
Vendors
1 80 (14.84%) SAP
2 76 (14.10%) Microsoft
3 73 (13.54%) Cisco
4 37 (6.86%) Palo Alto
5 32 (5.94%) ServiceNow
6 31 (5.75%) Oracle
7 25 (4.64%) VMware
8 19 (3.53%) Meraki
9 12 (2.23%) Adobe
10 11 (2.04%) Citrix
10 11 (2.04%) Dell
11 10 (1.86%) Google
11 10 (1.86%) Red Hat
12 7 (1.30%) HP
12 7 (1.30%) IBM
12 7 (1.30%) McAfee
12 7 (1.30%) Symantec
13 6 (1.11%) Apple
13 6 (1.11%) F5
13 6 (1.11%) NetApp