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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 3 4
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 -3
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 534 381 399
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 15.21% 19.03% 14.13%
As % of the Qualifications category 55.17% 55.46% 51.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 348 223 238
10th Percentile £360 £246 £375
25th Percentile £425 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% -4.21%
75th Percentile £638 £605 £649
90th Percentile £779 £710 £736
England median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 27 64
10th Percentile £22.68 £25.15 -
25th Percentile £29.50 £25.26 £10.95
Median hourly rate £64.09 £47.12 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +36.01% +224.97% -65.88%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.00 £48.75
90th Percentile £83.75 £71.50 £73.75
England median hourly rate £62.50 £27.13 £57.39
% change year-on-year +130.41% -52.73% -4.36%

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 968 687 769
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 27.58% 34.32% 27.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 632 404 421
10th Percentile £343 £280 £300
25th Percentile £400 £400 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.52% -3.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £610 £580 £608
90th Percentile £688 £700 £695
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 80 53 133
10th Percentile £22.23 £17.44 £10.95
25th Percentile £29.74 £21.02 £12.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £32.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +37.38% +99.25% -60.43%
75th Percentile £72.19 £60.00 £43.10
90th Percentile £86.49 £76.16 £62.50
England median hourly rate £52.50 £30.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year +75.00% -27.71% -24.55%

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 23 June 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 23 June 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 23 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
Manchester -10 175 £525 +8.19% 103
Cumbria 0 161 £485 -10.19% 13
Lancashire +2 91 £735 +63.33% 31
Cheshire +16 81 £450 +24.14% 14
Merseyside -16 19 £625 +4.17% 3
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 25 (4.68%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (2.25%) SharePoint
3 11 (2.06%) Skype for Business
4 8 (1.50%) Confluence
5 5 (0.94%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.56%) Apache
6 3 (0.56%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.37%) CICS
7 2 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
7 2 (0.37%) SharePoint 2013
8 1 (0.19%) IIS
8 1 (0.19%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.19%) nginx
8 1 (0.19%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.19%) SAS
Applications
1 19 (3.56%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (2.06%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.75%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.19%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 7 (1.31%) Oracle Payables
2 5 (0.94%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.56%) Primavera
3 3 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.56%) SAP MM
4 2 (0.37%) Oracle Cash Management
4 2 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.37%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.37%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.19%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.19%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 95 (17.79%) AWS
2 72 (13.48%) Azure
3 26 (4.87%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (3.37%) SaaS
4 18 (3.37%) Serverless
5 17 (3.18%) Power Platform
6 14 (2.62%) GCP
7 13 (2.43%) OCI
8 12 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
8 12 (2.25%) Entra ID
9 10 (1.87%) GitHub
10 9 (1.69%) Google Workspace
11 7 (1.31%) Google Drive
12 6 (1.12%) Amazon S3
12 6 (1.12%) OpenShift
13 5 (0.94%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.94%) Power Automate
14 4 (0.75%) Dynamics 365
14 4 (0.75%) PowerApps
15 3 (0.56%) BrowserStack
Communications & Networking
1 64 (11.99%) Firewall
2 36 (6.74%) VLAN
3 34 (6.37%) Wireless
4 30 (5.62%) Network Security
5 29 (5.43%) DNS
5 29 (5.43%) WAN
6 22 (4.12%) DHCP
6 22 (4.12%) LAN
6 22 (4.12%) Structured Cabling
7 21 (3.93%) Wi-Fi
8 20 (3.75%) VPN
9 17 (3.18%) NAS
9 17 (3.18%) SAN
10 16 (3.00%) Cisco IOS
10 16 (3.00%) NX-OS
11 11 (2.06%) Broadband
11 11 (2.06%) Converged Networks
11 11 (2.06%) Skype
12 10 (1.87%) TCP/IP
13 8 (1.50%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (3.37%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (3.00%) Oracle Database
3 14 (2.62%) Relational Database
3 14 (2.62%) SQL Server
4 13 (2.43%) MongoDB
5 12 (2.25%) Power BI
6 11 (2.06%) MySQL
7 9 (1.69%) Elasticsearch
8 6 (1.12%) Metadata
8 6 (1.12%) RDBMS
9 5 (0.94%) Oracle Database 12c
10 4 (0.75%) Hadoop
10 4 (0.75%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.75%) Oracle Exadata
10 4 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.75%) Tableau
11 3 (0.56%) Data Lake
11 3 (0.56%) Data Warehouse
12 2 (0.37%) DataStage
12 2 (0.37%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 30 (5.62%) GitLab
2 13 (2.43%) JIRA
2 13 (2.43%) Selenium
3 9 (1.69%) Git
3 9 (1.69%) REST Assured
4 8 (1.50%) Jenkins
5 6 (1.12%) Cucumber
5 6 (1.12%) Gatling
6 5 (0.94%) MSI
6 5 (0.94%) Serenity BDD
7 3 (0.56%) Cypress.io
7 3 (0.56%) JMeter
8 2 (0.37%) JDeveloper
8 2 (0.37%) Postman
8 2 (0.37%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.37%) WebDriver
9 1 (0.19%) Rational Robot
9 1 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.19%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.19%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 134 (25.09%) Public Sector
2 114 (21.35%) Social Skills
3 42 (7.87%) Military
4 32 (5.99%) Analytical Skills
5 30 (5.62%) Documentation Skills
6 28 (5.24%) Finance
7 18 (3.37%) Legal
8 14 (2.62%) Aerospace
9 9 (1.69%) Banking
9 9 (1.69%) Manufacturing
10 5 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (0.75%) Aviation
11 4 (0.75%) Retail
12 3 (0.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.56%) Local Government
13 2 (0.37%) Corporate Banking
13 2 (0.37%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.37%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.37%) Organisational Skills
14 1 (0.19%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 77 (14.42%) Lead
2 74 (13.86%) Architect
3 46 (8.61%) Network Engineer
4 39 (7.30%) Developer
5 29 (5.43%) Analyst
5 29 (5.43%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 29 (5.43%) Senior
6 28 (5.24%) Administrator
7 24 (4.49%) Consultant
7 24 (4.49%) Unix Engineer
8 22 (4.12%) DBA
9 21 (3.93%) Technical Architect
10 19 (3.56%) Lead Architect
11 18 (3.37%) Data Engineer
12 16 (3.00%) Coordinator
12 16 (3.00%) DevOps Engineer
13 15 (2.81%) Wintel Engineer
14 14 (2.62%) Security Architect
15 13 (2.43%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 13 (2.43%) Security Assurance Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (4.87%) Spring
2 23 (4.31%) Spring Boot
3 21 (3.93%) Node.js
4 15 (2.81%) Kafka
5 10 (1.87%) OAuth
6 9 (1.69%) REST
7 8 (1.50%) Playwright
8 7 (1.31%) OpenID
9 6 (1.12%) 802.1X
9 6 (1.12%) RESTful
10 5 (0.94%) Apache NiFi
10 5 (0.94%) Leaflet
10 5 (0.94%) Nunjucks
10 5 (0.94%) Spring Cloud
11 4 (0.75%) AWS CDK
11 4 (0.75%) ModSecurity
11 4 (0.75%) Oracle GoldenGate
11 4 (0.75%) React
12 3 (0.56%) OAuth2
12 3 (0.56%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 37 (6.93%) Data Centre
2 24 (4.49%) Onboarding
3 21 (3.93%) Clustering
4 20 (3.75%) Replication
5 19 (3.56%) Cloud Native
6 16 (3.00%) Product Ownership
7 15 (2.81%) Operational Technology
8 10 (1.87%) Management Information System
9 9 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
11 6 (1.12%) Cyber Threat
11 6 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
12 5 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
12 5 (0.94%) Private Cloud
12 5 (0.94%) Public Cloud
12 5 (0.94%) Security Posture
13 3 (0.56%) Distributed Systems
13 3 (0.56%) Fat Client
13 3 (0.56%) Freedom of Information
13 3 (0.56%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 55 (10.30%) Windows
2 30 (5.62%) Unix
3 29 (5.43%) Solaris
4 26 (4.87%) Linux
5 22 (4.12%) Windows 10
6 19 (3.56%) Windows Server
7 11 (2.06%) Windows 7
8 6 (1.12%) AIX
9 5 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.56%) VMS
11 2 (0.37%) Android
11 2 (0.37%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.37%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.19%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (13.11%) DevOps
2 65 (12.17%) Agile
2 65 (12.17%) CI/CD
3 57 (10.67%) Stakeholder Management
4 53 (9.93%) High Availability
5 52 (9.74%) ITSM
5 52 (9.74%) Project Delivery
6 51 (9.55%) Continuous Improvement
7 50 (9.36%) Migration
7 50 (9.36%) Problem-Solving
8 48 (8.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 46 (8.61%) Cybersecurity
10 45 (8.43%) Service Management
11 37 (6.93%) Disaster Recovery
12 34 (6.37%) Risk Management
13 33 (6.18%) Technical Leadership
14 31 (5.81%) Microservices
15 30 (5.62%) Test Automation
16 26 (4.87%) Information Assurance
17 25 (4.68%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 58 (10.86%) Python
2 49 (9.18%) Java
3 46 (8.61%) PowerShell
4 30 (5.62%) SQL
5 26 (4.87%) JavaScript
6 16 (3.00%) TypeScript
7 13 (2.43%) VBScript
8 11 (2.06%) VB
9 5 (0.94%) Rust
10 4 (0.75%) C#
10 4 (0.75%) Go
11 3 (0.56%) Bash
12 2 (0.37%) Bicep
12 2 (0.37%) COBOL
12 2 (0.37%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.19%) ABAP
13 1 (0.19%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.19%) Kusto Query Language
13 1 (0.19%) Scala
13 1 (0.19%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 388 (72.66%) SC Cleared
2 65 (12.17%) DV Cleared
3 45 (8.43%) Cisco Certification
4 43 (8.05%) CCNA
5 36 (6.74%) BPSS Clearance
6 30 (5.62%) CCNP
7 26 (4.87%) Microsoft Certification
8 21 (3.93%) Degree
9 15 (2.81%) Network+ Certification
9 15 (2.81%) Server+ Certification
10 13 (2.43%) CISSP
11 12 (2.25%) MCSA
11 12 (2.25%) MCSE
11 12 (2.25%) VCAP
11 12 (2.25%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 9 (1.69%) AWS Certification
12 9 (1.69%) Azure Certification
13 6 (1.12%) CISM
13 6 (1.12%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.94%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (5.24%) NIST
2 24 (4.49%) PMO
3 16 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (2.81%) QA
4 15 (2.81%) SLA
5 14 (2.62%) Accessibility
6 12 (2.25%) Data Quality
6 12 (2.25%) GRC
6 12 (2.25%) JSP 440
7 11 (2.06%) GDPR
8 8 (1.50%) NCSC
9 6 (1.12%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.37%) IFRS
10 2 (0.37%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.37%) WCAG
11 1 (0.19%) Basel III
11 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.19%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.19%) RMADS
11 1 (0.19%) SOC 2
System Software
1 29 (5.43%) Active Directory
2 23 (4.31%) Docker
3 19 (3.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (3.18%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (3.00%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (2.81%) vSphere
7 13 (2.43%) BitLocker
8 4 (0.75%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.19%) GPFS
10 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
10 1 (0.19%) NFS
10 1 (0.19%) Squid
Systems Management
1 43 (8.05%) Terraform
2 28 (5.24%) Ansible
2 28 (5.24%) Kubernetes
3 20 (3.75%) SCCM
4 15 (2.81%) vCenter Server
5 11 (2.06%) Grafana
6 9 (1.69%) Oracle RMAN
7 7 (1.31%) Prometheus
8 5 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.75%) Data Guard
9 4 (0.75%) Microsoft Intune
10 3 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 2 (0.37%) McAfee ePO
11 2 (0.37%) WSUS
12 1 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
12 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
12 1 (0.19%) NetApp OnCommand
12 1 (0.19%) Packer
12 1 (0.19%) vRealize
12 1 (0.19%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 75 (14.04%) Microsoft
2 63 (11.80%) Cisco
3 48 (8.99%) Oracle
4 39 (7.30%) ServiceNow
5 28 (5.24%) SAP
6 24 (4.49%) Palo Alto
7 20 (3.75%) VMware
8 13 (2.43%) Aruba
9 10 (1.87%) Google
10 9 (1.69%) Splunk
11 8 (1.50%) F5
12 6 (1.12%) Arista
13 5 (0.94%) CheckPoint
13 5 (0.94%) Ekahau
13 5 (0.94%) IBM
13 5 (0.94%) SolarWinds
14 4 (0.75%) Citrix
14 4 (0.75%) Dynatrace
14 4 (0.75%) RedGate
15 3 (0.56%) Remedy