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 16 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 2 2 2
Rank change year-on-year 0 0 +4
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 524 396 484
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 21.16% 18.56% 18.38%
As % of the Qualifications category 59.61% 60.92% 57.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 339 198 350
10th Percentile £313 £203 £355
25th Percentile £425 £318 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -13.64% +3.29%
75th Percentile £638 £587 £638
90th Percentile £710 £675 £701
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -2.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 33 29
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.05 £34.62
25th Percentile £22.16 £22.22 £45.88
Median hourly rate £43.70 £37.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +18.11% -19.88% +105.24%
75th Percentile £68.03 £55.79 £50.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £79.42 £64.25
England median hourly rate £25.15 £58.34 £60.00
% change year-on-year -56.89% -2.77% -

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 879 650 836
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 35.50% 30.46% 31.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 571 332 545
10th Percentile £220 £203 £252
25th Percentile £400 £356 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £495 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% -8.33% +5.37%
75th Percentile £620 £589 £644
90th Percentile £690 £675 £720
England median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 56 69
10th Percentile £16.88 £19.21 £16.25
25th Percentile £22.16 £23.68 £30.00
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% -29.62% +92.42%
75th Percentile £67.25 £55.38 -
90th Percentile £74.26 £77.67 £55.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -47.05% -9.52% +16.67%

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 16 December 2025.

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 16 December 2025.

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 16 December 2025. 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 +1 189 £505 +12.22% 100
Cheshire +14 115 £609 +24.87% 10
Cumbria 0 95 £519 +3.70% 37
Lancashire 0 90 £550 +69.23% 29
Merseyside -8 22 £623 +186.21% 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 17 (3.24%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (1.91%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.95%) Confluence
3 5 (0.95%) Skype for Business
4 4 (0.76%) Apache
4 4 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.57%) MTS
5 3 (0.57%) Resin
6 2 (0.38%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.38%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.38%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.38%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.19%) CMS
7 1 (0.19%) IIS
7 1 (0.19%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.19%) SAS
7 1 (0.19%) WebSphere
Applications
1 26 (4.96%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (2.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (2.10%) Siemens NX
4 5 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.57%) PTC Creo
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.19%) Quicktime
6 1 (0.19%) SPSS
6 1 (0.19%) Stata
Business Applications
1 60 (11.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (2.10%) Teamcenter
3 10 (1.91%) SAP EHS
3 10 (1.91%) SAP VC
4 9 (1.72%) SAP MM
4 9 (1.72%) SAP QM
5 2 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
5 2 (0.38%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.19%) Maximo
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 67 (12.79%) AWS
2 50 (9.54%) Azure
3 36 (6.87%) Microsoft 365
4 30 (5.73%) SaaS
5 17 (3.24%) GCP
5 17 (3.24%) Google Workspace
6 13 (2.48%) Power Platform
7 11 (2.10%) Entra ID
8 10 (1.91%) GitHub
9 9 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.72%) Serverless
10 8 (1.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 7 (1.34%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.15%) OneDrive
13 5 (0.95%) Amazon EC2
13 5 (0.95%) Amazon EKS
13 5 (0.95%) Amazon S3
13 5 (0.95%) Amazon SQS
13 5 (0.95%) AWS Lambda
14 4 (0.76%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 46 (8.78%) Firewall
2 26 (4.96%) WAN
3 25 (4.77%) Wi-Fi
4 21 (4.01%) DNS
5 16 (3.05%) VLAN
6 15 (2.86%) SAN
7 13 (2.48%) BGP
7 13 (2.48%) Cisco ISE
7 13 (2.48%) NetScaler
8 12 (2.29%) LAN
8 12 (2.29%) TCP/IP
8 12 (2.29%) VPN
9 8 (1.53%) DHCP
9 8 (1.53%) Network Security
9 8 (1.53%) Software-Defined Networking
9 8 (1.53%) Unified Communications
10 7 (1.34%) Internet
10 7 (1.34%) WebEx
10 7 (1.34%) Wireless
11 6 (1.15%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
2 9 (1.72%) MongoDB
2 9 (1.72%) MySQL
2 9 (1.72%) NoSQL
2 9 (1.72%) Relational Database
2 9 (1.72%) SAP HANA
3 8 (1.53%) Power BI
4 7 (1.34%) DynamoDB
4 7 (1.34%) SQL Server
5 6 (1.15%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (1.15%) Redis
6 5 (0.95%) BigQuery
7 4 (0.76%) Metadata
7 4 (0.76%) RDBMS
8 3 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
8 3 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (0.57%) Big Data
9 2 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
9 2 (0.38%) Looker
Development Applications
1 26 (4.96%) Git
2 23 (4.39%) GitLab
3 16 (3.05%) JIRA
4 14 (2.67%) Jenkins
5 7 (1.34%) Rational DOORS
6 6 (1.15%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.76%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.57%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.57%) Grunt
8 3 (0.57%) gulp
9 2 (0.38%) Gradle
9 2 (0.38%) Jasmine
9 2 (0.38%) Maven
9 2 (0.38%) Mockito
9 2 (0.38%) MSI
9 2 (0.38%) Postman
9 2 (0.38%) Selenium
9 2 (0.38%) SonarLint
10 1 (0.19%) Eclipse
10 1 (0.19%) InstallShield
General
1 166 (31.68%) Public Sector
2 112 (21.37%) Social Skills
3 49 (9.35%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (6.30%) Finance
5 29 (5.53%) Manufacturing
6 24 (4.58%) Military
7 18 (3.44%) Documentation Skills
8 14 (2.67%) Aerospace
9 11 (2.10%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.91%) Electronics
10 10 (1.91%) Legal
11 9 (1.72%) Marketing
12 8 (1.53%) Banking
13 7 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
14 6 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 5 (0.95%) Aviation
15 5 (0.95%) Organisational Skills
16 1 (0.19%) Financial Institution
16 1 (0.19%) Law
16 1 (0.19%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 85 (16.22%) Consultant
2 64 (12.21%) Architect
3 47 (8.97%) Senior
4 43 (8.21%) Developer
5 42 (8.02%) SAP Consultant
6 29 (5.53%) Analyst
6 29 (5.53%) Network Engineer
7 25 (4.77%) Management Consultant
8 24 (4.58%) Administrator
9 22 (4.20%) Lead
10 20 (3.82%) Technical Architect
11 18 (3.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 16 (3.05%) DevOps Engineer
12 16 (3.05%) Platform Engineer
13 14 (2.67%) AWS Engineer
13 14 (2.67%) IT Support
14 13 (2.48%) Software Engineer
14 13 (2.48%) Support Engineer
15 12 (2.29%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
16 11 (2.10%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (4.01%) SAP Fiori
2 16 (3.05%) JSON
3 14 (2.67%) Node.js
3 14 (2.67%) Web Services
4 13 (2.48%) Spring Boot
4 13 (2.48%) XML
5 12 (2.29%) 802.1X
6 11 (2.10%) REST
6 11 (2.10%) RESTful
6 11 (2.10%) Spring
7 10 (1.91%) BAPI
7 10 (1.91%) HTML
7 10 (1.91%) Kafka
8 8 (1.53%) CSS
8 8 (1.53%) SOAP
9 7 (1.34%) React
10 6 (1.15%) AngularJS
10 6 (1.15%) Jest
10 6 (1.15%) Playwright
10 6 (1.15%) Sass
Miscellaneous
1 44 (8.40%) Data Centre
2 30 (5.73%) Onboarding
3 26 (4.96%) Product Ownership
4 19 (3.63%) Hybrid Cloud
5 14 (2.67%) Analytical Mindset
6 9 (1.72%) Cloud Native
6 9 (1.72%) Cyber Threat
7 7 (1.34%) Driving Licence
7 7 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (0.95%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (0.95%) Fibre Optics
8 5 (0.95%) Low-Code
8 5 (0.95%) Video Conferencing
9 4 (0.76%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (0.76%) Operational Technology
9 4 (0.76%) SCADA
10 3 (0.57%) 3D Printing
10 3 (0.57%) Digital Signage
10 3 (0.57%) Public Cloud
10 3 (0.57%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 55 (10.50%) Windows
2 32 (6.11%) Linux
3 18 (3.44%) Windows 10
4 12 (2.29%) Windows Server
5 11 (2.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (1.53%) Android
7 7 (1.34%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.95%) Unix
8 5 (0.95%) Windows 7
9 4 (0.76%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.38%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (12.79%) Problem-Solving
2 52 (9.92%) DevOps
3 51 (9.73%) Agile
4 49 (9.35%) Cybersecurity
5 47 (8.97%) Stakeholder Management
6 46 (8.78%) CI/CD
7 38 (7.25%) Containerisation
8 35 (6.68%) ITSM
8 35 (6.68%) Migration
8 35 (6.68%) User Experience
9 34 (6.49%) Change Management
10 33 (6.30%) Mentoring
11 31 (5.92%) Service Management
12 29 (5.53%) Validation
13 26 (4.96%) Infrastructure as Code
14 25 (4.77%) Continuous Improvement
15 24 (4.58%) Analytics
15 24 (4.58%) Customer Service
15 24 (4.58%) Risk Management
16 23 (4.39%) Logistics
Programming Languages
1 56 (10.69%) Python
2 35 (6.68%) Java
3 34 (6.49%) PowerShell
4 24 (4.58%) Bash
5 17 (3.24%) Perl
6 15 (2.86%) SQL
7 12 (2.29%) JavaScript
8 11 (2.10%) ABAP
8 11 (2.10%) TypeScript
9 8 (1.53%) C++
10 5 (0.95%) VB
10 5 (0.95%) VBScript
11 4 (0.76%) C
12 3 (0.57%) Go
12 3 (0.57%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.57%) Ruby
12 3 (0.57%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.38%) AWK
13 2 (0.38%) C#
13 2 (0.38%) PHP
Qualifications
1 403 (76.91%) SC Cleared
2 84 (16.03%) BPSS Clearance
3 31 (5.92%) Degree
4 20 (3.82%) DV Cleared
5 13 (2.48%) CCNP
5 13 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
6 10 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
7 9 (1.72%) CCDP
8 8 (1.53%) CCNA
9 6 (1.15%) Azure Certification
9 6 (1.15%) CTC Cleared
10 5 (0.95%) BC Cleared
10 5 (0.95%) CISM
10 5 (0.95%) CISSP
10 5 (0.95%) DBS Check
11 4 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (0.57%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.57%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 2 (0.38%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (0.38%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.82%) NIST
2 10 (1.91%) Accessibility
3 8 (1.53%) Data Quality
4 7 (1.34%) NCSC
5 6 (1.15%) QA
6 5 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.95%) SLA
7 4 (0.76%) IEC 61508
7 4 (0.76%) ISO 26262
8 3 (0.57%) IEC 62304
8 3 (0.57%) PMO
9 2 (0.38%) COBIT
9 2 (0.38%) GDPR
9 2 (0.38%) IEC 61131
9 2 (0.38%) PSD2
9 2 (0.38%) WCAG
10 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.19%) IFRS
10 1 (0.19%) ISO 20022
10 1 (0.19%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 35 (6.68%) Docker
2 25 (4.77%) Active Directory
3 16 (3.05%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.95%) BitLocker
5 4 (0.76%) Firmware
5 4 (0.76%) UAG
6 3 (0.57%) vSphere
7 2 (0.38%) ISA Server
7 2 (0.38%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 39 (7.44%) Terraform
2 35 (6.68%) Kubernetes
3 22 (4.20%) SCCM
4 16 (3.05%) Microsoft Intune
5 13 (2.48%) Ansible
6 7 (1.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 5 (0.95%) Norton AntiVirus
8 4 (0.76%) Grafana
8 4 (0.76%) Nessus
8 4 (0.76%) SELinux
9 3 (0.57%) FortiGate
9 3 (0.57%) Packer
9 3 (0.57%) Podman
9 3 (0.57%) Prometheus
10 2 (0.38%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.38%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.19%) Argo
11 1 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 94 (17.94%) SAP
2 77 (14.69%) Microsoft
3 44 (8.40%) Cisco
4 28 (5.34%) ServiceNow
5 25 (4.77%) Palo Alto
6 22 (4.20%) Oracle
6 22 (4.20%) VMware
7 21 (4.01%) Google
8 17 (3.24%) Meraki
9 12 (2.29%) Adobe
10 11 (2.10%) Citrix
10 11 (2.10%) Red Hat
10 11 (2.10%) Siemens
11 10 (1.91%) Splunk
12 9 (1.72%) Dell
12 9 (1.72%) IBM
13 7 (1.34%) HP
14 6 (1.15%) Apple
14 6 (1.15%) NetApp
14 6 (1.15%) Symantec