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 26 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 2 2
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 528 409 410
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 15.90% 21.08% 15.37%
As % of the Qualifications category 56.77% 58.93% 54.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 340 239 261
10th Percentile £358 £230 £375
25th Percentile £417 £412 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +2.20% -2.91% -1.90%
75th Percentile £630 £600 £675
90th Percentile £750 £680 £725
England median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 23 61
10th Percentile £22.68 £25.15 -
25th Percentile £27.14 £25.26 £10.95
Median hourly rate £56.44 £40.59 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +39.05% +179.93% -65.88%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £83.75 £72.00 £73.75
England median hourly rate £55.00 £39.04 £55.80
% change year-on-year +40.88% -30.04% -7.00%

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 930 694 759
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 28.01% 35.77% 28.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 608 406 431
10th Percentile £332 £230 £300
25th Percentile £400 £390 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £499 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.71% -0.30% -
75th Percentile £594 £575 £648
90th Percentile £682 £668 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 40 129
10th Percentile £22.68 £17.44 £10.95
25th Percentile £29.62 £25.15 £11.77
Median hourly rate £49.79 £29.64 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +68.00% +84.53% -60.43%
75th Percentile £74.26 £59.93 £42.88
90th Percentile £111.15 £76.38 £69.85
England median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +46.15% -18.75% -26.31%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 26 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
Manchester -9 168 £510 +2.00% 110
Cumbria 0 162 £481 -9.79% 21
Lancashire +3 93 £773 +72.82% 29
Cheshire +4 78 £444 +26.71% 10
Merseyside -22 20 £625 +8.70% 4
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 (4.73%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (2.08%) SharePoint
2 11 (2.08%) Skype for Business
3 7 (1.33%) Confluence
4 4 (0.76%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.38%) Apache
5 2 (0.38%) CICS
5 2 (0.38%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.19%) IIS
6 1 (0.19%) nginx
6 1 (0.19%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.19%) SAS
Applications
1 17 (3.22%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.57%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.38%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.19%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 5 (0.95%) Oracle Payables
2 3 (0.57%) Oracle EBS
2 3 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.57%) Teamcenter
3 2 (0.38%) Oracle Cash Management
3 2 (0.38%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 2 (0.38%) Primavera
3 2 (0.38%) SAP MM
3 2 (0.38%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.19%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 79 (14.96%) AWS
2 57 (10.80%) Azure
3 24 (4.55%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (3.03%) GCP
4 16 (3.03%) SaaS
5 15 (2.84%) Power Platform
6 14 (2.65%) Serverless
7 10 (1.89%) Entra ID
7 10 (1.89%) GitHub
8 9 (1.70%) Google Workspace
8 9 (1.70%) OCI
9 8 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.33%) Google Drive
11 6 (1.14%) Amazon S3
12 4 (0.76%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (0.76%) AWS Lambda
12 4 (0.76%) Azure Monitor
12 4 (0.76%) OpenShift
13 3 (0.57%) Azure Key Vault
13 3 (0.57%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 74 (14.02%) Firewall
2 42 (7.95%) VLAN
3 31 (5.87%) Wireless
4 30 (5.68%) DNS
4 30 (5.68%) Network Security
5 28 (5.30%) WAN
6 23 (4.36%) DHCP
7 22 (4.17%) Structured Cabling
7 22 (4.17%) Wi-Fi
8 21 (3.98%) SAN
9 17 (3.22%) Cisco IOS
9 17 (3.22%) LAN
9 17 (3.22%) NAS
10 16 (3.03%) NX-OS
11 12 (2.27%) VPN
12 11 (2.08%) Skype
13 10 (1.89%) BGP
14 9 (1.70%) OSPF
14 9 (1.70%) TCP/IP
15 8 (1.52%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.65%) PostgreSQL
1 14 (2.65%) Power BI
2 13 (2.46%) MongoDB
2 13 (2.46%) Oracle Database
3 11 (2.08%) Relational Database
4 10 (1.89%) SQL Server
5 9 (1.70%) Elasticsearch
6 7 (1.33%) NoSQL
7 6 (1.14%) Metadata
7 6 (1.14%) MySQL
8 5 (0.95%) Oracle Database 12c
8 5 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 4 (0.76%) Hadoop
9 4 (0.76%) RDBMS
9 4 (0.76%) Tableau
10 3 (0.57%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.38%) Amazon Redshift
11 2 (0.38%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.38%) DataStage
11 2 (0.38%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 27 (5.11%) GitLab
2 12 (2.27%) Git
2 12 (2.27%) JIRA
2 12 (2.27%) Selenium
3 9 (1.70%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.52%) REST Assured
5 6 (1.14%) Gatling
6 5 (0.95%) Cucumber
6 5 (0.95%) MSI
6 5 (0.95%) Serenity BDD
7 4 (0.76%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.57%) JMeter
8 3 (0.57%) Postman
9 2 (0.38%) JDeveloper
9 2 (0.38%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.38%) WebDriver
10 1 (0.19%) Mocha
10 1 (0.19%) Mockito
10 1 (0.19%) Rational Robot
10 1 (0.19%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 144 (27.27%) Public Sector
2 111 (21.02%) Social Skills
3 35 (6.63%) Military
4 30 (5.68%) Documentation Skills
5 29 (5.49%) Finance
6 23 (4.36%) Analytical Skills
7 13 (2.46%) Aerospace
8 12 (2.27%) Legal
9 9 (1.70%) Banking
10 8 (1.52%) Manufacturing
11 7 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.76%) Aviation
12 4 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (0.76%) Retail
13 3 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
14 2 (0.38%) Corporate Banking
14 2 (0.38%) General Ledger
14 2 (0.38%) Organisational Skills
15 1 (0.19%) Advertising
15 1 (0.19%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 80 (15.15%) Architect
2 63 (11.93%) Lead
3 46 (8.71%) Network Engineer
4 34 (6.44%) Developer
4 34 (6.44%) Senior
5 32 (6.06%) Analyst
6 27 (5.11%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 27 (5.11%) Unix Engineer
7 26 (4.92%) Administrator
8 22 (4.17%) Technical Architect
9 19 (3.60%) Lead Architect
9 19 (3.60%) Wintel Engineer
10 18 (3.41%) Consultant
11 17 (3.22%) Data Engineer
11 17 (3.22%) DBA
12 15 (2.84%) Coordinator
13 14 (2.65%) Business Analyst
14 13 (2.46%) Security Architect
14 13 (2.46%) Security Assurance Coordinator
15 12 (2.27%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (5.30%) Spring
2 24 (4.55%) Spring Boot
3 19 (3.60%) Node.js
4 16 (3.03%) Kafka
5 11 (2.08%) 802.1X
5 11 (2.08%) OAuth
6 10 (1.89%) Playwright
6 10 (1.89%) REST
7 7 (1.33%) React
7 7 (1.33%) RESTful
8 6 (1.14%) OpenID
9 5 (0.95%) Apache NiFi
9 5 (0.95%) Leaflet
9 5 (0.95%) Nunjucks
9 5 (0.95%) Spring Cloud
9 5 (0.95%) Web Services
9 5 (0.95%) XML
10 4 (0.76%) Jest
10 4 (0.76%) OAuth2
10 4 (0.76%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 45 (8.52%) Data Centre
2 25 (4.73%) Clustering
3 24 (4.55%) Replication
4 22 (4.17%) Product Ownership
5 21 (3.98%) Onboarding
6 14 (2.65%) Cloud Native
7 13 (2.46%) Operational Technology
8 8 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (1.33%) Cyber Threat
9 7 (1.33%) Management Information System
10 5 (0.95%) Hybrid Cloud
10 5 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (0.95%) Mobile App
10 5 (0.95%) Private Cloud
10 5 (0.95%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.76%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.76%) Distributed Systems
11 4 (0.76%) Driving Licence
12 3 (0.57%) PKI
12 3 (0.57%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 57 (10.80%) Windows
2 33 (6.25%) Unix
3 28 (5.30%) Solaris
4 24 (4.55%) Linux
4 24 (4.55%) Windows Server
5 19 (3.60%) Windows 10
6 11 (2.08%) Windows 7
7 4 (0.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.57%) AIX
9 2 (0.38%) Android
9 2 (0.38%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.38%) VMS
10 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.19%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (13.83%) Agile
2 68 (12.88%) Project Delivery
3 66 (12.50%) High Availability
4 56 (10.61%) ITSM
4 56 (10.61%) Migration
5 55 (10.42%) CI/CD
5 55 (10.42%) DevOps
5 55 (10.42%) Stakeholder Management
6 54 (10.23%) Continuous Improvement
7 52 (9.85%) Disaster Recovery
8 47 (8.90%) Problem-Solving
9 41 (7.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 40 (7.58%) Cybersecurity
10 40 (7.58%) Service Management
11 33 (6.25%) Technical Leadership
11 33 (6.25%) Test Automation
12 32 (6.06%) Microservices
13 29 (5.49%) Risk Management
14 24 (4.55%) Change Management
14 24 (4.55%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 57 (10.80%) Python
2 50 (9.47%) Java
3 47 (8.90%) PowerShell
4 25 (4.73%) JavaScript
4 25 (4.73%) SQL
5 14 (2.65%) TypeScript
6 11 (2.08%) VB
6 11 (2.08%) VBScript
7 5 (0.95%) Go
7 5 (0.95%) Rust
8 3 (0.57%) Bash
9 2 (0.38%) C#
9 2 (0.38%) COBOL
9 2 (0.38%) Kotlin
9 2 (0.38%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.38%) Ruby
10 1 (0.19%) Bicep
10 1 (0.19%) Perl
10 1 (0.19%) Search Processing Language
10 1 (0.19%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 359 (67.99%) SC Cleared
2 67 (12.69%) DV Cleared
3 47 (8.90%) Cisco Certification
4 42 (7.95%) CCNA
5 38 (7.20%) CCNP
6 29 (5.49%) BPSS Clearance
7 23 (4.36%) Degree
8 22 (4.17%) Microsoft Certification
9 16 (3.03%) MCSA
9 16 (3.03%) MCSE
9 16 (3.03%) VCAP
9 16 (3.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 15 (2.84%) Network+ Certification
10 15 (2.84%) Server+ Certification
11 13 (2.46%) CISSP
12 9 (1.70%) AWS Certification
12 9 (1.70%) Azure Certification
13 8 (1.52%) ITIL Certification
14 7 (1.33%) CISM
14 7 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (3.98%) NIST
2 20 (3.79%) Accessibility
3 17 (3.22%) PMO
4 15 (2.84%) QA
5 13 (2.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (2.46%) SLA
6 12 (2.27%) JSP 440
7 10 (1.89%) GDPR
8 5 (0.95%) Data Quality
8 5 (0.95%) GRC
8 5 (0.95%) NCSC
9 4 (0.76%) WCAG
10 3 (0.57%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.38%) IFRS
11 2 (0.38%) IFRS 17
11 2 (0.38%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
12 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 27 (5.11%) Active Directory
2 23 (4.36%) Docker
2 23 (4.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.98%) Virtual Machines
4 20 (3.79%) VMware ESXi
5 19 (3.60%) vSphere
6 12 (2.27%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.76%) Firmware
8 2 (0.38%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.19%) GPFS
9 1 (0.19%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.19%) NFS
9 1 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 32 (6.06%) Terraform
2 28 (5.30%) Ansible
3 24 (4.55%) Kubernetes
4 19 (3.60%) vCenter Server
5 16 (3.03%) SCCM
6 9 (1.70%) Grafana
7 7 (1.33%) Prometheus
8 6 (1.14%) Oracle RMAN
9 5 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 2 (0.38%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Clustering
11 2 (0.38%) Nagios
11 2 (0.38%) WSUS
12 1 (0.19%) Cisco Prime
12 1 (0.19%) Data Guard
12 1 (0.19%) Netcool
12 1 (0.19%) Norton AntiVirus
12 1 (0.19%) Tivoli
12 1 (0.19%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 78 (14.77%) Cisco
2 64 (12.12%) Microsoft
3 45 (8.52%) Oracle
4 39 (7.39%) ServiceNow
5 34 (6.44%) Palo Alto
6 26 (4.92%) SAP
7 24 (4.55%) VMware
8 14 (2.65%) Aruba
9 10 (1.89%) Google
10 9 (1.70%) F5
11 7 (1.33%) Splunk
12 6 (1.14%) Arista
12 6 (1.14%) CheckPoint
12 6 (1.14%) Ekahau
12 6 (1.14%) Meraki
12 6 (1.14%) SolarWinds
13 5 (0.95%) IBM
14 4 (0.76%) Citrix
14 4 (0.76%) Dell
14 4 (0.76%) EMC