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

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 2 2
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 496 413 432
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 15.42% 21.10% 16.13%
As % of the Qualifications category 55.86% 58.75% 53.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 321 239 281
10th Percentile £358 £250 £400
25th Percentile £410 £416 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £497 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.64% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £588 £670
90th Percentile £751 £666 £725
England median daily rate £525 £537 £550
% change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 21 61
10th Percentile £22.68 £25.15 -
25th Percentile £28.50 £25.26 £10.95
Median hourly rate £52.78 £58.58 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.91% +304.00% -65.88%
75th Percentile £71.50 £73.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £75.48 £85.78 £73.75
England median hourly rate £55.00 £52.00 £56.89
% change year-on-year +5.77% -8.59% -5.19%

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 888 703 806
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 27.61% 35.92% 30.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 590 405 456
10th Percentile £328 £230 £285
25th Percentile £393 £394 £422
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% +2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £650
90th Percentile £688 £659 £725
England median daily rate £522 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.67% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 43 128
10th Percentile £22.68 £17.95 £10.95
25th Percentile £30.00 £25.15 £11.77
Median hourly rate £52.78 £32.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +62.38% +102.37% -60.42%
75th Percentile £73.57 £60.00 £39.54
90th Percentile £111.15 £82.85 £70.34
England median hourly rate £47.54 £40.55 £40.00
% change year-on-year +17.25% +1.36% -23.81%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -10 164 £500 - 104
Cumbria 0 131 £478 -10.41% 38
Lancashire +3 93 £775 +73.38% 32
Cheshire +1 76 £425 +21.43% 8
Merseyside -19 26 £625 +13.64% 2
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 22 (4.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (2.02%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.81%) Skype for Business
4 7 (1.41%) Confluence
5 4 (0.81%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.40%) Apache
6 2 (0.40%) CICS
6 2 (0.40%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.40%) SAS
7 1 (0.20%) IIS
7 1 (0.20%) nginx
7 1 (0.20%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 14 (2.82%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.40%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.40%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.20%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.20%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 4 (0.81%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.60%) Oracle Payables
3 2 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.40%) Primavera
3 2 (0.40%) SAP MM
3 2 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.40%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.20%) Oracle Cash Management
4 1 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 1 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 79 (15.93%) AWS
2 55 (11.09%) Azure
3 24 (4.84%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (3.63%) GCP
5 15 (3.02%) Power Platform
5 15 (3.02%) Serverless
6 14 (2.82%) SaaS
7 11 (2.22%) Entra ID
8 10 (2.02%) GitHub
9 9 (1.81%) Google Workspace
10 8 (1.61%) OCI
11 7 (1.41%) Amazon S3
11 7 (1.41%) Azure DevOps
12 6 (1.21%) Amazon EKS
12 6 (1.21%) Google Drive
13 4 (0.81%) Amazon EC2
13 4 (0.81%) AWS Lambda
13 4 (0.81%) Azure Monitor
13 4 (0.81%) OpenShift
14 3 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 58 (11.69%) Firewall
2 32 (6.45%) VLAN
3 24 (4.84%) Network Security
4 23 (4.64%) WAN
5 20 (4.03%) DNS
5 20 (4.03%) Wi-Fi
6 14 (2.82%) DHCP
6 14 (2.82%) Wireless
7 13 (2.62%) LAN
8 11 (2.22%) SAN
9 9 (1.81%) BGP
9 9 (1.81%) Skype
9 9 (1.81%) TCP/IP
10 8 (1.61%) Cisco IOS
10 8 (1.61%) OSPF
10 8 (1.61%) Structured Cabling
11 7 (1.41%) BIG-IP
11 7 (1.41%) NAS
11 7 (1.41%) NX-OS
11 7 (1.41%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (3.23%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (2.82%) Power BI
3 12 (2.42%) Oracle Database
4 11 (2.22%) MongoDB
5 10 (2.02%) Relational Database
6 9 (1.81%) Elasticsearch
6 9 (1.81%) SQL Server
7 8 (1.61%) NoSQL
8 7 (1.41%) Metadata
8 7 (1.41%) MySQL
9 6 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 5 (1.01%) Oracle Database 12c
11 4 (0.81%) Hadoop
11 4 (0.81%) RDBMS
11 4 (0.81%) Tableau
12 3 (0.60%) Data Lake
13 2 (0.40%) Amazon Redshift
13 2 (0.40%) Data Warehouse
13 2 (0.40%) DataStage
13 2 (0.40%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 26 (5.24%) GitLab
2 16 (3.23%) Git
3 12 (2.42%) JIRA
4 8 (1.61%) Jenkins
5 6 (1.21%) MSI
6 5 (1.01%) Selenium
7 4 (0.81%) Postman
7 4 (0.81%) REST Assured
8 3 (0.60%) Gatling
8 3 (0.60%) Serenity BDD
9 2 (0.40%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.40%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.40%) Jasmine
9 2 (0.40%) JMeter
9 2 (0.40%) Mockito
9 2 (0.40%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.20%) ClearCase
10 1 (0.20%) InstallShield
10 1 (0.20%) JDeveloper
10 1 (0.20%) Visual Studio
General
1 150 (30.24%) Public Sector
2 98 (19.76%) Social Skills
3 30 (6.05%) Finance
4 24 (4.84%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (4.84%) Documentation Skills
4 24 (4.84%) Military
5 13 (2.62%) Aerospace
5 13 (2.62%) Legal
6 11 (2.22%) Banking
7 8 (1.61%) Manufacturing
8 7 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
9 4 (0.81%) Aviation
10 3 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (0.60%) Retail
11 2 (0.40%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.40%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.20%) Electronics
12 1 (0.20%) Law
Job Titles
1 69 (13.91%) Architect
2 57 (11.49%) Lead
3 42 (8.47%) Developer
4 36 (7.26%) Network Engineer
5 31 (6.25%) Analyst
5 31 (6.25%) Senior
6 25 (5.04%) Administrator
7 23 (4.64%) Unix Engineer
8 19 (3.83%) Lead Architect
9 17 (3.43%) DBA
9 17 (3.43%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 17 (3.43%) Wintel Engineer
10 16 (3.23%) Consultant
10 16 (3.23%) Data Engineer
10 16 (3.23%) Technical Architect
11 15 (3.02%) Coordinator
12 13 (2.62%) Business Analyst
12 13 (2.62%) Security Assurance Coordinator
13 12 (2.42%) Java Developer
13 12 (2.42%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (6.05%) Spring
2 26 (5.24%) Spring Boot
3 17 (3.43%) Node.js
4 14 (2.82%) Kafka
5 11 (2.22%) 802.1X
5 11 (2.22%) RESTful
6 10 (2.02%) OAuth
7 9 (1.81%) REST
8 8 (1.61%) Playwright
9 7 (1.41%) React
10 6 (1.21%) XML
11 5 (1.01%) AngularJS
11 5 (1.01%) Apache NiFi
11 5 (1.01%) CSS
11 5 (1.01%) Hibernate
11 5 (1.01%) HTML
11 5 (1.01%) JSON
11 5 (1.01%) Leaflet
11 5 (1.01%) OAuth2
11 5 (1.01%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 35 (7.06%) Data Centre
2 25 (5.04%) Product Ownership
3 23 (4.64%) Clustering
4 22 (4.44%) Replication
5 20 (4.03%) Onboarding
6 14 (2.82%) Cloud Native
7 11 (2.22%) Operational Technology
8 9 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (1.41%) Cyber Threat
10 6 (1.21%) Management Information System
11 5 (1.01%) Mobile App
11 5 (1.01%) Private Cloud
11 5 (1.01%) Security Posture
12 4 (0.81%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (0.81%) Distributed Systems
12 4 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
12 4 (0.81%) Legacy Systems
13 3 (0.60%) Fat Client
13 3 (0.60%) Mainframe
13 3 (0.60%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 55 (11.09%) Windows
2 30 (6.05%) Unix
3 26 (5.24%) Linux
4 24 (4.84%) Solaris
5 22 (4.44%) Windows Server
6 19 (3.83%) Windows 10
7 9 (1.81%) Windows 7
8 4 (0.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.60%) AIX
9 3 (0.60%) Android
9 3 (0.60%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.40%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.40%) Mac OS X
10 2 (0.40%) VMS
11 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (15.12%) Agile
2 63 (12.70%) Project Delivery
3 62 (12.50%) High Availability
4 56 (11.29%) Migration
5 55 (11.09%) DevOps
6 53 (10.69%) CI/CD
6 53 (10.69%) Stakeholder Management
7 49 (9.88%) Disaster Recovery
7 49 (9.88%) Problem-Solving
8 45 (9.07%) ITSM
9 43 (8.67%) Continuous Improvement
10 39 (7.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 37 (7.46%) Service Management
12 36 (7.26%) Cybersecurity
13 32 (6.45%) Microservices
14 31 (6.25%) Technical Leadership
14 31 (6.25%) Test Automation
15 29 (5.85%) Risk Management
16 28 (5.65%) Change Management
17 26 (5.24%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 57 (11.49%) Python
2 50 (10.08%) Java
3 43 (8.67%) PowerShell
4 26 (5.24%) SQL
5 21 (4.23%) JavaScript
6 14 (2.82%) TypeScript
7 9 (1.81%) VB
7 9 (1.81%) VBScript
8 5 (1.01%) Go
8 5 (1.01%) Rust
9 4 (0.81%) Ruby
10 2 (0.40%) Bash
10 2 (0.40%) C#
10 2 (0.40%) COBOL
10 2 (0.40%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.20%) Bicep
11 1 (0.20%) Perl
11 1 (0.20%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.20%) Search Processing Language
11 1 (0.20%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 327 (65.93%) SC Cleared
2 67 (13.51%) DV Cleared
3 33 (6.65%) BPSS Clearance
3 33 (6.65%) Cisco Certification
4 30 (6.05%) CCNP
5 27 (5.44%) CCNA
6 26 (5.24%) Degree
7 19 (3.83%) Microsoft Certification
8 14 (2.82%) MCSA
8 14 (2.82%) MCSE
8 14 (2.82%) VCAP
8 14 (2.82%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 13 (2.62%) CISSP
10 10 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
11 9 (1.81%) AWS Certification
11 9 (1.81%) Azure Certification
11 9 (1.81%) ITIL Certification
12 7 (1.41%) CISM
12 7 (1.41%) Network+ Certification
12 7 (1.41%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (4.03%) NIST
2 16 (3.23%) Accessibility
2 16 (3.23%) QA
3 14 (2.82%) PMO
3 14 (2.82%) SLA
4 13 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 12 (2.42%) JSP 440
6 8 (1.61%) GDPR
7 6 (1.21%) Data Quality
8 5 (1.01%) GRC
9 4 (0.81%) WCAG
10 3 (0.60%) IFRS
10 3 (0.60%) NCSC
11 2 (0.40%) IFRS 17
11 2 (0.40%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.40%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.40%) PSD2
12 1 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
12 1 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.20%) RMADS
System Software
1 26 (5.24%) Active Directory
1 26 (5.24%) Docker
2 20 (4.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (3.63%) Virtual Machines
3 18 (3.63%) VMware ESXi
4 17 (3.43%) vSphere
5 10 (2.02%) BitLocker
6 4 (0.81%) Firmware
7 2 (0.40%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.40%) ISA Server
7 2 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.20%) GPFS
8 1 (0.20%) NFS
8 1 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 30 (6.05%) Kubernetes
1 30 (6.05%) Terraform
2 25 (5.04%) Ansible
3 17 (3.43%) vCenter Server
4 14 (2.82%) SCCM
5 8 (1.61%) Grafana
6 6 (1.21%) Oracle RMAN
6 6 (1.21%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.40%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (0.40%) Microsoft Clustering
9 2 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.40%) Nagios
9 2 (0.40%) WSUS
10 1 (0.20%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.20%) Netcool
10 1 (0.20%) Norton AntiVirus
10 1 (0.20%) Tivoli
10 1 (0.20%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 61 (12.30%) Cisco
1 61 (12.30%) Microsoft
2 43 (8.67%) Oracle
3 34 (6.85%) Palo Alto
4 30 (6.05%) ServiceNow
5 29 (5.85%) SAP
6 21 (4.23%) VMware
7 13 (2.62%) Aruba
8 10 (2.02%) Google
9 8 (1.61%) F5
9 8 (1.61%) Meraki
10 7 (1.41%) Splunk
11 6 (1.21%) CheckPoint
11 6 (1.21%) Ekahau
11 6 (1.21%) SolarWinds
12 5 (1.01%) Arista
12 5 (1.01%) IBM
13 4 (0.81%) Dell
13 4 (0.81%) EMC
13 4 (0.81%) RedGate