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 21 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 2 3 2
Rank change year-on-year +1 -1 +6
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 499 395 482
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 20.38% 16.92% 17.58%
As % of the Qualifications category 56.90% 59.85% 58.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 318 189 345
10th Percentile £305 £258 £360
25th Percentile £428 £363 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £493 £550
Median % change year-on-year +8.72% -10.36% +3.77%
75th Percentile £638 £600 £638
90th Percentile £716 £683 £680
England median daily rate £530 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -3.64% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 37 29
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.03 £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% +98.97%
75th Percentile £68.96 £55.25 £50.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £74.04 £63.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £58.49 £60.00
% change year-on-year -57.00% -2.52% -

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 877 660 821
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 35.83% 28.28% 29.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 568 324 537
10th Percentile £214 £257 £253
25th Percentile £400 £389 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £533
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -6.10% +2.40%
75th Percentile £625 £598 £638
90th Percentile £715 £675 £700
England median daily rate £525 £526 £550
% change year-on-year -0.24% -4.32% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 58 67
10th Percentile £15.50 £19.65 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.46 £24.18 £30.00
Median hourly rate £45.46 £37.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +22.86% -19.88% +95.64%
75th Percentile £67.54 £55.25 £47.59
90th Percentile £74.26 £76.50 £55.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £53.50
% change year-on-year -49.70% -6.54% +18.89%

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 21 November 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 21 November 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 21 November 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 +4 180 £500 +11.36% 106
Cheshire +17 111 £623 +19.42% 10
Cumbria 0 88 £515 +0.59% 8
Lancashire 0 88 £550 +69.23% 55
Merseyside -11 21 £624 +211.88% 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 17 (3.41%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (2.20%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.40%) Confluence
4 5 (1.00%) Apache
4 5 (1.00%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.60%) MTS
6 3 (0.60%) Resin
7 2 (0.40%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.40%) IIS
7 2 (0.40%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.40%) NetWeaver
7 2 (0.40%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.40%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.20%) CMS
Applications
1 25 (5.01%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (3.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (2.20%) Siemens NX
4 5 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.60%) PTC Creo
6 2 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.20%) SPSS
7 1 (0.20%) Stata
Business Applications
1 60 (12.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (2.20%) Teamcenter
3 10 (2.00%) SAP EHS
3 10 (2.00%) SAP VC
4 9 (1.80%) SAP MM
4 9 (1.80%) SAP QM
5 2 (0.40%) Maximo
5 2 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
5 2 (0.40%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.20%) Primavera
6 1 (0.20%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.20%) SAP PS
6 1 (0.20%) SAP SD
6 1 (0.20%) SAP Travel Management
6 1 (0.20%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 60 (12.02%) AWS
2 48 (9.62%) Azure
3 36 (7.21%) Microsoft 365
4 35 (7.01%) SaaS
5 19 (3.81%) Google Workspace
6 16 (3.21%) GCP
7 14 (2.81%) Power Platform
8 10 (2.00%) Entra ID
9 9 (1.80%) GitHub
10 8 (1.60%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (1.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 7 (1.40%) Serverless
12 6 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
12 6 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.20%) OneDrive
13 5 (1.00%) Amazon SQS
13 5 (1.00%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (1.00%) PaaS
14 4 (0.80%) Amazon EMR
14 4 (0.80%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 36 (7.21%) Firewall
2 21 (4.21%) DNS
3 20 (4.01%) Wi-Fi
4 18 (3.61%) WAN
5 16 (3.21%) VLAN
6 11 (2.20%) BGP
6 11 (2.20%) SAN
6 11 (2.20%) TCP/IP
7 10 (2.00%) VPN
8 9 (1.80%) LAN
8 9 (1.80%) NetScaler
9 8 (1.60%) Cisco ISE
9 8 (1.60%) DHCP
9 8 (1.60%) Network Security
9 8 (1.60%) Software-Defined Networking
9 8 (1.60%) Unified Communications
10 6 (1.20%) HTTPS
10 6 (1.20%) Internet
10 6 (1.20%) WebEx
10 6 (1.20%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.61%) PostgreSQL
2 9 (1.80%) SAP HANA
3 8 (1.60%) MongoDB
3 8 (1.60%) MySQL
3 8 (1.60%) Power BI
3 8 (1.60%) Relational Database
4 7 (1.40%) SQL Server
5 6 (1.20%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (1.20%) NoSQL
5 6 (1.20%) Redis
6 5 (1.00%) BigQuery
6 5 (1.00%) DynamoDB
7 4 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
8 3 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (0.60%) Big Data
8 3 (0.60%) Metadata
8 3 (0.60%) RDBMS
9 2 (0.40%) DB2
9 2 (0.40%) Siebel EIM
Development Applications
1 23 (4.61%) Git
2 18 (3.61%) GitLab
3 17 (3.41%) JIRA
4 15 (3.01%) Jenkins
5 8 (1.60%) Rational DOORS
6 7 (1.40%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.80%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.60%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.60%) Gradle
8 3 (0.60%) Grunt
8 3 (0.60%) gulp
8 3 (0.60%) Maven
9 2 (0.40%) Mockito
9 2 (0.40%) Selenium
9 2 (0.40%) SonarLint
10 1 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
10 1 (0.20%) Gatling
10 1 (0.20%) MLflow
10 1 (0.20%) Postman
10 1 (0.20%) REST Assured
General
1 150 (30.06%) Public Sector
2 118 (23.65%) Social Skills
3 52 (10.42%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (6.81%) Finance
5 28 (5.61%) Manufacturing
6 26 (5.21%) Military
7 20 (4.01%) Documentation Skills
8 14 (2.81%) Aerospace
9 10 (2.00%) Banking
9 10 (2.00%) Electronics
9 10 (2.00%) Legal
9 10 (2.00%) Telecoms
10 9 (1.80%) Marketing
11 7 (1.40%) Organisational Skills
12 6 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 6 (1.20%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (1.00%) Aviation
14 2 (0.40%) Law
15 1 (0.20%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 89 (17.84%) Consultant
2 58 (11.62%) Architect
3 43 (8.62%) Developer
4 42 (8.42%) SAP Consultant
4 42 (8.42%) Senior
5 28 (5.61%) Analyst
6 25 (5.01%) Management Consultant
7 23 (4.61%) Administrator
8 22 (4.41%) Lead
8 22 (4.41%) Network Engineer
9 19 (3.81%) Technical Architect
10 18 (3.61%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 16 (3.21%) IT Support
11 16 (3.21%) Platform Engineer
12 14 (2.81%) Software Engineer
13 13 (2.61%) AWS Engineer
13 13 (2.61%) DevOps Engineer
14 11 (2.20%) Desktop Support
14 11 (2.20%) Support Engineer
14 11 (2.20%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (4.21%) SAP Fiori
2 16 (3.21%) Web Services
3 14 (2.81%) JSON
4 13 (2.61%) XML
5 11 (2.20%) Node.js
6 10 (2.00%) BAPI
6 10 (2.00%) SOAP
7 9 (1.80%) 802.1X
7 9 (1.80%) Kafka
7 9 (1.80%) REST
8 8 (1.60%) HTML
8 8 (1.60%) RESTful
8 8 (1.60%) Spring Boot
9 6 (1.20%) CSS
9 6 (1.20%) JMS
9 6 (1.20%) Spring
9 6 (1.20%) XMPP
10 5 (1.00%) SAP TM
11 4 (0.80%) HTML5
11 4 (0.80%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 40 (8.02%) Data Centre
2 27 (5.41%) Onboarding
3 22 (4.41%) Hybrid Cloud
4 21 (4.21%) Product Ownership
5 14 (2.81%) Analytical Mindset
6 9 (1.80%) Cloud Native
6 9 (1.80%) Cyber Threat
7 8 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.20%) Low-Code
9 5 (1.00%) Driving Licence
9 5 (1.00%) Fibre Optics
9 5 (1.00%) Video Conferencing
10 4 (0.80%) Distributed Systems
10 4 (0.80%) Management Information System
10 4 (0.80%) Operational Technology
10 4 (0.80%) SCADA
11 3 (0.60%) CSOC
11 3 (0.60%) Digital Signage
11 3 (0.60%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.60%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 57 (11.42%) Windows
2 35 (7.01%) Linux
3 19 (3.81%) Windows 10
4 13 (2.61%) Windows Server
5 11 (2.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (1.60%) Android
7 7 (1.40%) Mac OS
7 7 (1.40%) Windows 7
8 5 (1.00%) Unix
9 4 (0.80%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.40%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (13.43%) Problem-Solving
2 50 (10.02%) Agile
3 49 (9.82%) Cybersecurity
4 45 (9.02%) DevOps
5 43 (8.62%) CI/CD
5 43 (8.62%) Stakeholder Management
6 37 (7.41%) User Experience
7 36 (7.21%) Service Management
8 34 (6.81%) Containerisation
8 34 (6.81%) ITSM
9 33 (6.61%) Mentoring
10 32 (6.41%) Migration
11 27 (5.41%) Customer Service
12 25 (5.01%) Change Management
12 25 (5.01%) Continuous Improvement
12 25 (5.01%) Infrastructure as Code
12 25 (5.01%) Validation
13 24 (4.81%) Risk Management
14 23 (4.61%) Logistics
14 23 (4.61%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 55 (11.02%) Python
2 32 (6.41%) PowerShell
3 31 (6.21%) Java
4 24 (4.81%) Bash
5 17 (3.41%) Perl
6 15 (3.01%) SQL
7 11 (2.20%) ABAP
7 11 (2.20%) JavaScript
8 8 (1.60%) C++
8 8 (1.60%) TypeScript
9 5 (1.00%) VB
9 5 (1.00%) VBScript
10 4 (0.80%) C
11 3 (0.60%) Go
11 3 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.60%) PHP
11 3 (0.60%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.40%) AWK
12 2 (0.40%) C#
12 2 (0.40%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 395 (79.16%) SC Cleared
2 84 (16.83%) BPSS Clearance
3 27 (5.41%) Degree
4 15 (3.01%) DV Cleared
5 11 (2.20%) CCNP
5 11 (2.20%) Cisco Certification
6 9 (1.80%) CCDP
7 8 (1.60%) CCNA
8 6 (1.20%) Azure Certification
8 6 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (1.20%) CTC Cleared
8 6 (1.20%) DBS Check
9 5 (1.00%) BC Cleared
9 5 (1.00%) CISM
9 5 (1.00%) CISSP
10 4 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (0.60%) AWS Certification
11 3 (0.60%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
12 2 (0.40%) CompTIA Security+
12 2 (0.40%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.81%) NIST
2 9 (1.80%) Accessibility
2 9 (1.80%) Data Quality
3 8 (1.60%) QA
4 6 (1.20%) NCSC
5 5 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.80%) IEC 61508
6 4 (0.80%) ISO 26262
6 4 (0.80%) SLA
7 3 (0.60%) IEC 62304
7 3 (0.60%) PMO
8 2 (0.40%) COBIT
8 2 (0.40%) GDPR
8 2 (0.40%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.20%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.20%) PSD2
9 1 (0.20%) SEPA
9 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 34 (6.81%) Docker
2 24 (4.81%) Active Directory
3 17 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.00%) BitLocker
5 4 (0.80%) UAG
6 3 (0.60%) vSphere
7 2 (0.40%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 34 (6.81%) Terraform
2 33 (6.61%) Kubernetes
3 22 (4.41%) SCCM
4 15 (3.01%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (2.40%) Ansible
6 7 (1.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 5 (1.00%) Grafana
7 5 (1.00%) Norton AntiVirus
8 4 (0.80%) Nessus
8 4 (0.80%) SELinux
9 3 (0.60%) Packer
9 3 (0.60%) Podman
9 3 (0.60%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.40%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.40%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.40%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.20%) AirWatch
11 1 (0.20%) QRadar
11 1 (0.20%) vRealize
Vendors
1 92 (18.44%) SAP
2 83 (16.63%) Microsoft
3 34 (6.81%) Cisco
4 26 (5.21%) Google
4 26 (5.21%) ServiceNow
5 24 (4.81%) VMware
6 22 (4.41%) Oracle
7 18 (3.61%) Palo Alto
8 12 (2.40%) Meraki
9 11 (2.20%) Citrix
9 11 (2.20%) Red Hat
10 10 (2.00%) IBM
10 10 (2.00%) Siemens
11 9 (1.80%) Adobe
11 9 (1.80%) Splunk
12 8 (1.60%) Dell
13 6 (1.20%) Apple
13 6 (1.20%) Axway
13 6 (1.20%) CyberArk
13 6 (1.20%) McAfee