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 1 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 2 2
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 521 426 461
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 16.75% 21.86% 16.35%
As % of the Qualifications category 57.25% 60.08% 53.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 343 239 300
10th Percentile £344 £230 £374
25th Percentile £413 £409 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
75th Percentile £611 £579 £649
90th Percentile £701 £650 £725
England median daily rate £525 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 19 67
10th Percentile £22.68 £25.26 -
25th Percentile £29.00 £33.88 £10.95
Median hourly rate £60.61 £60.00 £24.19
Median % change year-on-year +1.02% +148.04% -28.33%
75th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.72 £85.82 £67.75
England median hourly rate £48.05 £57.50 £52.77
% change year-on-year -16.43% +8.97% -12.06%

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 910 709 854
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 29.25% 36.38% 30.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 605 403 497
10th Percentile £292 £221 £261
25th Percentile £380 £389 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £480 £510
Median % change year-on-year -1.04% -5.88% -
75th Percentile £581 £575 £650
90th Percentile £675 £650 £725
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 89 45 129
10th Percentile £22.68 £22.59 £10.95
25th Percentile £30.00 £25.26 £11.77
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% +102.37% -57.17%
75th Percentile £71.50 £60.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £74.57 £82.28 £50.30
England median hourly rate £37.00 £50.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -26.00% +33.33% -25.00%

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 1 April 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 1 April 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 1 April 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 -5 161 £475 -5.00% 107
Lancashire +2 126 £580 +33.26% 48
Cumbria 0 118 £496 -6.99% 14
Cheshire -4 81 £450 +28.57% 17
Merseyside -16 26 £563 +2.27% 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 26 (4.99%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (1.73%) Confluence
2 9 (1.73%) Skype for Business
3 8 (1.54%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 5 (0.96%) Apache
6 3 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.58%) Jupyter
6 3 (0.58%) MTS
7 2 (0.38%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.38%) CICS
7 2 (0.38%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.19%) CMS
8 1 (0.19%) nginx
8 1 (0.19%) SAS
Applications
1 21 (4.03%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.38%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.38%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.19%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 10 (1.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.96%) SAP VC
3 3 (0.58%) SAP MM
3 3 (0.58%) SAP QM
4 2 (0.38%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.38%) Primavera
4 2 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.38%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 71 (13.63%) AWS
2 43 (8.25%) Azure
3 23 (4.41%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (3.07%) GCP
5 14 (2.69%) Power Platform
6 12 (2.30%) Entra ID
6 12 (2.30%) GitHub
7 10 (1.92%) Azure DevOps
7 10 (1.92%) Serverless
8 8 (1.54%) Amazon EKS
9 6 (1.15%) Amazon S3
10 5 (0.96%) Azure Monitor
11 4 (0.77%) Amazon EC2
11 4 (0.77%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (0.77%) GitHub Actions
11 4 (0.77%) OneDrive
11 4 (0.77%) OpenShift
12 3 (0.58%) AWS Lambda
12 3 (0.58%) IaaS
12 3 (0.58%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 71 (13.63%) Firewall
2 42 (8.06%) VLAN
3 30 (5.76%) WAN
4 27 (5.18%) Wi-Fi
5 24 (4.61%) DNS
6 23 (4.41%) Network Security
7 18 (3.45%) LAN
8 16 (3.07%) DHCP
8 16 (3.07%) VPN
9 15 (2.88%) SAN
9 15 (2.88%) Wireless
10 13 (2.50%) BGP
11 12 (2.30%) TCP/IP
12 10 (1.92%) Cisco ISE
12 10 (1.92%) NetScaler
12 10 (1.92%) WebEx
13 9 (1.73%) Skype
14 8 (1.54%) Software-Defined Networking
15 7 (1.34%) Cisco IOS
15 7 (1.34%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (3.26%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (2.69%) Power BI
3 12 (2.30%) SQL Server
4 11 (2.11%) MySQL
5 10 (1.92%) MongoDB
5 10 (1.92%) NoSQL
6 9 (1.73%) Elasticsearch
6 9 (1.73%) Relational Database
7 7 (1.34%) Oracle Database
8 6 (1.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 5 (0.96%) Metadata
10 4 (0.77%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.77%) Hadoop
10 4 (0.77%) Oracle Database 12c
10 4 (0.77%) Tableau
11 3 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.58%) RDBMS
12 2 (0.38%) BigQuery
12 2 (0.38%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.38%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 25 (4.80%) GitLab
2 19 (3.65%) Git
3 15 (2.88%) JIRA
4 8 (1.54%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.77%) MSI
5 4 (0.77%) Postman
6 3 (0.58%) Selenium
7 2 (0.38%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.38%) Gatling
7 2 (0.38%) Jasmine
7 2 (0.38%) JMeter
7 2 (0.38%) Mockito
7 2 (0.38%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.38%) Serenity BDD
7 2 (0.38%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.19%) ClearCase
8 1 (0.19%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.19%) InstallShield
8 1 (0.19%) Mocha
8 1 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
General
1 156 (29.94%) Public Sector
2 120 (23.03%) Social Skills
3 37 (7.10%) Finance
4 34 (6.53%) Analytical Skills
5 22 (4.22%) Documentation Skills
6 21 (4.03%) Military
7 17 (3.26%) Legal
8 12 (2.30%) Aerospace
8 12 (2.30%) Banking
9 10 (1.92%) Manufacturing
10 7 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (0.96%) Electronics
11 5 (0.96%) Marketing
11 5 (0.96%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (0.96%) Telecoms
12 4 (0.77%) Aviation
12 4 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 2 (0.38%) Corporate Banking
14 2 (0.38%) Law
Job Titles
1 69 (13.24%) Architect
2 53 (10.17%) Developer
3 45 (8.64%) Network Engineer
4 37 (7.10%) Lead
5 34 (6.53%) Senior
6 33 (6.33%) Analyst
7 26 (4.99%) Administrator
8 24 (4.61%) Consultant
9 22 (4.22%) Platform Engineer
9 22 (4.22%) Technical Architect
10 20 (3.84%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 17 (3.26%) DBA
12 16 (3.07%) Engagement Manager
13 14 (2.69%) Data Engineer
13 14 (2.69%) DevOps Engineer
13 14 (2.69%) Support Engineer
14 13 (2.50%) Software Engineer
15 12 (2.30%) Business Analyst
15 12 (2.30%) Coordinator
15 12 (2.30%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (4.61%) Spring
2 22 (4.22%) Spring Boot
3 16 (3.07%) 802.1X
4 13 (2.50%) Kafka
4 13 (2.50%) RESTful
5 9 (1.73%) HTML
5 9 (1.73%) Node.js
5 9 (1.73%) XMPP
6 8 (1.54%) CSS
6 8 (1.54%) JSON
7 7 (1.34%) Playwright
7 7 (1.34%) XML
8 6 (1.15%) Apache NiFi
8 6 (1.15%) Hibernate
8 6 (1.15%) OAuth
8 6 (1.15%) React
9 5 (0.96%) AngularJS
9 5 (0.96%) Jest
9 5 (0.96%) OAuth2
9 5 (0.96%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 49 (9.40%) Data Centre
2 38 (7.29%) Product Ownership
3 18 (3.45%) Onboarding
4 16 (3.07%) Replication
5 14 (2.69%) Clustering
6 12 (2.30%) Cyber Threat
7 10 (1.92%) Operational Technology
8 7 (1.34%) Cloud Native
9 6 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.15%) Private Cloud
10 5 (0.96%) Driving Licence
10 5 (0.96%) Fat Client
10 5 (0.96%) Mobile App
10 5 (0.96%) Security Posture
10 5 (0.96%) Thin Client
11 4 (0.77%) Legacy Systems
11 4 (0.77%) Management Information System
12 3 (0.58%) Analytical Mindset
12 3 (0.58%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.58%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 62 (11.90%) Windows
2 40 (7.68%) Linux
3 23 (4.41%) Windows Server
4 21 (4.03%) Windows 10
5 17 (3.26%) Unix
6 14 (2.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.11%) Solaris
8 9 (1.73%) Windows 7
9 6 (1.15%) Android
10 4 (0.77%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.58%) AIX
11 3 (0.58%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.38%) Mac OS X
12 2 (0.38%) VMS
13 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (13.82%) Agile
2 65 (12.48%) Problem-Solving
3 51 (9.79%) DevOps
3 51 (9.79%) ITSM
4 49 (9.40%) Service Management
5 48 (9.21%) Continuous Improvement
6 47 (9.02%) CI/CD
6 47 (9.02%) Cybersecurity
7 44 (8.45%) Stakeholder Management
8 43 (8.25%) Project Delivery
9 42 (8.06%) Migration
10 41 (7.87%) High Availability
11 35 (6.72%) Containerisation
11 35 (6.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 33 (6.33%) Risk Management
13 32 (6.14%) Platform Engineering
14 31 (5.95%) Disaster Recovery
15 29 (5.57%) Project Management
15 29 (5.57%) Test Automation
16 28 (5.37%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 57 (10.94%) Python
2 54 (10.36%) PowerShell
3 42 (8.06%) Java
4 25 (4.80%) SQL
5 19 (3.65%) Bash
6 17 (3.26%) JavaScript
7 13 (2.50%) Perl
7 13 (2.50%) TypeScript
8 9 (1.73%) VB
8 9 (1.73%) VBScript
9 5 (0.96%) Rust
10 4 (0.77%) Ruby
11 3 (0.58%) C#
11 3 (0.58%) Go
12 2 (0.38%) AWK
12 2 (0.38%) COBOL
12 2 (0.38%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
13 1 (0.19%) Bicep
13 1 (0.19%) Scala
Qualifications
1 344 (66.03%) SC Cleared
2 71 (13.63%) DV Cleared
3 53 (10.17%) BPSS Clearance
4 38 (7.29%) Cisco Certification
5 37 (7.10%) Degree
6 35 (6.72%) CCNP
7 32 (6.14%) CCNA
8 14 (2.69%) CISSP
9 13 (2.50%) Microsoft Certification
10 12 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
11 8 (1.54%) AWS Certification
11 8 (1.54%) CCDP
11 8 (1.54%) CISM
11 8 (1.54%) ITIL Certification
11 8 (1.54%) MCSA
11 8 (1.54%) MCSE
11 8 (1.54%) VCAP
11 8 (1.54%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 6 (1.15%) Network+ Certification
12 6 (1.15%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (4.99%) NIST
2 16 (3.07%) Accessibility
3 15 (2.88%) QA
4 14 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 12 (2.30%) SLA
6 11 (2.11%) JSP 440
7 8 (1.54%) NCSC
8 6 (1.15%) Data Quality
9 5 (0.96%) GDPR
9 5 (0.96%) PMO
9 5 (0.96%) WCAG
10 4 (0.77%) GRC
11 3 (0.58%) IFRS
12 2 (0.38%) IFRS 17
12 2 (0.38%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.38%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.38%) PSD2
13 1 (0.19%) Basel III
13 1 (0.19%) CRD IV
13 1 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 32 (6.14%) Docker
2 28 (5.37%) Active Directory
3 20 (3.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (2.11%) vSphere
5 10 (1.92%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (1.92%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (1.73%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.77%) Firmware
8 2 (0.38%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.19%) GPFS
9 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.19%) NFS
9 1 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 32 (6.14%) Kubernetes
2 29 (5.57%) Terraform
3 17 (3.26%) SCCM
4 14 (2.69%) Ansible
5 9 (1.73%) vCenter Server
6 8 (1.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 7 (1.34%) Grafana
8 6 (1.15%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (0.96%) Oracle RMAN
9 5 (0.96%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.58%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.58%) Norton AntiVirus
11 2 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.19%) Cisco CUCM
12 1 (0.19%) Cisco Prime
12 1 (0.19%) Data Guard
12 1 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
12 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
12 1 (0.19%) vRealize
12 1 (0.19%) VxRail
Vendors
1 74 (14.20%) Cisco
2 69 (13.24%) Microsoft
3 37 (7.10%) Palo Alto
4 35 (6.72%) SAP
5 33 (6.33%) Oracle
6 32 (6.14%) ServiceNow
7 26 (4.99%) VMware
8 15 (2.88%) Citrix
9 14 (2.69%) Meraki
10 11 (2.11%) Red Hat
11 8 (1.54%) Aruba
12 7 (1.34%) Dell
12 7 (1.34%) IBM
13 6 (1.15%) CheckPoint
13 6 (1.15%) Ekahau
13 6 (1.15%) Splunk
14 5 (0.96%) HP
14 5 (0.96%) Juniper
14 5 (0.96%) SolarWinds
15 4 (0.77%) EMC