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 20 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 2 2
Rank change year-on-year 0 0 +3
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 538 399 497
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 21.18% 19.30% 18.01%
As % of the Qualifications category 61.28% 59.91% 58.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 369 217 362
10th Percentile £323 £275 £360
25th Percentile £425 £385 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +7.89% -13.64% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £575 £644
90th Percentile £702 £678 £701
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -3.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 20 41
10th Percentile £16.51 £25.26 £14.50
25th Percentile £25.15 £37.00 £34.75
Median hourly rate £51.39 £47.59 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +7.98% +3.05% +53.93%
75th Percentile £68.03 £73.86 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £85.80 £73.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £59.50
% change year-on-year -58.08% +0.84% -0.83%

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 878 666 854
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 34.57% 32.22% 30.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 596 360 541
10th Percentile £235 £250 £258
25th Percentile £381 £373 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -13.64% +7.32%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £645
90th Percentile £688 £672 £720
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 39 82
10th Percentile £18.88 £23.74 £14.50
25th Percentile £25.15 £31.00 £26.66
Median hourly rate £45.46 £37.00 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year +22.86% -19.35% +67.41%
75th Percentile £66.75 £53.88 £48.30
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.92 £66.13
England median hourly rate £25.15 £47.37 £49.81
% change year-on-year -46.91% -4.88% +10.68%

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 20 January 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 20 January 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 20 January 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 -3 167 £500 +11.11% 77
Cumbria 0 119 £501 +0.12% 14
Cheshire +5 118 £584 +45.03% 12
Lancashire 0 100 £550 +49.86% 42
Merseyside -4 25 £500 +32.45% 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 21 (3.90%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (1.67%) SharePoint
2 9 (1.67%) Skype for Business
3 7 (1.30%) Confluence
4 4 (0.74%) Apache
4 4 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.56%) MTS
6 2 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.37%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.37%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.19%) CMS
7 1 (0.19%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.19%) Resin
7 1 (0.19%) SAS
Applications
1 26 (4.83%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.30%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.74%) Siemens NX
5 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.19%) PTC Creo
5 1 (0.19%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 60 (11.15%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.86%) SAP EHS
2 10 (1.86%) SAP VC
3 9 (1.67%) SAP MM
3 9 (1.67%) SAP QM
4 4 (0.74%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
5 2 (0.37%) SAP EWM
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 (12.45%) AWS
2 48 (8.92%) Azure
3 32 (5.95%) Microsoft 365
4 21 (3.90%) GCP
5 20 (3.72%) SaaS
6 14 (2.60%) Power Platform
7 11 (2.04%) GitHub
8 10 (1.86%) Entra ID
8 10 (1.86%) Serverless
9 9 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (1.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 7 (1.30%) AWS CloudFormation
11 7 (1.30%) Google Workspace
12 6 (1.12%) Amazon EC2
12 6 (1.12%) Amazon EKS
12 6 (1.12%) Amazon SQS
13 5 (0.93%) Amazon S3
13 5 (0.93%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (0.93%) IaaS
13 5 (0.93%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 61 (11.34%) Firewall
2 32 (5.95%) VLAN
3 30 (5.58%) WAN
4 29 (5.39%) Wi-Fi
5 23 (4.28%) DNS
5 23 (4.28%) Network Security
6 16 (2.97%) LAN
6 16 (2.97%) VPN
7 15 (2.79%) SAN
8 14 (2.60%) TCP/IP
9 13 (2.42%) BGP
9 13 (2.42%) Cisco ISE
9 13 (2.42%) NetScaler
10 11 (2.04%) DHCP
11 9 (1.67%) Skype
12 8 (1.49%) Software-Defined Networking
12 8 (1.49%) Unified Communications
13 7 (1.30%) Internet
13 7 (1.30%) WebEx
13 7 (1.30%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.79%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (1.86%) SAP HANA
3 9 (1.67%) NoSQL
3 9 (1.67%) Power BI
3 9 (1.67%) Relational Database
4 8 (1.49%) MySQL
5 7 (1.30%) DynamoDB
6 6 (1.12%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.12%) MongoDB
6 6 (1.12%) Redis
7 5 (0.93%) BigQuery
7 5 (0.93%) SQL Server
8 4 (0.74%) Metadata
8 4 (0.74%) RDBMS
9 3 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
9 3 (0.56%) Big Data
10 2 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.37%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.37%) Looker
10 2 (0.37%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 25 (4.65%) Git
2 23 (4.28%) GitLab
3 15 (2.79%) JIRA
4 13 (2.42%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.93%) Rational DOORS
5 5 (0.93%) SonarQube
6 3 (0.56%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.56%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.37%) Gradle
7 2 (0.37%) Grunt
7 2 (0.37%) gulp
7 2 (0.37%) Jasmine
7 2 (0.37%) Maven
7 2 (0.37%) Mockito
7 2 (0.37%) MSI
7 2 (0.37%) Postman
7 2 (0.37%) Selenium
7 2 (0.37%) SonarLint
8 1 (0.19%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.19%) InstallShield
General
1 171 (31.78%) Public Sector
2 124 (23.05%) Social Skills
3 38 (7.06%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (6.32%) Finance
5 21 (3.90%) Manufacturing
6 18 (3.35%) Military
7 16 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (2.04%) Banking
8 11 (2.04%) Telecoms
9 10 (1.86%) Electronics
9 10 (1.86%) Legal
10 9 (1.67%) Marketing
11 7 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.93%) Aerospace
12 5 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.19%) Aviation
14 1 (0.19%) Corporate Banking
14 1 (0.19%) Law
Job Titles
1 74 (13.75%) Architect
1 74 (13.75%) Consultant
2 45 (8.36%) Senior
3 44 (8.18%) Network Engineer
4 42 (7.81%) Developer
5 39 (7.25%) SAP Consultant
6 37 (6.88%) Analyst
7 25 (4.65%) Technical Architect
8 23 (4.28%) Management Consultant
9 21 (3.90%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 20 (3.72%) Administrator
11 18 (3.35%) DevOps Engineer
11 18 (3.35%) Lead
12 16 (2.97%) Platform Engineer
13 14 (2.60%) IT Support
13 14 (2.60%) Support Engineer
14 12 (2.23%) AWS Engineer
15 11 (2.04%) Business Analyst
15 11 (2.04%) Engagement Manager
15 11 (2.04%) Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.90%) SAP Fiori
2 14 (2.60%) 802.1X
2 14 (2.60%) JSON
2 14 (2.60%) Spring Boot
3 13 (2.42%) Spring
4 12 (2.23%) Node.js
4 12 (2.23%) Web Services
4 12 (2.23%) XML
5 11 (2.04%) HTML
5 11 (2.04%) RESTful
6 10 (1.86%) BAPI
6 10 (1.86%) REST
7 9 (1.67%) CSS
8 7 (1.30%) Kafka
8 7 (1.30%) SOAP
9 6 (1.12%) AngularJS
9 6 (1.12%) Hibernate
9 6 (1.12%) OAuth
9 6 (1.12%) Playwright
9 6 (1.12%) React
Miscellaneous
1 54 (10.04%) Data Centre
2 31 (5.76%) Product Ownership
3 30 (5.58%) Onboarding
4 12 (2.23%) Cyber Threat
5 9 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
6 7 (1.30%) Cloud Native
6 7 (1.30%) Replication
7 6 (1.12%) Driving Licence
7 6 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
8 5 (0.93%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (0.93%) Clustering
8 5 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (0.93%) Fibre Optics
8 5 (0.93%) Low-Code
8 5 (0.93%) Video Conferencing
9 4 (0.74%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (0.74%) Mobile App
9 4 (0.74%) Operational Technology
9 4 (0.74%) SCADA
10 3 (0.56%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 65 (12.08%) Windows
2 36 (6.69%) Linux
3 23 (4.28%) Windows 10
4 18 (3.35%) Windows Server
5 15 (2.79%) Unix
6 12 (2.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (1.67%) Solaris
7 9 (1.67%) Windows 7
8 8 (1.49%) Android
9 7 (1.30%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.74%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.37%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.19%) VMS
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (11.71%) Agile
2 62 (11.52%) Problem-Solving
3 54 (10.04%) Stakeholder Management
4 51 (9.48%) DevOps
5 50 (9.29%) Cybersecurity
6 47 (8.74%) CI/CD
7 45 (8.36%) ITSM
8 43 (7.99%) Migration
9 42 (7.81%) Service Management
10 39 (7.25%) Containerisation
11 34 (6.32%) Continuous Improvement
12 32 (5.95%) Project Delivery
13 30 (5.58%) Validation
14 29 (5.39%) High Availability
14 29 (5.39%) User Experience
15 28 (5.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 27 (5.02%) Change Management
16 27 (5.02%) Mentoring
16 27 (5.02%) Test Automation
17 25 (4.65%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 63 (11.71%) Python
2 41 (7.62%) PowerShell
3 32 (5.95%) Java
4 22 (4.09%) Bash
5 16 (2.97%) Perl
6 12 (2.23%) JavaScript
6 12 (2.23%) SQL
7 11 (2.04%) ABAP
7 11 (2.04%) TypeScript
8 9 (1.67%) VB
8 9 (1.67%) VBScript
9 6 (1.12%) C++
10 4 (0.74%) C
10 4 (0.74%) Ruby
11 3 (0.56%) Go
12 2 (0.37%) AWK
12 2 (0.37%) C#
12 2 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.37%) PHP
12 2 (0.37%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 400 (74.35%) SC Cleared
2 70 (13.01%) BPSS Clearance
3 38 (7.06%) DV Cleared
4 33 (6.13%) Degree
5 26 (4.83%) CCNP
5 26 (4.83%) Cisco Certification
6 19 (3.53%) CCNA
7 10 (1.86%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (1.67%) CCDP
8 9 (1.67%) CISSP
9 8 (1.49%) CISM
10 7 (1.30%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (1.12%) Azure Certification
11 6 (1.12%) DBS Check
11 6 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
12 5 (0.93%) BC Cleared
12 5 (0.93%) CompTIA Security+
12 5 (0.93%) CTC Cleared
12 5 (0.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 4 (0.74%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (4.83%) NIST
2 15 (2.79%) Accessibility
3 13 (2.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (1.67%) SLA
5 8 (1.49%) Data Quality
6 7 (1.30%) NCSC
7 6 (1.12%) JSP 440
8 5 (0.93%) QA
9 4 (0.74%) IEC 61508
9 4 (0.74%) ISO 26262
9 4 (0.74%) WCAG
10 3 (0.56%) GDPR
10 3 (0.56%) IEC 62304
10 3 (0.56%) IFRS
10 3 (0.56%) PMO
11 2 (0.37%) IEC 61131
11 2 (0.37%) IFRS 17
11 2 (0.37%) PSD2
12 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
12 1 (0.19%) GRC
System Software
1 35 (6.51%) Docker
2 28 (5.20%) Active Directory
3 14 (2.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (1.67%) BitLocker
5 5 (0.93%) vSphere
6 4 (0.74%) Firmware
6 4 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.74%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.37%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 36 (6.69%) Kubernetes
2 35 (6.51%) Terraform
3 26 (4.83%) SCCM
4 14 (2.60%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (2.23%) Ansible
6 6 (1.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 6 (1.12%) Norton AntiVirus
6 6 (1.12%) vCenter Server
7 4 (0.74%) Grafana
7 4 (0.74%) Nessus
8 3 (0.56%) FortiGate
8 3 (0.56%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.37%) Packer
9 2 (0.37%) SELinux
10 1 (0.19%) AirWatch
10 1 (0.19%) Cisco CUCM
10 1 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
10 1 (0.19%) QRadar
10 1 (0.19%) vRealize
Vendors
1 80 (14.87%) SAP
2 72 (13.38%) Microsoft
3 68 (12.64%) Cisco
4 37 (6.88%) Palo Alto
5 32 (5.95%) ServiceNow
6 31 (5.76%) Oracle
7 20 (3.72%) VMware
8 19 (3.53%) Meraki
9 12 (2.23%) Adobe
9 12 (2.23%) Google
10 11 (2.04%) Citrix
10 11 (2.04%) Dell
10 11 (2.04%) Red Hat
11 8 (1.49%) Splunk
12 7 (1.30%) HP
12 7 (1.30%) IBM
12 7 (1.30%) McAfee
12 7 (1.30%) Symantec
13 6 (1.12%) Apple
13 6 (1.12%) NetApp