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 28 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 3 2
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 590 391 431
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 15.87% 17.92% 17.35%
As % of the Qualifications category 56.68% 53.78% 60.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 386 209 248
10th Percentile £360 £313 £313
25th Percentile £425 £425 £428
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £527 £501
Median % change year-on-year -0.38% +5.14% -6.74%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £616
90th Percentile £751 £720 £766
England median daily rate £535 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -0.47% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 40 61
10th Percentile £22.68 £20.00 -
25th Percentile £28.50 £22.51 £10.95
Median hourly rate £64.09 £29.27 £18.07
Median % change year-on-year +118.96% +62.03% -59.35%
75th Percentile £74.26 £58.34 £46.18
90th Percentile £83.75 £70.29 £55.79
England median hourly rate £64.05 £25.15 £56.89
% change year-on-year +154.65% -55.79% -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 1,041 727 714
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 28.01% 33.32% 28.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 664 413 405
10th Percentile £341 £294 £257
25th Percentile £407 £408 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.67%
75th Percentile £618 £625 £600
90th Percentile £700 £725 £708
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 94 67 111
10th Percentile £17.53 £17.44 £10.95
25th Percentile £28.50 £21.59 £13.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £17.00
Median % change year-on-year +50.19% +72.18% -59.11%
75th Percentile £71.50 £58.42 £46.84
90th Percentile £87.95 £74.57 £62.50
England median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +114.71% -41.51% -21.82%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 0 240 £560 +5.66% 108
Cumbria 0 160 £485 -7.62% 11
Cheshire +22 94 £511 +29.37% 18
Lancashire 0 75 £700 +55.56% 45
Merseyside -22 16 £650 +3.38%
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 (3.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 18 (3.05%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.19%) Skype for Business
4 6 (1.02%) Confluence
5 5 (0.85%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.68%) SAS
7 3 (0.51%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.34%) Apache
8 2 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.34%) CICS
8 2 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.34%) SharePoint 2013
9 1 (0.17%) IIS
9 1 (0.17%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.17%) nginx
Applications
1 17 (2.88%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (1.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.85%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.17%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.17%) Navisworks
5 1 (0.17%) ProjectWise
5 1 (0.17%) Revit
5 1 (0.17%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 7 (1.19%) Oracle Payables
2 6 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.51%) Primavera
4 3 (0.51%) SAP MM
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle Cash Management
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.34%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.17%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.17%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 1 (0.17%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 106 (17.97%) AWS
2 87 (14.75%) Azure
3 30 (5.08%) Microsoft 365
4 25 (4.24%) Power Platform
5 20 (3.39%) OCI
6 19 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
7 17 (2.88%) Serverless
8 16 (2.71%) SaaS
9 12 (2.03%) Entra ID
9 12 (2.03%) GCP
9 12 (2.03%) GitHub
10 10 (1.69%) Azure Monitor
11 9 (1.53%) Google Workspace
12 7 (1.19%) Google Drive
13 6 (1.02%) OpenShift
14 5 (0.85%) Amazon S3
14 5 (0.85%) AWS Lambda
14 5 (0.85%) Dynamics 365
14 5 (0.85%) GitHub Actions
14 5 (0.85%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 64 (10.85%) Firewall
2 38 (6.44%) Wireless
3 27 (4.58%) DNS
3 27 (4.58%) WAN
4 26 (4.41%) VLAN
5 25 (4.24%) VPN
6 23 (3.90%) Network Security
7 22 (3.73%) Structured Cabling
8 21 (3.56%) Wi-Fi
9 20 (3.39%) BGP
10 19 (3.22%) DHCP
10 19 (3.22%) LAN
10 19 (3.22%) OSPF
11 17 (2.88%) NAS
11 17 (2.88%) SAN
12 16 (2.71%) Cisco IOS
12 16 (2.71%) NX-OS
13 11 (1.86%) Cisco ASA
13 11 (1.86%) Converged Networks
13 11 (1.86%) EIGRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (5.59%) SQL Server
2 23 (3.90%) Oracle Database
3 21 (3.56%) PostgreSQL
4 17 (2.88%) Relational Database
5 16 (2.71%) MySQL
5 16 (2.71%) Power BI
6 15 (2.54%) MongoDB
7 10 (1.69%) RDBMS
8 9 (1.53%) Elasticsearch
8 9 (1.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 8 (1.36%) Oracle Exadata
10 7 (1.19%) Metadata
10 7 (1.19%) Oracle Database 12c
11 6 (1.02%) NoSQL
12 4 (0.68%) Hadoop
13 3 (0.51%) Data Lake
13 3 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
14 2 (0.34%) DataStage
14 2 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
14 2 (0.34%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 31 (5.25%) GitLab
2 13 (2.20%) Git
3 11 (1.86%) JIRA
3 11 (1.86%) Selenium
4 9 (1.53%) Jenkins
5 8 (1.36%) REST Assured
6 7 (1.19%) Cucumber
7 5 (0.85%) Gatling
7 5 (0.85%) MSI
8 4 (0.68%) Serenity BDD
9 3 (0.51%) Cypress.io
9 3 (0.51%) Mockito
10 2 (0.34%) JDeveloper
10 2 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.34%) Toad
10 2 (0.34%) WebDriver
11 1 (0.17%) Postman
11 1 (0.17%) Rational Robot
11 1 (0.17%) SonarQube
11 1 (0.17%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 126 (21.36%) Public Sector
2 111 (18.81%) Social Skills
3 50 (8.47%) Military
4 39 (6.61%) Analytical Skills
5 28 (4.75%) Finance
6 24 (4.07%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (3.73%) Legal
8 11 (1.86%) Aerospace
8 11 (1.86%) Manufacturing
9 7 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.02%) Banking
11 5 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.68%) Aviation
12 4 (0.68%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (0.68%) Retail
13 3 (0.51%) Local Government
14 2 (0.34%) General Ledger
14 2 (0.34%) Influencing Skills
14 2 (0.34%) Marketing
15 1 (0.17%) Law
Job Titles
1 90 (15.25%) Lead
2 85 (14.41%) Architect
3 53 (8.98%) Network Engineer
4 43 (7.29%) Developer
5 42 (7.12%) DBA
6 39 (6.61%) Senior
7 34 (5.76%) Administrator
8 29 (4.92%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 29 (4.92%) Unix Engineer
9 25 (4.24%) Lead Architect
10 23 (3.90%) SQL DBA
11 22 (3.73%) Analyst
11 22 (3.73%) Consultant
12 21 (3.56%) DevOps Engineer
13 19 (3.22%) Oracle DBA
14 18 (3.05%) Technical Architect
15 17 (2.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 16 (2.71%) Coordinator
17 15 (2.54%) Desktop Engineer
17 15 (2.54%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.90%) Node.js
2 22 (3.73%) Spring
3 20 (3.39%) Spring Boot
4 16 (2.71%) Kafka
4 16 (2.71%) REST
5 14 (2.37%) OAuth
6 8 (1.36%) Oracle GoldenGate
7 7 (1.19%) Playwright
8 6 (1.02%) OpenID
9 5 (0.85%) 802.1X
9 5 (0.85%) Apache NiFi
9 5 (0.85%) Leaflet
9 5 (0.85%) Nunjucks
9 5 (0.85%) SOAP
10 4 (0.68%) AWS CDK
10 4 (0.68%) ModSecurity
10 4 (0.68%) RESTful
10 4 (0.68%) Spring Cloud
11 3 (0.51%) .NET
11 3 (0.51%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.59%) Data Centre
2 32 (5.42%) Onboarding
3 23 (3.90%) Replication
4 20 (3.39%) Cloud Native
4 20 (3.39%) Clustering
5 15 (2.54%) Operational Technology
5 15 (2.54%) Product Ownership
6 13 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
7 11 (1.86%) Management Information System
8 10 (1.69%) Hybrid Cloud
9 9 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (1.36%) Cyber Threat
10 8 (1.36%) Public Cloud
11 7 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
12 6 (1.02%) Security Posture
13 5 (0.85%) CMDB
13 5 (0.85%) CSOC
13 5 (0.85%) Distributed Systems
14 4 (0.68%) Freedom of Information
14 4 (0.68%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 49 (8.31%) Windows
2 43 (7.29%) Linux
3 39 (6.61%) Unix
4 35 (5.93%) Solaris
5 19 (3.22%) Windows 10
6 17 (2.88%) Windows Server
7 11 (1.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (1.69%) AIX
9 7 (1.19%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.68%) Android
10 4 (0.68%) CentOS
10 4 (0.68%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.51%) VMS
12 2 (0.34%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.17%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (13.73%) DevOps
2 68 (11.53%) CI/CD
3 63 (10.68%) Agile
4 60 (10.17%) Continuous Improvement
4 60 (10.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 56 (9.49%) ITSM
5 56 (9.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 55 (9.32%) Cybersecurity
6 55 (9.32%) Migration
6 55 (9.32%) Problem-Solving
7 50 (8.47%) High Availability
8 44 (7.46%) Project Delivery
9 43 (7.29%) ITIL
10 41 (6.95%) Service Management
11 37 (6.27%) Technical Leadership
12 33 (5.59%) Disaster Recovery
13 32 (5.42%) Infrastructure as Code
13 32 (5.42%) Microservices
13 32 (5.42%) Risk Management
14 30 (5.08%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 58 (9.83%) Python
2 51 (8.64%) SQL
3 47 (7.97%) Java
4 43 (7.29%) PowerShell
5 26 (4.41%) JavaScript
6 13 (2.20%) TypeScript
7 9 (1.53%) VBScript
8 7 (1.19%) VB
9 6 (1.02%) Bash
10 5 (0.85%) Rust
10 5 (0.85%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.68%) C#
12 3 (0.51%) Bicep
12 3 (0.51%) Go
13 2 (0.34%) ABAP
13 2 (0.34%) COBOL
13 2 (0.34%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.17%) Perl
14 1 (0.17%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.17%) VB6
Qualifications
1 454 (76.95%) SC Cleared
2 52 (8.81%) BPSS Clearance
3 50 (8.47%) DV Cleared
4 39 (6.61%) Cisco Certification
5 37 (6.27%) CCNA
6 28 (4.75%) Microsoft Certification
7 24 (4.07%) CCNP
8 23 (3.90%) Degree
9 15 (2.54%) Network+ Certification
9 15 (2.54%) Server+ Certification
10 13 (2.20%) Azure Certification
11 11 (1.86%) CISSP
12 10 (1.69%) DBS Check
13 8 (1.36%) AWS Certification
13 8 (1.36%) MCSA
13 8 (1.36%) MCSE
13 8 (1.36%) VCAP
13 8 (1.36%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 6 (1.02%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 5 (0.85%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (4.07%) PMO
2 21 (3.56%) NIST
3 16 (2.71%) SLA
4 15 (2.54%) QA
5 13 (2.20%) Data Quality
5 13 (2.20%) GRC
5 13 (2.20%) NCSC
6 11 (1.86%) GDPR
7 10 (1.69%) Accessibility
8 8 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 6 (1.02%) JSP 440
9 6 (1.02%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.17%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.17%) ISO 19650
10 1 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 1 (0.17%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.17%) RMADS
10 1 (0.17%) Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
System Software
1 27 (4.58%) Active Directory
2 23 (3.90%) Docker
3 16 (2.71%) Oracle RAC
3 16 (2.71%) Virtual Machines
3 16 (2.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.86%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (1.69%) vSphere
6 9 (1.53%) BitLocker
7 3 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.17%) GPFS
8 1 (0.17%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.17%) NFS
8 1 (0.17%) Squid
8 1 (0.17%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 56 (9.49%) Terraform
2 34 (5.76%) Ansible
3 33 (5.59%) Kubernetes
4 16 (2.71%) Data Guard
4 16 (2.71%) SCCM
5 15 (2.54%) Oracle RMAN
6 10 (1.69%) Grafana
6 10 (1.69%) vCenter Server
7 7 (1.19%) Prometheus
8 6 (1.02%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (0.85%) SCOM
9 5 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.68%) Nagios
10 4 (0.68%) Oracle ZFS
11 3 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.51%) McAfee ePO
12 2 (0.34%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
12 2 (0.34%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 2 (0.34%) WSUS
13 1 (0.17%) VxRail
Vendors
1 89 (15.08%) Microsoft
2 62 (10.51%) Oracle
3 59 (10.00%) Cisco
4 53 (8.98%) ServiceNow
5 31 (5.25%) SAP
6 30 (5.08%) Palo Alto
7 17 (2.88%) VMware
8 15 (2.54%) CheckPoint
9 14 (2.37%) Aruba
10 13 (2.20%) F5
11 9 (1.53%) Google
12 8 (1.36%) Citrix
12 8 (1.36%) Splunk
13 6 (1.02%) Arista
13 6 (1.02%) SolarWinds
14 5 (0.85%) Ekahau
15 4 (0.68%) Databricks
15 4 (0.68%) Dynatrace
15 4 (0.68%) Meraki
15 4 (0.68%) RedGate