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 9 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 2 3
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 -2
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 539 403 404
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 15.65% 20.33% 14.54%
As % of the Qualifications category 56.26% 57.33% 52.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 350 238 242
10th Percentile £360 £244 £375
25th Percentile £424 £411 £452
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £514
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -2.68% -2.14%
75th Percentile £636 £600 £665
90th Percentile £770 £700 £725
England median daily rate £525 £537 £550
% change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 23 64
10th Percentile £22.68 £25.15 -
25th Percentile £25.77 £25.26 £10.95
Median hourly rate £60.00 £40.59 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +47.82% +179.93% -65.88%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.00 £51.22
90th Percentile £83.75 £69.00 £73.75
England median hourly rate £57.50 £32.50 £56.89
% change year-on-year +76.92% -42.87% -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 958 703 770
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 27.82% 35.47% 27.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 629 409 424
10th Percentile £341 £230 £300
25th Percentile £400 £388 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.79% -2.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £608 £575 £634
90th Percentile £688 £671 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £535
% change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 46 133
10th Percentile £22.68 £17.44 £10.95
25th Percentile £29.24 £23.32 £12.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £29.64 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +48.34% +84.53% -60.42%
75th Percentile £74.26 £59.98 £43.10
90th Percentile £111.15 £75.00 £67.60
England median hourly rate £48.61 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.57% -18.75% -27.27%

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 9 June 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 9 June 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 9 June 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 -8 173 £525 +5.95% 97
Cumbria 0 162 £481 -9.79% 21
Lancashire +3 96 £735 +64.43% 31
Cheshire +9 83 £444 +26.71% 12
Merseyside -22 18 £638 +6.25% 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 25 (4.64%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (2.04%) SharePoint
2 11 (2.04%) Skype for Business
3 7 (1.30%) Confluence
4 5 (0.93%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.56%) Apache
5 3 (0.56%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.37%) CICS
6 2 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.19%) IIS
7 1 (0.19%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.19%) nginx
7 1 (0.19%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.19%) SAS
7 1 (0.19%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 18 (3.34%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.56%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.37%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.19%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 5 (0.93%) Oracle Payables
2 4 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.56%) Teamcenter
4 2 (0.37%) Oracle Cash Management
4 2 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.37%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.37%) Primavera
4 2 (0.37%) SAP MM
5 1 (0.19%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.19%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 86 (15.96%) AWS
2 61 (11.32%) Azure
3 24 (4.45%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (3.34%) SaaS
5 16 (2.97%) GCP
6 15 (2.78%) Power Platform
7 14 (2.60%) Serverless
8 11 (2.04%) GitHub
8 11 (2.04%) OCI
9 10 (1.86%) Entra ID
10 9 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
10 9 (1.67%) Google Workspace
11 7 (1.30%) Google Drive
12 6 (1.11%) Amazon S3
13 5 (0.93%) AWS Lambda
14 4 (0.74%) Amazon EKS
14 4 (0.74%) Azure Monitor
14 4 (0.74%) GitHub Actions
14 4 (0.74%) OpenShift
15 3 (0.56%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 68 (12.62%) Firewall
2 42 (7.79%) VLAN
3 31 (5.75%) Network Security
3 31 (5.75%) Wireless
4 30 (5.57%) DNS
5 25 (4.64%) WAN
6 23 (4.27%) DHCP
7 22 (4.08%) Structured Cabling
8 21 (3.90%) SAN
9 19 (3.53%) Wi-Fi
10 17 (3.15%) Cisco IOS
10 17 (3.15%) LAN
10 17 (3.15%) NAS
11 16 (2.97%) NX-OS
12 12 (2.23%) VPN
13 11 (2.04%) Skype
14 10 (1.86%) BGP
15 9 (1.67%) OSPF
15 9 (1.67%) TCP/IP
16 8 (1.48%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.60%) Oracle Database
2 13 (2.41%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (2.41%) Power BI
3 12 (2.23%) MongoDB
3 12 (2.23%) Relational Database
4 9 (1.67%) Elasticsearch
4 9 (1.67%) SQL Server
5 6 (1.11%) Metadata
5 6 (1.11%) MySQL
6 5 (0.93%) Oracle Database 12c
7 4 (0.74%) Hadoop
7 4 (0.74%) NoSQL
7 4 (0.74%) RDBMS
7 4 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 4 (0.74%) Tableau
8 3 (0.56%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.56%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.37%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.37%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 2 (0.37%) Oracle Exadata
Development Applications
1 30 (5.57%) GitLab
2 13 (2.41%) Selenium
3 12 (2.23%) JIRA
4 10 (1.86%) Git
5 9 (1.67%) Jenkins
5 9 (1.67%) REST Assured
6 6 (1.11%) Gatling
7 5 (0.93%) Cucumber
7 5 (0.93%) MSI
7 5 (0.93%) Serenity BDD
8 4 (0.74%) Cypress.io
9 3 (0.56%) JMeter
9 3 (0.56%) Postman
10 2 (0.37%) JDeveloper
10 2 (0.37%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.37%) WebDriver
11 1 (0.19%) Mocha
11 1 (0.19%) Mockito
11 1 (0.19%) Rational Robot
11 1 (0.19%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 140 (25.97%) Public Sector
2 112 (20.78%) Social Skills
3 37 (6.86%) Military
4 30 (5.57%) Documentation Skills
5 29 (5.38%) Finance
6 27 (5.01%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (2.60%) Aerospace
8 13 (2.41%) Legal
9 9 (1.67%) Banking
9 9 (1.67%) Manufacturing
10 7 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (0.74%) Aviation
11 4 (0.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (0.74%) Retail
12 2 (0.37%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.37%) General Ledger
12 2 (0.37%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.37%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.19%) Local Government
13 1 (0.19%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 76 (14.10%) Architect
2 72 (13.36%) Lead
3 40 (7.42%) Network Engineer
4 32 (5.94%) Analyst
5 31 (5.75%) Developer
6 30 (5.57%) Senior
6 30 (5.57%) Unix Engineer
7 25 (4.64%) Administrator
8 24 (4.45%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 23 (4.27%) Consultant
10 21 (3.90%) Technical Architect
11 19 (3.53%) Lead Architect
11 19 (3.53%) Wintel Engineer
12 18 (3.34%) Data Engineer
13 17 (3.15%) DBA
13 17 (3.15%) DevOps Engineer
14 15 (2.78%) Coordinator
15 13 (2.41%) Business Analyst
15 13 (2.41%) Security Architect
15 13 (2.41%) Security Assurance Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (4.82%) Spring
2 23 (4.27%) Spring Boot
3 17 (3.15%) Node.js
4 15 (2.78%) Kafka
5 10 (1.86%) OAuth
5 10 (1.86%) REST
6 9 (1.67%) Playwright
7 7 (1.30%) 802.1X
8 6 (1.11%) OpenID
8 6 (1.11%) RESTful
9 5 (0.93%) Apache NiFi
9 5 (0.93%) Leaflet
9 5 (0.93%) Nunjucks
9 5 (0.93%) React
9 5 (0.93%) Spring Cloud
10 4 (0.74%) AWS CDK
10 4 (0.74%) Web Services
10 4 (0.74%) XML
11 3 (0.56%) CSS
11 3 (0.56%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 41 (7.61%) Data Centre
2 26 (4.82%) Clustering
3 24 (4.45%) Onboarding
3 24 (4.45%) Replication
4 19 (3.53%) Product Ownership
5 16 (2.97%) Cloud Native
6 13 (2.41%) Operational Technology
7 9 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
8 8 (1.48%) Management Information System
9 7 (1.30%) Cyber Threat
10 6 (1.11%) Hybrid Cloud
11 5 (0.93%) Private Cloud
11 5 (0.93%) Security Posture
12 4 (0.74%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (0.74%) Driving Licence
12 4 (0.74%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (0.74%) Mobile App
13 3 (0.56%) Fat Client
13 3 (0.56%) Freedom of Information
13 3 (0.56%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 57 (10.58%) Windows
2 36 (6.68%) Unix
3 31 (5.75%) Solaris
4 25 (4.64%) Linux
5 24 (4.45%) Windows Server
6 19 (3.53%) Windows 10
7 11 (2.04%) Windows 7
8 4 (0.74%) AIX
8 4 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.56%) VMS
10 2 (0.37%) Android
10 2 (0.37%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.19%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (13.36%) Agile
2 68 (12.62%) High Availability
3 67 (12.43%) Project Delivery
4 66 (12.24%) DevOps
5 63 (11.69%) CI/CD
6 59 (10.95%) ITSM
7 57 (10.58%) Continuous Improvement
7 57 (10.58%) Stakeholder Management
8 56 (10.39%) Migration
9 53 (9.83%) Disaster Recovery
10 47 (8.72%) Service Management
10 47 (8.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 46 (8.53%) Problem-Solving
12 44 (8.16%) Cybersecurity
13 32 (5.94%) Technical Leadership
13 32 (5.94%) Test Automation
14 31 (5.75%) Risk Management
15 29 (5.38%) Microservices
16 26 (4.82%) ITIL
17 24 (4.45%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 60 (11.13%) Python
2 48 (8.91%) Java
3 47 (8.72%) PowerShell
4 24 (4.45%) JavaScript
4 24 (4.45%) SQL
5 13 (2.41%) TypeScript
6 11 (2.04%) VB
6 11 (2.04%) VBScript
7 5 (0.93%) Go
7 5 (0.93%) Rust
8 3 (0.56%) Bash
9 2 (0.37%) C#
9 2 (0.37%) COBOL
9 2 (0.37%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.19%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.19%) Perl
10 1 (0.19%) Ruby
10 1 (0.19%) Scala
10 1 (0.19%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.19%) VB6
Qualifications
1 376 (69.76%) SC Cleared
2 69 (12.80%) DV Cleared
3 45 (8.35%) Cisco Certification
4 42 (7.79%) CCNA
5 36 (6.68%) CCNP
6 31 (5.75%) BPSS Clearance
7 24 (4.45%) Degree
8 22 (4.08%) Microsoft Certification
9 16 (2.97%) MCSA
9 16 (2.97%) MCSE
9 16 (2.97%) VCAP
9 16 (2.97%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 15 (2.78%) Network+ Certification
10 15 (2.78%) Server+ Certification
11 13 (2.41%) CISSP
12 9 (1.67%) AWS Certification
12 9 (1.67%) Azure Certification
12 9 (1.67%) ITIL Certification
13 7 (1.30%) CISM
13 7 (1.30%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (4.45%) NIST
2 21 (3.90%) PMO
3 20 (3.71%) Accessibility
4 15 (2.78%) QA
4 15 (2.78%) SLA
5 13 (2.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 12 (2.23%) JSP 440
7 11 (2.04%) GDPR
8 8 (1.48%) Data Quality
8 8 (1.48%) GRC
8 8 (1.48%) NCSC
9 4 (0.74%) WCAG
10 3 (0.56%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.37%) IFRS
11 2 (0.37%) IFRS 17
11 2 (0.37%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.19%) Basel III
12 1 (0.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 1 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 27 (5.01%) Active Directory
2 23 (4.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (4.08%) Docker
4 21 (3.90%) Virtual Machines
5 20 (3.71%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (3.53%) vSphere
7 12 (2.23%) BitLocker
8 4 (0.74%) Firmware
9 2 (0.37%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.37%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.19%) GPFS
10 1 (0.19%) NFS
10 1 (0.19%) Squid
Systems Management
1 41 (7.61%) Terraform
2 30 (5.57%) Ansible
3 27 (5.01%) Kubernetes
4 19 (3.53%) vCenter Server
5 16 (2.97%) SCCM
6 9 (1.67%) Grafana
7 7 (1.30%) Oracle RMAN
7 7 (1.30%) Prometheus
8 5 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.37%) Data Guard
10 2 (0.37%) Failover Clustering
10 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Clustering
10 2 (0.37%) Nagios
10 2 (0.37%) WSUS
11 1 (0.19%) Cisco Prime
11 1 (0.19%) Netcool
11 1 (0.19%) Norton AntiVirus
11 1 (0.19%) Tivoli
11 1 (0.19%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 72 (13.36%) Cisco
2 64 (11.87%) Microsoft
3 47 (8.72%) Oracle
4 38 (7.05%) ServiceNow
5 30 (5.57%) Palo Alto
6 27 (5.01%) SAP
7 24 (4.45%) VMware
8 15 (2.78%) Aruba
9 10 (1.86%) Google
10 8 (1.48%) F5
11 7 (1.30%) Splunk
12 6 (1.11%) Arista
12 6 (1.11%) CheckPoint
12 6 (1.11%) Ekahau
12 6 (1.11%) SolarWinds
13 5 (0.93%) IBM
14 4 (0.74%) Citrix
14 4 (0.74%) Dell
14 4 (0.74%) EMC
14 4 (0.74%) Veritas