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

6 months to
4 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 534 420 491
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 21.43% 19.97% 18.30%
As % of the Qualifications category 60.41% 61.31% 58.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 356 221 363
10th Percentile £313 £250 £360
25th Percentile £425 £356 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £509 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +7.21% -13.64% +4.76%
75th Percentile £627 £575 £639
90th Percentile £700 £675 £702
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -2.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 30 33
10th Percentile £18.20 £18.03 £33.60
25th Percentile £22.16 £22.22 £45.88
Median hourly rate £41.94 £37.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +13.35% -19.88% +84.72%
75th Percentile £67.84 £56.82 £51.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £81.11 £73.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £57.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -55.88% -5.00% -

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 884 685 842
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 35.47% 32.57% 31.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 589 362 553
10th Percentile £219 £216 £255
25th Percentile £381 £369 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £545
Median % change year-on-year - -12.84% +6.86%
75th Percentile £598 £575 £645
90th Percentile £688 £671 £720
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 52 72
10th Percentile £18.95 £18.35 £16.25
25th Percentile £22.63 £22.72 £26.66
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% -29.62% +84.72%
75th Percentile £65.13 £51.38 £46.89
90th Percentile £73.95 £74.63 £63.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £51.89
% change year-on-year -45.54% -11.00% +15.31%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -1 177 £500 +11.11% 73
Cumbria 0 120 £500 - 21
Cheshire +8 117 £598 +40.71% 19
Lancashire 0 87 £550 +34.47% 34
Merseyside -9 24 £500 +143.90% 7
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 (3.18%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (1.87%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.31%) Confluence
4 5 (0.94%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.56%) Apache
6 3 (0.56%) MTS
7 2 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.37%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.37%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.37%) Resin
8 1 (0.19%) CMS
8 1 (0.19%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.19%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.19%) SAS
Applications
1 24 (4.49%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (2.06%) Siemens NX
4 6 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.37%) PTC Creo
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.19%) Quicktime
6 1 (0.19%) SPSS
6 1 (0.19%) Stata
Business Applications
1 60 (11.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (2.06%) Teamcenter
3 10 (1.87%) SAP EHS
3 10 (1.87%) SAP VC
4 9 (1.69%) SAP MM
4 9 (1.69%) SAP QM
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 64 (11.99%) AWS
2 47 (8.80%) Azure
3 33 (6.18%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (3.37%) GCP
4 18 (3.37%) SaaS
5 14 (2.62%) Power Platform
6 11 (2.06%) Entra ID
6 11 (2.06%) GitHub
7 9 (1.69%) Azure DevOps
7 9 (1.69%) Serverless
8 8 (1.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 7 (1.31%) Google Workspace
10 6 (1.12%) Amazon EKS
10 6 (1.12%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.12%) OneDrive
11 5 (0.94%) Amazon EC2
11 5 (0.94%) Amazon S3
11 5 (0.94%) Amazon SQS
11 5 (0.94%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (0.94%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 59 (11.05%) Firewall
2 26 (4.87%) VLAN
2 26 (4.87%) WAN
3 25 (4.68%) Wi-Fi
4 20 (3.75%) DNS
5 19 (3.56%) Network Security
6 15 (2.81%) SAN
7 14 (2.62%) TCP/IP
8 13 (2.43%) BGP
8 13 (2.43%) Cisco ISE
8 13 (2.43%) NetScaler
9 12 (2.25%) LAN
9 12 (2.25%) VPN
10 8 (1.50%) Software-Defined Networking
10 8 (1.50%) Unified Communications
11 7 (1.31%) DHCP
11 7 (1.31%) Internet
11 7 (1.31%) WebEx
11 7 (1.31%) Wireless
12 6 (1.12%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.81%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (1.87%) SAP HANA
3 9 (1.69%) NoSQL
3 9 (1.69%) Power BI
3 9 (1.69%) Relational Database
4 8 (1.50%) MySQL
5 7 (1.31%) DynamoDB
5 7 (1.31%) MongoDB
6 6 (1.12%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.12%) Redis
7 5 (0.94%) BigQuery
7 5 (0.94%) SQL Server
8 4 (0.75%) Metadata
8 4 (0.75%) RDBMS
9 3 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
9 3 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (0.56%) Big Data
10 2 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
10 2 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.37%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 26 (4.87%) Git
2 22 (4.12%) GitLab
3 18 (3.37%) JIRA
4 15 (2.81%) Jenkins
5 7 (1.31%) Rational DOORS
6 5 (0.94%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.56%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.56%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.37%) Gradle
8 2 (0.37%) Grunt
8 2 (0.37%) gulp
8 2 (0.37%) Jasmine
8 2 (0.37%) Maven
8 2 (0.37%) Mockito
8 2 (0.37%) MSI
8 2 (0.37%) Postman
8 2 (0.37%) Selenium
8 2 (0.37%) SonarLint
9 1 (0.19%) MLflow
9 1 (0.19%) REST Assured
General
1 170 (31.84%) Public Sector
2 123 (23.03%) Social Skills
3 48 (8.99%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (6.18%) Finance
5 28 (5.24%) Manufacturing
6 19 (3.56%) Military
7 13 (2.43%) Aerospace
8 12 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (2.06%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.87%) Banking
10 10 (1.87%) Electronics
10 10 (1.87%) Legal
11 9 (1.69%) Marketing
12 7 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 6 (1.12%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
15 4 (0.75%) Aviation
16 3 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
17 1 (0.19%) Law
Job Titles
1 74 (13.86%) Consultant
2 69 (12.92%) Architect
3 45 (8.43%) Senior
4 41 (7.68%) Developer
5 40 (7.49%) Network Engineer
6 39 (7.30%) SAP Consultant
7 36 (6.74%) Analyst
8 23 (4.31%) Management Consultant
9 21 (3.93%) Administrator
10 20 (3.75%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 20 (3.75%) Technical Architect
11 19 (3.56%) Lead
12 17 (3.18%) DevOps Engineer
13 16 (3.00%) Platform Engineer
14 14 (2.62%) IT Support
14 14 (2.62%) Support Engineer
15 12 (2.25%) AWS Engineer
15 12 (2.25%) Software Engineer
16 11 (2.06%) Engagement Manager
16 11 (2.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.93%) SAP Fiori
2 15 (2.81%) JSON
3 13 (2.43%) 802.1X
3 13 (2.43%) Spring Boot
3 13 (2.43%) Web Services
4 12 (2.25%) XML
5 11 (2.06%) HTML
5 11 (2.06%) Node.js
5 11 (2.06%) RESTful
5 11 (2.06%) Spring
6 10 (1.87%) BAPI
6 10 (1.87%) REST
7 9 (1.69%) CSS
8 8 (1.50%) Kafka
9 7 (1.31%) SOAP
10 6 (1.12%) AngularJS
10 6 (1.12%) Playwright
10 6 (1.12%) React
10 6 (1.12%) XMPP
11 5 (0.94%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 53 (9.93%) Data Centre
2 31 (5.81%) Product Ownership
3 30 (5.62%) Onboarding
4 14 (2.62%) Analytical Mindset
5 12 (2.25%) Cyber Threat
6 9 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
7 8 (1.50%) Cloud Native
8 7 (1.31%) Hybrid Cloud
8 7 (1.31%) Replication
9 6 (1.12%) Driving Licence
10 5 (0.94%) Clustering
10 5 (0.94%) Distributed Systems
10 5 (0.94%) Fibre Optics
10 5 (0.94%) Low-Code
10 5 (0.94%) Video Conferencing
11 4 (0.75%) Legacy Systems
11 4 (0.75%) Mobile App
11 4 (0.75%) Operational Technology
11 4 (0.75%) SCADA
12 3 (0.56%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 61 (11.42%) Windows
2 36 (6.74%) Linux
3 19 (3.56%) Windows 10
4 18 (3.37%) Windows Server
5 14 (2.62%) Unix
6 11 (2.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (1.50%) Android
7 8 (1.50%) Solaris
8 7 (1.31%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.94%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.75%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.37%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (11.80%) Problem-Solving
2 62 (11.61%) Agile
3 51 (9.55%) DevOps
3 51 (9.55%) Stakeholder Management
4 49 (9.18%) Cybersecurity
5 45 (8.43%) CI/CD
6 43 (8.05%) Migration
7 40 (7.49%) Containerisation
8 39 (7.30%) ITSM
9 35 (6.55%) Mentoring
9 35 (6.55%) Service Management
10 32 (5.99%) Change Management
10 32 (5.99%) Continuous Improvement
10 32 (5.99%) Validation
11 31 (5.81%) User Experience
12 28 (5.24%) High Availability
12 28 (5.24%) Project Delivery
13 27 (5.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 27 (5.06%) Test Automation
14 25 (4.68%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 66 (12.36%) Python
2 38 (7.12%) PowerShell
3 34 (6.37%) Java
4 24 (4.49%) Bash
5 16 (3.00%) Perl
6 14 (2.62%) SQL
7 12 (2.25%) JavaScript
8 11 (2.06%) ABAP
9 10 (1.87%) TypeScript
10 8 (1.50%) C++
11 5 (0.94%) VB
11 5 (0.94%) VBScript
12 4 (0.75%) C
12 4 (0.75%) Ruby
13 3 (0.56%) Go
13 3 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
14 2 (0.37%) AWK
14 2 (0.37%) C#
14 2 (0.37%) PHP
14 2 (0.37%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 409 (76.59%) SC Cleared
2 74 (13.86%) BPSS Clearance
3 32 (5.99%) Degree
4 23 (4.31%) CCNP
4 23 (4.31%) Cisco Certification
5 22 (4.12%) DV Cleared
6 17 (3.18%) CCNA
7 9 (1.69%) CCDP
7 9 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.50%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.31%) CISM
9 7 (1.31%) CISSP
10 6 (1.12%) Azure Certification
10 6 (1.12%) CTC Cleared
10 6 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
11 5 (0.94%) BC Cleared
11 5 (0.94%) CompTIA Security+
11 5 (0.94%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.94%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 4 (0.75%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.56%) NIST
2 15 (2.81%) Accessibility
3 8 (1.50%) Data Quality
3 8 (1.50%) SLA
4 7 (1.31%) NCSC
5 5 (0.94%) QA
6 4 (0.75%) IEC 61508
6 4 (0.75%) ISO 26262
6 4 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.75%) WCAG
7 3 (0.56%) IEC 62304
7 3 (0.56%) IFRS
7 3 (0.56%) PMO
8 2 (0.37%) GDPR
8 2 (0.37%) IEC 61131
8 2 (0.37%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.37%) PSD2
9 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.19%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.19%) SEPA
System Software
1 36 (6.74%) Docker
2 28 (5.24%) Active Directory
3 16 (3.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.12%) vSphere
5 5 (0.94%) BitLocker
6 4 (0.75%) Firmware
6 4 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.75%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.37%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.19%) UAG
8 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.19%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 36 (6.74%) Kubernetes
1 36 (6.74%) Terraform
2 22 (4.12%) SCCM
3 15 (2.81%) Ansible
3 15 (2.81%) Microsoft Intune
4 7 (1.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 6 (1.12%) vCenter Server
6 5 (0.94%) Norton AntiVirus
7 4 (0.75%) Grafana
7 4 (0.75%) Nessus
7 4 (0.75%) SELinux
8 3 (0.56%) FortiGate
8 3 (0.56%) Podman
8 3 (0.56%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.37%) Packer
10 1 (0.19%) AirWatch
10 1 (0.19%) Argo
10 1 (0.19%) Cisco CUCM
10 1 (0.19%) QRadar
10 1 (0.19%) vRealize
Vendors
1 85 (15.92%) SAP
2 73 (13.67%) Microsoft
3 63 (11.80%) Cisco
4 35 (6.55%) Palo Alto
5 30 (5.62%) Oracle
6 29 (5.43%) ServiceNow
7 22 (4.12%) VMware
8 18 (3.37%) Meraki
9 12 (2.25%) Adobe
10 11 (2.06%) Citrix
10 11 (2.06%) Dell
10 11 (2.06%) Google
10 11 (2.06%) Red Hat
10 11 (2.06%) Siemens
11 8 (1.50%) Splunk
12 7 (1.31%) HP
13 6 (1.12%) Apple
13 6 (1.12%) IBM
13 6 (1.12%) NetApp
13 6 (1.12%) Symantec