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 2 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 2 3
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 0
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 531 437 410
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 18.90% 21.22% 14.54%
As % of the Qualifications category 59.07% 62.07% 48.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 358 249 278
10th Percentile £348 £230 £401
25th Percentile £418 £385 £470
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -13.64% +4.76%
75th Percentile £626 £575 £648
90th Percentile £703 £666 £694
England median daily rate £525 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 20 51
10th Percentile £20.69 £25.26 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.15 £35.44 £14.50
Median hourly rate £52.78 £57.26 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -7.82% +24.79% +52.93%
75th Percentile £72.50 £74.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £85.80 £73.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -58.08% +6.21% -5.85%

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 899 704 842
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 31.99% 34.19% 29.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 604 395 490
10th Percentile £245 £209 £248
25th Percentile £381 £363 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £476 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.11% -9.52% +2.94%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £645
90th Percentile £680 £662 £700
England median daily rate £520 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 40 118
10th Percentile £19.65 £23.87 £11.56
25th Percentile £27.82 £26.00 £15.27
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% +25.00% -27.78%
75th Percentile £67.90 £60.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.87 £63.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £41.00
% change year-on-year -49.70% +21.95% -14.58%

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 2 March 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 2 March 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 2 March 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 -7 157 £480 +1.59% 90
Cheshire +5 114 £593 +69.29% 9
Cumbria 0 114 £500 -4.31% 9
Lancashire +1 109 £550 +34.47% 23
Merseyside -7 30 £623 +71.13% 6
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 24 (4.52%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (1.88%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.69%) Confluence
3 9 (1.69%) Skype for Business
4 6 (1.13%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.75%) Apache
5 4 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.56%) Jupyter
6 3 (0.56%) 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 24 (4.52%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.38%) Siemens NX
5 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.19%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.19%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 50 (9.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.88%) SAP MM
2 10 (1.88%) SAP VC
3 9 (1.69%) SAP QM
4 5 (0.94%) SAP EHS
5 2 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
5 2 (0.38%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.19%) Primavera
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 (12.62%) AWS
2 44 (8.29%) Azure
3 32 (6.03%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (3.39%) Power Platform
5 15 (2.82%) GCP
6 13 (2.45%) Entra ID
6 13 (2.45%) GitHub
7 10 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (1.69%) SaaS
9 8 (1.51%) Amazon EKS
9 8 (1.51%) Serverless
10 7 (1.32%) Amazon S3
11 6 (1.13%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
12 5 (0.94%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 5 (0.94%) Amazon EC2
12 5 (0.94%) Azure Monitor
13 4 (0.75%) AWS Lambda
13 4 (0.75%) OneDrive
13 4 (0.75%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 69 (12.99%) Firewall
2 39 (7.34%) VLAN
3 31 (5.84%) Wi-Fi
4 29 (5.46%) WAN
5 27 (5.08%) DNS
6 24 (4.52%) Network Security
7 17 (3.20%) LAN
7 17 (3.20%) VPN
8 14 (2.64%) DHCP
8 14 (2.64%) Wireless
9 13 (2.45%) SAN
9 13 (2.45%) TCP/IP
10 12 (2.26%) BGP
11 10 (1.88%) Cisco ISE
11 10 (1.88%) NetScaler
11 10 (1.88%) WebEx
12 9 (1.69%) Skype
13 8 (1.51%) Software-Defined Networking
13 8 (1.51%) Unified Communications
14 7 (1.32%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.45%) Power BI
2 12 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (1.88%) SAP HANA
4 9 (1.69%) Elasticsearch
4 9 (1.69%) MongoDB
4 9 (1.69%) SQL Server
5 8 (1.51%) NoSQL
5 8 (1.51%) Relational Database
6 7 (1.32%) MySQL
7 6 (1.13%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (1.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (0.75%) DynamoDB
8 4 (0.75%) Hadoop
8 4 (0.75%) Metadata
8 4 (0.75%) Redis
9 3 (0.56%) Big Data
10 2 (0.38%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.38%) BigQuery
10 2 (0.38%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.38%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 28 (5.27%) GitLab
2 24 (4.52%) Git
3 14 (2.64%) JIRA
4 10 (1.88%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.75%) Cypress.io
5 4 (0.75%) SonarQube
6 3 (0.56%) Mockito
6 3 (0.56%) Postman
6 3 (0.56%) Selenium
7 2 (0.38%) Gatling
7 2 (0.38%) Grunt
7 2 (0.38%) gulp
7 2 (0.38%) Jasmine
7 2 (0.38%) JMeter
7 2 (0.38%) MSI
7 2 (0.38%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.38%) Serenity BDD
8 1 (0.19%) ClearCase
8 1 (0.19%) InstallShield
8 1 (0.19%) Mocha
General
1 158 (29.76%) Public Sector
2 116 (21.85%) Social Skills
3 35 (6.59%) Finance
4 34 (6.40%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
6 15 (2.82%) Legal
7 14 (2.64%) Military
8 11 (2.07%) Manufacturing
9 10 (1.88%) Aerospace
10 8 (1.51%) Banking
10 8 (1.51%) Electronics
10 8 (1.51%) Telecoms
11 7 (1.32%) Marketing
12 5 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.56%) Aviation
13 3 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.38%) Corporate Banking
14 2 (0.38%) Law
Job Titles
1 66 (12.43%) Consultant
2 62 (11.68%) Architect
3 54 (10.17%) Developer
4 45 (8.47%) Network Engineer
5 42 (7.91%) Senior
6 35 (6.59%) SAP Consultant
7 29 (5.46%) Analyst
8 27 (5.08%) Administrator
9 22 (4.14%) Lead
10 20 (3.77%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 19 (3.58%) Platform Engineer
12 17 (3.20%) Management Consultant
12 17 (3.20%) Technical Architect
13 16 (3.01%) DevOps Engineer
14 14 (2.64%) Engagement Manager
14 14 (2.64%) Support Engineer
15 13 (2.45%) IT Support
15 13 (2.45%) Software Engineer
16 12 (2.26%) Java Developer
17 11 (2.07%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.95%) Spring
2 19 (3.58%) Spring Boot
3 16 (3.01%) SAP Fiori
4 15 (2.82%) 802.1X
5 14 (2.64%) Kafka
6 13 (2.45%) RESTful
7 12 (2.26%) JSON
7 12 (2.26%) Web Services
8 11 (2.07%) HTML
8 11 (2.07%) Node.js
9 9 (1.69%) BAPI
9 9 (1.69%) CSS
9 9 (1.69%) Playwright
9 9 (1.69%) React
9 9 (1.69%) REST
9 9 (1.69%) XML
9 9 (1.69%) XMPP
10 7 (1.32%) Jest
11 6 (1.13%) Hibernate
12 5 (0.94%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 54 (10.17%) Data Centre
2 33 (6.21%) Product Ownership
3 27 (5.08%) Onboarding
4 14 (2.64%) Clustering
4 14 (2.64%) Replication
5 10 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (1.69%) Cyber Threat
7 6 (1.13%) Cloud Native
8 5 (0.94%) Driving Licence
8 5 (0.94%) Fat Client
8 5 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (0.94%) Low-Code
8 5 (0.94%) Security Posture
8 5 (0.94%) Thin Client
8 5 (0.94%) Video Conferencing
9 4 (0.75%) Mobile App
10 3 (0.56%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (0.56%) Distributed Systems
10 3 (0.56%) Handset
10 3 (0.56%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 69 (12.99%) Windows
2 43 (8.10%) Linux
3 24 (4.52%) Windows Server
4 22 (4.14%) Windows 10
5 19 (3.58%) Unix
6 14 (2.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.07%) Solaris
8 9 (1.69%) Windows 7
9 8 (1.51%) Android
10 6 (1.13%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.56%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.56%) Mac OS X
12 2 (0.38%) AIX
13 1 (0.19%) VMS
13 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (12.62%) Agile
1 67 (12.62%) Problem-Solving
2 54 (10.17%) DevOps
3 51 (9.60%) CI/CD
4 47 (8.85%) ITSM
5 45 (8.47%) Service Management
6 44 (8.29%) Migration
7 42 (7.91%) Continuous Improvement
8 40 (7.53%) Cybersecurity
9 38 (7.16%) High Availability
9 38 (7.16%) Project Delivery
9 38 (7.16%) Stakeholder Management
10 33 (6.21%) Containerisation
11 32 (6.03%) Test Automation
12 31 (5.84%) Disaster Recovery
13 30 (5.65%) Platform Engineering
13 30 (5.65%) Validation
14 28 (5.27%) Change Management
15 26 (4.90%) Project Management
15 26 (4.90%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 67 (12.62%) Python
2 54 (10.17%) PowerShell
3 41 (7.72%) Java
4 22 (4.14%) Bash
5 17 (3.20%) JavaScript
5 17 (3.20%) SQL
6 15 (2.82%) TypeScript
7 14 (2.64%) Perl
8 10 (1.88%) ABAP
9 9 (1.69%) VB
9 9 (1.69%) VBScript
10 5 (0.94%) Rust
11 4 (0.75%) Go
11 4 (0.75%) Ruby
12 3 (0.56%) C#
13 2 (0.38%) AWK
13 2 (0.38%) COBOL
13 2 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.38%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.19%) Scala
Qualifications
1 382 (71.94%) SC Cleared
2 62 (11.68%) BPSS Clearance
3 51 (9.60%) DV Cleared
4 38 (7.16%) Degree
5 33 (6.21%) Cisco Certification
6 32 (6.03%) CCNP
7 28 (5.27%) CCNA
8 13 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
9 11 (2.07%) Microsoft Certification
10 9 (1.69%) AWS Certification
10 9 (1.69%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 8 (1.51%) CCDP
11 8 (1.51%) CISSP
11 8 (1.51%) MCSA
11 8 (1.51%) MCSE
11 8 (1.51%) VCAP
12 6 (1.13%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 6 (1.13%) CISM
12 6 (1.13%) ITIL Certification
13 5 (0.94%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.39%) Accessibility
1 18 (3.39%) NIST
2 11 (2.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (1.88%) QA
4 9 (1.69%) SLA
5 6 (1.13%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.13%) JSP 440
5 6 (1.13%) NCSC
6 4 (0.75%) WCAG
7 3 (0.56%) GDPR
7 3 (0.56%) IFRS
7 3 (0.56%) PMO
8 2 (0.38%) GRC
8 2 (0.38%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.38%) PSD2
9 1 (0.19%) CRD IV
9 1 (0.19%) FINREP
9 1 (0.19%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.19%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.19%) SOC 2
System Software
1 34 (6.40%) Active Directory
1 34 (6.40%) Docker
2 19 (3.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.88%) Virtual Machines
3 10 (1.88%) vSphere
4 9 (1.69%) BitLocker
4 9 (1.69%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (0.75%) Firmware
6 2 (0.38%) ISA Server
7 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 36 (6.78%) Kubernetes
2 34 (6.40%) Terraform
3 25 (4.71%) SCCM
4 15 (2.82%) Ansible
5 11 (2.07%) Microsoft Intune
6 9 (1.69%) vCenter Server
7 8 (1.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 7 (1.32%) Grafana
9 6 (1.13%) Norton AntiVirus
9 6 (1.13%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.56%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.19%) Cisco CUCM
12 1 (0.19%) Cisco Prime
12 1 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
12 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
12 1 (0.19%) Nagios
12 1 (0.19%) Packer
12 1 (0.19%) vRealize
Vendors
1 76 (14.31%) Microsoft
2 73 (13.75%) Cisco
3 70 (13.18%) SAP
4 36 (6.78%) Palo Alto
5 33 (6.21%) ServiceNow
6 29 (5.46%) Oracle
7 26 (4.90%) VMware
8 15 (2.82%) Citrix
9 14 (2.64%) Meraki
10 12 (2.26%) Adobe
11 11 (2.07%) Red Hat
12 9 (1.69%) Dell
13 8 (1.51%) IBM
14 7 (1.32%) Aruba
14 7 (1.32%) HP
14 7 (1.32%) McAfee
14 7 (1.32%) Symantec
15 6 (1.13%) CheckPoint
15 6 (1.13%) CyberArk
15 6 (1.13%) Splunk