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 19 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 2 2
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 514 413 421
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 15.68% 21.07% 15.77%
As % of the Qualifications category 56.55% 58.66% 53.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 335 243 272
10th Percentile £358 £250 £400
25th Percentile £413 £412 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £519
Median % change year-on-year - -3.66% -1.14%
75th Percentile £634 £594 £673
90th Percentile £751 £671 £725
England median daily rate £525 £537 £550
% change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 19 60
10th Percentile £22.68 £25.15 -
25th Percentile £28.50 £25.26 £10.95
Median hourly rate £54.61 £56.04 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% +286.48% -65.88%
75th Percentile £73.57 £62.50 £46.18
90th Percentile £82.95 £78.20 £74.43
England median hourly rate £55.00 £48.90 £56.15
% change year-on-year +12.47% -12.90% -6.43%

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 909 704 792
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 27.73% 35.92% 29.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 601 408 455
10th Percentile £331 £230 £300
25th Percentile £400 £390 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £499 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.21% -2.73% +2.50%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £650
90th Percentile £688 £667 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 41 127
10th Percentile £22.68 £17.44 £10.95
25th Percentile £29.99 £25.15 £11.77
Median hourly rate £52.78 £32.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +62.38% +102.37% -60.42%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.00 £38.43
90th Percentile £111.15 £77.50 £70.83
England median hourly rate £47.54 £39.66 £40.00
% change year-on-year +19.87% -0.85% -23.81%

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 19 May 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 19 May 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 19 May 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 -8 171 £510 +2.00% 92
Cumbria 0 147 £481 -8.68% 34
Lancashire +3 92 £775 +60.71% 31
Cheshire +2 75 £444 +26.71% 8
Merseyside -20 22 £625 +8.70% 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 23 (4.47%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (2.14%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.75%) Skype for Business
4 7 (1.36%) Confluence
5 4 (0.78%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.39%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.39%) Apache
6 2 (0.39%) CICS
6 2 (0.39%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.39%) SAS
7 1 (0.19%) IIS
7 1 (0.19%) nginx
7 1 (0.19%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 14 (2.72%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.39%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.19%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 3 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
1 3 (0.58%) Remedy ITSM
1 3 (0.58%) Teamcenter
2 2 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.39%) Primavera
2 2 (0.39%) SAP MM
2 2 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.19%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 1 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 81 (15.76%) AWS
2 56 (10.89%) Azure
3 24 (4.67%) Microsoft 365
4 17 (3.31%) GCP
5 16 (3.11%) Serverless
6 15 (2.92%) Power Platform
6 15 (2.92%) SaaS
7 11 (2.14%) Entra ID
7 11 (2.14%) GitHub
8 9 (1.75%) Google Workspace
9 8 (1.56%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (1.56%) OCI
10 7 (1.36%) Amazon S3
10 7 (1.36%) Google Drive
11 6 (1.17%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (0.78%) Amazon EC2
12 4 (0.78%) AWS Lambda
12 4 (0.78%) Azure Monitor
12 4 (0.78%) OpenShift
13 3 (0.58%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 67 (13.04%) Firewall
2 37 (7.20%) VLAN
3 28 (5.45%) Network Security
4 27 (5.25%) WAN
5 26 (5.06%) DNS
6 24 (4.67%) Wireless
7 20 (3.89%) Wi-Fi
8 19 (3.70%) DHCP
9 17 (3.31%) LAN
10 16 (3.11%) SAN
10 16 (3.11%) Structured Cabling
11 13 (2.53%) Cisco IOS
12 12 (2.33%) NAS
12 12 (2.33%) NX-OS
12 12 (2.33%) VPN
13 9 (1.75%) BGP
13 9 (1.75%) Skype
13 9 (1.75%) TCP/IP
14 8 (1.56%) OSPF
15 7 (1.36%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.92%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (2.72%) MongoDB
2 14 (2.72%) Power BI
3 12 (2.33%) Oracle Database
3 12 (2.33%) Relational Database
4 9 (1.75%) Elasticsearch
4 9 (1.75%) SQL Server
5 8 (1.56%) NoSQL
6 7 (1.36%) Metadata
7 6 (1.17%) MySQL
7 6 (1.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 5 (0.97%) Oracle Database 12c
9 4 (0.78%) Hadoop
9 4 (0.78%) RDBMS
9 4 (0.78%) Tableau
10 3 (0.58%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
11 2 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.39%) DataStage
11 2 (0.39%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 27 (5.25%) GitLab
2 13 (2.53%) Git
3 12 (2.33%) JIRA
4 9 (1.75%) Jenkins
4 9 (1.75%) Selenium
5 7 (1.36%) REST Assured
6 6 (1.17%) Gatling
6 6 (1.17%) MSI
7 5 (0.97%) Serenity BDD
8 3 (0.58%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.58%) JMeter
8 3 (0.58%) Postman
9 2 (0.39%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.39%) Jasmine
9 2 (0.39%) Mockito
9 2 (0.39%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.19%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.19%) Team Foundation Server
10 1 (0.19%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 150 (29.18%) Public Sector
2 106 (20.62%) Social Skills
3 30 (5.84%) Finance
4 29 (5.64%) Documentation Skills
5 28 (5.45%) Military
6 23 (4.47%) Analytical Skills
7 13 (2.53%) Aerospace
8 12 (2.33%) Legal
9 10 (1.95%) Banking
10 8 (1.56%) Manufacturing
11 7 (1.36%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.78%) Aviation
13 3 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.58%) Retail
14 2 (0.39%) Corporate Banking
14 2 (0.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 2 (0.39%) Telecoms
15 1 (0.19%) Electronics
15 1 (0.19%) Law
15 1 (0.19%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 77 (14.98%) Architect
2 61 (11.87%) Lead
3 43 (8.37%) Network Engineer
4 38 (7.39%) Developer
5 32 (6.23%) Senior
6 31 (6.03%) Analyst
7 26 (5.06%) Administrator
8 25 (4.86%) Unix Engineer
9 23 (4.47%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 20 (3.89%) Technical Architect
11 19 (3.70%) Lead Architect
12 18 (3.50%) Wintel Engineer
13 17 (3.31%) DBA
14 16 (3.11%) Consultant
14 16 (3.11%) Data Engineer
15 15 (2.92%) Coordinator
16 14 (2.72%) Business Analyst
17 13 (2.53%) Security Architect
17 13 (2.53%) Security Assurance Coordinator
18 12 (2.33%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (5.84%) Spring
2 26 (5.06%) Spring Boot
3 18 (3.50%) Node.js
4 17 (3.31%) Kafka
5 11 (2.14%) 802.1X
5 11 (2.14%) OAuth
5 11 (2.14%) Playwright
6 9 (1.75%) RESTful
7 8 (1.56%) REST
8 7 (1.36%) React
9 6 (1.17%) OpenID
10 5 (0.97%) AngularJS
10 5 (0.97%) Apache NiFi
10 5 (0.97%) CSS
10 5 (0.97%) HTML
10 5 (0.97%) Jest
10 5 (0.97%) Leaflet
10 5 (0.97%) Nunjucks
10 5 (0.97%) Spring Cloud
10 5 (0.97%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 39 (7.59%) Data Centre
2 24 (4.67%) Clustering
2 24 (4.67%) Product Ownership
3 23 (4.47%) Replication
4 22 (4.28%) Onboarding
5 14 (2.72%) Cloud Native
6 12 (2.33%) Operational Technology
7 8 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (1.36%) Cyber Threat
8 7 (1.36%) Management Information System
9 5 (0.97%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (0.97%) Mobile App
9 5 (0.97%) Private Cloud
9 5 (0.97%) Security Posture
10 4 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
10 4 (0.78%) Hybrid Cloud
11 3 (0.58%) Freedom of Information
11 3 (0.58%) PKI
11 3 (0.58%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 55 (10.70%) Windows
2 32 (6.23%) Unix
3 27 (5.25%) Linux
4 26 (5.06%) Solaris
5 23 (4.47%) Windows Server
6 18 (3.50%) Windows 10
7 9 (1.75%) Windows 7
8 4 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.58%) AIX
10 2 (0.39%) Android
10 2 (0.39%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.39%) Mac OS X
10 2 (0.39%) VMS
11 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (14.59%) Agile
2 66 (12.84%) Project Delivery
3 63 (12.26%) High Availability
4 59 (11.48%) DevOps
5 56 (10.89%) Migration
6 55 (10.70%) CI/CD
7 54 (10.51%) Stakeholder Management
8 51 (9.92%) Disaster Recovery
9 50 (9.73%) Continuous Improvement
10 48 (9.34%) ITSM
10 48 (9.34%) Problem-Solving
11 40 (7.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 37 (7.20%) Cybersecurity
12 37 (7.20%) Service Management
13 34 (6.61%) Microservices
13 34 (6.61%) Technical Leadership
14 33 (6.42%) Test Automation
15 29 (5.64%) Risk Management
16 27 (5.25%) Change Management
17 25 (4.86%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 58 (11.28%) Python
2 51 (9.92%) Java
3 45 (8.75%) PowerShell
4 25 (4.86%) SQL
5 23 (4.47%) JavaScript
6 15 (2.92%) TypeScript
7 9 (1.75%) VB
7 9 (1.75%) VBScript
8 5 (0.97%) Go
8 5 (0.97%) Rust
9 4 (0.78%) Ruby
10 3 (0.58%) Bash
11 2 (0.39%) C#
11 2 (0.39%) COBOL
11 2 (0.39%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.19%) Bicep
12 1 (0.19%) Perl
12 1 (0.19%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.19%) Search Processing Language
12 1 (0.19%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 346 (67.32%) SC Cleared
2 67 (13.04%) DV Cleared
3 41 (7.98%) Cisco Certification
4 36 (7.00%) CCNA
5 33 (6.42%) CCNP
6 32 (6.23%) BPSS Clearance
7 24 (4.67%) Degree
8 20 (3.89%) Microsoft Certification
9 15 (2.92%) MCSA
9 15 (2.92%) MCSE
9 15 (2.92%) VCAP
9 15 (2.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 13 (2.53%) CISSP
11 11 (2.14%) Network+ Certification
11 11 (2.14%) Server+ Certification
12 10 (1.95%) AWS Certification
12 10 (1.95%) Azure Certification
13 8 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
13 8 (1.56%) ITIL Certification
14 7 (1.36%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (4.09%) NIST
2 18 (3.50%) Accessibility
3 16 (3.11%) PMO
4 15 (2.92%) QA
5 13 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (2.53%) SLA
6 12 (2.33%) JSP 440
7 9 (1.75%) GDPR
8 6 (1.17%) Data Quality
9 5 (0.97%) GRC
10 4 (0.78%) WCAG
11 3 (0.58%) IFRS
11 3 (0.58%) NCSC
11 3 (0.58%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.39%) IFRS 17
12 2 (0.39%) PCI DSS
13 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
13 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 1 (0.19%) RMADS
13 1 (0.19%) SOC 2
System Software
1 27 (5.25%) Active Directory
2 25 (4.86%) Docker
3 21 (4.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (3.89%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (3.70%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (3.50%) vSphere
7 10 (1.95%) BitLocker
8 4 (0.78%) Firmware
9 2 (0.39%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.39%) ISA Server
9 2 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.19%) GPFS
10 1 (0.19%) NFS
10 1 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 31 (6.03%) Terraform
2 27 (5.25%) Kubernetes
3 26 (5.06%) Ansible
4 18 (3.50%) vCenter Server
5 14 (2.72%) SCCM
6 10 (1.95%) Grafana
7 8 (1.56%) Prometheus
8 6 (1.17%) Oracle RMAN
9 5 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 2 (0.39%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Clustering
11 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
11 2 (0.39%) Nagios
11 2 (0.39%) WSUS
12 1 (0.19%) Data Guard
12 1 (0.19%) Netcool
12 1 (0.19%) Norton AntiVirus
12 1 (0.19%) Tivoli
12 1 (0.19%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 71 (13.81%) Cisco
2 61 (11.87%) Microsoft
3 43 (8.37%) Oracle
4 33 (6.42%) Palo Alto
5 32 (6.23%) ServiceNow
6 28 (5.45%) SAP
7 22 (4.28%) VMware
8 13 (2.53%) Aruba
9 10 (1.95%) Google
10 8 (1.56%) F5
10 8 (1.56%) Splunk
11 7 (1.36%) Meraki
12 6 (1.17%) CheckPoint
12 6 (1.17%) Ekahau
12 6 (1.17%) SolarWinds
13 5 (0.97%) Arista
13 5 (0.97%) IBM
14 4 (0.78%) Dell
14 4 (0.78%) EMC
14 4 (0.78%) RedGate