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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 3 4
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 -3
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 551 381 400
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 15.39% 18.59% 14.46%
As % of the Qualifications category 55.83% 55.06% 52.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 356 215 236
10th Percentile £360 £308 £364
25th Percentile £425 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £512
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.27% -3.92%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £785 £713 £744
England median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 31 63
10th Percentile £22.68 £22.16 -
25th Percentile £29.50 £25.15 £10.95
Median hourly rate £64.09 £35.00 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +83.11% +141.38% -65.88%
75th Percentile £74.26 £59.95 £49.50
90th Percentile £83.75 £70.00 £71.50
England median hourly rate £63.14 £25.15 £57.50
% change year-on-year +151.03% -56.26% -4.17%

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 987 692 768
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 27.56% 33.76% 27.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 636 399 420
10th Percentile £347 £304 £299
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £612 £595 £602
90th Percentile £694 £713 £696
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 58 131
10th Percentile £18.63 £17.33 £10.95
25th Percentile £29.25 £21.30 £11.89
Median hourly rate £43.96 £31.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +41.81% +93.03% -60.43%
75th Percentile £73.57 £59.98 £43.43
90th Percentile £89.15 £75.93 £62.50
England median hourly rate £52.75 £28.60 £42.50
% change year-on-year +84.44% -32.71% -22.73%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -8 190 £525 +5.03% 173
Cumbria 0 160 £485 -7.97% 3
Lancashire +2 94 £700 +55.56% 29
Cheshire +18 81 £458 +18.06% 19
Merseyside -21 19 £638 +6.25% 4
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 (4.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (2.18%) SharePoint
3 11 (2.00%) Skype for Business
4 7 (1.27%) Confluence
5 5 (0.91%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.73%) SAS
7 3 (0.54%) Apache
7 3 (0.54%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.36%) CICS
8 2 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.36%) SharePoint 2013
9 1 (0.18%) IIS
9 1 (0.18%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.18%) nginx
9 1 (0.18%) OpenStack
Applications
1 19 (3.45%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (0.91%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.73%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.18%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 7 (1.27%) Oracle Payables
2 6 (1.09%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.54%) Primavera
3 3 (0.54%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.54%) SAP MM
4 2 (0.36%) Oracle Cash Management
4 2 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.36%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.36%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.18%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 99 (17.97%) AWS
2 81 (14.70%) Azure
3 26 (4.72%) Microsoft 365
4 21 (3.81%) Power Platform
5 19 (3.45%) Serverless
6 18 (3.27%) SaaS
7 16 (2.90%) Azure DevOps
8 14 (2.54%) GCP
8 14 (2.54%) OCI
9 13 (2.36%) Entra ID
10 11 (2.00%) GitHub
11 9 (1.63%) Google Workspace
12 8 (1.45%) Azure Monitor
13 7 (1.27%) Google Drive
14 6 (1.09%) Amazon S3
14 6 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
14 6 (1.09%) OpenShift
15 5 (0.91%) Power Automate
16 4 (0.73%) Dynamics 365
16 4 (0.73%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 68 (12.34%) Firewall
2 38 (6.90%) Wireless
3 33 (5.99%) VLAN
4 30 (5.44%) DNS
5 29 (5.26%) WAN
6 28 (5.08%) Network Security
7 25 (4.54%) VPN
8 22 (3.99%) DHCP
8 22 (3.99%) LAN
8 22 (3.99%) Structured Cabling
9 21 (3.81%) Wi-Fi
10 17 (3.09%) NAS
10 17 (3.09%) SAN
11 16 (2.90%) Cisco IOS
11 16 (2.90%) NX-OS
12 15 (2.72%) BGP
13 14 (2.54%) OSPF
14 11 (2.00%) Broadband
14 11 (2.00%) Converged Networks
14 11 (2.00%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (3.63%) SQL Server
2 18 (3.27%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (3.09%) Oracle Database
4 16 (2.90%) MySQL
4 16 (2.90%) Power BI
5 15 (2.72%) MongoDB
5 15 (2.72%) Relational Database
6 9 (1.63%) Elasticsearch
7 8 (1.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 7 (1.27%) RDBMS
9 6 (1.09%) Metadata
10 5 (0.91%) Oracle Database 12c
10 5 (0.91%) Oracle Exadata
11 4 (0.73%) Hadoop
11 4 (0.73%) NoSQL
12 3 (0.54%) Data Lake
12 3 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
12 3 (0.54%) Tableau
13 2 (0.36%) Amazon Redshift
13 2 (0.36%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 31 (5.63%) GitLab
2 13 (2.36%) Selenium
3 12 (2.18%) JIRA
4 10 (1.81%) Git
5 9 (1.63%) REST Assured
6 8 (1.45%) Jenkins
7 6 (1.09%) Cucumber
7 6 (1.09%) Gatling
8 5 (0.91%) MSI
8 5 (0.91%) Serenity BDD
9 3 (0.54%) Cypress.io
9 3 (0.54%) JMeter
10 2 (0.36%) JDeveloper
10 2 (0.36%) Postman
10 2 (0.36%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.36%) WebDriver
11 1 (0.18%) Rational Robot
11 1 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.18%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.18%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 130 (23.59%) Public Sector
2 115 (20.87%) Social Skills
3 42 (7.62%) Military
4 33 (5.99%) Analytical Skills
5 32 (5.81%) Documentation Skills
6 28 (5.08%) Finance
7 18 (3.27%) Legal
8 14 (2.54%) Aerospace
9 11 (2.00%) Manufacturing
10 8 (1.45%) Banking
11 5 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.73%) Aviation
12 4 (0.73%) Retail
13 3 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.54%) Local Government
14 2 (0.36%) Corporate Banking
14 2 (0.36%) General Ledger
14 2 (0.36%) Influencing Skills
14 2 (0.36%) Organisational Skills
15 1 (0.18%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 81 (14.70%) Lead
2 78 (14.16%) Architect
3 50 (9.07%) Network Engineer
4 42 (7.62%) Developer
5 30 (5.44%) Administrator
5 30 (5.44%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 29 (5.26%) Senior
7 28 (5.08%) Analyst
7 28 (5.08%) DBA
8 24 (4.36%) Consultant
9 22 (3.99%) Technical Architect
9 22 (3.99%) Unix Engineer
10 20 (3.63%) Lead Architect
11 18 (3.27%) Data Engineer
12 17 (3.09%) DevOps Engineer
13 16 (2.90%) Coordinator
13 16 (2.90%) Security Architect
14 15 (2.72%) Wintel Engineer
15 14 (2.54%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 13 (2.36%) Security Assurance Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (4.72%) Spring
2 23 (4.17%) Spring Boot
3 22 (3.99%) Node.js
4 16 (2.90%) Kafka
5 12 (2.18%) OAuth
6 11 (2.00%) REST
7 8 (1.45%) Playwright
8 7 (1.27%) OpenID
9 6 (1.09%) 802.1X
9 6 (1.09%) RESTful
10 5 (0.91%) Apache NiFi
10 5 (0.91%) Leaflet
10 5 (0.91%) Nunjucks
10 5 (0.91%) Oracle GoldenGate
10 5 (0.91%) Spring Cloud
11 4 (0.73%) AWS CDK
11 4 (0.73%) ModSecurity
11 4 (0.73%) React
12 3 (0.54%) OAuth2
12 3 (0.54%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 35 (6.35%) Data Centre
2 26 (4.72%) Onboarding
3 24 (4.36%) Clustering
4 23 (4.17%) Replication
5 20 (3.63%) Cloud Native
6 16 (2.90%) Operational Technology
7 15 (2.72%) Product Ownership
8 10 (1.81%) Management Information System
9 9 (1.63%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
11 7 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
12 6 (1.09%) Public Cloud
13 5 (0.91%) Cyber Threat
13 5 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
13 5 (0.91%) Private Cloud
13 5 (0.91%) Security Posture
14 3 (0.54%) Fat Client
14 3 (0.54%) Freedom of Information
14 3 (0.54%) Mainframe
14 3 (0.54%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 57 (10.34%) Windows
2 28 (5.08%) Solaris
2 28 (5.08%) Unix
3 26 (4.72%) Linux
4 22 (3.99%) Windows 10
5 21 (3.81%) Windows Server
6 11 (2.00%) Windows 7
7 7 (1.27%) AIX
8 5 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.73%) VMS
10 2 (0.36%) Android
10 2 (0.36%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.36%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.18%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (13.61%) DevOps
2 66 (11.98%) CI/CD
3 65 (11.80%) Agile
4 57 (10.34%) Stakeholder Management
5 54 (9.80%) ITSM
6 52 (9.44%) Continuous Improvement
7 51 (9.26%) High Availability
7 51 (9.26%) Migration
8 50 (9.07%) Problem-Solving
8 50 (9.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 49 (8.89%) Project Delivery
10 46 (8.35%) Cybersecurity
11 45 (8.17%) Service Management
12 36 (6.53%) Disaster Recovery
13 35 (6.35%) Risk Management
14 34 (6.17%) Microservices
14 34 (6.17%) Technical Leadership
15 33 (5.99%) ITIL
16 28 (5.08%) Test Automation
17 27 (4.90%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 56 (10.16%) Python
2 51 (9.26%) Java
3 49 (8.89%) PowerShell
4 36 (6.53%) SQL
5 25 (4.54%) JavaScript
6 16 (2.90%) TypeScript
7 13 (2.36%) VBScript
8 11 (2.00%) VB
9 5 (0.91%) Rust
10 4 (0.73%) C#
10 4 (0.73%) Go
10 4 (0.73%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.54%) Bash
11 3 (0.54%) Bicep
12 2 (0.36%) ABAP
12 2 (0.36%) COBOL
12 2 (0.36%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.18%) Perl
13 1 (0.18%) Scala
13 1 (0.18%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 406 (73.68%) SC Cleared
2 66 (11.98%) DV Cleared
3 42 (7.62%) Cisco Certification
4 40 (7.26%) CCNA
5 38 (6.90%) BPSS Clearance
6 31 (5.63%) Microsoft Certification
7 27 (4.90%) CCNP
8 26 (4.72%) Degree
9 15 (2.72%) Network+ Certification
9 15 (2.72%) Server+ Certification
10 14 (2.54%) Azure Certification
11 12 (2.18%) CISSP
11 12 (2.18%) MCSA
11 12 (2.18%) MCSE
11 12 (2.18%) VCAP
11 12 (2.18%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 9 (1.63%) AWS Certification
13 6 (1.09%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.91%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 5 (0.91%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (5.08%) NIST
2 24 (4.36%) PMO
3 16 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (2.72%) SLA
5 14 (2.54%) QA
6 13 (2.36%) Accessibility
7 12 (2.18%) Data Quality
7 12 (2.18%) GRC
7 12 (2.18%) JSP 440
8 11 (2.00%) GDPR
9 8 (1.45%) NCSC
10 6 (1.09%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.18%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.18%) IFRS
11 1 (0.18%) IFRS 17
11 1 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 1 (0.18%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.18%) Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
System Software
1 28 (5.08%) Active Directory
2 23 (4.17%) Docker
3 20 (3.63%) Virtual Machines
3 20 (3.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (2.90%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (2.72%) vSphere
6 13 (2.36%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.91%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.18%) GPFS
9 1 (0.18%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.18%) NFS
9 1 (0.18%) Squid
Systems Management
1 46 (8.35%) Terraform
2 29 (5.26%) Ansible
3 28 (5.08%) Kubernetes
4 20 (3.63%) SCCM
5 15 (2.72%) vCenter Server
6 11 (2.00%) Grafana
7 10 (1.81%) Oracle RMAN
8 7 (1.27%) Prometheus
9 5 (0.91%) Data Guard
9 5 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.73%) SCOM
11 3 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 2 (0.36%) McAfee ePO
12 2 (0.36%) WSUS
13 1 (0.18%) Nagios
13 1 (0.18%) Netcool
13 1 (0.18%) Norton AntiVirus
13 1 (0.18%) Tivoli
13 1 (0.18%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 82 (14.88%) Microsoft
2 65 (11.80%) Cisco
3 48 (8.71%) Oracle
4 45 (8.17%) ServiceNow
5 29 (5.26%) SAP
6 28 (5.08%) Palo Alto
7 21 (3.81%) VMware
8 13 (2.36%) Aruba
9 12 (2.18%) CheckPoint
9 12 (2.18%) F5
10 10 (1.81%) Google
11 9 (1.63%) Splunk
12 8 (1.45%) Citrix
13 6 (1.09%) Arista
14 5 (0.91%) Ekahau
14 5 (0.91%) IBM
14 5 (0.91%) Meraki
14 5 (0.91%) SolarWinds
15 4 (0.73%) Dynatrace
15 4 (0.73%) RedGate