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 13 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 2 2
Rank change year-on-year 0 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 541 437 431
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 19.86% 20.75% 15.32%
As % of the Qualifications category 61.06% 62.52% 51.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 369 251 306
10th Percentile £329 £261 £400
25th Percentile £418 £393 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -12.73% +4.76%
75th Percentile £634 £575 £649
90th Percentile £702 £672 £725
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 22 45
10th Percentile £17.19 £25.26 £14.50
25th Percentile £25.15 £37.00 £33.48
Median hourly rate £52.78 £52.26 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% +13.16% +59.24%
75th Percentile £69.30 £73.70 £51.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £85.26 £73.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £58.00
% change year-on-year -58.08% +3.46% -3.34%

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 886 699 841
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 32.53% 33.19% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 600 397 509
10th Percentile £225 £220 £274
25th Percentile £381 £363 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £475 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.42% -12.04% +8.00%
75th Percentile £581 £564 £650
90th Percentile £686 £653 £720
England median daily rate £520 £525 £541
% change year-on-year -0.95% -3.00% -1.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 41 98
10th Percentile £18.94 £24.00 £13.74
25th Percentile £28.88 £26.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £35.95
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% -9.60% +23.33%
75th Percentile £67.69 £58.27 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £74.75 £64.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year -47.05% +3.53% +1.96%

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 13 February 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 13 February 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 13 February 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 -7 161 £480 +2.95% 89
Cheshire +6 120 £600 +57.96% 8
Cumbria 0 111 £500 -5.12% 8
Lancashire +1 109 £550 +69.23% 31
Merseyside -6 31 £623 +71.13% 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 22 (4.07%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (1.85%) Confluence
2 10 (1.85%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.66%) Skype for Business
4 5 (0.92%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.74%) Apache
5 4 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.55%) MTS
7 2 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.37%) CICS
7 2 (0.37%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.37%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.18%) CMS
8 1 (0.18%) nginx
8 1 (0.18%) SAS
Applications
1 26 (4.81%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.37%) Siemens NX
4 1 (0.18%) Adobe Premiere
4 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.18%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 59 (10.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.85%) SAP EHS
2 10 (1.85%) SAP MM
2 10 (1.85%) SAP VC
3 9 (1.66%) SAP QM
4 2 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.37%) SAP EWM
4 2 (0.37%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.18%) Primavera
5 1 (0.18%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.18%) SAP SD
5 1 (0.18%) SAP Travel Management
5 1 (0.18%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 67 (12.38%) AWS
2 47 (8.69%) Azure
3 33 (6.10%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (3.33%) Power Platform
5 16 (2.96%) GCP
6 14 (2.59%) Entra ID
7 13 (2.40%) GitHub
8 11 (2.03%) SaaS
9 10 (1.85%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (1.48%) Serverless
11 7 (1.29%) Amazon EKS
12 6 (1.11%) Amazon S3
12 6 (1.11%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
12 6 (1.11%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (0.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 5 (0.92%) Amazon EC2
13 5 (0.92%) OneDrive
13 5 (0.92%) OpenShift
14 4 (0.74%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 64 (11.83%) Firewall
2 33 (6.10%) VLAN
3 26 (4.81%) WAN
3 26 (4.81%) Wi-Fi
4 25 (4.62%) Network Security
5 24 (4.44%) DNS
6 17 (3.14%) VPN
7 15 (2.77%) LAN
7 15 (2.77%) SAN
8 13 (2.40%) BGP
9 11 (2.03%) DHCP
9 11 (2.03%) TCP/IP
10 10 (1.85%) Cisco ISE
10 10 (1.85%) NetScaler
11 9 (1.66%) Skype
12 8 (1.48%) Software-Defined Networking
12 8 (1.48%) Unified Communications
12 8 (1.48%) WebEx
12 8 (1.48%) Wireless
13 7 (1.29%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.40%) Power BI
2 12 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (1.85%) SAP HANA
4 9 (1.66%) MongoDB
4 9 (1.66%) Relational Database
4 9 (1.66%) SQL Server
5 8 (1.48%) NoSQL
6 7 (1.29%) Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.29%) MySQL
7 6 (1.11%) Elasticsearch
7 6 (1.11%) Metadata
7 6 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 5 (0.92%) Redis
9 4 (0.74%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.55%) Big Data
10 3 (0.55%) Hadoop
11 2 (0.37%) Apache Cassandra
11 2 (0.37%) DataStage
11 2 (0.37%) RDBMS
11 2 (0.37%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 29 (5.36%) GitLab
2 23 (4.25%) Git
3 15 (2.77%) JIRA
4 11 (2.03%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.74%) Rational DOORS
5 4 (0.74%) SonarQube
6 3 (0.55%) Cypress.io
6 3 (0.55%) Mockito
6 3 (0.55%) Postman
6 3 (0.55%) Selenium
7 2 (0.37%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.37%) Gatling
7 2 (0.37%) Grunt
7 2 (0.37%) gulp
7 2 (0.37%) Jasmine
7 2 (0.37%) JMeter
7 2 (0.37%) MSI
7 2 (0.37%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.37%) Serenity BDD
8 1 (0.18%) CircleCI
General
1 166 (30.68%) Public Sector
2 122 (22.55%) Social Skills
3 38 (7.02%) Analytical Skills
3 38 (7.02%) Finance
4 18 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
4 18 (3.33%) Military
5 13 (2.40%) Manufacturing
6 12 (2.22%) Legal
7 10 (1.85%) Telecoms
8 9 (1.66%) Electronics
9 8 (1.48%) Marketing
10 7 (1.29%) Aerospace
10 7 (1.29%) Banking
11 6 (1.11%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.92%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.37%) Corporate Banking
14 2 (0.37%) Law
15 1 (0.18%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 74 (13.68%) Consultant
2 67 (12.38%) Architect
3 55 (10.17%) Developer
4 39 (7.21%) Network Engineer
4 39 (7.21%) Senior
5 38 (7.02%) SAP Consultant
6 32 (5.91%) Analyst
7 23 (4.25%) Administrator
7 23 (4.25%) Management Consultant
8 22 (4.07%) Technical Architect
9 20 (3.70%) Lead
10 19 (3.51%) Platform Engineer
11 18 (3.33%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 17 (3.14%) DevOps Engineer
13 14 (2.59%) IT Support
13 14 (2.59%) Support Engineer
14 12 (2.22%) Business Analyst
14 12 (2.22%) Java Developer
14 12 (2.22%) Software Engineer
15 11 (2.03%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.88%) SAP Fiori
2 20 (3.70%) Spring
3 18 (3.33%) Spring Boot
4 15 (2.77%) JSON
5 13 (2.40%) Kafka
5 13 (2.40%) RESTful
6 12 (2.22%) Web Services
6 12 (2.22%) XML
7 11 (2.03%) 802.1X
7 11 (2.03%) HTML
7 11 (2.03%) Node.js
8 10 (1.85%) BAPI
8 10 (1.85%) REST
9 9 (1.66%) CSS
10 8 (1.48%) Playwright
11 7 (1.29%) React
11 7 (1.29%) SOAP
11 7 (1.29%) XMPP
12 6 (1.11%) Hibernate
12 6 (1.11%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 56 (10.35%) Data Centre
2 30 (5.55%) Product Ownership
3 29 (5.36%) Onboarding
4 15 (2.77%) Replication
5 14 (2.59%) Clustering
6 10 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
7 9 (1.66%) Cyber Threat
8 6 (1.11%) Driving Licence
8 6 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (0.92%) Cloud Native
9 5 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (0.92%) Low-Code
9 5 (0.92%) Operational Technology
9 5 (0.92%) Video Conferencing
10 4 (0.74%) SCADA
10 4 (0.74%) Security Posture
11 3 (0.55%) Handset
11 3 (0.55%) Management Information System
11 3 (0.55%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.55%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 72 (13.31%) Windows
2 43 (7.95%) Linux
3 24 (4.44%) Windows Server
4 23 (4.25%) Windows 10
5 19 (3.51%) Unix
6 13 (2.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.03%) Solaris
8 9 (1.66%) Windows 7
9 7 (1.29%) Android
9 7 (1.29%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.55%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.55%) Mac OS X
11 2 (0.37%) AIX
12 1 (0.18%) VMS
12 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (13.12%) Problem-Solving
2 67 (12.38%) Agile
3 54 (9.98%) DevOps
4 53 (9.80%) CI/CD
5 47 (8.69%) ITSM
6 45 (8.32%) Service Management
7 43 (7.95%) Cybersecurity
7 43 (7.95%) Migration
8 42 (7.76%) Stakeholder Management
9 41 (7.58%) Continuous Improvement
10 38 (7.02%) High Availability
11 37 (6.84%) Project Delivery
12 36 (6.65%) Containerisation
13 33 (6.10%) Test Automation
13 33 (6.10%) Validation
14 32 (5.91%) Disaster Recovery
15 28 (5.18%) Platform Engineering
16 27 (4.99%) Change Management
17 26 (4.81%) Risk Management
18 25 (4.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 64 (11.83%) Python
2 54 (9.98%) PowerShell
3 41 (7.58%) Java
4 23 (4.25%) Bash
5 16 (2.96%) JavaScript
5 16 (2.96%) SQL
6 15 (2.77%) Perl
6 15 (2.77%) TypeScript
7 11 (2.03%) ABAP
8 9 (1.66%) VB
8 9 (1.66%) VBScript
9 4 (0.74%) Go
9 4 (0.74%) Ruby
9 4 (0.74%) Rust
10 3 (0.55%) C
10 3 (0.55%) C#
10 3 (0.55%) C++
10 3 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.37%) COBOL
11 2 (0.37%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 391 (72.27%) SC Cleared
2 64 (11.83%) BPSS Clearance
3 50 (9.24%) DV Cleared
4 38 (7.02%) Degree
5 27 (4.99%) CCNP
5 27 (4.99%) Cisco Certification
6 21 (3.88%) CCNA
7 11 (2.03%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
9 9 (1.66%) CCDP
9 9 (1.66%) CISSP
9 9 (1.66%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 8 (1.48%) MCSA
10 8 (1.48%) MCSE
10 8 (1.48%) VCAP
11 7 (1.29%) AWS Certification
11 7 (1.29%) CISM
12 6 (1.11%) Azure Certification
12 6 (1.11%) ITIL Certification
13 5 (0.92%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.70%) NIST
2 18 (3.33%) Accessibility
3 13 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (1.66%) SLA
5 8 (1.48%) Data Quality
6 7 (1.29%) NCSC
6 7 (1.29%) QA
7 6 (1.11%) JSP 440
8 4 (0.74%) WCAG
9 3 (0.55%) GDPR
9 3 (0.55%) IEC 61508
9 3 (0.55%) IFRS
9 3 (0.55%) ISO 26262
9 3 (0.55%) PMO
10 2 (0.37%) GRC
10 2 (0.37%) IEC 61131
10 2 (0.37%) IEC 62304
10 2 (0.37%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.37%) PSD2
11 1 (0.18%) SOC 2
System Software
1 35 (6.47%) Docker
2 34 (6.28%) Active Directory
3 20 (3.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (1.85%) Virtual Machines
4 10 (1.85%) vSphere
5 9 (1.66%) BitLocker
5 9 (1.66%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.74%) Firmware
7 2 (0.37%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.18%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 37 (6.84%) Kubernetes
2 33 (6.10%) Terraform
3 26 (4.81%) SCCM
4 15 (2.77%) Ansible
5 12 (2.22%) Microsoft Intune
6 10 (1.85%) vCenter Server
7 9 (1.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 8 (1.48%) Grafana
9 6 (1.11%) Norton AntiVirus
9 6 (1.11%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.55%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.18%) Argo
12 1 (0.18%) Cisco CUCM
12 1 (0.18%) Cisco Prime
12 1 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
12 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Clustering
12 1 (0.18%) Nagios
12 1 (0.18%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 1 (0.18%) vRealize
Vendors
1 79 (14.60%) SAP
2 76 (14.05%) Microsoft
3 70 (12.94%) Cisco
4 33 (6.10%) Palo Alto
5 32 (5.91%) ServiceNow
6 31 (5.73%) Oracle
7 27 (4.99%) VMware
8 15 (2.77%) Meraki
9 13 (2.40%) Citrix
10 12 (2.22%) Adobe
11 11 (2.03%) Red Hat
12 10 (1.85%) Dell
13 9 (1.66%) IBM
14 7 (1.29%) HP
14 7 (1.29%) McAfee
14 7 (1.29%) SolarWinds
14 7 (1.29%) Symantec
15 6 (1.11%) Apple
15 6 (1.11%) CyberArk
15 6 (1.11%) Splunk