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

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 2 2
Rank change year-on-year 0 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 535 406 470
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 20.41% 19.44% 16.85%
As % of the Qualifications category 60.52% 59.36% 54.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 369 219 343
10th Percentile £323 £294 £356
25th Percentile £425 £389 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +7.89% -13.64% +4.76%
75th Percentile £627 £550 £643
90th Percentile £702 £650 £720
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -3.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 21 41
10th Percentile £15.50 £25.26 £14.50
25th Percentile £25.15 £37.00 £33.48
Median hourly rate £52.78 £50.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +5.55% +8.27% +53.93%
75th Percentile £68.67 £73.56 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £85.78 £73.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -58.08% - -

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 884 684 856
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 33.73% 32.74% 30.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 604 374 535
10th Percentile £227 £230 £255
25th Percentile £380 £363 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -11.21% +7.00%
75th Percentile £588 £552 £650
90th Percentile £687 £650 £720
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.10% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 40 91
10th Percentile £16.96 £23.87 £14.50
25th Percentile £25.36 £29.63 £17.50
Median hourly rate £45.46 £34.75 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +30.82% -13.66% +38.79%
75th Percentile £66.75 £56.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.33 £65.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £47.50
% change year-on-year -45.54% -2.78% +5.56%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -1 158 £494 +6.77% 78
Cheshire +6 118 £600 +49.88% 10
Cumbria 0 115 £500 - 11
Lancashire +1 107 £550 +34.47% 36
Merseyside -5 27 £500 -4.31% 5
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 21 (3.93%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (1.87%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.68%) Confluence
3 9 (1.68%) Skype for Business
4 4 (0.75%) Apache
4 4 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.56%) MTS
6 2 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.37%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.37%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.37%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.19%) CMS
7 1 (0.19%) SAS
Applications
1 26 (4.86%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.56%) Siemens NX
4 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
4 1 (0.19%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 60 (11.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.87%) SAP EHS
2 10 (1.87%) SAP VC
3 9 (1.68%) SAP MM
3 9 (1.68%) SAP QM
4 3 (0.56%) Teamcenter
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 68 (12.71%) AWS
2 48 (8.97%) Azure
3 31 (5.79%) Microsoft 365
4 21 (3.93%) GCP
5 16 (2.99%) Power Platform
6 14 (2.62%) GitHub
6 14 (2.62%) SaaS
7 11 (2.06%) Entra ID
8 10 (1.87%) Serverless
9 9 (1.68%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.31%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (1.12%) Amazon EC2
11 6 (1.12%) Amazon EKS
11 6 (1.12%) Amazon SQS
12 5 (0.93%) Amazon S3
12 5 (0.93%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.93%) IaaS
12 5 (0.93%) OneDrive
12 5 (0.93%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 62 (11.59%) Firewall
2 32 (5.98%) VLAN
3 30 (5.61%) WAN
4 29 (5.42%) Wi-Fi
5 24 (4.49%) Network Security
6 22 (4.11%) DNS
7 16 (2.99%) LAN
7 16 (2.99%) VPN
8 15 (2.80%) SAN
9 13 (2.43%) BGP
9 13 (2.43%) Cisco ISE
9 13 (2.43%) NetScaler
9 13 (2.43%) TCP/IP
10 10 (1.87%) DHCP
11 9 (1.68%) Skype
12 8 (1.50%) Software-Defined Networking
12 8 (1.50%) Unified Communications
13 7 (1.31%) Internet
13 7 (1.31%) WebEx
13 7 (1.31%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.80%) PostgreSQL
2 11 (2.06%) Power BI
2 11 (2.06%) Relational Database
3 10 (1.87%) NoSQL
3 10 (1.87%) SAP HANA
4 9 (1.68%) MongoDB
4 9 (1.68%) MySQL
5 7 (1.31%) Data Warehouse
5 7 (1.31%) DynamoDB
6 6 (1.12%) Redis
7 5 (0.93%) BigQuery
7 5 (0.93%) Metadata
7 5 (0.93%) SQL Server
8 4 (0.75%) RDBMS
9 3 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
9 3 (0.56%) Big Data
10 2 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.37%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.37%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.37%) Looker
Development Applications
1 28 (5.23%) GitLab
2 25 (4.67%) Git
3 14 (2.62%) Jenkins
3 14 (2.62%) JIRA
4 6 (1.12%) SonarQube
5 4 (0.75%) Rational DOORS
5 4 (0.75%) Selenium
6 3 (0.56%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.56%) Cypress.io
6 3 (0.56%) Gatling
6 3 (0.56%) JMeter
6 3 (0.56%) Postman
6 3 (0.56%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.37%) Gradle
7 2 (0.37%) Grunt
7 2 (0.37%) gulp
7 2 (0.37%) Jasmine
7 2 (0.37%) Mockito
7 2 (0.37%) Serenity BDD
7 2 (0.37%) SonarLint
General
1 170 (31.78%) Public Sector
2 121 (22.62%) Social Skills
3 34 (6.36%) Analytical Skills
3 34 (6.36%) Finance
4 19 (3.55%) Manufacturing
5 18 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
5 18 (3.36%) Military
6 11 (2.06%) Telecoms
7 10 (1.87%) Electronics
7 10 (1.87%) Legal
8 9 (1.68%) Marketing
9 6 (1.12%) Aerospace
9 6 (1.12%) Banking
9 6 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (0.56%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.37%) Law
12 1 (0.19%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 75 (14.02%) Consultant
2 71 (13.27%) Architect
3 46 (8.60%) Developer
4 44 (8.22%) Network Engineer
5 40 (7.48%) Analyst
6 39 (7.29%) SAP Consultant
7 38 (7.10%) Senior
8 25 (4.67%) Technical Architect
9 23 (4.30%) Management Consultant
10 21 (3.93%) Lead
10 21 (3.93%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 19 (3.55%) Administrator
12 16 (2.99%) DevOps Engineer
12 16 (2.99%) Platform Engineer
13 14 (2.62%) IT Support
13 14 (2.62%) Support Engineer
14 13 (2.43%) Business Analyst
15 11 (2.06%) AWS Engineer
15 11 (2.06%) Java Developer
16 10 (1.87%) Unix Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.93%) SAP Fiori
2 17 (3.18%) Spring Boot
3 16 (2.99%) Spring
4 15 (2.80%) RESTful
5 14 (2.62%) 802.1X
5 14 (2.62%) JSON
6 12 (2.24%) Node.js
6 12 (2.24%) Web Services
6 12 (2.24%) XML
7 11 (2.06%) HTML
8 10 (1.87%) BAPI
8 10 (1.87%) Kafka
8 10 (1.87%) REST
9 9 (1.68%) CSS
10 8 (1.50%) Playwright
11 7 (1.31%) React
11 7 (1.31%) SOAP
12 6 (1.12%) Hibernate
12 6 (1.12%) OAuth
12 6 (1.12%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 54 (10.09%) Data Centre
2 31 (5.79%) Onboarding
3 30 (5.61%) Product Ownership
4 12 (2.24%) Cyber Threat
4 12 (2.24%) Replication
5 10 (1.87%) Clustering
6 9 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (1.31%) Cloud Native
8 6 (1.12%) Driving Licence
9 5 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (0.93%) Fibre Optics
9 5 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (0.93%) Low-Code
9 5 (0.93%) Operational Technology
9 5 (0.93%) Video Conferencing
10 4 (0.75%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (0.75%) Mobile App
10 4 (0.75%) SCADA
11 3 (0.56%) Security Posture
11 3 (0.56%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 71 (13.27%) Windows
2 34 (6.36%) Linux
3 23 (4.30%) Windows 10
3 23 (4.30%) Windows Server
4 16 (2.99%) Unix
5 11 (2.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (1.68%) Solaris
6 9 (1.68%) Windows 7
7 8 (1.50%) Android
8 7 (1.31%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.75%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.37%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.19%) VMS
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (12.15%) Agile
2 63 (11.78%) Problem-Solving
3 52 (9.72%) CI/CD
4 51 (9.53%) Stakeholder Management
5 49 (9.16%) Cybersecurity
5 49 (9.16%) DevOps
6 46 (8.60%) ITSM
7 43 (8.04%) Migration
8 42 (7.85%) Service Management
9 38 (7.10%) Containerisation
10 35 (6.54%) Continuous Improvement
11 33 (6.17%) High Availability
11 33 (6.17%) Project Delivery
11 33 (6.17%) Validation
12 31 (5.79%) Test Automation
13 29 (5.42%) Disaster Recovery
13 29 (5.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 26 (4.86%) Mentoring
14 26 (4.86%) Microservices
14 26 (4.86%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 62 (11.59%) Python
2 46 (8.60%) PowerShell
3 38 (7.10%) Java
4 21 (3.93%) Bash
5 16 (2.99%) Perl
6 13 (2.43%) JavaScript
6 13 (2.43%) TypeScript
7 11 (2.06%) ABAP
7 11 (2.06%) SQL
8 9 (1.68%) VB
8 9 (1.68%) VBScript
9 4 (0.75%) C
9 4 (0.75%) C++
9 4 (0.75%) Go
9 4 (0.75%) Ruby
10 2 (0.37%) AWK
10 2 (0.37%) C#
10 2 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.37%) PHP
10 2 (0.37%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 390 (72.90%) SC Cleared
2 64 (11.96%) BPSS Clearance
3 44 (8.22%) DV Cleared
4 35 (6.54%) Degree
5 26 (4.86%) CCNP
5 26 (4.86%) Cisco Certification
6 19 (3.55%) CCNA
7 11 (2.06%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
9 9 (1.68%) CCDP
9 9 (1.68%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 8 (1.50%) CISSP
10 8 (1.50%) MCSA
10 8 (1.50%) MCSE
10 8 (1.50%) VCAP
11 7 (1.31%) CISM
12 6 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
13 5 (0.93%) Azure Certification
13 5 (0.93%) CompTIA Security+
13 5 (0.93%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (4.49%) NIST
2 18 (3.36%) Accessibility
3 12 (2.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (1.68%) Data Quality
4 9 (1.68%) SLA
5 7 (1.31%) NCSC
6 6 (1.12%) JSP 440
6 6 (1.12%) QA
7 4 (0.75%) IEC 61508
7 4 (0.75%) ISO 26262
7 4 (0.75%) WCAG
8 3 (0.56%) GDPR
8 3 (0.56%) IEC 62304
8 3 (0.56%) IFRS
9 2 (0.37%) IEC 61131
9 2 (0.37%) IFRS 17
9 2 (0.37%) PMO
9 2 (0.37%) PSD2
10 1 (0.19%) CRD IV
10 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 35 (6.54%) Docker
2 29 (5.42%) Active Directory
3 19 (3.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (1.87%) vSphere
5 9 (1.68%) BitLocker
5 9 (1.68%) Virtual Machines
5 9 (1.68%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.75%) Firmware
7 2 (0.37%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 35 (6.54%) Kubernetes
2 32 (5.98%) Terraform
3 26 (4.86%) SCCM
4 15 (2.80%) Ansible
5 13 (2.43%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (2.06%) vCenter Server
7 7 (1.31%) Grafana
8 6 (1.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 6 (1.12%) Norton AntiVirus
8 6 (1.12%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.75%) Nessus
10 3 (0.56%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.37%) Packer
12 1 (0.19%) AirWatch
12 1 (0.19%) Argo
12 1 (0.19%) Cisco CUCM
12 1 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
12 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
12 1 (0.19%) QRadar
12 1 (0.19%) vRealize
Vendors
1 79 (14.77%) SAP
2 75 (14.02%) Microsoft
3 73 (13.64%) Cisco
4 37 (6.92%) Palo Alto
5 31 (5.79%) Oracle
5 31 (5.79%) ServiceNow
6 25 (4.67%) VMware
7 19 (3.55%) Meraki
8 12 (2.24%) Adobe
9 11 (2.06%) Citrix
9 11 (2.06%) Dell
10 10 (1.87%) Red Hat
11 8 (1.50%) Splunk
12 7 (1.31%) HP
12 7 (1.31%) IBM
12 7 (1.31%) McAfee
12 7 (1.31%) Symantec
13 6 (1.12%) Apple
13 6 (1.12%) CyberArk
13 6 (1.12%) NetApp