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

6 months to
15 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 545 436 431
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 19.91% 20.85% 15.25%
As % of the Qualifications category 61.03% 62.55% 51.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 371 253 305
10th Percentile £330 £268 £401
25th Percentile £419 £395 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -13.64% +4.76%
75th Percentile £632 £575 £649
90th Percentile £701 £671 £725
England median daily rate £525 £548 £550
% change year-on-year -4.20% -0.36% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 21 45
10th Percentile £16.51 £25.26 £14.50
25th Percentile £25.15 £37.00 £33.48
Median hourly rate £52.78 £54.51 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -3.18% +18.04% +57.61%
75th Percentile £69.40 £73.75 £51.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £85.78 £73.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £58.00
% change year-on-year -58.08% +3.45% -3.33%

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 893 697 843
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 32.62% 33.33% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 603 399 510
10th Percentile £226 £223 £282
25th Percentile £381 £363 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £475 £543
Median % change year-on-year -0.21% -12.44% +8.50%
75th Percentile £582 £573 £650
90th Percentile £686 £651 £720
England median daily rate £520 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 40 98
10th Percentile £18.91 £23.87 £13.74
25th Percentile £27.66 £26.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £35.95
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% -9.60% +21.25%
75th Percentile £67.84 £58.70 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.33 £64.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £47.37 £45.21
% change year-on-year -46.91% +4.78% +0.47%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -6 164 £480 +2.95% 86
Cheshire +6 121 £600 +50.06% 10
Cumbria 0 111 £500 - 7
Lancashire +1 109 £550 +69.23% 29
Merseyside -5 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 (4.04%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (1.83%) Confluence
2 10 (1.83%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.65%) Skype for Business
4 5 (0.92%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.73%) Apache
5 4 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.55%) Jupyter
6 3 (0.55%) MTS
7 2 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.37%) CICS
7 2 (0.37%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.18%) CMS
8 1 (0.18%) nginx
8 1 (0.18%) SAS
Applications
1 26 (4.77%) 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 (10.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.83%) SAP EHS
2 10 (1.83%) SAP MM
2 10 (1.83%) SAP VC
3 9 (1.65%) 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 (12.29%) AWS
2 45 (8.26%) Azure
3 33 (6.06%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (3.30%) Power Platform
5 16 (2.94%) GCP
6 14 (2.57%) Entra ID
7 13 (2.39%) GitHub
8 10 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (1.83%) SaaS
9 8 (1.47%) Serverless
10 7 (1.28%) Amazon EKS
11 6 (1.10%) Amazon S3
11 6 (1.10%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
11 6 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
12 5 (0.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 5 (0.92%) Amazon EC2
12 5 (0.92%) OneDrive
12 5 (0.92%) OpenShift
13 4 (0.73%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 63 (11.56%) Firewall
2 32 (5.87%) VLAN
3 26 (4.77%) Wi-Fi
4 25 (4.59%) WAN
5 24 (4.40%) Network Security
6 23 (4.22%) DNS
7 17 (3.12%) VPN
8 14 (2.57%) LAN
8 14 (2.57%) SAN
9 12 (2.20%) BGP
10 11 (2.02%) DHCP
11 10 (1.83%) Cisco ISE
11 10 (1.83%) NetScaler
12 9 (1.65%) Skype
12 9 (1.65%) TCP/IP
13 8 (1.47%) Software-Defined Networking
13 8 (1.47%) Unified Communications
13 8 (1.47%) WebEx
13 8 (1.47%) Wireless
14 7 (1.28%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.39%) Power BI
2 12 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (1.83%) SAP HANA
4 9 (1.65%) MongoDB
4 9 (1.65%) Relational Database
4 9 (1.65%) SQL Server
5 8 (1.47%) NoSQL
6 7 (1.28%) Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.28%) MySQL
7 6 (1.10%) Elasticsearch
7 6 (1.10%) Metadata
7 6 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 5 (0.92%) Redis
9 4 (0.73%) 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 (5.32%) GitLab
2 24 (4.40%) Git
3 15 (2.75%) JIRA
4 11 (2.02%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.73%) Rational DOORS
5 4 (0.73%) 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 (30.46%) Public Sector
2 122 (22.39%) Social Skills
3 39 (7.16%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (6.97%) Finance
5 19 (3.49%) Military
6 18 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
7 13 (2.39%) Manufacturing
8 12 (2.20%) Legal
9 10 (1.83%) Telecoms
10 9 (1.65%) Electronics
11 8 (1.47%) Marketing
12 7 (1.28%) Aerospace
12 7 (1.28%) Banking
13 6 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 5 (0.92%) Influencing Skills
15 3 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
16 2 (0.37%) Corporate Banking
16 2 (0.37%) Law
17 1 (0.18%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 74 (13.58%) Consultant
2 67 (12.29%) Architect
3 56 (10.28%) Developer
4 40 (7.34%) Senior
5 38 (6.97%) Network Engineer
5 38 (6.97%) SAP Consultant
6 32 (5.87%) Analyst
7 23 (4.22%) Administrator
7 23 (4.22%) Management Consultant
8 22 (4.04%) Lead
8 22 (4.04%) Technical Architect
9 19 (3.49%) Platform Engineer
10 17 (3.12%) DevOps Engineer
10 17 (3.12%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 14 (2.57%) IT Support
11 14 (2.57%) Support Engineer
12 12 (2.20%) Business Analyst
12 12 (2.20%) Java Developer
12 12 (2.20%) Software Engineer
13 11 (2.02%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.85%) SAP Fiori
2 20 (3.67%) Spring
3 18 (3.30%) Spring Boot
4 15 (2.75%) JSON
5 13 (2.39%) Kafka
5 13 (2.39%) RESTful
6 12 (2.20%) Web Services
6 12 (2.20%) XML
7 11 (2.02%) 802.1X
7 11 (2.02%) HTML
7 11 (2.02%) Node.js
8 10 (1.83%) BAPI
8 10 (1.83%) REST
9 9 (1.65%) CSS
10 8 (1.47%) Playwright
11 7 (1.28%) React
11 7 (1.28%) SOAP
11 7 (1.28%) XMPP
12 6 (1.10%) Hibernate
12 6 (1.10%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 54 (9.91%) Data Centre
2 30 (5.50%) Product Ownership
3 29 (5.32%) Onboarding
4 14 (2.57%) Clustering
4 14 (2.57%) Replication
5 10 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (1.65%) Cyber Threat
7 6 (1.10%) Driving Licence
7 6 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (0.92%) Cloud Native
8 5 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (0.92%) Low-Code
8 5 (0.92%) Operational Technology
8 5 (0.92%) Video Conferencing
9 4 (0.73%) Mobile App
9 4 (0.73%) SCADA
9 4 (0.73%) Security Posture
10 3 (0.55%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (0.55%) Fat Client
10 3 (0.55%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 72 (13.21%) Windows
2 43 (7.89%) Linux
3 24 (4.40%) Windows Server
4 23 (4.22%) Windows 10
5 19 (3.49%) Unix
6 13 (2.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.02%) Solaris
8 9 (1.65%) Windows 7
9 8 (1.47%) Android
10 7 (1.28%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.73%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.55%) Mac OS X
13 2 (0.37%) AIX
14 1 (0.18%) VMS
14 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (13.03%) Problem-Solving
2 67 (12.29%) Agile
3 54 (9.91%) DevOps
4 53 (9.72%) CI/CD
5 47 (8.62%) ITSM
6 45 (8.26%) Service Management
7 44 (8.07%) Migration
8 43 (7.89%) Cybersecurity
9 42 (7.71%) Stakeholder Management
10 41 (7.52%) Continuous Improvement
11 38 (6.97%) High Availability
12 37 (6.79%) Project Delivery
13 36 (6.61%) Containerisation
14 34 (6.24%) Validation
15 33 (6.06%) Test Automation
16 31 (5.69%) Disaster Recovery
17 28 (5.14%) Platform Engineering
18 27 (4.95%) Change Management
19 26 (4.77%) Risk Management
20 25 (4.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 65 (11.93%) Python
2 53 (9.72%) PowerShell
3 41 (7.52%) Java
4 23 (4.22%) Bash
5 18 (3.30%) SQL
6 16 (2.94%) JavaScript
7 15 (2.75%) TypeScript
8 14 (2.57%) Perl
9 11 (2.02%) ABAP
10 9 (1.65%) VB
10 9 (1.65%) VBScript
11 4 (0.73%) Go
11 4 (0.73%) Ruby
11 4 (0.73%) Rust
12 3 (0.55%) C
12 3 (0.55%) C#
12 3 (0.55%) C++
12 3 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.37%) COBOL
13 2 (0.37%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 392 (71.93%) SC Cleared
2 68 (12.48%) BPSS Clearance
3 50 (9.17%) DV Cleared
4 38 (6.97%) Degree
5 26 (4.77%) CCNP
5 26 (4.77%) Cisco Certification
6 21 (3.85%) CCNA
7 11 (2.02%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
9 9 (1.65%) CISSP
9 9 (1.65%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 8 (1.47%) CCDP
10 8 (1.47%) MCSA
10 8 (1.47%) MCSE
10 8 (1.47%) VCAP
11 7 (1.28%) AWS Certification
11 7 (1.28%) CISM
12 6 (1.10%) Azure Certification
12 6 (1.10%) ITIL Certification
13 5 (0.92%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.67%) NIST
2 18 (3.30%) Accessibility
3 13 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (1.65%) Data Quality
4 9 (1.65%) SLA
5 7 (1.28%) NCSC
5 7 (1.28%) QA
6 6 (1.10%) JSP 440
7 4 (0.73%) WCAG
8 3 (0.55%) GDPR
8 3 (0.55%) IEC 61508
8 3 (0.55%) IFRS
8 3 (0.55%) ISO 26262
8 3 (0.55%) PMO
9 2 (0.37%) GRC
9 2 (0.37%) IEC 61131
9 2 (0.37%) IEC 62304
9 2 (0.37%) IFRS 17
9 2 (0.37%) PSD2
10 1 (0.18%) SOC 2
System Software
1 35 (6.42%) Docker
2 34 (6.24%) Active Directory
3 19 (3.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (1.83%) Virtual Machines
4 10 (1.83%) vSphere
5 9 (1.65%) BitLocker
5 9 (1.65%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.73%) Firmware
7 2 (0.37%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.18%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 37 (6.79%) Kubernetes
2 33 (6.06%) Terraform
3 26 (4.77%) SCCM
4 15 (2.75%) Ansible
5 12 (2.20%) Microsoft Intune
6 9 (1.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 9 (1.65%) vCenter Server
7 8 (1.47%) Grafana
8 6 (1.10%) Norton AntiVirus
8 6 (1.10%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.55%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.18%) Argo
11 1 (0.18%) Cisco CUCM
11 1 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Clustering
11 1 (0.18%) Nagios
11 1 (0.18%) Packer
11 1 (0.18%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 1 (0.18%) vRealize
Vendors
1 79 (14.50%) SAP
2 76 (13.94%) Microsoft
3 68 (12.48%) Cisco
4 32 (5.87%) Palo Alto
4 32 (5.87%) ServiceNow
5 31 (5.69%) Oracle
6 26 (4.77%) VMware
7 14 (2.57%) Meraki
8 13 (2.39%) Citrix
9 12 (2.20%) Adobe
10 11 (2.02%) Red Hat
11 9 (1.65%) Dell
11 9 (1.65%) IBM
12 7 (1.28%) HP
12 7 (1.28%) McAfee
12 7 (1.28%) Symantec
13 6 (1.10%) Apple
13 6 (1.10%) CyberArk
13 6 (1.10%) Splunk
14 5 (0.92%) Juniper