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 9 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 2 2
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 531 422 454
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 16.68% 21.79% 16.35%
As % of the Qualifications category 57.53% 59.44% 53.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 353 246 293
10th Percentile £355 £240 £365
25th Percentile £418 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.95% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £585 £666
90th Percentile £739 £650 £725
England median daily rate £525 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 19 66
10th Percentile £22.68 £25.26 -
25th Percentile £28.50 £34.27 £10.95
Median hourly rate £60.61 £60.00 £19.35
Median % change year-on-year +1.02% +210.16% -42.68%
75th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.87 £85.82 £62.63
England median hourly rate £52.50 £59.00 £51.00
% change year-on-year -11.02% +15.69% -15.00%

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 923 710 841
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 29.00% 36.65% 30.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 614 412 487
10th Percentile £313 £230 £261
25th Percentile £393 £390 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £490 £512
Median % change year-on-year -2.55% -4.34% +0.19%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £650
90th Percentile £680 £650 £725
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 44 126
10th Percentile £22.68 £20.75 £10.95
25th Percentile £30.12 £25.26 £11.77
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% +102.37% -57.17%
75th Percentile £71.50 £60.00 £43.53
90th Percentile £76.08 £82.56 £50.00
England median hourly rate £41.94 £50.75 £38.95
% change year-on-year -17.36% +30.30% -24.37%

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 9 April 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 9 April 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 9 April 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 -7 164 £488 -2.48% 107
Lancashire +2 131 £595 +36.70% 48
Cumbria 0 120 £496 -8.11% 14
Cheshire -4 79 £450 +28.57% 17
Merseyside -15 29 £625 +13.64% 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 27 (5.08%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (1.69%) Skype for Business
3 8 (1.51%) Confluence
4 7 (1.32%) SharePoint
5 6 (1.13%) Apache Spark
6 5 (0.94%) Apache
7 4 (0.75%) Jupyter
8 3 (0.56%) MTS
9 2 (0.38%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
9 2 (0.38%) CICS
9 2 (0.38%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.19%) CMS
10 1 (0.19%) nginx
10 1 (0.19%) SAS
Applications
1 20 (3.77%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.88%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.38%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.38%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.19%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 10 (1.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.94%) SAP VC
3 3 (0.56%) SAP MM
3 3 (0.56%) SAP QM
4 2 (0.38%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.38%) Primavera
4 2 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.38%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 77 (14.50%) AWS
2 52 (9.79%) Azure
3 24 (4.52%) Microsoft 365
4 17 (3.20%) GCP
5 13 (2.45%) Entra ID
5 13 (2.45%) Power Platform
6 12 (2.26%) Serverless
7 11 (2.07%) GitHub
8 9 (1.69%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (1.51%) Amazon EKS
10 7 (1.32%) Amazon S3
11 5 (0.94%) Azure Monitor
12 4 (0.75%) Amazon EC2
12 4 (0.75%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (0.75%) AWS Lambda
12 4 (0.75%) GitHub Actions
12 4 (0.75%) OneDrive
12 4 (0.75%) OpenShift
12 4 (0.75%) SaaS
13 3 (0.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 71 (13.37%) Firewall
2 42 (7.91%) VLAN
3 30 (5.65%) WAN
4 27 (5.08%) Wi-Fi
5 24 (4.52%) DNS
5 24 (4.52%) Network Security
6 18 (3.39%) LAN
7 16 (3.01%) DHCP
7 16 (3.01%) VPN
8 15 (2.82%) SAN
9 14 (2.64%) Wireless
10 13 (2.45%) BGP
11 12 (2.26%) TCP/IP
12 10 (1.88%) Cisco ISE
12 10 (1.88%) NetScaler
12 10 (1.88%) WebEx
13 9 (1.69%) Skype
14 8 (1.51%) Software-Defined Networking
15 7 (1.32%) Cisco IOS
15 7 (1.32%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (3.77%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (2.45%) Power BI
3 11 (2.07%) MySQL
3 11 (2.07%) SQL Server
4 10 (1.88%) MongoDB
4 10 (1.88%) NoSQL
5 9 (1.69%) Elasticsearch
5 9 (1.69%) Oracle Database
5 9 (1.69%) Relational Database
6 7 (1.32%) Metadata
7 6 (1.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 5 (0.94%) Oracle Database 12c
9 4 (0.75%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.75%) Hadoop
9 4 (0.75%) Tableau
10 3 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.56%) Data Lake
10 3 (0.56%) RDBMS
11 2 (0.38%) DynamoDB
11 2 (0.38%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 24 (4.52%) GitLab
2 18 (3.39%) Git
3 13 (2.45%) JIRA
4 7 (1.32%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.75%) MSI
5 4 (0.75%) Postman
5 4 (0.75%) Selenium
6 3 (0.56%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.38%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.38%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.38%) Gatling
7 2 (0.38%) Jasmine
7 2 (0.38%) JMeter
7 2 (0.38%) Mockito
7 2 (0.38%) Serenity BDD
7 2 (0.38%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.19%) ClearCase
8 1 (0.19%) InstallShield
8 1 (0.19%) Mocha
8 1 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
General
1 152 (28.63%) Public Sector
2 122 (22.98%) Social Skills
3 35 (6.59%) Analytical Skills
3 35 (6.59%) Finance
4 22 (4.14%) Documentation Skills
5 21 (3.95%) Military
6 18 (3.39%) Legal
7 12 (2.26%) Aerospace
7 12 (2.26%) Banking
8 9 (1.69%) Manufacturing
9 7 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (0.75%) Aviation
11 4 (0.75%) Electronics
11 4 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (0.75%) Marketing
11 4 (0.75%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.38%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.38%) Retail
Job Titles
1 75 (14.12%) Architect
2 55 (10.36%) Developer
3 48 (9.04%) Lead
4 45 (8.47%) Network Engineer
5 34 (6.40%) Senior
6 29 (5.46%) Analyst
7 26 (4.90%) Administrator
8 24 (4.52%) Platform Engineer
9 22 (4.14%) Technical Architect
10 21 (3.95%) Consultant
11 20 (3.77%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 19 (3.58%) DBA
13 16 (3.01%) Lead Architect
14 15 (2.82%) Coordinator
14 15 (2.82%) Data Engineer
15 13 (2.45%) DevOps Engineer
15 13 (2.45%) Engagement Manager
15 13 (2.45%) Java Developer
15 13 (2.45%) Software Engineer
15 13 (2.45%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (5.08%) Spring
2 23 (4.33%) Spring Boot
3 16 (3.01%) 802.1X
4 13 (2.45%) Kafka
4 13 (2.45%) RESTful
5 12 (2.26%) Node.js
6 9 (1.69%) XMPP
7 7 (1.32%) HTML
7 7 (1.32%) JSON
7 7 (1.32%) Playwright
7 7 (1.32%) REST
8 6 (1.13%) Apache NiFi
8 6 (1.13%) CSS
8 6 (1.13%) Hibernate
8 6 (1.13%) OAuth
8 6 (1.13%) React
8 6 (1.13%) XML
9 5 (0.94%) Middleware
9 5 (0.94%) OAuth2
9 5 (0.94%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 48 (9.04%) Data Centre
2 38 (7.16%) Product Ownership
3 17 (3.20%) Onboarding
4 16 (3.01%) Replication
5 14 (2.64%) Clustering
6 11 (2.07%) Cyber Threat
7 10 (1.88%) Operational Technology
8 8 (1.51%) Cloud Native
9 6 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.13%) Private Cloud
10 5 (0.94%) Distributed Systems
10 5 (0.94%) Driving Licence
10 5 (0.94%) Fat Client
10 5 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (0.94%) Mobile App
10 5 (0.94%) Security Posture
10 5 (0.94%) Thin Client
11 4 (0.75%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.75%) Management Information System
12 3 (0.56%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 61 (11.49%) Windows
2 40 (7.53%) Linux
3 23 (4.33%) Windows Server
4 22 (4.14%) Windows 10
5 16 (3.01%) Unix
6 14 (2.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.07%) Solaris
8 9 (1.69%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.94%) Android
10 3 (0.56%) AIX
10 3 (0.56%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.56%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.38%) Mac OS X
11 2 (0.38%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (13.94%) Agile
2 66 (12.43%) Problem-Solving
3 53 (9.98%) CI/CD
3 53 (9.98%) DevOps
4 52 (9.79%) ITSM
5 49 (9.23%) Continuous Improvement
5 49 (9.23%) Service Management
5 49 (9.23%) Stakeholder Management
6 47 (8.85%) Cybersecurity
7 44 (8.29%) Migration
7 44 (8.29%) Project Delivery
8 43 (8.10%) High Availability
9 38 (7.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 34 (6.40%) Containerisation
10 34 (6.40%) Platform Engineering
11 33 (6.21%) Risk Management
12 32 (6.03%) Technical Leadership
13 31 (5.84%) Disaster Recovery
14 30 (5.65%) Test Automation
15 29 (5.46%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 58 (10.92%) Python
2 54 (10.17%) PowerShell
3 47 (8.85%) Java
4 25 (4.71%) SQL
5 19 (3.58%) Bash
6 18 (3.39%) JavaScript
7 13 (2.45%) Perl
8 12 (2.26%) TypeScript
9 9 (1.69%) VB
9 9 (1.69%) VBScript
10 5 (0.94%) Go
10 5 (0.94%) Rust
11 4 (0.75%) Ruby
12 3 (0.56%) C#
13 2 (0.38%) AWK
13 2 (0.38%) COBOL
13 2 (0.38%) Kotlin
13 2 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
14 1 (0.19%) ABAP
14 1 (0.19%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 350 (65.91%) SC Cleared
2 75 (14.12%) DV Cleared
3 53 (9.98%) BPSS Clearance
4 38 (7.16%) Cisco Certification
5 35 (6.59%) CCNP
5 35 (6.59%) Degree
6 32 (6.03%) CCNA
7 14 (2.64%) CISSP
7 14 (2.64%) Microsoft Certification
8 11 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (1.51%) AWS Certification
9 8 (1.51%) Azure Certification
9 8 (1.51%) CCDP
9 8 (1.51%) CISM
9 8 (1.51%) ITIL Certification
9 8 (1.51%) MCSA
9 8 (1.51%) MCSE
9 8 (1.51%) VCAP
9 8 (1.51%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 6 (1.13%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (4.90%) NIST
2 16 (3.01%) QA
3 15 (2.82%) Accessibility
4 14 (2.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 12 (2.26%) JSP 440
5 12 (2.26%) SLA
6 7 (1.32%) Data Quality
6 7 (1.32%) NCSC
7 6 (1.13%) GDPR
8 4 (0.75%) GRC
8 4 (0.75%) WCAG
9 3 (0.56%) IFRS
9 3 (0.56%) PMO
10 2 (0.38%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.38%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.38%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.38%) PSD2
11 1 (0.19%) Basel III
11 1 (0.19%) RMADS
11 1 (0.19%) SOC 2
System Software
1 33 (6.21%) Docker
2 28 (5.27%) Active Directory
3 20 (3.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (2.07%) vSphere
5 10 (1.88%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (1.88%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (1.69%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.75%) Firmware
8 2 (0.38%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.19%) GPFS
9 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.19%) NFS
9 1 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 36 (6.78%) Kubernetes
2 30 (5.65%) Terraform
3 16 (3.01%) SCCM
4 14 (2.64%) Ansible
5 9 (1.69%) vCenter Server
6 8 (1.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 8 (1.51%) Grafana
7 6 (1.13%) Oracle RMAN
7 6 (1.13%) Prometheus
8 5 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.56%) FortiGate
9 3 (0.56%) Norton AntiVirus
10 2 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.19%) Cisco CUCM
11 1 (0.19%) Cisco Prime
11 1 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
11 1 (0.19%) Nagios
11 1 (0.19%) vRealize
11 1 (0.19%) VxRail
Vendors
1 73 (13.75%) Cisco
2 71 (13.37%) Microsoft
3 37 (6.97%) Palo Alto
4 35 (6.59%) SAP
5 34 (6.40%) Oracle
6 31 (5.84%) ServiceNow
7 25 (4.71%) VMware
8 14 (2.64%) Citrix
8 14 (2.64%) Meraki
9 11 (2.07%) Red Hat
10 8 (1.51%) Aruba
11 6 (1.13%) CheckPoint
11 6 (1.13%) Dell
11 6 (1.13%) Ekahau
11 6 (1.13%) IBM
11 6 (1.13%) Splunk
12 5 (0.94%) Juniper
12 5 (0.94%) SolarWinds
13 4 (0.75%) NetApp
13 4 (0.75%) Veritas