Security Cleared Contract Job Trends in the South East

Security Clearance
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East with a requirement for Security Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 12 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 2 1
Rank change year-on-year +1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 2,400 920 1,885
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 36.84% 27.19% 33.67%
As % of the Qualifications category 81.44% 67.75% 74.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,698 640 1,159
10th Percentile £381 £299 £400
25th Percentile £463 £450 £482
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% +14.29%
75th Percentile £630 £603 £672
90th Percentile £725 £675 £738
England median daily rate £526 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.23% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 241 68 139
10th Percentile £19.34 - £22.25
25th Percentile £43.81 £18.87 £52.90
Median hourly rate £78.37 £25.15 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +211.61% -59.17% -1.52%
75th Percentile £85.50 £64.52 £84.42
90th Percentile £102.10 £84.28 £90.40
England median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £57.50
% change year-on-year +152.49% -56.26% -4.17%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
South East

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 South East.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 2,947 1,358 2,515
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 45.24% 40.14% 44.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,007 873 1,469
10th Percentile £325 £263 £350
25th Percentile £450 £410 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.38% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £650
90th Percentile £725 £663 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £537
% change year-on-year - -2.23% -2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 305 102 226
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.87 £17.80
25th Percentile £31.25 £24.66 £30.10
Median hourly rate £62.50 £46.30 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +34.99% -19.27% -4.42%
75th Percentile £85.00 £70.00 £71.04
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.00 £87.46
England median hourly rate £53.90 £28.00 £43.00
% change year-on-year +92.50% -34.88% -21.82%

Security Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Security Cleared relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Security Cleared job vacancy trend in the South East

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Security Cleared.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Cleared in the South East over the 6 months to 12 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Security Cleared in the South East

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Security Cleared.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Cleared in the South East over the 6 months to 12 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Cleared in the South East

Security Cleared
Contract Job Locations in the South East

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 South East region over the 6 months to 12 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
Thames Valley +1 1,300 £536 -0.67% 170
Hampshire 0 884 £575 +4.55% 295
Berkshire +1 754 £525 -4.55% 105
Buckinghamshire +2 424 £550 +8.64% 51
Oxfordshire +7 122 £480 +153.30% 19
Surrey +4 117 £525 - 53
West Sussex +8 69 £483 -4.31% 24
Kent -4 11 £445 +18.67% 13
East Sussex +5 7 £459 -
Sussex - 6 £475 - 11
Home Counties +1 2 £525 -18.48%
Isle of Wight - 1 - -
Middlesex - 1 - - 1
Security Cleared
England

Security Cleared
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 46 (1.92%) SharePoint
2 28 (1.17%) Confluence
3 24 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 16 (0.67%) Oracle Application Server
5 8 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (0.29%) Documentum
6 7 (0.29%) SAS
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (0.21%) IIS
9 4 (0.17%) Apache
9 4 (0.17%) ArcGIS
9 4 (0.17%) NetWeaver
9 4 (0.17%) SAP EP
10 3 (0.13%) CMS
10 3 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
11 2 (0.083%) Apache Spark
11 2 (0.083%) nginx
11 2 (0.083%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.083%) Umbraco
12 1 (0.042%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 52 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (1.83%) Microsoft Project
3 37 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
4 17 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.083%) Lectora
7 2 (0.083%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.083%) Windchill
8 1 (0.042%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.042%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.042%) CATIA
8 1 (0.042%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.042%) Houdini
8 1 (0.042%) InVision
8 1 (0.042%) NUKE
8 1 (0.042%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.042%) Simulink
8 1 (0.042%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 48 (2.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.00%) Oracle ERP
3 19 (0.79%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.67%) Remedy ITSM
4 16 (0.67%) Teamcenter
5 12 (0.50%) Siebel CRM
6 9 (0.38%) Primavera
7 8 (0.33%) iTrent
7 8 (0.33%) SAP BRIM
7 8 (0.33%) SAP Hybris
7 8 (0.33%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 4 (0.17%) SAP CRM
8 4 (0.17%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 3 (0.13%) SAP EWM
10 2 (0.083%) Oracle Assets
10 2 (0.083%) Oracle Payables
10 2 (0.083%) Remedy AR System
10 2 (0.083%) Salesforce CRM
10 2 (0.083%) SAP FI-CA
Cloud Services
1 356 (14.83%) Azure
2 201 (8.38%) AWS
3 90 (3.75%) Entra ID
4 78 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
5 77 (3.21%) GCP
6 70 (2.92%) Power Platform
7 45 (1.88%) Microsoft 365
8 38 (1.58%) OpenShift
9 31 (1.29%) IaaS
10 30 (1.25%) PaaS
11 27 (1.13%) SaaS
12 25 (1.04%) OCI
13 19 (0.79%) SuccessFactors
14 14 (0.58%) GitHub
15 12 (0.50%) AWS CloudFormation
16 11 (0.46%) Route 53
16 11 (0.46%) Serverless
17 10 (0.42%) GitHub Actions
17 10 (0.42%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 9 (0.38%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 130 (5.42%) Firewall
2 129 (5.38%) DNS
3 107 (4.46%) WAN
4 106 (4.42%) LAN
5 79 (3.29%) Network Security
6 78 (3.25%) BGP
7 73 (3.04%) DHCP
8 65 (2.71%) OSPF
9 48 (2.00%) VPN
10 36 (1.50%) TCP/IP
11 35 (1.46%) BIG-IP
12 33 (1.38%) IPsec
13 32 (1.33%) MPLS
13 32 (1.33%) VXLAN
14 31 (1.29%) SD-WAN
15 30 (1.25%) Ethernet VPN
16 26 (1.08%) Junos
17 25 (1.04%) Wireless
18 24 (1.00%) Cisco ISE
18 24 (1.00%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (2.71%) SQL Server
2 59 (2.46%) Power BI
3 38 (1.58%) Data Warehouse
4 31 (1.29%) Oracle Database
4 31 (1.29%) PostgreSQL
5 27 (1.13%) Oracle Reports
6 17 (0.71%) Oracle ODI
7 14 (0.58%) Metadata
8 11 (0.46%) MySQL
8 11 (0.46%) Relational Database
9 10 (0.42%) Oracle Database 12c
10 9 (0.38%) Geospatial Data
11 8 (0.33%) Siebel EIM
12 7 (0.29%) Redis
12 7 (0.29%) Tableau
13 6 (0.25%) NoSQL
13 6 (0.25%) Oracle Database 11g
14 5 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
14 5 (0.21%) Elasticsearch
14 5 (0.21%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 69 (2.88%) JIRA
2 55 (2.29%) Git
3 47 (1.96%) GitLab
4 38 (1.58%) Rational DOORS
5 28 (1.17%) Jenkins
6 24 (1.00%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.42%) Visual Studio
8 9 (0.38%) Postman
9 7 (0.29%) JUnit
9 7 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.25%) MLflow
11 5 (0.21%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.21%) Maven
12 4 (0.17%) Eclipse
12 4 (0.17%) Subversion
13 3 (0.13%) Robot Framework
13 3 (0.13%) Selenium
13 3 (0.13%) Zephyr
14 2 (0.083%) Burp Suite
14 2 (0.083%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 505 (21.04%) Social Skills
2 287 (11.96%) Public Sector
3 224 (9.33%) Analytical Skills
4 161 (6.71%) Aerospace
5 146 (6.08%) Finance
6 84 (3.50%) Documentation Skills
7 43 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
8 41 (1.71%) Military
9 34 (1.42%) Legal
9 34 (1.42%) Telecoms
10 27 (1.13%) Organisational Skills
11 23 (0.96%) Law
12 17 (0.71%) Billing
13 16 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
14 14 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 14 (0.58%) Manufacturing
15 12 (0.50%) Advertising
15 12 (0.50%) Aviation
16 9 (0.38%) Police
17 6 (0.25%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 310 (12.92%) Architect
2 254 (10.58%) Senior
3 217 (9.04%) Lead
4 214 (8.92%) Developer
5 198 (8.25%) Analyst
6 120 (5.00%) Consultant
7 97 (4.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 92 (3.83%) Network Engineer
9 80 (3.33%) Project Manager
10 79 (3.29%) Security Architect
11 77 (3.21%) Technical Architect
12 62 (2.58%) Delivery Manager
13 54 (2.25%) Product Manager
13 54 (2.25%) SOC Analyst
14 51 (2.13%) Cloud Engineer
15 50 (2.08%) Network Architect
15 50 (2.08%) Support Engineer
16 48 (2.00%) Senior Manager
17 44 (1.83%) Software Engineer
18 43 (1.79%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (3.00%) REST
2 40 (1.67%) .NET
2 40 (1.67%) LDAP
3 34 (1.42%) RESTful
4 33 (1.38%) OAuth
5 31 (1.29%) React
6 30 (1.25%) 802.1X
7 29 (1.21%) SOAP
8 28 (1.17%) JSON
9 27 (1.13%) AngularJS
10 25 (1.04%) SAML
11 24 (1.00%) OpenID
12 23 (0.96%) SailPoint
13 21 (0.88%) CSS
14 20 (0.83%) HTML
15 18 (0.75%) OAuth2
16 17 (0.71%) Kafka
16 17 (0.71%) Web Services
17 16 (0.67%) Quarkus
17 16 (0.67%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 108 (4.50%) Data Centre
2 96 (4.00%) Product Ownership
3 84 (3.50%) PKI
4 83 (3.46%) Onboarding
5 43 (1.79%) Management Information System
6 37 (1.54%) Data Structures
7 33 (1.38%) Clustering
8 32 (1.33%) Operational Technology
9 30 (1.25%) Distributed Systems
10 29 (1.21%) Public Cloud
11 28 (1.17%) Replication
12 26 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
13 25 (1.04%) Cloud Native
13 25 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
13 25 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
14 23 (0.96%) Security Operations Centre
15 20 (0.83%) Cyber Threat
16 19 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
17 18 (0.75%) CMDB
17 18 (0.75%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 271 (11.29%) Windows
2 211 (8.79%) Linux
3 100 (4.17%) Windows Server
4 55 (2.29%) Unix
5 33 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (0.75%) Windows Server 2019
7 9 (0.38%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.38%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Linux
9 7 (0.29%) Android
10 6 (0.25%) Mac OS
11 5 (0.21%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.21%) CentOS
11 5 (0.21%) Debian
11 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.083%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.083%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.042%) Solaris
13 1 (0.042%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.042%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 455 (18.96%) Agile
2 281 (11.71%) Continuous Improvement
3 277 (11.54%) Stakeholder Management
4 271 (11.29%) Problem-Solving
5 260 (10.83%) ITIL
6 245 (10.21%) Cybersecurity
7 219 (9.13%) CI/CD
7 219 (9.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 199 (8.29%) DevOps
9 182 (7.58%) ITSM
10 147 (6.13%) Roadmaps
11 142 (5.92%) Service Management
12 141 (5.88%) Migration
13 127 (5.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 121 (5.04%) Decision-Making
15 117 (4.88%) Service Delivery
16 114 (4.75%) Change Management
17 112 (4.67%) Project Delivery
17 112 (4.67%) Scrum
18 111 (4.63%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 216 (9.00%) Python
2 158 (6.58%) PowerShell
3 134 (5.58%) SQL
4 92 (3.83%) Java
5 66 (2.75%) JavaScript
6 55 (2.29%) Bash
7 40 (1.67%) C#
8 29 (1.21%) C++
9 22 (0.92%) Go
10 21 (0.88%) PL/SQL
11 19 (0.79%) C
12 18 (0.75%) Shell Script
12 18 (0.75%) TypeScript
13 17 (0.71%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.42%) Bicep
15 9 (0.38%) ABAP
15 9 (0.38%) Korn
16 6 (0.25%) Rust
16 6 (0.25%) T-SQL
17 5 (0.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,524 (63.50%) SC Cleared
2 829 (34.54%) DV Cleared
3 183 (7.63%) Degree
4 66 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
5 63 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
6 52 (2.17%) CISSP
7 43 (1.79%) PMI Certification
8 40 (1.67%) Azure Certification
9 38 (1.58%) PMP
10 33 (1.38%) CCNP
11 26 (1.08%) ISTQB
12 23 (0.96%) CISM
13 22 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
13 22 (0.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 18 (0.75%) Computer Science Degree
15 17 (0.71%) AWS Certification
16 16 (0.67%) TOGAF Certification
17 14 (0.58%) RHCE
18 13 (0.54%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 12 (0.50%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 127 (5.29%) NIST
2 114 (4.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 67 (2.79%) NCSC
4 65 (2.71%) PMO
5 60 (2.50%) QA
6 46 (1.92%) GDPR
7 32 (1.33%) Data Quality
8 28 (1.17%) SLA
9 21 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 20 (0.83%) NIST 800
11 19 (0.79%) Accessibility
12 18 (0.75%) JSP 440
13 17 (0.71%) GRC
14 14 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
15 9 (0.38%) ISO 31000
15 9 (0.38%) ISO 9001
16 7 (0.29%) RMADS
17 6 (0.25%) Def Stans
17 6 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
18 3 (0.13%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 184 (7.67%) Active Directory
2 144 (6.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 69 (2.88%) VMware NSX
4 54 (2.25%) Docker
5 49 (2.04%) VMware ESXi
6 28 (1.17%) vSphere
7 20 (0.83%) vCloud
8 17 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
9 16 (0.67%) Hyper-V
10 14 (0.58%) Oracle RAC
11 13 (0.54%) Firmware
12 12 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
14 3 (0.13%) UAG
15 2 (0.083%) Dovecot
15 2 (0.083%) KVM
15 2 (0.083%) Postfix
15 2 (0.083%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 101 (4.21%) Kubernetes
2 70 (2.92%) Terraform
3 62 (2.58%) vCenter Server
4 53 (2.21%) Ansible
5 39 (1.63%) SCOM
6 33 (1.38%) FortiGate
7 25 (1.04%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 23 (0.96%) Argo
9 22 (0.92%) Grafana
10 20 (0.83%) Prometheus
11 17 (0.71%) Oracle RMAN
12 15 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
12 15 (0.63%) SCCM
13 14 (0.58%) Avamar
14 11 (0.46%) Red Hat Satellite
14 11 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
15 9 (0.38%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
16 6 (0.25%) Data Guard
16 6 (0.25%) Kibana
17 5 (0.21%) Forefront Identity Manager
Vendors
1 282 (11.75%) Microsoft
2 230 (9.58%) VMware
3 148 (6.17%) Oracle
4 145 (6.04%) ServiceNow
5 133 (5.54%) SAP
6 118 (4.92%) Cisco
7 74 (3.08%) Juniper
8 58 (2.42%) Red Hat
9 52 (2.17%) F5
9 52 (2.17%) SolarWinds
10 37 (1.54%) Splunk
11 34 (1.42%) BeyondTrust
11 34 (1.42%) Citrix
12 33 (1.38%) CyberArk
13 31 (1.29%) Google
13 31 (1.29%) Palo Alto
14 30 (1.25%) IBM
15 25 (1.04%) Extreme Networks
16 22 (0.92%) Fortinet
17 20 (0.83%) Siebel