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 10 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 2 1
Rank change year-on-year +1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 2,433 982 1,628
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 36.41% 27.81% 33.18%
As % of the Qualifications category 81.15% 68.96% 74.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,705 695 1,077
10th Percentile £400 £303 £380
25th Percentile £475 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £538 £595
Median % change year-on-year +4.19% -9.66% +13.33%
75th Percentile £638 £600 £663
90th Percentile £737 £675 £738
England median daily rate £538 £538 £550
% change year-on-year - -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 258 83 108
10th Percentile £23.13 - £24.97
25th Percentile £55.00 £18.87 £54.22
Median hourly rate £76.42 £25.15 £62.15
Median % change year-on-year +203.84% -59.53% +0.24%
75th Percentile £85.50 £56.25 £80.00
90th Percentile £102.10 £86.40 £92.37
England median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £58.49
% change year-on-year +158.45% -57.00% -2.52%

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 2,998 1,424 2,200
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 44.86% 40.33% 44.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,026 924 1,373
10th Percentile £325 £250 £350
25th Percentile £461 £416 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £600 £640
90th Percentile £725 £671 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 329 118 186
10th Percentile £19.31 - £18.08
25th Percentile £38.25 £18.87 £41.06
Median hourly rate £68.22 £27.88 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +144.67% -51.39% -6.94%
75th Percentile £85.00 £67.50 £70.39
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.00 £87.46
England median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +114.71% -47.05% -13.64%

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 10 August 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 10 August 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 10 August 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 1,312 £550 +4.76% 168
Hampshire 0 923 £578 +5.00% 257
Berkshire +1 749 £565 +2.73% 103
Buckinghamshire +1 438 £551 +7.21% 52
Oxfordshire +6 125 £465 +144.74% 17
Surrey +1 109 £580 +10.48% 48
West Sussex +8 69 £473 -8.25% 11
East Sussex +8 6 £459 - 2
Kent -4 6 £411 +9.59% 11
Home Counties +1 2 £525 -39.79%
Middlesex -16 2 - -
Sussex - 1 £475 - 2
Isle of Wight - 1 - - 2
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 55 (2.26%) SharePoint
2 30 (1.23%) Confluence
3 21 (0.86%) Oracle Application Server
4 12 (0.49%) Microsoft Exchange
5 11 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (0.29%) Documentum
6 7 (0.29%) SAS
7 5 (0.21%) Apache
7 5 (0.21%) Apache Spark
7 5 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.16%) IIS
9 3 (0.12%) ArcGIS
9 3 (0.12%) CMS
9 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
9 3 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
9 3 (0.12%) SAP EP
10 2 (0.082%) nginx
10 2 (0.082%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.082%) Umbraco
10 2 (0.082%) WebLogic
Applications
1 64 (2.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 51 (2.10%) Microsoft Project
3 38 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
4 27 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.25%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.082%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.082%) Houdini
7 2 (0.082%) Lectora
7 2 (0.082%) NUKE
7 2 (0.082%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.082%) Windchill
8 1 (0.041%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.041%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.041%) InVision
8 1 (0.041%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.041%) Simulink
8 1 (0.041%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 55 (2.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (1.27%) Oracle ERP
3 20 (0.82%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.78%) Teamcenter
5 18 (0.74%) SAP PSCD
6 12 (0.49%) Siebel CRM
7 11 (0.45%) Primavera
8 8 (0.33%) iTrent
9 7 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.25%) SAP BRIM
10 6 (0.25%) SAP EWM
10 6 (0.25%) SAP Hybris
11 5 (0.21%) Remedy AR System
12 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
12 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle Financials
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
13 3 (0.12%) SAP FI
13 3 (0.12%) SAP FI-CA
13 3 (0.12%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 369 (15.17%) Azure
2 196 (8.06%) AWS
3 85 (3.49%) Entra ID
4 81 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
5 75 (3.08%) Power Platform
6 73 (3.00%) GCP
7 45 (1.85%) OpenShift
8 44 (1.81%) Microsoft 365
9 35 (1.44%) IaaS
10 34 (1.40%) OCI
11 33 (1.36%) SaaS
12 29 (1.19%) PaaS
13 21 (0.86%) Azure Monitor
14 20 (0.82%) SuccessFactors
15 18 (0.74%) GitHub
16 16 (0.66%) GitHub Actions
17 13 (0.53%) Azure Sentinel
18 12 (0.49%) AWS CloudFormation
18 12 (0.49%) Serverless
19 11 (0.45%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 139 (5.71%) Firewall
2 135 (5.55%) DNS
3 103 (4.23%) WAN
4 98 (4.03%) LAN
5 77 (3.16%) Network Security
6 75 (3.08%) DHCP
7 72 (2.96%) BGP
8 60 (2.47%) VPN
9 53 (2.18%) OSPF
10 42 (1.73%) TCP/IP
11 35 (1.44%) IPsec
12 34 (1.40%) BIG-IP
13 33 (1.36%) VXLAN
14 32 (1.32%) MPLS
15 30 (1.23%) Ethernet VPN
16 29 (1.19%) SD-WAN
17 27 (1.11%) VSAN
18 26 (1.07%) Junos
19 23 (0.95%) Wireless
20 22 (0.90%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (2.59%) SQL Server
2 61 (2.51%) Power BI
3 52 (2.14%) Data Warehouse
4 34 (1.40%) Oracle Reports
5 33 (1.36%) Oracle Database
6 28 (1.15%) PostgreSQL
7 22 (0.90%) Oracle ODI
8 15 (0.62%) Metadata
9 11 (0.45%) Relational Database
10 10 (0.41%) MySQL
10 10 (0.41%) Oracle Database 12c
11 9 (0.37%) Geospatial Data
12 8 (0.33%) Pentaho
12 8 (0.33%) Siebel EIM
13 7 (0.29%) NoSQL
13 7 (0.29%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 7 (0.29%) Tableau
14 6 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
14 6 (0.25%) Oracle Database 11g
15 5 (0.21%) Redis
Development Applications
1 78 (3.21%) JIRA
2 54 (2.22%) Git
3 51 (2.10%) GitLab
4 39 (1.60%) Rational DOORS
5 29 (1.19%) Jenkins
6 27 (1.11%) SonarQube
7 8 (0.33%) Postman
7 8 (0.33%) Visual Studio
8 7 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (0.25%) MLflow
10 5 (0.21%) JUnit
10 5 (0.21%) MSI
11 4 (0.16%) Artifactory
11 4 (0.16%) Eclipse
11 4 (0.16%) Maven
11 4 (0.16%) Subversion
12 3 (0.12%) Robot Framework
12 3 (0.12%) Zephyr
13 2 (0.082%) Balsamiq
13 2 (0.082%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 510 (20.96%) Social Skills
2 266 (10.93%) Public Sector
3 232 (9.54%) Analytical Skills
4 178 (7.32%) Aerospace
5 154 (6.33%) Finance
6 81 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (2.01%) Influencing Skills
8 43 (1.77%) Military
9 42 (1.73%) Organisational Skills
10 33 (1.36%) Telecoms
11 30 (1.23%) Legal
12 19 (0.78%) Law
13 17 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
14 16 (0.66%) Billing
14 16 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 16 (0.66%) Manufacturing
15 13 (0.53%) Aviation
16 12 (0.49%) Advertising
17 8 (0.33%) Police
18 6 (0.25%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 318 (13.07%) Architect
2 247 (10.15%) Senior
3 225 (9.25%) Lead
4 218 (8.96%) Developer
5 193 (7.93%) Analyst
6 165 (6.78%) Consultant
7 131 (5.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 82 (3.37%) Network Engineer
9 78 (3.21%) Security Architect
10 73 (3.00%) Project Manager
10 73 (3.00%) Technical Architect
11 65 (2.67%) Delivery Manager
12 62 (2.55%) Cloud Engineer
13 58 (2.38%) Product Manager
14 57 (2.34%) SAP Consultant
15 54 (2.22%) Support Engineer
16 51 (2.10%) SOC Analyst
17 49 (2.01%) Network Architect
18 44 (1.81%) Product Delivery Manager
18 44 (1.81%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (3.00%) REST
2 39 (1.60%) .NET
3 36 (1.48%) OAuth
4 34 (1.40%) RESTful
5 32 (1.32%) 802.1X
6 30 (1.23%) AngularJS
6 30 (1.23%) SAML
6 30 (1.23%) SOAP
7 27 (1.11%) LDAP
7 27 (1.11%) OpenID
8 26 (1.07%) SailPoint
9 25 (1.03%) React
10 24 (0.99%) JSON
10 24 (0.99%) Web Services
11 20 (0.82%) Quarkus
12 19 (0.78%) HTML
12 19 (0.78%) OAuth2
13 18 (0.74%) CSS
13 18 (0.74%) Kafka
14 17 (0.70%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 98 (4.03%) Data Centre
2 95 (3.90%) Onboarding
2 95 (3.90%) Product Ownership
3 88 (3.62%) PKI
4 49 (2.01%) Management Information System
5 45 (1.85%) Hybrid Cloud
6 37 (1.52%) Data Structures
7 35 (1.44%) Clustering
8 34 (1.40%) Operational Technology
9 32 (1.32%) Public Cloud
10 27 (1.11%) Cloud Native
10 27 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
11 24 (0.99%) Distributed Systems
12 21 (0.86%) Enterprise Software
13 19 (0.78%) Cyber Threat
13 19 (0.78%) PMI
13 19 (0.78%) Security Operations Centre
14 18 (0.74%) CMDB
14 18 (0.74%) Private Cloud
14 18 (0.74%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 294 (12.08%) Windows
2 210 (8.63%) Linux
3 129 (5.30%) Windows Server
4 52 (2.14%) Unix
5 31 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (0.95%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (0.53%) Ubuntu
8 12 (0.49%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.37%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.33%) CentOS
10 8 (0.33%) Embedded Linux
11 5 (0.21%) Debian
11 5 (0.21%) Oracle Linux
11 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
12 4 (0.16%) Android
13 3 (0.12%) Apple iOS
13 3 (0.12%) Solaris
14 2 (0.082%) AIX
14 2 (0.082%) HPUX
14 2 (0.082%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 476 (19.56%) Agile
2 309 (12.70%) Continuous Improvement
3 288 (11.84%) Stakeholder Management
4 276 (11.34%) ITIL
5 273 (11.22%) Problem-Solving
6 248 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 242 (9.95%) Cybersecurity
8 215 (8.84%) CI/CD
9 206 (8.47%) ITSM
10 202 (8.30%) DevOps
11 171 (7.03%) Service Management
12 165 (6.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 151 (6.21%) Roadmaps
14 136 (5.59%) Migration
14 136 (5.59%) Technical Leadership
15 131 (5.38%) Change Management
16 129 (5.30%) Service Delivery
17 124 (5.10%) Computer Science
18 120 (4.93%) Project Delivery
19 119 (4.89%) DevSecOps
Programming Languages
1 212 (8.71%) Python
2 173 (7.11%) PowerShell
3 144 (5.92%) SQL
4 86 (3.53%) Java
5 65 (2.67%) Bash
6 61 (2.51%) JavaScript
7 34 (1.40%) C#
8 26 (1.07%) C++
9 24 (0.99%) Bicep
9 24 (0.99%) PL/SQL
10 19 (0.78%) Shell Script
11 17 (0.70%) Go
12 16 (0.66%) C
13 13 (0.53%) TypeScript
14 11 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
15 9 (0.37%) ABAP
15 9 (0.37%) Korn
16 5 (0.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 5 (0.21%) T-SQL
17 4 (0.16%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,500 (61.65%) SC Cleared
2 907 (37.28%) DV Cleared
3 201 (8.26%) Degree
4 58 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
5 55 (2.26%) Cisco Certification
6 52 (2.14%) CISSP
7 50 (2.06%) PMI Certification
8 48 (1.97%) Azure Certification
9 43 (1.77%) PMP
10 29 (1.19%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 28 (1.15%) ISTQB
12 25 (1.03%) Microsoft Certification
13 23 (0.95%) CISM
14 22 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
15 19 (0.78%) AWS Certification
15 19 (0.78%) CCNP
16 18 (0.74%) TOGAF Certification
17 17 (0.70%) VCAP
18 14 (0.58%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 14 (0.58%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (4.85%) NIST
2 114 (4.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 81 (3.33%) PMO
4 63 (2.59%) NCSC
5 59 (2.42%) QA
6 43 (1.77%) GDPR
7 37 (1.52%) Data Quality
8 29 (1.19%) SLA
9 27 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 25 (1.03%) JSP 440
11 18 (0.74%) NIST 800
12 15 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
12 15 (0.62%) GRC
13 14 (0.58%) Accessibility
14 10 (0.41%) ISO 9001
15 9 (0.37%) Def Stans
15 9 (0.37%) ISO 31000
16 7 (0.29%) RMADS
17 6 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
18 4 (0.16%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 188 (7.73%) Active Directory
2 165 (6.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 79 (3.25%) VMware NSX
4 62 (2.55%) VMware ESXi
5 59 (2.42%) Docker
6 30 (1.23%) vSphere
7 23 (0.95%) vCloud
8 22 (0.90%) Hyper-V
9 17 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
10 16 (0.66%) Oracle RAC
11 15 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
12 13 (0.53%) Firmware
13 5 (0.21%) Embedded Firmware
14 4 (0.16%) KVM
14 4 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
15 2 (0.082%) Dovecot
15 2 (0.082%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 2 (0.082%) Postfix
15 2 (0.082%) UAG
Systems Management
1 111 (4.56%) Kubernetes
2 88 (3.62%) Terraform
3 77 (3.16%) vCenter Server
4 63 (2.59%) Ansible
5 51 (2.10%) SCOM
6 34 (1.40%) FortiGate
7 23 (0.95%) Argo
8 21 (0.86%) SCCM
9 19 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
9 19 (0.78%) Oracle RMAN
10 17 (0.70%) Grafana
11 16 (0.66%) Avamar
12 14 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 14 (0.58%) Prometheus
13 11 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
14 10 (0.41%) WMI
15 9 (0.37%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
16 8 (0.33%) Data Guard
16 8 (0.33%) Red Hat Satellite
17 7 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
Vendors
1 330 (13.56%) Microsoft
2 246 (10.11%) VMware
3 177 (7.27%) Oracle
4 162 (6.66%) ServiceNow
5 154 (6.33%) SAP
6 104 (4.27%) Cisco
7 74 (3.04%) Juniper
8 60 (2.47%) Red Hat
9 56 (2.30%) SolarWinds
10 53 (2.18%) F5
11 39 (1.60%) Google
12 33 (1.36%) Citrix
12 33 (1.36%) Splunk
13 30 (1.23%) IBM
13 30 (1.23%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.11%) BeyondTrust
14 27 (1.11%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.03%) Extreme Networks
16 24 (0.99%) Remedy
17 20 (0.82%) Siebel