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 24 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 2 1
Rank change year-on-year +1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 2,228 773 1,822
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 37.26% 26.36% 33.10%
As % of the Qualifications category 82.37% 65.56% 74.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,562 549 1,117
10th Percentile £370 £309 £393
25th Percentile £461 £450 £473
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £592
Median % change year-on-year - -7.06% +12.71%
75th Percentile £630 £615 £675
90th Percentile £725 £688 £738
England median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 223 49 120
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.50 £22.26
25th Percentile £29.72 £25.15 £52.80
Median hourly rate £70.00 £57.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +21.74% -6.66% -3.75%
75th Percentile £85.13 £71.25 £80.00
90th Percentile £89.67 £81.25 £87.46
England median hourly rate £55.00 £39.04 £55.80
% change year-on-year +40.88% -30.04% -7.00%

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 2,705 1,179 2,438
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 45.24% 40.20% 44.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,839 756 1,418
10th Percentile £318 £263 £334
25th Percentile £438 £414 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £608 £650
90th Percentile £725 £675 £738
England median daily rate £525 £525 £537
% change year-on-year - -2.23% -2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 274 80 209
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £17.58
25th Percentile £24.63 £26.62 £26.25
Median hourly rate £54.50 £55.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -0.91% -4.10% -4.42%
75th Percentile £84.00 £70.31 £67.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £77.31 £85.65
England median hourly rate £47.54 £35.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +35.83% -12.50% -25.93%

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 24 May 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 24 May 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 24 May 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 +2 1,170 £525 -4.55% 139
Hampshire 0 852 £575 +4.55% 195
Berkshire +1 669 £492 -14.43% 83
Buckinghamshire +1 392 £550 +1.38% 43
Oxfordshire +8 109 £445 +78.36% 24
Surrey +2 93 £525 -1.04% 40
West Sussex +6 61 £483 -10.06% 13
Kent +2 25 £443 +18.00% 12
East Sussex +5 7 £459 -16.55% 4
Sussex - 6 £475 - 3
Home Counties - 2 £525 -
Isle of Wight - 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 48 (2.15%) SharePoint
2 34 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 26 (1.17%) Confluence
4 13 (0.58%) Oracle Application Server
5 7 (0.31%) IIS
5 7 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
6 5 (0.22%) ArcGIS
6 5 (0.22%) NetWeaver
6 5 (0.22%) SAP EP
7 4 (0.18%) Apache
8 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
9 2 (0.090%) Apache Airflow
9 2 (0.090%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.090%) CMS
9 2 (0.090%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.090%) SAS
9 2 (0.090%) Umbraco
10 1 (0.045%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.045%) Smallworld
10 1 (0.045%) Tomcat
Applications
1 57 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 52 (2.33%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (1.57%) Microsoft Project
4 28 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.090%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.090%) Lectora
7 2 (0.090%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.045%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.045%) CATIA
8 1 (0.045%) InVision
8 1 (0.045%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.045%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.045%) Sketch
8 1 (0.045%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 37 (1.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (0.99%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 12 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 9 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.36%) iTrent
5 8 (0.36%) Teamcenter
6 7 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 6 (0.27%) SAP BRIM
7 6 (0.27%) SAP Hybris
8 5 (0.22%) SAP CRM
8 5 (0.22%) Siebel CRM
9 4 (0.18%) Primavera
9 4 (0.18%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP EWM
10 3 (0.13%) SAP HCM
11 2 (0.090%) Payment Gateway
11 2 (0.090%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 335 (15.04%) Azure
2 193 (8.66%) AWS
3 87 (3.90%) Entra ID
4 73 (3.28%) Azure DevOps
4 73 (3.28%) GCP
5 59 (2.65%) Power Platform
6 52 (2.33%) Microsoft 365
7 39 (1.75%) PaaS
8 36 (1.62%) IaaS
8 36 (1.62%) OpenShift
9 23 (1.03%) GitHub
10 20 (0.90%) SuccessFactors
11 19 (0.85%) SaaS
12 18 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
13 16 (0.72%) OCI
14 14 (0.63%) Serverless
15 11 (0.49%) Azure Monitor
16 10 (0.45%) Datadog
17 8 (0.36%) Amazon EKS
17 8 (0.36%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 160 (7.18%) Firewall
2 115 (5.16%) LAN
2 115 (5.16%) WAN
3 102 (4.58%) DNS
4 86 (3.86%) BGP
5 79 (3.55%) OSPF
6 68 (3.05%) DHCP
7 65 (2.92%) Network Security
8 47 (2.11%) VPN
9 38 (1.71%) TCP/IP
10 36 (1.62%) Wireless
11 32 (1.44%) IPsec
12 31 (1.39%) Ethernet VPN
12 31 (1.39%) VXLAN
13 29 (1.30%) BIG-IP
14 27 (1.21%) VLAN
15 26 (1.17%) Junos
16 25 (1.12%) Cisco ISE
17 24 (1.08%) MPLS
17 24 (1.08%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (2.92%) SQL Server
2 51 (2.29%) Power BI
3 34 (1.53%) Data Warehouse
4 29 (1.30%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (1.12%) Oracle Database
5 25 (1.12%) Oracle Reports
6 14 (0.63%) Oracle ODI
7 13 (0.58%) Metadata
7 13 (0.58%) Relational Database
8 11 (0.49%) Redis
9 9 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
9 9 (0.40%) Oracle Database 12c
10 7 (0.31%) NoSQL
11 6 (0.27%) MySQL
11 6 (0.27%) Tableau
12 5 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
12 5 (0.22%) Metadata Repository
12 5 (0.22%) MongoDB
12 5 (0.22%) Siebel EIM
13 4 (0.18%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 60 (2.69%) JIRA
2 49 (2.20%) Git
3 47 (2.11%) GitLab
4 37 (1.66%) Rational DOORS
5 33 (1.48%) Jenkins
6 16 (0.72%) Burp Suite
6 16 (0.72%) Metasploit
6 16 (0.72%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.45%) Postman
7 10 (0.45%) Visual Studio
8 9 (0.40%) Sonatype Nexus
9 7 (0.31%) Robot Framework
9 7 (0.31%) Subversion
10 5 (0.22%) Bitbucket
10 5 (0.22%) JUnit
10 5 (0.22%) Maven
11 4 (0.18%) Eclipse
11 4 (0.18%) Selenium
12 3 (0.13%) HP UFT
12 3 (0.13%) MSI
General
1 458 (20.56%) Social Skills
2 265 (11.89%) Public Sector
3 182 (8.17%) Analytical Skills
4 131 (5.88%) Finance
5 120 (5.39%) Aerospace
6 77 (3.46%) Documentation Skills
7 51 (2.29%) Military
8 30 (1.35%) Legal
9 27 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
9 27 (1.21%) Telecoms
10 25 (1.12%) Law
11 22 (0.99%) Manufacturing
12 18 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
13 15 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
14 13 (0.58%) Billing
15 12 (0.54%) Advertising
16 11 (0.49%) Aviation
17 9 (0.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 8 (0.36%) Marketing
18 8 (0.36%) Police
Job Titles
1 305 (13.69%) Architect
2 236 (10.59%) Senior
3 181 (8.12%) Analyst
4 175 (7.85%) Lead
5 171 (7.68%) Developer
6 125 (5.61%) Network Engineer
7 102 (4.58%) Consultant
8 88 (3.95%) Project Manager
9 74 (3.32%) Technical Architect
10 70 (3.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 59 (2.65%) Delivery Manager
12 57 (2.56%) DevOps Engineer
13 55 (2.47%) Security Architect
14 54 (2.42%) SOC Analyst
14 54 (2.42%) Tester
15 49 (2.20%) Product Manager
16 44 (1.97%) Senior Manager
17 43 (1.93%) Cloud Engineer
17 43 (1.93%) Software Engineer
18 41 (1.84%) Enterprise Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (2.42%) REST
2 40 (1.80%) .NET
3 35 (1.57%) LDAP
4 34 (1.53%) React
5 29 (1.30%) RESTful
6 28 (1.26%) 802.1X
6 28 (1.26%) JSON
7 25 (1.12%) SailPoint
8 24 (1.08%) AngularJS
9 23 (1.03%) OAuth
10 21 (0.94%) Oracle Fusion
10 21 (0.94%) SOAP
10 21 (0.94%) XML
11 16 (0.72%) SAML
12 15 (0.67%) Kafka
12 15 (0.67%) OpenID
13 14 (0.63%) CSS
13 14 (0.63%) OAuth2
13 14 (0.63%) Web Services
14 12 (0.54%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 108 (4.85%) Data Centre
2 83 (3.73%) PKI
3 82 (3.68%) Product Ownership
4 62 (2.78%) Onboarding
5 35 (1.57%) Data Structures
6 33 (1.48%) Management Information System
7 31 (1.39%) Clustering
7 31 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
8 29 (1.30%) Replication
9 28 (1.26%) Operational Technology
10 27 (1.21%) Security Operations Centre
11 26 (1.17%) Distributed Systems
12 24 (1.08%) Public Cloud
13 23 (1.03%) Cyber Threat
13 23 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
14 20 (0.90%) Security Posture
15 19 (0.85%) Cloud Native
16 18 (0.81%) Analytical Mindset
16 18 (0.81%) Virtual Team
17 17 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 277 (12.43%) Windows
2 206 (9.25%) Linux
3 92 (4.13%) Windows Server
4 38 (1.71%) Unix
5 31 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.63%) Android
7 13 (0.58%) Ubuntu
8 11 (0.49%) Windows 10
9 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.36%) Embedded Linux
11 7 (0.31%) Debian
11 7 (0.31%) Mac OS
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.22%) CentOS
13 4 (0.18%) Apple iOS
14 3 (0.13%) Windows 7
15 2 (0.090%) Windows Server 2012
16 1 (0.045%) OpenVMS
16 1 (0.045%) VMS
16 1 (0.045%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 432 (19.39%) Agile
2 230 (10.32%) Problem-Solving
3 221 (9.92%) DevOps
4 214 (9.61%) CI/CD
5 209 (9.38%) Cybersecurity
6 205 (9.20%) ITIL
7 202 (9.07%) Stakeholder Management
8 199 (8.93%) Continuous Improvement
9 159 (7.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 145 (6.51%) Migration
11 128 (5.75%) ITSM
12 124 (5.57%) Roadmaps
13 112 (5.03%) Service Management
14 110 (4.94%) SIEM
15 107 (4.80%) Project Management
16 104 (4.67%) Software Engineering
17 102 (4.58%) Infrastructure Engineering
18 93 (4.17%) Computer Science
19 88 (3.95%) Scrum
20 87 (3.90%) Change Control
Programming Languages
1 192 (8.62%) Python
2 163 (7.32%) PowerShell
3 106 (4.76%) SQL
4 70 (3.14%) Java
5 54 (2.42%) JavaScript
6 46 (2.06%) C#
7 42 (1.89%) Bash
8 28 (1.26%) C++
9 22 (0.99%) Go
10 17 (0.76%) C
10 17 (0.76%) Kusto Query Language
11 16 (0.72%) TypeScript
12 15 (0.67%) Shell Script
13 13 (0.58%) PL/SQL
14 11 (0.49%) Bicep
15 9 (0.40%) Korn
16 7 (0.31%) ABAP
16 7 (0.31%) T-SQL
17 4 (0.18%) Embedded C++
17 4 (0.18%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,401 (62.88%) SC Cleared
2 763 (34.25%) DV Cleared
3 172 (7.72%) Degree
4 76 (3.41%) Cisco Certification
5 54 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (2.29%) CCNP
7 45 (2.02%) CISSP
8 28 (1.26%) PMP
9 26 (1.17%) CISM
10 25 (1.12%) PMI Certification
11 20 (0.90%) Azure Certification
11 20 (0.90%) ISTQB
12 19 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
13 18 (0.81%) CCNA
13 18 (0.81%) GIAC
14 15 (0.67%) CHECK Team Member
15 14 (0.63%) JNCIS
16 13 (0.58%) CREST Certified
16 13 (0.58%) Cyber Scheme
17 12 (0.54%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (4.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 110 (4.94%) NIST
2 62 (2.78%) QA
3 61 (2.74%) NCSC
4 54 (2.42%) PMO
5 51 (2.29%) GDPR
6 29 (1.30%) Data Quality
7 21 (0.94%) SLA
8 19 (0.85%) Accessibility
9 16 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.72%) PCI DSS
10 15 (0.67%) JSP 440
10 15 (0.67%) NIST 800
11 12 (0.54%) GRC
11 12 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 8 (0.36%) ISO 31000
13 6 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
14 5 (0.22%) RMADS
15 4 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
16 3 (0.13%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 173 (7.76%) Active Directory
2 117 (5.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 50 (2.24%) VMware NSX
4 43 (1.93%) Docker
5 36 (1.62%) VMware ESXi
6 26 (1.17%) vSphere
7 20 (0.90%) vCloud
8 14 (0.63%) Firmware
9 12 (0.54%) Oracle RAC
9 12 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
10 11 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
11 10 (0.45%) Hyper-V
12 4 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
13 3 (0.13%) UAG
14 2 (0.090%) NFS
15 1 (0.045%) Dovecot
15 1 (0.045%) Postfix
15 1 (0.045%) Sendmail
15 1 (0.045%) Terminal Services
15 1 (0.045%) Xen
Systems Management
1 96 (4.31%) Kubernetes
2 72 (3.23%) Terraform
3 59 (2.65%) Ansible
4 54 (2.42%) vCenter Server
5 33 (1.48%) Grafana
6 31 (1.39%) FortiGate
6 31 (1.39%) Prometheus
7 25 (1.12%) SCOM
8 24 (1.08%) Argo
9 23 (1.03%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 18 (0.81%) Nmap
11 15 (0.67%) Oracle RMAN
12 14 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
13 13 (0.58%) SCCM
13 13 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
14 10 (0.45%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 10 (0.45%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 10 (0.45%) WMI
15 9 (0.40%) Nagios
15 9 (0.40%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 230 (10.32%) Microsoft
2 217 (9.74%) VMware
3 138 (6.19%) Cisco
4 118 (5.30%) SAP
5 110 (4.94%) Oracle
6 93 (4.17%) ServiceNow
7 80 (3.59%) Juniper
8 66 (2.96%) Red Hat
9 61 (2.74%) Splunk
10 53 (2.38%) F5
11 42 (1.89%) SolarWinds
12 37 (1.66%) Palo Alto
13 30 (1.35%) BeyondTrust
13 30 (1.35%) IBM
14 29 (1.30%) CyberArk
15 27 (1.21%) Aruba
16 26 (1.17%) CheckPoint
16 26 (1.17%) Citrix
17 25 (1.12%) Extreme Networks
18 22 (0.99%) Sparx