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

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 2 1
Rank change year-on-year +1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 2,099 773 1,900
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 37.99% 26.18% 33.67%
As % of the Qualifications category 81.70% 65.68% 75.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,430 556 1,097
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £450 £462 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% +4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £631 £660
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
England median daily rate £525 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 214 53 118
10th Percentile £17.33 £20.93 £22.56
25th Percentile £23.15 £31.25 £52.04
Median hourly rate £65.00 £60.50 £61.65
Median % change year-on-year +7.44% -1.86% +2.74%
75th Percentile £85.36 £65.62 £76.21
90th Percentile £90.09 £79.67 £86.05
England median hourly rate £48.05 £58.58 £53.03
% change year-on-year -17.98% +10.47% -11.62%

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 2,569 1,177 2,525
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 46.50% 39.86% 44.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,710 764 1,430
10th Percentile £306 £304 £263
25th Percentile £425 £437 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £688 £719
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 85 200
10th Percentile £15.62 £19.09 £17.80
25th Percentile £20.50 £28.00 £26.39
Median hourly rate £52.25 £56.75 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -7.92% -1.05% +9.24%
75th Percentile £84.00 £70.00 £66.81
90th Percentile £89.46 £76.51 £84.40
England median hourly rate £37.00 £50.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -26.00% +33.33% -25.00%

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 2 April 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 2 April 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 2 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
Thames Valley +1 1,091 £500 -9.09% 170
Hampshire 0 820 £600 +5.96% 149
Berkshire +1 696 £460 -20.00% 96
Buckinghamshire +1 313 £560 +11.89% 57
Surrey +9 88 £525 -12.50% 44
Oxfordshire +12 82 £445 -24.26% 20
West Sussex +2 49 £550 -4.10% 13
Kent +4 26 £443 +4.12% 17
Sussex 0 7 £475 +9.83% 4
East Sussex 0 3 £588 +6.82% 3
Isle of Wight - 2 £81 -
Middlesex - 1 - -
Home Counties - 1 £500 -
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 44 (2.10%) SharePoint
2 36 (1.72%) Microsoft Exchange
3 17 (0.81%) Confluence
4 5 (0.24%) Apache
4 5 (0.24%) ArcGIS
4 5 (0.24%) IIS
4 5 (0.24%) NetWeaver
4 5 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
4 5 (0.24%) SAP EP
5 4 (0.19%) Oracle Application Server
6 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
7 2 (0.095%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.048%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.048%) Apache Pulsar
8 1 (0.048%) BizTalk Server
8 1 (0.048%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.048%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.048%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.048%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.048%) WebLogic
Applications
1 65 (3.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 60 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
3 40 (1.91%) Microsoft Project
4 30 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.57%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.095%) CPLEX
6 2 (0.095%) Lectora
6 2 (0.095%) Oracle Smart View
6 2 (0.095%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.048%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.048%) CATIA
7 1 (0.048%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.048%) PTC Creo
7 1 (0.048%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 33 (1.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.43%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 9 (0.43%) SAP PSCD
4 7 (0.33%) Oracle Assets
4 7 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
4 7 (0.33%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 6 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
5 6 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
5 6 (0.29%) SAP BRIM
5 6 (0.29%) SAP Hybris
6 5 (0.24%) SAP CRM
6 5 (0.24%) Teamcenter
7 4 (0.19%) Primavera
8 3 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
8 3 (0.14%) SAP EWM
8 3 (0.14%) SAP HCM
9 2 (0.095%) Oracle Cash Management
9 2 (0.095%) Oracle General Ledger
9 2 (0.095%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 286 (13.63%) Azure
2 194 (9.24%) AWS
3 81 (3.86%) GCP
4 73 (3.48%) Entra ID
5 64 (3.05%) Microsoft 365
6 56 (2.67%) Azure DevOps
7 46 (2.19%) OpenShift
8 42 (2.00%) Power Platform
9 35 (1.67%) GitHub
10 34 (1.62%) IaaS
10 34 (1.62%) PaaS
11 21 (1.00%) GitHub Actions
12 16 (0.76%) SaaS
13 15 (0.71%) Cloud Computing
14 14 (0.67%) Serverless
15 12 (0.57%) AWS CloudFormation
15 12 (0.57%) SuccessFactors
16 11 (0.52%) OCI
16 11 (0.52%) OneDrive
17 10 (0.48%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 162 (7.72%) Firewall
2 101 (4.81%) WAN
3 98 (4.67%) LAN
4 97 (4.62%) DNS
5 81 (3.86%) BGP
6 76 (3.62%) OSPF
7 65 (3.10%) Network Security
8 64 (3.05%) DHCP
9 50 (2.38%) VPN
10 40 (1.91%) TCP/IP
11 36 (1.72%) Junos
12 33 (1.57%) Wireless
13 32 (1.52%) Cisco ISE
14 28 (1.33%) Ethernet VPN
14 28 (1.33%) IPsec
15 27 (1.29%) VXLAN
16 25 (1.19%) BIG-IP
17 24 (1.14%) VLAN
18 23 (1.10%) SD-WAN
19 22 (1.05%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (2.14%) SQL Server
2 37 (1.76%) Power BI
3 27 (1.29%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (0.67%) Relational Database
5 12 (0.57%) Oracle Database
5 12 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
6 10 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
6 10 (0.48%) Metadata
6 10 (0.48%) Redis
7 9 (0.43%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (0.33%) Oracle Database 12c
8 7 (0.33%) SAP HANA
9 6 (0.29%) MongoDB
9 6 (0.29%) MySQL
9 6 (0.29%) Oracle ODI
10 5 (0.24%) Metadata Repository
10 5 (0.24%) SAP Data Services
11 4 (0.19%) NoSQL
12 3 (0.14%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.14%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 52 (2.48%) JIRA
2 42 (2.00%) Git
3 39 (1.86%) GitLab
3 39 (1.86%) Rational DOORS
4 36 (1.72%) Jenkins
5 19 (0.91%) Burp Suite
5 19 (0.91%) Metasploit
6 11 (0.52%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.48%) Visual Studio
8 9 (0.43%) Postman
9 8 (0.38%) Artifactory
10 7 (0.33%) Android Studio
10 7 (0.33%) JUnit
10 7 (0.33%) Subversion
11 6 (0.29%) Maven
11 6 (0.29%) Robot Framework
12 5 (0.24%) Bitbucket
12 5 (0.24%) Gradle
12 5 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
13 4 (0.19%) Cypress.io
General
1 522 (24.87%) Social Skills
2 323 (15.39%) Public Sector
3 201 (9.58%) Analytical Skills
4 129 (6.15%) Finance
5 93 (4.43%) Aerospace
6 76 (3.62%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (2.19%) Military
8 37 (1.76%) Legal
9 36 (1.72%) Influencing Skills
10 34 (1.62%) Telecoms
11 33 (1.57%) Manufacturing
12 23 (1.10%) Law
13 21 (1.00%) Presentation Skills
14 17 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
15 15 (0.71%) Marketing
16 12 (0.57%) Billing
17 11 (0.52%) Advertising
17 11 (0.52%) Electronics
18 7 (0.33%) Aviation
18 7 (0.33%) Police
Job Titles
1 345 (16.44%) Architect
2 202 (9.62%) Senior
3 163 (7.77%) Lead
4 146 (6.96%) Analyst
5 127 (6.05%) Network Engineer
6 126 (6.00%) Developer
7 122 (5.81%) Consultant
8 75 (3.57%) Project Manager
9 69 (3.29%) Technical Architect
10 57 (2.72%) Delivery Manager
11 56 (2.67%) Tester
12 53 (2.53%) Enterprise Architect
12 53 (2.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 52 (2.48%) Security Architect
14 49 (2.33%) Product Manager
15 43 (2.05%) DevOps Engineer
16 41 (1.95%) Software Engineer
17 39 (1.86%) Product Delivery Manager
17 39 (1.86%) Support Engineer
18 38 (1.81%) SOC Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (1.91%) REST
2 35 (1.67%) .NET
3 34 (1.62%) LDAP
4 33 (1.57%) React
5 26 (1.24%) RESTful
6 23 (1.10%) 802.1X
7 22 (1.05%) JSON
8 19 (0.91%) AngularJS
9 17 (0.81%) Elastic Stack
9 17 (0.81%) Oracle Fusion
9 17 (0.81%) SailPoint
9 17 (0.81%) XML
10 16 (0.76%) Kafka
10 16 (0.76%) SOAP
11 12 (0.57%) OAuth
12 11 (0.52%) CSS
12 11 (0.52%) Loki
12 11 (0.52%) Oracle GoldenGate
12 11 (0.52%) YAML
13 10 (0.48%) Keycloak
Miscellaneous
1 96 (4.57%) Data Centre
2 91 (4.34%) PKI
3 77 (3.67%) Product Ownership
4 55 (2.62%) Onboarding
5 41 (1.95%) Management Information System
6 36 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
7 33 (1.57%) Replication
8 32 (1.52%) Data Structures
9 29 (1.38%) Cloud Native
10 28 (1.33%) Clustering
11 27 (1.29%) Security Operations Centre
12 24 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
13 22 (1.05%) Public Cloud
14 19 (0.91%) Distributed Systems
14 19 (0.91%) Driving Licence
14 19 (0.91%) Security Posture
14 19 (0.91%) Virtual Team
15 18 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
16 15 (0.71%) PMI
17 14 (0.67%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 275 (13.10%) Windows
2 201 (9.58%) Linux
3 73 (3.48%) Windows Server
4 37 (1.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 26 (1.24%) Windows 10
6 16 (0.76%) Android
6 16 (0.76%) Unix
7 13 (0.62%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.38%) Windows 7
9 7 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (0.29%) Embedded Linux
10 6 (0.29%) Mac OS
11 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.19%) CentOS
12 4 (0.19%) Debian
12 4 (0.19%) Kali Linux
13 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
14 2 (0.095%) SUSE
14 2 (0.095%) VMS
14 2 (0.095%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 399 (19.01%) Agile
2 230 (10.96%) Problem-Solving
3 212 (10.10%) ITIL
4 202 (9.62%) CI/CD
5 197 (9.39%) DevOps
6 192 (9.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 183 (8.72%) Stakeholder Management
8 181 (8.62%) Migration
9 177 (8.43%) Continuous Improvement
10 162 (7.72%) Cybersecurity
11 151 (7.19%) Roadmaps
12 129 (6.15%) Service Management
13 116 (5.53%) Project Management
14 113 (5.38%) ITSM
15 93 (4.43%) DevSecOps
16 91 (4.34%) SIEM
17 89 (4.24%) Software Engineering
18 87 (4.14%) Change Management
19 85 (4.05%) Decision-Making
20 84 (4.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 190 (9.05%) Python
2 154 (7.34%) PowerShell
3 67 (3.19%) Java
4 63 (3.00%) SQL
5 54 (2.57%) Bash
6 45 (2.14%) C#
6 45 (2.14%) JavaScript
7 30 (1.43%) C++
8 21 (1.00%) Kusto Query Language
9 19 (0.91%) TypeScript
10 16 (0.76%) C
11 14 (0.67%) Shell Script
12 13 (0.62%) Go
13 11 (0.52%) ABAP
14 10 (0.48%) Bicep
15 9 (0.43%) Korn
15 9 (0.43%) PL/SQL
16 5 (0.24%) Embedded C++
16 5 (0.24%) T-SQL
17 3 (0.14%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 1,304 (62.12%) SC Cleared
2 706 (33.64%) DV Cleared
3 163 (7.77%) Degree
4 68 (3.24%) Cisco Certification
5 50 (2.38%) CCNP
6 49 (2.33%) CISSP
7 45 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
8 27 (1.29%) PMP
9 26 (1.24%) CISM
10 25 (1.19%) PMI Certification
11 21 (1.00%) CCNA
12 18 (0.86%) CEH
12 18 (0.86%) GIAC
13 17 (0.81%) JNCIS
14 16 (0.76%) Azure Certification
15 15 (0.71%) CHECK Team Member
15 15 (0.71%) Computer Science Degree
16 14 (0.67%) AWS Certification
17 13 (0.62%) CREST Certified
17 13 (0.62%) Cyber Scheme
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (4.24%) NIST
2 88 (4.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 58 (2.76%) GDPR
4 57 (2.72%) NCSC
4 57 (2.72%) PMO
5 48 (2.29%) QA
6 23 (1.10%) Data Quality
6 23 (1.10%) SLA
7 17 (0.81%) PCI DSS
8 16 (0.76%) Accessibility
8 16 (0.76%) JSP 440
9 15 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 14 (0.67%) GRC
11 13 (0.62%) NIST 800
12 10 (0.48%) COBIT
13 6 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.29%) Government Security Classifications
14 5 (0.24%) P3O
15 4 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
15 4 (0.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 167 (7.96%) Active Directory
2 97 (4.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 45 (2.14%) Docker
4 41 (1.95%) VMware NSX
5 36 (1.72%) vSphere
6 23 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
7 14 (0.67%) Firmware
8 12 (0.57%) vCloud
9 11 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
10 10 (0.48%) Hyper-V
11 9 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
12 5 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
13 3 (0.14%) NFS
14 2 (0.095%) Embedded Firmware
15 1 (0.048%) KVM
15 1 (0.048%) RHEV
15 1 (0.048%) Sendmail
15 1 (0.048%) Terminal Services
15 1 (0.048%) UAG
15 1 (0.048%) Xen
Systems Management
1 103 (4.91%) Kubernetes
2 73 (3.48%) Terraform
3 66 (3.14%) Ansible
4 50 (2.38%) vCenter Server
5 44 (2.10%) Grafana
6 43 (2.05%) Prometheus
7 36 (1.72%) Argo
8 25 (1.19%) FortiGate
9 22 (1.05%) SCCM
10 21 (1.00%) Nmap
11 19 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
12 17 (0.81%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 14 (0.67%) WMI
14 13 (0.62%) Kibana
14 13 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
15 11 (0.52%) Kustomize
16 10 (0.48%) Forefront Identity Manager
16 10 (0.48%) NetIQ Identity Manager
16 10 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
17 9 (0.43%) Nagios
Vendors
1 218 (10.39%) Microsoft
2 198 (9.43%) VMware
3 181 (8.62%) Cisco
4 96 (4.57%) SAP
5 86 (4.10%) Juniper
6 83 (3.95%) ServiceNow
7 72 (3.43%) Red Hat
8 64 (3.05%) Splunk
9 60 (2.86%) Aruba
10 52 (2.48%) Oracle
11 47 (2.24%) SolarWinds
12 45 (2.14%) F5
13 40 (1.91%) Palo Alto
14 33 (1.57%) Google
15 32 (1.52%) IBM
16 31 (1.48%) Sparx
17 29 (1.38%) BeyondTrust
17 29 (1.38%) CyberArk
18 26 (1.24%) CheckPoint
19 19 (0.91%) Citrix