SC Cleared Contracts in the UK excluding London

Security Check (SC) Clearance
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London with a requirement for SC Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 16 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 6 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +7
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 2,001 2,807 3,687
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 15.55% 13.85% 15.99%
As % of the Qualifications category 43.34% 37.87% 48.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,214 1,795 2,632
10th Percentile £225 £314 £350
25th Percentile £419 £438 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% -2.73% +4.76%
75th Percentile £608 £638 £638
90th Percentile £688 £701 £706
UK median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 215 336 307
10th Percentile £18.51 £12.75 £19.06
25th Percentile £21.01 £21.37 £25.75
Median hourly rate £46.30 £55.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -15.82% -4.35% +6.48%
75th Percentile £65.38 £72.50 £68.75
90th Percentile £75.30 £80.00 £80.25
UK median hourly rate £36.65 £48.56 £58.81
% change year-on-year -24.54% -17.43% +8.91%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK excluding London

SC 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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 4,617 7,412 7,572
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 35.87% 36.58% 32.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,807 4,291 5,069
10th Percentile £208 £269 £286
25th Percentile £379 £425 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +0.95% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £631
90th Percentile £675 £725 £706
UK median daily rate £525 £532 £550
% change year-on-year -1.36% -3.23% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 407 918 616
10th Percentile £17.72 £13.50 £13.91
25th Percentile £21.00 £16.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £40.63 £49.94
Median % change year-on-year -7.71% -18.63% +42.68%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £79.22 £77.50 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £40.00 £54.00
% change year-on-year -6.25% -25.93% +23.15%

SC Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing SC Cleared as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for SC Cleared in the UK excluding London

SC Cleared
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SC Cleared in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for SC Cleared in the UK excluding London

SC Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SC Cleared in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 16 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SC Cleared in the UK excluding London

SC Cleared
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SC Cleared in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for SC Cleared in the UK excluding London

SC Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SC Cleared in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 16 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for SC Cleared in the UK excluding London

SC Cleared
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SC Cleared within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 16 May 2025. 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
South West +1 563 £550 +3.77% 298
North of England +4 502 £500 -4.76% 277
South East 0 493 £525 -6.25% 521
North West +2 348 £500 -4.76% 159
Midlands -2 248 £525 +8.25% 196
West Midlands -3 185 £525 +16.67% 146
East of England +7 142 £350 +0.72% 173
Yorkshire +14 99 £500 -4.76% 95
East Midlands -1 63 £475 -12.84% 39
North East +10 60 £480 +6.67% 24
Scotland -45 59 £431 -21.59% 84
Wales -7 24 £475 -20.83% 27
Northern Ireland -7 9 £500 -4.76% 21
SC Cleared
UK

SC Cleared
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 79 (3.95%) Confluence
2 55 (2.75%) SharePoint
3 46 (2.30%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (0.95%) Skype for Business
5 17 (0.85%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 16 (0.80%) Apache
7 8 (0.40%) IIS
7 8 (0.40%) NetWeaver
8 6 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
8 6 (0.30%) SAP EP
8 6 (0.30%) WebSphere
9 5 (0.25%) Anypoint
9 5 (0.25%) Mule
9 5 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.25%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.20%) CMS
10 4 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2010
10 4 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2013
10 4 (0.20%) nginx
10 4 (0.20%) WebLogic
Applications
1 77 (3.85%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
5 14 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.40%) Siemens NX
7 7 (0.35%) Simulink
8 5 (0.25%) Windchill
9 3 (0.15%) MS Visio
10 1 (0.050%) CATIA
10 1 (0.050%) Trello
Business Applications
1 24 (1.20%) SAP S/4HANA
1 24 (1.20%) Teamcenter
2 20 (1.00%) Primavera
3 7 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
3 7 (0.35%) SAP CRM
4 5 (0.25%) SAP PP
4 5 (0.25%) SAP PS
5 4 (0.20%) SAP HCM
6 3 (0.15%) SAP LE
6 3 (0.15%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.100%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.100%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.100%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.100%) SAP HR
7 2 (0.100%) SAP PM
7 2 (0.100%) SAP SD
8 1 (0.050%) LabWindows
8 1 (0.050%) Misys Midas
8 1 (0.050%) Oracle 11i
8 1 (0.050%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 222 (11.09%) Azure
2 205 (10.24%) AWS
3 90 (4.50%) Microsoft 365
4 48 (2.40%) Entra ID
5 42 (2.10%) SaaS
6 38 (1.90%) GCP
7 34 (1.70%) Azure DevOps
8 32 (1.60%) Serverless
9 29 (1.45%) Power Platform
10 25 (1.25%) GitHub
11 20 (1.00%) Amazon S3
12 16 (0.80%) PaaS
13 15 (0.75%) AWS CloudFormation
13 15 (0.75%) AWS Lambda
14 14 (0.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 14 (0.70%) Amazon SQS
15 11 (0.55%) Google Workspace
15 11 (0.55%) SuccessFactors
16 10 (0.50%) Cloud Computing
16 10 (0.50%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 144 (7.20%) Firewall
2 122 (6.10%) DNS
3 85 (4.25%) VPN
4 72 (3.60%) WAN
5 58 (2.90%) Network Security
6 57 (2.85%) BGP
7 52 (2.60%) OSPF
8 46 (2.30%) IPsec
9 44 (2.20%) DHCP
10 43 (2.15%) Cisco Firepower
10 43 (2.15%) Wi-Fi
11 38 (1.90%) Cisco ASA
12 35 (1.75%) Cisco ISE
12 35 (1.75%) LAN
13 33 (1.65%) HSRP
13 33 (1.65%) TCP/IP
14 31 (1.55%) Cisco Nexus
14 31 (1.55%) Skype
15 29 (1.45%) EIGRP
15 29 (1.45%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (2.80%) PostgreSQL
2 30 (1.50%) Oracle Database
3 27 (1.35%) Power BI
3 27 (1.35%) Relational Database
4 22 (1.10%) MongoDB
5 21 (1.05%) SQL Server
6 20 (1.00%) Data Warehouse
7 16 (0.80%) MySQL
8 15 (0.75%) DynamoDB
9 13 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
10 11 (0.55%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.50%) Big Data
12 9 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
12 9 (0.45%) Metadata
12 9 (0.45%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.40%) GIS
14 7 (0.35%) Apache Cassandra
14 7 (0.35%) Oracle Database 11g
14 7 (0.35%) Tableau
15 6 (0.30%) Siebel EIM
Development Applications
1 125 (6.25%) JIRA
2 100 (5.00%) Jenkins
3 72 (3.60%) GitLab
4 71 (3.55%) Git
5 31 (1.55%) Selenium
6 27 (1.35%) Bitbucket
7 25 (1.25%) Cucumber
7 25 (1.25%) JUnit
8 21 (1.05%) Maven
9 20 (1.00%) REST Assured
10 18 (0.90%) SonarQube
11 16 (0.80%) Eclipse
11 16 (0.80%) Mockito
12 13 (0.65%) MSI
13 12 (0.60%) Robot Framework
14 11 (0.55%) Cypress.io
14 11 (0.55%) GoogleTest
15 10 (0.50%) Gradle
15 10 (0.50%) Liquibase
15 10 (0.50%) Postman
General
1 570 (28.49%) Social Skills
2 370 (18.49%) Public Sector
3 187 (9.35%) Analytical Skills
4 168 (8.40%) Finance
5 77 (3.85%) Telecoms
6 68 (3.40%) Military
7 66 (3.30%) Manufacturing
8 52 (2.60%) Electronics
9 44 (2.20%) Aerospace
10 40 (2.00%) Legal
11 39 (1.95%) Marketing
12 36 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
13 34 (1.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 26 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
15 21 (1.05%) Law
16 17 (0.85%) Influencing Skills
17 11 (0.55%) Documentation Skills
18 10 (0.50%) Police
19 9 (0.45%) Aviation
19 9 (0.45%) Banking
Job Titles
1 220 (10.99%) Architect
2 156 (7.80%) Senior
3 147 (7.35%) Developer
4 144 (7.20%) Analyst
5 133 (6.65%) Network Engineer
6 99 (4.95%) Support Engineer
7 88 (4.40%) Consultant
8 87 (4.35%) Lead
9 62 (3.10%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 61 (3.05%) DevOps Engineer
10 61 (3.05%) Software Engineer
11 56 (2.80%) Desktop Engineer
11 56 (2.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 56 (2.80%) Project Manager
12 52 (2.60%) IT Engineer
13 50 (2.50%) Desktop Support
14 45 (2.25%) Network Architect
14 45 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
15 44 (2.20%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 43 (2.15%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (2.30%) REST
2 45 (2.25%) Node.js
3 42 (2.10%) SOAP
4 41 (2.05%) Kafka
5 39 (1.95%) Spring Boot
6 37 (1.85%) Spring
6 37 (1.85%) Web Services
7 35 (1.75%) React
8 26 (1.30%) .NET
9 24 (1.20%) XML
10 22 (1.10%) AngularJS
11 20 (1.00%) Middleware
11 20 (1.00%) OpenAPI
11 20 (1.00%) Swagger
12 19 (0.95%) HTML
12 19 (0.95%) LDAP
12 19 (0.95%) RESTful
13 18 (0.90%) CSS
14 17 (0.85%) Java EE
14 17 (0.85%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 93 (4.65%) Data Centre
2 69 (3.45%) Driving Licence
3 64 (3.20%) Management Information System
4 48 (2.40%) PKI
5 44 (2.20%) Onboarding
6 38 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
7 29 (1.45%) Product Ownership
8 27 (1.35%) SCADA
9 23 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
10 21 (1.05%) Security Operations Centre
11 20 (1.00%) Clustering
11 20 (1.00%) Linux Command Line
12 17 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
12 17 (0.85%) Video Conferencing
13 16 (0.80%) Blackberry
13 16 (0.80%) CMDB
13 16 (0.80%) Cyber Threat
13 16 (0.80%) Fibre Optics
13 16 (0.80%) Replication
14 15 (0.75%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 290 (14.49%) Windows
2 187 (9.35%) Linux
3 104 (5.20%) Windows Server
4 90 (4.50%) Windows 10
5 42 (2.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 33 (1.65%) Windows Server 2019
7 28 (1.40%) Windows Server 2012
8 26 (1.30%) Windows Server 2016
9 21 (1.05%) Unix
10 16 (0.80%) VMS
11 14 (0.70%) Android
12 13 (0.65%) Windows 7
13 11 (0.55%) CentOS
13 11 (0.55%) Ubuntu
14 10 (0.50%) Mac OS
15 7 (0.35%) Apple iOS
16 5 (0.25%) Solaris
16 5 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.20%) Windows Vista
18 3 (0.15%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 335 (16.74%) Agile
2 313 (15.64%) Problem-Solving
3 197 (9.85%) ITIL
4 168 (8.40%) Migration
5 159 (7.95%) DevOps
6 139 (6.95%) CI/CD
7 135 (6.75%) Service Management
8 133 (6.65%) Software Engineering
9 120 (6.00%) Project Management
10 113 (5.65%) Stakeholder Management
11 104 (5.20%) Test Automation
12 94 (4.70%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 89 (4.45%) ITSM
14 88 (4.40%) Cybersecurity
15 85 (4.25%) Containerisation
16 83 (4.15%) Collaborative Working
17 81 (4.05%) Roadmaps
18 79 (3.95%) Validation
19 78 (3.90%) Configuration Management
19 78 (3.90%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 163 (8.15%) Python
2 162 (8.10%) SQL
3 131 (6.55%) PowerShell
4 122 (6.10%) Java
5 79 (3.95%) Bash
6 66 (3.30%) JavaScript
7 44 (2.20%) PL/SQL
8 38 (1.90%) ABAP
9 37 (1.85%) C++
10 36 (1.80%) C#
11 34 (1.70%) TypeScript
12 26 (1.30%) Perl
13 18 (0.90%) Ada
14 15 (0.75%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.65%) Go
16 12 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
17 11 (0.55%) VB
18 10 (0.50%) C
19 9 (0.45%) MATLAB
20 8 (0.40%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 2,001 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 181 (9.05%) DV Cleared
3 126 (6.30%) Degree
4 105 (5.25%) Cisco Certification
5 87 (4.35%) BPSS Clearance
6 66 (3.30%) CCNP
7 54 (2.70%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 51 (2.55%) Microsoft Certification
9 42 (2.10%) CCNA
10 40 (2.00%) ITIL Certification
11 27 (1.35%) CISSP
12 26 (1.30%) AWS Certification
12 26 (1.30%) Dell Certification
13 22 (1.10%) MCSA
14 20 (1.00%) Master's Degree
15 19 (0.95%) MCSE
16 18 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
17 17 (0.85%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 16 (0.80%) Azure Certification
19 15 (0.75%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (5.05%) SLA
2 70 (3.50%) QA
3 37 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 29 (1.45%) NIST
5 25 (1.25%) Def Stans
5 25 (1.25%) NCSC
6 21 (1.05%) Data Quality
7 16 (0.80%) Accessibility
7 16 (0.80%) PMO
8 15 (0.75%) JSP 440
9 12 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
10 9 (0.45%) GDPR
10 9 (0.45%) IEC 61508
11 8 (0.40%) RMADS
11 8 (0.40%) WCAG
12 5 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (0.25%) MISRA
12 5 (0.25%) MISRA C
13 4 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.20%) NIST 800
System Software
1 168 (8.40%) Active Directory
2 134 (6.70%) VMware Infrastructure
3 97 (4.85%) Docker
4 36 (1.80%) VMware NSX
5 32 (1.60%) Hyper-V
5 32 (1.60%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (1.15%) Virtual Machines
7 18 (0.90%) vSphere
8 17 (0.85%) Firmware
9 11 (0.55%) BitLocker
9 11 (0.55%) NFS
10 8 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
11 7 (0.35%) Samba
12 5 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
13 4 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.15%) Microsoft App-V
14 3 (0.15%) Postfix
15 2 (0.100%) KVM
15 2 (0.100%) XenApp
15 2 (0.100%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 123 (6.15%) Terraform
2 111 (5.55%) Ansible
3 92 (4.60%) Kubernetes
4 47 (2.35%) Microsoft Intune
4 47 (2.35%) SCCM
5 46 (2.30%) vCenter Server
6 24 (1.20%) Puppet
7 23 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
8 22 (1.10%) WSUS
9 19 (0.95%) Grafana
10 16 (0.80%) Progress Chef
10 16 (0.80%) Prometheus
11 13 (0.65%) Podman
12 12 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
12 12 (0.60%) Packer
13 10 (0.50%) SCOM
14 9 (0.45%) Docker Swarm
14 9 (0.45%) yum
15 7 (0.35%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 290 (14.49%) Microsoft
2 228 (11.39%) Cisco
3 186 (9.30%) VMware
4 124 (6.20%) SAP
5 87 (4.35%) Palo Alto
6 85 (4.25%) HP
7 83 (4.15%) ServiceNow
8 79 (3.95%) Dell
9 73 (3.65%) Oracle
10 60 (3.00%) Google
11 48 (2.40%) Juniper
11 48 (2.40%) SolarWinds
12 47 (2.35%) Atlassian
13 43 (2.15%) Red Hat
14 38 (1.90%) F5
15 36 (1.80%) Splunk
16 26 (1.30%) CheckPoint
17 24 (1.20%) Citrix
18 22 (1.10%) Fortinet
19 17 (0.85%) IBM