Security Cleared Contracts in the UK excluding London

Security 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 Security Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 9 August 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 2 1 2
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 3,284 4,572 4,820
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 21.34% 25.04% 21.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 60.76% 69.56% 66.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,966 2,915 3,076
10th Percentile £303 £338 £363
25th Percentile £450 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - +2.33%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £650
90th Percentile £688 £725 £719
UK median daily rate £536 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -2.55% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 484 460 353
10th Percentile £18.51 £15.10 £19.06
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £37.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £57.50 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -56.26% - +4.55%
75th Percentile £51.10 £72.37 £73.59
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.00 £83.15
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £55.16 £60.00
% change year-on-year -54.41% -8.06% +9.09%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 5,405 6,573 7,209
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 35.12% 36.00% 32.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,182 3,977 4,569
10th Percentile £220 £292 £305
25th Percentile £400 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £675 £713 £703
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 645 748 529
10th Percentile £17.87 £14.16 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.14 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £51.89
Median % change year-on-year -47.05% -8.46% +15.41%
75th Percentile £50.00 £67.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £79.42 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -41.51% -21.82% +22.22%

Security Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Job vacancy trend for Security Cleared in the UK excluding London

Security Cleared
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate trend for Security Cleared in the UK excluding London

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Cleared in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 9 August 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Security Cleared in the UK excluding London

Security Cleared
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Hourly rate trend for Security Cleared in the UK excluding London

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Cleared in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 9 August 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Cleared in the UK excluding London

Security 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 Security Cleared within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 9 August 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 East -1 978 £538 -9.66% 543
South West 0 826 £575 +0.88% 440
North of England -3 596 £500 - 299
Midlands 0 453 £512 -2.48% 234
North West -3 380 £525 +4.17% 190
West Midlands -1 338 £515 -1.90% 171
East of England +1 261 £550 - 248
Yorkshire -5 157 £492 -1.60% 86
Scotland -14 144 £479 +12.71% 120
East Midlands -4 99 £463 -11.06% 61
North East +1 70 £500 +19.05% 26
Wales -2 45 £475 +2.70% 42
Northern Ireland -9 33 £520 -9.57% 14
Security Cleared
UK

Security 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
1 114 (3.47%) Confluence
2 69 (2.10%) SharePoint
3 62 (1.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (1.49%) Apache
5 28 (0.85%) Skype for Business
6 21 (0.64%) SAS
6 21 (0.64%) WebLogic
7 19 (0.58%) IIS
8 16 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2010
8 16 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2013
9 13 (0.40%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 12 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
10 12 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2003
10 12 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2007
10 12 (0.37%) Office Communications Server
10 12 (0.37%) SharePoint Server
11 10 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
12 9 (0.27%) Anypoint
12 9 (0.27%) CMS
12 9 (0.27%) nginx
Applications
1 99 (3.01%) Microsoft Office
2 82 (2.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
4 25 (0.76%) Siemens NX
5 24 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 18 (0.55%) Simulink
7 13 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.30%) MS Visio
9 6 (0.18%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 6 (0.18%) Windchill
10 4 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
10 4 (0.12%) Photoshop
11 3 (0.091%) FrameMaker
11 3 (0.091%) Fusion 360
11 3 (0.091%) PTC Creo
11 3 (0.091%) UserZoom
12 2 (0.061%) AutoCAD
12 2 (0.061%) Revit
13 1 (0.030%) SPSS
13 1 (0.030%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 41 (1.25%) Teamcenter
2 20 (0.61%) Primavera
3 14 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
4 11 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.27%) Maximo
6 8 (0.24%) SAP HCM
7 7 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.21%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.18%) SAP HR
8 6 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
9 5 (0.15%) SAP WM
10 4 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
10 4 (0.12%) Oracle Payroll
10 4 (0.12%) SAP CRM
11 3 (0.091%) Oracle Applications
11 3 (0.091%) SAP PS
11 3 (0.091%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
12 2 (0.061%) Dynamics AX
12 2 (0.061%) Oracle HRMS
12 2 (0.061%) Oracle SCM
Cloud Services
1 345 (10.51%) AWS
2 314 (9.56%) Azure
3 106 (3.23%) Microsoft 365
4 80 (2.44%) GCP
5 64 (1.95%) SaaS
6 55 (1.67%) GitHub
7 49 (1.49%) OpenShift
8 47 (1.43%) Amazon S3
9 43 (1.31%) Power Platform
10 39 (1.19%) Serverless
11 38 (1.16%) Azure DevOps
11 38 (1.16%) Entra ID
12 36 (1.10%) Amazon EC2
13 35 (1.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 33 (1.00%) PaaS
15 28 (0.85%) AWS KMS
16 26 (0.79%) Google Workspace
17 24 (0.73%) Amazon EKS
17 24 (0.73%) IaaS
18 23 (0.70%) Cohesity
Communications & Networking
1 238 (7.25%) Firewall
2 173 (5.27%) DNS
3 112 (3.41%) VPN
4 98 (2.98%) Network Security
5 91 (2.77%) WAN
6 73 (2.22%) BGP
7 60 (1.83%) DHCP
8 55 (1.67%) LAN
9 54 (1.64%) SAN
10 52 (1.58%) SMTP
11 45 (1.37%) IPsec
12 44 (1.34%) Cisco ISE
13 42 (1.28%) OSPF
13 42 (1.28%) Wi-Fi
14 38 (1.16%) Cisco Firepower
14 38 (1.16%) HTTP
14 38 (1.16%) SSL
15 33 (1.00%) MPLS
16 32 (0.97%) FTP
17 31 (0.94%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 79 (2.41%) PostgreSQL
2 51 (1.55%) Amazon RDS
2 51 (1.55%) MongoDB
3 47 (1.43%) Oracle Database
4 44 (1.34%) SQL Server
5 39 (1.19%) Relational Database
6 36 (1.10%) Power BI
7 34 (1.04%) NoSQL
8 31 (0.94%) MySQL
9 22 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
10 21 (0.64%) Data Warehouse
11 20 (0.61%) Amazon Aurora
12 19 (0.58%) Big Data
12 19 (0.58%) DynamoDB
13 14 (0.43%) Pentaho
14 12 (0.37%) Oracle Reports
15 9 (0.27%) DB2
15 9 (0.27%) GIS
15 9 (0.27%) Tableau
16 8 (0.24%) SAS Visual Analytics
Development Applications
1 211 (6.43%) JIRA
2 192 (5.85%) Jenkins
3 143 (4.35%) Git
4 108 (3.29%) GitLab
5 39 (1.19%) SonarQube
6 31 (0.94%) Maven
6 31 (0.94%) Selenium
7 29 (0.88%) Bitbucket
7 29 (0.88%) Cucumber
8 28 (0.85%) JUnit
9 20 (0.61%) REST Assured
10 19 (0.58%) Artifactory
10 19 (0.58%) Cypress.io
10 19 (0.58%) Mockito
10 19 (0.58%) MSI
11 17 (0.52%) Vagrant
12 16 (0.49%) Sonatype Nexus
13 15 (0.46%) Rational DOORS
14 14 (0.43%) Gradle
15 13 (0.40%) SoapUI
General
1 837 (25.49%) Social Skills
2 760 (23.14%) Public Sector
3 269 (8.19%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (7.67%) Finance
5 135 (4.11%) Telecoms
6 130 (3.96%) Manufacturing
7 125 (3.81%) Military
8 107 (3.26%) Electronics
9 85 (2.59%) Marketing
10 77 (2.34%) Aerospace
11 63 (1.92%) Documentation Skills
12 43 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
13 40 (1.22%) Legal
14 38 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
15 32 (0.97%) Banking
16 28 (0.85%) Aviation
17 23 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
17 23 (0.70%) Law
18 22 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 16 (0.49%) Police
Job Titles
1 416 (12.67%) Architect
2 226 (6.88%) Analyst
3 217 (6.61%) Senior
4 216 (6.58%) Developer
5 192 (5.85%) Consultant
6 178 (5.42%) Network Engineer
7 148 (4.51%) Lead
8 118 (3.59%) Support Engineer
9 98 (2.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 96 (2.92%) DevOps Engineer
11 87 (2.65%) Administrator
12 83 (2.53%) IT Engineer
13 81 (2.47%) Project Manager
14 70 (2.13%) Network Architect
15 69 (2.10%) Desktop Support
16 67 (2.04%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
17 63 (1.92%) Software Engineer
18 62 (1.89%) Security Architect
19 56 (1.71%) Solutions Architect
20 52 (1.58%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.25%) SOAP
2 71 (2.16%) REST
3 64 (1.95%) Node.js
3 64 (1.95%) React
4 56 (1.71%) XML
5 52 (1.58%) Spring
5 52 (1.58%) Spring Boot
6 48 (1.46%) Web Services
7 47 (1.43%) Kafka
8 43 (1.31%) RESTful
9 42 (1.28%) AngularJS
10 35 (1.07%) .NET
11 34 (1.04%) HTML
12 30 (0.91%) CSS
12 30 (0.91%) Elastic Stack
13 28 (0.85%) Middleware
14 27 (0.82%) LDAP
15 25 (0.76%) 802.1X
16 18 (0.55%) Apache NiFi
17 16 (0.49%) Keycloak
Miscellaneous
1 155 (4.72%) Data Centre
2 102 (3.11%) Management Information System
3 100 (3.05%) PKI
4 98 (2.98%) Onboarding
5 75 (2.28%) Driving Licence
6 50 (1.52%) Product Ownership
7 46 (1.40%) Hybrid Cloud
8 43 (1.31%) Replication
9 42 (1.28%) Cyber Threat
9 42 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
10 41 (1.25%) CMDB
11 40 (1.22%) Security Operations Centre
12 30 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
13 26 (0.79%) Private Cloud
14 25 (0.76%) Algorithms
15 24 (0.73%) Distributed Systems
15 24 (0.73%) Video Conferencing
16 23 (0.70%) Cloud Native
17 22 (0.67%) Enterprise Software
17 22 (0.67%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 503 (15.32%) Windows
2 265 (8.07%) Linux
3 173 (5.27%) Windows Server
4 97 (2.95%) Windows 10
5 62 (1.89%) Windows Server 2019
6 49 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 46 (1.40%) Windows Server 2016
8 30 (0.91%) Windows Server 2012
9 29 (0.88%) Unix
10 25 (0.76%) VMS
11 22 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
12 21 (0.64%) Windows 7
13 18 (0.55%) Android
14 16 (0.49%) Amazon Linux
15 15 (0.46%) Ubuntu
16 11 (0.33%) Mac OS
17 9 (0.27%) CentOS
18 8 (0.24%) Apple iOS
18 8 (0.24%) Windows Vista
19 5 (0.15%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 541 (16.47%) Agile
2 402 (12.24%) Problem-Solving
3 368 (11.21%) Migration
4 313 (9.53%) DevOps
5 280 (8.53%) ITIL
6 278 (8.47%) CI/CD
7 230 (7.00%) Workflow
8 225 (6.85%) Service Management
9 211 (6.43%) Stakeholder Management
10 184 (5.60%) Cybersecurity
11 178 (5.42%) Test Automation
12 162 (4.93%) Business Intelligence
13 161 (4.90%) Workflow Management
14 154 (4.69%) Project Management
15 145 (4.42%) Change Management
16 144 (4.38%) Risk Management
16 144 (4.38%) Validation
17 143 (4.35%) Containerisation
17 143 (4.35%) Software Engineering
18 142 (4.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 295 (8.98%) Python
2 260 (7.92%) SQL
3 250 (7.61%) PowerShell
4 201 (6.12%) Java
5 108 (3.29%) JavaScript
6 85 (2.59%) Bash
7 60 (1.83%) C#
8 55 (1.67%) TypeScript
9 48 (1.46%) C++
10 46 (1.40%) PL/SQL
11 41 (1.25%) Perl
12 31 (0.94%) C
13 28 (0.85%) Groovy
14 23 (0.70%) Go
15 22 (0.67%) Shell Script
16 19 (0.58%) ABAP
16 19 (0.58%) MATLAB
16 19 (0.58%) VB
17 14 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
18 13 (0.40%) PHP
Qualifications
1 2,345 (71.41%) SC Cleared
2 740 (22.53%) DV Cleared
3 194 (5.91%) Degree
4 161 (4.90%) BPSS Clearance
5 116 (3.53%) Cisco Certification
6 77 (2.34%) CCNP
7 69 (2.10%) CISSP
8 61 (1.86%) Microsoft Certification
9 55 (1.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 37 (1.13%) CCNA
11 35 (1.07%) AWS Certification
12 33 (1.00%) CISM
13 29 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
14 28 (0.85%) Azure Certification
15 25 (0.76%) MCSE
16 21 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
17 20 (0.61%) A+ Certification
17 20 (0.61%) HNC
18 19 (0.58%) HND
19 16 (0.49%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (3.78%) SLA
2 113 (3.44%) QA
3 84 (2.56%) NIST
4 82 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 69 (2.10%) NCSC
6 49 (1.49%) Data Quality
7 36 (1.10%) JSP 440
8 30 (0.91%) GDPR
9 27 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 27 (0.82%) PMO
10 26 (0.79%) NIST 800
11 23 (0.70%) RMADS
12 18 (0.55%) Accessibility
13 15 (0.46%) Def Stans
14 12 (0.37%) WCAG
15 8 (0.24%) DO-254
16 7 (0.21%) IEC 61508
17 6 (0.18%) MISRA
17 6 (0.18%) MISRA C
17 6 (0.18%) P3O
System Software
1 247 (7.52%) Active Directory
2 193 (5.88%) Docker
3 174 (5.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 87 (2.65%) VMware ESXi
5 51 (1.55%) vSphere
6 41 (1.25%) Hyper-V
7 37 (1.13%) Firmware
8 31 (0.94%) VMware NSX
9 25 (0.76%) Virtual Servers
10 24 (0.73%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 19 (0.58%) NFS
12 16 (0.49%) Postfix
13 14 (0.43%) BitLocker
13 14 (0.43%) DFS Replication
14 12 (0.37%) Brightmail
14 12 (0.37%) ISA Server
14 12 (0.37%) Terminal Services
14 12 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
15 10 (0.30%) Dovecot
15 10 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 212 (6.46%) Ansible
1 212 (6.46%) Terraform
2 204 (6.21%) Kubernetes
3 74 (2.25%) SCCM
4 71 (2.16%) Grafana
5 62 (1.89%) Prometheus
6 46 (1.40%) vCenter Server
7 37 (1.13%) WSUS
8 30 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
9 29 (0.88%) Puppet
10 19 (0.58%) Podman
10 19 (0.58%) SCOM
10 19 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
11 18 (0.55%) FortiGate
12 16 (0.49%) Nessus
13 15 (0.46%) Microsoft Clustering
14 14 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 14 (0.43%) VxRail
15 12 (0.37%) Progress Chef
15 12 (0.37%) vRealize
Vendors
1 446 (13.58%) Microsoft
2 288 (8.77%) Cisco
3 270 (8.22%) VMware
4 176 (5.36%) SAP
5 151 (4.60%) Oracle
6 139 (4.23%) ServiceNow
7 109 (3.32%) Juniper
8 102 (3.11%) Splunk
9 89 (2.71%) Google
10 78 (2.38%) HP
11 75 (2.28%) Dell
12 70 (2.13%) Palo Alto
13 66 (2.01%) Red Hat
14 58 (1.77%) Atlassian
15 51 (1.55%) NetApp
16 47 (1.43%) SolarWinds
17 44 (1.34%) F5
18 43 (1.31%) IBM
19 37 (1.13%) Citrix
20 32 (0.97%) CheckPoint