BPSS Clearance Contract Job Trends

Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) Clearance
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for BPSS Clearance qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 26 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 92 149 271
Rank change year-on-year +57 +122 -33
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,600 620 345
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.92% 1.87% 0.90%
As % of the Qualifications category 9.20% 5.95% 3.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,162 431 200
10th Percentile £359 £313 £213
25th Percentile £429 £408 £384
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £588
90th Percentile £670 £713 £643
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £449
% change year-on-year -2.50% +11.36% -18.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 228 53 21
10th Percentile £19.50 £20.00 £18.50
25th Percentile £42.00 £22.63 £20.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year +50.19% +35.57% -62.72%
75th Percentile £48.00 £48.13 £57.50
90th Percentile £68.23 £71.41 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £33.50 £21.59
% change year-on-year +31.22% +55.16% -62.34%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

BPSS Clearance 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.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 17,388 10,419 11,181
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.69% 31.50% 29.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,578 6,521 6,821
10th Percentile £350 £288 £313
25th Percentile £444 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £633 £625 £638
90th Percentile £715 £708 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,396 864 627
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.87 £17.58
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.34
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -48.67% -9.26%
75th Percentile £72.54 £43.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £51.72
% change year-on-year +86.88% -51.37% -1.49%

BPSS Clearance
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing BPSS Clearance relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

BPSS Clearance job vacancy trend in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BPSS Clearance.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BPSS Clearance

BPSS Clearance
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing BPSS Clearance over the 6 months to 26 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for BPSS Clearance in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BPSS Clearance.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BPSS Clearance

BPSS Clearance
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing BPSS Clearance over the 6 months to 26 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for BPSS Clearance in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing BPSS Clearance within the UK over the 6 months to 26 September 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
England +76 1,217 £500 -2.72% 1,016
UK excluding London +50 926 £488 -2.50% 838
Work from Home +51 584 £500 +1.83% 724
London +90 362 £525 +2.19% 261
North of England +15 323 £488 -0.26% 141
Midlands +63 287 £488 -6.79% 114
West Midlands +69 276 £488 -7.14% 87
North West -1 173 £510 +8.74% 77
South East -23 96 £483 -6.12% 189
North East +16 91 £460 - 33
South West +2 80 £513 -10.87% 127
Scotland +20 72 £438 - 125
Yorkshire -8 72 £475 -5.00% 31
East of England -1 51 £578 +0.17% 141
Northern Ireland +13 20 - - 17
Wales 0 13 £419 - 6
East Midlands -27 10 £600 +21.95% 27

BPSS Clearance
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 68 (4.25%) Confluence
2 41 (2.56%) SharePoint
3 16 (1.00%) SharePoint Server
4 10 (0.63%) CMS
5 9 (0.56%) Apache Spark
5 9 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (0.56%) SAS
6 7 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
7 6 (0.38%) Headless CMS
7 6 (0.38%) WebLogic
8 4 (0.25%) IIS
8 4 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.25%) WordPress
9 2 (0.13%) Apache
9 2 (0.13%) CICS
9 2 (0.13%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.13%) LiveCycle
9 2 (0.13%) OpenROAD
Applications
1 42 (2.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (2.06%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (0.81%) Microsoft Project
4 9 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.44%) Windchill
6 3 (0.19%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.13%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.063%) InVision
8 1 (0.063%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.063%) Revit
8 1 (0.063%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.063%) Simulink
8 1 (0.063%) Sketch
8 1 (0.063%) Trello
Business Applications
1 63 (3.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.44%) SAP HR
3 20 (1.25%) SAP Payroll
4 16 (1.00%) SAP PSCD
5 14 (0.88%) SAP BRIM
6 11 (0.69%) SAP HCM
7 9 (0.56%) SAP FI
7 9 (0.56%) SAP IBP
8 7 (0.44%) SAP MDG
9 6 (0.38%) SAP GRC
9 6 (0.38%) SAP PP
9 6 (0.38%) Teamcenter
10 5 (0.31%) Exchequer
10 5 (0.31%) SAP ERP
10 5 (0.31%) SAP FI-CA
11 4 (0.25%) SAP Convergent Charging
11 4 (0.25%) SAP EHS
11 4 (0.25%) SAP Hybris
11 4 (0.25%) Shopify
12 3 (0.19%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 289 (18.06%) AWS
2 270 (16.88%) Azure
3 86 (5.38%) Power Platform
4 79 (4.94%) GitHub
5 64 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
6 55 (3.44%) GCP
6 55 (3.44%) Serverless
7 51 (3.19%) Microsoft 365
8 50 (3.13%) GitHub Actions
9 47 (2.94%) AWS Lambda
10 46 (2.88%) Amazon S3
10 46 (2.88%) Entra ID
11 27 (1.69%) SuccessFactors
12 26 (1.63%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 26 (1.63%) AWS CloudFormation
12 26 (1.63%) Power Automate
12 26 (1.63%) PowerApps
13 23 (1.44%) Amazon ECS
13 23 (1.44%) Azure Monitor
14 18 (1.13%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.06%) DNS
2 13 (0.81%) SSL
2 13 (0.81%) WAN
3 11 (0.69%) Firewall
4 10 (0.63%) Network Security
4 10 (0.63%) WebEx
5 9 (0.56%) Cisco IPT
6 8 (0.50%) Intranet
7 7 (0.44%) 5G
7 7 (0.44%) Ethernet
7 7 (0.44%) Radio Access Network
7 7 (0.44%) VPN
7 7 (0.44%) Wireshark
8 6 (0.38%) LAN
8 6 (0.38%) MPLS
9 5 (0.31%) 3GPP
9 5 (0.31%) HTTP
9 5 (0.31%) NGN
9 5 (0.31%) TCP/IP
9 5 (0.31%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (3.63%) Power BI
2 53 (3.31%) MongoDB
3 49 (3.06%) PostgreSQL
4 45 (2.81%) Metadata
5 37 (2.31%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (2.06%) SQL Server
7 26 (1.63%) Amazon RDS
8 25 (1.56%) MySQL
9 24 (1.50%) NoSQL
10 21 (1.31%) Data Lake
10 21 (1.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 19 (1.19%) Oracle Database
11 19 (1.19%) Relational Database
12 16 (1.00%) DynamoDB
13 14 (0.88%) Amazon Redshift
14 13 (0.81%) Amazon Aurora
15 11 (0.69%) Amazon Athena
16 10 (0.63%) Big Data
16 10 (0.63%) Redis
17 8 (0.50%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 119 (7.44%) JIRA
2 118 (7.38%) Git
3 102 (6.38%) GitLab
4 63 (3.94%) Jenkins
5 42 (2.63%) JUnit
6 36 (2.25%) Selenium
7 32 (2.00%) Cucumber
8 29 (1.81%) Maven
9 21 (1.31%) SonarQube
10 20 (1.25%) Gatling
10 20 (1.25%) Mockito
11 19 (1.19%) Postman
12 14 (0.88%) Cypress.io
12 14 (0.88%) Team Foundation Server
12 14 (0.88%) Visual Studio
13 10 (0.63%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 10 (0.63%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.56%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.56%) Rational DOORS
15 7 (0.44%) Gradle
General
1 549 (34.31%) Social Skills
2 410 (25.63%) Public Sector
3 258 (16.13%) Finance
4 156 (9.75%) Analytical Skills
5 139 (8.69%) Legal
5 139 (8.69%) Organisational Skills
6 44 (2.75%) Aerospace
7 43 (2.69%) Documentation Skills
8 36 (2.25%) Influencing Skills
9 34 (2.13%) Manufacturing
10 32 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 25 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
11 25 (1.56%) Telecoms
12 22 (1.38%) Billing
13 21 (1.31%) Banking
14 16 (1.00%) Aviation
15 15 (0.94%) Military
16 13 (0.81%) Local Government
17 11 (0.69%) Publishing
18 10 (0.63%) Avionics
Job Titles
1 226 (14.13%) Developer
2 180 (11.25%) Senior
3 175 (10.94%) Architect
4 160 (10.00%) Lead
5 112 (7.00%) Consultant
6 108 (6.75%) Analyst
7 75 (4.69%) Java Developer
8 66 (4.13%) SAP Consultant
9 61 (3.81%) Designer
10 56 (3.50%) Data Engineer
11 51 (3.19%) Solutions Architect
12 49 (3.06%) DevOps Engineer
13 46 (2.88%) Business Analyst
14 42 (2.63%) Technical Architect
15 41 (2.56%) Delivery Manager
16 36 (2.25%) Data Architect
17 35 (2.19%) Product Manager
18 32 (2.00%) Lead Developer
19 30 (1.88%) Administrator
20 29 (1.81%) User Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (7.31%) Terraform
2 99 (6.19%) REST
3 96 (6.00%) Spring
4 79 (4.94%) Spring Boot
5 61 (3.81%) RESTful
6 58 (3.63%) React
7 55 (3.44%) Node.js
8 53 (3.31%) HTML
9 45 (2.81%) Playwright
10 42 (2.63%) Kafka
11 41 (2.56%) CSS
12 35 (2.19%) OpenAPI
13 27 (1.69%) .NET
13 27 (1.69%) JSON
14 26 (1.63%) OAuth
14 26 (1.63%) Swagger
15 24 (1.50%) XML
16 23 (1.44%) OAuth2
17 21 (1.31%) Middleware
18 20 (1.25%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 120 (7.50%) Virtual Team
2 119 (7.44%) Web Conferencing
3 109 (6.81%) Onboarding
3 109 (6.81%) Podcast
4 86 (5.38%) Product Ownership
5 76 (4.75%) Cloud Native
6 36 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
7 25 (1.56%) Replication
8 23 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
9 22 (1.38%) Management Information System
9 22 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
10 20 (1.25%) Mobile App
11 19 (1.19%) NHS
12 18 (1.13%) BYOD
12 18 (1.13%) Distributed Systems
13 16 (1.00%) Driving Licence
14 13 (0.81%) Low-Code
14 13 (0.81%) Taxonomies
15 12 (0.75%) AI Agents
16 11 (0.69%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 73 (4.56%) Windows
2 60 (3.75%) Linux
3 35 (2.19%) Unix
4 21 (1.31%) Android
5 20 (1.25%) Windows Server
6 12 (0.75%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.63%) VMS
7 10 (0.63%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.50%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.25%) AIX
10 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.13%) Solaris
11 1 (0.063%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.063%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 513 (32.06%) Agile
2 322 (20.13%) Stakeholder Management
3 288 (18.00%) CI/CD
4 243 (15.19%) DevOps
5 206 (12.88%) Continuous Improvement
6 192 (12.00%) Problem-Solving
7 170 (10.63%) Scrum
8 163 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 140 (8.75%) Test Automation
10 137 (8.56%) Customer Service
11 132 (8.25%) Microservices
12 131 (8.19%) Decision-Making
13 128 (8.00%) Roadmaps
14 118 (7.38%) Migration
15 117 (7.31%) Analytics
16 114 (7.13%) Infrastructure as Code
17 109 (6.81%) AI
18 107 (6.69%) Digital Transformation Programme
19 103 (6.44%) Mentoring
20 88 (5.50%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 204 (12.75%) Java
2 172 (10.75%) SQL
3 132 (8.25%) Python
4 89 (5.56%) JavaScript
5 44 (2.75%) TypeScript
6 39 (2.44%) PowerShell
7 38 (2.38%) Scala
8 26 (1.63%) Shell Script
9 25 (1.56%) C#
10 24 (1.50%) Bash
11 21 (1.31%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.88%) ABAP
12 14 (0.88%) T-SQL
13 12 (0.75%) VB
14 11 (0.69%) VB6
14 11 (0.69%) VBA
15 9 (0.56%) R
15 9 (0.56%) VBScript
16 8 (0.50%) C++
16 8 (0.50%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 527 (32.94%) Security Cleared
2 410 (25.63%) SC Cleared
3 78 (4.88%) Degree
4 19 (1.19%) AWS Certification
4 19 (1.19%) Azure Certification
5 18 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
6 14 (0.88%) DV Cleared
7 13 (0.81%) DBS Check
8 11 (0.69%) A+ Certification
9 9 (0.56%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 9 (0.56%) PMI Certification
10 8 (0.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 7 (0.44%) HNC
11 7 (0.44%) HND
11 7 (0.44%) ISTQB
11 7 (0.44%) Master's Degree
12 6 (0.38%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 6 (0.38%) PhD
13 5 (0.31%) CCNA
13 5 (0.31%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (6.88%) Accessibility
2 109 (6.81%) QA
3 69 (4.31%) Data Quality
4 45 (2.81%) WCAG
5 29 (1.81%) GDPR
6 21 (1.31%) PMO
7 20 (1.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 16 (1.00%) SLA
9 13 (0.81%) NIST
10 10 (0.63%) GRC
11 7 (0.44%) IEC 61508
11 7 (0.44%) NCSC
12 5 (0.31%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 5 (0.31%) GMP
12 5 (0.31%) GxP
12 5 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 17025
12 5 (0.31%) PERC
13 3 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
13 3 (0.19%) Def Stans
13 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 107 (6.69%) Docker
2 37 (2.31%) Active Directory
3 14 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
4 9 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (0.50%) VMware Infrastructure
6 5 (0.31%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.13%) Firmware
8 1 (0.063%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.063%) IAG
8 1 (0.063%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 121 (7.56%) Kubernetes
2 40 (2.50%) Grafana
3 25 (1.56%) Kibana
4 24 (1.50%) Prometheus
5 20 (1.25%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (0.75%) Ansible
6 12 (0.75%) SCCM
7 10 (0.63%) Argo
8 9 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (0.56%) SCOM
9 7 (0.44%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.25%) Istio
10 4 (0.25%) Packer
10 4 (0.25%) Podman
10 4 (0.25%) Puppet
11 3 (0.19%) HAProxy
12 2 (0.13%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.13%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 2 (0.13%) Oracle RMAN
12 2 (0.13%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 186 (11.63%) Microsoft
2 154 (9.63%) SAP
3 97 (6.06%) Oracle
4 67 (4.19%) ServiceNow
5 44 (2.75%) Google
6 29 (1.81%) BeyondTrust
7 21 (1.31%) Databricks
8 19 (1.19%) Splunk
9 16 (1.00%) Atlassian
10 15 (0.94%) Talend
11 13 (0.81%) CyberArk
12 12 (0.75%) Cisco
12 12 (0.75%) IBM
12 12 (0.75%) Salesforce
13 11 (0.69%) Dell
14 10 (0.63%) Informatica
14 10 (0.63%) Okta
15 9 (0.56%) MuleSoft
15 9 (0.56%) Workday
16 8 (0.50%) Blue Prism