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 5 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 99 168 251
Rank change year-on-year +69 +83 -31
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,309 541 379
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.46% 1.64% 0.97%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.84% 5.28% 3.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 922 363 233
10th Percentile £345 £294 £220
25th Percentile £405 £402 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £670 £700 £641
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £481 £465
% change year-on-year -1.30% +3.49% -15.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 49 49
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £15.65
25th Percentile £38.07 £22.63 -
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +59.85% +71.23% -66.10%
75th Percentile £53.86 £53.75 £42.50
90th Percentile £73.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £16.06
% change year-on-year +50.19% +82.25% -58.12%

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 16,695 10,238 11,730
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.39% 31.11% 29.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,175 6,323 7,429
10th Percentile £350 £282 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,244 786 855
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.21%
75th Percentile £74.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £74.38 £77.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -44.11% -16.15%

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 5 August 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 5 August 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 5 August 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 +56 975 £488 -2.50% 375
UK excluding London +50 756 £475 -1.30% 319
Work from Home +63 506 £465 -2.11% 223
London +71 289 £490 -4.62% 77
North of England +28 282 £476 +1.39% 83
Midlands +36 179 £490 -0.41% 55
West Midlands +38 167 £488 +2.63% 50
North West +5 150 £495 +8.79% 55
South East -20 107 £483 -6.12% 72
North East +10 78 £450 +0.56% 25
South West +4 75 £525 +50.00% 57
Scotland +37 72 £350 -13.85% 21
Yorkshire -4 65 £475 -4.04% 4
East of England -12 25 £604 +202.06% 35
Northern Ireland +15 15 £450 +28.57% 4
East Midlands -18 11 £600 +9.89% 5
Wales -5 10 £463 -19.57% 3

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 62 (4.74%) Confluence
2 50 (3.82%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.45%) SharePoint Server
4 10 (0.76%) Apache Spark
5 9 (0.69%) Microsoft Exchange
6 8 (0.61%) SAS
7 7 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
8 5 (0.38%) WebLogic
9 4 (0.31%) Apache
9 4 (0.31%) IIS
9 4 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.31%) WordPress
10 3 (0.23%) CICS
10 3 (0.23%) CMS
11 2 (0.15%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.15%) Ethereum
11 2 (0.15%) Hyperledger
11 2 (0.15%) LiveCycle
11 2 (0.15%) OpenROAD
12 1 (0.076%) Appian
Applications
1 42 (3.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.91%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.46%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.38%) Simulink
7 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.15%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.15%) Trello
8 1 (0.076%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.076%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.076%) CATIA
8 1 (0.076%) InVision
8 1 (0.076%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.076%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.076%) Revit
8 1 (0.076%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 41 (3.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.22%) SAP PSCD
3 13 (0.99%) SAP BRIM
4 12 (0.92%) SAP IBP
5 10 (0.76%) SAP FI
6 7 (0.53%) SAP FI-CA
6 7 (0.53%) SAP HR
7 6 (0.46%) SAP GRC
8 5 (0.38%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.38%) SAP Payroll
8 5 (0.38%) Shopify
9 4 (0.31%) SAP Convergent Charging
9 4 (0.31%) SAP EHS
9 4 (0.31%) SAP MDG
10 3 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
10 3 (0.23%) iTrent
10 3 (0.23%) Primavera
10 3 (0.23%) SAP CO
10 3 (0.23%) SAP FI/CO
10 3 (0.23%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 248 (18.95%) Azure
2 231 (17.65%) AWS
3 90 (6.88%) Power Platform
4 61 (4.66%) GitHub
5 53 (4.05%) Azure DevOps
6 48 (3.67%) GCP
6 48 (3.67%) Serverless
7 44 (3.36%) Microsoft 365
8 42 (3.21%) GitHub Actions
9 41 (3.13%) Entra ID
10 40 (3.06%) Amazon S3
11 39 (2.98%) AWS Lambda
12 25 (1.91%) PowerApps
13 24 (1.83%) Power Automate
14 21 (1.60%) Amazon ECS
15 19 (1.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 18 (1.38%) AWS CloudFormation
16 18 (1.38%) Azure Monitor
16 18 (1.38%) SuccessFactors
17 17 (1.30%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.38%) DNS
2 13 (0.99%) WebEx
3 11 (0.84%) WAN
4 9 (0.69%) Network Security
5 8 (0.61%) Firewall
5 8 (0.61%) SSL
6 7 (0.53%) HTTPS
6 7 (0.53%) Intranet
7 6 (0.46%) Ethernet
7 6 (0.46%) LAN
7 6 (0.46%) MPLS
7 6 (0.46%) SDH
8 5 (0.38%) Cisco IPT
8 5 (0.38%) VPN
9 4 (0.31%) DHCP
9 4 (0.31%) SSH
9 4 (0.31%) TCP/IP
10 3 (0.23%) IP Telephony
10 3 (0.23%) MQTT
10 3 (0.23%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (5.04%) Power BI
2 41 (3.13%) PostgreSQL
3 31 (2.37%) Metadata
4 30 (2.29%) Data Warehouse
5 29 (2.22%) MongoDB
6 26 (1.99%) SQL Server
7 19 (1.45%) MySQL
8 18 (1.38%) NoSQL
9 17 (1.30%) Relational Database
9 17 (1.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 16 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
10 16 (1.22%) Data Lake
11 13 (0.99%) DynamoDB
12 12 (0.92%) Amazon Athena
12 12 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
13 9 (0.69%) Big Data
14 8 (0.61%) Geospatial Data
14 8 (0.61%) Oracle Database
15 7 (0.53%) Amazon Aurora
15 7 (0.53%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 101 (7.72%) JIRA
2 81 (6.19%) Git
3 57 (4.35%) GitLab
4 54 (4.13%) Jenkins
5 21 (1.60%) Selenium
6 19 (1.45%) JUnit
7 17 (1.30%) Cucumber
8 16 (1.22%) Maven
9 15 (1.15%) Team Foundation Server
10 13 (0.99%) Visual Studio
11 12 (0.92%) Postman
12 11 (0.84%) Cypress.io
12 11 (0.84%) Mockito
13 9 (0.69%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 8 (0.61%) Gatling
14 8 (0.61%) REST Assured
14 8 (0.61%) SonarQube
15 7 (0.53%) Artifactory
15 7 (0.53%) WebDriver
16 6 (0.46%) Bitbucket
General
1 416 (31.78%) Social Skills
2 312 (23.83%) Public Sector
3 203 (15.51%) Finance
4 125 (9.55%) Analytical Skills
5 102 (7.79%) Legal
6 95 (7.26%) Organisational Skills
7 54 (4.13%) Aerospace
8 42 (3.21%) Documentation Skills
9 33 (2.52%) Influencing Skills
10 25 (1.91%) Banking
11 23 (1.76%) Presentation Skills
12 22 (1.68%) Billing
13 21 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 21 (1.60%) Manufacturing
14 19 (1.45%) Aviation
15 16 (1.22%) Telecoms
16 13 (0.99%) Local Government
17 9 (0.69%) Law
17 9 (0.69%) Retail
18 8 (0.61%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 165 (12.61%) Developer
2 151 (11.54%) Senior
3 140 (10.70%) Lead
4 113 (8.63%) Architect
5 107 (8.17%) Analyst
6 91 (6.95%) Consultant
7 68 (5.19%) Designer
8 57 (4.35%) SAP Consultant
9 56 (4.28%) Java Developer
10 54 (4.13%) Data Engineer
11 45 (3.44%) Business Analyst
12 38 (2.90%) DevOps Engineer
13 32 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
14 30 (2.29%) User Researcher
15 28 (2.14%) Product Manager
16 26 (1.99%) Delivery Manager
17 25 (1.91%) Administrator
17 25 (1.91%) Lead Developer
18 24 (1.83%) AWS Engineer
18 24 (1.83%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (5.88%) REST
2 54 (4.13%) HTML
3 52 (3.97%) React
3 52 (3.97%) RESTful
4 51 (3.90%) Spring
4 51 (3.90%) Spring Boot
5 47 (3.59%) Node.js
6 42 (3.21%) CSS
7 31 (2.37%) Kafka
8 28 (2.14%) .NET
9 24 (1.83%) Playwright
10 19 (1.45%) JSON
11 18 (1.38%) PySpark
12 16 (1.22%) XML
13 15 (1.15%) SPFx
14 14 (1.07%) BAPI
14 14 (1.07%) HTML5
14 14 (1.07%) Jest
14 14 (1.07%) OAuth
14 14 (1.07%) Play Framework
Miscellaneous
1 86 (6.57%) Virtual Team
1 86 (6.57%) Web Conferencing
2 76 (5.81%) Onboarding
2 76 (5.81%) Podcast
3 73 (5.58%) Product Ownership
4 63 (4.81%) Cloud Native
5 23 (1.76%) NHS
6 22 (1.68%) Management Information System
7 20 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
7 20 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
8 18 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
9 17 (1.30%) Mobile App
10 16 (1.22%) BYOD
10 16 (1.22%) Distributed Systems
11 14 (1.07%) Algorithms
12 12 (0.92%) Replication
13 10 (0.76%) Video Conferencing
14 9 (0.69%) Data Centre
15 8 (0.61%) Data Structures
15 8 (0.61%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 68 (5.19%) Linux
2 63 (4.81%) Windows
3 34 (2.60%) Unix
4 20 (1.53%) Android
5 16 (1.22%) Windows Server
6 12 (0.92%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.69%) Mac OS
7 9 (0.69%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.31%) VMS
9 3 (0.23%) AIX
9 3 (0.23%) Solaris
10 2 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.076%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.076%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 401 (30.63%) Agile
2 236 (18.03%) CI/CD
3 218 (16.65%) DevOps
4 206 (15.74%) Stakeholder Management
5 157 (11.99%) Problem-Solving
6 151 (11.54%) Continuous Improvement
7 139 (10.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 118 (9.01%) Scrum
9 114 (8.71%) Roadmaps
10 107 (8.17%) Analytics
10 107 (8.17%) Decision-Making
11 103 (7.87%) Microservices
11 103 (7.87%) Test Automation
12 99 (7.56%) Customer Service
13 96 (7.33%) Migration
14 94 (7.18%) Infrastructure as Code
15 77 (5.88%) Mentoring
16 75 (5.73%) User Research
17 74 (5.65%) Software Engineering
18 73 (5.58%) AI
Programming Languages
1 145 (11.08%) Java
2 140 (10.70%) SQL
3 128 (9.78%) Python
4 79 (6.04%) JavaScript
5 46 (3.51%) TypeScript
6 35 (2.67%) Scala
7 28 (2.14%) PowerShell
8 25 (1.91%) C#
9 18 (1.38%) PL/SQL
10 17 (1.30%) Bash
11 16 (1.22%) Shell Script
12 14 (1.07%) VB
13 12 (0.92%) C++
13 12 (0.92%) VB6
14 11 (0.84%) T-SQL
14 11 (0.84%) VBA
15 8 (0.61%) ABAP
15 8 (0.61%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.53%) C
17 6 (0.46%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 431 (32.93%) Security Cleared
2 315 (24.06%) SC Cleared
3 67 (5.12%) Degree
4 16 (1.22%) AWS Certification
5 14 (1.07%) Azure Certification
6 12 (0.92%) DV Cleared
6 12 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
7 10 (0.76%) A+ Certification
8 8 (0.61%) PMI Certification
9 7 (0.53%) CTC Cleared
10 6 (0.46%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 6 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 6 (0.46%) CCNA
10 6 (0.46%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (0.38%) CompTIA CySA+
11 5 (0.38%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.38%) ISTQB
11 5 (0.38%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 5 (0.38%) NVQ Level 4
12 4 (0.31%) CCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 79 (6.04%) Accessibility
2 78 (5.96%) Data Quality
3 71 (5.42%) QA
4 25 (1.91%) GDPR
5 22 (1.68%) WCAG
6 20 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 20 (1.53%) PMO
7 16 (1.22%) NIST
8 15 (1.15%) SLA
9 10 (0.76%) GRC
10 7 (0.53%) NCSC
11 4 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.31%) PERC
12 3 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 3 (0.23%) Def Stans
12 3 (0.23%) GMP
12 3 (0.23%) GxP
12 3 (0.23%) HL7
12 3 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 17025
13 2 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 78 (5.96%) Docker
2 38 (2.90%) Active Directory
3 15 (1.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.38%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.15%) Firmware
7 2 (0.15%) vSphere
8 1 (0.076%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.076%) GPFS
8 1 (0.076%) IAG
8 1 (0.076%) NFS
8 1 (0.076%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.076%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.076%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 105 (8.02%) Terraform
2 83 (6.34%) Kubernetes
3 29 (2.22%) Grafana
4 16 (1.22%) Prometheus
5 13 (0.99%) Kibana
5 13 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.76%) Ansible
6 10 (0.76%) Argo
7 8 (0.61%) SCCM
8 6 (0.46%) Istio
8 6 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (0.38%) SCOM
10 4 (0.31%) HAProxy
10 4 (0.31%) Podman
10 4 (0.31%) Puppet
11 2 (0.15%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.15%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 2 (0.15%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.15%) Packer
12 1 (0.076%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 152 (11.61%) Microsoft
2 119 (9.09%) SAP
3 70 (5.35%) Oracle
4 52 (3.97%) ServiceNow
5 35 (2.67%) Google
6 19 (1.45%) Databricks
6 19 (1.45%) Splunk
7 18 (1.38%) BeyondTrust
8 15 (1.15%) Cisco
8 15 (1.15%) VMware
9 11 (0.84%) CyberArk
10 10 (0.76%) Atlassian
10 10 (0.76%) IBM
11 8 (0.61%) Informatica
11 8 (0.61%) Talend
12 7 (0.53%) Apple
12 7 (0.53%) Pega
12 7 (0.53%) Qualtrics
12 7 (0.53%) Workday
13 6 (0.46%) OpenAI