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 24 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 160 270 249
Rank change year-on-year +110 -21 -41
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 677 327 467
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.90% 0.89% 1.01%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.72% 3.03% 3.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 495 172 315
10th Percentile £308 £220 £360
25th Percentile £400 £384 £448
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £674 £706
UK excluding London median daily rate £472 £470 £550
% change year-on-year +0.43% -14.55% +0.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 14 34
10th Percentile £16.81 £20.12 £19.40
25th Percentile £22.63 £20.16 £24.63
Median hourly rate £33.50 £38.85 £48.75
Median % change year-on-year -13.77% -20.31% -15.22%
75th Percentile £48.13 £64.69 £72.81
90th Percentile £70.08 £65.00 £84.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £38.85 £48.75
% change year-on-year -13.77% -20.31% -18.75%

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 11,831 10,786 13,540
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.28% 29.48% 29.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,615 6,504 8,581
10th Percentile £303 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £523 £538
% change year-on-year -4.31% -2.79% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,025 523 770
10th Percentile £17.50 £18.75 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.18 £27.13
Median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £53.58
Median % change year-on-year -44.11% -16.02% +19.07%
75th Percentile £45.46 £67.14 £68.73
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.71 £52.50
% change year-on-year -46.16% -11.02% +16.67%

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 24 November 2025.

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 24 November 2025.

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 24 November 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
England +88 477 £500 - 317
UK excluding London +73 356 £472 +0.43% 312
Work from Home +105 239 £478 -13.18% 216
North of England +56 184 £469 +10.48% 29
North West +53 135 £450 -10.45% 19
London +32 135 £508 -10.57% 48
Midlands -8 55 £470 -6.00% 24
West Midlands -4 40 £510 +8.51% 23
South East +12 38 £475 +13.10% 146
Yorkshire -16 38 £500 +127.27% 4
South West +14 34 £560 -5.08% 84
Scotland +28 28 £420 -23.64% 8
East of England -22 19 £515 +134.09% 103
East Midlands -2 15 £416 -32.15% 1
North East +1 13 £506 +22.36% 7
Northern Ireland +1 6 £363 - 2
Wales -1 5 £458 +108.00% 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 42 (6.20%) Confluence
2 10 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (1.48%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.89%) Apache
3 6 (0.89%) nginx
4 4 (0.59%) CMS
4 4 (0.59%) SugarCRM
5 3 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.44%) ArcGIS
5 3 (0.44%) MTS
5 3 (0.44%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.30%) HCL Domino
6 2 (0.30%) HCL Notes
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.15%) Drupal
7 1 (0.15%) FileNet
7 1 (0.15%) GeoServer
7 1 (0.15%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 20 (2.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.62%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (1.18%) AutoCAD
4 5 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.74%) ProjectWise
5 4 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.59%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.59%) Trello
6 3 (0.44%) Adobe Illustrator
6 3 (0.44%) Adobe XD
6 3 (0.44%) Navisworks
6 3 (0.44%) Photoshop
6 3 (0.44%) Revit
6 3 (0.44%) Siemens NX
6 3 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.30%) Sketch
8 1 (0.15%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.15%) Fusion 360
8 1 (0.15%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 43 (6.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (2.36%) Oracle EBS
3 12 (1.77%) SAP EHS
4 10 (1.48%) Oracle EBS R12
5 9 (1.33%) Oracle Financials
6 7 (1.03%) Oracle Payables
6 7 (1.03%) SAP HCM
7 6 (0.89%) Oracle Cash Management
7 6 (0.89%) SAP VC
8 5 (0.74%) Oracle ASCP
8 5 (0.74%) SAP QM
9 4 (0.59%) Maximo
9 4 (0.59%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.59%) Oracle SCM
10 3 (0.44%) SAP BRIM
10 3 (0.44%) SAP Hybris
10 3 (0.44%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.44%) SAP PM
10 3 (0.44%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 3 (0.44%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 104 (15.36%) AWS
2 84 (12.41%) Azure
3 29 (4.28%) Serverless
4 23 (3.40%) GitHub
5 22 (3.25%) Power Platform
6 21 (3.10%) AWS Lambda
7 18 (2.66%) Amazon EC2
8 17 (2.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 17 (2.51%) AWS CloudFormation
8 17 (2.51%) Azure DevOps
9 16 (2.36%) GCP
9 16 (2.36%) Microsoft 365
10 15 (2.22%) Amazon S3
11 14 (2.07%) GitHub Actions
11 14 (2.07%) SuccessFactors
12 12 (1.77%) Amazon ECS
13 10 (1.48%) Amazon EKS
13 10 (1.48%) Figma
13 10 (1.48%) Power Automate
13 10 (1.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 15 (2.22%) Firewall
2 12 (1.77%) SSH
3 10 (1.48%) Network Security
4 9 (1.33%) LAN
5 8 (1.18%) DNS
5 8 (1.18%) WAN
6 7 (1.03%) MPLS
6 7 (1.03%) SAN
6 7 (1.03%) VPN
7 6 (0.89%) Intrusion Detection
8 5 (0.74%) Structured Cabling
9 4 (0.59%) SDH
9 4 (0.59%) SD-WAN
9 4 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
10 3 (0.44%) 5G
10 3 (0.44%) BGP
10 3 (0.44%) DHCP
10 3 (0.44%) OpenLDAP
10 3 (0.44%) OSPF
10 3 (0.44%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.36%) Power BI
2 14 (2.07%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (1.62%) MongoDB
4 10 (1.48%) Amazon RDS
4 10 (1.48%) Metadata
4 10 (1.48%) NoSQL
5 8 (1.18%) Data Lake
5 8 (1.18%) SQL Server
6 7 (1.03%) BigQuery
6 7 (1.03%) Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.03%) Oracle Database
6 7 (1.03%) Relational Database
7 6 (0.89%) MySQL
8 5 (0.74%) Geospatial Data
8 5 (0.74%) Redis
9 4 (0.59%) GIS
9 4 (0.59%) Hadoop
9 4 (0.59%) Looker
9 4 (0.59%) SAP HANA
9 4 (0.59%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 66 (9.75%) Git
2 63 (9.31%) JIRA
3 29 (4.28%) GitLab
4 28 (4.14%) Jenkins
5 13 (1.92%) Cucumber
6 10 (1.48%) JUnit
7 9 (1.33%) Cypress.io
7 9 (1.33%) SonarQube
8 8 (1.18%) Mockito
9 6 (0.89%) Selenium
10 5 (0.74%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.59%) Gradle
11 4 (0.59%) Grunt
11 4 (0.59%) gulp
11 4 (0.59%) Maven
12 3 (0.44%) Android Studio
12 3 (0.44%) JMeter
12 3 (0.44%) Toad
12 3 (0.44%) webpack
13 2 (0.30%) Postman
General
1 201 (29.69%) Social Skills
2 125 (18.46%) Public Sector
3 110 (16.25%) Finance
4 58 (8.57%) Analytical Skills
5 29 (4.28%) Banking
6 24 (3.55%) Aerospace
7 16 (2.36%) Manufacturing
7 16 (2.36%) Organisational Skills
8 15 (2.22%) Aviation
9 14 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (2.07%) Telecoms
10 13 (1.92%) Influencing Skills
11 8 (1.18%) Local Government
12 7 (1.03%) Billing
12 7 (1.03%) Legal
12 7 (1.03%) Marketing
13 6 (0.89%) Law
14 5 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
15 4 (0.59%) Financial Institution
16 3 (0.44%) Police
Job Titles
1 107 (15.81%) Developer
2 88 (13.00%) Consultant
3 64 (9.45%) Senior
4 57 (8.42%) Analyst
5 49 (7.24%) Architect
6 45 (6.65%) Lead
7 42 (6.20%) SAP Consultant
8 33 (4.87%) Java Developer
9 22 (3.25%) Administrator
9 22 (3.25%) Business Analyst
9 22 (3.25%) Designer
10 21 (3.10%) Solutions Architect
11 19 (2.81%) DevOps Engineer
12 17 (2.51%) Delivery Manager
12 17 (2.51%) Project Manager
13 15 (2.22%) Oracle Consultant
14 13 (1.92%) Management Consultant
14 13 (1.92%) Senior Developer
14 13 (1.92%) Senior Manager
15 11 (1.62%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (5.17%) Node.js
2 29 (4.28%) React
2 29 (4.28%) REST
3 28 (4.14%) HTML
4 23 (3.40%) RESTful
5 22 (3.25%) CSS
6 21 (3.10%) Kafka
7 20 (2.95%) JSON
8 17 (2.51%) Spring
9 13 (1.92%) .NET
9 13 (1.92%) SAP Fiori
10 12 (1.77%) Jest
10 12 (1.77%) Spring Boot
11 10 (1.48%) AngularJS
11 10 (1.48%) XML
12 9 (1.33%) ActiveMQ
12 9 (1.33%) SOAP
13 8 (1.18%) Elastic Stack
13 8 (1.18%) HTML5
14 7 (1.03%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 48 (7.09%) Onboarding
2 33 (4.87%) Product Ownership
3 17 (2.51%) Management Information System
4 14 (2.07%) Security Posture
5 13 (1.92%) Cloud Native
6 12 (1.77%) Driving Licence
7 10 (1.48%) Mobile App
7 10 (1.48%) SCADA
8 9 (1.33%) NHS
9 8 (1.18%) Data Centre
9 8 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (1.03%) Operational Technology
11 6 (0.89%) AI Agents
11 6 (0.89%) Fibre Optics
11 6 (0.89%) Low-Code
11 6 (0.89%) Public Cloud
12 5 (0.74%) Cyber Threat
12 5 (0.74%) Distributed Systems
12 5 (0.74%) Greenfield Project
12 5 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 60 (8.86%) Linux
2 27 (3.99%) Windows
3 25 (3.69%) Unix
4 10 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (1.03%) Android
6 6 (0.89%) Mac OS X
7 5 (0.74%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.59%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.30%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.15%) CentOS
10 1 (0.15%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.15%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.15%) VME
10 1 (0.15%) VMS
10 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.15%) Windows 8
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 196 (28.95%) Agile
2 101 (14.92%) Problem-Solving
2 101 (14.92%) Stakeholder Management
3 97 (14.33%) CI/CD
4 85 (12.56%) DevOps
5 55 (8.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 50 (7.39%) Scrum
7 49 (7.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 48 (7.09%) Test Automation
9 46 (6.79%) Roadmaps
10 45 (6.65%) Migration
11 42 (6.20%) Microservices
11 42 (6.20%) User Experience
12 40 (5.91%) Change Management
12 40 (5.91%) Validation
13 39 (5.76%) AI
14 37 (5.47%) User Acceptance Testing
15 34 (5.02%) Analytics
15 34 (5.02%) Software Engineering
16 33 (4.87%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 77 (11.37%) Python
2 73 (10.78%) Java
3 47 (6.94%) SQL
4 34 (5.02%) JavaScript
5 26 (3.84%) TypeScript
6 18 (2.66%) Bash
7 16 (2.36%) PowerShell
8 13 (1.92%) ABAP
9 10 (1.48%) PHP
9 10 (1.48%) Shell Script
10 9 (1.33%) PL/SQL
11 8 (1.18%) C++
11 8 (1.18%) Ruby
12 7 (1.03%) R
12 7 (1.03%) Scala
13 6 (0.89%) C#
13 6 (0.89%) Go
14 4 (0.59%) Apex Code
15 3 (0.44%) Kotlin
16 2 (0.30%) Rust
Qualifications
1 342 (50.52%) Security Cleared
2 232 (34.27%) SC Cleared
3 47 (6.94%) Degree
4 19 (2.81%) Computer Science Degree
5 16 (2.36%) DBS Check
6 13 (1.92%) Master's Degree
7 12 (1.77%) BC Cleared
7 12 (1.77%) DV Cleared
8 10 (1.48%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 9 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.03%) CCNP
11 6 (0.89%) CISM
12 5 (0.74%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.59%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.59%) ISEB
13 4 (0.59%) ISTQB
13 4 (0.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 4 (0.59%) Oracle Certification
14 3 (0.44%) PMP
14 3 (0.44%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (6.35%) Accessibility
2 41 (6.06%) QA
3 20 (2.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 13 (1.92%) Data Quality
5 12 (1.77%) GRC
6 11 (1.62%) NIST
6 11 (1.62%) SLA
7 10 (1.48%) Def Stans
8 8 (1.18%) GDPR
8 8 (1.18%) PMO
8 8 (1.18%) WCAG
9 7 (1.03%) NCSC
10 4 (0.59%) ISO 20022
11 3 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.44%) PSD2
12 2 (0.30%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.30%) SEPA
13 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
13 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
13 1 (0.15%) ECSS
System Software
1 45 (6.65%) Docker
2 20 (2.95%) Active Directory
3 9 (1.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.59%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.44%) vSphere
6 1 (0.15%) ACF2
6 1 (0.15%) GPFS
6 1 (0.15%) HDFS
6 1 (0.15%) KVM
6 1 (0.15%) NFS
6 1 (0.15%) Postfix
6 1 (0.15%) RACF
6 1 (0.15%) Time Sharing Option
6 1 (0.15%) Varnish
6 1 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 38 (5.61%) Kubernetes
2 37 (5.47%) Terraform
3 11 (1.62%) Grafana
4 8 (1.18%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.89%) Ansible
5 6 (0.89%) EMC NetWorker
5 6 (0.89%) EMC VPLEX
5 6 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.59%) Packer
6 4 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.44%) Consul
7 3 (0.44%) PingFederate
7 3 (0.44%) Puppet
7 3 (0.44%) SCCM
7 3 (0.44%) vRealize
8 2 (0.30%) Ambari
8 2 (0.30%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.30%) Kibana
8 2 (0.30%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.30%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 99 (14.62%) SAP
2 77 (11.37%) Microsoft
3 55 (8.12%) Oracle
4 23 (3.40%) Cisco
5 19 (2.81%) VMware
6 17 (2.51%) ServiceNow
7 12 (1.77%) Adobe
7 12 (1.77%) Google
8 10 (1.48%) Siemens
9 9 (1.33%) Atlassian
9 9 (1.33%) Dell
10 8 (1.18%) Red Hat
11 7 (1.03%) IBM
12 6 (0.89%) Brocade
12 6 (0.89%) EMC
12 6 (0.89%) Fortinet
12 6 (0.89%) Isilon
12 6 (0.89%) Salesforce
12 6 (0.89%) webMethods
12 6 (0.89%) Workday