Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 13 April 2021

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for BPSS Clearance qualifications. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months to 13 April 2021 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) Clearance
UK
6 months to
13 Apr 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 293 277 288
Rank change year-on-year -16 +11 +96
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 427 549 873
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.81% 0.92% 0.91%
As % of the Qualifications category 3.85% 4.12% 4.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 323 414 615
10th Percentile £313 £329 £351
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% - +11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £618 £550
90th Percentile £650 £684 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £484
% change year-on-year -4.04% +2.27% +21.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 42 16
10th Percentile £14.57 £15.88 £18.52
25th Percentile £18.24 £18.50 £22.85
Median hourly rate £23.43 £21.15 £26.42
Median % change year-on-year +10.76% -19.92% -11.28%
75th Percentile £40.00 £34.31 £38.61
90th Percentile £49.70 £43.75 £42.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.34 £20.74 £26.42
% change year-on-year +12.54% -21.48% -30.03%

BPSS Clearance is in the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for academic qualifications or professional certifications.

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK
Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 11,089 13,312 18,711
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.13% 22.22% 19.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,249 8,586 11,687
10th Percentile £300 £258 £263
25th Percentile £400 £369 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year - +2.70% +2.78%
75th Percentile £575 £571 £556
90th Percentile £650 £648 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £433
% change year-on-year - +4.05% +6.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 581 535 789
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.75 £12.38
25th Percentile £20.27 £17.50 £16.25
Median hourly rate £40.00 £30.00 £28.42
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% +5.56% +32.96%
75th Percentile £51.56 £49.35 £46.00
90th Percentile £64.50 £57.50 £52.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.00 £25.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +48.00% -9.09% +24.35%

BPSS Clearance
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing BPSS Clearance as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for BPSS Clearance in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing BPSS Clearance.

Daily rate trend for BPSS Clearance in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing BPSS Clearance over the 6 months to 13 April 2021.

Daily rate histogram for BPSS Clearance in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing BPSS Clearance.

Hourly rate trend for BPSS Clearance in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing BPSS Clearance over the 6 months to 13 April 2021.

Hourly rate histogram for BPSS Clearance in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Top 16 Contract 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 13 April 2021. 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
Job
Vacancies
England -44 277 £495 -4.35% 54
UK excluding London +4 224 £475 -4.04% 48
Work from Home -93 201 £495 -8.33% 3
London -19 83 £493 -17.92% 18
North of England -9 75 £500 - 14
South West +34 43 £556 -7.33% 7
South East +69 36 £425 -5.56% 5
Scotland -14 32 £425 - 10
Yorkshire +20 29 £579 +5.27% 1
North West -21 29 £475 - 8
North East +9 17 £450 -5.76% 5
Wales +22 16 £481 -8.33%
Midlands +1 16 £356 -16.24% 7
West Midlands +22 15 £362 -4.74% 6
East of England +40 6 £408 -9.44% 3
East Midlands +2 1 £165 -62.29% 1

For the 6 months to 13 April 2021, IT contractor jobs citing BPSS Clearance also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for BPSS Clearance.

1 230 (53.86%) Security Cleared
2 144 (33.72%) Agile Software Development
3 142 (33.26%) SC Cleared
4 111 (26.00%) Public Sector
5 75 (17.56%) Azure
6 48 (11.24%) AWS
6 48 (11.24%) Java
7 47 (11.01%) DevOps
7 47 (11.01%) Problem-Solving
8 46 (10.77%) Scrum
9 45 (10.54%) Microsoft
10 44 (10.30%) SQL
11 41 (9.60%) Python
12 40 (9.37%) Migration
13 39 (9.13%) Disclosure Scotland
14 38 (8.90%) Analytical Skills
15 35 (8.20%) Test Automation
16 34 (7.96%) User Experience
16 34 (7.96%) Decision-Making
17 32 (7.49%) JavaScript
18 31 (7.26%) Finance
19 29 (6.79%) QA
20 27 (6.32%) Software Engineering
20 27 (6.32%) BDD
20 27 (6.32%) Continuous Improvement
20 27 (6.32%) DBS Check
21 25 (5.85%) Terraform
22 24 (5.62%) Analytics
22 24 (5.62%) Git (software)
22 24 (5.62%) Power Platform

BPSS Clearance
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

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

Application Platforms
1 10 (2.34%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.87%) Confluence
3 7 (1.64%) Elasticsearch
4 6 (1.41%) JBoss
4 6 (1.41%) Oracle Application Server
5 5 (1.17%) Apache Spark
5 5 (1.17%) CMS
5 5 (1.17%) Skype for Business
6 3 (0.70%) Apache
6 3 (0.70%) IIS
7 2 (0.47%) SAS
7 2 (0.47%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.47%) WildFly
8 1 (0.23%) Appian
8 1 (0.23%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.23%) Drupal
8 1 (0.23%) GeoServer
8 1 (0.23%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.23%) WebLogic Portal
8 1 (0.23%) WebSphere
Applications
1 11 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (2.34%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.17%) Stata
4 2 (0.47%) GNU Octave
4 2 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.23%) Acrobat
5 1 (0.23%) Adobe After Effects
5 1 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.23%) Adobe Illustrator
5 1 (0.23%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.23%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.23%) InDesign
5 1 (0.23%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.23%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 8 (1.87%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.23%) assyst
2 1 (0.23%) Dynamics NAV
2 1 (0.23%) Maximo
2 1 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.23%) Sage CRM
2 1 (0.23%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 75 (17.56%) Azure
2 48 (11.24%) AWS
3 24 (5.62%) Power Platform
4 14 (3.28%) Microsoft 365
4 14 (3.28%) PaaS
5 11 (2.58%) Serverless
6 9 (2.11%) Dynamics 365
6 9 (2.11%) GCP
7 8 (1.87%) Azure Active Directory
7 8 (1.87%) GitHub
8 7 (1.64%) PowerApps
9 6 (1.41%) AWS CloudFormation
9 6 (1.41%) Logic Apps
10 5 (1.17%) Amazon S3
10 5 (1.17%) Cloud Computing
11 4 (0.94%) AWS Lambda
12 3 (0.70%) Azure Functions
12 3 (0.70%) OneDrive
13 2 (0.47%) AWS Fargate
13 2 (0.47%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 20 (4.68%) Firewall
2 16 (3.75%) WAN
3 14 (3.28%) LAN
4 10 (2.34%) DNS
4 10 (2.34%) VPN
5 9 (2.11%) Internet
6 8 (1.87%) Skype
6 8 (1.87%) TCP/IP
7 7 (1.64%) Wireless
8 6 (1.41%) Ethernet
8 6 (1.41%) MPLS
9 5 (1.17%) BGP
9 5 (1.17%) Network Security
9 5 (1.17%) OSPF
9 5 (1.17%) PPP
9 5 (1.17%) SAN
10 4 (0.94%) EIGRP
10 4 (0.94%) IPsec
10 4 (0.94%) TACACS
10 4 (0.94%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (3.28%) Power BI
2 13 (3.04%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (3.04%) SQL Server
3 11 (2.58%) Relational Database
4 10 (2.34%) MongoDB
4 10 (2.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 9 (2.11%) Oracle Database
6 6 (1.41%) Apache Hive
6 6 (1.41%) Hadoop
6 6 (1.41%) Oracle Reports
6 6 (1.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (0.94%) Big Data
7 4 (0.94%) MySQL
8 3 (0.70%) Data Mart
8 3 (0.70%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.47%) BusinessObjects
9 2 (0.47%) Data Mining
9 2 (0.47%) DB2
9 2 (0.47%) GIS
9 2 (0.47%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 24 (5.62%) Git (software)
2 21 (4.92%) Jenkins
3 17 (3.98%) JIRA
4 14 (3.28%) Selenium
5 13 (3.04%) Cucumber
6 11 (2.58%) JMeter
7 8 (1.87%) GitLab
8 7 (1.64%) Cypress.io
8 7 (1.64%) JUnit
9 6 (1.41%) Maven
9 6 (1.41%) Oracle APEX
9 6 (1.41%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (1.17%) WebDriver
11 4 (0.94%) Gatling
11 4 (0.94%) SoapUI
11 4 (0.94%) SonarQube
11 4 (0.94%) Visual Studio
12 3 (0.70%) CA Gen
12 3 (0.70%) CircleCI
12 3 (0.70%) REST Assured
General
1 111 (26.00%) Public Sector
2 31 (7.26%) Finance
3 14 (3.28%) Telecoms
4 11 (2.58%) Legal
5 8 (1.87%) Publishing
6 5 (1.17%) Digital Economy
7 3 (0.70%) Electronics
7 3 (0.70%) Marketing
8 2 (0.47%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.23%) Back Office
9 1 (0.23%) Brand Awareness
9 1 (0.23%) Military
9 1 (0.23%) Police
9 1 (0.23%) Retail
9 1 (0.23%) Social Science
9 1 (0.23%) Welsh Language
Job Titles
1 76 (17.80%) Developer
2 43 (10.07%) Analyst
3 32 (7.49%) Architect
4 24 (5.62%) Designer
5 18 (4.22%) Consultant
6 14 (3.28%) User Researcher
7 13 (3.04%) Business Analyst
8 12 (2.81%) DevOps Engineer
8 12 (2.81%) Project Manager
9 11 (2.58%) AWS Engineer
9 11 (2.58%) Front End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
9 11 (2.58%) Technical Architect
9 11 (2.58%) Test Engineer
9 11 (2.58%) Tester
10 10 (2.34%) Content Designer
10 10 (2.34%) Delivery Manager
10 10 (2.34%) Network Engineer
11 9 (2.11%) Administrator
12 8 (1.87%) Java Developer
12 8 (1.87%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (5.15%) HTML
2 21 (4.92%) Node.js
3 19 (4.45%) .NET
4 18 (4.22%) CSS
5 13 (3.04%) RESTful
6 8 (1.87%) React
6 8 (1.87%) REST
6 8 (1.87%) Web Services
7 7 (1.64%) HTML5
7 7 (1.64%) Sass
8 6 (1.41%) ASP.NET
8 6 (1.41%) Jest
8 6 (1.41%) Spring
8 6 (1.41%) Spring Boot
8 6 (1.41%) XML
9 5 (1.17%) .NET Framework
9 5 (1.17%) AngularJS
9 5 (1.17%) JAX-RS
9 5 (1.17%) Nunjucks
9 5 (1.17%) Shiny
Miscellaneous
1 38 (8.90%) Analytical Skills
2 34 (7.96%) User Experience
3 21 (4.92%) NHS
4 13 (3.04%) Management Information System
5 8 (1.87%) Video Conferencing
6 7 (1.64%) Enterprise Cloud
7 6 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (1.17%) Cloud Native
8 5 (1.17%) Data Centre
8 5 (1.17%) Mobile App
8 5 (1.17%) Public Cloud
9 3 (0.70%) Clustering
9 3 (0.70%) Data Structures
9 3 (0.70%) Digital Signage
9 3 (0.70%) EMC VMAX
9 3 (0.70%) EMC VNX
9 3 (0.70%) HP Storage
9 3 (0.70%) HP StoreVirtual
9 3 (0.70%) PKI
9 3 (0.70%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 23 (5.39%) Windows
2 15 (3.51%) Linux
3 13 (3.04%) Unix
4 6 (1.41%) Windows 10
5 5 (1.17%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.70%) CentOS
6 3 (0.70%) Data ONTAP
6 3 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.70%) Windows 7
7 2 (0.47%) Android
7 2 (0.47%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.47%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.47%) Solaris
8 1 (0.23%) AIX
8 1 (0.23%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.23%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (33.72%) Agile Software Development
2 47 (11.01%) DevOps
2 47 (11.01%) Problem-Solving
3 46 (10.77%) Scrum
4 40 (9.37%) Migration
5 35 (8.20%) Test Automation
6 34 (7.96%) Decision-Making
7 27 (6.32%) BDD
7 27 (6.32%) Continuous Improvement
7 27 (6.32%) Software Engineering
8 24 (5.62%) Analytics
9 23 (5.39%) Coaching
9 23 (5.39%) Service Management
9 23 (5.39%) Stakeholder Management
10 22 (5.15%) TDD
11 21 (4.92%) Project Management
11 21 (4.92%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
12 20 (4.68%) Microservices
12 20 (4.68%) User Stories
13 19 (4.45%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 48 (11.24%) Java
2 44 (10.30%) SQL
3 41 (9.60%) Python
4 32 (7.49%) JavaScript
5 13 (3.04%) C#
5 13 (3.04%) R
6 10 (2.34%) Go
7 9 (2.11%) C
8 8 (1.87%) PowerShell
9 6 (1.41%) Bash Shell
10 5 (1.17%) TypeScript
11 4 (0.94%) Apex Code
11 4 (0.94%) MATLAB
11 4 (0.94%) PL/SQL
11 4 (0.94%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.70%) C++
12 3 (0.70%) Kotlin
12 3 (0.70%) Ruby
12 3 (0.70%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.70%) VBA
Qualifications
1 230 (53.86%) Security Cleared
2 142 (33.26%) SC Cleared
3 27 (6.32%) DBS Check
4 15 (3.51%) Degree
5 11 (2.58%) BC Cleared
6 9 (2.11%) Cisco Certification
7 7 (1.64%) CCNA
8 6 (1.41%) CCNP
9 5 (1.17%) CCDP
9 5 (1.17%) ISEB
10 4 (0.94%) CCIP
10 4 (0.94%) CISSP
10 4 (0.94%) ISTQB
11 3 (0.70%) CCIE
11 3 (0.70%) CESG Certified Professional
11 3 (0.70%) DV Cleared
11 3 (0.70%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 2 (0.47%) AWS Certification
12 2 (0.47%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (0.47%) Six Sigma Black Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (9.13%) Disclosure Scotland
2 29 (6.79%) QA
3 6 (1.41%) Data Quality
3 6 (1.41%) GDPR
4 5 (1.17%) WCAG
5 4 (0.94%) Actionable Recommendations
5 4 (0.94%) SLA
6 3 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 3 (0.70%) NCSC
7 1 (0.23%) COBIT
7 1 (0.23%) ECSS
7 1 (0.23%) HL7
7 1 (0.23%) IFRS
7 1 (0.23%) PMO
7 1 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 23 (5.39%) Docker
2 16 (3.75%) Active Directory
3 5 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
4 2 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (0.47%) vSphere
5 1 (0.23%) Citrix Hypervisor
5 1 (0.23%) Firmware
5 1 (0.23%) GlusterFS
5 1 (0.23%) HDFS
5 1 (0.23%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.23%) LXC
5 1 (0.23%) Microsoft App-V
5 1 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 25 (5.85%) Terraform
2 23 (5.39%) Kubernetes
3 20 (4.68%) Ansible
4 6 (1.41%) SCCM
5 4 (0.94%) Kibana
6 3 (0.70%) Avamar
6 3 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.70%) NetBackup
6 3 (0.70%) Packer
6 3 (0.70%) Puppet
7 2 (0.47%) Grafana
7 2 (0.47%) logstash
7 2 (0.47%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.23%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.23%) Istio
8 1 (0.23%) Opscode Chef
8 1 (0.23%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.23%) Trend Micro Deep Security
8 1 (0.23%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 45 (10.54%) Microsoft
2 21 (4.92%) Oracle
3 19 (4.45%) Cisco
4 12 (2.81%) IBM
5 10 (2.34%) VMware
6 9 (2.11%) ServiceNow
7 7 (1.64%) Google
8 6 (1.41%) HP
8 6 (1.41%) Salesforce.com
8 6 (1.41%) SAP
9 5 (1.17%) EMC
9 5 (1.17%) Juniper
10 4 (0.94%) AppDynamics
10 4 (0.94%) Dell
10 4 (0.94%) webMethods
11 3 (0.70%) 3PAR
11 3 (0.70%) F5
11 3 (0.70%) Isilon
11 3 (0.70%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.70%) Pega