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 12 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 202 237
Rank change year-on-year +85 +35 -2
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,089 400 445
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.18% 1.36% 1.02%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.94% 4.40% 3.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 788 262 315
10th Percentile £324 £269 £216
25th Percentile £400 £405 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - -8.26%
75th Percentile £570 £582 £619
90th Percentile £672 £688 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -10.00% - -4.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 120 33 52
10th Percentile £17.46 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £33.13 £25.32 -
Median hourly rate £43.96 £45.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -2.31% +180.20% -49.30%
75th Percentile £63.75 £71.25 £26.25
90th Percentile £80.23 £76.25 £76.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £47.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -7.45% +195.77% -35.76%

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 15,684 9,098 13,043
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.38% 30.91% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,409 5,658 8,104
10th Percentile £350 £278 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.82% -0.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £618 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £527
% change year-on-year +1.00% -5.03% +0.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,159 567 1,116
10th Percentile £17.12 £17.72 £13.93
25th Percentile £22.63 £21.02 £18.32
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.93% -23.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.75 £64.76 £63.49
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £30.00 £41.27
% change year-on-year +58.47% -27.30% -21.40%

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 12 June 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 12 June 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 12 June 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 +90 817 £481 -3.90% 389
UK excluding London +66 612 £450 -10.00% 349
Work from Home +74 448 £438 -12.50% 205
London +90 261 £511 +2.18% 65
North of England +28 220 £453 -9.40% 86
Midlands +5 133 £438 -5.71% 30
North West +23 126 £400 -23.81% 62
West Midlands 0 100 £459 +11.89% 27
South East -21 98 £483 -8.00% 75
Scotland +40 62 £341 -4.55% 14
South West +17 62 £525 +44.83% 90
North East 0 54 £458 +12.33% 12
Yorkshire -18 45 £481 -1.53% 12
East Midlands -4 32 £416 -40.54% 3
East of England -11 29 £450 +125.00% 53
Wales -13 7 £550 -4.35% 10
Northern Ireland +3 5 £450 +28.57% 4

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 51 (4.68%) Confluence
2 37 (3.40%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.38%) SharePoint Server
4 13 (1.19%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.73%) SAS
6 7 (0.64%) Apache
7 4 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.28%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.28%) CICS
8 3 (0.28%) CMS
8 3 (0.28%) LiveCycle
8 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.18%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.18%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.18%) WordPress
10 1 (0.092%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.092%) Appian
10 1 (0.092%) Camunda
Applications
1 43 (3.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (1.65%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (1.29%) Microsoft Project
5 11 (1.01%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.46%) Simulink
7 2 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.18%) Trello
8 1 (0.092%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.092%) CATIA
8 1 (0.092%) InVision
8 1 (0.092%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.092%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.092%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.092%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 46 (4.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.38%) SAP PSCD
3 14 (1.29%) SAP BRIM
4 13 (1.19%) SAP Travel Management
5 11 (1.01%) SAP IBP
6 8 (0.73%) SAP EWM
6 8 (0.73%) SAP FI
7 7 (0.64%) SAP FI-CA
8 6 (0.55%) SAP HR
9 5 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
10 4 (0.37%) Loan IQ
10 4 (0.37%) SAP Convergent Charging
10 4 (0.37%) SAP EHS
11 3 (0.28%) Exchequer
11 3 (0.28%) iTrent
11 3 (0.28%) Primavera
11 3 (0.28%) ProductWriter
11 3 (0.28%) SAP HCM
11 3 (0.28%) SAP MDG
11 3 (0.28%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 201 (18.46%) AWS
2 198 (18.18%) Azure
3 74 (6.80%) Power Platform
4 49 (4.50%) Azure DevOps
5 48 (4.41%) Serverless
6 47 (4.32%) GCP
7 46 (4.22%) GitHub
8 39 (3.58%) Entra ID
9 35 (3.21%) Microsoft 365
10 34 (3.12%) AWS Lambda
10 34 (3.12%) GitHub Actions
11 30 (2.75%) Amazon S3
12 20 (1.84%) Power Automate
13 19 (1.74%) PowerApps
14 18 (1.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 16 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
16 15 (1.38%) Amazon ECS
17 14 (1.29%) Amazon EC2
18 13 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
19 12 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.47%) DNS
2 15 (1.38%) Network Security
3 14 (1.29%) Firewall
4 9 (0.83%) HTTPS
4 9 (0.83%) SSH
4 9 (0.83%) WAN
5 6 (0.55%) DHCP
6 5 (0.46%) Ethernet
6 5 (0.46%) VPN
7 4 (0.37%) LAN
7 4 (0.37%) SSL
8 3 (0.28%) Internet
8 3 (0.28%) MQTT
8 3 (0.28%) Reverse Proxy
8 3 (0.28%) SD-WAN
8 3 (0.28%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.28%) WebEx
8 3 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (0.28%) Wireless
9 2 (0.18%) SDH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (5.69%) Power BI
2 36 (3.31%) PostgreSQL
3 25 (2.30%) Data Warehouse
3 25 (2.30%) Metadata
4 24 (2.20%) SQL Server
5 21 (1.93%) MongoDB
6 18 (1.65%) NoSQL
7 16 (1.47%) DynamoDB
7 16 (1.47%) Relational Database
8 13 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
9 12 (1.10%) Amazon Athena
9 12 (1.10%) Data Lake
10 11 (1.01%) MySQL
11 10 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
12 9 (0.83%) Geospatial Data
13 8 (0.73%) Big Data
13 8 (0.73%) Delta Lake
14 7 (0.64%) Amazon Aurora
15 6 (0.55%) BigQuery
15 6 (0.55%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 89 (8.17%) JIRA
2 60 (5.51%) Git
3 55 (5.05%) GitLab
4 42 (3.86%) Jenkins
5 19 (1.74%) Selenium
6 16 (1.47%) Cucumber
7 12 (1.10%) JUnit
8 9 (0.83%) Postman
8 9 (0.83%) Team Foundation Server
9 8 (0.73%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.64%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.55%) REST Assured
12 5 (0.46%) Gatling
12 5 (0.46%) Visual Studio
12 5 (0.46%) WebDriver
13 4 (0.37%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 4 (0.37%) Maven
13 4 (0.37%) Mockito
13 4 (0.37%) Rational DOORS
14 3 (0.28%) JMeter
General
1 332 (30.49%) Social Skills
2 210 (19.28%) Public Sector
3 165 (15.15%) Finance
4 118 (10.84%) Analytical Skills
5 47 (4.32%) Banking
5 47 (4.32%) Legal
6 45 (4.13%) Aerospace
7 37 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
8 33 (3.03%) Organisational Skills
9 21 (1.93%) Billing
10 20 (1.84%) Influencing Skills
11 19 (1.74%) Manufacturing
11 19 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
12 16 (1.47%) Aviation
13 13 (1.19%) Telecoms
14 12 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 11 (1.01%) Local Government
16 9 (0.83%) Retail
17 8 (0.73%) Law
17 8 (0.73%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 140 (12.86%) Developer
2 127 (11.66%) Analyst
3 115 (10.56%) Senior
4 111 (10.19%) Architect
5 106 (9.73%) Lead
6 86 (7.90%) Consultant
7 62 (5.69%) SAP Consultant
8 57 (5.23%) Business Analyst
9 49 (4.50%) Designer
10 46 (4.22%) Data Engineer
11 41 (3.76%) Java Developer
12 31 (2.85%) Administrator
13 26 (2.39%) Delivery Manager
13 26 (2.39%) DevOps Engineer
13 26 (2.39%) Service Designer
14 24 (2.20%) Senior Analyst
14 24 (2.20%) Solutions Architect
15 23 (2.11%) Data Analyst
16 22 (2.02%) Product Manager
16 22 (2.02%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (5.23%) REST
2 52 (4.78%) React
3 47 (4.32%) Node.js
4 45 (4.13%) HTML
4 45 (4.13%) RESTful
5 40 (3.67%) CSS
6 39 (3.58%) Spring Boot
7 38 (3.49%) Spring
8 28 (2.57%) .NET
9 27 (2.48%) Kafka
10 19 (1.74%) JSON
11 18 (1.65%) Playwright
12 17 (1.56%) OAuth
13 16 (1.47%) PySpark
14 15 (1.38%) SPFx
15 14 (1.29%) OpenAPI
16 13 (1.19%) AngularJS
16 13 (1.19%) Middleware
16 13 (1.19%) SAP TM
16 13 (1.19%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 78 (7.16%) Product Ownership
2 58 (5.33%) Onboarding
3 52 (4.78%) Cloud Native
4 25 (2.30%) Virtual Team
5 22 (2.02%) Web Conferencing
6 21 (1.93%) Management Information System
6 21 (1.93%) Podcast
7 20 (1.84%) Distributed Systems
8 18 (1.65%) NHS
9 17 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
10 16 (1.47%) Algorithms
11 14 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
12 12 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
13 10 (0.92%) Data Centre
14 8 (0.73%) Data Structures
14 8 (0.73%) Public Cloud
15 6 (0.55%) Mobile App
16 5 (0.46%) AI Agents
16 5 (0.46%) BYOD
16 5 (0.46%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 69 (6.34%) Linux
2 46 (4.22%) Windows
3 27 (2.48%) Unix
4 15 (1.38%) Android
5 12 (1.10%) Windows Server
6 10 (0.92%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.83%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.55%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.28%) AIX
9 3 (0.28%) Solaris
10 2 (0.18%) Debian
10 2 (0.18%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.18%) VMS
11 1 (0.092%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.092%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 330 (30.30%) Agile
2 216 (19.83%) CI/CD
3 176 (16.16%) DevOps
4 165 (15.15%) Problem-Solving
5 158 (14.51%) Stakeholder Management
6 117 (10.74%) Continuous Improvement
7 112 (10.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 103 (9.46%) Roadmaps
9 100 (9.18%) Test Automation
10 90 (8.26%) Scrum
11 88 (8.08%) Decision-Making
12 83 (7.62%) Microservices
13 82 (7.53%) Analytics
13 82 (7.53%) Infrastructure as Code
14 74 (6.80%) AI
14 74 (6.80%) Data Modelling
15 70 (6.43%) Migration
16 68 (6.24%) Business Intelligence
17 64 (5.88%) Software Engineering
17 64 (5.88%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 132 (12.12%) Python
2 123 (11.29%) SQL
3 122 (11.20%) Java
4 73 (6.70%) JavaScript
5 44 (4.04%) TypeScript
6 32 (2.94%) Scala
7 23 (2.11%) C#
8 21 (1.93%) PowerShell
9 16 (1.47%) Shell Script
10 12 (1.10%) PL/SQL
11 10 (0.92%) Bicep
12 9 (0.83%) VB
13 8 (0.73%) C
13 8 (0.73%) C++
14 7 (0.64%) VB6
15 6 (0.55%) ABAP
15 6 (0.55%) COBOL
15 6 (0.55%) MATLAB
16 5 (0.46%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.46%) Go
Qualifications
1 322 (29.57%) Security Cleared
2 233 (21.40%) SC Cleared
3 69 (6.34%) Degree
4 17 (1.56%) AWS Certification
4 17 (1.56%) DV Cleared
5 11 (1.01%) Master's Degree
6 10 (0.92%) Azure Certification
6 10 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (0.73%) PMI Certification
8 7 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
9 6 (0.55%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 6 (0.55%) CompTIA CySA+
9 6 (0.55%) DBS Check
9 6 (0.55%) PMP
10 5 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 5 (0.46%) GIAC
10 5 (0.46%) NVQ Level 4
11 4 (0.37%) CompTIA Security+
11 4 (0.37%) CTC Cleared
11 4 (0.37%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (6.89%) Data Quality
2 72 (6.61%) Accessibility
3 65 (5.97%) QA
4 22 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 20 (1.84%) WCAG
6 17 (1.56%) NIST
6 17 (1.56%) PMO
7 13 (1.19%) GDPR
7 13 (1.19%) SLA
8 10 (0.92%) GRC
9 8 (0.73%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.55%) NCSC
11 5 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
11 5 (0.46%) IFRS
11 5 (0.46%) IFRS 17
11 5 (0.46%) ISO 20022
12 4 (0.37%) HL7
12 4 (0.37%) PSD2
13 3 (0.28%) DICOM
13 3 (0.28%) SEPA
System Software
1 70 (6.43%) Docker
2 31 (2.85%) Active Directory
3 18 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.37%) vSphere
8 3 (0.28%) GPFS
8 3 (0.28%) NFS
8 3 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.18%) Firmware
9 2 (0.18%) QEMU
10 1 (0.092%) ACF2
10 1 (0.092%) RACF
10 1 (0.092%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 93 (8.54%) Terraform
2 66 (6.06%) Kubernetes
3 23 (2.11%) Grafana
4 15 (1.38%) Prometheus
5 11 (1.01%) Ansible
6 10 (0.92%) Kibana
7 9 (0.83%) Istio
7 9 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.64%) Argo
9 6 (0.55%) Microsoft Intune
9 6 (0.55%) Podman
10 5 (0.46%) SCCM
11 4 (0.37%) HAProxy
12 3 (0.28%) Puppet
12 3 (0.28%) vRealize
13 2 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 2 (0.18%) Kubeflow
13 2 (0.18%) Packer
14 1 (0.092%) Functional Safety
14 1 (0.092%) VxRail
Vendors
1 118 (10.84%) SAP
2 97 (8.91%) Microsoft
3 50 (4.59%) Oracle
4 30 (2.75%) ServiceNow
5 24 (2.20%) Google
6 21 (1.93%) Databricks
7 19 (1.74%) Splunk
8 18 (1.65%) VMware
9 14 (1.29%) Cisco
10 13 (1.19%) Pega
11 12 (1.10%) IBM
12 11 (1.01%) Informatica
13 10 (0.92%) CyberArk
14 9 (0.83%) BeyondTrust
14 9 (0.83%) Salesforce
15 8 (0.73%) Apple
15 8 (0.73%) OpenAI
15 8 (0.73%) Talend
16 7 (0.64%) MuleSoft
16 7 (0.64%) Workday