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

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 175 251
Rank change year-on-year +75 +76 -23
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,321 533 374
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.48% 1.61% 0.95%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.89% 5.20% 3.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 927 364 232
10th Percentile £349 £294 £213
25th Percentile £405 £402 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £504 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% +0.75% -9.09%
75th Percentile £571 £588 £575
90th Percentile £670 £700 £634
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £458
% change year-on-year - +3.83% -16.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 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 £53.75 £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 16,735 10,257 11,721
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.37% 30.99% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,183 6,352 7,456
10th Percentile £350 £281 £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 1,251 786 862
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -22.27%
75th Percentile £73.23 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £74.38 £76.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -44.11% -14.29%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 +67 980 £483 -3.40% 446
UK excluding London +54 762 £475 - 385
Work from Home +60 515 £463 -2.63% 270
London +79 290 £481 -6.37% 91
North of England +26 286 £475 +1.28% 106
Midlands +36 176 £489 +1.09% 59
West Midlands +36 164 £488 +5.06% 53
North West +5 154 £495 +8.79% 74
South East -18 110 £483 -6.12% 98
North East +9 79 £450 +0.56% 22
South West +11 74 £525 +50.00% 70
Scotland +42 72 £350 -13.85% 27
Yorkshire -1 65 £475 -4.04% 11
East of England -11 25 £604 +202.06% 34
Northern Ireland +14 15 £450 +28.57% 3
Wales -3 13 £463 -19.57% 2
East Midlands -22 11 £600 +9.89% 6

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 61 (4.62%) Confluence
2 50 (3.79%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.44%) SharePoint Server
4 9 (0.68%) Apache Spark
4 9 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.61%) SAS
6 5 (0.38%) WebLogic
7 4 (0.30%) IIS
7 4 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.30%) WordPress
8 3 (0.23%) Apache
8 3 (0.23%) CICS
8 3 (0.23%) CMS
8 3 (0.23%) LiveCycle
9 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.15%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.15%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.15%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.15%) OpenROAD
Applications
1 43 (3.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (1.97%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.53%) 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 42 (3.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.21%) SAP PSCD
3 13 (0.98%) SAP BRIM
4 12 (0.91%) SAP IBP
5 10 (0.76%) SAP FI
6 7 (0.53%) SAP FI-CA
6 7 (0.53%) SAP HR
7 6 (0.45%) SAP GRC
8 5 (0.38%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.38%) SAP Payroll
8 5 (0.38%) Shopify
9 4 (0.30%) Primavera
9 4 (0.30%) SAP Convergent Charging
9 4 (0.30%) SAP EHS
9 4 (0.30%) SAP MDG
9 4 (0.30%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
10 3 (0.23%) iTrent
10 3 (0.23%) SAP FI/CO
10 3 (0.23%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 249 (18.85%) Azure
2 236 (17.87%) AWS
3 89 (6.74%) Power Platform
4 63 (4.77%) GitHub
5 51 (3.86%) Azure DevOps
5 51 (3.86%) GCP
6 50 (3.79%) Serverless
7 44 (3.33%) GitHub Actions
7 44 (3.33%) Microsoft 365
8 41 (3.10%) Amazon S3
8 41 (3.10%) AWS Lambda
9 40 (3.03%) Entra ID
10 25 (1.89%) PowerApps
11 24 (1.82%) Power Automate
12 22 (1.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 22 (1.67%) Amazon ECS
13 20 (1.51%) Amazon EKS
14 19 (1.44%) AWS CloudFormation
14 19 (1.44%) SuccessFactors
15 17 (1.29%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.36%) DNS
2 13 (0.98%) WebEx
3 11 (0.83%) WAN
4 9 (0.68%) Firewall
4 9 (0.68%) Network Security
5 8 (0.61%) SSL
6 7 (0.53%) HTTPS
6 7 (0.53%) Intranet
7 6 (0.45%) Ethernet
7 6 (0.45%) LAN
7 6 (0.45%) MPLS
7 6 (0.45%) SDH
8 5 (0.38%) Cisco IPT
8 5 (0.38%) VPN
9 4 (0.30%) DHCP
9 4 (0.30%) SSH
9 4 (0.30%) TCP/IP
10 3 (0.23%) IP Telephony
10 3 (0.23%) MQTT
10 3 (0.23%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (4.92%) Power BI
2 44 (3.33%) PostgreSQL
3 32 (2.42%) Metadata
4 29 (2.20%) MongoDB
5 28 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
6 26 (1.97%) SQL Server
7 20 (1.51%) MySQL
8 19 (1.44%) NoSQL
8 19 (1.44%) Relational Database
9 17 (1.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 16 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (1.06%) Data Lake
11 14 (1.06%) DynamoDB
12 13 (0.98%) Amazon Redshift
13 12 (0.91%) Amazon Athena
14 9 (0.68%) Big Data
14 9 (0.68%) Geospatial Data
15 8 (0.61%) Oracle Database
16 7 (0.53%) Amazon Aurora
16 7 (0.53%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 100 (7.57%) JIRA
2 84 (6.36%) Git
3 60 (4.54%) GitLab
4 57 (4.31%) Jenkins
5 21 (1.59%) Selenium
6 19 (1.44%) JUnit
7 17 (1.29%) Cucumber
7 17 (1.29%) Maven
8 15 (1.14%) Team Foundation Server
9 13 (0.98%) Visual Studio
10 12 (0.91%) Postman
11 11 (0.83%) Cypress.io
11 11 (0.83%) Mockito
12 9 (0.68%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 8 (0.61%) Gatling
13 8 (0.61%) REST Assured
14 7 (0.53%) Artifactory
14 7 (0.53%) Gradle
14 7 (0.53%) SonarQube
14 7 (0.53%) WebDriver
General
1 414 (31.34%) Social Skills
2 311 (23.54%) Public Sector
3 206 (15.59%) Finance
4 126 (9.54%) Analytical Skills
5 102 (7.72%) Legal
6 94 (7.12%) Organisational Skills
7 52 (3.94%) Aerospace
8 42 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
9 33 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
10 28 (2.12%) Banking
11 23 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
12 22 (1.67%) Billing
12 22 (1.67%) Manufacturing
13 21 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 19 (1.44%) Aviation
15 16 (1.21%) Telecoms
16 13 (0.98%) Local Government
17 10 (0.76%) Retail
18 9 (0.68%) Law
19 8 (0.61%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 169 (12.79%) Developer
2 151 (11.43%) Senior
3 138 (10.45%) Lead
4 113 (8.55%) Architect
5 109 (8.25%) Analyst
6 92 (6.96%) Consultant
7 65 (4.92%) Designer
8 58 (4.39%) Java Developer
8 58 (4.39%) SAP Consultant
9 52 (3.94%) Data Engineer
10 45 (3.41%) Business Analyst
11 37 (2.80%) DevOps Engineer
12 32 (2.42%) Solutions Architect
13 30 (2.27%) User Researcher
14 28 (2.12%) Delivery Manager
14 28 (2.12%) Product Manager
15 26 (1.97%) Lead Developer
16 25 (1.89%) Administrator
17 24 (1.82%) Data Analyst
18 23 (1.74%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (5.83%) REST
2 55 (4.16%) RESTful
3 54 (4.09%) HTML
3 54 (4.09%) React
3 54 (4.09%) Spring
4 53 (4.01%) Spring Boot
5 48 (3.63%) Node.js
6 43 (3.26%) CSS
7 33 (2.50%) Kafka
8 28 (2.12%) .NET
9 24 (1.82%) Playwright
10 20 (1.51%) JSON
11 18 (1.36%) PySpark
12 17 (1.29%) XML
13 15 (1.14%) HTML5
13 15 (1.14%) OAuth
13 15 (1.14%) SPFx
14 14 (1.06%) BAPI
14 14 (1.06%) Jest
14 14 (1.06%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 86 (6.51%) Virtual Team
1 86 (6.51%) Web Conferencing
2 80 (6.06%) Product Ownership
3 78 (5.90%) Onboarding
4 76 (5.75%) Podcast
5 61 (4.62%) Cloud Native
6 23 (1.74%) Management Information System
6 23 (1.74%) NHS
7 20 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
8 19 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
9 18 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
9 18 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
10 17 (1.29%) Mobile App
11 16 (1.21%) Algorithms
11 16 (1.21%) BYOD
12 12 (0.91%) Replication
13 10 (0.76%) Video Conferencing
14 9 (0.68%) Data Centre
14 9 (0.68%) Data Structures
15 8 (0.61%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 68 (5.15%) Linux
2 64 (4.84%) Windows
3 34 (2.57%) Unix
4 20 (1.51%) Android
5 16 (1.21%) Windows Server
6 12 (0.91%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.68%) Mac OS
7 9 (0.68%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.30%) 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
1 404 (30.58%) Agile
2 238 (18.02%) CI/CD
3 215 (16.28%) DevOps
4 202 (15.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 159 (12.04%) Problem-Solving
6 148 (11.20%) Continuous Improvement
7 141 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 120 (9.08%) Scrum
9 119 (9.01%) Roadmaps
10 113 (8.55%) Decision-Making
11 111 (8.40%) Analytics
12 105 (7.95%) Microservices
12 105 (7.95%) Test Automation
13 99 (7.49%) Customer Service
14 94 (7.12%) Infrastructure as Code
14 94 (7.12%) Migration
15 79 (5.98%) AI
16 75 (5.68%) Software Engineering
16 75 (5.68%) User Research
17 74 (5.60%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 147 (11.13%) Java
2 144 (10.90%) SQL
3 133 (10.07%) Python
4 80 (6.06%) JavaScript
5 46 (3.48%) TypeScript
6 35 (2.65%) Scala
7 27 (2.04%) PowerShell
8 25 (1.89%) C#
9 19 (1.44%) PL/SQL
10 17 (1.29%) Bash
11 16 (1.21%) Shell Script
12 14 (1.06%) VB
13 12 (0.91%) C++
13 12 (0.91%) VB6
14 11 (0.83%) T-SQL
14 11 (0.83%) VBA
15 8 (0.61%) ABAP
15 8 (0.61%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.53%) C
17 6 (0.45%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 430 (32.55%) Security Cleared
2 313 (23.69%) SC Cleared
3 68 (5.15%) Degree
4 19 (1.44%) AWS Certification
5 14 (1.06%) Azure Certification
6 12 (0.91%) DV Cleared
6 12 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
7 10 (0.76%) A+ Certification
8 9 (0.68%) PMI Certification
9 7 (0.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (0.53%) CTC Cleared
10 6 (0.45%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 6 (0.45%) CCNA
10 6 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (0.45%) Master's Degree
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
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 82 (6.21%) Accessibility
2 81 (6.13%) Data Quality
3 72 (5.45%) QA
4 25 (1.89%) GDPR
5 23 (1.74%) WCAG
6 20 (1.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 20 (1.51%) PMO
7 16 (1.21%) NIST
7 16 (1.21%) SLA
8 10 (0.76%) GRC
9 7 (0.53%) NCSC
10 4 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
10 4 (0.30%) PERC
11 3 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 3 (0.23%) GMP
11 3 (0.23%) GxP
11 3 (0.23%) HL7
11 3 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 17025
12 2 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
12 2 (0.15%) DICOM
System Software
1 82 (6.21%) Docker
2 37 (2.80%) Active Directory
3 15 (1.14%) 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
1 107 (8.10%) Terraform
2 88 (6.66%) Kubernetes
3 31 (2.35%) Grafana
4 18 (1.36%) Prometheus
5 13 (0.98%) Kibana
5 13 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.76%) Ansible
6 10 (0.76%) Argo
7 8 (0.61%) SCCM
8 7 (0.53%) Istio
9 6 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.38%) SCOM
11 4 (0.30%) HAProxy
11 4 (0.30%) Podman
11 4 (0.30%) Puppet
12 2 (0.15%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.15%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 2 (0.15%) Oracle RMAN
12 2 (0.15%) Packer
13 1 (0.076%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 152 (11.51%) Microsoft
2 122 (9.24%) SAP
3 70 (5.30%) Oracle
4 52 (3.94%) ServiceNow
5 36 (2.73%) Google
6 21 (1.59%) Splunk
7 20 (1.51%) Databricks
8 18 (1.36%) BeyondTrust
9 15 (1.14%) Cisco
9 15 (1.14%) VMware
10 11 (0.83%) Atlassian
10 11 (0.83%) CyberArk
11 10 (0.76%) IBM
11 10 (0.76%) Pega
12 8 (0.61%) Informatica
12 8 (0.61%) Talend
13 7 (0.53%) Apple
13 7 (0.53%) Qualtrics
13 7 (0.53%) Workday
14 6 (0.45%) Okta