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 30 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 176 258
Rank change year-on-year +76 +82 -35
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,297 522 372
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.45% 1.59% 0.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.82% 5.13% 3.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 915 357 236
10th Percentile £346 £290 £206
25th Percentile £406 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £574 £581 £575
90th Percentile £670 £695 £634
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £450
% change year-on-year - +5.56% -16.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 192 48 49
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £15.65
25th Percentile £40.54 £22.63 -
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +59.85% +71.23% -58.12%
75th Percentile £53.35 £54.62 £35.00
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% -56.51%

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 16,596 10,167 11,894
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.33% 30.98% 29.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,110 6,305 7,540
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 £618 £638
90th Percentile £714 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,225 773 901
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.19
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.30%
75th Percentile £74.00 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £76.99
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.19%

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 30 July 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 30 July 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 30 July 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 +69 964 £488 -0.91% 267
UK excluding London +58 748 £475 - 232
Work from Home +68 510 £465 -2.11% 169
London +67 288 £481 -4.52% 57
North of England +24 281 £475 +3.26% 60
Midlands +32 170 £490 +3.16% 33
West Midlands +31 158 £490 +5.60% 30
North West +2 152 £495 +8.79% 39
South East -16 107 £483 -6.12% 54
North East +4 77 £450 +3.45% 18
South West +11 74 £525 +50.00% 43
Scotland +34 72 £350 -6.67% 14
Yorkshire -3 64 £475 -2.81% 3
East of England -12 25 £604 +202.06% 34
Northern Ireland +10 15 £450 +28.57% 1
Wales -5 13 £463 -19.57% 2
East Midlands -19 11 £600 +21.95% 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 60 (4.63%) Confluence
2 47 (3.62%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.46%) SharePoint Server
4 9 (0.69%) Apache Spark
4 9 (0.69%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.62%) SAS
6 5 (0.39%) WebLogic
7 4 (0.31%) IIS
7 4 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.31%) 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 42 (3.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.93%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.39%) Simulink
7 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.15%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.15%) Trello
8 1 (0.077%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.077%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.077%) CATIA
8 1 (0.077%) InVision
8 1 (0.077%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.077%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.077%) Revit
8 1 (0.077%) Sketch
8 1 (0.077%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 43 (3.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.23%) SAP PSCD
3 13 (1.00%) SAP BRIM
4 12 (0.93%) SAP IBP
5 10 (0.77%) SAP FI
6 7 (0.54%) SAP FI-CA
6 7 (0.54%) SAP HR
7 6 (0.46%) SAP GRC
8 5 (0.39%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.39%) Shopify
9 4 (0.31%) Primavera
9 4 (0.31%) SAP Convergent Charging
9 4 (0.31%) SAP EHS
9 4 (0.31%) SAP MDG
9 4 (0.31%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.31%) SAP Travel Management
10 3 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
10 3 (0.23%) SAP CO
10 3 (0.23%) SAP FI/CO
10 3 (0.23%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 249 (19.20%) Azure
2 235 (18.12%) AWS
3 88 (6.78%) Power Platform
4 61 (4.70%) GitHub
5 51 (3.93%) Azure DevOps
5 51 (3.93%) GCP
6 49 (3.78%) Serverless
7 43 (3.32%) GitHub Actions
7 43 (3.32%) Microsoft 365
8 40 (3.08%) Amazon S3
8 40 (3.08%) AWS Lambda
8 40 (3.08%) Entra ID
9 25 (1.93%) PowerApps
10 24 (1.85%) Power Automate
11 21 (1.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 21 (1.62%) Amazon ECS
12 20 (1.54%) Amazon EKS
13 19 (1.46%) AWS CloudFormation
13 19 (1.46%) SuccessFactors
14 16 (1.23%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.39%) DNS
2 13 (1.00%) WebEx
3 11 (0.85%) WAN
4 9 (0.69%) Firewall
4 9 (0.69%) Network Security
5 7 (0.54%) HTTPS
5 7 (0.54%) SSL
6 6 (0.46%) Ethernet
6 6 (0.46%) Intranet
6 6 (0.46%) LAN
6 6 (0.46%) MPLS
6 6 (0.46%) SDH
7 4 (0.31%) Cisco IPT
7 4 (0.31%) DHCP
7 4 (0.31%) SSH
7 4 (0.31%) TCP/IP
7 4 (0.31%) VPN
8 3 (0.23%) Internet
8 3 (0.23%) IP Telephony
8 3 (0.23%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (4.93%) Power BI
2 43 (3.32%) PostgreSQL
3 32 (2.47%) Metadata
4 28 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
4 28 (2.16%) MongoDB
5 25 (1.93%) SQL Server
6 20 (1.54%) Relational Database
7 19 (1.46%) MySQL
7 19 (1.46%) NoSQL
8 16 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 15 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
10 14 (1.08%) Data Lake
10 14 (1.08%) DynamoDB
11 13 (1.00%) Amazon Redshift
12 12 (0.93%) Amazon Athena
13 9 (0.69%) Big Data
13 9 (0.69%) Geospatial Data
14 8 (0.62%) Oracle Database
15 7 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
15 7 (0.54%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 100 (7.71%) JIRA
2 84 (6.48%) Git
3 60 (4.63%) GitLab
4 56 (4.32%) Jenkins
5 22 (1.70%) Selenium
6 18 (1.39%) Cucumber
6 18 (1.39%) JUnit
7 17 (1.31%) Maven
8 15 (1.16%) Team Foundation Server
9 13 (1.00%) Visual Studio
10 12 (0.93%) Postman
11 11 (0.85%) Cypress.io
12 10 (0.77%) Mockito
13 9 (0.69%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 9 (0.69%) Gatling
14 8 (0.62%) REST Assured
15 7 (0.54%) Artifactory
15 7 (0.54%) Gradle
15 7 (0.54%) SonarQube
15 7 (0.54%) WebDriver
General
1 412 (31.77%) Social Skills
2 301 (23.21%) Public Sector
3 204 (15.73%) Finance
4 123 (9.48%) Analytical Skills
5 101 (7.79%) Legal
6 93 (7.17%) Organisational Skills
7 50 (3.86%) Aerospace
8 41 (3.16%) Documentation Skills
9 34 (2.62%) Influencing Skills
10 28 (2.16%) Banking
11 23 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
12 22 (1.70%) Billing
12 22 (1.70%) Manufacturing
13 21 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 17 (1.31%) Aviation
15 16 (1.23%) Telecoms
16 13 (1.00%) Local Government
17 10 (0.77%) Retail
18 9 (0.69%) Law
19 8 (0.62%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 163 (12.57%) Developer
2 150 (11.57%) Senior
3 136 (10.49%) Lead
4 111 (8.56%) Architect
5 107 (8.25%) Analyst
6 93 (7.17%) Consultant
7 61 (4.70%) Designer
8 59 (4.55%) SAP Consultant
9 54 (4.16%) Java Developer
10 52 (4.01%) Data Engineer
11 45 (3.47%) Business Analyst
12 37 (2.85%) DevOps Engineer
13 30 (2.31%) Solutions Architect
14 28 (2.16%) Delivery Manager
14 28 (2.16%) Product Manager
14 28 (2.16%) User Researcher
15 26 (2.00%) Administrator
15 26 (2.00%) Lead Developer
16 24 (1.85%) Data Analyst
17 23 (1.77%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (5.86%) REST
2 54 (4.16%) HTML
2 54 (4.16%) React
2 54 (4.16%) RESTful
3 53 (4.09%) Spring
4 52 (4.01%) Spring Boot
5 47 (3.62%) Node.js
6 43 (3.32%) CSS
7 33 (2.54%) Kafka
8 28 (2.16%) .NET
9 24 (1.85%) Playwright
10 20 (1.54%) JSON
11 18 (1.39%) PySpark
12 17 (1.31%) XML
13 15 (1.16%) HTML5
13 15 (1.16%) SPFx
14 14 (1.08%) BAPI
14 14 (1.08%) Jest
14 14 (1.08%) OAuth
14 14 (1.08%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 86 (6.63%) Virtual Team
1 86 (6.63%) Web Conferencing
2 81 (6.25%) Product Ownership
3 78 (6.01%) Onboarding
4 76 (5.86%) Podcast
5 59 (4.55%) Cloud Native
6 23 (1.77%) NHS
7 22 (1.70%) Management Information System
8 20 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
9 19 (1.46%) Distributed Systems
10 18 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
11 17 (1.31%) Mobile App
11 17 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
12 16 (1.23%) Algorithms
12 16 (1.23%) BYOD
13 11 (0.85%) Replication
14 10 (0.77%) Video Conferencing
15 9 (0.69%) Data Centre
15 9 (0.69%) Data Structures
16 8 (0.62%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 66 (5.09%) Linux
2 63 (4.86%) Windows
3 34 (2.62%) Unix
4 19 (1.46%) Android
5 15 (1.16%) Windows Server
6 12 (0.93%) 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 (0.077%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 399 (30.76%) Agile
2 235 (18.12%) CI/CD
3 214 (16.50%) DevOps
4 201 (15.50%) Stakeholder Management
5 159 (12.26%) Problem-Solving
6 145 (11.18%) Continuous Improvement
7 139 (10.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 118 (9.10%) Roadmaps
8 118 (9.10%) Scrum
9 113 (8.71%) Decision-Making
10 109 (8.40%) Analytics
11 104 (8.02%) Test Automation
12 98 (7.56%) Microservices
13 97 (7.48%) Customer Service
14 93 (7.17%) Infrastructure as Code
15 91 (7.02%) Migration
16 78 (6.01%) AI
17 74 (5.71%) Software Engineering
18 73 (5.63%) Mentoring
19 72 (5.55%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 143 (11.03%) SQL
2 142 (10.95%) Java
3 132 (10.18%) Python
4 81 (6.25%) JavaScript
5 45 (3.47%) TypeScript
6 32 (2.47%) Scala
7 26 (2.00%) PowerShell
8 25 (1.93%) C#
9 18 (1.39%) PL/SQL
10 17 (1.31%) Bash
11 16 (1.23%) Shell Script
12 15 (1.16%) VB
13 13 (1.00%) VB6
14 11 (0.85%) C++
14 11 (0.85%) VBA
15 10 (0.77%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.62%) ABAP
17 7 (0.54%) C
17 7 (0.54%) Kotlin
18 6 (0.46%) Go
Qualifications
1 421 (32.46%) Security Cleared
2 307 (23.67%) SC Cleared
3 67 (5.17%) Degree
4 18 (1.39%) AWS Certification
5 14 (1.08%) Azure Certification
6 12 (0.93%) DV Cleared
7 11 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (0.77%) A+ Certification
9 9 (0.69%) PMI Certification
10 7 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 7 (0.54%) CTC Cleared
11 6 (0.46%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 6 (0.46%) CCNA
11 6 (0.46%) Cisco Certification
11 6 (0.46%) ISTQB
11 6 (0.46%) Master's Degree
12 5 (0.39%) CompTIA CySA+
12 5 (0.39%) NVQ Level 4
13 4 (0.31%) DBS Check
13 4 (0.31%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (6.48%) Accessibility
2 81 (6.25%) Data Quality
3 72 (5.55%) QA
4 24 (1.85%) WCAG
5 23 (1.77%) GDPR
6 20 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 20 (1.54%) PMO
7 16 (1.23%) NIST
7 16 (1.23%) SLA
8 10 (0.77%) GRC
9 7 (0.54%) NCSC
10 4 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
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
11 3 (0.23%) PERC
12 2 (0.15%) DICOM
12 2 (0.15%) Solvency II
System Software
1 82 (6.32%) Docker
2 37 (2.85%) Active Directory
3 15 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.39%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.15%) Firmware
7 2 (0.15%) vSphere
8 1 (0.077%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.077%) GPFS
8 1 (0.077%) IAG
8 1 (0.077%) NFS
8 1 (0.077%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.077%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.077%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 106 (8.17%) Terraform
2 88 (6.78%) Kubernetes
3 30 (2.31%) Grafana
4 18 (1.39%) Prometheus
5 13 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (0.93%) Kibana
7 10 (0.77%) Ansible
7 10 (0.77%) Argo
8 8 (0.62%) SCCM
9 7 (0.54%) Istio
10 6 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (0.31%) HAProxy
11 4 (0.31%) Podman
11 4 (0.31%) Puppet
11 4 (0.31%) SCOM
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 (0.077%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 150 (11.57%) Microsoft
2 121 (9.33%) SAP
3 71 (5.47%) Oracle
4 49 (3.78%) ServiceNow
5 34 (2.62%) Google
6 21 (1.62%) Splunk
7 20 (1.54%) Databricks
8 18 (1.39%) BeyondTrust
9 15 (1.16%) Cisco
9 15 (1.16%) VMware
10 12 (0.93%) Pega
11 11 (0.85%) CyberArk
12 10 (0.77%) Atlassian
12 10 (0.77%) IBM
13 8 (0.62%) Informatica
13 8 (0.62%) Talend
14 7 (0.54%) Apple
14 7 (0.54%) Qualtrics
14 7 (0.54%) Workday
15 6 (0.46%) Okta