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

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 171 246
Rank change year-on-year +68 +75 -20
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,322 550 374
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.47% 1.67% 0.96%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.85% 5.37% 3.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 936 370 229
10th Percentile £343 £295 £219
25th Percentile £406 £402 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £504 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% +0.75% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £670 £713 £644
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £475 £470
% change year-on-year +0.63% +1.06% -13.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 195 49 50
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £15.85
25th Percentile £38.89 £22.63 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.50 £17.53
Median % change year-on-year +59.85% +56.87% -63.00%
75th Percentile £53.90 £53.75 £40.63
90th Percentile £73.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £17.53
% change year-on-year +50.19% +66.97% -54.29%

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 16,838 10,251 11,661
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.41% 31.16% 29.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,264 6,335 7,402
10th Percentile £350 £288 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £715 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,256 785 855
10th Percentile £17.73 £17.87 £14.65
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £51.75 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +105.77% -41.51% -22.00%
75th Percentile £73.53 £54.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £77.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £46.18
% change year-on-year +98.81% -45.54% -11.52%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +62 985 £489 -2.25% 375
UK excluding London +52 762 £478 +0.63% 310
Work from Home +58 510 £468 -4.44% 202
London +60 292 £492 -4.47% 82
North of England +19 288 £478 +3.91% 78
Midlands +41 178 £490 -3.26% 51
West Midlands +45 166 £489 -1.86% 47
North West +7 153 £495 +9.39% 54
South East -13 109 £483 -6.12% 75
North East +8 79 £450 -2.17% 21
South West +2 74 £525 +50.00% 50
Scotland +41 72 £350 -6.67% 21
Yorkshire 0 67 £475 -2.81% 4
East of England -13 25 £604 +202.06% 38
Northern Ireland +15 15 £450 +28.57% 4
East Midlands -19 11 £600 +9.89% 3
Wales -7 10 £463 -19.57% 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 62 (4.69%) Confluence
2 50 (3.78%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.44%) SharePoint Server
4 10 (0.76%) Apache Spark
5 9 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
6 8 (0.61%) SAS
7 7 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
8 5 (0.38%) WebLogic
9 4 (0.30%) Apache
9 4 (0.30%) IIS
9 4 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.30%) WordPress
10 3 (0.23%) CICS
10 3 (0.23%) CMS
11 2 (0.15%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.15%) Ethereum
11 2 (0.15%) Hyperledger
11 2 (0.15%) LiveCycle
11 2 (0.15%) OpenROAD
12 1 (0.076%) Appian
Applications
1 43 (3.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (1.97%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.45%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.38%) Simulink
6 3 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.15%) Navisworks
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 41 (3.10%) 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
7 6 (0.45%) SAP Payroll
8 5 (0.38%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.38%) Shopify
9 4 (0.30%) SAP Convergent Charging
9 4 (0.30%) SAP EHS
9 4 (0.30%) SAP MDG
10 3 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
10 3 (0.23%) iTrent
10 3 (0.23%) Primavera
10 3 (0.23%) SAP CO
10 3 (0.23%) SAP FI/CO
10 3 (0.23%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 250 (18.91%) Azure
2 235 (17.78%) AWS
3 90 (6.81%) Power Platform
4 59 (4.46%) GitHub
5 54 (4.08%) Azure DevOps
6 50 (3.78%) Serverless
7 48 (3.63%) GCP
8 46 (3.48%) Microsoft 365
9 42 (3.18%) Amazon S3
9 42 (3.18%) Entra ID
9 42 (3.18%) GitHub Actions
10 41 (3.10%) AWS Lambda
11 25 (1.89%) PowerApps
12 24 (1.82%) Power Automate
13 22 (1.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 21 (1.59%) Amazon ECS
14 21 (1.59%) AWS CloudFormation
15 19 (1.44%) SuccessFactors
16 18 (1.36%) Azure Monitor
17 17 (1.29%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.36%) DNS
2 13 (0.98%) WebEx
3 11 (0.83%) WAN
4 10 (0.76%) Network Security
5 8 (0.61%) Firewall
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 66 (4.99%) Power BI
2 43 (3.25%) PostgreSQL
3 33 (2.50%) Metadata
4 31 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
4 31 (2.34%) MongoDB
5 28 (2.12%) SQL Server
6 22 (1.66%) MySQL
7 20 (1.51%) Amazon RDS
8 17 (1.29%) NoSQL
8 17 (1.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 16 (1.21%) Data Lake
9 16 (1.21%) Relational Database
10 13 (0.98%) Amazon Redshift
10 13 (0.98%) DynamoDB
11 12 (0.91%) Amazon Athena
12 10 (0.76%) Amazon Aurora
13 9 (0.68%) Big Data
14 8 (0.61%) Geospatial Data
14 8 (0.61%) Oracle Database
14 8 (0.61%) Redis
Development Applications
1 102 (7.72%) JIRA
2 82 (6.20%) Git
3 59 (4.46%) GitLab
4 57 (4.31%) Jenkins
5 22 (1.66%) Selenium
6 19 (1.44%) JUnit
7 18 (1.36%) Maven
8 17 (1.29%) Cucumber
9 14 (1.06%) Team Foundation Server
10 13 (0.98%) Visual Studio
11 12 (0.91%) Postman
12 11 (0.83%) Cypress.io
12 11 (0.83%) Mockito
13 9 (0.68%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 9 (0.68%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.61%) Gatling
14 8 (0.61%) REST Assured
15 7 (0.53%) Bitbucket
15 7 (0.53%) Gradle
15 7 (0.53%) WebDriver
General
1 421 (31.85%) Social Skills
2 317 (23.98%) Public Sector
3 204 (15.43%) Finance
4 127 (9.61%) Analytical Skills
5 103 (7.79%) Legal
6 96 (7.26%) Organisational Skills
7 55 (4.16%) Aerospace
8 42 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
9 32 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
10 24 (1.82%) Banking
11 23 (1.74%) Manufacturing
11 23 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
12 22 (1.66%) Billing
13 21 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 19 (1.44%) Aviation
15 16 (1.21%) Telecoms
16 12 (0.91%) Local Government
17 9 (0.68%) Law
17 9 (0.68%) Retail
18 8 (0.61%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 167 (12.63%) Developer
2 152 (11.50%) Senior
3 145 (10.97%) Lead
4 115 (8.70%) Architect
5 106 (8.02%) Analyst
6 92 (6.96%) Consultant
7 68 (5.14%) Designer
8 58 (4.39%) SAP Consultant
9 57 (4.31%) Java Developer
10 54 (4.08%) Data Engineer
11 44 (3.33%) Business Analyst
12 40 (3.03%) DevOps Engineer
13 32 (2.42%) Solutions Architect
14 30 (2.27%) User Researcher
15 28 (2.12%) Product Manager
16 27 (2.04%) Administrator
16 27 (2.04%) Delivery Manager
17 26 (1.97%) Lead Developer
18 25 (1.89%) AWS Engineer
19 24 (1.82%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (5.90%) REST
2 54 (4.08%) HTML
3 52 (3.93%) Spring
3 52 (3.93%) Spring Boot
4 51 (3.86%) React
4 51 (3.86%) RESTful
5 48 (3.63%) Node.js
6 42 (3.18%) CSS
7 33 (2.50%) Kafka
8 28 (2.12%) .NET
9 24 (1.82%) Playwright
10 18 (1.36%) JSON
10 18 (1.36%) PySpark
11 17 (1.29%) XML
12 15 (1.13%) SPFx
13 14 (1.06%) BAPI
13 14 (1.06%) HTML5
13 14 (1.06%) Jest
13 14 (1.06%) OAuth
13 14 (1.06%) Play Framework
Miscellaneous
1 86 (6.51%) Virtual Team
1 86 (6.51%) Web Conferencing
2 78 (5.90%) Onboarding
3 76 (5.75%) Podcast
4 74 (5.60%) Product Ownership
5 62 (4.69%) Cloud Native
6 24 (1.82%) NHS
7 22 (1.66%) Management Information System
8 21 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
9 19 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
10 18 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
11 17 (1.29%) Mobile App
12 16 (1.21%) BYOD
12 16 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
13 15 (1.13%) Replication
14 14 (1.06%) Algorithms
15 10 (0.76%) Video Conferencing
16 9 (0.68%) Data Centre
17 8 (0.61%) Data Structures
17 8 (0.61%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 69 (5.22%) Linux
2 64 (4.84%) Windows
3 34 (2.57%) Unix
4 19 (1.44%) Android
5 16 (1.21%) Windows Server
6 11 (0.83%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.76%) Windows 10
8 9 (0.68%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.30%) VMS
10 3 (0.23%) AIX
10 3 (0.23%) Solaris
11 2 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.076%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.076%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 403 (30.48%) Agile
2 242 (18.31%) CI/CD
3 222 (16.79%) DevOps
4 213 (16.11%) Stakeholder Management
5 159 (12.03%) Problem-Solving
6 156 (11.80%) Continuous Improvement
7 141 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 118 (8.93%) Scrum
9 115 (8.70%) Roadmaps
10 107 (8.09%) Analytics
10 107 (8.09%) Decision-Making
11 105 (7.94%) Microservices
12 104 (7.87%) Test Automation
13 100 (7.56%) Customer Service
14 98 (7.41%) Infrastructure as Code
15 97 (7.34%) Migration
16 78 (5.90%) Mentoring
17 77 (5.82%) Data Modelling
18 75 (5.67%) Software Engineering
18 75 (5.67%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 147 (11.12%) Java
2 143 (10.82%) SQL
3 129 (9.76%) Python
4 80 (6.05%) JavaScript
5 45 (3.40%) TypeScript
6 35 (2.65%) Scala
7 28 (2.12%) PowerShell
8 25 (1.89%) C#
9 18 (1.36%) Bash
9 18 (1.36%) PL/SQL
10 15 (1.13%) Shell Script
11 13 (0.98%) VB
12 12 (0.91%) C++
13 11 (0.83%) T-SQL
13 11 (0.83%) VB6
13 11 (0.83%) VBA
14 9 (0.68%) ABAP
15 8 (0.61%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.53%) C
17 6 (0.45%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 442 (33.43%) Security Cleared
2 322 (24.36%) SC Cleared
3 66 (4.99%) Degree
4 19 (1.44%) AWS Certification
5 14 (1.06%) Azure Certification
6 13 (0.98%) DV Cleared
7 12 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (0.76%) A+ Certification
9 9 (0.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 8 (0.61%) PMI Certification
11 7 (0.53%) CTC Cleared
12 6 (0.45%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 6 (0.45%) CCNA
12 6 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
12 6 (0.45%) ISTQB
13 5 (0.38%) CompTIA CySA+
13 5 (0.38%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.38%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 5 (0.38%) NVQ Level 4
14 4 (0.30%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (6.13%) Data Quality
2 79 (5.98%) Accessibility
3 70 (5.30%) QA
4 26 (1.97%) GDPR
5 23 (1.74%) PMO
6 22 (1.66%) WCAG
7 20 (1.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 16 (1.21%) NIST
8 16 (1.21%) SLA
9 10 (0.76%) GRC
10 7 (0.53%) NCSC
11 4 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.30%) PERC
12 3 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 3 (0.23%) Def Stans
12 3 (0.23%) GMP
12 3 (0.23%) GxP
12 3 (0.23%) HL7
12 3 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 17025
13 2 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 80 (6.05%) Docker
2 41 (3.10%) Active Directory
3 15 (1.13%) 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
1 110 (8.32%) Terraform
2 84 (6.35%) Kubernetes
3 30 (2.27%) Grafana
4 17 (1.29%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.06%) Kibana
5 14 (1.06%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.76%) Ansible
6 10 (0.76%) Argo
6 10 (0.76%) SCCM
7 7 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
8 6 (0.45%) Istio
9 5 (0.38%) SCOM
10 4 (0.30%) HAProxy
10 4 (0.30%) Podman
10 4 (0.30%) Puppet
11 2 (0.15%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.15%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 2 (0.15%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.15%) Packer
12 1 (0.076%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 159 (12.03%) Microsoft
2 120 (9.08%) SAP
3 70 (5.30%) Oracle
4 53 (4.01%) ServiceNow
5 37 (2.80%) Google
6 19 (1.44%) BeyondTrust
6 19 (1.44%) Databricks
6 19 (1.44%) Splunk
7 15 (1.13%) Cisco
7 15 (1.13%) VMware
8 11 (0.83%) Atlassian
8 11 (0.83%) CyberArk
9 9 (0.68%) IBM
10 8 (0.61%) Informatica
10 8 (0.61%) Talend
11 7 (0.53%) Apple
11 7 (0.53%) Pega
11 7 (0.53%) Qualtrics
11 7 (0.53%) Workday
12 6 (0.45%) OpenAI