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

6 months to
15 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 114 208 235
Rank change year-on-year +94 +27 -8
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,097 400 442
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.19% 1.35% 1.01%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.97% 4.36% 3.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 793 261 309
10th Percentile £327 £268 £213
25th Percentile £400 £403 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.80% - -7.45%
75th Percentile £570 £581 £600
90th Percentile £672 £688 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £452 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -9.70% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 124 33 54
10th Percentile £18.34 £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% -58.12%
75th Percentile £63.75 £71.25 £34.50
90th Percentile £78.50 £76.25 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £47.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -7.45% +195.77% -49.30%

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 15,731 9,165 13,077
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.35% 30.95% 29.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,453 5,680 8,081
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £615 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,159 588 1,116
10th Percentile £17.08 £17.85 £13.99
25th Percentile £22.63 £21.00 £18.35
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.27%
75th Percentile £72.25 £63.38 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.28 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £28.34 £41.50
% change year-on-year +67.75% -31.71% -20.95%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +93 824 £481 -3.90% 245
UK excluding London +53 617 £452 -9.70% 231
Work from Home +82 451 £438 -12.50% 148
London +81 263 £510 +1.90% 38
North of England +22 221 £453 -9.40% 47
Midlands +14 135 £438 -5.71% 26
North West +18 127 £400 -20.00% 34
West Midlands -3 102 £465 +13.29% 22
South East -10 99 £483 -8.00% 39
South West +16 64 £525 +44.83% 67
Scotland +32 62 £341 -4.55% 12
North East +3 54 £458 +5.23% 5
Yorkshire -19 45 £481 -1.79% 10
East Midlands -4 32 £416 -40.54% 4
East of England -19 29 £450 +125.00% 35
Wales -13 7 £550 -4.35% 10
Northern Ireland +2 5 £450 +28.57% 5

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 (4.65%) Confluence
2 37 (3.37%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.37%) 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 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.27%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.27%) CICS
8 3 (0.27%) CMS
8 3 (0.27%) LiveCycle
8 3 (0.27%) 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 (0.091%) SharePoint 2013
10 1 (0.091%) Smallworld
10 1 (0.091%) WebLogic
Applications
1 44 (4.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.73%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (1.37%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (1.09%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.46%) Simulink
7 2 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.18%) Trello
8 1 (0.091%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.091%) CATIA
8 1 (0.091%) InVision
8 1 (0.091%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.091%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.091%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.091%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 46 (4.19%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.37%) SAP PSCD
3 14 (1.28%) SAP BRIM
4 13 (1.19%) SAP Travel Management
5 11 (1.00%) 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 (0.36%) Loan IQ
10 4 (0.36%) Primavera
10 4 (0.36%) SAP Convergent Charging
10 4 (0.36%) SAP EHS
10 4 (0.36%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.27%) Exchequer
11 3 (0.27%) iTrent
11 3 (0.27%) ProductWriter
11 3 (0.27%) SAP MDG
12 2 (0.18%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 205 (18.69%) AWS
2 200 (18.23%) Azure
3 75 (6.84%) Power Platform
4 49 (4.47%) Azure DevOps
5 48 (4.38%) GCP
5 48 (4.38%) Serverless
6 46 (4.19%) GitHub
7 39 (3.56%) Entra ID
8 35 (3.19%) Microsoft 365
9 34 (3.10%) AWS Lambda
9 34 (3.10%) GitHub Actions
10 30 (2.73%) Amazon S3
11 20 (1.82%) Power Automate
12 19 (1.73%) PowerApps
13 18 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 17 (1.55%) AWS CloudFormation
15 15 (1.37%) Amazon ECS
16 14 (1.28%) Amazon EC2
16 14 (1.28%) Amazon EKS
17 13 (1.19%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.46%) DNS
2 15 (1.37%) Network Security
3 14 (1.28%) Firewall
4 9 (0.82%) HTTPS
4 9 (0.82%) SSH
4 9 (0.82%) WAN
5 6 (0.55%) DHCP
6 5 (0.46%) Ethernet
6 5 (0.46%) VPN
7 4 (0.36%) LAN
7 4 (0.36%) SSL
8 3 (0.27%) Internet
8 3 (0.27%) MQTT
8 3 (0.27%) Reverse Proxy
8 3 (0.27%) SD-WAN
8 3 (0.27%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.27%) WebEx
8 3 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (0.27%) Wireless
9 2 (0.18%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (5.74%) Power BI
2 37 (3.37%) PostgreSQL
3 27 (2.46%) Metadata
4 26 (2.37%) Data Warehouse
5 24 (2.19%) SQL Server
6 21 (1.91%) MongoDB
7 19 (1.73%) NoSQL
8 16 (1.46%) DynamoDB
8 16 (1.46%) Relational Database
9 13 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
9 13 (1.19%) Data Lake
10 12 (1.09%) Amazon Athena
11 11 (1.00%) Amazon Redshift
11 11 (1.00%) MySQL
12 9 (0.82%) Geospatial Data
13 8 (0.73%) Big Data
13 8 (0.73%) Delta Lake
14 7 (0.64%) Amazon Aurora
14 7 (0.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 6 (0.55%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 89 (8.11%) JIRA
2 60 (5.47%) Git
3 57 (5.20%) GitLab
4 43 (3.92%) Jenkins
5 19 (1.73%) Selenium
6 16 (1.46%) Cucumber
7 13 (1.19%) JUnit
8 9 (0.82%) Postman
8 9 (0.82%) 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%) Maven
12 5 (0.46%) Mockito
12 5 (0.46%) Visual Studio
12 5 (0.46%) WebDriver
13 4 (0.36%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 4 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
14 3 (0.27%) JMeter
General
1 332 (30.26%) Social Skills
2 211 (19.23%) Public Sector
3 168 (15.31%) Finance
4 120 (10.94%) Analytical Skills
5 47 (4.28%) Banking
5 47 (4.28%) Legal
6 45 (4.10%) Aerospace
7 37 (3.37%) Documentation Skills
8 33 (3.01%) Organisational Skills
9 21 (1.91%) Billing
10 20 (1.82%) Influencing Skills
10 20 (1.82%) Manufacturing
11 19 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
12 16 (1.46%) Aviation
13 13 (1.19%) Telecoms
14 12 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 11 (1.00%) Local Government
16 9 (0.82%) Retail
17 8 (0.73%) Military
17 8 (0.73%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 140 (12.76%) Developer
2 126 (11.49%) Analyst
3 114 (10.39%) Senior
4 112 (10.21%) Architect
5 107 (9.75%) Lead
6 86 (7.84%) Consultant
7 61 (5.56%) SAP Consultant
8 56 (5.10%) Business Analyst
9 49 (4.47%) Designer
10 47 (4.28%) Data Engineer
11 43 (3.92%) Java Developer
12 31 (2.83%) Administrator
13 27 (2.46%) DevOps Engineer
14 26 (2.37%) Delivery Manager
14 26 (2.37%) Service Designer
15 24 (2.19%) Solutions Architect
16 23 (2.10%) Data Analyst
16 23 (2.10%) Data Architect
16 23 (2.10%) Senior Analyst
17 22 (2.01%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (5.20%) REST
2 52 (4.74%) React
3 47 (4.28%) Node.js
4 46 (4.19%) RESTful
5 45 (4.10%) HTML
6 41 (3.74%) Spring Boot
7 40 (3.65%) CSS
7 40 (3.65%) Spring
8 28 (2.55%) .NET
9 27 (2.46%) Kafka
10 19 (1.73%) JSON
11 18 (1.64%) Playwright
11 18 (1.64%) PySpark
12 17 (1.55%) OAuth
13 15 (1.37%) OpenAPI
13 15 (1.37%) SPFx
14 13 (1.19%) AngularJS
14 13 (1.19%) Middleware
14 13 (1.19%) SAP TM
14 13 (1.19%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 78 (7.11%) Product Ownership
2 58 (5.29%) Onboarding
3 52 (4.74%) Cloud Native
4 25 (2.28%) Virtual Team
5 22 (2.01%) Management Information System
5 22 (2.01%) Web Conferencing
6 21 (1.91%) Podcast
7 20 (1.82%) Distributed Systems
7 20 (1.82%) NHS
8 16 (1.46%) Algorithms
8 16 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
9 14 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
10 12 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
11 10 (0.91%) Data Centre
12 8 (0.73%) Data Structures
12 8 (0.73%) Public Cloud
13 6 (0.55%) Mobile App
14 5 (0.46%) BYOD
14 5 (0.46%) Legacy Code
14 5 (0.46%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 69 (6.29%) Linux
2 46 (4.19%) Windows
3 27 (2.46%) Unix
4 15 (1.37%) Android
5 12 (1.09%) Windows Server
6 10 (0.91%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.82%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.55%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.27%) AIX
9 3 (0.27%) Solaris
10 2 (0.18%) Debian
10 2 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.091%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.091%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.091%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 333 (30.36%) Agile
2 221 (20.15%) CI/CD
3 178 (16.23%) DevOps
4 165 (15.04%) Problem-Solving
5 159 (14.49%) Stakeholder Management
6 118 (10.76%) Continuous Improvement
7 111 (10.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 103 (9.39%) Roadmaps
9 101 (9.21%) Test Automation
10 92 (8.39%) Scrum
11 91 (8.30%) Decision-Making
12 84 (7.66%) Analytics
12 84 (7.66%) Microservices
13 83 (7.57%) Infrastructure as Code
14 75 (6.84%) Data Modelling
15 73 (6.65%) AI
16 72 (6.56%) Migration
17 70 (6.38%) Business Intelligence
18 66 (6.02%) Software Engineering
18 66 (6.02%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 133 (12.12%) Python
2 127 (11.58%) SQL
3 124 (11.30%) Java
4 73 (6.65%) JavaScript
5 44 (4.01%) TypeScript
6 32 (2.92%) Scala
7 23 (2.10%) C#
8 21 (1.91%) PowerShell
9 17 (1.55%) Shell Script
10 12 (1.09%) PL/SQL
11 10 (0.91%) Bicep
12 9 (0.82%) VB
13 8 (0.73%) C
13 8 (0.73%) C++
14 7 (0.64%) VB6
15 6 (0.55%) COBOL
15 6 (0.55%) MATLAB
16 5 (0.46%) ABAP
16 5 (0.46%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.46%) Go
Qualifications
1 323 (29.44%) Security Cleared
2 234 (21.33%) SC Cleared
3 70 (6.38%) Degree
4 17 (1.55%) AWS Certification
4 17 (1.55%) DV Cleared
5 11 (1.00%) Master's Degree
6 10 (0.91%) Azure Certification
6 10 (0.91%) 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 (0.36%) CompTIA Security+
11 4 (0.36%) CTC Cleared
11 4 (0.36%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 79 (7.20%) Data Quality
2 73 (6.65%) Accessibility
3 66 (6.02%) QA
4 22 (2.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 20 (1.82%) WCAG
6 18 (1.64%) PMO
7 17 (1.55%) NIST
8 13 (1.19%) GDPR
8 13 (1.19%) SLA
9 10 (0.91%) GRC
10 8 (0.73%) PCI DSS
11 6 (0.55%) NCSC
12 5 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (0.46%) IFRS
12 5 (0.46%) IFRS 17
12 5 (0.46%) ISO 20022
13 4 (0.36%) HL7
13 4 (0.36%) PSD2
14 3 (0.27%) Basel III
14 3 (0.27%) DICOM
System Software
1 71 (6.47%) Docker
2 31 (2.83%) Active Directory
3 18 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.36%) vSphere
8 3 (0.27%) GPFS
8 3 (0.27%) NFS
8 3 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.27%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.18%) Firmware
9 2 (0.18%) QEMU
10 1 (0.091%) ACF2
10 1 (0.091%) RACF
10 1 (0.091%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 94 (8.57%) Terraform
2 68 (6.20%) Kubernetes
3 23 (2.10%) Grafana
4 15 (1.37%) Prometheus
5 11 (1.00%) Ansible
5 11 (1.00%) Kibana
6 9 (0.82%) Istio
6 9 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.64%) Argo
8 6 (0.55%) Microsoft Intune
8 6 (0.55%) Podman
9 5 (0.46%) SCCM
10 4 (0.36%) HAProxy
11 3 (0.27%) Puppet
11 3 (0.27%) vRealize
12 2 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 2 (0.18%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.18%) Packer
13 1 (0.091%) Jamf Pro
13 1 (0.091%) systemd
Vendors
1 118 (10.76%) SAP
2 100 (9.12%) Microsoft
3 50 (4.56%) Oracle
4 30 (2.73%) ServiceNow
5 24 (2.19%) Google
6 22 (2.01%) Databricks
7 19 (1.73%) Splunk
8 18 (1.64%) VMware
9 14 (1.28%) Cisco
10 13 (1.19%) Pega
11 12 (1.09%) IBM
12 11 (1.00%) Informatica
13 10 (0.91%) CyberArk
14 9 (0.82%) BeyondTrust
14 9 (0.82%) 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