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

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 196 242
Rank change year-on-year +77 +46 -10
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,133 424 423
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.21% 1.39% 0.98%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.07% 4.49% 3.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 815 281 284
10th Percentile £328 £294 £200
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £493 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.43% -1.40% -7.57%
75th Percentile £570 £581 £588
90th Percentile £650 £707 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £492 £475
% change year-on-year -7.93% +3.58% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 136 38 54
10th Percentile £20.00 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £36.00 £23.30 -
Median hourly rate £43.96 £44.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -1.21% +177.09% -63.77%
75th Percentile £62.50 £65.72 £30.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £45.00 £16.06
% change year-on-year -2.31% +180.20% -60.42%

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 16,028 9,450 12,874
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.23% 30.88% 29.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,706 5,857 7,950
10th Percentile £350 £275 £312
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.77% -0.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £701 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £500 £528
% change year-on-year +1.40% -5.30% +0.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,161 635 1,116
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.78 £20.19 £20.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £28.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +77.62% -31.24% -26.00%
75th Percentile £72.54 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.13 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.33% -36.92% -19.87%

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 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 30 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 30 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 +87 855 £481 -3.85% 218
UK excluding London +58 650 £453 -7.93% 195
Work from Home +80 469 £445 -6.32% 127
London +63 267 £500 +5.26% 46
North of England +24 232 £453 -9.40% 33
Midlands +13 139 £459 -6.81% 23
North West +10 131 £420 -16.10% 27
West Midlands +12 112 £470 +4.10% 20
South East -9 106 £500 -4.76% 41
South West +21 68 £525 +50.00% 48
Scotland +34 66 £331 -2.57% 18
North East +4 61 £453 +4.14% 4
Yorkshire -15 47 £480 -4.00% 2
East of England -17 27 £500 +150.00% 36
East Midlands -5 26 £438 -37.50% 3
Wales -9 9 £463 -19.57% 4
Northern Ireland +5 7 £450 +28.57%

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 48 (4.24%) Confluence
2 37 (3.27%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.32%) SharePoint Server
4 13 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.71%) SAS
6 7 (0.62%) Apache
7 4 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.26%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.26%) CICS
8 3 (0.26%) CMS
8 3 (0.26%) LiveCycle
8 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.26%) WordPress
9 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.18%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.18%) Hyperledger
10 1 (0.088%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.088%) Appian
10 1 (0.088%) Camunda
Applications
1 41 (3.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.68%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (1.24%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (1.06%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.44%) Simulink
7 4 (0.35%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.18%) Trello
9 1 (0.088%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.088%) CATIA
9 1 (0.088%) InVision
9 1 (0.088%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.088%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.088%) PTC Creo
9 1 (0.088%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 43 (3.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.50%) SAP PSCD
3 14 (1.24%) SAP BRIM
4 11 (0.97%) SAP IBP
5 9 (0.79%) SAP Travel Management
6 8 (0.71%) SAP FI
7 7 (0.62%) SAP EWM
7 7 (0.62%) SAP FI-CA
8 6 (0.53%) SAP HR
9 5 (0.44%) Payment Gateway
10 4 (0.35%) Loan IQ
10 4 (0.35%) Primavera
10 4 (0.35%) SAP Convergent Charging
10 4 (0.35%) SAP EHS
10 4 (0.35%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
11 3 (0.26%) Exchequer
11 3 (0.26%) iTrent
11 3 (0.26%) ProductWriter
11 3 (0.26%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 216 (19.06%) AWS
2 203 (17.92%) Azure
3 75 (6.62%) Power Platform
4 49 (4.32%) Serverless
5 46 (4.06%) GCP
6 44 (3.88%) Azure DevOps
7 43 (3.80%) GitHub
8 37 (3.27%) Entra ID
9 35 (3.09%) AWS Lambda
10 34 (3.00%) Microsoft 365
11 33 (2.91%) Amazon S3
12 32 (2.82%) GitHub Actions
13 21 (1.85%) Power Automate
14 20 (1.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 20 (1.77%) PowerApps
15 19 (1.68%) Amazon ECS
16 16 (1.41%) Amazon EC2
16 16 (1.41%) AWS CloudFormation
16 16 (1.41%) Azure Data Factory
17 15 (1.32%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.41%) DNS
2 15 (1.32%) Network Security
3 14 (1.24%) Firewall
4 10 (0.88%) WAN
5 9 (0.79%) HTTPS
6 6 (0.53%) DHCP
6 6 (0.53%) Ethernet
6 6 (0.53%) SSH
6 6 (0.53%) SSL
7 5 (0.44%) LAN
8 4 (0.35%) MPLS
8 4 (0.35%) SDH
8 4 (0.35%) VPN
9 3 (0.26%) Internet
9 3 (0.26%) MQTT
9 3 (0.26%) Reverse Proxy
9 3 (0.26%) SD-WAN
9 3 (0.26%) TCP/IP
9 3 (0.26%) WebEx
9 3 (0.26%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (5.56%) Power BI
2 33 (2.91%) PostgreSQL
3 29 (2.56%) Metadata
4 27 (2.38%) Data Warehouse
5 25 (2.21%) MongoDB
6 23 (2.03%) SQL Server
7 19 (1.68%) NoSQL
8 17 (1.50%) Relational Database
9 16 (1.41%) DynamoDB
10 14 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
10 14 (1.24%) Data Lake
10 14 (1.24%) MySQL
11 12 (1.06%) Amazon Athena
12 11 (0.97%) Amazon Redshift
13 9 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 8 (0.71%) Delta Lake
14 8 (0.71%) Geospatial Data
15 7 (0.62%) Amazon Aurora
15 7 (0.62%) Big Data
16 6 (0.53%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 89 (7.86%) JIRA
2 61 (5.38%) Git
3 60 (5.30%) GitLab
4 45 (3.97%) Jenkins
5 21 (1.85%) Selenium
6 17 (1.50%) Cucumber
7 14 (1.24%) JUnit
8 11 (0.97%) Postman
9 8 (0.71%) Cypress.io
9 8 (0.71%) Team Foundation Server
10 7 (0.62%) Artifactory
10 7 (0.62%) Maven
10 7 (0.62%) Mockito
10 7 (0.62%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.53%) Gatling
11 6 (0.53%) Visual Studio
11 6 (0.53%) WebDriver
12 5 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
13 4 (0.35%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 4 (0.35%) JMeter
General
1 337 (29.74%) Social Skills
2 236 (20.83%) Public Sector
3 182 (16.06%) Finance
4 119 (10.50%) Analytical Skills
5 59 (5.21%) Legal
6 47 (4.15%) Aerospace
7 44 (3.88%) Organisational Skills
8 43 (3.80%) Banking
9 37 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
10 23 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (1.94%) Manufacturing
12 21 (1.85%) Billing
13 20 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
14 16 (1.41%) Aviation
14 16 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 16 (1.41%) Telecoms
15 13 (1.15%) Local Government
16 10 (0.88%) Law
17 8 (0.71%) Military
18 7 (0.62%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 136 (12.00%) Developer
2 117 (10.33%) Analyst
2 117 (10.33%) Lead
3 114 (10.06%) Senior
4 112 (9.89%) Architect
5 88 (7.77%) Consultant
6 59 (5.21%) SAP Consultant
7 51 (4.50%) Business Analyst
7 51 (4.50%) Designer
8 50 (4.41%) Data Engineer
9 42 (3.71%) Java Developer
10 31 (2.74%) Administrator
11 29 (2.56%) DevOps Engineer
12 25 (2.21%) Solutions Architect
13 24 (2.12%) Delivery Manager
13 24 (2.12%) Product Manager
13 24 (2.12%) Service Designer
14 23 (2.03%) Data Analyst
14 23 (2.03%) Data Architect
14 23 (2.03%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (5.56%) REST
2 51 (4.50%) React
3 46 (4.06%) RESTful
3 46 (4.06%) Spring Boot
4 45 (3.97%) Spring
5 44 (3.88%) HTML
6 42 (3.71%) Node.js
7 38 (3.35%) CSS
8 28 (2.47%) Kafka
9 23 (2.03%) .NET
10 20 (1.77%) Playwright
11 18 (1.59%) PySpark
12 17 (1.50%) JSON
13 15 (1.32%) OpenAPI
13 15 (1.32%) SPFx
14 14 (1.24%) OAuth
15 13 (1.15%) Jest
16 12 (1.06%) AngularJS
16 12 (1.06%) Middleware
16 12 (1.06%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 78 (6.88%) Product Ownership
2 63 (5.56%) Onboarding
3 55 (4.85%) Cloud Native
4 38 (3.35%) Virtual Team
5 33 (2.91%) Web Conferencing
6 32 (2.82%) Podcast
7 22 (1.94%) Management Information System
8 21 (1.85%) NHS
9 19 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
10 16 (1.41%) Algorithms
11 13 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
11 13 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
12 12 (1.06%) Legacy Systems
13 11 (0.97%) Data Centre
14 9 (0.79%) Data Structures
15 8 (0.71%) Mobile App
15 8 (0.71%) Public Cloud
16 7 (0.62%) BYOD
17 6 (0.53%) Replication
18 5 (0.44%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 68 (6.00%) Linux
2 49 (4.32%) Windows
3 32 (2.82%) Unix
4 15 (1.32%) Windows Server
5 12 (1.06%) Android
6 10 (0.88%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.79%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.53%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.26%) AIX
9 3 (0.26%) Solaris
10 2 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.088%) Debian
11 1 (0.088%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.088%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.088%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 329 (29.04%) Agile
2 214 (18.89%) CI/CD
3 179 (15.80%) DevOps
4 165 (14.56%) Stakeholder Management
5 157 (13.86%) Problem-Solving
6 120 (10.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 117 (10.33%) Continuous Improvement
8 101 (8.91%) Roadmaps
8 101 (8.91%) Test Automation
9 93 (8.21%) Decision-Making
9 93 (8.21%) Scrum
10 87 (7.68%) Analytics
11 82 (7.24%) Microservices
12 81 (7.15%) Infrastructure as Code
13 76 (6.71%) Migration
14 72 (6.35%) AI
15 71 (6.27%) Data Modelling
16 70 (6.18%) Business Intelligence
17 68 (6.00%) Software Engineering
18 65 (5.74%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 131 (11.56%) Python
2 128 (11.30%) SQL
3 120 (10.59%) Java
4 75 (6.62%) JavaScript
5 47 (4.15%) TypeScript
6 31 (2.74%) Scala
7 24 (2.12%) PowerShell
8 21 (1.85%) C#
9 15 (1.32%) Shell Script
10 10 (0.88%) C++
10 10 (0.88%) PL/SQL
11 9 (0.79%) VB
12 8 (0.71%) Bicep
12 8 (0.71%) C
13 7 (0.62%) ABAP
13 7 (0.62%) VB6
14 6 (0.53%) Bash
14 6 (0.53%) COBOL
14 6 (0.53%) MATLAB
15 5 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 341 (30.10%) Security Cleared
2 251 (22.15%) SC Cleared
3 66 (5.83%) Degree
4 19 (1.68%) AWS Certification
5 17 (1.50%) DV Cleared
6 12 (1.06%) Azure Certification
7 11 (0.97%) Master's Degree
8 9 (0.79%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
10 6 (0.53%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 6 (0.53%) PMI Certification
11 5 (0.44%) CompTIA CySA+
11 5 (0.44%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.44%) NVQ Level 4
12 4 (0.35%) Cisco Certification
12 4 (0.35%) CTC Cleared
12 4 (0.35%) GIAC
12 4 (0.35%) PhD
12 4 (0.35%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 78 (6.88%) Accessibility
1 78 (6.88%) Data Quality
2 67 (5.91%) QA
3 22 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 19 (1.68%) PMO
4 19 (1.68%) WCAG
5 17 (1.50%) GDPR
5 17 (1.50%) NIST
5 17 (1.50%) SLA
6 8 (0.71%) GRC
6 8 (0.71%) PCI DSS
7 6 (0.53%) NCSC
8 5 (0.44%) IFRS
8 5 (0.44%) IFRS 17
8 5 (0.44%) ISO 20022
9 4 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
9 4 (0.35%) HL7
9 4 (0.35%) PSD2
10 3 (0.26%) DICOM
10 3 (0.26%) SEPA
System Software
1 70 (6.18%) Docker
2 33 (2.91%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
4 8 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.44%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.35%) vSphere
7 3 (0.26%) GPFS
7 3 (0.26%) NFS
7 3 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.26%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.18%) Firmware
9 1 (0.088%) ACF2
9 1 (0.088%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.088%) QEMU
9 1 (0.088%) RACF
9 1 (0.088%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 96 (8.47%) Terraform
2 73 (6.44%) Kubernetes
3 22 (1.94%) Grafana
4 14 (1.24%) Prometheus
5 12 (1.06%) Kibana
6 11 (0.97%) Ansible
7 10 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.62%) Istio
9 6 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.44%) Argo
10 5 (0.44%) Podman
10 5 (0.44%) SCCM
11 4 (0.35%) HAProxy
12 3 (0.26%) Puppet
12 3 (0.26%) SCOM
12 3 (0.26%) vRealize
13 2 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 2 (0.18%) Data Guard
13 2 (0.18%) Kubeflow
13 2 (0.18%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 117 (10.33%) SAP
2 111 (9.80%) Microsoft
3 51 (4.50%) Oracle
4 35 (3.09%) ServiceNow
5 24 (2.12%) Google
6 21 (1.85%) Databricks
7 19 (1.68%) Splunk
7 19 (1.68%) VMware
8 16 (1.41%) Cisco
9 13 (1.15%) BeyondTrust
9 13 (1.15%) IBM
9 13 (1.15%) Pega
10 11 (0.97%) CyberArk
10 11 (0.97%) Informatica
11 9 (0.79%) Salesforce
12 8 (0.71%) Talend
13 7 (0.62%) Apple
13 7 (0.62%) OpenAI
13 7 (0.62%) Workday
14 6 (0.53%) Denodo