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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 94 147 267
Rank change year-on-year +53 +120 -37
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,568 617 330
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.86% 1.89% 0.88%
As % of the Qualifications category 9.03% 6.00% 3.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,131 425 194
10th Percentile £360 £313 £213
25th Percentile £425 £409 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £590 £606 £588
90th Percentile £670 £713 £641
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £500 £457
% change year-on-year -3.00% +9.41% -16.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 56 21
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £18.50
25th Percentile £42.00 £22.63 £20.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year +50.19% +35.57% -63.09%
75th Percentile £48.00 £48.13 £57.50
90th Percentile £68.11 £71.35 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £33.50 £21.59
% change year-on-year +31.22% +55.16% -62.72%

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 17,371 10,286 10,994
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.67% 31.46% 29.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,547 6,425 6,738
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £443 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £529 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £638
90th Percentile £715 £711 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,392 845 628
10th Percentile £17.17 £17.87 £17.59
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.99
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -7.41%
75th Percentile £72.54 £43.75 £68.19
90th Percentile £88.00 £70.16 £75.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.10% -

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 23 September 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 23 September 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 23 September 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 +82 1,183 £495 -3.70% 1,032
UK excluding London +42 902 £485 -3.00% 850
Work from Home +49 577 £500 - 708
London +82 353 £525 +2.44% 248
North of England +10 320 £488 -0.26% 149
Midlands +60 268 £488 -7.14% 127
West Midlands +66 258 £488 -7.14% 91
North West +2 174 £500 +6.61% 79
South East -20 94 £483 -6.03% 190
North East +18 90 £453 -1.52% 34
South West +8 80 £525 - 124
Scotland +25 74 £450 +2.86% 117
Yorkshire -14 69 £475 -5.00% 37
East of England +1 49 £578 +0.17% 138
Northern Ireland +17 20 - - 14
Wales -3 12 £413 - 10
East Midlands -32 9 £600 +21.95% 36

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 67 (4.27%) Confluence
2 41 (2.61%) SharePoint
3 16 (1.02%) SharePoint Server
4 10 (0.64%) CMS
5 9 (0.57%) Apache Spark
5 9 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (0.57%) SAS
6 7 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
7 6 (0.38%) Headless CMS
7 6 (0.38%) WebLogic
8 4 (0.26%) IIS
8 4 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.26%) WordPress
9 2 (0.13%) Apache
9 2 (0.13%) CICS
9 2 (0.13%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.13%) LiveCycle
9 2 (0.13%) OpenROAD
Applications
1 43 (2.74%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (2.10%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
4 9 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.38%) Windchill
6 3 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.13%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.13%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.13%) Simulink
7 2 (0.13%) Trello
8 1 (0.064%) InVision
8 1 (0.064%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.064%) Revit
8 1 (0.064%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.064%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 65 (4.15%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.47%) SAP HR
3 19 (1.21%) SAP Payroll
4 17 (1.08%) SAP PSCD
5 15 (0.96%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.77%) SAP IBP
7 10 (0.64%) SAP FI
7 10 (0.64%) SAP HCM
8 7 (0.45%) SAP MDG
9 6 (0.38%) SAP FI-CA
9 6 (0.38%) SAP GRC
9 6 (0.38%) SAP PP
9 6 (0.38%) Teamcenter
10 5 (0.32%) Exchequer
10 5 (0.32%) SAP ERP
11 4 (0.26%) SAP Convergent Charging
11 4 (0.26%) SAP EHS
11 4 (0.26%) SAP Hybris
11 4 (0.26%) Shopify
12 3 (0.19%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 277 (17.67%) AWS
2 270 (17.22%) Azure
3 87 (5.55%) Power Platform
4 73 (4.66%) GitHub
5 64 (4.08%) Azure DevOps
6 54 (3.44%) GCP
6 54 (3.44%) Serverless
7 50 (3.19%) Microsoft 365
8 49 (3.13%) GitHub Actions
9 46 (2.93%) Amazon S3
9 46 (2.93%) AWS Lambda
9 46 (2.93%) Entra ID
10 27 (1.72%) Power Automate
10 27 (1.72%) SuccessFactors
11 26 (1.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 26 (1.66%) AWS CloudFormation
11 26 (1.66%) PowerApps
12 23 (1.47%) Amazon ECS
12 23 (1.47%) Azure Monitor
13 17 (1.08%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.08%) DNS
2 13 (0.83%) SSL
2 13 (0.83%) WAN
3 11 (0.70%) Firewall
3 11 (0.70%) Network Security
4 10 (0.64%) WebEx
5 9 (0.57%) Cisco IPT
6 8 (0.51%) Intranet
7 7 (0.45%) 5G
7 7 (0.45%) Radio Access Network
7 7 (0.45%) VPN
7 7 (0.45%) Wireshark
8 6 (0.38%) Ethernet
8 6 (0.38%) LAN
8 6 (0.38%) MPLS
9 5 (0.32%) 3GPP
9 5 (0.32%) HTTP
9 5 (0.32%) NGN
9 5 (0.32%) TCP/IP
9 5 (0.32%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (3.70%) Power BI
2 49 (3.13%) PostgreSQL
3 46 (2.93%) MongoDB
4 44 (2.81%) Metadata
5 36 (2.30%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (2.10%) SQL Server
7 26 (1.66%) Amazon RDS
8 25 (1.59%) MySQL
9 24 (1.53%) NoSQL
10 21 (1.34%) Data Lake
10 21 (1.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 20 (1.28%) Relational Database
12 18 (1.15%) Oracle Database
13 16 (1.02%) DynamoDB
14 14 (0.89%) Amazon Redshift
15 13 (0.83%) Amazon Aurora
16 11 (0.70%) Amazon Athena
17 10 (0.64%) Big Data
17 10 (0.64%) Redis
18 8 (0.51%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 120 (7.65%) JIRA
2 108 (6.89%) Git
3 92 (5.87%) GitLab
4 62 (3.95%) Jenkins
5 37 (2.36%) JUnit
6 32 (2.04%) Selenium
7 28 (1.79%) Cucumber
7 28 (1.79%) Maven
8 19 (1.21%) Mockito
8 19 (1.21%) Postman
8 19 (1.21%) SonarQube
9 15 (0.96%) Gatling
10 14 (0.89%) Team Foundation Server
10 14 (0.89%) Visual Studio
11 13 (0.83%) Cypress.io
12 10 (0.64%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 10 (0.64%) REST Assured
13 9 (0.57%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.45%) Gradle
14 7 (0.45%) Rational DOORS
General
1 534 (34.06%) Social Skills
2 390 (24.87%) Public Sector
3 258 (16.45%) Finance
4 149 (9.50%) Analytical Skills
5 140 (8.93%) Organisational Skills
6 137 (8.74%) Legal
7 43 (2.74%) Aerospace
7 43 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
8 36 (2.30%) Influencing Skills
9 34 (2.17%) Manufacturing
10 29 (1.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 25 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
12 24 (1.53%) Telecoms
13 23 (1.47%) Banking
13 23 (1.47%) Billing
14 15 (0.96%) Aviation
14 15 (0.96%) Military
15 13 (0.83%) Local Government
16 11 (0.70%) Publishing
17 9 (0.57%) Avionics
Job Titles
1 221 (14.09%) Developer
2 171 (10.91%) Architect
3 170 (10.84%) Senior
4 155 (9.89%) Lead
5 111 (7.08%) Consultant
6 104 (6.63%) Analyst
7 73 (4.66%) Java Developer
8 68 (4.34%) SAP Consultant
9 61 (3.89%) Designer
10 52 (3.32%) Data Engineer
11 50 (3.19%) Solutions Architect
12 48 (3.06%) DevOps Engineer
13 45 (2.87%) Business Analyst
14 41 (2.61%) Delivery Manager
15 37 (2.36%) Technical Architect
16 34 (2.17%) Data Architect
16 34 (2.17%) Product Manager
17 32 (2.04%) Lead Developer
18 30 (1.91%) Administrator
19 29 (1.85%) User Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (7.40%) Terraform
2 93 (5.93%) REST
3 88 (5.61%) Spring
4 76 (4.85%) Spring Boot
5 58 (3.70%) RESTful
6 55 (3.51%) Node.js
7 53 (3.38%) React
8 52 (3.32%) HTML
9 42 (2.68%) Kafka
10 40 (2.55%) CSS
11 39 (2.49%) Playwright
12 31 (1.98%) OpenAPI
13 26 (1.66%) OAuth
14 25 (1.59%) .NET
15 24 (1.53%) XML
16 23 (1.47%) OAuth2
16 23 (1.47%) Swagger
17 22 (1.40%) JSON
18 21 (1.34%) Middleware
19 20 (1.28%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 120 (7.65%) Virtual Team
2 119 (7.59%) Web Conferencing
3 109 (6.95%) Podcast
4 105 (6.70%) Onboarding
5 85 (5.42%) Product Ownership
6 72 (4.59%) Cloud Native
7 35 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
8 25 (1.59%) Replication
9 21 (1.34%) Management Information System
9 21 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
10 20 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
10 20 (1.28%) Mobile App
11 19 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
12 18 (1.15%) BYOD
12 18 (1.15%) NHS
13 15 (0.96%) Driving Licence
14 13 (0.83%) Low-Code
14 13 (0.83%) Taxonomies
15 12 (0.77%) Algorithms
16 11 (0.70%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 73 (4.66%) Windows
2 60 (3.83%) Linux
3 35 (2.23%) Unix
4 21 (1.34%) Android
5 20 (1.28%) Windows Server
6 12 (0.77%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.64%) VMS
7 10 (0.64%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.51%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.19%) AIX
10 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.13%) Solaris
11 1 (0.064%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.064%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.064%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.064%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 497 (31.70%) Agile
2 304 (19.39%) Stakeholder Management
3 281 (17.92%) CI/CD
4 242 (15.43%) DevOps
5 203 (12.95%) Continuous Improvement
6 188 (11.99%) Problem-Solving
7 164 (10.46%) Scrum
8 163 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 138 (8.80%) Customer Service
10 132 (8.42%) Test Automation
11 125 (7.97%) Decision-Making
11 125 (7.97%) Roadmaps
12 123 (7.84%) Microservices
13 114 (7.27%) Migration
14 113 (7.21%) Analytics
14 113 (7.21%) Infrastructure as Code
15 101 (6.44%) AI
15 101 (6.44%) Mentoring
16 99 (6.31%) Digital Transformation Programme
17 87 (5.55%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 188 (11.99%) Java
2 167 (10.65%) SQL
3 127 (8.10%) Python
4 84 (5.36%) JavaScript
5 42 (2.68%) TypeScript
6 39 (2.49%) PowerShell
7 38 (2.42%) Scala
8 25 (1.59%) C#
8 25 (1.59%) Shell Script
9 24 (1.53%) Bash
10 21 (1.34%) PL/SQL
11 14 (0.89%) T-SQL
12 13 (0.83%) ABAP
13 12 (0.77%) VB
14 11 (0.70%) VB6
14 11 (0.70%) VBA
15 9 (0.57%) VBScript
16 8 (0.51%) C++
16 8 (0.51%) Kotlin
17 7 (0.45%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 515 (32.84%) Security Cleared
2 399 (25.45%) SC Cleared
3 77 (4.91%) Degree
4 20 (1.28%) AWS Certification
5 19 (1.21%) Azure Certification
6 18 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
7 14 (0.89%) DBS Check
8 13 (0.83%) DV Cleared
9 11 (0.70%) A+ Certification
10 9 (0.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 9 (0.57%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 9 (0.57%) PMI Certification
11 8 (0.51%) Master's Degree
12 7 (0.45%) ISTQB
13 6 (0.38%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 6 (0.38%) HNC
13 6 (0.38%) HND
13 6 (0.38%) PhD
14 5 (0.32%) CCNA
14 5 (0.32%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (6.70%) Accessibility
2 102 (6.51%) QA
3 69 (4.40%) Data Quality
4 41 (2.61%) WCAG
5 29 (1.85%) GDPR
6 22 (1.40%) PMO
7 19 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 16 (1.02%) SLA
9 13 (0.83%) NIST
10 10 (0.64%) GRC
11 7 (0.45%) NCSC
12 6 (0.38%) IEC 61508
13 5 (0.32%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 5 (0.32%) GMP
13 5 (0.32%) GxP
13 5 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 17025
13 5 (0.32%) PERC
14 3 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
14 3 (0.19%) Def Stans
14 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 101 (6.44%) Docker
2 37 (2.36%) Active Directory
3 14 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
4 10 (0.64%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.13%) Firmware
8 1 (0.064%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.064%) IAG
8 1 (0.064%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 113 (7.21%) Kubernetes
2 40 (2.55%) Grafana
3 24 (1.53%) Kibana
3 24 (1.53%) Prometheus
4 20 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
5 12 (0.77%) Ansible
5 12 (0.77%) SCCM
6 10 (0.64%) Argo
7 9 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (0.57%) SCOM
8 6 (0.38%) Functional Safety
9 4 (0.26%) Istio
9 4 (0.26%) Packer
9 4 (0.26%) Podman
9 4 (0.26%) Puppet
10 3 (0.19%) HAProxy
11 2 (0.13%) Cilium
11 2 (0.13%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.13%) Karpenter
11 2 (0.13%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 186 (11.86%) Microsoft
2 156 (9.95%) SAP
3 90 (5.74%) Oracle
4 67 (4.27%) ServiceNow
5 44 (2.81%) Google
6 29 (1.85%) BeyondTrust
7 21 (1.34%) Databricks
8 19 (1.21%) Splunk
9 16 (1.02%) Atlassian
10 15 (0.96%) Talend
11 13 (0.83%) CyberArk
12 12 (0.77%) Cisco
12 12 (0.77%) IBM
12 12 (0.77%) Salesforce
13 11 (0.70%) Dell
14 10 (0.64%) Informatica
14 10 (0.64%) Okta
14 10 (0.64%) VMware
15 9 (0.57%) MuleSoft
16 8 (0.51%) Workday