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

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 254 220
Rank change year-on-year +121 -34 -30
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 854 299 471
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.05% 0.98% 1.06%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.03% 3.27% 3.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 644 179 345
10th Percentile £313 £210 £309
25th Percentile £400 £328 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £475 £507
Median % change year-on-year -1.16% -6.22% -7.91%
75th Percentile £566 £575 £631
90th Percentile £672 £676 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £466 £529
% change year-on-year -3.38% -11.87% -3.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 15 53
10th Percentile £15.07 £14.36 £15.92
25th Percentile £22.92 £25.80 £16.06
Median hourly rate £36.00 £38.85 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.34% +115.83% -62.11%
75th Percentile £57.21 £65.63 £47.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £72.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £38.85 £17.00
% change year-on-year -13.77% +128.50% -64.42%

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 14,172 9,157 13,487
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.03% 29.92% 30.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,361 5,628 8,319
10th Percentile £331 £288 £290
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £614 £630 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £508 £530
% change year-on-year -1.48% -4.25% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,039 455 979
10th Percentile £16.15 £20.12 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.34 £24.19 £20.48
Median hourly rate £25.47 £40.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.11% -4.71% -13.27%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.38 £64.13
90th Percentile £81.24 £80.84 £77.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.30 £44.25
% change year-on-year -45.68% +4.63% -1.67%

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 28 February 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 28 February 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 28 February 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 +113 604 £475 +0.53% 241
UK excluding London +57 432 £450 -3.38% 241
Work from Home +108 346 £438 -12.50% 121
London +83 203 £506 +8.85% 56
North of England +12 182 £450 -10.00% 48
North West +36 142 £424 -21.24% 34
Midlands +4 96 £438 +0.23% 14
West Midlands -11 68 £449 +2.75% 10
South East -6 55 £514 -0.19% 73
South West +9 45 £508 +6.84% 50
Scotland +36 36 £350 -21.35% 20
East Midlands +6 28 £395 - 4
East of England -15 21 £450 +125.00% 42
Yorkshire -65 21 £480 +118.18% 5
North East -3 20 £475 +32.87% 9
Wales -5 7 £458 +108.00% 3
Northern Ireland - 3 £375 -

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 46 (5.39%) Confluence
2 19 (2.22%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.29%) nginx
4 9 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.94%) Apache
6 6 (0.70%) Apache Spark
7 5 (0.59%) ArcGIS
7 5 (0.59%) CMS
8 3 (0.35%) MTS
8 3 (0.35%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.23%) Apache Airflow
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.23%) SAS
9 2 (0.23%) SugarCRM
10 1 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.12%) Camunda
10 1 (0.12%) GeoServer
10 1 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.12%) Orchard CMS
10 1 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 32 (3.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (1.87%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (1.29%) MS Visio
5 9 (1.05%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.35%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.23%) Trello
8 1 (0.12%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.12%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 53 (6.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.52%) SAP Travel Management
3 8 (0.94%) SAP EHS
4 6 (0.70%) SAP VC
5 5 (0.59%) SAP QM
6 4 (0.47%) Loan IQ
6 4 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
6 4 (0.47%) SAP BRIM
6 4 (0.47%) SAP EWM
6 4 (0.47%) SAP HCM
6 4 (0.47%) SAP Hybris
6 4 (0.47%) SAP MM
6 4 (0.47%) SAP PSCD
6 4 (0.47%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 3 (0.35%) Exchequer
7 3 (0.35%) ProductWriter
7 3 (0.35%) SAP Payroll
7 3 (0.35%) SAP PM
8 2 (0.23%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.23%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 148 (17.33%) AWS
2 124 (14.52%) Azure
3 53 (6.21%) Power Platform
4 42 (4.92%) GitHub
4 42 (4.92%) Serverless
5 38 (4.45%) Azure DevOps
6 32 (3.75%) GCP
7 30 (3.51%) GitHub Actions
8 26 (3.04%) AWS CloudFormation
9 25 (2.93%) Microsoft 365
10 22 (2.58%) AWS Lambda
11 17 (1.99%) Amazon SQS
12 15 (1.76%) Amazon EKS
12 15 (1.76%) Power Automate
13 14 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 14 (1.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 13 (1.52%) Azure Data Factory
14 13 (1.52%) PowerApps
15 12 (1.41%) Amazon EC2
15 12 (1.41%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 22 (2.58%) SSH
2 12 (1.41%) Firewall
3 10 (1.17%) DNS
3 10 (1.17%) Network Security
4 8 (0.94%) WAN
5 7 (0.82%) MPLS
5 7 (0.82%) Reverse Proxy
6 6 (0.70%) LAN
7 5 (0.59%) VPN
7 5 (0.59%) WebEx
8 4 (0.47%) DHCP
8 4 (0.47%) Ethernet
8 4 (0.47%) SAN
8 4 (0.47%) SDH
8 4 (0.47%) VSAN
8 4 (0.47%) Wireless
9 3 (0.35%) 5G
9 3 (0.35%) Radio Access Network
9 3 (0.35%) Unified Communications
9 3 (0.35%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (4.68%) Power BI
2 25 (2.93%) PostgreSQL
3 22 (2.58%) Metadata
4 18 (2.11%) SQL Server
5 15 (1.76%) Data Warehouse
5 15 (1.76%) NoSQL
6 13 (1.52%) MongoDB
6 13 (1.52%) Relational Database
7 12 (1.41%) Geospatial Data
8 11 (1.29%) MySQL
8 11 (1.29%) Redis
9 10 (1.17%) Data Lake
9 10 (1.17%) DynamoDB
10 9 (1.05%) Delta Lake
11 8 (0.94%) DocumentDB
11 8 (0.94%) Tableau
12 7 (0.82%) BigQuery
12 7 (0.82%) Spatial Data
13 6 (0.70%) GIS
13 6 (0.70%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 74 (8.67%) JIRA
2 66 (7.73%) Git
3 49 (5.74%) GitLab
4 30 (3.51%) Jenkins
5 9 (1.05%) Selenium
6 8 (0.94%) JUnit
6 8 (0.94%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.82%) Cypress.io
7 7 (0.82%) Mockito
8 6 (0.70%) Cucumber
9 4 (0.47%) JMeter
9 4 (0.47%) Maven
10 3 (0.35%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.35%) Eclipse
10 3 (0.35%) Gatling
10 3 (0.35%) Postman
10 3 (0.35%) Toad
11 2 (0.23%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.23%) Grunt
11 2 (0.23%) PHPUnit
General
1 295 (34.54%) Social Skills
2 172 (20.14%) Public Sector
3 128 (14.99%) Finance
4 88 (10.30%) Analytical Skills
5 44 (5.15%) Banking
6 35 (4.10%) Aerospace
7 19 (2.22%) Telecoms
8 18 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
8 18 (2.11%) Organisational Skills
9 16 (1.87%) Legal
10 15 (1.76%) Documentation Skills
10 15 (1.76%) Manufacturing
11 14 (1.64%) Aviation
12 13 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
13 11 (1.29%) Local Government
14 9 (1.05%) Publishing
15 7 (0.82%) Billing
15 7 (0.82%) Marketing
15 7 (0.82%) Retail
16 5 (0.59%) Military
Job Titles
1 149 (17.45%) Developer
2 102 (11.94%) Analyst
3 99 (11.59%) Senior
4 80 (9.37%) Lead
5 73 (8.55%) Architect
6 65 (7.61%) Consultant
7 46 (5.39%) Business Analyst
8 43 (5.04%) Java Developer
9 42 (4.92%) SAP Consultant
10 29 (3.40%) Administrator
11 27 (3.16%) Data Engineer
12 25 (2.93%) Designer
12 25 (2.93%) Senior Developer
13 23 (2.69%) DevOps Engineer
14 21 (2.46%) Solutions Architect
15 17 (1.99%) Azure Engineer
15 17 (1.99%) Senior Analyst
15 17 (1.99%) Software Developer
16 16 (1.87%) Lead Developer
16 16 (1.87%) User Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (7.73%) Node.js
2 42 (4.92%) React
3 34 (3.98%) REST
4 33 (3.86%) Kafka
5 31 (3.63%) RESTful
6 27 (3.16%) HTML
7 26 (3.04%) Spring
8 22 (2.58%) CSS
8 22 (2.58%) Spring Boot
9 19 (2.22%) JSON
10 17 (1.99%) .NET
11 14 (1.64%) SAP TM
11 14 (1.64%) XML
12 13 (1.52%) LangChain
12 13 (1.52%) Middleware
13 12 (1.41%) Jest
13 12 (1.41%) OAuth
14 10 (1.17%) AngularJS
14 10 (1.17%) OpenAPI
15 9 (1.05%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 57 (6.67%) Product Ownership
2 44 (5.15%) Onboarding
3 42 (4.92%) Cloud Native
4 26 (3.04%) Management Information System
5 16 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
5 16 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
6 13 (1.52%) NHS
7 11 (1.29%) Security Posture
7 11 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
8 10 (1.17%) Public Cloud
9 8 (0.94%) Data Structures
10 7 (0.82%) Cyber Threat
10 7 (0.82%) Data Centre
10 7 (0.82%) Driving Licence
10 7 (0.82%) Enterprise Software
10 7 (0.82%) Linux Command Line
10 7 (0.82%) Low-Code
10 7 (0.82%) Tandem
11 6 (0.70%) AI Agents
12 5 (0.59%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 84 (9.84%) Linux
2 36 (4.22%) Windows
3 22 (2.58%) Unix
4 8 (0.94%) Android
5 7 (0.82%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.70%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.59%) Mac OS X
7 5 (0.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.23%) Debian
9 2 (0.23%) VMS
10 1 (0.12%) AIX
10 1 (0.12%) CentOS
10 1 (0.12%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.12%) Solaris
10 1 (0.12%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 271 (31.73%) Agile
2 167 (19.56%) CI/CD
3 157 (18.38%) Problem-Solving
4 139 (16.28%) Stakeholder Management
5 124 (14.52%) DevOps
6 90 (10.54%) Continuous Improvement
7 85 (9.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 72 (8.43%) Microservices
9 70 (8.20%) Scrum
10 69 (8.08%) Roadmaps
10 69 (8.08%) Test Automation
11 66 (7.73%) AI
11 66 (7.73%) Data Modelling
12 63 (7.38%) Infrastructure as Code
13 58 (6.79%) Analytics
14 56 (6.56%) Validation
15 54 (6.32%) Decision-Making
16 53 (6.21%) Migration
17 51 (5.97%) SDLC
18 50 (5.85%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 113 (13.23%) Python
2 93 (10.89%) Java
3 91 (10.66%) SQL
4 51 (5.97%) JavaScript
5 35 (4.10%) TypeScript
6 23 (2.69%) Shell Script
7 17 (1.99%) C#
7 17 (1.99%) PowerShell
8 15 (1.76%) Bash
9 13 (1.52%) Ruby
9 13 (1.52%) Scala
10 10 (1.17%) ABAP
10 10 (1.17%) Bicep
11 8 (0.94%) PL/SQL
12 6 (0.70%) COBOL
13 5 (0.59%) PHP
14 4 (0.47%) C++
14 4 (0.47%) R
15 3 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 3 (0.35%) Go
Qualifications
1 315 (36.89%) Security Cleared
2 226 (26.46%) SC Cleared
3 72 (8.43%) Degree
4 28 (3.28%) Computer Science Degree
5 21 (2.46%) Master's Degree
6 15 (1.76%) DV Cleared
7 10 (1.17%) AWS Certification
7 10 (1.17%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 8 (0.94%) PMI Certification
9 7 (0.82%) DBS Check
10 6 (0.70%) Azure Certification
10 6 (0.70%) ISTQB
10 6 (0.70%) PMP
11 5 (0.59%) CompTIA Security+
12 4 (0.47%) CompTIA CySA+
12 4 (0.47%) GIAC
12 4 (0.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 4 (0.47%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 4 (0.47%) PhD
13 3 (0.35%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (7.26%) Accessibility
2 50 (5.85%) Data Quality
3 43 (5.04%) QA
4 25 (2.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 18 (2.11%) NIST
6 17 (1.99%) WCAG
7 16 (1.87%) SLA
8 15 (1.76%) GRC
9 10 (1.17%) Def Stans
9 10 (1.17%) NCSC
9 10 (1.17%) PMO
10 9 (1.05%) GDPR
11 7 (0.82%) ISO 20022
11 7 (0.82%) PCI DSS
12 5 (0.59%) IFRS
12 5 (0.59%) IFRS 17
12 5 (0.59%) PSD2
13 4 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
13 4 (0.47%) SEPA
14 3 (0.35%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 62 (7.26%) Docker
2 18 (2.11%) Active Directory
3 13 (1.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.82%) vSphere
5 4 (0.47%) GPFS
5 4 (0.47%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.47%) NFS
5 4 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.23%) ACF2
6 2 (0.23%) QEMU
6 2 (0.23%) RACF
6 2 (0.23%) Time Sharing Option
6 2 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.23%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.12%) Postfix
7 1 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 71 (8.31%) Terraform
2 60 (7.03%) Kubernetes
3 17 (1.99%) Prometheus
4 16 (1.87%) Grafana
5 13 (1.52%) Ansible
6 7 (0.82%) vRealize
7 5 (0.59%) VxRail
8 4 (0.47%) Istio
8 4 (0.47%) Kibana
8 4 (0.47%) Podman
9 3 (0.35%) Argo
9 3 (0.35%) EMC NetWorker
9 3 (0.35%) EMC VPLEX
9 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.35%) Packer
9 3 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.23%) Consul
10 2 (0.23%) Kubeflow
10 2 (0.23%) SCCM
Vendors
1 106 (12.41%) SAP
2 93 (10.89%) Microsoft
3 39 (4.57%) Oracle
4 23 (2.69%) Cisco
5 18 (2.11%) VMware
6 17 (1.99%) Databricks
6 17 (1.99%) Google
7 16 (1.87%) IBM
8 13 (1.52%) Pega
8 13 (1.52%) ServiceNow
9 12 (1.41%) Twitter
10 10 (1.17%) Adobe
11 9 (1.05%) Atlassian
12 8 (0.94%) Splunk
13 7 (0.82%) CyberArk
13 7 (0.82%) Dell
13 7 (0.82%) Salesforce
14 6 (0.70%) Foundry
14 6 (0.70%) OpenAI
14 6 (0.70%) Workday