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 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 149 256 246
Rank change year-on-year +107 -10 -33
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 669 333 474
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.88% 0.91% 1.01%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.70% 3.10% 3.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 491 176 317
10th Percentile £309 £220 £350
25th Percentile £400 £391 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £501 £548
Median % change year-on-year -0.25% -8.45% -0.45%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £707 £688 £706
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £470 £550
% change year-on-year +2.71% -14.55% +0.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 16 31
10th Percentile £19.50 - £18.50
25th Percentile £22.63 £20.12 £24.75
Median hourly rate £31.39 £36.93 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.00% -32.86% +1.85%
75th Percentile £44.37 £64.06 £77.72
90th Percentile £70.08 £65.00 £84.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £36.93 £55.00
% change year-on-year -9.28% -32.86% -8.33%

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 11,739 10,735 13,587
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.06% 29.30% 29.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,523 6,511 8,676
10th Percentile £300 £312 £300
25th Percentile £413 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £716 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £520 £535
% change year-on-year -3.85% -2.80% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,020 507 757
10th Percentile £17.47 £19.17 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.25 £24.18 £26.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -44.11% -14.29% +16.67%
75th Percentile £44.81 £66.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £51.89
% change year-on-year -47.05% -8.46% +15.31%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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 +89 477 £500 -1.23% 509
UK excluding London +66 357 £483 +2.71% 503
Work from Home +92 239 £486 -11.59% 313
North of England +55 179 £475 +3.37% 64
London +41 133 £500 -13.04% 63
North West +55 131 £465 -15.45% 47
Midlands -3 64 £500 - 50
West Midlands -14 45 £537 +14.26% 36
South East +19 39 £475 +27.52% 168
Yorkshire -15 37 £500 +127.27% 9
South West +5 33 £560 -5.08% 120
Scotland +21 27 £418 -24.09% 31
East Midlands +1 19 £451 -26.45% 14
East of England -30 18 £533 +142.05% 143
North East -2 13 £506 +22.36% 9
Northern Ireland +1 5 £350 - 2
Wales -2 5 £458 +108.00% 7

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 42 (6.28%) Confluence
2 12 (1.79%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.49%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (0.90%) nginx
5 5 (0.75%) Apache
6 4 (0.60%) CMS
6 4 (0.60%) SugarCRM
7 3 (0.45%) ArcGIS
7 3 (0.45%) MTS
7 3 (0.45%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.30%) HCL Domino
8 2 (0.30%) HCL Notes
8 2 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.15%) Appian
9 1 (0.15%) Drupal
9 1 (0.15%) GeoServer
9 1 (0.15%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.15%) Orchard CMS
Applications
1 21 (3.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.64%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.49%) AutoCAD
4 6 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.75%) Navisworks
5 5 (0.75%) ProjectWise
5 5 (0.75%) Revit
5 5 (0.75%) Siemens NX
6 4 (0.60%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.60%) Trello
7 3 (0.45%) Adobe Illustrator
7 3 (0.45%) Adobe XD
7 3 (0.45%) Photoshop
7 3 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.30%) Fusion 360
8 2 (0.30%) Sketch
9 1 (0.15%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 44 (6.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (2.24%) Oracle EBS
3 11 (1.64%) SAP EHS
4 10 (1.49%) Oracle EBS R12
5 9 (1.35%) Oracle Financials
6 7 (1.05%) Oracle Payables
6 7 (1.05%) SAP HCM
7 6 (0.90%) Oracle Cash Management
7 6 (0.90%) SAP VC
7 6 (0.90%) Teamcenter
8 5 (0.75%) Oracle ASCP
8 5 (0.75%) SAP QM
9 4 (0.60%) Maximo
9 4 (0.60%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.60%) Oracle SCM
10 3 (0.45%) Oracle Assets
10 3 (0.45%) SAP BRIM
10 3 (0.45%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.45%) SAP PM
10 3 (0.45%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 102 (15.25%) AWS
2 85 (12.71%) Azure
3 27 (4.04%) Serverless
4 23 (3.44%) GitHub
5 22 (3.29%) Power Platform
6 20 (2.99%) AWS Lambda
7 18 (2.69%) Amazon EC2
7 18 (2.69%) GCP
8 17 (2.54%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 16 (2.39%) Azure DevOps
9 16 (2.39%) Microsoft 365
10 15 (2.24%) Amazon S3
10 15 (2.24%) AWS CloudFormation
11 14 (2.09%) GitHub Actions
11 14 (2.09%) SuccessFactors
12 12 (1.79%) Amazon ECS
13 11 (1.64%) Power Automate
14 10 (1.49%) Amazon EKS
14 10 (1.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 9 (1.35%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (2.39%) Firewall
2 10 (1.49%) Network Security
2 10 (1.49%) SSH
3 9 (1.35%) LAN
4 8 (1.20%) DNS
4 8 (1.20%) Intrusion Detection
4 8 (1.20%) WAN
5 7 (1.05%) MPLS
5 7 (1.05%) Structured Cabling
5 7 (1.05%) VPN
6 6 (0.90%) SAN
7 4 (0.60%) SDH
7 4 (0.60%) SD-WAN
7 4 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (0.45%) 5G
8 3 (0.45%) Cisco Nexus
8 3 (0.45%) OpenLDAP
8 3 (0.45%) Radio Access Network
8 3 (0.45%) Unified Communications
8 3 (0.45%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.54%) Power BI
2 14 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (1.64%) MongoDB
3 11 (1.64%) NoSQL
4 10 (1.49%) Amazon RDS
5 9 (1.35%) Metadata
6 8 (1.20%) Relational Database
6 8 (1.20%) SQL Server
7 7 (1.05%) BigQuery
7 7 (1.05%) Data Lake
7 7 (1.05%) Oracle Database
8 6 (0.90%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (0.90%) MySQL
9 4 (0.60%) Geospatial Data
9 4 (0.60%) GIS
9 4 (0.60%) Hadoop
9 4 (0.60%) Looker
9 4 (0.60%) Redis
9 4 (0.60%) SAP HANA
9 4 (0.60%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 64 (9.57%) Git
2 63 (9.42%) JIRA
3 29 (4.33%) Jenkins
4 28 (4.19%) GitLab
5 13 (1.94%) Cucumber
6 11 (1.64%) JUnit
7 9 (1.35%) Cypress.io
8 8 (1.20%) Mockito
8 8 (1.20%) SonarQube
9 7 (1.05%) Selenium
10 5 (0.75%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.60%) Gradle
11 4 (0.60%) Grunt
11 4 (0.60%) gulp
11 4 (0.60%) Maven
12 3 (0.45%) Android Studio
12 3 (0.45%) JMeter
12 3 (0.45%) Toad
12 3 (0.45%) WebDriver
12 3 (0.45%) webpack
General
1 198 (29.60%) Social Skills
2 116 (17.34%) Public Sector
3 109 (16.29%) Finance
4 56 (8.37%) Analytical Skills
5 29 (4.33%) Banking
6 21 (3.14%) Aerospace
7 18 (2.69%) Organisational Skills
8 15 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
8 15 (2.24%) Manufacturing
9 14 (2.09%) Aviation
9 14 (2.09%) Telecoms
10 13 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (1.05%) Billing
11 7 (1.05%) Local Government
11 7 (1.05%) Marketing
12 6 (0.90%) Legal
13 5 (0.75%) Law
13 5 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (0.60%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.45%) Police
Job Titles
1 107 (15.99%) Developer
2 88 (13.15%) Consultant
3 62 (9.27%) Senior
4 52 (7.77%) Architect
5 48 (7.17%) Analyst
6 44 (6.58%) Lead
7 42 (6.28%) SAP Consultant
8 32 (4.78%) Java Developer
9 23 (3.44%) Solutions Architect
10 22 (3.29%) Designer
11 20 (2.99%) Project Manager
12 19 (2.84%) Administrator
13 18 (2.69%) DevOps Engineer
14 17 (2.54%) Delivery Manager
15 16 (2.39%) Business Analyst
16 15 (2.24%) Oracle Consultant
17 14 (2.09%) Senior Developer
18 13 (1.94%) Management Consultant
18 13 (1.94%) Senior Manager
19 11 (1.64%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (5.08%) Node.js
2 30 (4.48%) REST
3 29 (4.33%) HTML
4 28 (4.19%) React
5 24 (3.59%) RESTful
6 23 (3.44%) CSS
7 19 (2.84%) JSON
7 19 (2.84%) Kafka
8 17 (2.54%) Spring
9 13 (1.94%) SAP Fiori
10 12 (1.79%) .NET
10 12 (1.79%) Jest
10 12 (1.79%) Spring Boot
11 10 (1.49%) AngularJS
11 10 (1.49%) SOAP
11 10 (1.49%) XML
12 9 (1.35%) ActiveMQ
12 9 (1.35%) LDAP
13 8 (1.20%) HTML5
13 8 (1.20%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 51 (7.62%) Onboarding
2 30 (4.48%) Product Ownership
3 20 (2.99%) Management Information System
4 14 (2.09%) Security Posture
5 13 (1.94%) Cloud Native
6 11 (1.64%) Driving Licence
7 10 (1.49%) Mobile App
7 10 (1.49%) SCADA
8 9 (1.35%) NHS
9 8 (1.20%) Data Centre
9 8 (1.20%) Fibre Optics
9 8 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (1.05%) Low-Code
10 7 (1.05%) Operational Technology
11 6 (0.90%) AI Agents
11 6 (0.90%) Public Cloud
12 5 (0.75%) Cyber Threat
12 5 (0.75%) Distributed Systems
12 5 (0.75%) Greenfield Project
13 4 (0.60%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 54 (8.07%) Linux
2 26 (3.89%) Windows
3 24 (3.59%) Unix
4 9 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (1.05%) Android
6 6 (0.90%) Mac OS X
7 5 (0.75%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.60%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.30%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.15%) CentOS
10 1 (0.15%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.15%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.15%) VME
10 1 (0.15%) VMS
10 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.15%) Windows 8
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 186 (27.80%) Agile
2 100 (14.95%) Stakeholder Management
3 99 (14.80%) Problem-Solving
4 92 (13.75%) CI/CD
5 81 (12.11%) DevOps
6 54 (8.07%) Continuous Improvement
7 48 (7.17%) Test Automation
8 47 (7.03%) Scrum
9 46 (6.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 44 (6.58%) Migration
10 44 (6.58%) Roadmaps
11 42 (6.28%) Microservices
12 39 (5.83%) User Experience
12 39 (5.83%) Validation
13 37 (5.53%) User Acceptance Testing
14 36 (5.38%) AI
14 36 (5.38%) Change Management
15 34 (5.08%) Project Management
15 34 (5.08%) Software Engineering
16 32 (4.78%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 76 (11.36%) Python
2 75 (11.21%) Java
3 49 (7.32%) SQL
4 35 (5.23%) JavaScript
5 24 (3.59%) TypeScript
6 18 (2.69%) Bash
7 15 (2.24%) PowerShell
8 14 (2.09%) ABAP
9 10 (1.49%) PHP
10 9 (1.35%) PL/SQL
10 9 (1.35%) Shell Script
11 8 (1.20%) C++
12 7 (1.05%) Scala
13 6 (0.90%) C#
13 6 (0.90%) Go
13 6 (0.90%) R
13 6 (0.90%) Ruby
14 4 (0.60%) Apex Code
15 3 (0.45%) Kotlin
16 2 (0.30%) Rust
Qualifications
1 344 (51.42%) Security Cleared
2 231 (34.53%) SC Cleared
3 48 (7.17%) Degree
4 18 (2.69%) Computer Science Degree
5 16 (2.39%) DBS Check
6 13 (1.94%) Master's Degree
7 12 (1.79%) BC Cleared
7 12 (1.79%) DV Cleared
8 10 (1.49%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 9 (1.35%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.05%) CCNP
11 6 (0.90%) CISM
11 6 (0.90%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 5 (0.75%) Azure Certification
12 5 (0.75%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.75%) RIBA
13 4 (0.60%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.60%) Chartered Engineer
13 4 (0.60%) ISEB
13 4 (0.60%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (6.43%) QA
2 41 (6.13%) Accessibility
3 20 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 12 (1.79%) Data Quality
4 12 (1.79%) GRC
4 12 (1.79%) NIST
5 10 (1.49%) Def Stans
6 9 (1.35%) GDPR
6 9 (1.35%) PMO
6 9 (1.35%) SLA
7 8 (1.20%) WCAG
8 7 (1.05%) NCSC
9 4 (0.60%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (0.45%) PSD2
11 2 (0.30%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.30%) SEPA
12 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
12 1 (0.15%) ECSS
System Software
1 45 (6.73%) Docker
2 21 (3.14%) Active Directory
3 7 (1.05%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.60%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.30%) vSphere
7 1 (0.15%) HDFS
7 1 (0.15%) KVM
7 1 (0.15%) Postfix
7 1 (0.15%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 38 (5.68%) Kubernetes
2 33 (4.93%) Terraform
3 11 (1.64%) Grafana
4 8 (1.20%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.90%) Ansible
5 6 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.75%) EMC NetWorker
6 5 (0.75%) EMC VPLEX
7 4 (0.60%) Packer
7 4 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.45%) Consul
8 3 (0.45%) PingFederate
8 3 (0.45%) Puppet
8 3 (0.45%) SCCM
9 2 (0.30%) Ambari
9 2 (0.30%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.30%) Kibana
9 2 (0.30%) Kubeflow
9 2 (0.30%) VxRail
9 2 (0.30%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 100 (14.95%) SAP
2 78 (11.66%) Microsoft
3 54 (8.07%) Oracle
4 21 (3.14%) Cisco
5 17 (2.54%) ServiceNow
6 16 (2.39%) VMware
7 13 (1.94%) Adobe
7 13 (1.94%) Siemens
8 12 (1.79%) Google
9 9 (1.35%) Atlassian
10 7 (1.05%) Dell
10 7 (1.05%) Red Hat
11 6 (0.90%) Fortinet
11 6 (0.90%) IBM
11 6 (0.90%) Salesforce
11 6 (0.90%) webMethods
11 6 (0.90%) Workday
12 5 (0.75%) AppDynamics
12 5 (0.75%) Brocade
12 5 (0.75%) Isilon