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

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 157 261 239
Rank change year-on-year +104 -22 -13
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 658 325 482
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.88% 0.89% 1.03%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.73% 3.04% 3.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 484 174 319
10th Percentile £308 £220 £350
25th Percentile £400 £388 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £497 £500 £541
Median % change year-on-year -0.61% -7.57% -1.65%
75th Percentile £591 £600 £628
90th Percentile £714 £682 £705
UK excluding London median daily rate £486 £470 £539
% change year-on-year +3.30% -12.76% -0.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 17 30
10th Percentile £20.00 - £18.32
25th Percentile £22.63 £20.12 £25.83
Median hourly rate £29.27 £35.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.37% -36.36% +1.85%
75th Percentile £42.16 £63.75 £78.46
90th Percentile £67.57 £65.00 £84.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.27 £35.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -16.37% -36.36% -4.35%

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 11,486 10,698 13,522
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.83% 29.24% 28.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,334 6,513 8,642
10th Percentile £300 £312 £300
25th Percentile £413 £422 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £635 £650
90th Percentile £715 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £519 £530
% change year-on-year -3.66% -2.08% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 990 494 759
10th Percentile £17.08 £18.78 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.06 £24.18 £26.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -13.68% +18.89%
75th Percentile £43.75 £66.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £70.16 £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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +89 469 £500 -0.25% 522
UK excluding London +72 349 £486 +3.30% 500
Work from Home +101 237 £475 -13.64% 274
North of England +54 177 £475 +3.37% 80
London +49 132 £500 -11.89% 108
North West +55 129 £467 -15.09% 52
Midlands -5 62 £496 -0.80% 43
South East +18 40 £475 +27.52% 172
West Midlands -22 40 £520 +10.64% 30
Yorkshire -15 38 £500 +127.27% 16
South West +2 31 £560 -5.08% 89
Scotland +32 26 £415 -24.55% 27
East Midlands +1 22 £465 -24.21% 12
East of England -22 16 £533 +142.05% 116
North East -2 12 £525 +26.89% 13
Northern Ireland -1 6 £350 - 1
Wales -3 5 £458 +108.00% 14

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 41 (6.23%) Confluence
2 11 (1.67%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (0.91%) nginx
5 5 (0.76%) Apache
6 4 (0.61%) SugarCRM
7 3 (0.46%) ArcGIS
7 3 (0.46%) CMS
7 3 (0.46%) MTS
7 3 (0.46%) 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%) Documentum
9 1 (0.15%) GeoServer
9 1 (0.15%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.15%) Tomcat
Applications
1 21 (3.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.52%) AutoCAD
2 10 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.06%) Siemens NX
4 6 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.76%) Navisworks
5 5 (0.76%) ProjectWise
5 5 (0.76%) Revit
6 4 (0.61%) Trello
7 3 (0.46%) Adobe Illustrator
7 3 (0.46%) Adobe XD
7 3 (0.46%) Fusion 360
7 3 (0.46%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.46%) Photoshop
7 3 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.30%) Sketch
9 1 (0.15%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 44 (6.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (2.28%) Oracle EBS
3 10 (1.52%) Oracle EBS R12
3 10 (1.52%) SAP EHS
4 9 (1.37%) Oracle Financials
5 8 (1.22%) SAP HCM
5 8 (1.22%) Teamcenter
6 7 (1.06%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.91%) Oracle Cash Management
7 6 (0.91%) SAP VC
8 5 (0.76%) Oracle ASCP
8 5 (0.76%) SAP QM
9 4 (0.61%) Maximo
9 4 (0.61%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.61%) Oracle SCM
10 3 (0.46%) Oracle Assets
10 3 (0.46%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 3 (0.46%) Primavera
10 3 (0.46%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.46%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 99 (15.05%) AWS
2 82 (12.46%) Azure
3 26 (3.95%) Serverless
4 23 (3.50%) GitHub
5 21 (3.19%) Power Platform
6 19 (2.89%) Amazon EC2
6 19 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
7 18 (2.74%) GCP
8 17 (2.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 17 (2.58%) Azure DevOps
9 16 (2.43%) Amazon S3
9 16 (2.43%) Microsoft 365
10 14 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
11 13 (1.98%) GitHub Actions
11 13 (1.98%) SuccessFactors
12 12 (1.82%) Amazon ECS
13 11 (1.67%) Power Automate
14 10 (1.52%) Amazon EKS
14 10 (1.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 9 (1.37%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 16 (2.43%) Firewall
2 10 (1.52%) Network Security
2 10 (1.52%) SSH
3 9 (1.37%) LAN
4 8 (1.22%) Intrusion Detection
4 8 (1.22%) WAN
5 7 (1.06%) DNS
5 7 (1.06%) MPLS
5 7 (1.06%) SAN
5 7 (1.06%) Structured Cabling
5 7 (1.06%) VPN
6 4 (0.61%) SDH
6 4 (0.61%) SD-WAN
6 4 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (0.46%) 5G
7 3 (0.46%) BGP
7 3 (0.46%) DHCP
7 3 (0.46%) OSPF
7 3 (0.46%) VLAN
7 3 (0.46%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (2.74%) Power BI
2 15 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
3 12 (1.82%) MongoDB
4 11 (1.67%) NoSQL
5 10 (1.52%) Amazon RDS
6 9 (1.37%) BigQuery
6 9 (1.37%) SQL Server
7 8 (1.22%) Data Warehouse
7 8 (1.22%) Metadata
7 8 (1.22%) Relational Database
8 7 (1.06%) Oracle Database
9 6 (0.91%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.91%) MySQL
9 6 (0.91%) Tableau
10 5 (0.76%) Looker
11 4 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
11 4 (0.61%) GIS
11 4 (0.61%) Hadoop
12 3 (0.46%) SAP Data Services
12 3 (0.46%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 62 (9.42%) Git
1 62 (9.42%) JIRA
2 29 (4.41%) Jenkins
3 28 (4.26%) GitLab
4 13 (1.98%) Cucumber
5 11 (1.67%) JUnit
6 9 (1.37%) Cypress.io
7 8 (1.22%) Mockito
8 7 (1.06%) Selenium
8 7 (1.06%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.76%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.61%) Gradle
10 4 (0.61%) Grunt
10 4 (0.61%) gulp
10 4 (0.61%) Maven
11 3 (0.46%) Android Studio
11 3 (0.46%) JMeter
11 3 (0.46%) Toad
11 3 (0.46%) WebDriver
11 3 (0.46%) webpack
General
1 197 (29.94%) Social Skills
2 113 (17.17%) Public Sector
3 108 (16.41%) Finance
4 57 (8.66%) Analytical Skills
5 28 (4.26%) Banking
6 18 (2.74%) Aerospace
6 18 (2.74%) Organisational Skills
7 15 (2.28%) Documentation Skills
8 14 (2.13%) Manufacturing
8 14 (2.13%) Telecoms
9 13 (1.98%) Aviation
10 12 (1.82%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (1.06%) Billing
11 7 (1.06%) Local Government
11 7 (1.06%) Marketing
12 4 (0.61%) Financial Institution
12 4 (0.61%) Law
12 4 (0.61%) Legal
13 3 (0.46%) Investment Banking
13 3 (0.46%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 103 (15.65%) Developer
2 88 (13.37%) Consultant
3 67 (10.18%) Senior
4 51 (7.75%) Architect
5 47 (7.14%) Analyst
6 44 (6.69%) Lead
7 42 (6.38%) SAP Consultant
8 31 (4.71%) Java Developer
9 23 (3.50%) Solutions Architect
10 22 (3.34%) Designer
11 20 (3.04%) Project Manager
12 19 (2.89%) Delivery Manager
13 18 (2.74%) Administrator
14 17 (2.58%) Business Analyst
14 17 (2.58%) DevOps Engineer
15 15 (2.28%) Oracle Consultant
16 14 (2.13%) Senior Developer
17 13 (1.98%) Management Consultant
17 13 (1.98%) Senior Manager
18 11 (1.67%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (5.02%) Node.js
2 30 (4.56%) REST
3 29 (4.41%) HTML
4 27 (4.10%) React
5 23 (3.50%) CSS
5 23 (3.50%) RESTful
6 19 (2.89%) JSON
7 18 (2.74%) Kafka
8 15 (2.28%) Spring
9 14 (2.13%) .NET
10 13 (1.98%) SAP Fiori
11 12 (1.82%) Jest
12 10 (1.52%) AngularJS
12 10 (1.52%) SOAP
12 10 (1.52%) Spring Boot
12 10 (1.52%) XML
13 9 (1.37%) ActiveMQ
13 9 (1.37%) Web Services
14 8 (1.22%) Elastic Stack
14 8 (1.22%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 51 (7.75%) Onboarding
2 27 (4.10%) Product Ownership
3 19 (2.89%) Management Information System
4 14 (2.13%) Security Posture
5 13 (1.98%) Cloud Native
6 12 (1.82%) Driving Licence
7 10 (1.52%) Mobile App
8 9 (1.37%) SCADA
9 8 (1.22%) Data Centre
9 8 (1.22%) Fibre Optics
9 8 (1.22%) NHS
10 7 (1.06%) Operational Technology
10 7 (1.06%) Virtual Team
11 6 (0.91%) Low-Code
12 5 (0.76%) Cyber Threat
12 5 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
12 5 (0.76%) Legacy Systems
12 5 (0.76%) Public Cloud
13 4 (0.61%) Digital Media
13 4 (0.61%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 53 (8.05%) Linux
2 26 (3.95%) Windows
3 24 (3.65%) Unix
4 10 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (1.06%) Android
6 6 (0.91%) Mac OS X
7 5 (0.76%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.61%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.46%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.15%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.15%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.15%) VMS
11 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.15%) Windows 8
11 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 183 (27.81%) Agile
2 100 (15.20%) Stakeholder Management
3 92 (13.98%) Problem-Solving
4 88 (13.37%) CI/CD
5 80 (12.16%) DevOps
6 53 (8.05%) Continuous Improvement
7 48 (7.29%) Test Automation
8 47 (7.14%) Roadmaps
8 47 (7.14%) Scrum
9 44 (6.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 43 (6.53%) Migration
11 40 (6.08%) Microservices
12 39 (5.93%) Change Management
13 38 (5.78%) Validation
14 37 (5.62%) User Experience
15 36 (5.47%) User Acceptance Testing
16 35 (5.32%) Software Engineering
17 34 (5.17%) Analytics
18 33 (5.02%) Project Management
19 31 (4.71%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 71 (10.79%) Python
2 70 (10.64%) Java
3 49 (7.45%) SQL
4 34 (5.17%) JavaScript
5 24 (3.65%) TypeScript
6 17 (2.58%) Bash
7 14 (2.13%) ABAP
8 13 (1.98%) PowerShell
9 9 (1.37%) PHP
9 9 (1.37%) Shell Script
10 8 (1.22%) C++
11 7 (1.06%) C#
11 7 (1.06%) Scala
12 6 (0.91%) Go
12 6 (0.91%) PL/SQL
12 6 (0.91%) R
12 6 (0.91%) Ruby
13 4 (0.61%) Apex Code
14 3 (0.46%) Kotlin
15 2 (0.30%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 337 (51.22%) Security Cleared
2 223 (33.89%) SC Cleared
3 47 (7.14%) Degree
4 16 (2.43%) Computer Science Degree
4 16 (2.43%) DBS Check
5 13 (1.98%) Master's Degree
6 12 (1.82%) BC Cleared
7 11 (1.67%) DV Cleared
8 10 (1.52%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 9 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.06%) CCNP
11 6 (0.91%) CISM
11 6 (0.91%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 5 (0.76%) Azure Certification
12 5 (0.76%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.76%) RIBA
13 4 (0.61%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.61%) Chartered Engineer
13 4 (0.61%) ISEB
13 4 (0.61%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (6.69%) QA
2 41 (6.23%) Accessibility
3 19 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 12 (1.82%) Data Quality
4 12 (1.82%) GRC
5 11 (1.67%) NIST
6 10 (1.52%) Def Stans
7 9 (1.37%) PMO
8 8 (1.22%) GDPR
8 8 (1.22%) SLA
8 8 (1.22%) WCAG
9 6 (0.91%) NCSC
10 3 (0.46%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (0.46%) PSD2
11 2 (0.30%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.30%) SEPA
12 1 (0.15%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
12 1 (0.15%) P3O
System Software
1 45 (6.84%) Docker
2 20 (3.04%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.46%) Hyper-V
4 3 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.15%) HDFS
5 1 (0.15%) KVM
Systems Management
1 36 (5.47%) Kubernetes
2 31 (4.71%) Terraform
3 11 (1.67%) Grafana
4 8 (1.22%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.91%) Ansible
5 6 (0.91%) EMC NetWorker
5 6 (0.91%) EMC VPLEX
5 6 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.61%) Packer
6 4 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.46%) Consul
7 3 (0.46%) PingFederate
7 3 (0.46%) Puppet
7 3 (0.46%) SCCM
8 2 (0.30%) Ambari
8 2 (0.30%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.30%) Kibana
8 2 (0.30%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.30%) ZABBIX
9 1 (0.15%) Istio
Vendors
1 98 (14.89%) SAP
2 76 (11.55%) Microsoft
3 53 (8.05%) Oracle
4 19 (2.89%) Cisco
5 17 (2.58%) ServiceNow
6 15 (2.28%) Siemens
7 13 (1.98%) Google
7 13 (1.98%) VMware
8 12 (1.82%) Adobe
9 9 (1.37%) Atlassian
9 9 (1.37%) Red Hat
10 7 (1.06%) Dell
11 6 (0.91%) Brocade
11 6 (0.91%) EMC
11 6 (0.91%) Fortinet
11 6 (0.91%) Isilon
11 6 (0.91%) Salesforce
11 6 (0.91%) webMethods
12 5 (0.76%) IBM
12 5 (0.76%) Workday