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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 115 207 234
Rank change year-on-year +92 +27 -7
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,105 400 444
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.19% 1.34% 1.01%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.01% 4.34% 3.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 790 260 310
10th Percentile £330 £280 £211
25th Percentile £400 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £497 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.21% -0.61% -5.66%
75th Percentile £570 £581 £600
90th Percentile £656 £681 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £491 £500
% change year-on-year -8.35% -1.80% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 137 34 54
10th Percentile £19.05 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £36.00 £25.32 -
Median hourly rate £43.96 £45.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -2.31% +180.20% -58.12%
75th Percentile £62.50 £67.75 £34.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £47.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -7.45% +195.77% -49.30%

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 15,774 9,218 13,110
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.30% 30.97% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,501 5,726 8,114
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £614 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £506 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.25% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,161 600 1,122
10th Percentile £17.23 £17.78 £13.99
25th Percentile £22.68 £20.81 £18.84
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.65%
75th Percentile £72.50 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.61 £28.50 £41.50
% change year-on-year +70.56% -31.33% -20.95%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +86 831 £480 -4.00% 265
UK excluding London +64 637 £450 -8.35% 249
Work from Home +86 464 £438 -10.71% 162
London +90 254 £510 +3.61% 51
North of England +34 229 £453 -9.40% 46
Midlands +12 141 £442 -2.37% 19
North West +26 130 £400 -20.00% 35
West Midlands +14 108 £470 +14.63% 16
South East -5 101 £492 -6.38% 45
South West +20 65 £525 +44.83% 68
Scotland +35 62 £333 +2.31% 30
North East +1 58 £453 +4.14% 8
Yorkshire -24 48 £481 -2.90% 5
East Midlands -5 32 £416 -40.54% 3
East of England -15 29 £450 +125.00% 35
Wales -10 8 £550 -4.35% 7
Northern Ireland +4 7 £450 +28.57% 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 52 (4.71%) Confluence
2 38 (3.44%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.36%) SharePoint Server
4 13 (1.18%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.72%) SAS
6 7 (0.63%) Apache
7 4 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.27%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.27%) CICS
8 3 (0.27%) CMS
8 3 (0.27%) LiveCycle
8 3 (0.27%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.27%) WordPress
9 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.18%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.18%) Hyperledger
10 1 (0.090%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.090%) Appian
10 1 (0.090%) Camunda
Applications
1 43 (3.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.72%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (1.36%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (1.09%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.45%) Simulink
7 2 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.18%) Trello
8 1 (0.090%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.090%) CATIA
8 1 (0.090%) InVision
8 1 (0.090%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.090%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.090%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.090%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 44 (3.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.45%) SAP PSCD
3 14 (1.27%) SAP BRIM
4 11 (1.00%) SAP IBP
4 11 (1.00%) SAP Travel Management
5 8 (0.72%) SAP EWM
5 8 (0.72%) SAP FI
6 7 (0.63%) SAP FI-CA
7 6 (0.54%) SAP HR
8 5 (0.45%) Payment Gateway
9 4 (0.36%) Loan IQ
9 4 (0.36%) Primavera
9 4 (0.36%) SAP Convergent Charging
9 4 (0.36%) SAP EHS
9 4 (0.36%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.27%) Exchequer
10 3 (0.27%) iTrent
10 3 (0.27%) ProductWriter
10 3 (0.27%) SAP MDG
11 2 (0.18%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 205 (18.55%) AWS
2 196 (17.74%) Azure
3 72 (6.52%) Power Platform
4 48 (4.34%) Serverless
5 46 (4.16%) GCP
6 44 (3.98%) Azure DevOps
7 42 (3.80%) GitHub
8 39 (3.53%) Entra ID
9 36 (3.26%) Microsoft 365
10 34 (3.08%) AWS Lambda
11 33 (2.99%) GitHub Actions
12 31 (2.81%) Amazon S3
13 20 (1.81%) Power Automate
14 19 (1.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 19 (1.72%) PowerApps
15 17 (1.54%) Amazon ECS
16 15 (1.36%) AWS CloudFormation
17 14 (1.27%) Amazon EC2
17 14 (1.27%) Amazon EKS
18 13 (1.18%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.45%) DNS
2 15 (1.36%) Firewall
2 15 (1.36%) Network Security
3 9 (0.81%) HTTPS
3 9 (0.81%) WAN
4 7 (0.63%) SSH
5 6 (0.54%) DHCP
6 5 (0.45%) Ethernet
6 5 (0.45%) VPN
7 4 (0.36%) LAN
7 4 (0.36%) SSL
8 3 (0.27%) Internet
8 3 (0.27%) MQTT
8 3 (0.27%) Reverse Proxy
8 3 (0.27%) SD-WAN
8 3 (0.27%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.27%) WebEx
8 3 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (0.27%) Wireless
9 2 (0.18%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (5.61%) Power BI
2 36 (3.26%) PostgreSQL
3 27 (2.44%) Metadata
4 26 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
5 24 (2.17%) MongoDB
6 20 (1.81%) NoSQL
7 19 (1.72%) SQL Server
8 16 (1.45%) DynamoDB
8 16 (1.45%) Relational Database
9 13 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
9 13 (1.18%) Data Lake
10 12 (1.09%) Amazon Athena
11 11 (1.00%) Amazon Redshift
11 11 (1.00%) MySQL
12 8 (0.72%) Big Data
12 8 (0.72%) Delta Lake
12 8 (0.72%) Geospatial Data
13 7 (0.63%) Amazon Aurora
13 7 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 6 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 91 (8.24%) JIRA
2 60 (5.43%) Git
2 60 (5.43%) GitLab
3 44 (3.98%) Jenkins
4 20 (1.81%) Selenium
5 17 (1.54%) Cucumber
6 13 (1.18%) JUnit
7 10 (0.90%) Postman
8 8 (0.72%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.72%) Team Foundation Server
9 7 (0.63%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.54%) Maven
10 6 (0.54%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.45%) Gatling
11 5 (0.45%) Mockito
11 5 (0.45%) Visual Studio
11 5 (0.45%) WebDriver
12 4 (0.36%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 4 (0.36%) JMeter
12 4 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
General
1 339 (30.68%) Social Skills
2 217 (19.64%) Public Sector
3 182 (16.47%) Finance
4 119 (10.77%) Analytical Skills
5 59 (5.34%) Legal
6 47 (4.25%) Banking
7 45 (4.07%) Aerospace
8 44 (3.98%) Organisational Skills
9 36 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
10 21 (1.90%) Billing
10 21 (1.90%) Influencing Skills
11 20 (1.81%) Manufacturing
12 19 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
13 16 (1.45%) Aviation
14 14 (1.27%) Telecoms
15 13 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 12 (1.09%) Local Government
17 8 (0.72%) Law
17 8 (0.72%) Publishing
17 8 (0.72%) Retail
Job Titles
1 133 (12.04%) Developer
2 123 (11.13%) Analyst
3 112 (10.14%) Architect
3 112 (10.14%) Senior
4 109 (9.86%) Lead
5 86 (7.78%) Consultant
6 60 (5.43%) SAP Consultant
7 55 (4.98%) Business Analyst
8 49 (4.43%) Designer
9 47 (4.25%) Data Engineer
10 41 (3.71%) Java Developer
11 31 (2.81%) Administrator
12 26 (2.35%) DevOps Engineer
13 25 (2.26%) Delivery Manager
13 25 (2.26%) Service Designer
14 23 (2.08%) Data Analyst
14 23 (2.08%) Data Architect
14 23 (2.08%) Product Manager
14 23 (2.08%) Senior Analyst
14 23 (2.08%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (5.34%) REST
2 50 (4.52%) React
3 45 (4.07%) RESTful
4 44 (3.98%) HTML
4 44 (3.98%) Node.js
5 42 (3.80%) Spring
5 42 (3.80%) Spring Boot
6 39 (3.53%) CSS
7 28 (2.53%) Kafka
8 23 (2.08%) .NET
9 19 (1.72%) JSON
10 18 (1.63%) Playwright
10 18 (1.63%) PySpark
11 17 (1.54%) OAuth
12 15 (1.36%) OpenAPI
12 15 (1.36%) SPFx
13 14 (1.27%) Jest
14 13 (1.18%) Middleware
14 13 (1.18%) Swagger
15 12 (1.09%) BAPI
Miscellaneous
1 77 (6.97%) Product Ownership
2 61 (5.52%) Onboarding
3 53 (4.80%) Cloud Native
4 36 (3.26%) Virtual Team
5 33 (2.99%) Web Conferencing
6 32 (2.90%) Podcast
7 22 (1.99%) Management Information System
8 20 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
9 16 (1.45%) Algorithms
9 16 (1.45%) NHS
10 14 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
11 13 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
12 12 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
13 10 (0.90%) Data Centre
14 8 (0.72%) Data Structures
14 8 (0.72%) Public Cloud
15 5 (0.45%) AI Agents
15 5 (0.45%) BYOD
15 5 (0.45%) Legacy Code
15 5 (0.45%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 66 (5.97%) Linux
2 46 (4.16%) Windows
3 29 (2.62%) Unix
4 12 (1.09%) Android
4 12 (1.09%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.90%) Apple iOS
6 9 (0.81%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.54%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.27%) AIX
8 3 (0.27%) Solaris
9 2 (0.18%) Debian
9 2 (0.18%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.090%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.090%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.090%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 328 (29.68%) Agile
2 211 (19.10%) CI/CD
3 171 (15.48%) DevOps
4 164 (14.84%) Stakeholder Management
5 161 (14.57%) Problem-Solving
6 116 (10.50%) Continuous Improvement
7 114 (10.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 104 (9.41%) Roadmaps
9 96 (8.69%) Test Automation
10 94 (8.51%) Scrum
11 91 (8.24%) Decision-Making
12 85 (7.69%) Analytics
13 83 (7.51%) Microservices
14 79 (7.15%) Infrastructure as Code
15 74 (6.70%) Data Modelling
16 71 (6.43%) AI
17 70 (6.33%) Migration
18 69 (6.24%) Business Intelligence
19 66 (5.97%) Software Engineering
20 64 (5.79%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 130 (11.76%) Python
2 124 (11.22%) SQL
3 119 (10.77%) Java
4 72 (6.52%) JavaScript
5 43 (3.89%) TypeScript
6 32 (2.90%) Scala
7 23 (2.08%) PowerShell
8 20 (1.81%) C#
9 15 (1.36%) Shell Script
10 11 (1.00%) PL/SQL
11 10 (0.90%) Bicep
12 9 (0.81%) VB
13 8 (0.72%) C
13 8 (0.72%) C++
14 7 (0.63%) VB6
15 6 (0.54%) ABAP
15 6 (0.54%) COBOL
15 6 (0.54%) MATLAB
16 5 (0.45%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.45%) Go
Qualifications
1 329 (29.77%) Security Cleared
2 239 (21.63%) SC Cleared
3 69 (6.24%) Degree
4 17 (1.54%) AWS Certification
4 17 (1.54%) DV Cleared
5 11 (1.00%) Master's Degree
6 10 (0.90%) Azure Certification
6 10 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (0.72%) PMI Certification
8 7 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
9 6 (0.54%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 6 (0.54%) CompTIA CySA+
9 6 (0.54%) DBS Check
9 6 (0.54%) PMP
10 5 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 5 (0.45%) GIAC
10 5 (0.45%) NVQ Level 4
11 4 (0.36%) CompTIA Security+
11 4 (0.36%) CTC Cleared
11 4 (0.36%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 79 (7.15%) Data Quality
2 72 (6.52%) Accessibility
3 64 (5.79%) QA
4 22 (1.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 19 (1.72%) PMO
6 18 (1.63%) WCAG
7 17 (1.54%) NIST
8 15 (1.36%) SLA
9 13 (1.18%) GDPR
10 9 (0.81%) GRC
11 8 (0.72%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.54%) NCSC
13 5 (0.45%) IFRS
13 5 (0.45%) IFRS 17
13 5 (0.45%) ISO 20022
14 4 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
14 4 (0.36%) HL7
14 4 (0.36%) PSD2
15 3 (0.27%) Basel III
15 3 (0.27%) DICOM
System Software
1 69 (6.24%) Docker
2 31 (2.81%) Active Directory
3 18 (1.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.45%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.36%) vSphere
8 3 (0.27%) GPFS
8 3 (0.27%) NFS
8 3 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.27%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.18%) Firmware
9 2 (0.18%) QEMU
10 1 (0.090%) ACF2
10 1 (0.090%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.090%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.090%) RACF
10 1 (0.090%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 92 (8.33%) Terraform
2 67 (6.06%) Kubernetes
3 23 (2.08%) Grafana
4 15 (1.36%) Prometheus
5 12 (1.09%) Ansible
6 11 (1.00%) Kibana
7 9 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.72%) Istio
9 7 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
10 6 (0.54%) Argo
10 6 (0.54%) Podman
11 5 (0.45%) SCCM
12 4 (0.36%) HAProxy
13 3 (0.27%) Puppet
13 3 (0.27%) vRealize
14 2 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 2 (0.18%) Kubeflow
14 2 (0.18%) Packer
15 1 (0.090%) Jamf Pro
15 1 (0.090%) systemd
Vendors
1 117 (10.59%) SAP
2 104 (9.41%) Microsoft
3 47 (4.25%) Oracle
4 31 (2.81%) ServiceNow
5 23 (2.08%) Google
6 22 (1.99%) Databricks
7 19 (1.72%) Splunk
8 18 (1.63%) VMware
9 14 (1.27%) Cisco
10 13 (1.18%) Pega
11 12 (1.09%) IBM
12 11 (1.00%) Informatica
13 10 (0.90%) BeyondTrust
13 10 (0.90%) CyberArk
14 9 (0.81%) Salesforce
15 8 (0.72%) OpenAI
15 8 (0.72%) Talend
16 7 (0.63%) Apple
16 7 (0.63%) MuleSoft
16 7 (0.63%) Workday