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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 96 154 263
Rank change year-on-year +58 +109 -34
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,543 616 340
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.83% 1.87% 0.88%
As % of the Qualifications category 8.94% 5.96% 3.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,110 421 202
10th Percentile £359 £313 £213
25th Percentile £425 £410 £393
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 £715 £643
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £470
% change year-on-year -2.50% +6.38% -14.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 223 58 21
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £18.50
25th Percentile £42.00 £22.63 £20.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £30.89 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year +42.33% +43.05% -63.56%
75th Percentile £48.00 £48.13 £57.50
90th Percentile £67.31 £72.14 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £33.50 £21.59
% change year-on-year +31.22% +55.16% -63.09%

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 17,262 10,340 11,257
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.62% 31.43% 29.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,479 6,462 6,913
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £527 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.29% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £712 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,375 839 651
10th Percentile £17.01 £17.87 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -48.67% -9.26%
75th Percentile £72.54 £43.88 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £71.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.10% +1.18%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +76 1,165 £495 -3.70% 972
UK excluding London +47 902 £488 -2.50% 805
Work from Home +50 571 £500 +1.63% 689
London +83 338 £523 +2.96% 251
North of England +14 322 £488 -0.51% 141
Midlands +61 267 £488 -7.14% 117
West Midlands +61 257 £488 -7.14% 86
North West +1 174 £500 +4.06% 84
South East -21 93 £483 -6.21% 159
North East +16 90 £453 -1.52% 28
South West +5 79 £525 - 134
Scotland +24 75 £438 - 112
Yorkshire -13 71 £488 -2.50% 30
East of England +3 49 £578 +0.17% 136
Northern Ireland +18 20 - - 11
Wales -2 12 £413 - 11
East Midlands -31 9 £606 +23.22% 31

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 66 (4.28%) Confluence
2 45 (2.92%) SharePoint
3 17 (1.10%) SharePoint Server
4 9 (0.58%) Apache Spark
4 9 (0.58%) CMS
4 9 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.58%) SAS
5 6 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.39%) WebLogic
6 5 (0.32%) Headless CMS
7 4 (0.26%) IIS
7 4 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.26%) WordPress
8 2 (0.13%) Apache
8 2 (0.13%) CICS
8 2 (0.13%) Cloud Foundry
8 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
8 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
8 2 (0.13%) LiveCycle
8 2 (0.13%) OpenROAD
Applications
1 43 (2.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (2.14%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (0.97%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.32%) 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 (0.065%) InVision
8 1 (0.065%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.065%) Revit
8 1 (0.065%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.065%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 63 (4.08%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.43%) SAP HR
3 17 (1.10%) SAP Payroll
3 17 (1.10%) SAP PSCD
4 14 (0.91%) SAP BRIM
5 12 (0.78%) SAP IBP
6 9 (0.58%) SAP FI
6 9 (0.58%) SAP HCM
7 7 (0.45%) SAP MDG
8 6 (0.39%) SAP GRC
8 6 (0.39%) SAP PP
9 5 (0.32%) Exchequer
9 5 (0.32%) SAP FI-CA
9 5 (0.32%) Teamcenter
10 4 (0.26%) SAP Convergent Charging
10 4 (0.26%) SAP EHS
10 4 (0.26%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.26%) SAP Hybris
10 4 (0.26%) Shopify
11 3 (0.19%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 270 (17.50%) AWS
1 270 (17.50%) Azure
2 87 (5.64%) Power Platform
3 72 (4.67%) GitHub
4 65 (4.21%) Azure DevOps
5 54 (3.50%) GCP
6 51 (3.31%) Microsoft 365
6 51 (3.31%) Serverless
7 49 (3.18%) GitHub Actions
8 46 (2.98%) Entra ID
9 44 (2.85%) Amazon S3
10 43 (2.79%) AWS Lambda
11 28 (1.81%) Power Automate
12 27 (1.75%) PowerApps
12 27 (1.75%) SuccessFactors
13 26 (1.69%) AWS CloudFormation
14 24 (1.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 23 (1.49%) Azure Monitor
16 21 (1.36%) Amazon ECS
17 17 (1.10%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.04%) DNS
2 13 (0.84%) SSL
2 13 (0.84%) WAN
3 11 (0.71%) Firewall
3 11 (0.71%) Network Security
4 10 (0.65%) WebEx
5 9 (0.58%) Cisco IPT
6 8 (0.52%) Intranet
7 7 (0.45%) 5G
7 7 (0.45%) HTTPS
7 7 (0.45%) Radio Access Network
7 7 (0.45%) VPN
7 7 (0.45%) Wireshark
8 6 (0.39%) Ethernet
8 6 (0.39%) LAN
8 6 (0.39%) MPLS
9 5 (0.32%) 3GPP
9 5 (0.32%) HTTP
9 5 (0.32%) NGN
9 5 (0.32%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (3.76%) Power BI
2 49 (3.18%) PostgreSQL
3 43 (2.79%) Metadata
4 42 (2.72%) MongoDB
5 36 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (2.14%) SQL Server
7 26 (1.69%) Amazon RDS
8 25 (1.62%) MySQL
9 24 (1.56%) NoSQL
10 21 (1.36%) Data Lake
10 21 (1.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 20 (1.30%) Relational Database
12 18 (1.17%) Oracle Database
13 15 (0.97%) DynamoDB
14 14 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
15 13 (0.84%) Amazon Aurora
16 11 (0.71%) Amazon Athena
17 10 (0.65%) Big Data
17 10 (0.65%) Redis
18 8 (0.52%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 118 (7.65%) JIRA
2 105 (6.80%) Git
3 87 (5.64%) GitLab
4 61 (3.95%) Jenkins
5 36 (2.33%) JUnit
6 31 (2.01%) Selenium
7 28 (1.81%) Maven
8 27 (1.75%) Cucumber
9 19 (1.23%) Mockito
9 19 (1.23%) SonarQube
10 18 (1.17%) Postman
11 15 (0.97%) Gatling
12 14 (0.91%) Team Foundation Server
12 14 (0.91%) Visual Studio
13 13 (0.84%) Cypress.io
14 10 (0.65%) Atlassian Bamboo
15 9 (0.58%) Bitbucket
15 9 (0.58%) REST Assured
16 7 (0.45%) Gradle
16 7 (0.45%) WebDriver
General
1 526 (34.09%) Social Skills
2 376 (24.37%) Public Sector
3 255 (16.53%) Finance
4 147 (9.53%) Analytical Skills
5 141 (9.14%) Organisational Skills
6 135 (8.75%) Legal
7 44 (2.85%) Documentation Skills
8 42 (2.72%) Aerospace
9 35 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
10 33 (2.14%) Manufacturing
11 28 (1.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 25 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
13 24 (1.56%) Banking
14 23 (1.49%) Telecoms
15 22 (1.43%) Billing
16 15 (0.97%) Aviation
16 15 (0.97%) Military
17 11 (0.71%) Local Government
18 9 (0.58%) Publishing
19 8 (0.52%) Law
Job Titles
1 217 (14.06%) Developer
2 172 (11.15%) Senior
3 165 (10.69%) Architect
4 152 (9.85%) Lead
5 108 (7.00%) Consultant
6 103 (6.68%) Analyst
7 71 (4.60%) Java Developer
8 67 (4.34%) SAP Consultant
9 61 (3.95%) Designer
10 49 (3.18%) Data Engineer
11 48 (3.11%) Solutions Architect
12 47 (3.05%) DevOps Engineer
13 45 (2.92%) Business Analyst
14 40 (2.59%) Delivery Manager
15 35 (2.27%) Technical Architect
16 34 (2.20%) Data Architect
16 34 (2.20%) Product Manager
17 32 (2.07%) Lead Developer
18 29 (1.88%) Administrator
18 29 (1.88%) User Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (7.26%) Terraform
2 92 (5.96%) REST
3 86 (5.57%) Spring
4 75 (4.86%) Spring Boot
5 58 (3.76%) RESTful
6 53 (3.43%) HTML
6 53 (3.43%) Node.js
7 52 (3.37%) React
8 41 (2.66%) CSS
9 40 (2.59%) Kafka
10 38 (2.46%) Playwright
11 31 (2.01%) OpenAPI
12 25 (1.62%) .NET
12 25 (1.62%) OAuth
13 24 (1.56%) XML
14 23 (1.49%) Swagger
15 22 (1.43%) OAuth2
16 21 (1.36%) JSON
17 20 (1.30%) Web Services
18 19 (1.23%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 120 (7.78%) Virtual Team
2 119 (7.71%) Web Conferencing
3 109 (7.06%) Podcast
4 101 (6.55%) Onboarding
5 84 (5.44%) Product Ownership
6 72 (4.67%) Cloud Native
7 32 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
8 24 (1.56%) Replication
9 21 (1.36%) Management Information System
9 21 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
10 20 (1.30%) Mobile App
11 18 (1.17%) BYOD
11 18 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
11 18 (1.17%) NHS
12 17 (1.10%) Distributed Systems
13 15 (0.97%) Driving Licence
14 13 (0.84%) Low-Code
15 12 (0.78%) Algorithms
15 12 (0.78%) Taxonomies
16 11 (0.71%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 72 (4.67%) Windows
2 60 (3.89%) Linux
3 34 (2.20%) Unix
4 21 (1.36%) Android
5 20 (1.30%) Windows Server
6 12 (0.78%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.65%) VMS
7 10 (0.65%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.52%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.19%) AIX
10 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.13%) Solaris
11 1 (0.065%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.065%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 488 (31.63%) Agile
2 295 (19.12%) Stakeholder Management
3 277 (17.95%) CI/CD
4 239 (15.49%) DevOps
5 197 (12.77%) Continuous Improvement
6 186 (12.05%) Problem-Solving
7 161 (10.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 160 (10.37%) Scrum
9 138 (8.94%) Customer Service
10 125 (8.10%) Test Automation
11 123 (7.97%) Roadmaps
12 121 (7.84%) Decision-Making
13 120 (7.78%) Microservices
14 112 (7.26%) Analytics
15 110 (7.13%) Infrastructure as Code
16 109 (7.06%) Migration
17 99 (6.42%) Mentoring
18 98 (6.35%) AI
18 98 (6.35%) Digital Transformation Programme
19 87 (5.64%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 183 (11.86%) Java
2 161 (10.43%) SQL
3 122 (7.91%) Python
4 83 (5.38%) JavaScript
5 42 (2.72%) TypeScript
6 39 (2.53%) PowerShell
7 38 (2.46%) Scala
8 26 (1.69%) C#
9 24 (1.56%) Shell Script
10 23 (1.49%) Bash
11 20 (1.30%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.91%) T-SQL
13 12 (0.78%) ABAP
13 12 (0.78%) VB
14 11 (0.71%) VB6
14 11 (0.71%) VBA
15 9 (0.58%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.58%) VBScript
16 8 (0.52%) C++
17 7 (0.45%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 505 (32.73%) Security Cleared
2 391 (25.34%) SC Cleared
3 75 (4.86%) Degree
4 20 (1.30%) AWS Certification
5 19 (1.23%) Azure Certification
6 18 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
7 13 (0.84%) DBS Check
7 13 (0.84%) DV Cleared
8 11 (0.71%) A+ Certification
9 9 (0.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 9 (0.58%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 9 (0.58%) PMI Certification
10 8 (0.52%) Master's Degree
11 7 (0.45%) ISTQB
12 6 (0.39%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 6 (0.39%) PhD
13 5 (0.32%) CCNA
13 5 (0.32%) Cisco Certification
13 5 (0.32%) CTC Cleared
13 5 (0.32%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (6.80%) Accessibility
2 98 (6.35%) QA
3 68 (4.41%) Data Quality
4 41 (2.66%) WCAG
5 29 (1.88%) GDPR
6 21 (1.36%) PMO
7 17 (1.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 16 (1.04%) SLA
9 13 (0.84%) NIST
10 9 (0.58%) GRC
11 6 (0.39%) NCSC
12 5 (0.32%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 5 (0.32%) GMP
12 5 (0.32%) GxP
12 5 (0.32%) IEC 61508
12 5 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 17025
12 5 (0.32%) PERC
13 3 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
13 3 (0.19%) Def Stans
13 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 100 (6.48%) Docker
2 37 (2.40%) Active Directory
3 14 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
4 13 (0.84%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.065%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.065%) Firmware
7 1 (0.065%) IAG
7 1 (0.065%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 113 (7.32%) Kubernetes
2 39 (2.53%) Grafana
3 24 (1.56%) Prometheus
4 23 (1.49%) Kibana
5 20 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (0.78%) Ansible
6 12 (0.78%) SCCM
7 10 (0.65%) Argo
8 9 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (0.58%) SCOM
9 5 (0.32%) Functional Safety
9 5 (0.32%) Packer
10 4 (0.26%) Istio
10 4 (0.26%) Podman
10 4 (0.26%) Puppet
11 3 (0.19%) HAProxy
12 2 (0.13%) Cilium
12 2 (0.13%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.13%) Karpenter
12 2 (0.13%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 187 (12.12%) Microsoft
2 153 (9.92%) SAP
3 88 (5.70%) Oracle
4 66 (4.28%) ServiceNow
5 44 (2.85%) Google
6 29 (1.88%) BeyondTrust
7 21 (1.36%) Databricks
8 19 (1.23%) Splunk
9 16 (1.04%) Atlassian
10 15 (0.97%) Talend
11 13 (0.84%) CyberArk
11 13 (0.84%) VMware
12 12 (0.78%) Cisco
12 12 (0.78%) Salesforce
13 11 (0.71%) Dell
14 10 (0.65%) IBM
14 10 (0.65%) Informatica
15 9 (0.58%) MuleSoft
15 9 (0.58%) Okta
16 8 (0.52%) Blue Prism