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 24 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 118 211 226
Rank change year-on-year +93 +15 -5
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,015 367 429
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.09% 1.27% 1.01%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.60% 4.11% 3.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 740 239 312
10th Percentile £320 £246 £213
25th Percentile £395 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £569 £581 £616
90th Percentile £671 £673 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -12.50% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 32 52
10th Percentile £16.17 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £23.94 £19.63 -
Median hourly rate £47.00 £44.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +5.62% +177.09% -49.30%
75th Percentile £73.00 £71.88 £26.25
90th Percentile £85.36 £76.25 £76.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.00 £50.00 £16.06
% change year-on-year -16.00% +211.33% -35.76%

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 15,375 8,938 12,716
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.63% 31.02% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,198 5,646 7,915
10th Percentile £350 £275 £306
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £528
Median % change year-on-year +0.38% -0.85% -4.09%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £645
90th Percentile £721 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £504 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +0.75% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,107 505 1,071
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.07 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.50 £17.88
Median hourly rate £48.05 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +47.85% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.04 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.63
% change year-on-year +46.15% -20.01% -19.94%

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 24 May 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 24 May 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 24 May 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 +77 751 £476 -4.90% 243
UK excluding London +49 546 £438 -12.50% 208
Work from Home +85 419 £438 -12.50% 136
London +85 244 £500 -5.12% 45
North of England +8 195 £450 -10.00% 46
Midlands +4 128 £438 -2.78% 22
North West +12 120 £394 -26.26% 27
West Midlands -3 95 £447 +9.02% 18
South East -5 92 £483 -9.04% 40
South West +5 54 £516 +79.57% 55
Scotland +35 51 £320 -27.68% 14
North East +4 45 £480 +33.33% 12
Yorkshire -33 36 £481 +37.50% 7
East Midlands -5 32 £395 -39.83% 4
East of England -24 27 £450 +125.00% 32
Wales -10 5 - - 4
Northern Ireland 0 2 £413 +30.74%

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 44 (4.33%) Confluence
2 36 (3.55%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.28%) Apache Spark
3 13 (1.28%) SharePoint Server
4 8 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.69%) Apache
6 6 (0.59%) nginx
7 4 (0.39%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.39%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.30%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.30%) CICS
8 3 (0.30%) CMS
8 3 (0.30%) LiveCycle
9 2 (0.20%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.20%) SAS
10 1 (0.099%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.099%) Camunda
10 1 (0.099%) Palantir Foundry
10 1 (0.099%) SharePoint 2013
10 1 (0.099%) Smallworld
Applications
1 44 (4.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (1.77%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (1.38%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (1.28%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.49%) Simulink
7 2 (0.20%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.20%) Trello
8 1 (0.099%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.099%) CATIA
8 1 (0.099%) InVision
8 1 (0.099%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.099%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.099%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 46 (4.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.48%) SAP PSCD
3 14 (1.38%) SAP BRIM
4 13 (1.28%) SAP IBP
4 13 (1.28%) SAP Travel Management
5 8 (0.79%) SAP EWM
5 8 (0.79%) SAP FI
6 7 (0.69%) SAP FI-CA
7 6 (0.59%) SAP EHS
8 5 (0.49%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.49%) SAP HR
9 4 (0.39%) iTrent
9 4 (0.39%) Loan IQ
9 4 (0.39%) SAP Convergent Charging
10 3 (0.30%) Exchequer
10 3 (0.30%) Primavera
10 3 (0.30%) ProductWriter
10 3 (0.30%) SAP HCM
10 3 (0.30%) SAP MDG
10 3 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 181 (17.83%) AWS
2 172 (16.95%) Azure
3 71 (7.00%) Power Platform
4 47 (4.63%) GitHub
5 43 (4.24%) Azure DevOps
5 43 (4.24%) Serverless
6 42 (4.14%) GCP
7 35 (3.45%) GitHub Actions
8 34 (3.35%) Microsoft 365
9 29 (2.86%) AWS Lambda
9 29 (2.86%) Entra ID
10 21 (2.07%) Power Automate
11 20 (1.97%) Amazon S3
11 20 (1.97%) AWS CloudFormation
12 19 (1.87%) PowerApps
13 17 (1.67%) Amazon ECS
13 17 (1.67%) Amazon SQS
14 16 (1.58%) Amazon EKS
15 15 (1.48%) Amazon EC2
16 13 (1.28%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.48%) DNS
1 15 (1.48%) Firewall
2 12 (1.18%) Network Security
2 12 (1.18%) SSH
3 8 (0.79%) Reverse Proxy
4 7 (0.69%) Ethernet
4 7 (0.69%) HTTPS
4 7 (0.69%) VPN
5 6 (0.59%) DHCP
6 4 (0.39%) WAN
7 3 (0.30%) Internet
7 3 (0.30%) LAN
7 3 (0.30%) Modbus
7 3 (0.30%) SAN
7 3 (0.30%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.30%) VSAN
7 3 (0.30%) WebEx
7 3 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.20%) NAS
8 2 (0.20%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (5.71%) Power BI
2 34 (3.35%) PostgreSQL
3 24 (2.36%) SQL Server
4 22 (2.17%) Metadata
5 19 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
6 17 (1.67%) MongoDB
7 16 (1.58%) DynamoDB
7 16 (1.58%) NoSQL
8 14 (1.38%) Relational Database
9 12 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
10 11 (1.08%) MySQL
11 10 (0.99%) Big Data
11 10 (0.99%) Delta Lake
12 9 (0.89%) Geospatial Data
13 8 (0.79%) Data Lake
14 7 (0.69%) Amazon Aurora
14 7 (0.69%) Redis
14 7 (0.69%) Spark SQL
14 7 (0.69%) Tableau
15 6 (0.59%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 80 (7.88%) JIRA
2 62 (6.11%) Git
3 47 (4.63%) GitLab
4 40 (3.94%) Jenkins
5 15 (1.48%) Selenium
6 13 (1.28%) Cucumber
7 12 (1.18%) JUnit
8 9 (0.89%) Postman
8 9 (0.89%) Team Foundation Server
9 8 (0.79%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.59%) Gatling
11 5 (0.49%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.49%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.49%) Visual Studio
12 4 (0.39%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 4 (0.39%) JMeter
12 4 (0.39%) Maven
12 4 (0.39%) Mockito
12 4 (0.39%) Rational DOORS
13 3 (0.30%) WebDriver
General
1 308 (30.34%) Social Skills
2 182 (17.93%) Public Sector
3 142 (13.99%) Finance
4 113 (11.13%) Analytical Skills
5 45 (4.43%) Aerospace
6 41 (4.04%) Banking
7 32 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (2.17%) Legal
8 22 (2.17%) Manufacturing
9 21 (2.07%) Billing
9 21 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
10 18 (1.77%) Aviation
11 17 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
12 13 (1.28%) Telecoms
13 12 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 9 (0.89%) Retail
15 8 (0.79%) Military
15 8 (0.79%) Publishing
16 7 (0.69%) Law
Job Titles
1 149 (14.68%) Developer
2 120 (11.82%) Analyst
3 112 (11.03%) Senior
4 107 (10.54%) Architect
5 103 (10.15%) Lead
6 81 (7.98%) Consultant
7 60 (5.91%) SAP Consultant
8 54 (5.32%) Business Analyst
9 47 (4.63%) Designer
10 38 (3.74%) Java Developer
11 37 (3.65%) Data Engineer
12 31 (3.05%) Administrator
13 26 (2.56%) Delivery Manager
14 25 (2.46%) Senior Developer
14 25 (2.46%) Service Designer
15 23 (2.27%) Data Architect
15 23 (2.27%) DevOps Engineer
16 21 (2.07%) Senior Analyst
16 21 (2.07%) Solutions Architect
17 20 (1.97%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (5.42%) Node.js
2 51 (5.02%) React
3 49 (4.83%) REST
4 41 (4.04%) HTML
5 38 (3.74%) RESTful
6 36 (3.55%) CSS
7 29 (2.86%) Spring
8 28 (2.76%) .NET
9 26 (2.56%) Kafka
9 26 (2.56%) Spring Boot
10 19 (1.87%) JSON
11 17 (1.67%) OAuth
11 17 (1.67%) Playwright
12 15 (1.48%) XML
13 14 (1.38%) AngularJS
13 14 (1.38%) Middleware
13 14 (1.38%) OpenAPI
14 13 (1.28%) SAP TM
14 13 (1.28%) SPFx
14 13 (1.28%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 74 (7.29%) Product Ownership
2 51 (5.02%) Onboarding
3 46 (4.53%) Cloud Native
4 23 (2.27%) Management Information System
5 19 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
6 18 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
7 16 (1.58%) NHS
8 15 (1.48%) Algorithms
9 10 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
10 9 (0.89%) Data Centre
11 8 (0.79%) Data Structures
11 8 (0.79%) Public Cloud
12 7 (0.69%) Enterprise Software
13 6 (0.59%) Hybrid Cloud
13 6 (0.59%) Mobile App
13 6 (0.59%) Operational Technology
14 5 (0.49%) BYOD
14 5 (0.49%) Linux Command Line
14 5 (0.49%) Replication
14 5 (0.49%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 75 (7.39%) Linux
2 45 (4.43%) Windows
3 23 (2.27%) Unix
4 15 (1.48%) Android
5 13 (1.28%) Windows Server
6 10 (0.99%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.89%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.59%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.30%) AIX
9 3 (0.30%) Solaris
10 2 (0.20%) Debian
10 2 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.20%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.20%) VMS
11 1 (0.099%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 320 (31.53%) Agile
2 203 (20.00%) CI/CD
3 162 (15.96%) Problem-Solving
4 157 (15.47%) DevOps
5 144 (14.19%) Stakeholder Management
6 109 (10.74%) Continuous Improvement
7 107 (10.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 92 (9.06%) Roadmaps
9 83 (8.18%) Test Automation
10 82 (8.08%) Infrastructure as Code
10 82 (8.08%) Scrum
11 79 (7.78%) Decision-Making
12 76 (7.49%) Microservices
13 68 (6.70%) Analytics
14 67 (6.60%) Data Modelling
14 67 (6.60%) Migration
15 61 (6.01%) Business Intelligence
16 60 (5.91%) AI
17 59 (5.81%) Workshop Facilitation
18 57 (5.62%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 126 (12.41%) Python
2 111 (10.94%) Java
3 108 (10.64%) SQL
4 73 (7.19%) JavaScript
5 41 (4.04%) TypeScript
6 32 (3.15%) Scala
7 23 (2.27%) C#
8 17 (1.67%) PowerShell
9 16 (1.58%) Shell Script
10 11 (1.08%) Bicep
11 10 (0.99%) PL/SQL
12 9 (0.89%) Bash
12 9 (0.89%) C
12 9 (0.89%) VB
13 8 (0.79%) C++
14 7 (0.69%) Ruby
14 7 (0.69%) VB6
15 6 (0.59%) COBOL
15 6 (0.59%) MATLAB
16 5 (0.49%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 303 (29.85%) Security Cleared
2 215 (21.18%) SC Cleared
3 65 (6.40%) Degree
4 16 (1.58%) DV Cleared
5 13 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (1.18%) AWS Certification
7 11 (1.08%) Azure Certification
7 11 (1.08%) Master's Degree
8 8 (0.79%) Microsoft Certification
8 8 (0.79%) PMI Certification
9 7 (0.69%) DBS Check
10 6 (0.59%) CompTIA CySA+
10 6 (0.59%) PMP
11 5 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 5 (0.49%) GIAC
11 5 (0.49%) NVQ Level 4
12 4 (0.39%) CompTIA Security+
12 4 (0.39%) CTC Cleared
12 4 (0.39%) MBA
12 4 (0.39%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (6.40%) Data Quality
2 63 (6.21%) Accessibility
3 56 (5.52%) QA
4 19 (1.87%) WCAG
5 17 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.58%) PMO
7 15 (1.48%) NIST
8 14 (1.38%) SLA
9 9 (0.89%) GDPR
10 8 (0.79%) PCI DSS
11 7 (0.69%) GRC
12 5 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (0.49%) IFRS
12 5 (0.49%) IFRS 17
12 5 (0.49%) ISO 20022
12 5 (0.49%) NCSC
13 4 (0.39%) HL7
13 4 (0.39%) PSD2
14 3 (0.30%) DICOM
14 3 (0.30%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 66 (6.50%) Docker
2 30 (2.96%) Active Directory
3 21 (2.07%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.69%) Hyper-V
5 6 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.59%) vSphere
6 5 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.39%) GPFS
7 4 (0.39%) NFS
7 4 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.30%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.20%) Firmware
9 2 (0.20%) QEMU
10 1 (0.099%) ACF2
10 1 (0.099%) RACF
10 1 (0.099%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 87 (8.57%) Terraform
2 65 (6.40%) Kubernetes
3 25 (2.46%) Grafana
4 17 (1.67%) Prometheus
5 16 (1.58%) Ansible
6 10 (0.99%) Kibana
7 8 (0.79%) Istio
8 7 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (0.59%) Argo
9 6 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.49%) vRealize
11 4 (0.39%) HAProxy
11 4 (0.39%) Podman
11 4 (0.39%) SCCM
12 3 (0.30%) VxRail
13 2 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 2 (0.20%) Kubeflow
13 2 (0.20%) Packer
14 1 (0.099%) EMC VPLEX
14 1 (0.099%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 120 (11.82%) SAP
2 99 (9.75%) Microsoft
3 49 (4.83%) Oracle
4 28 (2.76%) ServiceNow
5 22 (2.17%) Databricks
5 22 (2.17%) VMware
6 20 (1.97%) Google
7 19 (1.87%) Splunk
8 15 (1.48%) Cisco
8 15 (1.48%) IBM
9 12 (1.18%) Pega
10 10 (0.99%) Salesforce
11 8 (0.79%) Apple
11 8 (0.79%) CyberArk
11 8 (0.79%) OpenAI
12 7 (0.69%) BeyondTrust
12 7 (0.69%) Workday
13 6 (0.59%) MuleSoft
14 5 (0.49%) Foundry
14 5 (0.49%) Talend