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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 98 159 283
Rank change year-on-year +61 +124 -57
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,429 573 339
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.67% 1.76% 0.88%
As % of the Qualifications category 8.50% 5.63% 2.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,014 382 212
10th Percentile £350 £310 £220
25th Percentile £419 £407 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.58% +2.65% -9.09%
75th Percentile £582 £606 £578
90th Percentile £670 £713 £637
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £473
% change year-on-year -3.40% +5.82% -14.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 215 49 26
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £13.63
25th Percentile - £22.63 £20.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.50 £27.30
Median % change year-on-year +59.85% +0.75% -52.87%
75th Percentile £48.00 £52.50 £63.13
90th Percentile £72.60 £74.00 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £27.30
% change year-on-year +50.19% +7.24% -52.39%

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 16,812 10,171 11,483
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.37% 31.27% 29.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,258 6,292 7,204
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £623 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,264 819 732
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.98 £15.11
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £48.77 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +93.90% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £87.00 £71.66 £76.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 +77 1,064 £492 -4.14% 991
UK excluding London +48 835 £483 -3.40% 881
Work from Home +65 542 £492 -1.60% 763
London +75 307 £507 -4.21% 269
North of England +16 302 £488 +1.30% 206
Midlands +47 222 £490 -6.31% 87
West Midlands +58 213 £490 -6.67% 73
North West +1 164 £510 +13.37% 135
South East -20 100 £483 -6.21% 132
North East +10 82 £452 -1.85% 37
South West +11 81 £525 +16.67% 175
Scotland +31 75 £401 -8.46% 119
Yorkshire -6 67 £475 -5.00% 39
East of England -9 34 £605 +26.74% 160
Northern Ireland +16 20 - - 11
Wales -7 12 £413 -28.26% 14
East Midlands -29 8 £613 +24.49% 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 63 (4.41%) Confluence
2 46 (3.22%) SharePoint
3 17 (1.19%) SharePoint Server
4 9 (0.63%) SAS
5 8 (0.56%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.56%) CMS
6 7 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (0.49%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.35%) WebLogic
8 4 (0.28%) Headless CMS
8 4 (0.28%) IIS
8 4 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.28%) WordPress
9 2 (0.14%) Apache
9 2 (0.14%) CICS
9 2 (0.14%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.14%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.14%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.14%) LiveCycle
9 2 (0.14%) OpenROAD
Applications
1 39 (2.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (2.03%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.05%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.35%) Simulink
6 3 (0.21%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.21%) Windchill
7 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.14%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.14%) Trello
8 1 (0.070%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.070%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.070%) CATIA
8 1 (0.070%) InVision
8 1 (0.070%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.070%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.070%) Revit
8 1 (0.070%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 49 (3.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.12%) SAP HR
3 15 (1.05%) SAP PSCD
4 12 (0.84%) SAP BRIM
4 12 (0.84%) SAP IBP
5 10 (0.70%) SAP Payroll
6 9 (0.63%) SAP FI
7 6 (0.42%) SAP FI-CA
7 6 (0.42%) SAP GRC
8 5 (0.35%) Shopify
9 4 (0.28%) SAP Convergent Charging
9 4 (0.28%) SAP EHS
9 4 (0.28%) SAP EWM
9 4 (0.28%) SAP MDG
9 4 (0.28%) SAP PP
10 3 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
10 3 (0.21%) Primavera
10 3 (0.21%) SAP CO
10 3 (0.21%) SAP FI/CO
10 3 (0.21%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 262 (18.33%) Azure
2 255 (17.84%) AWS
3 84 (5.88%) Power Platform
4 66 (4.62%) Azure DevOps
4 66 (4.62%) GitHub
5 55 (3.85%) Serverless
6 48 (3.36%) GCP
7 47 (3.29%) Amazon S3
7 47 (3.29%) GitHub Actions
7 47 (3.29%) Microsoft 365
8 46 (3.22%) AWS Lambda
9 44 (3.08%) Entra ID
10 27 (1.89%) Power Automate
10 27 (1.89%) PowerApps
11 25 (1.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 23 (1.61%) AWS CloudFormation
13 22 (1.54%) Amazon ECS
13 22 (1.54%) SuccessFactors
14 20 (1.40%) Azure Monitor
15 18 (1.26%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.19%) DNS
2 13 (0.91%) SSL
2 13 (0.91%) WAN
3 11 (0.77%) Network Security
4 10 (0.70%) Firewall
4 10 (0.70%) WebEx
5 8 (0.56%) Intranet
6 7 (0.49%) Cisco IPT
6 7 (0.49%) HTTPS
6 7 (0.49%) MPLS
7 6 (0.42%) LAN
7 6 (0.42%) SDH
7 6 (0.42%) VPN
8 5 (0.35%) 5G
8 5 (0.35%) Ethernet
8 5 (0.35%) Radio Access Network
8 5 (0.35%) Wireshark
9 4 (0.28%) DHCP
9 4 (0.28%) HTTP
9 4 (0.28%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (4.13%) Power BI
2 47 (3.29%) PostgreSQL
3 43 (3.01%) Metadata
4 37 (2.59%) MongoDB
5 33 (2.31%) Data Warehouse
6 31 (2.17%) SQL Server
7 26 (1.82%) Amazon RDS
8 25 (1.75%) MySQL
9 23 (1.61%) NoSQL
10 21 (1.47%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 19 (1.33%) Data Lake
12 18 (1.26%) Relational Database
13 16 (1.12%) DynamoDB
14 14 (0.98%) Amazon Redshift
15 13 (0.91%) Amazon Aurora
15 13 (0.91%) Oracle Database
16 12 (0.84%) Amazon Athena
17 10 (0.70%) Big Data
18 8 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
18 8 (0.56%) Redis
Development Applications
1 105 (7.35%) JIRA
2 94 (6.58%) Git
3 70 (4.90%) GitLab
4 60 (4.20%) Jenkins
5 26 (1.82%) JUnit
6 25 (1.75%) Selenium
7 23 (1.61%) Maven
8 21 (1.47%) Cucumber
9 15 (1.05%) Postman
9 15 (1.05%) SonarQube
10 14 (0.98%) Cypress.io
10 14 (0.98%) Team Foundation Server
11 13 (0.91%) Mockito
12 12 (0.84%) Gatling
12 12 (0.84%) Visual Studio
13 10 (0.70%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 10 (0.70%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.63%) Bitbucket
15 7 (0.49%) Gradle
15 7 (0.49%) WebDriver
General
1 476 (33.31%) Social Skills
2 337 (23.58%) Public Sector
3 239 (16.72%) Finance
4 135 (9.45%) Organisational Skills
5 133 (9.31%) Legal
6 131 (9.17%) Analytical Skills
7 43 (3.01%) Aerospace
8 42 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
9 30 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
10 26 (1.82%) Manufacturing
11 25 (1.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 23 (1.61%) Banking
13 21 (1.47%) Billing
13 21 (1.47%) Telecoms
14 20 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
15 11 (0.77%) Aviation
15 11 (0.77%) Local Government
16 10 (0.70%) Military
17 9 (0.63%) Law
18 8 (0.56%) Retail
Job Titles
1 202 (14.14%) Developer
2 158 (11.06%) Senior
3 154 (10.78%) Lead
4 139 (9.73%) Architect
5 98 (6.86%) Analyst
6 94 (6.58%) Consultant
7 62 (4.34%) Designer
7 62 (4.34%) Java Developer
8 56 (3.92%) SAP Consultant
9 48 (3.36%) DevOps Engineer
10 47 (3.29%) Data Engineer
11 40 (2.80%) Solutions Architect
12 38 (2.66%) Business Analyst
13 31 (2.17%) Data Architect
14 30 (2.10%) Delivery Manager
15 28 (1.96%) Lead Developer
15 28 (1.96%) Product Manager
15 28 (1.96%) User Researcher
16 26 (1.82%) Technical Architect
17 24 (1.68%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (7.84%) Terraform
2 83 (5.81%) REST
3 72 (5.04%) Spring
4 65 (4.55%) Spring Boot
5 55 (3.85%) HTML
6 54 (3.78%) React
7 51 (3.57%) RESTful
8 48 (3.36%) Node.js
9 45 (3.15%) CSS
10 35 (2.45%) Kafka
11 32 (2.24%) Playwright
12 26 (1.82%) .NET
13 22 (1.54%) OpenAPI
14 19 (1.33%) OAuth
14 19 (1.33%) XML
15 17 (1.19%) JSON
15 17 (1.19%) SOAP
16 16 (1.12%) Jest
16 16 (1.12%) OAuth2
16 16 (1.12%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 120 (8.40%) Virtual Team
2 119 (8.33%) Web Conferencing
3 109 (7.63%) Podcast
4 89 (6.23%) Onboarding
5 75 (5.25%) Product Ownership
6 61 (4.27%) Cloud Native
7 25 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
8 22 (1.54%) Replication
9 20 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
9 20 (1.40%) Management Information System
10 19 (1.33%) NHS
11 18 (1.26%) Self-Motivation
12 17 (1.19%) BYOD
13 16 (1.12%) Mobile App
14 14 (0.98%) Driving Licence
15 13 (0.91%) Algorithms
15 13 (0.91%) Distributed Systems
16 11 (0.77%) Data Centre
16 11 (0.77%) Low-Code
16 11 (0.77%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 68 (4.76%) Windows
2 61 (4.27%) Linux
3 33 (2.31%) Unix
4 21 (1.47%) Windows Server
5 19 (1.33%) Android
6 11 (0.77%) Windows 10
7 9 (0.63%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.56%) Mac OS
8 8 (0.56%) VMS
9 3 (0.21%) AIX
10 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.14%) Solaris
11 1 (0.070%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.070%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.070%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.070%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 431 (30.16%) Agile
2 255 (17.84%) CI/CD
3 241 (16.86%) Stakeholder Management
4 230 (16.10%) DevOps
5 174 (12.18%) Continuous Improvement
6 163 (11.41%) Problem-Solving
7 152 (10.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 134 (9.38%) Customer Service
9 133 (9.31%) Scrum
10 116 (8.12%) Test Automation
11 115 (8.05%) Roadmaps
12 114 (7.98%) Decision-Making
13 106 (7.42%) Analytics
14 105 (7.35%) Migration
15 104 (7.28%) Microservices
16 101 (7.07%) Infrastructure as Code
17 89 (6.23%) Mentoring
18 82 (5.74%) AI
19 81 (5.67%) Digital Transformation Programme
20 78 (5.46%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 162 (11.34%) Java
2 153 (10.71%) SQL
3 125 (8.75%) Python
4 83 (5.81%) JavaScript
5 45 (3.15%) TypeScript
6 39 (2.73%) Scala
7 35 (2.45%) PowerShell
8 24 (1.68%) C#
9 21 (1.47%) Bash
10 20 (1.40%) Shell Script
11 19 (1.33%) PL/SQL
12 15 (1.05%) T-SQL
13 12 (0.84%) VB
14 11 (0.77%) VB6
14 11 (0.77%) VBA
15 10 (0.70%) Kotlin
16 9 (0.63%) C++
17 8 (0.56%) ABAP
18 7 (0.49%) C
18 7 (0.49%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 464 (32.47%) Security Cleared
2 354 (24.77%) SC Cleared
3 69 (4.83%) Degree
4 20 (1.40%) AWS Certification
5 19 (1.33%) Azure Certification
6 18 (1.26%) Microsoft Certification
7 15 (1.05%) DV Cleared
8 11 (0.77%) A+ Certification
9 9 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 9 (0.63%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 8 (0.56%) DBS Check
11 7 (0.49%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 7 (0.49%) ISTQB
12 6 (0.42%) CCNA
12 6 (0.42%) Cisco Certification
12 6 (0.42%) CTC Cleared
12 6 (0.42%) Master's Degree
12 6 (0.42%) PMI Certification
13 5 (0.35%) HNC
13 5 (0.35%) NVQ Level 4
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (6.51%) Accessibility
2 89 (6.23%) QA
3 73 (5.11%) Data Quality
4 36 (2.52%) WCAG
5 29 (2.03%) GDPR
6 23 (1.61%) PMO
7 18 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 17 (1.19%) SLA
9 13 (0.91%) NIST
10 10 (0.70%) GRC
11 5 (0.35%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 5 (0.35%) GMP
11 5 (0.35%) GxP
11 5 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 5 (0.35%) NCSC
12 4 (0.28%) IEC 61508
12 4 (0.28%) PERC
13 3 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.21%) Def Stans
13 3 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 91 (6.37%) Docker
2 35 (2.45%) Active Directory
3 15 (1.05%) Virtual Machines
4 14 (0.98%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.35%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.14%) Firmware
7 2 (0.14%) vSphere
8 1 (0.070%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.070%) GPFS
8 1 (0.070%) IAG
8 1 (0.070%) NFS
8 1 (0.070%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.070%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.070%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 99 (6.93%) Kubernetes
2 35 (2.45%) Grafana
3 21 (1.47%) Prometheus
4 17 (1.19%) Kibana
4 17 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
5 12 (0.84%) Ansible
5 12 (0.84%) Argo
6 11 (0.77%) SCCM
7 9 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (0.63%) SCOM
8 6 (0.42%) Istio
9 5 (0.35%) Packer
10 4 (0.28%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.28%) HAProxy
10 4 (0.28%) Podman
10 4 (0.28%) Puppet
11 2 (0.14%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.14%) Karpenter
11 2 (0.14%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 2 (0.14%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 168 (11.76%) Microsoft
2 125 (8.75%) SAP
3 80 (5.60%) Oracle
4 62 (4.34%) ServiceNow
5 39 (2.73%) Google
6 25 (1.75%) BeyondTrust
7 22 (1.54%) Databricks
8 16 (1.12%) Splunk
9 14 (0.98%) Atlassian
9 14 (0.98%) Cisco
9 14 (0.98%) VMware
10 13 (0.91%) Talend
11 10 (0.70%) CyberArk
11 10 (0.70%) Salesforce
12 9 (0.63%) Informatica
13 8 (0.56%) Dell
14 7 (0.49%) Apple
14 7 (0.49%) IBM
14 7 (0.49%) Okta
15 6 (0.42%) Blue Prism