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

6 months to
6 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 120 203 233
Rank change year-on-year +83 +30 -4
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,056 397 434
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.14% 1.37% 1.01%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.78% 4.40% 3.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 772 257 308
10th Percentile £326 £304 £213
25th Percentile £400 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - -7.45%
75th Percentile £570 £581 £626
90th Percentile £662 £688 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £523
% change year-on-year -10.00% -4.31% -0.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 34 52
10th Percentile £16.49 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £28.35 £25.32 -
Median hourly rate £43.96 £45.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -2.31% +180.20% -30.17%
75th Percentile £68.75 £70.31 £26.25
90th Percentile £84.43 £76.25 £76.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £50.00 £16.06
% change year-on-year -12.08% +211.33% -23.52%

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 15,564 9,013 12,867
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.51% 31.04% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,327 5,626 7,986
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £619 £644
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £501 £500 £534
% change year-on-year +0.10% -6.30% +1.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,137 543 1,105
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.65 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.25 £18.32
Median hourly rate £50.00 £32.05 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +56.01% -19.88% -27.27%
75th Percentile £72.54 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £32.00 £41.00
% change year-on-year +48.56% -21.95% -21.90%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 +77 787 £481 -4.57% 331
UK excluding London +52 576 £450 -10.00% 298
Work from Home +78 434 £438 -12.50% 187
London +80 257 £512 -0.38% 46
North of England +20 211 £453 -9.40% 56
Midlands +9 130 £438 -5.71% 28
North West +15 123 £400 -25.09% 41
West Midlands -2 97 £459 +11.95% 21
South East -14 93 £483 -8.00% 75
Scotland +33 56 £320 -10.49% 14
South West +11 54 £525 +44.83% 72
North East +5 49 £453 +11.17% 6
Yorkshire -31 44 £481 -1.28% 9
East Midlands -5 32 £416 -40.54% 7
East of England -18 27 £450 +125.00% 41
Wales -17 6 £550 -4.35% 11
Northern Ireland +4 3 £450 +28.57% 8

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 50 (4.73%) Confluence
2 38 (3.60%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.42%) SharePoint Server
4 13 (1.23%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (0.66%) Apache
6 7 (0.66%) SAS
7 5 (0.47%) nginx
8 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Exchange
8 4 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.28%) ArcGIS
9 3 (0.28%) CICS
9 3 (0.28%) CMS
9 3 (0.28%) LiveCycle
10 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.19%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.19%) WordPress
11 1 (0.095%) Smallworld
11 1 (0.095%) WebLogic
Applications
1 44 (4.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (1.33%) Microsoft Project
5 11 (1.04%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.47%) Simulink
7 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.19%) Trello
8 1 (0.095%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.095%) CATIA
8 1 (0.095%) InVision
8 1 (0.095%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.095%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.095%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 45 (4.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.42%) SAP PSCD
3 14 (1.33%) SAP BRIM
4 13 (1.23%) SAP Travel Management
5 11 (1.04%) SAP IBP
6 8 (0.76%) SAP EWM
6 8 (0.76%) SAP FI
7 7 (0.66%) SAP FI-CA
8 5 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.47%) SAP EHS
8 5 (0.47%) SAP HR
9 4 (0.38%) Loan IQ
9 4 (0.38%) SAP Convergent Charging
10 3 (0.28%) Exchequer
10 3 (0.28%) iTrent
10 3 (0.28%) Primavera
10 3 (0.28%) ProductWriter
10 3 (0.28%) SAP HCM
10 3 (0.28%) SAP MDG
10 3 (0.28%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 192 (18.18%) AWS
2 190 (17.99%) Azure
3 75 (7.10%) Power Platform
4 49 (4.64%) Azure DevOps
5 46 (4.36%) GitHub
6 45 (4.26%) Serverless
7 42 (3.98%) GCP
8 35 (3.31%) Entra ID
8 35 (3.31%) Microsoft 365
9 34 (3.22%) GitHub Actions
10 30 (2.84%) AWS Lambda
11 26 (2.46%) Amazon S3
12 22 (2.08%) Power Automate
13 20 (1.89%) PowerApps
14 17 (1.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 17 (1.61%) Amazon EC2
15 16 (1.52%) Amazon EKS
15 16 (1.52%) AWS CloudFormation
16 15 (1.42%) Amazon ECS
17 13 (1.23%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.42%) DNS
1 15 (1.42%) Firewall
1 15 (1.42%) Network Security
2 10 (0.95%) SSH
3 9 (0.85%) HTTPS
4 7 (0.66%) Ethernet
4 7 (0.66%) VPN
5 6 (0.57%) DHCP
5 6 (0.57%) WAN
6 5 (0.47%) Reverse Proxy
7 4 (0.38%) SSL
8 3 (0.28%) Internet
8 3 (0.28%) LAN
8 3 (0.28%) Modbus
8 3 (0.28%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.28%) WebEx
8 3 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (0.19%) MQTT
9 2 (0.19%) RS-485
9 2 (0.19%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (5.87%) Power BI
2 34 (3.22%) PostgreSQL
3 23 (2.18%) SQL Server
4 22 (2.08%) Metadata
5 21 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
6 19 (1.80%) MongoDB
7 16 (1.52%) DynamoDB
7 16 (1.52%) NoSQL
8 13 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
8 13 (1.23%) Relational Database
9 11 (1.04%) MySQL
10 9 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
10 9 (0.85%) Delta Lake
10 9 (0.85%) Geospatial Data
11 8 (0.76%) Big Data
12 7 (0.66%) Amazon Aurora
12 7 (0.66%) Data Lake
12 7 (0.66%) Spark SQL
13 6 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
13 6 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 86 (8.14%) JIRA
2 58 (5.49%) Git
3 54 (5.11%) GitLab
4 40 (3.79%) Jenkins
5 18 (1.70%) Selenium
6 16 (1.52%) Cucumber
7 12 (1.14%) JUnit
8 9 (0.85%) Postman
8 9 (0.85%) Team Foundation Server
9 8 (0.76%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.66%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.47%) Gatling
11 5 (0.47%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.47%) Visual Studio
11 5 (0.47%) WebDriver
12 4 (0.38%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 4 (0.38%) Maven
12 4 (0.38%) Mockito
12 4 (0.38%) Rational DOORS
13 3 (0.28%) JMeter
General
1 326 (30.87%) Social Skills
2 203 (19.22%) Public Sector
3 156 (14.77%) Finance
4 114 (10.80%) Analytical Skills
5 46 (4.36%) Aerospace
5 46 (4.36%) Banking
6 37 (3.50%) Documentation Skills
7 36 (3.41%) Legal
8 22 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
9 21 (1.99%) Billing
9 21 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
9 21 (1.99%) Manufacturing
10 19 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
11 17 (1.61%) Aviation
12 13 (1.23%) Telecoms
13 11 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 10 (0.95%) Local Government
15 9 (0.85%) Retail
16 8 (0.76%) Military
16 8 (0.76%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 145 (13.73%) Developer
2 120 (11.36%) Analyst
3 116 (10.98%) Senior
4 110 (10.42%) Architect
5 105 (9.94%) Lead
6 82 (7.77%) Consultant
7 61 (5.78%) SAP Consultant
8 55 (5.21%) Business Analyst
9 49 (4.64%) Designer
10 43 (4.07%) Data Engineer
11 39 (3.69%) Java Developer
12 31 (2.94%) Administrator
13 26 (2.46%) Delivery Manager
13 26 (2.46%) Service Designer
14 25 (2.37%) DevOps Engineer
15 24 (2.27%) Solutions Architect
16 22 (2.08%) Data Architect
16 22 (2.08%) Senior Analyst
17 21 (1.99%) Product Manager
17 21 (1.99%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (5.30%) REST
2 52 (4.92%) Node.js
3 50 (4.73%) React
4 46 (4.36%) HTML
5 42 (3.98%) RESTful
6 41 (3.88%) CSS
7 33 (3.13%) Spring
7 33 (3.13%) Spring Boot
8 28 (2.65%) .NET
9 24 (2.27%) Kafka
10 20 (1.89%) JSON
11 17 (1.61%) OAuth
12 16 (1.52%) Playwright
12 16 (1.52%) PySpark
13 15 (1.42%) Middleware
13 15 (1.42%) SPFx
14 14 (1.33%) OpenAPI
15 13 (1.23%) AngularJS
15 13 (1.23%) SAP TM
15 13 (1.23%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 78 (7.39%) Product Ownership
2 54 (5.11%) Cloud Native
2 54 (5.11%) Onboarding
3 21 (1.99%) Management Information System
4 20 (1.89%) Distributed Systems
5 18 (1.70%) NHS
6 17 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
7 16 (1.52%) Algorithms
8 14 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
8 14 (1.33%) Virtual Team
9 11 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (1.04%) Web Conferencing
10 10 (0.95%) Data Centre
10 10 (0.95%) Podcast
11 8 (0.76%) Data Structures
11 8 (0.76%) Public Cloud
12 6 (0.57%) Mobile App
12 6 (0.57%) Operational Technology
13 5 (0.47%) AI Agents
13 5 (0.47%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 68 (6.44%) Linux
2 47 (4.45%) Windows
3 26 (2.46%) Unix
4 15 (1.42%) Android
5 14 (1.33%) Windows Server
6 10 (0.95%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.85%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.57%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.28%) AIX
9 3 (0.28%) Solaris
10 2 (0.19%) Debian
10 2 (0.19%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.19%) VMS
11 1 (0.095%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.095%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 325 (30.78%) Agile
2 210 (19.89%) CI/CD
3 170 (16.10%) DevOps
4 161 (15.25%) Problem-Solving
5 153 (14.49%) Stakeholder Management
6 114 (10.80%) Continuous Improvement
7 109 (10.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 96 (9.09%) Roadmaps
9 95 (9.00%) Test Automation
10 86 (8.14%) Scrum
11 84 (7.95%) Infrastructure as Code
12 80 (7.58%) Decision-Making
13 79 (7.48%) Microservices
14 75 (7.10%) Analytics
15 72 (6.82%) Data Modelling
16 69 (6.53%) Migration
17 67 (6.34%) AI
18 66 (6.25%) Business Intelligence
19 64 (6.06%) Validation
20 63 (5.97%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 127 (12.03%) Python
2 119 (11.27%) Java
3 114 (10.80%) SQL
4 74 (7.01%) JavaScript
5 43 (4.07%) TypeScript
6 32 (3.03%) Scala
7 23 (2.18%) C#
8 21 (1.99%) PowerShell
9 16 (1.52%) Shell Script
10 13 (1.23%) PL/SQL
11 10 (0.95%) Bicep
12 9 (0.85%) C
12 9 (0.85%) VB
13 8 (0.76%) Bash
13 8 (0.76%) C++
14 7 (0.66%) VB6
15 6 (0.57%) COBOL
15 6 (0.57%) MATLAB
16 5 (0.47%) ABAP
16 5 (0.47%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 309 (29.26%) Security Cleared
2 221 (20.93%) SC Cleared
3 67 (6.34%) Degree
4 16 (1.52%) AWS Certification
5 15 (1.42%) DV Cleared
6 11 (1.04%) Master's Degree
7 10 (0.95%) Azure Certification
7 10 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (0.76%) PMI Certification
9 7 (0.66%) DBS Check
9 7 (0.66%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (0.57%) CompTIA CySA+
10 6 (0.57%) PMP
11 5 (0.47%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 5 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 5 (0.47%) GIAC
11 5 (0.47%) NVQ Level 4
12 4 (0.38%) CompTIA Security+
12 4 (0.38%) CTC Cleared
12 4 (0.38%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (6.72%) Accessibility
2 69 (6.53%) Data Quality
3 61 (5.78%) QA
4 21 (1.99%) WCAG
5 19 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.52%) NIST
6 16 (1.52%) PMO
7 13 (1.23%) SLA
8 12 (1.14%) GDPR
9 9 (0.85%) GRC
10 8 (0.76%) PCI DSS
11 6 (0.57%) NCSC
12 5 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (0.47%) IFRS
12 5 (0.47%) IFRS 17
12 5 (0.47%) ISO 20022
13 4 (0.38%) HL7
13 4 (0.38%) PSD2
14 3 (0.28%) DICOM
14 3 (0.28%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 67 (6.34%) Docker
2 31 (2.94%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.66%) Hyper-V
5 5 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.38%) vSphere
7 3 (0.28%) GPFS
7 3 (0.28%) NFS
7 3 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.19%) Firmware
8 2 (0.19%) QEMU
9 1 (0.095%) ACF2
9 1 (0.095%) RACF
9 1 (0.095%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 92 (8.71%) Terraform
2 65 (6.16%) Kubernetes
3 26 (2.46%) Grafana
4 18 (1.70%) Prometheus
5 16 (1.52%) Ansible
6 10 (0.95%) Kibana
7 9 (0.85%) Istio
7 9 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.66%) Argo
9 6 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.47%) Podman
10 5 (0.47%) SCCM
11 4 (0.38%) HAProxy
12 3 (0.28%) vRealize
13 2 (0.19%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 2 (0.19%) Kubeflow
13 2 (0.19%) Packer
13 2 (0.19%) Puppet
14 1 (0.095%) SCOM
14 1 (0.095%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 116 (10.98%) SAP
2 94 (8.90%) Microsoft
3 52 (4.92%) Oracle
4 31 (2.94%) ServiceNow
5 21 (1.99%) Databricks
5 21 (1.99%) Google
6 19 (1.80%) Splunk
6 19 (1.80%) VMware
7 12 (1.14%) Cisco
7 12 (1.14%) Pega
8 11 (1.04%) IBM
9 10 (0.95%) Informatica
9 10 (0.95%) Salesforce
10 9 (0.85%) CyberArk
11 8 (0.76%) Apple
11 8 (0.76%) BeyondTrust
11 8 (0.76%) OpenAI
11 8 (0.76%) Talend
12 7 (0.66%) MuleSoft
12 7 (0.66%) Workday