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 28 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 150 268 235
Rank change year-on-year +118 -33 -40
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 714 305 446
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.93% 0.91% 1.02%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.73% 3.04% 3.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 526 172 325
10th Percentile £313 £220 £361
25th Percentile £400 £364 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% -9.09% -1.79%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £631
90th Percentile £691 £708 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £473 £550
% change year-on-year -1.59% -14.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 13 30
10th Percentile £14.68 £20.02 £21.63
25th Percentile £22.63 £20.30 £29.91
Median hourly rate £33.50 £38.85 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year -13.77% -27.72% -10.42%
75th Percentile £48.75 £63.75 £66.25
90th Percentile £71.19 £67.00 £84.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £38.85 £53.75
% change year-on-year -13.77% -27.72% -10.42%

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 12,469 10,028 13,025
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.75% 29.89% 29.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,139 6,136 8,225
10th Percentile £313 £301 £300
25th Percentile £416 £417 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £631 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £505 £540
% change year-on-year -0.99% -6.48% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 999 485 744
10th Percentile £16.30 £18.50 £16.26
25th Percentile £19.23 £23.60 £26.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £51.90
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -22.92% +15.32%
75th Percentile £52.54 £67.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.15 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £51.44
% change year-on-year -40.82% -17.38% +18.26%

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 28 December 2025.

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 28 December 2025.

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 28 December 2025. 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 +95 486 £500 -0.99% 524
UK excluding London +59 351 £465 -1.59% 507
Work from Home +96 264 £481 -10.55% 332
North of England +39 179 £450 -10.00% 89
London +57 148 £525 -8.70% 66
North West +44 129 £430 -20.07% 70
Midlands -6 57 £449 -4.37% 62
West Midlands -4 44 £478 +1.95% 41
Yorkshire -32 38 £481 +118.75% 10
South East -6 36 £484 -2.32% 190
South West +10 35 £555 +8.29% 94
Scotland +28 26 £429 -32.75% 22
East of England -25 19 £500 +127.39% 127
North East +5 14 £480 +2.13% 9
East Midlands -9 13 £372 - 20
Northern Ireland - 6 £375 -
Wales +1 5 £458 +108.00% 6

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 38 (5.32%) Confluence
2 12 (1.68%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.54%) nginx
4 5 (0.70%) Apache
5 4 (0.56%) CMS
5 4 (0.56%) SugarCRM
6 3 (0.42%) ArcGIS
6 3 (0.42%) MTS
6 3 (0.42%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.14%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.14%) Drupal
8 1 (0.14%) GeoServer
8 1 (0.14%) JBoss
8 1 (0.14%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.14%) Orchard CMS
8 1 (0.14%) SAS
8 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
Applications
1 21 (2.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.68%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (0.70%) MS Visio
3 5 (0.70%) ProjectWise
4 4 (0.56%) Trello
5 3 (0.42%) AutoCAD
5 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.14%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.14%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 49 (6.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.96%) SAP EHS
3 13 (1.82%) Oracle EBS
4 9 (1.26%) Oracle EBS R12
4 9 (1.26%) Oracle Financials
4 9 (1.26%) SAP HCM
5 6 (0.84%) Oracle Cash Management
5 6 (0.84%) Oracle Payables
5 6 (0.84%) SAP VC
6 5 (0.70%) SAP QM
7 4 (0.56%) Maximo
7 4 (0.56%) Oracle ERP
7 4 (0.56%) Oracle SCM
7 4 (0.56%) SAP Travel Management
8 3 (0.42%) SAP BRIM
8 3 (0.42%) SAP Hybris
8 3 (0.42%) SAP IBP
8 3 (0.42%) SAP Payroll
8 3 (0.42%) SAP PM
8 3 (0.42%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 119 (16.67%) AWS
2 95 (13.31%) Azure
3 36 (5.04%) Serverless
4 32 (4.48%) Power Platform
5 31 (4.34%) GitHub
6 25 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
7 23 (3.22%) AWS Lambda
7 23 (3.22%) GCP
8 21 (2.94%) AWS CloudFormation
8 21 (2.94%) GitHub Actions
9 20 (2.80%) Microsoft 365
10 19 (2.66%) Amazon EC2
11 16 (2.24%) Amazon SQS
12 14 (1.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 13 (1.82%) Amazon EKS
14 12 (1.68%) Amazon S3
14 12 (1.68%) Power Automate
15 11 (1.54%) Amazon ECS
15 11 (1.54%) SuccessFactors
16 9 (1.26%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 18 (2.52%) SSH
2 16 (2.24%) Firewall
3 10 (1.40%) LAN
4 9 (1.26%) DNS
4 9 (1.26%) VPN
4 9 (1.26%) WAN
5 7 (0.98%) MPLS
5 7 (0.98%) SAN
6 6 (0.84%) Network Security
7 5 (0.70%) Reverse Proxy
7 5 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
8 4 (0.56%) Modbus
8 4 (0.56%) SDH
8 4 (0.56%) SD-WAN
9 3 (0.42%) 5G
9 3 (0.42%) Cisco Nexus
9 3 (0.42%) OpenLDAP
9 3 (0.42%) Radio Access Network
9 3 (0.42%) Unified Communications
9 3 (0.42%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (3.08%) Power BI
2 19 (2.66%) PostgreSQL
3 16 (2.24%) SQL Server
4 13 (1.82%) Metadata
5 12 (1.68%) MongoDB
5 12 (1.68%) NoSQL
6 9 (1.26%) Data Lake
6 9 (1.26%) Data Warehouse
7 8 (1.12%) BigQuery
7 8 (1.12%) Oracle Database
7 8 (1.12%) Redis
8 7 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
8 7 (0.98%) MySQL
8 7 (0.98%) Relational Database
9 6 (0.84%) Tableau
10 5 (0.70%) Big Data
10 5 (0.70%) DocumentDB
10 5 (0.70%) Geospatial Data
10 5 (0.70%) GIS
11 4 (0.56%) Data Hub
Development Applications
1 70 (9.80%) Git
2 59 (8.26%) JIRA
3 37 (5.18%) GitLab
4 29 (4.06%) Jenkins
5 10 (1.40%) SonarQube
6 8 (1.12%) Cypress.io
6 8 (1.12%) Mockito
7 5 (0.70%) Android Studio
7 5 (0.70%) Bitbucket
7 5 (0.70%) Cucumber
7 5 (0.70%) JUnit
7 5 (0.70%) Selenium
8 3 (0.42%) Gradle
8 3 (0.42%) JMeter
8 3 (0.42%) Postman
8 3 (0.42%) Toad
9 2 (0.28%) gulp
9 2 (0.28%) PHPUnit
9 2 (0.28%) PVCS
9 2 (0.28%) WebDriver
General
1 226 (31.65%) Social Skills
2 141 (19.75%) Public Sector
3 96 (13.45%) Finance
4 58 (8.12%) Analytical Skills
5 30 (4.20%) Banking
6 27 (3.78%) Aerospace
7 17 (2.38%) Manufacturing
8 16 (2.24%) Aviation
8 16 (2.24%) Telecoms
9 15 (2.10%) Organisational Skills
10 14 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
11 12 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
12 8 (1.12%) Legal
12 8 (1.12%) Local Government
13 7 (0.98%) Billing
13 7 (0.98%) Marketing
14 6 (0.84%) Law
14 6 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
15 4 (0.56%) Financial Institution
15 4 (0.56%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 128 (17.93%) Developer
2 84 (11.76%) Consultant
3 81 (11.34%) Senior
4 66 (9.24%) Analyst
5 54 (7.56%) Lead
6 50 (7.00%) Architect
7 43 (6.02%) SAP Consultant
8 40 (5.60%) Java Developer
9 30 (4.20%) Senior Developer
10 25 (3.50%) Business Analyst
11 23 (3.22%) Administrator
12 21 (2.94%) DevOps Engineer
13 20 (2.80%) Designer
14 19 (2.66%) Software Developer
15 18 (2.52%) Delivery Manager
16 17 (2.38%) Management Consultant
16 17 (2.38%) Project Manager
17 16 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
18 15 (2.10%) Lead Developer
19 13 (1.82%) Senior Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (7.70%) Node.js
2 28 (3.92%) Kafka
2 28 (3.92%) React
3 27 (3.78%) REST
4 26 (3.64%) HTML
5 23 (3.22%) RESTful
6 22 (3.08%) JSON
7 20 (2.80%) CSS
8 16 (2.24%) .NET
8 16 (2.24%) Spring
9 15 (2.10%) XML
10 13 (1.82%) SAP Fiori
10 13 (1.82%) Spring Boot
11 11 (1.54%) SOAP
12 10 (1.40%) LangChain
13 9 (1.26%) ActiveMQ
13 9 (1.26%) Jest
13 9 (1.26%) Middleware
13 9 (1.26%) pytest
14 8 (1.12%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 45 (6.30%) Onboarding
2 34 (4.76%) Product Ownership
3 21 (2.94%) Cloud Native
4 20 (2.80%) Management Information System
5 14 (1.96%) Security Posture
6 13 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
7 12 (1.68%) NHS
8 11 (1.54%) SCADA
9 10 (1.40%) Driving Licence
10 8 (1.12%) Data Centre
10 8 (1.12%) Mobile App
10 8 (1.12%) Operational Technology
11 6 (0.84%) Cyber Threat
11 6 (0.84%) Distributed Systems
11 6 (0.84%) Low-Code
11 6 (0.84%) Public Cloud
12 5 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
12 5 (0.70%) Hybrid Cloud
12 5 (0.70%) Linux Command Line
12 5 (0.70%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 77 (10.78%) Linux
2 34 (4.76%) Windows
3 26 (3.64%) Unix
4 9 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.12%) Android
6 7 (0.98%) Windows Server
7 6 (0.84%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.28%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.28%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.28%) VMS
8 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.14%) CentOS
9 1 (0.14%) Debian
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.14%) VME
9 1 (0.14%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.14%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.14%) Windows 8
9 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 213 (29.83%) Agile
2 128 (17.93%) CI/CD
3 113 (15.83%) Problem-Solving
4 104 (14.57%) DevOps
5 103 (14.43%) Stakeholder Management
6 65 (9.10%) Continuous Improvement
7 58 (8.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 53 (7.42%) Migration
9 51 (7.14%) Microservices
9 51 (7.14%) Test Automation
10 49 (6.86%) Scrum
11 47 (6.58%) Roadmaps
11 47 (6.58%) Validation
12 45 (6.30%) AI
13 44 (6.16%) Containerisation
13 44 (6.16%) Infrastructure as Code
14 41 (5.74%) User Experience
15 40 (5.60%) Change Management
16 38 (5.32%) Analytics
16 38 (5.32%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 88 (12.32%) Python
2 78 (10.92%) Java
3 59 (8.26%) SQL
4 37 (5.18%) JavaScript
5 27 (3.78%) TypeScript
6 21 (2.94%) Bash
7 16 (2.24%) Shell Script
8 15 (2.10%) ABAP
9 14 (1.96%) PowerShell
10 13 (1.82%) Ruby
11 11 (1.54%) PL/SQL
12 10 (1.40%) C#
13 9 (1.26%) PHP
14 8 (1.12%) R
14 8 (1.12%) Scala
15 7 (0.98%) C++
16 6 (0.84%) Go
17 4 (0.56%) Kotlin
18 3 (0.42%) Bicep
18 3 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 324 (45.38%) Security Cleared
2 234 (32.77%) SC Cleared
3 58 (8.12%) Degree
4 25 (3.50%) Computer Science Degree
5 14 (1.96%) DBS Check
5 14 (1.96%) Master's Degree
6 12 (1.68%) BC Cleared
6 12 (1.68%) DV Cleared
7 10 (1.40%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 9 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (0.98%) CCNP
10 5 (0.70%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.70%) ISTQB
11 4 (0.56%) ISEB
11 4 (0.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 3 (0.42%) CCNA
12 3 (0.42%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 3 (0.42%) MCP
12 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (0.42%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (6.30%) Accessibility
2 34 (4.76%) QA
3 19 (2.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (1.96%) Data Quality
4 14 (1.96%) GRC
5 13 (1.82%) WCAG
6 11 (1.54%) SLA
7 10 (1.40%) Def Stans
7 10 (1.40%) NIST
8 9 (1.26%) GDPR
8 9 (1.26%) PMO
9 7 (0.98%) NCSC
10 4 (0.56%) ISO 20022
11 3 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.42%) PSD2
12 2 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.28%) ITGC
12 2 (0.28%) P3O
12 2 (0.28%) SEPA
13 1 (0.14%) RMADS
System Software
1 53 (7.42%) Docker
2 20 (2.80%) Active Directory
3 10 (1.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.70%) vSphere
5 4 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.28%) GPFS
6 2 (0.28%) NFS
6 2 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.14%) ACF2
7 1 (0.14%) HDFS
7 1 (0.14%) KVM
7 1 (0.14%) Postfix
7 1 (0.14%) QEMU
7 1 (0.14%) RACF
7 1 (0.14%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.14%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 54 (7.56%) Terraform
2 49 (6.86%) Kubernetes
3 15 (2.10%) Grafana
4 13 (1.82%) Ansible
4 13 (1.82%) Prometheus
5 7 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
6 6 (0.84%) EMC NetWorker
6 6 (0.84%) EMC VPLEX
7 5 (0.70%) vRealize
8 4 (0.56%) Puppet
8 4 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.56%) VxRail
9 3 (0.42%) Argo
9 3 (0.42%) Istio
9 3 (0.42%) Packer
9 3 (0.42%) PingFederate
10 2 (0.28%) Ambari
10 2 (0.28%) Consul
10 2 (0.28%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.28%) Kibana
Vendors
1 101 (14.15%) SAP
2 84 (11.76%) Microsoft
3 54 (7.56%) Oracle
4 25 (3.50%) Cisco
5 20 (2.80%) VMware
6 13 (1.82%) ServiceNow
7 12 (1.68%) Google
8 11 (1.54%) IBM
9 10 (1.40%) Dell
10 9 (1.26%) Atlassian
11 8 (1.12%) Red Hat
12 7 (0.98%) Adobe
12 7 (0.98%) Databricks
13 6 (0.84%) Brocade
13 6 (0.84%) EMC
13 6 (0.84%) Fortinet
13 6 (0.84%) Isilon
13 6 (0.84%) webMethods
14 5 (0.70%) AppDynamics
15 4 (0.56%) MuleSoft