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 12 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 102 167 245
Rank change year-on-year +65 +78 -16
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,328 554 377
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.49% 1.68% 0.97%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.94% 5.38% 3.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 936 371 230
10th Percentile £349 £306 £219
25th Percentile £408 £405 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £508 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.46% +1.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £668 £713 £643
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £470
% change year-on-year -2.04% +4.26% -13.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 208 50 49
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 -
25th Percentile £41.00 £22.63 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.50 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.85% +44.74% -58.17%
75th Percentile £53.75 £53.44 £42.50
90th Percentile £73.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £19.00
% change year-on-year +50.19% +54.05% -50.46%

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 16,734 10,294 11,675
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.35% 31.23% 29.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,212 6,355 7,404
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £715 £702 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,261 806 851
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.25
Median hourly rate £51.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +104.77% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £73.75 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -8.11%

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 12 August 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 12 August 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 12 August 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 +61 984 £490 -2.00% 896
UK excluding London +50 765 £480 -2.04% 795
Work from Home +54 516 £475 -3.06% 626
London +59 290 £494 -3.94% 214
North of England +23 285 £480 +4.35% 199
Midlands +43 184 £490 -5.77% 75
West Midlands +48 172 £488 -6.25% 64
North West +1 149 £495 +10.00% 140
South East -20 106 £483 -6.12% 136
North East +8 81 £450 -2.17% 29
South West +5 74 £525 +50.00% 157
Scotland +43 69 £355 -18.86% 84
Yorkshire -3 66 £480 -2.04% 36
East of England -12 28 £577 +188.53% 127
Northern Ireland +18 17 £450 +28.57% 15
Wales -4 11 £463 -19.57% 14
East Midlands -16 11 £600 +9.89% 10

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 61 (4.59%) Confluence
2 49 (3.69%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.43%) SharePoint Server
4 9 (0.68%) Apache Spark
4 9 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.60%) SAS
6 7 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
7 5 (0.38%) WebLogic
8 4 (0.30%) IIS
8 4 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.30%) WordPress
9 3 (0.23%) Apache
9 3 (0.23%) CMS
10 2 (0.15%) CICS
10 2 (0.15%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.15%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.15%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.15%) LiveCycle
10 2 (0.15%) OpenROAD
11 1 (0.075%) Appian
Applications
1 42 (3.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (2.03%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.38%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.38%) Simulink
6 3 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.15%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.15%) Trello
8 1 (0.075%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.075%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.075%) CATIA
8 1 (0.075%) InVision
8 1 (0.075%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.075%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.075%) Revit
8 1 (0.075%) Sketch
8 1 (0.075%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 39 (2.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.20%) SAP PSCD
3 13 (0.98%) SAP BRIM
4 12 (0.90%) SAP IBP
5 10 (0.75%) SAP FI
6 8 (0.60%) SAP HR
7 7 (0.53%) SAP FI-CA
8 6 (0.45%) SAP GRC
8 6 (0.45%) SAP Payroll
9 5 (0.38%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.38%) Shopify
10 4 (0.30%) SAP Convergent Charging
10 4 (0.30%) SAP EHS
10 4 (0.30%) SAP MDG
11 3 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
11 3 (0.23%) iTrent
11 3 (0.23%) Primavera
11 3 (0.23%) SAP CO
11 3 (0.23%) SAP FI/CO
11 3 (0.23%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 245 (18.45%) Azure
2 235 (17.70%) AWS
3 91 (6.85%) Power Platform
4 58 (4.37%) GitHub
5 56 (4.22%) Azure DevOps
6 52 (3.92%) Serverless
7 46 (3.46%) GCP
8 44 (3.31%) Amazon S3
9 43 (3.24%) Microsoft 365
10 42 (3.16%) GitHub Actions
11 41 (3.09%) AWS Lambda
12 39 (2.94%) Entra ID
13 26 (1.96%) PowerApps
14 25 (1.88%) Power Automate
15 21 (1.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 21 (1.58%) Amazon ECS
16 19 (1.43%) AWS CloudFormation
16 19 (1.43%) SuccessFactors
17 17 (1.28%) Amazon EKS
17 17 (1.28%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.36%) DNS
2 13 (0.98%) WebEx
3 12 (0.90%) WAN
4 10 (0.75%) Network Security
5 8 (0.60%) SSL
6 7 (0.53%) Ethernet
6 7 (0.53%) Firewall
6 7 (0.53%) HTTPS
6 7 (0.53%) Intranet
6 7 (0.53%) MPLS
7 6 (0.45%) LAN
7 6 (0.45%) SDH
8 5 (0.38%) Cisco IPT
8 5 (0.38%) VPN
9 4 (0.30%) DHCP
9 4 (0.30%) Internet
9 4 (0.30%) TCP/IP
10 3 (0.23%) IP Telephony
10 3 (0.23%) MQTT
10 3 (0.23%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (4.89%) Power BI
2 42 (3.16%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (2.56%) Metadata
4 31 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
5 29 (2.18%) MongoDB
6 27 (2.03%) SQL Server
7 22 (1.66%) Amazon RDS
8 20 (1.51%) MySQL
9 17 (1.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 16 (1.20%) Data Lake
11 15 (1.13%) NoSQL
11 15 (1.13%) Relational Database
12 13 (0.98%) Amazon Redshift
13 12 (0.90%) Amazon Athena
13 12 (0.90%) DynamoDB
14 11 (0.83%) Amazon Aurora
15 9 (0.68%) Big Data
16 8 (0.60%) Oracle Database
16 8 (0.60%) Redis
17 7 (0.53%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 101 (7.61%) JIRA
2 81 (6.10%) Git
3 59 (4.44%) GitLab
4 57 (4.29%) Jenkins
5 23 (1.73%) Selenium
6 19 (1.43%) JUnit
7 18 (1.36%) Maven
8 17 (1.28%) Cucumber
9 14 (1.05%) Team Foundation Server
9 14 (1.05%) Visual Studio
10 13 (0.98%) Postman
11 12 (0.90%) Cypress.io
12 10 (0.75%) Mockito
13 9 (0.68%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 9 (0.68%) REST Assured
13 9 (0.68%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.60%) Bitbucket
14 8 (0.60%) Gatling
15 7 (0.53%) Artifactory
15 7 (0.53%) Gradle
General
1 425 (32.00%) Social Skills
2 310 (23.34%) Public Sector
3 206 (15.51%) Finance
4 127 (9.56%) Analytical Skills
5 115 (8.66%) Legal
6 108 (8.13%) Organisational Skills
7 57 (4.29%) Aerospace
8 38 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
9 30 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
10 24 (1.81%) Manufacturing
11 23 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
12 22 (1.66%) Banking
12 22 (1.66%) Billing
13 21 (1.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 20 (1.51%) Aviation
15 17 (1.28%) Telecoms
16 10 (0.75%) Local Government
17 9 (0.68%) Law
17 9 (0.68%) Military
17 9 (0.68%) Retail
Job Titles
1 168 (12.65%) Developer
2 155 (11.67%) Senior
3 144 (10.84%) Lead
4 114 (8.58%) Architect
5 102 (7.68%) Analyst
6 90 (6.78%) Consultant
7 66 (4.97%) Designer
8 55 (4.14%) Java Developer
8 55 (4.14%) SAP Consultant
9 49 (3.69%) Data Engineer
10 45 (3.39%) DevOps Engineer
11 42 (3.16%) Business Analyst
12 32 (2.41%) Solutions Architect
13 30 (2.26%) User Researcher
14 29 (2.18%) Delivery Manager
14 29 (2.18%) Product Manager
15 26 (1.96%) Administrator
15 26 (1.96%) Lead Developer
16 25 (1.88%) Data Architect
17 24 (1.81%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (5.80%) REST
2 54 (4.07%) HTML
3 51 (3.84%) Spring
3 51 (3.84%) Spring Boot
4 49 (3.69%) RESTful
5 47 (3.54%) Node.js
6 46 (3.46%) React
7 42 (3.16%) CSS
8 29 (2.18%) .NET
9 28 (2.11%) Kafka
10 25 (1.88%) Playwright
11 17 (1.28%) JSON
11 17 (1.28%) PySpark
11 17 (1.28%) XML
12 15 (1.13%) SPFx
13 14 (1.05%) BAPI
13 14 (1.05%) HTML5
13 14 (1.05%) Jest
13 14 (1.05%) Play Framework
13 14 (1.05%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 97 (7.30%) Virtual Team
1 97 (7.30%) Web Conferencing
2 87 (6.55%) Podcast
3 77 (5.80%) Onboarding
4 74 (5.57%) Product Ownership
5 60 (4.52%) Cloud Native
6 24 (1.81%) NHS
7 22 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
8 20 (1.51%) Management Information System
9 18 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
10 17 (1.28%) Mobile App
10 17 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
11 15 (1.13%) Algorithms
11 15 (1.13%) BYOD
11 15 (1.13%) Replication
12 14 (1.05%) Distributed Systems
13 10 (0.75%) Video Conferencing
14 8 (0.60%) Data Centre
14 8 (0.60%) Driving Licence
14 8 (0.60%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 61 (4.59%) Linux
2 59 (4.44%) Windows
3 29 (2.18%) Unix
4 19 (1.43%) Android
5 14 (1.05%) Windows Server
6 10 (0.75%) Windows 10
7 9 (0.68%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.60%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.38%) VMS
10 2 (0.15%) AIX
10 2 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.15%) Solaris
11 1 (0.075%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.075%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 402 (30.27%) Agile
2 240 (18.07%) CI/CD
3 226 (17.02%) DevOps
4 215 (16.19%) Stakeholder Management
5 156 (11.75%) Continuous Improvement
6 154 (11.60%) Problem-Solving
7 142 (10.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 119 (8.96%) Scrum
9 113 (8.51%) Roadmaps
10 110 (8.28%) Customer Service
11 106 (7.98%) Decision-Making
12 104 (7.83%) Analytics
13 102 (7.68%) Test Automation
14 98 (7.38%) Microservices
14 98 (7.38%) Migration
15 96 (7.23%) Infrastructure as Code
16 78 (5.87%) Mentoring
17 76 (5.72%) User Research
18 74 (5.57%) Software Engineering
19 72 (5.42%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 144 (10.84%) Java
2 139 (10.47%) SQL
3 119 (8.96%) Python
4 78 (5.87%) JavaScript
5 44 (3.31%) TypeScript
6 37 (2.79%) Scala
7 28 (2.11%) PowerShell
8 26 (1.96%) C#
9 18 (1.36%) PL/SQL
10 17 (1.28%) Bash
11 15 (1.13%) Shell Script
12 13 (0.98%) C++
12 13 (0.98%) VB
13 11 (0.83%) T-SQL
13 11 (0.83%) VB6
13 11 (0.83%) VBA
14 8 (0.60%) ABAP
14 8 (0.60%) Kotlin
15 7 (0.53%) C
15 7 (0.53%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 446 (33.58%) Security Cleared
2 331 (24.92%) SC Cleared
3 63 (4.74%) Degree
4 20 (1.51%) AWS Certification
5 15 (1.13%) DV Cleared
6 14 (1.05%) Azure Certification
7 12 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (0.75%) A+ Certification
9 9 (0.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 8 (0.60%) PMI Certification
11 7 (0.53%) CTC Cleared
11 7 (0.53%) ISTQB
12 6 (0.45%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 6 (0.45%) CCNA
12 6 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
12 6 (0.45%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.38%) CompTIA CySA+
13 5 (0.38%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 5 (0.38%) NVQ Level 4
14 4 (0.30%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 79 (5.95%) Accessibility
2 78 (5.87%) Data Quality
3 70 (5.27%) QA
4 26 (1.96%) GDPR
5 23 (1.73%) PMO
6 22 (1.66%) WCAG
7 18 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 17 (1.28%) SLA
9 14 (1.05%) NIST
10 10 (0.75%) GRC
11 7 (0.53%) NCSC
12 4 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
12 4 (0.30%) PERC
13 3 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 3 (0.23%) Def Stans
13 3 (0.23%) GMP
13 3 (0.23%) GxP
13 3 (0.23%) HL7
13 3 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 17025
14 2 (0.15%) Solvency II
System Software
1 79 (5.95%) Docker
2 38 (2.86%) Active Directory
3 14 (1.05%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.38%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.15%) Firmware
7 2 (0.15%) vSphere
8 1 (0.075%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.075%) GPFS
8 1 (0.075%) IAG
8 1 (0.075%) NFS
8 1 (0.075%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.075%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.075%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 109 (8.21%) Terraform
2 84 (6.33%) Kubernetes
3 30 (2.26%) Grafana
4 16 (1.20%) Prometheus
5 15 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.05%) Kibana
7 12 (0.90%) Argo
8 10 (0.75%) SCCM
9 9 (0.68%) Ansible
10 7 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
11 6 (0.45%) Istio
12 5 (0.38%) SCOM
13 4 (0.30%) HAProxy
13 4 (0.30%) Packer
13 4 (0.30%) Puppet
14 3 (0.23%) Podman
15 2 (0.15%) Data Guard
15 2 (0.15%) Functional Safety
15 2 (0.15%) Karpenter
15 2 (0.15%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 160 (12.05%) Microsoft
2 118 (8.89%) SAP
3 70 (5.27%) Oracle
4 54 (4.07%) ServiceNow
5 36 (2.71%) Google
6 19 (1.43%) Databricks
7 18 (1.36%) BeyondTrust
8 16 (1.20%) Cisco
8 16 (1.20%) Splunk
9 14 (1.05%) VMware
10 12 (0.90%) Atlassian
11 9 (0.68%) CyberArk
12 8 (0.60%) IBM
12 8 (0.60%) Informatica
12 8 (0.60%) Talend
13 7 (0.53%) Qualtrics
13 7 (0.53%) Salesforce
13 7 (0.53%) Workday
14 6 (0.45%) Denodo
14 6 (0.45%) Okta