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 27 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 267 224
Rank change year-on-year +122 -43 -32
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 737 289 468
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 0.93% 1.05%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.70% 3.11% 3.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 561 157 357
10th Percentile £315 £220 £350
25th Percentile £400 £395 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -6.98% -4.23%
75th Percentile £588 £590 £638
90th Percentile £688 £707 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £570
% change year-on-year -10.00% -12.28% +3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 13 36
10th Percentile £14.61 £20.90 £14.94
25th Percentile £24.44 £36.00 £21.61
Median hourly rate £33.50 £45.00 £42.64
Median % change year-on-year -25.56% +5.54% -11.32%
75th Percentile £56.69 £65.00 £60.63
90th Percentile £72.98 £67.50 £84.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £45.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -25.56% - -9.77%

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 12,923 9,296 13,510
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.95% 29.90% 30.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,547 5,578 8,424
10th Percentile £315 £300 £298
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.24% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £631 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £536
% change year-on-year - -6.72% +2.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 948 456 909
10th Percentile £15.83 £19.00 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.10 £24.18 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.51% -17.89% +5.56%
75th Percentile £62.50 £66.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.35 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -40.82% -10.53% +5.56%

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 27 January 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 27 January 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 27 January 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 +95 516 £481 -3.75% 232
UK excluding London +73 376 £450 -10.00% 223
Work from Home +97 296 £450 -13.04% 125
North of England +21 180 £460 -8.00% 42
London +61 158 £513 -7.52% 41
North West +38 129 £426 -20.82% 29
Midlands +6 84 £430 -4.02% 20
West Midlands +2 58 £450 +0.45% 17
Yorkshire -32 37 £481 +118.75% 3
South West +3 36 £550 -6.78% 53
South East -21 36 £423 -17.96% 87
East Midlands 0 26 £394 - 3
Scotland +32 24 £415 -34.90% 6
East of England -11 19 £450 -5.26% 49
North East -4 16 £488 +21.12% 10
Northern Ireland - 6 £375 -
Wales -4 4 £458 +108.00% 2

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 37 (5.02%) Confluence
2 12 (1.63%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.49%) nginx
4 6 (0.81%) Apache
4 6 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (0.54%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.54%) ArcGIS
5 4 (0.54%) CMS
5 4 (0.54%) SugarCRM
6 3 (0.41%) MTS
6 3 (0.41%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.14%) Camunda
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%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 16 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.63%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.68%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.41%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.41%) ProjectWise
6 3 (0.41%) Trello
7 2 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.14%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.14%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.14%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.14%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 59 (8.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.90%) SAP EHS
3 9 (1.22%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (1.22%) SAP Travel Management
4 6 (0.81%) SAP VC
5 5 (0.68%) Oracle EBS R12
5 5 (0.68%) SAP QM
6 4 (0.54%) Oracle Financials
6 4 (0.54%) SAP BRIM
6 4 (0.54%) SAP EWM
6 4 (0.54%) SAP Hybris
6 4 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
6 4 (0.54%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 3 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.41%) SAP HCM
7 3 (0.41%) SAP IBP
7 3 (0.41%) SAP MM
7 3 (0.41%) SAP Payroll
7 3 (0.41%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 127 (17.23%) AWS
2 104 (14.11%) Azure
3 37 (5.02%) Power Platform
4 36 (4.88%) Azure DevOps
5 34 (4.61%) Serverless
6 32 (4.34%) GitHub
7 29 (3.93%) GCP
8 22 (2.99%) AWS CloudFormation
8 22 (2.99%) GitHub Actions
9 17 (2.31%) Amazon SQS
9 17 (2.31%) AWS Lambda
10 16 (2.17%) Microsoft 365
11 13 (1.76%) Amazon EC2
11 13 (1.76%) Power Automate
12 12 (1.63%) Amazon EKS
13 10 (1.36%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 10 (1.36%) SuccessFactors
14 9 (1.22%) Entra ID
14 9 (1.22%) PowerApps
15 8 (1.09%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.71%) SSH
2 14 (1.90%) Firewall
3 11 (1.49%) Network Security
4 9 (1.22%) WAN
5 8 (1.09%) DNS
6 7 (0.95%) LAN
6 7 (0.95%) MPLS
6 7 (0.95%) Reverse Proxy
6 7 (0.95%) VPN
7 6 (0.81%) SAN
8 4 (0.54%) Modbus
8 4 (0.54%) SDH
8 4 (0.54%) VSAN
9 3 (0.41%) 5G
9 3 (0.41%) DHCP
9 3 (0.41%) Intrusion Detection
9 3 (0.41%) Radio Access Network
9 3 (0.41%) Unified Communications
9 3 (0.41%) VoIP
9 3 (0.41%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (3.66%) Power BI
2 17 (2.31%) Metadata
2 17 (2.31%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (2.04%) SQL Server
4 13 (1.76%) MongoDB
5 12 (1.63%) Data Warehouse
5 12 (1.63%) NoSQL
6 11 (1.49%) Redis
7 9 (1.22%) BigQuery
7 9 (1.22%) Data Lake
7 9 (1.22%) Tableau
8 8 (1.09%) MySQL
8 8 (1.09%) Relational Database
9 7 (0.95%) DocumentDB
10 6 (0.81%) Geospatial Data
10 6 (0.81%) GIS
11 5 (0.68%) DynamoDB
12 4 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
12 4 (0.54%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 66 (8.96%) Git
1 66 (8.96%) JIRA
2 41 (5.56%) GitLab
3 31 (4.21%) Jenkins
4 10 (1.36%) SonarQube
5 9 (1.22%) Mockito
6 8 (1.09%) JUnit
7 7 (0.95%) Selenium
8 6 (0.81%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.68%) Android Studio
9 5 (0.68%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.54%) Postman
11 3 (0.41%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.41%) Gradle
11 3 (0.41%) JMeter
11 3 (0.41%) Maven
11 3 (0.41%) Toad
12 2 (0.27%) ERwin
12 2 (0.27%) PVCS
12 2 (0.27%) WebDriver
General
1 263 (35.69%) Social Skills
2 141 (19.13%) Public Sector
3 111 (15.06%) Finance
4 67 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (5.02%) Banking
6 21 (2.85%) Telecoms
7 18 (2.44%) Manufacturing
8 17 (2.31%) Aerospace
9 16 (2.17%) Organisational Skills
10 13 (1.76%) Documentation Skills
11 11 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
12 10 (1.36%) Presentation Skills
13 9 (1.22%) Legal
14 8 (1.09%) Billing
14 8 (1.09%) Local Government
15 7 (0.95%) Marketing
15 7 (0.95%) Retail
16 5 (0.68%) Aviation
16 5 (0.68%) Law
17 4 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 141 (19.13%) Developer
2 84 (11.40%) Senior
3 77 (10.45%) Analyst
4 73 (9.91%) Consultant
5 66 (8.96%) Architect
6 60 (8.14%) Lead
7 43 (5.83%) Java Developer
8 38 (5.16%) SAP Consultant
9 32 (4.34%) Business Analyst
10 28 (3.80%) Senior Developer
11 23 (3.12%) Solutions Architect
12 22 (2.99%) Designer
13 21 (2.85%) Management Consultant
14 20 (2.71%) Software Developer
15 18 (2.44%) DevOps Engineer
16 17 (2.31%) Project Manager
17 15 (2.04%) Administrator
17 15 (2.04%) Azure Engineer
17 15 (2.04%) Lead Developer
18 14 (1.90%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 61 (8.28%) Node.js
2 31 (4.21%) Kafka
2 31 (4.21%) REST
3 30 (4.07%) React
4 29 (3.93%) HTML
5 25 (3.39%) JSON
5 25 (3.39%) RESTful
6 23 (3.12%) CSS
7 20 (2.71%) Spring
8 17 (2.31%) Spring Boot
9 15 (2.04%) .NET
9 15 (2.04%) XML
10 13 (1.76%) SAP Fiori
11 12 (1.63%) Middleware
11 12 (1.63%) SOAP
12 11 (1.49%) Jest
12 11 (1.49%) OAuth
12 11 (1.49%) SAP TM
13 10 (1.36%) AngularJS
13 10 (1.36%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 41 (5.56%) Onboarding
2 40 (5.43%) Product Ownership
3 32 (4.34%) Cloud Native
4 24 (3.26%) Management Information System
5 15 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
6 14 (1.90%) Security Posture
7 10 (1.36%) NHS
7 10 (1.36%) Public Cloud
8 9 (1.22%) Data Centre
8 9 (1.22%) SCADA
9 8 (1.09%) Distributed Systems
9 8 (1.09%) Driving Licence
9 8 (1.09%) Operational Technology
10 7 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
10 7 (0.95%) Linux Command Line
11 6 (0.81%) Cyber Threat
11 6 (0.81%) Low-Code
11 6 (0.81%) Mobile App
11 6 (0.81%) Replication
11 6 (0.81%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 81 (10.99%) Linux
2 33 (4.48%) Windows
3 22 (2.99%) Unix
4 9 (1.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.09%) Windows Server
6 7 (0.95%) Android
7 6 (0.81%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.41%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.27%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.27%) Debian
9 2 (0.27%) VMS
10 1 (0.14%) CentOS
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.14%) VME
10 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 241 (32.70%) Agile
2 140 (19.00%) CI/CD
3 132 (17.91%) Problem-Solving
4 117 (15.88%) Stakeholder Management
5 109 (14.79%) DevOps
6 79 (10.72%) Continuous Improvement
7 76 (10.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 60 (8.14%) Test Automation
9 57 (7.73%) Scrum
10 56 (7.60%) Microservices
10 56 (7.60%) Roadmaps
11 53 (7.19%) Validation
12 51 (6.92%) Infrastructure as Code
12 51 (6.92%) Migration
13 50 (6.78%) AI
14 48 (6.51%) Analytics
15 47 (6.38%) Data Modelling
16 46 (6.24%) User Research
17 45 (6.11%) Containerisation
18 42 (5.70%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 90 (12.21%) Python
2 87 (11.80%) Java
3 69 (9.36%) SQL
4 43 (5.83%) JavaScript
5 30 (4.07%) TypeScript
6 22 (2.99%) Shell Script
7 16 (2.17%) Bash
8 14 (1.90%) PowerShell
9 12 (1.63%) Ruby
9 12 (1.63%) Scala
10 11 (1.49%) C#
11 9 (1.22%) ABAP
11 9 (1.22%) PHP
12 8 (1.09%) PL/SQL
13 7 (0.95%) Bicep
14 6 (0.81%) R
15 5 (0.68%) COBOL
16 4 (0.54%) Kotlin
17 3 (0.41%) C
17 3 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 287 (38.94%) Security Cleared
2 214 (29.04%) SC Cleared
3 71 (9.63%) Degree
4 30 (4.07%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (2.71%) Master's Degree
6 17 (2.31%) DV Cleared
7 10 (1.36%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 8 (1.09%) DBS Check
9 5 (0.68%) AWS Certification
9 5 (0.68%) Azure Certification
9 5 (0.68%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (0.68%) ISTQB
9 5 (0.68%) PMI Certification
9 5 (0.68%) PMP
10 4 (0.54%) CompTIA Security+
10 4 (0.54%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 3 (0.41%) CompTIA CySA+
11 3 (0.41%) GIAC
11 3 (0.41%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 3 (0.41%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (6.24%) Accessibility
2 35 (4.75%) QA
3 25 (3.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 23 (3.12%) Data Quality
5 17 (2.31%) GRC
6 16 (2.17%) NIST
7 13 (1.76%) SLA
7 13 (1.76%) WCAG
8 12 (1.63%) GDPR
9 10 (1.36%) Def Stans
10 8 (1.09%) NCSC
11 7 (0.95%) PMO
12 6 (0.81%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.81%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.81%) PSD2
13 5 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 4 (0.54%) IFRS
14 4 (0.54%) IFRS 17
14 4 (0.54%) SEPA
15 3 (0.41%) P3O
System Software
1 55 (7.46%) Docker
2 13 (1.76%) Active Directory
3 12 (1.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.95%) vSphere
5 5 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.54%) GPFS
6 4 (0.54%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.54%) NFS
6 4 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.27%) ACF2
7 2 (0.27%) QEMU
7 2 (0.27%) RACF
7 2 (0.27%) Time Sharing Option
7 2 (0.27%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.14%) HDFS
8 1 (0.14%) KVM
8 1 (0.14%) Postfix
8 1 (0.14%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 58 (7.87%) Terraform
2 52 (7.06%) Kubernetes
3 15 (2.04%) Ansible
3 15 (2.04%) Grafana
4 13 (1.76%) Prometheus
5 7 (0.95%) vRealize
6 6 (0.81%) EMC NetWorker
6 6 (0.81%) EMC VPLEX
6 6 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (0.68%) VxRail
8 4 (0.54%) Kibana
9 3 (0.41%) Argo
9 3 (0.41%) Istio
9 3 (0.41%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.41%) Packer
9 3 (0.41%) PingFederate
9 3 (0.41%) Podman
10 2 (0.27%) CA Endevor
10 2 (0.27%) Puppet
10 2 (0.27%) SCCM
Vendors
1 98 (13.30%) SAP
2 77 (10.45%) Microsoft
3 45 (6.11%) Oracle
4 24 (3.26%) Cisco
5 20 (2.71%) VMware
6 16 (2.17%) Google
7 13 (1.76%) Databricks
7 13 (1.76%) ServiceNow
8 12 (1.63%) IBM
9 10 (1.36%) Dell
10 9 (1.22%) Adobe
11 8 (1.09%) Red Hat
12 6 (0.81%) AppDynamics
12 6 (0.81%) Atlassian
12 6 (0.81%) Brocade
12 6 (0.81%) EMC
12 6 (0.81%) Foundry
12 6 (0.81%) Isilon
12 6 (0.81%) Salesforce
13 5 (0.68%) webMethods