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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 99 162 267
Rank change year-on-year +63 +105 -42
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,416 568 340
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.64% 1.73% 0.88%
As % of the Qualifications category 8.45% 5.52% 2.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,000 378 215
10th Percentile £350 £309 £220
25th Percentile £414 £407 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £603 £575
90th Percentile £670 £713 £636
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £473
% change year-on-year -3.40% +5.82% -14.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 220 49 29
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £13.85
25th Percentile - £22.63 £20.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.50 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year +59.85% +27.37% -60.75%
75th Percentile £48.00 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.69 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £21.59
% change year-on-year +50.19% +35.57% -59.83%

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 16,749 10,283 11,572
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.19% 31.39% 29.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,197 6,349 7,284
10th Percentile £350 £291 £313
25th Percentile £437 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £519 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,261 829 769
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.98 £14.42
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.37
Median hourly rate £48.00 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +90.85% -44.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £72.54 £53.50 £67.02
90th Percentile £87.96 £72.75 £76.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +88.87% -48.21% -6.42%

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 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 27 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 27 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 +74 1,049 £492 -3.05% 383
UK excluding London +47 833 £483 -3.40% 373
Work from Home +64 545 £490 -2.00% 282
North of England +21 300 £481 +1.26% 96
London +59 295 £505 -1.94% 80
Midlands +47 220 £490 -6.31% 44
West Midlands +52 211 £490 -6.67% 33
North West +1 161 £500 +11.11% 58
South East -10 102 £483 -6.21% 81
North East +13 82 £452 -1.85% 24
South West +7 80 £525 +16.67% 79
Scotland +42 76 £400 -8.57% 43
Yorkshire -12 68 £475 -5.00% 15
East of England -9 33 £605 +72.73% 39
Northern Ireland +14 21 £450 +28.57% 5
Wales -5 12 £413 -28.26% 7
East Midlands -29 8 £613 +24.49% 11

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 60 (4.24%) Confluence
2 49 (3.46%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.34%) SharePoint Server
4 9 (0.64%) SAS
5 8 (0.56%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
6 7 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
7 5 (0.35%) WebLogic
8 4 (0.28%) IIS
8 4 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.28%) WordPress
9 3 (0.21%) CMS
10 2 (0.14%) Apache
10 2 (0.14%) CICS
10 2 (0.14%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.14%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.14%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.14%) LiveCycle
10 2 (0.14%) OpenROAD
11 1 (0.071%) Appian
Applications
1 42 (2.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (2.12%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.06%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.35%) Simulink
6 4 (0.28%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.21%) Windchill
8 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.14%) Navisworks
8 2 (0.14%) Trello
9 1 (0.071%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.071%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.071%) CATIA
9 1 (0.071%) InVision
9 1 (0.071%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.071%) ProjectWise
9 1 (0.071%) Revit
9 1 (0.071%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 49 (3.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.13%) SAP PSCD
3 14 (0.99%) SAP HR
4 13 (0.92%) SAP BRIM
5 12 (0.85%) SAP IBP
6 10 (0.71%) SAP FI
7 9 (0.64%) SAP Payroll
8 7 (0.49%) SAP FI-CA
9 6 (0.42%) SAP GRC
10 5 (0.35%) Shopify
11 4 (0.28%) SAP Convergent Charging
11 4 (0.28%) SAP EHS
11 4 (0.28%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.28%) SAP MDG
11 4 (0.28%) SAP PP
12 3 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
12 3 (0.21%) Primavera
12 3 (0.21%) SAP CO
12 3 (0.21%) SAP FI/CO
12 3 (0.21%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 252 (17.80%) Azure
2 250 (17.66%) AWS
3 83 (5.86%) Power Platform
4 63 (4.45%) GitHub
5 59 (4.17%) Azure DevOps
6 50 (3.53%) Serverless
7 49 (3.46%) Microsoft 365
8 46 (3.25%) Entra ID
8 46 (3.25%) GCP
9 44 (3.11%) Amazon S3
9 44 (3.11%) GitHub Actions
10 42 (2.97%) AWS Lambda
11 28 (1.98%) Power Automate
11 28 (1.98%) PowerApps
12 22 (1.55%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 21 (1.48%) AWS CloudFormation
13 21 (1.48%) SuccessFactors
14 20 (1.41%) Amazon ECS
15 17 (1.20%) Amazon EKS
16 16 (1.13%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.27%) DNS
2 12 (0.85%) WAN
3 11 (0.78%) Network Security
3 11 (0.78%) WebEx
4 8 (0.56%) Firewall
4 8 (0.56%) Intranet
4 8 (0.56%) SSL
5 7 (0.49%) HTTPS
5 7 (0.49%) MPLS
6 6 (0.42%) Cisco IPT
6 6 (0.42%) LAN
6 6 (0.42%) SDH
7 5 (0.35%) Ethernet
7 5 (0.35%) VPN
8 4 (0.28%) 5G
8 4 (0.28%) DHCP
8 4 (0.28%) Internet
8 4 (0.28%) Radio Access Network
8 4 (0.28%) Wireshark
9 3 (0.21%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (4.10%) Power BI
2 46 (3.25%) PostgreSQL
3 37 (2.61%) MongoDB
4 34 (2.40%) Metadata
5 31 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
6 29 (2.05%) SQL Server
7 25 (1.77%) Amazon RDS
8 22 (1.55%) NoSQL
9 21 (1.48%) MySQL
10 17 (1.20%) Data Lake
10 17 (1.20%) Relational Database
10 17 (1.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 14 (0.99%) Amazon Redshift
12 13 (0.92%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
13 12 (0.85%) Amazon Aurora
13 12 (0.85%) DynamoDB
14 10 (0.71%) Big Data
15 8 (0.56%) Redis
15 8 (0.56%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 103 (7.27%) JIRA
2 90 (6.36%) Git
3 71 (5.01%) GitLab
4 61 (4.31%) Jenkins
5 28 (1.98%) JUnit
6 26 (1.84%) Selenium
7 23 (1.62%) Maven
8 22 (1.55%) Cucumber
9 15 (1.06%) Postman
10 14 (0.99%) Cypress.io
10 14 (0.99%) SonarQube
10 14 (0.99%) Team Foundation Server
11 13 (0.92%) Mockito
12 12 (0.85%) Gatling
12 12 (0.85%) Visual Studio
13 10 (0.71%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 10 (0.71%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.64%) Bitbucket
15 7 (0.49%) Artifactory
15 7 (0.49%) Gradle
General
1 475 (33.55%) Social Skills
2 330 (23.31%) Public Sector
3 237 (16.74%) Finance
4 136 (9.60%) Organisational Skills
5 134 (9.46%) Legal
6 129 (9.11%) Analytical Skills
7 49 (3.46%) Aerospace
8 42 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
9 30 (2.12%) Influencing Skills
10 26 (1.84%) Manufacturing
11 24 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 23 (1.62%) Banking
13 22 (1.55%) Billing
13 22 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
14 20 (1.41%) Telecoms
15 14 (0.99%) Aviation
16 11 (0.78%) Local Government
17 10 (0.71%) Military
18 9 (0.64%) Law
18 9 (0.64%) Retail
Job Titles
1 198 (13.98%) Developer
2 156 (11.02%) Senior
3 151 (10.66%) Lead
4 131 (9.25%) Architect
5 99 (6.99%) Analyst
6 94 (6.64%) Consultant
7 66 (4.66%) Designer
8 62 (4.38%) Java Developer
9 55 (3.88%) SAP Consultant
10 46 (3.25%) DevOps Engineer
11 45 (3.18%) Data Engineer
12 38 (2.68%) Business Analyst
13 36 (2.54%) Solutions Architect
14 29 (2.05%) Delivery Manager
14 29 (2.05%) Product Manager
15 28 (1.98%) User Researcher
16 27 (1.91%) Data Architect
16 27 (1.91%) Lead Developer
17 25 (1.77%) Technical Architect
18 24 (1.69%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (7.56%) Terraform
2 82 (5.79%) REST
3 73 (5.16%) Spring
4 66 (4.66%) Spring Boot
5 56 (3.95%) HTML
6 54 (3.81%) React
7 51 (3.60%) RESTful
8 46 (3.25%) Node.js
9 45 (3.18%) CSS
10 35 (2.47%) Kafka
11 30 (2.12%) Playwright
12 27 (1.91%) .NET
13 19 (1.34%) OpenAPI
14 18 (1.27%) JSON
14 18 (1.27%) XML
15 16 (1.13%) Jest
15 16 (1.13%) OAuth
15 16 (1.13%) SOAP
16 15 (1.06%) BAPI
16 15 (1.06%) SPFx
Miscellaneous
1 119 (8.40%) Virtual Team
1 119 (8.40%) Web Conferencing
2 109 (7.70%) Podcast
3 86 (6.07%) Onboarding
4 76 (5.37%) Product Ownership
5 60 (4.24%) Cloud Native
6 23 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
7 21 (1.48%) Management Information System
8 20 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
8 20 (1.41%) NHS
9 18 (1.27%) Replication
9 18 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
10 17 (1.20%) BYOD
10 17 (1.20%) Mobile App
11 13 (0.92%) Algorithms
12 12 (0.85%) Distributed Systems
12 12 (0.85%) Driving Licence
13 10 (0.71%) Data Centre
13 10 (0.71%) Video Conferencing
14 9 (0.64%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 63 (4.45%) Windows
2 61 (4.31%) Linux
3 31 (2.19%) Unix
4 19 (1.34%) Android
5 16 (1.13%) Windows Server
6 11 (0.78%) Windows 10
7 9 (0.64%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.56%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.42%) VMS
10 3 (0.21%) AIX
11 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (0.14%) Solaris
12 1 (0.071%) Robot Operating System
12 1 (0.071%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 427 (30.16%) Agile
2 252 (17.80%) CI/CD
3 237 (16.74%) Stakeholder Management
4 224 (15.82%) DevOps
5 171 (12.08%) Continuous Improvement
6 160 (11.30%) Problem-Solving
7 150 (10.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 134 (9.46%) Customer Service
9 131 (9.25%) Scrum
10 113 (7.98%) Roadmaps
10 113 (7.98%) Test Automation
11 109 (7.70%) Decision-Making
12 105 (7.42%) Microservices
13 103 (7.27%) Analytics
14 99 (6.99%) Migration
15 96 (6.78%) Infrastructure as Code
16 88 (6.21%) Mentoring
17 76 (5.37%) Software Engineering
18 75 (5.30%) Digital Transformation Programme
18 75 (5.30%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 165 (11.65%) Java
2 146 (10.31%) SQL
3 114 (8.05%) Python
4 84 (5.93%) JavaScript
5 46 (3.25%) TypeScript
6 39 (2.75%) Scala
7 30 (2.12%) PowerShell
8 23 (1.62%) C#
9 20 (1.41%) PL/SQL
10 18 (1.27%) Bash
10 18 (1.27%) Shell Script
11 12 (0.85%) VB
12 11 (0.78%) T-SQL
12 11 (0.78%) VB6
12 11 (0.78%) VBA
13 10 (0.71%) C++
13 10 (0.71%) Kotlin
14 8 (0.56%) ABAP
15 7 (0.49%) MATLAB
15 7 (0.49%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 463 (32.70%) Security Cleared
2 347 (24.51%) SC Cleared
3 66 (4.66%) Degree
4 19 (1.34%) AWS Certification
5 15 (1.06%) Azure Certification
5 15 (1.06%) DV Cleared
5 15 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
6 11 (0.78%) A+ Certification
7 10 (0.71%) DBS Check
8 9 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (0.49%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 7 (0.49%) CCNA
9 7 (0.49%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (0.49%) ISTQB
10 6 (0.42%) CTC Cleared
10 6 (0.42%) PMI Certification
11 5 (0.35%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 5 (0.35%) Master's Degree
11 5 (0.35%) NVQ Level 4
12 4 (0.28%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (6.21%) Accessibility
2 85 (6.00%) QA
3 68 (4.80%) Data Quality
4 30 (2.12%) WCAG
5 29 (2.05%) GDPR
6 24 (1.69%) PMO
7 18 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 18 (1.27%) SLA
8 13 (0.92%) NIST
9 10 (0.71%) GRC
10 5 (0.35%) NCSC
11 4 (0.28%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 4 (0.28%) GMP
11 4 (0.28%) GxP
11 4 (0.28%) IEC 61508
11 4 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 4 (0.28%) PERC
12 3 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
12 3 (0.21%) Def Stans
12 3 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 88 (6.21%) Docker
2 39 (2.75%) Active Directory
3 14 (0.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
5 9 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.35%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.14%) Firmware
7 2 (0.14%) vSphere
8 1 (0.071%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.071%) GPFS
8 1 (0.071%) IAG
8 1 (0.071%) NFS
8 1 (0.071%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.071%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.071%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 98 (6.92%) Kubernetes
2 32 (2.26%) Grafana
3 18 (1.27%) Prometheus
4 17 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
5 16 (1.13%) Kibana
6 12 (0.85%) Argo
7 11 (0.78%) Ansible
7 11 (0.78%) SCCM
8 9 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
9 6 (0.42%) Istio
9 6 (0.42%) Packer
10 5 (0.35%) SCOM
11 4 (0.28%) Functional Safety
11 4 (0.28%) HAProxy
11 4 (0.28%) Puppet
12 3 (0.21%) Podman
13 2 (0.14%) Data Guard
13 2 (0.14%) Karpenter
13 2 (0.14%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 2 (0.14%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 169 (11.94%) Microsoft
2 127 (8.97%) SAP
3 79 (5.58%) Oracle
4 60 (4.24%) ServiceNow
5 37 (2.61%) Google
6 24 (1.69%) BeyondTrust
7 18 (1.27%) Databricks
8 16 (1.13%) Splunk
9 14 (0.99%) Atlassian
9 14 (0.99%) Cisco
9 14 (0.99%) VMware
10 12 (0.85%) Talend
11 10 (0.71%) CyberArk
12 9 (0.64%) Informatica
13 8 (0.56%) Dell
13 8 (0.56%) Salesforce
14 7 (0.49%) Apple
14 7 (0.49%) IBM
14 7 (0.49%) Okta
14 7 (0.49%) Workday