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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 158 265
Rank change year-on-year +69 +107 -33
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,618 611 344
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.96% 1.87% 0.91%
As % of the Qualifications category 9.34% 5.95% 3.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,177 426 198
10th Percentile £360 £313 £218
25th Percentile £430 £407 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% +1.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £617 £588
90th Percentile £671 £714 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £449
% change year-on-year -2.50% +11.36% -18.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 53 21
10th Percentile £19.50 £20.00 £18.50
25th Percentile £41.00 £22.63 £20.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year +50.19% +35.57% -62.72%
75th Percentile £48.00 £48.13 £57.50
90th Percentile £66.66 £71.41 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £33.50 £21.59
% change year-on-year +31.22% +55.16% -62.34%

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 17,321 10,276 11,062
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.71% 31.52% 29.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,524 6,433 6,726
10th Percentile £350 £282 £313
25th Percentile £445 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £634
90th Percentile £713 £709 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,394 866 615
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.87 £17.73
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -48.21% -9.54%
75th Percentile £72.25 £42.81 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.34
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -49.70% -4.21%

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 29 September 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 29 September 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 29 September 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 +81 1,233 £500 -2.72% 895
UK excluding London +54 936 £488 -2.50% 729
Work from Home +55 583 £500 +1.83% 623
London +93 365 £525 +4.17% 210
North of England +16 330 £490 -0.20% 131
Midlands +65 297 £490 -6.31% 121
West Midlands +69 285 £490 -6.67% 84
North West 0 173 £510 +8.74% 69
North East +20 98 £463 -5.13% 29
South East -21 97 £482 -6.32% 160
South West +1 78 £513 - 119
Yorkshire 0 77 £488 -2.50% 33
Scotland +17 70 £450 +2.86% 103
East of England +7 52 £578 +0.17% 102
Northern Ireland +15 20 - - 10
Wales -3 13 £419 - 4
East Midlands -28 11 £600 +21.95% 37

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 68 (4.20%) Confluence
2 40 (2.47%) SharePoint
3 15 (0.93%) SharePoint Server
4 11 (0.68%) CMS
5 10 (0.62%) Apache Spark
6 9 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
6 9 (0.56%) SAS
7 7 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 6 (0.37%) Headless CMS
8 6 (0.37%) WebLogic
9 5 (0.31%) WordPress
10 4 (0.25%) IIS
10 4 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.12%) Apache
11 2 (0.12%) CICS
11 2 (0.12%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.12%) Ethereum
11 2 (0.12%) Hyperledger
11 2 (0.12%) LiveCycle
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
Applications
1 41 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 31 (1.92%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (0.87%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.43%) Windchill
6 3 (0.19%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.12%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.12%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.062%) InVision
8 1 (0.062%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.062%) Revit
8 1 (0.062%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.062%) Sketch
8 1 (0.062%) Trello
Business Applications
1 62 (3.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.36%) SAP HR
3 20 (1.24%) SAP Payroll
4 17 (1.05%) SAP PSCD
5 15 (0.93%) SAP BRIM
6 11 (0.68%) SAP HCM
7 10 (0.62%) SAP FI
8 7 (0.43%) SAP MDG
8 7 (0.43%) SAP PP
9 6 (0.37%) SAP FI-CA
9 6 (0.37%) SAP GRC
9 6 (0.37%) SAP IBP
9 6 (0.37%) Teamcenter
10 5 (0.31%) Exchequer
10 5 (0.31%) SAP ERP
11 4 (0.25%) SAP Convergent Charging
11 4 (0.25%) SAP EHS
11 4 (0.25%) SAP Hybris
11 4 (0.25%) Shopify
12 3 (0.19%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 295 (18.23%) AWS
2 273 (16.87%) Azure
3 86 (5.32%) Power Platform
4 81 (5.01%) GitHub
5 63 (3.89%) Azure DevOps
6 58 (3.58%) GCP
7 55 (3.40%) Serverless
8 50 (3.09%) GitHub Actions
8 50 (3.09%) Microsoft 365
9 47 (2.90%) AWS Lambda
10 46 (2.84%) Amazon S3
11 45 (2.78%) Entra ID
12 26 (1.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 26 (1.61%) AWS CloudFormation
12 26 (1.61%) Power Automate
12 26 (1.61%) PowerApps
12 26 (1.61%) SuccessFactors
13 23 (1.42%) Amazon ECS
13 23 (1.42%) Azure Monitor
14 19 (1.17%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.05%) DNS
2 13 (0.80%) SSL
2 13 (0.80%) WAN
3 11 (0.68%) Firewall
4 10 (0.62%) Network Security
4 10 (0.62%) WebEx
5 9 (0.56%) Cisco IPT
6 8 (0.49%) Intranet
7 7 (0.43%) 5G
7 7 (0.43%) Radio Access Network
7 7 (0.43%) VPN
7 7 (0.43%) Wireshark
8 6 (0.37%) Ethernet
8 6 (0.37%) LAN
8 6 (0.37%) MPLS
9 5 (0.31%) 3GPP
9 5 (0.31%) HTTP
9 5 (0.31%) NGN
9 5 (0.31%) TCP/IP
9 5 (0.31%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (3.58%) Power BI
2 53 (3.28%) MongoDB
3 49 (3.03%) PostgreSQL
4 45 (2.78%) Metadata
5 38 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (2.04%) SQL Server
7 26 (1.61%) Amazon RDS
8 25 (1.55%) MySQL
9 24 (1.48%) NoSQL
10 22 (1.36%) Data Lake
11 21 (1.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 19 (1.17%) Oracle Database
12 19 (1.17%) Relational Database
13 16 (0.99%) DynamoDB
14 14 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
15 13 (0.80%) Amazon Aurora
16 11 (0.68%) Amazon Athena
17 10 (0.62%) Big Data
17 10 (0.62%) Redis
18 8 (0.49%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 119 (7.35%) Git
2 118 (7.29%) JIRA
3 105 (6.49%) GitLab
4 62 (3.83%) Jenkins
5 44 (2.72%) JUnit
6 37 (2.29%) Selenium
7 34 (2.10%) Cucumber
8 29 (1.79%) Maven
9 23 (1.42%) SonarQube
10 21 (1.30%) Gatling
11 20 (1.24%) Mockito
12 19 (1.17%) Postman
13 14 (0.87%) Cypress.io
13 14 (0.87%) Team Foundation Server
13 14 (0.87%) Visual Studio
14 10 (0.62%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 10 (0.62%) REST Assured
15 9 (0.56%) Rational DOORS
16 8 (0.49%) Bitbucket
17 7 (0.43%) Gradle
General
1 552 (34.12%) Social Skills
2 417 (25.77%) Public Sector
3 258 (15.95%) Finance
4 157 (9.70%) Analytical Skills
5 139 (8.59%) Legal
5 139 (8.59%) Organisational Skills
6 47 (2.90%) Aerospace
7 42 (2.60%) Documentation Skills
8 39 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
9 35 (2.16%) Manufacturing
10 33 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 26 (1.61%) Telecoms
12 25 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
13 22 (1.36%) Billing
14 21 (1.30%) Banking
15 16 (0.99%) Aviation
16 15 (0.93%) Military
17 13 (0.80%) Local Government
18 12 (0.74%) Avionics
19 11 (0.68%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 227 (14.03%) Developer
2 186 (11.50%) Architect
3 185 (11.43%) Senior
4 163 (10.07%) Lead
5 109 (6.74%) Consultant
6 107 (6.61%) Analyst
7 76 (4.70%) Java Developer
8 62 (3.83%) Designer
8 62 (3.83%) SAP Consultant
9 57 (3.52%) Data Engineer
10 52 (3.21%) Solutions Architect
11 51 (3.15%) Technical Architect
12 49 (3.03%) DevOps Engineer
13 46 (2.84%) Business Analyst
14 41 (2.53%) Delivery Manager
15 36 (2.22%) Data Architect
16 35 (2.16%) Product Manager
17 32 (1.98%) Lead Developer
18 30 (1.85%) Administrator
19 29 (1.79%) User Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (7.23%) Terraform
2 98 (6.06%) REST
2 98 (6.06%) Spring
3 79 (4.88%) Spring Boot
4 61 (3.77%) RESTful
5 57 (3.52%) React
6 55 (3.40%) Node.js
7 52 (3.21%) HTML
8 47 (2.90%) Playwright
9 42 (2.60%) Kafka
10 40 (2.47%) CSS
11 37 (2.29%) OpenAPI
12 27 (1.67%) .NET
12 27 (1.67%) JSON
13 26 (1.61%) OAuth
13 26 (1.61%) Swagger
14 24 (1.48%) XML
15 23 (1.42%) OAuth2
16 21 (1.30%) Middleware
17 20 (1.24%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 120 (7.42%) Virtual Team
2 119 (7.35%) Web Conferencing
3 112 (6.92%) Onboarding
4 109 (6.74%) Podcast
5 85 (5.25%) Product Ownership
6 77 (4.76%) Cloud Native
7 36 (2.22%) Enterprise Software
8 25 (1.55%) Replication
9 23 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
10 22 (1.36%) Management Information System
10 22 (1.36%) Mobile App
10 22 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
11 19 (1.17%) NHS
12 18 (1.11%) BYOD
12 18 (1.11%) Distributed Systems
13 16 (0.99%) Driving Licence
14 13 (0.80%) Low-Code
14 13 (0.80%) Taxonomies
15 12 (0.74%) AI Agents
16 11 (0.68%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 74 (4.57%) Windows
2 59 (3.65%) Linux
3 34 (2.10%) Unix
4 21 (1.30%) Android
5 20 (1.24%) Windows Server
6 12 (0.74%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.62%) VMS
7 10 (0.62%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.49%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.25%) AIX
10 2 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 1 (0.062%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.062%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.062%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.062%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 515 (31.83%) Agile
2 325 (20.09%) Stakeholder Management
3 289 (17.86%) CI/CD
4 246 (15.20%) DevOps
5 209 (12.92%) Continuous Improvement
6 192 (11.87%) Problem-Solving
7 172 (10.63%) Scrum
8 170 (10.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 142 (8.78%) Test Automation
10 137 (8.47%) Customer Service
11 134 (8.28%) Microservices
12 132 (8.16%) Decision-Making
13 130 (8.03%) Roadmaps
14 120 (7.42%) Migration
15 118 (7.29%) Analytics
16 115 (7.11%) Infrastructure as Code
17 111 (6.86%) AI
18 107 (6.61%) Digital Transformation Programme
19 106 (6.55%) Mentoring
20 88 (5.44%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 206 (12.73%) Java
2 172 (10.63%) SQL
3 132 (8.16%) Python
4 88 (5.44%) JavaScript
5 43 (2.66%) TypeScript
6 39 (2.41%) PowerShell
7 38 (2.35%) Scala
8 26 (1.61%) Shell Script
9 24 (1.48%) Bash
9 24 (1.48%) C#
10 21 (1.30%) PL/SQL
11 14 (0.87%) ABAP
11 14 (0.87%) T-SQL
12 12 (0.74%) VB
13 11 (0.68%) VB6
13 11 (0.68%) VBA
14 9 (0.56%) VBScript
15 8 (0.49%) C++
15 8 (0.49%) Kotlin
15 8 (0.49%) R
Qualifications
1 534 (33.00%) Security Cleared
2 414 (25.59%) SC Cleared
3 78 (4.82%) Degree
4 23 (1.42%) AWS Certification
5 20 (1.24%) Azure Certification
6 18 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
7 13 (0.80%) DBS Check
7 13 (0.80%) DV Cleared
8 11 (0.68%) A+ Certification
9 9 (0.56%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 9 (0.56%) PMI Certification
10 8 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 7 (0.43%) HNC
11 7 (0.43%) HND
11 7 (0.43%) ISTQB
11 7 (0.43%) Master's Degree
12 6 (0.37%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 6 (0.37%) CTC Cleared
12 6 (0.37%) PhD
13 5 (0.31%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (6.98%) Accessibility
2 110 (6.80%) QA
3 69 (4.26%) Data Quality
4 47 (2.90%) WCAG
5 29 (1.79%) GDPR
6 20 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 20 (1.24%) PMO
7 16 (0.99%) SLA
8 13 (0.80%) NIST
9 10 (0.62%) GRC
10 8 (0.49%) NCSC
11 7 (0.43%) IEC 61508
12 5 (0.31%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 5 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (0.31%) GMP
12 5 (0.31%) GxP
12 5 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 17025
12 5 (0.31%) PERC
13 3 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
13 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 109 (6.74%) Docker
2 37 (2.29%) Active Directory
3 14 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
4 9 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (0.49%) VMware Infrastructure
6 5 (0.31%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.19%) Firmware
8 1 (0.062%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.062%) IAG
8 1 (0.062%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 123 (7.60%) Kubernetes
2 40 (2.47%) Grafana
3 25 (1.55%) Kibana
4 24 (1.48%) Prometheus
5 20 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (0.74%) Ansible
6 12 (0.74%) SCCM
7 10 (0.62%) Argo
8 9 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (0.56%) SCOM
9 7 (0.43%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.25%) Istio
10 4 (0.25%) Packer
10 4 (0.25%) Podman
10 4 (0.25%) Puppet
11 3 (0.19%) HAProxy
12 2 (0.12%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle RMAN
12 2 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 186 (11.50%) Microsoft
2 152 (9.39%) SAP
3 98 (6.06%) Oracle
4 67 (4.14%) ServiceNow
5 43 (2.66%) Google
6 28 (1.73%) BeyondTrust
7 20 (1.24%) Databricks
8 19 (1.17%) Splunk
9 16 (0.99%) Atlassian
10 15 (0.93%) Talend
11 13 (0.80%) CyberArk
11 13 (0.80%) IBM
12 12 (0.74%) Cisco
12 12 (0.74%) Salesforce
13 11 (0.68%) Dell
14 10 (0.62%) Informatica
14 10 (0.62%) Okta
14 10 (0.62%) Workday
15 9 (0.56%) MuleSoft
16 8 (0.49%) Blue Prism