Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 29 July 2021

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for BPSS Clearance qualifications. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months to 29 July 2021 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) Clearance
UK
6 months to
29 Jul 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 288 239 358
Rank change year-on-year -49 +119 +40
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 630 406 641
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.88% 1.11% 0.70%
As % of the Qualifications category 4.60% 4.54% 3.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 493 306 457
10th Percentile £350 £325 £352
25th Percentile £424 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £588 £600 £575
90th Percentile £659 £655 £641
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £495 £500
% change year-on-year +1.01% -1.00% +12.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 34 33
10th Percentile £15.20 £15.48 £16.25
25th Percentile £20.44 £18.50 £20.50
Median hourly rate £38.50 £24.18 £26.80
Median % change year-on-year +59.24% -9.79% -5.92%
75th Percentile £50.63 £31.39 £47.00
90th Percentile £53.75 £40.99 £57.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £23.36 £26.80
% change year-on-year +71.27% -12.85% +9.16%

BPSS Clearance is in the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for academic qualifications or professional certifications.

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK
Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 13,703 8,952 17,496
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.09% 24.37% 19.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,866 5,882 10,950
10th Percentile £310 £288 £263
25th Percentile £402 £393 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - +5.56%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £575
90th Percentile £675 £644 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £468 £463 £448
% change year-on-year +1.08% +3.35% +8.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 678 342 766
10th Percentile £12.30 £15.75 £12.93
25th Percentile £16.25 £19.43 £17.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £31.56 £35.28
Median % change year-on-year -8.10% -10.56% +60.38%
75th Percentile £51.48 £48.75 £47.50
90th Percentile £63.86 £59.98 £55.42
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £27.50 £36.00
% change year-on-year - -23.61% +60.00%

BPSS Clearance
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing BPSS Clearance as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for BPSS Clearance in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing BPSS Clearance.

Daily rate trend for BPSS Clearance in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing BPSS Clearance over the 6 months to 29 July 2021.

Daily rate histogram for BPSS Clearance in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing BPSS Clearance.

Hourly rate trend for BPSS Clearance in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing BPSS Clearance over the 6 months to 29 July 2021.

Hourly rate histogram for BPSS Clearance in the UK

BPSS Clearance
Top 16 Contract 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 July 2021. 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
Job
Vacancies
England -78 412 £500 -2.91% 69
UK excluding London -32 350 £500 +1.01% 65
Work from Home -96 280 £525 +16.67% 11
North of England -3 149 £511 -2.62% 17
London -140 104 £493 -17.92% 11
North West -18 75 £500 +1.01% 10
South West +10 58 £525 +8.25% 18
Yorkshire +2 54 £550 +1.85% 5
Scotland -48 44 £400 -9.86% 7
South East -41 42 £530 +17.78% 8
Midlands -44 34 £414 +7.07% 10
West Midlands -36 23 £450 +18.42% 8
North East +4 22 £600 +12.68% 2
Wales -1 15 £463 -15.91%
East Midlands -15 11 £190 -63.64% 2
East of England -13 9 £408 -13.76% 5

For the 6 months to 29 July 2021, IT contractor jobs citing BPSS Clearance also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for BPSS Clearance.

1 303 (48.10%) Security Cleared
2 252 (40.00%) Agile Software Development
3 173 (27.46%) Public Sector
4 158 (25.08%) SC Cleared
5 122 (19.37%) Disclosure Scotland
6 113 (17.94%) Social Skills
7 95 (15.08%) Azure
8 83 (13.17%) DevOps
9 82 (13.02%) AWS
10 73 (11.59%) Scrum
11 72 (11.43%) Java
12 69 (10.95%) SQL
13 66 (10.48%) User Research
14 62 (9.84%) Python
15 61 (9.68%) Microsoft
16 55 (8.73%) Analytics
17 54 (8.57%) Stakeholder Management
18 53 (8.41%) JIRA
19 52 (8.25%) Decision-Making
20 49 (7.78%) Migration
20 49 (7.78%) Test Automation
20 49 (7.78%) Docker
21 46 (7.30%) Analytical Skills
21 46 (7.30%) Project Management
22 44 (6.98%) Continuous Improvement
23 42 (6.67%) Git (software)
23 42 (6.67%) Kubernetes
24 41 (6.51%) JavaScript
24 41 (6.51%) Problem-Solving
24 41 (6.51%) Project Delivery

BPSS Clearance
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 31 (4.92%) Confluence
2 12 (1.90%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.75%) Apache
4 10 (1.59%) Apache Spark
5 7 (1.11%) Elasticsearch
6 6 (0.95%) JBoss
7 5 (0.79%) CMS
7 5 (0.79%) Oracle Application Server
8 4 (0.63%) SAS
9 3 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.48%) Drupal
9 3 (0.48%) nginx
9 3 (0.48%) Skype for Business
9 3 (0.48%) Tomcat
9 3 (0.48%) WebLogic
10 2 (0.32%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.32%) GeoServer
10 2 (0.32%) IIS
10 2 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.32%) WebSphere
Applications
1 25 (3.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.11%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.32%) GNU Octave
6 1 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.16%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.16%) Figma
6 1 (0.16%) InDesign
6 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.16%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.16%) Simulink
6 1 (0.16%) SPSS
6 1 (0.16%) Stata
Business Applications
1 4 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.16%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.16%) Maximo
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.16%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.16%) Sage CRM
3 1 (0.16%) SAP CO
3 1 (0.16%) SAP FI
3 1 (0.16%) SAP FI/CO
3 1 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 95 (15.08%) Azure
2 82 (13.02%) AWS
3 32 (5.08%) Power Platform
4 24 (3.81%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (3.17%) GitHub
5 20 (3.17%) Serverless
6 17 (2.70%) PaaS
7 13 (2.06%) GCP
8 12 (1.90%) Amazon S3
9 10 (1.59%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (1.59%) Dynamics 365
10 9 (1.43%) SaaS
11 8 (1.27%) Amazon EKS
11 8 (1.27%) PowerApps
12 7 (1.11%) AWS Fargate
13 6 (0.95%) Amazon SQS
13 6 (0.95%) Azure Data Factory
14 5 (0.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 5 (0.79%) AWS CloudTrail
14 5 (0.79%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 15 (2.38%) Firewall
2 10 (1.59%) LAN
2 10 (1.59%) WAN
3 8 (1.27%) DNS
3 8 (1.27%) Internet
3 8 (1.27%) Unified Communications
3 8 (1.27%) VPN
4 7 (1.11%) SSL
5 6 (0.95%) TCP/IP
5 6 (0.95%) Wireless
6 5 (0.79%) Intranet
6 5 (0.79%) Network Security
6 5 (0.79%) VLAN
7 4 (0.63%) BGP
7 4 (0.63%) DHCP
7 4 (0.63%) Ethernet
7 4 (0.63%) IPsec
7 4 (0.63%) MPLS
7 4 (0.63%) OSPF
8 3 (0.48%) PPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (3.97%) PostgreSQL
1 25 (3.97%) Relational Database
2 23 (3.65%) Power BI
3 15 (2.38%) MongoDB
3 15 (2.38%) SQL Server
4 14 (2.22%) MySQL
5 12 (1.90%) NoSQL
6 11 (1.75%) Hadoop
6 11 (1.75%) Oracle Database
7 9 (1.43%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 9 (1.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 8 (1.27%) MS Access
9 7 (1.11%) Big Data
9 7 (1.11%) Metadata
10 6 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
10 6 (0.95%) Data Lake
10 6 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
10 6 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
11 5 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
11 5 (0.79%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 53 (8.41%) JIRA
2 42 (6.67%) Git (software)
3 34 (5.40%) Jenkins
4 22 (3.49%) GitLab
5 20 (3.17%) Selenium
6 16 (2.54%) JUnit
7 14 (2.22%) Cucumber
7 14 (2.22%) Maven
8 13 (2.06%) JMeter
9 8 (1.27%) Cypress.io
10 7 (1.11%) Jasmine
10 7 (1.11%) Postman
10 7 (1.11%) SonarQube
10 7 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (1.11%) WebDriver
11 6 (0.95%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.95%) Chocolatey
11 6 (0.95%) Gatling
11 6 (0.95%) Oracle Forms
12 5 (0.79%) Oracle APEX
General
1 173 (27.46%) Public Sector
2 113 (17.94%) Social Skills
3 46 (7.30%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (6.35%) Finance
5 21 (3.33%) Influencing Skills
6 14 (2.22%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (1.43%) Legal
7 9 (1.43%) Publishing
7 9 (1.43%) Telecoms
8 8 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (0.95%) Police
9 6 (0.95%) Welsh Language
10 4 (0.63%) Banking
10 4 (0.63%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (0.48%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.48%) Local Government
11 3 (0.48%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.48%) Marketing
11 3 (0.48%) Military
12 2 (0.32%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 106 (16.83%) Developer
2 70 (11.11%) Analyst
3 46 (7.30%) Architect
4 32 (5.08%) DevOps Engineer
5 31 (4.92%) Designer
6 28 (4.44%) User Researcher
7 27 (4.29%) Project Manager
8 24 (3.81%) Delivery Manager
9 21 (3.33%) Business Analyst
9 21 (3.33%) Java Developer
10 20 (3.17%) AWS Engineer
11 19 (3.02%) Data Engineer
12 17 (2.70%) Consultant
13 14 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
13 14 (2.22%) Technical Architect
14 13 (2.06%) AWS DevOps
14 13 (2.06%) AWS DevOps Engineer
14 13 (2.06%) Content Designer
14 13 (2.06%) Senior Manager
14 13 (2.06%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (4.60%) Node.js
2 25 (3.97%) HTML
2 25 (3.97%) REST
3 22 (3.49%) .NET
4 20 (3.17%) CSS
5 18 (2.86%) AngularJS
5 18 (2.86%) RESTful
6 17 (2.70%) Spring Boot
7 16 (2.54%) Spring
8 13 (2.06%) React
8 13 (2.06%) Web Services
9 11 (1.75%) XML
10 10 (1.59%) JAX-RS
10 10 (1.59%) JSON
11 9 (1.43%) ASP.NET
11 9 (1.43%) Nunjucks
12 8 (1.27%) Gherkin
12 8 (1.27%) Jest
13 7 (1.11%) Dropwizard
13 7 (1.11%) Express
Miscellaneous
1 35 (5.56%) NHS
1 35 (5.56%) User Experience
2 18 (2.86%) Management Information System
3 11 (1.75%) Data Centre
4 9 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
5 8 (1.27%) Legacy Applications
5 8 (1.27%) Public Cloud
6 6 (0.95%) Cloud Native
6 6 (0.95%) Enterprise Cloud
6 6 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (0.95%) Video Conferencing
7 5 (0.79%) Cyberthreat
7 5 (0.79%) IVR
8 4 (0.63%) CCTV
8 4 (0.63%) LIMS
9 3 (0.48%) Digital Signage
9 3 (0.48%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (0.48%) Mobile App
9 3 (0.48%) Security Operations Centre
9 3 (0.48%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 28 (4.44%) Windows
2 21 (3.33%) Linux
3 10 (1.59%) Windows 10
4 8 (1.27%) Unix
5 6 (0.95%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.63%) Windows 7
7 3 (0.48%) Amazon Linux
7 3 (0.48%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.48%) CentOS
7 3 (0.48%) CoreOS
7 3 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.32%) Android
8 2 (0.32%) FreeRTOS
8 2 (0.32%) HPUX
8 2 (0.32%) SafeRTOS
8 2 (0.32%) Solaris
8 2 (0.32%) SUSE
8 2 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.16%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (40.00%) Agile Software Development
2 83 (13.17%) DevOps
3 73 (11.59%) Scrum
4 66 (10.48%) User Research
5 55 (8.73%) Analytics
6 54 (8.57%) Stakeholder Management
7 52 (8.25%) Decision-Making
8 49 (7.78%) Migration
8 49 (7.78%) Test Automation
9 46 (7.30%) Project Management
10 44 (6.98%) Continuous Improvement
11 41 (6.51%) Problem-Solving
11 41 (6.51%) Project Delivery
12 39 (6.19%) User Stories
13 38 (6.03%) Service Design
14 35 (5.56%) ITIL
14 35 (5.56%) Software Engineering
15 33 (5.24%) Continuous Integration
16 32 (5.08%) Service Delivery
17 31 (4.92%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 72 (11.43%) Java
2 69 (10.95%) SQL
3 62 (9.84%) Python
4 41 (6.51%) JavaScript
5 18 (2.86%) C#
6 16 (2.54%) PowerShell
7 15 (2.38%) R
8 10 (1.59%) Scala
9 9 (1.43%) C
9 9 (1.43%) Go
10 8 (1.27%) C++
11 7 (1.11%) Bash Shell
11 7 (1.11%) PHP
12 5 (0.79%) Ruby
12 5 (0.79%) Shell Script
13 4 (0.63%) Java 11
13 4 (0.63%) Java 8
13 4 (0.63%) PL/SQL
13 4 (0.63%) TypeScript
14 3 (0.48%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 303 (48.10%) Security Cleared
2 158 (25.08%) SC Cleared
3 28 (4.44%) DBS Check
4 22 (3.49%) Degree
5 11 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
5 11 (1.75%) DV Cleared
6 9 (1.43%) ISTQB
6 9 (1.43%) ITIL Certification
7 8 (1.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 6 (0.95%) CCNA
8 6 (0.95%) CISSP
8 6 (0.95%) ISEB
9 5 (0.79%) BC Cleared
9 5 (0.79%) CCIE
10 4 (0.63%) CCNP
10 4 (0.63%) Postgraduate
11 3 (0.48%) CCDP
11 3 (0.48%) CTC Cleared
11 3 (0.48%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.48%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (19.37%) Disclosure Scotland
2 38 (6.03%) QA
3 30 (4.76%) Accessibility
4 12 (1.90%) PMO
5 10 (1.59%) Data Quality
5 10 (1.59%) GDPR
5 10 (1.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 9 (1.43%) SLA
7 5 (0.79%) GMP
8 3 (0.48%) COBIT
8 3 (0.48%) ISO 13485
8 3 (0.48%) NCSC
9 2 (0.32%) DO-254
9 2 (0.32%) IEC 61508
9 2 (0.32%) ISO 26262
9 2 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 17025
9 2 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 2 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 2 (0.32%) MISRA
9 2 (0.32%) MISRA C
System Software
1 49 (7.78%) Docker
2 17 (2.70%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.48%) HDFS
4 3 (0.48%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.32%) Firmware
5 2 (0.32%) RACF
6 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.16%) Citrix Hypervisor
6 1 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
6 1 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 42 (6.67%) Kubernetes
2 40 (6.35%) Terraform
3 21 (3.33%) Ansible
4 14 (2.22%) Istio
5 6 (0.95%) Prometheus
6 4 (0.63%) Packer
6 4 (0.63%) Puppet
6 4 (0.63%) SCCM
6 4 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.48%) FlexNet
7 3 (0.48%) HAProxy
7 3 (0.48%) Host Intrusion Detection System
7 3 (0.48%) Nagios
7 3 (0.48%) Network Intrusion Detection System
8 2 (0.32%) HP Quality Center
8 2 (0.32%) Opscode Chef
9 1 (0.16%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.16%) Kibana
9 1 (0.16%) OPNET
9 1 (0.16%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 61 (9.68%) Microsoft
2 31 (4.92%) Oracle
3 21 (3.33%) Cisco
4 15 (2.38%) ServiceNow
5 11 (1.75%) Google
6 9 (1.43%) Databricks
7 8 (1.27%) Red Hat
7 8 (1.27%) webMethods
8 7 (1.11%) IBM
8 7 (1.11%) VMware
9 5 (0.79%) Informatica
10 4 (0.63%) Aruba
10 4 (0.63%) Brio
10 4 (0.63%) Citrix
10 4 (0.63%) Cloudera
10 4 (0.63%) Hortonworks
10 4 (0.63%) SAP
11 3 (0.48%) Dynatrace
11 3 (0.48%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.48%) Pega
98 BPSS Clearance job vacancies Nationwide