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 9 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 150 271 242
Rank change year-on-year +121 -29 -43
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 684 321 456
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.89% 0.90% 1.00%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.64% 3.04% 3.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 502 176 307
10th Percentile £308 £220 £360
25th Percentile £400 £364 £448
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £597 £600 £623
90th Percentile £695 £688 £701
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £470 £550
% change year-on-year -0.96% -14.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 16 32
10th Percentile £15.93 £20.06 £24.25
25th Percentile £22.63 £20.12 £33.14
Median hourly rate £33.50 £37.93 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.67% -31.05% -8.33%
75th Percentile £48.59 £64.06 £76.99
90th Percentile £70.11 £65.00 £84.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £38.85 £55.00
% change year-on-year -13.77% -29.36% -8.33%

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 12,126 10,544 13,419
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.42% 29.53% 29.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,881 6,411 8,455
10th Percentile £306 £307 £300
25th Percentile £413 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £515 £538
% change year-on-year -2.91% -4.19% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,015 505 755
10th Percentile £17.06 £18.94 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.23 £24.18 £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -40.82% -19.05% +16.67%
75th Percentile £45.46 £66.00 £67.66
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £51.90
% change year-on-year -45.54% -11.01% +15.32%

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 9 December 2025.

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 9 December 2025.

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 9 December 2025. 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 +97 480 £492 -1.60% 467
UK excluding London +67 359 £465 -0.96% 480
Work from Home +97 245 £475 -13.64% 294
North of England +54 189 £469 +17.25% 107
North West +66 141 £450 -10.00% 86
London +43 135 £513 -10.74% 40
Midlands -17 54 £446 -8.04% 33
West Midlands -14 43 £475 +1.06% 24
South West +1 38 £550 -6.78% 93
Yorkshire -26 37 £490 +122.73% 11
South East -4 36 £475 +13.10% 164
Scotland +28 28 £420 -23.64% 21
East of England -23 17 £515 +134.09% 143
North East +7 14 £488 +17.82% 11
East Midlands -13 11 £350 -42.95% 9
Northern Ireland - 6 £375 - 4
Wales 0 5 £458 +108.00% 7

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 42 (6.14%) Confluence
2 10 (1.46%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (1.46%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.02%) nginx
4 5 (0.73%) Apache
5 4 (0.58%) CMS
5 4 (0.58%) SugarCRM
6 3 (0.44%) ArcGIS
6 3 (0.44%) MTS
6 3 (0.44%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.29%) HCL Domino
7 2 (0.29%) HCL Notes
7 2 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.15%) GeoServer
8 1 (0.15%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.15%) SAS
8 1 (0.15%) Tomcat
Applications
1 20 (2.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.75%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.88%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.73%) AutoCAD
4 5 (0.73%) ProjectWise
5 4 (0.58%) Trello
6 3 (0.44%) Adobe XD
6 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.29%) Sketch
7 2 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.15%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.15%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.15%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.15%) Revit
8 1 (0.15%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 45 (6.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (2.34%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (1.90%) SAP EHS
4 10 (1.46%) Oracle EBS R12
5 9 (1.32%) Oracle Financials
6 7 (1.02%) Oracle Payables
6 7 (1.02%) SAP HCM
7 6 (0.88%) Oracle Cash Management
7 6 (0.88%) SAP VC
8 5 (0.73%) Oracle ASCP
8 5 (0.73%) SAP QM
9 4 (0.58%) Maximo
9 4 (0.58%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.58%) Oracle SCM
10 3 (0.44%) Oracle Assets
10 3 (0.44%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 3 (0.44%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.44%) SAP Payroll
10 3 (0.44%) SAP PM
10 3 (0.44%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 108 (15.79%) AWS
2 84 (12.28%) Azure
3 32 (4.68%) Serverless
4 26 (3.80%) GitHub
5 25 (3.65%) Power Platform
6 24 (3.51%) AWS Lambda
7 19 (2.78%) AWS CloudFormation
8 18 (2.63%) Microsoft 365
9 17 (2.49%) Azure DevOps
9 17 (2.49%) GCP
9 17 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
9 17 (2.49%) SuccessFactors
10 16 (2.34%) Amazon EC2
11 15 (2.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 13 (1.90%) Amazon S3
13 12 (1.75%) Amazon ECS
14 11 (1.61%) Amazon EKS
14 11 (1.61%) Amazon SQS
14 11 (1.61%) Power Automate
15 10 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 15 (2.19%) Firewall
2 14 (2.05%) SSH
3 10 (1.46%) DNS
4 9 (1.32%) LAN
5 8 (1.17%) WAN
6 7 (1.02%) MPLS
6 7 (1.02%) SAN
6 7 (1.02%) VPN
7 5 (0.73%) Network Security
8 4 (0.58%) Intrusion Detection
8 4 (0.58%) SDH
8 4 (0.58%) SD-WAN
8 4 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
9 3 (0.44%) 5G
9 3 (0.44%) BGP
9 3 (0.44%) DHCP
9 3 (0.44%) OSPF
9 3 (0.44%) Reverse Proxy
9 3 (0.44%) VLAN
9 3 (0.44%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (2.63%) Power BI
2 13 (1.90%) PostgreSQL
3 12 (1.75%) MongoDB
4 11 (1.61%) Metadata
4 11 (1.61%) NoSQL
5 10 (1.46%) SQL Server
6 8 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
6 8 (1.17%) Data Lake
6 8 (1.17%) Data Warehouse
6 8 (1.17%) Relational Database
7 7 (1.02%) MySQL
7 7 (1.02%) Oracle Database
7 7 (1.02%) Redis
8 6 (0.88%) BigQuery
9 5 (0.73%) DocumentDB
9 5 (0.73%) Geospatial Data
9 5 (0.73%) Tableau
10 4 (0.58%) Data Hub
10 4 (0.58%) Looker
10 4 (0.58%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 75 (10.96%) Git
2 63 (9.21%) JIRA
3 33 (4.82%) GitLab
4 29 (4.24%) Jenkins
5 11 (1.61%) SonarQube
6 9 (1.32%) Cucumber
6 9 (1.32%) Cypress.io
7 8 (1.17%) Mockito
8 7 (1.02%) JUnit
9 5 (0.73%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.73%) Selenium
10 4 (0.58%) Gradle
10 4 (0.58%) Grunt
10 4 (0.58%) gulp
10 4 (0.58%) JMeter
11 3 (0.44%) Android Studio
11 3 (0.44%) Toad
11 3 (0.44%) webpack
12 2 (0.29%) Gatling
12 2 (0.29%) Postman
General
1 205 (29.97%) Social Skills
2 128 (18.71%) Public Sector
3 104 (15.20%) Finance
4 58 (8.48%) Analytical Skills
5 27 (3.95%) Banking
6 25 (3.65%) Aerospace
7 17 (2.49%) Manufacturing
8 16 (2.34%) Organisational Skills
9 15 (2.19%) Aviation
10 14 (2.05%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (2.05%) Telecoms
11 13 (1.90%) Documentation Skills
12 8 (1.17%) Local Government
13 7 (1.02%) Billing
13 7 (1.02%) Legal
13 7 (1.02%) Marketing
13 7 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (0.88%) Law
15 4 (0.58%) Financial Institution
16 3 (0.44%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 111 (16.23%) Developer
2 90 (13.16%) Consultant
3 71 (10.38%) Senior
4 60 (8.77%) Analyst
5 51 (7.46%) Lead
6 46 (6.73%) Architect
7 44 (6.43%) SAP Consultant
8 36 (5.26%) Java Developer
9 23 (3.36%) Business Analyst
10 22 (3.22%) Administrator
11 21 (3.07%) Designer
12 20 (2.92%) DevOps Engineer
12 20 (2.92%) Project Manager
13 18 (2.63%) Senior Developer
14 17 (2.49%) Solutions Architect
15 16 (2.34%) Delivery Manager
15 16 (2.34%) Senior Manager
16 15 (2.19%) Oracle Consultant
17 13 (1.90%) Management Consultant
18 12 (1.75%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (6.14%) Node.js
2 30 (4.39%) React
3 29 (4.24%) REST
4 28 (4.09%) HTML
4 28 (4.09%) Kafka
5 24 (3.51%) RESTful
6 22 (3.22%) CSS
7 20 (2.92%) JSON
8 16 (2.34%) Spring
9 13 (1.90%) SAP Fiori
9 13 (1.90%) Spring Boot
10 12 (1.75%) XML
11 10 (1.46%) .NET
11 10 (1.46%) AngularJS
12 9 (1.32%) ActiveMQ
12 9 (1.32%) Jest
12 9 (1.32%) SOAP
13 8 (1.17%) Elastic Stack
13 8 (1.17%) HTML5
13 8 (1.17%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 45 (6.58%) Onboarding
2 35 (5.12%) Product Ownership
3 19 (2.78%) Management Information System
4 14 (2.05%) Security Posture
5 12 (1.75%) Driving Licence
6 11 (1.61%) Cloud Native
7 9 (1.32%) Mobile App
7 9 (1.32%) SCADA
8 8 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
8 8 (1.17%) NHS
9 7 (1.02%) Data Centre
9 7 (1.02%) Low-Code
10 6 (0.88%) AI Agents
10 6 (0.88%) Operational Technology
10 6 (0.88%) Public Cloud
11 5 (0.73%) Cyber Threat
11 5 (0.73%) Distributed Systems
11 5 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
11 5 (0.73%) Hybrid Cloud
11 5 (0.73%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 68 (9.94%) Linux
2 29 (4.24%) Windows
3 25 (3.65%) Unix
4 9 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (1.02%) Android
6 6 (0.88%) Mac OS X
7 5 (0.73%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.58%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.29%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.15%) CentOS
10 1 (0.15%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.15%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.15%) VME
10 1 (0.15%) VMS
10 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.15%) Windows 8
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 199 (29.09%) Agile
2 109 (15.94%) Problem-Solving
3 106 (15.50%) CI/CD
4 96 (14.04%) Stakeholder Management
5 88 (12.87%) DevOps
6 57 (8.33%) Continuous Improvement
7 51 (7.46%) Migration
7 51 (7.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 50 (7.31%) Scrum
9 47 (6.87%) Microservices
10 45 (6.58%) Roadmaps
11 44 (6.43%) Test Automation
12 41 (5.99%) AI
12 41 (5.99%) Change Management
12 41 (5.99%) User Experience
13 39 (5.70%) Validation
14 38 (5.56%) User Acceptance Testing
15 35 (5.12%) Containerisation
15 35 (5.12%) Mentoring
15 35 (5.12%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 82 (11.99%) Python
2 70 (10.23%) Java
3 48 (7.02%) SQL
4 39 (5.70%) JavaScript
5 24 (3.51%) TypeScript
6 19 (2.78%) Bash
7 13 (1.90%) ABAP
7 13 (1.90%) PowerShell
7 13 (1.90%) Ruby
8 12 (1.75%) Shell Script
9 10 (1.46%) PHP
10 9 (1.32%) PL/SQL
11 8 (1.17%) C++
11 8 (1.17%) R
12 7 (1.02%) Scala
13 6 (0.88%) Go
14 5 (0.73%) C#
15 3 (0.44%) Apex Code
15 3 (0.44%) Kotlin
16 2 (0.29%) Rust
Qualifications
1 330 (48.25%) Security Cleared
2 232 (33.92%) SC Cleared
3 48 (7.02%) Degree
4 22 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (1.90%) DBS Check
5 13 (1.90%) DV Cleared
5 13 (1.90%) Master's Degree
6 12 (1.75%) BC Cleared
7 10 (1.46%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 9 (1.32%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (1.02%) CCNP
10 5 (0.73%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.58%) AWS Certification
11 4 (0.58%) ISEB
11 4 (0.58%) ISTQB
11 4 (0.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 4 (0.58%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.44%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 3 (0.44%) PMI Certification
12 3 (0.44%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (6.14%) Accessibility
2 38 (5.56%) QA
3 17 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (2.05%) Data Quality
5 13 (1.90%) SLA
6 12 (1.75%) GRC
7 10 (1.46%) Def Stans
8 9 (1.32%) GDPR
8 9 (1.32%) WCAG
9 8 (1.17%) NIST
9 8 (1.17%) PMO
10 7 (1.02%) NCSC
11 4 (0.58%) ISO 20022
12 3 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 3 (0.44%) PSD2
13 2 (0.29%) SEPA
14 1 (0.15%) ECSS
14 1 (0.15%) P3O
14 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
14 1 (0.15%) RMADS
System Software
1 47 (6.87%) Docker
2 19 (2.78%) Active Directory
3 10 (1.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.73%) vSphere
5 3 (0.44%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.29%) GPFS
6 2 (0.29%) NFS
6 2 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.15%) ACF2
7 1 (0.15%) HDFS
7 1 (0.15%) KVM
7 1 (0.15%) Postfix
7 1 (0.15%) RACF
7 1 (0.15%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.15%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 45 (6.58%) Kubernetes
2 42 (6.14%) Terraform
3 13 (1.90%) Grafana
4 10 (1.46%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.88%) Ansible
5 6 (0.88%) EMC NetWorker
5 6 (0.88%) EMC VPLEX
5 6 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.73%) vRealize
7 4 (0.58%) Packer
7 4 (0.58%) Puppet
7 4 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.58%) VxRail
8 3 (0.44%) Consul
8 3 (0.44%) PingFederate
8 3 (0.44%) SCCM
9 2 (0.29%) Ambari
9 2 (0.29%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.29%) Kibana
9 2 (0.29%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 107 (15.64%) SAP
2 84 (12.28%) Microsoft
3 56 (8.19%) Oracle
4 25 (3.65%) Cisco
5 20 (2.92%) VMware
6 14 (2.05%) ServiceNow
7 11 (1.61%) IBM
8 10 (1.46%) Adobe
8 10 (1.46%) Dell
8 10 (1.46%) Google
9 9 (1.32%) Atlassian
10 8 (1.17%) Red Hat
11 6 (0.88%) AppDynamics
11 6 (0.88%) Brocade
11 6 (0.88%) EMC
11 6 (0.88%) Fortinet
11 6 (0.88%) Isilon
11 6 (0.88%) webMethods
11 6 (0.88%) Workday
12 5 (0.73%) Salesforce