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

6 months to
15 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 162 256
Rank change year-on-year +59 +94 -34
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,338 565 363
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.49% 1.71% 0.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.95% 5.47% 3.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 950 377 219
10th Percentile £350 £308 £220
25th Percentile £410 £405 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £670 £709 £636
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £492 £470
% change year-on-year -2.29% +4.68% -14.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 202 50 48
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 -
25th Percentile £42.00 £22.63 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.50 £17.53
Median % change year-on-year +59.85% +56.87% -61.41%
75th Percentile £53.62 £53.44 £36.88
90th Percentile £73.00 £75.00 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £17.53
% change year-on-year +50.19% +66.97% -54.29%

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 16,821 10,321 11,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.35% 31.32% 30.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,266 6,349 7,395
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,259 819 848
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.98 £15.03
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +106.76% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £74.00 £53.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.96 £73.75 £76.47
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -8.46%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +64 994 £490 -2.00% 754
UK excluding London +52 772 £481 -2.29% 641
Work from Home +58 517 £475 -3.06% 514
London +64 291 £500 -2.68% 207
North of England +22 281 £480 +1.11% 152
Midlands +44 189 £489 -4.17% 58
West Midlands +46 176 £488 -6.25% 53
North West -5 148 £500 +12.68% 107
South East -17 106 £483 -6.12% 105
North East +8 79 £453 -1.52% 28
South West -3 76 £525 +16.67% 126
Scotland +36 70 £360 -17.71% 74
Yorkshire -9 65 £478 -4.50% 21
East of England -11 31 £605 +184.50% 116
Northern Ireland +16 17 £450 +28.57% 9
East Midlands -24 12 £600 +21.95% 4
Wales -6 11 £413 -28.26% 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 58 (4.33%) Confluence
2 49 (3.66%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.42%) SharePoint Server
4 9 (0.67%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.60%) SAS
6 7 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
7 5 (0.37%) WebLogic
8 4 (0.30%) IIS
8 4 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.30%) WordPress
9 3 (0.22%) Apache
9 3 (0.22%) CMS
10 2 (0.15%) CICS
10 2 (0.15%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.15%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.15%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.15%) LiveCycle
10 2 (0.15%) OpenROAD
11 1 (0.075%) Appian
Applications
1 40 (2.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (2.02%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (0.97%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.37%) Simulink
6 4 (0.30%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.15%) Navisworks
8 2 (0.15%) Trello
9 1 (0.075%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.075%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.075%) CATIA
9 1 (0.075%) InVision
9 1 (0.075%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.075%) ProjectWise
9 1 (0.075%) Revit
9 1 (0.075%) Sketch
9 1 (0.075%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 44 (3.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.20%) SAP PSCD
3 13 (0.97%) SAP BRIM
4 12 (0.90%) SAP IBP
5 11 (0.82%) SAP HR
6 10 (0.75%) SAP FI
7 8 (0.60%) SAP Payroll
8 7 (0.52%) SAP FI-CA
9 6 (0.45%) SAP GRC
10 5 (0.37%) SAP EWM
10 5 (0.37%) Shopify
11 4 (0.30%) SAP Convergent Charging
11 4 (0.30%) SAP EHS
11 4 (0.30%) SAP MDG
12 3 (0.22%) Dynamics CRM
12 3 (0.22%) iTrent
12 3 (0.22%) Primavera
12 3 (0.22%) SAP CO
12 3 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
12 3 (0.22%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 246 (18.39%) Azure
2 237 (17.71%) AWS
3 87 (6.50%) Power Platform
4 59 (4.41%) GitHub
5 57 (4.26%) Azure DevOps
6 52 (3.89%) Serverless
7 47 (3.51%) GCP
8 43 (3.21%) Amazon S3
8 43 (3.21%) GitHub Actions
8 43 (3.21%) Microsoft 365
9 41 (3.06%) AWS Lambda
10 40 (2.99%) Entra ID
11 26 (1.94%) PowerApps
12 25 (1.87%) Power Automate
13 21 (1.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 20 (1.49%) Amazon ECS
15 19 (1.42%) AWS CloudFormation
15 19 (1.42%) SuccessFactors
16 17 (1.27%) Amazon EKS
16 17 (1.27%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.27%) DNS
2 12 (0.90%) WAN
2 12 (0.90%) WebEx
3 10 (0.75%) Network Security
4 8 (0.60%) SSL
5 7 (0.52%) Ethernet
5 7 (0.52%) Firewall
5 7 (0.52%) HTTPS
5 7 (0.52%) Intranet
5 7 (0.52%) MPLS
6 6 (0.45%) LAN
6 6 (0.45%) SDH
7 5 (0.37%) Cisco IPT
7 5 (0.37%) VPN
8 4 (0.30%) DHCP
8 4 (0.30%) Internet
8 4 (0.30%) TCP/IP
9 3 (0.22%) IP Telephony
9 3 (0.22%) MQTT
9 3 (0.22%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (4.56%) Power BI
2 45 (3.36%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (2.54%) Metadata
4 30 (2.24%) Data Warehouse
5 29 (2.17%) MongoDB
5 29 (2.17%) SQL Server
6 23 (1.72%) Amazon RDS
7 21 (1.57%) MySQL
8 17 (1.27%) Data Lake
8 17 (1.27%) NoSQL
8 17 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 15 (1.12%) Relational Database
10 13 (0.97%) Amazon Redshift
11 12 (0.90%) Amazon Aurora
11 12 (0.90%) DynamoDB
12 11 (0.82%) Amazon Athena
13 9 (0.67%) Big Data
14 8 (0.60%) Oracle Database
14 8 (0.60%) Redis
14 8 (0.60%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 99 (7.40%) JIRA
2 79 (5.90%) Git
3 59 (4.41%) Jenkins
4 56 (4.19%) GitLab
5 22 (1.64%) Selenium
6 19 (1.42%) JUnit
7 18 (1.35%) Maven
8 17 (1.27%) Cucumber
9 14 (1.05%) Postman
9 14 (1.05%) Team Foundation Server
9 14 (1.05%) Visual Studio
10 13 (0.97%) Cypress.io
11 11 (0.82%) Mockito
12 9 (0.67%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 9 (0.67%) REST Assured
12 9 (0.67%) SonarQube
13 8 (0.60%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.60%) Gatling
14 7 (0.52%) Artifactory
14 7 (0.52%) Gradle
General
1 431 (32.21%) Social Skills
2 309 (23.09%) Public Sector
3 208 (15.55%) Finance
4 130 (9.72%) Analytical Skills
5 113 (8.45%) Legal
6 108 (8.07%) Organisational Skills
7 55 (4.11%) Aerospace
8 39 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
9 31 (2.32%) Influencing Skills
10 23 (1.72%) Manufacturing
10 23 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
11 22 (1.64%) Banking
11 22 (1.64%) Billing
11 22 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 17 (1.27%) Aviation
12 17 (1.27%) Telecoms
13 10 (0.75%) Local Government
14 9 (0.67%) Law
14 9 (0.67%) Military
14 9 (0.67%) Retail
Job Titles
1 176 (13.15%) Developer
2 151 (11.29%) Senior
3 144 (10.76%) Lead
4 120 (8.97%) Architect
5 102 (7.62%) Analyst
6 92 (6.88%) Consultant
7 66 (4.93%) Designer
8 57 (4.26%) Java Developer
9 56 (4.19%) SAP Consultant
10 44 (3.29%) DevOps Engineer
11 43 (3.21%) Data Engineer
12 41 (3.06%) Business Analyst
13 33 (2.47%) Solutions Architect
14 32 (2.39%) Delivery Manager
15 30 (2.24%) Product Manager
15 30 (2.24%) User Researcher
16 26 (1.94%) Data Architect
16 26 (1.94%) Lead Developer
17 23 (1.72%) Administrator
17 23 (1.72%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (5.98%) REST
2 54 (4.04%) HTML
3 53 (3.96%) Spring
4 52 (3.89%) Spring Boot
5 50 (3.74%) RESTful
6 47 (3.51%) Node.js
6 47 (3.51%) React
7 42 (3.14%) CSS
8 28 (2.09%) .NET
8 28 (2.09%) Kafka
9 26 (1.94%) Playwright
10 18 (1.35%) JSON
11 17 (1.27%) XML
12 15 (1.12%) BAPI
12 15 (1.12%) Jest
12 15 (1.12%) SPFx
13 14 (1.05%) OpenAPI
13 14 (1.05%) Play Framework
13 14 (1.05%) SOAP
14 13 (0.97%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 97 (7.25%) Virtual Team
1 97 (7.25%) Web Conferencing
2 87 (6.50%) Podcast
3 81 (6.05%) Onboarding
4 77 (5.75%) Product Ownership
5 61 (4.56%) Cloud Native
6 24 (1.79%) NHS
7 23 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
8 20 (1.49%) Management Information System
9 19 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
10 16 (1.20%) Mobile App
10 16 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
11 15 (1.12%) BYOD
11 15 (1.12%) Replication
12 14 (1.05%) Algorithms
13 13 (0.97%) Distributed Systems
14 10 (0.75%) Driving Licence
14 10 (0.75%) Video Conferencing
15 9 (0.67%) Data Centre
15 9 (0.67%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 61 (4.56%) Linux
2 59 (4.41%) Windows
3 29 (2.17%) Unix
4 18 (1.35%) Android
5 14 (1.05%) Windows Server
6 10 (0.75%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.60%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.60%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.45%) VMS
9 3 (0.22%) AIX
10 2 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.15%) Solaris
11 1 (0.075%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.075%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 411 (30.72%) Agile
2 241 (18.01%) CI/CD
3 225 (16.82%) DevOps
4 217 (16.22%) Stakeholder Management
5 164 (12.26%) Continuous Improvement
6 158 (11.81%) Problem-Solving
7 143 (10.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 122 (9.12%) Scrum
9 116 (8.67%) Roadmaps
10 110 (8.22%) Customer Service
11 108 (8.07%) Decision-Making
12 104 (7.77%) Analytics
13 101 (7.55%) Test Automation
14 99 (7.40%) Microservices
15 97 (7.25%) Migration
16 95 (7.10%) Infrastructure as Code
17 80 (5.98%) Mentoring
18 78 (5.83%) Software Engineering
19 77 (5.75%) User Research
20 69 (5.16%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 145 (10.84%) Java
2 138 (10.31%) SQL
3 117 (8.74%) Python
4 80 (5.98%) JavaScript
5 48 (3.59%) TypeScript
6 37 (2.77%) Scala
7 27 (2.02%) PowerShell
8 25 (1.87%) C#
9 18 (1.35%) PL/SQL
10 17 (1.27%) Bash
11 15 (1.12%) Shell Script
12 13 (0.97%) C++
12 13 (0.97%) VB
13 11 (0.82%) T-SQL
13 11 (0.82%) VB6
13 11 (0.82%) VBA
14 9 (0.67%) Kotlin
15 8 (0.60%) ABAP
16 7 (0.52%) MATLAB
16 7 (0.52%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 442 (33.03%) Security Cleared
2 328 (24.51%) SC Cleared
3 63 (4.71%) Degree
4 20 (1.49%) AWS Certification
5 15 (1.12%) DV Cleared
6 13 (0.97%) Azure Certification
7 12 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (0.75%) A+ Certification
9 9 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 7 (0.52%) CTC Cleared
10 7 (0.52%) ISTQB
10 7 (0.52%) PMI Certification
11 6 (0.45%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 6 (0.45%) CCNA
11 6 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
11 6 (0.45%) DBS Check
12 5 (0.37%) CompTIA CySA+
12 5 (0.37%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 5 (0.37%) NVQ Level 4
13 4 (0.30%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 80 (5.98%) Accessibility
2 73 (5.46%) QA
3 72 (5.38%) Data Quality
4 26 (1.94%) GDPR
5 23 (1.72%) PMO
5 23 (1.72%) WCAG
6 18 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 17 (1.27%) SLA
8 14 (1.05%) NIST
9 10 (0.75%) GRC
10 7 (0.52%) NCSC
11 4 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.30%) PERC
12 3 (0.22%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 3 (0.22%) Def Stans
12 3 (0.22%) GMP
12 3 (0.22%) GxP
12 3 (0.22%) HL7
12 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 17025
13 2 (0.15%) DICOM
System Software
1 80 (5.98%) Docker
2 38 (2.84%) Active Directory
3 14 (1.05%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.37%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.15%) Firmware
7 2 (0.15%) vSphere
8 1 (0.075%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.075%) GPFS
8 1 (0.075%) IAG
8 1 (0.075%) NFS
8 1 (0.075%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.075%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.075%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 107 (8.00%) Terraform
2 85 (6.35%) Kubernetes
3 29 (2.17%) Grafana
4 16 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (1.12%) Prometheus
6 14 (1.05%) Kibana
7 12 (0.90%) Argo
8 10 (0.75%) SCCM
9 9 (0.67%) Ansible
10 7 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
11 6 (0.45%) Istio
12 5 (0.37%) SCOM
13 4 (0.30%) HAProxy
13 4 (0.30%) Packer
13 4 (0.30%) Puppet
14 3 (0.22%) Podman
15 2 (0.15%) Data Guard
15 2 (0.15%) Functional Safety
15 2 (0.15%) Karpenter
15 2 (0.15%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 158 (11.81%) Microsoft
2 121 (9.04%) SAP
3 72 (5.38%) Oracle
4 57 (4.26%) ServiceNow
5 37 (2.77%) Google
6 19 (1.42%) BeyondTrust
6 19 (1.42%) Databricks
7 16 (1.20%) Splunk
8 15 (1.12%) Cisco
9 14 (1.05%) VMware
10 12 (0.90%) Atlassian
11 9 (0.67%) CyberArk
12 8 (0.60%) Informatica
12 8 (0.60%) Salesforce
12 8 (0.60%) Talend
12 8 (0.60%) Workday
13 7 (0.52%) Dell
13 7 (0.52%) IBM
13 7 (0.52%) Qualtrics
14 6 (0.45%) Apple