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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 196 246
Rank change year-on-year +93 +50 -20
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,244 462 414
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.36% 1.42% 0.97%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.55% 4.64% 3.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 903 306 271
10th Percentile £327 £283 £200
25th Percentile £402 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £570 £588 £588
90th Percentile £661 £703 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £471 £490 £470
% change year-on-year -3.98% +4.26% -13.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 155 46 54
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £36.00 £22.63 -
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.63 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +59.10% +72.04% -66.60%
75th Percentile £62.50 £56.37 £30.75
90th Percentile £74.70 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.89 £16.06
% change year-on-year +42.33% +92.31% -63.77%

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 16,487 9,965 12,767
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.33% 30.71% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,019 6,179 7,959
10th Percentile £350 £281 £310
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,190 716 1,085
10th Percentile £17.86 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.44 £20.47
Median hourly rate £52.50 £26.81 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +95.80% -35.39% -24.93%
75th Percentile £73.00 £58.34 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.41 £75.00 £75.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -19.87%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 +86 925 £483 -3.40% 286
UK excluding London +60 700 £471 -3.98% 291
Work from Home +79 498 £450 -5.26% 217
London +82 295 £495 -0.20% 54
North of England +32 252 £463 -3.90% 48
Midlands +28 147 £481 -2.34% 42
North West +6 139 £476 -4.03% 30
West Midlands +17 125 £481 +6.53% 34
South East -5 112 £500 -2.91% 64
South West +17 75 £525 +50.00% 47
Scotland +42 74 £350 -1.13% 35
North East +7 70 £450 +10.43% 8
Yorkshire -12 55 £471 -5.90% 10
East of England -15 27 £577 +188.53% 43
East Midlands -6 21 £438 -37.50% 8
Wales -4 10 £463 -19.57% 11
Northern Ireland +7 9 £450 +28.57% 8

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 55 (4.42%) Confluence
2 42 (3.38%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.21%) SharePoint Server
4 13 (1.05%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.64%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.64%) SAS
6 7 (0.56%) Apache
7 5 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.32%) IIS
8 4 (0.32%) WordPress
9 3 (0.24%) ArcGIS
9 3 (0.24%) CICS
9 3 (0.24%) CMS
9 3 (0.24%) LiveCycle
9 3 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.16%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.16%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.16%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.16%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.16%) WebLogic
Applications
1 42 (3.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (1.85%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (1.05%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (0.96%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.40%) Simulink
7 4 (0.32%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.16%) Navisworks
8 2 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.16%) Trello
9 1 (0.080%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.080%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.080%) CATIA
9 1 (0.080%) InVision
9 1 (0.080%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.080%) ProjectWise
9 1 (0.080%) Revit
9 1 (0.080%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 46 (3.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.37%) SAP PSCD
3 14 (1.13%) SAP BRIM
4 12 (0.96%) SAP IBP
5 9 (0.72%) SAP FI
6 7 (0.56%) SAP EWM
6 7 (0.56%) SAP FI-CA
6 7 (0.56%) SAP Travel Management
7 6 (0.48%) SAP HR
8 5 (0.40%) Shopify
9 4 (0.32%) Loan IQ
9 4 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
9 4 (0.32%) Primavera
9 4 (0.32%) SAP Convergent Charging
9 4 (0.32%) SAP EHS
9 4 (0.32%) SAP GRC
9 4 (0.32%) SAP MDG
9 4 (0.32%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
10 3 (0.24%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 237 (19.05%) Azure
2 235 (18.89%) AWS
3 86 (6.91%) Power Platform
4 59 (4.74%) GitHub
5 57 (4.58%) Azure DevOps
6 54 (4.34%) GCP
7 52 (4.18%) Serverless
8 43 (3.46%) GitHub Actions
9 41 (3.30%) Entra ID
10 38 (3.05%) Amazon S3
10 38 (3.05%) AWS Lambda
11 37 (2.97%) Microsoft 365
12 22 (1.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 22 (1.77%) Power Automate
13 21 (1.69%) PowerApps
14 20 (1.61%) Amazon ECS
14 20 (1.61%) Amazon EKS
15 19 (1.53%) AWS CloudFormation
16 17 (1.37%) Amazon EC2
17 16 (1.29%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.45%) DNS
2 15 (1.21%) Network Security
3 14 (1.13%) Firewall
4 12 (0.96%) WAN
5 9 (0.72%) HTTPS
5 9 (0.72%) WebEx
6 7 (0.56%) LAN
7 6 (0.48%) DHCP
7 6 (0.48%) Ethernet
7 6 (0.48%) MPLS
7 6 (0.48%) SDH
7 6 (0.48%) SSL
8 5 (0.40%) SSH
9 4 (0.32%) Cisco IPT
9 4 (0.32%) Intranet
9 4 (0.32%) TCP/IP
9 4 (0.32%) VPN
10 3 (0.24%) Internet
10 3 (0.24%) IP Telephony
10 3 (0.24%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (5.39%) Power BI
2 39 (3.14%) PostgreSQL
3 30 (2.41%) Metadata
4 29 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
5 27 (2.17%) MongoDB
5 27 (2.17%) SQL Server
6 21 (1.69%) Relational Database
7 19 (1.53%) NoSQL
8 15 (1.21%) DynamoDB
8 15 (1.21%) MySQL
9 14 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
9 14 (1.13%) Data Lake
10 13 (1.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 12 (0.96%) Amazon Athena
11 12 (0.96%) Amazon Redshift
12 9 (0.72%) Geospatial Data
13 7 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
13 7 (0.56%) Delta Lake
13 7 (0.56%) Oracle Database
13 7 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 97 (7.80%) JIRA
2 81 (6.51%) Git
3 64 (5.14%) GitLab
4 55 (4.42%) Jenkins
5 21 (1.69%) Selenium
6 17 (1.37%) Cucumber
7 13 (1.05%) Postman
8 12 (0.96%) Team Foundation Server
9 11 (0.88%) Cypress.io
9 11 (0.88%) JUnit
9 11 (0.88%) Maven
10 10 (0.80%) Visual Studio
11 8 (0.64%) REST Assured
12 7 (0.56%) Artifactory
12 7 (0.56%) Gatling
13 6 (0.48%) WebDriver
14 5 (0.40%) Gradle
14 5 (0.40%) Mockito
14 5 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
14 5 (0.40%) SonarQube
General
1 380 (30.55%) Social Skills
2 281 (22.59%) Public Sector
3 191 (15.35%) Finance
4 129 (10.37%) Analytical Skills
5 70 (5.63%) Legal
6 58 (4.66%) Organisational Skills
7 48 (3.86%) Aerospace
8 42 (3.38%) Documentation Skills
9 36 (2.89%) Banking
10 29 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
11 23 (1.85%) Manufacturing
11 23 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
12 22 (1.77%) Billing
13 19 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 17 (1.37%) Aviation
14 17 (1.37%) Telecoms
15 13 (1.05%) Local Government
16 12 (0.96%) Retail
17 10 (0.80%) Law
18 8 (0.64%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 158 (12.70%) Developer
2 134 (10.77%) Senior
3 132 (10.61%) Lead
4 123 (9.89%) Analyst
5 116 (9.32%) Architect
6 89 (7.15%) Consultant
7 59 (4.74%) Designer
8 58 (4.66%) SAP Consultant
9 51 (4.10%) Business Analyst
9 51 (4.10%) Data Engineer
10 48 (3.86%) Java Developer
11 38 (3.05%) DevOps Engineer
12 29 (2.33%) Product Manager
13 28 (2.25%) Administrator
13 28 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
14 27 (2.17%) Lead Developer
15 25 (2.01%) Data Analyst
15 25 (2.01%) Delivery Manager
16 24 (1.93%) AWS Engineer
16 24 (1.93%) User Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (6.19%) REST
2 57 (4.58%) React
3 53 (4.26%) HTML
4 51 (4.10%) RESTful
5 50 (4.02%) Spring
5 50 (4.02%) Spring Boot
6 48 (3.86%) Node.js
7 42 (3.38%) CSS
8 32 (2.57%) Kafka
9 30 (2.41%) .NET
10 22 (1.77%) JSON
11 21 (1.69%) Playwright
12 18 (1.45%) PySpark
13 15 (1.21%) OAuth
13 15 (1.21%) SPFx
13 15 (1.21%) XML
14 14 (1.13%) BAPI
14 14 (1.13%) Jest
14 14 (1.13%) Middleware
14 14 (1.13%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 83 (6.67%) Product Ownership
2 68 (5.47%) Onboarding
3 62 (4.98%) Cloud Native
4 50 (4.02%) Virtual Team
5 49 (3.94%) Web Conferencing
6 43 (3.46%) Podcast
7 26 (2.09%) Management Information System
8 21 (1.69%) NHS
9 18 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
10 17 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
11 16 (1.29%) Algorithms
11 16 (1.29%) BYOD
11 16 (1.29%) Mobile App
12 15 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
12 15 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
13 11 (0.88%) Data Centre
14 9 (0.72%) Replication
15 8 (0.64%) Data Structures
16 7 (0.56%) Driving Licence
16 7 (0.56%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 69 (5.55%) Linux
2 60 (4.82%) Windows
3 34 (2.73%) Unix
4 18 (1.45%) Android
5 16 (1.29%) Windows Server
6 12 (0.96%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.72%) Mac OS
8 8 (0.64%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.24%) AIX
9 3 (0.24%) Solaris
10 2 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.080%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.080%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 376 (30.23%) Agile
2 239 (19.21%) CI/CD
3 212 (17.04%) DevOps
4 190 (15.27%) Stakeholder Management
5 165 (13.26%) Problem-Solving
6 141 (11.33%) Continuous Improvement
7 139 (11.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 109 (8.76%) Test Automation
9 107 (8.60%) Roadmaps
10 106 (8.52%) Decision-Making
10 106 (8.52%) Scrum
11 105 (8.44%) Analytics
12 99 (7.96%) Infrastructure as Code
13 95 (7.64%) Microservices
14 89 (7.15%) AI
15 84 (6.75%) Migration
16 75 (6.03%) Software Engineering
17 74 (5.95%) Business Intelligence
18 73 (5.87%) Data Modelling
19 70 (5.63%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 141 (11.33%) Python
1 141 (11.33%) SQL
2 133 (10.69%) Java
3 79 (6.35%) JavaScript
4 50 (4.02%) TypeScript
5 34 (2.73%) Scala
6 28 (2.25%) C#
7 25 (2.01%) PowerShell
8 16 (1.29%) PL/SQL
9 14 (1.13%) Bash
9 14 (1.13%) Shell Script
10 11 (0.88%) VB
11 10 (0.80%) C++
12 9 (0.72%) Bicep
12 9 (0.72%) T-SQL
12 9 (0.72%) VB6
13 8 (0.64%) ABAP
13 8 (0.64%) C
14 7 (0.56%) Kotlin
14 7 (0.56%) VBA
Qualifications
1 389 (31.27%) Security Cleared
2 283 (22.75%) SC Cleared
3 62 (4.98%) Degree
4 19 (1.53%) AWS Certification
5 18 (1.45%) DV Cleared
6 15 (1.21%) Azure Certification
7 10 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
8 8 (0.64%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 6 (0.48%) A+ Certification
10 6 (0.48%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 6 (0.48%) CCNA
10 6 (0.48%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (0.48%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (0.40%) CompTIA CySA+
11 5 (0.40%) CTC Cleared
11 5 (0.40%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.40%) ISTQB
11 5 (0.40%) NVQ Level 4
11 5 (0.40%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (6.99%) Data Quality
2 82 (6.59%) Accessibility
3 76 (6.11%) QA
4 23 (1.85%) GDPR
4 23 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 20 (1.61%) PMO
5 20 (1.61%) WCAG
6 19 (1.53%) NIST
7 18 (1.45%) SLA
8 10 (0.80%) GRC
9 8 (0.64%) NCSC
10 7 (0.56%) PCI DSS
11 5 (0.40%) ISO 20022
12 4 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
12 4 (0.32%) HL7
12 4 (0.32%) PSD2
13 3 (0.24%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 3 (0.24%) DICOM
13 3 (0.24%) GMP
13 3 (0.24%) GxP
System Software
1 84 (6.75%) Docker
2 37 (2.97%) Active Directory
3 18 (1.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
4 8 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.40%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.24%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.24%) vSphere
7 2 (0.16%) Firmware
7 2 (0.16%) GPFS
7 2 (0.16%) NFS
7 2 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.080%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.080%) IAG
8 1 (0.080%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 110 (8.84%) Terraform
2 83 (6.67%) Kubernetes
3 28 (2.25%) Grafana
4 18 (1.45%) Prometheus
5 11 (0.88%) Ansible
5 11 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.80%) Kibana
7 9 (0.72%) Argo
8 7 (0.56%) Istio
8 7 (0.56%) SCCM
9 6 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.32%) HAProxy
10 4 (0.32%) Podman
10 4 (0.32%) Puppet
11 3 (0.24%) SCOM
12 2 (0.16%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.16%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.16%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 2 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
12 2 (0.16%) Packer
Vendors
1 132 (10.61%) Microsoft
2 119 (9.57%) SAP
3 65 (5.23%) Oracle
4 45 (3.62%) ServiceNow
5 31 (2.49%) Google
6 22 (1.77%) Databricks
7 20 (1.61%) Splunk
8 18 (1.45%) Cisco
8 18 (1.45%) VMware
9 16 (1.29%) BeyondTrust
10 13 (1.05%) Pega
11 12 (0.96%) IBM
12 11 (0.88%) CyberArk
13 10 (0.80%) Informatica
14 8 (0.64%) OpenAI
14 8 (0.64%) Salesforce
14 8 (0.64%) Talend
15 7 (0.56%) Apple
15 7 (0.56%) Workday
16 6 (0.48%) Adobe