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 21 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 157 268 230
Rank change year-on-year +111 -38 +38
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 612 335 542
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.87% 0.87% 1.09%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.96% 2.99% 3.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 418 198 327
10th Percentile £313 £213 £363
25th Percentile £409 £393 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -9.09% +0.09%
75th Percentile £606 £588 £638
90th Percentile £713 £645 £724
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £550
% change year-on-year +6.38% -14.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 21 30
10th Percentile £18.50 £18.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.63 £20.12 £26.01
Median hourly rate £30.89 £21.59 £59.25
Median % change year-on-year +43.05% -63.56% +24.74%
75th Percentile £48.13 £57.50 £79.19
90th Percentile £72.14 £65.00 £84.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £21.59 £58.50
% change year-on-year +55.16% -63.09% +20.00%

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 10,275 11,218 13,978
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.46% 29.22% 28.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,413 6,889 8,997
10th Percentile £300 £313 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - +1.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 840 647 746
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.00 £16.42
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £24.64
Median hourly rate £25.15 £49.00 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year -48.67% -9.26% +20.00%
75th Percentile £43.75 £68.00 £69.40
90th Percentile £71.00 £76.55 £78.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £52.35 £51.89
% change year-on-year -51.95% +0.88% +16.19%

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
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 21 September 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 21 September 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 21 September 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 +93 436 £514 +2.80% 292
UK excluding London +80 328 £500 +6.38% 290
Work from Home +112 226 £491 -9.91% 140
North of England +63 143 £490 -2.49% 96
London +31 114 £504 -4.00% 32
North West +53 98 £481 -12.64% 87
Midlands +9 55 £525 +11.70% 24
South East +43 50 £514 +21.66% 55
Yorkshire +8 37 £500 +130.22% 6
South West +15 33 £525 -4.55% 51
West Midlands -2 33 £525 +16.93% 22
Scotland +22 25 £438 -20.45% 14
East Midlands +14 22 £492 -18.00% 2
East of England -14 19 £577 +162.27% 42
North East +5 10 £460 +28.67% 3
Northern Ireland +1 7 £350 - 1
Wales 0 3 - - 12

BPSS Clearance
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

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

Application Platforms
1 25 (4.08%) Confluence
2 6 (0.98%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (0.98%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.82%) Apache
3 5 (0.82%) ArcGIS
4 3 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.49%) SugarCRM
4 3 (0.49%) WebLogic
5 2 (0.33%) HCL Domino
5 2 (0.33%) HCL Notes
5 2 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.16%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.16%) Appian
6 1 (0.16%) CMS
6 1 (0.16%) Documentum
6 1 (0.16%) FileNet
6 1 (0.16%) JBoss
6 1 (0.16%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 20 (3.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.63%) AutoCAD
3 7 (1.14%) Siemens NX
4 6 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.82%) Navisworks
5 5 (0.82%) ProjectWise
5 5 (0.82%) Revit
6 4 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 3 (0.49%) Adobe Illustrator
7 3 (0.49%) Adobe XD
7 3 (0.49%) Fusion 360
7 3 (0.49%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.49%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.33%) Simulink
8 2 (0.33%) Sketch
8 2 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.33%) Trello
9 1 (0.16%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 34 (5.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (2.45%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (2.12%) SAP HCM
4 10 (1.63%) Oracle EBS R12
5 9 (1.47%) Oracle Financials
5 9 (1.47%) SAP EHS
6 8 (1.31%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (1.31%) Teamcenter
7 7 (1.14%) SAP PS
8 6 (0.98%) Oracle Cash Management
9 5 (0.82%) Oracle ASCP
10 4 (0.65%) Oracle ERP
10 4 (0.65%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.65%) Oracle SCM
11 3 (0.49%) Maximo
11 3 (0.49%) Oracle Assets
11 3 (0.49%) SAP BRIM
11 3 (0.49%) SAP HR
11 3 (0.49%) SAP Hybris
11 3 (0.49%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 83 (13.56%) AWS
2 65 (10.62%) Azure
3 23 (3.76%) Serverless
4 20 (3.27%) GitHub
5 18 (2.94%) GCP
6 17 (2.78%) Power Platform
7 16 (2.61%) Amazon EC2
8 15 (2.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 15 (2.45%) Amazon S3
8 15 (2.45%) AWS Lambda
9 11 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
10 10 (1.63%) Azure DevOps
11 9 (1.47%) Amazon ECS
11 9 (1.47%) Entra ID
12 8 (1.31%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (1.31%) Microsoft 365
12 8 (1.31%) PaaS
12 8 (1.31%) SaaS
12 8 (1.31%) SuccessFactors
13 7 (1.14%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (3.10%) Firewall
2 11 (1.80%) Network Security
3 8 (1.31%) Intrusion Detection
3 8 (1.31%) LAN
3 8 (1.31%) SAN
4 7 (1.14%) DNS
5 5 (0.82%) Structured Cabling
5 5 (0.82%) VPN
5 5 (0.82%) WAN
6 4 (0.65%) 5G
7 3 (0.49%) BGP
7 3 (0.49%) Cisco Nexus
7 3 (0.49%) DHCP
7 3 (0.49%) LTE
7 3 (0.49%) OpenLDAP
7 3 (0.49%) OSPF
7 3 (0.49%) VLAN
7 3 (0.49%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.33%) MPLS
8 2 (0.33%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.29%) MongoDB
1 14 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (2.12%) Power BI
3 9 (1.47%) BigQuery
3 9 (1.47%) GIS
3 9 (1.47%) Relational Database
4 8 (1.31%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (1.31%) NoSQL
4 8 (1.31%) Oracle Database
5 7 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (1.14%) SQL Server
6 6 (0.98%) Geospatial Data
6 6 (0.98%) MySQL
6 6 (0.98%) SAP Data Services
6 6 (0.98%) Spatial Data
7 5 (0.82%) DynamoDB
7 5 (0.82%) Looker
8 4 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (0.65%) Big Data
8 4 (0.65%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 48 (7.84%) Git
2 42 (6.86%) JIRA
3 28 (4.58%) Jenkins
4 22 (3.59%) GitLab
5 14 (2.29%) Cucumber
6 11 (1.80%) JUnit
7 9 (1.47%) Cypress.io
8 6 (0.98%) Maven
8 6 (0.98%) Mockito
8 6 (0.98%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.82%) Selenium
10 4 (0.65%) Gradle
10 4 (0.65%) Grunt
10 4 (0.65%) gulp
11 3 (0.49%) Android Studio
11 3 (0.49%) webpack
12 2 (0.33%) Babel
12 2 (0.33%) MLflow
12 2 (0.33%) Postman
12 2 (0.33%) Rational Statemate
General
1 185 (30.23%) Social Skills
2 98 (16.01%) Finance
2 98 (16.01%) Public Sector
3 62 (10.13%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (3.43%) Banking
5 20 (3.27%) Aerospace
6 18 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
7 13 (2.12%) Documentation Skills
7 13 (2.12%) Manufacturing
8 12 (1.96%) Aviation
8 12 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
9 10 (1.63%) Telecoms
10 6 (0.98%) Games
10 6 (0.98%) Marketing
11 5 (0.82%) Legal
11 5 (0.82%) Military
12 4 (0.65%) Billing
13 3 (0.49%) Police
13 3 (0.49%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.49%) Retail
Job Titles
1 101 (16.50%) Consultant
2 90 (14.71%) Developer
3 55 (8.99%) Senior
4 54 (8.82%) SAP Consultant
5 41 (6.70%) Lead
6 39 (6.37%) Architect
7 33 (5.39%) Analyst
8 24 (3.92%) Java Developer
9 23 (3.76%) Designer
9 23 (3.76%) Project Manager
10 21 (3.43%) Administrator
11 17 (2.78%) Delivery Manager
11 17 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
12 16 (2.61%) Oracle Consultant
13 13 (2.12%) Business Analyst
13 13 (2.12%) Senior Developer
14 12 (1.96%) Management Consultant
14 12 (1.96%) SAP HCM Consultant
15 11 (1.80%) DevOps Engineer
15 11 (1.80%) Programmer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (4.58%) React
2 25 (4.08%) HTML
2 25 (4.08%) REST
3 23 (3.76%) Node.js
4 22 (3.59%) CSS
5 19 (3.10%) RESTful
6 15 (2.45%) .NET
6 15 (2.45%) Spring
7 14 (2.29%) Kafka
8 13 (2.12%) AngularJS
8 13 (2.12%) JSON
8 13 (2.12%) SAP Fiori
9 11 (1.80%) Spring Boot
10 10 (1.63%) Godot
10 10 (1.63%) Jest
10 10 (1.63%) Unreal Engine
11 9 (1.47%) SOAP
12 8 (1.31%) ActiveMQ
12 8 (1.31%) LDAP
12 8 (1.31%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 49 (8.01%) Onboarding
2 25 (4.08%) Product Ownership
3 18 (2.94%) Management Information System
4 15 (2.45%) Security Posture
5 13 (2.12%) Data Centre
6 12 (1.96%) Virtual Team
7 10 (1.63%) Cloud Native
7 10 (1.63%) Driving Licence
8 9 (1.47%) Fibre Optics
8 9 (1.47%) Mobile App
8 9 (1.47%) SCADA
9 8 (1.31%) NHS
10 6 (0.98%) Algorithms
11 5 (0.82%) Digital Media
11 5 (0.82%) Low-Code
11 5 (0.82%) Operational Technology
11 5 (0.82%) Replication
12 4 (0.65%) Greenfield Project
12 4 (0.65%) Hybrid Cloud
12 4 (0.65%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 36 (5.88%) Linux
2 21 (3.43%) Windows
3 16 (2.61%) Unix
4 10 (1.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.98%) Android
5 6 (0.98%) Mac OS X
6 5 (0.82%) Windows 10
6 5 (0.82%) Windows Server
7 3 (0.49%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.16%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.16%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.16%) VMS
9 1 (0.16%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.16%) Windows 8
9 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 159 (25.98%) Agile
2 91 (14.87%) Stakeholder Management
3 84 (13.73%) Problem-Solving
4 70 (11.44%) CI/CD
5 66 (10.78%) DevOps
6 50 (8.17%) Migration
7 43 (7.03%) Continuous Improvement
8 42 (6.86%) Roadmaps
8 42 (6.86%) Validation
9 40 (6.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 38 (6.21%) Test Automation
11 37 (6.05%) Microservices
11 37 (6.05%) Scrum
12 35 (5.72%) Change Management
13 33 (5.39%) Software Engineering
14 32 (5.23%) User Acceptance Testing
15 31 (5.07%) Analytics
16 30 (4.90%) Risk Management
16 30 (4.90%) User Experience
17 27 (4.41%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 63 (10.29%) Java
2 59 (9.64%) Python
3 52 (8.50%) SQL
4 31 (5.07%) JavaScript
5 20 (3.27%) TypeScript
6 17 (2.78%) ABAP
7 13 (2.12%) Bash
8 12 (1.96%) PowerShell
9 9 (1.47%) PL/SQL
10 8 (1.31%) C#
10 8 (1.31%) C++
10 8 (1.31%) PHP
11 6 (0.98%) R
12 5 (0.82%) Go
13 4 (0.65%) Apex Code
13 4 (0.65%) Perl
14 3 (0.49%) Kotlin
14 3 (0.49%) Scala
15 2 (0.33%) Groovy
15 2 (0.33%) Rust
Qualifications
1 329 (53.76%) Security Cleared
2 200 (32.68%) SC Cleared
3 44 (7.19%) Degree
4 19 (3.10%) DBS Check
5 14 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (2.12%) BC Cleared
6 13 (2.12%) Master's Degree
7 11 (1.80%) DV Cleared
8 10 (1.63%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 8 (1.31%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.14%) CCNP
11 6 (0.98%) CISM
12 5 (0.82%) AWS Certification
12 5 (0.82%) Chartered Engineer
12 5 (0.82%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 5 (0.82%) RIBA
13 4 (0.65%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.65%) Oracle Certification
14 3 (0.49%) PMP
14 3 (0.49%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (8.01%) QA
2 28 (4.58%) Accessibility
3 19 (3.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (2.29%) PMO
5 13 (2.12%) Data Quality
6 12 (1.96%) GRC
7 10 (1.63%) Def Stans
8 7 (1.14%) NIST
9 6 (0.98%) GDPR
10 5 (0.82%) WCAG
11 4 (0.65%) SLA
12 3 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 3 (0.49%) PSD2
13 2 (0.33%) ISO 20022
13 2 (0.33%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.33%) SEPA
14 1 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
14 1 (0.16%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 1 (0.16%) ECSS
14 1 (0.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 32 (5.23%) Docker
2 19 (3.10%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.33%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.16%) HDFS
6 1 (0.16%) KVM
6 1 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.16%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 28 (4.58%) Kubernetes
2 24 (3.92%) Terraform
3 8 (1.31%) Grafana
4 7 (1.14%) EMC NetWorker
4 7 (1.14%) EMC VPLEX
5 5 (0.82%) Ansible
5 5 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.82%) Prometheus
6 4 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.49%) PingFederate
7 3 (0.49%) Puppet
7 3 (0.49%) SCCM
8 2 (0.33%) Ambari
8 2 (0.33%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.33%) Kibana
8 2 (0.33%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.33%) ZABBIX
9 1 (0.16%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.16%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 100 (16.34%) SAP
2 63 (10.29%) Microsoft
3 53 (8.66%) Oracle
4 18 (2.94%) ServiceNow
5 16 (2.61%) Cisco
6 15 (2.45%) Siemens
7 14 (2.29%) VMware
8 11 (1.80%) Adobe
8 11 (1.80%) Twitter
9 10 (1.63%) Google
9 10 (1.63%) Salesforce
10 9 (1.47%) Ariba
10 9 (1.47%) EMC
10 9 (1.47%) Red Hat
11 8 (1.31%) Dell
12 7 (1.14%) Brocade
12 7 (1.14%) Isilon
13 5 (0.82%) Databricks
14 4 (0.65%) AppDynamics
14 4 (0.65%) MuleSoft