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

6 months to
20 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 118 233 220
Rank change year-on-year +115 -13 -14
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 999 332 471
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.16% 1.13% 1.08%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.59% 3.67% 3.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 743 207 355
10th Percentile £315 £243 £300
25th Percentile £394 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £567 £580 £625
90th Percentile £650 £657 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -11.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 26 53
10th Percentile £15.78 - £13.99
25th Percentile £26.07 £18.50 -
Median hourly rate £43.69 £45.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +180.20% -58.12%
75th Percentile £73.00 £72.19 £42.64
90th Percentile £84.74 £76.88 £75.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £52.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -10.48% +226.90% -59.30%

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 15,158 9,055 13,449
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.77% 30.76% 30.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,101 5,761 8,302
10th Percentile £345 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.23% -2.36%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £709 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £530
% change year-on-year -1.96% -3.77% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,094 505 1,054
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.43 £13.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.50 £17.80
Median hourly rate £45.46 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.96% +6.25% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.84 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £46.30 £40.00
% change year-on-year -1.81% +15.75% -19.55%

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 20 April 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 20 April 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 20 April 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 +96 726 £476 -4.80% 278
UK excluding London +48 530 £445 -11.00% 249
Work from Home +99 406 £438 -12.50% 136
London +107 237 £512 -2.88% 54
North of England +21 200 £440 -12.00% 62
North West +22 136 £397 -26.23% 41
Midlands +8 118 £438 -2.34% 19
South East +2 89 £469 -14.10% 62
West Midlands -8 89 £447 +2.41% 18
South West +3 51 £525 +61.54% 58
Scotland +33 47 £320 -37.25% 10
Yorkshire -33 35 £481 +78.24% 7
North East +3 31 £475 +25.00% 14
East Midlands -4 28 £395 -35.56% 1
East of England -21 27 £450 +125.00% 40
Wales -6 7 £458 -20.42% 3
Northern Ireland +3 3 £375 +33.45% 1

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 52 (5.21%) Confluence
2 32 (3.20%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.30%) Apache Spark
4 11 (1.10%) nginx
5 10 (1.00%) SharePoint Server
6 9 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
7 8 (0.80%) Apache
7 8 (0.80%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (0.50%) CMS
9 4 (0.40%) ArcGIS
9 4 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.30%) CICS
10 3 (0.30%) LiveCycle
10 3 (0.30%) MTS
10 3 (0.30%) SAS
10 3 (0.30%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.10%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.10%) Camunda
11 1 (0.10%) Drupal
11 1 (0.10%) Smallworld
Applications
1 41 (4.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (1.80%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (1.30%) MS Visio
5 12 (1.20%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.50%) Simulink
7 2 (0.20%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.20%) Trello
8 1 (0.10%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.10%) CATIA
8 1 (0.10%) InVision
8 1 (0.10%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.10%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.10%) Sketch
8 1 (0.10%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 47 (4.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.30%) SAP Travel Management
3 12 (1.20%) SAP PSCD
4 11 (1.10%) SAP IBP
5 6 (0.60%) SAP BRIM
5 6 (0.60%) SAP EHS
5 6 (0.60%) SAP EWM
5 6 (0.60%) SAP FI
6 5 (0.50%) SAP HR
7 4 (0.40%) iTrent
7 4 (0.40%) Loan IQ
7 4 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.40%) SAP FI-CA
7 4 (0.40%) SAP MM
7 4 (0.40%) SAP VC
7 4 (0.40%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 3 (0.30%) ProductWriter
8 3 (0.30%) SAP HCM
8 3 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 3 (0.30%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 180 (18.02%) AWS
2 160 (16.02%) Azure
3 67 (6.71%) Power Platform
4 50 (5.01%) GitHub
5 46 (4.60%) Serverless
6 41 (4.10%) Azure DevOps
7 39 (3.90%) GCP
8 36 (3.60%) GitHub Actions
9 33 (3.30%) Microsoft 365
10 30 (3.00%) AWS Lambda
11 25 (2.50%) AWS CloudFormation
12 22 (2.20%) Entra ID
13 20 (2.00%) Power Automate
14 18 (1.80%) Amazon SQS
14 18 (1.80%) PowerApps
15 17 (1.70%) Amazon ECS
15 17 (1.70%) Amazon S3
16 15 (1.50%) Amazon EKS
16 15 (1.50%) Azure Data Factory
16 15 (1.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.80%) SSH
2 14 (1.40%) Firewall
3 13 (1.30%) DNS
4 12 (1.20%) Network Security
5 8 (0.80%) Reverse Proxy
6 7 (0.70%) Ethernet
6 7 (0.70%) HTTPS
6 7 (0.70%) VPN
7 6 (0.60%) WAN
8 5 (0.50%) MPLS
8 5 (0.50%) WebEx
9 4 (0.40%) DHCP
9 4 (0.40%) SAN
9 4 (0.40%) VSAN
10 3 (0.30%) Internet
10 3 (0.30%) LAN
10 3 (0.30%) SDH
10 3 (0.30%) TCP/IP
10 3 (0.30%) Unified Communications
10 3 (0.30%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (5.31%) Power BI
2 37 (3.70%) PostgreSQL
3 28 (2.80%) Metadata
4 26 (2.60%) SQL Server
5 19 (1.90%) NoSQL
6 18 (1.80%) Data Warehouse
7 16 (1.60%) MongoDB
8 15 (1.50%) Relational Database
9 13 (1.30%) DynamoDB
10 12 (1.20%) Geospatial Data
10 12 (1.20%) MySQL
11 11 (1.10%) Data Lake
12 10 (1.00%) Big Data
12 10 (1.00%) Delta Lake
13 9 (0.90%) Redis
14 8 (0.80%) DocumentDB
15 7 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
15 7 (0.70%) Spark SQL
15 7 (0.70%) Tableau
16 6 (0.60%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 87 (8.71%) JIRA
2 70 (7.01%) Git
3 46 (4.60%) GitLab
4 42 (4.20%) Jenkins
5 13 (1.30%) Selenium
6 10 (1.00%) JUnit
7 9 (0.90%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.80%) Cucumber
9 7 (0.70%) Gatling
10 6 (0.60%) Mockito
11 5 (0.50%) JMeter
11 5 (0.50%) Postman
12 4 (0.40%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.40%) Maven
12 4 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
12 4 (0.40%) SonarQube
13 3 (0.30%) Toad
13 3 (0.30%) WebDriver
14 2 (0.20%) Eclipse
14 2 (0.20%) Visual Studio
General
1 318 (31.83%) Social Skills
2 181 (18.12%) Public Sector
3 145 (14.51%) Finance
4 117 (11.71%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (4.90%) Aerospace
6 45 (4.50%) Banking
7 29 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (2.20%) Legal
9 21 (2.10%) Manufacturing
10 20 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
11 18 (1.80%) Aviation
12 16 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
13 15 (1.50%) Telecoms
14 13 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
15 11 (1.10%) Local Government
16 10 (1.00%) Billing
17 9 (0.90%) Publishing
18 8 (0.80%) Military
18 8 (0.80%) Retail
19 7 (0.70%) Law
Job Titles
1 154 (15.42%) Developer
2 119 (11.91%) Analyst
3 112 (11.21%) Senior
4 95 (9.51%) Lead
5 92 (9.21%) Architect
6 78 (7.81%) Consultant
7 55 (5.51%) SAP Consultant
8 54 (5.41%) Business Analyst
9 41 (4.10%) Java Developer
10 36 (3.60%) Designer
11 35 (3.50%) Data Engineer
12 34 (3.40%) Administrator
13 27 (2.70%) Delivery Manager
14 25 (2.50%) DevOps Engineer
15 24 (2.40%) Senior Analyst
15 24 (2.40%) Senior Developer
16 21 (2.10%) Senior Manager
17 19 (1.90%) Data Architect
17 19 (1.90%) Project Manager
17 19 (1.90%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (6.51%) Node.js
2 53 (5.31%) React
3 42 (4.20%) REST
3 42 (4.20%) RESTful
4 36 (3.60%) HTML
5 32 (3.20%) CSS
5 32 (3.20%) Kafka
6 30 (3.00%) Spring
7 27 (2.70%) .NET
7 27 (2.70%) Spring Boot
8 16 (1.60%) Middleware
9 14 (1.40%) JSON
9 14 (1.40%) Playwright
10 13 (1.30%) SAP TM
10 13 (1.30%) XML
11 12 (1.20%) LangChain
11 12 (1.20%) OAuth
11 12 (1.20%) PySpark
12 11 (1.10%) AngularJS
13 10 (1.00%) Play Framework
Miscellaneous
1 72 (7.21%) Product Ownership
2 52 (5.21%) Onboarding
3 46 (4.60%) Cloud Native
4 21 (2.10%) Management Information System
5 19 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
5 19 (1.90%) Legacy Systems
6 15 (1.50%) NHS
7 14 (1.40%) Algorithms
8 10 (1.00%) Public Cloud
9 9 (0.90%) Data Centre
9 9 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
10 8 (0.80%) Data Structures
11 7 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
11 7 (0.70%) Linux Command Line
12 6 (0.60%) Driving Licence
12 6 (0.60%) Hybrid Cloud
12 6 (0.60%) Mainframe
12 6 (0.60%) Replication
13 5 (0.50%) Tandem
13 5 (0.50%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 93 (9.31%) Linux
2 42 (4.20%) Windows
3 22 (2.20%) Unix
4 10 (1.00%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.90%) Android
6 6 (0.60%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.40%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.30%) AIX
8 3 (0.30%) Solaris
8 3 (0.30%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.20%) Debian
9 2 (0.20%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.10%) CentOS
10 1 (0.10%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.10%) VME
10 1 (0.10%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (31.93%) Agile
2 199 (19.92%) CI/CD
3 178 (17.82%) Problem-Solving
4 155 (15.52%) DevOps
5 142 (14.21%) Stakeholder Management
6 106 (10.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 102 (10.21%) Continuous Improvement
8 82 (8.21%) Test Automation
9 81 (8.11%) Scrum
10 79 (7.91%) Infrastructure as Code
10 79 (7.91%) Roadmaps
11 77 (7.71%) Microservices
12 69 (6.91%) Migration
13 68 (6.81%) Data Modelling
14 67 (6.71%) AI
14 67 (6.71%) Analytics
14 67 (6.71%) Decision-Making
15 63 (6.31%) Validation
16 58 (5.81%) Containerisation
17 57 (5.71%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 141 (14.11%) Python
2 110 (11.01%) Java
3 106 (10.61%) SQL
4 72 (7.21%) JavaScript
5 47 (4.70%) TypeScript
6 30 (3.00%) Scala
7 23 (2.30%) C#
8 20 (2.00%) PowerShell
8 20 (2.00%) Shell Script
9 14 (1.40%) Bash
9 14 (1.40%) Ruby
10 10 (1.00%) Bicep
11 9 (0.90%) PL/SQL
12 8 (0.80%) ABAP
12 8 (0.80%) C
12 8 (0.80%) C++
12 8 (0.80%) COBOL
13 6 (0.60%) MATLAB
14 4 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 4 (0.40%) R
Qualifications
1 340 (34.03%) Security Cleared
2 247 (24.72%) SC Cleared
3 61 (6.11%) Degree
4 19 (1.90%) DV Cleared
5 16 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (1.20%) AWS Certification
7 11 (1.10%) Master's Degree
8 9 (0.90%) Azure Certification
9 8 (0.80%) PMI Certification
10 6 (0.60%) CompTIA CySA+
10 6 (0.60%) DBS Check
10 6 (0.60%) ISTQB
10 6 (0.60%) PMP
11 5 (0.50%) GIAC
11 5 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (0.40%) CompTIA Security+
12 4 (0.40%) CTC Cleared
12 4 (0.40%) ISEB
12 4 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 4 (0.40%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (6.41%) Data Quality
2 63 (6.31%) Accessibility
3 53 (5.31%) QA
4 20 (2.00%) WCAG
5 18 (1.80%) SLA
6 16 (1.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.60%) NIST
7 12 (1.20%) PMO
8 11 (1.10%) GDPR
9 8 (0.80%) PCI DSS
10 7 (0.70%) NCSC
11 6 (0.60%) GRC
11 6 (0.60%) ISO 20022
12 5 (0.50%) IFRS
12 5 (0.50%) IFRS 17
13 4 (0.40%) HL7
13 4 (0.40%) PSD2
14 3 (0.30%) DICOM
14 3 (0.30%) ISO 8583
14 3 (0.30%) RMADS
System Software
1 71 (7.11%) Docker
2 24 (2.40%) Active Directory
2 24 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (0.90%) vSphere
4 6 (0.60%) Hyper-V
5 5 (0.50%) GPFS
5 5 (0.50%) NFS
5 5 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.30%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.20%) ACF2
8 2 (0.20%) Firmware
8 2 (0.20%) QEMU
8 2 (0.20%) RACF
8 2 (0.20%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.10%) Postfix
9 1 (0.10%) Varnish
9 1 (0.10%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 93 (9.31%) Terraform
2 70 (7.01%) Kubernetes
3 25 (2.50%) Grafana
4 17 (1.70%) Prometheus
5 16 (1.60%) Ansible
6 9 (0.90%) Kibana
7 8 (0.80%) vRealize
8 7 (0.70%) Istio
9 6 (0.60%) Argo
10 5 (0.50%) VxRail
11 4 (0.40%) HAProxy
11 4 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (0.40%) Packer
11 4 (0.40%) Podman
12 3 (0.30%) SCCM
13 2 (0.20%) CA Endevor
13 2 (0.20%) Consul
13 2 (0.20%) EMC NetWorker
13 2 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
13 2 (0.20%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 122 (12.21%) SAP
2 97 (9.71%) Microsoft
3 50 (5.01%) Oracle
4 28 (2.80%) VMware
5 24 (2.40%) ServiceNow
6 23 (2.30%) Cisco
7 22 (2.20%) Databricks
8 18 (1.80%) Google
8 18 (1.80%) Splunk
9 17 (1.70%) IBM
10 12 (1.20%) Pega
11 11 (1.10%) Workday
12 10 (1.00%) Atlassian
13 8 (0.80%) Adobe
13 8 (0.80%) OpenAI
14 7 (0.70%) CyberArk
14 7 (0.70%) Foundry
14 7 (0.70%) Salesforce
15 6 (0.60%) BeyondTrust
16 5 (0.50%) Red Hat