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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 101 165 252
Rank change year-on-year +64 +87 -23
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,352 564 358
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.52% 1.72% 0.92%
As % of the Qualifications category 8.06% 5.49% 3.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 948 375 218
10th Percentile £350 £308 £220
25th Percentile £410 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £670 £710 £643
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £492 £470
% change year-on-year -2.24% +4.68% -14.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 214 50 45
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 -
25th Percentile £42.49 £22.63 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.50 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.85% +37.50% -45.84%
75th Percentile £52.41 £53.44 £42.50
90th Percentile £73.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £20.00
% change year-on-year +50.19% +46.35% -45.84%

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 16,777 10,277 11,609
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.32% 31.26% 29.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,244 6,313 7,369
10th Percentile £350 £288 £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 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,269 822 822
10th Percentile £17.84 £17.98 £14.54
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £73.75 £53.93 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £73.75 £76.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -6.40%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +57 1,005 £490 -2.00% 279
UK excluding London +47 787 £481 -2.24% 253
Work from Home +64 518 £481 -1.59% 127
North of England +20 290 £480 +1.05% 65
London +56 287 £505 -1.70% 59
Midlands +43 193 £489 -4.17% 43
West Midlands +50 180 £488 -6.25% 40
North West 0 154 £500 +12.68% 42
South East -26 106 £483 -6.12% 59
North East +10 81 £453 -1.52% 20
South West +3 75 £525 +16.67% 46
Scotland +38 68 £375 -14.29% 23
Yorkshire -9 66 £478 -4.50% 4
East of England -12 34 £605 +184.50% 24
Northern Ireland +19 19 £450 +28.57% 2
East Midlands -27 12 £600 +21.95% 2
Wales -11 11 £413 -28.26% 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 58 (4.29%) Confluence
2 49 (3.62%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.41%) SharePoint Server
4 9 (0.67%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.59%) SAS
6 7 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
7 5 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
7 5 (0.37%) WebLogic
8 4 (0.30%) IIS
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 (0.074%) Appian
Applications
1 43 (3.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.07%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.11%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.81%) 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
8 2 (0.15%) Windchill
9 1 (0.074%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.074%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.074%) CATIA
9 1 (0.074%) InVision
9 1 (0.074%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.074%) ProjectWise
9 1 (0.074%) Revit
9 1 (0.074%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 46 (3.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.18%) SAP PSCD
3 13 (0.96%) SAP BRIM
3 13 (0.96%) SAP HR
4 12 (0.89%) SAP IBP
5 10 (0.74%) SAP FI
6 9 (0.67%) SAP Payroll
7 7 (0.52%) SAP FI-CA
8 6 (0.44%) SAP GRC
9 5 (0.37%) Shopify
10 4 (0.30%) SAP Convergent Charging
10 4 (0.30%) SAP EHS
10 4 (0.30%) SAP EWM
10 4 (0.30%) SAP MDG
10 4 (0.30%) SAP PP
11 3 (0.22%) Dynamics CRM
11 3 (0.22%) iTrent
11 3 (0.22%) Primavera
11 3 (0.22%) SAP ERP
11 3 (0.22%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 246 (18.20%) Azure
2 237 (17.53%) AWS
3 87 (6.43%) Power Platform
4 59 (4.36%) GitHub
5 57 (4.22%) Azure DevOps
6 52 (3.85%) Serverless
7 46 (3.40%) GCP
8 45 (3.33%) Microsoft 365
9 43 (3.18%) Amazon S3
9 43 (3.18%) GitHub Actions
10 41 (3.03%) AWS Lambda
10 41 (3.03%) Entra ID
11 27 (2.00%) PowerApps
12 26 (1.92%) Power Automate
13 21 (1.55%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 20 (1.48%) Amazon ECS
14 20 (1.48%) SuccessFactors
15 19 (1.41%) AWS CloudFormation
16 17 (1.26%) Amazon EKS
16 17 (1.26%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.26%) DNS
2 12 (0.89%) WAN
2 12 (0.89%) WebEx
3 10 (0.74%) Network Security
4 8 (0.59%) Intranet
4 8 (0.59%) SSL
5 7 (0.52%) Ethernet
5 7 (0.52%) Firewall
5 7 (0.52%) HTTPS
5 7 (0.52%) MPLS
6 6 (0.44%) LAN
6 6 (0.44%) 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%) HTTP
9 3 (0.22%) IP Telephony
9 3 (0.22%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (4.51%) Power BI
2 47 (3.48%) PostgreSQL
3 33 (2.44%) Metadata
4 30 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
4 30 (2.22%) MongoDB
5 29 (2.14%) SQL Server
6 23 (1.70%) Amazon RDS
7 21 (1.55%) MySQL
8 18 (1.33%) NoSQL
9 17 (1.26%) Data Lake
9 17 (1.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 16 (1.18%) Relational Database
11 13 (0.96%) Amazon Redshift
11 13 (0.96%) DynamoDB
12 12 (0.89%) Amazon Aurora
13 11 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
14 9 (0.67%) Big Data
15 8 (0.59%) Oracle Database
15 8 (0.59%) Redis
15 8 (0.59%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 99 (7.32%) JIRA
2 80 (5.92%) Git
3 59 (4.36%) Jenkins
4 56 (4.14%) GitLab
5 22 (1.63%) Selenium
6 19 (1.41%) JUnit
7 18 (1.33%) Maven
8 17 (1.26%) Cucumber
9 14 (1.04%) Postman
9 14 (1.04%) Team Foundation Server
9 14 (1.04%) Visual Studio
10 13 (0.96%) Cypress.io
11 11 (0.81%) Mockito
12 9 (0.67%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 9 (0.67%) REST Assured
12 9 (0.67%) SonarQube
13 8 (0.59%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.59%) Gatling
14 7 (0.52%) Artifactory
14 7 (0.52%) Gradle
General
1 439 (32.47%) Social Skills
2 306 (22.63%) Public Sector
3 219 (16.20%) Finance
4 127 (9.39%) Analytical Skills
5 123 (9.10%) Legal
6 121 (8.95%) Organisational Skills
7 56 (4.14%) Aerospace
8 39 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
9 29 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
10 25 (1.85%) Manufacturing
11 23 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
12 22 (1.63%) Billing
12 22 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 21 (1.55%) Banking
14 17 (1.26%) Aviation
14 17 (1.26%) Telecoms
15 11 (0.81%) Local Government
16 10 (0.74%) Military
17 9 (0.67%) Law
17 9 (0.67%) Retail
Job Titles
1 182 (13.46%) Developer
2 150 (11.09%) Senior
3 142 (10.50%) Lead
4 121 (8.95%) Architect
5 99 (7.32%) Analyst
6 94 (6.95%) Consultant
7 64 (4.73%) Designer
8 57 (4.22%) Java Developer
9 56 (4.14%) SAP Consultant
10 43 (3.18%) DevOps Engineer
11 42 (3.11%) Data Engineer
12 39 (2.88%) Business Analyst
13 33 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
14 32 (2.37%) Delivery Manager
15 30 (2.22%) Product Manager
16 27 (2.00%) Data Architect
16 27 (2.00%) User Researcher
17 26 (1.92%) Lead Developer
18 24 (1.78%) Administrator
19 23 (1.70%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (6.07%) REST
2 54 (3.99%) HTML
3 53 (3.92%) Spring
4 52 (3.85%) Spring Boot
5 50 (3.70%) RESTful
6 48 (3.55%) Node.js
7 47 (3.48%) React
8 42 (3.11%) CSS
9 28 (2.07%) .NET
9 28 (2.07%) Kafka
10 26 (1.92%) Playwright
11 18 (1.33%) JSON
11 18 (1.33%) XML
12 16 (1.18%) Jest
13 15 (1.11%) BAPI
13 15 (1.11%) SOAP
13 15 (1.11%) SPFx
14 14 (1.04%) OpenAPI
14 14 (1.04%) Play Framework
14 14 (1.04%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 108 (7.99%) Virtual Team
1 108 (7.99%) Web Conferencing
2 98 (7.25%) Podcast
3 83 (6.14%) Onboarding
4 75 (5.55%) Product Ownership
5 61 (4.51%) Cloud Native
6 23 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
7 20 (1.48%) Management Information System
7 20 (1.48%) NHS
8 19 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
9 17 (1.26%) Self-Motivation
10 16 (1.18%) Mobile App
10 16 (1.18%) Replication
11 15 (1.11%) BYOD
12 13 (0.96%) Algorithms
13 12 (0.89%) Distributed Systems
14 10 (0.74%) Driving Licence
14 10 (0.74%) Video Conferencing
15 9 (0.67%) Data Centre
15 9 (0.67%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 61 (4.51%) Linux
1 61 (4.51%) Windows
2 29 (2.14%) Unix
3 19 (1.41%) Android
4 15 (1.11%) Windows Server
5 11 (0.81%) Windows 10
6 9 (0.67%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.59%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.44%) VMS
9 3 (0.22%) AIX
10 2 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.15%) Solaris
11 1 (0.074%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.074%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 407 (30.10%) Agile
2 242 (17.90%) CI/CD
3 224 (16.57%) DevOps
4 217 (16.05%) Stakeholder Management
5 165 (12.20%) Continuous Improvement
6 159 (11.76%) Problem-Solving
7 143 (10.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 121 (8.95%) Customer Service
8 121 (8.95%) Scrum
9 114 (8.43%) Roadmaps
10 105 (7.77%) Decision-Making
11 104 (7.69%) Analytics
12 102 (7.54%) Test Automation
13 99 (7.32%) Microservices
14 96 (7.10%) Migration
15 94 (6.95%) Infrastructure as Code
16 80 (5.92%) Mentoring
17 78 (5.77%) Software Engineering
18 73 (5.40%) User Research
19 68 (5.03%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 144 (10.65%) Java
2 139 (10.28%) SQL
3 116 (8.58%) Python
4 81 (5.99%) JavaScript
5 49 (3.62%) TypeScript
6 38 (2.81%) Scala
7 28 (2.07%) PowerShell
8 25 (1.85%) C#
9 18 (1.33%) PL/SQL
10 17 (1.26%) Bash
11 15 (1.11%) Shell Script
12 13 (0.96%) C++
13 12 (0.89%) VB
14 11 (0.81%) T-SQL
14 11 (0.81%) VB6
14 11 (0.81%) VBA
15 10 (0.74%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.59%) ABAP
17 7 (0.52%) MATLAB
17 7 (0.52%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 446 (32.99%) Security Cleared
2 333 (24.63%) SC Cleared
3 64 (4.73%) Degree
4 20 (1.48%) AWS Certification
5 15 (1.11%) DV Cleared
6 14 (1.04%) Azure Certification
7 13 (0.96%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (0.74%) A+ Certification
9 9 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 8 (0.59%) DBS Check
11 7 (0.52%) CTC Cleared
11 7 (0.52%) ISTQB
12 6 (0.44%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 6 (0.44%) CCNA
12 6 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
12 6 (0.44%) PMI Certification
13 5 (0.37%) CompTIA CySA+
13 5 (0.37%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 5 (0.37%) NVQ Level 4
14 4 (0.30%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 78 (5.77%) Accessibility
2 72 (5.33%) QA
3 69 (5.10%) Data Quality
4 26 (1.92%) GDPR
5 23 (1.70%) PMO
5 23 (1.70%) WCAG
6 18 (1.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 17 (1.26%) SLA
8 14 (1.04%) NIST
9 10 (0.74%) GRC
10 7 (0.52%) NCSC
11 4 (0.30%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 4 (0.30%) GMP
11 4 (0.30%) GxP
11 4 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 4 (0.30%) PERC
12 3 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
12 3 (0.22%) Def Stans
12 3 (0.22%) HL7
12 3 (0.22%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 81 (5.99%) Docker
2 39 (2.88%) Active Directory
3 14 (1.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
5 9 (0.67%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.37%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.15%) Firmware
7 2 (0.15%) vSphere
8 1 (0.074%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.074%) GPFS
8 1 (0.074%) IAG
8 1 (0.074%) NFS
8 1 (0.074%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.074%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.074%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 107 (7.91%) Terraform
2 85 (6.29%) Kubernetes
3 29 (2.14%) Grafana
4 16 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (1.11%) Prometheus
6 14 (1.04%) Kibana
7 12 (0.89%) Argo
8 10 (0.74%) SCCM
9 9 (0.67%) Ansible
10 8 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
11 6 (0.44%) 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%) Functional Safety
14 3 (0.22%) Podman
15 2 (0.15%) Data Guard
15 2 (0.15%) Karpenter
15 2 (0.15%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 164 (12.13%) Microsoft
2 126 (9.32%) SAP
3 73 (5.40%) Oracle
4 58 (4.29%) ServiceNow
5 37 (2.74%) Google
6 20 (1.48%) BeyondTrust
7 19 (1.41%) Databricks
8 16 (1.18%) Splunk
9 15 (1.11%) Cisco
10 14 (1.04%) VMware
11 13 (0.96%) Atlassian
12 9 (0.67%) CyberArk
13 8 (0.59%) Informatica
13 8 (0.59%) Salesforce
13 8 (0.59%) Talend
13 8 (0.59%) Workday
14 7 (0.52%) Apple
14 7 (0.52%) Dell
14 7 (0.52%) IBM
14 7 (0.52%) Qualtrics