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

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 215 223
Rank change year-on-year +90 +8 -9
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 999 347 459
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.09% 1.18% 1.06%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.53% 3.85% 3.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 731 219 342
10th Percentile £320 £246 £250
25th Percentile £394 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £503
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -0.65% -8.50%
75th Percentile £569 £580 £625
90th Percentile £656 £669 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -12.50% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 27 53
10th Percentile £16.33 - £13.99
25th Percentile £24.25 £18.50 -
Median hourly rate £47.00 £45.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% +180.20% -49.30%
75th Percentile £73.00 £74.38 £42.64
90th Percentile £85.36 £76.75 £75.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £53.75 £16.06
% change year-on-year -18.71% +234.65% -49.30%

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 15,304 9,016 13,257
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.09% 30.78% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,172 5,686 8,192
10th Percentile £345 £286 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £708 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £530
% change year-on-year - -5.66% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,101 515 1,079
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.59 £17.88
Median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.75% - -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.68 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £79.48 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.94
% change year-on-year +18.75% -2.30% -17.66%

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 7 May 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 7 May 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 7 May 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 +100 724 £475 -6.17% 331
UK excluding London +55 531 £438 -12.50% 285
Work from Home +94 415 £438 -12.50% 168
London +87 234 £512 -6.73% 62
North of England +25 192 £438 -12.50% 82
North West +16 124 £397 -26.23% 56
Midlands +10 120 £441 +7.62% 28
West Midlands +4 90 £455 +10.85% 23
South East +4 86 £483 -12.50% 60
South West 0 53 £508 +76.52% 64
Scotland +37 52 £325 -26.55% 7
North East +9 36 £475 +31.94% 24
Yorkshire -26 36 £481 +37.50% 2
East Midlands -4 29 £395 -35.56% 5
East of England -21 27 £450 +125.00% 44
Wales -14 5 - - 3
Northern Ireland +3 3 £375 +33.45%

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 45 (4.50%) Confluence
2 33 (3.30%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.30%) Apache Spark
4 12 (1.20%) SharePoint Server
5 9 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.80%) Apache
7 7 (0.70%) nginx
8 5 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
9 4 (0.40%) CMS
9 4 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.30%) ArcGIS
10 3 (0.30%) CICS
10 3 (0.30%) LiveCycle
10 3 (0.30%) SAS
11 1 (0.10%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.10%) Camunda
11 1 (0.10%) Drupal
11 1 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
11 1 (0.10%) Smallworld
11 1 (0.10%) WebLogic
Applications
1 42 (4.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (1.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (1.40%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.20%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.50%) Simulink
6 2 (0.20%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.20%) Trello
7 1 (0.10%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.10%) CATIA
7 1 (0.10%) InVision
7 1 (0.10%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.10%) PTC Creo
7 1 (0.10%) Sketch
7 1 (0.10%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 44 (4.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.40%) SAP PSCD
3 13 (1.30%) SAP IBP
3 13 (1.30%) SAP Travel Management
4 10 (1.00%) SAP BRIM
5 7 (0.70%) SAP EWM
5 7 (0.70%) SAP FI
6 6 (0.60%) SAP EHS
6 6 (0.60%) SAP FI-CA
7 5 (0.50%) SAP HR
8 4 (0.40%) iTrent
8 4 (0.40%) Loan IQ
8 4 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
9 3 (0.30%) Exchequer
9 3 (0.30%) Primavera
9 3 (0.30%) ProductWriter
9 3 (0.30%) SAP HCM
9 3 (0.30%) SAP MDG
9 3 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
9 3 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 178 (17.82%) AWS
2 168 (16.82%) Azure
3 70 (7.01%) Power Platform
4 48 (4.80%) GitHub
5 45 (4.50%) Azure DevOps
6 43 (4.30%) Serverless
7 41 (4.10%) GCP
8 36 (3.60%) GitHub Actions
9 31 (3.10%) Microsoft 365
10 28 (2.80%) AWS Lambda
11 27 (2.70%) Entra ID
12 21 (2.10%) AWS CloudFormation
12 21 (2.10%) Power Automate
13 19 (1.90%) PowerApps
14 17 (1.70%) Amazon SQS
15 16 (1.60%) Amazon ECS
15 16 (1.60%) Amazon S3
16 14 (1.40%) Amazon EKS
16 14 (1.40%) Azure Data Factory
16 14 (1.40%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.60%) DNS
2 14 (1.40%) Firewall
2 14 (1.40%) SSH
3 12 (1.20%) Network Security
4 8 (0.80%) Reverse Proxy
5 7 (0.70%) Ethernet
5 7 (0.70%) HTTPS
6 6 (0.60%) DHCP
7 5 (0.50%) VPN
7 5 (0.50%) WAN
8 4 (0.40%) LAN
8 4 (0.40%) SAN
8 4 (0.40%) VSAN
8 4 (0.40%) WebEx
9 3 (0.30%) Internet
9 3 (0.30%) Modbus
9 3 (0.30%) MPLS
9 3 (0.30%) SDH
9 3 (0.30%) TCP/IP
10 2 (0.20%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (5.61%) Power BI
2 34 (3.40%) PostgreSQL
3 24 (2.40%) SQL Server
4 23 (2.30%) Metadata
5 20 (2.00%) Data Warehouse
6 16 (1.60%) MongoDB
7 15 (1.50%) NoSQL
7 15 (1.50%) Relational Database
8 13 (1.30%) DynamoDB
8 13 (1.30%) MySQL
9 11 (1.10%) Geospatial Data
10 10 (1.00%) Big Data
10 10 (1.00%) Data Lake
10 10 (1.00%) Delta Lake
11 9 (0.90%) Redis
12 8 (0.80%) DocumentDB
13 7 (0.70%) Amazon Aurora
13 7 (0.70%) Spark SQL
13 7 (0.70%) Tableau
14 6 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 78 (7.81%) JIRA
2 67 (6.71%) Git
3 45 (4.50%) GitLab
4 40 (4.00%) Jenkins
5 15 (1.50%) Selenium
6 12 (1.20%) JUnit
7 10 (1.00%) Cucumber
8 8 (0.80%) Cypress.io
9 7 (0.70%) Postman
10 6 (0.60%) Gatling
11 4 (0.40%) Artifactory
11 4 (0.40%) JMeter
11 4 (0.40%) Maven
11 4 (0.40%) Mockito
11 4 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 3 (0.30%) REST Assured
12 3 (0.30%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.30%) WebDriver
13 2 (0.20%) Android Studio
General
1 307 (30.73%) Social Skills
2 184 (18.42%) Public Sector
3 146 (14.61%) Finance
4 117 (11.71%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (4.90%) Aerospace
6 42 (4.20%) Banking
7 30 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
8 23 (2.30%) Legal
9 21 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
9 21 (2.10%) Manufacturing
10 18 (1.80%) Aviation
11 17 (1.70%) Billing
11 17 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
12 14 (1.40%) Telecoms
13 12 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
14 10 (1.00%) Law
15 9 (0.90%) Retail
16 8 (0.80%) Local Government
16 8 (0.80%) Military
16 8 (0.80%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 149 (14.91%) Developer
2 126 (12.61%) Analyst
3 110 (11.01%) Senior
4 101 (10.11%) Lead
5 99 (9.91%) Architect
6 78 (7.81%) Consultant
7 58 (5.81%) Business Analyst
8 57 (5.71%) SAP Consultant
9 40 (4.00%) Designer
10 36 (3.60%) Data Engineer
10 36 (3.60%) Java Developer
11 34 (3.40%) Administrator
12 26 (2.60%) Delivery Manager
13 25 (2.50%) Senior Analyst
14 24 (2.40%) DevOps Engineer
14 24 (2.40%) Senior Developer
15 22 (2.20%) Data Architect
16 21 (2.10%) Senior Business Analyst
17 20 (2.00%) Service Designer
17 20 (2.00%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (5.81%) Node.js
2 51 (5.11%) React
3 43 (4.30%) REST
4 40 (4.00%) HTML
4 40 (4.00%) RESTful
5 36 (3.60%) CSS
6 29 (2.90%) .NET
7 28 (2.80%) Spring
8 27 (2.70%) Kafka
9 26 (2.60%) Spring Boot
10 18 (1.80%) OAuth
11 16 (1.60%) JSON
11 16 (1.60%) Middleware
11 16 (1.60%) Playwright
12 13 (1.30%) OAuth2
12 13 (1.30%) SAP TM
13 12 (1.20%) PySpark
13 12 (1.20%) SPFx
14 11 (1.10%) AngularJS
14 11 (1.10%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 74 (7.41%) Product Ownership
2 50 (5.01%) Onboarding
3 44 (4.40%) Cloud Native
4 22 (2.20%) Management Information System
5 19 (1.90%) Legacy Systems
6 18 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
7 16 (1.60%) Algorithms
8 15 (1.50%) NHS
9 11 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
10 9 (0.90%) Data Centre
10 9 (0.90%) Public Cloud
11 8 (0.80%) Data Structures
11 8 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
12 7 (0.70%) Linux Command Line
13 6 (0.60%) Hybrid Cloud
13 6 (0.60%) Mainframe
13 6 (0.60%) Mobile App
13 6 (0.60%) Operational Technology
13 6 (0.60%) Replication
14 5 (0.50%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 84 (8.41%) Linux
2 44 (4.40%) Windows
3 23 (2.30%) Unix
4 12 (1.20%) Android
4 12 (1.20%) Windows Server
5 7 (0.70%) Apple iOS
5 7 (0.70%) Mac OS
6 4 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.40%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.30%) AIX
7 3 (0.30%) Solaris
7 3 (0.30%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.20%) Debian
8 2 (0.20%) VMS
9 1 (0.10%) CentOS
9 1 (0.10%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.10%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 315 (31.53%) Agile
2 198 (19.82%) CI/CD
3 169 (16.92%) Problem-Solving
4 153 (15.32%) DevOps
5 143 (14.31%) Stakeholder Management
6 109 (10.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 104 (10.41%) Continuous Improvement
8 85 (8.51%) Roadmaps
9 81 (8.11%) Infrastructure as Code
10 80 (8.01%) Test Automation
11 76 (7.61%) Scrum
12 73 (7.31%) Decision-Making
13 71 (7.11%) Microservices
14 68 (6.81%) Analytics
14 68 (6.81%) Data Modelling
14 68 (6.81%) Migration
15 63 (6.31%) AI
16 61 (6.11%) Workshop Facilitation
17 59 (5.91%) Business Intelligence
18 57 (5.71%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 137 (13.71%) Python
2 105 (10.51%) SQL
3 103 (10.31%) Java
4 70 (7.01%) JavaScript
5 43 (4.30%) TypeScript
6 31 (3.10%) Scala
7 24 (2.40%) C#
8 20 (2.00%) PowerShell
9 17 (1.70%) Shell Script
10 12 (1.20%) PL/SQL
11 11 (1.10%) Bicep
11 11 (1.10%) Ruby
12 10 (1.00%) Bash
13 8 (0.80%) C
13 8 (0.80%) C++
13 8 (0.80%) COBOL
14 6 (0.60%) MATLAB
14 6 (0.60%) VB
15 5 (0.50%) ABAP
15 5 (0.50%) R
Qualifications
1 313 (31.33%) Security Cleared
2 223 (22.32%) SC Cleared
3 63 (6.31%) Degree
4 16 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
4 16 (1.60%) DV Cleared
5 11 (1.10%) AWS Certification
5 11 (1.10%) Master's Degree
6 9 (0.90%) Azure Certification
7 8 (0.80%) PMI Certification
8 6 (0.60%) CompTIA CySA+
8 6 (0.60%) DBS Check
8 6 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (0.60%) PMP
9 5 (0.50%) GIAC
10 4 (0.40%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (0.40%) CompTIA Security+
10 4 (0.40%) CTC Cleared
10 4 (0.40%) MBA
10 4 (0.40%) TOGAF Certification
11 3 (0.30%) NVQ Level 4
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (6.61%) Data Quality
2 64 (6.41%) Accessibility
3 54 (5.41%) QA
4 18 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (1.80%) WCAG
5 16 (1.60%) NIST
6 15 (1.50%) PMO
6 15 (1.50%) SLA
7 10 (1.00%) GDPR
8 8 (0.80%) PCI DSS
9 7 (0.70%) GRC
10 6 (0.60%) ISO 20022
11 5 (0.50%) IFRS
11 5 (0.50%) IFRS 17
11 5 (0.50%) NCSC
12 4 (0.40%) HL7
12 4 (0.40%) PSD2
13 3 (0.30%) DICOM
13 3 (0.30%) RMADS
13 3 (0.30%) SEPA
System Software
1 62 (6.21%) Docker
2 29 (2.90%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.90%) vSphere
5 7 (0.70%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.50%) GPFS
7 5 (0.50%) NFS
7 5 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.30%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.20%) ACF2
9 2 (0.20%) Firmware
9 2 (0.20%) QEMU
9 2 (0.20%) RACF
9 2 (0.20%) Time Sharing Option
10 1 (0.10%) Postfix
10 1 (0.10%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 89 (8.91%) Terraform
2 62 (6.21%) Kubernetes
3 24 (2.40%) Grafana
4 16 (1.60%) Ansible
4 16 (1.60%) Prometheus
5 9 (0.90%) Kibana
6 8 (0.80%) vRealize
7 7 (0.70%) Istio
8 6 (0.60%) Argo
9 5 (0.50%) VxRail
10 4 (0.40%) HAProxy
10 4 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.40%) Podman
10 4 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.30%) Packer
12 2 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 2 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
12 2 (0.20%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.20%) Tivoli
12 2 (0.20%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 117 (11.71%) SAP
2 94 (9.41%) Microsoft
3 52 (5.21%) Oracle
4 29 (2.90%) VMware
5 23 (2.30%) ServiceNow
6 22 (2.20%) Databricks
7 20 (2.00%) Cisco
8 19 (1.90%) Google
8 19 (1.90%) Splunk
9 17 (1.70%) IBM
10 13 (1.30%) Pega
11 8 (0.80%) Dell
11 8 (0.80%) OpenAI
11 8 (0.80%) Salesforce
11 8 (0.80%) Workday
12 7 (0.70%) BeyondTrust
12 7 (0.70%) CyberArk
12 7 (0.70%) Foundry
13 6 (0.60%) Apple
13 6 (0.60%) MuleSoft