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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 149 263
Rank change year-on-year +60 +114 -38
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,636 613 344
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.98% 1.85% 0.90%
As % of the Qualifications category 9.39% 5.86% 3.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,189 428 197
10th Percentile £362 £313 £217
25th Percentile £431 £405 £387
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £504 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% +0.80% -8.68%
75th Percentile £600 £614 £588
90th Percentile £671 £715 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £449
% change year-on-year -2.50% +11.36% -18.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 233 54 21
10th Percentile £19.50 £19.30 £18.50
25th Percentile £40.75 £22.63 £20.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year +50.19% +35.57% -62.72%
75th Percentile £48.00 £47.09 £57.50
90th Percentile £66.66 £71.39 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £33.50 £21.59
% change year-on-year +31.22% +55.16% -62.34%

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 17,419 10,458 11,135
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.73% 31.58% 29.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,570 6,527 6,779
10th Percentile £350 £288 £312
25th Percentile £445 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £635
90th Percentile £713 £712 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,421 884 611
10th Percentile £16.88 £17.87 £18.00
25th Percentile £25.71 £18.87 £25.26
Median hourly rate £45.50 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +80.91% -48.21% -9.23%
75th Percentile £71.43 £42.44 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -49.70% -3.64%

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 2 October 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 2 October 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 2 October 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 1,241 £500 -2.44% 1,153
UK excluding London +53 941 £488 -2.50% 949
Work from Home +60 580 £500 +2.83% 783
London +99 368 £525 +4.95% 290
North of England +15 331 £490 -0.20% 149
Midlands +61 303 £488 -6.79% 130
West Midlands +69 292 £488 -7.14% 91
North West -4 176 £510 +8.74% 83
North East +20 96 £463 -5.13% 29
South East -21 94 £478 -7.09% 206
South West +4 78 £513 - 140
Yorkshire +5 76 £481 -3.75% 40
Scotland +15 70 £450 +2.21% 133
East of England +9 53 £578 +0.17% 185
Northern Ireland +20 20 - - 15
Wales -2 13 £419 - 7
East Midlands -25 11 £600 +21.95% 39

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 68 (4.16%) Confluence
2 38 (2.32%) SharePoint
3 14 (0.86%) SharePoint Server
4 11 (0.67%) Apache Spark
4 11 (0.67%) CMS
5 9 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
6 8 (0.49%) SAS
7 7 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 6 (0.37%) Headless CMS
8 6 (0.37%) WebLogic
9 5 (0.31%) WordPress
10 4 (0.24%) IIS
10 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.12%) CICS
11 2 (0.12%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.12%) Ethereum
11 2 (0.12%) Hyperledger
11 2 (0.12%) LiveCycle
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
11 2 (0.12%) SAP Portal
Applications
1 42 (2.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 31 (1.89%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.43%) Windchill
6 4 (0.24%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.18%) Navisworks
8 2 (0.12%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.12%) Revit
8 2 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.061%) Civil 3D
9 1 (0.061%) InVision
9 1 (0.061%) ProjectWise
9 1 (0.061%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.061%) Sketch
9 1 (0.061%) Trello
Business Applications
1 61 (3.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.41%) SAP HR
3 21 (1.28%) SAP Payroll
4 16 (0.98%) SAP PSCD
5 15 (0.92%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.73%) SAP HCM
7 10 (0.61%) SAP FI
8 8 (0.49%) SAP PP
9 7 (0.43%) SAP MDG
10 6 (0.37%) SAP FI-CA
10 6 (0.37%) SAP GRC
10 6 (0.37%) SAP IBP
10 6 (0.37%) Teamcenter
11 5 (0.31%) Exchequer
11 5 (0.31%) SAP ERP
11 5 (0.31%) SAP Hybris
12 4 (0.24%) SAP Convergent Charging
12 4 (0.24%) SAP EHS
12 4 (0.24%) Shopify
13 3 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 299 (18.28%) AWS
2 271 (16.56%) Azure
3 85 (5.20%) GitHub
3 85 (5.20%) Power Platform
4 62 (3.79%) Azure DevOps
5 59 (3.61%) GCP
6 58 (3.55%) Serverless
7 53 (3.24%) GitHub Actions
8 49 (3.00%) Microsoft 365
9 48 (2.93%) AWS Lambda
10 47 (2.87%) Amazon S3
11 44 (2.69%) Entra ID
12 27 (1.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 27 (1.65%) AWS CloudFormation
12 27 (1.65%) SuccessFactors
13 25 (1.53%) Power Automate
13 25 (1.53%) PowerApps
14 23 (1.41%) Amazon ECS
14 23 (1.41%) Azure Monitor
15 19 (1.16%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.04%) DNS
2 13 (0.79%) SSL
2 13 (0.79%) WAN
3 11 (0.67%) Firewall
4 10 (0.61%) Network Security
4 10 (0.61%) WebEx
5 9 (0.55%) Cisco IPT
6 8 (0.49%) Intranet
7 7 (0.43%) 5G
7 7 (0.43%) Radio Access Network
7 7 (0.43%) VPN
7 7 (0.43%) Wireshark
8 6 (0.37%) Ethernet
8 6 (0.37%) LAN
8 6 (0.37%) MPLS
9 5 (0.31%) 3GPP
9 5 (0.31%) HTTP
9 5 (0.31%) NGN
9 5 (0.31%) TCP/IP
9 5 (0.31%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (3.48%) Power BI
2 54 (3.30%) MongoDB
3 50 (3.06%) PostgreSQL
4 44 (2.69%) Metadata
5 38 (2.32%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (2.02%) SQL Server
7 26 (1.59%) Amazon RDS
8 25 (1.53%) MySQL
9 24 (1.47%) NoSQL
10 22 (1.34%) Data Lake
11 20 (1.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 19 (1.16%) Oracle Database
12 19 (1.16%) Relational Database
13 17 (1.04%) DynamoDB
14 14 (0.86%) Amazon Aurora
14 14 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
15 11 (0.67%) Amazon Athena
15 11 (0.67%) Redis
16 10 (0.61%) Big Data
17 8 (0.49%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 120 (7.33%) Git
2 116 (7.09%) JIRA
3 105 (6.42%) GitLab
4 62 (3.79%) Jenkins
5 44 (2.69%) JUnit
6 37 (2.26%) Selenium
7 34 (2.08%) Cucumber
8 30 (1.83%) Maven
9 23 (1.41%) SonarQube
10 21 (1.28%) Gatling
11 20 (1.22%) Mockito
11 20 (1.22%) Postman
12 14 (0.86%) Cypress.io
12 14 (0.86%) Team Foundation Server
12 14 (0.86%) Visual Studio
13 10 (0.61%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 10 (0.61%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.55%) Rational DOORS
15 8 (0.49%) Bitbucket
16 7 (0.43%) Gradle
General
1 562 (34.35%) Social Skills
2 428 (26.16%) Public Sector
3 260 (15.89%) Finance
4 157 (9.60%) Analytical Skills
5 140 (8.56%) Legal
6 139 (8.50%) Organisational Skills
7 50 (3.06%) Aerospace
8 41 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
9 40 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
10 36 (2.20%) Manufacturing
11 31 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 27 (1.65%) Telecoms
13 26 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
14 23 (1.41%) Billing
15 22 (1.34%) Banking
16 18 (1.10%) Aviation
17 15 (0.92%) Military
18 13 (0.79%) Local Government
19 12 (0.73%) Avionics
19 12 (0.73%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 226 (13.81%) Developer
2 190 (11.61%) Architect
3 183 (11.19%) Senior
4 167 (10.21%) Lead
5 109 (6.66%) Analyst
5 109 (6.66%) Consultant
6 75 (4.58%) Java Developer
7 62 (3.79%) Designer
7 62 (3.79%) SAP Consultant
8 55 (3.36%) Data Engineer
9 54 (3.30%) Solutions Architect
9 54 (3.30%) Technical Architect
10 50 (3.06%) DevOps Engineer
11 49 (3.00%) Business Analyst
12 42 (2.57%) Delivery Manager
13 36 (2.20%) Data Architect
13 36 (2.20%) Product Manager
14 33 (2.02%) Lead Developer
15 31 (1.89%) Administrator
16 29 (1.77%) User Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (7.27%) Terraform
2 98 (5.99%) Spring
3 96 (5.87%) REST
4 79 (4.83%) Spring Boot
5 59 (3.61%) RESTful
6 55 (3.36%) Node.js
6 55 (3.36%) React
7 51 (3.12%) HTML
8 47 (2.87%) Playwright
9 42 (2.57%) Kafka
10 39 (2.38%) CSS
11 37 (2.26%) OpenAPI
12 27 (1.65%) JSON
13 26 (1.59%) OAuth
13 26 (1.59%) Swagger
14 25 (1.53%) .NET
14 25 (1.53%) XML
15 23 (1.41%) OAuth2
16 21 (1.28%) Web Services
17 20 (1.22%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 120 (7.33%) Virtual Team
2 119 (7.27%) Web Conferencing
3 114 (6.97%) Onboarding
4 109 (6.66%) Podcast
5 86 (5.26%) Product Ownership
6 80 (4.89%) Cloud Native
7 36 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
8 26 (1.59%) Replication
9 23 (1.41%) Mobile App
10 22 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
10 22 (1.34%) Management Information System
10 22 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
11 19 (1.16%) NHS
12 18 (1.10%) BYOD
12 18 (1.10%) Distributed Systems
13 17 (1.04%) Driving Licence
14 13 (0.79%) Low-Code
15 12 (0.73%) AI Agents
15 12 (0.73%) Data Centre
15 12 (0.73%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 74 (4.52%) Windows
2 58 (3.55%) Linux
3 33 (2.02%) Unix
4 21 (1.28%) Android
5 20 (1.22%) Windows Server
6 13 (0.79%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.61%) VMS
7 10 (0.61%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.49%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.24%) AIX
10 2 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 1 (0.061%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.061%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.061%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.061%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 522 (31.91%) Agile
2 337 (20.60%) Stakeholder Management
3 289 (17.67%) CI/CD
4 245 (14.98%) DevOps
5 211 (12.90%) Continuous Improvement
6 193 (11.80%) Problem-Solving
7 177 (10.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 175 (10.70%) Scrum
9 145 (8.86%) Test Automation
10 137 (8.37%) Customer Service
11 136 (8.31%) Decision-Making
12 132 (8.07%) Microservices
13 131 (8.01%) Roadmaps
14 122 (7.46%) Migration
15 119 (7.27%) Analytics
15 119 (7.27%) Infrastructure as Code
16 112 (6.85%) Digital Transformation Programme
17 111 (6.78%) AI
18 106 (6.48%) Mentoring
19 88 (5.38%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 203 (12.41%) Java
2 173 (10.57%) SQL
3 133 (8.13%) Python
4 85 (5.20%) JavaScript
5 41 (2.51%) TypeScript
6 39 (2.38%) PowerShell
7 37 (2.26%) Scala
8 26 (1.59%) Shell Script
9 25 (1.53%) Bash
10 23 (1.41%) C#
11 21 (1.28%) PL/SQL
12 15 (0.92%) ABAP
13 14 (0.86%) T-SQL
14 11 (0.67%) VB
14 11 (0.67%) VB6
14 11 (0.67%) VBA
15 9 (0.55%) VBScript
16 8 (0.49%) C++
16 8 (0.49%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.49%) R
Qualifications
1 550 (33.62%) Security Cleared
2 427 (26.10%) SC Cleared
3 80 (4.89%) Degree
4 25 (1.53%) AWS Certification
5 20 (1.22%) Azure Certification
6 19 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
7 14 (0.86%) DBS Check
8 13 (0.79%) DV Cleared
9 12 (0.73%) A+ Certification
10 10 (0.61%) PMI Certification
11 9 (0.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 9 (0.55%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 8 (0.49%) ISTQB
13 7 (0.43%) HNC
13 7 (0.43%) HND
13 7 (0.43%) Master's Degree
14 6 (0.37%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 6 (0.37%) CCNA
14 6 (0.37%) Cisco Certification
14 6 (0.37%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (6.91%) Accessibility
2 112 (6.85%) QA
3 71 (4.34%) Data Quality
4 46 (2.81%) WCAG
5 29 (1.77%) GDPR
6 21 (1.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 20 (1.22%) PMO
8 16 (0.98%) SLA
9 14 (0.86%) NIST
10 11 (0.67%) NCSC
11 10 (0.61%) GRC
12 7 (0.43%) IEC 61508
13 6 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (0.31%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 5 (0.31%) GMP
14 5 (0.31%) GxP
14 5 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 17025
14 5 (0.31%) PERC
15 3 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials
15 3 (0.18%) Def Stans
System Software
1 110 (6.72%) Docker
2 37 (2.26%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
4 9 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (0.49%) VMware Infrastructure
6 5 (0.31%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.18%) Firmware
8 1 (0.061%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.061%) IAG
8 1 (0.061%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 124 (7.58%) Kubernetes
2 40 (2.44%) Grafana
3 25 (1.53%) Kibana
4 24 (1.47%) Prometheus
5 20 (1.22%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (0.73%) Ansible
6 12 (0.73%) SCCM
7 11 (0.67%) Argo
8 9 (0.55%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (0.55%) SCOM
9 7 (0.43%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.24%) Istio
10 4 (0.24%) Packer
10 4 (0.24%) Podman
10 4 (0.24%) Puppet
11 3 (0.18%) HAProxy
12 2 (0.12%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle RMAN
12 2 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 192 (11.74%) Microsoft
2 153 (9.35%) SAP
3 100 (6.11%) Oracle
4 64 (3.91%) ServiceNow
5 44 (2.69%) Google
6 28 (1.71%) BeyondTrust
7 19 (1.16%) Databricks
7 19 (1.16%) Splunk
8 15 (0.92%) Atlassian
9 14 (0.86%) Talend
10 13 (0.79%) CyberArk
10 13 (0.79%) IBM
11 12 (0.73%) Cisco
11 12 (0.73%) Dell
12 11 (0.67%) Salesforce
13 10 (0.61%) Okta
13 10 (0.61%) Workday
14 9 (0.55%) Informatica
14 9 (0.55%) MuleSoft
15 8 (0.49%) Siemens