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 14 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 93 157 273
Rank change year-on-year +64 +116 -44
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,506 589 335
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.78% 1.80% 0.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 8.83% 5.75% 2.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,085 403 206
10th Percentile £352 £313 £210
25th Percentile £425 £408 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £594 £588
90th Percentile £670 £700 £643
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £470
% change year-on-year -2.50% +6.38% -14.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 218 52 21
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £18.50
25th Percentile - £22.63 £20.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £28.15 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year +56.19% +30.36% -63.56%
75th Percentile £48.00 £48.13 £57.50
90th Percentile £69.13 £71.43 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £32.50 £21.59
% change year-on-year +35.26% +50.53% -63.09%

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 17,050 10,245 11,275
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.50% 31.34% 29.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,384 6,379 6,977
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,315 820 666
10th Percentile £17.17 £17.98 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -9.09%
75th Percentile £71.47 £45.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £86.70 £71.00 £75.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £53.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.55% +0.95%

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 14 September 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 14 September 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 14 September 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 +77 1,136 £494 -3.71% 1,148
UK excluding London +53 883 £488 -2.50% 1,015
Work from Home +57 566 £495 +0.81% 834
London +77 327 £510 -0.54% 293
North of England +18 315 £488 +1.30% 247
Midlands +58 255 £488 -7.14% 120
West Midlands +64 245 £488 -7.14% 83
North West +4 169 £500 +11.11% 137
South East -15 95 £483 -6.21% 166
North East +15 89 £453 -1.52% 39
South West -1 79 £525 +16.67% 162
Scotland +25 73 £405 -7.37% 143
Yorkshire 0 70 £475 -5.00% 80
East of England -1 48 £597 +25.17% 152
Northern Ireland +16 20 - - 16
Wales -4 12 £413 -28.26% 27
East Midlands -29 9 £606 +23.22% 37

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 66 (4.38%) Confluence
2 47 (3.12%) SharePoint
3 18 (1.20%) SharePoint Server
4 9 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.60%) SAS
5 8 (0.53%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.53%) CMS
6 7 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
7 5 (0.33%) WebLogic
8 4 (0.27%) Headless CMS
8 4 (0.27%) IIS
8 4 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.27%) WordPress
9 2 (0.13%) Apache
9 2 (0.13%) CICS
9 2 (0.13%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.13%) LiveCycle
9 2 (0.13%) OpenROAD
Applications
1 41 (2.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (2.19%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (0.93%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.20%) Simulink
5 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.20%) Trello
5 3 (0.20%) Windchill
6 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.13%) Navisworks
7 1 (0.066%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.066%) InVision
7 1 (0.066%) ProjectWise
7 1 (0.066%) Revit
7 1 (0.066%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.066%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 60 (3.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (1.39%) SAP HR
3 17 (1.13%) SAP PSCD
4 15 (1.00%) SAP Payroll
5 14 (0.93%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.80%) SAP IBP
7 9 (0.60%) SAP FI
8 8 (0.53%) SAP HCM
9 6 (0.40%) SAP GRC
10 5 (0.33%) SAP FI-CA
10 5 (0.33%) SAP PP
11 4 (0.27%) SAP Convergent Charging
11 4 (0.27%) SAP EHS
11 4 (0.27%) SAP ERP
11 4 (0.27%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.27%) SAP Hybris
11 4 (0.27%) SAP MDG
11 4 (0.27%) Shopify
12 3 (0.20%) Exchequer
12 3 (0.20%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 264 (17.53%) Azure
2 253 (16.80%) AWS
3 87 (5.78%) Power Platform
4 67 (4.45%) GitHub
5 65 (4.32%) Azure DevOps
6 52 (3.45%) Microsoft 365
6 52 (3.45%) Serverless
7 48 (3.19%) GCP
7 48 (3.19%) GitHub Actions
8 46 (3.05%) Entra ID
9 44 (2.92%) Amazon S3
10 43 (2.86%) AWS Lambda
11 29 (1.93%) Power Automate
12 28 (1.86%) PowerApps
13 25 (1.66%) AWS CloudFormation
13 25 (1.66%) SuccessFactors
14 24 (1.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 21 (1.39%) Amazon ECS
15 21 (1.39%) Azure Monitor
16 17 (1.13%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.13%) DNS
2 13 (0.86%) SSL
2 13 (0.86%) WAN
3 10 (0.66%) Network Security
3 10 (0.66%) WebEx
4 9 (0.60%) Cisco IPT
4 9 (0.60%) Firewall
5 8 (0.53%) Intranet
6 7 (0.46%) 5G
6 7 (0.46%) HTTPS
6 7 (0.46%) MPLS
6 7 (0.46%) Radio Access Network
6 7 (0.46%) Wireshark
7 6 (0.40%) Ethernet
7 6 (0.40%) LAN
8 5 (0.33%) 3GPP
8 5 (0.33%) NGN
8 5 (0.33%) SDH
8 5 (0.33%) tcpdump
8 5 (0.33%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (3.85%) Power BI
2 50 (3.32%) PostgreSQL
3 43 (2.86%) Metadata
4 41 (2.72%) MongoDB
5 34 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (2.26%) SQL Server
6 26 (1.73%) Amazon RDS
7 25 (1.66%) MySQL
8 24 (1.59%) NoSQL
9 21 (1.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 20 (1.33%) Data Lake
10 20 (1.33%) Relational Database
11 15 (1.00%) DynamoDB
12 14 (0.93%) Amazon Redshift
12 14 (0.93%) Oracle Database
13 13 (0.86%) Amazon Aurora
14 11 (0.73%) Amazon Athena
15 10 (0.66%) Big Data
15 10 (0.66%) Redis
16 8 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 115 (7.64%) JIRA
2 96 (6.37%) Git
3 77 (5.11%) GitLab
4 63 (4.18%) Jenkins
5 30 (1.99%) JUnit
6 27 (1.79%) Selenium
7 25 (1.66%) Maven
8 23 (1.53%) Cucumber
9 17 (1.13%) Mockito
10 15 (1.00%) Postman
10 15 (1.00%) SonarQube
11 14 (0.93%) Team Foundation Server
11 14 (0.93%) Visual Studio
12 13 (0.86%) Cypress.io
13 12 (0.80%) Gatling
14 10 (0.66%) Atlassian Bamboo
15 9 (0.60%) Bitbucket
15 9 (0.60%) REST Assured
16 7 (0.46%) Gradle
16 7 (0.46%) WebDriver
General
1 511 (33.93%) Social Skills
2 360 (23.90%) Public Sector
3 257 (17.07%) Finance
4 143 (9.50%) Analytical Skills
5 141 (9.36%) Organisational Skills
6 136 (9.03%) Legal
7 43 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
8 40 (2.66%) Aerospace
9 34 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
10 31 (2.06%) Manufacturing
11 27 (1.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 25 (1.66%) Presentation Skills
13 24 (1.59%) Banking
13 24 (1.59%) Telecoms
14 22 (1.46%) Billing
15 14 (0.93%) Military
16 13 (0.86%) Aviation
17 11 (0.73%) Local Government
18 8 (0.53%) General Ledger
18 8 (0.53%) Retail
Job Titles
1 208 (13.81%) Developer
2 171 (11.35%) Senior
3 152 (10.09%) Architect
4 151 (10.03%) Lead
5 108 (7.17%) Consultant
6 104 (6.91%) Analyst
7 69 (4.58%) SAP Consultant
8 68 (4.52%) Java Developer
9 61 (4.05%) Designer
10 48 (3.19%) Data Engineer
10 48 (3.19%) Solutions Architect
11 46 (3.05%) DevOps Engineer
12 44 (2.92%) Business Analyst
13 39 (2.59%) Delivery Manager
14 34 (2.26%) Data Architect
15 33 (2.19%) Product Manager
16 31 (2.06%) Lead Developer
17 30 (1.99%) Technical Architect
18 29 (1.93%) User Researcher
19 26 (1.73%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (7.30%) Terraform
2 88 (5.84%) REST
3 78 (5.18%) Spring
4 71 (4.71%) Spring Boot
5 57 (3.78%) RESTful
6 53 (3.52%) HTML
7 52 (3.45%) React
8 51 (3.39%) Node.js
9 41 (2.72%) CSS
10 38 (2.52%) Kafka
11 34 (2.26%) Playwright
12 26 (1.73%) .NET
13 23 (1.53%) OpenAPI
13 23 (1.53%) XML
14 21 (1.39%) OAuth
15 19 (1.26%) Web Services
16 18 (1.20%) JSON
16 18 (1.20%) OAuth2
16 18 (1.20%) Swagger
17 17 (1.13%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 120 (7.97%) Virtual Team
2 119 (7.90%) Web Conferencing
3 109 (7.24%) Podcast
4 98 (6.51%) Onboarding
5 82 (5.44%) Product Ownership
6 67 (4.45%) Cloud Native
7 28 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
8 23 (1.53%) Replication
9 19 (1.26%) Legacy Systems
9 19 (1.26%) Management Information System
10 18 (1.20%) BYOD
10 18 (1.20%) NHS
10 18 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
11 16 (1.06%) Distributed Systems
11 16 (1.06%) Mobile App
12 15 (1.00%) Driving Licence
13 12 (0.80%) Algorithms
14 11 (0.73%) Data Centre
14 11 (0.73%) Low-Code
14 11 (0.73%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 73 (4.85%) Windows
2 61 (4.05%) Linux
3 34 (2.26%) Unix
4 20 (1.33%) Windows Server
5 19 (1.26%) Android
6 11 (0.73%) Windows 10
7 9 (0.60%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.60%) Mac OS
8 8 (0.53%) VMS
9 3 (0.20%) AIX
10 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.13%) Solaris
11 1 (0.066%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.066%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.066%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.066%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 465 (30.88%) Agile
2 278 (18.46%) Stakeholder Management
3 261 (17.33%) CI/CD
4 238 (15.80%) DevOps
5 184 (12.22%) Continuous Improvement
6 179 (11.89%) Problem-Solving
7 159 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 150 (9.96%) Scrum
9 135 (8.96%) Customer Service
10 121 (8.03%) Roadmaps
11 119 (7.90%) Test Automation
12 118 (7.84%) Decision-Making
13 112 (7.44%) Microservices
14 109 (7.24%) Analytics
14 109 (7.24%) Migration
15 101 (6.71%) Infrastructure as Code
16 94 (6.24%) Mentoring
17 92 (6.11%) Digital Transformation Programme
18 90 (5.98%) AI
19 87 (5.78%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 172 (11.42%) Java
2 156 (10.36%) SQL
3 118 (7.84%) Python
4 82 (5.44%) JavaScript
5 43 (2.86%) TypeScript
6 39 (2.59%) Scala
7 38 (2.52%) PowerShell
8 25 (1.66%) C#
9 21 (1.39%) Bash
10 20 (1.33%) Shell Script
11 19 (1.26%) PL/SQL
12 15 (1.00%) T-SQL
13 12 (0.80%) VB
14 11 (0.73%) ABAP
14 11 (0.73%) VB6
14 11 (0.73%) VBA
15 9 (0.60%) C++
16 8 (0.53%) Kotlin
17 7 (0.46%) Bicep
17 7 (0.46%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 482 (32.01%) Security Cleared
2 373 (24.77%) SC Cleared
3 73 (4.85%) Degree
4 19 (1.26%) Azure Certification
4 19 (1.26%) Microsoft Certification
5 17 (1.13%) AWS Certification
6 12 (0.80%) DBS Check
6 12 (0.80%) DV Cleared
7 11 (0.73%) A+ Certification
8 9 (0.60%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 8 (0.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 8 (0.53%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.53%) PMI Certification
10 7 (0.46%) ISTQB
11 6 (0.40%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 6 (0.40%) CTC Cleared
11 6 (0.40%) PhD
12 5 (0.33%) CCNA
12 5 (0.33%) Cisco Certification
12 5 (0.33%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (6.51%) Accessibility
2 93 (6.18%) QA
3 73 (4.85%) Data Quality
4 36 (2.39%) WCAG
5 29 (1.93%) GDPR
6 22 (1.46%) PMO
7 17 (1.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 16 (1.06%) SLA
9 13 (0.86%) NIST
10 9 (0.60%) GRC
11 5 (0.33%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 5 (0.33%) GMP
11 5 (0.33%) GxP
11 5 (0.33%) IEC 61508
11 5 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 5 (0.33%) NCSC
11 5 (0.33%) PERC
12 3 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
12 3 (0.20%) Def Stans
12 3 (0.20%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 94 (6.24%) Docker
2 38 (2.52%) Active Directory
3 14 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
4 13 (0.86%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.33%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.066%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.066%) Firmware
7 1 (0.066%) IAG
7 1 (0.066%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.066%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.066%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 104 (6.91%) Kubernetes
2 38 (2.52%) Grafana
3 22 (1.46%) Prometheus
4 20 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
5 19 (1.26%) Kibana
6 13 (0.86%) Ansible
7 12 (0.80%) SCCM
8 11 (0.73%) Argo
9 10 (0.66%) Microsoft Intune
10 9 (0.60%) SCOM
11 5 (0.33%) Functional Safety
11 5 (0.33%) Packer
12 4 (0.27%) HAProxy
12 4 (0.27%) Istio
12 4 (0.27%) Podman
12 4 (0.27%) Puppet
13 2 (0.13%) Cilium
13 2 (0.13%) Data Guard
13 2 (0.13%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 2 (0.13%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 185 (12.28%) Microsoft
2 145 (9.63%) SAP
3 83 (5.51%) Oracle
4 63 (4.18%) ServiceNow
5 44 (2.92%) Google
6 29 (1.93%) BeyondTrust
7 23 (1.53%) Databricks
8 17 (1.13%) Splunk
9 16 (1.06%) Atlassian
10 14 (0.93%) Talend
11 13 (0.86%) CyberArk
11 13 (0.86%) VMware
12 12 (0.80%) Cisco
13 10 (0.66%) Informatica
13 10 (0.66%) Salesforce
14 9 (0.60%) Okta
15 8 (0.53%) Dell
15 8 (0.53%) IBM
16 7 (0.46%) Apple
16 7 (0.46%) Workday