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

6 months to
19 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 232 216
Rank change year-on-year +111 -16 -15
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 994 332 472
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.15% 1.13% 1.08%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.57% 3.67% 3.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 740 207 356
10th Percentile £315 £243 £300
25th Percentile £395 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £503
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -0.65% -8.50%
75th Percentile £566 £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 82 26 53
10th Percentile £15.54 - £13.99
25th Percentile £25.16 £18.50 -
Median hourly rate £43.69 £45.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +180.20% -58.12%
75th Percentile £71.94 £72.19 £42.64
90th Percentile £82.03 £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 15,138 9,047 13,433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.78% 30.75% 30.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,088 5,755 8,292
10th Percentile £344 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
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 1,093 505 1,051
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.43 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.50 £17.78
Median hourly rate £45.46 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.96% +6.25% -23.81%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.20 £80.84 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £46.30 £40.00
% change year-on-year -1.81% +15.75% -18.80%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +104 723 £476 -4.80% 274
UK excluding London +46 528 £445 -11.00% 250
Work from Home +101 405 £438 -12.50% 136
London +107 236 £512 -2.88% 50
North of England +13 200 £440 -12.00% 64
North West +24 136 £397 -26.23% 43
Midlands +8 118 £438 -2.34% 18
West Midlands -8 89 £447 +2.41% 17
South East +8 88 £469 -14.10% 61
South West +4 50 £525 +61.54% 57
Scotland +36 47 £320 -37.25% 12
Yorkshire -32 35 £481 +78.24% 7
North East +5 31 £475 +25.00% 14
East Midlands -5 28 £395 -35.56% 1
East of England -20 27 £450 +125.00% 39
Wales -6 7 £458 -20.42% 4
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 (5.23%) Confluence
2 32 (3.22%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.21%) Apache Spark
4 11 (1.11%) nginx
5 10 (1.01%) SharePoint Server
6 9 (0.91%) 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%) Drupal
11 1 (0.10%) Orchard CMS
11 1 (0.10%) SharePoint 2013
11 1 (0.10%) Smallworld
Applications
1 41 (4.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (1.31%) MS Visio
5 12 (1.21%) 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 (4.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.31%) SAP Travel Management
3 11 (1.11%) SAP PSCD
4 10 (1.01%) SAP IBP
5 6 (0.60%) SAP BRIM
5 6 (0.60%) SAP EWM
5 6 (0.60%) SAP FI
6 5 (0.50%) SAP EHS
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
1 179 (18.01%) AWS
2 159 (16.00%) Azure
3 67 (6.74%) Power Platform
4 50 (5.03%) GitHub
5 46 (4.63%) Serverless
6 41 (4.12%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (3.82%) GCP
8 36 (3.62%) GitHub Actions
9 33 (3.32%) Microsoft 365
10 30 (3.02%) AWS Lambda
11 25 (2.52%) AWS CloudFormation
12 22 (2.21%) Entra ID
13 20 (2.01%) Power Automate
14 18 (1.81%) Amazon SQS
14 18 (1.81%) PowerApps
15 17 (1.71%) Amazon ECS
15 17 (1.71%) Amazon S3
16 15 (1.51%) Amazon EKS
16 15 (1.51%) Azure Data Factory
16 15 (1.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.81%) SSH
2 14 (1.41%) Firewall
3 12 (1.21%) DNS
3 12 (1.21%) Network Security
4 8 (0.80%) Reverse Proxy
5 7 (0.70%) Ethernet
5 7 (0.70%) HTTPS
5 7 (0.70%) VPN
6 6 (0.60%) WAN
7 5 (0.50%) MPLS
7 5 (0.50%) WebEx
8 4 (0.40%) SAN
8 4 (0.40%) VSAN
9 3 (0.30%) DHCP
9 3 (0.30%) Internet
9 3 (0.30%) LAN
9 3 (0.30%) SDH
9 3 (0.30%) TCP/IP
9 3 (0.30%) Unified Communications
9 3 (0.30%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (5.33%) Power BI
2 37 (3.72%) PostgreSQL
3 27 (2.72%) Metadata
4 26 (2.62%) SQL Server
5 19 (1.91%) NoSQL
6 17 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
7 16 (1.61%) MongoDB
8 15 (1.51%) Relational Database
9 13 (1.31%) DynamoDB
10 12 (1.21%) Geospatial Data
10 12 (1.21%) MySQL
11 10 (1.01%) Data Lake
11 10 (1.01%) Delta Lake
12 9 (0.91%) Big Data
12 9 (0.91%) Redis
13 8 (0.80%) DocumentDB
14 7 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
14 7 (0.70%) Spark SQL
14 7 (0.70%) Tableau
15 6 (0.60%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 87 (8.75%) JIRA
2 70 (7.04%) Git
3 46 (4.63%) GitLab
4 42 (4.23%) Jenkins
5 13 (1.31%) Selenium
6 10 (1.01%) JUnit
7 9 (0.91%) 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
1 317 (31.89%) Social Skills
2 179 (18.01%) Public Sector
3 144 (14.49%) Finance
4 116 (11.67%) Analytical Skills
5 48 (4.83%) Aerospace
6 45 (4.53%) Banking
7 29 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (2.21%) Legal
9 20 (2.01%) Influencing Skills
9 20 (2.01%) Manufacturing
10 17 (1.71%) Aviation
11 16 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
12 15 (1.51%) Telecoms
13 13 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
14 11 (1.11%) Local Government
15 10 (1.01%) Billing
16 9 (0.91%) Publishing
17 8 (0.80%) Military
17 8 (0.80%) Retail
18 6 (0.60%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 154 (15.49%) Developer
2 119 (11.97%) Analyst
3 112 (11.27%) Senior
4 95 (9.56%) Lead
5 92 (9.26%) Architect
6 76 (7.65%) Consultant
7 54 (5.43%) Business Analyst
8 53 (5.33%) SAP Consultant
9 41 (4.12%) Java Developer
10 36 (3.62%) Designer
11 35 (3.52%) Data Engineer
12 33 (3.32%) Administrator
13 27 (2.72%) Delivery Manager
14 25 (2.52%) DevOps Engineer
15 24 (2.41%) Senior Analyst
15 24 (2.41%) Senior Developer
16 21 (2.11%) Senior Manager
17 19 (1.91%) Data Architect
17 19 (1.91%) Project Manager
17 19 (1.91%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (6.54%) Node.js
2 53 (5.33%) React
3 42 (4.23%) REST
3 42 (4.23%) RESTful
4 36 (3.62%) HTML
5 32 (3.22%) CSS
6 31 (3.12%) Kafka
7 30 (3.02%) Spring
8 27 (2.72%) .NET
8 27 (2.72%) Spring Boot
9 16 (1.61%) Middleware
10 14 (1.41%) JSON
10 14 (1.41%) Playwright
11 13 (1.31%) SAP TM
11 13 (1.31%) XML
12 12 (1.21%) LangChain
12 12 (1.21%) OAuth
12 12 (1.21%) PySpark
13 11 (1.11%) AngularJS
14 10 (1.01%) Play Framework
Miscellaneous
1 72 (7.24%) Product Ownership
2 52 (5.23%) Onboarding
3 46 (4.63%) Cloud Native
4 21 (2.11%) Management Information System
5 19 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
5 19 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
6 15 (1.51%) NHS
7 13 (1.31%) Algorithms
8 10 (1.01%) Public Cloud
9 9 (0.91%) Data Centre
9 9 (0.91%) 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 (9.36%) Linux
2 41 (4.12%) Windows
3 22 (2.21%) Unix
4 9 (0.91%) Android
4 9 (0.91%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.60%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.40%) Mac OS
6 4 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.30%) AIX
7 3 (0.30%) Solaris
7 3 (0.30%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.20%) Debian
8 2 (0.20%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.10%) CentOS
9 1 (0.10%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.10%) VME
9 1 (0.10%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 318 (31.99%) Agile
2 199 (20.02%) CI/CD
3 177 (17.81%) Problem-Solving
4 155 (15.59%) DevOps
5 141 (14.19%) Stakeholder Management
6 106 (10.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 101 (10.16%) Continuous Improvement
8 82 (8.25%) Test Automation
9 81 (8.15%) Scrum
10 79 (7.95%) Infrastructure as Code
10 79 (7.95%) Roadmaps
11 76 (7.65%) Microservices
12 69 (6.94%) Migration
13 67 (6.74%) AI
13 67 (6.74%) Analytics
13 67 (6.74%) Data Modelling
13 67 (6.74%) Decision-Making
14 63 (6.34%) Validation
15 58 (5.84%) Containerisation
16 57 (5.73%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 140 (14.08%) Python
2 110 (11.07%) Java
3 105 (10.56%) SQL
4 72 (7.24%) JavaScript
5 47 (4.73%) TypeScript
6 30 (3.02%) Scala
7 23 (2.31%) C#
8 20 (2.01%) PowerShell
8 20 (2.01%) Shell Script
9 14 (1.41%) Bash
9 14 (1.41%) Ruby
10 10 (1.01%) Bicep
11 9 (0.91%) 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
1 337 (33.90%) Security Cleared
2 245 (24.65%) SC Cleared
3 61 (6.14%) Degree
4 19 (1.91%) DV Cleared
5 16 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (1.21%) AWS Certification
7 11 (1.11%) Master's Degree
8 9 (0.91%) 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 63 (6.34%) Accessibility
1 63 (6.34%) Data Quality
2 53 (5.33%) QA
3 20 (2.01%) WCAG
4 18 (1.81%) SLA
5 16 (1.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 16 (1.61%) NIST
6 12 (1.21%) PMO
7 10 (1.01%) GDPR
8 8 (0.80%) PCI DSS
9 7 (0.70%) NCSC
10 6 (0.60%) GRC
10 6 (0.60%) ISO 20022
11 5 (0.50%) IFRS
11 5 (0.50%) IFRS 17
12 4 (0.40%) HL7
12 4 (0.40%) PSD2
13 3 (0.30%) DICOM
13 3 (0.30%) ISO 8583
13 3 (0.30%) RMADS
System Software
1 71 (7.14%) Docker
2 23 (2.31%) Active Directory
2 23 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (0.91%) vSphere
4 5 (0.50%) GPFS
4 5 (0.50%) Hyper-V
4 5 (0.50%) NFS
4 5 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.30%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.20%) ACF2
7 2 (0.20%) Firmware
7 2 (0.20%) QEMU
7 2 (0.20%) RACF
7 2 (0.20%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.10%) Postfix
8 1 (0.10%) Varnish
8 1 (0.10%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 93 (9.36%) Terraform
2 70 (7.04%) Kubernetes
3 25 (2.52%) Grafana
4 17 (1.71%) Prometheus
5 16 (1.61%) Ansible
6 9 (0.91%) 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%) EMC NetWorker
13 2 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
13 2 (0.20%) Kubeflow
13 2 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 119 (11.97%) SAP
2 97 (9.76%) Microsoft
3 50 (5.03%) Oracle
4 27 (2.72%) VMware
5 24 (2.41%) ServiceNow
6 23 (2.31%) Cisco
7 22 (2.21%) Databricks
8 18 (1.81%) Google
8 18 (1.81%) Splunk
9 17 (1.71%) IBM
10 12 (1.21%) Pega
11 11 (1.11%) Workday
12 10 (1.01%) 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