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

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 120 242 226
Rank change year-on-year +122 -16 -21
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,003 326 461
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.15% 1.11% 1.06%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.60% 3.62% 3.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 739 202 346
10th Percentile £320 £234 £255
25th Percentile £394 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £569 £580 £625
90th Percentile £650 £660 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £492 £525
% change year-on-year -9.55% -6.29% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 28 54
10th Percentile £16.70 - £13.99
25th Percentile £26.07 £18.50 -
Median hourly rate £43.69 £47.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -8.02% +195.77% -59.30%
75th Percentile £73.00 £74.06 £42.64
90th Percentile £83.50 £76.63 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.35 £54.99 £16.06
% change year-on-year -17.54% +242.40% -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 15,186 9,009 13,402
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.50% 30.68% 30.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,117 5,699 8,262
10th Percentile £350 £290 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -1.61% -2.98%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £709 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £507 £525
% change year-on-year -1.43% -3.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,096 514 1,066
10th Percentile £16.65 £18.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £17.82
Median hourly rate £47.50 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.76% +6.25% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.45
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.07 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £45.01 £40.28
% change year-on-year +5.54% +11.75% -19.45%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +110 730 £478 -4.40% 215
UK excluding London +70 534 £445 -9.55% 200
Work from Home +104 409 £438 -12.50% 122
London +90 239 £512 -4.74% 30
North of England +18 197 £439 -12.25% 51
North West +22 131 £400 -25.65% 31
Midlands +21 118 £445 +8.54% 19
West Midlands +3 89 £470 +14.63% 16
South East -9 87 £483 -15.85% 39
South West +3 52 £525 +82.61% 49
Scotland +45 50 £325 -36.27% 5
Yorkshire -36 35 £481 +37.50% 5
North East +4 33 £475 +25.00% 15
East Midlands -11 28 £395 -35.56% 3
East of England -23 26 £450 +125.00% 40
Wales -6 7 £458 -20.42% 1
Northern Ireland +4 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 49 (4.89%) Confluence
2 33 (3.29%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.30%) Apache Spark
4 11 (1.10%) nginx
4 11 (1.10%) SharePoint Server
5 9 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.80%) Apache
7 7 (0.70%) 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%) SAS
10 3 (0.30%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.100%) Drupal
11 1 (0.100%) GeoServer
11 1 (0.100%) Orchard CMS
11 1 (0.100%) SharePoint 2013
11 1 (0.100%) Smallworld
Applications
1 43 (4.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (1.60%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (1.60%) 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 (0.100%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.100%) CATIA
7 1 (0.100%) InVision
7 1 (0.100%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.100%) PTC Creo
7 1 (0.100%) Sketch
7 1 (0.100%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 43 (4.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.30%) SAP PSCD
2 13 (1.30%) SAP Travel Management
3 11 (1.10%) SAP IBP
4 8 (0.80%) SAP BRIM
5 7 (0.70%) SAP EWM
5 7 (0.70%) SAP FI
6 6 (0.60%) SAP EHS
7 5 (0.50%) 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
8 4 (0.40%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 3 (0.30%) Primavera
9 3 (0.30%) ProductWriter
9 3 (0.30%) SAP HCM
9 3 (0.30%) SAP PM
9 3 (0.30%) SAP QM
9 3 (0.30%) SAP VC
Cloud Services
1 182 (18.15%) AWS
2 164 (16.35%) Azure
3 69 (6.88%) Power Platform
4 50 (4.99%) GitHub
5 44 (4.39%) Serverless
6 41 (4.09%) Azure DevOps
7 39 (3.89%) GCP
8 36 (3.59%) GitHub Actions
9 33 (3.29%) Microsoft 365
10 29 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
11 25 (2.49%) Entra ID
12 24 (2.39%) AWS CloudFormation
13 21 (2.09%) Power Automate
14 19 (1.89%) PowerApps
15 18 (1.79%) Amazon SQS
16 16 (1.60%) Amazon ECS
16 16 (1.60%) Amazon S3
17 15 (1.50%) Azure Data Factory
17 15 (1.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 14 (1.40%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.69%) SSH
2 14 (1.40%) Firewall
3 13 (1.30%) DNS
4 12 (1.20%) Network Security
5 8 (0.80%) Reverse Proxy
6 7 (0.70%) Ethernet
6 7 (0.70%) HTTPS
6 7 (0.70%) VPN
7 6 (0.60%) WAN
8 5 (0.50%) MPLS
8 5 (0.50%) WebEx
9 4 (0.40%) DHCP
9 4 (0.40%) SAN
9 4 (0.40%) VSAN
10 3 (0.30%) Internet
10 3 (0.30%) LAN
10 3 (0.30%) Modbus
10 3 (0.30%) SDH
10 3 (0.30%) TCP/IP
11 2 (0.20%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.48%) Power BI
2 37 (3.69%) PostgreSQL
3 26 (2.59%) Metadata
3 26 (2.59%) SQL Server
4 19 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
5 18 (1.79%) NoSQL
6 17 (1.69%) MongoDB
7 16 (1.60%) Relational Database
8 13 (1.30%) DynamoDB
8 13 (1.30%) MySQL
9 12 (1.20%) Geospatial Data
10 11 (1.10%) Data Lake
11 10 (1.00%) Big Data
11 10 (1.00%) Delta Lake
12 9 (0.90%) Redis
13 8 (0.80%) DocumentDB
14 7 (0.70%) Amazon Aurora
14 7 (0.70%) DataStage
14 7 (0.70%) Spark SQL
14 7 (0.70%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 83 (8.28%) JIRA
2 69 (6.88%) Git
3 45 (4.49%) GitLab
4 41 (4.09%) Jenkins
5 15 (1.50%) Selenium
6 11 (1.10%) JUnit
7 10 (1.00%) Cucumber
7 10 (1.00%) Cypress.io
8 7 (0.70%) Gatling
9 6 (0.60%) Mockito
10 5 (0.50%) JMeter
10 5 (0.50%) Postman
11 4 (0.40%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.40%) Maven
11 4 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.40%) SonarQube
11 4 (0.40%) WebDriver
12 2 (0.20%) Eclipse
12 2 (0.20%) Team Foundation Server
12 2 (0.20%) TestNG
General
1 318 (31.70%) Social Skills
2 189 (18.84%) Public Sector
3 144 (14.36%) Finance
4 116 (11.57%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (4.89%) Aerospace
6 44 (4.39%) Banking
7 29 (2.89%) Documentation Skills
8 25 (2.49%) Legal
9 21 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
9 21 (2.09%) Manufacturing
10 18 (1.79%) Aviation
11 16 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
11 16 (1.60%) Telecoms
12 13 (1.30%) Billing
12 13 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
13 10 (1.00%) Local Government
14 9 (0.90%) Publishing
15 8 (0.80%) Law
15 8 (0.80%) Military
15 8 (0.80%) Retail
Job Titles
1 158 (15.75%) Developer
2 121 (12.06%) Analyst
3 114 (11.37%) Senior
4 98 (9.77%) Lead
5 90 (8.97%) Architect
6 78 (7.78%) Consultant
7 58 (5.78%) SAP Consultant
8 56 (5.58%) Business Analyst
9 40 (3.99%) Java Developer
10 38 (3.79%) Designer
11 35 (3.49%) Data Engineer
12 34 (3.39%) Administrator
13 27 (2.69%) Delivery Manager
14 25 (2.49%) Senior Developer
15 24 (2.39%) DevOps Engineer
15 24 (2.39%) Senior Analyst
16 20 (1.99%) Senior Manager
17 19 (1.89%) Data Architect
17 19 (1.89%) Senior Business Analyst
17 19 (1.89%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (6.48%) Node.js
2 54 (5.38%) React
3 41 (4.09%) REST
3 41 (4.09%) RESTful
4 38 (3.79%) HTML
5 34 (3.39%) CSS
6 32 (3.19%) Kafka
7 29 (2.89%) .NET
7 29 (2.89%) Spring
8 27 (2.69%) Spring Boot
9 15 (1.50%) OAuth
10 14 (1.40%) JSON
10 14 (1.40%) Playwright
11 13 (1.30%) Middleware
11 13 (1.30%) SAP TM
12 12 (1.20%) LangChain
12 12 (1.20%) PySpark
12 12 (1.20%) XML
13 11 (1.10%) AngularJS
13 11 (1.10%) SPFx
Miscellaneous
1 74 (7.38%) Product Ownership
2 51 (5.08%) Onboarding
3 46 (4.59%) Cloud Native
4 22 (2.19%) Management Information System
5 20 (1.99%) Legacy Systems
6 19 (1.89%) Distributed Systems
7 16 (1.60%) NHS
8 14 (1.40%) Algorithms
9 10 (1.00%) Public Cloud
10 9 (0.90%) Data Centre
10 9 (0.90%) Data Structures
10 9 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
11 7 (0.70%) Linux Command Line
11 7 (0.70%) Mobile App
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 91 (9.07%) Linux
2 42 (4.19%) Windows
3 23 (2.29%) Unix
4 13 (1.30%) Android
5 10 (1.00%) Windows Server
6 8 (0.80%) Apple iOS
7 7 (0.70%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.40%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.30%) AIX
9 3 (0.30%) Solaris
9 3 (0.30%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.20%) Debian
11 1 (0.100%) CentOS
11 1 (0.100%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.100%) VME
11 1 (0.100%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 322 (32.10%) Agile
2 198 (19.74%) CI/CD
3 177 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
4 156 (15.55%) DevOps
5 142 (14.16%) Stakeholder Management
6 106 (10.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 104 (10.37%) Continuous Improvement
8 83 (8.28%) Roadmaps
8 83 (8.28%) Scrum
9 82 (8.18%) Test Automation
10 79 (7.88%) Infrastructure as Code
11 76 (7.58%) Microservices
12 69 (6.88%) Data Modelling
13 68 (6.78%) Analytics
13 68 (6.78%) Decision-Making
13 68 (6.78%) Migration
14 67 (6.68%) AI
15 63 (6.28%) Validation
16 58 (5.78%) Business Intelligence
16 58 (5.78%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 143 (14.26%) Python
2 109 (10.87%) Java
3 106 (10.57%) SQL
4 74 (7.38%) JavaScript
5 47 (4.69%) TypeScript
6 32 (3.19%) Scala
7 24 (2.39%) C#
8 20 (1.99%) PowerShell
8 20 (1.99%) Shell Script
9 14 (1.40%) Ruby
10 13 (1.30%) Bash
11 10 (1.00%) Bicep
11 10 (1.00%) 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 5 (0.50%) R
14 5 (0.50%) VB
Qualifications
1 335 (33.40%) Security Cleared
2 240 (23.93%) SC Cleared
3 62 (6.18%) Degree
4 17 (1.69%) DV Cleared
5 16 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (1.20%) AWS Certification
7 11 (1.10%) Master's Degree
8 9 (0.90%) Azure Certification
9 8 (0.80%) PMI Certification
10 6 (0.60%) CompTIA CySA+
10 6 (0.60%) DBS Check
10 6 (0.60%) PMP
11 5 (0.50%) GIAC
11 5 (0.50%) ISTQB
11 5 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (0.40%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.40%) CompTIA Security+
12 4 (0.40%) CTC Cleared
12 4 (0.40%) MBA
12 4 (0.40%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (6.48%) Data Quality
2 63 (6.28%) Accessibility
3 54 (5.38%) QA
4 20 (1.99%) WCAG
5 18 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 18 (1.79%) NIST
5 18 (1.79%) SLA
6 13 (1.30%) PMO
7 12 (1.20%) 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%) RMADS
13 3 (0.30%) SEPA
System Software
1 69 (6.88%) Docker
2 27 (2.69%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.90%) vSphere
5 6 (0.60%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.50%) GPFS
6 5 (0.50%) NFS
6 5 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
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 (0.100%) Postfix
10 1 (0.100%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 93 (9.27%) Terraform
2 69 (6.88%) Kubernetes
3 24 (2.39%) 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%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (0.50%) VxRail
10 4 (0.40%) HAProxy
10 4 (0.40%) Packer
10 4 (0.40%) Podman
11 3 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
12 2 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 2 (0.20%) Consul
12 2 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
12 2 (0.20%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 117 (11.67%) SAP
2 96 (9.57%) Microsoft
3 50 (4.99%) Oracle
4 28 (2.79%) VMware
5 23 (2.29%) Cisco
6 22 (2.19%) Databricks
6 22 (2.19%) ServiceNow
7 19 (1.89%) Google
8 18 (1.79%) IBM
9 17 (1.69%) Splunk
10 12 (1.20%) Pega
11 9 (0.90%) Atlassian
11 9 (0.90%) Workday
12 8 (0.80%) OpenAI
13 7 (0.70%) Adobe
13 7 (0.70%) CyberArk
13 7 (0.70%) Foundry
13 7 (0.70%) Salesforce
14 6 (0.60%) Apple
14 6 (0.60%) BeyondTrust