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

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 233 220
Rank change year-on-year +112 -13 -17
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 994 330 469
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.14% 1.12% 1.07%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.56% 3.63% 3.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 732 205 353
10th Percentile £320 £239 £285
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 £665 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £439 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -12.25% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 27 54
10th Percentile £16.47 - £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% -59.30%
75th Percentile £71.94 £72.50 £42.64
90th Percentile £83.81 £76.75 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.35 £53.75 £16.06
% change year-on-year -15.63% +234.65% -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 15,143 9,091 13,401
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.59% 30.78% 30.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,080 5,749 8,271
10th Percentile £350 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -1.59% -3.00%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £646
90th Percentile £725 £708 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £501 £525
% change year-on-year -0.20% -4.57% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,096 512 1,063
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.22 £13.85
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £17.80
Median hourly rate £46.13 £41.38 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.49% +3.44% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.25 £79.87 £75.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +1.02% +12.50% -20.00%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +108 722 £475 -5.00% 205
UK excluding London +61 529 £439 -12.25% 187
Work from Home +96 404 £438 -12.50% 115
London +94 236 £512 -4.74% 32
North of England +18 194 £439 -12.25% 49
North West +20 130 £400 -25.65% 31
Midlands +19 117 £445 -0.67% 17
West Midlands 0 88 £470 +9.56% 14
South East -4 87 £476 -12.82% 38
South West 0 51 £516 +79.57% 43
Scotland +45 50 £325 -36.27% 5
Yorkshire -28 34 £481 +37.50% 4
North East +5 32 £475 +25.00% 14
East Midlands -8 28 £395 -35.56% 3
East of England -23 26 £450 +125.00% 39
Wales -10 7 £458 -20.42% 1
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 49 (4.93%) Confluence
2 33 (3.32%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.31%) Apache Spark
4 11 (1.11%) nginx
4 11 (1.11%) SharePoint Server
5 9 (0.91%) 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 (0.10%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.10%) Camunda
11 1 (0.10%) GeoServer
11 1 (0.10%) Orchard CMS
11 1 (0.10%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 43 (4.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (1.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (1.31%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.21%) 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 42 (4.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.31%) SAP PSCD
2 13 (1.31%) SAP Travel Management
3 11 (1.11%) SAP IBP
4 7 (0.70%) SAP BRIM
5 6 (0.60%) SAP EHS
5 6 (0.60%) SAP EWM
5 6 (0.60%) SAP FI
6 5 (0.50%) SAP FI-CA
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%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 3 (0.30%) Exchequer
8 3 (0.30%) Primavera
8 3 (0.30%) ProductWriter
8 3 (0.30%) SAP HCM
8 3 (0.30%) SAP MM
8 3 (0.30%) SAP VC
Cloud Services
1 182 (18.31%) AWS
2 164 (16.50%) Azure
3 69 (6.94%) Power Platform
4 50 (5.03%) GitHub
5 44 (4.43%) Serverless
6 41 (4.12%) Azure DevOps
7 39 (3.92%) GCP
8 36 (3.62%) GitHub Actions
9 33 (3.32%) Microsoft 365
10 29 (2.92%) AWS Lambda
11 25 (2.52%) Entra ID
12 24 (2.41%) AWS CloudFormation
13 21 (2.11%) Power Automate
14 19 (1.91%) PowerApps
15 18 (1.81%) Amazon SQS
16 16 (1.61%) Amazon ECS
16 16 (1.61%) Amazon S3
17 15 (1.51%) Azure Data Factory
17 15 (1.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 14 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.71%) SSH
2 14 (1.41%) Firewall
3 13 (1.31%) DNS
4 12 (1.21%) 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%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.53%) Power BI
2 37 (3.72%) PostgreSQL
3 26 (2.62%) Metadata
3 26 (2.62%) SQL Server
4 18 (1.81%) Data Warehouse
4 18 (1.81%) NoSQL
5 17 (1.71%) MongoDB
6 15 (1.51%) Relational Database
7 13 (1.31%) DynamoDB
7 13 (1.31%) MySQL
8 12 (1.21%) Geospatial Data
9 11 (1.11%) Data Lake
10 10 (1.01%) Big Data
10 10 (1.01%) Delta Lake
11 9 (0.91%) 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 84 (8.45%) JIRA
2 69 (6.94%) Git
3 45 (4.53%) GitLab
4 41 (4.12%) Jenkins
5 14 (1.41%) Selenium
6 10 (1.01%) JUnit
7 9 (0.91%) Cucumber
7 9 (0.91%) 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 3 (0.30%) Toad
13 2 (0.20%) Android Studio
13 2 (0.20%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 314 (31.59%) Social Skills
2 187 (18.81%) Public Sector
3 140 (14.08%) Finance
4 114 (11.47%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (4.93%) Aerospace
6 43 (4.33%) Banking
7 29 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
8 25 (2.52%) Legal
9 21 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
9 21 (2.11%) Manufacturing
10 18 (1.81%) Aviation
11 16 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
12 15 (1.51%) Telecoms
13 14 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
14 11 (1.11%) Billing
15 10 (1.01%) Local Government
16 9 (0.91%) Publishing
17 8 (0.80%) Law
17 8 (0.80%) Military
17 8 (0.80%) Retail
Job Titles
1 156 (15.69%) Developer
2 118 (11.87%) Analyst
3 113 (11.37%) Senior
4 98 (9.86%) Lead
5 89 (8.95%) Architect
6 75 (7.55%) Consultant
7 56 (5.63%) SAP Consultant
8 53 (5.33%) Business Analyst
9 40 (4.02%) Java Developer
10 37 (3.72%) Designer
11 35 (3.52%) Data Engineer
12 34 (3.42%) Administrator
13 27 (2.72%) Delivery Manager
14 25 (2.52%) Senior Developer
15 24 (2.41%) DevOps Engineer
16 23 (2.31%) Senior Analyst
17 20 (2.01%) Senior Manager
18 19 (1.91%) Data Architect
18 19 (1.91%) Software Developer
18 19 (1.91%) User Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (6.54%) Node.js
2 54 (5.43%) React
3 41 (4.12%) REST
3 41 (4.12%) RESTful
4 37 (3.72%) HTML
5 33 (3.32%) CSS
6 32 (3.22%) Kafka
7 29 (2.92%) Spring
8 28 (2.82%) .NET
9 27 (2.72%) Spring Boot
10 15 (1.51%) OAuth
11 14 (1.41%) JSON
11 14 (1.41%) Playwright
12 13 (1.31%) Middleware
12 13 (1.31%) SAP TM
12 13 (1.31%) XML
13 12 (1.21%) LangChain
13 12 (1.21%) PySpark
14 11 (1.11%) AngularJS
14 11 (1.11%) SPFx
Miscellaneous
1 73 (7.34%) Product Ownership
2 51 (5.13%) Onboarding
3 46 (4.63%) Cloud Native
4 22 (2.21%) Management Information System
5 20 (2.01%) Legacy Systems
6 19 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
7 16 (1.61%) NHS
8 14 (1.41%) Algorithms
9 10 (1.01%) Public Cloud
10 9 (0.91%) Data Centre
10 9 (0.91%) Data Structures
10 9 (0.91%) 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%) PMI
13 5 (0.50%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 91 (9.15%) Linux
2 42 (4.23%) Windows
3 22 (2.21%) Unix
4 13 (1.31%) Android
5 10 (1.01%) Windows Server
6 8 (0.80%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.60%) 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 (0.10%) CentOS
11 1 (0.10%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.10%) VME
11 1 (0.10%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (32.09%) Agile
2 198 (19.92%) CI/CD
3 175 (17.61%) Problem-Solving
4 156 (15.69%) DevOps
5 140 (14.08%) Stakeholder Management
6 105 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 103 (10.36%) Continuous Improvement
8 83 (8.35%) Roadmaps
8 83 (8.35%) Test Automation
9 82 (8.25%) Scrum
10 79 (7.95%) Infrastructure as Code
11 76 (7.65%) Microservices
12 68 (6.84%) Analytics
12 68 (6.84%) Data Modelling
12 68 (6.84%) Migration
13 67 (6.74%) AI
13 67 (6.74%) Decision-Making
14 63 (6.34%) Validation
15 58 (5.84%) Business Intelligence
16 57 (5.73%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 142 (14.29%) Python
2 110 (11.07%) Java
3 105 (10.56%) SQL
4 73 (7.34%) JavaScript
5 47 (4.73%) TypeScript
6 30 (3.02%) Scala
7 24 (2.41%) C#
8 20 (2.01%) PowerShell
9 19 (1.91%) Shell Script
10 14 (1.41%) Ruby
11 13 (1.31%) Bash
12 10 (1.01%) Bicep
13 9 (0.91%) PL/SQL
14 8 (0.80%) C
14 8 (0.80%) C++
14 8 (0.80%) COBOL
15 7 (0.70%) ABAP
16 6 (0.60%) MATLAB
17 5 (0.50%) R
17 5 (0.50%) VB
Qualifications
1 332 (33.40%) Security Cleared
2 240 (24.14%) SC Cleared
3 61 (6.14%) Degree
4 17 (1.71%) 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 64 (6.44%) Data Quality
2 62 (6.24%) Accessibility
3 53 (5.33%) QA
4 20 (2.01%) WCAG
5 18 (1.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 18 (1.81%) NIST
5 18 (1.81%) SLA
6 13 (1.31%) PMO
7 11 (1.11%) 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 69 (6.94%) Docker
2 27 (2.72%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.91%) 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 (0.10%) Postfix
10 1 (0.10%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 93 (9.36%) Terraform
2 69 (6.94%) Kubernetes
3 24 (2.41%) Grafana
4 16 (1.61%) Ansible
4 16 (1.61%) Prometheus
5 9 (0.91%) 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
1 114 (11.47%) SAP
2 96 (9.66%) Microsoft
3 50 (5.03%) Oracle
4 28 (2.82%) VMware
5 23 (2.31%) Cisco
6 22 (2.21%) Databricks
6 22 (2.21%) ServiceNow
7 19 (1.91%) Google
8 17 (1.71%) IBM
8 17 (1.71%) Splunk
9 12 (1.21%) Pega
10 10 (1.01%) Workday
11 9 (0.91%) Atlassian
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