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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 97 157 275
Rank change year-on-year +60 +118 -45
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,527 606 332
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.79% 1.84% 0.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 8.84% 5.87% 2.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,103 414 201
10th Percentile £358 £313 £210
25th Percentile £425 £408 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £603 £588
90th Percentile £670 £713 £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 58 21
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £18.50
25th Percentile - £22.63 £20.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £30.89 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year +42.33% +43.05% -63.56%
75th Percentile £48.00 £48.13 £57.50
90th Percentile £68.75 £72.14 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £33.50 £21.59
% change year-on-year +31.22% +55.16% -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 17,265 10,329 11,188
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.59% 31.36% 29.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,514 6,446 6,894
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 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £707 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,349 831 654
10th Percentile £17.18 £17.87 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £48.72 £25.15 £49.50
Median % change year-on-year +93.72% -49.19% -9.08%
75th Percentile £72.63 £45.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.10 £71.00 £76.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +89.03% -52.10% +1.16%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 +68 1,153 £495 -3.41% 1,082
UK excluding London +43 895 £488 -2.50% 888
Work from Home +63 568 £500 +1.63% 746
London +69 332 £513 +0.99% 287
North of England +15 319 £488 - 171
Midlands +58 263 £488 -7.14% 122
West Midlands +57 253 £488 -7.14% 84
North West +7 170 £505 +7.68% 104
South East -29 94 £483 -6.21% 175
North East +14 89 £453 -1.52% 32
South West +4 81 £525 - 154
Scotland +24 74 £425 -2.86% 120
Yorkshire -9 73 £488 -2.50% 36
East of England -2 46 £578 +21.17% 135
Northern Ireland +15 20 - - 12
Wales -5 12 £413 -28.26% 15
East Midlands -20 9 £606 +23.22% 38

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 (4.32%) Confluence
2 45 (2.95%) SharePoint
3 17 (1.11%) SharePoint Server
4 9 (0.59%) Apache Spark
4 9 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.59%) SAS
5 8 (0.52%) CMS
6 7 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
7 6 (0.39%) WebLogic
8 4 (0.26%) Headless CMS
8 4 (0.26%) IIS
8 4 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.26%) 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 42 (2.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (2.16%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.33%) Windchill
6 3 (0.20%) Simulink
6 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.20%) Trello
7 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.13%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.065%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.065%) InVision
8 1 (0.065%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.065%) Revit
8 1 (0.065%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.065%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 63 (4.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.44%) SAP HR
3 17 (1.11%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (1.05%) SAP Payroll
5 14 (0.92%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.79%) SAP IBP
7 9 (0.59%) SAP FI
7 9 (0.59%) SAP HCM
8 6 (0.39%) SAP GRC
8 6 (0.39%) SAP MDG
9 5 (0.33%) SAP FI-CA
9 5 (0.33%) SAP PP
9 5 (0.33%) Teamcenter
10 4 (0.26%) SAP Convergent Charging
10 4 (0.26%) SAP EHS
10 4 (0.26%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.26%) SAP EWM
10 4 (0.26%) SAP Hybris
10 4 (0.26%) Shopify
11 3 (0.20%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 268 (17.55%) Azure
2 262 (17.16%) AWS
3 87 (5.70%) Power Platform
4 70 (4.58%) GitHub
5 65 (4.26%) Azure DevOps
6 53 (3.47%) GCP
7 51 (3.34%) Microsoft 365
7 51 (3.34%) Serverless
8 48 (3.14%) GitHub Actions
9 46 (3.01%) Entra ID
10 44 (2.88%) Amazon S3
11 43 (2.82%) AWS Lambda
12 28 (1.83%) Power Automate
13 27 (1.77%) PowerApps
14 26 (1.70%) SuccessFactors
15 25 (1.64%) AWS CloudFormation
16 24 (1.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 22 (1.44%) Azure Monitor
18 21 (1.38%) Amazon ECS
19 17 (1.11%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.11%) DNS
2 13 (0.85%) SSL
2 13 (0.85%) WAN
3 10 (0.65%) Firewall
3 10 (0.65%) Network Security
3 10 (0.65%) WebEx
4 9 (0.59%) Cisco IPT
5 8 (0.52%) 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 (0.39%) Ethernet
7 6 (0.39%) LAN
7 6 (0.39%) VPN
8 5 (0.33%) 3GPP
8 5 (0.33%) HTTP
8 5 (0.33%) NGN
8 5 (0.33%) SDH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (3.80%) Power BI
2 50 (3.27%) PostgreSQL
3 43 (2.82%) Metadata
4 42 (2.75%) MongoDB
5 36 (2.36%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (2.23%) SQL Server
7 26 (1.70%) Amazon RDS
8 25 (1.64%) MySQL
9 24 (1.57%) NoSQL
10 21 (1.38%) Data Lake
10 21 (1.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 20 (1.31%) Relational Database
12 17 (1.11%) Oracle Database
13 15 (0.98%) DynamoDB
14 14 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
15 13 (0.85%) Amazon Aurora
16 11 (0.72%) Amazon Athena
17 10 (0.65%) Big Data
17 10 (0.65%) Redis
18 8 (0.52%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 117 (7.66%) JIRA
2 103 (6.75%) Git
3 82 (5.37%) GitLab
4 63 (4.13%) Jenkins
5 33 (2.16%) JUnit
6 29 (1.90%) Selenium
7 27 (1.77%) Maven
8 25 (1.64%) Cucumber
9 18 (1.18%) Mockito
10 17 (1.11%) Postman
10 17 (1.11%) SonarQube
11 14 (0.92%) Gatling
11 14 (0.92%) Team Foundation Server
11 14 (0.92%) Visual Studio
12 13 (0.85%) Cypress.io
13 10 (0.65%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 9 (0.59%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.59%) REST Assured
15 7 (0.46%) Gradle
15 7 (0.46%) WebDriver
General
1 521 (34.12%) Social Skills
2 369 (24.17%) Public Sector
3 252 (16.50%) Finance
4 144 (9.43%) Analytical Skills
5 141 (9.23%) Organisational Skills
6 136 (8.91%) Legal
7 43 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
8 40 (2.62%) Aerospace
9 34 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
10 33 (2.16%) Manufacturing
11 27 (1.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 25 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
13 24 (1.57%) Telecoms
14 23 (1.51%) Banking
15 22 (1.44%) Billing
16 14 (0.92%) Military
17 13 (0.85%) Aviation
18 11 (0.72%) Local Government
19 8 (0.52%) Avionics
19 8 (0.52%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 213 (13.95%) Developer
2 174 (11.39%) Senior
3 158 (10.35%) Architect
4 153 (10.02%) Lead
5 107 (7.01%) Consultant
6 102 (6.68%) Analyst
7 71 (4.65%) Java Developer
8 68 (4.45%) SAP Consultant
9 61 (3.99%) Designer
10 49 (3.21%) Data Engineer
11 48 (3.14%) Solutions Architect
12 46 (3.01%) DevOps Engineer
13 44 (2.88%) Business Analyst
14 41 (2.69%) Delivery Manager
15 34 (2.23%) Data Architect
15 34 (2.23%) Product Manager
16 32 (2.10%) Lead Developer
16 32 (2.10%) Technical Architect
17 29 (1.90%) User Researcher
18 27 (1.77%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (7.27%) Terraform
2 91 (5.96%) REST
3 83 (5.44%) Spring
4 74 (4.85%) Spring Boot
5 58 (3.80%) RESTful
6 53 (3.47%) HTML
6 53 (3.47%) Node.js
7 52 (3.41%) React
8 41 (2.69%) CSS
9 40 (2.62%) Kafka
10 37 (2.42%) Playwright
11 28 (1.83%) OpenAPI
12 25 (1.64%) .NET
13 24 (1.57%) OAuth
13 24 (1.57%) XML
14 22 (1.44%) Swagger
15 21 (1.38%) OAuth2
16 20 (1.31%) JSON
17 19 (1.24%) Web Services
18 18 (1.18%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 120 (7.86%) Virtual Team
2 119 (7.79%) Web Conferencing
3 109 (7.14%) Podcast
4 100 (6.55%) Onboarding
5 86 (5.63%) Product Ownership
6 71 (4.65%) Cloud Native
7 30 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
8 24 (1.57%) Replication
9 20 (1.31%) Management Information System
9 20 (1.31%) Mobile App
9 20 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
10 18 (1.18%) BYOD
10 18 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
10 18 (1.18%) NHS
11 17 (1.11%) Distributed Systems
12 15 (0.98%) Driving Licence
13 12 (0.79%) Algorithms
14 11 (0.72%) AI Agents
14 11 (0.72%) Low-Code
14 11 (0.72%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 73 (4.78%) Windows
2 62 (4.06%) Linux
3 34 (2.23%) Unix
4 20 (1.31%) Android
4 20 (1.31%) Windows Server
5 11 (0.72%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.65%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.59%) Mac OS
8 8 (0.52%) VMS
9 3 (0.20%) AIX
10 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.13%) Solaris
11 1 (0.065%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.065%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 482 (31.57%) Agile
2 288 (18.86%) Stakeholder Management
3 272 (17.81%) CI/CD
4 240 (15.72%) DevOps
5 192 (12.57%) Continuous Improvement
6 185 (12.12%) Problem-Solving
7 158 (10.35%) Scrum
8 156 (10.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 137 (8.97%) Customer Service
10 124 (8.12%) Test Automation
11 123 (8.06%) Roadmaps
12 118 (7.73%) Microservices
13 117 (7.66%) Decision-Making
14 112 (7.33%) Analytics
15 107 (7.01%) Migration
16 106 (6.94%) Infrastructure as Code
17 99 (6.48%) Mentoring
18 95 (6.22%) AI
18 95 (6.22%) Digital Transformation Programme
19 90 (5.89%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 180 (11.79%) Java
2 160 (10.48%) SQL
3 121 (7.92%) Python
4 83 (5.44%) JavaScript
5 42 (2.75%) TypeScript
6 39 (2.55%) Scala
7 38 (2.49%) PowerShell
8 26 (1.70%) C#
9 23 (1.51%) Shell Script
10 22 (1.44%) Bash
11 20 (1.31%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.92%) T-SQL
13 12 (0.79%) ABAP
13 12 (0.79%) VB
14 11 (0.72%) VB6
14 11 (0.72%) VBA
15 9 (0.59%) C++
15 9 (0.59%) VBScript
16 8 (0.52%) Kotlin
17 7 (0.46%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 491 (32.15%) Security Cleared
2 381 (24.95%) SC Cleared
3 73 (4.78%) Degree
4 19 (1.24%) Azure Certification
4 19 (1.24%) Microsoft Certification
5 18 (1.18%) AWS Certification
6 13 (0.85%) DBS Check
7 11 (0.72%) A+ Certification
7 11 (0.72%) DV Cleared
8 9 (0.59%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 8 (0.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 8 (0.52%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.52%) PMI Certification
10 7 (0.46%) ISTQB
11 6 (0.39%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 6 (0.39%) PhD
12 5 (0.33%) CCNA
12 5 (0.33%) Cisco Certification
12 5 (0.33%) CTC Cleared
12 5 (0.33%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 104 (6.81%) Accessibility
2 96 (6.29%) QA
3 69 (4.52%) Data Quality
4 39 (2.55%) WCAG
5 29 (1.90%) GDPR
6 21 (1.38%) PMO
7 17 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 16 (1.05%) SLA
9 13 (0.85%) NIST
10 9 (0.59%) 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 97 (6.35%) Docker
2 38 (2.49%) Active Directory
3 14 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
3 14 (0.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (0.33%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.065%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.065%) Firmware
6 1 (0.065%) IAG
6 1 (0.065%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.065%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.065%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 111 (7.27%) Kubernetes
2 38 (2.49%) Grafana
3 22 (1.44%) Prometheus
4 20 (1.31%) Kibana
4 20 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.92%) Ansible
6 12 (0.79%) SCCM
7 11 (0.72%) Argo
8 10 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
9 9 (0.59%) SCOM
10 5 (0.33%) Functional Safety
10 5 (0.33%) Packer
11 4 (0.26%) HAProxy
11 4 (0.26%) Istio
11 4 (0.26%) Podman
11 4 (0.26%) Puppet
12 2 (0.13%) Cilium
12 2 (0.13%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.13%) Karpenter
12 2 (0.13%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 187 (12.25%) Microsoft
2 148 (9.69%) SAP
3 87 (5.70%) Oracle
4 66 (4.32%) ServiceNow
5 44 (2.88%) Google
6 29 (1.90%) BeyondTrust
7 22 (1.44%) Databricks
8 19 (1.24%) Splunk
9 16 (1.05%) Atlassian
10 15 (0.98%) Talend
11 14 (0.92%) VMware
12 13 (0.85%) CyberArk
13 12 (0.79%) Cisco
14 10 (0.65%) Dell
14 10 (0.65%) IBM
14 10 (0.65%) Informatica
14 10 (0.65%) Salesforce
15 9 (0.59%) Okta
16 8 (0.52%) Blue Prism
16 8 (0.52%) MuleSoft