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 3 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 113 196 247
Rank change year-on-year +83 +51 -19
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,158 434 424
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.25% 1.39% 0.98%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.18% 4.51% 3.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 836 289 285
10th Percentile £328 £295 £205
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £494 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% -1.21% -7.57%
75th Percentile £570 £582 £588
90th Percentile £656 £713 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £458 £491 £475
% change year-on-year -6.72% +3.37% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 140 40 54
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £34.75 £22.63 -
Median hourly rate £43.96 £38.25 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +14.93% +138.17% -63.77%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.07 £30.75
90th Percentile £75.50 £76.25 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £45.00 £16.06
% change year-on-year -2.31% +180.20% -60.42%

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 16,122 9,629 12,970
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.29% 30.79% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,754 5,982 8,029
10th Percentile £350 £278 £311
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.43% -0.43% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £527
% change year-on-year +2.00% -5.03% +0.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,177 647 1,108
10th Percentile £17.36 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.19 £20.19 £20.00
Median hourly rate £51.00 £27.94 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +82.53% -31.75% -26.70%
75th Percentile £72.54 £59.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +97.47% -41.12% -20.54%

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 3 July 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 3 July 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 3 July 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 +91 877 £481 -3.80% 403
UK excluding London +59 656 £458 -6.72% 380
Work from Home +82 472 £446 -6.05% 277
London +82 281 £499 +5.13% 89
North of England +22 231 £453 -7.93% 93
Midlands +16 143 £459 -6.71% 38
North West +11 132 £438 -12.50% 72
West Midlands +16 118 £473 +4.76% 32
South East -3 108 £492 -5.48% 62
South West +24 70 £525 +50.00% 90
Scotland +39 65 £331 -6.43% 52
North East +3 61 £453 +4.14% 11
Yorkshire -18 45 £478 -3.54% 10
East of England -13 27 £550 +175.00% 41
East Midlands -5 24 £438 -37.50% 6
Wales -14 9 £463 -19.57% 8
Northern Ireland +6 7 £450 +28.57% 5

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 50 (4.32%) Confluence
2 37 (3.20%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.30%) SharePoint Server
4 13 (1.12%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.69%) SAS
6 7 (0.60%) Apache
7 5 (0.43%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.26%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.26%) CICS
8 3 (0.26%) CMS
8 3 (0.26%) LiveCycle
8 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.26%) WordPress
9 2 (0.17%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.17%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.17%) Hyperledger
10 1 (0.086%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.086%) Appian
10 1 (0.086%) Camunda
Applications
1 43 (3.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.64%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (1.12%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (1.04%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.43%) Simulink
7 4 (0.35%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.17%) Trello
9 1 (0.086%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.086%) CATIA
9 1 (0.086%) InVision
9 1 (0.086%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.086%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.086%) PTC Creo
9 1 (0.086%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 42 (3.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.47%) SAP PSCD
3 14 (1.21%) SAP BRIM
4 11 (0.95%) SAP IBP
5 8 (0.69%) SAP FI
6 7 (0.60%) SAP EWM
6 7 (0.60%) SAP FI-CA
6 7 (0.60%) SAP Travel Management
7 6 (0.52%) SAP HR
8 5 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
9 4 (0.35%) Loan IQ
9 4 (0.35%) Primavera
9 4 (0.35%) SAP Convergent Charging
9 4 (0.35%) SAP EHS
9 4 (0.35%) SAP MDG
9 4 (0.35%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
10 3 (0.26%) Exchequer
10 3 (0.26%) iTrent
10 3 (0.26%) ProductWriter
Cloud Services
1 220 (19.00%) AWS
2 214 (18.48%) Azure
3 79 (6.82%) Power Platform
4 50 (4.32%) GCP
5 49 (4.23%) Serverless
6 45 (3.89%) Azure DevOps
6 45 (3.89%) GitHub
7 37 (3.20%) Entra ID
8 35 (3.02%) Amazon S3
8 35 (3.02%) AWS Lambda
9 34 (2.94%) GitHub Actions
9 34 (2.94%) Microsoft 365
10 21 (1.81%) Power Automate
11 20 (1.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 20 (1.73%) PowerApps
12 19 (1.64%) Amazon ECS
13 18 (1.55%) Amazon EKS
14 17 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
15 16 (1.38%) Amazon EC2
15 16 (1.38%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.38%) DNS
2 15 (1.30%) Network Security
3 14 (1.21%) Firewall
4 10 (0.86%) WAN
5 9 (0.78%) HTTPS
6 7 (0.60%) WebEx
7 6 (0.52%) DHCP
7 6 (0.52%) Ethernet
7 6 (0.52%) SSH
7 6 (0.52%) SSL
8 5 (0.43%) LAN
9 4 (0.35%) MPLS
9 4 (0.35%) SDH
9 4 (0.35%) VPN
10 3 (0.26%) Internet
10 3 (0.26%) MQTT
10 3 (0.26%) Reverse Proxy
10 3 (0.26%) SD-WAN
10 3 (0.26%) TCP/IP
10 3 (0.26%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (5.53%) Power BI
2 33 (2.85%) PostgreSQL
3 29 (2.50%) Metadata
4 28 (2.42%) Data Warehouse
5 25 (2.16%) MongoDB
6 23 (1.99%) SQL Server
7 19 (1.64%) NoSQL
8 18 (1.55%) Relational Database
9 16 (1.38%) DynamoDB
10 15 (1.30%) Data Lake
11 14 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (1.21%) MySQL
12 12 (1.04%) Amazon Athena
13 11 (0.95%) Amazon Redshift
14 9 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 8 (0.69%) Delta Lake
15 8 (0.69%) Geospatial Data
15 8 (0.69%) Tableau
16 7 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
16 7 (0.60%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 89 (7.69%) JIRA
2 61 (5.27%) Git
3 60 (5.18%) GitLab
4 45 (3.89%) Jenkins
5 21 (1.81%) Selenium
6 17 (1.47%) Cucumber
7 14 (1.21%) JUnit
8 12 (1.04%) Postman
9 9 (0.78%) Cypress.io
10 8 (0.69%) Team Foundation Server
11 7 (0.60%) Artifactory
11 7 (0.60%) Maven
11 7 (0.60%) Mockito
11 7 (0.60%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.52%) Gatling
12 6 (0.52%) Visual Studio
12 6 (0.52%) WebDriver
13 5 (0.43%) Rational DOORS
14 4 (0.35%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 4 (0.35%) JMeter
General
1 337 (29.10%) Social Skills
2 244 (21.07%) Public Sector
3 181 (15.63%) Finance
4 121 (10.45%) Analytical Skills
5 58 (5.01%) Legal
6 46 (3.97%) Aerospace
7 44 (3.80%) Organisational Skills
8 40 (3.45%) Banking
9 38 (3.28%) Documentation Skills
10 27 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (1.90%) Billing
11 22 (1.90%) Manufacturing
12 20 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
13 16 (1.38%) Aviation
13 16 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 15 (1.30%) Telecoms
15 13 (1.12%) Local Government
16 10 (0.86%) Law
17 9 (0.78%) Military
18 7 (0.60%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 140 (12.09%) Developer
2 120 (10.36%) Analyst
2 120 (10.36%) Senior
3 119 (10.28%) Lead
4 115 (9.93%) Architect
5 86 (7.43%) Consultant
6 57 (4.92%) SAP Consultant
7 54 (4.66%) Designer
8 51 (4.40%) Business Analyst
8 51 (4.40%) Data Engineer
9 44 (3.80%) Java Developer
10 33 (2.85%) DevOps Engineer
11 30 (2.59%) Administrator
12 27 (2.33%) Solutions Architect
13 24 (2.07%) Data Analyst
13 24 (2.07%) Data Architect
13 24 (2.07%) Delivery Manager
13 24 (2.07%) Product Manager
13 24 (2.07%) Service Designer
14 23 (1.99%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (5.61%) REST
2 51 (4.40%) React
3 46 (3.97%) RESTful
3 46 (3.97%) Spring Boot
4 45 (3.89%) HTML
4 45 (3.89%) Spring
5 44 (3.80%) Node.js
6 38 (3.28%) CSS
7 28 (2.42%) Kafka
8 23 (1.99%) .NET
9 19 (1.64%) Playwright
10 18 (1.55%) JSON
10 18 (1.55%) PySpark
11 16 (1.38%) OpenAPI
12 15 (1.30%) OAuth
12 15 (1.30%) SPFx
13 14 (1.21%) Jest
14 13 (1.12%) BAPI
14 13 (1.12%) Middleware
14 13 (1.12%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 79 (6.82%) Product Ownership
2 64 (5.53%) Onboarding
3 58 (5.01%) Cloud Native
4 38 (3.28%) Virtual Team
5 36 (3.11%) Web Conferencing
6 32 (2.76%) Podcast
7 23 (1.99%) Management Information System
8 21 (1.81%) NHS
9 19 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
10 16 (1.38%) Algorithms
11 15 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
12 14 (1.21%) BYOD
12 14 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
13 11 (0.95%) Data Centre
13 11 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
14 9 (0.78%) Data Structures
15 8 (0.69%) Mobile App
15 8 (0.69%) Public Cloud
16 6 (0.52%) Replication
17 5 (0.43%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 67 (5.79%) Linux
2 53 (4.58%) Windows
3 32 (2.76%) Unix
4 16 (1.38%) Windows Server
5 14 (1.21%) Android
6 10 (0.86%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.78%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.52%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.26%) AIX
9 3 (0.26%) Solaris
10 2 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.086%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.086%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 336 (29.02%) Agile
2 222 (19.17%) CI/CD
3 186 (16.06%) DevOps
4 170 (14.68%) Stakeholder Management
5 157 (13.56%) Problem-Solving
6 126 (10.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 120 (10.36%) Continuous Improvement
8 102 (8.81%) Test Automation
9 101 (8.72%) Roadmaps
10 96 (8.29%) Decision-Making
11 95 (8.20%) Scrum
12 92 (7.94%) Analytics
13 88 (7.60%) Infrastructure as Code
14 83 (7.17%) Microservices
15 77 (6.65%) Migration
16 74 (6.39%) AI
17 71 (6.13%) Business Intelligence
17 71 (6.13%) Data Modelling
18 69 (5.96%) Software Engineering
19 66 (5.70%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 134 (11.57%) Python
2 130 (11.23%) SQL
3 122 (10.54%) Java
4 76 (6.56%) JavaScript
5 47 (4.06%) TypeScript
6 31 (2.68%) Scala
7 23 (1.99%) PowerShell
8 21 (1.81%) C#
9 16 (1.38%) Shell Script
10 10 (0.86%) C++
10 10 (0.86%) PL/SQL
11 9 (0.78%) VB
12 8 (0.69%) Bash
12 8 (0.69%) Bicep
12 8 (0.69%) C
13 7 (0.60%) ABAP
13 7 (0.60%) VB6
14 6 (0.52%) COBOL
14 6 (0.52%) MATLAB
15 5 (0.43%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 354 (30.57%) Security Cleared
2 260 (22.45%) SC Cleared
3 62 (5.35%) Degree
4 19 (1.64%) AWS Certification
5 17 (1.47%) DV Cleared
6 14 (1.21%) Azure Certification
7 10 (0.86%) Master's Degree
8 9 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (0.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
10 6 (0.52%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 5 (0.43%) CCNA
11 5 (0.43%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (0.43%) CompTIA CySA+
11 5 (0.43%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.43%) NVQ Level 4
11 5 (0.43%) PMI Certification
12 4 (0.35%) A+ Certification
12 4 (0.35%) CTC Cleared
12 4 (0.35%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 82 (7.08%) Data Quality
2 77 (6.65%) Accessibility
3 67 (5.79%) QA
4 23 (1.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 19 (1.64%) GDPR
5 19 (1.64%) PMO
5 19 (1.64%) WCAG
6 18 (1.55%) NIST
7 17 (1.47%) SLA
8 8 (0.69%) GRC
8 8 (0.69%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.52%) NCSC
10 5 (0.43%) ISO 20022
11 4 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.35%) HL7
11 4 (0.35%) IFRS
11 4 (0.35%) IFRS 17
11 4 (0.35%) PSD2
12 3 (0.26%) DICOM
12 3 (0.26%) Solvency II
System Software
1 73 (6.30%) Docker
2 33 (2.85%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
4 8 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.43%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.35%) vSphere
7 3 (0.26%) GPFS
7 3 (0.26%) NFS
7 3 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.26%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.17%) Firmware
9 1 (0.086%) ACF2
9 1 (0.086%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.086%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.086%) RACF
9 1 (0.086%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 99 (8.55%) Terraform
2 74 (6.39%) Kubernetes
3 24 (2.07%) Grafana
4 14 (1.21%) Prometheus
5 12 (1.04%) Kibana
6 10 (0.86%) Ansible
6 10 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.60%) Argo
7 7 (0.60%) Istio
8 6 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (0.43%) SCCM
10 4 (0.35%) HAProxy
10 4 (0.35%) Podman
11 3 (0.26%) Puppet
11 3 (0.26%) SCOM
11 3 (0.26%) vRealize
12 2 (0.17%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.17%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.17%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 2 (0.17%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 119 (10.28%) Microsoft
2 116 (10.02%) SAP
3 54 (4.66%) Oracle
4 41 (3.54%) ServiceNow
5 26 (2.25%) Google
6 22 (1.90%) Databricks
7 20 (1.73%) Splunk
8 19 (1.64%) VMware
9 17 (1.47%) Cisco
10 13 (1.12%) BeyondTrust
10 13 (1.12%) IBM
10 13 (1.12%) Pega
11 11 (0.95%) Informatica
12 10 (0.86%) CyberArk
13 9 (0.78%) Salesforce
14 8 (0.69%) Talend
15 7 (0.60%) Apple
15 7 (0.60%) Workday
16 6 (0.52%) MuleSoft
16 6 (0.52%) OpenAI