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

6 months to
30 Apr 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 120 233 232
Rank change year-on-year +113 -1 -23
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,000 335 454
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.12% 1.15% 1.04%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.54% 3.73% 3.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 735 210 339
10th Percentile £320 £248 £253
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 £656 £656 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £492 £525
% change year-on-year -11.08% -6.29% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 28 53
10th Percentile £17.39 - £13.99
25th Percentile £25.16 £18.50 -
Median hourly rate £45.35 £47.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -4.54% +195.77% -58.12%
75th Percentile £73.00 £74.06 £42.64
90th Percentile £85.36 £76.63 £75.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.35 £54.99 £16.06
% change year-on-year -17.54% +242.40% -58.12%

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 15,293 8,987 13,369
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.41% 30.75% 30.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,167 5,677 8,223
10th Percentile £350 £288 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -1.05% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £707 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £501 £530
% change year-on-year -0.10% -5.57% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,112 516 1,078
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.00 £17.91
Median hourly rate £47.50 £40.72 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.66% +1.79% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.34 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £45.00 £40.94
% change year-on-year +4.44% +9.92% -17.37%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +105 732 £476 -4.80% 208
UK excluding London +49 529 £438 -11.08% 184
Work from Home +96 410 £438 -12.50% 126
London +105 244 £512 -6.46% 35
North of England +10 191 £431 -13.75% 40
North West +12 126 £394 -26.81% 25
Midlands +14 118 £438 +6.71% 24
West Midlands +1 89 £450 +9.76% 19
South East +3 86 £483 -15.85% 34
South West +1 52 £516 +79.57% 45
Scotland +35 50 £325 -36.27% 4
Yorkshire -33 35 £481 +37.50% 4
North East +2 32 £478 +25.66% 11
East Midlands -2 28 £395 -35.56% 5
East of England -27 27 £450 +125.00% 39
Wales -9 7 £458 -20.42% 1
Northern Ireland +4 3 £375 +33.45%

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 47 (4.70%) Confluence
2 32 (3.20%) 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 6 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
8 4 (0.40%) ArcGIS
8 4 (0.40%) CMS
8 4 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.30%) CICS
9 3 (0.30%) LiveCycle
9 3 (0.30%) SAS
10 1 (0.10%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.10%) Camunda
10 1 (0.10%) Drupal
10 1 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
10 1 (0.10%) Smallworld
10 1 (0.10%) WebLogic
Applications
1 42 (4.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (1.50%) 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 (0.10%) 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 41 (4.10%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.30%) SAP PSCD
2 13 (1.30%) SAP Travel Management
3 12 (1.20%) SAP IBP
4 8 (0.80%) SAP BRIM
5 7 (0.70%) SAP EHS
5 7 (0.70%) SAP EWM
5 7 (0.70%) 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%) Primavera
8 3 (0.30%) ProductWriter
8 3 (0.30%) SAP HCM
8 3 (0.30%) SAP MM
8 3 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 3 (0.30%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 184 (18.40%) AWS
2 164 (16.40%) Azure
3 68 (6.80%) Power Platform
4 50 (5.00%) GitHub
5 44 (4.40%) Serverless
6 40 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (3.80%) GCP
8 36 (3.60%) GitHub Actions
9 32 (3.20%) Microsoft 365
10 29 (2.90%) AWS Lambda
11 25 (2.50%) Entra ID
12 24 (2.40%) AWS CloudFormation
13 20 (2.00%) Power Automate
14 18 (1.80%) Amazon SQS
14 18 (1.80%) PowerApps
15 16 (1.60%) Amazon ECS
15 16 (1.60%) Amazon S3
16 14 (1.40%) Amazon EKS
16 14 (1.40%) Azure Data Factory
16 14 (1.40%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.60%) SSH
2 15 (1.50%) DNS
3 14 (1.40%) Firewall
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%) DHCP
8 5 (0.50%) MPLS
8 5 (0.50%) WebEx
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%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (5.40%) Power BI
2 37 (3.70%) PostgreSQL
3 26 (2.60%) Metadata
4 25 (2.50%) SQL Server
5 19 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
6 18 (1.80%) NoSQL
7 17 (1.70%) MongoDB
8 15 (1.50%) Relational Database
9 13 (1.30%) DynamoDB
9 13 (1.30%) MySQL
10 12 (1.20%) Geospatial Data
11 10 (1.00%) Big Data
11 10 (1.00%) Data Lake
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
15 6 (0.60%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 78 (7.80%) JIRA
2 69 (6.90%) Git
3 44 (4.40%) GitLab
4 41 (4.10%) Jenkins
5 14 (1.40%) Selenium
6 11 (1.10%) JUnit
7 9 (0.90%) Cucumber
7 9 (0.90%) Cypress.io
8 6 (0.60%) Gatling
8 6 (0.60%) Mockito
9 5 (0.50%) Postman
10 4 (0.40%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.40%) JMeter
10 4 (0.40%) Maven
10 4 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.40%) SonarQube
10 4 (0.40%) WebDriver
11 3 (0.30%) Terragrunt
12 2 (0.20%) Android Studio
12 2 (0.20%) MLflow
General
1 313 (31.30%) Social Skills
2 190 (19.00%) Public Sector
3 144 (14.40%) Finance
4 117 (11.70%) Analytical Skills
5 50 (5.00%) Aerospace
6 42 (4.20%) Banking
7 29 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
8 25 (2.50%) Legal
9 21 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
9 21 (2.10%) Manufacturing
10 19 (1.90%) Aviation
11 16 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
11 16 (1.60%) Telecoms
12 14 (1.40%) Billing
13 13 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
14 10 (1.00%) Local Government
15 9 (0.90%) Law
15 9 (0.90%) Publishing
16 8 (0.80%) Military
16 8 (0.80%) Retail
Job Titles
1 156 (15.60%) Developer
2 122 (12.20%) Analyst
3 112 (11.20%) Senior
4 98 (9.80%) Lead
5 90 (9.00%) Architect
6 77 (7.70%) Consultant
7 57 (5.70%) SAP Consultant
8 56 (5.60%) Business Analyst
9 39 (3.90%) Java Developer
10 38 (3.80%) Designer
11 35 (3.50%) Data Engineer
12 34 (3.40%) Administrator
13 27 (2.70%) Delivery Manager
14 25 (2.50%) DevOps Engineer
14 25 (2.50%) Senior Developer
15 23 (2.30%) Senior Analyst
16 21 (2.10%) Data Architect
17 20 (2.00%) Senior Manager
18 19 (1.90%) Project Manager
18 19 (1.90%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (6.40%) Node.js
2 54 (5.40%) React
3 41 (4.10%) RESTful
4 40 (4.00%) REST
5 38 (3.80%) HTML
6 34 (3.40%) CSS
7 30 (3.00%) Kafka
8 28 (2.80%) .NET
8 28 (2.80%) Spring
9 26 (2.60%) Spring Boot
10 15 (1.50%) OAuth
11 14 (1.40%) JSON
11 14 (1.40%) Playwright
12 13 (1.30%) Middleware
12 13 (1.30%) SAP TM
13 12 (1.20%) LangChain
13 12 (1.20%) PySpark
14 11 (1.10%) AngularJS
14 11 (1.10%) SPFx
15 10 (1.00%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 73 (7.30%) Product Ownership
2 50 (5.00%) Onboarding
3 46 (4.60%) Cloud Native
4 22 (2.20%) Management Information System
5 20 (2.00%) Legacy Systems
6 18 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
7 16 (1.60%) NHS
8 15 (1.50%) 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 (9.10%) Linux
2 42 (4.20%) Windows
3 22 (2.20%) Unix
4 13 (1.30%) Android
5 11 (1.10%) 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 (0.10%) CentOS
11 1 (0.10%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.10%) VME
11 1 (0.10%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (31.90%) Agile
2 196 (19.60%) CI/CD
3 174 (17.40%) Problem-Solving
4 154 (15.40%) DevOps
5 141 (14.10%) Stakeholder Management
6 109 (10.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 104 (10.40%) Continuous Improvement
8 85 (8.50%) Roadmaps
9 82 (8.20%) Infrastructure as Code
10 81 (8.10%) Scrum
11 79 (7.90%) Test Automation
12 74 (7.40%) Microservices
13 70 (7.00%) Decision-Making
14 69 (6.90%) AI
14 69 (6.90%) Migration
15 68 (6.80%) Data Modelling
16 66 (6.60%) Analytics
17 61 (6.10%) Validation
18 58 (5.80%) Workshop Facilitation
19 57 (5.70%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 143 (14.30%) Python
2 104 (10.40%) Java
3 103 (10.30%) SQL
4 72 (7.20%) JavaScript
5 46 (4.60%) TypeScript
6 31 (3.10%) Scala
7 23 (2.30%) C#
8 19 (1.90%) PowerShell
8 19 (1.90%) 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
1 333 (33.30%) Security Cleared
2 238 (23.80%) SC Cleared
3 61 (6.10%) Degree
4 16 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
4 16 (1.60%) DV Cleared
5 12 (1.20%) AWS Certification
6 11 (1.10%) Master's Degree
7 9 (0.90%) Azure Certification
8 8 (0.80%) PMI Certification
9 6 (0.60%) CompTIA CySA+
9 6 (0.60%) DBS Check
9 6 (0.60%) PMP
10 5 (0.50%) GIAC
10 5 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (0.40%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.40%) CompTIA Security+
11 4 (0.40%) CTC Cleared
11 4 (0.40%) MBA
11 4 (0.40%) TOGAF Certification
12 3 (0.30%) NVQ Level 4
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 67 (6.70%) Data Quality
2 62 (6.20%) Accessibility
3 53 (5.30%) QA
4 20 (2.00%) WCAG
5 18 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 17 (1.70%) NIST
6 17 (1.70%) SLA
7 15 (1.50%) PMO
8 12 (1.20%) GDPR
9 8 (0.80%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.60%) GRC
10 6 (0.60%) NCSC
11 5 (0.50%) IFRS
11 5 (0.50%) IFRS 17
11 5 (0.50%) ISO 20022
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 (6.90%) Docker
2 28 (2.80%) Active Directory
3 25 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.90%) vSphere
5 7 (0.70%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.50%) GPFS
7 5 (0.50%) NFS
7 5 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
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 (9.30%) Terraform
2 69 (6.90%) Kubernetes
3 24 (2.40%) 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%) VxRail
10 4 (0.40%) HAProxy
10 4 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
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%) CA Endevor
12 2 (0.20%) Consul
12 2 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
12 2 (0.20%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 115 (11.50%) SAP
2 94 (9.40%) Microsoft
3 49 (4.90%) Oracle
4 29 (2.90%) VMware
5 23 (2.30%) Cisco
6 22 (2.20%) Databricks
6 22 (2.20%) ServiceNow
7 19 (1.90%) Google
8 18 (1.80%) IBM
9 17 (1.70%) Splunk
10 12 (1.20%) Pega
11 9 (0.90%) Workday
12 8 (0.80%) 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
225 BPSS Clearance jobs Nationwide