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 4 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 152 268 245
Rank change year-on-year +116 -23 -43
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 694 323 447
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.90% 0.90% 1.00%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.71% 3.05% 3.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 511 175 300
10th Percentile £308 £220 £360
25th Percentile £400 £372 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £688 £703
UK excluding London median daily rate £467 £470 £550
% change year-on-year -0.64% -14.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 16 32
10th Percentile £16.37 £20.06 £24.25
25th Percentile £22.63 £20.12 £33.14
Median hourly rate £33.50 £37.93 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.67% -31.05% -8.33%
75th Percentile £48.13 £64.06 £76.99
90th Percentile £70.09 £65.00 £84.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £38.85 £55.00
% change year-on-year -13.77% -29.36% -8.33%

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 12,154 10,596 13,203
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.30% 29.45% 29.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,879 6,422 8,306
10th Percentile £306 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £420 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £516 £538
% change year-on-year -3.10% -4.00% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,021 506 749
10th Percentile £17.08 £19.00 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.23 £24.18 £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £41.25 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -39.03% -22.90% +18.89%
75th Percentile £45.46 £66.00 £67.56
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £51.90
% change year-on-year -44.11% -13.29% +15.33%

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 4 December 2025.

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 4 December 2025.

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 4 December 2025. 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 +104 489 £492 -1.60% 490
UK excluding London +65 366 £467 -0.64% 502
Work from Home +99 245 £483 -12.27% 314
North of England +56 191 £469 +17.25% 125
North West +62 140 £450 -10.00% 108
London +37 136 £513 -10.87% 32
Midlands -12 55 £438 -9.79% 37
West Midlands -18 42 £488 +3.72% 26
Yorkshire -14 40 £495 +125.00% 11
South West +9 39 £555 -5.93% 111
South East +8 39 £456 +8.63% 160
Scotland +27 28 £420 -23.64% 17
East of England -23 18 £515 +134.09% 142
North East +2 14 £488 +17.82% 7
East Midlands -7 13 £350 -42.95% 11
Northern Ireland - 6 £375 - 1
Wales -6 5 £458 +108.00% 6

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 42 (6.05%) Confluence
2 11 (1.59%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (1.01%) nginx
5 6 (0.86%) Apache
6 4 (0.58%) CMS
6 4 (0.58%) SugarCRM
7 3 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.43%) ArcGIS
7 3 (0.43%) MTS
7 3 (0.43%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.29%) HCL Domino
8 2 (0.29%) HCL Notes
8 2 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.14%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.14%) Drupal
9 1 (0.14%) GeoServer
9 1 (0.14%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.14%) Orchard CMS
9 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
Applications
1 20 (2.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.73%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.86%) AutoCAD
3 6 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.72%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.72%) ProjectWise
5 4 (0.58%) Trello
6 3 (0.43%) Adobe XD
6 3 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.29%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.29%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.29%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.29%) Revit
7 2 (0.29%) Sketch
7 2 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.14%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.14%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 45 (6.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (2.31%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (1.87%) SAP EHS
4 10 (1.44%) Oracle EBS R12
5 9 (1.30%) Oracle Financials
6 7 (1.01%) Oracle Payables
6 7 (1.01%) SAP HCM
7 6 (0.86%) Oracle Cash Management
7 6 (0.86%) SAP VC
8 5 (0.72%) Oracle ASCP
8 5 (0.72%) SAP QM
9 4 (0.58%) Maximo
9 4 (0.58%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.58%) Oracle SCM
10 3 (0.43%) Oracle Assets
10 3 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
10 3 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
10 3 (0.43%) SAP Payroll
10 3 (0.43%) SAP PM
10 3 (0.43%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 108 (15.56%) AWS
2 88 (12.68%) Azure
3 33 (4.76%) Serverless
4 27 (3.89%) GitHub
5 24 (3.46%) AWS Lambda
5 24 (3.46%) Power Platform
6 19 (2.74%) AWS CloudFormation
7 18 (2.59%) Azure DevOps
7 18 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
7 18 (2.59%) Microsoft 365
8 17 (2.45%) Amazon EC2
8 17 (2.45%) GCP
8 17 (2.45%) SuccessFactors
9 15 (2.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 13 (1.87%) Amazon S3
11 12 (1.73%) Amazon ECS
11 12 (1.73%) Amazon SQS
12 11 (1.59%) Amazon EKS
12 11 (1.59%) Power Automate
13 10 (1.44%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 15 (2.16%) Firewall
2 13 (1.87%) SSH
3 10 (1.44%) DNS
4 9 (1.30%) LAN
5 8 (1.15%) WAN
6 7 (1.01%) MPLS
6 7 (1.01%) SAN
6 7 (1.01%) VPN
7 6 (0.86%) Network Security
8 5 (0.72%) Intrusion Detection
9 4 (0.58%) SDH
9 4 (0.58%) SD-WAN
9 4 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
9 4 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
10 3 (0.43%) 5G
10 3 (0.43%) Cisco Nexus
10 3 (0.43%) DHCP
10 3 (0.43%) Radio Access Network
10 3 (0.43%) Reverse Proxy
10 3 (0.43%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.45%) Power BI
2 12 (1.73%) MongoDB
2 12 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (1.59%) Metadata
3 11 (1.59%) NoSQL
4 10 (1.44%) SQL Server
5 9 (1.30%) Data Lake
5 9 (1.30%) Data Warehouse
6 8 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
6 8 (1.15%) Relational Database
7 7 (1.01%) Oracle Database
7 7 (1.01%) Redis
8 6 (0.86%) BigQuery
8 6 (0.86%) MySQL
9 5 (0.72%) DocumentDB
9 5 (0.72%) Geospatial Data
10 4 (0.58%) Big Data
10 4 (0.58%) Data Hub
10 4 (0.58%) SAP HANA
10 4 (0.58%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 75 (10.81%) Git
2 64 (9.22%) JIRA
3 34 (4.90%) GitLab
4 30 (4.32%) Jenkins
5 11 (1.59%) SonarQube
6 9 (1.30%) Cucumber
6 9 (1.30%) Cypress.io
7 8 (1.15%) Mockito
8 7 (1.01%) JUnit
9 6 (0.86%) Selenium
10 5 (0.72%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.58%) Gradle
11 4 (0.58%) Grunt
11 4 (0.58%) gulp
11 4 (0.58%) JMeter
12 3 (0.43%) Android Studio
12 3 (0.43%) Toad
12 3 (0.43%) webpack
13 2 (0.29%) PHPUnit
13 2 (0.29%) WebDriver
General
1 211 (30.40%) Social Skills
2 130 (18.73%) Public Sector
3 108 (15.56%) Finance
4 60 (8.65%) Analytical Skills
5 28 (4.03%) Banking
6 25 (3.60%) Aerospace
7 17 (2.45%) Manufacturing
8 16 (2.31%) Organisational Skills
9 15 (2.16%) Aviation
10 14 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (2.02%) Telecoms
11 13 (1.87%) Documentation Skills
12 8 (1.15%) Local Government
13 7 (1.01%) Billing
13 7 (1.01%) Legal
13 7 (1.01%) Marketing
14 6 (0.86%) Law
15 5 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
16 4 (0.58%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.43%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 111 (15.99%) Developer
2 90 (12.97%) Consultant
3 70 (10.09%) Senior
4 58 (8.36%) Analyst
5 51 (7.35%) Lead
6 50 (7.20%) Architect
7 44 (6.34%) SAP Consultant
8 35 (5.04%) Java Developer
9 23 (3.31%) Business Analyst
10 22 (3.17%) Administrator
10 22 (3.17%) Designer
11 20 (2.88%) DevOps Engineer
11 20 (2.88%) Project Manager
12 19 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
13 17 (2.45%) Delivery Manager
13 17 (2.45%) Senior Developer
14 15 (2.16%) Oracle Consultant
14 15 (2.16%) Senior Manager
15 13 (1.87%) Management Consultant
16 12 (1.73%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (5.62%) Node.js
2 31 (4.47%) React
3 30 (4.32%) REST
4 28 (4.03%) HTML
5 27 (3.89%) Kafka
6 22 (3.17%) CSS
6 22 (3.17%) RESTful
7 20 (2.88%) JSON
8 16 (2.31%) Spring
9 13 (1.87%) SAP Fiori
9 13 (1.87%) Spring Boot
10 12 (1.73%) .NET
10 12 (1.73%) XML
11 10 (1.44%) AngularJS
12 9 (1.30%) ActiveMQ
12 9 (1.30%) Jest
12 9 (1.30%) SOAP
13 8 (1.15%) Elastic Stack
13 8 (1.15%) HTML5
13 8 (1.15%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 47 (6.77%) Onboarding
2 35 (5.04%) Product Ownership
3 19 (2.74%) Management Information System
4 14 (2.02%) Security Posture
5 13 (1.87%) Cloud Native
6 12 (1.73%) Driving Licence
7 10 (1.44%) Mobile App
8 9 (1.30%) NHS
8 9 (1.30%) SCADA
9 8 (1.15%) Data Centre
9 8 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (1.01%) Low-Code
11 6 (0.86%) AI Agents
11 6 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
11 6 (0.86%) Operational Technology
11 6 (0.86%) Public Cloud
12 5 (0.72%) Cyber Threat
12 5 (0.72%) Distributed Systems
12 5 (0.72%) Fibre Optics
12 5 (0.72%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 66 (9.51%) Linux
2 29 (4.18%) Windows
3 25 (3.60%) Unix
4 10 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (1.01%) Android
6 6 (0.86%) Mac OS X
7 5 (0.72%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.58%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.29%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.14%) CentOS
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.14%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.14%) VME
10 1 (0.14%) VMS
10 1 (0.14%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.14%) Windows 8
10 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 203 (29.25%) Agile
2 109 (15.71%) Problem-Solving
3 106 (15.27%) CI/CD
4 99 (14.27%) Stakeholder Management
5 90 (12.97%) DevOps
6 59 (8.50%) Continuous Improvement
7 53 (7.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 51 (7.35%) Migration
8 51 (7.35%) Scrum
9 48 (6.92%) Microservices
10 47 (6.77%) Roadmaps
11 45 (6.48%) Test Automation
12 42 (6.05%) AI
13 40 (5.76%) Change Management
13 40 (5.76%) User Experience
13 40 (5.76%) Validation
14 37 (5.33%) User Acceptance Testing
15 36 (5.19%) Mentoring
16 35 (5.04%) Containerisation
16 35 (5.04%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 82 (11.82%) Python
2 72 (10.37%) Java
3 46 (6.63%) SQL
4 36 (5.19%) JavaScript
5 24 (3.46%) TypeScript
6 19 (2.74%) Bash
7 13 (1.87%) ABAP
7 13 (1.87%) PowerShell
7 13 (1.87%) Ruby
8 11 (1.59%) Shell Script
9 10 (1.44%) PHP
10 9 (1.30%) PL/SQL
11 8 (1.15%) C++
12 7 (1.01%) R
12 7 (1.01%) Scala
13 6 (0.86%) Go
14 5 (0.72%) C#
15 4 (0.58%) Apex Code
16 3 (0.43%) Kotlin
16 3 (0.43%) Rust
Qualifications
1 341 (49.14%) Security Cleared
2 235 (33.86%) SC Cleared
3 49 (7.06%) Degree
4 22 (3.17%) Computer Science Degree
5 14 (2.02%) DBS Check
5 14 (2.02%) DV Cleared
6 13 (1.87%) Master's Degree
7 12 (1.73%) BC Cleared
8 10 (1.44%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 9 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.01%) CCNP
11 5 (0.72%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.58%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.58%) CISM
12 4 (0.58%) ISEB
12 4 (0.58%) ISTQB
12 4 (0.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 4 (0.58%) Oracle Certification
13 3 (0.43%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 3 (0.43%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (5.91%) Accessibility
2 39 (5.62%) QA
3 18 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (2.16%) Data Quality
5 12 (1.73%) GRC
5 12 (1.73%) SLA
6 10 (1.44%) Def Stans
7 9 (1.30%) GDPR
8 8 (1.15%) NIST
8 8 (1.15%) PMO
8 8 (1.15%) WCAG
9 7 (1.01%) NCSC
10 4 (0.58%) ISO 20022
11 3 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.43%) PSD2
12 2 (0.29%) SEPA
13 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
13 1 (0.14%) P3O
13 1 (0.14%) PCI DSS
13 1 (0.14%) RMADS
System Software
1 47 (6.77%) Docker
2 19 (2.74%) Active Directory
3 9 (1.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.58%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.43%) vSphere
7 1 (0.14%) ACF2
7 1 (0.14%) GPFS
7 1 (0.14%) HDFS
7 1 (0.14%) KVM
7 1 (0.14%) NFS
7 1 (0.14%) Postfix
7 1 (0.14%) RACF
7 1 (0.14%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.14%) Varnish
7 1 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 45 (6.48%) Kubernetes
1 45 (6.48%) Terraform
2 13 (1.87%) Grafana
3 10 (1.44%) Prometheus
4 8 (1.15%) Ansible
5 6 (0.86%) EMC NetWorker
5 6 (0.86%) EMC VPLEX
5 6 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.58%) Packer
6 4 (0.58%) Puppet
6 4 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.43%) Consul
7 3 (0.43%) PingFederate
7 3 (0.43%) SCCM
7 3 (0.43%) vRealize
8 2 (0.29%) Ambari
8 2 (0.29%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.29%) Kibana
8 2 (0.29%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.29%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 106 (15.27%) SAP
2 84 (12.10%) Microsoft
3 55 (7.93%) Oracle
4 23 (3.31%) Cisco
5 19 (2.74%) VMware
6 14 (2.02%) ServiceNow
7 11 (1.59%) Adobe
8 10 (1.44%) Google
9 9 (1.30%) Atlassian
9 9 (1.30%) Dell
9 9 (1.30%) IBM
10 8 (1.15%) Red Hat
11 6 (0.86%) Brocade
11 6 (0.86%) EMC
11 6 (0.86%) Fortinet
11 6 (0.86%) Isilon
11 6 (0.86%) Salesforce
11 6 (0.86%) Siemens
11 6 (0.86%) webMethods
11 6 (0.86%) Workday