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

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 181 255
Rank change year-on-year +78 +74 -27
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,286 516 374
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.44% 1.57% 0.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.77% 5.08% 3.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 917 350 236
10th Percentile £340 £285 £206
25th Percentile £405 £402 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £498
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% +0.50% -9.55%
75th Percentile £569 £582 £575
90th Percentile £650 £695 £634
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £450
% change year-on-year - +5.56% -16.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 48 50
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £15.85
25th Percentile £37.25 £22.63 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.50 £17.03
Median % change year-on-year +59.85% +61.48% -55.59%
75th Percentile £53.83 £54.62 £40.63
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £29.27 £16.06
% change year-on-year +50.19% +82.25% -56.51%

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 16,555 10,154 12,002
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.35% 30.81% 29.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,058 6,302 7,618
10th Percentile £350 £280 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £522 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.62% -0.62% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,215 762 913
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.38 £21.19
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -23.82%
75th Percentile £73.23 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £76.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.49%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 +76 953 £483 -3.40% 263
UK excluding London +56 736 £475 - 235
Work from Home +69 501 £457 -3.84% 160
London +77 291 £481 -4.52% 50
North of England +30 271 £473 +0.80% 59
Midlands +29 157 £481 +1.29% 44
West Midlands +37 145 £481 +3.56% 42
North West 0 145 £481 +5.71% 38
South East -13 115 £492 -4.47% 42
South West +10 77 £525 +50.00% 47
Scotland +46 75 £350 -5.79% 16
North East +7 75 £450 +3.45% 17
Yorkshire +2 63 £475 -5.00% 4
East of England -16 25 £604 +202.06% 27
Northern Ireland +11 13 £450 +28.57% 1
Wales -4 12 £463 -19.57% 2
East Midlands -20 11 £600 +21.95% 2

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 58 (4.51%) Confluence
2 48 (3.73%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.48%) SharePoint Server
4 9 (0.70%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.62%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.62%) SAS
6 5 (0.39%) Oracle Workflow
6 5 (0.39%) WebLogic
7 4 (0.31%) IIS
7 4 (0.31%) WordPress
8 3 (0.23%) Apache
8 3 (0.23%) CICS
8 3 (0.23%) CMS
8 3 (0.23%) LiveCycle
9 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.16%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.16%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.16%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.16%) OpenROAD
Applications
1 46 (3.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (2.02%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.93%) Microsoft Project
5 11 (0.86%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.39%) Simulink
7 2 (0.16%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.16%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.16%) Trello
8 1 (0.078%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.078%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.078%) CATIA
8 1 (0.078%) InVision
8 1 (0.078%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.078%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.078%) Revit
8 1 (0.078%) Sketch
8 1 (0.078%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 42 (3.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.24%) SAP PSCD
3 13 (1.01%) SAP BRIM
4 12 (0.93%) SAP IBP
5 10 (0.78%) SAP FI
6 7 (0.54%) SAP FI-CA
7 6 (0.47%) SAP GRC
7 6 (0.47%) SAP HR
8 5 (0.39%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.39%) Shopify
9 4 (0.31%) Primavera
9 4 (0.31%) SAP Convergent Charging
9 4 (0.31%) SAP EHS
9 4 (0.31%) SAP MDG
9 4 (0.31%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.31%) SAP Travel Management
10 3 (0.23%) iTrent
10 3 (0.23%) SAP CO
10 3 (0.23%) SAP FI/CO
10 3 (0.23%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 242 (18.82%) Azure
2 231 (17.96%) AWS
3 92 (7.15%) Power Platform
4 59 (4.59%) GitHub
5 49 (3.81%) Azure DevOps
5 49 (3.81%) GCP
5 49 (3.81%) Serverless
6 46 (3.58%) Microsoft 365
7 43 (3.34%) GitHub Actions
8 40 (3.11%) Amazon S3
8 40 (3.11%) AWS Lambda
8 40 (3.11%) Entra ID
9 27 (2.10%) PowerApps
10 26 (2.02%) Power Automate
11 22 (1.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 21 (1.63%) Amazon ECS
13 19 (1.48%) Amazon EKS
14 18 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
15 17 (1.32%) Amazon EC2
16 15 (1.17%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.40%) DNS
2 11 (0.86%) WAN
2 11 (0.86%) WebEx
3 10 (0.78%) Firewall
3 10 (0.78%) Network Security
4 8 (0.62%) HTTPS
5 7 (0.54%) SSL
6 6 (0.47%) Ethernet
6 6 (0.47%) Intranet
6 6 (0.47%) LAN
6 6 (0.47%) MPLS
6 6 (0.47%) SDH
7 5 (0.39%) DHCP
8 4 (0.31%) Cisco IPT
8 4 (0.31%) SSH
8 4 (0.31%) TCP/IP
8 4 (0.31%) VPN
9 3 (0.23%) Internet
9 3 (0.23%) IP Telephony
9 3 (0.23%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (5.13%) Power BI
2 41 (3.19%) PostgreSQL
3 33 (2.57%) Metadata
4 28 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
4 28 (2.18%) MongoDB
5 25 (1.94%) SQL Server
6 21 (1.63%) Relational Database
7 20 (1.56%) MySQL
8 19 (1.48%) NoSQL
9 16 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
9 16 (1.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 14 (1.09%) Data Lake
10 14 (1.09%) DynamoDB
11 13 (1.01%) Amazon Redshift
12 12 (0.93%) Amazon Athena
13 9 (0.70%) Big Data
13 9 (0.70%) Geospatial Data
14 8 (0.62%) Oracle Database
15 7 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
15 7 (0.54%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 101 (7.85%) JIRA
2 79 (6.14%) Git
3 60 (4.67%) GitLab
4 56 (4.35%) Jenkins
5 21 (1.63%) Selenium
6 17 (1.32%) Cucumber
7 16 (1.24%) Maven
8 15 (1.17%) Team Foundation Server
9 13 (1.01%) JUnit
9 13 (1.01%) Postman
9 13 (1.01%) Visual Studio
10 12 (0.93%) Cypress.io
11 9 (0.70%) REST Assured
12 8 (0.62%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 7 (0.54%) Artifactory
13 7 (0.54%) Gatling
13 7 (0.54%) Gradle
13 7 (0.54%) Mockito
13 7 (0.54%) WebDriver
14 5 (0.39%) Bitbucket
General
1 392 (30.48%) Social Skills
2 297 (23.09%) Public Sector
3 196 (15.24%) Finance
4 130 (10.11%) Analytical Skills
5 92 (7.15%) Legal
6 81 (6.30%) Organisational Skills
7 51 (3.97%) Aerospace
8 42 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
9 32 (2.49%) Influencing Skills
10 30 (2.33%) Banking
11 24 (1.87%) Presentation Skills
12 23 (1.79%) Manufacturing
13 21 (1.63%) Billing
13 21 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 18 (1.40%) Aviation
15 15 (1.17%) Telecoms
16 13 (1.01%) Local Government
17 10 (0.78%) Retail
18 9 (0.70%) Law
19 8 (0.62%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 163 (12.67%) Developer
2 141 (10.96%) Senior
3 136 (10.58%) Lead
4 116 (9.02%) Analyst
5 107 (8.32%) Architect
6 87 (6.77%) Consultant
7 61 (4.74%) Designer
8 58 (4.51%) SAP Consultant
9 51 (3.97%) Data Engineer
10 50 (3.89%) Business Analyst
10 50 (3.89%) Java Developer
11 38 (2.95%) DevOps Engineer
12 32 (2.49%) Product Manager
13 28 (2.18%) User Researcher
14 27 (2.10%) Administrator
14 27 (2.10%) Delivery Manager
14 27 (2.10%) Solutions Architect
15 26 (2.02%) Lead Developer
16 25 (1.94%) Data Analyst
17 24 (1.87%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (5.83%) REST
2 57 (4.43%) React
3 53 (4.12%) HTML
3 53 (4.12%) RESTful
4 49 (3.81%) Spring Boot
5 48 (3.73%) Spring
6 47 (3.65%) Node.js
7 42 (3.27%) CSS
8 32 (2.49%) Kafka
9 29 (2.26%) .NET
10 23 (1.79%) Playwright
11 20 (1.56%) JSON
12 18 (1.40%) PySpark
13 17 (1.32%) XML
14 15 (1.17%) HTML5
14 15 (1.17%) SPFx
15 14 (1.09%) BAPI
15 14 (1.09%) Jest
15 14 (1.09%) OAuth
15 14 (1.09%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 81 (6.30%) Product Ownership
2 75 (5.83%) Onboarding
3 74 (5.75%) Virtual Team
4 73 (5.68%) Web Conferencing
5 65 (5.05%) Podcast
6 56 (4.35%) Cloud Native
7 23 (1.79%) Management Information System
8 21 (1.63%) NHS
9 19 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
9 19 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
10 17 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
10 17 (1.32%) Mobile App
11 16 (1.24%) Algorithms
11 16 (1.24%) BYOD
11 16 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
12 9 (0.70%) Data Centre
12 9 (0.70%) Data Structures
12 9 (0.70%) Replication
13 8 (0.62%) PMI
13 8 (0.62%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 67 (5.21%) Linux
2 61 (4.74%) Windows
3 34 (2.64%) Unix
4 19 (1.48%) Android
5 15 (1.17%) Windows Server
6 12 (0.93%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.70%) Mac OS
7 9 (0.70%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.31%) VMS
9 3 (0.23%) AIX
9 3 (0.23%) Solaris
10 2 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.078%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 395 (30.72%) Agile
2 231 (17.96%) CI/CD
3 207 (16.10%) DevOps
4 196 (15.24%) Stakeholder Management
5 161 (12.52%) Problem-Solving
6 143 (11.12%) Continuous Improvement
7 138 (10.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 117 (9.10%) Scrum
9 115 (8.94%) Roadmaps
10 114 (8.86%) Decision-Making
11 109 (8.48%) Analytics
12 108 (8.40%) Test Automation
13 93 (7.23%) Microservices
14 92 (7.15%) Infrastructure as Code
15 87 (6.77%) Migration
16 86 (6.69%) Customer Service
17 81 (6.30%) AI
18 74 (5.75%) Business Intelligence
19 73 (5.68%) Software Engineering
20 71 (5.52%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 142 (11.04%) SQL
2 137 (10.65%) Java
3 133 (10.34%) Python
4 80 (6.22%) JavaScript
5 48 (3.73%) TypeScript
6 30 (2.33%) Scala
7 27 (2.10%) C#
8 26 (2.02%) PowerShell
9 16 (1.24%) Bash
9 16 (1.24%) PL/SQL
10 15 (1.17%) Shell Script
10 15 (1.17%) VB
11 13 (1.01%) VB6
12 11 (0.86%) C++
12 11 (0.86%) VBA
13 10 (0.78%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.62%) ABAP
15 7 (0.54%) C
15 7 (0.54%) Kotlin
16 6 (0.47%) Go
Qualifications
1 414 (32.19%) Security Cleared
2 304 (23.64%) SC Cleared
3 67 (5.21%) Degree
4 18 (1.40%) AWS Certification
5 14 (1.09%) Azure Certification
6 13 (1.01%) DV Cleared
7 11 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
8 9 (0.70%) CTC Cleared
8 9 (0.70%) PMI Certification
9 8 (0.62%) A+ Certification
10 7 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 6 (0.47%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 6 (0.47%) CCNA
11 6 (0.47%) Cisco Certification
11 6 (0.47%) Master's Degree
12 5 (0.39%) CompTIA CySA+
12 5 (0.39%) DBS Check
12 5 (0.39%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.39%) NVQ Level 4
13 4 (0.31%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (6.53%) Accessibility
2 83 (6.45%) Data Quality
3 71 (5.52%) QA
4 23 (1.79%) GDPR
4 23 (1.79%) WCAG
5 20 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 20 (1.56%) PMO
6 17 (1.32%) SLA
7 16 (1.24%) NIST
8 10 (0.78%) GRC
9 7 (0.54%) NCSC
10 5 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.31%) HL7
12 3 (0.23%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 3 (0.23%) DICOM
12 3 (0.23%) GMP
12 3 (0.23%) GxP
12 3 (0.23%) ISO 20022
12 3 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 17025
12 3 (0.23%) PERC
System Software
1 79 (6.14%) Docker
2 37 (2.88%) Active Directory
3 15 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.39%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.16%) Firmware
7 2 (0.16%) vSphere
8 1 (0.078%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.078%) GPFS
8 1 (0.078%) IAG
8 1 (0.078%) NFS
8 1 (0.078%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.078%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.078%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 104 (8.09%) Terraform
2 84 (6.53%) Kubernetes
3 29 (2.26%) Grafana
4 18 (1.40%) Prometheus
5 13 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (0.86%) Kibana
7 10 (0.78%) Ansible
8 9 (0.70%) Argo
9 8 (0.62%) SCCM
10 7 (0.54%) Istio
11 6 (0.47%) Microsoft Intune
12 4 (0.31%) HAProxy
12 4 (0.31%) Podman
12 4 (0.31%) Puppet
12 4 (0.31%) SCOM
13 2 (0.16%) Data Guard
13 2 (0.16%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 2 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
13 2 (0.16%) Packer
14 1 (0.078%) linkerd
Vendors
1 147 (11.43%) Microsoft
2 113 (8.79%) SAP
3 69 (5.37%) Oracle
4 48 (3.73%) ServiceNow
5 34 (2.64%) Google
6 21 (1.63%) Databricks
6 21 (1.63%) Splunk
7 18 (1.40%) BeyondTrust
8 15 (1.17%) Cisco
8 15 (1.17%) VMware
9 14 (1.09%) Pega
10 11 (0.86%) CyberArk
11 10 (0.78%) IBM
12 9 (0.70%) Atlassian
13 8 (0.62%) Informatica
13 8 (0.62%) Talend
14 7 (0.54%) Apple
14 7 (0.54%) OpenAI
14 7 (0.54%) Workday
15 6 (0.47%) Denodo