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

6 months to
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 255 224
Rank change year-on-year +128 -31 -24
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 912 294 465
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.05% 1.00% 1.05%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.13% 3.27% 3.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 684 179 348
10th Percentile £313 £219 £328
25th Percentile £395 £371 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £507
Median % change year-on-year - -6.31% -7.82%
75th Percentile £555 £575 £630
90th Percentile £650 £662 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £470 £534
% change year-on-year -6.91% -11.99% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 20 53
10th Percentile £14.96 £17.81 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.68 £23.00 -
Median hourly rate £43.69 £45.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +180.20% -66.39%
75th Percentile £68.75 £67.50 £42.64
90th Percentile £80.33 £76.38 £75.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £47.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year +5.26% +195.77% -66.60%

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 14,867 8,981 13,556
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.48% 30.66% 30.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,794 5,724 8,418
10th Percentile £341 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.89% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,090 490 1,010
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £13.83
25th Percentile £20.46 £24.18 £17.72
Median hourly rate £36.00 £42.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -15.29% +13.33% -28.57%
75th Percentile £68.75 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.63 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £47.81 £37.50
% change year-on-year -26.79% +27.48% -23.47%

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 March 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 March 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 March 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 +98 649 £475 - 287
UK excluding London +64 475 £438 -6.91% 264
Work from Home +109 367 £438 -12.50% 132
London +89 214 £500 -4.31% 79
North of England +14 186 £425 -15.00% 45
North West +20 141 £400 -25.65% 28
Midlands +7 107 £431 -1.20% 17
West Midlands -7 78 £435 -0.34% 15
South East -4 72 £469 -13.31% 87
South West +4 45 £525 +61.54% 58
Scotland +43 44 £320 -28.09% 18
East Midlands -8 29 £416 - 2
Yorkshire -49 26 £480 +118.18% 4
East of England -19 24 £468 +133.88% 42
North East -2 20 £475 +16.56% 13
Wales -8 7 £458 -20.42% 1
Northern Ireland +1 3 £375 +33.45% 1

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 49 (5.37%) Confluence
2 30 (3.29%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.21%) nginx
4 8 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
5 7 (0.77%) Apache
6 6 (0.66%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.66%) SharePoint Server
7 5 (0.55%) CMS
8 4 (0.44%) ArcGIS
9 3 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.33%) MTS
9 3 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.22%) SAS
10 2 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.11%) Camunda
11 1 (0.11%) CICS
11 1 (0.11%) Drupal
11 1 (0.11%) LiveCycle
11 1 (0.11%) Smallworld
11 1 (0.11%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 40 (4.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (1.97%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (1.43%) MS Visio
5 12 (1.32%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.55%) Simulink
7 2 (0.22%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.22%) Trello
8 1 (0.11%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.11%) CATIA
8 1 (0.11%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.11%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.11%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 47 (5.15%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.43%) SAP Travel Management
3 9 (0.99%) SAP PSCD
4 8 (0.88%) SAP IBP
5 6 (0.66%) SAP BRIM
5 6 (0.66%) SAP EWM
6 5 (0.55%) SAP EHS
6 5 (0.55%) SAP FI
7 4 (0.44%) Loan IQ
7 4 (0.44%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.44%) SAP HR
7 4 (0.44%) SAP MM
7 4 (0.44%) SAP VC
7 4 (0.44%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 3 (0.33%) iTrent
8 3 (0.33%) Primavera
8 3 (0.33%) ProductWriter
8 3 (0.33%) SAP FI-CA
8 3 (0.33%) SAP HCM
8 3 (0.33%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 155 (17.00%) AWS
2 147 (16.12%) Azure
3 64 (7.02%) Power Platform
4 47 (5.15%) GitHub
5 45 (4.93%) Azure DevOps
5 45 (4.93%) Serverless
6 35 (3.84%) GCP
7 33 (3.62%) GitHub Actions
8 29 (3.18%) Microsoft 365
9 26 (2.85%) AWS CloudFormation
10 25 (2.74%) AWS Lambda
11 21 (2.30%) Power Automate
12 19 (2.08%) PowerApps
13 18 (1.97%) Entra ID
14 17 (1.86%) Amazon SQS
15 16 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
15 16 (1.75%) Amazon EKS
16 14 (1.54%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 14 (1.54%) Azure Data Factory
16 14 (1.54%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.19%) SSH
2 12 (1.32%) Firewall
2 12 (1.32%) Network Security
3 10 (1.10%) DNS
4 7 (0.77%) HTTPS
4 7 (0.77%) Reverse Proxy
4 7 (0.77%) WAN
5 6 (0.66%) Ethernet
5 6 (0.66%) LAN
5 6 (0.66%) MPLS
5 6 (0.66%) VPN
6 5 (0.55%) SDH
6 5 (0.55%) WebEx
7 4 (0.44%) SAN
7 4 (0.44%) VSAN
8 3 (0.33%) TETRA
8 3 (0.33%) Unified Communications
8 3 (0.33%) VoIP
8 3 (0.33%) Wireless
9 2 (0.22%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (5.37%) Power BI
2 28 (3.07%) PostgreSQL
3 25 (2.74%) Metadata
4 20 (2.19%) SQL Server
5 15 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
5 15 (1.64%) NoSQL
6 14 (1.54%) Relational Database
7 12 (1.32%) Geospatial Data
7 12 (1.32%) MySQL
8 11 (1.21%) DynamoDB
9 10 (1.10%) Delta Lake
9 10 (1.10%) Redis
10 9 (0.99%) Data Lake
10 9 (0.99%) MongoDB
11 8 (0.88%) DocumentDB
11 8 (0.88%) Tableau
12 7 (0.77%) Spark SQL
13 6 (0.66%) BigQuery
14 5 (0.55%) GIS
14 5 (0.55%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 79 (8.66%) JIRA
2 68 (7.46%) Git
3 47 (5.15%) GitLab
4 33 (3.62%) Jenkins
5 10 (1.10%) Selenium
6 9 (0.99%) JUnit
7 7 (0.77%) Cucumber
8 6 (0.66%) Cypress.io
8 6 (0.66%) Mockito
9 5 (0.55%) JMeter
10 4 (0.44%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.44%) Gatling
10 4 (0.44%) Postman
10 4 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.44%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.33%) Maven
11 3 (0.33%) Toad
12 2 (0.22%) Eclipse
12 2 (0.22%) Team Foundation Server
12 2 (0.22%) Visual Studio
General
1 295 (32.35%) Social Skills
2 166 (18.20%) Public Sector
3 142 (15.57%) Finance
4 102 (11.18%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (5.37%) Aerospace
6 48 (5.26%) Banking
7 20 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
7 20 (2.19%) Legal
8 19 (2.08%) Manufacturing
8 19 (2.08%) Telecoms
9 17 (1.86%) Aviation
9 17 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
10 16 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
11 11 (1.21%) Local Government
11 11 (1.21%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (0.99%) Publishing
13 8 (0.88%) Billing
13 8 (0.88%) Retail
14 7 (0.77%) Military
15 6 (0.66%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 141 (15.46%) Developer
2 108 (11.84%) Analyst
3 103 (11.29%) Senior
4 87 (9.54%) Architect
4 87 (9.54%) Lead
5 65 (7.13%) Consultant
6 48 (5.26%) SAP Consultant
7 46 (5.04%) Business Analyst
8 35 (3.84%) Java Developer
9 32 (3.51%) Administrator
10 27 (2.96%) Data Engineer
11 26 (2.85%) Designer
11 26 (2.85%) DevOps Engineer
12 23 (2.52%) Senior Developer
13 18 (1.97%) Delivery Manager
13 18 (1.97%) Solutions Architect
14 17 (1.86%) Project Manager
14 17 (1.86%) Senior Analyst
14 17 (1.86%) Software Developer
14 17 (1.86%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (6.91%) Node.js
2 48 (5.26%) React
3 38 (4.17%) REST
4 34 (3.73%) RESTful
5 31 (3.40%) Kafka
6 29 (3.18%) HTML
7 25 (2.74%) Spring
8 24 (2.63%) .NET
8 24 (2.63%) CSS
9 22 (2.41%) Spring Boot
10 17 (1.86%) JSON
11 13 (1.43%) Middleware
11 13 (1.43%) SAP TM
11 13 (1.43%) XML
12 12 (1.32%) LangChain
12 12 (1.32%) OAuth
13 11 (1.21%) Jest
13 11 (1.21%) PySpark
14 10 (1.10%) AngularJS
14 10 (1.10%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 65 (7.13%) Product Ownership
2 47 (5.15%) Onboarding
3 45 (4.93%) Cloud Native
4 20 (2.19%) Management Information System
5 18 (1.97%) Distributed Systems
5 18 (1.97%) Legacy Systems
6 14 (1.54%) NHS
7 11 (1.21%) Algorithms
8 10 (1.10%) Public Cloud
8 10 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (0.88%) Data Structures
10 7 (0.77%) Cyber Threat
10 7 (0.77%) Data Centre
10 7 (0.77%) Driving Licence
10 7 (0.77%) Enterprise Software
10 7 (0.77%) Linux Command Line
10 7 (0.77%) Low-Code
11 6 (0.66%) Hybrid Cloud
11 6 (0.66%) Replication
11 6 (0.66%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 87 (9.54%) Linux
2 37 (4.06%) Windows
3 14 (1.54%) Unix
4 9 (0.99%) Android
5 7 (0.77%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.66%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.33%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.22%) Debian
9 2 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.11%) AIX
10 1 (0.11%) CentOS
10 1 (0.11%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.11%) Solaris
10 1 (0.11%) VME
10 1 (0.11%) VMS
10 1 (0.11%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 277 (30.37%) Agile
2 179 (19.63%) CI/CD
3 168 (18.42%) Problem-Solving
4 138 (15.13%) DevOps
5 132 (14.47%) Stakeholder Management
6 97 (10.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 91 (9.98%) Continuous Improvement
8 79 (8.66%) Test Automation
9 70 (7.68%) Microservices
9 70 (7.68%) Roadmaps
9 70 (7.68%) Scrum
10 69 (7.57%) Infrastructure as Code
11 67 (7.35%) AI
11 67 (7.35%) Data Modelling
12 64 (7.02%) Analytics
12 64 (7.02%) Validation
13 62 (6.80%) Migration
14 60 (6.58%) Decision-Making
15 55 (6.03%) SDLC
16 53 (5.81%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 126 (13.82%) Python
2 100 (10.96%) SQL
3 92 (10.09%) Java
4 58 (6.36%) JavaScript
5 42 (4.61%) TypeScript
6 22 (2.41%) Shell Script
7 21 (2.30%) C#
8 18 (1.97%) PowerShell
9 16 (1.75%) Bash
10 15 (1.64%) Scala
11 14 (1.54%) Ruby
12 10 (1.10%) Bicep
13 8 (0.88%) ABAP
13 8 (0.88%) C
13 8 (0.88%) C++
13 8 (0.88%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.66%) COBOL
14 6 (0.66%) MATLAB
15 4 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.44%) R
Qualifications
1 311 (34.10%) Security Cleared
2 227 (24.89%) SC Cleared
3 63 (6.91%) Degree
4 19 (2.08%) DV Cleared
5 18 (1.97%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (1.32%) AWS Certification
6 12 (1.32%) Master's Degree
7 9 (0.99%) Azure Certification
8 8 (0.88%) DBS Check
8 8 (0.88%) PMI Certification
9 6 (0.66%) ISTQB
9 6 (0.66%) PMP
10 5 (0.55%) CompTIA CySA+
10 5 (0.55%) CompTIA Security+
11 4 (0.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.44%) CTC Cleared
11 4 (0.44%) GIAC
11 4 (0.44%) ISEB
11 4 (0.44%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 4 (0.44%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (6.80%) Accessibility
2 61 (6.69%) Data Quality
3 46 (5.04%) QA
4 19 (2.08%) WCAG
5 17 (1.86%) NIST
6 16 (1.75%) SLA
7 14 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 13 (1.43%) PMO
9 11 (1.21%) GDPR
10 8 (0.88%) NCSC
10 8 (0.88%) PCI DSS
11 6 (0.66%) GRC
11 6 (0.66%) ISO 20022
12 5 (0.55%) IFRS
12 5 (0.55%) IFRS 17
13 4 (0.44%) PSD2
14 3 (0.33%) DICOM
14 3 (0.33%) HL7
14 3 (0.33%) P3O
14 3 (0.33%) SEPA
System Software
1 62 (6.80%) Docker
2 20 (2.19%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (2.08%) Active Directory
4 9 (0.99%) vSphere
5 5 (0.55%) GPFS
5 5 (0.55%) NFS
5 5 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.44%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.33%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.22%) ACF2
8 2 (0.22%) Firmware
8 2 (0.22%) QEMU
8 2 (0.22%) RACF
8 2 (0.22%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.11%) Postfix
9 1 (0.11%) Varnish
9 1 (0.11%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 77 (8.44%) Terraform
2 66 (7.24%) Kubernetes
3 20 (2.19%) Grafana
4 19 (2.08%) Prometheus
5 17 (1.86%) Ansible
6 8 (0.88%) vRealize
7 6 (0.66%) Istio
8 5 (0.55%) Argo
8 5 (0.55%) Packer
8 5 (0.55%) VxRail
9 4 (0.44%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (0.44%) Podman
10 3 (0.33%) Kibana
11 2 (0.22%) CA Endevor
11 2 (0.22%) EMC NetWorker
11 2 (0.22%) EMC VPLEX
11 2 (0.22%) SCCM
11 2 (0.22%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.22%) Tivoli
11 2 (0.22%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 113 (12.39%) SAP
2 100 (10.96%) Microsoft
3 41 (4.50%) Oracle
4 24 (2.63%) Cisco
4 24 (2.63%) VMware
5 21 (2.30%) Databricks
6 19 (2.08%) Google
7 18 (1.97%) ServiceNow
8 16 (1.75%) IBM
9 13 (1.43%) Pega
10 11 (1.21%) Splunk
11 9 (0.99%) Atlassian
12 8 (0.88%) OpenAI
12 8 (0.88%) Workday
13 7 (0.77%) Adobe
13 7 (0.77%) Foundry
14 6 (0.66%) Red Hat
14 6 (0.66%) Salesforce
15 5 (0.55%) Citrix
15 5 (0.55%) Dell