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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 113 199 235
Rank change year-on-year +86 +36 0
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,124 413 426
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.21% 1.38% 0.98%
As % of the Qualifications category 7.06% 4.44% 3.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 806 272 291
10th Percentile £328 £286 £200
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.24% -1.60% -7.41%
75th Percentile £570 £581 £588
90th Percentile £650 £671 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -7.55% -2.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 136 36 54
10th Percentile £18.81 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £35.75 £25.32 -
Median hourly rate £43.96 £45.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -2.31% +180.20% -63.77%
75th Percentile £62.50 £69.23 £30.75
90th Percentile £74.63 £76.25 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £50.00 £16.06
% change year-on-year -12.08% +211.33% -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 15,927 9,305 12,933
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.29% 30.98% 29.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,652 5,773 7,988
10th Percentile £350 £275 £312
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £506 £500 £531
% change year-on-year +1.20% -5.84% +0.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,169 617 1,124
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £20.24 £19.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £29.25 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +70.94% -27.46% -26.85%
75th Percentile £72.54 £62.24 £64.25
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.62 £75.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.85 £42.50
% change year-on-year +79.53% -34.47% -20.80%

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 24 June 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 24 June 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 24 June 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 +90 844 £480 -3.23% 195
UK excluding London +62 649 £453 -7.55% 196
Work from Home +80 471 £438 -7.89% 119
London +78 259 £507 +6.86% 33
North of England +17 231 £453 -8.67% 38
Midlands +17 141 £442 -6.89% 23
North West +6 132 £407 -18.70% 31
West Midlands +6 108 £470 +9.30% 20
South East -5 105 £492 -6.38% 31
Scotland +33 67 £331 -2.57% 24
South West +17 67 £525 +16.67% 46
North East +4 59 £453 +4.14% 4
Yorkshire -15 47 £480 -4.00% 5
East Midlands 0 32 £416 -40.54% 3
East of England -16 28 £450 +125.00% 35
Wales -9 8 £550 -4.35% 6
Northern Ireland +3 7 £450 +28.57% 3

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 51 (4.54%) Confluence
2 37 (3.29%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.33%) SharePoint Server
4 13 (1.16%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.71%) SAS
6 7 (0.62%) Apache
7 4 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.27%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.27%) CICS
8 3 (0.27%) CMS
8 3 (0.27%) LiveCycle
8 3 (0.27%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.27%) WordPress
9 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.18%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.18%) Hyperledger
10 1 (0.089%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.089%) Appian
10 1 (0.089%) Camunda
Applications
1 42 (3.74%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.69%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (1.33%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (1.07%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.44%) Simulink
7 2 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.18%) Trello
8 1 (0.089%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.089%) CATIA
8 1 (0.089%) InVision
8 1 (0.089%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.089%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.089%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.089%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 43 (3.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (1.42%) SAP PSCD
3 14 (1.25%) SAP BRIM
4 11 (0.98%) SAP IBP
5 9 (0.80%) SAP Travel Management
6 8 (0.71%) SAP FI
7 7 (0.62%) SAP EWM
7 7 (0.62%) SAP FI-CA
8 6 (0.53%) SAP HR
9 5 (0.44%) Payment Gateway
10 4 (0.36%) Loan IQ
10 4 (0.36%) Primavera
10 4 (0.36%) SAP Convergent Charging
10 4 (0.36%) SAP EHS
10 4 (0.36%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
11 3 (0.27%) Exchequer
11 3 (0.27%) iTrent
11 3 (0.27%) ProductWriter
11 3 (0.27%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 213 (18.95%) AWS
2 202 (17.97%) Azure
3 75 (6.67%) Power Platform
4 49 (4.36%) Serverless
5 45 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
6 44 (3.91%) GCP
6 44 (3.91%) GitHub
7 38 (3.38%) Entra ID
8 34 (3.02%) AWS Lambda
8 34 (3.02%) GitHub Actions
8 34 (3.02%) Microsoft 365
9 33 (2.94%) Amazon S3
10 21 (1.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 21 (1.87%) Power Automate
11 20 (1.78%) PowerApps
12 17 (1.51%) Amazon ECS
13 16 (1.42%) Amazon EC2
13 16 (1.42%) AWS CloudFormation
13 16 (1.42%) Azure Data Factory
14 15 (1.33%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.42%) DNS
2 15 (1.33%) Network Security
3 14 (1.25%) Firewall
4 10 (0.89%) WAN
5 9 (0.80%) HTTPS
6 6 (0.53%) DHCP
6 6 (0.53%) Ethernet
6 6 (0.53%) SSH
7 5 (0.44%) LAN
8 4 (0.36%) MPLS
8 4 (0.36%) SDH
8 4 (0.36%) SSL
8 4 (0.36%) VPN
9 3 (0.27%) Internet
9 3 (0.27%) MQTT
9 3 (0.27%) Reverse Proxy
9 3 (0.27%) SD-WAN
9 3 (0.27%) TCP/IP
9 3 (0.27%) WebEx
9 3 (0.27%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (5.60%) Power BI
2 35 (3.11%) PostgreSQL
3 30 (2.67%) Metadata
4 27 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
5 24 (2.14%) MongoDB
6 20 (1.78%) NoSQL
7 19 (1.69%) SQL Server
8 17 (1.51%) DynamoDB
8 17 (1.51%) Relational Database
9 15 (1.33%) Data Lake
10 14 (1.25%) Amazon RDS
11 12 (1.07%) Amazon Athena
11 12 (1.07%) MySQL
12 11 (0.98%) Amazon Redshift
13 8 (0.71%) Delta Lake
13 8 (0.71%) Geospatial Data
14 7 (0.62%) Amazon Aurora
14 7 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.62%) Big Data
14 7 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 91 (8.10%) JIRA
2 62 (5.52%) GitLab
3 61 (5.43%) Git
4 45 (4.00%) Jenkins
5 21 (1.87%) Selenium
6 17 (1.51%) Cucumber
7 16 (1.42%) JUnit
8 11 (0.98%) Postman
9 8 (0.71%) Cypress.io
9 8 (0.71%) Team Foundation Server
10 7 (0.62%) Artifactory
10 7 (0.62%) Maven
10 7 (0.62%) Mockito
10 7 (0.62%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.53%) Visual Studio
11 6 (0.53%) WebDriver
12 5 (0.44%) Gatling
12 5 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
13 4 (0.36%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 4 (0.36%) JMeter
General
1 341 (30.34%) Social Skills
2 226 (20.11%) Public Sector
3 187 (16.64%) Finance
4 121 (10.77%) Analytical Skills
5 60 (5.34%) Legal
6 48 (4.27%) Aerospace
7 47 (4.18%) Banking
8 44 (3.91%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
10 22 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
10 22 (1.96%) Manufacturing
11 21 (1.87%) Billing
12 20 (1.78%) Presentation Skills
13 16 (1.42%) Aviation
14 15 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 15 (1.33%) Telecoms
15 13 (1.16%) Local Government
16 9 (0.80%) Law
17 8 (0.71%) Military
18 7 (0.62%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 133 (11.83%) Developer
2 123 (10.94%) Analyst
3 115 (10.23%) Lead
4 113 (10.05%) Architect
5 110 (9.79%) Senior
6 86 (7.65%) Consultant
7 58 (5.16%) SAP Consultant
8 54 (4.80%) Business Analyst
9 51 (4.54%) Data Engineer
10 49 (4.36%) Designer
11 41 (3.65%) Java Developer
12 32 (2.85%) Administrator
13 28 (2.49%) DevOps Engineer
14 25 (2.22%) Service Designer
15 24 (2.14%) Delivery Manager
15 24 (2.14%) Product Manager
15 24 (2.14%) Solutions Architect
16 23 (2.05%) Data Analyst
16 23 (2.05%) Data Architect
16 23 (2.05%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (5.60%) REST
2 49 (4.36%) React
3 46 (4.09%) RESTful
4 45 (4.00%) HTML
5 44 (3.91%) Spring Boot
6 43 (3.83%) Spring
7 41 (3.65%) Node.js
8 39 (3.47%) CSS
9 29 (2.58%) Kafka
10 23 (2.05%) .NET
11 19 (1.69%) JSON
12 18 (1.60%) Playwright
12 18 (1.60%) PySpark
13 16 (1.42%) OAuth
13 16 (1.42%) OpenAPI
14 15 (1.33%) SPFx
15 14 (1.25%) Jest
16 13 (1.16%) Middleware
16 13 (1.16%) Swagger
17 12 (1.07%) BAPI
Miscellaneous
1 77 (6.85%) Product Ownership
2 63 (5.60%) Onboarding
3 54 (4.80%) Cloud Native
4 36 (3.20%) Virtual Team
5 33 (2.94%) Web Conferencing
6 32 (2.85%) Podcast
7 22 (1.96%) Management Information System
8 21 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
9 18 (1.60%) NHS
10 16 (1.42%) Algorithms
11 13 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
11 13 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
11 13 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
12 10 (0.89%) Data Centre
13 9 (0.80%) Data Structures
14 8 (0.71%) Public Cloud
15 5 (0.44%) AI Agents
15 5 (0.44%) BYOD
15 5 (0.44%) Legacy Code
15 5 (0.44%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 70 (6.23%) Linux
2 48 (4.27%) Windows
3 32 (2.85%) Unix
4 13 (1.16%) Windows Server
5 12 (1.07%) Android
6 10 (0.89%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.80%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.53%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.27%) AIX
9 3 (0.27%) Solaris
10 2 (0.18%) Debian
10 2 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.089%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.089%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 331 (29.45%) Agile
2 217 (19.31%) CI/CD
3 177 (15.75%) DevOps
4 167 (14.86%) Stakeholder Management
5 161 (14.32%) Problem-Solving
6 121 (10.77%) Continuous Improvement
7 120 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 101 (8.99%) Roadmaps
9 100 (8.90%) Test Automation
10 96 (8.54%) Scrum
11 92 (8.19%) Decision-Making
12 87 (7.74%) Analytics
13 83 (7.38%) Microservices
14 80 (7.12%) Infrastructure as Code
15 76 (6.76%) Migration
16 74 (6.58%) Data Modelling
17 73 (6.49%) AI
18 70 (6.23%) Business Intelligence
19 67 (5.96%) Software Engineering
20 66 (5.87%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 132 (11.74%) Python
2 130 (11.57%) SQL
3 120 (10.68%) Java
4 72 (6.41%) JavaScript
5 43 (3.83%) TypeScript
6 32 (2.85%) Scala
7 23 (2.05%) PowerShell
8 21 (1.87%) C#
9 16 (1.42%) Shell Script
10 10 (0.89%) C++
10 10 (0.89%) PL/SQL
11 9 (0.80%) Bicep
11 9 (0.80%) VB
12 8 (0.71%) C
13 7 (0.62%) VB6
14 6 (0.53%) ABAP
14 6 (0.53%) COBOL
14 6 (0.53%) MATLAB
15 5 (0.44%) Apex Code
15 5 (0.44%) Bash
Qualifications
1 335 (29.80%) Security Cleared
2 247 (21.98%) SC Cleared
3 71 (6.32%) Degree
4 19 (1.69%) AWS Certification
5 17 (1.51%) DV Cleared
6 12 (1.07%) Master's Degree
7 11 (0.98%) Azure Certification
8 9 (0.80%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (0.71%) PMI Certification
10 7 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 6 (0.53%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 6 (0.53%) CompTIA CySA+
11 6 (0.53%) PMP
12 5 (0.44%) DBS Check
12 5 (0.44%) GIAC
12 5 (0.44%) NVQ Level 4
13 4 (0.36%) CompTIA Security+
13 4 (0.36%) CTC Cleared
13 4 (0.36%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 78 (6.94%) Data Quality
2 73 (6.49%) Accessibility
3 67 (5.96%) QA
4 23 (2.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 20 (1.78%) PMO
6 18 (1.60%) NIST
6 18 (1.60%) WCAG
7 17 (1.51%) GDPR
7 17 (1.51%) SLA
8 9 (0.80%) GRC
9 8 (0.71%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.53%) NCSC
11 5 (0.44%) IFRS
11 5 (0.44%) IFRS 17
11 5 (0.44%) ISO 20022
12 4 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
12 4 (0.36%) HL7
12 4 (0.36%) PSD2
13 3 (0.27%) Basel III
13 3 (0.27%) DICOM
System Software
1 69 (6.14%) Docker
2 32 (2.85%) Active Directory
3 18 (1.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.44%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.36%) vSphere
8 3 (0.27%) GPFS
8 3 (0.27%) NFS
8 3 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.27%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.18%) Firmware
9 2 (0.18%) QEMU
10 1 (0.089%) ACF2
10 1 (0.089%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.089%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.089%) RACF
10 1 (0.089%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 96 (8.54%) Terraform
2 69 (6.14%) Kubernetes
3 23 (2.05%) Grafana
4 15 (1.33%) Prometheus
5 12 (1.07%) Ansible
5 12 (1.07%) Kibana
6 10 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.62%) Istio
8 6 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
8 6 (0.53%) Podman
9 5 (0.44%) Argo
9 5 (0.44%) SCCM
10 4 (0.36%) HAProxy
11 3 (0.27%) Puppet
11 3 (0.27%) vRealize
12 2 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 2 (0.18%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.18%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.18%) Oracle RMAN
12 2 (0.18%) Packer
Vendors
1 116 (10.32%) SAP
2 108 (9.61%) Microsoft
3 50 (4.45%) Oracle
4 31 (2.76%) ServiceNow
5 23 (2.05%) Databricks
5 23 (2.05%) Google
6 19 (1.69%) Splunk
7 18 (1.60%) VMware
8 16 (1.42%) Cisco
9 13 (1.16%) IBM
9 13 (1.16%) Pega
10 12 (1.07%) BeyondTrust
11 11 (0.98%) CyberArk
11 11 (0.98%) Informatica
12 9 (0.80%) Salesforce
13 8 (0.71%) OpenAI
13 8 (0.71%) Talend
14 7 (0.62%) Apple
14 7 (0.62%) MuleSoft
14 7 (0.62%) Workday