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

6 months to
10 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 225 230
Rank change year-on-year +102 +5 -18
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 995 346 448
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.08% 1.18% 1.04%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.51% 3.81% 3.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 729 224 330
10th Percentile £320 £255 £229
25th Percentile £394 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -1.38% -7.82%
75th Percentile £569 £581 £625
90th Percentile £656 £670 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £443 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -11.50% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 27 53
10th Percentile £17.46 - £13.99
25th Percentile £25.16 £18.50 -
Median hourly rate £45.35 £45.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +0.77% +180.20% -49.30%
75th Percentile £71.94 £74.38 £42.64
90th Percentile £85.36 £76.75 £75.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.85 £53.75 £16.06
% change year-on-year -20.28% +234.65% -49.30%

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 15,281 9,078 13,080
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.98% 30.89% 30.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,166 5,722 8,087
10th Percentile £349 £288 £305
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £619 £623 £650
90th Percentile £721 £701 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.32% +0.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,088 518 1,071
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.85
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.47 £17.80
Median hourly rate £47.54 £38.27 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +24.22% -4.33% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.46 £61.55
90th Percentile £85.36 £80.03 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.94
% change year-on-year +18.75% -2.30% -18.12%

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 10 May 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 10 May 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 10 May 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 +85 726 £475 -6.17% 261
UK excluding London +45 532 £443 -11.50% 235
Work from Home +91 414 £438 -12.50% 143
London +98 233 £505 -8.02% 38
North of England +16 194 £450 -10.00% 47
North West +18 124 £397 -26.23% 31
Midlands +12 120 £441 +7.62% 34
West Midlands +2 89 £455 +10.85% 30
South East -14 87 £483 -10.06% 56
South West -4 54 £508 +76.52% 54
Scotland +36 50 £330 -25.42% 6
North East +9 39 £480 +33.33% 15
Yorkshire -32 36 £481 +16.67% 1
East Midlands -9 30 £395 -39.83% 4
East of England -22 27 £450 +111.76% 40
Wales -10 5 - - 2
Northern Ireland +2 3 £375 +18.86%

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 44 (4.42%) Confluence
2 33 (3.32%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.31%) Apache Spark
4 12 (1.21%) SharePoint Server
5 9 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.80%) Apache
7 6 (0.60%) nginx
8 4 (0.40%) CMS
8 4 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
8 4 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.30%) ArcGIS
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 (4.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (1.51%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (1.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (1.41%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.21%) 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 44 (4.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.41%) SAP PSCD
3 13 (1.31%) SAP IBP
3 13 (1.31%) SAP Travel Management
4 10 (1.01%) SAP BRIM
5 7 (0.70%) SAP EWM
5 7 (0.70%) SAP FI
6 6 (0.60%) SAP EHS
6 6 (0.60%) SAP FI-CA
7 5 (0.50%) SAP HR
8 4 (0.40%) iTrent
8 4 (0.40%) Loan IQ
8 4 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
9 3 (0.30%) Exchequer
9 3 (0.30%) Primavera
9 3 (0.30%) ProductWriter
9 3 (0.30%) SAP HCM
9 3 (0.30%) SAP MDG
9 3 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
9 3 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 178 (17.89%) AWS
2 170 (17.09%) Azure
3 70 (7.04%) Power Platform
4 48 (4.82%) GitHub
5 45 (4.52%) Azure DevOps
6 43 (4.32%) Serverless
7 42 (4.22%) GCP
8 36 (3.62%) GitHub Actions
9 30 (3.02%) Microsoft 365
10 28 (2.81%) AWS Lambda
11 27 (2.71%) Entra ID
12 21 (2.11%) Power Automate
13 20 (2.01%) AWS CloudFormation
14 19 (1.91%) PowerApps
15 17 (1.71%) Amazon SQS
16 16 (1.61%) Amazon ECS
16 16 (1.61%) Amazon S3
17 14 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
18 13 (1.31%) Azure Data Factory
18 13 (1.31%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.51%) DNS
2 14 (1.41%) Firewall
2 14 (1.41%) SSH
3 12 (1.21%) Network Security
4 8 (0.80%) Reverse Proxy
5 7 (0.70%) Ethernet
5 7 (0.70%) HTTPS
6 6 (0.60%) DHCP
7 5 (0.50%) VPN
8 4 (0.40%) SAN
8 4 (0.40%) VSAN
8 4 (0.40%) WAN
9 3 (0.30%) Internet
9 3 (0.30%) LAN
9 3 (0.30%) Modbus
9 3 (0.30%) TCP/IP
9 3 (0.30%) WebEx
10 2 (0.20%) MPLS
10 2 (0.20%) NAS
10 2 (0.20%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (5.63%) Power BI
2 34 (3.42%) PostgreSQL
3 24 (2.41%) SQL Server
4 23 (2.31%) Metadata
5 20 (2.01%) Data Warehouse
6 16 (1.61%) MongoDB
7 15 (1.51%) NoSQL
7 15 (1.51%) Relational Database
8 13 (1.31%) DynamoDB
8 13 (1.31%) MySQL
9 11 (1.11%) Geospatial Data
10 10 (1.01%) Big Data
10 10 (1.01%) Delta Lake
11 9 (0.90%) Data Lake
11 9 (0.90%) Redis
12 8 (0.80%) DocumentDB
13 7 (0.70%) Amazon Aurora
13 7 (0.70%) Spark SQL
13 7 (0.70%) Tableau
14 6 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 78 (7.84%) JIRA
2 64 (6.43%) Git
3 45 (4.52%) GitLab
4 40 (4.02%) Jenkins
5 15 (1.51%) Selenium
6 12 (1.21%) JUnit
7 10 (1.01%) Cucumber
8 8 (0.80%) Cypress.io
9 7 (0.70%) Postman
10 6 (0.60%) Gatling
11 4 (0.40%) Artifactory
11 4 (0.40%) JMeter
11 4 (0.40%) Maven
11 4 (0.40%) Mockito
11 4 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 3 (0.30%) REST Assured
12 3 (0.30%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.30%) WebDriver
13 2 (0.20%) Android Studio
General
1 307 (30.85%) Social Skills
2 180 (18.09%) Public Sector
3 144 (14.47%) Finance
4 117 (11.76%) Analytical Skills
5 50 (5.03%) Aerospace
6 42 (4.22%) Banking
7 30 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (2.21%) Legal
8 22 (2.21%) Manufacturing
9 21 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
10 18 (1.81%) Aviation
11 17 (1.71%) Billing
11 17 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
12 13 (1.31%) Telecoms
13 12 (1.21%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (0.90%) Law
14 9 (0.90%) Retail
15 8 (0.80%) Military
15 8 (0.80%) Publishing
16 7 (0.70%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 148 (14.87%) Developer
2 126 (12.66%) Analyst
3 109 (10.95%) Senior
4 101 (10.15%) Architect
4 101 (10.15%) Lead
5 78 (7.84%) Consultant
6 59 (5.93%) Business Analyst
7 57 (5.73%) SAP Consultant
8 41 (4.12%) Designer
9 36 (3.62%) Data Engineer
9 36 (3.62%) Java Developer
10 33 (3.32%) Administrator
11 26 (2.61%) Senior Analyst
12 25 (2.51%) Delivery Manager
13 24 (2.41%) DevOps Engineer
14 23 (2.31%) Senior Developer
15 22 (2.21%) Data Architect
15 22 (2.21%) Senior Business Analyst
16 21 (2.11%) Service Designer
17 19 (1.91%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (5.83%) Node.js
2 51 (5.13%) React
3 42 (4.22%) REST
4 40 (4.02%) HTML
5 39 (3.92%) RESTful
6 36 (3.62%) CSS
7 29 (2.91%) .NET
8 28 (2.81%) Spring
9 27 (2.71%) Kafka
10 26 (2.61%) Spring Boot
11 18 (1.81%) OAuth
12 16 (1.61%) Middleware
12 16 (1.61%) Playwright
13 15 (1.51%) JSON
14 13 (1.31%) OAuth2
14 13 (1.31%) SAP TM
15 12 (1.21%) PySpark
15 12 (1.21%) SPFx
16 11 (1.11%) AngularJS
16 11 (1.11%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 74 (7.44%) Product Ownership
2 51 (5.13%) Onboarding
3 44 (4.42%) Cloud Native
4 21 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
4 21 (2.11%) Management Information System
5 18 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
6 15 (1.51%) Algorithms
6 15 (1.51%) NHS
7 11 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (0.90%) Data Centre
8 9 (0.90%) Public Cloud
9 8 (0.80%) Data Structures
9 8 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
10 7 (0.70%) Linux Command Line
11 6 (0.60%) Hybrid Cloud
11 6 (0.60%) Mainframe
11 6 (0.60%) Mobile App
11 6 (0.60%) Operational Technology
11 6 (0.60%) Replication
12 5 (0.50%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 83 (8.34%) Linux
2 45 (4.52%) Windows
3 23 (2.31%) Unix
4 13 (1.31%) Android
5 12 (1.21%) Windows Server
6 8 (0.80%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.80%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.50%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.30%) AIX
9 3 (0.30%) Solaris
9 3 (0.30%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.20%) Debian
10 2 (0.20%) VMS
11 1 (0.10%) CentOS
11 1 (0.10%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.10%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 314 (31.56%) Agile
2 199 (20.00%) CI/CD
3 169 (16.98%) Problem-Solving
4 155 (15.58%) DevOps
5 145 (14.57%) Stakeholder Management
6 108 (10.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 105 (10.55%) Continuous Improvement
8 88 (8.84%) Roadmaps
9 81 (8.14%) Infrastructure as Code
10 79 (7.94%) Test Automation
11 76 (7.64%) Scrum
12 75 (7.54%) Decision-Making
13 72 (7.24%) Microservices
14 68 (6.83%) Migration
15 67 (6.73%) Analytics
15 67 (6.73%) Data Modelling
16 61 (6.13%) AI
16 61 (6.13%) Workshop Facilitation
17 59 (5.93%) Business Intelligence
18 57 (5.73%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 134 (13.47%) Python
2 105 (10.55%) SQL
3 103 (10.35%) Java
4 70 (7.04%) JavaScript
5 43 (4.32%) TypeScript
6 30 (3.02%) Scala
7 24 (2.41%) C#
8 19 (1.91%) PowerShell
9 17 (1.71%) Shell Script
10 12 (1.21%) PL/SQL
11 11 (1.11%) Bicep
12 10 (1.01%) Bash
13 9 (0.90%) C
13 9 (0.90%) Ruby
14 8 (0.80%) C++
14 8 (0.80%) COBOL
15 6 (0.60%) MATLAB
15 6 (0.60%) VB
16 5 (0.50%) ABAP
16 5 (0.50%) R
Qualifications
1 308 (30.95%) Security Cleared
2 219 (22.01%) SC Cleared
3 62 (6.23%) Degree
4 16 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
4 16 (1.61%) DV Cleared
5 11 (1.11%) AWS Certification
5 11 (1.11%) Master's Degree
6 10 (1.01%) Azure Certification
7 8 (0.80%) PMI Certification
8 7 (0.70%) Microsoft Certification
9 6 (0.60%) CompTIA CySA+
9 6 (0.60%) DBS Check
9 6 (0.60%) PMP
10 5 (0.50%) GIAC
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 65 (6.53%) Data Quality
2 62 (6.23%) Accessibility
3 54 (5.43%) QA
4 18 (1.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (1.81%) WCAG
5 16 (1.61%) NIST
6 15 (1.51%) PMO
7 14 (1.41%) SLA
8 10 (1.01%) GDPR
9 8 (0.80%) PCI DSS
10 7 (0.70%) GRC
11 6 (0.60%) ISO 20022
12 5 (0.50%) IFRS
12 5 (0.50%) IFRS 17
13 4 (0.40%) HL7
13 4 (0.40%) NCSC
13 4 (0.40%) PSD2
14 3 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
14 3 (0.30%) DICOM
14 3 (0.30%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 59 (5.93%) Docker
2 28 (2.81%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.61%) 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 4 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.30%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.20%) ACF2
10 2 (0.20%) Firmware
10 2 (0.20%) QEMU
10 2 (0.20%) RACF
10 2 (0.20%) Time Sharing Option
11 1 (0.10%) Postfix
11 1 (0.10%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 89 (8.94%) Terraform
2 59 (5.93%) Kubernetes
3 24 (2.41%) Grafana
4 16 (1.61%) Ansible
4 16 (1.61%) 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%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (0.50%) VxRail
10 4 (0.40%) HAProxy
10 4 (0.40%) Podman
10 4 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 2 (0.20%) EMC VPLEX
11 2 (0.20%) Kubeflow
11 2 (0.20%) Packer
11 2 (0.20%) Tivoli
11 2 (0.20%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 117 (11.76%) SAP
2 92 (9.25%) Microsoft
3 51 (5.13%) Oracle
4 29 (2.91%) VMware
5 24 (2.41%) ServiceNow
6 22 (2.21%) Databricks
7 19 (1.91%) Google
7 19 (1.91%) Splunk
8 18 (1.81%) Cisco
9 17 (1.71%) IBM
10 13 (1.31%) Pega
11 8 (0.80%) Dell
11 8 (0.80%) OpenAI
11 8 (0.80%) Salesforce
11 8 (0.80%) Workday
12 7 (0.70%) Apple
12 7 (0.70%) BeyondTrust
12 7 (0.70%) CyberArk
12 7 (0.70%) Foundry
13 6 (0.60%) MuleSoft