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

6 months to
8 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 95 165 270
Rank change year-on-year +70 +105 -37
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 1,460 575 328
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.70% 1.77% 0.86%
As % of the Qualifications category 8.58% 5.68% 2.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,044 389 205
10th Percentile £353 £312 £220
25th Percentile £425 £405 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £585 £605 £588
90th Percentile £670 £713 £641
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £470
% change year-on-year -2.50% +6.38% -14.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 211 47 21
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £18.50
25th Percentile - £22.63 £20.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.50 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year +59.85% +27.37% -63.56%
75th Percentile £48.00 £49.06 £42.50
90th Percentile £72.66 £72.37 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £29.03 £21.59
% change year-on-year +51.43% +34.46% -63.09%

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 17,021 10,127 11,208
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.48% 31.20% 29.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,407 6,279 6,994
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £629 £623 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,273 800 677
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.00 £16.85
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -9.09%
75th Percentile £72.54 £48.72 £67.81
90th Percentile £87.16 £71.27 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £53.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.99% +3.10%

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 8 September 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 8 September 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 8 September 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 +77 1,088 £495 -3.41% 993
UK excluding London +51 851 £488 -2.50% 889
Work from Home +58 552 £495 -1.00% 779
London +82 316 £507 -1.31% 238
North of England +12 308 £481 -0.05% 194
Midlands +46 233 £490 -6.67% 97
West Midlands +56 223 £490 -6.67% 83
North West +3 168 £500 +11.11% 116
South East -28 97 £483 -6.21% 139
North East +13 84 £453 -1.52% 36
South West +7 79 £525 - 165
Scotland +27 76 £405 -4.37% 114
Yorkshire -7 67 £475 -5.00% 47
East of England -5 37 £566 +18.66% 176
Northern Ireland +16 20 - - 10
Wales -6 12 £413 -28.26% 13
East Midlands -26 9 £606 +23.22% 14

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 63 (4.32%) Confluence
2 45 (3.08%) SharePoint
3 17 (1.16%) SharePoint Server
4 9 (0.62%) SAS
5 8 (0.55%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.55%) CMS
6 7 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.34%) WebLogic
8 4 (0.27%) Headless CMS
8 4 (0.27%) IIS
8 4 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.27%) WordPress
9 2 (0.14%) Apache
9 2 (0.14%) CICS
9 2 (0.14%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.14%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.14%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.14%) LiveCycle
9 2 (0.14%) OpenROAD
Applications
1 38 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (2.05%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.03%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.34%) Simulink
6 3 (0.21%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.21%) Trello
6 3 (0.21%) Windchill
7 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.14%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.068%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.068%) Autodesk Inventor
8 1 (0.068%) CATIA
8 1 (0.068%) InVision
8 1 (0.068%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.068%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.068%) Revit
8 1 (0.068%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.068%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 54 (3.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (1.23%) SAP HR
3 15 (1.03%) SAP PSCD
4 12 (0.82%) SAP BRIM
4 12 (0.82%) SAP IBP
5 11 (0.75%) SAP Payroll
6 10 (0.68%) SAP FI
7 6 (0.41%) SAP FI-CA
7 6 (0.41%) SAP GRC
8 5 (0.34%) SAP HCM
8 5 (0.34%) Shopify
9 4 (0.27%) SAP Convergent Charging
9 4 (0.27%) SAP EHS
9 4 (0.27%) SAP ERP
9 4 (0.27%) SAP EWM
9 4 (0.27%) SAP MDG
9 4 (0.27%) SAP PP
10 3 (0.21%) iTrent
10 3 (0.21%) Primavera
10 3 (0.21%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 263 (18.01%) Azure
2 256 (17.53%) AWS
3 83 (5.68%) Power Platform
4 66 (4.52%) GitHub
5 64 (4.38%) Azure DevOps
6 53 (3.63%) Serverless
7 49 (3.36%) GCP
7 49 (3.36%) Microsoft 365
8 47 (3.22%) GitHub Actions
9 46 (3.15%) Entra ID
10 45 (3.08%) Amazon S3
11 44 (3.01%) AWS Lambda
12 28 (1.92%) Power Automate
13 27 (1.85%) PowerApps
14 24 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 24 (1.64%) AWS CloudFormation
15 22 (1.51%) Amazon ECS
15 22 (1.51%) SuccessFactors
16 21 (1.44%) Azure Monitor
17 17 (1.16%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.16%) DNS
2 13 (0.89%) SSL
2 13 (0.89%) WAN
3 11 (0.75%) Network Security
4 10 (0.68%) Firewall
4 10 (0.68%) WebEx
5 8 (0.55%) Intranet
6 7 (0.48%) Cisco IPT
6 7 (0.48%) HTTPS
6 7 (0.48%) MPLS
7 6 (0.41%) 5G
7 6 (0.41%) LAN
7 6 (0.41%) Radio Access Network
7 6 (0.41%) SDH
7 6 (0.41%) Wireshark
8 5 (0.34%) 3GPP
8 5 (0.34%) Ethernet
8 5 (0.34%) VPN
9 4 (0.27%) DHCP
9 4 (0.27%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (3.90%) Power BI
2 48 (3.29%) PostgreSQL
3 44 (3.01%) Metadata
4 39 (2.67%) MongoDB
5 34 (2.33%) SQL Server
6 33 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
7 26 (1.78%) Amazon RDS
7 26 (1.78%) MySQL
8 23 (1.58%) NoSQL
9 21 (1.44%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 19 (1.30%) Data Lake
10 19 (1.30%) Relational Database
11 16 (1.10%) DynamoDB
12 14 (0.96%) Amazon Redshift
12 14 (0.96%) Oracle Database
13 13 (0.89%) Amazon Aurora
14 12 (0.82%) Amazon Athena
15 10 (0.68%) Big Data
16 8 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
16 8 (0.55%) Redis
Development Applications
1 109 (7.47%) JIRA
2 94 (6.44%) Git
3 74 (5.07%) GitLab
4 61 (4.18%) Jenkins
5 29 (1.99%) JUnit
6 27 (1.85%) Selenium
7 25 (1.71%) Maven
8 23 (1.58%) Cucumber
9 16 (1.10%) Mockito
10 15 (1.03%) Postman
10 15 (1.03%) SonarQube
11 14 (0.96%) Cypress.io
11 14 (0.96%) Team Foundation Server
12 12 (0.82%) Gatling
12 12 (0.82%) Visual Studio
13 10 (0.68%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 10 (0.68%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.62%) Bitbucket
15 7 (0.48%) Gradle
15 7 (0.48%) WebDriver
General
1 482 (33.01%) Social Skills
2 344 (23.56%) Public Sector
3 244 (16.71%) Finance
4 139 (9.52%) Analytical Skills
5 137 (9.38%) Organisational Skills
6 134 (9.18%) Legal
7 44 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
8 42 (2.88%) Aerospace
9 31 (2.12%) Influencing Skills
10 28 (1.92%) Manufacturing
11 26 (1.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 24 (1.64%) Banking
13 22 (1.51%) Telecoms
14 21 (1.44%) Billing
15 20 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
16 11 (0.75%) Local Government
17 10 (0.68%) Military
18 9 (0.62%) Aviation
18 9 (0.62%) Law
19 8 (0.55%) Retail
Job Titles
1 203 (13.90%) Developer
2 165 (11.30%) Senior
3 154 (10.55%) Lead
4 146 (10.00%) Architect
5 100 (6.85%) Consultant
6 99 (6.78%) Analyst
7 63 (4.32%) Designer
7 63 (4.32%) Java Developer
8 61 (4.18%) SAP Consultant
9 48 (3.29%) Data Engineer
10 46 (3.15%) DevOps Engineer
11 45 (3.08%) Solutions Architect
12 40 (2.74%) Business Analyst
13 33 (2.26%) Data Architect
13 33 (2.26%) Delivery Manager
14 29 (1.99%) Lead Developer
15 28 (1.92%) Technical Architect
15 28 (1.92%) User Researcher
16 27 (1.85%) Product Manager
17 24 (1.64%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (7.40%) Terraform
2 87 (5.96%) REST
3 75 (5.14%) Spring
4 68 (4.66%) Spring Boot
5 57 (3.90%) HTML
6 55 (3.77%) React
7 51 (3.49%) RESTful
8 48 (3.29%) Node.js
9 45 (3.08%) CSS
10 37 (2.53%) Kafka
11 34 (2.33%) Playwright
12 25 (1.71%) .NET
13 23 (1.58%) OpenAPI
14 21 (1.44%) OAuth
14 21 (1.44%) XML
15 18 (1.23%) JSON
15 18 (1.23%) OAuth2
16 17 (1.16%) SOAP
16 17 (1.16%) Swagger
17 16 (1.10%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 120 (8.22%) Virtual Team
2 119 (8.15%) Web Conferencing
3 109 (7.47%) Podcast
4 93 (6.37%) Onboarding
5 78 (5.34%) Product Ownership
6 65 (4.45%) Cloud Native
7 28 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
8 22 (1.51%) Replication
9 20 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
9 20 (1.37%) Management Information System
10 19 (1.30%) NHS
11 18 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
12 17 (1.16%) BYOD
13 16 (1.10%) Mobile App
14 15 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
15 14 (0.96%) Driving Licence
16 12 (0.82%) Algorithms
17 11 (0.75%) Data Centre
17 11 (0.75%) Low-Code
17 11 (0.75%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 68 (4.66%) Windows
2 57 (3.90%) Linux
3 33 (2.26%) Unix
4 21 (1.44%) Windows Server
5 19 (1.30%) Android
6 11 (0.75%) Windows 10
7 9 (0.62%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.55%) Mac OS
8 8 (0.55%) VMS
9 3 (0.21%) AIX
10 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.14%) Solaris
11 1 (0.068%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.068%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.068%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.068%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 447 (30.62%) Agile
2 257 (17.60%) CI/CD
2 257 (17.60%) Stakeholder Management
3 233 (15.96%) DevOps
4 180 (12.33%) Continuous Improvement
5 166 (11.37%) Problem-Solving
6 157 (10.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 141 (9.66%) Scrum
8 134 (9.18%) Customer Service
9 120 (8.22%) Test Automation
10 115 (7.88%) Roadmaps
11 113 (7.74%) Decision-Making
12 107 (7.33%) Analytics
12 107 (7.33%) Microservices
13 105 (7.19%) Migration
14 99 (6.78%) Infrastructure as Code
15 94 (6.44%) Mentoring
16 86 (5.89%) AI
16 86 (5.89%) Digital Transformation Programme
17 82 (5.62%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 164 (11.23%) Java
2 155 (10.62%) SQL
3 121 (8.29%) Python
4 84 (5.75%) JavaScript
5 46 (3.15%) TypeScript
6 37 (2.53%) Scala
7 36 (2.47%) PowerShell
8 23 (1.58%) C#
9 20 (1.37%) Bash
9 20 (1.37%) Shell Script
10 19 (1.30%) PL/SQL
11 15 (1.03%) T-SQL
12 12 (0.82%) VB
13 11 (0.75%) VB6
13 11 (0.75%) VBA
14 8 (0.55%) ABAP
14 8 (0.55%) C++
14 8 (0.55%) Kotlin
15 7 (0.48%) Bicep
15 7 (0.48%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 465 (31.85%) Security Cleared
2 356 (24.38%) SC Cleared
3 72 (4.93%) Degree
4 18 (1.23%) AWS Certification
4 18 (1.23%) Azure Certification
4 18 (1.23%) Microsoft Certification
5 15 (1.03%) DV Cleared
6 11 (0.75%) A+ Certification
7 10 (0.68%) DBS Check
8 9 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 9 (0.62%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 7 (0.48%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 7 (0.48%) ISTQB
9 7 (0.48%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.48%) PMI Certification
10 6 (0.41%) CCNA
10 6 (0.41%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (0.41%) CTC Cleared
10 6 (0.41%) HNC
10 6 (0.41%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (6.78%) Accessibility
2 94 (6.44%) QA
3 73 (5.00%) Data Quality
4 38 (2.60%) WCAG
5 28 (1.92%) GDPR
6 23 (1.58%) PMO
7 18 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 17 (1.16%) SLA
9 13 (0.89%) NIST
10 9 (0.62%) GRC
11 5 (0.34%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 5 (0.34%) GMP
11 5 (0.34%) GxP
11 5 (0.34%) IEC 61508
11 5 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 5 (0.34%) NCSC
12 4 (0.27%) PERC
13 3 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
13 3 (0.21%) Def Stans
13 3 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 91 (6.23%) Docker
2 37 (2.53%) Active Directory
3 15 (1.03%) Virtual Machines
4 13 (0.89%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.34%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.14%) Firmware
8 1 (0.068%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.068%) IAG
8 1 (0.068%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.068%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.068%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 100 (6.85%) Kubernetes
2 36 (2.47%) Grafana
3 20 (1.37%) Prometheus
3 20 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
4 19 (1.30%) Kibana
5 12 (0.82%) Ansible
6 11 (0.75%) Argo
6 11 (0.75%) SCCM
7 9 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (0.62%) SCOM
8 5 (0.34%) Functional Safety
8 5 (0.34%) Packer
9 4 (0.27%) HAProxy
9 4 (0.27%) Istio
9 4 (0.27%) Podman
9 4 (0.27%) Puppet
10 2 (0.14%) Data Guard
10 2 (0.14%) Karpenter
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 175 (11.99%) Microsoft
2 129 (8.84%) SAP
3 81 (5.55%) Oracle
4 63 (4.32%) ServiceNow
5 40 (2.74%) Google
6 28 (1.92%) BeyondTrust
7 23 (1.58%) Databricks
8 16 (1.10%) Atlassian
8 16 (1.10%) Splunk
9 14 (0.96%) Talend
10 13 (0.89%) Cisco
10 13 (0.89%) VMware
11 12 (0.82%) CyberArk
12 10 (0.68%) Informatica
12 10 (0.68%) Salesforce
13 9 (0.62%) Okta
14 8 (0.55%) Dell
15 7 (0.48%) Apple
15 7 (0.48%) IBM
16 6 (0.41%) Denodo