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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 252 232
Rank change year-on-year +120 -20 -42
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 874 306 467
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.07% 1.03% 1.04%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.11% 3.39% 3.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 657 184 343
10th Percentile £313 £210 £311
25th Percentile £400 £333 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £472 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.74% -5.70% -9.09%
75th Percentile £565 £575 £631
90th Percentile £670 £674 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £459 £525
% change year-on-year -1.91% -12.62% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 15 54
10th Percentile £15.24 £14.36 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.68 £25.80 -
Median hourly rate £36.00 £45.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +180.20% -66.39%
75th Percentile £58.75 £67.50 £46.28
90th Percentile £74.26 £76.25 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £45.00 £16.06
% change year-on-year -22.22% +180.20% -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 14,307 9,016 13,641
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.88% 30.30% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,433 5,667 8,412
10th Percentile £331 £285 £290
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £511 £525
% change year-on-year -2.15% -2.67% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,053 466 1,038
10th Percentile £16.17 £19.34 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.75 £24.27 £18.32
Median hourly rate £28.00 £42.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.50% +6.88% -20.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £82.90 £82.25 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -48.46% +25.00% -14.78%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 +98 614 £475 +1.06% 258
UK excluding London +58 444 £450 -1.91% 267
Work from Home +109 359 £438 -12.50% 128
London +80 203 £512 +9.13% 66
North of England +12 183 £450 -5.86% 44
North West +37 142 £418 -22.26% 30
Midlands +3 96 £438 +0.23% 19
West Midlands -14 68 £446 +2.18% 16
South East -7 60 £488 -5.34% 72
South West +8 48 £525 +31.25% 61
Scotland +36 37 £350 -21.35% 33
East Midlands -6 28 £395 - 3
East of England -24 22 £450 +125.00% 41
Yorkshire -56 22 £480 +118.18% 3
North East -1 20 £475 +32.87% 11
Wales -5 7 £458 +108.00% 4
Northern Ireland - 4 £388 -

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 50 (5.72%) Confluence
2 21 (2.40%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.26%) nginx
4 8 (0.92%) Apache
4 8 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
5 6 (0.69%) Apache Spark
6 5 (0.57%) CMS
7 4 (0.46%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.34%) MTS
8 3 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.34%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.23%) Apache Airflow
9 2 (0.23%) SAS
9 2 (0.23%) SharePoint Server
9 2 (0.23%) SugarCRM
10 1 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.11%) Camunda
10 1 (0.11%) GeoServer
10 1 (0.11%) Orchard CMS
10 1 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 34 (3.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (1.83%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (1.37%) MS Visio
5 9 (1.03%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.34%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.23%) Trello
8 1 (0.11%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.11%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.11%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 52 (5.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.49%) SAP Travel Management
3 7 (0.80%) SAP EHS
4 6 (0.69%) SAP VC
5 5 (0.57%) SAP BRIM
5 5 (0.57%) SAP PSCD
5 5 (0.57%) SAP QM
6 4 (0.46%) Loan IQ
6 4 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
6 4 (0.46%) SAP EWM
6 4 (0.46%) SAP Hybris
6 4 (0.46%) SAP MM
6 4 (0.46%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 3 (0.34%) Exchequer
7 3 (0.34%) ProductWriter
7 3 (0.34%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.34%) SAP HCM
7 3 (0.34%) SAP Payroll
7 3 (0.34%) SAP PM
8 2 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 154 (17.62%) AWS
2 132 (15.10%) Azure
3 57 (6.52%) Power Platform
4 44 (5.03%) Serverless
5 43 (4.92%) GitHub
6 40 (4.58%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (3.66%) GCP
8 30 (3.43%) GitHub Actions
9 26 (2.97%) AWS CloudFormation
10 25 (2.86%) AWS Lambda
10 25 (2.86%) Microsoft 365
11 17 (1.95%) Amazon SQS
12 16 (1.83%) Amazon EKS
12 16 (1.83%) Power Automate
13 15 (1.72%) Amazon EC2
14 14 (1.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 14 (1.60%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 14 (1.60%) PowerApps
15 13 (1.49%) Azure Data Factory
15 13 (1.49%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 22 (2.52%) SSH
2 11 (1.26%) Firewall
3 10 (1.14%) DNS
4 9 (1.03%) Network Security
5 8 (0.92%) WAN
6 7 (0.80%) Reverse Proxy
7 6 (0.69%) LAN
7 6 (0.69%) MPLS
7 6 (0.69%) VPN
8 5 (0.57%) SAN
8 5 (0.57%) WebEx
9 4 (0.46%) Ethernet
9 4 (0.46%) SDH
9 4 (0.46%) VSAN
9 4 (0.46%) Wireless
10 3 (0.34%) DHCP
10 3 (0.34%) Unified Communications
10 3 (0.34%) VoIP
11 2 (0.23%) Modbus
11 2 (0.23%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (5.03%) Power BI
2 27 (3.09%) PostgreSQL
3 23 (2.63%) Metadata
4 20 (2.29%) SQL Server
5 15 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
5 15 (1.72%) NoSQL
6 13 (1.49%) MongoDB
6 13 (1.49%) Relational Database
7 12 (1.37%) Geospatial Data
7 12 (1.37%) MySQL
8 11 (1.26%) Redis
9 10 (1.14%) Data Lake
9 10 (1.14%) DynamoDB
10 9 (1.03%) Delta Lake
10 9 (1.03%) DocumentDB
11 8 (0.92%) Tableau
12 7 (0.80%) BigQuery
13 6 (0.69%) Spark SQL
13 6 (0.69%) Spatial Data
14 5 (0.57%) GIS
Development Applications
1 77 (8.81%) JIRA
2 68 (7.78%) Git
3 49 (5.61%) GitLab
4 30 (3.43%) Jenkins
5 10 (1.14%) JUnit
5 10 (1.14%) Selenium
6 7 (0.80%) Cucumber
6 7 (0.80%) Mockito
7 5 (0.57%) Cypress.io
7 5 (0.57%) JMeter
7 5 (0.57%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.46%) Postman
9 3 (0.34%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.34%) Eclipse
9 3 (0.34%) Gatling
9 3 (0.34%) Maven
9 3 (0.34%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.34%) Toad
10 2 (0.23%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.23%) Visual Studio
General
1 298 (34.10%) Social Skills
2 176 (20.14%) Public Sector
3 128 (14.65%) Finance
4 89 (10.18%) Analytical Skills
5 44 (5.03%) Banking
6 42 (4.81%) Aerospace
7 19 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
7 19 (2.17%) Telecoms
8 17 (1.95%) Aviation
8 17 (1.95%) Legal
9 16 (1.83%) Manufacturing
10 15 (1.72%) Documentation Skills
10 15 (1.72%) Organisational Skills
10 15 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
11 11 (1.26%) Local Government
12 8 (0.92%) Billing
12 8 (0.92%) Publishing
12 8 (0.92%) Retail
13 7 (0.80%) Marketing
14 5 (0.57%) Military
Job Titles
1 146 (16.70%) Developer
2 105 (12.01%) Analyst
3 99 (11.33%) Senior
4 84 (9.61%) Lead
5 76 (8.70%) Architect
6 63 (7.21%) Consultant
7 47 (5.38%) Business Analyst
8 41 (4.69%) Java Developer
8 41 (4.69%) SAP Consultant
9 31 (3.55%) Administrator
10 28 (3.20%) Data Engineer
10 28 (3.20%) Designer
11 24 (2.75%) DevOps Engineer
11 24 (2.75%) Senior Developer
12 20 (2.29%) Solutions Architect
13 18 (2.06%) Azure Engineer
14 17 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
14 17 (1.95%) Senior Analyst
14 17 (1.95%) Software Developer
15 16 (1.83%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (7.44%) Node.js
2 43 (4.92%) React
3 36 (4.12%) REST
4 33 (3.78%) Kafka
4 33 (3.78%) RESTful
5 27 (3.09%) Spring
6 25 (2.86%) HTML
7 23 (2.63%) .NET
7 23 (2.63%) Spring Boot
8 19 (2.17%) CSS
9 18 (2.06%) JSON
10 14 (1.60%) SAP TM
10 14 (1.60%) XML
11 13 (1.49%) LangChain
11 13 (1.49%) Middleware
12 12 (1.37%) OAuth
13 11 (1.26%) AngularJS
13 11 (1.26%) Jest
14 10 (1.14%) OpenAPI
14 10 (1.14%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 58 (6.64%) Product Ownership
2 44 (5.03%) Onboarding
3 43 (4.92%) Cloud Native
4 27 (3.09%) Management Information System
5 17 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
6 16 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
7 14 (1.60%) NHS
8 11 (1.26%) Security Posture
8 11 (1.26%) Self-Motivation
9 10 (1.14%) Public Cloud
10 9 (1.03%) Data Structures
11 8 (0.92%) Linux Command Line
12 7 (0.80%) Cyber Threat
12 7 (0.80%) Data Centre
12 7 (0.80%) Driving Licence
12 7 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
12 7 (0.80%) Low-Code
12 7 (0.80%) Tandem
13 6 (0.69%) Algorithms
13 6 (0.69%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 89 (10.18%) Linux
2 37 (4.23%) Windows
3 21 (2.40%) Unix
4 8 (0.92%) Android
5 7 (0.80%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.69%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.46%) Mac OS X
9 3 (0.34%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.23%) Debian
10 2 (0.23%) VMS
11 1 (0.11%) AIX
11 1 (0.11%) CentOS
11 1 (0.11%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.11%) Solaris
11 1 (0.11%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 275 (31.46%) Agile
2 172 (19.68%) CI/CD
3 160 (18.31%) Problem-Solving
4 138 (15.79%) Stakeholder Management
5 129 (14.76%) DevOps
6 89 (10.18%) Continuous Improvement
6 89 (10.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 74 (8.47%) Microservices
8 72 (8.24%) Roadmaps
9 71 (8.12%) Scrum
9 71 (8.12%) Test Automation
10 67 (7.67%) AI
11 66 (7.55%) Infrastructure as Code
12 65 (7.44%) Data Modelling
13 58 (6.64%) Analytics
13 58 (6.64%) Migration
13 58 (6.64%) Validation
14 57 (6.52%) Decision-Making
15 54 (6.18%) SDLC
16 52 (5.95%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 119 (13.62%) Python
2 97 (11.10%) SQL
3 96 (10.98%) Java
4 53 (6.06%) JavaScript
5 37 (4.23%) TypeScript
6 23 (2.63%) Shell Script
7 20 (2.29%) C#
8 17 (1.95%) PowerShell
9 15 (1.72%) Bash
9 15 (1.72%) Scala
10 13 (1.49%) Ruby
11 10 (1.14%) ABAP
11 10 (1.14%) Bicep
12 9 (1.03%) PL/SQL
13 6 (0.69%) C++
13 6 (0.69%) COBOL
14 5 (0.57%) Go
14 5 (0.57%) PHP
15 4 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.46%) R
Qualifications
1 322 (36.84%) Security Cleared
2 232 (26.54%) SC Cleared
3 72 (8.24%) Degree
4 27 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (2.29%) Master's Degree
6 15 (1.72%) DV Cleared
7 11 (1.26%) AWS Certification
8 9 (1.03%) DBS Check
8 9 (1.03%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 8 (0.92%) Azure Certification
9 8 (0.92%) PMI Certification
10 6 (0.69%) ISTQB
10 6 (0.69%) PMP
11 5 (0.57%) CompTIA Security+
12 4 (0.46%) CompTIA CySA+
12 4 (0.46%) GIAC
12 4 (0.46%) ISEB
12 4 (0.46%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 4 (0.46%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 4 (0.46%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (6.86%) Accessibility
2 52 (5.95%) Data Quality
3 45 (5.15%) QA
4 23 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 17 (1.95%) NIST
5 17 (1.95%) WCAG
6 16 (1.83%) SLA
7 15 (1.72%) GRC
8 10 (1.14%) GDPR
9 9 (1.03%) Def Stans
9 9 (1.03%) NCSC
10 8 (0.92%) PCI DSS
10 8 (0.92%) PMO
11 7 (0.80%) ISO 20022
12 5 (0.57%) IFRS
12 5 (0.57%) IFRS 17
12 5 (0.57%) PSD2
13 4 (0.46%) SEPA
14 3 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
14 3 (0.34%) P3O
System Software
1 62 (7.09%) Docker
2 19 (2.17%) Active Directory
3 14 (1.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.92%) vSphere
5 5 (0.57%) GPFS
5 5 (0.57%) NFS
5 5 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.23%) ACF2
7 2 (0.23%) QEMU
7 2 (0.23%) RACF
7 2 (0.23%) Time Sharing Option
7 2 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.23%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.11%) Postfix
8 1 (0.11%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 75 (8.58%) Terraform
2 64 (7.32%) Kubernetes
3 18 (2.06%) Grafana
3 18 (2.06%) Prometheus
4 14 (1.60%) Ansible
5 8 (0.92%) vRealize
6 6 (0.69%) Istio
7 5 (0.57%) VxRail
8 4 (0.46%) Argo
8 4 (0.46%) Kibana
8 4 (0.46%) Packer
8 4 (0.46%) Podman
9 3 (0.34%) EMC NetWorker
9 3 (0.34%) EMC VPLEX
9 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.23%) Consul
10 2 (0.23%) Kubeflow
10 2 (0.23%) Puppet
10 2 (0.23%) SCCM
Vendors
1 108 (12.36%) SAP
2 95 (10.87%) Microsoft
3 42 (4.81%) Oracle
4 24 (2.75%) Cisco
5 19 (2.17%) VMware
6 17 (1.95%) Databricks
6 17 (1.95%) Google
6 17 (1.95%) IBM
7 16 (1.83%) ServiceNow
8 15 (1.72%) Twitter
9 13 (1.49%) Pega
10 10 (1.14%) Adobe
11 9 (1.03%) Atlassian
11 9 (1.03%) Splunk
12 7 (0.80%) OpenAI
12 7 (0.80%) Salesforce
12 7 (0.80%) Workday
13 6 (0.69%) Dell
13 6 (0.69%) Foundry
14 5 (0.57%) CyberArk