DV Cleared Contract Job Trends

Developed Vetting (DV) Clearance
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for DV Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 17 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 78 35
Rank change year-on-year +28 -43 +20
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,167 999 2,019
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.05% 3.02% 5.21%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.94% 9.65% 17.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,659 695 1,435
10th Percentile £456 £459 £425
25th Percentile £514 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £591 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.61% -1.58% +3.99%
75th Percentile £700 £669 £688
90th Percentile £760 £716 £765
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £600
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 38 98
10th Percentile £35.00 - £49.70
25th Percentile £45.05 £25.15 £57.75
Median hourly rate £70.00 £52.50 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -25.42% +0.56%
75th Percentile £92.53 £81.84 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.76 £87.91 £92.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £81.35 £70.39
% change year-on-year -13.95% +15.57% -3.36%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

DV Cleared 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 16,751 10,350 11,614
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.31% 31.27% 29.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,224 6,362 7,379
10th Percentile £350 £288 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £526
Median % change year-on-year - -0.19% -4.36%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £702 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,264 822 830
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.98 £14.84
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £74.00 £53.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.72 £73.75 £75.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -7.77%

DV Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing DV Cleared relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

DV Cleared job vacancy trend in the UK

DV Cleared
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing DV Cleared.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing DV Cleared

DV Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DV Cleared over the 6 months to 17 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for DV Cleared in the UK

DV Cleared
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing DV Cleared.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing DV Cleared

DV Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DV Cleared over the 6 months to 17 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for DV Cleared in the UK

DV Cleared
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 DV Cleared within the UK over the 6 months to 17 August 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 +26 2,033 £600 +0.42% 792
UK excluding London +14 1,557 £600 +3.45% 673
South East +5 909 £600 - 225
London +47 452 £605 -3.20% 194
South West 0 406 £590 -1.67% 221
Work from Home +41 330 £575 -2.34% 406
East of England +12 94 £650 +18.18% 97
North of England -15 64 £775 +24.00% 78
Midlands -57 45 £600 +2.13% 14
North West -2 43 £863 +50.00% 64
West Midlands -68 40 £600 +1.05% 9
Scotland +15 37 £669 +30.44% 39
Yorkshire -20 16 £518 -17.20% 12
East Midlands -12 5 £631 +14.77% 5
North East -38 5 £463 -26.00% 6
Northern Ireland +7 4 £638 -8.93% 6
Wales -11 4 - - 2

DV Cleared
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 62 (2.86%) Confluence
2 42 (1.94%) SharePoint
3 37 (1.71%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.42%) Apache
5 7 (0.32%) Documentum
6 6 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.28%) CMS
6 6 (0.28%) Mattermost
7 5 (0.23%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
8 3 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.092%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.092%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.092%) Mule
9 2 (0.092%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.092%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.092%) WebLogic
Applications
1 56 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (2.12%) Microsoft Project
3 24 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.97%) Microsoft Office
5 14 (0.65%) AutoCAD
5 14 (0.65%) Revit
5 14 (0.65%) SOLIDWORKS
6 11 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.18%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
9 2 (0.092%) Lectora
Business Applications
1 28 (1.29%) Remedy ITSM
1 28 (1.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.25%) Oracle ERP
3 18 (0.83%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 14 (0.65%) Teamcenter
5 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
6 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
7 4 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.18%) Primavera
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.14%) SAP PP
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Assets
9 2 (0.092%) Siebel CRM
10 1 (0.046%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 1 (0.046%) SAP CCM
10 1 (0.046%) SAP GRC
10 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 281 (12.97%) Azure
2 266 (12.28%) AWS
3 106 (4.89%) GCP
4 57 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
5 47 (2.17%) GitHub
6 46 (2.12%) Microsoft 365
7 40 (1.85%) GitHub Actions
7 40 (1.85%) Serverless
8 39 (1.80%) Power Platform
9 38 (1.75%) Entra ID
10 37 (1.71%) IaaS
11 35 (1.62%) OCI
12 34 (1.57%) PaaS
13 27 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
14 23 (1.06%) OpenShift
15 21 (0.97%) Amazon EKS
16 20 (0.92%) Amazon ECS
17 19 (0.88%) Amazon S3
17 19 (0.88%) SaaS
18 18 (0.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 152 (7.01%) DNS
2 121 (5.58%) Firewall
3 75 (3.46%) DHCP
4 67 (3.09%) Network Security
5 66 (3.05%) WAN
6 61 (2.81%) LAN
7 51 (2.35%) VPN
8 49 (2.26%) TCP/IP
9 48 (2.22%) BGP
10 42 (1.94%) VSAN
11 33 (1.52%) IPsec
12 31 (1.43%) MPLS
13 26 (1.20%) VLAN
14 18 (0.83%) OSPF
14 18 (0.83%) SSL
15 16 (0.74%) Cisco ASA
16 15 (0.69%) Cisco Firepower
16 15 (0.69%) SD-WAN
17 14 (0.65%) Skype
18 13 (0.60%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (2.17%) SQL Server
2 38 (1.75%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.48%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.11%) Power BI
5 18 (0.83%) Metadata
6 16 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
7 15 (0.69%) Data Lake
8 14 (0.65%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (0.60%) MongoDB
10 10 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
11 8 (0.37%) BigQuery
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 11g
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
12 7 (0.32%) Big Data
12 7 (0.32%) MariaDB
12 7 (0.32%) NoSQL
12 7 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
13 5 (0.23%) Amazon Redshift
13 5 (0.23%) Redis
Development Applications
1 104 (4.80%) JIRA
2 62 (2.86%) GitLab
3 53 (2.45%) Jenkins
4 45 (2.08%) Git
5 14 (0.65%) Cypress.io
6 12 (0.55%) Selenium
7 7 (0.32%) Visual Studio
8 6 (0.28%) Postman
8 6 (0.28%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.23%) MSI
9 5 (0.23%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.23%) SpecFlow
10 4 (0.18%) Artifactory
10 4 (0.18%) Cucumber
11 3 (0.14%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.14%) Gatling
11 3 (0.14%) MLflow
11 3 (0.14%) Robot Framework
11 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 425 (19.61%) Social Skills
2 285 (13.15%) Public Sector
3 153 (7.06%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (6.18%) Finance
5 62 (2.86%) Military
6 59 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
7 42 (1.94%) Legal
8 41 (1.89%) Organisational Skills
9 29 (1.34%) Law
10 28 (1.29%) Police
11 24 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
11 24 (1.11%) Telecoms
12 20 (0.92%) Aerospace
12 20 (0.92%) Manufacturing
13 14 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
14 8 (0.37%) Local Government
15 7 (0.32%) Marketing
16 5 (0.23%) Advertising
17 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
17 4 (0.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 352 (16.24%) Architect
2 244 (11.26%) Lead
3 200 (9.23%) Senior
4 150 (6.92%) Consultant
5 148 (6.83%) Analyst
5 148 (6.83%) Developer
6 144 (6.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 92 (4.25%) Security Architect
8 86 (3.97%) Network Engineer
9 76 (3.51%) SOC Analyst
10 65 (3.00%) Technical Architect
11 61 (2.81%) Cloud Engineer
12 60 (2.77%) Project Manager
13 52 (2.40%) DevOps Engineer
14 51 (2.35%) Support Engineer
15 49 (2.26%) DBA
16 47 (2.17%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 43 (1.98%) DV Cleared Project Manager
18 42 (1.94%) Senior Network Engineer
19 41 (1.89%) Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (3.41%) REST
2 32 (1.48%) Elastic Stack
3 26 (1.20%) SOAP
4 25 (1.15%) React
5 19 (0.88%) RESTful
6 17 (0.78%) .NET
6 17 (0.78%) Kafka
7 16 (0.74%) Node.js
8 15 (0.69%) Oracle Fusion
9 14 (0.65%) FastAPI
9 14 (0.65%) Flask
9 14 (0.65%) OAuth
10 13 (0.60%) AngularJS
11 11 (0.51%) ARM Templates
11 11 (0.51%) LDAP
11 11 (0.51%) Spring
11 11 (0.51%) Spring Boot
11 11 (0.51%) XML
12 10 (0.46%) 802.1X
12 10 (0.46%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 98 (4.52%) PKI
2 96 (4.43%) Data Centre
3 88 (4.06%) Cloud Native
4 67 (3.09%) Onboarding
5 50 (2.31%) Security Operations Centre
6 38 (1.75%) Product Ownership
7 37 (1.71%) Hybrid Cloud
7 37 (1.71%) Private Cloud
8 33 (1.52%) Management Information System
9 31 (1.43%) Cyber Threat
10 29 (1.34%) Public Cloud
11 26 (1.20%) Clustering
11 26 (1.20%) Distributed Systems
12 25 (1.15%) Security Posture
13 24 (1.11%) CMDB
14 19 (0.88%) Virtual Team
15 18 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
16 16 (0.74%) Replication
17 14 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
18 12 (0.55%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 325 (15.00%) Windows
2 232 (10.71%) Linux
3 154 (7.11%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 25 (1.15%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.06%) Windows Server 2019
7 14 (0.65%) Unix
8 9 (0.42%) CentOS
8 9 (0.42%) Mac OS
8 9 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
9 7 (0.32%) VMS
10 6 (0.28%) AIX
10 6 (0.28%) Android
11 5 (0.23%) Debian
11 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
11 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
12 4 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 376 (17.35%) Agile
2 232 (10.71%) Stakeholder Management
3 222 (10.24%) Continuous Improvement
4 218 (10.06%) CI/CD
5 216 (9.97%) Cybersecurity
6 205 (9.46%) Problem-Solving
7 197 (9.09%) DevOps
8 195 (9.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 189 (8.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 189 (8.72%) ITIL
10 163 (7.52%) Infrastructure as Code
11 157 (7.25%) Technical Leadership
12 148 (6.83%) Service Management
13 129 (5.95%) ITSM
14 118 (5.45%) Risk Management
15 116 (5.35%) Containerisation
15 116 (5.35%) Project Delivery
16 108 (4.98%) Decision-Making
17 106 (4.89%) Service Delivery
17 106 (4.89%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 204 (9.41%) Python
2 167 (7.71%) PowerShell
3 112 (5.17%) SQL
4 82 (3.78%) Bash
5 60 (2.77%) Java
6 43 (1.98%) JavaScript
7 37 (1.71%) C#
8 24 (1.11%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.83%) Bicep
9 18 (0.83%) Go
10 14 (0.65%) C++
10 14 (0.65%) PL/SQL
10 14 (0.65%) Search Processing Language
11 11 (0.51%) C
12 7 (0.32%) Groovy
12 7 (0.32%) Shell Script
13 6 (0.28%) Embedded C
13 6 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
13 6 (0.28%) Perl
13 6 (0.28%) X++
Qualifications
1 2,167 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 723 (33.36%) SC Cleared
3 75 (3.46%) Degree
4 68 (3.14%) CISSP
5 43 (1.98%) CISM
6 37 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.34%) Microsoft Certification
8 23 (1.06%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 21 (0.97%) PMI Certification
10 20 (0.92%) AWS Certification
10 20 (0.92%) ISTQB
10 20 (0.92%) VCAP
11 19 (0.88%) PMP
12 17 (0.78%) TOGAF Certification
13 15 (0.69%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
13 15 (0.69%) MCSE
14 14 (0.65%) CCNP
15 13 (0.60%) CCNA
15 13 (0.60%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (3.92%) NCSC
2 80 (3.69%) PMO
3 77 (3.55%) NIST
4 57 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 55 (2.54%) QA
6 37 (1.71%) JSP 440
7 29 (1.34%) GDPR
8 26 (1.20%) SLA
9 25 (1.15%) Data Quality
10 18 (0.83%) GRC
10 18 (0.83%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 17 (0.78%) Government Security Classifications
11 17 (0.78%) RMADS
12 15 (0.69%) Accessibility
13 11 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
13 11 (0.51%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 8 (0.37%) WCAG
15 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
16 6 (0.28%) NIST 800
17 5 (0.23%) Def Stans
System Software
1 195 (9.00%) Active Directory
2 186 (8.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 122 (5.63%) Docker
4 96 (4.43%) VMware NSX
5 67 (3.09%) VMware ESXi
6 61 (2.81%) Hyper-V
7 48 (2.22%) vSphere
8 25 (1.15%) vCloud
9 18 (0.83%) Virtual Desktop
10 11 (0.51%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.37%) NFS
12 7 (0.32%) BitLocker
12 7 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
13 5 (0.23%) Ceph
13 5 (0.23%) Firmware
14 4 (0.18%) Squid
14 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.14%) KVM
15 3 (0.14%) UAG
Systems Management
1 192 (8.86%) Kubernetes
2 188 (8.68%) Terraform
3 132 (6.09%) Ansible
4 82 (3.78%) vCenter Server
5 48 (2.22%) SCOM
6 33 (1.52%) SCCM
7 25 (1.15%) Prometheus
8 23 (1.06%) Grafana
9 22 (1.02%) Puppet
10 15 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
10 15 (0.69%) Nagios
10 15 (0.69%) Oracle RMAN
10 15 (0.69%) VxRail
11 14 (0.65%) Avamar
11 14 (0.65%) Podman
11 14 (0.65%) WSUS
12 13 (0.60%) Data Guard
13 11 (0.51%) Progress Chef
14 10 (0.46%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
14 10 (0.46%) WMI
Vendors
1 278 (12.83%) Microsoft
2 263 (12.14%) VMware
3 111 (5.12%) ServiceNow
4 103 (4.75%) Oracle
5 82 (3.78%) Cisco
6 56 (2.58%) Splunk
7 55 (2.54%) SAP
8 52 (2.40%) Google
9 38 (1.75%) Juniper
10 37 (1.71%) SolarWinds
11 33 (1.52%) Red Hat
12 30 (1.38%) Remedy
13 25 (1.15%) Citrix
14 24 (1.11%) CyberArk
14 24 (1.11%) Dell
15 23 (1.06%) Palo Alto
16 21 (0.97%) NetApp
17 20 (0.92%) BMC
18 19 (0.88%) F5
19 18 (0.83%) Sparx