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

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 58 69 33
Rank change year-on-year +11 -36 +50
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,648 979 2,315
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.87% 3.32% 5.17%
As % of the Qualifications category 11.45% 10.95% 16.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,145 658 1,669
10th Percentile £420 £386 £400
25th Percentile £503 £508 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £598 £600
Median % change year-on-year -3.77% -0.42% -
75th Percentile £680 £675 £688
90th Percentile £738 £725 £776
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £590 £600
% change year-on-year -2.54% -1.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 27 105
10th Percentile £16.35 £34.25 £48.40
25th Percentile £18.82 £59.87 £56.65
Median hourly rate £48.35 £72.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -33.31% +16.00% -10.39%
75th Percentile £78.63 £81.73 £79.78
90th Percentile £92.38 £92.50 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.75 £72.50 £63.00
% change year-on-year -24.48% +15.08% -16.00%

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 14,395 8,940 13,648
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.83% 30.33% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,479 5,628 8,419
10th Percentile £335 £285 £290
25th Percentile £421 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.58% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £614 £626 £650
90th Percentile £720 £725 £733
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £511 £525
% change year-on-year -2.15% -2.67% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,070 463 1,036
10th Percentile £16.17 £18.95 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.66 £24.19 £18.29
Median hourly rate £28.36 £43.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.05% +7.50% -20.00%
75th Percentile £66.00 £67.50 £62.63
90th Percentile £83.08 £82.22 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -48.46% +25.00% -16.67%

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 11 March 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 11 March 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 11 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 +7 1,501 £575 -4.17% 373
UK excluding London +5 1,156 £575 -2.54% 312
South East +9 600 £588 +0.43% 150
London -4 341 £575 -4.17% 47
South West 0 328 £566 -5.63% 92
Work from Home +24 210 £560 -2.61% 123
Midlands -28 75 £569 -18.75% 13
North of England -30 65 £613 +53.13% 24
East of England +5 63 £575 - 28
West Midlands -31 59 £563 -19.64% 11
North West -2 51 £600 +192.68% 19
Scotland -7 33 £652 +26.50% 4
East Midlands -23 16 £650 +18.18% 2
Yorkshire - 12 £644 - 4
Northern Ireland - 8 £600 -
Wales -5 3 - - 5
North East -21 2 - - 1

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 48 (2.91%) Microsoft Exchange
2 46 (2.79%) SharePoint
3 27 (1.64%) Apache
4 25 (1.52%) Confluence
5 24 (1.46%) Skype for Business
6 15 (0.91%) Palantir Foundry
7 7 (0.42%) Apache Spark
8 5 (0.30%) Mattermost
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) OpenStack
11 1 (0.061%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 58 (3.52%) Microsoft Office
2 43 (2.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (1.27%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.36%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.12%) Lectora
Business Applications
1 21 (1.27%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.79%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 7 (0.42%) Maximo
5 4 (0.24%) Oracle Applications
5 4 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
5 4 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.24%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.24%) SAP EWM
6 3 (0.18%) SAP WM
7 2 (0.12%) Primavera
7 2 (0.12%) SAP GRC
8 1 (0.061%) Oracle Payroll
8 1 (0.061%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.061%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 153 (9.28%) AWS
2 133 (8.07%) Azure
3 53 (3.22%) Microsoft 365
4 50 (3.03%) GCP
5 48 (2.91%) GitHub
6 39 (2.37%) OpenShift
7 37 (2.25%) Serverless
8 34 (2.06%) IaaS
9 32 (1.94%) Azure DevOps
10 31 (1.88%) PaaS
11 29 (1.76%) GitHub Actions
12 20 (1.21%) Amazon S3
13 19 (1.15%) Entra ID
14 18 (1.09%) Amazon EC2
15 15 (0.91%) AWS CloudFormation
15 15 (0.91%) AWS Lambda
15 15 (0.91%) Power Platform
16 14 (0.85%) Azure AKS
16 14 (0.85%) Azure Sentinel
17 12 (0.73%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 120 (7.28%) Firewall
2 101 (6.13%) DNS
3 73 (4.43%) Network Security
4 58 (3.52%) LAN
5 55 (3.34%) WAN
6 51 (3.09%) VPN
7 44 (2.67%) DHCP
8 41 (2.49%) BGP
8 41 (2.49%) TCP/IP
9 30 (1.82%) OSPF
10 29 (1.76%) Junos
11 26 (1.58%) Skype
12 22 (1.33%) Cisco ISE
13 21 (1.27%) Cisco IOS
14 19 (1.15%) Ethernet VPN
15 18 (1.09%) MPLS
15 18 (1.09%) VLAN
15 18 (1.09%) VXLAN
16 16 (0.97%) SAN
17 15 (0.91%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
2 25 (1.52%) Elasticsearch
3 17 (1.03%) SQL Server
4 16 (0.97%) Big Data
5 14 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
5 14 (0.85%) Hadoop
5 14 (0.85%) Oracle Database
6 11 (0.67%) Power BI
6 11 (0.67%) Redis
7 10 (0.61%) Relational Database
8 9 (0.55%) MongoDB
9 8 (0.49%) Metadata
9 8 (0.49%) MySQL
10 7 (0.42%) InfluxDB
10 7 (0.42%) SAP HANA
11 4 (0.24%) Amazon Aurora
11 4 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (0.24%) DynamoDB
11 4 (0.24%) SAP Data Services
11 4 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 56 (3.40%) JIRA
2 29 (1.76%) GitLab
3 28 (1.70%) Git
4 27 (1.64%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.73%) Maven
6 11 (0.67%) Artifactory
7 10 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
8 9 (0.55%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.42%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.36%) Bitbucket
10 6 (0.36%) Robot Framework
11 4 (0.24%) Oracle APEX
11 4 (0.24%) Postman
11 4 (0.24%) Selenium
12 3 (0.18%) CircleCI
12 3 (0.18%) Gradle
12 3 (0.18%) JUnit
12 3 (0.18%) Snyk
12 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 3 (0.18%) webpack
General
1 301 (18.26%) Social Skills
2 198 (12.01%) Public Sector
3 125 (7.58%) Analytical Skills
4 77 (4.67%) Finance
5 66 (4.00%) Military
6 49 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (2.85%) Legal
8 27 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
9 24 (1.46%) Organisational Skills
10 23 (1.40%) Aerospace
10 23 (1.40%) Telecoms
11 17 (1.03%) Law
11 17 (1.03%) Manufacturing
12 16 (0.97%) Police
13 14 (0.85%) Marketing
14 13 (0.79%) Electronics
15 10 (0.61%) Banking
16 6 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 3 (0.18%) Influencing Skills
18 2 (0.12%) Multimedia
Job Titles
1 294 (17.84%) Architect
2 103 (6.25%) Analyst
3 101 (6.13%) Senior
4 83 (5.04%) Lead
5 81 (4.92%) Consultant
6 78 (4.73%) Network Engineer
7 71 (4.31%) Technical Architect
8 68 (4.13%) Developer
9 55 (3.34%) Tester
10 54 (3.28%) DevOps Engineer
11 52 (3.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 47 (2.85%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 47 (2.85%) SOC Analyst
13 46 (2.79%) Support Engineer
14 40 (2.43%) Security Architect
15 38 (2.31%) Project Manager
16 37 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
17 36 (2.18%) 3rd Line Engineer
17 36 (2.18%) Infrastructure Architect
18 32 (1.94%) Service Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (2.31%) REST
2 29 (1.76%) Apache NiFi
3 26 (1.58%) OAuth
4 21 (1.27%) React
5 20 (1.21%) OpenID
6 19 (1.15%) Kafka
6 19 (1.15%) OAuth2
6 19 (1.15%) SAML
7 15 (0.91%) 802.1X
7 15 (0.91%) Flask
7 15 (0.91%) Node.js
8 14 (0.85%) FastAPI
8 14 (0.85%) Web Services
9 13 (0.79%) Elastic Stack
9 13 (0.79%) LDAP
10 11 (0.67%) .NET
10 11 (0.67%) RabbitMQ
11 10 (0.61%) gRPC
11 10 (0.61%) Spring
11 10 (0.61%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 100 (6.07%) PKI
2 59 (3.58%) Data Centre
3 39 (2.37%) Security Operations Centre
4 38 (2.31%) Management Information System
5 26 (1.58%) Cloud Native
6 22 (1.33%) Clustering
6 22 (1.33%) Hybrid Cloud
7 20 (1.21%) Cyber Threat
7 20 (1.21%) Product Ownership
8 19 (1.15%) Cyberattack
9 18 (1.09%) Onboarding
10 17 (1.03%) Replication
11 16 (0.97%) Analytical Mindset
12 15 (0.91%) Private Cloud
13 13 (0.79%) Driving Licence
13 13 (0.79%) Insider Threat
14 12 (0.73%) Legacy Systems
15 11 (0.67%) CSOC
15 11 (0.67%) Cyber Defence
15 11 (0.67%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 243 (14.75%) Windows
2 167 (10.13%) Linux
3 73 (4.43%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.82%) Windows 10
5 26 (1.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.97%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.85%) Ubuntu
8 11 (0.67%) Mac OS
9 10 (0.61%) Android
10 7 (0.42%) CentOS
10 7 (0.42%) VMS
11 5 (0.30%) Unix
11 5 (0.30%) Windows Server 2003
12 4 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.18%) Debian
13 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.12%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.12%) Rocky
15 1 (0.061%) Embedded Linux
15 1 (0.061%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 273 (16.57%) Agile
2 210 (12.74%) Problem-Solving
3 150 (9.10%) Cybersecurity
4 149 (9.04%) DevOps
5 140 (8.50%) ITIL
6 130 (7.89%) CI/CD
7 119 (7.22%) Service Management
8 102 (6.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 101 (6.13%) Continuous Improvement
10 100 (6.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 91 (5.52%) ITSM
12 84 (5.10%) Stakeholder Management
13 74 (4.49%) Project Delivery
13 74 (4.49%) Risk Management
14 73 (4.43%) Infrastructure as Code
15 70 (4.25%) Containerisation
16 69 (4.19%) Incident Response
16 69 (4.19%) SIEM
17 64 (3.88%) Project Management
18 63 (3.82%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 145 (8.80%) Python
2 118 (7.16%) PowerShell
3 57 (3.46%) SQL
4 46 (2.79%) Java
5 29 (1.76%) JavaScript
6 22 (1.33%) Bash
7 20 (1.21%) TypeScript
8 18 (1.09%) Go
9 17 (1.03%) C#
10 15 (0.91%) Shell Script
11 10 (0.61%) C++
12 8 (0.49%) Bicep
12 8 (0.49%) VB
13 7 (0.42%) VBScript
14 6 (0.36%) ABAP
14 6 (0.36%) Rust
15 5 (0.30%) C
15 5 (0.30%) PL/SQL
16 4 (0.24%) PHP
17 3 (0.18%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 1,648 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 525 (31.86%) SC Cleared
3 57 (3.46%) Degree
4 56 (3.40%) CISSP
5 47 (2.85%) Cisco Certification
6 36 (2.18%) CISM
7 31 (1.88%) Microsoft Certification
8 26 (1.58%) CompTIA Security+
9 24 (1.46%) CCNP
10 20 (1.21%) CESG Certified Professional
11 19 (1.15%) AWS Certification
11 19 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
12 18 (1.09%) CCNA
12 18 (1.09%) GIAC
13 17 (1.03%) BPSS Clearance
14 15 (0.91%) CompTIA CySA+
14 15 (0.91%) CTC Cleared
15 14 (0.85%) Azure Certification
15 14 (0.85%) JNCIS
16 10 (0.61%) CHECK Team Leader
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 79 (4.79%) NIST
2 64 (3.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 51 (3.09%) NCSC
4 42 (2.55%) QA
5 36 (2.18%) PMO
6 32 (1.94%) JSP 440
7 21 (1.27%) GRC
8 16 (0.97%) GDPR
9 15 (0.91%) Data Quality
9 15 (0.91%) NIST 800
10 13 (0.79%) SLA
11 12 (0.73%) RMADS
12 9 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
12 9 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 6 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 6 (0.36%) P3O
14 5 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 3 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
15 3 (0.18%) EU AI Act
15 3 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 117 (7.10%) Active Directory
2 91 (5.52%) Docker
3 73 (4.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (2.55%) VMware NSX
5 28 (1.70%) VMware ESXi
6 16 (0.97%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.91%) vSphere
8 12 (0.73%) BitLocker
9 9 (0.55%) vCloud
10 8 (0.49%) Firmware
11 6 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
12 5 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
13 4 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
14 3 (0.18%) GPFS
14 3 (0.18%) Lustre
14 3 (0.18%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 2 (0.12%) NFS
15 2 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
16 1 (0.061%) UAG
Systems Management
1 140 (8.50%) Kubernetes
2 109 (6.61%) Terraform
3 75 (4.55%) Ansible
4 46 (2.79%) vCenter Server
5 35 (2.12%) Grafana
5 35 (2.12%) Single Sign-On
6 32 (1.94%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 29 (1.76%) Prometheus
7 29 (1.76%) SCCM
8 17 (1.03%) FortiGate
9 14 (0.85%) WMI
10 13 (0.79%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.79%) Puppet
11 10 (0.61%) Podman
11 10 (0.61%) SCOM
12 9 (0.55%) VxRail
13 7 (0.42%) Argo
13 7 (0.42%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 7 (0.42%) Nessus
13 7 (0.42%) NetIQ Identity Manager
Vendors
1 219 (13.29%) Microsoft
2 151 (9.16%) VMware
3 104 (6.31%) Cisco
4 57 (3.46%) Splunk
5 55 (3.34%) Juniper
6 45 (2.73%) Oracle
6 45 (2.73%) ServiceNow
7 40 (2.43%) Red Hat
7 40 (2.43%) SAP
8 38 (2.31%) NetApp
9 29 (1.76%) SolarWinds
10 24 (1.46%) F5
11 23 (1.40%) Remedy
12 22 (1.33%) Fortinet
13 21 (1.27%) Dell
14 20 (1.21%) Palantir
14 20 (1.21%) Palo Alto
15 15 (0.91%) Foundry
15 15 (0.91%) Google
15 15 (0.91%) Sparx