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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 76 36
Rank change year-on-year +26 -40 +17
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,179 1,004 1,923
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.07% 3.09% 4.98%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.96% 9.87% 16.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,653 703 1,333
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £515 £519 £510
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £595 £600
Median % change year-on-year +0.84% -0.83% +4.35%
75th Percentile £700 £663 £688
90th Percentile £763 £723 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £588
% change year-on-year +3.45% -1.28% +3.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 39 94
10th Percentile £35.00 - £50.38
25th Percentile £54.50 £25.15 £60.00
Median hourly rate £74.00 £50.00 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +48.00% -28.97% +0.56%
75th Percentile £92.53 £81.18 £80.00
90th Percentile £98.82 £87.30 £89.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.16 £79.35 £70.39
% change year-on-year -6.54% +12.73% -2.77%

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 16,812 10,171 11,483
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.37% 31.27% 29.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,258 6,292 7,204
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 £626 £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 1,264 819 732
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.98 £15.11
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £48.77 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +93.90% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £87.00 £71.66 £76.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -

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 2 September 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 2 September 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 2 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 +24 2,046 £600 +1.65% 1,030
UK excluding London +12 1,556 £600 +3.45% 853
South East +4 881 £600 - 267
London +48 469 £600 -4.00% 259
South West +3 428 £589 -1.88% 286
Work from Home +42 334 £569 -3.60% 547
East of England +12 94 £663 +20.45% 158
North of England -22 65 £775 +34.78% 80
Midlands -71 47 £600 - 24
North West -12 44 £863 +72.50% 64
West Midlands -69 41 £600 - 14
Scotland -1 36 £669 +27.33% 59
Yorkshire -25 16 £518 -17.20% 10
East Midlands - 6 £625 - 10
Northern Ireland +6 5 £638 -8.93% 3
North East -41 5 £463 -26.00% 9
Wales -14 4 - - 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 66 (3.03%) Confluence
2 47 (2.16%) SharePoint
3 37 (1.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.46%) Apache
5 7 (0.32%) Documentum
6 6 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.28%) CMS
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%) Camunda
9 2 (0.092%) Mule
9 2 (0.092%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.092%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.092%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.046%) JBoss
10 1 (0.046%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 56 (2.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (2.07%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.96%) Microsoft Office
5 15 (0.69%) AutoCAD
5 15 (0.69%) Revit
5 15 (0.69%) SOLIDWORKS
6 9 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.23%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.28%) Oracle ERP
3 22 (1.01%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.83%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.64%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.18%) Primavera
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.14%) SAP PP
10 2 (0.092%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.046%) Oracle Assets
11 1 (0.046%) SAP CCM
11 1 (0.046%) SAP FI-GL
11 1 (0.046%) SAP GRC
11 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 292 (13.40%) Azure
2 280 (12.85%) AWS
3 106 (4.86%) GCP
4 56 (2.57%) Azure DevOps
5 47 (2.16%) GitHub
5 47 (2.16%) Microsoft 365
6 40 (1.84%) Entra ID
6 40 (1.84%) GitHub Actions
7 37 (1.70%) Power Platform
7 37 (1.70%) Serverless
8 33 (1.51%) OCI
9 28 (1.28%) IaaS
10 26 (1.19%) AWS Lambda
11 25 (1.15%) PaaS
12 23 (1.06%) Amazon EKS
13 22 (1.01%) OpenShift
14 21 (0.96%) Amazon ECS
15 19 (0.87%) Amazon S3
15 19 (0.87%) SaaS
16 17 (0.78%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 162 (7.43%) DNS
2 120 (5.51%) Firewall
3 79 (3.63%) DHCP
4 66 (3.03%) Network Security
5 62 (2.85%) WAN
6 55 (2.52%) VPN
7 54 (2.48%) TCP/IP
8 53 (2.43%) LAN
9 48 (2.20%) BGP
10 41 (1.88%) VSAN
11 34 (1.56%) MPLS
12 33 (1.51%) IPsec
13 28 (1.28%) VLAN
14 18 (0.83%) SSL
15 16 (0.73%) Cisco ASA
15 16 (0.73%) OSPF
15 16 (0.73%) SAN
16 15 (0.69%) Cisco Firepower
16 15 (0.69%) SD-WAN
17 14 (0.64%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (2.48%) SQL Server
2 42 (1.93%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.47%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.01%) Power BI
5 18 (0.83%) Metadata
5 18 (0.83%) MongoDB
6 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
6 16 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
7 15 (0.69%) Data Warehouse
8 12 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
9 11 (0.50%) Relational Database
10 9 (0.41%) NoSQL
10 9 (0.41%) Oracle Database 11g
11 8 (0.37%) BigQuery
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
12 7 (0.32%) MariaDB
12 7 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
13 6 (0.28%) Big Data
14 5 (0.23%) Redis
Development Applications
1 104 (4.77%) JIRA
2 70 (3.21%) GitLab
3 60 (2.75%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.62%) Git
5 21 (0.96%) Selenium
6 15 (0.69%) Cypress.io
7 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
7 7 (0.32%) MSI
7 7 (0.32%) Postman
7 7 (0.32%) REST Assured
7 7 (0.32%) Visual Studio
8 6 (0.28%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.28%) SpecFlow
9 5 (0.23%) Artifactory
9 5 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.18%) Gatling
10 4 (0.18%) JMeter
10 4 (0.18%) JUnit
11 3 (0.14%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 452 (20.74%) Social Skills
2 280 (12.85%) Public Sector
3 158 (7.25%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (6.29%) Finance
5 62 (2.85%) Documentation Skills
5 62 (2.85%) Military
6 42 (1.93%) Organisational Skills
7 40 (1.84%) Legal
8 33 (1.51%) Law
9 32 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
9 32 (1.47%) Police
10 29 (1.33%) Telecoms
11 27 (1.24%) Manufacturing
12 23 (1.06%) Aerospace
13 13 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (0.41%) 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
1 349 (16.02%) Architect
2 241 (11.06%) Lead
3 194 (8.90%) Senior
4 152 (6.98%) Consultant
5 150 (6.88%) Developer
5 150 (6.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 135 (6.20%) Analyst
7 90 (4.13%) Security Architect
8 79 (3.63%) Network Engineer
9 72 (3.30%) SOC Analyst
10 68 (3.12%) Cloud Engineer
11 60 (2.75%) Technical Architect
12 59 (2.71%) Project Manager
13 56 (2.57%) Support Engineer
14 54 (2.48%) DevOps Engineer
15 51 (2.34%) DBA
16 45 (2.07%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 41 (1.88%) DV Cleared Project Manager
17 41 (1.88%) Lead Architect
18 40 (1.84%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 192 (8.81%) Terraform
2 75 (3.44%) REST
3 29 (1.33%) Elastic Stack
4 28 (1.28%) React
5 26 (1.19%) SOAP
6 21 (0.96%) RESTful
7 19 (0.87%) LDAP
8 18 (0.83%) Kafka
9 17 (0.78%) Node.js
10 15 (0.69%) .NET
11 14 (0.64%) AngularJS
11 14 (0.64%) Spring
11 14 (0.64%) Spring Boot
12 12 (0.55%) ARM Templates
12 12 (0.55%) FastAPI
12 12 (0.55%) Flask
12 12 (0.55%) OAuth
12 12 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
12 12 (0.55%) XML
13 11 (0.50%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 101 (4.64%) Cloud Native
2 98 (4.50%) PKI
3 96 (4.41%) Data Centre
4 75 (3.44%) Onboarding
5 44 (2.02%) Security Operations Centre
6 40 (1.84%) Private Cloud
7 37 (1.70%) Hybrid Cloud
7 37 (1.70%) Management Information System
8 36 (1.65%) Product Ownership
9 29 (1.33%) Cyber Threat
9 29 (1.33%) Public Cloud
10 27 (1.24%) Security Posture
11 25 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
12 22 (1.01%) Clustering
12 22 (1.01%) CMDB
13 18 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
14 17 (0.78%) Virtual Team
15 14 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
15 14 (0.64%) Replication
16 12 (0.55%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 356 (16.34%) Windows
2 245 (11.24%) Linux
3 170 (7.80%) Windows Server
4 37 (1.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 30 (1.38%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.15%) Windows Server 2019
7 20 (0.92%) Unix
8 16 (0.73%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.60%) CentOS
10 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
11 8 (0.37%) Mac OS
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
13 6 (0.28%) Android
14 5 (0.23%) Data ONTAP
14 5 (0.23%) Debian
14 5 (0.23%) VMS
14 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
14 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.18%) Rocky
15 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 373 (17.12%) Agile
2 256 (11.75%) Continuous Improvement
3 253 (11.61%) Stakeholder Management
4 237 (10.88%) CI/CD
5 225 (10.33%) Cybersecurity
6 212 (9.73%) Problem-Solving
7 207 (9.50%) DevOps
8 200 (9.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 192 (8.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 182 (8.35%) Technical Leadership
11 180 (8.26%) Infrastructure as Code
11 180 (8.26%) ITIL
12 146 (6.70%) Service Management
13 136 (6.24%) ITSM
14 128 (5.87%) Containerisation
15 121 (5.55%) Risk Management
16 118 (5.42%) Project Delivery
17 117 (5.37%) Decision-Making
18 115 (5.28%) SIEM
19 106 (4.86%) AI
Programming Languages
1 223 (10.23%) Python
2 178 (8.17%) PowerShell
3 126 (5.78%) SQL
4 91 (4.18%) Bash
5 66 (3.03%) Java
6 38 (1.74%) JavaScript
7 35 (1.61%) C#
8 26 (1.19%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.83%) Bicep
10 16 (0.73%) Go
11 15 (0.69%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.64%) Search Processing Language
13 13 (0.60%) C++
14 11 (0.50%) C
14 11 (0.50%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.32%) Groovy
16 6 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
16 6 (0.28%) Perl
16 6 (0.28%) X++
17 5 (0.23%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 2,179 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 710 (32.58%) SC Cleared
3 76 (3.49%) Degree
4 71 (3.26%) CISSP
5 46 (2.11%) CISM
6 36 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.33%) Microsoft Certification
8 27 (1.24%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 24 (1.10%) VCAP
10 21 (0.96%) ISTQB
10 21 (0.96%) PMI Certification
11 20 (0.92%) AWS Certification
12 19 (0.87%) PMP
13 17 (0.78%) CCNP
13 17 (0.78%) TOGAF Certification
14 15 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
14 15 (0.69%) MCSE
15 14 (0.64%) Azure Certification
16 12 (0.55%) CompTIA Security+
17 11 (0.50%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.99%) NCSC
2 84 (3.85%) NIST
3 82 (3.76%) PMO
4 69 (3.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 58 (2.66%) QA
6 40 (1.84%) JSP 440
7 32 (1.47%) GDPR
8 30 (1.38%) SLA
9 24 (1.10%) Data Quality
10 20 (0.92%) GRC
11 17 (0.78%) Accessibility
12 16 (0.73%) Government Security Classifications
12 16 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 15 (0.69%) RMADS
14 11 (0.50%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 10 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.37%) NIST 800
16 8 (0.37%) WCAG
17 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
18 6 (0.28%) Def Stans
System Software
1 212 (9.73%) Active Directory
2 195 (8.95%) VMware Infrastructure
3 124 (5.69%) Docker
4 93 (4.27%) VMware NSX
5 78 (3.58%) VMware ESXi
6 62 (2.85%) Hyper-V
7 52 (2.39%) vSphere
8 27 (1.24%) vCloud
9 16 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
10 13 (0.60%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.41%) NFS
12 8 (0.37%) Firmware
12 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
13 6 (0.28%) BitLocker
13 6 (0.28%) Microsoft App-V
14 5 (0.23%) Ceph
15 4 (0.18%) KVM
15 4 (0.18%) Squid
15 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.14%) UAG
Systems Management
1 203 (9.32%) Kubernetes
2 142 (6.52%) Ansible
3 87 (3.99%) vCenter Server
4 55 (2.52%) SCOM
5 34 (1.56%) SCCM
6 26 (1.19%) Prometheus
7 24 (1.10%) Grafana
8 22 (1.01%) Puppet
9 17 (0.78%) Nagios
10 16 (0.73%) Oracle RMAN
11 15 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
11 15 (0.69%) Podman
11 15 (0.69%) VxRail
12 14 (0.64%) Avamar
12 14 (0.64%) Data Guard
13 13 (0.60%) WMI
13 13 (0.60%) WSUS
14 12 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 12 (0.55%) Istio
15 11 (0.50%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 284 (13.03%) Microsoft
2 279 (12.80%) VMware
3 112 (5.14%) Oracle
4 103 (4.73%) ServiceNow
5 81 (3.72%) Cisco
6 62 (2.85%) SAP
7 60 (2.75%) Splunk
8 56 (2.57%) Google
9 40 (1.84%) SolarWinds
10 35 (1.61%) Red Hat
11 32 (1.47%) CyberArk
12 30 (1.38%) Juniper
13 24 (1.10%) Palo Alto
13 24 (1.10%) Remedy
14 23 (1.06%) Dell
15 22 (1.01%) Citrix
16 21 (0.96%) NetApp
17 20 (0.92%) BMC
18 18 (0.83%) Sparx
19 17 (0.78%) Thales