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 27 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 83 31
Rank change year-on-year +30 -52 +35
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,843 864 2,417
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.94% 2.94% 5.55%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.12% 9.59% 18.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,337 600 1,736
10th Percentile £416 £425 £413
25th Percentile £513 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £590 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +0.43% -2.08% -
75th Percentile £688 £658 £688
90th Percentile £750 £713 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £588 £598
% change year-on-year +2.13% -1.76% -0.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 25 113
10th Percentile £16.49 £45.50 £51.30
25th Percentile £35.00 £60.75 £57.33
Median hourly rate £55.50 £78.70 £67.81
Median % change year-on-year -29.48% +16.06% -3.13%
75th Percentile £76.75 £82.10 £85.00
90th Percentile £90.80 £88.32 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.50 £80.68 £68.67
% change year-on-year -31.21% +17.49% -8.19%

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 15,209 9,010 13,366
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.48% 30.68% 30.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,131 5,699 8,226
10th Percentile £350 £290 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £709 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £507 £530
% change year-on-year -1.43% -4.30% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,098 514 1,074
10th Percentile £16.46 £18.20 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £17.88
Median hourly rate £47.50 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.76% +6.25% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.07 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £45.01 £40.31
% change year-on-year +5.54% +11.65% -19.18%

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 27 April 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 27 April 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 27 April 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 +23 1,696 £581 -1.19% 365
UK excluding London +10 1,330 £600 +2.13% 324
South East +9 728 £600 +2.13% 155
London +39 365 £575 -4.17% 63
South West -3 319 £550 -8.33% 84
Work from Home +40 242 £560 -2.61% 106
North of England +4 90 £690 +236.59% 23
East of England +9 87 £650 +18.18% 46
North West +18 74 £760 +270.73% 16
Midlands -28 63 £563 -19.64% 24
West Midlands -40 47 £569 -18.75% 24
Scotland +37 41 £661 +20.14%
East Midlands -24 16 £550 -
Yorkshire -50 14 £538 -14.00% 6
Wales -5 4 - - 4
Northern Ireland - 4 £625 -
North East -19 2 £675 +22.73% 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 38 (2.06%) Microsoft Exchange
2 28 (1.52%) Confluence
3 24 (1.30%) SharePoint
4 15 (0.81%) Apache
5 9 (0.49%) Apache Spark
5 9 (0.49%) Skype for Business
6 8 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
7 6 (0.33%) Mattermost
8 4 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.11%) nginx
10 1 (0.054%) OpenStack
Applications
1 50 (2.71%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (1.09%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.27%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.22%) AutoCAD
7 4 (0.22%) Revit
7 4 (0.22%) SOLIDWORKS
8 2 (0.11%) Lectora
8 2 (0.11%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 31 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.36%) Remedy ITSM
3 17 (0.92%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 6 (0.33%) Maximo
4 6 (0.33%) SAP EWM
5 4 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
5 4 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.22%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.16%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.11%) Primavera
7 2 (0.11%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.11%) SAP WM
8 1 (0.054%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.054%) SAP CCM
8 1 (0.054%) SAP FI-GL
8 1 (0.054%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.054%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 179 (9.71%) AWS
2 142 (7.70%) Azure
3 52 (2.82%) GCP
4 46 (2.50%) IaaS
5 43 (2.33%) PaaS
6 39 (2.12%) GitHub
7 35 (1.90%) Azure DevOps
8 33 (1.79%) Microsoft 365
9 30 (1.63%) OpenShift
10 29 (1.57%) Serverless
11 26 (1.41%) GitHub Actions
12 18 (0.98%) Amazon S3
13 16 (0.87%) Amazon EC2
14 15 (0.81%) OCI
15 14 (0.76%) AWS Lambda
15 14 (0.76%) Power Platform
16 12 (0.65%) Amazon EKS
16 12 (0.65%) Azure AKS
16 12 (0.65%) Entra ID
17 11 (0.60%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 116 (6.29%) Firewall
2 98 (5.32%) DNS
3 72 (3.91%) Network Security
4 62 (3.36%) LAN
4 62 (3.36%) WAN
5 55 (2.98%) VPN
6 41 (2.22%) BGP
6 41 (2.22%) DHCP
7 31 (1.68%) OSPF
8 25 (1.36%) TCP/IP
9 22 (1.19%) Junos
10 20 (1.09%) VSAN
11 19 (1.03%) SAN
12 18 (0.98%) Ethernet VPN
13 17 (0.92%) Cisco ISE
13 17 (0.92%) MPLS
13 17 (0.92%) VLAN
13 17 (0.92%) VXLAN
14 16 (0.87%) BIG-IP
15 15 (0.81%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
2 24 (1.30%) SQL Server
3 23 (1.25%) Elasticsearch
4 15 (0.81%) Amazon RDS
4 15 (0.81%) Oracle Database
5 14 (0.76%) MongoDB
6 11 (0.60%) Power BI
7 10 (0.54%) Hadoop
8 9 (0.49%) Big Data
8 9 (0.49%) MySQL
9 8 (0.43%) Relational Database
10 7 (0.38%) InfluxDB
10 7 (0.38%) Metadata
10 7 (0.38%) Redis
10 7 (0.38%) SAP HANA
11 6 (0.33%) MariaDB
11 6 (0.33%) NoSQL
12 5 (0.27%) Data Warehouse
12 5 (0.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 69 (3.74%) JIRA
2 25 (1.36%) GitLab
3 24 (1.30%) Git
4 23 (1.25%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.49%) Maven
6 8 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (0.38%) Cypress.io
8 6 (0.33%) Artifactory
8 6 (0.33%) Robot Framework
9 4 (0.22%) Oracle APEX
10 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.16%) MLflow
10 3 (0.16%) Selenium
10 3 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 2 (0.11%) ERwin
11 2 (0.11%) MSI
11 2 (0.11%) Postman
11 2 (0.11%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.11%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.054%) TestDirector
General
1 294 (15.95%) Social Skills
2 209 (11.34%) Public Sector
3 114 (6.19%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (4.40%) Finance
5 63 (3.42%) Military
6 53 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (2.50%) Legal
8 30 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
9 25 (1.36%) Telecoms
10 23 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
11 21 (1.14%) Police
12 20 (1.09%) Aerospace
13 19 (1.03%) Law
14 16 (0.87%) Manufacturing
15 9 (0.49%) Banking
15 9 (0.49%) Electronics
15 9 (0.49%) Marketing
16 6 (0.33%) Influencing Skills
17 5 (0.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 3 (0.16%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 331 (17.96%) Architect
2 136 (7.38%) Lead
3 134 (7.27%) Senior
4 108 (5.86%) Analyst
5 98 (5.32%) Consultant
6 96 (5.21%) Network Engineer
7 88 (4.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 87 (4.72%) Technical Architect
9 78 (4.23%) Developer
10 58 (3.15%) SOC Analyst
10 58 (3.15%) Tester
11 57 (3.09%) Project Manager
12 56 (3.04%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 56 (3.04%) Security Architect
13 51 (2.77%) DevOps Engineer
14 43 (2.33%) Software Engineer
15 39 (2.12%) DV Cleared Project Manager
16 38 (2.06%) Designer
17 35 (1.90%) Service Manager
18 34 (1.84%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (1.84%) REST
2 27 (1.47%) React
3 19 (1.03%) Node.js
4 18 (0.98%) Elastic Stack
5 17 (0.92%) Apache NiFi
6 16 (0.87%) 802.1X
7 15 (0.81%) Kafka
8 14 (0.76%) Web Services
9 13 (0.71%) .NET
9 13 (0.71%) AngularJS
9 13 (0.71%) LDAP
9 13 (0.71%) OAuth
10 12 (0.65%) ModSecurity
11 10 (0.54%) Flask
11 10 (0.54%) PyTorch
11 10 (0.54%) RESTful
11 10 (0.54%) SailPoint
11 10 (0.54%) SOAP
11 10 (0.54%) Spring
12 9 (0.49%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 96 (5.21%) PKI
2 68 (3.69%) Data Centre
3 49 (2.66%) Security Operations Centre
4 35 (1.90%) Cloud Native
5 32 (1.74%) Onboarding
6 29 (1.57%) Clustering
6 29 (1.57%) Management Information System
7 23 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
7 23 (1.25%) Product Ownership
8 20 (1.09%) Cyberattack
9 19 (1.03%) Public Cloud
10 18 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
10 18 (0.98%) Cyber Threat
11 16 (0.87%) Greenfield Project
11 16 (0.87%) Replication
11 16 (0.87%) Security Posture
12 14 (0.76%) Driving Licence
12 14 (0.76%) Enterprise Storage
12 14 (0.76%) Legacy Systems
13 13 (0.71%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 254 (13.78%) Windows
2 205 (11.12%) Linux
3 81 (4.40%) Windows Server
4 27 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 27 (1.47%) Windows 10
5 13 (0.71%) Ubuntu
6 12 (0.65%) Windows 7
7 10 (0.54%) Android
7 10 (0.54%) Mac OS
8 9 (0.49%) Unix
9 7 (0.38%) VMS
9 7 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
10 6 (0.33%) CentOS
11 5 (0.27%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.27%) Debian
11 5 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
14 2 (0.11%) AIX
14 2 (0.11%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 301 (16.33%) Agile
2 188 (10.20%) Problem-Solving
3 153 (8.30%) ITIL
4 149 (8.08%) DevOps
5 140 (7.60%) CI/CD
6 135 (7.33%) Cybersecurity
7 130 (7.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 121 (6.57%) Service Management
9 115 (6.24%) Stakeholder Management
10 114 (6.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 111 (6.02%) Continuous Improvement
12 92 (4.99%) ITSM
13 86 (4.67%) Infrastructure as Code
14 84 (4.56%) Decision-Making
14 84 (4.56%) Project Delivery
15 79 (4.29%) Risk Management
16 73 (3.96%) SIEM
17 72 (3.91%) Project Management
17 72 (3.91%) Roadmaps
18 71 (3.85%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 138 (7.49%) Python
2 107 (5.81%) PowerShell
3 58 (3.15%) SQL
4 46 (2.50%) Java
5 34 (1.84%) Bash
6 33 (1.79%) JavaScript
7 24 (1.30%) TypeScript
8 22 (1.19%) C#
9 15 (0.81%) Go
10 14 (0.76%) Shell Script
11 11 (0.60%) Bicep
12 9 (0.49%) C
12 9 (0.49%) C++
12 9 (0.49%) PL/SQL
13 8 (0.43%) VB
14 7 (0.38%) VBScript
15 6 (0.33%) Embedded C
15 6 (0.33%) Rust
16 5 (0.27%) ABAP
16 5 (0.27%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 1,843 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 582 (31.58%) SC Cleared
3 56 (3.04%) Degree
4 52 (2.82%) CISSP
5 48 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
6 38 (2.06%) CISM
7 26 (1.41%) CompTIA Security+
7 26 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
8 24 (1.30%) CCNA
9 22 (1.19%) CCNP
10 19 (1.03%) CESG Certified Professional
11 18 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
12 17 (0.92%) AWS Certification
12 17 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
12 17 (0.92%) GIAC
13 13 (0.71%) CompTIA CySA+
13 13 (0.71%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 12 (0.65%) Azure Certification
14 12 (0.65%) CEH
14 12 (0.65%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 79 (4.29%) NIST
2 60 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 51 (2.77%) PMO
4 48 (2.60%) NCSC
5 41 (2.22%) QA
6 36 (1.95%) JSP 440
7 23 (1.25%) GRC
8 20 (1.09%) RMADS
9 17 (0.92%) SLA
10 11 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
10 11 (0.60%) GDPR
10 11 (0.60%) NIST 800
11 10 (0.54%) Data Quality
12 9 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 7 (0.38%) Accessibility
14 5 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
15 4 (0.22%) Def Stans
15 4 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 4 (0.22%) P3O
15 4 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 120 (6.51%) Active Directory
2 106 (5.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 92 (4.99%) Docker
4 54 (2.93%) VMware NSX
5 43 (2.33%) VMware ESXi
6 34 (1.84%) Hyper-V
7 22 (1.19%) vSphere
8 15 (0.81%) BitLocker
9 12 (0.65%) vCloud
10 11 (0.60%) Firmware
11 8 (0.43%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
14 4 (0.22%) UAG
14 4 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
15 3 (0.16%) Ceph
15 3 (0.16%) GPFS
15 3 (0.16%) Lustre
15 3 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 2 (0.11%) Squid
Systems Management
1 135 (7.33%) Kubernetes
2 118 (6.40%) Terraform
3 80 (4.34%) Ansible
4 55 (2.98%) vCenter Server
5 39 (2.12%) SCCM
6 26 (1.41%) Grafana
7 25 (1.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 25 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
8 21 (1.14%) Prometheus
9 15 (0.81%) FortiGate
9 15 (0.81%) Puppet
10 13 (0.71%) SCOM
11 12 (0.65%) Progress Chef
12 11 (0.60%) Nessus
13 10 (0.54%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 10 (0.54%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 10 (0.54%) Podman
13 10 (0.54%) WMI
14 8 (0.43%) vMotion
14 8 (0.43%) VxRail
Vendors
1 196 (10.63%) Microsoft
2 195 (10.58%) VMware
3 109 (5.91%) Cisco
4 62 (3.36%) Splunk
5 60 (3.26%) ServiceNow
6 57 (3.09%) SAP
7 50 (2.71%) NetApp
8 49 (2.66%) Juniper
9 46 (2.50%) Oracle
10 38 (2.06%) Red Hat
11 27 (1.47%) F5
12 26 (1.41%) Remedy
13 25 (1.36%) SolarWinds
14 23 (1.25%) Dell
14 23 (1.25%) Fortinet
15 20 (1.09%) Palo Alto
16 18 (0.98%) Sparx
17 17 (0.92%) Citrix
17 17 (0.92%) Google
18 15 (0.81%) Veeam