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

6 months to
22 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 83 31
Rank change year-on-year +28 -52 +41
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,826 880 2,390
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.94% 2.99% 5.50%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.04% 9.72% 17.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,320 609 1,718
10th Percentile £413 £425 £411
25th Percentile £512 £513 £510
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £595 £586 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -2.33% -
75th Percentile £688 £656 £688
90th Percentile £750 £710 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £588 £599
% change year-on-year +2.13% -1.92% -0.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 24 111
10th Percentile £16.42 £44.75 £51.25
25th Percentile £32.54 £60.75 £57.33
Median hourly rate £56.25 £76.85 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.81% +13.85% -3.57%
75th Percentile £76.94 £82.32 £85.00
90th Percentile £91.03 £88.46 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.25 £80.68 £67.81
% change year-on-year -30.28% +18.97% -9.59%

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 15,170 9,055 13,366
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.72% 30.73% 30.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,096 5,746 8,247
10th Percentile £345 £295 £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 £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £709 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £530
% change year-on-year -1.96% -3.77% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,105 506 1,053
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.29 £13.85
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.50 £17.80
Median hourly rate £45.46 £42.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.34% +6.88% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.94 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.15 £81.01 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £46.90 £40.00
% change year-on-year -3.07% +17.25% -20.00%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 +17 1,680 £582 -1.02% 430
UK excluding London +12 1,318 £600 +2.13% 351
South East +10 723 £600 +2.56% 144
London +37 360 £575 -1.88% 101
South West -3 314 £550 -8.33% 109
Work from Home +34 236 £560 -2.61% 146
North of England -2 90 £690 +236.59% 42
East of England +9 86 £650 +18.18% 37
North West +15 74 £760 +270.73% 31
Midlands -30 63 £563 -19.64% 24
West Midlands -35 47 £569 -18.75% 24
Scotland +23 40 £653 +24.38% 1
East Midlands -22 16 £550 -
Yorkshire -42 14 £538 -14.00% 8
Northern Ireland - 6 £600 -
Wales -6 2 - - 3
North East -20 2 £675 +22.73% 3

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 39 (2.14%) Microsoft Exchange
2 25 (1.37%) Confluence
3 24 (1.31%) SharePoint
4 15 (0.82%) Apache
5 10 (0.55%) Skype for Business
6 8 (0.44%) Apache Spark
6 8 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
7 5 (0.27%) Mattermost
8 4 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.16%) Apache Airflow
10 2 (0.11%) nginx
11 1 (0.055%) OpenStack
Applications
1 52 (2.85%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (1.15%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.27%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.11%) Lectora
7 2 (0.11%) Revit
7 2 (0.11%) Simulink
7 2 (0.11%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 30 (1.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.31%) Remedy ITSM
3 17 (0.93%) 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 (0.055%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.055%) SAP CCM
8 1 (0.055%) SAP FI-GL
8 1 (0.055%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.055%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 181 (9.91%) AWS
2 140 (7.67%) Azure
3 50 (2.74%) GCP
4 46 (2.52%) IaaS
5 43 (2.35%) PaaS
6 40 (2.19%) GitHub
7 35 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
8 33 (1.81%) Azure DevOps
9 31 (1.70%) OpenShift
10 29 (1.59%) Serverless
11 27 (1.48%) GitHub Actions
12 19 (1.04%) Amazon S3
13 16 (0.88%) Amazon EC2
14 15 (0.82%) OCI
15 14 (0.77%) AWS Lambda
16 12 (0.66%) Amazon EKS
16 12 (0.66%) Azure AKS
16 12 (0.66%) Entra ID
16 12 (0.66%) Power Platform
17 11 (0.60%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 116 (6.35%) Firewall
2 98 (5.37%) DNS
3 71 (3.89%) Network Security
4 62 (3.40%) LAN
5 61 (3.34%) WAN
6 54 (2.96%) VPN
7 41 (2.25%) BGP
7 41 (2.25%) DHCP
8 31 (1.70%) OSPF
9 26 (1.42%) TCP/IP
10 23 (1.26%) Junos
11 19 (1.04%) SAN
11 19 (1.04%) VSAN
12 18 (0.99%) Cisco ISE
12 18 (0.99%) Ethernet VPN
13 17 (0.93%) MPLS
13 17 (0.93%) VLAN
13 17 (0.93%) VXLAN
14 16 (0.88%) BIG-IP
14 16 (0.88%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (1.64%) PostgreSQL
2 23 (1.26%) Elasticsearch
2 23 (1.26%) SQL Server
3 16 (0.88%) Oracle Database
4 15 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
5 14 (0.77%) MongoDB
6 10 (0.55%) Hadoop
6 10 (0.55%) Power BI
7 9 (0.49%) Big Data
7 9 (0.49%) MySQL
8 8 (0.44%) Relational Database
9 7 (0.38%) InfluxDB
9 7 (0.38%) Redis
9 7 (0.38%) SAP HANA
10 6 (0.33%) MariaDB
10 6 (0.33%) Metadata
11 5 (0.27%) NoSQL
11 5 (0.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 4 (0.22%) SAP Data Services
12 4 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 64 (3.50%) JIRA
2 26 (1.42%) Git
3 25 (1.37%) GitLab
4 24 (1.31%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.49%) Maven
6 8 (0.44%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.33%) Artifactory
7 6 (0.33%) Robot Framework
8 4 (0.22%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.22%) Oracle APEX
9 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.16%) MLflow
9 3 (0.16%) Selenium
9 3 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 2 (0.11%) ERwin
10 2 (0.11%) MSI
10 2 (0.11%) Postman
10 2 (0.11%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.055%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.055%) JUnit
General
1 295 (16.16%) Social Skills
2 204 (11.17%) Public Sector
3 116 (6.35%) Analytical Skills
4 82 (4.49%) Finance
5 63 (3.45%) Military
6 54 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (2.57%) Legal
8 30 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
9 26 (1.42%) Telecoms
10 24 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
11 21 (1.15%) Aerospace
11 21 (1.15%) Police
12 19 (1.04%) Law
13 16 (0.88%) Manufacturing
14 11 (0.60%) Electronics
14 11 (0.60%) Marketing
15 9 (0.49%) Banking
16 6 (0.33%) Influencing Skills
17 5 (0.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 3 (0.16%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 329 (18.02%) Architect
2 130 (7.12%) Lead
2 130 (7.12%) Senior
3 106 (5.81%) Analyst
4 95 (5.20%) Consultant
5 93 (5.09%) Network Engineer
6 86 (4.71%) Technical Architect
7 85 (4.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 76 (4.16%) Developer
9 58 (3.18%) SOC Analyst
10 57 (3.12%) Tester
11 55 (3.01%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 54 (2.96%) Project Manager
13 53 (2.90%) Security Architect
14 51 (2.79%) DevOps Engineer
15 43 (2.35%) Software Engineer
16 38 (2.08%) DV Cleared Project Manager
17 36 (1.97%) Designer
18 35 (1.92%) 3rd Line Engineer
18 35 (1.92%) Service Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (1.81%) REST
2 24 (1.31%) React
3 19 (1.04%) Node.js
4 18 (0.99%) Elastic Stack
5 16 (0.88%) Apache NiFi
6 15 (0.82%) 802.1X
6 15 (0.82%) OAuth
7 14 (0.77%) Kafka
7 14 (0.77%) Web Services
8 13 (0.71%) .NET
8 13 (0.71%) AngularJS
8 13 (0.71%) LDAP
9 12 (0.66%) ModSecurity
10 11 (0.60%) SailPoint
11 10 (0.55%) Flask
11 10 (0.55%) OAuth2
11 10 (0.55%) OpenID
11 10 (0.55%) PyTorch
11 10 (0.55%) SOAP
11 10 (0.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 94 (5.15%) PKI
2 68 (3.72%) Data Centre
3 49 (2.68%) Security Operations Centre
4 33 (1.81%) Cloud Native
5 32 (1.75%) Onboarding
6 30 (1.64%) Management Information System
7 28 (1.53%) Clustering
8 24 (1.31%) Product Ownership
9 23 (1.26%) Hybrid Cloud
10 20 (1.10%) Cyberattack
11 19 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
11 19 (1.04%) Public Cloud
12 17 (0.93%) Cyber Threat
12 17 (0.93%) Replication
13 15 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
13 15 (0.82%) Security Posture
14 14 (0.77%) Driving Licence
14 14 (0.77%) Enterprise Storage
14 14 (0.77%) Legacy Systems
14 14 (0.77%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 252 (13.80%) Windows
2 203 (11.12%) Linux
3 82 (4.49%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 27 (1.48%) Windows 10
6 13 (0.71%) Ubuntu
7 12 (0.66%) Windows 7
8 10 (0.55%) Android
8 10 (0.55%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.49%) Unix
10 7 (0.38%) VMS
10 7 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
11 6 (0.33%) CentOS
12 5 (0.27%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.27%) Debian
12 5 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
15 2 (0.11%) AIX
15 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 299 (16.37%) Agile
2 192 (10.51%) Problem-Solving
3 152 (8.32%) ITIL
4 148 (8.11%) DevOps
5 141 (7.72%) CI/CD
6 133 (7.28%) Cybersecurity
7 128 (7.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 121 (6.63%) Service Management
9 114 (6.24%) Stakeholder Management
10 113 (6.19%) Continuous Improvement
11 112 (6.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 92 (5.04%) ITSM
13 85 (4.65%) Infrastructure as Code
14 83 (4.55%) Project Delivery
15 81 (4.44%) Risk Management
16 77 (4.22%) Decision-Making
17 74 (4.05%) SIEM
18 72 (3.94%) Project Management
18 72 (3.94%) Roadmaps
19 71 (3.89%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 137 (7.50%) Python
2 108 (5.91%) PowerShell
3 57 (3.12%) SQL
4 46 (2.52%) Java
5 35 (1.92%) Bash
6 32 (1.75%) JavaScript
7 21 (1.15%) C#
7 21 (1.15%) TypeScript
8 15 (0.82%) Go
9 14 (0.77%) Shell Script
10 11 (0.60%) Bicep
11 9 (0.49%) C
11 9 (0.49%) C++
11 9 (0.49%) PL/SQL
12 8 (0.44%) VB
13 7 (0.38%) VBScript
14 6 (0.33%) Embedded C
14 6 (0.33%) Rust
15 5 (0.27%) ABAP
15 5 (0.27%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 1,826 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 580 (31.76%) SC Cleared
3 58 (3.18%) Degree
4 51 (2.79%) CISSP
5 47 (2.57%) Cisco Certification
6 37 (2.03%) CISM
7 28 (1.53%) Microsoft Certification
8 26 (1.42%) CompTIA Security+
9 23 (1.26%) CCNP
10 22 (1.20%) CCNA
11 20 (1.10%) CESG Certified Professional
12 18 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
13 17 (0.93%) AWS Certification
13 17 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
13 17 (0.93%) GIAC
14 13 (0.71%) Azure Certification
14 13 (0.71%) CEH
14 13 (0.71%) CompTIA CySA+
14 13 (0.71%) CTC Cleared
14 13 (0.71%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 77 (4.22%) NIST
2 60 (3.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 48 (2.63%) PMO
4 46 (2.52%) NCSC
5 41 (2.25%) QA
6 34 (1.86%) JSP 440
7 23 (1.26%) GRC
8 20 (1.10%) RMADS
9 15 (0.82%) SLA
10 12 (0.66%) GDPR
11 11 (0.60%) NIST 800
12 10 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
13 9 (0.49%) Data Quality
13 9 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 5 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
15 4 (0.22%) Accessibility
15 4 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 4 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 4 (0.22%) P3O
16 3 (0.16%) Def Stans
System Software
1 119 (6.52%) Active Directory
2 105 (5.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 94 (5.15%) Docker
4 53 (2.90%) VMware NSX
5 43 (2.35%) VMware ESXi
6 33 (1.81%) Hyper-V
7 22 (1.20%) vSphere
8 15 (0.82%) BitLocker
9 12 (0.66%) vCloud
10 11 (0.60%) Firmware
11 8 (0.44%) 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%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 135 (7.39%) Kubernetes
2 119 (6.52%) Terraform
3 80 (4.38%) Ansible
4 56 (3.07%) vCenter Server
5 39 (2.14%) SCCM
6 26 (1.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 26 (1.42%) Grafana
6 26 (1.42%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (1.15%) Prometheus
8 15 (0.82%) FortiGate
8 15 (0.82%) Puppet
9 13 (0.71%) SCOM
10 12 (0.66%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.60%) Nessus
12 10 (0.55%) Forefront Identity Manager
12 10 (0.55%) NetIQ Identity Manager
12 10 (0.55%) Podman
12 10 (0.55%) WMI
13 8 (0.44%) vMotion
13 8 (0.44%) VxRail
Vendors
1 201 (11.01%) Microsoft
2 193 (10.57%) VMware
3 108 (5.91%) Cisco
4 62 (3.40%) Splunk
5 58 (3.18%) SAP
5 58 (3.18%) ServiceNow
6 51 (2.79%) Juniper
7 49 (2.68%) NetApp
8 47 (2.57%) Oracle
9 39 (2.14%) Red Hat
10 27 (1.48%) F5
11 25 (1.37%) Remedy
11 25 (1.37%) SolarWinds
12 23 (1.26%) Dell
12 23 (1.26%) Fortinet
13 19 (1.04%) Palo Alto
14 18 (0.99%) Sparx
15 17 (0.93%) Citrix
15 17 (0.93%) Google
16 15 (0.82%) Veeam