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

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 55 38
Rank change year-on-year -8 -17 +65
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,415 1,153 2,142
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.68% 3.71% 4.75%
As % of the Qualifications category 10.89% 12.46% 15.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,008 725 1,492
10th Percentile £430 £373 £370
25th Percentile £506 £500 £510
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% -2.08% -
75th Percentile £688 £675 £700
90th Percentile £738 £725 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £588 £600
% change year-on-year -2.13% -2.08% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 29 120
10th Percentile £16.35 £35.25 £48.40
25th Percentile £18.50 £55.87 £56.65
Median hourly rate £59.50 £63.15 £63.29
Median % change year-on-year -5.78% -0.22% -9.59%
75th Percentile £79.75 £73.75 £78.00
90th Percentile £89.45 £87.36 £87.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.50 £63.15 £63.29
% change year-on-year +3.72% -0.22% -12.70%

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 12,993 9,252 13,757
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.81% 29.78% 30.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,582 5,563 8,571
10th Percentile £315 £300 £295
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% -3.67% -0.91%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 952 452 954
10th Percentile £15.62 £18.76 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.00 £24.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.02 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -35.55% -15.50% +2.62%
75th Percentile £63.49 £65.71 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.47 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -40.82% -10.53% +5.56%

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 February 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 February 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 February 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 -12 1,281 £575 -3.36% 467
UK excluding London -6 1,001 £575 -2.13% 400
South East +4 498 £563 -2.17% 150
South West -3 314 £575 -4.17% 139
London -40 283 £600 +4.35% 81
Work from Home +11 192 £555 -1.77% 138
Midlands -25 71 £575 -16.36% 24
West Midlands -17 62 £575 -17.12% 19
North of England -34 53 £590 +7.27% 44
East of England +2 47 £575 - 49
North West -1 45 £580 +182.93% 38
Scotland -22 29 £653 +26.80% 1
Northern Ireland +8 10 £600 -
East Midlands -17 9 £650 +18.18% 5
Yorkshire -57 7 £613 +11.36% 6
Wales -1 5 £600 -14.29% 2
North East -23 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 51 (3.60%) Microsoft Exchange
2 50 (3.53%) SharePoint
3 30 (2.12%) Apache
4 26 (1.84%) Skype for Business
5 25 (1.77%) Confluence
6 19 (1.34%) Palantir Foundry
7 5 (0.35%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.21%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.21%) Documentum
8 3 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.21%) SharePoint Server
9 2 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2003
9 2 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2007
9 2 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2010
9 2 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
9 2 (0.14%) Office Communications Server
10 1 (0.071%) nginx
Applications
1 61 (4.31%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (2.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.13%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.071%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 18 (1.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
3 11 (0.78%) SAP EWM
3 11 (0.78%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 10 (0.71%) SAP WM
5 8 (0.57%) Maximo
6 5 (0.35%) Primavera
7 4 (0.28%) Oracle Applications
7 4 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
7 4 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
8 3 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
8 3 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 2 (0.14%) SAP GRC
10 1 (0.071%) Oracle Cash Management
10 1 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
10 1 (0.071%) Oracle Payroll
10 1 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 1 (0.071%) Oracle Receivables
10 1 (0.071%) SAP FI
10 1 (0.071%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 126 (8.90%) AWS
2 124 (8.76%) Azure
3 57 (4.03%) Microsoft 365
4 51 (3.60%) GitHub
5 39 (2.76%) GCP
5 39 (2.76%) OpenShift
5 39 (2.76%) Serverless
6 31 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
7 28 (1.98%) GitHub Actions
8 23 (1.63%) Amazon S3
9 19 (1.34%) IaaS
10 18 (1.27%) Amazon ECS
10 18 (1.27%) Entra ID
11 17 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
11 17 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
11 17 (1.20%) Azure Sentinel
12 16 (1.13%) AWS Lambda
13 15 (1.06%) PaaS
14 13 (0.92%) Azure AKS
15 12 (0.85%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 103 (7.28%) Firewall
2 89 (6.29%) DNS
3 63 (4.45%) Network Security
4 48 (3.39%) VPN
5 43 (3.04%) TCP/IP
6 34 (2.40%) DHCP
6 34 (2.40%) LAN
7 30 (2.12%) WAN
8 29 (2.05%) Cisco IOS
9 28 (1.98%) Skype
10 25 (1.77%) Junos
11 24 (1.70%) BGP
12 23 (1.63%) Cisco ISE
13 21 (1.48%) Cisco Firepower
14 20 (1.41%) SAN
15 17 (1.20%) VLAN
16 15 (1.06%) MPLS
17 14 (0.99%) OSPF
18 13 (0.92%) SSL
19 11 (0.78%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
2 18 (1.27%) Big Data
2 18 (1.27%) Elasticsearch
2 18 (1.27%) SQL Server
3 16 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
4 15 (1.06%) Oracle Database
5 12 (0.85%) Hadoop
6 10 (0.71%) MongoDB
6 10 (0.71%) Redis
6 10 (0.71%) Relational Database
7 8 (0.57%) MySQL
7 8 (0.57%) Power BI
8 7 (0.49%) InfluxDB
8 7 (0.49%) SAP HANA
9 6 (0.42%) Metadata
10 5 (0.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 4 (0.28%) NoSQL
11 4 (0.28%) RDBMS
11 4 (0.28%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 4 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 44 (3.11%) JIRA
2 33 (2.33%) GitLab
3 30 (2.12%) Jenkins
4 28 (1.98%) Git
5 16 (1.13%) SonarQube
6 14 (0.99%) Maven
7 12 (0.85%) Artifactory
8 10 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
9 8 (0.57%) Bitbucket
10 7 (0.49%) Cypress.io
11 5 (0.35%) Postman
11 5 (0.35%) Selenium
12 4 (0.28%) CircleCI
12 4 (0.28%) Gradle
12 4 (0.28%) JUnit
12 4 (0.28%) Oracle APEX
12 4 (0.28%) Robot Framework
12 4 (0.28%) Snyk
12 4 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 4 (0.28%) webpack
General
1 271 (19.15%) Social Skills
2 180 (12.72%) Public Sector
3 112 (7.92%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (4.24%) Finance
5 48 (3.39%) Military
6 43 (3.04%) Documentation Skills
7 39 (2.76%) Legal
8 26 (1.84%) Presentation Skills
8 26 (1.84%) Telecoms
9 25 (1.77%) Manufacturing
10 22 (1.55%) Aerospace
11 21 (1.48%) Law
11 21 (1.48%) Organisational Skills
12 15 (1.06%) Marketing
13 14 (0.99%) Banking
13 14 (0.99%) Electronics
14 13 (0.92%) Police
15 8 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 2 (0.14%) Influencing Skills
16 2 (0.14%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 241 (17.03%) Architect
2 83 (5.87%) Analyst
3 82 (5.80%) Consultant
4 77 (5.44%) Senior
5 61 (4.31%) Network Engineer
6 56 (3.96%) DevOps Engineer
7 55 (3.89%) Developer
7 55 (3.89%) Lead
7 55 (3.89%) Support Engineer
8 54 (3.82%) Technical Architect
9 46 (3.25%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 46 (3.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 45 (3.18%) Tester
11 42 (2.97%) 3rd Line Engineer
12 38 (2.69%) Solutions Architect
13 37 (2.61%) Cloud Engineer
13 37 (2.61%) Project Manager
14 36 (2.54%) Infrastructure Architect
14 36 (2.54%) SOC Analyst
15 33 (2.33%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (2.26%) REST
2 30 (2.12%) Apache NiFi
3 22 (1.55%) OAuth
4 20 (1.41%) OpenID
4 20 (1.41%) React
5 19 (1.34%) SAML
6 18 (1.27%) OAuth2
7 17 (1.20%) Kafka
8 15 (1.06%) Node.js
9 14 (0.99%) Flask
9 14 (0.99%) YAML
10 13 (0.92%) Elastic Stack
11 12 (0.85%) .NET
11 12 (0.85%) FastAPI
11 12 (0.85%) RabbitMQ
12 10 (0.71%) LDAP
12 10 (0.71%) Web Services
13 9 (0.64%) gRPC
13 9 (0.64%) JSON
13 9 (0.64%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 90 (6.36%) PKI
2 44 (3.11%) Data Centre
3 34 (2.40%) Management Information System
4 32 (2.26%) Security Operations Centre
5 23 (1.63%) Cyber Threat
6 20 (1.41%) Cloud Native
7 19 (1.34%) Private Cloud
8 18 (1.27%) Cyberattack
8 18 (1.27%) Onboarding
9 17 (1.20%) Replication
10 15 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
10 15 (1.06%) Product Ownership
11 14 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
12 13 (0.92%) Cyber Defence
13 12 (0.85%) Fat Client
13 12 (0.85%) Insider Threat
13 12 (0.85%) Thin Client
14 11 (0.78%) CSOC
14 11 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
14 11 (0.78%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 255 (18.02%) Windows
2 162 (11.45%) Linux
3 77 (5.44%) Windows Server
4 41 (2.90%) Windows 10
5 26 (1.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (1.27%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.99%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.71%) Android
8 10 (0.71%) Mac OS
8 10 (0.71%) Unix
9 8 (0.57%) CentOS
10 6 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
10 6 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.21%) Debian
12 2 (0.14%) Rocky
12 2 (0.14%) VMS
12 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.071%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 237 (16.75%) Agile
2 175 (12.37%) Problem-Solving
3 155 (10.95%) Cybersecurity
4 140 (9.89%) DevOps
5 124 (8.76%) CI/CD
6 107 (7.56%) ITIL
7 94 (6.64%) Service Management
8 85 (6.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 83 (5.87%) Continuous Improvement
10 82 (5.80%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 81 (5.72%) Infrastructure as Code
12 76 (5.37%) Stakeholder Management
13 74 (5.23%) ITSM
13 74 (5.23%) SIEM
14 69 (4.88%) Containerisation
15 66 (4.66%) Incident Response
16 65 (4.59%) Risk Management
17 62 (4.38%) Project Delivery
18 59 (4.17%) Project Management
19 58 (4.10%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 133 (9.40%) Python
2 116 (8.20%) PowerShell
3 67 (4.73%) SQL
4 45 (3.18%) Java
5 31 (2.19%) JavaScript
6 30 (2.12%) Bash
7 18 (1.27%) Go
8 15 (1.06%) C#
8 15 (1.06%) Shell Script
8 15 (1.06%) TypeScript
9 12 (0.85%) C++
10 9 (0.64%) Bicep
11 8 (0.57%) C
11 8 (0.57%) VB
12 7 (0.49%) VBScript
13 6 (0.42%) ABAP
14 5 (0.35%) PL/SQL
15 3 (0.21%) PHP
15 3 (0.21%) T-SQL
16 2 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 1,415 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 457 (32.30%) SC Cleared
3 56 (3.96%) CISSP
3 56 (3.96%) Degree
4 38 (2.69%) CISM
5 35 (2.47%) Cisco Certification
5 35 (2.47%) Microsoft Certification
6 25 (1.77%) CompTIA Security+
7 23 (1.63%) CCNP
8 21 (1.48%) GIAC
9 18 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
9 18 (1.27%) Computer Science Degree
10 16 (1.13%) CompTIA CySA+
11 15 (1.06%) CEH
11 15 (1.06%) CESG Certified Professional
12 14 (0.99%) CTC Cleared
13 13 (0.92%) Azure Certification
13 13 (0.92%) CCNA
14 10 (0.71%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
15 9 (0.64%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (5.23%) NIST
2 60 (4.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 54 (3.82%) NCSC
4 38 (2.69%) QA
5 29 (2.05%) JSP 440
6 26 (1.84%) PMO
7 20 (1.41%) GDPR
8 18 (1.27%) GRC
9 16 (1.13%) Data Quality
10 15 (1.06%) NIST 800
10 15 (1.06%) SLA
11 10 (0.71%) RMADS
12 7 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 5 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 5 (0.35%) P3O
15 4 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
15 4 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 3 (0.21%) EU AI Act
16 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 116 (8.20%) Active Directory
2 82 (5.80%) Docker
3 74 (5.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 46 (3.25%) VMware NSX
5 30 (2.12%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (1.20%) vSphere
7 11 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (0.71%) BitLocker
9 9 (0.64%) Hyper-V
10 8 (0.57%) Firmware
11 6 (0.42%) vCloud
12 4 (0.28%) NFS
12 4 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.21%) GPFS
13 3 (0.21%) Lustre
13 3 (0.21%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 3 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
14 2 (0.14%) Brightmail
14 2 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 132 (9.33%) Kubernetes
2 108 (7.63%) Terraform
3 78 (5.51%) Ansible
4 54 (3.82%) vCenter Server
5 36 (2.54%) Grafana
6 34 (2.40%) Single Sign-On
7 33 (2.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 30 (2.12%) Prometheus
9 26 (1.84%) SCCM
10 16 (1.13%) WMI
11 14 (0.99%) Progress Chef
12 12 (0.85%) Puppet
13 11 (0.78%) SCOM
14 10 (0.71%) Podman
15 9 (0.64%) vRealize
16 8 (0.57%) VxRail
17 7 (0.49%) Argo
17 7 (0.49%) Nessus
18 6 (0.42%) Kibana
18 6 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 214 (15.12%) Microsoft
2 146 (10.32%) VMware
3 104 (7.35%) Cisco
4 50 (3.53%) Splunk
5 45 (3.18%) Juniper
6 44 (3.11%) SAP
7 40 (2.83%) Oracle
7 40 (2.83%) Red Hat
8 30 (2.12%) SolarWinds
9 24 (1.70%) Palantir
10 23 (1.63%) ServiceNow
11 22 (1.55%) Dell
11 22 (1.55%) NetApp
12 19 (1.34%) Foundry
13 16 (1.13%) Google
14 15 (1.06%) Palo Alto
15 14 (0.99%) Remedy
16 13 (0.92%) Atlassian
16 13 (0.92%) IBM
16 13 (0.92%) Veeam