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

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 82 32
Rank change year-on-year +33 -50 +27
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,986 888 2,485
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.92% 2.97% 5.66%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.53% 9.61% 18.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,506 610 1,796
10th Percentile £430 £457 £425
25th Percentile £513 £519 £518
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £580 £600
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -
75th Percentile £688 £650 £688
90th Percentile £750 £713 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £600
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 29 119
10th Percentile £19.33 £29.83 £51.46
25th Percentile £35.00 £50.00 £57.33
Median hourly rate £48.84 £80.68 £72.33
Median % change year-on-year -39.46% +11.54% +1.64%
75th Percentile £70.00 £83.75 £85.65
90th Percentile £82.50 £88.87 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.71 £81.35 £71.17
% change year-on-year -47.50% +14.31% -5.11%

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 15,844 9,241 13,090
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.28% 30.95% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,572 5,751 8,089
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £411 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £500 £530
% change year-on-year +1.40% -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,165 599 1,132
10th Percentile £17.24 £17.86 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £20.24 £19.23
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +66.67% -25.47% -27.24%
75th Percentile £72.54 £63.13 £64.25
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £28.00 £42.25
% change year-on-year +78.57% -33.73% -19.52%

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 20 June 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 20 June 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 20 June 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 +26 1,842 £600 +2.26% 330
UK excluding London +13 1,419 £600 +4.35% 290
South East +5 774 £600 +4.35% 130
London +70 406 £600 - 58
South West -2 365 £575 -4.17% 110
Work from Home +57 302 £560 -2.61% 90
East of England +3 104 £650 +18.18% 21
North of England -11 81 £775 +24.00% 25
North West +8 65 £775 +278.05% 18
Midlands -56 51 £600 - 6
Scotland +25 40 £669 +33.70% 4
West Midlands -66 40 £600 - 5
Yorkshire -48 13 £525 -16.00% 5
East Midlands -8 11 £518 -5.91% 1
Northern Ireland +6 6 £619 - 2
Wales -10 4 - -
North East -33 3 £569 -9.00% 2

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 41 (2.06%) Confluence
2 37 (1.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 28 (1.41%) SharePoint
4 6 (0.30%) Apache Spark
4 6 (0.30%) Mattermost
5 5 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.25%) CMS
5 5 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
6 4 (0.20%) Apache
6 4 (0.20%) Documentum
6 4 (0.20%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.10%) nginx
7 2 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.050%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.050%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.050%) Mule
Applications
1 36 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.66%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.21%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.40%) AutoCAD
5 8 (0.40%) Revit
5 8 (0.40%) SOLIDWORKS
6 6 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.25%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.10%) Lectora
8 2 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 28 (1.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.21%) Remedy ITSM
3 20 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 15 (0.76%) Oracle ERP
5 5 (0.25%) Maximo
5 5 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
5 5 (0.25%) Teamcenter
6 4 (0.20%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.20%) SAP EWM
7 3 (0.15%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.15%) SAP GRC
8 2 (0.10%) Primavera
8 2 (0.10%) Siebel CRM
9 1 (0.050%) Oracle Applications
9 1 (0.050%) SAP CCM
9 1 (0.050%) SAP FI-GL
9 1 (0.050%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.050%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 224 (11.28%) AWS
2 198 (9.97%) Azure
3 90 (4.53%) GCP
4 50 (2.52%) GitHub
5 45 (2.27%) Azure DevOps
5 45 (2.27%) PaaS
6 44 (2.22%) IaaS
7 39 (1.96%) GitHub Actions
8 33 (1.66%) Serverless
9 27 (1.36%) Microsoft 365
9 27 (1.36%) OpenShift
10 24 (1.21%) Power Platform
11 23 (1.16%) OCI
12 20 (1.01%) AWS Lambda
13 19 (0.96%) Amazon ECS
13 19 (0.96%) Amazon EKS
14 18 (0.91%) SaaS
15 17 (0.86%) Entra ID
16 14 (0.70%) Amazon S3
17 13 (0.65%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 113 (5.69%) DNS
2 102 (5.14%) Firewall
3 74 (3.73%) Network Security
4 65 (3.27%) LAN
4 65 (3.27%) WAN
5 54 (2.72%) VPN
6 52 (2.62%) DHCP
7 41 (2.06%) BGP
8 27 (1.36%) OSPF
9 23 (1.16%) VLAN
10 21 (1.06%) TCP/IP
10 21 (1.06%) VXLAN
11 19 (0.96%) Ethernet VPN
11 19 (0.96%) IPsec
11 19 (0.96%) MPLS
12 18 (0.91%) VSAN
13 17 (0.86%) BIG-IP
14 15 (0.76%) Cisco ISE
14 15 (0.76%) Junos
15 14 (0.70%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (1.86%) SQL Server
2 33 (1.66%) Oracle Database
2 33 (1.66%) PostgreSQL
3 27 (1.36%) Elasticsearch
4 19 (0.96%) Power BI
5 15 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
6 13 (0.65%) MongoDB
7 10 (0.50%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (0.50%) Metadata
8 7 (0.35%) Data Lake
8 7 (0.35%) Redis
9 6 (0.30%) NoSQL
9 6 (0.30%) Oracle Database 11g
10 5 (0.25%) Big Data
10 5 (0.25%) BigQuery
10 5 (0.25%) DynamoDB
10 5 (0.25%) Hadoop
10 5 (0.25%) MariaDB
10 5 (0.25%) MySQL
11 4 (0.20%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 74 (3.73%) JIRA
2 43 (2.17%) GitLab
3 39 (1.96%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.56%) Git
5 13 (0.65%) Cypress.io
6 9 (0.45%) Selenium
7 6 (0.30%) REST Assured
7 6 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.25%) Cucumber
8 5 (0.25%) Robot Framework
9 4 (0.20%) Oracle APEX
9 4 (0.20%) Postman
9 4 (0.20%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.20%) SpecFlow
9 4 (0.20%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.15%) Appium
10 3 (0.15%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.15%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.15%) ERwin
10 3 (0.15%) MLflow
General
1 317 (15.96%) Social Skills
2 257 (12.94%) Public Sector
3 115 (5.79%) Analytical Skills
4 94 (4.73%) Finance
5 72 (3.63%) Military
6 60 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
7 50 (2.52%) Legal
8 24 (1.21%) Law
8 24 (1.21%) Organisational Skills
9 22 (1.11%) Aerospace
9 22 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
9 22 (1.11%) Telecoms
10 19 (0.96%) Police
11 13 (0.65%) Manufacturing
12 10 (0.50%) Marketing
13 7 (0.35%) Influencing Skills
13 7 (0.35%) Local Government
14 5 (0.25%) Electronics
15 3 (0.15%) Advertising
15 3 (0.15%) Banking
Job Titles
1 300 (15.11%) Architect
2 178 (8.96%) Lead
3 168 (8.46%) Senior
4 131 (6.60%) Analyst
5 121 (6.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 113 (5.69%) Developer
7 110 (5.54%) Consultant
8 84 (4.23%) Network Engineer
9 75 (3.78%) SOC Analyst
9 75 (3.78%) Technical Architect
10 67 (3.37%) Security Architect
11 62 (3.12%) Project Manager
12 53 (2.67%) Tester
13 51 (2.57%) DevOps Engineer
14 48 (2.42%) DBA
14 48 (2.42%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 46 (2.32%) Service Manager
16 45 (2.27%) Software Engineer
17 44 (2.22%) Administrator
18 43 (2.17%) DV Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (2.87%) REST
2 29 (1.46%) React
3 27 (1.36%) Elastic Stack
4 21 (1.06%) SOAP
5 19 (0.96%) 802.1X
6 18 (0.91%) Kafka
6 18 (0.91%) Node.js
7 17 (0.86%) Flask
8 16 (0.81%) AngularJS
8 16 (0.81%) FastAPI
8 16 (0.81%) RESTful
9 15 (0.76%) Spring
10 13 (0.65%) Spring Boot
11 11 (0.55%) .NET
11 11 (0.55%) ModSecurity
11 11 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
12 10 (0.50%) Apache NiFi
12 10 (0.50%) Playwright
13 9 (0.45%) LDAP
13 9 (0.45%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 94 (4.73%) PKI
2 76 (3.83%) Data Centre
3 61 (3.07%) Cloud Native
4 51 (2.57%) Security Operations Centre
5 36 (1.81%) Onboarding
6 35 (1.76%) Clustering
7 28 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
7 28 (1.41%) Management Information System
8 27 (1.36%) Product Ownership
8 27 (1.36%) Security Posture
9 26 (1.31%) Private Cloud
10 20 (1.01%) CMDB
11 19 (0.96%) Public Cloud
12 18 (0.91%) Cyber Threat
13 17 (0.86%) Distributed Systems
14 16 (0.81%) Virtual Team
15 14 (0.70%) Enterprise Storage
16 13 (0.65%) Greenfield Project
16 13 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
17 12 (0.60%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 263 (13.24%) Windows
2 207 (10.42%) Linux
3 107 (5.39%) Windows Server
4 25 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.86%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.50%) Unix
7 8 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
8 7 (0.35%) Ubuntu
8 7 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.30%) AIX
9 6 (0.30%) Android
10 5 (0.25%) CentOS
10 5 (0.25%) Debian
10 5 (0.25%) VMS
11 4 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.20%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.15%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 326 (16.41%) Agile
2 198 (9.97%) Problem-Solving
3 182 (9.16%) ITIL
4 169 (8.51%) Cybersecurity
5 168 (8.46%) Continuous Improvement
6 167 (8.41%) CI/CD
7 165 (8.31%) DevOps
7 165 (8.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 140 (7.05%) Stakeholder Management
9 139 (7.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 132 (6.65%) Service Management
11 110 (5.54%) Infrastructure as Code
12 109 (5.49%) ITSM
13 100 (5.04%) Project Delivery
14 91 (4.58%) Decision-Making
14 91 (4.58%) Risk Management
15 89 (4.48%) Containerisation
16 87 (4.38%) Technical Leadership
17 86 (4.33%) Security Operations
18 84 (4.23%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 165 (8.31%) Python
2 112 (5.64%) PowerShell
3 94 (4.73%) SQL
4 49 (2.47%) Java
5 42 (2.11%) JavaScript
6 37 (1.86%) Bash
7 29 (1.46%) TypeScript
8 26 (1.31%) C#
9 16 (0.81%) Go
10 14 (0.70%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (0.65%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.55%) C++
13 10 (0.50%) Bicep
13 10 (0.50%) C
14 9 (0.45%) Rust
15 8 (0.40%) Shell Script
16 6 (0.30%) Embedded C
16 6 (0.30%) Perl
17 5 (0.25%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 1,986 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 668 (33.64%) SC Cleared
3 61 (3.07%) Degree
4 52 (2.62%) Cisco Certification
5 50 (2.52%) CISSP
6 33 (1.66%) CISM
7 28 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
8 24 (1.21%) CompTIA Security+
9 22 (1.11%) AWS Certification
10 21 (1.06%) CCNA
10 21 (1.06%) CCNP
11 17 (0.86%) BPSS Clearance
12 16 (0.81%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 15 (0.76%) CESG Certified Professional
13 15 (0.76%) ISTQB
13 15 (0.76%) MCSE
14 14 (0.70%) CompTIA CySA+
14 14 (0.70%) Computer Science Degree
14 14 (0.70%) PMI Certification
14 14 (0.70%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (3.83%) NIST
2 69 (3.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 60 (3.02%) NCSC
4 54 (2.72%) PMO
5 51 (2.57%) QA
6 38 (1.91%) JSP 440
7 25 (1.26%) GDPR
8 24 (1.21%) SLA
9 23 (1.16%) RMADS
10 22 (1.11%) GRC
11 11 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
12 10 (0.50%) Accessibility
13 9 (0.45%) Data Quality
14 8 (0.40%) Government Security Classifications
14 8 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 8 (0.40%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.30%) WCAG
16 5 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 5 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 4 (0.20%) Def Stans
System Software
1 134 (6.75%) VMware Infrastructure
2 126 (6.34%) Active Directory
3 108 (5.44%) Docker
4 65 (3.27%) VMware NSX
5 52 (2.62%) VMware ESXi
6 45 (2.27%) Hyper-V
7 24 (1.21%) vSphere
8 21 (1.06%) vCloud
9 12 (0.60%) BitLocker
10 10 (0.50%) Microsoft App-V
10 10 (0.50%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.40%) NFS
12 6 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
13 5 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
14 4 (0.20%) Ceph
14 4 (0.20%) Firmware
14 4 (0.20%) Terminal Services
14 4 (0.20%) UAG
15 3 (0.15%) Squid
16 2 (0.10%) KVM
Systems Management
1 148 (7.45%) Kubernetes
2 141 (7.10%) Terraform
3 83 (4.18%) Ansible
4 62 (3.12%) vCenter Server
5 31 (1.56%) SCOM
6 25 (1.26%) SCCM
7 20 (1.01%) Grafana
7 20 (1.01%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.86%) Puppet
9 14 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.65%) FortiGate
10 13 (0.65%) Nagios
11 12 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.60%) Data Guard
11 12 (0.60%) Podman
12 10 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
12 10 (0.50%) vMotion
13 9 (0.45%) WSUS
14 8 (0.40%) WMI
14 8 (0.40%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 210 (10.57%) VMware
2 194 (9.77%) Microsoft
3 104 (5.24%) Cisco
4 94 (4.73%) ServiceNow
5 79 (3.98%) Oracle
6 61 (3.07%) Splunk
7 45 (2.27%) Juniper
8 38 (1.91%) SAP
9 37 (1.86%) SolarWinds
10 36 (1.81%) NetApp
11 34 (1.71%) Red Hat
12 33 (1.66%) Google
13 30 (1.51%) F5
14 24 (1.21%) Palo Alto
14 24 (1.21%) Remedy
15 21 (1.06%) Citrix
15 21 (1.06%) Dell
15 21 (1.06%) Fortinet
16 20 (1.01%) Sparx
17 18 (0.91%) BMC