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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 79 33
Rank change year-on-year +31 -46 +25
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,177 1,004 2,177
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.12% 3.07% 5.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.13% 9.94% 18.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,651 694 1,571
10th Percentile £430 £458 £425
25th Percentile £513 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% -
75th Percentile £695 £663 £688
90th Percentile £755 £716 £765
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £599
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.01% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 38 106
10th Percentile £35.00 £25.15 £48.70
25th Percentile £41.25 £31.00 £56.83
Median hourly rate £63.14 £63.25 £70.78
Median % change year-on-year -0.18% -10.64% +1.11%
75th Percentile £89.13 £82.08 £83.75
90th Percentile £98.82 £87.91 £93.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.14 £81.01 £70.39
% change year-on-year -22.07% +15.09% -4.23%

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 16,581 10,104 11,990
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.37% 30.85% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,078 6,264 7,609
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,220 765 912
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.19
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.88%
75th Percentile £73.75 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.02 £75.00 £76.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.79%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 +27 2,036 £600 +1.69% 473
UK excluding London +8 1,555 £600 +4.35% 385
South East +6 897 £600 - 181
London +54 458 £600 -4.00% 110
South West -1 388 £575 -2.34% 121
Work from Home +40 327 £575 -2.34% 175
East of England +10 97 £650 +18.18% 26
North of England -8 75 £775 +24.00% 32
Midlands -50 57 £600 - 20
North West -4 50 £825 +82.32% 25
West Midlands -60 45 £600 - 13
Scotland +12 39 £669 +30.44% 7
Yorkshire -23 20 £518 -17.20% 4
East Midlands -2 12 £631 +14.77% 7
North East -37 5 £463 -26.00% 3
Northern Ireland +3 4 £638 - 2
Wales -11 4 - - 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 60 (2.76%) Confluence
2 40 (1.84%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.41%) Apache
4 9 (0.41%) Apache Spark
5 7 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.32%) Documentum
6 6 (0.28%) Mattermost
7 5 (0.23%) CMS
8 3 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.092%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.092%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.046%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.046%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.046%) JBoss
10 1 (0.046%) Mule
10 1 (0.046%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 55 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (2.07%) Microsoft Project
3 21 (0.96%) Microsoft Office
4 18 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.51%) AutoCAD
6 11 (0.51%) Revit
6 11 (0.51%) SOLIDWORKS
7 6 (0.28%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
9 2 (0.092%) Lectora
Business Applications
1 33 (1.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.29%) Remedy ITSM
3 22 (1.01%) Oracle ERP
4 19 (0.87%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.64%) Teamcenter
6 7 (0.32%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.18%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.14%) Primavera
9 3 (0.14%) SAP GRC
9 3 (0.14%) SAP PP
10 2 (0.092%) Oracle Assets
10 2 (0.092%) Oracle Financials
10 2 (0.092%) Oracle General Ledger
10 2 (0.092%) Oracle Receivables
10 2 (0.092%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.046%) SAP CCM
11 1 (0.046%) SAP HR
11 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 261 (11.99%) Azure
2 256 (11.76%) AWS
3 104 (4.78%) GCP
4 59 (2.71%) Azure DevOps
5 50 (2.30%) GitHub
6 41 (1.88%) GitHub Actions
6 41 (1.88%) IaaS
6 41 (1.88%) Microsoft 365
7 40 (1.84%) PaaS
8 39 (1.79%) Power Platform
9 37 (1.70%) Serverless
10 32 (1.47%) Entra ID
11 31 (1.42%) OCI
12 26 (1.19%) OpenShift
13 24 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
14 21 (0.96%) Amazon EKS
14 21 (0.96%) SaaS
15 18 (0.83%) Amazon ECS
15 18 (0.83%) Amazon S3
16 17 (0.78%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 144 (6.61%) DNS
2 126 (5.79%) Firewall
3 77 (3.54%) Network Security
3 77 (3.54%) WAN
4 73 (3.35%) DHCP
5 72 (3.31%) LAN
6 60 (2.76%) BGP
7 54 (2.48%) VPN
8 41 (1.88%) TCP/IP
9 34 (1.56%) VSAN
10 33 (1.52%) IPsec
11 32 (1.47%) MPLS
12 31 (1.42%) OSPF
13 28 (1.29%) VLAN
14 23 (1.06%) VXLAN
15 21 (0.96%) Ethernet VPN
16 19 (0.87%) Cisco ASA
17 18 (0.83%) BIG-IP
18 17 (0.78%) SD-WAN
18 17 (0.78%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (2.02%) SQL Server
2 38 (1.75%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
4 26 (1.19%) Elasticsearch
5 25 (1.15%) Power BI
6 20 (0.92%) Metadata
7 15 (0.69%) Data Warehouse
8 12 (0.55%) Data Lake
9 10 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
10 9 (0.41%) MongoDB
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 11g
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
12 7 (0.32%) Big Data
12 7 (0.32%) BigQuery
12 7 (0.32%) Hadoop
12 7 (0.32%) NoSQL
13 6 (0.28%) MariaDB
13 6 (0.28%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 6 (0.28%) Redis
14 5 (0.23%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 100 (4.59%) JIRA
2 52 (2.39%) GitLab
3 48 (2.20%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.88%) Git
5 14 (0.64%) Cypress.io
6 10 (0.46%) Selenium
7 6 (0.28%) REST Assured
7 6 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.28%) Visual Studio
8 5 (0.23%) Cucumber
8 5 (0.23%) Postman
8 5 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.23%) SpecFlow
9 4 (0.18%) Artifactory
9 4 (0.18%) MLflow
10 3 (0.14%) Appium
10 3 (0.14%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.14%) ERwin
10 3 (0.14%) Robot Framework
10 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 387 (17.78%) Social Skills
2 287 (13.18%) Public Sector
3 146 (6.71%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (6.16%) Finance
5 81 (3.72%) Military
6 53 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (2.16%) Legal
8 38 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
9 27 (1.24%) Law
10 25 (1.15%) Police
11 24 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
12 22 (1.01%) Telecoms
13 17 (0.78%) Manufacturing
14 16 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
15 15 (0.69%) Aerospace
16 8 (0.37%) Local Government
17 7 (0.32%) Marketing
18 5 (0.23%) Advertising
19 4 (0.18%) Aviation
19 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 342 (15.71%) Architect
2 234 (10.75%) Lead
3 201 (9.23%) Senior
4 153 (7.03%) Developer
5 149 (6.84%) Analyst
6 140 (6.43%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 138 (6.34%) Consultant
8 93 (4.27%) Network Engineer
9 85 (3.90%) Security Architect
10 76 (3.49%) SOC Analyst
11 75 (3.45%) Technical Architect
12 58 (2.66%) Project Manager
13 53 (2.43%) Cloud Engineer
14 50 (2.30%) DevOps Engineer
14 50 (2.30%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 49 (2.25%) DBA
16 46 (2.11%) Senior Network Engineer
17 44 (2.02%) Network Architect
18 43 (1.98%) Support Engineer
19 42 (1.93%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (3.35%) REST
2 32 (1.47%) Elastic Stack
3 27 (1.24%) React
4 26 (1.19%) SOAP
5 22 (1.01%) Kafka
6 19 (0.87%) RESTful
7 18 (0.83%) 802.1X
8 17 (0.78%) Node.js
9 15 (0.69%) .NET
9 15 (0.69%) Spring
9 15 (0.69%) Spring Boot
10 14 (0.64%) AngularJS
10 14 (0.64%) Apache NiFi
10 14 (0.64%) FastAPI
10 14 (0.64%) Flask
11 13 (0.60%) Oracle Fusion
12 11 (0.51%) ModSecurity
12 11 (0.51%) Web Services
13 10 (0.46%) OAuth
13 10 (0.46%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 102 (4.69%) Data Centre
2 100 (4.59%) PKI
3 80 (3.67%) Cloud Native
4 60 (2.76%) Onboarding
5 49 (2.25%) Security Operations Centre
6 37 (1.70%) Clustering
7 36 (1.65%) Private Cloud
8 34 (1.56%) Hybrid Cloud
8 34 (1.56%) Product Ownership
9 33 (1.52%) Management Information System
10 29 (1.33%) Cyber Threat
11 27 (1.24%) Public Cloud
12 26 (1.19%) Security Posture
13 25 (1.15%) CMDB
13 25 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
14 22 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
15 20 (0.92%) Virtual Team
16 15 (0.69%) Analytical Mindset
16 15 (0.69%) Greenfield Project
17 13 (0.60%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 302 (13.87%) Windows
2 225 (10.34%) Linux
3 137 (6.29%) Windows Server
4 27 (1.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (0.87%) Windows 10
6 16 (0.73%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (0.60%) Unix
8 7 (0.32%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.28%) AIX
9 6 (0.28%) Android
9 6 (0.28%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
10 5 (0.23%) CentOS
10 5 (0.23%) Debian
10 5 (0.23%) VMS
10 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
13 2 (0.092%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 377 (17.32%) Agile
2 218 (10.01%) Problem-Solving
3 208 (9.55%) CI/CD
4 207 (9.51%) ITIL
5 206 (9.46%) Continuous Improvement
6 203 (9.32%) Stakeholder Management
7 202 (9.28%) Cybersecurity
8 197 (9.05%) DevOps
9 188 (8.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 178 (8.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 159 (7.30%) Service Management
12 145 (6.66%) Infrastructure as Code
13 128 (5.88%) Technical Leadership
14 124 (5.70%) ITSM
15 113 (5.19%) Project Delivery
16 108 (4.96%) Containerisation
17 107 (4.92%) Risk Management
18 106 (4.87%) Service Delivery
19 105 (4.82%) Decision-Making
20 102 (4.69%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 198 (9.10%) Python
2 139 (6.38%) PowerShell
3 106 (4.87%) SQL
4 65 (2.99%) Bash
5 64 (2.94%) Java
6 47 (2.16%) JavaScript
7 33 (1.52%) C#
8 29 (1.33%) TypeScript
9 19 (0.87%) Go
10 16 (0.73%) Bicep
11 14 (0.64%) PL/SQL
11 14 (0.64%) Search Processing Language
12 13 (0.60%) C++
13 11 (0.51%) C
14 9 (0.41%) Rust
15 7 (0.32%) Shell Script
16 6 (0.28%) Groovy
16 6 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
16 6 (0.28%) Perl
16 6 (0.28%) X++
Qualifications
1 2,177 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 737 (33.85%) SC Cleared
3 78 (3.58%) Degree
4 56 (2.57%) CISSP
5 49 (2.25%) Cisco Certification
6 31 (1.42%) CISM
7 28 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
8 25 (1.15%) AWS Certification
9 22 (1.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 21 (0.96%) PMI Certification
11 19 (0.87%) CCNP
11 19 (0.87%) PMP
12 18 (0.83%) CCNA
13 17 (0.78%) CompTIA Security+
14 16 (0.73%) MCSE
14 16 (0.73%) TOGAF Certification
15 15 (0.69%) Azure Certification
15 15 (0.69%) VCAP
16 14 (0.64%) ISTQB
17 13 (0.60%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (3.49%) NCSC
2 75 (3.45%) NIST
2 75 (3.45%) PMO
3 56 (2.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 54 (2.48%) QA
5 34 (1.56%) JSP 440
6 28 (1.29%) GDPR
7 25 (1.15%) Data Quality
8 23 (1.06%) SLA
9 22 (1.01%) GRC
10 17 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 17 (0.78%) RMADS
11 14 (0.64%) Accessibility
11 14 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
11 14 (0.64%) Government Security Classifications
12 9 (0.41%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 8 (0.37%) WCAG
14 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
14 7 (0.32%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 175 (8.04%) VMware Infrastructure
2 170 (7.81%) Active Directory
3 126 (5.79%) Docker
4 84 (3.86%) VMware NSX
5 68 (3.12%) VMware ESXi
6 56 (2.57%) Hyper-V
7 41 (1.88%) vSphere
8 22 (1.01%) vCloud
9 17 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
10 11 (0.51%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.37%) BitLocker
11 8 (0.37%) Microsoft App-V
11 8 (0.37%) NFS
12 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
13 5 (0.23%) Firmware
14 4 (0.18%) Ceph
14 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
14 4 (0.18%) UAG
15 3 (0.14%) KVM
15 3 (0.14%) Squid
Systems Management
1 179 (8.22%) Terraform
2 177 (8.13%) Kubernetes
3 112 (5.14%) Ansible
4 82 (3.77%) vCenter Server
5 42 (1.93%) SCOM
6 32 (1.47%) SCCM
7 25 (1.15%) Prometheus
8 23 (1.06%) Grafana
8 23 (1.06%) Puppet
9 15 (0.69%) Nagios
9 15 (0.69%) Oracle RMAN
9 15 (0.69%) Podman
10 13 (0.60%) Avamar
10 13 (0.60%) Data Guard
10 13 (0.60%) FortiGate
10 13 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
11 11 (0.51%) VxRail
12 10 (0.46%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 10 (0.46%) Progress Chef
12 10 (0.46%) WSUS
Vendors
1 250 (11.48%) Microsoft
2 244 (11.21%) VMware
3 121 (5.56%) ServiceNow
4 102 (4.69%) Cisco
5 92 (4.23%) Oracle
6 61 (2.80%) Splunk
7 56 (2.57%) SAP
8 49 (2.25%) Juniper
9 48 (2.20%) Google
10 44 (2.02%) SolarWinds
11 34 (1.56%) NetApp
12 32 (1.47%) Red Hat
13 29 (1.33%) Remedy
14 28 (1.29%) F5
15 26 (1.19%) Citrix
15 26 (1.19%) Palo Alto
16 24 (1.10%) Dell
17 21 (0.96%) BMC
17 21 (0.96%) Fortinet
18 19 (0.87%) Sparx