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

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 57 69 33
Rank change year-on-year +12 -36 +50
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,692 984 2,317
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.92% 3.33% 5.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 11.59% 10.98% 17.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,173 660 1,679
10th Percentile £423 £400 £400
25th Percentile £506 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% - -
75th Percentile £688 £675 £688
90th Percentile £738 £725 £776
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -4.17% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 31 104
10th Percentile £16.35 £36.25 £48.40
25th Percentile £19.32 £57.44 £56.65
Median hourly rate £48.35 £63.75 £62.25
Median % change year-on-year -24.15% +2.40% -10.75%
75th Percentile £77.31 £81.73 £79.78
90th Percentile £91.63 £92.50 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.75 £72.50 £62.75
% change year-on-year -24.48% +15.54% -16.33%

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 14,597 8,965 13,575
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.82% 30.38% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,602 5,632 8,384
10th Percentile £333 £285 £293
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £614 £625 £650
90th Percentile £721 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,085 468 1,023
10th Percentile £16.17 £18.51 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.75 £24.42 £18.16
Median hourly rate £29.00 £45.00 £38.95
Median % change year-on-year -35.56% +15.53% -22.10%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £61.62
90th Percentile £84.00 £82.15 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -48.46% +25.00% -18.36%

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 14 March 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 14 March 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 14 March 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 +4 1,540 £575 -4.17% 394
UK excluding London +6 1,189 £575 -4.17% 352
South East +8 619 £594 - 144
London -5 349 £575 -4.17% 78
South West 0 330 £566 -5.63% 108
Work from Home +23 212 £560 -2.61% 133
North of England -20 75 £675 +68.75% 39
Midlands -23 74 £575 -17.86% 16
East of England +1 63 £575 +2.22% 32
North West +10 61 £675 +229.27% 33
West Midlands -41 57 £575 -17.86% 15
Scotland -8 36 £652 +26.50% 12
East Midlands -18 17 £638 +15.91% 1
Yorkshire - 12 £644 - 5
Northern Ireland - 8 £600 -
Wales -9 3 - - 5
North East -22 2 - - 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 47 (2.78%) Microsoft Exchange
2 44 (2.60%) SharePoint
3 28 (1.65%) Apache
4 25 (1.48%) Confluence
5 24 (1.42%) Skype for Business
6 15 (0.89%) Palantir Foundry
7 8 (0.47%) Apache Spark
8 5 (0.30%) Mattermost
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 58 (3.43%) Microsoft Office
2 43 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (1.24%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.35%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.12%) Lectora
8 1 (0.059%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 22 (1.30%) Remedy ITSM
2 15 (0.89%) SAP S/4HANA
3 14 (0.83%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 7 (0.41%) Maximo
5 4 (0.24%) Oracle Applications
5 4 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
5 4 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.24%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.24%) SAP EWM
6 3 (0.18%) SAP WM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP GRC
8 1 (0.059%) Oracle Payroll
8 1 (0.059%) Primavera
8 1 (0.059%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.059%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 154 (9.10%) AWS
2 132 (7.80%) Azure
3 51 (3.01%) GCP
4 50 (2.96%) Microsoft 365
5 49 (2.90%) GitHub
6 39 (2.30%) OpenShift
7 38 (2.25%) IaaS
8 37 (2.19%) Serverless
9 35 (2.07%) PaaS
10 32 (1.89%) Azure DevOps
11 29 (1.71%) GitHub Actions
12 21 (1.24%) Amazon S3
13 18 (1.06%) Amazon EC2
14 17 (1.00%) Entra ID
15 16 (0.95%) Power Platform
16 15 (0.89%) AWS CloudFormation
16 15 (0.89%) AWS Lambda
17 14 (0.83%) Azure AKS
17 14 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
18 12 (0.71%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 127 (7.51%) Firewall
2 104 (6.15%) DNS
3 75 (4.43%) Network Security
4 61 (3.61%) LAN
5 57 (3.37%) WAN
6 54 (3.19%) VPN
7 46 (2.72%) DHCP
8 43 (2.54%) TCP/IP
9 42 (2.48%) BGP
10 31 (1.83%) OSPF
11 29 (1.71%) Junos
12 26 (1.54%) Skype
13 23 (1.36%) Cisco ISE
14 21 (1.24%) Cisco IOS
15 19 (1.12%) Ethernet VPN
16 18 (1.06%) MPLS
16 18 (1.06%) VLAN
16 18 (1.06%) VXLAN
17 16 (0.95%) BIG-IP
17 16 (0.95%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (1.95%) PostgreSQL
2 26 (1.54%) Elasticsearch
3 18 (1.06%) SQL Server
4 16 (0.95%) Big Data
5 15 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
6 14 (0.83%) Hadoop
6 14 (0.83%) Oracle Database
7 13 (0.77%) Power BI
8 12 (0.71%) Redis
9 11 (0.65%) MongoDB
10 10 (0.59%) Relational Database
11 8 (0.47%) Metadata
11 8 (0.47%) MySQL
12 7 (0.41%) InfluxDB
12 7 (0.41%) SAP HANA
13 5 (0.30%) SAP Data Services
14 4 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
14 4 (0.24%) DynamoDB
14 4 (0.24%) Metadata Repository
14 4 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 58 (3.43%) JIRA
2 29 (1.71%) GitLab
3 28 (1.65%) Git
4 27 (1.60%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.71%) Maven
6 11 (0.65%) Artifactory
7 10 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
8 9 (0.53%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.41%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.35%) Bitbucket
10 6 (0.35%) Robot Framework
11 4 (0.24%) Oracle APEX
11 4 (0.24%) Postman
11 4 (0.24%) Selenium
12 3 (0.18%) CircleCI
12 3 (0.18%) Gradle
12 3 (0.18%) JUnit
12 3 (0.18%) Snyk
12 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 3 (0.18%) webpack
General
1 310 (18.32%) Social Skills
2 202 (11.94%) Public Sector
3 129 (7.62%) Analytical Skills
4 79 (4.67%) Finance
5 65 (3.84%) Military
6 52 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
7 48 (2.84%) Legal
8 29 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
9 24 (1.42%) Organisational Skills
10 23 (1.36%) Telecoms
11 22 (1.30%) Aerospace
12 18 (1.06%) Law
13 17 (1.00%) Manufacturing
13 17 (1.00%) Police
14 14 (0.83%) Marketing
15 13 (0.77%) Electronics
16 10 (0.59%) Banking
17 6 (0.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 3 (0.18%) Influencing Skills
19 2 (0.12%) Multimedia
Job Titles
1 306 (18.09%) Architect
2 105 (6.21%) Analyst
2 105 (6.21%) Senior
3 88 (5.20%) Lead
4 85 (5.02%) Consultant
5 82 (4.85%) Network Engineer
6 73 (4.31%) Technical Architect
7 70 (4.14%) Developer
8 56 (3.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 56 (3.31%) Tester
9 53 (3.13%) DevOps Engineer
10 48 (2.84%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
10 48 (2.84%) SOC Analyst
11 45 (2.66%) Support Engineer
12 44 (2.60%) Security Architect
13 40 (2.36%) Project Manager
14 37 (2.19%) 3rd Line Engineer
14 37 (2.19%) Solutions Architect
15 36 (2.13%) Infrastructure Architect
16 33 (1.95%) Service Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (2.36%) REST
2 29 (1.71%) Apache NiFi
3 26 (1.54%) OAuth
4 22 (1.30%) React
5 20 (1.18%) OpenID
6 19 (1.12%) Kafka
6 19 (1.12%) OAuth2
6 19 (1.12%) SAML
7 15 (0.89%) 802.1X
7 15 (0.89%) Flask
7 15 (0.89%) Node.js
8 14 (0.83%) FastAPI
8 14 (0.83%) Web Services
9 13 (0.77%) Elastic Stack
9 13 (0.77%) LDAP
10 11 (0.65%) .NET
10 11 (0.65%) RabbitMQ
11 10 (0.59%) SailPoint
11 10 (0.59%) Spring
11 10 (0.59%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 104 (6.15%) PKI
2 64 (3.78%) Data Centre
3 40 (2.36%) Security Operations Centre
4 38 (2.25%) Management Information System
5 26 (1.54%) Cloud Native
6 24 (1.42%) Clustering
7 22 (1.30%) Hybrid Cloud
8 21 (1.24%) Cyber Threat
9 20 (1.18%) Cyberattack
9 20 (1.18%) Product Ownership
10 18 (1.06%) Onboarding
11 17 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
11 17 (1.00%) Replication
12 15 (0.89%) Private Cloud
13 14 (0.83%) Driving Licence
14 13 (0.77%) Insider Threat
14 13 (0.77%) Legacy Systems
15 11 (0.65%) CSOC
15 11 (0.65%) Cyber Defence
15 11 (0.65%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 251 (14.83%) Windows
2 175 (10.34%) Linux
3 78 (4.61%) Windows Server
4 31 (1.83%) Windows 10
5 27 (1.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.95%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.83%) Ubuntu
8 11 (0.65%) Mac OS
9 10 (0.59%) Android
10 7 (0.41%) CentOS
10 7 (0.41%) VMS
11 6 (0.35%) Windows Server 2003
12 5 (0.30%) Unix
13 4 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
14 3 (0.18%) Debian
14 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.12%) Data ONTAP
15 2 (0.12%) Rocky
16 1 (0.059%) Embedded Linux
16 1 (0.059%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 283 (16.73%) Agile
2 212 (12.53%) Problem-Solving
3 155 (9.16%) Cybersecurity
4 150 (8.87%) DevOps
5 144 (8.51%) ITIL
6 131 (7.74%) CI/CD
7 124 (7.33%) Service Management
8 106 (6.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 105 (6.21%) Continuous Improvement
10 104 (6.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 93 (5.50%) ITSM
12 89 (5.26%) Stakeholder Management
13 76 (4.49%) Project Delivery
13 76 (4.49%) Risk Management
14 75 (4.43%) Infrastructure as Code
15 71 (4.20%) SIEM
16 70 (4.14%) Containerisation
16 70 (4.14%) Incident Response
17 67 (3.96%) Project Management
18 65 (3.84%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 148 (8.75%) Python
2 123 (7.27%) PowerShell
3 58 (3.43%) SQL
4 46 (2.72%) Java
5 30 (1.77%) JavaScript
6 22 (1.30%) Bash
7 20 (1.18%) TypeScript
8 18 (1.06%) C#
8 18 (1.06%) Go
9 15 (0.89%) Shell Script
10 11 (0.65%) C++
11 8 (0.47%) Bicep
11 8 (0.47%) VB
12 7 (0.41%) VBScript
13 6 (0.35%) ABAP
13 6 (0.35%) C
13 6 (0.35%) Rust
14 5 (0.30%) PL/SQL
15 4 (0.24%) Embedded C
15 4 (0.24%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,692 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 537 (31.74%) SC Cleared
3 59 (3.49%) CISSP
3 59 (3.49%) Degree
4 48 (2.84%) Cisco Certification
5 38 (2.25%) CISM
6 31 (1.83%) Microsoft Certification
7 27 (1.60%) CompTIA Security+
8 24 (1.42%) CCNP
9 21 (1.24%) CESG Certified Professional
10 20 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
11 19 (1.12%) AWS Certification
11 19 (1.12%) CCNA
12 18 (1.06%) BPSS Clearance
12 18 (1.06%) GIAC
13 16 (0.95%) CompTIA CySA+
14 15 (0.89%) CTC Cleared
15 14 (0.83%) Azure Certification
15 14 (0.83%) JNCIS
16 10 (0.59%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 80 (4.73%) NIST
2 65 (3.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 55 (3.25%) NCSC
4 42 (2.48%) QA
5 37 (2.19%) PMO
6 34 (2.01%) JSP 440
7 21 (1.24%) GRC
8 16 (0.95%) GDPR
8 16 (0.95%) NIST 800
9 15 (0.89%) Data Quality
9 15 (0.89%) RMADS
10 14 (0.83%) SLA
11 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 9 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 6 (0.35%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 6 (0.35%) P3O
14 4 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
15 3 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
16 2 (0.12%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 120 (7.09%) Active Directory
2 93 (5.50%) Docker
3 78 (4.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 44 (2.60%) VMware NSX
5 30 (1.77%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (1.12%) vSphere
7 18 (1.06%) Hyper-V
8 14 (0.83%) BitLocker
9 10 (0.59%) vCloud
10 9 (0.53%) Firmware
11 7 (0.41%) Microsoft App-V
12 6 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
13 4 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
14 3 (0.18%) GPFS
14 3 (0.18%) Lustre
14 3 (0.18%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 2 (0.12%) NFS
15 2 (0.12%) UAG
15 2 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 141 (8.33%) Kubernetes
2 111 (6.56%) Terraform
3 78 (4.61%) Ansible
4 49 (2.90%) vCenter Server
5 35 (2.07%) Grafana
5 35 (2.07%) Single Sign-On
6 32 (1.89%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 30 (1.77%) SCCM
8 29 (1.71%) Prometheus
9 17 (1.00%) FortiGate
10 14 (0.83%) Puppet
10 14 (0.83%) WMI
11 13 (0.77%) Progress Chef
12 10 (0.59%) Podman
12 10 (0.59%) SCOM
13 9 (0.53%) VxRail
14 8 (0.47%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 8 (0.47%) NetIQ Identity Manager
15 7 (0.41%) Argo
15 7 (0.41%) Nessus
Vendors
1 220 (13.00%) Microsoft
2 161 (9.52%) VMware
3 108 (6.38%) Cisco
4 58 (3.43%) Splunk
5 57 (3.37%) Juniper
6 47 (2.78%) Oracle
7 46 (2.72%) ServiceNow
8 42 (2.48%) Red Hat
9 41 (2.42%) SAP
10 40 (2.36%) NetApp
11 29 (1.71%) SolarWinds
12 26 (1.54%) F5
13 24 (1.42%) Remedy
14 22 (1.30%) Dell
14 22 (1.30%) Fortinet
15 21 (1.24%) Palo Alto
16 20 (1.18%) Palantir
17 16 (0.95%) Google
17 16 (0.95%) Sparx
18 15 (0.89%) Foundry