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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 80 35
Rank change year-on-year +30 -45 +18
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,150 1,012 1,962
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.01% 3.09% 5.05%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.84% 9.87% 16.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,640 708 1,376
10th Percentile £463 £460 £425
25th Percentile £516 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £593 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.22% -1.21% +4.35%
75th Percentile £703 £669 £688
90th Percentile £763 £716 £764
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £600
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 40 96
10th Percentile £35.00 - £50.00
25th Percentile £50.46 £25.15 £58.49
Median hourly rate £70.00 £52.50 £70.78
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -25.82% +1.11%
75th Percentile £92.53 £81.35 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.65 £87.64 £93.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £80.00 £70.39
% change year-on-year -12.50% +13.65% -3.36%

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 16,739 10,253 11,610
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.20% 31.32% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,191 6,335 7,317
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £435 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £517 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.32% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,267 823 780
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.98 £14.50
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.37
Median hourly rate £48.84 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +94.19% -44.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £72.60 £53.63 £67.01
90th Percentile £87.96 £73.75 £77.04
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £48.37
% change year-on-year +89.03% -48.00% -6.78%

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 25 August 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 25 August 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 25 August 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 2,015 £600 +1.61% 454
UK excluding London +12 1,539 £600 +3.45% 407
South East +3 897 £600 - 167
London +43 459 £600 -4.00% 86
South West +2 404 £600 - 134
Work from Home +36 325 £575 -2.13% 195
East of England +8 90 £650 +18.18% 49
North of England -12 64 £775 +34.78% 42
North West -3 43 £863 +72.50% 29
Midlands -79 41 £600 - 16
Scotland +13 39 £669 +27.33% 18
West Midlands -65 37 £600 - 12
Yorkshire -24 16 £518 -17.20% 7
North East -35 5 £463 -26.00% 6
Northern Ireland +4 4 £638 -8.93%
Wales -12 4 - - 1
East Midlands - 4 £631 - 4

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 63 (2.93%) Confluence
2 44 (2.05%) SharePoint
3 37 (1.72%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.42%) Apache
5 7 (0.33%) Documentum
6 6 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.28%) CMS
7 5 (0.23%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
8 3 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.093%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.093%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.093%) Camunda
9 2 (0.093%) Mule
9 2 (0.093%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.093%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.093%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.093%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.093%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.047%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 56 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (2.09%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
5 14 (0.65%) AutoCAD
5 14 (0.65%) Revit
5 14 (0.65%) SOLIDWORKS
6 10 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.19%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.30%) Oracle ERP
3 22 (1.02%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.84%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.65%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.19%) Primavera
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.14%) SAP PP
10 2 (0.093%) Oracle Assets
10 2 (0.093%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.047%) Oracle Payroll
11 1 (0.047%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 1 (0.047%) SAP FI-GL
11 1 (0.047%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 285 (13.26%) Azure
2 265 (12.33%) AWS
3 104 (4.84%) GCP
4 56 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
5 46 (2.14%) GitHub
6 45 (2.09%) Microsoft 365
7 39 (1.81%) Entra ID
7 39 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
8 38 (1.77%) Power Platform
9 37 (1.72%) Serverless
10 33 (1.53%) OCI
11 32 (1.49%) IaaS
12 30 (1.40%) PaaS
13 25 (1.16%) AWS Lambda
14 23 (1.07%) Amazon EKS
15 22 (1.02%) OpenShift
16 20 (0.93%) Amazon ECS
17 19 (0.88%) Amazon S3
17 19 (0.88%) SaaS
18 17 (0.79%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 160 (7.44%) DNS
2 121 (5.63%) Firewall
3 79 (3.67%) DHCP
4 66 (3.07%) Network Security
5 64 (2.98%) WAN
6 57 (2.65%) LAN
7 55 (2.56%) VPN
8 52 (2.42%) TCP/IP
9 49 (2.28%) BGP
10 42 (1.95%) VSAN
11 33 (1.53%) IPsec
12 32 (1.49%) MPLS
13 27 (1.26%) VLAN
14 18 (0.84%) SSL
15 17 (0.79%) OSPF
16 16 (0.74%) Cisco ASA
17 15 (0.70%) Cisco Firepower
17 15 (0.70%) SD-WAN
18 13 (0.60%) Cisco Nexus
18 13 (0.60%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (2.37%) SQL Server
2 39 (1.81%) Oracle Database
3 29 (1.35%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (1.07%) Power BI
5 18 (0.84%) Metadata
6 17 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
7 16 (0.74%) Data Lake
8 15 (0.70%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (0.70%) MongoDB
9 12 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
10 9 (0.42%) NoSQL
10 9 (0.42%) Oracle Database 11g
11 8 (0.37%) BigQuery
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
12 7 (0.33%) Big Data
12 7 (0.33%) MariaDB
12 7 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
13 5 (0.23%) Amazon Redshift
14 4 (0.19%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 101 (4.70%) JIRA
2 64 (2.98%) GitLab
3 55 (2.56%) Jenkins
4 44 (2.05%) Git
5 15 (0.70%) Cypress.io
6 14 (0.65%) Selenium
7 7 (0.33%) Postman
7 7 (0.33%) REST Assured
7 7 (0.33%) Visual Studio
8 6 (0.28%) MSI
8 6 (0.28%) SpecFlow
9 5 (0.23%) Cucumber
9 5 (0.23%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.19%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.14%) Appium
11 3 (0.14%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.14%) Gatling
11 3 (0.14%) JMeter
11 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 431 (20.05%) Social Skills
2 284 (13.21%) Public Sector
3 156 (7.26%) Analytical Skills
4 136 (6.33%) Finance
5 60 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
5 60 (2.79%) Military
6 43 (2.00%) Legal
7 42 (1.95%) Organisational Skills
8 31 (1.44%) Police
9 30 (1.40%) Law
10 28 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
11 27 (1.26%) Telecoms
12 23 (1.07%) Aerospace
12 23 (1.07%) Manufacturing
13 13 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
14 8 (0.37%) Local Government
15 7 (0.33%) Marketing
16 5 (0.23%) Advertising
17 4 (0.19%) General Ledger
17 4 (0.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 347 (16.14%) Architect
2 246 (11.44%) Lead
3 194 (9.02%) Senior
4 152 (7.07%) Consultant
5 147 (6.84%) Developer
6 146 (6.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 139 (6.47%) Analyst
8 91 (4.23%) Security Architect
9 84 (3.91%) Network Engineer
10 75 (3.49%) SOC Analyst
11 64 (2.98%) Cloud Engineer
12 61 (2.84%) Technical Architect
13 59 (2.74%) Project Manager
14 52 (2.42%) DevOps Engineer
14 52 (2.42%) Support Engineer
15 50 (2.33%) DBA
16 47 (2.19%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 42 (1.95%) DV Cleared Project Manager
18 41 (1.91%) Lead Architect
18 41 (1.91%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 189 (8.79%) Terraform
2 73 (3.40%) REST
3 30 (1.40%) Elastic Stack
4 25 (1.16%) React
4 25 (1.16%) SOAP
5 19 (0.88%) RESTful
6 18 (0.84%) Kafka
7 15 (0.70%) .NET
8 14 (0.65%) Node.js
9 13 (0.60%) AngularJS
9 13 (0.60%) FastAPI
9 13 (0.60%) Flask
9 13 (0.60%) LDAP
9 13 (0.60%) Oracle Fusion
9 13 (0.60%) Spring
9 13 (0.60%) Spring Boot
10 12 (0.56%) ARM Templates
10 12 (0.56%) OAuth
11 11 (0.51%) XML
12 10 (0.47%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 100 (4.65%) PKI
2 95 (4.42%) Cloud Native
3 93 (4.33%) Data Centre
4 69 (3.21%) Onboarding
5 47 (2.19%) Security Operations Centre
6 38 (1.77%) Hybrid Cloud
6 38 (1.77%) Private Cloud
7 36 (1.67%) Product Ownership
8 34 (1.58%) Management Information System
9 31 (1.44%) Cyber Threat
10 29 (1.35%) Public Cloud
11 25 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
12 24 (1.12%) Clustering
12 24 (1.12%) CMDB
12 24 (1.12%) Security Posture
13 18 (0.84%) Legacy Systems
13 18 (0.84%) Virtual Team
14 16 (0.74%) Replication
15 14 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (0.60%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 336 (15.63%) Windows
2 238 (11.07%) Linux
3 160 (7.44%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 28 (1.30%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.02%) Windows Server 2019
7 16 (0.74%) Unix
8 14 (0.65%) Ubuntu
9 12 (0.56%) CentOS
10 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.42%) Mac OS
12 6 (0.28%) AIX
12 6 (0.28%) Android
12 6 (0.28%) VMS
13 5 (0.23%) Debian
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.19%) Data ONTAP
14 4 (0.19%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 368 (17.12%) Agile
2 239 (11.12%) Stakeholder Management
3 230 (10.70%) Continuous Improvement
4 222 (10.33%) Cybersecurity
5 221 (10.28%) CI/CD
6 209 (9.72%) Problem-Solving
7 197 (9.16%) DevOps
8 191 (8.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 191 (8.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 179 (8.33%) ITIL
10 169 (7.86%) Infrastructure as Code
11 166 (7.72%) Technical Leadership
12 145 (6.74%) Service Management
13 126 (5.86%) ITSM
14 118 (5.49%) Project Delivery
15 117 (5.44%) Risk Management
16 116 (5.40%) Containerisation
17 115 (5.35%) Decision-Making
18 109 (5.07%) SIEM
19 102 (4.74%) AI
Programming Languages
1 206 (9.58%) Python
2 173 (8.05%) PowerShell
3 114 (5.30%) SQL
4 86 (4.00%) Bash
5 60 (2.79%) Java
6 38 (1.77%) JavaScript
7 35 (1.63%) C#
8 23 (1.07%) TypeScript
9 19 (0.88%) Bicep
10 16 (0.74%) Go
11 15 (0.70%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.65%) C++
12 14 (0.65%) Search Processing Language
13 11 (0.51%) C
14 7 (0.33%) Groovy
14 7 (0.33%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.28%) Embedded C
15 6 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
15 6 (0.28%) Perl
15 6 (0.28%) X++
Qualifications
1 2,150 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 706 (32.84%) SC Cleared
3 75 (3.49%) Degree
4 69 (3.21%) CISSP
5 45 (2.09%) CISM
6 36 (1.67%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
8 26 (1.21%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 23 (1.07%) VCAP
10 21 (0.98%) PMI Certification
11 20 (0.93%) AWS Certification
11 20 (0.93%) ISTQB
12 19 (0.88%) PMP
13 17 (0.79%) TOGAF Certification
14 15 (0.70%) Azure Certification
14 15 (0.70%) BPSS Clearance
14 15 (0.70%) CCNP
14 15 (0.70%) MCSE
15 13 (0.60%) CompTIA Security+
16 12 (0.56%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (3.95%) NCSC
2 81 (3.77%) PMO
3 77 (3.58%) NIST
4 59 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 54 (2.51%) QA
6 38 (1.77%) JSP 440
7 30 (1.40%) GDPR
8 27 (1.26%) SLA
9 24 (1.12%) Data Quality
10 18 (0.84%) Accessibility
10 18 (0.84%) GRC
10 18 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 17 (0.79%) Government Security Classifications
12 16 (0.74%) RMADS
13 11 (0.51%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 10 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
15 8 (0.37%) WCAG
16 7 (0.33%) ISO 9000
17 6 (0.28%) NIST 800
18 5 (0.23%) Def Stans
System Software
1 196 (9.12%) Active Directory
2 187 (8.70%) VMware Infrastructure
3 121 (5.63%) Docker
4 95 (4.42%) VMware NSX
5 73 (3.40%) VMware ESXi
6 62 (2.88%) Hyper-V
7 51 (2.37%) vSphere
8 26 (1.21%) vCloud
9 16 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
10 12 (0.56%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.37%) NFS
12 7 (0.33%) BitLocker
12 7 (0.33%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
13 6 (0.28%) Firmware
14 5 (0.23%) Ceph
15 4 (0.19%) KVM
15 4 (0.19%) Squid
15 4 (0.19%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.14%) UAG
Systems Management
1 196 (9.12%) Kubernetes
2 136 (6.33%) Ansible
3 84 (3.91%) vCenter Server
4 51 (2.37%) SCOM
5 33 (1.53%) SCCM
6 25 (1.16%) Prometheus
7 22 (1.02%) Grafana
7 22 (1.02%) Puppet
8 16 (0.74%) Nagios
8 16 (0.74%) Oracle RMAN
9 15 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
9 15 (0.70%) VxRail
10 14 (0.65%) Avamar
10 14 (0.65%) Data Guard
11 13 (0.60%) Podman
11 13 (0.60%) WSUS
12 12 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.56%) Istio
12 12 (0.56%) WMI
13 11 (0.51%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 286 (13.30%) Microsoft
2 265 (12.33%) VMware
3 106 (4.93%) Oracle
3 106 (4.93%) ServiceNow
4 83 (3.86%) Cisco
5 60 (2.79%) SAP
6 58 (2.70%) Splunk
7 52 (2.42%) Google
8 37 (1.72%) SolarWinds
9 34 (1.58%) Juniper
10 33 (1.53%) Red Hat
11 25 (1.16%) CyberArk
12 24 (1.12%) Dell
12 24 (1.12%) Palo Alto
12 24 (1.12%) Remedy
13 23 (1.07%) Citrix
14 21 (0.98%) NetApp
15 20 (0.93%) BMC
16 18 (0.84%) Sparx
17 17 (0.79%) Thales