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

6 months to
12 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 1,663 970 2,307
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.89% 3.30% 5.17%
As % of the Qualifications category 11.51% 10.86% 16.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,154 653 1,663
10th Percentile £414 £390 £400
25th Percentile £503 £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 49 28 104
10th Percentile £16.35 £34.75 £48.40
25th Percentile £18.82 £58.22 £56.65
Median hourly rate £54.00 £68.12 £62.07
Median % change year-on-year -20.73% +9.75% -11.01%
75th Percentile £77.50 £81.54 £78.07
90th Percentile £92.00 £92.50 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.50 £72.50 £62.75
% change year-on-year -23.45% +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 14,452 8,928 13,610
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.85% 30.34% 30.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,498 5,622 8,401
10th Percentile £331 £285 £290
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £516 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.73% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £615 £626 £650
90th Percentile £723 £725 £736
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £512 £525
% change year-on-year -2.39% -2.43% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,081 465 1,034
10th Percentile £16.17 £18.66 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.72 £24.18 £18.15
Median hourly rate £28.50 £42.50 £39.44
Median % change year-on-year -32.94% +7.77% -21.13%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £62.47
90th Percentile £83.75 £81.80 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -48.46% +25.00% -16.67%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 +6 1,513 £575 -4.17% 432
UK excluding London +6 1,168 £575 -4.17% 387
South East +9 602 £581 -1.11% 165
London 0 344 £575 -4.17% 75
South West -1 328 £566 -5.63% 123
Work from Home +26 210 £560 -2.61% 151
Midlands -23 76 £575 -17.86% 25
North of England -20 71 £650 +62.50% 41
East of England 0 63 £575 +4.55% 28
West Midlands -34 59 £563 -19.64% 24
North West +4 57 £650 +217.07% 35
Scotland -14 36 £652 +26.50% 6
East Midlands -20 17 £638 +15.91% 1
Yorkshire - 12 £644 - 5
Northern Ireland - 8 £600 -
Wales -6 3 - - 6
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 (2.83%) Microsoft Exchange
2 45 (2.71%) SharePoint
3 27 (1.62%) Apache
4 25 (1.50%) Confluence
5 24 (1.44%) Skype for Business
6 15 (0.90%) Palantir Foundry
7 7 (0.42%) Apache Spark
8 5 (0.30%) Mattermost
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) OpenStack
11 1 (0.060%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 58 (3.49%) Microsoft Office
2 43 (2.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (1.32%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.36%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.12%) Lectora
8 1 (0.060%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 21 (1.26%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.84%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.78%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 7 (0.42%) 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%) Primavera
7 2 (0.12%) SAP GRC
8 1 (0.060%) Oracle Payroll
8 1 (0.060%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.060%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 153 (9.20%) AWS
2 132 (7.94%) Azure
3 52 (3.13%) Microsoft 365
4 50 (3.01%) GCP
5 48 (2.89%) GitHub
6 39 (2.35%) OpenShift
7 37 (2.22%) Serverless
8 35 (2.10%) IaaS
9 32 (1.92%) Azure DevOps
9 32 (1.92%) PaaS
10 29 (1.74%) GitHub Actions
11 20 (1.20%) Amazon S3
12 18 (1.08%) Amazon EC2
12 18 (1.08%) Entra ID
13 16 (0.96%) Power Platform
14 15 (0.90%) AWS CloudFormation
14 15 (0.90%) AWS Lambda
15 14 (0.84%) Azure AKS
15 14 (0.84%) Azure Sentinel
16 12 (0.72%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 124 (7.46%) Firewall
2 102 (6.13%) DNS
3 75 (4.51%) Network Security
4 59 (3.55%) LAN
5 56 (3.37%) WAN
6 51 (3.07%) VPN
7 44 (2.65%) DHCP
8 43 (2.59%) TCP/IP
9 42 (2.53%) BGP
10 31 (1.86%) OSPF
11 29 (1.74%) Junos
12 26 (1.56%) Skype
13 23 (1.38%) Cisco ISE
14 21 (1.26%) Cisco IOS
15 19 (1.14%) Ethernet VPN
16 18 (1.08%) MPLS
16 18 (1.08%) VLAN
16 18 (1.08%) VXLAN
17 16 (0.96%) BIG-IP
17 16 (0.96%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
2 25 (1.50%) Elasticsearch
3 17 (1.02%) SQL Server
4 16 (0.96%) Big Data
5 14 (0.84%) Amazon RDS
5 14 (0.84%) Hadoop
5 14 (0.84%) Oracle Database
6 12 (0.72%) Power BI
7 11 (0.66%) Redis
8 10 (0.60%) MongoDB
8 10 (0.60%) Relational Database
9 8 (0.48%) Metadata
9 8 (0.48%) MySQL
10 7 (0.42%) InfluxDB
10 7 (0.42%) SAP HANA
11 4 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (0.24%) DynamoDB
11 4 (0.24%) Metadata Repository
11 4 (0.24%) SAP Data Services
11 4 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 56 (3.37%) JIRA
2 29 (1.74%) GitLab
3 28 (1.68%) Git
4 27 (1.62%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.72%) Maven
6 11 (0.66%) Artifactory
7 10 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
8 9 (0.54%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.42%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.36%) Bitbucket
10 6 (0.36%) 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
1 303 (18.22%) Social Skills
2 199 (11.97%) Public Sector
3 125 (7.52%) Analytical Skills
4 77 (4.63%) Finance
5 66 (3.97%) Military
6 52 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (2.83%) Legal
8 28 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
9 24 (1.44%) Organisational Skills
9 24 (1.44%) Telecoms
10 22 (1.32%) Aerospace
11 17 (1.02%) Law
11 17 (1.02%) Manufacturing
11 17 (1.02%) Police
12 14 (0.84%) Marketing
13 13 (0.78%) Electronics
14 10 (0.60%) Banking
15 6 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 3 (0.18%) Influencing Skills
17 2 (0.12%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 297 (17.86%) Architect
2 104 (6.25%) Analyst
3 102 (6.13%) Senior
4 85 (5.11%) Consultant
4 85 (5.11%) Lead
5 80 (4.81%) Network Engineer
6 71 (4.27%) Technical Architect
7 68 (4.09%) Developer
8 55 (3.31%) Tester
9 53 (3.19%) DevOps Engineer
9 53 (3.19%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 47 (2.83%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
10 47 (2.83%) SOC Analyst
11 46 (2.77%) Support Engineer
12 43 (2.59%) Security Architect
13 39 (2.35%) Project Manager
14 37 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
15 36 (2.16%) 3rd Line Engineer
15 36 (2.16%) Infrastructure Architect
16 33 (1.98%) Service Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (2.35%) REST
2 29 (1.74%) Apache NiFi
3 26 (1.56%) OAuth
4 21 (1.26%) React
5 20 (1.20%) OpenID
6 19 (1.14%) Kafka
6 19 (1.14%) OAuth2
6 19 (1.14%) SAML
7 15 (0.90%) 802.1X
7 15 (0.90%) Flask
7 15 (0.90%) Node.js
8 14 (0.84%) FastAPI
8 14 (0.84%) Web Services
9 13 (0.78%) Elastic Stack
9 13 (0.78%) LDAP
10 11 (0.66%) .NET
10 11 (0.66%) RabbitMQ
11 10 (0.60%) gRPC
11 10 (0.60%) ModSecurity
11 10 (0.60%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 100 (6.01%) PKI
2 61 (3.67%) Data Centre
3 40 (2.41%) Security Operations Centre
4 38 (2.29%) Management Information System
5 26 (1.56%) Cloud Native
6 22 (1.32%) Clustering
6 22 (1.32%) Hybrid Cloud
7 21 (1.26%) Cyber Threat
8 20 (1.20%) Cyberattack
8 20 (1.20%) Product Ownership
9 18 (1.08%) Onboarding
10 17 (1.02%) Replication
11 16 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
12 15 (0.90%) Private Cloud
13 13 (0.78%) Driving Licence
13 13 (0.78%) Insider Threat
14 12 (0.72%) Legacy Systems
15 11 (0.66%) CSOC
15 11 (0.66%) Cyber Defence
15 11 (0.66%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 247 (14.85%) Windows
2 173 (10.40%) Linux
3 75 (4.51%) Windows Server
4 31 (1.86%) Windows 10
5 27 (1.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.96%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.84%) Ubuntu
8 11 (0.66%) Mac OS
9 10 (0.60%) Android
10 7 (0.42%) CentOS
10 7 (0.42%) VMS
11 5 (0.30%) Unix
11 5 (0.30%) Windows Server 2003
12 4 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.18%) Debian
13 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.12%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.12%) Rocky
15 1 (0.060%) Embedded Linux
15 1 (0.060%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 274 (16.48%) Agile
2 210 (12.63%) Problem-Solving
3 154 (9.26%) Cybersecurity
4 148 (8.90%) DevOps
5 141 (8.48%) ITIL
6 130 (7.82%) CI/CD
7 122 (7.34%) Service Management
8 103 (6.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 101 (6.07%) Continuous Improvement
9 101 (6.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 92 (5.53%) ITSM
11 86 (5.17%) Stakeholder Management
12 75 (4.51%) Project Delivery
12 75 (4.51%) Risk Management
13 73 (4.39%) Infrastructure as Code
14 71 (4.27%) SIEM
15 70 (4.21%) Containerisation
15 70 (4.21%) Incident Response
16 65 (3.91%) Project Management
17 64 (3.85%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 146 (8.78%) Python
2 121 (7.28%) PowerShell
3 57 (3.43%) SQL
4 46 (2.77%) Java
5 29 (1.74%) JavaScript
6 22 (1.32%) Bash
7 20 (1.20%) TypeScript
8 18 (1.08%) Go
9 17 (1.02%) C#
10 15 (0.90%) Shell Script
11 11 (0.66%) C++
12 8 (0.48%) Bicep
12 8 (0.48%) VB
13 7 (0.42%) VBScript
14 6 (0.36%) ABAP
14 6 (0.36%) C
14 6 (0.36%) Rust
15 5 (0.30%) PL/SQL
16 4 (0.24%) Embedded C
16 4 (0.24%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,663 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 532 (31.99%) SC Cleared
3 59 (3.55%) CISSP
4 58 (3.49%) Degree
5 47 (2.83%) Cisco Certification
6 38 (2.29%) CISM
7 31 (1.86%) Microsoft Certification
8 27 (1.62%) CompTIA Security+
9 24 (1.44%) CCNP
10 21 (1.26%) CESG Certified Professional
11 20 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
12 19 (1.14%) AWS Certification
13 18 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
13 18 (1.08%) CCNA
13 18 (1.08%) GIAC
14 16 (0.96%) CompTIA CySA+
15 15 (0.90%) CTC Cleared
16 14 (0.84%) Azure Certification
16 14 (0.84%) JNCIS
17 10 (0.60%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 78 (4.69%) NIST
2 64 (3.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 53 (3.19%) NCSC
4 42 (2.53%) QA
5 36 (2.16%) PMO
6 33 (1.98%) JSP 440
7 21 (1.26%) GRC
8 16 (0.96%) GDPR
9 15 (0.90%) Data Quality
9 15 (0.90%) NIST 800
10 14 (0.84%) RMADS
10 14 (0.84%) SLA
11 9 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
11 9 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 6 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 6 (0.36%) P3O
13 5 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 4 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
15 3 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
16 2 (0.12%) COBIT
System Software
1 118 (7.10%) Active Directory
2 91 (5.47%) Docker
3 76 (4.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 44 (2.65%) VMware NSX
5 28 (1.68%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (1.14%) vSphere
7 16 (0.96%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.72%) BitLocker
9 9 (0.54%) Firmware
9 9 (0.54%) vCloud
10 6 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
11 5 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
12 4 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
13 3 (0.18%) GPFS
13 3 (0.18%) Lustre
13 3 (0.18%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 2 (0.12%) NFS
14 2 (0.12%) UAG
14 2 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 139 (8.36%) Kubernetes
2 110 (6.61%) Terraform
3 76 (4.57%) Ansible
4 46 (2.77%) vCenter Server
5 35 (2.10%) Grafana
5 35 (2.10%) Single Sign-On
6 32 (1.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 30 (1.80%) SCCM
8 29 (1.74%) Prometheus
9 17 (1.02%) FortiGate
10 14 (0.84%) WMI
11 13 (0.78%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.78%) Puppet
12 10 (0.60%) Podman
12 10 (0.60%) SCOM
13 9 (0.54%) VxRail
14 7 (0.42%) Argo
14 7 (0.42%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 7 (0.42%) Nessus
14 7 (0.42%) NetIQ Identity Manager
Vendors
1 221 (13.29%) Microsoft
2 157 (9.44%) VMware
3 105 (6.31%) Cisco
4 58 (3.49%) Splunk
5 55 (3.31%) Juniper
6 46 (2.77%) Oracle
7 45 (2.71%) ServiceNow
8 41 (2.47%) Red Hat
9 40 (2.41%) SAP
10 38 (2.29%) NetApp
11 29 (1.74%) SolarWinds
12 25 (1.50%) F5
13 23 (1.38%) Remedy
14 22 (1.32%) Fortinet
15 21 (1.26%) Dell
15 21 (1.26%) Palo Alto
16 20 (1.20%) Palantir
17 15 (0.90%) Foundry
17 15 (0.90%) Google
17 15 (0.90%) Sparx