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 18 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 88 31
Rank change year-on-year +38 -57 +34
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,912 836 2,410
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.99% 2.84% 5.66%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.55% 9.18% 18.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,429 587 1,742
10th Percentile £424 £449 £417
25th Percentile £513 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £585 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £688 £664 £688
90th Percentile £750 £717 £776
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £585 £600
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 24 103
10th Percentile £16.91 £44.75 £49.45
25th Percentile £35.00 £60.75 £56.65
Median hourly rate £55.00 £79.69 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year -30.98% +13.21% +2.76%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.32 £85.00
90th Percentile £89.45 £88.46 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £80.68 £70.39
% change year-on-year -31.83% +14.61% -5.88%

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 15,237 9,103 12,859
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.77% 30.98% 30.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,137 5,746 7,978
10th Percentile £350 £281 £306
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year - -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £622 £620 £646
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £533
% change year-on-year - -6.10% +1.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,076 514 1,058
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.28 £21.26 £17.73
Median hourly rate £50.00 £37.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +34.23% -6.88% -25.93%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.36 £79.61 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £37.07 £40.30
% change year-on-year +28.24% -8.01% -19.40%

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 18 May 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 18 May 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 18 May 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 +29 1,768 £589 +0.21% 498
UK excluding London +15 1,386 £600 +2.56% 393
South East +10 761 £600 +1.91% 175
London +52 372 £585 -2.50% 121
South West -3 328 £565 -5.83% 127
Work from Home +51 255 £563 -2.17% 141
East of England +13 109 £650 +18.18% 50
North of England -11 81 £750 +265.85% 32
North West +13 67 £775 +278.05% 23
Midlands -34 62 £600 -7.69% 9
West Midlands -41 47 £600 -14.29% 8
Scotland +34 38 £669 +27.33% 3
East Midlands -14 15 £530 -3.64% 1
Yorkshire -48 12 £525 -16.00% 5
Wales -6 6 - - 2
Northern Ireland - 6 £644 - 3
North East - 2 £675 - 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 38 (1.99%) Confluence
2 36 (1.88%) Microsoft Exchange
3 28 (1.46%) SharePoint
4 15 (0.78%) Apache
5 8 (0.42%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.31%) Mattermost
6 6 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
7 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
8 2 (0.10%) CMS
8 2 (0.10%) nginx
9 1 (0.052%) OpenStack
Applications
1 39 (2.04%) Microsoft Excel
1 39 (2.04%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
3 13 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.26%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.21%) AutoCAD
6 4 (0.21%) Revit
6 4 (0.21%) SOLIDWORKS
7 2 (0.10%) Lectora
7 2 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 28 (1.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.31%) Remedy ITSM
3 21 (1.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 5 (0.26%) Maximo
5 4 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
5 4 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.21%) SAP EWM
6 3 (0.16%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.10%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.052%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.052%) Primavera
8 1 (0.052%) SAP CCM
8 1 (0.052%) SAP FI-GL
8 1 (0.052%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.052%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 185 (9.68%) AWS
2 159 (8.32%) Azure
3 60 (3.14%) GCP
4 45 (2.35%) IaaS
5 44 (2.30%) PaaS
6 40 (2.09%) GitHub
7 37 (1.94%) Azure DevOps
8 31 (1.62%) Microsoft 365
9 28 (1.46%) GitHub Actions
9 28 (1.46%) Serverless
10 27 (1.41%) OpenShift
11 19 (0.99%) Power Platform
12 16 (0.84%) Amazon ECS
12 16 (0.84%) OCI
13 14 (0.73%) Amazon S3
13 14 (0.73%) AWS Lambda
14 13 (0.68%) Amazon EKS
15 12 (0.63%) Amazon EC2
16 11 (0.58%) Entra ID
16 11 (0.58%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 104 (5.44%) Firewall
2 102 (5.33%) DNS
3 67 (3.50%) Network Security
4 59 (3.09%) WAN
5 58 (3.03%) LAN
6 47 (2.46%) VPN
7 41 (2.14%) DHCP
8 40 (2.09%) BGP
9 27 (1.41%) OSPF
9 27 (1.41%) TCP/IP
10 20 (1.05%) VSAN
11 18 (0.94%) Ethernet VPN
11 18 (0.94%) MPLS
11 18 (0.94%) SAN
12 17 (0.89%) VXLAN
13 16 (0.84%) BIG-IP
13 16 (0.84%) Junos
13 16 (0.84%) VLAN
14 14 (0.73%) SMTP
15 13 (0.68%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (1.41%) SQL Server
2 24 (1.26%) Elasticsearch
3 23 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.15%) Oracle Database
5 15 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
5 15 (0.78%) Power BI
6 12 (0.63%) MongoDB
7 9 (0.47%) Hadoop
8 8 (0.42%) Big Data
8 8 (0.42%) Metadata
9 7 (0.37%) Data Warehouse
9 7 (0.37%) Redis
10 6 (0.31%) Data Lake
10 6 (0.31%) MariaDB
10 6 (0.31%) MySQL
10 6 (0.31%) NoSQL
10 6 (0.31%) Relational Database
11 5 (0.26%) InfluxDB
11 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 4 (0.21%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 73 (3.82%) JIRA
2 28 (1.46%) GitLab
3 27 (1.41%) Git
4 24 (1.26%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.42%) Cypress.io
7 7 (0.37%) Artifactory
7 7 (0.37%) Maven
7 7 (0.37%) Robot Framework
8 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
8 4 (0.21%) Selenium
8 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.16%) MLflow
9 3 (0.16%) MSI
9 3 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 2 (0.10%) Cucumber
10 2 (0.10%) Gatling
10 2 (0.10%) JUnit
10 2 (0.10%) REST Assured
General
1 297 (15.53%) Social Skills
2 217 (11.35%) Public Sector
3 116 (6.07%) Analytical Skills
4 80 (4.18%) Finance
5 65 (3.40%) Military
6 57 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
7 54 (2.82%) Legal
8 26 (1.36%) Organisational Skills
9 23 (1.20%) Law
9 23 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
9 23 (1.20%) Telecoms
10 20 (1.05%) Aerospace
11 15 (0.78%) Police
12 10 (0.52%) Manufacturing
13 9 (0.47%) Marketing
14 7 (0.37%) Electronics
15 5 (0.26%) Banking
16 4 (0.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 4 (0.21%) Influencing Skills
17 3 (0.16%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 318 (16.63%) Architect
2 149 (7.79%) Lead
3 146 (7.64%) Senior
4 120 (6.28%) Analyst
5 103 (5.39%) Consultant
6 99 (5.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 96 (5.02%) Developer
8 89 (4.65%) Network Engineer
9 80 (4.18%) Technical Architect
10 67 (3.50%) SOC Analyst
11 60 (3.14%) Security Architect
12 56 (2.93%) Tester
13 54 (2.82%) Project Manager
14 52 (2.72%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 51 (2.67%) DevOps Engineer
16 48 (2.51%) Software Engineer
17 39 (2.04%) Designer
17 39 (2.04%) Service Manager
18 37 (1.94%) Administrator
19 36 (1.88%) Enterprise Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (2.35%) REST
2 31 (1.62%) React
3 24 (1.26%) Elastic Stack
4 19 (0.99%) Node.js
5 17 (0.89%) AngularJS
5 17 (0.89%) Apache NiFi
5 17 (0.89%) Kafka
6 16 (0.84%) 802.1X
7 15 (0.78%) LDAP
7 15 (0.78%) SOAP
8 14 (0.73%) Spring
9 13 (0.68%) .NET
10 12 (0.63%) Flask
10 12 (0.63%) RESTful
10 12 (0.63%) Spring Boot
11 11 (0.58%) FastAPI
11 11 (0.58%) ModSecurity
11 11 (0.58%) OAuth
11 11 (0.58%) Web Services
12 10 (0.52%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 92 (4.81%) PKI
2 64 (3.35%) Data Centre
3 53 (2.77%) Security Operations Centre
4 43 (2.25%) Cloud Native
5 32 (1.67%) Clustering
6 31 (1.62%) Management Information System
6 31 (1.62%) Onboarding
7 25 (1.31%) Product Ownership
8 23 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
9 21 (1.10%) Cyber Threat
10 20 (1.05%) Cyberattack
11 19 (0.99%) Public Cloud
12 18 (0.94%) Security Posture
13 15 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
13 15 (0.78%) Enterprise Storage
13 15 (0.78%) Virtual Team
14 14 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
15 13 (0.68%) CMDB
15 13 (0.68%) Legacy Systems
15 13 (0.68%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 273 (14.28%) Windows
2 216 (11.30%) Linux
3 93 (4.86%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (1.20%) Windows 10
6 12 (0.63%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.47%) Unix
8 8 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
8 8 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (0.37%) Android
9 7 (0.37%) Debian
10 6 (0.31%) AIX
10 6 (0.31%) CentOS
10 6 (0.31%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.31%) VMS
10 6 (0.31%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.26%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.16%) Rocky
13 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 312 (16.32%) Agile
2 199 (10.41%) Problem-Solving
3 163 (8.53%) ITIL
4 156 (8.16%) CI/CD
5 151 (7.90%) DevOps
6 145 (7.58%) Cybersecurity
7 139 (7.27%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 130 (6.80%) Continuous Improvement
9 126 (6.59%) Service Management
10 122 (6.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 114 (5.96%) Stakeholder Management
12 100 (5.23%) ITSM
13 98 (5.13%) Infrastructure as Code
14 92 (4.81%) Project Delivery
15 90 (4.71%) Decision-Making
16 79 (4.13%) Risk Management
17 78 (4.08%) SIEM
18 76 (3.97%) Security Operations
19 75 (3.92%) Incident Response
20 74 (3.87%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 148 (7.74%) Python
2 113 (5.91%) PowerShell
3 80 (4.18%) SQL
4 46 (2.41%) Java
5 37 (1.94%) JavaScript
6 34 (1.78%) Bash
7 25 (1.31%) C#
8 24 (1.26%) TypeScript
9 15 (0.78%) Go
10 14 (0.73%) Search Processing Language
11 12 (0.63%) PL/SQL
12 10 (0.52%) Bicep
12 10 (0.52%) C++
12 10 (0.52%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.47%) C
14 6 (0.31%) Embedded C
14 6 (0.31%) Rust
15 5 (0.26%) Apex Code
15 5 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
16 4 (0.21%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,912 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 605 (31.64%) SC Cleared
3 57 (2.98%) Degree
4 51 (2.67%) Cisco Certification
5 50 (2.62%) CISSP
6 36 (1.88%) CISM
7 25 (1.31%) CCNA
7 25 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
8 22 (1.15%) CCNP
8 22 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
9 18 (0.94%) CESG Certified Professional
9 18 (0.94%) Computer Science Degree
10 17 (0.89%) AWS Certification
11 16 (0.84%) BPSS Clearance
12 15 (0.78%) GIAC
13 14 (0.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 13 (0.68%) CompTIA CySA+
15 12 (0.63%) CTC Cleared
15 12 (0.63%) ISTQB
16 11 (0.58%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (3.92%) NIST
2 61 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 48 (2.51%) PMO
4 47 (2.46%) NCSC
5 46 (2.41%) QA
6 37 (1.94%) JSP 440
7 24 (1.26%) GRC
8 22 (1.15%) RMADS
9 21 (1.10%) SLA
10 17 (0.89%) GDPR
11 12 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
12 11 (0.58%) Data Quality
13 9 (0.47%) Accessibility
13 9 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 8 (0.42%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.31%) WCAG
16 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 4 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
16 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 3 (0.16%) Def Stans
System Software
1 125 (6.54%) Active Directory
2 120 (6.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 92 (4.81%) Docker
4 56 (2.93%) VMware NSX
5 47 (2.46%) VMware ESXi
6 39 (2.04%) Hyper-V
7 21 (1.10%) vSphere
8 18 (0.94%) vCloud
9 10 (0.52%) BitLocker
10 9 (0.47%) Firmware
10 9 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.42%) Microsoft App-V
11 8 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
12 6 (0.31%) NFS
13 5 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
14 4 (0.21%) UAG
15 3 (0.16%) Ceph
16 2 (0.10%) GPFS
16 2 (0.10%) Lustre
16 2 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 129 (6.75%) Kubernetes
2 122 (6.38%) Terraform
3 83 (4.34%) Ansible
4 58 (3.03%) vCenter Server
5 29 (1.52%) SCCM
6 23 (1.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 23 (1.20%) SCOM
6 23 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
7 22 (1.15%) Grafana
8 19 (0.99%) Prometheus
9 16 (0.84%) Puppet
10 13 (0.68%) FortiGate
11 12 (0.63%) Nagios
12 11 (0.58%) Nessus
12 11 (0.58%) Podman
12 11 (0.58%) Progress Chef
13 10 (0.52%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 10 (0.52%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 10 (0.52%) WMI
13 10 (0.52%) WSUS
Vendors
1 208 (10.88%) VMware
2 178 (9.31%) Microsoft
3 104 (5.44%) Cisco
4 72 (3.77%) Splunk
5 66 (3.45%) ServiceNow
6 48 (2.51%) Oracle
7 47 (2.46%) NetApp
8 45 (2.35%) SAP
9 44 (2.30%) Juniper
10 41 (2.14%) Red Hat
11 28 (1.46%) F5
12 26 (1.36%) Remedy
12 26 (1.36%) SolarWinds
13 22 (1.15%) Fortinet
14 21 (1.10%) Sparx
15 20 (1.05%) Dell
16 19 (0.99%) Google
17 18 (0.94%) Citrix
17 18 (0.94%) Palo Alto
18 17 (0.89%) BMC