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 19 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 84 31
Rank change year-on-year +30 -53 +44
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,829 879 2,394
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.96% 2.99% 5.48%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.08% 9.72% 17.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,319 608 1,729
10th Percentile £413 £425 £411
25th Percentile £513 £513 £510
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £590 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +0.43% -2.08% -
75th Percentile £688 £656 £688
90th Percentile £750 £713 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £588 £600
% change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 23 110
10th Percentile £16.42 £44.00 £51.03
25th Percentile £32.54 £60.75 £57.33
Median hourly rate £56.25 £75.00 £67.25
Median % change year-on-year -25.00% +11.52% -3.93%
75th Percentile £76.94 £81.73 £84.85
90th Percentile £91.03 £87.85 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.25 £79.69 £67.66
% change year-on-year -29.41% +17.79% -9.79%

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 15,138 9,047 13,433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.78% 30.75% 30.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,088 5,755 8,292
10th Percentile £344 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £709 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £530
% change year-on-year -1.96% -3.77% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,093 505 1,051
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.43 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.50 £17.78
Median hourly rate £45.46 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.96% +6.25% -23.81%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.20 £80.84 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £46.30 £40.00
% change year-on-year -1.81% +15.75% -18.80%

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 19 April 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 19 April 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 19 April 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 +19 1,680 £580 -1.28% 421
UK excluding London +10 1,319 £600 +2.13% 359
South East +10 719 £600 +2.13% 145
London +39 361 £575 -0.98% 87
South West -2 325 £560 -6.67% 114
Work from Home +33 235 £560 -2.61% 149
North of England -6 91 £690 +236.59% 36
East of England +9 81 £625 +13.64% 41
North West +14 74 £760 +270.73% 27
Midlands -34 62 £563 -19.64% 24
West Midlands -42 45 £563 -19.64% 23
Scotland +23 40 £653 +24.38% 2
East Midlands -17 17 £588 +6.82% 1
Yorkshire -42 15 £525 -16.00% 6
Northern Ireland - 6 £600 - 1
Wales -7 2 - - 4
North East -16 2 £675 +22.73% 3

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 40 (2.19%) Microsoft Exchange
2 29 (1.59%) Confluence
3 25 (1.37%) SharePoint
4 19 (1.04%) Apache
5 11 (0.60%) Skype for Business
6 10 (0.55%) Palantir Foundry
7 8 (0.44%) Apache Spark
8 5 (0.27%) Mattermost
9 4 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.16%) Apache Airflow
11 2 (0.11%) nginx
12 1 (0.055%) OpenStack
Applications
1 51 (2.79%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (2.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (1.09%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.27%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.11%) Lectora
7 2 (0.11%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 28 (1.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.31%) Remedy ITSM
3 17 (0.93%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 6 (0.33%) Maximo
4 6 (0.33%) SAP EWM
5 4 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
5 4 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.22%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.16%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.11%) Primavera
7 2 (0.11%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.11%) SAP WM
8 1 (0.055%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.055%) SAP CCM
8 1 (0.055%) SAP FI-GL
8 1 (0.055%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.055%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 178 (9.73%) AWS
2 138 (7.55%) Azure
3 52 (2.84%) GCP
4 46 (2.52%) IaaS
5 43 (2.35%) PaaS
6 39 (2.13%) GitHub
7 36 (1.97%) Microsoft 365
8 31 (1.69%) Azure DevOps
8 31 (1.69%) Serverless
9 30 (1.64%) OpenShift
10 26 (1.42%) GitHub Actions
11 19 (1.04%) Amazon S3
12 16 (0.87%) Amazon EC2
13 15 (0.82%) AWS Lambda
13 15 (0.82%) OCI
14 12 (0.66%) Amazon EKS
14 12 (0.66%) AWS CloudFormation
14 12 (0.66%) Entra ID
14 12 (0.66%) Power Platform
15 11 (0.60%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 124 (6.78%) Firewall
2 107 (5.85%) DNS
3 71 (3.88%) Network Security
4 62 (3.39%) LAN
5 61 (3.34%) WAN
6 55 (3.01%) VPN
7 43 (2.35%) DHCP
8 41 (2.24%) BGP
9 31 (1.69%) OSPF
10 28 (1.53%) TCP/IP
11 24 (1.31%) Junos
12 19 (1.04%) Cisco ISE
12 19 (1.04%) SAN
13 18 (0.98%) Ethernet VPN
13 18 (0.98%) VSAN
14 17 (0.93%) Cisco IOS
14 17 (0.93%) MPLS
14 17 (0.93%) VLAN
14 17 (0.93%) VXLAN
15 16 (0.87%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (1.64%) PostgreSQL
2 24 (1.31%) Elasticsearch
2 24 (1.31%) SQL Server
3 15 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
4 14 (0.77%) MongoDB
5 13 (0.71%) Oracle Database
6 11 (0.60%) Big Data
6 11 (0.60%) Hadoop
7 10 (0.55%) Power BI
8 9 (0.49%) MySQL
9 8 (0.44%) Relational Database
9 8 (0.44%) SAP HANA
10 7 (0.38%) InfluxDB
10 7 (0.38%) Metadata
10 7 (0.38%) Redis
11 6 (0.33%) MariaDB
12 5 (0.27%) NoSQL
12 5 (0.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
13 4 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 68 (3.72%) JIRA
2 25 (1.37%) Git
2 25 (1.37%) GitLab
3 24 (1.31%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.49%) Maven
5 8 (0.44%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.38%) Artifactory
7 6 (0.33%) Robot Framework
8 5 (0.27%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.22%) Oracle APEX
10 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.16%) MLflow
10 3 (0.16%) Selenium
10 3 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 2 (0.11%) ERwin
11 2 (0.11%) MSI
11 2 (0.11%) Postman
11 2 (0.11%) REST Assured
12 1 (0.055%) JUnit
12 1 (0.055%) Visual Studio
General
1 292 (15.97%) Social Skills
2 201 (10.99%) Public Sector
3 117 (6.40%) Analytical Skills
4 83 (4.54%) Finance
5 61 (3.34%) Military
6 58 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (2.57%) Legal
8 30 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
9 25 (1.37%) Telecoms
10 23 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
11 21 (1.15%) Aerospace
11 21 (1.15%) Police
12 20 (1.09%) Law
13 14 (0.77%) Manufacturing
14 11 (0.60%) Marketing
15 10 (0.55%) Electronics
16 9 (0.49%) Banking
17 6 (0.33%) Influencing Skills
18 5 (0.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 3 (0.16%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 334 (18.26%) Architect
2 128 (7.00%) Senior
3 123 (6.72%) Lead
4 107 (5.85%) Analyst
5 95 (5.19%) Consultant
6 91 (4.98%) Network Engineer
7 87 (4.76%) Technical Architect
8 84 (4.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 77 (4.21%) Developer
10 59 (3.23%) SOC Analyst
10 59 (3.23%) Tester
11 53 (2.90%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
11 53 (2.90%) Security Architect
12 52 (2.84%) DevOps Engineer
12 52 (2.84%) Project Manager
13 44 (2.41%) Software Engineer
14 38 (2.08%) DV Cleared Project Manager
15 36 (1.97%) 3rd Line Engineer
16 35 (1.91%) Designer
17 34 (1.86%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (1.97%) REST
2 25 (1.37%) OAuth
3 24 (1.31%) React
4 20 (1.09%) Apache NiFi
5 19 (1.04%) OpenID
5 19 (1.04%) SAML
6 18 (0.98%) Node.js
6 18 (0.98%) OAuth2
7 16 (0.87%) Elastic Stack
7 16 (0.87%) Web Services
8 15 (0.82%) 802.1X
8 15 (0.82%) Kafka
9 14 (0.77%) .NET
10 13 (0.71%) AngularJS
10 13 (0.71%) LDAP
11 12 (0.66%) ModSecurity
12 11 (0.60%) SailPoint
12 11 (0.60%) SOAP
13 10 (0.55%) Flask
13 10 (0.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 95 (5.19%) PKI
2 68 (3.72%) Data Centre
3 48 (2.62%) Security Operations Centre
4 31 (1.69%) Cloud Native
4 31 (1.69%) Onboarding
5 30 (1.64%) Management Information System
6 28 (1.53%) Clustering
7 24 (1.31%) Product Ownership
8 22 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
9 20 (1.09%) Cyberattack
9 20 (1.09%) Replication
10 19 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
10 19 (1.04%) Public Cloud
11 17 (0.93%) Private Cloud
12 16 (0.87%) Cyber Threat
13 14 (0.77%) Driving Licence
13 14 (0.77%) Enterprise Storage
13 14 (0.77%) Security Posture
14 13 (0.71%) Legacy Systems
14 13 (0.71%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 262 (14.32%) Windows
2 199 (10.88%) Linux
3 91 (4.98%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 27 (1.48%) Windows 10
6 13 (0.71%) Ubuntu
7 12 (0.66%) Windows 7
8 10 (0.55%) Android
8 10 (0.55%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.38%) VMS
9 7 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
10 6 (0.33%) CentOS
10 6 (0.33%) Unix
11 5 (0.27%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.27%) Debian
11 5 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
14 2 (0.11%) Rocky
14 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 300 (16.40%) Agile
2 196 (10.72%) Problem-Solving
3 152 (8.31%) ITIL
4 148 (8.09%) DevOps
5 138 (7.55%) CI/CD
6 137 (7.49%) Cybersecurity
7 129 (7.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 125 (6.83%) Service Management
9 112 (6.12%) Continuous Improvement
10 111 (6.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 110 (6.01%) Stakeholder Management
12 97 (5.30%) ITSM
13 83 (4.54%) Project Delivery
14 82 (4.48%) Infrastructure as Code
15 79 (4.32%) Risk Management
16 76 (4.16%) Decision-Making
17 74 (4.05%) SIEM
18 73 (3.99%) Identity Access Management
19 71 (3.88%) Roadmaps
20 70 (3.83%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 141 (7.71%) Python
2 119 (6.51%) PowerShell
3 56 (3.06%) SQL
4 48 (2.62%) Java
5 33 (1.80%) Bash
5 33 (1.80%) JavaScript
6 21 (1.15%) C#
7 20 (1.09%) TypeScript
8 14 (0.77%) Go
8 14 (0.77%) Shell Script
9 10 (0.55%) Bicep
10 9 (0.49%) C++
11 8 (0.44%) C
11 8 (0.44%) VB
12 7 (0.38%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.38%) VBScript
13 6 (0.33%) ABAP
13 6 (0.33%) Embedded C
13 6 (0.33%) Rust
14 4 (0.22%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 1,829 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 584 (31.93%) SC Cleared
3 57 (3.12%) Degree
4 52 (2.84%) CISSP
5 47 (2.57%) Cisco Certification
6 38 (2.08%) CISM
7 36 (1.97%) Microsoft Certification
8 27 (1.48%) CompTIA Security+
9 23 (1.26%) CCNP
10 22 (1.20%) CCNA
11 20 (1.09%) CESG Certified Professional
12 19 (1.04%) BPSS Clearance
13 18 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
13 18 (0.98%) GIAC
14 17 (0.93%) AWS Certification
15 14 (0.77%) CEH
16 13 (0.71%) Azure Certification
16 13 (0.71%) CompTIA CySA+
16 13 (0.71%) CTC Cleared
17 12 (0.66%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 80 (4.37%) NIST
2 61 (3.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 46 (2.52%) NCSC
4 42 (2.30%) PMO
4 42 (2.30%) QA
5 34 (1.86%) JSP 440
6 23 (1.26%) GRC
7 20 (1.09%) RMADS
8 15 (0.82%) SLA
9 13 (0.71%) GDPR
10 11 (0.60%) NIST 800
11 10 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
11 10 (0.55%) Data Quality
12 9 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 5 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
14 4 (0.22%) Accessibility
14 4 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 4 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 4 (0.22%) P3O
15 3 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 130 (7.11%) Active Directory
2 104 (5.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 92 (5.03%) Docker
4 53 (2.90%) VMware NSX
5 43 (2.35%) VMware ESXi
6 33 (1.80%) Hyper-V
7 22 (1.20%) vSphere
8 15 (0.82%) BitLocker
9 12 (0.66%) vCloud
10 10 (0.55%) Firmware
11 8 (0.44%) Microsoft App-V
12 6 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
13 5 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.22%) UAG
14 4 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
15 3 (0.16%) Ceph
15 3 (0.16%) GPFS
15 3 (0.16%) Lustre
15 3 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 2 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 135 (7.38%) Kubernetes
2 116 (6.34%) Terraform
3 79 (4.32%) Ansible
4 57 (3.12%) vCenter Server
5 38 (2.08%) SCCM
6 35 (1.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 35 (1.91%) Single Sign-On
7 25 (1.37%) Grafana
8 20 (1.09%) Prometheus
9 15 (0.82%) FortiGate
10 14 (0.77%) Puppet
11 12 (0.66%) SCOM
12 11 (0.60%) Nessus
12 11 (0.60%) Progress Chef
13 10 (0.55%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 10 (0.55%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 10 (0.55%) Podman
13 10 (0.55%) WMI
14 8 (0.44%) vMotion
14 8 (0.44%) WSUS
Vendors
1 206 (11.26%) Microsoft
2 197 (10.77%) VMware
3 109 (5.96%) Cisco
4 62 (3.39%) Splunk
5 58 (3.17%) ServiceNow
6 57 (3.12%) SAP
7 52 (2.84%) Juniper
8 49 (2.68%) NetApp
9 44 (2.41%) Oracle
10 40 (2.19%) Red Hat
11 27 (1.48%) F5
12 26 (1.42%) SolarWinds
13 25 (1.37%) Remedy
14 23 (1.26%) Fortinet
15 22 (1.20%) Dell
16 19 (1.04%) Google
16 19 (1.04%) Palo Alto
17 18 (0.98%) Sparx
18 17 (0.93%) Citrix
19 16 (0.87%) Atlassian