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 16 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 85 38
Rank change year-on-year +36 -47 +15
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,228 972 1,823
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.11% 2.95% 4.77%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.01% 9.41% 16.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,659 684 1,218
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £513 £517 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% +4.35%
75th Percentile £700 £650 £688
90th Percentile £761 £721 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £585
% change year-on-year +4.35% -1.71% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 32 92
10th Percentile £41.25 - £50.00
25th Percentile £58.43 £25.15 £58.49
Median hourly rate £74.68 £45.00 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +65.96% -36.07% -2.68%
75th Percentile £92.53 £80.34 £80.00
90th Percentile £98.82 £87.48 £89.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.68 £70.00 £70.39
% change year-on-year +6.69% -0.55% -2.77%

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 17,119 10,329 11,188
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.54% 31.36% 29.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,405 6,446 6,894
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £707 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,341 831 654
10th Percentile £17.18 £17.87 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £48.00 £25.15 £49.50
Median % change year-on-year +90.85% -49.19% -9.08%
75th Percentile £72.54 £45.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £71.00 £76.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.10% +1.16%

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 16 September 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 16 September 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 16 September 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 +31 2,105 £600 +3.45% 1,522
UK excluding London +15 1,604 £600 +4.35% 1,172
South East +5 882 £600 +3.90% 330
South West +6 483 £588 -2.08% 376
London +48 475 £625 - 366
Work from Home +60 351 £560 -5.08% 756
East of England +20 105 £675 +22.73% 197
North of England -32 54 £713 +23.91% 144
Midlands -66 43 £600 - 38
West Midlands -78 38 £600 - 24
North West -17 34 £800 +60.00% 113
Scotland -5 32 £669 +27.33% 95
Yorkshire -32 15 £510 -18.40% 22
Northern Ireland +5 5 £638 +6.25% 6
North East -35 5 £463 -26.00% 15
East Midlands - 5 £625 - 14
Wales -10 4 - - 7

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 70 (3.14%) Confluence
2 54 (2.42%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 16 (0.72%) Apache
5 8 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (0.31%) Apache Spark
6 7 (0.31%) Documentum
7 6 (0.27%) CMS
8 5 (0.22%) IIS
9 4 (0.18%) Camunda
9 4 (0.18%) nginx
10 3 (0.13%) ArcGIS
10 3 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
11 2 (0.090%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.090%) Mule
11 2 (0.090%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.090%) Oracle Service Bus
11 2 (0.090%) Palantir Foundry
11 2 (0.090%) WebLogic
12 1 (0.045%) Mattermost
Applications
1 62 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (2.06%) Microsoft Project
3 33 (1.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
5 15 (0.67%) AutoCAD
5 15 (0.67%) Revit
5 15 (0.67%) SOLIDWORKS
6 9 (0.40%) MS Visio
7 8 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.090%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 28 (1.26%) Oracle ERP
2 27 (1.21%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.81%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.63%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) Primavera
7 5 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Financials
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.13%) SAP PP
9 2 (0.090%) Siebel CRM
10 1 (0.045%) Oracle Assets
10 1 (0.045%) SAP CCM
10 1 (0.045%) SAP FI-GL
10 1 (0.045%) SAP GRC
10 1 (0.045%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 304 (13.64%) Azure
2 295 (13.24%) AWS
3 108 (4.85%) GCP
4 62 (2.78%) Azure DevOps
5 55 (2.47%) Microsoft 365
6 48 (2.15%) GitHub
7 41 (1.84%) Entra ID
8 40 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
9 38 (1.71%) Power Platform
10 36 (1.62%) Serverless
11 33 (1.48%) OCI
12 28 (1.26%) OpenShift
13 26 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
14 23 (1.03%) IaaS
15 22 (0.99%) Amazon EKS
16 20 (0.90%) Amazon ECS
16 20 (0.90%) PaaS
17 18 (0.81%) SaaS
18 17 (0.76%) Amazon S3
18 17 (0.76%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 164 (7.36%) DNS
2 112 (5.03%) Firewall
3 79 (3.55%) DHCP
4 67 (3.01%) Network Security
5 56 (2.51%) WAN
6 51 (2.29%) TCP/IP
7 50 (2.24%) VPN
8 44 (1.97%) BGP
8 44 (1.97%) LAN
9 41 (1.84%) VSAN
10 35 (1.57%) MPLS
11 31 (1.39%) IPsec
12 28 (1.26%) VLAN
13 20 (0.90%) SSL
14 17 (0.76%) SAN
15 14 (0.63%) Cisco ASA
15 14 (0.63%) Cisco Nexus
15 14 (0.63%) SD-WAN
16 13 (0.58%) Cisco Firepower
16 13 (0.58%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (2.42%) SQL Server
2 44 (1.97%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.48%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (1.03%) Power BI
5 22 (0.99%) Metadata
6 21 (0.94%) Relational Database
7 19 (0.85%) Data Lake
8 17 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
8 17 (0.76%) MongoDB
9 15 (0.67%) Data Warehouse
10 10 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
11 9 (0.40%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.40%) Oracle Database 11g
12 8 (0.36%) Big Data
12 8 (0.36%) BigQuery
12 8 (0.36%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 8 (0.36%) Oracle Database 12c
12 8 (0.36%) Oracle Reports
13 7 (0.31%) MariaDB
14 5 (0.22%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 107 (4.80%) JIRA
2 79 (3.55%) GitLab
3 73 (3.28%) Jenkins
4 72 (3.23%) Git
5 29 (1.30%) Selenium
6 15 (0.67%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
8 8 (0.36%) MSI
9 7 (0.31%) Postman
9 7 (0.31%) REST Assured
9 7 (0.31%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.31%) Visual Studio
10 6 (0.27%) JUnit
10 6 (0.27%) SpecFlow
11 5 (0.22%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.22%) Gatling
11 5 (0.22%) JMeter
11 5 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.18%) Maven
13 3 (0.13%) Toad
General
1 497 (22.31%) Social Skills
2 280 (12.57%) Public Sector
3 167 (7.50%) Analytical Skills
4 140 (6.28%) Finance
5 67 (3.01%) Military
6 63 (2.83%) Documentation Skills
7 45 (2.02%) Organisational Skills
8 35 (1.57%) Influencing Skills
8 35 (1.57%) Legal
9 34 (1.53%) Law
10 32 (1.44%) Police
11 30 (1.35%) Telecoms
12 29 (1.30%) Aerospace
12 29 (1.30%) Manufacturing
13 12 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (0.40%) Local Government
15 7 (0.31%) Marketing
16 6 (0.27%) Automotive
17 5 (0.22%) Advertising
17 5 (0.22%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 379 (17.01%) Architect
2 239 (10.73%) Lead
3 197 (8.84%) Senior
4 154 (6.91%) Developer
4 154 (6.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 151 (6.78%) Consultant
6 132 (5.92%) Analyst
7 89 (3.99%) Security Architect
8 73 (3.28%) Cloud Engineer
9 69 (3.10%) Network Engineer
10 68 (3.05%) SOC Analyst
11 61 (2.74%) Support Engineer
12 58 (2.60%) DevOps Engineer
12 58 (2.60%) Project Manager
13 55 (2.47%) Technical Architect
14 51 (2.29%) DBA
15 42 (1.89%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 41 (1.84%) Lead Architect
16 41 (1.84%) Network Architect
17 40 (1.80%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 201 (9.02%) Terraform
2 75 (3.37%) REST
3 38 (1.71%) LDAP
4 31 (1.39%) Elastic Stack
5 30 (1.35%) React
6 27 (1.21%) SOAP
7 24 (1.08%) RESTful
8 21 (0.94%) Kafka
9 18 (0.81%) Node.js
10 17 (0.76%) Apache NiFi
11 16 (0.72%) XML
12 15 (0.67%) .NET
12 15 (0.67%) AngularJS
12 15 (0.67%) Spring
12 15 (0.67%) Spring Boot
13 14 (0.63%) JSON
14 13 (0.58%) FastAPI
15 12 (0.54%) ARM Templates
15 12 (0.54%) OAuth
15 12 (0.54%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 100 (4.49%) Cloud Native
1 100 (4.49%) PKI
2 95 (4.26%) Data Centre
3 82 (3.68%) Onboarding
4 43 (1.93%) Security Operations Centre
5 42 (1.89%) Management Information System
6 40 (1.80%) Private Cloud
7 39 (1.75%) Product Ownership
8 38 (1.71%) Hybrid Cloud
9 35 (1.57%) Cyber Threat
10 29 (1.30%) Public Cloud
10 29 (1.30%) Security Posture
11 25 (1.12%) Distributed Systems
12 19 (0.85%) Clustering
12 19 (0.85%) CMDB
12 19 (0.85%) Legacy Systems
13 17 (0.76%) Virtual Team
14 15 (0.67%) Analytical Mindset
15 14 (0.63%) Replication
16 13 (0.58%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 374 (16.79%) Windows
2 251 (11.27%) Linux
3 177 (7.94%) Windows Server
4 42 (1.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 30 (1.35%) Windows 10
6 28 (1.26%) Windows Server 2019
7 21 (0.94%) Unix
8 19 (0.85%) Ubuntu
9 16 (0.72%) CentOS
10 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.31%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Android
12 6 (0.27%) Mac OS
12 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
13 5 (0.22%) Data ONTAP
13 5 (0.22%) Debian
13 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.18%) VMS
14 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 390 (17.50%) Agile
2 288 (12.93%) Continuous Improvement
3 276 (12.39%) Stakeholder Management
4 261 (11.71%) CI/CD
5 228 (10.23%) Cybersecurity
6 226 (10.14%) DevOps
7 222 (9.96%) Problem-Solving
8 214 (9.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 211 (9.47%) Technical Leadership
10 202 (9.07%) Infrastructure as Code
11 200 (8.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 180 (8.08%) ITIL
13 150 (6.73%) ITSM
14 147 (6.60%) Containerisation
14 147 (6.60%) Service Management
15 135 (6.06%) SIEM
16 127 (5.70%) Decision-Making
16 127 (5.70%) Project Delivery
17 121 (5.43%) Risk Management
18 115 (5.16%) AI
Programming Languages
1 239 (10.73%) Python
2 185 (8.30%) PowerShell
3 135 (6.06%) SQL
4 95 (4.26%) Bash
5 72 (3.23%) Java
6 40 (1.80%) JavaScript
7 36 (1.62%) C#
8 29 (1.30%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.81%) Bicep
10 17 (0.76%) Go
11 15 (0.67%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.63%) Search Processing Language
13 11 (0.49%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.40%) C++
15 7 (0.31%) C
15 7 (0.31%) Groovy
16 6 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
16 6 (0.27%) Perl
16 6 (0.27%) X++
17 4 (0.18%) Rust
Qualifications
1 2,228 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 712 (31.96%) SC Cleared
3 85 (3.82%) Degree
4 71 (3.19%) CISSP
5 44 (1.97%) CISM
6 37 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.30%) Microsoft Certification
8 27 (1.21%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 25 (1.12%) AWS Certification
10 24 (1.08%) VCAP
11 23 (1.03%) PMI Certification
12 21 (0.94%) ISTQB
13 20 (0.90%) CCNP
13 20 (0.90%) TOGAF Certification
14 19 (0.85%) PMP
15 18 (0.81%) Azure Certification
16 15 (0.67%) MCSE
17 11 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
17 11 (0.49%) CHECK Team Leader
17 11 (0.49%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (4.13%) NIST
2 91 (4.08%) NCSC
3 82 (3.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 82 (3.68%) PMO
4 62 (2.78%) QA
5 38 (1.71%) JSP 440
6 32 (1.44%) GDPR
6 32 (1.44%) SLA
7 28 (1.26%) Data Quality
8 23 (1.03%) GRC
9 17 (0.76%) Accessibility
10 16 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 14 (0.63%) Government Security Classifications
12 10 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
12 10 (0.45%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 10 (0.45%) RMADS
13 9 (0.40%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.36%) WCAG
15 7 (0.31%) ISO 9000
16 6 (0.27%) Def Stans
System Software
1 240 (10.77%) Active Directory
2 200 (8.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 134 (6.01%) Docker
4 90 (4.04%) VMware NSX
5 78 (3.50%) VMware ESXi
6 66 (2.96%) Hyper-V
7 50 (2.24%) vSphere
8 26 (1.17%) vCloud
9 18 (0.81%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (0.63%) NFS
11 13 (0.58%) Oracle RAC
11 13 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
12 9 (0.40%) Firmware
13 5 (0.22%) Ceph
14 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.18%) KVM
14 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
14 4 (0.18%) Squid
15 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
16 2 (0.090%) UAG
Systems Management
1 215 (9.65%) Kubernetes
2 149 (6.69%) Ansible
3 87 (3.90%) vCenter Server
4 59 (2.65%) SCOM
5 34 (1.53%) SCCM
6 27 (1.21%) Prometheus
7 25 (1.12%) Grafana
8 21 (0.94%) Puppet
9 18 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
10 17 (0.76%) Nagios
11 16 (0.72%) Oracle RMAN
11 16 (0.72%) VxRail
12 15 (0.67%) Avamar
12 15 (0.67%) Podman
13 14 (0.63%) Data Guard
13 14 (0.63%) WMI
14 13 (0.58%) WSUS
15 12 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 12 (0.54%) Istio
16 11 (0.49%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 302 (13.55%) Microsoft
2 282 (12.66%) VMware
3 117 (5.25%) Oracle
4 99 (4.44%) ServiceNow
5 74 (3.32%) Cisco
6 58 (2.60%) Google
6 58 (2.60%) SAP
6 58 (2.60%) Splunk
7 44 (1.97%) CyberArk
8 42 (1.89%) SolarWinds
9 37 (1.66%) Red Hat
10 25 (1.12%) Juniper
11 24 (1.08%) Palo Alto
12 22 (0.99%) Dell
12 22 (0.99%) Remedy
13 20 (0.90%) BMC
14 19 (0.85%) Broadcom
14 19 (0.85%) Citrix
14 19 (0.85%) NetApp
15 18 (0.81%) Sparx