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 13 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 79 32
Rank change year-on-year +31 -47 +25
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,139 986 2,394
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.06% 3.02% 5.60%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.94% 9.80% 18.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,632 684 1,684
10th Percentile £430 £450 £425
25th Percentile £513 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% -
75th Percentile £688 £650 £688
90th Percentile £750 £713 £773
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £583 £600
% change year-on-year +3.00% -2.92% +1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 36 125
10th Percentile £20.50 £25.15 £48.64
25th Percentile £35.00 £31.00 £56.65
Median hourly rate £55.00 £70.00 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% -0.55% +0.56%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.32 £85.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £88.19 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £81.01 £70.39
% change year-on-year -32.11% +15.09% -6.15%

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 16,533 10,060 12,806
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.38% 30.78% 29.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,051 6,245 7,956
10th Percentile £350 £280 £310
25th Percentile £429 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.38% -0.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £704 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,196 718 1,085
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.74 £20.00 £20.47
Median hourly rate £52.25 £27.50 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +90.00% -33.73% -24.72%
75th Percentile £73.00 £58.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.31 £75.00 £75.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -19.87%

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 13 July 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 13 July 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 13 July 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 +25 1,988 £600 +1.61% 747
UK excluding London +10 1,520 £600 +3.00% 615
South East +6 828 £600 - 238
London +65 444 £600 - 157
South West -2 401 £575 -4.17% 254
Work from Home +53 319 £560 -4.44% 281
East of England +13 103 £650 +18.18% 58
North of England -3 89 £775 +86.75% 36
North West +2 66 £775 +278.05% 30
Midlands -46 58 £600 - 21
West Midlands -72 46 £600 - 15
Scotland +17 39 £659 +31.85% 15
Yorkshire -35 19 £518 -17.20% 2
East Midlands -4 12 £625 +13.64% 6
Northern Ireland +6 5 £619 -
Wales -11 4 - -
North East -31 4 £463 -26.00% 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 57 (2.66%) Confluence
2 43 (2.01%) Microsoft Exchange
3 37 (1.73%) SharePoint
4 8 (0.37%) Apache
5 7 (0.33%) Apache Spark
5 7 (0.33%) Documentum
6 6 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.28%) Mattermost
7 5 (0.23%) CMS
8 4 (0.19%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.094%) nginx
9 2 (0.094%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.094%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.094%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.094%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.047%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.047%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.047%) Mule
10 1 (0.047%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 42 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.54%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
4 14 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (0.47%) AutoCAD
5 10 (0.47%) Revit
5 10 (0.47%) SOLIDWORKS
6 9 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
7 6 (0.28%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
9 2 (0.094%) Lectora
Business Applications
1 30 (1.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.22%) Remedy ITSM
3 19 (0.89%) Oracle ERP
3 19 (0.89%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 10 (0.47%) Teamcenter
5 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.19%) SAP EWM
6 4 (0.19%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.14%) SAP GRC
8 2 (0.094%) Primavera
8 2 (0.094%) Siebel CRM
9 1 (0.047%) Oracle Assets
9 1 (0.047%) Oracle Payables
9 1 (0.047%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 1 (0.047%) SAP CCM
9 1 (0.047%) SAP FI-GL
9 1 (0.047%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.047%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 244 (11.41%) AWS
2 235 (10.99%) Azure
3 92 (4.30%) GCP
4 54 (2.52%) GitHub
5 53 (2.48%) Azure DevOps
6 43 (2.01%) GitHub Actions
7 39 (1.82%) Microsoft 365
8 38 (1.78%) IaaS
9 37 (1.73%) PaaS
10 34 (1.59%) Serverless
11 29 (1.36%) Power Platform
12 27 (1.26%) OpenShift
13 25 (1.17%) Entra ID
13 25 (1.17%) OCI
14 19 (0.89%) AWS Lambda
15 18 (0.84%) SaaS
16 17 (0.79%) Amazon EKS
17 16 (0.75%) Amazon ECS
18 15 (0.70%) Amazon S3
19 14 (0.65%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 132 (6.17%) DNS
2 114 (5.33%) Firewall
3 78 (3.65%) Network Security
4 72 (3.37%) WAN
5 69 (3.23%) LAN
6 61 (2.85%) DHCP
7 53 (2.48%) BGP
8 49 (2.29%) VPN
9 33 (1.54%) OSPF
10 32 (1.50%) TCP/IP
11 31 (1.45%) VLAN
12 26 (1.22%) IPsec
12 26 (1.22%) MPLS
12 26 (1.22%) VSAN
13 21 (0.98%) VXLAN
14 19 (0.89%) Ethernet VPN
15 18 (0.84%) BIG-IP
16 17 (0.79%) Cisco ASA
16 17 (0.79%) SD-WAN
17 16 (0.75%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (1.96%) SQL Server
2 37 (1.73%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.59%) PostgreSQL
4 27 (1.26%) Elasticsearch
5 21 (0.98%) Power BI
6 15 (0.70%) Metadata
7 13 (0.61%) Data Warehouse
8 10 (0.47%) Amazon RDS
8 10 (0.47%) MongoDB
9 9 (0.42%) Data Lake
10 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 11g
11 7 (0.33%) Redis
12 6 (0.28%) BigQuery
12 6 (0.28%) Hadoop
12 6 (0.28%) NoSQL
13 5 (0.23%) Big Data
13 5 (0.23%) MariaDB
13 5 (0.23%) Oracle Database 12c
13 5 (0.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 4 (0.19%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 93 (4.35%) JIRA
2 47 (2.20%) GitLab
3 44 (2.06%) Jenkins
4 37 (1.73%) Git
5 13 (0.61%) Cypress.io
6 9 (0.42%) Selenium
7 6 (0.28%) REST Assured
7 6 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.23%) Cucumber
8 5 (0.23%) SpecFlow
9 4 (0.19%) Postman
9 4 (0.19%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.19%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.14%) Appium
10 3 (0.14%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.14%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.14%) ERwin
10 3 (0.14%) MLflow
10 3 (0.14%) Robot Framework
11 2 (0.094%) MSI
General
1 358 (16.74%) Social Skills
2 273 (12.76%) Public Sector
3 132 (6.17%) Analytical Skills
4 108 (5.05%) Finance
5 76 (3.55%) Military
6 62 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (2.20%) Legal
8 26 (1.22%) Law
8 26 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
9 24 (1.12%) Aerospace
9 24 (1.12%) Telecoms
10 21 (0.98%) Police
11 18 (0.84%) Influencing Skills
12 15 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
13 13 (0.61%) Manufacturing
14 8 (0.37%) Marketing
15 6 (0.28%) Local Government
16 4 (0.19%) Advertising
17 3 (0.14%) Aviation
17 3 (0.14%) Banking
Job Titles
1 327 (15.29%) Architect
2 221 (10.33%) Lead
3 184 (8.60%) Senior
4 148 (6.92%) Analyst
5 144 (6.73%) Developer
6 137 (6.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 121 (5.66%) Consultant
8 84 (3.93%) Network Engineer
9 81 (3.79%) Security Architect
10 79 (3.69%) Technical Architect
11 78 (3.65%) SOC Analyst
12 61 (2.85%) Project Manager
13 50 (2.34%) DBA
14 49 (2.29%) DevOps Engineer
14 49 (2.29%) Service Manager
15 48 (2.24%) Tester
16 46 (2.15%) Cloud Engineer
16 46 (2.15%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 43 (2.01%) Network Architect
18 42 (1.96%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (3.04%) REST
2 30 (1.40%) Elastic Stack
2 30 (1.40%) React
3 24 (1.12%) SOAP
4 21 (0.98%) Kafka
4 21 (0.98%) Node.js
5 19 (0.89%) 802.1X
6 18 (0.84%) RESTful
6 18 (0.84%) Spring
7 15 (0.70%) Spring Boot
8 14 (0.65%) .NET
8 14 (0.65%) AngularJS
8 14 (0.65%) Flask
9 13 (0.61%) Apache NiFi
9 13 (0.61%) FastAPI
10 11 (0.51%) ModSecurity
11 10 (0.47%) Playwright
12 9 (0.42%) OAuth
12 9 (0.42%) Web Services
12 9 (0.42%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 96 (4.49%) Data Centre
2 87 (4.07%) PKI
3 72 (3.37%) Cloud Native
4 53 (2.48%) Security Operations Centre
5 48 (2.24%) Onboarding
6 36 (1.68%) Clustering
7 35 (1.64%) Private Cloud
8 30 (1.40%) Product Ownership
8 30 (1.40%) Security Posture
9 28 (1.31%) Management Information System
10 27 (1.26%) Hybrid Cloud
11 25 (1.17%) CMDB
11 25 (1.17%) Cyber Threat
12 23 (1.08%) Distributed Systems
13 22 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
14 20 (0.94%) Public Cloud
15 19 (0.89%) Virtual Team
16 13 (0.61%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (0.61%) Enterprise Storage
16 13 (0.61%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 290 (13.56%) Windows
2 223 (10.43%) Linux
3 123 (5.75%) Windows Server
4 27 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (0.94%) Windows 10
6 14 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (0.61%) Unix
8 7 (0.33%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.28%) AIX
9 6 (0.28%) Android
9 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
10 5 (0.23%) CentOS
10 5 (0.23%) Debian
10 5 (0.23%) VMS
10 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.19%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.19%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.14%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 356 (16.64%) Agile
2 215 (10.05%) Problem-Solving
3 202 (9.44%) ITIL
4 196 (9.16%) Cybersecurity
5 193 (9.02%) CI/CD
6 187 (8.74%) Continuous Improvement
7 183 (8.56%) DevOps
8 182 (8.51%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 176 (8.23%) Stakeholder Management
10 157 (7.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 148 (6.92%) Service Management
12 125 (5.84%) Infrastructure as Code
13 122 (5.70%) ITSM
14 117 (5.47%) Project Delivery
15 111 (5.19%) Technical Leadership
16 102 (4.77%) Risk Management
16 102 (4.77%) Service Delivery
17 100 (4.68%) Containerisation
18 94 (4.39%) Decision-Making
18 94 (4.39%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 187 (8.74%) Python
2 122 (5.70%) PowerShell
3 104 (4.86%) SQL
4 64 (2.99%) Java
5 51 (2.38%) Bash
6 46 (2.15%) JavaScript
7 32 (1.50%) TypeScript
8 28 (1.31%) C#
9 20 (0.94%) Go
10 15 (0.70%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (0.61%) PL/SQL
12 12 (0.56%) C++
13 11 (0.51%) C
14 9 (0.42%) Bicep
14 9 (0.42%) Rust
15 8 (0.37%) Shell Script
16 6 (0.28%) Embedded C
16 6 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
16 6 (0.28%) Perl
17 5 (0.23%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 2,139 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 709 (33.15%) SC Cleared
3 66 (3.09%) Degree
4 53 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
5 50 (2.34%) CISSP
6 26 (1.22%) CISM
6 26 (1.22%) Microsoft Certification
7 24 (1.12%) AWS Certification
8 22 (1.03%) CCNP
9 21 (0.98%) CompTIA Security+
10 19 (0.89%) CCNA
10 19 (0.89%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 18 (0.84%) BPSS Clearance
12 17 (0.79%) PMI Certification
13 16 (0.75%) ISTQB
14 15 (0.70%) MCSE
14 15 (0.70%) PMP
14 15 (0.70%) TOGAF Certification
15 14 (0.65%) Azure Certification
16 13 (0.61%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 78 (3.65%) NIST
2 73 (3.41%) NCSC
3 64 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 64 (2.99%) PMO
4 63 (2.95%) QA
5 40 (1.87%) JSP 440
6 27 (1.26%) GDPR
7 23 (1.08%) GRC
8 20 (0.94%) SLA
9 19 (0.89%) Data Quality
9 19 (0.89%) RMADS
10 13 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
10 13 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 12 (0.56%) Accessibility
12 10 (0.47%) Government Security Classifications
13 8 (0.37%) WCAG
14 7 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 7 (0.33%) ISO 9000
14 7 (0.33%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 161 (7.53%) VMware Infrastructure
2 148 (6.92%) Active Directory
3 121 (5.66%) Docker
4 76 (3.55%) VMware NSX
5 59 (2.76%) VMware ESXi
6 53 (2.48%) Hyper-V
7 36 (1.68%) vSphere
8 20 (0.94%) vCloud
9 15 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
10 10 (0.47%) BitLocker
11 9 (0.42%) Oracle RAC
12 8 (0.37%) Microsoft App-V
12 8 (0.37%) NFS
13 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
14 4 (0.19%) Ceph
14 4 (0.19%) Firmware
14 4 (0.19%) Terminal Services
14 4 (0.19%) UAG
15 3 (0.14%) KVM
15 3 (0.14%) Squid
Systems Management
1 166 (7.76%) Kubernetes
2 159 (7.43%) Terraform
3 100 (4.68%) Ansible
4 71 (3.32%) vCenter Server
5 39 (1.82%) SCOM
6 28 (1.31%) SCCM
7 25 (1.17%) Prometheus
8 24 (1.12%) Grafana
9 21 (0.98%) Puppet
10 13 (0.61%) FortiGate
11 12 (0.56%) Avamar
11 12 (0.56%) Nagios
11 12 (0.56%) Oracle RMAN
11 12 (0.56%) Podman
11 12 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
12 11 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 11 (0.51%) Data Guard
12 11 (0.51%) VxRail
13 10 (0.47%) WSUS
14 9 (0.42%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 234 (10.94%) VMware
2 222 (10.38%) Microsoft
3 113 (5.28%) ServiceNow
4 100 (4.68%) Cisco
5 84 (3.93%) Oracle
6 63 (2.95%) Splunk
7 47 (2.20%) Juniper
8 42 (1.96%) SAP
9 41 (1.92%) SolarWinds
10 40 (1.87%) Google
11 35 (1.64%) NetApp
12 30 (1.40%) Red Hat
13 27 (1.26%) F5
13 27 (1.26%) Remedy
14 26 (1.22%) Dell
14 26 (1.22%) Palo Alto
15 25 (1.17%) Citrix
16 23 (1.08%) Fortinet
17 19 (0.89%) BMC
17 19 (0.89%) Sparx