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 4 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 86 39
Rank change year-on-year +35 -47 +14
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,239 969 1,766
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.10% 2.92% 4.65%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.94% 9.20% 15.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,629 681 1,153
10th Percentile £462 £463 £425
25th Percentile £513 £517 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% +1.52%
75th Percentile £700 £675 £688
90th Percentile £763 £738 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £600
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 147 36 85
10th Percentile £48.64 - £49.40
25th Percentile £60.00 £25.15 £57.50
Median hourly rate £74.00 £34.75 £65.50
Median % change year-on-year +112.95% -46.95% -7.96%
75th Percentile £92.53 £76.25 £80.00
90th Percentile £100.00 £87.38 £99.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.32 £70.00 £65.50
% change year-on-year +6.17% +6.87% -9.44%

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 17,309 10,537 11,135
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.68% 31.75% 29.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,491 6,571 6,762
10th Percentile £351 £285 £312
25th Percentile £447 £413 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £633 £625 £634
90th Percentile £713 £706 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +5.00% -3.85% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,430 889 611
10th Percentile £16.80 £17.87 £18.00
25th Percentile £25.55 £18.87 £25.36
Median hourly rate £45.20 £25.15 £48.18
Median % change year-on-year +79.72% -47.80% -10.08%
75th Percentile £71.39 £42.25 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.74 £70.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -49.70% -3.66%

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 4 October 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 4 October 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 4 October 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 +30 2,116 £600 +3.90% 1,310
UK excluding London +21 1,620 £600 +4.35% 1,042
South East +7 842 £600 +4.35% 314
South West +7 526 £575 -8.00% 300
London +42 479 £625 - 272
Work from Home +51 354 £555 -9.76% 599
East of England +25 112 £650 +18.18% 176
North of England -17 58 £525 -2.33% 101
Midlands -76 44 £613 +4.26% 58
North West -9 41 £775 +55.00% 72
West Midlands -80 38 £600 +2.13% 29
Scotland -2 37 £669 +27.33% 91
Yorkshire -29 12 £510 - 11
East Midlands - 6 £631 - 29
Northern Ireland +5 5 £638 +6.25% 5
North East -35 5 £463 -26.00% 18
Wales -12 4 - - 11

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 74 (3.31%) Confluence
2 59 (2.64%) SharePoint
3 40 (1.79%) Microsoft Exchange
4 22 (0.98%) Apache
5 12 (0.54%) Apache Spark
6 9 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
7 8 (0.36%) CMS
8 7 (0.31%) Documentum
8 7 (0.31%) IIS
9 5 (0.22%) nginx
10 4 (0.18%) Camunda
11 3 (0.13%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
11 3 (0.13%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.089%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.089%) Mule
12 2 (0.089%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
12 2 (0.089%) Palantir Foundry
12 2 (0.089%) WebLogic
Applications
1 65 (2.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (2.14%) Microsoft Project
3 33 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
5 19 (0.85%) AutoCAD
6 17 (0.76%) Revit
6 17 (0.76%) SOLIDWORKS
7 10 (0.45%) MS Visio
7 10 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.045%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.30%) Oracle ERP
2 18 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.80%) Teamcenter
3 16 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
3 16 (0.71%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 5 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.18%) Primavera
5 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
5 4 (0.18%) SAP PP
6 3 (0.13%) Oracle Financials
6 3 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
6 3 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.089%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.089%) Siebel CRM
8 1 (0.045%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.045%) Oracle Payroll
8 1 (0.045%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 309 (13.80%) Azure
2 293 (13.09%) AWS
3 117 (5.23%) GCP
4 64 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
5 57 (2.55%) Microsoft 365
6 50 (2.23%) GitHub
7 43 (1.92%) Entra ID
7 43 (1.92%) GitHub Actions
8 39 (1.74%) Serverless
9 36 (1.61%) OpenShift
9 36 (1.61%) Power Platform
10 30 (1.34%) AWS Lambda
10 30 (1.34%) OCI
11 24 (1.07%) Amazon EKS
11 24 (1.07%) Amazon S3
12 22 (0.98%) Amazon ECS
13 19 (0.85%) Amazon SQS
14 17 (0.76%) Azure Monitor
14 17 (0.76%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 16 (0.71%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 164 (7.32%) DNS
2 125 (5.58%) Firewall
3 83 (3.71%) DHCP
4 78 (3.48%) Network Security
5 60 (2.68%) TCP/IP
6 58 (2.59%) WAN
7 52 (2.32%) BGP
7 52 (2.32%) VPN
8 49 (2.19%) LAN
9 37 (1.65%) MPLS
10 36 (1.61%) VSAN
11 32 (1.43%) IPsec
12 29 (1.30%) VLAN
13 25 (1.12%) SSL
14 18 (0.80%) OSPF
14 18 (0.80%) SAN
14 18 (0.80%) SD-WAN
15 16 (0.71%) Cisco ASA
16 15 (0.67%) Software-Defined Networking
17 14 (0.63%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (2.41%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.01%) Oracle Database
3 36 (1.61%) PostgreSQL
4 30 (1.34%) Metadata
5 25 (1.12%) Relational Database
6 21 (0.94%) Power BI
7 20 (0.89%) Elasticsearch
8 18 (0.80%) Data Lake
9 17 (0.76%) MongoDB
10 15 (0.67%) Data Warehouse
11 13 (0.58%) Big Data
12 12 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
13 10 (0.45%) Hadoop
14 9 (0.40%) NoSQL
14 9 (0.40%) Parquet
15 8 (0.36%) BigQuery
15 8 (0.36%) Oracle BI Publisher
15 8 (0.36%) Oracle Database 11g
15 8 (0.36%) Oracle Database 12c
15 8 (0.36%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 110 (4.91%) JIRA
2 94 (4.20%) GitLab
3 87 (3.89%) Jenkins
4 83 (3.71%) Git
5 31 (1.38%) Selenium
6 16 (0.71%) Cypress.io
7 12 (0.54%) Cucumber
8 10 (0.45%) MSI
9 8 (0.36%) JUnit
9 8 (0.36%) Postman
9 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
9 8 (0.36%) SonarQube
10 7 (0.31%) Artifactory
10 7 (0.31%) JMeter
10 7 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.31%) SpecFlow
10 7 (0.31%) Visual Studio
11 6 (0.27%) Gatling
12 5 (0.22%) Maven
13 4 (0.18%) TestNG
General
1 508 (22.69%) Social Skills
2 272 (12.15%) Public Sector
3 172 (7.68%) Analytical Skills
4 142 (6.34%) Finance
5 69 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
6 67 (2.99%) Military
7 50 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
8 39 (1.74%) Aerospace
9 37 (1.65%) Manufacturing
10 36 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
10 36 (1.61%) Police
11 32 (1.43%) Legal
12 31 (1.38%) Law
13 28 (1.25%) Telecoms
14 9 (0.40%) Local Government
14 9 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.31%) Marketing
16 6 (0.27%) Automotive
17 5 (0.22%) Back Office
18 4 (0.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 388 (17.33%) Architect
2 225 (10.05%) Lead
3 199 (8.89%) Senior
4 153 (6.83%) Developer
5 152 (6.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 147 (6.57%) Consultant
7 137 (6.12%) Analyst
8 94 (4.20%) Security Architect
9 79 (3.53%) Network Engineer
10 70 (3.13%) Cloud Engineer
11 69 (3.08%) SOC Analyst
12 66 (2.95%) Support Engineer
13 57 (2.55%) DevOps Engineer
14 52 (2.32%) DBA
14 52 (2.32%) Project Manager
15 48 (2.14%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 48 (2.14%) Solutions Architect
16 44 (1.97%) Technical Architect
17 42 (1.88%) Network Architect
18 41 (1.83%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 208 (9.29%) Terraform
2 80 (3.57%) REST
3 41 (1.83%) LDAP
4 31 (1.38%) React
5 30 (1.34%) Elastic Stack
6 28 (1.25%) Kafka
7 26 (1.16%) SOAP
8 25 (1.12%) RESTful
9 24 (1.07%) Apache NiFi
10 18 (0.80%) Node.js
10 18 (0.80%) XML
11 17 (0.76%) FastAPI
11 17 (0.76%) JSON
12 16 (0.71%) AngularJS
12 16 (0.71%) Keycloak
12 16 (0.71%) OAuth
13 15 (0.67%) Spring
14 14 (0.63%) Flask
14 14 (0.63%) Spring Boot
15 13 (0.58%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 105 (4.69%) Cloud Native
2 101 (4.51%) Data Centre
3 100 (4.47%) PKI
4 85 (3.80%) Onboarding
5 46 (2.05%) Management Information System
6 40 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
6 40 (1.79%) Product Ownership
7 38 (1.70%) Cyber Threat
8 37 (1.65%) Security Operations Centre
9 36 (1.61%) Private Cloud
10 30 (1.34%) Security Posture
11 25 (1.12%) Distributed Systems
12 21 (0.94%) Public Cloud
13 19 (0.85%) Virtual Team
14 18 (0.80%) Clustering
14 18 (0.80%) CMDB
15 16 (0.71%) Legacy Systems
16 15 (0.67%) Replication
17 14 (0.63%) Video Conferencing
18 12 (0.54%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 385 (17.20%) Windows
2 249 (11.12%) Linux
3 181 (8.08%) Windows Server
4 46 (2.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 31 (1.38%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.30%) Windows Server 2019
7 22 (0.98%) Ubuntu
8 21 (0.94%) Unix
9 18 (0.80%) CentOS
10 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.31%) Android
11 7 (0.31%) Mac OS
12 6 (0.27%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
13 5 (0.22%) Rocky
14 4 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) VMS
14 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 386 (17.24%) Agile
2 297 (13.26%) Continuous Improvement
3 282 (12.59%) Stakeholder Management
4 274 (12.24%) CI/CD
5 245 (10.94%) DevOps
6 232 (10.36%) Problem-Solving
7 225 (10.05%) Cybersecurity
8 217 (9.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 214 (9.56%) Infrastructure as Code
9 214 (9.56%) Technical Leadership
10 201 (8.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 185 (8.26%) ITIL
12 155 (6.92%) Containerisation
13 150 (6.70%) Service Management
14 148 (6.61%) ITSM
15 132 (5.90%) Project Delivery
15 132 (5.90%) SIEM
16 127 (5.67%) Decision-Making
17 123 (5.49%) Risk Management
18 115 (5.14%) AI
Programming Languages
1 253 (11.30%) Python
2 190 (8.49%) PowerShell
3 137 (6.12%) SQL
4 98 (4.38%) Bash
5 75 (3.35%) Java
6 40 (1.79%) JavaScript
7 38 (1.70%) C#
8 29 (1.30%) TypeScript
9 21 (0.94%) Go
10 15 (0.67%) Bicep
11 13 (0.58%) PL/SQL
12 12 (0.54%) Search Processing Language
12 12 (0.54%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.49%) C++
14 7 (0.31%) Groovy
15 6 (0.27%) C
15 6 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
15 6 (0.27%) Perl
15 6 (0.27%) X++
16 4 (0.18%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 2,239 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 695 (31.04%) SC Cleared
3 92 (4.11%) Degree
4 69 (3.08%) CISSP
5 40 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
5 40 (1.79%) CISM
6 28 (1.25%) AWS Certification
7 25 (1.12%) CCNP
7 25 (1.12%) Microsoft Certification
8 24 (1.07%) ISTQB
8 24 (1.07%) PMI Certification
9 23 (1.03%) VCAP
9 23 (1.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 21 (0.94%) Azure Certification
11 20 (0.89%) PMP
11 20 (0.89%) TOGAF Certification
12 13 (0.58%) BPSS Clearance
13 12 (0.54%) CCNA
13 12 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
13 12 (0.54%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (4.15%) NCSC
2 89 (3.97%) NIST
3 83 (3.71%) PMO
4 77 (3.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 66 (2.95%) QA
6 36 (1.61%) JSP 440
7 35 (1.56%) SLA
8 32 (1.43%) GDPR
9 31 (1.38%) Data Quality
10 24 (1.07%) GRC
11 20 (0.89%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 16 (0.71%) Accessibility
13 13 (0.58%) Government Security Classifications
14 11 (0.49%) NIST 800
15 10 (0.45%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 8 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.36%) WCAG
17 7 (0.31%) ISO 9000
17 7 (0.31%) RMADS
18 5 (0.22%) Def Stans
System Software
1 248 (11.08%) Active Directory
2 196 (8.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 143 (6.39%) Docker
4 85 (3.80%) VMware NSX
5 71 (3.17%) VMware ESXi
6 61 (2.72%) Hyper-V
7 54 (2.41%) vSphere
8 24 (1.07%) vCloud
9 19 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (0.63%) NFS
11 12 (0.54%) Oracle RAC
12 11 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
13 10 (0.45%) Firmware
14 5 (0.22%) KVM
15 3 (0.13%) BitLocker
15 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
15 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.13%) VirtualBox
16 2 (0.089%) Ceph
16 2 (0.089%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 230 (10.27%) Kubernetes
2 162 (7.24%) Ansible
3 80 (3.57%) vCenter Server
4 60 (2.68%) SCOM
5 34 (1.52%) SCCM
6 31 (1.38%) Prometheus
7 28 (1.25%) Grafana
8 21 (0.94%) Nagios
8 21 (0.94%) Puppet
9 20 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
10 17 (0.76%) VxRail
11 16 (0.71%) WMI
12 15 (0.67%) Avamar
12 15 (0.67%) Oracle RMAN
13 14 (0.63%) Podman
14 13 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 13 (0.58%) Data Guard
14 13 (0.58%) Progress Chef
14 13 (0.58%) WSUS
15 12 (0.54%) Istio
Vendors
1 316 (14.11%) Microsoft
2 267 (11.92%) VMware
3 121 (5.40%) Oracle
4 89 (3.97%) ServiceNow
5 73 (3.26%) Cisco
6 64 (2.86%) Google
7 55 (2.46%) Splunk
8 51 (2.28%) SAP
9 46 (2.05%) SolarWinds
10 44 (1.97%) CyberArk
11 35 (1.56%) Red Hat
12 25 (1.12%) Palo Alto
13 23 (1.03%) Juniper
14 22 (0.98%) Dell
15 19 (0.85%) Remedy
16 18 (0.80%) Atlassian
16 18 (0.80%) Broadcom
16 18 (0.80%) Citrix
16 18 (0.80%) Thales
17 17 (0.76%) BMC