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

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 87 39
Rank change year-on-year +37 -48 +15
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,248 958 1,789
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.11% 2.90% 4.67%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.97% 9.20% 16.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,653 677 1,172
10th Percentile £456 £459 £425
25th Percentile £513 £515 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% +4.35%
75th Percentile £700 £663 £688
90th Percentile £760 £738 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £588
% change year-on-year +4.35% -2.13% +3.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 134 32 90
10th Percentile £48.19 - £49.90
25th Percentile £60.00 £25.15 £58.49
Median hourly rate £74.50 £45.00 £68.91
Median % change year-on-year +65.56% -34.69% -4.74%
75th Percentile £92.53 £80.34 £80.00
90th Percentile £100.00 £87.48 £97.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.68 £70.00 £66.25
% change year-on-year +6.69% +5.66% -8.45%

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 17,327 10,417 11,173
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.70% 31.52% 29.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,538 6,518 6,808
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £444 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £623 £635
90th Percentile £713 £707 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,393 868 625
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.87 £17.55
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -48.67% -9.26%
75th Percentile £72.50 £43.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.34
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.50 £25.15 £50.63
% change year-on-year +80.91% -50.32% -3.57%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 +34 2,122 £600 +4.35% 1,227
UK excluding London +19 1,621 £600 +4.35% 1,003
South East +6 849 £600 +4.35% 339
South West +7 517 £575 -4.17% 287
London +53 482 £613 -2.00% 228
Work from Home +67 353 £558 -7.08% 550
East of England +27 115 £675 +22.73% 130
North of England -21 56 £600 +4.35% 117
Midlands -67 43 £600 +1.05% 50
Scotland -1 38 £669 +27.33% 90
North West -22 37 £775 +55.00% 85
West Midlands -76 37 £600 +1.05% 29
Yorkshire -34 14 £510 -18.40% 12
East Midlands - 6 £631 - 21
Northern Ireland +3 5 £638 +6.25% 3
North East -33 5 £463 -26.00% 20
Wales -11 4 - - 6

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 72 (3.20%) Confluence
2 59 (2.62%) SharePoint
3 43 (1.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (0.67%) Apache
5 9 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.36%) Apache Spark
6 8 (0.36%) CMS
7 7 (0.31%) Documentum
8 5 (0.22%) IIS
8 5 (0.22%) nginx
9 4 (0.18%) Camunda
10 3 (0.13%) ArcGIS
10 3 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
11 2 (0.089%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.089%) Mule
11 2 (0.089%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
11 2 (0.089%) Palantir Foundry
11 2 (0.089%) WebLogic
12 1 (0.044%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 67 (2.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (2.14%) Microsoft Project
3 35 (1.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
5 19 (0.85%) AutoCAD
6 17 (0.76%) Revit
6 17 (0.76%) SOLIDWORKS
7 10 (0.44%) MS Visio
7 10 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.089%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.29%) Oracle ERP
2 20 (0.89%) Remedy ITSM
3 19 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
4 16 (0.71%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.62%) Teamcenter
6 5 (0.22%) Primavera
6 5 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
7 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
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 PP
9 2 (0.089%) SAP FI
9 2 (0.089%) Siebel CRM
10 1 (0.044%) Oracle Assets
10 1 (0.044%) Oracle Payroll
10 1 (0.044%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 310 (13.79%) Azure
2 298 (13.26%) AWS
3 112 (4.98%) GCP
4 62 (2.76%) Azure DevOps
5 58 (2.58%) Microsoft 365
6 48 (2.14%) GitHub
7 43 (1.91%) Entra ID
8 41 (1.82%) GitHub Actions
9 38 (1.69%) Serverless
10 37 (1.65%) Power Platform
11 30 (1.33%) OCI
11 30 (1.33%) OpenShift
12 28 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
13 24 (1.07%) Amazon EKS
14 21 (0.93%) Amazon ECS
14 21 (0.93%) IaaS
15 18 (0.80%) Amazon S3
15 18 (0.80%) Amazon SQS
15 18 (0.80%) SaaS
16 17 (0.76%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 170 (7.56%) DNS
2 127 (5.65%) Firewall
3 84 (3.74%) DHCP
4 77 (3.43%) Network Security
5 60 (2.67%) WAN
6 57 (2.54%) TCP/IP
7 52 (2.31%) BGP
7 52 (2.31%) VPN
8 50 (2.22%) LAN
9 37 (1.65%) MPLS
9 37 (1.65%) VSAN
10 32 (1.42%) IPsec
11 28 (1.25%) VLAN
12 23 (1.02%) SSL
13 18 (0.80%) OSPF
13 18 (0.80%) SAN
13 18 (0.80%) SD-WAN
14 16 (0.71%) Cisco ASA
15 15 (0.67%) Software-Defined Networking
16 14 (0.62%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (2.36%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.00%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.47%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.07%) Metadata
5 23 (1.02%) Relational Database
6 22 (0.98%) Power BI
7 20 (0.89%) Elasticsearch
8 19 (0.85%) Data Lake
9 15 (0.67%) Data Warehouse
9 15 (0.67%) MongoDB
10 10 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
11 9 (0.40%) Big Data
11 9 (0.40%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.40%) Oracle Database 11g
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%) MySQL
14 6 (0.27%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 111 (4.94%) JIRA
2 84 (3.74%) GitLab
3 80 (3.56%) Jenkins
4 79 (3.51%) Git
5 31 (1.38%) Selenium
6 16 (0.71%) Cypress.io
7 12 (0.53%) Cucumber
8 10 (0.44%) 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%) JMeter
10 7 (0.31%) SpecFlow
10 7 (0.31%) Visual Studio
11 6 (0.27%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.27%) Gatling
11 6 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
12 5 (0.22%) Maven
13 4 (0.18%) TestNG
General
1 503 (22.38%) Social Skills
2 276 (12.28%) Public Sector
3 169 (7.52%) Analytical Skills
4 139 (6.18%) Finance
5 69 (3.07%) Military
6 68 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
7 48 (2.14%) Organisational Skills
8 36 (1.60%) Police
9 35 (1.56%) Aerospace
9 35 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
9 35 (1.56%) Law
10 33 (1.47%) Legal
10 33 (1.47%) Manufacturing
11 31 (1.38%) Telecoms
12 11 (0.49%) Presentation Skills
13 9 (0.40%) Local Government
14 7 (0.31%) Marketing
15 6 (0.27%) Automotive
16 5 (0.22%) Back Office
17 4 (0.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 392 (17.44%) Architect
2 229 (10.19%) Lead
3 191 (8.50%) Senior
4 156 (6.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 155 (6.90%) Developer
6 149 (6.63%) Consultant
7 131 (5.83%) Analyst
8 94 (4.18%) Security Architect
9 77 (3.43%) Network Engineer
10 74 (3.29%) Cloud Engineer
11 65 (2.89%) SOC Analyst
11 65 (2.89%) Support Engineer
12 58 (2.58%) DevOps Engineer
13 55 (2.45%) Project Manager
14 52 (2.31%) Technical Architect
15 51 (2.27%) DBA
16 48 (2.14%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 48 (2.14%) Solutions Architect
17 42 (1.87%) Network Architect
18 40 (1.78%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 208 (9.25%) Terraform
2 75 (3.34%) REST
3 40 (1.78%) LDAP
4 32 (1.42%) Elastic Stack
5 31 (1.38%) React
6 26 (1.16%) Kafka
6 26 (1.16%) SOAP
7 25 (1.11%) RESTful
8 18 (0.80%) Apache NiFi
8 18 (0.80%) Node.js
9 17 (0.76%) XML
10 16 (0.71%) AngularJS
10 16 (0.71%) JSON
11 15 (0.67%) .NET
11 15 (0.67%) FastAPI
11 15 (0.67%) Keycloak
11 15 (0.67%) OAuth
11 15 (0.67%) Spring
12 14 (0.62%) Spring Boot
13 13 (0.58%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 106 (4.72%) Cloud Native
2 103 (4.58%) Data Centre
3 100 (4.45%) PKI
4 85 (3.78%) Onboarding
5 45 (2.00%) Management Information System
6 40 (1.78%) Hybrid Cloud
6 40 (1.78%) Private Cloud
6 40 (1.78%) Product Ownership
7 39 (1.73%) Security Operations Centre
8 36 (1.60%) Cyber Threat
9 31 (1.38%) Security Posture
10 26 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
11 25 (1.11%) Public Cloud
12 20 (0.89%) Clustering
13 18 (0.80%) CMDB
13 18 (0.80%) Legacy Systems
13 18 (0.80%) Virtual Team
14 14 (0.62%) Replication
15 13 (0.58%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (0.58%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 391 (17.39%) Windows
2 252 (11.21%) Linux
3 187 (8.32%) Windows Server
4 44 (1.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 31 (1.38%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.29%) Windows Server 2019
7 21 (0.93%) Ubuntu
7 21 (0.93%) Unix
8 18 (0.80%) CentOS
9 13 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
10 7 (0.31%) AIX
11 6 (0.27%) Android
11 6 (0.27%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.22%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
13 4 (0.18%) Rocky
13 4 (0.18%) VMS
13 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 392 (17.44%) Agile
2 292 (12.99%) Continuous Improvement
3 280 (12.46%) Stakeholder Management
4 270 (12.01%) CI/CD
5 239 (10.63%) DevOps
6 226 (10.05%) Cybersecurity
6 226 (10.05%) Problem-Solving
7 222 (9.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 216 (9.61%) Infrastructure as Code
9 215 (9.56%) Technical Leadership
10 201 (8.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 186 (8.27%) ITIL
12 153 (6.81%) ITSM
13 151 (6.72%) Containerisation
13 151 (6.72%) Service Management
14 136 (6.05%) SIEM
15 133 (5.92%) Project Delivery
16 126 (5.60%) Decision-Making
17 122 (5.43%) Risk Management
18 114 (5.07%) AI
Programming Languages
1 246 (10.94%) Python
2 190 (8.45%) PowerShell
3 131 (5.83%) SQL
4 94 (4.18%) Bash
5 74 (3.29%) Java
6 41 (1.82%) JavaScript
7 39 (1.73%) C#
8 29 (1.29%) TypeScript
9 19 (0.85%) Go
10 17 (0.76%) Bicep
11 14 (0.62%) PL/SQL
11 14 (0.62%) Search Processing Language
12 10 (0.44%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.40%) 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%) Rust
Qualifications
1 2,248 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 706 (31.41%) SC Cleared
3 90 (4.00%) Degree
4 73 (3.25%) CISSP
5 43 (1.91%) CISM
6 42 (1.87%) Cisco Certification
7 27 (1.20%) AWS Certification
7 27 (1.20%) Microsoft Certification
8 26 (1.16%) CCNP
9 25 (1.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 23 (1.02%) ISTQB
10 23 (1.02%) PMI Certification
10 23 (1.02%) VCAP
11 20 (0.89%) Azure Certification
11 20 (0.89%) TOGAF Certification
12 19 (0.85%) PMP
13 14 (0.62%) BPSS Clearance
14 13 (0.58%) MCSE
15 12 (0.53%) CCNA
15 12 (0.53%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (4.14%) NCSC
1 93 (4.14%) NIST
2 83 (3.69%) PMO
3 79 (3.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 64 (2.85%) QA
5 38 (1.69%) JSP 440
6 36 (1.60%) SLA
7 31 (1.38%) GDPR
8 30 (1.33%) Data Quality
9 23 (1.02%) GRC
10 19 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 16 (0.71%) Accessibility
12 13 (0.58%) Government Security Classifications
13 11 (0.49%) NIST 800
14 10 (0.44%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 8 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
15 8 (0.36%) RMADS
15 8 (0.36%) WCAG
16 7 (0.31%) ISO 9000
17 5 (0.22%) Def Stans
System Software
1 256 (11.39%) Active Directory
2 201 (8.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 142 (6.32%) Docker
4 88 (3.91%) VMware NSX
5 74 (3.29%) VMware ESXi
6 66 (2.94%) Hyper-V
7 54 (2.40%) vSphere
8 25 (1.11%) vCloud
9 19 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (0.62%) NFS
11 13 (0.58%) Oracle RAC
12 11 (0.49%) Firmware
12 11 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
13 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.18%) KVM
13 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
14 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
15 2 (0.089%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 2 (0.089%) Squid
15 2 (0.089%) UAG
Systems Management
1 222 (9.88%) Kubernetes
2 154 (6.85%) Ansible
3 83 (3.69%) vCenter Server
4 60 (2.67%) SCOM
5 36 (1.60%) SCCM
6 28 (1.25%) Prometheus
7 26 (1.16%) Grafana
8 21 (0.93%) Nagios
8 21 (0.93%) Puppet
9 20 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
10 17 (0.76%) VxRail
11 16 (0.71%) Oracle RMAN
11 16 (0.71%) WMI
12 15 (0.67%) Avamar
13 14 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 14 (0.62%) Data Guard
13 14 (0.62%) Podman
13 14 (0.62%) WSUS
14 12 (0.53%) Istio
15 11 (0.49%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 322 (14.32%) Microsoft
2 275 (12.23%) VMware
3 118 (5.25%) Oracle
4 94 (4.18%) ServiceNow
5 76 (3.38%) Cisco
6 61 (2.71%) Google
7 57 (2.54%) Splunk
8 48 (2.14%) SAP
9 47 (2.09%) SolarWinds
10 44 (1.96%) CyberArk
11 34 (1.51%) Red Hat
12 25 (1.11%) Palo Alto
13 23 (1.02%) Juniper
13 23 (1.02%) Remedy
14 22 (0.98%) Dell
15 19 (0.85%) BMC
15 19 (0.85%) Citrix
16 18 (0.80%) Broadcom
16 18 (0.80%) NetApp
16 18 (0.80%) Thales