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

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 83 31
Rank change year-on-year +33 -52 +32
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,917 851 2,428
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.92% 2.95% 5.66%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.42% 9.49% 18.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,432 589 1,751
10th Percentile £425 £450 £425
25th Percentile £513 £515 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £585 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £675 £656 £690
90th Percentile £750 £713 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £600
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 27 112
10th Percentile £18.15 £34.15 £51.28
25th Percentile £35.00 £60.75 £57.16
Median hourly rate £55.00 £80.00 £71.17
Median % change year-on-year -31.25% +12.41% +1.66%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.53 £85.65
90th Percentile £88.25 £88.87 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £80.68 £71.17
% change year-on-year -31.83% +13.36% -5.11%

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 15,439 8,965 12,823
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.55% 31.10% 29.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,238 5,610 7,971
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £619 £644
90th Percentile £714 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.30% +1.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,130 536 1,100
10th Percentile £16.98 £17.71 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.04 £18.18
Median hourly rate £50.00 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +53.85% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.87 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £76.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.05 £41.27
% change year-on-year +48.21% -22.33% -21.40%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 +26 1,771 £600 +2.04% 500
UK excluding London +10 1,382 £600 +4.35% 400
South East +8 758 £600 +3.45% 172
London +73 380 £600 - 90
South West -2 334 £560 -6.67% 151
Work from Home +33 268 £563 -2.17% 157
East of England +4 109 £650 +18.18% 44
North of England -12 81 £770 +275.61% 22
North West +19 65 £775 +278.05% 20
Midlands -47 54 £600 - 8
West Midlands -54 43 £600 -4.00% 8
Scotland +26 41 £669 +33.70% 3
Yorkshire -48 14 £525 -16.00% 1
East Midlands -16 11 £518 -5.91%
Northern Ireland +10 5 £638 - 4
Wales -12 5 - -
North East -27 2 £675 +8.00% 1

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 41 (2.14%) Confluence
2 37 (1.93%) Microsoft Exchange
3 28 (1.46%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.47%) Apache
5 6 (0.31%) Apache Spark
5 6 (0.31%) Mattermost
6 5 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.26%) CMS
6 5 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
8 3 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.10%) Documentum
9 2 (0.10%) nginx
10 1 (0.052%) OpenStack
Applications
1 35 (1.83%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (1.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.31%) AutoCAD
5 6 (0.31%) Revit
5 6 (0.31%) SOLIDWORKS
5 6 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.21%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.10%) Lectora
7 2 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 27 (1.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.30%) Remedy ITSM
3 20 (1.04%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 6 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
5 5 (0.26%) Maximo
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.21%) SAP EWM
7 3 (0.16%) SAP GRC
7 3 (0.16%) Teamcenter
8 2 (0.10%) Primavera
8 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.052%) Oracle Applications
9 1 (0.052%) SAP CCM
9 1 (0.052%) SAP FI-GL
9 1 (0.052%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.052%) SAP QM
9 1 (0.052%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 194 (10.12%) AWS
2 174 (9.08%) Azure
3 72 (3.76%) GCP
4 47 (2.45%) GitHub
5 44 (2.30%) PaaS
6 43 (2.24%) IaaS
7 41 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
8 35 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
9 28 (1.46%) OpenShift
9 28 (1.46%) Serverless
10 27 (1.41%) Microsoft 365
11 21 (1.10%) Power Platform
12 19 (0.99%) OCI
13 16 (0.83%) Amazon ECS
14 15 (0.78%) Amazon EKS
14 15 (0.78%) AWS Lambda
14 15 (0.78%) SaaS
15 14 (0.73%) Entra ID
16 11 (0.57%) Amazon S3
16 11 (0.57%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 112 (5.84%) DNS
2 102 (5.32%) Firewall
3 74 (3.86%) Network Security
4 66 (3.44%) WAN
5 65 (3.39%) LAN
6 51 (2.66%) VPN
7 50 (2.61%) DHCP
8 42 (2.19%) BGP
9 28 (1.46%) OSPF
10 27 (1.41%) TCP/IP
11 20 (1.04%) Ethernet VPN
11 20 (1.04%) MPLS
11 20 (1.04%) VXLAN
12 19 (0.99%) VLAN
12 19 (0.99%) VSAN
13 18 (0.94%) IPsec
14 17 (0.89%) SAN
14 17 (0.89%) SSL
15 16 (0.83%) BIG-IP
16 14 (0.73%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (1.67%) SQL Server
2 31 (1.62%) PostgreSQL
3 28 (1.46%) Oracle Database
4 26 (1.36%) Elasticsearch
5 16 (0.83%) Power BI
6 13 (0.68%) MongoDB
7 12 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
8 8 (0.42%) Metadata
9 7 (0.37%) Redis
10 6 (0.31%) Data Lake
10 6 (0.31%) Data Warehouse
10 6 (0.31%) Hadoop
10 6 (0.31%) MariaDB
10 6 (0.31%) NoSQL
11 5 (0.26%) DynamoDB
11 5 (0.26%) MySQL
11 5 (0.26%) Oracle Database 11g
11 5 (0.26%) Relational Database
12 4 (0.21%) Big Data
12 4 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 74 (3.86%) JIRA
2 38 (1.98%) GitLab
3 30 (1.56%) Git
4 29 (1.51%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.63%) Cypress.io
6 8 (0.42%) Selenium
6 8 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.31%) Artifactory
7 6 (0.31%) Robot Framework
8 5 (0.26%) Maven
9 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
9 4 (0.21%) REST Assured
9 4 (0.21%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.16%) Cucumber
10 3 (0.16%) MLflow
10 3 (0.16%) Postman
11 2 (0.10%) SoapUI
11 2 (0.10%) SpecFlow
General
1 285 (14.87%) Social Skills
2 212 (11.06%) Public Sector
3 111 (5.79%) Analytical Skills
4 77 (4.02%) Finance
5 66 (3.44%) Military
6 57 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
7 50 (2.61%) Legal
8 22 (1.15%) Organisational Skills
8 22 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
8 22 (1.15%) Telecoms
9 21 (1.10%) Law
10 20 (1.04%) Aerospace
11 14 (0.73%) Police
12 12 (0.63%) Manufacturing
13 10 (0.52%) Marketing
14 6 (0.31%) Electronics
15 5 (0.26%) Influencing Skills
16 3 (0.16%) Advertising
16 3 (0.16%) Banking
17 2 (0.10%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 294 (15.34%) Architect
2 158 (8.24%) Senior
3 151 (7.88%) Lead
4 127 (6.62%) Analyst
5 109 (5.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 106 (5.53%) Developer
7 105 (5.48%) Consultant
8 86 (4.49%) Network Engineer
9 78 (4.07%) SOC Analyst
10 72 (3.76%) Technical Architect
11 61 (3.18%) Security Architect
12 57 (2.97%) Tester
13 55 (2.87%) Project Manager
14 52 (2.71%) DevOps Engineer
15 49 (2.56%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 44 (2.30%) Software Engineer
17 42 (2.19%) Service Manager
18 40 (2.09%) Administrator
19 38 (1.98%) Designer
20 37 (1.93%) DV Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (2.66%) REST
2 29 (1.51%) React
3 25 (1.30%) Elastic Stack
4 20 (1.04%) 802.1X
5 18 (0.94%) Kafka
5 18 (0.94%) Node.js
6 17 (0.89%) SOAP
7 16 (0.83%) AngularJS
7 16 (0.83%) Spring
8 15 (0.78%) LDAP
8 15 (0.78%) RESTful
9 14 (0.73%) Flask
9 14 (0.73%) Spring Boot
10 13 (0.68%) Apache NiFi
10 13 (0.68%) FastAPI
11 12 (0.63%) .NET
12 11 (0.57%) ModSecurity
13 10 (0.52%) SailPoint
14 9 (0.47%) Oracle Fusion
14 9 (0.47%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 95 (4.96%) PKI
2 71 (3.70%) Data Centre
3 55 (2.87%) Security Operations Centre
4 52 (2.71%) Cloud Native
5 33 (1.72%) Clustering
5 33 (1.72%) Onboarding
6 32 (1.67%) Management Information System
7 28 (1.46%) Product Ownership
8 24 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
9 23 (1.20%) Cyber Threat
10 22 (1.15%) Private Cloud
11 20 (1.04%) Cyberattack
12 19 (0.99%) Security Posture
13 18 (0.94%) Public Cloud
14 17 (0.89%) Analytical Mindset
15 16 (0.83%) Virtual Team
16 15 (0.78%) Enterprise Storage
17 13 (0.68%) CMDB
17 13 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
17 13 (0.68%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 265 (13.82%) Windows
2 209 (10.90%) Linux
3 99 (5.16%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (1.15%) Windows 10
6 9 (0.47%) Unix
7 8 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
8 7 (0.37%) Android
8 7 (0.37%) Ubuntu
8 7 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.31%) AIX
9 6 (0.31%) CentOS
9 6 (0.31%) Debian
10 5 (0.26%) VMS
10 5 (0.26%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.21%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.21%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 322 (16.80%) Agile
2 187 (9.75%) Problem-Solving
3 169 (8.82%) ITIL
4 163 (8.50%) CI/CD
5 161 (8.40%) Cybersecurity
6 156 (8.14%) DevOps
7 146 (7.62%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 145 (7.56%) Continuous Improvement
9 124 (6.47%) Service Management
10 123 (6.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 113 (5.89%) Stakeholder Management
12 106 (5.53%) ITSM
13 103 (5.37%) Infrastructure as Code
14 96 (5.01%) Project Delivery
15 89 (4.64%) Decision-Making
16 84 (4.38%) Security Operations
16 84 (4.38%) SIEM
17 83 (4.33%) Risk Management
18 82 (4.28%) Technical Leadership
19 80 (4.17%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 155 (8.09%) Python
2 111 (5.79%) PowerShell
3 83 (4.33%) SQL
4 45 (2.35%) Java
5 37 (1.93%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.67%) Bash
7 26 (1.36%) TypeScript
8 23 (1.20%) C#
9 16 (0.83%) Go
10 14 (0.73%) Search Processing Language
11 12 (0.63%) PL/SQL
12 10 (0.52%) Bicep
12 10 (0.52%) C++
13 9 (0.47%) C
14 8 (0.42%) Rust
14 8 (0.42%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.31%) Embedded C
16 5 (0.26%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
17 4 (0.21%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 1,917 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 633 (33.02%) SC Cleared
3 62 (3.23%) Degree
4 52 (2.71%) CISSP
5 49 (2.56%) Cisco Certification
6 35 (1.83%) CISM
7 23 (1.20%) CompTIA Security+
8 22 (1.15%) CCNA
8 22 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
9 20 (1.04%) Computer Science Degree
10 19 (0.99%) CCNP
11 17 (0.89%) AWS Certification
11 17 (0.89%) CESG Certified Professional
12 15 (0.78%) BPSS Clearance
13 14 (0.73%) GIAC
13 14 (0.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 13 (0.68%) CompTIA CySA+
14 13 (0.68%) ISTQB
14 13 (0.68%) PMP
15 11 (0.57%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (3.91%) NIST
2 62 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 53 (2.76%) QA
4 52 (2.71%) NCSC
5 48 (2.50%) PMO
6 39 (2.03%) JSP 440
7 24 (1.25%) RMADS
8 23 (1.20%) SLA
9 22 (1.15%) GRC
10 20 (1.04%) GDPR
11 12 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
12 9 (0.47%) Accessibility
13 8 (0.42%) Data Quality
13 8 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 8 (0.42%) NIST 800
14 7 (0.37%) Government Security Classifications
15 6 (0.31%) WCAG
16 5 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 3 (0.16%) Def Stans
System Software
1 129 (6.73%) VMware Infrastructure
2 125 (6.52%) Active Directory
3 99 (5.16%) Docker
4 59 (3.08%) VMware NSX
5 48 (2.50%) VMware ESXi
6 42 (2.19%) Hyper-V
7 22 (1.15%) vSphere
8 20 (1.04%) vCloud
9 10 (0.52%) BitLocker
10 9 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.42%) Firmware
11 8 (0.42%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.37%) NFS
13 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
14 4 (0.21%) Ceph
14 4 (0.21%) UAG
14 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
15 3 (0.16%) Squid
16 2 (0.10%) KVM
17 1 (0.052%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 133 (6.94%) Kubernetes
2 129 (6.73%) Terraform
3 83 (4.33%) Ansible
4 61 (3.18%) vCenter Server
5 30 (1.56%) SCOM
6 25 (1.30%) SCCM
7 19 (0.99%) Grafana
8 17 (0.89%) Prometheus
9 16 (0.83%) Puppet
9 16 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.68%) FortiGate
12 12 (0.63%) Podman
13 10 (0.52%) Data Guard
13 10 (0.52%) Nagios
14 9 (0.47%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 9 (0.47%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 9 (0.47%) WSUS
15 8 (0.42%) Progress Chef
15 8 (0.42%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 208 (10.85%) VMware
2 175 (9.13%) Microsoft
3 104 (5.43%) Cisco
4 78 (4.07%) ServiceNow
5 69 (3.60%) Splunk
6 58 (3.03%) Oracle
7 45 (2.35%) NetApp
8 43 (2.24%) Juniper
9 40 (2.09%) Red Hat
10 38 (1.98%) SAP
11 30 (1.56%) SolarWinds
12 29 (1.51%) F5
13 25 (1.30%) Remedy
14 22 (1.15%) Dell
14 22 (1.15%) Fortinet
14 22 (1.15%) Google
14 22 (1.15%) Palo Alto
15 20 (1.04%) Sparx
16 19 (0.99%) Citrix
17 18 (0.94%) BMC