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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 87 39
Rank change year-on-year +36 -48 +15
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,243 967 1,804
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.09% 2.93% 4.70%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.90% 9.31% 16.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,650 686 1,186
10th Percentile £462 £463 £425
25th Percentile £513 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% +4.35%
75th Percentile £700 £655 £688
90th Percentile £760 £735 £764
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £586
% change year-on-year +4.35% -1.92% +2.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 134 32 91
10th Percentile £45.90 - £50.00
25th Percentile £58.82 £25.15 £58.00
Median hourly rate £74.41 £45.00 £67.81
Median % change year-on-year +65.36% -33.64% -4.71%
75th Percentile £92.53 £80.34 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.65 £87.48 £97.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.50 £70.00 £65.50
% change year-on-year +6.43% +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 17,383 10,386 11,197
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.68% 31.47% 29.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,575 6,502 6,834
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £443 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £529 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £632 £625 £638
90th Percentile £715 £711 £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 1,385 858 629
10th Percentile £17.07 £17.87 £17.60
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.50
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -7.41%
75th Percentile £72.54 £43.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.57
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £52.35
% change year-on-year +86.88% -51.95% -0.30%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +32 2,115 £600 +4.35% 1,308
UK excluding London +18 1,614 £600 +4.35% 1,059
South East +4 852 £600 +4.35% 341
South West +6 510 £581 -3.13% 313
London +48 482 £625 - 255
Work from Home +59 352 £558 -7.08% 588
East of England +15 114 £675 +22.73% 152
North of England -18 52 £600 +4.35% 120
Midlands -71 45 £600 - 50
West Midlands -71 39 £600 - 29
Scotland -4 38 £669 +27.33% 91
North West -27 33 £775 +55.00% 86
Yorkshire -25 14 £510 -18.40% 13
East Midlands - 6 £631 - 21
Northern Ireland +4 5 £638 +6.25% 4
North East -39 5 £463 -26.00% 21
Wales -12 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 71 (3.17%) Confluence
2 56 (2.50%) SharePoint
3 41 (1.83%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (0.67%) Apache
5 9 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.36%) Apache Spark
7 7 (0.31%) 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 (0.045%) JBoss
Applications
1 64 (2.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (2.05%) Microsoft Project
3 33 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
5 18 (0.80%) AutoCAD
6 17 (0.76%) Revit
6 17 (0.76%) SOLIDWORKS
7 10 (0.45%) MS Visio
8 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.089%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.29%) Oracle ERP
2 22 (0.98%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (0.89%) Remedy ITSM
4 16 (0.71%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.62%) Teamcenter
6 5 (0.22%) Primavera
6 5 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.22%) SAP EWM
7 3 (0.13%) Oracle Financials
7 3 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
7 3 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
7 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.13%) SAP PP
8 2 (0.089%) Siebel CRM
9 1 (0.045%) Oracle Assets
9 1 (0.045%) SAP CCM
9 1 (0.045%) SAP FI-GL
9 1 (0.045%) SAP GRC
9 1 (0.045%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 309 (13.78%) Azure
2 296 (13.20%) AWS
3 112 (4.99%) GCP
4 62 (2.76%) Azure DevOps
5 58 (2.59%) Microsoft 365
6 49 (2.18%) GitHub
7 43 (1.92%) Entra ID
8 41 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
9 37 (1.65%) Power Platform
9 37 (1.65%) Serverless
10 30 (1.34%) OCI
10 30 (1.34%) OpenShift
11 27 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
12 23 (1.03%) Amazon EKS
13 21 (0.94%) Amazon ECS
13 21 (0.94%) IaaS
14 18 (0.80%) SaaS
15 17 (0.76%) Amazon S3
15 17 (0.76%) Amazon SQS
15 17 (0.76%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 169 (7.53%) DNS
2 124 (5.53%) Firewall
3 84 (3.74%) DHCP
4 75 (3.34%) Network Security
5 58 (2.59%) WAN
6 57 (2.54%) TCP/IP
7 52 (2.32%) BGP
8 51 (2.27%) VPN
9 49 (2.18%) LAN
10 39 (1.74%) VSAN
11 36 (1.60%) MPLS
12 32 (1.43%) IPsec
13 30 (1.34%) VLAN
14 23 (1.03%) SSL
15 18 (0.80%) OSPF
15 18 (0.80%) SAN
16 17 (0.76%) SD-WAN
17 16 (0.71%) Cisco ASA
18 14 (0.62%) Cisco Firepower
18 14 (0.62%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (2.36%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.01%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.47%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.07%) Metadata
5 23 (1.03%) 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 (0.45%) 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
1 110 (4.90%) JIRA
2 82 (3.66%) GitLab
3 79 (3.52%) Git
3 79 (3.52%) Jenkins
4 30 (1.34%) Selenium
5 15 (0.67%) Cypress.io
6 11 (0.49%) Cucumber
7 9 (0.40%) MSI
8 8 (0.36%) JUnit
8 8 (0.36%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.31%) Postman
9 7 (0.31%) REST Assured
9 7 (0.31%) Visual Studio
10 6 (0.27%) Gatling
10 6 (0.27%) JMeter
10 6 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.27%) SpecFlow
11 5 (0.22%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.22%) Maven
12 4 (0.18%) TestNG
General
1 496 (22.11%) Social Skills
2 276 (12.30%) Public Sector
3 168 (7.49%) Analytical Skills
4 138 (6.15%) Finance
5 69 (3.08%) Military
6 67 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (2.10%) Organisational Skills
8 36 (1.60%) Aerospace
9 35 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
9 35 (1.56%) Police
10 34 (1.52%) Law
10 34 (1.52%) Legal
11 32 (1.43%) Manufacturing
11 32 (1.43%) 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%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 389 (17.34%) Architect
2 230 (10.25%) Lead
3 190 (8.47%) Senior
4 157 (7.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 155 (6.91%) Developer
6 151 (6.73%) Consultant
7 131 (5.84%) Analyst
8 92 (4.10%) Security Architect
9 76 (3.39%) Network Engineer
10 74 (3.30%) Cloud Engineer
11 65 (2.90%) SOC Analyst
12 64 (2.85%) Support Engineer
13 57 (2.54%) DevOps Engineer
14 56 (2.50%) Project Manager
15 52 (2.32%) Technical Architect
16 51 (2.27%) DBA
17 49 (2.18%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
18 48 (2.14%) Solutions Architect
19 42 (1.87%) Network Architect
20 40 (1.78%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 206 (9.18%) Terraform
2 74 (3.30%) REST
3 40 (1.78%) LDAP
4 32 (1.43%) Elastic Stack
5 31 (1.38%) React
6 26 (1.16%) SOAP
7 25 (1.11%) Kafka
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
1 104 (4.64%) Cloud Native
2 101 (4.50%) Data Centre
3 100 (4.46%) PKI
4 84 (3.74%) Onboarding
5 45 (2.01%) Management Information System
6 40 (1.78%) Hybrid Cloud
6 40 (1.78%) Private Cloud
6 40 (1.78%) Security Operations Centre
7 39 (1.74%) Product Ownership
8 36 (1.60%) Cyber Threat
9 30 (1.34%) Security Posture
10 25 (1.11%) Distributed Systems
10 25 (1.11%) Public Cloud
11 19 (0.85%) Clustering
12 18 (0.80%) Legacy Systems
13 17 (0.76%) CMDB
13 17 (0.76%) Virtual Team
14 15 (0.67%) Replication
15 14 (0.62%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (0.58%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 387 (17.25%) Windows
2 252 (11.23%) Linux
3 185 (8.25%) Windows Server
4 44 (1.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 31 (1.38%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.29%) Windows Server 2019
7 22 (0.98%) Unix
8 21 (0.94%) Ubuntu
9 18 (0.80%) CentOS
10 12 (0.53%) 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%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.18%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 387 (17.25%) Agile
2 286 (12.75%) Continuous Improvement
3 274 (12.22%) Stakeholder Management
4 266 (11.86%) CI/CD
5 236 (10.52%) DevOps
6 226 (10.08%) Cybersecurity
7 224 (9.99%) Problem-Solving
8 222 (9.90%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 212 (9.45%) Infrastructure as Code
9 212 (9.45%) Technical Leadership
10 200 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 182 (8.11%) ITIL
12 152 (6.78%) ITSM
13 150 (6.69%) Containerisation
14 148 (6.60%) Service Management
15 136 (6.06%) SIEM
16 130 (5.80%) Project Delivery
17 126 (5.62%) Decision-Making
18 123 (5.48%) Risk Management
19 113 (5.04%) AI
Programming Languages
1 245 (10.92%) Python
2 190 (8.47%) PowerShell
3 132 (5.88%) SQL
4 95 (4.24%) Bash
5 74 (3.30%) Java
6 41 (1.83%) JavaScript
7 39 (1.74%) C#
8 29 (1.29%) TypeScript
9 19 (0.85%) Go
10 17 (0.76%) Bicep
11 15 (0.67%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.62%) Search Processing Language
13 11 (0.49%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.40%) C++
15 7 (0.31%) Groovy
16 6 (0.27%) C
16 6 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
16 6 (0.27%) Perl
16 6 (0.27%) X++
17 4 (0.18%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 2,243 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 708 (31.56%) SC Cleared
3 88 (3.92%) Degree
4 73 (3.25%) CISSP
5 44 (1.96%) CISM
6 41 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
7 28 (1.25%) Microsoft Certification
8 26 (1.16%) AWS Certification
8 26 (1.16%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 24 (1.07%) CCNP
10 23 (1.03%) PMI Certification
10 23 (1.03%) VCAP
11 22 (0.98%) ISTQB
12 20 (0.89%) Azure Certification
12 20 (0.89%) TOGAF Certification
13 19 (0.85%) PMP
14 14 (0.62%) MCSE
15 13 (0.58%) BPSS Clearance
15 13 (0.58%) CCNA
16 12 (0.53%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (4.10%) NCSC
1 92 (4.10%) NIST
2 81 (3.61%) PMO
3 80 (3.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 64 (2.85%) QA
5 38 (1.69%) JSP 440
6 34 (1.52%) SLA
7 32 (1.43%) GDPR
8 29 (1.29%) Data Quality
9 24 (1.07%) GRC
10 18 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 16 (0.71%) Accessibility
12 13 (0.58%) Government Security Classifications
13 11 (0.49%) NIST 800
14 10 (0.45%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 9 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.36%) RMADS
16 8 (0.36%) WCAG
17 7 (0.31%) ISO 9000
18 5 (0.22%) Def Stans
System Software
1 253 (11.28%) Active Directory
2 203 (9.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 141 (6.29%) Docker
4 88 (3.92%) VMware NSX
5 76 (3.39%) VMware ESXi
6 65 (2.90%) Hyper-V
7 56 (2.50%) vSphere
8 25 (1.11%) vCloud
9 19 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (0.62%) NFS
11 13 (0.58%) Oracle RAC
11 13 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
12 11 (0.49%) Firmware
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%) Ceph
15 2 (0.089%) Squid
15 2 (0.089%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 221 (9.85%) Kubernetes
2 153 (6.82%) Ansible
3 85 (3.79%) vCenter Server
4 60 (2.67%) SCOM
5 34 (1.52%) SCCM
6 27 (1.20%) Prometheus
7 25 (1.11%) Grafana
8 21 (0.94%) Nagios
8 21 (0.94%) Puppet
9 19 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
10 17 (0.76%) VxRail
11 16 (0.71%) Oracle RMAN
12 15 (0.67%) Avamar
12 15 (0.67%) Podman
12 15 (0.67%) WMI
13 14 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 14 (0.62%) Data Guard
14 13 (0.58%) WSUS
15 12 (0.53%) Istio
16 11 (0.49%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 315 (14.04%) Microsoft
2 280 (12.48%) VMware
3 118 (5.26%) Oracle
4 96 (4.28%) ServiceNow
5 77 (3.43%) Cisco
6 61 (2.72%) Google
7 57 (2.54%) Splunk
8 51 (2.27%) SAP
9 47 (2.10%) SolarWinds
10 44 (1.96%) CyberArk
11 34 (1.52%) Red Hat
12 24 (1.07%) Palo Alto
13 22 (0.98%) Juniper
13 22 (0.98%) Remedy
14 21 (0.94%) Dell
15 19 (0.85%) BMC
15 19 (0.85%) Citrix
16 18 (0.80%) Atlassian
16 18 (0.80%) Broadcom
16 18 (0.80%) NetApp