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

6 months to
25 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 86 31
Rank change year-on-year +37 -55 +33
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,925 834 2,401
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.98% 2.90% 5.64%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.57% 9.33% 18.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,440 589 1,743
10th Percentile £424 £450 £413
25th Percentile £513 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £585 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £682 £663 £688
90th Percentile £750 £713 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £600
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 27 101
10th Percentile £17.05 £34.15 £49.00
25th Percentile £35.00 £59.87 £56.65
Median hourly rate £55.00 £78.70 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year -30.11% +11.81% +0.56%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.05 £85.00
90th Percentile £87.50 £88.05 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.00 £80.34 £70.39
% change year-on-year -32.78% +14.13% -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 15,311 8,941 12,746
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.63% 31.05% 29.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,161 5,647 7,945
10th Percentile £350 £275 £307
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.38% -1.32% -3.64%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £645
90th Percentile £720 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £504 £500 £528
% change year-on-year +0.75% -5.30% +0.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,106 506 1,073
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.87 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.26 £17.88
Median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £70.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.93 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.33
% change year-on-year +46.15% -19.40% -22.18%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 1,780 £600 +2.13% 460
UK excluding London +13 1,388 £600 +3.45% 382
South East +8 762 £600 +2.35% 160
London +62 381 £585 -2.50% 97
South West -2 333 £565 -5.83% 138
Work from Home +41 255 £560 -2.61% 137
East of England +3 109 £650 +18.18% 38
North of England -17 81 £750 +265.85% 39
North West +7 67 £775 +278.05% 29
Midlands -39 58 £600 -7.69% 3
West Midlands -52 44 £600 -11.11% 3
Scotland +35 39 £669 +27.33% 5
East Midlands -12 14 £550 -
Yorkshire -50 12 £525 -16.00% 7
Northern Ireland - 6 £644 - 3
Wales -6 5 - - 1
North East - 2 £675 - 3

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 (2.13%) Confluence
2 36 (1.87%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (1.40%) SharePoint
4 11 (0.57%) Apache
5 7 (0.36%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.31%) Mattermost
7 5 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
9 3 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.10%) CMS
10 2 (0.10%) nginx
11 1 (0.052%) OpenStack
Applications
1 39 (2.03%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (1.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.26%) AutoCAD
6 5 (0.26%) Revit
6 5 (0.26%) SOLIDWORKS
7 4 (0.21%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.10%) Lectora
8 2 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 27 (1.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.25%) Remedy ITSM
3 22 (1.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 5 (0.26%) Maximo
5 4 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
5 4 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.21%) SAP EWM
6 3 (0.16%) SAP GRC
6 3 (0.16%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.052%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.052%) Primavera
8 1 (0.052%) SAP CCM
8 1 (0.052%) SAP FI-GL
8 1 (0.052%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.052%) SAP QM
8 1 (0.052%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 186 (9.66%) AWS
2 164 (8.52%) Azure
3 71 (3.69%) GCP
4 44 (2.29%) PaaS
5 43 (2.23%) IaaS
6 41 (2.13%) GitHub
7 38 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
8 30 (1.56%) Microsoft 365
9 29 (1.51%) GitHub Actions
10 26 (1.35%) OpenShift
11 25 (1.30%) Serverless
12 21 (1.09%) Power Platform
13 17 (0.88%) OCI
14 14 (0.73%) Amazon ECS
15 13 (0.68%) Amazon EKS
15 13 (0.68%) Entra ID
15 13 (0.68%) SaaS
16 12 (0.62%) AWS Lambda
16 12 (0.62%) Google Kubernetes Engine
17 11 (0.57%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 105 (5.45%) DNS
2 104 (5.40%) Firewall
3 69 (3.58%) Network Security
4 62 (3.22%) WAN
5 61 (3.17%) LAN
6 49 (2.55%) VPN
7 43 (2.23%) DHCP
8 41 (2.13%) BGP
9 28 (1.45%) OSPF
10 27 (1.40%) TCP/IP
11 20 (1.04%) Ethernet VPN
11 20 (1.04%) VXLAN
12 19 (0.99%) MPLS
12 19 (0.99%) VSAN
13 18 (0.94%) SAN
13 18 (0.94%) VLAN
14 16 (0.83%) BIG-IP
14 16 (0.83%) Junos
15 15 (0.78%) SSL
16 14 (0.73%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (1.45%) SQL Server
2 26 (1.35%) Oracle Database
3 24 (1.25%) Elasticsearch
3 24 (1.25%) PostgreSQL
4 16 (0.83%) Power BI
5 13 (0.68%) MongoDB
6 12 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
7 8 (0.42%) Metadata
8 7 (0.36%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (0.36%) Hadoop
8 7 (0.36%) Redis
9 6 (0.31%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.31%) MariaDB
9 6 (0.31%) MySQL
10 5 (0.26%) Big Data
10 5 (0.26%) NoSQL
10 5 (0.26%) Oracle Database 11g
10 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 4 (0.21%) DynamoDB
11 4 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 72 (3.74%) JIRA
2 34 (1.77%) GitLab
3 26 (1.35%) Git
4 24 (1.25%) Jenkins
5 10 (0.52%) Cypress.io
6 9 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (0.36%) Robot Framework
8 6 (0.31%) Artifactory
8 6 (0.31%) Selenium
9 5 (0.26%) Maven
10 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
10 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.16%) MLflow
11 3 (0.16%) MSI
11 3 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 2 (0.10%) Bitbucket
12 2 (0.10%) Cucumber
12 2 (0.10%) Gatling
12 2 (0.10%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.10%) SonarQube
General
1 286 (14.86%) Social Skills
2 214 (11.12%) Public Sector
3 114 (5.92%) Analytical Skills
4 77 (4.00%) Finance
5 65 (3.38%) Military
6 55 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
7 54 (2.81%) Legal
8 24 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
9 23 (1.19%) Telecoms
10 22 (1.14%) Law
10 22 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
11 19 (0.99%) Aerospace
12 14 (0.73%) Police
13 11 (0.57%) Manufacturing
14 9 (0.47%) Marketing
15 7 (0.36%) Electronics
16 4 (0.21%) Banking
16 4 (0.21%) Influencing Skills
17 3 (0.16%) Advertising
17 3 (0.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 309 (16.05%) Architect
2 151 (7.84%) Senior
3 145 (7.53%) Lead
4 129 (6.70%) Analyst
5 106 (5.51%) Consultant
6 105 (5.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 100 (5.19%) Developer
8 88 (4.57%) Network Engineer
9 75 (3.90%) Technical Architect
10 73 (3.79%) SOC Analyst
11 61 (3.17%) Security Architect
12 56 (2.91%) Project Manager
12 56 (2.91%) Tester
13 51 (2.65%) DevOps Engineer
14 49 (2.55%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 46 (2.39%) Software Engineer
16 39 (2.03%) Administrator
16 39 (2.03%) Service Manager
17 38 (1.97%) Designer
17 38 (1.97%) DV Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (2.39%) REST
2 29 (1.51%) React
3 24 (1.25%) Elastic Stack
4 18 (0.94%) 802.1X
5 16 (0.83%) AngularJS
5 16 (0.83%) Kafka
5 16 (0.83%) Node.js
6 15 (0.78%) LDAP
6 15 (0.78%) SOAP
6 15 (0.78%) Spring
7 13 (0.68%) Apache NiFi
7 13 (0.68%) Flask
7 13 (0.68%) RESTful
7 13 (0.68%) Spring Boot
8 12 (0.62%) FastAPI
9 11 (0.57%) .NET
9 11 (0.57%) ModSecurity
9 11 (0.57%) SailPoint
10 10 (0.52%) OAuth
10 10 (0.52%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 92 (4.78%) PKI
2 68 (3.53%) Data Centre
3 53 (2.75%) Security Operations Centre
4 49 (2.55%) Cloud Native
5 33 (1.71%) Onboarding
6 32 (1.66%) Clustering
7 30 (1.56%) Management Information System
8 26 (1.35%) Product Ownership
9 24 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
10 23 (1.19%) Cyber Threat
11 20 (1.04%) Cyberattack
12 19 (0.99%) Private Cloud
12 19 (0.99%) Security Posture
13 17 (0.88%) Public Cloud
14 16 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.83%) Virtual Team
15 15 (0.78%) Enterprise Storage
16 13 (0.68%) CMDB
16 13 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
16 13 (0.68%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 270 (14.03%) Windows
2 215 (11.17%) Linux
3 94 (4.88%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (1.25%) Windows 10
6 11 (0.57%) Ubuntu
7 10 (0.52%) Unix
8 8 (0.42%) Android
8 8 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
8 8 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (0.36%) Debian
10 6 (0.31%) AIX
10 6 (0.31%) CentOS
11 5 (0.26%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.26%) Mac OS
11 5 (0.26%) VMS
11 5 (0.26%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.16%) Rocky
13 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 318 (16.52%) Agile
2 198 (10.29%) Problem-Solving
3 165 (8.57%) ITIL
4 162 (8.42%) CI/CD
5 155 (8.05%) Cybersecurity
6 153 (7.95%) DevOps
7 144 (7.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 137 (7.12%) Continuous Improvement
9 124 (6.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 123 (6.39%) Service Management
11 110 (5.71%) Stakeholder Management
12 105 (5.45%) ITSM
13 100 (5.19%) Infrastructure as Code
14 91 (4.73%) Decision-Making
14 91 (4.73%) Project Delivery
15 84 (4.36%) Risk Management
16 83 (4.31%) SIEM
17 80 (4.16%) Security Operations
18 76 (3.95%) Containerisation
19 75 (3.90%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 148 (7.69%) Python
2 115 (5.97%) PowerShell
3 80 (4.16%) SQL
4 41 (2.13%) Java
5 35 (1.82%) JavaScript
6 34 (1.77%) Bash
7 23 (1.19%) TypeScript
8 21 (1.09%) C#
9 14 (0.73%) Go
9 14 (0.73%) Search Processing Language
10 12 (0.62%) PL/SQL
11 10 (0.52%) Bicep
12 9 (0.47%) C
12 9 (0.47%) C++
13 8 (0.42%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.36%) Rust
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 1,925 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 621 (32.26%) SC Cleared
3 63 (3.27%) Degree
4 53 (2.75%) Cisco Certification
4 53 (2.75%) CISSP
5 36 (1.87%) CISM
6 24 (1.25%) CCNA
6 24 (1.25%) CompTIA Security+
7 22 (1.14%) CCNP
8 21 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
9 19 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
10 18 (0.94%) CESG Certified Professional
11 17 (0.88%) AWS Certification
12 15 (0.78%) GIAC
13 14 (0.73%) BPSS Clearance
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 12 (0.62%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (3.95%) NIST
2 62 (3.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 51 (2.65%) NCSC
4 47 (2.44%) QA
5 46 (2.39%) PMO
6 39 (2.03%) JSP 440
7 24 (1.25%) GRC
7 24 (1.25%) RMADS
8 23 (1.19%) SLA
9 18 (0.94%) GDPR
10 11 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
11 9 (0.47%) Accessibility
11 9 (0.47%) Data Quality
11 9 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 8 (0.42%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.31%) WCAG
14 5 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
15 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 3 (0.16%) Def Stans
System Software
1 125 (6.49%) VMware Infrastructure
2 123 (6.39%) Active Directory
3 95 (4.94%) Docker
4 58 (3.01%) VMware NSX
5 48 (2.49%) VMware ESXi
6 41 (2.13%) Hyper-V
7 23 (1.19%) vSphere
8 20 (1.04%) vCloud
9 10 (0.52%) BitLocker
10 9 (0.47%) Firmware
10 9 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.42%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.36%) NFS
13 5 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
13 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
14 4 (0.21%) Ceph
14 4 (0.21%) UAG
15 3 (0.16%) Squid
16 2 (0.10%) GPFS
16 2 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 131 (6.81%) Kubernetes
2 124 (6.44%) Terraform
3 82 (4.26%) Ansible
4 61 (3.17%) vCenter Server
5 28 (1.45%) SCOM
6 27 (1.40%) SCCM
7 19 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.94%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 18 (0.94%) Grafana
9 16 (0.83%) Prometheus
9 16 (0.83%) Puppet
10 13 (0.68%) FortiGate
11 12 (0.62%) Podman
12 11 (0.57%) Nagios
13 10 (0.52%) Data Guard
13 10 (0.52%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 10 (0.52%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 10 (0.52%) WMI
14 9 (0.47%) Nessus
14 9 (0.47%) WSUS
Vendors
1 211 (10.96%) VMware
2 175 (9.09%) Microsoft
3 105 (5.45%) Cisco
4 70 (3.64%) ServiceNow
5 69 (3.58%) Splunk
6 51 (2.65%) Oracle
7 46 (2.39%) NetApp
8 45 (2.34%) Juniper
9 42 (2.18%) Red Hat
10 41 (2.13%) SAP
11 30 (1.56%) F5
12 28 (1.45%) SolarWinds
13 25 (1.30%) Remedy
14 24 (1.25%) Google
15 23 (1.19%) Fortinet
16 22 (1.14%) Dell
16 22 (1.14%) Sparx
17 19 (0.99%) Palo Alto
18 18 (0.94%) Citrix
19 17 (0.88%) BMC