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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 80 36
Rank change year-on-year +32 -44 +17
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,247 1,012 1,861
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.12% 3.07% 4.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.05% 9.78% 16.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,684 711 1,251
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £513 £517 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% +4.35%
75th Percentile £700 £650 £688
90th Percentile £763 £723 £765
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £595
% change year-on-year +4.35% -3.36% +4.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 37 93
10th Percentile £41.25 - £50.00
25th Percentile £58.43 £25.15 £58.49
Median hourly rate £74.68 £47.48 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +57.30% -32.55% -2.68%
75th Percentile £92.53 £80.00 £80.00
90th Percentile £98.82 £87.35 £89.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.68 £74.35 £70.39
% change year-on-year +0.44% +5.63% -2.77%

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 17,217 10,344 11,325
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.53% 31.33% 29.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,496 6,423 7,004
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,318 826 676
10th Percentile £17.18 £17.97 £16.93
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -8.73%
75th Percentile £72.44 £47.97 £67.77
90th Percentile £87.16 £71.35 £75.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £53.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.55% +2.14%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +27 2,121 £600 +2.13% 775
UK excluding London +12 1,613 £600 +4.35% 641
South East +3 893 £600 - 215
London +51 482 £600 -4.00% 195
South West +5 469 £588 -2.08% 200
Work from Home +40 347 £560 -4.88% 361
East of England +10 103 £675 +22.73% 108
North of England -14 65 £775 +34.78% 56
North West -2 45 £863 +72.50% 39
Midlands -68 45 £600 - 16
West Midlands -74 39 £600 - 12
Scotland +3 33 £669 +27.33% 61
Yorkshire -25 15 £510 -18.40% 7
East Midlands - 6 £625 - 4
Northern Ireland +4 5 £638 -1.92% 3
North East -42 5 £463 -26.00% 10
Wales -13 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 69 (3.07%) Confluence
2 53 (2.36%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 16 (0.71%) Apache
5 7 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.31%) Apache Spark
5 7 (0.31%) Documentum
6 6 (0.27%) CMS
7 5 (0.22%) IIS
8 4 (0.18%) Camunda
8 4 (0.18%) nginx
9 3 (0.13%) ArcGIS
9 3 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
10 2 (0.089%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.089%) Mule
10 2 (0.089%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
10 2 (0.089%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.089%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.045%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 60 (2.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (2.00%) Microsoft Project
3 33 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
5 15 (0.67%) AutoCAD
5 15 (0.67%) Revit
5 15 (0.67%) SOLIDWORKS
6 8 (0.36%) MS Visio
7 7 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.13%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.25%) Oracle ERP
3 21 (0.93%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.80%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.62%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.18%) Primavera
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle Financials
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.13%) SAP PP
10 2 (0.089%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.045%) Oracle Assets
11 1 (0.045%) SAP CCM
11 1 (0.045%) SAP FI-GL
11 1 (0.045%) SAP GRC
11 1 (0.045%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 301 (13.40%) Azure
2 296 (13.17%) AWS
3 109 (4.85%) GCP
4 59 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
5 53 (2.36%) Microsoft 365
6 49 (2.18%) GitHub
7 40 (1.78%) Entra ID
7 40 (1.78%) GitHub Actions
8 38 (1.69%) Power Platform
9 36 (1.60%) Serverless
10 34 (1.51%) OCI
11 27 (1.20%) IaaS
12 26 (1.16%) AWS Lambda
13 25 (1.11%) OpenShift
14 24 (1.07%) PaaS
15 23 (1.02%) Amazon EKS
16 21 (0.93%) Amazon ECS
17 19 (0.85%) Amazon S3
17 19 (0.85%) SaaS
18 17 (0.76%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 166 (7.39%) DNS
2 119 (5.30%) Firewall
3 80 (3.56%) DHCP
4 70 (3.12%) Network Security
5 59 (2.63%) WAN
6 54 (2.40%) VPN
7 53 (2.36%) TCP/IP
8 47 (2.09%) LAN
9 44 (1.96%) BGP
10 41 (1.82%) VSAN
11 35 (1.56%) MPLS
12 32 (1.42%) IPsec
13 28 (1.25%) VLAN
14 20 (0.89%) SSL
15 17 (0.76%) SAN
16 15 (0.67%) Cisco ASA
16 15 (0.67%) SD-WAN
17 14 (0.62%) Cisco Firepower
17 14 (0.62%) Cisco Nexus
18 13 (0.58%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (2.45%) SQL Server
2 44 (1.96%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.47%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (1.02%) Power BI
5 21 (0.93%) Metadata
6 19 (0.85%) Data Lake
6 19 (0.85%) MongoDB
6 19 (0.85%) Relational Database
7 18 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.67%) Data Warehouse
9 12 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
10 9 (0.40%) NoSQL
10 9 (0.40%) Oracle Database 11g
11 8 (0.36%) Big Data
11 8 (0.36%) BigQuery
11 8 (0.36%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 8 (0.36%) Oracle Database 12c
12 7 (0.31%) MariaDB
12 7 (0.31%) Oracle Reports
13 5 (0.22%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 107 (4.76%) JIRA
2 78 (3.47%) GitLab
3 71 (3.16%) Jenkins
4 70 (3.12%) Git
5 29 (1.29%) Selenium
6 15 (0.67%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
8 8 (0.36%) MSI
9 7 (0.31%) Postman
9 7 (0.31%) REST Assured
9 7 (0.31%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.31%) Visual Studio
10 6 (0.27%) JUnit
10 6 (0.27%) SpecFlow
11 5 (0.22%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.22%) Gatling
11 5 (0.22%) JMeter
11 5 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.18%) Maven
13 3 (0.13%) Toad
General
1 492 (21.90%) Social Skills
2 282 (12.55%) Public Sector
3 168 (7.48%) Analytical Skills
4 136 (6.05%) Finance
5 66 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
5 66 (2.94%) Military
6 42 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
7 37 (1.65%) Legal
8 35 (1.56%) Law
9 34 (1.51%) Influencing Skills
10 33 (1.47%) Police
11 31 (1.38%) Telecoms
12 29 (1.29%) Manufacturing
13 26 (1.16%) Aerospace
14 14 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
15 9 (0.40%) Local Government
16 7 (0.31%) Marketing
17 5 (0.22%) Advertising
17 5 (0.22%) Back Office
18 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 376 (16.73%) Architect
2 243 (10.81%) Lead
3 200 (8.90%) Senior
4 156 (6.94%) Developer
5 154 (6.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 152 (6.76%) Consultant
7 131 (5.83%) Analyst
8 91 (4.05%) Security Architect
9 76 (3.38%) Network Engineer
10 71 (3.16%) Cloud Engineer
11 68 (3.03%) SOC Analyst
12 61 (2.71%) Support Engineer
13 59 (2.63%) Project Manager
14 57 (2.54%) DevOps Engineer
14 57 (2.54%) Technical Architect
15 51 (2.27%) DBA
16 45 (2.00%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 42 (1.87%) Network Architect
17 42 (1.87%) Technical Leader
18 41 (1.82%) Lead Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 202 (8.99%) Terraform
2 76 (3.38%) REST
3 33 (1.47%) LDAP
4 31 (1.38%) Elastic Stack
4 31 (1.38%) React
5 27 (1.20%) SOAP
6 23 (1.02%) RESTful
7 21 (0.93%) Kafka
8 18 (0.80%) Node.js
9 17 (0.76%) Apache NiFi
10 15 (0.67%) .NET
10 15 (0.67%) AngularJS
10 15 (0.67%) Spring
10 15 (0.67%) Spring Boot
10 15 (0.67%) XML
11 13 (0.58%) FastAPI
11 13 (0.58%) JSON
11 13 (0.58%) Oracle Fusion
12 12 (0.53%) ARM Templates
12 12 (0.53%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 102 (4.54%) PKI
2 101 (4.49%) Cloud Native
3 100 (4.45%) Data Centre
4 81 (3.60%) Onboarding
5 44 (1.96%) Security Operations Centre
6 40 (1.78%) Management Information System
6 40 (1.78%) Private Cloud
7 39 (1.74%) Product Ownership
8 38 (1.69%) Hybrid Cloud
9 35 (1.56%) Cyber Threat
10 29 (1.29%) Public Cloud
11 26 (1.16%) Security Posture
12 25 (1.11%) Distributed Systems
13 21 (0.93%) Clustering
14 20 (0.89%) Legacy Systems
15 19 (0.85%) CMDB
16 16 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
16 16 (0.71%) Virtual Team
17 14 (0.62%) Replication
18 12 (0.53%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 376 (16.73%) Windows
2 256 (11.39%) Linux
3 177 (7.88%) Windows Server
4 42 (1.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 31 (1.38%) Windows 10
6 27 (1.20%) Windows Server 2019
7 21 (0.93%) Unix
8 18 (0.80%) Ubuntu
9 15 (0.67%) 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 2003
13 5 (0.22%) Data ONTAP
13 5 (0.22%) Debian
13 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 4 (0.18%) VMS
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 393 (17.49%) Agile
2 282 (12.55%) Continuous Improvement
3 272 (12.11%) Stakeholder Management
4 257 (11.44%) CI/CD
5 233 (10.37%) Cybersecurity
6 222 (9.88%) DevOps
6 222 (9.88%) Problem-Solving
7 212 (9.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 204 (9.08%) Technical Leadership
9 203 (9.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 201 (8.95%) Infrastructure as Code
11 185 (8.23%) ITIL
12 152 (6.76%) Service Management
13 145 (6.45%) Containerisation
13 145 (6.45%) ITSM
14 131 (5.83%) SIEM
15 125 (5.56%) Risk Management
16 124 (5.52%) Decision-Making
17 122 (5.43%) Project Delivery
18 114 (5.07%) AI
Programming Languages
1 239 (10.64%) Python
2 190 (8.46%) PowerShell
3 133 (5.92%) SQL
4 94 (4.18%) Bash
5 71 (3.16%) Java
6 40 (1.78%) JavaScript
7 37 (1.65%) C#
8 28 (1.25%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.80%) Bicep
10 17 (0.76%) Go
11 15 (0.67%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.62%) Search Processing Language
13 11 (0.49%) C++
13 11 (0.49%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.40%) C
15 7 (0.31%) Groovy
16 6 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
16 6 (0.27%) Perl
16 6 (0.27%) X++
17 5 (0.22%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 2,247 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 721 (32.09%) SC Cleared
3 82 (3.65%) Degree
4 74 (3.29%) CISSP
5 46 (2.05%) CISM
6 38 (1.69%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
8 27 (1.20%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 25 (1.11%) AWS Certification
10 24 (1.07%) VCAP
11 21 (0.93%) ISTQB
11 21 (0.93%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.89%) CCNP
13 19 (0.85%) PMP
13 19 (0.85%) TOGAF Certification
14 16 (0.71%) Azure Certification
15 15 (0.67%) MCSE
16 13 (0.58%) BPSS Clearance
17 12 (0.53%) CompTIA Security+
18 11 (0.49%) CHECK Team Leader
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (4.14%) NCSC
2 91 (4.05%) NIST
3 81 (3.60%) PMO
4 78 (3.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 61 (2.71%) QA
6 42 (1.87%) JSP 440
7 32 (1.42%) GDPR
8 31 (1.38%) SLA
9 27 (1.20%) Data Quality
10 23 (1.02%) GRC
11 18 (0.80%) Accessibility
12 17 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 16 (0.71%) Government Security Classifications
14 14 (0.62%) RMADS
15 11 (0.49%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 10 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
17 9 (0.40%) NIST 800
18 8 (0.36%) WCAG
19 7 (0.31%) ISO 9000
20 6 (0.27%) Def Stans
System Software
1 235 (10.46%) Active Directory
2 204 (9.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 132 (5.87%) Docker
4 92 (4.09%) VMware NSX
5 80 (3.56%) VMware ESXi
6 68 (3.03%) Hyper-V
7 53 (2.36%) vSphere
8 27 (1.20%) vCloud
9 18 (0.80%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (0.62%) NFS
11 13 (0.58%) Oracle RAC
11 13 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
12 10 (0.45%) Firmware
13 6 (0.27%) BitLocker
13 6 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
14 5 (0.22%) Ceph
15 4 (0.18%) KVM
15 4 (0.18%) Squid
15 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.13%) UAG
Systems Management
1 213 (9.48%) Kubernetes
2 150 (6.68%) Ansible
3 89 (3.96%) vCenter Server
4 58 (2.58%) SCOM
5 34 (1.51%) SCCM
6 26 (1.16%) Prometheus
7 24 (1.07%) Grafana
8 22 (0.98%) Puppet
9 17 (0.76%) Microsoft Intune
9 17 (0.76%) Nagios
10 16 (0.71%) Oracle RMAN
11 15 (0.67%) Podman
11 15 (0.67%) VxRail
12 14 (0.62%) Avamar
12 14 (0.62%) Data Guard
12 14 (0.62%) WMI
13 13 (0.58%) WSUS
14 12 (0.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 12 (0.53%) Istio
15 11 (0.49%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 297 (13.22%) Microsoft
2 290 (12.91%) VMware
3 117 (5.21%) Oracle
4 100 (4.45%) ServiceNow
5 79 (3.52%) Cisco
6 61 (2.71%) SAP
7 59 (2.63%) Google
7 59 (2.63%) Splunk
8 42 (1.87%) SolarWinds
9 39 (1.74%) CyberArk
9 39 (1.74%) Red Hat
10 27 (1.20%) Juniper
11 24 (1.07%) Palo Alto
12 23 (1.02%) Citrix
12 23 (1.02%) Dell
12 23 (1.02%) Remedy
13 21 (0.93%) BMC
13 21 (0.93%) NetApp
14 19 (0.85%) Broadcom
15 18 (0.80%) Sparx