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

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 65 55 42
Rank change year-on-year -10 -13 +63
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,409 1,170 2,053
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.64% 3.72% 4.63%
As % of the Qualifications category 10.77% 12.47% 15.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,001 739 1,427
10th Percentile £430 £383 £370
25th Percentile £510 £500 £510
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% -2.08% -
75th Percentile £688 £675 £700
90th Percentile £738 £725 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £588 £600
% change year-on-year -2.13% -2.08% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 29 115
10th Percentile £16.35 £35.25 £48.40
25th Percentile £18.33 £55.87 £56.65
Median hourly rate £57.50 £63.15 £63.29
Median % change year-on-year -8.95% -0.22% -9.59%
75th Percentile £76.88 £73.75 £77.50
90th Percentile £87.95 £87.36 £85.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.15 £63.29
% change year-on-year +2.93% -0.22% -12.70%

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 13,088 9,382 13,516
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.85% 29.83% 30.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,634 5,651 8,426
10th Percentile £317 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £525 £548
Median % change year-on-year -1.24% -4.11% -0.45%
75th Percentile £623 £634 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 965 452 918
10th Percentile £15.67 £19.35 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.10 £24.18 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.52 £46.39
Median % change year-on-year -36.36% -14.81% +3.09%
75th Percentile £62.50 £65.71 £65.83
90th Percentile £76.26 £77.47 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £43.94 £47.50
% change year-on-year -42.76% -7.49% +5.56%

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 30 January 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 30 January 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 30 January 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 -10 1,279 £575 -4.17% 447
UK excluding London -8 996 £575 -2.13% 404
South East +5 499 £565 -1.74% 154
South West -4 309 £575 -4.17% 125
London -41 284 £600 +3.84% 68
Work from Home +18 191 £555 -1.33% 156
Midlands -23 73 £575 -17.12% 21
West Midlands -14 64 £575 -17.12% 15
North of England -44 53 £590 +7.27% 43
East of England +3 46 £575 - 65
North West +6 45 £580 +182.93% 34
Scotland -24 27 £653 +26.80% 2
Northern Ireland +7 10 £600 - 1
East Midlands -21 9 £650 +16.07% 6
Yorkshire -55 7 £613 +11.36% 8
Wales -2 5 £600 -14.29% 4
North East -22 1 - - 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 52 (3.69%) Microsoft Exchange
2 49 (3.48%) SharePoint
3 30 (2.13%) Apache
4 28 (1.99%) Skype for Business
5 23 (1.63%) Confluence
6 19 (1.35%) Palantir Foundry
7 6 (0.43%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
9 4 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2003
9 4 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2007
9 4 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2010
9 4 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
9 4 (0.28%) Office Communications Server
10 3 (0.21%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.21%) Documentum
10 3 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.071%) Mattermost
11 1 (0.071%) nginx
Applications
1 63 (4.47%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.14%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.43%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.071%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 18 (1.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
3 11 (0.78%) SAP EWM
3 11 (0.78%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 10 (0.71%) SAP WM
5 8 (0.57%) Maximo
6 5 (0.35%) Primavera
7 4 (0.28%) Oracle Applications
7 4 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
7 4 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
8 3 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
8 3 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 2 (0.14%) SAP GRC
10 1 (0.071%) Oracle Cash Management
10 1 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
10 1 (0.071%) Oracle Payroll
10 1 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 1 (0.071%) Oracle Receivables
10 1 (0.071%) SAP FI
10 1 (0.071%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 128 (9.08%) AWS
2 124 (8.80%) Azure
3 57 (4.05%) Microsoft 365
4 51 (3.62%) GitHub
5 40 (2.84%) GCP
5 40 (2.84%) OpenShift
5 40 (2.84%) Serverless
6 31 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
7 29 (2.06%) GitHub Actions
8 24 (1.70%) Amazon S3
9 19 (1.35%) Amazon ECS
9 19 (1.35%) AWS CloudFormation
9 19 (1.35%) IaaS
10 18 (1.28%) Entra ID
11 17 (1.21%) Amazon EC2
11 17 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
11 17 (1.21%) Azure Sentinel
12 15 (1.06%) PaaS
13 14 (0.99%) Azure AKS
14 13 (0.92%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 104 (7.38%) Firewall
2 90 (6.39%) DNS
3 63 (4.47%) Network Security
4 50 (3.55%) VPN
5 43 (3.05%) TCP/IP
6 37 (2.63%) LAN
7 36 (2.56%) DHCP
8 33 (2.34%) WAN
9 29 (2.06%) Cisco IOS
10 28 (1.99%) Skype
11 25 (1.77%) Junos
12 24 (1.70%) BGP
13 23 (1.63%) Cisco ISE
14 22 (1.56%) SAN
15 21 (1.49%) Cisco Firepower
16 17 (1.21%) VLAN
17 15 (1.06%) MPLS
18 14 (0.99%) OSPF
19 13 (0.92%) SSL
20 11 (0.78%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (2.06%) PostgreSQL
2 18 (1.28%) Big Data
2 18 (1.28%) Elasticsearch
2 18 (1.28%) SQL Server
3 16 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
4 15 (1.06%) Oracle Database
5 12 (0.85%) Hadoop
6 11 (0.78%) MongoDB
6 11 (0.78%) Redis
7 10 (0.71%) Relational Database
8 8 (0.57%) MySQL
8 8 (0.57%) Power BI
9 7 (0.50%) InfluxDB
9 7 (0.50%) SAP HANA
10 6 (0.43%) Metadata
11 5 (0.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 4 (0.28%) NoSQL
12 4 (0.28%) RDBMS
12 4 (0.28%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 4 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 42 (2.98%) JIRA
2 34 (2.41%) GitLab
3 31 (2.20%) Jenkins
4 29 (2.06%) Git
5 17 (1.21%) SonarQube
6 15 (1.06%) Maven
7 13 (0.92%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.78%) Sonatype Nexus
9 9 (0.64%) Bitbucket
10 8 (0.57%) Cypress.io
11 6 (0.43%) Postman
11 6 (0.43%) Selenium
12 5 (0.35%) CircleCI
12 5 (0.35%) Gradle
12 5 (0.35%) JUnit
12 5 (0.35%) Snyk
12 5 (0.35%) webpack
13 4 (0.28%) Oracle APEX
13 4 (0.28%) Robot Framework
13 4 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 272 (19.30%) Social Skills
2 182 (12.92%) Public Sector
3 112 (7.95%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (4.33%) Finance
5 48 (3.41%) Military
6 42 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
7 38 (2.70%) Legal
8 26 (1.85%) Manufacturing
8 26 (1.85%) Telecoms
9 25 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
10 22 (1.56%) Aerospace
11 21 (1.49%) Law
11 21 (1.49%) Organisational Skills
12 16 (1.14%) Marketing
13 15 (1.06%) Electronics
14 14 (0.99%) Banking
15 13 (0.92%) Police
16 8 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 2 (0.14%) Influencing Skills
17 2 (0.14%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 242 (17.18%) Architect
2 83 (5.89%) Consultant
3 82 (5.82%) Analyst
4 78 (5.54%) Senior
5 62 (4.40%) Network Engineer
6 58 (4.12%) DevOps Engineer
7 57 (4.05%) Support Engineer
8 54 (3.83%) Developer
8 54 (3.83%) Lead
9 53 (3.76%) Technical Architect
10 47 (3.34%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
11 46 (3.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 43 (3.05%) Tester
13 42 (2.98%) 3rd Line Engineer
14 37 (2.63%) Cloud Engineer
14 37 (2.63%) Project Manager
14 37 (2.63%) Solutions Architect
15 36 (2.56%) Infrastructure Architect
15 36 (2.56%) SOC Analyst
16 33 (2.34%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (2.34%) REST
2 30 (2.13%) Apache NiFi
3 22 (1.56%) OAuth
4 20 (1.42%) OpenID
4 20 (1.42%) React
5 19 (1.35%) SAML
6 18 (1.28%) OAuth2
7 17 (1.21%) Kafka
8 16 (1.14%) Node.js
9 15 (1.06%) Elastic Stack
9 15 (1.06%) YAML
10 14 (0.99%) Flask
11 12 (0.85%) .NET
11 12 (0.85%) FastAPI
11 12 (0.85%) RabbitMQ
12 10 (0.71%) JSON
12 10 (0.71%) LDAP
12 10 (0.71%) Web Services
13 9 (0.64%) gRPC
13 9 (0.64%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 90 (6.39%) PKI
2 44 (3.12%) Data Centre
3 34 (2.41%) Management Information System
4 33 (2.34%) Security Operations Centre
5 23 (1.63%) Cyber Threat
6 20 (1.42%) Cloud Native
6 20 (1.42%) Private Cloud
7 19 (1.35%) Replication
8 18 (1.28%) Cyberattack
8 18 (1.28%) Onboarding
9 15 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
9 15 (1.06%) Product Ownership
10 14 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
11 13 (0.92%) Cyber Defence
12 12 (0.85%) Fat Client
12 12 (0.85%) Insider Threat
12 12 (0.85%) Thin Client
13 11 (0.78%) CSOC
13 11 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
13 11 (0.78%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 256 (18.17%) Windows
2 162 (11.50%) Linux
3 77 (5.46%) Windows Server
4 41 (2.91%) Windows 10
5 27 (1.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (1.28%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.99%) Ubuntu
8 11 (0.78%) Unix
9 10 (0.71%) Android
9 10 (0.71%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.57%) CentOS
10 8 (0.57%) Windows Server 2003
11 6 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.21%) Debian
13 2 (0.14%) Rocky
13 2 (0.14%) VMS
13 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.071%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 237 (16.82%) Agile
2 174 (12.35%) Problem-Solving
3 154 (10.93%) Cybersecurity
4 140 (9.94%) DevOps
5 128 (9.08%) CI/CD
6 107 (7.59%) ITIL
7 89 (6.32%) Service Management
8 87 (6.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 83 (5.89%) Infrastructure as Code
10 82 (5.82%) Continuous Improvement
11 80 (5.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 77 (5.46%) Stakeholder Management
13 76 (5.39%) SIEM
14 74 (5.25%) ITSM
15 71 (5.04%) Containerisation
16 66 (4.68%) Incident Response
16 66 (4.68%) Risk Management
17 64 (4.54%) Project Delivery
18 59 (4.19%) Project Management
18 59 (4.19%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 137 (9.72%) Python
2 118 (8.37%) PowerShell
3 68 (4.83%) SQL
4 45 (3.19%) Java
5 33 (2.34%) JavaScript
6 32 (2.27%) Bash
7 19 (1.35%) Go
8 15 (1.06%) C#
8 15 (1.06%) Shell Script
8 15 (1.06%) TypeScript
9 12 (0.85%) C++
10 9 (0.64%) Bicep
11 8 (0.57%) C
11 8 (0.57%) VB
11 8 (0.57%) VBScript
12 6 (0.43%) ABAP
13 5 (0.35%) PL/SQL
14 3 (0.21%) PHP
14 3 (0.21%) T-SQL
15 2 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 1,409 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 453 (32.15%) SC Cleared
3 57 (4.05%) Degree
4 55 (3.90%) CISSP
5 38 (2.70%) CISM
6 35 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
6 35 (2.48%) Microsoft Certification
7 25 (1.77%) CompTIA Security+
8 23 (1.63%) CCNP
9 21 (1.49%) GIAC
10 18 (1.28%) BPSS Clearance
10 18 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
11 16 (1.14%) CompTIA CySA+
12 15 (1.06%) CEH
13 14 (0.99%) CESG Certified Professional
13 14 (0.99%) CTC Cleared
14 13 (0.92%) Azure Certification
14 13 (0.92%) CCNA
15 10 (0.71%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
16 9 (0.64%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (5.25%) NIST
2 60 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 53 (3.76%) NCSC
4 36 (2.56%) QA
5 29 (2.06%) JSP 440
6 25 (1.77%) PMO
7 20 (1.42%) GDPR
8 18 (1.28%) GRC
9 16 (1.14%) Data Quality
10 15 (1.06%) NIST 800
10 15 (1.06%) SLA
11 10 (0.71%) RMADS
12 7 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 5 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 5 (0.35%) P3O
15 4 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
15 4 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 3 (0.21%) COBIT
16 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 117 (8.30%) Active Directory
2 84 (5.96%) Docker
3 73 (5.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 46 (3.26%) VMware NSX
5 30 (2.13%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (1.21%) vSphere
7 11 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (0.71%) BitLocker
9 8 (0.57%) Firmware
9 8 (0.57%) Hyper-V
10 6 (0.43%) vCloud
11 4 (0.28%) Brightmail
11 4 (0.28%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.28%) NFS
11 4 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.21%) GPFS
12 3 (0.21%) Lustre
12 3 (0.21%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 3 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 133 (9.44%) Kubernetes
2 110 (7.81%) Terraform
3 79 (5.61%) Ansible
4 54 (3.83%) vCenter Server
5 38 (2.70%) Grafana
6 34 (2.41%) Single Sign-On
7 33 (2.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 32 (2.27%) Prometheus
9 26 (1.85%) SCCM
10 16 (1.14%) WMI
11 15 (1.06%) Progress Chef
12 13 (0.92%) Puppet
13 11 (0.78%) Podman
13 11 (0.78%) SCOM
14 10 (0.71%) vRealize
15 8 (0.57%) Argo
15 8 (0.57%) Microsoft Clustering
15 8 (0.57%) VxRail
16 7 (0.50%) Nessus
17 6 (0.43%) Kibana
Vendors
1 215 (15.26%) Microsoft
2 147 (10.43%) VMware
3 104 (7.38%) Cisco
4 51 (3.62%) Splunk
5 45 (3.19%) Juniper
5 45 (3.19%) SAP
6 40 (2.84%) Oracle
6 40 (2.84%) Red Hat
7 30 (2.13%) SolarWinds
8 24 (1.70%) Palantir
9 23 (1.63%) ServiceNow
10 22 (1.56%) Dell
10 22 (1.56%) NetApp
11 19 (1.35%) Foundry
12 15 (1.06%) Google
12 15 (1.06%) Palo Alto
13 14 (0.99%) Remedy
14 13 (0.92%) Atlassian
14 13 (0.92%) IBM
14 13 (0.92%) Veeam