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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 79 37
Rank change year-on-year +28 -42 +16
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,229 1,003 1,846
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.09% 3.06% 4.85%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.98% 9.81% 16.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,682 702 1,244
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £514 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £590 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.65% -1.63% +4.35%
75th Percentile £700 £650 £688
90th Percentile £763 £722 £765
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £595
% change year-on-year +3.45% -2.52% +4.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 37 93
10th Percentile £36.25 - £50.00
25th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £58.49
Median hourly rate £74.68 £47.48 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +57.30% -32.55% -1.09%
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% -2.73%

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 17,170 10,225 11,193
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.52% 31.23% 29.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,500 6,338 6,929
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 £627 £623 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,295 820 672
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.98 £16.87
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -9.09%
75th Percentile £72.54 £48.13 £67.77
90th Percentile £87.96 £71.27 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £53.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.55% +2.12%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 2,098 £600 +2.13% 1,043
UK excluding London +12 1,597 £600 +3.45% 870
South East +4 888 £600 - 252
London +46 477 £603 -3.60% 266
South West +4 460 £588 -2.08% 285
Work from Home +45 347 £560 -5.08% 564
East of England +16 100 £663 +20.45% 174
North of England -12 65 £775 +34.78% 90
Midlands -70 45 £600 +1.05% 23
North West -13 44 £863 +72.50% 73
West Midlands -70 39 £600 +1.05% 15
Scotland -7 34 £669 +27.33% 64
Yorkshire -20 16 £518 -17.20% 12
East Midlands - 6 £625 - 8
Northern Ireland +5 5 £638 -1.92% 4
North East -42 5 £463 -26.00% 8
Wales -15 4 - - 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 67 (3.01%) Confluence
2 52 (2.33%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 16 (0.72%) 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%) nginx
9 3 (0.13%) Camunda
9 3 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
10 2 (0.090%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.090%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.090%) Mule
10 2 (0.090%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.090%) Oracle Service Bus
10 2 (0.090%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.090%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.045%) JBoss
Applications
1 59 (2.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (2.02%) Microsoft Project
3 32 (1.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.94%) Microsoft Office
5 15 (0.67%) AutoCAD
5 15 (0.67%) Revit
5 15 (0.67%) SOLIDWORKS
6 7 (0.31%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.13%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.30%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.26%) Oracle ERP
3 22 (0.99%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.81%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.63%) 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 (0.090%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.045%) Oracle Assets
11 1 (0.045%) SAP CCM
11 1 (0.045%) SAP GRC
11 1 (0.045%) SAP PLM
11 1 (0.045%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 296 (13.28%) Azure
2 294 (13.19%) AWS
3 107 (4.80%) GCP
4 58 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
5 51 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
6 47 (2.11%) GitHub
7 40 (1.79%) Entra ID
7 40 (1.79%) GitHub Actions
8 37 (1.66%) Power Platform
8 37 (1.66%) Serverless
9 34 (1.53%) OCI
10 28 (1.26%) IaaS
11 26 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
12 25 (1.12%) PaaS
13 23 (1.03%) Amazon EKS
13 23 (1.03%) OpenShift
14 21 (0.94%) Amazon ECS
15 19 (0.85%) Amazon S3
15 19 (0.85%) SaaS
16 17 (0.76%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 164 (7.36%) DNS
2 121 (5.43%) Firewall
3 80 (3.59%) DHCP
4 68 (3.05%) Network Security
5 61 (2.74%) WAN
6 54 (2.42%) TCP/IP
6 54 (2.42%) VPN
7 50 (2.24%) LAN
8 47 (2.11%) BGP
9 41 (1.84%) VSAN
10 34 (1.53%) MPLS
11 33 (1.48%) IPsec
12 27 (1.21%) VLAN
13 18 (0.81%) SSL
14 17 (0.76%) Cisco ASA
15 16 (0.72%) SAN
16 15 (0.67%) Cisco Firepower
16 15 (0.67%) OSPF
16 15 (0.67%) SD-WAN
17 14 (0.63%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (2.42%) SQL Server
2 43 (1.93%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (0.99%) Power BI
5 21 (0.94%) Metadata
6 19 (0.85%) Data Lake
7 18 (0.81%) MongoDB
8 17 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
8 17 (0.76%) Relational Database
9 15 (0.67%) Data Warehouse
10 12 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
11 9 (0.40%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.40%) Oracle Database 11g
12 8 (0.36%) Big Data
12 8 (0.36%) BigQuery
12 8 (0.36%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 8 (0.36%) Oracle Database 12c
13 7 (0.31%) MariaDB
13 7 (0.31%) Oracle Reports
14 5 (0.22%) Redis
Development Applications
1 105 (4.71%) JIRA
2 74 (3.32%) GitLab
3 65 (2.92%) Git
3 65 (2.92%) Jenkins
4 28 (1.26%) Selenium
5 15 (0.67%) Cypress.io
6 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
6 8 (0.36%) MSI
7 7 (0.31%) Postman
7 7 (0.31%) REST Assured
7 7 (0.31%) Visual Studio
8 6 (0.27%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.27%) SpecFlow
9 5 (0.22%) Artifactory
9 5 (0.22%) Gatling
9 5 (0.22%) JMeter
9 5 (0.22%) JUnit
9 5 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.13%) MLflow
10 3 (0.13%) Toad
General
1 476 (21.35%) Social Skills
2 281 (12.61%) Public Sector
3 160 (7.18%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (6.15%) Finance
5 65 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
6 62 (2.78%) Military
7 43 (1.93%) Organisational Skills
8 39 (1.75%) Legal
9 35 (1.57%) Law
10 32 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
10 32 (1.44%) Police
11 30 (1.35%) Telecoms
12 27 (1.21%) Manufacturing
13 23 (1.03%) Aerospace
14 12 (0.54%) 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
1 368 (16.51%) Architect
2 243 (10.90%) Lead
3 199 (8.93%) Senior
4 154 (6.91%) Consultant
4 154 (6.91%) Developer
5 153 (6.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 134 (6.01%) Analyst
7 89 (3.99%) Security Architect
8 79 (3.54%) Network Engineer
9 71 (3.19%) SOC Analyst
10 70 (3.14%) Cloud Engineer
11 60 (2.69%) Support Engineer
12 59 (2.65%) Project Manager
13 58 (2.60%) Technical Architect
14 56 (2.51%) DevOps Engineer
15 51 (2.29%) DBA
16 47 (2.11%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 42 (1.88%) Technical Leader
18 41 (1.84%) DV Cleared Project Manager
18 41 (1.84%) Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 197 (8.84%) Terraform
2 78 (3.50%) REST
3 31 (1.39%) Elastic Stack
4 30 (1.35%) LDAP
5 29 (1.30%) React
6 28 (1.26%) SOAP
7 22 (0.99%) RESTful
8 19 (0.85%) Kafka
9 17 (0.76%) Apache NiFi
9 17 (0.76%) Node.js
10 15 (0.67%) .NET
11 14 (0.63%) AngularJS
11 14 (0.63%) Spring
11 14 (0.63%) Spring Boot
11 14 (0.63%) XML
12 13 (0.58%) FastAPI
12 13 (0.58%) JSON
13 12 (0.54%) ARM Templates
13 12 (0.54%) OAuth
13 12 (0.54%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 102 (4.58%) Cloud Native
2 99 (4.44%) PKI
3 98 (4.40%) Data Centre
4 78 (3.50%) Onboarding
5 45 (2.02%) Security Operations Centre
6 40 (1.79%) Private Cloud
7 37 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
7 37 (1.66%) Management Information System
7 37 (1.66%) Product Ownership
8 33 (1.48%) Cyber Threat
9 29 (1.30%) Public Cloud
10 28 (1.26%) Security Posture
11 25 (1.12%) Distributed Systems
12 22 (0.99%) Clustering
12 22 (0.99%) CMDB
13 17 (0.76%) Legacy Systems
14 16 (0.72%) Virtual Team
15 14 (0.63%) Analytical Mindset
15 14 (0.63%) Replication
16 12 (0.54%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 373 (16.73%) Windows
2 251 (11.26%) Linux
3 175 (7.85%) Windows Server
4 39 (1.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 31 (1.39%) Windows 10
6 26 (1.17%) Windows Server 2019
7 20 (0.90%) Unix
8 17 (0.76%) Ubuntu
9 14 (0.63%) CentOS
10 11 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.31%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Android
12 6 (0.27%) Mac OS
13 5 (0.22%) Data ONTAP
13 5 (0.22%) Debian
13 5 (0.22%) VMS
13 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 384 (17.23%) Agile
2 273 (12.25%) Continuous Improvement
3 268 (12.02%) Stakeholder Management
4 254 (11.40%) CI/CD
5 230 (10.32%) Cybersecurity
6 215 (9.65%) DevOps
7 213 (9.56%) Problem-Solving
8 208 (9.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 199 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
10 198 (8.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 195 (8.75%) Infrastructure as Code
12 183 (8.21%) ITIL
13 151 (6.77%) Service Management
14 146 (6.55%) ITSM
15 140 (6.28%) Containerisation
16 127 (5.70%) SIEM
17 121 (5.43%) Project Delivery
17 121 (5.43%) Risk Management
18 119 (5.34%) Decision-Making
19 112 (5.02%) AI
Programming Languages
1 234 (10.50%) Python
2 188 (8.43%) PowerShell
3 133 (5.97%) SQL
4 91 (4.08%) Bash
5 68 (3.05%) Java
6 38 (1.70%) JavaScript
7 36 (1.62%) C#
8 27 (1.21%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.81%) Bicep
10 16 (0.72%) Go
11 15 (0.67%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.63%) 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 2,229 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 716 (32.12%) SC Cleared
3 79 (3.54%) Degree
4 71 (3.19%) CISSP
5 45 (2.02%) CISM
6 38 (1.70%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.30%) Microsoft Certification
8 27 (1.21%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 25 (1.12%) AWS Certification
10 24 (1.08%) VCAP
11 21 (0.94%) ISTQB
11 21 (0.94%) PMI Certification
12 19 (0.85%) CCNP
12 19 (0.85%) PMP
12 19 (0.85%) TOGAF Certification
13 15 (0.67%) BPSS Clearance
13 15 (0.67%) MCSE
14 14 (0.63%) Azure Certification
15 12 (0.54%) CompTIA Security+
16 11 (0.49%) CHECK Team Leader
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (4.13%) NCSC
2 89 (3.99%) NIST
3 83 (3.72%) PMO
4 75 (3.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 60 (2.69%) QA
6 41 (1.84%) JSP 440
7 32 (1.44%) SLA
8 31 (1.39%) GDPR
9 27 (1.21%) Data Quality
10 21 (0.94%) GRC
11 18 (0.81%) Accessibility
12 17 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 16 (0.72%) Government Security Classifications
14 14 (0.63%) RMADS
15 11 (0.49%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 10 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
17 8 (0.36%) NIST 800
17 8 (0.36%) WCAG
18 7 (0.31%) ISO 9000
19 6 (0.27%) Def Stans
System Software
1 231 (10.36%) Active Directory
2 202 (9.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 127 (5.70%) Docker
4 92 (4.13%) VMware NSX
5 79 (3.54%) VMware ESXi
6 67 (3.01%) Hyper-V
7 53 (2.38%) vSphere
8 27 (1.21%) vCloud
9 18 (0.81%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (0.63%) NFS
11 13 (0.58%) Oracle RAC
11 13 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
12 8 (0.36%) 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
1 209 (9.38%) Kubernetes
2 145 (6.51%) Ansible
3 88 (3.95%) vCenter Server
4 56 (2.51%) SCOM
5 33 (1.48%) SCCM
6 27 (1.21%) Prometheus
7 25 (1.12%) Grafana
8 22 (0.99%) Puppet
9 17 (0.76%) Microsoft Intune
9 17 (0.76%) Nagios
10 16 (0.72%) Oracle RMAN
11 15 (0.67%) Podman
11 15 (0.67%) VxRail
12 14 (0.63%) Avamar
12 14 (0.63%) Data Guard
12 14 (0.63%) WMI
13 13 (0.58%) WSUS
14 12 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 12 (0.54%) Istio
15 11 (0.49%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 292 (13.10%) Microsoft
2 288 (12.92%) VMware
3 115 (5.16%) Oracle
4 103 (4.62%) ServiceNow
5 82 (3.68%) Cisco
6 61 (2.74%) SAP
7 60 (2.69%) Splunk
8 57 (2.56%) Google
9 41 (1.84%) SolarWinds
10 38 (1.70%) CyberArk
11 37 (1.66%) Red Hat
12 29 (1.30%) Juniper
13 25 (1.12%) Palo Alto
14 24 (1.08%) Remedy
15 23 (1.03%) Citrix
15 23 (1.03%) Dell
16 20 (0.90%) BMC
16 20 (0.90%) NetApp
17 18 (0.81%) Broadcom
17 18 (0.81%) Sparx