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

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 62 37
Rank change year-on-year -1 -25 +60
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,518 1,095 2,159
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.80% 3.54% 4.81%
As % of the Qualifications category 11.23% 11.97% 15.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,065 705 1,507
10th Percentile £430 £376 £375
25th Percentile £506 £500 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% -2.08% -
75th Percentile £680 £675 £700
90th Percentile £738 £711 £796
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £585 £600
% change year-on-year -1.71% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 28 116
10th Percentile £16.35 £34.75 £48.40
25th Percentile £18.50 £55.87 £56.65
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.15 £63.29
Median % change year-on-year +2.93% -0.22% -6.93%
75th Percentile £82.88 £75.83 £78.00
90th Percentile £92.00 £88.00 £87.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.00 £63.15 £63.29
% change year-on-year +4.51% -0.22% -11.67%

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 13,516 9,147 13,597
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.83% 29.60% 30.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,919 5,576 8,406
10th Percentile £325 £294 £298
25th Percentile £417 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £619 £630 £650
90th Percentile £723 £718 £729
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £532
% change year-on-year - -6.06% +0.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 988 429 956
10th Percentile £15.75 £19.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.10 £24.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £45.11
Median % change year-on-year -35.51% -13.54% +0.23%
75th Percentile £63.75 £66.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £80.20 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -40.82% -7.97% +2.62%

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 15 February 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 15 February 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 15 February 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 -6 1,378 £575 -2.13% 406
UK excluding London 0 1,051 £575 -1.71% 359
South East +4 517 £575 - 155
London -8 328 £575 -2.13% 58
South West -2 324 £575 -4.17% 111
Work from Home +23 192 £560 - 128
Midlands -19 78 £575 -16.36% 24
West Midlands -17 63 £575 -17.12% 19
North of England -34 62 £590 +7.27% 23
East of England +4 51 £575 - 53
North West +2 50 £580 +182.93% 20
Scotland -24 29 £653 +26.80% 1
East Midlands -15 15 £650 +18.18% 5
Yorkshire -59 10 £613 +11.36% 3
Northern Ireland - 9 £600 -
Wales 0 5 £600 -14.29% 1
North East -21 2 - -

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 49 (3.23%) Microsoft Exchange
1 49 (3.23%) SharePoint
2 30 (1.98%) Apache
3 27 (1.78%) Confluence
4 24 (1.58%) Skype for Business
5 19 (1.25%) Palantir Foundry
6 6 (0.40%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.26%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.13%) Documentum
9 2 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
10 1 (0.066%) Apache Airflow
10 1 (0.066%) Exchange Server 2003
10 1 (0.066%) Exchange Server 2007
10 1 (0.066%) Exchange Server 2010
10 1 (0.066%) Exchange Server 2013
10 1 (0.066%) nginx
10 1 (0.066%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 59 (3.89%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (2.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (1.19%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.46%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 15 (0.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.86%) Remedy ITSM
3 12 (0.79%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 8 (0.53%) Maximo
5 5 (0.33%) Primavera
5 5 (0.33%) SAP EWM
6 4 (0.26%) Oracle Applications
6 4 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
6 4 (0.26%) SAP WM
7 3 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 2 (0.13%) SAP GRC
9 1 (0.066%) Oracle Cash Management
9 1 (0.066%) Oracle General Ledger
9 1 (0.066%) Oracle Payroll
9 1 (0.066%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 1 (0.066%) Oracle Receivables
9 1 (0.066%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.066%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 139 (9.16%) AWS
2 128 (8.43%) Azure
3 52 (3.43%) GitHub
4 51 (3.36%) Microsoft 365
5 46 (3.03%) GCP
6 43 (2.83%) OpenShift
7 37 (2.44%) Serverless
8 31 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
9 30 (1.98%) GitHub Actions
10 25 (1.65%) IaaS
11 21 (1.38%) Amazon S3
11 21 (1.38%) PaaS
12 18 (1.19%) AWS CloudFormation
12 18 (1.19%) Azure Sentinel
13 17 (1.12%) Amazon EC2
13 17 (1.12%) Entra ID
14 16 (1.05%) Amazon ECS
15 14 (0.92%) AWS Lambda
16 13 (0.86%) Azure AKS
16 13 (0.86%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 110 (7.25%) Firewall
2 93 (6.13%) DNS
3 70 (4.61%) Network Security
4 51 (3.36%) VPN
5 41 (2.70%) TCP/IP
6 38 (2.50%) LAN
7 35 (2.31%) DHCP
7 35 (2.31%) WAN
8 29 (1.91%) BGP
9 28 (1.84%) Cisco IOS
10 26 (1.71%) Skype
11 25 (1.65%) Junos
12 24 (1.58%) Cisco ISE
13 19 (1.25%) Cisco Firepower
14 18 (1.19%) OSPF
14 18 (1.19%) SAN
14 18 (1.19%) VLAN
15 17 (1.12%) MPLS
16 13 (0.86%) SSL
17 10 (0.66%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
2 26 (1.71%) Elasticsearch
3 19 (1.25%) SQL Server
4 18 (1.19%) Big Data
5 15 (0.99%) Hadoop
5 15 (0.99%) Oracle Database
6 14 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
7 11 (0.72%) Redis
7 11 (0.72%) Relational Database
8 10 (0.66%) MongoDB
9 9 (0.59%) Power BI
10 8 (0.53%) MySQL
11 7 (0.46%) InfluxDB
11 7 (0.46%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.40%) Metadata
13 5 (0.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 4 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
14 4 (0.26%) NoSQL
14 4 (0.26%) SAP Data Services
14 4 (0.26%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 49 (3.23%) JIRA
2 28 (1.84%) GitLab
2 28 (1.84%) Jenkins
3 27 (1.78%) Git
4 14 (0.92%) Maven
4 14 (0.92%) SonarQube
5 12 (0.79%) Artifactory
6 11 (0.72%) Sonatype Nexus
7 8 (0.53%) Bitbucket
7 8 (0.53%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.33%) Postman
8 5 (0.33%) Selenium
9 4 (0.26%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.26%) Gradle
9 4 (0.26%) JUnit
9 4 (0.26%) Oracle APEX
9 4 (0.26%) Robot Framework
9 4 (0.26%) Snyk
9 4 (0.26%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 4 (0.26%) webpack
General
1 275 (18.12%) Social Skills
2 189 (12.45%) Public Sector
3 122 (8.04%) Analytical Skills
4 69 (4.55%) Finance
5 63 (4.15%) Military
6 46 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
7 42 (2.77%) Legal
8 25 (1.65%) Telecoms
9 23 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
10 22 (1.45%) Aerospace
10 22 (1.45%) Organisational Skills
11 18 (1.19%) Manufacturing
12 17 (1.12%) Law
13 14 (0.92%) Marketing
13 14 (0.92%) Police
14 13 (0.86%) Electronics
15 12 (0.79%) Banking
16 8 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 3 (0.20%) Influencing Skills
18 2 (0.13%) Multimedia
Job Titles
1 260 (17.13%) Architect
2 84 (5.53%) Analyst
3 82 (5.40%) Senior
4 78 (5.14%) Consultant
5 65 (4.28%) Network Engineer
6 64 (4.22%) Developer
7 62 (4.08%) Technical Architect
8 56 (3.69%) DevOps Engineer
8 56 (3.69%) Lead
9 52 (3.43%) Support Engineer
10 50 (3.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 50 (3.29%) Tester
11 46 (3.03%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 42 (2.77%) 3rd Line Engineer
13 39 (2.57%) Infrastructure Architect
14 38 (2.50%) Project Manager
14 38 (2.50%) SOC Analyst
15 36 (2.37%) Cloud Engineer
15 36 (2.37%) Solutions Architect
16 33 (2.17%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (2.17%) Apache NiFi
1 33 (2.17%) REST
2 23 (1.52%) OAuth
3 22 (1.45%) React
4 21 (1.38%) Kafka
4 21 (1.38%) OpenID
5 19 (1.25%) OAuth2
5 19 (1.25%) SAML
6 14 (0.92%) Elastic Stack
6 14 (0.92%) Flask
6 14 (0.92%) Node.js
7 13 (0.86%) FastAPI
8 12 (0.79%) .NET
8 12 (0.79%) RabbitMQ
8 12 (0.79%) YAML
9 11 (0.72%) LDAP
10 10 (0.66%) Web Services
11 9 (0.59%) JSON
11 9 (0.59%) Spring
11 9 (0.59%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 94 (6.19%) PKI
2 48 (3.16%) Data Centre
3 37 (2.44%) Management Information System
4 34 (2.24%) Security Operations Centre
5 26 (1.71%) Cloud Native
6 22 (1.45%) Cyber Threat
7 19 (1.25%) Onboarding
8 18 (1.19%) Cyberattack
8 18 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
9 17 (1.12%) Private Cloud
10 16 (1.05%) Product Ownership
10 16 (1.05%) Replication
11 15 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
12 12 (0.79%) Fat Client
12 12 (0.79%) Insider Threat
12 12 (0.79%) Thin Client
13 11 (0.72%) CSOC
13 11 (0.72%) Cyber Defence
13 11 (0.72%) Enterprise Software
13 11 (0.72%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 253 (16.67%) Windows
2 171 (11.26%) Linux
3 78 (5.14%) Windows Server
4 38 (2.50%) Windows 10
5 26 (1.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (1.19%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.92%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.59%) Android
8 9 (0.59%) Unix
9 8 (0.53%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.46%) CentOS
11 5 (0.33%) Windows Server 2003
11 5 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.26%) VMS
13 3 (0.20%) Debian
14 2 (0.13%) Rocky
14 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 1 (0.066%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.066%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 248 (16.34%) Agile
2 200 (13.18%) Problem-Solving
3 156 (10.28%) Cybersecurity
4 145 (9.55%) DevOps
5 123 (8.10%) CI/CD
6 114 (7.51%) ITIL
7 98 (6.46%) Service Management
8 95 (6.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 92 (6.06%) Continuous Improvement
10 89 (5.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 80 (5.27%) Infrastructure as Code
12 78 (5.14%) Stakeholder Management
13 77 (5.07%) ITSM
14 76 (5.01%) SIEM
15 72 (4.74%) Project Delivery
16 70 (4.61%) Containerisation
16 70 (4.61%) Incident Response
17 68 (4.48%) Risk Management
18 63 (4.15%) Project Management
19 59 (3.89%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 143 (9.42%) Python
2 112 (7.38%) PowerShell
3 62 (4.08%) SQL
4 47 (3.10%) Java
5 31 (2.04%) JavaScript
6 26 (1.71%) Bash
7 19 (1.25%) TypeScript
8 17 (1.12%) Go
9 16 (1.05%) C#
10 15 (0.99%) Shell Script
11 12 (0.79%) C++
12 9 (0.59%) Bicep
13 8 (0.53%) VB
14 7 (0.46%) VBScript
15 6 (0.40%) ABAP
15 6 (0.40%) C
16 5 (0.33%) PL/SQL
17 4 (0.26%) PHP
17 4 (0.26%) Rust
18 3 (0.20%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 1,518 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 474 (31.23%) SC Cleared
3 57 (3.75%) CISSP
4 55 (3.62%) Degree
5 39 (2.57%) Cisco Certification
6 38 (2.50%) CISM
7 35 (2.31%) Microsoft Certification
8 26 (1.71%) CCNP
8 26 (1.71%) CompTIA Security+
9 22 (1.45%) GIAC
10 18 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
11 17 (1.12%) BPSS Clearance
12 16 (1.05%) CCNA
12 16 (1.05%) CESG Certified Professional
12 16 (1.05%) CompTIA CySA+
13 15 (0.99%) CEH
14 14 (0.92%) AWS Certification
14 14 (0.92%) Azure Certification
14 14 (0.92%) CTC Cleared
15 10 (0.66%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (5.01%) NIST
2 62 (4.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 50 (3.29%) NCSC
4 39 (2.57%) QA
5 30 (1.98%) JSP 440
5 30 (1.98%) PMO
6 20 (1.32%) GRC
7 16 (1.05%) NIST 800
8 15 (0.99%) Data Quality
9 14 (0.92%) GDPR
10 11 (0.72%) SLA
11 10 (0.66%) RMADS
12 8 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 6 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 5 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 5 (0.33%) P3O
15 4 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
16 3 (0.20%) EU AI Act
16 3 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 116 (7.64%) Active Directory
2 88 (5.80%) Docker
3 75 (4.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 45 (2.96%) VMware NSX
5 32 (2.11%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (1.12%) vSphere
7 12 (0.79%) Hyper-V
8 11 (0.72%) BitLocker
8 11 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (0.53%) Firmware
10 7 (0.46%) vCloud
11 4 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.26%) NFS
11 4 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.20%) GPFS
12 3 (0.20%) Lustre
12 3 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 3 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
13 2 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
14 1 (0.066%) Brightmail
Systems Management
1 142 (9.35%) Kubernetes
2 115 (7.58%) Terraform
3 77 (5.07%) Ansible
4 55 (3.62%) vCenter Server
5 36 (2.37%) Grafana
6 34 (2.24%) Single Sign-On
7 33 (2.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 30 (1.98%) Prometheus
9 27 (1.78%) SCCM
10 16 (1.05%) WMI
11 14 (0.92%) Progress Chef
12 13 (0.86%) Puppet
13 11 (0.72%) Podman
13 11 (0.72%) SCOM
14 9 (0.59%) Argo
14 9 (0.59%) VxRail
15 7 (0.46%) Kibana
15 7 (0.46%) Nessus
15 7 (0.46%) vRealize
16 6 (0.40%) NetIQ Identity Manager
Vendors
1 212 (13.97%) Microsoft
2 152 (10.01%) VMware
3 110 (7.25%) Cisco
4 51 (3.36%) Splunk
5 47 (3.10%) Juniper
6 45 (2.96%) Oracle
7 40 (2.64%) Red Hat
7 40 (2.64%) SAP
8 33 (2.17%) NetApp
8 33 (2.17%) ServiceNow
9 31 (2.04%) SolarWinds
10 24 (1.58%) Palantir
11 21 (1.38%) Dell
12 20 (1.32%) Fortinet
13 19 (1.25%) Foundry
14 18 (1.19%) Palo Alto
15 16 (1.05%) Google
16 15 (0.99%) Remedy
17 14 (0.92%) Atlassian
17 14 (0.92%) Veeam