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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 87 31
Rank change year-on-year +37 -56 +35
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,893 831 2,410
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.97% 2.86% 5.65%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.48% 9.25% 18.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,403 579 1,735
10th Percentile £424 £446 £413
25th Percentile £513 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £586 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.39% -2.33% -
75th Percentile £688 £667 £689
90th Percentile £750 £718 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £585 £597
% change year-on-year +2.56% -1.93% -0.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 24 108
10th Percentile £16.84 £44.75 £50.58
25th Percentile £35.00 £60.75 £57.16
Median hourly rate £55.25 £79.69 £69.10
Median % change year-on-year -30.67% +15.32% -0.58%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.32 £85.00
90th Percentile £89.68 £88.46 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £80.68 £70.39
% change year-on-year -31.83% +14.61% -6.02%

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 15,166 8,985 12,903
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.80% 30.91% 30.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,080 5,664 7,976
10th Percentile £350 £281 £301
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -0.86% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £621 £650
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £527
% change year-on-year - -5.17% +0.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,072 508 1,068
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.80
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.42 £17.80
Median hourly rate £49.36 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.63% -6.25% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.81 £65.15 £61.35
90th Percentile £85.36 £80.03 £75.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £38.00 £40.94
% change year-on-year +25.00% -7.18% -18.12%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +24 1,755 £590 +0.43% 490
UK excluding London +14 1,377 £600 +2.56% 405
South East +8 756 £600 +2.56% 183
London +49 371 £575 -4.17% 103
South West -3 324 £563 -6.25% 123
Work from Home +51 254 £560 -2.61% 139
East of England +10 109 £650 +18.18% 50
North of England +1 81 £750 +265.85% 31
North West +16 67 £775 +278.05% 22
Midlands -37 63 £600 -7.69% 14
West Midlands -46 47 £600 -14.29% 11
Scotland +35 38 £669 +27.33% 2
East Midlands -14 16 £550 - 3
Yorkshire -46 12 £525 -16.00% 5
Wales -2 6 - - 6
Northern Ireland - 6 £644 - 4
North East - 2 £675 - 4

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 37 (1.95%) Confluence
2 35 (1.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (1.43%) SharePoint
4 16 (0.85%) Apache
5 8 (0.42%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.32%) Mattermost
6 6 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
7 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
8 2 (0.11%) CMS
8 2 (0.11%) nginx
9 1 (0.053%) OpenStack
Applications
1 40 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (2.06%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.26%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.21%) AutoCAD
7 4 (0.21%) Revit
7 4 (0.21%) SOLIDWORKS
8 2 (0.11%) Lectora
8 2 (0.11%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 28 (1.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.32%) Remedy ITSM
3 20 (1.06%) 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
7 2 (0.11%) Primavera
7 2 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.11%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.053%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.053%) SAP CCM
8 1 (0.053%) SAP FI-GL
8 1 (0.053%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.053%) SAP QM
8 1 (0.053%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 181 (9.56%) AWS
2 156 (8.24%) Azure
3 58 (3.06%) GCP
4 45 (2.38%) IaaS
5 43 (2.27%) PaaS
6 39 (2.06%) GitHub
7 37 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
8 32 (1.69%) Microsoft 365
9 28 (1.48%) OpenShift
10 27 (1.43%) GitHub Actions
11 26 (1.37%) Serverless
12 19 (1.00%) Power Platform
13 16 (0.85%) OCI
14 14 (0.74%) Amazon ECS
15 12 (0.63%) Amazon S3
15 12 (0.63%) AWS Lambda
16 11 (0.58%) Amazon EKS
16 11 (0.58%) Azure AKS
16 11 (0.58%) Entra ID
16 11 (0.58%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 105 (5.55%) Firewall
2 100 (5.28%) DNS
3 66 (3.49%) Network Security
4 57 (3.01%) WAN
5 56 (2.96%) LAN
6 48 (2.54%) VPN
7 39 (2.06%) BGP
7 39 (2.06%) DHCP
8 27 (1.43%) OSPF
9 26 (1.37%) TCP/IP
10 20 (1.06%) VSAN
11 18 (0.95%) Ethernet VPN
11 18 (0.95%) Junos
11 18 (0.95%) SAN
12 17 (0.90%) MPLS
12 17 (0.90%) VXLAN
13 16 (0.85%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.74%) Cisco ISE
14 14 (0.74%) SSL
14 14 (0.74%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (1.37%) SQL Server
2 24 (1.27%) Elasticsearch
3 23 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
4 20 (1.06%) Oracle Database
5 15 (0.79%) Power BI
6 13 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
7 12 (0.63%) MongoDB
8 9 (0.48%) Hadoop
9 8 (0.42%) Big Data
9 8 (0.42%) Metadata
10 7 (0.37%) Data Warehouse
10 7 (0.37%) Redis
11 6 (0.32%) Data Lake
11 6 (0.32%) MariaDB
11 6 (0.32%) MySQL
11 6 (0.32%) NoSQL
11 6 (0.32%) Relational Database
12 5 (0.26%) InfluxDB
12 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.21%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 74 (3.91%) JIRA
2 27 (1.43%) GitLab
3 26 (1.37%) Git
4 24 (1.27%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.48%) Cypress.io
5 9 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.37%) Artifactory
6 7 (0.37%) Maven
6 7 (0.37%) Robot Framework
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.21%) Selenium
7 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.16%) MLflow
8 3 (0.16%) MSI
8 3 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 2 (0.11%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.11%) Gatling
9 2 (0.11%) JUnit
9 2 (0.11%) REST Assured
General
1 292 (15.43%) Social Skills
2 214 (11.30%) Public Sector
3 114 (6.02%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (4.28%) Finance
5 67 (3.54%) Military
6 55 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
7 52 (2.75%) Legal
8 26 (1.37%) Organisational Skills
9 24 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
10 23 (1.22%) Telecoms
11 21 (1.11%) Law
11 21 (1.11%) Police
12 20 (1.06%) Aerospace
13 10 (0.53%) Manufacturing
14 9 (0.48%) Marketing
15 7 (0.37%) Electronics
16 5 (0.26%) Banking
17 4 (0.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 4 (0.21%) Influencing Skills
18 3 (0.16%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 319 (16.85%) Architect
2 146 (7.71%) Lead
3 142 (7.50%) Senior
4 119 (6.29%) Analyst
5 100 (5.28%) Consultant
6 95 (5.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 91 (4.81%) Network Engineer
8 90 (4.75%) Developer
9 81 (4.28%) Technical Architect
10 66 (3.49%) SOC Analyst
11 61 (3.22%) Security Architect
12 56 (2.96%) Project Manager
12 56 (2.96%) Tester
13 54 (2.85%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
14 51 (2.69%) DevOps Engineer
15 46 (2.43%) Software Engineer
16 39 (2.06%) Designer
16 39 (2.06%) Service Manager
17 38 (2.01%) DV Cleared Project Manager
18 35 (1.85%) Enterprise Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (2.38%) REST
2 29 (1.53%) React
3 24 (1.27%) Elastic Stack
4 20 (1.06%) Node.js
5 18 (0.95%) Apache NiFi
5 18 (0.95%) Kafka
6 16 (0.85%) 802.1X
7 15 (0.79%) AngularJS
7 15 (0.79%) LDAP
8 14 (0.74%) SOAP
9 13 (0.69%) .NET
9 13 (0.69%) RESTful
9 13 (0.69%) Spring
10 12 (0.63%) ModSecurity
11 11 (0.58%) OAuth
11 11 (0.58%) Spring Boot
11 11 (0.58%) Web Services
12 10 (0.53%) Flask
12 10 (0.53%) SailPoint
13 9 (0.48%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 94 (4.97%) PKI
2 62 (3.28%) Data Centre
3 50 (2.64%) Security Operations Centre
4 40 (2.11%) Cloud Native
5 32 (1.69%) Clustering
6 31 (1.64%) Management Information System
6 31 (1.64%) Onboarding
7 24 (1.27%) Product Ownership
8 22 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
9 20 (1.06%) Cyberattack
10 19 (1.00%) Cyber Threat
11 18 (0.95%) Public Cloud
12 17 (0.90%) Security Posture
13 16 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
14 15 (0.79%) Enterprise Storage
14 15 (0.79%) Virtual Team
15 14 (0.74%) Greenfield Project
15 14 (0.74%) Replication
16 13 (0.69%) CMDB
16 13 (0.69%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 270 (14.26%) Windows
2 210 (11.09%) Linux
3 91 (4.81%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (1.16%) Windows 10
6 13 (0.69%) Ubuntu
7 8 (0.42%) Unix
7 8 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
8 7 (0.37%) Android
8 7 (0.37%) VMS
9 6 (0.32%) AIX
9 6 (0.32%) CentOS
9 6 (0.32%) Debian
9 6 (0.32%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.32%) Windows 7
9 6 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
10 5 (0.26%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.16%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 311 (16.43%) Agile
2 196 (10.35%) Problem-Solving
3 165 (8.72%) ITIL
4 153 (8.08%) CI/CD
5 151 (7.98%) DevOps
6 141 (7.45%) Cybersecurity
7 133 (7.03%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 129 (6.81%) Continuous Improvement
9 124 (6.55%) Service Management
10 121 (6.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 113 (5.97%) Stakeholder Management
12 99 (5.23%) ITSM
13 94 (4.97%) Infrastructure as Code
14 91 (4.81%) Project Delivery
15 89 (4.70%) Decision-Making
16 75 (3.96%) Risk Management
16 75 (3.96%) SIEM
17 73 (3.86%) Scrum
17 73 (3.86%) Security Operations
18 72 (3.80%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 144 (7.61%) Python
2 112 (5.92%) PowerShell
3 78 (4.12%) SQL
4 46 (2.43%) Java
5 36 (1.90%) JavaScript
6 33 (1.74%) Bash
7 25 (1.32%) C#
7 25 (1.32%) TypeScript
8 15 (0.79%) Go
9 14 (0.74%) Search Processing Language
10 12 (0.63%) PL/SQL
11 10 (0.53%) Bicep
11 10 (0.53%) C++
11 10 (0.53%) Shell Script
12 9 (0.48%) C
13 6 (0.32%) Embedded C
13 6 (0.32%) Rust
14 5 (0.26%) Apex Code
14 5 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
15 4 (0.21%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 1,893 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 593 (31.33%) SC Cleared
3 57 (3.01%) Degree
4 52 (2.75%) Cisco Certification
5 50 (2.64%) CISSP
6 36 (1.90%) CISM
7 26 (1.37%) CCNA
8 25 (1.32%) CompTIA Security+
9 23 (1.22%) CCNP
10 22 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
11 18 (0.95%) CESG Certified Professional
11 18 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
12 17 (0.90%) AWS Certification
13 16 (0.85%) BPSS Clearance
14 15 (0.79%) GIAC
15 14 (0.74%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 13 (0.69%) CompTIA CySA+
17 12 (0.63%) CTC Cleared
18 11 (0.58%) CEH
18 11 (0.58%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (4.01%) NIST
2 62 (3.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 49 (2.59%) PMO
4 47 (2.48%) NCSC
5 45 (2.38%) QA
6 39 (2.06%) JSP 440
7 23 (1.22%) GRC
8 22 (1.16%) RMADS
9 21 (1.11%) SLA
10 14 (0.74%) GDPR
11 12 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
12 11 (0.58%) Data Quality
13 9 (0.48%) Accessibility
13 9 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 8 (0.42%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.32%) WCAG
16 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 4 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
16 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 3 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 125 (6.60%) Active Directory
2 116 (6.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 90 (4.75%) Docker
4 55 (2.91%) VMware NSX
5 48 (2.54%) VMware ESXi
6 38 (2.01%) Hyper-V
7 21 (1.11%) vSphere
8 17 (0.90%) vCloud
9 10 (0.53%) BitLocker
9 10 (0.53%) Firmware
10 9 (0.48%) Oracle RAC
10 9 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
11 8 (0.42%) Microsoft App-V
12 5 (0.26%) NFS
13 4 (0.21%) UAG
13 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
14 3 (0.16%) Ceph
15 2 (0.11%) GPFS
15 2 (0.11%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 2 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 126 (6.66%) Kubernetes
2 119 (6.29%) Terraform
3 82 (4.33%) Ansible
4 60 (3.17%) vCenter Server
5 30 (1.58%) SCCM
6 23 (1.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 23 (1.22%) Single Sign-On
7 22 (1.16%) Grafana
7 22 (1.16%) SCOM
8 19 (1.00%) Prometheus
9 16 (0.85%) Puppet
10 13 (0.69%) FortiGate
11 12 (0.63%) Nagios
11 12 (0.63%) Nessus
12 11 (0.58%) Podman
12 11 (0.58%) Progress Chef
12 11 (0.58%) WMI
13 10 (0.53%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 10 (0.53%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 10 (0.53%) WSUS
Vendors
1 206 (10.88%) VMware
2 179 (9.46%) Microsoft
3 106 (5.60%) Cisco
4 72 (3.80%) Splunk
5 63 (3.33%) ServiceNow
6 48 (2.54%) NetApp
7 46 (2.43%) Oracle
8 45 (2.38%) SAP
9 44 (2.32%) Juniper
10 37 (1.95%) Red Hat
11 28 (1.48%) F5
12 27 (1.43%) SolarWinds
13 26 (1.37%) Remedy
14 22 (1.16%) Fortinet
15 20 (1.06%) Dell
15 20 (1.06%) Sparx
16 19 (1.00%) Google
17 18 (0.95%) Palo Alto
18 17 (0.90%) BMC
19 16 (0.85%) Citrix