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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 79 36
Rank change year-on-year +29 -43 +18
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,178 1,016 1,935
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.05% 3.11% 4.99%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.95% 9.91% 16.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,658 713 1,352
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £516 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £590 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -1.67% +4.35%
75th Percentile £700 £663 £688
90th Percentile £763 £717 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £595
% change year-on-year +3.45% -2.52% +4.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 39 95
10th Percentile £35.00 - £50.00
25th Percentile £51.00 £25.15 £59.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £50.00 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +45.00% -28.97% +0.56%
75th Percentile £92.53 £81.18 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.29 £87.30 £89.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.75 £79.35 £70.39
% change year-on-year -8.32% +12.73% -3.13%

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 16,824 10,249 11,551
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.30% 31.33% 29.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,250 6,336 7,274
10th Percentile £350 £294 £313
25th Percentile £437 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,262 823 762
10th Percentile £17.43 £17.96 £14.19
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.37
Median hourly rate £48.72 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +93.72% -44.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £72.54 £52.50 £67.02
90th Percentile £87.47 £72.50 £75.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +89.03% -48.21% -6.96%

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 28 August 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 28 August 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 28 August 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 +22 2,042 £600 +2.13% 1,045
UK excluding London +9 1,552 £600 +3.45% 858
South East +5 894 £600 - 287
London +39 471 £600 -4.00% 269
South West +2 414 £590 -1.67% 273
Work from Home +34 330 £569 -3.19% 546
East of England +10 90 £650 +18.18% 147
North of England -11 64 £775 +34.78% 88
Midlands -64 47 £600 +1.05% 29
North West -9 43 £863 +72.50% 70
West Midlands -73 42 £600 +1.05% 16
Scotland +12 38 £669 +27.33% 52
Yorkshire -30 16 £518 -17.20% 14
Northern Ireland +7 5 £638 -8.93% 4
North East -35 5 £463 -26.00% 9
East Midlands - 5 £625 - 13
Wales -17 4 - - 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 65 (2.98%) Confluence
2 45 (2.07%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.74%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.46%) Apache
5 7 (0.32%) Documentum
6 6 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.28%) CMS
7 5 (0.23%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
8 3 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.092%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.092%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.092%) Camunda
9 2 (0.092%) Mule
9 2 (0.092%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.092%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.092%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.046%) JBoss
Applications
1 55 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (2.07%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.96%) Microsoft Office
5 15 (0.69%) AutoCAD
5 15 (0.69%) Revit
5 15 (0.69%) SOLIDWORKS
6 10 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.23%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.29%) Oracle ERP
3 22 (1.01%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.87%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.64%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.18%) Primavera
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.14%) SAP PP
10 2 (0.092%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.046%) Oracle Assets
11 1 (0.046%) Oracle Payroll
11 1 (0.046%) SAP FI-GL
11 1 (0.046%) SAP GRC
11 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 287 (13.18%) Azure
2 270 (12.40%) AWS
3 105 (4.82%) GCP
4 57 (2.62%) Azure DevOps
5 46 (2.11%) GitHub
5 46 (2.11%) Microsoft 365
6 39 (1.79%) Entra ID
6 39 (1.79%) GitHub Actions
7 37 (1.70%) Power Platform
7 37 (1.70%) Serverless
8 33 (1.52%) IaaS
9 32 (1.47%) OCI
10 30 (1.38%) PaaS
11 25 (1.15%) AWS Lambda
12 23 (1.06%) Amazon EKS
13 22 (1.01%) OpenShift
14 20 (0.92%) Amazon ECS
15 19 (0.87%) Amazon S3
15 19 (0.87%) SaaS
16 17 (0.78%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 164 (7.53%) DNS
2 122 (5.60%) Firewall
3 80 (3.67%) DHCP
4 65 (2.98%) Network Security
5 63 (2.89%) WAN
6 57 (2.62%) LAN
7 54 (2.48%) VPN
8 53 (2.43%) TCP/IP
9 49 (2.25%) BGP
10 41 (1.88%) VSAN
11 33 (1.52%) IPsec
12 32 (1.47%) MPLS
13 27 (1.24%) VLAN
14 18 (0.83%) SSL
15 17 (0.78%) OSPF
16 16 (0.73%) Cisco ASA
16 16 (0.73%) SAN
17 15 (0.69%) Cisco Firepower
18 14 (0.64%) Cisco Nexus
18 14 (0.64%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (2.43%) SQL Server
2 40 (1.84%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.47%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.01%) Power BI
5 18 (0.83%) Metadata
6 17 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
7 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
8 15 (0.69%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (0.69%) MongoDB
9 12 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
10 9 (0.41%) NoSQL
10 9 (0.41%) Oracle Database 11g
11 8 (0.37%) BigQuery
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
12 7 (0.32%) Big Data
12 7 (0.32%) MariaDB
12 7 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
13 6 (0.28%) Redis
14 5 (0.23%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 104 (4.78%) JIRA
2 68 (3.12%) GitLab
3 59 (2.71%) Jenkins
4 50 (2.30%) Git
5 15 (0.69%) Cypress.io
5 15 (0.69%) Selenium
6 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
6 7 (0.32%) Postman
6 7 (0.32%) REST Assured
6 7 (0.32%) Visual Studio
7 6 (0.28%) MSI
7 6 (0.28%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.28%) SpecFlow
8 5 (0.23%) Artifactory
8 5 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (0.18%) Gatling
9 4 (0.18%) JMeter
9 4 (0.18%) JUnit
10 3 (0.14%) Maven
10 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 443 (20.34%) Social Skills
2 283 (12.99%) Public Sector
3 155 (7.12%) Analytical Skills
4 139 (6.38%) Finance
5 63 (2.89%) Documentation Skills
5 63 (2.89%) Military
6 42 (1.93%) Legal
7 41 (1.88%) Organisational Skills
8 32 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
9 31 (1.42%) Law
9 31 (1.42%) Police
10 27 (1.24%) Telecoms
11 26 (1.19%) Manufacturing
12 23 (1.06%) Aerospace
13 15 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (0.41%) Local Government
15 7 (0.32%) Marketing
16 5 (0.23%) Advertising
17 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
17 4 (0.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 350 (16.07%) Architect
2 246 (11.29%) Lead
3 194 (8.91%) Senior
4 155 (7.12%) Consultant
5 152 (6.98%) Developer
6 149 (6.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 139 (6.38%) Analyst
8 91 (4.18%) Security Architect
9 83 (3.81%) Network Engineer
10 74 (3.40%) SOC Analyst
11 66 (3.03%) Cloud Engineer
12 62 (2.85%) Technical Architect
13 59 (2.71%) Project Manager
14 55 (2.53%) Support Engineer
15 54 (2.48%) DevOps Engineer
16 51 (2.34%) DBA
17 47 (2.16%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
18 42 (1.93%) DV Cleared Project Manager
18 42 (1.93%) Lead Architect
19 41 (1.88%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 191 (8.77%) Terraform
2 76 (3.49%) REST
3 30 (1.38%) Elastic Stack
4 28 (1.29%) SOAP
5 27 (1.24%) React
6 21 (0.96%) RESTful
7 18 (0.83%) Kafka
8 17 (0.78%) Node.js
9 15 (0.69%) .NET
10 14 (0.64%) AngularJS
10 14 (0.64%) LDAP
10 14 (0.64%) Spring
10 14 (0.64%) Spring Boot
11 13 (0.60%) FastAPI
11 13 (0.60%) Flask
12 12 (0.55%) ARM Templates
12 12 (0.55%) OAuth
12 12 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
12 12 (0.55%) XML
13 11 (0.51%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 100 (4.59%) PKI
2 98 (4.50%) Cloud Native
2 98 (4.50%) Data Centre
3 71 (3.26%) Onboarding
4 45 (2.07%) Security Operations Centre
5 39 (1.79%) Private Cloud
6 38 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
7 36 (1.65%) Product Ownership
8 35 (1.61%) Management Information System
9 29 (1.33%) Cyber Threat
9 29 (1.33%) Public Cloud
10 25 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
11 24 (1.10%) Clustering
11 24 (1.10%) CMDB
11 24 (1.10%) Security Posture
12 18 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
12 18 (0.83%) Virtual Team
13 16 (0.73%) Replication
14 14 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
14 14 (0.64%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 344 (15.79%) Windows
2 241 (11.07%) Linux
3 163 (7.48%) Windows Server
4 36 (1.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 28 (1.29%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.15%) Windows Server 2019
7 17 (0.78%) Unix
8 15 (0.69%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.60%) CentOS
10 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.41%) Mac OS
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
13 6 (0.28%) Android
13 6 (0.28%) VMS
13 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
14 5 (0.23%) Data ONTAP
14 5 (0.23%) Debian
15 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 374 (17.17%) Agile
2 242 (11.11%) Stakeholder Management
3 237 (10.88%) Continuous Improvement
4 226 (10.38%) CI/CD
5 223 (10.24%) Cybersecurity
6 213 (9.78%) Problem-Solving
7 206 (9.46%) DevOps
8 198 (9.09%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 195 (8.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 181 (8.31%) ITIL
11 172 (7.90%) Technical Leadership
12 171 (7.85%) Infrastructure as Code
13 147 (6.75%) Service Management
14 131 (6.01%) ITSM
15 123 (5.65%) Risk Management
16 121 (5.56%) Containerisation
17 118 (5.42%) Decision-Making
17 118 (5.42%) Project Delivery
18 108 (4.96%) SIEM
19 104 (4.78%) AI
Programming Languages
1 212 (9.73%) Python
2 177 (8.13%) PowerShell
3 119 (5.46%) SQL
4 89 (4.09%) Bash
5 64 (2.94%) Java
6 38 (1.74%) JavaScript
7 35 (1.61%) C#
8 25 (1.15%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.83%) Bicep
10 17 (0.78%) Go
11 15 (0.69%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.64%) Search Processing Language
13 13 (0.60%) C++
14 11 (0.51%) C
15 8 (0.37%) Shell Script
16 7 (0.32%) Groovy
17 6 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
17 6 (0.28%) Perl
17 6 (0.28%) X++
18 5 (0.23%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 2,178 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 718 (32.97%) SC Cleared
3 77 (3.54%) Degree
4 70 (3.21%) CISSP
5 46 (2.11%) CISM
6 36 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.33%) Microsoft Certification
8 27 (1.24%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 24 (1.10%) VCAP
10 21 (0.96%) AWS Certification
10 21 (0.96%) PMI Certification
11 20 (0.92%) ISTQB
12 19 (0.87%) PMP
13 17 (0.78%) TOGAF Certification
14 15 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
14 15 (0.69%) CCNP
14 15 (0.69%) MCSE
15 14 (0.64%) Azure Certification
16 12 (0.55%) CCNA
16 12 (0.55%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.99%) NCSC
2 81 (3.72%) PMO
3 80 (3.67%) NIST
4 64 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 55 (2.53%) QA
6 40 (1.84%) JSP 440
7 32 (1.47%) GDPR
8 26 (1.19%) SLA
9 24 (1.10%) Data Quality
10 20 (0.92%) GRC
11 18 (0.83%) Accessibility
11 18 (0.83%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 17 (0.78%) Government Security Classifications
13 16 (0.73%) RMADS
14 11 (0.51%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 10 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.37%) WCAG
17 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
17 7 (0.32%) NIST 800
18 6 (0.28%) Def Stans
System Software
1 200 (9.18%) Active Directory
2 194 (8.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 125 (5.74%) Docker
4 94 (4.32%) VMware NSX
5 75 (3.44%) VMware ESXi
6 64 (2.94%) Hyper-V
7 51 (2.34%) vSphere
8 26 (1.19%) vCloud
9 16 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
10 13 (0.60%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.41%) NFS
12 8 (0.37%) Firmware
13 7 (0.32%) BitLocker
13 7 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
13 7 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
14 5 (0.23%) Ceph
15 4 (0.18%) KVM
15 4 (0.18%) Squid
15 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.14%) UAG
Systems Management
1 201 (9.23%) Kubernetes
2 140 (6.43%) Ansible
3 86 (3.95%) vCenter Server
4 53 (2.43%) SCOM
5 33 (1.52%) SCCM
6 26 (1.19%) Prometheus
7 24 (1.10%) Grafana
8 23 (1.06%) Puppet
9 17 (0.78%) Nagios
10 16 (0.73%) Oracle RMAN
11 15 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
11 15 (0.69%) VxRail
12 14 (0.64%) Avamar
12 14 (0.64%) Data Guard
13 13 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.60%) Podman
13 13 (0.60%) WSUS
14 12 (0.55%) Istio
14 12 (0.55%) WMI
15 11 (0.51%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 287 (13.18%) Microsoft
2 274 (12.58%) VMware
3 107 (4.91%) Oracle
4 105 (4.82%) ServiceNow
5 84 (3.86%) Cisco
6 61 (2.80%) SAP
7 59 (2.71%) Splunk
8 55 (2.53%) Google
9 40 (1.84%) SolarWinds
10 36 (1.65%) Red Hat
11 34 (1.56%) Juniper
12 26 (1.19%) CyberArk
13 24 (1.10%) Dell
13 24 (1.10%) Palo Alto
13 24 (1.10%) Remedy
14 23 (1.06%) Citrix
14 23 (1.06%) NetApp
15 19 (0.87%) BMC
15 19 (0.87%) Sparx
16 17 (0.78%) Broadcom