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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 79 35
Rank change year-on-year +30 -44 +19
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,154 1,015 1,957
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.02% 3.10% 5.04%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.86% 9.90% 16.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,644 709 1,371
10th Percentile £463 £462 £425
25th Percentile £516 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £595 £600
Median % change year-on-year +0.84% -0.83% +4.35%
75th Percentile £703 £669 £688
90th Percentile £763 £719 £765
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £600
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 40 96
10th Percentile £35.00 - £50.00
25th Percentile £50.46 £25.15 £58.49
Median hourly rate £70.00 £52.50 £70.78
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -25.82% +1.11%
75th Percentile £92.53 £81.35 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.65 £87.64 £93.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £80.00 £70.39
% change year-on-year -12.50% +13.65% -3.36%

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 16,745 10,249 11,593
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.22% 31.33% 29.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,209 6,338 7,308
10th Percentile £350 £290 £313
25th Percentile £437 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £622 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £518 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,263 826 776
10th Percentile £17.44 £17.97 £14.49
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.37
Median hourly rate £48.81 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +94.08% -44.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £72.54 £53.50 £67.14
90th Percentile £87.96 £73.75 £77.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +89.03% -48.21% -6.42%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +26 2,017 £600 +1.61% 484
UK excluding London +10 1,541 £600 +3.45% 423
South East +4 896 £600 - 160
London +43 460 £600 -4.00% 92
South West +2 407 £600 - 154
Work from Home +38 325 £575 -2.34% 213
East of England +8 89 £650 +18.18% 56
North of England -18 64 £775 +34.78% 35
North West -13 43 £863 +72.50% 21
Midlands -70 41 £600 +1.05% 18
Scotland +8 39 £669 +27.33% 25
West Midlands -78 37 £600 +1.05% 13
Yorkshire -24 16 £518 -17.20% 6
Northern Ireland +4 5 £638 -8.93%
North East -37 5 £463 -26.00% 8
Wales -12 4 - -
East Midlands - 4 £631 - 5

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 63 (2.92%) Confluence
2 44 (2.04%) SharePoint
3 37 (1.72%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.42%) 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 (0.093%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.093%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.093%) Camunda
9 2 (0.093%) Mule
9 2 (0.093%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.093%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.093%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.093%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.093%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.046%) JBoss
Applications
1 56 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (2.09%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
5 14 (0.65%) AutoCAD
5 14 (0.65%) Revit
5 14 (0.65%) SOLIDWORKS
6 10 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.19%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.35%) Oracle ERP
1 29 (1.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.97%) Remedy ITSM
3 18 (0.84%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 14 (0.65%) Teamcenter
5 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
6 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
7 4 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.19%) Primavera
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.14%) SAP PP
9 2 (0.093%) Oracle Assets
9 2 (0.093%) Siebel CRM
10 1 (0.046%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 1 (0.046%) SAP FI-GL
10 1 (0.046%) SAP GRC
10 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 285 (13.23%) Azure
2 265 (12.30%) AWS
3 104 (4.83%) GCP
4 56 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
5 46 (2.14%) GitHub
6 45 (2.09%) Microsoft 365
7 39 (1.81%) Entra ID
7 39 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
8 37 (1.72%) Power Platform
8 37 (1.72%) Serverless
9 33 (1.53%) OCI
10 32 (1.49%) IaaS
11 30 (1.39%) PaaS
12 25 (1.16%) AWS Lambda
13 23 (1.07%) Amazon EKS
14 22 (1.02%) OpenShift
15 20 (0.93%) Amazon ECS
16 19 (0.88%) Amazon S3
16 19 (0.88%) SaaS
17 17 (0.79%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 160 (7.43%) DNS
2 121 (5.62%) Firewall
3 79 (3.67%) DHCP
4 65 (3.02%) Network Security
5 64 (2.97%) WAN
6 57 (2.65%) LAN
7 55 (2.55%) VPN
8 52 (2.41%) TCP/IP
9 49 (2.27%) BGP
10 41 (1.90%) VSAN
11 33 (1.53%) IPsec
12 32 (1.49%) MPLS
13 27 (1.25%) VLAN
14 18 (0.84%) SSL
15 17 (0.79%) OSPF
16 16 (0.74%) Cisco ASA
17 15 (0.70%) Cisco Firepower
17 15 (0.70%) SD-WAN
18 13 (0.60%) Cisco Nexus
18 13 (0.60%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (2.37%) SQL Server
2 39 (1.81%) Oracle Database
3 29 (1.35%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.02%) Power BI
5 18 (0.84%) Metadata
6 17 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
7 16 (0.74%) Data Lake
8 15 (0.70%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (0.70%) MongoDB
9 12 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
10 9 (0.42%) NoSQL
10 9 (0.42%) 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 5 (0.23%) Amazon Redshift
14 4 (0.19%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 101 (4.69%) JIRA
2 64 (2.97%) GitLab
3 55 (2.55%) Jenkins
4 44 (2.04%) Git
5 15 (0.70%) Cypress.io
6 14 (0.65%) Selenium
7 7 (0.32%) Postman
7 7 (0.32%) REST Assured
7 7 (0.32%) Visual Studio
8 6 (0.28%) MSI
8 6 (0.28%) SpecFlow
9 5 (0.23%) Cucumber
9 5 (0.23%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.19%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.14%) Appium
11 3 (0.14%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.14%) Gatling
11 3 (0.14%) JMeter
11 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 436 (20.24%) Social Skills
2 284 (13.18%) Public Sector
3 156 (7.24%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (6.36%) Finance
5 61 (2.83%) Documentation Skills
6 60 (2.79%) Military
7 44 (2.04%) Legal
8 42 (1.95%) Organisational Skills
9 31 (1.44%) Police
10 30 (1.39%) Law
11 28 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (1.25%) Telecoms
13 24 (1.11%) Manufacturing
14 23 (1.07%) Aerospace
15 13 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
16 8 (0.37%) Local Government
17 7 (0.32%) Marketing
18 5 (0.23%) Advertising
19 4 (0.19%) General Ledger
19 4 (0.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 348 (16.16%) Architect
2 246 (11.42%) Lead
3 193 (8.96%) Senior
4 153 (7.10%) Consultant
5 147 (6.82%) Developer
5 147 (6.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 140 (6.50%) Analyst
7 90 (4.18%) Security Architect
8 84 (3.90%) Network Engineer
9 75 (3.48%) SOC Analyst
10 64 (2.97%) Cloud Engineer
11 60 (2.79%) Technical Architect
12 59 (2.74%) Project Manager
13 52 (2.41%) DevOps Engineer
13 52 (2.41%) Support Engineer
14 51 (2.37%) DBA
15 47 (2.18%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 42 (1.95%) DV Cleared Project Manager
16 42 (1.95%) Lead Architect
17 41 (1.90%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 189 (8.77%) Terraform
2 72 (3.34%) REST
3 30 (1.39%) Elastic Stack
4 25 (1.16%) React
4 25 (1.16%) SOAP
5 19 (0.88%) RESTful
6 18 (0.84%) Kafka
7 15 (0.70%) .NET
8 14 (0.65%) LDAP
8 14 (0.65%) Node.js
9 13 (0.60%) AngularJS
9 13 (0.60%) FastAPI
9 13 (0.60%) Flask
9 13 (0.60%) Oracle Fusion
9 13 (0.60%) Spring
9 13 (0.60%) Spring Boot
10 12 (0.56%) ARM Templates
10 12 (0.56%) OAuth
11 11 (0.51%) XML
12 10 (0.46%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 99 (4.60%) PKI
2 95 (4.41%) Cloud Native
3 94 (4.36%) Data Centre
4 69 (3.20%) Onboarding
5 46 (2.14%) Security Operations Centre
6 38 (1.76%) Private Cloud
7 37 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
8 36 (1.67%) Product Ownership
9 34 (1.58%) Management Information System
10 29 (1.35%) Cyber Threat
10 29 (1.35%) Public Cloud
11 25 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
12 24 (1.11%) Clustering
12 24 (1.11%) CMDB
12 24 (1.11%) Security Posture
13 18 (0.84%) Legacy Systems
13 18 (0.84%) Virtual Team
14 16 (0.74%) Replication
15 14 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (0.60%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 336 (15.60%) Windows
2 238 (11.05%) Linux
3 159 (7.38%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 28 (1.30%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.02%) Windows Server 2019
7 16 (0.74%) Unix
8 14 (0.65%) Ubuntu
9 12 (0.56%) CentOS
10 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.42%) Mac OS
12 6 (0.28%) AIX
12 6 (0.28%) Android
12 6 (0.28%) VMS
13 5 (0.23%) Debian
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.19%) Data ONTAP
14 4 (0.19%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 367 (17.04%) Agile
2 240 (11.14%) Stakeholder Management
3 233 (10.82%) Continuous Improvement
4 223 (10.35%) Cybersecurity
5 221 (10.26%) CI/CD
6 209 (9.70%) Problem-Solving
7 198 (9.19%) DevOps
8 192 (8.91%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 192 (8.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 178 (8.26%) ITIL
10 169 (7.85%) Infrastructure as Code
11 167 (7.75%) Technical Leadership
12 146 (6.78%) Service Management
13 127 (5.90%) ITSM
14 120 (5.57%) Risk Management
15 118 (5.48%) Project Delivery
16 117 (5.43%) Decision-Making
17 116 (5.39%) Containerisation
18 109 (5.06%) SIEM
19 102 (4.74%) AI
Programming Languages
1 205 (9.52%) Python
2 172 (7.99%) PowerShell
3 114 (5.29%) SQL
4 86 (3.99%) Bash
5 60 (2.79%) Java
6 37 (1.72%) JavaScript
7 34 (1.58%) C#
8 23 (1.07%) TypeScript
9 19 (0.88%) Bicep
10 16 (0.74%) Go
11 15 (0.70%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.65%) Search Processing Language
13 13 (0.60%) C++
14 10 (0.46%) C
15 7 (0.32%) Groovy
15 7 (0.32%) Shell Script
16 6 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
16 6 (0.28%) Perl
16 6 (0.28%) X++
17 5 (0.23%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 2,154 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 705 (32.73%) SC Cleared
3 75 (3.48%) Degree
4 69 (3.20%) CISSP
5 45 (2.09%) CISM
6 36 (1.67%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
8 26 (1.21%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 23 (1.07%) VCAP
10 21 (0.97%) PMI Certification
11 20 (0.93%) AWS Certification
11 20 (0.93%) ISTQB
12 19 (0.88%) PMP
13 17 (0.79%) TOGAF Certification
14 15 (0.70%) Azure Certification
14 15 (0.70%) BPSS Clearance
14 15 (0.70%) CCNP
14 15 (0.70%) MCSE
15 13 (0.60%) CompTIA Security+
16 12 (0.56%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (3.95%) NCSC
2 81 (3.76%) PMO
3 78 (3.62%) NIST
4 62 (2.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 54 (2.51%) QA
6 40 (1.86%) JSP 440
7 32 (1.49%) GDPR
8 27 (1.25%) SLA
9 24 (1.11%) Data Quality
10 20 (0.93%) GRC
11 18 (0.84%) Accessibility
11 18 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 17 (0.79%) Government Security Classifications
13 16 (0.74%) 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
18 6 (0.28%) NIST 800
19 5 (0.23%) Def Stans
System Software
1 196 (9.10%) Active Directory
2 187 (8.68%) VMware Infrastructure
3 121 (5.62%) Docker
4 94 (4.36%) VMware NSX
5 73 (3.39%) VMware ESXi
6 62 (2.88%) Hyper-V
7 50 (2.32%) vSphere
8 26 (1.21%) vCloud
9 16 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
10 12 (0.56%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.37%) NFS
12 7 (0.32%) BitLocker
12 7 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
13 6 (0.28%) Firmware
14 5 (0.23%) Ceph
15 4 (0.19%) KVM
15 4 (0.19%) Squid
15 4 (0.19%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.14%) UAG
Systems Management
1 196 (9.10%) Kubernetes
2 136 (6.31%) Ansible
3 84 (3.90%) vCenter Server
4 51 (2.37%) SCOM
5 33 (1.53%) SCCM
6 25 (1.16%) Prometheus
7 22 (1.02%) Grafana
7 22 (1.02%) Puppet
8 16 (0.74%) Nagios
8 16 (0.74%) Oracle RMAN
9 15 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
9 15 (0.70%) VxRail
10 14 (0.65%) Avamar
10 14 (0.65%) Data Guard
11 13 (0.60%) Podman
11 13 (0.60%) WSUS
12 12 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.56%) Istio
12 12 (0.56%) WMI
13 11 (0.51%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 287 (13.32%) Microsoft
2 265 (12.30%) VMware
3 107 (4.97%) Oracle
4 105 (4.87%) ServiceNow
5 83 (3.85%) Cisco
6 61 (2.83%) SAP
7 58 (2.69%) Splunk
8 52 (2.41%) Google
9 37 (1.72%) SolarWinds
10 34 (1.58%) Juniper
11 33 (1.53%) Red Hat
12 26 (1.21%) CyberArk
13 24 (1.11%) Dell
13 24 (1.11%) Palo Alto
14 23 (1.07%) Citrix
14 23 (1.07%) Remedy
15 21 (0.97%) NetApp
16 19 (0.88%) BMC
17 18 (0.84%) Sparx
18 17 (0.79%) Thales