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

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 61 37
Rank change year-on-year -2 -24 +61
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,507 1,109 2,142
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.77% 3.58% 4.81%
As % of the Qualifications category 11.14% 12.09% 15.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,062 712 1,496
10th Percentile £430 £372 £375
25th Percentile £505 £500 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £585 £600
Median % change year-on-year -1.71% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £688 £675 £700
90th Percentile £738 £713 £797
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £585 £600
% change year-on-year -1.71% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 30 116
10th Percentile £16.35 £35.75 £48.40
25th Percentile £18.33 £56.65 £56.65
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.08 £63.29
Median % change year-on-year +3.05% -0.34% -9.26%
75th Percentile £80.88 £74.27 £78.00
90th Percentile £89.68 £86.72 £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 13,530 9,173 13,518
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.82% 29.62% 30.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,926 5,589 8,355
10th Percentile £325 £296 £295
25th Percentile £418 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £620 £630 £650
90th Percentile £723 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £501 £530
% change year-on-year -0.15% -5.52% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 988 434 954
10th Percentile £15.75 £19.98 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.08 £24.18 £21.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.52 £45.55
Median % change year-on-year -36.36% -13.23% +1.21%
75th Percentile £63.75 £66.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £80.07 £77.50
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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -4 1,369 £575 -2.13% 415
UK excluding London -1 1,052 £575 -1.71% 369
South East +3 520 £575 - 157
South West -2 321 £575 -4.17% 117
London -21 318 £575 -0.98% 55
Work from Home +18 195 £555 -1.33% 130
Midlands -12 80 £575 -14.02% 24
West Midlands -17 65 £575 -16.36% 19
North of England -28 62 £590 +7.27% 26
East of England +4 51 £575 - 52
North West 0 50 £580 +182.93% 21
Scotland -19 29 £653 +26.80% 1
East Midlands -19 15 £650 +18.18% 5
Yorkshire -57 10 £613 +11.36% 5
Northern Ireland - 9 £600 -
Wales -4 5 £600 -14.29% 1
North East -22 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 50 (3.32%) Microsoft Exchange
2 49 (3.25%) SharePoint
3 30 (1.99%) Apache
4 27 (1.79%) Confluence
5 24 (1.59%) Skype for Business
6 19 (1.26%) Palantir Foundry
7 6 (0.40%) Apache Spark
8 5 (0.33%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.20%) Documentum
9 3 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
11 1 (0.066%) Apache Airflow
11 1 (0.066%) Exchange Server 2003
11 1 (0.066%) Exchange Server 2007
11 1 (0.066%) Exchange Server 2010
11 1 (0.066%) Exchange Server 2013
11 1 (0.066%) nginx
11 1 (0.066%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 59 (3.92%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (2.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.13%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.46%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 15 (1.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.86%) Remedy ITSM
3 12 (0.80%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 8 (0.53%) Maximo
5 5 (0.33%) Primavera
5 5 (0.33%) SAP EWM
6 4 (0.27%) Oracle Applications
6 4 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 4 (0.27%) 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
1 137 (9.09%) AWS
2 127 (8.43%) Azure
3 54 (3.58%) GitHub
4 53 (3.52%) Microsoft 365
5 43 (2.85%) GCP
5 43 (2.85%) OpenShift
6 37 (2.46%) Serverless
7 32 (2.12%) Azure DevOps
8 31 (2.06%) GitHub Actions
9 23 (1.53%) IaaS
10 21 (1.39%) Amazon S3
11 19 (1.26%) PaaS
12 18 (1.19%) AWS CloudFormation
12 18 (1.19%) Azure Sentinel
13 17 (1.13%) Amazon EC2
13 17 (1.13%) Entra ID
14 16 (1.06%) Amazon ECS
15 14 (0.93%) AWS Lambda
16 13 (0.86%) Azure AKS
16 13 (0.86%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 109 (7.23%) Firewall
2 92 (6.10%) DNS
3 68 (4.51%) Network Security
4 52 (3.45%) VPN
5 43 (2.85%) TCP/IP
6 36 (2.39%) LAN
7 34 (2.26%) DHCP
8 33 (2.19%) WAN
9 28 (1.86%) BGP
9 28 (1.86%) Cisco IOS
10 27 (1.79%) Skype
11 23 (1.53%) Junos
12 22 (1.46%) Cisco ISE
13 19 (1.26%) Cisco Firepower
13 19 (1.26%) SAN
13 19 (1.26%) VLAN
14 17 (1.13%) MPLS
14 17 (1.13%) OSPF
15 13 (0.86%) SSL
16 10 (0.66%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (1.99%) PostgreSQL
2 26 (1.73%) Elasticsearch
3 19 (1.26%) SQL Server
4 18 (1.19%) Big Data
5 15 (1.00%) Hadoop
5 15 (1.00%) Oracle Database
6 14 (0.93%) Amazon RDS
7 11 (0.73%) Redis
7 11 (0.73%) Relational Database
8 10 (0.66%) MongoDB
9 9 (0.60%) 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 (0.27%) Data Warehouse
14 4 (0.27%) NoSQL
14 4 (0.27%) SAP Data Services
14 4 (0.27%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 48 (3.19%) JIRA
2 32 (2.12%) GitLab
3 29 (1.92%) Jenkins
4 28 (1.86%) Git
5 15 (1.00%) SonarQube
6 14 (0.93%) Maven
7 12 (0.80%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.73%) Sonatype Nexus
9 8 (0.53%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.53%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.33%) Postman
10 5 (0.33%) Selenium
11 4 (0.27%) CircleCI
11 4 (0.27%) Gradle
11 4 (0.27%) JUnit
11 4 (0.27%) Oracle APEX
11 4 (0.27%) Robot Framework
11 4 (0.27%) Snyk
11 4 (0.27%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 4 (0.27%) webpack
General
1 274 (18.18%) Social Skills
2 188 (12.48%) Public Sector
3 121 (8.03%) Analytical Skills
4 66 (4.38%) Finance
5 59 (3.92%) Military
6 44 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
7 41 (2.72%) Legal
8 25 (1.66%) Telecoms
9 22 (1.46%) Aerospace
9 22 (1.46%) Law
9 22 (1.46%) Organisational Skills
9 22 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
10 18 (1.19%) Manufacturing
11 14 (0.93%) Marketing
11 14 (0.93%) Police
12 13 (0.86%) Electronics
13 12 (0.80%) Banking
14 8 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 2 (0.13%) Influencing Skills
15 2 (0.13%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 257 (17.05%) Architect
2 82 (5.44%) Analyst
3 80 (5.31%) Senior
4 78 (5.18%) Consultant
5 65 (4.31%) Network Engineer
6 63 (4.18%) Developer
7 61 (4.05%) Lead
7 61 (4.05%) Technical Architect
8 56 (3.72%) DevOps Engineer
9 52 (3.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 52 (3.45%) Support Engineer
10 50 (3.32%) Tester
11 45 (2.99%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 42 (2.79%) 3rd Line Engineer
13 38 (2.52%) Infrastructure Architect
13 38 (2.52%) Project Manager
14 37 (2.46%) SOC Analyst
14 37 (2.46%) Solutions Architect
15 36 (2.39%) Cloud Engineer
16 34 (2.26%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (2.26%) REST
2 33 (2.19%) Apache NiFi
3 23 (1.53%) OAuth
4 22 (1.46%) React
5 21 (1.39%) Kafka
5 21 (1.39%) OpenID
6 19 (1.26%) OAuth2
6 19 (1.26%) SAML
7 14 (0.93%) Elastic Stack
7 14 (0.93%) Flask
7 14 (0.93%) Node.js
8 13 (0.86%) FastAPI
8 13 (0.86%) YAML
9 12 (0.80%) .NET
9 12 (0.80%) RabbitMQ
10 11 (0.73%) LDAP
11 10 (0.66%) Web Services
12 9 (0.60%) JSON
12 9 (0.60%) Spring
12 9 (0.60%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 93 (6.17%) PKI
2 48 (3.19%) Data Centre
3 35 (2.32%) Management Information System
4 33 (2.19%) Security Operations Centre
5 23 (1.53%) Cloud Native
6 22 (1.46%) Cyber Threat
7 19 (1.26%) Onboarding
8 18 (1.19%) Cyberattack
8 18 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
8 18 (1.19%) Private Cloud
9 16 (1.06%) Product Ownership
9 16 (1.06%) Replication
10 15 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
11 12 (0.80%) Cyber Defence
11 12 (0.80%) Fat Client
11 12 (0.80%) Insider Threat
11 12 (0.80%) Thin Client
12 11 (0.73%) CSOC
12 11 (0.73%) Enterprise Software
12 11 (0.73%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 258 (17.12%) Windows
2 175 (11.61%) Linux
3 80 (5.31%) Windows Server
4 39 (2.59%) Windows 10
5 26 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (1.19%) Windows 7
7 15 (1.00%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.60%) Android
8 9 (0.60%) Unix
9 8 (0.53%) CentOS
9 8 (0.53%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
10 6 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.27%) VMS
12 3 (0.20%) Debian
13 2 (0.13%) Rocky
13 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.066%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.066%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.066%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 248 (16.46%) Agile
2 197 (13.07%) Problem-Solving
3 155 (10.29%) Cybersecurity
4 145 (9.62%) DevOps
5 124 (8.23%) CI/CD
6 112 (7.43%) ITIL
7 98 (6.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 97 (6.44%) Service Management
9 90 (5.97%) Continuous Improvement
10 88 (5.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 82 (5.44%) Infrastructure as Code
12 81 (5.37%) Stakeholder Management
13 77 (5.11%) ITSM
14 76 (5.04%) SIEM
15 70 (4.64%) Containerisation
15 70 (4.64%) Incident Response
16 69 (4.58%) Project Delivery
17 66 (4.38%) Risk Management
18 62 (4.11%) Project Management
19 60 (3.98%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 146 (9.69%) Python
2 117 (7.76%) PowerShell
3 67 (4.45%) SQL
4 51 (3.38%) Java
5 34 (2.26%) JavaScript
6 30 (1.99%) Bash
7 20 (1.33%) Go
8 19 (1.26%) TypeScript
9 16 (1.06%) C#
10 15 (1.00%) Shell Script
11 12 (0.80%) C++
12 9 (0.60%) 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 (0.27%) PHP
17 4 (0.27%) Rust
18 3 (0.20%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 1,507 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 475 (31.52%) SC Cleared
3 56 (3.72%) CISSP
4 55 (3.65%) Degree
5 40 (2.65%) Cisco Certification
6 38 (2.52%) CISM
7 35 (2.32%) Microsoft Certification
8 27 (1.79%) CCNP
9 26 (1.73%) CompTIA Security+
10 22 (1.46%) GIAC
11 18 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
12 17 (1.13%) BPSS Clearance
12 17 (1.13%) CCNA
13 16 (1.06%) CompTIA CySA+
14 15 (1.00%) CEH
14 15 (1.00%) CESG Certified Professional
15 14 (0.93%) Azure Certification
15 14 (0.93%) CTC Cleared
16 11 (0.73%) AWS Certification
17 10 (0.66%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (5.04%) NIST
2 62 (4.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 52 (3.45%) NCSC
4 39 (2.59%) QA
5 30 (1.99%) JSP 440
6 28 (1.86%) PMO
7 19 (1.26%) GDPR
7 19 (1.26%) GRC
8 16 (1.06%) NIST 800
9 15 (1.00%) Data Quality
10 11 (0.73%) 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 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
16 3 (0.20%) EU AI Act
16 3 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 117 (7.76%) Active Directory
2 87 (5.77%) Docker
3 80 (5.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 45 (2.99%) VMware NSX
5 33 (2.19%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (1.13%) vSphere
7 13 (0.86%) Hyper-V
8 11 (0.73%) BitLocker
8 11 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (0.53%) Firmware
10 7 (0.46%) vCloud
11 4 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.27%) NFS
11 4 (0.27%) 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%) UAG
Systems Management
1 141 (9.36%) Kubernetes
2 117 (7.76%) Terraform
3 81 (5.37%) Ansible
4 56 (3.72%) vCenter Server
5 37 (2.46%) Grafana
6 34 (2.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 34 (2.26%) Single Sign-On
7 31 (2.06%) Prometheus
8 27 (1.79%) SCCM
9 16 (1.06%) WMI
10 14 (0.93%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.86%) Puppet
12 11 (0.73%) Podman
12 11 (0.73%) SCOM
13 9 (0.60%) Argo
13 9 (0.60%) VxRail
14 8 (0.53%) vRealize
15 7 (0.46%) Kibana
15 7 (0.46%) Nessus
16 6 (0.40%) Forefront Identity Manager
Vendors
1 214 (14.20%) Microsoft
2 157 (10.42%) VMware
3 109 (7.23%) Cisco
4 50 (3.32%) Splunk
5 45 (2.99%) Juniper
6 42 (2.79%) Oracle
7 40 (2.65%) Red Hat
7 40 (2.65%) SAP
8 33 (2.19%) NetApp
8 33 (2.19%) ServiceNow
9 29 (1.92%) SolarWinds
10 24 (1.59%) Palantir
11 21 (1.39%) Dell
12 20 (1.33%) Fortinet
13 19 (1.26%) Foundry
14 18 (1.19%) Palo Alto
15 16 (1.06%) Google
16 15 (1.00%) Remedy
17 14 (0.93%) Atlassian
17 14 (0.93%) Veeam