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

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 83 32
Rank change year-on-year +33 -51 +29
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,925 867 2,461
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.85% 2.95% 5.64%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.27% 9.53% 18.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,455 589 1,785
10th Percentile £426 £450 £425
25th Percentile £513 £513 £515
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £575 £600
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £680 £650 £690
90th Percentile £750 £713 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £600
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 29 113
10th Percentile £18.73 £35.20 £51.79
25th Percentile £35.00 £60.75 £57.33
Median hourly rate £42.71 £80.68 £72.33
Median % change year-on-year -47.07% +11.54% +3.33%
75th Percentile £74.50 £83.75 £85.65
90th Percentile £87.85 £88.87 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £81.01 £71.75
% change year-on-year -47.54% +12.91% -4.34%

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 15,684 9,098 13,043
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.38% 30.91% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,409 5,658 8,104
10th Percentile £350 £278 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.82% -0.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £618 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £527
% change year-on-year +1.00% -5.03% +0.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,159 567 1,116
10th Percentile £17.12 £17.72 £13.93
25th Percentile £22.63 £21.02 £18.32
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.93% -23.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.75 £64.76 £63.49
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £30.00 £41.27
% change year-on-year +58.47% -27.30% -21.40%

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 12 June 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 12 June 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 12 June 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 +27 1,778 £600 +3.45% 461
UK excluding London +11 1,380 £600 +4.35% 393
South East +7 752 £600 +4.35% 169
London +73 388 £600 - 84
South West -2 345 £575 -4.17% 152
Work from Home +38 281 £560 -2.61% 128
East of England +8 102 £650 +18.18% 31
North of England -8 82 £775 +24.00% 33
North West +20 66 £775 +76.14% 25
Midlands -60 52 £600 - 10
Scotland +27 43 £661 +32.15% 6
West Midlands -64 41 £600 - 9
Yorkshire -41 13 £525 -16.00% 2
East Midlands -13 11 £518 -5.91% 1
Northern Ireland +7 6 £619 - 4
Wales -13 4 - -
North East -32 3 £569 -9.00% 6

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 40 (2.08%) Confluence
2 37 (1.92%) Microsoft Exchange
3 28 (1.45%) SharePoint
4 6 (0.31%) Apache Spark
4 6 (0.31%) Mattermost
5 5 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.26%) CMS
5 5 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
6 4 (0.21%) Apache
6 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
7 3 (0.16%) Documentum
8 2 (0.10%) nginx
8 2 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
9 1 (0.052%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 31 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.42%) AutoCAD
5 8 (0.42%) Revit
5 8 (0.42%) SOLIDWORKS
6 6 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.21%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.10%) Lectora
8 2 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 27 (1.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.25%) Remedy ITSM
3 19 (0.99%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 13 (0.68%) Oracle ERP
5 5 (0.26%) Maximo
5 5 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.21%) SAP EWM
6 4 (0.21%) Teamcenter
7 3 (0.16%) SAP GRC
8 2 (0.10%) Primavera
8 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.052%) Oracle Applications
9 1 (0.052%) SAP CCM
9 1 (0.052%) SAP FI-GL
9 1 (0.052%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.052%) SAP QM
9 1 (0.052%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 210 (10.91%) AWS
2 183 (9.51%) Azure
3 81 (4.21%) GCP
4 48 (2.49%) GitHub
5 44 (2.29%) PaaS
6 43 (2.23%) Azure DevOps
6 43 (2.23%) IaaS
7 37 (1.92%) GitHub Actions
8 31 (1.61%) Serverless
9 26 (1.35%) OpenShift
10 25 (1.30%) Microsoft 365
11 21 (1.09%) OCI
11 21 (1.09%) Power Platform
12 18 (0.94%) AWS Lambda
13 17 (0.88%) Amazon ECS
13 17 (0.88%) SaaS
14 16 (0.83%) Amazon EKS
15 15 (0.78%) Entra ID
16 14 (0.73%) Amazon S3
17 11 (0.57%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 109 (5.66%) DNS
2 98 (5.09%) Firewall
3 71 (3.69%) Network Security
4 64 (3.32%) WAN
5 63 (3.27%) LAN
6 52 (2.70%) VPN
7 51 (2.65%) DHCP
8 42 (2.18%) BGP
9 28 (1.45%) OSPF
10 25 (1.30%) TCP/IP
11 20 (1.04%) Ethernet VPN
11 20 (1.04%) MPLS
11 20 (1.04%) VLAN
11 20 (1.04%) VXLAN
12 18 (0.94%) IPsec
12 18 (0.94%) VSAN
13 16 (0.83%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.73%) Junos
14 14 (0.73%) Skype
15 13 (0.68%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (1.77%) SQL Server
2 31 (1.61%) Oracle Database
2 31 (1.61%) PostgreSQL
3 26 (1.35%) Elasticsearch
4 16 (0.83%) Power BI
5 14 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
6 13 (0.68%) MongoDB
7 9 (0.47%) Data Warehouse
7 9 (0.47%) Metadata
8 7 (0.36%) Data Lake
8 7 (0.36%) Redis
9 6 (0.31%) NoSQL
9 6 (0.31%) Oracle Database 11g
10 5 (0.26%) Big Data
10 5 (0.26%) BigQuery
10 5 (0.26%) DynamoDB
10 5 (0.26%) Hadoop
10 5 (0.26%) MariaDB
10 5 (0.26%) MySQL
11 4 (0.21%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 71 (3.69%) JIRA
2 37 (1.92%) GitLab
3 32 (1.66%) Jenkins
4 29 (1.51%) Git
5 13 (0.68%) Cypress.io
6 9 (0.47%) Selenium
7 6 (0.31%) REST Assured
7 6 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.26%) Cucumber
8 5 (0.26%) Robot Framework
9 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
9 4 (0.21%) Postman
9 4 (0.21%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.21%) SpecFlow
9 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.16%) Appium
10 3 (0.16%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.16%) Maven
10 3 (0.16%) MLflow
General
1 290 (15.06%) Social Skills
2 229 (11.90%) Public Sector
3 110 (5.71%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (4.21%) Finance
5 67 (3.48%) Military
6 57 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (2.55%) Legal
8 24 (1.25%) Law
9 22 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
10 21 (1.09%) Telecoms
11 20 (1.04%) Aerospace
11 20 (1.04%) Organisational Skills
12 17 (0.88%) Police
13 13 (0.68%) Manufacturing
14 9 (0.47%) Marketing
15 5 (0.26%) Electronics
15 5 (0.26%) Influencing Skills
16 3 (0.16%) Advertising
16 3 (0.16%) Local Government
17 2 (0.10%) Banking
Job Titles
1 294 (15.27%) Architect
2 170 (8.83%) Lead
3 164 (8.52%) Senior
4 128 (6.65%) Analyst
5 116 (6.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 106 (5.51%) Developer
7 101 (5.25%) Consultant
8 83 (4.31%) Network Engineer
9 77 (4.00%) SOC Analyst
10 75 (3.90%) Technical Architect
11 63 (3.27%) Security Architect
12 57 (2.96%) Project Manager
13 55 (2.86%) Tester
14 50 (2.60%) DevOps Engineer
15 48 (2.49%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 45 (2.34%) DBA
17 43 (2.23%) Administrator
17 43 (2.23%) Service Manager
18 42 (2.18%) Software Engineer
19 39 (2.03%) DV Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (2.65%) REST
2 29 (1.51%) React
3 25 (1.30%) Elastic Stack
4 20 (1.04%) 802.1X
5 18 (0.94%) Kafka
5 18 (0.94%) SOAP
6 17 (0.88%) Node.js
7 16 (0.83%) AngularJS
7 16 (0.83%) RESTful
7 16 (0.83%) Spring
8 14 (0.73%) Flask
8 14 (0.73%) Spring Boot
9 13 (0.68%) FastAPI
10 12 (0.62%) .NET
11 11 (0.57%) ModSecurity
12 10 (0.52%) Apache NiFi
12 10 (0.52%) Oracle Fusion
12 10 (0.52%) Playwright
13 9 (0.47%) LDAP
13 9 (0.47%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 93 (4.83%) PKI
2 73 (3.79%) Data Centre
3 53 (2.75%) Cloud Native
3 53 (2.75%) Security Operations Centre
4 34 (1.77%) Clustering
5 33 (1.71%) Onboarding
6 28 (1.45%) Management Information System
7 27 (1.40%) Product Ownership
8 24 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
9 22 (1.14%) Private Cloud
9 22 (1.14%) Security Posture
10 20 (1.04%) Cyber Threat
11 18 (0.94%) Public Cloud
12 16 (0.83%) CMDB
12 16 (0.83%) Virtual Team
13 15 (0.78%) Cyberattack
13 15 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
14 14 (0.73%) Enterprise Storage
15 13 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
15 13 (0.68%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 257 (13.35%) Windows
2 205 (10.65%) Linux
3 102 (5.30%) Windows Server
4 24 (1.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.94%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.52%) Unix
7 8 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
7 8 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.31%) AIX
8 6 (0.31%) Android
8 6 (0.31%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.26%) CentOS
9 5 (0.26%) Debian
9 5 (0.26%) VMS
9 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.21%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.21%) Windows 7
11 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
11 3 (0.16%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 313 (16.26%) Agile
2 188 (9.77%) Problem-Solving
3 170 (8.83%) ITIL
4 167 (8.68%) Cybersecurity
5 161 (8.36%) CI/CD
6 157 (8.16%) DevOps
7 155 (8.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 147 (7.64%) Continuous Improvement
9 126 (6.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 123 (6.39%) Service Management
11 119 (6.18%) Stakeholder Management
12 104 (5.40%) Infrastructure as Code
13 103 (5.35%) ITSM
14 92 (4.78%) Project Delivery
15 88 (4.57%) Decision-Making
16 85 (4.42%) Security Operations
17 84 (4.36%) Containerisation
18 83 (4.31%) SIEM
19 82 (4.26%) Risk Management
20 80 (4.16%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 157 (8.16%) Python
2 106 (5.51%) PowerShell
3 90 (4.68%) SQL
4 47 (2.44%) Java
5 39 (2.03%) JavaScript
6 34 (1.77%) Bash
7 28 (1.45%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.30%) C#
9 16 (0.83%) Go
10 14 (0.73%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (0.68%) PL/SQL
12 10 (0.52%) Bicep
12 10 (0.52%) C++
13 9 (0.47%) C
13 9 (0.47%) Rust
14 8 (0.42%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.31%) Embedded C
16 5 (0.26%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
17 4 (0.21%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 1,925 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 643 (33.40%) SC Cleared
3 61 (3.17%) Degree
4 48 (2.49%) Cisco Certification
4 48 (2.49%) CISSP
5 33 (1.71%) CISM
6 26 (1.35%) CompTIA Security+
7 25 (1.30%) Microsoft Certification
8 21 (1.09%) AWS Certification
8 21 (1.09%) CCNA
9 18 (0.94%) CCNP
10 17 (0.88%) BPSS Clearance
10 17 (0.88%) CompTIA CySA+
10 17 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
11 16 (0.83%) CESG Certified Professional
12 15 (0.78%) ISTQB
13 14 (0.73%) GIAC
13 14 (0.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 13 (0.68%) MCSE
14 13 (0.68%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (3.79%) NIST
2 63 (3.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 54 (2.81%) NCSC
4 51 (2.65%) PMO
4 51 (2.65%) QA
5 38 (1.97%) JSP 440
6 24 (1.25%) GDPR
6 24 (1.25%) RMADS
6 24 (1.25%) SLA
7 21 (1.09%) GRC
8 11 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
9 9 (0.47%) Accessibility
10 8 (0.42%) Data Quality
10 8 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 8 (0.42%) NIST 800
11 7 (0.36%) Government Security Classifications
12 6 (0.31%) WCAG
13 5 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 3 (0.16%) Def Stans
System Software
1 131 (6.81%) VMware Infrastructure
2 124 (6.44%) Active Directory
3 101 (5.25%) Docker
4 61 (3.17%) VMware NSX
5 49 (2.55%) VMware ESXi
6 45 (2.34%) Hyper-V
7 21 (1.09%) vSphere
8 20 (1.04%) vCloud
9 11 (0.57%) BitLocker
10 10 (0.52%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.47%) Microsoft App-V
12 8 (0.42%) NFS
13 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
14 4 (0.21%) Ceph
14 4 (0.21%) Firmware
14 4 (0.21%) UAG
14 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
15 3 (0.16%) Squid
15 3 (0.16%) Terminal Services
16 2 (0.10%) KVM
Systems Management
1 137 (7.12%) Kubernetes
2 135 (7.01%) Terraform
3 80 (4.16%) Ansible
4 60 (3.12%) vCenter Server
5 30 (1.56%) SCOM
6 23 (1.19%) SCCM
7 19 (0.99%) Grafana
8 18 (0.94%) Prometheus
9 16 (0.83%) Puppet
9 16 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
10 14 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.68%) FortiGate
12 12 (0.62%) Data Guard
12 12 (0.62%) Nagios
12 12 (0.62%) Podman
13 10 (0.52%) Oracle RMAN
14 9 (0.47%) vMotion
15 8 (0.42%) WMI
15 8 (0.42%) WSUS
15 8 (0.42%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 205 (10.65%) VMware
2 173 (8.99%) Microsoft
3 100 (5.19%) Cisco
4 85 (4.42%) ServiceNow
5 71 (3.69%) Oracle
6 67 (3.48%) Splunk
7 44 (2.29%) Juniper
8 39 (2.03%) NetApp
9 37 (1.92%) SAP
10 33 (1.71%) Red Hat
10 33 (1.71%) SolarWinds
11 29 (1.51%) F5
12 28 (1.45%) Google
13 24 (1.25%) Remedy
14 21 (1.09%) Dell
14 21 (1.09%) Fortinet
14 21 (1.09%) Palo Alto
15 20 (1.04%) Citrix
16 19 (0.99%) Sparx
17 18 (0.94%) BMC