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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 83 32
Rank change year-on-year +34 -51 +29
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,949 868 2,460
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.88% 2.93% 5.65%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.39% 9.47% 18.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,473 586 1,772
10th Percentile £429 £450 £425
25th Percentile £513 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £575 £600
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £675 £650 £688
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 47 30 113
10th Percentile £18.14 £30.42 £51.79
25th Percentile £35.00 £52.69 £57.33
Median hourly rate £42.50 £80.34 £72.33
Median % change year-on-year -47.10% +11.07% +3.33%
75th Percentile £69.92 £83.55 £85.65
90th Percentile £83.94 £88.87 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £81.35 £72.33
% change year-on-year -47.76% +12.47% -3.56%

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 15,729 9,167 13,029
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.33% 30.94% 29.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,454 5,680 8,052
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £412 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £614 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,160 590 1,118
10th Percentile £17.12 £17.86 £13.99
25th Percentile £22.68 £21.00 £18.57
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.69%
75th Percentile £72.50 £63.19 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.22 £75.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £28.18 £41.50
% change year-on-year +68.70% -32.10% -21.59%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +26 1,802 £600 +2.56% 480
UK excluding London +11 1,397 £600 +4.35% 390
South East +7 759 £600 +4.35% 175
London +60 394 £600 - 90
South West -2 355 £575 -4.17% 149
Work from Home +57 287 £560 -2.61% 162
East of England +5 102 £650 +18.18% 30
North of England -7 82 £775 +24.00% 26
North West +11 66 £775 +76.14% 20
Midlands -55 51 £600 - 7
Scotland +27 44 £653 +30.60% 8
West Midlands -64 40 £600 - 6
Yorkshire -43 13 £525 -16.00% 3
East Midlands -14 11 £518 -5.91% 1
Northern Ireland +7 6 £619 - 2
Wales -10 4 - -
North East -31 3 £569 -9.00% 3

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 (2.05%) Confluence
2 38 (1.95%) Microsoft Exchange
3 28 (1.44%) 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%) Documentum
6 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.10%) nginx
7 2 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.051%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 33 (1.69%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (1.03%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.41%) AutoCAD
5 8 (0.41%) Revit
5 8 (0.41%) 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 28 (1.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.23%) Remedy ITSM
3 19 (0.97%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 14 (0.72%) 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 (0.15%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.15%) SAP GRC
8 2 (0.10%) Primavera
9 1 (0.051%) Oracle Applications
9 1 (0.051%) SAP CCM
9 1 (0.051%) SAP FI-GL
9 1 (0.051%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.051%) SAP QM
9 1 (0.051%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 213 (10.93%) AWS
2 186 (9.54%) Azure
3 86 (4.41%) GCP
4 48 (2.46%) GitHub
5 45 (2.31%) PaaS
6 44 (2.26%) Azure DevOps
6 44 (2.26%) IaaS
7 37 (1.90%) GitHub Actions
8 31 (1.59%) Serverless
9 27 (1.39%) OpenShift
10 25 (1.28%) Microsoft 365
11 21 (1.08%) OCI
11 21 (1.08%) Power Platform
12 18 (0.92%) AWS Lambda
13 17 (0.87%) Amazon ECS
13 17 (0.87%) SaaS
14 16 (0.82%) Amazon EKS
15 15 (0.77%) Entra ID
16 14 (0.72%) Amazon S3
17 12 (0.62%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 112 (5.75%) DNS
2 99 (5.08%) Firewall
3 72 (3.69%) Network Security
4 64 (3.28%) WAN
5 63 (3.23%) LAN
6 52 (2.67%) DHCP
6 52 (2.67%) VPN
7 42 (2.15%) BGP
8 28 (1.44%) OSPF
9 25 (1.28%) TCP/IP
10 20 (1.03%) Ethernet VPN
10 20 (1.03%) MPLS
10 20 (1.03%) VLAN
10 20 (1.03%) VXLAN
11 18 (0.92%) IPsec
11 18 (0.92%) VSAN
12 16 (0.82%) BIG-IP
13 15 (0.77%) Junos
14 14 (0.72%) Skype
15 13 (0.67%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (1.80%) SQL Server
2 32 (1.64%) Oracle Database
2 32 (1.64%) PostgreSQL
3 27 (1.39%) Elasticsearch
4 16 (0.82%) Power BI
5 15 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
6 13 (0.67%) MongoDB
7 10 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
8 9 (0.46%) Metadata
9 7 (0.36%) Data Lake
9 7 (0.36%) Redis
10 6 (0.31%) Big Data
10 6 (0.31%) NoSQL
10 6 (0.31%) Oracle Database 11g
11 5 (0.26%) BigQuery
11 5 (0.26%) DynamoDB
11 5 (0.26%) Hadoop
11 5 (0.26%) MariaDB
11 5 (0.26%) MySQL
12 4 (0.21%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 71 (3.64%) JIRA
2 37 (1.90%) GitLab
3 32 (1.64%) Jenkins
4 30 (1.54%) Git
5 13 (0.67%) Cypress.io
6 9 (0.46%) 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 (0.15%) Appium
10 3 (0.15%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.15%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.15%) Maven
10 3 (0.15%) MLflow
General
1 296 (15.19%) Social Skills
2 243 (12.47%) Public Sector
3 112 (5.75%) Analytical Skills
4 87 (4.46%) Finance
5 68 (3.49%) Military
6 57 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (2.51%) Legal
8 24 (1.23%) Law
9 23 (1.18%) Aerospace
10 22 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
11 21 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
12 20 (1.03%) Telecoms
13 19 (0.97%) Police
14 13 (0.67%) Manufacturing
15 10 (0.51%) Marketing
16 5 (0.26%) Electronics
16 5 (0.26%) Influencing Skills
16 5 (0.26%) Local Government
17 3 (0.15%) Advertising
18 2 (0.10%) Banking
Job Titles
1 290 (14.88%) Architect
2 173 (8.88%) Lead
3 169 (8.67%) Senior
4 135 (6.93%) Analyst
5 117 (6.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 109 (5.59%) Developer
7 104 (5.34%) Consultant
8 83 (4.26%) Network Engineer
9 81 (4.16%) SOC Analyst
10 74 (3.80%) Technical Architect
11 62 (3.18%) Project Manager
11 62 (3.18%) Security Architect
12 53 (2.72%) Tester
13 50 (2.57%) DevOps Engineer
14 48 (2.46%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 46 (2.36%) DBA
16 44 (2.26%) Administrator
16 44 (2.26%) Service Manager
17 43 (2.21%) DV Cleared Project Manager
18 42 (2.15%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (2.72%) REST
2 29 (1.49%) React
3 26 (1.33%) Elastic Stack
4 20 (1.03%) 802.1X
5 19 (0.97%) SOAP
6 18 (0.92%) Kafka
7 17 (0.87%) Node.js
8 16 (0.82%) AngularJS
8 16 (0.82%) RESTful
8 16 (0.82%) Spring
9 14 (0.72%) Flask
9 14 (0.72%) Spring Boot
10 13 (0.67%) FastAPI
11 12 (0.62%) .NET
12 11 (0.56%) ModSecurity
12 11 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
13 10 (0.51%) Apache NiFi
13 10 (0.51%) Playwright
14 9 (0.46%) LDAP
14 9 (0.46%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 93 (4.77%) PKI
2 75 (3.85%) Data Centre
3 54 (2.77%) Cloud Native
3 54 (2.77%) Security Operations Centre
4 35 (1.80%) Clustering
5 34 (1.74%) Onboarding
6 29 (1.49%) Management Information System
7 26 (1.33%) Product Ownership
8 24 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
8 24 (1.23%) Security Posture
9 22 (1.13%) Private Cloud
10 21 (1.08%) Cyber Threat
11 19 (0.97%) CMDB
12 18 (0.92%) Public Cloud
13 16 (0.82%) Virtual Team
14 15 (0.77%) Cyberattack
14 15 (0.77%) Distributed Systems
15 14 (0.72%) Enterprise Storage
16 13 (0.67%) Greenfield Project
16 13 (0.67%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 260 (13.34%) Windows
2 208 (10.67%) Linux
3 105 (5.39%) Windows Server
4 24 (1.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.87%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.51%) Unix
7 8 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
7 8 (0.41%) 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 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
11 3 (0.15%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 316 (16.21%) Agile
2 192 (9.85%) Problem-Solving
3 175 (8.98%) ITIL
4 170 (8.72%) Cybersecurity
5 160 (8.21%) CI/CD
5 160 (8.21%) DevOps
5 160 (8.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 151 (7.75%) Continuous Improvement
7 131 (6.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 129 (6.62%) Stakeholder Management
9 126 (6.46%) Service Management
10 106 (5.44%) ITSM
11 105 (5.39%) Infrastructure as Code
12 98 (5.03%) Project Delivery
13 89 (4.57%) Security Operations
14 88 (4.52%) Decision-Making
15 86 (4.41%) Containerisation
15 86 (4.41%) Risk Management
15 86 (4.41%) SIEM
16 82 (4.21%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 159 (8.16%) Python
2 110 (5.64%) PowerShell
3 92 (4.72%) SQL
4 48 (2.46%) Java
5 39 (2.00%) JavaScript
6 36 (1.85%) Bash
7 28 (1.44%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.28%) C#
9 16 (0.82%) Go
10 14 (0.72%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (0.67%) PL/SQL
12 10 (0.51%) Bicep
12 10 (0.51%) C++
13 9 (0.46%) C
13 9 (0.46%) Rust
14 8 (0.41%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.31%) Embedded C
16 5 (0.26%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
16 5 (0.26%) Perl
Qualifications
1 1,949 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 655 (33.61%) SC Cleared
3 62 (3.18%) Degree
4 49 (2.51%) Cisco Certification
5 48 (2.46%) CISSP
6 33 (1.69%) CISM
7 27 (1.39%) CompTIA Security+
8 25 (1.28%) Microsoft Certification
9 21 (1.08%) AWS Certification
9 21 (1.08%) CCNA
10 18 (0.92%) CCNP
10 18 (0.92%) CompTIA CySA+
11 17 (0.87%) BPSS Clearance
11 17 (0.87%) Computer Science Degree
12 16 (0.82%) CESG Certified Professional
13 15 (0.77%) ISTQB
14 14 (0.72%) PMP
14 14 (0.72%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 13 (0.67%) GIAC
15 13 (0.67%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (3.75%) NIST
2 65 (3.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 54 (2.77%) NCSC
4 52 (2.67%) PMO
4 52 (2.67%) QA
5 38 (1.95%) JSP 440
6 24 (1.23%) GDPR
6 24 (1.23%) RMADS
6 24 (1.23%) SLA
7 22 (1.13%) GRC
8 11 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
9 9 (0.46%) Accessibility
10 8 (0.41%) Data Quality
10 8 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 8 (0.41%) 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 (0.15%) Def Stans
System Software
1 130 (6.67%) VMware Infrastructure
2 125 (6.41%) Active Directory
3 103 (5.28%) Docker
4 62 (3.18%) VMware NSX
5 50 (2.57%) VMware ESXi
6 46 (2.36%) Hyper-V
7 21 (1.08%) vCloud
7 21 (1.08%) vSphere
8 12 (0.62%) BitLocker
9 10 (0.51%) Microsoft App-V
9 10 (0.51%) Oracle RAC
10 8 (0.41%) NFS
11 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
12 4 (0.21%) Ceph
12 4 (0.21%) Firmware
12 4 (0.21%) Terminal Services
12 4 (0.21%) UAG
12 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
13 3 (0.15%) Squid
14 2 (0.10%) KVM
Systems Management
1 140 (7.18%) Kubernetes
2 136 (6.98%) Terraform
3 82 (4.21%) Ansible
4 62 (3.18%) vCenter Server
5 31 (1.59%) SCOM
6 23 (1.18%) SCCM
7 19 (0.97%) Grafana
8 18 (0.92%) Prometheus
9 17 (0.87%) Puppet
10 15 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.67%) FortiGate
11 13 (0.67%) Nagios
12 12 (0.62%) Data Guard
12 12 (0.62%) Podman
13 10 (0.51%) Oracle RMAN
13 10 (0.51%) vMotion
14 8 (0.41%) VxRail
14 8 (0.41%) WMI
14 8 (0.41%) WSUS
Vendors
1 204 (10.47%) VMware
2 177 (9.08%) Microsoft
3 100 (5.13%) Cisco
4 91 (4.67%) ServiceNow
5 74 (3.80%) Oracle
6 67 (3.44%) Splunk
7 45 (2.31%) Juniper
8 38 (1.95%) SAP
9 37 (1.90%) NetApp
10 34 (1.74%) SolarWinds
11 33 (1.69%) Google
11 33 (1.69%) Red Hat
12 29 (1.49%) F5
13 24 (1.23%) Remedy
14 21 (1.08%) Citrix
14 21 (1.08%) Dell
14 21 (1.08%) Fortinet
14 21 (1.08%) Palo Alto
15 19 (0.97%) Sparx
16 18 (0.92%) BMC