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 5 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 77 36
Rank change year-on-year +27 -41 +17
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,209 1,000 1,861
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.09% 3.07% 4.90%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.01% 9.86% 16.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,669 702 1,282
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £515 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% +4.35%
75th Percentile £700 £650 £688
90th Percentile £763 £716 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £595
% change year-on-year +4.35% -3.36% +4.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 100 37 93
10th Percentile £35.00 - £50.25
25th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £60.00
Median hourly rate £74.68 £47.48 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +57.30% -32.55% +0.56%
75th Percentile £92.53 £80.00 £80.00
90th Percentile £98.82 £87.35 £89.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.68 £74.35 £70.39
% change year-on-year +0.44% +5.63% -2.77%

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 16,979 10,137 11,208
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.47% 31.16% 29.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,380 6,283 7,010
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £627 £621 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,272 804 692
10th Percentile £17.27 £18.04 £15.93
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £23.65
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -48.67% -10.91%
75th Percentile £72.54 £49.06 £68.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £71.39 £76.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.10% +5.00%

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 5 September 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 5 September 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 5 September 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 2,076 £600 +2.13% 1,081
UK excluding London +12 1,578 £600 +4.35% 910
South East +3 880 £600 +0.80% 284
London +44 475 £600 -4.00% 262
South West +4 450 £589 -1.88% 294
Work from Home +45 342 £561 -4.67% 578
East of England +15 98 £663 +20.45% 173
North of England -12 65 £775 +34.78% 86
Midlands -69 45 £600 - 24
North West -21 44 £863 +72.50% 69
West Midlands -72 39 £600 - 14
Scotland -12 35 £669 +27.33% 68
Yorkshire -30 16 £518 -17.20% 12
East Midlands - 6 £625 - 10
Northern Ireland +7 5 £638 -8.93% 5
North East -35 5 £463 -26.00% 8
Wales -15 4 - - 1

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 67 (3.03%) Confluence
2 48 (2.17%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.72%) Microsoft Exchange
4 16 (0.72%) Apache
5 7 (0.32%) Documentum
6 6 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.27%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.27%) CMS
7 4 (0.18%) IIS
7 4 (0.18%) nginx
8 3 (0.14%) Camunda
8 3 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
9 2 (0.091%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.091%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.091%) Mule
9 2 (0.091%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.091%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.091%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.091%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.045%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 58 (2.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (2.04%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (1.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.95%) Microsoft Office
5 15 (0.68%) AutoCAD
5 15 (0.68%) Revit
5 15 (0.68%) SOLIDWORKS
6 8 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.32%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.31%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.27%) Oracle ERP
3 22 (1.00%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.81%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.63%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.27%) 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 (0.091%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.045%) Oracle Assets
11 1 (0.045%) SAP CCM
11 1 (0.045%) SAP GRC
11 1 (0.045%) SAP PLM
11 1 (0.045%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 293 (13.26%) Azure
2 289 (13.08%) AWS
3 106 (4.80%) GCP
4 58 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
5 49 (2.22%) Microsoft 365
6 47 (2.13%) GitHub
7 40 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
8 39 (1.77%) Entra ID
9 37 (1.67%) Power Platform
9 37 (1.67%) Serverless
10 33 (1.49%) OCI
11 28 (1.27%) IaaS
12 26 (1.18%) AWS Lambda
13 25 (1.13%) PaaS
14 23 (1.04%) Amazon EKS
14 23 (1.04%) OpenShift
15 21 (0.95%) Amazon ECS
16 19 (0.86%) Amazon S3
16 19 (0.86%) SaaS
17 17 (0.77%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 163 (7.38%) DNS
2 121 (5.48%) Firewall
3 80 (3.62%) DHCP
4 68 (3.08%) Network Security
5 61 (2.76%) WAN
6 54 (2.44%) TCP/IP
6 54 (2.44%) VPN
7 50 (2.26%) LAN
8 47 (2.13%) BGP
9 41 (1.86%) VSAN
10 34 (1.54%) MPLS
11 33 (1.49%) IPsec
12 27 (1.22%) VLAN
13 18 (0.81%) SSL
14 17 (0.77%) Cisco ASA
15 16 (0.72%) SAN
16 15 (0.68%) Cisco Firepower
16 15 (0.68%) OSPF
16 15 (0.68%) SD-WAN
17 14 (0.63%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (2.44%) SQL Server
2 43 (1.95%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.45%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.00%) Power BI
5 21 (0.95%) Metadata
6 19 (0.86%) Data Lake
7 18 (0.81%) MongoDB
8 16 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
9 15 (0.68%) Data Warehouse
10 14 (0.63%) Relational Database
11 12 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
12 9 (0.41%) NoSQL
12 9 (0.41%) Oracle Database 11g
13 8 (0.36%) BigQuery
13 8 (0.36%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 8 (0.36%) Oracle Database 12c
14 7 (0.32%) Big Data
14 7 (0.32%) MariaDB
14 7 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
15 5 (0.23%) Redis
Development Applications
1 105 (4.75%) JIRA
2 74 (3.35%) GitLab
3 65 (2.94%) Jenkins
4 62 (2.81%) Git
5 25 (1.13%) Selenium
6 15 (0.68%) Cypress.io
7 8 (0.36%) Cucumber
8 7 (0.32%) MSI
8 7 (0.32%) Postman
8 7 (0.32%) REST Assured
8 7 (0.32%) Visual Studio
9 6 (0.27%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.27%) SpecFlow
10 5 (0.23%) Artifactory
10 5 (0.23%) Gatling
10 5 (0.23%) JMeter
10 5 (0.23%) JUnit
10 5 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.14%) Appium
11 3 (0.14%) MLflow
General
1 468 (21.19%) Social Skills
2 278 (12.58%) Public Sector
3 158 (7.15%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (6.20%) Finance
5 65 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
6 62 (2.81%) Military
7 42 (1.90%) Organisational Skills
8 39 (1.77%) Legal
9 34 (1.54%) Law
10 32 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
11 31 (1.40%) Police
12 30 (1.36%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.22%) Manufacturing
14 23 (1.04%) Aerospace
15 12 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
16 9 (0.41%) Local Government
17 7 (0.32%) Marketing
18 5 (0.23%) Advertising
19 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
19 4 (0.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 363 (16.43%) Architect
2 242 (10.96%) Lead
3 197 (8.92%) Senior
4 153 (6.93%) Consultant
4 153 (6.93%) Developer
5 151 (6.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 135 (6.11%) Analyst
7 90 (4.07%) Security Architect
8 78 (3.53%) Network Engineer
9 71 (3.21%) SOC Analyst
10 68 (3.08%) Cloud Engineer
11 59 (2.67%) Project Manager
11 59 (2.67%) Technical Architect
12 58 (2.63%) Support Engineer
13 56 (2.54%) DevOps Engineer
14 51 (2.31%) DBA
15 46 (2.08%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 41 (1.86%) DV Cleared Project Manager
16 41 (1.86%) Lead Architect
16 41 (1.86%) Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 197 (8.92%) Terraform
2 78 (3.53%) REST
3 30 (1.36%) Elastic Stack
4 29 (1.31%) React
5 28 (1.27%) SOAP
6 25 (1.13%) LDAP
7 22 (1.00%) RESTful
8 18 (0.81%) Kafka
9 17 (0.77%) Node.js
10 16 (0.72%) Apache NiFi
11 15 (0.68%) .NET
12 14 (0.63%) AngularJS
12 14 (0.63%) Spring
12 14 (0.63%) Spring Boot
12 14 (0.63%) XML
13 13 (0.59%) FastAPI
14 12 (0.54%) ARM Templates
14 12 (0.54%) Flask
14 12 (0.54%) OAuth
14 12 (0.54%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 102 (4.62%) Cloud Native
2 99 (4.48%) PKI
3 98 (4.44%) Data Centre
4 77 (3.49%) Onboarding
5 45 (2.04%) Security Operations Centre
6 40 (1.81%) Private Cloud
7 37 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
7 37 (1.67%) Management Information System
7 37 (1.67%) Product Ownership
8 32 (1.45%) Cyber Threat
9 29 (1.31%) Public Cloud
10 27 (1.22%) Security Posture
11 25 (1.13%) Distributed Systems
12 22 (1.00%) Clustering
12 22 (1.00%) CMDB
13 17 (0.77%) Legacy Systems
13 17 (0.77%) Virtual Team
14 14 (0.63%) Analytical Mindset
14 14 (0.63%) Replication
15 12 (0.54%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 364 (16.48%) Windows
2 247 (11.18%) Linux
3 172 (7.79%) Windows Server
4 37 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 30 (1.36%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.13%) Windows Server 2019
7 20 (0.91%) Unix
8 16 (0.72%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.59%) CentOS
10 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.32%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Android
12 6 (0.27%) Mac OS
13 5 (0.23%) Data ONTAP
13 5 (0.23%) Debian
13 5 (0.23%) VMS
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.18%) Rocky
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 378 (17.11%) Agile
2 262 (11.86%) Continuous Improvement
3 260 (11.77%) Stakeholder Management
4 247 (11.18%) CI/CD
5 229 (10.37%) Cybersecurity
6 213 (9.64%) DevOps
7 212 (9.60%) Problem-Solving
8 205 (9.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 196 (8.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 193 (8.74%) Technical Leadership
11 190 (8.60%) Infrastructure as Code
12 181 (8.19%) ITIL
13 150 (6.79%) Service Management
14 141 (6.38%) ITSM
15 137 (6.20%) Containerisation
16 122 (5.52%) Risk Management
16 122 (5.52%) SIEM
17 121 (5.48%) Project Delivery
18 118 (5.34%) Decision-Making
19 111 (5.02%) AI
Programming Languages
1 229 (10.37%) Python
2 183 (8.28%) PowerShell
3 129 (5.84%) SQL
4 91 (4.12%) Bash
5 68 (3.08%) Java
6 38 (1.72%) JavaScript
7 36 (1.63%) C#
8 27 (1.22%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.81%) Bicep
10 16 (0.72%) Go
11 15 (0.68%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.63%) Search Processing Language
13 11 (0.50%) C++
13 11 (0.50%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.41%) C
15 7 (0.32%) Groovy
16 6 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
16 6 (0.27%) Perl
16 6 (0.27%) X++
17 5 (0.23%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 2,209 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 714 (32.32%) SC Cleared
3 76 (3.44%) Degree
4 71 (3.21%) CISSP
5 45 (2.04%) CISM
6 38 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.31%) Microsoft Certification
8 27 (1.22%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 25 (1.13%) AWS Certification
10 24 (1.09%) VCAP
11 21 (0.95%) ISTQB
11 21 (0.95%) PMI Certification
12 19 (0.86%) CCNP
12 19 (0.86%) PMP
12 19 (0.86%) TOGAF Certification
13 15 (0.68%) BPSS Clearance
13 15 (0.68%) MCSE
14 14 (0.63%) Azure Certification
15 12 (0.54%) CompTIA Security+
16 11 (0.50%) CHECK Team Leader
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (4.16%) NCSC
2 86 (3.89%) NIST
3 82 (3.71%) PMO
4 72 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 60 (2.72%) QA
6 42 (1.90%) JSP 440
7 31 (1.40%) GDPR
7 31 (1.40%) SLA
8 26 (1.18%) Data Quality
9 21 (0.95%) GRC
10 18 (0.81%) Accessibility
11 17 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 16 (0.72%) Government Security Classifications
13 15 (0.68%) RMADS
14 11 (0.50%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 10 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.36%) NIST 800
16 8 (0.36%) WCAG
17 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
18 6 (0.27%) Def Stans
System Software
1 221 (10.00%) Active Directory
2 200 (9.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 127 (5.75%) Docker
4 92 (4.16%) VMware NSX
5 78 (3.53%) VMware ESXi
6 66 (2.99%) Hyper-V
7 53 (2.40%) vSphere
8 27 (1.22%) vCloud
9 18 (0.81%) Virtual Desktop
10 13 (0.59%) NFS
10 13 (0.59%) Oracle RAC
11 12 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
12 8 (0.36%) Firmware
13 6 (0.27%) BitLocker
13 6 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
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
1 209 (9.46%) Kubernetes
2 145 (6.56%) Ansible
3 87 (3.94%) vCenter Server
4 55 (2.49%) SCOM
5 33 (1.49%) SCCM
6 27 (1.22%) Prometheus
7 25 (1.13%) Grafana
8 22 (1.00%) Puppet
9 17 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
9 17 (0.77%) Nagios
10 16 (0.72%) Oracle RMAN
11 15 (0.68%) Podman
11 15 (0.68%) VxRail
12 14 (0.63%) Avamar
12 14 (0.63%) Data Guard
13 13 (0.59%) WMI
13 13 (0.59%) WSUS
14 12 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 12 (0.54%) Istio
15 11 (0.50%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 288 (13.04%) Microsoft
2 284 (12.86%) VMware
3 113 (5.12%) Oracle
4 103 (4.66%) ServiceNow
5 82 (3.71%) Cisco
6 61 (2.76%) SAP
7 60 (2.72%) Splunk
8 57 (2.58%) Google
9 40 (1.81%) SolarWinds
10 35 (1.58%) Red Hat
11 34 (1.54%) CyberArk
12 29 (1.31%) Juniper
13 25 (1.13%) Palo Alto
14 24 (1.09%) Remedy
15 23 (1.04%) Citrix
15 23 (1.04%) Dell
16 20 (0.91%) BMC
16 20 (0.91%) NetApp
17 18 (0.81%) Sparx
18 17 (0.77%) Thales