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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 80 36
Rank change year-on-year +30 -44 +16
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,163 1,016 1,943
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.03% 3.10% 5.00%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.91% 9.88% 16.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,648 711 1,355
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £516 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% +4.35%
75th Percentile £703 £663 £688
90th Percentile £763 £716 £765
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £598
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.01% +4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 39 96
10th Percentile £35.00 - £50.00
25th Percentile £51.00 £25.15 £58.49
Median hourly rate £70.00 £50.00 £70.78
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% -29.36% +1.11%
75th Percentile £92.53 £81.18 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.53 £87.30 £93.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.25 £79.35 £70.39
% change year-on-year -10.21% +12.73% -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 16,749 10,283 11,572
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.19% 31.39% 29.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,197 6,349 7,284
10th Percentile £350 £291 £313
25th Percentile £437 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £519 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,261 829 769
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.98 £14.42
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.37
Median hourly rate £48.00 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +90.85% -44.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £72.54 £53.50 £67.02
90th Percentile £87.96 £72.75 £76.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +88.87% -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 27 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 27 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 27 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 2,026 £600 +2.13% 461
UK excluding London +11 1,545 £600 +3.45% 403
South East +3 894 £600 - 148
London +47 465 £600 -4.00% 89
South West +1 412 £600 - 150
Work from Home +31 329 £575 -2.13% 213
East of England +4 89 £650 +18.18% 53
North of England -16 64 £775 +34.78% 36
North West -9 43 £863 +72.50% 22
Midlands -70 42 £600 +2.13% 15
Scotland +9 39 £669 +27.33% 24
West Midlands -70 38 £600 +2.13% 10
Yorkshire -35 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 65 (3.01%) Confluence
2 45 (2.08%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.76%) 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 (0.092%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.092%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.092%) Camunda
9 2 (0.092%) Mule
9 2 (0.092%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.092%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.092%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.046%) JBoss
Applications
1 56 (2.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (2.08%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
5 15 (0.69%) AutoCAD
5 15 (0.69%) Revit
5 15 (0.69%) SOLIDWORKS
6 10 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.23%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.29%) Oracle ERP
3 22 (1.02%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.88%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.65%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.28%) 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 (0.092%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.046%) Oracle Assets
11 1 (0.046%) SAP CCM
11 1 (0.046%) SAP FI-GL
11 1 (0.046%) SAP GRC
11 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 288 (13.31%) Azure
2 270 (12.48%) AWS
3 106 (4.90%) GCP
4 57 (2.64%) Azure DevOps
5 46 (2.13%) GitHub
5 46 (2.13%) Microsoft 365
6 39 (1.80%) Entra ID
6 39 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
7 37 (1.71%) Power Platform
7 37 (1.71%) Serverless
8 32 (1.48%) IaaS
8 32 (1.48%) OCI
9 30 (1.39%) PaaS
10 25 (1.16%) AWS Lambda
11 23 (1.06%) Amazon EKS
12 22 (1.02%) OpenShift
13 20 (0.92%) Amazon ECS
14 19 (0.88%) Amazon S3
14 19 (0.88%) SaaS
15 17 (0.79%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 161 (7.44%) DNS
2 122 (5.64%) Firewall
3 80 (3.70%) DHCP
4 66 (3.05%) Network Security
5 63 (2.91%) WAN
6 57 (2.64%) LAN
7 54 (2.50%) VPN
8 52 (2.40%) TCP/IP
9 49 (2.27%) BGP
10 41 (1.90%) VSAN
11 33 (1.53%) IPsec
12 32 (1.48%) MPLS
13 27 (1.25%) VLAN
14 18 (0.83%) SSL
15 17 (0.79%) OSPF
16 16 (0.74%) Cisco ASA
17 15 (0.69%) Cisco Firepower
18 14 (0.65%) SAN
18 14 (0.65%) SD-WAN
18 14 (0.65%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (2.40%) SQL Server
2 39 (1.80%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.48%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.02%) Power BI
5 18 (0.83%) Metadata
6 17 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
7 16 (0.74%) Data Lake
8 15 (0.69%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (0.69%) MongoDB
9 12 (0.55%) 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 6 (0.28%) Redis
14 5 (0.23%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 103 (4.76%) JIRA
2 67 (3.10%) GitLab
3 59 (2.73%) Jenkins
4 49 (2.27%) Git
5 15 (0.69%) Cypress.io
5 15 (0.69%) Selenium
6 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
6 7 (0.32%) Postman
6 7 (0.32%) REST Assured
6 7 (0.32%) Visual Studio
7 6 (0.28%) MSI
7 6 (0.28%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.28%) SpecFlow
8 5 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (0.18%) Artifactory
9 4 (0.18%) Gatling
9 4 (0.18%) JMeter
9 4 (0.18%) JUnit
10 3 (0.14%) Maven
10 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 440 (20.34%) Social Skills
2 284 (13.13%) Public Sector
3 155 (7.17%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (6.33%) Finance
5 61 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
5 61 (2.82%) Military
6 43 (1.99%) Legal
7 42 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
8 31 (1.43%) Police
9 30 (1.39%) Influencing Skills
9 30 (1.39%) Law
10 27 (1.25%) Telecoms
11 25 (1.16%) Manufacturing
12 23 (1.06%) Aerospace
13 15 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
14 8 (0.37%) Local Government
15 7 (0.32%) Marketing
16 5 (0.23%) Advertising
17 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
17 4 (0.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 349 (16.13%) Architect
2 246 (11.37%) Lead
3 192 (8.88%) Senior
4 154 (7.12%) Consultant
5 150 (6.93%) Developer
6 148 (6.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 140 (6.47%) Analyst
8 90 (4.16%) Security Architect
9 83 (3.84%) Network Engineer
10 75 (3.47%) SOC Analyst
11 65 (3.01%) Cloud Engineer
12 61 (2.82%) Technical Architect
13 59 (2.73%) Project Manager
14 53 (2.45%) DevOps Engineer
14 53 (2.45%) Support Engineer
15 51 (2.36%) DBA
16 47 (2.17%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 42 (1.94%) DV Cleared Project Manager
17 42 (1.94%) Lead Architect
18 41 (1.90%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 191 (8.83%) Terraform
2 74 (3.42%) REST
3 30 (1.39%) Elastic Stack
4 28 (1.29%) SOAP
5 26 (1.20%) React
6 21 (0.97%) RESTful
7 18 (0.83%) Kafka
8 17 (0.79%) Node.js
9 15 (0.69%) .NET
10 14 (0.65%) AngularJS
10 14 (0.65%) LDAP
10 14 (0.65%) Spring
10 14 (0.65%) Spring Boot
11 13 (0.60%) FastAPI
11 13 (0.60%) Flask
12 12 (0.55%) ARM Templates
12 12 (0.55%) OAuth
12 12 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
12 12 (0.55%) XML
13 10 (0.46%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 99 (4.58%) PKI
2 96 (4.44%) Cloud Native
3 95 (4.39%) Data Centre
4 69 (3.19%) Onboarding
5 45 (2.08%) Security Operations Centre
6 39 (1.80%) Private Cloud
7 38 (1.76%) Hybrid Cloud
8 36 (1.66%) Product Ownership
9 34 (1.57%) Management Information System
10 29 (1.34%) Cyber Threat
10 29 (1.34%) 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 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
13 18 (0.83%) Virtual Team
14 16 (0.74%) Replication
15 14 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (0.60%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 338 (15.63%) Windows
2 238 (11.00%) Linux
3 161 (7.44%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 28 (1.29%) Windows 10
6 24 (1.11%) Windows Server 2019
7 16 (0.74%) Unix
8 15 (0.69%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.60%) 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
12 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
12 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
13 5 (0.23%) Debian
14 4 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
14 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 371 (17.15%) Agile
2 241 (11.14%) Stakeholder Management
3 234 (10.82%) Continuous Improvement
4 226 (10.45%) CI/CD
5 222 (10.26%) Cybersecurity
6 212 (9.80%) Problem-Solving
7 205 (9.48%) DevOps
8 195 (9.02%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 193 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 178 (8.23%) ITIL
11 172 (7.95%) Infrastructure as Code
12 170 (7.86%) Technical Leadership
13 145 (6.70%) Service Management
14 129 (5.96%) ITSM
15 120 (5.55%) Containerisation
15 120 (5.55%) Risk Management
16 118 (5.46%) Project Delivery
17 117 (5.41%) Decision-Making
18 108 (4.99%) SIEM
19 102 (4.72%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 208 (9.62%) Python
2 173 (8.00%) PowerShell
3 115 (5.32%) SQL
4 88 (4.07%) Bash
5 63 (2.91%) Java
6 38 (1.76%) JavaScript
7 35 (1.62%) C#
8 23 (1.06%) TypeScript
9 19 (0.88%) Bicep
10 17 (0.79%) Go
11 15 (0.69%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.65%) Search Processing Language
13 13 (0.60%) C++
14 11 (0.51%) 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%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 2,163 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 710 (32.82%) SC Cleared
3 75 (3.47%) Degree
4 69 (3.19%) CISSP
5 45 (2.08%) CISM
6 36 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.34%) Microsoft Certification
8 26 (1.20%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 23 (1.06%) VCAP
10 21 (0.97%) AWS Certification
10 21 (0.97%) PMI Certification
11 20 (0.92%) ISTQB
12 19 (0.88%) PMP
13 17 (0.79%) TOGAF Certification
14 15 (0.69%) Azure Certification
14 15 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
14 15 (0.69%) CCNP
14 15 (0.69%) MCSE
15 12 (0.55%) CCNA
15 12 (0.55%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (3.98%) NCSC
2 81 (3.74%) PMO
3 78 (3.61%) NIST
4 63 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 55 (2.54%) QA
6 40 (1.85%) JSP 440
7 32 (1.48%) GDPR
8 26 (1.20%) SLA
9 24 (1.11%) Data Quality
10 20 (0.92%) GRC
11 18 (0.83%) Accessibility
11 18 (0.83%) 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%) Def Stans
18 6 (0.28%) NIST 800
System Software
1 198 (9.15%) Active Directory
2 189 (8.74%) VMware Infrastructure
3 125 (5.78%) Docker
4 93 (4.30%) VMware NSX
5 74 (3.42%) VMware ESXi
6 63 (2.91%) Hyper-V
7 50 (2.31%) vSphere
8 26 (1.20%) vCloud
9 16 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
10 12 (0.55%) 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 (0.18%) KVM
15 4 (0.18%) Squid
15 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.14%) UAG
Systems Management
1 201 (9.29%) Kubernetes
2 138 (6.38%) Ansible
3 85 (3.93%) vCenter Server
4 52 (2.40%) SCOM
5 33 (1.53%) SCCM
6 26 (1.20%) Prometheus
7 24 (1.11%) Grafana
8 22 (1.02%) Puppet
9 17 (0.79%) Nagios
10 16 (0.74%) Oracle RMAN
11 15 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
11 15 (0.69%) VxRail
12 14 (0.65%) Avamar
12 14 (0.65%) Data Guard
13 13 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.60%) Podman
13 13 (0.60%) WSUS
14 12 (0.55%) Istio
14 12 (0.55%) WMI
15 11 (0.51%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 289 (13.36%) Microsoft
2 269 (12.44%) VMware
3 105 (4.85%) Oracle
3 105 (4.85%) ServiceNow
4 83 (3.84%) Cisco
5 61 (2.82%) SAP
6 58 (2.68%) Splunk
7 54 (2.50%) Google
8 38 (1.76%) SolarWinds
9 34 (1.57%) Juniper
10 33 (1.53%) Red Hat
11 26 (1.20%) CyberArk
12 24 (1.11%) Dell
12 24 (1.11%) Palo Alto
12 24 (1.11%) Remedy
13 23 (1.06%) Citrix
14 21 (0.97%) NetApp
15 19 (0.88%) BMC
15 19 (0.88%) Sparx
16 17 (0.79%) Thales