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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 80 33
Rank change year-on-year +32 -47 +24
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,191 1,003 2,055
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.10% 3.05% 5.27%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.07% 9.80% 17.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,675 698 1,463
10th Percentile £436 £460 £425
25th Percentile £513 £525 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year - - +1.31%
75th Percentile £700 £670 £688
90th Percentile £760 £713 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £600
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 38 99
10th Percentile £35.00 £25.15 £48.88
25th Percentile £41.25 £26.61 £57.02
Median hourly rate £68.00 £63.25 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +7.51% -10.15% +0.56%
75th Percentile £92.53 £82.08 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.29 £87.91 £91.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £81.35 £70.39
% change year-on-year -16.41% +15.57% -3.58%

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 16,769 10,234 11,695
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.39% 31.14% 29.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,216 6,336 7,417
10th Percentile £350 £287 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,252 784 856
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £51.75 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +105.77% -41.51% -22.77%
75th Percentile £73.75 £54.15 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £73.75 £77.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -44.11% -15.65%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 2,054 £600 - 676
UK excluding London +13 1,568 £600 +3.45% 489
South East +7 919 £600 - 216
London +51 460 £600 -4.00% 192
South West 0 396 £588 -2.08% 162
Work from Home +49 327 £575 -2.34% 239
East of England +5 94 £650 +18.18% 43
North of England -13 70 £775 +24.00% 46
Midlands -64 50 £600 - 21
North West 0 46 £825 - 34
West Midlands -76 42 £600 - 15
Scotland +15 37 £669 +30.44% 9
Yorkshire -24 18 £518 -17.20% 6
East Midlands -6 8 £631 +14.77% 6
North East -37 6 £463 -26.00% 6
Northern Ireland +8 4 £638 - 1
Wales -6 4 - -

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 59 (2.69%) Confluence
2 40 (1.83%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.41%) Apache
5 8 (0.37%) Apache Spark
6 7 (0.32%) Documentum
7 6 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
7 6 (0.27%) Mattermost
8 5 (0.23%) CMS
9 3 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
9 3 (0.14%) nginx
10 2 (0.091%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.091%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.091%) Mule
10 2 (0.091%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.091%) Oracle Service Bus
10 2 (0.091%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
10 2 (0.091%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.046%) JBoss
Applications
1 58 (2.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (2.15%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
5 13 (0.59%) AutoCAD
5 13 (0.59%) Revit
5 13 (0.59%) SOLIDWORKS
5 13 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.23%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.14%) Simulink
8 2 (0.091%) Lectora
Business Applications
1 31 (1.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.32%) Remedy ITSM
3 25 (1.14%) Oracle ERP
4 19 (0.87%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.64%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.18%) Primavera
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.14%) SAP PP
10 2 (0.091%) Oracle Assets
10 2 (0.091%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.046%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 1 (0.046%) SAP FI-GL
11 1 (0.046%) SAP GRC
11 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 271 (12.37%) Azure
2 260 (11.87%) AWS
3 109 (4.97%) GCP
4 57 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
5 47 (2.15%) GitHub
6 42 (1.92%) IaaS
7 41 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
8 40 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
9 39 (1.78%) PaaS
10 38 (1.73%) Power Platform
10 38 (1.73%) Serverless
11 35 (1.60%) OCI
12 34 (1.55%) Entra ID
13 25 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
14 24 (1.10%) OpenShift
15 21 (0.96%) Amazon EKS
16 20 (0.91%) SaaS
17 19 (0.87%) Amazon S3
17 19 (0.87%) Google Kubernetes Engine
18 18 (0.82%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 157 (7.17%) DNS
2 131 (5.98%) Firewall
3 79 (3.61%) DHCP
4 77 (3.51%) WAN
5 73 (3.33%) LAN
5 73 (3.33%) Network Security
6 58 (2.65%) BGP
7 51 (2.33%) VPN
8 46 (2.10%) TCP/IP
9 41 (1.87%) VSAN
10 34 (1.55%) IPsec
11 31 (1.41%) MPLS
12 30 (1.37%) OSPF
13 26 (1.19%) VLAN
14 23 (1.05%) VXLAN
15 20 (0.91%) Ethernet VPN
16 18 (0.82%) BIG-IP
16 18 (0.82%) SSL
17 17 (0.78%) Cisco ASA
17 17 (0.78%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (2.01%) SQL Server
2 38 (1.73%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.46%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.10%) Power BI
5 22 (1.00%) Elasticsearch
6 18 (0.82%) Metadata
7 15 (0.68%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.64%) Data Lake
9 10 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
9 10 (0.46%) MongoDB
10 8 (0.37%) BigQuery
10 8 (0.37%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 11g
10 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
11 7 (0.32%) Big Data
11 7 (0.32%) MariaDB
11 7 (0.32%) NoSQL
11 7 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
12 6 (0.27%) Hadoop
13 5 (0.23%) Redis
Development Applications
1 103 (4.70%) JIRA
2 53 (2.42%) GitLab
3 48 (2.19%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.87%) Git
5 13 (0.59%) Cypress.io
6 10 (0.46%) Selenium
7 6 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.27%) Visual Studio
8 5 (0.23%) Postman
8 5 (0.23%) REST Assured
8 5 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.23%) SpecFlow
9 4 (0.18%) Artifactory
9 4 (0.18%) Cucumber
9 4 (0.18%) MSI
10 3 (0.14%) Appium
10 3 (0.14%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.14%) MLflow
10 3 (0.14%) Robot Framework
10 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 416 (18.99%) Social Skills
2 288 (13.14%) Public Sector
3 154 (7.03%) Analytical Skills
4 141 (6.44%) Finance
5 73 (3.33%) Military
6 55 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
7 44 (2.01%) Legal
8 41 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
9 28 (1.28%) Law
9 28 (1.28%) Police
10 25 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
11 21 (0.96%) Telecoms
12 19 (0.87%) Manufacturing
13 16 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
14 13 (0.59%) Aerospace
15 8 (0.37%) Local Government
16 7 (0.32%) Marketing
17 5 (0.23%) Advertising
18 4 (0.18%) Aviation
18 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 345 (15.75%) Architect
2 244 (11.14%) Lead
3 206 (9.40%) Senior
4 152 (6.94%) Developer
5 150 (6.85%) Analyst
6 145 (6.62%) Consultant
7 142 (6.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 92 (4.20%) Network Engineer
9 89 (4.06%) Security Architect
10 77 (3.51%) SOC Analyst
11 70 (3.19%) Technical Architect
12 62 (2.83%) Project Manager
13 57 (2.60%) Cloud Engineer
14 49 (2.24%) DBA
14 49 (2.24%) DevOps Engineer
14 49 (2.24%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 48 (2.19%) Support Engineer
16 46 (2.10%) Senior Network Engineer
17 44 (2.01%) DV Cleared Project Manager
18 43 (1.96%) Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (3.33%) REST
2 33 (1.51%) Elastic Stack
3 26 (1.19%) SOAP
4 25 (1.14%) React
5 20 (0.91%) Kafka
6 19 (0.87%) RESTful
7 18 (0.82%) 802.1X
8 16 (0.73%) Node.js
9 15 (0.68%) .NET
9 15 (0.68%) Oracle Fusion
10 14 (0.64%) FastAPI
10 14 (0.64%) Spring
10 14 (0.64%) Spring Boot
11 13 (0.59%) AngularJS
11 13 (0.59%) Apache NiFi
11 13 (0.59%) Flask
12 11 (0.50%) OAuth
12 11 (0.50%) XML
13 10 (0.46%) ModSecurity
13 10 (0.46%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 107 (4.88%) Data Centre
2 104 (4.75%) PKI
3 80 (3.65%) Cloud Native
4 63 (2.88%) Onboarding
5 50 (2.28%) Security Operations Centre
6 38 (1.73%) Product Ownership
7 37 (1.69%) Clustering
7 37 (1.69%) Private Cloud
8 36 (1.64%) Hybrid Cloud
9 33 (1.51%) Management Information System
10 31 (1.41%) Cyber Threat
11 28 (1.28%) Public Cloud
12 25 (1.14%) CMDB
12 25 (1.14%) Distributed Systems
12 25 (1.14%) Security Posture
13 21 (0.96%) Legacy Systems
14 20 (0.91%) Virtual Team
15 15 (0.68%) Analytical Mindset
15 15 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
16 13 (0.59%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 323 (14.74%) Windows
2 224 (10.22%) Linux
3 151 (6.89%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (1.05%) Windows Server 2019
6 21 (0.96%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.59%) Unix
8 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
9 8 (0.37%) VMS
10 7 (0.32%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.32%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.27%) AIX
11 6 (0.27%) Android
11 6 (0.27%) CentOS
11 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
12 5 (0.23%) Debian
12 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
13 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 382 (17.43%) Agile
2 222 (10.13%) Problem-Solving
2 222 (10.13%) Stakeholder Management
3 219 (10.00%) Continuous Improvement
4 212 (9.68%) CI/CD
5 206 (9.40%) Cybersecurity
6 202 (9.22%) ITIL
7 193 (8.81%) DevOps
8 187 (8.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 183 (8.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 153 (6.98%) Infrastructure as Code
10 153 (6.98%) Service Management
11 145 (6.62%) Technical Leadership
12 131 (5.98%) ITSM
13 121 (5.52%) Project Delivery
14 112 (5.11%) Risk Management
14 112 (5.11%) Service Delivery
15 111 (5.07%) Decision-Making
16 109 (4.97%) Containerisation
17 106 (4.84%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 197 (8.99%) Python
2 157 (7.17%) PowerShell
3 111 (5.07%) SQL
4 73 (3.33%) Bash
5 61 (2.78%) Java
6 44 (2.01%) JavaScript
7 35 (1.60%) C#
8 25 (1.14%) TypeScript
9 17 (0.78%) Bicep
9 17 (0.78%) Go
10 14 (0.64%) PL/SQL
10 14 (0.64%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (0.59%) C++
12 11 (0.50%) C
13 7 (0.32%) Groovy
13 7 (0.32%) Shell Script
14 6 (0.27%) Embedded C
14 6 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
14 6 (0.27%) Rust
14 6 (0.27%) X++
Qualifications
1 2,191 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 735 (33.55%) SC Cleared
3 75 (3.42%) Degree
4 57 (2.60%) CISSP
5 45 (2.05%) Cisco Certification
6 32 (1.46%) CISM
7 29 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
8 23 (1.05%) AWS Certification
8 23 (1.05%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 22 (1.00%) PMI Certification
10 20 (0.91%) PMP
11 19 (0.87%) VCAP
12 17 (0.78%) CCNP
12 17 (0.78%) ISTQB
12 17 (0.78%) TOGAF Certification
13 16 (0.73%) CCNA
14 15 (0.68%) Azure Certification
14 15 (0.68%) MCSE
15 14 (0.64%) CompTIA Security+
16 13 (0.59%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (3.70%) PMO
2 75 (3.42%) NCSC
3 72 (3.29%) NIST
4 55 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 52 (2.37%) QA
6 33 (1.51%) JSP 440
7 28 (1.28%) GDPR
8 24 (1.10%) Data Quality
8 24 (1.10%) SLA
9 18 (0.82%) GRC
10 17 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 17 (0.78%) RMADS
11 16 (0.73%) Government Security Classifications
12 14 (0.64%) Accessibility
13 12 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.50%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 8 (0.37%) WCAG
16 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
17 6 (0.27%) NIST 800
18 5 (0.23%) Def Stans
System Software
1 188 (8.58%) VMware Infrastructure
2 184 (8.40%) Active Directory
3 124 (5.66%) Docker
4 94 (4.29%) VMware NSX
5 67 (3.06%) VMware ESXi
6 61 (2.78%) Hyper-V
7 46 (2.10%) vSphere
8 24 (1.10%) vCloud
9 17 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
10 11 (0.50%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.37%) BitLocker
11 8 (0.37%) Microsoft App-V
11 8 (0.37%) NFS
12 6 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
13 5 (0.23%) Ceph
13 5 (0.23%) Firmware
14 4 (0.18%) Squid
14 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.14%) KVM
15 3 (0.14%) UAG
Systems Management
1 184 (8.40%) Terraform
2 181 (8.26%) Kubernetes
3 124 (5.66%) Ansible
4 83 (3.79%) vCenter Server
5 46 (2.10%) SCOM
6 32 (1.46%) SCCM
7 24 (1.10%) Prometheus
8 23 (1.05%) Puppet
9 22 (1.00%) Grafana
10 15 (0.68%) Nagios
10 15 (0.68%) Oracle RMAN
10 15 (0.68%) Podman
11 14 (0.64%) Avamar
11 14 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
11 14 (0.64%) VxRail
12 13 (0.59%) Data Guard
12 13 (0.59%) FortiGate
13 12 (0.55%) WSUS
14 10 (0.46%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
14 10 (0.46%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 263 (12.00%) Microsoft
2 261 (11.91%) VMware
3 119 (5.43%) ServiceNow
4 101 (4.61%) Oracle
5 97 (4.43%) Cisco
6 61 (2.78%) Splunk
7 56 (2.56%) SAP
8 52 (2.37%) Google
9 51 (2.33%) Juniper
10 46 (2.10%) SolarWinds
11 32 (1.46%) Red Hat
12 31 (1.41%) Remedy
13 28 (1.28%) F5
13 28 (1.28%) NetApp
14 26 (1.19%) Citrix
14 26 (1.19%) Palo Alto
15 24 (1.10%) Dell
16 21 (0.96%) BMC
17 20 (0.91%) CyberArk
18 19 (0.87%) Sparx