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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 79 35
Rank change year-on-year +30 -44 +21
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,169 992 2,014
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.05% 3.02% 5.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.93% 9.65% 17.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,659 691 1,430
10th Percentile £456 £459 £425
25th Percentile £515 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £590 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -1.67% +4.17%
75th Percentile £700 £663 £688
90th Percentile £761 £715 £765
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £600
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 38 98
10th Percentile £35.00 - £49.70
25th Percentile £45.05 £25.15 £57.75
Median hourly rate £70.00 £52.50 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -25.42% +0.92%
75th Percentile £92.53 £81.84 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.76 £87.91 £92.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £81.35 £70.39
% change year-on-year -13.95% +15.57% -3.06%

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 16,777 10,277 11,609
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.32% 31.26% 29.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,244 6,313 7,369
10th Percentile £350 £288 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,269 822 822
10th Percentile £17.84 £17.98 £14.54
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £73.75 £53.93 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £73.75 £76.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -6.40%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +25 2,034 £600 +1.65% 825
UK excluding London +15 1,560 £600 +3.45% 704
South East +5 907 £600 - 233
London +46 452 £605 -3.20% 194
South West 0 408 £589 -1.88% 232
Work from Home +47 330 £578 -1.91% 409
East of England +10 96 £650 +18.18% 102
North of England -24 64 £775 +24.00% 83
Midlands -60 46 £600 +3.23% 14
North West -10 43 £863 +50.00% 67
West Midlands -58 42 £600 +3.23% 9
Scotland +15 37 £669 +30.44% 39
Yorkshire -30 16 £518 -17.20% 14
North East -35 5 £463 -26.00% 6
Northern Ireland +7 4 £638 -8.93% 7
Wales -15 4 - - 3
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 62 (2.86%) Confluence
2 42 (1.94%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.80%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.41%) Apache
5 7 (0.32%) Documentum
6 6 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.28%) CMS
6 6 (0.28%) Mattermost
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%) Mule
9 2 (0.092%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.092%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.092%) WebLogic
Applications
1 56 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (2.12%) Microsoft Project
3 24 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.97%) Microsoft Office
5 14 (0.65%) AutoCAD
5 14 (0.65%) Revit
5 14 (0.65%) SOLIDWORKS
6 11 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.18%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 28 (1.29%) Remedy ITSM
1 28 (1.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.24%) Oracle ERP
3 18 (0.83%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 14 (0.65%) Teamcenter
5 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
6 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
7 4 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.18%) Primavera
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.14%) SAP PP
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Assets
9 2 (0.092%) Siebel CRM
10 1 (0.046%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 1 (0.046%) SAP FI-GL
10 1 (0.046%) SAP GRC
10 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 284 (13.09%) Azure
2 263 (12.13%) AWS
3 106 (4.89%) GCP
4 57 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
5 47 (2.17%) GitHub
5 47 (2.17%) Microsoft 365
6 40 (1.84%) GitHub Actions
7 39 (1.80%) Entra ID
7 39 (1.80%) Power Platform
8 38 (1.75%) Serverless
9 37 (1.71%) IaaS
10 35 (1.61%) OCI
11 34 (1.57%) PaaS
12 25 (1.15%) AWS Lambda
13 23 (1.06%) OpenShift
14 20 (0.92%) Amazon ECS
14 20 (0.92%) Amazon EKS
15 19 (0.88%) SaaS
16 18 (0.83%) Amazon S3
16 18 (0.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 156 (7.19%) DNS
2 124 (5.72%) Firewall
3 79 (3.64%) DHCP
4 67 (3.09%) Network Security
5 66 (3.04%) WAN
6 61 (2.81%) LAN
7 52 (2.40%) VPN
8 50 (2.31%) TCP/IP
9 48 (2.21%) BGP
10 42 (1.94%) VSAN
11 33 (1.52%) IPsec
12 31 (1.43%) MPLS
13 26 (1.20%) VLAN
14 18 (0.83%) OSPF
14 18 (0.83%) SSL
15 16 (0.74%) Cisco ASA
16 15 (0.69%) Cisco Firepower
16 15 (0.69%) SD-WAN
17 14 (0.65%) Skype
18 13 (0.60%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (2.26%) SQL Server
2 38 (1.75%) Oracle Database
3 31 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.11%) Power BI
5 18 (0.83%) Metadata
6 16 (0.74%) Data Lake
6 16 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
7 15 (0.69%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (0.60%) MongoDB
9 10 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
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 5 (0.23%) Amazon Redshift
12 5 (0.23%) Redis
Development Applications
1 105 (4.84%) JIRA
2 62 (2.86%) GitLab
3 53 (2.44%) Jenkins
4 45 (2.07%) Git
5 14 (0.65%) Cypress.io
6 12 (0.55%) Selenium
7 7 (0.32%) Visual Studio
8 6 (0.28%) Postman
8 6 (0.28%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.23%) MSI
9 5 (0.23%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.23%) SpecFlow
10 4 (0.18%) Artifactory
10 4 (0.18%) Cucumber
11 3 (0.14%) Appium
11 3 (0.14%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.14%) Gatling
11 3 (0.14%) Robot Framework
11 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 425 (19.59%) Social Skills
2 284 (13.09%) Public Sector
3 151 (6.96%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (6.18%) Finance
5 61 (2.81%) Military
6 59 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
7 42 (1.94%) Legal
8 41 (1.89%) Organisational Skills
9 30 (1.38%) Law
10 29 (1.34%) Police
11 25 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
12 24 (1.11%) Telecoms
13 23 (1.06%) Aerospace
14 20 (0.92%) Manufacturing
15 14 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
16 8 (0.37%) 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
1 354 (16.32%) Architect
2 244 (11.25%) Lead
3 202 (9.31%) Senior
4 148 (6.82%) Consultant
4 148 (6.82%) Developer
5 147 (6.78%) Analyst
6 146 (6.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 91 (4.20%) Security Architect
8 86 (3.96%) Network Engineer
9 76 (3.50%) SOC Analyst
10 65 (3.00%) Technical Architect
11 61 (2.81%) Cloud Engineer
12 60 (2.77%) Project Manager
13 52 (2.40%) Support Engineer
14 50 (2.31%) DevOps Engineer
15 49 (2.26%) DBA
16 47 (2.17%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 43 (1.98%) DV Cleared Project Manager
18 42 (1.94%) Senior Network Engineer
19 41 (1.89%) Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (3.41%) REST
2 32 (1.48%) Elastic Stack
3 26 (1.20%) SOAP
4 24 (1.11%) React
5 19 (0.88%) RESTful
6 17 (0.78%) .NET
6 17 (0.78%) Kafka
7 15 (0.69%) Node.js
7 15 (0.69%) Oracle Fusion
8 14 (0.65%) FastAPI
8 14 (0.65%) Flask
8 14 (0.65%) OAuth
9 13 (0.60%) AngularJS
9 13 (0.60%) LDAP
10 11 (0.51%) ARM Templates
10 11 (0.51%) Spring
10 11 (0.51%) Spring Boot
10 11 (0.51%) XML
11 10 (0.46%) 802.1X
11 10 (0.46%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 100 (4.61%) PKI
2 96 (4.43%) Data Centre
3 88 (4.06%) Cloud Native
4 67 (3.09%) Onboarding
5 50 (2.31%) Security Operations Centre
6 38 (1.75%) Product Ownership
7 37 (1.71%) Hybrid Cloud
7 37 (1.71%) Private Cloud
8 33 (1.52%) Management Information System
9 31 (1.43%) Cyber Threat
10 29 (1.34%) Public Cloud
11 26 (1.20%) Clustering
11 26 (1.20%) Distributed Systems
12 25 (1.15%) Security Posture
13 24 (1.11%) CMDB
14 19 (0.88%) Virtual Team
15 18 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
15 18 (0.83%) Replication
16 15 (0.69%) Enterprise Storage
17 14 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 329 (15.17%) Windows
2 235 (10.83%) Linux
3 157 (7.24%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 26 (1.20%) Windows 10
6 23 (1.06%) Windows Server 2019
7 14 (0.65%) Unix
8 12 (0.55%) CentOS
8 12 (0.55%) Ubuntu
9 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
10 9 (0.41%) Mac OS
11 7 (0.32%) VMS
12 6 (0.28%) AIX
12 6 (0.28%) Android
13 5 (0.23%) Debian
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
14 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 373 (17.20%) Agile
2 234 (10.79%) Stakeholder Management
3 223 (10.28%) Continuous Improvement
4 218 (10.05%) CI/CD
5 217 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
6 207 (9.54%) Problem-Solving
7 195 (8.99%) DevOps
8 193 (8.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 191 (8.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 190 (8.76%) ITIL
11 163 (7.51%) Infrastructure as Code
12 162 (7.47%) Technical Leadership
13 149 (6.87%) Service Management
14 130 (5.99%) ITSM
15 117 (5.39%) Risk Management
16 116 (5.35%) Containerisation
17 115 (5.30%) Project Delivery
18 109 (5.03%) Decision-Making
19 107 (4.93%) SIEM
20 105 (4.84%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 203 (9.36%) Python
2 170 (7.84%) PowerShell
3 111 (5.12%) SQL
4 82 (3.78%) Bash
5 59 (2.72%) Java
6 42 (1.94%) JavaScript
7 37 (1.71%) C#
8 23 (1.06%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.83%) Bicep
9 18 (0.83%) Go
10 14 (0.65%) C++
10 14 (0.65%) PL/SQL
10 14 (0.65%) Search Processing Language
11 11 (0.51%) C
12 7 (0.32%) Groovy
12 7 (0.32%) Shell Script
13 6 (0.28%) Embedded C
13 6 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
13 6 (0.28%) Perl
13 6 (0.28%) X++
Qualifications
1 2,169 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 721 (33.24%) SC Cleared
3 75 (3.46%) Degree
4 68 (3.14%) CISSP
5 43 (1.98%) CISM
6 37 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.34%) Microsoft Certification
8 23 (1.06%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 21 (0.97%) PMI Certification
10 20 (0.92%) AWS Certification
10 20 (0.92%) ISTQB
10 20 (0.92%) VCAP
11 19 (0.88%) PMP
12 17 (0.78%) TOGAF Certification
13 15 (0.69%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
13 15 (0.69%) MCSE
14 14 (0.65%) CCNP
15 13 (0.60%) CCNA
15 13 (0.60%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (3.96%) NCSC
2 80 (3.69%) PMO
3 78 (3.60%) NIST
4 59 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 54 (2.49%) QA
6 37 (1.71%) JSP 440
7 30 (1.38%) GDPR
8 26 (1.20%) SLA
9 25 (1.15%) Data Quality
10 19 (0.88%) GRC
11 18 (0.83%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 17 (0.78%) Government Security Classifications
12 17 (0.78%) RMADS
13 16 (0.74%) Accessibility
14 11 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.51%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 8 (0.37%) WCAG
16 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
17 6 (0.28%) NIST 800
18 5 (0.23%) Def Stans
System Software
1 201 (9.27%) Active Directory
2 187 (8.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 120 (5.53%) Docker
4 95 (4.38%) VMware NSX
5 69 (3.18%) VMware ESXi
6 61 (2.81%) Hyper-V
7 50 (2.31%) vSphere
8 25 (1.15%) vCloud
9 18 (0.83%) Virtual Desktop
10 11 (0.51%) 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 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
1 192 (8.85%) Kubernetes
2 188 (8.67%) Terraform
3 132 (6.09%) Ansible
4 82 (3.78%) vCenter Server
5 49 (2.26%) SCOM
6 34 (1.57%) SCCM
7 25 (1.15%) Prometheus
8 23 (1.06%) Grafana
9 22 (1.01%) Puppet
10 15 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
10 15 (0.69%) Nagios
10 15 (0.69%) Oracle RMAN
10 15 (0.69%) VxRail
11 14 (0.65%) Avamar
11 14 (0.65%) Podman
11 14 (0.65%) WSUS
12 13 (0.60%) Data Guard
13 11 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 11 (0.51%) Progress Chef
14 10 (0.46%) WMI
Vendors
1 284 (13.09%) Microsoft
2 264 (12.17%) VMware
3 110 (5.07%) ServiceNow
4 103 (4.75%) Oracle
5 84 (3.87%) Cisco
6 56 (2.58%) Splunk
7 55 (2.54%) SAP
8 52 (2.40%) Google
9 38 (1.75%) Juniper
10 37 (1.71%) SolarWinds
11 33 (1.52%) Red Hat
12 30 (1.38%) Remedy
13 25 (1.15%) Citrix
13 25 (1.15%) CyberArk
13 25 (1.15%) Palo Alto
14 24 (1.11%) Dell
15 23 (1.06%) NetApp
16 20 (0.92%) BMC
17 19 (0.88%) F5
18 18 (0.83%) Sparx