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

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 79 32
Rank change year-on-year +29 -47 +26
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,019 917 2,441
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.93% 3.00% 5.65%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.60% 9.70% 18.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,532 632 1,756
10th Percentile £430 £459 £425
25th Percentile £513 £519 £519
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% -
75th Percentile £688 £656 £688
90th Percentile £750 £713 £765
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £600
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% +0.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 29 120
10th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £49.90
25th Percentile £35.00 £36.25 £56.65
Median hourly rate £48.84 £80.00 £71.75
Median % change year-on-year -38.95% +11.50% +2.50%
75th Percentile £68.00 £82.96 £85.65
90th Percentile £81.96 £88.87 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.77 £81.35 £71.17
% change year-on-year -43.73% +14.31% -5.11%

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 16,028 9,450 12,874
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.23% 30.88% 29.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,706 5,857 7,950
10th Percentile £350 £275 £312
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.77% -0.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £701 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £500 £528
% change year-on-year +1.40% -5.30% +0.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,161 635 1,116
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.78 £20.19 £20.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £28.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +77.62% -31.24% -26.00%
75th Percentile £72.54 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.13 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.33% -36.92% -19.87%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +25 1,875 £600 +2.13% 379
UK excluding London +11 1,440 £600 +4.35% 324
South East +5 784 £600 +2.13% 159
London +52 414 £600 - 79
South West -3 372 £575 -4.17% 97
Work from Home +52 313 £560 -2.61% 118
East of England +14 103 £650 +18.18% 31
North of England -6 86 £775 +24.00% 27
North West +7 66 £775 +278.05% 24
Midlands -57 52 £600 - 13
West Midlands -61 41 £600 - 10
Scotland +19 38 £669 +33.70% 5
Yorkshire -37 17 £525 -16.00% 2
East Midlands -7 11 £518 -5.91% 3
Northern Ireland +8 7 £619 -
Wales -10 4 - -
North East -32 3 £569 -9.00% 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 43 (2.13%) Confluence
2 41 (2.03%) Microsoft Exchange
3 30 (1.49%) SharePoint
4 6 (0.30%) Apache Spark
4 6 (0.30%) Mattermost
5 5 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.25%) CMS
5 5 (0.25%) Documentum
5 5 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
6 4 (0.20%) Apache
6 4 (0.20%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.099%) nginx
7 2 (0.099%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.050%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.050%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.050%) Mule
Applications
1 35 (1.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 31 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.19%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.45%) AutoCAD
5 9 (0.45%) Revit
5 9 (0.45%) SOLIDWORKS
6 6 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.20%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.099%) Lectora
8 2 (0.099%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.19%) Remedy ITSM
3 20 (0.99%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 18 (0.89%) Oracle ERP
5 7 (0.35%) Teamcenter
6 5 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
7 4 (0.20%) Oracle Assets
7 4 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 4 (0.20%) SAP EWM
7 4 (0.20%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.15%) SAP GRC
9 2 (0.099%) Maximo
9 2 (0.099%) Primavera
9 2 (0.099%) Siebel CRM
10 1 (0.050%) Oracle Applications
10 1 (0.050%) SAP CCM
10 1 (0.050%) SAP FI-GL
10 1 (0.050%) SAP HR
10 1 (0.050%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 226 (11.19%) AWS
2 203 (10.05%) Azure
3 92 (4.56%) GCP
4 52 (2.58%) GitHub
5 45 (2.23%) Azure DevOps
6 41 (2.03%) GitHub Actions
6 41 (2.03%) IaaS
6 41 (2.03%) PaaS
7 33 (1.63%) Serverless
8 32 (1.58%) Microsoft 365
9 26 (1.29%) OpenShift
10 24 (1.19%) OCI
10 24 (1.19%) Power Platform
11 19 (0.94%) AWS Lambda
11 19 (0.94%) Entra ID
11 19 (0.94%) SaaS
12 17 (0.84%) Amazon ECS
12 17 (0.84%) Amazon EKS
13 14 (0.69%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 13 (0.64%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 115 (5.70%) DNS
2 105 (5.20%) Firewall
3 75 (3.71%) Network Security
4 65 (3.22%) WAN
5 64 (3.17%) LAN
6 54 (2.67%) DHCP
7 51 (2.53%) VPN
8 44 (2.18%) BGP
9 29 (1.44%) OSPF
10 27 (1.34%) VLAN
11 22 (1.09%) VXLAN
12 21 (1.04%) IPsec
12 21 (1.04%) MPLS
12 21 (1.04%) TCP/IP
13 20 (0.99%) Ethernet VPN
14 19 (0.94%) BIG-IP
15 18 (0.89%) VSAN
16 17 (0.84%) SD-WAN
17 16 (0.79%) Cisco Nexus
17 16 (0.79%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (1.98%) SQL Server
2 35 (1.73%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.68%) PostgreSQL
4 27 (1.34%) Elasticsearch
5 19 (0.94%) Power BI
6 14 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.64%) MongoDB
8 11 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
8 11 (0.54%) Metadata
9 7 (0.35%) Data Lake
9 7 (0.35%) Redis
10 6 (0.30%) NoSQL
10 6 (0.30%) Oracle Database 11g
11 5 (0.25%) Big Data
11 5 (0.25%) BigQuery
11 5 (0.25%) DynamoDB
11 5 (0.25%) Hadoop
11 5 (0.25%) MariaDB
11 5 (0.25%) MySQL
12 4 (0.20%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 76 (3.76%) JIRA
2 44 (2.18%) GitLab
3 41 (2.03%) Jenkins
4 32 (1.58%) Git
5 13 (0.64%) Cypress.io
6 9 (0.45%) Selenium
7 7 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.30%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.25%) Cucumber
9 5 (0.25%) SpecFlow
10 4 (0.20%) Oracle APEX
10 4 (0.20%) Postman
10 4 (0.20%) Robot Framework
10 4 (0.20%) SonarQube
10 4 (0.20%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.15%) Appium
11 3 (0.15%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.15%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.15%) ERwin
11 3 (0.15%) MLflow
General
1 325 (16.10%) Social Skills
2 264 (13.08%) Public Sector
3 116 (5.75%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (4.75%) Finance
5 73 (3.62%) Military
6 62 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
7 50 (2.48%) Legal
8 25 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
9 24 (1.19%) Telecoms
10 23 (1.14%) Law
11 22 (1.09%) Aerospace
12 21 (1.04%) Police
13 19 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
14 14 (0.69%) Manufacturing
15 12 (0.59%) Influencing Skills
16 10 (0.50%) Marketing
17 7 (0.35%) Local Government
18 5 (0.25%) Electronics
19 3 (0.15%) Advertising
19 3 (0.15%) Banking
Job Titles
1 307 (15.21%) Architect
2 190 (9.41%) Lead
3 172 (8.52%) Senior
4 136 (6.74%) Analyst
5 126 (6.24%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 125 (6.19%) Developer
7 113 (5.60%) Consultant
8 83 (4.11%) Network Engineer
9 81 (4.01%) Technical Architect
10 74 (3.67%) SOC Analyst
11 72 (3.57%) Security Architect
12 62 (3.07%) Project Manager
13 51 (2.53%) DBA
14 50 (2.48%) Tester
15 49 (2.43%) DevOps Engineer
16 47 (2.33%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 47 (2.33%) Service Manager
17 43 (2.13%) DV Cleared Project Manager
17 43 (2.13%) Software Engineer
18 40 (1.98%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (3.07%) REST
2 28 (1.39%) Elastic Stack
2 28 (1.39%) React
3 24 (1.19%) SOAP
4 19 (0.94%) 802.1X
4 19 (0.94%) Node.js
5 18 (0.89%) Kafka
6 17 (0.84%) RESTful
6 17 (0.84%) Spring
7 15 (0.74%) AngularJS
7 15 (0.74%) Flask
8 14 (0.69%) FastAPI
8 14 (0.69%) Spring Boot
9 13 (0.64%) .NET
10 12 (0.59%) ModSecurity
11 11 (0.54%) Oracle Fusion
12 10 (0.50%) Apache NiFi
12 10 (0.50%) Playwright
13 9 (0.45%) LDAP
13 9 (0.45%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 88 (4.36%) PKI
2 86 (4.26%) Data Centre
3 64 (3.17%) Cloud Native
4 50 (2.48%) Security Operations Centre
5 38 (1.88%) Onboarding
6 36 (1.78%) Clustering
7 31 (1.54%) Private Cloud
7 31 (1.54%) Product Ownership
8 29 (1.44%) Security Posture
9 27 (1.34%) Hybrid Cloud
9 27 (1.34%) Management Information System
10 25 (1.24%) CMDB
11 22 (1.09%) Cyber Threat
12 21 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
13 19 (0.94%) Public Cloud
14 16 (0.79%) Virtual Team
15 14 (0.69%) Legacy Systems
16 13 (0.64%) Enterprise Storage
16 13 (0.64%) Greenfield Project
17 12 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 260 (12.88%) Windows
2 206 (10.20%) Linux
3 109 (5.40%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.79%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.50%) Unix
7 7 (0.35%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.35%) Windows Server 2003
7 7 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.30%) AIX
8 6 (0.30%) Android
9 5 (0.25%) CentOS
9 5 (0.25%) Debian
9 5 (0.25%) VMS
10 4 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.20%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
11 3 (0.15%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 337 (16.69%) Agile
2 201 (9.96%) Problem-Solving
3 193 (9.56%) ITIL
4 174 (8.62%) Continuous Improvement
5 171 (8.47%) CI/CD
6 169 (8.37%) Cybersecurity
7 168 (8.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 167 (8.27%) DevOps
9 151 (7.48%) Stakeholder Management
10 145 (7.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 136 (6.74%) Service Management
12 113 (5.60%) ITSM
13 111 (5.50%) Infrastructure as Code
14 104 (5.15%) Project Delivery
15 92 (4.56%) Containerisation
16 91 (4.51%) Decision-Making
16 91 (4.51%) Risk Management
16 91 (4.51%) Technical Leadership
17 89 (4.41%) Service Delivery
18 84 (4.16%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 168 (8.32%) Python
2 108 (5.35%) PowerShell
3 98 (4.85%) SQL
4 53 (2.63%) Java
5 45 (2.23%) JavaScript
6 38 (1.88%) Bash
7 30 (1.49%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.34%) C#
9 17 (0.84%) Go
10 14 (0.69%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (0.64%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.54%) C++
13 10 (0.50%) C
14 9 (0.45%) Rust
15 8 (0.40%) Bicep
15 8 (0.40%) Shell Script
16 6 (0.30%) Embedded C
16 6 (0.30%) Perl
17 5 (0.25%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,019 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 674 (33.38%) SC Cleared
3 62 (3.07%) Degree
4 53 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
5 46 (2.28%) CISSP
6 28 (1.39%) CISM
7 25 (1.24%) Microsoft Certification
8 22 (1.09%) AWS Certification
8 22 (1.09%) CCNP
9 20 (0.99%) CCNA
9 20 (0.99%) CompTIA Security+
10 18 (0.89%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 17 (0.84%) BPSS Clearance
11 17 (0.84%) PMI Certification
12 16 (0.79%) ISTQB
12 16 (0.79%) PMP
13 15 (0.74%) MCSE
14 14 (0.69%) CESG Certified Professional
15 11 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
15 11 (0.54%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (3.71%) NIST
2 67 (3.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 66 (3.27%) NCSC
4 55 (2.72%) PMO
5 51 (2.53%) QA
6 41 (2.03%) JSP 440
7 27 (1.34%) GDPR
8 23 (1.14%) RMADS
8 23 (1.14%) SLA
9 22 (1.09%) GRC
10 11 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
11 10 (0.50%) Accessibility
12 9 (0.45%) Data Quality
12 9 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
12 9 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 7 (0.35%) NIST 800
14 6 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 6 (0.30%) ISO 9000
14 6 (0.30%) WCAG
15 5 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 135 (6.69%) VMware Infrastructure
2 128 (6.34%) Active Directory
3 110 (5.45%) Docker
4 67 (3.32%) VMware NSX
5 51 (2.53%) VMware ESXi
6 45 (2.23%) Hyper-V
7 25 (1.24%) vSphere
8 21 (1.04%) vCloud
9 11 (0.54%) BitLocker
10 10 (0.50%) Oracle RAC
10 10 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
11 9 (0.45%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.35%) NFS
13 5 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
14 4 (0.20%) Ceph
14 4 (0.20%) Firmware
14 4 (0.20%) Terminal Services
14 4 (0.20%) UAG
15 3 (0.15%) Squid
16 2 (0.099%) KVM
Systems Management
1 148 (7.33%) Kubernetes
2 141 (6.98%) Terraform
3 84 (4.16%) Ansible
4 60 (2.97%) vCenter Server
5 31 (1.54%) SCOM
6 28 (1.39%) SCCM
7 21 (1.04%) Grafana
7 21 (1.04%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.84%) Puppet
9 13 (0.64%) FortiGate
9 13 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.59%) Data Guard
10 12 (0.59%) Nagios
10 12 (0.59%) Podman
11 11 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 10 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
12 10 (0.50%) WSUS
13 9 (0.45%) vMotion
14 8 (0.40%) Avamar
14 8 (0.40%) VxRail
Vendors
1 208 (10.30%) VMware
2 198 (9.81%) Microsoft
3 108 (5.35%) ServiceNow
4 103 (5.10%) Cisco
5 84 (4.16%) Oracle
6 58 (2.87%) Splunk
7 45 (2.23%) Juniper
8 40 (1.98%) SAP
9 39 (1.93%) Google
10 38 (1.88%) SolarWinds
11 34 (1.68%) NetApp
12 32 (1.58%) Red Hat
13 30 (1.49%) F5
14 26 (1.29%) Palo Alto
15 24 (1.19%) Remedy
16 23 (1.14%) Citrix
17 22 (1.09%) Fortinet
18 21 (1.04%) Dell
19 20 (0.99%) Sparx
20 18 (0.89%) BMC