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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 85 31
Rank change year-on-year +36 -54 +34
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,940 833 2,407
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.98% 2.92% 5.64%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.58% 9.38% 18.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,455 588 1,745
10th Percentile £425 £450 £414
25th Percentile £513 £518 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £585 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £675 £656 £688
90th Percentile £750 £713 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £600
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 27 103
10th Percentile £17.05 £34.15 £49.45
25th Percentile £35.00 £59.87 £56.65
Median hourly rate £55.00 £78.70 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year -30.11% +11.81% +0.56%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.05 £84.70
90th Percentile £87.50 £88.05 £87.52
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.00 £80.34 £70.39
% change year-on-year -32.78% +14.13% -6.15%

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 15,427 8,877 12,756
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.65% 31.07% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,228 5,604 7,949
10th Percentile £350 £275 £307
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.43% -1.37% -3.64%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £645
90th Percentile £719 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £528
% change year-on-year - -5.30% +0.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,128 500 1,075
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.86 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.28 £17.94
Median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.36 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.94
% change year-on-year +46.15% -20.62% -21.47%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 1,795 £600 +2.13% 470
UK excluding London +11 1,402 £600 +4.35% 374
South East +8 776 £600 +2.56% 148
London +57 382 £600 - 109
South West -2 331 £564 -6.04% 139
Work from Home +37 261 £563 -2.17% 154
East of England +9 111 £650 +18.18% 37
North of England -8 81 £750 +265.85% 40
North West +9 67 £775 +278.05% 29
Midlands -47 58 £600 -4.00% 6
West Midlands -50 44 £600 -7.69% 6
Scotland +35 39 £669 +27.33% 5
East Midlands -19 14 £550 -
Yorkshire -42 12 £525 -16.00% 8
Northern Ireland - 6 £644 - 3
Wales -12 5 - - 1
North East - 2 £675 - 3

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 41 (2.11%) Confluence
2 36 (1.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (1.39%) SharePoint
4 11 (0.57%) Apache
5 7 (0.36%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.31%) Mattermost
7 5 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.21%) CMS
8 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
9 3 (0.15%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.10%) nginx
11 1 (0.052%) OpenStack
Applications
1 39 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (1.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.26%) AutoCAD
6 5 (0.26%) Revit
6 5 (0.26%) SOLIDWORKS
7 4 (0.21%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.10%) Lectora
8 2 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 27 (1.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.29%) Remedy ITSM
3 23 (1.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 5 (0.26%) Maximo
5 4 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
5 4 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.21%) SAP EWM
6 3 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.15%) SAP GRC
6 3 (0.15%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.10%) Primavera
7 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.052%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.052%) SAP CCM
8 1 (0.052%) SAP FI-GL
8 1 (0.052%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.052%) SAP QM
8 1 (0.052%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 189 (9.74%) AWS
2 168 (8.66%) Azure
3 71 (3.66%) GCP
4 44 (2.27%) PaaS
5 43 (2.22%) IaaS
6 41 (2.11%) GitHub
7 38 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
8 29 (1.49%) GitHub Actions
8 29 (1.49%) Microsoft 365
9 27 (1.39%) OpenShift
10 25 (1.29%) Serverless
11 22 (1.13%) Power Platform
12 17 (0.88%) OCI
13 15 (0.77%) Entra ID
14 14 (0.72%) Amazon ECS
15 13 (0.67%) Amazon EKS
15 13 (0.67%) SaaS
16 12 (0.62%) AWS Lambda
17 11 (0.57%) Amazon S3
17 11 (0.57%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 109 (5.62%) DNS
2 105 (5.41%) Firewall
3 71 (3.66%) Network Security
4 64 (3.30%) WAN
5 63 (3.25%) LAN
6 50 (2.58%) VPN
7 46 (2.37%) DHCP
8 42 (2.16%) BGP
9 28 (1.44%) OSPF
9 28 (1.44%) TCP/IP
10 20 (1.03%) Ethernet VPN
10 20 (1.03%) MPLS
10 20 (1.03%) VXLAN
11 19 (0.98%) VSAN
12 18 (0.93%) SAN
12 18 (0.93%) VLAN
13 16 (0.82%) BIG-IP
13 16 (0.82%) IPsec
13 16 (0.82%) Junos
13 16 (0.82%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (1.55%) SQL Server
2 26 (1.34%) Oracle Database
3 25 (1.29%) Elasticsearch
3 25 (1.29%) PostgreSQL
4 17 (0.88%) Power BI
5 13 (0.67%) MongoDB
6 12 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
7 8 (0.41%) Metadata
8 7 (0.36%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (0.36%) Hadoop
8 7 (0.36%) Redis
9 6 (0.31%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.31%) MariaDB
9 6 (0.31%) MySQL
9 6 (0.31%) NoSQL
10 5 (0.26%) Big Data
10 5 (0.26%) Oracle Database 11g
10 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 4 (0.21%) DynamoDB
11 4 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 72 (3.71%) JIRA
2 35 (1.80%) GitLab
3 26 (1.34%) Git
4 24 (1.24%) Jenkins
5 10 (0.52%) Cypress.io
6 9 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (0.36%) Robot Framework
8 6 (0.31%) Artifactory
8 6 (0.31%) Selenium
9 5 (0.26%) Maven
10 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
10 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.15%) MLflow
11 3 (0.15%) MSI
11 3 (0.15%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.15%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 2 (0.10%) Bitbucket
12 2 (0.10%) Cucumber
12 2 (0.10%) Gatling
12 2 (0.10%) REST Assured
General
1 291 (15.00%) Social Skills
2 216 (11.13%) Public Sector
3 115 (5.93%) Analytical Skills
4 76 (3.92%) Finance
5 65 (3.35%) Military
6 58 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
7 55 (2.84%) Legal
8 24 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
9 23 (1.19%) Telecoms
10 22 (1.13%) Law
10 22 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
11 20 (1.03%) Aerospace
12 14 (0.72%) Police
13 11 (0.57%) Manufacturing
14 10 (0.52%) Marketing
15 7 (0.36%) Electronics
16 4 (0.21%) Banking
16 4 (0.21%) Influencing Skills
17 3 (0.15%) Advertising
18 2 (0.10%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 307 (15.82%) Architect
2 154 (7.94%) Senior
3 146 (7.53%) Lead
4 130 (6.70%) Analyst
5 109 (5.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 107 (5.52%) Consultant
7 103 (5.31%) Developer
8 89 (4.59%) Network Engineer
9 74 (3.81%) SOC Analyst
10 73 (3.76%) Technical Architect
11 61 (3.14%) Security Architect
12 56 (2.89%) Tester
13 55 (2.84%) Project Manager
14 52 (2.68%) DevOps Engineer
15 50 (2.58%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 45 (2.32%) Software Engineer
17 39 (2.01%) Administrator
17 39 (2.01%) Service Manager
18 38 (1.96%) Designer
19 37 (1.91%) Enterprise Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (2.37%) REST
2 29 (1.49%) React
3 25 (1.29%) Elastic Stack
4 19 (0.98%) 802.1X
5 17 (0.88%) Node.js
6 16 (0.82%) AngularJS
6 16 (0.82%) Kafka
7 15 (0.77%) LDAP
7 15 (0.77%) SOAP
7 15 (0.77%) Spring
8 14 (0.72%) RESTful
9 13 (0.67%) Apache NiFi
9 13 (0.67%) Flask
9 13 (0.67%) Spring Boot
10 12 (0.62%) .NET
10 12 (0.62%) FastAPI
11 11 (0.57%) ModSecurity
11 11 (0.57%) SailPoint
12 10 (0.52%) OAuth
12 10 (0.52%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 99 (5.10%) PKI
2 70 (3.61%) Data Centre
3 53 (2.73%) Security Operations Centre
4 49 (2.53%) Cloud Native
5 33 (1.70%) Clustering
5 33 (1.70%) Onboarding
6 30 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 27 (1.39%) Product Ownership
8 24 (1.24%) Hybrid Cloud
9 23 (1.19%) Cyber Threat
10 21 (1.08%) Private Cloud
11 20 (1.03%) Cyberattack
12 19 (0.98%) Security Posture
13 17 (0.88%) Public Cloud
14 16 (0.82%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.82%) Virtual Team
15 15 (0.77%) Enterprise Storage
16 13 (0.67%) CMDB
16 13 (0.67%) Greenfield Project
16 13 (0.67%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 274 (14.12%) Windows
2 220 (11.34%) Linux
3 97 (5.00%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (1.19%) Windows 10
6 11 (0.57%) Ubuntu
7 10 (0.52%) Unix
8 8 (0.41%) Android
8 8 (0.41%) Debian
8 8 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
8 8 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.31%) AIX
9 6 (0.31%) CentOS
10 5 (0.26%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.26%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.26%) VMS
10 5 (0.26%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 328 (16.91%) Agile
2 199 (10.26%) Problem-Solving
3 171 (8.81%) ITIL
4 164 (8.45%) CI/CD
5 158 (8.14%) Cybersecurity
6 156 (8.04%) DevOps
7 149 (7.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 141 (7.27%) Continuous Improvement
9 125 (6.44%) Service Management
9 125 (6.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 112 (5.77%) Stakeholder Management
11 106 (5.46%) ITSM
12 100 (5.15%) Infrastructure as Code
13 94 (4.85%) Project Delivery
14 90 (4.64%) Decision-Making
15 83 (4.28%) Risk Management
15 83 (4.28%) SIEM
16 80 (4.12%) Security Operations
17 77 (3.97%) Containerisation
18 75 (3.87%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 148 (7.63%) Python
2 117 (6.03%) PowerShell
3 81 (4.18%) SQL
4 41 (2.11%) Java
5 36 (1.86%) JavaScript
6 35 (1.80%) Bash
7 23 (1.19%) TypeScript
8 21 (1.08%) C#
9 15 (0.77%) Go
10 14 (0.72%) Search Processing Language
11 12 (0.62%) PL/SQL
12 10 (0.52%) Bicep
13 9 (0.46%) C
13 9 (0.46%) C++
13 9 (0.46%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.36%) Rust
15 6 (0.31%) Embedded C
16 5 (0.26%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
17 4 (0.21%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,940 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 630 (32.47%) SC Cleared
3 64 (3.30%) Degree
4 54 (2.78%) CISSP
5 53 (2.73%) Cisco Certification
6 36 (1.86%) CISM
7 24 (1.24%) CCNA
7 24 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
8 23 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
9 22 (1.13%) CCNP
10 19 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
11 18 (0.93%) CESG Certified Professional
12 17 (0.88%) AWS Certification
13 15 (0.77%) GIAC
14 14 (0.72%) BPSS Clearance
14 14 (0.72%) PMP
14 14 (0.72%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 13 (0.67%) CompTIA CySA+
15 13 (0.67%) ISTQB
16 12 (0.62%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 77 (3.97%) NIST
2 62 (3.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 50 (2.58%) NCSC
4 49 (2.53%) QA
5 46 (2.37%) PMO
6 39 (2.01%) JSP 440
7 24 (1.24%) GRC
7 24 (1.24%) RMADS
8 23 (1.19%) SLA
9 19 (0.98%) GDPR
10 11 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
11 9 (0.46%) Accessibility
11 9 (0.46%) Data Quality
11 9 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 8 (0.41%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.31%) Government Security Classifications
13 6 (0.31%) WCAG
14 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 3 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 128 (6.60%) Active Directory
1 128 (6.60%) VMware Infrastructure
2 96 (4.95%) Docker
3 59 (3.04%) VMware NSX
4 48 (2.47%) VMware ESXi
5 41 (2.11%) Hyper-V
6 23 (1.19%) vSphere
7 20 (1.03%) vCloud
8 10 (0.52%) BitLocker
9 9 (0.46%) Firmware
9 9 (0.46%) Oracle RAC
10 8 (0.41%) Microsoft App-V
11 7 (0.36%) NFS
12 5 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
12 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
13 4 (0.21%) Ceph
13 4 (0.21%) UAG
14 3 (0.15%) Squid
15 2 (0.10%) GPFS
15 2 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 130 (6.70%) Kubernetes
2 125 (6.44%) Terraform
3 85 (4.38%) Ansible
4 62 (3.20%) vCenter Server
5 29 (1.49%) SCOM
6 27 (1.39%) SCCM
7 19 (0.98%) Grafana
7 19 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 17 (0.88%) Prometheus
10 16 (0.82%) Puppet
11 13 (0.67%) FortiGate
12 12 (0.62%) Podman
13 11 (0.57%) Nagios
14 10 (0.52%) Data Guard
14 10 (0.52%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 10 (0.52%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 10 (0.52%) WMI
15 9 (0.46%) Nessus
15 9 (0.46%) WSUS
Vendors
1 215 (11.08%) VMware
2 179 (9.23%) Microsoft
3 107 (5.52%) Cisco
4 72 (3.71%) ServiceNow
5 69 (3.56%) Splunk
6 51 (2.63%) Oracle
7 46 (2.37%) NetApp
8 45 (2.32%) Juniper
9 43 (2.22%) Red Hat
10 40 (2.06%) SAP
11 30 (1.55%) F5
12 29 (1.49%) SolarWinds
13 26 (1.34%) Remedy
14 23 (1.19%) Dell
14 23 (1.19%) Fortinet
14 23 (1.19%) Google
14 23 (1.19%) Sparx
15 20 (1.03%) Palo Alto
16 19 (0.98%) Citrix
17 18 (0.93%) BMC