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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 84 39
Rank change year-on-year +35 -45 +15
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,254 959 1,802
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.13% 2.95% 4.74%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.05% 9.38% 16.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,661 678 1,189
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £513 £516 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% +4.35%
75th Percentile £700 £650 £688
90th Percentile £763 £725 £767
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £588
% change year-on-year +4.35% -2.13% +3.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 131 32 92
10th Percentile £45.00 - £50.00
25th Percentile £58.43 £25.15 £58.24
Median hourly rate £74.50 £45.00 £68.91
Median % change year-on-year +65.56% -34.69% -1.56%
75th Percentile £92.53 £80.34 £80.00
90th Percentile £98.82 £87.48 £97.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.59 £70.00 £66.25
% change year-on-year +6.56% +5.66% -8.41%

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 17,270 10,222 11,109
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.65% 31.47% 29.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,482 6,385 6,811
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.52% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £638
90th Percentile £715 £711 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,381 837 637
10th Percentile £17.17 £17.87 £17.05
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -7.41%
75th Percentile £72.50 £43.75 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £70.50 £75.74
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.10% +1.18%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 September 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 +33 2,126 £600 +4.35% 1,248
UK excluding London +15 1,625 £600 +4.35% 999
South East +5 869 £600 +3.45% 333
South West +7 505 £588 -2.08% 294
London +54 481 £625 - 253
Work from Home +59 351 £560 -6.67% 566
East of England +16 113 £675 +22.73% 138
North of England -25 54 £713 +23.91% 110
Midlands -76 42 £600 - 43
Scotland -1 38 £669 +27.33% 89
West Midlands -78 37 £600 - 24
North West -23 35 £775 +55.00% 78
Yorkshire -32 14 £510 -18.40% 12
Northern Ireland +6 5 £638 +6.25% 4
North East -31 5 £463 -26.00% 20
East Midlands - 5 £625 - 19
Wales -8 4 - - 6

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 72 (3.19%) Confluence
2 56 (2.48%) SharePoint
3 41 (1.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (0.67%) Apache
5 9 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.35%) Apache Spark
7 7 (0.31%) Documentum
8 6 (0.27%) CMS
9 5 (0.22%) IIS
10 4 (0.18%) Camunda
10 4 (0.18%) nginx
11 3 (0.13%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
12 2 (0.089%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.089%) Mule
12 2 (0.089%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
12 2 (0.089%) Palantir Foundry
12 2 (0.089%) WebLogic
13 1 (0.044%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 64 (2.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (2.04%) Microsoft Project
3 33 (1.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (1.06%) Microsoft Office
5 17 (0.75%) AutoCAD
6 16 (0.71%) Revit
6 16 (0.71%) SOLIDWORKS
7 10 (0.44%) MS Visio
8 9 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.089%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.29%) Oracle ERP
2 24 (1.06%) SAP S/4HANA
3 21 (0.93%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.80%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.62%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.22%) Primavera
7 5 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Financials
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
8 3 (0.13%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.13%) SAP PP
9 2 (0.089%) Siebel CRM
10 1 (0.044%) Oracle Assets
10 1 (0.044%) SAP CCM
10 1 (0.044%) SAP FI-GL
10 1 (0.044%) SAP GRC
10 1 (0.044%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 309 (13.71%) Azure
2 297 (13.18%) AWS
3 111 (4.92%) GCP
4 62 (2.75%) Azure DevOps
5 57 (2.53%) Microsoft 365
6 49 (2.17%) GitHub
7 43 (1.91%) Entra ID
8 41 (1.82%) GitHub Actions
9 38 (1.69%) Power Platform
10 37 (1.64%) Serverless
11 32 (1.42%) OCI
12 30 (1.33%) OpenShift
13 27 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
14 23 (1.02%) Amazon EKS
14 23 (1.02%) IaaS
15 21 (0.93%) Amazon ECS
16 19 (0.84%) PaaS
16 19 (0.84%) SaaS
17 17 (0.75%) Amazon S3
17 17 (0.75%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 167 (7.41%) DNS
2 120 (5.32%) Firewall
3 84 (3.73%) DHCP
4 72 (3.19%) Network Security
5 60 (2.66%) WAN
6 55 (2.44%) TCP/IP
7 52 (2.31%) VPN
8 49 (2.17%) BGP
8 49 (2.17%) LAN
9 37 (1.64%) VSAN
10 36 (1.60%) MPLS
11 32 (1.42%) IPsec
12 30 (1.33%) VLAN
13 20 (0.89%) SSL
14 18 (0.80%) SD-WAN
15 17 (0.75%) SAN
16 16 (0.71%) Cisco ASA
16 16 (0.71%) OSPF
17 14 (0.62%) Cisco Nexus
17 14 (0.62%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (2.40%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.00%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.42%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.06%) Metadata
5 23 (1.02%) Power BI
5 23 (1.02%) Relational Database
6 19 (0.84%) Data Lake
6 19 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
7 15 (0.67%) Data Warehouse
7 15 (0.67%) MongoDB
8 10 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
9 9 (0.40%) Big Data
9 9 (0.40%) NoSQL
9 9 (0.40%) Oracle Database 11g
10 8 (0.35%) BigQuery
10 8 (0.35%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 8 (0.35%) Oracle Database 12c
10 8 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
11 6 (0.27%) Hadoop
11 6 (0.27%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 111 (4.92%) JIRA
2 80 (3.55%) GitLab
3 79 (3.50%) Git
4 78 (3.46%) Jenkins
5 30 (1.33%) Selenium
6 15 (0.67%) Cypress.io
7 11 (0.49%) Cucumber
8 8 (0.35%) JUnit
8 8 (0.35%) MSI
8 8 (0.35%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.31%) Postman
9 7 (0.31%) REST Assured
9 7 (0.31%) Visual Studio
10 6 (0.27%) Gatling
10 6 (0.27%) JMeter
10 6 (0.27%) SpecFlow
11 5 (0.22%) Maven
11 5 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.18%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.18%) Gradle
General
1 503 (22.32%) Social Skills
2 275 (12.20%) Public Sector
3 171 (7.59%) Analytical Skills
4 142 (6.30%) Finance
5 68 (3.02%) Military
6 66 (2.93%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (2.09%) Organisational Skills
8 36 (1.60%) Legal
9 35 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
9 35 (1.55%) Law
10 34 (1.51%) Aerospace
10 34 (1.51%) Police
11 32 (1.42%) Telecoms
12 31 (1.38%) Manufacturing
13 12 (0.53%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (0.40%) Local Government
15 7 (0.31%) Marketing
16 6 (0.27%) Automotive
17 5 (0.22%) Advertising
17 5 (0.22%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 392 (17.39%) Architect
2 234 (10.38%) Lead
3 192 (8.52%) Senior
4 155 (6.88%) Developer
5 154 (6.83%) Consultant
6 153 (6.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 132 (5.86%) Analyst
8 89 (3.95%) Security Architect
9 75 (3.33%) Network Engineer
10 74 (3.28%) Cloud Engineer
11 66 (2.93%) SOC Analyst
12 63 (2.80%) Support Engineer
13 58 (2.57%) Project Manager
14 57 (2.53%) DevOps Engineer
15 55 (2.44%) Technical Architect
16 51 (2.26%) DBA
17 47 (2.09%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 47 (2.09%) Solutions Architect
18 43 (1.91%) Network Architect
19 41 (1.82%) DV Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 205 (9.09%) Terraform
2 77 (3.42%) REST
3 40 (1.77%) LDAP
4 32 (1.42%) Elastic Stack
5 31 (1.38%) React
6 28 (1.24%) SOAP
7 25 (1.11%) RESTful
8 24 (1.06%) Kafka
9 19 (0.84%) Node.js
10 17 (0.75%) AngularJS
10 17 (0.75%) Apache NiFi
10 17 (0.75%) XML
11 16 (0.71%) JSON
12 15 (0.67%) .NET
12 15 (0.67%) FastAPI
12 15 (0.67%) Spring
13 14 (0.62%) OAuth
13 14 (0.62%) Spring Boot
14 13 (0.58%) Flask
14 13 (0.58%) Keycloak
Miscellaneous
1 102 (4.53%) Cloud Native
2 101 (4.48%) PKI
3 99 (4.39%) Data Centre
4 85 (3.77%) Onboarding
5 45 (2.00%) Management Information System
6 42 (1.86%) Security Operations Centre
7 40 (1.77%) Private Cloud
7 40 (1.77%) Product Ownership
8 39 (1.73%) Hybrid Cloud
9 36 (1.60%) Cyber Threat
10 32 (1.42%) Security Posture
11 27 (1.20%) Public Cloud
12 25 (1.11%) Distributed Systems
13 19 (0.84%) Clustering
13 19 (0.84%) CMDB
14 18 (0.80%) Legacy Systems
15 17 (0.75%) Virtual Team
16 15 (0.67%) Analytical Mindset
17 14 (0.62%) Replication
18 13 (0.58%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 383 (16.99%) Windows
2 253 (11.22%) Linux
3 182 (8.07%) Windows Server
4 42 (1.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 31 (1.38%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.29%) Windows Server 2019
7 22 (0.98%) Unix
8 21 (0.93%) Ubuntu
9 18 (0.80%) CentOS
10 12 (0.53%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.31%) AIX
12 6 (0.27%) Android
12 6 (0.27%) Mac OS
12 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
13 5 (0.22%) Data ONTAP
13 5 (0.22%) Debian
13 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.18%) VMS
14 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 395 (17.52%) Agile
2 287 (12.73%) Continuous Improvement
3 280 (12.42%) Stakeholder Management
4 266 (11.80%) CI/CD
5 233 (10.34%) DevOps
6 227 (10.07%) Cybersecurity
7 224 (9.94%) Problem-Solving
8 216 (9.58%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 216 (9.58%) Technical Leadership
9 209 (9.27%) Infrastructure as Code
10 200 (8.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 185 (8.21%) ITIL
12 154 (6.83%) ITSM
13 149 (6.61%) Containerisation
14 148 (6.57%) Service Management
15 137 (6.08%) SIEM
16 129 (5.72%) Project Delivery
17 127 (5.63%) Decision-Making
18 123 (5.46%) Risk Management
19 115 (5.10%) AI
Programming Languages
1 243 (10.78%) Python
2 191 (8.47%) PowerShell
3 133 (5.90%) SQL
4 95 (4.21%) Bash
5 72 (3.19%) Java
6 41 (1.82%) JavaScript
7 37 (1.64%) C#
8 29 (1.29%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.80%) Go
10 17 (0.75%) Bicep
11 15 (0.67%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.62%) Search Processing Language
13 11 (0.49%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.40%) C++
15 7 (0.31%) C
15 7 (0.31%) Groovy
16 6 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
16 6 (0.27%) Perl
16 6 (0.27%) X++
17 4 (0.18%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 2,254 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 718 (31.85%) SC Cleared
3 89 (3.95%) Degree
4 75 (3.33%) CISSP
5 45 (2.00%) CISM
6 40 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
8 26 (1.15%) AWS Certification
9 25 (1.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 23 (1.02%) CCNP
10 23 (1.02%) PMI Certification
11 22 (0.98%) ISTQB
11 22 (0.98%) VCAP
12 20 (0.89%) TOGAF Certification
13 19 (0.84%) Azure Certification
13 19 (0.84%) PMP
14 15 (0.67%) MCSE
15 13 (0.58%) BPSS Clearance
16 12 (0.53%) Computer Science Degree
17 11 (0.49%) CHECK Team Leader
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (4.17%) NIST
2 91 (4.04%) NCSC
3 82 (3.64%) PMO
4 80 (3.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 64 (2.84%) QA
6 39 (1.73%) JSP 440
7 34 (1.51%) SLA
8 32 (1.42%) GDPR
9 29 (1.29%) Data Quality
10 23 (1.02%) GRC
11 17 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 16 (0.71%) Accessibility
13 13 (0.58%) Government Security Classifications
14 10 (0.44%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 10 (0.44%) NIST 800
15 9 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
15 9 (0.40%) RMADS
16 8 (0.35%) WCAG
17 7 (0.31%) ISO 9000
18 6 (0.27%) Def Stans
System Software
1 250 (11.09%) Active Directory
2 197 (8.74%) VMware Infrastructure
3 139 (6.17%) Docker
4 88 (3.90%) VMware NSX
5 76 (3.37%) VMware ESXi
6 64 (2.84%) Hyper-V
7 54 (2.40%) vSphere
8 26 (1.15%) vCloud
9 19 (0.84%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (0.62%) NFS
11 13 (0.58%) Oracle RAC
11 13 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
12 10 (0.44%) Firmware
13 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.18%) KVM
13 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
14 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
15 2 (0.089%) Squid
15 2 (0.089%) UAG
15 2 (0.089%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 219 (9.72%) Kubernetes
2 151 (6.70%) Ansible
3 85 (3.77%) vCenter Server
4 60 (2.66%) SCOM
5 34 (1.51%) SCCM
6 26 (1.15%) Prometheus
7 24 (1.06%) Grafana
8 20 (0.89%) Puppet
9 19 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
9 19 (0.84%) Nagios
10 16 (0.71%) Oracle RMAN
10 16 (0.71%) VxRail
11 15 (0.67%) Avamar
11 15 (0.67%) Podman
12 14 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 14 (0.62%) Data Guard
12 14 (0.62%) WMI
13 13 (0.58%) WSUS
14 12 (0.53%) Istio
15 10 (0.44%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 310 (13.75%) Microsoft
2 279 (12.38%) VMware
3 119 (5.28%) Oracle
4 99 (4.39%) ServiceNow
5 77 (3.42%) Cisco
6 60 (2.66%) Google
7 58 (2.57%) Splunk
8 56 (2.48%) SAP
9 45 (2.00%) SolarWinds
10 44 (1.95%) CyberArk
11 34 (1.51%) Red Hat
12 24 (1.06%) Juniper
13 23 (1.02%) Palo Alto
13 23 (1.02%) Remedy
14 21 (0.93%) Dell
15 20 (0.89%) BMC
15 20 (0.89%) Citrix
16 18 (0.80%) Atlassian
16 18 (0.80%) Sparx
16 18 (0.80%) Thales