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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 86 32
Rank change year-on-year +36 -54 +30
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,942 851 2,437
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.91% 2.91% 5.63%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.43% 9.39% 18.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,461 584 1,762
10th Percentile £425 £450 £425
25th Percentile £513 £518 £516
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £578 £600
Median % change year-on-year +3.90% -3.75% -
75th Percentile £680 £652 £693
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 56 27 111
10th Percentile £18.11 £34.15 £52.90
25th Percentile £35.00 £60.75 £57.33
Median hourly rate £54.50 £80.00 £72.33
Median % change year-on-year -31.88% +10.60% +3.33%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.53 £85.65
90th Percentile £89.38 £88.87 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.35 £80.68 £71.75
% change year-on-year -40.07% +12.44% -4.34%

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 15,625 9,067 12,961
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.45% 30.97% 29.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,368 5,651 8,039
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £621 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £530
% change year-on-year +1.00% -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,152 554 1,109
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.53 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.91 £22.23 £18.19
Median hourly rate £49.36 £32.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +54.25% -20.00% -27.27%
75th Percentile £72.50 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £76.25 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £30.91 £40.97
% change year-on-year +53.70% -24.57% -21.96%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 +24 1,796 £600 +2.56% 376
UK excluding London +13 1,397 £600 +4.35% 319
South East +7 765 £600 +4.35% 159
London +72 390 £600 - 64
South West -2 340 £565 -5.83% 110
Work from Home +34 278 £560 -2.61% 106
East of England +4 106 £650 +18.18% 22
North of England -7 85 £775 +278.05% 18
North West +16 69 £775 +278.05% 16
Midlands -47 54 £600 - 5
West Midlands -54 43 £600 -4.00% 4
Scotland +26 41 £669 +33.70% 4
Yorkshire -47 14 £525 -16.00% 1
East Midlands -19 11 £518 -5.91% 1
Northern Ireland +8 6 £619 - 3
Wales -8 5 - -
North East -24 2 £675 +8.00% 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 41 (2.11%) Confluence
2 38 (1.96%) Microsoft Exchange
3 28 (1.44%) SharePoint
4 8 (0.41%) Apache
5 6 (0.31%) Apache Spark
5 6 (0.31%) Mattermost
6 5 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.26%) CMS
6 5 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
8 3 (0.15%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.10%) Documentum
9 2 (0.10%) nginx
10 1 (0.051%) OpenStack
Applications
1 33 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.36%) AutoCAD
5 7 (0.36%) Revit
5 7 (0.36%) SOLIDWORKS
6 6 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
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 24 (1.24%) Remedy ITSM
3 20 (1.03%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 12 (0.62%) Oracle ERP
5 5 (0.26%) Maximo
5 5 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.21%) SAP EWM
7 3 (0.15%) SAP GRC
7 3 (0.15%) Teamcenter
8 2 (0.10%) Primavera
8 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.051%) Oracle Applications
9 1 (0.051%) SAP CCM
9 1 (0.051%) SAP FI-GL
9 1 (0.051%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.051%) SAP QM
9 1 (0.051%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 200 (10.30%) AWS
2 176 (9.06%) Azure
3 75 (3.86%) GCP
4 47 (2.42%) PaaS
5 46 (2.37%) GitHub
5 46 (2.37%) IaaS
6 40 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (1.75%) GitHub Actions
8 29 (1.49%) OpenShift
9 28 (1.44%) Serverless
10 25 (1.29%) Microsoft 365
11 21 (1.08%) OCI
11 21 (1.08%) Power Platform
12 17 (0.88%) SaaS
13 16 (0.82%) Amazon ECS
14 15 (0.77%) Amazon EKS
14 15 (0.77%) AWS Lambda
15 14 (0.72%) Entra ID
16 11 (0.57%) Amazon S3
16 11 (0.57%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 113 (5.82%) DNS
2 103 (5.30%) Firewall
3 73 (3.76%) Network Security
4 66 (3.40%) WAN
5 65 (3.35%) LAN
6 54 (2.78%) VPN
7 52 (2.68%) DHCP
8 42 (2.16%) BGP
9 28 (1.44%) OSPF
10 25 (1.29%) TCP/IP
11 20 (1.03%) Ethernet VPN
11 20 (1.03%) MPLS
11 20 (1.03%) VLAN
11 20 (1.03%) VXLAN
12 19 (0.98%) VSAN
13 18 (0.93%) IPsec
14 17 (0.88%) SAN
15 16 (0.82%) BIG-IP
16 14 (0.72%) Junos
16 14 (0.72%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (1.70%) SQL Server
2 31 (1.60%) Oracle Database
2 31 (1.60%) PostgreSQL
3 28 (1.44%) Elasticsearch
4 16 (0.82%) Power BI
5 14 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
6 13 (0.67%) MongoDB
7 8 (0.41%) Data Warehouse
7 8 (0.41%) Metadata
8 7 (0.36%) Data Lake
8 7 (0.36%) Redis
9 6 (0.31%) Big Data
9 6 (0.31%) Hadoop
9 6 (0.31%) MariaDB
9 6 (0.31%) NoSQL
9 6 (0.31%) Oracle Database 11g
10 5 (0.26%) DynamoDB
10 5 (0.26%) MySQL
10 5 (0.26%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.21%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 74 (3.81%) JIRA
2 38 (1.96%) GitLab
3 30 (1.54%) Git
4 29 (1.49%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.62%) Cypress.io
6 8 (0.41%) Selenium
6 8 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.31%) Artifactory
7 6 (0.31%) Robot Framework
8 5 (0.26%) Maven
9 4 (0.21%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
9 4 (0.21%) REST Assured
9 4 (0.21%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.15%) Cucumber
10 3 (0.15%) MLflow
10 3 (0.15%) Postman
11 2 (0.10%) SoapUI
11 2 (0.10%) SpecFlow
General
1 290 (14.93%) Social Skills
2 225 (11.59%) Public Sector
3 112 (5.77%) Analytical Skills
4 80 (4.12%) Finance
5 67 (3.45%) Military
6 56 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
7 51 (2.63%) Legal
8 22 (1.13%) Law
8 22 (1.13%) Organisational Skills
8 22 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
9 21 (1.08%) Telecoms
10 20 (1.03%) Aerospace
11 15 (0.77%) Police
12 12 (0.62%) Manufacturing
13 10 (0.51%) Marketing
14 5 (0.26%) Electronics
14 5 (0.26%) Influencing Skills
15 3 (0.15%) Advertising
16 2 (0.10%) Automotive
16 2 (0.10%) Banking
Job Titles
1 295 (15.19%) Architect
2 168 (8.65%) Lead
3 160 (8.24%) Senior
4 126 (6.49%) Analyst
5 116 (5.97%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 106 (5.46%) Developer
7 104 (5.36%) Consultant
8 83 (4.27%) Network Engineer
9 78 (4.02%) SOC Analyst
10 72 (3.71%) Technical Architect
11 62 (3.19%) Security Architect
12 57 (2.94%) Project Manager
13 56 (2.88%) Tester
14 54 (2.78%) DevOps Engineer
15 48 (2.47%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 44 (2.27%) Software Engineer
17 43 (2.21%) DBA
18 42 (2.16%) Administrator
18 42 (2.16%) Service Manager
19 39 (2.01%) DV Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (2.63%) REST
2 29 (1.49%) React
3 26 (1.34%) Elastic Stack
4 20 (1.03%) 802.1X
5 18 (0.93%) Kafka
6 17 (0.88%) Node.js
6 17 (0.88%) SOAP
7 16 (0.82%) AngularJS
7 16 (0.82%) Spring
8 15 (0.77%) RESTful
9 14 (0.72%) Apache NiFi
9 14 (0.72%) Flask
9 14 (0.72%) Spring Boot
10 13 (0.67%) FastAPI
11 12 (0.62%) .NET
11 12 (0.62%) LDAP
12 11 (0.57%) ModSecurity
13 10 (0.51%) Oracle Fusion
14 9 (0.46%) SailPoint
14 9 (0.46%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 98 (5.05%) PKI
2 75 (3.86%) Data Centre
3 55 (2.83%) Security Operations Centre
4 52 (2.68%) Cloud Native
5 35 (1.80%) Clustering
6 33 (1.70%) Onboarding
7 31 (1.60%) Management Information System
8 28 (1.44%) Product Ownership
9 24 (1.24%) Hybrid Cloud
10 23 (1.18%) Private Cloud
11 21 (1.08%) Security Posture
12 20 (1.03%) Cyber Threat
13 18 (0.93%) Public Cloud
14 17 (0.88%) Cyberattack
15 16 (0.82%) Virtual Team
16 15 (0.77%) CMDB
16 15 (0.77%) Enterprise Storage
17 14 (0.72%) Analytical Mindset
17 14 (0.72%) Replication
18 13 (0.67%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 266 (13.70%) Windows
2 210 (10.81%) Linux
3 105 (5.41%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (1.03%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.51%) Unix
7 9 (0.46%) Windows Server 2003
8 8 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.31%) AIX
9 6 (0.31%) Android
9 6 (0.31%) CentOS
9 6 (0.31%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.26%) Debian
10 5 (0.26%) VMS
10 5 (0.26%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.21%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.15%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (16.43%) Agile
2 191 (9.84%) Problem-Solving
3 171 (8.81%) ITIL
4 167 (8.60%) Cybersecurity
5 162 (8.34%) CI/CD
6 160 (8.24%) DevOps
7 153 (7.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 148 (7.62%) Continuous Improvement
9 124 (6.39%) Service Management
9 124 (6.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 116 (5.97%) Stakeholder Management
11 106 (5.46%) ITSM
12 103 (5.30%) Infrastructure as Code
13 97 (4.99%) Project Delivery
14 90 (4.63%) Decision-Making
15 85 (4.38%) Security Operations
16 83 (4.27%) Risk Management
16 83 (4.27%) SIEM
16 83 (4.27%) Technical Leadership
17 81 (4.17%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 154 (7.93%) Python
2 112 (5.77%) PowerShell
3 90 (4.63%) SQL
4 45 (2.32%) Java
5 37 (1.91%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.65%) Bash
7 26 (1.34%) TypeScript
8 23 (1.18%) C#
9 16 (0.82%) Go
10 14 (0.72%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (0.67%) PL/SQL
12 10 (0.51%) Bicep
12 10 (0.51%) C++
13 9 (0.46%) C
14 8 (0.41%) Rust
15 7 (0.36%) Shell Script
16 6 (0.31%) Embedded C
17 5 (0.26%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
18 4 (0.21%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,942 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 640 (32.96%) SC Cleared
3 64 (3.30%) Degree
4 49 (2.52%) CISSP
5 48 (2.47%) Cisco Certification
6 33 (1.70%) CISM
7 23 (1.18%) CompTIA Security+
8 22 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
9 21 (1.08%) CCNA
10 20 (1.03%) Computer Science Degree
11 18 (0.93%) CCNP
12 17 (0.88%) AWS Certification
13 16 (0.82%) CESG Certified Professional
14 15 (0.77%) BPSS Clearance
15 14 (0.72%) GIAC
15 14 (0.72%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 13 (0.67%) CompTIA CySA+
16 13 (0.67%) ISTQB
16 13 (0.67%) PMP
17 11 (0.57%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (3.71%) NIST
2 61 (3.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 54 (2.78%) QA
4 53 (2.73%) NCSC
5 49 (2.52%) PMO
6 38 (1.96%) JSP 440
7 24 (1.24%) RMADS
7 24 (1.24%) SLA
8 23 (1.18%) GDPR
9 21 (1.08%) GRC
10 12 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
11 9 (0.46%) Accessibility
12 8 (0.41%) Data Quality
12 8 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 8 (0.41%) NIST 800
13 7 (0.36%) Government Security Classifications
14 6 (0.31%) WCAG
15 5 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 3 (0.15%) Def Stans
System Software
1 134 (6.90%) VMware Infrastructure
2 129 (6.64%) Active Directory
3 100 (5.15%) Docker
4 61 (3.14%) VMware NSX
5 51 (2.63%) VMware ESXi
6 46 (2.37%) Hyper-V
7 21 (1.08%) vCloud
7 21 (1.08%) vSphere
8 12 (0.62%) BitLocker
9 10 (0.51%) Microsoft App-V
9 10 (0.51%) Oracle RAC
10 8 (0.41%) Firmware
10 8 (0.41%) NFS
11 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
12 4 (0.21%) Ceph
12 4 (0.21%) UAG
12 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
13 3 (0.15%) Squid
13 3 (0.15%) Terminal Services
14 2 (0.10%) KVM
Systems Management
1 135 (6.95%) Kubernetes
1 135 (6.95%) Terraform
2 86 (4.43%) Ansible
3 64 (3.30%) vCenter Server
4 31 (1.60%) SCOM
5 24 (1.24%) SCCM
6 20 (1.03%) Grafana
7 18 (0.93%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.88%) Puppet
9 16 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
10 14 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.67%) FortiGate
12 12 (0.62%) Data Guard
12 12 (0.62%) Nagios
12 12 (0.62%) Podman
13 10 (0.51%) Oracle RMAN
13 10 (0.51%) vMotion
14 9 (0.46%) WMI
14 9 (0.46%) WSUS
15 8 (0.41%) Nessus
Vendors
1 213 (10.97%) VMware
2 178 (9.17%) Microsoft
3 102 (5.25%) Cisco
4 82 (4.22%) ServiceNow
5 70 (3.60%) Oracle
6 69 (3.55%) Splunk
7 45 (2.32%) Juniper
7 45 (2.32%) NetApp
8 38 (1.96%) Red Hat
9 37 (1.91%) SAP
10 30 (1.54%) SolarWinds
11 29 (1.49%) F5
12 25 (1.29%) Google
13 24 (1.24%) Remedy
14 22 (1.13%) Fortinet
14 22 (1.13%) Palo Alto
15 21 (1.08%) Citrix
15 21 (1.08%) Dell
16 20 (1.03%) Sparx
17 18 (0.93%) BMC