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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 81 31
Rank change year-on-year +30 -50 +33
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,919 870 2,433
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.92% 2.99% 5.66%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.42% 9.61% 18.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,433 602 1,757
10th Percentile £425 £450 £425
25th Percentile £513 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £578 £600
Median % change year-on-year +3.90% -3.75% -
75th Percentile £675 £650 £690
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 28 111
10th Percentile £17.05 £34.68 £51.25
25th Percentile £35.00 £60.31 £56.99
Median hourly rate £55.00 £79.35 £71.17
Median % change year-on-year -30.69% +11.50% -0.05%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.32 £85.65
90th Percentile £87.50 £88.87 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.00 £80.68 £71.17
% change year-on-year -33.06% +13.36% -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 15,453 9,057 12,862
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.57% 31.09% 29.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,254 5,685 8,011
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
75th Percentile £619 £619 £645
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.30% +1.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,126 529 1,099
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.76 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.50 £18.13
Median hourly rate £48.61 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.57% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.37 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.18 £41.00
% change year-on-year +47.61% -21.51% -21.90%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 1,774 £588 +0.43% 544
UK excluding London +12 1,382 £600 +4.35% 433
South East +8 760 £600 +3.45% 173
London +60 382 £600 - 111
South West -2 330 £563 -6.25% 156
Work from Home +32 265 £563 -2.17% 158
East of England +5 112 £650 +18.18% 45
North of England -16 79 £770 +275.61% 39
North West +1 64 £788 +284.15% 33
Midlands -35 56 £600 - 12
West Midlands -48 43 £600 -7.69% 12
Scotland +30 40 £669 +30.44% 5
East Midlands -16 13 £513 -6.82%
Yorkshire -48 13 £525 -16.00% 4
Northern Ireland +8 5 £638 - 6
Wales -8 5 - - 3
North East -25 2 £675 +8.00% 2

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 (2.14%) Confluence
2 36 (1.88%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (1.41%) 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 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.10%) nginx
11 1 (0.052%) OpenStack
Applications
1 37 (1.93%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (1.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.31%) AutoCAD
5 6 (0.31%) Revit
5 6 (0.31%) SOLIDWORKS
5 6 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.21%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.10%) Lectora
7 2 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 27 (1.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.25%) Remedy ITSM
3 21 (1.09%) 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 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.16%) SAP GRC
6 3 (0.16%) 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 (9.85%) AWS
2 169 (8.81%) Azure
3 70 (3.65%) GCP
4 42 (2.19%) GitHub
5 41 (2.14%) PaaS
6 40 (2.08%) IaaS
7 38 (1.98%) Azure DevOps
8 30 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
9 28 (1.46%) Microsoft 365
10 27 (1.41%) OpenShift
11 25 (1.30%) Serverless
12 22 (1.15%) Power Platform
13 17 (0.89%) OCI
14 14 (0.73%) Amazon ECS
15 13 (0.68%) Amazon EKS
15 13 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
15 13 (0.68%) Entra ID
15 13 (0.68%) SaaS
16 11 (0.57%) Amazon S3
16 11 (0.57%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 113 (5.89%) DNS
2 102 (5.32%) Firewall
3 71 (3.70%) Network Security
4 67 (3.49%) WAN
5 65 (3.39%) LAN
6 51 (2.66%) VPN
7 50 (2.61%) DHCP
8 42 (2.19%) BGP
9 29 (1.51%) TCP/IP
10 28 (1.46%) OSPF
11 20 (1.04%) Ethernet VPN
11 20 (1.04%) MPLS
11 20 (1.04%) VSAN
11 20 (1.04%) VXLAN
12 19 (0.99%) SAN
12 19 (0.99%) VLAN
13 18 (0.94%) IPsec
14 17 (0.89%) SSL
15 16 (0.83%) BIG-IP
16 14 (0.73%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (1.56%) SQL Server
2 27 (1.41%) Oracle Database
3 26 (1.35%) PostgreSQL
4 25 (1.30%) Elasticsearch
5 17 (0.89%) Power BI
6 13 (0.68%) MongoDB
7 12 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
8 8 (0.42%) Metadata
9 7 (0.36%) Data Warehouse
9 7 (0.36%) Hadoop
9 7 (0.36%) NoSQL
9 7 (0.36%) Redis
10 6 (0.31%) Data Lake
10 6 (0.31%) MariaDB
10 6 (0.31%) MySQL
11 5 (0.26%) Big Data
11 5 (0.26%) Oracle Database 11g
11 5 (0.26%) Relational Database
11 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 4 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 72 (3.75%) JIRA
2 34 (1.77%) GitLab
3 25 (1.30%) Git
4 24 (1.25%) Jenkins
5 11 (0.57%) Cypress.io
6 8 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (0.36%) Selenium
8 6 (0.31%) Artifactory
8 6 (0.31%) Robot Framework
9 5 (0.26%) Maven
10 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
10 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.16%) MLflow
11 3 (0.16%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.16%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 2 (0.10%) ERwin
12 2 (0.10%) Gatling
12 2 (0.10%) JUnit
12 2 (0.10%) Postman
General
1 286 (14.90%) Social Skills
2 209 (10.89%) Public Sector
3 111 (5.78%) Analytical Skills
4 76 (3.96%) Finance
5 65 (3.39%) Military
6 58 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
7 52 (2.71%) Legal
8 24 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
9 22 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
9 22 (1.15%) Telecoms
10 21 (1.09%) Law
11 20 (1.04%) Aerospace
12 14 (0.73%) Police
13 11 (0.57%) Manufacturing
14 9 (0.47%) Marketing
15 6 (0.31%) Electronics
16 5 (0.26%) Influencing Skills
17 3 (0.16%) Advertising
17 3 (0.16%) Banking
18 2 (0.10%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 293 (15.27%) Architect
2 157 (8.18%) Senior
3 143 (7.45%) Lead
4 133 (6.93%) Analyst
5 110 (5.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 105 (5.47%) Consultant
6 105 (5.47%) Developer
7 86 (4.48%) Network Engineer
8 77 (4.01%) SOC Analyst
9 73 (3.80%) Technical Architect
10 61 (3.18%) Security Architect
11 58 (3.02%) Tester
12 57 (2.97%) Project Manager
13 50 (2.61%) DevOps Engineer
14 49 (2.55%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 44 (2.29%) Software Engineer
16 40 (2.08%) Administrator
17 39 (2.03%) DV Cleared Project Manager
17 39 (2.03%) Service Manager
18 38 (1.98%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (2.40%) REST
2 29 (1.51%) React
3 25 (1.30%) Elastic Stack
4 20 (1.04%) 802.1X
5 17 (0.89%) Node.js
6 16 (0.83%) AngularJS
6 16 (0.83%) Kafka
7 15 (0.78%) LDAP
7 15 (0.78%) SOAP
7 15 (0.78%) Spring
8 14 (0.73%) RESTful
9 13 (0.68%) Apache NiFi
9 13 (0.68%) Flask
9 13 (0.68%) Spring Boot
10 12 (0.63%) .NET
10 12 (0.63%) FastAPI
11 11 (0.57%) ModSecurity
12 10 (0.52%) OAuth
12 10 (0.52%) SailPoint
13 9 (0.47%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 95 (4.95%) PKI
2 72 (3.75%) Data Centre
3 53 (2.76%) Security Operations Centre
4 49 (2.55%) Cloud Native
5 33 (1.72%) Clustering
5 33 (1.72%) Onboarding
6 30 (1.56%) Management Information System
7 27 (1.41%) Product Ownership
8 24 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
9 23 (1.20%) Cyber Threat
10 22 (1.15%) Private Cloud
11 20 (1.04%) Cyberattack
12 18 (0.94%) Security Posture
13 17 (0.89%) Public Cloud
14 16 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.83%) Virtual Team
15 15 (0.78%) Enterprise Storage
16 13 (0.68%) CMDB
16 13 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
16 13 (0.68%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 270 (14.07%) Windows
2 219 (11.41%) Linux
3 98 (5.11%) Windows Server
4 29 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (1.15%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.52%) Unix
7 9 (0.47%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.42%) Debian
8 8 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
9 7 (0.36%) Android
9 7 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.31%) AIX
10 6 (0.31%) CentOS
11 5 (0.26%) VMS
11 5 (0.26%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.21%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.21%) Mac OS
12 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
13 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 317 (16.52%) Agile
2 189 (9.85%) Problem-Solving
3 169 (8.81%) ITIL
4 162 (8.44%) CI/CD
5 159 (8.29%) Cybersecurity
6 153 (7.97%) DevOps
7 150 (7.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 140 (7.30%) Continuous Improvement
9 124 (6.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 121 (6.31%) Service Management
11 113 (5.89%) Stakeholder Management
12 104 (5.42%) ITSM
13 100 (5.21%) Infrastructure as Code
14 95 (4.95%) Project Delivery
15 90 (4.69%) Decision-Making
16 85 (4.43%) Risk Management
17 82 (4.27%) Security Operations
17 82 (4.27%) SIEM
18 79 (4.12%) Technical Leadership
19 76 (3.96%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 150 (7.82%) Python
2 111 (5.78%) PowerShell
3 81 (4.22%) SQL
4 42 (2.19%) Java
5 36 (1.88%) JavaScript
6 35 (1.82%) Bash
7 24 (1.25%) TypeScript
8 22 (1.15%) C#
9 16 (0.83%) Go
10 14 (0.73%) Search Processing Language
11 12 (0.63%) PL/SQL
12 10 (0.52%) Bicep
13 9 (0.47%) C
13 9 (0.47%) C++
13 9 (0.47%) 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 1,919 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 628 (32.73%) SC Cleared
3 63 (3.28%) Degree
4 50 (2.61%) Cisco Certification
4 50 (2.61%) CISSP
5 33 (1.72%) CISM
6 23 (1.20%) CCNA
6 23 (1.20%) Microsoft Certification
7 22 (1.15%) CompTIA Security+
8 19 (0.99%) CCNP
8 19 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
9 17 (0.89%) AWS Certification
10 16 (0.83%) CESG Certified Professional
11 15 (0.78%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 14 (0.73%) BPSS Clearance
12 14 (0.73%) GIAC
12 14 (0.73%) ISTQB
12 14 (0.73%) PMP
13 13 (0.68%) CompTIA CySA+
14 11 (0.57%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (3.86%) NIST
2 60 (3.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 50 (2.61%) NCSC
3 50 (2.61%) QA
4 46 (2.40%) PMO
5 39 (2.03%) JSP 440
6 24 (1.25%) RMADS
7 23 (1.20%) SLA
8 22 (1.15%) GRC
9 18 (0.94%) GDPR
10 11 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
11 9 (0.47%) Accessibility
11 9 (0.47%) Data Quality
12 8 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 8 (0.42%) NIST 800
13 7 (0.36%) Government Security Classifications
14 6 (0.31%) WCAG
15 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 3 (0.16%) Def Stans
System Software
1 130 (6.77%) VMware Infrastructure
2 127 (6.62%) Active Directory
3 96 (5.00%) Docker
4 61 (3.18%) VMware NSX
5 48 (2.50%) VMware ESXi
6 41 (2.14%) Hyper-V
7 22 (1.15%) vSphere
8 20 (1.04%) vCloud
9 10 (0.52%) BitLocker
10 9 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.42%) Firmware
11 8 (0.42%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.36%) NFS
13 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
14 4 (0.21%) Ceph
14 4 (0.21%) UAG
14 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
15 3 (0.16%) Squid
16 2 (0.10%) KVM
17 1 (0.052%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 130 (6.77%) Kubernetes
2 123 (6.41%) Terraform
3 82 (4.27%) Ansible
4 61 (3.18%) vCenter Server
5 30 (1.56%) SCOM
6 25 (1.30%) SCCM
7 19 (0.99%) Grafana
8 18 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (0.89%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 17 (0.89%) Prometheus
10 15 (0.78%) Puppet
11 13 (0.68%) FortiGate
12 11 (0.57%) Nagios
12 11 (0.57%) Podman
13 10 (0.52%) Data Guard
14 9 (0.47%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 9 (0.47%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 9 (0.47%) WSUS
15 8 (0.42%) Progress Chef
15 8 (0.42%) vMotion
Vendors
1 212 (11.05%) VMware
2 176 (9.17%) Microsoft
3 105 (5.47%) Cisco
4 75 (3.91%) ServiceNow
5 69 (3.60%) Splunk
6 52 (2.71%) Oracle
7 45 (2.34%) NetApp
8 43 (2.24%) Juniper
8 43 (2.24%) Red Hat
9 38 (1.98%) SAP
10 30 (1.56%) SolarWinds
11 29 (1.51%) F5
12 25 (1.30%) Remedy
13 23 (1.20%) Dell
14 22 (1.15%) Fortinet
14 22 (1.15%) Google
14 22 (1.15%) Palo Alto
15 21 (1.09%) Sparx
16 19 (0.99%) Citrix
17 18 (0.94%) BMC