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

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 83 39
Rank change year-on-year +34 -44 +14
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,264 970 1,835
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.13% 2.94% 4.76%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.04% 9.38% 16.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,673 684 1,219
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £513 £515 £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 £760 £723 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £585
% change year-on-year +4.35% -1.71% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 129 32 92
10th Percentile £41.25 - £50.00
25th Percentile £58.43 £25.15 £58.24
Median hourly rate £74.50 £45.00 £70.20
Median % change year-on-year +65.56% -35.89% +0.28%
75th Percentile £92.53 £80.34 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.06 £87.48 £89.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.59 £70.00 £70.20
% change year-on-year +6.56% -0.28% -2.95%

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 17,362 10,338 11,265
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.65% 31.37% 29.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,561 6,458 6,928
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £527 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £714 £711 £729
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,376 838 653
10th Percentile £17.09 £17.87 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.77 £25.15 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.94% -48.67% -9.26%
75th Percentile £72.54 £45.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £71.00 £76.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.10% +1.17%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +31 2,133 £600 +3.45% 1,277
UK excluding London +16 1,640 £600 +4.35% 1,010
South East +5 885 £600 +3.90% 310
South West +7 499 £581 -3.13% 311
London +58 476 £625 - 262
Work from Home +46 349 £560 -5.88% 568
East of England +23 113 £675 +22.73% 167
North of England -27 55 £750 +30.43% 113
Midlands -74 44 £600 - 35
Scotland +7 40 £669 +27.33% 85
West Midlands -79 39 £600 - 22
North West -26 36 £800 +60.00% 77
Yorkshire -26 14 £510 -18.40% 18
Northern Ireland +4 5 £638 +6.25% 5
North East -46 5 £463 -26.00% 18
East Midlands - 5 £625 - 13
Wales -10 4 - - 5

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 74 (3.27%) Confluence
2 56 (2.47%) SharePoint
3 41 (1.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 16 (0.71%) 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 (0.088%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.088%) Mule
12 2 (0.088%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.088%) Oracle Service Bus
12 2 (0.088%) Palantir Foundry
12 2 (0.088%) WebLogic
13 1 (0.044%) JBoss
Applications
1 63 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (1.99%) 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 8 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.088%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.28%) Oracle ERP
2 26 (1.15%) 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 (0.088%) Siebel CRM
10 1 (0.044%) Oracle Assets
10 1 (0.044%) SAP CCM
10 1 (0.044%) SAP GRC
10 1 (0.044%) SAP PLM
10 1 (0.044%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 312 (13.78%) Azure
2 297 (13.12%) AWS
3 112 (4.95%) GCP
4 63 (2.78%) Azure DevOps
5 57 (2.52%) Microsoft 365
6 48 (2.12%) GitHub
7 43 (1.90%) Entra ID
8 40 (1.77%) GitHub Actions
9 38 (1.68%) Power Platform
10 36 (1.59%) Serverless
11 33 (1.46%) OCI
12 29 (1.28%) OpenShift
13 26 (1.15%) AWS Lambda
14 24 (1.06%) IaaS
15 22 (0.97%) Amazon EKS
16 20 (0.88%) Amazon ECS
16 20 (0.88%) PaaS
17 18 (0.80%) SaaS
18 17 (0.75%) Amazon S3
18 17 (0.75%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 168 (7.42%) DNS
2 119 (5.26%) Firewall
3 82 (3.62%) DHCP
4 72 (3.18%) Network Security
5 59 (2.61%) WAN
6 54 (2.39%) TCP/IP
7 51 (2.25%) VPN
8 48 (2.12%) BGP
8 48 (2.12%) LAN
9 37 (1.63%) VSAN
10 36 (1.59%) MPLS
11 32 (1.41%) IPsec
12 29 (1.28%) VLAN
13 23 (1.02%) SSL
14 17 (0.75%) SAN
14 17 (0.75%) SD-WAN
15 16 (0.71%) Cisco ASA
16 15 (0.66%) OSPF
17 14 (0.62%) Cisco Firepower
17 14 (0.62%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (2.39%) SQL Server
2 44 (1.94%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.50%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.06%) Metadata
5 23 (1.02%) Power BI
6 21 (0.93%) Relational Database
7 19 (0.84%) Data Lake
7 19 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
8 17 (0.75%) MongoDB
9 15 (0.66%) Data Warehouse
10 10 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
11 9 (0.40%) Big Data
11 9 (0.40%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.40%) Oracle Database 11g
12 8 (0.35%) BigQuery
12 8 (0.35%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 8 (0.35%) Oracle Database 12c
12 8 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
13 7 (0.31%) MariaDB
14 6 (0.27%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 112 (4.95%) JIRA
2 80 (3.53%) GitLab
3 75 (3.31%) Git
3 75 (3.31%) Jenkins
4 29 (1.28%) Selenium
5 15 (0.66%) Cypress.io
6 9 (0.40%) Cucumber
7 8 (0.35%) MSI
8 7 (0.31%) Postman
8 7 (0.31%) REST Assured
8 7 (0.31%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.31%) Visual Studio
9 6 (0.27%) JUnit
9 6 (0.27%) SpecFlow
10 5 (0.22%) Artifactory
10 5 (0.22%) Gatling
10 5 (0.22%) JMeter
10 5 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.18%) Maven
12 3 (0.13%) Toad
General
1 503 (22.22%) Social Skills
2 279 (12.32%) Public Sector
3 171 (7.55%) Analytical Skills
4 141 (6.23%) Finance
5 68 (3.00%) Military
6 66 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
8 36 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
8 36 (1.59%) Legal
9 35 (1.55%) Law
10 34 (1.50%) Police
11 32 (1.41%) Aerospace
11 32 (1.41%) Telecoms
12 31 (1.37%) 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
1 393 (17.36%) Architect
2 241 (10.64%) Lead
3 195 (8.61%) Senior
4 155 (6.85%) Developer
5 154 (6.80%) Consultant
5 154 (6.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 134 (5.92%) Analyst
7 91 (4.02%) Security Architect
8 75 (3.31%) Network Engineer
9 74 (3.27%) Cloud Engineer
10 69 (3.05%) SOC Analyst
11 63 (2.78%) Support Engineer
12 57 (2.52%) DevOps Engineer
12 57 (2.52%) Project Manager
13 54 (2.39%) Technical Architect
14 51 (2.25%) DBA
15 47 (2.08%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 46 (2.03%) Solutions Architect
17 43 (1.90%) Network Architect
18 41 (1.81%) Lead Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 203 (8.97%) Terraform
2 76 (3.36%) REST
3 39 (1.72%) LDAP
4 32 (1.41%) Elastic Stack
5 29 (1.28%) React
6 27 (1.19%) SOAP
7 24 (1.06%) RESTful
8 23 (1.02%) Kafka
9 18 (0.80%) Apache NiFi
9 18 (0.80%) Node.js
10 16 (0.71%) XML
11 15 (0.66%) .NET
11 15 (0.66%) AngularJS
11 15 (0.66%) JSON
11 15 (0.66%) Spring
12 14 (0.62%) Spring Boot
13 13 (0.57%) FastAPI
13 13 (0.57%) OAuth
14 12 (0.53%) ARM Templates
14 12 (0.53%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 102 (4.51%) Cloud Native
2 101 (4.46%) PKI
3 98 (4.33%) Data Centre
4 85 (3.75%) Onboarding
5 45 (1.99%) Management Information System
6 43 (1.90%) Security Operations Centre
7 41 (1.81%) Product Ownership
8 40 (1.77%) Private Cloud
9 39 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
10 36 (1.59%) Cyber Threat
11 32 (1.41%) Security Posture
12 27 (1.19%) Public Cloud
13 25 (1.10%) Distributed Systems
14 19 (0.84%) Clustering
14 19 (0.84%) CMDB
15 18 (0.80%) Legacy Systems
16 16 (0.71%) Virtual Team
17 15 (0.66%) Analytical Mindset
18 14 (0.62%) Replication
19 13 (0.57%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 385 (17.01%) Windows
2 257 (11.35%) Linux
3 182 (8.04%) Windows Server
4 44 (1.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 31 (1.37%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.28%) Windows Server 2019
7 21 (0.93%) Ubuntu
7 21 (0.93%) Unix
8 18 (0.80%) CentOS
9 12 (0.53%) Windows Server 2012
10 7 (0.31%) AIX
11 6 (0.27%) Android
11 6 (0.27%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.22%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.22%) Debian
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
13 4 (0.18%) VMS
13 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 394 (17.40%) Agile
2 291 (12.85%) Continuous Improvement
3 280 (12.37%) Stakeholder Management
4 264 (11.66%) CI/CD
5 234 (10.34%) DevOps
6 231 (10.20%) Cybersecurity
7 224 (9.89%) Problem-Solving
8 216 (9.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 215 (9.50%) Technical Leadership
10 206 (9.10%) Infrastructure as Code
11 202 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 185 (8.17%) ITIL
13 153 (6.76%) ITSM
14 150 (6.63%) Service Management
15 149 (6.58%) Containerisation
16 137 (6.05%) SIEM
17 129 (5.70%) Project Delivery
18 127 (5.61%) Decision-Making
19 124 (5.48%) Risk Management
20 113 (4.99%) AI
Programming Languages
1 244 (10.78%) Python
2 190 (8.39%) PowerShell
3 135 (5.96%) SQL
4 97 (4.28%) Bash
5 71 (3.14%) Java
6 40 (1.77%) JavaScript
7 37 (1.63%) C#
8 28 (1.24%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.80%) Go
10 17 (0.75%) Bicep
11 15 (0.66%) 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%) Rust
Qualifications
1 2,264 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 721 (31.85%) SC Cleared
3 89 (3.93%) Degree
4 75 (3.31%) CISSP
5 45 (1.99%) CISM
6 40 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.28%) Microsoft Certification
8 25 (1.10%) AWS Certification
8 25 (1.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 23 (1.02%) CCNP
9 23 (1.02%) PMI Certification
10 22 (0.97%) ISTQB
10 22 (0.97%) VCAP
11 20 (0.88%) TOGAF Certification
12 19 (0.84%) Azure Certification
12 19 (0.84%) PMP
13 15 (0.66%) MCSE
14 13 (0.57%) BPSS Clearance
15 11 (0.49%) CHECK Team Leader
15 11 (0.49%) CHECK Team Member
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (4.15%) NIST
2 91 (4.02%) NCSC
3 83 (3.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 81 (3.58%) PMO
5 63 (2.78%) QA
6 39 (1.72%) JSP 440
7 34 (1.50%) SLA
8 32 (1.41%) GDPR
9 29 (1.28%) Data Quality
10 23 (1.02%) GRC
11 17 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 16 (0.71%) Accessibility
13 13 (0.57%) 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
1 249 (11.00%) Active Directory
2 200 (8.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 136 (6.01%) Docker
4 88 (3.89%) VMware NSX
5 76 (3.36%) VMware ESXi
6 67 (2.96%) Hyper-V
7 54 (2.39%) vSphere
8 26 (1.15%) vCloud
9 19 (0.84%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (0.62%) NFS
11 13 (0.57%) Oracle RAC
11 13 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
12 10 (0.44%) Firmware
13 5 (0.22%) Ceph
14 4 (0.18%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.18%) KVM
14 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
14 4 (0.18%) Squid
15 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
16 2 (0.088%) UAG
Systems Management
1 217 (9.58%) Kubernetes
2 152 (6.71%) Ansible
3 85 (3.75%) vCenter Server
4 60 (2.65%) SCOM
5 34 (1.50%) SCCM
6 26 (1.15%) Prometheus
7 24 (1.06%) Grafana
8 20 (0.88%) 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 (0.66%) Avamar
11 15 (0.66%) Podman
12 14 (0.62%) Data Guard
12 14 (0.62%) WMI
13 13 (0.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.57%) WSUS
14 12 (0.53%) Istio
15 10 (0.44%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 308 (13.60%) Microsoft
2 283 (12.50%) VMware
3 119 (5.26%) Oracle
4 99 (4.37%) ServiceNow
5 77 (3.40%) Cisco
6 59 (2.61%) Google
7 58 (2.56%) SAP
7 58 (2.56%) Splunk
8 45 (1.99%) SolarWinds
9 44 (1.94%) CyberArk
10 37 (1.63%) Red Hat
11 25 (1.10%) Juniper
12 23 (1.02%) Palo Alto
12 23 (1.02%) Remedy
13 21 (0.93%) Dell
14 20 (0.88%) BMC
14 20 (0.88%) Citrix
15 18 (0.80%) Atlassian
15 18 (0.80%) NetApp
15 18 (0.80%) Sparx