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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 86 31
Rank change year-on-year +36 -55 +32
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,912 825 2,406
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.96% 2.83% 5.66%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.52% 9.16% 18.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,422 575 1,740
10th Percentile £424 £450 £416
25th Percentile £513 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £585 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £688 £663 £688
90th Percentile £750 £717 £780
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £585 £600
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 27 103
10th Percentile £16.84 £34.15 £49.45
25th Percentile £35.00 £59.87 £56.99
Median hourly rate £55.00 £78.70 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year -30.11% +11.81% +0.92%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.05 £85.00
90th Percentile £88.63 £88.05 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £80.34 £70.39
% change year-on-year -31.54% +14.13% -6.02%

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 15,276 9,009 12,782
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.66% 30.95% 30.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,147 5,671 7,961
10th Percentile £350 £281 £306
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year - -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £646
90th Percentile £721 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £501 £500 £530
% change year-on-year +0.10% -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,080 516 1,058
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.63 £17.80
Median hourly rate £47.80 £35.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.56% -12.50% -27.26%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.55 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.94
% change year-on-year +46.15% -20.62% -18.12%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +27 1,766 £600 +2.13% 464
UK excluding London +15 1,390 £600 +2.56% 384
South East +10 770 £600 +2.13% 174
London +57 366 £585 -2.50% 95
South West -3 327 £563 -6.25% 128
Work from Home +42 257 £563 -2.17% 128
East of England +8 107 £650 +18.18% 39
North of England -7 81 £750 +265.85% 30
North West +11 67 £775 +278.05% 22
Midlands -32 59 £600 -7.69% 9
West Midlands -45 44 £600 -14.29% 7
Scotland +33 39 £669 +27.33% 3
East Midlands -14 15 £530 -3.64% 2
Yorkshire -41 12 £525 -16.00% 4
Wales -4 6 - - 4
Northern Ireland - 6 £644 - 3
North East - 2 £675 - 4

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 38 (1.99%) Confluence
2 36 (1.88%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (1.41%) SharePoint
4 11 (0.58%) Apache
5 7 (0.37%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.31%) Mattermost
7 5 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
9 3 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.10%) CMS
10 2 (0.10%) nginx
11 1 (0.052%) OpenStack
Applications
1 38 (1.99%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (1.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.26%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.21%) AutoCAD
7 4 (0.21%) Revit
7 4 (0.21%) SOLIDWORKS
8 2 (0.10%) Lectora
8 2 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 28 (1.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.26%) Remedy ITSM
3 21 (1.10%) 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%) SAP GRC
6 3 (0.16%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.052%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.052%) Primavera
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
1 185 (9.68%) AWS
2 160 (8.37%) Azure
3 65 (3.40%) GCP
4 44 (2.30%) GitHub
4 44 (2.30%) IaaS
4 44 (2.30%) PaaS
5 39 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
6 32 (1.67%) GitHub Actions
7 29 (1.52%) Microsoft 365
8 28 (1.46%) Serverless
9 25 (1.31%) OpenShift
10 20 (1.05%) Power Platform
11 17 (0.89%) OCI
12 16 (0.84%) Amazon ECS
13 15 (0.78%) AWS Lambda
14 13 (0.68%) Amazon EKS
15 12 (0.63%) Entra ID
15 12 (0.63%) SaaS
16 11 (0.58%) Amazon S3
16 11 (0.58%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 105 (5.49%) Firewall
2 102 (5.33%) DNS
3 69 (3.61%) Network Security
4 61 (3.19%) WAN
5 60 (3.14%) LAN
6 49 (2.56%) VPN
7 41 (2.14%) BGP
7 41 (2.14%) DHCP
8 28 (1.46%) OSPF
9 27 (1.41%) TCP/IP
10 20 (1.05%) Ethernet VPN
10 20 (1.05%) VSAN
10 20 (1.05%) VXLAN
11 19 (0.99%) MPLS
12 17 (0.89%) Junos
12 17 (0.89%) SAN
12 17 (0.89%) VLAN
13 16 (0.84%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.73%) IPsec
14 14 (0.73%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (1.41%) SQL Server
2 26 (1.36%) Oracle Database
3 24 (1.26%) Elasticsearch
4 23 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
5 16 (0.84%) Power BI
6 12 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
6 12 (0.63%) MongoDB
7 8 (0.42%) Metadata
8 7 (0.37%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (0.37%) Hadoop
8 7 (0.37%) Redis
9 6 (0.31%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.31%) MariaDB
9 6 (0.31%) MySQL
10 5 (0.26%) Big Data
10 5 (0.26%) NoSQL
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 (3.77%) JIRA
2 34 (1.78%) GitLab
3 29 (1.52%) Git
4 25 (1.31%) Jenkins
5 10 (0.52%) Cypress.io
6 9 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (0.37%) 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 (0.16%) MLflow
11 3 (0.16%) MSI
11 3 (0.16%) 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
12 2 (0.10%) SonarQube
General
1 288 (15.06%) Social Skills
2 213 (11.14%) Public Sector
3 116 (6.07%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (4.24%) Finance
5 66 (3.45%) Military
6 55 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
6 55 (2.88%) Legal
7 25 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
8 23 (1.20%) Law
8 23 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
8 23 (1.20%) Telecoms
9 20 (1.05%) Aerospace
10 14 (0.73%) Police
11 10 (0.52%) Manufacturing
12 9 (0.47%) Marketing
13 7 (0.37%) Electronics
14 4 (0.21%) Banking
14 4 (0.21%) Influencing Skills
15 3 (0.16%) Advertising
15 3 (0.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 311 (16.27%) Architect
2 150 (7.85%) Senior
3 147 (7.69%) Lead
4 127 (6.64%) Analyst
5 105 (5.49%) Consultant
6 104 (5.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 98 (5.13%) Developer
8 88 (4.60%) Network Engineer
9 78 (4.08%) Technical Architect
10 72 (3.77%) SOC Analyst
11 61 (3.19%) Security Architect
12 56 (2.93%) Tester
13 53 (2.77%) DevOps Engineer
13 53 (2.77%) Project Manager
14 50 (2.62%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 46 (2.41%) Software Engineer
16 39 (2.04%) Administrator
16 39 (2.04%) Service Manager
17 38 (1.99%) Designer
18 36 (1.88%) DV Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (2.41%) REST
2 29 (1.52%) React
3 25 (1.31%) Elastic Stack
4 18 (0.94%) 802.1X
5 17 (0.89%) Node.js
6 16 (0.84%) AngularJS
6 16 (0.84%) Kafka
7 15 (0.78%) LDAP
7 15 (0.78%) SOAP
8 14 (0.73%) Spring
9 13 (0.68%) Apache NiFi
9 13 (0.68%) Flask
9 13 (0.68%) RESTful
10 12 (0.63%) FastAPI
10 12 (0.63%) Spring Boot
11 11 (0.58%) .NET
11 11 (0.58%) ModSecurity
12 10 (0.52%) OAuth
12 10 (0.52%) SailPoint
12 10 (0.52%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 94 (4.92%) PKI
2 63 (3.29%) Data Centre
3 53 (2.77%) Security Operations Centre
4 46 (2.41%) Cloud Native
5 32 (1.67%) Clustering
5 32 (1.67%) Onboarding
6 31 (1.62%) Management Information System
7 26 (1.36%) Product Ownership
8 23 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
9 22 (1.15%) Cyber Threat
10 20 (1.05%) Cyberattack
11 19 (0.99%) Security Posture
12 18 (0.94%) Public Cloud
13 16 (0.84%) Analytical Mindset
13 16 (0.84%) Private Cloud
14 15 (0.78%) Enterprise Storage
14 15 (0.78%) Virtual Team
15 14 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
15 14 (0.73%) Legacy Systems
16 13 (0.68%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 267 (13.96%) Windows
2 216 (11.30%) Linux
3 90 (4.71%) Windows Server
4 29 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (1.15%) Windows 10
6 12 (0.63%) Ubuntu
7 10 (0.52%) Unix
8 9 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
9 8 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
10 7 (0.37%) Debian
11 6 (0.31%) AIX
11 6 (0.31%) Android
11 6 (0.31%) CentOS
11 6 (0.31%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.26%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.26%) Mac OS
12 5 (0.26%) VMS
13 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.16%) Rocky
14 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (16.68%) Agile
2 195 (10.20%) Problem-Solving
3 165 (8.63%) ITIL
4 159 (8.32%) CI/CD
5 154 (8.05%) DevOps
6 150 (7.85%) Cybersecurity
7 144 (7.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 135 (7.06%) Continuous Improvement
9 126 (6.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 123 (6.43%) Service Management
11 111 (5.81%) Stakeholder Management
12 102 (5.33%) ITSM
13 101 (5.28%) Infrastructure as Code
14 92 (4.81%) Decision-Making
15 90 (4.71%) Project Delivery
16 83 (4.34%) Risk Management
16 83 (4.34%) SIEM
17 79 (4.13%) Security Operations
18 75 (3.92%) Incident Response
18 75 (3.92%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 147 (7.69%) Python
2 114 (5.96%) PowerShell
3 78 (4.08%) SQL
4 39 (2.04%) Java
5 35 (1.83%) JavaScript
6 34 (1.78%) Bash
7 23 (1.20%) TypeScript
8 21 (1.10%) C#
9 14 (0.73%) Go
9 14 (0.73%) Search Processing Language
10 12 (0.63%) PL/SQL
11 10 (0.52%) Bicep
12 9 (0.47%) C
12 9 (0.47%) C++
13 8 (0.42%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.37%) 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 1,912 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 614 (32.11%) SC Cleared
3 60 (3.14%) Degree
4 52 (2.72%) Cisco Certification
5 51 (2.67%) CISSP
6 36 (1.88%) CISM
7 25 (1.31%) CCNA
7 25 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
8 23 (1.20%) CCNP
9 21 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
10 19 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
11 18 (0.94%) CESG Certified Professional
12 17 (0.89%) AWS Certification
13 16 (0.84%) BPSS Clearance
13 16 (0.84%) GIAC
14 14 (0.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 13 (0.68%) CompTIA CySA+
15 13 (0.68%) ISTQB
16 12 (0.63%) CTC Cleared
17 11 (0.58%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (3.97%) NIST
2 62 (3.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 48 (2.51%) NCSC
3 48 (2.51%) PMO
4 47 (2.46%) QA
5 37 (1.94%) JSP 440
6 23 (1.20%) GRC
7 22 (1.15%) RMADS
8 21 (1.10%) SLA
9 17 (0.89%) GDPR
10 12 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
11 10 (0.52%) Data Quality
12 9 (0.47%) Accessibility
12 9 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 8 (0.42%) NIST 800
14 6 (0.31%) WCAG
15 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 4 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
15 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 3 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 123 (6.43%) Active Directory
2 120 (6.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 94 (4.92%) Docker
4 57 (2.98%) VMware NSX
5 47 (2.46%) VMware ESXi
6 39 (2.04%) Hyper-V
7 22 (1.15%) vSphere
8 19 (0.99%) vCloud
9 10 (0.52%) BitLocker
10 9 (0.47%) Firmware
10 9 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.42%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
13 6 (0.31%) NFS
14 5 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
15 4 (0.21%) UAG
16 3 (0.16%) Ceph
17 2 (0.10%) GPFS
17 2 (0.10%) Lustre
17 2 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 131 (6.85%) Kubernetes
2 124 (6.49%) Terraform
3 81 (4.24%) Ansible
4 60 (3.14%) vCenter Server
5 27 (1.41%) SCCM
6 26 (1.36%) SCOM
7 20 (1.05%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 20 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
8 19 (0.99%) Grafana
9 17 (0.89%) Prometheus
9 17 (0.89%) Puppet
10 13 (0.68%) FortiGate
11 12 (0.63%) Podman
12 11 (0.58%) Nagios
12 11 (0.58%) Nessus
12 11 (0.58%) WMI
13 10 (0.52%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 10 (0.52%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 10 (0.52%) WSUS
14 9 (0.47%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 209 (10.93%) VMware
2 172 (9.00%) Microsoft
3 107 (5.60%) Cisco
4 73 (3.82%) Splunk
5 69 (3.61%) ServiceNow
6 51 (2.67%) Oracle
7 46 (2.41%) Juniper
7 46 (2.41%) NetApp
8 45 (2.35%) SAP
9 41 (2.14%) Red Hat
10 30 (1.57%) F5
11 28 (1.46%) SolarWinds
12 25 (1.31%) Remedy
13 24 (1.26%) Fortinet
14 22 (1.15%) Google
15 21 (1.10%) Dell
15 21 (1.10%) Sparx
16 20 (1.05%) Palo Alto
17 18 (0.94%) Citrix
18 17 (0.89%) BMC