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

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 87 31
Rank change year-on-year +37 -56 +34
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,891 829 2,434
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.98% 2.85% 5.64%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.43% 9.23% 18.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,389 570 1,747
10th Percentile £419 £446 £413
25th Percentile £513 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% -
75th Percentile £688 £675 £689
90th Percentile £750 £716 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £588 £596
% change year-on-year +2.13% -1.47% -0.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 25 109
10th Percentile £16.77 £45.50 £50.80
25th Percentile £35.00 £60.75 £57.33
Median hourly rate £55.00 £78.70 £67.81
Median % change year-on-year -30.11% +16.06% -2.43%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.10 £85.00
90th Percentile £89.90 £88.32 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £80.68 £70.39
% change year-on-year -31.83% +14.61% -5.88%

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 15,210 8,977 13,149
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.05% 30.85% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,117 5,651 8,118
10th Percentile £348 £285 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -1.14% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £721 £704 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.30% +0.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,087 512 1,072
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.85
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.49 £17.80
Median hourly rate £47.54 £38.27 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +24.22% -4.33% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £61.53
90th Percentile £85.36 £79.87 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.94
% change year-on-year +18.75% -2.30% -17.91%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +28 1,748 £588 -0.42% 456
UK excluding London +16 1,373 £600 +2.13% 362
South East +9 768 £600 +1.91% 148
London +49 373 £575 -4.17% 110
South West -3 314 £550 -8.33% 113
Work from Home +46 252 £560 -2.61% 171
East of England +17 101 £650 +18.18% 40
North of England +1 81 £750 +265.85% 39
North West +11 67 £775 +278.05% 28
Midlands -35 64 £600 -14.29% 23
West Midlands -36 48 £600 -14.29% 21
Scotland +29 40 £669 -4.50% 1
East Midlands -14 16 £550 - 2
Yorkshire -37 12 £525 -16.00% 8
Wales -4 6 - - 2
Northern Ireland - 5 £650 - 3
North East - 2 £675 - 3

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 36 (1.90%) Confluence
2 35 (1.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (1.43%) SharePoint
4 16 (0.85%) Apache
5 8 (0.42%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.32%) Mattermost
6 6 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
7 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
8 2 (0.11%) nginx
9 1 (0.053%) CMS
9 1 (0.053%) OpenStack
Applications
1 42 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
1 42 (2.22%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (1.00%) Microsoft Project
3 13 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.26%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.21%) AutoCAD
6 4 (0.21%) Revit
6 4 (0.21%) SOLIDWORKS
7 2 (0.11%) Lectora
7 2 (0.11%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 28 (1.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.32%) Remedy ITSM
3 20 (1.06%) 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
7 2 (0.11%) Primavera
7 2 (0.11%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.053%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.053%) SAP CCM
8 1 (0.053%) SAP FI-GL
8 1 (0.053%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.053%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 180 (9.52%) AWS
2 153 (8.09%) Azure
3 51 (2.70%) GCP
4 46 (2.43%) IaaS
5 43 (2.27%) PaaS
6 41 (2.17%) GitHub
7 36 (1.90%) Azure DevOps
8 35 (1.85%) Microsoft 365
9 29 (1.53%) OpenShift
10 28 (1.48%) Serverless
11 27 (1.43%) GitHub Actions
12 17 (0.90%) Power Platform
13 16 (0.85%) OCI
14 13 (0.69%) Amazon S3
14 13 (0.69%) AWS Lambda
15 12 (0.63%) Amazon ECS
16 11 (0.58%) Amazon EKS
16 11 (0.58%) Azure AKS
16 11 (0.58%) Entra ID
16 11 (0.58%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 110 (5.82%) Firewall
2 97 (5.13%) DNS
3 70 (3.70%) Network Security
4 57 (3.01%) WAN
5 56 (2.96%) LAN
6 48 (2.54%) VPN
7 41 (2.17%) BGP
8 37 (1.96%) DHCP
9 29 (1.53%) OSPF
10 26 (1.37%) TCP/IP
11 21 (1.11%) Junos
12 20 (1.06%) VSAN
13 19 (1.00%) SAN
14 18 (0.95%) Ethernet VPN
14 18 (0.95%) MPLS
15 17 (0.90%) VXLAN
16 16 (0.85%) BIG-IP
16 16 (0.85%) Cisco ISE
17 14 (0.74%) Cisco IOS
17 14 (0.74%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (1.27%) Elasticsearch
1 24 (1.27%) PostgreSQL
1 24 (1.27%) SQL Server
2 18 (0.95%) Oracle Database
3 14 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
4 13 (0.69%) Power BI
5 11 (0.58%) MongoDB
6 9 (0.48%) Hadoop
7 8 (0.42%) Big Data
7 8 (0.42%) Metadata
8 7 (0.37%) Redis
8 7 (0.37%) Relational Database
9 6 (0.32%) InfluxDB
9 6 (0.32%) MariaDB
9 6 (0.32%) MySQL
9 6 (0.32%) NoSQL
10 5 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
10 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 4 (0.21%) DynamoDB
11 4 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 75 (3.97%) JIRA
2 26 (1.37%) GitLab
3 25 (1.32%) Git
3 25 (1.32%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
5 8 (0.42%) Cypress.io
6 7 (0.37%) Artifactory
6 7 (0.37%) Maven
6 7 (0.37%) Robot Framework
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.16%) MLflow
8 3 (0.16%) MSI
8 3 (0.16%) Selenium
8 3 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 2 (0.11%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.11%) ERwin
9 2 (0.11%) Gatling
9 2 (0.11%) REST Assured
General
1 293 (15.49%) Social Skills
2 211 (11.16%) Public Sector
3 119 (6.29%) Analytical Skills
4 85 (4.49%) Finance
5 63 (3.33%) Military
6 53 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (2.59%) Legal
8 26 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
9 25 (1.32%) Organisational Skills
10 23 (1.22%) Telecoms
11 22 (1.16%) Police
12 21 (1.11%) Law
13 20 (1.06%) Aerospace
14 10 (0.53%) Manufacturing
15 8 (0.42%) Banking
16 7 (0.37%) Electronics
17 6 (0.32%) Marketing
18 5 (0.26%) Influencing Skills
19 4 (0.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 3 (0.16%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 330 (17.45%) Architect
2 141 (7.46%) Lead
3 138 (7.30%) Senior
4 113 (5.98%) Analyst
5 101 (5.34%) Consultant
6 95 (5.02%) Network Engineer
7 93 (4.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 85 (4.49%) Developer
9 81 (4.28%) Technical Architect
10 61 (3.23%) SOC Analyst
11 60 (3.17%) Project Manager
12 58 (3.07%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 58 (3.07%) Security Architect
12 58 (3.07%) Tester
13 52 (2.75%) DevOps Engineer
14 45 (2.38%) Software Engineer
15 39 (2.06%) Designer
15 39 (2.06%) DV Cleared Project Manager
15 39 (2.06%) Enterprise Architect
16 37 (1.96%) Service Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (2.12%) REST
2 29 (1.53%) React
3 23 (1.22%) Elastic Stack
4 20 (1.06%) Node.js
5 18 (0.95%) Apache NiFi
6 17 (0.90%) Kafka
7 16 (0.85%) 802.1X
8 15 (0.79%) AngularJS
9 14 (0.74%) LDAP
10 13 (0.69%) .NET
11 12 (0.63%) ModSecurity
11 12 (0.63%) RESTful
12 11 (0.58%) OAuth
12 11 (0.58%) Spring
12 11 (0.58%) Web Services
13 10 (0.53%) Flask
13 10 (0.53%) PyTorch
13 10 (0.53%) SailPoint
13 10 (0.53%) SOAP
14 9 (0.48%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 101 (5.34%) PKI
2 64 (3.38%) Data Centre
3 49 (2.59%) Security Operations Centre
4 38 (2.01%) Cloud Native
5 33 (1.75%) Onboarding
6 31 (1.64%) Management Information System
7 30 (1.59%) Clustering
8 25 (1.32%) Product Ownership
9 22 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
10 20 (1.06%) Cyberattack
11 19 (1.00%) Cyber Threat
11 19 (1.00%) Public Cloud
12 17 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
13 16 (0.85%) Security Posture
13 16 (0.85%) Virtual Team
14 15 (0.79%) Enterprise Storage
14 15 (0.79%) Replication
15 14 (0.74%) Greenfield Project
16 13 (0.69%) Legacy Systems
16 13 (0.69%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 272 (14.38%) Windows
2 211 (11.16%) Linux
3 91 (4.81%) Windows Server
4 25 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (1.27%) Windows 10
6 14 (0.74%) Ubuntu
7 10 (0.53%) Android
8 9 (0.48%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.37%) Unix
9 7 (0.37%) VMS
9 7 (0.37%) Windows 7
9 7 (0.37%) Windows Server 2003
10 6 (0.32%) AIX
10 6 (0.32%) CentOS
10 6 (0.32%) Debian
10 6 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.26%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
13 3 (0.16%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 317 (16.76%) Agile
2 195 (10.31%) Problem-Solving
3 157 (8.30%) ITIL
4 149 (7.88%) DevOps
5 148 (7.83%) CI/CD
6 140 (7.40%) Cybersecurity
7 132 (6.98%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 125 (6.61%) Continuous Improvement
9 122 (6.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 120 (6.35%) Service Management
11 115 (6.08%) Stakeholder Management
12 94 (4.97%) ITSM
13 92 (4.87%) Project Delivery
14 91 (4.81%) Infrastructure as Code
15 90 (4.76%) Decision-Making
16 79 (4.18%) Risk Management
17 78 (4.12%) Project Management
18 74 (3.91%) Containerisation
19 73 (3.86%) SIEM
20 72 (3.81%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 146 (7.72%) Python
2 112 (5.92%) PowerShell
3 71 (3.75%) SQL
4 45 (2.38%) Java
5 34 (1.80%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.69%) Bash
7 25 (1.32%) C#
7 25 (1.32%) TypeScript
8 16 (0.85%) Go
9 12 (0.63%) Search Processing Language
10 10 (0.53%) Bicep
10 10 (0.53%) C++
10 10 (0.53%) PL/SQL
10 10 (0.53%) Shell Script
11 9 (0.48%) C
12 6 (0.32%) Embedded C
12 6 (0.32%) Rust
13 4 (0.21%) Apex Code
13 4 (0.21%) MATLAB
13 4 (0.21%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,891 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 587 (31.04%) SC Cleared
3 57 (3.01%) Degree
4 52 (2.75%) Cisco Certification
5 50 (2.64%) CISSP
6 36 (1.90%) CISM
7 27 (1.43%) CCNA
8 24 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
9 23 (1.22%) CCNP
10 21 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
11 19 (1.00%) CESG Certified Professional
12 18 (0.95%) AWS Certification
12 18 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
13 16 (0.85%) BPSS Clearance
14 15 (0.79%) GIAC
15 14 (0.74%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 13 (0.69%) CompTIA CySA+
17 12 (0.63%) Azure Certification
17 12 (0.63%) CTC Cleared
18 11 (0.58%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (4.02%) NIST
2 61 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 52 (2.75%) PMO
4 49 (2.59%) NCSC
5 42 (2.22%) QA
6 40 (2.12%) JSP 440
7 23 (1.22%) GRC
8 21 (1.11%) RMADS
9 19 (1.00%) SLA
10 12 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
10 12 (0.63%) GDPR
11 11 (0.58%) Data Quality
12 9 (0.48%) Accessibility
12 9 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 9 (0.48%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.32%) WCAG
14 5 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
14 5 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 4 (0.21%) Def Stans
System Software
1 127 (6.72%) Active Directory
2 117 (6.19%) VMware Infrastructure
3 92 (4.87%) Docker
4 56 (2.96%) VMware NSX
5 46 (2.43%) VMware ESXi
6 38 (2.01%) Hyper-V
7 21 (1.11%) vSphere
8 15 (0.79%) vCloud
9 12 (0.63%) Firmware
10 10 (0.53%) BitLocker
11 9 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
12 8 (0.42%) Microsoft App-V
12 8 (0.42%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.21%) UAG
13 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
14 3 (0.16%) Ceph
14 3 (0.16%) GPFS
14 3 (0.16%) Lustre
14 3 (0.16%) NFS
14 3 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 132 (6.98%) Kubernetes
2 120 (6.35%) Terraform
3 84 (4.44%) Ansible
4 60 (3.17%) vCenter Server
5 36 (1.90%) SCCM
6 24 (1.27%) Grafana
7 23 (1.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 22 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
9 21 (1.11%) Prometheus
10 19 (1.00%) SCOM
11 16 (0.85%) Puppet
12 13 (0.69%) FortiGate
12 13 (0.69%) Nessus
13 12 (0.63%) Nagios
13 12 (0.63%) Progress Chef
13 12 (0.63%) WMI
14 11 (0.58%) Podman
15 10 (0.53%) Forefront Identity Manager
15 10 (0.53%) NetIQ Identity Manager
15 10 (0.53%) WSUS
Vendors
1 209 (11.05%) VMware
2 188 (9.94%) Microsoft
3 111 (5.87%) Cisco
4 67 (3.54%) Splunk
5 58 (3.07%) ServiceNow
6 49 (2.59%) NetApp
7 47 (2.49%) Juniper
7 47 (2.49%) SAP
8 44 (2.33%) Oracle
9 35 (1.85%) Red Hat
10 29 (1.53%) SolarWinds
11 28 (1.48%) F5
12 26 (1.37%) Remedy
13 22 (1.16%) Dell
13 22 (1.16%) Fortinet
14 21 (1.11%) Sparx
15 19 (1.00%) Palo Alto
16 17 (0.90%) Citrix
17 16 (0.85%) Google
18 15 (0.79%) Veeam