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 6 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 80 33
Rank change year-on-year +34 -47 +25
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,189 1,004 2,058
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.11% 3.05% 5.26%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.09% 9.79% 17.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,674 699 1,464
10th Percentile £436 £459 £425
25th Percentile £513 £522 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year - - +1.27%
75th Percentile £700 £666 £688
90th Percentile £755 £713 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £600
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 38 100
10th Percentile £35.00 £25.15 £48.94
25th Percentile £41.25 £26.61 £57.20
Median hourly rate £68.00 £63.25 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +7.51% -10.15% +0.56%
75th Percentile £92.53 £82.08 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.29 £87.91 £90.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £81.35 £70.39
% change year-on-year -16.41% +15.57% -3.58%

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 16,725 10,253 11,715
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.38% 31.15% 29.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,192 6,339 7,422
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,253 787 859
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.21%
75th Percentile £74.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £77.09
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -44.11% -16.15%

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 6 August 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 6 August 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 6 August 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 2,053 £600 - 669
UK excluding London +14 1,568 £600 +3.45% 492
South East +7 916 £600 - 213
London +48 459 £600 -4.00% 180
South West 0 396 £588 -0.42% 162
Work from Home +40 326 £575 -2.13% 234
East of England +11 94 £650 +18.18% 44
North of England -6 71 £775 +24.00% 47
Midlands -57 52 £600 - 24
North West -8 48 £825 - 36
West Midlands -66 44 £600 - 17
Scotland +21 37 £669 +30.44% 9
Yorkshire -31 18 £518 -17.20% 6
East Midlands 0 8 £631 +14.77% 7
North East -36 5 £463 -26.00% 5
Northern Ireland +7 4 £638 - 1
Wales -7 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 60 (2.74%) Confluence
2 40 (1.83%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.41%) Apache
5 8 (0.37%) Apache Spark
6 7 (0.32%) Documentum
7 6 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
7 6 (0.27%) Mattermost
8 5 (0.23%) CMS
9 3 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
9 3 (0.14%) nginx
10 2 (0.091%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.091%) Mule
10 2 (0.091%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.091%) Oracle Service Bus
10 2 (0.091%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
10 2 (0.091%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.046%) JBoss
11 1 (0.046%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 58 (2.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (2.15%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
5 13 (0.59%) AutoCAD
5 13 (0.59%) Revit
5 13 (0.59%) SOLIDWORKS
5 13 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.23%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.14%) Simulink
8 2 (0.091%) Lectora
Business Applications
1 31 (1.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.32%) Remedy ITSM
3 25 (1.14%) Oracle ERP
4 19 (0.87%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.64%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.18%) Primavera
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.14%) SAP PP
10 2 (0.091%) Oracle Assets
10 2 (0.091%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.046%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 1 (0.046%) SAP FI-GL
11 1 (0.046%) SAP GRC
11 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 268 (12.24%) Azure
2 261 (11.92%) AWS
3 107 (4.89%) GCP
4 57 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
5 48 (2.19%) GitHub
6 42 (1.92%) IaaS
7 41 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
8 40 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
9 39 (1.78%) PaaS
10 38 (1.74%) Power Platform
11 37 (1.69%) Serverless
12 34 (1.55%) Entra ID
12 34 (1.55%) OCI
13 24 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
13 24 (1.10%) OpenShift
14 21 (0.96%) Amazon EKS
15 20 (0.91%) SaaS
16 18 (0.82%) Amazon ECS
16 18 (0.82%) Amazon S3
16 18 (0.82%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 156 (7.13%) DNS
2 130 (5.94%) Firewall
3 78 (3.56%) DHCP
4 77 (3.52%) WAN
5 74 (3.38%) Network Security
6 73 (3.33%) LAN
7 58 (2.65%) BGP
8 51 (2.33%) VPN
9 45 (2.06%) TCP/IP
10 40 (1.83%) VSAN
11 34 (1.55%) IPsec
12 31 (1.42%) MPLS
13 30 (1.37%) OSPF
14 26 (1.19%) VLAN
15 23 (1.05%) VXLAN
16 20 (0.91%) Ethernet VPN
17 18 (0.82%) BIG-IP
17 18 (0.82%) SSL
18 17 (0.78%) Cisco ASA
18 17 (0.78%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (2.01%) SQL Server
2 38 (1.74%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.46%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.10%) Elasticsearch
4 24 (1.10%) Power BI
5 17 (0.78%) Metadata
6 14 (0.64%) Data Lake
6 14 (0.64%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
7 10 (0.46%) MongoDB
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 11g
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
9 7 (0.32%) Big Data
9 7 (0.32%) BigQuery
9 7 (0.32%) MariaDB
9 7 (0.32%) NoSQL
9 7 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
10 6 (0.27%) Hadoop
11 5 (0.23%) Redis
Development Applications
1 102 (4.66%) JIRA
2 53 (2.42%) GitLab
3 48 (2.19%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.87%) Git
5 13 (0.59%) Cypress.io
6 10 (0.46%) Selenium
7 6 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.27%) Visual Studio
8 5 (0.23%) Postman
8 5 (0.23%) REST Assured
8 5 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.23%) SpecFlow
9 4 (0.18%) Artifactory
9 4 (0.18%) Cucumber
9 4 (0.18%) MSI
10 3 (0.14%) Appium
10 3 (0.14%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.14%) MLflow
10 3 (0.14%) Robot Framework
10 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 413 (18.87%) Social Skills
2 285 (13.02%) Public Sector
3 151 (6.90%) Analytical Skills
4 140 (6.40%) Finance
5 73 (3.33%) Military
6 55 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
7 44 (2.01%) Legal
8 41 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
9 28 (1.28%) Law
10 27 (1.23%) Police
11 24 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
12 21 (0.96%) Telecoms
13 19 (0.87%) Manufacturing
14 16 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
15 12 (0.55%) Aerospace
16 8 (0.37%) Local Government
17 7 (0.32%) Marketing
18 5 (0.23%) Advertising
19 4 (0.18%) Aviation
19 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 344 (15.71%) Architect
2 243 (11.10%) Lead
3 204 (9.32%) Senior
4 152 (6.94%) Developer
5 150 (6.85%) Analyst
6 145 (6.62%) Consultant
7 140 (6.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 92 (4.20%) Network Engineer
9 88 (4.02%) Security Architect
10 77 (3.52%) SOC Analyst
11 70 (3.20%) Technical Architect
12 61 (2.79%) Project Manager
13 56 (2.56%) Cloud Engineer
14 49 (2.24%) DBA
14 49 (2.24%) DevOps Engineer
14 49 (2.24%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 47 (2.15%) Support Engineer
16 46 (2.10%) Senior Network Engineer
17 43 (1.96%) Network Architect
17 43 (1.96%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (3.33%) REST
2 33 (1.51%) Elastic Stack
3 26 (1.19%) SOAP
4 25 (1.14%) React
5 20 (0.91%) Kafka
6 19 (0.87%) RESTful
7 18 (0.82%) 802.1X
8 16 (0.73%) Node.js
9 15 (0.69%) .NET
10 14 (0.64%) FastAPI
10 14 (0.64%) Oracle Fusion
10 14 (0.64%) Spring
10 14 (0.64%) Spring Boot
11 13 (0.59%) AngularJS
11 13 (0.59%) Apache NiFi
11 13 (0.59%) Flask
12 11 (0.50%) OAuth
12 11 (0.50%) XML
13 10 (0.46%) ModSecurity
13 10 (0.46%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 106 (4.84%) Data Centre
2 103 (4.71%) PKI
3 80 (3.65%) Cloud Native
4 63 (2.88%) Onboarding
5 50 (2.28%) Security Operations Centre
6 37 (1.69%) Clustering
6 37 (1.69%) Private Cloud
6 37 (1.69%) Product Ownership
7 35 (1.60%) Hybrid Cloud
8 33 (1.51%) Management Information System
9 31 (1.42%) Cyber Threat
10 27 (1.23%) Public Cloud
11 25 (1.14%) CMDB
11 25 (1.14%) Distributed Systems
11 25 (1.14%) Security Posture
12 21 (0.96%) Legacy Systems
13 20 (0.91%) Virtual Team
14 15 (0.69%) Analytical Mindset
14 15 (0.69%) Greenfield Project
15 13 (0.59%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 321 (14.66%) Windows
2 227 (10.37%) Linux
3 149 (6.81%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (1.05%) Windows Server 2019
6 21 (0.96%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.59%) Unix
8 9 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
9 8 (0.37%) VMS
10 7 (0.32%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.32%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.27%) AIX
11 6 (0.27%) Android
11 6 (0.27%) CentOS
11 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
12 5 (0.23%) Debian
12 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
13 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 381 (17.41%) Agile
2 221 (10.10%) Problem-Solving
3 220 (10.05%) Stakeholder Management
4 216 (9.87%) Continuous Improvement
5 212 (9.68%) CI/CD
6 207 (9.46%) Cybersecurity
7 199 (9.09%) ITIL
8 195 (8.91%) DevOps
9 185 (8.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 182 (8.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 153 (6.99%) Service Management
12 152 (6.94%) Infrastructure as Code
13 143 (6.53%) Technical Leadership
14 131 (5.98%) ITSM
15 121 (5.53%) Project Delivery
16 112 (5.12%) Risk Management
17 111 (5.07%) Service Delivery
18 110 (5.03%) Decision-Making
19 109 (4.98%) Containerisation
20 103 (4.71%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 197 (9.00%) Python
2 154 (7.04%) PowerShell
3 109 (4.98%) SQL
4 72 (3.29%) Bash
5 63 (2.88%) Java
6 46 (2.10%) JavaScript
7 35 (1.60%) C#
8 27 (1.23%) TypeScript
9 17 (0.78%) Bicep
9 17 (0.78%) Go
10 14 (0.64%) PL/SQL
10 14 (0.64%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (0.59%) C++
12 11 (0.50%) C
13 8 (0.37%) Rust
14 7 (0.32%) Groovy
14 7 (0.32%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.27%) Embedded C
15 6 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
15 6 (0.27%) X++
Qualifications
1 2,189 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 728 (33.26%) SC Cleared
3 75 (3.43%) Degree
4 56 (2.56%) CISSP
5 46 (2.10%) Cisco Certification
6 31 (1.42%) CISM
7 29 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
8 25 (1.14%) AWS Certification
9 23 (1.05%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 21 (0.96%) PMI Certification
11 19 (0.87%) PMP
12 18 (0.82%) VCAP
13 17 (0.78%) CCNA
13 17 (0.78%) CCNP
13 17 (0.78%) ISTQB
14 16 (0.73%) TOGAF Certification
15 15 (0.69%) MCSE
16 14 (0.64%) Azure Certification
16 14 (0.64%) CompTIA Security+
17 12 (0.55%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 80 (3.65%) PMO
2 75 (3.43%) NCSC
3 72 (3.29%) NIST
4 55 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 53 (2.42%) QA
6 33 (1.51%) JSP 440
7 27 (1.23%) GDPR
8 24 (1.10%) SLA
9 23 (1.05%) Data Quality
10 19 (0.87%) GRC
11 17 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 17 (0.78%) RMADS
12 15 (0.69%) Government Security Classifications
13 14 (0.64%) Accessibility
14 12 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 8 (0.37%) WCAG
17 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
18 6 (0.27%) NIST 800
19 5 (0.23%) Def Stans
System Software
1 185 (8.45%) VMware Infrastructure
2 183 (8.36%) Active Directory
3 126 (5.76%) Docker
4 93 (4.25%) VMware NSX
5 67 (3.06%) VMware ESXi
6 61 (2.79%) Hyper-V
7 45 (2.06%) vSphere
8 24 (1.10%) vCloud
9 17 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
10 11 (0.50%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.37%) BitLocker
11 8 (0.37%) Microsoft App-V
11 8 (0.37%) NFS
12 6 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
13 5 (0.23%) Ceph
13 5 (0.23%) Firmware
14 4 (0.18%) Squid
14 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.14%) KVM
15 3 (0.14%) UAG
Systems Management
1 185 (8.45%) Terraform
2 181 (8.27%) Kubernetes
3 123 (5.62%) Ansible
4 83 (3.79%) vCenter Server
5 44 (2.01%) SCOM
6 32 (1.46%) SCCM
7 24 (1.10%) Prometheus
8 23 (1.05%) Puppet
9 22 (1.01%) Grafana
10 15 (0.69%) Nagios
10 15 (0.69%) Oracle RMAN
10 15 (0.69%) Podman
11 14 (0.64%) Avamar
11 14 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
12 13 (0.59%) Data Guard
12 13 (0.59%) FortiGate
12 13 (0.59%) VxRail
13 12 (0.55%) WSUS
14 10 (0.46%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
14 10 (0.46%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 261 (11.92%) Microsoft
2 258 (11.79%) VMware
3 117 (5.34%) ServiceNow
4 100 (4.57%) Oracle
5 97 (4.43%) Cisco
6 61 (2.79%) Splunk
7 56 (2.56%) SAP
8 51 (2.33%) Juniper
9 50 (2.28%) Google
10 46 (2.10%) SolarWinds
11 32 (1.46%) Red Hat
12 31 (1.42%) Remedy
13 28 (1.28%) F5
13 28 (1.28%) NetApp
14 26 (1.19%) Citrix
14 26 (1.19%) Palo Alto
15 24 (1.10%) Dell
16 21 (0.96%) BMC
17 20 (0.91%) CyberArk
18 19 (0.87%) Sparx