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

6 months to
25 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 77 32
Rank change year-on-year +27 -45 +24
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,989 911 2,452
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.91% 3.02% 5.63%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.48% 9.77% 18.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,510 628 1,768
10th Percentile £430 £459 £425
25th Percentile £513 £519 £518
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £586 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.48% -2.42% -
75th Percentile £688 £650 £688
90th Percentile £750 £713 £767
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £600
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 28 120
10th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £51.13
25th Percentile £35.00 £40.94 £56.65
Median hourly rate £48.84 £80.34 £71.75
Median % change year-on-year -39.21% +11.97% +0.82%
75th Percentile £68.00 £83.16 £85.65
90th Percentile £81.90 £88.87 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.71 £81.35 £71.17
% change year-on-year -47.50% +14.31% -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 15,934 9,328 12,988
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.31% 30.97% 29.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,650 5,796 8,020
10th Percentile £350 £275 £311
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £500 £530
% change year-on-year +1.40% -5.66% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,166 606 1,133
10th Percentile £17.46 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.57 £20.00 £19.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £28.58 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +74.98% -30.20% -25.73%
75th Percentile £72.54 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.25 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.40 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.48% -36.28% -19.87%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +27 1,848 £600 +2.13% 342
UK excluding London +9 1,417 £600 +4.35% 303
South East +5 763 £600 +3.45% 136
London +53 410 £600 - 67
South West -2 373 £575 -4.17% 108
Work from Home +59 309 £560 -2.61% 99
East of England +10 104 £650 +18.18% 24
North of England -8 83 £775 +24.00% 28
North West +12 65 £775 +278.05% 23
Midlands -56 52 £600 - 8
West Midlands -63 41 £600 - 7
Scotland +21 38 £669 +33.70% 4
Yorkshire -41 15 £525 -16.00% 3
East Midlands -8 11 £518 -5.91% 1
Northern Ireland +6 6 £619 - 2
Wales -8 4 - -
North East -33 3 £569 -9.00% 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 43 (2.16%) Confluence
2 41 (2.06%) Microsoft Exchange
3 30 (1.51%) SharePoint
4 6 (0.30%) Apache Spark
4 6 (0.30%) Mattermost
5 5 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.25%) CMS
5 5 (0.25%) Documentum
5 5 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
6 4 (0.20%) Apache
6 4 (0.20%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.10%) nginx
7 2 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.050%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.050%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.050%) Mule
Applications
1 37 (1.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.71%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.21%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.45%) AutoCAD
5 9 (0.45%) Revit
5 9 (0.45%) SOLIDWORKS
6 6 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.20%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.10%) Lectora
8 2 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.21%) Remedy ITSM
3 20 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.85%) Oracle ERP
5 5 (0.25%) Maximo
5 5 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
5 5 (0.25%) Teamcenter
6 4 (0.20%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.20%) SAP EWM
6 4 (0.20%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.15%) SAP GRC
8 2 (0.10%) Primavera
8 2 (0.10%) Siebel CRM
9 1 (0.050%) Oracle Applications
9 1 (0.050%) SAP CCM
9 1 (0.050%) SAP FI-GL
9 1 (0.050%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.050%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 223 (11.21%) AWS
2 204 (10.26%) Azure
3 92 (4.63%) GCP
4 51 (2.56%) GitHub
5 47 (2.36%) Azure DevOps
6 41 (2.06%) IaaS
6 41 (2.06%) PaaS
7 40 (2.01%) GitHub Actions
8 31 (1.56%) Microsoft 365
8 31 (1.56%) Serverless
9 29 (1.46%) OpenShift
10 24 (1.21%) OCI
10 24 (1.21%) Power Platform
11 19 (0.96%) SaaS
12 18 (0.90%) AWS Lambda
12 18 (0.90%) Entra ID
13 17 (0.85%) Amazon ECS
13 17 (0.85%) Amazon EKS
14 14 (0.70%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 12 (0.60%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 112 (5.63%) DNS
2 102 (5.13%) Firewall
3 71 (3.57%) Network Security
4 64 (3.22%) LAN
5 63 (3.17%) WAN
6 52 (2.61%) DHCP
6 52 (2.61%) VPN
7 43 (2.16%) BGP
8 29 (1.46%) OSPF
9 24 (1.21%) VLAN
10 21 (1.06%) IPsec
10 21 (1.06%) MPLS
10 21 (1.06%) VXLAN
11 19 (0.96%) BIG-IP
11 19 (0.96%) Ethernet VPN
11 19 (0.96%) TCP/IP
12 18 (0.90%) VSAN
13 16 (0.80%) Cisco Nexus
13 16 (0.80%) Junos
13 16 (0.80%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (1.96%) SQL Server
2 34 (1.71%) Oracle Database
2 34 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
3 26 (1.31%) Elasticsearch
4 19 (0.96%) Power BI
5 13 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
5 13 (0.65%) MongoDB
6 10 (0.50%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (0.50%) Metadata
7 7 (0.35%) Data Lake
7 7 (0.35%) Redis
8 6 (0.30%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.30%) Oracle Database 11g
9 5 (0.25%) Big Data
9 5 (0.25%) BigQuery
9 5 (0.25%) DynamoDB
9 5 (0.25%) Hadoop
9 5 (0.25%) MariaDB
9 5 (0.25%) MySQL
10 4 (0.20%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 76 (3.82%) JIRA
2 44 (2.21%) GitLab
3 40 (2.01%) Jenkins
4 32 (1.61%) Git
5 13 (0.65%) Cypress.io
6 9 (0.45%) Selenium
7 7 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.30%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.25%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.20%) Oracle APEX
10 4 (0.20%) Postman
10 4 (0.20%) Robot Framework
10 4 (0.20%) SonarQube
10 4 (0.20%) SpecFlow
10 4 (0.20%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.15%) Appium
11 3 (0.15%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.15%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.15%) ERwin
11 3 (0.15%) MLflow
General
1 318 (15.99%) Social Skills
2 259 (13.02%) Public Sector
3 114 (5.73%) Analytical Skills
4 94 (4.73%) Finance
5 72 (3.62%) Military
6 63 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (2.46%) Legal
8 26 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
9 24 (1.21%) Telecoms
10 23 (1.16%) Law
11 22 (1.11%) Aerospace
12 21 (1.06%) Police
13 20 (1.01%) Presentation Skills
14 14 (0.70%) Manufacturing
15 10 (0.50%) Influencing Skills
15 10 (0.50%) Marketing
16 7 (0.35%) Local Government
17 5 (0.25%) Electronics
18 3 (0.15%) Advertising
18 3 (0.15%) Banking
Job Titles
1 296 (14.88%) Architect
2 186 (9.35%) Lead
3 169 (8.50%) Senior
4 131 (6.59%) Analyst
5 121 (6.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 116 (5.83%) Developer
7 112 (5.63%) Consultant
8 83 (4.17%) Network Engineer
9 79 (3.97%) Technical Architect
10 74 (3.72%) SOC Analyst
11 65 (3.27%) Security Architect
12 61 (3.07%) Project Manager
13 51 (2.56%) DevOps Engineer
14 50 (2.51%) Tester
15 49 (2.46%) DBA
16 47 (2.36%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 47 (2.36%) Service Manager
17 43 (2.16%) Software Engineer
18 42 (2.11%) DV Cleared Project Manager
19 40 (2.01%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (3.02%) REST
2 28 (1.41%) Elastic Stack
3 27 (1.36%) React
4 23 (1.16%) SOAP
5 19 (0.96%) 802.1X
5 19 (0.96%) Node.js
6 18 (0.90%) Kafka
7 16 (0.80%) RESTful
7 16 (0.80%) Spring
8 15 (0.75%) Flask
9 14 (0.70%) AngularJS
9 14 (0.70%) FastAPI
10 13 (0.65%) Spring Boot
11 12 (0.60%) .NET
12 11 (0.55%) ModSecurity
12 11 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
13 10 (0.50%) Apache NiFi
13 10 (0.50%) Playwright
14 9 (0.45%) OAuth
14 9 (0.45%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 88 (4.42%) PKI
2 80 (4.02%) Data Centre
3 63 (3.17%) Cloud Native
4 50 (2.51%) Security Operations Centre
5 38 (1.91%) Onboarding
6 35 (1.76%) Clustering
7 31 (1.56%) Private Cloud
8 30 (1.51%) Hybrid Cloud
8 30 (1.51%) Product Ownership
9 29 (1.46%) Management Information System
9 29 (1.46%) Security Posture
10 23 (1.16%) CMDB
11 19 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
11 19 (0.96%) Public Cloud
12 18 (0.90%) Cyber Threat
13 16 (0.80%) Virtual Team
14 13 (0.65%) Enterprise Storage
14 13 (0.65%) Greenfield Project
14 13 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
15 11 (0.55%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 257 (12.92%) Windows
2 204 (10.26%) Linux
3 108 (5.43%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.85%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.50%) Unix
7 7 (0.35%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.35%) Windows Server 2003
7 7 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.30%) AIX
8 6 (0.30%) Android
9 5 (0.25%) CentOS
9 5 (0.25%) Debian
9 5 (0.25%) VMS
10 4 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.20%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
11 3 (0.15%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 329 (16.54%) Agile
2 196 (9.85%) Problem-Solving
3 192 (9.65%) ITIL
4 172 (8.65%) Cybersecurity
5 171 (8.60%) Continuous Improvement
6 169 (8.50%) CI/CD
7 166 (8.35%) DevOps
7 166 (8.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 147 (7.39%) Stakeholder Management
9 140 (7.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 135 (6.79%) Service Management
11 110 (5.53%) Infrastructure as Code
11 110 (5.53%) ITSM
12 103 (5.18%) Project Delivery
13 91 (4.58%) Containerisation
13 91 (4.58%) Decision-Making
14 90 (4.52%) Risk Management
14 90 (4.52%) Technical Leadership
15 87 (4.37%) Security Operations
16 85 (4.27%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 168 (8.45%) Python
2 108 (5.43%) PowerShell
3 97 (4.88%) SQL
4 52 (2.61%) Java
5 43 (2.16%) JavaScript
6 38 (1.91%) Bash
7 29 (1.46%) TypeScript
8 26 (1.31%) C#
9 17 (0.85%) Go
10 14 (0.70%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (0.65%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.55%) C++
13 10 (0.50%) Bicep
13 10 (0.50%) C
14 9 (0.45%) Rust
15 8 (0.40%) Shell Script
16 6 (0.30%) Embedded C
16 6 (0.30%) Perl
17 5 (0.25%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 1,989 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 669 (33.63%) SC Cleared
3 61 (3.07%) Degree
4 53 (2.66%) Cisco Certification
5 51 (2.56%) CISSP
6 32 (1.61%) CISM
7 28 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
8 22 (1.11%) AWS Certification
8 22 (1.11%) CCNP
9 21 (1.06%) CompTIA Security+
10 20 (1.01%) CCNA
11 18 (0.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 17 (0.85%) BPSS Clearance
13 16 (0.80%) ISTQB
13 16 (0.80%) PMI Certification
14 15 (0.75%) CESG Certified Professional
14 15 (0.75%) MCSE
14 15 (0.75%) PMP
15 13 (0.65%) Azure Certification
16 12 (0.60%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (3.82%) NIST
2 71 (3.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 64 (3.22%) NCSC
4 55 (2.77%) PMO
5 50 (2.51%) QA
6 39 (1.96%) JSP 440
7 27 (1.36%) GDPR
8 23 (1.16%) RMADS
8 23 (1.16%) SLA
9 22 (1.11%) GRC
10 11 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
11 10 (0.50%) Accessibility
12 9 (0.45%) Data Quality
12 9 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
12 9 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 8 (0.40%) NIST 800
14 6 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 6 (0.30%) ISO 9000
14 6 (0.30%) WCAG
15 5 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 133 (6.69%) VMware Infrastructure
2 127 (6.39%) Active Directory
3 108 (5.43%) Docker
4 67 (3.37%) VMware NSX
5 51 (2.56%) VMware ESXi
6 45 (2.26%) Hyper-V
7 24 (1.21%) vSphere
8 21 (1.06%) vCloud
9 11 (0.55%) BitLocker
10 10 (0.50%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.45%) Microsoft App-V
12 8 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
13 7 (0.35%) NFS
14 5 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
15 4 (0.20%) Ceph
15 4 (0.20%) Firmware
15 4 (0.20%) Terminal Services
15 4 (0.20%) UAG
16 3 (0.15%) Squid
17 2 (0.10%) KVM
Systems Management
1 149 (7.49%) Kubernetes
2 142 (7.14%) Terraform
3 84 (4.22%) Ansible
4 60 (3.02%) vCenter Server
5 31 (1.56%) SCOM
6 27 (1.36%) SCCM
7 21 (1.06%) Grafana
7 21 (1.06%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.85%) Puppet
9 13 (0.65%) FortiGate
9 13 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.60%) Data Guard
10 12 (0.60%) Nagios
10 12 (0.60%) Podman
11 11 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 10 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
12 10 (0.50%) WSUS
13 9 (0.45%) vMotion
14 8 (0.40%) Avamar
14 8 (0.40%) VxRail
Vendors
1 206 (10.36%) VMware
2 199 (10.01%) Microsoft
3 102 (5.13%) Cisco
4 99 (4.98%) ServiceNow
5 82 (4.12%) Oracle
6 59 (2.97%) Splunk
7 44 (2.21%) Juniper
8 39 (1.96%) Google
8 39 (1.96%) SAP
9 38 (1.91%) SolarWinds
10 35 (1.76%) NetApp
10 35 (1.76%) Red Hat
11 30 (1.51%) F5
12 25 (1.26%) Palo Alto
13 24 (1.21%) Remedy
14 22 (1.11%) Citrix
15 21 (1.06%) Dell
15 21 (1.06%) Fortinet
16 20 (1.01%) Sparx
17 18 (0.90%) BMC