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 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 73 51 45
Rank change year-on-year -22 -6 +80
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,283 1,360 1,837
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.46% 4.01% 4.23%
As % of the Qualifications category 10.26% 13.48% 14.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 907 863 1,250
10th Percentile £463 £393 £370
25th Percentile £513 £500 £501
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% -
75th Percentile £688 £676 £688
90th Percentile £738 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £580 £588 £591
% change year-on-year -1.28% -0.59% +0.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 41 100
10th Percentile £18.11 £46.25 £49.60
25th Percentile £25.15 £55.87 £57.33
Median hourly rate £46.24 £63.15 £63.29
Median % change year-on-year -26.78% -0.22% -7.94%
75th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £76.44
90th Percentile £86.88 £86.08 £79.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.15 £63.29
% change year-on-year +2.93% -0.22% -9.59%

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 12,510 10,092 13,000
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.71% 29.78% 29.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,153 6,175 8,186
10th Percentile £313 £301 £300
25th Percentile £416 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £637 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £505 £538
% change year-on-year -0.99% -6.05% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,012 483 730
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £17.11
25th Percentile £19.23 £24.09 £26.90
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -23.81% +16.67%
75th Percentile £52.52 £66.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.88 £51.89
% change year-on-year -41.35% -17.36% +15.31%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025. 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 -20 1,167 £600 +0.84% 461
UK excluding London -15 886 £580 -1.28% 427
South East 0 478 £578 -1.28% 143
London -38 285 £625 +7.23% 67
South West -7 254 £610 +1.58% 146
Work from Home -27 161 £580 -2.52% 185
Midlands -9 76 £575 -17.12% 33
West Midlands -5 69 £575 -17.86% 22
East of England -9 37 £550 - 58
North of England -63 29 £525 -4.55% 41
Scotland -32 25 £632 +22.32% 6
North West -23 22 £513 +150.00% 30
Northern Ireland -1 7 £594 - 2
East Midlands -17 7 £650 +27.45% 10
Yorkshire -48 6 £613 +11.36% 11
Wales -11 5 £600 -14.29% 13
North East -17 1 - -

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 (3.35%) SharePoint
2 41 (3.20%) Microsoft Exchange
3 37 (2.88%) Apache
4 29 (2.26%) Skype for Business
5 24 (1.87%) Confluence
6 8 (0.62%) SharePoint Server
7 7 (0.55%) Exchange Server 2003
7 7 (0.55%) Exchange Server 2007
7 7 (0.55%) Exchange Server 2010
7 7 (0.55%) Exchange Server 2013
7 7 (0.55%) Office Communications Server
8 6 (0.47%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.31%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.23%) Documentum
10 3 (0.23%) IIS
11 1 (0.078%) CMS
11 1 (0.078%) Mattermost
11 1 (0.078%) nginx
Applications
1 60 (4.68%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (1.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.17%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.39%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.078%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 17 (1.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.94%) Remedy ITSM
3 10 (0.78%) SAP EWM
3 10 (0.78%) SAP WM
3 10 (0.78%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 5 (0.39%) Primavera
5 3 (0.23%) Maximo
5 3 (0.23%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.078%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.078%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.078%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.078%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.078%) Oracle Payroll
6 1 (0.078%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.078%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.078%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 126 (9.82%) Azure
2 122 (9.51%) AWS
3 60 (4.68%) Microsoft 365
4 41 (3.20%) Serverless
5 40 (3.12%) GitHub
6 36 (2.81%) GCP
7 32 (2.49%) OpenShift
8 28 (2.18%) Azure DevOps
9 23 (1.79%) Amazon S3
10 21 (1.64%) GitHub Actions
11 18 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
11 18 (1.40%) Entra ID
12 16 (1.25%) Amazon EC2
12 16 (1.25%) Amazon ECS
12 16 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
12 16 (1.25%) IaaS
13 13 (1.01%) Azure Sentinel
13 13 (1.01%) npm
13 13 (1.01%) Power Platform
14 12 (0.94%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (6.86%) Firewall
2 87 (6.78%) DNS
3 57 (4.44%) Network Security
4 45 (3.51%) LAN
5 38 (2.96%) VPN
6 37 (2.88%) TCP/IP
7 35 (2.73%) WAN
8 34 (2.65%) DHCP
9 27 (2.10%) Cisco IOS
10 26 (2.03%) Junos
10 26 (2.03%) Skype
11 25 (1.95%) SAN
12 23 (1.79%) Cisco ISE
13 22 (1.71%) Cisco Firepower
14 19 (1.48%) Wireless
15 17 (1.33%) BGP
15 17 (1.33%) SSL
16 12 (0.94%) SMTP
16 12 (0.94%) VLAN
17 11 (0.86%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (1.95%) Big Data
2 22 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
3 20 (1.56%) Elasticsearch
4 17 (1.33%) Hadoop
5 14 (1.09%) SQL Server
6 11 (0.86%) Amazon RDS
6 11 (0.86%) Oracle Database
7 10 (0.78%) Redis
7 10 (0.78%) Relational Database
8 7 (0.55%) InfluxDB
8 7 (0.55%) MongoDB
8 7 (0.55%) Power BI
9 6 (0.47%) SAP HANA
10 5 (0.39%) RDBMS
11 4 (0.31%) Metadata
11 4 (0.31%) MySQL
11 4 (0.31%) NoSQL
12 3 (0.23%) Apache Hive
12 3 (0.23%) Data Lake
12 3 (0.23%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 41 (3.20%) GitLab
2 40 (3.12%) JIRA
3 36 (2.81%) Jenkins
4 33 (2.57%) Git
5 17 (1.33%) SonarQube
6 15 (1.17%) Maven
7 14 (1.09%) Artifactory
8 10 (0.78%) Sonatype Nexus
9 8 (0.62%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.62%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.55%) Selenium
11 6 (0.47%) Postman
12 5 (0.39%) CircleCI
12 5 (0.39%) Gradle
12 5 (0.39%) JUnit
12 5 (0.39%) Snyk
12 5 (0.39%) webpack
13 3 (0.23%) Robot Framework
14 2 (0.16%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 2 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 261 (20.34%) Social Skills
2 178 (13.87%) Public Sector
3 103 (8.03%) Analytical Skills
4 66 (5.14%) Finance
5 47 (3.66%) Military
6 33 (2.57%) Manufacturing
6 33 (2.57%) Telecoms
7 26 (2.03%) Documentation Skills
7 26 (2.03%) Legal
8 21 (1.64%) Marketing
9 20 (1.56%) Electronics
9 20 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
10 19 (1.48%) Banking
10 19 (1.48%) Law
11 16 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
12 13 (1.01%) Aerospace
13 10 (0.78%) Police
14 8 (0.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 5 (0.39%) Influencing Skills
16 2 (0.16%) Multimedia
Job Titles
1 242 (18.86%) Architect
2 86 (6.70%) Analyst
3 85 (6.63%) Consultant
4 68 (5.30%) Senior
5 63 (4.91%) Network Engineer
6 59 (4.60%) Support Engineer
7 55 (4.29%) DevOps Engineer
8 51 (3.98%) Lead
9 49 (3.82%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 49 (3.82%) Solutions Architect
10 47 (3.66%) Developer
11 44 (3.43%) Technical Architect
12 41 (3.20%) 3rd Line Engineer
13 37 (2.88%) Infrastructure Architect
14 36 (2.81%) Cloud Engineer
14 36 (2.81%) Project Manager
14 36 (2.81%) SOC Analyst
15 31 (2.42%) Administrator
15 31 (2.42%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 26 (2.03%) Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (2.88%) Apache NiFi
2 31 (2.42%) REST
3 22 (1.71%) Kafka
4 21 (1.64%) React
5 20 (1.56%) OAuth
6 18 (1.40%) OpenID
7 17 (1.33%) SAML
8 16 (1.25%) OAuth2
9 15 (1.17%) Elastic Stack
9 15 (1.17%) Node.js
9 15 (1.17%) YAML
10 14 (1.09%) .NET
11 13 (1.01%) RabbitMQ
12 12 (0.94%) LDAP
13 10 (0.78%) FastAPI
13 10 (0.78%) Flask
14 9 (0.70%) JSON
14 9 (0.70%) Web Services
15 8 (0.62%) AngularJS
15 8 (0.62%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 88 (6.86%) PKI
2 45 (3.51%) Data Centre
3 36 (2.81%) Security Operations Centre
4 34 (2.65%) Cyber Threat
5 31 (2.42%) Management Information System
6 20 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
6 20 (1.56%) Cloud Native
6 20 (1.56%) Replication
7 19 (1.48%) Cyberattack
8 17 (1.33%) CSOC
8 17 (1.33%) Private Cloud
9 16 (1.25%) Onboarding
10 14 (1.09%) Driving Licence
11 13 (1.01%) Cyber Defence
12 11 (0.86%) Fat Client
12 11 (0.86%) Greenfield Project
12 11 (0.86%) Thin Client
13 10 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (0.70%) Legacy Systems
14 9 (0.70%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 237 (18.47%) Windows
2 139 (10.83%) Linux
3 74 (5.77%) Windows Server
4 36 (2.81%) Windows 10
5 25 (1.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (1.33%) Android
6 17 (1.33%) Mac OS
7 15 (1.17%) Windows 7
8 12 (0.94%) Windows Server 2019
9 11 (0.86%) Unix
10 10 (0.78%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.78%) Windows Server 2003
11 7 (0.55%) CentOS
12 3 (0.23%) Debian
13 2 (0.16%) VMS
13 2 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.078%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.078%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.078%) Rocky
14 1 (0.078%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 230 (17.93%) Agile
2 144 (11.22%) Cybersecurity
3 138 (10.76%) Problem-Solving
4 137 (10.68%) DevOps
5 122 (9.51%) CI/CD
6 87 (6.78%) ITIL
7 84 (6.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 78 (6.08%) Infrastructure as Code
9 72 (5.61%) Stakeholder Management
10 71 (5.53%) Continuous Improvement
10 71 (5.53%) SIEM
11 69 (5.38%) Service Management
12 67 (5.22%) ITSM
13 66 (5.14%) Containerisation
14 62 (4.83%) Incident Response
15 60 (4.68%) Risk Management
16 57 (4.44%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 55 (4.29%) Project Management
17 55 (4.29%) Scrum
18 50 (3.90%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 148 (11.54%) Python
2 121 (9.43%) PowerShell
3 64 (4.99%) SQL
4 55 (4.29%) Java
5 35 (2.73%) Bash
5 35 (2.73%) JavaScript
6 18 (1.40%) Go
7 17 (1.33%) C#
8 16 (1.25%) TypeScript
9 15 (1.17%) C++
10 14 (1.09%) Shell Script
11 10 (0.78%) C
12 8 (0.62%) VBScript
13 6 (0.47%) VB
14 5 (0.39%) ABAP
15 4 (0.31%) Bicep
16 3 (0.23%) Kusto Query Language
16 3 (0.23%) T-SQL
17 2 (0.16%) Ruby
18 1 (0.078%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,283 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 407 (31.72%) SC Cleared
3 54 (4.21%) Degree
4 47 (3.66%) CISSP
5 32 (2.49%) CISM
5 32 (2.49%) Microsoft Certification
6 29 (2.26%) Cisco Certification
7 19 (1.48%) CCNP
8 18 (1.40%) CompTIA Security+
9 16 (1.25%) CEH
9 16 (1.25%) GIAC
10 15 (1.17%) Computer Science Degree
11 13 (1.01%) CESG Certified Professional
11 13 (1.01%) CompTIA CySA+
12 12 (0.94%) BPSS Clearance
12 12 (0.94%) CCNA
13 11 (0.86%) CTC Cleared
13 11 (0.86%) PMI Certification
14 9 (0.70%) Azure Certification
14 9 (0.70%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (4.99%) NIST
2 48 (3.74%) NCSC
3 42 (3.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 21 (1.64%) QA
4 21 (1.64%) SLA
5 20 (1.56%) JSP 440
6 18 (1.40%) PMO
7 16 (1.25%) GDPR
8 13 (1.01%) Data Quality
8 13 (1.01%) NIST 800
9 10 (0.78%) GRC
10 9 (0.70%) RMADS
11 4 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
11 4 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 4 (0.31%) P3O
12 3 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.23%) Def Stans
12 3 (0.23%) EU AI Act
12 3 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 110 (8.57%) Active Directory
2 77 (6.00%) Docker
3 65 (5.07%) VMware Infrastructure
4 39 (3.04%) VMware NSX
5 35 (2.73%) VMware ESXi
6 24 (1.87%) vSphere
7 11 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (0.78%) NFS
9 8 (0.62%) Firmware
10 7 (0.55%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.55%) Brightmail
10 7 (0.55%) ISA Server
11 5 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.31%) Hyper-V
13 3 (0.23%) vCloud
14 2 (0.16%) GPFS
14 2 (0.16%) Lustre
14 2 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
14 2 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 120 (9.35%) Kubernetes
2 106 (8.26%) Terraform
3 81 (6.31%) Ansible
4 48 (3.74%) vCenter Server
5 39 (3.04%) Grafana
6 32 (2.49%) Prometheus
7 27 (2.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 27 (2.10%) Single Sign-On
8 24 (1.87%) SCCM
9 14 (1.09%) Progress Chef
10 13 (1.01%) Puppet
10 13 (1.01%) WMI
11 11 (0.86%) Podman
12 9 (0.70%) Microsoft Clustering
12 9 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
13 8 (0.62%) Argo
13 8 (0.62%) SCOM
14 7 (0.55%) Kibana
14 7 (0.55%) Nessus
14 7 (0.55%) vRealize
Vendors
1 196 (15.28%) Microsoft
2 137 (10.68%) VMware
3 106 (8.26%) Cisco
4 54 (4.21%) Splunk
5 51 (3.98%) Juniper
6 49 (3.82%) SAP
7 32 (2.49%) Palantir
7 32 (2.49%) Red Hat
8 28 (2.18%) Oracle
8 28 (2.18%) SolarWinds
9 25 (1.95%) Dell
10 24 (1.87%) Foundry
10 24 (1.87%) NetApp
11 18 (1.40%) HP
11 18 (1.40%) ServiceNow
11 18 (1.40%) Veeam
12 17 (1.33%) Apple
13 14 (1.09%) Atlassian
13 14 (1.09%) Remedy
14 13 (1.01%) Google