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

6 months to
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 83 31
Rank change year-on-year +33 -52 +34
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,886 852 2,432
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.97% 2.91% 5.64%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.35% 9.46% 18.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,383 591 1,745
10th Percentile £419 £442 £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 £673 £688
90th Percentile £750 £713 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £588 £595
% change year-on-year +2.13% -1.26% -0.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 25 110
10th Percentile £16.77 £45.50 £51.03
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 £69.10
% change year-on-year -31.83% +16.75% -6.49%

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 15,273 9,011 13,184
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.13% 30.76% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,150 5,681 8,135
10th Percentile £349 £285 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £704 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £501 £530
% change year-on-year -0.10% -5.57% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,097 516 1,076
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.92 £17.86
Median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.75% - -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.81 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.05 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £40.72 £40.94
% change year-on-year +16.66% -0.55% -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 5 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 5 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 5 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 +22 1,740 £588 -0.42% 478
UK excluding London +14 1,363 £600 +2.13% 385
South East +9 748 £600 +2.35% 148
London +51 377 £575 -4.17% 110
South West -4 321 £550 -8.33% 124
Work from Home +42 250 £560 -2.61% 164
East of England +10 100 £650 +18.18% 51
North of England +2 81 £750 +265.85% 40
North West +14 67 £775 +278.05% 29
Midlands -36 67 £575 -17.86% 24
West Midlands -37 51 £575 -17.86% 23
Scotland +24 42 £669 +21.55% 1
East Midlands -20 16 £550 - 1
Yorkshire -36 12 £525 -16.00% 7
Wales -7 6 - - 2
Northern Ireland - 4 £625 - 3
North East -19 2 £675 +22.73% 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 35 (1.86%) Confluence
1 35 (1.86%) Microsoft Exchange
2 27 (1.43%) SharePoint
3 16 (0.85%) Apache
4 8 (0.42%) Apache Spark
5 7 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
6 6 (0.32%) Mattermost
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%) OpenStack
Applications
1 43 (2.28%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (1.01%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.27%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.21%) AutoCAD
7 4 (0.21%) Revit
7 4 (0.21%) SOLIDWORKS
8 2 (0.11%) Lectora
8 2 (0.11%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 28 (1.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.33%) Remedy ITSM
3 22 (1.17%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 6 (0.32%) 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
1 177 (9.38%) AWS
2 149 (7.90%) Azure
3 51 (2.70%) GCP
4 46 (2.44%) IaaS
5 43 (2.28%) PaaS
6 41 (2.17%) GitHub
7 38 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
8 36 (1.91%) Microsoft 365
9 31 (1.64%) OpenShift
10 28 (1.48%) Serverless
11 27 (1.43%) GitHub Actions
12 16 (0.85%) Amazon S3
12 16 (0.85%) Power Platform
13 15 (0.80%) OCI
14 14 (0.74%) Amazon EC2
15 13 (0.69%) AWS Lambda
16 12 (0.64%) Amazon ECS
16 12 (0.64%) Azure AKS
16 12 (0.64%) Entra ID
17 11 (0.58%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 112 (5.94%) Firewall
2 95 (5.04%) DNS
3 71 (3.76%) Network Security
4 56 (2.97%) LAN
4 56 (2.97%) WAN
5 49 (2.60%) VPN
6 40 (2.12%) BGP
7 36 (1.91%) DHCP
8 30 (1.59%) OSPF
9 25 (1.33%) TCP/IP
10 22 (1.17%) Junos
11 20 (1.06%) VSAN
12 18 (0.95%) Ethernet VPN
12 18 (0.95%) SAN
13 17 (0.90%) Cisco ISE
13 17 (0.90%) VXLAN
14 16 (0.85%) BIG-IP
14 16 (0.85%) MPLS
15 15 (0.80%) Cisco IOS
16 14 (0.74%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (1.27%) PostgreSQL
1 24 (1.27%) SQL Server
2 23 (1.22%) Elasticsearch
3 17 (0.90%) Oracle Database
4 15 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
5 13 (0.69%) MongoDB
6 12 (0.64%) Power BI
7 9 (0.48%) Hadoop
8 8 (0.42%) Big Data
8 8 (0.42%) Metadata
8 8 (0.42%) Relational Database
9 7 (0.37%) InfluxDB
9 7 (0.37%) Redis
10 6 (0.32%) MariaDB
10 6 (0.32%) MySQL
10 6 (0.32%) NoSQL
11 5 (0.27%) Data Warehouse
11 5 (0.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 4 (0.21%) SAP HANA
12 4 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 75 (3.98%) JIRA
2 26 (1.38%) GitLab
3 25 (1.33%) Git
3 25 (1.33%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.48%) Cypress.io
4 9 (0.48%) Maven
4 9 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
5 7 (0.37%) Artifactory
5 7 (0.37%) Robot Framework
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
6 4 (0.21%) Selenium
7 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.16%) MLflow
7 3 (0.16%) MSI
7 3 (0.16%) REST Assured
7 3 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 3 (0.16%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.11%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.11%) Gatling
8 2 (0.11%) Postman
General
1 297 (15.75%) Social Skills
2 216 (11.45%) Public Sector
3 119 (6.31%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (4.29%) Finance
5 63 (3.34%) Military
6 53 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
7 48 (2.55%) Legal
8 27 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
9 24 (1.27%) Organisational Skills
9 24 (1.27%) Telecoms
10 22 (1.17%) Police
11 21 (1.11%) Law
12 20 (1.06%) Aerospace
13 11 (0.58%) Manufacturing
14 9 (0.48%) Banking
15 8 (0.42%) Electronics
16 7 (0.37%) Marketing
17 5 (0.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 5 (0.27%) Influencing Skills
18 3 (0.16%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 332 (17.60%) Architect
2 143 (7.58%) Lead
3 137 (7.26%) Senior
4 112 (5.94%) Analyst
5 101 (5.36%) Consultant
6 97 (5.14%) Network Engineer
7 93 (4.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 81 (4.29%) Developer
8 81 (4.29%) Technical Architect
9 62 (3.29%) SOC Analyst
10 59 (3.13%) Project Manager
11 58 (3.08%) Tester
12 57 (3.02%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 57 (3.02%) Security Architect
13 52 (2.76%) DevOps Engineer
14 44 (2.33%) Software Engineer
15 41 (2.17%) Enterprise Architect
16 40 (2.12%) DV Cleared Project Manager
17 39 (2.07%) Designer
18 36 (1.91%) Service Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (2.17%) REST
2 29 (1.54%) React
3 21 (1.11%) Elastic Stack
4 19 (1.01%) Node.js
5 18 (0.95%) Apache NiFi
6 17 (0.90%) Kafka
7 16 (0.85%) 802.1X
8 14 (0.74%) AngularJS
9 13 (0.69%) .NET
9 13 (0.69%) LDAP
10 12 (0.64%) ModSecurity
10 12 (0.64%) OAuth
11 11 (0.58%) RESTful
11 11 (0.58%) Web Services
12 10 (0.53%) Flask
12 10 (0.53%) PyTorch
12 10 (0.53%) SailPoint
12 10 (0.53%) SOAP
12 10 (0.53%) Spring
13 9 (0.48%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 98 (5.20%) PKI
2 68 (3.61%) Data Centre
3 49 (2.60%) Security Operations Centre
4 38 (2.01%) Cloud Native
5 33 (1.75%) Onboarding
6 30 (1.59%) Clustering
7 28 (1.48%) Management Information System
8 25 (1.33%) Product Ownership
9 23 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
10 20 (1.06%) Cyber Threat
10 20 (1.06%) Cyberattack
11 18 (0.95%) Analytical Mindset
11 18 (0.95%) Public Cloud
12 16 (0.85%) Security Posture
12 16 (0.85%) Virtual Team
13 15 (0.80%) Replication
14 14 (0.74%) Driving Licence
14 14 (0.74%) Enterprise Storage
14 14 (0.74%) Greenfield Project
14 14 (0.74%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 267 (14.16%) Windows
2 212 (11.24%) Linux
3 87 (4.61%) Windows Server
4 27 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (1.27%) Windows 10
6 13 (0.69%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.58%) Android
8 10 (0.53%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.48%) Unix
10 7 (0.37%) VMS
10 7 (0.37%) Windows 7
10 7 (0.37%) Windows Server 2003
11 6 (0.32%) AIX
11 6 (0.32%) CentOS
11 6 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.27%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.27%) Debian
13 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
15 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 311 (16.49%) Agile
2 194 (10.29%) Problem-Solving
3 158 (8.38%) ITIL
4 149 (7.90%) DevOps
5 147 (7.79%) CI/CD
6 143 (7.58%) Cybersecurity
7 134 (7.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 127 (6.73%) Continuous Improvement
9 119 (6.31%) Service Management
9 119 (6.31%) Stakeholder Management
10 118 (6.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 92 (4.88%) ITSM
12 90 (4.77%) Decision-Making
12 90 (4.77%) Infrastructure as Code
13 89 (4.72%) Project Delivery
14 80 (4.24%) Risk Management
15 76 (4.03%) Project Management
16 74 (3.92%) SIEM
17 73 (3.87%) Containerisation
17 73 (3.87%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 142 (7.53%) Python
2 110 (5.83%) PowerShell
3 69 (3.66%) SQL
4 46 (2.44%) Java
5 34 (1.80%) JavaScript
6 33 (1.75%) Bash
7 25 (1.33%) TypeScript
8 24 (1.27%) C#
9 16 (0.85%) Go
10 13 (0.69%) Shell Script
11 12 (0.64%) Search Processing Language
12 11 (0.58%) Bicep
13 10 (0.53%) C++
13 10 (0.53%) PL/SQL
14 9 (0.48%) C
15 6 (0.32%) Embedded C
15 6 (0.32%) Rust
16 4 (0.21%) Apex Code
16 4 (0.21%) MATLAB
16 4 (0.21%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,886 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 591 (31.34%) SC Cleared
3 57 (3.02%) Degree
4 52 (2.76%) Cisco Certification
5 51 (2.70%) CISSP
6 37 (1.96%) CISM
7 27 (1.43%) CCNA
8 25 (1.33%) CompTIA Security+
9 23 (1.22%) CCNP
9 23 (1.22%) Microsoft Certification
10 19 (1.01%) CESG Certified Professional
11 18 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
12 17 (0.90%) AWS Certification
13 16 (0.85%) BPSS Clearance
13 16 (0.85%) GIAC
14 14 (0.74%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 13 (0.69%) CompTIA CySA+
16 12 (0.64%) Azure Certification
16 12 (0.64%) CTC Cleared
17 11 (0.58%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 80 (4.24%) NIST
2 62 (3.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 52 (2.76%) PMO
4 48 (2.55%) NCSC
5 43 (2.28%) QA
6 39 (2.07%) JSP 440
7 23 (1.22%) GRC
8 21 (1.11%) RMADS
8 21 (1.11%) SLA
9 12 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
10 11 (0.58%) Data Quality
10 11 (0.58%) GDPR
10 11 (0.58%) NIST 800
11 9 (0.48%) Accessibility
11 9 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 6 (0.32%) WCAG
13 5 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
14 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 4 (0.21%) Def Stans
14 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 124 (6.57%) Active Directory
2 112 (5.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 94 (4.98%) Docker
4 55 (2.92%) VMware NSX
5 44 (2.33%) VMware ESXi
6 37 (1.96%) Hyper-V
7 22 (1.17%) vSphere
8 13 (0.69%) vCloud
9 12 (0.64%) 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%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 2 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 134 (7.10%) Kubernetes
2 121 (6.42%) Terraform
3 83 (4.40%) Ansible
4 57 (3.02%) vCenter Server
5 36 (1.91%) SCCM
6 26 (1.38%) Grafana
7 24 (1.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 24 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
8 21 (1.11%) Prometheus
9 16 (0.85%) Puppet
10 15 (0.80%) FortiGate
10 15 (0.80%) SCOM
11 13 (0.69%) Nessus
11 13 (0.69%) Progress Chef
12 11 (0.58%) Nagios
12 11 (0.58%) Podman
12 11 (0.58%) WMI
13 10 (0.53%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 10 (0.53%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 10 (0.53%) WSUS
Vendors
1 202 (10.71%) VMware
2 191 (10.13%) Microsoft
3 114 (6.04%) Cisco
4 70 (3.71%) Splunk
5 58 (3.08%) ServiceNow
6 49 (2.60%) Juniper
6 49 (2.60%) NetApp
7 48 (2.55%) SAP
8 45 (2.39%) Oracle
9 38 (2.01%) Red Hat
10 30 (1.59%) SolarWinds
11 28 (1.48%) F5
12 26 (1.38%) Remedy
13 23 (1.22%) Dell
13 23 (1.22%) Fortinet
13 23 (1.22%) Sparx
14 19 (1.01%) Palo Alto
15 16 (0.85%) Citrix
15 16 (0.85%) Google
15 16 (0.85%) IBM