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

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 78 35
Rank change year-on-year +28 -43 +18
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,177 1,014 1,981
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.04% 3.07% 5.11%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.90% 9.82% 17.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,662 709 1,397
10th Percentile £463 £459 £425
25th Percentile £516 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £590 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -1.67% +4.35%
75th Percentile £701 £663 £688
90th Percentile £763 £715 £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 82 40 96
10th Percentile £35.00 - £50.00
25th Percentile £51.00 £25.15 £58.49
Median hourly rate £71.25 £52.50 £70.78
Median % change year-on-year +35.71% -25.82% +1.11%
75th Percentile £92.53 £81.35 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.88 £87.64 £93.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.50 £80.00 £70.39
% change year-on-year -9.38% +13.65% -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 16,873 10,329 11,596
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.32% 31.32% 29.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,283 6,375 7,338
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £434 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.38% -0.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,271 827 798
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.99 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.25
Median hourly rate £49.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +94.83% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £72.54 £53.63 £65.75
90th Percentile £87.96 £73.75 £75.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.77 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +89.94% -47.05% -8.46%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 +26 2,040 £600 +1.61% 407
UK excluding London +12 1,559 £600 +3.45% 352
South East +5 916 £600 - 150
London +47 462 £600 -4.00% 79
South West +1 403 £600 - 112
Work from Home +41 331 £575 -2.13% 152
East of England +11 90 £650 +18.18% 43
North of England -5 65 £775 +34.78% 31
North West -6 44 £863 +72.50% 23
Midlands -62 43 £600 - 17
Scotland +15 39 £669 +30.44% 10
West Midlands -70 39 £600 - 13
Yorkshire -25 16 £518 -17.20% 5
North East -39 5 £463 -26.00% 3
Northern Ireland +4 4 £638 -8.93% 1
Wales -16 4 - - 1
East Midlands - 4 £631 - 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 64 (2.94%) Confluence
2 44 (2.02%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.41%) Apache
5 7 (0.32%) Documentum
6 6 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.28%) CMS
7 5 (0.23%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
8 3 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.092%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.092%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.092%) Camunda
9 2 (0.092%) Mule
9 2 (0.092%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.092%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.092%) WebLogic
Applications
1 57 (2.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (2.11%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.96%) Microsoft Office
5 14 (0.64%) AutoCAD
5 14 (0.64%) Revit
5 14 (0.64%) SOLIDWORKS
6 10 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.18%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.24%) Oracle ERP
3 23 (1.06%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.83%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.64%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.28%) 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 (0.092%) Oracle Assets
10 2 (0.092%) 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
1 286 (13.14%) Azure
2 269 (12.36%) AWS
3 105 (4.82%) GCP
4 57 (2.62%) Azure DevOps
5 47 (2.16%) GitHub
6 46 (2.11%) Microsoft 365
7 40 (1.84%) GitHub Actions
8 39 (1.79%) Power Platform
8 39 (1.79%) Serverless
9 38 (1.75%) Entra ID
10 36 (1.65%) IaaS
11 34 (1.56%) PaaS
12 33 (1.52%) OCI
13 26 (1.19%) AWS Lambda
14 23 (1.06%) Amazon EKS
15 22 (1.01%) OpenShift
16 20 (0.92%) Amazon ECS
17 19 (0.87%) Amazon S3
17 19 (0.87%) SaaS
18 17 (0.78%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 162 (7.44%) DNS
2 124 (5.70%) Firewall
3 80 (3.67%) DHCP
4 67 (3.08%) Network Security
4 67 (3.08%) WAN
5 60 (2.76%) LAN
6 55 (2.53%) VPN
7 52 (2.39%) TCP/IP
8 50 (2.30%) BGP
9 43 (1.98%) VSAN
10 33 (1.52%) IPsec
11 32 (1.47%) MPLS
12 27 (1.24%) VLAN
13 18 (0.83%) OSPF
13 18 (0.83%) SSL
14 16 (0.73%) Cisco ASA
14 16 (0.73%) SD-WAN
15 15 (0.69%) Cisco Firepower
16 13 (0.60%) Cisco Nexus
16 13 (0.60%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (2.39%) SQL Server
2 38 (1.75%) Oracle Database
3 31 (1.42%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.10%) Power BI
5 19 (0.87%) Metadata
6 18 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
7 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
8 15 (0.69%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (0.69%) MongoDB
9 12 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
10 9 (0.41%) NoSQL
11 8 (0.37%) BigQuery
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 11g
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
12 7 (0.32%) Big Data
12 7 (0.32%) MariaDB
12 7 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
13 5 (0.23%) Amazon Redshift
13 5 (0.23%) Redis
Development Applications
1 101 (4.64%) JIRA
2 64 (2.94%) GitLab
3 55 (2.53%) Jenkins
4 44 (2.02%) Git
5 15 (0.69%) Cypress.io
6 14 (0.64%) Selenium
7 7 (0.32%) Postman
7 7 (0.32%) REST Assured
7 7 (0.32%) Visual Studio
8 6 (0.28%) MSI
8 6 (0.28%) SpecFlow
9 5 (0.23%) Cucumber
9 5 (0.23%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.18%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.14%) Appium
11 3 (0.14%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.14%) Gatling
11 3 (0.14%) MLflow
11 3 (0.14%) Robot Framework
General
1 434 (19.94%) Social Skills
2 288 (13.23%) Public Sector
3 157 (7.21%) Analytical Skills
4 138 (6.34%) Finance
5 60 (2.76%) Documentation Skills
5 60 (2.76%) Military
6 42 (1.93%) Legal
6 42 (1.93%) Organisational Skills
7 31 (1.42%) Law
7 31 (1.42%) Police
8 28 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
9 27 (1.24%) Telecoms
10 23 (1.06%) Aerospace
10 23 (1.06%) Manufacturing
11 13 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
12 8 (0.37%) Local Government
13 7 (0.32%) Marketing
14 5 (0.23%) Advertising
15 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
15 4 (0.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 356 (16.35%) Architect
2 247 (11.35%) Lead
3 198 (9.10%) Senior
4 154 (7.07%) Consultant
5 149 (6.84%) Developer
6 147 (6.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 143 (6.57%) Analyst
8 92 (4.23%) Security Architect
9 85 (3.90%) Network Engineer
10 77 (3.54%) SOC Analyst
11 64 (2.94%) Cloud Engineer
11 64 (2.94%) Technical Architect
12 60 (2.76%) Project Manager
13 53 (2.43%) Support Engineer
14 52 (2.39%) DevOps Engineer
15 49 (2.25%) DBA
16 47 (2.16%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 43 (1.98%) DV Cleared Project Manager
17 43 (1.98%) Technical Leader
18 42 (1.93%) Lead Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 192 (8.82%) Terraform
2 75 (3.45%) REST
3 32 (1.47%) Elastic Stack
4 26 (1.19%) React
5 25 (1.15%) SOAP
6 19 (0.87%) RESTful
7 18 (0.83%) Kafka
8 15 (0.69%) .NET
8 15 (0.69%) Node.js
9 14 (0.64%) FastAPI
9 14 (0.64%) Flask
10 13 (0.60%) AngularJS
10 13 (0.60%) LDAP
10 13 (0.60%) OAuth
10 13 (0.60%) Oracle Fusion
10 13 (0.60%) Spring
10 13 (0.60%) Spring Boot
11 12 (0.55%) ARM Templates
12 11 (0.51%) 802.1X
12 11 (0.51%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 103 (4.73%) PKI
2 96 (4.41%) Cloud Native
2 96 (4.41%) Data Centre
3 71 (3.26%) Onboarding
4 49 (2.25%) Security Operations Centre
5 39 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
6 38 (1.75%) Private Cloud
7 36 (1.65%) Product Ownership
8 33 (1.52%) Management Information System
9 31 (1.42%) Cyber Threat
10 29 (1.33%) Public Cloud
11 25 (1.15%) Clustering
11 25 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
12 24 (1.10%) CMDB
12 24 (1.10%) Security Posture
13 18 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
13 18 (0.83%) Replication
13 18 (0.83%) Virtual Team
14 15 (0.69%) Analytical Mindset
14 15 (0.69%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 338 (15.53%) Windows
2 238 (10.93%) Linux
3 162 (7.44%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 26 (1.19%) Windows 10
6 22 (1.01%) Windows Server 2019
7 15 (0.69%) Unix
8 13 (0.60%) Ubuntu
9 12 (0.55%) CentOS
10 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.41%) Mac OS
12 7 (0.32%) VMS
13 6 (0.28%) AIX
13 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
14 5 (0.23%) Android
14 5 (0.23%) Debian
14 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
15 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 378 (17.36%) Agile
2 244 (11.21%) Stakeholder Management
3 230 (10.56%) Continuous Improvement
4 223 (10.24%) CI/CD
4 223 (10.24%) Cybersecurity
5 211 (9.69%) Problem-Solving
6 200 (9.19%) DevOps
7 195 (8.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 193 (8.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 182 (8.36%) ITIL
10 171 (7.85%) Infrastructure as Code
11 167 (7.67%) Technical Leadership
12 149 (6.84%) Service Management
13 128 (5.88%) ITSM
14 118 (5.42%) Containerisation
15 117 (5.37%) Project Delivery
15 117 (5.37%) Risk Management
16 116 (5.33%) Decision-Making
17 109 (5.01%) SIEM
18 104 (4.78%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 208 (9.55%) Python
2 174 (7.99%) PowerShell
3 115 (5.28%) SQL
4 86 (3.95%) Bash
5 61 (2.80%) Java
6 41 (1.88%) JavaScript
7 36 (1.65%) C#
8 25 (1.15%) TypeScript
9 19 (0.87%) Bicep
10 17 (0.78%) Go
11 14 (0.64%) C++
11 14 (0.64%) PL/SQL
11 14 (0.64%) Search Processing Language
12 11 (0.51%) C
13 7 (0.32%) Groovy
13 7 (0.32%) Shell Script
14 6 (0.28%) Embedded C
14 6 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
14 6 (0.28%) Perl
14 6 (0.28%) X++
Qualifications
1 2,177 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 715 (32.84%) SC Cleared
3 74 (3.40%) Degree
4 69 (3.17%) CISSP
5 45 (2.07%) CISM
6 38 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.33%) Microsoft Certification
8 26 (1.19%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 23 (1.06%) VCAP
10 22 (1.01%) AWS Certification
11 21 (0.96%) PMI Certification
12 20 (0.92%) ISTQB
13 19 (0.87%) PMP
14 17 (0.78%) TOGAF Certification
15 15 (0.69%) Azure Certification
15 15 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
15 15 (0.69%) CCNP
15 15 (0.69%) MCSE
16 13 (0.60%) CCNA
16 13 (0.60%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (3.95%) NCSC
2 82 (3.77%) PMO
3 78 (3.58%) NIST
4 59 (2.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 55 (2.53%) QA
6 38 (1.75%) JSP 440
7 30 (1.38%) GDPR
8 26 (1.19%) SLA
9 25 (1.15%) Data Quality
10 19 (0.87%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 18 (0.83%) Accessibility
11 18 (0.83%) GRC
12 17 (0.78%) Government Security Classifications
13 16 (0.73%) RMADS
14 11 (0.51%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 10 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.37%) WCAG
17 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
18 6 (0.28%) NIST 800
19 5 (0.23%) Def Stans
System Software
1 197 (9.05%) Active Directory
2 191 (8.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 123 (5.65%) Docker
4 98 (4.50%) VMware NSX
5 74 (3.40%) VMware ESXi
6 63 (2.89%) Hyper-V
7 51 (2.34%) vSphere
8 27 (1.24%) vCloud
9 16 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
10 11 (0.51%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.37%) NFS
12 7 (0.32%) BitLocker
12 7 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
13 6 (0.28%) Firmware
14 5 (0.23%) Ceph
15 4 (0.18%) KVM
15 4 (0.18%) Squid
15 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.14%) UAG
Systems Management
1 201 (9.23%) Kubernetes
2 137 (6.29%) Ansible
3 86 (3.95%) vCenter Server
4 51 (2.34%) SCOM
5 33 (1.52%) SCCM
6 26 (1.19%) Prometheus
7 23 (1.06%) Grafana
8 22 (1.01%) Puppet
9 16 (0.73%) Nagios
10 15 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
10 15 (0.69%) Oracle RMAN
10 15 (0.69%) VxRail
11 14 (0.64%) Avamar
12 13 (0.60%) Data Guard
12 13 (0.60%) Podman
12 13 (0.60%) WSUS
13 12 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 12 (0.55%) Istio
13 12 (0.55%) WMI
14 11 (0.51%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 290 (13.32%) Microsoft
2 273 (12.54%) VMware
3 107 (4.92%) ServiceNow
4 104 (4.78%) Oracle
5 85 (3.90%) Cisco
6 60 (2.76%) SAP
7 59 (2.71%) Splunk
8 52 (2.39%) Google
9 38 (1.75%) SolarWinds
10 36 (1.65%) Juniper
11 32 (1.47%) Red Hat
12 25 (1.15%) CyberArk
12 25 (1.15%) Remedy
13 24 (1.10%) Dell
13 24 (1.10%) Palo Alto
14 23 (1.06%) Citrix
14 23 (1.06%) NetApp
15 21 (0.96%) BMC
16 19 (0.87%) F5
17 18 (0.83%) Sparx