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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 86 31
Rank change year-on-year +37 -55 +33
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,930 833 2,418
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.95% 2.90% 5.65%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.47% 9.34% 18.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,445 584 1,756
10th Percentile £425 £448 £425
25th Percentile £513 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £575 £600
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £675 £656 £688
90th Percentile £750 £713 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £600
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 28 105
10th Percentile £17.05 £34.68 £49.90
25th Percentile £35.00 £60.31 £56.65
Median hourly rate £55.00 £79.35 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year -30.69% +12.73% +0.56%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.32 £85.00
90th Percentile £87.50 £88.87 £87.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.00 £80.68 £70.70
% change year-on-year -33.06% +14.12% -5.74%

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 15,473 8,923 12,806
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.63% 31.03% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,267 5,624 8,010
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.91% -1.84% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £619 £645
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.28% +1.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,134 519 1,084
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.86 £13.74
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.39 £18.00
Median hourly rate £48.05 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +47.85% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.37 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.05 £40.94
% change year-on-year +48.21% -21.71% -18.12%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 +26 1,788 £588 +0.43% 450
UK excluding London +13 1,392 £600 +4.35% 357
South East +7 767 £600 +4.35% 150
London +56 385 £600 - 93
South West -2 332 £563 -6.25% 131
Work from Home +48 264 £563 -2.17% 140
East of England +5 111 £650 +18.18% 41
North of England -9 82 £725 +253.66% 27
North West +17 67 £775 +278.05% 22
Midlands -38 56 £600 -4.00% 8
West Midlands -51 43 £600 -7.69% 8
Scotland +28 39 £669 +30.44% 3
East Midlands -15 13 £513 -6.82%
Yorkshire -42 13 £525 -16.00% 2
Wales -8 5 - -
Northern Ireland - 5 £638 - 2
North East - 2 £675 - 3

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 41 (2.12%) Confluence
2 36 (1.87%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (1.40%) SharePoint
4 11 (0.57%) Apache
5 7 (0.36%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.31%) Mattermost
7 5 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.21%) CMS
8 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
9 3 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.10%) nginx
11 1 (0.052%) OpenStack
Applications
1 37 (1.92%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (1.76%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.31%) AutoCAD
5 6 (0.31%) Revit
5 6 (0.31%) SOLIDWORKS
5 6 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.21%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.10%) Lectora
7 2 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 27 (1.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.24%) Remedy ITSM
3 22 (1.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 5 (0.26%) 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%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.16%) SAP GRC
6 3 (0.16%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.10%) Primavera
7 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.052%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.052%) SAP CCM
8 1 (0.052%) SAP FI-GL
8 1 (0.052%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.052%) SAP QM
8 1 (0.052%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 190 (9.84%) AWS
2 170 (8.81%) Azure
3 69 (3.58%) GCP
4 42 (2.18%) GitHub
4 42 (2.18%) IaaS
4 42 (2.18%) PaaS
5 38 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
6 30 (1.55%) GitHub Actions
7 28 (1.45%) Microsoft 365
8 27 (1.40%) OpenShift
9 25 (1.30%) Serverless
10 22 (1.14%) Power Platform
11 17 (0.88%) OCI
12 14 (0.73%) Amazon ECS
13 13 (0.67%) Amazon EKS
13 13 (0.67%) AWS Lambda
13 13 (0.67%) Entra ID
13 13 (0.67%) SaaS
14 11 (0.57%) Amazon S3
14 11 (0.57%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 111 (5.75%) DNS
2 105 (5.44%) Firewall
3 71 (3.68%) Network Security
4 66 (3.42%) WAN
5 64 (3.32%) LAN
6 52 (2.69%) VPN
7 49 (2.54%) DHCP
8 41 (2.12%) BGP
9 29 (1.50%) TCP/IP
10 28 (1.45%) OSPF
11 20 (1.04%) Ethernet VPN
11 20 (1.04%) VSAN
11 20 (1.04%) VXLAN
12 19 (0.98%) MPLS
13 18 (0.93%) SAN
13 18 (0.93%) SSL
13 18 (0.93%) VLAN
14 17 (0.88%) IPsec
15 16 (0.83%) BIG-IP
16 15 (0.78%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (1.55%) SQL Server
2 27 (1.40%) Oracle Database
3 26 (1.35%) PostgreSQL
4 25 (1.30%) Elasticsearch
5 17 (0.88%) Power BI
6 13 (0.67%) MongoDB
7 12 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
8 8 (0.41%) Metadata
9 7 (0.36%) Data Warehouse
9 7 (0.36%) Hadoop
9 7 (0.36%) NoSQL
9 7 (0.36%) Redis
10 6 (0.31%) Data Lake
10 6 (0.31%) MariaDB
10 6 (0.31%) MySQL
11 5 (0.26%) Big Data
11 5 (0.26%) Oracle Database 11g
11 5 (0.26%) Relational Database
11 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 4 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 72 (3.73%) JIRA
2 34 (1.76%) GitLab
3 25 (1.30%) Git
4 24 (1.24%) Jenkins
5 10 (0.52%) Cypress.io
6 8 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.31%) Artifactory
7 6 (0.31%) Robot Framework
7 6 (0.31%) Selenium
8 5 (0.26%) Maven
9 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
9 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.16%) MLflow
10 3 (0.16%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 2 (0.10%) ERwin
11 2 (0.10%) Gatling
11 2 (0.10%) JUnit
11 2 (0.10%) MSI
11 2 (0.10%) REST Assured
General
1 289 (14.97%) Social Skills
2 208 (10.78%) Public Sector
3 113 (5.85%) Analytical Skills
4 78 (4.04%) Finance
5 65 (3.37%) Military
6 57 (2.95%) Documentation Skills
7 53 (2.75%) Legal
8 24 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
9 23 (1.19%) Telecoms
10 22 (1.14%) Law
10 22 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
11 20 (1.04%) Aerospace
12 14 (0.73%) Police
13 12 (0.62%) Manufacturing
14 10 (0.52%) Marketing
15 7 (0.36%) Electronics
16 4 (0.21%) Influencing Skills
17 3 (0.16%) Advertising
17 3 (0.16%) Banking
18 2 (0.10%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 302 (15.65%) Architect
2 156 (8.08%) Senior
3 143 (7.41%) Lead
4 132 (6.84%) Analyst
5 110 (5.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 107 (5.54%) Consultant
7 104 (5.39%) Developer
8 89 (4.61%) Network Engineer
9 77 (3.99%) SOC Analyst
10 71 (3.68%) Technical Architect
11 62 (3.21%) Security Architect
12 57 (2.95%) Tester
13 56 (2.90%) Project Manager
14 51 (2.64%) DevOps Engineer
14 51 (2.64%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 44 (2.28%) Software Engineer
16 40 (2.07%) Administrator
17 39 (2.02%) Service Manager
18 38 (1.97%) Designer
18 38 (1.97%) DV Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (2.38%) REST
2 29 (1.50%) React
3 25 (1.30%) Elastic Stack
4 20 (1.04%) 802.1X
5 17 (0.88%) Node.js
6 16 (0.83%) AngularJS
6 16 (0.83%) Kafka
7 15 (0.78%) LDAP
7 15 (0.78%) SOAP
7 15 (0.78%) Spring
8 14 (0.73%) RESTful
9 13 (0.67%) Apache NiFi
9 13 (0.67%) Flask
9 13 (0.67%) Spring Boot
10 12 (0.62%) .NET
10 12 (0.62%) FastAPI
11 11 (0.57%) ModSecurity
12 10 (0.52%) OAuth
12 10 (0.52%) SailPoint
12 10 (0.52%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 99 (5.13%) PKI
2 72 (3.73%) Data Centre
3 53 (2.75%) Security Operations Centre
4 49 (2.54%) Cloud Native
5 33 (1.71%) Clustering
5 33 (1.71%) Onboarding
6 30 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 27 (1.40%) Product Ownership
8 24 (1.24%) Hybrid Cloud
9 23 (1.19%) Cyber Threat
10 22 (1.14%) Private Cloud
11 20 (1.04%) Cyberattack
12 18 (0.93%) Public Cloud
12 18 (0.93%) Security Posture
13 16 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
13 16 (0.83%) Virtual Team
14 15 (0.78%) Enterprise Storage
15 13 (0.67%) CMDB
15 13 (0.67%) Greenfield Project
15 13 (0.67%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 272 (14.09%) Windows
2 221 (11.45%) Linux
3 97 (5.03%) Windows Server
4 29 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (1.14%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.52%) Ubuntu
6 10 (0.52%) Unix
7 8 (0.41%) Debian
7 8 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
8 7 (0.36%) Android
8 7 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.31%) AIX
9 6 (0.31%) CentOS
10 5 (0.26%) VMS
10 5 (0.26%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.21%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.21%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 322 (16.68%) Agile
2 191 (9.90%) Problem-Solving
3 170 (8.81%) ITIL
4 162 (8.39%) CI/CD
5 159 (8.24%) Cybersecurity
6 155 (8.03%) DevOps
7 150 (7.77%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 142 (7.36%) Continuous Improvement
9 126 (6.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 122 (6.32%) Service Management
11 112 (5.80%) Stakeholder Management
12 103 (5.34%) ITSM
13 100 (5.18%) Infrastructure as Code
14 96 (4.97%) Project Delivery
15 91 (4.72%) Decision-Making
16 85 (4.40%) Risk Management
17 82 (4.25%) Security Operations
17 82 (4.25%) SIEM
18 77 (3.99%) Technical Leadership
19 75 (3.89%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 148 (7.67%) Python
2 111 (5.75%) PowerShell
3 80 (4.15%) SQL
4 41 (2.12%) Java
5 35 (1.81%) JavaScript
6 34 (1.76%) Bash
7 23 (1.19%) TypeScript
8 21 (1.09%) C#
9 16 (0.83%) Go
10 14 (0.73%) Search Processing Language
11 12 (0.62%) PL/SQL
12 10 (0.52%) Bicep
13 9 (0.47%) C
13 9 (0.47%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.41%) C++
15 7 (0.36%) Rust
16 6 (0.31%) Embedded C
17 5 (0.26%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
18 4 (0.21%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 1,930 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 628 (32.54%) SC Cleared
3 63 (3.26%) Degree
4 52 (2.69%) Cisco Certification
4 52 (2.69%) CISSP
5 34 (1.76%) CISM
6 23 (1.19%) CCNA
6 23 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
7 22 (1.14%) CompTIA Security+
8 21 (1.09%) CCNP
9 19 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
10 17 (0.88%) AWS Certification
10 17 (0.88%) CESG Certified Professional
11 15 (0.78%) GIAC
11 15 (0.78%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 14 (0.73%) BPSS Clearance
12 14 (0.73%) PMP
13 13 (0.67%) CompTIA CySA+
13 13 (0.67%) ISTQB
14 12 (0.62%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 78 (4.04%) NIST
2 62 (3.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 50 (2.59%) NCSC
3 50 (2.59%) QA
4 46 (2.38%) PMO
5 40 (2.07%) JSP 440
6 25 (1.30%) RMADS
7 23 (1.19%) GRC
7 23 (1.19%) SLA
8 18 (0.93%) GDPR
9 11 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
10 9 (0.47%) Accessibility
10 9 (0.47%) Data Quality
11 8 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 8 (0.41%) NIST 800
12 7 (0.36%) Government Security Classifications
13 6 (0.31%) WCAG
14 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 3 (0.16%) Def Stans
System Software
1 130 (6.74%) VMware Infrastructure
2 128 (6.63%) Active Directory
3 95 (4.92%) Docker
4 61 (3.16%) VMware NSX
5 48 (2.49%) VMware ESXi
6 41 (2.12%) Hyper-V
7 23 (1.19%) vSphere
8 20 (1.04%) vCloud
9 10 (0.52%) BitLocker
10 9 (0.47%) Firmware
10 9 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.41%) Microsoft App-V
12 6 (0.31%) NFS
13 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
14 4 (0.21%) Ceph
14 4 (0.21%) UAG
14 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
15 3 (0.16%) Squid
16 2 (0.10%) KVM
17 1 (0.052%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 130 (6.74%) Kubernetes
2 124 (6.42%) Terraform
3 83 (4.30%) Ansible
4 62 (3.21%) vCenter Server
5 28 (1.45%) SCOM
6 25 (1.30%) SCCM
7 19 (0.98%) Grafana
7 19 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 17 (0.88%) Prometheus
10 15 (0.78%) Puppet
11 13 (0.67%) FortiGate
12 11 (0.57%) Nagios
12 11 (0.57%) Podman
13 10 (0.52%) Data Guard
14 9 (0.47%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 9 (0.47%) Nessus
14 9 (0.47%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 9 (0.47%) WMI
14 9 (0.47%) WSUS
Vendors
1 215 (11.14%) VMware
2 177 (9.17%) Microsoft
3 108 (5.60%) Cisco
4 73 (3.78%) ServiceNow
5 69 (3.58%) Splunk
6 52 (2.69%) Oracle
7 45 (2.33%) NetApp
8 44 (2.28%) Juniper
9 43 (2.23%) Red Hat
10 39 (2.02%) SAP
11 31 (1.61%) SolarWinds
12 30 (1.55%) F5
13 25 (1.30%) Remedy
14 22 (1.14%) Dell
14 22 (1.14%) Fortinet
14 22 (1.14%) Google
14 22 (1.14%) Palo Alto
14 22 (1.14%) Sparx
15 19 (0.98%) Citrix
16 18 (0.93%) BMC