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 2 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 85 39
Rank change year-on-year +33 -46 +12
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,239 971 1,779
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.08% 2.93% 4.67%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.85% 9.28% 15.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,631 685 1,161
10th Percentile £463 £461 £425
25th Percentile £513 £515 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -2.08% +2.13%
75th Percentile £700 £675 £688
90th Percentile £760 £738 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £598
% change year-on-year +4.35% -3.85% +4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 141 34 90
10th Percentile £48.64 - £49.90
25th Percentile £58.43 £25.15 £58.49
Median hourly rate £74.00 £41.25 £67.41
Median % change year-on-year +79.39% -38.80% -5.28%
75th Percentile £92.53 £78.75 £80.00
90th Percentile £100.00 £87.43 £97.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.32 £70.00 £65.50
% change year-on-year +6.17% +6.87% -9.44%

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 17,419 10,458 11,135
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.73% 31.58% 29.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,570 6,527 6,779
10th Percentile £350 £288 £312
25th Percentile £445 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £635
90th Percentile £713 £712 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,421 884 611
10th Percentile £16.88 £17.87 £18.00
25th Percentile £25.71 £18.87 £25.26
Median hourly rate £45.50 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +80.91% -48.21% -9.23%
75th Percentile £71.43 £42.44 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -49.70% -3.64%

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 2 October 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 2 October 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 2 October 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 +34 2,116 £600 +4.35% 1,363
UK excluding London +18 1,616 £600 +4.35% 1,131
South East +4 839 £600 +4.35% 355
South West +6 527 £575 -7.26% 314
London +49 482 £625 - 264
Work from Home +52 353 £555 -7.50% 628
East of England +22 112 £663 +20.45% 176
North of England -25 56 £525 -2.33% 126
Midlands -86 44 £613 +4.26% 56
North West -19 38 £775 +55.00% 97
West Midlands -74 38 £600 +2.13% 28
Scotland -6 37 £669 +27.33% 105
Yorkshire -22 12 £510 - 12
North East -37 6 £463 -26.00% 17
East Midlands - 6 £631 - 28
Northern Ireland +8 5 £638 +6.25% 5
Wales -11 4 - - 10

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 74 (3.31%) Confluence
2 59 (2.64%) SharePoint
3 41 (1.83%) Microsoft Exchange
4 22 (0.98%) Apache
5 12 (0.54%) Apache Spark
6 9 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
7 8 (0.36%) CMS
8 7 (0.31%) Documentum
8 7 (0.31%) IIS
9 5 (0.22%) nginx
10 4 (0.18%) Camunda
11 3 (0.13%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
11 3 (0.13%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.089%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.089%) Mule
12 2 (0.089%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.089%) Oracle Service Bus
12 2 (0.089%) Palantir Foundry
12 2 (0.089%) WebLogic
Applications
1 65 (2.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (2.14%) Microsoft Project
3 33 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
5 19 (0.85%) AutoCAD
6 17 (0.76%) Revit
6 17 (0.76%) SOLIDWORKS
7 10 (0.45%) MS Visio
7 10 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.045%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.30%) Oracle ERP
2 19 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
3 18 (0.80%) Teamcenter
4 17 (0.76%) Remedy ITSM
5 16 (0.71%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 5 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
7 4 (0.18%) Primavera
7 4 (0.18%) SAP EWM
7 4 (0.18%) SAP PP
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Financials
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
8 3 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
9 2 (0.089%) SAP FI
9 2 (0.089%) Siebel CRM
10 1 (0.045%) Oracle Assets
10 1 (0.045%) Oracle Payroll
10 1 (0.045%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 307 (13.71%) Azure
2 293 (13.09%) AWS
3 116 (5.18%) GCP
4 62 (2.77%) Azure DevOps
5 56 (2.50%) Microsoft 365
6 50 (2.23%) GitHub
7 43 (1.92%) Entra ID
7 43 (1.92%) GitHub Actions
8 39 (1.74%) Serverless
9 36 (1.61%) OpenShift
9 36 (1.61%) Power Platform
10 30 (1.34%) AWS Lambda
10 30 (1.34%) OCI
11 24 (1.07%) Amazon EKS
11 24 (1.07%) Amazon S3
12 22 (0.98%) Amazon ECS
13 19 (0.85%) Amazon SQS
14 17 (0.76%) Azure Monitor
14 17 (0.76%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 16 (0.71%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 165 (7.37%) DNS
2 124 (5.54%) Firewall
3 84 (3.75%) DHCP
4 77 (3.44%) Network Security
5 59 (2.64%) TCP/IP
5 59 (2.64%) WAN
6 52 (2.32%) VPN
7 51 (2.28%) BGP
8 49 (2.19%) LAN
9 37 (1.65%) MPLS
9 37 (1.65%) VSAN
10 32 (1.43%) IPsec
11 29 (1.30%) VLAN
12 24 (1.07%) SSL
13 18 (0.80%) SD-WAN
14 17 (0.76%) OSPF
14 17 (0.76%) SAN
15 16 (0.71%) Cisco ASA
16 15 (0.67%) Software-Defined Networking
17 14 (0.63%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (2.32%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.01%) Oracle Database
3 36 (1.61%) PostgreSQL
4 30 (1.34%) Metadata
5 25 (1.12%) Relational Database
6 21 (0.94%) Power BI
7 20 (0.89%) Elasticsearch
8 18 (0.80%) Data Lake
9 17 (0.76%) MongoDB
10 15 (0.67%) Data Warehouse
11 13 (0.58%) Big Data
12 12 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
13 10 (0.45%) Hadoop
14 9 (0.40%) NoSQL
14 9 (0.40%) Parquet
15 8 (0.36%) BigQuery
15 8 (0.36%) Oracle BI Publisher
15 8 (0.36%) Oracle Database 11g
15 8 (0.36%) Oracle Database 12c
15 8 (0.36%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 110 (4.91%) JIRA
2 94 (4.20%) GitLab
3 86 (3.84%) Jenkins
4 82 (3.66%) Git
5 31 (1.38%) Selenium
6 16 (0.71%) Cypress.io
7 12 (0.54%) Cucumber
8 10 (0.45%) MSI
9 8 (0.36%) JUnit
9 8 (0.36%) Postman
9 8 (0.36%) REST Assured
9 8 (0.36%) SonarQube
10 7 (0.31%) Artifactory
10 7 (0.31%) JMeter
10 7 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.31%) SpecFlow
10 7 (0.31%) Visual Studio
11 6 (0.27%) Gatling
12 5 (0.22%) Maven
13 4 (0.18%) Gradle
General
1 503 (22.47%) Social Skills
2 273 (12.19%) Public Sector
3 170 (7.59%) Analytical Skills
4 142 (6.34%) Finance
5 69 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
6 67 (2.99%) Military
7 50 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
8 39 (1.74%) Aerospace
9 37 (1.65%) Manufacturing
9 37 (1.65%) Police
10 36 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
11 32 (1.43%) Law
11 32 (1.43%) Legal
12 30 (1.34%) Telecoms
13 9 (0.40%) Local Government
13 9 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (0.31%) Marketing
15 6 (0.27%) Automotive
16 5 (0.22%) Back Office
17 4 (0.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 387 (17.28%) Architect
2 224 (10.00%) Lead
3 195 (8.71%) Senior
4 155 (6.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 153 (6.83%) Developer
6 149 (6.65%) Consultant
7 132 (5.90%) Analyst
8 94 (4.20%) Security Architect
9 79 (3.53%) Network Engineer
10 70 (3.13%) Cloud Engineer
11 66 (2.95%) Support Engineer
12 64 (2.86%) SOC Analyst
13 56 (2.50%) DevOps Engineer
14 53 (2.37%) Project Manager
15 51 (2.28%) DBA
16 48 (2.14%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 47 (2.10%) Solutions Architect
18 46 (2.05%) Technical Architect
19 42 (1.88%) Network Architect
20 41 (1.83%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 208 (9.29%) Terraform
2 81 (3.62%) REST
3 41 (1.83%) LDAP
4 31 (1.38%) Elastic Stack
4 31 (1.38%) React
5 28 (1.25%) Kafka
6 26 (1.16%) SOAP
7 25 (1.12%) RESTful
8 24 (1.07%) Apache NiFi
9 18 (0.80%) Node.js
9 18 (0.80%) XML
10 17 (0.76%) FastAPI
10 17 (0.76%) JSON
11 16 (0.71%) AngularJS
11 16 (0.71%) Keycloak
11 16 (0.71%) OAuth
12 15 (0.67%) Spring
13 14 (0.63%) Flask
13 14 (0.63%) Spring Boot
14 13 (0.58%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 105 (4.69%) Cloud Native
2 102 (4.56%) Data Centre
3 99 (4.42%) PKI
4 82 (3.66%) Onboarding
5 45 (2.01%) Management Information System
6 41 (1.83%) Hybrid Cloud
7 40 (1.79%) Product Ownership
8 38 (1.70%) Private Cloud
9 36 (1.61%) Cyber Threat
9 36 (1.61%) Security Operations Centre
10 30 (1.34%) Security Posture
11 25 (1.12%) Distributed Systems
12 22 (0.98%) Public Cloud
13 18 (0.80%) CMDB
13 18 (0.80%) Virtual Team
14 17 (0.76%) Clustering
15 16 (0.71%) Legacy Systems
16 15 (0.67%) Replication
17 12 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
17 12 (0.54%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 388 (17.33%) Windows
2 251 (11.21%) Linux
3 181 (8.08%) Windows Server
4 44 (1.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 31 (1.38%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.30%) Windows Server 2019
7 21 (0.94%) Ubuntu
7 21 (0.94%) Unix
8 18 (0.80%) CentOS
9 12 (0.54%) Windows Server 2012
10 7 (0.31%) AIX
10 7 (0.31%) Android
10 7 (0.31%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.22%) Data ONTAP
13 4 (0.18%) Debian
13 4 (0.18%) Rocky
13 4 (0.18%) VMS
13 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 386 (17.24%) Agile
2 292 (13.04%) Continuous Improvement
3 279 (12.46%) Stakeholder Management
4 273 (12.19%) CI/CD
5 241 (10.76%) DevOps
6 229 (10.23%) Problem-Solving
7 222 (9.92%) Cybersecurity
8 221 (9.87%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 215 (9.60%) Infrastructure as Code
10 213 (9.51%) Technical Leadership
11 202 (9.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 184 (8.22%) ITIL
13 154 (6.88%) Containerisation
14 150 (6.70%) Service Management
15 149 (6.65%) ITSM
16 131 (5.85%) Project Delivery
17 130 (5.81%) SIEM
18 126 (5.63%) Decision-Making
19 121 (5.40%) Risk Management
20 115 (5.14%) AI
Programming Languages
1 254 (11.34%) Python
2 189 (8.44%) PowerShell
3 136 (6.07%) SQL
4 97 (4.33%) Bash
5 75 (3.35%) Java
6 40 (1.79%) JavaScript
7 38 (1.70%) C#
8 29 (1.30%) TypeScript
9 21 (0.94%) Go
10 15 (0.67%) Bicep
11 13 (0.58%) PL/SQL
11 13 (0.58%) Search Processing Language
12 12 (0.54%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.49%) C++
14 7 (0.31%) Groovy
15 6 (0.27%) C
15 6 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
15 6 (0.27%) Perl
15 6 (0.27%) X++
16 4 (0.18%) Rust
Qualifications
1 2,239 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 694 (31.00%) SC Cleared
3 94 (4.20%) Degree
4 69 (3.08%) CISSP
5 40 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
5 40 (1.79%) CISM
6 28 (1.25%) AWS Certification
7 25 (1.12%) CCNP
7 25 (1.12%) Microsoft Certification
8 24 (1.07%) PMI Certification
8 24 (1.07%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 23 (1.03%) ISTQB
9 23 (1.03%) VCAP
10 21 (0.94%) Azure Certification
11 20 (0.89%) PMP
11 20 (0.89%) TOGAF Certification
12 13 (0.58%) BPSS Clearance
13 12 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
13 12 (0.54%) MCSE
14 11 (0.49%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (4.02%) NCSC
2 88 (3.93%) NIST
3 84 (3.75%) PMO
4 77 (3.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 65 (2.90%) QA
6 36 (1.61%) JSP 440
7 35 (1.56%) SLA
8 32 (1.43%) GDPR
9 31 (1.38%) Data Quality
10 25 (1.12%) GRC
11 20 (0.89%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 16 (0.71%) Accessibility
13 13 (0.58%) Government Security Classifications
14 11 (0.49%) NIST 800
15 10 (0.45%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 8 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.36%) WCAG
17 7 (0.31%) ISO 9000
17 7 (0.31%) RMADS
18 5 (0.22%) Def Stans
System Software
1 250 (11.17%) Active Directory
2 198 (8.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 142 (6.34%) Docker
4 87 (3.89%) VMware NSX
5 71 (3.17%) VMware ESXi
6 62 (2.77%) Hyper-V
7 54 (2.41%) vSphere
8 24 (1.07%) vCloud
9 19 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (0.63%) NFS
11 12 (0.54%) Oracle RAC
12 11 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
13 10 (0.45%) Firmware
14 5 (0.22%) KVM
15 3 (0.13%) BitLocker
15 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
15 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.13%) VirtualBox
16 2 (0.089%) Squid
16 2 (0.089%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 229 (10.23%) Kubernetes
2 163 (7.28%) Ansible
3 80 (3.57%) vCenter Server
4 60 (2.68%) SCOM
5 34 (1.52%) SCCM
6 31 (1.38%) Prometheus
7 28 (1.25%) Grafana
8 21 (0.94%) Nagios
8 21 (0.94%) Puppet
9 20 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
10 17 (0.76%) VxRail
11 16 (0.71%) WMI
12 15 (0.67%) Avamar
12 15 (0.67%) Oracle RMAN
13 14 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 14 (0.63%) Podman
14 13 (0.58%) Data Guard
14 13 (0.58%) Progress Chef
14 13 (0.58%) WSUS
15 12 (0.54%) Istio
Vendors
1 313 (13.98%) Microsoft
2 269 (12.01%) VMware
3 120 (5.36%) Oracle
4 89 (3.97%) ServiceNow
5 73 (3.26%) Cisco
6 64 (2.86%) Google
7 55 (2.46%) Splunk
8 51 (2.28%) SAP
9 46 (2.05%) SolarWinds
10 44 (1.97%) CyberArk
11 34 (1.52%) Red Hat
12 25 (1.12%) Palo Alto
13 23 (1.03%) Juniper
14 22 (0.98%) Dell
15 20 (0.89%) Remedy
16 18 (0.80%) Atlassian
16 18 (0.80%) BMC
16 18 (0.80%) Broadcom
16 18 (0.80%) Citrix
16 18 (0.80%) Thales