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

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 87 31
Rank change year-on-year +37 -56 +34
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,929 828 2,421
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.95% 2.89% 5.66%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.50% 9.31% 18.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,444 583 1,759
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 28 102
10th Percentile £17.05 £34.68 £49.23
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 £84.85
90th Percentile £87.50 £88.87 £87.52
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.00 £80.68 £70.39
% change year-on-year -33.06% +14.61% -6.15%

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 15,438 8,898 12,812
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.61% 31.06% 29.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,233 5,612 8,001
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £533
Median % change year-on-year +0.77% -2.25% -3.09%
75th Percentile £620 £615 £645
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.32% +1.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,136 509 1,073
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.87 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.50 £18.00
Median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.46 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.63
% change year-on-year +46.15% -20.01% -21.10%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +27 1,785 £588 +0.43% 483
UK excluding London +13 1,391 £600 +4.35% 381
South East +8 765 £600 +4.35% 158
London +60 382 £595 -0.83% 109
South West -2 333 £563 -6.25% 141
Work from Home +32 262 £563 -2.17% 161
East of England +6 111 £650 +18.18% 40
North of England -10 81 £750 +265.85% 33
North West +11 67 £775 +278.05% 28
Midlands -40 57 £600 -4.00% 8
West Midlands -49 44 £600 -7.69% 8
Scotland +29 39 £669 +30.44% 3
East Midlands -15 13 £513 -6.82%
Yorkshire -47 12 £525 -16.00% 2
Wales -11 5 - -
Northern Ireland - 5 £638 - 3
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 (2.13%) 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 38 (1.97%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (1.76%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.26%) AutoCAD
6 5 (0.26%) Revit
6 5 (0.26%) SOLIDWORKS
7 4 (0.21%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.10%) Lectora
8 2 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 27 (1.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.30%) 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
1 189 (9.80%) AWS
2 169 (8.76%) Azure
3 70 (3.63%) GCP
4 42 (2.18%) IaaS
4 42 (2.18%) PaaS
5 41 (2.13%) GitHub
6 38 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
7 29 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
7 29 (1.50%) Microsoft 365
8 28 (1.45%) OpenShift
9 25 (1.30%) Serverless
10 22 (1.14%) Power Platform
11 17 (0.88%) OCI
12 14 (0.73%) Amazon ECS
12 14 (0.73%) Entra ID
13 13 (0.67%) Amazon EKS
13 13 (0.67%) AWS Lambda
13 13 (0.67%) SaaS
14 12 (0.62%) Amazon S3
15 11 (0.57%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 109 (5.65%) DNS
2 105 (5.44%) Firewall
3 71 (3.68%) Network Security
4 65 (3.37%) WAN
5 64 (3.32%) LAN
6 51 (2.64%) VPN
7 47 (2.44%) DHCP
8 42 (2.18%) BGP
9 28 (1.45%) OSPF
9 28 (1.45%) TCP/IP
10 20 (1.04%) Ethernet VPN
10 20 (1.04%) MPLS
10 20 (1.04%) VSAN
10 20 (1.04%) VXLAN
11 18 (0.93%) SAN
11 18 (0.93%) VLAN
12 17 (0.88%) IPsec
12 17 (0.88%) SSL
13 16 (0.83%) BIG-IP
13 16 (0.83%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (1.56%) SQL Server
2 26 (1.35%) Oracle Database
3 25 (1.30%) Elasticsearch
3 25 (1.30%) PostgreSQL
4 17 (0.88%) Power BI
5 13 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
5 13 (0.67%) MongoDB
6 8 (0.41%) Metadata
7 7 (0.36%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (0.36%) Hadoop
7 7 (0.36%) Redis
8 6 (0.31%) Data Lake
8 6 (0.31%) MariaDB
8 6 (0.31%) MySQL
8 6 (0.31%) NoSQL
9 5 (0.26%) Big Data
9 5 (0.26%) Oracle Database 11g
9 5 (0.26%) Relational Database
9 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 72 (3.73%) JIRA
2 34 (1.76%) GitLab
3 25 (1.30%) Git
3 25 (1.30%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.52%) Cypress.io
5 8 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (0.31%) Artifactory
6 6 (0.31%) Robot Framework
6 6 (0.31%) Selenium
7 5 (0.26%) Maven
8 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
8 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.16%) MLflow
9 3 (0.16%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 2 (0.10%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.10%) Cucumber
10 2 (0.10%) Gatling
10 2 (0.10%) JUnit
10 2 (0.10%) REST Assured
General
1 287 (14.88%) Social Skills
2 206 (10.68%) Public Sector
3 114 (5.91%) Analytical Skills
4 76 (3.94%) Finance
5 65 (3.37%) Military
6 58 (3.01%) 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 11 (0.57%) Manufacturing
14 10 (0.52%) Marketing
15 7 (0.36%) Electronics
16 4 (0.21%) Banking
16 4 (0.21%) Influencing Skills
17 3 (0.16%) Advertising
18 2 (0.10%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 302 (15.66%) Architect
2 155 (8.04%) Senior
3 143 (7.41%) Lead
4 131 (6.79%) Analyst
5 110 (5.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 107 (5.55%) Consultant
7 104 (5.39%) Developer
8 89 (4.61%) Network Engineer
9 76 (3.94%) SOC Analyst
10 73 (3.78%) Technical Architect
11 61 (3.16%) Security Architect
12 56 (2.90%) Tester
13 55 (2.85%) Project Manager
14 51 (2.64%) DevOps Engineer
14 51 (2.64%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 44 (2.28%) Software Engineer
16 39 (2.02%) Administrator
16 39 (2.02%) Service Manager
17 38 (1.97%) Designer
18 37 (1.92%) 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 97 (5.03%) PKI
2 70 (3.63%) 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 (1.56%) Management Information System
7 26 (1.35%) Product Ownership
8 24 (1.24%) Hybrid Cloud
9 23 (1.19%) Cyber Threat
10 21 (1.09%) Private Cloud
11 20 (1.04%) Cyberattack
12 19 (0.98%) Security Posture
13 18 (0.93%) Public Cloud
14 16 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.83%) Virtual Team
15 15 (0.78%) Enterprise Storage
16 13 (0.67%) CMDB
16 13 (0.67%) Greenfield Project
16 13 (0.67%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 270 (14.00%) Windows
2 221 (11.46%) Linux
3 95 (4.92%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (1.19%) Windows 10
6 11 (0.57%) Ubuntu
7 10 (0.52%) Unix
8 8 (0.41%) Android
8 8 (0.41%) Debian
8 8 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
9 7 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.31%) AIX
10 6 (0.31%) CentOS
11 5 (0.26%) Mac OS
11 5 (0.26%) VMS
11 5 (0.26%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.21%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.16%) Rocky
13 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 321 (16.64%) Agile
2 193 (10.01%) Problem-Solving
3 169 (8.76%) ITIL
4 163 (8.45%) CI/CD
5 158 (8.19%) Cybersecurity
6 154 (7.98%) DevOps
7 150 (7.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 141 (7.31%) Continuous Improvement
9 126 (6.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 122 (6.32%) Service Management
11 112 (5.81%) Stakeholder Management
12 104 (5.39%) ITSM
13 99 (5.13%) Infrastructure as Code
14 95 (4.92%) Project Delivery
15 90 (4.67%) Decision-Making
16 84 (4.35%) Risk Management
17 82 (4.25%) SIEM
18 80 (4.15%) Security Operations
19 76 (3.94%) Containerisation
20 75 (3.89%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 148 (7.67%) Python
2 112 (5.81%) PowerShell
3 82 (4.25%) SQL
4 41 (2.13%) Java
5 35 (1.81%) Bash
5 35 (1.81%) JavaScript
6 23 (1.19%) TypeScript
7 21 (1.09%) C#
8 16 (0.83%) Go
9 14 (0.73%) Search Processing Language
10 12 (0.62%) PL/SQL
11 10 (0.52%) Bicep
11 10 (0.52%) Shell Script
12 9 (0.47%) C
13 8 (0.41%) C++
14 7 (0.36%) Rust
15 6 (0.31%) Embedded C
16 5 (0.26%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
17 4 (0.21%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 1,929 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 629 (32.61%) SC Cleared
3 63 (3.27%) Degree
4 54 (2.80%) CISSP
5 53 (2.75%) Cisco Certification
6 36 (1.87%) CISM
7 24 (1.24%) CCNA
7 24 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
8 23 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
9 22 (1.14%) CCNP
10 19 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
11 18 (0.93%) CESG Certified Professional
12 17 (0.88%) AWS Certification
13 15 (0.78%) GIAC
13 15 (0.78%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 14 (0.73%) BPSS Clearance
14 14 (0.73%) PMP
15 13 (0.67%) CompTIA CySA+
15 13 (0.67%) ISTQB
16 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
4 49 (2.54%) QA
5 46 (2.38%) PMO
6 39 (2.02%) JSP 440
7 24 (1.24%) RMADS
8 23 (1.19%) GRC
8 23 (1.19%) SLA
9 19 (0.98%) GDPR
10 11 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
11 9 (0.47%) Accessibility
11 9 (0.47%) Data Quality
12 8 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 8 (0.41%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.31%) 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%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 128 (6.64%) VMware Infrastructure
2 127 (6.58%) Active Directory
3 96 (4.98%) Docker
4 60 (3.11%) VMware NSX
5 48 (2.49%) VMware ESXi
6 41 (2.13%) 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 Desktop
13 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
14 4 (0.21%) Ceph
14 4 (0.21%) UAG
15 3 (0.16%) Squid
16 2 (0.10%) GPFS
16 2 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 130 (6.74%) Kubernetes
2 124 (6.43%) Terraform
3 84 (4.35%) Ansible
4 62 (3.21%) vCenter Server
5 28 (1.45%) SCOM
6 26 (1.35%) SCCM
7 20 (1.04%) Grafana
8 19 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 18 (0.93%) 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%) Nessus
14 9 (0.47%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 9 (0.47%) Progress Chef
14 9 (0.47%) WMI
14 9 (0.47%) WSUS
Vendors
1 213 (11.04%) VMware
2 177 (9.18%) Microsoft
3 108 (5.60%) Cisco
4 73 (3.78%) ServiceNow
5 69 (3.58%) Splunk
6 51 (2.64%) Oracle
7 45 (2.33%) Juniper
7 45 (2.33%) NetApp
8 43 (2.23%) Red Hat
9 39 (2.02%) SAP
10 30 (1.56%) F5
10 30 (1.56%) SolarWinds
11 26 (1.35%) Remedy
12 23 (1.19%) Dell
13 22 (1.14%) Fortinet
13 22 (1.14%) Google
13 22 (1.14%) Sparx
14 21 (1.09%) Palo Alto
15 19 (0.98%) Citrix
16 18 (0.93%) BMC