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 19 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 63 35
Rank change year-on-year +2 -28 +56
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,550 1,095 2,149
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.81% 3.55% 4.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 11.21% 11.97% 16.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,085 707 1,500
10th Percentile £430 £371 £388
25th Percentile £508 £500 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% -2.08% -
75th Percentile £680 £675 £700
90th Percentile £738 £713 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £585 £600
% change year-on-year -1.71% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 28 116
10th Percentile £16.40 £34.75 £48.40
25th Percentile £18.82 £55.87 £57.33
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.15 £63.60
Median % change year-on-year +2.93% -0.70% -7.49%
75th Percentile £80.88 £75.83 £78.00
90th Percentile £91.03 £88.00 £87.27
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.50 £63.15 £63.91
% change year-on-year +3.72% -1.18% -10.81%

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 13,824 9,148 13,346
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.95% 29.70% 30.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,116 5,601 8,228
10th Percentile £325 £294 £292
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £619 £629 £650
90th Percentile £721 £715 £729
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £507 £530
% change year-on-year -1.38% -4.34% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,014 429 958
10th Percentile £16.00 £19.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.10 £24.18 £21.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -35.51% -13.33% -2.17%
75th Percentile £63.75 £66.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £80.20 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -40.82% -7.97% +2.62%

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 19 February 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 19 February 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 19 February 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 -4 1,408 £575 -2.13% 463
UK excluding London -1 1,073 £575 -1.71% 412
South East +4 532 £575 - 181
London -20 333 £575 -2.13% 77
South West -1 329 £575 -4.17% 120
Work from Home +16 196 £560 -0.44% 158
Midlands -29 79 £575 -16.36% 29
West Midlands -32 63 £575 -17.86% 24
North of England -43 63 £606 +10.23% 33
East of England +1 51 £575 - 48
North West +6 50 £600 +192.68% 27
Scotland -21 29 £653 +26.80% 5
East Midlands -14 16 £650 +18.18% 5
Yorkshire -50 11 £613 +11.36% 6
Northern Ireland - 9 £600 -
Wales -4 5 £600 -14.29% 4
North East -23 2 - -

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 49 (3.16%) Microsoft Exchange
1 49 (3.16%) SharePoint
2 30 (1.94%) Apache
3 26 (1.68%) Confluence
4 24 (1.55%) Skype for Business
5 19 (1.23%) Palantir Foundry
6 7 (0.45%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.26%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.13%) Documentum
9 2 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
10 1 (0.065%) Apache Airflow
10 1 (0.065%) Exchange Server 2003
10 1 (0.065%) Exchange Server 2007
10 1 (0.065%) Exchange Server 2010
10 1 (0.065%) Exchange Server 2013
10 1 (0.065%) nginx
10 1 (0.065%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 58 (3.74%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (2.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (1.16%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.45%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.13%) Lectora
Business Applications
1 15 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.84%) Remedy ITSM
3 12 (0.77%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 8 (0.52%) Maximo
5 5 (0.32%) Primavera
5 5 (0.32%) SAP EWM
6 4 (0.26%) Oracle Applications
6 4 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
6 4 (0.26%) SAP WM
7 3 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 2 (0.13%) SAP GRC
9 1 (0.065%) Oracle Cash Management
9 1 (0.065%) Oracle General Ledger
9 1 (0.065%) Oracle Payroll
9 1 (0.065%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 1 (0.065%) Oracle Receivables
9 1 (0.065%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.065%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 146 (9.42%) AWS
2 133 (8.58%) Azure
3 52 (3.35%) GitHub
3 52 (3.35%) Microsoft 365
4 46 (2.97%) GCP
5 43 (2.77%) OpenShift
6 39 (2.52%) Serverless
7 33 (2.13%) Azure DevOps
8 30 (1.94%) GitHub Actions
9 25 (1.61%) IaaS
10 22 (1.42%) Amazon S3
11 21 (1.35%) PaaS
12 18 (1.16%) Amazon EC2
12 18 (1.16%) AWS CloudFormation
12 18 (1.16%) Azure Sentinel
13 17 (1.10%) Entra ID
14 16 (1.03%) Amazon ECS
14 16 (1.03%) AWS Lambda
15 15 (0.97%) Azure AKS
16 13 (0.84%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 118 (7.61%) Firewall
2 100 (6.45%) DNS
3 70 (4.52%) Network Security
4 51 (3.29%) VPN
5 46 (2.97%) LAN
6 43 (2.77%) WAN
7 42 (2.71%) DHCP
8 41 (2.65%) TCP/IP
9 36 (2.32%) BGP
10 30 (1.94%) Junos
11 27 (1.74%) Cisco ISE
12 26 (1.68%) Cisco IOS
13 25 (1.61%) OSPF
13 25 (1.61%) Skype
14 18 (1.16%) SAN
15 17 (1.10%) Cisco Firepower
15 17 (1.10%) MPLS
15 17 (1.10%) VLAN
16 16 (1.03%) Ethernet VPN
17 15 (0.97%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
2 28 (1.81%) Elasticsearch
3 19 (1.23%) SQL Server
4 18 (1.16%) Big Data
5 16 (1.03%) Hadoop
6 15 (0.97%) Oracle Database
7 14 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
8 11 (0.71%) Relational Database
9 10 (0.65%) MongoDB
9 10 (0.65%) Redis
10 9 (0.58%) Power BI
11 8 (0.52%) MySQL
12 7 (0.45%) InfluxDB
12 7 (0.45%) Metadata
12 7 (0.45%) SAP HANA
13 5 (0.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 4 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
14 4 (0.26%) NoSQL
14 4 (0.26%) SAP Data Services
14 4 (0.26%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 48 (3.10%) JIRA
2 28 (1.81%) GitLab
2 28 (1.81%) Jenkins
3 27 (1.74%) Git
4 14 (0.90%) Maven
4 14 (0.90%) SonarQube
5 12 (0.77%) Artifactory
6 11 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
7 8 (0.52%) Cypress.io
8 7 (0.45%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.32%) Postman
9 5 (0.32%) Selenium
10 4 (0.26%) CircleCI
10 4 (0.26%) Gradle
10 4 (0.26%) JUnit
10 4 (0.26%) Oracle APEX
10 4 (0.26%) Robot Framework
10 4 (0.26%) Snyk
10 4 (0.26%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 4 (0.26%) webpack
General
1 278 (17.94%) Social Skills
2 192 (12.39%) Public Sector
3 123 (7.94%) Analytical Skills
4 70 (4.52%) Finance
5 67 (4.32%) Military
6 46 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
7 42 (2.71%) Legal
8 25 (1.61%) Telecoms
9 23 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
10 22 (1.42%) Aerospace
10 22 (1.42%) Organisational Skills
11 18 (1.16%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.03%) Law
13 14 (0.90%) Marketing
13 14 (0.90%) Police
14 13 (0.84%) Electronics
15 12 (0.77%) Banking
16 8 (0.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 3 (0.19%) Influencing Skills
18 2 (0.13%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 264 (17.03%) Architect
2 87 (5.61%) Senior
3 84 (5.42%) Analyst
4 80 (5.16%) Consultant
5 69 (4.45%) Network Engineer
6 66 (4.26%) Developer
7 62 (4.00%) Technical Architect
8 61 (3.94%) Lead
9 60 (3.87%) DevOps Engineer
10 51 (3.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 50 (3.23%) Support Engineer
11 50 (3.23%) Tester
12 45 (2.90%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
13 40 (2.58%) 3rd Line Engineer
14 39 (2.52%) Infrastructure Architect
15 38 (2.45%) Project Manager
15 38 (2.45%) SOC Analyst
16 36 (2.32%) Solutions Architect
17 35 (2.26%) Security Architect
18 34 (2.19%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (2.13%) Apache NiFi
1 33 (2.13%) REST
2 24 (1.55%) OAuth
3 23 (1.48%) React
4 22 (1.42%) Kafka
5 21 (1.35%) OpenID
6 19 (1.23%) OAuth2
6 19 (1.23%) SAML
7 14 (0.90%) Elastic Stack
7 14 (0.90%) Flask
7 14 (0.90%) Node.js
8 13 (0.84%) FastAPI
9 12 (0.77%) .NET
9 12 (0.77%) 802.1X
9 12 (0.77%) RabbitMQ
9 12 (0.77%) YAML
10 11 (0.71%) LDAP
11 10 (0.65%) Spring
11 10 (0.65%) Web Services
12 9 (0.58%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 100 (6.45%) PKI
2 55 (3.55%) Data Centre
3 37 (2.39%) Management Information System
4 34 (2.19%) Security Operations Centre
5 26 (1.68%) Cloud Native
6 21 (1.35%) Cyber Threat
7 19 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
7 19 (1.23%) Onboarding
8 18 (1.16%) Cyberattack
9 17 (1.10%) Private Cloud
9 17 (1.10%) Product Ownership
10 16 (1.03%) Clustering
10 16 (1.03%) Replication
11 15 (0.97%) Analytical Mindset
12 12 (0.77%) Fat Client
12 12 (0.77%) Insider Threat
12 12 (0.77%) Thin Client
13 11 (0.71%) Cyber Defence
13 11 (0.71%) Enterprise Software
13 11 (0.71%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 257 (16.58%) Windows
2 173 (11.16%) Linux
3 76 (4.90%) Windows Server
4 38 (2.45%) Windows 10
5 26 (1.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (1.16%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.90%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.58%) Android
9 8 (0.52%) Mac OS
9 8 (0.52%) Unix
10 7 (0.45%) CentOS
11 5 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
11 5 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.26%) VMS
13 3 (0.19%) Debian
14 2 (0.13%) Rocky
14 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 1 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.065%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 253 (16.32%) Agile
2 205 (13.23%) Problem-Solving
3 155 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
4 151 (9.74%) DevOps
5 126 (8.13%) CI/CD
6 123 (7.94%) ITIL
7 104 (6.71%) Service Management
8 98 (6.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 96 (6.19%) Continuous Improvement
10 93 (6.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 81 (5.23%) ITSM
12 80 (5.16%) Infrastructure as Code
13 79 (5.10%) Stakeholder Management
14 76 (4.90%) SIEM
15 74 (4.77%) Project Delivery
16 72 (4.65%) Risk Management
17 71 (4.58%) Containerisation
17 71 (4.58%) Incident Response
18 62 (4.00%) Project Management
19 61 (3.94%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 145 (9.35%) Python
2 112 (7.23%) PowerShell
3 62 (4.00%) SQL
4 50 (3.23%) Java
5 32 (2.06%) JavaScript
6 26 (1.68%) Bash
7 19 (1.23%) TypeScript
8 17 (1.10%) Go
9 16 (1.03%) C#
10 15 (0.97%) Shell Script
11 12 (0.77%) C++
12 9 (0.58%) Bicep
13 8 (0.52%) VB
14 7 (0.45%) VBScript
15 6 (0.39%) ABAP
15 6 (0.39%) C
16 5 (0.32%) PL/SQL
16 5 (0.32%) Rust
17 4 (0.26%) PHP
18 3 (0.19%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 1,550 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 482 (31.10%) SC Cleared
3 57 (3.68%) CISSP
4 54 (3.48%) Degree
5 44 (2.84%) Cisco Certification
6 38 (2.45%) CISM
7 35 (2.26%) Microsoft Certification
8 26 (1.68%) CompTIA Security+
9 25 (1.61%) CCNP
10 21 (1.35%) GIAC
11 18 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
12 17 (1.10%) BPSS Clearance
13 16 (1.03%) CCNA
13 16 (1.03%) CESG Certified Professional
14 15 (0.97%) AWS Certification
14 15 (0.97%) CompTIA CySA+
15 14 (0.90%) Azure Certification
15 14 (0.90%) CEH
15 14 (0.90%) CTC Cleared
16 13 (0.84%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 77 (4.97%) NIST
2 62 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 52 (3.35%) NCSC
4 40 (2.58%) QA
5 31 (2.00%) JSP 440
6 30 (1.94%) PMO
7 20 (1.29%) GRC
8 16 (1.03%) Data Quality
8 16 (1.03%) NIST 800
9 14 (0.90%) GDPR
10 12 (0.77%) SLA
11 10 (0.65%) RMADS
12 9 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 6 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 5 (0.32%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 5 (0.32%) P3O
15 4 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
16 3 (0.19%) EU AI Act
16 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 114 (7.35%) Active Directory
2 91 (5.87%) Docker
3 77 (4.97%) VMware Infrastructure
4 45 (2.90%) VMware NSX
5 32 (2.06%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (1.10%) vSphere
7 12 (0.77%) Hyper-V
8 11 (0.71%) BitLocker
8 11 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (0.52%) Firmware
10 7 (0.45%) vCloud
11 4 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.26%) NFS
11 4 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.19%) GPFS
12 3 (0.19%) Lustre
12 3 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 3 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
13 2 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
14 1 (0.065%) Brightmail
Systems Management
1 142 (9.16%) Kubernetes
2 117 (7.55%) Terraform
3 77 (4.97%) Ansible
4 53 (3.42%) vCenter Server
5 36 (2.32%) Grafana
6 34 (2.19%) Single Sign-On
7 33 (2.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 30 (1.94%) Prometheus
9 27 (1.74%) SCCM
10 16 (1.03%) WMI
11 14 (0.90%) Progress Chef
12 13 (0.84%) FortiGate
12 13 (0.84%) Puppet
13 11 (0.71%) Podman
13 11 (0.71%) SCOM
14 9 (0.58%) VxRail
15 8 (0.52%) Argo
16 7 (0.45%) Kibana
16 7 (0.45%) Nessus
16 7 (0.45%) vRealize
Vendors
1 213 (13.74%) Microsoft
2 154 (9.94%) VMware
3 115 (7.42%) Cisco
4 58 (3.74%) Splunk
5 54 (3.48%) Juniper
6 46 (2.97%) Oracle
7 40 (2.58%) Red Hat
7 40 (2.58%) SAP
8 37 (2.39%) ServiceNow
9 36 (2.32%) SolarWinds
10 35 (2.26%) NetApp
11 24 (1.55%) Palantir
12 22 (1.42%) Fortinet
13 21 (1.35%) Dell
14 19 (1.23%) F5
14 19 (1.23%) Foundry
14 19 (1.23%) Palo Alto
15 16 (1.03%) Google
16 15 (0.97%) Remedy
17 14 (0.90%) Veeam