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

6 months to
2 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 84 31
Rank change year-on-year +34 -53 +31
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,901 859 2,437
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.90% 2.97% 5.66%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.37% 9.54% 18.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,422 593 1,760
10th Percentile £425 £450 £425
25th Percentile £513 £514 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £580 £600
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -
75th Percentile £675 £656 £690
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 59 28 112
10th Percentile £18.15 £34.68 £51.28
25th Percentile £35.00 £60.31 £57.16
Median hourly rate £55.00 £79.35 £71.17
Median % change year-on-year -30.69% +11.50% +1.66%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.32 £85.65
90th Percentile £88.25 £88.87 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £80.68 £71.17
% change year-on-year -31.83% +13.36% -5.11%

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 15,370 9,004 12,878
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.51% 31.12% 29.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,200 5,648 8,016
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
75th Percentile £619 £619 £645
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,120 527 1,101
10th Percentile £16.49 £17.57 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.50 £18.13
Median hourly rate £50.00 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +53.85% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.84 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.05 £41.23
% change year-on-year +48.21% -22.27% -21.47%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 +20 1,757 £588 +0.34% 534
UK excluding London +10 1,370 £600 +4.35% 425
South East +8 752 £600 +3.00% 172
London +68 377 £600 - 105
South West -2 329 £563 -6.25% 155
Work from Home +35 264 £561 -2.39% 160
East of England +5 109 £650 +18.18% 44
North of England -18 79 £770 +275.61% 38
North West +6 64 £788 +284.15% 31
Midlands -39 56 £600 - 10
West Midlands -53 43 £600 -7.69% 10
Scotland +31 40 £669 +33.70% 4
East Midlands -17 13 £513 -6.82%
Yorkshire -50 13 £525 -16.00% 5
Northern Ireland +8 5 £638 - 5
Wales -9 5 - - 2
North East -25 2 £675 +8.00% 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 41 (2.16%) Confluence
2 36 (1.89%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (1.42%) SharePoint
4 11 (0.58%) Apache
5 7 (0.37%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.32%) 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 (0.11%) nginx
11 1 (0.053%) OpenStack
Applications
1 35 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (1.68%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.32%) AutoCAD
5 6 (0.32%) Revit
5 6 (0.32%) SOLIDWORKS
5 6 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.21%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.11%) Lectora
7 2 (0.11%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 27 (1.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.26%) Remedy ITSM
3 21 (1.10%) 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 (0.11%) Primavera
7 2 (0.11%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.053%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.053%) SAP CCM
8 1 (0.053%) SAP FI-GL
8 1 (0.053%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.053%) SAP QM
8 1 (0.053%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 186 (9.78%) AWS
2 167 (8.78%) Azure
3 70 (3.68%) GCP
4 42 (2.21%) GitHub
5 41 (2.16%) PaaS
6 40 (2.10%) IaaS
7 38 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
8 30 (1.58%) GitHub Actions
9 28 (1.47%) Microsoft 365
10 27 (1.42%) OpenShift
11 25 (1.32%) Serverless
12 21 (1.10%) Power Platform
13 17 (0.89%) OCI
14 14 (0.74%) Amazon ECS
15 13 (0.68%) Amazon EKS
15 13 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
15 13 (0.68%) Entra ID
15 13 (0.68%) SaaS
16 11 (0.58%) Azure AKS
16 11 (0.58%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 113 (5.94%) DNS
2 102 (5.37%) Firewall
3 71 (3.73%) Network Security
4 66 (3.47%) WAN
5 65 (3.42%) LAN
6 51 (2.68%) VPN
7 50 (2.63%) DHCP
8 42 (2.21%) BGP
9 29 (1.53%) TCP/IP
10 28 (1.47%) OSPF
11 20 (1.05%) Ethernet VPN
11 20 (1.05%) MPLS
11 20 (1.05%) VSAN
11 20 (1.05%) VXLAN
12 19 (1.00%) SAN
12 19 (1.00%) VLAN
13 18 (0.95%) IPsec
14 17 (0.89%) SSL
15 16 (0.84%) BIG-IP
16 14 (0.74%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (1.53%) SQL Server
2 26 (1.37%) Oracle Database
2 26 (1.37%) PostgreSQL
3 25 (1.32%) Elasticsearch
4 16 (0.84%) Power BI
5 12 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
5 12 (0.63%) MongoDB
6 8 (0.42%) Metadata
7 7 (0.37%) Hadoop
7 7 (0.37%) NoSQL
7 7 (0.37%) Redis
8 6 (0.32%) Data Lake
8 6 (0.32%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (0.32%) MariaDB
8 6 (0.32%) MySQL
9 5 (0.26%) Big Data
9 5 (0.26%) Oracle Database 11g
9 5 (0.26%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.21%) Amazon Aurora
10 4 (0.21%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 71 (3.73%) JIRA
2 34 (1.79%) GitLab
3 25 (1.32%) Git
4 24 (1.26%) Jenkins
5 11 (0.58%) Cypress.io
6 8 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (0.37%) Selenium
8 6 (0.32%) Artifactory
8 6 (0.32%) Robot Framework
9 5 (0.26%) Maven
10 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
10 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.16%) MLflow
11 3 (0.16%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.16%) SonarQube
12 2 (0.11%) Bitbucket
12 2 (0.11%) Cucumber
12 2 (0.11%) Gatling
12 2 (0.11%) Postman
12 2 (0.11%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 280 (14.73%) Social Skills
2 207 (10.89%) Public Sector
3 109 (5.73%) Analytical Skills
4 74 (3.89%) Finance
5 64 (3.37%) Military
6 58 (3.05%) Documentation Skills
7 50 (2.63%) Legal
8 22 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
8 22 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
8 22 (1.16%) Telecoms
9 21 (1.10%) Law
10 20 (1.05%) Aerospace
11 14 (0.74%) Police
12 11 (0.58%) Manufacturing
13 9 (0.47%) Marketing
14 6 (0.32%) Electronics
15 5 (0.26%) Influencing Skills
16 3 (0.16%) Advertising
16 3 (0.16%) Banking
17 2 (0.11%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 293 (15.41%) Architect
2 156 (8.21%) Senior
3 143 (7.52%) Lead
4 126 (6.63%) Analyst
5 110 (5.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 105 (5.52%) Developer
7 104 (5.47%) Consultant
8 86 (4.52%) Network Engineer
9 77 (4.05%) SOC Analyst
10 73 (3.84%) Technical Architect
11 61 (3.21%) Security Architect
12 56 (2.95%) Tester
13 55 (2.89%) Project Manager
14 50 (2.63%) DevOps Engineer
15 49 (2.58%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 44 (2.31%) Software Engineer
17 40 (2.10%) Administrator
18 39 (2.05%) Service Manager
19 38 (2.00%) Designer
19 38 (2.00%) DV Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (2.42%) REST
2 29 (1.53%) React
3 25 (1.32%) Elastic Stack
4 20 (1.05%) 802.1X
5 17 (0.89%) Node.js
6 16 (0.84%) AngularJS
6 16 (0.84%) Kafka
7 15 (0.79%) LDAP
7 15 (0.79%) SOAP
7 15 (0.79%) Spring
8 14 (0.74%) RESTful
9 13 (0.68%) Apache NiFi
9 13 (0.68%) Flask
9 13 (0.68%) Spring Boot
10 12 (0.63%) .NET
10 12 (0.63%) FastAPI
11 11 (0.58%) ModSecurity
12 10 (0.53%) OAuth
12 10 (0.53%) SailPoint
13 9 (0.47%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 95 (5.00%) PKI
2 71 (3.73%) Data Centre
3 53 (2.79%) Security Operations Centre
4 49 (2.58%) Cloud Native
5 33 (1.74%) Clustering
6 32 (1.68%) Onboarding
7 30 (1.58%) Management Information System
8 27 (1.42%) Product Ownership
9 24 (1.26%) Hybrid Cloud
10 23 (1.21%) Cyber Threat
11 22 (1.16%) Private Cloud
12 20 (1.05%) Cyberattack
13 18 (0.95%) Security Posture
14 17 (0.89%) Public Cloud
15 16 (0.84%) Analytical Mindset
15 16 (0.84%) Virtual Team
16 15 (0.79%) Enterprise Storage
17 13 (0.68%) CMDB
17 13 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
17 13 (0.68%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 264 (13.89%) Windows
2 211 (11.10%) Linux
3 98 (5.16%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (1.16%) Windows 10
6 9 (0.47%) Ubuntu
6 9 (0.47%) Unix
7 8 (0.42%) Debian
7 8 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
8 7 (0.37%) Android
8 7 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.32%) AIX
9 6 (0.32%) 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
1 312 (16.41%) Agile
2 185 (9.73%) Problem-Solving
3 169 (8.89%) ITIL
4 157 (8.26%) CI/CD
4 157 (8.26%) Cybersecurity
5 150 (7.89%) DevOps
6 147 (7.73%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 138 (7.26%) Continuous Improvement
8 122 (6.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 121 (6.37%) Service Management
10 112 (5.89%) Stakeholder Management
11 104 (5.47%) ITSM
12 99 (5.21%) Infrastructure as Code
13 94 (4.94%) Project Delivery
14 88 (4.63%) Decision-Making
15 83 (4.37%) Risk Management
16 82 (4.31%) Security Operations
16 82 (4.31%) SIEM
17 79 (4.16%) Technical Leadership
18 76 (4.00%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 150 (7.89%) Python
2 111 (5.84%) PowerShell
3 80 (4.21%) SQL
4 42 (2.21%) Java
5 36 (1.89%) JavaScript
6 34 (1.79%) Bash
7 24 (1.26%) TypeScript
8 22 (1.16%) C#
9 16 (0.84%) Go
10 14 (0.74%) Search Processing Language
11 12 (0.63%) PL/SQL
12 10 (0.53%) Bicep
13 9 (0.47%) C
13 9 (0.47%) C++
14 8 (0.42%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.37%) Rust
16 6 (0.32%) Embedded C
17 5 (0.26%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
18 4 (0.21%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,901 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 620 (32.61%) SC Cleared
3 60 (3.16%) Degree
4 50 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
4 50 (2.63%) CISSP
5 33 (1.74%) CISM
6 23 (1.21%) CCNA
6 23 (1.21%) Microsoft Certification
7 22 (1.16%) CompTIA Security+
8 19 (1.00%) CCNP
8 19 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
9 17 (0.89%) AWS Certification
10 16 (0.84%) CESG Certified Professional
11 15 (0.79%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 14 (0.74%) BPSS Clearance
13 13 (0.68%) CompTIA CySA+
13 13 (0.68%) GIAC
13 13 (0.68%) PMP
14 11 (0.58%) ISTQB
14 11 (0.58%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (3.89%) NIST
2 60 (3.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 50 (2.63%) QA
4 49 (2.58%) NCSC
5 46 (2.42%) PMO
6 39 (2.05%) JSP 440
7 24 (1.26%) RMADS
8 23 (1.21%) SLA
9 22 (1.16%) GRC
10 18 (0.95%) GDPR
11 11 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
12 9 (0.47%) Accessibility
13 8 (0.42%) Data Quality
13 8 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 8 (0.42%) NIST 800
14 7 (0.37%) Government Security Classifications
15 6 (0.32%) WCAG
16 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 3 (0.16%) Def Stans
System Software
1 129 (6.79%) VMware Infrastructure
2 127 (6.68%) Active Directory
3 95 (5.00%) Docker
4 60 (3.16%) VMware NSX
5 48 (2.52%) VMware ESXi
6 41 (2.16%) Hyper-V
7 22 (1.16%) vSphere
8 20 (1.05%) vCloud
9 10 (0.53%) BitLocker
10 9 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.42%) Firmware
11 8 (0.42%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.37%) 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 (0.11%) KVM
17 1 (0.053%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 128 (6.73%) Kubernetes
2 122 (6.42%) Terraform
3 82 (4.31%) Ansible
4 61 (3.21%) vCenter Server
5 30 (1.58%) SCOM
6 25 (1.32%) SCCM
7 19 (1.00%) Grafana
8 18 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (0.89%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 17 (0.89%) Prometheus
10 15 (0.79%) Puppet
11 13 (0.68%) FortiGate
12 11 (0.58%) Nagios
12 11 (0.58%) Podman
13 10 (0.53%) Data Guard
14 9 (0.47%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 9 (0.47%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 9 (0.47%) WSUS
15 8 (0.42%) Progress Chef
15 8 (0.42%) VxRail
Vendors
1 211 (11.10%) VMware
2 173 (9.10%) Microsoft
3 105 (5.52%) Cisco
4 75 (3.95%) ServiceNow
5 68 (3.58%) Splunk
6 51 (2.68%) Oracle
7 45 (2.37%) NetApp
8 43 (2.26%) Juniper
9 42 (2.21%) Red Hat
10 38 (2.00%) SAP
11 30 (1.58%) SolarWinds
12 29 (1.53%) F5
13 25 (1.32%) Remedy
14 22 (1.16%) Dell
14 22 (1.16%) Fortinet
14 22 (1.16%) Google
14 22 (1.16%) Palo Alto
15 21 (1.10%) Sparx
16 19 (1.00%) Citrix
17 18 (0.95%) BMC