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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 79 36
Rank change year-on-year +31 -43 +17
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,195 1,019 1,925
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.08% 3.09% 4.99%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.01% 9.89% 16.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,663 715 1,336
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £515 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £591 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.61% -1.58% +4.35%
75th Percentile £700 £663 £688
90th Percentile £763 £723 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £593
% change year-on-year +3.45% -2.11% +3.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 89 39 94
10th Percentile £35.00 - £50.38
25th Percentile £51.00 £25.15 £60.00
Median hourly rate £74.50 £50.00 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +49.00% -28.97% +0.56%
75th Percentile £92.53 £81.18 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.06 £87.30 £89.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.59 £79.35 £70.39
% change year-on-year -6.00% +12.73% -2.77%

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 16,874 10,306 11,483
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.40% 31.27% 29.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,276 6,389 7,208
10th Percentile £350 £299 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £621 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,264 826 732
10th Percentile £17.41 £17.99 £15.11
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £48.72 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +93.72% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £72.54 £50.94 £67.50
90th Percentile £87.16 £71.98 £76.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +89.03% -49.70% -

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 2,059 £600 +1.91% 673
UK excluding London +12 1,571 £600 +3.45% 556
South East +5 904 £600 - 199
London +52 470 £600 -4.00% 174
South West +2 422 £589 -1.88% 193
Work from Home +40 336 £561 -4.87% 282
East of England +13 89 £650 +18.18% 83
North of England -14 65 £775 +34.78% 52
Midlands -64 47 £600 - 23
North West -11 44 £863 +72.50% 37
West Midlands -67 41 £600 - 15
Scotland +5 39 £669 +27.33% 29
Yorkshire -30 16 £518 -17.20% 7
East Midlands - 6 £625 - 8
Northern Ireland +6 5 £638 -8.93% 1
North East -32 5 £463 -26.00% 8
Wales -13 4 - - 1

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 66 (3.01%) Confluence
2 47 (2.14%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.73%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.46%) Apache
5 7 (0.32%) Documentum
6 6 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.27%) CMS
7 5 (0.23%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
8 3 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.091%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.091%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.091%) Camunda
9 2 (0.091%) Mule
9 2 (0.091%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.091%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.091%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.091%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.091%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.046%) JBoss
Applications
1 56 (2.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (2.05%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.96%) Microsoft Office
5 15 (0.68%) AutoCAD
5 15 (0.68%) Revit
5 15 (0.68%) SOLIDWORKS
6 9 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.23%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.28%) Oracle ERP
3 22 (1.00%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.87%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.64%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.27%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.18%) Primavera
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.14%) SAP PP
10 2 (0.091%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.046%) Oracle Assets
11 1 (0.046%) SAP CCM
11 1 (0.046%) SAP GRC
11 1 (0.046%) SAP PLM
11 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 287 (13.08%) Azure
2 274 (12.48%) AWS
3 105 (4.78%) GCP
4 56 (2.55%) Azure DevOps
5 46 (2.10%) GitHub
5 46 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
6 40 (1.82%) Entra ID
7 39 (1.78%) GitHub Actions
8 37 (1.69%) Power Platform
9 36 (1.64%) Serverless
10 33 (1.50%) OCI
11 32 (1.46%) IaaS
12 29 (1.32%) PaaS
13 25 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
14 23 (1.05%) Amazon EKS
15 22 (1.00%) OpenShift
16 20 (0.91%) Amazon ECS
17 19 (0.87%) Amazon S3
17 19 (0.87%) SaaS
18 17 (0.77%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 165 (7.52%) DNS
2 123 (5.60%) Firewall
3 80 (3.64%) DHCP
4 65 (2.96%) Network Security
5 63 (2.87%) WAN
6 56 (2.55%) LAN
6 56 (2.55%) VPN
7 54 (2.46%) TCP/IP
8 48 (2.19%) BGP
9 41 (1.87%) VSAN
10 33 (1.50%) IPsec
10 33 (1.50%) MPLS
11 28 (1.28%) VLAN
12 18 (0.82%) SSL
13 16 (0.73%) Cisco ASA
13 16 (0.73%) OSPF
13 16 (0.73%) SAN
14 15 (0.68%) Cisco Firepower
14 15 (0.68%) SD-WAN
15 14 (0.64%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (2.41%) SQL Server
2 41 (1.87%) Oracle Database
3 31 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.00%) Power BI
5 18 (0.82%) Metadata
6 17 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
7 16 (0.73%) Data Lake
8 15 (0.68%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (0.68%) MongoDB
9 12 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
10 9 (0.41%) NoSQL
10 9 (0.41%) Oracle Database 11g
10 9 (0.41%) Relational Database
11 8 (0.36%) BigQuery
11 8 (0.36%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 8 (0.36%) Oracle Database 12c
12 7 (0.32%) MariaDB
12 7 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
13 6 (0.27%) Big Data
14 5 (0.23%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 104 (4.74%) JIRA
2 70 (3.19%) GitLab
3 60 (2.73%) Jenkins
4 54 (2.46%) Git
5 19 (0.87%) Selenium
6 15 (0.68%) Cypress.io
7 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
7 7 (0.32%) MSI
7 7 (0.32%) Postman
7 7 (0.32%) REST Assured
7 7 (0.32%) Visual Studio
8 6 (0.27%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.27%) SpecFlow
9 5 (0.23%) Artifactory
9 5 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.18%) Gatling
10 4 (0.18%) JMeter
10 4 (0.18%) JUnit
11 3 (0.14%) Maven
11 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 454 (20.68%) Social Skills
2 282 (12.85%) Public Sector
3 159 (7.24%) Analytical Skills
4 140 (6.38%) Finance
5 62 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
5 62 (2.82%) Military
6 42 (1.91%) Legal
6 42 (1.91%) Organisational Skills
7 32 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
7 32 (1.46%) Police
8 31 (1.41%) Law
9 28 (1.28%) Telecoms
10 27 (1.23%) Manufacturing
11 23 (1.05%) Aerospace
12 14 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
13 9 (0.41%) Local Government
14 7 (0.32%) Marketing
15 5 (0.23%) Advertising
16 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
16 4 (0.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 357 (16.26%) Architect
2 245 (11.16%) Lead
3 194 (8.84%) Senior
4 158 (7.20%) Consultant
5 152 (6.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 151 (6.88%) Developer
7 138 (6.29%) Analyst
8 91 (4.15%) Security Architect
9 81 (3.69%) Network Engineer
10 73 (3.33%) SOC Analyst
11 68 (3.10%) Cloud Engineer
12 62 (2.82%) Technical Architect
13 59 (2.69%) Project Manager
14 56 (2.55%) Support Engineer
15 54 (2.46%) DevOps Engineer
16 51 (2.32%) DBA
17 46 (2.10%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
18 42 (1.91%) DV Cleared Project Manager
19 41 (1.87%) Lead Architect
19 41 (1.87%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 192 (8.75%) Terraform
2 75 (3.42%) REST
3 30 (1.37%) Elastic Stack
4 28 (1.28%) SOAP
5 27 (1.23%) React
6 21 (0.96%) RESTful
7 18 (0.82%) Kafka
7 18 (0.82%) LDAP
8 17 (0.77%) Node.js
9 15 (0.68%) .NET
10 14 (0.64%) AngularJS
10 14 (0.64%) Spring
10 14 (0.64%) Spring Boot
11 12 (0.55%) ARM Templates
11 12 (0.55%) FastAPI
11 12 (0.55%) Flask
11 12 (0.55%) OAuth
11 12 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
11 12 (0.55%) XML
12 11 (0.50%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 100 (4.56%) PKI
2 97 (4.42%) Cloud Native
2 97 (4.42%) Data Centre
3 74 (3.37%) Onboarding
4 45 (2.05%) Security Operations Centre
5 39 (1.78%) Private Cloud
6 38 (1.73%) Hybrid Cloud
7 37 (1.69%) Management Information System
8 36 (1.64%) Product Ownership
9 29 (1.32%) Cyber Threat
9 29 (1.32%) Public Cloud
10 25 (1.14%) Distributed Systems
11 24 (1.09%) CMDB
11 24 (1.09%) Security Posture
12 23 (1.05%) Clustering
13 18 (0.82%) Legacy Systems
14 17 (0.77%) Virtual Team
15 16 (0.73%) Replication
16 14 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
16 14 (0.64%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 349 (15.90%) Windows
2 243 (11.07%) Linux
3 165 (7.52%) Windows Server
4 37 (1.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 29 (1.32%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.14%) Windows Server 2019
7 18 (0.82%) Unix
8 15 (0.68%) Ubuntu
9 13 (0.59%) CentOS
10 11 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.41%) Mac OS
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
13 6 (0.27%) Android
13 6 (0.27%) VMS
13 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
14 5 (0.23%) Data ONTAP
14 5 (0.23%) Debian
15 4 (0.18%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 378 (17.22%) Agile
2 249 (11.34%) Stakeholder Management
3 248 (11.30%) Continuous Improvement
4 231 (10.52%) CI/CD
5 224 (10.21%) Cybersecurity
6 215 (9.79%) Problem-Solving
7 206 (9.38%) DevOps
8 202 (9.20%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 197 (8.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 182 (8.29%) ITIL
10 182 (8.29%) Technical Leadership
11 177 (8.06%) Infrastructure as Code
12 148 (6.74%) Service Management
13 136 (6.20%) ITSM
14 123 (5.60%) Containerisation
14 123 (5.60%) Risk Management
15 118 (5.38%) Decision-Making
15 118 (5.38%) Project Delivery
16 113 (5.15%) SIEM
17 103 (4.69%) AI
Programming Languages
1 215 (9.79%) Python
2 180 (8.20%) PowerShell
3 123 (5.60%) SQL
4 90 (4.10%) Bash
5 64 (2.92%) Java
6 38 (1.73%) JavaScript
7 35 (1.59%) C#
8 25 (1.14%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.82%) Bicep
10 16 (0.73%) Go
11 15 (0.68%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.64%) Search Processing Language
13 13 (0.59%) C++
14 11 (0.50%) C
15 9 (0.41%) Shell Script
16 7 (0.32%) Groovy
17 6 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
17 6 (0.27%) Perl
17 6 (0.27%) X++
18 5 (0.23%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 2,195 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 720 (32.80%) SC Cleared
3 77 (3.51%) Degree
4 70 (3.19%) CISSP
5 46 (2.10%) CISM
6 36 (1.64%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
8 27 (1.23%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 24 (1.09%) VCAP
10 21 (0.96%) AWS Certification
10 21 (0.96%) PMI Certification
11 20 (0.91%) ISTQB
12 19 (0.87%) PMP
13 17 (0.77%) TOGAF Certification
14 16 (0.73%) CCNP
15 15 (0.68%) BPSS Clearance
15 15 (0.68%) MCSE
16 14 (0.64%) Azure Certification
17 12 (0.55%) CCNA
17 12 (0.55%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (4.01%) NCSC
2 84 (3.83%) NIST
3 82 (3.74%) PMO
4 69 (3.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 57 (2.60%) QA
6 41 (1.87%) JSP 440
7 32 (1.46%) GDPR
8 26 (1.18%) SLA
9 24 (1.09%) Data Quality
10 20 (0.91%) GRC
11 18 (0.82%) Accessibility
11 18 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 17 (0.77%) Government Security Classifications
13 16 (0.73%) RMADS
14 11 (0.50%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 10 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.36%) NIST 800
16 8 (0.36%) WCAG
17 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
18 6 (0.27%) Def Stans
System Software
1 206 (9.38%) Active Directory
2 195 (8.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 124 (5.65%) Docker
4 96 (4.37%) VMware NSX
5 78 (3.55%) VMware ESXi
6 64 (2.92%) Hyper-V
7 52 (2.37%) vSphere
8 28 (1.28%) vCloud
9 16 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
10 13 (0.59%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.41%) NFS
12 8 (0.36%) Firmware
13 7 (0.32%) BitLocker
13 7 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
13 7 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
14 5 (0.23%) Ceph
15 4 (0.18%) KVM
15 4 (0.18%) Squid
15 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.14%) UAG
Systems Management
1 200 (9.11%) Kubernetes
2 143 (6.51%) Ansible
3 88 (4.01%) vCenter Server
4 55 (2.51%) SCOM
5 34 (1.55%) SCCM
6 25 (1.14%) Prometheus
7 23 (1.05%) Grafana
7 23 (1.05%) Puppet
8 17 (0.77%) Nagios
9 16 (0.73%) Oracle RMAN
10 15 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
10 15 (0.68%) VxRail
11 14 (0.64%) Avamar
11 14 (0.64%) Data Guard
11 14 (0.64%) Podman
12 13 (0.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.59%) WMI
12 13 (0.59%) WSUS
13 12 (0.55%) Istio
14 11 (0.50%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 289 (13.17%) Microsoft
2 279 (12.71%) VMware
3 110 (5.01%) Oracle
4 105 (4.78%) ServiceNow
5 82 (3.74%) Cisco
6 62 (2.82%) SAP
7 58 (2.64%) Splunk
8 55 (2.51%) Google
9 39 (1.78%) SolarWinds
10 35 (1.59%) Red Hat
11 32 (1.46%) Juniper
12 30 (1.37%) CyberArk
13 24 (1.09%) Palo Alto
13 24 (1.09%) Remedy
14 23 (1.05%) Citrix
14 23 (1.05%) Dell
14 23 (1.05%) NetApp
15 19 (0.87%) BMC
15 19 (0.87%) Sparx
16 17 (0.77%) Broadcom