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

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 81 31
Rank change year-on-year +31 -50 +31
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,902 852 2,438
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.89% 2.96% 5.66%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.34% 9.52% 18.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,420 588 1,760
10th Percentile £425 £450 £425
25th Percentile £513 £515 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £580 £600
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -
75th Percentile £675 £652 £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 15,413 8,949 12,884
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.55% 31.10% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,220 5,610 8,017
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 £620 £619 £644
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.30% +1.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,135 529 1,104
10th Percentile £16.88 £17.59 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.50 £18.13
Median hourly rate £48.50 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.23% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.68 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.05 £41.27
% change year-on-year +48.21% -22.33% -21.40%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 +26 1,758 £600 +2.30% 506
UK excluding London +12 1,369 £600 +4.35% 412
South East +8 751 £600 +3.45% 177
London +61 379 £600 - 87
South West -2 330 £563 -6.25% 148
Work from Home +34 265 £563 -2.17% 158
East of England +7 109 £650 +18.18% 41
North of England -17 79 £770 +275.61% 27
North West +12 64 £788 +284.15% 23
Midlands -37 55 £600 - 11
West Midlands -49 43 £600 -4.00% 11
Scotland +32 40 £669 +33.70% 5
Yorkshire -48 13 £525 -16.00% 3
East Midlands -17 12 £475 -13.64%
Northern Ireland +8 5 £638 - 5
Wales -9 5 - - 2
North East -29 2 £675 +8.00% 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 41 (2.16%) Confluence
2 37 (1.95%) Microsoft Exchange
3 28 (1.47%) SharePoint
4 10 (0.53%) Apache
5 6 (0.32%) Apache Spark
5 6 (0.32%) Mattermost
6 5 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.21%) CMS
7 4 (0.21%) Skype for Business
8 3 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.11%) nginx
10 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 6 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
5 5 (0.26%) Maximo
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.21%) SAP EWM
7 3 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.16%) SAP GRC
7 3 (0.16%) Teamcenter
8 2 (0.11%) Primavera
8 2 (0.11%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.053%) Oracle Applications
9 1 (0.053%) SAP CCM
9 1 (0.053%) SAP FI-GL
9 1 (0.053%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.053%) SAP QM
9 1 (0.053%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 186 (9.78%) AWS
2 169 (8.89%) Azure
3 71 (3.73%) GCP
4 42 (2.21%) GitHub
4 42 (2.21%) PaaS
5 41 (2.16%) IaaS
6 38 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
7 30 (1.58%) GitHub Actions
8 27 (1.42%) Microsoft 365
8 27 (1.42%) OpenShift
9 26 (1.37%) Serverless
10 21 (1.10%) Power Platform
11 19 (1.00%) OCI
12 15 (0.79%) SaaS
13 14 (0.74%) Amazon ECS
13 14 (0.74%) Entra ID
14 13 (0.68%) Amazon EKS
14 13 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
15 11 (0.58%) Azure AKS
15 11 (0.58%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 112 (5.89%) DNS
2 102 (5.36%) Firewall
3 74 (3.89%) 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 28 (1.47%) OSPF
10 27 (1.42%) TCP/IP
11 20 (1.05%) Ethernet VPN
11 20 (1.05%) MPLS
11 20 (1.05%) VXLAN
12 19 (1.00%) VLAN
12 19 (1.00%) VSAN
13 18 (0.95%) IPsec
14 17 (0.89%) SAN
14 17 (0.89%) SSL
15 16 (0.84%) BIG-IP
16 14 (0.74%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (1.63%) SQL Server
2 28 (1.47%) PostgreSQL
3 27 (1.42%) Oracle Database
4 26 (1.37%) Elasticsearch
5 16 (0.84%) Power BI
6 12 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
6 12 (0.63%) MongoDB
7 8 (0.42%) Metadata
8 7 (0.37%) Redis
9 6 (0.32%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.32%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (0.32%) Hadoop
9 6 (0.32%) MariaDB
9 6 (0.32%) MySQL
9 6 (0.32%) NoSQL
10 5 (0.26%) Oracle Database 11g
10 5 (0.26%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.21%) Amazon Aurora
11 4 (0.21%) Big Data
11 4 (0.21%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 71 (3.73%) JIRA
2 34 (1.79%) GitLab
3 26 (1.37%) 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%) SonarQube
10 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.16%) MLflow
11 3 (0.16%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.11%) ERwin
12 2 (0.11%) Gatling
12 2 (0.11%) JUnit
12 2 (0.11%) Postman
12 2 (0.11%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 281 (14.77%) Social Skills
2 209 (10.99%) Public Sector
3 109 (5.73%) Analytical Skills
4 77 (4.05%) Finance
5 64 (3.36%) Military
6 57 (3.00%) 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 12 (0.63%) 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
1 292 (15.35%) Architect
2 155 (8.15%) Senior
3 146 (7.68%) Lead
4 127 (6.68%) Analyst
5 109 (5.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 105 (5.52%) Consultant
7 104 (5.47%) Developer
8 86 (4.52%) Network Engineer
9 78 (4.10%) SOC Analyst
10 73 (3.84%) Technical Architect
11 61 (3.21%) Security Architect
12 55 (2.89%) Project Manager
12 55 (2.89%) Tester
13 50 (2.63%) DevOps Engineer
14 49 (2.58%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 44 (2.31%) Software Engineer
16 40 (2.10%) Administrator
17 39 (2.05%) Service Manager
18 38 (2.00%) Designer
19 37 (1.95%) DV Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (2.47%) REST
2 29 (1.52%) React
3 25 (1.31%) Elastic Stack
4 20 (1.05%) 802.1X
5 17 (0.89%) Kafka
5 17 (0.89%) Node.js
6 16 (0.84%) AngularJS
6 16 (0.84%) SOAP
7 15 (0.79%) LDAP
7 15 (0.79%) RESTful
7 15 (0.79%) Spring
8 13 (0.68%) Apache NiFi
8 13 (0.68%) Flask
8 13 (0.68%) Spring Boot
9 12 (0.63%) .NET
9 12 (0.63%) FastAPI
10 11 (0.58%) ModSecurity
11 10 (0.53%) SailPoint
12 9 (0.47%) Oracle Fusion
12 9 (0.47%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 95 (4.99%) PKI
2 71 (3.73%) Data Centre
3 55 (2.89%) Security Operations Centre
4 49 (2.58%) Cloud Native
5 33 (1.74%) Clustering
6 32 (1.68%) Management Information System
6 32 (1.68%) Onboarding
7 28 (1.47%) Product Ownership
8 24 (1.26%) Hybrid Cloud
9 23 (1.21%) Cyber Threat
10 22 (1.16%) Private Cloud
11 20 (1.05%) Cyberattack
12 19 (1.00%) Security Posture
13 17 (0.89%) Public Cloud
14 16 (0.84%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.84%) Virtual Team
15 15 (0.79%) Enterprise Storage
16 13 (0.68%) CMDB
16 13 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
16 13 (0.68%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 262 (13.77%) Windows
2 209 (10.99%) Linux
3 98 (5.15%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (1.16%) Windows 10
6 9 (0.47%) Unix
7 8 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
8 7 (0.37%) Android
8 7 (0.37%) Ubuntu
8 7 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.32%) AIX
9 6 (0.32%) CentOS
9 6 (0.32%) Debian
10 5 (0.26%) VMS
10 5 (0.26%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.21%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.21%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 311 (16.35%) Agile
2 184 (9.67%) Problem-Solving
3 166 (8.73%) ITIL
4 161 (8.46%) Cybersecurity
5 157 (8.25%) CI/CD
6 149 (7.83%) DevOps
7 146 (7.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 141 (7.41%) Continuous Improvement
9 122 (6.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 121 (6.36%) Service Management
11 111 (5.84%) Stakeholder Management
12 104 (5.47%) ITSM
13 100 (5.26%) Infrastructure as Code
14 96 (5.05%) Project Delivery
15 89 (4.68%) Decision-Making
16 84 (4.42%) Security Operations
16 84 (4.42%) SIEM
17 83 (4.36%) Risk Management
18 81 (4.26%) Technical Leadership
19 77 (4.05%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 150 (7.89%) Python
2 111 (5.84%) PowerShell
3 82 (4.31%) SQL
4 41 (2.16%) Java
5 36 (1.89%) JavaScript
6 33 (1.74%) 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
12 10 (0.53%) C
12 10 (0.53%) C++
13 8 (0.42%) Rust
13 8 (0.42%) Shell Script
14 6 (0.32%) Embedded C
15 5 (0.26%) Apex Code
15 5 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
16 4 (0.21%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 1,902 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 623 (32.75%) SC Cleared
3 61 (3.21%) Degree
4 52 (2.73%) CISSP
5 50 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
6 35 (1.84%) CISM
7 23 (1.21%) CCNA
7 23 (1.21%) CompTIA Security+
8 22 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
9 19 (1.00%) CCNP
9 19 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
10 17 (0.89%) AWS Certification
10 17 (0.89%) CESG Certified Professional
11 15 (0.79%) BPSS Clearance
12 14 (0.74%) GIAC
12 14 (0.74%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 13 (0.68%) CompTIA CySA+
13 13 (0.68%) PMP
14 11 (0.58%) ISTQB
14 11 (0.58%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (3.94%) NIST
2 62 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 52 (2.73%) NCSC
4 50 (2.63%) QA
5 47 (2.47%) PMO
6 39 (2.05%) JSP 440
7 24 (1.26%) RMADS
8 23 (1.21%) SLA
9 22 (1.16%) GRC
10 19 (1.00%) GDPR
11 12 (0.63%) 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 5 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 4 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 3 (0.16%) Def Stans
System Software
1 129 (6.78%) VMware Infrastructure
2 125 (6.57%) Active Directory
3 96 (5.05%) Docker
4 59 (3.10%) VMware NSX
5 48 (2.52%) VMware ESXi
6 42 (2.21%) 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%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 128 (6.73%) Kubernetes
2 124 (6.52%) Terraform
3 82 (4.31%) Ansible
4 61 (3.21%) vCenter Server
5 30 (1.58%) SCOM
6 25 (1.31%) SCCM
7 19 (1.00%) Grafana
8 17 (0.89%) Prometheus
9 16 (0.84%) Puppet
9 16 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.79%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.68%) FortiGate
12 12 (0.63%) Podman
13 10 (0.53%) Data Guard
13 10 (0.53%) Nagios
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%) vMotion
Vendors
1 208 (10.94%) VMware
2 173 (9.10%) Microsoft
3 105 (5.52%) Cisco
4 76 (4.00%) ServiceNow
5 69 (3.63%) Splunk
6 55 (2.89%) Oracle
7 45 (2.37%) NetApp
8 43 (2.26%) Juniper
9 40 (2.10%) Red Hat
10 38 (2.00%) SAP
11 30 (1.58%) SolarWinds
12 29 (1.52%) F5
13 24 (1.26%) 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