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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 81 32
Rank change year-on-year +32 -49 +24
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 1,980 898 2,452
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.89% 2.99% 5.64%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.43% 9.65% 18.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,502 618 1,769
10th Percentile £430 £459 £425
25th Percentile £513 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £580 £600
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -
75th Percentile £688 £650 £688
90th Percentile £750 £713 £770
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £575 £600
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 29 118
10th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £51.44
25th Percentile £35.00 £42.50 £57.34
Median hourly rate £48.84 £80.00 £72.33
Median % change year-on-year -38.95% +10.60% +1.64%
75th Percentile £68.00 £82.96 £85.65
90th Percentile £81.90 £88.87 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.71 £81.35 £71.75
% change year-on-year -47.50% +13.38% -4.34%

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 15,927 9,305 12,933
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.29% 30.98% 29.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,652 5,773 7,988
10th Percentile £350 £275 £312
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £506 £500 £531
% change year-on-year +1.20% -5.84% +0.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,169 617 1,124
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £20.24 £19.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £29.25 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +70.94% -27.46% -26.85%
75th Percentile £72.54 £62.24 £64.25
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.62 £75.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.85 £42.50
% change year-on-year +79.53% -34.47% -20.80%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +25 1,839 £600 +2.48% 382
UK excluding London +10 1,413 £600 +4.35% 327
South East +5 765 £600 +4.35% 148
London +65 404 £600 - 76
South West -2 369 £575 -4.17% 117
Work from Home +47 305 £560 -2.61% 110
East of England +10 104 £650 +18.18% 25
North of England -13 82 £775 +24.00% 30
North West +4 65 £775 +278.05% 23
Midlands -50 52 £600 - 9
West Midlands -62 41 £600 - 8
Scotland +16 37 £669 +33.70% 4
Yorkshire -40 14 £525 -16.00% 5
East Midlands -8 11 £518 -5.91% 1
Northern Ireland +5 6 £619 - 2
Wales -9 4 - -
North East -33 3 £569 -9.00% 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 42 (2.12%) Confluence
2 40 (2.02%) Microsoft Exchange
3 29 (1.46%) SharePoint
4 6 (0.30%) Apache Spark
4 6 (0.30%) Mattermost
5 5 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.25%) CMS
5 5 (0.25%) Documentum
5 5 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
6 4 (0.20%) Apache
6 4 (0.20%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.10%) nginx
7 2 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.051%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.051%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.051%) Mule
Applications
1 37 (1.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.72%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.21%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.40%) AutoCAD
5 8 (0.40%) Revit
5 8 (0.40%) SOLIDWORKS
6 6 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.20%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.10%) Lectora
8 2 (0.10%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.21%) Remedy ITSM
3 19 (0.96%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.86%) Oracle ERP
5 5 (0.25%) Maximo
5 5 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
5 5 (0.25%) Teamcenter
6 4 (0.20%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.20%) SAP EWM
6 4 (0.20%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.15%) SAP GRC
8 2 (0.10%) Primavera
8 2 (0.10%) Siebel CRM
9 1 (0.051%) Oracle Applications
9 1 (0.051%) SAP CCM
9 1 (0.051%) SAP FI-GL
9 1 (0.051%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.051%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 223 (11.26%) AWS
2 202 (10.20%) Azure
3 89 (4.49%) GCP
4 51 (2.58%) GitHub
5 47 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
6 41 (2.07%) IaaS
6 41 (2.07%) PaaS
7 40 (2.02%) GitHub Actions
8 31 (1.57%) Serverless
9 29 (1.46%) Microsoft 365
9 29 (1.46%) OpenShift
10 24 (1.21%) OCI
10 24 (1.21%) Power Platform
11 19 (0.96%) SaaS
12 18 (0.91%) AWS Lambda
13 17 (0.86%) Amazon ECS
13 17 (0.86%) Amazon EKS
13 17 (0.86%) Entra ID
14 14 (0.71%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 12 (0.61%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 111 (5.61%) DNS
2 101 (5.10%) Firewall
3 71 (3.59%) Network Security
4 63 (3.18%) LAN
5 62 (3.13%) WAN
6 52 (2.63%) DHCP
7 51 (2.58%) VPN
8 42 (2.12%) BGP
9 28 (1.41%) OSPF
10 23 (1.16%) VLAN
11 21 (1.06%) VXLAN
12 20 (1.01%) IPsec
12 20 (1.01%) MPLS
13 19 (0.96%) Ethernet VPN
14 18 (0.91%) BIG-IP
14 18 (0.91%) TCP/IP
14 18 (0.91%) VSAN
15 16 (0.81%) Junos
16 15 (0.76%) Cisco ISE
16 15 (0.76%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (1.97%) SQL Server
2 34 (1.72%) Oracle Database
2 34 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
3 26 (1.31%) Elasticsearch
4 19 (0.96%) Power BI
5 13 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
5 13 (0.66%) MongoDB
6 10 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (0.51%) Metadata
7 7 (0.35%) Data Lake
7 7 (0.35%) Redis
8 6 (0.30%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.30%) Oracle Database 11g
9 5 (0.25%) Big Data
9 5 (0.25%) BigQuery
9 5 (0.25%) DynamoDB
9 5 (0.25%) Hadoop
9 5 (0.25%) MariaDB
9 5 (0.25%) MySQL
10 4 (0.20%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 75 (3.79%) JIRA
2 44 (2.22%) GitLab
3 40 (2.02%) Jenkins
4 32 (1.62%) Git
5 13 (0.66%) Cypress.io
6 9 (0.45%) Selenium
7 6 (0.30%) REST Assured
7 6 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.25%) Cucumber
9 4 (0.20%) Oracle APEX
9 4 (0.20%) Postman
9 4 (0.20%) Robot Framework
9 4 (0.20%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.20%) SpecFlow
9 4 (0.20%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.15%) Appium
10 3 (0.15%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.15%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.15%) ERwin
10 3 (0.15%) MLflow
General
1 316 (15.96%) Social Skills
2 256 (12.93%) Public Sector
3 114 (5.76%) Analytical Skills
4 93 (4.70%) Finance
5 73 (3.69%) Military
6 62 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (2.47%) Legal
8 25 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
9 23 (1.16%) Law
9 23 (1.16%) Telecoms
10 22 (1.11%) Aerospace
11 20 (1.01%) Police
11 20 (1.01%) Presentation Skills
12 13 (0.66%) Manufacturing
13 10 (0.51%) Marketing
14 9 (0.45%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (0.40%) Local Government
16 5 (0.25%) Electronics
17 3 (0.15%) Advertising
17 3 (0.15%) Banking
Job Titles
1 295 (14.90%) Architect
2 181 (9.14%) Lead
3 167 (8.43%) Senior
4 130 (6.57%) Analyst
5 119 (6.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 113 (5.71%) Consultant
6 113 (5.71%) Developer
7 84 (4.24%) Network Engineer
8 77 (3.89%) Technical Architect
9 73 (3.69%) SOC Analyst
10 66 (3.33%) Security Architect
11 60 (3.03%) Project Manager
12 52 (2.63%) Tester
13 51 (2.58%) DevOps Engineer
14 49 (2.47%) DBA
15 48 (2.42%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 47 (2.37%) Service Manager
17 43 (2.17%) Software Engineer
18 41 (2.07%) Administrator
18 41 (2.07%) DV Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (2.98%) REST
2 28 (1.41%) Elastic Stack
3 27 (1.36%) React
4 22 (1.11%) SOAP
5 19 (0.96%) 802.1X
6 18 (0.91%) Kafka
6 18 (0.91%) Node.js
7 16 (0.81%) RESTful
8 15 (0.76%) Flask
8 15 (0.76%) Spring
9 14 (0.71%) AngularJS
9 14 (0.71%) FastAPI
10 13 (0.66%) Spring Boot
11 12 (0.61%) .NET
12 11 (0.56%) ModSecurity
12 11 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
13 10 (0.51%) Apache NiFi
13 10 (0.51%) Playwright
14 9 (0.45%) LDAP
14 9 (0.45%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 90 (4.55%) PKI
2 77 (3.89%) Data Centre
3 60 (3.03%) Cloud Native
4 50 (2.53%) Security Operations Centre
5 37 (1.87%) Onboarding
6 35 (1.77%) Clustering
7 29 (1.46%) Hybrid Cloud
7 29 (1.46%) Management Information System
7 29 (1.46%) Private Cloud
7 29 (1.46%) Product Ownership
7 29 (1.46%) Security Posture
8 23 (1.16%) CMDB
9 19 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
9 19 (0.96%) Public Cloud
10 18 (0.91%) Cyber Threat
11 16 (0.81%) Virtual Team
12 13 (0.66%) Enterprise Storage
12 13 (0.66%) Greenfield Project
12 13 (0.66%) Legacy Systems
13 11 (0.56%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 258 (13.03%) Windows
2 205 (10.35%) Linux
3 107 (5.40%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.86%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.51%) Unix
7 7 (0.35%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.35%) Windows Server 2003
7 7 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.30%) AIX
8 6 (0.30%) Android
9 5 (0.25%) CentOS
9 5 (0.25%) Debian
9 5 (0.25%) VMS
10 4 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.20%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
11 3 (0.15%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 323 (16.31%) Agile
2 197 (9.95%) Problem-Solving
3 188 (9.49%) ITIL
4 171 (8.64%) Cybersecurity
5 168 (8.48%) Continuous Improvement
6 166 (8.38%) CI/CD
6 166 (8.38%) DevOps
7 164 (8.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 146 (7.37%) Stakeholder Management
9 138 (6.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 133 (6.72%) Service Management
11 110 (5.56%) Infrastructure as Code
12 109 (5.51%) ITSM
13 101 (5.10%) Project Delivery
14 90 (4.55%) Containerisation
14 90 (4.55%) Decision-Making
14 90 (4.55%) Risk Management
15 89 (4.49%) Technical Leadership
16 86 (4.34%) Security Operations
17 84 (4.24%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 167 (8.43%) Python
2 108 (5.45%) PowerShell
3 97 (4.90%) SQL
4 51 (2.58%) Java
5 42 (2.12%) JavaScript
6 38 (1.92%) Bash
7 29 (1.46%) TypeScript
8 26 (1.31%) C#
9 17 (0.86%) Go
10 14 (0.71%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (0.66%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.56%) C++
13 10 (0.51%) Bicep
13 10 (0.51%) C
14 9 (0.45%) Rust
15 8 (0.40%) Shell Script
16 6 (0.30%) Embedded C
16 6 (0.30%) Perl
17 5 (0.25%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 1,980 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 660 (33.33%) SC Cleared
3 60 (3.03%) Degree
4 52 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
5 51 (2.58%) CISSP
6 32 (1.62%) CISM
7 28 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
8 22 (1.11%) AWS Certification
9 21 (1.06%) CCNP
9 21 (1.06%) CompTIA Security+
10 20 (1.01%) CCNA
11 17 (0.86%) BPSS Clearance
11 17 (0.86%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 16 (0.81%) ISTQB
12 16 (0.81%) PMI Certification
13 15 (0.76%) CESG Certified Professional
13 15 (0.76%) MCSE
13 15 (0.76%) PMP
14 13 (0.66%) Azure Certification
15 12 (0.61%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (3.84%) NIST
2 70 (3.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 63 (3.18%) NCSC
4 54 (2.73%) PMO
5 49 (2.47%) QA
6 38 (1.92%) JSP 440
7 27 (1.36%) GDPR
8 23 (1.16%) GRC
8 23 (1.16%) RMADS
8 23 (1.16%) SLA
9 11 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
10 10 (0.51%) Accessibility
11 9 (0.45%) Data Quality
11 9 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
12 8 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 8 (0.40%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 6 (0.30%) WCAG
14 5 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 5 (0.25%) ISO 9000
System Software
1 133 (6.72%) VMware Infrastructure
2 127 (6.41%) Active Directory
3 107 (5.40%) Docker
4 66 (3.33%) VMware NSX
5 51 (2.58%) VMware ESXi
6 45 (2.27%) Hyper-V
7 24 (1.21%) vSphere
8 21 (1.06%) vCloud
9 11 (0.56%) BitLocker
10 10 (0.51%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.45%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.35%) NFS
12 7 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
13 5 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
14 4 (0.20%) Ceph
14 4 (0.20%) Firmware
14 4 (0.20%) Terminal Services
14 4 (0.20%) UAG
15 3 (0.15%) Squid
16 2 (0.10%) KVM
Systems Management
1 148 (7.47%) Kubernetes
2 141 (7.12%) Terraform
3 83 (4.19%) Ansible
4 60 (3.03%) vCenter Server
5 31 (1.57%) SCOM
6 25 (1.26%) SCCM
7 21 (1.06%) Grafana
7 21 (1.06%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.86%) Puppet
9 13 (0.66%) FortiGate
9 13 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.61%) Data Guard
10 12 (0.61%) Nagios
10 12 (0.61%) Podman
11 10 (0.51%) Oracle RMAN
11 10 (0.51%) WSUS
12 9 (0.45%) vMotion
13 8 (0.40%) Avamar
13 8 (0.40%) VxRail
Vendors
1 206 (10.40%) VMware
2 197 (9.95%) Microsoft
3 102 (5.15%) Cisco
4 96 (4.85%) ServiceNow
5 82 (4.14%) Oracle
6 59 (2.98%) Splunk
7 44 (2.22%) Juniper
8 39 (1.97%) SAP
9 37 (1.87%) SolarWinds
10 35 (1.77%) Google
10 35 (1.77%) NetApp
10 35 (1.77%) Red Hat
11 30 (1.52%) F5
12 25 (1.26%) Palo Alto
13 24 (1.21%) Remedy
14 21 (1.06%) Citrix
14 21 (1.06%) Dell
14 21 (1.06%) Fortinet
15 19 (0.96%) Sparx
16 18 (0.91%) BMC