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

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 77 34
Rank change year-on-year +29 -43 +24
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,172 1,005 2,063
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.11% 3.05% 5.26%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.09% 9.82% 17.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,657 698 1,469
10th Percentile £435 £459 £425
25th Percentile £513 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £598 £600
Median % change year-on-year +0.42% -0.42% +1.27%
75th Percentile £700 £667 £688
90th Percentile £755 £713 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £600
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 38 100
10th Percentile £35.00 £25.15 £48.94
25th Percentile £41.25 £26.61 £57.20
Median hourly rate £65.57 £63.25 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +3.67% -10.15% +0.56%
75th Percentile £92.53 £82.08 £80.00
90th Percentile £99.41 £87.91 £90.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £81.35 £70.39
% change year-on-year -16.41% +15.57% -3.58%

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 16,594 10,238 11,730
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.40% 31.11% 29.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,104 6,323 7,429
10th Percentile £350 £282 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,239 786 855
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.21%
75th Percentile £74.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £74.38 £77.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.24 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +99.77% -44.11% -16.15%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 +26 2,036 £600 - 692
UK excluding London +12 1,554 £600 +3.45% 531
South East +7 906 £600 - 238
London +55 456 £600 -4.00% 163
South West -1 393 £588 -0.42% 175
Work from Home +46 324 £575 -2.13% 246
East of England +12 94 £650 +18.18% 40
North of England +5 71 £775 +24.00% 54
Midlands -57 51 £600 - 25
North West -8 48 £825 - 39
West Midlands -69 43 £600 - 18
Scotland +12 37 £669 +30.44% 13
Yorkshire -26 18 £518 -17.20% 4
East Midlands -1 8 £631 +14.77% 7
North East -36 5 £463 -26.00% 11
Northern Ireland +8 4 £638 - 2
Wales -10 4 - -

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 59 (2.72%) Confluence
2 39 (1.80%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.41%) Apache
5 8 (0.37%) Apache Spark
6 7 (0.32%) Documentum
7 6 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
7 6 (0.28%) Mattermost
8 5 (0.23%) CMS
9 3 (0.14%) nginx
10 2 (0.092%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2013
10 2 (0.092%) Mule
10 2 (0.092%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.092%) Oracle Service Bus
10 2 (0.092%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.092%) Skype for Business
10 2 (0.092%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.046%) JBoss
11 1 (0.046%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 57 (2.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (2.12%) Microsoft Project
3 21 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.92%) Microsoft Office
5 13 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.55%) AutoCAD
6 12 (0.55%) Revit
6 12 (0.55%) SOLIDWORKS
7 5 (0.23%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
9 2 (0.092%) Lectora
Business Applications
1 31 (1.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.29%) Remedy ITSM
3 25 (1.15%) Oracle ERP
4 19 (0.87%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.64%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.18%) Primavera
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.14%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.14%) SAP PP
10 2 (0.092%) Oracle Assets
10 2 (0.092%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.046%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 1 (0.046%) SAP FI-GL
11 1 (0.046%) SAP GRC
11 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 266 (12.25%) Azure
2 259 (11.92%) AWS
3 106 (4.88%) GCP
4 57 (2.62%) Azure DevOps
5 48 (2.21%) GitHub
6 41 (1.89%) IaaS
6 41 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
7 40 (1.84%) GitHub Actions
8 39 (1.80%) PaaS
9 38 (1.75%) Power Platform
10 37 (1.70%) Serverless
11 34 (1.57%) Entra ID
11 34 (1.57%) OCI
12 24 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
12 24 (1.10%) OpenShift
13 21 (0.97%) Amazon EKS
14 20 (0.92%) SaaS
15 18 (0.83%) Amazon ECS
15 18 (0.83%) Amazon S3
15 18 (0.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 154 (7.09%) DNS
2 129 (5.94%) Firewall
3 77 (3.55%) DHCP
3 77 (3.55%) WAN
4 74 (3.41%) Network Security
5 73 (3.36%) LAN
6 58 (2.67%) BGP
7 51 (2.35%) VPN
8 44 (2.03%) TCP/IP
9 40 (1.84%) VSAN
10 34 (1.57%) IPsec
11 31 (1.43%) MPLS
12 30 (1.38%) OSPF
13 26 (1.20%) VLAN
14 23 (1.06%) VXLAN
15 20 (0.92%) Ethernet VPN
16 18 (0.83%) BIG-IP
16 18 (0.83%) SSL
17 17 (0.78%) Cisco ASA
17 17 (0.78%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (1.98%) SQL Server
2 38 (1.75%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.10%) Elasticsearch
4 24 (1.10%) Power BI
5 17 (0.78%) Metadata
6 14 (0.64%) Data Warehouse
7 13 (0.60%) Data Lake
8 10 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
8 10 (0.46%) MongoDB
9 8 (0.37%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 11g
9 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
10 7 (0.32%) Big Data
10 7 (0.32%) BigQuery
10 7 (0.32%) MariaDB
10 7 (0.32%) NoSQL
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
11 6 (0.28%) Hadoop
11 6 (0.28%) Redis
Development Applications
1 101 (4.65%) JIRA
2 52 (2.39%) GitLab
3 47 (2.16%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.89%) Git
5 14 (0.64%) Cypress.io
6 10 (0.46%) Selenium
7 6 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.28%) Visual Studio
8 5 (0.23%) Postman
8 5 (0.23%) REST Assured
8 5 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.23%) SpecFlow
9 4 (0.18%) Artifactory
9 4 (0.18%) Cucumber
10 3 (0.14%) Appium
10 3 (0.14%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.14%) MLflow
10 3 (0.14%) MSI
10 3 (0.14%) Robot Framework
10 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 406 (18.69%) Social Skills
2 285 (13.12%) Public Sector
3 150 (6.91%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (6.31%) Finance
5 70 (3.22%) Military
6 55 (2.53%) Documentation Skills
7 44 (2.03%) Legal
8 40 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
9 28 (1.29%) Law
10 27 (1.24%) Police
11 24 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
12 21 (0.97%) Telecoms
13 18 (0.83%) Manufacturing
14 16 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
15 12 (0.55%) Aerospace
16 8 (0.37%) Local Government
17 7 (0.32%) Marketing
18 5 (0.23%) Advertising
19 4 (0.18%) Aviation
19 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 341 (15.70%) Architect
2 241 (11.10%) Lead
3 204 (9.39%) Senior
4 153 (7.04%) Developer
5 149 (6.86%) Analyst
6 144 (6.63%) Consultant
7 139 (6.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 92 (4.24%) Network Engineer
9 88 (4.05%) Security Architect
10 76 (3.50%) SOC Analyst
11 70 (3.22%) Technical Architect
12 61 (2.81%) Project Manager
13 56 (2.58%) Cloud Engineer
14 49 (2.26%) DBA
14 49 (2.26%) DevOps Engineer
14 49 (2.26%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 46 (2.12%) Senior Network Engineer
15 46 (2.12%) Support Engineer
16 43 (1.98%) Network Architect
16 43 (1.98%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (3.41%) REST
2 33 (1.52%) Elastic Stack
3 26 (1.20%) React
3 26 (1.20%) SOAP
4 21 (0.97%) Kafka
5 19 (0.87%) RESTful
6 18 (0.83%) 802.1X
7 16 (0.74%) Node.js
8 15 (0.69%) .NET
9 14 (0.64%) FastAPI
9 14 (0.64%) Oracle Fusion
9 14 (0.64%) Spring
9 14 (0.64%) Spring Boot
10 13 (0.60%) AngularJS
10 13 (0.60%) Apache NiFi
10 13 (0.60%) Flask
11 12 (0.55%) OAuth
12 11 (0.51%) XML
13 10 (0.46%) ModSecurity
13 10 (0.46%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 106 (4.88%) Data Centre
2 103 (4.74%) PKI
3 79 (3.64%) Cloud Native
4 62 (2.85%) Onboarding
5 48 (2.21%) Security Operations Centre
6 37 (1.70%) Clustering
6 37 (1.70%) Private Cloud
7 36 (1.66%) Product Ownership
8 35 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
9 32 (1.47%) Management Information System
10 31 (1.43%) Cyber Threat
11 27 (1.24%) Public Cloud
12 25 (1.15%) CMDB
12 25 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
12 25 (1.15%) Security Posture
13 21 (0.97%) Legacy Systems
14 20 (0.92%) Virtual Team
15 15 (0.69%) Analytical Mindset
15 15 (0.69%) Greenfield Project
16 13 (0.60%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 314 (14.46%) Windows
2 227 (10.45%) Linux
3 145 (6.68%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.97%) Windows 10
5 21 (0.97%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (0.60%) Unix
7 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
8 7 (0.32%) Mac OS
8 7 (0.32%) Ubuntu
8 7 (0.32%) VMS
9 6 (0.28%) AIX
9 6 (0.28%) Android
9 6 (0.28%) CentOS
9 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
10 5 (0.23%) Debian
10 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.14%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 377 (17.36%) Agile
2 219 (10.08%) Problem-Solving
3 215 (9.90%) Continuous Improvement
3 215 (9.90%) Stakeholder Management
4 211 (9.71%) CI/CD
5 204 (9.39%) Cybersecurity
6 198 (9.12%) ITIL
7 194 (8.93%) DevOps
8 184 (8.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 180 (8.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 153 (7.04%) Service Management
11 151 (6.95%) Infrastructure as Code
12 138 (6.35%) Technical Leadership
13 129 (5.94%) ITSM
14 120 (5.52%) Project Delivery
15 111 (5.11%) Risk Management
16 109 (5.02%) Service Delivery
17 108 (4.97%) Containerisation
18 107 (4.93%) Decision-Making
19 103 (4.74%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 196 (9.02%) Python
2 151 (6.95%) PowerShell
3 108 (4.97%) SQL
4 71 (3.27%) Bash
5 63 (2.90%) Java
6 46 (2.12%) JavaScript
7 34 (1.57%) C#
8 28 (1.29%) TypeScript
9 17 (0.78%) Bicep
9 17 (0.78%) Go
10 14 (0.64%) PL/SQL
10 14 (0.64%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (0.60%) C++
12 11 (0.51%) C
13 8 (0.37%) Rust
14 7 (0.32%) Groovy
14 7 (0.32%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.28%) Embedded C
15 6 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
15 6 (0.28%) X++
Qualifications
1 2,172 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 724 (33.33%) SC Cleared
3 75 (3.45%) Degree
4 56 (2.58%) CISSP
5 46 (2.12%) Cisco Certification
6 31 (1.43%) CISM
7 28 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
8 25 (1.15%) AWS Certification
9 23 (1.06%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 21 (0.97%) PMI Certification
11 19 (0.87%) PMP
12 18 (0.83%) VCAP
13 17 (0.78%) CCNA
13 17 (0.78%) CCNP
14 16 (0.74%) ISTQB
14 16 (0.74%) TOGAF Certification
15 15 (0.69%) MCSE
16 14 (0.64%) Azure Certification
16 14 (0.64%) CompTIA Security+
17 12 (0.55%) CESG Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 77 (3.55%) PMO
2 75 (3.45%) NCSC
3 72 (3.31%) NIST
4 55 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 52 (2.39%) QA
6 33 (1.52%) JSP 440
7 27 (1.24%) GDPR
8 24 (1.10%) SLA
9 23 (1.06%) Data Quality
10 19 (0.87%) GRC
11 17 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 17 (0.78%) RMADS
12 15 (0.69%) Government Security Classifications
13 14 (0.64%) Accessibility
14 12 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 8 (0.37%) WCAG
17 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
18 6 (0.28%) NIST 800
19 5 (0.23%) Def Stans
System Software
1 182 (8.38%) VMware Infrastructure
2 180 (8.29%) Active Directory
3 126 (5.80%) Docker
4 93 (4.28%) VMware NSX
5 66 (3.04%) VMware ESXi
6 60 (2.76%) Hyper-V
7 45 (2.07%) vSphere
8 23 (1.06%) vCloud
9 17 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
10 11 (0.51%) Oracle RAC
11 8 (0.37%) BitLocker
11 8 (0.37%) Microsoft App-V
11 8 (0.37%) NFS
12 6 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
13 5 (0.23%) Ceph
13 5 (0.23%) Firmware
14 4 (0.18%) Squid
14 4 (0.18%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.14%) KVM
15 3 (0.14%) UAG
Systems Management
1 184 (8.47%) Terraform
2 180 (8.29%) Kubernetes
3 120 (5.52%) Ansible
4 81 (3.73%) vCenter Server
5 43 (1.98%) SCOM
6 32 (1.47%) SCCM
7 25 (1.15%) Prometheus
8 23 (1.06%) Grafana
8 23 (1.06%) Puppet
9 15 (0.69%) Nagios
9 15 (0.69%) Oracle RMAN
9 15 (0.69%) Podman
10 14 (0.64%) Avamar
10 14 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
11 13 (0.60%) Data Guard
11 13 (0.60%) FortiGate
11 13 (0.60%) VxRail
12 11 (0.51%) WSUS
13 10 (0.46%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 10 (0.46%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 257 (11.83%) Microsoft
2 254 (11.69%) VMware
3 117 (5.39%) ServiceNow
4 100 (4.60%) Oracle
5 97 (4.47%) Cisco
6 60 (2.76%) Splunk
7 55 (2.53%) SAP
8 51 (2.35%) Juniper
9 49 (2.26%) Google
10 45 (2.07%) SolarWinds
11 32 (1.47%) Red Hat
12 29 (1.34%) Remedy
13 28 (1.29%) F5
13 28 (1.29%) NetApp
14 26 (1.20%) Citrix
14 26 (1.20%) Palo Alto
15 23 (1.06%) Dell
16 21 (0.97%) BMC
17 19 (0.87%) CyberArk
17 19 (0.87%) Sparx