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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 80 36
Rank change year-on-year +31 -44 +15
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,172 1,007 1,921
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.05% 3.08% 4.98%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.92% 9.84% 16.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,651 706 1,332
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £515 £519 £510
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £593 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.22% -1.21% +4.35%
75th Percentile £700 £663 £688
90th Percentile £763 £723 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £590
% change year-on-year +3.45% -1.69% +3.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 39 94
10th Percentile £35.00 - £50.38
25th Percentile £51.75 £25.15 £60.00
Median hourly rate £74.59 £50.00 £70.39
Median % change year-on-year +49.18% -28.97% +0.56%
75th Percentile £92.53 £81.18 £80.00
90th Percentile £98.94 £87.30 £89.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.68 £79.35 £70.39
% change year-on-year -5.89% +12.73% -2.84%

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 16,805 10,236 11,482
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.32% 31.26% 29.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,233 6,338 7,203
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £623 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.60% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,261 822 732
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.98 £15.11
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £48.81 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +94.08% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £87.16 £71.43 £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 1 September 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 1 September 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 1 September 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 2,039 £600 +1.69% 1,031
UK excluding London +11 1,553 £600 +3.45% 848
South East +5 887 £600 - 269
London +48 467 £600 -4.00% 263
South West +3 424 £590 -1.67% 286
Work from Home +44 332 £561 -4.87% 527
East of England +10 88 £663 +20.45% 150
North of England -13 65 £775 +34.78% 80
Midlands -68 47 £600 - 28
North West -18 44 £863 +72.50% 65
West Midlands -71 41 £600 - 18
Scotland +2 37 £669 +27.33% 53
Yorkshire -22 16 £518 -17.20% 10
East Midlands - 6 £625 - 10
Northern Ireland +7 5 £638 -8.93% 5
North East -41 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 65 (2.99%) Confluence
2 47 (2.16%) SharePoint
3 37 (1.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.46%) Apache
5 7 (0.32%) Documentum
6 6 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.28%) CMS
7 5 (0.23%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
8 3 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.092%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.092%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.092%) Camunda
9 2 (0.092%) Mule
9 2 (0.092%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.092%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.092%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.046%) Mattermost
10 1 (0.046%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 56 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (2.07%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (1.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.97%) Microsoft Office
5 15 (0.69%) AutoCAD
5 15 (0.69%) Revit
5 15 (0.69%) SOLIDWORKS
6 9 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.23%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 29 (1.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.29%) Oracle ERP
3 22 (1.01%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.83%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 14 (0.64%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.28%) 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 (0.092%) Siebel CRM
11 1 (0.046%) Oracle Assets
11 1 (0.046%) SAP CCM
11 1 (0.046%) SAP FI-GL
11 1 (0.046%) SAP GRC
11 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 288 (13.26%) Azure
2 275 (12.66%) AWS
3 106 (4.88%) GCP
4 56 (2.58%) Azure DevOps
5 46 (2.12%) GitHub
5 46 (2.12%) Microsoft 365
6 39 (1.80%) Entra ID
6 39 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
7 37 (1.70%) Power Platform
8 36 (1.66%) Serverless
9 33 (1.52%) OCI
10 28 (1.29%) IaaS
11 25 (1.15%) AWS Lambda
11 25 (1.15%) PaaS
12 23 (1.06%) Amazon EKS
13 22 (1.01%) OpenShift
14 20 (0.92%) Amazon ECS
15 19 (0.87%) Amazon S3
15 19 (0.87%) SaaS
16 17 (0.78%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 162 (7.46%) DNS
2 120 (5.52%) Firewall
3 79 (3.64%) DHCP
4 65 (2.99%) Network Security
5 61 (2.81%) WAN
6 55 (2.53%) VPN
7 54 (2.49%) TCP/IP
8 53 (2.44%) LAN
9 48 (2.21%) BGP
10 41 (1.89%) VSAN
11 33 (1.52%) IPsec
11 33 (1.52%) MPLS
12 28 (1.29%) VLAN
13 18 (0.83%) SSL
14 16 (0.74%) Cisco ASA
14 16 (0.74%) OSPF
14 16 (0.74%) SAN
15 15 (0.69%) Cisco Firepower
16 14 (0.64%) Cisco Nexus
16 14 (0.64%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (2.49%) SQL Server
2 42 (1.93%) Oracle Database
3 31 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.01%) Power BI
5 18 (0.83%) Metadata
6 16 (0.74%) Data Lake
6 16 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
6 16 (0.74%) MongoDB
7 15 (0.69%) Data Warehouse
8 12 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
9 10 (0.46%) Relational Database
10 9 (0.41%) NoSQL
10 9 (0.41%) Oracle Database 11g
11 8 (0.37%) BigQuery
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
12 7 (0.32%) MariaDB
12 7 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
13 6 (0.28%) Big Data
14 5 (0.23%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 102 (4.70%) JIRA
2 70 (3.22%) GitLab
3 60 (2.76%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.53%) Git
5 20 (0.92%) Selenium
6 15 (0.69%) 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 (0.28%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.28%) 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%) MLflow
11 3 (0.14%) Toad
General
1 449 (20.67%) Social Skills
2 280 (12.89%) Public Sector
3 158 (7.27%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (6.31%) Finance
5 62 (2.85%) Documentation Skills
5 62 (2.85%) Military
6 42 (1.93%) Organisational Skills
7 40 (1.84%) Legal
8 32 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
8 32 (1.47%) Police
9 31 (1.43%) Law
10 28 (1.29%) Telecoms
11 27 (1.24%) Manufacturing
12 23 (1.06%) Aerospace
13 13 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (0.41%) Local Government
15 7 (0.32%) Marketing
16 5 (0.23%) Advertising
17 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
17 4 (0.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 350 (16.11%) Architect
2 242 (11.14%) Lead
3 194 (8.93%) Senior
4 154 (7.09%) Consultant
5 150 (6.91%) Developer
5 150 (6.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 134 (6.17%) Analyst
7 90 (4.14%) Security Architect
8 80 (3.68%) Network Engineer
9 72 (3.31%) SOC Analyst
10 68 (3.13%) Cloud Engineer
11 60 (2.76%) Technical Architect
12 58 (2.67%) Project Manager
13 55 (2.53%) Support Engineer
14 54 (2.49%) DevOps Engineer
15 51 (2.35%) DBA
16 45 (2.07%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 41 (1.89%) DV Cleared Project Manager
17 41 (1.89%) Lead Architect
18 40 (1.84%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 191 (8.79%) Terraform
2 73 (3.36%) REST
3 29 (1.34%) Elastic Stack
4 27 (1.24%) React
5 26 (1.20%) SOAP
6 21 (0.97%) RESTful
7 18 (0.83%) Kafka
7 18 (0.83%) LDAP
8 17 (0.78%) Node.js
9 15 (0.69%) .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 (0.51%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 98 (4.51%) Cloud Native
1 98 (4.51%) PKI
2 96 (4.42%) Data Centre
3 74 (3.41%) Onboarding
4 44 (2.03%) Security Operations Centre
5 40 (1.84%) Private Cloud
6 37 (1.70%) Hybrid Cloud
6 37 (1.70%) Management Information System
7 35 (1.61%) Product Ownership
8 29 (1.34%) Cyber Threat
8 29 (1.34%) Public Cloud
9 25 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
10 23 (1.06%) Security Posture
11 22 (1.01%) Clustering
11 22 (1.01%) CMDB
12 18 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
13 17 (0.78%) Virtual Team
14 14 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
14 14 (0.64%) Replication
15 12 (0.55%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 347 (15.98%) Windows
2 242 (11.14%) Linux
3 163 (7.50%) Windows Server
4 37 (1.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 29 (1.34%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.15%) Windows Server 2019
7 19 (0.87%) Unix
8 15 (0.69%) Ubuntu
9 12 (0.55%) CentOS
10 11 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 8 (0.37%) Mac OS
12 7 (0.32%) AIX
13 6 (0.28%) Android
14 5 (0.23%) Data ONTAP
14 5 (0.23%) Debian
14 5 (0.23%) VMS
14 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
14 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.18%) Rocky
15 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 370 (17.03%) Agile
2 250 (11.51%) Continuous Improvement
3 248 (11.42%) Stakeholder Management
4 233 (10.73%) CI/CD
5 224 (10.31%) Cybersecurity
6 211 (9.71%) Problem-Solving
7 205 (9.44%) DevOps
8 200 (9.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 194 (8.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 180 (8.29%) Technical Leadership
11 179 (8.24%) ITIL
12 177 (8.15%) Infrastructure as Code
13 146 (6.72%) Service Management
14 135 (6.22%) ITSM
15 125 (5.76%) Containerisation
16 123 (5.66%) Risk Management
17 118 (5.43%) Project Delivery
18 117 (5.39%) Decision-Making
19 114 (5.25%) SIEM
20 104 (4.79%) AI
Programming Languages
1 217 (9.99%) Python
2 176 (8.10%) PowerShell
3 125 (5.76%) SQL
4 91 (4.19%) Bash
5 65 (2.99%) Java
6 38 (1.75%) JavaScript
7 35 (1.61%) C#
8 25 (1.15%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.83%) Bicep
10 16 (0.74%) Go
11 15 (0.69%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.64%) Search Processing Language
13 13 (0.60%) C++
14 11 (0.51%) C
15 10 (0.46%) Shell Script
16 7 (0.32%) Groovy
17 6 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
17 6 (0.28%) Perl
17 6 (0.28%) X++
18 5 (0.23%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 2,172 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 712 (32.78%) SC Cleared
3 76 (3.50%) Degree
4 70 (3.22%) CISSP
5 46 (2.12%) CISM
6 35 (1.61%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.34%) Microsoft Certification
8 27 (1.24%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 24 (1.10%) VCAP
10 21 (0.97%) PMI Certification
11 20 (0.92%) AWS Certification
11 20 (0.92%) ISTQB
12 19 (0.87%) PMP
13 17 (0.78%) TOGAF Certification
14 16 (0.74%) CCNP
15 15 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
15 15 (0.69%) MCSE
16 14 (0.64%) Azure Certification
17 12 (0.55%) CompTIA Security+
18 11 (0.51%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (4.01%) NCSC
2 84 (3.87%) NIST
3 82 (3.78%) PMO
4 69 (3.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 57 (2.62%) QA
6 41 (1.89%) JSP 440
7 32 (1.47%) GDPR
8 26 (1.20%) SLA
9 24 (1.10%) Data Quality
10 20 (0.92%) GRC
11 17 (0.78%) Accessibility
12 16 (0.74%) Government Security Classifications
12 16 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 16 (0.74%) RMADS
13 11 (0.51%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 10 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
15 8 (0.37%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.37%) WCAG
16 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
17 6 (0.28%) Def Stans
System Software
1 203 (9.35%) Active Directory
2 193 (8.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 123 (5.66%) Docker
4 94 (4.33%) VMware NSX
5 78 (3.59%) VMware ESXi
6 62 (2.85%) Hyper-V
7 53 (2.44%) vSphere
8 27 (1.24%) vCloud
9 16 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
10 13 (0.60%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.41%) NFS
12 8 (0.37%) Firmware
12 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
13 6 (0.28%) BitLocker
13 6 (0.28%) Microsoft App-V
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 (9.21%) Kubernetes
2 142 (6.54%) Ansible
3 86 (3.96%) vCenter Server
4 55 (2.53%) SCOM
5 34 (1.57%) SCCM
6 26 (1.20%) Prometheus
7 24 (1.10%) Grafana
8 22 (1.01%) Puppet
9 17 (0.78%) Nagios
10 16 (0.74%) Oracle RMAN
11 15 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
11 15 (0.69%) Podman
11 15 (0.69%) VxRail
12 14 (0.64%) Avamar
12 14 (0.64%) Data Guard
13 13 (0.60%) WMI
13 13 (0.60%) WSUS
14 12 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 12 (0.55%) Istio
15 11 (0.51%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 283 (13.03%) Microsoft
2 277 (12.75%) VMware
3 112 (5.16%) Oracle
4 103 (4.74%) ServiceNow
5 81 (3.73%) Cisco
6 62 (2.85%) SAP
7 60 (2.76%) Splunk
8 56 (2.58%) Google
9 40 (1.84%) SolarWinds
10 35 (1.61%) Red Hat
11 31 (1.43%) CyberArk
11 31 (1.43%) Juniper
12 24 (1.10%) Palo Alto
12 24 (1.10%) Remedy
13 23 (1.06%) Dell
14 22 (1.01%) Citrix
15 21 (0.97%) NetApp
16 20 (0.92%) BMC
17 18 (0.83%) Sparx
18 17 (0.78%) Broadcom