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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 80 36
Rank change year-on-year +30 -44 +19
Contract jobs citing DV Cleared 2,190 1,020 1,922
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.06% 3.10% 4.99%
As % of the Qualifications category 12.95% 9.90% 16.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,663 716 1,337
10th Percentile £463 £463 £425
25th Percentile £516 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £593 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.22% -1.21% +4.35%
75th Percentile £700 £664 £688
90th Percentile £763 £723 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £580 £590
% change year-on-year +3.45% -1.69% +3.01%
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 16,913 10,304 11,457
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.38% 31.27% 29.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,307 6,385 7,210
10th Percentile £350 £297 £313
25th Percentile £437 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,262 825 738
10th Percentile £17.42 £17.99 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.56
Median hourly rate £48.61 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +93.28% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £87.16 £71.37 £75.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £49.00
% change year-on-year +89.03% -48.67% -4.85%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 +25 2,054 £600 +1.69% 1,037
UK excluding London +11 1,564 £600 +3.45% 867
South East +4 899 £600 - 284
London +50 471 £600 -4.00% 268
South West +2 419 £590 -1.67% 277
Work from Home +38 335 £563 -4.66% 535
East of England +9 90 £650 +18.18% 154
North of England -13 65 £775 +34.78% 90
Midlands -61 48 £600 - 27
North West -21 44 £863 +72.50% 73
West Midlands -60 42 £600 - 15
Scotland +3 39 £669 +27.33% 53
Yorkshire -29 16 £518 -17.20% 14
East Midlands - 6 £625 - 12
Northern Ireland +6 5 £638 -8.93% 5
North East -33 5 £463 -26.00% 8
Wales -14 4 - - 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 66 (3.01%) Confluence
2 45 (2.05%) SharePoint
3 38 (1.74%) 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 54 (2.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (2.01%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (1.19%) 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 FI-GL
11 1 (0.046%) SAP GRC
11 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 289 (13.20%) Azure
2 273 (12.47%) AWS
3 106 (4.84%) GCP
4 57 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
5 47 (2.15%) GitHub
6 46 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
7 40 (1.83%) Entra ID
7 40 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
8 37 (1.69%) Power Platform
8 37 (1.69%) Serverless
9 33 (1.51%) IaaS
9 33 (1.51%) OCI
10 30 (1.37%) PaaS
11 25 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
12 23 (1.05%) Amazon EKS
13 22 (1.00%) OpenShift
14 20 (0.91%) Amazon ECS
15 19 (0.87%) Amazon S3
15 19 (0.87%) SaaS
16 17 (0.78%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 165 (7.53%) DNS
2 124 (5.66%) Firewall
3 81 (3.70%) DHCP
4 66 (3.01%) Network Security
5 64 (2.92%) WAN
6 57 (2.60%) LAN
7 56 (2.56%) VPN
8 54 (2.47%) TCP/IP
9 49 (2.24%) BGP
10 41 (1.87%) VSAN
11 33 (1.51%) IPsec
11 33 (1.51%) MPLS
12 28 (1.28%) VLAN
13 18 (0.82%) SSL
14 17 (0.78%) OSPF
15 16 (0.73%) Cisco ASA
15 16 (0.73%) SAN
16 15 (0.68%) Cisco Firepower
16 15 (0.68%) SD-WAN
17 14 (0.64%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (2.42%) SQL Server
2 41 (1.87%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.46%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.00%) Power BI
5 18 (0.82%) Metadata
6 17 (0.78%) 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
11 8 (0.37%) BigQuery
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 8 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
12 7 (0.32%) Big Data
12 7 (0.32%) MariaDB
12 7 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
12 7 (0.32%) Relational Database
13 6 (0.27%) Redis
Development Applications
1 104 (4.75%) JIRA
2 70 (3.20%) GitLab
3 60 (2.74%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.37%) Git
5 17 (0.78%) Selenium
6 15 (0.68%) Cypress.io
7 7 (0.32%) Cucumber
7 7 (0.32%) Postman
7 7 (0.32%) REST Assured
7 7 (0.32%) Visual Studio
8 6 (0.27%) MSI
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
1 448 (20.46%) Social Skills
2 284 (12.97%) Public Sector
3 155 (7.08%) Analytical Skills
4 139 (6.35%) Finance
5 63 (2.88%) Military
6 62 (2.83%) Documentation Skills
7 42 (1.92%) Legal
8 41 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
9 32 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
9 32 (1.46%) Police
10 31 (1.42%) Law
11 28 (1.28%) Telecoms
12 27 (1.23%) Manufacturing
13 23 (1.05%) Aerospace
14 14 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
15 9 (0.41%) Local Government
16 7 (0.32%) Marketing
17 5 (0.23%) Advertising
18 4 (0.18%) General Ledger
18 4 (0.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 356 (16.26%) Architect
2 245 (11.19%) Lead
3 195 (8.90%) Senior
4 157 (7.17%) Consultant
5 152 (6.94%) Developer
6 151 (6.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 139 (6.35%) Analyst
8 91 (4.16%) Security Architect
9 82 (3.74%) Network Engineer
10 74 (3.38%) SOC Analyst
11 67 (3.06%) Cloud Engineer
12 63 (2.88%) Technical Architect
13 59 (2.69%) Project Manager
14 55 (2.51%) Support Engineer
15 54 (2.47%) DevOps Engineer
16 51 (2.33%) DBA
17 47 (2.15%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
18 42 (1.92%) DV Cleared Project Manager
18 42 (1.92%) Lead Architect
19 41 (1.87%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 192 (8.77%) Terraform
2 76 (3.47%) 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
8 17 (0.78%) Node.js
9 16 (0.73%) LDAP
10 15 (0.68%) .NET
11 14 (0.64%) AngularJS
11 14 (0.64%) Spring
11 14 (0.64%) Spring Boot
12 13 (0.59%) FastAPI
12 13 (0.59%) Flask
13 12 (0.55%) ARM Templates
13 12 (0.55%) OAuth
13 12 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
13 12 (0.55%) XML
14 11 (0.50%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 101 (4.61%) PKI
2 98 (4.47%) Cloud Native
2 98 (4.47%) Data Centre
3 72 (3.29%) Onboarding
4 45 (2.05%) Security Operations Centre
5 39 (1.78%) Private Cloud
6 38 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
7 36 (1.64%) Management Information System
7 36 (1.64%) Product Ownership
8 29 (1.32%) Cyber Threat
8 29 (1.32%) Public Cloud
9 25 (1.14%) Distributed Systems
10 24 (1.10%) Clustering
10 24 (1.10%) CMDB
10 24 (1.10%) Security Posture
11 18 (0.82%) Legacy Systems
12 17 (0.78%) Virtual Team
13 16 (0.73%) Replication
14 14 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
14 14 (0.64%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 346 (15.80%) Windows
2 243 (11.10%) Linux
3 163 (7.44%) Windows Server
4 36 (1.64%) 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
1 375 (17.12%) Agile
2 245 (11.19%) Stakeholder Management
3 242 (11.05%) Continuous Improvement
4 230 (10.50%) CI/CD
5 224 (10.23%) Cybersecurity
6 213 (9.73%) Problem-Solving
7 207 (9.45%) DevOps
8 201 (9.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 196 (8.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 182 (8.31%) ITIL
11 177 (8.08%) Technical Leadership
12 175 (7.99%) Infrastructure as Code
13 147 (6.71%) Service Management
14 133 (6.07%) ITSM
15 123 (5.62%) Containerisation
15 123 (5.62%) Risk Management
16 118 (5.39%) Decision-Making
17 117 (5.34%) Project Delivery
18 110 (5.02%) SIEM
19 104 (4.75%) AI
Programming Languages
1 214 (9.77%) Python
2 177 (8.08%) PowerShell
3 121 (5.53%) SQL
4 89 (4.06%) Bash
5 64 (2.92%) Java
6 38 (1.74%) JavaScript
7 35 (1.60%) C#
8 25 (1.14%) TypeScript
9 18 (0.82%) Bicep
10 17 (0.78%) 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 8 (0.37%) 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%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 2,190 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 722 (32.97%) SC Cleared
3 77 (3.52%) Degree
4 70 (3.20%) CISSP
5 46 (2.10%) CISM
6 37 (1.69%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
8 27 (1.23%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 24 (1.10%) 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 (0.78%) 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 (4.02%) NCSC
2 83 (3.79%) NIST
3 80 (3.65%) PMO
4 67 (3.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 56 (2.56%) QA
6 41 (1.87%) JSP 440
7 32 (1.46%) GDPR
8 26 (1.19%) SLA
9 24 (1.10%) Data Quality
10 20 (0.91%) GRC
11 18 (0.82%) Accessibility
11 18 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 17 (0.78%) Government Security Classifications
13 16 (0.73%) RMADS
14 11 (0.50%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 10 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.37%) NIST 800
16 8 (0.37%) WCAG
17 7 (0.32%) ISO 9000
18 6 (0.27%) Def Stans
System Software
1 204 (9.32%) Active Directory
2 195 (8.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 125 (5.71%) Docker
4 94 (4.29%) VMware NSX
5 75 (3.42%) VMware ESXi
6 64 (2.92%) Hyper-V
7 51 (2.33%) vSphere
8 26 (1.19%) vCloud
9 16 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
10 13 (0.59%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.41%) NFS
12 8 (0.37%) 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
1 202 (9.22%) Kubernetes
2 142 (6.48%) Ansible
3 86 (3.93%) vCenter Server
4 53 (2.42%) SCOM
5 34 (1.55%) SCCM
6 26 (1.19%) Prometheus
7 24 (1.10%) Grafana
8 23 (1.05%) Puppet
9 17 (0.78%) Nagios
10 16 (0.73%) Oracle RMAN
11 15 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
11 15 (0.68%) VxRail
12 14 (0.64%) Avamar
12 14 (0.64%) Data Guard
13 13 (0.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.59%) Podman
13 13 (0.59%) WSUS
14 12 (0.55%) Istio
14 12 (0.55%) WMI
15 11 (0.50%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 287 (13.11%) Microsoft
2 276 (12.60%) VMware
3 109 (4.98%) Oracle
4 105 (4.79%) ServiceNow
5 84 (3.84%) Cisco
6 62 (2.83%) SAP
7 59 (2.69%) Splunk
8 55 (2.51%) Google
9 40 (1.83%) SolarWinds
10 36 (1.64%) Red Hat
11 33 (1.51%) Juniper
12 28 (1.28%) CyberArk
13 24 (1.10%) Dell
13 24 (1.10%) Palo Alto
13 24 (1.10%) Remedy
14 23 (1.05%) Citrix
14 23 (1.05%) NetApp
15 19 (0.87%) BMC
15 19 (0.87%) Sparx
16 17 (0.78%) Broadcom