Government Security Classifications Contract Job Trends

Government Security Classifications (GSC)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Government Security Classifications skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 4 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 571 515 558
Rank change year-on-year -56 +43 +204
Contract jobs citing Government Security Classifications 7 19 38
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.019% 0.059% 0.088%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.11% 0.41% 0.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 5 12 33
10th Percentile £458 £450 £475
25th Percentile £469 £459 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £523 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.20% -4.94% -22.54%
75th Percentile - £588 £588
90th Percentile £655 £644 £595
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £475 £550
% change year-on-year +15.79% -13.64% -

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

Government Security Classifications falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 6,366 4,617 6,251
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.30% 14.25% 14.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,132 2,698 4,158
10th Percentile £313 £254 £313
25th Percentile £406 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £623 £644
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 306 181 235
10th Percentile £14.80 £15.00 £13.49
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £17.61
Median hourly rate £26.11 £29.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.97% -12.12% +40.22%
75th Percentile £63.40 £63.75 £60.63
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £79.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.13 £29.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year -23.71% -10.77% +54.76%

Government Security Classifications
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Government Security Classifications relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Government Security Classifications job vacancy trend in the UK

Government Security Classifications
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Government Security Classifications.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Government Security Classifications

Government Security Classifications
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Government Security Classifications over the 6 months to 4 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Government Security Classifications in the UK

Government Security Classifications
Top 5 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Government Security Classifications within the UK over the 6 months to 4 January 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 -64 5 £550 +5.20% 2
South West -7 3 £550 -
UK excluding London -53 3 £550 +15.79% 1
London -20 2 £594 +6.32% 2
Work from Home -7 1 £700 +21.74% 2

Government Security Classifications
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 1 (14.29%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 4 (57.14%) AWS
1 4 (57.14%) Azure
2 1 (14.29%) AWS CloudFormation
2 1 (14.29%) Azure API Management
2 1 (14.29%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (14.29%) Azure Event Grid
2 1 (14.29%) Azure Key Vault
2 1 (14.29%) Azure Sentinel
2 1 (14.29%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 1 (14.29%) DHCP
1 1 (14.29%) DNS
1 1 (14.29%) NAS
1 1 (14.29%) SAN
1 1 (14.29%) SD-WAN
1 1 (14.29%) TCP/IP
1 1 (14.29%) VPN
1 1 (14.29%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (14.29%) EDRMS
1 1 (14.29%) Metadata
General
1 2 (28.57%) Public Sector
2 1 (14.29%) Legal
Job Titles
1 4 (57.14%) Architect
2 2 (28.57%) AWS Architect
2 2 (28.57%) Azure Architect
2 2 (28.57%) Infrastructure Architect
3 1 (14.29%) AWS Data Architect
3 1 (14.29%) AWS Infrastructure Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Consultant
3 1 (14.29%) Cybersecurity Engineer
3 1 (14.29%) Data Architect
3 1 (14.29%) DevOps Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Information Assurance Consultant
3 1 (14.29%) Junior
3 1 (14.29%) Junior Consultant
3 1 (14.29%) MODAF Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Network Infrastructure Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Network Security Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Security Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Security Engineer
3 1 (14.29%) Solutions Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Storage Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (14.29%) ADO
Miscellaneous
1 1 (14.29%) Cloud Native
1 1 (14.29%) CMDB
1 1 (14.29%) Cyber Threat
1 1 (14.29%) Management Information System
1 1 (14.29%) Onboarding
1 1 (14.29%) Product Ownership
1 1 (14.29%) Taxonomies
1 1 (14.29%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 1 (14.29%) Linux
1 1 (14.29%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (57.14%) Agile
2 3 (42.86%) CI/CD
2 3 (42.86%) DevOps
2 3 (42.86%) MODAF
2 3 (42.86%) Scrum
2 3 (42.86%) User Experience
2 3 (42.86%) UX Research
3 2 (28.57%) Cloud Security
3 2 (28.57%) Cybersecurity
3 2 (28.57%) Event-Driven
3 2 (28.57%) Infrastructure as Code
3 2 (28.57%) ITIL
3 2 (28.57%) Observability
3 2 (28.57%) Performance Tuning
3 2 (28.57%) SIEM
3 2 (28.57%) TOGAF
3 2 (28.57%) Zero Trust
4 1 (14.29%) Analytics
4 1 (14.29%) Data Analytics
4 1 (14.29%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 1 (14.29%) Bicep
1 1 (14.29%) JavaScript
1 1 (14.29%) PowerShell
1 1 (14.29%) Python
Qualifications
1 6 (85.71%) Security Cleared
2 5 (71.43%) SC Cleared
3 2 (28.57%) GIAC
4 1 (14.29%) AWS Certification
4 1 (14.29%) Azure Certification
4 1 (14.29%) CEH
4 1 (14.29%) CISM
4 1 (14.29%) CISSP
4 1 (14.29%) CompTIA Security+
4 1 (14.29%) Degree
4 1 (14.29%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (42.86%) NCSC
2 2 (28.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (28.57%) NIST
3 1 (14.29%) GDPR
System Software
1 1 (14.29%) Active Directory
1 1 (14.29%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 1 (14.29%) Ansible
1 1 (14.29%) Single Sign-On
1 1 (14.29%) Terraform
Vendors
1 1 (14.29%) Meridio
1 1 (14.29%) OpenText
1 1 (14.29%) Splunk
1 1 (14.29%) VMware