Security Cleared Contract Job Trends

Security Clearance
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Security 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 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 11,025 5,355 7,900
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 21.66% 17.83% 18.18%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.22% 57.55% 61.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,646 3,470 5,181
10th Percentile £381 £338 £350
25th Percentile £450 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £527 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.38% -4.18% -
75th Percentile £625 £623 £650
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £537 £550
% change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 839 390 584
10th Percentile £18.13 £18.50 £14.34
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £60.91 £25.15 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year +142.19% -55.48% -5.85%
75th Percentile £75.00 £64.88 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.36 £76.34 £83.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.91 £25.15 £57.75
% change year-on-year +142.19% -56.45% +0.43%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

Security 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%

Security Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Security Cleared job vacancy trend in the UK

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Cleared over the 6 months to 24 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Security Cleared in the UK

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Security Cleared.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Cleared over the 6 months to 24 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Cleared in the UK

Security 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 Security 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 +3 9,529 £525 -2.33% 1,496
UK excluding London +1 6,177 £525 -2.23% 1,312
London +7 3,378 £525 - 410
Work from Home +5 3,045 £525 - 737
South East +1 2,303 £550 - 442
South West 0 1,311 £538 -4.44% 316
North of England +2 992 £500 - 246
Midlands +2 920 £469 -10.67% 113
West Midlands +1 797 £469 -10.67% 73
North West 0 535 £525 +5.00% 143
East of England +2 355 £550 +10.00% 104
Scotland +24 271 £500 +14.29% 59
Yorkshire -5 256 £500 +1.63% 62
North East +1 232 £475 -1.04% 46
East Midlands -4 112 £438 -7.89% 40
Wales +3 89 £513 +7.89% 40
Northern Ireland +6 31 £644 +35.53% 27

Security 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
1 397 (3.60%) Confluence
2 234 (2.12%) SharePoint
3 162 (1.47%) SAS
4 130 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
5 106 (0.96%) Apache Spark
6 105 (0.95%) Apache Airflow
7 93 (0.84%) Apache
8 46 (0.42%) Jupyter
9 44 (0.40%) nginx
10 35 (0.32%) WebLogic
11 25 (0.23%) Tomcat
12 19 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
13 18 (0.16%) IIS
14 16 (0.15%) CMS
14 16 (0.15%) NetWeaver
15 15 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
16 14 (0.13%) Skype for Business
17 12 (0.11%) Tuxedo
18 11 (0.100%) ArcGIS
19 9 (0.082%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 176 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 146 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
3 79 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
4 78 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 48 (0.44%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.15%) Simulink
7 14 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.091%) SOLIDWORKS
9 9 (0.082%) AutoCAD
9 9 (0.082%) Chatbot
9 9 (0.082%) Revit
10 7 (0.063%) Notepad++
11 4 (0.036%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.036%) Sketch
12 3 (0.027%) Windchill
13 2 (0.018%) CATIA
13 2 (0.018%) Lectora
13 2 (0.018%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.018%) PlantUML
13 2 (0.018%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 125 (1.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 62 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
3 45 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
4 32 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 31 (0.28%) Teamcenter
6 30 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
7 29 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
8 17 (0.15%) Primavera
9 16 (0.15%) SAP GRC
9 16 (0.15%) SAP PSCD
10 15 (0.14%) Findur
10 15 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
11 14 (0.13%) Maximo
12 12 (0.11%) iTrent
12 12 (0.11%) Temenos T24
13 11 (0.100%) Siebel CRM
14 10 (0.091%) Oracle Assets
14 10 (0.091%) SAP ERP
14 10 (0.091%) SAP HR
15 9 (0.082%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 2,011 (18.24%) AWS
2 1,932 (17.52%) Azure
3 462 (4.19%) GitHub
4 439 (3.98%) Azure DevOps
5 421 (3.82%) Power Platform
6 419 (3.80%) GCP
7 286 (2.59%) Serverless
8 282 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
9 274 (2.49%) Entra ID
10 272 (2.47%) Microsoft 365
11 234 (2.12%) Amazon S3
12 197 (1.79%) AWS Lambda
13 163 (1.48%) Amazon EC2
14 158 (1.43%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 153 (1.39%) SaaS
16 152 (1.38%) PaaS
17 145 (1.32%) OpenShift
18 140 (1.27%) OCI
19 139 (1.26%) Amazon EKS
20 130 (1.18%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 459 (4.16%) Firewall
2 320 (2.90%) DNS
3 240 (2.18%) Network Security
4 221 (2.00%) WAN
5 195 (1.77%) LAN
6 181 (1.64%) VPN
7 163 (1.48%) DHCP
8 136 (1.23%) BGP
9 115 (1.04%) OSPF
10 112 (1.02%) Wi-Fi
11 111 (1.01%) VLAN
12 108 (0.98%) TCP/IP
13 85 (0.77%) Wireless
14 67 (0.61%) MPLS
15 61 (0.55%) SD-WAN
16 58 (0.53%) SAN
16 58 (0.53%) VXLAN
17 53 (0.48%) IPsec
18 52 (0.47%) Structured Cabling
19 50 (0.45%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 327 (2.97%) Power BI
2 296 (2.68%) PostgreSQL
3 264 (2.39%) Data Warehouse
4 233 (2.11%) SQL Server
5 163 (1.48%) Oracle Database
6 144 (1.31%) Metadata
7 132 (1.20%) Data Lake
8 117 (1.06%) Relational Database
9 114 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
10 111 (1.01%) MongoDB
11 88 (0.80%) MySQL
12 87 (0.79%) Pentaho
13 82 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
13 82 (0.74%) Oracle Reports
14 77 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
15 75 (0.68%) NoSQL
16 73 (0.66%) Amazon Athena
17 66 (0.60%) Tableau
18 64 (0.58%) Big Data
19 56 (0.51%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 631 (5.72%) JIRA
2 498 (4.52%) Git
3 476 (4.32%) GitLab
4 443 (4.02%) Jenkins
5 120 (1.09%) Selenium
6 88 (0.80%) JUnit
7 84 (0.76%) Postman
8 81 (0.73%) SonarQube
9 66 (0.60%) JMeter
10 59 (0.54%) Rational DOORS
11 58 (0.53%) Cucumber
12 49 (0.44%) Artifactory
13 46 (0.42%) Mockito
14 45 (0.41%) Bitbucket
15 43 (0.39%) Maven
16 42 (0.38%) Cypress.io
16 42 (0.38%) Visual Studio
17 41 (0.37%) Zephyr
18 40 (0.36%) REST Assured
19 37 (0.34%) Gatling
General
1 2,436 (22.10%) Public Sector
2 2,220 (20.14%) Social Skills
3 761 (6.90%) Analytical Skills
4 697 (6.32%) Finance
5 347 (3.15%) Military
6 299 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
7 294 (2.67%) Aerospace
8 176 (1.60%) Legal
9 143 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
10 134 (1.22%) Banking
11 121 (1.10%) Telecoms
12 100 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
13 98 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 98 (0.89%) Law
14 95 (0.86%) Manufacturing
15 77 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
16 72 (0.65%) Police
17 55 (0.50%) Aviation
18 46 (0.42%) Marketing
19 39 (0.35%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,679 (15.23%) Architect
2 1,116 (10.12%) Developer
3 962 (8.73%) Senior
4 837 (7.59%) Lead
5 729 (6.61%) Analyst
6 546 (4.95%) Consultant
7 528 (4.79%) Data Engineer
8 505 (4.58%) DevOps Engineer
9 370 (3.36%) Technical Architect
10 343 (3.11%) Software Engineer
11 330 (2.99%) Solutions Architect
12 328 (2.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 278 (2.52%) Network Engineer
14 243 (2.20%) Security Architect
15 240 (2.18%) Business Analyst
16 221 (2.00%) Project Manager
17 218 (1.98%) Designer
18 205 (1.86%) Azure Engineer
19 204 (1.85%) AWS Engineer
19 204 (1.85%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 337 (3.06%) REST
2 252 (2.29%) Spring
3 214 (1.94%) Spring Boot
4 203 (1.84%) React
5 195 (1.77%) Kafka
6 191 (1.73%) Node.js
7 190 (1.72%) .NET
8 164 (1.49%) RESTful
9 141 (1.28%) SOAP
10 129 (1.17%) JSON
11 128 (1.16%) LDAP
12 127 (1.15%) AngularJS
13 117 (1.06%) PySpark
14 110 (1.00%) OAuth
15 109 (0.99%) Web Services
16 102 (0.93%) Middleware
17 92 (0.83%) HTML
18 91 (0.83%) Playwright
19 87 (0.79%) OpenID
20 85 (0.77%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 429 (3.89%) Cloud Native
2 363 (3.29%) Product Ownership
3 333 (3.02%) Onboarding
4 314 (2.85%) Data Centre
5 223 (2.02%) Management Information System
6 168 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
7 148 (1.34%) Distributed Systems
8 147 (1.33%) PKI
9 126 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
10 112 (1.02%) Replication
11 109 (0.99%) Security Posture
12 106 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
13 101 (0.92%) CMDB
14 96 (0.87%) Data Structures
15 93 (0.84%) Hybrid Cloud
16 88 (0.80%) Public Cloud
17 85 (0.77%) Clustering
18 81 (0.73%) Security Operations Centre
19 77 (0.70%) Virtual Team
20 72 (0.65%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 851 (7.72%) Windows
2 737 (6.68%) Linux
3 261 (2.37%) Windows Server
4 196 (1.78%) Unix
5 139 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 93 (0.84%) Android
7 86 (0.78%) Windows 10
8 64 (0.58%) Apple iOS
9 53 (0.48%) Solaris
10 41 (0.37%) Mac OS
11 37 (0.34%) Ubuntu
12 30 (0.27%) AIX
13 29 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
14 26 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
15 22 (0.20%) CentOS
16 19 (0.17%) VMS
17 16 (0.15%) Windows 7
18 15 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
20 11 (0.100%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,197 (19.93%) Agile
2 1,719 (15.59%) DevOps
3 1,566 (14.20%) CI/CD
4 1,150 (10.43%) Problem-Solving
5 1,122 (10.18%) Stakeholder Management
6 1,102 (10.00%) Continuous Improvement
7 907 (8.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 855 (7.76%) Migration
9 822 (7.46%) Infrastructure as Code
10 688 (6.24%) Cybersecurity
11 682 (6.19%) Test Automation
12 655 (5.94%) Analytics
13 653 (5.92%) Containerisation
14 649 (5.89%) ITIL
15 648 (5.88%) Software Engineering
16 613 (5.56%) Roadmaps
17 596 (5.41%) Decision-Making
18 570 (5.17%) Data Modelling
19 528 (4.79%) AI
20 511 (4.63%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 1,235 (11.20%) Python
2 1,049 (9.51%) SQL
3 728 (6.60%) Java
4 501 (4.54%) PowerShell
5 334 (3.03%) JavaScript
6 231 (2.10%) C#
7 230 (2.09%) Bash
8 196 (1.78%) TypeScript
9 149 (1.35%) PL/SQL
10 98 (0.89%) C++
11 97 (0.88%) Shell Script
12 82 (0.74%) Bicep
13 66 (0.60%) C
14 61 (0.55%) Apex Code
15 59 (0.54%) Go
16 58 (0.53%) Ruby
17 49 (0.44%) Scala
18 48 (0.44%) Ada
19 46 (0.42%) Kotlin
20 40 (0.36%) R
Qualifications
1 8,458 (76.72%) SC Cleared
2 1,980 (17.96%) DV Cleared
3 426 (3.86%) Degree
4 335 (3.04%) BPSS Clearance
5 215 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
6 181 (1.64%) CISSP
7 142 (1.29%) Azure Certification
8 121 (1.10%) AWS Certification
9 116 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
10 115 (1.04%) CISM
11 111 (1.01%) CCNP
12 93 (0.84%) CCNA
13 87 (0.79%) PMP
14 86 (0.78%) PMI Certification
15 76 (0.69%) ISTQB
16 67 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 64 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
18 56 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
19 40 (0.36%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 40 (0.36%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 424 (3.85%) QA
2 345 (3.13%) Data Quality
3 319 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 315 (2.86%) NIST
5 242 (2.20%) NCSC
6 220 (2.00%) Accessibility
7 185 (1.68%) GDPR
8 175 (1.59%) PMO
9 118 (1.07%) SLA
10 99 (0.90%) GRC
11 67 (0.61%) JSP 440
12 52 (0.47%) WCAG
13 45 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
13 45 (0.41%) NIST 800
14 35 (0.32%) RMADS
15 33 (0.30%) Def Stans
16 29 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 26 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
18 24 (0.22%) COBIT
19 23 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 712 (6.46%) Docker
2 462 (4.19%) Active Directory
3 316 (2.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 117 (1.06%) VMware ESXi
5 112 (1.02%) VMware NSX
6 89 (0.81%) Hyper-V
7 85 (0.77%) vSphere
8 75 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
9 39 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
10 33 (0.30%) Firmware
11 23 (0.21%) BitLocker
11 23 (0.21%) NFS
11 23 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
12 21 (0.19%) vCloud
13 19 (0.17%) Postfix
14 18 (0.16%) Squid
15 14 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 9 (0.082%) Microsoft App-V
17 6 (0.054%) Corosync
17 6 (0.054%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 912 (8.27%) Terraform
2 891 (8.08%) Kubernetes
3 380 (3.45%) Ansible
4 272 (2.47%) Grafana
5 228 (2.07%) Prometheus
6 111 (1.01%) vCenter Server
7 92 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
8 81 (0.73%) SCCM
9 61 (0.55%) Microsoft Intune
10 54 (0.49%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 54 (0.49%) Argo
11 50 (0.45%) FortiGate
12 45 (0.41%) Oracle RMAN
13 42 (0.38%) Puppet
14 39 (0.35%) SCOM
15 36 (0.33%) Podman
16 28 (0.25%) Progress Chef
17 26 (0.24%) Nagios
17 26 (0.24%) Red Hat Satellite
18 25 (0.23%) Kibana
Vendors
1 1,132 (10.27%) Microsoft
2 779 (7.07%) Oracle
3 506 (4.59%) VMware
4 456 (4.14%) ServiceNow
5 351 (3.18%) SAP
6 329 (2.98%) Cisco
7 223 (2.02%) Splunk
8 199 (1.80%) Databricks
9 185 (1.68%) Salesforce
10 180 (1.63%) Google
11 171 (1.55%) Red Hat
12 147 (1.33%) Talend
13 126 (1.14%) IBM
14 125 (1.13%) Informatica
15 114 (1.03%) Palo Alto
16 97 (0.88%) Juniper
17 91 (0.83%) Fortinet
18 90 (0.82%) F5
19 88 (0.80%) Dynatrace
20 86 (0.78%) Denodo