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 6 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 2 3 4
Rank change year-on-year +1 +1 +3
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 7,611 6,328 7,869
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 20.88% 17.58% 17.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 62.52% 59.65% 58.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,027 3,987 4,938
10th Percentile £341 £350 £375
25th Percentile £450 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -2.22%
75th Percentile £631 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £560
% change year-on-year -4.55% -1.79% +1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 752 335 496
10th Percentile £18.82 £20.12 £20.00
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.18 £46.18
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% -16.67% -
75th Percentile £52.52 £67.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £52.50 £59.68
% change year-on-year -52.10% -12.03% -0.53%

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 12,174 10,608 13,341
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.40% 29.48% 29.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,906 6,439 8,410
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £420 £427
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £515 £538
% change year-on-year -2.91% -4.19% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,020 506 753
10th Percentile £17.04 £19.00 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.20 £24.18 £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £41.71 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -39.70% -22.05% +18.89%
75th Percentile £45.46 £66.00 £67.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £51.90
% change year-on-year -44.11% -13.29% +15.33%

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 6 December 2025.

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 6 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Cleared in the UK

Security Cleared
Top 18 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 6 December 2025. 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 +1 6,670 £525 -4.55% 1,993
UK excluding London 0 4,419 £525 -4.55% 1,814
London +2 2,175 £550 - 429
Work from Home +2 2,116 £538 -0.46% 1,026
South East -1 1,313 £520 -5.45% 689
South West 0 1,152 £550 -4.35% 487
North of England -1 780 £509 +7.21% 248
Midlands +2 707 £515 -6.36% 139
West Midlands +2 551 £520 -5.63% 118
North West +1 516 £525 +6.49% 174
East of England +2 300 £500 -2.44% 288
Yorkshire -13 163 £500 +7.24% 48
Scotland -6 149 £463 -7.50% 50
East Midlands -1 141 £425 -10.53% 21
North East 0 114 £475 -2.61% 30
Wales -4 77 £550 +10.00% 33
Northern Ireland +1 42 £500 -16.67% 9
Channel Islands - 1 - - 1

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
1 274 (3.60%) Confluence
2 185 (2.43%) SharePoint
3 122 (1.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 104 (1.37%) SAS
5 88 (1.16%) Apache
6 53 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
7 52 (0.68%) Apache Spark
8 44 (0.58%) nginx
9 39 (0.51%) Skype for Business
10 33 (0.43%) WebLogic
11 28 (0.37%) CMS
12 20 (0.26%) IIS
13 15 (0.20%) SharePoint Server
14 14 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2010
15 13 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2013
16 11 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
17 10 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2003
17 10 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2007
17 10 (0.13%) Office Communications Server
18 9 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 242 (3.18%) Microsoft Office
2 165 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 106 (1.39%) Microsoft Project
4 53 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 34 (0.45%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
7 18 (0.24%) Simulink
8 12 (0.16%) Siemens NX
9 11 (0.14%) Sketch
10 10 (0.13%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 8 (0.11%) Adobe XD
11 8 (0.11%) ProjectWise
12 6 (0.079%) Oracle Smart View
13 5 (0.066%) Adobe Illustrator
13 5 (0.066%) FrameMaker
13 5 (0.066%) Photoshop
13 5 (0.066%) PTC Creo
13 5 (0.066%) Stateflow
13 5 (0.066%) Trello
13 5 (0.066%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 183 (2.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
3 34 (0.45%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 29 (0.38%) SAP EWM
4 29 (0.38%) SAP WM
5 24 (0.32%) SAP MM
6 23 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
6 23 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
7 17 (0.22%) Primavera
7 17 (0.22%) SAP HCM
8 16 (0.21%) Maximo
9 15 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
9 15 (0.20%) Teamcenter
10 14 (0.18%) SAP VC
11 13 (0.17%) SAP PP
11 13 (0.17%) SAP PS
12 12 (0.16%) SAP EHS
12 12 (0.16%) SAP QM
13 10 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
13 10 (0.13%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 1,269 (16.67%) AWS
2 1,196 (15.71%) Azure
3 361 (4.74%) GitHub
4 329 (4.32%) Microsoft 365
5 273 (3.59%) GCP
6 270 (3.55%) Azure DevOps
7 269 (3.53%) Power Platform
8 225 (2.96%) Serverless
9 192 (2.52%) GitHub Actions
10 186 (2.44%) Amazon S3
11 169 (2.22%) Entra ID
12 138 (1.81%) AWS CloudFormation
12 138 (1.81%) OpenShift
13 131 (1.72%) SaaS
14 130 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
15 124 (1.63%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 118 (1.55%) Amazon EC2
17 111 (1.46%) Amazon EKS
18 98 (1.29%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 90 (1.18%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 379 (4.98%) Firewall
2 259 (3.40%) DNS
3 176 (2.31%) VPN
4 150 (1.97%) Network Security
5 149 (1.96%) WAN
6 112 (1.47%) TCP/IP
7 104 (1.37%) LAN
8 98 (1.29%) Wireless
9 97 (1.27%) DHCP
10 94 (1.24%) BGP
11 81 (1.06%) SSL
12 71 (0.93%) SAN
13 68 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
14 61 (0.80%) MPLS
15 58 (0.76%) Cisco ISE
16 55 (0.72%) IPsec
16 55 (0.72%) VLAN
17 49 (0.64%) HTTP
18 47 (0.62%) OSPF
19 41 (0.54%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 221 (2.90%) PostgreSQL
2 177 (2.33%) Power BI
3 98 (1.29%) SQL Server
4 95 (1.25%) MongoDB
5 92 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
5 92 (1.21%) Oracle Database
6 88 (1.16%) Data Warehouse
7 83 (1.09%) NoSQL
8 82 (1.08%) Relational Database
9 79 (1.04%) Metadata
10 58 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
11 52 (0.68%) Big Data
12 43 (0.56%) Elasticsearch
13 40 (0.53%) Pentaho
14 39 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
15 38 (0.50%) Amazon Athena
15 38 (0.50%) Data Lake
15 38 (0.50%) MySQL
16 37 (0.49%) SAS Enterprise Guide
17 35 (0.46%) Redis
Development Applications
1 513 (6.74%) JIRA
2 410 (5.39%) Git
3 389 (5.11%) Jenkins
4 297 (3.90%) GitLab
5 85 (1.12%) Selenium
6 62 (0.81%) JUnit
7 58 (0.76%) Cypress.io
7 58 (0.76%) Postman
8 56 (0.74%) SonarQube
9 47 (0.62%) Bitbucket
10 46 (0.60%) Oracle APEX
11 37 (0.49%) Mockito
12 36 (0.47%) Artifactory
13 33 (0.43%) Cucumber
14 31 (0.41%) Maven
15 27 (0.35%) MSI
16 26 (0.34%) REST Assured
17 23 (0.30%) CircleCI
18 22 (0.29%) JMeter
18 22 (0.29%) Rational DOORS
General
1 2,062 (27.09%) Public Sector
2 1,913 (25.13%) Social Skills
3 678 (8.91%) Analytical Skills
4 539 (7.08%) Finance
5 290 (3.81%) Military
6 232 (3.05%) Telecoms
7 218 (2.86%) Manufacturing
8 186 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
9 158 (2.08%) Electronics
10 149 (1.96%) Marketing
11 135 (1.77%) Aerospace
12 115 (1.51%) Organisational Skills
13 110 (1.45%) Legal
14 94 (1.24%) Banking
14 94 (1.24%) Influencing Skills
15 83 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
16 70 (0.92%) Law
17 54 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (0.51%) Aviation
19 38 (0.50%) Police
Job Titles
1 1,004 (13.19%) Architect
2 776 (10.20%) Developer
3 665 (8.74%) Consultant
4 612 (8.04%) Senior
5 498 (6.54%) Analyst
6 470 (6.18%) Lead
7 344 (4.52%) DevOps Engineer
8 257 (3.38%) Support Engineer
9 210 (2.76%) Network Engineer
10 205 (2.69%) Solutions Architect
11 182 (2.39%) Data Engineer
12 171 (2.25%) SAP Consultant
13 153 (2.01%) AWS Engineer
14 151 (1.98%) Technical Architect
15 139 (1.83%) Platform Engineer
16 137 (1.80%) Software Engineer
17 136 (1.79%) Tester
18 133 (1.75%) IT Engineer
19 131 (1.72%) Administrator
20 129 (1.69%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 284 (3.73%) REST
2 194 (2.55%) Node.js
3 181 (2.38%) React
4 177 (2.33%) Kafka
5 160 (2.10%) JSON
6 136 (1.79%) Spring
7 134 (1.76%) SOAP
8 123 (1.62%) HTML
9 115 (1.51%) RESTful
10 113 (1.48%) XML
11 110 (1.45%) Spring Boot
12 103 (1.35%) AngularJS
13 100 (1.31%) .NET
14 99 (1.30%) CSS
15 96 (1.26%) Web Services
16 80 (1.05%) OAuth
17 74 (0.97%) Oracle Fusion
18 72 (0.95%) LDAP
19 68 (0.89%) Elastic Stack
20 61 (0.80%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 224 (2.94%) Data Centre
2 202 (2.65%) Onboarding
3 198 (2.60%) Cloud Native
4 181 (2.38%) PKI
5 170 (2.23%) Product Ownership
6 150 (1.97%) Management Information System
7 108 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
8 101 (1.33%) Legacy Systems
9 82 (1.08%) Driving Licence
10 78 (1.02%) Cyber Threat
11 72 (0.95%) Security Posture
12 71 (0.93%) Replication
13 68 (0.89%) Security Operations Centre
14 67 (0.88%) CMDB
15 63 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
16 61 (0.80%) Hybrid Cloud
17 56 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
18 52 (0.68%) Private Cloud
19 50 (0.66%) Public Cloud
20 46 (0.60%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 824 (10.83%) Windows
2 570 (7.49%) Linux
3 191 (2.51%) Windows Server
4 177 (2.33%) Windows 10
5 111 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 103 (1.35%) Unix
7 95 (1.25%) Android
8 84 (1.10%) Mac OS
9 50 (0.66%) VMS
10 41 (0.54%) Ubuntu
11 34 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
12 28 (0.37%) Apple iOS
13 25 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 25 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
14 24 (0.32%) Windows 7
15 23 (0.30%) Amazon Linux
16 21 (0.28%) CentOS
17 17 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
18 16 (0.21%) Mac OS X
19 9 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,493 (19.62%) Agile
2 1,156 (15.19%) DevOps
3 1,058 (13.90%) CI/CD
4 912 (11.98%) Problem-Solving
5 773 (10.16%) Migration
6 599 (7.87%) Stakeholder Management
7 514 (6.75%) Cybersecurity
8 513 (6.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 497 (6.53%) ITIL
10 496 (6.52%) Infrastructure as Code
11 480 (6.31%) Continuous Improvement
12 426 (5.60%) Containerisation
13 423 (5.56%) Test Automation
14 413 (5.43%) Service Management
15 407 (5.35%) Business Intelligence
16 402 (5.28%) Workflow
17 387 (5.08%) Analytics
18 363 (4.77%) Roadmaps
19 350 (4.60%) Scrum
20 345 (4.53%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 949 (12.47%) Python
2 573 (7.53%) SQL
3 474 (6.23%) PowerShell
4 470 (6.18%) Java
5 396 (5.20%) JavaScript
6 238 (3.13%) Bash
7 196 (2.58%) TypeScript
8 133 (1.75%) C#
9 99 (1.30%) C++
10 90 (1.18%) Go
11 75 (0.99%) Shell Script
12 74 (0.97%) PL/SQL
13 73 (0.96%) C
14 48 (0.63%) ABAP
15 45 (0.59%) Ruby
16 40 (0.53%) Perl
17 33 (0.43%) Groovy
18 32 (0.42%) Bicep
19 30 (0.39%) MATLAB
20 29 (0.38%) Scala
Qualifications
1 5,861 (77.01%) SC Cleared
2 1,239 (16.28%) DV Cleared
3 374 (4.91%) Degree
4 334 (4.39%) BPSS Clearance
5 142 (1.87%) CISSP
6 123 (1.62%) Microsoft Certification
7 116 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
8 114 (1.50%) AWS Certification
9 113 (1.48%) Azure Certification
10 85 (1.12%) CCNP
11 81 (1.06%) CISM
12 56 (0.74%) Computer Science Degree
13 55 (0.72%) ITIL Certification
14 52 (0.68%) CCNA
15 47 (0.62%) CEH
15 47 (0.62%) TOGAF Certification
16 45 (0.59%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 42 (0.55%) CTC Cleared
18 41 (0.54%) CHECK Team Member
19 36 (0.47%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 235 (3.09%) QA
2 220 (2.89%) NIST
3 218 (2.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 171 (2.25%) NCSC
5 145 (1.91%) Data Quality
6 141 (1.85%) GDPR
7 138 (1.81%) SLA
8 137 (1.80%) Accessibility
9 67 (0.88%) PMO
10 54 (0.71%) JSP 440
11 46 (0.60%) WCAG
12 42 (0.55%) NIST 800
13 39 (0.51%) GRC
14 32 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 29 (0.38%) COBIT
15 29 (0.38%) Def Stans
16 25 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
17 22 (0.29%) RMADS
18 21 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 21 (0.28%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 596 (7.83%) Docker
2 429 (5.64%) Active Directory
3 215 (2.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 78 (1.02%) VMware NSX
5 71 (0.93%) vSphere
6 60 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
7 51 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
8 42 (0.55%) Firmware
9 36 (0.47%) Hyper-V
10 31 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
11 19 (0.25%) DFS Replication
12 16 (0.21%) Postfix
13 15 (0.20%) NFS
14 14 (0.18%) Dovecot
15 12 (0.16%) ISA Server
16 11 (0.14%) Terminal Services
17 10 (0.13%) BitLocker
17 10 (0.13%) Brightmail
17 10 (0.13%) Squid
18 7 (0.092%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 730 (9.59%) Kubernetes
2 686 (9.01%) Terraform
3 286 (3.76%) Ansible
4 186 (2.44%) Grafana
5 157 (2.06%) Prometheus
6 110 (1.45%) SCCM
7 97 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
8 80 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
9 70 (0.92%) vCenter Server
10 62 (0.81%) Argo
11 57 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 46 (0.60%) Packer
13 37 (0.49%) Kibana
14 33 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
14 33 (0.43%) OPNET
15 31 (0.41%) vRealize
16 27 (0.35%) Progress Chef
17 26 (0.34%) Puppet
18 25 (0.33%) Nessus
18 25 (0.33%) SCOM
Vendors
1 945 (12.42%) Microsoft
2 536 (7.04%) SAP
3 436 (5.73%) Cisco
4 402 (5.28%) Oracle
5 382 (5.02%) VMware
6 364 (4.78%) ServiceNow
7 186 (2.44%) Splunk
8 151 (1.98%) Red Hat
9 149 (1.96%) Juniper
10 125 (1.64%) Google
11 116 (1.52%) Salesforce
12 105 (1.38%) Palo Alto
13 103 (1.35%) Dell
14 102 (1.34%) Atlassian
15 98 (1.29%) HP
16 85 (1.12%) CyberArk
17 84 (1.10%) Remedy
18 83 (1.09%) Databricks
19 78 (1.02%) IBM
20 73 (0.96%) Apple