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 29 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 3 4
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +4
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 7,484 6,419 7,970
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 20.76% 17.61% 17.36%
As % of the Qualifications category 62.23% 59.93% 58.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,921 4,004 4,994
10th Percentile £336 £350 £375
25th Percentile £450 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -1.79%
75th Percentile £633 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 745 349 513
10th Percentile £18.87 £20.12 £20.00
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.18 £46.18
Median hourly rate £25.15 £52.19 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -51.81% -13.02% -
75th Percentile £51.53 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £54.51 £60.00
% change year-on-year -53.86% -9.15% -

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 12,027 10,710 13,528
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.37% 29.38% 29.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,762 6,441 8,543
10th Percentile £305 £309 £300
25th Percentile £413 £423 £425
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 £520 £538
% change year-on-year -3.85% -3.26% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,015 520 767
10th Percentile £17.50 £18.94 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.18 £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £53.67
Median % change year-on-year -40.82% -20.80% +19.26%
75th Percentile £47.62 £66.00 £68.72
90th Percentile £74.06 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £52.50
% change year-on-year -45.54% -12.04% +16.67%

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 29 November 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 29 November 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 29 November 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 6,551 £525 -4.55% 1,752
UK excluding London 0 4,351 £525 -4.55% 1,613
London +1 2,135 £550 - 427
Work from Home +2 2,106 £538 -0.46% 820
South East -1 1,280 £517 -6.00% 690
South West 0 1,130 £550 -4.35% 451
North of England -1 783 £509 +7.21% 133
Midlands +2 699 £519 -5.73% 125
West Midlands +2 543 £525 -8.06% 98
North West +1 514 £525 +6.49% 90
East of England +2 291 £513 +1.23% 238
Yorkshire -9 167 £500 +8.11% 23
Scotland -8 150 £475 -1.15% 52
East Midlands -1 141 £450 -7.69% 27
North East 0 110 £475 +0.53% 23
Wales -3 78 £550 +10.00% 33
Northern Ireland +2 43 £500 -16.67% 12
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
1 276 (3.69%) Confluence
2 185 (2.47%) SharePoint
3 121 (1.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 103 (1.38%) SAS
5 89 (1.19%) Apache
6 54 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
7 49 (0.65%) nginx
8 48 (0.64%) Apache Spark
9 39 (0.52%) Skype for Business
10 28 (0.37%) CMS
11 25 (0.33%) WebLogic
12 21 (0.28%) IIS
13 15 (0.20%) SharePoint Server
14 14 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2010
15 13 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2013
16 11 (0.15%) 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
1 223 (2.98%) Microsoft Office
2 162 (2.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 92 (1.23%) Microsoft Project
4 47 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 36 (0.48%) MS Visio
6 22 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
7 19 (0.25%) Simulink
8 15 (0.20%) Siemens NX
9 11 (0.15%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 10 (0.13%) Sketch
11 8 (0.11%) ProjectWise
12 7 (0.094%) Adobe XD
13 6 (0.080%) Oracle Smart View
14 5 (0.067%) Adobe Illustrator
14 5 (0.067%) FrameMaker
14 5 (0.067%) Photoshop
14 5 (0.067%) PTC Creo
14 5 (0.067%) Stateflow
14 5 (0.067%) Trello
14 5 (0.067%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 181 (2.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (0.51%) Remedy ITSM
3 29 (0.39%) SAP EWM
3 29 (0.39%) SAP WM
3 29 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 24 (0.32%) SAP MM
5 23 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
6 22 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
7 19 (0.25%) Teamcenter
8 18 (0.24%) Primavera
9 17 (0.23%) SAP HCM
10 16 (0.21%) Maximo
11 15 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
12 14 (0.19%) SAP VC
13 13 (0.17%) SAP PP
13 13 (0.17%) SAP PS
14 12 (0.16%) SAP EHS
14 12 (0.16%) SAP QM
15 10 (0.13%) SAP HR
15 10 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 1,257 (16.80%) AWS
2 1,181 (15.78%) Azure
3 361 (4.82%) GitHub
4 327 (4.37%) Microsoft 365
5 273 (3.65%) Power Platform
6 267 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
6 267 (3.57%) GCP
7 222 (2.97%) Serverless
8 192 (2.57%) GitHub Actions
9 185 (2.47%) Amazon S3
10 160 (2.14%) Entra ID
11 135 (1.80%) OpenShift
12 134 (1.79%) SaaS
13 129 (1.72%) AWS CloudFormation
13 129 (1.72%) AWS Lambda
14 123 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 119 (1.59%) Amazon EC2
16 109 (1.46%) Amazon EKS
17 93 (1.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 88 (1.18%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 379 (5.06%) Firewall
2 264 (3.53%) DNS
3 182 (2.43%) VPN
4 160 (2.14%) Network Security
5 144 (1.92%) WAN
6 111 (1.48%) TCP/IP
7 102 (1.36%) LAN
8 100 (1.34%) BGP
9 99 (1.32%) Wireless
10 98 (1.31%) DHCP
11 81 (1.08%) SSL
12 66 (0.88%) SAN
13 64 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
14 62 (0.83%) MPLS
15 58 (0.77%) Cisco ISE
15 58 (0.77%) IPsec
16 56 (0.75%) VLAN
17 51 (0.68%) HTTP
18 46 (0.61%) OSPF
19 44 (0.59%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 222 (2.97%) PostgreSQL
2 180 (2.41%) Power BI
3 98 (1.31%) Amazon RDS
4 95 (1.27%) SQL Server
5 90 (1.20%) MongoDB
5 90 (1.20%) Oracle Database
6 85 (1.14%) Data Warehouse
7 81 (1.08%) Relational Database
8 79 (1.06%) NoSQL
9 78 (1.04%) Metadata
10 56 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
11 51 (0.68%) Big Data
12 43 (0.57%) Elasticsearch
13 42 (0.56%) Pentaho
14 39 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
15 38 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
15 38 (0.51%) Data Lake
16 37 (0.49%) MySQL
16 37 (0.49%) SAS Enterprise Guide
17 35 (0.47%) Redis
Development Applications
1 502 (6.71%) JIRA
2 408 (5.45%) Git
3 391 (5.22%) Jenkins
4 294 (3.93%) GitLab
5 84 (1.12%) Selenium
6 64 (0.86%) JUnit
7 58 (0.77%) SonarQube
8 57 (0.76%) Cypress.io
9 54 (0.72%) Postman
10 49 (0.65%) Bitbucket
11 46 (0.61%) Oracle APEX
12 38 (0.51%) Mockito
13 36 (0.48%) Artifactory
14 33 (0.44%) Cucumber
15 32 (0.43%) Maven
16 25 (0.33%) CircleCI
16 25 (0.33%) REST Assured
17 23 (0.31%) MSI
17 23 (0.31%) Visual Studio
18 22 (0.29%) JMeter
General
1 2,027 (27.08%) Public Sector
2 1,899 (25.37%) Social Skills
3 676 (9.03%) Analytical Skills
4 525 (7.01%) Finance
5 272 (3.63%) Military
6 229 (3.06%) Telecoms
7 216 (2.89%) Manufacturing
8 183 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
9 159 (2.12%) Electronics
10 147 (1.96%) Marketing
11 136 (1.82%) Aerospace
12 108 (1.44%) Legal
13 107 (1.43%) Organisational Skills
14 96 (1.28%) Banking
15 92 (1.23%) Influencing Skills
16 82 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
17 68 (0.91%) Law
18 53 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 40 (0.53%) Aviation
19 40 (0.53%) Police
Job Titles
1 980 (13.09%) Architect
2 771 (10.30%) Developer
3 667 (8.91%) Consultant
4 597 (7.98%) Senior
5 484 (6.47%) Analyst
6 458 (6.12%) Lead
7 336 (4.49%) DevOps Engineer
8 257 (3.43%) Support Engineer
9 211 (2.82%) Network Engineer
10 206 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
11 173 (2.31%) Data Engineer
12 169 (2.26%) SAP Consultant
13 150 (2.00%) AWS Engineer
13 150 (2.00%) Technical Architect
14 136 (1.82%) IT Engineer
15 135 (1.80%) Platform Engineer
16 132 (1.76%) Administrator
17 131 (1.75%) Software Engineer
18 126 (1.68%) Business Analyst
18 126 (1.68%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 282 (3.77%) REST
2 193 (2.58%) Node.js
3 182 (2.43%) React
4 174 (2.32%) Kafka
5 155 (2.07%) JSON
6 134 (1.79%) SOAP
7 132 (1.76%) Spring
8 122 (1.63%) HTML
9 111 (1.48%) XML
10 110 (1.47%) RESTful
11 106 (1.42%) Spring Boot
12 101 (1.35%) .NET
12 101 (1.35%) AngularJS
13 99 (1.32%) CSS
14 95 (1.27%) Web Services
15 77 (1.03%) OAuth
16 72 (0.96%) LDAP
17 66 (0.88%) Elastic Stack
18 63 (0.84%) Oracle Fusion
19 59 (0.79%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 221 (2.95%) Data Centre
2 211 (2.82%) Onboarding
3 194 (2.59%) Cloud Native
4 183 (2.45%) PKI
5 158 (2.11%) Product Ownership
6 150 (2.00%) Management Information System
7 111 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
8 100 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
9 82 (1.10%) Driving Licence
10 78 (1.04%) Cyber Threat
11 70 (0.94%) Replication
11 70 (0.94%) Security Posture
12 67 (0.90%) Security Operations Centre
13 64 (0.86%) CMDB
13 64 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
14 63 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
15 56 (0.75%) Analytical Mindset
15 56 (0.75%) Private Cloud
16 50 (0.67%) Public Cloud
17 46 (0.61%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 805 (10.76%) Windows
2 560 (7.48%) Linux
3 191 (2.55%) Windows Server
4 176 (2.35%) Windows 10
5 112 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 94 (1.26%) Android
7 91 (1.22%) Unix
8 85 (1.14%) Mac OS
9 52 (0.69%) VMS
10 36 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 36 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
11 29 (0.39%) Apple iOS
12 26 (0.35%) Amazon Linux
13 25 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 25 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
14 24 (0.32%) Windows 7
15 22 (0.29%) CentOS
16 18 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
17 16 (0.21%) Mac OS X
18 9 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,461 (19.52%) Agile
2 1,134 (15.15%) DevOps
3 1,035 (13.83%) CI/CD
4 898 (12.00%) Problem-Solving
5 773 (10.33%) Migration
6 595 (7.95%) Stakeholder Management
7 511 (6.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 508 (6.79%) Cybersecurity
9 491 (6.56%) Infrastructure as Code
10 481 (6.43%) ITIL
11 477 (6.37%) Continuous Improvement
12 419 (5.60%) Containerisation
13 416 (5.56%) Service Management
14 414 (5.53%) Test Automation
15 412 (5.51%) Workflow
16 410 (5.48%) Business Intelligence
17 376 (5.02%) Analytics
18 353 (4.72%) Roadmaps
19 347 (4.64%) Scrum
20 343 (4.58%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 936 (12.51%) Python
2 558 (7.46%) SQL
3 473 (6.32%) PowerShell
4 465 (6.21%) Java
5 388 (5.18%) JavaScript
6 232 (3.10%) Bash
7 194 (2.59%) TypeScript
8 134 (1.79%) C#
9 101 (1.35%) C++
10 83 (1.11%) Go
11 74 (0.99%) PL/SQL
12 72 (0.96%) C
13 70 (0.94%) Shell Script
14 48 (0.64%) ABAP
15 41 (0.55%) Perl
15 41 (0.55%) Ruby
16 34 (0.45%) Groovy
17 32 (0.43%) Bicep
18 31 (0.41%) MATLAB
19 28 (0.37%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 5,759 (76.95%) SC Cleared
2 1,222 (16.33%) DV Cleared
3 359 (4.80%) Degree
4 345 (4.61%) BPSS Clearance
5 139 (1.86%) CISSP
6 125 (1.67%) Microsoft Certification
7 115 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
8 113 (1.51%) Azure Certification
9 110 (1.47%) AWS Certification
10 85 (1.14%) CCNP
10 85 (1.14%) CISM
11 58 (0.77%) Computer Science Degree
12 57 (0.76%) ITIL Certification
13 49 (0.65%) CCNA
14 46 (0.61%) CEH
15 43 (0.57%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 40 (0.53%) TOGAF Certification
17 39 (0.52%) CTC Cleared
18 37 (0.49%) CHECK Team Member
19 32 (0.43%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 233 (3.11%) QA
2 217 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 214 (2.86%) NIST
4 167 (2.23%) NCSC
5 140 (1.87%) SLA
6 138 (1.84%) Data Quality
7 135 (1.80%) GDPR
8 132 (1.76%) Accessibility
9 64 (0.86%) PMO
10 53 (0.71%) JSP 440
11 46 (0.61%) WCAG
12 44 (0.59%) NIST 800
13 37 (0.49%) GRC
14 32 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 31 (0.41%) Def Stans
16 29 (0.39%) COBIT
17 22 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
17 22 (0.29%) RMADS
18 21 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 18 (0.24%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 593 (7.92%) Docker
2 419 (5.60%) Active Directory
3 224 (2.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 76 (1.02%) VMware NSX
5 73 (0.98%) vSphere
6 66 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
7 53 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
8 45 (0.60%) Firmware
9 39 (0.52%) Hyper-V
10 29 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
11 20 (0.27%) DFS Replication
12 18 (0.24%) Postfix
13 16 (0.21%) NFS
14 15 (0.20%) Dovecot
15 11 (0.15%) ISA Server
15 11 (0.15%) Squid
15 11 (0.15%) Terminal Services
16 10 (0.13%) BitLocker
16 10 (0.13%) Brightmail
17 7 (0.094%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 720 (9.62%) Kubernetes
2 683 (9.13%) Terraform
3 294 (3.93%) Ansible
4 184 (2.46%) Grafana
5 157 (2.10%) Prometheus
6 114 (1.52%) SCCM
7 96 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
8 82 (1.10%) Microsoft Intune
9 66 (0.88%) vCenter Server
10 61 (0.82%) Argo
11 52 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 47 (0.63%) Packer
13 38 (0.51%) Kibana
14 34 (0.45%) Jamf Pro
15 30 (0.40%) vRealize
16 26 (0.35%) FortiGate
16 26 (0.35%) OPNET
16 26 (0.35%) SCOM
17 24 (0.32%) Nessus
17 24 (0.32%) Puppet
Vendors
1 940 (12.56%) Microsoft
2 532 (7.11%) SAP
3 445 (5.95%) Cisco
4 388 (5.18%) Oracle
5 387 (5.17%) VMware
6 351 (4.69%) ServiceNow
7 186 (2.49%) Splunk
8 155 (2.07%) Juniper
9 144 (1.92%) Red Hat
10 125 (1.67%) Google
11 114 (1.52%) Salesforce
12 105 (1.40%) Palo Alto
13 99 (1.32%) Atlassian
13 99 (1.32%) Dell
14 97 (1.30%) HP
15 83 (1.11%) CyberArk
16 78 (1.04%) Databricks
16 78 (1.04%) IBM
17 75 (1.00%) Remedy
18 74 (0.99%) SolarWinds