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 30 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 11,496 5,818 7,368
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 21.70% 17.73% 18.49%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.27% 57.22% 61.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,001 3,719 4,901
10th Percentile £385 £338 £345
25th Percentile £450 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.94% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £634 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £694 £735
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 841 523 525
10th Percentile £18.32 £18.51 £15.33
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £63.14 £25.15 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +151.03% -54.27% -8.33%
75th Percentile £78.75 £51.10 £71.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £73.75 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.14 £25.15 £56.89
% change year-on-year +151.03% -55.79% -3.63%

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 16,596 10,167 11,894
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.33% 30.98% 29.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,110 6,305 7,540
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £618 £638
90th Percentile £714 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,225 773 901
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.19
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.30%
75th Percentile £74.00 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £76.99
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.19%

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 30 July 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 30 July 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 30 July 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 9,954 £536 -0.20% 1,897
UK excluding London +1 6,460 £525 -2.33% 1,425
London +7 3,523 £548 +4.38% 616
Work from Home +4 3,100 £525 -1.59% 970
South East +1 2,446 £550 +2.33% 491
South West 0 1,322 £538 -6.52% 327
North of England +2 1,115 £502 +0.35% 272
Midlands +3 963 £469 -6.20% 154
West Midlands +1 826 £469 -6.20% 113
North West 0 601 £525 -0.38% 150
East of England 0 324 £552 +3.18% 138
Yorkshire +3 300 £500 +1.63% 59
Scotland +14 259 £490 +3.65% 48
North East 0 238 £475 -5.00% 64
East Midlands +1 125 £428 -7.57% 41
Wales +3 97 £550 +15.79% 21
Northern Ireland +4 33 £650 +25.00% 11

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
1 412 (3.58%) Confluence
2 270 (2.35%) SharePoint
3 193 (1.68%) SAS
4 123 (1.07%) Microsoft Exchange
5 104 (0.90%) Apache Spark
6 99 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
7 95 (0.83%) Apache
8 41 (0.36%) WebLogic
9 40 (0.35%) nginx
10 38 (0.33%) Jupyter
11 24 (0.21%) IIS
11 24 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 20 (0.17%) Oracle Application Server
12 20 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
13 16 (0.14%) NetWeaver
13 16 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
14 15 (0.13%) CMS
15 13 (0.11%) Skype for Business
16 12 (0.10%) Tuxedo
17 10 (0.087%) JBoss
Applications
1 210 (1.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 151 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
3 103 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
4 77 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 47 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 24 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.13%) Simulink
8 14 (0.12%) AutoCAD
8 14 (0.12%) Revit
8 14 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
9 9 (0.078%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.070%) Adobe XD
11 7 (0.061%) Notepad++
11 7 (0.061%) Sketch
12 4 (0.035%) Trello
13 3 (0.026%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.026%) Windchill
14 2 (0.017%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.017%) Houdini
14 2 (0.017%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 152 (1.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 76 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
3 43 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
3 43 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
4 37 (0.32%) Teamcenter
5 32 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 23 (0.20%) SAP PSCD
7 22 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
8 21 (0.18%) Primavera
9 20 (0.17%) SAP GRC
10 16 (0.14%) Oracle Payroll
11 15 (0.13%) Findur
12 13 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 13 (0.11%) Temenos T24
13 12 (0.10%) iTrent
13 12 (0.10%) Siebel CRM
14 11 (0.096%) NetSuite
14 11 (0.096%) SAP FI
14 11 (0.096%) SAP HR
15 10 (0.087%) Integrated Workplace Management System
Cloud Services
1 2,076 (18.06%) Azure
2 2,042 (17.76%) AWS
3 519 (4.51%) GitHub
4 495 (4.31%) Azure DevOps
5 465 (4.04%) Power Platform
6 438 (3.81%) GCP
7 319 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
8 305 (2.65%) Microsoft 365
9 284 (2.47%) Entra ID
10 279 (2.43%) Serverless
11 248 (2.16%) Amazon S3
12 201 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
13 164 (1.43%) OCI
13 164 (1.43%) SaaS
14 161 (1.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 159 (1.38%) Amazon EC2
15 159 (1.38%) Amazon EKS
16 152 (1.32%) PaaS
17 134 (1.17%) OpenShift
18 128 (1.11%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 488 (4.24%) Firewall
2 364 (3.17%) DNS
3 233 (2.03%) Network Security
4 231 (2.01%) WAN
5 198 (1.72%) VPN
6 195 (1.70%) LAN
7 177 (1.54%) DHCP
8 145 (1.26%) BGP
9 130 (1.13%) TCP/IP
10 117 (1.02%) OSPF
11 113 (0.98%) Wi-Fi
12 107 (0.93%) VLAN
13 92 (0.80%) Wireless
14 69 (0.60%) MPLS
15 65 (0.57%) IPsec
16 64 (0.56%) SAN
17 62 (0.54%) SD-WAN
18 61 (0.53%) VSAN
19 60 (0.52%) VXLAN
20 58 (0.50%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 355 (3.09%) Power BI
2 308 (2.68%) PostgreSQL
3 282 (2.45%) SQL Server
4 276 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
5 166 (1.44%) Oracle Database
6 152 (1.32%) Metadata
7 135 (1.17%) Data Lake
8 128 (1.11%) Relational Database
9 105 (0.91%) MongoDB
10 104 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
11 99 (0.86%) Oracle Reports
12 96 (0.84%) MySQL
13 92 (0.80%) Pentaho
14 77 (0.67%) NoSQL
15 75 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
16 73 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
17 69 (0.60%) Amazon Athena
18 60 (0.52%) Big Data
18 60 (0.52%) Tableau
19 52 (0.45%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 660 (5.74%) JIRA
2 555 (4.83%) Git
3 464 (4.04%) GitLab
4 454 (3.95%) Jenkins
5 121 (1.05%) Selenium
6 85 (0.74%) SonarQube
7 83 (0.72%) JUnit
8 76 (0.66%) Postman
9 67 (0.58%) Maven
10 66 (0.57%) JMeter
11 56 (0.49%) Cucumber
12 54 (0.47%) Rational DOORS
13 48 (0.42%) Mockito
14 47 (0.41%) Visual Studio
15 43 (0.37%) Cypress.io
16 42 (0.37%) Zephyr
17 41 (0.36%) Bitbucket
18 40 (0.35%) Artifactory
19 38 (0.33%) REST Assured
20 36 (0.31%) Gradle
General
1 2,481 (21.58%) Public Sector
2 2,354 (20.48%) Social Skills
3 857 (7.45%) Analytical Skills
4 767 (6.67%) Finance
5 367 (3.19%) Military
6 289 (2.51%) Aerospace
7 281 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
8 178 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
9 175 (1.52%) Legal
10 149 (1.30%) Telecoms
11 141 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
12 129 (1.12%) Banking
13 113 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 106 (0.92%) Police
15 103 (0.90%) Manufacturing
16 101 (0.88%) Law
17 77 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
18 52 (0.45%) Aviation
19 39 (0.34%) Marketing
19 39 (0.34%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,805 (15.70%) Architect
2 1,283 (11.16%) Developer
3 1,076 (9.36%) Senior
4 971 (8.45%) Lead
5 697 (6.06%) Analyst
6 617 (5.37%) Consultant
7 530 (4.61%) Data Engineer
8 475 (4.13%) DevOps Engineer
9 398 (3.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 365 (3.18%) Technical Architect
11 352 (3.06%) Solutions Architect
12 336 (2.92%) Software Engineer
13 280 (2.44%) Security Architect
14 265 (2.31%) Network Engineer
15 233 (2.03%) Java Developer
16 226 (1.97%) Data Architect
17 224 (1.95%) Designer
18 211 (1.84%) Project Manager
19 208 (1.81%) Business Analyst
20 206 (1.79%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 419 (3.64%) REST
2 267 (2.32%) Spring
3 231 (2.01%) Spring Boot
4 226 (1.97%) .NET
5 221 (1.92%) Kafka
6 206 (1.79%) React
7 205 (1.78%) RESTful
8 186 (1.62%) Node.js
9 173 (1.50%) SOAP
10 156 (1.36%) JSON
11 140 (1.22%) AngularJS
12 129 (1.12%) Web Services
13 125 (1.09%) OAuth
14 114 (0.99%) HTML
15 106 (0.92%) Middleware
16 104 (0.90%) XML
17 102 (0.89%) PySpark
18 89 (0.77%) Playwright
19 81 (0.70%) CSS
20 80 (0.70%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 477 (4.15%) Cloud Native
2 400 (3.48%) Onboarding
3 360 (3.13%) Product Ownership
4 322 (2.80%) Data Centre
5 236 (2.05%) Management Information System
6 198 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
7 175 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
8 167 (1.45%) PKI
9 131 (1.14%) CMDB
10 128 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
11 126 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
12 116 (1.01%) Data Structures
13 108 (0.94%) Hybrid Cloud
14 105 (0.91%) Replication
15 102 (0.89%) Clustering
16 93 (0.81%) Public Cloud
17 88 (0.77%) Virtual Team
18 83 (0.72%) Security Posture
19 80 (0.70%) Security Operations Centre
20 74 (0.64%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 920 (8.00%) Windows
2 784 (6.82%) Linux
3 306 (2.66%) Windows Server
4 228 (1.98%) Unix
5 155 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 101 (0.88%) Android
7 97 (0.84%) Windows 10
8 65 (0.57%) Solaris
9 64 (0.56%) Apple iOS
10 47 (0.41%) Mac OS
11 40 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (0.31%) AIX
13 35 (0.30%) Ubuntu
14 30 (0.26%) CentOS
15 22 (0.19%) VMS
16 21 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
17 16 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
18 14 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.10%) Windows 7
20 11 (0.096%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,391 (20.80%) Agile
2 1,770 (15.40%) DevOps
3 1,671 (14.54%) CI/CD
4 1,267 (11.02%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,251 (10.88%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,211 (10.53%) Problem-Solving
7 1,040 (9.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 883 (7.68%) Infrastructure as Code
9 873 (7.59%) Migration
10 738 (6.42%) ITIL
11 735 (6.39%) Cybersecurity
12 710 (6.18%) Analytics
13 707 (6.15%) Test Automation
14 706 (6.14%) Containerisation
15 690 (6.00%) Software Engineering
16 662 (5.76%) Roadmaps
17 640 (5.57%) Decision-Making
18 626 (5.45%) Data Modelling
19 609 (5.30%) AI
20 602 (5.24%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 1,288 (11.20%) Python
2 1,120 (9.74%) SQL
3 817 (7.11%) Java
4 520 (4.52%) PowerShell
5 374 (3.25%) JavaScript
6 295 (2.57%) Bash
7 256 (2.23%) C#
8 186 (1.62%) TypeScript
9 180 (1.57%) PL/SQL
10 104 (0.90%) Bicep
11 96 (0.84%) Shell Script
12 86 (0.75%) C++
13 63 (0.55%) C
14 60 (0.52%) Apex Code
15 56 (0.49%) Kotlin
16 55 (0.48%) Ruby
17 52 (0.45%) Go
18 49 (0.43%) Scala
19 40 (0.35%) Groovy
20 36 (0.31%) R
Qualifications
1 8,783 (76.40%) SC Cleared
2 2,168 (18.86%) DV Cleared
3 443 (3.85%) Degree
4 421 (3.66%) BPSS Clearance
5 213 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
6 186 (1.62%) CISSP
7 167 (1.45%) Azure Certification
8 146 (1.27%) Microsoft Certification
9 132 (1.15%) AWS Certification
10 114 (0.99%) CISM
11 107 (0.93%) PMI Certification
12 103 (0.90%) PMP
13 95 (0.83%) CCNP
14 92 (0.80%) CCNA
15 83 (0.72%) ISTQB
16 70 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 64 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
18 50 (0.43%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 49 (0.43%) TOGAF Certification
20 48 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 443 (3.85%) QA
2 371 (3.23%) Data Quality
3 305 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 301 (2.62%) NIST
5 255 (2.22%) Accessibility
6 245 (2.13%) NCSC
7 210 (1.83%) PMO
8 180 (1.57%) GDPR
9 142 (1.24%) GRC
10 137 (1.19%) SLA
11 76 (0.66%) WCAG
12 64 (0.56%) JSP 440
13 50 (0.43%) NIST 800
14 42 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
15 32 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
16 28 (0.24%) Def Stans
16 28 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 28 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 22 (0.19%) RMADS
18 18 (0.16%) COBIT
System Software
1 787 (6.85%) Docker
2 506 (4.40%) Active Directory
3 384 (3.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 145 (1.26%) VMware NSX
5 131 (1.14%) VMware ESXi
6 109 (0.95%) vSphere
7 103 (0.90%) Hyper-V
8 81 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
9 45 (0.39%) Oracle RAC
10 37 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
11 30 (0.26%) Firmware
12 22 (0.19%) vCloud
13 20 (0.17%) BitLocker
13 20 (0.17%) NFS
14 18 (0.16%) Postfix
15 16 (0.14%) Squid
16 10 (0.087%) KVM
17 8 (0.070%) Microsoft App-V
18 7 (0.061%) UAG
19 6 (0.052%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 961 (8.36%) Terraform
2 935 (8.13%) Kubernetes
3 417 (3.63%) Ansible
4 266 (2.31%) Grafana
5 211 (1.84%) Prometheus
6 130 (1.13%) vCenter Server
7 104 (0.90%) SCCM
8 82 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
9 70 (0.61%) Argo
10 66 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
11 62 (0.54%) SCOM
12 54 (0.47%) Oracle RMAN
13 50 (0.43%) Puppet
14 44 (0.38%) FortiGate
15 38 (0.33%) Data Guard
16 30 (0.26%) Nagios
17 29 (0.25%) Progress Chef
18 25 (0.22%) Istio
18 25 (0.22%) Podman
18 25 (0.22%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 1,308 (11.38%) Microsoft
2 901 (7.84%) Oracle
3 562 (4.89%) VMware
4 554 (4.82%) ServiceNow
5 429 (3.73%) SAP
6 310 (2.70%) Cisco
7 213 (1.85%) Google
8 207 (1.80%) Splunk
9 198 (1.72%) Databricks
10 195 (1.70%) Salesforce
11 159 (1.38%) Red Hat
12 140 (1.22%) Informatica
12 140 (1.22%) Talend
13 119 (1.04%) IBM
14 113 (0.98%) Palo Alto
15 104 (0.90%) Juniper
16 97 (0.84%) F5
17 94 (0.82%) SolarWinds
18 90 (0.78%) Fortinet
19 87 (0.76%) Denodo