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

6 months to
12 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 3 4
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +6
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 7,066 6,418 7,941
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 20.08% 17.71% 17.04%
As % of the Qualifications category 60.97% 60.47% 59.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,617 4,033 4,983
10th Percentile £335 £350 £370
25th Percentile £450 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £534 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% - -2.22%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 713 340 505
10th Percentile £18.63 £20.12 £19.99
25th Percentile £19.38 £25.26 £45.88
Median hourly rate £25.15 £55.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -54.27% -8.33% -
75th Percentile £42.25 £68.04 £70.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £55.00 £57.42
% change year-on-year -54.27% -4.21% -4.31%

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 11,590 10,613 13,446
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.94% 29.29% 28.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,425 6,439 8,597
10th Percentile £300 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £421 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £636 £650
90th Percentile £716 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £520 £534
% change year-on-year -3.85% -2.62% +1.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 996 500 753
10th Percentile £17.24 £18.94 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.20 £24.18 £26.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -44.11% -15.89% +18.89%
75th Percentile £43.75 £66.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £70.58 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.71 £51.89
% change year-on-year -46.16% -9.98% +15.31%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 0 6,176 £535 -2.73% 2,336
UK excluding London 0 4,074 £525 -4.55% 1,829
London +1 2,058 £550 - 641
Work from Home +2 2,048 £540 -1.82% 1,143
South East -1 1,131 £513 -6.82% 650
South West 0 1,058 £550 -4.35% 512
North of England -1 766 £515 +8.42% 216
Midlands +1 657 £519 -9.83% 181
West Midlands 0 503 £520 -9.57% 137
North West +1 497 £543 +14.21% 140
East of England +2 275 £528 +0.57% 242
Yorkshire -3 172 £500 +11.11% 43
Scotland -13 160 £479 +6.44% 45
East Midlands +1 137 £431 -11.54% 43
North East 0 104 £475 +5.56% 34
Wales -2 77 £563 +12.50% 28
Northern Ireland 0 45 £500 -16.67% 24
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
1 248 (3.51%) Confluence
2 177 (2.50%) SharePoint
3 121 (1.71%) Microsoft Exchange
4 97 (1.37%) SAS
5 92 (1.30%) Apache
6 55 (0.78%) nginx
7 51 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
8 39 (0.55%) Skype for Business
9 33 (0.47%) Apache Spark
10 27 (0.38%) CMS
11 26 (0.37%) IIS
11 26 (0.37%) WebLogic
12 15 (0.21%) Exchange Server 2013
12 15 (0.21%) SharePoint Server
13 11 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2010
13 11 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 10 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2003
14 10 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2007
14 10 (0.14%) Office Communications Server
15 9 (0.13%) WordPress
Applications
1 185 (2.62%) Microsoft Office
2 143 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 63 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
4 39 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 35 (0.50%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
7 19 (0.27%) Siemens NX
8 18 (0.25%) Simulink
9 11 (0.16%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 11 (0.16%) Sketch
10 8 (0.11%) ProjectWise
11 7 (0.099%) Adobe XD
11 7 (0.099%) AutoCAD
12 6 (0.085%) Adobe Illustrator
12 6 (0.085%) Oracle Smart View
12 6 (0.085%) Photoshop
12 6 (0.085%) Revit
12 6 (0.085%) Trello
13 5 (0.071%) Navisworks
13 5 (0.071%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 174 (2.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
3 29 (0.41%) SAP EWM
3 29 (0.41%) SAP WM
4 27 (0.38%) Teamcenter
5 23 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
6 22 (0.31%) SAP MM
7 20 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
7 20 (0.28%) Maximo
8 19 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 18 (0.25%) Primavera
9 18 (0.25%) SAP HCM
10 16 (0.23%) Oracle General Ledger
10 16 (0.23%) SAP PS
11 14 (0.20%) SAP VC
12 12 (0.17%) SAP EHS
12 12 (0.17%) SAP QM
13 11 (0.16%) SAP PP
14 10 (0.14%) SAP HR
14 10 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 1,194 (16.90%) AWS
2 1,085 (15.36%) Azure
3 341 (4.83%) GitHub
4 323 (4.57%) Microsoft 365
5 261 (3.69%) Power Platform
6 253 (3.58%) Azure DevOps
7 232 (3.28%) GCP
8 195 (2.76%) Serverless
9 191 (2.70%) Amazon S3
10 175 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
11 157 (2.22%) Entra ID
12 143 (2.02%) SaaS
13 131 (1.85%) Amazon EC2
14 127 (1.80%) OpenShift
15 119 (1.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 119 (1.68%) AWS CloudFormation
16 112 (1.59%) AWS Lambda
17 95 (1.34%) Amazon EKS
18 89 (1.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 80 (1.13%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 363 (5.14%) Firewall
2 267 (3.78%) DNS
3 178 (2.52%) VPN
4 154 (2.18%) Network Security
5 137 (1.94%) WAN
6 103 (1.46%) TCP/IP
7 96 (1.36%) BGP
8 95 (1.34%) LAN
9 93 (1.32%) DHCP
10 87 (1.23%) Wireless
11 85 (1.20%) SSL
12 71 (1.00%) SAN
13 61 (0.86%) MPLS
14 59 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
15 58 (0.82%) VLAN
16 55 (0.78%) Cisco ISE
17 53 (0.75%) IPsec
18 48 (0.68%) HTTP
19 43 (0.61%) SMTP
20 42 (0.59%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 225 (3.18%) PostgreSQL
2 172 (2.43%) Power BI
3 100 (1.42%) Amazon RDS
4 99 (1.40%) SQL Server
5 92 (1.30%) MongoDB
6 90 (1.27%) Oracle Database
7 80 (1.13%) Data Warehouse
8 75 (1.06%) Relational Database
9 71 (1.00%) NoSQL
10 66 (0.93%) Metadata
11 46 (0.65%) MySQL
12 45 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
12 45 (0.64%) Big Data
13 42 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
14 39 (0.55%) Pentaho
15 37 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
15 37 (0.52%) Data Lake
15 37 (0.52%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 33 (0.47%) Amazon Athena
17 31 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 463 (6.55%) JIRA
2 389 (5.51%) Git
3 385 (5.45%) Jenkins
4 277 (3.92%) GitLab
5 89 (1.26%) Selenium
6 74 (1.05%) SonarQube
7 69 (0.98%) JUnit
8 62 (0.88%) Cypress.io
9 53 (0.75%) Postman
10 49 (0.69%) Bitbucket
11 44 (0.62%) Oracle APEX
12 42 (0.59%) Maven
13 41 (0.58%) Mockito
14 37 (0.52%) Cucumber
15 36 (0.51%) Artifactory
16 31 (0.44%) CircleCI
16 31 (0.44%) REST Assured
17 27 (0.38%) JMeter
18 24 (0.34%) Rational DOORS
18 24 (0.34%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,928 (27.29%) Public Sector
2 1,775 (25.12%) Social Skills
3 604 (8.55%) Analytical Skills
4 505 (7.15%) Finance
5 247 (3.50%) Military
6 229 (3.24%) Telecoms
7 219 (3.10%) Manufacturing
8 174 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
9 166 (2.35%) Electronics
10 151 (2.14%) Marketing
11 129 (1.83%) Aerospace
12 99 (1.40%) Organisational Skills
13 93 (1.32%) Legal
14 88 (1.25%) Banking
15 80 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
16 72 (1.02%) Law
17 70 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
18 51 (0.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 40 (0.57%) Aviation
20 38 (0.54%) Police
Job Titles
1 894 (12.65%) Architect
2 720 (10.19%) Developer
3 674 (9.54%) Consultant
4 541 (7.66%) Senior
5 471 (6.67%) Analyst
6 446 (6.31%) Lead
7 312 (4.42%) DevOps Engineer
8 242 (3.42%) Support Engineer
9 197 (2.79%) Network Engineer
10 191 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
11 163 (2.31%) SAP Consultant
12 160 (2.26%) Data Engineer
13 139 (1.97%) AWS Engineer
14 129 (1.83%) Technical Architect
15 125 (1.77%) Administrator
16 124 (1.75%) IT Engineer
17 121 (1.71%) Platform Engineer
17 121 (1.71%) Security Engineer
18 120 (1.70%) Security Architect
19 118 (1.67%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 272 (3.85%) REST
2 184 (2.60%) Node.js
3 181 (2.56%) React
4 152 (2.15%) Kafka
5 149 (2.11%) JSON
6 134 (1.90%) SOAP
7 123 (1.74%) HTML
8 118 (1.67%) Spring
9 116 (1.64%) XML
10 104 (1.47%) RESTful
11 101 (1.43%) CSS
12 100 (1.42%) Web Services
13 98 (1.39%) AngularJS
14 94 (1.33%) Spring Boot
15 88 (1.25%) .NET
16 70 (0.99%) OAuth
17 68 (0.96%) LDAP
18 61 (0.86%) Elastic Stack
19 54 (0.76%) SAML
20 51 (0.72%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 217 (3.07%) Onboarding
2 204 (2.89%) Data Centre
3 172 (2.43%) PKI
4 161 (2.28%) Management Information System
5 153 (2.17%) Cloud Native
6 126 (1.78%) Product Ownership
7 111 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
8 90 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
9 82 (1.16%) Security Operations Centre
10 81 (1.15%) Cyber Threat
10 81 (1.15%) Driving Licence
11 66 (0.93%) Replication
12 65 (0.92%) Enterprise Software
13 64 (0.91%) CMDB
14 62 (0.88%) Security Posture
15 59 (0.83%) Private Cloud
16 57 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
17 53 (0.75%) Analytical Mindset
18 47 (0.67%) Public Cloud
19 43 (0.61%) CSOC
Operating Systems
1 783 (11.08%) Windows
2 539 (7.63%) Linux
3 195 (2.76%) Windows Server
4 175 (2.48%) Windows 10
5 107 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 92 (1.30%) Unix
7 84 (1.19%) Android
8 81 (1.15%) Mac OS
9 49 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
10 44 (0.62%) VMS
11 38 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
12 30 (0.42%) Apple iOS
12 30 (0.42%) Ubuntu
13 28 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
14 26 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
15 22 (0.31%) CentOS
15 22 (0.31%) Windows 7
16 20 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
17 15 (0.21%) Mac OS X
18 9 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,370 (19.39%) Agile
2 1,079 (15.27%) DevOps
3 959 (13.57%) CI/CD
4 834 (11.80%) Problem-Solving
5 739 (10.46%) Migration
6 550 (7.78%) Stakeholder Management
7 497 (7.03%) Cybersecurity
8 459 (6.50%) Infrastructure as Code
8 459 (6.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 426 (6.03%) ITIL
10 420 (5.94%) Continuous Improvement
11 406 (5.75%) Workflow
12 397 (5.62%) Business Intelligence
13 390 (5.52%) Service Management
14 388 (5.49%) Test Automation
15 365 (5.17%) Containerisation
16 341 (4.83%) Analytics
17 338 (4.78%) Scrum
18 321 (4.54%) Microservices
19 319 (4.51%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 878 (12.43%) Python
2 538 (7.61%) SQL
3 475 (6.72%) PowerShell
4 454 (6.43%) Java
5 371 (5.25%) JavaScript
6 240 (3.40%) Bash
7 186 (2.63%) TypeScript
8 126 (1.78%) C#
9 95 (1.34%) C++
10 78 (1.10%) Go
11 69 (0.98%) PL/SQL
12 68 (0.96%) C
12 68 (0.96%) Shell Script
13 48 (0.68%) Perl
14 47 (0.67%) ABAP
15 35 (0.50%) Groovy
16 31 (0.44%) MATLAB
17 30 (0.42%) Ruby
18 29 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
19 27 (0.38%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 5,461 (77.29%) SC Cleared
2 1,127 (15.95%) DV Cleared
3 343 (4.85%) BPSS Clearance
4 328 (4.64%) Degree
5 138 (1.95%) CISSP
6 130 (1.84%) Microsoft Certification
7 111 (1.57%) Cisco Certification
8 103 (1.46%) Azure Certification
9 94 (1.33%) AWS Certification
10 84 (1.19%) CCNP
11 77 (1.09%) CISM
12 52 (0.74%) Computer Science Degree
13 45 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
14 43 (0.61%) CCNA
15 42 (0.59%) CEH
15 42 (0.59%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 38 (0.54%) CHECK Team Member
17 37 (0.52%) CTC Cleared
18 33 (0.47%) OSCP
19 32 (0.45%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 230 (3.26%) QA
2 212 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 207 (2.93%) NIST
4 163 (2.31%) NCSC
5 146 (2.07%) SLA
6 136 (1.92%) Accessibility
7 126 (1.78%) Data Quality
8 122 (1.73%) GDPR
9 50 (0.71%) JSP 440
10 48 (0.68%) WCAG
11 45 (0.64%) PMO
12 44 (0.62%) NIST 800
13 33 (0.47%) GRC
14 31 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 30 (0.42%) Def Stans
16 29 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
17 24 (0.34%) RMADS
18 22 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
19 21 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
20 18 (0.25%) COBIT
System Software
1 555 (7.85%) Docker
2 402 (5.69%) Active Directory
3 211 (2.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 77 (1.09%) vSphere
5 71 (1.00%) VMware ESXi
6 66 (0.93%) VMware NSX
7 46 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
8 44 (0.62%) Firmware
9 42 (0.59%) Hyper-V
10 28 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
11 21 (0.30%) DFS Replication
12 18 (0.25%) Postfix
13 16 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 16 (0.23%) NFS
13 16 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
14 15 (0.21%) Dovecot
15 11 (0.16%) Squid
16 10 (0.14%) BitLocker
16 10 (0.14%) Brightmail
16 10 (0.14%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 660 (9.34%) Kubernetes
2 639 (9.04%) Terraform
3 298 (4.22%) Ansible
4 178 (2.52%) Grafana
5 156 (2.21%) Prometheus
6 116 (1.64%) SCCM
7 87 (1.23%) Single Sign-On
8 83 (1.17%) Microsoft Intune
9 60 (0.85%) vCenter Server
10 56 (0.79%) Argo
11 50 (0.71%) Packer
12 48 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 37 (0.52%) Kibana
14 31 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
15 28 (0.40%) WSUS
16 25 (0.35%) FortiGate
16 25 (0.35%) SCOM
16 25 (0.35%) vRealize
17 24 (0.34%) Consul
18 23 (0.33%) Nessus
Vendors
1 911 (12.89%) Microsoft
2 518 (7.33%) SAP
3 429 (6.07%) Cisco
4 379 (5.36%) Oracle
5 368 (5.21%) VMware
6 305 (4.32%) ServiceNow
7 203 (2.87%) Splunk
8 155 (2.19%) Juniper
9 135 (1.91%) Red Hat
10 111 (1.57%) Salesforce
11 110 (1.56%) Google
12 97 (1.37%) Palo Alto
13 93 (1.32%) Dell
13 93 (1.32%) HP
14 85 (1.20%) IBM
15 82 (1.16%) CyberArk
16 78 (1.10%) Atlassian
17 76 (1.08%) SolarWinds
18 71 (1.00%) F5
19 68 (0.96%) Apple