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

6 months to
24 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 7,304 6,529 8,008
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 20.54% 17.84% 17.31%
As % of the Qualifications category 61.74% 60.53% 59.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,797 4,078 5,028
10th Percentile £335 £350 £371
25th Percentile £450 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -1.43%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £716 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 738 354 516
10th Percentile £18.87 £20.12 £19.99
25th Percentile £19.38 £25.26 £46.14
Median hourly rate £25.15 £54.76 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -54.07% -8.74% -
75th Percentile £49.69 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £55.00 £59.68
% change year-on-year -54.27% -7.84% -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 11,831 10,786 13,540
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.28% 29.48% 29.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,615 6,504 8,581
10th Percentile £303 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £523 £538
% change year-on-year -4.31% -2.79% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,025 523 770
10th Percentile £17.50 £18.75 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.18 £27.13
Median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £53.58
Median % change year-on-year -44.11% -16.02% +19.07%
75th Percentile £45.46 £67.14 £68.73
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.71 £52.50
% change year-on-year -46.16% -11.02% +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 24 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 24 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 24 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 6,387 £528 -4.00% 1,905
UK excluding London 0 4,229 £525 -4.55% 1,742
London +1 2,101 £550 +1.85% 401
Work from Home +2 2,067 £538 -0.46% 912
South East -1 1,217 £515 -8.04% 733
South West 0 1,101 £550 -4.35% 474
North of England -1 756 £515 +8.42% 127
Midlands +1 686 £519 -9.83% 166
West Midlands 0 531 £525 -8.70% 140
North West +1 496 £536 +8.72% 97
East of England +2 290 £513 - 254
Yorkshire -10 164 £500 +6.38% 20
Scotland -11 156 £483 +1.68% 45
East Midlands +2 140 £431 -15.44% 24
North East 0 104 £475 +4.63% 12
Wales -2 79 £550 +10.00% 33
Northern Ireland +1 41 £500 -16.67% 22
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
1 270 (3.70%) Confluence
2 185 (2.53%) SharePoint
3 122 (1.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 103 (1.41%) SAS
5 88 (1.20%) Apache
6 52 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
6 52 (0.71%) nginx
7 39 (0.53%) Apache Spark
7 39 (0.53%) Skype for Business
8 28 (0.38%) CMS
9 25 (0.34%) WebLogic
10 21 (0.29%) IIS
11 15 (0.21%) SharePoint Server
12 14 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2013
13 13 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2010
14 11 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 10 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2003
15 10 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2007
15 10 (0.14%) Office Communications Server
16 9 (0.12%) Documentum
Applications
1 209 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
2 151 (2.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 81 (1.11%) Microsoft Project
4 40 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 36 (0.49%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
7 20 (0.27%) Simulink
8 15 (0.21%) Siemens NX
9 11 (0.15%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 10 (0.14%) Sketch
11 8 (0.11%) ProjectWise
12 7 (0.096%) Adobe XD
13 6 (0.082%) Adobe Illustrator
13 6 (0.082%) Oracle Smart View
13 6 (0.082%) Photoshop
13 6 (0.082%) Trello
14 5 (0.068%) AutoCAD
14 5 (0.068%) FrameMaker
14 5 (0.068%) Stateflow
14 5 (0.068%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 176 (2.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
3 29 (0.40%) SAP EWM
3 29 (0.40%) SAP WM
4 27 (0.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 22 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
5 22 (0.30%) SAP MM
6 21 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
7 19 (0.26%) Primavera
7 19 (0.26%) Teamcenter
8 17 (0.23%) SAP HCM
9 16 (0.22%) Maximo
10 14 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
10 14 (0.19%) SAP VC
11 13 (0.18%) SAP PS
12 12 (0.16%) SAP EHS
12 12 (0.16%) SAP PP
12 12 (0.16%) SAP QM
13 10 (0.14%) SAP HR
13 10 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 1,222 (16.73%) AWS
2 1,147 (15.70%) Azure
3 352 (4.82%) GitHub
4 331 (4.53%) Microsoft 365
5 270 (3.70%) Power Platform
6 265 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
7 248 (3.40%) GCP
8 211 (2.89%) Serverless
9 189 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
10 188 (2.57%) Amazon S3
11 154 (2.11%) Entra ID
12 142 (1.94%) SaaS
13 130 (1.78%) OpenShift
14 126 (1.73%) AWS CloudFormation
15 122 (1.67%) Amazon EC2
16 121 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
17 120 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 99 (1.36%) Amazon EKS
19 89 (1.22%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 83 (1.14%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 370 (5.07%) Firewall
2 262 (3.59%) DNS
3 180 (2.46%) VPN
4 159 (2.18%) Network Security
5 136 (1.86%) WAN
6 108 (1.48%) TCP/IP
7 97 (1.33%) BGP
7 97 (1.33%) DHCP
8 96 (1.31%) LAN
9 93 (1.27%) Wireless
10 78 (1.07%) SSL
11 67 (0.92%) SAN
12 64 (0.88%) MPLS
13 62 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
14 56 (0.77%) VLAN
15 55 (0.75%) Cisco ISE
15 55 (0.75%) IPsec
16 50 (0.68%) HTTP
17 45 (0.62%) SMTP
18 42 (0.58%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 221 (3.03%) PostgreSQL
2 180 (2.46%) Power BI
3 96 (1.31%) Amazon RDS
4 93 (1.27%) SQL Server
5 89 (1.22%) Oracle Database
6 87 (1.19%) MongoDB
7 82 (1.12%) Data Warehouse
8 81 (1.11%) Relational Database
9 74 (1.01%) Metadata
10 71 (0.97%) NoSQL
11 52 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
12 46 (0.63%) Big Data
13 42 (0.58%) Pentaho
14 41 (0.56%) Elasticsearch
15 39 (0.53%) Data Lake
15 39 (0.53%) MySQL
16 38 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
17 37 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
17 37 (0.51%) SAS Enterprise Guide
18 31 (0.42%) Redis
Development Applications
1 494 (6.76%) JIRA
2 398 (5.45%) Git
3 387 (5.30%) Jenkins
4 282 (3.86%) GitLab
5 84 (1.15%) Selenium
6 66 (0.90%) JUnit
7 63 (0.86%) SonarQube
8 58 (0.79%) Cypress.io
9 53 (0.73%) Postman
10 49 (0.67%) Bitbucket
11 46 (0.63%) Oracle APEX
12 39 (0.53%) Mockito
13 36 (0.49%) Artifactory
14 34 (0.47%) Maven
15 33 (0.45%) Cucumber
16 31 (0.42%) CircleCI
17 24 (0.33%) REST Assured
17 24 (0.33%) Visual Studio
18 23 (0.31%) Vagrant
19 22 (0.30%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,968 (26.94%) Public Sector
2 1,865 (25.53%) Social Skills
3 661 (9.05%) Analytical Skills
4 517 (7.08%) Finance
5 262 (3.59%) Military
6 228 (3.12%) Telecoms
7 213 (2.92%) Manufacturing
8 183 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
9 162 (2.22%) Electronics
10 146 (2.00%) Marketing
11 135 (1.85%) Aerospace
12 109 (1.49%) Legal
13 104 (1.42%) Organisational Skills
14 96 (1.31%) Banking
15 89 (1.22%) Influencing Skills
16 80 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
17 70 (0.96%) Law
18 50 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 43 (0.59%) Police
20 40 (0.55%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 960 (13.14%) Architect
2 746 (10.21%) Developer
3 662 (9.06%) Consultant
4 568 (7.78%) Senior
5 484 (6.63%) Analyst
6 446 (6.11%) Lead
7 319 (4.37%) DevOps Engineer
8 250 (3.42%) Support Engineer
9 206 (2.82%) Network Engineer
10 200 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
11 167 (2.29%) SAP Consultant
12 165 (2.26%) Data Engineer
13 147 (2.01%) AWS Engineer
14 146 (2.00%) Technical Architect
15 135 (1.85%) Platform Engineer
16 132 (1.81%) IT Engineer
17 127 (1.74%) Administrator
18 125 (1.71%) Business Analyst
18 125 (1.71%) Software Engineer
19 120 (1.64%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 276 (3.78%) REST
2 185 (2.53%) Node.js
3 180 (2.46%) React
4 163 (2.23%) Kafka
5 152 (2.08%) JSON
6 133 (1.82%) SOAP
7 122 (1.67%) Spring
8 119 (1.63%) HTML
9 110 (1.51%) XML
10 104 (1.42%) RESTful
11 101 (1.38%) AngularJS
12 99 (1.36%) CSS
12 99 (1.36%) Spring Boot
13 98 (1.34%) .NET
14 97 (1.33%) Web Services
15 77 (1.05%) OAuth
16 69 (0.94%) LDAP
17 63 (0.86%) Elastic Stack
18 57 (0.78%) SAML
19 56 (0.77%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 213 (2.92%) Data Centre
2 207 (2.83%) Onboarding
3 185 (2.53%) PKI
4 184 (2.52%) Cloud Native
5 154 (2.11%) Management Information System
6 149 (2.04%) Product Ownership
7 110 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
8 99 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
9 83 (1.14%) Driving Licence
10 78 (1.07%) Cyber Threat
11 72 (0.99%) Security Operations Centre
12 70 (0.96%) Replication
13 66 (0.90%) Enterprise Software
14 63 (0.86%) CMDB
15 62 (0.85%) Security Posture
16 60 (0.82%) Hybrid Cloud
17 57 (0.78%) Private Cloud
18 56 (0.77%) Analytical Mindset
19 51 (0.70%) Public Cloud
20 45 (0.62%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 801 (10.97%) Windows
2 551 (7.54%) Linux
3 190 (2.60%) Windows Server
4 178 (2.44%) Windows 10
5 109 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 91 (1.25%) Android
6 91 (1.25%) Unix
7 85 (1.16%) Mac OS
8 52 (0.71%) VMS
9 34 (0.47%) Ubuntu
9 34 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
10 30 (0.41%) Apple iOS
11 28 (0.38%) Amazon Linux
12 25 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
12 25 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
13 24 (0.33%) Windows 7
14 22 (0.30%) CentOS
15 18 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
16 16 (0.22%) Mac OS X
17 9 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,428 (19.55%) Agile
2 1,109 (15.18%) DevOps
3 1,001 (13.70%) CI/CD
4 870 (11.91%) Problem-Solving
5 770 (10.54%) Migration
6 572 (7.83%) Stakeholder Management
7 509 (6.97%) Cybersecurity
8 492 (6.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 485 (6.64%) Infrastructure as Code
10 461 (6.31%) ITIL
11 459 (6.28%) Continuous Improvement
12 410 (5.61%) Workflow
13 408 (5.59%) Business Intelligence
14 407 (5.57%) Service Management
15 403 (5.52%) Test Automation
16 395 (5.41%) Containerisation
17 368 (5.04%) Analytics
18 348 (4.76%) Scrum
19 344 (4.71%) Roadmaps
20 328 (4.49%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 906 (12.40%) Python
2 549 (7.52%) SQL
3 469 (6.42%) PowerShell
4 459 (6.28%) Java
5 375 (5.13%) JavaScript
6 233 (3.19%) Bash
7 198 (2.71%) TypeScript
8 137 (1.88%) C#
9 98 (1.34%) C++
10 80 (1.10%) Go
11 73 (1.00%) PL/SQL
12 70 (0.96%) C
13 69 (0.94%) Shell Script
14 47 (0.64%) ABAP
15 43 (0.59%) Perl
16 35 (0.48%) Groovy
17 34 (0.47%) Ruby
18 33 (0.45%) MATLAB
19 31 (0.42%) Bicep
20 29 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 5,626 (77.03%) SC Cleared
2 1,187 (16.25%) DV Cleared
3 350 (4.79%) Degree
4 342 (4.68%) BPSS Clearance
5 143 (1.96%) CISSP
6 129 (1.77%) Microsoft Certification
7 118 (1.62%) Cisco Certification
8 116 (1.59%) Azure Certification
9 110 (1.51%) AWS Certification
10 86 (1.18%) CCNP
11 83 (1.14%) CISM
12 57 (0.78%) Computer Science Degree
12 57 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
13 47 (0.64%) CCNA
14 43 (0.59%) CEH
14 43 (0.59%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 38 (0.52%) CTC Cleared
16 35 (0.48%) TOGAF Certification
17 34 (0.47%) CHECK Team Member
18 32 (0.44%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 229 (3.14%) QA
2 215 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 214 (2.93%) NIST
4 162 (2.22%) NCSC
5 138 (1.89%) SLA
6 133 (1.82%) Accessibility
7 132 (1.81%) Data Quality
8 130 (1.78%) GDPR
9 55 (0.75%) PMO
10 53 (0.73%) JSP 440
11 46 (0.63%) WCAG
12 45 (0.62%) NIST 800
13 36 (0.49%) GRC
14 31 (0.42%) Def Stans
14 31 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 29 (0.40%) COBIT
16 24 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
17 23 (0.31%) RMADS
18 21 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 18 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 571 (7.82%) Docker
2 411 (5.63%) Active Directory
3 221 (3.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 75 (1.03%) vSphere
5 74 (1.01%) VMware NSX
6 68 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
7 51 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
8 46 (0.63%) Firmware
9 39 (0.53%) Hyper-V
10 26 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
11 21 (0.29%) DFS Replication
12 19 (0.26%) Postfix
13 15 (0.21%) Dovecot
13 15 (0.21%) NFS
14 11 (0.15%) Squid
14 11 (0.15%) Terminal Services
15 10 (0.14%) BitLocker
15 10 (0.14%) Brightmail
15 10 (0.14%) ISA Server
16 7 (0.096%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 695 (9.52%) Kubernetes
2 673 (9.21%) Terraform
3 286 (3.92%) Ansible
4 183 (2.51%) Grafana
5 156 (2.14%) Prometheus
6 112 (1.53%) SCCM
7 97 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
8 82 (1.12%) Microsoft Intune
9 64 (0.88%) vCenter Server
10 59 (0.81%) Argo
11 52 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 49 (0.67%) Packer
13 37 (0.51%) Kibana
14 34 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
15 28 (0.38%) vRealize
16 27 (0.37%) FortiGate
17 25 (0.34%) SCOM
18 23 (0.31%) Nessus
19 22 (0.30%) Consul
20 21 (0.29%) Podman
Vendors
1 920 (12.60%) Microsoft
2 518 (7.09%) SAP
3 444 (6.08%) Cisco
4 382 (5.23%) Oracle
5 379 (5.19%) VMware
6 338 (4.63%) ServiceNow
7 185 (2.53%) Splunk
8 155 (2.12%) Juniper
9 138 (1.89%) Red Hat
10 122 (1.67%) Google
11 111 (1.52%) Salesforce
12 99 (1.36%) Palo Alto
13 98 (1.34%) Atlassian
13 98 (1.34%) Dell
14 97 (1.33%) HP
15 82 (1.12%) CyberArk
16 77 (1.05%) IBM
17 74 (1.01%) SolarWinds
18 73 (1.00%) Remedy
19 72 (0.99%) Apple