Security Cleared Job Trends in Northern Ireland

Security Clearance
UK > Northern Ireland

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in Northern Ireland with a requirement for Security Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 13 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 25 24
Rank change year-on-year -61 -1 +12
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 21 11 35
As % of all permanent jobs in Northern Ireland 1.61% 3.64% 6.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 8.54% 18.03% 21.74%
Number of salaries quoted 19 9 19
10th Percentile £33,165 £68,902 £46,713
25th Percentile £38,750 £70,000 £52,700
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £75,000 £58,800
Median % change year-on-year -13.33% +27.55% -8.13%
75th Percentile £78,312 £93,750 £62,200
90th Percentile - £95,000 £71,685
UK median annual salary £70,000 £62,500 £58,800
% change year-on-year +12.00% +6.29% -2.00%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
Northern Ireland

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 permanent job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in Northern Ireland.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 246 61 161
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Northern Ireland 18.88% 20.20% 29.54%
Number of salaries quoted 36 22 81
10th Percentile £24,000 £32,750 £27,500
25th Percentile £32,743 £53,438 £32,996
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £43,750 £67,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -35.19% +50.00% -10.00%
75th Percentile £68,237 £76,690 £60,000
90th Percentile £78,312 £93,750 £69,800
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%

Security Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in Northern Ireland

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Security Cleared relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in Northern Ireland.

Security Cleared job vacancy trend in Northern Ireland

Security Cleared
Salary Trend in Northern Ireland

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Northern Ireland citing Security Cleared.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Northern Ireland citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Salary Histogram in Northern Ireland

Salary distribution for jobs citing Security Cleared in Northern Ireland over the 6 months to 13 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Security Cleared in Northern Ireland

Security Cleared
Job Locations in Northern Ireland

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Security Cleared within the Northern Ireland region over the 6 months to 13 August 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
County Antrim -35 21 £65,000 -13.33% 18
Security Cleared
UK

Security Cleared
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Northern Ireland 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 3 (14.29%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 8 (38.10%) AWS
2 7 (33.33%) Azure
2 7 (33.33%) dbt
3 3 (14.29%) Azure Sentinel
4 2 (9.52%) AWS CloudFormation
4 2 (9.52%) GCP
4 2 (9.52%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (4.76%) Amazon ECR
5 1 (4.76%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (4.76%) Amazon ElastiCache
5 1 (4.76%) Amazon OpenSearch
5 1 (4.76%) Anthropic Claude
5 1 (4.76%) AWS CodeBuild
5 1 (4.76%) Cloud Computing
5 1 (4.76%) Google Gemini
5 1 (4.76%) OCI
5 1 (4.76%) PaaS
5 1 (4.76%) Pulumi
5 1 (4.76%) Sentry
Communications & Networking
1 4 (19.05%) Firewall
2 3 (14.29%) TCP/IP
3 1 (4.76%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.76%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (4.76%) Elasticsearch
1 1 (4.76%) PostgreSQL
1 1 (4.76%) Redis
General
1 15 (71.43%) Social Skills
2 9 (42.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 5 (23.81%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (14.29%) Public Sector
5 2 (9.52%) Law
6 1 (4.76%) Finance
Job Titles
1 7 (33.33%) Architect
2 5 (23.81%) Senior
3 3 (14.29%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
3 3 (14.29%) Consultant
3 3 (14.29%) Cybersecurity Consultant
3 3 (14.29%) Incident Manager
3 3 (14.29%) Major Incident Manager
3 3 (14.29%) Network Engineer
3 3 (14.29%) Security Consultant
3 3 (14.29%) Security Incident Consultant
3 3 (14.29%) Senior Incident Manager
3 3 (14.29%) Senior Manager
3 3 (14.29%) Technical Architect
4 2 (9.52%) Cloud Architect
4 2 (9.52%) ERP Architect
4 2 (9.52%) Network Operations Engineer
4 2 (9.52%) NOC Engineer
4 2 (9.52%) Operations Engineer
4 2 (9.52%) SOC Consultant
4 2 (9.52%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (4.76%) Django
1 1 (4.76%) PyTorch
1 1 (4.76%) scikit-learn
1 1 (4.76%) TensorFlow
1 1 (4.76%) XGBoost
Miscellaneous
1 2 (9.52%) Analytical Mindset
2 1 (4.76%) AI Agents
2 1 (4.76%) Cloud Native
2 1 (4.76%) Distributed Systems
2 1 (4.76%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 6 (28.57%) Linux
2 4 (19.05%) Windows
3 2 (9.52%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (42.86%) Cybersecurity
1 9 (42.86%) Open Source
1 9 (42.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
2 7 (33.33%) Continuous Improvement
2 7 (33.33%) Technical Architecture
3 6 (28.57%) Agile
4 5 (23.81%) AI
4 5 (23.81%) Incident Response
4 5 (23.81%) Migration
4 5 (23.81%) Problem-Solving
5 4 (19.05%) Incident Management
5 4 (19.05%) ITIL
5 4 (19.05%) LLM
5 4 (19.05%) Mentoring
5 4 (19.05%) Prototyping
6 3 (14.29%) Data Protection
6 3 (14.29%) Digital Forensics
6 3 (14.29%) ITSM
6 3 (14.29%) Problem Management
6 3 (14.29%) Rapid Prototyping
Programming Languages
1 4 (19.05%) Python
2 1 (4.76%) Bash
2 1 (4.76%) Java
2 1 (4.76%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 14 (66.67%) SC Cleared
2 3 (14.29%) AWS Certification
2 3 (14.29%) Azure Certification
2 3 (14.29%) CompTIA CySA+
2 3 (14.29%) GCFA
2 3 (14.29%) GCIA
2 3 (14.29%) GCIH
3 1 (4.76%) CCNP
3 1 (4.76%) CEH
3 1 (4.76%) Cisco Certification
3 1 (4.76%) CompTIA Security+
3 1 (4.76%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (4.76%) Degree
3 1 (4.76%) ECIH
3 1 (4.76%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (9.52%) SLA
2 1 (4.76%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 3 (14.29%) Active Directory
2 1 (4.76%) Docker
2 1 (4.76%) Hyper-V
2 1 (4.76%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 3 (14.29%) QRadar
2 2 (9.52%) Terraform
3 1 (4.76%) AWS Copilot
Vendors
1 7 (33.33%) Microsoft
2 3 (14.29%) CrowdStrike
2 3 (14.29%) OpenAI
2 3 (14.29%) Splunk
3 2 (9.52%) Google
4 1 (4.76%) Cisco
4 1 (4.76%) Oracle
4 1 (4.76%) VMware
4 1 (4.76%) Workday