Security Cleared Job Trends in the South East

Security Clearance
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in the South East with a requirement for Security Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 2 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 12 11
Rank change year-on-year -11 -1 +6
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 918 807 1,875
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 5.99% 9.87% 10.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 28.19% 22.28% 32.73%
Number of salaries quoted 681 510 1,370
10th Percentile £41,110 £38,500 £35,000
25th Percentile £52,625 £47,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% +9.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £85,000 £78,750 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £87,500 £83,750
England median annual salary £68,076 £62,500 £57,500
% change year-on-year +8.92% +8.70% -4.17%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
South East

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 the South East.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 3,257 3,622 5,728
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 21.25% 44.29% 31.83%
Number of salaries quoted 1,888 1,573 3,614
10th Percentile £30,250 £31,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,574 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £52,500 £51,000
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% +2.94% -2.16%
75th Percentile £75,000 £69,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £89,650 £81,850 £82,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% +1.85% -10.00%

Security Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Security Cleared job vacancy trend in the South East

Security Cleared
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Security Cleared.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing Security Cleared in the South East over the 6 months to 2 July 2026.

Salary histogram for Security Cleared in the South East

Security Cleared
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Security Cleared within the South East region over the 6 months to 2 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Hampshire -4 441 £75,000 +21.95% 295
Thames Valley +27 316 £67,500 +17.22% 160
Berkshire +17 215 £67,500 +9.76% 102
Surrey -4 85 £62,500 +38.89% 50
Buckinghamshire +34 81 £52,500 - 35
West Sussex -1 30 £35,000 -6.67% 12
Kent -26 23 £52,500 -8.70% 14
Oxfordshire -16 20 £82,500 +59.42% 28
Sussex +2 13 £85,000 +65.85% 3
East Sussex -11 4 £70,000 +40.00% 1
Middlesex +42 2 £65,000 - 2
Home Counties -2 1 - -
Security Cleared
England

Security Cleared
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 24 (2.61%) SharePoint
2 7 (0.76%) SAS
3 6 (0.65%) Confluence
4 5 (0.54%) Apache
5 4 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.22%) IIS
7 1 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.11%) Apache Qpid
7 1 (0.11%) nginx
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 23 (2.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (2.18%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.42%) Simulink
4 2 (0.22%) Lectora
5 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.11%) Primavera
1 1 (0.11%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.11%) SAP MDG
1 1 (0.11%) SAP MM
1 1 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
1 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 133 (14.49%) Azure
2 76 (8.28%) AWS
3 51 (5.56%) Microsoft 365
4 38 (4.14%) GCP
5 21 (2.29%) Entra ID
5 21 (2.29%) Serverless
6 20 (2.18%) Power Platform
7 16 (1.74%) Amazon EKS
7 16 (1.74%) Azure DevOps
8 15 (1.63%) OpenShift
9 13 (1.42%) PowerApps
10 12 (1.31%) Azure AKS
10 12 (1.31%) GitHub
11 11 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
12 10 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
13 9 (0.98%) Azure Sentinel
13 9 (0.98%) Azure Stack
14 7 (0.76%) AWS Lambda
15 6 (0.65%) Amazon S3
15 6 (0.65%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 89 (9.69%) Firewall
2 62 (6.75%) DNS
3 51 (5.56%) WAN
4 39 (4.25%) LAN
5 36 (3.92%) VPN
6 29 (3.16%) TCP/IP
7 25 (2.72%) BGP
8 17 (1.85%) HTTP
9 16 (1.74%) Network Security
10 15 (1.63%) Structured Cabling
11 12 (1.31%) OSPF
12 11 (1.20%) DHCP
12 11 (1.20%) MQTT
12 11 (1.20%) NetScaler
13 10 (1.09%) ATM
13 10 (1.09%) MPLS
13 10 (1.09%) SSL
14 9 (0.98%) Cisco Firepower
14 9 (0.98%) SAN
14 9 (0.98%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (2.07%) Power BI
3 12 (1.31%) Relational Database
4 11 (1.20%) SQL Server
5 7 (0.76%) MySQL
6 5 (0.54%) Oracle Database
6 5 (0.54%) Redis
7 4 (0.44%) GIS
8 3 (0.33%) Elasticsearch
8 3 (0.33%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.22%) Metadata
9 2 (0.22%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.22%) Oracle Database 11g
9 2 (0.22%) Oracle Database 12c
10 1 (0.11%) Big Data
10 1 (0.11%) Data Lake
10 1 (0.11%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.11%) Geospatial Data
10 1 (0.11%) SAS Visual Analytics
10 1 (0.11%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 63 (6.86%) Git
2 54 (5.88%) GitLab
3 23 (2.51%) Jenkins
4 20 (2.18%) JIRA
5 15 (1.63%) Visual Studio Code
6 11 (1.20%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.65%) Artifactory
7 6 (0.65%) JUnit
8 5 (0.54%) Cucumber
8 5 (0.54%) Selenium
9 4 (0.44%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 4 (0.44%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.33%) Android Studio
10 3 (0.33%) JMeter
10 3 (0.33%) Rational DOORS
11 2 (0.22%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.22%) Mockito
11 2 (0.22%) MSTest
11 2 (0.22%) Subversion
12 1 (0.11%) Mocha
General
1 187 (20.37%) Social Skills
2 89 (9.69%) Finance
3 82 (8.93%) Public Sector
4 65 (7.08%) Analytical Skills
5 40 (4.36%) Electronics
6 33 (3.59%) Aerospace
7 28 (3.05%) Military
8 23 (2.51%) Aviation
9 22 (2.40%) Telecoms
10 21 (2.29%) Manufacturing
10 21 (2.29%) Organisational Skills
11 17 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
12 15 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 13 (1.42%) Law
14 12 (1.31%) Banking
14 12 (1.31%) Games
15 10 (1.09%) Aeronautics
16 8 (0.87%) Advertising
16 8 (0.87%) Influencing Skills
17 6 (0.65%) Retail
Job Titles
1 143 (15.58%) Senior
2 123 (13.40%) Architect
3 96 (10.46%) Software Engineer
4 67 (7.30%) Developer
5 64 (6.97%) Analyst
6 48 (5.23%) Lead
7 47 (5.12%) Security Architect
8 39 (4.25%) Network Engineer
9 37 (4.03%) Data Engineer
10 36 (3.92%) Consultant
11 35 (3.81%) Applications Architect
11 35 (3.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 35 (3.81%) Senior Software Engineer
12 34 (3.70%) Systems Engineer
13 28 (3.05%) Azure Engineer
14 27 (2.94%) Java Developer
15 26 (2.83%) SOC Analyst
16 24 (2.61%) Security Engineer
17 23 (2.51%) DevOps Engineer
17 23 (2.51%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (2.94%) .NET
2 26 (2.83%) React
3 22 (2.40%) LDAP
3 22 (2.40%) Regular Expression
4 21 (2.29%) REST
5 18 (1.96%) XMPP
6 15 (1.63%) Spring
7 14 (1.53%) JSON
7 14 (1.53%) Kafka
8 12 (1.31%) Elastic Stack
9 9 (0.98%) Spring Boot
10 8 (0.87%) ARM Templates
10 8 (0.87%) RabbitMQ
10 8 (0.87%) SOAP
10 8 (0.87%) XML
10 8 (0.87%) YAML
11 7 (0.76%) RESTful
11 7 (0.76%) Web Services
12 6 (0.65%) JPA
12 6 (0.65%) JSON Schema
Miscellaneous
1 30 (3.27%) Algorithms
1 30 (3.27%) Product Ownership
2 27 (2.94%) Data Centre
3 25 (2.72%) Driving Licence
4 23 (2.51%) Onboarding
5 22 (2.40%) Cloud Native
5 22 (2.40%) PKI
6 19 (2.07%) Cyber Defence
6 19 (2.07%) Cyber Threat
6 19 (2.07%) FPGA
6 19 (2.07%) Self-Motivation
7 18 (1.96%) Embedded Systems
8 16 (1.74%) Robotics
9 15 (1.63%) Security Operations Centre
10 14 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
11 12 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
12 10 (1.09%) Data Structures
12 10 (1.09%) Fibre Optics
12 10 (1.09%) Management Information System
13 9 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 150 (16.34%) Linux
2 112 (12.20%) Windows
3 69 (7.52%) Windows Server
4 33 (3.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (1.85%) Ubuntu
6 14 (1.53%) CentOS
7 9 (0.98%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (0.65%) Android
8 6 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.44%) Debian
10 3 (0.33%) AIX
10 3 (0.33%) Unix
11 1 (0.11%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.11%) VMS
11 1 (0.11%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (16.99%) Agile
2 131 (14.27%) Software Engineering
3 113 (12.31%) CI/CD
4 102 (11.11%) DevOps
5 99 (10.78%) Cybersecurity
6 94 (10.24%) Continuous Improvement
7 93 (10.13%) Problem-Solving
8 63 (6.86%) SIEM
9 58 (6.32%) Decision-Making
10 55 (5.99%) ITIL
11 54 (5.88%) Mentoring
12 53 (5.77%) AI
13 52 (5.66%) Infrastructure as Code
14 51 (5.56%) Platform Engineering
15 50 (5.45%) Containerisation
15 50 (5.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 50 (5.45%) Validation
16 45 (4.90%) Scrum
17 43 (4.68%) Computer Science
18 41 (4.47%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 142 (15.47%) Python
2 64 (6.97%) C++
3 60 (6.54%) Java
4 40 (4.36%) PowerShell
5 39 (4.25%) C
6 38 (4.14%) C#
7 34 (3.70%) SQL
8 26 (2.83%) Bash
9 25 (2.72%) JavaScript
10 22 (2.40%) Rust
11 19 (2.07%) TypeScript
12 18 (1.96%) MATLAB
13 14 (1.53%) Embedded C
13 14 (1.53%) Embedded C++
14 13 (1.42%) VBA
15 12 (1.31%) Shell Script
16 11 (1.20%) Go
17 10 (1.09%) PHP
17 10 (1.09%) PL/SQL
18 7 (0.76%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 583 (63.51%) SC Cleared
2 333 (36.27%) DV Cleared
3 136 (14.81%) Degree
4 26 (2.83%) HNC
4 26 (2.83%) Master's Degree
5 25 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
6 23 (2.51%) CISSP
7 21 (2.29%) Cisco Certification
8 15 (1.63%) CCNP
8 15 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
9 14 (1.53%) CREST Certified
9 14 (1.53%) CRISC
10 13 (1.42%) GIAC
11 12 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
11 12 (1.31%) OSCP
12 10 (1.09%) CISM
13 9 (0.98%) GCIA
14 8 (0.87%) CCNA
14 8 (0.87%) GCIH
14 8 (0.87%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 24 (2.61%) SLA
3 21 (2.29%) NCSC
4 17 (1.85%) GDPR
5 15 (1.63%) QA
6 14 (1.53%) NIST
7 13 (1.42%) ISO 9001
8 12 (1.31%) PMO
9 9 (0.98%) Def Stans
9 9 (0.98%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 6 (0.65%) Accessibility
11 5 (0.54%) NEBOSH
12 4 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
12 4 (0.44%) JSP 440
12 4 (0.44%) MISRA
13 3 (0.33%) GRC
13 3 (0.33%) NIST 800
13 3 (0.33%) PCI DSS
14 2 (0.22%) COSO
14 2 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 68 (7.41%) Docker
2 60 (6.54%) Active Directory
3 33 (3.59%) vSphere
4 24 (2.61%) Firmware
5 17 (1.85%) VMware NSX
6 16 (1.74%) VMware Infrastructure
7 10 (1.09%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.54%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.44%) Hyper-V
9 4 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.22%) UAG
11 1 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.11%) Squid
11 1 (0.11%) Terminal Server
11 1 (0.11%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 82 (8.93%) Kubernetes
2 63 (6.86%) Terraform
3 52 (5.66%) Ansible
4 15 (1.63%) Grafana
4 15 (1.63%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.53%) Kibana
6 11 (1.20%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (1.20%) vCenter Server
7 9 (0.98%) Podman
8 8 (0.87%) Nessus
9 7 (0.76%) Nagios
9 7 (0.76%) Puppet
10 6 (0.65%) Graylog
10 6 (0.65%) QRadar
10 6 (0.65%) vRealize
11 5 (0.54%) Argo
11 5 (0.54%) Docker Swarm
11 5 (0.54%) Endace
11 5 (0.54%) Kustomize
11 5 (0.54%) Packer
Vendors
1 121 (13.18%) Microsoft
2 61 (6.64%) VMware
3 33 (3.59%) Cisco
4 31 (3.38%) Splunk
5 30 (3.27%) Red Hat
6 28 (3.05%) Oracle
7 23 (2.51%) ServiceNow
8 15 (1.63%) McAfee
9 14 (1.53%) Google
10 12 (1.31%) Citrix
11 11 (1.20%) Tenable
12 10 (1.09%) Juniper
12 10 (1.09%) NVIDIA
13 9 (0.98%) AppDynamics
13 9 (0.98%) EMC
13 9 (0.98%) IBM
13 9 (0.98%) Palo Alto
14 8 (0.87%) CrowdStrike
14 8 (0.87%) LogRhythm
14 8 (0.87%) NetApp