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 12 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 9 11
Rank change year-on-year -13 +2 +7
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 723 1,116 1,427
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 6.45% 13.34% 11.70%
As % of the Qualifications category 22.12% 28.15% 32.57%
Number of salaries quoted 446 705 1,119
10th Percentile £36,125 £41,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £47,500 £41,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £65,625
90th Percentile £85,625 £85,000 £77,750
England median annual salary £62,500 £61,644 £57,500
% change year-on-year +1.39% +7.21% +1.79%

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 3,268 3,965 4,382
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 29.15% 47.39% 35.92%
Number of salaries quoted 1,420 1,640 2,955
10th Percentile £27,750 £32,500 £28,000
25th Percentile £37,719 £46,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% +9.52% +0.72%
75th Percentile £67,500 £75,000 £66,375
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -4.35%

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 12 February 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 12 February 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 -1 400 £62,500 +4.17% 181
Thames Valley -5 202 £60,000 +4.04% 131
Berkshire -15 118 £54,375 -9.38% 84
Surrey -13 75 £50,000 -17.36% 34
Buckinghamshire +28 64 £60,000 +4.35% 34
West Sussex +17 21 £34,000 -9.33% 10
Oxfordshire +4 20 £65,000 +33.33% 19
Kent -11 14 £39,000 -37.60% 20
Sussex - 7 £85,000 - 7
Home Counties 0 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 40 (5.53%) SharePoint
2 35 (4.84%) Microsoft Exchange
3 24 (3.32%) Exchange Server 2003
4 5 (0.69%) Confluence
4 5 (0.69%) WordPress
5 4 (0.55%) Apache
5 4 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.41%) Appian
7 1 (0.14%) Apache Qpid
7 1 (0.14%) Camunda
7 1 (0.14%) IIS
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.14%) SAS
Applications
1 41 (5.67%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (4.70%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.69%) Adobe XD
4 3 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.28%) Adobe After Effects
5 2 (0.28%) Adobe Captivate
5 2 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.28%) Adobe Illustrator
5 2 (0.28%) Adobe Premiere
5 2 (0.28%) Elementor
5 2 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.28%) Photoshop
5 2 (0.28%) Windchill
6 1 (0.14%) CATIA
6 1 (0.14%) GNU Octave
6 1 (0.14%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.14%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 4 (0.55%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 3 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.28%) C-CURE
4 1 (0.14%) Q-Pulse
4 1 (0.14%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.14%) SAP GTS
4 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
4 1 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 69 (9.54%) Azure
2 64 (8.85%) AWS
3 37 (5.12%) Microsoft 365
4 27 (3.73%) Azure DevOps
4 27 (3.73%) Power Platform
5 18 (2.49%) GCP
6 17 (2.35%) PowerApps
7 15 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
8 14 (1.94%) Amazon EKS
9 13 (1.80%) Amazon EC2
10 11 (1.52%) Serverless
11 10 (1.38%) Amazon ECS
12 9 (1.24%) GitHub
13 8 (1.11%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
13 8 (1.11%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 6 (0.83%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (0.83%) Entra ID
14 6 (0.83%) Figma
14 6 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
14 6 (0.83%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 63 (8.71%) Firewall
2 55 (7.61%) DNS
3 33 (4.56%) DHCP
4 24 (3.32%) VPN
5 23 (3.18%) Structured Cabling
6 21 (2.90%) Junos
7 19 (2.63%) LAN
7 19 (2.63%) WAN
8 16 (2.21%) Cisco IOS
8 16 (2.21%) Wi-Fi
9 15 (2.07%) Cisco Firepower
10 14 (1.94%) BGP
10 14 (1.94%) Cisco ISE
10 14 (1.94%) Network Security
11 13 (1.80%) TCP/IP
12 10 (1.38%) NX-OS
13 8 (1.11%) MPLS
14 7 (0.97%) VSAT
15 6 (0.83%) Cisco ASA
15 6 (0.83%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (4.01%) Oracle Database
2 25 (3.46%) Oracle Database 10g
3 19 (2.63%) Power BI
4 12 (1.66%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (1.52%) Relational Database
6 9 (1.24%) RDBMS
7 5 (0.69%) SQL Server
8 3 (0.41%) Airbyte
8 3 (0.41%) Big Data
8 3 (0.41%) Data Mining
9 2 (0.28%) BigQuery
9 2 (0.28%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.28%) NoSQL
10 1 (0.14%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.14%) DB2
10 1 (0.14%) Hadoop
10 1 (0.14%) MySQL
10 1 (0.14%) Neo4j
10 1 (0.14%) Redis
10 1 (0.14%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 32 (4.43%) Git
2 30 (4.15%) Jenkins
3 24 (3.32%) JIRA
3 24 (3.32%) Selenium
4 23 (3.18%) GitLab
5 19 (2.63%) Robot Framework
6 17 (2.35%) Snyk
7 11 (1.52%) JUnit
8 10 (1.38%) Mockito
9 9 (1.24%) JMeter
10 6 (0.83%) Subversion
11 5 (0.69%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 5 (0.69%) Axure RP
11 5 (0.69%) Balsamiq
12 4 (0.55%) Cypress.io
13 3 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
14 2 (0.28%) TestRail
14 2 (0.28%) Visual Studio
14 2 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
14 2 (0.28%) WebDriver
General
1 221 (30.57%) Social Skills
2 105 (14.52%) Analytical Skills
3 64 (8.85%) Public Sector
4 61 (8.44%) Finance
5 30 (4.15%) Law
6 29 (4.01%) Aviation
6 29 (4.01%) Manufacturing
7 28 (3.87%) Aeronautics
8 26 (3.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 23 (3.18%) Organisational Skills
9 23 (3.18%) Telecoms
10 18 (2.49%) Aerospace
10 18 (2.49%) Electronics
11 15 (2.07%) Marketing
12 12 (1.66%) Legal
12 12 (1.66%) Military
13 11 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
14 10 (1.38%) Banking
15 8 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 81 (11.20%) Senior
2 72 (9.96%) Architect
3 60 (8.30%) Lead
4 51 (7.05%) Business Manager
5 50 (6.92%) Business Systems Manager
5 50 (6.92%) Systems Manager
6 49 (6.78%) Systems Engineer
7 45 (6.22%) Developer
7 45 (6.22%) Support Engineer
8 43 (5.95%) Consultant
9 38 (5.26%) Analyst
10 34 (4.70%) Network Engineer
10 34 (4.70%) Systems Support
11 28 (3.87%) Software Engineer
12 27 (3.73%) Data Engineer
13 25 (3.46%) 3rd Line Support
13 25 (3.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 24 (3.32%) Technical Support
15 21 (2.90%) Technical Engineer
15 21 (2.90%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (4.29%) REST
2 21 (2.90%) SOAP
3 17 (2.35%) HTML
4 14 (1.94%) Spring
5 13 (1.80%) XML
6 12 (1.66%) .NET
6 12 (1.66%) JSON
6 12 (1.66%) Middleware
6 12 (1.66%) React
6 12 (1.66%) Spring Boot
7 11 (1.52%) Web Services
8 10 (1.38%) Hibernate
9 9 (1.24%) ActiveMQ
9 9 (1.24%) Apache Camel
9 9 (1.24%) jQuery
9 9 (1.24%) WireMock
10 8 (1.11%) Kafka
10 8 (1.11%) Lightning Web Components
10 8 (1.11%) Visualforce
11 4 (0.55%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 52 (7.19%) Robotics
2 26 (3.60%) Product Ownership
3 23 (3.18%) PKI
4 22 (3.04%) Driving Licence
5 17 (2.35%) Cloud Native
6 16 (2.21%) Data Centre
7 13 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
7 13 (1.80%) Onboarding
7 13 (1.80%) Security Operations Centre
7 13 (1.80%) Security Posture
8 11 (1.52%) e-Learning
9 9 (1.24%) Management Information System
9 9 (1.24%) Self-Motivation
10 8 (1.11%) Fibre Optics
11 6 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
12 5 (0.69%) Cloud Security Posture
12 5 (0.69%) Low-Code
13 4 (0.55%) Algorithms
13 4 (0.55%) Cyber Defence
13 4 (0.55%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 112 (15.49%) Windows
2 51 (7.05%) Linux
3 46 (6.36%) Windows Server
4 31 (4.29%) Unix
5 25 (3.46%) HPUX
5 25 (3.46%) Solaris
6 24 (3.32%) Windows Server 2003
7 23 (3.18%) Windows 7
8 22 (3.04%) Windows Server 2008
9 8 (1.11%) Android
9 8 (1.11%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.69%) Apple iOS
11 4 (0.55%) Windows 10
11 4 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.41%) AIX
13 2 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 2 (0.28%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.14%) CentOS
14 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (18.95%) Agile
2 99 (13.69%) Continuous Improvement
3 94 (13.00%) Project Management
4 93 (12.86%) Problem-Solving
4 93 (12.86%) Software Engineering
5 75 (10.37%) AI
5 75 (10.37%) CI/CD
6 68 (9.41%) DevOps
7 64 (8.85%) Process Improvement
8 61 (8.44%) Risk Management
9 53 (7.33%) IT Strategy
10 52 (7.19%) Mentoring
10 52 (7.19%) Strategic Planning
11 51 (7.05%) Budget Management
11 51 (7.05%) Contract Negotiation
12 44 (6.09%) Data Analysis
13 42 (5.81%) Cybersecurity
13 42 (5.81%) Technical Leadership
14 39 (5.39%) Test Automation
15 35 (4.84%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 79 (10.93%) Python
2 48 (6.64%) PowerShell
3 42 (5.81%) Java
4 37 (5.12%) SQL
5 33 (4.56%) JavaScript
6 23 (3.18%) C#
7 22 (3.04%) Perl
8 19 (2.63%) C++
9 17 (2.35%) VBA
10 11 (1.52%) Bash
10 11 (1.52%) Rust
11 9 (1.24%) Shell Script
12 8 (1.11%) Apex Code
12 8 (1.11%) C
13 6 (0.83%) MATLAB
14 5 (0.69%) Go
14 5 (0.69%) PL/SQL
15 4 (0.55%) Ladder Logic
15 4 (0.55%) TypeScript
16 2 (0.28%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 449 (62.10%) SC Cleared
2 263 (36.38%) DV Cleared
3 110 (15.21%) Degree
4 27 (3.73%) Master's Degree
5 24 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
6 23 (3.18%) CCNA
7 17 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
7 17 (2.35%) CCNP
8 15 (2.07%) HNC
9 14 (1.94%) APMP
10 13 (1.80%) JNCIA
11 12 (1.66%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (1.52%) CISSP
12 11 (1.52%) MBA
13 8 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
13 8 (1.11%) DBS Check
13 8 (1.11%) JNCIS
14 7 (0.97%) CISM
14 7 (0.97%) CRISC
14 7 (0.97%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (4.70%) SLA
2 22 (3.04%) QA
3 20 (2.77%) GDPR
4 16 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (1.80%) Accessibility
6 12 (1.66%) NIST
7 10 (1.38%) NCSC
8 9 (1.24%) GRC
9 8 (1.11%) ISO 9001
10 7 (0.97%) Def Stans
11 6 (0.83%) WCAG
12 5 (0.69%) ISO 13485
12 5 (0.69%) PMO
13 4 (0.55%) PCI DSS
14 3 (0.41%) JSP 440
14 3 (0.41%) NIST 800
15 2 (0.28%) Data Quality
15 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 2 (0.28%) RMADS
System Software
1 62 (8.58%) Active Directory
2 27 (3.73%) Docker
3 25 (3.46%) VMware NSX
4 21 (2.90%) VMware Infrastructure
5 16 (2.21%) Firmware
6 6 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.83%) vSphere
7 3 (0.41%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.28%) Terminal Server
9 1 (0.14%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 36 (4.98%) Kubernetes
2 34 (4.70%) Terraform
3 29 (4.01%) Ansible
4 22 (3.04%) vCenter Server
5 11 (1.52%) SCCM
5 11 (1.52%) SCOM
6 9 (1.24%) Grafana
6 9 (1.24%) Kibana
6 9 (1.24%) vRealize
7 8 (1.11%) Prometheus
8 6 (0.83%) Endace
9 5 (0.69%) Nessus
9 5 (0.69%) ZABBIX
10 4 (0.55%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.55%) QRadar
10 4 (0.55%) WSUS
11 3 (0.41%) Netcool
12 2 (0.28%) Argo
12 2 (0.28%) SCSM
12 2 (0.28%) WMI
Vendors
1 106 (14.66%) Microsoft
2 65 (8.99%) VMware
3 53 (7.33%) Cisco
4 42 (5.81%) Juniper
5 38 (5.26%) Oracle
6 19 (2.63%) SolarWinds
6 19 (2.63%) Splunk
7 18 (2.49%) Salesforce
7 18 (2.49%) SAP
8 17 (2.35%) Black Duck
8 17 (2.35%) Coverity
9 11 (1.52%) Google
10 10 (1.38%) Broadcom
11 9 (1.24%) CheckPoint
11 9 (1.24%) Dynatrace
11 9 (1.24%) ServiceNow
12 8 (1.11%) Adobe
12 8 (1.11%) F5
12 8 (1.11%) LogRhythm
13 7 (0.97%) HP