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 1 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 11 11
Rank change year-on-year -14 0 +7
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 707 792 1,655
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 5.43% 11.83% 10.89%
As % of the Qualifications category 21.07% 24.75% 31.96%
Number of salaries quoted 470 586 1,310
10th Percentile £40,000 £41,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £51,250 £47,500 £42,200
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £57,835 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.39% +5.15% +14.58%
75th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £85,000 £78,750
England median annual salary £65,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +8.33% +4.35% -

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 3,356 3,200 5,179
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 25.78% 47.81% 34.07%
Number of salaries quoted 1,497 1,488 3,522
10th Percentile £29,450 £32,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £39,000 £42,500 £37,033
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £51,350
Median % change year-on-year - +7.11% +2.70%
75th Percentile £71,250 £72,500 £67,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £58,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -0.86% +5.45% -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 1 April 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 1 April 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 -2 360 £70,000 +21.74% 149
Thames Valley +12 234 £65,000 +8.33% 170
Berkshire +20 150 £67,500 +8.00% 96
Surrey -20 63 £55,000 - 44
Buckinghamshire +6 60 £60,000 +4.04% 57
Oxfordshire -1 24 £65,000 +30.00% 20
West Sussex -3 20 £35,000 -10.26% 13
Kent -27 16 £39,000 -33.62% 17
Sussex - 10 £85,000 - 4
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 36 (5.09%) SharePoint
2 32 (4.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 23 (3.25%) Exchange Server 2003
4 4 (0.57%) WordPress
5 3 (0.42%) Confluence
6 2 (0.28%) Apache
6 2 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.14%) Apache Qpid
7 1 (0.14%) Appian
7 1 (0.14%) Camunda
7 1 (0.14%) IIS
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.14%) SAS
Applications
1 25 (3.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (3.39%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.71%) Adobe XD
4 2 (0.28%) Adobe After Effects
4 2 (0.28%) Adobe Captivate
4 2 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 2 (0.28%) Adobe Illustrator
4 2 (0.28%) Adobe Premiere
4 2 (0.28%) Elementor
4 2 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.28%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.14%) CATIA
5 1 (0.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.14%) OrCAD
5 1 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 3 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.14%) Primavera
2 1 (0.14%) Q-Pulse
2 1 (0.14%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.14%) SAP GTS
2 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
2 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
2 1 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 78 (11.03%) Azure
2 62 (8.77%) AWS
3 38 (5.37%) Microsoft 365
4 27 (3.82%) Azure DevOps
4 27 (3.82%) Power Platform
5 22 (3.11%) GCP
6 17 (2.40%) Dynamics 365
6 17 (2.40%) PowerApps
7 16 (2.26%) Amazon EKS
8 12 (1.70%) Serverless
9 9 (1.27%) Amazon EC2
9 9 (1.27%) GitHub
9 9 (1.27%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
9 9 (1.27%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 8 (1.13%) OpenShift
11 7 (0.99%) Amazon ECS
12 6 (0.85%) Amazon S3
12 6 (0.85%) AWS Lambda
12 6 (0.85%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 63 (8.91%) DNS
2 62 (8.77%) Firewall
3 33 (4.67%) DHCP
4 20 (2.83%) Structured Cabling
5 17 (2.40%) WAN
6 16 (2.26%) Cisco Firepower
7 14 (1.98%) VPN
8 13 (1.84%) Cisco ISE
9 12 (1.70%) BGP
9 12 (1.70%) Junos
10 10 (1.41%) Cisco IOS
10 10 (1.41%) LAN
10 10 (1.41%) Network Security
11 9 (1.27%) NX-OS
12 8 (1.13%) NetScaler
13 6 (0.85%) Cisco ASA
13 6 (0.85%) MPLS
13 6 (0.85%) SNMP
13 6 (0.85%) TCP/IP
13 6 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (3.54%) Oracle Database
2 24 (3.39%) Oracle Database 10g
3 21 (2.97%) Power BI
4 10 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (1.41%) Relational Database
5 9 (1.27%) SQL Server
6 4 (0.57%) RDBMS
7 3 (0.42%) Data Mining
8 2 (0.28%) Big Data
8 2 (0.28%) Metadata
8 2 (0.28%) MySQL
9 1 (0.14%) Airbyte
9 1 (0.14%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.14%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.14%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.14%) Redis
9 1 (0.14%) SAP Data Services
9 1 (0.14%) Tableau
9 1 (0.14%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 37 (5.23%) Git
2 31 (4.38%) GitLab
3 26 (3.68%) Jenkins
4 20 (2.83%) JIRA
4 20 (2.83%) Selenium
5 17 (2.40%) Robot Framework
6 15 (2.12%) Snyk
7 6 (0.85%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 6 (0.85%) JUnit
7 6 (0.85%) Subversion
8 5 (0.71%) Artifactory
8 5 (0.71%) Axure RP
8 5 (0.71%) Balsamiq
8 5 (0.71%) Cucumber
8 5 (0.71%) Mockito
8 5 (0.71%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.57%) JMeter
9 4 (0.57%) Rational DOORS
10 3 (0.42%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.28%) TestRail
General
1 177 (25.04%) Social Skills
2 87 (12.31%) Analytical Skills
3 65 (9.19%) Public Sector
4 59 (8.35%) Finance
5 30 (4.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 28 (3.96%) Aeronautics
6 28 (3.96%) Law
7 23 (3.25%) Manufacturing
8 22 (3.11%) Aerospace
9 16 (2.26%) Electronics
10 15 (2.12%) Telecoms
11 13 (1.84%) Military
12 11 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
12 11 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
13 10 (1.41%) Banking
14 9 (1.27%) Marketing
15 8 (1.13%) Aviation
15 8 (1.13%) Games
16 7 (0.99%) Influencing Skills
16 7 (0.99%) Legal
Job Titles
1 102 (14.43%) Architect
2 87 (12.31%) Senior
3 64 (9.05%) Lead
4 55 (7.78%) Developer
5 37 (5.23%) Consultant
6 36 (5.09%) Software Engineer
7 35 (4.95%) Analyst
8 34 (4.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 34 (4.81%) Systems Engineer
9 30 (4.24%) Network Engineer
10 29 (4.10%) Business Manager
11 27 (3.82%) Business Systems Manager
11 27 (3.82%) Systems Manager
12 25 (3.54%) Systems Support
13 24 (3.39%) 3rd Line Support
14 23 (3.25%) Support Engineer
15 21 (2.97%) Applications Architect
15 21 (2.97%) Data Engineer
16 19 (2.69%) Security Architect
17 18 (2.55%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.54%) REST
2 20 (2.83%) .NET
3 14 (1.98%) JSON
4 13 (1.84%) SOAP
5 12 (1.70%) HTML
5 12 (1.70%) React
6 11 (1.56%) Elastic Stack
6 11 (1.56%) Spring
6 11 (1.56%) XML
7 10 (1.41%) Middleware
7 10 (1.41%) Regular Expression
8 9 (1.27%) Lightning Web Components
8 9 (1.27%) Spring Boot
8 9 (1.27%) Visualforce
8 9 (1.27%) Web Services
9 8 (1.13%) Kafka
9 8 (1.13%) LDAP
10 7 (0.99%) RabbitMQ
11 6 (0.85%) XMPP
12 5 (0.71%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 29 (4.10%) Robotics
2 28 (3.96%) Product Ownership
3 26 (3.68%) PKI
4 16 (2.26%) Data Centre
5 15 (2.12%) Distributed Systems
6 14 (1.98%) Cloud Native
6 14 (1.98%) Security Posture
7 10 (1.41%) Onboarding
8 9 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (1.13%) FPGA
10 7 (0.99%) Embedded Systems
10 7 (0.99%) Fibre Optics
10 7 (0.99%) Security Operations Centre
11 6 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
11 6 (0.85%) Management Information System
12 5 (0.71%) Algorithms
12 5 (0.71%) Cloud Security Posture
12 5 (0.71%) Driving Licence
13 4 (0.57%) Cyber Defence
13 4 (0.57%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 117 (16.55%) Windows
2 80 (11.32%) Linux
3 61 (8.63%) Windows Server
4 26 (3.68%) Unix
5 24 (3.39%) HPUX
5 24 (3.39%) Solaris
6 23 (3.25%) Windows 7
6 23 (3.25%) Windows Server 2003
7 22 (3.11%) Windows Server 2008
8 16 (2.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 11 (1.56%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.99%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.85%) Android
11 6 (0.85%) CentOS
12 4 (0.57%) Windows 10
12 4 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.28%) Apple iOS
14 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (18.67%) Agile
2 82 (11.60%) Software Engineering
3 81 (11.46%) Problem-Solving
4 76 (10.75%) CI/CD
4 76 (10.75%) DevOps
5 71 (10.04%) Continuous Improvement
6 61 (8.63%) Project Management
7 46 (6.51%) Mentoring
8 45 (6.36%) AI
9 43 (6.08%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 41 (5.80%) Cybersecurity
10 41 (5.80%) Test Automation
11 40 (5.66%) Scrum
12 39 (5.52%) Decision-Making
12 39 (5.52%) Risk Management
13 37 (5.23%) Process Improvement
14 36 (5.09%) Infrastructure as Code
14 36 (5.09%) Technical Leadership
15 32 (4.53%) Service Management
16 31 (4.38%) Technology Strategy
Programming Languages
1 72 (10.18%) Python
2 43 (6.08%) Java
3 39 (5.52%) PowerShell
4 29 (4.10%) JavaScript
4 29 (4.10%) SQL
5 24 (3.39%) Perl
6 20 (2.83%) C++
7 17 (2.40%) VBA
8 16 (2.26%) C
9 13 (1.84%) C#
9 13 (1.84%) Rust
10 10 (1.41%) Bash
11 9 (1.27%) Apex Code
12 8 (1.13%) PL/SQL
12 8 (1.13%) Shell Script
13 5 (0.71%) Groovy
13 5 (0.71%) Ladder Logic
13 5 (0.71%) TypeScript
14 3 (0.42%) Pascal
15 2 (0.28%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 434 (61.39%) SC Cleared
2 281 (39.75%) DV Cleared
3 109 (15.42%) Degree
4 23 (3.25%) Master's Degree
5 16 (2.26%) HNC
6 14 (1.98%) APMP
6 14 (1.98%) MBA
7 12 (1.70%) CISSP
8 11 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
9 10 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
10 9 (1.27%) DBS Check
11 8 (1.13%) CISM
12 7 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
12 7 (0.99%) CRISC
12 7 (0.99%) ISTQB
13 6 (0.85%) Azure Certification
13 6 (0.85%) CCNP
13 6 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
14 5 (0.71%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 4 (0.57%) CHECK Team Member
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (4.38%) SLA
2 21 (2.97%) GDPR
3 19 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 16 (2.26%) QA
5 13 (1.84%) NCSC
5 13 (1.84%) NIST
6 12 (1.70%) Accessibility
7 10 (1.41%) GRC
8 8 (1.13%) PMO
9 6 (0.85%) WCAG
10 4 (0.57%) ISO 9001
10 4 (0.57%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 15288
11 3 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 3 (0.42%) JSP 440
11 3 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.28%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 2 (0.28%) RMADS
13 1 (0.14%) HIPAA
System Software
1 70 (9.90%) Active Directory
2 31 (4.38%) Docker
3 24 (3.39%) VMware NSX
4 20 (2.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (2.83%) vSphere
5 19 (2.69%) Firmware
6 3 (0.42%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.28%) Terminal Server
7 2 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.14%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 44 (6.22%) Terraform
2 41 (5.80%) Kubernetes
3 40 (5.66%) Ansible
4 18 (2.55%) vCenter Server
5 10 (1.41%) SCCM
5 10 (1.41%) SCOM
6 9 (1.27%) Grafana
6 9 (1.27%) Prometheus
6 9 (1.27%) vRealize
7 8 (1.13%) Nessus
8 7 (0.99%) Endace
8 7 (0.99%) Kibana
9 4 (0.57%) Packer
9 4 (0.57%) WSUS
10 3 (0.42%) Nagios
10 3 (0.42%) ZABBIX
11 2 (0.28%) QRadar
11 2 (0.28%) SCSM
11 2 (0.28%) Sysdig
11 2 (0.28%) WMI
Vendors
1 96 (13.58%) Microsoft
2 74 (10.47%) VMware
3 42 (5.94%) Oracle
4 41 (5.80%) Cisco
5 30 (4.24%) Juniper
6 18 (2.55%) Salesforce
7 16 (2.26%) Splunk
8 15 (2.12%) Black Duck
8 15 (2.12%) Coverity
8 15 (2.12%) SolarWinds
9 14 (1.98%) Google
10 12 (1.70%) Red Hat
11 11 (1.56%) CheckPoint
11 11 (1.56%) McAfee
12 10 (1.41%) ServiceNow
13 9 (1.27%) Broadcom
13 9 (1.27%) Citrix
13 9 (1.27%) Palo Alto
14 8 (1.13%) Adobe
14 8 (1.13%) IBM