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 14 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 11 11
Rank change year-on-year -14 0 +8
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 687 923 1,588
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 5.62% 12.88% 11.12%
As % of the Qualifications category 21.46% 26.42% 32.09%
Number of salaries quoted 448 643 1,259
10th Percentile £39,000 £41,800 £31,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £47,500 £42,200
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +9.09% +14.58%
75th Percentile £76,500 £77,500 £66,500
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% +2.31%

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 3,201 3,493 4,949
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 26.18% 48.75% 34.67%
Number of salaries quoted 1,453 1,566 3,356
10th Percentile £28,500 £32,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,750 £45,000 £36,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,500 £57,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -6.14% +8.57% +5.00%
75th Percentile £70,000 £74,708 £67,500
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 14 March 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 14 March 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 -1 360 £65,000 +12.07% 145
Thames Valley +5 215 £60,000 - 162
Berkshire +5 135 £65,000 +8.33% 83
Surrey -18 63 £55,000 -15.38% 31
Buckinghamshire +10 56 £60,000 +4.04% 54
Oxfordshire +7 24 £65,000 +30.00% 27
West Sussex +6 20 £35,000 -14.11% 16
Kent -15 16 £39,000 -37.60% 21
Sussex - 10 £85,000 - 2
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 (5.82%) SharePoint
2 32 (4.66%) Microsoft Exchange
3 23 (3.35%) Exchange Server 2003
4 5 (0.73%) WordPress
5 3 (0.44%) Apache
5 3 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.44%) Confluence
6 2 (0.29%) Appian
7 1 (0.15%) Apache Qpid
7 1 (0.15%) Camunda
7 1 (0.15%) IIS
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.15%) SAS
Applications
1 29 (4.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (3.93%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.73%) Adobe XD
4 2 (0.29%) Adobe After Effects
4 2 (0.29%) Adobe Captivate
4 2 (0.29%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 2 (0.29%) Adobe Illustrator
4 2 (0.29%) Adobe Premiere
4 2 (0.29%) Elementor
4 2 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.29%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.15%) CATIA
5 1 (0.15%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.15%) OrCAD
5 1 (0.15%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 3 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.15%) Primavera
2 1 (0.15%) Q-Pulse
2 1 (0.15%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.15%) SAP GTS
2 1 (0.15%) SAP HR
2 1 (0.15%) SAP Payroll
2 1 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.15%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 73 (10.63%) Azure
2 59 (8.59%) AWS
3 37 (5.39%) Microsoft 365
4 27 (3.93%) Azure DevOps
5 26 (3.78%) Power Platform
6 22 (3.20%) GCP
7 17 (2.47%) Dynamics 365
7 17 (2.47%) PowerApps
8 11 (1.60%) Amazon EKS
9 9 (1.31%) GitHub
9 9 (1.31%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
9 9 (1.31%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 7 (1.02%) Amazon EC2
10 7 (1.02%) OpenShift
10 7 (1.02%) Serverless
11 6 (0.87%) Amazon ECS
11 6 (0.87%) GitHub Actions
12 5 (0.73%) AWS CloudFormation
12 5 (0.73%) Entra ID
12 5 (0.73%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 62 (9.02%) Firewall
2 58 (8.44%) DNS
3 33 (4.80%) DHCP
4 24 (3.49%) Structured Cabling
5 17 (2.47%) Cisco Firepower
5 17 (2.47%) VPN
5 17 (2.47%) WAN
6 16 (2.33%) Junos
7 14 (2.04%) Cisco ISE
8 13 (1.89%) BGP
8 13 (1.89%) Cisco IOS
9 12 (1.75%) LAN
10 11 (1.60%) Network Security
11 10 (1.46%) NX-OS
11 10 (1.46%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (1.31%) MPLS
13 8 (1.16%) TCP/IP
14 7 (1.02%) SNMP
15 6 (0.87%) Cisco ASA
15 6 (0.87%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (3.64%) Oracle Database
2 24 (3.49%) Oracle Database 10g
3 19 (2.77%) Power BI
4 11 (1.60%) PostgreSQL
5 9 (1.31%) SQL Server
6 8 (1.16%) Relational Database
7 6 (0.87%) RDBMS
8 3 (0.44%) Data Mining
9 2 (0.29%) Airbyte
9 2 (0.29%) Big Data
9 2 (0.29%) MySQL
10 1 (0.15%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.15%) DynamoDB
10 1 (0.15%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.15%) MongoDB
10 1 (0.15%) NoSQL
10 1 (0.15%) Pinecone
10 1 (0.15%) Redis
10 1 (0.15%) SAP Data Services
10 1 (0.15%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 29 (4.22%) Git
2 27 (3.93%) GitLab
3 21 (3.06%) Jenkins
4 20 (2.91%) Selenium
5 18 (2.62%) Robot Framework
6 16 (2.33%) JIRA
6 16 (2.33%) Snyk
7 8 (1.16%) JUnit
8 7 (1.02%) Mockito
9 6 (0.87%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 6 (0.87%) JMeter
9 6 (0.87%) Subversion
10 5 (0.73%) Axure RP
10 5 (0.73%) Balsamiq
11 3 (0.44%) Cypress.io
12 2 (0.29%) Artifactory
12 2 (0.29%) Rational DOORS
12 2 (0.29%) TestRail
12 2 (0.29%) Visual Studio
12 2 (0.29%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 182 (26.49%) Social Skills
2 86 (12.52%) Analytical Skills
3 61 (8.88%) Public Sector
4 54 (7.86%) Finance
5 28 (4.08%) Aeronautics
5 28 (4.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 28 (4.08%) Law
6 23 (3.35%) Manufacturing
7 17 (2.47%) Telecoms
8 16 (2.33%) Aerospace
9 13 (1.89%) Electronics
10 12 (1.75%) Marketing
11 11 (1.60%) Legal
11 11 (1.60%) Military
12 10 (1.46%) Aviation
12 10 (1.46%) Banking
12 10 (1.46%) Documentation Skills
12 10 (1.46%) Organisational Skills
13 8 (1.16%) Games
13 8 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 94 (13.68%) Architect
2 81 (11.79%) Senior
3 60 (8.73%) Lead
4 46 (6.70%) Developer
5 38 (5.53%) Consultant
6 37 (5.39%) Systems Engineer
7 34 (4.95%) Analyst
7 34 (4.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 33 (4.80%) Support Engineer
9 32 (4.66%) Business Manager
9 32 (4.66%) Network Engineer
10 31 (4.51%) Software Engineer
11 30 (4.37%) Business Systems Manager
11 30 (4.37%) Systems Manager
12 29 (4.22%) Systems Support
13 25 (3.64%) 3rd Line Support
14 24 (3.49%) Data Engineer
15 18 (2.62%) Cloud Engineer
16 16 (2.33%) Applications Architect
17 15 (2.18%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.06%) REST
2 17 (2.47%) .NET
3 14 (2.04%) HTML
3 14 (2.04%) SOAP
4 13 (1.89%) XML
5 12 (1.75%) JSON
6 10 (1.46%) Middleware
6 10 (1.46%) Spring
7 9 (1.31%) Kafka
7 9 (1.31%) Lightning Web Components
7 9 (1.31%) React
7 9 (1.31%) Visualforce
8 8 (1.16%) Spring Boot
8 8 (1.16%) Web Services
9 7 (1.02%) Hibernate
10 6 (0.87%) ActiveMQ
10 6 (0.87%) Apache Camel
10 6 (0.87%) jQuery
10 6 (0.87%) Regular Expression
10 6 (0.87%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 32 (4.66%) Robotics
2 29 (4.22%) PKI
3 28 (4.08%) Product Ownership
4 16 (2.33%) Cloud Native
4 16 (2.33%) Data Centre
5 14 (2.04%) Security Posture
6 13 (1.89%) Driving Licence
7 12 (1.75%) Onboarding
8 10 (1.46%) Distributed Systems
9 9 (1.31%) Security Operations Centre
9 9 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (1.02%) Fibre Optics
10 7 (1.02%) FPGA
11 6 (0.87%) Embedded Systems
11 6 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
12 5 (0.73%) Algorithms
12 5 (0.73%) Cloud Security Posture
12 5 (0.73%) e-Learning
12 5 (0.73%) Management Information System
13 4 (0.58%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 121 (17.61%) Windows
2 68 (9.90%) Linux
3 61 (8.88%) Windows Server
4 26 (3.78%) Unix
5 24 (3.49%) HPUX
5 24 (3.49%) Solaris
6 23 (3.35%) Windows 7
6 23 (3.35%) Windows Server 2003
7 22 (3.20%) Windows Server 2008
8 12 (1.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 10 (1.46%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (1.16%) Android
11 6 (0.87%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.73%) CentOS
13 4 (0.58%) Apple iOS
13 4 (0.58%) Windows 10
13 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 128 (18.63%) Agile
2 77 (11.21%) Problem-Solving
3 75 (10.92%) Continuous Improvement
3 75 (10.92%) Software Engineering
4 72 (10.48%) CI/CD
5 69 (10.04%) DevOps
6 65 (9.46%) Project Management
7 52 (7.57%) Mentoring
8 48 (6.99%) AI
9 43 (6.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 41 (5.97%) Cybersecurity
10 41 (5.97%) Risk Management
11 40 (5.82%) Process Improvement
12 37 (5.39%) Decision-Making
12 37 (5.39%) Scrum
12 37 (5.39%) Test Automation
13 34 (4.95%) Infrastructure as Code
13 34 (4.95%) Service Management
13 34 (4.95%) Technical Leadership
14 32 (4.66%) Contract Negotiation
Programming Languages
1 70 (10.19%) Python
2 39 (5.68%) PowerShell
3 36 (5.24%) Java
4 31 (4.51%) JavaScript
5 25 (3.64%) SQL
6 22 (3.20%) Perl
7 19 (2.77%) C++
8 17 (2.47%) VBA
9 14 (2.04%) C#
10 13 (1.89%) Rust
11 12 (1.75%) C
12 10 (1.46%) Bash
12 10 (1.46%) Shell Script
13 9 (1.31%) Apex Code
14 5 (0.73%) Ladder Logic
14 5 (0.73%) PL/SQL
15 4 (0.58%) TypeScript
16 2 (0.29%) Go
16 2 (0.29%) Kotlin
16 2 (0.29%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 426 (62.01%) SC Cleared
2 277 (40.32%) DV Cleared
3 104 (15.14%) Degree
4 24 (3.49%) Master's Degree
5 16 (2.33%) HNC
6 14 (2.04%) APMP
6 14 (2.04%) MBA
7 13 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
8 12 (1.75%) CCNA
8 12 (1.75%) CISSP
9 11 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
9 11 (1.60%) Microsoft Certification
10 10 (1.46%) CCNP
11 9 (1.31%) DBS Check
12 7 (1.02%) CISM
12 7 (1.02%) Computer Science Degree
12 7 (1.02%) CRISC
12 7 (1.02%) ISTQB
13 6 (0.87%) Azure Certification
14 5 (0.73%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (4.80%) SLA
2 19 (2.77%) GDPR
3 18 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 13 (1.89%) NIST
4 13 (1.89%) QA
5 11 (1.60%) NCSC
6 10 (1.46%) Accessibility
7 9 (1.31%) GRC
8 7 (1.02%) PMO
9 5 (0.73%) ISO 9001
9 5 (0.73%) WCAG
10 4 (0.58%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 3 (0.44%) JSP 440
11 3 (0.44%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.29%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 15288
12 2 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 2 (0.29%) RMADS
13 1 (0.15%) HIPAA
System Software
1 69 (10.04%) Active Directory
2 29 (4.22%) Docker
3 25 (3.64%) VMware NSX
4 22 (3.20%) VMware Infrastructure
5 18 (2.62%) Firmware
6 15 (2.18%) vSphere
7 6 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.44%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.29%) Terminal Server
10 1 (0.15%) Apache ZooKeeper
10 1 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 37 (5.39%) Terraform
2 36 (5.24%) Kubernetes
3 32 (4.66%) Ansible
4 23 (3.35%) vCenter Server
5 11 (1.60%) SCCM
5 11 (1.60%) SCOM
6 10 (1.46%) Grafana
7 9 (1.31%) Prometheus
7 9 (1.31%) vRealize
8 7 (1.02%) Endace
8 7 (1.02%) Nessus
9 6 (0.87%) Kibana
10 5 (0.73%) ZABBIX
11 4 (0.58%) WSUS
12 3 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
12 3 (0.44%) Nagios
12 3 (0.44%) QRadar
13 2 (0.29%) OpenView
13 2 (0.29%) SCSM
13 2 (0.29%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 94 (13.68%) Microsoft
2 73 (10.63%) VMware
3 48 (6.99%) Cisco
4 37 (5.39%) Oracle
5 36 (5.24%) Juniper
6 20 (2.91%) Splunk
7 19 (2.77%) Salesforce
8 16 (2.33%) Black Duck
8 16 (2.33%) Coverity
8 16 (2.33%) SolarWinds
9 13 (1.89%) Google
10 11 (1.60%) CheckPoint
10 11 (1.60%) SAP
11 10 (1.46%) Broadcom
11 10 (1.46%) ServiceNow
12 9 (1.31%) F5
12 9 (1.31%) LogRhythm
12 9 (1.31%) Palo Alto
13 8 (1.16%) Adobe
13 8 (1.16%) MuleSoft