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 21 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 14 10
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +2
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 1,202 882 1,645
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 6.96% 9.88% 11.89%
As % of the Qualifications category 33.98% 24.38% 38.08%
Number of salaries quoted 815 513 1,097
10th Percentile £39,080 £37,500 £39,000
25th Percentile £52,500 £46,250 £42,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £60,000 £56,252
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% +6.66% +7.15%
75th Percentile £85,000 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £98,750 £87,500 £85,400
England median annual salary £70,000 £60,000 £58,000
% change year-on-year +16.67% +3.45% -3.33%

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 3,537 3,618 4,320
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 20.48% 40.54% 31.24%
Number of salaries quoted 2,095 1,662 2,538
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,025 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,000 £37,500 £41,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £51,300 £52,748
Median % change year-on-year +16.96% -2.74% +0.47%
75th Percentile £77,500 £70,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £85,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%

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 21 August 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 21 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
Hampshire -2 633 £75,000 +17.19% 195
Thames Valley +22 353 £67,500 +22.73% 127
Berkshire +25 230 £70,000 +27.27% 90
Surrey -2 155 £50,000 +25.00% 42
Buckinghamshire +20 109 £55,000 - 29
West Sussex -16 23 £35,000 -6.67% 6
Kent -26 17 £52,500 -4.55% 8
Oxfordshire -28 14 £100,000 +53.85% 12
East Sussex -15 6 £70,000 +40.00%
Sussex -5 4 £67,500 +28.57% 3
Middlesex +28 3 £65,000 -
Isle of Wight - 2 £70,000 - 2
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 13 (1.08%) SharePoint
2 11 (0.92%) Apache
3 6 (0.50%) Confluence
3 6 (0.50%) SAS
4 5 (0.42%) nginx
5 3 (0.25%) IIS
6 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
6 2 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.083%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 26 (2.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (1.50%) Simulink
3 15 (1.25%) Microsoft Office
4 12 (1.00%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.42%) Solid Edge
5 5 (0.42%) SOLIDWORKS
6 4 (0.33%) Mathcad
6 4 (0.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 3 (0.25%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.17%) Lectora
9 1 (0.083%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.083%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.083%) MS Visio
9 1 (0.083%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 8 (0.67%) Primavera
2 4 (0.33%) Workday HCM
3 2 (0.17%) Oracle Applications
3 2 (0.17%) Siebel CRM
3 2 (0.17%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.083%) SAP MDG
4 1 (0.083%) SAP MM
4 1 (0.083%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.083%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 194 (16.14%) Azure
2 128 (10.65%) AWS
3 54 (4.49%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (3.24%) Entra ID
5 38 (3.16%) GCP
6 24 (2.00%) Power Platform
7 22 (1.83%) Serverless
8 18 (1.50%) GitHub
9 17 (1.41%) OpenShift
10 14 (1.16%) Amazon EKS
10 14 (1.16%) Azure Sentinel
11 13 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
12 12 (1.00%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (0.92%) Azure AKS
14 10 (0.83%) Amazon EC2
14 10 (0.83%) PowerApps
15 8 (0.67%) Azure Stack
15 8 (0.67%) Cloud Computing
15 8 (0.67%) SaaS
16 7 (0.58%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 121 (10.07%) Firewall
2 74 (6.16%) DNS
3 63 (5.24%) WAN
4 53 (4.41%) LAN
5 45 (3.74%) Network Security
6 44 (3.66%) TCP/IP
7 43 (3.58%) VPN
8 20 (1.66%) BGP
9 18 (1.50%) HTTP
9 18 (1.50%) VLAN
10 16 (1.33%) ATM
11 14 (1.16%) OSPF
12 13 (1.08%) VoIP
13 12 (1.00%) Intrusion Detection
13 12 (1.00%) NGFW
13 12 (1.00%) SAN
13 12 (1.00%) SD-WAN
14 11 (0.92%) NAS
14 11 (0.92%) NetScaler
14 11 (0.92%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (2.41%) PostgreSQL
2 22 (1.83%) Power BI
3 21 (1.75%) Relational Database
4 16 (1.33%) MySQL
5 15 (1.25%) SQL Server
6 6 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (0.33%) GIS
7 4 (0.33%) MongoDB
7 4 (0.33%) Oracle Database
7 4 (0.33%) Redis
8 3 (0.25%) Tableau
9 2 (0.17%) Big Data
9 2 (0.17%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.17%) Geospatial Data
9 2 (0.17%) Metadata
9 2 (0.17%) Oracle Database 11g
9 2 (0.17%) Oracle Database 12c
9 2 (0.17%) RDBMS
9 2 (0.17%) Siebel EIM
10 1 (0.083%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 72 (5.99%) Git
2 45 (3.74%) GitLab
3 29 (2.41%) JIRA
4 24 (2.00%) Jenkins
5 14 (1.16%) Visual Studio Code
6 10 (0.83%) SonarQube
7 9 (0.75%) Rational DOORS
8 6 (0.50%) Artifactory
8 6 (0.50%) JMeter
9 5 (0.42%) Cucumber
9 5 (0.42%) JUnit
10 4 (0.33%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.33%) LabVIEW
10 4 (0.33%) Selenium
11 3 (0.25%) Gatling
11 3 (0.25%) LoadRunner
12 2 (0.17%) Android Studio
12 2 (0.17%) Cypress.io
12 2 (0.17%) Mockito
12 2 (0.17%) MSTest
General
1 288 (23.96%) Social Skills
2 143 (11.90%) Analytical Skills
3 121 (10.07%) Aerospace
3 121 (10.07%) Finance
4 118 (9.82%) Public Sector
5 62 (5.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 61 (5.07%) Military
7 60 (4.99%) Electronics
8 33 (2.75%) Manufacturing
9 31 (2.58%) Organisational Skills
10 27 (2.25%) Aviation
11 26 (2.16%) Law
12 23 (1.91%) Telecoms
13 22 (1.83%) Documentation Skills
14 16 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
15 13 (1.08%) Games
15 13 (1.08%) Police
16 12 (1.00%) Aeronautics
16 12 (1.00%) Banking
16 12 (1.00%) Legal
Job Titles
1 181 (15.06%) Architect
2 170 (14.14%) Senior
3 121 (10.07%) Software Engineer
4 93 (7.74%) Lead
5 81 (6.74%) Analyst
6 74 (6.16%) Systems Engineer
7 67 (5.57%) Security Architect
8 62 (5.16%) Developer
9 50 (4.16%) Consultant
10 45 (3.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 40 (3.33%) Network Engineer
12 35 (2.91%) Applications Architect
12 35 (2.91%) Senior Software Engineer
13 30 (2.50%) Project Manager
14 27 (2.25%) Azure Engineer
14 27 (2.25%) SOC Analyst
15 26 (2.16%) Security Analyst
15 26 (2.16%) Solutions Architect
16 24 (2.00%) Senior Developer
16 24 (2.00%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (5.41%) Terraform
2 38 (3.16%) LDAP
3 36 (3.00%) ModSecurity
4 32 (2.66%) React
5 31 (2.58%) .NET
6 23 (1.91%) Regular Expression
7 19 (1.58%) XMPP
8 17 (1.41%) Spring
9 15 (1.25%) HTML
9 15 (1.25%) Kafka
10 14 (1.16%) CSS
10 14 (1.16%) REST
11 13 (1.08%) OAuth
11 13 (1.08%) OpenID
11 13 (1.08%) SAML
12 12 (1.00%) AngularJS
12 12 (1.00%) Elastic Stack
12 12 (1.00%) JSON
13 11 (0.92%) Web Services
14 10 (0.83%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 52 (4.33%) Cloud Native
2 43 (3.58%) Social Media
3 42 (3.49%) Data Centre
4 41 (3.41%) Onboarding
5 38 (3.16%) Driving Licence
6 32 (2.66%) Algorithms
7 29 (2.41%) Management Information System
7 29 (2.41%) Product Ownership
8 28 (2.33%) Cyber Threat
9 27 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
10 25 (2.08%) Security Operations Centre
11 24 (2.00%) Cyber Defence
11 24 (2.00%) Embedded Systems
12 22 (1.83%) FPGA
13 20 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
13 20 (1.66%) Robotics
14 19 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
14 19 (1.58%) PKI
15 18 (1.50%) Private Cloud
16 17 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 197 (16.39%) Linux
2 144 (11.98%) Windows
3 81 (6.74%) Windows Server
4 34 (2.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (1.33%) Ubuntu
6 12 (1.00%) CentOS
7 9 (0.75%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.50%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.42%) Android
10 5 (0.42%) Debian
10 5 (0.42%) Unix
11 3 (0.25%) AIX
12 2 (0.17%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.17%) Rocky
13 1 (0.083%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 197 (16.39%) Agile
2 177 (14.73%) Software Engineering
3 170 (14.14%) Continuous Improvement
4 168 (13.98%) Problem-Solving
5 144 (11.98%) Cybersecurity
6 134 (11.15%) Validation
7 128 (10.65%) CI/CD
8 113 (9.40%) DevOps
9 105 (8.74%) Decision-Making
10 98 (8.15%) AI
11 97 (8.07%) Mentoring
12 88 (7.32%) Stakeholder Management
13 85 (7.07%) Technical Leadership
14 84 (6.99%) SIEM
15 81 (6.74%) ITIL
16 69 (5.74%) Incident Response
17 67 (5.57%) Infrastructure Engineering
18 66 (5.49%) Containerisation
19 65 (5.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 64 (5.32%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 156 (12.98%) Python
2 81 (6.74%) C++
3 54 (4.49%) Java
4 51 (4.24%) PowerShell
5 50 (4.16%) C#
6 48 (3.99%) C
7 42 (3.49%) Bash
8 35 (2.91%) JavaScript
9 29 (2.41%) SQL
10 27 (2.25%) TypeScript
11 23 (1.91%) Rust
12 22 (1.83%) MATLAB
13 17 (1.41%) Embedded C
14 16 (1.33%) Shell Script
15 15 (1.25%) Embedded C++
16 13 (1.08%) Go
16 13 (1.08%) PHP
17 11 (0.92%) Ada
17 11 (0.92%) Perl
18 9 (0.75%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 749 (62.31%) SC Cleared
2 471 (39.18%) DV Cleared
3 177 (14.73%) Degree
4 60 (4.99%) BPSS Clearance
5 57 (4.74%) CISSP
6 45 (3.74%) Cisco Certification
7 32 (2.66%) CCNP
8 29 (2.41%) CISM
9 27 (2.25%) Azure Certification
10 26 (2.16%) HNC
11 25 (2.08%) Master's Degree
12 20 (1.66%) CompTIA Security+
13 17 (1.41%) GIAC
14 16 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
14 16 (1.33%) CREST Certified
15 15 (1.25%) CCNA
16 14 (1.16%) PMI Certification
17 13 (1.08%) GCIA
18 12 (1.00%) CompTIA CySA+
18 12 (1.00%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (3.41%) QA
2 35 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 33 (2.75%) SLA
4 25 (2.08%) NIST
5 24 (2.00%) Accessibility
6 22 (1.83%) NCSC
7 15 (1.25%) ISO 9001
8 13 (1.08%) GDPR
9 11 (0.92%) Def Stans
10 10 (0.83%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 9 (0.75%) PMO
12 7 (0.58%) MISRA
12 7 (0.58%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.50%) JSP 440
14 5 (0.42%) GRC
14 5 (0.42%) NEBOSH
15 4 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
15 4 (0.33%) WCAG
16 3 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 3 (0.25%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 82 (6.82%) Active Directory
2 74 (6.16%) Docker
3 37 (3.08%) vSphere
4 31 (2.58%) VMware Infrastructure
5 24 (2.00%) Firmware
6 18 (1.50%) VMware ESXi
7 17 (1.41%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (1.00%) VMware NSX
9 11 (0.92%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
10 5 (0.42%) Squid
11 4 (0.33%) KVM
12 2 (0.17%) UAG
13 1 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.083%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 100 (8.32%) Kubernetes
2 55 (4.58%) Ansible
3 18 (1.50%) Single Sign-On
4 17 (1.41%) Kibana
5 16 (1.33%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (1.25%) Grafana
7 12 (1.00%) Prometheus
8 10 (0.83%) vCenter Server
9 9 (0.75%) Podman
10 7 (0.58%) Graylog
10 7 (0.58%) Puppet
10 7 (0.58%) QRadar
11 6 (0.50%) Argo
11 6 (0.50%) Kustomize
11 6 (0.50%) Nessus
11 6 (0.50%) Packer
12 5 (0.42%) Nagios
12 5 (0.42%) SCCM
13 4 (0.33%) Docker Swarm
13 4 (0.33%) Istio
Vendors
1 138 (11.48%) Microsoft
2 80 (6.66%) VMware
3 49 (4.08%) Cisco
4 35 (2.91%) Oracle
5 30 (2.50%) Red Hat
5 30 (2.50%) ServiceNow
6 26 (2.16%) Splunk
7 22 (1.83%) Fortinet
8 18 (1.50%) Palo Alto
9 17 (1.41%) SAP
10 15 (1.25%) Google
10 15 (1.25%) McAfee
11 12 (1.00%) AppDynamics
11 12 (1.00%) Citrix
11 12 (1.00%) ForgeRock
11 12 (1.00%) Okta
12 11 (0.92%) EMC
12 11 (0.92%) IBM
13 10 (0.83%) NVIDIA
14 9 (0.75%) Veeam