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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 10 11
Rank change year-on-year -13 +1 +8
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 687 926 1,580
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 5.75% 12.86% 11.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 21.72% 26.48% 32.17%
Number of salaries quoted 441 646 1,251
10th Percentile £39,000 £41,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £47,500 £42,200
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £59,509 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.03% +8.20% +14.58%
75th Percentile £77,250 £77,500 £67,000
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% +3.60%

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 3,163 3,497 4,911
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 26.49% 48.58% 34.80%
Number of salaries quoted 1,418 1,567 3,349
10th Percentile £28,500 £32,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,980 £45,000 £36,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,750 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -6.52% +9.52% +3.61%
75th Percentile £70,000 £75,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £55,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -7.50% +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 9 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 9 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 -1 372 £65,000 +10.73% 164
Thames Valley +2 205 £60,000 +0.81% 172
Berkshire +8 125 £55,000 -8.33% 102
Surrey -16 62 £55,000 -12.00% 25
Buckinghamshire +14 58 £60,000 +4.19% 53
Oxfordshire +1 22 £65,000 +30.00% 27
West Sussex +3 20 £35,000 -11.39% 13
Kent -16 15 £39,000 -37.60% 23
Sussex - 10 £85,000 - 6
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 42 (6.11%) SharePoint
2 34 (4.95%) Microsoft Exchange
3 23 (3.35%) Exchange Server 2003
4 5 (0.73%) WordPress
5 4 (0.58%) Apache
5 4 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.58%) Confluence
6 3 (0.44%) 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 31 (4.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (4.08%) 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%) GNU Octave
5 1 (0.15%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.15%) OrCAD
5 1 (0.15%) Simulink
5 1 (0.15%) Windchill
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 74 (10.77%) Azure
2 60 (8.73%) AWS
3 39 (5.68%) Microsoft 365
4 29 (4.22%) Power Platform
5 28 (4.08%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (3.06%) GCP
7 19 (2.77%) PowerApps
8 17 (2.47%) Dynamics 365
9 11 (1.60%) Amazon EKS
10 9 (1.31%) GitHub
10 9 (1.31%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
10 9 (1.31%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 8 (1.16%) Serverless
12 7 (1.02%) Amazon EC2
12 7 (1.02%) Amazon ECS
12 7 (1.02%) OpenShift
13 6 (0.87%) Entra ID
13 6 (0.87%) GitHub Actions
14 5 (0.73%) AWS CloudFormation
14 5 (0.73%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 58 (8.44%) Firewall
2 55 (8.01%) 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
12 9 (1.31%) TCP/IP
13 7 (1.02%) SNMP
14 6 (0.87%) Cisco ASA
15 5 (0.73%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (3.64%) Oracle Database
2 24 (3.49%) Oracle Database 10g
3 21 (3.06%) Power BI
4 10 (1.46%) PostgreSQL
5 8 (1.16%) Relational Database
6 7 (1.02%) SQL Server
7 6 (0.87%) RDBMS
8 3 (0.44%) Airbyte
8 3 (0.44%) Data Mining
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
3 21 (3.06%) Selenium
4 19 (2.77%) Robot Framework
5 17 (2.47%) JIRA
5 17 (2.47%) Snyk
6 8 (1.16%) JUnit
7 7 (1.02%) Mockito
8 6 (0.87%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 6 (0.87%) JMeter
8 6 (0.87%) Subversion
9 5 (0.73%) Axure RP
9 5 (0.73%) Balsamiq
10 3 (0.44%) Cypress.io
10 3 (0.44%) Rational Rhapsody
11 2 (0.29%) Rational DOORS
11 2 (0.29%) TestRail
11 2 (0.29%) Visual Studio
11 2 (0.29%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 188 (27.37%) Social Skills
2 90 (13.10%) Analytical Skills
3 61 (8.88%) Public Sector
4 56 (8.15%) Finance
5 29 (4.22%) Law
6 28 (4.08%) Aeronautics
6 28 (4.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 23 (3.35%) Manufacturing
8 18 (2.62%) Aerospace
8 18 (2.62%) Telecoms
9 15 (2.18%) Aviation
10 14 (2.04%) Electronics
11 13 (1.89%) Marketing
12 12 (1.75%) Military
13 11 (1.60%) Legal
13 11 (1.60%) Organisational Skills
14 10 (1.46%) Banking
15 8 (1.16%) Documentation Skills
15 8 (1.16%) Games
15 8 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 87 (12.66%) Architect
2 79 (11.50%) Senior
3 58 (8.44%) Lead
4 44 (6.40%) Systems Engineer
5 43 (6.26%) Developer
6 40 (5.82%) Consultant
7 37 (5.39%) Business Manager
8 36 (5.24%) Analyst
9 35 (5.09%) Business Systems Manager
9 35 (5.09%) Systems Manager
10 34 (4.95%) Support Engineer
11 33 (4.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 32 (4.66%) Network Engineer
13 30 (4.37%) Software Engineer
14 29 (4.22%) Systems Support
15 25 (3.64%) 3rd Line Support
16 24 (3.49%) Data Engineer
17 18 (2.62%) Cloud Engineer
18 15 (2.18%) Salesforce Developer
19 14 (2.04%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.20%) REST
2 15 (2.18%) .NET
2 15 (2.18%) SOAP
3 14 (2.04%) HTML
4 12 (1.75%) XML
5 11 (1.60%) JSON
5 11 (1.60%) Spring
6 10 (1.46%) Kafka
6 10 (1.46%) Middleware
6 10 (1.46%) React
7 9 (1.31%) Lightning Web Components
7 9 (1.31%) Spring Boot
7 9 (1.31%) Visualforce
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%) WireMock
11 4 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 37 (5.39%) Robotics
2 28 (4.08%) Product Ownership
3 27 (3.93%) PKI
4 18 (2.62%) Cloud Native
5 15 (2.18%) Data Centre
6 14 (2.04%) Security Posture
7 13 (1.89%) Driving Licence
8 10 (1.46%) Distributed Systems
8 10 (1.46%) Onboarding
8 10 (1.46%) Security Operations Centre
9 8 (1.16%) e-Learning
9 8 (1.16%) Management Information System
10 6 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
10 6 (0.87%) Fibre Optics
10 6 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
11 5 (0.73%) Algorithms
11 5 (0.73%) Cloud Security Posture
11 5 (0.73%) Low-Code
12 4 (0.58%) Cyber Defence
12 4 (0.58%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 116 (16.89%) Windows
2 61 (8.88%) Linux
3 56 (8.15%) Windows Server
4 25 (3.64%) 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 10 (1.46%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (1.31%) Android
10 8 (1.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 6 (0.87%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.73%) Apple iOS
12 5 (0.73%) CentOS
13 4 (0.58%) Windows 10
13 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (19.80%) Agile
2 79 (11.50%) Software Engineering
3 75 (10.92%) Continuous Improvement
3 75 (10.92%) Problem-Solving
4 74 (10.77%) CI/CD
5 72 (10.48%) Project Management
6 71 (10.33%) DevOps
7 56 (8.15%) AI
8 50 (7.28%) Mentoring
9 46 (6.70%) Risk Management
10 44 (6.40%) Process Improvement
11 42 (6.11%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 41 (5.97%) Cybersecurity
13 39 (5.68%) Decision-Making
14 38 (5.53%) Test Automation
15 37 (5.39%) Contract Negotiation
15 37 (5.39%) IT Strategy
15 37 (5.39%) Scrum
16 36 (5.24%) Budget Management
16 36 (5.24%) Strategic Planning
Programming Languages
1 77 (11.21%) Python
2 40 (5.82%) PowerShell
3 37 (5.39%) Java
4 31 (4.51%) JavaScript
5 25 (3.64%) SQL
6 22 (3.20%) Perl
7 19 (2.77%) C++
7 19 (2.77%) VBA
8 15 (2.18%) C#
9 13 (1.89%) Rust
10 10 (1.46%) Bash
10 10 (1.46%) C
11 9 (1.31%) Apex Code
12 8 (1.16%) Shell Script
13 7 (1.02%) MATLAB
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
Qualifications
1 431 (62.74%) SC Cleared
2 270 (39.30%) DV Cleared
3 105 (15.28%) Degree
4 26 (3.78%) Master's Degree
5 16 (2.33%) HNC
6 14 (2.04%) APMP
6 14 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
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%) 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 34 (4.95%) SLA
2 18 (2.62%) GDPR
3 17 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 13 (1.89%) NIST
4 13 (1.89%) QA
5 10 (1.46%) Accessibility
5 10 (1.46%) NCSC
6 9 (1.31%) GRC
7 7 (1.02%) PMO
8 5 (0.73%) WCAG
9 4 (0.58%) ISO 9001
9 4 (0.58%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.44%) JSP 440
10 3 (0.44%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.29%) Data Quality
11 2 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 2 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (0.29%) RMADS
12 1 (0.15%) ISO 13485
12 1 (0.15%) P3O
System Software
1 64 (9.32%) Active Directory
2 28 (4.08%) Docker
3 25 (3.64%) VMware NSX
4 22 (3.20%) VMware Infrastructure
5 17 (2.47%) Firmware
6 11 (1.60%) 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%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 38 (5.53%) Terraform
2 37 (5.39%) Kubernetes
3 33 (4.80%) 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%) Jamf Pro
11 4 (0.58%) WSUS
12 3 (0.44%) Nagios
12 3 (0.44%) QRadar
13 2 (0.29%) OpenView
13 2 (0.29%) Tivoli
13 2 (0.29%) WMI
Vendors
1 94 (13.68%) Microsoft
2 70 (10.19%) VMware
3 48 (6.99%) Cisco
4 36 (5.24%) Juniper
5 35 (5.09%) Oracle
6 20 (2.91%) Splunk
7 19 (2.77%) Salesforce
8 17 (2.47%) Black Duck
8 17 (2.47%) Coverity
9 16 (2.33%) SolarWinds
10 12 (1.75%) Google
11 11 (1.60%) CheckPoint
11 11 (1.60%) SAP
12 10 (1.46%) Broadcom
13 9 (1.31%) F5
13 9 (1.31%) LogRhythm
13 9 (1.31%) Palo Alto
13 9 (1.31%) ServiceNow
14 8 (1.16%) Adobe
14 8 (1.16%) MuleSoft