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 20 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 13 11
Rank change year-on-year -10 -2 +9
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 860 774 1,886
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 5.80% 9.84% 10.13%
As % of the Qualifications category 27.10% 21.15% 32.39%
Number of salaries quoted 641 487 1,378
10th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £34,750
25th Percentile £52,500 £47,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% +9.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £83,750 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £87,500 £83,750
England median annual salary £67,500 £62,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +8.87% +7.83% -4.17%

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 3,174 3,659 5,822
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 21.39% 46.50% 31.27%
Number of salaries quoted 1,834 1,531 3,660
10th Percentile £31,000 £31,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,574 £38,220
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £52,500 £51,000
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% +2.94% -1.92%
75th Percentile £75,000 £68,750 £67,000
90th Percentile £87,200 £81,250 £82,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% +1.85% -10.00%

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 20 June 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 20 June 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 -4 408 £75,000 +25.00% 167
Thames Valley +23 298 £67,500 +17.05% 122
Berkshire +20 203 £67,500 +12.50% 74
Surrey -3 80 £57,402 +27.56% 33
Buckinghamshire +34 74 £52,500 -4.55% 36
West Sussex -3 29 £35,000 -6.67% 8
Kent -25 23 £52,500 -12.50% 7
Oxfordshire -13 21 £80,000 +54.59% 16
Sussex +1 13 £85,000 +61.90% 1
East Sussex -11 4 £70,000 +40.00% 1
Middlesex +47 1 £65,000 - 1
Home Counties -2 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 22 (2.56%) SharePoint
2 6 (0.70%) Confluence
2 6 (0.70%) SAS
3 4 (0.47%) Apache
3 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.23%) IIS
5 1 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.12%) Apache Qpid
5 1 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 20 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (2.21%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.40%) Simulink
4 2 (0.23%) Lectora
Business Applications
1 1 (0.12%) Primavera
1 1 (0.12%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.12%) SAP MDG
1 1 (0.12%) SAP MM
1 1 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
1 1 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 122 (14.19%) Azure
2 70 (8.14%) AWS
3 47 (5.47%) Microsoft 365
4 35 (4.07%) GCP
5 21 (2.44%) Serverless
6 20 (2.33%) Entra ID
7 18 (2.09%) Power Platform
8 15 (1.74%) Amazon EKS
8 15 (1.74%) Azure DevOps
9 14 (1.63%) OpenShift
10 11 (1.28%) Amazon EC2
10 11 (1.28%) Azure AKS
10 11 (1.28%) PowerApps
11 10 (1.16%) GitHub
12 9 (1.05%) Azure Sentinel
12 9 (1.05%) Dynamics 365
13 8 (0.93%) Azure Stack
13 8 (0.93%) GitHub Actions
14 7 (0.81%) AWS Lambda
15 6 (0.70%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 85 (9.88%) Firewall
2 60 (6.98%) DNS
3 47 (5.47%) WAN
4 36 (4.19%) LAN
5 33 (3.84%) VPN
6 27 (3.14%) TCP/IP
7 24 (2.79%) BGP
8 17 (1.98%) HTTP
8 17 (1.98%) Structured Cabling
9 14 (1.63%) Network Security
10 12 (1.40%) OSPF
11 11 (1.28%) MQTT
11 11 (1.28%) NetScaler
12 10 (1.16%) DHCP
12 10 (1.16%) SSL
13 9 (1.05%) Cisco Firepower
13 9 (1.05%) MPLS
13 9 (1.05%) SAN
13 9 (1.05%) VoIP
13 9 (1.05%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (1.98%) Power BI
3 11 (1.28%) Relational Database
4 10 (1.16%) SQL Server
5 6 (0.70%) MySQL
6 5 (0.58%) Oracle Database
6 5 (0.58%) Redis
7 4 (0.47%) GIS
8 3 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
9 2 (0.23%) Metadata
9 2 (0.23%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.23%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle Database 11g
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle Database 12c
10 1 (0.12%) Big Data
10 1 (0.12%) Data Lake
10 1 (0.12%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.12%) Geospatial Data
10 1 (0.12%) SAS Visual Analytics
10 1 (0.12%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 62 (7.21%) Git
2 52 (6.05%) GitLab
3 20 (2.33%) Jenkins
3 20 (2.33%) JIRA
4 15 (1.74%) Visual Studio Code
5 11 (1.28%) SonarQube
6 6 (0.70%) Artifactory
6 6 (0.70%) JUnit
7 5 (0.58%) Cucumber
7 5 (0.58%) Selenium
8 4 (0.47%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 4 (0.47%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.35%) Android Studio
9 3 (0.35%) JMeter
9 3 (0.35%) Rational DOORS
10 2 (0.23%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.23%) Mockito
10 2 (0.23%) MSTest
10 2 (0.23%) Subversion
11 1 (0.12%) Mocha
General
1 170 (19.77%) Social Skills
2 76 (8.84%) Public Sector
3 75 (8.72%) Finance
4 61 (7.09%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (4.42%) Electronics
6 27 (3.14%) Aerospace
6 27 (3.14%) Military
7 23 (2.67%) Aviation
8 20 (2.33%) Manufacturing
9 19 (2.21%) Telecoms
10 16 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
11 15 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
11 15 (1.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (1.63%) Law
13 11 (1.28%) Banking
13 11 (1.28%) Games
14 10 (1.16%) Aeronautics
15 8 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
16 6 (0.70%) Advertising
17 5 (0.58%) Retail
Job Titles
1 134 (15.58%) Senior
2 112 (13.02%) Architect
3 81 (9.42%) Software Engineer
4 67 (7.79%) Developer
5 54 (6.28%) Analyst
6 44 (5.12%) Lead
7 41 (4.77%) Network Engineer
8 40 (4.65%) Security Architect
9 36 (4.19%) Data Engineer
10 35 (4.07%) Applications Architect
10 35 (4.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 34 (3.95%) Systems Engineer
12 33 (3.84%) Consultant
13 29 (3.37%) Senior Software Engineer
14 27 (3.14%) Azure Engineer
14 27 (3.14%) Java Developer
15 24 (2.79%) Security Engineer
15 24 (2.79%) SOC Analyst
16 23 (2.67%) Support Engineer
17 22 (2.56%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (3.14%) .NET
2 25 (2.91%) React
3 22 (2.56%) LDAP
3 22 (2.56%) Regular Expression
3 22 (2.56%) REST
4 18 (2.09%) XMPP
5 14 (1.63%) JSON
5 14 (1.63%) Spring
6 13 (1.51%) Kafka
7 12 (1.40%) Elastic Stack
8 9 (1.05%) SOAP
9 8 (0.93%) RabbitMQ
9 8 (0.93%) Spring Boot
9 8 (0.93%) XML
9 8 (0.93%) YAML
10 7 (0.81%) ARM Templates
10 7 (0.81%) RESTful
11 6 (0.70%) Java EE
11 6 (0.70%) JPA
11 6 (0.70%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 30 (3.49%) Algorithms
1 30 (3.49%) Product Ownership
2 25 (2.91%) Data Centre
3 23 (2.67%) PKI
4 22 (2.56%) Driving Licence
5 21 (2.44%) Onboarding
6 18 (2.09%) Cloud Native
6 18 (2.09%) Cyber Defence
6 18 (2.09%) Embedded Systems
7 17 (1.98%) Cyber Threat
7 17 (1.98%) FPGA
8 15 (1.74%) Robotics
8 15 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
9 14 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
9 14 (1.63%) Security Operations Centre
10 12 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
11 10 (1.16%) Data Structures
11 10 (1.16%) Fibre Optics
12 8 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
12 8 (0.93%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 144 (16.74%) Linux
2 108 (12.56%) Windows
3 67 (7.79%) Windows Server
4 33 (3.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (1.98%) Ubuntu
6 14 (1.63%) CentOS
7 9 (1.05%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (0.70%) Android
8 6 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.47%) Debian
10 3 (0.35%) AIX
10 3 (0.35%) Unix
11 1 (0.12%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (16.98%) Agile
2 113 (13.14%) Software Engineering
3 110 (12.79%) CI/CD
4 98 (11.40%) DevOps
5 87 (10.12%) Cybersecurity
6 84 (9.77%) Problem-Solving
7 83 (9.65%) Continuous Improvement
8 61 (7.09%) SIEM
9 51 (5.93%) Mentoring
10 50 (5.81%) Infrastructure as Code
10 50 (5.81%) Validation
11 49 (5.70%) AI
11 49 (5.70%) Decision-Making
11 49 (5.70%) Platform Engineering
12 48 (5.58%) Containerisation
12 48 (5.58%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 47 (5.47%) ITIL
14 44 (5.12%) Scrum
15 42 (4.88%) Computer Science
16 40 (4.65%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 134 (15.58%) Python
2 60 (6.98%) Java
3 58 (6.74%) C++
4 37 (4.30%) PowerShell
5 36 (4.19%) C#
6 35 (4.07%) C
7 33 (3.84%) SQL
8 25 (2.91%) JavaScript
9 23 (2.67%) Bash
10 20 (2.33%) Rust
11 17 (1.98%) MATLAB
11 17 (1.98%) TypeScript
12 14 (1.63%) Embedded C
12 14 (1.63%) Embedded C++
13 12 (1.40%) Shell Script
14 11 (1.28%) Go
14 11 (1.28%) VBA
15 10 (1.16%) PL/SQL
16 9 (1.05%) PHP
17 7 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 547 (63.60%) SC Cleared
2 317 (36.86%) DV Cleared
3 132 (15.35%) Degree
4 26 (3.02%) HNC
5 23 (2.67%) Master's Degree
6 21 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
7 17 (1.98%) Cisco Certification
7 17 (1.98%) CISSP
8 15 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
9 14 (1.63%) CREST Certified
10 13 (1.51%) CCNP
11 12 (1.40%) CompTIA Security+
12 11 (1.28%) GIAC
13 10 (1.16%) CRISC
13 10 (1.16%) OSCP
14 9 (1.05%) GCIA
15 8 (0.93%) APMP
15 8 (0.93%) CISM
15 8 (0.93%) GCIH
15 8 (0.93%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (2.56%) SLA
2 21 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 16 (1.86%) GDPR
3 16 (1.86%) NCSC
4 15 (1.74%) QA
5 12 (1.40%) NIST
5 12 (1.40%) PMO
6 10 (1.16%) ISO 9001
7 9 (1.05%) Def Stans
8 7 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 6 (0.70%) Accessibility
10 5 (0.58%) NEBOSH
11 4 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
11 4 (0.47%) JSP 440
12 3 (0.35%) GRC
13 2 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 2 (0.23%) ISO 22301
13 2 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 15288
13 2 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 2 (0.23%) NIST 800
System Software
1 66 (7.67%) Docker
2 59 (6.86%) Active Directory
3 33 (3.84%) vSphere
4 24 (2.79%) Firmware
5 17 (1.98%) VMware NSX
6 15 (1.74%) VMware Infrastructure
7 9 (1.05%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.58%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.47%) Hyper-V
10 3 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.23%) UAG
12 1 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.12%) Terminal Server
12 1 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 78 (9.07%) Kubernetes
2 60 (6.98%) Terraform
3 50 (5.81%) Ansible
4 15 (1.74%) Grafana
4 15 (1.74%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.63%) Kibana
6 13 (1.51%) vCenter Server
7 9 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (1.05%) Podman
8 8 (0.93%) Nessus
9 7 (0.81%) Nagios
9 7 (0.81%) Puppet
10 6 (0.70%) Graylog
10 6 (0.70%) vRealize
11 5 (0.58%) Argo
11 5 (0.58%) Docker Swarm
11 5 (0.58%) Endace
11 5 (0.58%) Kustomize
11 5 (0.58%) Packer
11 5 (0.58%) QRadar
Vendors
1 115 (13.37%) Microsoft
2 56 (6.51%) VMware
3 32 (3.72%) Cisco
4 31 (3.60%) Splunk
5 30 (3.49%) Red Hat
6 28 (3.26%) Oracle
7 21 (2.44%) ServiceNow
8 15 (1.74%) McAfee
9 12 (1.40%) Citrix
9 12 (1.40%) Juniper
10 11 (1.28%) Google
10 11 (1.28%) Tenable
11 10 (1.16%) NVIDIA
12 9 (1.05%) AppDynamics
12 9 (1.05%) EMC
13 8 (0.93%) CheckPoint
13 8 (0.93%) CrowdStrike
13 8 (0.93%) IBM
13 8 (0.93%) NetApp
14 7 (0.81%) Carbon Black