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 16 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 12 11
Rank change year-on-year -8 -1 +4
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 965 840 1,848
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 6.14% 9.78% 10.91%
As % of the Qualifications category 29.01% 23.30% 34.80%
Number of salaries quoted 719 523 1,326
10th Percentile £40,800 £38,500 £35,000
25th Percentile £53,063 £47,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% +9.09% +7.11%
75th Percentile £85,000 £78,750 £70,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £87,500 £85,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £62,500 £57,500
% change year-on-year +12.00% +8.70% -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 3,326 3,605 5,311
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 21.15% 41.95% 31.37%
Number of salaries quoted 1,946 1,622 3,434
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £39,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £52,500 £51,020
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% +2.90% -2.82%
75th Percentile £75,900 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £82,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £54,296
% change year-on-year +9.09% +1.30% -9.51%

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 16 July 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 16 July 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 -4 465 £75,000 +20.00% 209
Thames Valley +30 328 £67,500 +17.22% 144
Berkshire +21 218 £68,750 +10.89% 77
Surrey -9 98 £57,303 +43.26% 54
Buckinghamshire +31 89 £52,500 - 47
West Sussex -6 30 £35,000 -6.67% 14
Oxfordshire -11 21 £82,500 +59.42% 23
Kent -32 18 £52,500 -4.55% 13
Sussex +2 13 £85,000 +61.90% 6
East Sussex -11 5 £70,000 +40.00%
Middlesex +39 2 £65,000 -
Home Counties - 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 18 (1.87%) SharePoint
2 7 (0.73%) Confluence
2 7 (0.73%) SAS
3 5 (0.52%) Apache
4 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.21%) IIS
5 2 (0.21%) nginx
6 1 (0.10%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.10%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 24 (2.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (1.66%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.35%) Simulink
4 2 (0.21%) Lectora
4 2 (0.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.10%) Primavera
1 1 (0.10%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.10%) SAP MDG
1 1 (0.10%) SAP MM
1 1 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
1 1 (0.10%) Siebel CRM
1 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 141 (14.61%) Azure
2 81 (8.39%) AWS
3 50 (5.18%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (3.73%) GCP
5 22 (2.28%) Serverless
6 21 (2.18%) Entra ID
7 19 (1.97%) Power Platform
8 16 (1.66%) OpenShift
9 15 (1.55%) Azure DevOps
9 15 (1.55%) GitHub
10 14 (1.45%) Amazon EKS
11 12 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
11 12 (1.24%) PowerApps
12 11 (1.14%) Azure AKS
12 11 (1.14%) Azure Sentinel
13 10 (1.04%) Amazon EC2
13 10 (1.04%) Azure Stack
14 7 (0.73%) AWS Lambda
15 6 (0.62%) Amazon ECS
15 6 (0.62%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 91 (9.43%) Firewall
2 63 (6.53%) DNS
3 57 (5.91%) WAN
4 45 (4.66%) LAN
5 38 (3.94%) VPN
6 34 (3.52%) TCP/IP
7 23 (2.38%) BGP
8 20 (2.07%) Network Security
9 17 (1.76%) HTTP
10 16 (1.66%) ATM
11 13 (1.35%) Structured Cabling
12 12 (1.24%) MQTT
12 12 (1.24%) OSPF
13 11 (1.14%) NetScaler
13 11 (1.14%) NGFW
13 11 (1.14%) VLAN
14 10 (1.04%) MPLS
14 10 (1.04%) SSL
14 10 (1.04%) VoIP
15 9 (0.93%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (2.18%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (1.97%) Power BI
3 12 (1.24%) Relational Database
4 11 (1.14%) SQL Server
5 7 (0.73%) MySQL
6 4 (0.41%) GIS
6 4 (0.41%) Oracle Database
6 4 (0.41%) Redis
7 3 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
7 3 (0.31%) Metadata
8 2 (0.21%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle Database 11g
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle Database 12c
9 1 (0.10%) Big Data
9 1 (0.10%) Data Lake
9 1 (0.10%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.10%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.10%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 1 (0.10%) Siebel EIM
9 1 (0.10%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 65 (6.74%) Git
2 53 (5.49%) GitLab
3 23 (2.38%) Jenkins
3 23 (2.38%) JIRA
4 16 (1.66%) Visual Studio Code
5 11 (1.14%) SonarQube
6 6 (0.62%) Artifactory
7 5 (0.52%) Cucumber
7 5 (0.52%) JUnit
8 4 (0.41%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 4 (0.41%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.41%) Rational DOORS
8 4 (0.41%) Selenium
9 3 (0.31%) Android Studio
9 3 (0.31%) JMeter
10 2 (0.21%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.21%) Mockito
10 2 (0.21%) MSTest
10 2 (0.21%) Subversion
10 2 (0.21%) Visual Studio
General
1 192 (19.90%) Social Skills
2 85 (8.81%) Finance
3 74 (7.67%) Public Sector
4 72 (7.46%) Analytical Skills
5 43 (4.46%) Electronics
6 37 (3.83%) Aerospace
7 31 (3.21%) Military
8 23 (2.38%) Aviation
8 23 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
9 21 (2.18%) Telecoms
10 20 (2.07%) Manufacturing
11 18 (1.87%) Documentation Skills
12 14 (1.45%) Law
13 12 (1.24%) Games
13 12 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 10 (1.04%) Aeronautics
14 10 (1.04%) Banking
15 8 (0.83%) Advertising
16 7 (0.73%) Influencing Skills
17 5 (0.52%) Legal
Job Titles
1 147 (15.23%) Senior
2 134 (13.89%) Architect
3 110 (11.40%) Software Engineer
4 66 (6.84%) Developer
5 65 (6.74%) Analyst
6 48 (4.97%) Lead
7 47 (4.87%) Security Architect
8 39 (4.04%) Systems Engineer
9 36 (3.73%) Consultant
9 36 (3.73%) Network Engineer
9 36 (3.73%) Senior Software Engineer
10 35 (3.63%) Applications Architect
10 35 (3.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 30 (3.11%) Azure Engineer
11 30 (3.11%) Data Engineer
12 26 (2.69%) Java Developer
12 26 (2.69%) SOC Analyst
13 25 (2.59%) Security Engineer
14 24 (2.49%) Support Engineer
15 23 (2.38%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (2.69%) .NET
2 24 (2.49%) React
3 23 (2.38%) LDAP
3 23 (2.38%) Regular Expression
4 19 (1.97%) XMPP
5 18 (1.87%) REST
6 15 (1.55%) Kafka
7 14 (1.45%) JSON
7 14 (1.45%) Spring
8 12 (1.24%) Elastic Stack
9 10 (1.04%) ARM Templates
10 9 (0.93%) XML
11 8 (0.83%) RabbitMQ
11 8 (0.83%) Spring Boot
11 8 (0.83%) Web Services
11 8 (0.83%) YAML
12 7 (0.73%) JSON Schema
13 6 (0.62%) Java EE
13 6 (0.62%) JPA
13 6 (0.62%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 31 (3.21%) Algorithms
1 31 (3.21%) Product Ownership
2 29 (3.01%) Driving Licence
3 28 (2.90%) Data Centre
4 24 (2.49%) Cloud Native
4 24 (2.49%) Onboarding
5 22 (2.28%) FPGA
5 22 (2.28%) PKI
6 20 (2.07%) Cyber Threat
6 20 (2.07%) Self-Motivation
7 19 (1.97%) Embedded Systems
8 18 (1.87%) Cyber Defence
8 18 (1.87%) Robotics
9 17 (1.76%) Security Operations Centre
10 16 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
11 12 (1.24%) Distributed Systems
11 12 (1.24%) Hybrid Cloud
11 12 (1.24%) Management Information System
12 10 (1.04%) Data Structures
13 9 (0.93%) Fibre Optics
Operating Systems
1 167 (17.31%) Linux
2 120 (12.44%) Windows
3 73 (7.56%) Windows Server
4 34 (3.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (1.76%) Ubuntu
6 14 (1.45%) CentOS
7 11 (1.14%) Windows Server 2016
8 8 (0.83%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.62%) Android
10 4 (0.41%) Debian
10 4 (0.41%) Unix
11 3 (0.31%) AIX
12 2 (0.21%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.10%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.10%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 153 (15.85%) Agile
2 145 (15.03%) Software Engineering
3 111 (11.50%) CI/CD
4 110 (11.40%) Cybersecurity
5 101 (10.47%) DevOps
6 98 (10.16%) Continuous Improvement
7 96 (9.95%) Problem-Solving
8 68 (7.05%) SIEM
9 60 (6.22%) Decision-Making
9 60 (6.22%) ITIL
10 56 (5.80%) AI
10 56 (5.80%) Mentoring
10 56 (5.80%) Validation
11 55 (5.70%) Containerisation
12 53 (5.49%) Platform Engineering
13 52 (5.39%) Infrastructure as Code
13 52 (5.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 48 (4.97%) Stakeholder Management
15 47 (4.87%) Computer Science
16 46 (4.77%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 153 (15.85%) Python
2 71 (7.36%) C++
3 58 (6.01%) Java
4 44 (4.56%) C
5 43 (4.46%) PowerShell
6 39 (4.04%) C#
7 33 (3.42%) SQL
8 30 (3.11%) Bash
9 25 (2.59%) JavaScript
10 22 (2.28%) Rust
11 19 (1.97%) TypeScript
12 18 (1.87%) MATLAB
13 14 (1.45%) Embedded C
13 14 (1.45%) Embedded C++
14 13 (1.35%) Shell Script
15 12 (1.24%) PHP
15 12 (1.24%) VBA
16 11 (1.14%) Go
16 11 (1.14%) PL/SQL
17 9 (0.93%) Ada
Qualifications
1 627 (64.97%) SC Cleared
2 348 (36.06%) DV Cleared
3 142 (14.72%) Degree
4 28 (2.90%) HNC
5 27 (2.80%) Cisco Certification
6 25 (2.59%) Master's Degree
7 24 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
7 24 (2.49%) CISSP
8 17 (1.76%) CCNP
9 15 (1.55%) CompTIA Security+
9 15 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
9 15 (1.55%) GIAC
10 14 (1.45%) CREST Certified
11 12 (1.24%) CCNA
11 12 (1.24%) CRISC
11 12 (1.24%) OSCP
12 11 (1.14%) GCIA
13 9 (0.93%) CISM
14 8 (0.83%) GCIH
14 8 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 21 (2.18%) NCSC
2 21 (2.18%) SLA
3 15 (1.55%) QA
4 14 (1.45%) GDPR
4 14 (1.45%) ISO 9001
4 14 (1.45%) NIST
5 11 (1.14%) PMO
6 9 (0.93%) Def Stans
6 9 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 6 (0.62%) Accessibility
8 5 (0.52%) NEBOSH
9 4 (0.41%) JSP 440
9 4 (0.41%) MISRA
10 3 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.31%) GRC
10 3 (0.31%) ISO 22301
10 3 (0.31%) NIST 800
10 3 (0.31%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 70 (7.25%) Docker
2 59 (6.11%) Active Directory
3 35 (3.63%) vSphere
4 24 (2.49%) Firmware
5 18 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
6 13 (1.35%) VMware NSX
7 11 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.73%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.52%) Embedded Firmware
9 5 (0.52%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.21%) Squid
10 2 (0.21%) UAG
11 1 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.10%) Terminal Server
11 1 (0.10%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 84 (8.70%) Kubernetes
2 65 (6.74%) Terraform
3 54 (5.60%) Ansible
4 15 (1.55%) Grafana
4 15 (1.55%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.45%) Kibana
6 12 (1.24%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (1.04%) vCenter Server
8 9 (0.93%) Podman
9 8 (0.83%) Nessus
10 7 (0.73%) Nagios
10 7 (0.73%) Puppet
11 6 (0.62%) Graylog
11 6 (0.62%) QRadar
12 5 (0.52%) Argo
12 5 (0.52%) Docker Swarm
12 5 (0.52%) Endace
12 5 (0.52%) Kustomize
12 5 (0.52%) Packer
13 4 (0.41%) Istio
Vendors
1 128 (13.26%) Microsoft
2 65 (6.74%) VMware
3 39 (4.04%) Cisco
4 32 (3.32%) Splunk
5 31 (3.21%) Red Hat
6 28 (2.90%) Oracle
7 23 (2.38%) ServiceNow
8 16 (1.66%) McAfee
9 14 (1.45%) Google
10 12 (1.24%) Citrix
10 12 (1.24%) Palo Alto
11 11 (1.14%) Tenable
12 10 (1.04%) IBM
12 10 (1.04%) Juniper
12 10 (1.04%) NVIDIA
13 9 (0.93%) AppDynamics
13 9 (0.93%) EMC
13 9 (0.93%) Fortinet
14 8 (0.83%) LogRhythm
14 8 (0.83%) NetApp