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 30 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 13 11
Rank change year-on-year -9 -2 +10
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 795 775 1,810
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 5.50% 9.97% 10.56%
As % of the Qualifications category 23.98% 20.21% 31.80%
Number of salaries quoted 591 508 1,353
10th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £34,000
25th Percentile £51,250 £47,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +17.39% +4.55% +10.00%
75th Percentile £82,500 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £87,500 £82,500
England median annual salary £65,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +8.33% +4.35% -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 3,315 3,835 5,692
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 22.93% 49.33% 33.21%
Number of salaries quoted 1,737 1,525 3,643
10th Percentile £31,000 £31,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £52,500 £51,500
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% +1.94% +0.29%
75th Percentile £75,000 £68,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £86,616 £80,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £54,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% +0.92% -9.17%

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 30 May 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 30 May 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 -4 363 £75,000 +29.31% 170
Thames Valley +27 284 £65,000 +12.71% 116
Berkshire +14 184 £67,500 +12.50% 73
Buckinghamshire +37 75 £55,000 - 27
Surrey -13 75 £56,152 +24.78% 32
West Sussex -5 28 £35,000 -6.67% 9
Oxfordshire -4 25 £70,000 +35.27% 27
Kent -21 24 £52,500 -19.23% 11
Sussex - 12 £85,000 -
East Sussex -12 4 £70,000 - 2
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 23 (2.89%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.63%) SAS
3 4 (0.50%) Confluence
3 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.38%) Apache
5 1 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.13%) Apache Qpid
5 1 (0.13%) IIS
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 23 (2.89%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (2.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.38%) Simulink
4 2 (0.25%) Lectora
Business Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Primavera
1 1 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.13%) SAP MM
1 1 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 114 (14.34%) Azure
2 70 (8.81%) AWS
3 39 (4.91%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (4.53%) GCP
5 19 (2.39%) Power Platform
5 19 (2.39%) Serverless
6 17 (2.14%) Amazon EKS
6 17 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
7 12 (1.51%) Dynamics 365
8 11 (1.38%) Entra ID
8 11 (1.38%) OpenShift
8 11 (1.38%) PowerApps
9 10 (1.26%) Amazon EC2
10 9 (1.13%) Azure AKS
10 9 (1.13%) GitHub
11 7 (0.88%) AWS Lambda
11 7 (0.88%) Azure Sentinel
11 7 (0.88%) Azure Stack
12 6 (0.75%) Amazon ECS
12 6 (0.75%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 77 (9.69%) Firewall
2 56 (7.04%) DNS
3 37 (4.65%) WAN
4 28 (3.52%) LAN
5 27 (3.40%) VPN
6 23 (2.89%) BGP
7 19 (2.39%) TCP/IP
8 18 (2.26%) Structured Cabling
9 15 (1.89%) HTTP
9 15 (1.89%) Network Security
10 12 (1.51%) DHCP
11 11 (1.38%) NetScaler
11 11 (1.38%) OSPF
12 10 (1.26%) Cisco Firepower
12 10 (1.26%) MQTT
13 9 (1.13%) MPLS
13 9 (1.13%) SAN
13 9 (1.13%) Wireshark
14 8 (1.01%) NAS
14 8 (1.01%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.14%) Power BI
2 15 (1.89%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (1.26%) Relational Database
3 10 (1.26%) SQL Server
4 4 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.50%) GIS
5 3 (0.38%) MySQL
5 3 (0.38%) Oracle Database
5 3 (0.38%) Redis
6 2 (0.25%) Metadata
7 1 (0.13%) Big Data
7 1 (0.13%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.13%) Geospatial Data
7 1 (0.13%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.13%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database 11g
7 1 (0.13%) Pinecone
7 1 (0.13%) SAS Visual Analytics
7 1 (0.13%) Tableau
7 1 (0.13%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 61 (7.67%) Git
2 49 (6.16%) GitLab
3 20 (2.52%) Jenkins
4 18 (2.26%) JIRA
5 14 (1.76%) Visual Studio Code
6 11 (1.38%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.88%) Selenium
8 5 (0.63%) Artifactory
8 5 (0.63%) Cucumber
8 5 (0.63%) JUnit
9 4 (0.50%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 4 (0.50%) Snyk
9 4 (0.50%) Subversion
10 3 (0.38%) Android Studio
10 3 (0.38%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.38%) JMeter
10 3 (0.38%) Rational DOORS
10 3 (0.38%) Robot Framework
10 3 (0.38%) Visual Studio
11 2 (0.25%) Cypress.io
General
1 169 (21.26%) Social Skills
2 78 (9.81%) Public Sector
3 76 (9.56%) Finance
4 61 (7.67%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (4.65%) Electronics
6 25 (3.14%) Aerospace
6 25 (3.14%) Military
7 22 (2.77%) Manufacturing
8 21 (2.64%) Aviation
8 21 (2.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 21 (2.64%) Law
9 17 (2.14%) Telecoms
10 16 (2.01%) Organisational Skills
11 14 (1.76%) Documentation Skills
12 11 (1.38%) Banking
13 9 (1.13%) Aeronautics
13 9 (1.13%) Games
14 8 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
14 8 (1.01%) Retail
15 5 (0.63%) Legal
Job Titles
1 126 (15.85%) Senior
2 103 (12.96%) Architect
3 70 (8.81%) Developer
4 64 (8.05%) Software Engineer
5 50 (6.29%) Lead
6 48 (6.04%) Analyst
7 40 (5.03%) Network Engineer
8 34 (4.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 33 (4.15%) Applications Architect
9 33 (4.15%) Security Architect
9 33 (4.15%) Systems Engineer
10 31 (3.90%) Consultant
11 30 (3.77%) Data Engineer
12 27 (3.40%) Java Developer
13 24 (3.02%) DevOps Engineer
14 22 (2.77%) Azure Engineer
14 22 (2.77%) Support Engineer
15 21 (2.64%) IT Engineer
15 21 (2.64%) Security Engineer
15 21 (2.64%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (3.90%) .NET
2 23 (2.89%) REST
3 22 (2.77%) React
4 18 (2.26%) LDAP
4 18 (2.26%) Regular Expression
5 15 (1.89%) Spring
6 14 (1.76%) XMPP
7 12 (1.51%) JSON
7 12 (1.51%) Kafka
8 11 (1.38%) Elastic Stack
9 10 (1.26%) SOAP
10 8 (1.01%) RabbitMQ
10 8 (1.01%) RESTful
11 7 (0.88%) Middleware
11 7 (0.88%) Spring Boot
11 7 (0.88%) YAML
12 6 (0.75%) Java EE
12 6 (0.75%) JPA
12 6 (0.75%) Web Services
12 6 (0.75%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 32 (4.03%) Product Ownership
2 27 (3.40%) Algorithms
3 24 (3.02%) Data Centre
4 19 (2.39%) Onboarding
4 19 (2.39%) PKI
5 17 (2.14%) Embedded Systems
6 16 (2.01%) Cloud Native
6 16 (2.01%) Cyber Defence
6 16 (2.01%) Driving Licence
7 15 (1.89%) Cyber Threat
7 15 (1.89%) FPGA
8 13 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
8 13 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
8 13 (1.64%) Robotics
8 13 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
9 10 (1.26%) Fibre Optics
9 10 (1.26%) Security Posture
10 9 (1.13%) Security Operations Centre
11 8 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
11 8 (1.01%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 129 (16.23%) Linux
2 98 (12.33%) Windows
3 61 (7.67%) Windows Server
4 28 (3.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (1.76%) Ubuntu
6 12 (1.51%) CentOS
7 8 (1.01%) Android
7 8 (1.01%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (0.75%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (0.38%) Debian
10 2 (0.25%) AIX
10 2 (0.25%) Unix
11 1 (0.13%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.13%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (18.62%) Agile
2 106 (13.33%) CI/CD
3 99 (12.45%) DevOps
4 96 (12.08%) Software Engineering
5 85 (10.69%) Problem-Solving
6 84 (10.57%) Continuous Improvement
7 71 (8.93%) Cybersecurity
8 50 (6.29%) Mentoring
9 48 (6.04%) Scrum
9 48 (6.04%) SIEM
10 47 (5.91%) Infrastructure as Code
10 47 (5.91%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 45 (5.66%) AI
11 45 (5.66%) Containerisation
12 43 (5.41%) Decision-Making
13 42 (5.28%) Platform Engineering
14 41 (5.16%) Computer Science
14 41 (5.16%) Validation
15 39 (4.91%) ITIL
15 39 (4.91%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 116 (14.59%) Python
2 57 (7.17%) Java
3 51 (6.42%) C++
4 37 (4.65%) C#
5 35 (4.40%) SQL
6 33 (4.15%) C
7 30 (3.77%) PowerShell
8 23 (2.89%) JavaScript
9 18 (2.26%) Bash
9 18 (2.26%) Rust
10 16 (2.01%) MATLAB
11 15 (1.89%) TypeScript
12 13 (1.64%) Embedded C
12 13 (1.64%) Embedded C++
13 11 (1.38%) VBA
14 10 (1.26%) PL/SQL
14 10 (1.26%) Shell Script
15 9 (1.13%) Go
16 7 (0.88%) PHP
17 6 (0.75%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 496 (62.39%) SC Cleared
2 293 (36.86%) DV Cleared
3 127 (15.97%) Degree
4 25 (3.14%) HNC
5 20 (2.52%) Master's Degree
6 16 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
7 14 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
7 14 (1.76%) CISSP
8 12 (1.51%) Cisco Certification
9 11 (1.38%) CCNP
9 11 (1.38%) CREST Certified
10 10 (1.26%) CRISC
11 9 (1.13%) APMP
11 9 (1.13%) CompTIA Security+
11 9 (1.13%) MBA
12 8 (1.01%) OSCP
13 7 (0.88%) ISACA
13 7 (0.88%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 6 (0.75%) GCIA
14 6 (0.75%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 16 (2.01%) GDPR
2 16 (2.01%) QA
3 15 (1.89%) SLA
4 13 (1.64%) NCSC
4 13 (1.64%) NIST
5 12 (1.51%) PMO
6 10 (1.26%) ISO 9001
7 9 (1.13%) Def Stans
8 6 (0.75%) Accessibility
8 6 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 5 (0.63%) NEBOSH
10 4 (0.50%) JSP 440
11 3 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
11 3 (0.38%) GRC
12 2 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.25%) ISO 22301
12 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 15288
12 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.25%) NIST 800
System Software
1 61 (7.67%) Docker
2 57 (7.17%) Active Directory
3 28 (3.52%) vSphere
4 24 (3.02%) Firmware
5 19 (2.39%) VMware Infrastructure
5 19 (2.39%) VMware NSX
6 6 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.63%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.50%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.25%) Terminal Server
10 2 (0.25%) UAG
11 1 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 71 (8.93%) Kubernetes
2 56 (7.04%) Terraform
3 49 (6.16%) Ansible
4 16 (2.01%) vCenter Server
5 12 (1.51%) Grafana
5 12 (1.51%) Kibana
5 12 (1.51%) Prometheus
6 8 (1.01%) Podman
7 7 (0.88%) Nessus
7 7 (0.88%) Puppet
7 7 (0.88%) vRealize
8 6 (0.75%) Nagios
8 6 (0.75%) SCCM
8 6 (0.75%) SCOM
9 5 (0.63%) Endace
9 5 (0.63%) Graylog
9 5 (0.63%) Packer
9 5 (0.63%) QRadar
10 4 (0.50%) Docker Swarm
11 3 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 101 (12.70%) Microsoft
2 57 (7.17%) VMware
3 35 (4.40%) Cisco
4 27 (3.40%) Splunk
5 25 (3.14%) Oracle
6 23 (2.89%) Red Hat
7 16 (2.01%) McAfee
8 14 (1.76%) Google
8 14 (1.76%) Juniper
8 14 (1.76%) ServiceNow
9 12 (1.51%) Citrix
10 11 (1.38%) CheckPoint
10 11 (1.38%) Tenable
11 10 (1.26%) SolarWinds
12 9 (1.13%) AppDynamics
12 9 (1.13%) NVIDIA
13 8 (1.01%) IBM
13 8 (1.01%) NetApp
13 8 (1.01%) Palo Alto
13 8 (1.01%) Salesforce