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

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 12 10
Rank change year-on-year -7 -2 +2
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 1,066 853 1,621
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 6.45% 9.85% 11.30%
As % of the Qualifications category 30.82% 24.35% 36.32%
Number of salaries quoted 762 511 1,135
10th Percentile £39,280 £37,500 £37,125
25th Percentile £52,500 £46,250 £43,750
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 £71,000
90th Percentile £98,625 £87,500 £85,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £60,500 £57,500
% change year-on-year +15.70% +5.22% -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 3,459 3,503 4,463
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 20.93% 40.44% 31.12%
Number of salaries quoted 2,032 1,637 2,739
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,567 £37,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £51,300 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +16.96% -2.29% -
75th Percentile £76,250 £70,000 £68,000
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 1 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 1 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 -3 529 £75,000 +17.19% 237
Thames Valley +23 336 £67,500 +22.73% 166
Berkshire +20 215 £70,000 +19.15% 106
Surrey -1 133 £52,500 +31.25% 65
Buckinghamshire +37 100 £55,000 +4.76% 36
West Sussex -8 28 £35,000 -6.67% 11
Oxfordshire -22 21 £82,500 +59.42% 27
Kent -30 17 £52,500 -4.55% 14
Sussex +1 10 £85,000 +61.90% 2
East Sussex -11 5 £70,000 +40.00% 1
Middlesex +39 2 £65,000 - 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 (1.22%) SharePoint
2 10 (0.94%) Apache
3 7 (0.66%) Confluence
4 6 (0.56%) SAS
5 5 (0.47%) nginx
6 3 (0.28%) IIS
7 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.094%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.094%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.094%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 25 (2.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (1.59%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.50%) Simulink
4 5 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.28%) Mathcad
5 3 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.19%) Lectora
6 2 (0.19%) Solid Edge
6 2 (0.19%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.094%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.094%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (0.38%) Workday HCM
2 2 (0.19%) Primavera
3 1 (0.094%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.094%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.094%) SAP MDG
3 1 (0.094%) SAP MM
3 1 (0.094%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.094%) Siebel CRM
3 1 (0.094%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.094%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 175 (16.42%) Azure
2 106 (9.94%) AWS
3 52 (4.88%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (3.66%) GCP
5 29 (2.72%) Entra ID
6 23 (2.16%) Serverless
7 20 (1.88%) Power Platform
8 17 (1.59%) GitHub
9 16 (1.50%) OpenShift
10 15 (1.41%) Azure DevOps
11 14 (1.31%) Amazon EKS
12 13 (1.22%) GitHub Actions
13 12 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
14 11 (1.03%) Azure AKS
15 10 (0.94%) Amazon EC2
15 10 (0.94%) Azure Stack
15 10 (0.94%) PowerApps
16 7 (0.66%) AWS Lambda
17 6 (0.56%) Amazon ECS
17 6 (0.56%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 111 (10.41%) Firewall
2 70 (6.57%) DNS
3 63 (5.91%) WAN
4 51 (4.78%) LAN
5 42 (3.94%) TCP/IP
6 41 (3.85%) VPN
7 33 (3.10%) Network Security
8 21 (1.97%) BGP
9 18 (1.69%) ATM
9 18 (1.69%) HTTP
10 16 (1.50%) VLAN
11 14 (1.31%) VoIP
12 13 (1.22%) OSPF
13 12 (1.13%) MQTT
13 12 (1.13%) NGFW
13 12 (1.13%) SD-WAN
14 11 (1.03%) NetScaler
14 11 (1.03%) SAN
15 10 (0.94%) MPLS
15 10 (0.94%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (1.78%) Power BI
3 17 (1.59%) Relational Database
4 14 (1.31%) SQL Server
5 12 (1.13%) MySQL
6 5 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (0.38%) GIS
7 4 (0.38%) Oracle Database
7 4 (0.38%) Redis
8 3 (0.28%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.19%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.19%) Metadata
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle Database 11g
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle Database 12c
10 1 (0.094%) NoSQL
10 1 (0.094%) RDBMS
10 1 (0.094%) Siebel EIM
10 1 (0.094%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 69 (6.47%) Git
2 52 (4.88%) GitLab
3 28 (2.63%) JIRA
4 25 (2.35%) Jenkins
5 14 (1.31%) Visual Studio Code
6 11 (1.03%) SonarQube
7 8 (0.75%) Rational DOORS
8 6 (0.56%) Artifactory
9 5 (0.47%) Cucumber
9 5 (0.47%) JMeter
9 5 (0.47%) JUnit
10 4 (0.38%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.38%) Selenium
11 3 (0.28%) Android Studio
11 3 (0.28%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 3 (0.28%) LabVIEW
12 2 (0.19%) Cypress.io
12 2 (0.19%) LoadRunner
12 2 (0.19%) Subversion
12 2 (0.19%) Visual Studio
General
1 243 (22.80%) Social Skills
2 112 (10.51%) Analytical Skills
3 103 (9.66%) Finance
4 99 (9.29%) Public Sector
5 69 (6.47%) Aerospace
6 55 (5.16%) Electronics
7 45 (4.22%) Military
8 43 (4.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 29 (2.72%) Manufacturing
10 27 (2.53%) Organisational Skills
11 26 (2.44%) Aviation
12 23 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
12 23 (2.16%) Telecoms
13 20 (1.88%) Law
14 11 (1.03%) Aeronautics
14 11 (1.03%) Games
15 10 (0.94%) Banking
15 10 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (0.84%) Legal
17 8 (0.75%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 153 (14.35%) Architect
2 151 (14.17%) Senior
3 118 (11.07%) Software Engineer
4 72 (6.75%) Lead
5 65 (6.10%) Analyst
6 63 (5.91%) Developer
7 52 (4.88%) Security Architect
8 45 (4.22%) Systems Engineer
9 43 (4.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 42 (3.94%) Consultant
11 39 (3.66%) Network Engineer
12 35 (3.28%) Applications Architect
12 35 (3.28%) Senior Software Engineer
13 28 (2.63%) Azure Engineer
14 25 (2.35%) Data Engineer
14 25 (2.35%) Security Engineer
14 25 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
14 25 (2.35%) Support Engineer
15 24 (2.25%) SOC Analyst
16 22 (2.06%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (2.81%) LDAP
2 29 (2.72%) .NET
2 29 (2.72%) React
3 23 (2.16%) Regular Expression
4 19 (1.78%) XMPP
5 17 (1.59%) REST
6 16 (1.50%) Kafka
6 16 (1.50%) Spring
7 15 (1.41%) ModSecurity
8 13 (1.22%) JSON
9 12 (1.13%) Elastic Stack
9 12 (1.13%) Web Services
10 11 (1.03%) ARM Templates
11 9 (0.84%) AngularJS
11 9 (0.84%) HTML
11 9 (0.84%) Spring Boot
11 9 (0.84%) YAML
12 8 (0.75%) CSS
12 8 (0.75%) RabbitMQ
12 8 (0.75%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 37 (3.47%) Cloud Native
2 35 (3.28%) Data Centre
2 35 (3.28%) Driving Licence
2 35 (3.28%) Onboarding
3 29 (2.72%) Algorithms
3 29 (2.72%) Product Ownership
4 25 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
4 25 (2.35%) Social Media
5 23 (2.16%) Cyber Threat
6 22 (2.06%) Embedded Systems
6 22 (2.06%) FPGA
7 21 (1.97%) PKI
8 19 (1.78%) Cyber Defence
8 19 (1.78%) Management Information System
8 19 (1.78%) Robotics
8 19 (1.78%) Security Operations Centre
9 17 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
10 15 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
10 15 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
10 15 (1.41%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 190 (17.82%) Linux
2 139 (13.04%) Windows
3 82 (7.69%) Windows Server
4 34 (3.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (1.78%) Ubuntu
6 16 (1.50%) CentOS
7 10 (0.94%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (0.66%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.56%) Android
9 6 (0.56%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.38%) Debian
10 4 (0.38%) Unix
11 3 (0.28%) AIX
12 2 (0.19%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.094%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (16.98%) Agile
2 165 (15.48%) Software Engineering
3 137 (12.85%) Problem-Solving
4 136 (12.76%) Continuous Improvement
5 123 (11.54%) CI/CD
6 122 (11.44%) Cybersecurity
7 113 (10.60%) DevOps
8 86 (8.07%) Validation
9 80 (7.50%) Decision-Making
10 76 (7.13%) AI
10 76 (7.13%) Mentoring
11 75 (7.04%) ITIL
12 73 (6.85%) SIEM
12 73 (6.85%) Stakeholder Management
13 62 (5.82%) Technical Leadership
14 60 (5.63%) Infrastructure as Code
15 59 (5.53%) Containerisation
15 59 (5.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 56 (5.25%) Platform Engineering
17 51 (4.78%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 153 (14.35%) Python
2 76 (7.13%) C++
3 55 (5.16%) Java
4 49 (4.60%) PowerShell
5 47 (4.41%) C
6 44 (4.13%) C#
7 38 (3.56%) Bash
8 31 (2.91%) SQL
9 29 (2.72%) JavaScript
10 23 (2.16%) Rust
11 22 (2.06%) TypeScript
12 20 (1.88%) MATLAB
13 15 (1.41%) Embedded C
14 14 (1.31%) Embedded C++
14 14 (1.31%) Shell Script
15 13 (1.22%) PHP
16 11 (1.03%) Ada
16 11 (1.03%) Go
16 11 (1.03%) PL/SQL
17 10 (0.94%) Perl
Qualifications
1 690 (64.73%) SC Cleared
2 391 (36.68%) DV Cleared
3 158 (14.82%) Degree
4 43 (4.03%) BPSS Clearance
5 38 (3.56%) Cisco Certification
6 36 (3.38%) CISSP
7 29 (2.72%) HNC
8 26 (2.44%) CCNP
9 23 (2.16%) Master's Degree
10 18 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
11 17 (1.59%) CompTIA Security+
12 16 (1.50%) Azure Certification
12 16 (1.50%) GIAC
13 15 (1.41%) CREST Certified
14 14 (1.31%) CCNA
14 14 (1.31%) CISM
15 12 (1.13%) GCIA
15 12 (1.13%) OSCP
16 11 (1.03%) HND
16 11 (1.03%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (2.91%) QA
2 27 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 27 (2.53%) SLA
3 22 (2.06%) NCSC
4 16 (1.50%) NIST
5 14 (1.31%) ISO 9001
6 13 (1.22%) GDPR
7 11 (1.03%) Accessibility
7 11 (1.03%) PMO
8 10 (0.94%) Def Stans
8 10 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 6 (0.56%) JSP 440
9 6 (0.56%) MISRA
10 5 (0.47%) NEBOSH
10 5 (0.47%) NIST 800
11 4 (0.38%) GRC
12 3 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
12 3 (0.28%) ISO 22301
13 2 (0.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 2 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 73 (6.85%) Docker
2 70 (6.57%) Active Directory
3 35 (3.28%) vSphere
4 28 (2.63%) VMware Infrastructure
5 22 (2.06%) Firmware
6 14 (1.31%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (1.13%) VMware NSX
8 9 (0.84%) Hyper-V
9 5 (0.47%) Embedded Firmware
9 5 (0.47%) Squid
10 3 (0.28%) KVM
11 2 (0.19%) UAG
12 1 (0.094%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.094%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 96 (9.01%) Kubernetes
2 68 (6.38%) Terraform
3 57 (5.35%) Ansible
4 16 (1.50%) Grafana
4 16 (1.50%) Kibana
4 16 (1.50%) Microsoft Intune
5 14 (1.31%) Prometheus
6 10 (0.94%) Podman
6 10 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.94%) vCenter Server
7 8 (0.75%) Nessus
7 8 (0.75%) Puppet
8 7 (0.66%) Nagios
9 6 (0.56%) Graylog
9 6 (0.56%) QRadar
10 5 (0.47%) Argo
10 5 (0.47%) Docker Swarm
10 5 (0.47%) Kustomize
10 5 (0.47%) Packer
11 4 (0.38%) Istio
Vendors
1 136 (12.76%) Microsoft
2 75 (7.04%) VMware
3 45 (4.22%) Cisco
4 31 (2.91%) Oracle
4 31 (2.91%) Red Hat
5 30 (2.81%) Splunk
6 28 (2.63%) ServiceNow
7 15 (1.41%) Fortinet
7 15 (1.41%) McAfee
7 15 (1.41%) Palo Alto
8 14 (1.31%) Google
9 12 (1.13%) Citrix
9 12 (1.13%) EMC
10 11 (1.03%) AppDynamics
10 11 (1.03%) IBM
11 10 (0.94%) NVIDIA
12 9 (0.84%) SAP
13 8 (0.75%) Juniper
13 8 (0.75%) NetApp
13 8 (0.75%) Veeam