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 28 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 14 9
Rank change year-on-year +2 -5 +2
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 1,430 854 1,672
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 7.57% 9.59% 13.13%
As % of the Qualifications category 36.93% 23.81% 39.23%
Number of salaries quoted 911 479 978
10th Percentile £40,000 £30,750 £39,304
25th Percentile £52,500 £45,608 £43,675
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £57,500 £58,000
Median % change year-on-year +21.74% -0.86% +7.89%
75th Percentile £85,000 £74,750 £77,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £87,300 £87,500
England median annual salary £70,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +16.67% - -

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 3,872 3,587 4,262
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 20.49% 40.26% 33.46%
Number of salaries quoted 2,295 1,609 2,056
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £42,000 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £77,500 £68,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £85,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -3.51% -5.00%

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 28 September 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 28 September 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 0 758 £75,000 +23.71% 355
Thames Valley +20 398 £70,000 +27.27% 312
Berkshire +26 275 £70,000 +27.27% 211
Surrey +6 191 £50,000 +33.33% 70
Buckinghamshire +21 109 £55,000 +4.76% 69
West Sussex -10 31 £59,500 +66.43% 40
Kent -21 23 £38,750 -29.55% 16
Oxfordshire -33 15 £100,000 +15.94% 37
Sussex -8 6 £65,000 +23.81% 2
East Sussex -9 6 £70,000 +40.00% 12
Isle of Wight - 6 £70,000 -
Middlesex +19 3 £65,000 - 1
Home Counties - 2 £80,000 -
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 15 (1.05%) SharePoint
2 11 (0.77%) Apache
3 7 (0.49%) Confluence
4 6 (0.42%) SAS
5 5 (0.35%) nginx
6 4 (0.28%) IIS
7 3 (0.21%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
9 1 (0.070%) Kinematics
Applications
1 34 (2.38%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (2.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (1.33%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (1.26%) Simulink
5 7 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 6 (0.42%) SOLIDWORKS
7 5 (0.35%) Solid Edge
8 4 (0.28%) Mathcad
8 4 (0.28%) Mathematica
9 3 (0.21%) Chatbot
9 3 (0.21%) MS Visio
10 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.14%) Lectora
10 2 (0.14%) UserZoom
11 1 (0.070%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.070%) CATIA
11 1 (0.070%) OrCAD
11 1 (0.070%) Revit
11 1 (0.070%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 8 (0.56%) Primavera
2 4 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.28%) Workday HCM
3 2 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
3 2 (0.14%) SAP MM
3 2 (0.14%) SAP PM
3 2 (0.14%) Siebel CRM
3 2 (0.14%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.070%) ENOVIA
4 1 (0.070%) SAP CO
4 1 (0.070%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.070%) SAP FI/CO
4 1 (0.070%) SAP MDG
4 1 (0.070%) SAP PP
4 1 (0.070%) SAP PS
4 1 (0.070%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 218 (15.24%) Azure
2 155 (10.84%) AWS
3 63 (4.41%) Microsoft 365
4 45 (3.15%) Entra ID
5 37 (2.59%) GCP
6 27 (1.89%) Power Platform
7 23 (1.61%) Serverless
8 20 (1.40%) OpenShift
9 19 (1.33%) Cloud Computing
9 19 (1.33%) GitHub
10 15 (1.05%) Amazon EKS
11 14 (0.98%) Azure Sentinel
11 14 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
12 13 (0.91%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (0.77%) Azure AKS
14 10 (0.70%) Amazon EC2
14 10 (0.70%) Azure Stack
15 8 (0.56%) AWS Lambda
15 8 (0.56%) SaaS
16 7 (0.49%) Google Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 123 (8.60%) Firewall
2 74 (5.17%) DNS
3 61 (4.27%) WAN
4 53 (3.71%) LAN
5 50 (3.50%) Network Security
6 46 (3.22%) TCP/IP
7 43 (3.01%) VPN
8 20 (1.40%) DHCP
8 20 (1.40%) HTTP
9 19 (1.33%) VLAN
10 18 (1.26%) BGP
11 17 (1.19%) ATM
12 15 (1.05%) Intrusion Detection
13 13 (0.91%) OSPF
13 13 (0.91%) VoIP
14 12 (0.84%) SD-WAN
15 11 (0.77%) NGFW
15 11 (0.77%) SSL
16 10 (0.70%) VSAT
17 9 (0.63%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
2 25 (1.75%) Power BI
3 21 (1.47%) Relational Database
4 15 (1.05%) MySQL
5 10 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
5 10 (0.70%) SQL Server
6 4 (0.28%) GIS
6 4 (0.28%) MongoDB
6 4 (0.28%) Oracle Database
6 4 (0.28%) Redis
7 3 (0.21%) Big Data
7 3 (0.21%) Tableau
8 2 (0.14%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.14%) Geospatial Data
8 2 (0.14%) Metadata
8 2 (0.14%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Database 11g
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Database 12c
8 2 (0.14%) RDBMS
8 2 (0.14%) Siebel EIM
Development Applications
1 73 (5.10%) Git
2 44 (3.08%) GitLab
3 27 (1.89%) JIRA
4 25 (1.75%) Jenkins
5 14 (0.98%) Visual Studio Code
6 10 (0.70%) JMeter
6 10 (0.70%) SonarQube
7 8 (0.56%) Rational DOORS
8 6 (0.42%) Artifactory
8 6 (0.42%) Cucumber
8 6 (0.42%) Gatling
8 6 (0.42%) LabVIEW
8 6 (0.42%) LoadRunner
9 5 (0.35%) JUnit
9 5 (0.35%) Selenium
10 4 (0.28%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.14%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.14%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.14%) Mockito
11 2 (0.14%) MSTest
General
1 321 (22.45%) Social Skills
2 198 (13.85%) Aerospace
3 160 (11.19%) Analytical Skills
4 140 (9.79%) Finance
5 133 (9.30%) Public Sector
6 76 (5.31%) Military
7 75 (5.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 72 (5.03%) Electronics
9 56 (3.92%) Manufacturing
10 41 (2.87%) Aviation
11 40 (2.80%) Organisational Skills
12 33 (2.31%) Retail
13 27 (1.89%) Law
14 26 (1.82%) Telecoms
15 21 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
16 20 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
16 20 (1.40%) Legal
17 17 (1.19%) Police
18 14 (0.98%) Aeronautics
19 13 (0.91%) Banking
Job Titles
1 207 (14.48%) Architect
2 191 (13.36%) Senior
3 131 (9.16%) Lead
4 120 (8.39%) Software Engineer
5 106 (7.41%) Systems Engineer
6 99 (6.92%) Analyst
7 84 (5.87%) Security Architect
8 55 (3.85%) Developer
9 52 (3.64%) Consultant
10 47 (3.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 37 (2.59%) Network Engineer
12 36 (2.52%) Project Manager
13 35 (2.45%) Senior Software Engineer
14 33 (2.31%) Security Analyst
15 32 (2.24%) Azure Engineer
15 32 (2.24%) Senior Manager
16 29 (2.03%) Platform Engineer
17 28 (1.96%) Solutions Architect
18 27 (1.89%) Tester
19 26 (1.82%) Senior Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (4.76%) Terraform
2 40 (2.80%) ModSecurity
3 33 (2.31%) React
4 31 (2.17%) LDAP
5 26 (1.82%) .NET
6 18 (1.26%) HTML
7 17 (1.19%) Spring
8 16 (1.12%) CSS
9 15 (1.05%) Regular Expression
10 14 (0.98%) Kafka
10 14 (0.98%) REST
10 14 (0.98%) XMPP
11 13 (0.91%) AngularJS
12 12 (0.84%) Elastic Stack
12 12 (0.84%) OAuth
12 12 (0.84%) OpenID
12 12 (0.84%) SAML
12 12 (0.84%) Web Services
13 10 (0.70%) Spring Boot
13 10 (0.70%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 63 (4.41%) Cloud Native
2 53 (3.71%) Data Centre
2 53 (3.71%) Onboarding
3 46 (3.22%) Algorithms
4 45 (3.15%) Driving Licence
5 43 (3.01%) Social Media
6 37 (2.59%) Management Information System
6 37 (2.59%) Self-Motivation
7 34 (2.38%) Cyber Threat
7 34 (2.38%) Security Operations Centre
8 33 (2.31%) Product Ownership
9 31 (2.17%) Robotics
10 30 (2.10%) Cyber Defence
11 29 (2.03%) Embedded Systems
12 26 (1.82%) FPGA
13 20 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
13 20 (1.40%) Hybrid Cloud
14 19 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
15 18 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
15 18 (1.26%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 189 (13.22%) Linux
2 152 (10.63%) Windows
3 68 (4.76%) Windows Server
4 23 (1.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (0.98%) Ubuntu
6 10 (0.70%) CentOS
7 9 (0.63%) Windows Server 2016
8 8 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.42%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.35%) Android
10 5 (0.35%) Debian
11 4 (0.28%) Unix
12 3 (0.21%) AIX
13 2 (0.14%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.14%) Rocky
14 1 (0.070%) Embedded Linux
14 1 (0.070%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 219 (15.31%) Continuous Improvement
2 211 (14.76%) Agile
3 202 (14.13%) Problem-Solving
4 189 (13.22%) Software Engineering
5 172 (12.03%) Validation
6 162 (11.33%) Cybersecurity
7 144 (10.07%) CI/CD
8 127 (8.88%) Mentoring
9 125 (8.74%) Stakeholder Management
10 122 (8.53%) AI
11 121 (8.46%) DevOps
12 115 (8.04%) Decision-Making
13 102 (7.13%) Technical Leadership
14 87 (6.08%) ITIL
15 86 (6.01%) SIEM
16 79 (5.52%) Incident Response
16 79 (5.52%) Infrastructure as Code
17 76 (5.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 74 (5.17%) Verification and Validation
19 73 (5.10%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 170 (11.89%) Python
2 95 (6.64%) C++
3 57 (3.99%) Java
4 54 (3.78%) C
4 54 (3.78%) C#
5 51 (3.57%) PowerShell
6 45 (3.15%) Bash
7 40 (2.80%) JavaScript
8 34 (2.38%) MATLAB
9 32 (2.24%) SQL
10 29 (2.03%) TypeScript
11 26 (1.82%) Rust
12 20 (1.40%) Embedded C
13 16 (1.12%) Embedded C++
14 14 (0.98%) Go
14 14 (0.98%) PHP
15 12 (0.84%) Shell Script
16 11 (0.77%) Ada
16 11 (0.77%) Perl
17 10 (0.70%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 867 (60.63%) SC Cleared
2 558 (39.02%) DV Cleared
3 213 (14.90%) Degree
4 66 (4.62%) CISSP
5 65 (4.55%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (3.15%) Cisco Certification
7 34 (2.38%) CISM
7 34 (2.38%) Master's Degree
8 32 (2.24%) CCNP
9 31 (2.17%) HNC
10 30 (2.10%) Azure Certification
11 20 (1.40%) CompTIA Security+
12 19 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
12 19 (1.33%) PhD
13 17 (1.19%) GIAC
13 17 (1.19%) HND
14 16 (1.12%) CREST Certified
15 15 (1.05%) CCNA
15 15 (1.05%) PMI Certification
16 13 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (2.94%) QA
2 41 (2.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 39 (2.73%) SLA
4 37 (2.59%) NIST
5 28 (1.96%) Accessibility
6 19 (1.33%) NCSC
7 17 (1.19%) ISO 9001
8 16 (1.12%) Def Stans
9 13 (0.91%) GDPR
9 13 (0.91%) NIST 800
10 10 (0.70%) MISRA
11 9 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 9 (0.63%) PMO
12 7 (0.49%) GRC
12 7 (0.49%) JSP 440
13 6 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.42%) NEBOSH
14 5 (0.35%) WCAG
15 4 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 4 (0.28%) Data Quality
System Software
1 81 (5.66%) Active Directory
2 73 (5.10%) Docker
3 31 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.82%) vSphere
5 25 (1.75%) Firmware
6 19 (1.33%) VMware ESXi
7 18 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
8 13 (0.91%) Hyper-V
9 12 (0.84%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
11 5 (0.35%) Squid
12 4 (0.28%) KVM
13 2 (0.14%) UAG
14 1 (0.070%) Virtual Desktop
14 1 (0.070%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 114 (7.97%) Kubernetes
2 58 (4.06%) Ansible
3 21 (1.47%) Microsoft Intune
3 21 (1.47%) Single Sign-On
4 20 (1.40%) Kibana
5 18 (1.26%) Grafana
6 12 (0.84%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.70%) vCenter Server
8 9 (0.63%) Podman
9 7 (0.49%) Argo
9 7 (0.49%) Graylog
9 7 (0.49%) Kustomize
9 7 (0.49%) Puppet
9 7 (0.49%) QRadar
10 6 (0.42%) Packer
10 6 (0.42%) SCCM
11 5 (0.35%) Istio
11 5 (0.35%) Nessus
11 5 (0.35%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 4 (0.28%) Docker Swarm
Vendors
1 153 (10.70%) Microsoft
2 73 (5.10%) VMware
3 51 (3.57%) Cisco
4 34 (2.38%) Thales
5 32 (2.24%) ServiceNow
6 31 (2.17%) Oracle
7 27 (1.89%) Red Hat
8 25 (1.75%) Splunk
9 22 (1.54%) Fortinet
10 21 (1.47%) EMC
11 19 (1.33%) SAP
12 18 (1.26%) Palo Alto
13 15 (1.05%) AppDynamics
13 15 (1.05%) Google
14 12 (0.84%) ForgeRock
14 12 (0.84%) IBM
14 12 (0.84%) Okta
15 11 (0.77%) McAfee
15 11 (0.77%) Veeam
16 10 (0.70%) NVIDIA