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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 13 11
Rank change year-on-year -10 -2 +10
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 790 758 1,788
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 5.45% 9.98% 10.64%
As % of the Qualifications category 23.83% 20.20% 31.69%
Number of salaries quoted 573 500 1,358
10th Percentile £41,138 £41,250 £34,000
25th Percentile £52,500 £47,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +17.39% +4.55% +10.83%
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 3,752 5,643
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 22.85% 49.38% 33.58%
Number of salaries quoted 1,705 1,489 3,651
10th Percentile £31,000 £31,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,110 £40,000 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £52,500 £51,852
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% +1.25% +1.67%
75th Percentile £75,000 £68,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £86,790 £79,000 £82,500
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 26 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 26 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 -5 357 £75,000 +30.43% 183
Thames Valley +26 290 £65,000 +13.04% 122
Berkshire +17 188 £67,500 +12.50% 73
Buckinghamshire +34 76 £55,000 - 36
Surrey -12 73 £57,303 +27.34% 33
West Sussex -4 27 £35,000 -6.67% 9
Oxfordshire -8 26 £70,000 +30.84% 24
Kent -29 23 £52,500 -19.23% 12
Sussex - 11 £85,000 - 1
East Sussex -7 4 £70,000 - 3
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 25 (3.16%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.51%) Confluence
3 4 (0.51%) SAS
4 2 (0.25%) Apache
5 1 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.13%) Apache Qpid
5 1 (0.13%) Camunda
5 1 (0.13%) IIS
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 22 (2.78%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.39%) Simulink
4 2 (0.25%) Lectora
5 1 (0.13%) Adobe XD
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
1 111 (14.05%) Azure
2 70 (8.86%) AWS
3 37 (4.68%) Microsoft 365
4 35 (4.43%) GCP
5 19 (2.41%) Power Platform
5 19 (2.41%) Serverless
6 18 (2.28%) Amazon EKS
7 16 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
8 12 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
8 12 (1.52%) OpenShift
9 11 (1.39%) PowerApps
10 10 (1.27%) Amazon EC2
11 9 (1.14%) Azure AKS
11 9 (1.14%) Entra ID
11 9 (1.14%) GitHub
12 7 (0.89%) AWS Lambda
12 7 (0.89%) Azure Sentinel
12 7 (0.89%) Azure Stack
13 6 (0.76%) Amazon ECS
13 6 (0.76%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 77 (9.75%) Firewall
2 53 (6.71%) DNS
3 35 (4.43%) WAN
4 26 (3.29%) LAN
5 25 (3.16%) VPN
6 22 (2.78%) BGP
7 19 (2.41%) Structured Cabling
8 15 (1.90%) Network Security
8 15 (1.90%) TCP/IP
9 14 (1.77%) HTTP
10 12 (1.52%) DHCP
11 11 (1.39%) NetScaler
12 10 (1.27%) Cisco Firepower
12 10 (1.27%) MQTT
12 10 (1.27%) OSPF
13 9 (1.14%) MPLS
13 9 (1.14%) SAN
13 9 (1.14%) Wireshark
14 8 (1.01%) NAS
14 8 (1.01%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.15%) Power BI
2 14 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (1.39%) Relational Database
4 10 (1.27%) SQL Server
5 4 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (0.51%) GIS
6 3 (0.38%) MySQL
6 3 (0.38%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.25%) Metadata
7 2 (0.25%) Redis
8 1 (0.13%) Big Data
8 1 (0.13%) Data Lake
8 1 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.13%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.13%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.13%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.13%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database 12c
8 1 (0.13%) SAS Visual Analytics
8 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 60 (7.59%) Git
2 49 (6.20%) GitLab
3 22 (2.78%) Jenkins
4 18 (2.28%) JIRA
5 14 (1.77%) Visual Studio Code
6 11 (1.39%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.89%) Selenium
8 6 (0.76%) Cucumber
9 5 (0.63%) Artifactory
9 5 (0.63%) JUnit
9 5 (0.63%) Subversion
10 4 (0.51%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 4 (0.51%) Snyk
11 3 (0.38%) Android Studio
11 3 (0.38%) JMeter
11 3 (0.38%) Mockito
11 3 (0.38%) Rational DOORS
11 3 (0.38%) Robot Framework
11 3 (0.38%) Visual Studio
12 2 (0.25%) MSTest
General
1 164 (20.76%) Social Skills
2 80 (10.13%) Finance
3 78 (9.87%) Public Sector
4 58 (7.34%) Analytical Skills
5 35 (4.43%) Electronics
6 25 (3.16%) Aerospace
7 24 (3.04%) Military
8 23 (2.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 22 (2.78%) Law
9 22 (2.78%) Manufacturing
10 19 (2.41%) Aviation
11 16 (2.03%) Telecoms
12 15 (1.90%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
14 12 (1.52%) Banking
15 9 (1.14%) Games
15 9 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
16 8 (1.01%) Aeronautics
16 8 (1.01%) Retail
17 6 (0.76%) Legal
Job Titles
1 129 (16.33%) Senior
2 104 (13.16%) Architect
3 70 (8.86%) Developer
4 62 (7.85%) Software Engineer
5 50 (6.33%) Lead
6 44 (5.57%) Analyst
7 39 (4.94%) Network Engineer
8 35 (4.43%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 34 (4.30%) Systems Engineer
10 31 (3.92%) Applications Architect
11 30 (3.80%) Consultant
11 30 (3.80%) Security Architect
12 29 (3.67%) Data Engineer
13 27 (3.42%) Java Developer
14 24 (3.04%) DevOps Engineer
15 22 (2.78%) Azure Engineer
15 22 (2.78%) Support Engineer
16 21 (2.66%) IT Engineer
16 21 (2.66%) Senior Software Engineer
17 20 (2.53%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (3.80%) .NET
2 23 (2.91%) REST
3 20 (2.53%) React
4 16 (2.03%) LDAP
4 16 (2.03%) Regular Expression
4 16 (2.03%) Spring
5 12 (1.52%) JSON
5 12 (1.52%) Kafka
5 12 (1.52%) XMPP
6 11 (1.39%) Elastic Stack
6 11 (1.39%) SOAP
7 8 (1.01%) RabbitMQ
7 8 (1.01%) RESTful
7 8 (1.01%) Spring Boot
8 7 (0.89%) AngularJS
8 7 (0.89%) Middleware
8 7 (0.89%) XML
9 6 (0.76%) JPA
9 6 (0.76%) Web Services
9 6 (0.76%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 33 (4.18%) Product Ownership
2 26 (3.29%) Algorithms
3 24 (3.04%) Data Centre
4 20 (2.53%) PKI
5 19 (2.41%) Onboarding
6 16 (2.03%) Cloud Native
6 16 (2.03%) Embedded Systems
7 15 (1.90%) Cyber Defence
7 15 (1.90%) Driving Licence
7 15 (1.90%) FPGA
8 13 (1.65%) Cyber Threat
8 13 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
9 12 (1.52%) Analytical Mindset
9 12 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
9 12 (1.52%) Robotics
9 12 (1.52%) Security Posture
10 10 (1.27%) Fibre Optics
11 9 (1.14%) Management Information System
12 8 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
12 8 (1.01%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 122 (15.44%) Linux
2 98 (12.41%) Windows
3 63 (7.97%) Windows Server
4 26 (3.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 13 (1.65%) Ubuntu
6 12 (1.52%) CentOS
7 8 (1.01%) Android
7 8 (1.01%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (0.89%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.25%) AIX
9 2 (0.25%) Unix
10 1 (0.13%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.13%) Debian
10 1 (0.13%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 149 (18.86%) Agile
2 102 (12.91%) CI/CD
3 99 (12.53%) DevOps
4 91 (11.52%) Software Engineering
5 84 (10.63%) Continuous Improvement
6 82 (10.38%) Problem-Solving
7 67 (8.48%) Cybersecurity
8 49 (6.20%) Mentoring
9 48 (6.08%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 46 (5.82%) Scrum
11 45 (5.70%) Infrastructure as Code
11 45 (5.70%) SIEM
12 44 (5.57%) Containerisation
13 43 (5.44%) Decision-Making
14 42 (5.32%) AI
15 39 (4.94%) Test Automation
16 38 (4.81%) Computer Science
16 38 (4.81%) Microservices
16 38 (4.81%) Technical Leadership
17 37 (4.68%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 112 (14.18%) Python
2 56 (7.09%) Java
3 49 (6.20%) C++
4 36 (4.56%) C#
5 34 (4.30%) SQL
6 31 (3.92%) C
7 29 (3.67%) PowerShell
8 22 (2.78%) JavaScript
9 17 (2.15%) Rust
10 16 (2.03%) Bash
10 16 (2.03%) MATLAB
11 14 (1.77%) TypeScript
12 12 (1.52%) Embedded C
12 12 (1.52%) Embedded C++
13 11 (1.39%) VBA
14 10 (1.27%) Shell Script
15 9 (1.14%) Go
15 9 (1.14%) PL/SQL
16 6 (0.76%) Groovy
17 5 (0.63%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 488 (61.77%) SC Cleared
2 292 (36.96%) DV Cleared
3 125 (15.82%) Degree
4 24 (3.04%) HNC
5 20 (2.53%) Master's Degree
6 15 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
7 13 (1.65%) CISSP
8 11 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (1.27%) CCNP
9 10 (1.27%) CRISC
10 9 (1.14%) APMP
10 9 (1.14%) CompTIA Security+
10 9 (1.14%) CREST Certified
10 9 (1.14%) MBA
11 7 (0.89%) ISACA
11 7 (0.89%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 7 (0.89%) OSCP
12 6 (0.76%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.63%) CHECK Team Member
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 18 (2.28%) GDPR
3 16 (2.03%) QA
4 14 (1.77%) NCSC
5 13 (1.65%) NIST
5 13 (1.65%) SLA
6 12 (1.52%) PMO
7 10 (1.27%) ISO 9001
8 9 (1.14%) Def Stans
9 7 (0.89%) Accessibility
10 6 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 5 (0.63%) NEBOSH
12 4 (0.51%) JSP 440
13 3 (0.38%) GRC
13 3 (0.38%) NIST 800
13 3 (0.38%) WCAG
14 2 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
14 2 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 2 (0.25%) ISO 22301
14 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 15288
System Software
1 61 (7.72%) Docker
2 60 (7.59%) Active Directory
3 26 (3.29%) vSphere
4 23 (2.91%) Firmware
5 21 (2.66%) VMware NSX
6 19 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
7 6 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.51%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.51%) 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 70 (8.86%) Kubernetes
2 56 (7.09%) Terraform
3 50 (6.33%) Ansible
4 16 (2.03%) vCenter Server
5 12 (1.52%) Grafana
5 12 (1.52%) Prometheus
6 11 (1.39%) Kibana
7 9 (1.14%) vRealize
8 8 (1.01%) Nessus
8 8 (1.01%) Podman
9 7 (0.89%) Puppet
9 7 (0.89%) SCCM
9 7 (0.89%) SCOM
10 6 (0.76%) Nagios
11 5 (0.63%) Endace
11 5 (0.63%) Graylog
11 5 (0.63%) Packer
11 5 (0.63%) QRadar
12 4 (0.51%) Docker Swarm
13 3 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 94 (11.90%) Microsoft
2 59 (7.47%) VMware
3 34 (4.30%) Cisco
4 26 (3.29%) Splunk
5 25 (3.16%) Oracle
6 21 (2.66%) Red Hat
7 14 (1.77%) Google
7 14 (1.77%) McAfee
8 13 (1.65%) Juniper
9 12 (1.52%) Citrix
10 11 (1.39%) CheckPoint
10 11 (1.39%) ServiceNow
10 11 (1.39%) Tenable
11 10 (1.27%) SolarWinds
12 9 (1.14%) AppDynamics
12 9 (1.14%) NVIDIA
12 9 (1.14%) Salesforce
13 8 (1.01%) IBM
13 8 (1.01%) NetApp
13 8 (1.01%) Palo Alto