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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 12 11
Rank change year-on-year -8 -1 +5
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 972 844 1,828
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 6.17% 9.84% 11.11%
As % of the Qualifications category 29.25% 23.61% 35.17%
Number of salaries quoted 725 521 1,307
10th Percentile £41,044 £38,500 £35,000
25th Percentile £53,500 £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 £97,000 £87,500 £85,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £62,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +12.90% +7.83% -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 3,323 3,575 5,198
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 21.10% 41.67% 31.59%
Number of salaries quoted 1,960 1,615 3,341
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £39,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £52,500 £51,485
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% +1.97% -1.93%
75th Percentile £75,281 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £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 17 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 17 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 -4 470 £75,000 +20.00% 183
Thames Valley +28 327 £67,500 +17.39% 103
Berkshire +20 215 £70,000 +16.67% 65
Surrey -5 101 £55,000 +37.50% 44
Buckinghamshire +36 91 £53,750 +2.38% 29
West Sussex -3 30 £35,000 -6.67% 13
Oxfordshire -13 21 £82,500 +59.42% 12
Kent -28 18 £52,500 -4.55% 9
Sussex +2 13 £85,000 +61.90% 6
East Sussex -14 5 £70,000 +40.00%
Middlesex +40 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 17 (1.75%) SharePoint
2 7 (0.72%) Apache
2 7 (0.72%) Confluence
2 7 (0.72%) SAS
3 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.31%) nginx
4 2 (0.21%) IIS
5 1 (0.10%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.10%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 24 (2.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (1.75%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (1.44%) Simulink
4 3 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.21%) Lectora
6 1 (0.10%) Mathcad
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
1 142 (14.61%) Azure
2 81 (8.33%) AWS
3 49 (5.04%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (3.70%) GCP
5 22 (2.26%) Serverless
6 21 (2.16%) Entra ID
7 18 (1.85%) Power Platform
8 16 (1.65%) OpenShift
9 15 (1.54%) Azure DevOps
9 15 (1.54%) GitHub
10 14 (1.44%) Amazon EKS
11 12 (1.23%) GitHub Actions
12 11 (1.13%) Azure AKS
12 11 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
12 11 (1.13%) PowerApps
13 10 (1.03%) Amazon EC2
13 10 (1.03%) Azure Stack
14 7 (0.72%) AWS Lambda
15 6 (0.62%) Amazon ECS
15 6 (0.62%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 95 (9.77%) Firewall
2 64 (6.58%) DNS
3 57 (5.86%) WAN
4 45 (4.63%) LAN
5 38 (3.91%) VPN
6 36 (3.70%) TCP/IP
7 23 (2.37%) BGP
8 21 (2.16%) Network Security
9 17 (1.75%) HTTP
10 16 (1.65%) ATM
11 12 (1.23%) MQTT
11 12 (1.23%) OSPF
11 12 (1.23%) Structured Cabling
11 12 (1.23%) VoIP
12 11 (1.13%) NetScaler
12 11 (1.13%) NGFW
12 11 (1.13%) VLAN
13 10 (1.03%) MPLS
13 10 (1.03%) SSL
14 9 (0.93%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (2.16%) PostgreSQL
2 18 (1.85%) Power BI
3 12 (1.23%) Relational Database
4 11 (1.13%) SQL Server
5 8 (0.82%) 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 (6.69%) Git
2 53 (5.45%) GitLab
3 23 (2.37%) Jenkins
4 22 (2.26%) JIRA
5 16 (1.65%) Visual Studio Code
6 11 (1.13%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.62%) Artifactory
7 6 (0.62%) Rational DOORS
8 5 (0.51%) Cucumber
8 5 (0.51%) JUnit
9 4 (0.41%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 4 (0.41%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.41%) Selenium
10 3 (0.31%) Android Studio
10 3 (0.31%) JMeter
11 2 (0.21%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.21%) Mockito
11 2 (0.21%) MSTest
11 2 (0.21%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.10%) Mocha
General
1 192 (19.75%) Social Skills
2 88 (9.05%) Finance
3 75 (7.72%) Public Sector
4 74 (7.61%) Analytical Skills
5 44 (4.53%) Electronics
6 39 (4.01%) Aerospace
7 31 (3.19%) Military
8 23 (2.37%) Aviation
8 23 (2.37%) Organisational Skills
9 21 (2.16%) Manufacturing
9 21 (2.16%) Telecoms
10 18 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
11 14 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (1.44%) Law
12 12 (1.23%) Games
13 10 (1.03%) Aeronautics
13 10 (1.03%) Banking
14 8 (0.82%) Advertising
15 7 (0.72%) Influencing Skills
16 6 (0.62%) Retail
Job Titles
1 146 (15.02%) Senior
2 134 (13.79%) Architect
3 113 (11.63%) Software Engineer
4 66 (6.79%) Developer
5 63 (6.48%) Analyst
6 47 (4.84%) Lead
6 47 (4.84%) Security Architect
7 41 (4.22%) Systems Engineer
8 36 (3.70%) Network Engineer
8 36 (3.70%) Senior Software Engineer
9 35 (3.60%) Applications Architect
9 35 (3.60%) Consultant
9 35 (3.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 31 (3.19%) Data Engineer
11 30 (3.09%) Azure Engineer
12 26 (2.67%) Java Developer
12 26 (2.67%) Security Engineer
13 24 (2.47%) SOC Analyst
13 24 (2.47%) Support Engineer
14 23 (2.37%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (2.67%) .NET
2 24 (2.47%) React
3 23 (2.37%) LDAP
3 23 (2.37%) Regular Expression
4 19 (1.95%) XMPP
5 18 (1.85%) REST
6 15 (1.54%) Kafka
7 14 (1.44%) JSON
7 14 (1.44%) Spring
8 12 (1.23%) Elastic Stack
9 10 (1.03%) ARM Templates
10 9 (0.93%) Web Services
10 9 (0.93%) XML
11 8 (0.82%) RabbitMQ
11 8 (0.82%) Spring Boot
11 8 (0.82%) YAML
12 7 (0.72%) JSON Schema
13 6 (0.62%) HTML
13 6 (0.62%) Java EE
13 6 (0.62%) JPA
Miscellaneous
1 31 (3.19%) Algorithms
1 31 (3.19%) Product Ownership
2 30 (3.09%) Driving Licence
3 28 (2.88%) Data Centre
4 24 (2.47%) Cloud Native
4 24 (2.47%) Onboarding
5 22 (2.26%) FPGA
5 22 (2.26%) PKI
6 21 (2.16%) Cyber Threat
7 20 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
8 19 (1.95%) Embedded Systems
8 19 (1.95%) Robotics
9 18 (1.85%) Cyber Defence
10 17 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
10 17 (1.75%) Security Operations Centre
11 13 (1.34%) Management Information System
12 12 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
12 12 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
13 10 (1.03%) Data Structures
14 9 (0.93%) Fibre Optics
Operating Systems
1 171 (17.59%) Linux
2 122 (12.55%) Windows
3 74 (7.61%) Windows Server
4 34 (3.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (1.85%) Ubuntu
6 15 (1.54%) CentOS
7 11 (1.13%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (0.72%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.62%) Android
10 4 (0.41%) Debian
10 4 (0.41%) Unix
11 3 (0.31%) AIX
11 3 (0.31%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.10%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.10%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 151 (15.53%) Agile
2 148 (15.23%) Software Engineering
3 112 (11.52%) Cybersecurity
4 111 (11.42%) CI/CD
5 101 (10.39%) DevOps
6 100 (10.29%) Problem-Solving
7 99 (10.19%) Continuous Improvement
8 68 (7.00%) SIEM
9 60 (6.17%) Decision-Making
9 60 (6.17%) ITIL
10 58 (5.97%) Validation
11 57 (5.86%) AI
12 56 (5.76%) Mentoring
13 55 (5.66%) Containerisation
14 53 (5.45%) Platform Engineering
15 52 (5.35%) Infrastructure as Code
15 52 (5.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 50 (5.14%) Stakeholder Management
17 48 (4.94%) Computer Science
18 46 (4.73%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 154 (15.84%) Python
2 74 (7.61%) C++
3 58 (5.97%) Java
4 45 (4.63%) C
5 43 (4.42%) PowerShell
6 40 (4.12%) C#
7 32 (3.29%) SQL
8 31 (3.19%) Bash
9 25 (2.57%) JavaScript
10 22 (2.26%) Rust
11 19 (1.95%) MATLAB
11 19 (1.95%) TypeScript
12 14 (1.44%) Embedded C
12 14 (1.44%) Embedded C++
13 13 (1.34%) Shell Script
14 12 (1.23%) PHP
15 11 (1.13%) Go
15 11 (1.13%) PL/SQL
15 11 (1.13%) VBA
16 9 (0.93%) Ada
Qualifications
1 634 (65.23%) SC Cleared
2 349 (35.91%) DV Cleared
3 143 (14.71%) Degree
4 28 (2.88%) HNC
5 27 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
6 26 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
7 24 (2.47%) CISSP
7 24 (2.47%) Master's Degree
8 17 (1.75%) CCNP
9 15 (1.54%) CompTIA Security+
9 15 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
9 15 (1.54%) GIAC
10 14 (1.44%) CREST Certified
11 12 (1.23%) CCNA
11 12 (1.23%) CRISC
11 12 (1.23%) OSCP
12 11 (1.13%) GCIA
13 9 (0.93%) CISM
14 8 (0.82%) GCIH
14 8 (0.82%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 21 (2.16%) NCSC
2 21 (2.16%) SLA
3 16 (1.65%) QA
4 14 (1.44%) GDPR
4 14 (1.44%) ISO 9001
4 14 (1.44%) NIST
5 11 (1.13%) PMO
6 9 (0.93%) Def Stans
6 9 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 7 (0.72%) Accessibility
8 5 (0.51%) 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 (7.20%) Docker
2 58 (5.97%) Active Directory
3 35 (3.60%) vSphere
4 24 (2.47%) Firmware
5 19 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
6 13 (1.34%) VMware NSX
7 11 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
8 8 (0.82%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.51%) Embedded Firmware
9 5 (0.51%) Hyper-V
10 3 (0.31%) Squid
11 2 (0.21%) UAG
12 1 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.10%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 84 (8.64%) Kubernetes
2 65 (6.69%) Terraform
3 54 (5.56%) Ansible
4 15 (1.54%) Grafana
4 15 (1.54%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.44%) Kibana
6 13 (1.34%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (1.03%) vCenter Server
8 9 (0.93%) Podman
9 8 (0.82%) Nessus
10 7 (0.72%) Nagios
10 7 (0.72%) Puppet
11 6 (0.62%) Graylog
12 5 (0.51%) Argo
12 5 (0.51%) Docker Swarm
12 5 (0.51%) Endace
12 5 (0.51%) Kustomize
12 5 (0.51%) Packer
12 5 (0.51%) QRadar
13 4 (0.41%) vRealize
Vendors
1 128 (13.17%) Microsoft
2 66 (6.79%) VMware
3 39 (4.01%) Cisco
4 32 (3.29%) Splunk
5 31 (3.19%) Red Hat
6 28 (2.88%) Oracle
7 23 (2.37%) ServiceNow
8 15 (1.54%) McAfee
9 14 (1.44%) Google
10 12 (1.23%) Citrix
10 12 (1.23%) Palo Alto
11 11 (1.13%) IBM
11 11 (1.13%) Tenable
12 10 (1.03%) Juniper
12 10 (1.03%) NVIDIA
13 9 (0.93%) AppDynamics
13 9 (0.93%) EMC
13 9 (0.93%) Fortinet
14 8 (0.82%) CrowdStrike
14 8 (0.82%) NetApp