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 14 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 17 8 7
Rank change year-on-year -9 -1 +14
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 811 1,395 1,206
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 7.94% 14.22% 16.52%
As % of the Qualifications category 24.12% 35.35% 39.46%
Number of salaries quoted 472 859 852
10th Percentile £33,500 £40,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £46,250 £47,125 £39,380
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,000 £59,125 £53,760
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% +9.98% +5.46%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £85,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year - +4.35% +4.55%

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 3,362 3,946 3,056
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 32.93% 40.21% 41.86%
Number of salaries quoted 1,485 1,870 1,941
10th Percentile £28,100 £35,000 £28,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,758 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £58,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -9.48% +10.48% +1.16%
75th Percentile £67,500 £75,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £59,125 £57,500
% change year-on-year -6.98% +2.83% +0.75%

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 14 December 2025.

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 14 December 2025. 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 -1 485 £60,000 - 160
Thames Valley -16 209 £55,500 -1.78% 111
Berkshire -29 112 £55,000 -4.35% 70
Buckinghamshire +39 82 £60,000 +6.67% 35
Surrey -17 76 £39,000 -22.00% 50
West Sussex +20 24 £34,000 -9.33% 8
Oxfordshire -11 15 £73,750 +63.54% 7
Kent -9 13 £39,000 -29.09% 18
Sussex - 3 £52,500 - 1
East Sussex +14 2 £50,000 - 4
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 37 (4.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 28 (3.45%) SharePoint
3 26 (3.21%) Exchange Server 2003
4 6 (0.74%) Apache
4 6 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (0.74%) Appian
5 5 (0.62%) Confluence
5 5 (0.62%) WordPress
6 1 (0.12%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.12%) Camunda
6 1 (0.12%) IIS
Applications
1 49 (6.04%) Microsoft Office
2 38 (4.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.62%) Adobe XD
3 5 (0.62%) Windchill
4 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.25%) Adobe After Effects
5 2 (0.25%) Adobe Captivate
5 2 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.25%) Adobe Illustrator
5 2 (0.25%) Adobe Premiere
5 2 (0.25%) Elementor
5 2 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.25%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.12%) CATIA
6 1 (0.12%) GNU Octave
6 1 (0.12%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.12%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 25 (3.08%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 4 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.25%) C-CURE
4 1 (0.12%) Q-Pulse
4 1 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.12%) SAP GTS
4 1 (0.12%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
4 1 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 92 (11.34%) Azure
2 81 (9.99%) AWS
3 30 (3.70%) Microsoft 365
4 27 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
5 23 (2.84%) Power Platform
6 17 (2.10%) Amazon EC2
7 16 (1.97%) Amazon EKS
8 15 (1.85%) Amazon ECS
8 15 (1.85%) GCP
8 15 (1.85%) Serverless
9 12 (1.48%) PowerApps
10 11 (1.36%) Entra ID
11 9 (1.11%) Dynamics 365
12 7 (0.86%) Amazon S3
12 7 (0.86%) GitHub
12 7 (0.86%) SaaS
13 6 (0.74%) Figma
13 6 (0.74%) IaaS
13 6 (0.74%) MinIO
14 5 (0.62%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 52 (6.41%) DNS
2 51 (6.29%) Firewall
3 30 (3.70%) VPN
4 29 (3.58%) LAN
5 28 (3.45%) Software-Defined Radio
6 27 (3.33%) DHCP
7 26 (3.21%) Junos
8 25 (3.08%) Wireless
9 23 (2.84%) WAN
10 19 (2.34%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (2.22%) Cisco IOS
11 18 (2.22%) Cisco ISE
11 18 (2.22%) Network Security
11 18 (2.22%) TCP/IP
12 14 (1.73%) Cisco Firepower
12 14 (1.73%) VSAT
13 9 (1.11%) NX-OS
14 8 (0.99%) Structured Cabling
15 7 (0.86%) BGP
15 7 (0.86%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (3.70%) Oracle Database
2 27 (3.33%) Oracle Database 10g
3 17 (2.10%) PostgreSQL
4 15 (1.85%) Relational Database
5 14 (1.73%) RDBMS
6 13 (1.60%) Power BI
7 8 (0.99%) SQL Server
8 5 (0.62%) Airbyte
9 3 (0.37%) Data Mining
10 2 (0.25%) Big Data
10 2 (0.25%) BigQuery
11 1 (0.12%) Amazon Aurora
11 1 (0.12%) Amazon RDS
11 1 (0.12%) DB2
11 1 (0.12%) DynamoDB
11 1 (0.12%) Elasticsearch
11 1 (0.12%) MongoDB
11 1 (0.12%) Neo4j
11 1 (0.12%) NoSQL
11 1 (0.12%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 55 (6.78%) Jenkins
2 51 (6.29%) JIRA
3 50 (6.17%) Git
4 27 (3.33%) Selenium
5 22 (2.71%) Robot Framework
6 20 (2.47%) Snyk
7 15 (1.85%) JUnit
7 15 (1.85%) Mockito
8 14 (1.73%) JMeter
9 11 (1.36%) MSI
10 10 (1.23%) GitLab
11 5 (0.62%) Axure RP
11 5 (0.62%) Balsamiq
11 5 (0.62%) Cypress.io
11 5 (0.62%) Subversion
12 3 (0.37%) Rational Rhapsody
12 3 (0.37%) SoapUI
12 3 (0.37%) WebDriver
13 2 (0.25%) Artifactory
13 2 (0.25%) TestRail
General
1 264 (32.55%) Social Skills
2 106 (13.07%) Analytical Skills
3 85 (10.48%) Finance
4 61 (7.52%) Public Sector
5 49 (6.04%) Organisational Skills
6 37 (4.56%) Electronics
7 35 (4.32%) Manufacturing
8 34 (4.19%) Telecoms
9 27 (3.33%) Aeronautics
10 26 (3.21%) Aerospace
11 25 (3.08%) Aviation
11 25 (3.08%) Law
12 20 (2.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 17 (2.10%) Marketing
14 15 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
15 14 (1.73%) Automotive
15 14 (1.73%) Military
16 11 (1.36%) Legal
17 9 (1.11%) Advertising
18 8 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 87 (10.73%) Systems Engineer
2 84 (10.36%) Architect
3 82 (10.11%) Senior
4 80 (9.86%) Lead
5 75 (9.25%) Support Engineer
6 51 (6.29%) Systems Manager
7 50 (6.17%) Business Manager
7 50 (6.17%) Business Systems Manager
7 50 (6.17%) Technical Support
8 47 (5.80%) Technical Engineer
8 47 (5.80%) Technical Support Engineer
9 40 (4.93%) Analyst
10 39 (4.81%) Network Engineer
11 38 (4.69%) Software Engineer
12 37 (4.56%) Developer
12 37 (4.56%) Systems Support
13 35 (4.32%) Consultant
14 28 (3.45%) Technical Manager
15 25 (3.08%) 3rd Line Support
15 25 (3.08%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (4.44%) REST
2 25 (3.08%) SOAP
3 21 (2.59%) HTML
4 18 (2.22%) XML
5 17 (2.10%) Spring
5 17 (2.10%) Web Services
6 16 (1.97%) Spring Boot
7 15 (1.85%) Hibernate
8 14 (1.73%) ActiveMQ
8 14 (1.73%) Apache Camel
8 14 (1.73%) jQuery
8 14 (1.73%) JSON
8 14 (1.73%) WireMock
9 9 (1.11%) Middleware
10 8 (0.99%) .NET
11 7 (0.86%) Kafka
11 7 (0.86%) React
12 6 (0.74%) Apache NiFi
13 5 (0.62%) 802.1X
13 5 (0.62%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 52 (6.41%) Robotics
2 46 (5.67%) e-Learning
3 33 (4.07%) Driving Licence
4 26 (3.21%) PKI
5 22 (2.71%) Product Ownership
6 21 (2.59%) Self-Motivation
7 20 (2.47%) Cloud Native
7 20 (2.47%) Embedded Systems
8 17 (2.10%) Distributed Systems
9 16 (1.97%) MicroBlaze
9 16 (1.97%) RISC-V
9 16 (1.97%) Security Operations Centre
10 15 (1.85%) Onboarding
11 14 (1.73%) FPGA
12 13 (1.60%) Management Information System
13 11 (1.36%) Security Posture
14 10 (1.23%) Renewable Energy
15 8 (0.99%) Data Centre
16 7 (0.86%) Low-Code
17 5 (0.62%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 128 (15.78%) Windows
2 76 (9.37%) Linux
3 43 (5.30%) Windows Server
4 33 (4.07%) Unix
5 27 (3.33%) Solaris
6 26 (3.21%) HPUX
6 26 (3.21%) Windows Server 2003
7 23 (2.84%) Windows 7
8 22 (2.71%) Windows Server 2008
9 17 (2.10%) Embedded Linux
10 10 (1.23%) Android
11 9 (1.11%) Windows Server 2019
12 8 (0.99%) Windows Server 2016
13 7 (0.86%) Windows 10
14 5 (0.62%) Apple iOS
15 3 (0.37%) AIX
16 2 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
17 1 (0.12%) CentOS
17 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
17 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 173 (21.33%) Agile
2 117 (14.43%) Continuous Improvement
3 108 (13.32%) Problem-Solving
4 104 (12.82%) Software Engineering
5 85 (10.48%) Project Management
6 82 (10.11%) Process Improvement
7 75 (9.25%) AI
8 66 (8.14%) Risk Management
9 65 (8.01%) CI/CD
10 62 (7.64%) Innovative Thinking
11 59 (7.27%) DevOps
12 58 (7.15%) Technical Leadership
13 55 (6.78%) Data Analysis
13 55 (6.78%) IT Strategy
13 55 (6.78%) Mentoring
14 53 (6.54%) Strategic Planning
15 52 (6.41%) Budget Management
15 52 (6.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 50 (6.17%) Contract Negotiation
17 46 (5.67%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 70 (8.63%) Python
2 68 (8.38%) PowerShell
3 48 (5.92%) SQL
4 39 (4.81%) Java
5 32 (3.95%) C++
5 32 (3.95%) JavaScript
6 24 (2.96%) C#
7 23 (2.84%) C
8 22 (2.71%) Perl
9 15 (1.85%) MATLAB
10 14 (1.73%) Shell Script
11 12 (1.48%) VBA
12 10 (1.23%) Bash
13 7 (0.86%) Rust
14 6 (0.74%) Go
15 5 (0.62%) Apex Code
16 4 (0.49%) Kotlin
16 4 (0.49%) Kusto Query Language
16 4 (0.49%) VB
17 3 (0.37%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 492 (60.67%) SC Cleared
2 278 (34.28%) DV Cleared
3 135 (16.65%) Degree
4 38 (4.69%) Cisco Certification
5 36 (4.44%) CCNA
6 23 (2.84%) JNCIA
7 21 (2.59%) CCNP
8 20 (2.47%) Master's Degree
9 18 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
10 11 (1.36%) APMP
11 10 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
11 10 (1.23%) ISTQB
11 10 (1.23%) Microsoft Certification
12 9 (1.11%) HND
13 8 (0.99%) CISSP
13 8 (0.99%) JNCIS
14 7 (0.86%) NVQ Level 3
15 6 (0.74%) CISM
15 6 (0.74%) HNC
15 6 (0.74%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (4.56%) QA
2 36 (4.44%) SLA
3 31 (3.82%) Def Stans
4 16 (1.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 14 (1.73%) Accessibility
5 14 (1.73%) GDPR
6 11 (1.36%) NIST
7 9 (1.11%) GRC
8 7 (0.86%) JSP 440
8 7 (0.86%) NCSC
9 6 (0.74%) ISO 9001
9 6 (0.74%) WCAG
10 5 (0.62%) ISO 13485
11 3 (0.37%) COSHH
11 3 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 15288
11 3 (0.37%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.37%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.37%) PMO
11 3 (0.37%) RMADS
12 2 (0.25%) Data Quality
System Software
1 73 (9.00%) Active Directory
2 47 (5.80%) Firmware
3 26 (3.21%) Embedded Firmware
4 25 (3.08%) VMware Infrastructure
5 24 (2.96%) Docker
6 15 (1.85%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.74%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.74%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.74%) vSphere
8 4 (0.49%) Terminal Server
8 4 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.12%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 42 (5.18%) Kubernetes
2 34 (4.19%) Terraform
3 30 (3.70%) Ansible
4 22 (2.71%) vCenter Server
5 14 (1.73%) Kibana
5 14 (1.73%) SCCM
5 14 (1.73%) SCOM
6 12 (1.48%) WMI
7 7 (0.86%) Grafana
8 6 (0.74%) Prometheus
9 5 (0.62%) Endace
9 5 (0.62%) Nessus
9 5 (0.62%) ZABBIX
10 4 (0.49%) FortiGate
10 4 (0.49%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.49%) vRealize
11 3 (0.37%) Netcool
11 3 (0.37%) QRadar
11 3 (0.37%) WSUS
12 2 (0.25%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 128 (15.78%) Microsoft
2 69 (8.51%) VMware
3 63 (7.77%) Cisco
4 54 (6.66%) Juniper
5 35 (4.32%) Oracle
6 33 (4.07%) SAP
7 25 (3.08%) Sparx
8 20 (2.47%) Black Duck
8 20 (2.47%) Splunk
9 19 (2.34%) Coverity
10 18 (2.22%) SolarWinds
11 14 (1.73%) Dynatrace
12 13 (1.60%) Salesforce
13 9 (1.11%) Broadcom
14 8 (0.99%) Adobe
14 8 (0.99%) F5
14 8 (0.99%) Fortinet
14 8 (0.99%) Google
14 8 (0.99%) McAfee
15 7 (0.86%) HP