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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 14 11
Rank change year-on-year -9 -3 +10
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 779 778 1,765
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 5.39% 9.93% 10.71%
As % of the Qualifications category 23.68% 20.15% 31.48%
Number of salaries quoted 564 529 1,351
10th Percentile £40,333 £41,250 £33,750
25th Percentile £51,250 £47,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +17.39% +4.55% +11.11%
75th Percentile £82,500 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £91,750 £87,500 £82,500
England median annual salary £65,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +8.33% +4.35% -2.54%

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 3,290 3,862 5,606
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 22.75% 49.28% 34.01%
Number of salaries quoted 1,662 1,568 3,650
10th Percentile £31,000 £31,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £53,000 £51,500
Median % change year-on-year +13.21% +2.91% +0.98%
75th Percentile £75,000 £68,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £86,790 £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 21 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 21 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 -5 350 £75,000 +30.43% 203
Thames Valley +26 291 £65,000 +12.71% 150
Berkshire +19 187 £67,500 +12.50% 91
Buckinghamshire +33 77 £55,000 - 41
Surrey -9 73 £57,303 +27.34% 38
Oxfordshire -1 27 £70,000 +35.27% 29
West Sussex -5 25 £35,000 -6.67% 10
Kent -31 21 £52,500 -16.00% 16
Sussex - 11 £85,000 - 3
East Sussex -16 3 £70,000 - 4
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 (3.21%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.64%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.39%) Confluence
4 2 (0.26%) Apache
4 2 (0.26%) SAS
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 (2.82%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (1.28%) Simulink
4 2 (0.26%) Adobe XD
4 2 (0.26%) Lectora
5 1 (0.13%) CATIA
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
1 107 (13.74%) Azure
2 70 (8.99%) AWS
3 37 (4.75%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (4.62%) GCP
5 20 (2.57%) Power Platform
6 19 (2.44%) Serverless
7 18 (2.31%) Amazon EKS
8 16 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
9 13 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
10 11 (1.41%) OpenShift
10 11 (1.41%) PowerApps
11 10 (1.28%) Amazon EC2
12 9 (1.16%) Entra ID
12 9 (1.16%) GitHub
13 8 (1.03%) Azure AKS
14 7 (0.90%) AWS Lambda
14 7 (0.90%) Azure Sentinel
15 6 (0.77%) Amazon ECS
15 6 (0.77%) Azure Stack
15 6 (0.77%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 75 (9.63%) Firewall
2 52 (6.68%) DNS
3 33 (4.24%) WAN
4 24 (3.08%) VPN
5 23 (2.95%) LAN
6 21 (2.70%) BGP
7 19 (2.44%) Structured Cabling
8 15 (1.93%) Network Security
9 14 (1.80%) TCP/IP
10 13 (1.67%) DHCP
10 13 (1.67%) HTTP
11 12 (1.54%) Cisco Firepower
12 11 (1.41%) NetScaler
13 10 (1.28%) MQTT
14 9 (1.16%) Cisco IOS
14 9 (1.16%) Cisco ISE
14 9 (1.16%) MPLS
14 9 (1.16%) OSPF
14 9 (1.16%) Wireshark
15 8 (1.03%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.18%) Power BI
2 14 (1.80%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (1.41%) Relational Database
4 10 (1.28%) SQL Server
5 4 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (0.39%) GIS
6 3 (0.39%) MySQL
7 2 (0.26%) Metadata
7 2 (0.26%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.26%) 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%) SAS Visual Analytics
8 1 (0.13%) Tableau
8 1 (0.13%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 58 (7.45%) Git
2 47 (6.03%) GitLab
3 22 (2.82%) Jenkins
4 18 (2.31%) JIRA
5 14 (1.80%) Visual Studio Code
6 11 (1.41%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.90%) Selenium
8 6 (0.77%) Cucumber
9 5 (0.64%) JUnit
9 5 (0.64%) Subversion
10 4 (0.51%) Artifactory
10 4 (0.51%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 4 (0.51%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.51%) Snyk
11 3 (0.39%) Android Studio
11 3 (0.39%) JMeter
11 3 (0.39%) Mockito
11 3 (0.39%) Robot Framework
12 2 (0.26%) Balsamiq
12 2 (0.26%) Visual Studio
General
1 159 (20.41%) Social Skills
2 80 (10.27%) Finance
3 78 (10.01%) Public Sector
4 56 (7.19%) Analytical Skills
5 31 (3.98%) Electronics
6 26 (3.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 24 (3.08%) Aerospace
7 24 (3.08%) Law
8 22 (2.82%) Manufacturing
9 20 (2.57%) Military
10 18 (2.31%) Aviation
11 15 (1.93%) Organisational Skills
11 15 (1.93%) Telecoms
12 14 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
13 12 (1.54%) Banking
14 9 (1.16%) Games
14 9 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (1.03%) Retail
16 7 (0.90%) Aeronautics
17 6 (0.77%) Legal
Job Titles
1 124 (15.92%) Senior
2 105 (13.48%) Architect
3 69 (8.86%) Developer
4 58 (7.45%) Software Engineer
5 54 (6.93%) Lead
6 44 (5.65%) Analyst
7 39 (5.01%) Network Engineer
8 36 (4.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 34 (4.36%) Systems Engineer
10 31 (3.98%) Applications Architect
11 29 (3.72%) Consultant
11 29 (3.72%) Security Architect
12 26 (3.34%) Data Engineer
12 26 (3.34%) Java Developer
13 24 (3.08%) DevOps Engineer
14 22 (2.82%) Support Engineer
15 21 (2.70%) IT Engineer
16 20 (2.57%) Azure Engineer
16 20 (2.57%) Senior Developer
16 20 (2.57%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (3.72%) .NET
2 23 (2.95%) REST
3 19 (2.44%) React
4 16 (2.05%) LDAP
4 16 (2.05%) Regular Expression
4 16 (2.05%) Spring
5 12 (1.54%) JSON
5 12 (1.54%) Kafka
5 12 (1.54%) XMPP
6 11 (1.41%) SOAP
7 10 (1.28%) Elastic Stack
8 8 (1.03%) RabbitMQ
8 8 (1.03%) RESTful
8 8 (1.03%) Spring Boot
9 7 (0.90%) AngularJS
9 7 (0.90%) Middleware
9 7 (0.90%) XML
10 6 (0.77%) HTML
10 6 (0.77%) JPA
10 6 (0.77%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 34 (4.36%) Product Ownership
2 25 (3.21%) Algorithms
3 24 (3.08%) Data Centre
4 21 (2.70%) PKI
5 19 (2.44%) Onboarding
6 17 (2.18%) Cloud Native
7 15 (1.93%) Embedded Systems
8 14 (1.80%) Cyber Defence
8 14 (1.80%) FPGA
9 13 (1.67%) Self-Motivation
10 12 (1.54%) Cyber Threat
10 12 (1.54%) Distributed Systems
10 12 (1.54%) Driving Licence
10 12 (1.54%) Security Posture
11 11 (1.41%) Robotics
12 10 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
12 10 (1.28%) Fibre Optics
13 9 (1.16%) Management Information System
14 8 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
15 6 (0.77%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 114 (14.63%) Linux
2 95 (12.20%) Windows
3 62 (7.96%) Windows Server
4 25 (3.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (1.41%) Ubuntu
6 10 (1.28%) CentOS
6 10 (1.28%) Windows Server 2016
7 7 (0.90%) Android
8 6 (0.77%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.26%) AIX
10 1 (0.13%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.13%) Debian
10 1 (0.13%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.13%) Unix
10 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (19.00%) Agile
2 100 (12.84%) CI/CD
3 97 (12.45%) DevOps
4 84 (10.78%) Software Engineering
5 82 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
6 77 (9.88%) Problem-Solving
7 65 (8.34%) Cybersecurity
8 49 (6.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 49 (6.29%) Mentoring
9 47 (6.03%) Scrum
10 43 (5.52%) Containerisation
11 42 (5.39%) Decision-Making
11 42 (5.39%) SIEM
12 41 (5.26%) Infrastructure as Code
13 39 (5.01%) AI
13 39 (5.01%) Technical Leadership
14 38 (4.88%) Microservices
15 37 (4.75%) Test Automation
16 36 (4.62%) Computer Science
17 35 (4.49%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 106 (13.61%) Python
2 54 (6.93%) Java
3 45 (5.78%) C++
4 34 (4.36%) SQL
5 33 (4.24%) C#
6 27 (3.47%) C
7 26 (3.34%) PowerShell
8 22 (2.82%) JavaScript
9 17 (2.18%) Rust
10 14 (1.80%) Bash
10 14 (1.80%) MATLAB
11 13 (1.67%) TypeScript
12 11 (1.41%) VBA
13 10 (1.28%) Embedded C
13 10 (1.28%) Embedded C++
13 10 (1.28%) Shell Script
14 9 (1.16%) PL/SQL
15 8 (1.03%) Go
16 6 (0.77%) Groovy
17 5 (0.64%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 478 (61.36%) SC Cleared
2 291 (37.36%) DV Cleared
3 124 (15.92%) Degree
4 23 (2.95%) HNC
5 20 (2.57%) Master's Degree
6 13 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (1.67%) CISSP
6 13 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (1.28%) CRISC
8 9 (1.16%) APMP
8 9 (1.16%) CCNP
8 9 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (1.16%) CompTIA Security+
8 9 (1.16%) MBA
9 8 (1.03%) CREST Certified
9 8 (1.03%) DBS Check
10 7 (0.90%) ISACA
10 7 (0.90%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 6 (0.77%) OSCP
12 5 (0.64%) CHECK Team Member
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 17 (2.18%) GDPR
3 16 (2.05%) QA
4 14 (1.80%) NCSC
5 13 (1.67%) NIST
5 13 (1.67%) SLA
6 12 (1.54%) PMO
7 10 (1.28%) ISO 9001
8 8 (1.03%) Accessibility
8 8 (1.03%) Def Stans
9 6 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 5 (0.64%) NEBOSH
11 4 (0.51%) JSP 440
11 4 (0.51%) WCAG
12 3 (0.39%) GRC
12 3 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 15288
12 3 (0.39%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
13 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 2 (0.26%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 59 (7.57%) Active Directory
1 59 (7.57%) Docker
2 25 (3.21%) vSphere
3 22 (2.82%) Firmware
3 22 (2.82%) VMware NSX
4 17 (2.18%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.39%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
7 2 (0.26%) Terminal Server
7 2 (0.26%) UAG
7 2 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 66 (8.47%) Kubernetes
2 51 (6.55%) Terraform
3 46 (5.91%) Ansible
4 16 (2.05%) vCenter Server
5 12 (1.54%) Grafana
5 12 (1.54%) Prometheus
6 10 (1.28%) Kibana
7 9 (1.16%) vRealize
8 7 (0.90%) Nessus
8 7 (0.90%) Podman
8 7 (0.90%) Puppet
8 7 (0.90%) SCCM
8 7 (0.90%) SCOM
9 6 (0.77%) Endace
10 5 (0.64%) Nagios
10 5 (0.64%) Packer
10 5 (0.64%) QRadar
11 4 (0.51%) Graylog
12 3 (0.39%) Docker Swarm
12 3 (0.39%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 93 (11.94%) Microsoft
2 56 (7.19%) VMware
3 37 (4.75%) Cisco
4 24 (3.08%) Oracle
5 23 (2.95%) Splunk
6 20 (2.57%) Red Hat
7 17 (2.18%) Juniper
8 15 (1.93%) Google
9 14 (1.80%) McAfee
10 12 (1.54%) Citrix
10 12 (1.54%) SolarWinds
11 11 (1.41%) CheckPoint
11 11 (1.41%) ServiceNow
11 11 (1.41%) Tenable
12 9 (1.16%) AppDynamics
12 9 (1.16%) IBM
12 9 (1.16%) Salesforce
13 8 (1.03%) NetApp
13 8 (1.03%) NVIDIA
13 8 (1.03%) Palo Alto