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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 14 10
Rank change year-on-year +2 -4 +2
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 1,433 851 1,660
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 7.58% 9.56% 13.13%
As % of the Qualifications category 36.93% 23.76% 39.24%
Number of salaries quoted 912 478 969
10th Percentile £40,000 £30,750 £39,476
25th Percentile £52,500 £45,608 £43,750
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 £87,325 £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 3,880 3,582 4,230
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 20.54% 40.24% 33.46%
Number of salaries quoted 2,298 1,602 2,027
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £42,125 £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 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 29 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 29 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 0 756 £75,000 +23.46% 344
Thames Valley +25 402 £70,000 +27.27% 325
Berkshire +26 279 £71,250 +29.55% 221
Surrey +6 192 £50,000 +33.33% 74
Buckinghamshire +19 109 £55,000 +4.76% 72
West Sussex -10 31 £59,500 +66.43% 38
Kent -20 23 £38,750 -29.55% 15
Oxfordshire -34 15 £100,000 +15.94% 39
East Sussex -6 6 £70,000 +40.00% 13
Sussex -7 6 £65,000 +23.81% 1
Isle of Wight - 6 £70,000 -
Middlesex +16 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 (2.37%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (2.09%) 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%) OrCAD
10 2 (0.14%) UserZoom
11 1 (0.070%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.070%) CATIA
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 (15.21%) Azure
2 157 (10.96%) AWS
3 63 (4.40%) Microsoft 365
4 45 (3.14%) Entra ID
5 37 (2.58%) GCP
6 27 (1.88%) Power Platform
7 24 (1.67%) Serverless
8 20 (1.40%) OpenShift
9 19 (1.33%) Cloud Computing
9 19 (1.33%) GitHub
10 16 (1.12%) 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%) Amazon ECS
15 8 (0.56%) AWS Lambda
15 8 (0.56%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 123 (8.58%) Firewall
2 74 (5.16%) DNS
3 61 (4.26%) WAN
4 53 (3.70%) LAN
5 51 (3.56%) Network Security
6 46 (3.21%) TCP/IP
7 43 (3.00%) 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%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (1.88%) PostgreSQL
2 25 (1.74%) Power BI
3 22 (1.54%) Relational Database
4 15 (1.05%) MySQL
5 10 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
5 10 (0.70%) SQL Server
6 4 (0.28%) Big Data
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%) NoSQL
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%) Oracle Database 11g
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Database 12c
8 2 (0.14%) RDBMS
8 2 (0.14%) Siebel EIM
Development Applications
1 74 (5.16%) Git
2 44 (3.07%) GitLab
3 27 (1.88%) JIRA
4 26 (1.81%) Jenkins
5 14 (0.98%) Visual Studio Code
6 10 (0.70%) JMeter
6 10 (0.70%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.49%) 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
1 323 (22.54%) Social Skills
2 198 (13.82%) Aerospace
3 161 (11.24%) Analytical Skills
4 141 (9.84%) Finance
5 135 (9.42%) Public Sector
6 77 (5.37%) Military
7 76 (5.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 71 (4.95%) Electronics
9 56 (3.91%) Manufacturing
10 41 (2.86%) Aviation
11 40 (2.79%) Organisational Skills
12 34 (2.37%) Retail
13 27 (1.88%) Law
14 26 (1.81%) Telecoms
15 21 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
16 20 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
16 20 (1.40%) Legal
17 18 (1.26%) Police
18 14 (0.98%) Aeronautics
19 13 (0.91%) Banking
Job Titles
1 207 (14.45%) Architect
2 192 (13.40%) Senior
3 132 (9.21%) Lead
4 120 (8.37%) Software Engineer
5 105 (7.33%) Systems Engineer
6 99 (6.91%) Analyst
7 84 (5.86%) Security Architect
8 55 (3.84%) Developer
9 53 (3.70%) Consultant
10 47 (3.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 37 (2.58%) Network Engineer
12 36 (2.51%) Project Manager
13 35 (2.44%) Senior Software Engineer
14 33 (2.30%) Security Analyst
15 32 (2.23%) Azure Engineer
15 32 (2.23%) Senior Manager
16 29 (2.02%) Platform Engineer
17 28 (1.95%) Solutions Architect
17 28 (1.95%) Tester
18 26 (1.81%) SOC Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (4.75%) Terraform
2 40 (2.79%) ModSecurity
3 33 (2.30%) React
4 31 (2.16%) LDAP
5 25 (1.74%) .NET
6 18 (1.26%) HTML
6 18 (1.26%) Spring
7 16 (1.12%) CSS
8 15 (1.05%) Regular Expression
9 14 (0.98%) Kafka
9 14 (0.98%) REST
9 14 (0.98%) XMPP
10 13 (0.91%) AngularJS
10 13 (0.91%) Web Services
11 12 (0.84%) Elastic Stack
11 12 (0.84%) OAuth
11 12 (0.84%) OpenID
11 12 (0.84%) SAML
12 11 (0.77%) Spring Boot
13 10 (0.70%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 63 (4.40%) Cloud Native
2 53 (3.70%) Data Centre
2 53 (3.70%) Onboarding
3 46 (3.21%) Algorithms
4 45 (3.14%) Driving Licence
5 43 (3.00%) Social Media
6 37 (2.58%) Management Information System
6 37 (2.58%) Self-Motivation
7 35 (2.44%) Cyber Threat
8 34 (2.37%) Security Operations Centre
9 33 (2.30%) Product Ownership
10 31 (2.16%) Robotics
11 30 (2.09%) Cyber Defence
12 28 (1.95%) Embedded Systems
13 25 (1.74%) FPGA
14 20 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
14 20 (1.40%) Hybrid Cloud
15 19 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
15 19 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
16 18 (1.26%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 190 (13.26%) Linux
2 153 (10.68%) Windows
3 69 (4.82%) Windows Server
4 24 (1.67%) 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
12 3 (0.21%) Rocky
13 2 (0.14%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.070%) Embedded Linux
14 1 (0.070%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 221 (15.42%) Continuous Improvement
2 213 (14.86%) Agile
3 203 (14.17%) Problem-Solving
4 188 (13.12%) Software Engineering
5 173 (12.07%) Validation
6 164 (11.44%) Cybersecurity
7 147 (10.26%) CI/CD
8 127 (8.86%) Mentoring
9 125 (8.72%) Stakeholder Management
10 124 (8.65%) AI
11 123 (8.58%) DevOps
12 115 (8.03%) Decision-Making
13 102 (7.12%) Technical Leadership
14 88 (6.14%) ITIL
15 86 (6.00%) SIEM
16 80 (5.58%) Incident Response
17 79 (5.51%) Infrastructure as Code
18 78 (5.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 74 (5.16%) Service Management
19 74 (5.16%) Verification and Validation
Programming Languages
1 172 (12.00%) Python
2 95 (6.63%) C++
3 58 (4.05%) Java
4 55 (3.84%) C
5 54 (3.77%) C#
6 51 (3.56%) PowerShell
7 46 (3.21%) Bash
8 40 (2.79%) JavaScript
9 35 (2.44%) MATLAB
10 32 (2.23%) SQL
11 29 (2.02%) TypeScript
12 26 (1.81%) Rust
13 20 (1.40%) Embedded C
14 16 (1.12%) Embedded C++
15 14 (0.98%) Go
15 14 (0.98%) PHP
16 13 (0.91%) Shell Script
17 11 (0.77%) Ada
17 11 (0.77%) Perl
18 10 (0.70%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 867 (60.50%) SC Cleared
2 561 (39.15%) DV Cleared
3 212 (14.79%) Degree
4 67 (4.68%) CISSP
5 65 (4.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (3.14%) Cisco Certification
7 35 (2.44%) CISM
8 34 (2.37%) Master's Degree
9 32 (2.23%) CCNP
10 31 (2.16%) HNC
11 30 (2.09%) Azure Certification
12 20 (1.40%) CompTIA Security+
13 19 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
13 19 (1.33%) PhD
14 17 (1.19%) GIAC
14 17 (1.19%) HND
15 16 (1.12%) CREST Certified
16 15 (1.05%) CCNA
16 15 (1.05%) PMI Certification
17 13 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (2.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 42 (2.93%) QA
2 39 (2.72%) SLA
3 38 (2.65%) NIST
4 28 (1.95%) Accessibility
5 20 (1.40%) NCSC
6 17 (1.19%) ISO 9001
7 16 (1.12%) Def Stans
8 13 (0.91%) GDPR
8 13 (0.91%) NIST 800
9 10 (0.70%) MISRA
10 9 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 9 (0.63%) PMO
11 7 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
11 7 (0.49%) GRC
11 7 (0.49%) JSP 440
12 6 (0.42%) NEBOSH
13 5 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 5 (0.35%) WCAG
14 4 (0.28%) Data Quality
System Software
1 82 (5.72%) Active Directory
2 74 (5.16%) Docker
3 32 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.88%) vSphere
5 25 (1.74%) Firmware
6 20 (1.40%) VMware ESXi
7 19 (1.33%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.98%) 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
13 2 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
14 1 (0.070%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 115 (8.03%) Kubernetes
2 60 (4.19%) Ansible
3 21 (1.47%) Microsoft Intune
3 21 (1.47%) Single Sign-On
4 20 (1.40%) Kibana
5 19 (1.33%) 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%) Nagios
Vendors
1 154 (10.75%) Microsoft
2 74 (5.16%) VMware
3 51 (3.56%) Cisco
4 35 (2.44%) Thales
5 33 (2.30%) ServiceNow
6 31 (2.16%) Oracle
7 27 (1.88%) Red Hat
8 25 (1.74%) 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