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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 13 11
Rank change year-on-year -9 -2 +9
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 782 779 1,763
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 5.39% 9.89% 10.70%
As % of the Qualifications category 23.79% 20.09% 31.50%
Number of salaries quoted 568 530 1,349
10th Percentile £40,777 £41,250 £33,250
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 £92,500 £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 3,287 3,877 5,596
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 22.68% 49.24% 33.97%
Number of salaries quoted 1,661 1,579 3,642
10th Percentile £31,000 £31,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,500 £53,000 £51,350
Median % change year-on-year +12.26% +3.21% +0.69%
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 20 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 20 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 -5 353 £75,000 +30.43% 216
Thames Valley +27 289 £65,000 +12.71% 150
Berkshire +16 185 £67,500 +12.50% 89
Buckinghamshire +30 77 £55,000 - 41
Surrey -4 75 £57,303 +27.34% 36
Oxfordshire +1 27 £70,000 +35.27% 31
West Sussex -4 25 £35,000 -6.67% 14
Kent -30 21 £52,500 -16.00% 19
Sussex - 11 £85,000 - 4
East Sussex -11 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 (3.20%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.64%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.38%) 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%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 23 (2.94%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (2.43%) 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 (13.68%) Azure
2 71 (9.08%) AWS
3 37 (4.73%) GCP
4 36 (4.60%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (2.56%) Power Platform
6 19 (2.43%) Serverless
7 18 (2.30%) Amazon EKS
8 17 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
9 13 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
10 12 (1.53%) OpenShift
11 11 (1.41%) PowerApps
12 10 (1.28%) Amazon EC2
12 10 (1.28%) GitHub
13 8 (1.02%) Azure AKS
13 8 (1.02%) Entra ID
14 7 (0.90%) AWS Lambda
14 7 (0.90%) Azure Sentinel
14 7 (0.90%) GitHub Actions
15 6 (0.77%) Amazon ECS
15 6 (0.77%) Azure Stack
Communications & Networking
1 74 (9.46%) Firewall
2 52 (6.65%) DNS
3 33 (4.22%) WAN
4 24 (3.07%) VPN
5 23 (2.94%) LAN
6 21 (2.69%) BGP
7 19 (2.43%) Structured Cabling
8 15 (1.92%) Network Security
9 14 (1.79%) TCP/IP
10 13 (1.66%) DHCP
10 13 (1.66%) HTTP
11 12 (1.53%) Cisco Firepower
12 11 (1.41%) NetScaler
13 10 (1.28%) MQTT
14 9 (1.15%) Cisco IOS
14 9 (1.15%) Cisco ISE
14 9 (1.15%) MPLS
14 9 (1.15%) OSPF
14 9 (1.15%) Wireshark
15 8 (1.02%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.17%) Power BI
2 14 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (1.41%) Relational Database
4 10 (1.28%) SQL Server
5 4 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (0.38%) GIS
6 3 (0.38%) 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 (7.42%) Git
2 48 (6.14%) GitLab
3 23 (2.94%) Jenkins
4 18 (2.30%) JIRA
5 14 (1.79%) Visual Studio Code
6 11 (1.41%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.90%) Selenium
8 6 (0.77%) Cucumber
9 5 (0.64%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 5 (0.64%) JUnit
9 5 (0.64%) Subversion
10 4 (0.51%) Artifactory
10 4 (0.51%) Rational DOORS
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%) Robot Framework
12 2 (0.26%) Balsamiq
12 2 (0.26%) Visual Studio
General
1 158 (20.20%) Social Skills
2 80 (10.23%) Finance
3 78 (9.97%) Public Sector
4 56 (7.16%) Analytical Skills
5 30 (3.84%) Electronics
6 26 (3.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 24 (3.07%) Aerospace
7 24 (3.07%) Law
8 23 (2.94%) Manufacturing
9 20 (2.56%) Military
10 17 (2.17%) Aviation
11 15 (1.92%) Organisational Skills
11 15 (1.92%) Telecoms
12 14 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
13 12 (1.53%) Banking
14 9 (1.15%) Games
14 9 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (1.02%) Retail
16 6 (0.77%) Aeronautics
17 5 (0.64%) French Language
Job Titles
1 124 (15.86%) Senior
2 106 (13.55%) Architect
3 69 (8.82%) Developer
4 59 (7.54%) Software Engineer
5 56 (7.16%) Lead
6 44 (5.63%) Analyst
7 39 (4.99%) Network Engineer
8 36 (4.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 36 (4.60%) Systems Engineer
9 31 (3.96%) Applications Architect
10 28 (3.58%) Consultant
10 28 (3.58%) Security Architect
11 26 (3.32%) Data Engineer
11 26 (3.32%) Java Developer
12 24 (3.07%) DevOps Engineer
13 22 (2.81%) Support Engineer
14 21 (2.69%) IT Engineer
15 20 (2.56%) Azure Engineer
15 20 (2.56%) Senior Developer
15 20 (2.56%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (3.71%) .NET
2 23 (2.94%) REST
3 19 (2.43%) React
4 16 (2.05%) LDAP
4 16 (2.05%) Regular Expression
4 16 (2.05%) Spring
5 12 (1.53%) JSON
5 12 (1.53%) Kafka
5 12 (1.53%) XMPP
6 11 (1.41%) SOAP
7 10 (1.28%) Elastic Stack
8 8 (1.02%) Middleware
8 8 (1.02%) RabbitMQ
8 8 (1.02%) RESTful
8 8 (1.02%) Spring Boot
9 7 (0.90%) AngularJS
9 7 (0.90%) XML
10 6 (0.77%) HTML
10 6 (0.77%) JPA
10 6 (0.77%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 34 (4.35%) Product Ownership
2 25 (3.20%) Algorithms
3 24 (3.07%) Data Centre
4 21 (2.69%) PKI
5 19 (2.43%) Onboarding
6 17 (2.17%) Cloud Native
7 15 (1.92%) Embedded Systems
8 14 (1.79%) Cyber Defence
8 14 (1.79%) FPGA
9 13 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
10 12 (1.53%) Cyber Threat
10 12 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
10 12 (1.53%) Security Posture
11 11 (1.41%) Driving Licence
12 10 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
12 10 (1.28%) Fibre Optics
12 10 (1.28%) Robotics
13 8 (1.02%) Legacy Systems
13 8 (1.02%) Management Information System
14 6 (0.77%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 115 (14.71%) Linux
2 94 (12.02%) Windows
3 62 (7.93%) Windows Server
4 25 (3.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (1.41%) Ubuntu
6 10 (1.28%) CentOS
6 10 (1.28%) Windows Server 2016
7 8 (1.02%) 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
1 147 (18.80%) Agile
2 99 (12.66%) DevOps
3 98 (12.53%) CI/CD
4 83 (10.61%) Continuous Improvement
4 83 (10.61%) Software Engineering
5 78 (9.97%) Problem-Solving
6 62 (7.93%) Cybersecurity
7 49 (6.27%) Mentoring
8 48 (6.14%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 48 (6.14%) Scrum
9 44 (5.63%) Containerisation
10 43 (5.50%) Decision-Making
10 43 (5.50%) Infrastructure as Code
11 41 (5.24%) SIEM
12 39 (4.99%) Technical Leadership
13 38 (4.86%) AI
13 38 (4.86%) Microservices
14 37 (4.73%) Service Management
14 37 (4.73%) Test Automation
15 36 (4.60%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 106 (13.55%) Python
2 55 (7.03%) Java
3 46 (5.88%) C++
4 34 (4.35%) SQL
5 33 (4.22%) C#
6 28 (3.58%) C
7 26 (3.32%) PowerShell
8 22 (2.81%) JavaScript
9 17 (2.17%) Rust
10 14 (1.79%) Bash
10 14 (1.79%) MATLAB
11 13 (1.66%) 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 (1.15%) PL/SQL
15 8 (1.02%) Go
16 6 (0.77%) Groovy
17 5 (0.64%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 478 (61.13%) SC Cleared
2 294 (37.60%) DV Cleared
3 124 (15.86%) Degree
4 22 (2.81%) HNC
5 20 (2.56%) Master's Degree
6 14 (1.79%) CISSP
7 13 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
7 13 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
8 10 (1.28%) CRISC
9 9 (1.15%) APMP
9 9 (1.15%) CCNP
9 9 (1.15%) Cisco Certification
9 9 (1.15%) CompTIA Security+
9 9 (1.15%) MBA
10 8 (1.02%) CREST Certified
10 8 (1.02%) DBS Check
11 7 (0.90%) ISACA
11 7 (0.90%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 6 (0.77%) OSCP
13 5 (0.64%) CHECK Team Member
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 17 (2.17%) GDPR
3 16 (2.05%) QA
4 15 (1.92%) NCSC
5 13 (1.66%) NIST
5 13 (1.66%) SLA
6 12 (1.53%) PMO
7 10 (1.28%) ISO 9001
8 8 (1.02%) Accessibility
8 8 (1.02%) Def Stans
9 6 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 5 (0.64%) NEBOSH
11 4 (0.51%) WCAG
12 3 (0.38%) GRC
12 3 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 15288
13 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
13 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 2 (0.26%) ISO 22301
13 2 (0.26%) JSP 440
13 2 (0.26%) NIST 800
System Software
1 59 (7.54%) Docker
2 57 (7.29%) Active Directory
3 25 (3.20%) vSphere
4 23 (2.94%) Firmware
5 22 (2.81%) VMware NSX
6 17 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
7 5 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.38%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
9 2 (0.26%) Terminal Server
9 2 (0.26%) UAG
9 2 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 66 (8.44%) Kubernetes
2 51 (6.52%) Terraform
3 46 (5.88%) Ansible
4 16 (2.05%) vCenter Server
5 12 (1.53%) Grafana
5 12 (1.53%) Prometheus
6 10 (1.28%) Kibana
7 9 (1.15%) 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 (0.38%) Docker Swarm
12 3 (0.38%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 94 (12.02%) Microsoft
2 56 (7.16%) VMware
3 37 (4.73%) Cisco
4 24 (3.07%) Oracle
5 23 (2.94%) Splunk
6 20 (2.56%) Red Hat
7 17 (2.17%) Juniper
8 15 (1.92%) Google
9 14 (1.79%) McAfee
10 12 (1.53%) Citrix
10 12 (1.53%) SolarWinds
11 11 (1.41%) CheckPoint
11 11 (1.41%) ServiceNow
11 11 (1.41%) Tenable
12 9 (1.15%) AppDynamics
12 9 (1.15%) IBM
12 9 (1.15%) Salesforce
13 8 (1.02%) NetApp
13 8 (1.02%) NVIDIA
13 8 (1.02%) Palo Alto