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 3 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 13 11
Rank change year-on-year -10 -2 +10
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 799 763 1,834
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 5.54% 9.82% 10.50%
As % of the Qualifications category 24.11% 20.13% 32.03%
Number of salaries quoted 598 496 1,367
10th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £34,000
25th Percentile £52,500 £47,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £57,670 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% +4.85% +10.00%
75th Percentile £82,500 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £87,500 £83,750
England median annual salary £65,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +8.33% +4.35% -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 3,314 3,791 5,725
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 23.00% 48.78% 32.77%
Number of salaries quoted 1,742 1,511 3,650
10th Percentile £31,000 £31,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £39,926 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £52,500 £52,000
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% +0.96% +1.27%
75th Percentile £75,000 £68,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £86,790 £80,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £54,995
% change year-on-year +9.09% +0.01% -8.34%

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 3 June 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 3 June 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 -4 368 £75,000 +29.31% 240
Thames Valley +26 284 £65,000 +12.71% 158
Berkshire +16 184 £67,500 +12.50% 110
Buckinghamshire +37 76 £55,000 - 31
Surrey -13 74 £57,303 +27.34% 48
West Sussex -1 29 £35,000 -6.67% 10
Oxfordshire +2 24 £70,000 +35.27% 27
Kent -21 24 £52,500 -19.23% 14
Sussex - 12 £85,000 - 1
East Sussex -12 4 £70,000 - 1
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 23 (2.88%) SharePoint
2 6 (0.75%) SAS
3 5 (0.63%) Confluence
4 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.38%) Apache
6 1 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.13%) Apache Qpid
6 1 (0.13%) IIS
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 22 (2.75%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (2.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.38%) Simulink
4 2 (0.25%) Lectora
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
1 117 (14.64%) Azure
2 70 (8.76%) AWS
3 41 (5.13%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (4.51%) GCP
5 19 (2.38%) Power Platform
5 19 (2.38%) Serverless
6 17 (2.13%) Amazon EKS
7 15 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
8 14 (1.75%) OpenShift
9 12 (1.50%) Dynamics 365
9 12 (1.50%) Entra ID
10 11 (1.38%) PowerApps
11 10 (1.25%) Amazon EC2
11 10 (1.25%) Azure AKS
12 9 (1.13%) GitHub
13 8 (1.00%) Azure Stack
14 7 (0.88%) AWS Lambda
14 7 (0.88%) Azure Sentinel
15 6 (0.75%) Amazon ECS
15 6 (0.75%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 78 (9.76%) Firewall
2 55 (6.88%) DNS
3 39 (4.88%) WAN
4 30 (3.75%) LAN
5 28 (3.50%) VPN
6 24 (3.00%) BGP
7 19 (2.38%) TCP/IP
8 18 (2.25%) Structured Cabling
9 15 (1.88%) HTTP
9 15 (1.88%) Network Security
10 12 (1.50%) OSPF
11 11 (1.38%) DHCP
11 11 (1.38%) NetScaler
12 10 (1.25%) Cisco Firepower
12 10 (1.25%) MQTT
13 9 (1.13%) MPLS
13 9 (1.13%) SAN
13 9 (1.13%) Wireshark
14 8 (1.00%) NAS
14 8 (1.00%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.13%) PostgreSQL
1 17 (2.13%) Power BI
2 10 (1.25%) Relational Database
2 10 (1.25%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.50%) GIS
4 3 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
4 3 (0.38%) MySQL
4 3 (0.38%) Oracle Database
4 3 (0.38%) Redis
5 2 (0.25%) Metadata
6 1 (0.13%) Big Data
6 1 (0.13%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.13%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.13%) Geospatial Data
6 1 (0.13%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.13%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database 12c
6 1 (0.13%) SAS Visual Analytics
6 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 60 (7.51%) Git
2 51 (6.38%) GitLab
3 20 (2.50%) Jenkins
4 19 (2.38%) JIRA
5 14 (1.75%) Visual Studio Code
6 11 (1.38%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.75%) Artifactory
8 5 (0.63%) Cucumber
8 5 (0.63%) JUnit
8 5 (0.63%) Selenium
9 4 (0.50%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 4 (0.50%) Subversion
10 3 (0.38%) Android Studio
10 3 (0.38%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.38%) JMeter
10 3 (0.38%) Rational DOORS
10 3 (0.38%) Visual Studio
11 2 (0.25%) Mockito
11 2 (0.25%) MSTest
11 2 (0.25%) Snyk
General
1 168 (21.03%) Social Skills
2 79 (9.89%) Public Sector
3 75 (9.39%) Finance
4 60 (7.51%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (4.76%) Electronics
6 26 (3.25%) Military
7 25 (3.13%) Aerospace
8 22 (2.75%) Aviation
9 21 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 21 (2.63%) Law
9 21 (2.63%) Manufacturing
10 17 (2.13%) Telecoms
11 16 (2.00%) Organisational Skills
12 15 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
13 11 (1.38%) Banking
14 10 (1.25%) Aeronautics
15 9 (1.13%) Games
16 8 (1.00%) Influencing Skills
16 8 (1.00%) Retail
17 5 (0.63%) French Language
Job Titles
1 128 (16.02%) Senior
2 106 (13.27%) Architect
3 70 (8.76%) Developer
4 64 (8.01%) Software Engineer
5 47 (5.88%) Analyst
6 44 (5.51%) Lead
7 42 (5.26%) Network Engineer
8 35 (4.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 34 (4.26%) Applications Architect
9 34 (4.26%) Security Architect
10 32 (4.01%) Data Engineer
11 31 (3.88%) Consultant
11 31 (3.88%) Systems Engineer
12 27 (3.38%) Java Developer
13 24 (3.00%) Azure Engineer
13 24 (3.00%) DevOps Engineer
14 22 (2.75%) Senior Software Engineer
14 22 (2.75%) Support Engineer
15 21 (2.63%) IT Engineer
15 21 (2.63%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (3.88%) .NET
2 23 (2.88%) React
2 23 (2.88%) REST
3 19 (2.38%) LDAP
3 19 (2.38%) Regular Expression
4 15 (1.88%) Spring
4 15 (1.88%) XMPP
5 12 (1.50%) Elastic Stack
5 12 (1.50%) JSON
5 12 (1.50%) Kafka
6 10 (1.25%) SOAP
7 8 (1.00%) RabbitMQ
7 8 (1.00%) RESTful
8 7 (0.88%) ARM Templates
8 7 (0.88%) Middleware
8 7 (0.88%) Spring Boot
8 7 (0.88%) YAML
9 6 (0.75%) AngularJS
9 6 (0.75%) Web Services
9 6 (0.75%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (3.63%) Product Ownership
2 27 (3.38%) Algorithms
3 25 (3.13%) Data Centre
4 19 (2.38%) Cloud Native
4 19 (2.38%) Onboarding
4 19 (2.38%) PKI
5 17 (2.13%) Driving Licence
5 17 (2.13%) Embedded Systems
6 16 (2.00%) Cyber Defence
7 15 (1.88%) Cyber Threat
7 15 (1.88%) FPGA
8 14 (1.75%) Robotics
9 13 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
9 13 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
9 13 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
10 10 (1.25%) Fibre Optics
11 9 (1.13%) Data Structures
11 9 (1.13%) Security Operations Centre
11 9 (1.13%) Security Posture
12 8 (1.00%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 130 (16.27%) Linux
2 100 (12.52%) Windows
3 64 (8.01%) Windows Server
4 30 (3.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (2.00%) Ubuntu
6 14 (1.75%) CentOS
7 9 (1.13%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (0.88%) Android
8 7 (0.88%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (0.38%) Debian
10 2 (0.25%) AIX
10 2 (0.25%) Unix
11 1 (0.13%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (18.52%) Agile
2 105 (13.14%) CI/CD
3 97 (12.14%) DevOps
4 96 (12.02%) Software Engineering
5 84 (10.51%) Continuous Improvement
5 84 (10.51%) Problem-Solving
6 71 (8.89%) Cybersecurity
7 50 (6.26%) Infrastructure as Code
8 49 (6.13%) SIEM
9 48 (6.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 47 (5.88%) Mentoring
11 46 (5.76%) Platform Engineering
12 45 (5.63%) AI
12 45 (5.63%) Containerisation
12 45 (5.63%) Scrum
13 43 (5.38%) Decision-Making
14 42 (5.26%) Validation
15 40 (5.01%) Computer Science
16 38 (4.76%) Microservices
17 36 (4.51%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 119 (14.89%) Python
2 58 (7.26%) Java
3 51 (6.38%) C++
4 37 (4.63%) C#
5 34 (4.26%) SQL
6 33 (4.13%) C
7 32 (4.01%) PowerShell
8 23 (2.88%) JavaScript
9 21 (2.63%) Bash
10 18 (2.25%) Rust
11 16 (2.00%) MATLAB
11 16 (2.00%) TypeScript
12 13 (1.63%) Embedded C
12 13 (1.63%) Embedded C++
13 11 (1.38%) VBA
14 10 (1.25%) Go
14 10 (1.25%) PL/SQL
14 10 (1.25%) Shell Script
15 8 (1.00%) PHP
16 6 (0.75%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 503 (62.95%) SC Cleared
2 289 (36.17%) DV Cleared
3 127 (15.89%) Degree
4 25 (3.13%) HNC
5 20 (2.50%) Master's Degree
6 15 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
6 15 (1.88%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (1.63%) Cisco Certification
7 13 (1.63%) CISSP
8 12 (1.50%) CCNP
9 11 (1.38%) CREST Certified
10 9 (1.13%) APMP
10 9 (1.13%) CompTIA Security+
10 9 (1.13%) CRISC
10 9 (1.13%) MBA
11 8 (1.00%) OSCP
12 7 (0.88%) ISACA
12 7 (0.88%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 6 (0.75%) GCIA
13 6 (0.75%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 16 (2.00%) GDPR
2 16 (2.00%) QA
2 16 (2.00%) SLA
3 13 (1.63%) NCSC
4 12 (1.50%) NIST
4 12 (1.50%) PMO
5 10 (1.25%) ISO 9001
6 9 (1.13%) Def Stans
7 6 (0.75%) Accessibility
7 6 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 5 (0.63%) NEBOSH
9 4 (0.50%) JSP 440
10 3 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.38%) GRC
11 2 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.25%) ISO 22301
11 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 15288
11 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 2 (0.25%) NIST 800
System Software
1 62 (7.76%) Docker
2 57 (7.13%) Active Directory
3 30 (3.75%) vSphere
4 24 (3.00%) Firmware
5 19 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
5 19 (2.38%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.63%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.50%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.25%) Terminal Server
10 2 (0.25%) UAG
11 1 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 76 (9.51%) Kubernetes
2 58 (7.26%) Terraform
3 50 (6.26%) Ansible
4 17 (2.13%) vCenter Server
5 14 (1.75%) Grafana
5 14 (1.75%) Prometheus
6 12 (1.50%) Kibana
7 9 (1.13%) Podman
8 8 (1.00%) Nessus
9 7 (0.88%) Nagios
9 7 (0.88%) Puppet
9 7 (0.88%) vRealize
10 6 (0.75%) SCCM
10 6 (0.75%) SCOM
11 5 (0.63%) Docker Swarm
11 5 (0.63%) Endace
11 5 (0.63%) Graylog
11 5 (0.63%) Packer
11 5 (0.63%) QRadar
12 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 104 (13.02%) Microsoft
2 58 (7.26%) VMware
3 36 (4.51%) Cisco
4 28 (3.50%) Splunk
5 27 (3.38%) Red Hat
6 25 (3.13%) Oracle
7 17 (2.13%) McAfee
8 15 (1.88%) ServiceNow
9 14 (1.75%) Juniper
10 13 (1.63%) Google
11 12 (1.50%) Citrix
12 11 (1.38%) Tenable
13 10 (1.25%) CheckPoint
13 10 (1.25%) NVIDIA
13 10 (1.25%) SolarWinds
14 9 (1.13%) AppDynamics
15 8 (1.00%) IBM
15 8 (1.00%) NetApp
15 8 (1.00%) Salesforce
16 7 (0.88%) Palo Alto