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 28 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 8 11
Rank change year-on-year -12 +3 +8
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 730 1,211 1,358
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 6.80% 13.77% 12.33%
As % of the Qualifications category 22.60% 30.06% 33.86%
Number of salaries quoted 426 750 1,039
10th Percentile £33,500 £41,247 £31,250
25th Percentile £47,625 £47,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% +9.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £73,750 £77,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £78,750
England median annual salary £62,500 £62,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +0.81% +7.83% +1.81%

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 3,230 4,029 4,011
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 30.10% 45.80% 36.40%
Number of salaries quoted 1,393 1,681 2,674
10th Percentile £27,500 £32,750 £28,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £46,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £59,125 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -11.21% +12.62% +0.96%
75th Percentile £66,250 £75,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £85,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -4.35%

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 28 January 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 28 January 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 -1 402 £60,000 - 192
Thames Valley -4 220 £57,500 -0.86% 140
Berkshire -14 119 £55,000 -8.33% 81
Buckinghamshire +37 86 £60,000 +4.35% 40
Surrey -10 71 £50,000 -18.03% 35
West Sussex +15 18 £34,000 -9.33% 16
Oxfordshire -2 15 £68,750 +41.03% 20
Kent -11 14 £39,000 -29.09% 19
Sussex - 2 £85,000 - 7
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 38 (5.21%) SharePoint
2 37 (5.07%) Microsoft Exchange
3 26 (3.56%) Exchange Server 2003
4 5 (0.68%) WordPress
5 4 (0.55%) Apache
5 4 (0.55%) Confluence
6 3 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.41%) Appian
7 1 (0.14%) Apache Qpid
7 1 (0.14%) Camunda
7 1 (0.14%) IIS
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 43 (5.89%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (4.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.68%) Adobe XD
4 4 (0.55%) Windchill
5 3 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.27%) Adobe After Effects
6 2 (0.27%) Adobe Captivate
6 2 (0.27%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 2 (0.27%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.27%) Adobe Premiere
6 2 (0.27%) Elementor
6 2 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.27%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.14%) CATIA
7 1 (0.14%) GNU Octave
7 1 (0.14%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.14%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 10 (1.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 3 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.27%) C-CURE
4 1 (0.14%) Q-Pulse
4 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.14%) SAP GTS
4 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
4 1 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 63 (8.63%) Azure
2 60 (8.22%) AWS
3 34 (4.66%) Microsoft 365
4 24 (3.29%) Azure DevOps
4 24 (3.29%) Power Platform
5 15 (2.05%) Amazon EKS
5 15 (2.05%) PowerApps
6 14 (1.92%) Amazon EC2
6 14 (1.92%) GCP
7 13 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
8 11 (1.51%) Amazon ECS
8 11 (1.51%) Serverless
9 7 (0.96%) GitHub
9 7 (0.96%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
9 7 (0.96%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 6 (0.82%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (0.82%) Entra ID
10 6 (0.82%) Figma
10 6 (0.82%) OpenShift
11 5 (0.68%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 63 (8.63%) Firewall
2 55 (7.53%) DNS
3 33 (4.52%) DHCP
4 24 (3.29%) VPN
5 21 (2.88%) Junos
5 21 (2.88%) LAN
6 20 (2.74%) Structured Cabling
7 19 (2.60%) WAN
8 16 (2.19%) Cisco IOS
9 15 (2.05%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (1.92%) Cisco ISE
10 14 (1.92%) Network Security
11 13 (1.78%) Cisco Firepower
11 13 (1.78%) TCP/IP
12 12 (1.64%) BGP
13 10 (1.37%) NX-OS
14 9 (1.23%) VSAT
15 8 (1.10%) Software-Defined Radio
15 8 (1.10%) Wireless
16 6 (0.82%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (4.25%) Oracle Database
2 27 (3.70%) Oracle Database 10g
3 16 (2.19%) Power BI
4 13 (1.78%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (1.51%) Relational Database
6 10 (1.37%) RDBMS
7 3 (0.41%) Airbyte
7 3 (0.41%) Big Data
7 3 (0.41%) Data Mining
7 3 (0.41%) SQL Server
8 2 (0.27%) BigQuery
8 2 (0.27%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.27%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.14%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.14%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.14%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.14%) Metadata
9 1 (0.14%) Neo4j
9 1 (0.14%) Redis
9 1 (0.14%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 49 (6.71%) Git
1 49 (6.71%) Jenkins
2 45 (6.16%) JIRA
3 25 (3.42%) Selenium
4 19 (2.60%) Robot Framework
5 17 (2.33%) Snyk
6 16 (2.19%) GitLab
7 12 (1.64%) JUnit
8 11 (1.51%) Mockito
9 10 (1.37%) JMeter
10 5 (0.68%) Axure RP
10 5 (0.68%) Balsamiq
10 5 (0.68%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.68%) Subversion
11 3 (0.41%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 3 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
11 3 (0.41%) WebDriver
12 2 (0.27%) Artifactory
12 2 (0.27%) Visual Studio
12 2 (0.27%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 240 (32.88%) Social Skills
2 103 (14.11%) Analytical Skills
3 67 (9.18%) Finance
4 65 (8.90%) Public Sector
5 44 (6.03%) Organisational Skills
6 32 (4.38%) Law
7 30 (4.11%) Manufacturing
8 28 (3.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 27 (3.70%) Aeronautics
10 25 (3.42%) Aviation
11 24 (3.29%) Telecoms
12 23 (3.15%) Aerospace
13 21 (2.88%) Electronics
14 15 (2.05%) Marketing
15 11 (1.51%) Documentation Skills
16 10 (1.37%) Banking
16 10 (1.37%) Legal
16 10 (1.37%) Military
17 9 (1.23%) Automotive
17 9 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 81 (11.10%) Senior
2 75 (10.27%) Lead
3 67 (9.18%) Architect
4 58 (7.95%) Systems Engineer
5 52 (7.12%) Support Engineer
6 50 (6.85%) Business Manager
6 50 (6.85%) Business Systems Manager
6 50 (6.85%) Systems Manager
7 42 (5.75%) Developer
8 40 (5.48%) Analyst
9 38 (5.21%) Consultant
10 36 (4.93%) Network Engineer
10 36 (4.93%) Systems Support
11 30 (4.11%) Technical Support
12 29 (3.97%) Software Engineer
13 27 (3.70%) Technical Engineer
13 27 (3.70%) Technical Support Engineer
14 25 (3.42%) 3rd Line Support
14 25 (3.42%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 23 (3.15%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (4.52%) REST
2 23 (3.15%) SOAP
3 17 (2.33%) HTML
4 14 (1.92%) Spring
5 13 (1.78%) Spring Boot
6 12 (1.64%) Middleware
6 12 (1.64%) XML
7 11 (1.51%) .NET
7 11 (1.51%) Hibernate
7 11 (1.51%) JSON
7 11 (1.51%) Web Services
8 10 (1.37%) ActiveMQ
8 10 (1.37%) Apache Camel
8 10 (1.37%) jQuery
8 10 (1.37%) WireMock
9 9 (1.23%) React
10 7 (0.96%) Lightning Web Components
10 7 (0.96%) Visualforce
11 6 (0.82%) Kafka
12 5 (0.68%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 51 (6.99%) Robotics
2 24 (3.29%) Driving Licence
3 23 (3.15%) Product Ownership
4 21 (2.88%) e-Learning
5 20 (2.74%) PKI
6 18 (2.47%) Cloud Native
7 17 (2.33%) Data Centre
8 14 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
9 13 (1.78%) Onboarding
9 13 (1.78%) Security Operations Centre
9 13 (1.78%) Security Posture
10 12 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
11 11 (1.51%) Management Information System
12 7 (0.96%) Embedded Systems
12 7 (0.96%) Fibre Optics
13 5 (0.68%) Cloud Security Posture
13 5 (0.68%) Low-Code
13 5 (0.68%) Renewable Energy
14 4 (0.55%) MicroBlaze
14 4 (0.55%) RISC-V
Operating Systems
1 115 (15.75%) Windows
2 53 (7.26%) Linux
3 44 (6.03%) Windows Server
4 33 (4.52%) Unix
5 27 (3.70%) Solaris
6 26 (3.56%) HPUX
6 26 (3.56%) Windows Server 2003
7 23 (3.15%) Windows 7
8 22 (3.01%) Windows Server 2008
9 9 (1.23%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (1.10%) Android
11 5 (0.68%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.68%) Windows 10
12 4 (0.55%) Embedded Linux
12 4 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.41%) AIX
14 1 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (18.63%) Agile
2 111 (15.21%) Continuous Improvement
3 99 (13.56%) Problem-Solving
4 94 (12.88%) Software Engineering
5 92 (12.60%) Project Management
6 81 (11.10%) Process Improvement
7 75 (10.27%) AI
8 67 (9.18%) CI/CD
9 62 (8.49%) Risk Management
10 60 (8.22%) DevOps
11 58 (7.95%) Technical Leadership
12 53 (7.26%) IT Strategy
13 52 (7.12%) Strategic Planning
14 51 (6.99%) Budget Management
15 50 (6.85%) Contract Negotiation
16 49 (6.71%) Change Management
17 48 (6.58%) Data Analysis
17 48 (6.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 47 (6.44%) Mentoring
19 39 (5.34%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 69 (9.45%) Python
2 50 (6.85%) PowerShell
3 40 (5.48%) Java
4 37 (5.07%) SQL
5 31 (4.25%) JavaScript
6 23 (3.15%) C#
7 22 (3.01%) C++
7 22 (3.01%) Perl
8 15 (2.05%) VBA
9 10 (1.37%) Bash
9 10 (1.37%) C
9 10 (1.37%) Shell Script
10 8 (1.10%) Rust
11 7 (0.96%) Apex Code
12 6 (0.82%) Go
12 6 (0.82%) MATLAB
13 3 (0.41%) Ladder Logic
13 3 (0.41%) PL/SQL
13 3 (0.41%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.27%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 443 (60.68%) SC Cleared
2 256 (35.07%) DV Cleared
3 131 (17.95%) Degree
4 28 (3.84%) Cisco Certification
5 27 (3.70%) CCNA
6 25 (3.42%) Master's Degree
7 18 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
8 17 (2.33%) CCNP
9 15 (2.05%) JNCIA
10 13 (1.78%) APMP
11 12 (1.64%) CISSP
11 12 (1.64%) HNC
11 12 (1.64%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (1.37%) Computer Science Degree
13 9 (1.23%) MBA
14 8 (1.10%) JNCIS
15 7 (0.96%) CISM
15 7 (0.96%) CRISC
15 7 (0.96%) ISTQB
16 6 (0.82%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.07%) QA
2 36 (4.93%) SLA
3 27 (3.70%) Def Stans
4 19 (2.60%) GDPR
5 16 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 14 (1.92%) Accessibility
7 11 (1.51%) NIST
8 9 (1.23%) GRC
8 9 (1.23%) NCSC
9 8 (1.10%) ISO 9001
10 6 (0.82%) WCAG
11 5 (0.68%) ISO 13485
12 4 (0.55%) PCI DSS
12 4 (0.55%) PMO
13 3 (0.41%) JSP 440
13 3 (0.41%) NIST 800
14 2 (0.27%) Data Quality
14 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 2 (0.27%) RMADS
System Software
1 66 (9.04%) Active Directory
2 25 (3.42%) VMware NSX
3 23 (3.15%) Docker
4 21 (2.88%) VMware Infrastructure
5 20 (2.74%) Firmware
6 6 (0.82%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.82%) vSphere
7 4 (0.55%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.55%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.27%) Terminal Server
10 1 (0.14%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 32 (4.38%) Kubernetes
2 29 (3.97%) Terraform
3 24 (3.29%) Ansible
4 22 (3.01%) vCenter Server
5 12 (1.64%) SCCM
6 11 (1.51%) SCOM
7 10 (1.37%) Kibana
8 9 (1.23%) vRealize
9 6 (0.82%) Endace
9 6 (0.82%) Grafana
10 5 (0.68%) Nessus
10 5 (0.68%) Prometheus
10 5 (0.68%) ZABBIX
11 4 (0.55%) Jamf Pro
11 4 (0.55%) QRadar
11 4 (0.55%) WSUS
12 3 (0.41%) Netcool
13 2 (0.27%) SCSM
13 2 (0.27%) Sysdig
13 2 (0.27%) WMI
Vendors
1 108 (14.79%) Microsoft
2 68 (9.32%) VMware
3 53 (7.26%) Cisco
4 44 (6.03%) Juniper
5 36 (4.93%) Oracle
6 20 (2.74%) SAP
7 19 (2.60%) SolarWinds
8 17 (2.33%) Black Duck
8 17 (2.33%) Coverity
8 17 (2.33%) Salesforce
8 17 (2.33%) Splunk
9 10 (1.37%) Broadcom
9 10 (1.37%) Dynatrace
9 10 (1.37%) Sparx
10 9 (1.23%) Google
11 8 (1.10%) Adobe
11 8 (1.10%) ServiceNow
12 7 (0.96%) CheckPoint
12 7 (0.96%) HP
12 7 (0.96%) MuleSoft