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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 8 8
Rank change year-on-year -12 0 +12
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 716 1,251 1,244
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 6.90% 13.93% 14.13%
As % of the Qualifications category 22.19% 31.42% 36.47%
Number of salaries quoted 404 789 902
10th Percentile £31,790 £41,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £46,250 £47,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% +9.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £74,813 £77,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,875 £85,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £57,495
% change year-on-year - +4.36% +3.40%

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 3,227 3,982 3,411
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 31.09% 44.35% 38.75%
Number of salaries quoted 1,372 1,739 2,120
10th Percentile £27,500 £35,000 £27,965
25th Percentile £36,250 £46,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £60,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +14.29% +0.96%
75th Percentile £67,313 £77,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £86,250 £82,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +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 14 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 14 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 -1 411 £60,000 - 156
Thames Valley -8 199 £60,000 +5.24% 102
Berkshire -21 102 £55,000 -6.98% 61
Buckinghamshire +38 82 £60,000 +4.35% 30
Surrey -13 71 £42,500 -34.62% 44
West Sussex +16 20 £34,000 -9.33% 14
Oxfordshire -5 15 £68,750 +52.45% 11
Kent -15 13 £39,000 -29.09% 20
Sussex - 1 £58,000 - 4
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 35 (4.89%) Microsoft Exchange
2 31 (4.33%) SharePoint
3 26 (3.63%) Exchange Server 2003
4 5 (0.70%) Confluence
4 5 (0.70%) WordPress
5 4 (0.56%) Apache
5 4 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.56%) Appian
6 1 (0.14%) Camunda
6 1 (0.14%) IIS
Applications
1 43 (6.01%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (4.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.70%) Adobe XD
3 5 (0.70%) Windchill
4 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.28%) Adobe After Effects
5 2 (0.28%) Adobe Captivate
5 2 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.28%) Adobe Illustrator
5 2 (0.28%) Adobe Premiere
5 2 (0.28%) Elementor
5 2 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.28%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.14%) CATIA
6 1 (0.14%) GNU Octave
6 1 (0.14%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.14%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 17 (2.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 4 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.28%) 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 68 (9.50%) Azure
2 62 (8.66%) AWS
3 29 (4.05%) Microsoft 365
4 23 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
5 22 (3.07%) Power Platform
6 14 (1.96%) Amazon EC2
6 14 (1.96%) Amazon EKS
6 14 (1.96%) GCP
7 13 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
7 13 (1.82%) PowerApps
8 12 (1.68%) Amazon ECS
8 12 (1.68%) Serverless
9 7 (0.98%) GitHub
10 6 (0.84%) Entra ID
10 6 (0.84%) Figma
10 6 (0.84%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
10 6 (0.84%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 5 (0.70%) Amazon S3
11 5 (0.70%) AWS CloudFormation
11 5 (0.70%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 57 (7.96%) Firewall
2 53 (7.40%) DNS
3 31 (4.33%) DHCP
4 23 (3.21%) VPN
5 21 (2.93%) LAN
6 20 (2.79%) Junos
7 18 (2.51%) WAN
7 18 (2.51%) Wireless
8 17 (2.37%) Software-Defined Radio
8 17 (2.37%) Wi-Fi
9 16 (2.23%) Network Security
10 15 (2.09%) Cisco IOS
11 13 (1.82%) TCP/IP
12 12 (1.68%) Cisco ISE
12 12 (1.68%) Structured Cabling
12 12 (1.68%) VSAT
13 11 (1.54%) BGP
13 11 (1.54%) Cisco Firepower
14 9 (1.26%) NX-OS
15 6 (0.84%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (4.19%) Oracle Database
2 27 (3.77%) Oracle Database 10g
3 14 (1.96%) PostgreSQL
3 14 (1.96%) Power BI
4 12 (1.68%) Relational Database
5 11 (1.54%) RDBMS
6 4 (0.56%) Airbyte
7 3 (0.42%) Data Mining
7 3 (0.42%) SQL Server
8 2 (0.28%) Big Data
8 2 (0.28%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.14%) Amazon Aurora
9 1 (0.14%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.14%) DB2
9 1 (0.14%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.14%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.14%) Neo4j
9 1 (0.14%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.14%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 51 (7.12%) Jenkins
2 50 (6.98%) Git
3 48 (6.70%) JIRA
4 25 (3.49%) Selenium
5 20 (2.79%) Robot Framework
6 18 (2.51%) Snyk
7 12 (1.68%) GitLab
7 12 (1.68%) JUnit
7 12 (1.68%) Mockito
8 11 (1.54%) JMeter
9 5 (0.70%) Axure RP
9 5 (0.70%) Balsamiq
9 5 (0.70%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.56%) Subversion
11 3 (0.42%) Rational Rhapsody
11 3 (0.42%) WebDriver
12 2 (0.28%) Artifactory
12 2 (0.28%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 2 (0.28%) TestRail
12 2 (0.28%) Visual Studio
General
1 239 (33.38%) Social Skills
2 103 (14.39%) Analytical Skills
3 69 (9.64%) Finance
4 65 (9.08%) Public Sector
5 46 (6.42%) Organisational Skills
6 34 (4.75%) Manufacturing
7 30 (4.19%) Law
8 29 (4.05%) Telecoms
9 27 (3.77%) Aeronautics
9 27 (3.77%) Electronics
10 26 (3.63%) Aerospace
11 25 (3.49%) Aviation
11 25 (3.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 16 (2.23%) Marketing
13 13 (1.82%) Automotive
14 12 (1.68%) Documentation Skills
15 11 (1.54%) Legal
15 11 (1.54%) Military
16 9 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
17 8 (1.12%) Banking
Job Titles
1 73 (10.20%) Senior
2 71 (9.92%) Lead
3 69 (9.64%) Systems Engineer
4 63 (8.80%) Support Engineer
5 58 (8.10%) Architect
6 50 (6.98%) Business Manager
6 50 (6.98%) Business Systems Manager
6 50 (6.98%) Systems Manager
7 40 (5.59%) Analyst
8 38 (5.31%) Developer
8 38 (5.31%) Technical Support
9 37 (5.17%) Systems Support
10 36 (5.03%) Network Engineer
11 35 (4.89%) Consultant
11 35 (4.89%) Technical Engineer
11 35 (4.89%) Technical Support Engineer
12 32 (4.47%) Software Engineer
13 25 (3.49%) 3rd Line Support
14 22 (3.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 22 (3.07%) Technical Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (4.75%) REST
2 24 (3.35%) SOAP
3 18 (2.51%) HTML
4 14 (1.96%) Spring
5 13 (1.82%) Spring Boot
5 13 (1.82%) XML
6 12 (1.68%) Hibernate
7 11 (1.54%) ActiveMQ
7 11 (1.54%) Apache Camel
7 11 (1.54%) jQuery
7 11 (1.54%) JSON
7 11 (1.54%) Web Services
7 11 (1.54%) WireMock
8 10 (1.40%) Middleware
9 9 (1.26%) .NET
10 7 (0.98%) React
11 6 (0.84%) Lightning Web Components
11 6 (0.84%) Visualforce
12 5 (0.70%) Kafka
13 4 (0.56%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 52 (7.26%) Robotics
2 34 (4.75%) e-Learning
3 26 (3.63%) Driving Licence
4 21 (2.93%) Product Ownership
5 18 (2.51%) Cloud Native
5 18 (2.51%) PKI
6 16 (2.23%) Data Centre
7 15 (2.09%) Security Operations Centre
7 15 (2.09%) Self-Motivation
8 14 (1.96%) Distributed Systems
8 14 (1.96%) Onboarding
8 14 (1.96%) Security Posture
9 13 (1.82%) Embedded Systems
10 11 (1.54%) MicroBlaze
10 11 (1.54%) RISC-V
11 10 (1.40%) Management Information System
12 9 (1.26%) Renewable Energy
13 7 (0.98%) Fibre Optics
14 5 (0.70%) FPGA
14 5 (0.70%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 109 (15.22%) Windows
2 56 (7.82%) Linux
3 38 (5.31%) Windows Server
4 33 (4.61%) Unix
5 27 (3.77%) Solaris
6 26 (3.63%) HPUX
6 26 (3.63%) Windows Server 2003
7 23 (3.21%) Windows 7
8 22 (3.07%) Windows Server 2008
9 11 (1.54%) Embedded Linux
10 8 (1.12%) Android
10 8 (1.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.70%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.70%) Windows 10
12 3 (0.42%) AIX
12 3 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 134 (18.72%) Agile
2 106 (14.80%) Continuous Improvement
3 104 (14.53%) Problem-Solving
4 96 (13.41%) Software Engineering
5 89 (12.43%) Project Management
6 81 (11.31%) Process Improvement
7 74 (10.34%) AI
8 64 (8.94%) Risk Management
9 60 (8.38%) CI/CD
10 54 (7.54%) Technical Leadership
11 53 (7.40%) IT Strategy
11 53 (7.40%) Strategic Planning
12 52 (7.26%) Budget Management
12 52 (7.26%) DevOps
13 51 (7.12%) Data Analysis
14 50 (6.98%) Contract Negotiation
14 50 (6.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 45 (6.28%) Change Management
15 45 (6.28%) Mentoring
16 44 (6.15%) Innovative Thinking
Programming Languages
1 63 (8.80%) Python
2 52 (7.26%) PowerShell
3 38 (5.31%) SQL
4 35 (4.89%) Java
5 31 (4.33%) JavaScript
6 26 (3.63%) C++
7 23 (3.21%) C#
8 22 (3.07%) Perl
9 16 (2.23%) C
10 13 (1.82%) VBA
11 11 (1.54%) Shell Script
12 9 (1.26%) Bash
12 9 (1.26%) MATLAB
13 7 (0.98%) Rust
14 6 (0.84%) Apex Code
14 6 (0.84%) Go
15 3 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
15 3 (0.42%) TypeScript
16 2 (0.28%) Kotlin
16 2 (0.28%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 441 (61.59%) SC Cleared
2 231 (32.26%) DV Cleared
3 128 (17.88%) Degree
4 31 (4.33%) Cisco Certification
5 30 (4.19%) CCNA
6 19 (2.65%) Master's Degree
7 18 (2.51%) JNCIA
8 17 (2.37%) BPSS Clearance
8 17 (2.37%) CCNP
9 12 (1.68%) APMP
10 10 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
10 10 (1.40%) Microsoft Certification
11 8 (1.12%) CISSP
11 8 (1.12%) HNC
11 8 (1.12%) JNCIS
12 7 (0.98%) MBA
13 6 (0.84%) CISM
13 6 (0.84%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.70%) HND
14 5 (0.70%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.17%) QA
1 37 (5.17%) SLA
2 30 (4.19%) Def Stans
3 15 (2.09%) GDPR
4 14 (1.96%) Accessibility
4 14 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 10 (1.40%) NIST
6 9 (1.26%) GRC
7 7 (0.98%) NCSC
8 6 (0.84%) ISO 9001
8 6 (0.84%) WCAG
9 5 (0.70%) ISO 13485
10 4 (0.56%) JSP 440
11 3 (0.42%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.42%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.42%) PMO
12 2 (0.28%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 2 (0.28%) RMADS
13 1 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 63 (8.80%) Active Directory
2 28 (3.91%) Firmware
3 21 (2.93%) Docker
4 20 (2.79%) VMware NSX
5 19 (2.65%) VMware Infrastructure
6 15 (2.09%) Embedded Firmware
7 6 (0.84%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.84%) vSphere
8 2 (0.28%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.14%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.14%) Terminal Server
Systems Management
1 33 (4.61%) Kubernetes
2 29 (4.05%) Terraform
3 24 (3.35%) Ansible
4 21 (2.93%) vCenter Server
5 11 (1.54%) Kibana
5 11 (1.54%) SCCM
6 10 (1.40%) SCOM
7 7 (0.98%) Grafana
8 6 (0.84%) Prometheus
9 5 (0.70%) Endace
9 5 (0.70%) Nessus
9 5 (0.70%) vRealize
9 5 (0.70%) ZABBIX
10 4 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.42%) Netcool
11 3 (0.42%) QRadar
11 3 (0.42%) WMI
11 3 (0.42%) WSUS
12 2 (0.28%) Argo
12 2 (0.28%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 106 (14.80%) Microsoft
2 62 (8.66%) VMware
3 51 (7.12%) Cisco
4 43 (6.01%) Juniper
5 35 (4.89%) Oracle
6 24 (3.35%) SAP
7 18 (2.51%) Black Duck
7 18 (2.51%) Coverity
7 18 (2.51%) SolarWinds
8 17 (2.37%) Sparx
9 16 (2.23%) Splunk
10 15 (2.09%) Salesforce
11 11 (1.54%) Dynatrace
12 9 (1.26%) Broadcom
13 8 (1.12%) Adobe
13 8 (1.12%) Google
14 7 (0.98%) HP
14 7 (0.98%) ServiceNow
14 7 (0.98%) Starlink
15 6 (0.84%) MuleSoft