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

6 months to
18 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 1,402 867 1,646
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 7.55% 9.68% 12.68%
As % of the Qualifications category 36.30% 24.05% 39.32%
Number of salaries quoted 904 479 987
10th Percentile £40,000 £33,500 £39,278
25th Percentile £52,500 £46,250 £42,874
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £58,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +20.69% +0.87% +7.96%
75th Percentile £85,000 £75,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £98,375 £87,500 £87,500
England median annual salary £70,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +16.67% - +2.56%

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 3,862 3,605 4,186
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 20.79% 40.25% 32.26%
Number of salaries quoted 2,269 1,610 2,136
10th Percentile £30,700 £30,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £42,500 £36,250 £41,732
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £51,300 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +16.96% -6.73% +4.76%
75th Percentile £77,500 £68,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £85,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £56,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -1.79% -6.67%

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 18 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 18 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 0 747 £75,000 +21.95% 368
Thames Valley +25 389 £70,000 +27.27% 366
Berkshire +24 267 £70,000 +27.27% 268
Surrey +2 188 £50,000 +32.45% 83
Buckinghamshire +23 110 £55,000 - 64
West Sussex -11 29 £41,500 +16.08% 42
Kent -21 21 £47,500 -13.64% 15
Oxfordshire -32 12 £100,000 +15.94% 36
East Sussex -10 6 £70,000 +40.00% 3
Isle of Wight - 6 £70,000 - 1
Sussex -7 5 £65,000 +23.81% 3
Middlesex +17 3 £65,000 - 2
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 14 (1.00%) SharePoint
2 11 (0.78%) Apache
3 7 (0.50%) Confluence
4 6 (0.43%) SAS
5 5 (0.36%) nginx
6 4 (0.29%) 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 (0.071%) Kinematics
Applications
1 32 (2.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (1.85%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.28%) Microsoft Project
3 18 (1.28%) Simulink
4 7 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.43%) SOLIDWORKS
6 5 (0.36%) Solid Edge
7 4 (0.29%) Mathcad
8 3 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.21%) Mathematica
9 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.14%) Lectora
9 2 (0.14%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.14%) UserZoom
10 1 (0.071%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.071%) CATIA
10 1 (0.071%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.071%) Revit
10 1 (0.071%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 8 (0.57%) Primavera
2 4 (0.29%) Workday HCM
3 2 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
3 2 (0.14%) Siebel CRM
3 2 (0.14%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.071%) ENOVIA
4 1 (0.071%) SAP MDG
4 1 (0.071%) SAP MM
4 1 (0.071%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.071%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 213 (15.19%) Azure
2 150 (10.70%) AWS
3 60 (4.28%) Microsoft 365
4 42 (3.00%) Entra ID
5 36 (2.57%) GCP
6 28 (2.00%) Power Platform
7 23 (1.64%) Serverless
8 20 (1.43%) OpenShift
9 18 (1.28%) GitHub
10 17 (1.21%) Cloud Computing
11 15 (1.07%) Amazon EKS
12 14 (1.00%) Azure Sentinel
13 13 (0.93%) Azure DevOps
13 13 (0.93%) GitHub Actions
14 11 (0.78%) Azure AKS
15 10 (0.71%) Amazon EC2
16 9 (0.64%) SaaS
17 8 (0.57%) AWS Lambda
17 8 (0.57%) Azure Stack
17 8 (0.57%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 123 (8.77%) Firewall
2 70 (4.99%) DNS
3 62 (4.42%) WAN
4 54 (3.85%) LAN
5 49 (3.50%) Network Security
6 45 (3.21%) TCP/IP
7 43 (3.07%) VPN
8 20 (1.43%) HTTP
9 19 (1.36%) BGP
10 18 (1.28%) ATM
10 18 (1.28%) VLAN
11 15 (1.07%) DHCP
11 15 (1.07%) Intrusion Detection
12 14 (1.00%) OSPF
13 13 (0.93%) VoIP
14 12 (0.86%) NGFW
14 12 (0.86%) SD-WAN
15 11 (0.78%) SSL
16 10 (0.71%) VSAT
17 9 (0.64%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
1 26 (1.85%) Power BI
2 21 (1.50%) Relational Database
3 15 (1.07%) MySQL
4 10 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
4 10 (0.71%) SQL Server
5 4 (0.29%) GIS
5 4 (0.29%) MongoDB
5 4 (0.29%) Oracle Database
5 4 (0.29%) Redis
5 4 (0.29%) Tableau
6 3 (0.21%) Big Data
6 3 (0.21%) Metadata
7 2 (0.14%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.14%) Geospatial Data
7 2 (0.14%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle Database 11g
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle Database 12c
7 2 (0.14%) RDBMS
7 2 (0.14%) Siebel EIM
Development Applications
1 73 (5.21%) Git
2 43 (3.07%) GitLab
3 27 (1.93%) JIRA
4 24 (1.71%) Jenkins
5 14 (1.00%) Visual Studio Code
6 10 (0.71%) JMeter
6 10 (0.71%) SonarQube
7 9 (0.64%) Rational DOORS
8 6 (0.43%) Artifactory
8 6 (0.43%) Cucumber
8 6 (0.43%) Gatling
8 6 (0.43%) LoadRunner
9 5 (0.36%) JUnit
9 5 (0.36%) LabVIEW
9 5 (0.36%) Selenium
10 4 (0.29%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.14%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.14%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.14%) Mockito
11 2 (0.14%) MSTest
General
1 314 (22.40%) Social Skills
2 184 (13.12%) Aerospace
3 156 (11.13%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (9.77%) Finance
5 128 (9.13%) Public Sector
6 74 (5.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 72 (5.14%) Military
8 69 (4.92%) Electronics
9 46 (3.28%) Manufacturing
10 39 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
11 37 (2.64%) Aviation
12 29 (2.07%) Retail
13 27 (1.93%) Law
14 26 (1.85%) Telecoms
15 20 (1.43%) Documentation Skills
16 18 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
17 17 (1.21%) Legal
18 16 (1.14%) Police
19 13 (0.93%) Aeronautics
19 13 (0.93%) Banking
Job Titles
1 203 (14.48%) Architect
2 187 (13.34%) Senior
3 124 (8.84%) Lead
4 121 (8.63%) Software Engineer
5 106 (7.56%) Systems Engineer
6 94 (6.70%) Analyst
7 83 (5.92%) Security Architect
8 57 (4.07%) Developer
9 50 (3.57%) Consultant
10 46 (3.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 39 (2.78%) Network Engineer
12 37 (2.64%) Project Manager
13 35 (2.50%) Senior Software Engineer
14 33 (2.35%) Security Analyst
14 33 (2.35%) Senior Manager
15 32 (2.28%) Azure Engineer
16 28 (2.00%) Platform Engineer
16 28 (2.00%) Solutions Architect
17 27 (1.93%) Tester
18 26 (1.85%) SOC Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (4.78%) Terraform
2 40 (2.85%) ModSecurity
3 33 (2.35%) LDAP
3 33 (2.35%) React
4 26 (1.85%) .NET
5 18 (1.28%) HTML
6 17 (1.21%) Regular Expression
6 17 (1.21%) Spring
7 16 (1.14%) CSS
7 16 (1.14%) XMPP
8 14 (1.00%) Kafka
8 14 (1.00%) REST
9 13 (0.93%) AngularJS
9 13 (0.93%) OAuth
9 13 (0.93%) OpenID
9 13 (0.93%) SAML
10 12 (0.86%) Elastic Stack
10 12 (0.86%) Web Services
11 10 (0.71%) Spring Boot
11 10 (0.71%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 59 (4.21%) Cloud Native
2 52 (3.71%) Data Centre
3 51 (3.64%) Onboarding
4 43 (3.07%) Algorithms
4 43 (3.07%) Driving Licence
4 43 (3.07%) Social Media
5 34 (2.43%) Cyber Threat
5 34 (2.43%) Management Information System
5 34 (2.43%) Self-Motivation
6 32 (2.28%) Product Ownership
6 32 (2.28%) Security Operations Centre
7 30 (2.14%) Cyber Defence
8 27 (1.93%) Embedded Systems
9 25 (1.78%) FPGA
9 25 (1.78%) Robotics
10 20 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
10 20 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
11 19 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
11 19 (1.36%) Private Cloud
12 18 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 191 (13.62%) Linux
2 147 (10.49%) Windows
3 70 (4.99%) Windows Server
4 25 (1.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (1.07%) Ubuntu
6 11 (0.78%) CentOS
7 9 (0.64%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.43%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.36%) Android
10 5 (0.36%) Debian
11 4 (0.29%) Unix
12 3 (0.21%) AIX
13 2 (0.14%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.14%) Rocky
14 1 (0.071%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 212 (15.12%) Continuous Improvement
2 211 (15.05%) Agile
3 193 (13.77%) Problem-Solving
4 188 (13.41%) Software Engineering
5 172 (12.27%) Validation
6 158 (11.27%) Cybersecurity
7 142 (10.13%) CI/CD
8 122 (8.70%) Mentoring
9 119 (8.49%) DevOps
9 119 (8.49%) Stakeholder Management
10 117 (8.35%) AI
11 114 (8.13%) Decision-Making
12 98 (6.99%) Technical Leadership
13 86 (6.13%) SIEM
14 85 (6.06%) ITIL
15 78 (5.56%) Incident Response
16 74 (5.28%) Infrastructure as Code
17 73 (5.21%) Verification and Validation
18 71 (5.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 69 (4.92%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 167 (11.91%) Python
2 92 (6.56%) C++
3 58 (4.14%) Java
4 53 (3.78%) C
4 53 (3.78%) C#
5 51 (3.64%) PowerShell
6 43 (3.07%) Bash
7 40 (2.85%) JavaScript
8 32 (2.28%) MATLAB
8 32 (2.28%) SQL
9 29 (2.07%) TypeScript
10 24 (1.71%) Rust
11 20 (1.43%) Embedded C
12 16 (1.14%) Embedded C++
13 14 (1.00%) Go
14 13 (0.93%) PHP
15 12 (0.86%) Shell Script
16 11 (0.78%) Ada
16 11 (0.78%) Perl
17 10 (0.71%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 850 (60.63%) SC Cleared
2 551 (39.30%) DV Cleared
3 205 (14.62%) Degree
4 65 (4.64%) CISSP
5 62 (4.42%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (3.28%) Cisco Certification
7 35 (2.50%) CISM
8 33 (2.35%) CCNP
9 31 (2.21%) Master's Degree
10 30 (2.14%) Azure Certification
11 29 (2.07%) HNC
12 20 (1.43%) CompTIA Security+
13 19 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
14 17 (1.21%) GIAC
14 17 (1.21%) PhD
15 16 (1.14%) CREST Certified
15 16 (1.14%) PMI Certification
16 15 (1.07%) CCNA
16 15 (1.07%) HND
17 13 (0.93%) GCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (3.00%) QA
2 41 (2.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 37 (2.64%) SLA
4 33 (2.35%) NIST
5 29 (2.07%) Accessibility
6 21 (1.50%) NCSC
7 15 (1.07%) Def Stans
7 15 (1.07%) ISO 9001
8 14 (1.00%) GDPR
9 11 (0.78%) NIST 800
10 9 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 9 (0.64%) MISRA
11 8 (0.57%) GRC
11 8 (0.57%) PMO
12 6 (0.43%) JSP 440
12 6 (0.43%) NEBOSH
13 5 (0.36%) WCAG
14 4 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
14 4 (0.29%) Data Quality
15 3 (0.21%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 77 (5.49%) Active Directory
2 72 (5.14%) Docker
3 32 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (2.07%) vSphere
5 24 (1.71%) Firmware
6 18 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
6 18 (1.28%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (0.86%) VMware NSX
8 11 (0.78%) Hyper-V
9 5 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
9 5 (0.36%) Squid
10 4 (0.29%) KVM
11 2 (0.14%) UAG
12 1 (0.071%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 109 (7.77%) Kubernetes
2 58 (4.14%) Ansible
3 20 (1.43%) Kibana
3 20 (1.43%) Single Sign-On
4 18 (1.28%) Grafana
4 18 (1.28%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (0.86%) Prometheus
6 11 (0.78%) vCenter Server
7 9 (0.64%) Podman
8 7 (0.50%) Argo
8 7 (0.50%) Graylog
8 7 (0.50%) Kustomize
8 7 (0.50%) Puppet
8 7 (0.50%) QRadar
9 6 (0.43%) Nessus
9 6 (0.43%) Packer
9 6 (0.43%) SCCM
10 5 (0.36%) Istio
11 4 (0.29%) Docker Swarm
11 4 (0.29%) Nagios
Vendors
1 144 (10.27%) Microsoft
2 76 (5.42%) VMware
3 49 (3.50%) Cisco
4 32 (2.28%) Oracle
4 32 (2.28%) ServiceNow
5 29 (2.07%) Red Hat
6 27 (1.93%) Thales
7 25 (1.78%) Splunk
8 22 (1.57%) Fortinet
9 20 (1.43%) EMC
10 18 (1.28%) Palo Alto
11 17 (1.21%) SAP
12 15 (1.07%) AppDynamics
13 14 (1.00%) Google
14 13 (0.93%) McAfee
15 12 (0.86%) ForgeRock
15 12 (0.86%) IBM
15 12 (0.86%) Okta
16 11 (0.78%) Veeam
17 10 (0.71%) NVIDIA