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 7 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 9 11
Rank change year-on-year -13 +2 +7
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 725 1,139 1,449
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 6.56% 13.35% 11.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 22.19% 28.37% 32.81%
Number of salaries quoted 442 712 1,126
10th Percentile £36,500 £41,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £49,813 £47,500 £41,542
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £62,500 £61,644 £57,500
% change year-on-year +1.39% +7.21% +1.68%

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 3,267 4,015 4,416
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 29.55% 47.04% 36.17%
Number of salaries quoted 1,411 1,652 2,963
10th Percentile £27,750 £32,525 £28,000
25th Percentile £37,688 £46,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £58,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -9.48% +10.48% +0.72%
75th Percentile £67,500 £75,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £85,000 £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 7 February 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 7 February 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 -1 401 £60,000 - 194
Thames Valley -3 208 £58,750 +1.58% 117
Berkshire -13 118 £54,375 -9.38% 71
Surrey -11 75 £50,000 -17.36% 47
Buckinghamshire +29 72 £60,000 +4.35% 33
West Sussex +14 19 £34,000 -9.33% 12
Oxfordshire -1 18 £65,000 +33.33% 14
Kent -12 14 £39,000 -37.60% 13
Sussex - 4 £85,000 - 6
Home Counties 0 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 40 (5.52%) SharePoint
2 35 (4.83%) Microsoft Exchange
3 24 (3.31%) Exchange Server 2003
4 5 (0.69%) WordPress
5 4 (0.55%) Apache
5 4 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.55%) Confluence
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
7 1 (0.14%) SAS
Applications
1 39 (5.38%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (4.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.69%) Adobe XD
4 3 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.41%) Windchill
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 6 (0.83%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 3 (0.41%) 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 66 (9.10%) Azure
2 64 (8.83%) AWS
3 37 (5.10%) Microsoft 365
4 26 (3.59%) Power Platform
5 25 (3.45%) Azure DevOps
6 17 (2.34%) GCP
6 17 (2.34%) PowerApps
7 15 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
8 14 (1.93%) Amazon EKS
9 13 (1.79%) Amazon EC2
10 11 (1.52%) Serverless
11 10 (1.38%) Amazon ECS
12 8 (1.10%) GitHub
12 8 (1.10%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 8 (1.10%) Salesforce Service Cloud
13 6 (0.83%) AWS CloudFormation
13 6 (0.83%) Entra ID
13 6 (0.83%) Figma
13 6 (0.83%) OpenShift
14 5 (0.69%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 65 (8.97%) Firewall
2 55 (7.59%) DNS
3 33 (4.55%) DHCP
4 26 (3.59%) VPN
5 23 (3.17%) Structured Cabling
6 21 (2.90%) Junos
6 21 (2.90%) LAN
6 21 (2.90%) WAN
7 16 (2.21%) Cisco IOS
7 16 (2.21%) Wi-Fi
8 15 (2.07%) Cisco Firepower
9 14 (1.93%) BGP
9 14 (1.93%) Cisco ISE
9 14 (1.93%) Network Security
10 13 (1.79%) TCP/IP
11 10 (1.38%) NX-OS
12 8 (1.10%) MPLS
13 7 (0.97%) VSAT
14 6 (0.83%) Cisco ASA
14 6 (0.83%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (4.00%) Oracle Database
2 25 (3.45%) Oracle Database 10g
3 18 (2.48%) Power BI
4 12 (1.66%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (1.52%) Relational Database
6 9 (1.24%) 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 (0.28%) BigQuery
8 2 (0.28%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.28%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.14%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.14%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.14%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.14%) Geospatial Data
9 1 (0.14%) Neo4j
9 1 (0.14%) Redis
9 1 (0.14%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 37 (5.10%) Git
2 35 (4.83%) Jenkins
3 30 (4.14%) JIRA
4 24 (3.31%) Selenium
5 19 (2.62%) GitLab
5 19 (2.62%) Robot Framework
6 17 (2.34%) Snyk
7 11 (1.52%) JUnit
8 10 (1.38%) Mockito
9 9 (1.24%) JMeter
10 6 (0.83%) Subversion
11 5 (0.69%) Axure RP
11 5 (0.69%) Balsamiq
12 4 (0.55%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 4 (0.55%) Cypress.io
13 3 (0.41%) Rational Rhapsody
14 2 (0.28%) Artifactory
14 2 (0.28%) TestRail
14 2 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
14 2 (0.28%) WebDriver
General
1 226 (31.17%) Social Skills
2 103 (14.21%) Analytical Skills
3 65 (8.97%) Public Sector
4 61 (8.41%) Finance
5 31 (4.28%) Law
6 30 (4.14%) Manufacturing
7 29 (4.00%) Organisational Skills
8 28 (3.86%) Aeronautics
8 28 (3.86%) Aviation
9 27 (3.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 24 (3.31%) Telecoms
11 18 (2.48%) Aerospace
11 18 (2.48%) Electronics
12 15 (2.07%) Marketing
13 12 (1.66%) Military
14 11 (1.52%) Legal
15 10 (1.38%) Banking
15 10 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
16 9 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
17 8 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 80 (11.03%) Senior
2 73 (10.07%) Architect
3 63 (8.69%) Lead
4 51 (7.03%) Business Manager
5 50 (6.90%) Business Systems Manager
5 50 (6.90%) Systems Engineer
5 50 (6.90%) Systems Manager
6 45 (6.21%) Developer
7 44 (6.07%) Support Engineer
8 43 (5.93%) Consultant
9 38 (5.24%) Analyst
10 35 (4.83%) Network Engineer
11 34 (4.69%) Systems Support
12 27 (3.72%) Data Engineer
13 26 (3.59%) Software Engineer
14 25 (3.45%) 3rd Line Support
14 25 (3.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 25 (3.45%) Technical Support
15 22 (3.03%) Technical Engineer
15 22 (3.03%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (4.14%) REST
2 21 (2.90%) SOAP
3 17 (2.34%) HTML
4 13 (1.79%) Spring
4 13 (1.79%) XML
5 12 (1.66%) JSON
5 12 (1.66%) Middleware
5 12 (1.66%) Spring Boot
6 11 (1.52%) .NET
6 11 (1.52%) React
7 10 (1.38%) Hibernate
7 10 (1.38%) Web Services
8 9 (1.24%) ActiveMQ
8 9 (1.24%) Apache Camel
8 9 (1.24%) jQuery
8 9 (1.24%) WireMock
9 8 (1.10%) Lightning Web Components
9 8 (1.10%) Visualforce
10 7 (0.97%) Kafka
11 5 (0.69%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 52 (7.17%) Robotics
2 25 (3.45%) Product Ownership
3 22 (3.03%) Driving Licence
3 22 (3.03%) PKI
4 18 (2.48%) Cloud Native
4 18 (2.48%) Data Centre
5 13 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
5 13 (1.79%) e-Learning
5 13 (1.79%) Security Operations Centre
5 13 (1.79%) Security Posture
6 11 (1.52%) Onboarding
7 10 (1.38%) Management Information System
7 10 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.10%) Fibre Optics
9 6 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (0.69%) Cloud Security Posture
10 5 (0.69%) Low-Code
11 4 (0.55%) Algorithms
11 4 (0.55%) Cyber Defence
11 4 (0.55%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 110 (15.17%) Windows
2 50 (6.90%) Linux
3 44 (6.07%) Windows Server
4 31 (4.28%) Unix
5 25 (3.45%) HPUX
5 25 (3.45%) Solaris
6 24 (3.31%) Windows Server 2003
7 23 (3.17%) Windows 7
8 22 (3.03%) Windows Server 2008
9 8 (1.10%) Android
9 8 (1.10%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.69%) Apple iOS
11 4 (0.55%) Windows 10
12 3 (0.41%) AIX
12 3 (0.41%) 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 (18.48%) Agile
2 102 (14.07%) Continuous Improvement
3 95 (13.10%) Project Management
4 92 (12.69%) Problem-Solving
5 91 (12.55%) Software Engineering
6 75 (10.34%) AI
7 71 (9.79%) CI/CD
8 69 (9.52%) Process Improvement
9 64 (8.83%) DevOps
10 61 (8.41%) Risk Management
11 53 (7.31%) IT Strategy
12 52 (7.17%) Mentoring
12 52 (7.17%) Strategic Planning
13 51 (7.03%) Budget Management
13 51 (7.03%) Contract Negotiation
14 48 (6.62%) Technical Leadership
15 44 (6.07%) Data Analysis
16 41 (5.66%) Cybersecurity
17 37 (5.10%) Test Automation
18 36 (4.97%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 76 (10.48%) Python
2 46 (6.34%) PowerShell
3 41 (5.66%) Java
4 35 (4.83%) SQL
5 31 (4.28%) JavaScript
6 22 (3.03%) Perl
7 21 (2.90%) C#
8 20 (2.76%) C++
9 17 (2.34%) VBA
10 10 (1.38%) Bash
10 10 (1.38%) Rust
11 9 (1.24%) Shell Script
12 8 (1.10%) Apex Code
12 8 (1.10%) C
13 6 (0.83%) Go
13 6 (0.83%) MATLAB
14 4 (0.55%) PL/SQL
14 4 (0.55%) TypeScript
15 3 (0.41%) Ladder Logic
16 2 (0.28%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 451 (62.21%) SC Cleared
2 262 (36.14%) DV Cleared
3 117 (16.14%) Degree
4 27 (3.72%) Master's Degree
5 25 (3.45%) Cisco Certification
6 24 (3.31%) CCNA
7 18 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
8 17 (2.34%) CCNP
9 14 (1.93%) APMP
10 13 (1.79%) HNC
10 13 (1.79%) JNCIA
11 12 (1.66%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (1.52%) CISSP
12 11 (1.52%) MBA
13 9 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
14 8 (1.10%) JNCIS
15 7 (0.97%) CISM
15 7 (0.97%) CRISC
15 7 (0.97%) DBS Check
15 7 (0.97%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (4.69%) SLA
2 26 (3.59%) QA
3 19 (2.62%) GDPR
4 16 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 14 (1.93%) Def Stans
6 13 (1.79%) Accessibility
7 12 (1.66%) NIST
8 10 (1.38%) NCSC
9 9 (1.24%) GRC
10 8 (1.10%) ISO 9001
11 6 (0.83%) WCAG
12 5 (0.69%) ISO 13485
13 4 (0.55%) PCI DSS
13 4 (0.55%) PMO
14 3 (0.41%) JSP 440
14 3 (0.41%) NIST 800
15 2 (0.28%) Data Quality
15 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 2 (0.28%) RMADS
System Software
1 61 (8.41%) Active Directory
2 25 (3.45%) VMware NSX
3 24 (3.31%) Docker
4 21 (2.90%) VMware Infrastructure
5 16 (2.21%) Firmware
6 6 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.83%) vSphere
7 3 (0.41%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.28%) Terminal Server
9 1 (0.14%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 33 (4.55%) Kubernetes
2 31 (4.28%) Terraform
3 26 (3.59%) Ansible
4 22 (3.03%) vCenter Server
5 11 (1.52%) SCCM
5 11 (1.52%) SCOM
6 9 (1.24%) Kibana
6 9 (1.24%) vRealize
7 8 (1.10%) Endace
7 8 (1.10%) Grafana
8 7 (0.97%) Prometheus
9 5 (0.69%) Nessus
9 5 (0.69%) ZABBIX
10 4 (0.55%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.55%) QRadar
10 4 (0.55%) WSUS
11 3 (0.41%) Netcool
12 2 (0.28%) SCSM
12 2 (0.28%) Sysdig
12 2 (0.28%) WMI
Vendors
1 103 (14.21%) Microsoft
2 65 (8.97%) VMware
3 56 (7.72%) Cisco
4 45 (6.21%) Juniper
5 37 (5.10%) Oracle
6 19 (2.62%) SolarWinds
7 18 (2.48%) Salesforce
7 18 (2.48%) SAP
7 18 (2.48%) Splunk
8 17 (2.34%) Black Duck
8 17 (2.34%) Coverity
9 10 (1.38%) Broadcom
9 10 (1.38%) Google
10 9 (1.24%) CheckPoint
10 9 (1.24%) Dynatrace
11 8 (1.10%) Adobe
11 8 (1.10%) F5
11 8 (1.10%) LogRhythm
11 8 (1.10%) ServiceNow
12 7 (0.97%) Palo Alto