Security Cleared Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Security Clearance
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in the Thames Valley with a requirement for Security Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 31 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 47 8
Rank change year-on-year +25 -39 -2
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 359 226 651
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 5.18% 5.80% 12.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 27.72% 13.63% 39.87%
Number of salaries quoted 209 135 337
10th Percentile £41,250 £38,500 £38,880
25th Percentile £54,750 £45,608 £41,732
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £55,000 £54,125
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% +1.62% +3.10%
75th Percentile £83,750 £74,375 £70,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £84,500 £79,024
South East median annual salary £70,000 £58,000 £56,525
% change year-on-year +20.69% +2.61% +7.67%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
Thames Valley

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 Thames Valley.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 1,295 1,658 1,633
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 18.68% 42.56% 32.29%
Number of salaries quoted 771 513 827
10th Percentile £33,750 £29,800 £34,900
25th Percentile £42,500 £38,500 £41,732
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £47,520 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +26.26% -13.60% +4.76%
75th Percentile £72,500 £66,250 £72,500
90th Percentile £86,250 £81,250 £83,000
South East median annual salary £60,000 £50,000 £54,500
% change year-on-year +20.00% -8.26% +3.81%

Security Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Security Cleared relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Security Cleared job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Security Cleared
Salary Trend in the Thames Valley

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Security Cleared.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Salary Histogram in the Thames Valley

Salary distribution for jobs citing Security Cleared in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 31 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Security Cleared in the Thames Valley

Security Cleared
Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Security Cleared within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 31 August 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
Berkshire +24 242 £70,000 +27.27% 104
Buckinghamshire +20 105 £55,000 - 42
Oxfordshire -27 12 £100,000 +21.21% 20
Security Cleared
South East

Security Cleared
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 5 (1.39%) Apache
1 5 (1.39%) nginx
2 4 (1.11%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.28%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (1.11%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.84%) Solid Edge
2 3 (0.84%) SOLIDWORKS
3 2 (0.56%) UserZoom
4 1 (0.28%) Adobe XD
4 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.28%) SAP MDG
1 1 (0.28%) SAP MM
1 1 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 59 (16.43%) Azure
2 48 (13.37%) AWS
3 14 (3.90%) Azure Sentinel
4 13 (3.62%) Entra ID
5 12 (3.34%) GCP
5 12 (3.34%) Microsoft 365
5 12 (3.34%) Serverless
6 11 (3.06%) Amazon EKS
7 10 (2.79%) OpenShift
8 9 (2.51%) Cloud Computing
9 7 (1.95%) Amazon EC2
9 7 (1.95%) AWS Lambda
9 7 (1.95%) Google Analytics
10 6 (1.67%) Amazon ECS
10 6 (1.67%) Cloudflare
10 6 (1.67%) GitHub
10 6 (1.67%) Power Platform
11 5 (1.39%) Amazon S3
11 5 (1.39%) Azure Logic Apps
12 4 (1.11%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 61 (16.99%) DNS
2 50 (13.93%) Firewall
3 18 (5.01%) TCP/IP
4 13 (3.62%) VPN
5 10 (2.79%) HTTP
6 9 (2.51%) NetScaler
7 8 (2.23%) SSL
8 7 (1.95%) LAN
8 7 (1.95%) Network Security
8 7 (1.95%) WAN
9 6 (1.67%) NAS
9 6 (1.67%) Remote Desktop
9 6 (1.67%) SAN
9 6 (1.67%) Wireshark
10 5 (1.39%) Cisco Firepower
10 5 (1.39%) Cisco Nexus
10 5 (1.39%) NGFW
10 5 (1.39%) SD-WAN
11 3 (0.84%) Internet
12 2 (0.56%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (3.34%) PostgreSQL
2 9 (2.51%) Relational Database
3 6 (1.67%) Power BI
3 6 (1.67%) SQL Server
4 5 (1.39%) MySQL
5 4 (1.11%) Oracle Database
6 2 (0.56%) Big Data
6 2 (0.56%) Metadata
6 2 (0.56%) Oracle Database 11g
6 2 (0.56%) Oracle Database 12c
7 1 (0.28%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.28%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.28%) Redis
7 1 (0.28%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 15 (4.18%) Jenkins
2 10 (2.79%) Git
3 9 (2.51%) GitLab
4 7 (1.95%) JIRA
5 5 (1.39%) JUnit
5 5 (1.39%) SonarQube
6 4 (1.11%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.84%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.56%) JMeter
8 2 (0.56%) Mockito
9 1 (0.28%) Axure RP
9 1 (0.28%) Balsamiq
9 1 (0.28%) Mocha
9 1 (0.28%) Selenium
9 1 (0.28%) Storybook
9 1 (0.28%) TestDirector
General
1 60 (16.71%) Social Skills
2 53 (14.76%) Public Sector
3 42 (11.70%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (10.58%) Finance
5 22 (6.13%) Manufacturing
6 14 (3.90%) Aerospace
6 14 (3.90%) Law
7 11 (3.06%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 7 (1.95%) Electronics
9 7 (1.95%) Retail
10 6 (1.67%) Banking
11 5 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
11 5 (1.39%) French Language
11 5 (1.39%) Games
12 4 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.11%) Marketing
12 4 (1.11%) Public Speaking
13 3 (0.84%) Automotive
13 3 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 77 (21.45%) Architect
2 41 (11.42%) Senior
3 38 (10.58%) Analyst
4 32 (8.91%) Developer
5 31 (8.64%) Applications Architect
6 26 (7.24%) Security Architect
7 25 (6.96%) Lead
8 24 (6.69%) Support Specialist
9 19 (5.29%) SOC Analyst
10 17 (4.74%) Java Developer
11 13 (3.62%) Infrastructure Support
11 13 (3.62%) Software Engineer
12 12 (3.34%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 12 (3.34%) Senior Developer
13 11 (3.06%) DevOps Engineer
13 11 (3.06%) Systems Engineer
13 11 (3.06%) Technical Leader
14 10 (2.79%) .NET Developer
14 10 (2.79%) Security Analyst
14 10 (2.79%) Senior .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (5.85%) Regular Expression
2 19 (5.29%) LDAP
2 19 (5.29%) XMPP
3 15 (4.18%) Spring
4 14 (3.90%) .NET
5 11 (3.06%) Terraform
6 10 (2.79%) HTML
6 10 (2.79%) REST
6 10 (2.79%) Spring Boot
7 9 (2.51%) JSON
7 9 (2.51%) React
7 9 (2.51%) Web Services
8 8 (2.23%) CSS
8 8 (2.23%) Elastic Stack
8 8 (2.23%) RabbitMQ
9 6 (1.67%) Jakarta EE
9 6 (1.67%) JPA
9 6 (1.67%) Loki
10 5 (1.39%) AngularJS
10 5 (1.39%) JSON Schema
Miscellaneous
1 21 (5.85%) Cloud Native
1 21 (5.85%) Cyber Threat
2 18 (5.01%) Cyber Defence
2 18 (5.01%) Onboarding
3 15 (4.18%) Data Centre
4 14 (3.90%) Security Operations Centre
5 11 (3.06%) Product Ownership
6 10 (2.79%) Analytical Mindset
6 10 (2.79%) PKI
7 9 (2.51%) Distributed Systems
7 9 (2.51%) Hybrid Cloud
8 8 (2.23%) Driving Licence
9 7 (1.95%) CSOC
9 7 (1.95%) Hackathon
10 6 (1.67%) Management Information System
10 6 (1.67%) Private Cloud
11 5 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (1.11%) Embedded Systems
13 3 (0.84%) Arduino
13 3 (0.84%) Raspberry Pi
Operating Systems
1 76 (21.17%) Linux
2 66 (18.38%) Windows
3 32 (8.91%) Windows Server
4 25 (6.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.39%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.84%) Unix
7 2 (0.56%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 68 (18.94%) Cybersecurity
2 63 (17.55%) Continuous Improvement
3 48 (13.37%) Validation
4 47 (13.09%) SIEM
5 40 (11.14%) Problem-Solving
6 32 (8.91%) Agile
7 30 (8.36%) Stakeholder Management
8 28 (7.80%) DevOps
9 27 (7.52%) CI/CD
9 27 (7.52%) Service Delivery
10 26 (7.24%) Mentoring
11 24 (6.69%) Platform Engineering
12 23 (6.41%) Decision-Making
13 22 (6.13%) Technical Leadership
14 21 (5.85%) Application Security
14 21 (5.85%) Incident Response
15 20 (5.57%) Analytics
15 20 (5.57%) Software Engineering
16 19 (5.29%) AI
16 19 (5.29%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 35 (9.75%) Python
2 24 (6.69%) Java
3 17 (4.74%) PowerShell
4 13 (3.62%) Bash
5 11 (3.06%) Shell Script
5 11 (3.06%) SQL
6 10 (2.79%) C#
6 10 (2.79%) JavaScript
7 8 (2.23%) C
8 7 (1.95%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (1.95%) Search Processing Language
9 6 (1.67%) TypeScript
10 5 (1.39%) C++
10 5 (1.39%) Groovy
10 5 (1.39%) Rust
11 4 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.84%) Pascal
12 3 (0.84%) Perl
13 2 (0.56%) Go
14 1 (0.28%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 207 (57.66%) SC Cleared
2 134 (37.33%) DV Cleared
3 39 (10.86%) Degree
4 16 (4.46%) CompTIA Security+
5 15 (4.18%) CISSP
6 14 (3.90%) GIAC
7 13 (3.62%) GCIA
8 10 (2.79%) CREST Certified
8 10 (2.79%) OSCP
8 10 (2.79%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 8 (2.23%) GCIH
10 7 (1.95%) CompTIA CySA+
10 7 (1.95%) GCED
10 7 (1.95%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 7 (1.95%) SANS
11 6 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
11 6 (1.67%) CRISC
12 5 (1.39%) CEH
12 5 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
12 5 (1.39%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.51%) NCSC
2 7 (1.95%) QA
3 6 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.39%) Accessibility
4 5 (1.39%) GDPR
4 5 (1.39%) ISO 9001
4 5 (1.39%) MISRA
4 5 (1.39%) NEBOSH
5 4 (1.11%) PMO
6 3 (0.84%) ISO 22301
6 3 (0.84%) WCAG
7 2 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
7 2 (0.56%) COBIT
7 2 (0.56%) COSO
7 2 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 2 (0.56%) NIST
7 2 (0.56%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.56%) SLA
8 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.28%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 46 (12.81%) Active Directory
2 27 (7.52%) vSphere
3 15 (4.18%) Docker
4 10 (2.79%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (1.95%) Firmware
5 7 (1.95%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (1.95%) VMware NSX
6 5 (1.39%) Squid
6 5 (1.39%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 24 (6.69%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.90%) Kibana
3 11 (3.06%) Ansible
4 7 (1.95%) Graylog
5 6 (1.67%) Argo
5 6 (1.67%) Grafana
5 6 (1.67%) Kustomize
5 6 (1.67%) Prometheus
6 5 (1.39%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (1.11%) Packer
8 3 (0.84%) Istio
8 3 (0.84%) Oracle RMAN
8 3 (0.84%) SCCM
9 2 (0.56%) QRadar
9 2 (0.56%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.56%) vRealize
10 1 (0.28%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 77 (21.45%) Microsoft
2 43 (11.98%) VMware
3 25 (6.96%) Red Hat
4 15 (4.18%) McAfee
4 15 (4.18%) Splunk
5 11 (3.06%) Oracle
6 10 (2.79%) Cisco
7 9 (2.51%) AppDynamics
7 9 (2.51%) Citrix
7 9 (2.51%) Google
8 8 (2.23%) CrowdStrike
8 8 (2.23%) IBM
9 7 (1.95%) Carbon Black
10 6 (1.67%) NetApp
10 6 (1.67%) ServiceNow
11 5 (1.39%) Fortinet
11 5 (1.39%) Palo Alto
11 5 (1.39%) Veeam
12 4 (1.11%) CA Agile Central
12 4 (1.11%) SAP