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 30 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 51 9
Rank change year-on-year +24 -42 +4
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 314 186 805
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 5.19% 5.31% 11.28%
As % of the Qualifications category 25.06% 11.36% 32.59%
Number of salaries quoted 191 126 523
10th Percentile £40,000 £38,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £50,638 £46,250 £39,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £57,585 £52,550
Median % change year-on-year +17.22% +9.58% +13.38%
75th Percentile £80,000 £73,750 £63,000
90th Percentile £93,750 £84,375 £75,000
South East median annual salary £70,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +16.67% +9.09% +10.00%

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 1,253 1,637 2,470
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 20.72% 46.77% 34.62%
Number of salaries quoted 718 474 1,448
10th Percentile £33,320 £28,825 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,500 £40,000 £38,098
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £50,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £72,500 £67,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £82,500 £82,500
South East median annual salary £60,000 £52,500 £51,000
% change year-on-year +14.29% +2.94% -2.58%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 +16 215 £67,500 +8.87% 67
Buckinghamshire +35 79 £52,500 - 30
Oxfordshire -13 20 £82,500 +59.42% 15
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 6 (1.91%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.27%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.32%) Confluence
Applications
1 9 (2.87%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.27%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.32%) Primavera
1 1 (0.32%) SAP MDG
1 1 (0.32%) SAP MM
1 1 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 44 (14.01%) Azure
2 34 (10.83%) AWS
3 18 (5.73%) GCP
4 12 (3.82%) Serverless
5 11 (3.50%) Amazon EKS
6 9 (2.87%) Azure Sentinel
6 9 (2.87%) Entra ID
7 7 (2.23%) Amazon EC2
7 7 (2.23%) AWS Lambda
7 7 (2.23%) Microsoft 365
8 6 (1.91%) Amazon ECS
8 6 (1.91%) OpenShift
8 6 (1.91%) Power Platform
9 5 (1.59%) Amazon S3
9 5 (1.59%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (1.59%) Cloudflare
10 4 (1.27%) GitHub
10 4 (1.27%) Google Analytics
11 3 (0.96%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
11 3 (0.96%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 51 (16.24%) DNS
2 44 (14.01%) Firewall
3 14 (4.46%) TCP/IP
4 12 (3.82%) Structured Cabling
5 11 (3.50%) NetScaler
6 10 (3.18%) HTTP
6 10 (3.18%) VPN
7 8 (2.55%) NAS
7 8 (2.55%) SAN
7 8 (2.55%) Wireshark
8 7 (2.23%) SSL
9 5 (1.59%) Remote Desktop
10 4 (1.27%) LAN
10 4 (1.27%) Network Security
10 4 (1.27%) WAN
11 3 (0.96%) Internet
12 2 (0.64%) Cisco Nexus
12 2 (0.64%) FTP
12 2 (0.64%) NGFW
12 2 (0.64%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (4.14%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (3.18%) SQL Server
3 7 (2.23%) Relational Database
4 5 (1.59%) Power BI
5 4 (1.27%) MySQL
5 4 (1.27%) Oracle Database
6 2 (0.64%) Oracle Database 11g
6 2 (0.64%) Oracle Database 12c
7 1 (0.32%) Metadata
7 1 (0.32%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.32%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.32%) Redis
7 1 (0.32%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 13 (4.14%) Jenkins
2 11 (3.50%) Git
3 10 (3.18%) JIRA
4 9 (2.87%) GitLab
5 5 (1.59%) JUnit
5 5 (1.59%) SonarQube
6 4 (1.27%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.96%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.64%) JMeter
8 2 (0.64%) Mockito
8 2 (0.64%) Subversion
9 1 (0.32%) Mocha
9 1 (0.32%) Selenium
9 1 (0.32%) Storybook
9 1 (0.32%) TestDirector
General
1 69 (21.97%) Social Skills
2 43 (13.69%) Public Sector
3 41 (13.06%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (12.10%) Finance
5 16 (5.10%) Manufacturing
6 13 (4.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 13 (4.14%) Organisational Skills
7 12 (3.82%) Law
8 8 (2.55%) Aerospace
8 8 (2.55%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (2.23%) Games
10 6 (1.91%) Banking
10 6 (1.91%) Documentation Skills
11 5 (1.59%) French Language
12 4 (1.27%) Aviation
12 4 (1.27%) Legal
13 3 (0.96%) Military
14 2 (0.64%) Electronics
14 2 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.64%) Retail
Job Titles
1 67 (21.34%) Architect
2 43 (13.69%) Senior
3 38 (12.10%) Analyst
4 37 (11.78%) Developer
5 33 (10.51%) Applications Architect
6 29 (9.24%) Lead
6 29 (9.24%) Security Architect
7 17 (5.41%) Java Developer
7 17 (5.41%) SOC Analyst
8 13 (4.14%) Senior Developer
9 12 (3.82%) DevOps Engineer
10 11 (3.50%) .NET Developer
10 11 (3.50%) Senior .NET Developer
10 11 (3.50%) Software Engineer
11 9 (2.87%) Cyber Threat Analyst
11 9 (2.87%) Lead Architect
11 9 (2.87%) Security Analyst
11 9 (2.87%) Technical Leader
12 8 (2.55%) Cybersecurity Analyst
12 8 (2.55%) Security Auditor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (7.01%) Regular Expression
2 20 (6.37%) LDAP
3 19 (6.05%) .NET
4 18 (5.73%) XMPP
5 13 (4.14%) Spring
6 12 (3.82%) REST
7 10 (3.18%) JSON
7 10 (3.18%) React
8 8 (2.55%) Elastic Stack
8 8 (2.55%) RabbitMQ
8 8 (2.55%) Spring Boot
9 6 (1.91%) Java EE
9 6 (1.91%) JPA
9 6 (1.91%) JSON Schema
9 6 (1.91%) XML
10 5 (1.59%) AngularJS
10 5 (1.59%) HTML
10 5 (1.59%) Loki
10 5 (1.59%) RESTful
11 4 (1.27%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 21 (6.69%) Cloud Native
2 18 (5.73%) Cyber Defence
2 18 (5.73%) Cyber Threat
3 11 (3.50%) Onboarding
4 10 (3.18%) Analytical Mindset
4 10 (3.18%) Distributed Systems
4 10 (3.18%) PKI
5 9 (2.87%) Security Operations Centre
6 8 (2.55%) Product Ownership
7 6 (1.91%) Management Information System
8 5 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (1.59%) Security Posture
9 4 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.96%) CSOC
10 3 (0.96%) Data Centre
10 3 (0.96%) Hackathon
10 3 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
10 3 (0.96%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.96%) Operational Technology
10 3 (0.96%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 64 (20.38%) Linux
2 58 (18.47%) Windows
3 36 (11.46%) Windows Server
4 26 (8.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.96%) Unix
6 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (17.83%) Continuous Improvement
2 55 (17.52%) Cybersecurity
3 44 (14.01%) SIEM
4 34 (10.83%) Agile
5 32 (10.19%) Validation
6 30 (9.55%) DevOps
6 30 (9.55%) Problem-Solving
7 24 (7.64%) CI/CD
8 23 (7.32%) Application Security
8 23 (7.32%) Platform Engineering
9 22 (7.01%) Mentoring
10 19 (6.05%) Containerisation
11 18 (5.73%) ITIL
12 16 (5.10%) Antivirus Management
12 16 (5.10%) Architectural Design
12 16 (5.10%) Pattern Matching
12 16 (5.10%) Software Engineering
12 16 (5.10%) Stakeholder Management
13 15 (4.78%) Decision-Making
13 15 (4.78%) Threat Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 34 (10.83%) Python
2 25 (7.96%) Java
3 17 (5.41%) SQL
4 11 (3.50%) PowerShell
5 10 (3.18%) Shell Script
6 7 (2.23%) Bash
6 7 (2.23%) C
6 7 (2.23%) JavaScript
6 7 (2.23%) PL/SQL
6 7 (2.23%) Search Processing Language
7 6 (1.91%) C#
8 5 (1.59%) Groovy
8 5 (1.59%) TypeScript
9 4 (1.27%) C++
9 4 (1.27%) Ladder Logic
10 3 (0.96%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.96%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (0.96%) Pascal
10 3 (0.96%) Perl
10 3 (0.96%) Rust
Qualifications
1 184 (58.60%) SC Cleared
2 137 (43.63%) DV Cleared
3 40 (12.74%) Degree
4 14 (4.46%) CISSP
5 12 (3.82%) HNC
6 10 (3.18%) CompTIA Security+
6 10 (3.18%) CREST Certified
6 10 (3.18%) CRISC
6 10 (3.18%) GIAC
6 10 (3.18%) OSCP
7 9 (2.87%) GCIA
8 8 (2.55%) GCIH
8 8 (2.55%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 7 (2.23%) GCED
9 7 (2.23%) ISACA
9 7 (2.23%) SANS
10 4 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
10 4 (1.27%) CTC Cleared
11 3 (0.96%) CompTIA CySA+
11 3 (0.96%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (4.14%) GDPR
2 8 (2.55%) NCSC
3 7 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (2.23%) QA
4 6 (1.91%) PMO
5 5 (1.59%) NEBOSH
6 4 (1.27%) MISRA
7 3 (0.96%) Accessibility
7 3 (0.96%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.64%) COBIT
8 2 (0.64%) COSO
8 2 (0.64%) ISO 22301
8 2 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 2 (0.64%) NIST
8 2 (0.64%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.32%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.32%) SLA
System Software
1 43 (13.69%) Active Directory
2 26 (8.28%) vSphere
3 14 (4.46%) Docker
4 8 (2.55%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.59%) Firmware
6 3 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.32%) Terminal Server
7 1 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 21 (6.69%) Kubernetes
2 14 (4.46%) Kibana
3 10 (3.18%) Terraform
4 9 (2.87%) Ansible
5 6 (1.91%) Graylog
5 6 (1.91%) vRealize
6 5 (1.59%) Argo
6 5 (1.59%) Grafana
6 5 (1.59%) Kustomize
6 5 (1.59%) Prometheus
7 4 (1.27%) Packer
8 3 (0.96%) Istio
8 3 (0.96%) Oracle RMAN
9 2 (0.64%) QRadar
10 1 (0.32%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 1 (0.32%) SCCM
10 1 (0.32%) SCOM
Vendors
1 63 (20.06%) Microsoft
2 35 (11.15%) VMware
3 23 (7.32%) Red Hat
4 16 (5.10%) Oracle
5 15 (4.78%) McAfee
5 15 (4.78%) Splunk
6 12 (3.82%) Citrix
7 11 (3.50%) Google
8 9 (2.87%) AppDynamics
9 8 (2.55%) CrowdStrike
9 8 (2.55%) IBM
9 8 (2.55%) NetApp
10 7 (2.23%) Carbon Black
10 7 (2.23%) ServiceNow
11 4 (1.27%) CA Agile Central
11 4 (1.27%) Cisco
11 4 (1.27%) Salesforce
12 3 (0.96%) Motorola
12 3 (0.96%) SAP
13 2 (0.64%) Juniper