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 10 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 45 11
Rank change year-on-year +23 -34 -5
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 393 216 556
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 5.21% 5.65% 12.04%
As % of the Qualifications category 29.09% 13.71% 35.26%
Number of salaries quoted 197 128 246
10th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £36,875
25th Percentile £55,000 £45,000 £41,263
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% - +4.66%
75th Percentile £87,500 £73,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £84,125 £78,580
South East median annual salary £70,000 £58,000 £59,125
% change year-on-year +20.69% -1.90% +9.98%

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 1,351 1,576 1,577
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 17.92% 41.21% 34.14%
Number of salaries quoted 793 486 623
10th Percentile £33,750 £29,250 £35,000
25th Percentile £41,750 £37,500 £44,106
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £56,500 £47,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +18.95% -17.39% +6.96%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,853 £75,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £81,250 £85,000
South East median annual salary £60,000 £50,000 £57,000
% change year-on-year +20.00% -12.28% +8.47%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 +25 271 £70,000 +27.27% 239
Buckinghamshire +16 104 £55,000 - 81
Oxfordshire -34 19 £100,000 +17.65% 74
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 (1.27%) Apache
1 5 (1.27%) nginx
2 3 (0.76%) Apache Spark
2 3 (0.76%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.25%) Confluence
3 1 (0.25%) Kinematics
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 7 (1.78%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.27%) Mathematica
2 5 (1.27%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (1.02%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.76%) Solid Edge
4 3 (0.76%) SOLIDWORKS
5 2 (0.51%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.51%) UserZoom
6 1 (0.25%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.25%) CATIA
6 1 (0.25%) OrCAD
6 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (1.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.02%) SAP PM
3 2 (0.51%) SAP MM
3 2 (0.51%) SAP PP
3 2 (0.51%) SAP PS
3 2 (0.51%) SAP QM
4 1 (0.25%) ENOVIA
4 1 (0.25%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 61 (15.52%) AWS
2 52 (13.23%) Azure
3 23 (5.85%) Cloud Computing
4 15 (3.82%) Azure Sentinel
4 15 (3.82%) OpenShift
5 14 (3.56%) Entra ID
6 13 (3.31%) GCP
7 11 (2.80%) Microsoft 365
8 6 (1.53%) Cloudflare
9 5 (1.27%) Azure Logic Apps
9 5 (1.27%) GitHub
9 5 (1.27%) Google Analytics
9 5 (1.27%) Power Platform
9 5 (1.27%) Serverless
10 4 (1.02%) Amazon ECS
10 4 (1.02%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.02%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
11 2 (0.51%) Amazon EC2
12 1 (0.25%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 51 (12.98%) DNS
2 43 (10.94%) Firewall
3 20 (5.09%) TCP/IP
4 14 (3.56%) VPN
5 9 (2.29%) HTTP
5 9 (2.29%) Network Security
6 8 (2.04%) SSL
7 7 (1.78%) LAN
8 6 (1.53%) WAN
9 5 (1.27%) Cisco Firepower
9 5 (1.27%) Cisco Nexus
9 5 (1.27%) NGFW
9 5 (1.27%) SD-WAN
10 4 (1.02%) NAS
10 4 (1.02%) NetScaler
10 4 (1.02%) SAN
10 4 (1.02%) Wireshark
11 3 (0.76%) Remote Desktop
12 2 (0.51%) DHCP
12 2 (0.51%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (3.82%) PostgreSQL
2 7 (1.78%) Relational Database
3 5 (1.27%) Big Data
3 5 (1.27%) MySQL
3 5 (1.27%) Power BI
4 3 (0.76%) Oracle Database
4 3 (0.76%) SQL Server
5 2 (0.51%) Metadata
5 2 (0.51%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.51%) Oracle Database 11g
5 2 (0.51%) Oracle Database 12c
6 1 (0.25%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (0.25%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.25%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.25%) Redis
6 1 (0.25%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 7 (1.78%) Jenkins
2 5 (1.27%) JUnit
3 4 (1.02%) GitLab
4 3 (0.76%) JIRA
4 3 (0.76%) JMeter
5 2 (0.51%) Git
5 2 (0.51%) MLflow
5 2 (0.51%) Mockito
5 2 (0.51%) Selenium
6 1 (0.25%) Axure RP
6 1 (0.25%) Balsamiq
6 1 (0.25%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.25%) Mocha
6 1 (0.25%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.25%) Rational Rhapsody
6 1 (0.25%) Storybook
General
1 66 (16.79%) Social Skills
2 45 (11.45%) Public Sector
3 44 (11.20%) Aerospace
4 43 (10.94%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (9.67%) Finance
6 30 (7.63%) Manufacturing
7 26 (6.62%) Retail
8 18 (4.58%) Electronics
9 14 (3.56%) Law
10 12 (3.05%) Organisational Skills
11 10 (2.54%) Legal
12 8 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 6 (1.53%) Military
13 6 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (1.27%) Banking
15 4 (1.02%) French Language
15 4 (1.02%) Games
15 4 (1.02%) Marketing
15 4 (1.02%) Public Speaking
16 3 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 57 (14.50%) Architect
1 57 (14.50%) Senior
2 35 (8.91%) Analyst
3 32 (8.14%) Lead
4 25 (6.36%) Support Specialist
5 23 (5.85%) Electrical Engineer
6 21 (5.34%) Mechanical Engineer
7 17 (4.33%) SOC Analyst
7 17 (4.33%) Systems Engineer
8 16 (4.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 16 (4.07%) Technical Leader
9 15 (3.82%) Senior Manager
10 14 (3.56%) Developer
10 14 (3.56%) Security Architect
11 13 (3.31%) Infrastructure Support
12 12 (3.05%) Applications Architect
12 12 (3.05%) Designer
13 11 (2.80%) Software Engineer
14 9 (2.29%) Infrastructure Specialist
14 9 (2.29%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (3.56%) Regular Expression
2 13 (3.31%) XMPP
3 12 (3.05%) LDAP
4 10 (2.54%) .NET
4 10 (2.54%) HTML
5 9 (2.29%) Loki
6 8 (2.04%) CSS
6 8 (2.04%) Spring
7 7 (1.78%) Spring Boot
8 6 (1.53%) Web Services
9 5 (1.27%) JSON
9 5 (1.27%) OpenTelemetry
9 5 (1.27%) Terraform
9 5 (1.27%) XML
10 4 (1.02%) JSON Schema
10 4 (1.02%) React
11 3 (0.76%) FastAPI
11 3 (0.76%) Hibernate
11 3 (0.76%) RESTful
11 3 (0.76%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 33 (8.40%) Onboarding
2 29 (7.38%) Cloud Native
2 29 (7.38%) Data Centre
3 19 (4.83%) Cyber Threat
4 17 (4.33%) Cyber Defence
5 16 (4.07%) Product Ownership
6 14 (3.56%) Security Operations Centre
7 13 (3.31%) Driving Licence
8 12 (3.05%) Hybrid Cloud
9 10 (2.54%) PKI
10 9 (2.29%) Analytical Mindset
11 8 (2.04%) Embedded Systems
12 7 (1.78%) Algorithms
12 7 (1.78%) CSOC
12 7 (1.78%) Hackathon
12 7 (1.78%) Synthetic Data
13 6 (1.53%) Management Information System
14 5 (1.27%) Private Cloud
14 5 (1.27%) Robotics
15 4 (1.02%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 65 (16.54%) Linux
2 62 (15.78%) Windows
3 24 (6.11%) Windows Server
4 18 (4.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.27%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.76%) Rocky
7 2 (0.51%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (19.08%) Continuous Improvement
2 66 (16.79%) Cybersecurity
3 57 (14.50%) Validation
4 55 (13.99%) Mentoring
5 52 (13.23%) Problem-Solving
6 48 (12.21%) Stakeholder Management
7 39 (9.92%) SIEM
8 33 (8.40%) CI/CD
8 33 (8.40%) Technical Leadership
9 32 (8.14%) Root Cause Analysis
10 30 (7.63%) AI
10 30 (7.63%) Kalman Filter
11 28 (7.12%) Agile
12 27 (6.87%) Service Delivery
13 25 (6.36%) Preventative Maintenance
13 25 (6.36%) Software Engineering
14 24 (6.11%) DevOps
14 24 (6.11%) Incident Response
14 24 (6.11%) Network Design
15 23 (5.85%) Data Centre Operations
Programming Languages
1 44 (11.20%) Python
2 18 (4.58%) PowerShell
3 15 (3.82%) Bash
4 14 (3.56%) C++
4 14 (3.56%) Java
5 12 (3.05%) C
5 12 (3.05%) C#
6 11 (2.80%) JavaScript
7 9 (2.29%) Rust
7 9 (2.29%) Shell Script
8 7 (1.78%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (1.78%) MATLAB
8 7 (1.78%) Search Processing Language
8 7 (1.78%) SQL
9 5 (1.27%) TypeScript
10 4 (1.02%) R
11 2 (0.51%) Go
12 1 (0.25%) ABAP
12 1 (0.25%) Bicep
12 1 (0.25%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 229 (58.27%) SC Cleared
2 130 (33.08%) DV Cleared
3 63 (16.03%) Degree
4 16 (4.07%) CompTIA Security+
5 15 (3.82%) CISSP
6 14 (3.56%) GIAC
7 13 (3.31%) GCIA
8 11 (2.80%) Master's Degree
9 10 (2.54%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 9 (2.29%) CREST Certified
10 9 (2.29%) OSCP
10 9 (2.29%) PhD
11 8 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
11 8 (2.04%) GCIH
12 7 (1.78%) CompTIA CySA+
12 7 (1.78%) GCED
12 7 (1.78%) SANS
13 6 (1.53%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 5 (1.27%) CRISC
14 5 (1.27%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.04%) MISRA
2 6 (1.53%) ISO 9001
2 6 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (1.53%) NCSC
3 5 (1.27%) Accessibility
3 5 (1.27%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.02%) NEBOSH
5 3 (0.76%) ISO 22301
5 3 (0.76%) WCAG
6 2 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (0.51%) COBIT
6 2 (0.51%) COSO
6 2 (0.51%) GDPR
6 2 (0.51%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.51%) NIST
6 2 (0.51%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.51%) QA
6 2 (0.51%) SLA
7 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 1 (0.25%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 39 (9.92%) Active Directory
2 21 (5.34%) vSphere
3 11 (2.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (2.54%) Firmware
5 9 (2.29%) Docker
6 8 (2.04%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (1.53%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (1.53%) VMware NSX
8 5 (1.27%) Squid
9 2 (0.51%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 26 (6.62%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.54%) Grafana
2 10 (2.54%) Kibana
3 9 (2.29%) Argo
3 9 (2.29%) Kustomize
3 9 (2.29%) Prometheus
4 7 (1.78%) Graylog
5 6 (1.53%) Istio
5 6 (1.53%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (1.27%) Ansible
6 5 (1.27%) SCCM
7 3 (0.76%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.51%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.25%) QRadar
9 1 (0.25%) vRealize
Vendors
1 70 (17.81%) Microsoft
2 36 (9.16%) VMware
3 24 (6.11%) Red Hat
3 24 (6.11%) Thales
4 13 (3.31%) Splunk
5 10 (2.54%) Cisco
5 10 (2.54%) McAfee
6 9 (2.29%) CrowdStrike
6 9 (2.29%) ServiceNow
7 7 (1.78%) Carbon Black
8 6 (1.53%) EMC
8 6 (1.53%) Google
8 6 (1.53%) SAP
9 5 (1.27%) Citrix
9 5 (1.27%) Fortinet
9 5 (1.27%) Oracle
9 5 (1.27%) Palo Alto
9 5 (1.27%) Veeam
10 4 (1.02%) CA Agile Central
10 4 (1.02%) Mentor Graphics