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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 45 10
Rank change year-on-year +24 -35 -4
Permanent jobs citing Security Cleared 395 224 608
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 5.33% 5.97% 12.48%
As % of the Qualifications category 29.07% 14.02% 36.52%
Number of salaries quoted 207 131 283
10th Percentile £40,750 £38,500 £38,280
25th Percentile £52,500 £45,608 £41,263
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £55,000 £54,125
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% +1.62% +3.10%
75th Percentile £85,000 £73,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £83,750 £79,887
South East median annual salary £70,000 £57,500 £57,500
% change year-on-year +21.74% - +6.96%

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 1,359 1,598 1,665
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 18.33% 42.58% 34.19%
Number of salaries quoted 799 494 693
10th Percentile £33,750 £29,575 £35,850
25th Percentile £41,750 £37,532 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £47,500 £56,525
Median % change year-on-year +21.05% -15.97% +5.14%
75th Percentile £71,875 £67,438 £75,000
90th Percentile £86,250 £81,250 £83,750
South East median annual salary £60,000 £51,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +17.65% -7.27% +4.76%

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 25 September 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 25 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
Berkshire +25 273 £70,000 +27.27% 227
Buckinghamshire +18 108 £55,000 +2.33% 78
Oxfordshire -33 15 £100,000 +15.94% 59
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 4 (1.01%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.76%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.25%) Confluence
5 1 (0.25%) Kinematics
Applications
1 8 (2.03%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.01%) Mathematica
2 4 (1.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.01%) Microsoft Project
3 3 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.76%) Solid Edge
3 3 (0.76%) SOLIDWORKS
4 2 (0.51%) UserZoom
5 1 (0.25%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.25%) CATIA
5 1 (0.25%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.25%) ENOVIA
1 1 (0.25%) SAP MDG
1 1 (0.25%) SAP MM
1 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 58 (14.68%) AWS
1 58 (14.68%) Azure
2 16 (4.05%) Cloud Computing
3 14 (3.54%) Azure Sentinel
4 13 (3.29%) Entra ID
4 13 (3.29%) Microsoft 365
4 13 (3.29%) Serverless
5 12 (3.04%) Amazon EKS
6 11 (2.78%) GCP
6 11 (2.78%) OpenShift
7 8 (2.03%) AWS Lambda
8 7 (1.77%) Amazon EC2
8 7 (1.77%) Amazon ECS
8 7 (1.77%) Google Analytics
8 7 (1.77%) Power Platform
9 6 (1.52%) Amazon S3
9 6 (1.52%) Cloudflare
9 6 (1.52%) GitHub
10 5 (1.27%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (1.27%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 53 (13.42%) DNS
2 45 (11.39%) Firewall
3 18 (4.56%) TCP/IP
4 13 (3.29%) VPN
5 10 (2.53%) HTTP
6 8 (2.03%) LAN
6 8 (2.03%) Network Security
6 8 (2.03%) SSL
7 7 (1.77%) WAN
8 5 (1.27%) Cisco Firepower
8 5 (1.27%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (1.27%) NetScaler
8 5 (1.27%) NGFW
8 5 (1.27%) SD-WAN
9 4 (1.01%) NAS
9 4 (1.01%) Remote Desktop
9 4 (1.01%) SAN
9 4 (1.01%) Wireshark
10 3 (0.76%) Internet
11 2 (0.51%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (3.04%) PostgreSQL
2 9 (2.28%) Relational Database
3 7 (1.77%) Power BI
4 5 (1.27%) MySQL
5 4 (1.01%) Oracle Database
5 4 (1.01%) SQL Server
6 2 (0.51%) Big Data
6 2 (0.51%) Oracle Database 11g
6 2 (0.51%) Oracle Database 12c
7 1 (0.25%) Amazon Athena
7 1 (0.25%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.25%) Metadata
7 1 (0.25%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.25%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.25%) Redis
7 1 (0.25%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 15 (3.80%) Jenkins
2 10 (2.53%) Git
3 9 (2.28%) GitLab
4 7 (1.77%) JIRA
5 5 (1.27%) JUnit
5 5 (1.27%) SonarQube
6 4 (1.01%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.76%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.76%) JMeter
8 2 (0.51%) MLflow
8 2 (0.51%) Mockito
8 2 (0.51%) Selenium
9 1 (0.25%) Axure RP
9 1 (0.25%) Balsamiq
9 1 (0.25%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.25%) Mocha
9 1 (0.25%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.25%) Rational Rhapsody
9 1 (0.25%) Storybook
General
1 69 (17.47%) Social Skills
2 53 (13.42%) Public Sector
3 44 (11.14%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (10.38%) Finance
5 38 (9.62%) Aerospace
6 24 (6.08%) Manufacturing
7 23 (5.82%) Retail
8 15 (3.80%) Electronics
8 15 (3.80%) Organisational Skills
9 13 (3.29%) Law
10 7 (1.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.52%) Banking
11 6 (1.52%) Legal
12 5 (1.27%) French Language
13 4 (1.01%) Games
13 4 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
13 4 (1.01%) Marketing
13 4 (1.01%) Public Speaking
14 3 (0.76%) Documentation Skills
14 3 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 63 (15.95%) Architect
2 52 (13.16%) Senior
3 38 (9.62%) Analyst
4 29 (7.34%) Lead
5 26 (6.58%) Developer
6 25 (6.33%) Support Specialist
7 18 (4.56%) Security Architect
7 18 (4.56%) SOC Analyst
8 17 (4.30%) Applications Architect
8 17 (4.30%) Electrical Engineer
8 17 (4.30%) Java Developer
8 17 (4.30%) Systems Engineer
9 15 (3.80%) Mechanical Engineer
10 14 (3.54%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 14 (3.54%) Senior Manager
11 13 (3.29%) DevOps Engineer
11 13 (3.29%) Infrastructure Support
11 13 (3.29%) Software Engineer
12 12 (3.04%) Technical Leader
13 11 (2.78%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (4.05%) Regular Expression
2 15 (3.80%) LDAP
2 15 (3.80%) Spring
2 15 (3.80%) XMPP
3 11 (2.78%) .NET
3 11 (2.78%) Terraform
4 10 (2.53%) HTML
4 10 (2.53%) REST
4 10 (2.53%) Spring Boot
5 9 (2.28%) React
5 9 (2.28%) Web Services
6 8 (2.03%) CSS
6 8 (2.03%) Elastic Stack
6 8 (2.03%) JSON
6 8 (2.03%) RabbitMQ
7 7 (1.77%) Loki
8 6 (1.52%) Jakarta EE
8 6 (1.52%) JPA
9 5 (1.27%) AngularJS
10 4 (1.01%) JSON Schema
Miscellaneous
1 27 (6.84%) Onboarding
2 24 (6.08%) Cloud Native
3 22 (5.57%) Data Centre
4 21 (5.32%) Cyber Threat
5 18 (4.56%) Cyber Defence
6 15 (3.80%) Product Ownership
7 14 (3.54%) Security Operations Centre
8 13 (3.29%) Driving Licence
9 10 (2.53%) Analytical Mindset
10 9 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
10 9 (2.28%) Hybrid Cloud
10 9 (2.28%) PKI
11 7 (1.77%) CSOC
11 7 (1.77%) Embedded Systems
11 7 (1.77%) Hackathon
12 6 (1.52%) Algorithms
12 6 (1.52%) Management Information System
12 6 (1.52%) Private Cloud
12 6 (1.52%) Synthetic Data
13 3 (0.76%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 68 (17.22%) Linux
2 63 (15.95%) Windows
3 25 (6.33%) Windows Server
4 19 (4.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.27%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.51%) Rocky
6 2 (0.51%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (18.23%) Continuous Improvement
2 68 (17.22%) Cybersecurity
3 55 (13.92%) Validation
4 48 (12.15%) Problem-Solving
5 47 (11.90%) Stakeholder Management
6 44 (11.14%) Mentoring
7 42 (10.63%) SIEM
8 35 (8.86%) Agile
9 33 (8.35%) CI/CD
9 33 (8.35%) DevOps
10 29 (7.34%) AI
10 29 (7.34%) Technical Leadership
11 27 (6.84%) Service Delivery
11 27 (6.84%) Software Engineering
12 24 (6.08%) Decision-Making
12 24 (6.08%) Root Cause Analysis
13 23 (5.82%) Analytics
14 22 (5.57%) Incident Response
15 21 (5.32%) Containerisation
15 21 (5.32%) Kalman Filter
Programming Languages
1 44 (11.14%) Python
2 27 (6.84%) Java
3 17 (4.30%) PowerShell
4 13 (3.29%) Bash
5 12 (3.04%) C++
5 12 (3.04%) SQL
6 11 (2.78%) C#
6 11 (2.78%) JavaScript
7 9 (2.28%) C
7 9 (2.28%) Shell Script
8 8 (2.03%) Rust
9 7 (1.77%) Kusto Query Language
9 7 (1.77%) Search Processing Language
10 6 (1.52%) TypeScript
11 5 (1.27%) Groovy
11 5 (1.27%) MATLAB
12 4 (1.01%) PL/SQL
13 3 (0.76%) Perl
14 2 (0.51%) Go
14 2 (0.51%) R
Qualifications
1 241 (61.01%) SC Cleared
2 124 (31.39%) DV Cleared
3 56 (14.18%) Degree
4 16 (4.05%) CISSP
4 16 (4.05%) CompTIA Security+
5 14 (3.54%) GIAC
6 13 (3.29%) GCIA
7 10 (2.53%) CREST Certified
7 10 (2.53%) Master's Degree
7 10 (2.53%) OSCP
7 10 (2.53%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 8 (2.03%) GCIH
8 8 (2.03%) PhD
9 7 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
9 7 (1.77%) CompTIA CySA+
9 7 (1.77%) GCED
9 7 (1.77%) SANS
10 6 (1.52%) CRISC
10 6 (1.52%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 5 (1.27%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.03%) MISRA
1 8 (2.03%) NCSC
2 7 (1.77%) QA
3 6 (1.52%) ISO 9001
3 6 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.27%) Accessibility
4 5 (1.27%) NEBOSH
5 4 (1.01%) Data Quality
6 3 (0.76%) ISO 22301
6 3 (0.76%) PMO
6 3 (0.76%) WCAG
7 2 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
7 2 (0.51%) COBIT
7 2 (0.51%) COSO
7 2 (0.51%) GDPR
7 2 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 2 (0.51%) NIST
7 2 (0.51%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.51%) SLA
8 1 (0.25%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 40 (10.13%) Active Directory
2 22 (5.57%) vSphere
3 14 (3.54%) Docker
4 10 (2.53%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (2.28%) Firmware
6 7 (1.77%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (1.77%) VMware NSX
7 5 (1.27%) Squid
7 5 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.25%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 28 (7.09%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.54%) Kibana
3 11 (2.78%) Ansible
4 7 (1.77%) Argo
4 7 (1.77%) Grafana
4 7 (1.77%) Graylog
4 7 (1.77%) Kustomize
4 7 (1.77%) Prometheus
5 5 (1.27%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (1.01%) Istio
6 4 (1.01%) Packer
6 4 (1.01%) SCCM
7 3 (0.76%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.51%) Oracle RMAN
8 2 (0.51%) QRadar
8 2 (0.51%) vRealize
Vendors
1 74 (18.73%) Microsoft
2 38 (9.62%) VMware
3 22 (5.57%) Red Hat
4 21 (5.32%) Thales
5 15 (3.80%) Splunk
6 12 (3.04%) McAfee
7 10 (2.53%) Cisco
8 9 (2.28%) AppDynamics
8 9 (2.28%) IBM
8 9 (2.28%) Oracle
9 8 (2.03%) CrowdStrike
9 8 (2.03%) Google
9 8 (2.03%) ServiceNow
10 7 (1.77%) Carbon Black
11 6 (1.52%) Citrix
11 6 (1.52%) EMC
12 5 (1.27%) Fortinet
12 5 (1.27%) Palo Alto
12 5 (1.27%) Veeam
13 4 (1.01%) CA Agile Central