SC Cleared Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Security Check (SC) Clearance
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London with a requirement for SC Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 1 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 56 45
Rank change year-on-year +22 -11 -10
Permanent jobs citing SC Cleared 3,316 1,495 2,231
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.84% 4.33% 4.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 23.21% 11.68% 15.17%
Number of salaries quoted 2,165 930 1,431
10th Percentile £44,500 £28,750 £39,125
25th Percentile £53,750 £42,500 £45,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £55,971 £56,525
Median % change year-on-year +25.07% -0.98% -1.70%
75th Percentile £80,000 £73,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £87,500 £87,500
UK median annual salary £70,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +16.67% - -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK excluding London

SC 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 UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 14,288 12,803 14,711
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 16.56% 37.10% 27.80%
Number of salaries quoted 8,020 4,921 6,207
10th Percentile £30,250 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £42,000 £33,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £48,450 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +18.68% -7.71% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £65,000 £68,750
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £82,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -3.51% -1.86%

SC Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing SC Cleared relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

SC Cleared job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

SC Cleared
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SC Cleared.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SC Cleared

SC Cleared
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing SC Cleared in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 October 2026.

Salary histogram for SC Cleared in the UK excluding London

SC Cleared
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing SC Cleared within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 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
South East -3 864 £70,000 +27.27% 603
South West -3 834 £75,000 +33.00% 341
North of England +118 724 £67,500 +9.76% 474
Midlands +26 459 £65,000 +9.19% 262
North West +119 422 £70,000 +7.69% 269
West Midlands +5 312 £70,000 +1.53% 170
East of England +19 188 £55,000 +16.09% 265
Wales -8 164 £63,500 -6.10% 62
North East +31 162 £60,000 -7.69% 133
East Midlands +24 147 £60,000 +103.39% 91
Yorkshire +26 146 £66,805 +40.64% 76
Scotland +62 88 £70,000 +4.18% 214
Northern Ireland -69 21 £74,654 -13.60% 27
SC Cleared
UK

SC Cleared
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 95 (2.86%) Microsoft Exchange
2 52 (1.57%) SharePoint
3 42 (1.27%) Apache Spark
4 41 (1.24%) Confluence
5 38 (1.15%) Apache
6 18 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.51%) Jupyter
8 16 (0.48%) SAS
9 11 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.30%) nginx
11 8 (0.24%) Documentum
12 7 (0.21%) OpenStack
12 7 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 7 (0.21%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.060%) CMS
13 2 (0.060%) IIS
13 2 (0.060%) Palantir Foundry
13 2 (0.060%) Tomcat
14 1 (0.030%) Appian
14 1 (0.030%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 68 (2.05%) Microsoft Office
2 58 (1.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 40 (1.21%) Microsoft Project
4 35 (1.06%) Simulink
5 15 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.30%) MS Visio
7 7 (0.21%) SOLIDWORKS
8 4 (0.12%) Mathcad
8 4 (0.12%) Mathematica
8 4 (0.12%) Stateflow
8 4 (0.12%) Windchill
9 2 (0.060%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.060%) InDesign
9 2 (0.060%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.060%) UserZoom
10 1 (0.030%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.030%) CATIA
10 1 (0.030%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.030%) Revit
Business Applications
1 33 (1.00%) SAP EHS
2 31 (0.93%) Primavera
3 13 (0.39%) SAP Oil and Gas
3 13 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
4 9 (0.27%) Workday HCM
5 7 (0.21%) SAP ERP
5 7 (0.21%) Teamcenter
6 6 (0.18%) SAP R/3
7 5 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
7 5 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.15%) SAP PSCD
8 4 (0.12%) Remedy ITSM
9 2 (0.060%) Oracle Applications
9 2 (0.060%) Siebel CRM
9 2 (0.060%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 1 (0.030%) ENOVIA
10 1 (0.030%) Oracle Cash Management
10 1 (0.030%) Oracle Payables
10 1 (0.030%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 1 (0.030%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 646 (19.48%) Azure
2 540 (16.28%) AWS
3 227 (6.85%) Microsoft 365
4 114 (3.44%) GCP
5 92 (2.77%) Serverless
6 89 (2.68%) GitHub
7 80 (2.41%) Entra ID
8 73 (2.20%) Power Platform
9 71 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
10 65 (1.96%) Amazon S3
11 64 (1.93%) AWS CloudFormation
12 56 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
13 55 (1.66%) OpenShift
14 46 (1.39%) SaaS
15 43 (1.30%) Amazon EC2
16 41 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
17 35 (1.06%) dbt
18 34 (1.03%) Amazon EKS
18 34 (1.03%) Azure Sentinel
19 28 (0.84%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 133 (4.01%) DNS
1 133 (4.01%) Firewall
2 91 (2.74%) DHCP
3 70 (2.11%) VPN
4 66 (1.99%) WAN
5 65 (1.96%) Network Security
5 65 (1.96%) TCP/IP
6 48 (1.45%) LAN
7 28 (0.84%) VLAN
8 24 (0.72%) HTTP
9 22 (0.66%) SAN
9 22 (0.66%) SSL
10 19 (0.57%) ATM
11 16 (0.48%) BGP
12 15 (0.45%) Internet
12 15 (0.45%) Software-Defined Radio
12 15 (0.45%) Wi-Fi
13 14 (0.42%) 4G
13 14 (0.42%) Broadband
13 14 (0.42%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (2.29%) Amazon RDS
2 55 (1.66%) Power BI
3 53 (1.60%) PostgreSQL
4 40 (1.21%) Data Warehouse
5 36 (1.09%) Big Data
6 30 (0.90%) Relational Database
7 29 (0.87%) Elasticsearch
8 23 (0.69%) MongoDB
9 22 (0.66%) Amazon Athena
9 22 (0.66%) Data Lake
9 22 (0.66%) DynamoDB
10 20 (0.60%) NoSQL
11 18 (0.54%) Hadoop
11 18 (0.54%) SQL Server
12 16 (0.48%) Metadata
13 14 (0.42%) MySQL
14 13 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
15 11 (0.33%) BigQuery
16 10 (0.30%) Looker
17 9 (0.27%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 156 (4.70%) Git
2 127 (3.83%) GitLab
3 92 (2.77%) Jenkins
4 83 (2.50%) JIRA
5 31 (0.93%) Rational DOORS
6 30 (0.90%) JUnit
7 22 (0.66%) Cypress.io
7 22 (0.66%) Selenium
8 21 (0.63%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 20 (0.60%) LabVIEW
10 16 (0.48%) SonarQube
11 15 (0.45%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.45%) Maven
12 14 (0.42%) Gatling
12 14 (0.42%) JMeter
12 14 (0.42%) Mockito
12 14 (0.42%) Visual Studio Code
13 11 (0.33%) Postman
14 8 (0.24%) Burp Suite
15 7 (0.21%) Artifactory
General
1 799 (24.10%) Social Skills
2 466 (14.05%) Public Sector
3 365 (11.01%) Analytical Skills
4 360 (10.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 349 (10.52%) Finance
6 326 (9.83%) Aerospace
7 119 (3.59%) Electronics
8 118 (3.56%) Military
9 98 (2.96%) Retail
10 91 (2.74%) Legal
11 83 (2.50%) Manufacturing
11 83 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
12 62 (1.87%) Law
13 49 (1.48%) Aviation
14 48 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
15 40 (1.21%) Telecoms
16 39 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
17 32 (0.97%) Documentation Skills
18 31 (0.93%) Police
19 22 (0.66%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 498 (15.02%) Senior
2 355 (10.71%) Systems Engineer
3 347 (10.46%) Architect
4 278 (8.38%) Developer
5 264 (7.96%) Software Engineer
6 248 (7.48%) Lead
7 182 (5.49%) Analyst
8 178 (5.37%) Consultant
9 153 (4.61%) DevOps Engineer
10 126 (3.80%) Cloud Engineer
11 124 (3.74%) Data Engineer
12 112 (3.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 108 (3.26%) Senior Developer
14 89 (2.68%) Solutions Architect
15 82 (2.47%) Software Developer
16 81 (2.44%) Java Developer
17 80 (2.41%) Security Architect
18 79 (2.38%) Principal Engineer
19 70 (2.11%) Technical Architect
20 62 (1.87%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 283 (8.53%) Terraform
2 82 (2.47%) React
3 72 (2.17%) Spring
4 70 (2.11%) REST
5 68 (2.05%) HTML
6 67 (2.02%) CSS
7 63 (1.90%) .NET
8 62 (1.87%) Node.js
9 57 (1.72%) Spring Boot
10 52 (1.57%) Kafka
11 43 (1.30%) AngularJS
12 41 (1.24%) RESTful
13 34 (1.03%) PySpark
14 30 (0.90%) Playwright
15 22 (0.66%) .NET Core
15 22 (0.66%) LDAP
16 21 (0.63%) Jest
17 20 (0.60%) Elastic Stack
17 20 (0.60%) Web Services
18 19 (0.57%) Keycloak
Miscellaneous
1 208 (6.27%) Cloud Native
2 113 (3.41%) Legacy Systems
3 99 (2.99%) Onboarding
4 98 (2.96%) Driving Licence
5 86 (2.59%) Management Information System
5 86 (2.59%) Self-Motivation
6 80 (2.41%) Product Ownership
7 70 (2.11%) Data Centre
8 62 (1.87%) Security Operations Centre
9 47 (1.42%) Cyber Threat
10 45 (1.36%) FPGA
11 44 (1.33%) Robotics
11 44 (1.33%) Security Posture
12 43 (1.30%) Algorithms
13 41 (1.24%) Distributed Systems
14 39 (1.18%) Hybrid Cloud
15 38 (1.15%) Embedded Systems
16 33 (1.00%) Operational Technology
17 32 (0.97%) PMI
18 29 (0.87%) CSOC
Operating Systems
1 368 (11.10%) Linux
2 299 (9.02%) Windows
3 150 (4.52%) Windows Server
4 81 (2.44%) Windows Server 2016
5 53 (1.60%) Unix
6 48 (1.45%) Windows 10
7 37 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 36 (1.09%) CentOS
9 30 (0.90%) Android
10 16 (0.48%) Mac OS
11 15 (0.45%) Ubuntu
12 13 (0.39%) AIX
13 10 (0.30%) Debian
14 9 (0.27%) Solaris
15 7 (0.21%) Apple iOS
15 7 (0.21%) Embedded Linux
16 6 (0.18%) Rocky
16 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
17 5 (0.15%) VxWorks
18 4 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 652 (19.66%) Agile
2 513 (15.47%) Problem-Solving
3 494 (14.90%) DevOps
4 482 (14.54%) Continuous Improvement
5 447 (13.48%) Software Engineering
6 445 (13.42%) CI/CD
7 407 (12.27%) Cybersecurity
8 362 (10.92%) Validation
9 346 (10.43%) Mentoring
10 301 (9.08%) AI
11 287 (8.66%) Technical Leadership
12 281 (8.47%) Infrastructure as Code
13 262 (7.90%) Stakeholder Management
14 258 (7.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 242 (7.30%) Verification and Validation
16 231 (6.97%) Decision-Making
17 224 (6.76%) ITIL
18 195 (5.88%) Analytics
19 174 (5.25%) Containerisation
19 174 (5.25%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 379 (11.43%) Python
2 237 (7.15%) Java
3 148 (4.46%) C++
4 146 (4.40%) JavaScript
4 146 (4.40%) SQL
5 106 (3.20%) PowerShell
6 100 (3.02%) Bash
7 95 (2.86%) C#
8 70 (2.11%) TypeScript
9 56 (1.69%) MATLAB
10 44 (1.33%) C
11 32 (0.97%) Go
12 26 (0.78%) Kusto Query Language
12 26 (0.78%) Rust
13 23 (0.69%) Scala
14 22 (0.66%) Bicep
15 20 (0.60%) Ruby
16 19 (0.57%) Ada
16 19 (0.57%) PL/SQL
17 16 (0.48%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 3,316 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 624 (18.82%) DV Cleared
3 395 (11.91%) Degree
4 237 (7.15%) BPSS Clearance
5 77 (2.32%) CISSP
6 68 (2.05%) Azure Certification
7 60 (1.81%) Master's Degree
8 50 (1.51%) CISM
9 47 (1.42%) AWS Certification
10 45 (1.36%) Cisco Certification
10 45 (1.36%) Microsoft Certification
11 43 (1.30%) PMI Certification
12 40 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
13 36 (1.09%) HNC
14 34 (1.03%) Chartered Engineer
15 30 (0.90%) HND
16 28 (0.84%) CREST Certified
17 25 (0.75%) CompTIA Security+
17 25 (0.75%) PhD
18 24 (0.72%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 178 (5.37%) Accessibility
2 153 (4.61%) QA
3 132 (3.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 108 (3.26%) Cyber Essentials
5 80 (2.41%) PCI DSS
6 79 (2.38%) NIST
7 65 (1.96%) Data Quality
8 59 (1.78%) NCSC
9 57 (1.72%) SLA
10 37 (1.12%) Def Stans
11 34 (1.03%) ISO 9001
12 33 (1.00%) GDPR
13 32 (0.97%) GRC
13 32 (0.97%) JSP 440
14 30 (0.90%) WCAG
15 23 (0.69%) NIST 800
16 21 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 18 (0.54%) PMO
18 17 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
19 14 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 214 (6.45%) Docker
2 203 (6.12%) Active Directory
3 113 (3.41%) Hyper-V
4 76 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
5 72 (2.17%) Terminal Server
6 62 (1.87%) Firmware
7 20 (0.60%) vSphere
8 18 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
9 12 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
10 11 (0.33%) BitLocker
11 10 (0.30%) NDS
12 9 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
13 8 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
13 8 (0.24%) VMware NSX
14 5 (0.15%) KVM
14 5 (0.15%) Squid
15 2 (0.060%) NFS
16 1 (0.030%) IAG
16 1 (0.030%) Oracle RAC
16 1 (0.030%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 261 (7.87%) Kubernetes
2 141 (4.25%) Ansible
3 51 (1.54%) Microsoft Intune
4 36 (1.09%) SCCM
5 33 (1.00%) Grafana
6 24 (0.72%) Prometheus
7 21 (0.63%) Puppet
8 20 (0.60%) Kibana
9 16 (0.48%) Argo
10 15 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
11 12 (0.36%) Progress Chef
11 12 (0.36%) Proxmox
12 11 (0.33%) Nessus
13 10 (0.30%) vCenter Server
14 9 (0.27%) QRadar
15 8 (0.24%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
16 7 (0.21%) FortiGate
16 7 (0.21%) Nagios
16 7 (0.21%) Nmap
16 7 (0.21%) WSUS
Vendors
1 454 (13.69%) Microsoft
2 174 (5.25%) VMware
3 102 (3.08%) Splunk
4 91 (2.74%) Veeam
5 86 (2.59%) Thales
6 83 (2.50%) SolarWinds
7 82 (2.47%) SAP
8 73 (2.20%) Brocade
8 73 (2.20%) Oracle
9 72 (2.17%) Nimble Storage
9 72 (2.17%) Tanium
10 70 (2.11%) ServiceNow
11 60 (1.81%) Cisco
12 47 (1.42%) Google
13 35 (1.06%) Red Hat
14 29 (0.87%) YouTube
15 27 (0.81%) EMC
16 24 (0.72%) Databricks
16 24 (0.72%) Fortinet
17 21 (0.63%) OpenText