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 19 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 45 38
Rank change year-on-year -11 -7 +27
Permanent jobs citing SC Cleared 1,548 1,702 2,143
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.59% 4.78% 5.70%
As % of the Qualifications category 10.96% 12.22% 19.25%
Number of salaries quoted 990 1,081 1,603
10th Percentile £31,250 £40,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £46,160 £47,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,000 £59,430 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.41% +8.05% -
75th Percentile £75,188 £75,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £87,500 £82,500 £75,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £62,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -3.23% +7.83% -4.17%

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 14,120 13,923 11,131
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 32.74% 39.11% 29.61%
Number of salaries quoted 5,101 5,313 7,488
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £31,250 £42,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -1.66%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £81,250 £81,250 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £59,499 £55,500
% change year-on-year -7.56% +7.21% -3.48%

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 19 January 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 19 January 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 West +12 500 £60,000 -2.67% 224
South East -25 437 £58,000 +0.87% 356
Midlands -4 206 £55,500 -9.76% 109
North of England -18 179 £60,000 +10.09% 157
West Midlands -20 134 £62,500 -3.85% 55
East of England +28 124 £51,000 -11.30% 122
North West -14 107 £62,500 +17.92% 74
East Midlands +33 70 £50,529 -2.83% 54
Yorkshire -6 57 £55,000 +41.94% 59
Wales +26 52 £73,801 +24.18% 41
Scotland -12 46 £75,000 +20.00% 29
North East +3 18 £65,000 +9.37% 25
Northern Ireland -10 17 £74,316 +25.05% 11
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
1 153 (9.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 33 (2.13%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.68%) Exchange Server 2003
4 13 (0.84%) Apache
5 12 (0.78%) Confluence
6 6 (0.39%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 6 (0.39%) Skype for Business
7 4 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.26%) nginx
8 3 (0.19%) Appian
8 3 (0.19%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.19%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.19%) WebLogic Portal
9 2 (0.13%) IIS
10 1 (0.065%) Apache Qpid
10 1 (0.065%) Apache Superset
10 1 (0.065%) Camunda
Applications
1 94 (6.07%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (2.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.45%) Simulink
5 6 (0.39%) Adobe XD
6 4 (0.26%) AutoCAD
6 4 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.26%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 4 (0.26%) Windchill
7 2 (0.13%) EPLAN
8 1 (0.065%) Abaqus
8 1 (0.065%) CATIA
8 1 (0.065%) InVision
8 1 (0.065%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.065%) Revit
8 1 (0.065%) Sketch
8 1 (0.065%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 22 (1.42%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (1.03%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 6 (0.39%) Primavera
4 5 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.13%) C-CURE
6 2 (0.13%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 2 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.065%) Maximo
7 1 (0.065%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.065%) SAP GTS
7 1 (0.065%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.065%) SAP Payroll
7 1 (0.065%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.065%) TRIRIGA
Cloud Services
1 304 (19.64%) Azure
2 228 (14.73%) Microsoft 365
3 178 (11.50%) AWS
4 66 (4.26%) Entra ID
5 50 (3.23%) Dynamics 365
5 50 (3.23%) GCP
6 33 (2.13%) Power Platform
7 32 (2.07%) Amazon ECS
8 29 (1.87%) SaaS
9 26 (1.68%) Amazon S3
9 26 (1.68%) AWS CloudFormation
10 22 (1.42%) dbt
10 22 (1.42%) PaaS
10 22 (1.42%) Serverless
11 19 (1.23%) Google Workspace
12 18 (1.16%) Amazon ECR
12 18 (1.16%) PowerApps
13 17 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
13 17 (1.10%) Pulumi
14 16 (1.03%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 159 (10.27%) DNS
2 141 (9.11%) DHCP
3 95 (6.14%) Firewall
4 51 (3.29%) LAN
5 47 (3.04%) VPN
6 46 (2.97%) WAN
7 44 (2.84%) TCP/IP
8 36 (2.33%) Network Security
9 32 (2.07%) Wi-Fi
10 16 (1.03%) BGP
10 16 (1.03%) Structured Cabling
11 15 (0.97%) Cisco ASA
11 15 (0.97%) Software-Defined Radio
11 15 (0.97%) Wireless
12 13 (0.84%) Intrusion Detection
12 13 (0.84%) Junos
12 13 (0.84%) VLAN
12 13 (0.84%) VSAT
13 12 (0.78%) IPsec
13 12 (0.78%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (8.01%) Amazon RDS
2 37 (2.39%) Oracle Database
3 26 (1.68%) Oracle Database 10g
4 24 (1.55%) PostgreSQL
5 22 (1.42%) Power BI
6 19 (1.23%) Elasticsearch
7 17 (1.10%) Redis
8 16 (1.03%) NoSQL
8 16 (1.03%) SQL Server
9 12 (0.78%) Big Data
9 12 (0.78%) MongoDB
10 11 (0.71%) Relational Database
11 9 (0.58%) Hadoop
11 9 (0.58%) Metadata
12 8 (0.52%) DynamoDB
13 7 (0.45%) GIS
14 5 (0.32%) Neo4j
15 4 (0.26%) Amazon Aurora
15 4 (0.26%) Cloudera CDH
16 3 (0.19%) Airbyte
Development Applications
1 34 (2.20%) Git
2 31 (2.00%) JIRA
3 28 (1.81%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.84%) GitLab
4 13 (0.84%) Selenium
5 11 (0.71%) Burp Suite
5 11 (0.71%) Metasploit
6 9 (0.58%) JUnit
6 9 (0.58%) Maven
7 8 (0.52%) Balsamiq
7 8 (0.52%) Cucumber
7 8 (0.52%) Mockito
7 8 (0.52%) Vagrant
8 7 (0.45%) Cypress.io
8 7 (0.45%) JMeter
9 6 (0.39%) Axure RP
9 6 (0.39%) Locust
9 6 (0.39%) Rational Rhapsody
10 5 (0.32%) Rational DOORS
10 5 (0.32%) WebDriver
General
1 509 (32.88%) Social Skills
2 238 (15.37%) Analytical Skills
3 191 (12.34%) Public Sector
4 172 (11.11%) Finance
5 117 (7.56%) Manufacturing
6 107 (6.91%) Law
7 93 (6.01%) Marketing
8 80 (5.17%) Electronics
9 76 (4.91%) Telecoms
10 48 (3.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 46 (2.97%) Organisational Skills
12 44 (2.84%) Back Office
13 39 (2.52%) Aerospace
14 31 (2.00%) Aviation
15 30 (1.94%) Aeronautics
16 27 (1.74%) Military
17 23 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
17 23 (1.49%) Retail
18 21 (1.36%) Documentation Skills
19 14 (0.90%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 164 (10.59%) Senior
2 156 (10.08%) Systems Engineer
3 145 (9.37%) Consultant
4 139 (8.98%) Architect
5 121 (7.82%) Support Engineer
6 112 (7.24%) Analyst
7 79 (5.10%) Software Engineer
8 74 (4.78%) Lead
9 58 (3.75%) Developer
10 57 (3.68%) IT Support
11 53 (3.42%) Security Consultant
12 52 (3.36%) Business Manager
13 50 (3.23%) Business Systems Manager
13 50 (3.23%) Systems Manager
14 49 (3.17%) Desktop Engineer
14 49 (3.17%) Site Engineer
15 48 (3.10%) 2nd Line Support
16 47 (3.04%) Desktop Support
17 46 (2.97%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 45 (2.91%) 3rd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (2.52%) React
2 31 (2.00%) REST
3 24 (1.55%) SAP CAF
4 23 (1.49%) Django
5 22 (1.42%) .NET
6 20 (1.29%) Spring
7 17 (1.10%) AngularJS
7 17 (1.10%) Node.js
7 17 (1.10%) Spring Boot
8 12 (0.78%) Middleware
9 11 (0.71%) Kafka
10 10 (0.65%) HTML
11 9 (0.58%) ASP.NET
11 9 (0.58%) CSS
11 9 (0.58%) SOAP
12 8 (0.52%) Web Services
13 7 (0.45%) JSON
13 7 (0.45%) RabbitMQ
13 7 (0.45%) Vue
14 6 (0.39%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 105 (6.78%) Legacy Systems
2 69 (4.46%) e-Learning
3 55 (3.55%) Robotics
4 42 (2.71%) Data Centre
5 34 (2.20%) Cloud Native
6 33 (2.13%) Onboarding
7 32 (2.07%) Driving Licence
8 31 (2.00%) Management Information System
9 23 (1.49%) Security Operations Centre
9 23 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
10 22 (1.42%) Security Posture
11 20 (1.29%) Embedded Systems
12 19 (1.23%) Algorithms
13 18 (1.16%) Operational Technology
14 16 (1.03%) PKI
15 15 (0.97%) Linux Command Line
16 13 (0.84%) Fibre Optics
16 13 (0.84%) SCADA
17 12 (0.78%) Cyber Threat
17 12 (0.78%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 287 (18.54%) Windows
2 239 (15.44%) Linux
3 157 (10.14%) Windows Server
4 100 (6.46%) Windows Server 2016
5 82 (5.30%) Unix
6 56 (3.62%) Windows 10
7 40 (2.58%) Android
8 33 (2.13%) Apple iOS
8 33 (2.13%) Solaris
9 26 (1.68%) Windows Server 2003
10 25 (1.61%) HPUX
11 24 (1.55%) Windows 7
12 22 (1.42%) Windows Server 2008
13 16 (1.03%) Ubuntu
14 13 (0.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 9 (0.58%) Embedded Linux
16 8 (0.52%) Debian
16 8 (0.52%) VMS
17 6 (0.39%) Amazon Linux
18 5 (0.32%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 285 (18.41%) Problem-Solving
2 201 (12.98%) Agile
3 190 (12.27%) Software Engineering
4 189 (12.21%) Cybersecurity
5 180 (11.63%) Customer Service
6 166 (10.72%) Continuous Improvement
7 143 (9.24%) Customer Experience
8 142 (9.17%) AI
9 141 (9.11%) Migration
10 136 (8.79%) Project Management
11 128 (8.27%) DevOps
12 117 (7.56%) ITIL
13 114 (7.36%) Risk Management
14 111 (7.17%) Kalman Filter
15 109 (7.04%) Innovative Thinking
16 108 (6.98%) Web Filtering
17 103 (6.65%) Vulnerability Scanning
18 97 (6.27%) Vulnerability Remediation
19 96 (6.20%) Email Filtering
20 93 (6.01%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 178 (11.50%) Python
2 87 (5.62%) SQL
3 84 (5.43%) Java
4 66 (4.26%) PowerShell
5 50 (3.23%) JavaScript
6 44 (2.84%) C++
7 38 (2.45%) C
8 33 (2.13%) Bash
9 27 (1.74%) C#
10 26 (1.68%) Perl
11 22 (1.42%) TypeScript
12 17 (1.10%) MATLAB
12 17 (1.10%) Rust
13 14 (0.90%) VBA
14 10 (0.65%) Groovy
14 10 (0.65%) PL/SQL
15 9 (0.58%) Go
16 8 (0.52%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.52%) R
17 6 (0.39%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 1,548 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 279 (18.02%) DV Cleared
3 270 (17.44%) Degree
4 86 (5.56%) Cisco Certification
5 75 (4.84%) BPSS Clearance
6 62 (4.01%) CCNA
7 58 (3.75%) CISSP
8 52 (3.36%) CCNP
9 48 (3.10%) CTC Cleared
10 47 (3.04%) CISM
11 31 (2.00%) Master's Degree
12 28 (1.81%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 25 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
14 23 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
15 21 (1.36%) AWS Certification
16 19 (1.23%) JNCIA
17 18 (1.16%) Azure Certification
18 16 (1.03%) CompTIA Security+
19 12 (0.78%) CREST Certified
20 11 (0.71%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 121 (7.82%) SLA
2 109 (7.04%) Cyber Essentials
3 100 (6.46%) PCI DSS
4 67 (4.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 66 (4.26%) NIST
6 44 (2.84%) QA
7 32 (2.07%) GRC
8 29 (1.87%) Accessibility
9 26 (1.68%) GDPR
10 14 (0.90%) WCAG
11 11 (0.71%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.71%) NCSC
12 10 (0.65%) ISO 9001
13 9 (0.58%) Def Stans
14 8 (0.52%) NIST 800
15 7 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
16 6 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 6 (0.39%) JSP 440
16 6 (0.39%) PMO
17 5 (0.32%) RMADS
System Software
1 193 (12.47%) Active Directory
2 108 (6.98%) Hyper-V
3 97 (6.27%) Terminal Server
4 76 (4.91%) Docker
5 43 (2.78%) VMware Infrastructure
6 23 (1.49%) Firmware
7 11 (0.71%) Embedded Firmware
8 9 (0.58%) vSphere
9 8 (0.52%) VMware NSX
10 7 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
11 4 (0.26%) DFS Replication
11 4 (0.26%) Dovecot
11 4 (0.26%) Postfix
11 4 (0.26%) Squid
11 4 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.13%) Lustre
12 2 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 2 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
13 1 (0.065%) KVM
Systems Management
1 80 (5.17%) Terraform
2 66 (4.26%) Kubernetes
3 43 (2.78%) Ansible
4 32 (2.07%) Jamf Pro
5 23 (1.49%) Grafana
6 21 (1.36%) SCCM
7 16 (1.03%) Prometheus
8 15 (0.97%) Microsoft Intune
9 14 (0.90%) SCOM
10 13 (0.84%) vCenter Server
11 11 (0.71%) Nmap
12 10 (0.65%) AWS Copilot
12 10 (0.65%) Nessus
13 9 (0.58%) WSUS
14 8 (0.52%) Endace
15 6 (0.39%) Nagios
15 6 (0.39%) Proxmox
15 6 (0.39%) Puppet
16 4 (0.26%) FortiGate
16 4 (0.26%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 338 (21.83%) Microsoft
2 187 (12.08%) VMware
3 158 (10.21%) Cisco
4 113 (7.30%) Splunk
5 108 (6.98%) SolarWinds
6 100 (6.46%) Veeam
7 96 (6.20%) Brocade
7 96 (6.20%) Nimble Storage
7 96 (6.20%) Tanium
8 58 (3.75%) Oracle
9 57 (3.68%) SAP
10 51 (3.29%) Google
11 37 (2.39%) Juniper
12 32 (2.07%) Apple
12 32 (2.07%) Salesforce
13 31 (2.00%) Red Hat
14 27 (1.74%) Samsung
14 27 (1.74%) ServiceNow
15 19 (1.23%) Computacenter
16 16 (1.03%) Palo Alto