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

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 73 60
Rank change year-on-year +21 -13 +6
Permanent jobs citing SC Cleared 2,062 1,153 2,829
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.08% 3.95% 3.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.07% 9.16% 15.19%
Number of salaries quoted 1,535 810 2,072
10th Percentile £40,000 £35,500 £31,500
25th Percentile £50,000 £47,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £63,750 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.87% +4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £80,000 £73,188 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £81,375 £79,225
UK median annual salary £65,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +8.33% +4.35% -8.00%

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 14,652 12,593 18,626
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 21.90% 43.16% 25.14%
Number of salaries quoted 6,217 4,953 12,203
10th Percentile £28,250 £27,750 £27,260
25th Percentile £37,500 £36,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,967 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.91% +1.93% -4.76%
75th Percentile £71,250 £66,250 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £78,750 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% +1.85% -10.00%

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 4 June 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 4 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
South West +17 562 £65,000 +6.34% 255
South East -10 505 £70,000 +27.27% 366
North of England +94 396 £60,000 +9.09% 218
Midlands +26 301 £57,500 -11.54% 100
North West +104 220 £65,000 +12.07% 118
West Midlands -5 199 £60,000 -9.77% 75
Yorkshire +13 124 £62,500 +39.82% 54
East of England +3 119 £61,500 +11.82% 65
Wales +9 109 £54,000 -1.82% 36
East Midlands +34 100 £55,000 +5.77% 25
Scotland +52 70 £75,000 +25.00% 51
North East +7 52 £55,000 -20.73% 47
Northern Ireland -39 5 £63,750 -25.13% 24
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 94 (4.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 45 (2.18%) SharePoint
3 19 (0.92%) Apache
4 17 (0.82%) SAS
5 14 (0.68%) Apache Spark
6 11 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
7 9 (0.44%) Jupyter
8 8 (0.39%) Skype for Business
9 7 (0.34%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 4 (0.19%) Confluence
11 2 (0.097%) Exchange Server 2013
11 2 (0.097%) OpenStack
12 1 (0.048%) Apache Qpid
12 1 (0.048%) Appian
12 1 (0.048%) JBoss
12 1 (0.048%) Site Server
Applications
1 104 (5.04%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (1.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.39%) Simulink
5 4 (0.19%) Windchill
6 3 (0.15%) Stateflow
7 1 (0.048%) CATIA
7 1 (0.048%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.048%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (0.24%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.048%) Integrated Workplace Management System
3 1 (0.048%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.048%) SAP BPC
3 1 (0.048%) SAP EWM
3 1 (0.048%) SAP GRC
3 1 (0.048%) SAP HCM
3 1 (0.048%) SAP MM
3 1 (0.048%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 458 (22.21%) Azure
2 280 (13.58%) AWS
3 263 (12.75%) Microsoft 365
4 76 (3.69%) Entra ID
5 74 (3.59%) GCP
6 49 (2.38%) Dynamics 365
7 41 (1.99%) SaaS
8 40 (1.94%) Serverless
9 38 (1.84%) Power Platform
10 36 (1.75%) GitHub
11 31 (1.50%) Amazon S3
12 30 (1.45%) Azure Sentinel
13 28 (1.36%) Azure DevOps
14 27 (1.31%) AWS CloudFormation
15 22 (1.07%) Amazon EC2
16 21 (1.02%) Amazon EKS
17 20 (0.97%) Amazon ECS
18 19 (0.92%) AWS Lambda
18 19 (0.92%) PaaS
19 17 (0.82%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 126 (6.11%) DNS
2 124 (6.01%) Firewall
3 105 (5.09%) DHCP
4 69 (3.35%) WAN
5 65 (3.15%) VPN
6 51 (2.47%) Network Security
7 50 (2.42%) LAN
8 47 (2.28%) TCP/IP
9 35 (1.70%) Wi-Fi
10 30 (1.45%) BGP
11 29 (1.41%) Structured Cabling
12 20 (0.97%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.97%) VLAN
13 19 (0.92%) VoIP
14 18 (0.87%) HTTP
14 18 (0.87%) MPLS
15 17 (0.82%) Cisco Firepower
16 12 (0.58%) Cisco ASA
17 10 (0.48%) MQTT
17 10 (0.48%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (3.30%) Amazon RDS
2 34 (1.65%) Power BI
3 26 (1.26%) PostgreSQL
4 20 (0.97%) Big Data
4 20 (0.97%) DynamoDB
5 16 (0.78%) Data Warehouse
6 14 (0.68%) Amazon Athena
6 14 (0.68%) Relational Database
7 12 (0.58%) MongoDB
8 11 (0.53%) GIS
8 11 (0.53%) NoSQL
9 10 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
9 10 (0.48%) SQL Server
10 9 (0.44%) Data Lake
10 9 (0.44%) Redis
11 8 (0.39%) Metadata
11 8 (0.39%) Pentaho
12 6 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
12 6 (0.29%) Hadoop
12 6 (0.29%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 71 (3.44%) Git
2 63 (3.06%) GitLab
3 33 (1.60%) Jenkins
4 24 (1.16%) JIRA
5 20 (0.97%) JUnit
6 16 (0.78%) Maven
6 16 (0.78%) SonarQube
7 14 (0.68%) Visual Studio Code
8 13 (0.63%) Mockito
9 12 (0.58%) Cypress.io
9 12 (0.58%) Selenium
10 8 (0.39%) Cucumber
11 7 (0.34%) Burp Suite
11 7 (0.34%) Metasploit
12 6 (0.29%) Postman
13 5 (0.24%) Artifactory
13 5 (0.24%) Claude Code
14 4 (0.19%) JMeter
15 3 (0.15%) Bitbucket
15 3 (0.15%) Rational DOORS
General
1 472 (22.89%) Social Skills
2 267 (12.95%) Public Sector
3 192 (9.31%) Analytical Skills
4 125 (6.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 124 (6.01%) Finance
6 59 (2.86%) Telecoms
7 51 (2.47%) Back Office
8 45 (2.18%) Manufacturing
9 44 (2.13%) Law
10 38 (1.84%) Electronics
11 37 (1.79%) Aerospace
12 34 (1.65%) Legal
12 34 (1.65%) Military
12 34 (1.65%) Organisational Skills
13 29 (1.41%) Aviation
14 22 (1.07%) Retail
15 19 (0.92%) Documentation Skills
16 13 (0.63%) Influencing Skills
17 11 (0.53%) Advertising
17 11 (0.53%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 342 (16.59%) Senior
2 192 (9.31%) Architect
3 165 (8.00%) Developer
4 164 (7.95%) Software Engineer
5 161 (7.81%) Analyst
6 155 (7.52%) Consultant
7 114 (5.53%) Support Engineer
8 107 (5.19%) Systems Engineer
9 91 (4.41%) Cloud Engineer
10 86 (4.17%) Data Engineer
11 83 (4.03%) Lead
12 82 (3.98%) Network Engineer
12 82 (3.98%) Security Consultant
13 73 (3.54%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 70 (3.39%) IT Support
15 69 (3.35%) IT Engineer
16 66 (3.20%) Java Developer
16 66 (3.20%) Senior Developer
17 62 (3.01%) Site Engineer
18 57 (2.76%) Desktop Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (2.86%) .NET
2 46 (2.23%) REST
3 37 (1.79%) Spring
4 34 (1.65%) React
5 30 (1.45%) Spring Boot
6 25 (1.21%) AngularJS
7 17 (0.82%) Node.js
8 16 (0.78%) Kafka
8 16 (0.78%) PySpark
9 14 (0.68%) RESTful
10 12 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
10 12 (0.58%) Playwright
11 11 (0.53%) Jest
11 11 (0.53%) RabbitMQ
11 11 (0.53%) SOAP
11 11 (0.53%) YAML
12 9 (0.44%) gRPC
12 9 (0.44%) Web Services
13 8 (0.39%) ModSecurity
13 8 (0.39%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 81 (3.93%) Legacy Systems
2 75 (3.64%) Data Centre
3 69 (3.35%) Driving Licence
4 64 (3.10%) Onboarding
5 51 (2.47%) Cloud Native
6 44 (2.13%) Security Posture
7 40 (1.94%) Security Operations Centre
8 38 (1.84%) Product Ownership
9 37 (1.79%) Management Information System
10 33 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
11 26 (1.26%) Fibre Optics
12 24 (1.16%) Embedded Systems
12 24 (1.16%) Robotics
13 23 (1.12%) CSOC
14 20 (0.97%) PKI
15 19 (0.92%) Analytical Mindset
15 19 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
16 18 (0.87%) Algorithms
17 17 (0.82%) Cyber Threat
17 17 (0.82%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 285 (13.82%) Windows
2 228 (11.06%) Linux
3 128 (6.21%) Windows Server
4 81 (3.93%) Windows 10
5 71 (3.44%) Windows Server 2016
6 25 (1.21%) Unix
7 18 (0.87%) Android
8 15 (0.73%) Mac OS
9 13 (0.63%) CentOS
10 12 (0.58%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.39%) Apple iOS
11 8 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 6 (0.29%) Debian
13 4 (0.19%) Embedded Linux
13 4 (0.19%) Solaris
14 3 (0.15%) VMS
15 2 (0.097%) AIX
15 2 (0.097%) Mac OS X
15 2 (0.097%) Windows 7
16 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 298 (14.45%) Cybersecurity
2 277 (13.43%) Problem-Solving
3 269 (13.05%) Agile
4 249 (12.08%) Continuous Improvement
5 233 (11.30%) Software Engineering
6 210 (10.18%) ITIL
7 204 (9.89%) DevOps
8 182 (8.83%) CI/CD
9 150 (7.27%) Customer Service
10 140 (6.79%) Mentoring
11 130 (6.30%) Analytics
12 122 (5.92%) Customer Experience
12 122 (5.92%) Migration
13 116 (5.63%) Infrastructure as Code
14 110 (5.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 102 (4.95%) AI
16 100 (4.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 93 (4.51%) Decision-Making
17 93 (4.51%) Technical Leadership
18 90 (4.36%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 224 (10.86%) Python
2 135 (6.55%) Java
3 105 (5.09%) SQL
4 91 (4.41%) C++
5 75 (3.64%) PowerShell
6 67 (3.25%) Bash
7 53 (2.57%) C#
8 49 (2.38%) JavaScript
9 34 (1.65%) C
10 28 (1.36%) TypeScript
11 18 (0.87%) Rust
12 17 (0.82%) Groovy
12 17 (0.82%) PL/SQL
13 14 (0.68%) MATLAB
14 12 (0.58%) VBA
15 11 (0.53%) Embedded C
16 10 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
17 8 (0.39%) Bicep
17 8 (0.39%) Perl
18 7 (0.34%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 2,062 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 385 (18.67%) DV Cleared
3 224 (10.86%) Degree
4 61 (2.96%) CTC Cleared
5 57 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
6 41 (1.99%) CISSP
7 39 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
8 35 (1.70%) Microsoft Certification
9 29 (1.41%) AWS Certification
10 28 (1.36%) CompTIA Security+
10 28 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
11 27 (1.31%) CISM
12 26 (1.26%) CREST Certified
12 26 (1.26%) HNC
13 25 (1.21%) Master's Degree
14 22 (1.07%) Azure Certification
14 22 (1.07%) CCNP
15 17 (0.82%) OSCP
16 16 (0.78%) SANS
17 15 (0.73%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (5.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 98 (4.75%) Cyber Essentials
3 89 (4.32%) PCI DSS
4 87 (4.22%) SLA
5 64 (3.10%) NIST
6 55 (2.67%) QA
7 45 (2.18%) GDPR
8 29 (1.41%) Data Quality
8 29 (1.41%) NCSC
9 27 (1.31%) Accessibility
10 26 (1.26%) JSP 440
11 20 (0.97%) GRC
12 19 (0.92%) PMO
13 18 (0.87%) ISO 9001
13 18 (0.87%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 16 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 15 (0.73%) Def Stans
16 12 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
17 11 (0.53%) NIST 800
18 8 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 165 (8.00%) Active Directory
2 104 (5.04%) Docker
3 87 (4.22%) Hyper-V
4 64 (3.10%) Terminal Server
5 51 (2.47%) VMware Infrastructure
6 30 (1.45%) Firmware
7 18 (0.87%) Virtual Desktop
8 17 (0.82%) VMware NSX
9 13 (0.63%) vSphere
10 9 (0.44%) Embedded Firmware
11 6 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
12 5 (0.24%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
14 3 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 2 (0.097%) Lustre
16 1 (0.048%) Citrix Hypervisor
16 1 (0.048%) IAG
16 1 (0.048%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 142 (6.89%) Terraform
2 106 (5.14%) Kubernetes
3 82 (3.98%) Ansible
4 34 (1.65%) Microsoft Intune
5 23 (1.12%) SCCM
6 21 (1.02%) Grafana
7 20 (0.97%) Prometheus
8 15 (0.73%) Puppet
9 14 (0.68%) Proxmox
10 13 (0.63%) Kibana
10 13 (0.63%) vCenter Server
11 12 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
11 12 (0.58%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 10 (0.48%) Nessus
13 7 (0.34%) Nmap
13 7 (0.34%) QRadar
14 6 (0.29%) Argo
14 6 (0.29%) HP Fortify
14 6 (0.29%) Podman
15 5 (0.24%) Endace
Vendors
1 393 (19.06%) Microsoft
2 146 (7.08%) VMware
3 137 (6.64%) Cisco
4 94 (4.56%) Splunk
5 77 (3.73%) SolarWinds
6 65 (3.15%) Veeam
7 64 (3.10%) Brocade
7 64 (3.10%) Nimble Storage
7 64 (3.10%) Tanium
8 43 (2.09%) Oracle
9 39 (1.89%) ServiceNow
10 34 (1.65%) Google
11 24 (1.16%) Red Hat
12 21 (1.02%) HP
13 18 (0.87%) CheckPoint
13 18 (0.87%) Fortinet
14 16 (0.78%) Citrix
14 16 (0.78%) Juniper
15 14 (0.68%) Palo Alto
15 14 (0.68%) Salesforce