SC Cleared Job Trends

Security Check (SC) Clearance
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for SC Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 14 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 59 66 64
Rank change year-on-year +7 -2 +7
Permanent jobs citing SC Cleared 2,447 1,739 3,404
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 3.30% 3.99% 4.04%
As % of the Qualifications category 11.90% 10.14% 14.64%
Number of salaries quoted 1,726 1,250 2,513
10th Percentile £39,281 £41,250 £31,500
25th Percentile £50,000 £47,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80,000 £74,258 £71,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £86,000 £83,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 20,568 17,149 23,255
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 27.75% 39.32% 27.61%
Number of salaries quoted 8,344 7,452 16,145
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £43,750 £38,734
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £59,430 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.45% +8.05% -4.35%
75th Percentile £76,050 £75,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £92,500 £88,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -

SC Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend

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

SC Cleared job vacancy trend in the UK

SC Cleared
Salary Trend

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

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SC Cleared

SC Cleared
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing SC Cleared over the 6 months to 14 March 2026.

Salary histogram for SC Cleared in the UK

SC Cleared
Top 17 Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 14 March 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
England 0 2,115 £65,000 +8.33% 1,334
UK excluding London -8 1,603 £60,000 +4.35% 1,122
Work from Home +47 906 £65,000 +0.58% 638
London +68 559 £70,000 +7.69% 388
South West +21 492 £60,000 - 261
South East -29 426 £65,000 +18.18% 376
Midlands -10 215 £56,900 -8.23% 138
North of England -15 213 £62,500 +20.19% 196
West Midlands -18 140 £60,000 -7.69% 92
North West +4 130 £65,000 +23.81% 88
East of England +13 117 £52,500 -9.09% 89
East Midlands +12 71 £51,058 -1.81% 44
Scotland +26 70 £75,000 +17.65% 49
Yorkshire -20 65 £55,000 +37.50% 69
Wales +18 56 £60,000 +12.57% 32
Northern Ireland -22 19 £73,801 +6.48% 7
North East -19 17 £73,801 +14.15% 40

SC Cleared
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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
1 129 (5.27%) Microsoft Exchange
2 66 (2.70%) SharePoint
3 28 (1.14%) Confluence
4 23 (0.94%) Exchange Server 2003
5 17 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.65%) Palantir Foundry
7 15 (0.61%) Apache
8 13 (0.53%) Apache Spark
9 9 (0.37%) Jupyter
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.25%) IIS
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) Camunda
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Spatial
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.12%) WebLogic Portal
14 2 (0.082%) Appian
Applications
1 107 (4.37%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (1.43%) Adobe XD
3 26 (1.06%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.41%) InVision
4 10 (0.41%) Sketch
5 7 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 3 (0.12%) Simulink
8 2 (0.082%) CATIA
8 2 (0.082%) Weka
9 1 (0.041%) Abaqus
9 1 (0.041%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.041%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.041%) EPLAN
9 1 (0.041%) MS Visio
9 1 (0.041%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.041%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.041%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 22 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
1 22 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (0.49%) Workday HCM
3 11 (0.45%) Maximo
4 6 (0.25%) Primavera
4 6 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
5 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.12%) SAP PM
7 2 (0.082%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 2 (0.082%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.082%) SAP CO
7 2 (0.082%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.082%) SAP FI/CO
7 2 (0.082%) SAP FSCM
7 2 (0.082%) SAP HR
7 2 (0.082%) SAP SCM
8 1 (0.041%) SAP MM
8 1 (0.041%) SAP Payroll
8 1 (0.041%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 525 (21.45%) Azure
2 377 (15.41%) AWS
3 273 (11.16%) Microsoft 365
4 131 (5.35%) GCP
5 110 (4.50%) Entra ID
6 92 (3.76%) Dynamics 365
7 77 (3.15%) Power Platform
8 56 (2.29%) AWS CloudFormation
9 50 (2.04%) PowerApps
9 50 (2.04%) Serverless
10 49 (2.00%) GitHub
10 49 (2.00%) PaaS
11 41 (1.68%) Amazon ECS
11 41 (1.68%) Figma
11 41 (1.68%) SaaS
12 36 (1.47%) Azure DevOps
12 36 (1.47%) dbt
13 35 (1.43%) Power Automate
14 32 (1.31%) Amazon EKS
14 32 (1.31%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 148 (6.05%) DNS
2 136 (5.56%) DHCP
3 110 (4.50%) Firewall
4 70 (2.86%) WAN
5 64 (2.62%) VPN
6 62 (2.53%) LAN
7 56 (2.29%) TCP/IP
8 52 (2.13%) Wi-Fi
9 44 (1.80%) Network Security
10 32 (1.31%) Structured Cabling
11 25 (1.02%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.78%) VoIP
12 19 (0.78%) Wireless
13 17 (0.69%) BGP
13 17 (0.69%) VLAN
14 16 (0.65%) MPLS
15 15 (0.61%) WLAN
16 14 (0.57%) Intrusion Detection
17 13 (0.53%) Cisco ISE
18 12 (0.49%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (4.25%) Amazon RDS
2 71 (2.90%) PostgreSQL
3 60 (2.45%) Power BI
4 33 (1.35%) Oracle Database
5 31 (1.27%) NoSQL
6 29 (1.19%) Elasticsearch
7 26 (1.06%) Redis
8 25 (1.02%) Metadata
9 23 (0.94%) Oracle Database 10g
10 21 (0.86%) MongoDB
11 19 (0.78%) SQL Server
12 18 (0.74%) Data Warehouse
13 17 (0.69%) Relational Database
14 15 (0.61%) DynamoDB
14 15 (0.61%) MySQL
15 14 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
16 11 (0.45%) GIS
17 10 (0.41%) Big Data
17 10 (0.41%) Data Lake
17 10 (0.41%) DB2
Development Applications
1 73 (2.98%) Git
2 66 (2.70%) JIRA
3 43 (1.76%) Jenkins
4 37 (1.51%) GitLab
5 29 (1.19%) Axure RP
6 28 (1.14%) Balsamiq
7 19 (0.78%) Selenium
8 15 (0.61%) Cypress.io
9 14 (0.57%) Cucumber
9 14 (0.57%) Maven
10 13 (0.53%) JMeter
11 12 (0.49%) JUnit
12 10 (0.41%) Burp Suite
12 10 (0.41%) Metasploit
13 8 (0.33%) Locust
14 7 (0.29%) Mockito
14 7 (0.29%) Vite
15 6 (0.25%) Babel
15 6 (0.25%) Postman
15 6 (0.25%) WebDriver
General
1 656 (26.81%) Social Skills
2 480 (19.62%) Public Sector
3 290 (11.85%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (7.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 182 (7.44%) Finance
6 151 (6.17%) Law
7 123 (5.03%) Manufacturing
8 101 (4.13%) Telecoms
9 90 (3.68%) Marketing
10 76 (3.11%) Electronics
11 63 (2.57%) Back Office
12 42 (1.72%) Legal
13 35 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
14 30 (1.23%) Military
15 28 (1.14%) Aeronautics
15 28 (1.14%) Aerospace
16 27 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
16 27 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
17 25 (1.02%) Retail
18 22 (0.90%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 389 (15.90%) Senior
2 302 (12.34%) Architect
3 277 (11.32%) Consultant
4 176 (7.19%) Developer
5 154 (6.29%) Analyst
6 142 (5.80%) Support Engineer
7 139 (5.68%) Software Engineer
8 136 (5.56%) Lead
9 99 (4.05%) Systems Engineer
10 88 (3.60%) Security Consultant
11 86 (3.51%) Data Engineer
12 79 (3.23%) Solutions Architect
13 69 (2.82%) Senior Consultant
14 67 (2.74%) Desktop Engineer
15 64 (2.62%) Desktop Support
15 64 (2.62%) Site Engineer
16 63 (2.57%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 63 (2.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 60 (2.45%) IT Support
18 58 (2.37%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (3.06%) React
2 64 (2.62%) REST
3 59 (2.41%) .NET
4 53 (2.17%) HTML
5 52 (2.13%) CSS
6 43 (1.76%) Node.js
7 41 (1.68%) Spring
8 38 (1.55%) Django
9 33 (1.35%) SOAP
10 31 (1.27%) AngularJS
10 31 (1.27%) Middleware
11 28 (1.14%) Spring Boot
12 24 (0.98%) Web Services
13 22 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
14 21 (0.86%) Kafka
14 21 (0.86%) SAP CAF
14 21 (0.86%) Visualforce
15 19 (0.78%) PyTorch
16 17 (0.69%) HTML5 Canvas
17 16 (0.65%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 94 (3.84%) Legacy Systems
2 85 (3.47%) Cloud Native
3 81 (3.31%) Data Centre
4 69 (2.82%) Product Ownership
5 66 (2.70%) Onboarding
6 58 (2.37%) Management Information System
7 47 (1.92%) Driving Licence
8 39 (1.59%) Robotics
9 38 (1.55%) Security Operations Centre
10 36 (1.47%) Security Posture
11 26 (1.06%) PKI
12 22 (0.90%) Data Structures
12 22 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
12 22 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
13 21 (0.86%) Fibre Optics
14 20 (0.82%) Linux Command Line
15 17 (0.69%) AI Agents
15 17 (0.69%) Enterprise Software
16 15 (0.61%) Analytical Mindset
16 15 (0.61%) Cyber Defence
Operating Systems
1 308 (12.59%) Windows
2 221 (9.03%) Linux
3 142 (5.80%) Windows Server
4 78 (3.19%) Windows Server 2016
5 74 (3.02%) Windows 10
6 73 (2.98%) Unix
7 45 (1.84%) Android
8 35 (1.43%) Apple iOS
9 26 (1.06%) Solaris
10 24 (0.98%) Windows 7
11 23 (0.94%) HPUX
11 23 (0.94%) Windows Server 2003
12 22 (0.90%) Windows Server 2008
13 17 (0.69%) Ubuntu
14 9 (0.37%) CentOS
14 9 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 7 (0.29%) Mac OS
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
16 4 (0.16%) VMS
17 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 406 (16.59%) Agile
2 348 (14.22%) Problem-Solving
3 282 (11.52%) Continuous Improvement
4 266 (10.87%) Cybersecurity
5 254 (10.38%) DevOps
6 251 (10.26%) Software Engineering
7 217 (8.87%) CI/CD
8 212 (8.66%) Mentoring
9 211 (8.62%) AI
10 198 (8.09%) ITIL
11 190 (7.76%) Analytics
12 178 (7.27%) Customer Service
12 178 (7.27%) Migration
13 168 (6.87%) Infrastructure as Code
14 153 (6.25%) Customer Experience
15 127 (5.19%) Risk Management
16 115 (4.70%) Stakeholder Management
17 113 (4.62%) User Experience
18 109 (4.45%) Technology Strategy
19 108 (4.41%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 299 (12.22%) Python
2 188 (7.68%) Java
3 156 (6.38%) JavaScript
4 142 (5.80%) SQL
5 97 (3.96%) PowerShell
6 79 (3.23%) TypeScript
7 77 (3.15%) C#
8 60 (2.45%) C++
9 53 (2.17%) Bash
10 28 (1.14%) C
11 23 (0.94%) Perl
12 22 (0.90%) Apex Code
12 22 (0.90%) Rust
13 21 (0.86%) Bicep
14 17 (0.69%) VBA
15 13 (0.53%) Kotlin
15 13 (0.53%) PL/SQL
16 11 (0.45%) Go
17 10 (0.41%) Scala
18 7 (0.29%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 2,447 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 414 (16.92%) DV Cleared
3 401 (16.39%) Degree
4 83 (3.39%) CISSP
5 73 (2.98%) CTC Cleared
6 70 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
7 68 (2.78%) Microsoft Certification
8 67 (2.74%) Computer Science Degree
9 65 (2.66%) Cisco Certification
10 61 (2.49%) CISM
11 44 (1.80%) Azure Certification
12 43 (1.76%) Master's Degree
13 37 (1.51%) AWS Certification
14 34 (1.39%) CCNA
15 32 (1.31%) CCNP
16 26 (1.06%) DBS Check
17 23 (0.94%) CREST Certified
17 23 (0.94%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
18 22 (0.90%) CompTIA Security+
19 19 (0.78%) APMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (5.39%) SLA
2 110 (4.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 105 (4.29%) Cyber Essentials
4 100 (4.09%) Accessibility
5 93 (3.80%) PCI DSS
6 86 (3.51%) NIST
7 61 (2.49%) QA
8 58 (2.37%) GDPR
9 42 (1.72%) WCAG
10 37 (1.51%) GRC
11 29 (1.19%) NCSC
12 26 (1.06%) Data Quality
13 15 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 13 (0.53%) JSP 440
15 11 (0.45%) ISO 9001
15 11 (0.45%) PMO
16 8 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
17 7 (0.29%) NIST 800
18 5 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
18 5 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 196 (8.01%) Active Directory
2 144 (5.88%) Docker
3 94 (3.84%) Hyper-V
4 73 (2.98%) Terminal Server
5 50 (2.04%) VMware Infrastructure
6 25 (1.02%) Firmware
7 15 (0.61%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.53%) vSphere
9 12 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
10 9 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
11 6 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
12 5 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 4 (0.16%) Lustre
14 3 (0.12%) KVM
15 2 (0.082%) GPFS
16 1 (0.041%) OpenAM
16 1 (0.041%) OpenDJ
16 1 (0.041%) OpenIDM
16 1 (0.041%) Oracle RAC
16 1 (0.041%) Xen
Systems Management
1 179 (7.32%) Terraform
2 145 (5.93%) Kubernetes
3 73 (2.98%) Ansible
4 39 (1.59%) Grafana
5 32 (1.31%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (1.23%) Jamf Pro
7 27 (1.10%) SCCM
8 25 (1.02%) Prometheus
9 17 (0.69%) AWS Copilot
10 16 (0.65%) Puppet
10 16 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
11 14 (0.57%) vCenter Server
12 13 (0.53%) SCOM
13 10 (0.41%) Nmap
14 7 (0.29%) CASB
14 7 (0.29%) Endace
14 7 (0.29%) FortiGate
14 7 (0.29%) ZABBIX
15 6 (0.25%) Proxmox
15 6 (0.25%) VxRail
Vendors
1 446 (18.23%) Microsoft
2 192 (7.85%) Cisco
3 181 (7.40%) VMware
4 105 (4.29%) Google
5 102 (4.17%) Splunk
6 83 (3.39%) SolarWinds
7 81 (3.31%) SAP
8 76 (3.11%) Veeam
9 74 (3.02%) Brocade
10 72 (2.94%) Nimble Storage
10 72 (2.94%) Tanium
11 66 (2.70%) Oracle
12 64 (2.62%) Salesforce
13 51 (2.08%) ServiceNow
14 37 (1.51%) Adobe
15 34 (1.39%) Apple
16 31 (1.27%) Palantir
17 30 (1.23%) Red Hat
18 29 (1.19%) Juniper
19 28 (1.14%) Samsung