Issue 11
Every other Tuesday, the ClearMatch agent reports what it saw in the Cleared GovCon job market: total volume, who's hiring, what skills are in demand, where the work sits. Anonymized aggregate intelligence built from the same daily scan the agent runs for every Cleared candidate on the platform. No promotional fluff.
Issue 10 tracked 53,160 Cleared roles across 994 employer career pages. This issue reads 55,961 across 1,093.
That is a 5.3% increase, well down on last issue's 13.0%, and most of it is still coverage. The 99 employer career pages new to the scan this fortnight carry the bulk of the 2,801-role gain; forty of them we spot-checked hold 1,699 Cleared roles between them, and General Atomics alone is 628 of that. Nine of the ten employers on this issue's contractor table were on last issue's too, and between them they net 240 roles. The market at the top was close to still. One company inside it was not.
Scan Volume
In the last 14 days, the agent scanned 116,143 GovCon contractor postings across 1093 vetted employer careers pages.
Of those, 55,961 explicitly required Secret-or-above clearance. Roles surfaced to cleared candidates after scoring: 12,879.
Every count and share in this memo reflects the GovCon employer career pages the agent tracks — a large and growing sample, not the entire Cleared market. Figures like “share of demand” are of that tracked set.
Clearance Mix
Of the 55,961 cleared roles:
| Tier | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Secret | 29,558 | 52.8% |
| TS | 8,735 | 15.6% |
| TS/SCI | 8,866 | 15.8% |
| TS/SCI + CI Poly | 4,113 | 7.3% |
| TS/SCI + Full Scope Poly | 4,689 | 8.4% |
Secret takes 52.8% of Cleared roles (29,558), up from 52.1% and the fourth straight issue it has gained share. It also added 1,883 roles, two thirds of the fortnight's whole increase. Straight TS holds 15.6% (8,735) and added 540.
Above that: TS/SCI proper at 15.8% (8,866), Full Scope Poly at 8.4% (4,689), CI Poly at 7.3% (4,113).
CI Poly is the only tier that shrank in count, from 4,158 down to 4,113. Everything else grew. TS/SCI and above now totals 17,668 roles against 17,290 last issue, which is 31.6% of the Cleared market against 32.5%. That makes four consecutive issues where the top of the stack added roles and lost share: 36.0% in Issue 07, then 34.0%, 33.3%, 32.5%, and 31.6% now. Secret keeps absorbing the growth.
Confidential-tier roles excluded from totals above (79 in window — functionally rare in modern GovCon).
Top Hiring Contractors
GovCon employers with the most cleared (Secret+) postings:
| # | Contractor | Cleared | Most common tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lockheed Martin | 3,511 | Secret |
| 2 | Northrop Grumman | 3,145 | Secret |
| 3 | RTX (Raytheon / Collins / Pratt & Whitney) | 2,149 | Secret |
| 4 | Booz Allen Hamilton | 1,755 | Secret |
| 5 | CACI | 1,384 | Secret |
| 6 | Leidos | 1,302 | Secret |
| 7 | Anduril Industries | 1,196 | Secret |
| 8 | Amentum | 1,179 | Secret |
| 9 | Peraton | 1,148 | TS/SCI |
| 10 | L3Harris | 972 | Secret |
Lockheed Martin takes #1 at 3,511 Cleared roles, up 671. Northrop Grumman drops to #2 at 3,145, down 172 after three issues pinned near 3,310. It is the first change at the top of this table since Issue 06.
It is also not a measurement artifact. Lockheed's board has been read at full depth for three issues, since the Issue 09 correction, and the reading has not changed since. The 671 roles are roles that were not on the board a fortnight ago.
RTX holds #3 at 2,149, up 89, and is the only other employer here to add real volume. The rest of the table is flat to down: Booz Allen Hamilton 1,755 (down 22), CACI 1,384 (down 130), Leidos 1,302 (up 3), Anduril Industries 1,196 (down 59), Amentum 1,179 (down 76), Peraton 1,148 (down 64). L3Harris arrives at #10 with 972, displacing GDIT.
Peraton is the only employer on the table whose most common requirement is TS/SCI rather than Secret. The top 10 hold 31.7% of Cleared demand, down from 32.9%.
Coverage went from 994 employer career pages to 1,093, adding 99 after last issue's 216.
General Atomics is the largest arrival at 628 Cleared roles out of 813 postings, the biggest single employer this scan has picked up in one fortnight. It still does not reach the contractor table, which starts at 972. Behind it: ASRC Federal (219), Koniag Government Services (198), The Swift Group (130), Applied Research Solutions (101).
Autonomy and defense software came in at the small end: Defense Unicorns, Striveworks, Scout AI, Firestorm Labs, Nominal, Onebrief, HavocAI, Saildrone, Vatn Systems, Darkhive, Tangram Flex, EdgeRunner AI. Research institutes: CNA (Center for Naval Analyses), Rincon Research, Metron, Tecolote Research, MRIGlobal, Westat. Hardware and industrial: Elbit Systems of America, Kaman Corporation, Fairbanks Morse Defense, Nammo Defense Systems, Marotta Controls, Tampa Microwave, Triton Systems, SkyWater Technology, iDirect Government. Alaska Native and tribal holdings: Ahtna, TDX Corporation, Copper River Family of Companies alongside Koniag. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions brings another DOE site in.
Most of these are small. Strip General Atomics out and the other thirty-nine we checked hold 1,071 Cleared roles between them. The useful part is not the volume, it is that the defense-tech frontier and the research institutes now show up in the same scan as the primes.
Top Job Titles
The roles employers post most across the cleared pool:
| # | Title | Cleared postings |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Software Engineer | 1,353 |
| 2 | Systems Engineer | 1,281 |
| 3 | Program Manager | 524 |
| 4 | Systems Administrator | 455 |
| 5 | Network Engineer | 411 |
| 6 | Data Scientist | 356 |
| 7 | Engineer | 348 |
| 8 | Software Developer | 303 |
| 9 | Electrical Engineer | 250 |
| 10 | Information Systems Security Officer | 240 |
Software Engineer holds #1 at 1,353 Cleared roles, Systems Engineer #2 at 1,281. The gap between them widened from five roles to 72. Program Manager is #3 at 524, up from 492.
The mover is Software Developer, up from 235 to 303, which carries it past Information Systems Security Officer. ISSO went flat at 240, against 241 last issue, and slips from #7 to #10 as the titles around it grew. Issue 10 called it the number to watch after a 33% jump; two weeks on, it stopped. Data Scientist adds 18 to reach 356. Systems Administrator (455) and Network Engineer (411) hold the middle of the table.
Titles are normalized before counting: seniority prefixes and level suffixes are merged into the base title, and clearance or work-mode tags are stripped — “Sr. Systems Engineer II (TS/SCI)” counts toward “Systems Engineer.”
Geographic Concentration
Where the cleared roles are based:
| Region | Cleared roles | Share |
|---|---|---|
| DC Metro | 19,190 | 40.1% |
| Los Angeles Metro | 2,048 | 4.3% |
| Huntsville | 1,814 | 3.8% |
| Massachusetts | 1,249 | 2.6% |
| Remote-eligible | 998 | 2.1% |
| Colorado Springs | 837 | 1.7% |
| Tampa | 723 | 1.5% |
| Overseas | 649 | 1.4% |
| Tucson | 639 | 1.3% |
| Denver Metro | 532 | 1.1% |
| San Antonio | 416 | 0.9% |
| Hawaii / INDOPACOM | 397 | 0.8% |
| St. Louis | 224 | 0.5% |
| Augusta | 149 | 0.3% |
| Other (distributed) | 18,033 | 37.6% |
DC Metro is 40.1% of Cleared roles (19,190), down from 40.5% while adding 624 roles. Los Angeles Metro holds #2 at 4.3% (2,048), down from 4.5% as Anduril eased for a third issue, with Huntsville at 3.8% (1,814) behind it.
Then: Massachusetts 2.6% (1,249), Remote-eligible 2.1% (998), Colorado Springs 1.7% (837), Tampa 1.5% (723), Overseas 1.4% (649), Tucson 1.3% (639), Denver Metro 1.1% (532), San Antonio 0.9% (416), Hawaii / INDOPACOM 0.8% (397), St. Louis 0.5% (224), Augusta 0.3% (149). "Other" is 37.6% (18,033), where the labs, plants and ranges sit.
Remote-eligible Cleared work rose to 2.1% (998) from 1.8% (832), reversing last issue's dip. Colorado Springs and Hawaii / INDOPACOM both gave back roles.
Locations are drawn from the postings themselves where available. About 14.4% of Cleared roles this fortnight carried no structured location and are excluded from the regional breakdown, a little worse than last issue's 13.8% as the new employer pages came in.
Top Skills In Demand
Most frequently required across the cleared role pool:
| # | Skill | Cleared roles requiring |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Python | 10,465 |
| 2 | AWS | 7,535 |
| 3 | C++ | 5,110 |
| 4 | Kubernetes | 3,749 |
| 5 | Docker | 3,747 |
Python leads at 10,465 Cleared roles, up 5.3%. AWS holds #2 at 7,535 and grew 1.4%, slowest of the five. C++ is #3 at 5,110 and grew fastest at 8.8%, the defense-industrial tell again.
Kubernetes (3,749) is back ahead of Docker (3,747), by two roles. Last issue Docker led by 37 and this memo called the order between them noise. Two roles out of 7,496 is what noise looks like. Five issues running, these two have finished within a few dozen of each other, because Cleared job descriptions ask for the runtime and the orchestrator in the same breath.
Skill demand is measured across a set of in-demand GovCon skills we track, refreshed each quarter as the market shifts.
Adjacent Market: Public Trust
Public Trust isn’t a security clearance — it’s the federal suitability tier for civilian fed work (CISA, IRS, VA, USDA, HHS) handling sensitive-but-unclassified information. Included separately because many cleared candidates dual-purpose this pool between cleared engagements, and the demand signal is its own market.
In the last 14 days: 4,737 Public Trust-eligible postings.
Top hiring contractors
| Contractor | Count |
|---|---|
| Guidehouse | 294 |
| Leidos | 265 |
| Amentum | 208 |
| Peraton | 195 |
| Akima | 184 |
| SAIC | 172 |
| CACI | 156 |
| Yorktown Systems Group | 137 |
| Koniag Government Services | 123 |
| GDIT (General Dynamics IT) | 121 |
Top regions
| Region | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Other (distributed) | 1,892 | 39.9% |
| DC Metro | 1,744 | 36.8% |
| Remote-eligible | 642 | 13.6% |
| San Antonio | 49 | 1.0% |
| Denver Metro | 39 | 0.8% |
| Hawaii / INDOPACOM | 29 | 0.6% |
| Overseas | 20 | 0.4% |
| Colorado Springs | 17 | 0.4% |
| Huntsville | 17 | 0.4% |
| Tampa | 16 | 0.3% |
| Los Angeles Metro | 15 | 0.3% |
| Massachusetts | 10 | 0.2% |
| Tucson | 6 | 0.1% |
| Augusta | 5 | 0.1% |
| St. Louis | 1 | 0.0% |
Public Trust reads 4,737 roles, up from 4,528. Guidehouse holds the top seat at 294, then Leidos (265), Amentum climbing to #3 at 208 from #5. Peraton takes 195, Akima 184, SAIC 172, CACI 156. Akima gave back 29 and fell from #3 to #5; SAIC passed CACI.
Yorktown Systems Group holds #8 at exactly 137 for a third consecutive issue. Koniag Government Services arrives at #9 with 123, and GDIT closes the table at 121, up from 103. Steampunk drops off.
The remote gap narrowed this fortnight. 13.6% of Public Trust postings are remote-eligible against 2.1% of Cleared ones, from 14.4% and 1.8% last issue, so both sides moved toward each other and the spread went from 12.6 points to 11.5. Seven issues in, the finding itself holds: civilian-agency work is where remote Cleared-adjacent hiring lives. This is the first fortnight it has not widened.
Public Trust counts reflect JD postings that explicitly name "Public Trust," "MBI," or "Tier 1/2/4." Many civilian fed contractor roles are PT-eligible in practice but don't use that language in the listing — the agency runs the suitability investigation post-hire. Actual PT-eligible volume is materially higher than the explicit count shown here.
Founder Note
Lockheed is back at #1 for the first time since Issue 06, and I want to be careful about it, because this memo has had Lockheed wrong before.
In Issue 07 I reported their board had fallen to a third of its June size. In Issue 09 I corrected that: most of the fall was our reading rather than their hiring, and a full-depth read put them back among the primes where their program volume had always sat. The reading has been stable for three issues since. Over those three the board has gone 2,174, then 2,840, then 3,511. The last 671 roles are theirs, not ours. That is the one real move at the top of the market this fortnight.
Everything else up there went nowhere. Seven of the ten are flat or down, and the nine I can compare like-for-like net out at 240 roles across a fortnight that added 2,801. The growth came from employers the scan had never read before: General Atomics, ASRC Federal, Koniag, The Swift Group, and ninety-odd smaller ones. Honest accounting says that is our coverage improving, not the market expanding.
Two smaller things if you are job-hunting right now. CI Poly is the only clearance tier that lost roles this fortnight, 45 of them, while Full Scope Poly grew. And ISSO, which I told you two weeks ago was the number to watch, stopped dead at 240. One fortnight of growth was not a trend. I would rather say so now than let it ride.
— Rahul Pandhi Founder, ClearMatch