Issue 01
Every other Tuesday, the ClearMatch agent reports what it saw in the cleared GovCon job market: total volume, who's hiring, what skills are surging, where the demand sits. Anonymized aggregate intelligence built from the same daily scan the agent runs for every cleared candidate on the platform. No promotional fluff.
// Scan Volume
In the last 14 days, the agent scanned 43,465 GovCon contractor postings across 124 vetted employer careers pages.
Of those, 9,960 explicitly required Secret-or-above clearance. Roles surfaced to cleared candidates after scoring: 2,006.
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 9,960 cleared roles:
| Tier | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Secret | 5,404 | 54.3% |
| TS | 1,412 | 14.2% |
| TS/SCI | 1,676 | 16.8% |
| TS/SCI + CI Poly | 268 | 2.7% |
| TS/SCI + Full Scope Poly | 1,200 | 12.0% |
Secret dominates as commodity volume. The FSP slice (12% of cleared volume) is the standout — continuous IC mission-systems demand, up notably from prior cycles.
Confidential-tier roles excluded from totals above (21 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 | 1,898 | Secret |
| 2 | RTX (Raytheon / Collins / Pratt & Whitney) | 784 | Secret |
| 3 | GDIT (General Dynamics IT) | 584 | TS/SCI + FSP |
| 4 | CACI | 499 | TS/SCI |
| 5 | L3Harris | 478 | Secret |
| 6 | Peraton | 435 | Secret |
| 7 | Anduril Industries | 370 | Secret |
| 8 | Accenture Federal Services | 363 | TS/SCI |
| 9 | KBR | 274 | Secret |
| 10 | GD Mission Systems | 231 | Secret |
Lockheed Martin sits on top with 1,898 cleared postings — roughly 19% of the cleared market this fortnight. GDIT at #3 with 584 cleared roles (modal tier TS/SCI + Full Scope Poly) is the surge line this issue — IC mission-systems heavy, consistent with the broader FSP-tier expansion in the Clearance Mix above. CACI also up sharply, joining the top 5. Anduril at #7 remains the defense-tech entry, plugging a Los Angeles Metro footprint that didn't exist a few years ago.
A handful of major primes aren't in the scan yet, and we're steadily adding more sources — so the true Cleared market is somewhat larger than the numbers here.
// Geographic Concentration
Where the cleared roles are based:
| Region | Cleared roles | Share |
|---|---|---|
| DC Metro | 2,133 | 30.8% |
| Los Angeles Metro | 379 | 5.5% |
| Massachusetts | 267 | 3.9% |
| Tucson | 227 | 3.3% |
| Tampa | 221 | 3.2% |
| Huntsville | 186 | 2.7% |
| Overseas | 150 | 2.2% |
| Remote-eligible | 138 | 2.0% |
| Colorado Springs | 83 | 1.2% |
| Denver Metro | 75 | 1.1% |
| San Antonio | 62 | 0.9% |
| Hawaii / INDOPACOM | 53 | 0.8% |
| St. Louis | 44 | 0.6% |
| Augusta | 27 | 0.4% |
| Other (distributed) | 2,872 | 41.5% |
DC Metro dominates as expected. Three signals worth flagging: Los Angeles Metro at 5.5% (Anduril, Northrop and Lockheed SoCal); Massachusetts at 3.9% (RTX, GD Mission Systems, Anduril clustering — Tewksbury, Pittsfield, Cambridge); Overseas at 2.2% (150 cleared roles in Germany, UK, scattered elsewhere). Cleared work is more globally distributed than the DMV-only view suggests.
The "Other" share reflects the geographic spread of the big primes — Lockheed (Fort Worth, Marietta, Sunnyvale, Orlando), RTX (Manchester NH, El Segundo), L3Harris (Melbourne FL). None dominate individually but collectively they're the defense industrial base outside the named hubs.
Locations are drawn from the postings themselves where available. About a third of cleared roles had no structured location and are excluded from the breakdown above; that share shrinks as our coverage improves.
// Top Skills In Demand
Most frequently required across the cleared role pool:
| # | Skill | Cleared roles requiring |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Python | 1,527 |
| 2 | AWS | 755 |
| 3 | C++ | 659 |
| 4 | Docker | 545 |
| 5 | Kubernetes | 513 |
Python at #1 is by far the most-required skill — every clearance tier wants it. C++ at #3 is the defense-industrial tell: Lockheed / RTX / L3Harris are heavy C++ shops for mission systems. Docker and Kubernetes combined show DoD modernization on the cleared side full force.
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: 615 Public Trust-eligible postings.
Top hiring contractors
| Contractor | Count |
|---|---|
| Guidehouse | 92 |
| ICF International | 76 |
| GDIT (General Dynamics IT) | 68 |
| CACI | 61 |
| KACE Company | 39 |
| L3Harris | 37 |
| Leidos | 30 |
| Accenture Federal Services | 29 |
| Amentum | 23 |
| Peraton | 23 |
Top regions
| Region | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Other (distributed) | 249 | 40.5% |
| DC Metro | 180 | 29.3% |
| Remote-eligible | 79 | 12.8% |
| Los Angeles Metro | 4 | 0.7% |
| San Antonio | 4 | 0.7% |
| Massachusetts | 3 | 0.5% |
| Denver Metro | 1 | 0.2% |
| Tucson | 1 | 0.2% |
| Huntsville | 1 | 0.2% |
| Overseas | 1 | 0.2% |
Civilian-consultancy-heavy — Guidehouse and ICF dominate for civilian fed transformation; CACI's PT volume jumped this fortnight alongside its cleared-side surge. Public Trust work is more remote-friendly than cleared work — different security posture, fewer SCIF dependencies.
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 federal agency runs the suitability investigation post-hire. Actual PT-eligible volume is materially higher than the explicit count shown here.
// Founder Note
Cleared market data has never been public — staffing firms pay to scrape it themselves, everyone else works off rumor and stale numbers.
The ClearMatch agent runs this scan every day to do its job. Publishing what it sees is just turning the work into something the cleared community can use.
If you've been wondering where the cleared demand is moving, this is where it actually is.
— Rahul Pandhi Founder, ClearMatch