Issue 08
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 07 tracked 34,421 Cleared roles across 507 employer career pages. This issue reads 44,281 across 678.
That is a 29% jump and almost none of it is the market. Two things changed on our side. The agent's inference of the clearance a role actually requires got more precise this fortnight, and the specific thing it now gets right is the "able to obtain" role — a posting where the employer sponsors you through the investigation rather than requiring the badge on day one. Those are Cleared roles, and they are now counted as such. On the same set of postings, that change alone moved the count by about 6,800. The rest is coverage: 171 more employer career pages than Issue 07 counted, from a seed list that grew by 153 firms this fortnight.
Scan Volume
In the last 14 days, the agent scanned 88,880 GovCon contractor postings across 678 vetted employer careers pages.
Of those, 44,281 explicitly required Secret-or-above clearance. Roles surfaced to cleared candidates after scoring: 4,946.
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 44,281 cleared roles:
| Tier | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Secret | 22,360 | 50.5% |
| TS | 6,866 | 15.5% |
| TS/SCI | 7,425 | 16.8% |
| TS/SCI + CI Poly | 3,737 | 8.4% |
| TS/SCI + Full Scope Poly | 3,893 | 8.8% |
Secret is back above half at 50.5% of Cleared roles (22,360), against 49.2% last issue. Above it, 34.0% sits at TS/SCI or higher (15,055): TS/SCI proper at 16.8% (7,425), Full Scope Poly at 8.8% (3,893), CI Poly at 8.4% (3,737). Straight TS takes 15.5% (6,866).
The tilt toward Secret is the sponsorship effect showing up in the mix. An employer paying for an investigation is overwhelmingly paying for a Secret one, so the roles that entered the count this issue landed at the bottom of the stack and pulled the shares above it down. TS/SCI-and-above did not shrink in absolute terms — it grew from 12,406 to 15,055. It is a smaller slice of a materially larger pie.
Confidential-tier roles excluded from totals above (83 in window — functionally rare in modern GovCon).
Top Hiring Contractors
GovCon employers with the most cleared (Secret+) postings:
| # | Contractor | Cleared | Most common tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Northrop Grumman | 3,319 | Secret |
| 2 | RTX (Raytheon / Collins / Pratt & Whitney) | 1,940 | Secret |
| 3 | Booz Allen Hamilton | 1,829 | Secret |
| 4 | Anduril Industries | 1,437 | Secret |
| 5 | CACI | 1,416 | TS/SCI |
| 6 | Leidos | 1,341 | Secret |
| 7 | Peraton | 1,218 | TS/SCI |
| 8 | Amentum | 1,165 | Secret |
| 9 | GDIT (General Dynamics IT) | 974 | Secret |
| 10 | Lockheed Martin | 945 | Secret |
Northrop Grumman holds #1 at 3,319 Cleared roles, with RTX at 1,940 and Booz Allen Hamilton at 1,829. Then the entry worth stopping on: Anduril Industries takes #4 with 1,437, ahead of CACI (1,416), Leidos (1,341), Peraton (1,218) and Amentum (1,165). Anduril was nowhere near this table in Issue 07, when tenth place was SAIC at 679.
Most of that is not Anduril posting more work — it is us reading their postings correctly for the first time. 1,135 of those 1,437 roles, 79%, are sponsorship roles: the employer will put you through the investigation rather than requiring the badge up front. For contrast, Booz Allen's Cleared count is 12% sponsorship. That gap is the actual finding, and it is a real difference in hiring strategy rather than an artifact — a company scaling fast on commercial engineering talent sponsors its way into Cleared programs, while a prime staffs from people who are already cleared. Anduril's Cleared postings concentrate in Los Angeles Metro, which is why the geography table below reorders.
GDIT holds #9 (974). Lockheed Martin closes the table at #10 (945), roughly where it sat before its careers site moved platforms this month; the 1,058 in Issue 07 and the 945 here are close enough that nothing about Lockheed changed except our ability to read their board. SAIC and BAE Systems drop out of the top ten.
The top 10 hold 35.2% of Cleared demand, down from 39.8% and the lowest this memo has recorded. With 678 sources on the scan, concentration has fallen for three issues straight.
Coverage went from 507 employer career pages to 678, the largest single-fortnight expansion the scan has had. No marquee prime this time — the additions are almost entirely the Cleared mid-market and below, which is where the hard-to-find work sits.
Space, ISR and sensing: HawkEye 360, Planet Labs, Logos Technologies, ThayerMahan, SRC Inc. Cyber and SIGINT shops, heavily Fort Meade and Annapolis Junction: Owl Cyber Defense, Zetier, Synergy ECP, Belay Technologies, Visionist, Bestgate Engineering, Cipher Tech Solutions, TechGuard Security, Digital Cloak. Defense software and mission engineering: Rise8, Black Cape, Telos Corporation, Altamira Technologies, Applied Research Associates, Trace3 Gov. Mid-market services: ActioNet, Halvik, USFalcon, Culmen International, MELE Associates, Alpha Omega, JCS Solutions, Aptive Resources, Steel Point Solutions. And a bench of ANC and 8(a) holdings: Aleut Federal, Alutiiq, Akina, Waseyabek Development Company.
The standing caveat holds and keeps shrinking: a handful of majors and FFRDCs remain outside the scan, so the true Cleared market is larger than what is counted here.
Top Job Titles
The roles employers post most across the cleared pool:
| # | Title | Cleared postings |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Software Engineer | 1,128 |
| 2 | Systems Engineer | 1,072 |
| 3 | Program Manager | 418 |
| 4 | Systems Administrator | 397 |
| 5 | Network Engineer | 364 |
| 6 | Data Scientist | 281 |
| 7 | Software Developer | 232 |
| 8 | Electrical Engineer | 214 |
| 9 | DevOps Engineer | 176 |
| 10 | Information Systems Security Officer | 163 |
Software Engineer takes #1 at 1,128 Cleared roles, passing Systems Engineer (1,072) and reversing Issue 07's order — the two of them remain more than double the next title. Program Manager holds #3 at 418.
Below that, the rung Issue 06 and Issue 07 both flagged has flipped back: Systems Administrator (397) is now ahead of Network Engineer (364), after two issues of the specialty seat edging out the generalist. Two reversals in three issues is the honest read that neither had a durable lead. Data Scientist reads 281, Software Developer 232, Electrical Engineer 214, DevOps Engineer 176, and Information Systems Security Officer closes the table at 163.
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 | 15,100 | 39.7% |
| Los Angeles Metro | 2,000 | 5.3% |
| Huntsville | 1,409 | 3.7% |
| Massachusetts | 924 | 2.4% |
| Tampa | 710 | 1.9% |
| Colorado Springs | 669 | 1.8% |
| Overseas | 672 | 1.8% |
| Remote-eligible | 603 | 1.6% |
| Tucson | 551 | 1.4% |
| Denver Metro | 404 | 1.1% |
| Hawaii / INDOPACOM | 368 | 1.0% |
| San Antonio | 302 | 0.8% |
| St. Louis | 164 | 0.4% |
| Augusta | 98 | 0.3% |
| Other (distributed) | 14,098 | 37.0% |
DC Metro is 39.7% of Cleared roles (15,100), essentially flat on last issue's 39.4%. Below it the order changed: Los Angeles Metro is #2 at 5.3% (2,000), up from 3.6%, ahead of Huntsville at 3.7% (1,409). SoCal reclaims the seat Redstone took last issue, and the reason is in the contractor table — the new #4 does most of its Cleared hiring there.
Behind them: Massachusetts 2.4% (924), Tampa 1.9% (710), Overseas 1.8% (672), Colorado Springs 1.8% (669), Tucson 1.4% (551), Denver Metro 1.1% (404). "Other" is 37% (14,098) — the plant-site geography of the primes, Fort Worth and Marietta and Melbourne and Orlando. Remote-eligible Cleared work is 1.6% (603), which is the number to hold onto for the Public Trust section below.
Locations are drawn from the postings themselves where available. About 14% of Cleared roles this fortnight carried no structured location and are excluded from the regional breakdown, an improvement on last issue's 15%.
Top Skills In Demand
Most frequently required across the cleared role pool:
| # | Skill | Cleared roles requiring |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Python | 8,317 |
| 2 | AWS | 6,732 |
| 3 | C++ | 3,817 |
| 4 | Docker | 3,124 |
| 5 | Kubernetes | 3,095 |
Python leads by a distance at 8,317 Cleared roles, wanted at every tier. AWS holds #2 (6,732) and C++ #3 (3,817), still the defense-industrial tell. Docker (3,124) and Kubernetes (3,095) are 29 roles apart after finishing Issue 07 two apart. That is a rounding error on a base of three thousand, and the finding is unchanged from last issue: Cleared job descriptions now ask for the container runtime and the orchestrator at the same rate.
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: 3,874 Public Trust-eligible postings.
Top hiring contractors
| Contractor | Count |
|---|---|
| Guidehouse | 309 |
| Leidos | 256 |
| Akima | 230 |
| Amentum | 208 |
| Peraton | 177 |
| SAIC | 164 |
| CACI | 144 |
| GDIT (General Dynamics IT) | 134 |
| Steampunk | 109 |
| ICF International | 88 |
Top regions
| Region | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Other (distributed) | 1,565 | 40.4% |
| DC Metro | 1,223 | 31.6% |
| Remote-eligible | 462 | 11.9% |
| San Antonio | 60 | 1.5% |
| Denver Metro | 25 | 0.6% |
| Los Angeles Metro | 23 | 0.6% |
| Colorado Springs | 21 | 0.5% |
| Hawaii / INDOPACOM | 21 | 0.5% |
| Overseas | 16 | 0.4% |
| Huntsville | 12 | 0.3% |
| Tucson | 7 | 0.2% |
| Massachusetts | 6 | 0.2% |
| St. Louis | 2 | 0.1% |
| Tampa | 2 | 0.1% |
| Augusta | 2 | 0.1% |
Public Trust reads 3,874 roles. Guidehouse leads at 309, then Leidos (256), Akima (230), Amentum (208), Peraton (177), SAIC (164), CACI (144), GDIT (134), Steampunk (109) and ICF International (88).
Guidehouse taking the top seat from Akima fits what the sharper clearance read exposed: their civilian-agency delivery work is Public Trust suitability, and a good deal of it is written as sponsored rather than held. The same precision that moved roles into the Cleared count also sorted more of the civil-side work correctly into this table.
The remote gap is still the durable finding, and it widened. 11.9% of Public Trust postings are remote-eligible against 1.6% of Cleared ones. The SCIF dependency, quantified, across four issues now.
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
The number that matters to a candidate this issue is 44,281, and I want to be precise about where roughly 6,800 of it came from.
A large share of Cleared GovCon postings do not ask for a badge on day one. They ask that you be able to get one, and the employer pays for the investigation. Our agent used to read that as "no clearance required" and leave those roles out of the Cleared count. That was wrong twice over. It undercounted the Cleared market, and it was applied unevenly — an employer's number depended partly on when we first started scanning them, which made comparisons between two employers in this memo less trustworthy than they looked. We tightened the inference and re-ran it across all 88,880 postings, so every employer in every table above is now measured the same way. That is a one-time step up in the count, not demand appearing.
For candidates the practical consequence is better than the accounting sounds. Sponsored roles are the way most people get their first clearance, and we were hiding thousands of them from exactly the people who should see them. They now surface, labeled as sponsorship rather than as a requirement you fail.
The finding I did not expect is in the contractor table. Anduril lands at #4, and 79% of its Cleared roles are sponsorship roles against 12% at Booz Allen. Two companies competing for the same engineers are solving the clearance problem in opposite directions: one pays to clear the people it wants, the other hires the people already cleared. If the first approach keeps working at that ratio, the constraint this whole market organizes itself around gets looser, and it gets looser fastest for candidates who don't hold anything yet. That is worth watching more closely than any single fortnight's volume.
— Rahul Pandhi Founder, ClearMatch