Jobs that require security clearance or US citizenship

The short answer

require a clearance, US citizenship or US-person status (1,534 of 69,480)

2.2%

mention a security clearance as a requirement (1,100); 55% of those name Top Secret or TS/SCI

1.6%

of single-location postings in DC, Maryland and Virginia (450 of 1,329), against 2.8% in all other states

34%

If you are not a US citizen, this is the one restriction that is truly closed: a clearance is granted through the US government, and an employer cannot sponsor around it. If you are a citizen, it is a narrower field to search. Either way, it is rare enough that you should treat it as a search filter, not as the shape of the market.

It is also lumpy. 142 of the 2,309 employers in the data (6.1%) wrote one of these requirements somewhere, and five employers account for 40% of the postings that did. The average posting tells you very little. The employer and the place tell you most of it.

By system and employer type

Clearance language follows the employer, not the software. Lever and Greenhouse carry the most clearance language, Ashby the least. The table shows who posts where, not that one system causes the other. Workday has few clearance postings but the most plain refusals to sponsor.

The Microsoft row is one employer on its own careers site: 74 of its 689 postings ask for a clearance, mostly Top Secret. It is shown separately so it does not distort the other rows.

By state: the Washington, DC area is the exception

For this table we kept only postings with a single location we could read as a state: 14,395 of the 69,480. Many postings list several cities or just "Remote", so read it as a sketch. Ten states are shown, picked for their rate or their size; every row has at least 100 postings.

DC, Maryland and Virginia together are 1,329 postings and 33.9% of them carry one of the three requirements; everywhere else combined is 13,066 postings and 2.8%. DC stands out for the citizenship wording (18.6%), which often comes with federal-agency work. Texas is the opposite case: almost no clearance language, but 8.0% of postings refuse sponsorship outright.

By employer: a few names write most of it

Employer size barely matters. Employers with 200 or more postings in the window have 2.5% (673 of 26,641) and those with 10 to 49 have 2.0%. What matters is whether the employer sells to the government.

• Among the 666 employers with 20 or more postings, 94 wrote a clearance, citizenship or US-person requirement somewhere. 13 wrote it on half or more of their postings.
• The other 81 are mixed: the requirement appears on the roles tied to a government customer, not on the rest of the company.
• The five employers with the most such postings are Accenture Federal Services (374), Microsoft (74), Agile Defense (64), Castelion (57) and Boeing (52). Together they are 40.5% of all 1,534. The top ten are 53.5%.
• Clearance level, where the posting names one: 608 name Top Secret or TS/SCI (55.3% of 1,100), 205 Secret (18.6%), 57 a public trust position (5.2%), and 230 say "clearance" without a level (20.9%).
• 251 clearance postings (22.8%) also say in so many words that you must be a US citizen or US person.

Software and engineering titles are more exposed than the rest: 2.8% (1,013 of 35,822) against 1.5% (521 of 33,658) for all other titles. Remote postings are less exposed than on-site ones, at 1.6% against 2.4%, which fits a requirement tied to a secured facility or a government customer.

What we counted

1. Clearance: the posting asks for or states an active, interim or obtainable clearance: security clearance, Secret, Top Secret, TS/SCI, a public trust position, or a clearance with a polygraph. "Eligible to obtain" counts. Phrases like "clearance is not required" or "a plus" do not, and neither does anything under a "preferred qualifications" heading.
2. Citizenship only: the posting says you must be a US citizen, with no green card option in the same sentence.
3. US person: the posting says you must be a US citizen, permanent resident or other protected individual, usually because of export control rules (ITAR).
4. No sponsorship only: the posting refuses visa sponsorship and has none of the three labels above. Each posting gets one label, in that order.

Our "no sponsorship" match is deliberately narrow. It is not the same as the broader restriction label in H-1B and visa sponsorship in 69,733 US job postings, so the two numbers will not match.

What to do with this

1. If you are a US citizen with no clearance, read "eligible to obtain" as open. "Eligible to obtain" means the employer expects to start the process. Only an "active clearance" line means you need one on day one.
2. If you are not a citizen, skip the DC area and defense employers. The requirement is too common there to fight. Look at California and New York, where it appears in under 2.5% of postings.
3. If you are a green card holder, read the exact wording. "US person" and ITAR language usually admit you. "US citizens only" does not.
4. Use the employer, not the state, as the filter. Only 13 of 666 large employers wrote it on half or more of their postings.
5. If a posting says nothing, ask. Our count is a floor, so ask the recruiter about citizenship or clearance requirements before you invest in an interview.