Data Protection Act Contract Job Trends in England

Data Protection Act (DPA)
UK > England

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Data Protection Act in contract job vacancies in England. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Data Protection Act over the 6 months leading up to 13 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 219 159 157
Rank change year-on-year -60 -2 -15
Contract jobs citing Data Protection Act 599 512 503
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.29% 1.83% 1.57%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 3.72% 5.04% 5.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 239 215 250
10th Percentile £250 £290 £215
25th Percentile £350 £400 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £581 £598
90th Percentile £638 £650 £713
UK median daily rate £425 £454 £488
% change year-on-year -6.34% -6.92% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 10 8
10th Percentile £12.83 £14.95 £18.14
25th Percentile £13.69 £15.13 £19.22
Median hourly rate £16.13 £15.25 £24.67
Median % change year-on-year +5.77% -38.18% -26.69%
75th Percentile £23.25 £34.19 £70.23
90th Percentile £27.10 £40.90 £71.88
UK median hourly rate £18.00 £15.25 £24.67
% change year-on-year +18.03% -38.18% -41.53%

All Generic Skills
England

Data Protection Act falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 16,083 10,168 9,921
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.55% 36.43% 31.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,657 6,365 5,965
10th Percentile £325 £300 £294
25th Percentile £425 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £543
Median % change year-on-year - -3.23% -1.36%
75th Percentile £644 £644 £675
90th Percentile £750 £763 £820
UK median daily rate £525 £518 £530
% change year-on-year +1.45% -2.36% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,192 534 352
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.78 £16.73
25th Percentile £17.48 £18.51 £24.18
Median hourly rate £33.99 £29.50 £52.75
Median % change year-on-year +15.22% -44.08% +14.23%
75th Percentile £67.55 £55.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.62 £73.75 £75.16
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £27.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +30.91% -40.45% +2.38%

Data Protection Act
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Data Protection Act relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Data Protection Act job vacancy trend in England

Data Protection Act
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Data Protection Act.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Data Protection Act

Data Protection Act
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Protection Act in England over the 6 months to 13 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Protection Act in England

Data Protection Act
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Data Protection Act.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Data Protection Act

Data Protection Act
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Protection Act in England over the 6 months to 13 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Protection Act in England

Data Protection Act
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Data Protection Act within the England region over the 6 months to 13 October 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London -87 252 £475 -5.00% 33
North of England -6 198 £485 +7.78% 16
Yorkshire +28 119 £498 -4.10% 10
North West -14 73 £475 +6.74% 6
South East -40 70 £375 -9.09% 5
Midlands -36 49 £425 -5.56% 14
West Midlands -51 40 £425 -5.56% 7
South West -37 14 £425 - 5
East Midlands - 9 £425 - 7
East of England -35 6 £450 -5.26% 1
North East -60 6 - -
Data Protection Act
UK

Data Protection Act
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 20 (3.34%) Confluence
2 13 (2.17%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.50%) SAS
4 8 (1.34%) Apache
5 7 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
6 6 (1.00%) Apache Spark
7 5 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.67%) nginx
9 3 (0.50%) CICS
9 3 (0.50%) CMS
10 2 (0.33%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.33%) WebLogic
10 2 (0.33%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.17%) IBM HTTP Server
11 1 (0.17%) IIS
11 1 (0.17%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 1 (0.17%) WebLogic Portal
11 1 (0.17%) WebSphere Application Server
11 1 (0.17%) WebSphere Portal
11 1 (0.17%) WordPress
Applications
1 17 (2.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (2.67%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.67%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.17%) Maya
6 1 (0.17%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 10 (1.67%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.83%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.33%) Cloudability
3 2 (0.33%) ION MarketView
3 2 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.17%) Actimize
4 1 (0.17%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle BRM
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.17%) Sage 50
4 1 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
4 1 (0.17%) SAP CX
4 1 (0.17%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.17%) SAP FI-CA
4 1 (0.17%) SAP FS
4 1 (0.17%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.17%) SAP MDG
4 1 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 100 (16.69%) Azure
2 76 (12.69%) AWS
3 52 (8.68%) GCP
4 29 (4.84%) GitHub
5 23 (3.84%) Microsoft 365
6 21 (3.51%) SaaS
7 18 (3.01%) Power Platform
8 17 (2.84%) Azure DevOps
9 13 (2.17%) Serverless
10 11 (1.84%) GitHub Actions
11 10 (1.67%) Snowflake
12 8 (1.34%) Azure AKS
12 8 (1.34%) OneDrive
13 7 (1.17%) Amazon EC2
13 7 (1.17%) Amazon EKS
13 7 (1.17%) Dynamics 365
13 7 (1.17%) Entra ID
13 7 (1.17%) OpenShift
14 6 (1.00%) Microsoft Copilot
14 6 (1.00%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 20 (3.34%) Firewall
2 17 (2.84%) Network Security
3 11 (1.84%) LAN
4 10 (1.67%) VoIP
4 10 (1.67%) WAN
5 9 (1.50%) DNS
5 9 (1.50%) MPLS
6 7 (1.17%) Cisco IPT
7 6 (1.00%) Cisco Nexus
7 6 (1.00%) Unified Communications
7 6 (1.00%) VPN
7 6 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.83%) DHCP
8 5 (0.83%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
8 5 (0.83%) SDH
8 5 (0.83%) TCP/IP
9 4 (0.67%) BGP
9 4 (0.67%) BIG-IP
9 4 (0.67%) EIGRP
9 4 (0.67%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.84%) Metadata
1 17 (2.84%) Power BI
2 14 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (1.84%) Data Warehouse
4 10 (1.67%) BigQuery
5 8 (1.34%) Relational Database
6 7 (1.17%) SQL Server
7 6 (1.00%) Big Data
7 6 (1.00%) Oracle Database
8 5 (0.83%) Data Lake
8 5 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
8 5 (0.83%) Redis
9 4 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
9 4 (0.67%) Db2
9 4 (0.67%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.67%) Tableau
10 3 (0.50%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.50%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.50%) MySQL
10 3 (0.50%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 38 (6.34%) JIRA
2 24 (4.01%) Jenkins
3 23 (3.84%) Git
4 8 (1.34%) Maven
5 7 (1.17%) GitLab
6 4 (0.67%) SonarQube
6 4 (0.67%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.50%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.50%) Gradle
7 3 (0.50%) JUnit
7 3 (0.50%) Selenium
7 3 (0.50%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.33%) CMake
8 2 (0.33%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.33%) ER Studio
8 2 (0.33%) ERwin
8 2 (0.33%) SpecFlow
9 1 (0.17%) Postman
9 1 (0.17%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.17%) XCUITest
General
1 252 (42.07%) Social Skills
2 179 (29.88%) Finance
3 88 (14.69%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (13.52%) Banking
5 34 (5.68%) Legal
6 31 (5.18%) Public Sector
7 28 (4.67%) Organisational Skills
8 23 (3.84%) Influencing Skills
9 22 (3.67%) Documentation Skills
10 18 (3.01%) Front Office
11 15 (2.50%) Telecoms
12 14 (2.34%) Retail
13 13 (2.17%) Marketing
14 12 (2.00%) Billing
14 12 (2.00%) Investment Banking
15 11 (1.84%) Presentation Skills
16 9 (1.50%) Financial Institution
17 6 (1.00%) Publishing
18 5 (0.83%) Law
18 5 (0.83%) Police
Job Titles
1 84 (14.02%) Architect
2 65 (10.85%) Analyst
3 45 (7.51%) Lead
4 41 (6.84%) Business Analyst
5 38 (6.34%) Developer
6 30 (5.01%) Project Manager
6 30 (5.01%) Solutions Architect
7 26 (4.34%) Senior
8 22 (3.67%) Consultant
9 14 (2.34%) DevOps Engineer
10 13 (2.17%) Support Engineer
11 12 (2.00%) Product Owner
11 12 (2.00%) Software Engineer
12 11 (1.84%) Java Developer
13 10 (1.67%) Data Engineer
13 10 (1.67%) Product Manager
13 10 (1.67%) Tester
14 9 (1.50%) Designer
14 9 (1.50%) Technical Manager
15 8 (1.34%) Enterprise Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (6.51%) Terraform
2 38 (6.34%) REST
3 20 (3.34%) Kafka
4 15 (2.50%) React
4 15 (2.50%) Spring
5 14 (2.34%) Spring Boot
6 13 (2.17%) JSON
7 12 (2.00%) Node.js
8 10 (1.67%) .NET
8 10 (1.67%) GraphQL
8 10 (1.67%) Middleware
8 10 (1.67%) OAuth
8 10 (1.67%) YAML
9 8 (1.34%) OAuth2
9 8 (1.34%) Pandas
10 7 (1.17%) HTML
10 7 (1.17%) OpenID
10 7 (1.17%) RESTful
10 7 (1.17%) SAML
11 5 (0.83%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 44 (7.35%) Product Ownership
2 42 (7.01%) Cloud Native
3 29 (4.84%) Onboarding
4 26 (4.34%) Distributed Systems
5 25 (4.17%) Virtual Team
6 21 (3.51%) Management Information System
7 19 (3.17%) Data Centre
8 16 (2.67%) Data Structures
9 15 (2.50%) Freedom of Information
9 15 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
10 14 (2.34%) Mainframe
11 12 (2.00%) Mobile App
12 11 (1.84%) Derivative
13 10 (1.67%) AI Agents
13 10 (1.67%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 10 (1.67%) Freedom of Information Act
13 10 (1.67%) Self-Motivation
14 9 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
14 9 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
15 8 (1.34%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 35 (5.84%) Linux
2 29 (4.84%) Windows
3 13 (2.17%) Unix
4 12 (2.00%) Android
5 11 (1.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (1.50%) Apple iOS
6 9 (1.50%) zOS
7 5 (0.83%) macOS
7 5 (0.83%) Windows Server
8 3 (0.50%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.17%) CentOS
9 1 (0.17%) MVS
9 1 (0.17%) SUSE
9 1 (0.17%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 599 (100.00%) Data Protection
2 179 (29.88%) Stakeholder Management
3 125 (20.87%) Agile
4 110 (18.36%) Problem-Solving
5 108 (18.03%) Continuous Improvement
6 101 (16.86%) AI
7 93 (15.53%) Migration
8 88 (14.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 85 (14.19%) CI/CD
10 70 (11.69%) Decision-Making
11 68 (11.35%) Roadmaps
12 63 (10.52%) Analytics
13 61 (10.18%) DevOps
14 57 (9.52%) Software Engineering
15 52 (8.68%) Risk Management
16 49 (8.18%) Project Management
17 48 (8.01%) Test Automation
18 47 (7.85%) Cybersecurity
18 47 (7.85%) Data Modelling
19 40 (6.68%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 80 (13.36%) Python
2 63 (10.52%) SQL
3 51 (8.51%) Java
4 17 (2.84%) JavaScript
5 15 (2.50%) TypeScript
6 13 (2.17%) Go
7 12 (2.00%) Kotlin
7 12 (2.00%) PowerShell
8 11 (1.84%) Bash
9 9 (1.50%) C#
10 7 (1.17%) C++
11 5 (0.83%) Bicep
11 5 (0.83%) COBOL
11 5 (0.83%) Perl
12 4 (0.67%) Apex Code
12 4 (0.67%) C
12 4 (0.67%) Groovy
12 4 (0.67%) Kusto Query Language
13 3 (0.50%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.33%) JCL
Qualifications
1 38 (6.34%) Security Cleared
2 35 (5.84%) SC Cleared
3 31 (5.18%) Degree
4 11 (1.84%) PMI Certification
4 11 (1.84%) PMP
5 9 (1.50%) CISSP
6 7 (1.17%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.00%) Azure Certification
7 6 (1.00%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (0.83%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (0.67%) CCNP
9 4 (0.67%) CISM
9 4 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.67%) CRISC
10 3 (0.50%) CISA
10 3 (0.50%) FFIEC
10 3 (0.50%) TOGAF Certification
11 2 (0.33%) CCIE
11 2 (0.33%) DV Cleared
11 2 (0.33%) PgMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (7.35%) Data Quality
2 42 (7.01%) GDPR
3 32 (5.34%) QA
4 9 (1.50%) PMO
5 7 (1.17%) Accessibility
5 7 (1.17%) NIST
6 6 (1.00%) PERC
7 4 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
7 4 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.50%) EMIR
8 3 (0.50%) MiFID
8 3 (0.50%) SEPA
9 2 (0.33%) COBIT
9 2 (0.33%) GRC
9 2 (0.33%) NCSC
9 2 (0.33%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.33%) SLA
System Software
1 20 (3.34%) Active Directory
2 18 (3.01%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (2.67%) Docker
4 9 (1.50%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (1.17%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.67%) NFS
7 3 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.50%) vSphere
8 2 (0.33%) GPFS
8 2 (0.33%) KVM
8 2 (0.33%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.17%) etcd
9 1 (0.17%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.17%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 46 (7.68%) Kubernetes
2 29 (4.84%) Ansible
3 6 (1.00%) Grafana
3 6 (1.00%) Prometheus
4 5 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (0.67%) Cisco CUCM
6 3 (0.50%) Kustomize
6 3 (0.50%) Progress Chef
6 3 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.50%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.33%) Argo
7 2 (0.33%) Control-M
7 2 (0.33%) Istio
7 2 (0.33%) Packer
7 2 (0.33%) Puppet
7 2 (0.33%) QRadar
7 2 (0.33%) SCCM
8 1 (0.17%) CA Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.17%) OMEGAMON
8 1 (0.17%) Tivoli NetView
Vendors
1 82 (13.69%) Microsoft
2 31 (5.18%) Cisco
3 26 (4.34%) Google
4 22 (3.67%) Databricks
5 20 (3.34%) ServiceNow
6 18 (3.01%) VMware
7 17 (2.84%) Oracle
7 17 (2.84%) SAP
8 14 (2.34%) IBM
9 13 (2.17%) Red Hat
10 11 (1.84%) F5
10 11 (1.84%) Salesforce
11 7 (1.17%) Citrix
12 5 (0.83%) Atlassian
12 5 (0.83%) CheckPoint
12 5 (0.83%) Murex
13 4 (0.67%) Dell
13 4 (0.67%) Palo Alto
13 4 (0.67%) Sage
13 4 (0.67%) SolarWinds