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 3 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 218 152 158
Rank change year-on-year -66 +6 -13
Contract jobs citing Data Protection Act 595 518 504
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.28% 1.85% 1.55%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 3.72% 5.09% 5.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 237 211 256
10th Percentile £245 £306 £214
25th Percentile £350 £400 £367
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.53% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £600
90th Percentile £638 £650 £713
UK median daily rate £425 £475 £488
% change year-on-year -10.53% -2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 10 7
10th Percentile £13.00 £14.95 £17.94
25th Percentile £13.69 £15.13 £19.06
Median hourly rate £18.00 £15.25 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +18.03% -45.22% -17.27%
75th Percentile £25.00 £34.19 £70.78
90th Percentile £32.25 £40.90 £71.88
UK median hourly rate £18.00 £15.25 £27.84
% change year-on-year +18.03% -45.22% -34.01%

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 15,979 10,178 10,066
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.35% 36.32% 31.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,607 6,378 6,094
10th Percentile £325 £300 £294
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £645 £649 £675
90th Percentile £750 £771 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £531
% change year-on-year +0.96% -1.98% -3.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,157 523 375
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.15 £15.62
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £35.00 £30.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -47.69% +24.19%
75th Percentile £67.84 £56.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £73.75 £75.16
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £28.00 £49.75
% change year-on-year +33.93% -43.72% +10.56%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -73 264 £400 -20.79% 62
North of England -18 186 £475 +5.56% 30
Yorkshire +19 108 £475 -5.00% 13
North West -19 72 £463 +3.93% 15
South East -41 66 £375 -9.09% 22
Midlands -45 48 £425 -8.11% 35
West Midlands -44 40 £406 -12.16% 14
South West -40 15 £425 -10.53% 15
East Midlands - 8 £425 - 21
North East -66 6 - - 2
East of England -34 5 £300 -36.84% 9
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 19 (3.19%) Confluence
2 11 (1.85%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.51%) SAS
4 7 (1.18%) Apache
5 6 (1.01%) Apache Spark
5 6 (1.01%) Microsoft Exchange
6 5 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.50%) CICS
7 3 (0.50%) CMS
7 3 (0.50%) nginx
8 2 (0.34%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.17%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.17%) Camunda
9 1 (0.17%) IIS
9 1 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.17%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.17%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.17%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.17%) WordPress
Applications
1 14 (2.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (2.02%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.67%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.17%) Maya
6 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.17%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 9 (1.51%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.84%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.34%) Cloudability
3 2 (0.34%) ION MarketView
3 2 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.17%) Actimize
4 1 (0.17%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 1 (0.17%) Eloqua
4 1 (0.17%) Endur
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle BRM
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.17%) Sage 50
4 1 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
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 S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 96 (16.13%) Azure
2 81 (13.61%) AWS
3 54 (9.08%) GCP
4 29 (4.87%) GitHub
5 23 (3.87%) SaaS
6 18 (3.03%) Microsoft 365
7 17 (2.86%) Power Platform
8 16 (2.69%) Azure DevOps
9 13 (2.18%) Serverless
10 10 (1.68%) GitHub Actions
10 10 (1.68%) Snowflake
11 7 (1.18%) Amazon EC2
11 7 (1.18%) Amazon EKS
11 7 (1.18%) Azure AKS
11 7 (1.18%) Entra ID
11 7 (1.18%) OpenShift
12 6 (1.01%) Amazon S3
12 6 (1.01%) IaaS
12 6 (1.01%) Microsoft Copilot
12 6 (1.01%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 22 (3.70%) Firewall
2 16 (2.69%) Network Security
3 12 (2.02%) LAN
4 11 (1.85%) WAN
5 10 (1.68%) MPLS
6 9 (1.51%) DNS
7 8 (1.34%) VoIP
8 7 (1.18%) Cisco IPT
8 7 (1.18%) VPN
8 7 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (1.01%) Cisco Nexus
10 5 (0.84%) DHCP
10 5 (0.84%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 5 (0.84%) SDH
10 5 (0.84%) Unified Communications
11 4 (0.67%) BGP
11 4 (0.67%) BIG-IP
11 4 (0.67%) EIGRP
11 4 (0.67%) OSPF
11 4 (0.67%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.86%) Metadata
1 17 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (2.69%) Power BI
3 12 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
4 11 (1.85%) BigQuery
5 10 (1.68%) Relational Database
6 8 (1.34%) SQL Server
7 7 (1.18%) Oracle Database
8 6 (1.01%) Big Data
9 5 (0.84%) Data Lake
9 5 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
9 5 (0.84%) Redis
10 4 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
10 4 (0.67%) Db2
10 4 (0.67%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.67%) Tableau
11 3 (0.50%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.50%) DynamoDB
11 3 (0.50%) MySQL
11 3 (0.50%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 37 (6.22%) JIRA
2 23 (3.87%) Jenkins
3 20 (3.36%) Git
4 7 (1.18%) Maven
5 6 (1.01%) GitLab
6 4 (0.67%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.50%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.50%) Selenium
7 3 (0.50%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.50%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.34%) CMake
8 2 (0.34%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.34%) ER Studio
8 2 (0.34%) ERwin
8 2 (0.34%) Gradle
8 2 (0.34%) JUnit
8 2 (0.34%) SpecFlow
8 2 (0.34%) XCUITest
9 1 (0.17%) Postman
9 1 (0.17%) Storybook
General
1 242 (40.67%) Social Skills
2 175 (29.41%) Finance
3 89 (14.96%) Analytical Skills
4 85 (14.29%) Banking
5 32 (5.38%) Public Sector
6 30 (5.04%) Legal
7 26 (4.37%) Organisational Skills
8 23 (3.87%) Influencing Skills
9 22 (3.70%) Documentation Skills
10 21 (3.53%) Front Office
11 16 (2.69%) Telecoms
12 14 (2.35%) Retail
13 12 (2.02%) Billing
13 12 (2.02%) Investment Banking
13 12 (2.02%) Presentation Skills
14 11 (1.85%) Marketing
15 10 (1.68%) Financial Institution
16 7 (1.18%) Publishing
17 5 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
18 4 (0.67%) Law
Job Titles
1 80 (13.45%) Architect
2 68 (11.43%) Analyst
3 43 (7.23%) Business Analyst
3 43 (7.23%) Lead
4 42 (7.06%) Developer
5 33 (5.55%) Senior
6 30 (5.04%) Solutions Architect
7 26 (4.37%) Consultant
8 25 (4.20%) Project Manager
9 14 (2.35%) DevOps Engineer
9 14 (2.35%) Support Engineer
10 12 (2.02%) Java Developer
10 12 (2.02%) Software Engineer
11 11 (1.85%) Product Manager
12 10 (1.68%) Data Protection Officer
12 10 (1.68%) Tester
13 9 (1.51%) Data Engineer
13 9 (1.51%) Designer
13 9 (1.51%) Product Owner
14 8 (1.34%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (6.39%) REST
2 37 (6.22%) Terraform
3 19 (3.19%) Kafka
4 15 (2.52%) React
4 15 (2.52%) Spring
5 14 (2.35%) Spring Boot
6 12 (2.02%) JSON
7 11 (1.85%) .NET
7 11 (1.85%) GraphQL
7 11 (1.85%) Node.js
8 10 (1.68%) Pandas
8 10 (1.68%) YAML
9 9 (1.51%) Middleware
10 8 (1.34%) OAuth
11 7 (1.18%) HTML
11 7 (1.18%) OAuth2
12 6 (1.01%) OpenID
12 6 (1.01%) RESTful
13 5 (0.84%) AngularJS
13 5 (0.84%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 40 (6.72%) Product Ownership
2 38 (6.39%) Cloud Native
3 29 (4.87%) Onboarding
4 26 (4.37%) Distributed Systems
4 26 (4.37%) Virtual Team
5 20 (3.36%) Data Centre
6 19 (3.19%) Management Information System
7 16 (2.69%) Legacy Systems
8 15 (2.52%) Mobile App
9 14 (2.35%) Data Structures
9 14 (2.35%) Freedom of Information
10 12 (2.02%) Mainframe
11 11 (1.85%) Derivative
12 10 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
13 9 (1.51%) Analytical Mindset
13 9 (1.51%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 9 (1.51%) Freedom of Information Act
13 9 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
14 8 (1.34%) AI Agents
14 8 (1.34%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 31 (5.21%) Linux
2 29 (4.87%) Windows
3 15 (2.52%) Android
4 12 (2.02%) Unix
5 11 (1.85%) Apple iOS
6 9 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (1.34%) zOS
8 6 (1.01%) Windows Server
9 5 (0.84%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.50%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.17%) CentOS
11 1 (0.17%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 595 (100.00%) Data Protection
2 168 (28.24%) Stakeholder Management
3 121 (20.34%) Agile
4 109 (18.32%) Problem-Solving
5 108 (18.15%) Continuous Improvement
6 102 (17.14%) AI
7 88 (14.79%) Migration
8 85 (14.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 84 (14.12%) CI/CD
10 69 (11.60%) Decision-Making
11 67 (11.26%) Analytics
12 63 (10.59%) DevOps
13 61 (10.25%) Roadmaps
14 53 (8.91%) Risk Management
15 51 (8.57%) Software Engineering
16 50 (8.40%) Data Modelling
17 48 (8.07%) Project Management
18 45 (7.56%) Cybersecurity
18 45 (7.56%) Test Automation
19 41 (6.89%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 85 (14.29%) Python
2 62 (10.42%) SQL
3 51 (8.57%) Java
4 17 (2.86%) JavaScript
4 17 (2.86%) TypeScript
5 14 (2.35%) Kotlin
6 13 (2.18%) PowerShell
7 11 (1.85%) Go
8 10 (1.68%) Bash
9 9 (1.51%) C#
10 7 (1.18%) C++
11 5 (0.84%) Apex Code
11 5 (0.84%) Bicep
11 5 (0.84%) COBOL
11 5 (0.84%) Perl
12 4 (0.67%) C
12 4 (0.67%) Groovy
13 3 (0.50%) R
14 2 (0.34%) JCL
14 2 (0.34%) REXX
Qualifications
1 38 (6.39%) Security Cleared
2 35 (5.88%) SC Cleared
3 26 (4.37%) Degree
4 8 (1.34%) PMI Certification
4 8 (1.34%) PMP
5 7 (1.18%) AWS Certification
5 7 (1.18%) Azure Certification
5 7 (1.18%) CISSP
6 6 (1.01%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (0.67%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (0.67%) CCNP
7 4 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (0.67%) CRISC
8 3 (0.50%) CISA
8 3 (0.50%) CISM
8 3 (0.50%) FFIEC
9 2 (0.34%) CCIE
9 2 (0.34%) DV Cleared
9 2 (0.34%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (7.90%) Data Quality
2 42 (7.06%) GDPR
3 33 (5.55%) QA
4 9 (1.51%) PMO
5 8 (1.34%) Accessibility
6 7 (1.18%) NIST
7 6 (1.01%) PERC
8 4 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.50%) EMIR
9 3 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.50%) MiFID
10 2 (0.34%) COBIT
10 2 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.34%) GRC
10 2 (0.34%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.34%) SEPA
10 2 (0.34%) SLA
11 1 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 19 (3.19%) Active Directory
2 18 (3.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (2.86%) Docker
4 8 (1.34%) Virtual Desktop
5 7 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.67%) NFS
7 2 (0.34%) GPFS
7 2 (0.34%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.34%) vSphere
8 1 (0.17%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.17%) KVM
8 1 (0.17%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.17%) Varnish
8 1 (0.17%) XenApp
8 1 (0.17%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 45 (7.56%) Kubernetes
2 28 (4.71%) Ansible
3 6 (1.01%) Grafana
3 6 (1.01%) Prometheus
4 5 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (0.67%) Cisco CUCM
6 3 (0.50%) Kustomize
6 3 (0.50%) Progress Chef
7 2 (0.34%) Argo
7 2 (0.34%) Control-M
7 2 (0.34%) Istio
7 2 (0.34%) Packer
7 2 (0.34%) Puppet
7 2 (0.34%) QRadar
7 2 (0.34%) SCCM
7 2 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.34%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 2 (0.34%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.17%) CA Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.17%) Tivoli NetView
Vendors
1 74 (12.44%) Microsoft
2 28 (4.71%) Cisco
3 26 (4.37%) Google
4 23 (3.87%) Databricks
5 21 (3.53%) ServiceNow
6 18 (3.03%) Oracle
6 18 (3.03%) VMware
7 17 (2.86%) SAP
8 12 (2.02%) Salesforce
9 11 (1.85%) F5
9 11 (1.85%) IBM
9 11 (1.85%) Red Hat
10 9 (1.51%) Citrix
11 6 (1.01%) CheckPoint
12 5 (0.84%) Informatica
12 5 (0.84%) Murex
12 5 (0.84%) Palo Alto
13 4 (0.67%) SolarWinds
13 4 (0.67%) Sonatype
13 4 (0.67%) Splunk