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 30 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 169 168 157
Rank change year-on-year -1 -11 +23
Contract jobs citing Data Protection Act 561 403 580
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.70% 1.52% 1.54%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 4.90% 4.61% 4.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 183 319
10th Percentile £218 £271 £213
25th Percentile £361 £376 £311
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £584
90th Percentile £656 £713 £725
UK median daily rate £463 £500 £498
% change year-on-year -7.50% +0.50% -9.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 8 11
10th Percentile £26.60 £20.30 -
25th Percentile £27.13 £23.38 £11.95
Median hourly rate £28.00 £24.50 £25.12
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% -2.45% +15.47%
75th Percentile £36.78 £31.76 £44.02
90th Percentile £41.60 - £44.54
UK median hourly rate £28.00 £24.50 £25.06
% change year-on-year +14.29% -2.22% +19.32%

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 11,458 8,735 11,761
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.69% 32.87% 31.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,315 5,259 7,813
10th Percentile £276 £268 £253
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.27% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £663
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -3.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 556 246 701
10th Percentile £15.25 £18.51 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £24.20 £17.50
Median hourly rate £30.05 £37.50 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.86% +5.63% +57.88%
75th Percentile £63.43 £66.38 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.47 £83.20 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £28.11 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -19.69% - +55.66%

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 30 January 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 30 January 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 30 January 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 +31 310 £500 - 10
North of England -36 121 £450 -10.00% 12
Yorkshire -27 63 £475 -13.64% 5
South East -17 56 £325 -27.78% 17
North West -16 45 £450 -9.95% 4
Midlands -43 31 £449 -12.44% 18
West Midlands -30 27 £450 -12.20% 2
South West -10 20 £525 +7.69% 11
East of England -12 16 £475 +1.33% 8
North East -20 13 £250 -44.44% 3
East Midlands -26 4 £448 +19.73% 16
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 26 (4.63%) Confluence
2 8 (1.43%) Apache Airflow
3 7 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (1.25%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.07%) Apache
4 6 (1.07%) CMS
5 5 (0.89%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.71%) CICS
6 4 (0.71%) nginx
6 4 (0.71%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.53%) SAS
7 3 (0.53%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.36%) Drupal
8 2 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.18%) Luigi
9 1 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.18%) Skype for Business
9 1 (0.18%) Tomcat
Applications
1 16 (2.85%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (2.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.71%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.53%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.53%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.53%) Sketch
6 3 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.36%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.36%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.36%) InVision
7 2 (0.36%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.18%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.18%) Blender
8 1 (0.18%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.18%) Final Cut Pro
8 1 (0.18%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 9 (1.60%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.89%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.53%) Fidessa
3 3 (0.53%) Oracle Receivables
3 3 (0.53%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 3 (0.53%) VisionPLUS
4 2 (0.36%) ION MarketView
4 2 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.36%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.18%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.18%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.18%) SAP EWM
5 1 (0.18%) SAP MDG
5 1 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 1 (0.18%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 68 (12.12%) AWS
2 49 (8.73%) Azure
3 26 (4.63%) Power Platform
4 25 (4.46%) GCP
5 23 (4.10%) Snowflake
6 20 (3.57%) AWS Lambda
6 20 (3.57%) GitHub
6 20 (3.57%) Serverless
7 17 (3.03%) Amazon S3
8 15 (2.67%) Microsoft 365
9 13 (2.32%) SaaS
10 12 (2.14%) Amazon EC2
11 8 (1.43%) Dynamics 365
12 7 (1.25%) Amazon EKS
12 7 (1.25%) Azure DevOps
12 7 (1.25%) Entra ID
12 7 (1.25%) Figma
12 7 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
13 6 (1.07%) Power Automate
14 5 (0.89%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (2.85%) Firewall
2 14 (2.50%) MPLS
3 11 (1.96%) LAN
4 9 (1.60%) Wi-Fi
5 8 (1.43%) Network Security
5 8 (1.43%) WAN
6 7 (1.25%) VPN
7 6 (1.07%) BGP
7 6 (1.07%) Ethernet
8 5 (0.89%) Wireshark
9 4 (0.71%) DNS
9 4 (0.71%) Kerberos
9 4 (0.71%) NetScaler
9 4 (0.71%) SD-WAN
9 4 (0.71%) SSH
9 4 (0.71%) TCP/IP
9 4 (0.71%) VLAN
9 4 (0.71%) Wireless
10 3 (0.53%) DWDM
10 3 (0.53%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (4.46%) Power BI
2 17 (3.03%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (2.32%) SQL Server
4 11 (1.96%) NoSQL
5 9 (1.60%) Relational Database
6 8 (1.43%) Data Warehouse
6 8 (1.43%) Hadoop
6 8 (1.43%) Tableau
7 7 (1.25%) Amazon RDS
8 6 (1.07%) Metadata
9 5 (0.89%) Amazon Aurora
9 5 (0.89%) MongoDB
10 4 (0.71%) Big Data
10 4 (0.71%) BigQuery
10 4 (0.71%) Data Lake
10 4 (0.71%) DynamoDB
10 4 (0.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.53%) Neo4j
11 3 (0.53%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 47 (8.38%) JIRA
2 12 (2.14%) Git
3 11 (1.96%) Jenkins
4 9 (1.60%) SpecFlow
5 6 (1.07%) Sonatype Nexus
6 5 (0.89%) GitLab
6 5 (0.89%) Gradle
6 5 (0.89%) JUnit
6 5 (0.89%) Maven
7 4 (0.71%) Bitbucket
7 4 (0.71%) Fiddler
8 3 (0.53%) ChangeMan
8 3 (0.53%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.36%) DBeaver
9 2 (0.36%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.36%) Katalon Studio
9 2 (0.36%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.36%) webpack
10 1 (0.18%) gulp
10 1 (0.18%) TestRail
General
1 154 (27.45%) Social Skills
2 121 (21.57%) Finance
3 75 (13.37%) Banking
4 64 (11.41%) Analytical Skills
5 30 (5.35%) Telecoms
6 20 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
6 20 (3.57%) Front Office
7 18 (3.21%) Public Sector
8 17 (3.03%) Legal
9 12 (2.14%) Organisational Skills
10 10 (1.78%) Marketing
11 9 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
12 8 (1.43%) Financial Institution
12 8 (1.43%) Investment Banking
13 7 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
13 7 (1.25%) Publishing
14 6 (1.07%) Aerospace
15 5 (0.89%) General Ledger
15 5 (0.89%) Retail Banking
16 4 (0.71%) Digital Healthcare
Job Titles
1 76 (13.55%) Analyst
2 74 (13.19%) Developer
3 40 (7.13%) Architect
4 39 (6.95%) Business Analyst
5 36 (6.42%) Project Manager
6 31 (5.53%) Lead
7 27 (4.81%) Senior
8 25 (4.46%) Consultant
9 18 (3.21%) Network Engineer
10 15 (2.67%) Support Engineer
11 14 (2.50%) Software Engineer
12 13 (2.32%) Data Analyst
12 13 (2.32%) Data Engineer
12 13 (2.32%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 13 (2.32%) Java Developer
12 13 (2.32%) Solutions Architect
13 12 (2.14%) Python Developer
13 12 (2.14%) Tester
14 9 (1.60%) Technical Analyst
15 8 (1.43%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (4.81%) React
2 21 (3.74%) REST
3 17 (3.03%) RESTful
4 15 (2.67%) OAuth
5 12 (2.14%) HTML
6 11 (1.96%) Playwright
7 10 (1.78%) .NET
7 10 (1.78%) XML
8 9 (1.60%) PySpark
8 9 (1.60%) SAML
8 9 (1.60%) Spring
9 8 (1.43%) LangChain
9 8 (1.43%) Spring Boot
10 7 (1.25%) AngularJS
10 7 (1.25%) JSON
10 7 (1.25%) Kafka
10 7 (1.25%) Middleware
11 6 (1.07%) FIX Protocol
11 6 (1.07%) OpenTelemetry
11 6 (1.07%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 22 (3.92%) Onboarding
2 17 (3.03%) Cloud Native
3 16 (2.85%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 12 (2.14%) Derivative
4 12 (2.14%) Product Ownership
5 11 (1.96%) Freedom of Information
6 10 (1.78%) Data Centre
6 10 (1.78%) Equities
7 8 (1.43%) Management Information System
8 7 (1.25%) Distributed Systems
9 6 (1.07%) AI Agents
9 6 (1.07%) Algorithms
9 6 (1.07%) Credit Risk
9 6 (1.07%) Fixed Income
10 5 (0.89%) Mainframe
10 5 (0.89%) Replication
10 5 (0.89%) Virtual Team
11 4 (0.71%) Data Structures
11 4 (0.71%) Equity Derivative
11 4 (0.71%) Freedom of Information Act
Operating Systems
1 35 (6.24%) Linux
2 25 (4.46%) Windows
3 10 (1.78%) Unix
4 8 (1.43%) zOS
5 6 (1.07%) Android
6 5 (0.89%) Solaris
7 4 (0.71%) AIX
7 4 (0.71%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.53%) VMS
8 3 (0.53%) Windows Server
9 2 (0.36%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.18%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 561 (100.00%) Data Protection
2 101 (18.00%) Stakeholder Management
3 97 (17.29%) Agile
4 96 (17.11%) Problem-Solving
5 66 (11.76%) Migration
6 62 (11.05%) AI
7 56 (9.98%) Project Management
8 51 (9.09%) CI/CD
9 50 (8.91%) DevOps
10 46 (8.20%) Analytics
11 40 (7.13%) Roadmaps
12 39 (6.95%) Software Engineering
13 36 (6.42%) Decision-Making
14 35 (6.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 31 (5.53%) Business Analysis
15 31 (5.53%) Continuous Improvement
16 30 (5.35%) Machine Learning
17 28 (4.99%) Business Intelligence
17 28 (4.99%) LLM
18 27 (4.81%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 115 (20.50%) Python
2 81 (14.44%) SQL
3 43 (7.66%) Java
4 34 (6.06%) C#
5 30 (5.35%) JavaScript
6 19 (3.39%) TypeScript
7 17 (3.03%) PowerShell
8 14 (2.50%) C++
9 10 (1.78%) Shell Script
10 9 (1.60%) Bash
11 5 (0.89%) Scala
12 4 (0.71%) COBOL
12 4 (0.71%) Kotlin
12 4 (0.71%) PHP
13 3 (0.53%) Go
13 3 (0.53%) Groovy
14 2 (0.36%) Bicep
14 2 (0.36%) PL/SQL
14 2 (0.36%) SPARQL
15 1 (0.18%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 57 (10.16%) Degree
2 38 (6.77%) Security Cleared
3 31 (5.53%) SC Cleared
4 20 (3.57%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (2.32%) Master's Degree
6 9 (1.60%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.07%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.07%) PMI Certification
7 6 (1.07%) PMP
8 5 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.71%) CCNP
9 4 (0.71%) CISSP
10 3 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (0.36%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (0.36%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (0.36%) ISEB Practitioner
11 2 (0.36%) JNCIA
11 2 (0.36%) JNCIS
11 2 (0.36%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (4.81%) GDPR
2 25 (4.46%) QA
3 16 (2.85%) Data Quality
4 11 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 11 (1.96%) PMO
5 8 (1.43%) NIST
6 7 (1.25%) Accessibility
7 4 (0.71%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.71%) SLA
8 3 (0.53%) IFRS
8 3 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.36%) Basel III
9 2 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.36%) IFRS 17
9 2 (0.36%) IFRS 9
9 2 (0.36%) ISO 20022
9 2 (0.36%) SEPA
9 2 (0.36%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.36%) Software Quality Assurance
9 2 (0.36%) WCAG
System Software
1 24 (4.28%) Docker
2 15 (2.67%) Active Directory
3 11 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
4 9 (1.60%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.53%) KVM
6 2 (0.36%) NFS
6 2 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.18%) Firmware
7 1 (0.18%) HDFS
7 1 (0.18%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.18%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 27 (4.81%) Kubernetes
2 22 (3.92%) Terraform
3 16 (2.85%) Ansible
4 4 (0.71%) Control-M
4 4 (0.71%) Grafana
4 4 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (0.71%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (0.53%) CA Endevor
5 3 (0.53%) PingFederate
5 3 (0.53%) Puppet
5 3 (0.53%) vCenter Server
6 2 (0.36%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.36%) SCCM
6 2 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.18%) Argo
7 1 (0.18%) CSIRT
7 1 (0.18%) IBM Guardium
7 1 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.18%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 42 (7.49%) Microsoft
2 26 (4.63%) Cisco
3 19 (3.39%) Databricks
4 18 (3.21%) Oracle
5 15 (2.67%) Google
6 14 (2.50%) ServiceNow
7 12 (2.14%) SAP
8 10 (1.78%) Adobe
8 10 (1.78%) Salesforce
9 9 (1.60%) Nokia
9 9 (1.60%) VMware
10 8 (1.43%) F5
11 7 (1.25%) ADVA
11 7 (1.25%) Citrix
12 6 (1.07%) Informatica
12 6 (1.07%) Juniper
12 6 (1.07%) Meraki
12 6 (1.07%) Workday
13 5 (0.89%) Foundry
13 5 (0.89%) ION Trading