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

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 164 168 157
Rank change year-on-year +4 -11 +32
Contract jobs citing Data Protection Act 533 424 564
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.69% 1.55% 1.57%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 4.82% 4.76% 5.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 240 202 312
10th Percentile £225 £266 £213
25th Percentile £397 £368 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £622 £612
90th Percentile £657 £713 £725
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 6 6
10th Percentile £28.11 £20.00 £24.67
25th Percentile £30.89 £21.63 £28.71
Median hourly rate £36.16 £24.50 £41.10
Median % change year-on-year +47.57% -40.38% +131.52%
75th Percentile £40.80 £24.75 £44.28
90th Percentile £43.20 £28.26 £44.54
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £24.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +12.24% -38.75% +122.22%

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 11,068 8,902 11,275
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 35.08% 32.53% 31.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,016 5,361 7,592
10th Percentile £288 £275 £263
25th Percentile £410 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.82% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £738 £780 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £530 £545
% change year-on-year -5.66% -2.75% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 551 261 480
10th Percentile £14.34 £17.25 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £23.80 £20.00
Median hourly rate £29.00 £37.00 £40.46
Median % change year-on-year -21.62% -8.55% +61.83%
75th Percentile £63.75 £66.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £83.20 £76.28
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £33.00 £38.16
% change year-on-year -16.67% -13.51% +52.62%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +28 294 £505 +1.00% 12
North of England -38 105 £450 -10.00% 8
South East -20 52 £325 -30.67% 9
Yorkshire -32 48 £475 -8.43% 3
North West -20 44 £450 -10.00% 3
Midlands -24 34 £450 -12.20% 6
West Midlands -24 32 £450 -12.20% 3
South West -1 20 £525 +7.69% 4
East of England -10 18 £475 +1.33%
North East -17 13 - - 2
East Midlands -26 2 - - 3
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 25 (4.69%) Confluence
2 9 (1.69%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.50%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (1.31%) CMS
4 7 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
5 6 (1.13%) Apache
6 5 (0.94%) CICS
7 4 (0.75%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.75%) nginx
8 3 (0.56%) SAS
8 3 (0.56%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.38%) Drupal
9 2 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
10 1 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.19%) Luigi
10 1 (0.19%) Skype for Business
10 1 (0.19%) Tomcat
Applications
1 15 (2.81%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (2.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.31%) Chatbot
4 6 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (1.13%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.56%) AutoCAD
5 3 (0.56%) Sketch
5 3 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.38%) Adobe After Effects
6 2 (0.38%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.38%) InVision
6 2 (0.38%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.19%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.19%) Blender
7 1 (0.19%) CINEMA 4D
7 1 (0.19%) Final Cut Pro
7 1 (0.19%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.19%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 7 (1.31%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.94%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.75%) Oracle Receivables
3 4 (0.75%) VisionPLUS
4 3 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.56%) Oracle EBS R12
4 3 (0.56%) Oracle General Ledger
4 3 (0.56%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.56%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.38%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.38%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.38%) Oracle FAH
5 2 (0.38%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.38%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.19%) Endur
6 1 (0.19%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 75 (14.07%) AWS
2 50 (9.38%) Azure
3 27 (5.07%) Power Platform
4 23 (4.32%) GCP
4 23 (4.32%) GitHub
5 21 (3.94%) Amazon S3
5 21 (3.94%) Snowflake
6 20 (3.75%) AWS Lambda
6 20 (3.75%) Serverless
7 15 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
8 14 (2.63%) SaaS
9 12 (2.25%) Amazon EC2
10 10 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
11 9 (1.69%) Amazon ECS
11 9 (1.69%) AWS CloudFormation
12 7 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
13 6 (1.13%) Amazon Bedrock
13 6 (1.13%) Amazon EKS
13 6 (1.13%) Entra ID
13 6 (1.13%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 17 (3.19%) Firewall
2 11 (2.06%) MPLS
3 8 (1.50%) LAN
4 7 (1.31%) Network Security
4 7 (1.31%) Wi-Fi
5 6 (1.13%) Wireshark
6 5 (0.94%) BGP
6 5 (0.94%) Kerberos
6 5 (0.94%) SSH
6 5 (0.94%) VPN
6 5 (0.94%) WAN
7 4 (0.75%) HTTP
7 4 (0.75%) NetScaler
7 4 (0.75%) SD-WAN
7 4 (0.75%) Wireless
8 3 (0.56%) Ethernet
8 3 (0.56%) Software-Defined Networking
8 3 (0.56%) Structured Cabling
9 2 (0.38%) DNS
9 2 (0.38%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (4.88%) Power BI
2 21 (3.94%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (2.81%) SQL Server
4 11 (2.06%) Amazon RDS
4 11 (2.06%) NoSQL
5 10 (1.88%) Relational Database
6 8 (1.50%) Data Warehouse
6 8 (1.50%) Tableau
7 6 (1.13%) Hadoop
8 5 (0.94%) Amazon Aurora
8 5 (0.94%) Metadata
9 4 (0.75%) Amazon Athena
9 4 (0.75%) Big Data
9 4 (0.75%) BigQuery
9 4 (0.75%) DynamoDB
9 4 (0.75%) MongoDB
9 4 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.56%) Data Lake
10 3 (0.56%) MySQL
10 3 (0.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 44 (8.26%) JIRA
2 12 (2.25%) Git
2 12 (2.25%) GitLab
2 12 (2.25%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.31%) SpecFlow
4 5 (0.94%) JUnit
5 4 (0.75%) Bitbucket
5 4 (0.75%) ChangeMan
5 4 (0.75%) Fiddler
5 4 (0.75%) Gradle
6 3 (0.56%) CircleCI
6 3 (0.56%) Maven
6 3 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.38%) DBeaver
7 2 (0.38%) IntelliJ
7 2 (0.38%) Katalon Studio
7 2 (0.38%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.38%) webpack
8 1 (0.19%) Postman
8 1 (0.19%) PyCharm
General
1 147 (27.58%) Social Skills
2 112 (21.01%) Finance
3 67 (12.57%) Banking
4 56 (10.51%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (4.50%) Telecoms
6 19 (3.56%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (3.19%) Front Office
7 17 (3.19%) Legal
7 17 (3.19%) Public Sector
8 11 (2.06%) Aerospace
8 11 (2.06%) Organisational Skills
9 10 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
10 9 (1.69%) Marketing
11 8 (1.50%) Financial Institution
11 8 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
12 7 (1.31%) Investment Banking
12 7 (1.31%) Publishing
13 5 (0.94%) Back Office
13 5 (0.94%) Retail Banking
14 4 (0.75%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 75 (14.07%) Developer
2 69 (12.95%) Analyst
3 36 (6.75%) Architect
4 34 (6.38%) Business Analyst
5 33 (6.19%) Project Manager
6 28 (5.25%) Lead
6 28 (5.25%) Senior
7 24 (4.50%) Consultant
8 17 (3.19%) Support Engineer
9 16 (3.00%) Software Engineer
10 15 (2.81%) Java Developer
11 13 (2.44%) Data Analyst
11 13 (2.44%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 13 (2.44%) Network Engineer
12 10 (1.88%) Tester
13 9 (1.69%) Data Engineer
13 9 (1.69%) Python Developer
13 9 (1.69%) Solutions Architect
14 8 (1.50%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 8 (1.50%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (4.50%) React
2 20 (3.75%) REST
3 16 (3.00%) OAuth
4 14 (2.63%) RESTful
5 11 (2.06%) .NET
5 11 (2.06%) HTML
5 11 (2.06%) Spring
6 10 (1.88%) LangChain
6 10 (1.88%) SAML
7 9 (1.69%) Kafka
7 9 (1.69%) Playwright
7 9 (1.69%) XML
8 8 (1.50%) AngularJS
8 8 (1.50%) Middleware
8 8 (1.50%) Spring Boot
9 7 (1.31%) FIX Protocol
9 7 (1.31%) JSON
10 6 (1.13%) LDAP
10 6 (1.13%) Oracle Fusion
10 6 (1.13%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 20 (3.75%) Onboarding
2 16 (3.00%) Cloud Native
3 13 (2.44%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 12 (2.25%) Product Ownership
5 11 (2.06%) Data Centre
5 11 (2.06%) Derivative
5 11 (2.06%) Freedom of Information
6 8 (1.50%) AI Agents
6 8 (1.50%) Management Information System
7 7 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (1.31%) Equities
8 6 (1.13%) Algorithms
8 6 (1.13%) Freedom of Information Act
8 6 (1.13%) Mainframe
9 5 (0.94%) Credit Risk
9 5 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (0.94%) Fixed Income
9 5 (0.94%) Replication
10 4 (0.75%) Data Structures
10 4 (0.75%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 35 (6.57%) Linux
2 28 (5.25%) Windows
3 9 (1.69%) zOS
4 8 (1.50%) Unix
5 6 (1.13%) Android
5 6 (1.13%) Solaris
6 5 (0.94%) AIX
7 4 (0.75%) Windows 10
7 4 (0.75%) Windows Server
8 3 (0.56%) VMS
9 2 (0.38%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.19%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 533 (100.00%) Data Protection
2 90 (16.89%) Problem-Solving
2 90 (16.89%) Stakeholder Management
3 82 (15.38%) Agile
4 63 (11.82%) Migration
5 59 (11.07%) AI
6 53 (9.94%) DevOps
7 52 (9.76%) CI/CD
8 50 (9.38%) Project Management
9 42 (7.88%) Analytics
10 39 (7.32%) Software Engineering
11 37 (6.94%) Roadmaps
12 32 (6.00%) Decision-Making
12 32 (6.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 30 (5.63%) Computer Science
14 29 (5.44%) LLM
14 29 (5.44%) Machine Learning
15 28 (5.25%) Business Intelligence
16 27 (5.07%) Business Analysis
16 27 (5.07%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 109 (20.45%) Python
2 80 (15.01%) SQL
3 42 (7.88%) Java
4 36 (6.75%) C#
5 29 (5.44%) JavaScript
6 20 (3.75%) PowerShell
7 17 (3.19%) C++
7 17 (3.19%) TypeScript
8 12 (2.25%) Bash
9 7 (1.31%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.94%) COBOL
10 5 (0.94%) Kotlin
10 5 (0.94%) Scala
11 4 (0.75%) Go
11 4 (0.75%) PHP
12 3 (0.56%) Groovy
12 3 (0.56%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.38%) Bicep
13 2 (0.38%) SPARQL
14 1 (0.19%) PromQL
Qualifications
1 56 (10.51%) Degree
2 32 (6.00%) Security Cleared
3 26 (4.88%) SC Cleared
4 22 (4.13%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (2.25%) AWS Certification
6 11 (2.06%) Master's Degree
7 8 (1.50%) MCP
8 6 (1.13%) PMI Certification
8 6 (1.13%) PMP
9 5 (0.94%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 5 (0.94%) DV Cleared
10 3 (0.56%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (0.56%) CISSP
10 3 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.38%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (0.38%) CCIE
11 2 (0.38%) CCNP
11 2 (0.38%) ISEB
11 2 (0.38%) ISEB Practitioner
11 2 (0.38%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (5.25%) GDPR
2 22 (4.13%) QA
3 15 (2.81%) Data Quality
4 12 (2.25%) PMO
5 10 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (1.50%) NIST
7 6 (1.13%) Accessibility
8 5 (0.94%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 4 (0.75%) SLA
10 3 (0.56%) IFRS
10 3 (0.56%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.38%) Basel III
11 2 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.38%) GAAP
11 2 (0.38%) GRC
11 2 (0.38%) IFRS 17
11 2 (0.38%) IFRS 9
11 2 (0.38%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.38%) WCAG
System Software
1 20 (3.75%) Docker
2 18 (3.38%) Active Directory
3 10 (1.88%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (1.13%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.38%) NFS
5 2 (0.38%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.19%) Firmware
6 1 (0.19%) HDFS
6 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.19%) KVM
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.19%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 25 (4.69%) Kubernetes
2 23 (4.32%) Terraform
3 12 (2.25%) Ansible
4 7 (1.31%) Prometheus
5 5 (0.94%) Grafana
5 5 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.75%) CA Endevor
7 3 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.56%) Control-M
7 3 (0.56%) PingFederate
7 3 (0.56%) Puppet
7 3 (0.56%) SCCM
8 2 (0.38%) ITRS Geneos
8 2 (0.38%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.38%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.19%) CSIRT
9 1 (0.19%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.19%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 1 (0.19%) yum
Vendors
1 44 (8.26%) Microsoft
2 22 (4.13%) Cisco
3 18 (3.38%) Oracle
4 17 (3.19%) Google
5 15 (2.81%) Databricks
6 12 (2.25%) SAP
6 12 (2.25%) ServiceNow
7 10 (1.88%) F5
7 10 (1.88%) Salesforce
8 9 (1.69%) Adobe
9 8 (1.50%) IBM
10 7 (1.31%) Juniper
10 7 (1.31%) Workday
11 6 (1.13%) Citrix
11 6 (1.13%) Informatica
11 6 (1.13%) ION Trading
11 6 (1.13%) Solace
11 6 (1.13%) VMware
12 5 (0.94%) Foundry
12 5 (0.94%) Nokia