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 22 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 163 178 176
Rank change year-on-year +15 -2 -3
Contract jobs citing Data Protection Act 575 374 520
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.65% 1.45% 1.37%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 4.87% 4.33% 4.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 251 169 267
10th Percentile £213 £266 £225
25th Percentile £344 £356 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £725
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -7.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 9 13
10th Percentile - £20.45 -
25th Percentile £25.50 £24.25 £11.95
Median hourly rate £26.50 £24.50 £25.12
Median % change year-on-year +8.16% -2.45% +12.88%
75th Percentile £28.56 £31.76 £43.51
90th Percentile £36.78 £32.09 £58.91
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £24.50 £25.06
% change year-on-year +8.16% -2.22% +15.87%

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 11,811 8,642 11,765
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.95% 33.43% 31.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,510 5,322 7,705
10th Percentile £280 £275 £258
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £545 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.42% -0.91% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £669 £660
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -3.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 588 259 767
10th Percentile £15.50 £18.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.82 £24.18 £16.75
Median hourly rate £32.75 £37.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.49% +13.85% +44.44%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.38 £58.73
90th Percentile £76.90 £83.24 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £30.50 £33.27 £32.50
% change year-on-year -8.33% +2.37% +44.54%

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 22 February 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 22 February 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 22 February 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 +40 304 £500 +5.26% 7
North of England -30 133 £450 -10.00% 4
Yorkshire -26 73 £475 -10.59% 2
South East -12 64 £350 -22.22% 4
North West -11 49 £425 -15.00%
Midlands -35 35 £436 -3.06% 9
West Midlands -51 25 £463 -7.50% 4
South West -14 17 £525 +7.69% 5
East of England -19 16 £475 +1.33% 2
North East -30 11 £250 -44.44% 2
East Midlands -21 10 £336 -10.33% 5
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 27 (4.70%) Confluence
2 9 (1.57%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (1.57%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.22%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (0.87%) Apache
4 5 (0.87%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.70%) Palantir Foundry
6 3 (0.52%) CMS
6 3 (0.52%) SAS
7 2 (0.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.35%) Drupal
7 2 (0.35%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.35%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.17%) Camunda
8 1 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 18 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (2.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.70%) Chatbot
4 4 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.52%) AutoCAD
5 3 (0.52%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.52%) Sketch
5 3 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.35%) Adobe After Effects
6 2 (0.35%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.35%) InVision
6 2 (0.35%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.17%) Blender
7 1 (0.17%) CINEMA 4D
7 1 (0.17%) Final Cut Pro
7 1 (0.17%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 10 (1.74%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.52%) Fidessa
3 3 (0.52%) Oracle Receivables
3 3 (0.52%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.35%) ION MarketView
4 2 (0.35%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.35%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.35%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.17%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.17%) SAP EWM
5 1 (0.17%) SAP MDG
5 1 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 1 (0.17%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 61 (10.61%) AWS
2 58 (10.09%) Azure
3 26 (4.52%) Power Platform
4 24 (4.17%) GCP
5 23 (4.00%) Snowflake
6 18 (3.13%) Microsoft 365
7 17 (2.96%) Amazon S3
8 16 (2.78%) AWS Lambda
8 16 (2.78%) GitHub
8 16 (2.78%) Serverless
9 14 (2.43%) SaaS
10 12 (2.09%) Amazon EC2
11 11 (1.91%) Entra ID
12 8 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
12 8 (1.39%) Figma
12 8 (1.39%) GitHub Actions
12 8 (1.39%) OpenShift
13 7 (1.22%) Power Automate
14 6 (1.04%) Amazon EKS
14 6 (1.04%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (2.96%) Firewall
2 15 (2.61%) MPLS
3 11 (1.91%) LAN
4 8 (1.39%) Network Security
4 8 (1.39%) WAN
4 8 (1.39%) Wi-Fi
5 7 (1.22%) VPN
6 6 (1.04%) BGP
6 6 (1.04%) Ethernet
7 5 (0.87%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.87%) Wireshark
8 4 (0.70%) DNS
8 4 (0.70%) Kerberos
8 4 (0.70%) NetScaler
8 4 (0.70%) SD-WAN
8 4 (0.70%) SSH
8 4 (0.70%) VLAN
9 3 (0.52%) Cisco Nexus
9 3 (0.52%) HTTP
9 3 (0.52%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (4.35%) Power BI
2 16 (2.78%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (1.91%) Tableau
4 9 (1.57%) SQL Server
5 8 (1.39%) Data Lake
5 8 (1.39%) Hadoop
5 8 (1.39%) Metadata
5 8 (1.39%) NoSQL
6 7 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
7 6 (1.04%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (1.04%) MongoDB
8 5 (0.87%) Amazon Aurora
8 5 (0.87%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.70%) Big Data
9 4 (0.70%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.52%) Apache Iceberg
11 2 (0.35%) Delta Lake
11 2 (0.35%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.35%) SAP HANA
11 2 (0.35%) Tick Data
Development Applications
1 46 (8.00%) JIRA
2 15 (2.61%) Git
3 12 (2.09%) Jenkins
4 11 (1.91%) SpecFlow
5 7 (1.22%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (1.04%) GitLab
6 6 (1.04%) Gradle
6 6 (1.04%) JUnit
6 6 (1.04%) Maven
7 4 (0.70%) Bitbucket
7 4 (0.70%) Fiddler
7 4 (0.70%) Postman
8 3 (0.52%) CircleCI
8 3 (0.52%) webpack
9 2 (0.35%) DBeaver
9 2 (0.35%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.35%) Katalon Studio
9 2 (0.35%) TestNG
9 2 (0.35%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.17%) PyCharm
General
1 159 (27.65%) Social Skills
2 125 (21.74%) Finance
3 77 (13.39%) Banking
4 61 (10.61%) Analytical Skills
5 30 (5.22%) Telecoms
6 23 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
7 20 (3.48%) Front Office
8 17 (2.96%) Legal
9 16 (2.78%) Public Sector
10 15 (2.61%) Marketing
10 15 (2.61%) Organisational Skills
11 12 (2.09%) Presentation Skills
12 9 (1.57%) Investment Banking
13 7 (1.22%) Publishing
14 6 (1.04%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.87%) Aerospace
15 5 (0.87%) General Ledger
15 5 (0.87%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (0.87%) Manufacturing
15 5 (0.87%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 80 (13.91%) Analyst
2 65 (11.30%) Developer
3 47 (8.17%) Architect
4 44 (7.65%) Business Analyst
5 37 (6.43%) Lead
6 36 (6.26%) Project Manager
7 29 (5.04%) Consultant
8 27 (4.70%) Senior
9 20 (3.48%) Network Engineer
10 17 (2.96%) Java Developer
10 17 (2.96%) Solutions Architect
11 15 (2.61%) Data Analyst
11 15 (2.61%) Software Engineer
12 14 (2.43%) Support Engineer
13 13 (2.26%) Data Engineer
13 13 (2.26%) Full-Stack Engineer
13 13 (2.26%) Tester
14 12 (2.09%) Python Developer
15 10 (1.74%) Automation Tester
16 9 (1.57%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (5.57%) React
2 20 (3.48%) REST
3 14 (2.43%) Playwright
4 12 (2.09%) RESTful
5 11 (1.91%) Kafka
5 11 (1.91%) PySpark
6 10 (1.74%) .NET
6 10 (1.74%) OAuth
6 10 (1.74%) Spring
7 9 (1.57%) SAML
8 8 (1.39%) AngularJS
8 8 (1.39%) HTML
8 8 (1.39%) LangChain
8 8 (1.39%) Oracle Fusion
8 8 (1.39%) Spring Boot
9 7 (1.22%) Model Context Protocol
9 7 (1.22%) OpenTelemetry
9 7 (1.22%) XML
10 5 (0.87%) CSS
10 5 (0.87%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 25 (4.35%) Onboarding
2 19 (3.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 18 (3.13%) Product Ownership
4 15 (2.61%) Cloud Native
5 12 (2.09%) Derivative
6 10 (1.74%) Data Centre
6 10 (1.74%) Management Information System
7 9 (1.57%) Distributed Systems
7 9 (1.57%) Equities
7 9 (1.57%) Freedom of Information
8 8 (1.39%) AI Agents
8 8 (1.39%) Algorithms
8 8 (1.39%) Fixed Income
9 5 (0.87%) Hedge funds
9 5 (0.87%) Virtual Team
10 4 (0.70%) Credit Risk
10 4 (0.70%) Data Structures
10 4 (0.70%) Equity Derivative
10 4 (0.70%) Mobile App
10 4 (0.70%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 26 (4.52%) Windows
2 25 (4.35%) Linux
3 6 (1.04%) Unix
4 4 (0.70%) AIX
4 4 (0.70%) Android
4 4 (0.70%) Solaris
4 4 (0.70%) Windows 10
4 4 (0.70%) zOS
5 3 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.52%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.35%) VMS
7 1 (0.17%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 575 (100.00%) Data Protection
2 109 (18.96%) Stakeholder Management
3 102 (17.74%) Problem-Solving
4 92 (16.00%) Agile
5 74 (12.87%) Migration
6 66 (11.48%) AI
7 55 (9.57%) CI/CD
8 54 (9.39%) Project Management
9 50 (8.70%) Analytics
10 47 (8.17%) Roadmaps
11 45 (7.83%) Continuous Improvement
11 45 (7.83%) DevOps
12 40 (6.96%) Software Engineering
13 38 (6.61%) Decision-Making
13 38 (6.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 32 (5.57%) Machine Learning
14 32 (5.57%) Test Automation
15 31 (5.39%) Business Analysis
15 31 (5.39%) Business Intelligence
16 30 (5.22%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 107 (18.61%) Python
2 76 (13.22%) SQL
3 45 (7.83%) Java
4 36 (6.26%) C#
5 32 (5.57%) JavaScript
6 22 (3.83%) TypeScript
7 16 (2.78%) PowerShell
8 11 (1.91%) C++
9 7 (1.22%) Bash
9 7 (1.22%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.70%) PHP
10 4 (0.70%) Scala
11 3 (0.52%) Go
11 3 (0.52%) Groovy
11 3 (0.52%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.35%) Bicep
12 2 (0.35%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.17%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.17%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 54 (9.39%) Degree
2 42 (7.30%) Security Cleared
3 35 (6.09%) SC Cleared
4 19 (3.30%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (1.91%) Master's Degree
6 10 (1.74%) AWS Certification
7 8 (1.39%) PMI Certification
7 8 (1.39%) PMP
8 5 (0.87%) DV Cleared
9 4 (0.70%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.70%) CISSP
10 3 (0.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (0.52%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.52%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.52%) CCNP
10 3 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.52%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 3 (0.52%) PhD
11 2 (0.35%) CCNA
11 2 (0.35%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (5.57%) QA
2 30 (5.22%) GDPR
3 21 (3.65%) Data Quality
4 13 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.91%) PMO
6 10 (1.74%) NIST
7 8 (1.39%) Accessibility
8 4 (0.70%) GRC
8 4 (0.70%) SLA
9 3 (0.52%) IFRS
9 3 (0.52%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.35%) Basel III
10 2 (0.35%) GAAP
10 2 (0.35%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.35%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.35%) ISO 20022
10 2 (0.35%) SEPA
10 2 (0.35%) SOC 2
10 2 (0.35%) WCAG
System Software
1 27 (4.70%) Docker
2 16 (2.78%) Active Directory
3 12 (2.09%) Virtual Desktop
4 10 (1.74%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.52%) KVM
5 3 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (0.35%) IAG
6 2 (0.35%) NFS
6 2 (0.35%) vSphere
7 1 (0.17%) Firmware
7 1 (0.17%) HDFS
7 1 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.17%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 34 (5.91%) Kubernetes
2 23 (4.00%) Terraform
3 14 (2.43%) Ansible
4 6 (1.04%) Grafana
5 5 (0.87%) Control-M
5 5 (0.87%) Prometheus
6 4 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.52%) PingFederate
7 3 (0.52%) Puppet
7 3 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.52%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.35%) IBM Guardium
8 2 (0.35%) Nessus
8 2 (0.35%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.35%) SCCM
9 1 (0.17%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.17%) Kibana
9 1 (0.17%) SCOM
9 1 (0.17%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 47 (8.17%) Microsoft
2 25 (4.35%) Cisco
3 24 (4.17%) Databricks
4 18 (3.13%) Oracle
5 16 (2.78%) ServiceNow
6 14 (2.43%) SAP
7 12 (2.09%) Salesforce
8 11 (1.91%) Adobe
9 10 (1.74%) VMware
10 9 (1.57%) Google
10 9 (1.57%) Nokia
11 8 (1.39%) Citrix
12 7 (1.22%) ADVA
12 7 (1.22%) CyberArk
12 7 (1.22%) F5
12 7 (1.22%) Informatica
13 6 (1.04%) Juniper
14 5 (0.87%) Foundry
14 5 (0.87%) Meraki
14 5 (0.87%) Splunk
28 Data Protection Act jobs in England