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 21 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 173 187 188
Rank change year-on-year +14 +1 -34
Contract jobs citing Data Protection Act 629 355 450
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.53% 1.47% 1.24%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 4.77% 4.29% 4.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 273 147 217
10th Percentile £213 £297 £217
25th Percentile £325 £368 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £448 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.79% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £605
90th Percentile £638 £627 £738
UK median daily rate £425 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -10.53% -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 12 22
10th Percentile £19.88 £15.54 £11.95
25th Percentile £25.50 £23.00 £21.00
Median hourly rate £27.75 £26.07 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +6.44% -5.20% -26.67%
75th Percentile £34.67 £31.76 £29.69
90th Percentile £57.88 - £62.50
UK median hourly rate £27.75 £26.07 £27.50
% change year-on-year +6.44% -5.20% -29.03%

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 13,200 8,279 11,192
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.02% 34.19% 30.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,339 5,404 7,342
10th Percentile £313 £300 £266
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.19% -2.27% -3.64%
75th Percentile £628 £670 £675
90th Percentile £750 £788 £800
UK median daily rate £513 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -2.38% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 668 338 818
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.03 £12.25
25th Percentile £21.00 £20.64 £15.17
Median hourly rate £45.00 £33.91 £34.11
Median % change year-on-year +32.70% -0.57% +51.68%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.40 £83.59 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £31.76 £31.50
% change year-on-year +32.05% +0.83% +41.51%

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 21 May 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 21 May 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 21 May 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 +35 315 £459 +1.94% 5
North of England -14 166 £475 -1.55% 6
Yorkshire -7 104 £475 -9.52% 5
South East -27 68 £368 -2.00% 2
North West -2 58 £463 -7.50% 1
Midlands -37 53 £436 -14.88% 5
West Midlands -47 40 £450 -14.29% 2
East Midlands -17 13 £425 +13.71% 3
South West -30 11 £425 +13.33% 5
East of England -22 9 £413 +37.50% 3
North East -38 4 £250 -39.39%
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 17 (2.70%) Confluence
2 12 (1.91%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.75%) SharePoint
4 5 (0.79%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 5 (0.79%) SAS
5 3 (0.48%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.48%) CMS
6 2 (0.32%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.32%) Apache
6 2 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.32%) Drupal
6 2 (0.32%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.32%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.16%) Camunda
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 17 (2.70%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.48%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.32%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.16%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.16%) Blender
7 1 (0.16%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.16%) CINEMA 4D
7 1 (0.16%) Maya
7 1 (0.16%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.16%) Trello
7 1 (0.16%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (1.91%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.64%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.48%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 3 (0.48%) SAP GRC
4 2 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.32%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.16%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.16%) Eloqua
5 1 (0.16%) Endur
5 1 (0.16%) ION MarketView
5 1 (0.16%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.16%) Odoo
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.16%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.16%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.16%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 70 (11.13%) Azure
2 56 (8.90%) AWS
3 33 (5.25%) GCP
4 23 (3.66%) Power Platform
5 19 (3.02%) Microsoft 365
5 19 (3.02%) SaaS
6 18 (2.86%) Snowflake
7 17 (2.70%) GitHub
8 16 (2.54%) Entra ID
9 9 (1.43%) Figma
9 9 (1.43%) Serverless
10 8 (1.27%) AWS Lambda
10 8 (1.27%) OpenShift
11 7 (1.11%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (1.11%) Microsoft Purview
11 7 (1.11%) PaaS
12 6 (0.95%) Microsoft Copilot
13 5 (0.79%) Dynamics 365
13 5 (0.79%) OCI
13 5 (0.79%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 21 (3.34%) Firewall
2 17 (2.70%) MPLS
3 16 (2.54%) Network Security
4 12 (1.91%) LAN
5 9 (1.43%) Wi-Fi
6 8 (1.27%) VPN
6 8 (1.27%) WAN
7 7 (1.11%) DNS
7 7 (1.11%) Ethernet
8 6 (0.95%) BGP
8 6 (0.95%) Cisco Nexus
8 6 (0.95%) TCP/IP
9 5 (0.79%) NetScaler
10 4 (0.64%) DHCP
10 4 (0.64%) SDH
10 4 (0.64%) VLAN
10 4 (0.64%) VoIP
11 3 (0.48%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 3 (0.48%) Internet
12 2 (0.32%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (3.34%) Power BI
2 17 (2.70%) Metadata
2 17 (2.70%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (1.59%) Relational Database
3 10 (1.59%) Tableau
4 9 (1.43%) Data Lake
4 9 (1.43%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (1.27%) SQL Server
6 7 (1.11%) MongoDB
7 4 (0.64%) DynamoDB
7 4 (0.64%) Oracle Database
7 4 (0.64%) Pinecone
7 4 (0.64%) Weaviate
8 3 (0.48%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.48%) Big Data
8 3 (0.48%) Hadoop
8 3 (0.48%) MySQL
8 3 (0.48%) NoSQL
8 3 (0.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (0.32%) KDB
Development Applications
1 41 (6.52%) JIRA
2 18 (2.86%) Git
3 11 (1.75%) Jenkins
3 11 (1.75%) SpecFlow
4 6 (0.95%) Maven
4 6 (0.95%) Sonatype Nexus
5 5 (0.79%) Gradle
6 4 (0.64%) Bitbucket
6 4 (0.64%) GitLab
6 4 (0.64%) JUnit
6 4 (0.64%) Postman
7 3 (0.48%) Katalon Studio
7 3 (0.48%) TestNG
8 2 (0.32%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.32%) Flyway
8 2 (0.32%) Gatling
8 2 (0.32%) IntelliJ
8 2 (0.32%) Liquibase
8 2 (0.32%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.32%) webpack
General
1 188 (29.89%) Social Skills
2 144 (22.89%) Finance
3 73 (11.61%) Banking
4 58 (9.22%) Analytical Skills
5 28 (4.45%) Front Office
6 26 (4.13%) Telecoms
7 25 (3.97%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (3.34%) Organisational Skills
9 20 (3.18%) Public Sector
10 18 (2.86%) Marketing
11 14 (2.23%) Legal
12 11 (1.75%) Influencing Skills
13 10 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (1.43%) Investment Banking
15 7 (1.11%) Financial Institution
15 7 (1.11%) Private Banking
16 6 (0.95%) Pharmaceutical
17 5 (0.79%) Police
17 5 (0.79%) Publishing
17 5 (0.79%) Retail
Job Titles
1 73 (11.61%) Architect
2 65 (10.33%) Analyst
3 64 (10.17%) Developer
4 42 (6.68%) Senior
5 39 (6.20%) Business Analyst
6 38 (6.04%) Consultant
7 36 (5.72%) Project Manager
8 34 (5.41%) Lead
9 27 (4.29%) Solutions Architect
10 23 (3.66%) Java Developer
11 22 (3.50%) Network Engineer
12 14 (2.23%) Data Engineer
13 13 (2.07%) Software Engineer
13 13 (2.07%) Tester
14 12 (1.91%) Automation Tester
14 12 (1.91%) DevOps Engineer
14 12 (1.91%) Product Manager
15 11 (1.75%) Python Developer
15 11 (1.75%) Support Engineer
16 9 (1.43%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (4.93%) React
2 23 (3.66%) REST
3 14 (2.23%) Playwright
4 13 (2.07%) RESTful
4 13 (2.07%) Spring
5 12 (1.91%) Spring Boot
6 11 (1.75%) .NET
6 11 (1.75%) Kafka
7 10 (1.59%) JSON
8 8 (1.27%) GraphQL
8 8 (1.27%) Middleware
8 8 (1.27%) PySpark
8 8 (1.27%) Vue
9 7 (1.11%) XML
10 6 (0.95%) AngularJS
10 6 (0.95%) HTML
10 6 (0.95%) OpenTelemetry
10 6 (0.95%) Oracle Fusion
11 5 (0.79%) Model Context Protocol
11 5 (0.79%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 35 (5.56%) Product Ownership
2 28 (4.45%) Onboarding
3 25 (3.97%) Cloud Native
4 22 (3.50%) Virtual Team
5 20 (3.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 16 (2.54%) Distributed Systems
7 15 (2.38%) Derivative
8 13 (2.07%) Mobile App
9 11 (1.75%) Data Centre
10 10 (1.59%) Equities
11 7 (1.11%) Algorithms
11 7 (1.11%) Replication
12 6 (0.95%) AI Agents
12 6 (0.95%) Equity Derivative
12 6 (0.95%) Fixed Income
12 6 (0.95%) Mainframe
12 6 (0.95%) Management Information System
13 5 (0.79%) Distributed Architecture
13 5 (0.79%) Legacy Systems
13 5 (0.79%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 27 (4.29%) Windows
2 26 (4.13%) Linux
3 13 (2.07%) Android
4 8 (1.27%) Apple iOS
4 8 (1.27%) zOS
5 6 (0.95%) Unix
5 6 (0.95%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.16%) CentOS
7 1 (0.16%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle Linux
7 1 (0.16%) Rocky
7 1 (0.16%) Solaris
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 629 (100.00%) Data Protection
2 122 (19.40%) Agile
3 118 (18.76%) Stakeholder Management
4 106 (16.85%) Problem-Solving
5 79 (12.56%) Migration
6 76 (12.08%) Continuous Improvement
7 72 (11.45%) AI
8 69 (10.97%) DevOps
9 66 (10.49%) Analytics
9 66 (10.49%) CI/CD
10 58 (9.22%) Project Management
11 57 (9.06%) Roadmaps
12 48 (7.63%) Test Automation
13 47 (7.47%) Decision-Making
14 41 (6.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 38 (6.04%) Risk Management
16 37 (5.88%) Observability
17 36 (5.72%) Data Modelling
18 35 (5.56%) Software Engineering
19 31 (4.93%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 108 (17.17%) Python
2 70 (11.13%) SQL
3 65 (10.33%) Java
4 30 (4.77%) JavaScript
5 29 (4.61%) C#
6 22 (3.50%) TypeScript
7 18 (2.86%) PowerShell
8 13 (2.07%) Bash
8 13 (2.07%) C++
9 10 (1.59%) Kotlin
10 6 (0.95%) Go
10 6 (0.95%) Kusto Query Language
11 5 (0.79%) R
11 5 (0.79%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.64%) JCL
12 4 (0.64%) PL/SQL
13 3 (0.48%) Apex Code
14 2 (0.32%) ActionScript
14 2 (0.32%) Scala
14 2 (0.32%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 48 (7.63%) Security Cleared
2 46 (7.31%) Degree
3 45 (7.15%) SC Cleared
4 15 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (1.43%) PMI Certification
5 9 (1.43%) PMP
6 6 (0.95%) Azure Certification
6 6 (0.95%) CCNP
6 6 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
7 5 (0.79%) AWS Certification
7 5 (0.79%) Master's Degree
8 4 (0.64%) CISSP
9 3 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (0.48%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.32%) CCNA
10 2 (0.32%) JNCIA
10 2 (0.32%) JNCIS
10 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 2 (0.32%) PhD
11 1 (0.16%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (5.25%) QA
2 29 (4.61%) GDPR
3 21 (3.34%) Data Quality
4 15 (2.38%) PMO
5 10 (1.59%) Accessibility
5 10 (1.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (1.27%) NIST
6 8 (1.27%) SLA
7 6 (0.95%) GRC
8 5 (0.79%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.48%) IFRS
9 3 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.32%) Basel III
10 2 (0.32%) GAAP
10 2 (0.32%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.32%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.32%) ISO 20022
10 2 (0.32%) SEPA
10 2 (0.32%) WCAG
11 1 (0.16%) FINRA
System Software
1 25 (3.97%) Docker
2 19 (3.02%) Active Directory
3 13 (2.07%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.27%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.95%) KVM
6 5 (0.79%) NFS
7 4 (0.64%) Time Sharing Option
8 3 (0.48%) IAG
8 3 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.48%) Virtual Servers
8 3 (0.48%) vSphere
8 3 (0.48%) XenApp
8 3 (0.48%) XenDesktop
9 2 (0.32%) GPFS
9 2 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.16%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 36 (5.72%) Kubernetes
2 28 (4.45%) Terraform
3 23 (3.66%) Ansible
4 8 (1.27%) Grafana
5 6 (0.95%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.79%) Prometheus
6 5 (0.79%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 4 (0.64%) Control-M
8 3 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.32%) Data Guard
9 2 (0.32%) IBM Guardium
9 2 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.32%) Nessus
9 2 (0.32%) Oracle RMAN
9 2 (0.32%) Packer
9 2 (0.32%) QRadar
9 2 (0.32%) SCCM
10 1 (0.16%) Kibana
10 1 (0.16%) SELinux
Vendors
1 58 (9.22%) Microsoft
2 29 (4.61%) Cisco
3 27 (4.29%) Databricks
4 23 (3.66%) Oracle
5 22 (3.50%) SAP
6 16 (2.54%) ServiceNow
7 13 (2.07%) Informatica
7 13 (2.07%) Salesforce
7 13 (2.07%) VMware
8 12 (1.91%) Citrix
8 12 (1.91%) Google
9 11 (1.75%) Workday
10 10 (1.59%) IBM
11 9 (1.43%) Adobe
12 8 (1.27%) Red Hat
13 7 (1.11%) ADVA
13 7 (1.11%) Nokia
13 7 (1.11%) Palo Alto
14 6 (0.95%) F5
15 5 (0.79%) Splunk