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 5 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 163 183 190
Rank change year-on-year +20 +7 -21
Contract jobs citing Data Protection Act 611 359 483
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.68% 1.42% 1.29%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 4.97% 4.22% 4.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 256 168 244
10th Percentile £213 £284 £221
25th Percentile £334 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £725
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 9 16
10th Percentile - £20.45 £11.95
25th Percentile £25.50 £24.25 £19.86
Median hourly rate £26.50 £24.50 £26.31
Median % change year-on-year +8.16% -6.87% +17.58%
75th Percentile £28.56 £31.76 £40.88
90th Percentile £36.78 £32.09 £53.52
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £24.50 £25.12
% change year-on-year +8.16% -2.45% +12.88%

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 12,299 8,501 11,553
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.87% 33.51% 30.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,801 5,334 7,552
10th Percentile £290 £281 £256
25th Percentile £410 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £547 £545
Median % change year-on-year -6.31% +0.37% -5.22%
75th Percentile £630 £671 £656
90th Percentile £749 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 602 274 762
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.81 £12.87
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.52 £16.25
Median hourly rate £33.50 £35.70 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year -6.15% +18.35% +34.04%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £84.52 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £32.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +3.08% +8.33% +33.42%

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 5 March 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 5 March 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 5 March 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 +41 317 £493 +6.60% 7
North of England -17 145 £475 -5.00% 7
Yorkshire -23 82 £475 -11.63% 3
South East -26 70 £350 -22.22% 2
North West -15 52 £425 -15.00% 4
Midlands -43 39 £448 -8.21% 7
West Midlands -44 28 £488 -4.88% 2
South West -16 18 £525 +7.69% 7
East of England -22 15 £413 -12.00% 4
North East -19 11 £250 -44.44%
East Midlands -22 11 £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 26 (4.26%) Confluence
2 12 (1.96%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.47%) SharePoint
4 7 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.82%) Apache
5 5 (0.82%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.65%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.49%) CMS
8 2 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.33%) Drupal
8 2 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.33%) SAS
8 2 (0.33%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.16%) Camunda
9 1 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 18 (2.95%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (2.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.65%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.65%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.49%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.49%) Sketch
6 3 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.33%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.33%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.33%) InVision
7 2 (0.33%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.16%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.16%) Blender
8 1 (0.16%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.16%) Final Cut Pro
8 1 (0.16%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (1.64%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.82%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.49%) Fidessa
3 3 (0.49%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 3 (0.49%) SAP GRC
4 2 (0.33%) ION MarketView
4 2 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.33%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.33%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.33%) Workfront
5 1 (0.16%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.16%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.16%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.16%) SAP MDG
5 1 (0.16%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 64 (10.47%) AWS
2 62 (10.15%) Azure
3 29 (4.75%) Power Platform
4 28 (4.58%) GCP
5 25 (4.09%) Snowflake
6 22 (3.60%) Microsoft 365
7 17 (2.78%) Amazon S3
7 17 (2.78%) AWS Lambda
7 17 (2.78%) GitHub
7 17 (2.78%) Serverless
8 14 (2.29%) Entra ID
8 14 (2.29%) SaaS
9 12 (1.96%) Amazon EC2
10 9 (1.47%) Figma
10 9 (1.47%) GitHub Actions
11 8 (1.31%) Dynamics 365
11 8 (1.31%) OpenShift
12 7 (1.15%) Power Automate
13 6 (0.98%) Amazon EKS
13 6 (0.98%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 19 (3.11%) Firewall
2 15 (2.45%) MPLS
3 11 (1.80%) LAN
3 11 (1.80%) Network Security
4 8 (1.31%) WAN
4 8 (1.31%) Wi-Fi
5 7 (1.15%) VPN
6 6 (0.98%) BGP
6 6 (0.98%) Ethernet
7 5 (0.82%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.82%) Wireshark
8 4 (0.65%) Cisco Nexus
8 4 (0.65%) DNS
8 4 (0.65%) HTTP
8 4 (0.65%) Kerberos
8 4 (0.65%) NetScaler
8 4 (0.65%) SD-WAN
8 4 (0.65%) SSH
8 4 (0.65%) VLAN
9 3 (0.49%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (4.42%) Power BI
2 19 (3.11%) PostgreSQL
3 12 (1.96%) Tableau
4 10 (1.64%) SQL Server
5 9 (1.47%) Metadata
6 8 (1.31%) NoSQL
7 7 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
7 7 (1.15%) Data Lake
7 7 (1.15%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (1.15%) Hadoop
7 7 (1.15%) MongoDB
8 5 (0.82%) Amazon Aurora
8 5 (0.82%) DynamoDB
8 5 (0.82%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.49%) Apache Iceberg
9 3 (0.49%) Big Data
9 3 (0.49%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 2 (0.33%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.33%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 48 (7.86%) JIRA
2 18 (2.95%) Git
3 12 (1.96%) Jenkins
4 11 (1.80%) SpecFlow
5 8 (1.31%) Gradle
5 8 (1.31%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (1.15%) GitLab
6 7 (1.15%) JUnit
6 7 (1.15%) Maven
7 5 (0.82%) Postman
8 4 (0.65%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.65%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.49%) CircleCI
9 3 (0.49%) IntelliJ
9 3 (0.49%) TestNG
9 3 (0.49%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.49%) webpack
10 2 (0.33%) DBeaver
10 2 (0.33%) Katalon Studio
10 2 (0.33%) REST Assured
General
1 163 (26.68%) Social Skills
2 130 (21.28%) Finance
3 78 (12.77%) Banking
4 62 (10.15%) Analytical Skills
5 32 (5.24%) Telecoms
6 23 (3.76%) Documentation Skills
7 20 (3.27%) Front Office
8 18 (2.95%) Legal
9 17 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
10 16 (2.62%) Public Sector
11 15 (2.45%) Marketing
12 13 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
13 10 (1.64%) Investment Banking
14 7 (1.15%) Publishing
15 6 (0.98%) Financial Institution
15 6 (0.98%) Manufacturing
16 5 (0.82%) Influencing Skills
16 5 (0.82%) Pharmaceutical
16 5 (0.82%) Private Banking
17 4 (0.65%) Police
Job Titles
1 80 (13.09%) Analyst
2 66 (10.80%) Developer
3 55 (9.00%) Architect
4 42 (6.87%) Business Analyst
5 39 (6.38%) Lead
6 35 (5.73%) Project Manager
7 34 (5.56%) Consultant
8 29 (4.75%) Senior
9 22 (3.60%) Network Engineer
10 19 (3.11%) Solutions Architect
11 18 (2.95%) Software Engineer
12 17 (2.78%) Java Developer
13 14 (2.29%) Data Engineer
13 14 (2.29%) Support Engineer
14 13 (2.13%) Data Analyst
14 13 (2.13%) Full-Stack Engineer
14 13 (2.13%) Python Developer
14 13 (2.13%) Tester
15 10 (1.64%) Automation Tester
15 10 (1.64%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (5.56%) React
2 23 (3.76%) REST
3 15 (2.45%) Playwright
4 12 (1.96%) .NET
4 12 (1.96%) Kafka
5 11 (1.80%) PySpark
6 10 (1.64%) OAuth
6 10 (1.64%) RESTful
6 10 (1.64%) Spring
7 9 (1.47%) SAML
8 8 (1.31%) AngularJS
8 8 (1.31%) HTML
8 8 (1.31%) LangChain
8 8 (1.31%) OpenTelemetry
8 8 (1.31%) Oracle Fusion
8 8 (1.31%) Spring Boot
8 8 (1.31%) XML
9 7 (1.15%) JSON
9 7 (1.15%) Middleware
9 7 (1.15%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 26 (4.26%) Onboarding
2 23 (3.76%) Product Ownership
3 19 (3.11%) Cloud Native
3 19 (3.11%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 12 (1.96%) Derivative
5 10 (1.64%) Data Centre
5 10 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (1.64%) Management Information System
6 9 (1.47%) Equities
6 9 (1.47%) Freedom of Information
7 8 (1.31%) AI Agents
7 8 (1.31%) Algorithms
7 8 (1.31%) Fixed Income
7 8 (1.31%) Mobile App
8 6 (0.98%) Replication
9 5 (0.82%) Hedge funds
9 5 (0.82%) Virtual Team
10 4 (0.65%) BYOD
10 4 (0.65%) Operational Technology
10 4 (0.65%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 27 (4.42%) Windows
2 25 (4.09%) Linux
3 6 (0.98%) Unix
4 5 (0.82%) Android
4 5 (0.82%) zOS
5 4 (0.65%) AIX
5 4 (0.65%) Solaris
5 4 (0.65%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.49%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.33%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 611 (100.00%) Data Protection
2 111 (18.17%) Stakeholder Management
3 103 (16.86%) Problem-Solving
4 91 (14.89%) Agile
5 76 (12.44%) Migration
6 65 (10.64%) AI
7 59 (9.66%) CI/CD
8 56 (9.17%) Project Management
9 53 (8.67%) DevOps
9 53 (8.67%) Roadmaps
10 51 (8.35%) Analytics
11 47 (7.69%) Continuous Improvement
12 42 (6.87%) Software Engineering
13 39 (6.38%) Decision-Making
14 36 (5.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 33 (5.40%) Machine Learning
15 33 (5.40%) Test Automation
16 32 (5.24%) Business Intelligence
17 31 (5.07%) Risk Management
18 30 (4.91%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 111 (18.17%) Python
2 79 (12.93%) SQL
3 50 (8.18%) Java
4 36 (5.89%) C#
5 34 (5.56%) JavaScript
6 22 (3.60%) TypeScript
7 20 (3.27%) PowerShell
8 11 (1.80%) C++
9 10 (1.64%) Bash
10 6 (0.98%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.65%) Go
11 4 (0.65%) PHP
11 4 (0.65%) Scala
12 3 (0.49%) Groovy
12 3 (0.49%) Kotlin
12 3 (0.49%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.33%) ActionScript
13 2 (0.33%) Bicep
13 2 (0.33%) JCL
13 2 (0.33%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 53 (8.67%) Degree
2 47 (7.69%) Security Cleared
3 40 (6.55%) SC Cleared
4 18 (2.95%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (1.64%) AWS Certification
5 10 (1.64%) Master's Degree
6 8 (1.31%) PMI Certification
6 8 (1.31%) PMP
7 6 (0.98%) CISSP
8 5 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (0.82%) DV Cleared
9 4 (0.65%) Azure Certification
9 4 (0.65%) CCNP
10 3 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.49%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 3 (0.49%) PhD
11 2 (0.33%) CISM
11 2 (0.33%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (5.73%) QA
2 30 (4.91%) GDPR
3 20 (3.27%) Data Quality
4 15 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 12 (1.96%) NIST
5 12 (1.96%) PMO
6 9 (1.47%) Accessibility
7 7 (1.15%) SLA
8 6 (0.98%) GRC
9 3 (0.49%) IFRS
9 3 (0.49%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.33%) Basel III
10 2 (0.33%) GAAP
10 2 (0.33%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.33%) ISO 20022
10 2 (0.33%) NCSC
10 2 (0.33%) SEPA
10 2 (0.33%) SOC 2
10 2 (0.33%) WCAG
System Software
1 28 (4.58%) Docker
2 20 (3.27%) Active Directory
3 12 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
4 10 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.65%) KVM
5 4 (0.65%) Virtual Servers
6 3 (0.49%) IAG
6 3 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.49%) vSphere
7 2 (0.33%) NFS
7 2 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.16%) Firmware
8 1 (0.16%) HDFS
8 1 (0.16%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.16%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 38 (6.22%) Kubernetes
2 24 (3.93%) Terraform
3 16 (2.62%) Ansible
4 8 (1.31%) Grafana
5 6 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.82%) Control-M
6 5 (0.82%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.49%) PingFederate
8 3 (0.49%) Puppet
8 3 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.49%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.33%) IBM Guardium
9 2 (0.33%) Nessus
9 2 (0.33%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.33%) SCCM
10 1 (0.16%) Argo
10 1 (0.16%) Istio
10 1 (0.16%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.16%) Kibana
Vendors
1 53 (8.67%) Microsoft
2 27 (4.42%) Cisco
3 23 (3.76%) Databricks
4 19 (3.11%) Oracle
5 18 (2.95%) ServiceNow
6 16 (2.62%) SAP
7 13 (2.13%) Adobe
8 12 (1.96%) Salesforce
9 11 (1.80%) Google
10 10 (1.64%) VMware
11 9 (1.47%) Nokia
12 8 (1.31%) Citrix
12 8 (1.31%) CyberArk
12 8 (1.31%) F5
13 7 (1.15%) ADVA
13 7 (1.15%) Informatica
14 6 (0.98%) Juniper
14 6 (0.98%) Workday
15 5 (0.82%) IBM
15 5 (0.82%) Palo Alto