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

6 months to
8 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 167 191 189
Rank change year-on-year +24 -2 -29
Contract jobs citing Data Protection Act 596 356 479
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.65% 1.41% 1.26%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 4.89% 4.20% 4.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 256 165 241
10th Percentile £213 £270 £225
25th Percentile £350 £360 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £656 £675 £725
UK median daily rate £463 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -2.63% -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 9 20
10th Percentile - £20.45 £11.95
25th Percentile - £24.25 £22.50
Median hourly rate £25.50 £24.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.08% -10.91% +22.91%
75th Percentile £28.00 £31.76 £32.50
90th Percentile £28.45 £32.09 £46.33
UK median hourly rate £25.50 £24.50 £27.50
% change year-on-year +4.08% -10.91% +23.60%

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 12,197 8,468 11,745
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.75% 33.62% 30.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,739 5,352 7,657
10th Percentile £290 £287 £256
25th Percentile £409 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £549 £545
Median % change year-on-year -6.57% +0.65% -5.22%
75th Percentile £626 £673 £660
90th Percentile £750 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £527
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.38% -4.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 603 287 801
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.72 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.95 £22.61 £15.75
Median hourly rate £34.00 £34.00 £29.72
Median % change year-on-year - +14.40% +32.09%
75th Percentile £65.63 £67.63 £57.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.65 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £32.50 £28.88
% change year-on-year +3.08% +12.55% +28.42%

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 8 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
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 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 +42 306 £500 +10.01% 6
North of England -13 145 £475 -5.00% 8
Yorkshire -22 82 £475 -11.63% 3
South East -19 71 £363 -19.44% 2
North West -11 53 £425 -15.00% 5
Midlands -52 38 £468 -4.10% 6
West Midlands -48 27 £494 -3.66% 1
South West -7 16 £525 +7.69% 7
East of England -22 13 £413 +15.79% 2
East Midlands -22 11 £336 -10.33% 5
North East -17 10 £250 -44.44%
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 24 (4.03%) Confluence
2 12 (2.01%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.51%) SharePoint
4 7 (1.17%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (1.01%) Apache Spark
6 5 (0.84%) Apache
7 4 (0.67%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.50%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.50%) CMS
9 2 (0.34%) Drupal
9 2 (0.34%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.34%) SAS
9 2 (0.34%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.17%) Camunda
10 1 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
10 1 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 17 (2.85%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (2.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.67%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.50%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.50%) Sketch
7 2 (0.34%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.34%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.34%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.34%) InVision
7 2 (0.34%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.17%) Blender
8 1 (0.17%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.17%) Final Cut Pro
8 1 (0.17%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (1.68%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.84%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.50%) Fidessa
3 3 (0.50%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 3 (0.50%) SAP GRC
4 2 (0.34%) ION MarketView
4 2 (0.34%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.34%) Workfront
5 1 (0.17%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.17%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.17%) SAP MDG
5 1 (0.17%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 63 (10.57%) Azure
2 62 (10.40%) AWS
3 28 (4.70%) Power Platform
4 27 (4.53%) GCP
5 24 (4.03%) Snowflake
6 22 (3.69%) Microsoft 365
7 17 (2.85%) Amazon S3
8 16 (2.68%) AWS Lambda
8 16 (2.68%) GitHub
8 16 (2.68%) Serverless
9 15 (2.52%) SaaS
10 14 (2.35%) Entra ID
11 11 (1.85%) Amazon EC2
12 9 (1.51%) Figma
13 8 (1.34%) Dynamics 365
13 8 (1.34%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (1.34%) OpenShift
14 7 (1.17%) Power Automate
15 6 (1.01%) Amazon EKS
15 6 (1.01%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 20 (3.36%) Firewall
2 15 (2.52%) MPLS
3 11 (1.85%) Network Security
4 10 (1.68%) LAN
5 8 (1.34%) WAN
5 8 (1.34%) Wi-Fi
6 7 (1.17%) BGP
6 7 (1.17%) VPN
7 5 (0.84%) Ethernet
7 5 (0.84%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.84%) Wireshark
8 4 (0.67%) Cisco Nexus
8 4 (0.67%) DNS
8 4 (0.67%) HTTP
8 4 (0.67%) Kerberos
8 4 (0.67%) NetScaler
8 4 (0.67%) SD-WAN
8 4 (0.67%) SSH
8 4 (0.67%) VLAN
9 3 (0.50%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (4.36%) Power BI
2 19 (3.19%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (1.85%) Metadata
4 10 (1.68%) SQL Server
4 10 (1.68%) Tableau
5 8 (1.34%) Data Lake
5 8 (1.34%) NoSQL
6 7 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
6 7 (1.17%) Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.17%) Hadoop
7 6 (1.01%) MongoDB
8 5 (0.84%) Amazon Aurora
8 5 (0.84%) DynamoDB
8 5 (0.84%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.50%) Apache Iceberg
9 3 (0.50%) Big Data
9 3 (0.50%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 2 (0.34%) MySQL
10 2 (0.34%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 46 (7.72%) JIRA
2 18 (3.02%) Git
3 12 (2.01%) Jenkins
4 11 (1.85%) SpecFlow
5 8 (1.34%) Gradle
5 8 (1.34%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (1.17%) Maven
7 6 (1.01%) GitLab
8 5 (0.84%) JUnit
8 5 (0.84%) Postman
9 4 (0.67%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.67%) Fiddler
10 3 (0.50%) IntelliJ
10 3 (0.50%) Katalon Studio
10 3 (0.50%) TestNG
10 3 (0.50%) webpack
11 2 (0.34%) JMeter
11 2 (0.34%) Liquibase
11 2 (0.34%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.34%) Visual Studio
General
1 156 (26.17%) Social Skills
2 129 (21.64%) Finance
3 71 (11.91%) Banking
4 61 (10.23%) Analytical Skills
5 31 (5.20%) Telecoms
6 22 (3.69%) Documentation Skills
7 20 (3.36%) Front Office
8 18 (3.02%) Legal
9 17 (2.85%) Public Sector
10 16 (2.68%) Organisational Skills
11 14 (2.35%) Marketing
12 13 (2.18%) Presentation Skills
13 8 (1.34%) Investment Banking
14 7 (1.17%) Manufacturing
15 6 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
15 6 (1.01%) Publishing
16 5 (0.84%) Financial Institution
16 5 (0.84%) Influencing Skills
16 5 (0.84%) Private Banking
17 4 (0.67%) Police
Job Titles
1 77 (12.92%) Analyst
2 64 (10.74%) Developer
3 60 (10.07%) Architect
4 40 (6.71%) Business Analyst
5 38 (6.38%) Lead
6 33 (5.54%) Project Manager
7 32 (5.37%) Consultant
8 27 (4.53%) Senior
9 22 (3.69%) Network Engineer
10 19 (3.19%) Solutions Architect
11 16 (2.68%) Data Engineer
11 16 (2.68%) Java Developer
11 16 (2.68%) Software Engineer
12 14 (2.35%) Support Engineer
13 13 (2.18%) Data Analyst
13 13 (2.18%) Full-Stack Engineer
13 13 (2.18%) Python Developer
13 13 (2.18%) Tester
14 10 (1.68%) Automation Tester
14 10 (1.68%) Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (5.70%) React
2 21 (3.52%) REST
3 15 (2.52%) Playwright
4 13 (2.18%) Kafka
4 13 (2.18%) PySpark
5 12 (2.01%) .NET
6 10 (1.68%) OAuth
6 10 (1.68%) RESTful
7 9 (1.51%) Spring
8 8 (1.34%) AngularJS
8 8 (1.34%) HTML
8 8 (1.34%) OpenTelemetry
8 8 (1.34%) Oracle Fusion
8 8 (1.34%) SAML
8 8 (1.34%) Spring Boot
9 7 (1.17%) JSON
9 7 (1.17%) LangChain
9 7 (1.17%) Middleware
9 7 (1.17%) Model Context Protocol
9 7 (1.17%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 26 (4.36%) Onboarding
2 23 (3.86%) Product Ownership
3 19 (3.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 17 (2.85%) Cloud Native
5 11 (1.85%) Derivative
6 10 (1.68%) Data Centre
7 9 (1.51%) Equities
7 9 (1.51%) Management Information System
8 8 (1.34%) Distributed Systems
8 8 (1.34%) Mobile App
9 7 (1.17%) AI Agents
9 7 (1.17%) Algorithms
9 7 (1.17%) Fixed Income
9 7 (1.17%) Freedom of Information
10 6 (1.01%) Replication
11 5 (0.84%) Hedge funds
11 5 (0.84%) Virtual Team
12 4 (0.67%) BYOD
12 4 (0.67%) Data Structures
12 4 (0.67%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 28 (4.70%) Windows
2 25 (4.19%) Linux
3 6 (1.01%) Unix
4 5 (0.84%) zOS
5 4 (0.67%) AIX
5 4 (0.67%) Android
5 4 (0.67%) Solaris
5 4 (0.67%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.50%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.34%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.34%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 596 (100.00%) Data Protection
2 110 (18.46%) Stakeholder Management
3 102 (17.11%) Problem-Solving
4 89 (14.93%) Agile
5 73 (12.25%) Migration
6 64 (10.74%) AI
7 57 (9.56%) CI/CD
8 55 (9.23%) Roadmaps
9 53 (8.89%) DevOps
9 53 (8.89%) Project Management
10 49 (8.22%) Analytics
11 46 (7.72%) Continuous Improvement
12 41 (6.88%) Software Engineering
13 40 (6.71%) Decision-Making
14 36 (6.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 33 (5.54%) Test Automation
16 32 (5.37%) Machine Learning
17 31 (5.20%) Observability
18 30 (5.03%) Business Intelligence
19 29 (4.87%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 109 (18.29%) Python
2 76 (12.75%) SQL
3 51 (8.56%) Java
4 35 (5.87%) C#
5 34 (5.70%) JavaScript
6 22 (3.69%) TypeScript
7 20 (3.36%) PowerShell
8 10 (1.68%) Bash
8 10 (1.68%) C++
9 6 (1.01%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.67%) Go
10 4 (0.67%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (0.67%) PHP
10 4 (0.67%) Scala
11 3 (0.50%) Groovy
12 2 (0.34%) ActionScript
12 2 (0.34%) Bicep
12 2 (0.34%) JCL
12 2 (0.34%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.34%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 52 (8.72%) Degree
2 45 (7.55%) Security Cleared
3 38 (6.38%) SC Cleared
4 18 (3.02%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (1.68%) AWS Certification
5 10 (1.68%) Master's Degree
6 8 (1.34%) PMI Certification
6 8 (1.34%) PMP
7 6 (1.01%) CISSP
8 5 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.67%) Azure Certification
9 4 (0.67%) CCNP
9 4 (0.67%) DV Cleared
10 3 (0.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (0.50%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.50%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 3 (0.50%) PhD
11 2 (0.34%) CCNA
11 2 (0.34%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (5.70%) QA
2 30 (5.03%) GDPR
3 20 (3.36%) Data Quality
4 15 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 12 (2.01%) NIST
5 12 (2.01%) PMO
6 11 (1.85%) Accessibility
7 7 (1.17%) SLA
8 6 (1.01%) GRC
9 3 (0.50%) IFRS
9 3 (0.50%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.34%) Basel III
10 2 (0.34%) GAAP
10 2 (0.34%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.34%) ISO 20022
10 2 (0.34%) NCSC
10 2 (0.34%) SEPA
10 2 (0.34%) SOC 2
10 2 (0.34%) WCAG
System Software
1 28 (4.70%) Docker
2 20 (3.36%) Active Directory
3 12 (2.01%) Virtual Desktop
4 10 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.67%) KVM
5 4 (0.67%) Virtual Servers
6 3 (0.50%) IAG
6 3 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.50%) vSphere
7 2 (0.34%) NFS
7 2 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.17%) Firmware
8 1 (0.17%) HDFS
8 1 (0.17%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.17%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 37 (6.21%) Kubernetes
2 23 (3.86%) Terraform
3 16 (2.68%) Ansible
4 8 (1.34%) Grafana
5 6 (1.01%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.84%) Control-M
6 5 (0.84%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.50%) Puppet
8 3 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.50%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.34%) IBM Guardium
9 2 (0.34%) Nessus
9 2 (0.34%) PingFederate
9 2 (0.34%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.34%) SCCM
10 1 (0.17%) Argo
10 1 (0.17%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.17%) Istio
10 1 (0.17%) SCOM
Vendors
1 51 (8.56%) Microsoft
2 27 (4.53%) Cisco
3 24 (4.03%) Databricks
4 18 (3.02%) ServiceNow
5 17 (2.85%) Oracle
5 17 (2.85%) SAP
6 14 (2.35%) Adobe
7 12 (2.01%) Salesforce
8 10 (1.68%) VMware
9 9 (1.51%) Google
10 8 (1.34%) Citrix
10 8 (1.34%) CyberArk
10 8 (1.34%) F5
10 8 (1.34%) Nokia
11 7 (1.17%) ADVA
11 7 (1.17%) Informatica
12 6 (1.01%) Meraki
12 6 (1.01%) Workday
13 5 (0.84%) Palo Alto
13 5 (0.84%) Splunk