Data Protection Contract Job Trends

Data Protection
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Data Protection skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 74 83
Rank change year-on-year -10 +9 0
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,690 1,100 1,000
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.33% 2.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 3.67% 3.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 870 527 529
10th Percentile £260 £291 £212
25th Percentile £400 £400 £369
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £460 £475
% change year-on-year -2.17% -3.16% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 53 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.16 £13.60 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -45.22% +10.85%
75th Percentile £24.44 £20.71 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £36.16 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +13.02%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Data Protection falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 46,293 29,942 32,892
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.37% 90.52% 85.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,017 18,609 19,950
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,198 1,849 1,396
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.33 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £66.00 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.22
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.78% -47.67% +1.18%

Data Protection
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Data Protection relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Data Protection job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Protection
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Protection.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Protection

Data Protection
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Protection over the 6 months to 26 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Protection in the UK

Data Protection
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Protection.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Protection

Data Protection
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Protection over the 6 months to 26 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Protection in the UK

Data Protection
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Data Protection within the UK over the 6 months to 26 September 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
England -17 1,401 £500 +0.81% 1,797
UK excluding London -1 943 £450 -2.17% 1,094
London -29 591 £525 - 840
Work from Home +5 468 £500 +11.11% 739
North of England +14 340 £463 +2.78% 325
South East -6 198 £465 -8.92% 252
Yorkshire +13 169 £475 -5.00% 124
Midlands +8 161 £450 -5.26% 162
North West +15 150 £450 +2.56% 178
West Midlands +9 129 £450 -10.00% 106
Scotland -16 121 £444 +4.41% 77
South West -22 68 £450 +12.50% 101
East of England -24 33 £500 +5.26% 104
East Midlands -9 32 £435 +8.75% 56
North East -46 22 £463 +15.63% 26
Wales -2 21 £413 +11.86% 36
Northern Ireland +1 15 £110 -81.63% 40
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 -17.24% 4

Data Protection
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 68 (4.02%) SharePoint
2 39 (2.31%) Confluence
3 24 (1.42%) Apache Airflow
4 23 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
5 18 (1.07%) Apache Spark
6 12 (0.71%) Apache
6 12 (0.71%) CMS
6 12 (0.71%) IIS
7 10 (0.59%) SAS
8 7 (0.41%) WordPress
9 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
10 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.24%) nginx
11 3 (0.18%) CICS
12 2 (0.12%) Drupal
12 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 1 (0.059%) Cloud Foundry
13 1 (0.059%) WebSphere
Applications
1 49 (2.90%) Microsoft Office
2 45 (2.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.059%) Maya
7 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.47%) SAP MDG
4 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Endur
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 1 (0.059%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.059%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.059%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.059%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.059%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 378 (22.37%) Azure
2 302 (17.87%) AWS
3 137 (8.11%) GCP
4 135 (7.99%) Microsoft 365
5 79 (4.67%) Entra ID
6 78 (4.62%) Power Platform
7 75 (4.44%) SaaS
8 63 (3.73%) Azure DevOps
9 60 (3.55%) GitHub
10 55 (3.25%) Microsoft Purview
11 47 (2.78%) Serverless
12 39 (2.31%) Microsoft Copilot
13 27 (1.60%) OneDrive
13 27 (1.60%) OpenShift
14 25 (1.48%) AWS Lambda
14 25 (1.48%) GitHub Actions
15 22 (1.30%) Power Automate
15 22 (1.30%) PowerApps
15 22 (1.30%) Snowflake
16 20 (1.18%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 95 (5.62%) Network Security
2 64 (3.79%) Firewall
3 37 (2.19%) VPN
4 35 (2.07%) DNS
5 26 (1.54%) TCP/IP
6 25 (1.48%) DHCP
7 22 (1.30%) WAN
8 19 (1.12%) Cisco IPT
8 19 (1.12%) LAN
9 16 (0.95%) SAN
10 14 (0.83%) SSL
10 14 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.77%) MPLS
12 12 (0.71%) Wireless
13 10 (0.59%) HTTP
13 10 (0.59%) NAS
13 10 (0.59%) VoIP
14 9 (0.53%) Cisco ISE
14 9 (0.53%) Intrusion Detection
14 9 (0.53%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (3.43%) Power BI
2 55 (3.25%) Metadata
3 42 (2.49%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
5 32 (1.89%) SQL Server
6 24 (1.42%) Data Lake
6 24 (1.42%) NoSQL
7 22 (1.30%) BigQuery
8 16 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
9 15 (0.89%) MySQL
10 14 (0.83%) Big Data
11 13 (0.77%) MongoDB
12 11 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
14 9 (0.53%) Oracle Database
15 8 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
15 8 (0.47%) DynamoDB
15 8 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
16 7 (0.41%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 84 (4.97%) JIRA
2 68 (4.02%) Git
3 56 (3.31%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.54%) GitLab
5 18 (1.07%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.59%) Postman
7 9 (0.53%) Maven
8 6 (0.36%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
10 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Mockito
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 668 (39.53%) Social Skills
2 363 (21.48%) Finance
3 254 (15.03%) Legal
4 219 (12.96%) Analytical Skills
5 216 (12.78%) Public Sector
6 122 (7.22%) Banking
7 80 (4.73%) Organisational Skills
8 75 (4.44%) Documentation Skills
9 47 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
10 46 (2.72%) Local Government
11 40 (2.37%) Presentation Skills
11 40 (2.37%) Retail
12 33 (1.95%) Law
13 28 (1.66%) Marketing
14 27 (1.60%) Front Office
15 25 (1.48%) Telecoms
16 22 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
17 21 (1.24%) Police
18 19 (1.12%) Billing
19 16 (0.95%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 251 (14.85%) Architect
2 171 (10.12%) Analyst
3 139 (8.22%) Lead
4 127 (7.51%) Senior
5 110 (6.51%) Developer
6 80 (4.73%) Consultant
7 76 (4.50%) Project Manager
8 68 (4.02%) Business Analyst
9 67 (3.96%) Solutions Architect
10 60 (3.55%) Security Architect
11 51 (3.02%) Administrator
12 46 (2.72%) Security Engineer
13 37 (2.19%) Information Officer
13 37 (2.19%) Support Engineer
14 33 (1.95%) Information Governance Officer
15 32 (1.89%) Data Analyst
16 30 (1.78%) Data Engineer
17 29 (1.72%) Network Engineer
18 27 (1.60%) Data Architect
19 26 (1.54%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (5.80%) Terraform
2 93 (5.50%) REST
3 40 (2.37%) Kafka
4 38 (2.25%) OAuth
5 35 (2.07%) JSON
6 31 (1.83%) Middleware
7 30 (1.78%) React
8 29 (1.72%) Spring
9 27 (1.60%) Spring Boot
10 26 (1.54%) HTML
10 26 (1.54%) RESTful
11 25 (1.48%) OAuth2
12 24 (1.42%) .NET
12 24 (1.42%) CSS
13 20 (1.18%) Node.js
13 20 (1.18%) OpenID
14 16 (0.95%) SOAP
15 14 (0.83%) SAML
16 13 (0.77%) Swagger
16 13 (0.77%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 700 (41.42%) Data Protection Act
2 126 (7.46%) Management Information System
3 101 (5.98%) Product Ownership
4 94 (5.56%) Onboarding
5 93 (5.50%) Cloud Native
6 61 (3.61%) Data Centre
7 57 (3.37%) Distributed Systems
8 44 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
9 43 (2.54%) Freedom of Information
10 42 (2.49%) Security Posture
11 40 (2.37%) Virtual Team
12 31 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
12 31 (1.83%) NHS
13 30 (1.78%) Self-Motivation
14 29 (1.72%) Operational Technology
15 24 (1.42%) AI Agents
15 24 (1.42%) Data Structures
16 23 (1.36%) Mobile App
17 21 (1.24%) Private Cloud
18 20 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 130 (7.69%) Windows
2 80 (4.73%) Linux
3 35 (2.07%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.89%) Android
4 32 (1.89%) Apple iOS
5 29 (1.72%) Unix
6 22 (1.30%) Mac OS
7 16 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (0.83%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.47%) zOS
10 4 (0.24%) VMS
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) HPUX
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.059%) MVS
12 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 402 (23.79%) Stakeholder Management
2 324 (19.17%) Agile
3 295 (17.46%) Problem-Solving
4 288 (17.04%) Continuous Improvement
5 246 (14.56%) CI/CD
6 234 (13.85%) AI
7 230 (13.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 228 (13.49%) Cybersecurity
9 226 (13.37%) Migration
10 215 (12.72%) DevOps
11 166 (9.82%) Decision-Making
11 166 (9.82%) Roadmaps
12 165 (9.76%) Risk Management
13 159 (9.41%) Information Security
14 151 (8.93%) Data Governance
15 148 (8.76%) Infrastructure as Code
16 144 (8.52%) Analytics
17 141 (8.34%) Validation
18 119 (7.04%) Information Governance
18 119 (7.04%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 212 (12.54%) Python
2 169 (10.00%) SQL
3 88 (5.21%) Java
4 61 (3.61%) PowerShell
5 50 (2.96%) JavaScript
6 33 (1.95%) Bash
7 28 (1.66%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.48%) Go
9 18 (1.07%) Bicep
9 18 (1.07%) C#
10 15 (0.89%) Kotlin
10 15 (0.89%) Scala
11 14 (0.83%) Apex Code
12 12 (0.71%) Perl
13 9 (0.53%) C
13 9 (0.53%) C++
14 8 (0.47%) VB
15 7 (0.41%) COBOL
15 7 (0.41%) VB6
16 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 275 (16.27%) Security Cleared
2 203 (12.01%) SC Cleared
3 114 (6.75%) Degree
4 88 (5.21%) CISSP
5 61 (3.61%) DV Cleared
6 54 (3.20%) CISM
7 48 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 47 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (1.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 29 (1.72%) Azure Certification
9 29 (1.72%) PMI Certification
10 27 (1.60%) PMP
11 26 (1.54%) CCSP
12 25 (1.48%) Computer Science Degree
13 17 (1.01%) AWS Certification
14 13 (0.77%) CCNP
14 13 (0.77%) CRISC
15 12 (0.71%) CISA
16 11 (0.65%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 246 (14.56%) GDPR
2 117 (6.92%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 74 (4.38%) NIST
5 70 (4.14%) QA
6 54 (3.20%) GRC
7 49 (2.90%) Accessibility
8 29 (1.72%) PCI DSS
9 22 (1.30%) NCSC
10 21 (1.24%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (1.18%) PMO
12 14 (0.83%) SLA
13 13 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.65%) PERC
15 11 (0.65%) WCAG
16 10 (0.59%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
17 9 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 83 (4.91%) Active Directory
2 68 (4.02%) Docker
3 60 (3.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (1.01%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.77%) vSphere
6 12 (0.71%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.36%) NFS
9 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.24%) ISA Server
10 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) IAG
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
11 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.059%) KVM
12 1 (0.059%) OpenSSH
12 1 (0.059%) XenApp
12 1 (0.059%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 119 (7.04%) Kubernetes
2 48 (2.84%) Ansible
3 38 (2.25%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.54%) Grafana
5 21 (1.24%) SCCM
6 14 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.77%) Kibana
7 13 (0.77%) NetBackup
7 13 (0.77%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.71%) Progress Chef
9 10 (0.59%) Puppet
10 7 (0.41%) CASB
11 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
12 5 (0.30%) QRadar
12 5 (0.30%) SCOM
13 4 (0.24%) Control-M
Vendors
1 373 (22.07%) Microsoft
2 93 (5.50%) ServiceNow
3 84 (4.97%) Google
4 71 (4.20%) Cisco
5 64 (3.79%) Oracle
6 61 (3.61%) VMware
7 46 (2.72%) Databricks
8 44 (2.60%) Splunk
9 36 (2.13%) SAP
10 30 (1.78%) Salesforce
11 28 (1.66%) Zscaler
12 21 (1.24%) Workday
13 20 (1.18%) IBM
14 17 (1.01%) CyberArk
14 17 (1.01%) Dell
14 17 (1.01%) F5
15 16 (0.95%) Red Hat
16 14 (0.83%) Dynatrace
16 14 (0.83%) MuleSoft
17 12 (0.71%) SolarWinds