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 7 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 97 86
Rank change year-on-year +23 -11 +18
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,482 772 1,092
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.25% 2.64% 2.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.80% 2.91% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 810 398 611
10th Percentile £299 £263 £219
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £598 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £465
% change year-on-year -5.26% +2.15% -3.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 29 108
10th Percentile £15.72 £18.05 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.73 £20.75 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.00 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.59% +48.72% -70.45%
75th Percentile £25.50 £33.40 £27.13
90th Percentile £58.00 £42.60 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.12 £19.50
% change year-on-year -28.87% +49.31% -70.45%

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 38,955 26,496 37,900
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.44% 90.55% 86.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,674 17,197 24,574
10th Percentile £314 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,314 992 2,359
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.02 £19.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £36.00 £31.51 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.25% -4.52% -11.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.48 £70.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.87 £30.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +19.55% -7.69% -11.69%

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 7 April 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 7 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Protection in the UK

Data Protection
Top 17 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 7 April 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 +29 1,269 £500 - 369
UK excluding London +12 797 £450 -5.26% 290
London +30 592 £525 - 130
Work from Home +35 376 £500 - 149
North of England -6 252 £487 +2.53% 83
South East +27 185 £495 -4.72% 76
Yorkshire -6 148 £493 -6.19% 26
Scotland +11 119 £405 -13.38% 13
Midlands -18 111 £459 -8.25% 53
North West +6 96 £481 +5.77% 52
West Midlands -28 70 £500 -2.44% 26
South West +13 65 £425 +9.68% 30
East of England -3 48 £450 -20.00% 33
East Midlands -4 41 £438 +6.06% 27
Wales +5 17 £375 -11.76% 5
North East -26 9 £400 -15.79% 5
Northern Ireland -2 4 £500 +1.63% 1

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 57 (3.85%) Confluence
2 35 (2.36%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.35%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.54%) Apache
5 8 (0.54%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.20%) CMS
7 3 (0.20%) Ethereum
7 3 (0.20%) Hyperledger
7 3 (0.20%) nginx
8 2 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.13%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.13%) Drupal
8 2 (0.13%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.13%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
8 2 (0.13%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.067%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.067%) Mule
Applications
1 54 (3.64%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (2.56%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (0.88%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.40%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.40%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.20%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.067%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.067%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.067%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.067%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.067%) Blender
8 1 (0.067%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.067%) InVision
8 1 (0.067%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.067%) Sketch
8 1 (0.067%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.81%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.34%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
5 5 (0.34%) SAP GRC
6 4 (0.27%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.27%) ResourceLink
6 4 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 3 (0.20%) Distributed Ledger
7 3 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.20%) R3 Corda
8 2 (0.13%) Fidessa
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
8 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.13%) Workfront
9 1 (0.067%) BambooHR
Cloud Services
1 298 (20.11%) Azure
2 244 (16.46%) AWS
3 133 (8.97%) GCP
4 82 (5.53%) Microsoft 365
4 82 (5.53%) Power Platform
5 75 (5.06%) Entra ID
6 66 (4.45%) GitHub
7 50 (3.37%) SaaS
7 50 (3.37%) Serverless
8 44 (2.97%) Microsoft Purview
9 41 (2.77%) OpenShift
10 38 (2.56%) Azure DevOps
11 34 (2.29%) AWS Lambda
12 32 (2.16%) Snowflake
13 31 (2.09%) AWS CloudFormation
14 30 (2.02%) Amazon S3
15 24 (1.62%) GitHub Actions
16 21 (1.42%) Microsoft Copilot
16 21 (1.42%) PaaS
17 20 (1.35%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 51 (3.44%) Network Security
2 38 (2.56%) Firewall
2 38 (2.56%) SAN
3 25 (1.69%) VPN
4 23 (1.55%) NAS
5 20 (1.35%) WAN
6 18 (1.21%) LAN
6 18 (1.21%) MPLS
7 17 (1.15%) DNS
8 15 (1.01%) Cisco IPT
9 12 (0.81%) TCP/IP
10 11 (0.74%) Fibre Channel
10 11 (0.74%) SD-WAN
10 11 (0.74%) VLAN
11 10 (0.67%) DHCP
11 10 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (0.61%) BGP
12 9 (0.61%) iSCSI
13 8 (0.54%) IPv4
13 8 (0.54%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.86%) Power BI
2 36 (2.43%) Metadata
2 36 (2.43%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (2.36%) SQL Server
4 31 (2.09%) MySQL
5 29 (1.96%) Data Warehouse
6 24 (1.62%) Relational Database
7 20 (1.35%) Data Lake
8 18 (1.21%) DynamoDB
9 17 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
9 17 (1.15%) MongoDB
9 17 (1.15%) NoSQL
10 15 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (0.88%) Big Data
11 13 (0.88%) Tableau
12 12 (0.81%) Oracle Database
13 10 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 9 (0.61%) BigQuery
15 8 (0.54%) Aerospike
15 8 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 89 (6.01%) JIRA
2 62 (4.18%) Jenkins
3 61 (4.12%) Git
4 38 (2.56%) GitLab
5 12 (0.81%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.67%) JUnit
7 9 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.47%) Maven
9 6 (0.40%) NUnit
10 5 (0.34%) Flyway
10 5 (0.34%) Gradle
10 5 (0.34%) Postman
10 5 (0.34%) Team Foundation Server
11 4 (0.27%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.27%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.27%) Liquibase
12 3 (0.20%) IntelliJ
12 3 (0.20%) Katalon Studio
12 3 (0.20%) Selenium
12 3 (0.20%) TestNG
General
1 454 (30.63%) Social Skills
2 337 (22.74%) Finance
3 189 (12.75%) Analytical Skills
4 172 (11.61%) Legal
5 138 (9.31%) Public Sector
6 119 (8.03%) Banking
7 61 (4.12%) Organisational Skills
8 53 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
9 40 (2.70%) Telecoms
10 35 (2.36%) Marketing
11 31 (2.09%) Front Office
12 30 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
13 27 (1.82%) Law
13 27 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
14 25 (1.69%) Local Government
15 22 (1.48%) Retail
16 19 (1.28%) Police
17 13 (0.88%) Manufacturing
18 11 (0.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 11 (0.74%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 187 (12.62%) Architect
2 155 (10.46%) Analyst
3 125 (8.43%) Developer
4 117 (7.89%) Lead
5 101 (6.82%) Senior
6 86 (5.80%) Consultant
7 70 (4.72%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.52%) Business Analyst
9 55 (3.71%) Solutions Architect
10 40 (2.70%) Java Developer
11 36 (2.43%) Data Engineer
11 36 (2.43%) Security Architect
12 35 (2.36%) Security Engineer
13 34 (2.29%) Administrator
14 32 (2.16%) Network Engineer
15 29 (1.96%) Technical Architect
16 27 (1.82%) Data Analyst
17 24 (1.62%) Data Protection Officer
18 21 (1.42%) Python Developer
19 20 (1.35%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (4.32%) REST
2 60 (4.05%) React
3 43 (2.90%) Spring
4 38 (2.56%) Spring Boot
5 37 (2.50%) .NET
6 31 (2.09%) Node.js
7 30 (2.02%) Kafka
8 28 (1.89%) Middleware
9 27 (1.82%) RESTful
10 26 (1.75%) HTML
11 25 (1.69%) OAuth
12 23 (1.55%) CSS
12 23 (1.55%) Jest
13 18 (1.21%) HTML5
13 18 (1.21%) Redux
14 17 (1.15%) Oracle Fusion
14 17 (1.15%) Spring MVC
15 16 (1.08%) CSS3
15 16 (1.08%) Playwright
16 15 (1.01%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 695 (46.90%) Data Protection Act
2 81 (5.47%) Cloud Native
3 69 (4.66%) Product Ownership
4 66 (4.45%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.44%) Management Information System
6 35 (2.36%) NHS
7 31 (2.09%) Distributed Systems
7 31 (2.09%) Security Posture
8 30 (2.02%) Replication
9 29 (1.96%) Hybrid Cloud
10 28 (1.89%) Legacy Systems
11 27 (1.82%) Data Centre
12 23 (1.55%) Enterprise Storage
13 21 (1.42%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 20 (1.35%) Freedom of Information
15 18 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
16 17 (1.15%) Virtual Team
17 16 (1.08%) Data Structures
17 16 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
18 15 (1.01%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 99 (6.68%) Windows
2 73 (4.93%) Linux
3 22 (1.48%) Unix
4 19 (1.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (1.21%) Windows Server
6 15 (1.01%) VMS
7 13 (0.88%) Android
7 13 (0.88%) Windows 10
8 12 (0.81%) Mac OS
9 11 (0.74%) Apple iOS
10 9 (0.61%) zOS
11 7 (0.47%) Data ONTAP
12 6 (0.40%) CoreOS
13 5 (0.34%) Solaris
14 4 (0.27%) AIX
15 2 (0.13%) Rocky
15 2 (0.13%) Ubuntu
16 1 (0.067%) CentOS
16 1 (0.067%) Oracle Linux
16 1 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 259 (17.48%) Problem-Solving
2 253 (17.07%) Stakeholder Management
3 252 (17.00%) Agile
4 223 (15.05%) Migration
5 201 (13.56%) CI/CD
6 200 (13.50%) DevOps
7 188 (12.69%) Continuous Improvement
8 147 (9.92%) Analytics
9 146 (9.85%) Cybersecurity
10 138 (9.31%) Roadmaps
11 134 (9.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 130 (8.77%) AI
13 124 (8.37%) Risk Management
14 113 (7.62%) Decision-Making
15 106 (7.15%) Information Security
16 103 (6.95%) Data Governance
16 103 (6.95%) Infrastructure as Code
17 98 (6.61%) Project Management
18 95 (6.41%) Test Automation
19 93 (6.28%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 214 (14.44%) Python
2 190 (12.82%) SQL
3 126 (8.50%) Java
4 70 (4.72%) JavaScript
5 57 (3.85%) PowerShell
6 53 (3.58%) C#
7 40 (2.70%) Bash
8 37 (2.50%) TypeScript
9 18 (1.21%) Bicep
10 12 (0.81%) C++
11 11 (0.74%) Perl
12 10 (0.67%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.54%) ActionScript
13 8 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
13 8 (0.54%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.40%) ActionScript 2.0
15 5 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 5 (0.34%) Groovy
15 5 (0.34%) R
16 4 (0.27%) Go
Qualifications
1 199 (13.43%) Security Cleared
2 142 (9.58%) SC Cleared
3 124 (8.37%) Degree
4 59 (3.98%) CISSP
5 53 (3.58%) DV Cleared
6 35 (2.36%) CISM
7 33 (2.23%) Computer Science Degree
8 27 (1.82%) PMI Certification
9 26 (1.75%) Azure Certification
9 26 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
10 25 (1.69%) AWS Certification
10 25 (1.69%) PMP
11 23 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
12 21 (1.42%) Master's Degree
13 20 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
14 14 (0.94%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 12 (0.81%) CCSP
15 12 (0.81%) CTC Cleared
16 10 (0.67%) CCNP
17 9 (0.61%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 269 (18.15%) GDPR
2 97 (6.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 95 (6.41%) NIST
4 70 (4.72%) Data Quality
5 64 (4.32%) QA
6 32 (2.16%) PCI DSS
7 30 (2.02%) GRC
8 28 (1.89%) Accessibility
9 26 (1.75%) PMO
10 24 (1.62%) SLA
11 18 (1.21%) NCSC
12 17 (1.15%) SOC 2
13 14 (0.94%) Disclosure Scotland
14 12 (0.81%) PERC
15 10 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 9 (0.61%) NIST 800
17 8 (0.54%) HIPAA
18 7 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
19 6 (0.40%) COBIT
20 5 (0.34%) WCAG
System Software
1 72 (4.86%) Active Directory
1 72 (4.86%) Docker
2 55 (3.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (1.35%) NFS
4 19 (1.28%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.61%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.61%) VMware NSX
6 9 (0.61%) vSphere
7 6 (0.40%) KVM
8 5 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (0.27%) Time Sharing Option
9 4 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.20%) IAG
11 2 (0.13%) Firmware
11 2 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
11 2 (0.13%) XenApp
11 2 (0.13%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.067%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 111 (7.49%) Kubernetes
2 104 (7.02%) Terraform
3 66 (4.45%) Ansible
4 37 (2.50%) Grafana
5 30 (2.02%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (2.02%) NetBackup
6 23 (1.55%) Prometheus
7 20 (1.35%) SCCM
7 20 (1.35%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (1.01%) Puppet
9 10 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 7 (0.47%) SnapMirror
11 5 (0.34%) Control-M
11 5 (0.34%) EMC NetWorker
11 5 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
11 5 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
11 5 (0.34%) RSA Archer
11 5 (0.34%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 4 (0.27%) CA Single Sign-On
12 4 (0.27%) Foglight
Vendors
1 231 (15.59%) Microsoft
2 74 (4.99%) Oracle
3 68 (4.59%) Google
4 56 (3.78%) VMware
5 53 (3.58%) Databricks
6 45 (3.04%) ServiceNow
7 44 (2.97%) Cisco
8 40 (2.70%) SAP
9 36 (2.43%) Salesforce
10 34 (2.29%) Red Hat
11 24 (1.62%) NetApp
12 22 (1.48%) Veritas
13 21 (1.42%) Commvault
14 20 (1.35%) Citrix
14 20 (1.35%) IBM
15 19 (1.28%) F5
16 18 (1.21%) Splunk
17 16 (1.08%) Veeam
18 15 (1.01%) Adobe
19 14 (0.94%) Informatica