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 24 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 76 85
Rank change year-on-year -8 +9 -1
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,689 1,092 989
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.31% 2.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.64% 3.66% 3.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 871 517 523
10th Percentile £260 £289 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £372
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £607
90th Percentile £688 £675 £723
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 £20.40 £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 46,342 29,835 32,681
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.41% 90.50% 85.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,074 18,533 19,873
10th Percentile £325 £300 £309
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 £626 £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 3,192 1,836 1,405
10th Percentile £13.74 £14.31 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.32 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -14 1,405 £500 - 1,798
UK excluding London -1 945 £450 -2.17% 1,054
London -24 593 £525 +0.48% 847
Work from Home +4 467 £500 +7.53% 695
North of England +11 340 £463 +2.78% 316
South East +6 198 £475 -5.94% 255
Yorkshire +11 173 £475 -6.17% 120
Midlands +3 160 £450 -5.26% 156
North West +11 146 £450 +2.27% 168
West Midlands +10 128 £450 -10.00% 103
Scotland -14 121 £444 +4.41% 70
South West -19 69 £450 +9.09% 92
East of England -18 35 £500 +5.26% 109
East Midlands -11 32 £435 +8.75% 53
North East -50 22 £463 +15.63% 31
Wales -2 21 £413 - 34
Northern Ireland +4 15 £110 -81.63% 26
Channel Islands -5 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 69 (4.09%) SharePoint
2 39 (2.31%) Confluence
3 24 (1.42%) Apache Airflow
3 24 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.07%) Apache Spark
5 12 (0.71%) Apache
5 12 (0.71%) IIS
6 11 (0.65%) CMS
7 10 (0.59%) SAS
8 6 (0.36%) 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
11 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.12%) Drupal
12 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
13 1 (0.059%) Cloud Foundry
13 1 (0.059%) WebSphere
Applications
1 48 (2.84%) Microsoft Office
2 47 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
3 8 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.36%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
6 1 (0.059%) Maya
6 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%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.059%) Eloqua
8 1 (0.059%) Maximo
8 1 (0.059%) Sage 50
8 1 (0.059%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 378 (22.38%) Azure
2 304 (18.00%) AWS
3 139 (8.23%) GCP
4 134 (7.93%) Microsoft 365
5 79 (4.68%) Entra ID
5 79 (4.68%) Power Platform
6 75 (4.44%) SaaS
7 64 (3.79%) Azure DevOps
8 61 (3.61%) GitHub
9 56 (3.32%) Microsoft Purview
10 48 (2.84%) Serverless
11 39 (2.31%) Microsoft Copilot
12 28 (1.66%) OneDrive
13 27 (1.60%) OpenShift
14 26 (1.54%) AWS Lambda
15 25 (1.48%) GitHub Actions
16 22 (1.30%) Power Automate
16 22 (1.30%) PowerApps
17 20 (1.18%) Amazon S3
17 20 (1.18%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 93 (5.51%) Network Security
2 63 (3.73%) Firewall
3 37 (2.19%) VPN
4 36 (2.13%) DNS
5 26 (1.54%) DHCP
5 26 (1.54%) TCP/IP
6 23 (1.36%) WAN
7 19 (1.12%) Cisco IPT
7 19 (1.12%) LAN
8 15 (0.89%) SAN
9 14 (0.83%) SSL
9 14 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
10 13 (0.77%) MPLS
10 13 (0.77%) Wireless
11 10 (0.59%) HTTP
11 10 (0.59%) VoIP
12 9 (0.53%) Cisco ISE
12 9 (0.53%) Intrusion Detection
12 9 (0.53%) NAS
12 9 (0.53%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (3.49%) Power BI
2 55 (3.26%) Metadata
3 45 (2.66%) Relational Database
4 38 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
5 33 (1.95%) SQL Server
6 31 (1.84%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.42%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.30%) Data Lake
9 21 (1.24%) BigQuery
10 16 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
10 16 (0.95%) MySQL
11 15 (0.89%) Big Data
12 13 (0.77%) MongoDB
13 11 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
14 10 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
15 9 (0.53%) DynamoDB
15 9 (0.53%) Oracle Database
16 8 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
16 8 (0.47%) Redis
17 7 (0.41%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 84 (4.97%) JIRA
2 68 (4.03%) Git
3 58 (3.43%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.54%) GitLab
5 18 (1.07%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Maven
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.59%) Postman
7 8 (0.47%) 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%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) ERwin
11 3 (0.18%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 663 (39.25%) Social Skills
2 361 (21.37%) Finance
3 249 (14.74%) Legal
4 214 (12.67%) Analytical Skills
5 213 (12.61%) Public Sector
6 118 (6.99%) Banking
7 80 (4.74%) Organisational Skills
8 76 (4.50%) Documentation Skills
9 45 (2.66%) Local Government
10 44 (2.61%) Influencing Skills
11 40 (2.37%) Retail
12 39 (2.31%) Presentation Skills
13 33 (1.95%) Law
14 28 (1.66%) Front Office
15 27 (1.60%) Marketing
16 26 (1.54%) Telecoms
17 21 (1.24%) Billing
17 21 (1.24%) Pharmaceutical
17 21 (1.24%) Police
18 16 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 252 (14.92%) Architect
2 170 (10.07%) Analyst
3 139 (8.23%) Lead
4 126 (7.46%) Senior
5 114 (6.75%) Developer
6 81 (4.80%) Consultant
7 74 (4.38%) Project Manager
8 68 (4.03%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (3.97%) Business Analyst
10 60 (3.55%) Security Architect
11 50 (2.96%) Administrator
12 44 (2.61%) Security Engineer
13 37 (2.19%) Information Officer
13 37 (2.19%) Support Engineer
14 33 (1.95%) Data Analyst
14 33 (1.95%) Information Governance Officer
15 29 (1.72%) Data Engineer
15 29 (1.72%) Network Engineer
16 26 (1.54%) Data Architect
16 26 (1.54%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (5.74%) Terraform
2 93 (5.51%) REST
3 41 (2.43%) Kafka
4 38 (2.25%) OAuth
5 37 (2.19%) JSON
6 32 (1.89%) React
7 31 (1.84%) Middleware
7 31 (1.84%) Spring
8 29 (1.72%) Spring Boot
9 27 (1.60%) RESTful
10 26 (1.54%) HTML
11 25 (1.48%) OAuth2
12 24 (1.42%) .NET
12 24 (1.42%) CSS
13 22 (1.30%) Node.js
14 20 (1.18%) OpenID
15 16 (0.95%) SOAP
16 15 (0.89%) YAML
17 14 (0.83%) SAML
18 13 (0.77%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 705 (41.74%) Data Protection Act
2 122 (7.22%) Management Information System
3 101 (5.98%) Product Ownership
4 94 (5.57%) Onboarding
5 92 (5.45%) Cloud Native
6 61 (3.61%) Data Centre
7 57 (3.37%) Distributed Systems
8 44 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
9 43 (2.55%) Freedom of Information
10 41 (2.43%) Security Posture
11 40 (2.37%) Virtual Team
12 31 (1.84%) NHS
13 30 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
13 30 (1.78%) Self-Motivation
14 28 (1.66%) Operational Technology
15 23 (1.36%) AI Agents
16 22 (1.30%) Data Structures
16 22 (1.30%) Mobile App
17 21 (1.24%) Private Cloud
18 20 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 129 (7.64%) Windows
2 81 (4.80%) Linux
3 34 (2.01%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.95%) Android
4 33 (1.95%) 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
1 390 (23.09%) Stakeholder Management
2 324 (19.18%) Agile
3 291 (17.23%) Problem-Solving
4 284 (16.81%) Continuous Improvement
5 248 (14.68%) CI/CD
6 231 (13.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 228 (13.50%) AI
8 226 (13.38%) Cybersecurity
9 222 (13.14%) Migration
10 216 (12.79%) DevOps
11 165 (9.77%) Decision-Making
12 162 (9.59%) Risk Management
13 161 (9.53%) Roadmaps
14 156 (9.24%) Information Security
15 149 (8.82%) Data Governance
16 145 (8.58%) Infrastructure as Code
17 144 (8.53%) Analytics
18 142 (8.41%) Validation
19 121 (7.16%) Test Automation
20 117 (6.93%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 214 (12.67%) Python
2 168 (9.95%) SQL
3 93 (5.51%) Java
4 58 (3.43%) PowerShell
5 50 (2.96%) JavaScript
6 31 (1.84%) Bash
7 28 (1.66%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.48%) Go
9 18 (1.07%) C#
10 15 (0.89%) Bicep
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%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 273 (16.16%) Security Cleared
2 202 (11.96%) SC Cleared
3 114 (6.75%) Degree
4 87 (5.15%) CISSP
5 61 (3.61%) DV Cleared
6 53 (3.14%) CISM
7 48 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 46 (2.72%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (1.72%) Azure Certification
9 29 (1.72%) PMI Certification
10 28 (1.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 27 (1.60%) PMP
12 25 (1.48%) Computer Science Degree
13 24 (1.42%) CCSP
14 16 (0.95%) AWS Certification
15 13 (0.77%) CCNP
16 12 (0.71%) CISA
16 12 (0.71%) CRISC
17 11 (0.65%) Master's Degree
17 11 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (14.45%) GDPR
2 115 (6.81%) Data Quality
3 101 (5.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 73 (4.32%) NIST
5 70 (4.14%) QA
6 54 (3.20%) GRC
7 48 (2.84%) Accessibility
8 28 (1.66%) 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%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.65%) PERC
15 11 (0.65%) WCAG
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 84 (4.97%) Active Directory
2 66 (3.91%) Docker
3 60 (3.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.07%) 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 3 (0.18%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.12%) Firmware
12 2 (0.12%) GPFS
12 2 (0.12%) IAG
12 2 (0.12%) Varnish
13 1 (0.059%) KVM
13 1 (0.059%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.059%) XenApp
13 1 (0.059%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 117 (6.93%) Kubernetes
2 47 (2.78%) Ansible
3 38 (2.25%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.54%) Grafana
5 22 (1.30%) 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
9 11 (0.65%) Progress Chef
10 10 (0.59%) Puppet
11 7 (0.41%) CASB
12 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
13 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
13 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
13 5 (0.30%) QRadar
13 5 (0.30%) SCOM
14 4 (0.24%) Control-M
Vendors
1 369 (21.85%) Microsoft
2 94 (5.57%) ServiceNow
3 79 (4.68%) Google
4 72 (4.26%) Cisco
5 67 (3.97%) Oracle
6 61 (3.61%) VMware
7 45 (2.66%) Splunk
8 44 (2.61%) Databricks
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 18 (1.07%) CyberArk
15 17 (1.01%) Dell
15 17 (1.01%) F5
16 16 (0.95%) Red Hat
17 14 (0.83%) Dynatrace
17 14 (0.83%) MuleSoft
18 12 (0.71%) NetApp