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 10 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 78 89
Rank change year-on-year -7 +11 -3
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,642 1,017 955
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.07% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.63% 3.39% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 876 502 516
10th Percentile £313 £289 £200
25th Percentile £402 £379 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £592 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +1.67% -2.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 46 50
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £15.86 £14.78 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.00 £17.00 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +23.53% -17.07% -50.05%
75th Percentile £33.53 £27.91 £28.75
90th Percentile £36.96 £34.66 £67.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.27 £15.25 £18.11
% change year-on-year +32.92% -15.79% -41.11%

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 45,268 29,990 33,185
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.86% 90.46% 85.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,853 18,764 21,291
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £729 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,826 1,696 1,837
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.89 £17.30 £18.35
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -38.57% -3.67%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +13.33%

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 10 August 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 10 August 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 10 August 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 -2 1,402 £500 +3.63% 833
UK excluding London +2 884 £473 +1.67% 502
London -10 629 £525 +5.00% 392
Work from Home +22 482 £500 +5.82% 323
North of England +17 326 £475 +2.65% 135
South East 0 195 £495 -5.81% 139
Yorkshire -3 173 £475 -5.00% 55
North West +17 143 £481 +11.59% 63
Midlands -11 133 £472 -5.70% 89
Scotland -6 108 £438 -2.78% 23
West Midlands -22 99 £473 -7.71% 62
South West -21 68 £425 +6.25% 60
East of England 0 35 £550 +15.79% 48
East Midlands +11 34 £447 +27.71% 27
Wales -9 18 £413 +39.24% 14
Northern Ireland +5 11 £104 -78.86% 7
North East -54 11 £463 +12.12% 17

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 54 (3.29%) Confluence
2 53 (3.23%) SharePoint
3 25 (1.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.16%) Apache Airflow
4 19 (1.16%) Apache Spark
5 12 (0.73%) Apache
6 6 (0.37%) CMS
6 6 (0.37%) IIS
6 6 (0.37%) SAS
7 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.18%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Camunda
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) WordPress
11 1 (0.061%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.061%) CICS
Applications
1 39 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (2.31%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.061%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.061%) Maya
8 1 (0.061%) Trello
8 1 (0.061%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
5 5 (0.30%) NEC Housing
6 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.18%) SAP GRC
7 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
8 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
8 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
8 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 1 (0.061%) FIS Private Capital Suite
9 1 (0.061%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.061%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.061%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 377 (22.96%) Azure
2 279 (16.99%) AWS
3 144 (8.77%) GCP
4 116 (7.06%) Microsoft 365
5 96 (5.85%) Power Platform
6 84 (5.12%) Entra ID
7 73 (4.45%) SaaS
8 64 (3.90%) GitHub
9 61 (3.71%) Microsoft Purview
10 58 (3.53%) Azure DevOps
11 47 (2.86%) Serverless
12 37 (2.25%) Microsoft Copilot
13 35 (2.13%) OpenShift
14 28 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
15 26 (1.58%) OneDrive
15 26 (1.58%) PowerApps
16 24 (1.46%) Amazon S3
16 24 (1.46%) Power Automate
17 22 (1.34%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (1.34%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 93 (5.66%) Network Security
2 58 (3.53%) Firewall
3 37 (2.25%) DNS
4 34 (2.07%) VPN
5 28 (1.71%) DHCP
6 25 (1.52%) SAN
7 23 (1.40%) TCP/IP
8 20 (1.22%) WAN
9 16 (0.97%) LAN
10 15 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.85%) NAS
12 13 (0.79%) SSL
13 12 (0.73%) Cisco IPT
13 12 (0.73%) Wireless
14 11 (0.67%) HTTP
15 10 (0.61%) MPLS
16 9 (0.55%) Cisco Nexus
16 9 (0.55%) Intrusion Detection
16 9 (0.55%) VoIP
17 8 (0.49%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (4.51%) Power BI
2 46 (2.80%) Metadata
3 39 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (2.31%) Data Warehouse
4 38 (2.31%) SQL Server
5 28 (1.71%) Relational Database
6 24 (1.46%) Data Lake
7 23 (1.40%) NoSQL
8 20 (1.22%) Big Data
9 19 (1.16%) MySQL
10 18 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
11 16 (0.97%) MongoDB
12 15 (0.91%) BigQuery
13 12 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.67%) Oracle Database
15 10 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
15 10 (0.61%) Tableau
16 8 (0.49%) DynamoDB
16 8 (0.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 7 (0.43%) Redis
Development Applications
1 91 (5.54%) JIRA
2 64 (3.90%) Git
3 63 (3.84%) Jenkins
4 34 (2.07%) GitLab
5 10 (0.61%) Maven
6 9 (0.55%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.49%) Postman
8 7 (0.43%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (0.37%) Flyway
9 6 (0.37%) Gradle
9 6 (0.37%) Selenium
9 6 (0.37%) Team Foundation Server
10 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.30%) ERwin
10 5 (0.30%) JUnit
11 4 (0.24%) SpecFlow
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 579 (35.26%) Social Skills
2 359 (21.86%) Finance
3 245 (14.92%) Legal
4 196 (11.94%) Analytical Skills
5 176 (10.72%) Public Sector
6 112 (6.82%) Banking
7 68 (4.14%) Documentation Skills
8 63 (3.84%) Organisational Skills
9 38 (2.31%) Retail
10 37 (2.25%) Local Government
11 36 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
12 31 (1.89%) Law
13 30 (1.83%) Telecoms
14 27 (1.64%) Front Office
15 26 (1.58%) Marketing
16 23 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
17 22 (1.34%) Pharmaceutical
17 22 (1.34%) Police
18 21 (1.28%) Billing
19 16 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 247 (15.04%) Architect
2 154 (9.38%) Analyst
3 140 (8.53%) Lead
4 123 (7.49%) Developer
5 122 (7.43%) Senior
6 92 (5.60%) Consultant
7 84 (5.12%) Project Manager
8 66 (4.02%) Solutions Architect
9 64 (3.90%) Business Analyst
10 54 (3.29%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.56%) Security Engineer
12 41 (2.50%) Data Engineer
13 40 (2.44%) Administrator
14 33 (2.01%) Java Developer
15 32 (1.95%) Support Engineer
16 31 (1.89%) Network Engineer
17 30 (1.83%) Data Analyst
17 30 (1.83%) Technical Architect
18 28 (1.71%) IT Support
19 24 (1.46%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (5.30%) REST
2 42 (2.56%) React
3 35 (2.13%) Middleware
4 34 (2.07%) JSON
4 34 (2.07%) Spring
5 32 (1.95%) Kafka
6 31 (1.89%) CSS
7 30 (1.83%) Spring Boot
8 29 (1.77%) HTML
8 29 (1.77%) OAuth
9 26 (1.58%) RESTful
10 24 (1.46%) .NET
11 18 (1.10%) Node.js
12 17 (1.04%) OpenID
13 15 (0.91%) CSS3
13 15 (0.91%) GraphQL
13 15 (0.91%) HTML5
13 15 (0.91%) OAuth2
14 13 (0.79%) Elastic Stack
14 13 (0.79%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 724 (44.09%) Data Protection Act
2 93 (5.66%) Cloud Native
3 90 (5.48%) Product Ownership
4 75 (4.57%) Onboarding
5 71 (4.32%) Management Information System
6 50 (3.05%) Data Centre
7 46 (2.80%) Distributed Systems
8 42 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
9 41 (2.50%) Virtual Team
10 39 (2.38%) Security Posture
11 27 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
12 24 (1.46%) NHS
12 24 (1.46%) Operational Technology
13 23 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
13 23 (1.40%) Replication
14 21 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
14 21 (1.28%) Mobile App
15 20 (1.22%) Enterprise Storage
16 19 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
17 18 (1.10%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 127 (7.73%) Windows
2 79 (4.81%) Linux
3 31 (1.89%) Android
3 31 (1.89%) Apple iOS
4 27 (1.64%) Unix
4 27 (1.64%) Windows Server
5 23 (1.40%) Mac OS
6 18 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.85%) Windows 10
8 11 (0.67%) VMS
9 7 (0.43%) zOS
10 4 (0.24%) CoreOS
10 4 (0.24%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Rocky
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 311 (18.94%) Agile
2 307 (18.70%) Stakeholder Management
3 291 (17.72%) Problem-Solving
4 260 (15.83%) Continuous Improvement
5 241 (14.68%) DevOps
6 232 (14.13%) CI/CD
7 215 (13.09%) Migration
8 213 (12.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 206 (12.55%) AI
10 169 (10.29%) Cybersecurity
11 155 (9.44%) Analytics
12 152 (9.26%) Data Governance
12 152 (9.26%) Roadmaps
13 145 (8.83%) Decision-Making
14 132 (8.04%) Risk Management
15 122 (7.43%) Information Security
16 118 (7.19%) Data Modelling
17 115 (7.00%) Infrastructure as Code
17 115 (7.00%) Validation
18 104 (6.33%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 212 (12.91%) Python
2 165 (10.05%) SQL
3 106 (6.46%) Java
4 60 (3.65%) PowerShell
5 55 (3.35%) JavaScript
6 44 (2.68%) Bash
7 26 (1.58%) TypeScript
8 23 (1.40%) C#
9 17 (1.04%) Go
10 14 (0.85%) Kotlin
11 13 (0.79%) Apex Code
11 13 (0.79%) Bicep
12 12 (0.73%) Perl
13 10 (0.61%) C++
14 8 (0.49%) Scala
14 8 (0.49%) VB
15 7 (0.43%) VB6
16 6 (0.37%) C
16 6 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
17 5 (0.30%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 252 (15.35%) Security Cleared
2 191 (11.63%) SC Cleared
3 113 (6.88%) Degree
4 84 (5.12%) CISSP
5 57 (3.47%) DV Cleared
6 49 (2.98%) CISM
7 34 (2.07%) Azure Certification
7 34 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.95%) Computer Science Degree
9 31 (1.89%) PMI Certification
10 28 (1.71%) PMP
11 21 (1.28%) AWS Certification
12 19 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
13 17 (1.04%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 15 (0.91%) CCSP
15 12 (0.73%) Master's Degree
16 10 (0.61%) CCNP
16 10 (0.61%) CISA
17 9 (0.55%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 249 (15.16%) GDPR
2 99 (6.03%) Data Quality
3 90 (5.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (4.81%) NIST
5 76 (4.63%) QA
6 44 (2.68%) GRC
7 41 (2.50%) Accessibility
8 25 (1.52%) PMO
9 23 (1.40%) PCI DSS
10 20 (1.22%) SLA
11 18 (1.10%) NCSC
12 14 (0.85%) SOC 2
13 13 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.73%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.67%) PERC
15 11 (0.67%) WCAG
16 9 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 8 (0.49%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 92 (5.60%) Active Directory
2 66 (4.02%) Docker
3 53 (3.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.10%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.79%) NFS
6 10 (0.61%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.61%) vSphere
7 9 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.43%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) KVM
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) Firmware
13 2 (0.12%) IAG
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 114 (6.94%) Kubernetes
2 86 (5.24%) Terraform
3 54 (3.29%) Ansible
4 42 (2.56%) Microsoft Intune
5 32 (1.95%) Grafana
6 27 (1.64%) NetBackup
7 23 (1.40%) SCCM
8 20 (1.22%) Prometheus
9 19 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
10 17 (1.04%) Puppet
11 13 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.55%) Progress Chef
13 8 (0.49%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.43%) Kibana
15 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
15 5 (0.30%) QRadar
16 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.24%) SCOM
16 4 (0.24%) SnapMirror
16 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 313 (19.06%) Microsoft
2 84 (5.12%) ServiceNow
3 73 (4.45%) Oracle
4 65 (3.96%) Google
5 54 (3.29%) Cisco
5 54 (3.29%) VMware
6 51 (3.11%) Databricks
7 38 (2.31%) SAP
8 35 (2.13%) Splunk
9 29 (1.77%) Red Hat
10 28 (1.71%) Salesforce
11 25 (1.52%) Workday
12 23 (1.40%) CyberArk
12 23 (1.40%) Zscaler
13 22 (1.34%) NetApp
14 20 (1.22%) Veritas
15 17 (1.04%) Citrix
16 16 (0.97%) F5
16 16 (0.97%) IBM
17 15 (0.91%) Dell