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 1 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 84 87
Rank change year-on-year +11 +3 +4
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,628 881 1,047
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.17% 2.86% 2.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.73% 3.15% 2.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 889 425 549
10th Percentile £300 £263 £214
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £594
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £469 £463
% change year-on-year -4.05% +1.41% -2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 37 107
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.78 £12.40
25th Percentile £16.62 £15.13 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £19.50 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.49% - -46.24%
75th Percentile £33.64 £32.50 £27.50
90th Percentile £37.70 £36.69 £41.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £15.25 £19.50
% change year-on-year +39.34% -21.79% -35.00%

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 43,674 27,949 36,811
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.97% 90.88% 85.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,163 17,650 23,450
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £414 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.79% -4.57% -4.55%
75th Percentile £621 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,623 1,373 2,554
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.74
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.61 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +3.81%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.86 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +75.84% -34.42% +8.91%

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 1 July 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 1 July 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 1 July 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 +12 1,376 £500 +3.09% 482
UK excluding London +15 908 £450 -4.05% 343
London +5 604 £525 +5.00% 200
Work from Home +19 459 £500 +5.82% 218
North of England +11 313 £475 - 89
South East +21 196 £480 -10.86% 81
Yorkshire -5 176 £475 -5.00% 30
Midlands -6 139 £459 -8.25% 72
Scotland +3 134 £425 -0.93% 14
North West +31 130 £488 +14.71% 49
West Midlands -15 97 £474 -9.71% 43
South West -3 66 £425 +6.25% 54
East of England +9 44 £500 -4.76% 17
East Midlands +11 42 £442 +18.33% 29
Wales -8 13 £375 +26.58% 18
Northern Ireland +6 10 £104 -78.86% 7
North East -43 9 £450 +14.29% 12

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 60 (3.69%) SharePoint
2 58 (3.56%) Confluence
3 25 (1.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.11%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
6 9 (0.55%) Apache
7 6 (0.37%) IIS
8 5 (0.31%) CMS
8 5 (0.31%) SAS
8 5 (0.31%) Tuxedo
9 3 (0.18%) nginx
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.12%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.12%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
11 1 (0.061%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 45 (2.76%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.86%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.31%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.25%) UserZoom
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.061%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.061%) Maya
9 1 (0.061%) Trello
9 1 (0.061%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.68%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.43%) Aladdin
4 6 (0.37%) NEC Housing
4 6 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
5 5 (0.31%) SAP GRC
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.12%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.061%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.061%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.061%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 350 (21.50%) Azure
2 260 (15.97%) AWS
3 135 (8.29%) GCP
4 110 (6.76%) Microsoft 365
5 88 (5.41%) Power Platform
6 87 (5.34%) Entra ID
7 67 (4.12%) SaaS
8 64 (3.93%) GitHub
9 55 (3.38%) Microsoft Purview
10 46 (2.83%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (2.64%) OpenShift
12 35 (2.15%) Serverless
13 34 (2.09%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.60%) OneDrive
15 24 (1.47%) Power Automate
15 24 (1.47%) PowerApps
16 22 (1.35%) AWS Lambda
16 22 (1.35%) Snowflake
17 21 (1.29%) Amazon S3
18 20 (1.23%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 87 (5.34%) Network Security
2 51 (3.13%) Firewall
3 34 (2.09%) VPN
4 32 (1.97%) SAN
5 29 (1.78%) DNS
6 25 (1.54%) TCP/IP
7 22 (1.35%) DHCP
7 22 (1.35%) WAN
8 20 (1.23%) NAS
9 16 (0.98%) LAN
10 15 (0.92%) MPLS
11 13 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
12 11 (0.68%) SSL
13 10 (0.61%) HTTP
14 9 (0.55%) Wireless
15 8 (0.49%) VLAN
16 7 (0.43%) Cisco Nexus
16 7 (0.43%) Ethernet
16 7 (0.43%) HTTPS
16 7 (0.43%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.24%) Power BI
2 40 (2.46%) SQL Server
3 38 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
4 37 (2.27%) Metadata
5 26 (1.60%) Relational Database
6 23 (1.41%) Data Warehouse
7 22 (1.35%) MySQL
8 21 (1.29%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.29%) NoSQL
9 20 (1.23%) Big Data
9 20 (1.23%) MongoDB
10 18 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
11 13 (0.80%) Oracle Database
12 11 (0.68%) BigQuery
13 10 (0.61%) DynamoDB
13 10 (0.61%) RDBMS
13 10 (0.61%) Tableau
14 8 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
14 8 (0.49%) Ingres
14 8 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 95 (5.84%) JIRA
2 71 (4.36%) Git
3 56 (3.44%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.15%) GitLab
5 9 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
6 8 (0.49%) JUnit
6 8 (0.49%) Maven
6 8 (0.49%) Oracle Forms
6 8 (0.49%) Postman
7 7 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.37%) Flyway
8 6 (0.37%) Gradle
8 6 (0.37%) SpecFlow
9 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.31%) ERwin
10 4 (0.25%) Selenium
11 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.18%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.18%) TestNG
General
1 543 (33.35%) Social Skills
2 367 (22.54%) Finance
3 235 (14.43%) Legal
4 193 (11.86%) Analytical Skills
5 161 (9.89%) Public Sector
6 114 (7.00%) Banking
7 66 (4.05%) Documentation Skills
8 65 (3.99%) Organisational Skills
9 36 (2.21%) Local Government
10 35 (2.15%) Telecoms
11 32 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
12 29 (1.78%) Retail
13 28 (1.72%) Law
14 26 (1.60%) Front Office
15 23 (1.41%) Marketing
15 23 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
16 20 (1.23%) Pharmaceutical
16 20 (1.23%) Police
17 16 (0.98%) Financial Institution
18 15 (0.92%) Billing
Job Titles
1 228 (14.00%) Architect
2 151 (9.28%) Analyst
3 123 (7.56%) Developer
4 122 (7.49%) Lead
5 120 (7.37%) Senior
6 94 (5.77%) Consultant
7 85 (5.22%) Project Manager
8 69 (4.24%) Business Analyst
9 64 (3.93%) Solutions Architect
10 51 (3.13%) Security Architect
11 43 (2.64%) Data Engineer
12 42 (2.58%) Security Engineer
13 41 (2.52%) Network Engineer
14 39 (2.40%) Java Developer
15 32 (1.97%) Administrator
16 28 (1.72%) Technical Architect
17 27 (1.66%) Data Analyst
18 26 (1.60%) Support Engineer
19 25 (1.54%) IT Support
20 24 (1.47%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (4.73%) REST
2 54 (3.32%) React
3 38 (2.33%) Spring
4 33 (2.03%) CSS
5 32 (1.97%) HTML
5 32 (1.97%) Middleware
5 32 (1.97%) RESTful
5 32 (1.97%) Spring Boot
6 30 (1.84%) Kafka
7 26 (1.60%) JSON
7 26 (1.60%) OAuth
8 24 (1.47%) .NET
9 19 (1.17%) HTML5
9 19 (1.17%) Jest
10 18 (1.11%) CSS3
10 18 (1.11%) Node.js
10 18 (1.11%) PySpark
10 18 (1.11%) Redux
11 17 (1.04%) OpenID
12 15 (0.92%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 728 (44.72%) Data Protection Act
2 94 (5.77%) Cloud Native
3 88 (5.41%) Product Ownership
4 75 (4.61%) Onboarding
5 56 (3.44%) Management Information System
6 45 (2.76%) Data Centre
7 43 (2.64%) Legacy Systems
8 40 (2.46%) Distributed Systems
9 37 (2.27%) Security Posture
10 36 (2.21%) Virtual Team
11 25 (1.54%) NHS
12 24 (1.47%) Hybrid Cloud
13 23 (1.41%) Operational Technology
14 22 (1.35%) Replication
15 21 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
16 19 (1.17%) Data Structures
16 19 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
17 18 (1.11%) Enterprise Storage
18 16 (0.98%) Freedom of Information
18 16 (0.98%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 120 (7.37%) Windows
2 79 (4.85%) Linux
3 30 (1.84%) Unix
4 26 (1.60%) Android
5 25 (1.54%) Apple iOS
5 25 (1.54%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.35%) Mac OS
7 19 (1.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.80%) VMS
9 11 (0.68%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.37%) CoreOS
10 6 (0.37%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (0.37%) zOS
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.061%) CentOS
12 1 (0.061%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.061%) Solaris
12 1 (0.061%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 303 (18.61%) Agile
2 286 (17.57%) Problem-Solving
3 274 (16.83%) Stakeholder Management
4 253 (15.54%) Continuous Improvement
5 234 (14.37%) Migration
6 223 (13.70%) CI/CD
6 223 (13.70%) DevOps
7 176 (10.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 172 (10.57%) AI
9 147 (9.03%) Cybersecurity
10 144 (8.85%) Roadmaps
11 137 (8.42%) Decision-Making
12 130 (7.99%) Analytics
13 127 (7.80%) Information Security
14 124 (7.62%) Risk Management
15 119 (7.31%) Data Governance
16 110 (6.76%) Infrastructure as Code
16 110 (6.76%) Validation
17 98 (6.02%) Project Management
18 97 (5.96%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 220 (13.51%) Python
2 168 (10.32%) SQL
3 123 (7.56%) Java
4 66 (4.05%) JavaScript
5 54 (3.32%) PowerShell
6 42 (2.58%) Bash
7 31 (1.90%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.66%) C#
9 19 (1.17%) Bicep
10 14 (0.86%) Go
11 12 (0.74%) Kotlin
12 11 (0.68%) Perl
13 10 (0.61%) Apex Code
13 10 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
14 8 (0.49%) C++
14 8 (0.49%) Scala
14 8 (0.49%) VB
15 7 (0.43%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.43%) VB6
16 6 (0.37%) ActionScript
Qualifications
1 238 (14.62%) Security Cleared
2 178 (10.93%) SC Cleared
3 134 (8.23%) Degree
4 74 (4.55%) CISSP
5 58 (3.56%) DV Cleared
6 38 (2.33%) CISM
7 36 (2.21%) Cisco Certification
8 35 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
9 32 (1.97%) Azure Certification
10 30 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
11 28 (1.72%) PMI Certification
12 25 (1.54%) AWS Certification
13 24 (1.47%) PMP
14 19 (1.17%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 19 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
15 18 (1.11%) Master's Degree
16 17 (1.04%) CCSP
17 12 (0.74%) CCNP
18 10 (0.61%) CRISC
19 9 (0.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 249 (15.29%) GDPR
2 98 (6.02%) Data Quality
3 86 (5.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (5.22%) NIST
5 74 (4.55%) QA
6 44 (2.70%) GRC
7 41 (2.52%) Accessibility
8 26 (1.60%) PCI DSS
9 22 (1.35%) PMO
10 19 (1.17%) SOC 2
11 18 (1.11%) NCSC
11 18 (1.11%) SLA
12 13 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
13 10 (0.61%) HIPAA
14 9 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
14 9 (0.55%) WCAG
15 6 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 5 (0.31%) NIST 800
System Software
1 80 (4.91%) Active Directory
2 67 (4.12%) Docker
3 56 (3.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.11%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.92%) NFS
6 14 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.74%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.74%) vSphere
8 8 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.43%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.37%) KVM
11 4 (0.25%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) IAG
12 3 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.061%) iptables
Systems Management
1 115 (7.06%) Kubernetes
2 89 (5.47%) Terraform
3 58 (3.56%) Ansible
4 39 (2.40%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (2.27%) Grafana
6 29 (1.78%) NetBackup
7 26 (1.60%) Prometheus
8 22 (1.35%) Single Sign-On
9 20 (1.23%) SCCM
10 14 (0.86%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.86%) Puppet
11 11 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.43%) Kibana
13 6 (0.37%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.31%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.31%) Progress Chef
15 4 (0.25%) Foglight
15 4 (0.25%) Tivoli Storage Manager
15 4 (0.25%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 284 (17.44%) Microsoft
2 73 (4.48%) Oracle
2 73 (4.48%) ServiceNow
3 65 (3.99%) Google
4 57 (3.50%) VMware
5 54 (3.32%) Cisco
6 51 (3.13%) Databricks
7 38 (2.33%) SAP
8 34 (2.09%) Splunk
9 33 (2.03%) Red Hat
10 24 (1.47%) Salesforce
11 23 (1.41%) Veritas
12 20 (1.23%) NetApp
12 20 (1.23%) Zscaler
13 18 (1.11%) Workday
14 16 (0.98%) Commvault
15 15 (0.92%) CyberArk
15 15 (0.92%) F5
16 14 (0.86%) Citrix
17 13 (0.80%) Dell