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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 84 86
Rank change year-on-year +13 +2 +5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,678 926 1,075
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.20% 2.87% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.75% 3.17% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 920 448 569
10th Percentile £305 £263 £212
25th Percentile £400 £363 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £700 £688 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £455 £466 £463
% change year-on-year -2.36% +0.76% -2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 37 106
10th Percentile £15.04 £14.78 £12.38
25th Percentile £16.62 £15.13 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £27.00 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.93% +38.46% -46.24%
75th Percentile £33.64 £33.40 £27.50
90th Percentile £37.70 £38.38 £41.88
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 44,694 29,246 37,042
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.15% 90.54% 85.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,812 18,436 23,663
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £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 2,657 1,477 2,496
10th Percentile £14.94 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.61 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -6.25%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.66 £38.12
% change year-on-year +80.45% -35.31% -3.62%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 1,417 £500 +5.26% 417
UK excluding London +12 934 £455 -2.36% 296
London +8 621 £525 +5.00% 169
Work from Home +23 477 £500 +5.82% 172
North of England +10 320 £475 +1.60% 80
South East +27 204 £483 -6.76% 80
Yorkshire -2 178 £475 -5.00% 28
Midlands -8 145 £468 -6.50% 62
Scotland +5 136 £425 -0.93% 9
North West +27 135 £489 +16.72% 42
West Midlands -19 104 £474 -9.71% 37
South West -6 68 £425 +6.25% 39
East of England +6 44 £500 -4.76% 20
East Midlands +10 41 £447 +19.60% 24
Wales -6 16 £400 +35.02% 11
Northern Ireland +10 10 £104 -78.86% 6
North East -47 9 £450 +9.09% 11

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 59 (3.52%) Confluence
1 59 (3.52%) SharePoint
2 25 (1.49%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (1.13%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
5 11 (0.66%) Apache
6 6 (0.36%) CMS
6 6 (0.36%) IIS
7 5 (0.30%) SAS
7 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 3 (0.18%) nginx
8 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
9 2 (0.12%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.12%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
9 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 43 (2.56%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.83%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.30%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.060%) Maya
9 1 (0.060%) Trello
9 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Aladdin
3 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.36%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.30%) SAP GRC
6 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
7 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
8 2 (0.12%) Distributed Ledger
8 2 (0.12%) R3 Corda
8 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 1 (0.060%) Endur
9 1 (0.060%) Magento
9 1 (0.060%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 364 (21.69%) Azure
2 267 (15.91%) AWS
3 140 (8.34%) GCP
4 115 (6.85%) Microsoft 365
5 89 (5.30%) Power Platform
6 88 (5.24%) Entra ID
7 71 (4.23%) SaaS
8 70 (4.17%) GitHub
9 58 (3.46%) Microsoft Purview
10 50 (2.98%) Azure DevOps
11 45 (2.68%) OpenShift
12 38 (2.26%) Serverless
13 34 (2.03%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.55%) OneDrive
15 24 (1.43%) Power Automate
15 24 (1.43%) PowerApps
16 22 (1.31%) AWS Lambda
16 22 (1.31%) Snowflake
17 21 (1.25%) Amazon S3
17 21 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 91 (5.42%) Network Security
2 52 (3.10%) Firewall
3 35 (2.09%) VPN
4 32 (1.91%) SAN
5 30 (1.79%) DNS
6 25 (1.49%) TCP/IP
7 23 (1.37%) DHCP
7 23 (1.37%) WAN
8 20 (1.19%) NAS
9 19 (1.13%) LAN
10 15 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.83%) MPLS
12 12 (0.72%) HTTP
12 12 (0.72%) SSL
13 10 (0.60%) Wireless
14 9 (0.54%) Cisco Nexus
15 8 (0.48%) VLAN
16 7 (0.42%) BGP
16 7 (0.42%) Cisco IPT
16 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (4.17%) Power BI
2 42 (2.50%) SQL Server
3 38 (2.26%) Metadata
3 38 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
4 29 (1.73%) Relational Database
5 27 (1.61%) Data Warehouse
6 23 (1.37%) Data Lake
6 23 (1.37%) NoSQL
7 22 (1.31%) MySQL
8 21 (1.25%) Big Data
9 20 (1.19%) MongoDB
10 18 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
11 12 (0.72%) Oracle Database
12 11 (0.66%) BigQuery
13 10 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.60%) RDBMS
13 10 (0.60%) Tableau
14 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
15 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
15 8 (0.48%) Ingres
Development Applications
1 97 (5.78%) JIRA
2 73 (4.35%) Git
3 60 (3.58%) Jenkins
4 37 (2.21%) GitLab
5 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
6 9 (0.54%) Postman
6 9 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
6 9 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
7 8 (0.48%) Maven
8 7 (0.42%) JUnit
9 6 (0.36%) Flyway
9 6 (0.36%) Gradle
9 6 (0.36%) SpecFlow
10 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.30%) ERwin
11 4 (0.24%) Selenium
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) SonarQube
12 3 (0.18%) TestNG
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
General
1 557 (33.19%) Social Skills
2 377 (22.47%) Finance
3 243 (14.48%) Legal
4 197 (11.74%) Analytical Skills
5 163 (9.71%) Public Sector
6 118 (7.03%) Banking
7 70 (4.17%) Documentation Skills
8 65 (3.87%) Organisational Skills
9 35 (2.09%) Telecoms
10 34 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
10 34 (2.03%) Local Government
11 32 (1.91%) Retail
12 29 (1.73%) Law
13 27 (1.61%) Front Office
13 27 (1.61%) Marketing
14 23 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
15 20 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
16 18 (1.07%) Billing
16 18 (1.07%) Police
17 16 (0.95%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 236 (14.06%) Architect
2 156 (9.30%) Analyst
3 131 (7.81%) Developer
4 126 (7.51%) Lead
5 122 (7.27%) Senior
6 96 (5.72%) Consultant
7 88 (5.24%) Project Manager
8 72 (4.29%) Business Analyst
9 68 (4.05%) Solutions Architect
10 52 (3.10%) Security Architect
11 44 (2.62%) Data Engineer
12 43 (2.56%) Security Engineer
13 40 (2.38%) Network Engineer
14 39 (2.32%) Java Developer
15 33 (1.97%) Administrator
16 29 (1.73%) Technical Architect
17 28 (1.67%) Support Engineer
18 27 (1.61%) Data Analyst
19 26 (1.55%) IT Support
20 25 (1.49%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (5.07%) REST
2 56 (3.34%) React
3 39 (2.32%) Spring
4 35 (2.09%) Middleware
5 33 (1.97%) CSS
5 33 (1.97%) Spring Boot
6 32 (1.91%) HTML
6 32 (1.91%) RESTful
7 30 (1.79%) JSON
7 30 (1.79%) Kafka
8 28 (1.67%) .NET
8 28 (1.67%) OAuth
9 19 (1.13%) HTML5
10 18 (1.07%) CSS3
10 18 (1.07%) Jest
10 18 (1.07%) Node.js
10 18 (1.07%) PySpark
10 18 (1.07%) Redux
11 17 (1.01%) OpenID
12 15 (0.89%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 756 (45.05%) Data Protection Act
2 95 (5.66%) Cloud Native
3 88 (5.24%) Product Ownership
4 77 (4.59%) Onboarding
5 55 (3.28%) Management Information System
6 47 (2.80%) Legacy Systems
7 46 (2.74%) Data Centre
8 42 (2.50%) Distributed Systems
9 39 (2.32%) Security Posture
10 37 (2.21%) Virtual Team
11 25 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
11 25 (1.49%) NHS
11 25 (1.49%) Operational Technology
12 23 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
13 22 (1.31%) Replication
14 21 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
15 19 (1.13%) Data Structures
15 19 (1.13%) Mobile App
16 18 (1.07%) Enterprise Storage
17 16 (0.95%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 125 (7.45%) Windows
2 80 (4.77%) Linux
3 31 (1.85%) Unix
4 27 (1.61%) Windows Server
5 26 (1.55%) Android
5 26 (1.55%) Apple iOS
6 23 (1.37%) Mac OS
7 20 (1.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.77%) VMS
9 12 (0.72%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.36%) CoreOS
10 6 (0.36%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (0.36%) zOS
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.060%) CentOS
12 1 (0.060%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.060%) Solaris
12 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 307 (18.30%) Agile
2 294 (17.52%) Problem-Solving
3 284 (16.92%) Stakeholder Management
4 254 (15.14%) Continuous Improvement
5 240 (14.30%) Migration
6 236 (14.06%) DevOps
7 231 (13.77%) CI/CD
8 185 (11.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 181 (10.79%) AI
10 152 (9.06%) Cybersecurity
11 147 (8.76%) Roadmaps
12 144 (8.58%) Decision-Making
13 138 (8.22%) Analytics
14 131 (7.81%) Information Security
15 126 (7.51%) Risk Management
16 122 (7.27%) Data Governance
17 120 (7.15%) Validation
18 117 (6.97%) Infrastructure as Code
19 105 (6.26%) Data Modelling
20 100 (5.96%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 229 (13.65%) Python
2 174 (10.37%) SQL
3 122 (7.27%) Java
4 65 (3.87%) JavaScript
5 59 (3.52%) PowerShell
6 45 (2.68%) Bash
7 33 (1.97%) TypeScript
8 28 (1.67%) C#
9 19 (1.13%) Bicep
10 16 (0.95%) Go
11 12 (0.72%) Apex Code
11 12 (0.72%) Kotlin
12 11 (0.66%) Perl
13 10 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
14 8 (0.48%) Scala
14 8 (0.48%) VB
15 7 (0.42%) C++
15 7 (0.42%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.42%) VB6
16 5 (0.30%) ActionScript
Qualifications
1 247 (14.72%) Security Cleared
2 186 (11.08%) SC Cleared
3 132 (7.87%) Degree
4 74 (4.41%) CISSP
5 60 (3.58%) DV Cleared
6 38 (2.26%) CISM
7 36 (2.15%) Cisco Certification
8 35 (2.09%) Computer Science Degree
9 32 (1.91%) Azure Certification
9 32 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
10 27 (1.61%) PMI Certification
11 25 (1.49%) AWS Certification
12 23 (1.37%) PMP
13 19 (1.13%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 19 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (1.01%) CCSP
14 17 (1.01%) Master's Degree
15 12 (0.72%) CCNP
16 9 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 9 (0.54%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 249 (14.84%) GDPR
2 98 (5.84%) Data Quality
3 85 (5.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 85 (5.07%) NIST
4 78 (4.65%) QA
5 46 (2.74%) GRC
6 40 (2.38%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.61%) PCI DSS
8 25 (1.49%) PMO
9 19 (1.13%) SLA
9 19 (1.13%) SOC 2
10 18 (1.07%) NCSC
11 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 10 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
12 10 (0.60%) HIPAA
13 9 (0.54%) Disclosure Scotland
14 8 (0.48%) WCAG
15 7 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials
16 6 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 5 (0.30%) PERC
System Software
1 83 (4.95%) Active Directory
2 71 (4.23%) Docker
3 56 (3.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.07%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.89%) NFS
6 14 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.72%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.72%) vSphere
8 8 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.36%) KVM
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
11 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.18%) IAG
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.060%) iptables
Systems Management
1 122 (7.27%) Kubernetes
2 93 (5.54%) Terraform
3 63 (3.75%) Ansible
4 40 (2.38%) Microsoft Intune
5 39 (2.32%) Grafana
6 30 (1.79%) NetBackup
7 28 (1.67%) Prometheus
8 22 (1.31%) SCCM
8 22 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.95%) Puppet
10 14 (0.83%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.42%) Kibana
12 7 (0.42%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.36%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
15 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
15 4 (0.24%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 293 (17.46%) Microsoft
2 77 (4.59%) Oracle
3 76 (4.53%) ServiceNow
4 65 (3.87%) Google
5 57 (3.40%) Cisco
5 57 (3.40%) VMware
6 51 (3.04%) Databricks
7 42 (2.50%) SAP
8 38 (2.26%) Splunk
9 34 (2.03%) Red Hat
10 27 (1.61%) Salesforce
11 23 (1.37%) Veritas
12 20 (1.19%) NetApp
12 20 (1.19%) Workday
12 20 (1.19%) Zscaler
13 16 (0.95%) Commvault
13 16 (0.95%) CyberArk
13 16 (0.95%) F5
14 15 (0.89%) Citrix
15 14 (0.83%) Dell