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 3 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 99 79
Rank change year-on-year +26 -20 +30
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,295 799 1,215
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.34% 2.59% 2.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.84% 2.90% 3.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 678 399 695
10th Percentile £276 £264 £207
25th Percentile £399 £394 £353
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £598 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £708
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 21 76
10th Percentile £13.22 £16.25 £11.98
25th Percentile £16.59 £22.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.15% +39.19% -70.00%
75th Percentile £20.79 £34.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £42.50 £65.00 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.61 £29.62 £21.00
% change year-on-year -30.42% +41.02% -70.00%

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 33,753 27,550 39,300
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.16% 89.25% 87.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,385 16,677 25,860
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £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 £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £498 £500
% change year-on-year -3.66% -0.35% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,027 862 2,114
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +8.53%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £61.13
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £31.50 £35.50
% change year-on-year -20.63% -11.27% +22.41%

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 3 February 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 3 February 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 3 February 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 +24 1,103 £500 - 375
UK excluding London +15 690 £450 -5.26% 309
London +27 539 £525 +2.44% 128
Work from Home +10 292 £500 - 182
North of England -13 203 £460 -3.16% 68
South East +12 154 £490 +0.51% 88
Scotland +18 118 £402 -15.32% 18
Yorkshire +1 118 £480 -10.70% 15
Midlands +3 101 £449 -7.95% 68
North West -33 69 £429 -9.68% 46
West Midlands -2 61 £475 -6.17% 45
South West +1 49 £475 -1.30% 37
East of England +11 45 £314 -37.25% 20
East Midlands +4 40 £438 -3.21% 23
North East -21 17 £400 -11.11% 7
Wales +7 14 £388 -24.39% 14
Northern Ireland - 10 £500 - 3

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 58 (4.48%) Confluence
2 31 (2.39%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (0.69%) CMS
6 8 (0.62%) Apache
6 8 (0.62%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.23%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.23%) Hyperledger
8 3 (0.23%) SAS
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.15%) CICS
9 2 (0.15%) Drupal
9 2 (0.15%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.15%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.077%) Cloud Foundry
10 1 (0.077%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 51 (3.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (3.24%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.31%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.23%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.23%) Sketch
8 2 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.15%) InVision
8 2 (0.15%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.077%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.077%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.077%) Blender
9 1 (0.077%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.077%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.077%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 13 (1.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.85%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (0.69%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.23%) Distributed Ledger
5 3 (0.23%) Fidessa
5 3 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (0.23%) R3 Corda
5 3 (0.23%) ResourceLink
6 2 (0.15%) assyst
6 2 (0.15%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.15%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.15%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 236 (18.22%) Azure
2 206 (15.91%) AWS
3 94 (7.26%) GCP
4 70 (5.41%) Power Platform
5 68 (5.25%) Microsoft 365
6 56 (4.32%) Serverless
7 53 (4.09%) Entra ID
8 48 (3.71%) GitHub
9 45 (3.47%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (3.24%) AWS Lambda
11 40 (3.09%) SaaS
12 39 (3.01%) Amazon S3
13 30 (2.32%) Snowflake
14 28 (2.16%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (2.08%) Power Automate
16 24 (1.85%) Microsoft Purview
17 23 (1.78%) GitHub Actions
18 22 (1.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 21 (1.62%) OCI
20 20 (1.54%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.32%) Firewall
2 35 (2.70%) Network Security
3 22 (1.70%) SAN
4 19 (1.47%) LAN
4 19 (1.47%) MPLS
5 18 (1.39%) VPN
6 16 (1.24%) DNS
6 16 (1.24%) WAN
7 15 (1.16%) NAS
8 14 (1.08%) Cisco IPT
8 14 (1.08%) TCP/IP
9 9 (0.69%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.62%) BGP
10 8 (0.62%) SSH
10 8 (0.62%) VLAN
11 7 (0.54%) DHCP
11 7 (0.54%) HTTP
11 7 (0.54%) Internet
12 6 (0.46%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (4.32%) Power BI
2 35 (2.70%) SQL Server
3 34 (2.63%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.70%) NoSQL
5 20 (1.54%) Data Warehouse
5 20 (1.54%) Metadata
6 19 (1.47%) Relational Database
7 17 (1.31%) MySQL
8 16 (1.24%) MongoDB
9 15 (1.16%) DynamoDB
9 15 (1.16%) Tableau
10 14 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
11 12 (0.93%) Amazon Aurora
11 12 (0.93%) Data Lake
11 12 (0.93%) Oracle Reports
12 10 (0.77%) Oracle Database
13 9 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
14 8 (0.62%) Hadoop
14 8 (0.62%) Oracle BI Publisher
15 7 (0.54%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 98 (7.57%) JIRA
2 51 (3.94%) Git
3 47 (3.63%) Jenkins
4 33 (2.55%) GitLab
5 11 (0.85%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.77%) JUnit
7 6 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.39%) Gradle
8 5 (0.39%) Maven
8 5 (0.39%) NUnit
9 4 (0.31%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.31%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.31%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.31%) Fiddler
9 4 (0.31%) Team Foundation Server
10 3 (0.23%) Postman
10 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio
11 2 (0.15%) ChangeMan
11 2 (0.15%) IntelliJ
11 2 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
General
1 431 (33.28%) Social Skills
2 271 (20.93%) Finance
3 166 (12.82%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (10.35%) Public Sector
5 112 (8.65%) Banking
6 99 (7.64%) Legal
7 48 (3.71%) Organisational Skills
8 40 (3.09%) Documentation Skills
9 38 (2.93%) Telecoms
10 35 (2.70%) Marketing
11 30 (2.32%) Influencing Skills
12 22 (1.70%) Law
12 22 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
13 20 (1.54%) Front Office
13 20 (1.54%) Manufacturing
14 18 (1.39%) Local Government
15 14 (1.08%) Retail
16 12 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 12 (0.93%) Police
17 10 (0.77%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 159 (12.28%) Analyst
2 137 (10.58%) Developer
3 132 (10.19%) Architect
4 95 (7.34%) Lead
5 72 (5.56%) Senior
6 69 (5.33%) Business Analyst
7 66 (5.10%) Consultant
8 63 (4.86%) Project Manager
9 44 (3.40%) Solutions Architect
10 36 (2.78%) Administrator
11 32 (2.47%) Security Engineer
12 30 (2.32%) Data Engineer
13 29 (2.24%) Data Analyst
14 24 (1.85%) Network Engineer
15 23 (1.78%) Automation Engineer
16 22 (1.70%) Data Protection Officer
17 21 (1.62%) Java Developer
17 21 (1.62%) Security Architect
17 21 (1.62%) Support Engineer
18 20 (1.54%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (4.63%) REST
2 40 (3.09%) React
3 36 (2.78%) .NET
4 34 (2.63%) Node.js
5 30 (2.32%) RESTful
6 25 (1.93%) Spring
7 23 (1.78%) Kafka
7 23 (1.78%) OAuth
8 21 (1.62%) Spring Boot
9 19 (1.47%) Middleware
10 15 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
10 15 (1.16%) SOAP
11 14 (1.08%) .NET Core
11 14 (1.08%) HTML
11 14 (1.08%) Playwright
11 14 (1.08%) PySpark
12 13 (1.00%) SAML
13 12 (0.93%) AngularJS
14 10 (0.77%) Jest
15 9 (0.69%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 646 (49.88%) Data Protection Act
2 55 (4.25%) Product Ownership
3 54 (4.17%) Cloud Native
4 53 (4.09%) Management Information System
4 53 (4.09%) Onboarding
5 31 (2.39%) NHS
6 30 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
7 26 (2.01%) Freedom of Information
8 23 (1.78%) Data Structures
9 22 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
10 20 (1.54%) Security Posture
11 17 (1.31%) CMDB
11 17 (1.31%) Data Centre
11 17 (1.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 16 (1.24%) Replication
12 16 (1.24%) Virtual Team
13 13 (1.00%) AI Agents
13 13 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (1.00%) Hybrid Cloud
13 13 (1.00%) Insider Threat
Operating Systems
1 94 (7.26%) Windows
2 66 (5.10%) Linux
3 24 (1.85%) Unix
4 18 (1.39%) Windows Server
5 16 (1.24%) Mac OS
6 13 (1.00%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (0.54%) Android
8 7 (0.54%) zOS
9 5 (0.39%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.39%) VMS
10 4 (0.31%) AIX
10 4 (0.31%) Solaris
11 1 (0.077%) CentOS
11 1 (0.077%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.077%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.077%) VME
11 1 (0.077%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 231 (17.84%) Problem-Solving
2 230 (17.76%) Agile
3 216 (16.68%) Stakeholder Management
4 173 (13.36%) Migration
5 164 (12.66%) CI/CD
6 158 (12.20%) DevOps
7 133 (10.27%) Continuous Improvement
8 126 (9.73%) Analytics
8 126 (9.73%) Cybersecurity
9 122 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 120 (9.27%) AI
11 119 (9.19%) Roadmaps
12 106 (8.19%) Project Management
13 101 (7.80%) Information Security
14 99 (7.64%) Risk Management
15 82 (6.33%) Microservices
16 81 (6.25%) Test Automation
17 77 (5.95%) Business Intelligence
18 76 (5.87%) Decision-Making
19 75 (5.79%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 220 (16.99%) Python
2 164 (12.66%) SQL
3 83 (6.41%) Java
4 66 (5.10%) JavaScript
4 66 (5.10%) PowerShell
5 54 (4.17%) C#
6 46 (3.55%) Bash
7 35 (2.70%) TypeScript
8 16 (1.24%) Bicep
9 13 (1.00%) C++
9 13 (1.00%) Shell Script
10 11 (0.85%) Perl
11 7 (0.54%) PL/SQL
12 6 (0.46%) ActionScript
12 6 (0.46%) ActionScript 2.0
12 6 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
12 6 (0.46%) PHP
13 5 (0.39%) Scala
14 4 (0.31%) Go
14 4 (0.31%) R
Qualifications
1 170 (13.13%) Security Cleared
2 125 (9.65%) SC Cleared
3 115 (8.88%) Degree
4 44 (3.40%) DV Cleared
5 30 (2.32%) CISSP
6 29 (2.24%) Computer Science Degree
7 24 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
7 24 (1.85%) CISM
8 23 (1.78%) AWS Certification
9 22 (1.70%) Master's Degree
10 18 (1.39%) PMI Certification
11 16 (1.24%) PMP
12 14 (1.08%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (1.00%) CTC Cleared
14 12 (0.93%) Azure Certification
14 12 (0.93%) CRISC
15 10 (0.77%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 10 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
16 9 (0.69%) A+ Certification
16 9 (0.69%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 219 (16.91%) GDPR
2 90 (6.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 76 (5.87%) NIST
4 59 (4.56%) Data Quality
5 43 (3.32%) QA
6 31 (2.39%) PCI DSS
7 27 (2.08%) Accessibility
8 20 (1.54%) GRC
9 19 (1.47%) PMO
10 14 (1.08%) NCSC
11 13 (1.00%) Disclosure Scotland
11 13 (1.00%) SLA
12 11 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
12 11 (0.85%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.85%) PERC
12 11 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 8 (0.62%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
14 6 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 6 (0.46%) HIPAA
System Software
1 59 (4.56%) Docker
2 56 (4.32%) Active Directory
3 49 (3.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (0.62%) NFS
6 7 (0.54%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.39%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
9 3 (0.23%) vSphere
10 2 (0.15%) KVM
10 2 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.077%) Firmware
11 1 (0.077%) HDFS
11 1 (0.077%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.077%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.077%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.077%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 77 (5.95%) Terraform
2 69 (5.33%) Kubernetes
3 56 (4.32%) Ansible
4 28 (2.16%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (1.93%) NetBackup
6 24 (1.85%) Grafana
7 23 (1.78%) SCCM
8 20 (1.54%) Prometheus
9 9 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.62%) Oracle RMAN
11 7 (0.54%) Puppet
12 6 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.46%) RSA Archer
13 5 (0.39%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.31%) Control-M
14 4 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
14 4 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
15 3 (0.23%) Argo
15 3 (0.23%) Kibana
15 3 (0.23%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 198 (15.29%) Microsoft
2 65 (5.02%) Oracle
3 58 (4.48%) Google
4 51 (3.94%) VMware
5 38 (2.93%) Cisco
5 38 (2.93%) ServiceNow
6 37 (2.86%) Databricks
7 36 (2.78%) SAP
8 31 (2.39%) Salesforce
9 22 (1.70%) Citrix
9 22 (1.70%) Red Hat
10 20 (1.54%) Veritas
11 18 (1.39%) IBM
12 17 (1.31%) Commvault
13 15 (1.16%) F5
14 14 (1.08%) Splunk
15 12 (0.93%) Adobe
16 11 (0.85%) Informatica
16 11 (0.85%) OneTrust
16 11 (0.85%) Veeam