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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 75 85
Rank change year-on-year -9 +10 0
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,693 1,083 974
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.09% 3.31% 2.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.66% 3.66% 3.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 880 514 515
10th Percentile £263 £289 £211
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
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 £720
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £461 £475
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.89% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 53 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.25 £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 £24.47 £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 46,309 29,588 32,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.42% 90.49% 85.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,063 18,372 19,750
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
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 £627 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,189 1,818 1,403
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.25 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £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 £74.70
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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -10 1,409 £500 - 1,618
UK excluding London -3 950 £450 -2.44% 979
London -25 592 £525 +0.48% 739
Work from Home +7 471 £500 +7.53% 615
North of England +6 340 £463 +2.78% 301
South East +5 198 £475 -5.94% 243
Yorkshire +5 173 £475 -6.17% 111
Midlands +7 161 £450 -5.26% 144
North West +13 146 £452 +2.67% 162
West Midlands +13 129 £450 -10.00% 97
Scotland -7 122 £434 +2.06% 67
South West -15 74 £425 +3.03% 85
East of England -17 33 £503 +5.79% 87
East Midlands -12 32 £435 +8.75% 47
North East -45 22 £463 +15.63% 31
Wales -3 21 £413 - 32
Northern Ireland +4 15 £110 -81.63% 23
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 (4.08%) SharePoint
2 39 (2.30%) Confluence
3 24 (1.42%) Apache Airflow
4 23 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
5 18 (1.06%) Apache Spark
6 12 (0.71%) Apache
6 12 (0.71%) IIS
7 10 (0.59%) CMS
7 10 (0.59%) SAS
8 6 (0.35%) 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%) Moodle
13 1 (0.059%) MQSeries
Applications
1 48 (2.84%) Microsoft Excel
1 48 (2.84%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 8 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
2 8 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
3 5 (0.30%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
5 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.059%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.059%) Maya
5 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
1 380 (22.45%) Azure
2 310 (18.31%) AWS
3 138 (8.15%) GCP
4 133 (7.86%) Microsoft 365
5 80 (4.73%) Entra ID
6 79 (4.67%) Power Platform
7 76 (4.49%) SaaS
8 66 (3.90%) Azure DevOps
9 61 (3.60%) GitHub
10 55 (3.25%) Microsoft Purview
11 48 (2.84%) Serverless
12 39 (2.30%) Microsoft Copilot
13 28 (1.65%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.54%) AWS Lambda
14 26 (1.54%) OpenShift
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 91 (5.38%) Network Security
2 62 (3.66%) Firewall
3 37 (2.19%) VPN
4 36 (2.13%) DNS
5 26 (1.54%) DHCP
5 26 (1.54%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.24%) WAN
7 19 (1.12%) Cisco IPT
8 18 (1.06%) LAN
9 15 (0.89%) SAN
10 14 (0.83%) SSL
10 14 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.77%) Wireless
12 11 (0.65%) MPLS
13 10 (0.59%) HTTP
13 10 (0.59%) VoIP
14 9 (0.53%) Intrusion Detection
14 9 (0.53%) NAS
15 8 (0.47%) Internet
16 7 (0.41%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (3.48%) Power BI
2 55 (3.25%) Metadata
3 44 (2.60%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
5 33 (1.95%) SQL Server
6 30 (1.77%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.42%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.30%) Data Lake
8 22 (1.30%) MySQL
9 21 (1.24%) BigQuery
10 16 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
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 85 (5.02%) JIRA
2 68 (4.02%) Git
3 58 (3.43%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.54%) GitLab
5 18 (1.06%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Maven
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.59%) Postman
7 8 (0.47%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.35%) 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
1 661 (39.04%) Social Skills
2 364 (21.50%) Finance
3 251 (14.83%) Legal
4 214 (12.64%) Analytical Skills
5 212 (12.52%) Public Sector
6 119 (7.03%) Banking
7 79 (4.67%) Organisational Skills
8 76 (4.49%) Documentation Skills
9 44 (2.60%) Influencing Skills
9 44 (2.60%) Local Government
10 40 (2.36%) Retail
11 37 (2.19%) Presentation Skills
12 33 (1.95%) Law
13 28 (1.65%) Front Office
13 28 (1.65%) Marketing
14 25 (1.48%) Telecoms
15 22 (1.30%) Billing
16 21 (1.24%) Pharmaceutical
16 21 (1.24%) Police
17 15 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 252 (14.88%) Architect
2 171 (10.10%) Analyst
3 139 (8.21%) Lead
4 126 (7.44%) Senior
5 121 (7.15%) Developer
6 80 (4.73%) Consultant
7 74 (4.37%) Project Manager
8 68 (4.02%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (3.96%) Business Analyst
10 60 (3.54%) Security Architect
11 48 (2.84%) Administrator
12 44 (2.60%) Security Engineer
13 37 (2.19%) Support Engineer
14 35 (2.07%) Information Officer
15 33 (1.95%) Data Analyst
16 31 (1.83%) Information Governance Officer
17 30 (1.77%) Java Developer
18 28 (1.65%) Data Engineer
18 28 (1.65%) Network Engineer
19 26 (1.54%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (5.67%) Terraform
2 94 (5.55%) REST
3 41 (2.42%) Kafka
4 39 (2.30%) OAuth
5 38 (2.24%) React
6 37 (2.19%) JSON
6 37 (2.19%) Spring
7 35 (2.07%) Spring Boot
8 32 (1.89%) HTML
9 31 (1.83%) Middleware
10 30 (1.77%) CSS
11 27 (1.59%) RESTful
12 25 (1.48%) OAuth2
13 24 (1.42%) .NET
14 22 (1.30%) Node.js
15 21 (1.24%) OpenID
16 16 (0.95%) HTML5
16 16 (0.95%) SOAP
17 15 (0.89%) SAML
17 15 (0.89%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 707 (41.76%) Data Protection Act
2 120 (7.09%) Management Information System
3 101 (5.97%) Product Ownership
4 95 (5.61%) Onboarding
5 92 (5.43%) Cloud Native
6 59 (3.48%) Data Centre
7 57 (3.37%) Distributed Systems
8 43 (2.54%) Freedom of Information
8 43 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
9 42 (2.48%) Security Posture
10 40 (2.36%) Virtual Team
11 32 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
12 30 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
13 29 (1.71%) NHS
14 28 (1.65%) 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 (7.62%) Windows
2 81 (4.78%) Linux
3 34 (2.01%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.95%) Android
4 33 (1.95%) Apple iOS
5 28 (1.65%) Unix
6 22 (1.30%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.00%) 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 (23.04%) Stakeholder Management
2 328 (19.37%) Agile
3 292 (17.25%) Problem-Solving
4 291 (17.19%) Continuous Improvement
5 249 (14.71%) CI/CD
6 231 (13.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 227 (13.41%) AI
8 226 (13.35%) Cybersecurity
9 221 (13.05%) Migration
10 218 (12.88%) DevOps
11 166 (9.81%) Decision-Making
12 162 (9.57%) Roadmaps
13 160 (9.45%) Risk Management
14 155 (9.16%) Information Security
15 148 (8.74%) Data Governance
16 145 (8.56%) Analytics
17 144 (8.51%) Infrastructure as Code
18 141 (8.33%) Validation
19 124 (7.32%) Test Automation
20 115 (6.79%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 213 (12.58%) Python
2 173 (10.22%) SQL
3 99 (5.85%) Java
4 58 (3.43%) PowerShell
5 56 (3.31%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.89%) Bash
7 27 (1.59%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.48%) Go
9 18 (1.06%) C#
10 15 (0.89%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.89%) Bicep
10 15 (0.89%) Kotlin
10 15 (0.89%) Scala
11 12 (0.71%) Perl
12 9 (0.53%) C
12 9 (0.53%) C++
13 8 (0.47%) VB
14 7 (0.41%) VB6
15 6 (0.35%) R
15 6 (0.35%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 275 (16.24%) Security Cleared
2 203 (11.99%) SC Cleared
3 113 (6.67%) Degree
4 87 (5.14%) CISSP
5 62 (3.66%) DV Cleared
6 54 (3.19%) CISM
7 48 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 44 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (1.71%) Azure Certification
9 29 (1.71%) PMI Certification
10 28 (1.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 27 (1.59%) PMP
12 25 (1.48%) Computer Science Degree
13 24 (1.42%) CCSP
14 16 (0.95%) AWS Certification
15 12 (0.71%) CISA
15 12 (0.71%) CRISC
16 11 (0.65%) CCNP
16 11 (0.65%) Master's Degree
16 11 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (14.41%) GDPR
2 115 (6.79%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (4.43%) NIST
5 71 (4.19%) QA
6 54 (3.19%) GRC
7 48 (2.84%) Accessibility
8 28 (1.65%) PCI DSS
9 22 (1.30%) NCSC
10 21 (1.24%) Cyber Essentials
10 21 (1.24%) PMO
11 14 (0.83%) SLA
12 13 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.65%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.65%) PERC
14 11 (0.65%) WCAG
15 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
16 9 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 84 (4.96%) Active Directory
2 66 (3.90%) Docker
3 58 (3.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.06%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.71%) Hyper-V
5 12 (0.71%) vSphere
6 11 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.35%) NFS
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) ISA Server
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.18%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
12 1 (0.059%) IAG
12 1 (0.059%) KVM
12 1 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.059%) XenApp
12 1 (0.059%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 117 (6.91%) Kubernetes
2 47 (2.78%) Ansible
3 38 (2.24%) 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 (0.35%) 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
1 365 (21.56%) Microsoft
2 95 (5.61%) ServiceNow
3 78 (4.61%) Google
4 69 (4.08%) Cisco
5 67 (3.96%) Oracle
6 59 (3.48%) VMware
7 46 (2.72%) Splunk
8 44 (2.60%) Databricks
9 36 (2.13%) SAP
10 32 (1.89%) Salesforce
11 28 (1.65%) Zscaler
12 21 (1.24%) Workday
13 20 (1.18%) CyberArk
14 19 (1.12%) IBM
15 17 (1.00%) Dell
15 17 (1.00%) F5
15 17 (1.00%) Red Hat
16 14 (0.83%) Dynatrace
16 14 (0.83%) MuleSoft
17 12 (0.71%) NetApp