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

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 84 84
Rank change year-on-year +11 0 +5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,684 941 1,070
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.20% 2.91% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.76% 3.21% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 920 457 570
10th Percentile £305 £263 £210
25th Percentile £400 £363 £386
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 £680 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £455 £466 £460
% change year-on-year -2.36% +1.41% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 40 106
10th Percentile £15.04 £13.34 £12.38
25th Percentile £16.62 £15.04 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £19.00 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.37% -2.56% -46.24%
75th Percentile £33.64 £32.73 £27.50
90th Percentile £37.70 £37.35 £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 44,833 29,276 36,875
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.19% 90.47% 85.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,910 18,456 23,540
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.48% -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 2,660 1,489 2,488
10th Percentile £14.95 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.44 £16.25
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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +13 1,422 £500 +5.26% 422
UK excluding London +12 936 £455 -2.36% 297
London +7 624 £525 +5.00% 178
Work from Home +20 480 £500 +5.54% 175
North of England +11 321 £475 +1.60% 72
South East +19 204 £483 -8.00% 83
Yorkshire 0 179 £475 -5.00% 22
Midlands -8 145 £468 -6.50% 59
Scotland +2 137 £425 -0.93% 9
North West +24 135 £489 +16.72% 40
West Midlands -24 104 £474 -5.20% 35
South West -3 68 £425 +6.25% 46
East of England -4 44 £500 +2.56% 24
East Midlands +8 41 £447 +19.60% 24
Wales -6 16 £400 +35.02% 9
Northern Ireland +6 10 £104 -78.86% 6
North East -50 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 (3.50%) Confluence
1 59 (3.50%) SharePoint
2 25 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (1.13%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
5 11 (0.65%) 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%) NetWeaver
9 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 43 (2.55%) Microsoft Office
2 40 (2.38%) 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 (0.059%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.059%) Maya
9 1 (0.059%) Trello
9 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.59%) 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 (0.059%) FIS Private Capital Suite
9 1 (0.059%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.059%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 365 (21.67%) Azure
2 268 (15.91%) AWS
3 140 (8.31%) GCP
4 115 (6.83%) Microsoft 365
5 89 (5.29%) Power Platform
6 88 (5.23%) Entra ID
7 71 (4.22%) SaaS
8 70 (4.16%) GitHub
9 58 (3.44%) Microsoft Purview
10 51 (3.03%) Azure DevOps
11 46 (2.73%) OpenShift
12 38 (2.26%) Serverless
13 34 (2.02%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.54%) 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 (5.40%) Network Security
2 52 (3.09%) Firewall
3 35 (2.08%) VPN
4 32 (1.90%) SAN
5 30 (1.78%) DNS
6 25 (1.48%) 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 (0.71%) HTTP
12 12 (0.71%) SSL
13 10 (0.59%) Wireless
14 9 (0.53%) 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 (4.16%) Power BI
2 43 (2.55%) SQL Server
3 39 (2.32%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (2.26%) Metadata
5 30 (1.78%) Relational Database
6 27 (1.60%) Data Warehouse
7 23 (1.37%) Data Lake
7 23 (1.37%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.31%) MySQL
9 21 (1.25%) Big Data
10 20 (1.19%) MongoDB
11 18 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
12 12 (0.71%) Oracle Database
13 11 (0.65%) BigQuery
14 10 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
14 10 (0.59%) RDBMS
14 10 (0.59%) Tableau
15 9 (0.53%) DynamoDB
16 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
16 8 (0.48%) Ingres
Development Applications
1 97 (5.76%) JIRA
2 74 (4.39%) Git
3 61 (3.62%) Jenkins
4 38 (2.26%) GitLab
5 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
6 9 (0.53%) Maven
6 9 (0.53%) Postman
6 9 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
6 9 (0.53%) Team Foundation Server
7 8 (0.48%) JUnit
8 7 (0.42%) Gradle
9 6 (0.36%) Flyway
9 6 (0.36%) SpecFlow
10 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.30%) ERwin
11 4 (0.24%) Selenium
11 4 (0.24%) SonarQube
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) TestNG
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 558 (33.14%) Social Skills
2 378 (22.45%) Finance
3 241 (14.31%) Legal
4 198 (11.76%) Analytical Skills
5 163 (9.68%) Public Sector
6 117 (6.95%) Banking
7 70 (4.16%) Documentation Skills
8 65 (3.86%) Organisational Skills
9 35 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
9 35 (2.08%) Telecoms
10 34 (2.02%) Local Government
11 32 (1.90%) Retail
12 28 (1.66%) Front Office
13 27 (1.60%) Law
13 27 (1.60%) 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
1 237 (14.07%) Architect
2 157 (9.32%) Analyst
3 132 (7.84%) Developer
4 126 (7.48%) Lead
5 123 (7.30%) Senior
6 97 (5.76%) Consultant
7 89 (5.29%) Project Manager
8 73 (4.33%) Business Analyst
9 68 (4.04%) Solutions Architect
10 52 (3.09%) Security Architect
11 43 (2.55%) Data Engineer
11 43 (2.55%) Security Engineer
12 40 (2.38%) Java Developer
12 40 (2.38%) Network Engineer
13 33 (1.96%) Administrator
14 29 (1.72%) Technical Architect
15 28 (1.66%) Support Engineer
16 27 (1.60%) Data Analyst
17 26 (1.54%) IT Support
18 25 (1.48%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (5.11%) REST
2 57 (3.38%) React
3 40 (2.38%) Spring
4 35 (2.08%) Middleware
5 34 (2.02%) Spring Boot
6 33 (1.96%) CSS
6 33 (1.96%) RESTful
7 32 (1.90%) HTML
8 31 (1.84%) Kafka
9 30 (1.78%) JSON
10 28 (1.66%) .NET
10 28 (1.66%) OAuth
11 19 (1.13%) HTML5
12 18 (1.07%) CSS3
12 18 (1.07%) Jest
12 18 (1.07%) Node.js
12 18 (1.07%) Redux
13 17 (1.01%) OpenID
13 17 (1.01%) PySpark
14 15 (0.89%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 762 (45.25%) Data Protection Act
2 95 (5.64%) Cloud Native
3 87 (5.17%) Product Ownership
4 77 (4.57%) Onboarding
5 56 (3.33%) Management Information System
6 47 (2.79%) Legacy Systems
7 46 (2.73%) Data Centre
8 42 (2.49%) Distributed Systems
9 39 (2.32%) Security Posture
9 39 (2.32%) Virtual Team
10 25 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
10 25 (1.48%) NHS
10 25 (1.48%) Operational Technology
11 23 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
12 22 (1.31%) Replication
13 21 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
14 19 (1.13%) Data Structures
14 19 (1.13%) Mobile App
15 18 (1.07%) Enterprise Storage
16 16 (0.95%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 125 (7.42%) Windows
2 80 (4.75%) Linux
3 31 (1.84%) Unix
4 27 (1.60%) Windows Server
5 26 (1.54%) Android
5 26 (1.54%) Apple iOS
6 23 (1.37%) Mac OS
7 20 (1.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.77%) VMS
9 12 (0.71%) 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 (0.059%) CentOS
12 1 (0.059%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.059%) Solaris
12 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 309 (18.35%) Agile
2 296 (17.58%) Problem-Solving
3 286 (16.98%) Stakeholder Management
4 256 (15.20%) Continuous Improvement
5 241 (14.31%) Migration
6 238 (14.13%) DevOps
7 233 (13.84%) CI/CD
8 186 (11.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 182 (10.81%) AI
10 153 (9.09%) Cybersecurity
11 148 (8.79%) Roadmaps
12 144 (8.55%) Decision-Making
13 138 (8.19%) Analytics
14 131 (7.78%) Information Security
15 128 (7.60%) Risk Management
16 122 (7.24%) Data Governance
17 121 (7.19%) Validation
18 117 (6.95%) Infrastructure as Code
19 105 (6.24%) Data Modelling
20 101 (6.00%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 229 (13.60%) Python
2 174 (10.33%) SQL
3 123 (7.30%) Java
4 66 (3.92%) JavaScript
5 59 (3.50%) PowerShell
6 45 (2.67%) Bash
7 33 (1.96%) TypeScript
8 28 (1.66%) C#
9 19 (1.13%) Bicep
10 16 (0.95%) Go
11 12 (0.71%) Apex Code
11 12 (0.71%) Kotlin
12 11 (0.65%) Perl
13 10 (0.59%) 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 (14.67%) Security Cleared
2 187 (11.10%) SC Cleared
3 133 (7.90%) Degree
4 74 (4.39%) CISSP
5 59 (3.50%) DV Cleared
6 39 (2.32%) CISM
7 36 (2.14%) Cisco Certification
8 35 (2.08%) Computer Science Degree
9 32 (1.90%) Azure Certification
9 32 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
10 27 (1.60%) PMI Certification
11 25 (1.48%) 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 (0.71%) CCNP
16 10 (0.59%) CRISC
17 9 (0.53%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 249 (14.79%) GDPR
2 98 (5.82%) Data Quality
3 85 (5.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 85 (5.05%) NIST
4 78 (4.63%) QA
5 46 (2.73%) GRC
6 41 (2.43%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.60%) PCI DSS
8 25 (1.48%) PMO
9 19 (1.13%) SLA
9 19 (1.13%) SOC 2
10 18 (1.07%) NCSC
11 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 10 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
12 10 (0.59%) HIPAA
13 9 (0.53%) Disclosure Scotland
14 8 (0.48%) WCAG
15 7 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials
16 6 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 5 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 83 (4.93%) Active Directory
2 72 (4.28%) Docker
3 57 (3.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.07%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.89%) NFS
6 14 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.71%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.71%) 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 (0.059%) iptables
Systems Management
1 123 (7.30%) Kubernetes
2 94 (5.58%) Terraform
3 64 (3.80%) Ansible
4 40 (2.38%) Microsoft Intune
5 39 (2.32%) Grafana
6 30 (1.78%) NetBackup
7 28 (1.66%) 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 (0.65%) 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%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 293 (17.40%) Microsoft
2 78 (4.63%) Oracle
3 76 (4.51%) ServiceNow
4 65 (3.86%) Google
5 58 (3.44%) VMware
6 57 (3.38%) Cisco
7 51 (3.03%) Databricks
8 42 (2.49%) SAP
9 37 (2.20%) Splunk
10 35 (2.08%) Red Hat
11 27 (1.60%) Salesforce
12 23 (1.37%) Veritas
13 20 (1.19%) NetApp
13 20 (1.19%) Workday
13 20 (1.19%) Zscaler
14 16 (0.95%) Commvault
14 16 (0.95%) CyberArk
14 16 (0.95%) F5
15 15 (0.89%) Citrix
16 14 (0.83%) Dell