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

6 months to
20 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 98 83
Rank change year-on-year +22 -15 +25
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,328 796 1,135
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.25% 2.58% 2.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.74% 2.87% 2.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 703 404 639
10th Percentile £275 £265 £206
25th Percentile £400 £388 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.60% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £591 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £693 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 21 83
10th Percentile £13.13 £16.25 £12.05
25th Percentile £16.88 £22.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.15% +49.90% -72.14%
75th Percentile £24.19 £34.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £42.50 £65.00 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £28.29 £19.50
% change year-on-year -26.79% +45.08% -72.14%

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 35,472 27,688 38,644
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.86% 89.76% 87.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,461 17,051 25,269
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £410 £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 £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -1.84% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,140 862 2,156
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.64 £32.50 £34.77
Median % change year-on-year -21.12% -6.52% -0.67%
75th Percentile £60.25 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year -17.41% -13.00% -

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +26 1,133 £500 - 517
UK excluding London +14 704 £450 -5.26% 392
London +21 552 £525 +2.19% 198
Work from Home +10 312 £500 - 204
North of England -10 208 £463 -2.63% 94
South East +11 161 £463 -5.13% 131
Yorkshire -6 117 £478 -9.05% 25
Scotland +15 116 £402 -8.06% 16
Midlands +10 106 £448 -5.79% 66
North West -16 77 £435 -8.53% 63
West Midlands -12 62 £500 -1.23% 38
South West +9 48 £500 +2.56% 43
East of England +3 46 £350 -30.00% 33
East Midlands +8 44 £438 -2.78% 27
North East -25 15 £400 -15.79% 6
Wales +5 14 £375 -26.83% 10
Northern Ireland - 9 £500 - 2

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 61 (4.59%) Confluence
2 30 (2.26%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.60%) Apache Spark
6 7 (0.53%) Apache
7 5 (0.38%) CMS
8 4 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
9 3 (0.23%) Ethereum
9 3 (0.23%) Hyperledger
9 3 (0.23%) SAS
10 2 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.15%) Drupal
10 2 (0.15%) GeoServer
10 2 (0.15%) nginx
10 2 (0.15%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.15%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.075%) Mule
Applications
1 49 (3.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (3.16%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.53%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.23%) AutoCAD
8 3 (0.23%) Sketch
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.15%) InVision
9 2 (0.15%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.075%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.075%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.075%) Blender
10 1 (0.075%) CINEMA 4D
10 1 (0.075%) Final Cut Pro
10 1 (0.075%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 12 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.75%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.68%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.68%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.38%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.38%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.30%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.23%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.23%) Fidessa
6 3 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.23%) R3 Corda
6 3 (0.23%) ResourceLink
6 3 (0.23%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.15%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.075%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 245 (18.45%) Azure
2 216 (16.27%) AWS
3 100 (7.53%) GCP
4 66 (4.97%) Microsoft 365
5 64 (4.82%) Power Platform
6 57 (4.29%) Entra ID
6 57 (4.29%) GitHub
7 54 (4.07%) Serverless
8 44 (3.31%) SaaS
9 42 (3.16%) AWS Lambda
10 40 (3.01%) Amazon S3
11 38 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
12 31 (2.33%) AWS CloudFormation
13 29 (2.18%) Snowflake
14 28 (2.11%) Microsoft Purview
15 27 (2.03%) OpenShift
16 24 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (1.73%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 20 (1.51%) Amazon EC2
19 19 (1.43%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 42 (3.16%) Firewall
2 37 (2.79%) Network Security
3 27 (2.03%) SAN
4 19 (1.43%) LAN
4 19 (1.43%) MPLS
4 19 (1.43%) VPN
5 17 (1.28%) NAS
6 16 (1.20%) DNS
6 16 (1.20%) WAN
7 14 (1.05%) Cisco IPT
8 13 (0.98%) TCP/IP
9 9 (0.68%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.68%) VLAN
9 9 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.60%) BGP
10 8 (0.60%) HTTP
10 8 (0.60%) SSH
11 7 (0.53%) DHCP
12 6 (0.45%) Internet
12 6 (0.45%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (4.44%) Power BI
2 34 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
3 31 (2.33%) SQL Server
4 23 (1.73%) Data Warehouse
5 21 (1.58%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.51%) Metadata
7 19 (1.43%) Relational Database
8 18 (1.36%) MySQL
9 17 (1.28%) DynamoDB
10 16 (1.20%) MongoDB
11 15 (1.13%) Data Lake
11 15 (1.13%) Tableau
12 14 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
13 12 (0.90%) Amazon Aurora
14 11 (0.83%) Oracle Database
15 10 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
16 9 (0.68%) Oracle Reports
17 8 (0.60%) Big Data
17 8 (0.60%) BigQuery
17 8 (0.60%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 97 (7.30%) JIRA
2 53 (3.99%) Git
3 52 (3.92%) Jenkins
4 31 (2.33%) GitLab
5 13 (0.98%) SpecFlow
6 11 (0.83%) JUnit
7 7 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.45%) Gradle
8 6 (0.45%) Maven
8 6 (0.45%) NUnit
9 5 (0.38%) Postman
9 5 (0.38%) Team Foundation Server
10 4 (0.30%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.30%) CircleCI
10 4 (0.30%) Fiddler
11 3 (0.23%) Cypress.io
11 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.23%) webpack
12 2 (0.15%) IntelliJ
12 2 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
General
1 440 (33.13%) Social Skills
2 284 (21.39%) Finance
3 169 (12.73%) Analytical Skills
4 136 (10.24%) Public Sector
5 119 (8.96%) Legal
6 115 (8.66%) Banking
7 52 (3.92%) Organisational Skills
8 41 (3.09%) Documentation Skills
9 37 (2.79%) Telecoms
10 34 (2.56%) Marketing
11 30 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
13 21 (1.58%) Front Office
13 21 (1.58%) Local Government
14 15 (1.13%) Law
14 15 (1.13%) Manufacturing
15 14 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 14 (1.05%) Police
16 13 (0.98%) Investment Banking
17 12 (0.90%) Retail
Job Titles
1 157 (11.82%) Architect
2 156 (11.75%) Analyst
3 116 (8.73%) Developer
4 93 (7.00%) Lead
5 73 (5.50%) Senior
6 72 (5.42%) Business Analyst
7 70 (5.27%) Consultant
8 65 (4.89%) Project Manager
9 50 (3.77%) Solutions Architect
10 34 (2.56%) Administrator
11 32 (2.41%) Security Engineer
12 30 (2.26%) Data Analyst
12 30 (2.26%) Data Engineer
13 26 (1.96%) Java Developer
13 26 (1.96%) Security Architect
14 25 (1.88%) Network Engineer
15 24 (1.81%) Automation Engineer
16 23 (1.73%) Technical Architect
17 22 (1.66%) Data Protection Officer
18 21 (1.58%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (4.37%) REST
2 47 (3.54%) React
3 33 (2.48%) .NET
4 31 (2.33%) Node.js
5 29 (2.18%) RESTful
6 27 (2.03%) Spring
7 26 (1.96%) Kafka
8 22 (1.66%) Spring Boot
9 20 (1.51%) Middleware
9 20 (1.51%) OAuth
10 17 (1.28%) Oracle Fusion
11 16 (1.20%) Playwright
11 16 (1.20%) PySpark
12 15 (1.13%) HTML
13 12 (0.90%) .NET Core
13 12 (0.90%) AngularJS
13 12 (0.90%) Jest
13 12 (0.90%) SAML
14 10 (0.75%) CSS
14 10 (0.75%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 664 (50.00%) Data Protection Act
2 60 (4.52%) Cloud Native
3 56 (4.22%) Onboarding
3 56 (4.22%) Product Ownership
4 55 (4.14%) Management Information System
5 32 (2.41%) NHS
6 29 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
7 28 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
8 22 (1.66%) Freedom of Information
9 21 (1.58%) Data Structures
9 21 (1.58%) Security Posture
10 20 (1.51%) Data Centre
10 20 (1.51%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 17 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
12 15 (1.13%) AI Agents
12 15 (1.13%) Replication
13 13 (0.98%) Insider Threat
14 12 (0.90%) Algorithms
14 12 (0.90%) Derivative
14 12 (0.90%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 97 (7.30%) Windows
2 63 (4.74%) Linux
3 24 (1.81%) Unix
4 19 (1.43%) Windows Server
5 17 (1.28%) Mac OS
6 12 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.90%) Windows 10
7 7 (0.53%) Android
7 7 (0.53%) VMS
8 6 (0.45%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.38%) zOS
10 4 (0.30%) AIX
10 4 (0.30%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.30%) Solaris
11 3 (0.23%) CoreOS
12 1 (0.075%) CentOS
12 1 (0.075%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.075%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 235 (17.70%) Problem-Solving
2 234 (17.62%) Stakeholder Management
3 221 (16.64%) Agile
4 188 (14.16%) Migration
5 172 (12.95%) CI/CD
6 160 (12.05%) DevOps
7 157 (11.82%) Continuous Improvement
8 132 (9.94%) Cybersecurity
9 130 (9.79%) Analytics
10 125 (9.41%) Roadmaps
11 123 (9.26%) AI
11 123 (9.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 113 (8.51%) Risk Management
13 107 (8.06%) Information Security
14 103 (7.76%) Project Management
15 88 (6.63%) Decision-Making
16 87 (6.55%) Test Automation
17 85 (6.40%) Microservices
18 81 (6.10%) Incident Response
19 78 (5.87%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 221 (16.64%) Python
2 170 (12.80%) SQL
3 94 (7.08%) Java
4 67 (5.05%) JavaScript
5 61 (4.59%) PowerShell
6 54 (4.07%) C#
7 39 (2.94%) Bash
8 38 (2.86%) TypeScript
9 17 (1.28%) Bicep
10 13 (0.98%) Perl
10 13 (0.98%) Shell Script
11 11 (0.83%) C++
12 8 (0.60%) PL/SQL
13 7 (0.53%) ActionScript
13 7 (0.53%) Kusto Query Language
14 6 (0.45%) ActionScript 2.0
14 6 (0.45%) PHP
15 4 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.30%) Go
15 4 (0.30%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 169 (12.73%) Security Cleared
2 124 (9.34%) SC Cleared
3 122 (9.19%) Degree
4 42 (3.16%) DV Cleared
5 37 (2.79%) CISSP
6 34 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (2.03%) AWS Certification
8 26 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
9 25 (1.88%) CISM
10 23 (1.73%) Master's Degree
11 19 (1.43%) PMI Certification
12 17 (1.28%) Cisco Certification
12 17 (1.28%) PMP
13 16 (1.20%) Azure Certification
14 14 (1.05%) CRISC
15 13 (0.98%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 13 (0.98%) CTC Cleared
16 11 (0.83%) CCSP
17 10 (0.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 10 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 225 (16.94%) GDPR
2 91 (6.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 82 (6.17%) NIST
4 66 (4.97%) Data Quality
5 52 (3.92%) QA
6 32 (2.41%) PCI DSS
7 27 (2.03%) Accessibility
8 23 (1.73%) GRC
9 22 (1.66%) PMO
10 15 (1.13%) NCSC
10 15 (1.13%) SLA
11 14 (1.05%) Disclosure Scotland
12 12 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 12 (0.90%) SOC 2
13 11 (0.83%) NIST 800
14 10 (0.75%) PERC
15 8 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
16 6 (0.45%) EU AI Act
16 6 (0.45%) HIPAA
17 5 (0.38%) WCAG
System Software
1 64 (4.82%) Docker
2 55 (4.14%) Active Directory
3 48 (3.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.20%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.83%) NFS
6 7 (0.53%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.45%) vSphere
8 5 (0.38%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
9 3 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.15%) IAG
10 2 (0.15%) KVM
10 2 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.075%) Firmware
11 1 (0.075%) HDFS
11 1 (0.075%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.075%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.075%) UAG
Systems Management
1 86 (6.48%) Terraform
2 84 (6.33%) Kubernetes
3 59 (4.44%) Ansible
4 28 (2.11%) Grafana
4 28 (2.11%) Microsoft Intune
5 24 (1.81%) NetBackup
6 23 (1.73%) Prometheus
7 19 (1.43%) SCCM
8 12 (0.90%) Puppet
8 12 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 6 (0.45%) Jamf Pro
9 6 (0.45%) Oracle RMAN
9 6 (0.45%) RSA Archer
10 5 (0.38%) Control-M
10 5 (0.38%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.30%) EMC NetWorker
11 4 (0.30%) Kibana
11 4 (0.30%) SnapMirror
12 3 (0.23%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 192 (14.46%) Microsoft
2 64 (4.82%) Oracle
3 56 (4.22%) Google
4 50 (3.77%) VMware
5 41 (3.09%) Databricks
6 39 (2.94%) Cisco
6 39 (2.94%) ServiceNow
7 36 (2.71%) SAP
8 33 (2.48%) Salesforce
9 26 (1.96%) Red Hat
10 22 (1.66%) Citrix
11 19 (1.43%) Veritas
12 18 (1.36%) IBM
13 17 (1.28%) Commvault
14 16 (1.20%) F5
15 14 (1.05%) Splunk
16 13 (0.98%) Adobe
17 11 (0.83%) NetApp
17 11 (0.83%) OneTrust
18 10 (0.75%) Workday