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

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 75 89
Rank change year-on-year -9 +14 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,661 1,055 949
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.20% 2.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.64% 3.54% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 885 525 515
10th Percentile £305 £296 £200
25th Percentile £400 £388 £353
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £619
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £466 £475
% change year-on-year +0.16% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 45 35
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £15.72 £14.78 £16.06
Median hourly rate £17.85 £17.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -32.00% -40.74%
75th Percentile £29.60 £27.28 £29.38
90th Percentile £35.53 £34.70 £68.81
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% -20.63%

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 45,630 29,844 33,104
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.69% 90.49% 85.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,001 18,599 21,039
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.54%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £728 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,875 1,760 1,727
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.87
25th Percentile £18.29 £17.30 £18.00
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.86 £47.66 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.74 £42.05
% change year-on-year +93.36% -45.93% +12.12%

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 August 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 August 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 23 August 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 -4 1,401 £500 +3.09% 563
UK excluding London -2 909 £466 +0.16% 450
London -15 612 £525 +5.00% 190
Work from Home +15 479 £500 +5.26% 188
North of England +16 332 £475 +3.26% 120
South East +10 195 £483 -5.29% 129
Yorkshire 0 174 £475 -5.00% 36
North West +17 145 £500 +11.86% 69
Midlands -1 143 £462 -2.84% 79
Scotland -7 116 £430 -7.03% 13
West Midlands -14 111 £473 -5.40% 51
South West -16 73 £425 +6.25% 53
East of England -3 33 £538 +13.16% 47
East Midlands -1 32 £441 +26.00% 27
Wales -11 18 £413 +39.24% 10
North East -54 14 £463 +15.63% 15
Northern Ireland +1 12 £110 -81.63% 8

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 60 (3.61%) SharePoint
2 47 (2.83%) Confluence
3 26 (1.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
4 19 (1.14%) Apache Spark
5 13 (0.78%) Apache
6 6 (0.36%) CMS
6 6 (0.36%) IIS
6 6 (0.36%) SAS
7 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Drupal
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) nginx
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) WordPress
11 1 (0.060%) CICS
Applications
1 46 (2.77%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (2.59%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
5 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
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 12 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.24%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
8 1 (0.060%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 382 (23.00%) Azure
2 290 (17.46%) AWS
3 147 (8.85%) GCP
4 128 (7.71%) Microsoft 365
5 93 (5.60%) Power Platform
6 83 (5.00%) Entra ID
7 77 (4.64%) SaaS
8 64 (3.85%) GitHub
9 60 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
10 57 (3.43%) Microsoft Purview
11 53 (3.19%) Serverless
12 35 (2.11%) Microsoft Copilot
13 32 (1.93%) OpenShift
14 30 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
15 27 (1.63%) OneDrive
15 27 (1.63%) PowerApps
16 25 (1.51%) GitHub Actions
16 25 (1.51%) Power Automate
17 24 (1.44%) Amazon S3
18 22 (1.32%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 96 (5.78%) Network Security
2 59 (3.55%) Firewall
3 38 (2.29%) DNS
4 37 (2.23%) VPN
5 29 (1.75%) DHCP
6 23 (1.38%) TCP/IP
7 22 (1.32%) SAN
7 22 (1.32%) WAN
8 17 (1.02%) Cisco IPT
8 17 (1.02%) LAN
9 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (0.84%) SSL
10 14 (0.84%) Wireless
11 13 (0.78%) NAS
12 11 (0.66%) HTTP
12 11 (0.66%) MPLS
13 10 (0.60%) VoIP
14 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
15 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
15 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (4.21%) Power BI
2 54 (3.25%) Metadata
3 41 (2.47%) PostgreSQL
4 37 (2.23%) SQL Server
5 36 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
6 29 (1.75%) Relational Database
7 26 (1.57%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.32%) Data Lake
9 20 (1.20%) Big Data
10 19 (1.14%) MySQL
11 18 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (1.02%) MongoDB
13 13 (0.78%) BigQuery
14 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
15 11 (0.66%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
16 9 (0.54%) Redis
17 8 (0.48%) Tableau
18 7 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 84 (5.06%) JIRA
2 63 (3.79%) Git
3 57 (3.43%) Jenkins
4 32 (1.93%) GitLab
5 11 (0.66%) Maven
6 9 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Gradle
8 6 (0.36%) Postman
8 6 (0.36%) Selenium
8 6 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) Flyway
9 5 (0.30%) JUnit
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 596 (35.88%) Social Skills
2 360 (21.67%) Finance
3 252 (15.17%) Legal
4 203 (12.22%) Analytical Skills
5 195 (11.74%) Public Sector
6 115 (6.92%) Banking
7 76 (4.58%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (4.46%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.47%) Retail
10 38 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
11 37 (2.23%) Local Government
12 33 (1.99%) Law
13 31 (1.87%) Telecoms
14 27 (1.63%) Front Office
14 27 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
15 24 (1.44%) Marketing
16 22 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
16 22 (1.32%) Police
17 21 (1.26%) Billing
18 16 (0.96%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 247 (14.87%) Architect
2 159 (9.57%) Analyst
3 145 (8.73%) Lead
4 126 (7.59%) Developer
5 123 (7.41%) Senior
6 86 (5.18%) Consultant
7 78 (4.70%) Project Manager
8 65 (3.91%) Business Analyst
8 65 (3.91%) Solutions Architect
9 59 (3.55%) Security Architect
10 42 (2.53%) Security Engineer
11 40 (2.41%) Administrator
12 36 (2.17%) Data Engineer
13 34 (2.05%) Support Engineer
14 31 (1.87%) Network Engineer
15 30 (1.81%) Java Developer
16 28 (1.69%) Data Analyst
17 27 (1.63%) IT Support
18 26 (1.57%) Data Architect
18 26 (1.57%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (5.42%) Terraform
2 87 (5.24%) REST
3 40 (2.41%) React
4 36 (2.17%) JSON
4 36 (2.17%) Spring
5 33 (1.99%) Kafka
5 33 (1.99%) Spring Boot
6 32 (1.93%) Middleware
7 31 (1.87%) CSS
7 31 (1.87%) HTML
7 31 (1.87%) OAuth
8 26 (1.57%) RESTful
9 23 (1.38%) .NET
10 21 (1.26%) Node.js
11 17 (1.02%) OAuth2
11 17 (1.02%) OpenID
12 15 (0.90%) CSS3
12 15 (0.90%) GraphQL
12 15 (0.90%) HTML5
13 14 (0.84%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 722 (43.47%) Data Protection Act
2 93 (5.60%) Cloud Native
3 92 (5.54%) Product Ownership
4 82 (4.94%) Management Information System
5 74 (4.46%) Onboarding
6 52 (3.13%) Data Centre
7 47 (2.83%) Distributed Systems
8 41 (2.47%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.41%) Virtual Team
10 37 (2.23%) Security Posture
11 31 (1.87%) Freedom of Information
12 27 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
13 26 (1.57%) NHS
14 25 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
14 25 (1.51%) Replication
15 24 (1.44%) Operational Technology
16 22 (1.32%) Hybrid Cloud
16 22 (1.32%) Mobile App
17 20 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
17 20 (1.20%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 129 (7.77%) Windows
2 83 (5.00%) Linux
3 31 (1.87%) Android
3 31 (1.87%) Apple iOS
4 28 (1.69%) Unix
4 28 (1.69%) Windows Server
5 22 (1.32%) Mac OS
6 20 (1.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (0.96%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.60%) VMS
9 7 (0.42%) zOS
10 3 (0.18%) CoreOS
10 3 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
10 3 (0.18%) Solaris
10 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 332 (19.99%) Stakeholder Management
2 303 (18.24%) Agile
3 285 (17.16%) Problem-Solving
4 265 (15.95%) Continuous Improvement
5 236 (14.21%) DevOps
6 234 (14.09%) CI/CD
7 214 (12.88%) Migration
8 212 (12.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 211 (12.70%) AI
10 185 (11.14%) Cybersecurity
11 163 (9.81%) Data Governance
12 155 (9.33%) Decision-Making
12 155 (9.33%) Roadmaps
13 149 (8.97%) Analytics
14 138 (8.31%) Information Security
15 131 (7.89%) Risk Management
16 125 (7.53%) Infrastructure as Code
17 122 (7.34%) Validation
18 120 (7.22%) Data Modelling
19 100 (6.02%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 205 (12.34%) Python
2 162 (9.75%) SQL
3 105 (6.32%) Java
4 59 (3.55%) PowerShell
5 57 (3.43%) JavaScript
6 39 (2.35%) Bash
7 26 (1.57%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.14%) C#
8 19 (1.14%) Go
9 15 (0.90%) Bicep
9 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
10 14 (0.84%) Apex Code
11 12 (0.72%) Perl
12 11 (0.66%) C++
13 8 (0.48%) C
13 8 (0.48%) Scala
13 8 (0.48%) VB
14 7 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
14 7 (0.42%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.42%) VB6
Qualifications
1 257 (15.47%) Security Cleared
2 190 (11.44%) SC Cleared
3 105 (6.32%) Degree
4 80 (4.82%) CISSP
5 59 (3.55%) DV Cleared
6 49 (2.95%) CISM
7 38 (2.29%) BPSS Clearance
8 33 (1.99%) Azure Certification
9 32 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
10 29 (1.75%) PMI Certification
11 26 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
11 26 (1.57%) PMP
12 22 (1.32%) AWS Certification
13 18 (1.08%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (1.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 14 (0.84%) CCSP
16 11 (0.66%) CCNP
17 10 (0.60%) Master's Degree
18 9 (0.54%) CRISC
19 8 (0.48%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 250 (15.05%) GDPR
2 107 (6.44%) Data Quality
3 95 (5.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (4.76%) NIST
5 76 (4.58%) QA
6 47 (2.83%) Accessibility
7 45 (2.71%) GRC
8 24 (1.44%) PMO
9 20 (1.20%) NCSC
9 20 (1.20%) PCI DSS
9 20 (1.20%) SLA
10 15 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials
11 12 (0.72%) HIPAA
11 12 (0.72%) PERC
11 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 11 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 11 (0.66%) WCAG
13 10 (0.60%) SOC 2
14 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
14 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 92 (5.54%) Active Directory
2 64 (3.85%) Docker
3 57 (3.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.20%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.72%) NFS
6 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 11 (0.66%) vSphere
7 8 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) KVM
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) Firmware
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 113 (6.80%) Kubernetes
2 48 (2.89%) Ansible
3 41 (2.47%) Microsoft Intune
4 29 (1.75%) Grafana
5 23 (1.38%) NetBackup
5 23 (1.38%) SCCM
6 18 (1.08%) Prometheus
7 17 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.90%) Puppet
9 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
11 8 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.36%) Kibana
13 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
13 5 (0.30%) QRadar
14 4 (0.24%) Cisco CUCM
14 4 (0.24%) Istio
14 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
14 4 (0.24%) SCOM
14 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 339 (20.41%) Microsoft
2 85 (5.12%) ServiceNow
3 70 (4.21%) Oracle
4 69 (4.15%) Google
5 60 (3.61%) Cisco
6 59 (3.55%) VMware
7 48 (2.89%) Databricks
8 37 (2.23%) SAP
9 34 (2.05%) Splunk
10 27 (1.63%) Salesforce
11 26 (1.57%) Red Hat
12 24 (1.44%) Zscaler
13 23 (1.38%) NetApp
13 23 (1.38%) Workday
14 21 (1.26%) CyberArk
15 17 (1.02%) IBM
16 16 (0.96%) Citrix
16 16 (0.96%) F5
16 16 (0.96%) Veritas
17 14 (0.84%) Dell