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

6 months to
7 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 96 77
Rank change year-on-year +23 -19 +32
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,293 801 1,198
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.31% 2.58% 2.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.80% 2.88% 3.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 688 398 683
10th Percentile £276 £270 £206
25th Percentile £400 £388 £353
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £595 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £481 £450
% change year-on-year -6.49% +6.94% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 21 77
10th Percentile £13.13 £16.25 £11.98
25th Percentile £16.50 £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 £23.12 £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 33,986 27,793 39,321
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.08% 89.38% 87.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,549 16,924 25,862
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 £716 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -3.88% -0.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,070 859 2,130
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.35
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +7.69%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.50 £61.13
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.51 £35.00
% change year-on-year -20.20% -9.97% +11.43%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 +28 1,100 £500 - 387
UK excluding London +18 692 £450 -6.49% 305
London +22 533 £530 +3.16% 149
Work from Home +25 298 £500 - 187
North of England -15 201 £463 -2.63% 70
South East +17 159 £490 +0.51% 88
Yorkshire +6 117 £487 -9.40% 17
Scotland +15 116 £402 -15.32% 20
Midlands +9 105 £449 -5.53% 59
North West -29 69 £436 -8.21% 48
West Midlands -6 63 £475 -6.17% 39
South West +4 46 £438 -10.26% 40
East of England +6 45 £314 -37.25% 22
East Midlands +5 42 £438 -2.78% 20
North East -25 16 £400 -11.11% 5
Wales +5 14 £375 -26.83% 11
Northern Ireland - 10 £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 57 (4.41%) Confluence
2 30 (2.32%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.62%) Apache
5 8 (0.62%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.62%) CMS
6 4 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.23%) Ethereum
7 3 (0.23%) Hyperledger
7 3 (0.23%) SAS
8 2 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.15%) Drupal
8 2 (0.15%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.15%) nginx
8 2 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.15%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.077%) Mule
9 1 (0.077%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (3.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (3.25%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
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 (1.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.85%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (0.70%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
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
5 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
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%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 240 (18.56%) Azure
2 211 (16.32%) AWS
3 95 (7.35%) GCP
4 69 (5.34%) Microsoft 365
5 68 (5.26%) Power Platform
6 56 (4.33%) Serverless
7 53 (4.10%) Entra ID
8 52 (4.02%) GitHub
9 45 (3.48%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (3.25%) AWS Lambda
11 41 (3.17%) SaaS
12 39 (3.02%) Amazon S3
13 29 (2.24%) Snowflake
14 28 (2.17%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (2.09%) Power Automate
16 24 (1.86%) GitHub Actions
16 24 (1.86%) Microsoft Purview
17 22 (1.70%) OpenShift
17 22 (1.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 21 (1.62%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.33%) Firewall
2 34 (2.63%) Network Security
3 23 (1.78%) 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 (0.70%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.62%) BGP
10 8 (0.62%) HTTP
10 8 (0.62%) SSH
10 8 (0.62%) VLAN
11 7 (0.54%) DHCP
11 7 (0.54%) Internet
12 6 (0.46%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (4.25%) Power BI
2 35 (2.71%) PostgreSQL
2 35 (2.71%) SQL Server
3 22 (1.70%) NoSQL
4 21 (1.62%) Relational Database
5 20 (1.55%) Data Warehouse
5 20 (1.55%) Metadata
6 19 (1.47%) MySQL
7 17 (1.31%) MongoDB
8 16 (1.24%) DynamoDB
9 14 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
9 14 (1.08%) Tableau
10 13 (1.01%) Data Lake
11 12 (0.93%) Amazon Aurora
12 11 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.77%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
15 8 (0.62%) Big Data
15 8 (0.62%) Hadoop
15 8 (0.62%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 99 (7.66%) JIRA
2 51 (3.94%) Git
3 47 (3.63%) Jenkins
4 32 (2.47%) GitLab
5 11 (0.85%) JUnit
5 11 (0.85%) SpecFlow
6 6 (0.46%) Gradle
6 6 (0.46%) Maven
6 6 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.39%) NUnit
7 5 (0.39%) Team Foundation Server
8 4 (0.31%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.31%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.31%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.31%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.23%) Postman
9 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.15%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.15%) TestNG
General
1 423 (32.71%) Social Skills
2 269 (20.80%) Finance
3 166 (12.84%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (10.36%) Public Sector
5 110 (8.51%) Banking
6 107 (8.28%) Legal
7 48 (3.71%) Organisational Skills
8 41 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
9 37 (2.86%) Telecoms
10 33 (2.55%) Marketing
11 26 (2.01%) Influencing Skills
12 22 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
13 20 (1.55%) Law
14 19 (1.47%) Front Office
15 17 (1.31%) Local Government
15 17 (1.31%) Manufacturing
16 12 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 12 (0.93%) Police
16 12 (0.93%) Retail
17 10 (0.77%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 156 (12.06%) Analyst
2 137 (10.60%) Developer
3 135 (10.44%) Architect
4 97 (7.50%) Lead
5 69 (5.34%) Business Analyst
5 69 (5.34%) Senior
6 64 (4.95%) Consultant
7 58 (4.49%) Project Manager
8 46 (3.56%) Solutions Architect
9 36 (2.78%) Administrator
10 30 (2.32%) Security Engineer
11 29 (2.24%) Data Analyst
11 29 (2.24%) Data Engineer
12 24 (1.86%) Java Developer
12 24 (1.86%) Network Engineer
13 22 (1.70%) Automation Engineer
13 22 (1.70%) Data Protection Officer
14 21 (1.62%) Security Architect
14 21 (1.62%) Support Engineer
15 20 (1.55%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (4.64%) REST
2 45 (3.48%) React
3 36 (2.78%) .NET
4 34 (2.63%) Node.js
5 29 (2.24%) RESTful
6 27 (2.09%) Spring
7 23 (1.78%) Kafka
7 23 (1.78%) Spring Boot
8 22 (1.70%) OAuth
9 17 (1.31%) HTML
9 17 (1.31%) Middleware
10 16 (1.24%) PySpark
10 16 (1.24%) SOAP
11 15 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
11 15 (1.16%) Playwright
12 14 (1.08%) .NET Core
13 13 (1.01%) SAML
14 12 (0.93%) AngularJS
14 12 (0.93%) Jest
15 9 (0.70%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 642 (49.65%) Data Protection Act
2 55 (4.25%) Product Ownership
3 54 (4.18%) Cloud Native
4 52 (4.02%) Management Information System
4 52 (4.02%) Onboarding
5 31 (2.40%) NHS
6 29 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
7 26 (2.01%) Freedom of Information
8 23 (1.78%) Data Structures
9 21 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
10 18 (1.39%) Data Centre
10 18 (1.39%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 18 (1.39%) Security Posture
11 17 (1.31%) CMDB
12 15 (1.16%) Replication
12 15 (1.16%) Virtual Team
13 14 (1.08%) Hybrid Cloud
14 13 (1.01%) AI Agents
14 13 (1.01%) Insider Threat
15 12 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 92 (7.12%) Windows
2 68 (5.26%) Linux
3 24 (1.86%) Unix
4 17 (1.31%) Windows Server
5 16 (1.24%) Mac OS
6 13 (1.01%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (0.54%) Android
8 7 (0.54%) VMS
9 6 (0.46%) zOS
10 5 (0.39%) Apple iOS
11 4 (0.31%) AIX
11 4 (0.31%) Solaris
12 3 (0.23%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.15%) CoreOS
14 1 (0.077%) CentOS
14 1 (0.077%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.077%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 234 (18.10%) Problem-Solving
2 226 (17.48%) Agile
3 217 (16.78%) Stakeholder Management
4 180 (13.92%) Migration
5 162 (12.53%) CI/CD
6 155 (11.99%) DevOps
7 139 (10.75%) Continuous Improvement
8 126 (9.74%) Analytics
8 126 (9.74%) Cybersecurity
9 122 (9.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 121 (9.36%) Roadmaps
11 119 (9.20%) AI
12 104 (8.04%) Information Security
13 102 (7.89%) Project Management
14 98 (7.58%) Risk Management
15 83 (6.42%) Microservices
15 83 (6.42%) Test Automation
16 80 (6.19%) Decision-Making
17 75 (5.80%) Incident Response
18 74 (5.72%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 215 (16.63%) Python
2 164 (12.68%) SQL
3 88 (6.81%) Java
4 72 (5.57%) JavaScript
5 61 (4.72%) PowerShell
6 53 (4.10%) C#
7 44 (3.40%) Bash
8 36 (2.78%) TypeScript
9 16 (1.24%) Bicep
10 13 (1.01%) C++
10 13 (1.01%) Shell Script
11 11 (0.85%) Perl
12 8 (0.62%) PL/SQL
13 6 (0.46%) ActionScript
13 6 (0.46%) ActionScript 2.0
13 6 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
13 6 (0.46%) PHP
14 4 (0.31%) Go
14 4 (0.31%) Groovy
14 4 (0.31%) Scala
Qualifications
1 172 (13.30%) Security Cleared
2 128 (9.90%) SC Cleared
3 117 (9.05%) Degree
4 44 (3.40%) DV Cleared
5 32 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
6 30 (2.32%) CISSP
7 25 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
8 24 (1.86%) CISM
9 23 (1.78%) AWS Certification
10 22 (1.70%) Master's Degree
11 17 (1.31%) PMI Certification
12 15 (1.16%) PMP
13 13 (1.01%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (1.01%) 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 8 (0.62%) A+ Certification
16 8 (0.62%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (17.32%) GDPR
2 91 (7.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 78 (6.03%) NIST
4 60 (4.64%) Data Quality
5 48 (3.71%) QA
6 30 (2.32%) PCI DSS
7 28 (2.17%) Accessibility
8 20 (1.55%) GRC
9 19 (1.47%) PMO
10 14 (1.08%) Disclosure Scotland
10 14 (1.08%) NCSC
11 13 (1.01%) SLA
12 11 (0.85%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.77%) PERC
14 8 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
14 8 (0.62%) SOC 2
15 6 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
15 6 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 6 (0.46%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 59 (4.56%) Docker
2 55 (4.25%) Active Directory
3 50 (3.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.77%) NFS
6 7 (0.54%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.39%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.39%) vSphere
9 3 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.15%) KVM
10 2 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.077%) Firmware
11 1 (0.077%) HDFS
11 1 (0.077%) IAG
11 1 (0.077%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.077%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.077%) UAG
Systems Management
1 79 (6.11%) Terraform
2 70 (5.41%) Kubernetes
3 55 (4.25%) Ansible
4 28 (2.17%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (1.93%) NetBackup
6 24 (1.86%) Grafana
7 21 (1.62%) SCCM
8 20 (1.55%) Prometheus
9 9 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.62%) Oracle RMAN
10 8 (0.62%) Puppet
11 6 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.46%) RSA Archer
12 5 (0.39%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.31%) Control-M
13 4 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
13 4 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
14 3 (0.23%) Kibana
14 3 (0.23%) PingFederate
14 3 (0.23%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 199 (15.39%) Microsoft
2 66 (5.10%) Oracle
3 57 (4.41%) Google
4 52 (4.02%) VMware
5 39 (3.02%) Cisco
5 39 (3.02%) Databricks
6 38 (2.94%) ServiceNow
7 35 (2.71%) SAP
8 30 (2.32%) Salesforce
9 25 (1.93%) Red Hat
10 22 (1.70%) Citrix
11 20 (1.55%) Veritas
12 18 (1.39%) IBM
13 17 (1.31%) Commvault
14 15 (1.16%) F5
15 13 (1.01%) Splunk
16 12 (0.93%) Adobe
17 11 (0.85%) CyberArk
17 11 (0.85%) Informatica
17 11 (0.85%) OneTrust