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

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 90 86
Rank change year-on-year +19 -4 +8
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,526 794 1,064
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.18% 2.72% 2.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.77% 2.99% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 842 400 564
10th Percentile £300 £262 £225
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.56% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £580 £602
90th Percentile £700 £691 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 32 108
10th Percentile £14.74 £15.36 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £27.57 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.56% +31.29% -60.00%
75th Percentile £33.22 £32.73 £27.59
90th Percentile £48.60 £36.95 £41.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £29.00 £19.50
% change year-on-year -26.72% +48.72% -56.21%

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 40,493 26,571 36,681
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.28% 90.99% 86.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,428 17,064 23,633
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.65% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.00% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,382 1,097 2,442
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.26 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.72 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.40 £28.18 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +50.46% -21.77% +0.06%
75th Percentile £67.25 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.23 £37.50
% change year-on-year +78.39% -32.73% +7.14%

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 19 May 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 19 May 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 19 May 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 +31 1,311 £493 -1.50% 402
UK excluding London +12 831 £450 -5.26% 288
London +30 594 £525 +5.00% 165
Work from Home +16 388 £500 +2.56% 153
North of England -5 267 £478 +0.53% 72
South East +16 184 £475 -5.00% 76
Yorkshire -9 154 £478 -5.68% 31
Midlands +7 134 £450 -11.11% 58
Scotland +5 121 £425 -8.60% 24
North West +5 105 £493 +15.88% 30
West Midlands -10 88 £459 -12.62% 38
South West +6 65 £425 +6.25% 28
East of England +4 48 £475 -13.64% 22
East Midlands +7 46 £437 +16.47% 20
Wales -4 10 £375 -9.09% 6
North East -36 9 £400 -4.48% 12
Northern Ireland -1 4 £389 -21.04% 6

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 55 (3.60%) Confluence
2 46 (3.01%) SharePoint
3 25 (1.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (0.98%) Apache Spark
5 13 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (0.46%) Apache
7 6 (0.39%) CMS
8 5 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (0.33%) SAS
9 3 (0.20%) Drupal
9 3 (0.20%) IIS
9 3 (0.20%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.13%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.13%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.13%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 48 (3.15%) Microsoft Office
2 45 (2.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.26%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.20%) UserZoom
8 2 (0.13%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.066%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.066%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.066%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.066%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.066%) Blender
9 1 (0.066%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.066%) Maya
9 1 (0.066%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.066%) Trello
9 1 (0.066%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.79%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.33%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.33%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.26%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.20%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.066%) Odoo
8 1 (0.066%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 308 (20.18%) Azure
2 253 (16.58%) AWS
3 130 (8.52%) GCP
4 91 (5.96%) Microsoft 365
5 83 (5.44%) Power Platform
6 79 (5.18%) Entra ID
7 66 (4.33%) GitHub
8 65 (4.26%) SaaS
9 48 (3.15%) Microsoft Purview
10 46 (3.01%) Azure DevOps
10 46 (3.01%) OpenShift
11 42 (2.75%) Serverless
12 29 (1.90%) AWS Lambda
13 28 (1.83%) Amazon S3
14 26 (1.70%) Microsoft Copilot
15 24 (1.57%) GitHub Actions
16 23 (1.51%) Snowflake
17 22 (1.44%) Amazon ECS
18 21 (1.38%) AWS CloudFormation
18 21 (1.38%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 63 (4.13%) Network Security
2 41 (2.69%) Firewall
3 38 (2.49%) SAN
4 26 (1.70%) NAS
4 26 (1.70%) VPN
5 21 (1.38%) DNS
6 19 (1.25%) TCP/IP
7 18 (1.18%) MPLS
7 18 (1.18%) WAN
8 17 (1.11%) LAN
9 13 (0.85%) DHCP
9 13 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
10 11 (0.72%) Fibre Channel
11 9 (0.59%) iSCSI
11 9 (0.59%) VLAN
12 8 (0.52%) HTTP
13 7 (0.46%) BGP
13 7 (0.46%) Ethernet
13 7 (0.46%) SD-WAN
13 7 (0.46%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.52%) Power BI
2 37 (2.42%) PostgreSQL
3 33 (2.16%) Metadata
3 33 (2.16%) SQL Server
4 31 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
5 28 (1.83%) MySQL
6 25 (1.64%) Relational Database
7 24 (1.57%) MongoDB
8 20 (1.31%) Amazon RDS
8 20 (1.31%) Big Data
9 18 (1.18%) Data Lake
9 18 (1.18%) NoSQL
10 13 (0.85%) DynamoDB
10 13 (0.85%) Oracle Database
10 13 (0.85%) Tableau
11 12 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
12 11 (0.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 10 (0.66%) Amazon Aurora
13 10 (0.66%) BigQuery
13 10 (0.66%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 91 (5.96%) JIRA
2 69 (4.52%) Git
3 65 (4.26%) Jenkins
4 38 (2.49%) GitLab
5 12 (0.79%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.66%) JUnit
7 7 (0.46%) Postman
7 7 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.39%) Flyway
8 6 (0.39%) Maven
8 6 (0.39%) NUnit
8 6 (0.39%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.33%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.26%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.26%) Gradle
10 4 (0.26%) Selenium
11 3 (0.20%) ERwin
11 3 (0.20%) Liquibase
11 3 (0.20%) TestNG
11 3 (0.20%) Visual Studio
General
1 480 (31.45%) Social Skills
2 354 (23.20%) Finance
3 194 (12.71%) Legal
4 177 (11.60%) Analytical Skills
5 131 (8.58%) Public Sector
6 117 (7.67%) Banking
7 63 (4.13%) Documentation Skills
8 62 (4.06%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.69%) Telecoms
10 33 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
11 31 (2.03%) Front Office
12 28 (1.83%) Local Government
12 28 (1.83%) Marketing
13 25 (1.64%) Law
13 25 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
14 24 (1.57%) Retail
15 18 (1.18%) Police
16 14 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
17 12 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 10 (0.66%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 204 (13.37%) Architect
2 143 (9.37%) Analyst
3 132 (8.65%) Developer
4 113 (7.40%) Lead
5 111 (7.27%) Senior
6 94 (6.16%) Consultant
7 83 (5.44%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.39%) Business Analyst
9 59 (3.87%) Solutions Architect
10 43 (2.82%) Java Developer
10 43 (2.82%) Security Architect
11 39 (2.56%) Security Engineer
12 38 (2.49%) Network Engineer
13 37 (2.42%) Data Engineer
14 36 (2.36%) Administrator
15 29 (1.90%) Technical Architect
16 28 (1.83%) Data Analyst
17 25 (1.64%) Support Engineer
18 23 (1.51%) Python Developer
19 20 (1.31%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (5.05%) REST
2 59 (3.87%) React
3 38 (2.49%) Spring
4 36 (2.36%) Kafka
5 35 (2.29%) Spring Boot
6 33 (2.16%) RESTful
7 32 (2.10%) .NET
8 31 (2.03%) HTML
8 31 (2.03%) Middleware
9 30 (1.97%) CSS
10 28 (1.83%) Node.js
10 28 (1.83%) OAuth
11 25 (1.64%) JSON
12 22 (1.44%) Jest
13 18 (1.18%) HTML5
13 18 (1.18%) OAuth2
13 18 (1.18%) Redux
14 17 (1.11%) PySpark
14 17 (1.11%) Spring MVC
15 16 (1.05%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 721 (47.25%) Data Protection Act
2 95 (6.23%) Cloud Native
3 76 (4.98%) Product Ownership
4 66 (4.33%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.34%) Management Information System
6 45 (2.95%) Distributed Systems
7 36 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
8 34 (2.23%) Data Centre
9 30 (1.97%) Security Posture
10 29 (1.90%) Replication
11 27 (1.77%) NHS
12 26 (1.70%) Virtual Team
13 24 (1.57%) Hybrid Cloud
14 23 (1.51%) Enterprise Storage
15 22 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
16 21 (1.38%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 19 (1.25%) Freedom of Information
18 17 (1.11%) Derivative
19 16 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
19 16 (1.05%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 103 (6.75%) Windows
2 77 (5.05%) Linux
3 32 (2.10%) Unix
4 22 (1.44%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.31%) Android
6 19 (1.25%) Apple iOS
6 19 (1.25%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.85%) VMS
8 13 (0.85%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.59%) zOS
10 7 (0.46%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.39%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.13%) Rocky
12 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.066%) CentOS
13 1 (0.066%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.066%) Solaris
13 1 (0.066%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.066%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 295 (19.33%) Agile
2 257 (16.84%) Stakeholder Management
3 255 (16.71%) Problem-Solving
4 233 (15.27%) Migration
5 222 (14.55%) CI/CD
6 219 (14.35%) Continuous Improvement
7 218 (14.29%) DevOps
8 143 (9.37%) AI
9 142 (9.31%) Analytics
10 140 (9.17%) Roadmaps
11 135 (8.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 122 (7.99%) Decision-Making
13 118 (7.73%) Cybersecurity
14 116 (7.60%) Risk Management
15 112 (7.34%) Information Security
16 107 (7.01%) Infrastructure as Code
17 99 (6.49%) Data Governance
17 99 (6.49%) Test Automation
18 98 (6.42%) Microservices
19 97 (6.36%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 218 (14.29%) Python
2 175 (11.47%) SQL
3 130 (8.52%) Java
4 80 (5.24%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.67%) PowerShell
6 46 (3.01%) C#
7 39 (2.56%) Bash
8 36 (2.36%) TypeScript
9 20 (1.31%) Bicep
10 15 (0.98%) C++
11 14 (0.92%) Perl
12 10 (0.66%) Go
12 10 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
13 9 (0.59%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.59%) PL/SQL
13 9 (0.59%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.52%) ActionScript
14 8 (0.52%) Apex Code
14 8 (0.52%) Scala
15 6 (0.39%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 206 (13.50%) Security Cleared
2 151 (9.90%) SC Cleared
3 124 (8.13%) Degree
4 64 (4.19%) CISSP
5 51 (3.34%) DV Cleared
6 35 (2.29%) CISM
7 31 (2.03%) Computer Science Degree
8 30 (1.97%) PMI Certification
9 29 (1.90%) Azure Certification
9 29 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
10 28 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 28 (1.83%) PMP
11 21 (1.38%) AWS Certification
12 20 (1.31%) Master's Degree
13 18 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.98%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 13 (0.85%) CCSP
16 10 (0.66%) CCNP
16 10 (0.66%) CRISC
16 10 (0.66%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (15.92%) GDPR
2 90 (5.90%) NIST
3 89 (5.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 74 (4.85%) Data Quality
5 65 (4.26%) QA
6 36 (2.36%) Accessibility
7 32 (2.10%) GRC
8 24 (1.57%) PCI DSS
9 21 (1.38%) PMO
10 20 (1.31%) SLA
11 19 (1.25%) SOC 2
12 15 (0.98%) NCSC
13 13 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 10 (0.66%) WCAG
15 9 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
16 7 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
16 7 (0.46%) HIPAA
16 7 (0.46%) PERC
17 6 (0.39%) COBIT
18 5 (0.33%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 74 (4.85%) Active Directory
2 73 (4.78%) Docker
3 52 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.31%) NFS
5 18 (1.18%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (0.72%) vSphere
8 8 (0.52%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.46%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.39%) KVM
11 4 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.26%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.20%) IAG
12 3 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.20%) XenApp
12 3 (0.20%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.13%) GPFS
13 2 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.066%) UAG
Systems Management
1 116 (7.60%) Kubernetes
2 94 (6.16%) Terraform
3 63 (4.13%) Ansible
4 48 (3.15%) Grafana
5 36 (2.36%) Microsoft Intune
6 31 (2.03%) Prometheus
7 30 (1.97%) NetBackup
8 21 (1.38%) SCCM
9 20 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.79%) Puppet
11 11 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 8 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
13 7 (0.46%) Kibana
13 7 (0.46%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.33%) Tivoli Storage Manager
15 4 (0.26%) CA Single Sign-On
15 4 (0.26%) Control-M
15 4 (0.26%) Foglight
15 4 (0.26%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 243 (15.92%) Microsoft
2 75 (4.91%) Oracle
3 64 (4.19%) Google
4 57 (3.74%) ServiceNow
5 54 (3.54%) Databricks
6 53 (3.47%) VMware
7 47 (3.08%) Cisco
8 42 (2.75%) SAP
9 31 (2.03%) Red Hat
10 29 (1.90%) Splunk
11 26 (1.70%) NetApp
12 25 (1.64%) Veritas
13 24 (1.57%) Salesforce
14 21 (1.38%) Citrix
15 20 (1.31%) IBM
16 16 (1.05%) Workday
17 15 (0.98%) Commvault
18 14 (0.92%) Dell
18 14 (0.92%) F5
18 14 (0.92%) Informatica