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 26 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 74 87 83
Rank change year-on-year +13 -4 +24
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,228 962 1,206
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.41% 2.64% 2.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.81% 3.04% 2.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 599 509 707
10th Percentile £300 £262 £212
25th Percentile £400 £388 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.26%
75th Percentile £600 £609 £600
90th Percentile £675 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £488 £450
% change year-on-year -5.90% +8.33% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 16 15
10th Percentile £12.63 £16.16 £17.28
25th Percentile £14.28 £18.24 £18.13
Median hourly rate £19.70 £22.75 £23.24
Median % change year-on-year -13.41% -2.11% -55.73%
75th Percentile £20.76 £28.79 £36.65
90th Percentile £40.46 £40.68 £44.12
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.70 £23.00 £20.25
% change year-on-year -14.35% +13.58% -71.07%

All Process and 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 32,237 31,694 40,485
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.44% 86.89% 88.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,185 19,077 27,186
10th Percentile £300 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -3.18%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,109 1,149 1,555
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.22 £14.31
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.24 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +27.14%
75th Percentile £45.46 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.85 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -29.69% -26.97% +48.33%

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 26 November 2025.

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 26 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Protection in the UK

Data Protection
Top 18 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 26 November 2025. 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 +15 1,039 £500 - 443
UK excluding London +9 637 £459 -5.90% 387
London +23 531 £525 +4.74% 136
Work from Home +18 296 £490 -2.00% 201
North of England -15 178 £450 -7.22% 49
South East +19 142 £522 +3.01% 135
Scotland +2 108 £400 -15.79% 22
Midlands +19 98 £450 -6.88% 70
Yorkshire -3 88 £513 +2.50% 12
West Midlands +12 70 £500 -2.44% 43
North West -17 70 £425 -12.37% 34
South West +2 45 £523 -22.59% 72
East of England -5 30 £475 +35.71% 27
East Midlands +9 28 £401 -11.28% 26
North East -12 20 £388 -8.82% 3
Wales 0 19 £400 +116.22% 14
Northern Ireland - 17 £500 - 5
Channel Islands -2 2 £725 -

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 64 (5.21%) Confluence
2 35 (2.85%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
4 12 (0.98%) CMS
5 9 (0.73%) Apache
6 7 (0.57%) Apache Spark
7 6 (0.49%) nginx
8 5 (0.41%) CICS
9 3 (0.24%) SAS
10 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
11 1 (0.081%) Ethereum
11 1 (0.081%) Hyperledger
11 1 (0.081%) Luigi
11 1 (0.081%) OpenEdge
11 1 (0.081%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.081%) SharePoint Server
11 1 (0.081%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.081%) WebSphere
Applications
1 59 (4.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 31 (2.52%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.81%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.49%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.24%) Sketch
9 2 (0.16%) InVision
10 1 (0.081%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.081%) Adobe Illustrator
10 1 (0.081%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.081%) Final Cut Pro
10 1 (0.081%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.081%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.081%) SPSS
10 1 (0.081%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (0.90%) Oracle EBS
2 9 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.41%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.33%) VisionPLUS
6 3 (0.24%) Aladdin
6 3 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
6 3 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.16%) assyst
7 2 (0.16%) Fidessa
7 2 (0.16%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.081%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.081%) Endur
8 1 (0.081%) Markit EDM
8 1 (0.081%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.081%) Oracle Financials
8 1 (0.081%) Oracle iProcurement
8 1 (0.081%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 250 (20.36%) Azure
2 231 (18.81%) AWS
3 95 (7.74%) GCP
4 73 (5.94%) Power Platform
5 67 (5.46%) Microsoft 365
6 54 (4.40%) GitHub
7 47 (3.83%) Serverless
8 43 (3.50%) Entra ID
9 42 (3.42%) Amazon S3
10 40 (3.26%) AWS Lambda
10 40 (3.26%) Azure DevOps
11 36 (2.93%) SaaS
12 28 (2.28%) Power Automate
13 27 (2.20%) AWS CloudFormation
14 23 (1.87%) Snowflake
15 21 (1.71%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 20 (1.63%) PowerApps
17 19 (1.55%) Amazon EC2
17 19 (1.55%) Microsoft Purview
18 18 (1.47%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 54 (4.40%) Firewall
2 32 (2.61%) Network Security
3 17 (1.38%) DNS
3 17 (1.38%) WAN
4 14 (1.14%) SSH
4 14 (1.14%) VPN
5 11 (0.90%) Cisco IPT
5 11 (0.90%) LAN
5 11 (0.90%) MPLS
6 10 (0.81%) DHCP
6 10 (0.81%) HTTP
6 10 (0.81%) SD-WAN
7 8 (0.65%) BGP
7 8 (0.65%) Wireshark
8 7 (0.57%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.57%) Wireless
9 6 (0.49%) Cisco Nexus
9 6 (0.49%) Internet
9 6 (0.49%) VLAN
10 5 (0.41%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (4.48%) Power BI
2 41 (3.34%) SQL Server
3 36 (2.93%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.79%) Amazon RDS
4 22 (1.79%) NoSQL
4 22 (1.79%) Relational Database
5 18 (1.47%) Metadata
6 17 (1.38%) Tableau
7 15 (1.22%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (1.06%) Amazon Athena
9 12 (0.98%) DynamoDB
10 11 (0.90%) Amazon Aurora
10 11 (0.90%) Data Lake
10 11 (0.90%) MongoDB
10 11 (0.90%) MySQL
11 9 (0.73%) Oracle Database
12 8 (0.65%) Big Data
12 8 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
13 7 (0.57%) Hadoop
13 7 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 110 (8.96%) JIRA
2 38 (3.09%) Git
3 36 (2.93%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.85%) GitLab
5 9 (0.73%) Postman
6 7 (0.57%) JUnit
7 6 (0.49%) SpecFlow
8 5 (0.41%) Fiddler
9 4 (0.33%) ChangeMan
9 4 (0.33%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.33%) Gradle
9 4 (0.33%) Metasploit
9 4 (0.33%) NUnit
9 4 (0.33%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.24%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.24%) Maven
10 3 (0.24%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.24%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 427 (34.77%) Social Skills
2 246 (20.03%) Finance
3 149 (12.13%) Analytical Skills
4 123 (10.02%) Public Sector
5 99 (8.06%) Banking
6 85 (6.92%) Legal
7 36 (2.93%) Marketing
8 34 (2.77%) Documentation Skills
9 31 (2.52%) Organisational Skills
10 28 (2.28%) Influencing Skills
11 26 (2.12%) Telecoms
12 23 (1.87%) Law
12 23 (1.87%) Manufacturing
13 18 (1.47%) Front Office
14 17 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
14 17 (1.38%) Retail
15 15 (1.22%) Aerospace
15 15 (1.22%) Financial Institution
15 15 (1.22%) Local Government
16 14 (1.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 185 (15.07%) Analyst
2 127 (10.34%) Developer
3 120 (9.77%) Architect
4 89 (7.25%) Lead
5 76 (6.19%) Business Analyst
6 60 (4.89%) Senior
7 57 (4.64%) Consultant
8 52 (4.23%) Project Manager
9 40 (3.26%) Security Engineer
10 39 (3.18%) Data Analyst
11 37 (3.01%) Administrator
12 35 (2.85%) Solutions Architect
13 30 (2.44%) Data Engineer
14 24 (1.95%) Security Architect
14 24 (1.95%) Support Engineer
15 22 (1.79%) Information Officer
16 21 (1.71%) Automation Engineer
16 21 (1.71%) Information Governance Officer
17 19 (1.55%) Network Engineer
17 19 (1.55%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (4.15%) REST
2 31 (2.52%) RESTful
3 30 (2.44%) .NET
4 29 (2.36%) React
5 28 (2.28%) OAuth
6 24 (1.95%) HTML
6 24 (1.95%) SOAP
7 21 (1.71%) Spring
8 19 (1.55%) Node.js
9 18 (1.47%) Kafka
10 15 (1.22%) Middleware
11 14 (1.14%) AngularJS
12 13 (1.06%) JSON
13 12 (0.98%) LangChain
13 12 (0.98%) OAuth2
13 12 (0.98%) Spring Boot
13 12 (0.98%) XML
14 11 (0.90%) CSS
14 11 (0.90%) SAML
15 10 (0.81%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 633 (51.55%) Data Protection Act
2 46 (3.75%) Onboarding
2 46 (3.75%) Product Ownership
3 45 (3.66%) Cloud Native
4 44 (3.58%) Management Information System
5 31 (2.52%) Freedom of Information
6 26 (2.12%) Distributed Systems
6 26 (2.12%) NHS
7 23 (1.87%) Data Centre
7 23 (1.87%) Security Posture
8 22 (1.79%) Data Structures
9 20 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
9 20 (1.63%) Virtual Team
10 16 (1.30%) CMDB
10 16 (1.30%) Replication
11 15 (1.22%) Public Cloud
12 14 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
12 14 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
13 13 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
14 12 (0.98%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 88 (7.17%) Windows
2 59 (4.80%) Linux
3 20 (1.63%) Unix
4 14 (1.14%) Windows Server
5 13 (1.06%) Mac OS
6 11 (0.90%) Android
7 9 (0.73%) Windows 10
8 7 (0.57%) zOS
9 6 (0.49%) AIX
9 6 (0.49%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.49%) Solaris
10 5 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 4 (0.33%) VMS
12 2 (0.16%) CentOS
12 2 (0.16%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.081%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 214 (17.43%) Problem-Solving
2 198 (16.12%) Agile
3 168 (13.68%) Stakeholder Management
4 165 (13.44%) DevOps
5 160 (13.03%) CI/CD
6 151 (12.30%) Cybersecurity
7 143 (11.64%) Migration
8 135 (10.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 112 (9.12%) AI
10 107 (8.71%) Analytics
11 103 (8.39%) Continuous Improvement
12 98 (7.98%) Project Management
13 96 (7.82%) Information Security
14 87 (7.08%) Risk Management
15 86 (7.00%) Roadmaps
16 75 (6.11%) Data Governance
17 74 (6.03%) Test Automation
18 73 (5.94%) Business Intelligence
19 70 (5.70%) Incident Response
19 70 (5.70%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 231 (18.81%) Python
2 149 (12.13%) SQL
3 64 (5.21%) Java
4 62 (5.05%) PowerShell
5 60 (4.89%) Bash
6 55 (4.48%) JavaScript
7 46 (3.75%) C#
8 24 (1.95%) TypeScript
9 12 (0.98%) C++
10 11 (0.90%) Go
10 11 (0.90%) Shell Script
11 8 (0.65%) PHP
11 8 (0.65%) PromQL
12 7 (0.57%) Kotlin
12 7 (0.57%) R
13 6 (0.49%) Perl
13 6 (0.49%) PL/SQL
14 5 (0.41%) Bicep
14 5 (0.41%) COBOL
15 4 (0.33%) Scala
Qualifications
1 136 (11.07%) Security Cleared
2 117 (9.53%) Degree
3 96 (7.82%) SC Cleared
4 47 (3.83%) Computer Science Degree
5 32 (2.61%) AWS Certification
6 28 (2.28%) DV Cleared
7 26 (2.12%) CISSP
8 22 (1.79%) CISM
9 18 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
9 18 (1.47%) Master's Degree
10 16 (1.30%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 14 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
12 12 (0.98%) Azure Certification
13 11 (0.90%) BPSS Clearance
13 11 (0.90%) CCNP
13 11 (0.90%) CISA
13 11 (0.90%) PMI Certification
13 11 (0.90%) PMP
14 10 (0.81%) A+ Certification
15 8 (0.65%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 226 (18.40%) GDPR
2 84 (6.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 72 (5.86%) NIST
4 48 (3.91%) Data Quality
5 46 (3.75%) QA
6 22 (1.79%) Accessibility
6 22 (1.79%) Cyber Essentials
6 22 (1.79%) GRC
6 22 (1.79%) PCI DSS
7 17 (1.38%) NCSC
7 17 (1.38%) PMO
8 11 (0.90%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 11 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 11 (0.90%) NIST 800
8 11 (0.90%) PERC
9 9 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (0.73%) Disclosure Scotland
10 8 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 8 (0.65%) SLA
11 7 (0.57%) COBIT
System Software
1 55 (4.48%) Active Directory
2 53 (4.32%) Docker
3 42 (3.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (0.98%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.49%) VMware NSX
6 4 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.24%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.24%) vSphere
8 2 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.16%) NFS
8 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.081%) Firmware
9 1 (0.081%) HDFS
9 1 (0.081%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.081%) KVM
9 1 (0.081%) Veritas Cluster Server
9 1 (0.081%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.081%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 66 (5.37%) Terraform
2 53 (4.32%) Kubernetes
3 43 (3.50%) Ansible
4 25 (2.04%) NetBackup
5 23 (1.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 19 (1.55%) Grafana
6 19 (1.55%) Prometheus
6 19 (1.55%) SCCM
7 11 (0.90%) Oracle RMAN
8 8 (0.65%) Puppet
9 6 (0.49%) RSA Archer
10 5 (0.41%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.33%) CA Endevor
11 4 (0.33%) EMC NetWorker
11 4 (0.33%) Jamf Pro
11 4 (0.33%) Kibana
12 3 (0.24%) Data Guard
12 3 (0.24%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.24%) Nmap
Vendors
1 193 (15.72%) Microsoft
2 52 (4.23%) Google
3 46 (3.75%) VMware
4 45 (3.66%) Oracle
5 41 (3.34%) Cisco
6 36 (2.93%) ServiceNow
7 34 (2.77%) Salesforce
8 27 (2.20%) Databricks
8 27 (2.20%) SAP
9 26 (2.12%) IBM
10 21 (1.71%) Veritas
11 19 (1.55%) Red Hat
12 18 (1.47%) Commvault
12 18 (1.47%) F5
13 17 (1.38%) Citrix
14 15 (1.22%) CyberArk
15 14 (1.14%) Splunk
16 13 (1.06%) Juniper
16 13 (1.06%) OneTrust
17 12 (0.98%) Veeam