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

6 months to
23 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 99 83
Rank change year-on-year +25 -16 +20
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,422 764 1,099
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.25% 2.59% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.78% 2.86% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 773 400 614
10th Percentile £300 £262 £206
25th Percentile £400 £365 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £461 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -2.89% +5.56% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 24 109
10th Percentile £15.80 £17.15 £12.45
25th Percentile £16.96 £24.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.62 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.07% +51.87% -70.45%
75th Percentile £25.50 £33.59 £27.00
90th Percentile £52.90 £56.60 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £19.50
% change year-on-year -29.15% +49.90% -70.45%

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 37,591 26,736 38,298
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.89% 90.46% 86.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,832 17,220 24,877
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £610 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -1.54% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,217 938 2,335
10th Percentile £14.99 £15.21 £12.85
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.94 £16.00
Median hourly rate £31.50 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.08% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.51 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.28 £71.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.31 £31.76 £31.13
% change year-on-year -7.73% +2.04% -12.14%

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 23 March 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 March 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 March 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 +34 1,216 £500 - 380
UK excluding London +19 755 £461 -2.89% 300
London +30 577 £525 +5.00% 130
Work from Home +27 362 £500 +2.04% 152
North of England -1 234 £475 - 90
South East +20 182 £489 -2.30% 78
Yorkshire -14 135 £496 -5.48% 28
Scotland +14 115 £413 -12.19% 12
Midlands -10 105 £450 -7.69% 54
North West +3 91 £450 -2.17% 57
West Midlands -28 66 £500 -1.23% 28
South West +9 52 £500 +33.33% 30
East of England +8 50 £450 -25.00% 33
East Midlands -7 39 £436 +5.70% 26
Wales +2 14 £375 -11.76% 5
North East -28 9 £400 -15.79% 5
Northern Ireland - 7 £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 59 (4.15%) Confluence
2 36 (2.53%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
4 9 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.56%) Apache
6 3 (0.21%) CMS
6 3 (0.21%) Ethereum
6 3 (0.21%) Hyperledger
7 2 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.14%) Drupal
7 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
7 2 (0.14%) nginx
7 2 (0.14%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.14%) SAS
7 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.070%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 53 (3.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (3.02%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.070%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.070%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.070%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.070%) Blender
7 1 (0.070%) CINEMA 4D
7 1 (0.070%) InVision
7 1 (0.070%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.070%) Sketch
7 1 (0.070%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.84%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.35%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.28%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.28%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 3 (0.21%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.21%) Fidessa
6 3 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.21%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.14%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.14%) Workfront
8 1 (0.070%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 287 (20.18%) Azure
2 223 (15.68%) AWS
3 117 (8.23%) GCP
4 80 (5.63%) Microsoft 365
5 78 (5.49%) Power Platform
6 71 (4.99%) Entra ID
7 65 (4.57%) GitHub
8 56 (3.94%) Serverless
9 50 (3.52%) SaaS
10 41 (2.88%) Microsoft Purview
11 40 (2.81%) AWS Lambda
12 38 (2.67%) Amazon S3
12 38 (2.67%) Azure DevOps
13 37 (2.60%) OpenShift
14 33 (2.32%) AWS CloudFormation
15 31 (2.18%) Snowflake
16 26 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
17 24 (1.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 21 (1.48%) PaaS
19 20 (1.41%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 49 (3.45%) Network Security
2 38 (2.67%) Firewall
3 35 (2.46%) SAN
4 22 (1.55%) VPN
5 21 (1.48%) NAS
6 18 (1.27%) DNS
6 18 (1.27%) LAN
6 18 (1.27%) MPLS
6 18 (1.27%) WAN
7 15 (1.05%) Cisco IPT
8 13 (0.91%) TCP/IP
9 10 (0.70%) SD-WAN
9 10 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 9 (0.63%) BGP
10 9 (0.63%) DHCP
10 9 (0.63%) Fibre Channel
10 9 (0.63%) HTTP
10 9 (0.63%) VLAN
11 8 (0.56%) IPv4
11 8 (0.56%) IPv6
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.85%) Power BI
2 39 (2.74%) PostgreSQL
3 36 (2.53%) SQL Server
4 30 (2.11%) Data Warehouse
5 28 (1.97%) Metadata
6 19 (1.34%) NoSQL
6 19 (1.34%) Relational Database
7 17 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
7 17 (1.20%) Data Lake
7 17 (1.20%) MongoDB
7 17 (1.20%) MySQL
8 16 (1.13%) DynamoDB
9 14 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
10 13 (0.91%) Tableau
11 12 (0.84%) Oracle Database
12 11 (0.77%) Amazon Aurora
12 11 (0.77%) Big Data
13 9 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
13 9 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 8 (0.56%) Aerospike
Development Applications
1 94 (6.61%) JIRA
2 65 (4.57%) Jenkins
3 63 (4.43%) Git
4 39 (2.74%) GitLab
5 12 (0.84%) SpecFlow
6 11 (0.77%) JUnit
7 10 (0.70%) Sonatype Nexus
8 8 (0.56%) Gradle
9 6 (0.42%) Maven
9 6 (0.42%) NUnit
10 5 (0.35%) Bitbucket
10 5 (0.35%) Flyway
10 5 (0.35%) Postman
10 5 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
11 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.28%) Fiddler
11 4 (0.28%) Liquibase
12 3 (0.21%) IntelliJ
12 3 (0.21%) Selenium
12 3 (0.21%) TestNG
General
1 447 (31.43%) Social Skills
2 316 (22.22%) Finance
3 187 (13.15%) Analytical Skills
4 159 (11.18%) Legal
5 143 (10.06%) Public Sector
6 115 (8.09%) Banking
7 61 (4.29%) Organisational Skills
8 47 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
9 40 (2.81%) Telecoms
10 31 (2.18%) Marketing
11 28 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.97%) Presentation Skills
12 26 (1.83%) Front Office
13 22 (1.55%) Law
13 22 (1.55%) Local Government
14 18 (1.27%) Police
15 15 (1.05%) Retail
16 14 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 13 (0.91%) Manufacturing
18 11 (0.77%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 190 (13.36%) Architect
2 152 (10.69%) Analyst
3 111 (7.81%) Lead
4 108 (7.59%) Developer
5 88 (6.19%) Senior
6 73 (5.13%) Consultant
7 71 (4.99%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.71%) Business Analyst
9 58 (4.08%) Solutions Architect
10 37 (2.60%) Data Engineer
11 36 (2.53%) Security Engineer
12 33 (2.32%) Network Engineer
12 33 (2.32%) Security Architect
13 32 (2.25%) Administrator
14 30 (2.11%) Technical Architect
15 26 (1.83%) Data Analyst
16 25 (1.76%) Java Developer
17 23 (1.62%) Automation Engineer
18 21 (1.48%) Data Protection Officer
18 21 (1.48%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (4.36%) REST
2 47 (3.31%) React
3 37 (2.60%) .NET
4 32 (2.25%) Node.js
5 29 (2.04%) Kafka
6 28 (1.97%) Middleware
7 26 (1.83%) Spring
8 25 (1.76%) RESTful
9 22 (1.55%) Spring Boot
10 21 (1.48%) OAuth
11 17 (1.20%) Oracle Fusion
11 17 (1.20%) Playwright
12 15 (1.05%) .NET Core
12 15 (1.05%) HTML
12 15 (1.05%) PySpark
13 13 (0.91%) Jest
13 13 (0.91%) JSON
14 11 (0.77%) AngularJS
14 11 (0.77%) CSS
15 10 (0.70%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 678 (47.68%) Data Protection Act
2 78 (5.49%) Cloud Native
3 68 (4.78%) Product Ownership
4 62 (4.36%) Onboarding
5 53 (3.73%) Management Information System
6 31 (2.18%) Legacy Systems
7 30 (2.11%) NHS
8 29 (2.04%) Distributed Systems
9 28 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
9 28 (1.97%) Replication
10 27 (1.90%) Security Posture
11 26 (1.83%) Data Centre
12 21 (1.48%) Freedom of Information
13 20 (1.41%) Enterprise Storage
13 20 (1.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 18 (1.27%) Data Structures
15 14 (0.98%) Derivative
15 14 (0.98%) Insider Threat
16 13 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
16 13 (0.91%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 103 (7.24%) Windows
2 71 (4.99%) Linux
3 25 (1.76%) Unix
4 21 (1.48%) Windows Server
5 18 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.91%) VMS
6 13 (0.91%) Windows 10
7 12 (0.84%) Mac OS
8 8 (0.56%) Android
8 8 (0.56%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.56%) zOS
9 7 (0.49%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (0.42%) CoreOS
11 5 (0.35%) Solaris
12 4 (0.28%) AIX
13 2 (0.14%) Rocky
13 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.070%) CentOS
14 1 (0.070%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.070%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (17.72%) Problem-Solving
2 239 (16.81%) Stakeholder Management
3 234 (16.46%) Agile
4 220 (15.47%) Migration
5 196 (13.78%) CI/CD
6 189 (13.29%) DevOps
7 175 (12.31%) Continuous Improvement
8 141 (9.92%) Cybersecurity
9 140 (9.85%) Analytics
10 139 (9.77%) Roadmaps
11 129 (9.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 125 (8.79%) AI
13 115 (8.09%) Risk Management
14 113 (7.95%) Information Security
15 107 (7.52%) Decision-Making
16 101 (7.10%) Data Governance
17 99 (6.96%) Project Management
18 98 (6.89%) Infrastructure as Code
19 96 (6.75%) Test Automation
20 93 (6.54%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 218 (15.33%) Python
2 176 (12.38%) SQL
3 104 (7.31%) Java
4 62 (4.36%) JavaScript
5 61 (4.29%) PowerShell
6 54 (3.80%) C#
7 40 (2.81%) Bash
8 38 (2.67%) TypeScript
9 18 (1.27%) Bicep
10 12 (0.84%) C++
11 11 (0.77%) Perl
11 11 (0.77%) Shell Script
12 8 (0.56%) ActionScript
12 8 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
12 8 (0.56%) PL/SQL
13 6 (0.42%) ActionScript 2.0
14 5 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 5 (0.35%) Go
15 4 (0.28%) Groovy
15 4 (0.28%) Scala
Qualifications
1 197 (13.85%) Security Cleared
2 138 (9.70%) SC Cleared
3 128 (9.00%) Degree
4 53 (3.73%) DV Cleared
5 48 (3.38%) CISSP
6 36 (2.53%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (2.25%) AWS Certification
8 31 (2.18%) CISM
9 27 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
9 27 (1.90%) PMI Certification
10 25 (1.76%) Azure Certification
11 23 (1.62%) PMP
12 21 (1.48%) Master's Degree
13 20 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
14 19 (1.34%) Microsoft Certification
15 15 (1.05%) CTC Cleared
16 14 (0.98%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 11 (0.77%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 11 (0.77%) CCSP
17 11 (0.77%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 255 (17.93%) GDPR
2 94 (6.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 92 (6.47%) NIST
4 71 (4.99%) Data Quality
5 61 (4.29%) QA
6 31 (2.18%) PCI DSS
7 29 (2.04%) Accessibility
8 27 (1.90%) GRC
8 27 (1.90%) PMO
9 23 (1.62%) SLA
10 18 (1.27%) NCSC
11 16 (1.13%) SOC 2
12 14 (0.98%) Disclosure Scotland
13 12 (0.84%) PERC
13 12 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.77%) NIST 800
15 7 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 7 (0.49%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.42%) COBIT
17 5 (0.35%) WCAG
System Software
1 70 (4.92%) Docker
2 66 (4.64%) Active Directory
3 53 (3.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.27%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (1.20%) NFS
6 12 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.70%) vSphere
8 9 (0.63%) Hyper-V
9 8 (0.56%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.35%) KVM
10 5 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
11 4 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.21%) IAG
12 3 (0.21%) Time Sharing Option
13 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.14%) XenApp
13 2 (0.14%) XenDesktop
14 1 (0.070%) Firmware
14 1 (0.070%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 103 (7.24%) Terraform
2 101 (7.10%) Kubernetes
3 72 (5.06%) Ansible
4 37 (2.60%) Grafana
5 31 (2.18%) NetBackup
6 30 (2.11%) Microsoft Intune
7 27 (1.90%) Prometheus
8 18 (1.27%) SCCM
9 17 (1.20%) Puppet
10 15 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.49%) SnapMirror
13 6 (0.42%) EMC NetWorker
13 6 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
14 5 (0.35%) Control-M
14 5 (0.35%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.35%) RSA Archer
14 5 (0.35%) vCenter Server
15 4 (0.28%) Foglight
15 4 (0.28%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 222 (15.61%) Microsoft
2 68 (4.78%) Oracle
3 64 (4.50%) Google
4 55 (3.87%) VMware
5 50 (3.52%) Databricks
6 42 (2.95%) Cisco
6 42 (2.95%) ServiceNow
7 41 (2.88%) SAP
8 34 (2.39%) Red Hat
8 34 (2.39%) Salesforce
9 23 (1.62%) NetApp
10 22 (1.55%) Commvault
10 22 (1.55%) Veritas
11 21 (1.48%) Citrix
11 21 (1.48%) IBM
12 19 (1.34%) F5
13 17 (1.20%) Veeam
14 14 (0.98%) Splunk
15 13 (0.91%) Adobe
15 13 (0.91%) Workday