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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 75 85
Rank change year-on-year -10 +10 +1
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,694 1,101 1,004
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 3.32% 2.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.67% 3.67% 3.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 868 539 525
10th Percentile £263 £289 £207
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £682 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £459 £475
% change year-on-year -1.91% -3.42% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 112 57 18
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.19
25th Percentile £14.05 £13.60 £21.56
Median hourly rate £17.85 £17.00 £27.26
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -37.64% +12.75%
75th Percentile £24.25 £20.71 £61.65
90th Percentile £33.75 £30.74 £70.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.50 £15.63 £25.00
% change year-on-year +12.00% -37.50% +19.05%

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 46,102 30,004 32,672
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.46% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,718 18,629 19,703
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,326 1,885 1,303
10th Percentile £13.58 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -8.31%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.52 £65.00 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £41.25
% change year-on-year +68.43% -46.02% -2.94%

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 9 October 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 9 October 2026.

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 9 October 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 -16 1,403 £500 - 1,909
UK excluding London +1 946 £450 -1.91% 1,088
London -31 587 £525 - 910
Work from Home +6 466 £500 +11.11% 756
North of England +18 351 £463 +2.78% 313
South East -3 198 £465 -8.02% 259
Yorkshire +19 178 £475 -7.32% 126
Midlands +5 160 £450 -5.26% 153
North West +10 147 £450 +2.27% 157
West Midlands +7 129 £450 -10.00% 88
Scotland -12 119 £450 +5.88% 83
South West -9 62 £500 +17.65% 103
East of England -19 35 £500 +5.26% 101
East Midlands -11 31 £468 +16.88% 65
North East -41 27 £463 +15.63% 31
Wales -4 19 £413 +11.86% 36
Northern Ireland +6 16 £115 -83.57% 43
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 -17.24% 4

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 74 (4.37%) SharePoint
2 34 (2.01%) Confluence
3 29 (1.71%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.59%) Apache Airflow
5 19 (1.12%) Apache Spark
6 14 (0.83%) Apache
7 13 (0.77%) IIS
8 11 (0.65%) CMS
9 9 (0.53%) SAS
10 6 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.35%) WordPress
11 5 (0.30%) nginx
11 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
12 3 (0.18%) CICS
12 3 (0.18%) Jupyter
13 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
13 2 (0.12%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.12%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.12%) WebSphere
14 1 (0.059%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 54 (3.19%) Microsoft Excel
1 54 (3.19%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
5 7 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.059%) Maya
7 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 13 (0.77%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.53%) SAP MDG
4 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Cloudability
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 1 (0.059%) FastStats
8 1 (0.059%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.059%) Raiser’s Edge
8 1 (0.059%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.059%) SAP CX
8 1 (0.059%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 378 (22.31%) Azure
2 295 (17.41%) AWS
3 146 (8.62%) Microsoft 365
4 130 (7.67%) GCP
5 80 (4.72%) Power Platform
6 78 (4.60%) Entra ID
7 73 (4.31%) SaaS
8 67 (3.96%) Azure DevOps
9 60 (3.54%) GitHub
10 56 (3.31%) Microsoft Purview
11 50 (2.95%) Serverless
12 40 (2.36%) Microsoft Copilot
13 32 (1.89%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.53%) GitHub Actions
14 26 (1.53%) Snowflake
15 24 (1.42%) AWS Lambda
16 22 (1.30%) OpenShift
17 21 (1.24%) Amazon S3
17 21 (1.24%) Power Automate
17 21 (1.24%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 95 (5.61%) Network Security
2 66 (3.90%) Firewall
3 38 (2.24%) VPN
4 35 (2.07%) DNS
5 29 (1.71%) TCP/IP
6 24 (1.42%) DHCP
7 22 (1.30%) LAN
7 22 (1.30%) WAN
8 20 (1.18%) Cisco IPT
9 15 (0.89%) MPLS
9 15 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (0.83%) SAN
11 12 (0.71%) VoIP
11 12 (0.71%) Wireless
12 11 (0.65%) HTTP
12 11 (0.65%) SSL
12 11 (0.65%) Unified Communications
13 10 (0.59%) Cisco ISE
13 10 (0.59%) Internet
14 9 (0.53%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (3.36%) Power BI
2 54 (3.19%) Metadata
3 41 (2.42%) Relational Database
4 38 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
5 36 (2.13%) SQL Server
6 29 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.42%) NoSQL
8 23 (1.36%) BigQuery
9 22 (1.30%) Data Lake
10 16 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
11 15 (0.89%) Big Data
12 14 (0.83%) MongoDB
13 11 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (0.65%) Oracle Database
14 10 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
15 9 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
15 9 (0.53%) Redis
16 8 (0.47%) DynamoDB
16 8 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
16 8 (0.47%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 79 (4.66%) JIRA
2 73 (4.31%) Git
3 60 (3.54%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.53%) GitLab
5 19 (1.12%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Maven
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.59%) Postman
7 6 (0.35%) Cypress.io
7 6 (0.35%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
8 5 (0.30%) Gradle
8 5 (0.30%) JUnit
9 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.24%) Mockito
10 3 (0.18%) ERwin
10 3 (0.18%) Mocha
10 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
General
1 700 (41.32%) Social Skills
2 369 (21.78%) Finance
3 258 (15.23%) Legal
4 224 (13.22%) Analytical Skills
4 224 (13.22%) Public Sector
5 119 (7.02%) Banking
6 90 (5.31%) Organisational Skills
7 72 (4.25%) Documentation Skills
8 48 (2.83%) Influencing Skills
9 45 (2.66%) Local Government
10 41 (2.42%) Presentation Skills
11 36 (2.13%) Retail
12 30 (1.77%) Marketing
13 29 (1.71%) Law
13 29 (1.71%) Telecoms
14 23 (1.36%) Front Office
15 22 (1.30%) Police
16 21 (1.24%) Pharmaceutical
17 20 (1.18%) Billing
18 19 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 252 (14.88%) Architect
2 173 (10.21%) Analyst
3 139 (8.21%) Lead
4 125 (7.38%) Senior
5 100 (5.90%) Developer
6 75 (4.43%) Project Manager
7 70 (4.13%) Business Analyst
7 70 (4.13%) Solutions Architect
8 69 (4.07%) Consultant
9 63 (3.72%) Security Architect
10 57 (3.36%) Administrator
11 43 (2.54%) Security Engineer
12 40 (2.36%) Information Officer
13 37 (2.18%) Information Governance Officer
14 36 (2.13%) Support Engineer
15 33 (1.95%) Data Engineer
16 32 (1.89%) Data Analyst
17 28 (1.65%) Network Engineer
18 27 (1.59%) Data Architect
19 26 (1.53%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (6.43%) Terraform
2 96 (5.67%) REST
3 45 (2.66%) Kafka
4 38 (2.24%) OAuth
5 36 (2.13%) JSON
5 36 (2.13%) Middleware
6 28 (1.65%) RESTful
7 25 (1.48%) .NET
7 25 (1.48%) React
8 24 (1.42%) Node.js
8 24 (1.42%) OAuth2
9 22 (1.30%) Spring
10 21 (1.24%) Spring Boot
11 20 (1.18%) HTML
12 18 (1.06%) CSS
13 17 (1.00%) OpenID
14 15 (0.89%) SOAP
15 14 (0.83%) OpenAPI
15 14 (0.83%) Swagger
15 14 (0.83%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 697 (41.15%) Data Protection Act
2 144 (8.50%) Management Information System
3 105 (6.20%) Product Ownership
4 92 (5.43%) Cloud Native
5 91 (5.37%) Onboarding
6 62 (3.66%) Data Centre
7 61 (3.60%) Distributed Systems
8 46 (2.72%) Freedom of Information
9 45 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
10 41 (2.42%) Security Posture
11 34 (2.01%) Virtual Team
12 32 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
13 31 (1.83%) Data Structures
14 29 (1.71%) AI Agents
14 29 (1.71%) NHS
15 28 (1.65%) Operational Technology
16 27 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
17 21 (1.24%) Private Cloud
18 19 (1.12%) Cyber Threat
18 19 (1.12%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 135 (7.97%) Windows
2 84 (4.96%) Linux
3 39 (2.30%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.89%) Apple iOS
5 30 (1.77%) Android
5 30 (1.77%) Unix
6 21 (1.24%) Mac OS
7 16 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.71%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.47%) zOS
10 2 (0.12%) AIX
10 2 (0.12%) CentOS
10 2 (0.12%) HPUX
10 2 (0.12%) Solaris
10 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.12%) VMS
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.059%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 437 (25.80%) Stakeholder Management
2 332 (19.60%) Agile
3 298 (17.59%) Problem-Solving
4 297 (17.53%) Continuous Improvement
5 260 (15.35%) CI/CD
6 242 (14.29%) Cybersecurity
7 241 (14.23%) AI
8 229 (13.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 219 (12.93%) Migration
10 214 (12.63%) DevOps
11 181 (10.68%) Roadmaps
12 165 (9.74%) Decision-Making
13 161 (9.50%) Information Security
14 160 (9.45%) Risk Management
15 156 (9.21%) Infrastructure as Code
16 147 (8.68%) Analytics
16 147 (8.68%) Data Governance
17 138 (8.15%) Validation
18 129 (7.62%) Test Automation
19 122 (7.20%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 212 (12.51%) Python
2 165 (9.74%) SQL
3 79 (4.66%) Java
4 63 (3.72%) PowerShell
5 47 (2.77%) JavaScript
6 35 (2.07%) Bash
7 30 (1.77%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.59%) Go
9 21 (1.24%) Bicep
10 20 (1.18%) C#
11 16 (0.94%) Scala
12 13 (0.77%) Apex Code
12 13 (0.77%) Kotlin
13 12 (0.71%) Perl
14 9 (0.53%) C
14 9 (0.53%) Kusto Query Language
15 8 (0.47%) C++
15 8 (0.47%) VB
16 7 (0.41%) COBOL
16 7 (0.41%) VB6
Qualifications
1 285 (16.82%) Security Cleared
2 212 (12.51%) SC Cleared
3 121 (7.14%) Degree
4 82 (4.84%) CISSP
5 60 (3.54%) DV Cleared
6 55 (3.25%) BPSS Clearance
7 52 (3.07%) CISM
8 44 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (2.01%) PMI Certification
10 30 (1.77%) PMP
11 27 (1.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 27 (1.59%) Azure Certification
11 27 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
12 25 (1.48%) CCSP
13 19 (1.12%) AWS Certification
14 14 (0.83%) CRISC
15 13 (0.77%) CISA
16 12 (0.71%) CCNP
16 12 (0.71%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 235 (13.87%) GDPR
2 120 (7.08%) Data Quality
3 105 (6.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 72 (4.25%) NIST
5 69 (4.07%) QA
6 54 (3.19%) Accessibility
7 51 (3.01%) GRC
8 32 (1.89%) PCI DSS
9 26 (1.53%) NCSC
10 25 (1.48%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (1.18%) PMO
12 15 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 15 (0.89%) SLA
13 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.65%) PERC
14 11 (0.65%) WCAG
15 10 (0.59%) HIPAA
16 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
16 9 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 9 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 82 (4.84%) Active Directory
2 71 (4.19%) Docker
3 61 (3.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
5 14 (0.83%) vSphere
6 13 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.71%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.30%) ISA Server
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.18%) NFS
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) IAG
11 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.059%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.059%) Firmware
12 1 (0.059%) KVM
12 1 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.059%) OpenSSH
12 1 (0.059%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 117 (6.91%) Kubernetes
2 49 (2.89%) Ansible
3 38 (2.24%) Microsoft Intune
4 34 (2.01%) Grafana
5 20 (1.18%) SCCM
6 16 (0.94%) Prometheus
7 15 (0.89%) Kibana
8 13 (0.77%) NetBackup
8 13 (0.77%) Progress Chef
9 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
9 12 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.59%) Puppet
11 8 (0.47%) CASB
12 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (0.30%) QRadar
12 5 (0.30%) SCOM
13 4 (0.24%) Control-M
13 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
14 3 (0.18%) EMC NetWorker
14 3 (0.18%) Istio
Vendors
1 390 (23.02%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.19%) ServiceNow
3 87 (5.14%) Google
4 76 (4.49%) Cisco
5 67 (3.96%) Oracle
6 64 (3.78%) VMware
7 48 (2.83%) Databricks
8 44 (2.60%) SAP
9 41 (2.42%) Splunk
10 30 (1.77%) Salesforce
11 27 (1.59%) Zscaler
12 21 (1.24%) IBM
13 18 (1.06%) Dynatrace
13 18 (1.06%) Workday
14 17 (1.00%) CyberArk
14 17 (1.00%) F5
15 16 (0.94%) Dell
16 15 (0.89%) Red Hat
17 14 (0.83%) MuleSoft
18 13 (0.77%) SolarWinds