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

6 months to
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 99 82
Rank change year-on-year +26 -17 +21
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,395 767 1,112
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.26% 2.60% 2.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.79% 2.88% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 756 404 614
10th Percentile £279 £263 £200
25th Percentile £400 £375 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
90th Percentile £695 £689 £714
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 22 110
10th Percentile £15.73 £16.55 £12.48
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 £24.19 £33.18 £26.92
90th Percentile £33.40 £62.20 £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 36,854 26,627 38,581
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.05% 90.37% 86.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,339 16,995 25,088
10th Percentile £313 £306 £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 £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,197 898 2,338
10th Percentile £14.82 £15.48 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.36 £32.50 £31.50
% change year-on-year -15.82% +3.17% -10.00%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +33 1,191 £500 - 373
UK excluding London +11 740 £450 -5.26% 277
London +33 569 £525 +3.45% 147
Work from Home +28 338 £500 +2.56% 152
North of England -7 226 £475 - 78
South East +15 177 £483 +1.68% 79
Yorkshire -9 133 £487 -7.24% 26
Scotland +14 115 £407 -12.47% 12
Midlands -8 107 £448 -8.21% 44
North West -14 85 £438 -6.42% 51
West Midlands -29 67 £500 -1.23% 29
East of England +5 49 £450 -25.00% 27
South West +9 48 £500 +66.67% 34
East Midlands -4 40 £437 +5.88% 15
Wales 0 14 £375 -11.76% 4
North East -27 9 £400 -15.79% 1
Northern Ireland - 8 £500 - 1

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 (4.23%) Confluence
2 37 (2.65%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.43%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
5 10 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 9 (0.65%) Apache
7 4 (0.29%) CMS
8 3 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.22%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.22%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.14%) Drupal
9 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.14%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.14%) SAS
9 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.072%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 53 (3.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (3.08%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.43%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.22%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.072%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.072%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.072%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.072%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.072%) Blender
7 1 (0.072%) CINEMA 4D
7 1 (0.072%) InVision
7 1 (0.072%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.072%) Sketch
7 1 (0.072%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.72%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.36%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.29%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.29%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 3 (0.22%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.22%) Fidessa
6 3 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.22%) 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 (0.072%) Adobe Campaign
Cloud Services
1 277 (19.86%) Azure
2 225 (16.13%) AWS
3 115 (8.24%) GCP
4 77 (5.52%) Microsoft 365
5 76 (5.45%) Power Platform
6 66 (4.73%) Entra ID
7 61 (4.37%) GitHub
8 56 (4.01%) Serverless
9 50 (3.58%) SaaS
10 43 (3.08%) AWS Lambda
11 42 (3.01%) Amazon S3
12 38 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
13 37 (2.65%) Microsoft Purview
14 36 (2.58%) OpenShift
15 32 (2.29%) Snowflake
16 30 (2.15%) AWS CloudFormation
17 25 (1.79%) GitHub Actions
18 23 (1.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 21 (1.51%) Azure AKS
19 21 (1.51%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 46 (3.30%) Firewall
2 45 (3.23%) Network Security
3 35 (2.51%) SAN
4 23 (1.65%) VPN
5 21 (1.51%) NAS
6 19 (1.36%) MPLS
7 18 (1.29%) DNS
7 18 (1.29%) LAN
7 18 (1.29%) WAN
8 16 (1.15%) Cisco IPT
9 14 (1.00%) TCP/IP
10 11 (0.79%) SD-WAN
11 10 (0.72%) BGP
11 10 (0.72%) HTTP
11 10 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (0.65%) Fibre Channel
12 9 (0.65%) VLAN
13 8 (0.57%) IPv4
13 8 (0.57%) IPv6
13 8 (0.57%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (4.87%) Power BI
2 40 (2.87%) PostgreSQL
3 36 (2.58%) SQL Server
4 31 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
5 28 (2.01%) Metadata
6 20 (1.43%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.43%) Relational Database
7 17 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
7 17 (1.22%) Data Lake
7 17 (1.22%) DynamoDB
7 17 (1.22%) MySQL
8 16 (1.15%) MongoDB
9 14 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
10 13 (0.93%) Tableau
11 12 (0.86%) Amazon Aurora
11 12 (0.86%) Oracle Database
12 10 (0.72%) Big Data
13 9 (0.65%) BigQuery
13 9 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 8 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 94 (6.74%) JIRA
2 64 (4.59%) Git
3 63 (4.52%) Jenkins
4 37 (2.65%) GitLab
5 12 (0.86%) SpecFlow
6 11 (0.79%) JUnit
7 10 (0.72%) Sonatype Nexus
8 8 (0.57%) Gradle
9 7 (0.50%) Maven
10 6 (0.43%) NUnit
11 5 (0.36%) Postman
11 5 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
12 4 (0.29%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.29%) Cypress.io
12 4 (0.29%) Fiddler
12 4 (0.29%) Flyway
13 3 (0.22%) IntelliJ
13 3 (0.22%) MSI
13 3 (0.22%) Selenium
13 3 (0.22%) TestNG
General
1 443 (31.76%) Social Skills
2 303 (21.72%) Finance
3 188 (13.48%) Analytical Skills
4 146 (10.47%) Legal
5 139 (9.96%) Public Sector
6 116 (8.32%) Banking
7 56 (4.01%) Organisational Skills
8 45 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
9 42 (3.01%) Telecoms
10 30 (2.15%) Marketing
11 28 (2.01%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
13 22 (1.58%) Front Office
14 21 (1.51%) Local Government
15 19 (1.36%) Law
16 15 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 15 (1.08%) Police
17 14 (1.00%) Manufacturing
17 14 (1.00%) Retail
18 12 (0.86%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 185 (13.26%) Architect
2 151 (10.82%) Analyst
3 109 (7.81%) Developer
4 106 (7.60%) Lead
5 80 (5.73%) Senior
6 72 (5.16%) Consultant
7 67 (4.80%) Business Analyst
8 66 (4.73%) Project Manager
9 54 (3.87%) Solutions Architect
10 37 (2.65%) Data Engineer
10 37 (2.65%) Security Engineer
11 32 (2.29%) Network Engineer
12 31 (2.22%) Security Architect
13 30 (2.15%) Technical Architect
14 28 (2.01%) Administrator
15 26 (1.86%) Data Analyst
16 24 (1.72%) Java Developer
17 23 (1.65%) Automation Engineer
18 21 (1.51%) Software Engineer
19 20 (1.43%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (4.52%) REST
2 48 (3.44%) React
3 35 (2.51%) .NET
4 34 (2.44%) Node.js
5 29 (2.08%) Kafka
6 27 (1.94%) Middleware
6 27 (1.94%) Spring
7 26 (1.86%) RESTful
8 22 (1.58%) Spring Boot
9 20 (1.43%) OAuth
10 18 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
11 17 (1.22%) Playwright
12 16 (1.15%) HTML
12 16 (1.15%) PySpark
13 14 (1.00%) .NET Core
14 13 (0.93%) Jest
15 12 (0.86%) JSON
16 11 (0.79%) AngularJS
16 11 (0.79%) CSS
17 10 (0.72%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 674 (48.32%) Data Protection Act
2 76 (5.45%) Cloud Native
3 64 (4.59%) Product Ownership
4 58 (4.16%) Onboarding
5 52 (3.73%) Management Information System
6 31 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
7 29 (2.08%) Distributed Systems
8 28 (2.01%) NHS
8 28 (2.01%) Security Posture
9 27 (1.94%) Data Centre
10 26 (1.86%) Hybrid Cloud
10 26 (1.86%) Replication
11 23 (1.65%) Freedom of Information
12 20 (1.43%) Data Structures
12 20 (1.43%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 18 (1.29%) Enterprise Storage
14 14 (1.00%) Insider Threat
15 13 (0.93%) AI Agents
15 13 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
16 12 (0.86%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 100 (7.17%) Windows
2 70 (5.02%) Linux
3 25 (1.79%) Unix
4 22 (1.58%) Windows Server
5 17 (1.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.93%) VMS
7 12 (0.86%) Mac OS
8 11 (0.79%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.57%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.50%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.43%) Android
11 6 (0.43%) CoreOS
11 6 (0.43%) zOS
12 4 (0.29%) AIX
12 4 (0.29%) Solaris
13 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.072%) CentOS
14 1 (0.072%) Rocky
14 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (17.85%) Problem-Solving
2 237 (16.99%) Stakeholder Management
3 235 (16.85%) Agile
4 214 (15.34%) Migration
5 189 (13.55%) CI/CD
6 177 (12.69%) DevOps
7 166 (11.90%) Continuous Improvement
8 142 (10.18%) Cybersecurity
9 140 (10.04%) Analytics
10 137 (9.82%) Roadmaps
11 128 (9.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 124 (8.89%) AI
13 117 (8.39%) Information Security
14 114 (8.17%) Risk Management
15 97 (6.95%) Decision-Making
16 96 (6.88%) Project Management
17 95 (6.81%) Data Governance
18 92 (6.59%) Test Automation
19 88 (6.31%) Microservices
20 86 (6.16%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 227 (16.27%) Python
2 177 (12.69%) SQL
3 102 (7.31%) Java
4 67 (4.80%) JavaScript
5 65 (4.66%) PowerShell
6 53 (3.80%) C#
7 39 (2.80%) Bash
8 38 (2.72%) TypeScript
9 19 (1.36%) Bicep
10 12 (0.86%) Perl
11 11 (0.79%) C++
12 10 (0.72%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.57%) ActionScript
13 8 (0.57%) Kusto Query Language
14 7 (0.50%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.43%) ActionScript 2.0
16 5 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 5 (0.36%) Go
17 4 (0.29%) Groovy
17 4 (0.29%) Scala
Qualifications
1 191 (13.69%) Security Cleared
2 138 (9.89%) SC Cleared
3 126 (9.03%) Degree
4 49 (3.51%) DV Cleared
5 47 (3.37%) CISSP
6 37 (2.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (2.29%) CISM
8 27 (1.94%) AWS Certification
9 26 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
10 22 (1.58%) Master's Degree
10 22 (1.58%) PMI Certification
11 20 (1.43%) Azure Certification
11 20 (1.43%) PMP
12 18 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
13 16 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
14 14 (1.00%) CTC Cleared
15 13 (0.93%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 12 (0.86%) CRISC
17 11 (0.79%) CCSP
18 10 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 251 (17.99%) GDPR
2 90 (6.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 89 (6.38%) NIST
4 69 (4.95%) Data Quality
5 55 (3.94%) QA
6 32 (2.29%) Accessibility
7 31 (2.22%) PCI DSS
8 25 (1.79%) GRC
9 24 (1.72%) PMO
10 21 (1.51%) SLA
11 17 (1.22%) NCSC
12 15 (1.08%) SOC 2
13 14 (1.00%) Disclosure Scotland
14 13 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 12 (0.86%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.79%) PERC
17 8 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
18 7 (0.50%) HIPAA
19 6 (0.43%) COBIT
19 6 (0.43%) WCAG
System Software
1 70 (5.02%) Docker
2 65 (4.66%) Active Directory
3 54 (3.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (1.08%) NFS
6 12 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.72%) vSphere
8 9 (0.65%) Hyper-V
9 6 (0.43%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.36%) KVM
11 4 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.22%) IAG
12 3 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
13 1 (0.072%) iptables
13 1 (0.072%) Time Sharing Option
13 1 (0.072%) UAG
13 1 (0.072%) XenApp
13 1 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 98 (7.03%) Kubernetes
2 96 (6.88%) Terraform
3 68 (4.87%) Ansible
4 35 (2.51%) Grafana
5 30 (2.15%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (2.15%) NetBackup
6 27 (1.94%) Prometheus
7 17 (1.22%) SCCM
8 15 (1.08%) Puppet
9 14 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 7 (0.50%) SnapMirror
12 6 (0.43%) EMC NetWorker
12 6 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
12 6 (0.43%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.36%) Control-M
13 5 (0.36%) RSA Archer
13 5 (0.36%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.29%) Foglight
14 4 (0.29%) Kibana
Vendors
1 214 (15.34%) Microsoft
2 68 (4.87%) Oracle
3 63 (4.52%) Google
4 56 (4.01%) VMware
5 52 (3.73%) Databricks
6 45 (3.23%) ServiceNow
7 41 (2.94%) Cisco
8 39 (2.80%) SAP
9 33 (2.37%) Salesforce
10 32 (2.29%) Red Hat
11 21 (1.51%) Commvault
11 21 (1.51%) Veritas
12 20 (1.43%) Citrix
12 20 (1.43%) NetApp
13 19 (1.36%) F5
14 18 (1.29%) IBM
15 15 (1.08%) Veeam
16 14 (1.00%) Adobe
16 14 (1.00%) Splunk
17 12 (0.86%) Workday