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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 77 88
Rank change year-on-year -4 +11 -2
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,673 1,047 950
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 3.18% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.68% 3.51% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 879 516 519
10th Percentile £304 £296 £200
25th Percentile £400 £397 £354
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £464 £475
% change year-on-year -0.27% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 98 47 24
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 £18.94
25th Percentile £15.72 £14.05 £22.19
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.00 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year +11.56% -41.28% -34.52%
75th Percentile £29.20 £20.40 £38.98
90th Percentile £35.31 £35.51 £70.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% -18.70%

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 45,455 29,807 32,988
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.45% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,783 18,569 20,737
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,905 1,767 1,609
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.75 £17.30 £18.89
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +3.56%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.31 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +92.49% -47.37% +14.67%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 -4 1,400 £500 +2.83% 789
UK excluding London 0 914 £463 -0.27% 530
London -13 613 £525 +2.94% 345
Work from Home +21 485 £500 +5.54% 317
North of England +12 328 £475 +5.56% 137
South East +9 198 £483 -6.76% 139
Yorkshire +4 165 £475 -5.00% 40
North West +11 145 £500 +11.86% 81
Midlands -4 143 £462 -2.84% 101
Scotland -6 120 £428 -2.73% 20
West Midlands -5 111 £473 -5.40% 66
South West -16 75 £425 +6.25% 70
East Midlands -1 32 £441 +26.00% 34
East of England -5 31 £538 +13.16% 50
Wales -6 19 £413 +39.24% 18
North East -42 19 £463 +15.63% 18
Northern Ireland +3 13 £110 -81.63% 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 64 (3.83%) SharePoint
2 42 (2.51%) Confluence
3 23 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.14%) Apache Spark
5 18 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.78%) Apache
7 6 (0.36%) CMS
7 6 (0.36%) IIS
7 6 (0.36%) SAS
8 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
9 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) CICS
11 2 (0.12%) Drupal
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
12 1 (0.060%) Luigi
Applications
1 45 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (2.45%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.060%) Maya
7 1 (0.060%) Trello
7 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Aladdin
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Endur
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 391 (23.37%) Azure
2 301 (17.99%) AWS
3 140 (8.37%) GCP
4 127 (7.59%) Microsoft 365
5 92 (5.50%) Power Platform
6 87 (5.20%) Entra ID
7 80 (4.78%) SaaS
8 63 (3.77%) Azure DevOps
8 63 (3.77%) GitHub
9 58 (3.47%) Serverless
10 56 (3.35%) Microsoft Purview
11 35 (2.09%) Microsoft Copilot
12 31 (1.85%) AWS Lambda
13 28 (1.67%) OneDrive
14 27 (1.61%) OpenShift
15 26 (1.55%) PowerApps
16 25 (1.49%) GitHub Actions
16 25 (1.49%) Power Automate
17 24 (1.43%) Amazon S3
18 22 (1.32%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 93 (5.56%) Network Security
2 60 (3.59%) Firewall
3 38 (2.27%) DNS
4 36 (2.15%) VPN
5 29 (1.73%) DHCP
6 24 (1.43%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.26%) WAN
8 18 (1.08%) SAN
9 17 (1.02%) Cisco IPT
9 17 (1.02%) LAN
10 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.84%) SSL
11 14 (0.84%) Wireless
12 11 (0.66%) MPLS
12 11 (0.66%) VoIP
13 10 (0.60%) HTTP
13 10 (0.60%) NAS
14 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
15 7 (0.42%) Cisco Nexus
15 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (4.18%) Power BI
2 52 (3.11%) Metadata
3 39 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (2.27%) SQL Server
5 35 (2.09%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (1.97%) Relational Database
7 27 (1.61%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.32%) Data Lake
9 20 (1.20%) Big Data
9 20 (1.20%) MySQL
10 18 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
11 16 (0.96%) MongoDB
12 12 (0.72%) BigQuery
12 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
13 11 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
14 10 (0.60%) Oracle Database
15 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
15 9 (0.54%) Redis
16 7 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
16 7 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 82 (4.90%) JIRA
2 64 (3.83%) Git
3 56 (3.35%) Jenkins
4 32 (1.91%) GitLab
5 10 (0.60%) Maven
5 10 (0.60%) Selenium
6 9 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Cypress.io
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) Postman
9 5 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Flyway
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
10 4 (0.24%) Vite
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 622 (37.18%) Social Skills
2 362 (21.64%) Finance
3 252 (15.06%) Legal
4 208 (12.43%) Analytical Skills
5 203 (12.13%) Public Sector
6 111 (6.63%) Banking
7 78 (4.66%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (4.42%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.45%) Retail
10 39 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
11 37 (2.21%) Local Government
12 32 (1.91%) Front Office
12 32 (1.91%) Law
13 30 (1.79%) Telecoms
14 28 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
15 25 (1.49%) Marketing
16 23 (1.37%) Billing
17 22 (1.32%) Police
18 21 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
19 16 (0.96%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 252 (15.06%) Architect
2 169 (10.10%) Analyst
3 144 (8.61%) Lead
4 127 (7.59%) Developer
5 121 (7.23%) Senior
6 87 (5.20%) Consultant
7 80 (4.78%) Project Manager
8 70 (4.18%) Business Analyst
9 68 (4.06%) Solutions Architect
10 61 (3.65%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.51%) Administrator
12 38 (2.27%) Security Engineer
13 33 (1.97%) Data Engineer
13 33 (1.97%) Support Engineer
14 31 (1.85%) Java Developer
15 30 (1.79%) Data Analyst
16 28 (1.67%) Information Officer
17 27 (1.61%) IT Support
17 27 (1.61%) Network Engineer
18 26 (1.55%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (5.50%) Terraform
2 85 (5.08%) REST
3 40 (2.39%) React
4 36 (2.15%) Spring
5 35 (2.09%) Kafka
6 34 (2.03%) JSON
6 34 (2.03%) OAuth
7 33 (1.97%) Spring Boot
8 32 (1.91%) CSS
8 32 (1.91%) HTML
9 31 (1.85%) Middleware
10 28 (1.67%) RESTful
11 24 (1.43%) .NET
12 22 (1.32%) Node.js
13 19 (1.14%) OpenID
14 18 (1.08%) OAuth2
15 16 (0.96%) CSS3
15 16 (0.96%) HTML5
16 15 (0.90%) GraphQL
16 15 (0.90%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 716 (42.80%) Data Protection Act
2 97 (5.80%) Cloud Native
3 91 (5.44%) Product Ownership
4 88 (5.26%) Management Information System
5 78 (4.66%) Onboarding
6 50 (2.99%) Data Centre
6 50 (2.99%) Distributed Systems
7 43 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
8 40 (2.39%) Security Posture
8 40 (2.39%) Virtual Team
9 35 (2.09%) Freedom of Information
10 27 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
10 27 (1.61%) Self-Motivation
11 26 (1.55%) NHS
11 26 (1.55%) Operational Technology
12 21 (1.26%) AI Agents
13 20 (1.20%) Replication
14 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
14 19 (1.14%) Data Structures
14 19 (1.14%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 130 (7.77%) Windows
2 79 (4.72%) Linux
3 30 (1.79%) Android
3 30 (1.79%) Apple iOS
3 30 (1.79%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.67%) Unix
5 22 (1.32%) Mac OS
6 18 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (0.96%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.48%) VMS
8 8 (0.48%) zOS
9 3 (0.18%) Solaris
9 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.12%) AIX
10 2 (0.12%) CentOS
10 2 (0.12%) HPUX
10 2 (0.12%) Rocky
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.060%) CoreOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 352 (21.04%) Stakeholder Management
2 311 (18.59%) Agile
3 291 (17.39%) Problem-Solving
4 278 (16.62%) Continuous Improvement
5 241 (14.41%) CI/CD
6 237 (14.17%) DevOps
7 215 (12.85%) AI
7 215 (12.85%) Migration
8 214 (12.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 203 (12.13%) Cybersecurity
10 160 (9.56%) Decision-Making
11 159 (9.50%) Data Governance
11 159 (9.50%) Roadmaps
12 150 (8.97%) Analytics
13 140 (8.37%) Information Security
14 136 (8.13%) Risk Management
15 135 (8.07%) Infrastructure as Code
16 128 (7.65%) Validation
17 118 (7.05%) Data Modelling
18 105 (6.28%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 206 (12.31%) Python
2 163 (9.74%) SQL
3 102 (6.10%) Java
4 57 (3.41%) PowerShell
5 56 (3.35%) JavaScript
6 35 (2.09%) Bash
7 27 (1.61%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.14%) C#
8 19 (1.14%) Go
9 16 (0.96%) Apex Code
9 16 (0.96%) Bicep
10 14 (0.84%) Kotlin
11 12 (0.72%) Perl
12 10 (0.60%) C++
13 8 (0.48%) C
13 8 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
13 8 (0.48%) Scala
13 8 (0.48%) VB
14 7 (0.42%) VB6
15 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 263 (15.72%) Security Cleared
2 192 (11.48%) SC Cleared
3 108 (6.46%) Degree
4 83 (4.96%) CISSP
5 60 (3.59%) DV Cleared
6 52 (3.11%) CISM
7 39 (2.33%) BPSS Clearance
8 34 (2.03%) Azure Certification
9 33 (1.97%) Cisco Certification
10 31 (1.85%) PMI Certification
11 29 (1.73%) PMP
12 27 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.37%) AWS Certification
14 19 (1.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 17 (1.02%) Microsoft Certification
16 15 (0.90%) CCSP
17 11 (0.66%) CRISC
18 10 (0.60%) CCNP
18 10 (0.60%) Master's Degree
19 9 (0.54%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 250 (14.94%) GDPR
2 108 (6.46%) Data Quality
3 99 (5.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 76 (4.54%) NIST
5 74 (4.42%) QA
6 49 (2.93%) Accessibility
7 44 (2.63%) GRC
8 24 (1.43%) PMO
9 22 (1.32%) PCI DSS
10 21 (1.26%) NCSC
11 17 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
11 17 (1.02%) SLA
12 14 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 12 (0.72%) WCAG
14 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.66%) PERC
15 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 9 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
16 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 93 (5.56%) Active Directory
2 64 (3.83%) Docker
3 55 (3.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.60%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.60%) NFS
6 8 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.48%) vSphere
7 6 (0.36%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.18%) XenApp
10 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) KVM
11 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
12 1 (0.060%) Samba
Systems Management
1 114 (6.81%) Kubernetes
2 44 (2.63%) Ansible
3 39 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.55%) Grafana
5 23 (1.37%) SCCM
6 18 (1.08%) NetBackup
6 18 (1.08%) Prometheus
7 17 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.78%) Puppet
9 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
11 7 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.36%) Kibana
13 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
13 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
13 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
13 5 (0.30%) QRadar
13 5 (0.30%) SCOM
14 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
15 3 (0.18%) CASB
Vendors
1 344 (20.56%) Microsoft
2 87 (5.20%) ServiceNow
3 67 (4.00%) Oracle
4 65 (3.89%) Google
5 61 (3.65%) Cisco
6 56 (3.35%) VMware
7 47 (2.81%) Databricks
8 37 (2.21%) Splunk
9 35 (2.09%) SAP
10 33 (1.97%) Salesforce
11 25 (1.49%) Zscaler
12 22 (1.32%) Red Hat
12 22 (1.32%) Workday
13 20 (1.20%) CyberArk
14 19 (1.14%) IBM
15 17 (1.02%) NetApp
16 16 (0.96%) Citrix
17 14 (0.84%) Dell
17 14 (0.84%) F5
17 14 (0.84%) Veritas