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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 92 85
Rank change year-on-year +20 -7 +11
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,534 782 1,060
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.16% 2.73% 2.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.74% 3.00% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 845 399 559
10th Percentile £300 £256 £224
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.33% -2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £603
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £456
% change year-on-year -5.26% +4.22% -4.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 32 108
10th Percentile £15.47 £15.13 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £27.57 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.56% +31.29% -56.71%
75th Percentile £33.64 £32.73 £27.59
90th Percentile £48.15 £36.95 £41.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £28.32 £19.50
% change year-on-year -24.96% +45.23% -47.67%

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 40,998 26,034 36,602
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.45% 91.02% 85.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,676 16,714 23,582
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.74% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,430 1,064 2,485
10th Percentile £14.80 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.12 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.28 £27.45 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +54.01% -23.75% -3.49%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.01 £74.63 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.35 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +76.32% -32.93% +7.14%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 26 May 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 +25 1,317 £500 - 423
UK excluding London +16 842 £450 -5.26% 292
London +25 594 £525 +5.00% 186
Work from Home +25 396 £500 +2.56% 178
North of England -3 274 £475 - 69
South East +15 180 £475 -6.82% 69
Yorkshire -10 156 £480 -6.34% 31
Midlands -2 130 £450 -10.00% 57
Scotland +4 124 £425 -8.60% 27
North West +12 110 £489 +15.00% 30
West Midlands -17 88 £468 -10.95% 36
South West +5 69 £425 +6.25% 36
East of England 0 51 £475 -13.64% 17
East Midlands +2 42 £438 +17.06% 21
Wales -4 11 £363 -12.12% 10
North East -33 9 £400 -3.03% 9
Northern Ireland +3 5 £389 -21.04% 11

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 56 (3.65%) Confluence
2 47 (3.06%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 14 (0.91%) Apache Spark
5 13 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.52%) Apache
7 6 (0.39%) CMS
8 5 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (0.33%) SAS
9 3 (0.20%) Drupal
9 3 (0.20%) IIS
9 3 (0.20%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.13%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.13%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.13%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 48 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
2 45 (2.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.20%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.13%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.065%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.065%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.065%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.065%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.065%) Blender
8 1 (0.065%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.065%) Maya
8 1 (0.065%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.065%) Trello
8 1 (0.065%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.72%) Aladdin
1 11 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.33%) NEC Housing
3 5 (0.33%) SAP GRC
4 4 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
5 3 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.20%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.20%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.13%) R3 Corda
6 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.065%) Odoo
7 1 (0.065%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 313 (20.40%) Azure
2 242 (15.78%) AWS
3 129 (8.41%) GCP
4 95 (6.19%) Microsoft 365
5 83 (5.41%) Entra ID
6 82 (5.35%) Power Platform
7 62 (4.04%) GitHub
7 62 (4.04%) SaaS
8 49 (3.19%) Microsoft Purview
9 48 (3.13%) OpenShift
10 45 (2.93%) Azure DevOps
11 39 (2.54%) Serverless
12 26 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
12 26 (1.69%) Microsoft Copilot
13 23 (1.50%) Snowflake
14 22 (1.43%) Amazon S3
15 21 (1.37%) OneDrive
15 21 (1.37%) Power Automate
16 20 (1.30%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (1.24%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 67 (4.37%) Network Security
2 42 (2.74%) Firewall
3 39 (2.54%) SAN
4 27 (1.76%) NAS
4 27 (1.76%) VPN
5 21 (1.37%) DNS
6 20 (1.30%) TCP/IP
7 19 (1.24%) MPLS
7 19 (1.24%) WAN
8 16 (1.04%) LAN
9 13 (0.85%) DHCP
10 12 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
11 11 (0.72%) Fibre Channel
12 9 (0.59%) iSCSI
12 9 (0.59%) VLAN
13 8 (0.52%) BGP
13 8 (0.52%) HTTP
13 8 (0.52%) SD-WAN
14 7 (0.46%) Cisco Nexus
14 7 (0.46%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (4.43%) Power BI
2 36 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (2.22%) Metadata
4 32 (2.09%) SQL Server
5 27 (1.76%) Data Warehouse
6 24 (1.56%) MongoDB
6 24 (1.56%) MySQL
7 21 (1.37%) Relational Database
8 20 (1.30%) Data Lake
8 20 (1.30%) NoSQL
9 19 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
10 18 (1.17%) Big Data
11 13 (0.85%) Tableau
12 12 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
12 12 (0.78%) DynamoDB
12 12 (0.78%) Oracle Database
13 10 (0.65%) BigQuery
13 10 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 7 (0.46%) Redis
Development Applications
1 89 (5.80%) JIRA
2 69 (4.50%) Git
3 62 (4.04%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.28%) GitLab
5 10 (0.65%) SpecFlow
6 9 (0.59%) JUnit
7 7 (0.46%) Postman
7 7 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.39%) Flyway
8 6 (0.39%) Maven
9 5 (0.33%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.33%) Gradle
10 4 (0.26%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.26%) ERwin
10 4 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
11 3 (0.20%) Katalon Studio
11 3 (0.20%) Selenium
11 3 (0.20%) TestNG
11 3 (0.20%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.13%) REST Assured
General
1 477 (31.10%) Social Skills
2 355 (23.14%) Finance
3 195 (12.71%) Legal
4 172 (11.21%) Analytical Skills
5 136 (8.87%) Public Sector
6 120 (7.82%) Banking
7 63 (4.11%) Organisational Skills
8 61 (3.98%) Documentation Skills
9 41 (2.67%) Telecoms
10 32 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
11 31 (2.02%) Front Office
12 28 (1.83%) Local Government
13 27 (1.76%) Law
13 27 (1.76%) Marketing
13 27 (1.76%) Retail
14 25 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
15 17 (1.11%) Police
16 16 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
17 12 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 11 (0.72%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 208 (13.56%) Architect
2 142 (9.26%) Analyst
3 128 (8.34%) Developer
4 113 (7.37%) Lead
5 109 (7.11%) Senior
6 94 (6.13%) Consultant
7 82 (5.35%) Project Manager
8 66 (4.30%) Business Analyst
9 58 (3.78%) Solutions Architect
10 44 (2.87%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.74%) Java Developer
12 40 (2.61%) Network Engineer
13 38 (2.48%) Security Engineer
14 37 (2.41%) Data Engineer
15 36 (2.35%) Administrator
16 28 (1.83%) Technical Architect
17 26 (1.69%) Data Analyst
18 24 (1.56%) Support Engineer
19 23 (1.50%) Python Developer
20 21 (1.37%) Data Protection Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (4.95%) REST
2 59 (3.85%) React
3 37 (2.41%) Spring
4 34 (2.22%) Spring Boot
5 33 (2.15%) Middleware
5 33 (2.15%) RESTful
6 32 (2.09%) Kafka
7 31 (2.02%) HTML
8 30 (1.96%) CSS
9 28 (1.83%) .NET
10 25 (1.63%) JSON
10 25 (1.63%) Node.js
10 25 (1.63%) OAuth
11 21 (1.37%) Jest
12 18 (1.17%) HTML5
12 18 (1.17%) Redux
13 17 (1.11%) Spring MVC
14 16 (1.04%) CSS3
14 16 (1.04%) OpenID
14 16 (1.04%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 719 (46.87%) Data Protection Act
2 90 (5.87%) Cloud Native
3 73 (4.76%) Product Ownership
4 69 (4.50%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.32%) Management Information System
6 38 (2.48%) Distributed Systems
7 37 (2.41%) Data Centre
7 37 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
8 29 (1.89%) Security Posture
9 27 (1.76%) Replication
10 26 (1.69%) NHS
10 26 (1.69%) Virtual Team
11 23 (1.50%) Enterprise Storage
11 23 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
12 21 (1.37%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 19 (1.24%) Self-Motivation
14 18 (1.17%) Freedom of Information
15 17 (1.11%) Derivative
15 17 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
16 16 (1.04%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 107 (6.98%) Windows
2 78 (5.08%) Linux
3 33 (2.15%) Unix
4 23 (1.50%) Windows Server
5 22 (1.43%) Android
6 20 (1.30%) Mac OS
7 19 (1.24%) Apple iOS
8 17 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.85%) VMS
9 13 (0.85%) Windows 10
10 9 (0.59%) zOS
11 7 (0.46%) Data ONTAP
12 6 (0.39%) CoreOS
13 2 (0.13%) Rocky
13 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.065%) CentOS
14 1 (0.065%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.065%) Solaris
14 1 (0.065%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 289 (18.84%) Agile
2 258 (16.82%) Stakeholder Management
3 251 (16.36%) Problem-Solving
4 241 (15.71%) Migration
5 227 (14.80%) Continuous Improvement
6 218 (14.21%) CI/CD
7 215 (14.02%) DevOps
8 145 (9.45%) AI
9 143 (9.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 142 (9.26%) Roadmaps
11 135 (8.80%) Analytics
12 125 (8.15%) Cybersecurity
13 124 (8.08%) Decision-Making
14 119 (7.76%) Risk Management
15 112 (7.30%) Information Security
16 103 (6.71%) Infrastructure as Code
17 101 (6.58%) Data Governance
18 98 (6.39%) Test Automation
19 94 (6.13%) Project Management
20 93 (6.06%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 217 (14.15%) Python
2 171 (11.15%) SQL
3 130 (8.47%) Java
4 78 (5.08%) JavaScript
5 58 (3.78%) PowerShell
6 41 (2.67%) Bash
6 41 (2.67%) C#
7 35 (2.28%) TypeScript
8 20 (1.30%) Bicep
9 15 (0.98%) C++
9 15 (0.98%) Perl
10 11 (0.72%) Go
10 11 (0.72%) Kusto Query Language
11 10 (0.65%) Kotlin
12 9 (0.59%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.52%) ActionScript
13 8 (0.52%) Apex Code
13 8 (0.52%) Scala
14 7 (0.46%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.39%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 205 (13.36%) Security Cleared
2 151 (9.84%) SC Cleared
3 130 (8.47%) Degree
4 67 (4.37%) CISSP
5 53 (3.46%) DV Cleared
6 37 (2.41%) CISM
7 32 (2.09%) Computer Science Degree
8 29 (1.89%) Azure Certification
8 29 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
8 29 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
8 29 (1.89%) PMI Certification
9 26 (1.69%) PMP
10 21 (1.37%) Master's Degree
11 19 (1.24%) AWS Certification
12 18 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (0.98%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 13 (0.85%) CCSP
15 10 (0.65%) CCNP
15 10 (0.65%) CRISC
15 10 (0.65%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 245 (15.97%) GDPR
2 89 (5.80%) NIST
3 88 (5.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 73 (4.76%) Data Quality
5 61 (3.98%) QA
6 37 (2.41%) Accessibility
7 35 (2.28%) GRC
8 24 (1.56%) PCI DSS
9 21 (1.37%) PMO
10 20 (1.30%) SLA
11 19 (1.24%) SOC 2
12 15 (0.98%) NCSC
13 13 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 10 (0.65%) WCAG
15 9 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
16 8 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
17 7 (0.46%) HIPAA
17 7 (0.46%) PERC
18 6 (0.39%) COBIT
19 5 (0.33%) NIST 800
System Software
1 77 (5.02%) Active Directory
2 69 (4.50%) Docker
3 52 (3.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.30%) NFS
5 18 (1.17%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (0.72%) vSphere
8 8 (0.52%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.46%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.39%) KVM
11 4 (0.26%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.20%) IAG
12 3 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.20%) XenApp
12 3 (0.20%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.13%) GPFS
13 2 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.065%) iptables
Systems Management
1 117 (7.63%) Kubernetes
2 90 (5.87%) Terraform
3 66 (4.30%) Ansible
4 47 (3.06%) Grafana
5 39 (2.54%) Microsoft Intune
6 33 (2.15%) Prometheus
7 31 (2.02%) NetBackup
8 21 (1.37%) SCCM
8 21 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.85%) Puppet
10 11 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 9 (0.59%) Jamf Pro
12 7 (0.46%) Kibana
12 7 (0.46%) SnapMirror
13 5 (0.33%) Control-M
13 5 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.33%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 4 (0.26%) CA Single Sign-On
14 4 (0.26%) Foglight
14 4 (0.26%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 250 (16.30%) Microsoft
2 76 (4.95%) Oracle
3 65 (4.24%) Google
4 57 (3.72%) ServiceNow
5 53 (3.46%) VMware
6 52 (3.39%) Databricks
7 49 (3.19%) Cisco
8 42 (2.74%) SAP
9 31 (2.02%) Red Hat
9 31 (2.02%) Splunk
10 26 (1.69%) NetApp
10 26 (1.69%) Veritas
11 24 (1.56%) Salesforce
12 20 (1.30%) Citrix
13 19 (1.24%) IBM
14 15 (0.98%) Commvault
14 15 (0.98%) Workday
15 14 (0.91%) F5
15 14 (0.91%) Informatica
16 13 (0.85%) Dell