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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 78 92
Rank change year-on-year -6 +14 -9
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,657 1,044 953
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.10% 3.18% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.66% 3.52% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 883 522 510
10th Percentile £306 £293 £200
25th Percentile £400 £391 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £479 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -4.25% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £467 £475
% change year-on-year -0.16% -1.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 44 44
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £15.93 £14.48 £16.06
Median hourly rate £19.22 £16.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.50% -34.00% -40.74%
75th Percentile £33.17 £27.37 £28.75
90th Percentile £35.62 £33.87 £69.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £21.75
% change year-on-year +17.05% -29.89% -30.95%

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 45,331 29,700 33,127
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.72% 90.46% 85.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,838 18,524 21,130
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% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,836 1,729 1,767
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.31 £17.33 £18.14
Median hourly rate £41.63 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +65.54% -38.57% -0.24%
75th Percentile £67.99 £49.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +83.17% -43.53% +17.65%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -6 1,404 £500 +2.56% 727
UK excluding London +2 909 £466 -0.16% 558
London -12 614 £525 +5.00% 281
Work from Home +8 476 £500 +5.26% 323
North of England +14 335 £475 +3.26% 142
South East +9 193 £483 -6.76% 142
Yorkshire -1 177 £475 -5.00% 45
North West +24 145 £500 +11.86% 75
Midlands -7 142 £470 -1.05% 90
Scotland -7 116 £430 -7.28% 52
West Midlands -20 109 £473 -5.40% 54
South West -17 73 £425 +6.25% 68
East of England -2 34 £538 +13.16% 58
East Midlands -1 33 £447 +27.71% 35
Wales -8 18 £413 +39.24% 12
North East -49 14 £463 +15.63% 22
Northern Ireland +4 11 £104 -82.55% 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 59 (3.56%) SharePoint
2 48 (2.90%) Confluence
3 26 (1.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 20 (1.21%) Apache Spark
5 19 (1.15%) 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%) NetWeaver
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
12 1 (0.060%) Drupal
12 1 (0.060%) Moodle
Applications
1 44 (2.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.53%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
5 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.30%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.060%) Maya
9 1 (0.060%) Trello
9 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.24%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP GRC
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%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.060%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 380 (22.93%) Azure
2 287 (17.32%) AWS
3 147 (8.87%) GCP
4 127 (7.66%) Microsoft 365
5 94 (5.67%) Power Platform
6 81 (4.89%) Entra ID
7 77 (4.65%) SaaS
8 65 (3.92%) GitHub
9 60 (3.62%) Azure DevOps
10 57 (3.44%) Microsoft Purview
11 53 (3.20%) Serverless
12 35 (2.11%) Microsoft Copilot
13 32 (1.93%) OpenShift
14 30 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
15 27 (1.63%) OneDrive
15 27 (1.63%) PowerApps
16 26 (1.57%) GitHub Actions
17 25 (1.51%) Amazon S3
17 25 (1.51%) Power Automate
18 22 (1.33%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 94 (5.67%) Network Security
2 58 (3.50%) Firewall
3 38 (2.29%) DNS
4 37 (2.23%) VPN
5 29 (1.75%) DHCP
6 24 (1.45%) TCP/IP
7 22 (1.33%) SAN
7 22 (1.33%) WAN
8 18 (1.09%) Cisco IPT
9 17 (1.03%) LAN
10 15 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
10 15 (0.91%) Wireless
11 14 (0.84%) SSL
12 13 (0.78%) NAS
13 11 (0.66%) HTTP
13 11 (0.66%) MPLS
14 10 (0.60%) VoIP
15 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
16 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
16 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (4.28%) Power BI
2 54 (3.26%) Metadata
3 42 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
4 39 (2.35%) SQL Server
5 35 (2.11%) Data Warehouse
6 28 (1.69%) Relational Database
7 26 (1.57%) NoSQL
8 23 (1.39%) Data Lake
9 20 (1.21%) Big Data
10 19 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
10 19 (1.15%) MySQL
11 17 (1.03%) MongoDB
12 13 (0.78%) BigQuery
13 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
14 11 (0.66%) Oracle Database
15 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
15 9 (0.54%) Redis
16 8 (0.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 8 (0.48%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 84 (5.07%) JIRA
2 64 (3.86%) Git
3 60 (3.62%) Jenkins
4 34 (2.05%) GitLab
5 11 (0.66%) Maven
6 9 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Flyway
8 6 (0.36%) Gradle
8 6 (0.36%) Postman
8 6 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) JUnit
9 5 (0.30%) Selenium
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 593 (35.79%) Social Skills
2 363 (21.91%) Finance
3 250 (15.09%) Legal
4 207 (12.49%) Analytical Skills
5 191 (11.53%) Public Sector
6 114 (6.88%) Banking
7 77 (4.65%) Documentation Skills
8 71 (4.28%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.47%) Retail
10 37 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
10 37 (2.23%) Local Government
11 34 (2.05%) Law
12 31 (1.87%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.63%) Front Office
13 27 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
14 24 (1.45%) Marketing
15 22 (1.33%) Billing
15 22 (1.33%) Pharmaceutical
15 22 (1.33%) Police
16 16 (0.97%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 242 (14.60%) Architect
2 159 (9.60%) Analyst
3 147 (8.87%) Lead
4 126 (7.60%) Developer
5 123 (7.42%) Senior
6 87 (5.25%) Consultant
7 79 (4.77%) Project Manager
8 66 (3.98%) Business Analyst
9 65 (3.92%) Solutions Architect
10 54 (3.26%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.53%) Security Engineer
12 39 (2.35%) Administrator
13 37 (2.23%) Data Engineer
14 34 (2.05%) Support Engineer
15 31 (1.87%) Network Engineer
16 30 (1.81%) Java Developer
17 29 (1.75%) Data Analyst
18 28 (1.69%) IT Support
19 26 (1.57%) Technical Architect
20 25 (1.51%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (5.55%) Terraform
2 89 (5.37%) REST
3 41 (2.47%) React
4 36 (2.17%) JSON
4 36 (2.17%) Spring
5 34 (2.05%) Kafka
6 33 (1.99%) Spring Boot
7 32 (1.93%) Middleware
8 31 (1.87%) CSS
8 31 (1.87%) HTML
8 31 (1.87%) OAuth
9 27 (1.63%) RESTful
10 24 (1.45%) .NET
11 22 (1.33%) Node.js
12 17 (1.03%) OAuth2
12 17 (1.03%) OpenID
13 15 (0.91%) CSS3
13 15 (0.91%) GraphQL
13 15 (0.91%) HTML5
14 14 (0.84%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 726 (43.81%) Data Protection Act
2 93 (5.61%) Cloud Native
3 92 (5.55%) Product Ownership
4 82 (4.95%) Management Information System
5 75 (4.53%) Onboarding
6 52 (3.14%) Data Centre
7 48 (2.90%) Distributed Systems
8 41 (2.47%) Virtual Team
9 40 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
10 38 (2.29%) Security Posture
11 29 (1.75%) Freedom of Information
12 27 (1.63%) NHS
12 27 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
13 25 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
13 25 (1.51%) Replication
14 24 (1.45%) Operational Technology
15 22 (1.33%) Hybrid Cloud
15 22 (1.33%) Mobile App
16 21 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
17 20 (1.21%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 129 (7.79%) Windows
2 83 (5.01%) Linux
3 32 (1.93%) Apple iOS
4 31 (1.87%) Android
5 28 (1.69%) Unix
5 28 (1.69%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.33%) Mac OS
7 20 (1.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.97%) Windows 10
9 10 (0.60%) VMS
10 7 (0.42%) zOS
11 3 (0.18%) CoreOS
11 3 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.18%) Solaris
11 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) CentOS
12 2 (0.12%) Rocky
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 327 (19.73%) Stakeholder Management
2 304 (18.35%) Agile
3 288 (17.38%) Problem-Solving
4 262 (15.81%) Continuous Improvement
5 237 (14.30%) DevOps
6 236 (14.24%) CI/CD
7 215 (12.98%) Migration
8 212 (12.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 209 (12.61%) AI
10 182 (10.98%) Cybersecurity
11 160 (9.66%) Data Governance
12 158 (9.54%) Roadmaps
13 155 (9.35%) Decision-Making
14 149 (8.99%) Analytics
15 135 (8.15%) Information Security
16 130 (7.85%) Risk Management
17 124 (7.48%) Infrastructure as Code
18 122 (7.36%) Validation
19 120 (7.24%) Data Modelling
20 100 (6.04%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 206 (12.43%) Python
2 162 (9.78%) SQL
3 105 (6.34%) Java
4 59 (3.56%) PowerShell
5 57 (3.44%) JavaScript
6 40 (2.41%) Bash
7 27 (1.63%) TypeScript
8 20 (1.21%) C#
9 19 (1.15%) Go
10 15 (0.91%) Bicep
10 15 (0.91%) Kotlin
11 14 (0.84%) Apex Code
12 12 (0.72%) Perl
13 11 (0.66%) C++
14 8 (0.48%) C
14 8 (0.48%) Scala
14 8 (0.48%) VB
15 7 (0.42%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.42%) VB6
16 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 252 (15.21%) Security Cleared
2 188 (11.35%) SC Cleared
3 108 (6.52%) Degree
4 81 (4.89%) CISSP
5 58 (3.50%) DV Cleared
6 51 (3.08%) CISM
7 38 (2.29%) BPSS Clearance
8 33 (1.99%) Azure Certification
9 31 (1.87%) Cisco Certification
10 28 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
10 28 (1.69%) PMI Certification
11 26 (1.57%) PMP
12 21 (1.27%) AWS Certification
13 18 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (0.97%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 13 (0.78%) CCSP
16 11 (0.66%) CCNP
16 11 (0.66%) Master's Degree
17 8 (0.48%) CEH
17 8 (0.48%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 250 (15.09%) GDPR
2 106 (6.40%) Data Quality
3 92 (5.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (4.71%) NIST
5 76 (4.59%) QA
6 46 (2.78%) Accessibility
7 44 (2.66%) GRC
8 24 (1.45%) PMO
9 20 (1.21%) NCSC
9 20 (1.21%) PCI DSS
10 19 (1.15%) SLA
11 12 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
11 12 (0.72%) HIPAA
11 12 (0.72%) PERC
11 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 11 (0.66%) WCAG
13 10 (0.60%) SOC 2
14 9 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 9 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 91 (5.49%) Active Directory
2 64 (3.86%) Docker
3 58 (3.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.21%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.72%) NFS
6 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 11 (0.66%) vSphere
7 8 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) KVM
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) Firmware
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 113 (6.82%) Kubernetes
2 49 (2.96%) Ansible
3 41 (2.47%) Microsoft Intune
4 29 (1.75%) Grafana
5 24 (1.45%) SCCM
6 23 (1.39%) NetBackup
7 18 (1.09%) Prometheus
8 17 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.91%) Puppet
10 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
12 8 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.36%) Kibana
14 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.30%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) Cisco CUCM
15 4 (0.24%) Istio
15 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
15 4 (0.24%) SCOM
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 335 (20.22%) Microsoft
2 86 (5.19%) ServiceNow
3 71 (4.28%) Oracle
4 69 (4.16%) Google
5 60 (3.62%) VMware
6 59 (3.56%) Cisco
7 51 (3.08%) Databricks
8 37 (2.23%) SAP
9 34 (2.05%) Splunk
10 28 (1.69%) Salesforce
11 26 (1.57%) Red Hat
12 24 (1.45%) Zscaler
13 23 (1.39%) NetApp
13 23 (1.39%) Workday
14 21 (1.27%) CyberArk
15 17 (1.03%) F5
15 17 (1.03%) IBM
16 16 (0.97%) Citrix
16 16 (0.97%) Veritas
17 14 (0.84%) Dell