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

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 73 87
Rank change year-on-year -10 +14 -2
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,700 1,108 1,001
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.12% 3.35% 2.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.68% 3.70% 3.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 868 544 521
10th Percentile £263 £289 £205
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £609
90th Percentile £684 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £463 £475
% change year-on-year -2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 114 56 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.05 £13.60 £21.25
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.50 £26.68
Median % change year-on-year +8.18% -38.16% +10.35%
75th Percentile £24.50 £20.71 £44.08
90th Percentile £34.58 £31.43 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.68 £15.63 £25.00
% change year-on-year +13.12% -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 46,170 29,963 32,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.61% 90.48% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,721 18,625 19,646
10th Percentile £325 £295 £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 £737 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,354 1,887 1,283
10th Percentile £13.53 £14.38 £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% -9.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.90 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.65 £65.06 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -7.99%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -17 1,408 £500 - 1,691
UK excluding London -1 949 £450 -2.70% 1,011
London -32 588 £525 - 764
Work from Home +14 471 £500 +11.11% 714
North of England +13 353 £463 +0.82% 294
South East -1 198 £468 -8.33% 242
Yorkshire +16 178 £475 -7.32% 118
Midlands +2 159 £450 -5.26% 147
North West +12 149 £450 +2.27% 148
West Midlands +8 129 £450 -10.00% 79
Scotland -14 120 £450 +5.88% 88
South West -7 62 £500 +17.65% 89
East of England -16 36 £503 +5.79% 84
East Midlands -3 30 £435 +8.75% 68
North East -40 27 £463 +15.63% 29
Wales -7 19 £413 - 33
Northern Ireland +3 16 £115 -83.57% 36
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 -17.24% 3

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 (4.35%) SharePoint
2 35 (2.06%) Confluence
3 28 (1.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.59%) Apache Airflow
5 19 (1.12%) Apache Spark
6 14 (0.82%) Apache
7 13 (0.76%) IIS
8 11 (0.65%) CMS
9 9 (0.53%) SAS
10 6 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.35%) WordPress
11 5 (0.29%) nginx
11 5 (0.29%) 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 55 (3.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 54 (3.18%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.41%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
8 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.059%) Maya
8 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 13 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.53%) SAP MDG
4 5 (0.29%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.29%) 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%) Bloomberg TOMS
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 CX
8 1 (0.059%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 377 (22.18%) Azure
2 295 (17.35%) AWS
3 146 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
4 129 (7.59%) GCP
5 80 (4.71%) Power Platform
6 77 (4.53%) Entra ID
7 73 (4.29%) SaaS
8 66 (3.88%) Azure DevOps
9 60 (3.53%) GitHub
10 56 (3.29%) Microsoft Purview
11 50 (2.94%) Serverless
12 40 (2.35%) Microsoft Copilot
13 32 (1.88%) OneDrive
14 27 (1.59%) Snowflake
15 26 (1.53%) GitHub Actions
16 24 (1.41%) AWS Lambda
17 22 (1.29%) OpenShift
18 21 (1.24%) Amazon S3
18 21 (1.24%) Azure Monitor
18 21 (1.24%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 93 (5.47%) Network Security
2 65 (3.82%) Firewall
3 38 (2.24%) VPN
4 35 (2.06%) DNS
5 29 (1.71%) TCP/IP
6 24 (1.41%) DHCP
7 21 (1.24%) LAN
7 21 (1.24%) WAN
8 20 (1.18%) Cisco IPT
9 15 (0.88%) SAN
10 14 (0.82%) MPLS
10 14 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.76%) VoIP
12 12 (0.71%) Wireless
13 11 (0.65%) HTTP
13 11 (0.65%) SSL
13 11 (0.65%) Unified Communications
14 10 (0.59%) Cisco ISE
14 10 (0.59%) Internet
14 10 (0.59%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (3.35%) Power BI
2 54 (3.18%) Metadata
3 41 (2.41%) Relational Database
4 39 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
5 37 (2.18%) SQL Server
6 29 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
7 23 (1.35%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.29%) BigQuery
8 22 (1.29%) Data Lake
9 16 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (0.88%) Big Data
11 14 (0.82%) MongoDB
12 11 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
12 11 (0.65%) Oracle Database
13 10 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
14 9 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
15 8 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
15 8 (0.47%) DynamoDB
15 8 (0.47%) MySQL
15 8 (0.47%) Redis
Development Applications
1 80 (4.71%) JIRA
2 72 (4.24%) Git
3 60 (3.53%) 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 (0.29%) Gradle
8 5 (0.29%) JUnit
9 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.24%) Mockito
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
10 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 704 (41.41%) Social Skills
2 371 (21.82%) Finance
3 258 (15.18%) Legal
4 228 (13.41%) Public Sector
5 225 (13.24%) Analytical Skills
6 120 (7.06%) Banking
7 89 (5.24%) Organisational Skills
8 71 (4.18%) Documentation Skills
9 50 (2.94%) Influencing Skills
10 45 (2.65%) Local Government
11 40 (2.35%) Presentation Skills
12 36 (2.12%) Retail
13 32 (1.88%) Marketing
14 29 (1.71%) Law
15 28 (1.65%) Telecoms
16 23 (1.35%) Front Office
17 22 (1.29%) Police
18 21 (1.24%) Pharmaceutical
19 20 (1.18%) Billing
20 19 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 253 (14.88%) Architect
2 171 (10.06%) Analyst
3 140 (8.24%) Lead
4 125 (7.35%) Senior
5 100 (5.88%) Developer
6 75 (4.41%) Project Manager
7 72 (4.24%) Solutions Architect
8 68 (4.00%) Business Analyst
8 68 (4.00%) Consultant
9 62 (3.65%) Security Architect
10 57 (3.35%) Administrator
11 43 (2.53%) Security Engineer
12 40 (2.35%) Information Officer
13 37 (2.18%) Information Governance Officer
14 36 (2.12%) Support Engineer
15 33 (1.94%) Data Engineer
16 32 (1.88%) Data Analyst
17 28 (1.65%) Data Architect
18 27 (1.59%) Network Engineer
19 26 (1.53%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (6.41%) Terraform
2 97 (5.71%) REST
3 45 (2.65%) Kafka
4 38 (2.24%) OAuth
5 36 (2.12%) JSON
5 36 (2.12%) Middleware
6 28 (1.65%) RESTful
7 25 (1.47%) .NET
7 25 (1.47%) React
8 24 (1.41%) Node.js
8 24 (1.41%) OAuth2
9 22 (1.29%) Spring
10 21 (1.24%) Spring Boot
11 20 (1.18%) HTML
12 18 (1.06%) CSS
13 17 (1.00%) OpenID
14 15 (0.88%) SOAP
15 14 (0.82%) OpenAPI
15 14 (0.82%) Swagger
15 14 (0.82%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 699 (41.12%) Data Protection Act
2 143 (8.41%) Management Information System
3 105 (6.18%) Product Ownership
4 93 (5.47%) Cloud Native
5 90 (5.29%) Onboarding
6 63 (3.71%) Data Centre
7 62 (3.65%) Distributed Systems
8 47 (2.76%) Freedom of Information
9 44 (2.59%) Legacy Systems
10 41 (2.41%) Security Posture
11 37 (2.18%) Virtual Team
12 32 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
13 31 (1.82%) Data Structures
14 30 (1.76%) AI Agents
15 29 (1.71%) NHS
16 28 (1.65%) Operational Technology
17 27 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
18 21 (1.24%) Private Cloud
19 19 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
19 19 (1.12%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 135 (7.94%) Windows
2 85 (5.00%) Linux
3 39 (2.29%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.88%) Apple iOS
5 30 (1.76%) Android
5 30 (1.76%) Unix
6 21 (1.24%) macOS
7 17 (1.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.71%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.53%) 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
1 442 (26.00%) Stakeholder Management
2 331 (19.47%) Agile
3 299 (17.59%) Problem-Solving
4 298 (17.53%) Continuous Improvement
5 259 (15.24%) CI/CD
6 241 (14.18%) AI
6 241 (14.18%) Cybersecurity
7 228 (13.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 221 (13.00%) Migration
9 212 (12.47%) DevOps
10 183 (10.76%) Roadmaps
11 163 (9.59%) Decision-Making
12 161 (9.47%) Information Security
13 159 (9.35%) Risk Management
14 156 (9.18%) Infrastructure as Code
15 147 (8.65%) Analytics
15 147 (8.65%) Data Governance
16 139 (8.18%) Validation
17 129 (7.59%) Test Automation
18 124 (7.29%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 212 (12.47%) Python
2 166 (9.76%) SQL
3 79 (4.65%) Java
4 64 (3.76%) PowerShell
5 47 (2.76%) JavaScript
6 35 (2.06%) Bash
7 30 (1.76%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.59%) Go
9 21 (1.24%) Bicep
10 20 (1.18%) C#
11 16 (0.94%) Scala
12 13 (0.76%) Apex Code
12 13 (0.76%) 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
1 283 (16.65%) Security Cleared
2 211 (12.41%) SC Cleared
3 121 (7.12%) Degree
4 81 (4.76%) CISSP
5 60 (3.53%) DV Cleared
6 55 (3.24%) BPSS Clearance
7 52 (3.06%) CISM
8 43 (2.53%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (2.00%) PMI Certification
10 30 (1.76%) PMP
11 27 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
12 26 (1.53%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 26 (1.53%) Azure Certification
13 24 (1.41%) CCSP
14 19 (1.12%) AWS Certification
15 14 (0.82%) CRISC
16 13 (0.76%) CISA
17 12 (0.71%) CCNP
17 12 (0.71%) Master's Degree
18 10 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 236 (13.88%) GDPR
2 121 (7.12%) Data Quality
3 104 (6.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 71 (4.18%) NIST
4 71 (4.18%) QA
5 55 (3.24%) Accessibility
6 51 (3.00%) GRC
7 32 (1.88%) PCI DSS
8 26 (1.53%) NCSC
9 25 (1.47%) Cyber Essentials
10 20 (1.18%) PMO
11 15 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 15 (0.88%) SLA
12 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.65%) PERC
13 11 (0.65%) WCAG
14 10 (0.59%) HIPAA
15 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
15 9 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 8 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 81 (4.76%) Active Directory
2 70 (4.12%) Docker
3 62 (3.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (0.88%) Virtual Desktop
5 14 (0.82%) vSphere
6 13 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.71%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.29%) ISA Server
8 5 (0.29%) 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%) KVM
12 1 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.059%) OpenSSH
12 1 (0.059%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.059%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 116 (6.82%) Kubernetes
2 49 (2.88%) Ansible
3 38 (2.24%) Microsoft Intune
4 34 (2.00%) Grafana
5 20 (1.18%) SCCM
6 15 (0.88%) Kibana
6 15 (0.88%) Prometheus
7 13 (0.76%) NetBackup
7 13 (0.76%) Progress Chef
8 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
9 10 (0.59%) Puppet
10 8 (0.47%) CASB
11 5 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
11 5 (0.29%) QRadar
11 5 (0.29%) SCOM
12 4 (0.24%) Control-M
12 4 (0.24%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
13 3 (0.18%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 390 (22.94%) Microsoft
2 87 (5.12%) Google
2 87 (5.12%) ServiceNow
3 76 (4.47%) Cisco
4 68 (4.00%) Oracle
5 66 (3.88%) VMware
6 48 (2.82%) Databricks
7 45 (2.65%) SAP
8 41 (2.41%) Splunk
9 30 (1.76%) Salesforce
10 27 (1.59%) Zscaler
11 22 (1.29%) IBM
12 18 (1.06%) Workday
13 17 (1.00%) CyberArk
13 17 (1.00%) Dell
13 17 (1.00%) Dynatrace
13 17 (1.00%) F5
14 16 (0.94%) Red Hat
15 14 (0.82%) MuleSoft
16 13 (0.76%) SolarWinds