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

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 104 82
Rank change year-on-year +30 -22 +19
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,385 755 1,124
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.25% 2.56% 2.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.78% 2.84% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 753 400 620
10th Percentile £281 £263 £200
25th Percentile £400 £375 £391
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
90th Percentile £690 £694 £716
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 22 110
10th Percentile £15.18 £16.55 £12.48
25th Percentile £17.01 £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 £38.20 £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 36,632 26,629 38,749
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.08% 90.34% 86.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,216 16,983 25,185
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 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -1.84% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,179 898 2,347
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.57 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £64.75 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.68 £76.53 £71.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.55 £32.00 £31.80
% change year-on-year -17.02% +0.63% -9.14%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +35 1,181 £500 - 394
UK excluding London +18 737 £450 -5.26% 302
London +31 562 £525 +3.45% 104
Work from Home +23 332 £500 +2.56% 185
North of England -6 224 £475 - 75
South East +15 174 £480 +1.05% 85
Yorkshire -11 130 £490 -6.71% 23
Scotland +14 113 £407 -4.24% 14
Midlands -3 110 £450 -10.00% 50
North West -14 85 £437 -6.58% 50
West Midlands -22 67 £500 -2.44% 29
South West +16 48 £500 +66.67% 37
East of England +8 48 £450 -25.00% 35
East Midlands -2 43 £438 +6.06% 21
Wales +3 15 £375 -11.76% 8
North East -24 10 £400 -15.79% 3
Northern Ireland - 9 £500 - 2

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 58 (4.19%) Confluence
2 36 (2.60%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.87%) 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%) Oracle Application Server
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.14%) SAS
9 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.072%) JBoss
10 1 (0.072%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 52 (3.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (3.10%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.43%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.22%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.14%) InVision
6 2 (0.14%) Sketch
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%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.072%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.72%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
4 8 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
5 5 (0.36%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.29%) ResourceLink
6 4 (0.29%) SAP GRC
7 3 (0.22%) Distributed Ledger
7 3 (0.22%) Fidessa
7 3 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.22%) R3 Corda
7 3 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.14%) ION MarketView
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle FAH
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
8 2 (0.14%) Workfront
9 1 (0.072%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 272 (19.64%) Azure
2 224 (16.17%) AWS
3 114 (8.23%) GCP
4 77 (5.56%) Microsoft 365
5 73 (5.27%) Power Platform
6 68 (4.91%) Entra ID
7 60 (4.33%) GitHub
8 57 (4.12%) Serverless
9 49 (3.54%) SaaS
10 44 (3.18%) AWS Lambda
11 43 (3.10%) Amazon S3
12 38 (2.74%) Azure DevOps
13 36 (2.60%) Microsoft Purview
13 36 (2.60%) OpenShift
14 32 (2.31%) Snowflake
15 30 (2.17%) AWS CloudFormation
16 25 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (1.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 21 (1.52%) Azure AKS
18 21 (1.52%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 45 (3.25%) Firewall
2 40 (2.89%) Network Security
3 34 (2.45%) SAN
4 23 (1.66%) VPN
5 21 (1.52%) NAS
6 19 (1.37%) MPLS
7 18 (1.30%) DNS
7 18 (1.30%) LAN
7 18 (1.30%) WAN
8 16 (1.16%) Cisco IPT
9 14 (1.01%) TCP/IP
10 11 (0.79%) SD-WAN
11 10 (0.72%) BGP
11 10 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (0.65%) Fibre Channel
12 9 (0.65%) HTTP
12 9 (0.65%) VLAN
13 8 (0.58%) IPv4
13 8 (0.58%) IPv6
13 8 (0.58%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (4.77%) Power BI
2 40 (2.89%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (2.53%) SQL Server
4 30 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
5 27 (1.95%) Metadata
6 20 (1.44%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.44%) Relational Database
7 18 (1.30%) DynamoDB
8 17 (1.23%) MySQL
9 16 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
9 16 (1.16%) Data Lake
9 16 (1.16%) MongoDB
10 14 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (0.94%) Oracle Database
11 13 (0.94%) Tableau
12 12 (0.87%) Amazon Aurora
13 10 (0.72%) Big Data
14 9 (0.65%) BigQuery
15 8 (0.58%) Aerospike
15 8 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 94 (6.79%) JIRA
2 63 (4.55%) Git
3 62 (4.48%) Jenkins
4 36 (2.60%) GitLab
5 12 (0.87%) SpecFlow
6 11 (0.79%) JUnit
7 10 (0.72%) Sonatype Nexus
8 8 (0.58%) Gradle
9 7 (0.51%) 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
13 3 (0.22%) IntelliJ
13 3 (0.22%) Liquibase
13 3 (0.22%) MSI
13 3 (0.22%) Selenium
13 3 (0.22%) TestNG
General
1 439 (31.70%) Social Skills
2 298 (21.52%) Finance
3 184 (13.29%) Analytical Skills
4 144 (10.40%) Legal
5 138 (9.96%) Public Sector
6 115 (8.30%) Banking
7 55 (3.97%) Organisational Skills
8 45 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
9 41 (2.96%) Telecoms
10 30 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
10 30 (2.17%) Marketing
11 27 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
12 22 (1.59%) Front Office
13 20 (1.44%) Local Government
14 19 (1.37%) Law
15 15 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 15 (1.08%) Police
16 14 (1.01%) Manufacturing
16 14 (1.01%) Retail
17 12 (0.87%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 180 (13.00%) Architect
2 148 (10.69%) Analyst
3 109 (7.87%) Developer
4 105 (7.58%) Lead
5 80 (5.78%) Senior
6 72 (5.20%) Consultant
7 66 (4.77%) Business Analyst
8 65 (4.69%) Project Manager
9 54 (3.90%) Solutions Architect
10 39 (2.82%) Security Engineer
11 37 (2.67%) Data Engineer
12 32 (2.31%) Network Engineer
13 30 (2.17%) Technical Architect
14 27 (1.95%) Administrator
14 27 (1.95%) Security Architect
15 26 (1.88%) Data Analyst
16 24 (1.73%) Java Developer
17 23 (1.66%) Automation Engineer
18 21 (1.52%) Software Engineer
19 20 (1.44%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (4.55%) REST
2 48 (3.47%) React
3 35 (2.53%) .NET
4 34 (2.45%) Node.js
5 29 (2.09%) Kafka
6 27 (1.95%) Spring
7 26 (1.88%) Middleware
8 25 (1.81%) RESTful
9 22 (1.59%) Spring Boot
10 20 (1.44%) OAuth
11 18 (1.30%) Oracle Fusion
12 17 (1.23%) Playwright
13 16 (1.16%) PySpark
14 15 (1.08%) HTML
15 14 (1.01%) .NET Core
16 13 (0.94%) Jest
17 12 (0.87%) JSON
18 11 (0.79%) AngularJS
18 11 (0.79%) SAML
19 10 (0.72%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 673 (48.59%) Data Protection Act
2 69 (4.98%) Cloud Native
3 63 (4.55%) Product Ownership
4 58 (4.19%) Onboarding
5 52 (3.75%) Management Information System
6 31 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
7 29 (2.09%) Distributed Systems
8 28 (2.02%) NHS
9 26 (1.88%) Data Centre
9 26 (1.88%) Hybrid Cloud
10 25 (1.81%) Replication
11 23 (1.66%) Freedom of Information
11 23 (1.66%) Security Posture
12 20 (1.44%) Data Structures
12 20 (1.44%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 18 (1.30%) Enterprise Storage
14 14 (1.01%) Insider Threat
15 13 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
16 12 (0.87%) AI Agents
16 12 (0.87%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 102 (7.36%) Windows
2 70 (5.05%) Linux
3 25 (1.81%) Unix
4 22 (1.59%) Windows Server
5 17 (1.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (1.08%) Mac OS
7 13 (0.94%) VMS
8 12 (0.87%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.58%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.51%) Android
10 7 (0.51%) Data ONTAP
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
1 248 (17.91%) Problem-Solving
2 241 (17.40%) Stakeholder Management
3 231 (16.68%) Agile
4 213 (15.38%) Migration
5 189 (13.65%) CI/CD
6 174 (12.56%) DevOps
7 166 (11.99%) Continuous Improvement
8 140 (10.11%) Analytics
9 139 (10.04%) Roadmaps
10 136 (9.82%) Cybersecurity
11 127 (9.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 123 (8.88%) AI
13 116 (8.38%) Information Security
14 111 (8.01%) Risk Management
15 98 (7.08%) Decision-Making
16 97 (7.00%) Project Management
17 92 (6.64%) Data Governance
17 92 (6.64%) Test Automation
18 86 (6.21%) Microservices
19 85 (6.14%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 228 (16.46%) Python
2 174 (12.56%) SQL
3 102 (7.36%) Java
4 68 (4.91%) PowerShell
5 66 (4.77%) JavaScript
6 54 (3.90%) C#
7 43 (3.10%) Bash
8 37 (2.67%) TypeScript
9 19 (1.37%) Bicep
10 12 (0.87%) Perl
11 11 (0.79%) C++
12 10 (0.72%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.58%) ActionScript
14 7 (0.51%) Kusto Query Language
14 7 (0.51%) 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
1 192 (13.86%) Security Cleared
2 138 (9.96%) SC Cleared
3 125 (9.03%) Degree
4 49 (3.54%) DV Cleared
5 43 (3.10%) CISSP
6 36 (2.60%) Computer Science Degree
7 29 (2.09%) CISM
8 27 (1.95%) AWS Certification
9 26 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
10 23 (1.66%) Master's Degree
11 21 (1.52%) PMI Certification
12 19 (1.37%) Azure Certification
12 19 (1.37%) PMP
13 18 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
14 16 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
15 14 (1.01%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 14 (1.01%) CTC Cleared
16 13 (0.94%) CRISC
17 11 (0.79%) CCSP
18 10 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 248 (17.91%) GDPR
2 93 (6.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 90 (6.50%) NIST
4 68 (4.91%) Data Quality
5 55 (3.97%) QA
6 31 (2.24%) Accessibility
7 30 (2.17%) PCI DSS
8 25 (1.81%) GRC
9 24 (1.73%) PMO
10 19 (1.37%) SLA
11 17 (1.23%) NCSC
12 15 (1.08%) SOC 2
13 14 (1.01%) Disclosure Scotland
14 13 (0.94%) NIST 800
14 13 (0.94%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.79%) PERC
16 7 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
16 7 (0.51%) HIPAA
17 6 (0.43%) COBIT
17 6 (0.43%) WCAG
System Software
1 69 (4.98%) Docker
2 68 (4.91%) Active Directory
3 57 (4.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (1.08%) NFS
6 12 (0.87%) 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%) Firmware
13 1 (0.072%) ISA Server
13 1 (0.072%) UAG
13 1 (0.072%) XenApp
13 1 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 97 (7.00%) Kubernetes
2 96 (6.93%) Terraform
3 68 (4.91%) Ansible
4 35 (2.53%) Grafana
5 33 (2.38%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (2.17%) NetBackup
7 27 (1.95%) Prometheus
8 20 (1.44%) SCCM
9 15 (1.08%) Puppet
10 13 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.51%) SnapMirror
13 6 (0.43%) EMC NetWorker
13 6 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
13 6 (0.43%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.36%) Control-M
14 5 (0.36%) RSA Archer
14 5 (0.36%) vCenter Server
15 4 (0.29%) Kibana
16 3 (0.22%) Argo
Vendors
1 213 (15.38%) Microsoft
2 69 (4.98%) Oracle
3 63 (4.55%) Google
4 59 (4.26%) VMware
5 51 (3.68%) Databricks
6 44 (3.18%) ServiceNow
7 41 (2.96%) Cisco
8 38 (2.74%) SAP
9 33 (2.38%) Salesforce
10 32 (2.31%) Red Hat
11 23 (1.66%) Citrix
12 21 (1.52%) Commvault
12 21 (1.52%) Veritas
13 20 (1.44%) NetApp
14 19 (1.37%) F5
15 18 (1.30%) IBM
16 15 (1.08%) Adobe
16 15 (1.08%) Veeam
17 14 (1.01%) Splunk
18 12 (0.87%) Workday