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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 69 92 86
Rank change year-on-year +23 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,522 800 1,064
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.17% 2.72% 2.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.77% 2.99% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 838 403 564
10th Percentile £300 £258 £225
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.61% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £578 £602
90th Percentile £700 £690 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 31 108
10th Percentile £14.49 £16.25 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.53 £27.64 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.10% +31.62% -60.00%
75th Percentile £33.26 £32.95 £27.59
90th Percentile £48.75 £37.00 £41.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.76 £29.12 £19.50
% change year-on-year -28.70% +49.31% -56.21%

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 40,423 26,734 36,712
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.29% 90.97% 86.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,371 17,185 23,631
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.68% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,395 1,096 2,442
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.35 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.72 £18.22 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.18 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +50.82% -21.77% +1.04%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.23 £37.50
% change year-on-year +78.39% -32.73% +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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +29 1,308 £491 -1.75% 393
UK excluding London +14 824 £450 -5.26% 274
London +27 598 £525 +5.00% 168
Work from Home +21 388 £500 +2.56% 152
North of England -6 265 £480 +1.05% 65
South East +14 182 £475 -5.00% 75
Yorkshire -10 154 £478 -5.68% 27
Midlands +7 133 £450 -10.00% 55
Scotland +4 121 £425 -8.60% 20
North West +6 103 £495 +16.47% 28
West Midlands -8 87 £468 -10.95% 36
South West +6 63 £410 +2.50% 30
East of England +2 48 £475 -11.63% 21
East Midlands +7 46 £437 +5.37% 19
Wales -3 11 £375 -9.09% 6
North East -35 9 £400 -4.48% 11
Northern Ireland +2 3 £389 -21.04% 5

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 55 (3.61%) Confluence
2 46 (3.02%) SharePoint
3 25 (1.64%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (0.99%) Apache Spark
5 13 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (0.46%) 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 (3.15%) Microsoft Office
2 46 (3.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.33%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.20%) UserZoom
8 2 (0.13%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.066%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.066%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.066%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.066%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.066%) Blender
9 1 (0.066%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.066%) Maya
9 1 (0.066%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.066%) Trello
9 1 (0.066%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.79%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.33%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.33%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.26%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.20%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.066%) Endur
8 1 (0.066%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 306 (20.11%) Azure
2 250 (16.43%) AWS
3 129 (8.48%) GCP
4 90 (5.91%) Microsoft 365
5 83 (5.45%) Power Platform
6 79 (5.19%) Entra ID
7 67 (4.40%) GitHub
8 63 (4.14%) SaaS
9 49 (3.22%) Microsoft Purview
10 46 (3.02%) Azure DevOps
11 45 (2.96%) OpenShift
12 42 (2.76%) Serverless
13 29 (1.91%) Amazon S3
13 29 (1.91%) AWS Lambda
14 26 (1.71%) Microsoft Copilot
15 25 (1.64%) GitHub Actions
16 23 (1.51%) Amazon ECS
16 23 (1.51%) Snowflake
17 22 (1.45%) AWS CloudFormation
18 21 (1.38%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 62 (4.07%) Network Security
2 41 (2.69%) Firewall
3 37 (2.43%) SAN
4 26 (1.71%) VPN
5 25 (1.64%) NAS
6 21 (1.38%) DNS
7 19 (1.25%) MPLS
7 19 (1.25%) TCP/IP
7 19 (1.25%) WAN
8 18 (1.18%) LAN
9 13 (0.85%) DHCP
9 13 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
10 11 (0.72%) Fibre Channel
11 9 (0.59%) iSCSI
11 9 (0.59%) VLAN
12 7 (0.46%) BGP
12 7 (0.46%) Cisco Nexus
12 7 (0.46%) Ethernet
12 7 (0.46%) HTTP
12 7 (0.46%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.53%) Power BI
2 38 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
3 33 (2.17%) Metadata
3 33 (2.17%) SQL Server
4 31 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
5 28 (1.84%) MySQL
6 26 (1.71%) Relational Database
7 23 (1.51%) MongoDB
8 20 (1.31%) Big Data
9 19 (1.25%) Amazon RDS
10 18 (1.18%) Data Lake
10 18 (1.18%) NoSQL
11 13 (0.85%) DynamoDB
11 13 (0.85%) Oracle Database
11 13 (0.85%) Tableau
12 12 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
13 10 (0.66%) Amazon Aurora
13 10 (0.66%) BigQuery
13 10 (0.66%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 91 (5.98%) JIRA
2 68 (4.47%) Git
3 64 (4.20%) Jenkins
4 37 (2.43%) GitLab
5 12 (0.79%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.66%) JUnit
7 8 (0.53%) Postman
8 7 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (0.39%) Maven
9 6 (0.39%) NUnit
10 5 (0.33%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.33%) Flyway
10 5 (0.33%) Team Foundation Server
11 4 (0.26%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.26%) Gradle
11 4 (0.26%) Selenium
12 3 (0.20%) Katalon Studio
12 3 (0.20%) Liquibase
12 3 (0.20%) TestNG
12 3 (0.20%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 471 (30.95%) Social Skills
2 352 (23.13%) Finance
3 190 (12.48%) Legal
4 176 (11.56%) Analytical Skills
5 132 (8.67%) Public Sector
6 119 (7.82%) Banking
7 60 (3.94%) Documentation Skills
7 60 (3.94%) Organisational Skills
8 42 (2.76%) Telecoms
9 32 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
10 31 (2.04%) Front Office
11 28 (1.84%) Local Government
11 28 (1.84%) Marketing
12 26 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
13 25 (1.64%) Law
14 24 (1.58%) Retail
15 18 (1.18%) Police
16 14 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
17 12 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 10 (0.66%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 201 (13.21%) Architect
2 144 (9.46%) Analyst
3 131 (8.61%) Developer
4 113 (7.42%) Lead
4 113 (7.42%) Senior
5 94 (6.18%) Consultant
6 82 (5.39%) Project Manager
7 68 (4.47%) Business Analyst
8 58 (3.81%) Solutions Architect
9 43 (2.83%) Java Developer
9 43 (2.83%) Security Architect
10 39 (2.56%) Network Engineer
11 38 (2.50%) Data Engineer
11 38 (2.50%) Security Engineer
12 36 (2.37%) Administrator
13 28 (1.84%) Technical Architect
14 27 (1.77%) Data Analyst
15 24 (1.58%) Support Engineer
16 22 (1.45%) Python Developer
17 20 (1.31%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (4.93%) REST
2 59 (3.88%) React
3 38 (2.50%) Spring
4 35 (2.30%) Kafka
4 35 (2.30%) Spring Boot
5 33 (2.17%) RESTful
6 32 (2.10%) .NET
7 31 (2.04%) HTML
7 31 (2.04%) Middleware
8 30 (1.97%) CSS
9 28 (1.84%) Node.js
9 28 (1.84%) OAuth
10 24 (1.58%) JSON
11 22 (1.45%) Jest
12 18 (1.18%) HTML5
12 18 (1.18%) OAuth2
12 18 (1.18%) Redux
13 17 (1.12%) Playwright
13 17 (1.12%) Spring MVC
14 16 (1.05%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 723 (47.50%) Data Protection Act
2 95 (6.24%) Cloud Native
3 75 (4.93%) Product Ownership
4 65 (4.27%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.35%) Management Information System
6 45 (2.96%) Distributed Systems
7 36 (2.37%) Legacy Systems
8 34 (2.23%) Data Centre
9 30 (1.97%) Security Posture
10 29 (1.91%) Replication
11 28 (1.84%) NHS
12 26 (1.71%) Virtual Team
13 24 (1.58%) Hybrid Cloud
14 23 (1.51%) Enterprise Storage
14 23 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
15 21 (1.38%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 19 (1.25%) Freedom of Information
17 17 (1.12%) Derivative
18 16 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
18 16 (1.05%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 104 (6.83%) Windows
2 78 (5.12%) Linux
3 31 (2.04%) Unix
4 21 (1.38%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.31%) Android
6 19 (1.25%) Apple iOS
7 18 (1.18%) Mac OS
8 17 (1.12%) 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 (0.066%) CentOS
14 1 (0.066%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.066%) Solaris
14 1 (0.066%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.066%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 295 (19.38%) Agile
2 257 (16.89%) Stakeholder Management
3 253 (16.62%) Problem-Solving
4 233 (15.31%) Migration
5 221 (14.52%) CI/CD
6 219 (14.39%) Continuous Improvement
7 217 (14.26%) DevOps
8 144 (9.46%) AI
9 140 (9.20%) Analytics
9 140 (9.20%) Roadmaps
10 135 (8.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 124 (8.15%) Decision-Making
12 117 (7.69%) Cybersecurity
13 116 (7.62%) Risk Management
14 112 (7.36%) Information Security
15 107 (7.03%) Infrastructure as Code
16 100 (6.57%) Test Automation
17 98 (6.44%) Data Governance
18 97 (6.37%) Observability
19 96 (6.31%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 215 (14.13%) Python
2 174 (11.43%) SQL
3 127 (8.34%) Java
4 78 (5.12%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.68%) PowerShell
6 46 (3.02%) C#
7 40 (2.63%) Bash
8 35 (2.30%) TypeScript
9 20 (1.31%) Bicep
10 15 (0.99%) C++
11 13 (0.85%) Perl
12 10 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
13 9 (0.59%) Go
13 9 (0.59%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.59%) PL/SQL
13 9 (0.59%) Scala
13 9 (0.59%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.53%) ActionScript
14 8 (0.53%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.46%) R
Qualifications
1 208 (13.67%) Security Cleared
2 151 (9.92%) SC Cleared
3 125 (8.21%) Degree
4 63 (4.14%) CISSP
5 53 (3.48%) DV Cleared
6 35 (2.30%) CISM
7 32 (2.10%) Computer Science Degree
8 30 (1.97%) PMI Certification
9 29 (1.91%) Azure Certification
9 29 (1.91%) Cisco Certification
10 28 (1.84%) PMP
11 27 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
12 21 (1.38%) AWS Certification
12 21 (1.38%) Master's Degree
13 18 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.99%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 13 (0.85%) CCSP
16 11 (0.72%) CTC Cleared
17 10 (0.66%) CCNP
17 10 (0.66%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (15.97%) GDPR
2 90 (5.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 90 (5.91%) NIST
3 73 (4.80%) Data Quality
4 66 (4.34%) QA
5 36 (2.37%) Accessibility
6 33 (2.17%) GRC
7 24 (1.58%) PCI DSS
8 21 (1.38%) PMO
9 20 (1.31%) SLA
10 19 (1.25%) SOC 2
11 15 (0.99%) NCSC
12 13 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.66%) WCAG
14 9 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
15 7 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
15 7 (0.46%) HIPAA
15 7 (0.46%) PERC
16 6 (0.39%) COBIT
17 5 (0.33%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 74 (4.86%) Active Directory
2 73 (4.80%) Docker
3 51 (3.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.31%) NFS
5 17 (1.12%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (0.72%) vSphere
8 8 (0.53%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.46%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.39%) KVM
11 4 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.26%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.20%) IAG
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 (0.066%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 114 (7.49%) Kubernetes
2 95 (6.24%) Terraform
3 64 (4.20%) Ansible
4 49 (3.22%) Grafana
5 36 (2.37%) Microsoft Intune
6 31 (2.04%) Prometheus
7 28 (1.84%) NetBackup
8 21 (1.38%) SCCM
9 20 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.85%) Puppet
11 11 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
12 7 (0.46%) Kibana
12 7 (0.46%) SnapMirror
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%) Control-M
14 4 (0.26%) Foglight
14 4 (0.26%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 241 (15.83%) Microsoft
2 75 (4.93%) Oracle
3 62 (4.07%) Google
4 56 (3.68%) ServiceNow
5 53 (3.48%) Databricks
6 52 (3.42%) VMware
7 48 (3.15%) Cisco
8 42 (2.76%) SAP
9 31 (2.04%) Red Hat
10 29 (1.91%) Splunk
11 26 (1.71%) NetApp
12 24 (1.58%) Salesforce
13 23 (1.51%) Veritas
14 22 (1.45%) IBM
15 20 (1.31%) Citrix
16 16 (1.05%) Workday
17 15 (0.99%) Commvault
17 15 (0.99%) F5
18 14 (0.92%) Dell
18 14 (0.92%) Informatica