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

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 83 86
Rank change year-on-year +7 +3 -2
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,675 928 1,024
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.18% 2.85% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.74% 3.15% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 919 455 547
10th Percentile £313 £269 £204
25th Percentile £400 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £594 £600
90th Percentile £700 £688 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £468 £475
% change year-on-year -0.53% -1.58% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 43 84
10th Percentile £13.69 £13.08 £14.72
25th Percentile £16.62 £14.78 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £19.00 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.37% -7.32% -50.05%
75th Percentile £33.75 £31.38 £28.75
90th Percentile £38.30 £34.78 £51.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £15.25 £19.50
% change year-on-year +39.34% -21.79% -36.59%

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 44,806 29,445 35,310
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.36% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,768 18,486 22,647
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,649 1,571 2,189
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.20 £13.06
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £16.86
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%
75th Percentile £68.55 £50.88 £62.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £73.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +87.50% -40.00% -1.45%

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 21 July 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 21 July 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 21 July 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 +9 1,409 £500 +5.26% 466
UK excluding London +14 932 £465 -0.53% 283
London +7 614 £525 +5.00% 219
Work from Home +12 483 £500 +9.29% 182
North of England +21 322 £475 - 78
South East +14 206 £480 -9.60% 78
Yorkshire -3 178 £480 -4.00% 25
Midlands +4 146 £470 -6.00% 57
North West +23 136 £481 +13.24% 42
Scotland 0 131 £425 -8.11% 16
West Midlands -16 108 £473 -5.40% 37
South West -9 71 £425 +6.25% 36
East Midlands +9 38 £447 +19.20% 20
East of England -2 35 £550 +12.82% 18
Wales -5 20 £400 +35.02% 6
Northern Ireland +2 10 £104 -78.86% 3
North East -52 10 £450 +9.09% 12

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 (3.52%) Confluence
1 59 (3.52%) SharePoint
2 24 (1.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 20 (1.19%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
5 12 (0.72%) Apache
6 6 (0.36%) CMS
6 6 (0.36%) IIS
6 6 (0.36%) SAS
7 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
10 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) nginx
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 41 (2.45%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.060%) Maya
8 1 (0.060%) Trello
8 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
3 6 (0.36%) Aladdin
3 6 (0.36%) NEC Housing
3 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) Endur
8 1 (0.060%) ION MarketView
8 1 (0.060%) Magento
8 1 (0.060%) Oracle Applications
8 1 (0.060%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 370 (22.09%) Azure
2 276 (16.48%) AWS
3 144 (8.60%) GCP
4 117 (6.99%) Microsoft 365
5 93 (5.55%) Power Platform
6 88 (5.25%) Entra ID
7 69 (4.12%) GitHub
8 68 (4.06%) SaaS
9 57 (3.40%) Microsoft Purview
10 54 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
11 41 (2.45%) OpenShift
11 41 (2.45%) Serverless
12 34 (2.03%) Microsoft Copilot
13 26 (1.55%) OneDrive
14 25 (1.49%) PowerApps
15 24 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
15 24 (1.43%) Power Automate
16 22 (1.31%) Amazon S3
16 22 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
17 21 (1.25%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 87 (5.19%) Network Security
2 54 (3.22%) Firewall
3 35 (2.09%) VPN
4 29 (1.73%) DNS
5 28 (1.67%) SAN
6 24 (1.43%) TCP/IP
7 23 (1.37%) DHCP
8 22 (1.31%) WAN
9 17 (1.01%) LAN
10 16 (0.96%) NAS
10 16 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.78%) HTTP
11 13 (0.78%) SSL
12 10 (0.60%) Cisco IPT
12 10 (0.60%) MPLS
12 10 (0.60%) Wireless
13 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
13 8 (0.48%) Intrusion Detection
13 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
14 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.30%) Power BI
2 44 (2.63%) Metadata
3 42 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
4 40 (2.39%) SQL Server
5 31 (1.85%) Relational Database
6 30 (1.79%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (1.49%) Data Lake
8 24 (1.43%) NoSQL
9 23 (1.37%) MySQL
10 22 (1.31%) Big Data
11 19 (1.13%) MongoDB
12 18 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
13 13 (0.78%) Oracle Database
14 12 (0.72%) BigQuery
14 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.66%) Tableau
16 10 (0.60%) DynamoDB
17 9 (0.54%) Ingres
17 9 (0.54%) RDBMS
18 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 101 (6.03%) JIRA
2 69 (4.12%) Git
3 63 (3.76%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.09%) GitLab
5 11 (0.66%) Maven
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (0.54%) Postman
8 8 (0.48%) Team Foundation Server
9 7 (0.42%) Gradle
9 7 (0.42%) JUnit
9 7 (0.42%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.36%) Flyway
10 6 (0.36%) Selenium
11 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
11 5 (0.30%) ERwin
11 5 (0.30%) SpecFlow
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) TestNG
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 565 (33.73%) Social Skills
2 371 (22.15%) Finance
3 255 (15.22%) Legal
4 200 (11.94%) Analytical Skills
5 171 (10.21%) Public Sector
6 117 (6.99%) Banking
7 70 (4.18%) Documentation Skills
8 65 (3.88%) Organisational Skills
9 39 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (2.09%) Local Government
11 34 (2.03%) Retail
12 33 (1.97%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.61%) Law
13 27 (1.61%) Marketing
14 25 (1.49%) Front Office
15 22 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
16 20 (1.19%) Billing
16 20 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
16 20 (1.19%) Police
17 16 (0.96%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 236 (14.09%) Architect
2 158 (9.43%) Analyst
3 132 (7.88%) Lead
4 130 (7.76%) Developer
5 127 (7.58%) Senior
6 98 (5.85%) Consultant
7 87 (5.19%) Project Manager
8 72 (4.30%) Business Analyst
9 65 (3.88%) Solutions Architect
10 53 (3.16%) Security Architect
11 45 (2.69%) Data Engineer
12 42 (2.51%) Security Engineer
13 39 (2.33%) Java Developer
14 36 (2.15%) Administrator
15 34 (2.03%) Network Engineer
16 29 (1.73%) Technical Architect
17 28 (1.67%) IT Support
17 28 (1.67%) Support Engineer
18 27 (1.61%) Data Analyst
19 26 (1.55%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (5.25%) REST
2 52 (3.10%) React
3 38 (2.27%) Spring
4 37 (2.21%) Middleware
5 35 (2.09%) JSON
6 33 (1.97%) CSS
6 33 (1.97%) Kafka
6 33 (1.97%) Spring Boot
7 31 (1.85%) HTML
8 29 (1.73%) RESTful
9 28 (1.67%) OAuth
10 25 (1.49%) .NET
11 20 (1.19%) Node.js
12 18 (1.07%) CSS3
12 18 (1.07%) HTML5
12 18 (1.07%) PySpark
12 18 (1.07%) Redux
13 17 (1.01%) Jest
14 16 (0.96%) GraphQL
14 16 (0.96%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 755 (45.07%) Data Protection Act
2 94 (5.61%) Cloud Native
3 92 (5.49%) Product Ownership
4 74 (4.42%) Onboarding
5 62 (3.70%) Management Information System
6 49 (2.93%) Legacy Systems
7 48 (2.87%) Data Centre
8 44 (2.63%) Distributed Systems
9 43 (2.57%) Virtual Team
10 36 (2.15%) Security Posture
11 25 (1.49%) Operational Technology
12 24 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
12 24 (1.43%) Replication
13 23 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
14 21 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
15 20 (1.19%) Data Structures
15 20 (1.19%) NHS
16 19 (1.13%) Enterprise Storage
16 19 (1.13%) Mobile App
17 16 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 126 (7.52%) Windows
2 79 (4.72%) Linux
3 28 (1.67%) Android
3 28 (1.67%) Apple iOS
4 26 (1.55%) Unix
4 26 (1.55%) Windows Server
5 23 (1.37%) Mac OS
6 18 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (0.78%) VMS
8 11 (0.66%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.36%) CoreOS
9 6 (0.36%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.30%) zOS
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.060%) AIX
12 1 (0.060%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (19.04%) Agile
2 305 (18.21%) Problem-Solving
3 293 (17.49%) Stakeholder Management
4 260 (15.52%) Continuous Improvement
5 244 (14.57%) DevOps
6 232 (13.85%) CI/CD
6 232 (13.85%) Migration
7 203 (12.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 191 (11.40%) AI
9 153 (9.13%) Cybersecurity
10 150 (8.96%) Decision-Making
10 150 (8.96%) Roadmaps
11 146 (8.72%) Analytics
12 131 (7.82%) Data Governance
13 124 (7.40%) Validation
14 122 (7.28%) Information Security
14 122 (7.28%) Risk Management
15 114 (6.81%) Infrastructure as Code
16 113 (6.75%) Data Modelling
17 98 (5.85%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 219 (13.07%) Python
2 168 (10.03%) SQL
3 119 (7.10%) Java
4 63 (3.76%) JavaScript
5 55 (3.28%) PowerShell
6 44 (2.63%) Bash
7 32 (1.91%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.61%) C#
9 17 (1.01%) Go
10 16 (0.96%) Bicep
11 13 (0.78%) Apex Code
11 13 (0.78%) Kotlin
12 10 (0.60%) Perl
13 9 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
13 9 (0.54%) VB
14 8 (0.48%) Scala
14 8 (0.48%) VB6
15 7 (0.42%) C++
16 6 (0.36%) Groovy
17 5 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 246 (14.69%) Security Cleared
2 185 (11.04%) SC Cleared
3 123 (7.34%) Degree
4 76 (4.54%) CISSP
5 58 (3.46%) DV Cleared
6 43 (2.57%) CISM
7 36 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
8 33 (1.97%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (1.91%) Azure Certification
10 31 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
11 28 (1.67%) PMI Certification
12 25 (1.49%) AWS Certification
13 24 (1.43%) PMP
14 19 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
15 17 (1.01%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 15 (0.90%) CCSP
17 13 (0.78%) Master's Degree
18 11 (0.66%) CCNP
19 10 (0.60%) CISA
20 9 (0.54%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 250 (14.93%) GDPR
2 100 (5.97%) Data Quality
3 83 (4.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 83 (4.96%) QA
4 78 (4.66%) NIST
5 47 (2.81%) GRC
6 43 (2.57%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.61%) PMO
8 23 (1.37%) PCI DSS
9 20 (1.19%) NCSC
10 19 (1.13%) SLA
11 17 (1.01%) SOC 2
12 13 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.72%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.66%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.66%) WCAG
15 10 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.60%) PERC
16 8 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 6 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 84 (5.01%) Active Directory
2 67 (4.00%) Docker
3 57 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.96%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.90%) NFS
6 14 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.78%) vSphere
8 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.30%) KVM
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) IAG
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.060%) iptables
Systems Management
1 119 (7.10%) Kubernetes
2 89 (5.31%) Terraform
3 60 (3.58%) Ansible
4 41 (2.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 36 (2.15%) Grafana
6 29 (1.73%) NetBackup
7 24 (1.43%) Prometheus
8 21 (1.25%) SCCM
8 21 (1.25%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.96%) Puppet
10 14 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.42%) Kibana
12 7 (0.42%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.36%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.30%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 299 (17.85%) Microsoft
2 80 (4.78%) ServiceNow
3 78 (4.66%) Oracle
4 65 (3.88%) Google
5 58 (3.46%) VMware
6 55 (3.28%) Cisco
7 52 (3.10%) Databricks
8 41 (2.45%) SAP
9 37 (2.21%) Splunk
10 32 (1.91%) Red Hat
11 27 (1.61%) Salesforce
12 23 (1.37%) NetApp
13 22 (1.31%) Workday
13 22 (1.31%) Zscaler
14 21 (1.25%) Veritas
15 18 (1.07%) CyberArk
16 16 (0.96%) Citrix
16 16 (0.96%) Commvault
17 15 (0.90%) IBM
18 14 (0.84%) Dell