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

6 months to
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 103 85
Rank change year-on-year +28 -18 +21
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,451 744 1,087
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.27% 2.54% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.82% 2.81% 2.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 794 387 613
10th Percentile £300 £257 £213
25th Percentile £400 £364 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £696 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £475 £453
% change year-on-year -3.16% +4.97% -4.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 27 108
10th Percentile £15.72 £17.60 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.85 £22.50 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.15% +49.90% -70.45%
75th Percentile £25.50 £33.78 £27.13
90th Percentile £58.00 £48.20 £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 38,014 26,489 38,263
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.62% 90.44% 86.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,062 17,216 24,858
10th Percentile £313 £308 £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 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £484 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.72% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,249 972 2,349
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.00 £12.84
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.26 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £31.88 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.36% -1.91% -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £70.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £31.50 £31.50
% change year-on-year +3.17% - -12.26%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +31 1,244 £500 - 369
UK excluding London +18 772 £460 -3.16% 290
London +39 587 £525 +1.94% 130
Work from Home +35 370 £500 +2.04% 149
North of England -4 244 £487 +2.53% 83
South East +22 181 £495 -2.89% 76
Yorkshire -12 143 £493 -6.19% 26
Scotland +19 115 £405 -13.28% 13
Midlands -11 107 £450 -10.00% 53
North West -3 93 £481 +5.77% 52
West Midlands -24 67 £500 -2.44% 26
South West +13 59 £438 +16.67% 30
East of England +4 50 £450 -25.00% 33
East Midlands -8 40 £438 +6.06% 27
Wales 0 14 £388 -8.82% 5
North East -23 9 £400 -15.79% 5
Northern Ireland +4 6 £500 +1.63% 1

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 57 (3.93%) Confluence
2 35 (2.41%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.38%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (0.55%) Apache Spark
5 7 (0.48%) Apache
6 4 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.21%) CMS
7 3 (0.21%) Ethereum
7 3 (0.21%) Hyperledger
8 2 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.14%) Drupal
8 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.14%) nginx
8 2 (0.14%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
8 2 (0.14%) SAS
8 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.069%) Mule
Applications
1 57 (3.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.89%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (0.83%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.069%) Blender
9 1 (0.069%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.069%) InVision
9 1 (0.069%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.069%) Sketch
9 1 (0.069%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.83%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.76%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.34%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
5 5 (0.34%) SAP GRC
6 4 (0.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.28%) ResourceLink
6 4 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 3 (0.21%) Distributed Ledger
7 3 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.21%) R3 Corda
8 2 (0.14%) Fidessa
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle FAH
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
8 2 (0.14%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.14%) Workfront
9 1 (0.069%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 295 (20.33%) Azure
2 238 (16.40%) AWS
3 126 (8.68%) GCP
4 81 (5.58%) Power Platform
5 79 (5.44%) Microsoft 365
6 74 (5.10%) Entra ID
7 66 (4.55%) GitHub
8 53 (3.65%) Serverless
9 50 (3.45%) SaaS
10 41 (2.83%) Azure DevOps
10 41 (2.83%) Microsoft Purview
11 37 (2.55%) AWS Lambda
12 36 (2.48%) OpenShift
13 32 (2.21%) Amazon S3
14 31 (2.14%) AWS CloudFormation
14 31 (2.14%) Snowflake
15 25 (1.72%) GitHub Actions
16 21 (1.45%) PaaS
16 21 (1.45%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 20 (1.38%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 51 (3.51%) Network Security
2 35 (2.41%) Firewall
2 35 (2.41%) SAN
3 24 (1.65%) VPN
4 21 (1.45%) NAS
5 20 (1.38%) WAN
6 18 (1.24%) DNS
6 18 (1.24%) LAN
6 18 (1.24%) MPLS
7 15 (1.03%) Cisco IPT
8 13 (0.90%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.76%) SD-WAN
10 10 (0.69%) VLAN
10 10 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
11 9 (0.62%) BGP
11 9 (0.62%) DHCP
11 9 (0.62%) Fibre Channel
12 8 (0.55%) HTTP
12 8 (0.55%) IPv4
12 8 (0.55%) IPv6
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (4.89%) Power BI
2 38 (2.62%) PostgreSQL
3 36 (2.48%) SQL Server
4 35 (2.41%) Metadata
5 28 (1.93%) Data Warehouse
6 27 (1.86%) MySQL
7 23 (1.59%) Relational Database
8 19 (1.31%) Data Lake
9 18 (1.24%) DynamoDB
10 17 (1.17%) MongoDB
10 17 (1.17%) NoSQL
11 16 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
12 14 (0.96%) Azure SQL Database
12 14 (0.96%) Tableau
13 12 (0.83%) Big Data
13 12 (0.83%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.62%) Amazon Aurora
14 9 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 8 (0.55%) Aerospike
15 8 (0.55%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 90 (6.20%) JIRA
2 65 (4.48%) Jenkins
3 61 (4.20%) Git
4 39 (2.69%) GitLab
5 12 (0.83%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.69%) JUnit
6 10 (0.69%) Sonatype Nexus
7 8 (0.55%) Maven
8 7 (0.48%) Gradle
9 6 (0.41%) NUnit
10 5 (0.34%) Bitbucket
10 5 (0.34%) Flyway
10 5 (0.34%) Postman
10 5 (0.34%) Team Foundation Server
11 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.28%) Liquibase
12 3 (0.21%) Fiddler
12 3 (0.21%) IntelliJ
12 3 (0.21%) Selenium
12 3 (0.21%) TestNG
General
1 446 (30.74%) Social Skills
2 331 (22.81%) Finance
3 188 (12.96%) Analytical Skills
4 169 (11.65%) Legal
5 140 (9.65%) Public Sector
6 120 (8.27%) Banking
7 61 (4.20%) Organisational Skills
8 51 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
9 40 (2.76%) Telecoms
10 32 (2.21%) Marketing
11 29 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (1.86%) Front Office
12 27 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
13 24 (1.65%) Law
14 22 (1.52%) Local Government
15 18 (1.24%) Police
16 17 (1.17%) Retail
17 13 (0.90%) Manufacturing
18 12 (0.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 10 (0.69%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 193 (13.30%) Architect
2 151 (10.41%) Analyst
3 123 (8.48%) Developer
4 112 (7.72%) Lead
5 92 (6.34%) Senior
6 77 (5.31%) Consultant
7 68 (4.69%) Project Manager
8 66 (4.55%) Business Analyst
9 57 (3.93%) Solutions Architect
10 37 (2.55%) Security Architect
11 36 (2.48%) Data Engineer
11 36 (2.48%) Java Developer
11 36 (2.48%) Security Engineer
12 32 (2.21%) Administrator
12 32 (2.21%) Network Engineer
13 30 (2.07%) Technical Architect
14 26 (1.79%) Data Analyst
15 22 (1.52%) Automation Engineer
15 22 (1.52%) Python Developer
16 21 (1.45%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (4.41%) REST
2 56 (3.86%) React
3 38 (2.62%) .NET
3 38 (2.62%) Spring
4 35 (2.41%) Spring Boot
5 32 (2.21%) Node.js
6 29 (2.00%) Kafka
7 28 (1.93%) Middleware
8 27 (1.86%) RESTful
9 24 (1.65%) OAuth
10 22 (1.52%) HTML
11 21 (1.45%) Jest
12 18 (1.24%) CSS
13 17 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
13 17 (1.17%) Playwright
14 15 (1.03%) .NET Core
14 15 (1.03%) HTML5
14 15 (1.03%) PySpark
14 15 (1.03%) Redux
14 15 (1.03%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 686 (47.28%) Data Protection Act
2 79 (5.44%) Cloud Native
3 68 (4.69%) Product Ownership
4 64 (4.41%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.51%) Management Information System
6 31 (2.14%) Distributed Systems
6 31 (2.14%) NHS
7 30 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
8 29 (2.00%) Replication
9 28 (1.93%) Hybrid Cloud
9 28 (1.93%) Security Posture
10 26 (1.79%) Data Centre
11 21 (1.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 21 (1.45%) Freedom of Information
12 20 (1.38%) Enterprise Storage
13 16 (1.10%) Data Structures
14 15 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
14 15 (1.03%) Operational Technology
15 14 (0.96%) Derivative
15 14 (0.96%) Insider Threat
Operating Systems
1 99 (6.82%) Windows
2 70 (4.82%) Linux
3 22 (1.52%) Unix
4 20 (1.38%) Windows Server
5 18 (1.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.90%) VMS
7 12 (0.83%) Mac OS
7 12 (0.83%) Windows 10
8 9 (0.62%) Android
8 9 (0.62%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.55%) zOS
10 7 (0.48%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.41%) CoreOS
12 5 (0.34%) Solaris
13 4 (0.28%) AIX
14 2 (0.14%) Rocky
14 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
15 1 (0.069%) CentOS
15 1 (0.069%) Oracle Linux
15 1 (0.069%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 257 (17.71%) Problem-Solving
2 245 (16.88%) Agile
3 241 (16.61%) Stakeholder Management
4 220 (15.16%) Migration
5 204 (14.06%) CI/CD
6 200 (13.78%) DevOps
7 182 (12.54%) Continuous Improvement
8 143 (9.86%) Analytics
8 143 (9.86%) Cybersecurity
9 136 (9.37%) Roadmaps
10 131 (9.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 128 (8.82%) AI
12 122 (8.41%) Risk Management
13 109 (7.51%) Decision-Making
14 107 (7.37%) Information Security
15 100 (6.89%) Data Governance
15 100 (6.89%) Test Automation
16 99 (6.82%) Infrastructure as Code
17 94 (6.48%) Project Management
18 92 (6.34%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 215 (14.82%) Python
2 184 (12.68%) SQL
3 121 (8.34%) Java
4 69 (4.76%) JavaScript
5 57 (3.93%) PowerShell
6 54 (3.72%) C#
7 40 (2.76%) Bash
8 38 (2.62%) TypeScript
9 18 (1.24%) Bicep
10 13 (0.90%) C++
11 11 (0.76%) Perl
12 9 (0.62%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.55%) ActionScript
13 8 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
13 8 (0.55%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.41%) ActionScript 2.0
14 6 (0.41%) Groovy
15 5 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 4 (0.28%) Go
16 4 (0.28%) R
Qualifications
1 201 (13.85%) Security Cleared
2 145 (9.99%) SC Cleared
3 127 (8.75%) Degree
4 55 (3.79%) DV Cleared
5 54 (3.72%) CISSP
6 33 (2.27%) CISM
6 33 (2.27%) Computer Science Degree
7 28 (1.93%) PMI Certification
8 26 (1.79%) AWS Certification
8 26 (1.79%) Azure Certification
8 26 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
9 24 (1.65%) PMP
10 21 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
10 21 (1.45%) Master's Degree
11 20 (1.38%) Microsoft Certification
12 15 (1.03%) CTC Cleared
13 13 (0.90%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 12 (0.83%) CCSP
15 10 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 10 (0.69%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 259 (17.85%) GDPR
2 94 (6.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 92 (6.34%) NIST
4 68 (4.69%) Data Quality
5 61 (4.20%) QA
6 31 (2.14%) PCI DSS
7 28 (1.93%) GRC
7 28 (1.93%) PMO
8 27 (1.86%) Accessibility
9 23 (1.59%) SLA
10 18 (1.24%) NCSC
11 17 (1.17%) SOC 2
12 14 (0.96%) Disclosure Scotland
13 12 (0.83%) PERC
14 11 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 10 (0.69%) NIST 800
16 8 (0.55%) HIPAA
17 7 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
18 6 (0.41%) COBIT
19 5 (0.34%) WCAG
System Software
1 70 (4.82%) Docker
2 69 (4.76%) Active Directory
3 54 (3.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (1.31%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (1.17%) NFS
6 12 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.62%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.62%) VMware NSX
7 9 (0.62%) vSphere
8 5 (0.34%) KVM
8 5 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.21%) IAG
10 3 (0.21%) Time Sharing Option
11 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
11 2 (0.14%) XenApp
11 2 (0.14%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.069%) Firmware
12 1 (0.069%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 105 (7.24%) Kubernetes
2 103 (7.10%) Terraform
3 69 (4.76%) Ansible
4 37 (2.55%) Grafana
5 31 (2.14%) NetBackup
6 28 (1.93%) Microsoft Intune
7 25 (1.72%) Prometheus
8 19 (1.31%) SCCM
9 18 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
10 17 (1.17%) Puppet
11 10 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.48%) SnapMirror
13 5 (0.34%) Control-M
13 5 (0.34%) EMC NetWorker
13 5 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
13 5 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.34%) RSA Archer
14 4 (0.28%) Foglight
14 4 (0.28%) Kibana
14 4 (0.28%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 227 (15.64%) Microsoft
2 70 (4.82%) Oracle
3 65 (4.48%) Google
4 55 (3.79%) VMware
5 51 (3.51%) Databricks
6 46 (3.17%) ServiceNow
7 42 (2.89%) Cisco
8 40 (2.76%) SAP
9 35 (2.41%) Salesforce
10 34 (2.34%) Red Hat
11 24 (1.65%) NetApp
12 22 (1.52%) Commvault
12 22 (1.52%) Veritas
13 21 (1.45%) Citrix
14 19 (1.31%) F5
15 18 (1.24%) IBM
16 17 (1.17%) Splunk
17 16 (1.10%) Veeam
18 14 (0.96%) Adobe
19 13 (0.90%) CyberArk