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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 78 88
Rank change year-on-year -3 +10 -4
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,654 1,048 953
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.20% 2.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 3.54% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 880 523 521
10th Percentile £305 £294 £200
25th Percentile £400 £394 £353
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £591 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £465 £475
% change year-on-year -0.59% -2.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 43 31
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 £16.06
25th Percentile £15.72 £14.19 £17.74
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.56% -36.00% -40.74%
75th Percentile £29.60 £20.40 £28.75
90th Percentile £35.47 £34.78 £69.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% -20.63%

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 45,365 29,616 33,160
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.47% 85.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,789 18,444 20,998
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,884 1,758 1,700
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.87
25th Percentile £18.00 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +65.23% -38.57% -3.67%
75th Percentile £67.99 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +6.25%

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 25 August 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 25 August 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 25 August 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 -4 1,393 £500 +2.83% 931
UK excluding London 0 899 £463 -0.59% 572
London -13 615 £525 +3.96% 426
Work from Home +14 478 £500 +5.26% 450
North of England +10 326 £475 +3.26% 193
South East +10 194 £483 -5.29% 97
Yorkshire +3 168 £475 -5.00% 63
North West +13 145 £500 +11.86% 97
Midlands -12 142 £462 -2.84% 81
Scotland -4 116 £428 -6.30% 36
West Midlands -12 110 £473 -5.40% 48
South West -20 72 £425 +6.25% 79
East Midlands -4 32 £441 +26.00% 33
East of England -7 32 £538 +13.16% 69
Wales -7 18 £413 +39.24% 14
North East -51 14 £463 +15.63% 34
Northern Ireland +1 12 £110 -81.63% 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 61 (3.69%) SharePoint
2 44 (2.66%) Confluence
3 25 (1.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 18 (1.09%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.79%) Apache
7 6 (0.36%) CMS
7 6 (0.36%) IIS
7 6 (0.36%) SAS
8 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
9 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) Drupal
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
12 1 (0.060%) CICS
12 1 (0.060%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 45 (2.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (2.60%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
5 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.30%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.060%) Maya
9 1 (0.060%) Trello
9 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Aladdin
3 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
8 1 (0.060%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 382 (23.10%) Azure
2 290 (17.53%) AWS
3 140 (8.46%) GCP
4 128 (7.74%) Microsoft 365
5 94 (5.68%) Power Platform
6 87 (5.26%) Entra ID
7 78 (4.72%) SaaS
8 63 (3.81%) GitHub
9 60 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
10 56 (3.39%) Microsoft Purview
11 55 (3.33%) Serverless
12 36 (2.18%) Microsoft Copilot
13 30 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
14 28 (1.69%) OneDrive
14 28 (1.69%) OpenShift
14 28 (1.69%) PowerApps
15 26 (1.57%) Power Automate
16 25 (1.51%) GitHub Actions
17 24 (1.45%) Amazon S3
18 23 (1.39%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 94 (5.68%) Network Security
2 59 (3.57%) Firewall
3 38 (2.30%) DNS
4 37 (2.24%) VPN
5 29 (1.75%) DHCP
6 23 (1.39%) TCP/IP
7 22 (1.33%) WAN
8 20 (1.21%) SAN
9 17 (1.03%) Cisco IPT
9 17 (1.03%) LAN
10 15 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.85%) SSL
11 14 (0.85%) Wireless
12 13 (0.79%) NAS
13 11 (0.67%) HTTP
13 11 (0.67%) MPLS
13 11 (0.67%) VoIP
14 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
15 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
15 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (4.23%) Power BI
2 52 (3.14%) Metadata
3 39 (2.36%) PostgreSQL
4 36 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
5 35 (2.12%) SQL Server
6 29 (1.75%) Relational Database
7 26 (1.57%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.33%) Data Lake
9 20 (1.21%) Big Data
10 19 (1.15%) MySQL
11 18 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (1.03%) MongoDB
13 12 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
14 11 (0.67%) BigQuery
14 11 (0.67%) Oracle Database
15 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
15 9 (0.54%) Redis
16 8 (0.48%) Tableau
17 7 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 81 (4.90%) JIRA
2 62 (3.75%) Git
3 55 (3.33%) Jenkins
4 32 (1.93%) GitLab
5 11 (0.67%) Maven
6 9 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Gradle
8 6 (0.36%) Postman
8 6 (0.36%) Selenium
8 6 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) Flyway
9 5 (0.30%) JUnit
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 604 (36.52%) Social Skills
2 362 (21.89%) Finance
3 253 (15.30%) Legal
4 205 (12.39%) Analytical Skills
5 195 (11.79%) Public Sector
6 112 (6.77%) Banking
7 75 (4.53%) Documentation Skills
7 75 (4.53%) Organisational Skills
8 41 (2.48%) Retail
9 39 (2.36%) Influencing Skills
10 37 (2.24%) Local Government
11 33 (2.00%) Law
12 30 (1.81%) Front Office
12 30 (1.81%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
14 24 (1.45%) Marketing
15 22 (1.33%) Pharmaceutical
16 21 (1.27%) Billing
16 21 (1.27%) Police
17 17 (1.03%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 247 (14.93%) Architect
2 163 (9.85%) Analyst
3 143 (8.65%) Lead
4 126 (7.62%) Developer
5 121 (7.32%) Senior
6 87 (5.26%) Consultant
7 78 (4.72%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.05%) Solutions Architect
9 65 (3.93%) Business Analyst
10 60 (3.63%) Security Architect
11 40 (2.42%) Administrator
11 40 (2.42%) Security Engineer
12 34 (2.06%) Data Engineer
13 33 (2.00%) Support Engineer
14 30 (1.81%) Java Developer
15 29 (1.75%) Network Engineer
16 28 (1.69%) Data Analyst
17 27 (1.63%) IT Support
18 26 (1.57%) Information Officer
18 26 (1.57%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (5.32%) Terraform
2 87 (5.26%) REST
3 40 (2.42%) React
4 36 (2.18%) JSON
4 36 (2.18%) Spring
5 33 (2.00%) Kafka
5 33 (2.00%) OAuth
5 33 (2.00%) Spring Boot
6 31 (1.87%) CSS
6 31 (1.87%) HTML
6 31 (1.87%) Middleware
7 26 (1.57%) RESTful
8 23 (1.39%) .NET
9 21 (1.27%) Node.js
10 18 (1.09%) OpenID
11 17 (1.03%) OAuth2
12 15 (0.91%) CSS3
12 15 (0.91%) GraphQL
12 15 (0.91%) HTML5
13 14 (0.85%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 717 (43.35%) Data Protection Act
2 94 (5.68%) Cloud Native
3 93 (5.62%) Product Ownership
4 85 (5.14%) Management Information System
5 76 (4.59%) Onboarding
6 52 (3.14%) Data Centre
7 48 (2.90%) Distributed Systems
8 41 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.42%) Virtual Team
10 37 (2.24%) Security Posture
11 32 (1.93%) Freedom of Information
12 27 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
13 26 (1.57%) NHS
14 25 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
14 25 (1.51%) Operational Technology
15 23 (1.39%) Replication
16 21 (1.27%) Mobile App
17 19 (1.15%) AI Agents
17 19 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
17 19 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 129 (7.80%) Windows
2 80 (4.84%) Linux
3 30 (1.81%) Android
3 30 (1.81%) Apple iOS
4 28 (1.69%) Windows Server
5 27 (1.63%) Unix
6 22 (1.33%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.97%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.48%) VMS
10 7 (0.42%) zOS
11 3 (0.18%) Solaris
11 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) CentOS
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Rocky
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.060%) CoreOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 338 (20.44%) Stakeholder Management
2 300 (18.14%) Agile
3 289 (17.47%) Problem-Solving
4 266 (16.08%) Continuous Improvement
5 232 (14.03%) DevOps
6 230 (13.91%) CI/CD
7 216 (13.06%) Migration
8 215 (13.00%) AI
9 212 (12.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 189 (11.43%) Cybersecurity
11 160 (9.67%) Data Governance
12 156 (9.43%) Roadmaps
13 153 (9.25%) Decision-Making
14 149 (9.01%) Analytics
15 138 (8.34%) Information Security
16 130 (7.86%) Risk Management
17 126 (7.62%) Infrastructure as Code
18 125 (7.56%) Validation
19 120 (7.26%) Data Modelling
20 102 (6.17%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 203 (12.27%) Python
2 160 (9.67%) SQL
3 104 (6.29%) Java
4 56 (3.39%) PowerShell
5 55 (3.33%) JavaScript
6 37 (2.24%) Bash
7 26 (1.57%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.15%) C#
8 19 (1.15%) Go
9 15 (0.91%) Bicep
9 15 (0.91%) Kotlin
10 14 (0.85%) Apex Code
11 12 (0.73%) Perl
12 10 (0.60%) C++
13 8 (0.48%) C
13 8 (0.48%) Scala
13 8 (0.48%) VB
14 7 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
14 7 (0.42%) VB6
15 6 (0.36%) R
Qualifications
1 255 (15.42%) Security Cleared
2 190 (11.49%) SC Cleared
3 106 (6.41%) Degree
4 77 (4.66%) CISSP
5 57 (3.45%) DV Cleared
6 47 (2.84%) CISM
7 38 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
8 33 (2.00%) Azure Certification
9 31 (1.87%) Cisco Certification
10 29 (1.75%) PMI Certification
11 26 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
11 26 (1.57%) PMP
12 22 (1.33%) AWS Certification
13 18 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (1.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 14 (0.85%) CCSP
16 10 (0.60%) CCNP
16 10 (0.60%) Master's Degree
17 9 (0.54%) CRISC
18 8 (0.48%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 252 (15.24%) GDPR
2 108 (6.53%) Data Quality
3 96 (5.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (4.72%) NIST
5 77 (4.66%) QA
6 48 (2.90%) Accessibility
7 44 (2.66%) GRC
8 24 (1.45%) PMO
9 20 (1.21%) NCSC
9 20 (1.21%) PCI DSS
10 19 (1.15%) SLA
11 16 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials
12 12 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 12 (0.73%) PERC
12 12 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.67%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.67%) WCAG
14 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 10 (0.60%) SOC 2
15 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 92 (5.56%) Active Directory
2 63 (3.81%) Docker
3 57 (3.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.27%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.67%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.60%) NFS
7 9 (0.54%) vSphere
8 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) KVM
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) Firmware
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 111 (6.71%) Kubernetes
2 45 (2.72%) Ansible
3 40 (2.42%) Microsoft Intune
4 27 (1.63%) Grafana
5 23 (1.39%) SCCM
6 22 (1.33%) NetBackup
7 18 (1.09%) Prometheus
8 17 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.85%) Puppet
10 12 (0.73%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
12 7 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.36%) Kibana
14 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
14 5 (0.30%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) Istio
15 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
15 4 (0.24%) SCOM
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 341 (20.62%) Microsoft
2 86 (5.20%) ServiceNow
3 67 (4.05%) Oracle
4 64 (3.87%) Google
5 59 (3.57%) Cisco
5 59 (3.57%) VMware
6 47 (2.84%) Databricks
7 36 (2.18%) SAP
8 34 (2.06%) Splunk
9 28 (1.69%) Salesforce
10 25 (1.51%) Zscaler
11 23 (1.39%) Red Hat
11 23 (1.39%) Workday
12 20 (1.21%) CyberArk
13 19 (1.15%) NetApp
14 18 (1.09%) IBM
15 16 (0.97%) Citrix
15 16 (0.97%) F5
16 15 (0.91%) Veritas
17 14 (0.85%) Dell