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

6 months to
16 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 98 83
Rank change year-on-year +22 -15 +25
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,278 788 1,158
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.20% 2.57% 2.59%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.69% 2.87% 2.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 673 393 649
10th Percentile £265 £267 £206
25th Percentile £393 £388 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £449 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.53% +5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 23 77
10th Percentile £13.13 £16.85 £11.98
25th Percentile £16.72 £23.38 £15.39
Median hourly rate £20.71 £30.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.97% +42.86% -70.00%
75th Percentile £23.83 £35.58 £25.00
90th Percentile £42.50 £60.82 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.61 £29.62 £21.00
% change year-on-year -30.42% +41.02% -70.00%

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 34,650 27,474 38,981
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.87% 89.55% 87.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,945 16,847 25,520
10th Percentile £310 £306 £300
25th Percentile £409 £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 £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £479 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -3.23% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,102 836 2,133
10th Percentile £14.55 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.05 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -4.41% -1.68%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.78 £35.00
% change year-on-year -18.29% -12.06% +7.69%

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 16 February 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 16 February 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 16 February 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 +23 1,088 £500 - 342
UK excluding London +8 680 £449 -5.53% 285
London +23 528 £525 +1.94% 126
Work from Home +6 291 £500 - 176
North of England -13 201 £460 -3.16% 69
South East +11 151 £475 -2.81% 91
Yorkshire -2 114 £478 -11.16% 18
Scotland +15 112 £402 -10.61% 14
Midlands +10 105 £449 -5.53% 49
North West -25 72 £429 -9.68% 47
West Midlands -10 63 £475 -6.17% 30
South West 0 47 £500 +2.56% 38
East of England +6 45 £314 -37.25% 23
East Midlands +11 42 £438 -2.78% 19
North East -21 16 £400 -15.79% 4
Wales +2 14 £375 -26.83% 8
Northern Ireland - 9 £500 -

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 (4.54%) Confluence
2 29 (2.27%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 7 (0.55%) Apache
6 6 (0.47%) CMS
7 4 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.23%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.23%) Hyperledger
8 3 (0.23%) SAS
9 2 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.16%) Drupal
9 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.16%) nginx
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.16%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.078%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.078%) Camunda
Applications
1 49 (3.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (3.29%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.55%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.31%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.23%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.23%) Sketch
8 2 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.16%) InVision
8 2 (0.16%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.078%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.078%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.078%) Blender
9 1 (0.078%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.078%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.078%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 12 (0.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.78%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.70%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.39%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.23%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.23%) Fidessa
6 3 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.23%) R3 Corda
6 3 (0.23%) ResourceLink
6 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.16%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.16%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.078%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 238 (18.62%) Azure
2 215 (16.82%) AWS
3 101 (7.90%) GCP
4 61 (4.77%) Microsoft 365
4 61 (4.77%) Power Platform
5 55 (4.30%) GitHub
6 54 (4.23%) Serverless
7 52 (4.07%) Entra ID
8 42 (3.29%) AWS Lambda
9 41 (3.21%) SaaS
10 40 (3.13%) Amazon S3
11 38 (2.97%) Azure DevOps
12 30 (2.35%) AWS CloudFormation
13 29 (2.27%) Snowflake
14 25 (1.96%) OpenShift
15 24 (1.88%) GitHub Actions
15 24 (1.88%) Microsoft Purview
16 23 (1.80%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 20 (1.56%) Amazon EC2
18 18 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 42 (3.29%) Firewall
2 36 (2.82%) Network Security
3 26 (2.03%) SAN
4 19 (1.49%) LAN
4 19 (1.49%) MPLS
5 18 (1.41%) VPN
6 16 (1.25%) DNS
6 16 (1.25%) NAS
6 16 (1.25%) WAN
7 14 (1.10%) Cisco IPT
8 13 (1.02%) TCP/IP
9 9 (0.70%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.63%) BGP
10 8 (0.63%) HTTP
10 8 (0.63%) SSH
10 8 (0.63%) VLAN
11 7 (0.55%) DHCP
12 6 (0.47%) Internet
12 6 (0.47%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (4.38%) Power BI
2 34 (2.66%) SQL Server
3 33 (2.58%) PostgreSQL
4 21 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (1.64%) NoSQL
5 20 (1.56%) Metadata
6 19 (1.49%) Relational Database
7 18 (1.41%) MySQL
8 17 (1.33%) DynamoDB
9 16 (1.25%) MongoDB
10 14 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
10 14 (1.10%) Tableau
11 13 (1.02%) Data Lake
12 12 (0.94%) Amazon Aurora
13 10 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
13 10 (0.78%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.70%) Oracle Reports
15 8 (0.63%) Big Data
15 8 (0.63%) Hadoop
16 7 (0.55%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 93 (7.28%) JIRA
2 51 (3.99%) Git
3 50 (3.91%) Jenkins
4 30 (2.35%) GitLab
5 12 (0.94%) SpecFlow
6 11 (0.86%) JUnit
7 6 (0.47%) Gradle
7 6 (0.47%) Maven
7 6 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.39%) NUnit
8 5 (0.39%) Team Foundation Server
9 4 (0.31%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.31%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.31%) Fiddler
10 3 (0.23%) Cypress.io
10 3 (0.23%) Postman
10 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio
11 2 (0.16%) IntelliJ
11 2 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
11 2 (0.16%) TestNG
General
1 421 (32.94%) Social Skills
2 272 (21.28%) Finance
3 166 (12.99%) Analytical Skills
4 130 (10.17%) Public Sector
5 112 (8.76%) Banking
6 111 (8.69%) Legal
7 50 (3.91%) Organisational Skills
8 41 (3.21%) Documentation Skills
9 36 (2.82%) Telecoms
10 31 (2.43%) Marketing
11 29 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
12 22 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
13 19 (1.49%) Front Office
13 19 (1.49%) Local Government
14 15 (1.17%) Law
14 15 (1.17%) Manufacturing
15 14 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 13 (1.02%) Police
17 12 (0.94%) Retail
18 10 (0.78%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 151 (11.82%) Analyst
2 141 (11.03%) Architect
3 115 (9.00%) Developer
4 92 (7.20%) Lead
5 70 (5.48%) Senior
6 68 (5.32%) Business Analyst
7 66 (5.16%) Consultant
8 63 (4.93%) Project Manager
9 49 (3.83%) Solutions Architect
10 34 (2.66%) Administrator
11 30 (2.35%) Security Engineer
12 29 (2.27%) Data Analyst
13 28 (2.19%) Data Engineer
14 25 (1.96%) Security Architect
15 23 (1.80%) Java Developer
15 23 (1.80%) Network Engineer
16 22 (1.72%) Automation Engineer
16 22 (1.72%) Data Protection Officer
17 21 (1.64%) Support Engineer
18 20 (1.56%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (4.23%) REST
2 45 (3.52%) React
3 34 (2.66%) .NET
4 31 (2.43%) Node.js
5 28 (2.19%) RESTful
6 26 (2.03%) Spring
7 23 (1.80%) Kafka
8 22 (1.72%) Spring Boot
9 20 (1.56%) OAuth
10 17 (1.33%) Middleware
11 16 (1.25%) HTML
11 16 (1.25%) PySpark
12 15 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
12 15 (1.17%) Playwright
13 12 (0.94%) .NET Core
13 12 (0.94%) AngularJS
13 12 (0.94%) Jest
13 12 (0.94%) SAML
14 9 (0.70%) CSS
14 9 (0.70%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 640 (50.08%) Data Protection Act
2 59 (4.62%) Cloud Native
3 54 (4.23%) Management Information System
3 54 (4.23%) Product Ownership
4 52 (4.07%) Onboarding
5 32 (2.50%) NHS
6 28 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
7 25 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
8 22 (1.72%) Freedom of Information
9 20 (1.56%) Data Structures
10 19 (1.49%) Data Centre
10 19 (1.49%) Security Posture
11 18 (1.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 16 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
13 15 (1.17%) Replication
14 13 (1.02%) Insider Threat
15 12 (0.94%) AI Agents
15 12 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
16 11 (0.86%) Algorithms
16 11 (0.86%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 93 (7.28%) Windows
2 68 (5.32%) Linux
3 25 (1.96%) Unix
4 18 (1.41%) Windows Server
5 16 (1.25%) Mac OS
6 12 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.94%) Windows 10
7 7 (0.55%) VMS
8 6 (0.47%) Android
8 6 (0.47%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.39%) zOS
10 4 (0.31%) AIX
10 4 (0.31%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.31%) Solaris
11 3 (0.23%) CoreOS
12 1 (0.078%) CentOS
12 1 (0.078%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.078%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 226 (17.68%) Problem-Solving
2 222 (17.37%) Stakeholder Management
3 212 (16.59%) Agile
4 184 (14.40%) Migration
5 164 (12.83%) CI/CD
6 153 (11.97%) DevOps
7 146 (11.42%) Continuous Improvement
8 129 (10.09%) Cybersecurity
9 119 (9.31%) Analytics
9 119 (9.31%) Roadmaps
10 116 (9.08%) AI
11 115 (9.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 104 (8.14%) Information Security
12 104 (8.14%) Risk Management
13 100 (7.82%) Project Management
14 84 (6.57%) Test Automation
15 83 (6.49%) Decision-Making
16 81 (6.34%) Microservices
17 78 (6.10%) Incident Response
18 75 (5.87%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 214 (16.74%) Python
2 163 (12.75%) SQL
3 89 (6.96%) Java
4 65 (5.09%) JavaScript
5 60 (4.69%) PowerShell
6 53 (4.15%) C#
7 41 (3.21%) Bash
8 37 (2.90%) TypeScript
9 17 (1.33%) Bicep
10 13 (1.02%) Shell Script
11 12 (0.94%) C++
11 12 (0.94%) Perl
12 8 (0.63%) PL/SQL
13 7 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
14 6 (0.47%) ActionScript
14 6 (0.47%) ActionScript 2.0
14 6 (0.47%) PHP
15 4 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.31%) Groovy
15 4 (0.31%) Scala
Qualifications
1 162 (12.68%) Security Cleared
2 118 (9.23%) SC Cleared
3 115 (9.00%) Degree
4 41 (3.21%) DV Cleared
5 36 (2.82%) CISSP
6 30 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (2.11%) AWS Certification
8 26 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
9 24 (1.88%) CISM
10 23 (1.80%) Master's Degree
11 19 (1.49%) PMI Certification
12 17 (1.33%) PMP
13 16 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
14 14 (1.10%) Azure Certification
14 14 (1.10%) CRISC
15 13 (1.02%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 13 (1.02%) CTC Cleared
16 10 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 10 (0.78%) CCSP
16 10 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 215 (16.82%) GDPR
2 90 (7.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 80 (6.26%) NIST
4 62 (4.85%) Data Quality
5 50 (3.91%) QA
6 32 (2.50%) PCI DSS
7 27 (2.11%) Accessibility
8 23 (1.80%) GRC
9 21 (1.64%) PMO
10 15 (1.17%) SLA
11 14 (1.10%) Disclosure Scotland
11 14 (1.10%) NCSC
12 11 (0.86%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.78%) PERC
13 10 (0.78%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
14 6 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.47%) HIPAA
15 5 (0.39%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 64 (5.01%) Docker
2 53 (4.15%) Active Directory
3 51 (3.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.17%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.86%) NFS
6 7 (0.55%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.47%) vSphere
8 5 (0.39%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.16%) KVM
10 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.078%) Firmware
11 1 (0.078%) HDFS
11 1 (0.078%) IAG
11 1 (0.078%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.078%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.078%) UAG
Systems Management
1 83 (6.49%) Terraform
2 79 (6.18%) Kubernetes
3 56 (4.38%) Ansible
4 27 (2.11%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (2.03%) Grafana
6 25 (1.96%) NetBackup
7 22 (1.72%) Prometheus
8 19 (1.49%) SCCM
9 11 (0.86%) Puppet
10 10 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.63%) Oracle RMAN
12 6 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.47%) RSA Archer
13 5 (0.39%) Control-M
13 5 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
13 5 (0.39%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
14 4 (0.31%) SnapMirror
15 3 (0.23%) Argo
15 3 (0.23%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 187 (14.63%) Microsoft
2 62 (4.85%) Oracle
3 58 (4.54%) Google
4 53 (4.15%) VMware
5 40 (3.13%) Databricks
6 37 (2.90%) Cisco
7 34 (2.66%) SAP
8 31 (2.43%) ServiceNow
9 30 (2.35%) Salesforce
10 25 (1.96%) Red Hat
11 21 (1.64%) Citrix
12 20 (1.56%) Veritas
13 18 (1.41%) IBM
14 16 (1.25%) Commvault
15 15 (1.17%) F5
16 13 (1.02%) Adobe
16 13 (1.02%) Splunk
17 12 (0.94%) CyberArk
18 11 (0.86%) NetApp
18 11 (0.86%) OneTrust