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

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 102 86
Rank change year-on-year +25 -16 +17
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,446 742 1,087
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.25% 2.55% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.79% 2.82% 2.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 796 385 613
10th Percentile £300 £263 £213
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £698 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £453
% change year-on-year -5.26% +4.97% -7.18%
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 38,122 26,294 38,266
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.61% 90.44% 86.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,155 17,082 24,859
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 £485 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.51% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,251 966 2,351
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.00 £12.84
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.24 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £31.88 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.36% -1.91% -10.48%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.72 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £31.50 £31.50
% change year-on-year +4.76% - -12.50%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 +28 1,239 £500 - 369
UK excluding London +23 771 £450 -5.26% 290
London +33 582 £525 +1.69% 130
Work from Home +35 369 £500 +1.83% 149
North of England -3 243 £487 +2.53% 83
South East +26 178 £495 -4.72% 76
Yorkshire -8 144 £496 -5.48% 26
Scotland +14 115 £405 -13.28% 13
Midlands -8 108 £450 -10.00% 53
North West +2 91 £475 +4.40% 52
West Midlands -24 68 £500 -2.44% 26
South West +15 62 £425 +13.33% 30
East of England 0 50 £450 -25.00% 33
East Midlands -9 40 £438 +6.06% 27
Wales 0 14 £388 -8.82% 5
North East -23 9 £400 -15.79% 5
Northern Ireland +3 5 £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 58 (4.01%) Confluence
2 35 (2.42%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.31%) 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 (3.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (2.84%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (0.83%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.35%) 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 (0.35%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 5 (0.35%) 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%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 294 (20.33%) Azure
2 239 (16.53%) AWS
3 128 (8.85%) GCP
4 81 (5.60%) Power Platform
5 78 (5.39%) Microsoft 365
6 73 (5.05%) Entra ID
7 65 (4.50%) GitHub
8 52 (3.60%) Serverless
9 49 (3.39%) SaaS
10 41 (2.84%) Microsoft Purview
11 40 (2.77%) Azure DevOps
12 38 (2.63%) OpenShift
13 36 (2.49%) AWS Lambda
14 31 (2.14%) Amazon S3
14 31 (2.14%) AWS CloudFormation
14 31 (2.14%) Snowflake
15 24 (1.66%) GitHub Actions
16 21 (1.45%) PaaS
17 20 (1.38%) Azure AKS
17 20 (1.38%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 50 (3.46%) Network Security
2 36 (2.49%) Firewall
2 36 (2.49%) SAN
3 24 (1.66%) VPN
4 22 (1.52%) NAS
5 20 (1.38%) WAN
6 18 (1.24%) DNS
6 18 (1.24%) LAN
6 18 (1.24%) MPLS
7 15 (1.04%) Cisco IPT
8 13 (0.90%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.76%) SD-WAN
10 10 (0.69%) Fibre Channel
10 10 (0.69%) VLAN
10 10 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
11 9 (0.62%) BGP
11 9 (0.62%) DHCP
12 8 (0.55%) IPv4
12 8 (0.55%) IPv6
12 8 (0.55%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (4.91%) Power BI
2 37 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
3 36 (2.49%) Metadata
4 34 (2.35%) SQL Server
5 28 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
5 28 (1.94%) MySQL
6 23 (1.59%) Relational Database
7 19 (1.31%) Data Lake
8 18 (1.24%) DynamoDB
9 17 (1.18%) MongoDB
9 17 (1.18%) NoSQL
10 16 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (0.97%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (0.97%) Tableau
12 12 (0.83%) Big Data
12 12 (0.83%) Oracle Database
13 9 (0.62%) Amazon Aurora
13 9 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 8 (0.55%) Aerospike
14 8 (0.55%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 91 (6.29%) JIRA
2 64 (4.43%) Jenkins
3 60 (4.15%) Git
4 39 (2.70%) GitLab
5 12 (0.83%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.69%) JUnit
6 10 (0.69%) Sonatype Nexus
7 8 (0.55%) Maven
8 6 (0.41%) Gradle
8 6 (0.41%) NUnit
9 5 (0.35%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.35%) Flyway
9 5 (0.35%) Postman
9 5 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
10 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.28%) Liquibase
11 3 (0.21%) IntelliJ
11 3 (0.21%) Selenium
11 3 (0.21%) TestNG
11 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio
General
1 445 (30.77%) Social Skills
2 329 (22.75%) Finance
3 187 (12.93%) Analytical Skills
4 170 (11.76%) Legal
5 139 (9.61%) Public Sector
6 118 (8.16%) Banking
7 61 (4.22%) Organisational Skills
8 50 (3.46%) Documentation Skills
9 40 (2.77%) Telecoms
10 32 (2.21%) Marketing
11 29 (2.01%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (1.87%) Front Office
12 27 (1.87%) Presentation Skills
13 25 (1.73%) Law
14 23 (1.59%) Local Government
15 18 (1.24%) Police
15 18 (1.24%) Retail
16 13 (0.90%) Manufacturing
17 11 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 10 (0.69%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 191 (13.21%) Architect
2 153 (10.58%) Analyst
3 121 (8.37%) Developer
4 112 (7.75%) Lead
5 93 (6.43%) Senior
6 78 (5.39%) Consultant
7 68 (4.70%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.63%) Business Analyst
9 55 (3.80%) Solutions Architect
10 37 (2.56%) Security Architect
11 36 (2.49%) Data Engineer
11 36 (2.49%) Java Developer
12 35 (2.42%) Security Engineer
13 32 (2.21%) Administrator
13 32 (2.21%) Network Engineer
14 30 (2.07%) Technical Architect
15 26 (1.80%) Data Analyst
16 22 (1.52%) Automation Engineer
16 22 (1.52%) Data Protection Officer
16 22 (1.52%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (4.43%) REST
2 56 (3.87%) React
3 39 (2.70%) Spring
4 37 (2.56%) .NET
5 35 (2.42%) Spring Boot
6 32 (2.21%) Node.js
7 29 (2.01%) Kafka
8 28 (1.94%) Middleware
9 27 (1.87%) RESTful
10 24 (1.66%) OAuth
11 23 (1.59%) HTML
12 22 (1.52%) Jest
13 19 (1.31%) CSS
14 17 (1.18%) Oracle Fusion
15 16 (1.11%) HTML5
15 16 (1.11%) Playwright
15 16 (1.11%) Redux
15 16 (1.11%) Spring MVC
16 15 (1.04%) JSON
16 15 (1.04%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 677 (46.82%) Data Protection Act
2 78 (5.39%) Cloud Native
3 68 (4.70%) Product Ownership
4 64 (4.43%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.53%) Management Information System
6 31 (2.14%) NHS
7 30 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
7 30 (2.07%) Replication
8 29 (2.01%) Hybrid Cloud
9 28 (1.94%) Security Posture
10 26 (1.80%) Data Centre
11 21 (1.45%) Enterprise Storage
11 21 (1.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 21 (1.45%) Freedom of Information
12 16 (1.11%) Data Structures
12 16 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
13 15 (1.04%) Operational Technology
14 14 (0.97%) Insider Threat
14 14 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 98 (6.78%) Windows
2 71 (4.91%) Linux
3 22 (1.52%) Unix
4 19 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 19 (1.31%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.97%) VMS
6 12 (0.83%) Mac OS
6 12 (0.83%) Windows 10
7 9 (0.62%) Android
7 9 (0.62%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.55%) zOS
9 7 (0.48%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (0.41%) CoreOS
11 5 (0.35%) Solaris
12 4 (0.28%) AIX
13 2 (0.14%) Rocky
13 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.069%) CentOS
14 1 (0.069%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.069%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 255 (17.63%) Problem-Solving
2 244 (16.87%) Agile
3 243 (16.80%) Stakeholder Management
4 219 (15.15%) Migration
5 201 (13.90%) DevOps
6 200 (13.83%) CI/CD
7 184 (12.72%) Continuous Improvement
8 143 (9.89%) Analytics
8 143 (9.89%) Cybersecurity
9 135 (9.34%) Roadmaps
10 130 (8.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 128 (8.85%) AI
12 124 (8.58%) Risk Management
13 109 (7.54%) Decision-Making
14 106 (7.33%) Information Security
15 100 (6.92%) Infrastructure as Code
16 99 (6.85%) Data Governance
17 97 (6.71%) Test Automation
18 94 (6.50%) Project Management
19 92 (6.36%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 215 (14.87%) Python
2 185 (12.79%) SQL
3 122 (8.44%) Java
4 69 (4.77%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.87%) PowerShell
6 53 (3.67%) C#
7 40 (2.77%) Bash
8 38 (2.63%) TypeScript
9 18 (1.24%) Bicep
10 12 (0.83%) C++
11 11 (0.76%) Perl
12 10 (0.69%) 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 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 4 (0.28%) Go
16 4 (0.28%) R
Qualifications
1 202 (13.97%) Security Cleared
2 146 (10.10%) SC Cleared
3 127 (8.78%) Degree
4 55 (3.80%) DV Cleared
5 54 (3.73%) CISSP
6 33 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (2.21%) CISM
8 28 (1.94%) PMI Certification
9 26 (1.80%) Azure Certification
9 26 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
10 25 (1.73%) AWS Certification
11 24 (1.66%) PMP
12 21 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
12 21 (1.45%) Master's Degree
13 20 (1.38%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (1.04%) CTC Cleared
15 13 (0.90%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 12 (0.83%) CCSP
17 9 (0.62%) CCNP
17 9 (0.62%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 260 (17.98%) GDPR
2 94 (6.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 91 (6.29%) NIST
4 68 (4.70%) Data Quality
5 60 (4.15%) QA
6 31 (2.14%) PCI DSS
7 29 (2.01%) GRC
8 28 (1.94%) PMO
9 27 (1.87%) Accessibility
10 24 (1.66%) SLA
11 18 (1.24%) NCSC
12 17 (1.18%) SOC 2
13 14 (0.97%) Disclosure Scotland
14 12 (0.83%) PERC
15 11 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 9 (0.62%) NIST 800
17 8 (0.55%) HIPAA
18 7 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
19 6 (0.41%) COBIT
20 5 (0.35%) WCAG
System Software
1 70 (4.84%) Docker
2 69 (4.77%) Active Directory
3 54 (3.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (1.31%) Virtual Desktop
5 18 (1.24%) NFS
6 13 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.62%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.62%) VMware NSX
7 9 (0.62%) vSphere
8 5 (0.35%) KVM
8 5 (0.35%) 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
1 107 (7.40%) Kubernetes
2 103 (7.12%) Terraform
3 68 (4.70%) Ansible
4 37 (2.56%) Grafana
5 32 (2.21%) NetBackup
6 28 (1.94%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (1.66%) Prometheus
8 19 (1.31%) SCCM
8 19 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (1.18%) Puppet
10 10 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 7 (0.48%) SnapMirror
12 5 (0.35%) Control-M
12 5 (0.35%) EMC NetWorker
12 5 (0.35%) Jamf Pro
12 5 (0.35%) Oracle RMAN
12 5 (0.35%) RSA Archer
13 4 (0.28%) CA Single Sign-On
13 4 (0.28%) Foglight
13 4 (0.28%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 229 (15.84%) Microsoft
2 70 (4.84%) Oracle
3 65 (4.50%) Google
4 55 (3.80%) VMware
5 51 (3.53%) Databricks
6 47 (3.25%) ServiceNow
7 42 (2.90%) Cisco
8 40 (2.77%) SAP
9 35 (2.42%) Red Hat
9 35 (2.42%) Salesforce
10 24 (1.66%) NetApp
11 23 (1.59%) Commvault
11 23 (1.59%) Veritas
12 21 (1.45%) Citrix
13 19 (1.31%) F5
14 18 (1.24%) IBM
15 17 (1.18%) Splunk
16 16 (1.11%) Veeam
17 14 (0.97%) Adobe
18 13 (0.90%) CyberArk