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 8 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 76 90
Rank change year-on-year -6 +14 -4
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,682 1,049 956
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 3.23% 2.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.68% 3.58% 2.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 875 499 519
10th Percentile £300 £292 £209
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £678 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £464 £475
% change year-on-year -2.96% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 51 19
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £18.34
25th Percentile £15.72 £13.60 £20.88
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.00 £26.68
Median % change year-on-year +11.56% -40.03% -13.24%
75th Percentile £25.75 £20.40 £55.79
90th Percentile £35.22 £36.48 £70.52
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £24.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -36.46% -0.50%

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 45,722 29,342 32,587
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.39% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,938 18,213 20,366
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.23%
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 2,944 1,739 1,516
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.22 £14.77
25th Percentile £17.64 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -41.51% +3.24%
75th Percentile £67.99 £45.87 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +87.80% -47.37% +8.72%

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 8 September 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 8 September 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 8 September 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 -10 1,409 £500 +2.04% 1,434
UK excluding London +4 932 £450 -2.96% 824
London -18 606 £525 +2.69% 746
Work from Home +15 483 £500 +5.82% 670
North of England +9 329 £475 +5.56% 233
South East +7 204 £483 -7.38% 190
Yorkshire +10 164 £475 -5.00% 73
Midlands 0 152 £450 -5.26% 136
North West +14 146 £498 +13.07% 137
Scotland -12 120 £428 -6.30% 61
West Midlands -4 119 £462 -7.70% 91
South West -19 77 £425 +6.25% 101
East Midlands 0 33 £441 +26.00% 45
East of England -17 28 £525 +10.53% 75
Wales -3 21 £413 - 23
North East -47 20 £463 +15.63% 27
Northern Ireland +5 15 £110 -81.63% 14

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 66 (3.92%) SharePoint
2 41 (2.44%) Confluence
3 23 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.13%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.01%) Apache Spark
6 12 (0.71%) Apache
7 9 (0.54%) IIS
8 7 (0.42%) CMS
9 6 (0.36%) SAS
10 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.18%) CICS
12 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.18%) WordPress
13 2 (0.12%) Drupal
13 2 (0.12%) nginx
13 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
14 1 (0.059%) Moodle
14 1 (0.059%) OpenStack
Applications
1 46 (2.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (2.44%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.059%) Maya
8 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Endur
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 1 (0.059%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.059%) Eloqua
8 1 (0.059%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.059%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.059%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 384 (22.83%) Azure
2 310 (18.43%) AWS
3 139 (8.26%) GCP
4 131 (7.79%) Microsoft 365
5 88 (5.23%) Power Platform
6 85 (5.05%) Entra ID
7 79 (4.70%) SaaS
8 63 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
8 63 (3.75%) GitHub
9 56 (3.33%) Serverless
10 55 (3.27%) Microsoft Purview
11 35 (2.08%) Microsoft Copilot
12 31 (1.84%) AWS Lambda
13 29 (1.72%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.55%) GitHub Actions
14 26 (1.55%) OpenShift
14 26 (1.55%) PowerApps
15 25 (1.49%) Power Automate
16 24 (1.43%) Amazon S3
17 22 (1.31%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 93 (5.53%) Network Security
2 60 (3.57%) Firewall
3 38 (2.26%) DNS
4 35 (2.08%) VPN
5 29 (1.72%) DHCP
6 25 (1.49%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.25%) WAN
8 17 (1.01%) Cisco IPT
8 17 (1.01%) LAN
9 16 (0.95%) SAN
10 15 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.83%) SSL
11 14 (0.83%) Wireless
12 11 (0.65%) HTTP
12 11 (0.65%) MPLS
12 11 (0.65%) VoIP
13 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
13 9 (0.54%) NAS
14 7 (0.42%) Cisco Nexus
14 7 (0.42%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (3.92%) Power BI
2 50 (2.97%) Metadata
3 41 (2.44%) Relational Database
4 39 (2.32%) PostgreSQL
5 37 (2.20%) SQL Server
6 32 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (1.49%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.25%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.25%) MySQL
9 20 (1.19%) Big Data
10 17 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (0.83%) MongoDB
12 13 (0.77%) BigQuery
12 13 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
13 11 (0.65%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
14 9 (0.54%) Redis
15 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
16 7 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
16 7 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 85 (5.05%) JIRA
2 69 (4.10%) Git
3 54 (3.21%) Jenkins
4 30 (1.78%) GitLab
5 17 (1.01%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Maven
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) Postman
9 5 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
10 4 (0.24%) Vite
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 643 (38.23%) Social Skills
2 364 (21.64%) Finance
3 252 (14.98%) Legal
4 211 (12.54%) Analytical Skills
5 204 (12.13%) Public Sector
6 114 (6.78%) Banking
7 79 (4.70%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (4.40%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
9 41 (2.44%) Retail
10 38 (2.26%) Local Government
11 32 (1.90%) Front Office
11 32 (1.90%) Law
12 31 (1.84%) Presentation Skills
13 28 (1.66%) Telecoms
14 26 (1.55%) Marketing
15 24 (1.43%) Police
16 23 (1.37%) Billing
17 22 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
18 16 (0.95%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 252 (14.98%) Architect
2 170 (10.11%) Analyst
3 143 (8.50%) Lead
4 126 (7.49%) Developer
5 122 (7.25%) Senior
6 83 (4.93%) Consultant
7 78 (4.64%) Project Manager
8 71 (4.22%) Business Analyst
8 71 (4.22%) Solutions Architect
9 64 (3.80%) Security Architect
10 43 (2.56%) Administrator
11 38 (2.26%) Security Engineer
12 36 (2.14%) Support Engineer
13 32 (1.90%) Data Engineer
14 31 (1.84%) Java Developer
15 30 (1.78%) Data Analyst
16 28 (1.66%) Information Officer
17 27 (1.61%) IT Support
18 26 (1.55%) Information Governance Officer
19 25 (1.49%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (5.41%) Terraform
2 84 (4.99%) REST
3 41 (2.44%) React
4 36 (2.14%) Kafka
4 36 (2.14%) Spring
5 35 (2.08%) OAuth
6 34 (2.02%) JSON
7 33 (1.96%) Middleware
7 33 (1.96%) Spring Boot
8 32 (1.90%) CSS
8 32 (1.90%) HTML
9 29 (1.72%) RESTful
10 22 (1.31%) .NET
11 21 (1.25%) Node.js
12 20 (1.19%) OpenID
13 19 (1.13%) OAuth2
14 16 (0.95%) CSS3
14 16 (0.95%) HTML5
15 15 (0.89%) GraphQL
15 15 (0.89%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 720 (42.81%) Data Protection Act
2 99 (5.89%) Management Information System
3 95 (5.65%) Cloud Native
4 94 (5.59%) Product Ownership
5 86 (5.11%) Onboarding
6 53 (3.15%) Data Centre
7 52 (3.09%) Distributed Systems
8 42 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
9 41 (2.44%) Virtual Team
10 40 (2.38%) Security Posture
11 38 (2.26%) Freedom of Information
12 28 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
12 28 (1.66%) Operational Technology
13 27 (1.61%) NHS
14 25 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
15 21 (1.25%) AI Agents
16 20 (1.19%) Data Structures
16 20 (1.19%) Mobile App
17 19 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
17 19 (1.13%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 135 (8.03%) Windows
2 83 (4.93%) Linux
3 35 (2.08%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.90%) Android
5 31 (1.84%) Apple iOS
6 29 (1.72%) Unix
7 23 (1.37%) Mac OS
8 18 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 16 (0.95%) Windows 10
10 10 (0.59%) zOS
11 4 (0.24%) VMS
12 3 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.12%) AIX
13 2 (0.12%) CentOS
13 2 (0.12%) HPUX
13 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.059%) Rocky
14 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 359 (21.34%) Stakeholder Management
2 320 (19.02%) Agile
3 290 (17.24%) Continuous Improvement
3 290 (17.24%) Problem-Solving
4 247 (14.68%) CI/CD
5 226 (13.44%) DevOps
6 220 (13.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 216 (12.84%) Migration
8 214 (12.72%) AI
9 213 (12.66%) Cybersecurity
10 160 (9.51%) Decision-Making
11 157 (9.33%) Roadmaps
12 156 (9.27%) Data Governance
13 146 (8.68%) Analytics
14 144 (8.56%) Information Security
14 144 (8.56%) Validation
15 140 (8.32%) Infrastructure as Code
16 138 (8.20%) Risk Management
17 116 (6.90%) Data Modelling
18 113 (6.72%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 211 (12.54%) Python
2 167 (9.93%) SQL
3 100 (5.95%) Java
4 57 (3.39%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.33%) PowerShell
6 34 (2.02%) Bash
7 26 (1.55%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.13%) Go
9 17 (1.01%) C#
10 16 (0.95%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.89%) Kotlin
12 14 (0.83%) Bicep
13 12 (0.71%) Perl
14 10 (0.59%) C++
15 8 (0.48%) C
15 8 (0.48%) Scala
15 8 (0.48%) VB
16 7 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
16 7 (0.42%) Shell Script
16 7 (0.42%) VB6
Qualifications
1 269 (15.99%) Security Cleared
2 196 (11.65%) SC Cleared
3 109 (6.48%) Degree
4 86 (5.11%) CISSP
5 64 (3.80%) DV Cleared
6 54 (3.21%) CISM
7 40 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
8 38 (2.26%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (2.02%) Azure Certification
10 30 (1.78%) PMI Certification
11 27 (1.61%) PMP
12 26 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.37%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 23 (1.37%) AWS Certification
14 19 (1.13%) CCSP
15 14 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.65%) CCNP
16 11 (0.65%) CISA
16 11 (0.65%) CRISC
17 10 (0.59%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (14.45%) GDPR
2 111 (6.60%) Data Quality
3 103 (6.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (4.70%) NIST
5 78 (4.64%) QA
6 47 (2.79%) GRC
7 46 (2.73%) Accessibility
8 24 (1.43%) PCI DSS
8 24 (1.43%) PMO
9 18 (1.07%) Cyber Essentials
10 17 (1.01%) NCSC
10 17 (1.01%) SLA
11 13 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 13 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 11 (0.65%) HIPAA
12 11 (0.65%) PERC
12 11 (0.65%) WCAG
13 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
14 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 90 (5.35%) Active Directory
2 66 (3.92%) Docker
3 58 (3.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.25%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.65%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.54%) vSphere
7 8 (0.48%) NFS
8 7 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.30%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.18%) Time Sharing Option
11 3 (0.18%) XenApp
11 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
12 2 (0.12%) Firmware
12 2 (0.12%) GPFS
12 2 (0.12%) ISA Server
12 2 (0.12%) KVM
12 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 115 (6.84%) Kubernetes
2 46 (2.73%) Ansible
3 41 (2.44%) Microsoft Intune
4 25 (1.49%) Grafana
4 25 (1.49%) SCCM
5 18 (1.07%) Prometheus
6 16 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.89%) NetBackup
8 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.71%) Puppet
9 10 (0.59%) Progress Chef
10 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (0.36%) Kibana
11 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.30%) CASB
11 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
11 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
11 5 (0.30%) QRadar
11 5 (0.30%) SCOM
12 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 349 (20.75%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.23%) ServiceNow
3 70 (4.16%) Oracle
4 67 (3.98%) Google
5 64 (3.80%) Cisco
6 59 (3.51%) VMware
7 45 (2.68%) Databricks
8 40 (2.38%) Splunk
9 35 (2.08%) SAP
10 33 (1.96%) Salesforce
11 26 (1.55%) Zscaler
12 22 (1.31%) Workday
13 21 (1.25%) IBM
14 20 (1.19%) CyberArk
14 20 (1.19%) Red Hat
15 16 (0.95%) Citrix
15 16 (0.95%) F5
16 15 (0.89%) Dell
16 15 (0.89%) NetApp
17 12 (0.71%) Veritas