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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 73 91
Rank change year-on-year -9 +18 -7
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,665 1,033 950
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 3.18% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.67% 3.51% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 871 509 519
10th Percentile £300 £299 £200
25th Percentile £400 £388 £354
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £455 £464 £475
% change year-on-year -1.89% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 47 24
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 £18.94
25th Percentile £15.72 £14.05 £22.19
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.00 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year +11.56% -41.28% -34.52%
75th Percentile £28.00 £20.40 £38.98
90th Percentile £35.22 £35.51 £70.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% -18.70%

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 45,329 29,411 32,997
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.42% 85.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,714 18,306 20,733
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% -3.54%
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 2,913 1,754 1,602
10th Percentile £14.07 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.75 £17.30 £18.79
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.09 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +92.49% -47.37% +14.67%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -8 1,393 £500 +2.56% 1,470
UK excluding London +2 916 £455 -1.89% 878
London -18 608 £525 +2.94% 752
Work from Home +20 482 £500 +5.54% 666
North of England +9 324 £475 +5.56% 244
South East +8 198 £475 -8.30% 198
Yorkshire +3 162 £475 -5.00% 79
Midlands -1 147 £462 -2.84% 137
North West +13 144 £500 +13.64% 131
Scotland -11 120 £428 -2.73% 63
West Midlands -5 115 £473 -5.40% 95
South West -16 75 £425 +6.25% 107
East Midlands -2 32 £441 +26.00% 42
East of England -13 30 £550 +15.79% 87
Wales -3 22 £413 - 28
North East -49 19 £463 +15.63% 37
Northern Ireland +4 14 £110 -81.63% 24

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 63 (3.78%) SharePoint
2 42 (2.52%) Confluence
3 23 (1.38%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
4 18 (1.08%) Apache Spark
5 13 (0.78%) Apache
6 7 (0.42%) IIS
7 6 (0.36%) CMS
7 6 (0.36%) SAS
8 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
9 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) CICS
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%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 45 (2.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (2.46%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.60%) 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 (0.060%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.060%) Maya
8 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.72%) 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
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 384 (23.06%) Azure
2 303 (18.20%) AWS
3 137 (8.23%) GCP
4 128 (7.69%) Microsoft 365
5 87 (5.23%) Power Platform
6 83 (4.98%) Entra ID
7 79 (4.74%) SaaS
8 64 (3.84%) GitHub
9 63 (3.78%) Azure DevOps
10 56 (3.36%) Serverless
11 55 (3.30%) Microsoft Purview
12 35 (2.10%) Microsoft Copilot
13 31 (1.86%) AWS Lambda
14 28 (1.68%) OneDrive
15 26 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
15 26 (1.56%) OpenShift
15 26 (1.56%) PowerApps
16 25 (1.50%) Amazon S3
16 25 (1.50%) Power Automate
17 22 (1.32%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 91 (5.47%) Network Security
2 61 (3.66%) Firewall
3 37 (2.22%) DNS
4 36 (2.16%) VPN
5 29 (1.74%) DHCP
6 24 (1.44%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.26%) WAN
8 17 (1.02%) Cisco IPT
8 17 (1.02%) LAN
8 17 (1.02%) SAN
9 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (0.84%) SSL
10 14 (0.84%) Wireless
11 11 (0.66%) HTTP
11 11 (0.66%) MPLS
11 11 (0.66%) VoIP
12 10 (0.60%) NAS
13 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
14 7 (0.42%) Cisco Nexus
14 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (3.90%) Power BI
2 51 (3.06%) Metadata
3 39 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
4 37 (2.22%) SQL Server
5 35 (2.10%) Relational Database
6 31 (1.86%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (1.50%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.32%) Data Lake
9 21 (1.26%) MySQL
10 20 (1.20%) Big Data
11 18 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
12 14 (0.84%) MongoDB
13 13 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.72%) BigQuery
15 10 (0.60%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
16 9 (0.54%) Redis
17 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
18 7 (0.42%) Amazon Aurora
18 7 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 83 (4.98%) JIRA
2 63 (3.78%) Git
3 56 (3.36%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.86%) GitLab
5 11 (0.66%) Selenium
6 10 (0.60%) Maven
6 10 (0.60%) 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%) Flyway
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
10 4 (0.24%) Vite
11 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
General
1 627 (37.66%) Social Skills
2 361 (21.68%) Finance
3 251 (15.08%) Legal
4 209 (12.55%) Analytical Skills
5 202 (12.13%) Public Sector
6 109 (6.55%) Banking
7 77 (4.62%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (4.44%) Organisational Skills
9 40 (2.40%) Retail
10 38 (2.28%) Influencing Skills
11 37 (2.22%) Local Government
12 32 (1.92%) Front Office
13 31 (1.86%) Law
14 30 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
14 30 (1.80%) Telecoms
15 25 (1.50%) Marketing
16 23 (1.38%) Billing
16 23 (1.38%) Pharmaceutical
16 23 (1.38%) Police
17 16 (0.96%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 251 (15.08%) Architect
2 169 (10.15%) Analyst
3 140 (8.41%) Lead
4 126 (7.57%) Developer
5 123 (7.39%) Senior
6 83 (4.98%) Consultant
7 80 (4.80%) Project Manager
8 71 (4.26%) Business Analyst
9 69 (4.14%) Solutions Architect
10 62 (3.72%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.52%) Administrator
12 37 (2.22%) Security Engineer
13 34 (2.04%) Support Engineer
14 33 (1.98%) Data Engineer
15 31 (1.86%) Java Developer
16 30 (1.80%) Data Analyst
17 28 (1.68%) Information Officer
18 27 (1.62%) IT Support
19 26 (1.56%) Information Governance Officer
19 26 (1.56%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (5.29%) Terraform
2 85 (5.11%) REST
3 41 (2.46%) React
4 36 (2.16%) Kafka
4 36 (2.16%) Spring
5 35 (2.10%) OAuth
6 34 (2.04%) JSON
7 33 (1.98%) Spring Boot
8 32 (1.92%) CSS
8 32 (1.92%) HTML
8 32 (1.92%) Middleware
9 29 (1.74%) RESTful
10 22 (1.32%) .NET
11 21 (1.26%) Node.js
12 20 (1.20%) OpenID
13 19 (1.14%) OAuth2
14 16 (0.96%) CSS3
14 16 (0.96%) HTML5
15 15 (0.90%) GraphQL
15 15 (0.90%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 714 (42.88%) Data Protection Act
2 94 (5.65%) Cloud Native
3 92 (5.53%) Management Information System
4 91 (5.47%) Product Ownership
5 80 (4.80%) Onboarding
6 51 (3.06%) Data Centre
7 50 (3.00%) Distributed Systems
8 43 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.40%) Virtual Team
10 39 (2.34%) Security Posture
11 36 (2.16%) Freedom of Information
12 27 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
12 27 (1.62%) NHS
12 27 (1.62%) Operational Technology
13 26 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
14 21 (1.26%) AI Agents
15 20 (1.20%) Mobile App
16 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
16 19 (1.14%) Data Structures
17 18 (1.08%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 132 (7.93%) Windows
2 79 (4.74%) Linux
3 32 (1.92%) Android
3 32 (1.92%) Windows Server
4 31 (1.86%) Apple iOS
5 28 (1.68%) Unix
6 22 (1.32%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.96%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.42%) zOS
10 5 (0.30%) VMS
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%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 354 (21.26%) Stakeholder Management
2 309 (18.56%) Agile
3 288 (17.30%) Problem-Solving
4 279 (16.76%) Continuous Improvement
5 240 (14.41%) CI/CD
6 229 (13.75%) DevOps
7 218 (13.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 216 (12.97%) AI
9 211 (12.67%) Migration
10 207 (12.43%) Cybersecurity
11 159 (9.55%) Decision-Making
12 158 (9.49%) Data Governance
13 156 (9.37%) Roadmaps
14 147 (8.83%) Analytics
15 140 (8.41%) Information Security
16 138 (8.29%) Risk Management
17 132 (7.93%) Validation
18 131 (7.87%) Infrastructure as Code
19 115 (6.91%) Data Modelling
20 107 (6.43%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 207 (12.43%) Python
2 157 (9.43%) SQL
3 102 (6.13%) Java
4 57 (3.42%) JavaScript
5 55 (3.30%) PowerShell
6 35 (2.10%) Bash
7 27 (1.62%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.14%) Go
9 17 (1.02%) C#
10 16 (0.96%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
12 14 (0.84%) Bicep
13 12 (0.72%) Perl
14 10 (0.60%) C++
15 8 (0.48%) C
15 8 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
15 8 (0.48%) Scala
15 8 (0.48%) VB
16 7 (0.42%) VB6
17 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 258 (15.50%) Security Cleared
2 190 (11.41%) SC Cleared
3 105 (6.31%) Degree
4 85 (5.11%) CISSP
5 59 (3.54%) DV Cleared
6 54 (3.24%) CISM
7 39 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
8 35 (2.10%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (2.04%) Azure Certification
10 30 (1.80%) PMI Certification
11 28 (1.68%) PMP
12 27 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.38%) AWS Certification
14 21 (1.26%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 17 (1.02%) CCSP
16 15 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
17 11 (0.66%) CRISC
18 10 (0.60%) CCNP
18 10 (0.60%) CISA
18 10 (0.60%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 245 (14.71%) GDPR
2 108 (6.49%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (4.68%) NIST
5 77 (4.62%) QA
6 47 (2.82%) Accessibility
7 45 (2.70%) GRC
8 23 (1.38%) PCI DSS
8 23 (1.38%) PMO
9 18 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (1.08%) SLA
10 17 (1.02%) NCSC
11 14 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.66%) PERC
13 11 (0.66%) WCAG
14 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 9 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
15 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 88 (5.29%) Active Directory
2 65 (3.90%) Docker
3 54 (3.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.60%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.54%) NFS
7 7 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.42%) vSphere
8 6 (0.36%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
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%) KVM
12 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.12%) Varnish
13 1 (0.060%) iptables
Systems Management
1 112 (6.73%) Kubernetes
2 43 (2.58%) Ansible
3 41 (2.46%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.56%) Grafana
5 24 (1.44%) SCCM
6 18 (1.08%) NetBackup
6 18 (1.08%) Prometheus
7 16 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.78%) Puppet
9 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.36%) Kibana
12 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
12 5 (0.30%) QRadar
12 5 (0.30%) SCOM
13 4 (0.24%) CASB
13 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 343 (20.60%) Microsoft
2 89 (5.35%) ServiceNow
3 66 (3.96%) Oracle
4 63 (3.78%) Google
5 62 (3.72%) Cisco
6 55 (3.30%) VMware
7 45 (2.70%) Databricks
8 38 (2.28%) Splunk
9 35 (2.10%) SAP
10 33 (1.98%) Salesforce
11 25 (1.50%) Zscaler
12 22 (1.32%) Workday
13 21 (1.26%) Red Hat
14 20 (1.20%) CyberArk
15 18 (1.08%) IBM
16 16 (0.96%) Citrix
17 15 (0.90%) F5
17 15 (0.90%) NetApp
18 14 (0.84%) Dell
18 14 (0.84%) Veritas