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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 77 90
Rank change year-on-year -4 +13 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,671 1,053 961
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 3.22% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.68% 3.56% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 881 519 524
10th Percentile £300 £299 £200
25th Percentile £400 £394 £352
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 £463 £465 £475
% change year-on-year -0.54% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 97 46 27
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 £17.94
25th Percentile £15.72 £14.57 £21.88
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.50 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.18% -38.89% -36.00%
75th Percentile £29.60 £20.40 £33.64
90th Percentile £35.34 £35.67 £69.88
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 45,469 29,582 33,102
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.43% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,813 18,412 20,921
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 2,891 1,754 1,674
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.92 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.80% -46.07% +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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -10 1,402 £500 +2.56% 1,359
UK excluding London -3 911 £463 -0.54% 820
London -18 617 £525 +2.94% 662
Work from Home +14 488 £500 +5.26% 628
North of England +6 326 £475 +5.56% 240
South East +12 197 £483 -7.38% 192
Yorkshire 0 165 £475 -3.31% 75
North West +16 145 £500 +11.86% 131
Midlands -5 144 £473 -0.42% 127
Scotland -4 119 £428 -2.73% 46
West Midlands -12 113 £473 -5.40% 84
South West -4 75 £425 +6.25% 98
East Midlands -5 31 £441 +26.00% 43
East of England -8 31 £538 +13.16% 88
Wales -10 19 £413 +39.24% 24
North East -47 17 £463 +15.63% 36
Northern Ireland +4 13 £110 -81.63% 17

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 64 (3.83%) SharePoint
2 42 (2.51%) Confluence
3 23 (1.38%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.14%) Apache Spark
5 18 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.78%) 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%) 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 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (2.45%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.060%) Maya
7 1 (0.060%) Trello
7 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 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
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 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%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 389 (23.28%) Azure
2 295 (17.65%) AWS
3 140 (8.38%) GCP
4 127 (7.60%) Microsoft 365
5 94 (5.63%) Power Platform
6 89 (5.33%) Entra ID
7 80 (4.79%) SaaS
8 63 (3.77%) Azure DevOps
8 63 (3.77%) GitHub
9 58 (3.47%) Serverless
10 56 (3.35%) Microsoft Purview
11 35 (2.09%) Microsoft Copilot
12 31 (1.86%) AWS Lambda
13 28 (1.68%) OneDrive
13 28 (1.68%) OpenShift
14 27 (1.62%) PowerApps
15 25 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
15 25 (1.50%) Power Automate
16 24 (1.44%) Amazon S3
17 23 (1.38%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 94 (5.63%) Network Security
2 61 (3.65%) Firewall
3 38 (2.27%) DNS
4 36 (2.15%) VPN
5 29 (1.74%) DHCP
6 24 (1.44%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.26%) WAN
8 20 (1.20%) SAN
9 18 (1.08%) Cisco IPT
10 17 (1.02%) LAN
11 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
12 14 (0.84%) SSL
12 14 (0.84%) Wireless
13 12 (0.72%) NAS
14 11 (0.66%) MPLS
14 11 (0.66%) VoIP
15 10 (0.60%) HTTP
16 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
17 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
18 7 (0.42%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (4.25%) Power BI
2 52 (3.11%) Metadata
3 38 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
4 37 (2.21%) SQL Server
5 36 (2.15%) Data Warehouse
6 29 (1.74%) Relational Database
7 27 (1.62%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.32%) Data Lake
9 20 (1.20%) Big Data
10 19 (1.14%) MySQL
11 18 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
12 16 (0.96%) MongoDB
13 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
14 11 (0.66%) BigQuery
15 10 (0.60%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
16 9 (0.54%) Redis
17 8 (0.48%) Tableau
18 7 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 81 (4.85%) JIRA
2 61 (3.65%) Git
3 56 (3.35%) Jenkins
4 32 (1.92%) GitLab
5 10 (0.60%) Maven
6 9 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
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%) Gradle
9 5 (0.30%) Postman
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Flyway
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 618 (36.98%) Social Skills
2 364 (21.78%) Finance
3 251 (15.02%) Legal
4 207 (12.39%) Analytical Skills
5 201 (12.03%) Public Sector
6 112 (6.70%) Banking
7 75 (4.49%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (4.43%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.45%) Retail
10 39 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
11 38 (2.27%) Local Government
12 33 (1.97%) Law
13 32 (1.92%) Front Office
14 30 (1.80%) Telecoms
15 28 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
16 24 (1.44%) Marketing
17 22 (1.32%) Billing
17 22 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
18 21 (1.26%) Police
19 16 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 250 (14.96%) Architect
2 168 (10.05%) Analyst
3 146 (8.74%) Lead
4 126 (7.54%) Developer
5 120 (7.18%) Senior
6 88 (5.27%) Consultant
7 81 (4.85%) Project Manager
8 68 (4.07%) Business Analyst
9 67 (4.01%) Solutions Architect
10 60 (3.59%) Security Architect
11 41 (2.45%) Administrator
12 38 (2.27%) Security Engineer
13 34 (2.03%) Data Engineer
14 33 (1.97%) Support Engineer
15 31 (1.86%) Java Developer
16 30 (1.80%) Data Analyst
17 28 (1.68%) Information Officer
17 28 (1.68%) Network Engineer
18 27 (1.62%) IT Support
19 26 (1.56%) Information Governance Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (5.39%) Terraform
2 87 (5.21%) REST
3 39 (2.33%) React
4 36 (2.15%) Spring
5 35 (2.09%) JSON
5 35 (2.09%) Kafka
6 34 (2.03%) OAuth
7 33 (1.97%) Spring Boot
8 31 (1.86%) CSS
8 31 (1.86%) HTML
9 30 (1.80%) Middleware
10 27 (1.62%) RESTful
11 24 (1.44%) .NET
12 21 (1.26%) Node.js
13 19 (1.14%) OpenID
14 18 (1.08%) OAuth2
15 16 (0.96%) GraphQL
16 15 (0.90%) CSS3
16 15 (0.90%) HTML5
17 14 (0.84%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 719 (43.03%) Data Protection Act
2 98 (5.86%) Cloud Native
3 90 (5.39%) Product Ownership
4 87 (5.21%) Management Information System
5 79 (4.73%) Onboarding
6 52 (3.11%) Data Centre
7 50 (2.99%) Distributed Systems
8 42 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.39%) Security Posture
9 40 (2.39%) Virtual Team
10 35 (2.09%) Freedom of Information
11 27 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
11 27 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
12 26 (1.56%) NHS
13 24 (1.44%) Operational Technology
14 21 (1.26%) AI Agents
14 21 (1.26%) Replication
15 20 (1.20%) Mobile App
16 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
16 19 (1.14%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 131 (7.84%) Windows
2 81 (4.85%) Linux
3 30 (1.80%) Android
3 30 (1.80%) Apple iOS
4 29 (1.74%) Windows Server
5 28 (1.68%) Unix
6 22 (1.32%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.96%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.48%) VMS
9 8 (0.48%) zOS
10 3 (0.18%) Solaris
10 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) HPUX
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.060%) CoreOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 350 (20.95%) Stakeholder Management
2 305 (18.25%) Agile
3 290 (17.35%) Problem-Solving
4 274 (16.40%) Continuous Improvement
5 235 (14.06%) CI/CD
5 235 (14.06%) DevOps
6 219 (13.11%) Migration
7 216 (12.93%) AI
8 213 (12.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 200 (11.97%) Cybersecurity
10 159 (9.52%) Data Governance
10 159 (9.52%) Decision-Making
11 158 (9.46%) Roadmaps
12 151 (9.04%) Analytics
13 140 (8.38%) Information Security
14 135 (8.08%) Risk Management
15 130 (7.78%) Infrastructure as Code
16 126 (7.54%) Validation
17 119 (7.12%) Data Modelling
18 105 (6.28%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 202 (12.09%) Python
2 160 (9.58%) SQL
3 103 (6.16%) Java
4 56 (3.35%) PowerShell
5 55 (3.29%) JavaScript
6 35 (2.09%) Bash
7 26 (1.56%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.14%) C#
9 18 (1.08%) Go
10 15 (0.90%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.90%) Bicep
10 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
11 12 (0.72%) Perl
12 10 (0.60%) C++
13 8 (0.48%) C
13 8 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
13 8 (0.48%) Scala
13 8 (0.48%) VB
14 7 (0.42%) VB6
15 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 258 (15.44%) Security Cleared
2 191 (11.43%) SC Cleared
3 108 (6.46%) Degree
4 82 (4.91%) CISSP
5 56 (3.35%) DV Cleared
6 51 (3.05%) CISM
7 39 (2.33%) BPSS Clearance
8 35 (2.09%) Azure Certification
9 33 (1.97%) Cisco Certification
10 31 (1.86%) PMI Certification
11 29 (1.74%) PMP
12 26 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.38%) AWS Certification
14 19 (1.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 17 (1.02%) Microsoft Certification
16 15 (0.90%) CCSP
17 10 (0.60%) CCNP
17 10 (0.60%) CRISC
17 10 (0.60%) Master's Degree
18 9 (0.54%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (15.20%) GDPR
2 109 (6.52%) Data Quality
3 99 (5.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 76 (4.55%) NIST
5 75 (4.49%) QA
6 48 (2.87%) Accessibility
7 43 (2.57%) GRC
8 24 (1.44%) PMO
9 22 (1.32%) PCI DSS
10 21 (1.26%) NCSC
11 17 (1.02%) SLA
12 16 (0.96%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 12 (0.72%) PERC
15 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.66%) WCAG
16 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
17 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 95 (5.69%) Active Directory
2 64 (3.83%) Docker
3 56 (3.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.60%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.60%) NFS
6 8 (0.48%) vSphere
7 7 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.36%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.24%) 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
1 113 (6.76%) Kubernetes
2 45 (2.69%) Ansible
3 39 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.56%) Grafana
5 23 (1.38%) SCCM
6 20 (1.20%) NetBackup
7 18 (1.08%) Prometheus
8 17 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.78%) Puppet
10 12 (0.72%) 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%) PingFederate
14 5 (0.30%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) SCOM
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
16 3 (0.18%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 342 (20.47%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.27%) ServiceNow
3 66 (3.95%) Google
3 66 (3.95%) Oracle
4 60 (3.59%) Cisco
5 58 (3.47%) VMware
6 47 (2.81%) Databricks
7 37 (2.21%) SAP
7 37 (2.21%) Splunk
8 30 (1.80%) Salesforce
9 25 (1.50%) Zscaler
10 23 (1.38%) Red Hat
11 22 (1.32%) Workday
12 21 (1.26%) CyberArk
13 19 (1.14%) IBM
13 19 (1.14%) NetApp
14 16 (0.96%) Citrix
15 15 (0.90%) F5
16 14 (0.84%) Dell
16 14 (0.84%) Veritas