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

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 96 78
Rank change year-on-year +25 -18 +32
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,280 805 1,217
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.33% 2.59% 2.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.82% 2.90% 3.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 667 403 700
10th Percentile £276 £264 £210
25th Percentile £396 £400 £361
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £597 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 21 75
10th Percentile £13.22 £16.25 £11.97
25th Percentile £16.59 £22.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.15% +39.19% -70.00%
75th Percentile £20.79 £34.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £42.50 £65.00 £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 33,490 27,717 39,322
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.15% 89.21% 87.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,205 16,795 25,884
10th Percentile £305 £307 £300
25th Percentile £406 £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 £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £479 £499 £500
% change year-on-year -4.06% -0.15% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,020 865 2,103
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +7.69%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £61.25
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.98 £35.25
% change year-on-year -20.23% -12.12% +21.55%

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 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 2 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 2 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 +21 1,090 £500 - 389
UK excluding London +14 678 £450 -5.26% 335
London +24 537 £525 +3.45% 119
Work from Home +17 289 £500 - 197
North of England -14 195 £450 -5.26% 81
South East +15 153 £490 +0.51% 88
Scotland +16 117 £402 -15.32% 20
Yorkshire -2 110 £475 -11.63% 22
Midlands +6 99 £447 -10.55% 72
North West -28 69 £429 -9.68% 50
West Midlands -7 60 £488 -4.88% 47
South West +1 49 £475 -1.30% 40
East of England +8 45 £314 -37.25% 24
East Midlands +7 39 £437 -3.37% 25
North East -21 17 £400 -11.11% 9
Wales +4 14 £388 -24.39% 13
Northern Ireland - 10 £500 - 5

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 (4.53%) Confluence
2 27 (2.11%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
4 10 (0.78%) CMS
5 8 (0.63%) Apache
5 8 (0.63%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.23%) Ethereum
7 3 (0.23%) Hyperledger
7 3 (0.23%) SAS
8 2 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.16%) CICS
8 2 (0.16%) Drupal
8 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.16%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.078%) Cloud Foundry
9 1 (0.078%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 51 (3.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (3.05%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.55%) MS Visio
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 13 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.86%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (0.70%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.23%) Distributed Ledger
5 3 (0.23%) Fidessa
5 3 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (0.23%) R3 Corda
5 3 (0.23%) ResourceLink
6 2 (0.16%) assyst
6 2 (0.16%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.16%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.16%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.16%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 235 (18.36%) Azure
2 206 (16.09%) AWS
3 92 (7.19%) GCP
4 70 (5.47%) Power Platform
5 63 (4.92%) Microsoft 365
6 56 (4.38%) Serverless
7 51 (3.98%) Entra ID
8 48 (3.75%) GitHub
9 45 (3.52%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (3.28%) AWS Lambda
11 40 (3.13%) SaaS
12 39 (3.05%) Amazon S3
13 30 (2.34%) Snowflake
14 28 (2.19%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (2.11%) Power Automate
16 23 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (1.72%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 21 (1.64%) Microsoft Purview
18 21 (1.64%) OCI
19 19 (1.48%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 42 (3.28%) Firewall
2 34 (2.66%) Network Security
3 22 (1.72%) SAN
4 19 (1.48%) LAN
4 19 (1.48%) MPLS
5 18 (1.41%) VPN
6 16 (1.25%) DNS
6 16 (1.25%) WAN
7 15 (1.17%) NAS
8 14 (1.09%) Cisco IPT
8 14 (1.09%) TCP/IP
9 9 (0.70%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.63%) BGP
10 8 (0.63%) SSH
10 8 (0.63%) VLAN
11 7 (0.55%) DHCP
11 7 (0.55%) HTTP
11 7 (0.55%) Internet
12 6 (0.47%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (4.38%) Power BI
2 35 (2.73%) SQL Server
3 33 (2.58%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.72%) NoSQL
5 20 (1.56%) Data Warehouse
5 20 (1.56%) Metadata
6 18 (1.41%) Relational Database
7 16 (1.25%) MongoDB
7 16 (1.25%) MySQL
8 15 (1.17%) DynamoDB
8 15 (1.17%) Tableau
9 14 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
10 12 (0.94%) Amazon Aurora
10 12 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
11 11 (0.86%) Data Lake
12 9 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
12 9 (0.70%) Oracle Database
13 8 (0.63%) Hadoop
13 8 (0.63%) Oracle BI Publisher
14 7 (0.55%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 98 (7.66%) JIRA
2 50 (3.91%) Git
3 47 (3.67%) Jenkins
4 33 (2.58%) GitLab
5 11 (0.86%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.78%) JUnit
7 6 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.39%) Gradle
8 5 (0.39%) Maven
8 5 (0.39%) NUnit
9 4 (0.31%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.31%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.31%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.31%) Fiddler
9 4 (0.31%) Team Foundation Server
10 3 (0.23%) Postman
10 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio
11 2 (0.16%) git-flow
11 2 (0.16%) Katalon Studio
11 2 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
General
1 429 (33.52%) Social Skills
2 266 (20.78%) Finance
3 167 (13.05%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (10.47%) Public Sector
5 107 (8.36%) Banking
6 97 (7.58%) Legal
7 48 (3.75%) Organisational Skills
8 38 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
8 38 (2.97%) Telecoms
9 35 (2.73%) Marketing
10 30 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (1.72%) Law
11 22 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
12 20 (1.56%) Front Office
12 20 (1.56%) Manufacturing
13 18 (1.41%) Local Government
14 14 (1.09%) Retail
15 12 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 12 (0.94%) Police
16 10 (0.78%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 159 (12.42%) Analyst
2 134 (10.47%) Developer
3 130 (10.16%) Architect
4 96 (7.50%) Lead
5 72 (5.63%) Senior
6 69 (5.39%) Business Analyst
7 66 (5.16%) Consultant
8 62 (4.84%) Project Manager
9 44 (3.44%) Solutions Architect
10 36 (2.81%) Administrator
11 30 (2.34%) Security Engineer
12 29 (2.27%) Data Analyst
12 29 (2.27%) Data Engineer
13 23 (1.80%) Network Engineer
14 22 (1.72%) Automation Engineer
14 22 (1.72%) Data Protection Officer
15 21 (1.64%) Security Architect
15 21 (1.64%) Support Engineer
16 20 (1.56%) Java Developer
17 19 (1.48%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (4.61%) REST
2 38 (2.97%) React
3 36 (2.81%) .NET
4 33 (2.58%) Node.js
5 28 (2.19%) RESTful
6 25 (1.95%) Spring
7 23 (1.80%) Kafka
7 23 (1.80%) OAuth
8 21 (1.64%) Spring Boot
9 19 (1.48%) Middleware
10 15 (1.17%) HTML
10 15 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
10 15 (1.17%) SOAP
11 14 (1.09%) .NET Core
11 14 (1.09%) Playwright
11 14 (1.09%) PySpark
12 13 (1.02%) SAML
13 12 (0.94%) AngularJS
14 10 (0.78%) Jest
15 9 (0.70%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 635 (49.61%) Data Protection Act
2 54 (4.22%) Cloud Native
2 54 (4.22%) Product Ownership
3 53 (4.14%) Management Information System
3 53 (4.14%) Onboarding
4 31 (2.42%) NHS
5 30 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
6 26 (2.03%) Freedom of Information
7 23 (1.80%) Data Structures
8 21 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
9 20 (1.56%) Security Posture
10 17 (1.33%) CMDB
10 17 (1.33%) Data Centre
10 17 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 16 (1.25%) Replication
11 16 (1.25%) Virtual Team
12 13 (1.02%) AI Agents
12 13 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
12 13 (1.02%) Insider Threat
13 12 (0.94%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 92 (7.19%) Windows
2 64 (5.00%) Linux
3 23 (1.80%) Unix
4 17 (1.33%) Windows Server
5 16 (1.25%) Mac OS
6 13 (1.02%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (0.55%) Android
8 7 (0.55%) zOS
9 5 (0.39%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.39%) VMS
10 4 (0.31%) AIX
10 4 (0.31%) Solaris
11 1 (0.078%) CentOS
11 1 (0.078%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.078%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.078%) VME
11 1 (0.078%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 232 (18.13%) Problem-Solving
2 228 (17.81%) Agile
3 214 (16.72%) Stakeholder Management
4 170 (13.28%) Migration
5 162 (12.66%) CI/CD
6 156 (12.19%) DevOps
7 132 (10.31%) Continuous Improvement
8 127 (9.92%) Analytics
9 125 (9.77%) Cybersecurity
10 122 (9.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 120 (9.38%) AI
12 119 (9.30%) Roadmaps
13 106 (8.28%) Project Management
14 101 (7.89%) Information Security
15 99 (7.73%) Risk Management
16 81 (6.33%) Microservices
17 80 (6.25%) Test Automation
18 77 (6.02%) Business Intelligence
19 75 (5.86%) Decision-Making
20 73 (5.70%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 217 (16.95%) Python
2 162 (12.66%) SQL
3 81 (6.33%) Java
4 65 (5.08%) JavaScript
5 63 (4.92%) PowerShell
6 54 (4.22%) C#
7 46 (3.59%) Bash
8 35 (2.73%) TypeScript
9 16 (1.25%) Bicep
10 13 (1.02%) C++
11 12 (0.94%) Shell Script
12 11 (0.86%) Perl
13 7 (0.55%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.47%) ActionScript
14 6 (0.47%) ActionScript 2.0
14 6 (0.47%) PHP
15 5 (0.39%) Scala
16 4 (0.31%) Go
16 4 (0.31%) R
17 3 (0.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 169 (13.20%) Security Cleared
2 124 (9.69%) SC Cleared
3 113 (8.83%) Degree
4 44 (3.44%) DV Cleared
5 30 (2.34%) CISSP
6 29 (2.27%) Computer Science Degree
7 24 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
7 24 (1.88%) CISM
8 23 (1.80%) AWS Certification
9 22 (1.72%) Master's Degree
10 18 (1.41%) PMI Certification
11 16 (1.25%) PMP
12 14 (1.09%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (1.02%) CTC Cleared
14 12 (0.94%) Azure Certification
14 12 (0.94%) CRISC
15 10 (0.78%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 10 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
16 9 (0.70%) A+ Certification
16 9 (0.70%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 216 (16.88%) GDPR
2 90 (7.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 76 (5.94%) NIST
4 57 (4.45%) Data Quality
5 42 (3.28%) QA
6 31 (2.42%) PCI DSS
7 28 (2.19%) Accessibility
8 20 (1.56%) GRC
9 19 (1.48%) PMO
10 14 (1.09%) NCSC
11 13 (1.02%) Disclosure Scotland
11 13 (1.02%) SLA
12 11 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials
12 11 (0.86%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.86%) PERC
12 11 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 8 (0.63%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
14 6 (0.47%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 6 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 58 (4.53%) Docker
2 55 (4.30%) Active Directory
3 48 (3.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.17%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (0.63%) NFS
6 7 (0.55%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.39%) VMware NSX
8 3 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.16%) KVM
9 2 (0.16%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.078%) Firmware
10 1 (0.078%) HDFS
10 1 (0.078%) ISA Server
10 1 (0.078%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.078%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.078%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.078%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 77 (6.02%) Terraform
2 66 (5.16%) Kubernetes
3 56 (4.38%) Ansible
4 27 (2.11%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (1.95%) NetBackup
6 24 (1.88%) Grafana
7 22 (1.72%) SCCM
8 20 (1.56%) Prometheus
9 9 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.63%) Oracle RMAN
11 7 (0.55%) Puppet
12 6 (0.47%) RSA Archer
13 5 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 5 (0.39%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.31%) Control-M
14 4 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
14 4 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
15 3 (0.23%) Argo
15 3 (0.23%) Kibana
15 3 (0.23%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 192 (15.00%) Microsoft
2 64 (5.00%) Oracle
3 57 (4.45%) Google
4 50 (3.91%) VMware
5 38 (2.97%) Cisco
5 38 (2.97%) ServiceNow
6 37 (2.89%) Databricks
7 36 (2.81%) SAP
8 31 (2.42%) Salesforce
9 22 (1.72%) Citrix
9 22 (1.72%) Red Hat
10 20 (1.56%) Veritas
11 18 (1.41%) IBM
12 17 (1.33%) Commvault
13 15 (1.17%) F5
14 14 (1.09%) Splunk
15 12 (0.94%) Adobe
16 11 (0.86%) Informatica
16 11 (0.86%) OneTrust
16 11 (0.86%) Veeam