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

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 97 83
Rank change year-on-year +20 -14 +26
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,296 795 1,157
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.24% 2.57% 2.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.72% 2.87% 2.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 685 397 650
10th Percentile £275 £269 £206
25th Percentile £393 £388 £361
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £491
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% +1.78% -6.43%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £488 £450
% change year-on-year -7.69% +8.33% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 22 76
10th Percentile £13.13 £16.55 £11.98
25th Percentile £16.60 £22.94 £15.39
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.62 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.07% +41.02% -70.00%
75th Percentile £23.42 £33.96 £25.00
90th Percentile £40.20 £62.91 £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 34,804 27,718 38,790
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.01% 89.51% 87.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,033 16,994 25,434
10th Percentile £308 £306 £300
25th Percentile £408 £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 £480 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -3.25% -0.77% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,100 850 2,118
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.27
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.53
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -3.06% +3.15%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.78 £35.00
% change year-on-year -18.29% -12.06% +9.38%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +22 1,103 £500 - 310
UK excluding London +22 696 £450 -7.69% 259
London +25 529 £525 +1.69% 115
Work from Home +11 299 £490 -2.00% 183
North of England -13 202 £460 -3.16% 60
South East +8 161 £490 +0.26% 81
Yorkshire -3 116 £480 -11.72% 16
Scotland +18 114 £405 -14.84% 13
Midlands +7 108 £448 -8.21% 51
North West -27 71 £435 -8.53% 41
West Midlands -13 64 £475 -7.32% 33
South West +8 47 £500 +2.56% 32
East of England +6 45 £314 -37.25% 21
East Midlands +4 44 £437 -2.94% 18
North East -24 16 £400 -11.11% 3
Wales 0 14 £375 -26.83% 8
Northern Ireland - 9 £500 -

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 57 (4.40%) Confluence
2 29 (2.24%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.08%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.62%) Apache
5 8 (0.62%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.46%) CMS
7 4 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.23%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.23%) Hyperledger
8 3 (0.23%) SAS
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.15%) Drupal
9 2 (0.15%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.15%) nginx
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.15%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.077%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.077%) Luigi
Applications
1 50 (3.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (3.32%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.31%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.23%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.23%) Sketch
8 2 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.15%) InVision
8 2 (0.15%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.077%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.077%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.077%) Blender
9 1 (0.077%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.077%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.077%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 13 (1.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.85%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (0.69%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.39%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.23%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.23%) Fidessa
6 3 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.23%) R3 Corda
6 3 (0.23%) ResourceLink
6 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.15%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.15%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.077%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 240 (18.52%) Azure
2 214 (16.51%) AWS
3 98 (7.56%) GCP
4 62 (4.78%) Microsoft 365
5 61 (4.71%) Power Platform
6 56 (4.32%) Serverless
7 55 (4.24%) GitHub
8 51 (3.94%) Entra ID
9 42 (3.24%) AWS Lambda
10 41 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
10 41 (3.16%) SaaS
11 40 (3.09%) Amazon S3
12 30 (2.31%) AWS CloudFormation
13 28 (2.16%) Snowflake
14 24 (1.85%) GitHub Actions
14 24 (1.85%) Microsoft Purview
14 24 (1.85%) OpenShift
15 23 (1.77%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 21 (1.62%) OCI
17 20 (1.54%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.32%) Firewall
2 35 (2.70%) Network Security
3 25 (1.93%) SAN
4 19 (1.47%) LAN
4 19 (1.47%) MPLS
5 18 (1.39%) VPN
6 16 (1.23%) DNS
6 16 (1.23%) NAS
6 16 (1.23%) WAN
7 14 (1.08%) Cisco IPT
7 14 (1.08%) TCP/IP
8 9 (0.69%) SD-WAN
8 9 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
9 8 (0.62%) BGP
9 8 (0.62%) HTTP
9 8 (0.62%) SSH
9 8 (0.62%) VLAN
10 7 (0.54%) DHCP
11 6 (0.46%) Internet
11 6 (0.46%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (4.32%) Power BI
2 35 (2.70%) SQL Server
3 34 (2.62%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (1.77%) NoSQL
5 21 (1.62%) Data Warehouse
6 20 (1.54%) Metadata
6 20 (1.54%) Relational Database
7 18 (1.39%) MongoDB
7 18 (1.39%) MySQL
8 17 (1.31%) DynamoDB
9 15 (1.16%) Tableau
10 14 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
11 13 (1.00%) Data Lake
12 12 (0.93%) Amazon Aurora
13 11 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
14 10 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
14 10 (0.77%) Oracle Database
15 8 (0.62%) Big Data
15 8 (0.62%) Hadoop
15 8 (0.62%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 93 (7.18%) JIRA
2 53 (4.09%) Git
3 49 (3.78%) Jenkins
4 31 (2.39%) GitLab
5 11 (0.85%) JUnit
5 11 (0.85%) SpecFlow
6 6 (0.46%) Gradle
6 6 (0.46%) Maven
6 6 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.39%) NUnit
7 5 (0.39%) Team Foundation Server
8 4 (0.31%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.31%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.31%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.23%) Cypress.io
9 3 (0.23%) Postman
9 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.15%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.15%) TestNG
General
1 423 (32.64%) Social Skills
2 278 (21.45%) Finance
3 168 (12.96%) Analytical Skills
4 129 (9.95%) Public Sector
5 115 (8.87%) Banking
6 112 (8.64%) Legal
7 49 (3.78%) Organisational Skills
8 42 (3.24%) Documentation Skills
9 36 (2.78%) Telecoms
10 31 (2.39%) Marketing
11 29 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
12 22 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
13 21 (1.62%) Law
14 19 (1.47%) Front Office
14 19 (1.47%) Local Government
15 17 (1.31%) Manufacturing
16 14 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 13 (1.00%) Police
18 12 (0.93%) Retail
19 10 (0.77%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 156 (12.04%) Analyst
2 142 (10.96%) Architect
3 118 (9.10%) Developer
4 100 (7.72%) Lead
5 70 (5.40%) Senior
6 68 (5.25%) Business Analyst
7 65 (5.02%) Consultant
8 62 (4.78%) Project Manager
9 50 (3.86%) Solutions Architect
10 36 (2.78%) Administrator
11 31 (2.39%) Security Engineer
12 30 (2.31%) Data Analyst
13 28 (2.16%) Data Engineer
14 25 (1.93%) Security Architect
15 24 (1.85%) Network Engineer
16 23 (1.77%) Java Developer
17 22 (1.70%) Automation Engineer
17 22 (1.70%) Data Protection Officer
18 21 (1.62%) Python Developer
18 21 (1.62%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (4.24%) REST
2 45 (3.47%) React
3 36 (2.78%) .NET
4 33 (2.55%) Node.js
5 29 (2.24%) RESTful
6 26 (2.01%) Spring
7 23 (1.77%) Kafka
8 22 (1.70%) Spring Boot
9 21 (1.62%) OAuth
10 17 (1.31%) Middleware
11 16 (1.23%) HTML
11 16 (1.23%) PySpark
12 15 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
13 14 (1.08%) .NET Core
13 14 (1.08%) Playwright
14 13 (1.00%) SAML
15 12 (0.93%) AngularJS
15 12 (0.93%) Jest
16 9 (0.69%) JSON
16 9 (0.69%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 643 (49.61%) Data Protection Act
2 59 (4.55%) Cloud Native
3 55 (4.24%) Management Information System
3 55 (4.24%) Product Ownership
4 53 (4.09%) Onboarding
5 32 (2.47%) NHS
6 30 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
7 26 (2.01%) Freedom of Information
8 25 (1.93%) Legacy Systems
9 23 (1.77%) Data Structures
10 20 (1.54%) Data Centre
10 20 (1.54%) Security Posture
11 18 (1.39%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 15 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
12 15 (1.16%) Replication
13 13 (1.00%) Insider Threat
14 12 (0.93%) AI Agents
14 12 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
15 11 (0.85%) Algorithms
15 11 (0.85%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 93 (7.18%) Windows
2 67 (5.17%) Linux
3 25 (1.93%) Unix
4 18 (1.39%) Windows Server
5 16 (1.23%) Mac OS
6 12 (0.93%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (0.54%) Android
9 6 (0.46%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.46%) VMS
10 5 (0.39%) zOS
11 4 (0.31%) AIX
11 4 (0.31%) Solaris
12 3 (0.23%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.15%) CoreOS
14 1 (0.077%) CentOS
14 1 (0.077%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.077%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 226 (17.44%) Problem-Solving
2 223 (17.21%) Stakeholder Management
3 218 (16.82%) Agile
4 186 (14.35%) Migration
5 165 (12.73%) CI/CD
6 153 (11.81%) DevOps
7 143 (11.03%) Continuous Improvement
8 133 (10.26%) Cybersecurity
9 121 (9.34%) Roadmaps
10 119 (9.18%) AI
10 119 (9.18%) Analytics
11 117 (9.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 108 (8.33%) Information Security
13 104 (8.02%) Risk Management
14 101 (7.79%) Project Management
15 85 (6.56%) Test Automation
16 83 (6.40%) Decision-Making
16 83 (6.40%) Microservices
17 78 (6.02%) Incident Response
18 75 (5.79%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 216 (16.67%) Python
2 165 (12.73%) SQL
3 89 (6.87%) Java
4 65 (5.02%) JavaScript
5 60 (4.63%) PowerShell
6 55 (4.24%) C#
7 41 (3.16%) Bash
8 36 (2.78%) TypeScript
9 17 (1.31%) Bicep
10 13 (1.00%) C++
10 13 (1.00%) Shell Script
11 12 (0.93%) Perl
12 8 (0.62%) PL/SQL
13 7 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
14 6 (0.46%) ActionScript
14 6 (0.46%) ActionScript 2.0
14 6 (0.46%) PHP
15 4 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.31%) Groovy
15 4 (0.31%) Scala
Qualifications
1 165 (12.73%) Security Cleared
2 122 (9.41%) Degree
3 121 (9.34%) SC Cleared
4 45 (3.47%) DV Cleared
5 35 (2.70%) CISSP
6 33 (2.55%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
8 26 (2.01%) AWS Certification
9 24 (1.85%) CISM
9 24 (1.85%) Master's Degree
10 18 (1.39%) PMI Certification
11 16 (1.23%) PMP
12 15 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (1.08%) Azure Certification
13 14 (1.08%) CRISC
14 13 (1.00%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 13 (1.00%) CTC Cleared
15 10 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
16 9 (0.69%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 9 (0.69%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 227 (17.52%) GDPR
2 93 (7.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 80 (6.17%) NIST
4 66 (5.09%) Data Quality
5 50 (3.86%) QA
6 32 (2.47%) PCI DSS
7 27 (2.08%) Accessibility
8 23 (1.77%) GRC
9 21 (1.62%) PMO
10 15 (1.16%) SLA
11 14 (1.08%) Disclosure Scotland
11 14 (1.08%) NCSC
12 11 (0.85%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.77%) PERC
13 10 (0.77%) SOC 2
14 7 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
15 6 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 6 (0.46%) HIPAA
System Software
1 63 (4.86%) Docker
2 53 (4.09%) Active Directory
3 49 (3.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.77%) NFS
6 7 (0.54%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.39%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.39%) vSphere
8 3 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.15%) KVM
9 2 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.077%) Firmware
10 1 (0.077%) HDFS
10 1 (0.077%) IAG
10 1 (0.077%) ISA Server
10 1 (0.077%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.077%) UAG
Systems Management
1 82 (6.33%) Terraform
2 76 (5.86%) Kubernetes
3 55 (4.24%) Ansible
4 28 (2.16%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (2.01%) Grafana
6 25 (1.93%) NetBackup
7 22 (1.70%) Prometheus
8 19 (1.47%) SCCM
9 10 (0.77%) Puppet
9 10 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.62%) Oracle RMAN
11 6 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.46%) RSA Archer
12 5 (0.39%) Control-M
12 5 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
12 5 (0.39%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
14 3 (0.23%) Kibana
14 3 (0.23%) PingFederate
14 3 (0.23%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 191 (14.74%) Microsoft
2 65 (5.02%) Oracle
3 57 (4.40%) Google
4 51 (3.94%) VMware
5 40 (3.09%) Databricks
6 39 (3.01%) Cisco
7 36 (2.78%) SAP
8 31 (2.39%) ServiceNow
9 30 (2.31%) Salesforce
10 24 (1.85%) Red Hat
11 21 (1.62%) Citrix
12 20 (1.54%) Veritas
13 18 (1.39%) IBM
14 16 (1.23%) Commvault
15 15 (1.16%) F5
16 13 (1.00%) Adobe
16 13 (1.00%) Splunk
17 11 (0.85%) CyberArk
17 11 (0.85%) Informatica
17 11 (0.85%) OneTrust