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

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 76 88
Rank change year-on-year -5 +12 -4
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,664 1,053 970
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.07% 3.22% 2.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.64% 3.56% 2.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 861 495 524
10th Percentile £275 £300 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £367
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £465 £475
% change year-on-year -3.28% -2.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 51 18
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £18.14
25th Percentile £14.64 £13.60 £21.56
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £27.26
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -44.06% -1.08%
75th Percentile £24.75 £20.40 £61.65
90th Percentile £34.70 £36.48 £70.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +7.57%

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 45,698 29,594 32,877
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.42% 90.53% 85.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,784 18,388 20,318
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £726 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,048 1,782 1,485
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.44 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.50 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £66.95 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.22% -47.67% +7.50%

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 14 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 14 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Protection in the UK

Data Protection
Top 18 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 14 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 1,390 £500 +2.04% 1,682
UK excluding London 0 924 £450 -3.28% 948
London -24 598 £525 +2.44% 881
Work from Home +13 483 £500 +11.11% 728
North of England +9 324 £463 +2.78% 267
South East +14 199 £475 -8.30% 235
Yorkshire +11 159 £475 -5.00% 92
Midlands +3 152 £450 -5.26% 137
North West +11 146 £470 +7.12% 148
West Midlands +2 120 £450 -10.00% 91
Scotland -6 120 £434 +1.11% 79
South West -22 76 £425 +6.25% 113
East Midlands -8 32 £435 +8.75% 46
East of England -22 30 £515 +8.42% 92
Wales -1 22 £413 - 20
North East -47 20 £463 +15.63% 31
Northern Ireland +5 15 £110 -81.63% 17
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 -17.24% 2

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 65 (3.91%) SharePoint
2 41 (2.46%) Confluence
3 21 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
4 17 (1.02%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.66%) Apache
6 10 (0.60%) IIS
7 9 (0.54%) CMS
7 9 (0.54%) SAS
8 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.30%) WordPress
9 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.18%) CICS
10 3 (0.18%) nginx
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) Drupal
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
12 1 (0.060%) Cloud Foundry
12 1 (0.060%) Moodle
Applications
1 44 (2.64%) Microsoft Office
2 43 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
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 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
4 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
6 2 (0.12%) Endur
6 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 1 (0.060%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
7 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
7 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 373 (22.42%) Azure
2 298 (17.91%) AWS
3 132 (7.93%) GCP
4 131 (7.87%) Microsoft 365
5 80 (4.81%) Power Platform
6 79 (4.75%) Entra ID
7 74 (4.45%) SaaS
8 64 (3.85%) GitHub
9 63 (3.79%) Azure DevOps
10 53 (3.19%) Microsoft Purview
11 49 (2.94%) Serverless
12 35 (2.10%) Microsoft Copilot
13 27 (1.62%) AWS Lambda
14 26 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
14 26 (1.56%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.56%) OpenShift
15 24 (1.44%) Power Automate
16 23 (1.38%) PowerApps
17 20 (1.20%) Amazon S3
17 20 (1.20%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 86 (5.17%) Network Security
2 57 (3.43%) Firewall
3 36 (2.16%) DNS
4 32 (1.92%) VPN
5 26 (1.56%) DHCP
6 25 (1.50%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.26%) WAN
8 19 (1.14%) Cisco IPT
9 17 (1.02%) LAN
10 15 (0.90%) SAN
11 14 (0.84%) SSL
11 14 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
12 13 (0.78%) Wireless
13 11 (0.66%) MPLS
13 11 (0.66%) VoIP
14 10 (0.60%) HTTP
15 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
15 9 (0.54%) NAS
16 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
17 7 (0.42%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (3.55%) Power BI
2 48 (2.88%) Metadata
3 42 (2.52%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
5 35 (2.10%) SQL Server
6 31 (1.86%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.44%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.26%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.26%) MySQL
9 17 (1.02%) Big Data
10 16 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
10 16 (0.96%) BigQuery
11 14 (0.84%) MongoDB
12 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.60%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
15 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
15 8 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
15 8 (0.48%) Redis
16 7 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 84 (5.05%) JIRA
2 68 (4.09%) Git
3 52 (3.13%) Jenkins
4 27 (1.62%) GitLab
5 18 (1.08%) 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%) Postman
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) ERwin
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
10 4 (0.24%) Vite
11 3 (0.18%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 641 (38.52%) Social Skills
2 359 (21.57%) Finance
3 251 (15.08%) Legal
4 205 (12.32%) Public Sector
5 202 (12.14%) Analytical Skills
6 114 (6.85%) Banking
7 77 (4.63%) Documentation Skills
7 77 (4.63%) Organisational Skills
8 43 (2.58%) Influencing Skills
9 41 (2.46%) Retail
10 39 (2.34%) Local Government
11 33 (1.98%) Presentation Skills
12 31 (1.86%) Law
13 29 (1.74%) Front Office
14 28 (1.68%) Marketing
15 23 (1.38%) Telecoms
16 22 (1.32%) Billing
16 22 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
16 22 (1.32%) Police
17 16 (0.96%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 240 (14.42%) Architect
2 167 (10.04%) Analyst
3 140 (8.41%) Lead
4 127 (7.63%) Developer
5 121 (7.27%) Senior
6 86 (5.17%) Consultant
7 77 (4.63%) Project Manager
8 69 (4.15%) Business Analyst
9 67 (4.03%) Solutions Architect
10 61 (3.67%) Security Architect
11 46 (2.76%) Administrator
12 38 (2.28%) Security Engineer
13 36 (2.16%) Support Engineer
14 32 (1.92%) Data Analyst
15 31 (1.86%) Java Developer
16 29 (1.74%) Data Engineer
16 29 (1.74%) Information Officer
17 26 (1.56%) DevOps Engineer
17 26 (1.56%) Information Governance Officer
17 26 (1.56%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (5.71%) Terraform
2 86 (5.17%) REST
3 41 (2.46%) React
4 38 (2.28%) Kafka
5 36 (2.16%) Spring
6 34 (2.04%) JSON
6 34 (2.04%) Spring Boot
7 33 (1.98%) OAuth
8 31 (1.86%) CSS
8 31 (1.86%) HTML
9 28 (1.68%) Middleware
9 28 (1.68%) RESTful
10 26 (1.56%) .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
14 16 (0.96%) SOAP
15 15 (0.90%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 710 (42.67%) Data Protection Act
2 107 (6.43%) Management Information System
3 93 (5.59%) Product Ownership
4 88 (5.29%) Onboarding
5 86 (5.17%) Cloud Native
6 53 (3.19%) Distributed Systems
7 51 (3.06%) Data Centre
8 41 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
8 41 (2.46%) Virtual Team
9 39 (2.34%) Freedom of Information
10 37 (2.22%) Security Posture
11 29 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
12 28 (1.68%) NHS
13 26 (1.56%) Operational Technology
14 24 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
15 22 (1.32%) AI Agents
15 22 (1.32%) Mobile App
16 20 (1.20%) Data Structures
17 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
18 18 (1.08%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 129 (7.75%) Windows
2 80 (4.81%) Linux
3 34 (2.04%) Android
4 32 (1.92%) Apple iOS
4 32 (1.92%) Windows Server
5 28 (1.68%) Unix
6 23 (1.38%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.96%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.54%) zOS
10 4 (0.24%) VMS
11 3 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) CentOS
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.060%) Rocky
13 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 370 (22.24%) Stakeholder Management
2 316 (18.99%) Agile
3 288 (17.31%) Problem-Solving
4 283 (17.01%) Continuous Improvement
5 241 (14.48%) CI/CD
6 222 (13.34%) DevOps
7 220 (13.22%) AI
8 219 (13.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 211 (12.68%) Migration
10 208 (12.50%) Cybersecurity
11 157 (9.44%) Decision-Making
11 157 (9.44%) Roadmaps
12 147 (8.83%) Risk Management
13 144 (8.65%) Data Governance
13 144 (8.65%) Information Security
14 141 (8.47%) Analytics
14 141 (8.47%) Validation
15 140 (8.41%) Infrastructure as Code
16 114 (6.85%) Test Automation
17 110 (6.61%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 213 (12.80%) Python
2 160 (9.62%) SQL
3 98 (5.89%) Java
4 56 (3.37%) JavaScript
4 56 (3.37%) PowerShell
5 34 (2.04%) Bash
6 26 (1.56%) TypeScript
7 24 (1.44%) Go
8 19 (1.14%) C#
9 16 (0.96%) Apex Code
10 14 (0.84%) Bicep
10 14 (0.84%) Kotlin
11 12 (0.72%) Perl
12 10 (0.60%) C++
13 9 (0.54%) C
14 8 (0.48%) Scala
14 8 (0.48%) VB
15 7 (0.42%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.42%) VB6
16 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 270 (16.23%) Security Cleared
2 197 (11.84%) SC Cleared
3 108 (6.49%) Degree
4 83 (4.99%) CISSP
5 64 (3.85%) DV Cleared
6 51 (3.06%) CISM
7 42 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
8 40 (2.40%) Cisco Certification
9 33 (1.98%) Azure Certification
10 29 (1.74%) PMI Certification
11 26 (1.56%) PMP
12 25 (1.50%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 25 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
13 21 (1.26%) CCSP
14 19 (1.14%) AWS Certification
15 13 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.66%) CISA
16 11 (0.66%) CRISC
16 11 (0.66%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.60%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 238 (14.30%) GDPR
2 108 (6.49%) Data Quality
3 101 (6.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (4.51%) NIST
5 74 (4.45%) QA
6 47 (2.82%) GRC
7 46 (2.76%) Accessibility
8 25 (1.50%) PCI DSS
9 23 (1.38%) PMO
10 20 (1.20%) Cyber Essentials
11 19 (1.14%) NCSC
12 14 (0.84%) SLA
13 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 12 (0.72%) PERC
14 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
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 86 (5.17%) Active Directory
2 60 (3.61%) Docker
3 54 (3.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.60%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.60%) vSphere
6 7 (0.42%) NFS
7 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
9 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
9 3 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.12%) Firmware
10 2 (0.12%) GPFS
10 2 (0.12%) Time Sharing Option
10 2 (0.12%) Varnish
10 2 (0.12%) XenApp
10 2 (0.12%) XenDesktop
11 1 (0.060%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.060%) IAG
Systems Management
1 112 (6.73%) Kubernetes
2 47 (2.82%) Ansible
3 39 (2.34%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (1.44%) SCCM
5 21 (1.26%) Grafana
6 14 (0.84%) Prometheus
7 13 (0.78%) NetBackup
7 13 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.72%) Puppet
9 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
10 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (0.36%) CASB
10 6 (0.36%) Kibana
11 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
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%) Control-M
Vendors
1 349 (20.97%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.29%) ServiceNow
3 71 (4.27%) Google
4 70 (4.21%) Oracle
5 65 (3.91%) Cisco
6 55 (3.31%) VMware
7 41 (2.46%) Databricks
7 41 (2.46%) Splunk
8 33 (1.98%) Salesforce
9 32 (1.92%) SAP
10 27 (1.62%) Zscaler
11 21 (1.26%) IBM
11 21 (1.26%) Workday
12 20 (1.20%) CyberArk
13 19 (1.14%) Red Hat
14 17 (1.02%) F5
15 14 (0.84%) Citrix
15 14 (0.84%) Dell
15 14 (0.84%) NetApp
16 13 (0.78%) Dynatrace