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

6 months to
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 98 85
Rank change year-on-year +24 -13 +19
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,418 763 1,101
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.26% 2.61% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.79% 2.88% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 770 401 617
10th Percentile £299 £263 £209
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £695 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 24 109
10th Percentile £16.07 £17.15 £12.45
25th Percentile £17.03 £24.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.62 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.07% +51.87% -70.45%
75th Percentile £25.50 £33.59 £27.00
90th Percentile £53.60 £56.60 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £19.50
% change year-on-year -29.15% +49.90% -70.45%

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 37,403 26,465 38,354
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.99% 90.45% 86.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,742 17,048 24,949
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £611 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -1.54% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,201 924 2,323
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.25 £12.99
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.41 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £31.64 £31.13
% change year-on-year -11.50% +1.65% -11.14%

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 20 March 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 20 March 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 20 March 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 +31 1,212 £500 - 390
UK excluding London +20 752 £450 -5.26% 299
London +30 578 £525 +5.00% 143
Work from Home +27 357 £500 +2.04% 155
North of England -6 233 £475 - 91
South East +17 179 £483 -1.43% 77
Yorkshire -10 135 £496 -5.48% 29
Scotland +17 116 £411 -12.51% 12
Midlands -10 104 £449 -7.95% 51
North West -5 90 £450 -5.26% 57
West Midlands -33 65 £500 -1.23% 26
South West +9 53 £500 +33.33% 29
East of England +15 50 £450 -25.00% 36
East Midlands -8 39 £436 +5.70% 25
Wales -1 14 £375 -11.76% 5
North East -28 9 £400 -15.79% 5
Northern Ireland - 7 £500 - 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 59 (4.16%) Confluence
2 37 (2.61%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
4 9 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.56%) Apache
6 3 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 3 (0.21%) CMS
6 3 (0.21%) Ethereum
6 3 (0.21%) Hyperledger
7 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.14%) Drupal
7 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
7 2 (0.14%) nginx
7 2 (0.14%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.14%) SAS
7 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.071%) Mule
Applications
1 52 (3.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (3.03%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.071%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.071%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.071%) Blender
7 1 (0.071%) CINEMA 4D
7 1 (0.071%) InVision
7 1 (0.071%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.071%) Sketch
7 1 (0.071%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.85%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.35%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.28%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.28%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 3 (0.21%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.21%) Fidessa
6 3 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.21%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.14%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.14%) Workfront
8 1 (0.071%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 286 (20.17%) Azure
2 221 (15.59%) AWS
3 115 (8.11%) GCP
4 81 (5.71%) Microsoft 365
5 77 (5.43%) Power Platform
6 71 (5.01%) Entra ID
7 65 (4.58%) GitHub
8 57 (4.02%) Serverless
9 50 (3.53%) SaaS
10 41 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
10 41 (2.89%) Microsoft Purview
11 39 (2.75%) Amazon S3
11 39 (2.75%) Azure DevOps
12 36 (2.54%) OpenShift
13 32 (2.26%) AWS CloudFormation
14 31 (2.19%) Snowflake
15 26 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
16 24 (1.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 21 (1.48%) Azure AKS
17 21 (1.48%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 47 (3.31%) Network Security
2 37 (2.61%) Firewall
3 35 (2.47%) SAN
4 22 (1.55%) VPN
5 21 (1.48%) NAS
6 19 (1.34%) DNS
7 18 (1.27%) LAN
7 18 (1.27%) WAN
8 17 (1.20%) MPLS
9 15 (1.06%) Cisco IPT
10 14 (0.99%) TCP/IP
11 11 (0.78%) SD-WAN
12 10 (0.71%) HTTP
12 10 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
13 9 (0.63%) BGP
13 9 (0.63%) DHCP
13 9 (0.63%) Fibre Channel
13 9 (0.63%) VLAN
14 8 (0.56%) IPv4
14 8 (0.56%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (4.80%) Power BI
2 39 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
3 36 (2.54%) SQL Server
4 30 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
5 28 (1.97%) Metadata
6 19 (1.34%) NoSQL
6 19 (1.34%) Relational Database
7 17 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
7 17 (1.20%) MongoDB
7 17 (1.20%) MySQL
8 16 (1.13%) Data Lake
8 16 (1.13%) DynamoDB
9 14 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
10 12 (0.85%) Oracle Database
10 12 (0.85%) Tableau
11 11 (0.78%) Amazon Aurora
11 11 (0.78%) Big Data
12 9 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 8 (0.56%) Aerospike
13 8 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 96 (6.77%) JIRA
2 65 (4.58%) Jenkins
3 64 (4.51%) Git
4 38 (2.68%) GitLab
5 12 (0.85%) SpecFlow
6 11 (0.78%) JUnit
7 10 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
8 8 (0.56%) Gradle
9 7 (0.49%) Maven
10 6 (0.42%) NUnit
11 5 (0.35%) Bitbucket
11 5 (0.35%) Flyway
11 5 (0.35%) Postman
11 5 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
12 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
12 4 (0.28%) Fiddler
12 4 (0.28%) Liquibase
13 3 (0.21%) IntelliJ
13 3 (0.21%) Selenium
13 3 (0.21%) TestNG
General
1 448 (31.59%) Social Skills
2 312 (22.00%) Finance
3 187 (13.19%) Analytical Skills
4 157 (11.07%) Legal
5 142 (10.01%) Public Sector
6 114 (8.04%) Banking
7 60 (4.23%) Organisational Skills
8 45 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
9 40 (2.82%) Telecoms
10 30 (2.12%) Marketing
11 29 (2.05%) Presentation Skills
12 28 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
13 26 (1.83%) Front Office
14 22 (1.55%) Local Government
15 21 (1.48%) Law
16 17 (1.20%) Police
17 14 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 14 (0.99%) Retail
18 13 (0.92%) Manufacturing
19 11 (0.78%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 186 (13.12%) Architect
2 151 (10.65%) Analyst
3 112 (7.90%) Developer
4 107 (7.55%) Lead
5 86 (6.06%) Senior
6 72 (5.08%) Consultant
7 71 (5.01%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.72%) Business Analyst
9 57 (4.02%) Solutions Architect
10 37 (2.61%) Data Engineer
11 36 (2.54%) Security Engineer
12 33 (2.33%) Network Engineer
13 32 (2.26%) Security Architect
14 31 (2.19%) Administrator
15 30 (2.12%) Technical Architect
16 25 (1.76%) Data Analyst
16 25 (1.76%) Java Developer
17 23 (1.62%) Automation Engineer
18 21 (1.48%) Data Protection Officer
18 21 (1.48%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (4.58%) REST
2 48 (3.39%) React
3 37 (2.61%) .NET
4 32 (2.26%) Node.js
5 29 (2.05%) Kafka
6 28 (1.97%) Middleware
7 26 (1.83%) RESTful
7 26 (1.83%) Spring
8 22 (1.55%) OAuth
8 22 (1.55%) Spring Boot
9 18 (1.27%) Oracle Fusion
10 17 (1.20%) Playwright
11 16 (1.13%) HTML
12 15 (1.06%) .NET Core
12 15 (1.06%) PySpark
13 13 (0.92%) Jest
13 13 (0.92%) JSON
14 12 (0.85%) AngularJS
14 12 (0.85%) CSS
15 10 (0.71%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 678 (47.81%) Data Protection Act
2 79 (5.57%) Cloud Native
3 68 (4.80%) Product Ownership
4 61 (4.30%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.60%) Management Information System
6 31 (2.19%) Legacy Systems
7 30 (2.12%) NHS
8 29 (2.05%) Distributed Systems
9 28 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
9 28 (1.97%) Replication
10 27 (1.90%) Security Posture
11 26 (1.83%) Data Centre
12 21 (1.48%) Freedom of Information
13 20 (1.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 19 (1.34%) Enterprise Storage
15 18 (1.27%) Data Structures
16 14 (0.99%) Derivative
16 14 (0.99%) Insider Threat
17 13 (0.92%) AI Agents
17 13 (0.92%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 103 (7.26%) Windows
2 71 (5.01%) Linux
3 25 (1.76%) Unix
4 21 (1.48%) Windows Server
5 18 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.92%) VMS
6 13 (0.92%) Windows 10
7 12 (0.85%) Mac OS
8 8 (0.56%) Android
8 8 (0.56%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.56%) zOS
9 7 (0.49%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (0.42%) CoreOS
11 5 (0.35%) Solaris
12 4 (0.28%) AIX
13 2 (0.14%) Rocky
13 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.071%) CentOS
14 1 (0.071%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 251 (17.70%) Problem-Solving
2 237 (16.71%) Agile
3 236 (16.64%) Stakeholder Management
4 217 (15.30%) Migration
5 197 (13.89%) CI/CD
6 189 (13.33%) DevOps
7 176 (12.41%) Continuous Improvement
8 139 (9.80%) Analytics
8 139 (9.80%) Cybersecurity
8 139 (9.80%) Roadmaps
9 129 (9.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 124 (8.74%) AI
11 113 (7.97%) Risk Management
12 112 (7.90%) Information Security
13 103 (7.26%) Decision-Making
14 99 (6.98%) Data Governance
14 99 (6.98%) Project Management
15 98 (6.91%) Infrastructure as Code
16 96 (6.77%) Test Automation
17 92 (6.49%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 218 (15.37%) Python
2 176 (12.41%) SQL
3 104 (7.33%) Java
4 65 (4.58%) JavaScript
5 62 (4.37%) PowerShell
6 54 (3.81%) C#
7 39 (2.75%) Bash
8 38 (2.68%) TypeScript
9 19 (1.34%) Bicep
10 12 (0.85%) C++
11 11 (0.78%) Perl
11 11 (0.78%) Shell Script
12 8 (0.56%) ActionScript
12 8 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
12 8 (0.56%) PL/SQL
13 6 (0.42%) ActionScript 2.0
14 5 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 5 (0.35%) Go
15 4 (0.28%) Groovy
15 4 (0.28%) Scala
Qualifications
1 198 (13.96%) Security Cleared
2 139 (9.80%) SC Cleared
3 128 (9.03%) Degree
4 52 (3.67%) DV Cleared
5 46 (3.24%) CISSP
6 36 (2.54%) Computer Science Degree
7 30 (2.12%) CISM
8 29 (2.05%) AWS Certification
9 27 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
10 26 (1.83%) PMI Certification
11 22 (1.55%) Azure Certification
11 22 (1.55%) PMP
12 21 (1.48%) Master's Degree
13 20 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
14 19 (1.34%) Microsoft Certification
15 15 (1.06%) CTC Cleared
16 14 (0.99%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 11 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 11 (0.78%) CCSP
18 10 (0.71%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 252 (17.77%) GDPR
2 92 (6.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 90 (6.35%) NIST
4 70 (4.94%) Data Quality
5 61 (4.30%) QA
6 31 (2.19%) PCI DSS
7 30 (2.12%) Accessibility
8 26 (1.83%) GRC
8 26 (1.83%) PMO
9 22 (1.55%) SLA
10 18 (1.27%) NCSC
11 16 (1.13%) SOC 2
12 14 (0.99%) Disclosure Scotland
13 12 (0.85%) PERC
13 12 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.78%) NIST 800
15 7 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 7 (0.49%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.42%) COBIT
16 6 (0.42%) WCAG
System Software
1 70 (4.94%) Docker
2 66 (4.65%) Active Directory
3 53 (3.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (1.34%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (1.20%) NFS
6 12 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.71%) vSphere
8 9 (0.63%) Hyper-V
9 8 (0.56%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.35%) KVM
10 5 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
11 4 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.21%) IAG
12 3 (0.21%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.21%) Time Sharing Option
13 2 (0.14%) XenApp
13 2 (0.14%) XenDesktop
14 1 (0.071%) Firmware
14 1 (0.071%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 103 (7.26%) Terraform
2 101 (7.12%) Kubernetes
3 71 (5.01%) Ansible
4 36 (2.54%) Grafana
5 31 (2.19%) Microsoft Intune
5 31 (2.19%) NetBackup
6 27 (1.90%) Prometheus
7 19 (1.34%) SCCM
8 16 (1.13%) Puppet
8 16 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 7 (0.49%) SnapMirror
11 6 (0.42%) EMC NetWorker
11 6 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
12 5 (0.35%) Control-M
12 5 (0.35%) Oracle RMAN
12 5 (0.35%) RSA Archer
12 5 (0.35%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.28%) Foglight
13 4 (0.28%) Kibana
Vendors
1 224 (15.80%) Microsoft
2 68 (4.80%) Oracle
3 63 (4.44%) Google
4 55 (3.88%) VMware
5 50 (3.53%) Databricks
6 43 (3.03%) ServiceNow
7 41 (2.89%) Cisco
7 41 (2.89%) SAP
8 34 (2.40%) Red Hat
8 34 (2.40%) Salesforce
9 22 (1.55%) Commvault
9 22 (1.55%) NetApp
9 22 (1.55%) Veritas
10 21 (1.48%) Citrix
10 21 (1.48%) IBM
11 18 (1.27%) F5
12 16 (1.13%) Veeam
13 14 (0.99%) Adobe
13 14 (0.99%) Splunk
14 12 (0.85%) Workday