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

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 99 83
Rank change year-on-year +21 -16 +25
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,282 793 1,158
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.21% 2.57% 2.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.69% 2.87% 2.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 674 397 644
10th Percentile £266 £269 £207
25th Percentile £393 £400 £372
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £449 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.53% +5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 23 77
10th Percentile £13.13 £16.85 £11.98
25th Percentile £16.72 £23.38 £15.39
Median hourly rate £20.71 £30.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.97% +42.86% -70.00%
75th Percentile £23.83 £35.58 £25.00
90th Percentile £42.50 £60.82 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.61 £29.62 £20.25
% change year-on-year -30.42% +46.25% -71.07%

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 34,716 27,671 39,074
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.89% 89.53% 87.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,993 16,979 25,588
10th Percentile £310 £306 £300
25th Percentile £409 £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 £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -3.43% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,102 844 2,136
10th Percentile £14.55 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.28
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -2.35% -1.12%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.29
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.27
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year -17.41% -13.00% +7.69%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +25 1,092 £500 - 323
UK excluding London +15 681 £449 -5.53% 267
London +31 530 £525 +1.45% 117
Work from Home +13 292 £500 - 168
North of England -14 201 £460 -3.16% 65
South East +12 151 £475 -2.81% 83
Yorkshire -4 114 £478 -11.16% 19
Scotland +12 112 £402 -10.61% 13
Midlands +11 106 £449 -5.53% 45
North West -26 72 £429 -9.68% 43
West Midlands -8 63 £475 -6.17% 31
South West -1 47 £500 +2.56% 35
East of England +6 45 £314 -37.25% 24
East Midlands +7 43 £438 -2.78% 14
North East -21 16 £400 -15.79% 3
Wales +4 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 58 (4.52%) Confluence
2 29 (2.26%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (0.62%) Apache Spark
5 7 (0.55%) Apache
6 6 (0.47%) CMS
7 4 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.23%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.23%) Hyperledger
8 3 (0.23%) SAS
9 2 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.16%) Drupal
9 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.16%) nginx
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.16%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.078%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.078%) Camunda
Applications
1 49 (3.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (3.28%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.55%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
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 12 (0.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.78%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.70%) Oracle EBS
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 (0.16%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.16%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.078%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 239 (18.64%) Azure
2 215 (16.77%) AWS
3 101 (7.88%) GCP
4 62 (4.84%) Power Platform
5 61 (4.76%) Microsoft 365
6 55 (4.29%) GitHub
7 54 (4.21%) Serverless
8 52 (4.06%) Entra ID
9 42 (3.28%) AWS Lambda
10 41 (3.20%) SaaS
11 40 (3.12%) Amazon S3
12 39 (3.04%) Azure DevOps
13 30 (2.34%) AWS CloudFormation
14 29 (2.26%) Snowflake
15 25 (1.95%) OpenShift
16 24 (1.87%) GitHub Actions
16 24 (1.87%) Microsoft Purview
17 23 (1.79%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 20 (1.56%) Amazon EC2
19 18 (1.40%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 42 (3.28%) Firewall
2 36 (2.81%) Network Security
3 26 (2.03%) SAN
4 19 (1.48%) LAN
4 19 (1.48%) MPLS
5 18 (1.40%) VPN
6 16 (1.25%) DNS
6 16 (1.25%) NAS
6 16 (1.25%) WAN
7 14 (1.09%) Cisco IPT
8 13 (1.01%) TCP/IP
9 9 (0.70%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.62%) BGP
10 8 (0.62%) HTTP
10 8 (0.62%) SSH
10 8 (0.62%) VLAN
11 7 (0.55%) DHCP
12 6 (0.47%) Internet
12 6 (0.47%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (4.45%) Power BI
2 34 (2.65%) SQL Server
3 33 (2.57%) PostgreSQL
4 21 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (1.64%) NoSQL
5 20 (1.56%) Metadata
6 19 (1.48%) Relational Database
7 18 (1.40%) MySQL
8 17 (1.33%) DynamoDB
9 16 (1.25%) MongoDB
10 14 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
10 14 (1.09%) Tableau
11 13 (1.01%) Data Lake
12 12 (0.94%) Amazon Aurora
13 10 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
13 10 (0.78%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.70%) Oracle Reports
15 8 (0.62%) Big Data
15 8 (0.62%) Hadoop
16 7 (0.55%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 94 (7.33%) JIRA
2 51 (3.98%) Git
3 50 (3.90%) Jenkins
4 30 (2.34%) GitLab
5 12 (0.94%) SpecFlow
6 11 (0.86%) JUnit
7 6 (0.47%) Gradle
7 6 (0.47%) Maven
7 6 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.39%) NUnit
8 5 (0.39%) Team Foundation Server
9 4 (0.31%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.31%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.31%) Fiddler
10 3 (0.23%) Cypress.io
10 3 (0.23%) Postman
10 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio
11 2 (0.16%) IntelliJ
11 2 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
11 2 (0.16%) TestNG
General
1 422 (32.92%) Social Skills
2 272 (21.22%) Finance
3 166 (12.95%) Analytical Skills
4 130 (10.14%) Public Sector
5 112 (8.74%) Banking
6 111 (8.66%) Legal
7 50 (3.90%) Organisational Skills
8 41 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
9 36 (2.81%) Telecoms
10 31 (2.42%) Marketing
11 29 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
12 22 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
13 19 (1.48%) Front Office
13 19 (1.48%) Local Government
14 16 (1.25%) Law
14 16 (1.25%) Manufacturing
15 14 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 13 (1.01%) Police
17 12 (0.94%) Retail
18 10 (0.78%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 152 (11.86%) Analyst
2 141 (11.00%) Architect
3 115 (8.97%) Developer
4 93 (7.25%) Lead
5 70 (5.46%) Senior
6 68 (5.30%) Business Analyst
7 67 (5.23%) Consultant
8 63 (4.91%) Project Manager
9 49 (3.82%) Solutions Architect
10 34 (2.65%) Administrator
11 30 (2.34%) Security Engineer
12 29 (2.26%) Data Analyst
13 28 (2.18%) Data Engineer
14 25 (1.95%) Security Architect
15 23 (1.79%) Java Developer
15 23 (1.79%) Network Engineer
16 22 (1.72%) Automation Engineer
16 22 (1.72%) Data Protection Officer
17 21 (1.64%) Support Engineer
18 20 (1.56%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (4.21%) REST
2 45 (3.51%) React
3 34 (2.65%) .NET
4 31 (2.42%) Node.js
5 28 (2.18%) RESTful
6 26 (2.03%) Spring
7 23 (1.79%) Kafka
8 22 (1.72%) Spring Boot
9 20 (1.56%) OAuth
10 17 (1.33%) Middleware
11 16 (1.25%) HTML
11 16 (1.25%) PySpark
12 15 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
12 15 (1.17%) Playwright
13 12 (0.94%) .NET Core
13 12 (0.94%) AngularJS
13 12 (0.94%) Jest
13 12 (0.94%) SAML
14 9 (0.70%) CSS
14 9 (0.70%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 642 (50.08%) Data Protection Act
2 59 (4.60%) Cloud Native
3 55 (4.29%) Management Information System
4 54 (4.21%) Product Ownership
5 53 (4.13%) Onboarding
6 32 (2.50%) NHS
7 28 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
8 25 (1.95%) Legacy Systems
9 22 (1.72%) Freedom of Information
10 20 (1.56%) Data Structures
11 19 (1.48%) Data Centre
11 19 (1.48%) Security Posture
12 18 (1.40%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 16 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
14 15 (1.17%) Replication
15 13 (1.01%) Insider Threat
16 12 (0.94%) AI Agents
16 12 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
17 11 (0.86%) Algorithms
17 11 (0.86%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 94 (7.33%) Windows
2 68 (5.30%) Linux
3 25 (1.95%) Unix
4 18 (1.40%) Windows Server
5 16 (1.25%) Mac OS
6 12 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.94%) Windows 10
7 7 (0.55%) VMS
8 6 (0.47%) Android
8 6 (0.47%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.39%) zOS
10 4 (0.31%) AIX
10 4 (0.31%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.31%) Solaris
11 3 (0.23%) CoreOS
12 1 (0.078%) CentOS
12 1 (0.078%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.078%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 227 (17.71%) Problem-Solving
2 222 (17.32%) Stakeholder Management
3 213 (16.61%) Agile
4 184 (14.35%) Migration
5 164 (12.79%) CI/CD
6 154 (12.01%) DevOps
7 146 (11.39%) Continuous Improvement
8 130 (10.14%) Cybersecurity
9 120 (9.36%) Roadmaps
10 119 (9.28%) Analytics
11 118 (9.20%) AI
12 117 (9.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 105 (8.19%) Information Security
14 104 (8.11%) Risk Management
15 102 (7.96%) Project Management
16 84 (6.55%) Test Automation
17 83 (6.47%) Decision-Making
18 81 (6.32%) Microservices
19 78 (6.08%) Incident Response
20 75 (5.85%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 214 (16.69%) Python
2 164 (12.79%) SQL
3 89 (6.94%) Java
4 65 (5.07%) JavaScript
5 60 (4.68%) PowerShell
6 53 (4.13%) C#
7 41 (3.20%) Bash
8 37 (2.89%) TypeScript
9 17 (1.33%) Bicep
10 13 (1.01%) Shell Script
11 12 (0.94%) C++
11 12 (0.94%) Perl
12 8 (0.62%) PL/SQL
13 7 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
14 6 (0.47%) ActionScript
14 6 (0.47%) ActionScript 2.0
14 6 (0.47%) PHP
15 4 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.31%) Groovy
15 4 (0.31%) Scala
Qualifications
1 162 (12.64%) Security Cleared
2 118 (9.20%) SC Cleared
3 117 (9.13%) Degree
4 41 (3.20%) DV Cleared
5 36 (2.81%) CISSP
6 30 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (2.11%) AWS Certification
8 26 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
9 24 (1.87%) CISM
9 24 (1.87%) Master's Degree
10 19 (1.48%) PMI Certification
11 17 (1.33%) PMP
12 16 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (1.09%) Azure Certification
13 14 (1.09%) CRISC
14 13 (1.01%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 13 (1.01%) CTC Cleared
15 10 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 10 (0.78%) CCSP
15 10 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 216 (16.85%) GDPR
2 90 (7.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 80 (6.24%) NIST
4 63 (4.91%) Data Quality
5 50 (3.90%) QA
6 32 (2.50%) PCI DSS
7 27 (2.11%) Accessibility
8 23 (1.79%) GRC
9 21 (1.64%) PMO
10 15 (1.17%) SLA
11 14 (1.09%) Disclosure Scotland
11 14 (1.09%) NCSC
12 11 (0.86%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.78%) PERC
13 10 (0.78%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
14 6 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.47%) HIPAA
15 5 (0.39%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 64 (4.99%) Docker
2 53 (4.13%) Active Directory
3 51 (3.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.17%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.86%) NFS
6 7 (0.55%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.47%) vSphere
8 5 (0.39%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.16%) KVM
10 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.078%) Firmware
11 1 (0.078%) HDFS
11 1 (0.078%) IAG
11 1 (0.078%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.078%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.078%) UAG
Systems Management
1 83 (6.47%) Terraform
2 79 (6.16%) Kubernetes
3 56 (4.37%) Ansible
4 27 (2.11%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (2.03%) Grafana
6 25 (1.95%) NetBackup
7 22 (1.72%) Prometheus
8 19 (1.48%) SCCM
9 11 (0.86%) Puppet
10 10 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.62%) Oracle RMAN
12 6 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.47%) RSA Archer
13 5 (0.39%) Control-M
13 5 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
13 5 (0.39%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
14 4 (0.31%) SnapMirror
15 3 (0.23%) Kibana
15 3 (0.23%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 188 (14.66%) Microsoft
2 62 (4.84%) Oracle
3 58 (4.52%) Google
4 53 (4.13%) VMware
5 41 (3.20%) Databricks
6 37 (2.89%) Cisco
7 34 (2.65%) SAP
8 31 (2.42%) ServiceNow
9 30 (2.34%) Salesforce
10 25 (1.95%) Red Hat
11 21 (1.64%) Citrix
12 20 (1.56%) Veritas
13 18 (1.40%) IBM
14 16 (1.25%) Commvault
15 15 (1.17%) F5
16 13 (1.01%) Adobe
16 13 (1.01%) Splunk
17 12 (0.94%) CyberArk
18 11 (0.86%) Informatica
18 11 (0.86%) OneTrust