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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 75 88
Rank change year-on-year -9 +13 -4
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,671 1,078 985
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.07% 3.30% 2.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 3.65% 2.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 872 511 522
10th Percentile £263 £289 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £612
90th Percentile £688 £675 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £460 £478
% change year-on-year -2.17% -3.66% +0.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 53 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.25 £13.60 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -45.22% +10.85%
75th Percentile £24.50 £20.40 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £36.16 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +13.02%

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 45,811 29,562 32,919
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.30% 90.52% 85.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,773 18,345 20,161
10th Percentile £325 £300 £309
25th Percentile £425 £404 £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 £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,152 1,818 1,440
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +0.58%
75th Percentile £67.47 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £66.15 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.06 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.00% -48.10% +1.18%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -11 1,390 £500 +2.04% 2,057
UK excluding London -2 937 £450 -2.17% 1,143
London -24 585 £525 +0.96% 1,069
Work from Home +18 470 £500 +9.29% 843
North of England +8 334 £463 +1.93% 330
South East +2 197 £475 -5.94% 271
Yorkshire +9 166 £475 -6.17% 114
Midlands +1 158 £450 -5.26% 169
North West +15 147 £452 +1.52% 186
West Midlands +4 126 £450 -10.00% 119
Scotland -12 120 £434 +2.06% 89
South West -18 74 £425 +6.25% 115
East Midlands -6 32 £435 +8.75% 50
East of England -16 32 £503 +5.79% 114
North East -48 22 £463 +15.63% 34
Wales -3 21 £413 - 35
Northern Ireland +5 15 £110 -81.63% 29
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 -17.24% 4

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 69 (4.13%) SharePoint
2 39 (2.33%) Confluence
3 23 (1.38%) Apache Airflow
4 22 (1.32%) Microsoft Exchange
5 17 (1.02%) Apache Spark
6 11 (0.66%) IIS
7 10 (0.60%) Apache
7 10 (0.60%) CMS
7 10 (0.60%) SAS
8 6 (0.36%) WordPress
9 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
10 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.18%) CICS
11 3 (0.18%) nginx
11 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.12%) Drupal
12 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
13 1 (0.060%) MQSeries
13 1 (0.060%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 47 (2.81%) Microsoft Excel
1 47 (2.81%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
3 8 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
5 1 (0.060%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.060%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.060%) Maya
5 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.48%) SAP MDG
4 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Endur
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 1 (0.060%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.060%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
8 1 (0.060%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 375 (22.44%) Azure
2 305 (18.25%) AWS
3 135 (8.08%) GCP
4 132 (7.90%) Microsoft 365
5 80 (4.79%) Entra ID
5 80 (4.79%) Power Platform
6 76 (4.55%) SaaS
7 65 (3.89%) Azure DevOps
8 61 (3.65%) GitHub
9 55 (3.29%) Microsoft Purview
10 48 (2.87%) Serverless
11 39 (2.33%) Microsoft Copilot
12 27 (1.62%) OneDrive
13 26 (1.56%) AWS Lambda
14 25 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
14 25 (1.50%) OpenShift
15 22 (1.32%) Power Automate
15 22 (1.32%) PowerApps
16 20 (1.20%) Amazon S3
16 20 (1.20%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 90 (5.39%) Network Security
2 61 (3.65%) Firewall
3 36 (2.15%) DNS
3 36 (2.15%) VPN
4 26 (1.56%) DHCP
5 25 (1.50%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.26%) WAN
7 19 (1.14%) Cisco IPT
8 17 (1.02%) LAN
9 15 (0.90%) SAN
10 14 (0.84%) SSL
10 14 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.78%) Wireless
12 10 (0.60%) HTTP
12 10 (0.60%) MPLS
12 10 (0.60%) VoIP
13 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
13 9 (0.54%) NAS
14 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
14 7 (0.42%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (3.59%) Power BI
2 53 (3.17%) Metadata
3 43 (2.57%) Relational Database
4 36 (2.15%) PostgreSQL
5 33 (1.97%) SQL Server
6 30 (1.80%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.44%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.26%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.26%) MySQL
9 19 (1.14%) BigQuery
10 16 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
11 15 (0.90%) Big Data
12 13 (0.78%) MongoDB
13 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
14 9 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
14 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
14 9 (0.54%) Oracle Database
15 8 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
15 8 (0.48%) Redis
16 7 (0.42%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 85 (5.09%) JIRA
2 68 (4.07%) Git
3 58 (3.47%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.56%) GitLab
5 18 (1.08%) Selenium
6 10 (0.60%) Maven
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.60%) Postman
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) ERwin
11 3 (0.18%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 654 (39.14%) Social Skills
2 359 (21.48%) Finance
3 249 (14.90%) Legal
4 213 (12.75%) Analytical Skills
5 210 (12.57%) Public Sector
6 116 (6.94%) Banking
7 77 (4.61%) Documentation Skills
7 77 (4.61%) Organisational Skills
8 43 (2.57%) Influencing Skills
8 43 (2.57%) Local Government
9 41 (2.45%) Retail
10 36 (2.15%) Presentation Skills
11 32 (1.92%) Law
12 28 (1.68%) Marketing
13 27 (1.62%) Front Office
14 24 (1.44%) Telecoms
15 22 (1.32%) Billing
16 21 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
16 21 (1.26%) Police
17 15 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 249 (14.90%) Architect
2 168 (10.05%) Analyst
3 140 (8.38%) Lead
4 126 (7.54%) Senior
5 121 (7.24%) Developer
6 80 (4.79%) Consultant
7 74 (4.43%) Project Manager
8 68 (4.07%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (4.01%) Business Analyst
10 59 (3.53%) Security Architect
11 46 (2.75%) Administrator
12 44 (2.63%) Security Engineer
13 36 (2.15%) Support Engineer
14 33 (1.97%) Information Officer
15 32 (1.92%) Data Analyst
16 30 (1.80%) Java Developer
17 29 (1.74%) Information Governance Officer
18 28 (1.68%) Data Engineer
18 28 (1.68%) Network Engineer
19 25 (1.50%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (5.63%) Terraform
2 93 (5.57%) REST
3 41 (2.45%) Kafka
4 38 (2.27%) OAuth
4 38 (2.27%) React
5 37 (2.21%) JSON
5 37 (2.21%) Spring
6 35 (2.09%) Spring Boot
7 32 (1.92%) HTML
8 30 (1.80%) CSS
8 30 (1.80%) Middleware
9 27 (1.62%) RESTful
10 24 (1.44%) .NET
10 24 (1.44%) OAuth2
11 21 (1.26%) Node.js
11 21 (1.26%) OpenID
12 16 (0.96%) HTML5
12 16 (0.96%) SOAP
13 15 (0.90%) CSS3
13 15 (0.90%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 694 (41.53%) Data Protection Act
2 118 (7.06%) Management Information System
3 100 (5.98%) Product Ownership
4 94 (5.63%) Onboarding
5 90 (5.39%) Cloud Native
6 56 (3.35%) Data Centre
6 56 (3.35%) Distributed Systems
7 41 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
7 41 (2.45%) Security Posture
8 40 (2.39%) Freedom of Information
8 40 (2.39%) Virtual Team
9 32 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
11 29 (1.74%) NHS
12 28 (1.68%) Operational Technology
13 23 (1.38%) AI Agents
14 22 (1.32%) Mobile App
15 21 (1.26%) Data Structures
15 21 (1.26%) Private Cloud
16 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 127 (7.60%) Windows
2 80 (4.79%) Linux
3 33 (1.97%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.92%) Android
4 32 (1.92%) Apple iOS
5 28 (1.68%) Unix
6 22 (1.32%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (0.84%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.48%) zOS
10 4 (0.24%) VMS
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) HPUX
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.060%) MVS
12 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 380 (22.74%) Stakeholder Management
2 323 (19.33%) Agile
3 290 (17.35%) Problem-Solving
4 287 (17.18%) Continuous Improvement
5 244 (14.60%) CI/CD
6 227 (13.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 225 (13.46%) AI
8 222 (13.29%) Cybersecurity
9 218 (13.05%) Migration
10 214 (12.81%) DevOps
11 163 (9.75%) Decision-Making
12 160 (9.58%) Roadmaps
13 156 (9.34%) Risk Management
14 151 (9.04%) Information Security
15 146 (8.74%) Data Governance
16 143 (8.56%) Analytics
17 141 (8.44%) Validation
18 140 (8.38%) Infrastructure as Code
19 123 (7.36%) Test Automation
20 111 (6.64%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 211 (12.63%) Python
2 169 (10.11%) SQL
3 99 (5.92%) Java
4 57 (3.41%) PowerShell
5 56 (3.35%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.92%) Bash
7 27 (1.62%) TypeScript
8 24 (1.44%) Go
9 18 (1.08%) C#
10 15 (0.90%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.90%) Bicep
10 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
10 15 (0.90%) Scala
11 12 (0.72%) Perl
12 9 (0.54%) C
12 9 (0.54%) C++
13 8 (0.48%) VB
14 7 (0.42%) VB6
15 6 (0.36%) COBOL
15 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 274 (16.40%) Security Cleared
2 202 (12.09%) SC Cleared
3 111 (6.64%) Degree
4 84 (5.03%) CISSP
5 62 (3.71%) DV Cleared
6 52 (3.11%) CISM
7 47 (2.81%) BPSS Clearance
8 43 (2.57%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (1.74%) Azure Certification
10 28 (1.68%) PMI Certification
11 27 (1.62%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 26 (1.56%) PMP
13 25 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
14 23 (1.38%) CCSP
15 16 (0.96%) AWS Certification
16 11 (0.66%) CCNP
16 11 (0.66%) CISA
16 11 (0.66%) CRISC
16 11 (0.66%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 241 (14.42%) GDPR
2 114 (6.82%) Data Quality
3 100 (5.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 74 (4.43%) NIST
5 70 (4.19%) QA
6 52 (3.11%) GRC
7 47 (2.81%) Accessibility
8 27 (1.62%) PCI DSS
9 21 (1.26%) Cyber Essentials
10 20 (1.20%) NCSC
10 20 (1.20%) PMO
11 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 13 (0.78%) SLA
12 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.66%) PERC
13 11 (0.66%) WCAG
14 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
15 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 83 (4.97%) Active Directory
2 66 (3.95%) Docker
3 57 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.08%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
5 11 (0.66%) vSphere
6 10 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.36%) NFS
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) ISA Server
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.18%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
12 1 (0.060%) IAG
12 1 (0.060%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.060%) OpenSSH
12 1 (0.060%) XenApp
12 1 (0.060%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 114 (6.82%) Kubernetes
2 45 (2.69%) Ansible
3 38 (2.27%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.56%) Grafana
5 21 (1.26%) SCCM
6 14 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.78%) Kibana
7 13 (0.78%) NetBackup
7 13 (0.78%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
9 11 (0.66%) Progress Chef
10 10 (0.60%) Puppet
11 7 (0.42%) CASB
12 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
13 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
13 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
13 5 (0.30%) QRadar
13 5 (0.30%) SCOM
14 4 (0.24%) Control-M
Vendors
1 361 (21.60%) Microsoft
2 94 (5.63%) ServiceNow
3 76 (4.55%) Google
4 68 (4.07%) Cisco
4 68 (4.07%) Oracle
5 58 (3.47%) VMware
6 46 (2.75%) Splunk
7 43 (2.57%) Databricks
8 36 (2.15%) SAP
9 32 (1.92%) Salesforce
10 28 (1.68%) Zscaler
11 21 (1.26%) Workday
12 20 (1.20%) CyberArk
13 19 (1.14%) IBM
14 17 (1.02%) Dell
14 17 (1.02%) F5
14 17 (1.02%) Red Hat
15 14 (0.84%) MuleSoft
16 13 (0.78%) Dynatrace
17 12 (0.72%) NetApp