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 28 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 83 93
Rank change year-on-year +3 +10 -6
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,653 952 956
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.13% 2.91% 2.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.68% 3.21% 2.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 902 467 520
10th Percentile £313 £272 £200
25th Percentile £400 £368 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -6.54%
75th Percentile £600 £594 £613
90th Percentile £700 £688 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £468 £475
% change year-on-year +0.53% -1.58% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 46 60
10th Percentile £13.85 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £16.59 £14.78 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £17.00 £19.75
Median % change year-on-year +25.59% -13.92% -57.77%
75th Percentile £33.75 £28.94 £28.75
90th Percentile £38.00 £34.66 £63.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £15.25 £19.50
% change year-on-year +39.34% -21.79% -38.10%

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 44,902 29,618 34,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.94% 90.44% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,798 18,592 22,057
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.10% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,679 1,619 2,026
10th Percentile £14.79 £14.20 £13.56
25th Percentile £20.06 £17.33 £17.55
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.39 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +87.06% -41.25% -

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 +8 1,404 £500 +5.26% 476
UK excluding London +5 905 £470 +0.53% 328
London +5 619 £525 +5.00% 188
Work from Home +18 486 £500 +6.67% 176
North of England +17 320 £485 +5.43% 88
South East +18 205 £475 -11.55% 88
Yorkshire +2 177 £485 -3.00% 30
Midlands -3 142 £470 -6.00% 70
North West +19 135 £490 +15.29% 46
Scotland 0 117 £428 -7.82% 9
West Midlands -20 106 £473 -7.71% 41
South West -10 68 £425 +6.25% 40
East Midlands +9 36 £449 +23.72% 29
East of England -2 34 £538 +13.16% 29
Wales -5 19 £413 +39.24% 8
Northern Ireland -2 10 £104 -78.86% 4
North East -53 10 £456 +10.61% 12

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 56 (3.39%) SharePoint
2 54 (3.27%) Confluence
3 24 (1.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 18 (1.09%) Apache Airflow
6 12 (0.73%) Apache
7 6 (0.36%) CMS
7 6 (0.36%) IIS
7 6 (0.36%) SAS
8 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
11 2 (0.12%) Camunda
11 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 38 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
1 38 (2.30%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
3 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.060%) Maya
7 1 (0.060%) Trello
7 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.36%) NEC Housing
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
5 5 (0.30%) SAP GRC
6 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.18%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
7 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
8 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
8 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
9 1 (0.060%) iTrent
9 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
9 1 (0.060%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 370 (22.38%) Azure
2 279 (16.88%) AWS
3 142 (8.59%) GCP
4 115 (6.96%) Microsoft 365
5 92 (5.57%) Power Platform
6 84 (5.08%) Entra ID
7 70 (4.23%) SaaS
8 67 (4.05%) GitHub
9 58 (3.51%) Microsoft Purview
10 55 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
11 46 (2.78%) Serverless
12 39 (2.36%) OpenShift
13 33 (2.00%) Microsoft Copilot
14 27 (1.63%) OneDrive
15 26 (1.57%) AWS Lambda
16 24 (1.45%) PowerApps
17 23 (1.39%) Amazon S3
17 23 (1.39%) Power Automate
18 22 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
18 22 (1.33%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 87 (5.26%) Network Security
2 54 (3.27%) Firewall
3 34 (2.06%) VPN
4 27 (1.63%) DNS
5 25 (1.51%) SAN
6 22 (1.33%) DHCP
6 22 (1.33%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.27%) WAN
8 16 (0.97%) LAN
9 15 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (0.85%) NAS
11 13 (0.79%) HTTP
11 13 (0.79%) SSL
12 11 (0.67%) Cisco IPT
13 10 (0.60%) MPLS
13 10 (0.60%) Wireless
14 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
15 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
16 7 (0.42%) Cisco Nexus
16 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (4.42%) Power BI
2 44 (2.66%) Metadata
3 43 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
4 40 (2.42%) SQL Server
5 33 (2.00%) Data Warehouse
6 31 (1.88%) Relational Database
7 26 (1.57%) Data Lake
8 24 (1.45%) NoSQL
9 22 (1.33%) MySQL
10 20 (1.21%) Big Data
11 19 (1.15%) MongoDB
12 18 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
13 14 (0.85%) BigQuery
13 14 (0.85%) Oracle Database
14 12 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.67%) Tableau
16 10 (0.60%) DynamoDB
17 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
17 8 (0.48%) Ingres
17 8 (0.48%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 96 (5.81%) JIRA
2 65 (3.93%) Git
3 62 (3.75%) Jenkins
4 34 (2.06%) GitLab
5 11 (0.67%) Maven
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (0.54%) Postman
8 7 (0.42%) Gradle
8 7 (0.42%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.42%) Team Foundation Server
9 6 (0.36%) Flyway
9 6 (0.36%) JUnit
9 6 (0.36%) Selenium
9 6 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
10 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.30%) ERwin
11 4 (0.24%) SpecFlow
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
12 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 562 (34.00%) Social Skills
2 360 (21.78%) Finance
3 253 (15.31%) Legal
4 193 (11.68%) Analytical Skills
5 176 (10.65%) Public Sector
6 117 (7.08%) Banking
7 68 (4.11%) Documentation Skills
8 61 (3.69%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (2.12%) Local Government
10 35 (2.12%) Retail
11 33 (2.00%) Telecoms
12 28 (1.69%) Law
12 28 (1.69%) Marketing
13 25 (1.51%) Front Office
14 21 (1.27%) Billing
14 21 (1.27%) Pharmaceutical
14 21 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
15 19 (1.15%) Police
16 16 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 241 (14.58%) Architect
2 148 (8.95%) Analyst
3 137 (8.29%) Lead
4 131 (7.92%) Developer
5 124 (7.50%) Senior
6 96 (5.81%) Consultant
7 86 (5.20%) Project Manager
8 65 (3.93%) Business Analyst
8 65 (3.93%) Solutions Architect
9 53 (3.21%) Security Architect
10 44 (2.66%) Data Engineer
10 44 (2.66%) Security Engineer
11 37 (2.24%) Administrator
11 37 (2.24%) Java Developer
12 33 (2.00%) Network Engineer
13 30 (1.81%) Support Engineer
13 30 (1.81%) Technical Architect
14 28 (1.69%) Data Analyst
15 27 (1.63%) IT Support
16 25 (1.51%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (5.44%) REST
2 50 (3.02%) React
3 36 (2.18%) Middleware
3 36 (2.18%) Spring
4 35 (2.12%) JSON
5 34 (2.06%) CSS
6 33 (2.00%) Kafka
7 32 (1.94%) HTML
7 32 (1.94%) Spring Boot
8 29 (1.75%) RESTful
9 28 (1.69%) OAuth
10 23 (1.39%) .NET
11 20 (1.21%) Node.js
12 17 (1.03%) CSS3
12 17 (1.03%) HTML5
13 16 (0.97%) GraphQL
13 16 (0.97%) OpenID
13 16 (0.97%) Redux
14 15 (0.91%) Jest
14 15 (0.91%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 740 (44.77%) Data Protection Act
2 91 (5.51%) Cloud Native
2 91 (5.51%) Product Ownership
3 74 (4.48%) Onboarding
4 64 (3.87%) Management Information System
5 48 (2.90%) Data Centre
6 47 (2.84%) Distributed Systems
7 46 (2.78%) Legacy Systems
8 42 (2.54%) Virtual Team
9 38 (2.30%) Security Posture
10 24 (1.45%) Operational Technology
10 24 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
11 23 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
11 23 (1.39%) NHS
11 23 (1.39%) Replication
12 22 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
13 20 (1.21%) Mobile App
14 18 (1.09%) Enterprise Storage
15 17 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
15 17 (1.03%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 127 (7.68%) Windows
2 77 (4.66%) Linux
3 29 (1.75%) Apple iOS
4 28 (1.69%) Android
5 27 (1.63%) Unix
6 26 (1.57%) Windows Server
7 24 (1.45%) Mac OS
8 18 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.79%) VMS
10 12 (0.73%) Windows 10
11 6 (0.36%) CoreOS
11 6 (0.36%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.36%) zOS
12 2 (0.12%) Rocky
12 2 (0.12%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.060%) CentOS
13 1 (0.060%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 316 (19.12%) Agile
2 301 (18.21%) Problem-Solving
3 295 (17.85%) Stakeholder Management
4 259 (15.67%) Continuous Improvement
5 241 (14.58%) DevOps
6 231 (13.97%) CI/CD
7 223 (13.49%) Migration
8 204 (12.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 191 (11.55%) AI
10 156 (9.44%) Cybersecurity
11 151 (9.13%) Roadmaps
12 150 (9.07%) Analytics
12 150 (9.07%) Decision-Making
13 140 (8.47%) Data Governance
14 122 (7.38%) Information Security
14 122 (7.38%) Risk Management
15 119 (7.20%) Validation
16 115 (6.96%) Data Modelling
17 113 (6.84%) Infrastructure as Code
18 102 (6.17%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 211 (12.76%) Python
2 169 (10.22%) SQL
3 112 (6.78%) Java
4 62 (3.75%) JavaScript
5 55 (3.33%) PowerShell
6 42 (2.54%) Bash
7 31 (1.88%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.51%) C#
9 17 (1.03%) Go
10 15 (0.91%) Bicep
11 13 (0.79%) Apex Code
11 13 (0.79%) Kotlin
12 9 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
12 9 (0.54%) Perl
12 9 (0.54%) VB
13 8 (0.48%) Scala
13 8 (0.48%) VB6
14 7 (0.42%) C++
15 6 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 252 (15.25%) Security Cleared
2 188 (11.37%) SC Cleared
3 118 (7.14%) Degree
4 80 (4.84%) CISSP
5 60 (3.63%) DV Cleared
6 47 (2.84%) CISM
7 35 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (1.94%) Azure Certification
8 32 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
9 29 (1.75%) PMI Certification
10 26 (1.57%) PMP
11 24 (1.45%) AWS Certification
12 17 (1.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 17 (1.03%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (0.91%) CCSP
14 13 (0.79%) Master's Degree
15 10 (0.60%) CCNP
15 10 (0.60%) CISA
16 9 (0.54%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 252 (15.25%) GDPR
2 98 (5.93%) Data Quality
3 84 (5.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (4.96%) QA
5 75 (4.54%) NIST
6 44 (2.66%) GRC
7 42 (2.54%) Accessibility
8 27 (1.63%) PMO
9 21 (1.27%) PCI DSS
10 20 (1.21%) NCSC
10 20 (1.21%) SLA
11 14 (0.85%) SOC 2
12 13 (0.79%) HIPAA
12 13 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.67%) WCAG
14 10 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
14 10 (0.60%) PERC
15 8 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 6 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 82 (4.96%) Active Directory
2 68 (4.11%) Docker
3 54 (3.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.97%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.91%) NFS
6 14 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (0.85%) vSphere
7 10 (0.60%) Hyper-V
8 7 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.36%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.30%) KVM
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) IAG
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 115 (6.96%) Kubernetes
2 87 (5.26%) Terraform
3 55 (3.33%) Ansible
4 41 (2.48%) Microsoft Intune
5 34 (2.06%) Grafana
6 28 (1.69%) NetBackup
7 22 (1.33%) Prometheus
8 20 (1.21%) SCCM
9 18 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.97%) Puppet
11 14 (0.85%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.42%) Kibana
13 7 (0.42%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.36%) SnapMirror
15 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
15 5 (0.30%) QRadar
16 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
16 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 291 (17.60%) Microsoft
2 81 (4.90%) ServiceNow
3 77 (4.66%) Oracle
4 64 (3.87%) Google
5 55 (3.33%) VMware
6 54 (3.27%) Cisco
7 51 (3.09%) Databricks
8 41 (2.48%) SAP
9 34 (2.06%) Splunk
10 32 (1.94%) Red Hat
11 28 (1.69%) Salesforce
12 24 (1.45%) Workday
13 23 (1.39%) Zscaler
14 22 (1.33%) NetApp
15 21 (1.27%) Veritas
16 20 (1.21%) CyberArk
17 15 (0.91%) Citrix
17 15 (0.91%) IBM
18 14 (0.85%) Commvault
19 13 (0.79%) Dell