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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 77 89
Rank change year-on-year -6 +12 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,693 1,066 970
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.10% 3.24% 2.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.67% 3.58% 2.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 885 501 518
10th Percentile £263 £293 £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 £613
90th Percentile £696 £675 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £463 £478
% change year-on-year -2.70% -3.14% +0.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 51 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.30 £13.49 £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 £36.48 £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 46,183 29,816 32,769
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.52% 85.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,080 18,531 20,147
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
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 3,092 1,799 1,460
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.25 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.42 £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 £44.68 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.31% -47.37% +5.81%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 1,413 £500 +2.04% 1,745
UK excluding London -1 939 £450 -2.70% 1,038
London -26 605 £525 +1.69% 830
Work from Home +21 489 £500 +11.11% 687
North of England +10 335 £468 +3.89% 283
South East +6 197 £475 -7.59% 265
Yorkshire +4 169 £475 -5.00% 90
Midlands 0 158 £450 -5.26% 157
North West +21 145 £458 +4.27% 165
West Midlands -1 126 £450 -10.00% 107
Scotland -10 119 £434 +1.58% 82
South West -15 78 £425 +6.25% 95
East Midlands 0 32 £435 +8.75% 50
East of England -22 29 £505 +6.32% 116
Wales -3 22 £413 - 30
North East -48 22 £463 +15.63% 33
Northern Ireland +4 15 £110 -81.63% 24
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 67 (3.96%) SharePoint
2 40 (2.36%) Confluence
3 22 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
4 20 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.00%) Apache Spark
6 11 (0.65%) Apache
7 10 (0.59%) IIS
7 10 (0.59%) SAS
8 9 (0.53%) CMS
9 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
9 5 (0.30%) WordPress
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 (0.059%) Cloud Foundry
13 1 (0.059%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 45 (2.66%) Microsoft Office
2 44 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.059%) Maya
7 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.59%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.35%) 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 (0.059%) Actimize
8 1 (0.059%) assyst
8 1 (0.059%) Maximo
8 1 (0.059%) Misys Equation
8 1 (0.059%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 384 (22.68%) Azure
2 305 (18.02%) AWS
3 138 (8.15%) GCP
4 134 (7.91%) Microsoft 365
5 81 (4.78%) Entra ID
6 80 (4.73%) Power Platform
7 76 (4.49%) SaaS
8 66 (3.90%) Azure DevOps
9 63 (3.72%) GitHub
10 56 (3.31%) Microsoft Purview
11 49 (2.89%) Serverless
12 38 (2.24%) Microsoft Copilot
13 27 (1.59%) AWS Lambda
13 27 (1.59%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.54%) GitHub Actions
14 26 (1.54%) OpenShift
15 24 (1.42%) Power Automate
16 23 (1.36%) PowerApps
17 20 (1.18%) Amazon S3
18 19 (1.12%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 89 (5.26%) Network Security
2 60 (3.54%) Firewall
3 36 (2.13%) DNS
4 34 (2.01%) VPN
5 26 (1.54%) DHCP
6 25 (1.48%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.24%) WAN
8 19 (1.12%) Cisco IPT
9 17 (1.00%) LAN
10 15 (0.89%) SAN
11 14 (0.83%) SSL
11 14 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
12 13 (0.77%) Wireless
13 11 (0.65%) MPLS
13 11 (0.65%) VoIP
14 10 (0.59%) HTTP
15 9 (0.53%) Intrusion Detection
15 9 (0.53%) NAS
16 8 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
17 7 (0.41%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (3.48%) Power BI
2 52 (3.07%) Metadata
3 42 (2.48%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
5 34 (2.01%) SQL Server
6 31 (1.83%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.42%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.30%) Data Lake
9 21 (1.24%) MySQL
10 19 (1.12%) BigQuery
11 17 (1.00%) Big Data
12 16 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
13 14 (0.83%) MongoDB
14 12 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
15 10 (0.59%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
16 9 (0.53%) DynamoDB
17 8 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
17 8 (0.47%) Redis
18 7 (0.41%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 86 (5.08%) JIRA
2 68 (4.02%) Git
3 55 (3.25%) Jenkins
4 27 (1.59%) GitLab
5 18 (1.06%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Maven
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.47%) Postman
7 8 (0.47%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
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%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 651 (38.45%) Social Skills
2 368 (21.74%) Finance
3 254 (15.00%) Legal
4 208 (12.29%) Analytical Skills
4 208 (12.29%) Public Sector
5 116 (6.85%) Banking
6 79 (4.67%) Documentation Skills
6 79 (4.67%) Organisational Skills
7 44 (2.60%) Influencing Skills
8 41 (2.42%) Local Government
9 40 (2.36%) Retail
10 33 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
11 31 (1.83%) Law
12 29 (1.71%) Front Office
12 29 (1.71%) Marketing
13 25 (1.48%) Telecoms
14 22 (1.30%) Billing
14 22 (1.30%) Police
15 21 (1.24%) Pharmaceutical
16 16 (0.95%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 251 (14.83%) Architect
2 169 (9.98%) Analyst
3 143 (8.45%) Lead
4 125 (7.38%) Developer
4 125 (7.38%) Senior
5 86 (5.08%) Consultant
6 75 (4.43%) Project Manager
7 69 (4.08%) Business Analyst
7 69 (4.08%) Solutions Architect
8 61 (3.60%) Security Architect
9 47 (2.78%) Administrator
10 40 (2.36%) Security Engineer
11 37 (2.19%) Support Engineer
12 33 (1.95%) Data Analyst
13 31 (1.83%) Java Developer
14 30 (1.77%) Information Officer
15 29 (1.71%) Data Engineer
16 27 (1.59%) Information Governance Officer
17 26 (1.54%) DevOps Engineer
17 26 (1.54%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (5.67%) Terraform
2 87 (5.14%) REST
3 40 (2.36%) Kafka
4 39 (2.30%) React
5 37 (2.19%) Spring
6 36 (2.13%) JSON
6 36 (2.13%) OAuth
7 35 (2.07%) Spring Boot
8 31 (1.83%) CSS
8 31 (1.83%) HTML
9 30 (1.77%) Middleware
10 27 (1.59%) RESTful
11 24 (1.42%) .NET
12 22 (1.30%) OAuth2
13 21 (1.24%) Node.js
13 21 (1.24%) OpenID
14 16 (0.95%) CSS3
14 16 (0.95%) HTML5
14 16 (0.95%) SOAP
15 15 (0.89%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 714 (42.17%) Data Protection Act
2 113 (6.67%) Management Information System
3 99 (5.85%) Product Ownership
4 93 (5.49%) Onboarding
5 91 (5.38%) Cloud Native
6 56 (3.31%) Distributed Systems
7 54 (3.19%) Data Centre
8 41 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.36%) Freedom of Information
9 40 (2.36%) Security Posture
9 40 (2.36%) Virtual Team
10 32 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
11 28 (1.65%) NHS
12 27 (1.59%) Operational Technology
13 26 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
14 23 (1.36%) AI Agents
15 22 (1.30%) Data Structures
15 22 (1.30%) Mobile App
16 20 (1.18%) Private Cloud
17 19 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 130 (7.68%) Windows
2 81 (4.78%) Linux
3 34 (2.01%) Android
4 33 (1.95%) Windows Server
5 32 (1.89%) Apple iOS
6 28 (1.65%) Unix
7 23 (1.36%) Mac OS
8 18 (1.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.89%) Windows 10
10 9 (0.53%) zOS
11 4 (0.24%) VMS
12 3 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.12%) AIX
13 2 (0.12%) CentOS
13 2 (0.12%) HPUX
13 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.059%) Rocky
14 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 379 (22.39%) Stakeholder Management
2 322 (19.02%) Agile
3 292 (17.25%) Problem-Solving
4 286 (16.89%) Continuous Improvement
5 245 (14.47%) CI/CD
6 228 (13.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 227 (13.41%) AI
8 221 (13.05%) Cybersecurity
8 221 (13.05%) DevOps
9 216 (12.76%) Migration
10 164 (9.69%) Decision-Making
11 161 (9.51%) Roadmaps
12 155 (9.16%) Risk Management
13 150 (8.86%) Data Governance
13 150 (8.86%) Information Security
14 148 (8.74%) Analytics
15 143 (8.45%) Infrastructure as Code
16 140 (8.27%) Validation
17 119 (7.03%) Test Automation
18 112 (6.62%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 215 (12.70%) Python
2 168 (9.92%) SQL
3 99 (5.85%) Java
4 56 (3.31%) JavaScript
4 56 (3.31%) PowerShell
5 35 (2.07%) Bash
6 27 (1.59%) TypeScript
7 24 (1.42%) Go
8 18 (1.06%) C#
9 16 (0.95%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.89%) Bicep
11 14 (0.83%) Kotlin
12 12 (0.71%) Perl
13 11 (0.65%) Scala
14 10 (0.59%) C++
15 9 (0.53%) C
16 8 (0.47%) VB
17 7 (0.41%) Shell Script
17 7 (0.41%) VB6
18 6 (0.35%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 275 (16.24%) Security Cleared
2 202 (11.93%) SC Cleared
3 110 (6.50%) Degree
4 85 (5.02%) CISSP
5 63 (3.72%) DV Cleared
6 52 (3.07%) CISM
7 46 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
8 42 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (2.01%) Azure Certification
10 31 (1.83%) PMI Certification
11 28 (1.65%) PMP
12 26 (1.54%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 25 (1.48%) Computer Science Degree
14 21 (1.24%) CCSP
15 20 (1.18%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.71%) CRISC
16 12 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
17 11 (0.65%) CCNP
17 11 (0.65%) CISA
17 11 (0.65%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 239 (14.12%) GDPR
2 114 (6.73%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (4.43%) NIST
5 74 (4.37%) QA
6 53 (3.13%) GRC
7 46 (2.72%) Accessibility
8 26 (1.54%) PCI DSS
9 22 (1.30%) PMO
10 20 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials
10 20 (1.18%) NCSC
11 14 (0.83%) SLA
12 13 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 12 (0.71%) PERC
13 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.65%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.65%) WCAG
15 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
16 9 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 86 (5.08%) Active Directory
2 64 (3.78%) Docker
3 56 (3.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.24%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.65%) Hyper-V
5 11 (0.65%) vSphere
6 10 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.41%) NFS
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.18%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) Time Sharing Option
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
11 2 (0.12%) XenApp
11 2 (0.12%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.059%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.059%) IAG
Systems Management
1 115 (6.79%) Kubernetes
2 48 (2.84%) Ansible
3 40 (2.36%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (1.42%) Grafana
5 23 (1.36%) SCCM
6 14 (0.83%) NetBackup
6 14 (0.83%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
7 12 (0.71%) Puppet
8 11 (0.65%) Progress Chef
9 9 (0.53%) Kibana
10 6 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (0.35%) CASB
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
1 365 (21.56%) Microsoft
2 93 (5.49%) ServiceNow
3 75 (4.43%) Google
4 72 (4.25%) Oracle
5 68 (4.02%) Cisco
6 57 (3.37%) VMware
7 43 (2.54%) Databricks
7 43 (2.54%) Splunk
8 34 (2.01%) SAP
9 33 (1.95%) Salesforce
10 28 (1.65%) Zscaler
11 22 (1.30%) Workday
12 20 (1.18%) CyberArk
12 20 (1.18%) IBM
13 19 (1.12%) Red Hat
14 17 (1.00%) F5
15 16 (0.95%) Dell
16 15 (0.89%) NetApp
17 14 (0.83%) Citrix
18 13 (0.77%) Dynatrace