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 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 74 85 81
Rank change year-on-year +11 -4 +25
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,243 923 1,173
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.38% 2.72% 2.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.83% 3.08% 3.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 639 491 679
10th Percentile £300 £263 £200
25th Percentile £400 £386 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% - -8.26%
75th Percentile £600 £611 £600
90th Percentile £675 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -12.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 19 17
10th Percentile £12.63 £16.21 £17.35
25th Percentile £16.18 £20.06 £18.25
Median hourly rate £20.40 £24.50 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.73% +16.67% -60.00%
75th Percentile £20.79 £29.62 £25.89
90th Percentile £42.09 £38.64 £43.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.40 £24.75 £21.00
% change year-on-year -17.58% +17.86% -70.00%

All Process and 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 32,432 29,959 38,773
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.29% 88.23% 88.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,397 18,286 25,908
10th Percentile £300 £307 £306
25th Percentile £406 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £743 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,093 972 1,488
10th Percentile £14.51 £15.62 £14.33
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.30 £18.99
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.84
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -25.86% +25.25%
75th Percentile £50.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £31.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -26.98% -29.21% +39.26%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 21 December 2025. 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 +16 1,068 £500 - 271
UK excluding London +4 635 £450 -10.00% 241
London +21 542 £525 +4.48% 74
Work from Home +11 291 £500 - 115
North of England -13 192 £450 -7.22% 53
South East +12 148 £501 -0.99% 69
Scotland +2 98 £400 -13.51% 8
Yorkshire -6 93 £500 -3.61% 19
Midlands +8 89 £450 -12.20% 39
North West -18 81 £425 -10.53% 30
West Midlands +1 63 £475 -7.32% 24
South West -6 45 £525 -27.59% 46
East of England -2 38 £475 -0.42% 21
East Midlands 0 26 £436 -3.96% 15
North East -13 19 £425 - 4
Northern Ireland - 15 £500 -
Wales 0 14 £400 -5.88% 9

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 63 (5.07%) Confluence
2 34 (2.74%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.13%) CMS
4 13 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
6 9 (0.72%) Apache
7 7 (0.56%) Apache Spark
8 5 (0.40%) CICS
8 5 (0.40%) nginx
9 4 (0.32%) SAS
10 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.16%) Drupal
10 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
11 1 (0.080%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.080%) Cloud Foundry
11 1 (0.080%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.080%) SharePoint Server
11 1 (0.080%) Skype for Business
11 1 (0.080%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.080%) WordPress
Applications
1 59 (4.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (3.06%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.80%) Chatbot
4 9 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 6 (0.48%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.24%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.24%) Sketch
7 3 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
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 (0.080%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.080%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.080%) Blender
9 1 (0.080%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.080%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.080%) SPSS
9 1 (0.080%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.97%) Oracle EBS
1 12 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.40%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.40%) ResourceLink
4 4 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.32%) VisionPLUS
5 3 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
5 3 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.16%) assyst
6 2 (0.16%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.16%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.080%) BambooHR
7 1 (0.080%) Distributed Ledger
7 1 (0.080%) Endur
7 1 (0.080%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.080%) R3 Corda
7 1 (0.080%) SAP MDG
7 1 (0.080%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 259 (20.84%) Azure
2 232 (18.66%) AWS
3 101 (8.13%) GCP
4 76 (6.11%) Power Platform
5 69 (5.55%) Microsoft 365
6 58 (4.67%) Serverless
7 51 (4.10%) Entra ID
8 49 (3.94%) GitHub
9 45 (3.62%) AWS Lambda
10 43 (3.46%) Azure DevOps
11 40 (3.22%) Amazon S3
12 39 (3.14%) SaaS
13 29 (2.33%) Power Automate
14 28 (2.25%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (2.17%) Snowflake
16 21 (1.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 19 (1.53%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (1.53%) PowerApps
18 18 (1.45%) Azure Monitor
18 18 (1.45%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 52 (4.18%) Firewall
2 31 (2.49%) Network Security
3 16 (1.29%) VPN
4 15 (1.21%) DNS
4 15 (1.21%) LAN
5 14 (1.13%) SSH
6 13 (1.05%) Cisco IPT
6 13 (1.05%) WAN
7 12 (0.97%) MPLS
7 12 (0.97%) SAN
8 9 (0.72%) HTTP
9 8 (0.64%) BGP
9 8 (0.64%) DHCP
9 8 (0.64%) NAS
9 8 (0.64%) SD-WAN
9 8 (0.64%) TCP/IP
10 7 (0.56%) Internet
10 7 (0.56%) iSCSI
10 7 (0.56%) Wireless
10 7 (0.56%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (4.83%) Power BI
2 39 (3.14%) SQL Server
3 35 (2.82%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (1.85%) NoSQL
4 23 (1.85%) Relational Database
5 21 (1.69%) Data Warehouse
6 17 (1.37%) Amazon RDS
6 17 (1.37%) Tableau
7 16 (1.29%) Metadata
7 16 (1.29%) MongoDB
8 14 (1.13%) MySQL
9 13 (1.05%) Amazon Aurora
10 11 (0.88%) DynamoDB
11 10 (0.80%) Data Lake
11 10 (0.80%) Oracle Reports
12 9 (0.72%) Amazon Athena
12 9 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
12 9 (0.72%) Oracle Database
13 7 (0.56%) BigQuery
13 7 (0.56%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 110 (8.85%) JIRA
2 41 (3.30%) Git
3 39 (3.14%) Jenkins
4 32 (2.57%) GitLab
5 7 (0.56%) JUnit
5 7 (0.56%) SpecFlow
6 5 (0.40%) NUnit
7 4 (0.32%) ChangeMan
7 4 (0.32%) CircleCI
7 4 (0.32%) Fiddler
7 4 (0.32%) Gradle
7 4 (0.32%) Postman
7 4 (0.32%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.24%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.24%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.24%) IntelliJ
8 3 (0.24%) Maven
8 3 (0.24%) Metasploit
8 3 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle APEX
General
1 426 (34.27%) Social Skills
2 249 (20.03%) Finance
3 151 (12.15%) Analytical Skills
4 128 (10.30%) Public Sector
5 102 (8.21%) Banking
6 90 (7.24%) Legal
7 39 (3.14%) Marketing
8 37 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
8 37 (2.98%) Organisational Skills
9 32 (2.57%) Telecoms
10 29 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
11 24 (1.93%) Manufacturing
12 22 (1.77%) Law
13 19 (1.53%) Front Office
14 16 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
15 15 (1.21%) Financial Institution
16 12 (0.97%) Retail
17 11 (0.88%) Aerospace
17 11 (0.88%) Electronics
17 11 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 168 (13.52%) Analyst
2 139 (11.18%) Developer
3 129 (10.38%) Architect
4 88 (7.08%) Lead
5 71 (5.71%) Business Analyst
6 61 (4.91%) Senior
7 59 (4.75%) Consultant
8 55 (4.42%) Project Manager
9 38 (3.06%) Security Engineer
10 37 (2.98%) Administrator
10 37 (2.98%) Data Analyst
11 36 (2.90%) Solutions Architect
12 29 (2.33%) Data Engineer
13 23 (1.85%) Security Architect
13 23 (1.85%) Support Engineer
14 22 (1.77%) Automation Engineer
15 21 (1.69%) Data Protection Officer
15 21 (1.69%) Technical Architect
16 20 (1.61%) Network Engineer
17 19 (1.53%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (4.34%) REST
2 33 (2.65%) .NET
3 32 (2.57%) React
3 32 (2.57%) RESTful
4 28 (2.25%) OAuth
5 27 (2.17%) Node.js
6 23 (1.85%) HTML
6 23 (1.85%) Kafka
6 23 (1.85%) Spring
7 21 (1.69%) SOAP
8 17 (1.37%) Middleware
9 16 (1.29%) AngularJS
10 15 (1.21%) .NET Core
10 15 (1.21%) Spring Boot
11 13 (1.05%) LangChain
11 13 (1.05%) OAuth2
12 12 (0.97%) JSON
13 11 (0.88%) SAML
14 10 (0.80%) PySpark
15 9 (0.72%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 627 (50.44%) Data Protection Act
2 54 (4.34%) Cloud Native
3 51 (4.10%) Product Ownership
4 46 (3.70%) Onboarding
5 44 (3.54%) Management Information System
6 32 (2.57%) Freedom of Information
7 28 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
8 25 (2.01%) NHS
9 22 (1.77%) Data Structures
10 21 (1.69%) Data Centre
10 21 (1.69%) Security Posture
11 18 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
11 18 (1.45%) Replication
12 17 (1.37%) CMDB
12 17 (1.37%) Virtual Team
13 14 (1.13%) Derivative
13 14 (1.13%) Public Cloud
13 14 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
14 13 (1.05%) Hybrid Cloud
15 12 (0.97%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 89 (7.16%) Windows
2 55 (4.42%) Linux
3 22 (1.77%) Unix
4 19 (1.53%) Mac OS
5 14 (1.13%) Windows 10
6 12 (0.97%) Windows Server
7 10 (0.80%) zOS
8 8 (0.64%) Android
9 6 (0.48%) AIX
9 6 (0.48%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.48%) Solaris
10 5 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.40%) VMS
11 2 (0.16%) CentOS
11 2 (0.16%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.080%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.080%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 219 (17.62%) Problem-Solving
2 208 (16.73%) Agile
3 190 (15.29%) Stakeholder Management
4 171 (13.76%) DevOps
5 162 (13.03%) CI/CD
6 156 (12.55%) Migration
7 139 (11.18%) Cybersecurity
8 131 (10.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 126 (10.14%) Analytics
10 114 (9.17%) AI
11 105 (8.45%) Continuous Improvement
11 105 (8.45%) Roadmaps
12 100 (8.05%) Project Management
13 96 (7.72%) Information Security
14 91 (7.32%) Risk Management
15 80 (6.44%) Microservices
16 79 (6.36%) Business Intelligence
17 76 (6.11%) Incident Response
18 73 (5.87%) Data Governance
18 73 (5.87%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 227 (18.26%) Python
2 155 (12.47%) SQL
3 71 (5.71%) Java
4 67 (5.39%) PowerShell
5 61 (4.91%) JavaScript
6 60 (4.83%) Bash
7 52 (4.18%) C#
8 31 (2.49%) TypeScript
9 17 (1.37%) C++
10 10 (0.80%) Shell Script
11 9 (0.72%) Bicep
12 8 (0.64%) Go
12 8 (0.64%) PHP
13 7 (0.56%) R
14 6 (0.48%) Perl
14 6 (0.48%) PL/SQL
15 5 (0.40%) COBOL
15 5 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 5 (0.40%) Kotlin
15 5 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 146 (11.75%) Security Cleared
2 111 (8.93%) Degree
3 105 (8.45%) SC Cleared
4 40 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 32 (2.57%) DV Cleared
6 28 (2.25%) CISSP
7 26 (2.09%) AWS Certification
8 24 (1.93%) CISM
9 16 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
10 14 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
10 14 (1.13%) Master's Degree
11 13 (1.05%) PMI Certification
12 12 (0.97%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 12 (0.97%) PMP
13 11 (0.88%) Azure Certification
13 11 (0.88%) CISA
14 10 (0.80%) A+ Certification
14 10 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
15 9 (0.72%) CRISC
15 9 (0.72%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 228 (18.34%) GDPR
2 96 (7.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 79 (6.36%) NIST
4 47 (3.78%) Data Quality
5 42 (3.38%) QA
6 26 (2.09%) PCI DSS
7 24 (1.93%) Accessibility
8 21 (1.69%) PMO
9 20 (1.61%) Cyber Essentials
10 18 (1.45%) GRC
11 15 (1.21%) NCSC
12 13 (1.05%) PERC
13 11 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 11 (0.88%) NIST 800
14 10 (0.80%) Disclosure Scotland
15 9 (0.72%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 9 (0.72%) COBIT
15 9 (0.72%) EU AI Act
15 9 (0.72%) SLA
16 8 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 59 (4.75%) Active Directory
2 58 (4.67%) Docker
3 46 (3.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (0.97%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (0.64%) NFS
6 5 (0.40%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.24%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.16%) vSphere
10 1 (0.080%) Firmware
10 1 (0.080%) HDFS
10 1 (0.080%) ISA Server
10 1 (0.080%) KVM
10 1 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.080%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.080%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 75 (6.03%) Terraform
2 62 (4.99%) Kubernetes
3 45 (3.62%) Ansible
4 31 (2.49%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (2.09%) NetBackup
6 25 (2.01%) SCCM
7 22 (1.77%) Grafana
8 20 (1.61%) Prometheus
9 11 (0.88%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.56%) Puppet
11 6 (0.48%) RSA Archer
12 5 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.40%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.32%) CA Endevor
13 4 (0.32%) EMC NetWorker
13 4 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
13 4 (0.32%) Kibana
14 3 (0.24%) Data Guard
14 3 (0.24%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.24%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 200 (16.09%) Microsoft
2 63 (5.07%) Google
3 53 (4.26%) Oracle
4 48 (3.86%) VMware
5 41 (3.30%) Cisco
6 37 (2.98%) ServiceNow
7 36 (2.90%) Salesforce
8 32 (2.57%) SAP
9 29 (2.33%) Databricks
9 29 (2.33%) IBM
10 22 (1.77%) Citrix
10 22 (1.77%) Veritas
11 19 (1.53%) F5
12 18 (1.45%) Commvault
12 18 (1.45%) Red Hat
13 15 (1.21%) CyberArk
14 13 (1.05%) Juniper
15 12 (0.97%) NetApp
16 11 (0.88%) Adobe
16 11 (0.88%) OneTrust