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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 83 93
Rank change year-on-year -1 +10 -6
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,637 965 963
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 2.94% 2.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.63% 3.25% 2.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 889 476 524
10th Percentile £313 £282 £200
25th Percentile £403 £373 £367
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -6.76%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £734
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £467 £475
% change year-on-year +1.28% -1.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 44 58
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £16.39 £14.48 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.30 £16.50 £19.75
Median % change year-on-year +29.09% -16.46% -57.77%
75th Percentile £33.64 £28.19 £28.75
90th Percentile £37.70 £34.74 £58.75
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 45,107 29,668 33,959
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.95% 90.46% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,893 18,635 21,816
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £736 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,744 1,629 1,969
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £13.69
25th Percentile £19.66 £17.35 £17.72
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 £82.25 £68.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year +83.17% -40.48% +0.81%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 +2 1,395 £500 +5.26% 557
UK excluding London +9 887 £473 +1.28% 372
London +4 625 £525 +5.00% 228
Work from Home +13 483 £500 +11.11% 199
North of England +16 318 £485 +2.11% 92
South East +13 196 £483 -10.06% 111
Yorkshire -2 174 £494 -1.25% 32
Midlands -7 138 £470 -6.00% 75
North West +12 135 £481 +9.69% 49
Scotland -4 112 £425 -6.85% 9
West Midlands -26 102 £473 -9.90% 49
South West -16 67 £425 +6.25% 47
East Midlands +9 36 £449 +23.72% 26
East of England +1 36 £550 +15.79% 37
Wales -6 19 £413 +39.24% 9
Northern Ireland -1 11 £104 -78.86% 4
North East -56 10 £456 +10.61% 11

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 55 (3.36%) SharePoint
2 53 (3.24%) Confluence
3 24 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
4 18 (1.10%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.67%) Apache
6 6 (0.37%) CMS
6 6 (0.37%) IIS
6 6 (0.37%) SAS
7 5 (0.31%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Camunda
10 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) nginx
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 38 (2.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (2.26%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
3 9 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.061%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.061%) Maya
7 1 (0.061%) Trello
7 1 (0.061%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 10 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
1 10 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
3 6 (0.37%) NEC Housing
3 6 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.31%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.24%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.061%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.061%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.061%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.061%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 372 (22.72%) Azure
2 274 (16.74%) AWS
3 144 (8.80%) GCP
4 116 (7.09%) Microsoft 365
5 92 (5.62%) Power Platform
6 85 (5.19%) Entra ID
7 72 (4.40%) SaaS
8 67 (4.09%) GitHub
9 59 (3.60%) Microsoft Purview
10 57 (3.48%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (2.63%) Serverless
12 40 (2.44%) OpenShift
13 36 (2.20%) Microsoft Copilot
14 27 (1.65%) OneDrive
15 25 (1.53%) PowerApps
16 24 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
16 24 (1.47%) Power Automate
17 23 (1.41%) GitHub Actions
18 22 (1.34%) Amazon S3
19 20 (1.22%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 87 (5.31%) Network Security
2 56 (3.42%) Firewall
3 32 (1.95%) VPN
4 30 (1.83%) DNS
5 25 (1.53%) SAN
6 23 (1.41%) DHCP
7 22 (1.34%) TCP/IP
8 20 (1.22%) WAN
9 15 (0.92%) LAN
10 14 (0.86%) NAS
10 14 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.79%) SSL
12 12 (0.73%) Cisco IPT
12 12 (0.73%) HTTP
13 11 (0.67%) Wireless
14 9 (0.55%) Intrusion Detection
14 9 (0.55%) MPLS
15 8 (0.49%) SD-WAN
16 7 (0.43%) Cisco Nexus
16 7 (0.43%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (4.46%) Power BI
2 42 (2.57%) Metadata
3 41 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (2.32%) SQL Server
5 34 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
6 30 (1.83%) Relational Database
7 25 (1.53%) Data Lake
8 23 (1.41%) NoSQL
9 22 (1.34%) MySQL
10 21 (1.28%) Big Data
11 17 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
11 17 (1.04%) MongoDB
12 14 (0.86%) BigQuery
13 12 (0.73%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
14 10 (0.61%) Tableau
15 9 (0.55%) DynamoDB
16 8 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
16 8 (0.49%) Ingres
16 8 (0.49%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 91 (5.56%) JIRA
2 65 (3.97%) Git
3 64 (3.91%) Jenkins
4 34 (2.08%) GitLab
5 11 (0.67%) Maven
6 10 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (0.55%) Postman
8 7 (0.43%) Gradle
8 7 (0.43%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.43%) Team Foundation Server
9 6 (0.37%) Flyway
9 6 (0.37%) JUnit
9 6 (0.37%) Selenium
9 6 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
10 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.31%) ERwin
11 4 (0.24%) SpecFlow
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 559 (34.15%) Social Skills
2 359 (21.93%) Finance
3 248 (15.15%) Legal
4 193 (11.79%) Analytical Skills
5 171 (10.45%) Public Sector
6 114 (6.96%) Banking
7 67 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
8 61 (3.73%) Organisational Skills
9 36 (2.20%) Retail
10 35 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (2.14%) Local Government
11 31 (1.89%) Telecoms
12 30 (1.83%) Law
13 27 (1.65%) Marketing
14 26 (1.59%) Front Office
15 22 (1.34%) Pharmaceutical
16 21 (1.28%) Billing
16 21 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
17 20 (1.22%) Police
18 15 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 239 (14.60%) Architect
2 148 (9.04%) Analyst
3 137 (8.37%) Lead
4 129 (7.88%) Developer
5 120 (7.33%) Senior
6 93 (5.68%) Consultant
7 85 (5.19%) Project Manager
8 65 (3.97%) Business Analyst
9 62 (3.79%) Solutions Architect
10 54 (3.30%) Security Architect
11 44 (2.69%) Security Engineer
12 43 (2.63%) Data Engineer
13 37 (2.26%) Administrator
13 37 (2.26%) Java Developer
14 32 (1.95%) Network Engineer
15 30 (1.83%) Support Engineer
15 30 (1.83%) Technical Architect
16 29 (1.77%) Data Analyst
17 27 (1.65%) IT Support
18 25 (1.53%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (5.50%) REST
2 49 (2.99%) React
3 36 (2.20%) Spring
4 35 (2.14%) JSON
5 34 (2.08%) CSS
5 34 (2.08%) Middleware
6 32 (1.95%) HTML
6 32 (1.95%) Kafka
6 32 (1.95%) Spring Boot
7 29 (1.77%) OAuth
8 28 (1.71%) RESTful
9 23 (1.41%) .NET
10 19 (1.16%) Node.js
11 17 (1.04%) CSS3
11 17 (1.04%) HTML5
11 17 (1.04%) OpenID
12 15 (0.92%) GraphQL
12 15 (0.92%) OAuth2
12 15 (0.92%) Redux
13 14 (0.86%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 730 (44.59%) Data Protection Act
2 92 (5.62%) Product Ownership
3 91 (5.56%) Cloud Native
4 76 (4.64%) Onboarding
5 64 (3.91%) Management Information System
6 48 (2.93%) Data Centre
7 46 (2.81%) Distributed Systems
7 46 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
8 41 (2.50%) Virtual Team
9 39 (2.38%) Security Posture
10 25 (1.53%) Operational Technology
11 24 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
12 23 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
12 23 (1.41%) NHS
12 23 (1.41%) Replication
13 22 (1.34%) Hybrid Cloud
14 20 (1.22%) Mobile App
15 18 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
16 17 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
17 16 (0.98%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 125 (7.64%) Windows
2 75 (4.58%) Linux
3 29 (1.77%) Apple iOS
4 28 (1.71%) Android
5 27 (1.65%) Windows Server
6 26 (1.59%) Unix
7 24 (1.47%) Mac OS
8 18 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.79%) VMS
9 13 (0.79%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.37%) CoreOS
10 6 (0.37%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (0.37%) zOS
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.061%) CentOS
12 1 (0.061%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.061%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.061%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 309 (18.88%) Agile
2 297 (18.14%) Problem-Solving
3 296 (18.08%) Stakeholder Management
4 258 (15.76%) Continuous Improvement
5 241 (14.72%) DevOps
6 231 (14.11%) CI/CD
7 215 (13.13%) Migration
8 205 (12.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 197 (12.03%) AI
10 163 (9.96%) Cybersecurity
11 152 (9.29%) Analytics
12 149 (9.10%) Decision-Making
12 149 (9.10%) Roadmaps
13 143 (8.74%) Data Governance
14 123 (7.51%) Risk Management
15 120 (7.33%) Information Security
16 119 (7.27%) Validation
17 115 (7.03%) Data Modelling
18 111 (6.78%) Infrastructure as Code
19 103 (6.29%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 211 (12.89%) Python
2 165 (10.08%) SQL
3 113 (6.90%) Java
4 60 (3.67%) JavaScript
5 59 (3.60%) PowerShell
6 44 (2.69%) Bash
7 28 (1.71%) TypeScript
8 24 (1.47%) C#
9 17 (1.04%) Go
10 14 (0.86%) Bicep
10 14 (0.86%) Kotlin
11 13 (0.79%) Apex Code
12 9 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
12 9 (0.55%) Perl
12 9 (0.55%) VB
13 8 (0.49%) C++
13 8 (0.49%) Scala
13 8 (0.49%) VB6
14 6 (0.37%) Groovy
15 5 (0.31%) R
Qualifications
1 248 (15.15%) Security Cleared
2 186 (11.36%) SC Cleared
3 117 (7.15%) Degree
4 82 (5.01%) CISSP
5 58 (3.54%) DV Cleared
6 48 (2.93%) CISM
7 35 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
8 34 (2.08%) Computer Science Degree
9 33 (2.02%) Azure Certification
10 32 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
11 30 (1.83%) PMI Certification
12 27 (1.65%) PMP
13 22 (1.34%) AWS Certification
14 18 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
15 17 (1.04%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 15 (0.92%) CCSP
17 12 (0.73%) Master's Degree
18 10 (0.61%) CCNP
18 10 (0.61%) CISA
19 9 (0.55%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 251 (15.33%) GDPR
2 94 (5.74%) Data Quality
3 86 (5.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (5.01%) QA
5 81 (4.95%) NIST
6 43 (2.63%) GRC
7 41 (2.50%) Accessibility
8 26 (1.59%) PMO
9 21 (1.28%) PCI DSS
10 20 (1.22%) NCSC
10 20 (1.22%) SLA
11 14 (0.86%) SOC 2
12 13 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.73%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.67%) PERC
14 11 (0.67%) WCAG
15 8 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 7 (0.43%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 83 (5.07%) Active Directory
2 67 (4.09%) Docker
3 52 (3.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (1.04%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.92%) NFS
6 14 (0.86%) vSphere
7 13 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (0.55%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.37%) VMware NSX
11 5 (0.31%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.24%) KVM
12 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
13 3 (0.18%) IAG
13 3 (0.18%) XenApp
13 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
14 2 (0.12%) Firmware
14 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
14 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 117 (7.15%) Kubernetes
2 86 (5.25%) Terraform
3 56 (3.42%) Ansible
4 42 (2.57%) Microsoft Intune
5 33 (2.02%) Grafana
6 27 (1.65%) NetBackup
7 21 (1.28%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.28%) SCCM
8 18 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.98%) Puppet
10 14 (0.86%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.43%) Kibana
12 7 (0.43%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.37%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.31%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.31%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 297 (18.14%) Microsoft
2 82 (5.01%) ServiceNow
3 74 (4.52%) Oracle
4 67 (4.09%) Google
5 53 (3.24%) VMware
6 50 (3.05%) Cisco
7 49 (2.99%) Databricks
8 40 (2.44%) SAP
9 33 (2.02%) Splunk
10 31 (1.89%) Red Hat
11 28 (1.71%) Salesforce
12 25 (1.53%) Workday
13 23 (1.41%) Zscaler
14 22 (1.34%) NetApp
15 21 (1.28%) CyberArk
15 21 (1.28%) Veritas
16 15 (0.92%) Citrix
16 15 (0.92%) IBM
17 13 (0.79%) Commvault
17 13 (0.79%) Dell