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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 77 86
Rank change year-on-year -7 +9 -2
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,691 1,095 993
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.32% 2.59%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 3.67% 3.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 871 523 525
10th Percentile £260 £289 £211
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £605
90th Percentile £688 £675 £720
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £464 £475
% change year-on-year -2.96% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 53 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.16 £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 £24.44 £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 46,295 29,870 32,935
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.37% 90.52% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,040 18,573 20,019
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
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 £627 £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 3,185 1,844 1,407
10th Percentile £13.72 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.33 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.91% -47.67% +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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -14 1,403 £498 -0.50% 1,627
UK excluding London -2 944 £450 -2.96% 973
London -30 592 £525 +0.96% 767
Work from Home +13 467 £500 +7.53% 667
North of England +14 341 £463 +1.93% 295
South East -1 197 £465 -8.92% 232
Yorkshire +11 173 £475 -7.32% 111
Midlands +3 161 £450 -5.26% 147
North West +9 147 £450 +2.27% 159
West Midlands +12 129 £450 -10.00% 95
Scotland -12 121 £444 +4.41% 63
South West -20 69 £450 +9.09% 79
East of England -23 33 £500 +5.26% 91
East Midlands -4 32 £435 +8.75% 52
North East -50 22 £463 +15.63% 28
Wales -4 21 £413 - 31
Northern Ireland +3 15 £110 -81.63% 39
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 (4.08%) SharePoint
2 39 (2.31%) Confluence
3 24 (1.42%) Apache Airflow
3 24 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.06%) Apache Spark
5 12 (0.71%) Apache
5 12 (0.71%) IIS
6 11 (0.65%) CMS
7 10 (0.59%) SAS
8 6 (0.35%) WordPress
9 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
10 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.24%) nginx
11 3 (0.18%) CICS
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%) WebSphere
Applications
1 49 (2.90%) Microsoft Office
2 47 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.059%) Maya
7 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.47%) 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%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.059%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.059%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.059%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.059%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 378 (22.35%) Azure
2 304 (17.98%) AWS
3 139 (8.22%) GCP
4 136 (8.04%) Microsoft 365
5 79 (4.67%) Power Platform
6 78 (4.61%) Entra ID
7 75 (4.44%) SaaS
8 63 (3.73%) Azure DevOps
9 61 (3.61%) GitHub
10 56 (3.31%) Microsoft Purview
11 48 (2.84%) Serverless
12 39 (2.31%) Microsoft Copilot
13 28 (1.66%) OneDrive
14 27 (1.60%) OpenShift
15 26 (1.54%) AWS Lambda
16 25 (1.48%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (1.30%) Power Automate
17 22 (1.30%) PowerApps
18 21 (1.24%) Snowflake
19 20 (1.18%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 93 (5.50%) Network Security
2 63 (3.73%) Firewall
3 36 (2.13%) VPN
4 35 (2.07%) DNS
5 26 (1.54%) TCP/IP
6 25 (1.48%) DHCP
7 22 (1.30%) WAN
8 19 (1.12%) Cisco IPT
8 19 (1.12%) LAN
9 15 (0.89%) SAN
10 14 (0.83%) SSL
10 14 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.77%) MPLS
11 13 (0.77%) Wireless
12 10 (0.59%) HTTP
12 10 (0.59%) VoIP
13 9 (0.53%) Cisco ISE
13 9 (0.53%) Intrusion Detection
13 9 (0.53%) NAS
13 9 (0.53%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (3.49%) Power BI
2 55 (3.25%) Metadata
3 45 (2.66%) Relational Database
4 38 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
5 33 (1.95%) SQL Server
6 32 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.42%) NoSQL
8 23 (1.36%) Data Lake
9 22 (1.30%) BigQuery
10 16 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
10 16 (0.95%) MySQL
11 14 (0.83%) Big Data
12 13 (0.77%) MongoDB
13 11 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
14 10 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
15 9 (0.53%) DynamoDB
15 9 (0.53%) Oracle Database
16 8 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
16 8 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
16 8 (0.47%) Redis
Development Applications
1 84 (4.97%) JIRA
2 68 (4.02%) Git
3 58 (3.43%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.54%) GitLab
5 18 (1.06%) Selenium
6 11 (0.65%) Maven
7 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
7 10 (0.59%) Postman
8 8 (0.47%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
10 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.24%) Gradle
11 4 (0.24%) JUnit
11 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio
12 3 (0.18%) Mockito
12 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
12 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
12 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 666 (39.38%) Social Skills
2 363 (21.47%) Finance
3 252 (14.90%) Legal
4 218 (12.89%) Analytical Skills
5 215 (12.71%) Public Sector
6 121 (7.16%) Banking
7 80 (4.73%) Organisational Skills
8 75 (4.44%) Documentation Skills
9 47 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
10 45 (2.66%) Local Government
11 41 (2.42%) Retail
12 40 (2.37%) Presentation Skills
13 33 (1.95%) Law
14 27 (1.60%) Front Office
14 27 (1.60%) Marketing
15 25 (1.48%) Telecoms
16 22 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
17 21 (1.24%) Police
18 20 (1.18%) Billing
19 16 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 251 (14.84%) Architect
2 170 (10.05%) Analyst
3 140 (8.28%) Lead
4 126 (7.45%) Senior
5 113 (6.68%) Developer
6 82 (4.85%) Consultant
7 76 (4.49%) Project Manager
8 68 (4.02%) Solutions Architect
9 66 (3.90%) Business Analyst
10 59 (3.49%) Security Architect
11 50 (2.96%) Administrator
12 45 (2.66%) Security Engineer
13 37 (2.19%) Information Officer
13 37 (2.19%) Support Engineer
14 33 (1.95%) Data Analyst
14 33 (1.95%) Information Governance Officer
15 30 (1.77%) Data Engineer
16 28 (1.66%) Network Engineer
17 27 (1.60%) Data Architect
18 26 (1.54%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (5.91%) Terraform
2 93 (5.50%) REST
3 41 (2.42%) Kafka
4 38 (2.25%) OAuth
5 37 (2.19%) JSON
6 32 (1.89%) React
6 32 (1.89%) Spring
7 31 (1.83%) Middleware
8 30 (1.77%) Spring Boot
9 28 (1.66%) RESTful
10 26 (1.54%) HTML
11 25 (1.48%) OAuth2
12 24 (1.42%) .NET
12 24 (1.42%) CSS
13 22 (1.30%) Node.js
14 20 (1.18%) OpenID
15 16 (0.95%) SOAP
16 15 (0.89%) YAML
17 14 (0.83%) SAML
18 13 (0.77%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 706 (41.75%) Data Protection Act
2 125 (7.39%) Management Information System
3 101 (5.97%) Product Ownership
4 94 (5.56%) Cloud Native
4 94 (5.56%) Onboarding
5 61 (3.61%) Data Centre
6 58 (3.43%) Distributed Systems
7 44 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
8 43 (2.54%) Freedom of Information
9 41 (2.42%) Security Posture
10 40 (2.37%) Virtual Team
11 31 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
11 31 (1.83%) NHS
12 30 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
13 29 (1.71%) Operational Technology
14 24 (1.42%) AI Agents
15 23 (1.36%) Data Structures
15 23 (1.36%) Mobile App
16 21 (1.24%) Private Cloud
17 20 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 130 (7.69%) Windows
2 80 (4.73%) Linux
3 35 (2.07%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.95%) Apple iOS
5 32 (1.89%) Android
6 29 (1.71%) Unix
7 22 (1.30%) Mac OS
8 16 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 14 (0.83%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.47%) zOS
11 4 (0.24%) VMS
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) CentOS
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.059%) MVS
13 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 396 (23.42%) Stakeholder Management
2 326 (19.28%) Agile
3 297 (17.56%) Problem-Solving
4 285 (16.85%) Continuous Improvement
5 250 (14.78%) CI/CD
6 232 (13.72%) AI
7 230 (13.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 227 (13.42%) Cybersecurity
9 224 (13.25%) Migration
10 218 (12.89%) DevOps
11 167 (9.88%) Decision-Making
12 165 (9.76%) Roadmaps
13 162 (9.58%) Risk Management
14 158 (9.34%) Information Security
15 149 (8.81%) Data Governance
16 148 (8.75%) Infrastructure as Code
17 144 (8.52%) Analytics
18 141 (8.34%) Validation
19 120 (7.10%) Test Automation
20 119 (7.04%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 213 (12.60%) Python
2 169 (9.99%) SQL
3 93 (5.50%) Java
4 59 (3.49%) PowerShell
5 50 (2.96%) JavaScript
6 32 (1.89%) Bash
7 28 (1.66%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.48%) Go
9 18 (1.06%) Bicep
9 18 (1.06%) C#
10 15 (0.89%) Kotlin
10 15 (0.89%) Scala
11 14 (0.83%) Apex Code
12 12 (0.71%) Perl
13 9 (0.53%) C
13 9 (0.53%) C++
14 8 (0.47%) VB
15 7 (0.41%) COBOL
15 7 (0.41%) VB6
16 6 (0.35%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 276 (16.32%) Security Cleared
2 204 (12.06%) SC Cleared
3 113 (6.68%) Degree
4 87 (5.14%) CISSP
5 61 (3.61%) DV Cleared
6 54 (3.19%) CISM
7 48 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 46 (2.72%) Cisco Certification
9 30 (1.77%) Azure Certification
10 29 (1.71%) PMI Certification
11 28 (1.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 27 (1.60%) PMP
13 25 (1.48%) CCSP
13 25 (1.48%) Computer Science Degree
14 17 (1.01%) AWS Certification
15 13 (0.77%) CCNP
15 13 (0.77%) CRISC
16 12 (0.71%) CISA
17 11 (0.65%) Master's Degree
17 11 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 245 (14.49%) GDPR
2 115 (6.80%) Data Quality
3 101 (5.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 72 (4.26%) NIST
5 70 (4.14%) QA
6 54 (3.19%) GRC
7 48 (2.84%) Accessibility
8 28 (1.66%) PCI DSS
9 22 (1.30%) NCSC
10 21 (1.24%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (1.18%) PMO
12 14 (0.83%) SLA
13 13 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.65%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.65%) PERC
15 11 (0.65%) WCAG
16 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
17 9 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 85 (5.03%) Active Directory
2 69 (4.08%) Docker
3 59 (3.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.06%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.77%) vSphere
6 12 (0.71%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.35%) NFS
9 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.24%) ISA Server
10 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) IAG
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
11 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.059%) KVM
12 1 (0.059%) OpenSSH
12 1 (0.059%) XenApp
12 1 (0.059%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 121 (7.16%) Kubernetes
2 47 (2.78%) Ansible
3 38 (2.25%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.54%) Grafana
5 22 (1.30%) SCCM
6 14 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.77%) Kibana
7 13 (0.77%) NetBackup
7 13 (0.77%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
9 11 (0.65%) Progress Chef
10 10 (0.59%) Puppet
11 7 (0.41%) CASB
12 6 (0.35%) 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%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 373 (22.06%) Microsoft
2 94 (5.56%) ServiceNow
3 81 (4.79%) Google
4 71 (4.20%) Cisco
5 67 (3.96%) Oracle
6 60 (3.55%) VMware
7 44 (2.60%) Databricks
7 44 (2.60%) Splunk
8 36 (2.13%) SAP
9 30 (1.77%) Salesforce
10 28 (1.66%) Zscaler
11 21 (1.24%) Workday
12 20 (1.18%) IBM
13 17 (1.01%) CyberArk
13 17 (1.01%) Dell
13 17 (1.01%) F5
14 16 (0.95%) Red Hat
15 14 (0.83%) Dynatrace
15 14 (0.83%) MuleSoft
16 12 (0.71%) SolarWinds