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 30 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 89 85
Rank change year-on-year +17 -4 +10
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,554 778 1,055
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.16% 2.69% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.73% 2.96% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 857 395 558
10th Percentile £300 £251 £215
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.03% -3.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £581 £604
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £453
% change year-on-year -5.26% +4.97% -4.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 32 108
10th Percentile £15.47 £14.78 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.35 £17.66 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £25.75 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.09% +22.62% -56.71%
75th Percentile £33.64 £32.73 £27.59
90th Percentile £48.15 £36.95 £41.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £24.50 £19.50
% change year-on-year -13.27% +25.64% -47.67%

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 41,610 26,282 36,757
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.67% 91.03% 85.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,026 16,812 23,631
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,481 1,100 2,513
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £27.97 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.26% -23.38% -1.35%
75th Percentile £67.84 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £73.88 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -33.82% +8.57%

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 30 May 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 30 May 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 30 May 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 +31 1,329 £496 -0.82% 376
UK excluding London +16 854 £450 -5.26% 257
London +37 599 £525 +5.00% 164
Work from Home +21 404 £500 +5.26% 152
North of England -4 278 £475 - 53
South East +14 182 £475 -10.25% 73
Yorkshire -12 159 £478 -7.95% 25
Midlands -2 131 £450 -10.00% 53
Scotland +6 126 £425 -7.10% 17
North West +7 111 £481 +16.67% 22
West Midlands -25 89 £468 -10.95% 33
South West -1 67 £410 +2.50% 36
East of England +5 51 £475 -9.52% 14
East Midlands +5 42 £438 +17.06% 20
Wales -7 11 £363 -12.12% 10
Northern Ireland +9 9 £104 -78.86% 4
North East -34 9 £400 -3.03% 7

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 (3.60%) Confluence
2 50 (3.22%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 16 (1.03%) Apache Spark
5 13 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 9 (0.58%) Apache
7 6 (0.39%) CMS
8 5 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (0.32%) SAS
9 3 (0.19%) Drupal
9 3 (0.19%) IIS
9 3 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.13%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.13%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.13%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 51 (3.28%) Microsoft Office
2 46 (2.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.26%) UserZoom
7 3 (0.19%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.13%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.064%) Maya
9 1 (0.064%) Trello
9 1 (0.064%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.64%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.32%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.32%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.19%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.19%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.064%) Endur
8 1 (0.064%) Loan IQ
Cloud Services
1 323 (20.79%) Azure
2 257 (16.54%) AWS
3 131 (8.43%) GCP
4 100 (6.44%) Microsoft 365
5 86 (5.53%) Entra ID
6 83 (5.34%) Power Platform
7 63 (4.05%) SaaS
8 62 (3.99%) GitHub
9 49 (3.15%) Microsoft Purview
10 48 (3.09%) OpenShift
11 45 (2.90%) Azure DevOps
12 39 (2.51%) Serverless
13 27 (1.74%) Microsoft Copilot
14 25 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
15 23 (1.48%) Snowflake
16 21 (1.35%) Amazon S3
16 21 (1.35%) AWS CloudFormation
16 21 (1.35%) OneDrive
16 21 (1.35%) Power Automate
17 20 (1.29%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 72 (4.63%) Network Security
2 44 (2.83%) Firewall
3 39 (2.51%) SAN
4 29 (1.87%) VPN
5 27 (1.74%) NAS
6 22 (1.42%) DNS
7 21 (1.35%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.35%) WAN
8 19 (1.22%) MPLS
9 18 (1.16%) LAN
10 14 (0.90%) DHCP
10 14 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 11 (0.71%) Fibre Channel
12 9 (0.58%) HTTP
12 9 (0.58%) iSCSI
12 9 (0.58%) VLAN
13 8 (0.51%) SD-WAN
13 8 (0.51%) SSL
13 8 (0.51%) Wireless
14 7 (0.45%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.44%) Power BI
2 37 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (2.25%) Metadata
4 33 (2.12%) SQL Server
5 28 (1.80%) Data Warehouse
6 24 (1.54%) MongoDB
6 24 (1.54%) MySQL
7 22 (1.42%) Data Lake
8 20 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
8 20 (1.29%) NoSQL
8 20 (1.29%) Relational Database
9 19 (1.22%) Big Data
10 13 (0.84%) DynamoDB
11 12 (0.77%) Oracle Database
11 12 (0.77%) Tableau
12 11 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
13 9 (0.58%) BigQuery
13 9 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
13 9 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 7 (0.45%) Redis
Development Applications
1 91 (5.86%) JIRA
2 68 (4.38%) Git
3 64 (4.12%) Jenkins
4 37 (2.38%) GitLab
5 9 (0.58%) SpecFlow
6 8 (0.51%) JUnit
7 7 (0.45%) Postman
7 7 (0.45%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.39%) Flyway
8 6 (0.39%) Maven
9 5 (0.32%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.32%) Gradle
10 4 (0.26%) ERwin
10 4 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
11 3 (0.19%) Katalon Studio
11 3 (0.19%) Selenium
11 3 (0.19%) TestNG
11 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.13%) REST Assured
General
1 489 (31.47%) Social Skills
2 359 (23.10%) Finance
3 202 (13.00%) Legal
4 174 (11.20%) Analytical Skills
5 142 (9.14%) Public Sector
6 121 (7.79%) Banking
7 66 (4.25%) Documentation Skills
8 64 (4.12%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.64%) Telecoms
10 31 (1.99%) Front Office
10 31 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.80%) Local Government
11 28 (1.80%) Retail
12 27 (1.74%) Law
12 27 (1.74%) Marketing
13 25 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
14 18 (1.16%) Police
15 16 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
16 12 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 12 (0.77%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 215 (13.84%) Architect
2 143 (9.20%) Analyst
3 128 (8.24%) Developer
4 117 (7.53%) Lead
5 108 (6.95%) Senior
6 93 (5.98%) Consultant
7 83 (5.34%) Project Manager
8 68 (4.38%) Business Analyst
9 60 (3.86%) Solutions Architect
10 44 (2.83%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.70%) Java Developer
12 41 (2.64%) Network Engineer
13 40 (2.57%) Security Engineer
14 37 (2.38%) Data Engineer
15 35 (2.25%) Administrator
16 29 (1.87%) Technical Architect
17 26 (1.67%) Data Analyst
18 25 (1.61%) Support Engineer
19 23 (1.48%) Python Developer
20 22 (1.42%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (4.89%) REST
2 58 (3.73%) React
3 38 (2.45%) Spring
4 34 (2.19%) Spring Boot
5 33 (2.12%) Middleware
6 31 (1.99%) HTML
6 31 (1.99%) Kafka
6 31 (1.99%) RESTful
7 30 (1.93%) CSS
8 28 (1.80%) .NET
9 26 (1.67%) OAuth
10 25 (1.61%) JSON
11 23 (1.48%) Node.js
12 21 (1.35%) Jest
13 18 (1.16%) HTML5
13 18 (1.16%) Redux
14 17 (1.09%) OpenID
14 17 (1.09%) Spring MVC
15 16 (1.03%) CSS3
15 16 (1.03%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 720 (46.33%) Data Protection Act
2 91 (5.86%) Cloud Native
3 78 (5.02%) Product Ownership
4 70 (4.50%) Onboarding
5 52 (3.35%) Management Information System
6 41 (2.64%) Distributed Systems
7 40 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
8 37 (2.38%) Data Centre
9 31 (1.99%) Security Posture
10 27 (1.74%) NHS
10 27 (1.74%) Replication
11 26 (1.67%) Virtual Team
12 23 (1.48%) Enterprise Storage
12 23 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
13 21 (1.35%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 20 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
15 18 (1.16%) Operational Technology
16 17 (1.09%) Derivative
16 17 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
17 16 (1.03%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 111 (7.14%) Windows
2 79 (5.08%) Linux
3 34 (2.19%) Unix
4 23 (1.48%) Android
4 23 (1.48%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.29%) Mac OS
6 19 (1.22%) Apple iOS
7 17 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.84%) VMS
8 13 (0.84%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.58%) zOS
10 7 (0.45%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.39%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.13%) Rocky
12 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.064%) CentOS
13 1 (0.064%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.064%) Solaris
13 1 (0.064%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.064%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 292 (18.79%) Agile
2 260 (16.73%) Stakeholder Management
3 252 (16.22%) Problem-Solving
4 244 (15.70%) Migration
5 236 (15.19%) Continuous Improvement
6 223 (14.35%) CI/CD
7 217 (13.96%) DevOps
8 151 (9.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 147 (9.46%) AI
10 141 (9.07%) Roadmaps
11 136 (8.75%) Analytics
12 132 (8.49%) Decision-Making
13 130 (8.37%) Cybersecurity
14 125 (8.04%) Risk Management
15 116 (7.46%) Information Security
16 106 (6.82%) Infrastructure as Code
17 103 (6.63%) Data Governance
18 99 (6.37%) Test Automation
19 98 (6.31%) Validation
20 97 (6.24%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 219 (14.09%) Python
2 168 (10.81%) SQL
3 136 (8.75%) Java
4 74 (4.76%) JavaScript
5 59 (3.80%) PowerShell
6 42 (2.70%) Bash
7 39 (2.51%) C#
8 34 (2.19%) TypeScript
9 20 (1.29%) Bicep
10 15 (0.97%) Perl
11 14 (0.90%) C++
12 12 (0.77%) Go
13 11 (0.71%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.64%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.58%) Apex Code
15 9 (0.58%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.51%) ActionScript
16 8 (0.51%) Scala
17 7 (0.45%) PL/SQL
18 6 (0.39%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 209 (13.45%) Security Cleared
2 155 (9.97%) SC Cleared
3 135 (8.69%) Degree
4 71 (4.57%) CISSP
5 53 (3.41%) DV Cleared
6 39 (2.51%) CISM
7 34 (2.19%) Computer Science Degree
8 31 (1.99%) Azure Certification
9 30 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
9 30 (1.93%) PMI Certification
10 29 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
11 26 (1.67%) PMP
12 22 (1.42%) Master's Degree
13 21 (1.35%) AWS Certification
14 18 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (1.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.90%) CCSP
17 11 (0.71%) CRISC
18 10 (0.64%) CCNP
18 10 (0.64%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 248 (15.96%) GDPR
2 90 (5.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 89 (5.73%) NIST
4 78 (5.02%) Data Quality
5 60 (3.86%) QA
6 37 (2.38%) Accessibility
6 37 (2.38%) GRC
7 24 (1.54%) PCI DSS
8 21 (1.35%) PMO
9 20 (1.29%) SLA
10 19 (1.22%) SOC 2
11 16 (1.03%) NCSC
12 13 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
13 10 (0.64%) WCAG
14 8 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
15 7 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
15 7 (0.45%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.39%) COBIT
17 5 (0.32%) NIST 800
System Software
1 79 (5.08%) Active Directory
2 68 (4.38%) Docker
3 53 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.29%) NFS
5 19 (1.22%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (0.71%) vSphere
8 8 (0.51%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.45%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.39%) KVM
11 4 (0.26%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.19%) IAG
12 3 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.19%) XenApp
12 3 (0.19%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.13%) GPFS
13 2 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.064%) iptables
Systems Management
1 118 (7.59%) Kubernetes
2 90 (5.79%) Terraform
3 67 (4.31%) Ansible
4 46 (2.96%) Grafana
5 39 (2.51%) Microsoft Intune
6 32 (2.06%) Prometheus
7 31 (1.99%) NetBackup
8 21 (1.35%) SCCM
8 21 (1.35%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.84%) Puppet
10 12 (0.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 9 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
12 7 (0.45%) Kibana
12 7 (0.45%) SnapMirror
13 5 (0.32%) Control-M
13 5 (0.32%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.32%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 4 (0.26%) CA Single Sign-On
14 4 (0.26%) Foglight
14 4 (0.26%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 256 (16.47%) Microsoft
2 76 (4.89%) Oracle
3 65 (4.18%) Google
4 58 (3.73%) ServiceNow
5 54 (3.47%) VMware
6 53 (3.41%) Databricks
7 50 (3.22%) Cisco
8 44 (2.83%) SAP
9 32 (2.06%) Splunk
10 31 (1.99%) Red Hat
11 26 (1.67%) NetApp
11 26 (1.67%) Veritas
12 23 (1.48%) Salesforce
13 21 (1.35%) Citrix
14 20 (1.29%) IBM
15 15 (0.97%) Commvault
15 15 (0.97%) F5
15 15 (0.97%) Workday
15 15 (0.97%) Zscaler
16 14 (0.90%) Informatica