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 16 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 99 83
Rank change year-on-year +24 -16 +21
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,410 773 1,103
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.27% 2.61% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.80% 2.89% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 765 411 612
10th Percentile £282 £263 £206
25th Percentile £400 £375 £399
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £594
90th Percentile £698 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 24 109
10th Percentile £16.04 £17.15 £12.45
25th Percentile £17.01 £24.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.62 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.07% +51.87% -70.45%
75th Percentile £24.39 £33.59 £27.00
90th Percentile £47.08 £56.60 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £19.50
% change year-on-year -29.15% +49.90% -70.45%

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 37,084 26,717 38,494
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.01% 90.37% 86.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,485 17,170 25,048
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £610 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £745 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,212 916 2,333
10th Percentile £14.83 £15.26 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.02
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.79 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.36 £31.76 £31.50
% change year-on-year -13.85% +0.83% -10.00%

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 16 March 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 16 March 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 16 March 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 +27 1,205 £500 - 293
UK excluding London +21 750 £450 -5.26% 243
London +36 574 £525 +1.45% 105
Work from Home +26 341 £500 +2.30% 118
North of England -10 230 £475 - 68
South East +20 183 £483 +0.36% 70
Yorkshire -11 133 £493 -6.19% 23
Scotland +19 117 £407 -11.04% 12
Midlands -5 102 £449 -7.95% 39
North West -17 89 £450 -3.74% 44
West Midlands -32 63 £500 -1.23% 25
South West +6 51 £500 +33.33% 29
East of England +7 50 £450 -25.00% 23
East Midlands -1 39 £436 +5.70% 14
Wales 0 13 £375 -11.76% 3
North East -25 9 £400 -15.79% 1
Northern Ireland - 8 £500 -

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 59 (4.18%) Confluence
2 37 (2.62%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (0.64%) Apache
5 9 (0.64%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.28%) CMS
7 3 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 3 (0.21%) Ethereum
7 3 (0.21%) Hyperledger
8 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.14%) Drupal
8 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.14%) nginx
8 2 (0.14%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.14%) SAS
8 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.071%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 54 (3.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (3.05%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.43%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.071%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.071%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.071%) Blender
8 1 (0.071%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.071%) InVision
8 1 (0.071%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.071%) Sketch
8 1 (0.071%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.85%) Aladdin
1 12 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.64%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.35%) NEC Housing
3 5 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (0.28%) ResourceLink
4 4 (0.28%) SAP GRC
4 4 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 3 (0.21%) Distributed Ledger
5 3 (0.21%) Fidessa
5 3 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.21%) R3 Corda
6 2 (0.14%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.14%) Workfront
7 1 (0.071%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 278 (19.72%) Azure
2 227 (16.10%) AWS
3 117 (8.30%) GCP
4 77 (5.46%) Power Platform
5 76 (5.39%) Microsoft 365
6 67 (4.75%) Entra ID
7 62 (4.40%) GitHub
8 59 (4.18%) Serverless
9 51 (3.62%) SaaS
10 44 (3.12%) AWS Lambda
11 43 (3.05%) Amazon S3
12 39 (2.77%) Azure DevOps
13 38 (2.70%) Microsoft Purview
14 36 (2.55%) OpenShift
15 32 (2.27%) Snowflake
16 30 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
17 26 (1.84%) GitHub Actions
18 24 (1.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 21 (1.49%) Amazon EC2
19 21 (1.49%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 47 (3.33%) Network Security
2 41 (2.91%) Firewall
3 35 (2.48%) SAN
4 23 (1.63%) VPN
5 21 (1.49%) NAS
6 19 (1.35%) DNS
7 18 (1.28%) LAN
7 18 (1.28%) WAN
8 17 (1.21%) MPLS
9 16 (1.13%) Cisco IPT
10 14 (0.99%) TCP/IP
11 11 (0.78%) SD-WAN
12 10 (0.71%) BGP
12 10 (0.71%) HTTP
12 10 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
13 9 (0.64%) DHCP
13 9 (0.64%) Fibre Channel
13 9 (0.64%) VLAN
14 8 (0.57%) IPv4
14 8 (0.57%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.89%) Power BI
2 39 (2.77%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (2.41%) SQL Server
4 30 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
5 28 (1.99%) Metadata
6 20 (1.42%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.42%) Relational Database
7 18 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
8 17 (1.21%) DynamoDB
8 17 (1.21%) MySQL
9 16 (1.13%) Data Lake
9 16 (1.13%) MongoDB
10 14 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
11 12 (0.85%) Amazon Aurora
11 12 (0.85%) Tableau
12 11 (0.78%) Oracle Database
13 9 (0.64%) Big Data
13 9 (0.64%) BigQuery
13 9 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
13 9 (0.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 96 (6.81%) JIRA
2 64 (4.54%) Jenkins
3 63 (4.47%) Git
4 38 (2.70%) GitLab
5 12 (0.85%) SpecFlow
6 11 (0.78%) JUnit
7 10 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
8 8 (0.57%) Gradle
9 7 (0.50%) Maven
10 6 (0.43%) NUnit
11 5 (0.35%) Postman
11 5 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
12 4 (0.28%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
12 4 (0.28%) Fiddler
12 4 (0.28%) Flyway
13 3 (0.21%) IntelliJ
13 3 (0.21%) MSI
13 3 (0.21%) Selenium
13 3 (0.21%) TestNG
General
1 448 (31.77%) Social Skills
2 308 (21.84%) Finance
3 190 (13.48%) Analytical Skills
4 147 (10.43%) Legal
5 143 (10.14%) Public Sector
6 114 (8.09%) Banking
7 56 (3.97%) Organisational Skills
8 45 (3.19%) Documentation Skills
9 40 (2.84%) Telecoms
10 30 (2.13%) Marketing
11 27 (1.91%) Influencing Skills
11 27 (1.91%) Presentation Skills
12 24 (1.70%) Front Office
13 21 (1.49%) Law
14 20 (1.42%) Local Government
15 17 (1.21%) Police
16 15 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 15 (1.06%) Retail
17 14 (0.99%) Manufacturing
18 12 (0.85%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 187 (13.26%) Architect
2 152 (10.78%) Analyst
3 109 (7.73%) Developer
3 109 (7.73%) Lead
4 82 (5.82%) Senior
5 72 (5.11%) Consultant
6 68 (4.82%) Project Manager
7 66 (4.68%) Business Analyst
8 55 (3.90%) Solutions Architect
9 37 (2.62%) Data Engineer
9 37 (2.62%) Security Engineer
10 33 (2.34%) Network Engineer
11 32 (2.27%) Security Architect
12 30 (2.13%) Technical Architect
13 29 (2.06%) Administrator
14 26 (1.84%) Data Analyst
15 24 (1.70%) Java Developer
16 23 (1.63%) Automation Engineer
17 22 (1.56%) Data Protection Officer
18 20 (1.42%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (4.61%) REST
2 48 (3.40%) React
3 35 (2.48%) .NET
4 34 (2.41%) Node.js
5 29 (2.06%) Kafka
6 27 (1.91%) Middleware
6 27 (1.91%) Spring
7 26 (1.84%) RESTful
8 22 (1.56%) OAuth
8 22 (1.56%) Spring Boot
9 18 (1.28%) Oracle Fusion
10 17 (1.21%) Playwright
11 16 (1.13%) HTML
12 15 (1.06%) PySpark
13 14 (0.99%) .NET Core
14 13 (0.92%) Jest
15 12 (0.85%) JSON
16 11 (0.78%) AngularJS
16 11 (0.78%) CSS
17 10 (0.71%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 680 (48.23%) Data Protection Act
2 77 (5.46%) Cloud Native
3 65 (4.61%) Product Ownership
4 58 (4.11%) Onboarding
5 53 (3.76%) Management Information System
6 31 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
7 29 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
7 29 (2.06%) NHS
7 29 (2.06%) Security Posture
8 27 (1.91%) Hybrid Cloud
9 26 (1.84%) Data Centre
9 26 (1.84%) Replication
10 23 (1.63%) Freedom of Information
11 20 (1.42%) Data Structures
11 20 (1.42%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 18 (1.28%) Enterprise Storage
13 14 (0.99%) Insider Threat
14 13 (0.92%) AI Agents
14 13 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
15 12 (0.85%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 98 (6.95%) Windows
2 69 (4.89%) Linux
3 25 (1.77%) Unix
4 20 (1.42%) Windows Server
5 17 (1.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.92%) VMS
7 11 (0.78%) Mac OS
7 11 (0.78%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.57%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.50%) Data ONTAP
9 7 (0.50%) zOS
10 6 (0.43%) Android
10 6 (0.43%) CoreOS
11 4 (0.28%) AIX
11 4 (0.28%) Solaris
12 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.071%) CentOS
13 1 (0.071%) Rocky
13 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 250 (17.73%) Problem-Solving
2 238 (16.88%) Agile
3 237 (16.81%) Stakeholder Management
4 217 (15.39%) Migration
5 193 (13.69%) CI/CD
6 182 (12.91%) DevOps
7 170 (12.06%) Continuous Improvement
8 142 (10.07%) Cybersecurity
9 139 (9.86%) Analytics
10 136 (9.65%) Roadmaps
11 131 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 122 (8.65%) AI
13 117 (8.30%) Information Security
14 116 (8.23%) Risk Management
15 102 (7.23%) Decision-Making
16 98 (6.95%) Project Management
17 96 (6.81%) Data Governance
18 95 (6.74%) Test Automation
19 91 (6.45%) Infrastructure as Code
20 90 (6.38%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 224 (15.89%) Python
2 178 (12.62%) SQL
3 103 (7.30%) Java
4 67 (4.75%) JavaScript
5 61 (4.33%) PowerShell
6 53 (3.76%) C#
7 38 (2.70%) TypeScript
8 36 (2.55%) Bash
9 19 (1.35%) Bicep
10 12 (0.85%) Perl
11 11 (0.78%) C++
12 10 (0.71%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.57%) ActionScript
13 8 (0.57%) Kusto Query Language
14 7 (0.50%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.43%) ActionScript 2.0
16 5 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 5 (0.35%) Go
17 4 (0.28%) Groovy
17 4 (0.28%) Scala
Qualifications
1 191 (13.55%) Security Cleared
2 136 (9.65%) SC Cleared
3 127 (9.01%) Degree
4 50 (3.55%) DV Cleared
5 49 (3.48%) CISSP
6 37 (2.62%) Computer Science Degree
7 34 (2.41%) CISM
8 28 (1.99%) AWS Certification
9 26 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
10 23 (1.63%) PMI Certification
11 22 (1.56%) Master's Degree
12 21 (1.49%) PMP
13 20 (1.42%) Azure Certification
14 19 (1.35%) Cisco Certification
15 16 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
16 14 (0.99%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 14 (0.99%) CTC Cleared
17 12 (0.85%) CRISC
18 11 (0.78%) CCSP
19 10 (0.71%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 257 (18.23%) GDPR
2 92 (6.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 92 (6.52%) NIST
3 71 (5.04%) Data Quality
4 57 (4.04%) QA
5 32 (2.27%) Accessibility
6 31 (2.20%) PCI DSS
7 25 (1.77%) GRC
7 25 (1.77%) PMO
8 22 (1.56%) SLA
9 17 (1.21%) NCSC
10 16 (1.13%) SOC 2
11 15 (1.06%) Disclosure Scotland
12 13 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.85%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.78%) PERC
15 9 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
16 7 (0.50%) HIPAA
17 6 (0.43%) COBIT
17 6 (0.43%) WCAG
System Software
1 71 (5.04%) Docker
2 63 (4.47%) Active Directory
3 53 (3.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.13%) NFS
4 16 (1.13%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (0.71%) vSphere
7 9 (0.64%) Hyper-V
8 8 (0.57%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.35%) KVM
9 5 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.21%) IAG
11 3 (0.21%) Microsoft App-V
11 3 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.14%) Time Sharing Option
13 1 (0.071%) iptables
13 1 (0.071%) UAG
13 1 (0.071%) XenApp
13 1 (0.071%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 102 (7.23%) Kubernetes
2 98 (6.95%) Terraform
3 68 (4.82%) Ansible
4 35 (2.48%) Grafana
5 30 (2.13%) NetBackup
6 29 (2.06%) Microsoft Intune
7 27 (1.91%) Prometheus
8 16 (1.13%) SCCM
8 16 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (1.06%) Puppet
10 8 (0.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 7 (0.50%) SnapMirror
12 6 (0.43%) EMC NetWorker
12 6 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
13 5 (0.35%) Control-M
13 5 (0.35%) RSA Archer
13 5 (0.35%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.28%) Foglight
14 4 (0.28%) Kibana
14 4 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 211 (14.96%) Microsoft
2 66 (4.68%) Oracle
3 63 (4.47%) Google
4 55 (3.90%) VMware
5 50 (3.55%) Databricks
6 45 (3.19%) ServiceNow
7 42 (2.98%) Cisco
8 40 (2.84%) SAP
9 33 (2.34%) Salesforce
10 32 (2.27%) Red Hat
11 21 (1.49%) Commvault
11 21 (1.49%) Veritas
12 20 (1.42%) NetApp
13 19 (1.35%) Citrix
13 19 (1.35%) IBM
14 18 (1.28%) F5
15 15 (1.06%) Veeam
16 14 (0.99%) Adobe
16 14 (0.99%) Splunk
17 12 (0.85%) Workday