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

6 months to
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 74 84 83
Rank change year-on-year +10 -1 +23
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,242 980 1,205
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.41% 2.72% 2.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.83% 3.11% 3.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 614 518 705
10th Percentile £302 £262 £213
25th Percentile £400 £388 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.26%
75th Percentile £600 £612 £600
90th Percentile £675 £725 £717
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -12.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 20 14
10th Percentile £12.63 £16.23 £17.24
25th Percentile £14.66 £19.22 £18.06
Median hourly rate £20.40 £24.50 £22.12
Median % change year-on-year -16.73% +10.76% -57.87%
75th Percentile £20.78 £29.42 £37.25
90th Percentile £40.46 £37.96 £44.23
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.40 £24.50 £19.50
% change year-on-year -16.73% +25.64% -72.14%

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 31,463 40,054
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.97% 87.43% 88.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,408 19,089 26,807
10th Percentile £300 £309 £312
25th Percentile £405 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,095 1,098 1,556
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.24 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.20 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.75 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.21% -22.94% +21.43%
75th Percentile £45.46 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £74.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -30.37% -23.53% +30.77%

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 6 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 6 December 2025.

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 6 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 +12 1,059 £500 - 603
UK excluding London 0 640 £450 -10.00% 552
London +20 541 £525 +5.00% 136
Work from Home +5 294 £490 -2.00% 262
North of England -16 183 £450 -8.58% 105
South East +17 151 £506 - 170
Scotland +2 104 £400 -15.79% 28
Yorkshire -3 91 £500 - 45
Midlands +11 89 £450 -12.20% 104
North West -23 72 £425 -12.37% 53
West Midlands +5 66 £475 -7.32% 60
South West +5 47 £525 -22.22% 79
East of England +1 34 £463 +1.87% 55
East Midlands +1 23 £402 -11.06% 40
North East -6 21 £419 -1.47% 7
Wales +1 17 £400 -5.88% 13
Northern Ireland - 16 £500 - 7
Channel Islands -2 2 £725 -

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 64 (5.15%) Confluence
2 34 (2.74%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.21%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.97%) CMS
5 11 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.64%) Apache
7 7 (0.56%) Apache Spark
8 6 (0.48%) nginx
9 5 (0.40%) CICS
10 3 (0.24%) SAS
11 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 1 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
12 1 (0.081%) Luigi
12 1 (0.081%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.081%) SharePoint Server
12 1 (0.081%) Skype for Business
12 1 (0.081%) WebSphere
12 1 (0.081%) WordPress
Applications
1 61 (4.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (2.82%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.81%) Chatbot
4 9 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.48%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.24%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.24%) Sketch
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 (0.081%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.081%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.081%) Blender
9 1 (0.081%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.081%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.081%) SPSS
9 1 (0.081%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (0.89%) Oracle EBS
2 10 (0.81%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.40%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.32%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.32%) VisionPLUS
6 3 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
6 3 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.16%) assyst
7 2 (0.16%) Fidessa
7 2 (0.16%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.081%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.081%) Endur
8 1 (0.081%) Markit EDM
8 1 (0.081%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.081%) Oracle Financials
8 1 (0.081%) Oracle iProcurement
8 1 (0.081%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 255 (20.53%) Azure
2 233 (18.76%) AWS
3 99 (7.97%) GCP
4 74 (5.96%) Power Platform
5 67 (5.39%) Microsoft 365
6 51 (4.11%) GitHub
6 51 (4.11%) Serverless
7 42 (3.38%) Entra ID
8 41 (3.30%) AWS Lambda
9 40 (3.22%) Amazon S3
9 40 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
10 36 (2.90%) SaaS
11 28 (2.25%) Power Automate
12 27 (2.17%) AWS CloudFormation
13 25 (2.01%) Snowflake
14 21 (1.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 20 (1.61%) Azure Monitor
15 20 (1.61%) Microsoft Purview
16 19 (1.53%) Amazon EC2
16 19 (1.53%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 54 (4.35%) Firewall
2 33 (2.66%) Network Security
3 16 (1.29%) DNS
4 15 (1.21%) VPN
4 15 (1.21%) WAN
5 14 (1.13%) SSH
6 13 (1.05%) Cisco IPT
7 12 (0.97%) LAN
7 12 (0.97%) MPLS
8 10 (0.81%) DHCP
8 10 (0.81%) HTTP
8 10 (0.81%) SAN
9 9 (0.72%) SD-WAN
10 8 (0.64%) BGP
10 8 (0.64%) Wireshark
11 7 (0.56%) TCP/IP
11 7 (0.56%) Wireless
12 6 (0.48%) Internet
12 6 (0.48%) iSCSI
12 6 (0.48%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (4.59%) Power BI
2 39 (3.14%) SQL Server
3 33 (2.66%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.93%) NoSQL
4 24 (1.93%) Relational Database
5 19 (1.53%) Tableau
6 18 (1.45%) Amazon RDS
7 16 (1.29%) Data Warehouse
7 16 (1.29%) Metadata
8 13 (1.05%) MongoDB
9 12 (0.97%) Amazon Aurora
9 12 (0.97%) Data Lake
9 12 (0.97%) MySQL
10 11 (0.89%) DynamoDB
11 10 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
12 9 (0.72%) Oracle Database
12 9 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.64%) Big Data
14 7 (0.56%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.56%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 111 (8.94%) JIRA
2 40 (3.22%) Git
3 37 (2.98%) Jenkins
4 31 (2.50%) GitLab
5 7 (0.56%) JUnit
5 7 (0.56%) Postman
6 6 (0.48%) SpecFlow
7 5 (0.40%) Fiddler
8 4 (0.32%) ChangeMan
8 4 (0.32%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.32%) Gradle
8 4 (0.32%) Metasploit
8 4 (0.32%) NUnit
8 4 (0.32%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.24%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.24%) Burp Suite
9 3 (0.24%) CircleCI
9 3 (0.24%) Maven
9 3 (0.24%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 422 (33.98%) Social Skills
2 251 (20.21%) Finance
3 152 (12.24%) Analytical Skills
4 126 (10.14%) Public Sector
5 100 (8.05%) Banking
6 91 (7.33%) Legal
7 37 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
7 37 (2.98%) Marketing
8 34 (2.74%) Organisational Skills
9 30 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
10 28 (2.25%) Telecoms
11 23 (1.85%) Law
11 23 (1.85%) Manufacturing
12 18 (1.45%) Front Office
13 17 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
14 15 (1.21%) Financial Institution
14 15 (1.21%) Local Government
15 13 (1.05%) Retail
16 12 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 11 (0.89%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 175 (14.09%) Analyst
2 130 (10.47%) Developer
3 124 (9.98%) Architect
4 86 (6.92%) Lead
5 73 (5.88%) Business Analyst
6 62 (4.99%) Senior
7 60 (4.83%) Consultant
8 52 (4.19%) Project Manager
9 39 (3.14%) Data Analyst
10 38 (3.06%) Security Engineer
11 37 (2.98%) Administrator
12 36 (2.90%) Solutions Architect
13 29 (2.33%) Data Engineer
14 25 (2.01%) Security Architect
14 25 (2.01%) Support Engineer
15 21 (1.69%) Data Protection Officer
16 20 (1.61%) Automation Engineer
16 20 (1.61%) Information Officer
17 19 (1.53%) Information Governance Officer
17 19 (1.53%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (4.11%) REST
2 33 (2.66%) RESTful
3 30 (2.42%) .NET
4 29 (2.33%) React
5 28 (2.25%) OAuth
6 24 (1.93%) Node.js
7 23 (1.85%) SOAP
8 22 (1.77%) HTML
9 21 (1.69%) Spring
10 20 (1.61%) Kafka
11 16 (1.29%) Middleware
12 14 (1.13%) AngularJS
13 13 (1.05%) JSON
13 13 (1.05%) LangChain
13 13 (1.05%) Spring Boot
14 12 (0.97%) .NET Core
14 12 (0.97%) OAuth2
15 11 (0.89%) SAML
15 11 (0.89%) XML
16 9 (0.72%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 641 (51.61%) Data Protection Act
2 49 (3.95%) Product Ownership
3 48 (3.86%) Cloud Native
4 47 (3.78%) Onboarding
5 45 (3.62%) Management Information System
6 32 (2.58%) Freedom of Information
7 29 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
8 25 (2.01%) NHS
9 23 (1.85%) Data Centre
10 22 (1.77%) Data Structures
11 21 (1.69%) Security Posture
12 20 (1.61%) Replication
13 19 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
13 19 (1.53%) Virtual Team
14 16 (1.29%) CMDB
15 15 (1.21%) Public Cloud
16 14 (1.13%) Derivative
17 13 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
17 13 (1.05%) Hybrid Cloud
17 13 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 87 (7.00%) Windows
2 57 (4.59%) Linux
3 19 (1.53%) Unix
4 13 (1.05%) Mac OS
4 13 (1.05%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.72%) Android
5 9 (0.72%) Windows 10
6 8 (0.64%) zOS
7 6 (0.48%) AIX
7 6 (0.48%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.48%) Solaris
8 5 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.40%) VMS
9 2 (0.16%) CentOS
9 2 (0.16%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.081%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.081%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 215 (17.31%) Problem-Solving
2 203 (16.34%) Agile
3 177 (14.25%) Stakeholder Management
4 169 (13.61%) DevOps
5 161 (12.96%) CI/CD
6 150 (12.08%) Migration
7 139 (11.19%) Cybersecurity
8 133 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 113 (9.10%) AI
10 111 (8.94%) Analytics
11 103 (8.29%) Continuous Improvement
12 102 (8.21%) Project Management
13 96 (7.73%) Roadmaps
14 93 (7.49%) Information Security
14 93 (7.49%) Risk Management
15 77 (6.20%) Microservices
16 74 (5.96%) Business Intelligence
16 74 (5.96%) Data Governance
17 73 (5.88%) Test Automation
18 70 (5.64%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 230 (18.52%) Python
2 155 (12.48%) SQL
3 65 (5.23%) Java
4 61 (4.91%) PowerShell
5 59 (4.75%) Bash
6 58 (4.67%) JavaScript
7 44 (3.54%) C#
8 28 (2.25%) TypeScript
9 13 (1.05%) C++
10 11 (0.89%) Go
11 8 (0.64%) PHP
11 8 (0.64%) PromQL
11 8 (0.64%) Shell Script
12 7 (0.56%) R
13 6 (0.48%) Kotlin
13 6 (0.48%) Perl
13 6 (0.48%) PL/SQL
14 5 (0.40%) Bicep
14 5 (0.40%) COBOL
15 4 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 144 (11.59%) Security Cleared
2 114 (9.18%) Degree
3 103 (8.29%) SC Cleared
4 44 (3.54%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (2.50%) DV Cleared
6 28 (2.25%) AWS Certification
7 26 (2.09%) CISSP
8 22 (1.77%) CISM
9 16 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
10 15 (1.21%) BPSS Clearance
10 15 (1.21%) Master's Degree
11 13 (1.05%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 13 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (0.89%) Azure Certification
12 11 (0.89%) CISA
12 11 (0.89%) PMI Certification
12 11 (0.89%) PMP
13 10 (0.81%) A+ Certification
13 10 (0.81%) CCNP
14 8 (0.64%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 226 (18.20%) GDPR
2 84 (6.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 73 (5.88%) NIST
4 48 (3.86%) QA
5 47 (3.78%) Data Quality
6 24 (1.93%) PCI DSS
7 22 (1.77%) Accessibility
7 22 (1.77%) Cyber Essentials
8 19 (1.53%) PMO
9 18 (1.45%) GRC
10 17 (1.37%) NCSC
11 15 (1.21%) PERC
12 11 (0.89%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 11 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 11 (0.89%) NIST 800
13 9 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
13 9 (0.72%) Disclosure Scotland
13 9 (0.72%) EU AI Act
13 9 (0.72%) SLA
14 8 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 55 (4.43%) Docker
2 54 (4.35%) Active Directory
3 43 (3.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.05%) Virtual Desktop
5 7 (0.56%) NFS
6 6 (0.48%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.24%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.24%) vSphere
9 2 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.081%) Firmware
10 1 (0.081%) HDFS
10 1 (0.081%) ISA Server
10 1 (0.081%) KVM
10 1 (0.081%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 1 (0.081%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.081%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 65 (5.23%) Terraform
2 57 (4.59%) Kubernetes
3 41 (3.30%) Ansible
4 25 (2.01%) NetBackup
5 24 (1.93%) Microsoft Intune
6 21 (1.69%) Grafana
6 21 (1.69%) Prometheus
7 19 (1.53%) SCCM
8 11 (0.89%) Oracle RMAN
9 8 (0.64%) Puppet
10 6 (0.48%) RSA Archer
11 5 (0.40%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.32%) CA Endevor
12 4 (0.32%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
12 4 (0.32%) Kibana
13 3 (0.24%) Data Guard
13 3 (0.24%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.24%) PingFederate
13 3 (0.24%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 195 (15.70%) Microsoft
2 56 (4.51%) Google
3 47 (3.78%) Oracle
3 47 (3.78%) VMware
4 41 (3.30%) Cisco
5 37 (2.98%) ServiceNow
6 34 (2.74%) Salesforce
7 29 (2.33%) SAP
8 28 (2.25%) IBM
9 27 (2.17%) Databricks
10 21 (1.69%) Veritas
11 18 (1.45%) Commvault
11 18 (1.45%) F5
11 18 (1.45%) Red Hat
12 17 (1.37%) Citrix
13 15 (1.21%) CyberArk
14 13 (1.05%) Juniper
14 13 (1.05%) OneTrust
14 13 (1.05%) Splunk
15 12 (0.97%) NetApp