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 5 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 88 82
Rank change year-on-year +11 -6 +26
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,214 863 1,118
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.30% 2.68% 2.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.75% 3.03% 2.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 626 451 652
10th Percentile £287 £264 £200
25th Percentile £400 £388 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £601 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £488 £450
% change year-on-year -7.69% +8.33% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 16 21
10th Percentile £12.63 £16.16 £17.50
25th Percentile £16.26 £20.38 £20.50
Median hourly rate £20.40 £24.50 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.73% +2.08% -65.71%
75th Percentile £20.76 £30.44 £26.66
90th Percentile £42.50 £40.68 £44.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.40 £24.50 £21.00
% change year-on-year -16.73% +16.67% -70.00%

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 32,397 28,487 37,627
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.99% 88.45% 87.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,485 17,308 25,038
10th Percentile £304 £308 £305
25th Percentile £406 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £720 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,000 924 1,538
10th Percentile £14.74 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.43 £18.67
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.25
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -23.07% +20.71%
75th Percentile £55.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £30.62 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.18% -31.20% +42.86%

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 5 January 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 5 January 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 5 January 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 +16 1,043 £500 - 546
UK excluding London +4 627 £450 -7.69% 471
London +19 524 £525 +5.00% 123
Work from Home +7 278 £500 - 142
North of England -15 183 £459 -6.81% 102
South East +14 146 £495 -1.00% 117
Scotland -2 98 £400 -15.79% 19
Yorkshire -4 95 £500 -2.44% 42
Midlands +17 90 £450 -12.20% 87
North West -27 73 £436 -11.43% 52
West Midlands -8 60 £475 -8.43% 44
South West +12 48 £519 +6.41% 59
East of England +7 37 £475 -5.00% 73
East Midlands 0 30 £402 -11.06% 39
North East -21 16 £400 -5.88% 8
Northern Ireland - 15 £500 - 4
Wales 0 14 £400 -5.88% 17

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 60 (4.94%) Confluence
2 27 (2.22%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.15%) CMS
4 13 (1.07%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
6 9 (0.74%) Apache
7 7 (0.58%) Apache Spark
8 5 (0.41%) CICS
8 5 (0.41%) nginx
9 3 (0.25%) SAS
9 3 (0.25%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.16%) Drupal
10 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
10 2 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.082%) Ethereum
11 1 (0.082%) Hyperledger
11 1 (0.082%) Luigi
11 1 (0.082%) Tomcat
Applications
1 55 (4.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (3.21%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (0.58%) Chatbot
4 7 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.25%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.25%) Sketch
6 3 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.16%) InVision
7 2 (0.16%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.082%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.082%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.082%) Blender
8 1 (0.082%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.082%) Final Cut Pro
8 1 (0.082%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 12 (0.99%) Oracle EBS
1 12 (0.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.58%) Aladdin
4 4 (0.33%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 4 (0.33%) Oracle Receivables
4 4 (0.33%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.33%) VisionPLUS
5 3 (0.25%) Oracle EBS R12
5 3 (0.25%) Oracle FAH
5 3 (0.25%) Oracle General Ledger
5 3 (0.25%) ResourceLink
6 2 (0.16%) assyst
6 2 (0.16%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.16%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.082%) Endur
7 1 (0.082%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 236 (19.44%) Azure
2 209 (17.22%) AWS
3 85 (7.00%) GCP
4 74 (6.10%) Power Platform
5 64 (5.27%) Microsoft 365
6 58 (4.78%) Serverless
7 49 (4.04%) GitHub
8 48 (3.95%) Entra ID
9 45 (3.71%) AWS Lambda
10 42 (3.46%) Azure DevOps
11 40 (3.29%) Amazon S3
12 38 (3.13%) SaaS
13 29 (2.39%) Snowflake
14 27 (2.22%) Power Automate
15 26 (2.14%) AWS CloudFormation
16 22 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
17 21 (1.73%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 19 (1.57%) Microsoft Purview
19 18 (1.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 18 (1.48%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 47 (3.87%) Firewall
2 31 (2.55%) Network Security
3 16 (1.32%) LAN
3 16 (1.32%) VPN
4 15 (1.24%) DNS
4 15 (1.24%) MPLS
5 14 (1.15%) WAN
6 13 (1.07%) Cisco IPT
6 13 (1.07%) SAN
6 13 (1.07%) SSH
7 10 (0.82%) TCP/IP
8 9 (0.74%) NAS
8 9 (0.74%) SD-WAN
9 8 (0.66%) BGP
9 8 (0.66%) HTTP
9 8 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
10 7 (0.58%) DHCP
10 7 (0.58%) Internet
10 7 (0.58%) iSCSI
10 7 (0.58%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (4.86%) Power BI
2 37 (3.05%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (2.88%) SQL Server
4 23 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
4 23 (1.89%) NoSQL
4 23 (1.89%) Relational Database
5 17 (1.40%) Amazon RDS
5 17 (1.40%) Metadata
6 15 (1.24%) MySQL
7 14 (1.15%) DynamoDB
7 14 (1.15%) MongoDB
7 14 (1.15%) Tableau
8 13 (1.07%) Amazon Aurora
8 13 (1.07%) Oracle Reports
9 10 (0.82%) Data Lake
10 9 (0.74%) Amazon Athena
10 9 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
11 8 (0.66%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 8 (0.66%) Oracle Database
12 7 (0.58%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 105 (8.65%) JIRA
2 47 (3.87%) Jenkins
3 39 (3.21%) Git
4 36 (2.97%) GitLab
5 9 (0.74%) JUnit
5 9 (0.74%) SpecFlow
6 5 (0.41%) NUnit
7 4 (0.33%) Bitbucket
7 4 (0.33%) ChangeMan
7 4 (0.33%) CircleCI
7 4 (0.33%) Fiddler
7 4 (0.33%) Gradle
8 3 (0.25%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.25%) Maven
8 3 (0.25%) Postman
8 3 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.25%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.16%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.16%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 417 (34.35%) Social Skills
2 250 (20.59%) Finance
3 147 (12.11%) Analytical Skills
4 131 (10.79%) Public Sector
5 103 (8.48%) Banking
6 89 (7.33%) Legal
7 37 (3.05%) Marketing
7 37 (3.05%) Organisational Skills
8 36 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
9 33 (2.72%) Telecoms
10 30 (2.47%) Influencing Skills
11 23 (1.89%) Manufacturing
12 20 (1.65%) Law
12 20 (1.65%) Presentation Skills
13 18 (1.48%) Front Office
14 15 (1.24%) Financial Institution
15 13 (1.07%) Retail
16 12 (0.99%) Aerospace
16 12 (0.99%) Local Government
17 11 (0.91%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 158 (13.01%) Analyst
2 140 (11.53%) Developer
3 124 (10.21%) Architect
4 90 (7.41%) Lead
5 66 (5.44%) Business Analyst
6 64 (5.27%) Senior
7 63 (5.19%) Consultant
8 59 (4.86%) Project Manager
9 36 (2.97%) Administrator
9 36 (2.97%) Solutions Architect
10 33 (2.72%) Data Analyst
11 32 (2.64%) Security Engineer
12 27 (2.22%) Data Engineer
13 23 (1.89%) Automation Engineer
13 23 (1.89%) Support Engineer
14 21 (1.73%) Data Protection Officer
15 20 (1.65%) Security Architect
15 20 (1.65%) Software Engineer
16 19 (1.57%) Java Developer
16 19 (1.57%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (4.94%) REST
2 34 (2.80%) .NET
3 31 (2.55%) React
4 29 (2.39%) Node.js
4 29 (2.39%) RESTful
5 28 (2.31%) OAuth
6 25 (2.06%) Kafka
7 23 (1.89%) Spring
8 22 (1.81%) HTML
9 21 (1.73%) SOAP
10 18 (1.48%) Middleware
10 18 (1.48%) Spring Boot
11 15 (1.24%) .NET Core
11 15 (1.24%) Oracle Fusion
12 13 (1.07%) AngularJS
12 13 (1.07%) OAuth2
13 12 (0.99%) XML
14 11 (0.91%) JSON
14 11 (0.91%) Playwright
14 11 (0.91%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 604 (49.75%) Data Protection Act
2 55 (4.53%) Cloud Native
3 49 (4.04%) Management Information System
3 49 (4.04%) Product Ownership
4 47 (3.87%) Onboarding
5 32 (2.64%) Freedom of Information
6 30 (2.47%) Distributed Systems
7 25 (2.06%) NHS
8 21 (1.73%) Data Centre
9 20 (1.65%) Data Structures
10 17 (1.40%) CMDB
10 17 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
10 17 (1.40%) Replication
10 17 (1.40%) Security Posture
11 16 (1.32%) Virtual Team
12 14 (1.15%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 13 (1.07%) AI Agents
14 12 (0.99%) Derivative
14 12 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
15 11 (0.91%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 89 (7.33%) Windows
2 54 (4.45%) Linux
3 24 (1.98%) Unix
4 15 (1.24%) Mac OS
5 13 (1.07%) Windows Server
6 12 (0.99%) Windows 10
7 9 (0.74%) zOS
8 8 (0.66%) Android
9 6 (0.49%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.49%) Solaris
10 5 (0.41%) AIX
10 5 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.41%) VMS
11 1 (0.082%) CentOS
11 1 (0.082%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.082%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.082%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 222 (18.29%) Problem-Solving
2 216 (17.79%) Agile
3 195 (16.06%) Stakeholder Management
4 163 (13.43%) DevOps
5 161 (13.26%) Migration
6 152 (12.52%) CI/CD
7 130 (10.71%) Cybersecurity
8 124 (10.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 123 (10.13%) Analytics
10 105 (8.65%) Continuous Improvement
11 104 (8.57%) AI
11 104 (8.57%) Roadmaps
12 99 (8.15%) Project Management
13 98 (8.07%) Risk Management
14 94 (7.74%) Information Security
15 83 (6.84%) Business Intelligence
16 79 (6.51%) Microservices
17 74 (6.10%) Incident Response
17 74 (6.10%) Test Automation
18 73 (6.01%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 207 (17.05%) Python
2 157 (12.93%) SQL
3 72 (5.93%) Java
4 62 (5.11%) JavaScript
4 62 (5.11%) PowerShell
5 56 (4.61%) C#
6 49 (4.04%) Bash
7 30 (2.47%) TypeScript
8 17 (1.40%) C++
9 10 (0.82%) Shell Script
10 9 (0.74%) Bicep
11 8 (0.66%) PHP
11 8 (0.66%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.58%) Perl
13 6 (0.49%) Go
14 5 (0.41%) COBOL
14 5 (0.41%) Kotlin
14 5 (0.41%) Scala
15 4 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.33%) R
Qualifications
1 150 (12.36%) Security Cleared
2 110 (9.06%) Degree
3 109 (8.98%) SC Cleared
4 38 (3.13%) Computer Science Degree
5 34 (2.80%) DV Cleared
6 27 (2.22%) CISSP
7 25 (2.06%) AWS Certification
8 24 (1.98%) CISM
9 19 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
10 18 (1.48%) PMI Certification
11 17 (1.40%) Master's Degree
11 17 (1.40%) PMP
12 13 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
13 11 (0.91%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 11 (0.91%) Azure Certification
13 11 (0.91%) CRISC
14 10 (0.82%) A+ Certification
14 10 (0.82%) CISA
14 10 (0.82%) CTC Cleared
15 8 (0.66%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (18.45%) GDPR
2 88 (7.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 74 (6.10%) NIST
4 45 (3.71%) Data Quality
5 37 (3.05%) QA
6 24 (1.98%) Accessibility
6 24 (1.98%) PCI DSS
7 20 (1.65%) PMO
8 17 (1.40%) Cyber Essentials
8 17 (1.40%) GRC
9 14 (1.15%) NCSC
10 13 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 13 (1.07%) SLA
11 11 (0.91%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.91%) PERC
12 10 (0.82%) Disclosure Scotland
13 9 (0.74%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 8 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 7 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
15 7 (0.58%) COBIT
System Software
1 59 (4.86%) Active Directory
2 53 (4.37%) Docker
3 39 (3.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (0.66%) NFS
6 5 (0.41%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.33%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.16%) vSphere
10 1 (0.082%) Firmware
10 1 (0.082%) HDFS
10 1 (0.082%) ISA Server
10 1 (0.082%) KVM
10 1 (0.082%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.082%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.082%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 70 (5.77%) Terraform
2 56 (4.61%) Kubernetes
3 50 (4.12%) Ansible
4 27 (2.22%) Microsoft Intune
5 24 (1.98%) Grafana
5 24 (1.98%) NetBackup
6 21 (1.73%) Prometheus
6 21 (1.73%) SCCM
7 7 (0.58%) Oracle RMAN
7 7 (0.58%) Puppet
8 6 (0.49%) RSA Archer
9 5 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.33%) CA Endevor
10 4 (0.33%) EMC NetWorker
10 4 (0.33%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.33%) Kibana
10 4 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.25%) Control-M
11 3 (0.25%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 196 (16.14%) Microsoft
2 58 (4.78%) Oracle
3 54 (4.45%) Google
4 41 (3.38%) VMware
5 39 (3.21%) Cisco
6 36 (2.97%) Salesforce
6 36 (2.97%) ServiceNow
7 35 (2.88%) SAP
8 32 (2.64%) Databricks
9 28 (2.31%) IBM
10 22 (1.81%) Citrix
11 20 (1.65%) Veritas
12 19 (1.57%) Red Hat
13 18 (1.48%) Commvault
14 16 (1.32%) F5
15 12 (0.99%) CyberArk
15 12 (0.99%) NetApp
16 11 (0.91%) Adobe
16 11 (0.91%) OneTrust
16 11 (0.91%) Workday