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 9 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 79 90
Rank change year-on-year -5 +11 -4
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,652 1,017 956
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.07% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.63% 3.39% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 884 503 518
10th Percentile £313 £289 £200
25th Percentile £402 £379 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £591 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +1.67% -2.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 46 50
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £16.00 £14.78 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.25 £17.00 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -17.07% -56.17%
75th Percentile £33.75 £27.91 £28.75
90th Percentile £37.25 £34.66 £67.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.64 £15.25 £18.11
% change year-on-year +35.31% -15.79% -42.51%

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 45,550 29,973 33,247
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.00% 90.45% 85.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,063 18,757 21,325
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.02%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £730 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,827 1,692 1,840
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.30 £18.25
Median hourly rate £43.50 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +72.96% -38.57% -3.67%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £74.59
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.27
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.47% +12.73%

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 9 August 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 9 August 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 9 August 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 -1 1,409 £500 +3.63% 825
UK excluding London +4 887 £473 +1.67% 500
London -10 635 £525 +5.00% 392
Work from Home +16 487 £500 +5.54% 316
North of England +13 326 £475 +2.65% 139
South East +8 196 £494 -5.90% 143
Yorkshire -1 172 £475 -5.00% 57
North West +19 143 £481 +11.59% 65
Midlands -13 133 £473 -5.40% 80
Scotland -6 110 £434 -3.61% 23
West Midlands -18 100 £474 -7.51% 57
South West -22 68 £425 +6.25% 60
East of England -2 35 £550 +15.79% 46
East Midlands +8 33 £447 +27.71% 23
Wales -10 18 £413 +39.24% 14
North East -54 12 £456 +10.61% 17
Northern Ireland +5 11 £104 -78.86% 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 55 (3.33%) Confluence
2 53 (3.21%) SharePoint
3 25 (1.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
4 19 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 12 (0.73%) Apache
6 6 (0.36%) CMS
6 6 (0.36%) IIS
6 6 (0.36%) SAS
7 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.18%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Camunda
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) WordPress
11 1 (0.061%) Moodle
11 1 (0.061%) nginx
Applications
1 39 (2.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (2.18%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.061%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.061%) Maya
8 1 (0.061%) Trello
8 1 (0.061%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.36%) NEC Housing
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
6 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.18%) SAP GRC
7 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
7 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
8 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
8 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 1 (0.061%) iTrent
9 1 (0.061%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.061%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.061%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 377 (22.82%) Azure
2 279 (16.89%) AWS
3 144 (8.72%) GCP
4 117 (7.08%) Microsoft 365
5 97 (5.87%) Power Platform
6 83 (5.02%) Entra ID
7 74 (4.48%) SaaS
8 65 (3.93%) GitHub
9 61 (3.69%) Microsoft Purview
10 59 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
11 48 (2.91%) Serverless
12 37 (2.24%) Microsoft Copilot
13 36 (2.18%) OpenShift
14 28 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
15 26 (1.57%) OneDrive
15 26 (1.57%) PowerApps
16 24 (1.45%) Amazon S3
16 24 (1.45%) Power Automate
17 22 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (1.33%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 92 (5.57%) Network Security
2 58 (3.51%) Firewall
3 37 (2.24%) DNS
4 34 (2.06%) VPN
5 28 (1.69%) DHCP
6 26 (1.57%) SAN
7 23 (1.39%) TCP/IP
8 20 (1.21%) WAN
9 16 (0.97%) LAN
10 15 (0.91%) NAS
10 15 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.79%) SSL
12 12 (0.73%) Cisco IPT
12 12 (0.73%) Wireless
13 11 (0.67%) HTTP
14 10 (0.61%) MPLS
15 9 (0.54%) Cisco Nexus
15 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
15 9 (0.54%) VoIP
16 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 75 (4.54%) Power BI
2 45 (2.72%) Metadata
3 39 (2.36%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (2.30%) Data Warehouse
4 38 (2.30%) SQL Server
5 28 (1.69%) Relational Database
6 24 (1.45%) Data Lake
7 23 (1.39%) NoSQL
8 20 (1.21%) Big Data
9 19 (1.15%) MySQL
10 18 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
11 16 (0.97%) MongoDB
12 15 (0.91%) BigQuery
13 12 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.67%) Oracle Database
15 10 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
15 10 (0.61%) Tableau
16 8 (0.48%) DynamoDB
16 8 (0.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 7 (0.42%) Redis
Development Applications
1 92 (5.57%) JIRA
2 65 (3.93%) Git
3 64 (3.87%) Jenkins
4 34 (2.06%) GitLab
5 10 (0.61%) Maven
6 9 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) Postman
8 7 (0.42%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (0.36%) Flyway
9 6 (0.36%) Gradle
9 6 (0.36%) Selenium
9 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
10 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.30%) ERwin
10 5 (0.30%) JUnit
11 4 (0.24%) SpecFlow
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
12 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 584 (35.35%) Social Skills
2 361 (21.85%) Finance
3 248 (15.01%) Legal
4 198 (11.99%) Analytical Skills
5 176 (10.65%) Public Sector
6 114 (6.90%) Banking
7 68 (4.12%) Documentation Skills
8 62 (3.75%) Organisational Skills
9 38 (2.30%) Retail
10 36 (2.18%) Influencing Skills
10 36 (2.18%) Local Government
11 30 (1.82%) Law
11 30 (1.82%) Telecoms
12 27 (1.63%) Front Office
13 26 (1.57%) Marketing
14 23 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
15 22 (1.33%) Pharmaceutical
16 21 (1.27%) Billing
16 21 (1.27%) Police
17 16 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 250 (15.13%) Architect
2 154 (9.32%) Analyst
3 140 (8.47%) Lead
4 124 (7.51%) Developer
5 121 (7.32%) Senior
6 92 (5.57%) Consultant
7 86 (5.21%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.06%) Solutions Architect
9 64 (3.87%) Business Analyst
10 56 (3.39%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.54%) Security Engineer
12 41 (2.48%) Data Engineer
13 40 (2.42%) Administrator
14 33 (2.00%) Java Developer
15 31 (1.88%) Network Engineer
15 31 (1.88%) Support Engineer
16 30 (1.82%) Data Analyst
16 30 (1.82%) Technical Architect
17 27 (1.63%) IT Support
18 25 (1.51%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (5.33%) REST
2 42 (2.54%) React
3 35 (2.12%) Middleware
4 34 (2.06%) JSON
4 34 (2.06%) Spring
5 32 (1.94%) Kafka
6 31 (1.88%) CSS
7 30 (1.82%) Spring Boot
8 29 (1.76%) HTML
8 29 (1.76%) OAuth
9 26 (1.57%) RESTful
10 24 (1.45%) .NET
11 18 (1.09%) Node.js
12 17 (1.03%) OpenID
13 15 (0.91%) CSS3
13 15 (0.91%) GraphQL
13 15 (0.91%) HTML5
13 15 (0.91%) OAuth2
14 13 (0.79%) Elastic Stack
14 13 (0.79%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 727 (44.01%) Data Protection Act
2 95 (5.75%) Cloud Native
3 92 (5.57%) Product Ownership
4 76 (4.60%) Onboarding
5 70 (4.24%) Management Information System
6 51 (3.09%) Data Centre
7 46 (2.78%) Distributed Systems
8 44 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
9 42 (2.54%) Virtual Team
10 39 (2.36%) Security Posture
11 26 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
12 24 (1.45%) Operational Technology
13 23 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
13 23 (1.39%) NHS
13 23 (1.39%) Replication
14 22 (1.33%) Mobile App
15 21 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
16 20 (1.21%) Enterprise Storage
17 18 (1.09%) AI Agents
17 18 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 128 (7.75%) Windows
2 79 (4.78%) Linux
3 31 (1.88%) Apple iOS
4 30 (1.82%) Android
5 28 (1.69%) Unix
5 28 (1.69%) Windows Server
6 24 (1.45%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (0.85%) Windows 10
9 11 (0.67%) VMS
10 7 (0.42%) zOS
11 4 (0.24%) CoreOS
11 4 (0.24%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.12%) AIX
13 2 (0.12%) HPUX
13 2 (0.12%) Rocky
13 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 316 (19.13%) Agile
2 308 (18.64%) Stakeholder Management
3 294 (17.80%) Problem-Solving
4 259 (15.68%) Continuous Improvement
5 242 (14.65%) DevOps
6 233 (14.10%) CI/CD
7 218 (13.20%) Migration
8 213 (12.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 206 (12.47%) AI
10 173 (10.47%) Cybersecurity
11 157 (9.50%) Analytics
12 152 (9.20%) Roadmaps
13 151 (9.14%) Data Governance
14 148 (8.96%) Decision-Making
15 131 (7.93%) Risk Management
16 120 (7.26%) Information Security
17 118 (7.14%) Data Modelling
18 116 (7.02%) Validation
19 115 (6.96%) Infrastructure as Code
20 104 (6.30%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 214 (12.95%) Python
2 165 (9.99%) SQL
3 106 (6.42%) Java
4 61 (3.69%) PowerShell
5 55 (3.33%) JavaScript
6 44 (2.66%) Bash
7 27 (1.63%) TypeScript
8 24 (1.45%) C#
9 17 (1.03%) Go
10 14 (0.85%) Bicep
10 14 (0.85%) Kotlin
11 13 (0.79%) Apex Code
11 13 (0.79%) Perl
12 10 (0.61%) C++
13 8 (0.48%) Scala
13 8 (0.48%) VB
14 7 (0.42%) VB6
15 6 (0.36%) C
15 6 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
16 5 (0.30%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 255 (15.44%) Security Cleared
2 193 (11.68%) SC Cleared
3 113 (6.84%) Degree
4 84 (5.08%) CISSP
5 58 (3.51%) DV Cleared
6 49 (2.97%) CISM
7 35 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
8 34 (2.06%) Azure Certification
9 32 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
10 31 (1.88%) PMI Certification
11 28 (1.69%) PMP
12 22 (1.33%) AWS Certification
13 19 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (1.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 15 (0.91%) CCSP
16 12 (0.73%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.61%) CCNP
17 10 (0.61%) CISA
18 9 (0.54%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 247 (14.95%) GDPR
2 99 (5.99%) Data Quality
3 89 (5.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (4.78%) NIST
5 77 (4.66%) QA
6 44 (2.66%) GRC
7 41 (2.48%) Accessibility
8 25 (1.51%) PMO
9 23 (1.39%) PCI DSS
10 20 (1.21%) SLA
11 18 (1.09%) NCSC
12 14 (0.85%) SOC 2
13 13 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.73%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.67%) PERC
15 11 (0.67%) WCAG
16 9 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 8 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 91 (5.51%) Active Directory
2 66 (4.00%) Docker
3 53 (3.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.09%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.79%) NFS
6 10 (0.61%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (0.61%) vSphere
7 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
10 4 (0.24%) KVM
10 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
11 3 (0.18%) XenApp
11 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
12 2 (0.12%) Firmware
12 2 (0.12%) IAG
12 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 114 (6.90%) Kubernetes
2 86 (5.21%) Terraform
3 55 (3.33%) Ansible
4 42 (2.54%) Microsoft Intune
5 33 (2.00%) Grafana
6 28 (1.69%) NetBackup
7 23 (1.39%) SCCM
8 21 (1.27%) Prometheus
9 19 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
10 17 (1.03%) Puppet
11 14 (0.85%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.54%) Progress Chef
13 8 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.42%) Kibana
15 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
15 5 (0.30%) QRadar
16 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.24%) SCOM
16 4 (0.24%) SnapMirror
16 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 311 (18.83%) Microsoft
2 85 (5.15%) ServiceNow
3 73 (4.42%) Oracle
4 66 (4.00%) Google
5 54 (3.27%) Cisco
5 54 (3.27%) VMware
6 51 (3.09%) Databricks
7 39 (2.36%) SAP
8 35 (2.12%) Splunk
9 29 (1.76%) Red Hat
10 28 (1.69%) Salesforce
11 25 (1.51%) Workday
12 23 (1.39%) CyberArk
12 23 (1.39%) Zscaler
13 22 (1.33%) NetApp
14 21 (1.27%) Veritas
15 17 (1.03%) Citrix
16 16 (0.97%) F5
16 16 (0.97%) IBM
17 15 (0.91%) Dell