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 22 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 83 86
Rank change year-on-year +4 +3 -1
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,681 932 1,021
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.19% 2.86% 2.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.75% 3.16% 2.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 923 457 546
10th Percentile £313 £269 £204
25th Percentile £400 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £600
90th Percentile £700 £688 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £467 £475
% change year-on-year -0.96% -1.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 43 84
10th Percentile £13.69 £13.08 £14.72
25th Percentile £16.62 £14.78 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £19.00 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.37% -7.32% -50.05%
75th Percentile £33.75 £31.38 £28.75
90th Percentile £38.30 £34.78 £51.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £15.25 £19.50
% change year-on-year +39.34% -21.79% -36.59%

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 44,825 29,480 35,296
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.35% 85.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,802 18,519 22,641
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,641 1,572 2,187
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £13.06
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £16.86
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%
75th Percentile £68.50 £50.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £73.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +84.88% -39.15% -1.95%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 July 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 +11 1,418 £500 +5.26% 496
UK excluding London +15 929 £463 -0.96% 303
London +8 621 £525 +5.00% 234
Work from Home +24 489 £500 +7.53% 184
North of England +18 324 £475 +3.26% 83
South East +17 206 £475 -10.55% 94
Yorkshire +3 178 £480 -4.00% 26
Midlands -5 146 £470 -6.00% 56
North West +24 138 £475 +11.76% 47
Scotland 0 128 £425 -8.11% 16
West Midlands -18 109 £473 -5.40% 35
South West -11 70 £425 +6.25% 37
East Midlands +9 37 £447 +19.20% 21
East of England -1 35 £538 +13.16% 20
Wales -7 19 £406 +37.13% 5
Northern Ireland +4 10 £104 -78.86% 3
North East -47 10 £450 +9.09% 10

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 (3.51%) SharePoint
2 58 (3.45%) Confluence
3 24 (1.43%) Microsoft Exchange
4 20 (1.19%) Apache Spark
5 18 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
6 12 (0.71%) Apache
7 6 (0.36%) CMS
7 6 (0.36%) IIS
7 6 (0.36%) SAS
8 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
11 2 (0.12%) Camunda
11 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 40 (2.38%) Microsoft Office
2 38 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.059%) Maya
8 1 (0.059%) Trello
8 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
3 6 (0.36%) Aladdin
3 6 (0.36%) NEC Housing
3 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.059%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.059%) iTrent
8 1 (0.059%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.059%) SAP CX
8 1 (0.059%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 372 (22.13%) Azure
2 278 (16.54%) AWS
3 145 (8.63%) GCP
4 119 (7.08%) Microsoft 365
5 93 (5.53%) Power Platform
6 89 (5.29%) Entra ID
7 69 (4.10%) SaaS
8 68 (4.05%) GitHub
9 58 (3.45%) Microsoft Purview
10 53 (3.15%) Azure DevOps
11 42 (2.50%) Serverless
12 41 (2.44%) OpenShift
13 34 (2.02%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.55%) OneDrive
15 25 (1.49%) AWS Lambda
15 25 (1.49%) PowerApps
16 24 (1.43%) Power Automate
17 23 (1.37%) Amazon S3
18 22 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
18 22 (1.31%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 87 (5.18%) Network Security
2 54 (3.21%) Firewall
3 35 (2.08%) VPN
4 29 (1.73%) DNS
5 28 (1.67%) SAN
6 24 (1.43%) TCP/IP
7 23 (1.37%) DHCP
8 22 (1.31%) WAN
9 17 (1.01%) LAN
10 16 (0.95%) NAS
10 16 (0.95%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.77%) HTTP
11 13 (0.77%) SSL
12 11 (0.65%) Cisco IPT
13 10 (0.59%) MPLS
13 10 (0.59%) Wireless
14 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
14 8 (0.48%) Intrusion Detection
14 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
15 7 (0.42%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.28%) Power BI
2 44 (2.62%) Metadata
2 44 (2.62%) PostgreSQL
3 40 (2.38%) SQL Server
4 32 (1.90%) Relational Database
5 30 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
6 26 (1.55%) Data Lake
7 24 (1.43%) MySQL
7 24 (1.43%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.25%) Big Data
9 19 (1.13%) MongoDB
10 18 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (0.83%) Oracle Database
12 13 (0.77%) BigQuery
13 12 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.65%) Tableau
15 10 (0.59%) DynamoDB
16 9 (0.54%) Ingres
16 9 (0.54%) RDBMS
17 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 100 (5.95%) JIRA
2 71 (4.22%) Git
3 63 (3.75%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.08%) GitLab
5 12 (0.71%) Maven
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (0.54%) Postman
8 8 (0.48%) Gradle
8 8 (0.48%) Team Foundation Server
9 7 (0.42%) JUnit
9 7 (0.42%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.36%) Flyway
10 6 (0.36%) Selenium
11 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
11 5 (0.30%) ERwin
11 5 (0.30%) SpecFlow
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
12 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 569 (33.85%) Social Skills
2 369 (21.95%) Finance
3 256 (15.23%) Legal
4 197 (11.72%) Analytical Skills
5 173 (10.29%) Public Sector
6 117 (6.96%) Banking
7 71 (4.22%) Documentation Skills
8 63 (3.75%) Organisational Skills
9 38 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (2.08%) Local Government
11 34 (2.02%) Retail
11 34 (2.02%) Telecoms
12 28 (1.67%) Marketing
13 27 (1.61%) Law
14 25 (1.49%) Front Office
15 22 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
16 21 (1.25%) Billing
16 21 (1.25%) Pharmaceutical
16 21 (1.25%) Police
17 17 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 236 (14.04%) Architect
2 158 (9.40%) Analyst
3 134 (7.97%) Lead
4 132 (7.85%) Developer
5 127 (7.56%) Senior
6 98 (5.83%) Consultant
7 85 (5.06%) Project Manager
8 72 (4.28%) Business Analyst
9 64 (3.81%) Solutions Architect
10 54 (3.21%) Security Architect
11 44 (2.62%) Data Engineer
12 43 (2.56%) Security Engineer
13 39 (2.32%) Administrator
13 39 (2.32%) Java Developer
14 34 (2.02%) Network Engineer
15 29 (1.73%) Support Engineer
15 29 (1.73%) Technical Architect
16 28 (1.67%) Data Analyst
16 28 (1.67%) IT Support
17 25 (1.49%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (5.35%) REST
2 54 (3.21%) React
3 39 (2.32%) Spring
4 37 (2.20%) Middleware
5 35 (2.08%) JSON
6 34 (2.02%) CSS
6 34 (2.02%) Spring Boot
7 33 (1.96%) Kafka
8 32 (1.90%) HTML
9 30 (1.78%) RESTful
10 27 (1.61%) OAuth
11 25 (1.49%) .NET
12 21 (1.25%) Node.js
13 19 (1.13%) CSS3
13 19 (1.13%) HTML5
14 18 (1.07%) Redux
15 17 (1.01%) Jest
15 17 (1.01%) PySpark
16 16 (0.95%) GraphQL
17 15 (0.89%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 758 (45.09%) Data Protection Act
2 93 (5.53%) Cloud Native
3 92 (5.47%) Product Ownership
4 76 (4.52%) Onboarding
5 62 (3.69%) Management Information System
6 49 (2.91%) Legacy Systems
7 48 (2.86%) Data Centre
8 45 (2.68%) Distributed Systems
9 43 (2.56%) Virtual Team
10 37 (2.20%) Security Posture
11 25 (1.49%) Operational Technology
12 24 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
12 24 (1.43%) Replication
13 23 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
14 21 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
15 20 (1.19%) Mobile App
15 20 (1.19%) NHS
16 19 (1.13%) Enterprise Storage
17 17 (1.01%) Data Structures
18 16 (0.95%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 128 (7.61%) Windows
2 80 (4.76%) Linux
3 28 (1.67%) Android
3 28 (1.67%) Apple iOS
4 27 (1.61%) Unix
5 26 (1.55%) Windows Server
6 24 (1.43%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.77%) VMS
9 12 (0.71%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.36%) CoreOS
10 6 (0.36%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.30%) zOS
12 2 (0.12%) Rocky
12 2 (0.12%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.059%) CentOS
13 1 (0.059%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (18.98%) Agile
2 303 (18.02%) Problem-Solving
3 296 (17.61%) Stakeholder Management
4 258 (15.35%) Continuous Improvement
5 242 (14.40%) DevOps
6 232 (13.80%) CI/CD
7 231 (13.74%) Migration
8 201 (11.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 193 (11.48%) AI
10 156 (9.28%) Cybersecurity
11 151 (8.98%) Roadmaps
12 150 (8.92%) Decision-Making
13 147 (8.74%) Analytics
14 135 (8.03%) Data Governance
15 123 (7.32%) Validation
16 122 (7.26%) Information Security
16 122 (7.26%) Risk Management
17 114 (6.78%) Infrastructure as Code
18 111 (6.60%) Data Modelling
19 99 (5.89%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 218 (12.97%) Python
2 169 (10.05%) SQL
3 119 (7.08%) Java
4 65 (3.87%) JavaScript
5 57 (3.39%) PowerShell
6 44 (2.62%) Bash
7 33 (1.96%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.61%) C#
9 17 (1.01%) Go
10 16 (0.95%) Bicep
11 13 (0.77%) Apex Code
11 13 (0.77%) Kotlin
12 10 (0.59%) Perl
13 9 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
13 9 (0.54%) VB
14 8 (0.48%) Scala
14 8 (0.48%) VB6
15 7 (0.42%) C++
16 6 (0.36%) Groovy
17 5 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 247 (14.69%) Security Cleared
2 185 (11.01%) SC Cleared
3 122 (7.26%) Degree
4 78 (4.64%) CISSP
5 58 (3.45%) DV Cleared
6 45 (2.68%) CISM
7 36 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
8 33 (1.96%) Azure Certification
8 33 (1.96%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
10 28 (1.67%) PMI Certification
11 25 (1.49%) AWS Certification
11 25 (1.49%) PMP
12 19 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
13 17 (1.01%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 15 (0.89%) CCSP
15 13 (0.77%) Master's Degree
16 11 (0.65%) CCNP
17 10 (0.59%) CISA
18 9 (0.54%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (15.11%) GDPR
2 99 (5.89%) Data Quality
3 84 (5.00%) QA
4 83 (4.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 78 (4.64%) NIST
6 46 (2.74%) GRC
7 43 (2.56%) Accessibility
8 27 (1.61%) PMO
9 23 (1.37%) PCI DSS
10 20 (1.19%) NCSC
11 19 (1.13%) SLA
12 16 (0.95%) SOC 2
13 13 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.71%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.65%) WCAG
16 10 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
16 10 (0.59%) PERC
17 8 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 6 (0.36%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 85 (5.06%) Active Directory
2 67 (3.99%) Docker
3 57 (3.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.95%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.89%) NFS
6 14 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.77%) vSphere
8 11 (0.65%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.30%) KVM
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) IAG
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 118 (7.02%) Kubernetes
2 89 (5.29%) Terraform
3 60 (3.57%) Ansible
4 43 (2.56%) Microsoft Intune
5 36 (2.14%) Grafana
6 29 (1.73%) NetBackup
7 24 (1.43%) Prometheus
8 22 (1.31%) SCCM
9 20 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.95%) Puppet
11 14 (0.83%) Jamf Pro
12 11 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.42%) Kibana
13 7 (0.42%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.36%) SnapMirror
15 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
15 5 (0.30%) QRadar
16 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
16 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 301 (17.91%) Microsoft
2 81 (4.82%) ServiceNow
3 79 (4.70%) Oracle
4 66 (3.93%) Google
5 58 (3.45%) VMware
6 55 (3.27%) Cisco
7 51 (3.03%) Databricks
8 42 (2.50%) SAP
9 36 (2.14%) Splunk
10 32 (1.90%) Red Hat
11 28 (1.67%) Salesforce
12 23 (1.37%) NetApp
12 23 (1.37%) Zscaler
13 22 (1.31%) Workday
14 21 (1.25%) Veritas
15 18 (1.07%) CyberArk
16 16 (0.95%) Citrix
16 16 (0.95%) Commvault
17 15 (0.89%) IBM
18 14 (0.83%) Dell