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 18 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 75 88
Rank change year-on-year -8 +13 -4
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,671 1,071 983
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.07% 3.25% 2.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.64% 3.59% 2.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 875 506 520
10th Percentile £263 £296 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £489 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.30% -2.25% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £688 £675 £714
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £460 £475
% change year-on-year -2.17% -3.16% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 53 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.25 £13.60 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -45.22% +10.85%
75th Percentile £24.50 £20.40 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £36.16 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +13.02%

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 45,960 29,830 33,021
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.47% 90.53% 85.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,897 18,534 20,247
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,123 1,812 1,459
10th Percentile £13.84 £14.23 £14.96
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -1.91%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.56 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.69% -47.67% +1.18%

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 18 September 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 18 September 2026.

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 18 September 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 -12 1,390 £500 +1.83% 1,573
UK excluding London -2 934 £450 -2.17% 936
London -26 586 £525 +0.96% 742
Work from Home +17 474 £500 +5.26% 581
North of England +6 332 £463 +2.78% 262
South East +4 198 £475 -8.30% 242
Yorkshire +7 167 £475 -5.00% 83
Midlands +5 159 £450 -5.26% 147
North West +15 144 £450 +2.56% 151
West Midlands +5 127 £450 -10.00% 101
Scotland -7 119 £438 +2.94% 67
South West -12 74 £425 +6.25% 81
East Midlands -8 32 £435 +8.75% 46
East of England -20 30 £503 +5.79% 97
North East -51 22 £463 +15.63% 33
Wales -4 21 £413 - 31
Northern Ireland +3 15 £110 -81.63% 22
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 -17.24% 4

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 67 (4.01%) SharePoint
2 40 (2.39%) Confluence
3 22 (1.32%) Apache Airflow
3 22 (1.32%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (1.02%) Apache Spark
5 10 (0.60%) Apache
5 10 (0.60%) CMS
5 10 (0.60%) IIS
5 10 (0.60%) SAS
6 6 (0.36%) WordPress
7 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
7 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.18%) CICS
9 3 (0.18%) nginx
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Drupal
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
11 1 (0.060%) Moodle
11 1 (0.060%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 45 (2.69%) Microsoft Office
2 44 (2.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 1 (0.060%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.060%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
6 1 (0.060%) Maya
6 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.48%) SAP MDG
4 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Endur
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 1 (0.060%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.060%) Eloqua
8 1 (0.060%) Maximo
8 1 (0.060%) Sage 50
8 1 (0.060%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 378 (22.62%) Azure
2 305 (18.25%) AWS
3 135 (8.08%) GCP
4 131 (7.84%) Microsoft 365
5 79 (4.73%) Entra ID
6 78 (4.67%) Power Platform
7 76 (4.55%) SaaS
8 67 (4.01%) Azure DevOps
9 62 (3.71%) GitHub
10 55 (3.29%) Microsoft Purview
11 48 (2.87%) Serverless
12 38 (2.27%) Microsoft Copilot
13 27 (1.62%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.56%) AWS Lambda
14 26 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
14 26 (1.56%) OpenShift
15 22 (1.32%) Power Automate
15 22 (1.32%) PowerApps
16 20 (1.20%) Amazon S3
17 19 (1.14%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 90 (5.39%) Network Security
2 60 (3.59%) Firewall
3 36 (2.15%) DNS
4 34 (2.03%) VPN
5 26 (1.56%) DHCP
6 25 (1.50%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.26%) WAN
8 19 (1.14%) Cisco IPT
9 17 (1.02%) LAN
10 15 (0.90%) SAN
11 14 (0.84%) SSL
11 14 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
12 13 (0.78%) Wireless
13 11 (0.66%) MPLS
13 11 (0.66%) VoIP
14 10 (0.60%) HTTP
15 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
15 9 (0.54%) NAS
16 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
17 7 (0.42%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (3.47%) Power BI
2 52 (3.11%) Metadata
3 43 (2.57%) Relational Database
4 36 (2.15%) PostgreSQL
5 33 (1.97%) SQL Server
6 30 (1.80%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.44%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.32%) Data Lake
9 21 (1.26%) MySQL
10 19 (1.14%) BigQuery
11 16 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
12 15 (0.90%) Big Data
13 13 (0.78%) MongoDB
14 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
15 9 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
15 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
15 9 (0.54%) Oracle Database
16 8 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
16 8 (0.48%) Redis
17 7 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 86 (5.15%) JIRA
2 69 (4.13%) Git
3 57 (3.41%) Jenkins
4 27 (1.62%) GitLab
5 18 (1.08%) Selenium
6 10 (0.60%) Maven
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.60%) Postman
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) ERwin
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 650 (38.90%) Social Skills
2 359 (21.48%) Finance
3 247 (14.78%) Legal
4 209 (12.51%) Public Sector
5 208 (12.45%) Analytical Skills
6 116 (6.94%) Banking
7 78 (4.67%) Documentation Skills
8 75 (4.49%) Organisational Skills
9 44 (2.63%) Influencing Skills
10 41 (2.45%) Local Government
11 40 (2.39%) Retail
12 34 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
13 31 (1.86%) Law
14 29 (1.74%) Marketing
15 27 (1.62%) Front Office
16 24 (1.44%) Telecoms
17 22 (1.32%) Billing
17 22 (1.32%) Police
18 21 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
19 15 (0.90%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 251 (15.02%) Architect
2 165 (9.87%) Analyst
3 141 (8.44%) Lead
4 127 (7.60%) Senior
5 121 (7.24%) Developer
6 82 (4.91%) Consultant
7 74 (4.43%) Project Manager
8 68 (4.07%) Solutions Architect
9 66 (3.95%) Business Analyst
10 59 (3.53%) Security Architect
11 46 (2.75%) Administrator
12 41 (2.45%) Security Engineer
13 36 (2.15%) Support Engineer
14 32 (1.92%) Data Analyst
15 31 (1.86%) Information Officer
16 30 (1.80%) Java Developer
17 28 (1.68%) Data Engineer
17 28 (1.68%) Information Governance Officer
18 26 (1.56%) DevOps Engineer
18 26 (1.56%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (5.57%) REST
1 93 (5.57%) Terraform
2 41 (2.45%) Kafka
3 38 (2.27%) OAuth
3 38 (2.27%) React
4 37 (2.21%) JSON
4 37 (2.21%) Spring
5 35 (2.09%) Spring Boot
6 32 (1.92%) HTML
7 30 (1.80%) CSS
7 30 (1.80%) Middleware
8 27 (1.62%) RESTful
9 24 (1.44%) .NET
9 24 (1.44%) OAuth2
10 21 (1.26%) Node.js
10 21 (1.26%) OpenID
11 16 (0.96%) HTML5
11 16 (0.96%) SOAP
12 15 (0.90%) CSS3
12 15 (0.90%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 700 (41.89%) Data Protection Act
2 116 (6.94%) Management Information System
3 99 (5.92%) Product Ownership
4 94 (5.63%) Onboarding
5 90 (5.39%) Cloud Native
6 56 (3.35%) Distributed Systems
7 54 (3.23%) Data Centre
8 41 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.39%) Virtual Team
10 39 (2.33%) Freedom of Information
10 39 (2.33%) Security Posture
11 32 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
12 30 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
13 29 (1.74%) NHS
14 28 (1.68%) Operational Technology
15 23 (1.38%) AI Agents
16 22 (1.32%) Mobile App
17 21 (1.26%) Data Structures
17 21 (1.26%) Private Cloud
18 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 128 (7.66%) Windows
2 79 (4.73%) Linux
3 33 (1.97%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.92%) Android
4 32 (1.92%) Apple iOS
5 28 (1.68%) Unix
6 22 (1.32%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (0.84%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.48%) zOS
10 4 (0.24%) VMS
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) HPUX
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.060%) MVS
12 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 380 (22.74%) Stakeholder Management
2 322 (19.27%) Agile
3 289 (17.30%) Problem-Solving
4 281 (16.82%) Continuous Improvement
5 245 (14.66%) CI/CD
6 227 (13.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 225 (13.46%) AI
8 221 (13.23%) Cybersecurity
9 217 (12.99%) DevOps
10 216 (12.93%) Migration
11 164 (9.81%) Decision-Making
12 160 (9.58%) Roadmaps
13 154 (9.22%) Risk Management
14 150 (8.98%) Information Security
15 146 (8.74%) Data Governance
16 145 (8.68%) Analytics
17 139 (8.32%) Infrastructure as Code
17 139 (8.32%) Validation
18 122 (7.30%) Test Automation
19 109 (6.52%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 209 (12.51%) Python
2 167 (9.99%) SQL
3 99 (5.92%) Java
4 56 (3.35%) JavaScript
5 55 (3.29%) PowerShell
6 32 (1.92%) Bash
7 27 (1.62%) TypeScript
8 24 (1.44%) Go
9 18 (1.08%) C#
10 15 (0.90%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.90%) Bicep
10 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
11 14 (0.84%) Scala
12 12 (0.72%) Perl
13 9 (0.54%) C
13 9 (0.54%) C++
14 8 (0.48%) VB
15 7 (0.42%) VB6
16 6 (0.36%) Groovy
16 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 273 (16.34%) Security Cleared
2 200 (11.97%) SC Cleared
3 110 (6.58%) Degree
4 85 (5.09%) CISSP
5 62 (3.71%) DV Cleared
6 52 (3.11%) CISM
7 46 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
8 42 (2.51%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (1.92%) Azure Certification
10 29 (1.74%) PMI Certification
11 27 (1.62%) PMP
12 26 (1.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 25 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
14 22 (1.32%) CCSP
15 19 (1.14%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.72%) CRISC
17 11 (0.66%) CCNP
17 11 (0.66%) CISA
17 11 (0.66%) Master's Degree
18 10 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 238 (14.24%) GDPR
2 112 (6.70%) Data Quality
3 100 (5.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 74 (4.43%) NIST
5 71 (4.25%) QA
6 52 (3.11%) GRC
7 47 (2.81%) Accessibility
8 25 (1.50%) PCI DSS
9 21 (1.26%) PMO
10 20 (1.20%) Cyber Essentials
10 20 (1.20%) NCSC
11 14 (0.84%) SLA
12 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.66%) PERC
14 11 (0.66%) WCAG
15 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
16 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 84 (5.03%) Active Directory
2 66 (3.95%) Docker
3 57 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.08%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
5 11 (0.66%) vSphere
6 10 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.36%) NFS
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.18%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
11 2 (0.12%) XenApp
11 2 (0.12%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.060%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.060%) IAG
12 1 (0.060%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 115 (6.88%) Kubernetes
2 45 (2.69%) Ansible
3 38 (2.27%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.56%) Grafana
5 21 (1.26%) SCCM
6 14 (0.84%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.78%) NetBackup
8 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.72%) Kibana
9 11 (0.66%) Progress Chef
9 11 (0.66%) Puppet
10 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (0.36%) CASB
11 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
11 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
11 5 (0.30%) QRadar
11 5 (0.30%) SCOM
12 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 354 (21.18%) Microsoft
2 95 (5.69%) ServiceNow
3 75 (4.49%) Google
4 68 (4.07%) Cisco
4 68 (4.07%) Oracle
5 58 (3.47%) VMware
6 45 (2.69%) Splunk
7 42 (2.51%) Databricks
8 35 (2.09%) SAP
9 32 (1.92%) Salesforce
10 28 (1.68%) Zscaler
11 22 (1.32%) Workday
12 21 (1.26%) CyberArk
13 19 (1.14%) IBM
14 17 (1.02%) Dell
14 17 (1.02%) F5
14 17 (1.02%) Red Hat
15 14 (0.84%) MuleSoft
16 13 (0.78%) Dynatrace
16 13 (0.78%) NetApp