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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 76 91
Rank change year-on-year -9 +15 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,655 1,050 956
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.09% 3.19% 2.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 3.53% 2.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 881 525 515
10th Percentile £310 £290 £200
25th Percentile £400 £388 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £594 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £468 £475
% change year-on-year +1.07% -1.47% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 44 45
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £15.86 £14.48 £16.06
Median hourly rate £18.18 £16.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.15% -26.67% -46.67%
75th Percentile £31.36 £27.37 £28.75
90th Percentile £35.65 £33.87 £68.81
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £20.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -23.75% -36.51%

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 45,374 29,740 33,103
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.72% 90.47% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,858 18,514 21,188
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,851 1,725 1,782
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £18.17
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -38.57% +0.86%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +19.72%

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 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 18 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 18 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 -5 1,408 £500 +2.04% 558
UK excluding London +3 908 £473 +1.07% 452
London -13 616 £525 +5.00% 182
Work from Home +16 479 £500 +5.26% 210
North of England +14 336 £475 - 125
South East -1 193 £489 -4.96% 125
Yorkshire -3 176 £475 -5.00% 39
North West +16 148 £490 +9.62% 69
Midlands -7 142 £470 -6.00% 80
Scotland -3 113 £438 -5.66% 8
West Midlands -14 107 £473 -5.40% 48
South West -22 71 £425 +6.25% 55
East Midlands 0 35 £447 +27.71% 31
East of England -5 35 £550 +15.79% 46
Wales -11 18 £413 +39.24% 12
North East -50 13 £463 +12.12% 17
Northern Ireland +3 11 £104 -82.55% 12

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 (3.56%) SharePoint
2 47 (2.84%) Confluence
3 26 (1.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 18 (1.09%) Apache Airflow
6 12 (0.73%) 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%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
12 1 (0.060%) Drupal
12 1 (0.060%) Moodle
Applications
1 43 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.54%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.060%) Maya
7 1 (0.060%) Trello
7 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.24%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) SAP GRC
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 381 (23.02%) Azure
2 287 (17.34%) AWS
3 146 (8.82%) GCP
4 124 (7.49%) Microsoft 365
5 94 (5.68%) Power Platform
6 83 (5.02%) Entra ID
7 77 (4.65%) SaaS
8 64 (3.87%) GitHub
9 61 (3.69%) Microsoft Purview
10 59 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
11 52 (3.14%) Serverless
12 38 (2.30%) Microsoft Copilot
13 34 (2.05%) OpenShift
14 29 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
15 28 (1.69%) OneDrive
16 26 (1.57%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (1.57%) PowerApps
17 24 (1.45%) Amazon S3
17 24 (1.45%) Power Automate
18 22 (1.33%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 93 (5.62%) Network Security
2 57 (3.44%) Firewall
3 38 (2.30%) DNS
4 36 (2.18%) VPN
5 29 (1.75%) DHCP
6 24 (1.45%) TCP/IP
7 23 (1.39%) SAN
8 21 (1.27%) WAN
9 16 (0.97%) LAN
10 15 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.85%) Cisco IPT
11 14 (0.85%) NAS
11 14 (0.85%) SSL
11 14 (0.85%) Wireless
12 11 (0.66%) HTTP
13 10 (0.60%) MPLS
13 10 (0.60%) VoIP
14 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
15 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
15 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.35%) Power BI
2 53 (3.20%) Metadata
3 42 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
4 39 (2.36%) SQL Server
5 36 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
6 28 (1.69%) Relational Database
7 26 (1.57%) NoSQL
8 23 (1.39%) Data Lake
9 20 (1.21%) Big Data
10 19 (1.15%) MySQL
11 18 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (1.03%) MongoDB
13 14 (0.85%) BigQuery
14 12 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
15 10 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
15 10 (0.60%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
16 9 (0.54%) Redis
17 8 (0.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 8 (0.48%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 84 (5.08%) JIRA
2 64 (3.87%) Git
3 61 (3.69%) Jenkins
4 33 (1.99%) GitLab
5 11 (0.66%) Maven
6 9 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Flyway
8 6 (0.36%) Gradle
8 6 (0.36%) Postman
8 6 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) JUnit
9 5 (0.30%) Selenium
10 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.18%) Mocha
10 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
General
1 584 (35.29%) Social Skills
2 367 (22.18%) Finance
3 251 (15.17%) Legal
4 205 (12.39%) Analytical Skills
5 185 (11.18%) Public Sector
6 115 (6.95%) Banking
7 74 (4.47%) Documentation Skills
8 68 (4.11%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.48%) Retail
10 36 (2.18%) Influencing Skills
10 36 (2.18%) Local Government
11 32 (1.93%) Law
12 31 (1.87%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.63%) Front Office
13 27 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
14 26 (1.57%) Marketing
15 23 (1.39%) Police
16 22 (1.33%) Billing
16 22 (1.33%) Pharmaceutical
17 16 (0.97%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 247 (14.92%) Architect
2 159 (9.61%) Analyst
3 140 (8.46%) Lead
4 126 (7.61%) Developer
5 121 (7.31%) Senior
6 86 (5.20%) Consultant
7 78 (4.71%) Project Manager
8 66 (3.99%) Solutions Architect
9 65 (3.93%) Business Analyst
10 53 (3.20%) Security Architect
11 43 (2.60%) Security Engineer
12 39 (2.36%) Administrator
13 38 (2.30%) Data Engineer
14 34 (2.05%) Support Engineer
15 32 (1.93%) Java Developer
16 30 (1.81%) Network Engineer
17 29 (1.75%) Data Analyst
17 29 (1.75%) IT Support
18 27 (1.63%) Technical Architect
19 25 (1.51%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (5.44%) REST
2 42 (2.54%) React
3 37 (2.24%) Spring
4 36 (2.18%) JSON
5 34 (2.05%) Kafka
6 33 (1.99%) Middleware
6 33 (1.99%) Spring Boot
7 32 (1.93%) CSS
8 30 (1.81%) HTML
8 30 (1.81%) OAuth
9 27 (1.63%) RESTful
10 24 (1.45%) .NET
11 22 (1.33%) Node.js
12 17 (1.03%) OAuth2
12 17 (1.03%) OpenID
13 15 (0.91%) CSS3
13 15 (0.91%) GraphQL
13 15 (0.91%) HTML5
14 14 (0.85%) Jest
14 14 (0.85%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 723 (43.69%) Data Protection Act
2 91 (5.50%) Cloud Native
2 91 (5.50%) Product Ownership
3 82 (4.95%) Management Information System
4 77 (4.65%) Onboarding
5 53 (3.20%) Data Centre
6 47 (2.84%) Distributed Systems
7 42 (2.54%) Virtual Team
8 41 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
9 38 (2.30%) Security Posture
10 27 (1.63%) Freedom of Information
10 27 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
11 25 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
11 25 (1.51%) NHS
11 25 (1.51%) Replication
12 24 (1.45%) Operational Technology
13 23 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
14 21 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
14 21 (1.27%) Mobile App
15 20 (1.21%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 131 (7.92%) Windows
2 83 (5.02%) Linux
3 32 (1.93%) Android
3 32 (1.93%) Apple iOS
4 29 (1.75%) Unix
4 29 (1.75%) Windows Server
5 22 (1.33%) Mac OS
6 20 (1.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (0.97%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.60%) VMS
9 7 (0.42%) zOS
10 3 (0.18%) CoreOS
10 3 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
10 3 (0.18%) Solaris
10 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (19.27%) Stakeholder Management
2 305 (18.43%) Agile
3 291 (17.58%) Problem-Solving
4 265 (16.01%) Continuous Improvement
5 238 (14.38%) DevOps
6 234 (14.14%) CI/CD
7 216 (13.05%) Migration
7 216 (13.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 210 (12.69%) AI
9 181 (10.94%) Cybersecurity
10 161 (9.73%) Roadmaps
11 158 (9.55%) Data Governance
12 157 (9.49%) Decision-Making
13 154 (9.31%) Analytics
14 130 (7.85%) Risk Management
15 129 (7.79%) Information Security
16 123 (7.43%) Infrastructure as Code
17 122 (7.37%) Data Modelling
18 120 (7.25%) Validation
19 103 (6.22%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 206 (12.45%) Python
2 162 (9.79%) SQL
3 106 (6.40%) Java
4 61 (3.69%) PowerShell
5 57 (3.44%) JavaScript
6 40 (2.42%) Bash
7 28 (1.69%) TypeScript
8 20 (1.21%) C#
9 18 (1.09%) Go
10 15 (0.91%) Bicep
11 14 (0.85%) Apex Code
11 14 (0.85%) Kotlin
12 13 (0.79%) Perl
13 11 (0.66%) C++
14 8 (0.48%) Scala
14 8 (0.48%) VB
15 7 (0.42%) C
15 7 (0.42%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.42%) VB6
16 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 250 (15.11%) Security Cleared
2 189 (11.42%) SC Cleared
3 109 (6.59%) Degree
4 81 (4.89%) CISSP
5 58 (3.50%) DV Cleared
6 51 (3.08%) CISM
7 35 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
8 34 (2.05%) Azure Certification
9 32 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
10 29 (1.75%) PMI Certification
11 28 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
12 26 (1.57%) PMP
13 21 (1.27%) AWS Certification
14 18 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.97%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.85%) CCSP
17 11 (0.66%) CCNP
18 10 (0.60%) Master's Degree
19 8 (0.48%) CEH
19 8 (0.48%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 251 (15.17%) GDPR
2 107 (6.47%) Data Quality
3 92 (5.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (4.71%) NIST
5 75 (4.53%) QA
6 47 (2.84%) Accessibility
7 44 (2.66%) GRC
8 23 (1.39%) PMO
9 20 (1.21%) PCI DSS
10 19 (1.15%) NCSC
10 19 (1.15%) SLA
11 12 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
11 12 (0.73%) HIPAA
11 12 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 12 (0.73%) SOC 2
12 11 (0.66%) PERC
12 11 (0.66%) WCAG
13 10 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
14 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
14 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 93 (5.62%) Active Directory
2 64 (3.87%) Docker
3 57 (3.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.21%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.73%) NFS
6 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 11 (0.66%) vSphere
7 8 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) KVM
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) Firmware
13 2 (0.12%) IAG
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 113 (6.83%) Kubernetes
2 92 (5.56%) Terraform
3 50 (3.02%) Ansible
4 42 (2.54%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (1.81%) Grafana
6 24 (1.45%) NetBackup
6 24 (1.45%) SCCM
7 19 (1.15%) Prometheus
8 16 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.91%) Puppet
10 13 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
12 8 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.36%) Kibana
14 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.30%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) Istio
15 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
15 4 (0.24%) SCOM
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 332 (20.06%) Microsoft
2 90 (5.44%) ServiceNow
3 70 (4.23%) Oracle
4 68 (4.11%) Google
5 59 (3.56%) Cisco
5 59 (3.56%) VMware
6 50 (3.02%) Databricks
7 38 (2.30%) SAP
8 34 (2.05%) Splunk
9 30 (1.81%) Salesforce
10 26 (1.57%) Red Hat
11 24 (1.45%) Zscaler
12 23 (1.39%) NetApp
12 23 (1.39%) Workday
13 22 (1.33%) CyberArk
14 17 (1.03%) F5
14 17 (1.03%) IBM
14 17 (1.03%) Veritas
15 16 (0.97%) Citrix
16 14 (0.85%) Dell