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

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 79 92
Rank change year-on-year -1 +13 -7
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,630 983 953
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.06% 2.99% 2.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.61% 3.30% 2.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 881 485 518
10th Percentile £313 £289 £200
25th Percentile £403 £375 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £465 £480
% change year-on-year +1.67% -3.07% +1.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 45 50
10th Percentile £13.85 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £16.33 £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 £28.00 £28.75
90th Percentile £38.00 £34.70 £67.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £15.25 £18.11
% change year-on-year +39.34% -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 45,167 29,748 33,534
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.91% 90.41% 85.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,886 18,653 21,488
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% -4.55%
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 2,759 1,659 1,873
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.47 £17.30 £18.14
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £74.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.05 £40.94
% change year-on-year +90.72% -43.70% +3.38%

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 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 5 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 5 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 -2 1,388 £500 +5.26% 763
UK excluding London +4 878 £473 +1.67% 461
London +4 627 £525 +5.00% 365
Work from Home +15 486 £500 +11.11% 305
North of England +12 317 £475 +2.04% 123
South East +11 192 £498 -6.31% 133
Yorkshire -3 171 £475 -5.00% 43
North West +14 137 £475 +8.26% 63
Midlands -17 134 £473 -5.40% 82
Scotland -3 112 £425 -5.56% 24
West Midlands -27 101 £474 -9.71% 53
South West -19 68 £425 +6.25% 50
East of England +2 35 £550 +15.79% 40
East Midlands +10 33 £447 +27.71% 29
Wales -2 19 £413 +39.24% 10
Northern Ireland +4 11 £104 -78.86% 10
North East -51 10 £456 +10.61% 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 54 (3.31%) Confluence
2 51 (3.13%) SharePoint
3 23 (1.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
4 18 (1.10%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.67%) Apache
6 6 (0.37%) CMS
6 6 (0.37%) IIS
6 6 (0.37%) SAS
7 5 (0.31%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Camunda
10 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) nginx
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 38 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (2.15%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.25%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.25%) 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 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.37%) NEC Housing
4 6 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.31%) Aladdin
6 4 (0.25%) SAP GRC
6 4 (0.25%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
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%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.061%) SAP CX
9 1 (0.061%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 374 (22.94%) Azure
2 281 (17.24%) AWS
3 144 (8.83%) GCP
4 114 (6.99%) Microsoft 365
5 93 (5.71%) Power Platform
6 83 (5.09%) Entra ID
7 72 (4.42%) SaaS
8 68 (4.17%) GitHub
9 58 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
9 58 (3.56%) Microsoft Purview
10 46 (2.82%) Serverless
11 38 (2.33%) OpenShift
12 36 (2.21%) Microsoft Copilot
13 26 (1.60%) AWS Lambda
14 25 (1.53%) PowerApps
15 24 (1.47%) OneDrive
15 24 (1.47%) Power Automate
16 23 (1.41%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (1.35%) Amazon S3
17 22 (1.35%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 89 (5.46%) Network Security
2 56 (3.44%) Firewall
3 33 (2.02%) DNS
4 32 (1.96%) VPN
5 26 (1.60%) SAN
6 25 (1.53%) DHCP
7 22 (1.35%) TCP/IP
8 20 (1.23%) WAN
9 15 (0.92%) LAN
10 14 (0.86%) NAS
10 14 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.80%) SSL
12 12 (0.74%) Cisco IPT
12 12 (0.74%) HTTP
13 11 (0.67%) Wireless
14 9 (0.55%) Intrusion Detection
14 9 (0.55%) MPLS
15 8 (0.49%) SD-WAN
16 7 (0.43%) Cisco Nexus
16 7 (0.43%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (4.48%) Power BI
2 42 (2.58%) Metadata
3 40 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
3 40 (2.45%) SQL Server
4 35 (2.15%) Data Warehouse
5 29 (1.78%) Relational Database
6 23 (1.41%) Data Lake
6 23 (1.41%) NoSQL
7 21 (1.29%) Big Data
7 21 (1.29%) MySQL
8 17 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
8 17 (1.04%) MongoDB
9 14 (0.86%) BigQuery
10 12 (0.74%) Oracle Reports
11 11 (0.67%) Oracle Database
12 10 (0.61%) Tableau
13 9 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
13 9 (0.55%) DynamoDB
14 8 (0.49%) Ingres
14 8 (0.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 90 (5.52%) JIRA
2 66 (4.05%) Git
3 64 (3.93%) Jenkins
4 34 (2.09%) GitLab
5 11 (0.67%) Maven
6 10 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (0.55%) Postman
8 7 (0.43%) Gradle
8 7 (0.43%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.43%) Team Foundation Server
9 6 (0.37%) Flyway
9 6 (0.37%) JUnit
9 6 (0.37%) Selenium
10 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.31%) ERwin
11 4 (0.25%) SpecFlow
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 564 (34.60%) Social Skills
2 358 (21.96%) Finance
3 247 (15.15%) Legal
4 197 (12.09%) Analytical Skills
5 170 (10.43%) Public Sector
6 113 (6.93%) Banking
7 65 (3.99%) Documentation Skills
8 60 (3.68%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (2.27%) Retail
10 36 (2.21%) Influencing Skills
11 35 (2.15%) Local Government
12 31 (1.90%) Law
12 31 (1.90%) Telecoms
13 26 (1.60%) Front Office
13 26 (1.60%) Marketing
14 23 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
15 22 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
16 21 (1.29%) Billing
17 19 (1.17%) Police
18 15 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 243 (14.91%) Architect
2 149 (9.14%) Analyst
3 137 (8.40%) Lead
4 126 (7.73%) Developer
5 123 (7.55%) Senior
6 93 (5.71%) Consultant
7 85 (5.21%) Project Manager
8 64 (3.93%) Business Analyst
9 63 (3.87%) Solutions Architect
10 56 (3.44%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.58%) Security Engineer
12 41 (2.52%) Data Engineer
13 37 (2.27%) Administrator
14 36 (2.21%) Java Developer
15 31 (1.90%) Network Engineer
16 30 (1.84%) Support Engineer
16 30 (1.84%) Technical Architect
17 28 (1.72%) Data Analyst
18 27 (1.66%) IT Support
19 25 (1.53%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (5.52%) REST
2 44 (2.70%) React
3 36 (2.21%) Spring
4 34 (2.09%) CSS
4 34 (2.09%) Middleware
5 33 (2.02%) JSON
6 32 (1.96%) HTML
6 32 (1.96%) Kafka
6 32 (1.96%) Spring Boot
7 29 (1.78%) OAuth
8 26 (1.60%) RESTful
9 24 (1.47%) .NET
10 18 (1.10%) Node.js
11 17 (1.04%) CSS3
11 17 (1.04%) HTML5
11 17 (1.04%) OpenID
12 15 (0.92%) GraphQL
12 15 (0.92%) OAuth2
12 15 (0.92%) Redux
13 14 (0.86%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 723 (44.36%) Data Protection Act
2 95 (5.83%) Cloud Native
3 92 (5.64%) Product Ownership
4 76 (4.66%) Onboarding
5 65 (3.99%) Management Information System
6 47 (2.88%) Data Centre
7 46 (2.82%) Distributed Systems
8 45 (2.76%) Legacy Systems
9 41 (2.52%) Virtual Team
10 39 (2.39%) Security Posture
11 26 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
12 25 (1.53%) Operational Technology
13 23 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
13 23 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
13 23 (1.41%) NHS
13 23 (1.41%) Replication
14 21 (1.29%) Mobile App
15 19 (1.17%) Enterprise Storage
16 18 (1.10%) AI Agents
16 18 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 125 (7.67%) Windows
2 78 (4.79%) Linux
3 31 (1.90%) Apple iOS
4 30 (1.84%) Android
5 26 (1.60%) Unix
5 26 (1.60%) Windows Server
6 24 (1.47%) Mac OS
7 19 (1.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.80%) VMS
8 13 (0.80%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.43%) zOS
10 6 (0.37%) CoreOS
10 6 (0.37%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Rocky
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.061%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.061%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 313 (19.20%) Agile
2 295 (18.10%) Problem-Solving
2 295 (18.10%) Stakeholder Management
3 259 (15.89%) Continuous Improvement
4 242 (14.85%) DevOps
5 232 (14.23%) CI/CD
6 214 (13.13%) Migration
7 209 (12.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 203 (12.45%) AI
9 171 (10.49%) Cybersecurity
10 154 (9.45%) Analytics
11 150 (9.20%) Roadmaps
12 146 (8.96%) Decision-Making
13 145 (8.90%) Data Governance
14 129 (7.91%) Risk Management
15 120 (7.36%) Information Security
16 116 (7.12%) Validation
17 115 (7.06%) Data Modelling
18 112 (6.87%) Infrastructure as Code
19 105 (6.44%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 211 (12.94%) Python
2 164 (10.06%) SQL
3 112 (6.87%) Java
4 58 (3.56%) JavaScript
4 58 (3.56%) PowerShell
5 44 (2.70%) Bash
6 27 (1.66%) TypeScript
7 24 (1.47%) C#
8 17 (1.04%) Go
9 14 (0.86%) Bicep
9 14 (0.86%) Kotlin
10 13 (0.80%) Apex Code
11 11 (0.67%) Perl
12 9 (0.55%) C++
12 9 (0.55%) VB
13 8 (0.49%) Scala
13 8 (0.49%) VB6
14 6 (0.37%) Groovy
14 6 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
15 5 (0.31%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 248 (15.21%) Security Cleared
2 186 (11.41%) SC Cleared
3 113 (6.93%) Degree
4 82 (5.03%) CISSP
5 57 (3.50%) DV Cleared
6 48 (2.94%) CISM
7 35 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
8 33 (2.02%) Azure Certification
9 32 (1.96%) Cisco Certification
10 31 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
10 31 (1.90%) PMI Certification
11 28 (1.72%) PMP
12 22 (1.35%) AWS Certification
13 18 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (1.04%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 15 (0.92%) CCSP
16 12 (0.74%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.61%) CCNP
17 10 (0.61%) CISA
18 9 (0.55%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 247 (15.15%) GDPR
2 94 (5.77%) Data Quality
3 89 (5.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (5.03%) NIST
5 79 (4.85%) QA
6 44 (2.70%) GRC
7 40 (2.45%) Accessibility
8 25 (1.53%) PMO
9 23 (1.41%) PCI DSS
10 20 (1.23%) NCSC
10 20 (1.23%) SLA
11 14 (0.86%) SOC 2
12 13 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.74%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.67%) PERC
14 11 (0.67%) WCAG
15 9 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 8 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 88 (5.40%) Active Directory
2 65 (3.99%) Docker
3 52 (3.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (1.04%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.92%) NFS
6 12 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (0.74%) vSphere
7 10 (0.61%) Hyper-V
8 7 (0.43%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.31%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.25%) KVM
11 4 (0.25%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) IAG
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) Firmware
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 117 (7.18%) Kubernetes
2 87 (5.34%) Terraform
3 57 (3.50%) Ansible
4 41 (2.52%) Microsoft Intune
5 33 (2.02%) Grafana
6 28 (1.72%) NetBackup
7 21 (1.29%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.29%) SCCM
8 19 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.98%) Puppet
10 14 (0.86%) Jamf Pro
11 8 (0.49%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 8 (0.49%) Progress Chef
12 7 (0.43%) Kibana
13 6 (0.37%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.31%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.31%) QRadar
15 4 (0.25%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.25%) SCOM
15 4 (0.25%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 300 (18.40%) Microsoft
2 82 (5.03%) ServiceNow
3 74 (4.54%) Oracle
4 67 (4.11%) Google
5 53 (3.25%) VMware
6 51 (3.13%) Databricks
7 49 (3.01%) Cisco
8 40 (2.45%) SAP
9 35 (2.15%) Splunk
10 31 (1.90%) Red Hat
11 28 (1.72%) Salesforce
12 25 (1.53%) Workday
13 24 (1.47%) CyberArk
14 23 (1.41%) NetApp
14 23 (1.41%) Zscaler
15 21 (1.29%) Veritas
16 16 (0.98%) Citrix
16 16 (0.98%) IBM
17 14 (0.86%) Dell
17 14 (0.86%) F5