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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 85 84
Rank change year-on-year +11 -1 +7
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,682 935 1,059
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.20% 2.88% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.76% 3.19% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 926 458 559
10th Percentile £310 £263 £206
25th Percentile £400 £363 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £594 £588 £600
90th Percentile £700 £688 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £466 £469
% change year-on-year -0.75% -0.59% -1.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 39 104
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.31 £12.33
25th Percentile £16.62 £14.95 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £19.00 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.37% -2.56% -46.24%
75th Percentile £33.75 £31.76 £27.59
90th Percentile £38.00 £35.18 £42.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £15.25 £19.50
% change year-on-year +39.34% -21.79% -35.00%

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 44,765 29,340 36,482
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.08% 90.42% 85.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,853 18,476 23,295
10th Percentile £325 £300 £304
25th Percentile £418 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £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 2,647 1,521 2,449
10th Percentile £14.94 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.61 £16.25
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -4.70%
75th Percentile £68.50 £52.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.70 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.25 £24.64 £38.12
% change year-on-year +83.64% -35.36% -0.99%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +9 1,415 £500 +4.44% 579
UK excluding London +12 927 £463 -0.75% 498
London +9 626 £525 +5.00% 183
Work from Home +15 482 £500 +5.82% 374
North of England +14 319 £475 - 116
South East +19 202 £483 -9.04% 121
Yorkshire -3 176 £475 -5.00% 48
Midlands -2 143 £469 -6.25% 98
North West +22 136 £488 +14.71% 53
Scotland +2 134 £425 -5.56% 45
West Midlands -26 103 £475 -5.00% 57
South West -2 69 £425 +6.25% 54
East Midlands +10 40 £447 +19.60% 41
East of England +3 40 £525 +7.69% 48
Wales -1 19 £406 +37.13% 23
Northern Ireland +4 10 £104 -78.86% 10
North East -52 9 £450 +14.29% 16

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%) Confluence
1 59 (3.51%) SharePoint
2 24 (1.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (1.13%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
5 11 (0.65%) 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%) nginx
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
10 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 42 (2.50%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (2.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.83%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.30%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.059%) Maya
9 1 (0.059%) Trello
9 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.59%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.36%) Aladdin
4 6 (0.36%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.30%) SAP GRC
6 4 (0.24%) 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%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 1 (0.059%) Distributed Ledger
9 1 (0.059%) iTrent
9 1 (0.059%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.059%) R3 Corda
9 1 (0.059%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 366 (21.76%) Azure
2 268 (15.93%) AWS
3 140 (8.32%) GCP
4 116 (6.90%) Microsoft 365
5 90 (5.35%) Power Platform
6 87 (5.17%) Entra ID
7 70 (4.16%) GitHub
8 69 (4.10%) SaaS
9 57 (3.39%) Microsoft Purview
10 54 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (2.56%) OpenShift
12 41 (2.44%) Serverless
13 34 (2.02%) Microsoft Copilot
14 25 (1.49%) OneDrive
14 25 (1.49%) PowerApps
15 24 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
15 24 (1.43%) Power Automate
16 23 (1.37%) Amazon S3
17 22 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
18 21 (1.25%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 89 (5.29%) Network Security
2 52 (3.09%) Firewall
3 35 (2.08%) VPN
4 30 (1.78%) DNS
4 30 (1.78%) SAN
5 26 (1.55%) TCP/IP
6 23 (1.37%) DHCP
7 22 (1.31%) WAN
8 19 (1.13%) NAS
9 18 (1.07%) LAN
10 16 (0.95%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.77%) HTTP
12 12 (0.71%) MPLS
12 12 (0.71%) SSL
13 11 (0.65%) Cisco IPT
14 10 (0.59%) Wireless
15 9 (0.54%) Cisco Nexus
16 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
16 7 (0.42%) SD-WAN
16 7 (0.42%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.10%) Power BI
2 42 (2.50%) SQL Server
3 41 (2.44%) Metadata
4 40 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
5 31 (1.84%) Relational Database
6 28 (1.66%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.43%) Data Lake
7 24 (1.43%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.31%) Big Data
8 22 (1.31%) MySQL
9 20 (1.19%) MongoDB
10 18 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
11 13 (0.77%) BigQuery
11 13 (0.77%) Oracle Database
12 11 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.59%) DynamoDB
13 10 (0.59%) Ingres
13 10 (0.59%) RDBMS
13 10 (0.59%) Tableau
14 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 101 (6.00%) JIRA
2 71 (4.22%) Git
3 60 (3.57%) Jenkins
4 38 (2.26%) GitLab
5 11 (0.65%) Oracle Forms
6 9 (0.54%) Postman
6 9 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
7 8 (0.48%) JUnit
7 8 (0.48%) Maven
7 8 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.42%) Gradle
9 6 (0.36%) Cypress.io
9 6 (0.36%) Flyway
9 6 (0.36%) Selenium
10 5 (0.30%) ERwin
10 5 (0.30%) SpecFlow
11 4 (0.24%) SonarQube
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) TestNG
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 563 (33.47%) Social Skills
2 374 (22.24%) Finance
3 247 (14.68%) Legal
4 197 (11.71%) Analytical Skills
5 169 (10.05%) Public Sector
6 115 (6.84%) Banking
7 69 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
8 64 (3.80%) Organisational Skills
9 36 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
10 34 (2.02%) Retail
11 33 (1.96%) Local Government
11 33 (1.96%) Telecoms
12 28 (1.66%) Front Office
13 27 (1.61%) Marketing
14 26 (1.55%) Law
15 23 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
16 20 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
17 19 (1.13%) Billing
17 19 (1.13%) Police
18 16 (0.95%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 233 (13.85%) Architect
2 159 (9.45%) Analyst
3 135 (8.03%) Lead
4 131 (7.79%) Developer
5 121 (7.19%) Senior
6 96 (5.71%) Consultant
7 87 (5.17%) Project Manager
8 73 (4.34%) Business Analyst
9 65 (3.86%) Solutions Architect
10 50 (2.97%) Security Architect
11 44 (2.62%) Data Engineer
12 42 (2.50%) Security Engineer
13 39 (2.32%) Java Developer
14 37 (2.20%) Network Engineer
15 35 (2.08%) Administrator
16 29 (1.72%) Technical Architect
17 28 (1.66%) Data Analyst
18 27 (1.61%) IT Support
18 27 (1.61%) Support Engineer
19 25 (1.49%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (5.17%) REST
2 55 (3.27%) React
3 39 (2.32%) Spring
4 36 (2.14%) Middleware
5 34 (2.02%) Spring Boot
6 32 (1.90%) CSS
6 32 (1.90%) HTML
6 32 (1.90%) RESTful
7 31 (1.84%) JSON
7 31 (1.84%) Kafka
8 28 (1.66%) OAuth
9 27 (1.61%) .NET
10 19 (1.13%) HTML5
11 18 (1.07%) CSS3
11 18 (1.07%) PySpark
11 18 (1.07%) Redux
12 17 (1.01%) Jest
12 17 (1.01%) Node.js
12 17 (1.01%) OpenID
13 15 (0.89%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 757 (45.01%) Data Protection Act
2 95 (5.65%) Cloud Native
3 88 (5.23%) Product Ownership
4 75 (4.46%) Onboarding
5 55 (3.27%) Management Information System
6 50 (2.97%) Legacy Systems
7 46 (2.73%) Data Centre
8 42 (2.50%) Distributed Systems
9 41 (2.44%) Virtual Team
10 37 (2.20%) Security Posture
11 25 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
11 25 (1.49%) Operational Technology
12 24 (1.43%) Replication
13 23 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
14 22 (1.31%) NHS
15 21 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
16 20 (1.19%) Data Structures
16 20 (1.19%) Enterprise Storage
17 19 (1.13%) Mobile App
18 16 (0.95%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 126 (7.49%) Windows
2 81 (4.82%) Linux
3 30 (1.78%) Unix
4 27 (1.61%) Android
4 27 (1.61%) Apple iOS
4 27 (1.61%) Windows Server
5 24 (1.43%) Mac OS
6 19 (1.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (0.77%) VMS
8 11 (0.65%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.36%) CoreOS
9 6 (0.36%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.30%) zOS
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.059%) CentOS
12 1 (0.059%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.059%) Solaris
12 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 317 (18.85%) Agile
2 299 (17.78%) Problem-Solving
3 288 (17.12%) Stakeholder Management
4 259 (15.40%) Continuous Improvement
5 242 (14.39%) DevOps
6 239 (14.21%) Migration
7 231 (13.73%) CI/CD
8 192 (11.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 189 (11.24%) AI
10 152 (9.04%) Roadmaps
11 151 (8.98%) Cybersecurity
12 147 (8.74%) Decision-Making
13 142 (8.44%) Analytics
14 129 (7.67%) Data Governance
15 126 (7.49%) Risk Management
16 125 (7.43%) Information Security
17 124 (7.37%) Validation
18 114 (6.78%) Infrastructure as Code
19 111 (6.60%) Data Modelling
20 100 (5.95%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 225 (13.38%) Python
2 174 (10.34%) SQL
3 121 (7.19%) Java
4 64 (3.80%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.33%) PowerShell
6 45 (2.68%) Bash
7 32 (1.90%) TypeScript
8 28 (1.66%) C#
9 17 (1.01%) Bicep
10 16 (0.95%) Go
11 13 (0.77%) Apex Code
12 12 (0.71%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
13 10 (0.59%) Perl
13 10 (0.59%) VB
14 9 (0.54%) VB6
15 8 (0.48%) Scala
16 7 (0.42%) C++
16 7 (0.42%) Shell Script
17 5 (0.30%) ActionScript
Qualifications
1 242 (14.39%) Security Cleared
2 184 (10.94%) SC Cleared
3 128 (7.61%) Degree
4 72 (4.28%) CISSP
5 56 (3.33%) DV Cleared
6 40 (2.38%) CISM
7 38 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
8 34 (2.02%) Cisco Certification
9 33 (1.96%) Computer Science Degree
10 31 (1.84%) Azure Certification
11 27 (1.61%) PMI Certification
12 25 (1.49%) AWS Certification
13 23 (1.37%) PMP
14 18 (1.07%) Microsoft Certification
15 17 (1.01%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 15 (0.89%) CCSP
17 14 (0.83%) Master's Degree
18 12 (0.71%) CCNP
19 10 (0.59%) CRISC
20 9 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (15.10%) GDPR
2 100 (5.95%) Data Quality
3 83 (4.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (4.88%) QA
5 81 (4.82%) NIST
6 47 (2.79%) GRC
7 43 (2.56%) Accessibility
8 25 (1.49%) PCI DSS
8 25 (1.49%) PMO
9 20 (1.19%) NCSC
10 19 (1.13%) SLA
11 18 (1.07%) SOC 2
12 13 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
13 10 (0.59%) HIPAA
13 10 (0.59%) PERC
14 9 (0.54%) WCAG
15 8 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
16 7 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials
17 6 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 83 (4.93%) Active Directory
2 69 (4.10%) 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 12 (0.71%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.71%) vSphere
8 7 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.30%) KVM
10 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
10 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.18%) IAG
11 3 (0.18%) XenApp
11 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
12 2 (0.12%) GPFS
12 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.059%) iptables
Systems Management
1 120 (7.13%) Kubernetes
2 89 (5.29%) Terraform
3 63 (3.75%) Ansible
4 40 (2.38%) Microsoft Intune
5 38 (2.26%) Grafana
6 29 (1.72%) NetBackup
7 27 (1.61%) Prometheus
8 22 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
9 21 (1.25%) SCCM
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
16 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
16 4 (0.24%) QRadar
16 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 295 (17.54%) Microsoft
2 81 (4.82%) Oracle
3 77 (4.58%) ServiceNow
4 66 (3.92%) Google
5 58 (3.45%) VMware
6 57 (3.39%) Cisco
7 51 (3.03%) Databricks
8 41 (2.44%) SAP
9 37 (2.20%) Splunk
10 34 (2.02%) Red Hat
11 27 (1.61%) Salesforce
12 22 (1.31%) NetApp
13 21 (1.25%) Veritas
13 21 (1.25%) Zscaler
14 20 (1.19%) Workday
15 16 (0.95%) Commvault
15 16 (0.95%) CyberArk
15 16 (0.95%) F5
16 15 (0.89%) Citrix
16 15 (0.89%) IBM