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 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 77 89 92
Rank change year-on-year +12 +3 +13
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,180 939 1,172
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.41% 2.57% 2.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.79% 2.99% 2.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 584 494 688
10th Percentile £289 £220 £219
25th Percentile £400 £377 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -5.96%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £684 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -3.16% +5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 13 14
10th Percentile £12.63 £18.88 £17.24
25th Percentile £14.57 £20.75 £18.81
Median hourly rate £18.38 £25.00 £23.62
Median % change year-on-year -26.49% +5.84% -55.01%
75th Percentile £20.71 £30.00 £31.69
90th Percentile £37.66 £42.72 £43.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.38 £24.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -23.43% +14.29% -67.02%

All Process and 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 31,170 31,428 41,118
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.15% 86.05% 88.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,492 18,903 27,760
10th Percentile £294 £310 £310
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,014 1,111 1,579
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.33 £20.00 £18.94
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.36 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.87% -20.54% +27.14%
75th Percentile £43.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £66.85 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.58 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -35.50% -21.35% +51.85%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 5 November 2025. 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 +17 1,003 £500 - 782
UK excluding London +6 617 £460 -3.16% 604
London +12 510 £525 +4.48% 343
Work from Home +12 284 £475 -5.00% 349
North of England -7 177 £458 -5.67% 91
South East +19 134 £514 +2.80% 267
Scotland +1 102 £425 -2.86% 33
Midlands +29 97 £465 +9.41% 64
Yorkshire +1 87 £513 +2.50% 38
West Midlands +15 71 £500 +17.65% 37
North West -25 69 £431 -10.16% 43
South West +7 42 £513 +5.13% 76
East of England -10 29 £475 +40.74% 46
East Midlands +6 26 £400 -3.03% 24
North East -10 21 £388 -7.46% 10
Wales +6 19 £375 +102.70% 18
Northern Ireland - 17 £600 - 10
Channel Islands -1 2 £725 - 9

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 62 (5.25%) Confluence
2 35 (2.97%) SharePoint
3 16 (1.36%) CMS
4 15 (1.27%) Microsoft Exchange
5 11 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 9 (0.76%) Apache
7 6 (0.51%) Apache Spark
7 6 (0.51%) nginx
8 5 (0.42%) CICS
9 3 (0.25%) SAS
10 2 (0.17%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.17%) GeoServer
11 1 (0.085%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.085%) Cloud Foundry
11 1 (0.085%) Luigi
11 1 (0.085%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 1 (0.085%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.085%) SharePoint Server
11 1 (0.085%) Skype for Business
11 1 (0.085%) Tomcat
Applications
1 51 (4.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (2.71%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.93%) Chatbot
4 10 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.34%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.25%) Sketch
9 2 (0.17%) InVision
10 1 (0.085%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.085%) Adobe Illustrator
10 1 (0.085%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.085%) Final Cut Pro
10 1 (0.085%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.085%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.085%) SPSS
10 1 (0.085%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (1.02%) Oracle EBS
2 9 (0.76%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.42%) ResourceLink
4 4 (0.34%) VisionPLUS
5 3 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
5 3 (0.25%) Oracle EBS R12
5 3 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.17%) Aladdin
6 2 (0.17%) assyst
6 2 (0.17%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.17%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.17%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.085%) CA PPM
7 1 (0.085%) Endur
7 1 (0.085%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
7 1 (0.085%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.085%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.085%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.085%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 235 (19.92%) Azure
2 214 (18.14%) AWS
3 91 (7.71%) GCP
4 68 (5.76%) Microsoft 365
5 62 (5.25%) Power Platform
6 52 (4.41%) GitHub
7 46 (3.90%) Entra ID
8 42 (3.56%) Serverless
9 40 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
10 39 (3.31%) Amazon S3
11 35 (2.97%) AWS Lambda
12 30 (2.54%) SaaS
13 27 (2.29%) Power Automate
14 21 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
15 20 (1.69%) Azure Monitor
15 20 (1.69%) PowerApps
15 20 (1.69%) Snowflake
16 17 (1.44%) Amazon EC2
17 16 (1.36%) Microsoft Purview
17 16 (1.36%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 59 (5.00%) Firewall
2 31 (2.63%) Network Security
3 17 (1.44%) VPN
3 17 (1.44%) WAN
4 16 (1.36%) DNS
5 14 (1.19%) SSH
6 11 (0.93%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.85%) Cisco IPT
7 10 (0.85%) HTTP
7 10 (0.85%) LAN
7 10 (0.85%) MPLS
8 9 (0.76%) DHCP
8 9 (0.76%) Wireshark
9 8 (0.68%) BGP
9 8 (0.68%) Cisco Nexus
10 7 (0.59%) TCP/IP
10 7 (0.59%) VLAN
11 6 (0.51%) Wireless
12 5 (0.42%) Internet
12 5 (0.42%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (3.64%) Power BI
2 38 (3.22%) SQL Server
3 37 (3.14%) PostgreSQL
4 21 (1.78%) NoSQL
5 18 (1.53%) Amazon RDS
5 18 (1.53%) Tableau
6 16 (1.36%) Metadata
6 16 (1.36%) Relational Database
7 11 (0.93%) Data Lake
7 11 (0.93%) Data Warehouse
7 11 (0.93%) MongoDB
8 10 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
9 9 (0.76%) DynamoDB
9 9 (0.76%) MySQL
9 9 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
10 8 (0.68%) Power Query
11 7 (0.59%) Hadoop
11 7 (0.59%) Oracle Database
12 6 (0.51%) Amazon Aurora
12 6 (0.51%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 108 (9.15%) JIRA
2 37 (3.14%) Git
3 31 (2.63%) Jenkins
4 30 (2.54%) GitLab
5 10 (0.85%) Postman
6 9 (0.76%) Metasploit
7 8 (0.68%) Burp Suite
7 8 (0.68%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.59%) JUnit
9 5 (0.42%) Fiddler
9 5 (0.42%) Gradle
10 4 (0.34%) ChangeMan
10 4 (0.34%) Maven
10 4 (0.34%) SpecFlow
11 3 (0.25%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.25%) Cypress.io
11 3 (0.25%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.25%) Xcode
12 2 (0.17%) IntelliJ
12 2 (0.17%) Oracle Forms
General
1 406 (34.41%) Social Skills
2 228 (19.32%) Finance
3 140 (11.86%) Analytical Skills
4 115 (9.75%) Public Sector
5 94 (7.97%) Banking
6 80 (6.78%) Legal
7 32 (2.71%) Marketing
8 31 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
9 28 (2.37%) Influencing Skills
10 27 (2.29%) Law
11 24 (2.03%) Manufacturing
11 24 (2.03%) Organisational Skills
12 20 (1.69%) Front Office
12 20 (1.69%) Retail
12 20 (1.69%) Telecoms
13 17 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 16 (1.36%) Aerospace
15 15 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
16 14 (1.19%) Financial Institution
16 14 (1.19%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 176 (14.92%) Analyst
2 125 (10.59%) Developer
3 103 (8.73%) Architect
4 79 (6.69%) Lead
5 70 (5.93%) Business Analyst
6 55 (4.66%) Project Manager
6 55 (4.66%) Senior
7 54 (4.58%) Consultant
8 42 (3.56%) Security Engineer
9 39 (3.31%) Administrator
10 34 (2.88%) Data Analyst
11 31 (2.63%) Solutions Architect
12 28 (2.37%) Data Engineer
13 24 (2.03%) Support Engineer
14 23 (1.95%) Information Officer
14 23 (1.95%) Security Architect
15 22 (1.86%) Information Governance Officer
16 20 (1.69%) Automation Engineer
16 20 (1.69%) Network Engineer
17 19 (1.61%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (3.81%) REST
2 30 (2.54%) RESTful
3 26 (2.20%) React
3 26 (2.20%) SOAP
4 25 (2.12%) OAuth
5 23 (1.95%) HTML
6 22 (1.86%) .NET
7 15 (1.27%) JSON
7 15 (1.27%) Middleware
7 15 (1.27%) Spring
8 14 (1.19%) XML
9 13 (1.10%) Kafka
10 11 (0.93%) CSS
10 11 (0.93%) LangChain
10 11 (0.93%) Node.js
10 11 (0.93%) SAML
11 10 (0.85%) AngularJS
12 9 (0.76%) OAuth2
13 8 (0.68%) PySpark
14 7 (0.59%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 609 (51.61%) Data Protection Act
2 45 (3.81%) Management Information System
2 45 (3.81%) Onboarding
3 40 (3.39%) Product Ownership
4 37 (3.14%) Cloud Native
5 30 (2.54%) Freedom of Information
6 24 (2.03%) Data Centre
7 22 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
8 21 (1.78%) Data Structures
8 21 (1.78%) Security Posture
8 21 (1.78%) Virtual Team
9 19 (1.61%) NHS
10 18 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
11 16 (1.36%) CMDB
12 15 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
13 14 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
13 14 (1.19%) Public Cloud
14 13 (1.10%) Mobile App
15 12 (1.02%) Credit Risk
16 11 (0.93%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 84 (7.12%) Windows
2 62 (5.25%) Linux
3 24 (2.03%) Unix
4 14 (1.19%) Windows Server
5 13 (1.10%) Mac OS
6 12 (1.02%) Android
7 9 (0.76%) Windows 10
8 7 (0.59%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.51%) AIX
9 6 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.51%) Solaris
9 6 (0.51%) zOS
10 3 (0.25%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.25%) VMS
11 2 (0.17%) CentOS
12 1 (0.085%) Amazon Linux
12 1 (0.085%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 202 (17.12%) Problem-Solving
2 187 (15.85%) Agile
3 157 (13.31%) Cybersecurity
3 157 (13.31%) Stakeholder Management
4 154 (13.05%) DevOps
5 145 (12.29%) CI/CD
6 135 (11.44%) Migration
7 123 (10.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 103 (8.73%) AI
9 99 (8.39%) Project Management
10 98 (8.31%) Information Security
11 94 (7.97%) Continuous Improvement
12 84 (7.12%) Risk Management
13 83 (7.03%) Analytics
14 77 (6.53%) Roadmaps
15 69 (5.85%) Incident Response
16 66 (5.59%) Infrastructure as Code
17 65 (5.51%) Data Governance
18 63 (5.34%) Computer Science
19 62 (5.25%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 220 (18.64%) Python
2 126 (10.68%) SQL
3 67 (5.68%) Bash
4 59 (5.00%) PowerShell
5 56 (4.75%) JavaScript
6 55 (4.66%) Java
7 38 (3.22%) C#
8 18 (1.53%) TypeScript
9 12 (1.02%) C++
10 11 (0.93%) Go
10 11 (0.93%) Shell Script
11 8 (0.68%) Perl
11 8 (0.68%) PromQL
12 7 (0.59%) Kotlin
12 7 (0.59%) PHP
13 6 (0.51%) R
14 5 (0.42%) Bicep
14 5 (0.42%) COBOL
14 5 (0.42%) PL/SQL
14 5 (0.42%) Swift
Qualifications
1 123 (10.42%) Degree
2 121 (10.25%) Security Cleared
3 90 (7.63%) SC Cleared
4 51 (4.32%) Computer Science Degree
5 30 (2.54%) AWS Certification
6 26 (2.20%) CISSP
7 23 (1.95%) CISM
7 23 (1.95%) DV Cleared
8 19 (1.61%) Cisco Certification
9 16 (1.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 16 (1.36%) Master's Degree
10 14 (1.19%) Azure Certification
11 12 (1.02%) CCNP
11 12 (1.02%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (0.93%) CISA
12 11 (0.93%) PMI Certification
13 10 (0.85%) A+ Certification
13 10 (0.85%) BPSS Clearance
13 10 (0.85%) CRISC
13 10 (0.85%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 213 (18.05%) GDPR
2 78 (6.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 72 (6.10%) NIST
4 44 (3.73%) Data Quality
5 38 (3.22%) QA
6 29 (2.46%) Cyber Essentials
7 24 (2.03%) GRC
8 20 (1.69%) NCSC
9 19 (1.61%) Accessibility
10 18 (1.53%) PCI DSS
11 16 (1.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 11 (0.93%) PMO
12 11 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.85%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.76%) Actionable Recommendations
14 9 (0.76%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 9 (0.76%) PERC
15 8 (0.68%) COBIT
16 6 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
16 6 (0.51%) SEPA
System Software
1 57 (4.83%) Active Directory
2 41 (3.47%) Docker
3 39 (3.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.51%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (0.25%) vSphere
7 2 (0.17%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
7 2 (0.17%) NFS
7 2 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.085%) Firmware
8 1 (0.085%) HDFS
8 1 (0.085%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.085%) KVM
8 1 (0.085%) Veritas Cluster Server
8 1 (0.085%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.085%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 53 (4.49%) Terraform
2 48 (4.07%) Kubernetes
3 40 (3.39%) Ansible
4 25 (2.12%) NetBackup
5 23 (1.95%) Microsoft Intune
6 20 (1.69%) Prometheus
7 18 (1.53%) SCCM
8 17 (1.44%) Grafana
9 11 (0.93%) Oracle RMAN
10 8 (0.68%) Nmap
11 7 (0.59%) Puppet
12 5 (0.42%) Kibana
12 5 (0.42%) RSA Archer
12 5 (0.42%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 4 (0.34%) CA Endevor
14 3 (0.25%) Data Guard
14 3 (0.25%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.25%) PingFederate
14 3 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 182 (15.42%) Microsoft
2 46 (3.90%) Google
3 45 (3.81%) Oracle
4 43 (3.64%) VMware
5 37 (3.14%) Cisco
6 29 (2.46%) ServiceNow
7 27 (2.29%) SAP
8 25 (2.12%) Salesforce
9 23 (1.95%) Databricks
10 21 (1.78%) IBM
10 21 (1.78%) Veritas
11 20 (1.69%) Red Hat
12 17 (1.44%) Commvault
13 16 (1.36%) F5
14 15 (1.27%) CyberArk
14 15 (1.27%) Splunk
15 14 (1.19%) Citrix
16 12 (1.02%) Fortinet
16 12 (1.02%) Juniper
17 11 (0.93%) OneTrust