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

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 97 80
Rank change year-on-year +21 -17 +28
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,385 767 1,136
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.29% 2.55% 2.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.80% 2.83% 2.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 732 395 618
10th Percentile £276 £270 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £383
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £589 £600 £588
90th Percentile £686 £698 £704
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £481 £450
% change year-on-year -6.49% +6.94% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 22 105
10th Percentile £13.14 £16.55 £12.35
25th Percentile £16.88 £24.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.62 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.07% +51.87% -72.14%
75th Percentile £24.19 £33.18 £25.00
90th Percentile £43.43 £62.20 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £19.50
% change year-on-year -29.15% +49.90% -72.14%

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 36,453 27,072 38,415
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.50% 90.11% 86.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,124 16,979 25,034
10th Percentile £313 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -2.13% -1.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,168 886 2,250
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £16.13
Median hourly rate £27.94 £32.50 £32.85
Median % change year-on-year -14.03% -1.05% -6.16%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.31 £58.75
90th Percentile £73.46 £75.13 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.76 £33.50
% change year-on-year -20.81% -5.19% -4.29%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 4 March 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 +29 1,186 £500 - 465
UK excluding London +13 734 £450 -6.49% 367
London +27 571 £525 +1.94% 152
Work from Home +27 330 £500 - 181
North of England -7 225 £475 -2.51% 93
South East +15 172 £478 -2.30% 96
Yorkshire -4 131 £487 -10.44% 30
Scotland +10 114 £405 -12.54% 16
Midlands +3 107 £450 -5.26% 61
North West -25 80 £433 -5.87% 58
West Midlands -18 64 £500 - 32
South West +6 50 £500 +5.26% 46
East of England +3 47 £350 -30.00% 46
East Midlands +2 43 £438 +6.06% 29
North East -23 15 £400 -15.79% 5
Wales +2 14 £375 -26.83% 11
Northern Ireland - 9 £500 - 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 63 (4.55%) Confluence
2 32 (2.31%) SharePoint
3 17 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
4 10 (0.72%) Apache Spark
5 7 (0.51%) Apache
6 5 (0.36%) CMS
7 4 (0.29%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.22%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.22%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.14%) Drupal
9 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.14%) SAS
9 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.072%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 53 (3.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (3.18%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.58%) MS Visio
3 8 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.29%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.22%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.22%) Sketch
7 2 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.14%) InVision
7 2 (0.14%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.072%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.072%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.072%) Blender
8 1 (0.072%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.072%) Final Cut Pro
Business Applications
1 12 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.72%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
4 8 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
5 5 (0.36%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.29%) SAP GRC
7 3 (0.22%) Distributed Ledger
7 3 (0.22%) Fidessa
7 3 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.22%) R3 Corda
7 3 (0.22%) ResourceLink
8 2 (0.14%) ION MarketView
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle FAH
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
8 2 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.14%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 256 (18.48%) Azure
2 218 (15.74%) AWS
3 108 (7.80%) GCP
4 73 (5.27%) Microsoft 365
5 70 (5.05%) Power Platform
6 62 (4.48%) Entra ID
7 60 (4.33%) GitHub
8 54 (3.90%) Serverless
9 45 (3.25%) SaaS
10 42 (3.03%) AWS Lambda
11 41 (2.96%) Amazon S3
12 36 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
13 33 (2.38%) OpenShift
14 31 (2.24%) Microsoft Purview
14 31 (2.24%) Snowflake
15 30 (2.17%) AWS CloudFormation
16 25 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (1.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 21 (1.52%) PaaS
19 20 (1.44%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.10%) Firewall
2 40 (2.89%) Network Security
3 33 (2.38%) SAN
4 20 (1.44%) NAS
5 19 (1.37%) MPLS
5 19 (1.37%) VPN
6 18 (1.30%) LAN
7 16 (1.16%) Cisco IPT
7 16 (1.16%) DNS
7 16 (1.16%) WAN
8 14 (1.01%) TCP/IP
9 10 (0.72%) SD-WAN
10 9 (0.65%) BGP
10 9 (0.65%) Fibre Channel
10 9 (0.65%) HTTP
10 9 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
11 8 (0.58%) SSH
11 8 (0.58%) VLAN
12 7 (0.51%) iSCSI
13 6 (0.43%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (4.62%) Power BI
2 37 (2.67%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (2.45%) SQL Server
4 28 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
5 23 (1.66%) Metadata
6 20 (1.44%) Relational Database
7 18 (1.30%) NoSQL
8 17 (1.23%) DynamoDB
8 17 (1.23%) MongoDB
8 17 (1.23%) MySQL
9 16 (1.16%) Tableau
10 15 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (1.08%) Data Lake
11 14 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
12 12 (0.87%) Amazon Aurora
12 12 (0.87%) Oracle Database
13 10 (0.72%) BigQuery
14 8 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
15 7 (0.51%) Hadoop
15 7 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 99 (7.15%) JIRA
2 58 (4.19%) Git
2 58 (4.19%) Jenkins
3 35 (2.53%) GitLab
4 13 (0.94%) SpecFlow
5 12 (0.87%) JUnit
6 8 (0.58%) Gradle
6 8 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (0.51%) Maven
8 6 (0.43%) NUnit
8 6 (0.43%) Postman
9 5 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
10 4 (0.29%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.29%) CircleCI
10 4 (0.29%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.29%) Fiddler
11 3 (0.22%) Liquibase
11 3 (0.22%) Selenium
11 3 (0.22%) TestNG
11 3 (0.22%) webpack
General
1 444 (32.06%) Social Skills
2 300 (21.66%) Finance
3 176 (12.71%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (9.68%) Public Sector
5 130 (9.39%) Legal
6 124 (8.95%) Banking
7 54 (3.90%) Organisational Skills
8 43 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
9 36 (2.60%) Telecoms
10 32 (2.31%) Marketing
11 28 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
12 26 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
13 21 (1.52%) Front Office
14 20 (1.44%) Local Government
15 18 (1.30%) Law
16 15 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 15 (1.08%) Police
17 14 (1.01%) Investment Banking
18 13 (0.94%) Manufacturing
19 12 (0.87%) Retail
Job Titles
1 167 (12.06%) Architect
2 158 (11.41%) Analyst
3 116 (8.38%) Developer
4 100 (7.22%) Lead
5 80 (5.78%) Senior
6 79 (5.70%) Consultant
7 71 (5.13%) Business Analyst
8 65 (4.69%) Project Manager
9 50 (3.61%) Solutions Architect
10 35 (2.53%) Security Engineer
11 34 (2.45%) Data Engineer
12 29 (2.09%) Data Analyst
12 29 (2.09%) Network Engineer
13 28 (2.02%) Administrator
14 27 (1.95%) Security Architect
14 27 (1.95%) Technical Architect
15 25 (1.81%) Automation Engineer
15 25 (1.81%) Java Developer
16 22 (1.59%) Data Protection Officer
16 22 (1.59%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (4.62%) REST
2 49 (3.54%) React
3 36 (2.60%) .NET
4 33 (2.38%) Node.js
5 28 (2.02%) Kafka
6 27 (1.95%) Spring
7 25 (1.81%) RESTful
8 22 (1.59%) Middleware
8 22 (1.59%) Spring Boot
9 20 (1.44%) OAuth
10 18 (1.30%) Oracle Fusion
10 18 (1.30%) PySpark
11 17 (1.23%) Playwright
12 15 (1.08%) HTML
13 14 (1.01%) .NET Core
14 13 (0.94%) AngularJS
15 12 (0.87%) Jest
15 12 (0.87%) JSON
15 12 (0.87%) SAML
16 10 (0.72%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 695 (50.18%) Data Protection Act
2 63 (4.55%) Cloud Native
2 63 (4.55%) Product Ownership
3 57 (4.12%) Onboarding
4 52 (3.75%) Management Information System
5 30 (2.17%) Distributed Systems
6 29 (2.09%) NHS
7 27 (1.95%) Legacy Systems
8 23 (1.66%) Freedom of Information
8 23 (1.66%) Replication
9 22 (1.59%) Data Centre
9 22 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
9 22 (1.59%) Security Posture
10 20 (1.44%) Data Structures
10 20 (1.44%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 18 (1.30%) Enterprise Storage
12 14 (1.01%) Insider Threat
13 13 (0.94%) AI Agents
14 12 (0.87%) Mobile App
14 12 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 98 (7.08%) Windows
2 65 (4.69%) Linux
3 25 (1.81%) Unix
4 18 (1.30%) Windows Server
5 17 (1.23%) Mac OS
6 15 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (0.87%) VMS
7 12 (0.87%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.58%) Android
8 8 (0.58%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.51%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (0.43%) CoreOS
10 6 (0.43%) zOS
11 4 (0.29%) AIX
11 4 (0.29%) Solaris
12 1 (0.072%) CentOS
12 1 (0.072%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 243 (17.55%) Stakeholder Management
2 241 (17.40%) Problem-Solving
3 225 (16.25%) Agile
4 203 (14.66%) Migration
5 179 (12.92%) CI/CD
6 169 (12.20%) DevOps
7 161 (11.62%) Continuous Improvement
8 137 (9.89%) Roadmaps
9 136 (9.82%) Analytics
9 136 (9.82%) Cybersecurity
10 127 (9.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 124 (8.95%) AI
12 119 (8.59%) Risk Management
13 113 (8.16%) Information Security
14 101 (7.29%) Project Management
15 94 (6.79%) Decision-Making
16 92 (6.64%) Test Automation
17 87 (6.28%) Microservices
18 81 (5.85%) Business Intelligence
18 81 (5.85%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 229 (16.53%) Python
2 176 (12.71%) SQL
3 98 (7.08%) Java
4 68 (4.91%) JavaScript
5 67 (4.84%) PowerShell
6 56 (4.04%) C#
7 44 (3.18%) Bash
8 39 (2.82%) TypeScript
9 19 (1.37%) Bicep
10 12 (0.87%) C++
10 12 (0.87%) Perl
11 10 (0.72%) Shell Script
12 8 (0.58%) ActionScript
13 7 (0.51%) Kusto Query Language
13 7 (0.51%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.43%) ActionScript 2.0
14 6 (0.43%) PHP
15 5 (0.36%) Go
16 4 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 4 (0.29%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 182 (13.14%) Security Cleared
2 131 (9.46%) SC Cleared
3 122 (8.81%) Degree
4 49 (3.54%) DV Cleared
5 42 (3.03%) CISSP
6 34 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
7 29 (2.09%) CISM
8 26 (1.88%) AWS Certification
8 26 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
9 23 (1.66%) Master's Degree
10 19 (1.37%) PMI Certification
11 18 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
12 17 (1.23%) Azure Certification
12 17 (1.23%) PMP
13 14 (1.01%) CRISC
13 14 (1.01%) CTC Cleared
14 13 (0.94%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 12 (0.87%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.79%) CCSP
17 10 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 233 (16.82%) GDPR
2 96 (6.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 89 (6.43%) NIST
4 67 (4.84%) Data Quality
5 57 (4.12%) QA
6 32 (2.31%) PCI DSS
7 28 (2.02%) Accessibility
8 26 (1.88%) GRC
9 24 (1.73%) PMO
10 18 (1.30%) NCSC
10 18 (1.30%) SLA
11 14 (1.01%) Disclosure Scotland
11 14 (1.01%) SOC 2
12 12 (0.87%) NIST 800
12 12 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.79%) PERC
14 8 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
15 7 (0.51%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.43%) WCAG
17 5 (0.36%) COBIT
System Software
1 65 (4.69%) Docker
2 62 (4.48%) Active Directory
3 53 (3.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
5 14 (1.01%) NFS
6 10 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (0.72%) vSphere
7 7 (0.51%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.36%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.29%) KVM
9 4 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.22%) IAG
10 3 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.072%) Firmware
11 1 (0.072%) HDFS
11 1 (0.072%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.072%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.072%) Time Sharing Option
11 1 (0.072%) UAG
Systems Management
1 93 (6.71%) Terraform
2 91 (6.57%) Kubernetes
3 67 (4.84%) Ansible
4 31 (2.24%) Grafana
5 30 (2.17%) Microsoft Intune
6 28 (2.02%) NetBackup
7 23 (1.66%) Prometheus
8 20 (1.44%) SCCM
9 14 (1.01%) Puppet
10 13 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.51%) SnapMirror
13 6 (0.43%) EMC NetWorker
13 6 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
13 6 (0.43%) RSA Archer
14 5 (0.36%) Control-M
14 5 (0.36%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.36%) vCenter Server
15 4 (0.29%) Kibana
16 3 (0.22%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 205 (14.80%) Microsoft
2 68 (4.91%) Oracle
3 58 (4.19%) Google
4 55 (3.97%) VMware
5 46 (3.32%) Databricks
6 43 (3.10%) ServiceNow
7 41 (2.96%) Cisco
8 37 (2.67%) SAP
9 34 (2.45%) Salesforce
10 30 (2.17%) Red Hat
11 22 (1.59%) Citrix
12 20 (1.44%) Veritas
13 19 (1.37%) Commvault
13 19 (1.37%) IBM
13 19 (1.37%) NetApp
14 18 (1.30%) F5
15 15 (1.08%) Adobe
15 15 (1.08%) Splunk
16 14 (1.01%) Veeam
17 11 (0.79%) Informatica