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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 76 84
Rank change year-on-year -8 +8 0
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,692 1,106 1,004
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.35% 2.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 3.69% 3.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 866 531 525
10th Percentile £258 £289 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £460 £475
% change year-on-year -2.17% -3.16% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 53 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.16 £13.60 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -45.22% +15.15%
75th Percentile £24.27 £20.71 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £33.69 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +19.05%

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 46,382 29,970 32,481
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.48% 90.66% 85.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,008 18,622 19,630
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £733 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,245 1,858 1,349
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.19 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.07% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.64 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.01% -48.10% +1.18%

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 1 October 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 1 October 2026.

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 1 October 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 -14 1,403 £500 - 1,621
UK excluding London -2 941 £450 -2.17% 1,029
London -25 595 £525 - 696
Work from Home +8 469 £500 +11.11% 664
North of England +14 341 £463 +2.78% 310
South East +1 198 £471 -6.68% 228
Yorkshire +16 173 £475 -5.00% 120
Midlands +4 161 £450 -5.26% 159
North West +6 147 £450 +2.27% 162
West Midlands +13 130 £450 -10.00% 96
Scotland -12 121 £450 +5.88% 80
South West -16 65 £475 +15.15% 91
East of England -16 33 £500 +5.26% 98
East Midlands -8 31 £435 +8.75% 63
North East -43 22 £463 +15.63% 29
Wales -7 20 £413 +11.86% 37
Northern Ireland +7 16 £115 -83.57% 28
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 -17.24% 5

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 70 (4.14%) SharePoint
2 35 (2.07%) Confluence
3 27 (1.60%) Apache Airflow
4 25 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
5 18 (1.06%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.77%) Apache
6 13 (0.77%) IIS
7 12 (0.71%) CMS
8 10 (0.59%) SAS
9 7 (0.41%) WordPress
10 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
11 4 (0.24%) nginx
12 3 (0.18%) CICS
13 2 (0.12%) Drupal
13 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
14 1 (0.059%) Cloud Foundry
14 1 (0.059%) Luigi
14 1 (0.059%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 51 (3.01%) Microsoft Office
2 48 (2.84%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.059%) Maya
7 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.53%) SAP MDG
3 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
4 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
6 2 (0.12%) Cloudability
6 2 (0.12%) Endur
6 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 1 (0.059%) Actimize
7 1 (0.059%) assyst
7 1 (0.059%) Maximo
7 1 (0.059%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.059%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 373 (22.04%) Azure
2 299 (17.67%) AWS
3 139 (8.22%) Microsoft 365
4 134 (7.92%) GCP
5 77 (4.55%) SaaS
6 76 (4.49%) Entra ID
6 76 (4.49%) Power Platform
7 63 (3.72%) Azure DevOps
8 59 (3.49%) GitHub
9 55 (3.25%) Microsoft Purview
10 48 (2.84%) Serverless
11 40 (2.36%) Microsoft Copilot
12 29 (1.71%) OneDrive
13 26 (1.54%) AWS Lambda
14 25 (1.48%) GitHub Actions
14 25 (1.48%) OpenShift
15 24 (1.42%) Snowflake
16 22 (1.30%) Power Automate
17 21 (1.24%) Amazon S3
17 21 (1.24%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 94 (5.56%) Network Security
2 64 (3.78%) Firewall
3 37 (2.19%) VPN
4 35 (2.07%) DNS
5 27 (1.60%) TCP/IP
6 25 (1.48%) DHCP
7 21 (1.24%) WAN
8 20 (1.18%) LAN
9 19 (1.12%) Cisco IPT
10 15 (0.89%) MPLS
10 15 (0.89%) SAN
10 15 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 12 (0.71%) Wireless
12 11 (0.65%) VoIP
13 10 (0.59%) HTTP
13 10 (0.59%) SSL
13 10 (0.59%) Unified Communications
14 9 (0.53%) Cisco ISE
14 9 (0.53%) Internet
14 9 (0.53%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (3.37%) Power BI
2 51 (3.01%) Metadata
3 42 (2.48%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
5 32 (1.89%) SQL Server
6 24 (1.42%) NoSQL
7 23 (1.36%) BigQuery
8 22 (1.30%) Data Lake
9 17 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (0.89%) Big Data
11 13 (0.77%) MongoDB
12 11 (0.65%) MySQL
12 11 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
13 10 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
14 9 (0.53%) Oracle Database
15 8 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
15 8 (0.47%) DynamoDB
15 8 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 79 (4.67%) JIRA
2 70 (4.14%) Git
3 59 (3.49%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.54%) GitLab
5 18 (1.06%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.59%) Postman
7 9 (0.53%) Maven
8 6 (0.35%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) ERwin
11 3 (0.18%) Mockito
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 679 (40.13%) Social Skills
2 364 (21.51%) Finance
3 253 (14.95%) Legal
4 222 (13.12%) Analytical Skills
5 218 (12.88%) Public Sector
6 122 (7.21%) Banking
7 85 (5.02%) Organisational Skills
8 73 (4.31%) Documentation Skills
9 46 (2.72%) Influencing Skills
9 46 (2.72%) Local Government
10 41 (2.42%) Presentation Skills
11 39 (2.30%) Retail
12 30 (1.77%) Law
13 28 (1.65%) Marketing
14 27 (1.60%) Front Office
14 27 (1.60%) Telecoms
15 22 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
16 21 (1.24%) Police
17 19 (1.12%) Billing
18 17 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 249 (14.72%) Architect
2 175 (10.34%) Analyst
3 136 (8.04%) Lead
4 128 (7.57%) Senior
5 105 (6.21%) Developer
6 79 (4.67%) Consultant
7 76 (4.49%) Project Manager
8 71 (4.20%) Business Analyst
9 67 (3.96%) Solutions Architect
10 58 (3.43%) Security Architect
11 52 (3.07%) Administrator
12 46 (2.72%) Security Engineer
13 39 (2.30%) Information Officer
14 37 (2.19%) Support Engineer
15 35 (2.07%) Information Governance Officer
16 33 (1.95%) Data Analyst
17 31 (1.83%) Data Engineer
18 28 (1.65%) Network Engineer
19 27 (1.60%) Data Architect
20 25 (1.48%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (5.97%) Terraform
2 93 (5.50%) REST
3 42 (2.48%) Kafka
4 35 (2.07%) JSON
4 35 (2.07%) OAuth
5 33 (1.95%) Middleware
6 28 (1.65%) React
7 25 (1.48%) RESTful
8 24 (1.42%) Spring
9 23 (1.36%) .NET
9 23 (1.36%) HTML
10 22 (1.30%) Spring Boot
11 21 (1.24%) CSS
11 21 (1.24%) Node.js
11 21 (1.24%) OAuth2
12 16 (0.95%) OpenID
12 16 (0.95%) SOAP
13 14 (0.83%) YAML
14 13 (0.77%) GraphQL
14 13 (0.77%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 703 (41.55%) Data Protection Act
2 132 (7.80%) Management Information System
3 102 (6.03%) Product Ownership
4 96 (5.67%) Onboarding
5 94 (5.56%) Cloud Native
6 63 (3.72%) Data Centre
7 58 (3.43%) Distributed Systems
8 46 (2.72%) Freedom of Information
9 43 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
10 41 (2.42%) Security Posture
11 38 (2.25%) Virtual Team
12 30 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
12 30 (1.77%) NHS
13 29 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
14 28 (1.65%) Operational Technology
15 27 (1.60%) Data Structures
16 26 (1.54%) AI Agents
17 23 (1.36%) Mobile App
18 21 (1.24%) Private Cloud
19 19 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 134 (7.92%) Windows
2 81 (4.79%) Linux
3 37 (2.19%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.95%) Apple iOS
5 32 (1.89%) Android
6 29 (1.71%) Unix
7 22 (1.30%) Mac OS
8 15 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 14 (0.83%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.47%) zOS
11 3 (0.18%) VMS
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) CentOS
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.059%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 407 (24.05%) Stakeholder Management
2 325 (19.21%) Agile
3 299 (17.67%) Problem-Solving
4 287 (16.96%) Continuous Improvement
5 249 (14.72%) CI/CD
6 239 (14.13%) AI
7 231 (13.65%) Cybersecurity
7 231 (13.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 222 (13.12%) Migration
9 209 (12.35%) DevOps
10 171 (10.11%) Roadmaps
11 167 (9.87%) Decision-Making
12 161 (9.52%) Information Security
13 159 (9.40%) Risk Management
14 152 (8.98%) Data Governance
15 149 (8.81%) Infrastructure as Code
16 144 (8.51%) Analytics
17 141 (8.33%) Validation
18 122 (7.21%) Test Automation
19 121 (7.15%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 212 (12.53%) Python
2 167 (9.87%) SQL
3 80 (4.73%) Java
4 62 (3.66%) PowerShell
5 47 (2.78%) JavaScript
6 34 (2.01%) Bash
7 28 (1.65%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.48%) Go
9 19 (1.12%) C#
10 18 (1.06%) Bicep
11 17 (1.00%) Scala
12 15 (0.89%) Kotlin
13 14 (0.83%) Apex Code
14 12 (0.71%) Perl
15 9 (0.53%) C
16 8 (0.47%) C++
16 8 (0.47%) VB
17 7 (0.41%) COBOL
17 7 (0.41%) VB6
18 6 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 273 (16.13%) Security Cleared
2 201 (11.88%) SC Cleared
3 116 (6.86%) Degree
4 85 (5.02%) CISSP
5 60 (3.55%) DV Cleared
6 52 (3.07%) CISM
7 49 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
8 47 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
9 30 (1.77%) PMI Certification
10 29 (1.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 29 (1.71%) Azure Certification
11 27 (1.60%) PMP
12 26 (1.54%) CCSP
12 26 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
13 18 (1.06%) AWS Certification
14 13 (0.77%) CCNP
14 13 (0.77%) CISA
14 13 (0.77%) CRISC
15 12 (0.71%) Master's Degree
15 12 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 241 (14.24%) GDPR
2 120 (7.09%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 76 (4.49%) NIST
5 70 (4.14%) QA
6 52 (3.07%) GRC
7 50 (2.96%) Accessibility
8 30 (1.77%) PCI DSS
9 23 (1.36%) NCSC
10 21 (1.24%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (1.18%) PMO
12 14 (0.83%) SLA
13 13 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.65%) PERC
15 11 (0.65%) WCAG
16 10 (0.59%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
17 9 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 81 (4.79%) Active Directory
2 71 (4.20%) Docker
3 60 (3.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (1.00%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.77%) vSphere
6 12 (0.71%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.30%) ISA Server
8 5 (0.30%) NFS
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.12%) Firmware
10 2 (0.12%) GPFS
10 2 (0.12%) IAG
10 2 (0.12%) Varnish
10 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.059%) OpenSSH
11 1 (0.059%) XenApp
11 1 (0.059%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 116 (6.86%) Kubernetes
2 49 (2.90%) Ansible
3 40 (2.36%) Microsoft Intune
4 30 (1.77%) Grafana
5 21 (1.24%) SCCM
6 15 (0.89%) Kibana
6 15 (0.89%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
7 12 (0.71%) NetBackup
7 12 (0.71%) Progress Chef
7 12 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.59%) Puppet
9 8 (0.47%) CASB
10 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
10 5 (0.30%) QRadar
10 5 (0.30%) SCOM
11 4 (0.24%) Control-M
11 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
12 3 (0.18%) Istio
12 3 (0.18%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 373 (22.04%) Microsoft
2 90 (5.32%) ServiceNow
3 86 (5.08%) Google
4 74 (4.37%) Cisco
5 64 (3.78%) Oracle
6 61 (3.61%) VMware
7 47 (2.78%) Databricks
8 44 (2.60%) Splunk
9 38 (2.25%) SAP
10 30 (1.77%) Salesforce
11 28 (1.65%) Zscaler
12 20 (1.18%) IBM
12 20 (1.18%) Workday
13 18 (1.06%) F5
14 17 (1.00%) CyberArk
15 16 (0.95%) Dell
16 15 (0.89%) Red Hat
17 14 (0.83%) Dynatrace
17 14 (0.83%) MuleSoft
18 13 (0.77%) Citrix