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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 91 85
Rank change year-on-year +19 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,541 779 1,063
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.15% 2.71% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.72% 2.98% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 850 397 563
10th Percentile £300 £255 £216
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.93% -3.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £609
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 32 108
10th Percentile £15.47 £14.78 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.35 £17.66 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £25.75 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.09% +22.62% -56.71%
75th Percentile £33.64 £32.73 £27.59
90th Percentile £48.15 £36.95 £41.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £24.50 £19.50
% change year-on-year -13.27% +25.64% -47.67%

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 41,377 26,173 36,711
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 91.02% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,864 16,755 23,656
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,474 1,096 2,500
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.87 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £27.59 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.34% -24.42% +1.04%
75th Percentile £67.65 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.76 £74.38 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -33.82% +8.57%

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 29 May 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 29 May 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 29 May 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 +28 1,319 £495 -1.00% 394
UK excluding London +15 846 £450 -5.26% 278
London +30 597 £525 +5.00% 164
Work from Home +27 396 £500 +5.26% 163
North of England -3 276 £475 - 62
South East +22 180 £475 -10.25% 74
Yorkshire -7 159 £478 -5.68% 28
Midlands +1 130 £450 -10.00% 59
Scotland +5 125 £425 -7.10% 19
North West +17 109 £488 +18.18% 29
West Midlands -16 88 £468 -10.95% 39
South West +3 66 £410 +2.50% 37
East of England +7 50 £475 -11.63% 16
East Midlands +3 42 £438 +17.45% 20
Wales -7 11 £363 -12.12% 10
Northern Ireland +7 9 £104 -78.86% 4
North East -37 9 £400 -3.03% 6

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 55 (3.57%) Confluence
2 49 (3.18%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 16 (1.04%) Apache Spark
5 13 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 9 (0.58%) Apache
7 6 (0.39%) CMS
8 5 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (0.32%) SAS
9 3 (0.19%) Drupal
9 3 (0.19%) IIS
9 3 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.13%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.13%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.13%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 50 (3.24%) Microsoft Office
2 46 (2.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.26%) UserZoom
7 3 (0.19%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.13%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.065%) Maya
9 1 (0.065%) Trello
9 1 (0.065%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.65%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.32%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.32%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.19%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.19%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.065%) Odoo
8 1 (0.065%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 319 (20.70%) Azure
2 250 (16.22%) AWS
3 130 (8.44%) GCP
4 98 (6.36%) Microsoft 365
5 85 (5.52%) Entra ID
6 83 (5.39%) Power Platform
7 62 (4.02%) GitHub
7 62 (4.02%) SaaS
8 49 (3.18%) Microsoft Purview
9 48 (3.11%) OpenShift
10 45 (2.92%) Azure DevOps
11 38 (2.47%) Serverless
12 26 (1.69%) Microsoft Copilot
13 25 (1.62%) AWS Lambda
14 23 (1.49%) Snowflake
15 21 (1.36%) Amazon S3
15 21 (1.36%) OneDrive
15 21 (1.36%) Power Automate
16 20 (1.30%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (1.23%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 70 (4.54%) Network Security
2 42 (2.73%) Firewall
3 39 (2.53%) SAN
4 28 (1.82%) VPN
5 27 (1.75%) NAS
6 22 (1.43%) DNS
7 21 (1.36%) TCP/IP
8 19 (1.23%) MPLS
8 19 (1.23%) WAN
9 16 (1.04%) LAN
10 14 (0.91%) DHCP
11 13 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
12 11 (0.71%) Fibre Channel
13 9 (0.58%) HTTP
13 9 (0.58%) iSCSI
13 9 (0.58%) VLAN
14 8 (0.52%) SD-WAN
14 8 (0.52%) SSL
14 8 (0.52%) Wireless
15 7 (0.45%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.48%) Power BI
2 36 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (2.27%) Metadata
4 32 (2.08%) SQL Server
5 28 (1.82%) Data Warehouse
6 24 (1.56%) MongoDB
6 24 (1.56%) MySQL
7 22 (1.43%) Data Lake
8 20 (1.30%) Amazon RDS
8 20 (1.30%) NoSQL
8 20 (1.30%) Relational Database
9 19 (1.23%) Big Data
10 12 (0.78%) DynamoDB
10 12 (0.78%) Oracle Database
10 12 (0.78%) Tableau
11 11 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
12 9 (0.58%) BigQuery
12 9 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
12 9 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 7 (0.45%) Redis
Development Applications
1 90 (5.84%) JIRA
2 68 (4.41%) Git
3 63 (4.09%) Jenkins
4 36 (2.34%) GitLab
5 9 (0.58%) SpecFlow
6 8 (0.52%) JUnit
7 7 (0.45%) Postman
7 7 (0.45%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.39%) Flyway
8 6 (0.39%) Maven
9 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.32%) Gradle
10 4 (0.26%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.26%) ERwin
10 4 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
11 3 (0.19%) Katalon Studio
11 3 (0.19%) Selenium
11 3 (0.19%) TestNG
11 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.13%) REST Assured
General
1 483 (31.34%) Social Skills
2 357 (23.17%) Finance
3 198 (12.85%) Legal
4 174 (11.29%) Analytical Skills
5 142 (9.21%) Public Sector
6 120 (7.79%) Banking
7 66 (4.28%) Documentation Skills
8 64 (4.15%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.66%) Telecoms
10 31 (2.01%) Front Office
10 31 (2.01%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.82%) Local Government
11 28 (1.82%) Retail
12 27 (1.75%) Law
12 27 (1.75%) Marketing
13 25 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
14 18 (1.17%) Police
15 16 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
16 12 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 11 (0.71%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 212 (13.76%) Architect
2 142 (9.21%) Analyst
3 127 (8.24%) Developer
4 117 (7.59%) Lead
5 108 (7.01%) Senior
6 91 (5.91%) Consultant
7 83 (5.39%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.35%) Business Analyst
9 60 (3.89%) Solutions Architect
10 44 (2.86%) Security Architect
11 41 (2.66%) Java Developer
11 41 (2.66%) Network Engineer
12 39 (2.53%) Security Engineer
13 37 (2.40%) Data Engineer
14 35 (2.27%) Administrator
15 28 (1.82%) Technical Architect
16 26 (1.69%) Data Analyst
17 25 (1.62%) Support Engineer
18 23 (1.49%) Python Developer
19 21 (1.36%) Data Protection Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (4.87%) REST
2 58 (3.76%) React
3 37 (2.40%) Spring
4 33 (2.14%) Middleware
4 33 (2.14%) Spring Boot
5 31 (2.01%) HTML
5 31 (2.01%) RESTful
6 30 (1.95%) CSS
6 30 (1.95%) Kafka
7 27 (1.75%) .NET
8 25 (1.62%) OAuth
9 24 (1.56%) JSON
10 23 (1.49%) Node.js
11 21 (1.36%) Jest
12 18 (1.17%) HTML5
12 18 (1.17%) Redux
13 17 (1.10%) Spring MVC
14 16 (1.04%) CSS3
14 16 (1.04%) OpenID
14 16 (1.04%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 714 (46.33%) Data Protection Act
2 91 (5.91%) Cloud Native
3 77 (5.00%) Product Ownership
4 70 (4.54%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.31%) Management Information System
6 40 (2.60%) Distributed Systems
7 39 (2.53%) Legacy Systems
8 37 (2.40%) Data Centre
9 31 (2.01%) Security Posture
10 27 (1.75%) NHS
10 27 (1.75%) Replication
11 26 (1.69%) Virtual Team
12 23 (1.49%) Enterprise Storage
12 23 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
13 21 (1.36%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 20 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
15 17 (1.10%) Derivative
15 17 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
15 17 (1.10%) Operational Technology
16 16 (1.04%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 110 (7.14%) Windows
2 78 (5.06%) Linux
3 33 (2.14%) Unix
4 23 (1.49%) Windows Server
5 22 (1.43%) Android
6 20 (1.30%) Mac OS
7 19 (1.23%) Apple iOS
8 17 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.84%) VMS
9 13 (0.84%) Windows 10
10 9 (0.58%) zOS
11 7 (0.45%) Data ONTAP
12 6 (0.39%) CoreOS
13 2 (0.13%) Rocky
13 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.065%) CentOS
14 1 (0.065%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.065%) Solaris
14 1 (0.065%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 289 (18.75%) Agile
2 257 (16.68%) Stakeholder Management
3 250 (16.22%) Problem-Solving
4 244 (15.83%) Migration
5 234 (15.18%) Continuous Improvement
6 219 (14.21%) CI/CD
7 214 (13.89%) DevOps
8 151 (9.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 144 (9.34%) AI
10 139 (9.02%) Roadmaps
11 134 (8.70%) Analytics
12 131 (8.50%) Decision-Making
13 129 (8.37%) Cybersecurity
14 124 (8.05%) Risk Management
15 114 (7.40%) Information Security
16 105 (6.81%) Infrastructure as Code
17 103 (6.68%) Data Governance
18 98 (6.36%) Test Automation
19 97 (6.29%) Validation
20 95 (6.16%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 218 (14.15%) Python
2 168 (10.90%) SQL
3 134 (8.70%) Java
4 74 (4.80%) JavaScript
5 58 (3.76%) PowerShell
6 41 (2.66%) Bash
7 39 (2.53%) C#
8 34 (2.21%) TypeScript
9 20 (1.30%) Bicep
10 15 (0.97%) Perl
11 14 (0.91%) C++
12 12 (0.78%) Go
13 11 (0.71%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.65%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.58%) Apex Code
15 9 (0.58%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.52%) ActionScript
16 8 (0.52%) Scala
17 7 (0.45%) PL/SQL
18 6 (0.39%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 207 (13.43%) Security Cleared
2 153 (9.93%) SC Cleared
3 134 (8.70%) Degree
4 70 (4.54%) CISSP
5 53 (3.44%) DV Cleared
6 39 (2.53%) CISM
7 33 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
8 30 (1.95%) Azure Certification
9 29 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
9 29 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (1.88%) PMI Certification
10 26 (1.69%) PMP
11 22 (1.43%) Master's Degree
12 20 (1.30%) AWS Certification
13 18 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.97%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 13 (0.84%) CCSP
16 11 (0.71%) CRISC
17 10 (0.65%) CCNP
17 10 (0.65%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 247 (16.03%) GDPR
2 90 (5.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 89 (5.78%) NIST
4 77 (5.00%) Data Quality
5 59 (3.83%) QA
6 37 (2.40%) Accessibility
7 36 (2.34%) GRC
8 24 (1.56%) PCI DSS
9 21 (1.36%) PMO
10 20 (1.30%) SLA
11 19 (1.23%) SOC 2
12 15 (0.97%) NCSC
13 13 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 10 (0.65%) WCAG
15 9 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
16 8 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
17 7 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
17 7 (0.45%) HIPAA
18 6 (0.39%) COBIT
19 5 (0.32%) NIST 800
System Software
1 78 (5.06%) Active Directory
2 67 (4.35%) Docker
3 53 (3.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.30%) NFS
5 19 (1.23%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (0.71%) vSphere
8 8 (0.52%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.45%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.39%) KVM
11 4 (0.26%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.19%) IAG
12 3 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.19%) XenApp
12 3 (0.19%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.13%) GPFS
13 2 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.065%) iptables
Systems Management
1 116 (7.53%) Kubernetes
2 90 (5.84%) Terraform
3 67 (4.35%) Ansible
4 46 (2.99%) Grafana
5 39 (2.53%) Microsoft Intune
6 32 (2.08%) Prometheus
7 31 (2.01%) NetBackup
8 21 (1.36%) SCCM
8 21 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.84%) Puppet
10 11 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 9 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
12 7 (0.45%) Kibana
12 7 (0.45%) SnapMirror
13 5 (0.32%) Control-M
13 5 (0.32%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.32%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 4 (0.26%) CA Single Sign-On
14 4 (0.26%) Foglight
14 4 (0.26%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 253 (16.42%) Microsoft
2 76 (4.93%) Oracle
3 64 (4.15%) Google
4 57 (3.70%) ServiceNow
5 54 (3.50%) VMware
6 52 (3.37%) Databricks
7 50 (3.24%) Cisco
8 42 (2.73%) SAP
9 31 (2.01%) Red Hat
9 31 (2.01%) Splunk
10 26 (1.69%) NetApp
10 26 (1.69%) Veritas
11 23 (1.49%) Salesforce
12 21 (1.36%) Citrix
13 19 (1.23%) IBM
14 15 (0.97%) Commvault
14 15 (0.97%) Workday
14 15 (0.97%) Zscaler
15 14 (0.91%) F5
15 14 (0.91%) Informatica