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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 76 88
Rank change year-on-year -7 +12 -3
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,677 1,043 964
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.21% 2.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 3.55% 2.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 871 490 519
10th Percentile £275 £299 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £366
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £486 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.83% -2.75% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £715
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £465 £475
% change year-on-year -3.23% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 50 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.64 £13.60 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -45.22% +10.85%
75th Percentile £24.75 £20.40 £67.50
90th Percentile £34.70 £36.88 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +13.02%

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 45,945 29,375 32,666
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.44% 90.50% 85.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,954 18,237 20,159
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,063 1,777 1,475
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.42 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.47 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £66.70 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.08 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.13% -47.67% +6.17%

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 September 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 September 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 15 September 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 -11 1,402 £500 +2.04% 1,905
UK excluding London -2 934 £450 -3.23% 1,057
London -20 600 £525 +2.94% 999
Work from Home +12 484 £500 +11.11% 817
North of England +7 330 £475 +5.56% 296
South East +8 200 £475 -7.59% 254
Yorkshire +10 164 £475 -5.00% 96
Midlands +3 156 £450 -5.26% 157
North West +17 146 £470 +7.12% 171
West Midlands +1 124 £450 -10.00% 111
Scotland -5 120 £434 +1.11% 87
South West -23 76 £425 +6.25% 114
East Midlands -3 32 £435 +8.75% 46
East of England -22 29 £505 +6.32% 106
Wales -1 22 £413 - 30
North East -45 21 £463 +15.63% 32
Northern Ireland +5 15 £110 -81.63% 23
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 -17.24% 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 65 (3.88%) SharePoint
2 41 (2.44%) Confluence
3 21 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
4 17 (1.01%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.66%) Apache
6 10 (0.60%) IIS
6 10 (0.60%) SAS
7 9 (0.54%) CMS
8 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.30%) WordPress
9 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.18%) CICS
10 3 (0.18%) nginx
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) Drupal
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
12 1 (0.060%) Cloud Foundry
12 1 (0.060%) Moodle
Applications
1 44 (2.62%) Microsoft Excel
1 44 (2.62%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
3 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.060%) Maya
7 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
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
4 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
6 2 (0.12%) Endur
6 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
7 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.060%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
7 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 379 (22.60%) Azure
2 301 (17.95%) AWS
3 134 (7.99%) GCP
4 131 (7.81%) Microsoft 365
5 81 (4.83%) Power Platform
6 80 (4.77%) Entra ID
7 76 (4.53%) SaaS
8 64 (3.82%) Azure DevOps
8 64 (3.82%) GitHub
9 55 (3.28%) Microsoft Purview
10 49 (2.92%) Serverless
11 37 (2.21%) Microsoft Copilot
12 27 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
13 26 (1.55%) GitHub Actions
13 26 (1.55%) OneDrive
13 26 (1.55%) OpenShift
14 24 (1.43%) Power Automate
15 23 (1.37%) PowerApps
16 20 (1.19%) Amazon S3
16 20 (1.19%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 87 (5.19%) Network Security
2 59 (3.52%) Firewall
3 36 (2.15%) DNS
4 32 (1.91%) VPN
5 26 (1.55%) DHCP
6 25 (1.49%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.25%) WAN
8 19 (1.13%) Cisco IPT
9 17 (1.01%) LAN
10 15 (0.89%) SAN
11 14 (0.83%) SSL
11 14 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
12 13 (0.78%) Wireless
13 11 (0.66%) MPLS
13 11 (0.66%) VoIP
14 10 (0.60%) HTTP
15 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
15 9 (0.54%) NAS
16 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
17 7 (0.42%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (3.58%) Power BI
2 49 (2.92%) Metadata
3 42 (2.50%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
5 35 (2.09%) SQL Server
6 31 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.43%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.25%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.25%) MySQL
9 17 (1.01%) Big Data
9 17 (1.01%) BigQuery
10 16 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (0.83%) MongoDB
12 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.60%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
15 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
15 8 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
15 8 (0.48%) Redis
16 7 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 84 (5.01%) JIRA
2 68 (4.05%) Git
3 52 (3.10%) Jenkins
4 27 (1.61%) GitLab
5 18 (1.07%) Selenium
6 10 (0.60%) Maven
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Postman
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) ERwin
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
10 4 (0.24%) Vite
11 3 (0.18%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 646 (38.52%) Social Skills
2 363 (21.65%) Finance
3 254 (15.15%) Legal
4 207 (12.34%) Public Sector
5 204 (12.16%) Analytical Skills
6 114 (6.80%) Banking
7 78 (4.65%) Documentation Skills
8 77 (4.59%) Organisational Skills
9 43 (2.56%) Influencing Skills
10 41 (2.44%) Retail
11 39 (2.33%) Local Government
12 33 (1.97%) Presentation Skills
13 31 (1.85%) Law
14 29 (1.73%) Front Office
14 29 (1.73%) Marketing
15 24 (1.43%) Telecoms
16 22 (1.31%) Billing
16 22 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
16 22 (1.31%) Police
17 16 (0.95%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 245 (14.61%) Architect
2 168 (10.02%) Analyst
3 143 (8.53%) Lead
4 127 (7.57%) Developer
5 122 (7.27%) Senior
6 86 (5.13%) Consultant
7 76 (4.53%) Project Manager
8 69 (4.11%) Business Analyst
9 68 (4.05%) Solutions Architect
10 61 (3.64%) Security Architect
11 45 (2.68%) Administrator
12 39 (2.33%) Security Engineer
13 37 (2.21%) Support Engineer
14 32 (1.91%) Data Analyst
15 31 (1.85%) Java Developer
16 29 (1.73%) Data Engineer
16 29 (1.73%) Information Officer
17 26 (1.55%) DevOps Engineer
17 26 (1.55%) Information Governance Officer
17 26 (1.55%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (5.72%) Terraform
2 87 (5.19%) REST
3 42 (2.50%) React
4 40 (2.39%) Kafka
5 37 (2.21%) Spring
6 35 (2.09%) Spring Boot
7 34 (2.03%) JSON
7 34 (2.03%) OAuth
8 31 (1.85%) CSS
8 31 (1.85%) HTML
9 28 (1.67%) Middleware
9 28 (1.67%) RESTful
10 26 (1.55%) .NET
11 21 (1.25%) Node.js
11 21 (1.25%) OpenID
12 20 (1.19%) OAuth2
13 16 (0.95%) CSS3
13 16 (0.95%) HTML5
13 16 (0.95%) SOAP
14 15 (0.89%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 714 (42.58%) Data Protection Act
2 109 (6.50%) Management Information System
3 95 (5.66%) Product Ownership
4 91 (5.43%) Onboarding
5 90 (5.37%) Cloud Native
6 55 (3.28%) Distributed Systems
7 52 (3.10%) Data Centre
8 41 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
8 41 (2.44%) Virtual Team
9 39 (2.33%) Freedom of Information
10 38 (2.27%) Security Posture
11 31 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
12 28 (1.67%) NHS
13 26 (1.55%) Operational Technology
14 24 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
15 22 (1.31%) AI Agents
15 22 (1.31%) Mobile App
16 21 (1.25%) Data Structures
17 20 (1.19%) Private Cloud
18 19 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 129 (7.69%) Windows
2 80 (4.77%) Linux
3 34 (2.03%) Android
4 32 (1.91%) Apple iOS
4 32 (1.91%) Windows Server
5 28 (1.67%) Unix
6 23 (1.37%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.95%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.54%) zOS
10 4 (0.24%) VMS
11 3 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) CentOS
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.060%) Rocky
13 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 373 (22.24%) Stakeholder Management
2 317 (18.90%) Agile
3 288 (17.17%) Problem-Solving
4 285 (16.99%) Continuous Improvement
5 246 (14.67%) CI/CD
6 224 (13.36%) AI
7 223 (13.30%) DevOps
8 221 (13.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 213 (12.70%) Cybersecurity
9 213 (12.70%) Migration
10 161 (9.60%) Roadmaps
11 160 (9.54%) Decision-Making
12 150 (8.94%) Risk Management
13 146 (8.71%) Information Security
14 145 (8.65%) Analytics
14 145 (8.65%) Data Governance
15 143 (8.53%) Infrastructure as Code
16 142 (8.47%) Validation
17 114 (6.80%) Test Automation
18 112 (6.68%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 214 (12.76%) Python
2 162 (9.66%) SQL
3 99 (5.90%) Java
4 56 (3.34%) JavaScript
4 56 (3.34%) PowerShell
5 34 (2.03%) Bash
6 27 (1.61%) TypeScript
7 24 (1.43%) Go
8 19 (1.13%) C#
9 16 (0.95%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.89%) Bicep
11 14 (0.83%) Kotlin
12 12 (0.72%) Perl
13 10 (0.60%) C++
14 9 (0.54%) C
15 8 (0.48%) Scala
15 8 (0.48%) VB
16 7 (0.42%) Shell Script
16 7 (0.42%) VB6
17 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 272 (16.22%) Security Cleared
2 198 (11.81%) SC Cleared
3 109 (6.50%) Degree
4 83 (4.95%) CISSP
5 64 (3.82%) DV Cleared
6 51 (3.04%) CISM
7 43 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
8 40 (2.39%) Cisco Certification
9 33 (1.97%) Azure Certification
10 29 (1.73%) PMI Certification
11 26 (1.55%) PMP
12 25 (1.49%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 25 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
13 21 (1.25%) CCSP
14 19 (1.13%) AWS Certification
15 13 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.66%) CISA
16 11 (0.66%) CRISC
16 11 (0.66%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.60%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 238 (14.19%) GDPR
2 111 (6.62%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (4.47%) NIST
4 75 (4.47%) QA
5 50 (2.98%) GRC
6 46 (2.74%) Accessibility
7 25 (1.49%) PCI DSS
8 23 (1.37%) PMO
9 20 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials
9 20 (1.19%) NCSC
10 14 (0.83%) SLA
11 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 12 (0.72%) PERC
12 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.66%) WCAG
14 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
15 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 86 (5.13%) Active Directory
2 61 (3.64%) Docker
3 56 (3.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.25%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.60%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.60%) vSphere
6 7 (0.42%) NFS
7 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
9 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
9 3 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.12%) Firmware
10 2 (0.12%) GPFS
10 2 (0.12%) Time Sharing Option
10 2 (0.12%) Varnish
10 2 (0.12%) XenApp
10 2 (0.12%) XenDesktop
11 1 (0.060%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.060%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 115 (6.86%) Kubernetes
2 47 (2.80%) Ansible
3 40 (2.39%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (1.43%) SCCM
5 21 (1.25%) Grafana
6 14 (0.83%) NetBackup
6 14 (0.83%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
7 12 (0.72%) Puppet
8 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
9 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 6 (0.36%) CASB
9 6 (0.36%) Kibana
10 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
10 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
10 5 (0.30%) QRadar
10 5 (0.30%) SCOM
11 4 (0.24%) Control-M
Vendors
1 358 (21.35%) Microsoft
2 90 (5.37%) ServiceNow
3 72 (4.29%) Google
4 71 (4.23%) Oracle
5 66 (3.94%) Cisco
6 57 (3.40%) VMware
7 42 (2.50%) Databricks
8 41 (2.44%) Splunk
9 33 (1.97%) Salesforce
10 32 (1.91%) SAP
11 27 (1.61%) Zscaler
12 22 (1.31%) Workday
13 21 (1.25%) IBM
14 20 (1.19%) CyberArk
15 19 (1.13%) Red Hat
16 17 (1.01%) F5
17 14 (0.83%) Citrix
17 14 (0.83%) Dell
17 14 (0.83%) NetApp
18 13 (0.78%) Dynatrace