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

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 102 82
Rank change year-on-year +26 -20 +22
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,433 752 1,099
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.26% 2.59% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.80% 2.86% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 783 391 614
10th Percentile £300 £263 £206
25th Percentile £400 £364 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £700 £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 64 24 109
10th Percentile £15.80 £17.15 £12.45
25th Percentile £16.96 £24.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.62 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.07% +51.87% -70.45%
75th Percentile £25.50 £33.59 £27.00
90th Percentile £52.90 £56.60 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £19.50
% change year-on-year -29.15% +49.90% -70.45%

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 37,704 26,329 38,303
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.90% 90.53% 86.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,901 17,073 24,878
10th Percentile £313 £308 £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 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -1.13% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,218 942 2,338
10th Percentile £14.94 £15.20 £12.85
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.75 £16.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.31 £57.75
90th Percentile £75.12 £77.10 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £31.76 £31.50
% change year-on-year -5.54% +0.83% -12.50%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 1,228 £500 - 377
UK excluding London +16 764 £450 -5.26% 298
London +29 578 £525 +5.00% 130
Work from Home +30 364 £500 +2.04% 152
North of England +1 236 £478 +0.53% 91
South East +25 183 £495 -1.10% 79
Yorkshire -10 136 £496 -3.17% 29
Scotland +15 114 £407 -13.36% 12
Midlands -13 107 £450 -10.00% 54
North West -2 92 £463 +0.54% 57
West Midlands -21 68 £500 -2.44% 27
South West +18 57 £438 +16.67% 30
East of England +2 50 £450 -25.00% 31
East Midlands -8 39 £438 +6.06% 27
Wales +1 14 £375 -11.76% 4
North East -24 9 £400 -15.79% 5
Northern Ireland - 7 £500 - 1

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 58 (4.05%) Confluence
2 37 (2.58%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.33%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
4 9 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.56%) Apache
6 3 (0.21%) CMS
6 3 (0.21%) Ethereum
6 3 (0.21%) Hyperledger
7 2 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.14%) Drupal
7 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
7 2 (0.14%) nginx
7 2 (0.14%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.14%) SAS
7 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.070%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 55 (3.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (3.07%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.070%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.070%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.070%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.070%) Blender
8 1 (0.070%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.070%) InVision
8 1 (0.070%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.070%) Sketch
8 1 (0.070%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.84%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.35%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.28%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.28%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 3 (0.21%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.21%) Fidessa
6 3 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.21%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.14%) Workfront
8 1 (0.070%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.070%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 292 (20.38%) Azure
2 230 (16.05%) AWS
3 119 (8.30%) GCP
4 78 (5.44%) Microsoft 365
4 78 (5.44%) Power Platform
5 73 (5.09%) Entra ID
6 64 (4.47%) GitHub
7 53 (3.70%) Serverless
8 50 (3.49%) SaaS
9 41 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
10 40 (2.79%) Microsoft Purview
11 37 (2.58%) AWS Lambda
11 37 (2.58%) OpenShift
12 34 (2.37%) Amazon S3
13 31 (2.16%) AWS CloudFormation
13 31 (2.16%) Snowflake
14 25 (1.74%) GitHub Actions
15 23 (1.61%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 21 (1.47%) PaaS
17 20 (1.40%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 50 (3.49%) Network Security
2 36 (2.51%) Firewall
3 35 (2.44%) SAN
4 23 (1.61%) VPN
5 21 (1.47%) NAS
6 19 (1.33%) WAN
7 18 (1.26%) DNS
7 18 (1.26%) LAN
7 18 (1.26%) MPLS
8 15 (1.05%) Cisco IPT
9 13 (0.91%) TCP/IP
10 11 (0.77%) SD-WAN
11 10 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (0.63%) BGP
12 9 (0.63%) DHCP
12 9 (0.63%) Fibre Channel
12 9 (0.63%) VLAN
13 8 (0.56%) HTTP
13 8 (0.56%) IPv4
13 8 (0.56%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.82%) Power BI
2 37 (2.58%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (2.44%) SQL Server
4 29 (2.02%) Metadata
5 28 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
6 23 (1.61%) MySQL
7 19 (1.33%) Relational Database
8 18 (1.26%) NoSQL
9 17 (1.19%) Data Lake
9 17 (1.19%) MongoDB
10 16 (1.12%) Amazon RDS
10 16 (1.12%) DynamoDB
11 14 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
12 13 (0.91%) Tableau
13 12 (0.84%) Big Data
13 12 (0.84%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.63%) Amazon Aurora
14 9 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
14 9 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 8 (0.56%) Aerospike
Development Applications
1 94 (6.56%) JIRA
2 63 (4.40%) Jenkins
3 61 (4.26%) Git
4 39 (2.72%) GitLab
5 12 (0.84%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.70%) JUnit
6 10 (0.70%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (0.49%) Gradle
8 6 (0.42%) Maven
8 6 (0.42%) NUnit
9 5 (0.35%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.35%) Flyway
9 5 (0.35%) Postman
9 5 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
10 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.28%) Liquibase
11 3 (0.21%) Fiddler
11 3 (0.21%) IntelliJ
11 3 (0.21%) Selenium
11 3 (0.21%) TestNG
General
1 450 (31.40%) Social Skills
2 322 (22.47%) Finance
3 185 (12.91%) Analytical Skills
4 162 (11.30%) Legal
5 142 (9.91%) Public Sector
6 117 (8.16%) Banking
7 62 (4.33%) Organisational Skills
8 48 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
9 40 (2.79%) Telecoms
10 32 (2.23%) Marketing
11 29 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
13 27 (1.88%) Front Office
14 22 (1.54%) Law
14 22 (1.54%) Local Government
15 18 (1.26%) Police
16 15 (1.05%) Retail
17 13 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 12 (0.84%) Manufacturing
19 11 (0.77%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 192 (13.40%) Architect
2 152 (10.61%) Analyst
3 115 (8.03%) Developer
4 111 (7.75%) Lead
5 91 (6.35%) Senior
6 73 (5.09%) Consultant
7 70 (4.88%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.68%) Business Analyst
9 57 (3.98%) Solutions Architect
10 37 (2.58%) Data Engineer
11 35 (2.44%) Security Architect
11 35 (2.44%) Security Engineer
12 33 (2.30%) Network Engineer
13 32 (2.23%) Administrator
13 32 (2.23%) Java Developer
14 30 (2.09%) Technical Architect
15 25 (1.74%) Data Analyst
16 22 (1.54%) Automation Engineer
17 21 (1.47%) Data Protection Officer
18 20 (1.40%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (4.40%) REST
2 52 (3.63%) React
3 37 (2.58%) .NET
4 32 (2.23%) Spring
5 30 (2.09%) Node.js
6 29 (2.02%) Kafka
7 28 (1.95%) Middleware
7 28 (1.95%) Spring Boot
8 24 (1.67%) RESTful
9 21 (1.47%) OAuth
10 20 (1.40%) HTML
11 19 (1.33%) Jest
12 17 (1.19%) Oracle Fusion
12 17 (1.19%) Playwright
13 16 (1.12%) CSS
14 15 (1.05%) .NET Core
14 15 (1.05%) PySpark
15 13 (0.91%) HTML5
15 13 (0.91%) Redux
16 12 (0.84%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 680 (47.45%) Data Protection Act
2 78 (5.44%) Cloud Native
3 67 (4.68%) Product Ownership
4 64 (4.47%) Onboarding
5 52 (3.63%) Management Information System
6 30 (2.09%) Distributed Systems
6 30 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
6 30 (2.09%) NHS
7 28 (1.95%) Hybrid Cloud
7 28 (1.95%) Replication
8 26 (1.81%) Data Centre
8 26 (1.81%) Security Posture
9 21 (1.47%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 21 (1.47%) Freedom of Information
10 20 (1.40%) Enterprise Storage
11 18 (1.26%) Data Structures
12 14 (0.98%) Derivative
12 14 (0.98%) Insider Threat
12 14 (0.98%) Operational Technology
13 13 (0.91%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 101 (7.05%) Windows
2 71 (4.95%) Linux
3 25 (1.74%) Unix
4 20 (1.40%) Windows Server
5 19 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.91%) VMS
6 13 (0.91%) Windows 10
7 12 (0.84%) Mac OS
8 8 (0.56%) Android
8 8 (0.56%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.56%) zOS
9 7 (0.49%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (0.42%) CoreOS
11 5 (0.35%) Solaris
12 4 (0.28%) AIX
13 2 (0.14%) Rocky
13 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.070%) CentOS
14 1 (0.070%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.070%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (17.59%) Problem-Solving
2 242 (16.89%) Stakeholder Management
3 241 (16.82%) Agile
4 220 (15.35%) Migration
5 197 (13.75%) CI/CD
6 191 (13.33%) DevOps
7 182 (12.70%) Continuous Improvement
8 143 (9.98%) Cybersecurity
9 142 (9.91%) Analytics
10 139 (9.70%) Roadmaps
11 130 (9.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 126 (8.79%) AI
13 116 (8.09%) Risk Management
14 111 (7.75%) Information Security
15 108 (7.54%) Decision-Making
16 100 (6.98%) Data Governance
17 99 (6.91%) Test Automation
18 97 (6.77%) Infrastructure as Code
18 97 (6.77%) Project Management
19 90 (6.28%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 215 (15.00%) Python
2 180 (12.56%) SQL
3 111 (7.75%) Java
4 67 (4.68%) JavaScript
5 58 (4.05%) PowerShell
6 54 (3.77%) C#
7 41 (2.86%) Bash
8 38 (2.65%) TypeScript
9 18 (1.26%) Bicep
10 12 (0.84%) C++
11 11 (0.77%) Perl
12 9 (0.63%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.56%) ActionScript
13 8 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
13 8 (0.56%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.42%) ActionScript 2.0
15 5 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 5 (0.35%) Go
16 4 (0.28%) Groovy
16 4 (0.28%) Scala
Qualifications
1 200 (13.96%) Security Cleared
2 141 (9.84%) SC Cleared
3 130 (9.07%) Degree
4 55 (3.84%) DV Cleared
5 50 (3.49%) CISSP
6 36 (2.51%) Computer Science Degree
7 31 (2.16%) CISM
8 29 (2.02%) AWS Certification
9 28 (1.95%) PMI Certification
10 27 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
11 25 (1.74%) Azure Certification
12 24 (1.67%) PMP
13 21 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
13 21 (1.47%) Master's Degree
14 19 (1.33%) Microsoft Certification
15 15 (1.05%) CTC Cleared
16 12 (0.84%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 12 (0.84%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 11 (0.77%) CCSP
17 11 (0.77%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (17.73%) GDPR
2 94 (6.56%) NIST
3 93 (6.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 71 (4.95%) Data Quality
5 61 (4.26%) QA
6 31 (2.16%) PCI DSS
7 28 (1.95%) PMO
8 27 (1.88%) Accessibility
9 26 (1.81%) GRC
10 24 (1.67%) SLA
11 18 (1.26%) NCSC
12 17 (1.19%) SOC 2
13 14 (0.98%) Disclosure Scotland
14 12 (0.84%) PERC
15 11 (0.77%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 7 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
16 7 (0.49%) HIPAA
17 6 (0.42%) COBIT
18 5 (0.35%) WCAG
System Software
1 69 (4.82%) Docker
2 63 (4.40%) Active Directory
3 54 (3.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (1.19%) NFS
6 12 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.63%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.63%) VMware NSX
7 9 (0.63%) vSphere
8 5 (0.35%) KVM
8 5 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.21%) IAG
10 3 (0.21%) Time Sharing Option
11 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
11 2 (0.14%) XenApp
11 2 (0.14%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.070%) Firmware
12 1 (0.070%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 100 (6.98%) Kubernetes
1 100 (6.98%) Terraform
2 71 (4.95%) Ansible
3 37 (2.58%) Grafana
4 31 (2.16%) NetBackup
5 29 (2.02%) Microsoft Intune
6 27 (1.88%) Prometheus
7 18 (1.26%) SCCM
8 17 (1.19%) Puppet
9 15 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.49%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 7 (0.49%) SnapMirror
11 6 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
12 5 (0.35%) Control-M
12 5 (0.35%) EMC NetWorker
12 5 (0.35%) Oracle RMAN
12 5 (0.35%) RSA Archer
13 4 (0.28%) Foglight
13 4 (0.28%) Kibana
13 4 (0.28%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 220 (15.35%) Microsoft
2 68 (4.75%) Oracle
3 64 (4.47%) Google
4 55 (3.84%) VMware
5 51 (3.56%) Databricks
6 42 (2.93%) Cisco
6 42 (2.93%) ServiceNow
7 41 (2.86%) SAP
8 36 (2.51%) Salesforce
9 35 (2.44%) Red Hat
10 23 (1.61%) NetApp
11 22 (1.54%) Commvault
11 22 (1.54%) Veritas
12 21 (1.47%) Citrix
12 21 (1.47%) IBM
13 19 (1.33%) F5
14 16 (1.12%) Splunk
14 16 (1.12%) Veeam
15 13 (0.91%) Adobe
15 13 (0.91%) CyberArk