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

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 91 82
Rank change year-on-year +15 -9 +23
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,255 848 1,135
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.32% 2.67% 2.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.79% 3.01% 3.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 646 427 671
10th Percentile £276 £269 £200
25th Percentile £400 £400 £339
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -8.26%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £696 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £489 £450
% change year-on-year -7.93% +8.61% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 18 43
10th Percentile £13.26 £16.19 £12.28
25th Percentile £16.50 £21.19 £16.51
Median hourly rate £20.50 £25.93 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.93% +23.45% -70.00%
75th Percentile £20.79 £35.90 £25.44
90th Percentile £42.50 £65.00 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.40 £27.35 £21.00
% change year-on-year -25.41% +30.24% -70.00%

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 33,128 28,199 37,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.64% 88.95% 87.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,004 17,123 24,892
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £645
90th Percentile £720 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,016 901 1,818
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £17.08
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -13.33% +17.19%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.00 £30.78 £40.00
% change year-on-year -22.03% -23.05% +53.85%

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 22 January 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 22 January 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 22 January 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 +26 1,082 £500 - 471
UK excluding London -2 648 £450 -7.93% 445
London +14 546 £525 +4.48% 102
Work from Home +17 288 £490 -2.00% 178
North of England -21 192 £460 -5.59% 88
South East +7 146 £500 +1.01% 127
Scotland +5 105 £400 -15.79% 20
Yorkshire -3 105 £484 -7.90% 33
Midlands +8 95 £450 -12.20% 81
North West -25 71 £438 -7.89% 40
West Midlands -13 58 £488 -6.02% 45
East of England +11 45 £350 -30.00% 57
South West +2 45 £450 -7.69% 57
East Midlands +7 37 £436 -3.11% 34
North East -20 17 £394 -12.50% 15
Wales -2 13 £400 -5.88% 24
Northern Ireland - 11 £500 - 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 62 (4.94%) Confluence
2 27 (2.15%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.12%) CMS
4 13 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.64%) Apache
7 6 (0.48%) Apache Spark
7 6 (0.48%) nginx
8 5 (0.40%) CICS
9 3 (0.24%) Ethereum
9 3 (0.24%) Hyperledger
9 3 (0.24%) SAS
9 3 (0.24%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.16%) Drupal
10 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
10 2 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.080%) SharePoint Server
11 1 (0.080%) WordPress
Applications
1 53 (4.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (3.19%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.48%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.40%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.24%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.24%) Sketch
7 2 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.16%) InVision
7 2 (0.16%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.080%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.080%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.080%) Blender
8 1 (0.080%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.080%) Final Cut Pro
8 1 (0.080%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 12 (0.96%) Oracle EBS
1 12 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.64%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.32%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 4 (0.32%) Oracle Receivables
3 4 (0.32%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 4 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
3 4 (0.32%) VisionPLUS
4 3 (0.24%) Distributed Ledger
4 3 (0.24%) Fidessa
4 3 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
4 3 (0.24%) Oracle FAH
4 3 (0.24%) Oracle General Ledger
4 3 (0.24%) R3 Corda
4 3 (0.24%) ResourceLink
5 2 (0.16%) assyst
5 2 (0.16%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 233 (18.57%) Azure
2 200 (15.94%) AWS
3 90 (7.17%) GCP
4 71 (5.66%) Power Platform
5 62 (4.94%) Microsoft 365
6 58 (4.62%) Serverless
7 50 (3.98%) GitHub
8 48 (3.82%) Entra ID
9 45 (3.59%) AWS Lambda
9 45 (3.59%) Azure DevOps
10 43 (3.43%) SaaS
11 37 (2.95%) Amazon S3
12 29 (2.31%) Snowflake
13 27 (2.15%) Power Automate
14 26 (2.07%) AWS CloudFormation
15 23 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
16 21 (1.67%) Microsoft Purview
16 21 (1.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 19 (1.51%) OCI
18 18 (1.43%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 46 (3.67%) Firewall
2 31 (2.47%) Network Security
3 19 (1.51%) MPLS
4 18 (1.43%) SAN
5 17 (1.35%) LAN
6 15 (1.20%) VPN
7 14 (1.12%) Cisco IPT
7 14 (1.12%) DNS
7 14 (1.12%) WAN
8 13 (1.04%) NAS
9 12 (0.96%) SSH
10 11 (0.88%) TCP/IP
11 9 (0.72%) BGP
11 9 (0.72%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.64%) VLAN
12 8 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
13 7 (0.56%) HTTP
13 7 (0.56%) Wireless
14 6 (0.48%) DHCP
14 6 (0.48%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (4.54%) Power BI
2 36 (2.87%) SQL Server
3 32 (2.55%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (1.83%) Data Warehouse
4 23 (1.83%) Relational Database
5 22 (1.75%) NoSQL
6 18 (1.43%) Metadata
7 15 (1.20%) MySQL
8 14 (1.12%) DynamoDB
8 14 (1.12%) MongoDB
8 14 (1.12%) Tableau
9 13 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
9 13 (1.04%) Oracle Reports
10 12 (0.96%) Amazon Aurora
11 10 (0.80%) Data Lake
12 9 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.64%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 8 (0.64%) Oracle Database
14 7 (0.56%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.56%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 107 (8.53%) JIRA
2 50 (3.98%) Jenkins
3 47 (3.75%) Git
4 33 (2.63%) GitLab
5 10 (0.80%) SpecFlow
6 9 (0.72%) JUnit
7 5 (0.40%) NUnit
7 5 (0.40%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.32%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.32%) ChangeMan
8 4 (0.32%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.32%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.32%) Fiddler
8 4 (0.32%) Gradle
8 4 (0.32%) Maven
9 3 (0.24%) Oracle Forms
9 3 (0.24%) Postman
9 3 (0.24%) Team Foundation Server
9 3 (0.24%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.16%) Katalon Studio
General
1 419 (33.39%) Social Skills
2 258 (20.56%) Finance
3 162 (12.91%) Analytical Skills
4 130 (10.36%) Public Sector
5 108 (8.61%) Banking
6 89 (7.09%) Legal
7 43 (3.43%) Organisational Skills
8 36 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
9 35 (2.79%) Marketing
9 35 (2.79%) Telecoms
10 29 (2.31%) Influencing Skills
11 23 (1.83%) Law
12 22 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
13 21 (1.67%) Manufacturing
14 19 (1.51%) Front Office
15 16 (1.27%) Local Government
16 14 (1.12%) Retail
17 12 (0.96%) Financial Institution
18 10 (0.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 10 (0.80%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 158 (12.59%) Analyst
2 143 (11.39%) Developer
3 127 (10.12%) Architect
4 92 (7.33%) Lead
5 67 (5.34%) Business Analyst
6 62 (4.94%) Consultant
7 61 (4.86%) Project Manager
7 61 (4.86%) Senior
8 39 (3.11%) Solutions Architect
9 36 (2.87%) Security Engineer
10 33 (2.63%) Administrator
11 30 (2.39%) Data Analyst
12 29 (2.31%) Data Engineer
13 25 (1.99%) Automation Engineer
14 23 (1.83%) Network Engineer
15 22 (1.75%) Support Engineer
16 21 (1.67%) Data Protection Officer
16 21 (1.67%) Security Architect
17 20 (1.59%) Information Officer
18 19 (1.51%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (5.02%) REST
2 36 (2.87%) .NET
2 36 (2.87%) React
3 31 (2.47%) Node.js
3 31 (2.47%) RESTful
4 28 (2.23%) OAuth
5 24 (1.91%) Spring
6 23 (1.83%) Kafka
7 21 (1.67%) HTML
8 20 (1.59%) SOAP
9 19 (1.51%) Spring Boot
10 16 (1.27%) Middleware
11 15 (1.20%) Oracle Fusion
12 14 (1.12%) .NET Core
13 13 (1.04%) AngularJS
13 13 (1.04%) OAuth2
13 13 (1.04%) SAML
14 12 (0.96%) Playwright
14 12 (0.96%) XML
15 11 (0.88%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 630 (50.20%) Data Protection Act
2 56 (4.46%) Cloud Native
3 55 (4.38%) Product Ownership
4 52 (4.14%) Onboarding
5 50 (3.98%) Management Information System
6 30 (2.39%) NHS
7 29 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
8 28 (2.23%) Freedom of Information
9 23 (1.83%) Data Structures
10 21 (1.67%) Security Posture
11 17 (1.35%) CMDB
11 17 (1.35%) Data Centre
11 17 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
12 16 (1.27%) Replication
13 15 (1.20%) Derivative
13 15 (1.20%) Virtual Team
14 14 (1.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 13 (1.04%) Insider Threat
16 12 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
17 11 (0.88%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 90 (7.17%) Windows
2 61 (4.86%) Linux
3 27 (2.15%) Unix
4 16 (1.27%) Mac OS
5 14 (1.12%) Windows Server
6 13 (1.04%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.80%) zOS
8 8 (0.64%) Android
9 7 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (0.48%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.48%) Solaris
11 5 (0.40%) AIX
11 5 (0.40%) VMS
12 1 (0.080%) CentOS
12 1 (0.080%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.080%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.080%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 228 (18.17%) Problem-Solving
2 223 (17.77%) Agile
3 211 (16.81%) Stakeholder Management
4 163 (12.99%) DevOps
5 162 (12.91%) CI/CD
6 159 (12.67%) Migration
7 132 (10.52%) Cybersecurity
8 128 (10.20%) Analytics
9 122 (9.72%) Continuous Improvement
10 121 (9.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 113 (9.00%) AI
12 111 (8.84%) Roadmaps
13 107 (8.53%) Information Security
14 103 (8.21%) Risk Management
15 102 (8.13%) Project Management
16 85 (6.77%) Microservices
17 79 (6.29%) Test Automation
18 77 (6.14%) Business Intelligence
19 76 (6.06%) Incident Response
20 71 (5.66%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 219 (17.45%) Python
2 160 (12.75%) SQL
3 82 (6.53%) Java
4 63 (5.02%) JavaScript
5 62 (4.94%) PowerShell
6 55 (4.38%) C#
7 47 (3.75%) Bash
8 30 (2.39%) TypeScript
9 16 (1.27%) C++
10 14 (1.12%) Bicep
11 13 (1.04%) Shell Script
12 9 (0.72%) Perl
13 8 (0.64%) PL/SQL
14 7 (0.56%) PHP
15 5 (0.40%) COBOL
15 5 (0.40%) Kotlin
15 5 (0.40%) Scala
16 4 (0.32%) ActionScript
16 4 (0.32%) ActionScript 2.0
16 4 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 158 (12.59%) Security Cleared
2 119 (9.48%) SC Cleared
3 116 (9.24%) Degree
4 39 (3.11%) DV Cleared
5 38 (3.03%) Computer Science Degree
6 31 (2.47%) CISSP
7 25 (1.99%) CISM
8 21 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (1.67%) Master's Degree
9 20 (1.59%) AWS Certification
10 19 (1.51%) PMI Certification
11 17 (1.35%) PMP
12 15 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (1.04%) CTC Cleared
14 12 (0.96%) Azure Certification
14 12 (0.96%) CRISC
15 10 (0.80%) A+ Certification
16 9 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 9 (0.72%) CCSP
17 8 (0.64%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 217 (17.29%) GDPR
2 93 (7.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 78 (6.22%) NIST
4 51 (4.06%) Data Quality
5 40 (3.19%) QA
6 30 (2.39%) PCI DSS
7 26 (2.07%) Accessibility
8 18 (1.43%) PMO
9 16 (1.27%) GRC
10 14 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials
10 14 (1.12%) NCSC
11 13 (1.04%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 13 (1.04%) SLA
12 12 (0.96%) Disclosure Scotland
13 11 (0.88%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.88%) PERC
14 7 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
14 7 (0.56%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 7 (0.56%) SOC 2
15 6 (0.48%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 59 (4.70%) Docker
2 56 (4.46%) Active Directory
3 42 (3.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.27%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (0.64%) NFS
6 6 (0.48%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.32%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.16%) KVM
8 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.080%) Firmware
9 1 (0.080%) HDFS
9 1 (0.080%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.080%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.080%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.080%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.080%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 73 (5.82%) Terraform
2 62 (4.94%) Kubernetes
3 55 (4.38%) Ansible
4 26 (2.07%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (2.07%) NetBackup
5 21 (1.67%) Grafana
6 20 (1.59%) SCCM
7 18 (1.43%) Prometheus
8 8 (0.64%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (0.56%) Puppet
9 7 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
10 6 (0.48%) RSA Archer
11 5 (0.40%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.32%) CA Endevor
12 4 (0.32%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.24%) Control-M
13 3 (0.24%) Data Guard
13 3 (0.24%) Kibana
Vendors
1 190 (15.14%) Microsoft
2 63 (5.02%) Oracle
3 56 (4.46%) Google
4 44 (3.51%) VMware
5 37 (2.95%) Cisco
6 36 (2.87%) ServiceNow
7 35 (2.79%) SAP
8 34 (2.71%) Databricks
8 34 (2.71%) Salesforce
9 23 (1.83%) Veritas
10 22 (1.75%) Citrix
10 22 (1.75%) Red Hat
11 21 (1.67%) IBM
12 18 (1.43%) F5
13 16 (1.27%) Commvault
14 11 (0.88%) Adobe
14 11 (0.88%) CyberArk
14 11 (0.88%) Splunk
14 11 (0.88%) Veeam
14 11 (0.88%) Workday