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

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 85 88
Rank change year-on-year +9 +3 +2
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,607 864 1,054
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.15% 2.85% 2.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.71% 3.13% 2.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 880 415 552
10th Percentile £300 £259 £215
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £589
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £469 £459
% change year-on-year -4.05% +2.18% -3.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 35 107
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.78 £12.40
25th Percentile £16.62 £15.13 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £19.00 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.37% -2.56% -46.24%
75th Percentile £33.75 £31.76 £27.67
90th Percentile £37.85 £35.67 £43.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £15.25 £19.50
% change year-on-year +39.34% -21.79% -35.00%

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 43,335 27,616 36,962
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 91.08% 85.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,981 17,460 23,548
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £414 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.98% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £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 2,593 1,327 2,546
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.72
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +4.17%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.95 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.77 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.83 £38.12
% change year-on-year +79.22% -34.86% +8.91%

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 27 June 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 27 June 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 27 June 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 +10 1,362 £500 +2.56% 361
UK excluding London +13 894 £450 -4.05% 279
London +11 601 £525 +5.00% 135
Work from Home +14 450 £500 +5.54% 149
North of England +13 304 £475 - 73
South East +23 192 £478 -9.05% 65
Yorkshire -3 170 £475 -6.17% 26
Midlands -11 139 £450 -10.00% 65
Scotland +2 133 £425 -2.86% 8
North West +22 127 £488 +14.71% 36
West Midlands -23 97 £474 -9.71% 41
South West -7 68 £425 +6.25% 42
East of England +4 43 £488 -7.14% 18
East Midlands +12 42 £438 +17.06% 24
Wales -9 13 £375 +26.58% 11
Northern Ireland +4 9 £104 -78.86% 4
North East -47 9 £450 +14.29% 12

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 (3.61%) SharePoint
2 57 (3.55%) Confluence
3 25 (1.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (1.06%) Apache Spark
5 15 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.50%) Apache
7 6 (0.37%) IIS
8 5 (0.31%) CMS
8 5 (0.31%) Tuxedo
9 4 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 4 (0.25%) SAS
10 3 (0.19%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.12%) Ethereum
11 2 (0.12%) Hyperledger
11 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
12 1 (0.062%) WebSphere
Applications
1 44 (2.74%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.87%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.31%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.25%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.062%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.062%) Maya
8 1 (0.062%) Trello
8 1 (0.062%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.68%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.50%) Aladdin
4 6 (0.37%) NEC Housing
4 6 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
5 5 (0.31%) SAP GRC
6 4 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.19%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.19%) SAP Payroll
7 3 (0.19%) Unit4 Business World
8 2 (0.12%) Distributed Ledger
8 2 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.12%) R3 Corda
8 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 1 (0.062%) FIS Private Capital Suite
9 1 (0.062%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.062%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 343 (21.34%) Azure
2 260 (16.18%) AWS
3 132 (8.21%) GCP
4 109 (6.78%) Microsoft 365
5 87 (5.41%) Entra ID
6 84 (5.23%) Power Platform
7 66 (4.11%) SaaS
8 64 (3.98%) GitHub
9 54 (3.36%) Microsoft Purview
10 46 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
11 42 (2.61%) OpenShift
12 32 (1.99%) Serverless
13 30 (1.87%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.62%) OneDrive
15 22 (1.37%) AWS Lambda
15 22 (1.37%) Power Automate
15 22 (1.37%) Snowflake
16 21 (1.31%) Amazon S3
17 20 (1.24%) AWS CloudFormation
17 20 (1.24%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 85 (5.29%) Network Security
2 51 (3.17%) Firewall
3 34 (2.12%) VPN
4 32 (1.99%) SAN
5 28 (1.74%) DNS
6 25 (1.56%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.31%) DHCP
7 21 (1.31%) WAN
8 20 (1.24%) NAS
9 15 (0.93%) LAN
9 15 (0.93%) MPLS
10 13 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
11 11 (0.68%) SSL
12 9 (0.56%) HTTP
12 9 (0.56%) Wireless
13 8 (0.50%) VLAN
14 7 (0.44%) Cisco Nexus
14 7 (0.44%) Ethernet
14 7 (0.44%) HTTPS
14 7 (0.44%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (4.17%) Power BI
2 40 (2.49%) SQL Server
3 36 (2.24%) Metadata
3 36 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
4 25 (1.56%) Relational Database
5 23 (1.43%) Data Warehouse
6 21 (1.31%) Data Lake
6 21 (1.31%) MySQL
7 19 (1.18%) Big Data
7 19 (1.18%) MongoDB
8 18 (1.12%) Amazon RDS
8 18 (1.12%) NoSQL
9 13 (0.81%) Oracle Database
10 11 (0.68%) DynamoDB
11 10 (0.62%) BigQuery
11 10 (0.62%) RDBMS
11 10 (0.62%) Tableau
12 8 (0.50%) Ingres
13 7 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
13 7 (0.44%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 96 (5.97%) JIRA
2 70 (4.36%) Git
3 57 (3.55%) Jenkins
4 36 (2.24%) GitLab
5 9 (0.56%) Team Foundation Server
6 8 (0.50%) JUnit
6 8 (0.50%) Maven
6 8 (0.50%) Postman
7 7 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
7 7 (0.44%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (0.44%) SpecFlow
8 6 (0.37%) Flyway
8 6 (0.37%) Gradle
9 5 (0.31%) ERwin
10 4 (0.25%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.25%) Selenium
11 3 (0.19%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.19%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.19%) TestNG
General
1 530 (32.98%) Social Skills
2 361 (22.46%) Finance
3 229 (14.25%) Legal
4 187 (11.64%) Analytical Skills
5 155 (9.65%) Public Sector
6 113 (7.03%) Banking
7 65 (4.04%) Documentation Skills
8 63 (3.92%) Organisational Skills
9 35 (2.18%) Local Government
9 35 (2.18%) Telecoms
10 32 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.74%) Retail
12 27 (1.68%) Law
13 26 (1.62%) Front Office
14 24 (1.49%) Marketing
15 22 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
16 20 (1.24%) Pharmaceutical
16 20 (1.24%) Police
17 14 (0.87%) Financial Institution
17 14 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 223 (13.88%) Architect
2 151 (9.40%) Analyst
3 120 (7.47%) Lead
4 119 (7.41%) Developer
5 116 (7.22%) Senior
6 93 (5.79%) Consultant
7 84 (5.23%) Project Manager
8 69 (4.29%) Business Analyst
9 64 (3.98%) Solutions Architect
10 49 (3.05%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.61%) Data Engineer
11 42 (2.61%) Security Engineer
12 41 (2.55%) Network Engineer
13 39 (2.43%) Java Developer
14 31 (1.93%) Administrator
15 28 (1.74%) Technical Architect
16 27 (1.68%) Data Analyst
17 25 (1.56%) IT Support
17 25 (1.56%) Support Engineer
18 23 (1.43%) Data Protection Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (4.60%) REST
2 54 (3.36%) React
3 38 (2.36%) Spring
4 33 (2.05%) Spring Boot
5 32 (1.99%) Middleware
6 31 (1.93%) CSS
7 30 (1.87%) HTML
7 30 (1.87%) Kafka
7 30 (1.87%) RESTful
8 26 (1.62%) JSON
8 26 (1.62%) OAuth
9 23 (1.43%) .NET
10 19 (1.18%) Jest
11 18 (1.12%) Node.js
11 18 (1.12%) PySpark
12 17 (1.06%) HTML5
12 17 (1.06%) OpenID
12 17 (1.06%) Redux
13 16 (1.00%) CSS3
13 16 (1.00%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 724 (45.05%) Data Protection Act
2 91 (5.66%) Cloud Native
3 88 (5.48%) Product Ownership
4 73 (4.54%) Onboarding
5 56 (3.48%) Management Information System
6 45 (2.80%) Data Centre
7 43 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
8 41 (2.55%) Distributed Systems
9 37 (2.30%) Security Posture
10 36 (2.24%) Virtual Team
11 25 (1.56%) NHS
12 23 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
12 23 (1.43%) Operational Technology
13 22 (1.37%) Replication
14 21 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
15 18 (1.12%) Data Structures
15 18 (1.12%) Enterprise Storage
16 17 (1.06%) Enterprise Software
16 17 (1.06%) Mobile App
17 16 (1.00%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 118 (7.34%) Windows
2 77 (4.79%) Linux
3 29 (1.80%) Unix
4 25 (1.56%) Android
5 24 (1.49%) Apple iOS
5 24 (1.49%) Windows Server
6 21 (1.31%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.81%) VMS
9 11 (0.68%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.37%) CoreOS
10 6 (0.37%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (0.37%) zOS
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.062%) CentOS
12 1 (0.062%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.062%) Solaris
12 1 (0.062%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 305 (18.98%) Agile
2 282 (17.55%) Problem-Solving
3 272 (16.93%) Stakeholder Management
4 249 (15.49%) Continuous Improvement
5 232 (14.44%) Migration
6 219 (13.63%) CI/CD
7 216 (13.44%) DevOps
8 170 (10.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 167 (10.39%) AI
10 146 (9.09%) Cybersecurity
11 144 (8.96%) Roadmaps
12 136 (8.46%) Decision-Making
13 129 (8.03%) Analytics
14 124 (7.72%) Information Security
15 123 (7.65%) Risk Management
16 114 (7.09%) Data Governance
17 107 (6.66%) Validation
18 106 (6.60%) Infrastructure as Code
19 98 (6.10%) Project Management
20 94 (5.85%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 219 (13.63%) Python
2 165 (10.27%) SQL
3 124 (7.72%) Java
4 66 (4.11%) JavaScript
5 52 (3.24%) PowerShell
6 40 (2.49%) Bash
7 29 (1.80%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.68%) C#
9 19 (1.18%) Bicep
10 13 (0.81%) Go
11 12 (0.75%) Kotlin
12 11 (0.68%) Perl
13 10 (0.62%) Apex Code
13 10 (0.62%) Kusto Query Language
14 8 (0.50%) VB
15 7 (0.44%) C++
15 7 (0.44%) Scala
15 7 (0.44%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.44%) VB6
16 6 (0.37%) ActionScript
Qualifications
1 230 (14.31%) Security Cleared
2 172 (10.70%) SC Cleared
3 132 (8.21%) Degree
4 73 (4.54%) CISSP
5 56 (3.48%) DV Cleared
6 38 (2.36%) CISM
7 35 (2.18%) Cisco Certification
8 34 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
9 31 (1.93%) Azure Certification
10 30 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
11 28 (1.74%) PMI Certification
12 24 (1.49%) PMP
13 23 (1.43%) AWS Certification
14 19 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
15 18 (1.12%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 18 (1.12%) Master's Degree
16 16 (1.00%) CCSP
17 12 (0.75%) CCNP
18 10 (0.62%) CRISC
19 9 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 247 (15.37%) GDPR
2 96 (5.97%) Data Quality
3 85 (5.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 84 (5.23%) NIST
5 72 (4.48%) QA
6 43 (2.68%) GRC
7 40 (2.49%) Accessibility
8 26 (1.62%) PCI DSS
9 22 (1.37%) PMO
10 19 (1.18%) SOC 2
11 18 (1.12%) NCSC
12 17 (1.06%) SLA
13 14 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 10 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
14 10 (0.62%) HIPAA
15 8 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
15 8 (0.50%) WCAG
16 6 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
16 6 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 5 (0.31%) NIST 800
System Software
1 79 (4.92%) Active Directory
2 66 (4.11%) Docker
3 55 (3.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.12%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.93%) NFS
6 14 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.75%) vSphere
8 11 (0.68%) Hyper-V
9 8 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
10 7 (0.44%) VMware NSX
11 6 (0.37%) KVM
12 4 (0.25%) Time Sharing Option
13 3 (0.19%) IAG
13 3 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
13 3 (0.19%) XenApp
13 3 (0.19%) XenDesktop
14 2 (0.12%) GPFS
14 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.062%) iptables
Systems Management
1 111 (6.91%) Kubernetes
2 87 (5.41%) Terraform
3 57 (3.55%) Ansible
4 39 (2.43%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (2.30%) Grafana
6 28 (1.74%) NetBackup
7 26 (1.62%) Prometheus
8 22 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
9 19 (1.18%) SCCM
10 14 (0.87%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.87%) Puppet
11 11 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.44%) Kibana
13 6 (0.37%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.31%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.31%) Progress Chef
15 4 (0.25%) Control-M
15 4 (0.25%) Foglight
15 4 (0.25%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 275 (17.11%) Microsoft
2 72 (4.48%) Oracle
2 72 (4.48%) ServiceNow
3 63 (3.92%) Google
4 56 (3.48%) VMware
5 54 (3.36%) Cisco
6 53 (3.30%) Databricks
7 39 (2.43%) SAP
8 33 (2.05%) Splunk
9 32 (1.99%) Red Hat
10 24 (1.49%) Salesforce
11 23 (1.43%) Veritas
12 20 (1.24%) NetApp
13 19 (1.18%) Workday
13 19 (1.18%) Zscaler
14 16 (1.00%) Commvault
15 15 (0.93%) F5
16 14 (0.87%) CyberArk
17 13 (0.81%) Citrix
17 13 (0.81%) IFS