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

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 82 87
Rank change year-on-year +12 +5 +4
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,637 886 1,052
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.18% 2.86% 2.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.74% 3.15% 2.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 895 428 553
10th Percentile £300 £263 £214
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 £600
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £470 £469
% change year-on-year -4.26% +0.27% -1.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 37 107
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.78 £12.40
25th Percentile £16.62 £15.13 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £19.50 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.49% - -46.24%
75th Percentile £33.64 £32.50 £27.50
90th Percentile £37.70 £36.69 £41.50
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 43,739 28,136 37,017
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.86% 85.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,189 17,763 23,600
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.08% -3.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £621 £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 2,627 1,381 2,550
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.61 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +3.45%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.95 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +75.84% -34.42% +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 2 July 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 2 July 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 2 July 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 1,383 £500 +2.83% 459
UK excluding London +9 910 £450 -4.26% 318
London +9 609 £525 +5.00% 192
Work from Home +19 463 £500 +6.67% 201
North of England +13 312 £475 - 85
South East +20 199 £480 -10.61% 77
Yorkshire -3 173 £475 -5.00% 29
Midlands -5 139 £459 -8.25% 70
Scotland +4 134 £425 -0.93% 12
North West +26 132 £489 +15.00% 46
West Midlands -19 97 £474 -9.71% 44
South West -5 66 £425 +6.25% 48
East of England +11 44 £500 -4.76% 17
East Midlands +7 42 £442 +18.33% 26
Wales -7 14 £375 +26.58% 13
Northern Ireland +5 10 £104 -78.86% 6
North East -44 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 60 (3.67%) SharePoint
2 58 (3.54%) Confluence
3 25 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.10%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
6 9 (0.55%) Apache
7 6 (0.37%) CMS
7 6 (0.37%) IIS
8 5 (0.31%) SAS
8 5 (0.31%) Tuxedo
9 3 (0.18%) nginx
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.12%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.12%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
11 1 (0.061%) Anypoint
Applications
1 45 (2.75%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.86%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.31%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.061%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.061%) Maya
9 1 (0.061%) Trello
9 1 (0.061%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.43%) Aladdin
3 7 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.37%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.31%) SAP GRC
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.12%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.061%) Endur
8 1 (0.061%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.061%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 350 (21.38%) Azure
2 259 (15.82%) AWS
3 135 (8.25%) GCP
4 112 (6.84%) Microsoft 365
5 88 (5.38%) Power Platform
6 87 (5.31%) Entra ID
7 69 (4.22%) SaaS
8 64 (3.91%) GitHub
9 57 (3.48%) Microsoft Purview
10 46 (2.81%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (2.63%) OpenShift
12 35 (2.14%) Serverless
13 34 (2.08%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.59%) OneDrive
15 24 (1.47%) Power Automate
15 24 (1.47%) PowerApps
16 22 (1.34%) AWS Lambda
16 22 (1.34%) Snowflake
17 21 (1.28%) Amazon S3
18 20 (1.22%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 89 (5.44%) Network Security
2 51 (3.12%) Firewall
3 34 (2.08%) VPN
4 32 (1.95%) SAN
5 30 (1.83%) DNS
6 25 (1.53%) TCP/IP
7 23 (1.41%) DHCP
7 23 (1.41%) WAN
8 20 (1.22%) NAS
9 17 (1.04%) LAN
10 15 (0.92%) MPLS
11 13 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
12 11 (0.67%) SSL
13 10 (0.61%) HTTP
13 10 (0.61%) Wireless
14 8 (0.49%) VLAN
15 7 (0.43%) Cisco Nexus
15 7 (0.43%) Ethernet
15 7 (0.43%) HTTPS
15 7 (0.43%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.22%) Power BI
2 40 (2.44%) SQL Server
3 38 (2.32%) PostgreSQL
4 37 (2.26%) Metadata
5 26 (1.59%) Relational Database
6 24 (1.47%) Data Warehouse
7 22 (1.34%) MySQL
8 21 (1.28%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.28%) NoSQL
9 20 (1.22%) Big Data
9 20 (1.22%) MongoDB
10 18 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
11 13 (0.79%) Oracle Database
12 11 (0.67%) BigQuery
13 10 (0.61%) DynamoDB
13 10 (0.61%) RDBMS
13 10 (0.61%) Tableau
14 8 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
14 8 (0.49%) Ingres
15 7 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 95 (5.80%) JIRA
2 71 (4.34%) Git
3 56 (3.42%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.14%) GitLab
5 9 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
6 8 (0.49%) JUnit
6 8 (0.49%) Maven
6 8 (0.49%) Oracle Forms
6 8 (0.49%) Postman
7 7 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.37%) Flyway
8 6 (0.37%) Gradle
8 6 (0.37%) SpecFlow
9 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.31%) ERwin
10 4 (0.24%) Selenium
11 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.18%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.18%) TestNG
General
1 548 (33.48%) Social Skills
2 372 (22.72%) Finance
3 237 (14.48%) Legal
4 195 (11.91%) Analytical Skills
5 162 (9.90%) Public Sector
6 115 (7.03%) Banking
7 68 (4.15%) Documentation Skills
8 65 (3.97%) Organisational Skills
9 36 (2.20%) Telecoms
10 35 (2.14%) Local Government
11 32 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
12 31 (1.89%) Retail
13 29 (1.77%) Law
14 27 (1.65%) Front Office
15 23 (1.41%) Marketing
16 22 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
17 20 (1.22%) Pharmaceutical
18 19 (1.16%) Police
19 16 (0.98%) Financial Institution
20 15 (0.92%) Billing
Job Titles
1 228 (13.93%) Architect
2 153 (9.35%) Analyst
3 123 (7.51%) Developer
4 122 (7.45%) Lead
5 120 (7.33%) Senior
6 93 (5.68%) Consultant
7 86 (5.25%) Project Manager
8 70 (4.28%) Business Analyst
9 64 (3.91%) Solutions Architect
10 51 (3.12%) Security Architect
11 43 (2.63%) Data Engineer
12 42 (2.57%) Security Engineer
13 41 (2.50%) Network Engineer
14 39 (2.38%) Java Developer
15 32 (1.95%) Administrator
16 28 (1.71%) Technical Architect
17 27 (1.65%) Data Analyst
17 27 (1.65%) Support Engineer
18 25 (1.53%) IT Manager
18 25 (1.53%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (4.58%) REST
2 55 (3.36%) React
3 38 (2.32%) Spring
4 33 (2.02%) CSS
5 32 (1.95%) HTML
5 32 (1.95%) Middleware
5 32 (1.95%) RESTful
5 32 (1.95%) Spring Boot
6 30 (1.83%) Kafka
7 26 (1.59%) JSON
7 26 (1.59%) OAuth
8 24 (1.47%) .NET
9 19 (1.16%) HTML5
9 19 (1.16%) Jest
9 19 (1.16%) Node.js
10 18 (1.10%) CSS3
10 18 (1.10%) PySpark
10 18 (1.10%) Redux
11 17 (1.04%) OpenID
12 15 (0.92%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 733 (44.78%) Data Protection Act
2 94 (5.74%) Cloud Native
3 89 (5.44%) Product Ownership
4 74 (4.52%) Onboarding
5 54 (3.30%) Management Information System
6 47 (2.87%) Data Centre
7 43 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
8 40 (2.44%) Distributed Systems
9 38 (2.32%) Security Posture
10 36 (2.20%) Virtual Team
11 25 (1.53%) NHS
12 24 (1.47%) Hybrid Cloud
12 24 (1.47%) Operational Technology
13 22 (1.34%) Replication
14 21 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
15 19 (1.16%) Data Structures
15 19 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
16 18 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
17 17 (1.04%) Mobile App
18 16 (0.98%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 121 (7.39%) Windows
2 79 (4.83%) Linux
3 30 (1.83%) Unix
4 26 (1.59%) Android
5 25 (1.53%) Apple iOS
5 25 (1.53%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.34%) Mac OS
7 19 (1.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.79%) VMS
9 11 (0.67%) 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 (0.061%) CentOS
12 1 (0.061%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.061%) Solaris
12 1 (0.061%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 301 (18.39%) Agile
2 289 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
3 279 (17.04%) Stakeholder Management
4 253 (15.46%) Continuous Improvement
5 234 (14.29%) Migration
6 223 (13.62%) CI/CD
6 223 (13.62%) DevOps
7 178 (10.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 172 (10.51%) AI
9 148 (9.04%) Cybersecurity
10 143 (8.74%) Roadmaps
11 138 (8.43%) Decision-Making
12 131 (8.00%) Analytics
13 128 (7.82%) Information Security
14 124 (7.57%) Risk Management
15 120 (7.33%) Data Governance
16 110 (6.72%) Infrastructure as Code
17 109 (6.66%) Validation
18 98 (5.99%) Project Management
19 97 (5.93%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 220 (13.44%) Python
2 169 (10.32%) SQL
3 123 (7.51%) Java
4 66 (4.03%) JavaScript
5 55 (3.36%) PowerShell
6 43 (2.63%) Bash
7 32 (1.95%) TypeScript
8 26 (1.59%) C#
9 19 (1.16%) Bicep
10 14 (0.86%) Go
11 12 (0.73%) Kotlin
12 11 (0.67%) Perl
13 10 (0.61%) Apex Code
13 10 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
14 8 (0.49%) Scala
14 8 (0.49%) VB
15 7 (0.43%) C++
15 7 (0.43%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.43%) VB6
16 6 (0.37%) ActionScript
Qualifications
1 239 (14.60%) Security Cleared
2 179 (10.93%) SC Cleared
3 132 (8.06%) Degree
4 74 (4.52%) CISSP
5 59 (3.60%) DV Cleared
6 38 (2.32%) CISM
7 36 (2.20%) Cisco Certification
8 35 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
9 32 (1.95%) Azure Certification
10 30 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
11 27 (1.65%) PMI Certification
12 25 (1.53%) AWS Certification
13 23 (1.41%) PMP
14 19 (1.16%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 19 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
15 17 (1.04%) CCSP
15 17 (1.04%) Master's Degree
16 12 (0.73%) CCNP
17 9 (0.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 9 (0.55%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 249 (15.21%) GDPR
2 97 (5.93%) Data Quality
3 86 (5.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (5.19%) NIST
5 74 (4.52%) QA
6 44 (2.69%) GRC
7 41 (2.50%) Accessibility
8 27 (1.65%) PCI DSS
9 23 (1.41%) PMO
10 19 (1.16%) NCSC
10 19 (1.16%) SOC 2
11 18 (1.10%) SLA
12 13 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
13 10 (0.61%) HIPAA
14 9 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
14 9 (0.55%) WCAG
15 7 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
16 6 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 5 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 81 (4.95%) Active Directory
2 67 (4.09%) Docker
3 56 (3.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.10%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.92%) NFS
6 14 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.73%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.73%) vSphere
8 8 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.43%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.37%) KVM
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) IAG
12 3 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.061%) iptables
Systems Management
1 115 (7.03%) Kubernetes
2 89 (5.44%) Terraform
3 58 (3.54%) Ansible
4 39 (2.38%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (2.26%) Grafana
6 30 (1.83%) NetBackup
7 26 (1.59%) Prometheus
8 22 (1.34%) Single Sign-On
9 21 (1.28%) SCCM
10 14 (0.86%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.86%) Puppet
11 11 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.43%) 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 (0.24%) Foglight
15 4 (0.24%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 286 (17.47%) Microsoft
2 73 (4.46%) Oracle
2 73 (4.46%) ServiceNow
3 65 (3.97%) Google
4 57 (3.48%) VMware
5 54 (3.30%) Cisco
6 51 (3.12%) Databricks
7 39 (2.38%) SAP
8 35 (2.14%) Splunk
9 33 (2.02%) Red Hat
10 24 (1.47%) Salesforce
11 23 (1.41%) Veritas
12 20 (1.22%) NetApp
12 20 (1.22%) Zscaler
13 19 (1.16%) Workday
14 16 (0.98%) Commvault
14 16 (0.98%) CyberArk
15 15 (0.92%) Citrix
15 15 (0.92%) F5
16 13 (0.79%) IFS