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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 78 90
Rank change year-on-year -6 +12 -6
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,646 1,038 961
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.15% 2.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.64% 3.48% 2.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 877 516 519
10th Percentile £313 £289 £200
25th Percentile £400 £387 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £479 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -4.25% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £596 £619
90th Percentile £700 £681 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +1.67% -2.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 45 50
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £16.00 £14.78 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.25 £17.00 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -17.07% -50.05%
75th Percentile £33.75 £27.64 £28.75
90th Percentile £37.25 £34.70 £67.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £15.25 £18.11
% change year-on-year +37.70% -15.79% -41.11%

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 45,250 29,801 33,299
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 90.48% 85.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,843 18,616 21,279
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
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 2,819 1,703 1,838
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.75 £17.31 £18.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -39.40% -1.55%
75th Percentile £68.00 £47.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.38 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.74 £42.50
% change year-on-year +93.36% -46.51% +13.33%

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 13 August 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 13 August 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 13 August 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 -3 1,405 £500 +2.09% 1,296
UK excluding London +1 890 £473 +1.67% 764
London -10 627 £525 +3.96% 657
Work from Home +16 482 £500 +5.26% 610
North of England +12 330 £475 - 217
South East +15 197 £495 -5.81% 189
Yorkshire -4 174 £475 -5.00% 73
North West +21 146 £475 +7.95% 112
Midlands -12 135 £473 -5.40% 117
Scotland -9 109 £438 -2.78% 52
West Midlands -16 103 £473 -5.40% 81
South West -23 66 £425 +6.25% 89
East of England -2 35 £550 +15.79% 74
East Midlands +1 32 £459 +31.00% 36
Wales -5 18 £413 +39.24% 23
Northern Ireland +5 11 £104 -82.55% 16
North East -55 11 £463 +12.12% 32

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 54 (3.28%) SharePoint
2 52 (3.16%) Confluence
3 25 (1.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
4 19 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 12 (0.73%) Apache
6 6 (0.36%) CMS
6 6 (0.36%) IIS
6 6 (0.36%) SAS
7 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.18%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Camunda
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) nginx
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) WordPress
11 1 (0.061%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 40 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (2.31%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.061%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.061%) Maya
8 1 (0.061%) Trello
8 1 (0.061%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
6 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
6 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.18%) SAP GRC
7 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
8 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
8 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
8 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 1 (0.061%) Cloudability
9 1 (0.061%) iTrent
9 1 (0.061%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.061%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 379 (23.03%) Azure
2 281 (17.07%) AWS
3 145 (8.81%) GCP
4 117 (7.11%) Microsoft 365
5 96 (5.83%) Power Platform
6 83 (5.04%) Entra ID
7 75 (4.56%) SaaS
8 66 (4.01%) GitHub
9 61 (3.71%) Microsoft Purview
10 58 (3.52%) Azure DevOps
11 52 (3.16%) Serverless
12 38 (2.31%) Microsoft Copilot
13 34 (2.07%) OpenShift
14 29 (1.76%) AWS Lambda
15 27 (1.64%) OneDrive
16 26 (1.58%) PowerApps
17 25 (1.52%) GitHub Actions
18 24 (1.46%) Amazon S3
18 24 (1.46%) Power Automate
19 23 (1.40%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 92 (5.59%) Network Security
2 59 (3.58%) Firewall
3 37 (2.25%) DNS
4 35 (2.13%) VPN
5 28 (1.70%) DHCP
6 24 (1.46%) SAN
7 23 (1.40%) TCP/IP
8 20 (1.22%) WAN
9 16 (0.97%) LAN
10 15 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.85%) NAS
12 13 (0.79%) Cisco IPT
12 13 (0.79%) SSL
13 12 (0.73%) Wireless
14 11 (0.67%) HTTP
15 10 (0.61%) MPLS
15 10 (0.61%) VoIP
16 9 (0.55%) Cisco Nexus
16 9 (0.55%) Intrusion Detection
17 8 (0.49%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 75 (4.56%) Power BI
2 49 (2.98%) Metadata
3 40 (2.43%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (2.31%) SQL Server
5 37 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
6 28 (1.70%) Relational Database
7 24 (1.46%) Data Lake
8 23 (1.40%) NoSQL
9 20 (1.22%) Big Data
10 19 (1.15%) MySQL
11 18 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
12 16 (0.97%) MongoDB
13 14 (0.85%) BigQuery
14 12 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.67%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
16 9 (0.55%) Tableau
17 8 (0.49%) DynamoDB
17 8 (0.49%) Redis
17 8 (0.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 88 (5.35%) JIRA
2 64 (3.89%) Git
3 62 (3.77%) Jenkins
4 33 (2.00%) GitLab
5 11 (0.67%) Maven
6 9 (0.55%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.49%) Postman
7 8 (0.49%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (0.36%) Flyway
9 6 (0.36%) Gradle
9 6 (0.36%) Selenium
9 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
10 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.30%) ERwin
10 5 (0.30%) JUnit
11 4 (0.24%) SpecFlow
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 583 (35.42%) Social Skills
2 361 (21.93%) Finance
3 246 (14.95%) Legal
4 198 (12.03%) Analytical Skills
5 175 (10.63%) Public Sector
6 115 (6.99%) Banking
7 74 (4.50%) Documentation Skills
8 64 (3.89%) Organisational Skills
9 39 (2.37%) Retail
10 37 (2.25%) Local Government
11 35 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
12 31 (1.88%) Law
13 30 (1.82%) Telecoms
14 28 (1.70%) Front Office
14 28 (1.70%) Marketing
15 24 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
16 22 (1.34%) Billing
16 22 (1.34%) Pharmaceutical
16 22 (1.34%) Police
17 16 (0.97%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 252 (15.31%) Architect
2 152 (9.23%) Analyst
3 138 (8.38%) Lead
4 125 (7.59%) Developer
5 121 (7.35%) Senior
6 90 (5.47%) Consultant
7 81 (4.92%) Project Manager
8 66 (4.01%) Business Analyst
9 65 (3.95%) Solutions Architect
10 53 (3.22%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.55%) Security Engineer
12 40 (2.43%) Data Engineer
13 39 (2.37%) Administrator
14 33 (2.00%) Java Developer
14 33 (2.00%) Support Engineer
15 32 (1.94%) Network Engineer
16 30 (1.82%) Technical Architect
17 29 (1.76%) Data Analyst
18 28 (1.70%) IT Support
19 24 (1.46%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (5.35%) REST
2 41 (2.49%) React
3 36 (2.19%) Spring
4 35 (2.13%) JSON
4 35 (2.13%) Middleware
5 33 (2.00%) Kafka
6 32 (1.94%) Spring Boot
7 31 (1.88%) CSS
8 29 (1.76%) HTML
8 29 (1.76%) OAuth
9 27 (1.64%) RESTful
10 25 (1.52%) .NET
11 20 (1.22%) Node.js
12 17 (1.03%) OpenID
13 16 (0.97%) OAuth2
14 15 (0.91%) CSS3
14 15 (0.91%) GraphQL
14 15 (0.91%) HTML5
15 13 (0.79%) SailPoint
15 13 (0.79%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 732 (44.47%) Data Protection Act
2 91 (5.53%) Cloud Native
3 90 (5.47%) Product Ownership
4 72 (4.37%) Management Information System
4 72 (4.37%) Onboarding
5 53 (3.22%) Data Centre
6 46 (2.79%) Distributed Systems
7 42 (2.55%) Virtual Team
8 41 (2.49%) Legacy Systems
9 38 (2.31%) Security Posture
10 28 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
11 24 (1.46%) Hybrid Cloud
11 24 (1.46%) Operational Technology
12 23 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
12 23 (1.40%) NHS
12 23 (1.40%) Replication
13 21 (1.28%) Mobile App
14 20 (1.22%) AI Agents
14 20 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
15 19 (1.15%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 128 (7.78%) Windows
2 83 (5.04%) Linux
3 31 (1.88%) Android
3 31 (1.88%) Apple iOS
4 29 (1.76%) Unix
5 28 (1.70%) Windows Server
6 23 (1.40%) Mac OS
7 20 (1.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (0.85%) Windows 10
9 11 (0.67%) VMS
10 7 (0.43%) zOS
11 4 (0.24%) CoreOS
11 4 (0.24%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.12%) AIX
13 2 (0.12%) HPUX
13 2 (0.12%) Rocky
13 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 313 (19.02%) Stakeholder Management
2 307 (18.65%) Agile
3 294 (17.86%) Problem-Solving
4 262 (15.92%) Continuous Improvement
5 241 (14.64%) DevOps
6 234 (14.22%) CI/CD
7 218 (13.24%) Migration
8 217 (13.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 207 (12.58%) AI
10 170 (10.33%) Cybersecurity
11 158 (9.60%) Roadmaps
12 155 (9.42%) Analytics
13 153 (9.30%) Data Governance
14 151 (9.17%) Decision-Making
15 129 (7.84%) Risk Management
16 121 (7.35%) Information Security
17 118 (7.17%) Data Modelling
18 117 (7.11%) Infrastructure as Code
19 114 (6.93%) Validation
20 105 (6.38%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 209 (12.70%) Python
2 164 (9.96%) SQL
3 108 (6.56%) Java
4 61 (3.71%) PowerShell
5 56 (3.40%) JavaScript
6 42 (2.55%) Bash
7 27 (1.64%) TypeScript
8 22 (1.34%) C#
9 17 (1.03%) Go
10 15 (0.91%) Bicep
11 14 (0.85%) Apex Code
11 14 (0.85%) Kotlin
12 13 (0.79%) Perl
13 11 (0.67%) C++
14 8 (0.49%) Scala
14 8 (0.49%) VB
15 7 (0.43%) C
15 7 (0.43%) VB6
16 6 (0.36%) Groovy
16 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 249 (15.13%) Security Cleared
2 190 (11.54%) SC Cleared
3 111 (6.74%) Degree
4 81 (4.92%) CISSP
5 58 (3.52%) DV Cleared
6 51 (3.10%) CISM
7 34 (2.07%) Azure Certification
7 34 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
8 31 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
9 30 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
9 30 (1.82%) PMI Certification
10 27 (1.64%) PMP
11 20 (1.22%) AWS Certification
12 19 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (0.91%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 13 (0.79%) CCSP
15 11 (0.67%) CCNP
15 11 (0.67%) Master's Degree
16 9 (0.55%) CEH
17 8 (0.49%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 248 (15.07%) GDPR
2 101 (6.14%) Data Quality
3 89 (5.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 77 (4.68%) NIST
5 75 (4.56%) QA
6 43 (2.61%) Accessibility
6 43 (2.61%) GRC
7 23 (1.40%) PMO
8 21 (1.28%) PCI DSS
9 19 (1.15%) NCSC
9 19 (1.15%) SLA
10 13 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 12 (0.73%) HIPAA
11 12 (0.73%) SOC 2
12 11 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
12 11 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
12 11 (0.67%) PERC
12 11 (0.67%) WCAG
13 9 (0.55%) Government Security Classifications
13 9 (0.55%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 91 (5.53%) Active Directory
2 63 (3.83%) Docker
3 55 (3.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.09%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.79%) NFS
6 11 (0.67%) Hyper-V
6 11 (0.67%) vSphere
7 9 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.43%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
9 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.24%) KVM
10 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
11 3 (0.18%) XenApp
11 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
12 2 (0.12%) Firmware
12 2 (0.12%) GPFS
12 2 (0.12%) IAG
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 113 (6.87%) Kubernetes
2 90 (5.47%) Terraform
3 53 (3.22%) Ansible
4 41 (2.49%) Microsoft Intune
5 31 (1.88%) Grafana
6 25 (1.52%) NetBackup
7 23 (1.40%) SCCM
8 19 (1.15%) Prometheus
9 18 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.97%) Puppet
11 13 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.61%) Progress Chef
13 8 (0.49%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.43%) Kibana
15 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
15 5 (0.30%) QRadar
16 4 (0.24%) Cisco CUCM
16 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.24%) SCOM
16 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 320 (19.44%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.35%) ServiceNow
3 74 (4.50%) Oracle
4 66 (4.01%) Google
5 57 (3.46%) Cisco
6 56 (3.40%) VMware
7 51 (3.10%) Databricks
8 39 (2.37%) SAP
9 35 (2.13%) Splunk
10 30 (1.82%) Salesforce
11 29 (1.76%) Red Hat
12 25 (1.52%) Workday
13 23 (1.40%) CyberArk
13 23 (1.40%) NetApp
14 22 (1.34%) Zscaler
15 18 (1.09%) Veritas
16 17 (1.03%) Citrix
16 17 (1.03%) F5
16 17 (1.03%) IBM
17 15 (0.91%) Dell