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

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 76 90
Rank change year-on-year -4 +14 -6
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,688 1,060 971
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 3.22% 2.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.67% 3.56% 2.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 874 500 523
10th Percentile £277 £300 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £464 £475
% change year-on-year -2.96% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 52 19
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £18.34
25th Percentile £15.13 £13.60 £20.88
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.63 £26.68
Median % change year-on-year +14.24% -41.44% -11.07%
75th Percentile £25.00 £20.40 £55.79
90th Percentile £35.22 £36.32 £70.52
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £24.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -36.46% -0.50%

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 45,937 29,792 32,994
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.51% 85.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,939 18,514 20,418
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
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 3,060 1,790 1,498
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.44 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.50 £43.94 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.10 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.13 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.36% -47.67% +7.50%

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 13 September 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 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Protection in the UK

Data Protection
Top 18 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 September 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 1,411 £500 +2.04% 1,149
UK excluding London +1 940 £450 -2.96% 692
London -25 606 £525 +2.44% 559
Work from Home +15 488 £500 +11.11% 482
North of England +11 329 £465 +3.33% 182
South East +6 204 £475 -8.30% 187
Yorkshire +9 161 £475 -5.00% 56
Midlands +4 152 £450 -5.26% 107
North West +15 149 £475 +8.26% 105
Scotland -8 123 £434 +1.11% 42
West Midlands 0 120 £450 -10.00% 75
South West -18 79 £425 +6.25% 81
East Midlands -7 32 £435 +8.75% 32
East of England -13 30 £515 +8.42% 77
Wales -3 22 £413 - 19
North East -49 20 £463 +15.63% 24
Northern Ireland +4 15 £110 -81.63% 9
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 -17.24% 2

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 65 (3.85%) SharePoint
2 41 (2.43%) Confluence
3 21 (1.24%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
4 17 (1.01%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.65%) Apache
6 10 (0.59%) IIS
7 9 (0.53%) CMS
7 9 (0.53%) SAS
8 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.30%) WordPress
9 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.18%) CICS
10 3 (0.18%) nginx
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) Drupal
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
12 1 (0.059%) MQSeries
12 1 (0.059%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 44 (2.61%) Microsoft Excel
1 44 (2.61%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
3 9 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.059%) Maya
7 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.41%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Endur
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 1 (0.059%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.059%) Eloqua
8 1 (0.059%) Maximo
8 1 (0.059%) Sage 50
8 1 (0.059%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 378 (22.39%) Azure
2 303 (17.95%) AWS
3 136 (8.06%) GCP
4 131 (7.76%) Microsoft 365
5 81 (4.80%) Entra ID
5 81 (4.80%) Power Platform
6 76 (4.50%) SaaS
7 65 (3.85%) GitHub
8 64 (3.79%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (3.20%) Microsoft Purview
10 52 (3.08%) Serverless
11 35 (2.07%) Microsoft Copilot
12 28 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
13 27 (1.60%) GitHub Actions
14 26 (1.54%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.54%) OpenShift
15 24 (1.42%) Power Automate
16 23 (1.36%) PowerApps
17 21 (1.24%) Amazon S3
18 20 (1.18%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 88 (5.21%) Network Security
2 58 (3.44%) Firewall
3 37 (2.19%) DNS
4 32 (1.90%) VPN
5 27 (1.60%) DHCP
6 25 (1.48%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.24%) WAN
8 19 (1.13%) Cisco IPT
9 17 (1.01%) LAN
10 15 (0.89%) SAN
11 14 (0.83%) SSL
11 14 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.83%) Wireless
12 11 (0.65%) MPLS
12 11 (0.65%) VoIP
13 10 (0.59%) HTTP
14 9 (0.53%) Intrusion Detection
14 9 (0.53%) NAS
15 8 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
16 7 (0.41%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (3.55%) Power BI
2 48 (2.84%) Metadata
3 42 (2.49%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
5 35 (2.07%) SQL Server
6 31 (1.84%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.42%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.24%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.24%) MySQL
9 17 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
9 17 (1.01%) Big Data
10 16 (0.95%) BigQuery
11 14 (0.83%) MongoDB
12 13 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.59%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.53%) DynamoDB
15 8 (0.47%) Azure SQL Database
15 8 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
15 8 (0.47%) Redis
16 7 (0.41%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 86 (5.09%) JIRA
2 68 (4.03%) Git
3 53 (3.14%) Jenkins
4 28 (1.66%) GitLab
5 18 (1.07%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Maven
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.47%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) Postman
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) ERwin
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
10 4 (0.24%) Vite
11 3 (0.18%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 648 (38.39%) Social Skills
2 365 (21.62%) Finance
3 253 (14.99%) Legal
4 209 (12.38%) Public Sector
5 203 (12.03%) Analytical Skills
6 114 (6.75%) Banking
7 78 (4.62%) Organisational Skills
8 77 (4.56%) Documentation Skills
9 43 (2.55%) Influencing Skills
10 41 (2.43%) Retail
11 39 (2.31%) Local Government
12 33 (1.95%) Law
12 33 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
13 31 (1.84%) Front Office
14 28 (1.66%) Marketing
15 24 (1.42%) Police
16 23 (1.36%) Telecoms
17 22 (1.30%) Billing
17 22 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
18 16 (0.95%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 244 (14.45%) Architect
2 169 (10.01%) Analyst
3 143 (8.47%) Lead
4 127 (7.52%) Developer
5 122 (7.23%) Senior
6 86 (5.09%) Consultant
7 78 (4.62%) Project Manager
8 70 (4.15%) Solutions Architect
9 69 (4.09%) Business Analyst
10 62 (3.67%) Security Architect
11 47 (2.78%) Administrator
12 38 (2.25%) Security Engineer
13 37 (2.19%) Support Engineer
14 32 (1.90%) Data Analyst
15 31 (1.84%) Java Developer
16 29 (1.72%) Data Engineer
16 29 (1.72%) Information Officer
17 27 (1.60%) DevOps Engineer
17 27 (1.60%) IT Support
18 26 (1.54%) Information Governance Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (5.75%) Terraform
2 88 (5.21%) REST
3 42 (2.49%) React
4 38 (2.25%) Kafka
5 36 (2.13%) Spring
6 35 (2.07%) OAuth
7 34 (2.01%) JSON
7 34 (2.01%) Spring Boot
8 31 (1.84%) CSS
8 31 (1.84%) HTML
9 28 (1.66%) Middleware
9 28 (1.66%) RESTful
10 26 (1.54%) .NET
11 21 (1.24%) Node.js
12 20 (1.18%) OpenID
13 19 (1.13%) OAuth2
14 16 (0.95%) CSS3
14 16 (0.95%) GraphQL
14 16 (0.95%) HTML5
14 16 (0.95%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 723 (42.83%) Data Protection Act
2 108 (6.40%) Management Information System
3 94 (5.57%) Product Ownership
4 88 (5.21%) Onboarding
5 87 (5.15%) Cloud Native
6 53 (3.14%) Distributed Systems
7 52 (3.08%) Data Centre
8 41 (2.43%) Legacy Systems
8 41 (2.43%) Virtual Team
9 39 (2.31%) Freedom of Information
10 38 (2.25%) Security Posture
11 29 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
11 29 (1.72%) NHS
12 27 (1.60%) Operational Technology
13 24 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
14 22 (1.30%) AI Agents
14 22 (1.30%) Mobile App
15 20 (1.18%) Data Structures
16 19 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
17 18 (1.07%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 130 (7.70%) Windows
2 81 (4.80%) Linux
3 34 (2.01%) Android
4 32 (1.90%) Apple iOS
4 32 (1.90%) Windows Server
5 28 (1.66%) Unix
6 23 (1.36%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.95%) Windows 10
9 10 (0.59%) zOS
10 4 (0.24%) VMS
11 3 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) CentOS
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.059%) Rocky
13 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 373 (22.10%) Stakeholder Management
2 318 (18.84%) Agile
3 289 (17.12%) Problem-Solving
4 288 (17.06%) Continuous Improvement
5 245 (14.51%) CI/CD
6 227 (13.45%) DevOps
7 223 (13.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 221 (13.09%) AI
9 214 (12.68%) Migration
10 210 (12.44%) Cybersecurity
11 162 (9.60%) Decision-Making
12 158 (9.36%) Roadmaps
13 149 (8.83%) Risk Management
14 145 (8.59%) Data Governance
14 145 (8.59%) Infrastructure as Code
15 144 (8.53%) Information Security
16 142 (8.41%) Analytics
16 142 (8.41%) Validation
17 117 (6.93%) Test Automation
18 110 (6.52%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 215 (12.74%) Python
2 161 (9.54%) SQL
3 99 (5.86%) Java
4 57 (3.38%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.32%) PowerShell
6 34 (2.01%) Bash
7 26 (1.54%) TypeScript
8 24 (1.42%) Go
9 19 (1.13%) C#
10 16 (0.95%) Apex Code
11 14 (0.83%) Bicep
11 14 (0.83%) Kotlin
12 12 (0.71%) Perl
13 10 (0.59%) C++
14 9 (0.53%) C
15 8 (0.47%) Scala
15 8 (0.47%) VB
16 7 (0.41%) Shell Script
16 7 (0.41%) VB6
17 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 272 (16.11%) Security Cleared
2 197 (11.67%) SC Cleared
3 109 (6.46%) Degree
4 85 (5.04%) CISSP
5 65 (3.85%) DV Cleared
6 53 (3.14%) CISM
7 42 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
8 41 (2.43%) Cisco Certification
9 33 (1.95%) Azure Certification
10 30 (1.78%) PMI Certification
11 27 (1.60%) PMP
12 25 (1.48%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 25 (1.48%) Computer Science Degree
13 21 (1.24%) CCSP
14 20 (1.18%) AWS Certification
15 13 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.65%) CCNP
16 11 (0.65%) CISA
16 11 (0.65%) CRISC
16 11 (0.65%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (14.40%) GDPR
2 110 (6.52%) Data Quality
3 104 (6.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (4.62%) NIST
5 76 (4.50%) QA
6 47 (2.78%) GRC
7 46 (2.73%) Accessibility
8 25 (1.48%) PCI DSS
9 24 (1.42%) PMO
10 20 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials
11 19 (1.13%) NCSC
12 15 (0.89%) SLA
13 13 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 12 (0.71%) PERC
14 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.65%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.65%) WCAG
16 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
17 9 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 86 (5.09%) Active Directory
2 63 (3.73%) Docker
3 56 (3.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.24%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.59%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.59%) vSphere
6 8 (0.47%) NFS
7 7 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.30%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.18%) Time Sharing Option
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
11 2 (0.12%) XenApp
11 2 (0.12%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.059%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.059%) KVM
Systems Management
1 116 (6.87%) Kubernetes
2 47 (2.78%) Ansible
3 39 (2.31%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (1.42%) SCCM
5 21 (1.24%) Grafana
6 15 (0.89%) NetBackup
6 15 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (0.83%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.71%) Puppet
9 10 (0.59%) Progress Chef
10 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (0.36%) CASB
10 6 (0.36%) Kibana
11 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
11 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
11 5 (0.30%) QRadar
11 5 (0.30%) SCOM
12 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 349 (20.68%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.21%) ServiceNow
3 72 (4.27%) Google
4 71 (4.21%) Oracle
5 67 (3.97%) Cisco
6 57 (3.38%) VMware
7 41 (2.43%) Databricks
7 41 (2.43%) Splunk
8 33 (1.95%) Salesforce
8 33 (1.95%) SAP
9 27 (1.60%) Zscaler
10 22 (1.30%) IBM
11 21 (1.24%) Workday
12 20 (1.18%) CyberArk
13 19 (1.13%) Red Hat
14 17 (1.01%) F5
15 15 (0.89%) Dell
16 14 (0.83%) Citrix
16 14 (0.83%) NetApp
17 13 (0.77%) Dynatrace