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

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 102 84
Rank change year-on-year +28 -18 +17
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,387 759 1,119
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.25% 2.58% 2.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.77% 2.85% 2.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 751 403 617
10th Percentile £281 £264 £200
25th Percentile £400 £375 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
90th Percentile £690 £690 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 22 110
10th Percentile £15.73 £16.55 £12.48
25th Percentile £16.96 £24.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.62 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.07% +51.87% -70.45%
75th Percentile £24.19 £33.18 £26.92
90th Percentile £33.40 £62.20 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £19.50
% change year-on-year -29.15% +49.90% -70.45%

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 36,752 26,590 38,671
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.07% 90.35% 86.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,283 16,983 25,150
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,192 900 2,342
10th Percentile £14.82 £15.49 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.79 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.34 £70.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.21 £32.00 £31.50
% change year-on-year -14.97% +1.59% -10.00%

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 12 March 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 12 March 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 12 March 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 +31 1,184 £500 - 352
UK excluding London +14 737 £450 -5.26% 257
London +34 564 £525 +5.00% 143
Work from Home +30 333 £500 +3.90% 154
North of England -7 225 £475 - 67
South East +16 175 £480 +1.05% 75
Yorkshire -11 132 £490 -6.71% 19
Scotland +13 114 £410 -6.40% 11
Midlands -2 108 £450 -10.00% 43
North West -16 85 £437 -6.58% 47
West Midlands -28 66 £500 -2.44% 25
East of England +5 49 £450 -25.00% 24
South West +13 48 £500 +66.67% 34
East Midlands -1 42 £438 +6.06% 18
Wales +1 14 £375 -11.76% 3
North East -26 9 £400 -15.79% 1
Northern Ireland - 8 £500 - 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 58 (4.18%) Confluence
2 37 (2.67%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
5 10 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 9 (0.65%) Apache
7 4 (0.29%) CMS
8 3 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.22%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.22%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.14%) Drupal
9 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.14%) SAS
9 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.072%) JBoss
10 1 (0.072%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 53 (3.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (3.10%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.43%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.22%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.14%) InVision
6 2 (0.14%) Sketch
7 1 (0.072%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.072%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.072%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.072%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.072%) Blender
7 1 (0.072%) CINEMA 4D
7 1 (0.072%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.072%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.72%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.36%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.29%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.29%) SAP GRC
6 3 (0.22%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.22%) Fidessa
6 3 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.22%) R3 Corda
6 3 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 2 (0.14%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.14%) Workfront
8 1 (0.072%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 273 (19.68%) Azure
2 222 (16.01%) AWS
3 113 (8.15%) GCP
4 79 (5.70%) Microsoft 365
5 76 (5.48%) Power Platform
6 68 (4.90%) Entra ID
7 61 (4.40%) GitHub
8 57 (4.11%) Serverless
9 50 (3.60%) SaaS
10 44 (3.17%) AWS Lambda
11 43 (3.10%) Amazon S3
12 38 (2.74%) Azure DevOps
13 37 (2.67%) Microsoft Purview
14 36 (2.60%) OpenShift
15 32 (2.31%) Snowflake
16 30 (2.16%) AWS CloudFormation
17 25 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
18 23 (1.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 21 (1.51%) Azure AKS
19 21 (1.51%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 45 (3.24%) Firewall
2 41 (2.96%) Network Security
3 34 (2.45%) SAN
4 23 (1.66%) VPN
5 21 (1.51%) NAS
6 19 (1.37%) MPLS
7 18 (1.30%) DNS
7 18 (1.30%) LAN
7 18 (1.30%) WAN
8 16 (1.15%) Cisco IPT
9 14 (1.01%) TCP/IP
10 11 (0.79%) SD-WAN
11 10 (0.72%) BGP
11 10 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (0.65%) Fibre Channel
12 9 (0.65%) HTTP
12 9 (0.65%) VLAN
13 8 (0.58%) DHCP
13 8 (0.58%) IPv4
13 8 (0.58%) IPv6
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (4.90%) Power BI
2 40 (2.88%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (2.52%) SQL Server
4 30 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
5 27 (1.95%) Metadata
6 20 (1.44%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.44%) Relational Database
7 18 (1.30%) DynamoDB
8 17 (1.23%) Data Lake
8 17 (1.23%) MySQL
9 16 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
9 16 (1.15%) MongoDB
10 14 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (0.94%) Tableau
12 12 (0.87%) Amazon Aurora
12 12 (0.87%) Oracle Database
13 10 (0.72%) Big Data
14 9 (0.65%) BigQuery
15 8 (0.58%) Aerospike
15 8 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 94 (6.78%) JIRA
2 63 (4.54%) Git
3 62 (4.47%) Jenkins
4 36 (2.60%) GitLab
5 12 (0.87%) SpecFlow
6 11 (0.79%) JUnit
7 10 (0.72%) Sonatype Nexus
8 8 (0.58%) Gradle
9 7 (0.50%) Maven
10 6 (0.43%) NUnit
11 5 (0.36%) Postman
11 5 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
12 4 (0.29%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.29%) Cypress.io
12 4 (0.29%) Fiddler
13 3 (0.22%) IntelliJ
13 3 (0.22%) MSI
13 3 (0.22%) Selenium
13 3 (0.22%) TestNG
13 3 (0.22%) webpack
General
1 440 (31.72%) Social Skills
2 299 (21.56%) Finance
3 186 (13.41%) Analytical Skills
4 144 (10.38%) Legal
5 139 (10.02%) Public Sector
6 115 (8.29%) Banking
7 56 (4.04%) Organisational Skills
8 45 (3.24%) Documentation Skills
9 41 (2.96%) Telecoms
10 30 (2.16%) Marketing
11 29 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
13 22 (1.59%) Front Office
14 21 (1.51%) Local Government
15 19 (1.37%) Law
16 15 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 15 (1.08%) Police
17 14 (1.01%) Manufacturing
17 14 (1.01%) Retail
18 12 (0.87%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 180 (12.98%) Architect
2 150 (10.81%) Analyst
3 110 (7.93%) Developer
4 106 (7.64%) Lead
5 81 (5.84%) Senior
6 72 (5.19%) Consultant
7 67 (4.83%) Business Analyst
8 65 (4.69%) Project Manager
9 54 (3.89%) Solutions Architect
10 37 (2.67%) Data Engineer
10 37 (2.67%) Security Engineer
11 32 (2.31%) Network Engineer
12 30 (2.16%) Technical Architect
13 28 (2.02%) Administrator
14 27 (1.95%) Security Architect
15 26 (1.87%) Data Analyst
16 24 (1.73%) Java Developer
17 23 (1.66%) Automation Engineer
18 21 (1.51%) Software Engineer
19 20 (1.44%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (4.54%) REST
2 48 (3.46%) React
3 35 (2.52%) .NET
4 34 (2.45%) Node.js
5 29 (2.09%) Kafka
6 27 (1.95%) Middleware
6 27 (1.95%) Spring
7 25 (1.80%) RESTful
8 22 (1.59%) Spring Boot
9 20 (1.44%) OAuth
10 18 (1.30%) Oracle Fusion
11 17 (1.23%) Playwright
12 16 (1.15%) HTML
12 16 (1.15%) PySpark
13 14 (1.01%) .NET Core
14 13 (0.94%) Jest
15 12 (0.87%) JSON
16 11 (0.79%) AngularJS
16 11 (0.79%) CSS
17 10 (0.72%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 673 (48.52%) Data Protection Act
2 70 (5.05%) Cloud Native
3 64 (4.61%) Product Ownership
4 58 (4.18%) Onboarding
5 52 (3.75%) Management Information System
6 31 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
7 29 (2.09%) Distributed Systems
8 28 (2.02%) NHS
9 26 (1.87%) Data Centre
9 26 (1.87%) Hybrid Cloud
10 25 (1.80%) Replication
11 24 (1.73%) Security Posture
12 23 (1.66%) Freedom of Information
13 20 (1.44%) Data Structures
13 20 (1.44%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 18 (1.30%) Enterprise Storage
15 14 (1.01%) Insider Threat
16 13 (0.94%) AI Agents
16 13 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
17 12 (0.87%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 101 (7.28%) Windows
2 70 (5.05%) Linux
3 25 (1.80%) Unix
4 22 (1.59%) Windows Server
5 17 (1.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (1.01%) Mac OS
7 13 (0.94%) VMS
8 12 (0.87%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.58%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.50%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.43%) Android
11 6 (0.43%) CoreOS
11 6 (0.43%) zOS
12 4 (0.29%) AIX
12 4 (0.29%) Solaris
13 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.072%) CentOS
14 1 (0.072%) Rocky
14 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (17.95%) Problem-Solving
2 240 (17.30%) Stakeholder Management
3 233 (16.80%) Agile
4 213 (15.36%) Migration
5 189 (13.63%) CI/CD
6 177 (12.76%) DevOps
7 164 (11.82%) Continuous Improvement
8 140 (10.09%) Analytics
9 138 (9.95%) Roadmaps
10 137 (9.88%) Cybersecurity
11 128 (9.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 124 (8.94%) AI
13 117 (8.44%) Information Security
14 112 (8.07%) Risk Management
15 98 (7.07%) Decision-Making
16 96 (6.92%) Project Management
17 93 (6.71%) Data Governance
18 92 (6.63%) Test Automation
19 87 (6.27%) Microservices
20 86 (6.20%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 228 (16.44%) Python
2 176 (12.69%) SQL
3 102 (7.35%) Java
4 67 (4.83%) JavaScript
4 67 (4.83%) PowerShell
5 53 (3.82%) C#
6 42 (3.03%) Bash
7 37 (2.67%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.37%) Bicep
9 12 (0.87%) Perl
10 11 (0.79%) C++
11 10 (0.72%) Shell Script
12 8 (0.58%) ActionScript
13 7 (0.50%) Kusto Query Language
13 7 (0.50%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.43%) ActionScript 2.0
15 5 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 5 (0.36%) Go
16 4 (0.29%) Groovy
16 4 (0.29%) Scala
Qualifications
1 191 (13.77%) Security Cleared
2 138 (9.95%) SC Cleared
3 124 (8.94%) Degree
4 49 (3.53%) DV Cleared
5 43 (3.10%) CISSP
6 36 (2.60%) Computer Science Degree
7 28 (2.02%) CISM
8 27 (1.95%) AWS Certification
9 26 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
10 22 (1.59%) Master's Degree
11 21 (1.51%) PMI Certification
12 19 (1.37%) Azure Certification
12 19 (1.37%) PMP
13 18 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
14 16 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
15 14 (1.01%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 14 (1.01%) CTC Cleared
16 12 (0.87%) CRISC
17 11 (0.79%) CCSP
18 10 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 249 (17.95%) GDPR
2 92 (6.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 89 (6.42%) NIST
4 68 (4.90%) Data Quality
5 54 (3.89%) QA
6 32 (2.31%) Accessibility
7 31 (2.24%) PCI DSS
8 25 (1.80%) GRC
9 24 (1.73%) PMO
10 19 (1.37%) SLA
11 17 (1.23%) NCSC
12 15 (1.08%) SOC 2
13 14 (1.01%) Disclosure Scotland
14 13 (0.94%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 12 (0.87%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.79%) PERC
17 8 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
18 7 (0.50%) HIPAA
19 6 (0.43%) COBIT
19 6 (0.43%) WCAG
System Software
1 69 (4.97%) Docker
2 67 (4.83%) Active Directory
3 56 (4.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (1.08%) NFS
6 12 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.72%) vSphere
8 9 (0.65%) Hyper-V
9 6 (0.43%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.36%) KVM
11 4 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.22%) IAG
12 3 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
13 1 (0.072%) Firmware
13 1 (0.072%) ISA Server
13 1 (0.072%) Samba
13 1 (0.072%) XenApp
13 1 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 98 (7.07%) Kubernetes
2 96 (6.92%) Terraform
3 68 (4.90%) Ansible
4 35 (2.52%) Grafana
5 32 (2.31%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (2.16%) NetBackup
7 27 (1.95%) Prometheus
8 19 (1.37%) SCCM
9 15 (1.08%) Puppet
10 14 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.50%) SnapMirror
13 6 (0.43%) EMC NetWorker
13 6 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
13 6 (0.43%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.36%) Control-M
14 5 (0.36%) RSA Archer
14 5 (0.36%) vCenter Server
15 4 (0.29%) Kibana
16 3 (0.22%) Foglight
Vendors
1 215 (15.50%) Microsoft
2 68 (4.90%) Oracle
3 63 (4.54%) Google
4 58 (4.18%) VMware
5 51 (3.68%) Databricks
6 44 (3.17%) ServiceNow
7 41 (2.96%) Cisco
8 38 (2.74%) SAP
9 33 (2.38%) Salesforce
10 32 (2.31%) Red Hat
11 22 (1.59%) Citrix
12 21 (1.51%) Commvault
12 21 (1.51%) Veritas
13 20 (1.44%) NetApp
14 19 (1.37%) F5
15 18 (1.30%) IBM
16 15 (1.08%) Adobe
16 15 (1.08%) Veeam
17 14 (1.01%) Splunk
18 12 (0.87%) Workday