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

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 77 91
Rank change year-on-year -7 +14 -7
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,662 1,038 947
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.10% 3.19% 2.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.66% 3.53% 2.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 870 508 519
10th Percentile £300 £291 £200
25th Percentile £400 £397 £354
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £462 £465 £475
% change year-on-year -0.75% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 49 23
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.99 £18.88
25th Percentile £15.72 £13.60 £21.88
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.56% -41.82% -33.92%
75th Percentile £28.00 £20.40 £40.68
90th Percentile £35.22 £37.28 £70.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% -18.70%

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 45,377 29,398 32,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.44% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,769 18,279 20,543
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.49%
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 2,906 1,760 1,592
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.73 £17.30 £18.69
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.03 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.58 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +88.14% -47.37% +14.67%

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 3 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 3 September 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 3 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 -7 1,390 £500 +2.83% 1,476
UK excluding London +3 916 £462 -0.75% 870
London -17 605 £525 +3.96% 752
Work from Home +20 479 £500 +5.54% 651
North of England +10 322 £475 +5.56% 244
South East +7 199 £475 -8.30% 191
Yorkshire +6 160 £475 -5.00% 72
Midlands -4 148 £462 -2.84% 143
North West +13 144 £500 +13.64% 141
Scotland -7 120 £428 -5.00% 63
West Midlands -9 116 £473 -5.40% 96
South West -16 76 £425 +6.25% 113
East Midlands -6 32 £441 +26.00% 47
East of England -12 29 £538 +13.16% 84
Wales -3 22 £413 - 23
North East -48 19 £463 +15.63% 35
Northern Ireland +4 14 £110 -81.63% 21

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 (3.91%) SharePoint
2 40 (2.41%) Confluence
3 23 (1.38%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.02%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.78%) Apache
7 8 (0.48%) IIS
8 6 (0.36%) CMS
8 6 (0.36%) SAS
9 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
10 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.12%) CICS
12 2 (0.12%) Drupal
12 2 (0.12%) nginx
12 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
12 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.12%) WordPress
13 1 (0.060%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 45 (2.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (2.47%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.060%) Maya
8 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) 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 (0.060%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.060%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 384 (23.10%) Azure
2 303 (18.23%) AWS
3 137 (8.24%) GCP
4 130 (7.82%) Microsoft 365
5 88 (5.29%) Power Platform
6 85 (5.11%) Entra ID
7 79 (4.75%) SaaS
8 63 (3.79%) Azure DevOps
8 63 (3.79%) GitHub
9 56 (3.37%) Microsoft Purview
9 56 (3.37%) Serverless
10 35 (2.11%) Microsoft Copilot
11 31 (1.87%) AWS Lambda
12 29 (1.74%) OneDrive
13 26 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
13 26 (1.56%) PowerApps
14 25 (1.50%) OpenShift
14 25 (1.50%) Power Automate
15 24 (1.44%) Amazon S3
16 22 (1.32%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 91 (5.48%) Network Security
2 60 (3.61%) Firewall
3 37 (2.23%) DNS
4 35 (2.11%) VPN
5 29 (1.74%) DHCP
6 24 (1.44%) TCP/IP
7 20 (1.20%) WAN
8 17 (1.02%) Cisco IPT
8 17 (1.02%) LAN
9 16 (0.96%) SAN
10 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.84%) SSL
11 14 (0.84%) Wireless
12 11 (0.66%) HTTP
12 11 (0.66%) MPLS
12 11 (0.66%) VoIP
13 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
13 9 (0.54%) NAS
14 7 (0.42%) Cisco Nexus
14 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (3.97%) Power BI
2 49 (2.95%) Metadata
3 39 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
4 37 (2.23%) SQL Server
5 36 (2.17%) Relational Database
6 32 (1.93%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (1.50%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.26%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.26%) MySQL
9 20 (1.20%) Big Data
10 17 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (0.84%) MongoDB
12 13 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
13 12 (0.72%) BigQuery
14 10 (0.60%) Oracle Database
15 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
15 9 (0.54%) Redis
16 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
17 7 (0.42%) Amazon Aurora
17 7 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 84 (5.05%) JIRA
2 63 (3.79%) Git
3 54 (3.25%) Jenkins
4 30 (1.81%) GitLab
5 12 (0.72%) Selenium
6 10 (0.60%) Maven
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) Postman
9 5 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
10 4 (0.24%) Vite
11 3 (0.18%) Flyway
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 629 (37.85%) Social Skills
2 358 (21.54%) Finance
3 249 (14.98%) Legal
4 207 (12.45%) Analytical Skills
5 203 (12.21%) Public Sector
6 110 (6.62%) Banking
7 78 (4.69%) Documentation Skills
8 73 (4.39%) Organisational Skills
9 40 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
9 40 (2.41%) Retail
10 37 (2.23%) Local Government
11 32 (1.93%) Front Office
11 32 (1.93%) Law
12 30 (1.81%) Presentation Skills
13 29 (1.74%) Telecoms
14 25 (1.50%) Marketing
15 23 (1.38%) Billing
15 23 (1.38%) Pharmaceutical
15 23 (1.38%) Police
16 16 (0.96%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 250 (15.04%) Architect
2 168 (10.11%) Analyst
3 142 (8.54%) Lead
4 125 (7.52%) Developer
5 121 (7.28%) Senior
6 83 (4.99%) Consultant
7 79 (4.75%) Project Manager
8 71 (4.27%) Business Analyst
8 71 (4.27%) Solutions Architect
9 63 (3.79%) Security Architect
10 42 (2.53%) Administrator
11 37 (2.23%) Security Engineer
12 34 (2.05%) Support Engineer
13 32 (1.93%) Data Engineer
14 31 (1.87%) Java Developer
15 30 (1.81%) Data Analyst
16 28 (1.68%) Information Officer
17 27 (1.62%) IT Support
18 26 (1.56%) Information Governance Officer
19 25 (1.50%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (5.23%) Terraform
2 84 (5.05%) REST
3 41 (2.47%) React
4 36 (2.17%) Spring
5 35 (2.11%) OAuth
6 34 (2.05%) JSON
6 34 (2.05%) Kafka
7 33 (1.99%) Middleware
7 33 (1.99%) Spring Boot
8 32 (1.93%) CSS
8 32 (1.93%) HTML
9 29 (1.74%) RESTful
10 22 (1.32%) .NET
11 21 (1.26%) Node.js
12 20 (1.20%) OpenID
13 19 (1.14%) OAuth2
14 16 (0.96%) CSS3
14 16 (0.96%) HTML5
15 15 (0.90%) GraphQL
15 15 (0.90%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 711 (42.78%) Data Protection Act
2 95 (5.72%) Cloud Native
3 93 (5.60%) Management Information System
4 91 (5.48%) Product Ownership
5 82 (4.93%) Onboarding
6 51 (3.07%) Data Centre
7 50 (3.01%) Distributed Systems
8 42 (2.53%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.41%) Virtual Team
10 39 (2.35%) Security Posture
11 37 (2.23%) Freedom of Information
12 28 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
13 27 (1.62%) NHS
14 26 (1.56%) Operational Technology
14 26 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
15 21 (1.26%) AI Agents
16 20 (1.20%) Data Structures
16 20 (1.20%) Mobile App
17 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
18 17 (1.02%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 132 (7.94%) Windows
2 78 (4.69%) Linux
3 33 (1.99%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.93%) Android
5 31 (1.87%) Apple iOS
6 28 (1.68%) Unix
7 22 (1.32%) Mac OS
8 17 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 16 (0.96%) Windows 10
10 7 (0.42%) zOS
11 5 (0.30%) VMS
12 3 (0.18%) Solaris
12 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.12%) AIX
13 2 (0.12%) CentOS
13 2 (0.12%) HPUX
13 2 (0.12%) Rocky
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 357 (21.48%) Stakeholder Management
2 310 (18.65%) Agile
3 286 (17.21%) Problem-Solving
4 282 (16.97%) Continuous Improvement
5 238 (14.32%) CI/CD
6 227 (13.66%) DevOps
7 217 (13.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 214 (12.88%) AI
9 211 (12.70%) Migration
10 207 (12.45%) Cybersecurity
11 158 (9.51%) Decision-Making
12 157 (9.45%) Data Governance
12 157 (9.45%) Roadmaps
13 146 (8.78%) Analytics
14 140 (8.42%) Information Security
15 137 (8.24%) Risk Management
16 135 (8.12%) Validation
17 131 (7.88%) Infrastructure as Code
18 116 (6.98%) Data Modelling
19 106 (6.38%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 205 (12.33%) Python
2 157 (9.45%) SQL
3 101 (6.08%) Java
4 57 (3.43%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.37%) PowerShell
6 34 (2.05%) Bash
7 26 (1.56%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.14%) Go
9 17 (1.02%) C#
10 16 (0.96%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
12 14 (0.84%) Bicep
13 12 (0.72%) Perl
14 10 (0.60%) C++
15 8 (0.48%) C
15 8 (0.48%) Scala
15 8 (0.48%) VB
16 7 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
16 7 (0.42%) VB6
17 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 259 (15.58%) Security Cleared
2 191 (11.49%) SC Cleared
3 106 (6.38%) Degree
4 84 (5.05%) CISSP
5 59 (3.55%) DV Cleared
6 53 (3.19%) CISM
7 40 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
8 35 (2.11%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (2.05%) Azure Certification
10 30 (1.81%) PMI Certification
11 27 (1.62%) PMP
12 26 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.38%) AWS Certification
14 21 (1.26%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 17 (1.02%) CCSP
16 15 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
17 11 (0.66%) CRISC
18 10 (0.60%) CCNP
18 10 (0.60%) CISA
18 10 (0.60%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 242 (14.56%) GDPR
2 108 (6.50%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (4.69%) NIST
4 78 (4.69%) QA
5 46 (2.77%) Accessibility
5 46 (2.77%) GRC
6 23 (1.38%) PCI DSS
6 23 (1.38%) PMO
7 18 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
7 18 (1.08%) SLA
8 17 (1.02%) NCSC
9 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 13 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
10 11 (0.66%) PERC
10 11 (0.66%) WCAG
11 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 9 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
12 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 89 (5.35%) Active Directory
2 65 (3.91%) Docker
3 53 (3.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.60%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.54%) NFS
7 7 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.42%) vSphere
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.30%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.18%) Time Sharing Option
10 3 (0.18%) XenApp
10 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) KVM
11 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
12 1 (0.060%) iptables
Systems Management
1 112 (6.74%) Kubernetes
2 42 (2.53%) Ansible
3 41 (2.47%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.56%) Grafana
5 24 (1.44%) SCCM
6 18 (1.08%) Prometheus
7 16 (0.96%) NetBackup
7 16 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.72%) Puppet
9 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
10 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
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%) CASB
12 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 347 (20.88%) Microsoft
2 87 (5.23%) ServiceNow
3 67 (4.03%) Oracle
4 63 (3.79%) Google
5 61 (3.67%) Cisco
6 54 (3.25%) VMware
7 45 (2.71%) Databricks
8 38 (2.29%) Splunk
9 35 (2.11%) SAP
10 33 (1.99%) Salesforce
11 25 (1.50%) Zscaler
12 22 (1.32%) Workday
13 20 (1.20%) CyberArk
13 20 (1.20%) Red Hat
14 19 (1.14%) IBM
15 16 (0.96%) Citrix
16 15 (0.90%) F5
16 15 (0.90%) NetApp
17 14 (0.84%) Dell
18 13 (0.78%) Veritas