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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 77 90
Rank change year-on-year -3 +13 -6
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,701 1,072 967
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.12% 3.25% 2.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.68% 3.59% 2.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 877 506 519
10th Percentile £279 £300 £209
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £486 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.83% -2.75% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £460 £478
% change year-on-year -2.17% -3.66% +0.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 52 19
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £18.34
25th Percentile £15.72 £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 46,202 29,871 32,996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.62% 90.47% 85.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,118 18,549 20,447
10th Percentile £325 £300 £311
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 3,059 1,786 1,512
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.71
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.30 £20.09
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +3.61%
75th Percentile £67.50 £45.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +76.76% -47.37% +8.72%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -9 1,422 £500 +2.04% 839
UK excluding London +1 947 £450 -2.17% 540
London -25 612 £525 +2.44% 382
Work from Home +18 494 £500 +11.11% 337
North of England +8 331 £465 +3.33% 151
South East +11 205 £479 -8.15% 152
Yorkshire +2 163 £475 -5.00% 44
Midlands 0 153 £450 - 89
North West +23 149 £475 +8.26% 90
Scotland -6 125 £428 -5.00% 23
West Midlands +3 121 £450 -10.00% 61
South West -21 80 £425 +6.25% 64
East Midlands -1 32 £435 +24.29% 28
East of England -24 30 £525 +10.53% 51
Wales -2 22 £413 - 15
North East -54 20 £463 +15.63% 20
Northern Ireland +4 15 £110 -81.63% 5
Channel Islands -3 2 £600 -17.24% 1

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 64 (3.76%) SharePoint
2 42 (2.47%) Confluence
3 21 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
4 17 (1.00%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.65%) Apache
6 9 (0.53%) CMS
6 9 (0.53%) IIS
7 8 (0.47%) SAS
8 5 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (0.29%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.29%) WordPress
9 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.18%) CICS
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) Drupal
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
12 1 (0.059%) Moodle
12 1 (0.059%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 44 (2.59%) Microsoft Excel
1 44 (2.59%) 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 12 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.41%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.29%) 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%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.059%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.059%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.059%) SAP CX
8 1 (0.059%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 383 (22.52%) Azure
2 305 (17.93%) AWS
3 138 (8.11%) GCP
4 133 (7.82%) Microsoft 365
5 84 (4.94%) Power Platform
6 81 (4.76%) Entra ID
7 77 (4.53%) SaaS
8 66 (3.88%) GitHub
9 63 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
10 55 (3.23%) Microsoft Purview
11 52 (3.06%) Serverless
12 36 (2.12%) Microsoft Copilot
13 28 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
14 27 (1.59%) GitHub Actions
14 27 (1.59%) OneDrive
15 26 (1.53%) OpenShift
16 25 (1.47%) Power Automate
16 25 (1.47%) PowerApps
17 21 (1.23%) Amazon S3
18 20 (1.18%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 93 (5.47%) Network Security
2 59 (3.47%) Firewall
3 37 (2.18%) DNS
4 32 (1.88%) VPN
5 27 (1.59%) DHCP
6 25 (1.47%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.23%) WAN
8 19 (1.12%) Cisco IPT
9 17 (1.00%) LAN
10 16 (0.94%) SAN
11 14 (0.82%) SSL
11 14 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.82%) Wireless
12 11 (0.65%) HTTP
12 11 (0.65%) MPLS
12 11 (0.65%) VoIP
13 9 (0.53%) Intrusion Detection
13 9 (0.53%) NAS
14 8 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
15 7 (0.41%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (3.64%) Power BI
2 49 (2.88%) Metadata
3 42 (2.47%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.18%) PostgreSQL
5 36 (2.12%) SQL Server
6 32 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.41%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.29%) Data Lake
9 21 (1.23%) MySQL
10 17 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
10 17 (1.00%) Big Data
11 16 (0.94%) BigQuery
12 14 (0.82%) MongoDB
13 13 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
14 10 (0.59%) Oracle Database
15 8 (0.47%) Azure SQL Database
15 8 (0.47%) DynamoDB
15 8 (0.47%) Redis
16 7 (0.41%) RDBMS
16 7 (0.41%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 86 (5.06%) JIRA
2 69 (4.06%) Git
3 54 (3.17%) Jenkins
4 29 (1.70%) GitLab
5 18 (1.06%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Maven
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.47%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.29%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.29%) ERwin
9 5 (0.29%) Postman
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
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%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 652 (38.33%) Social Skills
2 372 (21.87%) Finance
3 253 (14.87%) Legal
4 209 (12.29%) Public Sector
5 207 (12.17%) Analytical Skills
6 115 (6.76%) Banking
7 79 (4.64%) Organisational Skills
8 77 (4.53%) Documentation Skills
9 43 (2.53%) Influencing Skills
10 40 (2.35%) Local Government
10 40 (2.35%) Retail
11 33 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
12 32 (1.88%) Law
13 31 (1.82%) Front Office
14 28 (1.65%) Marketing
15 24 (1.41%) Police
15 24 (1.41%) Telecoms
16 22 (1.29%) Billing
16 22 (1.29%) Pharmaceutical
17 16 (0.94%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 247 (14.52%) Architect
2 172 (10.11%) Analyst
3 143 (8.41%) Lead
4 128 (7.52%) Developer
5 123 (7.23%) Senior
6 87 (5.11%) Consultant
7 79 (4.64%) Project Manager
8 71 (4.17%) Business Analyst
9 69 (4.06%) Solutions Architect
10 65 (3.82%) Security Architect
11 48 (2.82%) Administrator
12 37 (2.18%) Security Engineer
13 36 (2.12%) Support Engineer
14 32 (1.88%) Data Analyst
15 31 (1.82%) Java Developer
16 29 (1.70%) Data Engineer
16 29 (1.70%) Information Officer
17 27 (1.59%) IT Support
18 26 (1.53%) DevOps Engineer
18 26 (1.53%) Information Governance Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (5.58%) Terraform
2 88 (5.17%) REST
3 41 (2.41%) React
4 38 (2.23%) Kafka
5 36 (2.12%) Spring
6 35 (2.06%) OAuth
7 34 (2.00%) JSON
7 34 (2.00%) Spring Boot
8 32 (1.88%) CSS
8 32 (1.88%) HTML
9 29 (1.70%) Middleware
9 29 (1.70%) RESTful
10 25 (1.47%) .NET
11 21 (1.23%) Node.js
12 20 (1.18%) OpenID
13 19 (1.12%) OAuth2
14 16 (0.94%) CSS3
14 16 (0.94%) GraphQL
14 16 (0.94%) HTML5
14 16 (0.94%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 731 (42.97%) Data Protection Act
2 106 (6.23%) Management Information System
3 95 (5.58%) Product Ownership
4 93 (5.47%) Cloud Native
5 87 (5.11%) Onboarding
6 53 (3.12%) Distributed Systems
7 51 (3.00%) Data Centre
8 43 (2.53%) Security Posture
9 41 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
9 41 (2.41%) Virtual Team
10 39 (2.29%) Freedom of Information
11 29 (1.70%) NHS
12 28 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
13 27 (1.59%) Operational Technology
14 24 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
15 23 (1.35%) AI Agents
16 22 (1.29%) Mobile App
17 20 (1.18%) Data Structures
18 19 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
18 19 (1.12%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 130 (7.64%) Windows
2 80 (4.70%) Linux
3 33 (1.94%) Android
4 32 (1.88%) Apple iOS
5 31 (1.82%) Windows Server
6 28 (1.65%) Unix
7 23 (1.35%) Mac OS
8 18 (1.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 16 (0.94%) Windows 10
10 10 (0.59%) zOS
11 4 (0.24%) VMS
12 3 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.12%) AIX
13 2 (0.12%) CentOS
13 2 (0.12%) HPUX
13 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.059%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 370 (21.75%) Stakeholder Management
2 322 (18.93%) Agile
3 291 (17.11%) Continuous Improvement
3 291 (17.11%) Problem-Solving
4 245 (14.40%) CI/CD
5 230 (13.52%) DevOps
6 224 (13.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 223 (13.11%) AI
8 215 (12.64%) Cybersecurity
9 211 (12.40%) Migration
10 160 (9.41%) Decision-Making
11 158 (9.29%) Roadmaps
12 151 (8.88%) Risk Management
13 148 (8.70%) Data Governance
14 145 (8.52%) Infrastructure as Code
15 143 (8.41%) Analytics
15 143 (8.41%) Information Security
16 142 (8.35%) Validation
17 118 (6.94%) Test Automation
18 112 (6.58%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 214 (12.58%) Python
2 164 (9.64%) SQL
3 99 (5.82%) Java
4 57 (3.35%) JavaScript
5 55 (3.23%) PowerShell
6 34 (2.00%) Bash
7 26 (1.53%) TypeScript
8 24 (1.41%) Go
9 19 (1.12%) C#
10 16 (0.94%) Apex Code
11 14 (0.82%) Bicep
11 14 (0.82%) 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%) Kusto Query Language
16 7 (0.41%) Shell Script
16 7 (0.41%) VB6
Qualifications
1 269 (15.81%) Security Cleared
2 194 (11.41%) SC Cleared
3 110 (6.47%) Degree
4 88 (5.17%) CISSP
5 65 (3.82%) DV Cleared
6 56 (3.29%) CISM
7 42 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
8 40 (2.35%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (2.00%) Azure Certification
10 31 (1.82%) PMI Certification
11 28 (1.65%) PMP
12 25 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
13 24 (1.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 20 (1.18%) AWS Certification
14 20 (1.18%) CCSP
15 13 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.65%) CCNP
16 11 (0.65%) CRISC
16 11 (0.65%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.59%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 248 (14.58%) GDPR
2 111 (6.53%) Data Quality
3 103 (6.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (4.59%) QA
5 77 (4.53%) NIST
6 47 (2.76%) Accessibility
7 46 (2.70%) GRC
8 25 (1.47%) PCI DSS
9 24 (1.41%) PMO
10 20 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials
11 19 (1.12%) NCSC
12 17 (1.00%) SLA
13 13 (0.76%) 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%) Actionable Recommendations
17 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 86 (5.06%) Active Directory
2 63 (3.70%) Docker
3 56 (3.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.23%) 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 (0.29%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.18%) Time Sharing Option
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) ISA Server
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
11 2 (0.12%) XenApp
11 2 (0.12%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.059%) IAG
12 1 (0.059%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 117 (6.88%) Kubernetes
2 46 (2.70%) Ansible
3 38 (2.23%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (1.41%) SCCM
5 21 (1.23%) Grafana
6 16 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.88%) NetBackup
8 14 (0.82%) Prometheus
9 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
9 12 (0.71%) Puppet
10 10 (0.59%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.35%) Kibana
12 5 (0.29%) CA Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.29%) CASB
12 5 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (0.29%) PingFederate
12 5 (0.29%) QRadar
12 5 (0.29%) SCOM
13 4 (0.24%) Control-M
Vendors
1 349 (20.52%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.17%) ServiceNow
3 71 (4.17%) Oracle
4 70 (4.12%) Google
5 66 (3.88%) Cisco
6 57 (3.35%) VMware
7 42 (2.47%) Databricks
8 40 (2.35%) Splunk
9 34 (2.00%) SAP
10 33 (1.94%) Salesforce
11 27 (1.59%) Zscaler
12 22 (1.29%) IBM
13 21 (1.23%) Workday
14 20 (1.18%) CyberArk
15 19 (1.12%) Red Hat
16 16 (0.94%) F5
17 15 (0.88%) Dell
18 14 (0.82%) Citrix
18 14 (0.82%) NetApp
19 12 (0.71%) Veritas