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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 77 89
Rank change year-on-year -6 +12 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,674 1,066 970
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.24% 2.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 3.58% 2.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 871 501 518
10th Percentile £275 £293 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £463 £478
% change year-on-year -2.70% -3.14% +0.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 102 51 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.50 £13.49 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -45.22% +10.85%
75th Percentile £24.50 £20.40 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £36.48 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +13.02%

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 45,839 29,816 32,769
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.46% 90.52% 85.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,855 18,531 20,147
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £404 £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 £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,070 1,799 1,460
10th Percentile £13.84 £14.25 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.36 £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 £44.68 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +83.63% -47.37% +5.81%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -8 1,397 £500 +2.04% 2,097
UK excluding London 0 933 £450 -2.70% 1,222
London -30 595 £525 +1.69% 1,024
Work from Home +16 483 £500 +11.11% 852
North of England +10 331 £465 +3.33% 337
South East +9 196 £475 -7.59% 295
Yorkshire +3 167 £475 -5.00% 113
Midlands +7 158 £450 -5.26% 183
North West +16 144 £465 +5.98% 190
West Midlands -2 126 £450 -10.00% 124
Scotland -9 119 £434 +1.58% 95
South West -20 77 £425 +6.25% 135
East Midlands -3 32 £435 +8.75% 59
East of England -15 29 £505 +6.32% 125
Wales -1 22 £413 - 34
North East -47 21 £463 +15.63% 38
Northern Ireland +5 15 £110 -81.63% 29
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 -17.24% 4

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 (3.88%) SharePoint
2 40 (2.39%) Confluence
3 21 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
4 17 (1.02%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.66%) Apache
6 10 (0.60%) IIS
6 10 (0.60%) SAS
7 9 (0.54%) CMS
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 (0.060%) Moodle
12 1 (0.060%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 44 (2.63%) Microsoft Excel
1 44 (2.63%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 9 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
3 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
5 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
6 1 (0.060%) Maya
6 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
4 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
6 2 (0.12%) Endur
6 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 1 (0.060%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.060%) Eloqua
7 1 (0.060%) Maximo
7 1 (0.060%) Sage 50
7 1 (0.060%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 381 (22.76%) Azure
2 301 (17.98%) AWS
3 136 (8.12%) GCP
4 132 (7.89%) Microsoft 365
5 80 (4.78%) Entra ID
5 80 (4.78%) Power Platform
6 76 (4.54%) SaaS
7 64 (3.82%) Azure DevOps
8 63 (3.76%) GitHub
9 55 (3.29%) Microsoft Purview
10 49 (2.93%) Serverless
11 37 (2.21%) Microsoft Copilot
12 27 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
13 26 (1.55%) GitHub Actions
13 26 (1.55%) OneDrive
13 26 (1.55%) OpenShift
14 24 (1.43%) Power Automate
15 23 (1.37%) PowerApps
16 20 (1.19%) Amazon S3
17 19 (1.14%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 88 (5.26%) Network Security
2 60 (3.58%) Firewall
3 36 (2.15%) DNS
4 34 (2.03%) VPN
5 26 (1.55%) DHCP
6 25 (1.49%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.25%) WAN
8 19 (1.14%) Cisco IPT
9 17 (1.02%) LAN
10 15 (0.90%) SAN
11 14 (0.84%) SSL
11 14 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
12 13 (0.78%) Wireless
13 11 (0.66%) MPLS
13 11 (0.66%) VoIP
14 10 (0.60%) HTTP
15 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
15 9 (0.54%) NAS
16 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
17 7 (0.42%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (3.52%) Power BI
2 51 (3.05%) Metadata
3 42 (2.51%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
5 34 (2.03%) SQL Server
6 31 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.43%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.31%) Data Lake
9 21 (1.25%) MySQL
10 19 (1.14%) BigQuery
11 17 (1.02%) Big Data
12 16 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
13 14 (0.84%) MongoDB
14 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
15 10 (0.60%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
16 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
17 8 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
17 8 (0.48%) Redis
18 7 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 84 (5.02%) JIRA
2 66 (3.94%) Git
3 52 (3.11%) Jenkins
4 27 (1.61%) GitLab
5 18 (1.08%) Selenium
6 10 (0.60%) Maven
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Postman
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
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%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 646 (38.59%) Social Skills
2 364 (21.74%) Finance
3 253 (15.11%) Legal
4 207 (12.37%) Public Sector
5 206 (12.31%) Analytical Skills
6 114 (6.81%) Banking
7 78 (4.66%) Documentation Skills
8 77 (4.60%) Organisational Skills
9 43 (2.57%) Influencing Skills
10 40 (2.39%) Retail
11 39 (2.33%) Local Government
12 33 (1.97%) Presentation Skills
13 31 (1.85%) Law
14 29 (1.73%) Front Office
14 29 (1.73%) Marketing
15 25 (1.49%) Telecoms
16 22 (1.31%) Billing
16 22 (1.31%) Police
17 21 (1.25%) Pharmaceutical
18 16 (0.96%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 245 (14.64%) Architect
2 169 (10.10%) Analyst
3 142 (8.48%) Lead
4 125 (7.47%) Developer
5 121 (7.23%) Senior
6 85 (5.08%) Consultant
7 74 (4.42%) Project Manager
8 69 (4.12%) Business Analyst
9 66 (3.94%) Solutions Architect
10 61 (3.64%) Security Architect
11 45 (2.69%) Administrator
12 40 (2.39%) Security Engineer
13 37 (2.21%) Support Engineer
14 33 (1.97%) Data Analyst
15 31 (1.85%) Java Developer
16 29 (1.73%) Data Engineer
16 29 (1.73%) Information Officer
17 26 (1.55%) DevOps Engineer
17 26 (1.55%) Information Governance Officer
17 26 (1.55%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (5.73%) Terraform
2 85 (5.08%) REST
3 40 (2.39%) Kafka
4 39 (2.33%) React
5 37 (2.21%) Spring
6 35 (2.09%) Spring Boot
7 34 (2.03%) JSON
7 34 (2.03%) OAuth
8 31 (1.85%) CSS
8 31 (1.85%) HTML
9 28 (1.67%) Middleware
10 27 (1.61%) RESTful
11 24 (1.43%) .NET
12 21 (1.25%) Node.js
12 21 (1.25%) OpenID
13 20 (1.19%) OAuth2
14 16 (0.96%) CSS3
14 16 (0.96%) HTML5
14 16 (0.96%) SOAP
15 15 (0.90%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 709 (42.35%) Data Protection Act
2 111 (6.63%) Management Information System
3 95 (5.68%) Product Ownership
4 90 (5.38%) Cloud Native
4 90 (5.38%) Onboarding
5 55 (3.29%) Distributed Systems
6 54 (3.23%) Data Centre
7 41 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
8 40 (2.39%) Security Posture
9 39 (2.33%) Freedom of Information
9 39 (2.33%) Virtual Team
10 31 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
11 27 (1.61%) NHS
12 26 (1.55%) Operational Technology
13 24 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
14 22 (1.31%) AI Agents
14 22 (1.31%) Data Structures
14 22 (1.31%) Mobile App
15 20 (1.19%) Private Cloud
16 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 129 (7.71%) Windows
2 81 (4.84%) Linux
3 34 (2.03%) Android
4 33 (1.97%) Windows Server
5 32 (1.91%) Apple iOS
6 28 (1.67%) Unix
7 23 (1.37%) Mac OS
8 18 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.90%) Windows 10
10 9 (0.54%) 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 (0.060%) Rocky
14 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 376 (22.46%) Stakeholder Management
2 316 (18.88%) Agile
3 289 (17.26%) Problem-Solving
4 286 (17.08%) Continuous Improvement
5 243 (14.52%) CI/CD
6 224 (13.38%) AI
7 223 (13.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 219 (13.08%) Cybersecurity
8 219 (13.08%) DevOps
9 215 (12.84%) Migration
10 163 (9.74%) Decision-Making
11 160 (9.56%) Roadmaps
12 153 (9.14%) Risk Management
13 149 (8.90%) Information Security
14 148 (8.84%) Data Governance
15 146 (8.72%) Analytics
16 143 (8.54%) Infrastructure as Code
17 140 (8.36%) Validation
18 114 (6.81%) Test Automation
19 112 (6.69%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 214 (12.78%) Python
2 165 (9.86%) SQL
3 99 (5.91%) Java
4 56 (3.35%) JavaScript
4 56 (3.35%) PowerShell
5 35 (2.09%) Bash
6 27 (1.61%) TypeScript
7 24 (1.43%) Go
8 18 (1.08%) C#
9 16 (0.96%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.90%) Bicep
11 14 (0.84%) Kotlin
12 12 (0.72%) Perl
13 10 (0.60%) C++
14 9 (0.54%) C
15 8 (0.48%) Scala
15 8 (0.48%) VB
16 7 (0.42%) Shell Script
16 7 (0.42%) VB6
17 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 271 (16.19%) Security Cleared
2 199 (11.89%) SC Cleared
3 109 (6.51%) Degree
4 85 (5.08%) CISSP
5 63 (3.76%) DV Cleared
6 52 (3.11%) CISM
7 44 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
8 42 (2.51%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (2.03%) Azure Certification
10 31 (1.85%) PMI Certification
11 28 (1.67%) PMP
12 26 (1.55%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 25 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
14 21 (1.25%) CCSP
15 20 (1.19%) AWS Certification
16 12 (0.72%) CRISC
16 12 (0.72%) Microsoft Certification
17 11 (0.66%) CCNP
17 11 (0.66%) CISA
17 11 (0.66%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 237 (14.16%) GDPR
2 112 (6.69%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 74 (4.42%) NIST
5 73 (4.36%) QA
6 52 (3.11%) GRC
7 46 (2.75%) Accessibility
8 26 (1.55%) PCI DSS
9 22 (1.31%) PMO
10 20 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials
10 20 (1.19%) NCSC
11 14 (0.84%) SLA
12 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 12 (0.72%) PERC
13 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.66%) WCAG
15 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
16 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 85 (5.08%) Active Directory
2 61 (3.64%) Docker
3 56 (3.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.25%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
5 11 (0.66%) vSphere
6 10 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.42%) NFS
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.18%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) Time Sharing Option
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
11 2 (0.12%) XenApp
11 2 (0.12%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.060%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.060%) KVM
Systems Management
1 115 (6.87%) Kubernetes
2 48 (2.87%) Ansible
3 40 (2.39%) Microsoft Intune
4 23 (1.37%) SCCM
5 21 (1.25%) Grafana
6 14 (0.84%) NetBackup
6 14 (0.84%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
7 12 (0.72%) Puppet
8 11 (0.66%) Progress Chef
9 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 6 (0.36%) CASB
9 6 (0.36%) Kibana
10 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
10 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
10 5 (0.30%) QRadar
10 5 (0.30%) SCOM
11 4 (0.24%) Control-M
Vendors
1 362 (21.62%) Microsoft
2 91 (5.44%) ServiceNow
3 73 (4.36%) Google
4 71 (4.24%) Oracle
5 67 (4.00%) Cisco
6 57 (3.41%) VMware
7 43 (2.57%) Databricks
8 41 (2.45%) Splunk
9 33 (1.97%) Salesforce
10 31 (1.85%) SAP
11 28 (1.67%) Zscaler
12 22 (1.31%) Workday
13 20 (1.19%) CyberArk
13 20 (1.19%) IBM
14 19 (1.14%) Red Hat
15 17 (1.02%) F5
16 15 (0.90%) NetApp
17 14 (0.84%) Citrix
17 14 (0.84%) Dell
18 13 (0.78%) Dynatrace