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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 72 85
Rank change year-on-year -12 +13 +1
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,675 1,108 997
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.07% 3.34% 2.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.63% 3.69% 3.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 852 537 526
10th Percentile £260 £289 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £454 £475
% change year-on-year -0.83% -4.47% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 56 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.06 £13.60 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.50 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +8.18% -40.73% +15.15%
75th Percentile £24.27 £20.48 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £31.43 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +19.05%

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 46,144 30,062 32,646
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.46% 90.58% 85.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,776 18,666 19,743
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
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 £634 £625 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,300 1,877 1,341
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.12 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.62 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.57% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.06 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £65.18 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.77% -48.10% +1.18%

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 4 October 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 4 October 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 4 October 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 -20 1,390 £500 - 2,117
UK excluding London -1 927 £450 -0.83% 1,556
London -34 591 £525 - 858
Work from Home +6 463 £500 +11.11% 1,198
North of England +11 335 £459 +1.94% 399
South East -3 198 £475 -5.94% 346
Yorkshire +15 169 £475 -5.00% 150
Midlands +9 161 £450 -5.26% 211
North West +12 145 £450 +2.27% 196
West Midlands +4 131 £450 -10.00% 117
Scotland -12 117 £450 +5.88% 182
South West -13 62 £500 +25.00% 129
East of England -11 34 £503 +5.79% 145
East Midlands -3 30 £435 +8.75% 94
North East -44 22 £463 +15.63% 55
Wales -8 18 £413 +11.86% 88
Northern Ireland +3 16 £115 -83.57% 57
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 -17.24% 5

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 71 (4.24%) SharePoint
2 34 (2.03%) Confluence
3 26 (1.55%) Apache Airflow
4 24 (1.43%) Microsoft Exchange
5 19 (1.13%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.78%) Apache
6 13 (0.78%) IIS
7 12 (0.72%) CMS
8 10 (0.60%) SAS
9 7 (0.42%) WordPress
10 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
11 4 (0.24%) nginx
12 3 (0.18%) CICS
13 2 (0.12%) Drupal
13 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
14 1 (0.060%) Moodle
14 1 (0.060%) NetWeaver
14 1 (0.060%) WebSphere
Applications
1 52 (3.10%) Microsoft Office
2 49 (2.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
8 1 (0.060%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.060%) Maya
8 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.54%) SAP MDG
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
5 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
6 2 (0.12%) Cloudability
6 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
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%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.060%) Sage 50
7 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
7 1 (0.060%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 371 (22.15%) Azure
2 294 (17.55%) AWS
3 139 (8.30%) Microsoft 365
4 131 (7.82%) GCP
5 79 (4.72%) Power Platform
6 77 (4.60%) SaaS
7 76 (4.54%) Entra ID
8 64 (3.82%) Azure DevOps
9 58 (3.46%) GitHub
10 55 (3.28%) Microsoft Purview
11 48 (2.87%) Serverless
12 41 (2.45%) Microsoft Copilot
13 30 (1.79%) OneDrive
14 25 (1.49%) AWS Lambda
14 25 (1.49%) GitHub Actions
14 25 (1.49%) Snowflake
15 24 (1.43%) OpenShift
16 21 (1.25%) Amazon S3
16 21 (1.25%) Power Automate
16 21 (1.25%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 94 (5.61%) Network Security
2 64 (3.82%) Firewall
3 36 (2.15%) DNS
3 36 (2.15%) VPN
4 27 (1.61%) TCP/IP
5 24 (1.43%) DHCP
6 21 (1.25%) WAN
7 20 (1.19%) LAN
8 19 (1.13%) Cisco IPT
9 15 (0.90%) MPLS
9 15 (0.90%) SAN
9 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
10 12 (0.72%) Wireless
11 11 (0.66%) VoIP
12 10 (0.60%) HTTP
12 10 (0.60%) Unified Communications
13 9 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
13 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
13 9 (0.54%) NAS
13 9 (0.54%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (3.46%) Power BI
2 52 (3.10%) Metadata
3 42 (2.51%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
6 31 (1.85%) SQL Server
7 24 (1.43%) BigQuery
7 24 (1.43%) NoSQL
8 23 (1.37%) Data Lake
9 16 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (0.90%) Big Data
11 13 (0.78%) MongoDB
12 10 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
12 10 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
12 10 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
13 9 (0.54%) Oracle Database
14 8 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
14 8 (0.48%) DynamoDB
14 8 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
14 8 (0.48%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 77 (4.60%) JIRA
2 69 (4.12%) Git
3 59 (3.52%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.55%) GitLab
5 18 (1.07%) Selenium
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.60%) Postman
7 9 (0.54%) Maven
8 6 (0.36%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Mockito
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 670 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 358 (21.37%) Finance
3 249 (14.87%) Legal
4 220 (13.13%) Analytical Skills
4 220 (13.13%) Public Sector
5 120 (7.16%) Banking
6 86 (5.13%) Organisational Skills
7 72 (4.30%) Documentation Skills
8 46 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
9 45 (2.69%) Local Government
10 41 (2.45%) Presentation Skills
11 38 (2.27%) Retail
12 28 (1.67%) Law
12 28 (1.67%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.61%) Marketing
14 25 (1.49%) Front Office
15 23 (1.37%) Pharmaceutical
16 21 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 21 (1.25%) Police
17 19 (1.13%) Billing
Job Titles
1 248 (14.81%) Architect
2 175 (10.45%) Analyst
3 135 (8.06%) Lead
4 127 (7.58%) Senior
5 100 (5.97%) Developer
6 76 (4.54%) Consultant
7 71 (4.24%) Business Analyst
7 71 (4.24%) Project Manager
8 68 (4.06%) Solutions Architect
9 59 (3.52%) Security Architect
10 57 (3.40%) Administrator
11 45 (2.69%) Security Engineer
12 38 (2.27%) Information Officer
13 37 (2.21%) Support Engineer
14 35 (2.09%) Information Governance Officer
15 33 (1.97%) Data Analyst
16 30 (1.79%) Data Engineer
17 28 (1.67%) Network Engineer
18 27 (1.61%) Data Architect
19 26 (1.55%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (6.15%) Terraform
2 91 (5.43%) REST
3 42 (2.51%) Kafka
4 35 (2.09%) JSON
5 34 (2.03%) OAuth
6 33 (1.97%) Middleware
7 25 (1.49%) React
7 25 (1.49%) RESTful
8 24 (1.43%) .NET
9 21 (1.25%) OAuth2
9 21 (1.25%) Spring
10 20 (1.19%) HTML
10 20 (1.19%) Node.js
10 20 (1.19%) Spring Boot
11 18 (1.07%) CSS
12 15 (0.90%) OpenID
12 15 (0.90%) SOAP
13 14 (0.84%) YAML
14 13 (0.78%) OpenAPI
14 13 (0.78%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 690 (41.19%) Data Protection Act
2 134 (8.00%) Management Information System
3 101 (6.03%) Product Ownership
4 92 (5.49%) Cloud Native
4 92 (5.49%) Onboarding
5 62 (3.70%) Data Centre
6 58 (3.46%) Distributed Systems
7 45 (2.69%) Freedom of Information
8 42 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.39%) Security Posture
10 38 (2.27%) Virtual Team
11 30 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
11 30 (1.79%) NHS
12 29 (1.73%) AI Agents
13 28 (1.67%) Data Structures
13 28 (1.67%) Operational Technology
13 28 (1.67%) Self-Motivation
14 22 (1.31%) Mobile App
15 21 (1.25%) Private Cloud
16 19 (1.13%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 132 (7.88%) Windows
2 82 (4.90%) Linux
3 38 (2.27%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.91%) Apple iOS
5 31 (1.85%) Android
6 29 (1.73%) Unix
7 22 (1.31%) Mac OS
8 15 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.72%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.48%) zOS
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) HPUX
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) VMS
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.060%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 410 (24.48%) Stakeholder Management
2 323 (19.28%) Agile
3 294 (17.55%) Problem-Solving
4 287 (17.13%) Continuous Improvement
5 246 (14.69%) AI
5 246 (14.69%) CI/CD
6 230 (13.73%) Cybersecurity
7 227 (13.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 219 (13.07%) Migration
9 208 (12.42%) DevOps
10 172 (10.27%) Roadmaps
11 165 (9.85%) Decision-Making
12 161 (9.61%) Information Security
13 157 (9.37%) Risk Management
14 153 (9.13%) Data Governance
15 148 (8.84%) Infrastructure as Code
16 144 (8.60%) Analytics
17 138 (8.24%) Validation
18 121 (7.22%) Test Automation
19 119 (7.10%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 213 (12.72%) Python
2 165 (9.85%) SQL
3 78 (4.66%) Java
4 63 (3.76%) PowerShell
5 44 (2.63%) JavaScript
6 34 (2.03%) Bash
7 28 (1.67%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.49%) Go
9 20 (1.19%) C#
10 18 (1.07%) Bicep
11 16 (0.96%) Scala
12 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.78%) Apex Code
14 12 (0.72%) Perl
15 9 (0.54%) C
16 8 (0.48%) C++
17 7 (0.42%) COBOL
17 7 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
17 7 (0.42%) VB
17 7 (0.42%) VB6
Qualifications
1 273 (16.30%) Security Cleared
2 203 (12.12%) SC Cleared
3 120 (7.16%) Degree
4 81 (4.84%) CISSP
5 59 (3.52%) DV Cleared
6 51 (3.04%) BPSS Clearance
7 50 (2.99%) CISM
8 45 (2.69%) Cisco Certification
9 30 (1.79%) PMI Certification
10 29 (1.73%) Azure Certification
11 28 (1.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 27 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
12 27 (1.61%) PMP
13 26 (1.55%) CCSP
14 18 (1.07%) AWS Certification
15 14 (0.84%) CRISC
16 13 (0.78%) CISA
17 12 (0.72%) CCNP
17 12 (0.72%) Master's Degree
17 12 (0.72%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 240 (14.33%) GDPR
2 122 (7.28%) Data Quality
3 101 (6.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (4.48%) NIST
5 68 (4.06%) QA
6 52 (3.10%) GRC
7 50 (2.99%) Accessibility
8 31 (1.85%) PCI DSS
9 23 (1.37%) NCSC
10 21 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (1.19%) PMO
12 14 (0.84%) SLA
13 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.66%) PERC
15 11 (0.66%) WCAG
16 10 (0.60%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
17 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 80 (4.78%) Active Directory
2 70 (4.18%) Docker
3 61 (3.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (1.01%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.78%) vSphere
6 12 (0.72%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.30%) ISA Server
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) NFS
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.12%) GPFS
10 2 (0.12%) IAG
10 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.060%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.060%) Firmware
11 1 (0.060%) KVM
11 1 (0.060%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.060%) Time Sharing Option
11 1 (0.060%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 115 (6.87%) Kubernetes
2 49 (2.93%) Ansible
3 38 (2.27%) Microsoft Intune
4 31 (1.85%) Grafana
5 21 (1.25%) SCCM
6 16 (0.96%) Prometheus
7 15 (0.90%) Kibana
8 13 (0.78%) Progress Chef
9 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
9 12 (0.72%) NetBackup
10 11 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.60%) Puppet
12 8 (0.48%) CASB
13 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
13 5 (0.30%) QRadar
13 5 (0.30%) SCOM
14 4 (0.24%) Control-M
14 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
15 3 (0.18%) Istio
15 3 (0.18%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 376 (22.45%) Microsoft
2 90 (5.37%) ServiceNow
3 89 (5.31%) Google
4 72 (4.30%) Cisco
5 62 (3.70%) Oracle
5 62 (3.70%) VMware
6 48 (2.87%) Databricks
7 44 (2.63%) Splunk
8 40 (2.39%) SAP
9 29 (1.73%) Salesforce
10 27 (1.61%) Zscaler
11 19 (1.13%) IBM
11 19 (1.13%) Workday
12 17 (1.01%) CyberArk
12 17 (1.01%) F5
13 16 (0.96%) Red Hat
14 15 (0.90%) Dell
14 15 (0.90%) Dynatrace
15 14 (0.84%) MuleSoft
16 13 (0.78%) SolarWinds