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 9 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 97 79
Rank change year-on-year +22 -18 +30
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,283 796 1,182
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.29% 2.58% 2.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.78% 2.88% 3.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 679 397 671
10th Percentile £276 £270 £206
25th Percentile £396 £388 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £481 £450
% change year-on-year -6.49% +6.94% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 21 77
10th Percentile £13.13 £16.25 £11.98
25th Percentile £16.72 £22.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.15% +39.19% -70.00%
75th Percentile £23.27 £34.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £42.50 £65.00 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.62 £21.00
% change year-on-year -30.07% +41.02% -70.00%

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 33,920 27,613 39,240
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.99% 89.40% 87.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,498 16,798 25,769
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £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 £718 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £497 £500
% change year-on-year -3.92% -0.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,057 854 2,142
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.05 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.66 £34.36
Median % change year-on-year -22.98% -4.95% +5.71%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year -20.81% -9.26% +11.93%

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 9 February 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 9 February 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 9 February 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 +27 1,090 £500 - 320
UK excluding London +18 691 £450 -6.49% 261
London +20 524 £525 +2.44% 115
Work from Home +20 293 £500 - 160
North of England -11 200 £460 -3.16% 62
South East +19 159 £490 +0.51% 83
Scotland +16 116 £402 -15.32% 8
Yorkshire +2 116 £484 -10.05% 15
Midlands +12 105 £449 -5.53% 50
North West -20 69 £436 -8.21% 42
West Midlands -13 63 £475 -6.17% 33
South West +3 46 £475 -2.56% 37
East of England +10 45 £314 -37.25% 20
East Midlands +5 42 £438 -2.78% 17
North East -25 16 £400 -11.11% 5
Wales +2 14 £375 -26.83% 8
Northern Ireland - 10 £500 -

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 56 (4.36%) Confluence
2 30 (2.34%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.62%) Apache
5 8 (0.62%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.62%) CMS
6 4 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.23%) Ethereum
7 3 (0.23%) Hyperledger
7 3 (0.23%) SAS
8 2 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.16%) Drupal
8 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.16%) nginx
8 2 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.16%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.078%) Cloud Foundry
9 1 (0.078%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 49 (3.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (3.27%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.55%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.31%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.23%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.23%) Sketch
8 2 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.16%) InVision
8 2 (0.16%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.078%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.078%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.078%) Blender
9 1 (0.078%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.078%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.078%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 13 (1.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.86%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (0.70%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.23%) Distributed Ledger
5 3 (0.23%) Fidessa
5 3 (0.23%) NEC Housing
5 3 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (0.23%) R3 Corda
5 3 (0.23%) ResourceLink
5 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.16%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.16%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.16%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.078%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 240 (18.71%) Azure
2 211 (16.45%) AWS
3 95 (7.40%) GCP
4 63 (4.91%) Microsoft 365
5 62 (4.83%) Power Platform
6 56 (4.36%) Serverless
7 53 (4.13%) Entra ID
8 52 (4.05%) GitHub
9 45 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (3.27%) AWS Lambda
11 41 (3.20%) SaaS
12 39 (3.04%) Amazon S3
13 29 (2.26%) Snowflake
14 28 (2.18%) AWS CloudFormation
15 24 (1.87%) GitHub Actions
15 24 (1.87%) Microsoft Purview
16 22 (1.71%) OpenShift
16 22 (1.71%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 21 (1.64%) OCI
17 21 (1.64%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.35%) Firewall
2 34 (2.65%) Network Security
3 23 (1.79%) SAN
4 19 (1.48%) LAN
4 19 (1.48%) MPLS
5 18 (1.40%) VPN
6 16 (1.25%) DNS
6 16 (1.25%) WAN
7 15 (1.17%) NAS
8 14 (1.09%) Cisco IPT
8 14 (1.09%) TCP/IP
9 9 (0.70%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.62%) BGP
10 8 (0.62%) HTTP
10 8 (0.62%) SSH
10 8 (0.62%) VLAN
11 7 (0.55%) DHCP
11 7 (0.55%) Internet
12 6 (0.47%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (4.29%) Power BI
2 35 (2.73%) PostgreSQL
2 35 (2.73%) SQL Server
3 22 (1.71%) NoSQL
4 21 (1.64%) Relational Database
5 20 (1.56%) Data Warehouse
5 20 (1.56%) Metadata
6 19 (1.48%) MySQL
7 17 (1.33%) MongoDB
8 16 (1.25%) DynamoDB
9 14 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
9 14 (1.09%) Tableau
10 13 (1.01%) Data Lake
11 12 (0.94%) Amazon Aurora
12 11 (0.86%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.78%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
15 8 (0.62%) Big Data
15 8 (0.62%) Hadoop
15 8 (0.62%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 98 (7.64%) JIRA
2 51 (3.98%) Git
3 46 (3.59%) Jenkins
4 31 (2.42%) GitLab
5 11 (0.86%) JUnit
5 11 (0.86%) SpecFlow
6 6 (0.47%) Gradle
6 6 (0.47%) Maven
6 6 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.39%) NUnit
7 5 (0.39%) Team Foundation Server
8 4 (0.31%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.31%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.31%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.31%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.23%) Postman
9 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.16%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.16%) Liquibase
10 2 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
General
1 419 (32.66%) Social Skills
2 269 (20.97%) Finance
3 166 (12.94%) Analytical Skills
4 129 (10.05%) Public Sector
5 110 (8.57%) Banking
6 108 (8.42%) Legal
7 48 (3.74%) Organisational Skills
8 41 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
9 37 (2.88%) Telecoms
10 33 (2.57%) Marketing
11 26 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
12 22 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
13 21 (1.64%) Law
14 19 (1.48%) Front Office
15 18 (1.40%) Local Government
16 17 (1.33%) Manufacturing
17 12 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 12 (0.94%) Police
17 12 (0.94%) Retail
18 10 (0.78%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 154 (12.00%) Analyst
2 135 (10.52%) Architect
3 131 (10.21%) Developer
4 97 (7.56%) Lead
5 70 (5.46%) Senior
6 68 (5.30%) Business Analyst
7 64 (4.99%) Consultant
8 58 (4.52%) Project Manager
9 46 (3.59%) Solutions Architect
10 35 (2.73%) Administrator
11 30 (2.34%) Security Engineer
12 29 (2.26%) Data Analyst
13 28 (2.18%) Data Engineer
14 24 (1.87%) Java Developer
14 24 (1.87%) Network Engineer
15 22 (1.71%) Data Protection Officer
16 21 (1.64%) Automation Engineer
16 21 (1.64%) Security Architect
16 21 (1.64%) Support Engineer
17 20 (1.56%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (4.68%) REST
2 45 (3.51%) React
3 36 (2.81%) .NET
4 34 (2.65%) Node.js
5 29 (2.26%) RESTful
6 27 (2.10%) Spring
7 23 (1.79%) Kafka
7 23 (1.79%) Spring Boot
8 22 (1.71%) OAuth
9 17 (1.33%) HTML
9 17 (1.33%) Middleware
10 16 (1.25%) PySpark
10 16 (1.25%) SOAP
11 15 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
11 15 (1.17%) Playwright
12 14 (1.09%) .NET Core
13 13 (1.01%) SAML
14 12 (0.94%) AngularJS
14 12 (0.94%) Jest
15 9 (0.70%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 640 (49.88%) Data Protection Act
2 54 (4.21%) Cloud Native
2 54 (4.21%) Product Ownership
3 52 (4.05%) Management Information System
3 52 (4.05%) Onboarding
4 31 (2.42%) NHS
5 29 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
6 26 (2.03%) Freedom of Information
7 23 (1.79%) Data Structures
8 22 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
9 18 (1.40%) Data Centre
9 18 (1.40%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 18 (1.40%) Security Posture
10 16 (1.25%) CMDB
11 15 (1.17%) Replication
12 14 (1.09%) Hybrid Cloud
13 13 (1.01%) AI Agents
13 13 (1.01%) Insider Threat
14 12 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
15 11 (0.86%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 92 (7.17%) Windows
2 68 (5.30%) Linux
3 24 (1.87%) Unix
4 17 (1.33%) Windows Server
5 16 (1.25%) Mac OS
6 13 (1.01%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (0.55%) Android
9 6 (0.47%) VMS
9 6 (0.47%) zOS
10 5 (0.39%) Apple iOS
11 4 (0.31%) AIX
11 4 (0.31%) Solaris
12 3 (0.23%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.16%) CoreOS
14 1 (0.078%) CentOS
14 1 (0.078%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.078%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 230 (17.93%) Problem-Solving
2 219 (17.07%) Agile
3 217 (16.91%) Stakeholder Management
4 179 (13.95%) Migration
5 161 (12.55%) CI/CD
6 154 (12.00%) DevOps
7 139 (10.83%) Continuous Improvement
8 125 (9.74%) Analytics
8 125 (9.74%) Cybersecurity
9 121 (9.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 119 (9.28%) AI
10 119 (9.28%) Roadmaps
11 103 (8.03%) Information Security
12 102 (7.95%) Project Management
13 97 (7.56%) Risk Management
14 83 (6.47%) Microservices
15 82 (6.39%) Test Automation
16 80 (6.24%) Decision-Making
17 74 (5.77%) Business Intelligence
17 74 (5.77%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 214 (16.68%) Python
2 164 (12.78%) SQL
3 88 (6.86%) Java
4 72 (5.61%) JavaScript
5 61 (4.75%) PowerShell
6 53 (4.13%) C#
7 43 (3.35%) Bash
8 36 (2.81%) TypeScript
9 16 (1.25%) Bicep
10 13 (1.01%) C++
10 13 (1.01%) Shell Script
11 11 (0.86%) Perl
12 8 (0.62%) PL/SQL
13 6 (0.47%) ActionScript
13 6 (0.47%) ActionScript 2.0
13 6 (0.47%) Kusto Query Language
13 6 (0.47%) PHP
14 4 (0.31%) Go
14 4 (0.31%) Groovy
14 4 (0.31%) Scala
Qualifications
1 166 (12.94%) Security Cleared
2 123 (9.59%) SC Cleared
3 117 (9.12%) Degree
4 45 (3.51%) DV Cleared
5 32 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
6 30 (2.34%) CISSP
7 25 (1.95%) BPSS Clearance
8 24 (1.87%) CISM
9 23 (1.79%) AWS Certification
10 22 (1.71%) Master's Degree
11 17 (1.33%) PMI Certification
12 15 (1.17%) PMP
13 13 (1.01%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (1.01%) CTC Cleared
14 12 (0.94%) Azure Certification
14 12 (0.94%) CRISC
15 10 (0.78%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 10 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
16 8 (0.62%) A+ Certification
16 8 (0.62%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (17.46%) GDPR
2 91 (7.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 78 (6.08%) NIST
4 61 (4.75%) Data Quality
5 48 (3.74%) QA
6 30 (2.34%) PCI DSS
7 28 (2.18%) Accessibility
8 20 (1.56%) GRC
9 19 (1.48%) PMO
10 14 (1.09%) Disclosure Scotland
10 14 (1.09%) NCSC
11 13 (1.01%) SLA
12 11 (0.86%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.78%) PERC
14 8 (0.62%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
16 6 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
16 6 (0.47%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 6 (0.47%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 59 (4.60%) Docker
2 55 (4.29%) Active Directory
3 50 (3.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.17%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.78%) NFS
6 7 (0.55%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.39%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.39%) vSphere
9 3 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.16%) KVM
10 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.078%) Firmware
11 1 (0.078%) HDFS
11 1 (0.078%) IAG
11 1 (0.078%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.078%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.078%) UAG
Systems Management
1 79 (6.16%) Terraform
2 70 (5.46%) Kubernetes
3 54 (4.21%) Ansible
4 28 (2.18%) Microsoft Intune
5 24 (1.87%) Grafana
5 24 (1.87%) NetBackup
6 21 (1.64%) SCCM
7 20 (1.56%) Prometheus
8 9 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.62%) Oracle RMAN
9 8 (0.62%) Puppet
10 6 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (0.47%) RSA Archer
11 5 (0.39%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.31%) Control-M
12 4 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (0.23%) Argo
13 3 (0.23%) Kibana
13 3 (0.23%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 192 (14.96%) Microsoft
2 66 (5.14%) Oracle
3 57 (4.44%) Google
4 52 (4.05%) VMware
5 39 (3.04%) Cisco
5 39 (3.04%) Databricks
6 38 (2.96%) ServiceNow
7 35 (2.73%) SAP
8 30 (2.34%) Salesforce
9 24 (1.87%) Red Hat
10 22 (1.71%) Citrix
11 19 (1.48%) Veritas
12 18 (1.40%) IBM
13 16 (1.25%) Commvault
14 15 (1.17%) F5
15 13 (1.01%) Splunk
16 12 (0.94%) Adobe
17 11 (0.86%) CyberArk
17 11 (0.86%) Informatica
17 11 (0.86%) OneTrust