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 12 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 89 89
Rank change year-on-year +18 0 +7
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,578 819 1,037
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.16% 2.78% 2.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.72% 3.06% 2.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 870 406 545
10th Percentile £300 £263 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.71% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £592 £600
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 34 108
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.78 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.56 £15.13 £16.06
Median hourly rate £22.27 £22.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.20% +4.76% -52.84%
75th Percentile £33.75 £32.32 £27.59
90th Percentile £44.30 £36.84 £41.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.35 £17.38 £19.50
% change year-on-year +22.88% -10.90% -38.10%

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 42,365 26,787 37,171
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.77% 91.01% 85.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,429 17,005 23,768
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,540 1,187 2,585
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.21 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.56% -25.45% +4.20%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +15.02%

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 12 June 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 12 June 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 12 June 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 1,345 £500 - 381
UK excluding London +20 863 £450 -5.26% 290
London +26 610 £525 +5.00% 141
Work from Home +24 423 £500 +5.26% 226
North of England +7 285 £475 - 82
South East +13 187 £478 -9.05% 76
Yorkshire -9 156 £475 -9.52% 28
Scotland +3 131 £425 -5.56% 17
Midlands -11 131 £450 -10.00% 54
North West +25 120 £481 +6.35% 44
West Midlands -19 91 £473 -9.90% 33
South West +7 67 £418 +4.38% 42
East of England +11 45 £488 -7.14% 22
East Midlands +2 40 £438 +17.45% 21
Wales -10 11 £363 +22.36% 5
Northern Ireland +6 9 £104 -78.86% 1
North East -43 9 £425 +3.03% 10

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 57 (3.61%) Confluence
1 57 (3.61%) SharePoint
2 26 (1.65%) Microsoft Exchange
3 17 (1.08%) Apache Spark
4 15 (0.95%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.51%) Apache
6 5 (0.32%) CMS
6 5 (0.32%) IIS
6 5 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 5 (0.32%) Tuxedo
7 4 (0.25%) SAS
8 3 (0.19%) nginx
9 2 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.13%) Drupal
9 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
9 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.13%) NetWeaver
9 2 (0.13%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
9 2 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 45 (2.85%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.25%) UserZoom
7 3 (0.19%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.063%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.063%) Maya
9 1 (0.063%) Trello
9 1 (0.063%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.57%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.32%) NEC Housing
3 5 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
3 5 (0.32%) SAP GRC
4 4 (0.25%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.19%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.19%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.13%) R3 Corda
6 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.13%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 336 (21.29%) Azure
2 263 (16.67%) AWS
3 127 (8.05%) GCP
4 103 (6.53%) Microsoft 365
5 83 (5.26%) Entra ID
6 81 (5.13%) Power Platform
7 67 (4.25%) GitHub
8 61 (3.87%) SaaS
9 49 (3.11%) Microsoft Purview
10 44 (2.79%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (2.72%) OpenShift
12 33 (2.09%) Serverless
13 28 (1.77%) Microsoft Copilot
14 25 (1.58%) OneDrive
15 24 (1.52%) AWS Lambda
16 23 (1.46%) Power Automate
16 23 (1.46%) Snowflake
17 22 (1.39%) Amazon S3
18 21 (1.33%) AWS CloudFormation
19 20 (1.27%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 79 (5.01%) Network Security
2 47 (2.98%) Firewall
3 33 (2.09%) SAN
4 30 (1.90%) VPN
5 27 (1.71%) DNS
6 26 (1.65%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.33%) NAS
8 20 (1.27%) WAN
9 19 (1.20%) DHCP
10 17 (1.08%) MPLS
11 15 (0.95%) LAN
12 13 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
13 9 (0.57%) HTTP
13 9 (0.57%) SSL
13 9 (0.57%) VLAN
14 8 (0.51%) Wireless
15 7 (0.44%) BGP
15 7 (0.44%) Ethernet
15 7 (0.44%) HTTPS
15 7 (0.44%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (4.12%) Power BI
2 40 (2.53%) SQL Server
3 38 (2.41%) Metadata
3 38 (2.41%) PostgreSQL
4 26 (1.65%) Data Warehouse
5 25 (1.58%) Relational Database
6 24 (1.52%) MySQL
7 22 (1.39%) MongoDB
8 21 (1.33%) Data Lake
9 19 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
9 19 (1.20%) Big Data
9 19 (1.20%) NoSQL
10 13 (0.82%) DynamoDB
10 13 (0.82%) Oracle Database
11 11 (0.70%) Tableau
12 10 (0.63%) BigQuery
12 10 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
12 10 (0.63%) RDBMS
13 8 (0.51%) Ingres
13 8 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 98 (6.21%) JIRA
2 75 (4.75%) Git
3 63 (3.99%) Jenkins
4 39 (2.47%) GitLab
5 9 (0.57%) Team Foundation Server
6 8 (0.51%) JUnit
6 8 (0.51%) Postman
6 8 (0.51%) SpecFlow
7 7 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
7 7 (0.44%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.38%) Flyway
8 6 (0.38%) Maven
9 5 (0.32%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.32%) ERwin
9 5 (0.32%) Gradle
10 4 (0.25%) Selenium
11 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.19%) TestNG
11 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 512 (32.45%) Social Skills
2 362 (22.94%) Finance
3 215 (13.62%) Legal
4 178 (11.28%) Analytical Skills
5 153 (9.70%) Public Sector
6 119 (7.54%) Banking
7 65 (4.12%) Documentation Skills
8 58 (3.68%) Organisational Skills
9 38 (2.41%) Telecoms
10 30 (1.90%) Influencing Skills
10 30 (1.90%) Local Government
11 29 (1.84%) Front Office
11 29 (1.84%) Law
12 28 (1.77%) Retail
13 26 (1.65%) Presentation Skills
14 24 (1.52%) Marketing
15 20 (1.27%) Pharmaceutical
15 20 (1.27%) Police
16 13 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 12 (0.76%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 211 (13.37%) Architect
2 144 (9.13%) Analyst
3 125 (7.92%) Developer
4 116 (7.35%) Lead
5 115 (7.29%) Senior
6 95 (6.02%) Consultant
7 86 (5.45%) Project Manager
8 68 (4.31%) Business Analyst
9 61 (3.87%) Solutions Architect
10 45 (2.85%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.66%) Network Engineer
12 41 (2.60%) Java Developer
13 40 (2.53%) Data Engineer
14 38 (2.41%) Security Engineer
15 33 (2.09%) Administrator
16 26 (1.65%) Support Engineer
16 26 (1.65%) Technical Architect
17 25 (1.58%) Data Analyst
18 24 (1.52%) IT Support
19 22 (1.39%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (5.07%) REST
2 56 (3.55%) React
3 39 (2.47%) Spring
4 35 (2.22%) Spring Boot
5 31 (1.96%) HTML
5 31 (1.96%) Kafka
5 31 (1.96%) Middleware
6 30 (1.90%) CSS
6 30 (1.90%) RESTful
7 26 (1.65%) JSON
7 26 (1.65%) OAuth
8 24 (1.52%) .NET
9 21 (1.33%) Node.js
10 20 (1.27%) Jest
11 18 (1.14%) HTML5
11 18 (1.14%) PySpark
12 17 (1.08%) OpenID
12 17 (1.08%) Redux
12 17 (1.08%) Spring MVC
13 16 (1.01%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 726 (46.01%) Data Protection Act
2 91 (5.77%) Cloud Native
3 79 (5.01%) Product Ownership
4 74 (4.69%) Onboarding
5 54 (3.42%) Management Information System
6 43 (2.72%) Data Centre
6 43 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
7 40 (2.53%) Distributed Systems
8 32 (2.03%) Security Posture
9 29 (1.84%) Virtual Team
10 27 (1.71%) NHS
11 23 (1.46%) Hybrid Cloud
12 21 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 21 (1.33%) Replication
12 21 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
13 19 (1.20%) Operational Technology
14 18 (1.14%) Enterprise Storage
15 16 (1.01%) Data Structures
15 16 (1.01%) Enterprise Software
15 16 (1.01%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 119 (7.54%) Windows
2 79 (5.01%) Linux
3 34 (2.15%) Unix
4 24 (1.52%) Android
4 24 (1.52%) Windows Server
5 23 (1.46%) Apple iOS
6 21 (1.33%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.76%) VMS
9 9 (0.57%) Windows 10
10 7 (0.44%) zOS
11 6 (0.38%) CoreOS
11 6 (0.38%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.13%) Rocky
12 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.063%) CentOS
13 1 (0.063%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.063%) Solaris
13 1 (0.063%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 303 (19.20%) Agile
2 271 (17.17%) Problem-Solving
3 255 (16.16%) Stakeholder Management
4 240 (15.21%) Migration
5 237 (15.02%) Continuous Improvement
6 224 (14.20%) CI/CD
7 217 (13.75%) DevOps
8 167 (10.58%) AI
9 153 (9.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 140 (8.87%) Cybersecurity
11 136 (8.62%) Roadmaps
12 135 (8.56%) Analytics
13 130 (8.24%) Decision-Making
14 121 (7.67%) Risk Management
15 118 (7.48%) Information Security
16 109 (6.91%) Validation
17 106 (6.72%) Data Governance
18 104 (6.59%) Infrastructure as Code
19 99 (6.27%) Test Automation
20 98 (6.21%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 220 (13.94%) Python
2 173 (10.96%) SQL
3 137 (8.68%) Java
4 71 (4.50%) JavaScript
5 53 (3.36%) PowerShell
6 37 (2.34%) Bash
6 37 (2.34%) C#
7 30 (1.90%) TypeScript
8 17 (1.08%) Bicep
9 15 (0.95%) Perl
10 14 (0.89%) C++
11 12 (0.76%) Go
12 11 (0.70%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.63%) Apex Code
13 10 (0.63%) Kusto Query Language
14 9 (0.57%) Shell Script
15 8 (0.51%) ActionScript
15 8 (0.51%) VB
16 7 (0.44%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.44%) VB6
Qualifications
1 216 (13.69%) Security Cleared
2 160 (10.14%) SC Cleared
3 138 (8.75%) Degree
4 73 (4.63%) CISSP
5 51 (3.23%) DV Cleared
6 40 (2.53%) CISM
7 34 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
8 32 (2.03%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (1.96%) PMI Certification
10 28 (1.77%) Azure Certification
11 27 (1.71%) BPSS Clearance
11 27 (1.71%) PMP
12 22 (1.39%) AWS Certification
12 22 (1.39%) Master's Degree
13 18 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (1.08%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 15 (0.95%) CCSP
16 12 (0.76%) CRISC
17 10 (0.63%) CCNP
18 9 (0.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 248 (15.72%) GDPR
2 89 (5.64%) Data Quality
2 89 (5.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 89 (5.64%) NIST
3 71 (4.50%) QA
4 41 (2.60%) GRC
5 39 (2.47%) Accessibility
6 27 (1.71%) PCI DSS
7 21 (1.33%) PMO
8 20 (1.27%) SOC 2
9 19 (1.20%) SLA
10 17 (1.08%) NCSC
11 15 (0.95%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 10 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
12 10 (0.63%) WCAG
13 9 (0.57%) HIPAA
14 8 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
15 7 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
16 6 (0.38%) COBIT
17 5 (0.32%) NIST 800
System Software
1 76 (4.82%) Active Directory
2 66 (4.18%) Docker
3 52 (3.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.27%) Virtual Desktop
5 14 (0.89%) NFS
6 13 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.76%) vSphere
8 10 (0.63%) Hyper-V
9 8 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
10 7 (0.44%) VMware NSX
11 6 (0.38%) KVM
12 4 (0.25%) Time Sharing Option
13 3 (0.19%) IAG
13 3 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
13 3 (0.19%) XenApp
13 3 (0.19%) XenDesktop
14 2 (0.13%) GPFS
14 2 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.063%) iptables
Systems Management
1 113 (7.16%) Kubernetes
2 86 (5.45%) Terraform
3 67 (4.25%) Ansible
4 46 (2.92%) Grafana
5 38 (2.41%) Microsoft Intune
6 31 (1.96%) NetBackup
6 31 (1.96%) Prometheus
7 20 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (1.08%) SCCM
9 14 (0.89%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.82%) Puppet
11 12 (0.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.44%) Kibana
13 6 (0.38%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.32%) Control-M
14 5 (0.32%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.25%) CA Single Sign-On
15 4 (0.25%) Foglight
15 4 (0.25%) Progress Chef
15 4 (0.25%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 258 (16.35%) Microsoft
2 82 (5.20%) Oracle
3 67 (4.25%) ServiceNow
4 59 (3.74%) Google
5 54 (3.42%) Databricks
6 53 (3.36%) VMware
7 52 (3.30%) Cisco
8 41 (2.60%) SAP
9 34 (2.15%) Splunk
10 31 (1.96%) Red Hat
11 26 (1.65%) Veritas
12 25 (1.58%) Salesforce
13 20 (1.27%) NetApp
14 18 (1.14%) Citrix
15 17 (1.08%) Workday
15 17 (1.08%) Zscaler
16 16 (1.01%) Commvault
17 15 (0.95%) F5
18 14 (0.89%) Informatica
19 13 (0.82%) Dell