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 23 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 91 85
Rank change year-on-year +20 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,541 781 1,060
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.17% 2.73% 2.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.76% 3.00% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 850 395 557
10th Percentile £300 £254 £238
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £483 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.45% -3.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £576 £613
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £460
% change year-on-year -5.26% +3.26% -3.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 32 108
10th Percentile £15.23 £15.13 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.72 £27.57 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.24% +31.29% -60.00%
75th Percentile £33.75 £32.73 £27.59
90th Percentile £48.30 £36.95 £41.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £28.32 £19.50
% change year-on-year -24.96% +45.23% -56.21%

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 41,015 26,042 36,506
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.42% 91.03% 86.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,698 16,721 23,544
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £497 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.59% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,419 1,056 2,449
10th Percentile £14.79 £14.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.97 £36.05
Median % change year-on-year +51.98% -22.42% -2.58%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.70 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +76.94% -33.82% +8.57%

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 23 May 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 23 May 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 23 May 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 +25 1,324 £495 +1.54% 408
UK excluding London +13 841 £450 -5.26% 305
London +27 599 £525 +5.00% 162
Work from Home +28 400 £500 +3.90% 172
North of England -3 276 £475 - 78
South East +10 180 £475 -6.82% 70
Yorkshire -11 158 £480 -4.00% 37
Midlands -8 132 £450 -10.00% 58
Scotland +4 122 £425 -7.10% 23
North West +9 110 £489 +15.00% 32
West Midlands -19 89 £468 -10.95% 36
South West +3 68 £425 +6.25% 35
East of England +4 50 £475 -13.64% 19
East Midlands +2 43 £438 +17.06% 22
Wales -5 10 £375 -9.09% 11
North East -37 9 £400 -3.03% 10
Northern Ireland +2 5 £389 -21.04% 15

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 (3.70%) Confluence
2 48 (3.11%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 14 (0.91%) Apache Spark
5 13 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.52%) Apache
7 6 (0.39%) CMS
8 5 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (0.32%) SAS
9 3 (0.19%) Drupal
9 3 (0.19%) IIS
9 3 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.13%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.13%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.13%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 48 (3.11%) Microsoft Office
2 46 (2.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.26%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.19%) UserZoom
8 2 (0.13%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.065%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.065%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.065%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.065%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.065%) Blender
9 1 (0.065%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.065%) Maya
9 1 (0.065%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.065%) Trello
9 1 (0.065%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.78%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.32%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.32%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.19%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.19%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.065%) Odoo
8 1 (0.065%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 313 (20.31%) Azure
2 248 (16.09%) AWS
3 129 (8.37%) GCP
4 95 (6.16%) Microsoft 365
5 83 (5.39%) Entra ID
5 83 (5.39%) Power Platform
6 64 (4.15%) GitHub
6 64 (4.15%) SaaS
7 48 (3.11%) Microsoft Purview
8 47 (3.05%) OpenShift
9 46 (2.99%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (2.73%) Serverless
11 29 (1.88%) AWS Lambda
12 26 (1.69%) Amazon S3
12 26 (1.69%) Microsoft Copilot
13 24 (1.56%) Snowflake
14 22 (1.43%) Amazon ECS
14 22 (1.43%) GitHub Actions
15 21 (1.36%) AWS CloudFormation
15 21 (1.36%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 67 (4.35%) Network Security
2 42 (2.73%) Firewall
3 38 (2.47%) SAN
4 27 (1.75%) VPN
5 26 (1.69%) NAS
6 22 (1.43%) DNS
7 20 (1.30%) TCP/IP
8 19 (1.23%) MPLS
8 19 (1.23%) WAN
9 17 (1.10%) LAN
10 14 (0.91%) DHCP
11 13 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
12 11 (0.71%) Fibre Channel
13 9 (0.58%) iSCSI
13 9 (0.58%) VLAN
14 8 (0.52%) BGP
14 8 (0.52%) HTTP
14 8 (0.52%) SD-WAN
15 7 (0.45%) Cisco Nexus
15 7 (0.45%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.48%) Power BI
2 36 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (2.27%) Metadata
4 33 (2.14%) SQL Server
5 31 (2.01%) Data Warehouse
6 27 (1.75%) MySQL
7 24 (1.56%) MongoDB
7 24 (1.56%) Relational Database
8 20 (1.30%) Amazon RDS
8 20 (1.30%) Big Data
9 19 (1.23%) Data Lake
9 19 (1.23%) NoSQL
10 13 (0.84%) Oracle Database
10 13 (0.84%) Tableau
11 12 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
11 12 (0.78%) DynamoDB
12 11 (0.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 10 (0.65%) Amazon Aurora
13 10 (0.65%) BigQuery
13 10 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 90 (5.84%) JIRA
2 69 (4.48%) Git
3 63 (4.09%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.27%) GitLab
5 12 (0.78%) SpecFlow
6 9 (0.58%) JUnit
7 7 (0.45%) Postman
7 7 (0.45%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.39%) Flyway
8 6 (0.39%) Maven
8 6 (0.39%) NUnit
8 6 (0.39%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.32%) Gradle
10 4 (0.26%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.26%) ERwin
10 4 (0.26%) Selenium
11 3 (0.19%) TestNG
11 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 481 (31.21%) Social Skills
2 356 (23.10%) Finance
3 196 (12.72%) Legal
4 175 (11.36%) Analytical Skills
5 137 (8.89%) Public Sector
6 120 (7.79%) Banking
7 63 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
7 63 (4.09%) Organisational Skills
8 41 (2.66%) Telecoms
9 32 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
10 31 (2.01%) Front Office
11 29 (1.88%) Local Government
12 28 (1.82%) Marketing
13 27 (1.75%) Retail
14 26 (1.69%) Law
15 25 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
16 17 (1.10%) Police
17 15 (0.97%) Pharmaceutical
18 12 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 11 (0.71%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 207 (13.43%) Architect
2 143 (9.28%) Analyst
3 129 (8.37%) Developer
4 114 (7.40%) Lead
5 113 (7.33%) Senior
6 95 (6.16%) Consultant
7 82 (5.32%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.35%) Business Analyst
9 58 (3.76%) Solutions Architect
10 43 (2.79%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.73%) Java Developer
12 40 (2.60%) Network Engineer
12 40 (2.60%) Security Engineer
13 36 (2.34%) Administrator
14 35 (2.27%) Data Engineer
15 28 (1.82%) Technical Architect
16 27 (1.75%) Data Analyst
17 25 (1.62%) Support Engineer
18 22 (1.43%) Python Developer
19 21 (1.36%) Data Protection Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (5.00%) REST
2 59 (3.83%) React
3 37 (2.40%) Spring
4 34 (2.21%) Spring Boot
5 33 (2.14%) Middleware
6 32 (2.08%) RESTful
7 31 (2.01%) .NET
7 31 (2.01%) HTML
7 31 (2.01%) Kafka
8 30 (1.95%) CSS
9 28 (1.82%) OAuth
10 25 (1.62%) JSON
10 25 (1.62%) Node.js
11 21 (1.36%) Jest
12 18 (1.17%) HTML5
12 18 (1.17%) OAuth2
12 18 (1.17%) Redux
13 17 (1.10%) Spring MVC
14 16 (1.04%) OpenID
14 16 (1.04%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 724 (46.98%) Data Protection Act
2 92 (5.97%) Cloud Native
3 76 (4.93%) Product Ownership
4 69 (4.48%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.31%) Management Information System
6 41 (2.66%) Distributed Systems
7 37 (2.40%) Data Centre
7 37 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
8 29 (1.88%) Security Posture
9 28 (1.82%) Replication
10 27 (1.75%) NHS
11 26 (1.69%) Virtual Team
12 24 (1.56%) Hybrid Cloud
13 23 (1.49%) Enterprise Storage
14 22 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
15 21 (1.36%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 20 (1.30%) Freedom of Information
17 17 (1.10%) Derivative
17 17 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
18 16 (1.04%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 106 (6.88%) Windows
2 78 (5.06%) Linux
3 32 (2.08%) Unix
4 23 (1.49%) Windows Server
5 22 (1.43%) Android
6 20 (1.30%) Apple iOS
6 20 (1.30%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.84%) VMS
8 13 (0.84%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.58%) zOS
10 7 (0.45%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.39%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.13%) Rocky
12 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.065%) CentOS
13 1 (0.065%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.065%) Solaris
13 1 (0.065%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 294 (19.08%) Agile
2 258 (16.74%) Stakeholder Management
3 254 (16.48%) Problem-Solving
4 240 (15.57%) Migration
5 227 (14.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 222 (14.41%) CI/CD
7 218 (14.15%) DevOps
8 146 (9.47%) AI
9 142 (9.21%) Roadmaps
9 142 (9.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 140 (9.09%) Analytics
11 127 (8.24%) Decision-Making
12 124 (8.05%) Cybersecurity
13 119 (7.72%) Risk Management
14 113 (7.33%) Information Security
15 107 (6.94%) Infrastructure as Code
16 101 (6.55%) Data Governance
17 99 (6.42%) Test Automation
18 96 (6.23%) Data Modelling
18 96 (6.23%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 217 (14.08%) Python
2 176 (11.42%) SQL
3 129 (8.37%) Java
4 80 (5.19%) JavaScript
5 58 (3.76%) PowerShell
6 46 (2.99%) C#
7 41 (2.66%) Bash
8 36 (2.34%) TypeScript
9 20 (1.30%) Bicep
10 15 (0.97%) C++
11 14 (0.91%) Perl
12 11 (0.71%) Go
13 10 (0.65%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.65%) Kusto Query Language
14 9 (0.58%) PL/SQL
14 9 (0.58%) Shell Script
15 8 (0.52%) ActionScript
15 8 (0.52%) Apex Code
15 8 (0.52%) Scala
16 6 (0.39%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 206 (13.37%) Security Cleared
2 151 (9.80%) SC Cleared
3 131 (8.50%) Degree
4 66 (4.28%) CISSP
5 53 (3.44%) DV Cleared
6 37 (2.40%) CISM
7 33 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
8 29 (1.88%) Azure Certification
8 29 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
8 29 (1.88%) PMI Certification
9 28 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
10 26 (1.69%) PMP
11 21 (1.36%) Master's Degree
12 20 (1.30%) AWS Certification
13 18 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (0.97%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 13 (0.84%) CCSP
16 10 (0.65%) CCNP
16 10 (0.65%) CRISC
16 10 (0.65%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (15.77%) GDPR
2 90 (5.84%) NIST
3 88 (5.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (4.87%) Data Quality
5 63 (4.09%) QA
6 36 (2.34%) Accessibility
7 34 (2.21%) GRC
8 24 (1.56%) PCI DSS
9 21 (1.36%) PMO
10 20 (1.30%) SLA
11 19 (1.23%) SOC 2
12 15 (0.97%) NCSC
13 13 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 10 (0.65%) WCAG
15 9 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
16 8 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
17 7 (0.45%) HIPAA
17 7 (0.45%) PERC
18 6 (0.39%) COBIT
19 5 (0.32%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 77 (5.00%) Active Directory
2 72 (4.67%) Docker
3 52 (3.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.30%) NFS
5 18 (1.17%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (0.71%) vSphere
8 8 (0.52%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.45%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.39%) KVM
11 4 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.26%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.19%) IAG
12 3 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.19%) XenApp
12 3 (0.19%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.13%) GPFS
13 2 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.065%) iptables
Systems Management
1 116 (7.53%) Kubernetes
2 94 (6.10%) Terraform
3 66 (4.28%) Ansible
4 49 (3.18%) Grafana
5 39 (2.53%) Microsoft Intune
6 32 (2.08%) Prometheus
7 30 (1.95%) NetBackup
8 22 (1.43%) SCCM
9 21 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.84%) Puppet
11 11 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 10 (0.65%) Jamf Pro
13 7 (0.45%) Kibana
13 7 (0.45%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.32%) Control-M
14 5 (0.32%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.32%) Tivoli Storage Manager
15 4 (0.26%) CA Single Sign-On
15 4 (0.26%) Foglight
15 4 (0.26%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 251 (16.29%) Microsoft
2 77 (5.00%) Oracle
3 65 (4.22%) Google
4 58 (3.76%) ServiceNow
5 53 (3.44%) VMware
6 52 (3.37%) Databricks
7 49 (3.18%) Cisco
8 42 (2.73%) SAP
9 31 (2.01%) Red Hat
9 31 (2.01%) Splunk
10 26 (1.69%) NetApp
11 25 (1.62%) Veritas
12 24 (1.56%) Salesforce
13 20 (1.30%) Citrix
14 19 (1.23%) IBM
15 15 (0.97%) Commvault
15 15 (0.97%) Workday
16 14 (0.91%) Dell
16 14 (0.91%) F5
16 14 (0.91%) Informatica