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 29 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 95 76
Rank change year-on-year +24 -19 +35
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,296 829 1,193
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.37% 2.63% 2.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.85% 2.96% 3.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 673 415 689
10th Percentile £276 £270 £204
25th Percentile £400 £400 £344
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £594 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £698 £703
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £480 £450
% change year-on-year -6.25% +6.67% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 21 67
10th Percentile £13.22 £16.25 £11.95
25th Percentile £16.59 £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 £20.79 £34.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £42.50 £65.00 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.61 £29.62 £21.00
% change year-on-year -30.42% +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 33,625 28,045 38,284
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.37% 89.09% 87.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,290 17,011 25,209
10th Percentile £305 £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 £640
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £499 £500
% change year-on-year -3.86% -0.15% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,022 880 1,958
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.50
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.85
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.96
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.62% +10.65%
75th Percentile £58.00 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.45 £37.18
% change year-on-year -18.85% -18.10% +39.38%

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 29 January 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 29 January 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 29 January 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 +22 1,106 £500 - 438
UK excluding London +11 680 £450 -6.25% 406
London +23 554 £525 +2.19% 103
Work from Home +20 297 £490 -2.00% 193
North of England -16 201 £450 -5.26% 95
South East +12 151 £490 +0.51% 109
Scotland +12 119 £405 -12.54% 15
Yorkshire -2 110 £475 -11.63% 31
Midlands -2 98 £447 -10.60% 84
North West -23 74 £433 -8.84% 52
West Midlands -6 58 £475 -7.32% 47
South West +3 46 £475 -1.30% 46
East of England +15 45 £314 -37.25% 42
East Midlands +4 40 £437 -3.37% 37
North East -21 18 £400 -11.11% 12
Wales 0 14 £388 -8.82% 17
Northern Ireland - 10 £500 - 8

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 66 (5.09%) Confluence
2 31 (2.39%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.93%) CMS
5 10 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.62%) Apache Spark
7 7 (0.54%) Apache
8 6 (0.46%) nginx
9 5 (0.39%) CICS
10 3 (0.23%) Ethereum
10 3 (0.23%) Hyperledger
10 3 (0.23%) SAS
10 3 (0.23%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.15%) Drupal
11 2 (0.15%) GeoServer
11 2 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 1 (0.077%) Cloud Foundry
12 1 (0.077%) Tomcat
Applications
1 52 (4.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (3.16%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
3 7 (0.54%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.31%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.23%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.23%) Sketch
7 2 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.15%) InVision
7 2 (0.15%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.077%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.077%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.077%) Blender
8 1 (0.077%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.077%) Final Cut Pro
8 1 (0.077%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 12 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.85%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (0.69%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.31%) VisionPLUS
5 3 (0.23%) Distributed Ledger
5 3 (0.23%) Fidessa
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
6 2 (0.15%) assyst
6 2 (0.15%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.077%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 240 (18.52%) Azure
2 209 (16.13%) AWS
3 95 (7.33%) GCP
4 75 (5.79%) Power Platform
5 67 (5.17%) Microsoft 365
6 59 (4.55%) Serverless
7 54 (4.17%) Entra ID
7 54 (4.17%) GitHub
8 46 (3.55%) AWS Lambda
8 46 (3.55%) Azure DevOps
9 42 (3.24%) SaaS
10 38 (2.93%) Amazon S3
11 31 (2.39%) Snowflake
12 29 (2.24%) Power Automate
13 27 (2.08%) AWS CloudFormation
14 23 (1.77%) GitHub Actions
15 21 (1.62%) Microsoft Purview
15 21 (1.62%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 19 (1.47%) Azure AKS
16 19 (1.47%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 47 (3.63%) Firewall
2 33 (2.55%) Network Security
3 22 (1.70%) SAN
4 19 (1.47%) MPLS
5 18 (1.39%) LAN
6 16 (1.23%) DNS
7 15 (1.16%) NAS
7 15 (1.16%) VPN
7 15 (1.16%) WAN
8 14 (1.08%) Cisco IPT
9 13 (1.00%) TCP/IP
10 11 (0.85%) SSH
11 9 (0.69%) BGP
11 9 (0.69%) SD-WAN
11 9 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
12 8 (0.62%) Internet
12 8 (0.62%) VLAN
13 7 (0.54%) DHCP
13 7 (0.54%) HTTP
13 7 (0.54%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (4.55%) Power BI
2 38 (2.93%) SQL Server
3 35 (2.70%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.70%) Data Warehouse
4 22 (1.70%) NoSQL
4 22 (1.70%) Relational Database
5 20 (1.54%) Metadata
6 16 (1.23%) MySQL
7 15 (1.16%) MongoDB
8 14 (1.08%) DynamoDB
8 14 (1.08%) Tableau
9 13 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
10 12 (0.93%) Amazon Aurora
10 12 (0.93%) Oracle Reports
11 11 (0.85%) Data Lake
12 9 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.62%) Hadoop
13 8 (0.62%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 8 (0.62%) Oracle Database
14 7 (0.54%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 112 (8.64%) JIRA
2 51 (3.94%) Git
3 50 (3.86%) Jenkins
4 33 (2.55%) GitLab
5 11 (0.85%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.77%) JUnit
7 6 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.39%) Gradle
8 5 (0.39%) Maven
8 5 (0.39%) NUnit
9 4 (0.31%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.31%) ChangeMan
9 4 (0.31%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.31%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.31%) Fiddler
9 4 (0.31%) Team Foundation Server
10 3 (0.23%) Postman
10 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio
11 2 (0.15%) IntelliJ
11 2 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
General
1 430 (33.18%) Social Skills
2 269 (20.76%) Finance
3 171 (13.19%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (10.34%) Public Sector
5 110 (8.49%) Banking
6 94 (7.25%) Legal
7 46 (3.55%) Organisational Skills
8 39 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
9 36 (2.78%) Telecoms
10 34 (2.62%) Marketing
11 30 (2.31%) Influencing Skills
12 23 (1.77%) Law
13 22 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
14 21 (1.62%) Manufacturing
15 20 (1.54%) Front Office
16 18 (1.39%) Local Government
17 14 (1.08%) Retail
18 12 (0.93%) Financial Institution
19 11 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 11 (0.85%) Police
Job Titles
1 163 (12.58%) Analyst
2 144 (11.11%) Developer
3 130 (10.03%) Architect
4 92 (7.10%) Lead
5 71 (5.48%) Business Analyst
6 66 (5.09%) Senior
7 64 (4.94%) Consultant
8 63 (4.86%) Project Manager
9 41 (3.16%) Solutions Architect
10 36 (2.78%) Administrator
11 35 (2.70%) Security Engineer
12 31 (2.39%) Data Engineer
13 29 (2.24%) Data Analyst
14 26 (2.01%) Automation Engineer
15 24 (1.85%) Network Engineer
16 22 (1.70%) Data Protection Officer
16 22 (1.70%) Security Architect
17 21 (1.62%) Support Engineer
18 20 (1.54%) Java Developer
19 19 (1.47%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (4.94%) REST
2 40 (3.09%) React
3 36 (2.78%) .NET
4 33 (2.55%) Node.js
4 33 (2.55%) RESTful
5 28 (2.16%) OAuth
6 25 (1.93%) Spring
7 23 (1.77%) Kafka
8 21 (1.62%) Spring Boot
9 20 (1.54%) HTML
9 20 (1.54%) SOAP
10 19 (1.47%) Middleware
11 15 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
12 14 (1.08%) .NET Core
12 14 (1.08%) OAuth2
12 14 (1.08%) Playwright
12 14 (1.08%) PySpark
13 13 (1.00%) AngularJS
13 13 (1.00%) SAML
13 13 (1.00%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 651 (50.23%) Data Protection Act
2 59 (4.55%) Cloud Native
3 56 (4.32%) Product Ownership
4 55 (4.24%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.94%) Management Information System
6 30 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
6 30 (2.31%) NHS
7 25 (1.93%) Freedom of Information
8 24 (1.85%) Data Structures
9 20 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
9 20 (1.54%) Security Posture
10 19 (1.47%) Data Centre
11 17 (1.31%) CMDB
11 17 (1.31%) Replication
12 16 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 16 (1.23%) Virtual Team
13 13 (1.00%) Derivative
13 13 (1.00%) Driving Licence
13 13 (1.00%) Insider Threat
14 12 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 96 (7.41%) Windows
2 67 (5.17%) Linux
3 28 (2.16%) Unix
4 17 (1.31%) Windows Server
5 16 (1.23%) Mac OS
6 13 (1.00%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.77%) zOS
8 8 (0.62%) Android
8 8 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.46%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.39%) Solaris
10 5 (0.39%) VMS
11 4 (0.31%) AIX
12 1 (0.077%) CentOS
12 1 (0.077%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.077%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.077%) VME
12 1 (0.077%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 237 (18.29%) Agile
2 236 (18.21%) Problem-Solving
3 214 (16.51%) Stakeholder Management
4 171 (13.19%) Migration
5 170 (13.12%) CI/CD
6 169 (13.04%) DevOps
7 133 (10.26%) Cybersecurity
8 132 (10.19%) Continuous Improvement
9 126 (9.72%) Analytics
10 121 (9.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 116 (8.95%) AI
11 116 (8.95%) Roadmaps
12 108 (8.33%) Project Management
13 106 (8.18%) Information Security
14 100 (7.72%) Risk Management
15 85 (6.56%) Microservices
16 82 (6.33%) Test Automation
17 79 (6.10%) Business Intelligence
18 77 (5.94%) Incident Response
19 75 (5.79%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 226 (17.44%) Python
2 163 (12.58%) SQL
3 87 (6.71%) Java
4 65 (5.02%) JavaScript
5 64 (4.94%) PowerShell
6 53 (4.09%) C#
7 48 (3.70%) Bash
8 33 (2.55%) TypeScript
9 16 (1.23%) Bicep
10 14 (1.08%) C++
11 13 (1.00%) Shell Script
12 11 (0.85%) Perl
13 7 (0.54%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.46%) PHP
15 5 (0.39%) ActionScript
15 5 (0.39%) ActionScript 2.0
15 5 (0.39%) COBOL
15 5 (0.39%) Scala
16 4 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
16 4 (0.31%) R
Qualifications
1 166 (12.81%) Security Cleared
2 124 (9.57%) SC Cleared
3 119 (9.18%) Degree
4 42 (3.24%) DV Cleared
5 37 (2.85%) Computer Science Degree
6 29 (2.24%) CISSP
7 24 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
8 23 (1.77%) CISM
9 21 (1.62%) AWS Certification
9 21 (1.62%) Master's Degree
10 19 (1.47%) PMI Certification
11 17 (1.31%) PMP
12 16 (1.23%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (1.00%) Azure Certification
13 13 (1.00%) CTC Cleared
14 12 (0.93%) CRISC
15 10 (0.77%) A+ Certification
15 10 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
16 9 (0.69%) CCNP
16 9 (0.69%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 211 (16.28%) GDPR
2 91 (7.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 77 (5.94%) NIST
4 53 (4.09%) Data Quality
5 42 (3.24%) QA
6 31 (2.39%) PCI DSS
7 27 (2.08%) Accessibility
8 19 (1.47%) GRC
8 19 (1.47%) PMO
9 14 (1.08%) NCSC
10 13 (1.00%) Disclosure Scotland
10 13 (1.00%) SLA
11 12 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 11 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
12 11 (0.85%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.85%) PERC
13 8 (0.62%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 6 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 6 (0.46%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 62 (4.78%) Docker
2 58 (4.48%) Active Directory
3 49 (3.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.23%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (0.62%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.62%) NFS
6 5 (0.39%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.23%) KVM
9 2 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.077%) Firmware
10 1 (0.077%) HDFS
10 1 (0.077%) ISA Server
10 1 (0.077%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.077%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.077%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.077%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 77 (5.94%) Terraform
2 67 (5.17%) Kubernetes
3 61 (4.71%) Ansible
4 27 (2.08%) Microsoft Intune
4 27 (2.08%) NetBackup
5 24 (1.85%) Grafana
6 22 (1.70%) SCCM
7 20 (1.54%) Prometheus
8 9 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.62%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.54%) Puppet
11 6 (0.46%) RSA Archer
12 5 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.39%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.31%) CA Endevor
13 4 (0.31%) Control-M
13 4 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
13 4 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
14 3 (0.23%) Data Guard
14 3 (0.23%) Kibana
Vendors
1 201 (15.51%) Microsoft
2 63 (4.86%) Oracle
3 59 (4.55%) Google
4 51 (3.94%) VMware
5 39 (3.01%) Cisco
6 38 (2.93%) ServiceNow
7 36 (2.78%) Databricks
8 35 (2.70%) SAP
9 33 (2.55%) Salesforce
10 24 (1.85%) Red Hat
11 23 (1.77%) Citrix
11 23 (1.77%) Veritas
12 21 (1.62%) IBM
13 19 (1.47%) F5
14 18 (1.39%) Commvault
15 14 (1.08%) Splunk
16 12 (0.93%) Adobe
17 11 (0.85%) OneTrust
17 11 (0.85%) Veeam
18 10 (0.77%) Workday