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 5 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 74 86 83
Rank change year-on-year +12 -3 +23
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,248 984 1,196
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.42% 2.72% 2.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.84% 3.12% 3.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 618 520 700
10th Percentile £304 £262 £213
25th Percentile £400 £388 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.26%
75th Percentile £600 £609 £600
90th Percentile £675 £725 £715
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -12.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 20 14
10th Percentile £12.63 £16.23 £17.24
25th Percentile £14.66 £19.22 £18.06
Median hourly rate £20.40 £24.50 £22.12
Median % change year-on-year -16.73% +10.76% -57.87%
75th Percentile £20.78 £29.42 £37.25
90th Percentile £40.46 £37.96 £44.23
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.40 £24.50 £19.50
% change year-on-year -16.73% +25.64% -72.14%

All Process and 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 32,500 31,582 39,830
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.05% 87.42% 88.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,460 19,152 26,649
10th Percentile £300 £310 £312
25th Percentile £405 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £743 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,092 1,104 1,551
10th Percentile £14.54 £15.25 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.23 £18.95
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.75 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.21% -22.94% +21.43%
75th Percentile £45.53 £63.51 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.93 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.85 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.71% -23.53% +30.77%

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025. 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 +15 1,065 £500 - 348
UK excluding London -2 644 £450 -10.00% 311
London +23 543 £525 +5.00% 104
Work from Home +9 294 £490 -2.00% 164
North of England -16 183 £450 -7.22% 48
South East +16 151 £506 -1.22% 110
Scotland +2 104 £400 -15.79% 10
Midlands +16 93 £450 -12.20% 64
Yorkshire -1 90 £500 - 16
North West -20 73 £425 -11.46% 29
West Midlands +6 67 £475 -7.32% 39
South West 0 47 £525 -22.22% 57
East of England -4 34 £463 +5.71% 17
East Midlands +6 26 £402 -11.06% 24
North East -11 21 £419 -1.47% 3
Wales -1 17 £400 +31.15% 9
Northern Ireland - 16 £500 - 1
Channel Islands -2 2 £725 -

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 65 (5.21%) Confluence
2 34 (2.72%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.96%) CMS
5 11 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.64%) Apache
7 7 (0.56%) Apache Spark
8 6 (0.48%) nginx
9 5 (0.40%) CICS
10 3 (0.24%) SAS
11 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 1 (0.080%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.080%) Cloud Foundry
12 1 (0.080%) Ethereum
12 1 (0.080%) Hyperledger
12 1 (0.080%) Luigi
12 1 (0.080%) OpenEdge
12 1 (0.080%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.080%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 61 (4.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (2.80%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.80%) Chatbot
4 9 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.48%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.24%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.24%) 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 (0.080%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.080%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.080%) Blender
9 1 (0.080%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.080%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.080%) SPSS
9 1 (0.080%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (0.88%) Oracle EBS
2 10 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.40%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.32%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.32%) VisionPLUS
6 3 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
6 3 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.16%) assyst
7 2 (0.16%) Fidessa
7 2 (0.16%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.080%) CA PPM
8 1 (0.080%) Endur
8 1 (0.080%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
8 1 (0.080%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.080%) Oracle Financials
8 1 (0.080%) Remedy ITSM
8 1 (0.080%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 255 (20.43%) Azure
2 233 (18.67%) AWS
3 99 (7.93%) GCP
4 74 (5.93%) Power Platform
5 67 (5.37%) Microsoft 365
6 51 (4.09%) GitHub
6 51 (4.09%) Serverless
7 42 (3.37%) Entra ID
8 41 (3.29%) AWS Lambda
9 40 (3.21%) Amazon S3
9 40 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
10 36 (2.88%) SaaS
11 28 (2.24%) Power Automate
12 27 (2.16%) AWS CloudFormation
13 25 (2.00%) Snowflake
14 21 (1.68%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 20 (1.60%) Azure Monitor
15 20 (1.60%) Microsoft Purview
16 19 (1.52%) Amazon EC2
16 19 (1.52%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 53 (4.25%) Firewall
2 32 (2.56%) Network Security
3 17 (1.36%) DNS
4 15 (1.20%) VPN
4 15 (1.20%) WAN
5 14 (1.12%) SSH
6 13 (1.04%) Cisco IPT
6 13 (1.04%) MPLS
7 12 (0.96%) LAN
8 10 (0.80%) DHCP
8 10 (0.80%) HTTP
8 10 (0.80%) SAN
9 9 (0.72%) BGP
9 9 (0.72%) SD-WAN
10 8 (0.64%) Wireshark
11 7 (0.56%) TCP/IP
11 7 (0.56%) Wireless
12 6 (0.48%) Internet
12 6 (0.48%) iSCSI
12 6 (0.48%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (4.57%) Power BI
2 39 (3.13%) SQL Server
3 33 (2.64%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.92%) NoSQL
4 24 (1.92%) Relational Database
5 19 (1.52%) Tableau
6 18 (1.44%) Amazon RDS
7 16 (1.28%) Data Warehouse
7 16 (1.28%) Metadata
8 14 (1.12%) MongoDB
9 12 (0.96%) Amazon Aurora
9 12 (0.96%) Data Lake
9 12 (0.96%) MySQL
10 11 (0.88%) DynamoDB
11 10 (0.80%) Amazon Athena
12 9 (0.72%) Oracle Database
12 9 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.64%) Big Data
14 7 (0.56%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.56%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 112 (8.97%) JIRA
2 41 (3.29%) Git
3 37 (2.96%) Jenkins
4 33 (2.64%) GitLab
5 8 (0.64%) JUnit
6 7 (0.56%) Postman
7 6 (0.48%) SpecFlow
8 5 (0.40%) Fiddler
9 4 (0.32%) ChangeMan
9 4 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.32%) Gradle
9 4 (0.32%) Metasploit
9 4 (0.32%) NUnit
9 4 (0.32%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.24%) Burp Suite
10 3 (0.24%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.24%) Maven
10 3 (0.24%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 427 (34.21%) Social Skills
2 251 (20.11%) Finance
3 152 (12.18%) Analytical Skills
4 126 (10.10%) Public Sector
5 100 (8.01%) Banking
6 92 (7.37%) Legal
7 37 (2.96%) Marketing
8 36 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
9 34 (2.72%) Organisational Skills
10 30 (2.40%) Influencing Skills
11 29 (2.32%) Telecoms
12 23 (1.84%) Law
12 23 (1.84%) Manufacturing
13 18 (1.44%) Front Office
14 17 (1.36%) Presentation Skills
15 15 (1.20%) Financial Institution
15 15 (1.20%) Local Government
15 15 (1.20%) Retail
16 12 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 11 (0.88%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 178 (14.26%) Analyst
2 131 (10.50%) Developer
3 125 (10.02%) Architect
4 86 (6.89%) Lead
5 73 (5.85%) Business Analyst
6 62 (4.97%) Senior
7 60 (4.81%) Consultant
8 52 (4.17%) Project Manager
9 39 (3.13%) Data Analyst
10 38 (3.04%) Administrator
11 37 (2.96%) Security Engineer
12 36 (2.88%) Solutions Architect
13 29 (2.32%) Data Engineer
14 25 (2.00%) Security Architect
14 25 (2.00%) Support Engineer
15 21 (1.68%) Data Protection Officer
16 20 (1.60%) Automation Engineer
16 20 (1.60%) Information Officer
17 19 (1.52%) Information Governance Officer
17 19 (1.52%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (4.25%) REST
2 33 (2.64%) RESTful
3 30 (2.40%) .NET
4 29 (2.32%) React
5 28 (2.24%) OAuth
6 24 (1.92%) Node.js
6 24 (1.92%) SOAP
7 22 (1.76%) HTML
7 22 (1.76%) Spring
8 21 (1.68%) Kafka
9 16 (1.28%) Middleware
10 14 (1.12%) AngularJS
11 13 (1.04%) JSON
11 13 (1.04%) LangChain
11 13 (1.04%) Spring Boot
12 12 (0.96%) .NET Core
12 12 (0.96%) OAuth2
13 11 (0.88%) SAML
13 11 (0.88%) XML
14 9 (0.72%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 643 (51.52%) Data Protection Act
2 49 (3.93%) Product Ownership
3 48 (3.85%) Cloud Native
3 48 (3.85%) Onboarding
4 45 (3.61%) Management Information System
5 32 (2.56%) Freedom of Information
6 29 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
7 25 (2.00%) NHS
8 23 (1.84%) Data Centre
9 22 (1.76%) Data Structures
9 22 (1.76%) Security Posture
10 20 (1.60%) Replication
11 19 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
11 19 (1.52%) Virtual Team
12 16 (1.28%) CMDB
13 15 (1.20%) Public Cloud
14 13 (1.04%) Derivative
14 13 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
14 13 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
14 13 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 87 (6.97%) Windows
2 57 (4.57%) Linux
3 19 (1.52%) Unix
4 13 (1.04%) Mac OS
4 13 (1.04%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.72%) Android
5 9 (0.72%) Windows 10
6 8 (0.64%) zOS
7 6 (0.48%) AIX
7 6 (0.48%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.48%) Solaris
8 5 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.40%) VMS
9 2 (0.16%) CentOS
9 2 (0.16%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.080%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.080%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 216 (17.31%) Problem-Solving
2 203 (16.27%) Agile
3 178 (14.26%) Stakeholder Management
4 169 (13.54%) DevOps
5 162 (12.98%) CI/CD
6 151 (12.10%) Migration
7 142 (11.38%) Cybersecurity
8 133 (10.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 112 (8.97%) AI
10 111 (8.89%) Analytics
11 104 (8.33%) Continuous Improvement
12 102 (8.17%) Project Management
13 96 (7.69%) Information Security
13 96 (7.69%) Roadmaps
14 93 (7.45%) Risk Management
15 78 (6.25%) Microservices
16 75 (6.01%) Data Governance
17 74 (5.93%) Business Intelligence
17 74 (5.93%) Test Automation
18 71 (5.69%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 231 (18.51%) Python
2 155 (12.42%) SQL
3 66 (5.29%) Java
4 61 (4.89%) PowerShell
5 59 (4.73%) Bash
5 59 (4.73%) JavaScript
6 44 (3.53%) C#
7 28 (2.24%) TypeScript
8 13 (1.04%) C++
9 11 (0.88%) Go
10 8 (0.64%) PHP
10 8 (0.64%) PromQL
10 8 (0.64%) Shell Script
11 7 (0.56%) R
12 6 (0.48%) Kotlin
12 6 (0.48%) Perl
12 6 (0.48%) PL/SQL
13 5 (0.40%) Bicep
13 5 (0.40%) COBOL
14 4 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 144 (11.54%) Security Cleared
2 114 (9.13%) Degree
3 103 (8.25%) SC Cleared
4 44 (3.53%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (2.48%) DV Cleared
6 28 (2.24%) AWS Certification
7 26 (2.08%) CISSP
8 22 (1.76%) CISM
9 18 (1.44%) Cisco Certification
10 15 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
10 15 (1.20%) Master's Degree
11 13 (1.04%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 13 (1.04%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (0.88%) Azure Certification
12 11 (0.88%) CCNP
12 11 (0.88%) CISA
12 11 (0.88%) PMI Certification
12 11 (0.88%) PMP
13 10 (0.80%) A+ Certification
14 8 (0.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 227 (18.19%) GDPR
2 84 (6.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 72 (5.77%) NIST
4 48 (3.85%) Data Quality
4 48 (3.85%) QA
5 24 (1.92%) PCI DSS
6 22 (1.76%) Accessibility
6 22 (1.76%) Cyber Essentials
7 20 (1.60%) GRC
8 19 (1.52%) PMO
9 17 (1.36%) NCSC
10 15 (1.20%) PERC
11 11 (0.88%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 11 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 11 (0.88%) NIST 800
12 9 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
12 9 (0.72%) Disclosure Scotland
12 9 (0.72%) EU AI Act
12 9 (0.72%) SLA
13 8 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 56 (4.49%) Docker
2 54 (4.33%) Active Directory
3 43 (3.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.04%) Virtual Desktop
5 7 (0.56%) NFS
6 6 (0.48%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.24%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.24%) vSphere
9 2 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.080%) Firmware
10 1 (0.080%) HDFS
10 1 (0.080%) ISA Server
10 1 (0.080%) KVM
10 1 (0.080%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 1 (0.080%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.080%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 66 (5.29%) Terraform
2 58 (4.65%) Kubernetes
3 42 (3.37%) Ansible
4 25 (2.00%) NetBackup
5 24 (1.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 21 (1.68%) Grafana
6 21 (1.68%) Prometheus
7 19 (1.52%) SCCM
8 11 (0.88%) Oracle RMAN
9 8 (0.64%) Puppet
10 6 (0.48%) RSA Archer
11 5 (0.40%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.32%) CA Endevor
12 4 (0.32%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
12 4 (0.32%) Kibana
13 3 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.24%) Data Guard
13 3 (0.24%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.24%) Nmap
Vendors
1 196 (15.71%) Microsoft
2 55 (4.41%) Google
3 47 (3.77%) Oracle
3 47 (3.77%) VMware
4 42 (3.37%) Cisco
5 37 (2.96%) ServiceNow
6 36 (2.88%) Salesforce
7 29 (2.32%) SAP
8 28 (2.24%) IBM
9 27 (2.16%) Databricks
10 21 (1.68%) Veritas
11 18 (1.44%) Commvault
11 18 (1.44%) F5
11 18 (1.44%) Red Hat
12 17 (1.36%) Citrix
13 15 (1.20%) CyberArk
14 14 (1.12%) Juniper
15 13 (1.04%) OneTrust
15 13 (1.04%) Splunk
16 12 (0.96%) NetApp