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 20 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 84 85
Rank change year-on-year +8 +1 +3
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,672 934 1,037
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.17% 2.85% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.73% 3.15% 2.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 919 460 554
10th Percentile £313 £263 £203
25th Percentile £400 £363 £376
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £589 £600
90th Percentile £700 £688 £741
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £467 £475
% change year-on-year -0.43% -1.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 43 90
10th Percentile £13.69 £13.08 £14.28
25th Percentile £16.62 £14.78 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £19.00 £21.25
Median % change year-on-year +12.37% -10.59% -48.22%
75th Percentile £33.75 £31.38 £28.75
90th Percentile £38.30 £34.78 £44.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £15.25 £20.00
% change year-on-year +39.34% -23.75% -34.96%

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 44,857 29,633 35,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.35% 85.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,817 18,625 22,863
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.02%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,658 1,571 2,253
10th Percentile £14.84 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £16.82
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%
75th Percentile £68.50 £51.05 £62.00
90th Percentile £82.41 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +87.50% -37.04% -6.09%

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 20 July 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 20 July 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 20 July 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 +8 1,406 £500 +5.26% 387
UK excluding London +15 929 £465 -0.43% 262
London +6 615 £525 +5.00% 156
Work from Home +20 484 £500 +9.29% 142
North of England +20 318 £475 - 70
South East +15 205 £478 -10.08% 76
Yorkshire -3 175 £485 -3.00% 27
Midlands +4 147 £470 -6.00% 53
North West +24 135 £488 +14.71% 36
Scotland +3 132 £425 -5.56% 12
West Midlands -24 108 £474 -5.20% 34
South West -6 71 £425 +6.25% 33
East Midlands +8 39 £447 +19.20% 19
East of England +5 35 £550 +12.82% 17
Wales -5 20 £400 +35.02% 6
Northern Ireland +3 10 £104 -78.86% 2
North East -46 10 £450 +9.09% 7

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 59 (3.53%) Confluence
1 59 (3.53%) SharePoint
2 24 (1.44%) Microsoft Exchange
3 20 (1.20%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
5 12 (0.72%) Apache
6 6 (0.36%) CMS
6 6 (0.36%) IIS
6 6 (0.36%) SAS
7 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.18%) nginx
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
10 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 41 (2.45%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.060%) Maya
8 1 (0.060%) Trello
8 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
3 6 (0.36%) Aladdin
3 6 (0.36%) NEC Housing
3 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.060%) iTrent
8 1 (0.060%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
8 1 (0.060%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 368 (22.01%) Azure
2 272 (16.27%) AWS
3 141 (8.43%) GCP
4 115 (6.88%) Microsoft 365
5 93 (5.56%) Power Platform
6 87 (5.20%) Entra ID
7 68 (4.07%) GitHub
8 67 (4.01%) SaaS
9 57 (3.41%) Microsoft Purview
10 54 (3.23%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (2.57%) OpenShift
12 41 (2.45%) Serverless
13 34 (2.03%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.56%) OneDrive
15 25 (1.50%) PowerApps
16 24 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
16 24 (1.44%) Power Automate
17 22 (1.32%) Amazon S3
18 21 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
18 21 (1.26%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 88 (5.26%) Network Security
2 52 (3.11%) Firewall
3 35 (2.09%) VPN
4 29 (1.73%) DNS
4 29 (1.73%) SAN
5 24 (1.44%) TCP/IP
6 23 (1.38%) DHCP
7 22 (1.32%) WAN
8 17 (1.02%) LAN
8 17 (1.02%) NAS
9 16 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
10 13 (0.78%) HTTP
11 12 (0.72%) SSL
12 11 (0.66%) MPLS
13 10 (0.60%) Cisco IPT
13 10 (0.60%) Wireless
14 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
14 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
15 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
15 7 (0.42%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.31%) Power BI
2 42 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
3 41 (2.45%) Metadata
3 41 (2.45%) SQL Server
4 32 (1.91%) Relational Database
5 30 (1.79%) Data Warehouse
6 25 (1.50%) Data Lake
7 24 (1.44%) NoSQL
8 23 (1.38%) MySQL
9 22 (1.32%) Big Data
10 19 (1.14%) MongoDB
11 18 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
12 13 (0.78%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.72%) BigQuery
13 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.66%) Tableau
15 10 (0.60%) DynamoDB
15 10 (0.60%) Ingres
15 10 (0.60%) RDBMS
16 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 101 (6.04%) JIRA
2 71 (4.25%) Git
3 61 (3.65%) Jenkins
4 36 (2.15%) GitLab
5 11 (0.66%) Oracle Forms
6 9 (0.54%) Postman
6 9 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
7 8 (0.48%) Maven
8 7 (0.42%) Gradle
8 7 (0.42%) JUnit
8 7 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (0.36%) Flyway
9 6 (0.36%) Selenium
10 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.30%) ERwin
10 5 (0.30%) SpecFlow
11 4 (0.24%) SonarQube
12 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
12 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 563 (33.67%) Social Skills
2 372 (22.25%) Finance
3 254 (15.19%) Legal
4 199 (11.90%) Analytical Skills
5 169 (10.11%) Public Sector
6 116 (6.94%) Banking
7 70 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
8 65 (3.89%) Organisational Skills
9 38 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
10 34 (2.03%) Local Government
10 34 (2.03%) Retail
10 34 (2.03%) Telecoms
11 27 (1.61%) Law
11 27 (1.61%) Marketing
12 26 (1.56%) Front Office
13 22 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
14 20 (1.20%) Billing
14 20 (1.20%) Pharmaceutical
14 20 (1.20%) Police
15 16 (0.96%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 236 (14.11%) Architect
2 156 (9.33%) Analyst
3 132 (7.89%) Lead
4 131 (7.83%) Developer
5 127 (7.60%) Senior
6 97 (5.80%) Consultant
7 86 (5.14%) Project Manager
8 72 (4.31%) Business Analyst
9 65 (3.89%) Solutions Architect
10 53 (3.17%) Security Architect
11 44 (2.63%) Data Engineer
12 41 (2.45%) Security Engineer
13 39 (2.33%) Java Developer
14 36 (2.15%) Administrator
15 35 (2.09%) Network Engineer
16 29 (1.73%) Technical Architect
17 27 (1.61%) Data Analyst
17 27 (1.61%) IT Support
17 27 (1.61%) Support Engineer
18 26 (1.56%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (5.38%) REST
2 53 (3.17%) React
3 38 (2.27%) Spring
4 37 (2.21%) Middleware
5 33 (1.97%) CSS
5 33 (1.97%) Kafka
5 33 (1.97%) Spring Boot
6 32 (1.91%) JSON
7 31 (1.85%) HTML
8 29 (1.73%) RESTful
9 28 (1.67%) OAuth
10 26 (1.56%) .NET
11 18 (1.08%) CSS3
11 18 (1.08%) HTML5
11 18 (1.08%) PySpark
11 18 (1.08%) Redux
12 17 (1.02%) Jest
12 17 (1.02%) Node.js
13 16 (0.96%) GraphQL
13 16 (0.96%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 755 (45.16%) Data Protection Act
2 94 (5.62%) Cloud Native
3 91 (5.44%) Product Ownership
4 73 (4.37%) Onboarding
5 60 (3.59%) Management Information System
6 50 (2.99%) Legacy Systems
7 48 (2.87%) Data Centre
8 44 (2.63%) Distributed Systems
9 43 (2.57%) Virtual Team
10 37 (2.21%) Security Posture
11 25 (1.50%) Operational Technology
12 24 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
12 24 (1.44%) Replication
13 23 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
14 21 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
14 21 (1.26%) NHS
15 20 (1.20%) Data Structures
16 19 (1.14%) Enterprise Storage
16 19 (1.14%) Mobile App
17 16 (0.96%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 127 (7.60%) Windows
2 81 (4.84%) Linux
3 28 (1.67%) Unix
4 27 (1.61%) Android
4 27 (1.61%) Apple iOS
4 27 (1.61%) Windows Server
5 24 (1.44%) Mac OS
6 18 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (0.78%) VMS
8 11 (0.66%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.36%) CoreOS
9 6 (0.36%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.30%) zOS
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.060%) AIX
12 1 (0.060%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 320 (19.14%) Agile
2 305 (18.24%) Problem-Solving
3 293 (17.52%) Stakeholder Management
4 258 (15.43%) Continuous Improvement
5 241 (14.41%) DevOps
6 233 (13.94%) Migration
7 230 (13.76%) CI/CD
8 201 (12.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 188 (11.24%) AI
10 150 (8.97%) Cybersecurity
10 150 (8.97%) Decision-Making
10 150 (8.97%) Roadmaps
11 147 (8.79%) Analytics
12 131 (7.83%) Data Governance
13 123 (7.36%) Validation
14 122 (7.30%) Information Security
14 122 (7.30%) Risk Management
15 113 (6.76%) Data Modelling
15 113 (6.76%) Infrastructure as Code
16 98 (5.86%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 219 (13.10%) Python
2 170 (10.17%) SQL
3 117 (7.00%) Java
4 64 (3.83%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.35%) PowerShell
6 45 (2.69%) Bash
7 32 (1.91%) TypeScript
8 28 (1.67%) C#
9 17 (1.02%) Go
10 15 (0.90%) Bicep
11 13 (0.78%) Apex Code
11 13 (0.78%) Kotlin
12 11 (0.66%) Perl
13 10 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
13 10 (0.60%) VB
14 9 (0.54%) VB6
15 8 (0.48%) Scala
16 7 (0.42%) C++
17 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
18 5 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 245 (14.65%) Security Cleared
2 184 (11.00%) SC Cleared
3 123 (7.36%) Degree
4 75 (4.49%) CISSP
5 58 (3.47%) DV Cleared
6 42 (2.51%) CISM
7 36 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
8 33 (1.97%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (1.85%) Azure Certification
9 31 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
10 28 (1.67%) PMI Certification
11 25 (1.50%) AWS Certification
12 24 (1.44%) PMP
13 18 (1.08%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (1.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 15 (0.90%) CCSP
16 13 (0.78%) Master's Degree
17 11 (0.66%) CCNP
18 10 (0.60%) CISA
19 9 (0.54%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 250 (14.95%) GDPR
2 100 (5.98%) Data Quality
3 85 (5.08%) QA
4 82 (4.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 78 (4.67%) NIST
6 47 (2.81%) GRC
7 43 (2.57%) Accessibility
8 27 (1.61%) PMO
9 23 (1.38%) PCI DSS
10 20 (1.20%) NCSC
11 19 (1.14%) SLA
12 17 (1.02%) SOC 2
13 13 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.66%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.66%) WCAG
15 10 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.60%) PERC
16 8 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 6 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 83 (4.96%) Active Directory
2 67 (4.01%) Docker
3 57 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.96%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.90%) NFS
6 14 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.78%) vSphere
8 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.30%) KVM
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) IAG
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.060%) iptables
Systems Management
1 118 (7.06%) Kubernetes
2 85 (5.08%) Terraform
3 61 (3.65%) Ansible
4 41 (2.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (2.21%) Grafana
6 30 (1.79%) NetBackup
7 25 (1.50%) Prometheus
8 21 (1.26%) SCCM
8 21 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.96%) Puppet
10 14 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.42%) Kibana
12 7 (0.42%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.36%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.30%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 296 (17.70%) Microsoft
2 80 (4.78%) Oracle
3 78 (4.67%) ServiceNow
4 66 (3.95%) Google
5 58 (3.47%) VMware
6 55 (3.29%) Cisco
7 52 (3.11%) Databricks
8 42 (2.51%) SAP
9 37 (2.21%) Splunk
10 32 (1.91%) Red Hat
11 27 (1.61%) Salesforce
12 23 (1.38%) NetApp
13 22 (1.32%) Veritas
13 22 (1.32%) Workday
14 21 (1.26%) Zscaler
15 17 (1.02%) CyberArk
16 16 (0.96%) Citrix
16 16 (0.96%) Commvault
17 15 (0.90%) F5
17 15 (0.90%) IBM