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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 92 81
Rank change year-on-year +16 -11 +27
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,181 842 1,130
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.26% 2.67% 2.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.71% 3.01% 3.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 604 437 662
10th Percentile £290 £266 £200
25th Percentile £400 £400 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £601 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £724
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £488 £450
% change year-on-year -7.69% +8.33% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 16 22
10th Percentile £12.63 £16.16 £17.16
25th Percentile £16.35 £20.38 £18.81
Median hourly rate £20.40 £24.50 £23.62
Median % change year-on-year -16.73% +3.73% -66.26%
75th Percentile £20.79 £30.44 £26.66
90th Percentile £42.50 £40.68 £44.43
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.40 £24.50 £21.00
% change year-on-year -16.73% +16.67% -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 31,821 27,941 37,669
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.79% 88.66% 87.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,057 16,962 24,992
10th Percentile £304 £306 £304
25th Percentile £406 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £744 £742
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,969 885 1,593
10th Percentile £14.60 £15.62 £14.18
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.48 £18.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.25 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.00% -20.38% +16.41%
75th Percentile £56.00 £61.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.49 £74.82 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £30.11 £43.90
% change year-on-year -20.86% -31.42% +59.64%

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 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 12 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 12 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 +16 1,016 £500 - 384
UK excluding London +3 606 £450 -7.69% 340
London +15 513 £525 +4.74% 94
Work from Home +6 271 £490 -2.00% 136
North of England -19 181 £460 -7.91% 62
South East +15 137 £495 -1.00% 104
Yorkshire +5 96 £494 -2.52% 26
Scotland +2 96 £400 -15.79% 14
Midlands +6 88 £450 -12.20% 50
North West -29 70 £439 -12.21% 31
West Midlands -6 57 £475 -8.43% 24
South West +1 46 £513 +5.13% 44
East of England +2 36 £475 -5.00% 54
East Midlands +5 31 £402 -11.06% 26
North East -17 16 £400 -5.88% 5
Wales +1 13 £400 -5.88% 14
Northern Ireland - 13 £500 - 5

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 61 (5.17%) Confluence
2 26 (2.20%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.19%) CMS
4 12 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.68%) Apache
7 6 (0.51%) Apache Spark
8 5 (0.42%) CICS
8 5 (0.42%) nginx
9 3 (0.25%) SAS
9 3 (0.25%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.17%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.17%) Drupal
10 2 (0.17%) GeoServer
10 2 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.085%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.085%) Cloud Foundry
11 1 (0.085%) SharePoint Server
11 1 (0.085%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 55 (4.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (3.39%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (0.59%) Chatbot
4 7 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.25%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.25%) Sketch
6 3 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.17%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.17%) InVision
7 2 (0.17%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.085%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.085%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.085%) Blender
8 1 (0.085%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.085%) Final Cut Pro
8 1 (0.085%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 12 (1.02%) Oracle EBS
1 12 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.68%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.59%) Aladdin
4 4 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 4 (0.34%) Oracle Receivables
4 4 (0.34%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.34%) VisionPLUS
5 3 (0.25%) Oracle EBS R12
5 3 (0.25%) Oracle FAH
5 3 (0.25%) Oracle General Ledger
5 3 (0.25%) ResourceLink
6 2 (0.17%) assyst
6 2 (0.17%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.17%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.17%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.085%) BambooHR
7 1 (0.085%) Oracle iProcurement
Cloud Services
1 224 (18.97%) Azure
2 199 (16.85%) AWS
3 82 (6.94%) GCP
4 72 (6.10%) Power Platform
5 60 (5.08%) Microsoft 365
6 58 (4.91%) Serverless
7 45 (3.81%) AWS Lambda
8 44 (3.73%) Entra ID
8 44 (3.73%) GitHub
9 40 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
10 36 (3.05%) Amazon S3
10 36 (3.05%) SaaS
11 28 (2.37%) Snowflake
12 27 (2.29%) Power Automate
13 22 (1.86%) AWS CloudFormation
13 22 (1.86%) GitHub Actions
14 21 (1.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 19 (1.61%) Microsoft Purview
16 18 (1.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 18 (1.52%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 46 (3.90%) Firewall
2 26 (2.20%) Network Security
3 16 (1.35%) LAN
4 15 (1.27%) MPLS
5 13 (1.10%) Cisco IPT
5 13 (1.10%) DNS
5 13 (1.10%) SAN
5 13 (1.10%) SSH
5 13 (1.10%) VPN
5 13 (1.10%) WAN
6 9 (0.76%) NAS
6 9 (0.76%) SD-WAN
6 9 (0.76%) TCP/IP
7 8 (0.68%) BGP
7 8 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (0.59%) HTTP
8 7 (0.59%) Wireless
9 6 (0.51%) DHCP
9 6 (0.51%) Internet
9 6 (0.51%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (4.83%) Power BI
2 34 (2.88%) SQL Server
3 33 (2.79%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
4 23 (1.95%) NoSQL
4 23 (1.95%) Relational Database
5 17 (1.44%) Metadata
6 15 (1.27%) MySQL
7 14 (1.19%) DynamoDB
7 14 (1.19%) Tableau
8 13 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
8 13 (1.10%) MongoDB
8 13 (1.10%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (1.02%) Amazon Aurora
10 10 (0.85%) Data Lake
11 9 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
12 8 (0.68%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 8 (0.68%) Oracle Database
13 7 (0.59%) Hadoop
13 7 (0.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 104 (8.81%) JIRA
2 47 (3.98%) Jenkins
3 39 (3.30%) Git
4 31 (2.62%) GitLab
5 9 (0.76%) SpecFlow
6 8 (0.68%) JUnit
7 5 (0.42%) NUnit
8 4 (0.34%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.34%) ChangeMan
8 4 (0.34%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.34%) Fiddler
8 4 (0.34%) Gradle
9 3 (0.25%) Cypress.io
9 3 (0.25%) Maven
9 3 (0.25%) Postman
9 3 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.25%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.17%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.17%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.17%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 403 (34.12%) Social Skills
2 242 (20.49%) Finance
3 146 (12.36%) Analytical Skills
4 129 (10.92%) Public Sector
5 103 (8.72%) Banking
6 88 (7.45%) Legal
7 38 (3.22%) Organisational Skills
8 35 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
8 35 (2.96%) Marketing
9 31 (2.62%) Telecoms
10 29 (2.46%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (1.86%) Law
11 22 (1.86%) Manufacturing
12 19 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
13 16 (1.35%) Front Office
14 14 (1.19%) Local Government
15 13 (1.10%) Financial Institution
15 13 (1.10%) Retail
16 10 (0.85%) Electronics
16 10 (0.85%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 155 (13.12%) Analyst
2 137 (11.60%) Developer
3 119 (10.08%) Architect
4 90 (7.62%) Lead
5 65 (5.50%) Business Analyst
6 61 (5.17%) Senior
7 58 (4.91%) Consultant
8 55 (4.66%) Project Manager
9 35 (2.96%) Administrator
10 34 (2.88%) Solutions Architect
11 32 (2.71%) Data Analyst
12 31 (2.62%) Security Engineer
13 27 (2.29%) Data Engineer
14 23 (1.95%) Automation Engineer
15 21 (1.78%) Data Protection Officer
15 21 (1.78%) Support Engineer
16 20 (1.69%) Software Engineer
17 19 (1.61%) Network Engineer
17 19 (1.61%) Security Architect
17 19 (1.61%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (5.00%) REST
2 34 (2.88%) .NET
3 31 (2.62%) React
4 29 (2.46%) Node.js
5 28 (2.37%) RESTful
6 27 (2.29%) OAuth
7 23 (1.95%) Kafka
8 22 (1.86%) Spring
9 21 (1.78%) HTML
9 21 (1.78%) SOAP
10 18 (1.52%) Spring Boot
11 16 (1.35%) Middleware
12 15 (1.27%) .NET Core
12 15 (1.27%) Oracle Fusion
13 13 (1.10%) AngularJS
14 12 (1.02%) OAuth2
14 12 (1.02%) XML
15 11 (0.93%) LangChain
15 11 (0.93%) Playwright
15 11 (0.93%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 590 (49.96%) Data Protection Act
2 53 (4.49%) Cloud Native
3 51 (4.32%) Product Ownership
4 50 (4.23%) Management Information System
5 46 (3.90%) Onboarding
6 29 (2.46%) Distributed Systems
6 29 (2.46%) Freedom of Information
7 24 (2.03%) NHS
8 20 (1.69%) Data Structures
9 18 (1.52%) Data Centre
9 18 (1.52%) Security Posture
10 17 (1.44%) CMDB
11 16 (1.35%) Replication
11 16 (1.35%) Virtual Team
12 15 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
13 14 (1.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 13 (1.10%) AI Agents
15 12 (1.02%) Derivative
15 12 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
16 11 (0.93%) Insider Threat
Operating Systems
1 86 (7.28%) Windows
2 55 (4.66%) Linux
3 24 (2.03%) Unix
4 15 (1.27%) Mac OS
5 12 (1.02%) Windows 10
5 12 (1.02%) Windows Server
6 9 (0.76%) zOS
7 8 (0.68%) Android
8 6 (0.51%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.51%) Solaris
9 5 (0.42%) AIX
9 5 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.42%) VMS
10 1 (0.085%) CentOS
10 1 (0.085%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.085%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.085%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 216 (18.29%) Problem-Solving
2 214 (18.12%) Agile
3 191 (16.17%) Stakeholder Management
4 156 (13.21%) DevOps
5 150 (12.70%) Migration
6 148 (12.53%) CI/CD
7 123 (10.41%) Cybersecurity
8 120 (10.16%) Analytics
8 120 (10.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 109 (9.23%) Continuous Improvement
10 104 (8.81%) AI
11 103 (8.72%) Roadmaps
12 95 (8.04%) Information Security
12 95 (8.04%) Project Management
12 95 (8.04%) Risk Management
13 78 (6.60%) Business Intelligence
14 77 (6.52%) Microservices
15 74 (6.27%) Incident Response
16 73 (6.18%) Test Automation
17 70 (5.93%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 204 (17.27%) Python
2 155 (13.12%) SQL
3 71 (6.01%) Java
4 62 (5.25%) JavaScript
5 57 (4.83%) PowerShell
6 56 (4.74%) C#
7 45 (3.81%) Bash
8 30 (2.54%) TypeScript
9 17 (1.44%) C++
10 10 (0.85%) Shell Script
11 9 (0.76%) Bicep
12 8 (0.68%) PHP
12 8 (0.68%) PL/SQL
13 7 (0.59%) Perl
14 5 (0.42%) COBOL
14 5 (0.42%) Go
14 5 (0.42%) Kotlin
14 5 (0.42%) Scala
15 4 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.34%) R
Qualifications
1 148 (12.53%) Security Cleared
2 107 (9.06%) SC Cleared
3 105 (8.89%) Degree
4 35 (2.96%) DV Cleared
5 34 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
6 27 (2.29%) CISSP
7 24 (2.03%) CISM
8 20 (1.69%) AWS Certification
9 19 (1.61%) BPSS Clearance
10 18 (1.52%) PMI Certification
11 17 (1.44%) Master's Degree
11 17 (1.44%) PMP
12 13 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
13 11 (0.93%) Azure Certification
13 11 (0.93%) CRISC
13 11 (0.93%) CTC Cleared
14 10 (0.85%) A+ Certification
15 8 (0.68%) CCNP
15 8 (0.68%) MCP
16 7 (0.59%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 216 (18.29%) GDPR
2 85 (7.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 70 (5.93%) NIST
4 44 (3.73%) Data Quality
5 37 (3.13%) QA
6 25 (2.12%) Accessibility
7 24 (2.03%) PCI DSS
8 18 (1.52%) PMO
9 14 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials
9 14 (1.19%) GRC
9 14 (1.19%) NCSC
10 13 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 13 (1.10%) SLA
11 11 (0.93%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.93%) PERC
12 10 (0.85%) Disclosure Scotland
13 8 (0.68%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 7 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
15 6 (0.51%) EU AI Act
15 6 (0.51%) HIPAA
System Software
1 54 (4.57%) Active Directory
2 52 (4.40%) Docker
3 38 (3.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (1.19%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (0.68%) NFS
6 5 (0.42%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.34%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.085%) Firmware
9 1 (0.085%) HDFS
9 1 (0.085%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.085%) KVM
9 1 (0.085%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.085%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.085%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.085%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 65 (5.50%) Terraform
2 54 (4.57%) Kubernetes
3 49 (4.15%) Ansible
4 25 (2.12%) Microsoft Intune
5 24 (2.03%) NetBackup
6 20 (1.69%) Grafana
7 19 (1.61%) SCCM
8 17 (1.44%) Prometheus
9 8 (0.68%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.59%) Puppet
11 6 (0.51%) RSA Archer
12 5 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
13 4 (0.34%) CA Endevor
13 4 (0.34%) EMC NetWorker
13 4 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
13 4 (0.34%) vCenter Server
14 3 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 3 (0.25%) Control-M
14 3 (0.25%) Data Guard
14 3 (0.25%) Kibana
Vendors
1 186 (15.75%) Microsoft
2 58 (4.91%) Oracle
3 52 (4.40%) Google
4 40 (3.39%) VMware
5 36 (3.05%) Cisco
5 36 (3.05%) ServiceNow
6 35 (2.96%) Salesforce
7 34 (2.88%) SAP
8 32 (2.71%) Databricks
9 24 (2.03%) IBM
10 22 (1.86%) Citrix
11 20 (1.69%) Veritas
12 19 (1.61%) Red Hat
13 17 (1.44%) Commvault
14 16 (1.35%) F5
15 11 (0.93%) Adobe
15 11 (0.93%) CyberArk
15 11 (0.93%) OneTrust
15 11 (0.93%) Workday
16 10 (0.85%) Informatica