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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 78 90
Rank change year-on-year -4 +12 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,681 1,046 951
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.12% 3.17% 2.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.68% 3.51% 2.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 883 516 521
10th Percentile £301 £296 £200
25th Percentile £400 £397 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £464 £475
% change year-on-year -0.27% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 97 46 24
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 £18.94
25th Percentile £15.72 £14.57 £22.19
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.50 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year +8.18% -39.45% -34.52%
75th Percentile £29.60 £20.40 £38.98
90th Percentile £35.34 £35.67 £70.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% -18.70%

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 45,621 29,800 32,930
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.64% 90.44% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,920 18,562 20,756
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,892 1,765 1,620
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.21 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.30 £18.50
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.03
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.16% +0.31%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.12 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.15 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.11 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +90.48% -47.37% +14.67%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 -7 1,407 £500 +2.83% 1,416
UK excluding London +2 917 £463 -0.27% 858
London -13 618 £525 +2.94% 701
Work from Home +19 489 £500 +5.54% 654
North of England +11 328 £475 +5.56% 245
South East +6 198 £479 -7.53% 198
Yorkshire +3 165 £475 -5.00% 72
North West +7 145 £500 +11.86% 136
Midlands -6 144 £473 -0.42% 134
Scotland -10 121 £428 -2.73% 56
West Midlands -7 113 £473 -5.40% 86
South West -15 76 £425 +6.25% 110
East Midlands -2 31 £441 +26.00% 48
East of England -12 31 £538 +13.16% 86
Wales -7 19 £413 +39.24% 25
North East -43 19 £463 +15.63% 39
Northern Ireland +3 13 £110 -81.63% 16

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 64 (3.81%) SharePoint
2 42 (2.50%) Confluence
3 23 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.13%) Apache Spark
5 18 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.77%) Apache
7 6 (0.36%) CMS
7 6 (0.36%) IIS
7 6 (0.36%) SAS
8 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
9 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) CICS
11 2 (0.12%) Drupal
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
12 1 (0.059%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 45 (2.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (2.44%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.059%) Maya
7 1 (0.059%) Trello
7 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Aladdin
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Endur
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.059%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.059%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.059%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 390 (23.20%) Azure
2 298 (17.73%) AWS
3 141 (8.39%) GCP
4 127 (7.56%) Microsoft 365
5 94 (5.59%) Power Platform
6 89 (5.29%) Entra ID
7 80 (4.76%) SaaS
8 63 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
8 63 (3.75%) GitHub
9 58 (3.45%) Serverless
10 56 (3.33%) Microsoft Purview
11 35 (2.08%) Microsoft Copilot
12 31 (1.84%) AWS Lambda
13 28 (1.67%) OneDrive
14 27 (1.61%) OpenShift
14 27 (1.61%) PowerApps
15 25 (1.49%) GitHub Actions
15 25 (1.49%) Power Automate
16 24 (1.43%) Amazon S3
17 23 (1.37%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 94 (5.59%) Network Security
2 61 (3.63%) Firewall
3 38 (2.26%) DNS
4 36 (2.14%) VPN
5 29 (1.73%) DHCP
6 24 (1.43%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.25%) WAN
8 20 (1.19%) SAN
9 17 (1.01%) Cisco IPT
9 17 (1.01%) LAN
10 15 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.83%) SSL
11 14 (0.83%) Wireless
12 12 (0.71%) NAS
13 11 (0.65%) MPLS
13 11 (0.65%) VoIP
14 10 (0.59%) HTTP
15 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
16 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
17 7 (0.42%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (4.22%) Power BI
2 52 (3.09%) Metadata
3 39 (2.32%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (2.26%) SQL Server
5 36 (2.14%) Data Warehouse
6 31 (1.84%) Relational Database
7 27 (1.61%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.31%) Data Lake
9 20 (1.19%) Big Data
9 20 (1.19%) MySQL
10 18 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
11 16 (0.95%) MongoDB
12 12 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
12 12 (0.71%) BigQuery
12 12 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.59%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
14 9 (0.54%) Redis
15 8 (0.48%) Tableau
16 7 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 83 (4.94%) JIRA
2 63 (3.75%) Git
3 56 (3.33%) Jenkins
4 32 (1.90%) GitLab
5 10 (0.59%) Maven
6 9 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) Selenium
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Cypress.io
8 6 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) Gradle
9 5 (0.30%) Postman
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Flyway
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
10 4 (0.24%) Vite
11 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
General
1 622 (37.00%) Social Skills
2 365 (21.71%) Finance
3 252 (14.99%) Legal
4 208 (12.37%) Analytical Skills
5 202 (12.02%) Public Sector
6 111 (6.60%) Banking
7 77 (4.58%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (4.40%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.44%) Retail
10 39 (2.32%) Influencing Skills
11 38 (2.26%) Local Government
12 32 (1.90%) Front Office
12 32 (1.90%) Law
13 30 (1.78%) Telecoms
14 28 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
15 24 (1.43%) Marketing
16 23 (1.37%) Billing
17 22 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
18 21 (1.25%) Police
19 16 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 252 (14.99%) Architect
2 171 (10.17%) Analyst
3 145 (8.63%) Lead
4 128 (7.61%) Developer
5 122 (7.26%) Senior
6 88 (5.23%) Consultant
7 81 (4.82%) Project Manager
8 70 (4.16%) Business Analyst
9 67 (3.99%) Solutions Architect
10 61 (3.63%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.50%) Administrator
12 38 (2.26%) Security Engineer
13 34 (2.02%) Data Engineer
14 33 (1.96%) Support Engineer
15 31 (1.84%) Java Developer
16 30 (1.78%) Data Analyst
17 28 (1.67%) Information Officer
17 28 (1.67%) Network Engineer
18 27 (1.61%) IT Support
19 26 (1.55%) Information Governance Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (5.41%) Terraform
2 87 (5.18%) REST
3 40 (2.38%) React
4 36 (2.14%) Spring
5 35 (2.08%) JSON
5 35 (2.08%) Kafka
6 34 (2.02%) OAuth
7 33 (1.96%) Spring Boot
8 32 (1.90%) CSS
8 32 (1.90%) HTML
9 30 (1.78%) Middleware
10 28 (1.67%) RESTful
11 24 (1.43%) .NET
12 22 (1.31%) Node.js
13 19 (1.13%) OpenID
14 18 (1.07%) OAuth2
15 16 (0.95%) CSS3
15 16 (0.95%) GraphQL
15 16 (0.95%) HTML5
16 15 (0.89%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 724 (43.07%) Data Protection Act
2 98 (5.83%) Cloud Native
3 91 (5.41%) Product Ownership
4 87 (5.18%) Management Information System
5 79 (4.70%) Onboarding
6 52 (3.09%) Data Centre
7 50 (2.97%) Distributed Systems
8 43 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.38%) Security Posture
9 40 (2.38%) Virtual Team
10 35 (2.08%) Freedom of Information
11 27 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
11 27 (1.61%) Self-Motivation
12 26 (1.55%) NHS
12 26 (1.55%) Operational Technology
13 22 (1.31%) Replication
14 21 (1.25%) AI Agents
15 20 (1.19%) Mobile App
16 19 (1.13%) Data Structures
16 19 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 132 (7.85%) Windows
2 81 (4.82%) Linux
3 30 (1.78%) Android
3 30 (1.78%) Apple iOS
3 30 (1.78%) Windows Server
4 28 (1.67%) Unix
5 22 (1.31%) Mac OS
6 18 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (0.95%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.48%) VMS
8 8 (0.48%) zOS
9 3 (0.18%) Solaris
9 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.12%) AIX
10 2 (0.12%) CentOS
10 2 (0.12%) HPUX
10 2 (0.12%) Rocky
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 352 (20.94%) Stakeholder Management
2 309 (18.38%) Agile
3 291 (17.31%) Problem-Solving
4 278 (16.54%) Continuous Improvement
5 239 (14.22%) CI/CD
6 238 (14.16%) DevOps
7 218 (12.97%) Migration
8 216 (12.85%) AI
9 215 (12.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 203 (12.08%) Cybersecurity
11 160 (9.52%) Decision-Making
12 159 (9.46%) Data Governance
13 158 (9.40%) Roadmaps
14 151 (8.98%) Analytics
15 141 (8.39%) Information Security
16 137 (8.15%) Risk Management
17 133 (7.91%) Infrastructure as Code
18 128 (7.61%) Validation
19 119 (7.08%) Data Modelling
20 104 (6.19%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 205 (12.20%) Python
2 164 (9.76%) SQL
3 103 (6.13%) Java
4 57 (3.39%) PowerShell
5 56 (3.33%) JavaScript
6 35 (2.08%) Bash
7 27 (1.61%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.13%) C#
8 19 (1.13%) Go
9 15 (0.89%) Apex Code
9 15 (0.89%) Bicep
9 15 (0.89%) Kotlin
10 12 (0.71%) Perl
11 10 (0.59%) C++
12 8 (0.48%) C
12 8 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
12 8 (0.48%) Scala
12 8 (0.48%) VB
13 7 (0.42%) VB6
14 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 262 (15.59%) Security Cleared
2 193 (11.48%) SC Cleared
3 109 (6.48%) Degree
4 83 (4.94%) CISSP
5 58 (3.45%) DV Cleared
6 52 (3.09%) CISM
7 39 (2.32%) BPSS Clearance
8 35 (2.08%) Azure Certification
9 33 (1.96%) Cisco Certification
10 31 (1.84%) PMI Certification
11 29 (1.73%) PMP
12 27 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.37%) AWS Certification
14 19 (1.13%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 17 (1.01%) Microsoft Certification
16 15 (0.89%) CCSP
17 11 (0.65%) CRISC
18 10 (0.59%) CCNP
18 10 (0.59%) Master's Degree
19 9 (0.54%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 252 (14.99%) GDPR
2 109 (6.48%) Data Quality
3 100 (5.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 76 (4.52%) NIST
4 76 (4.52%) QA
5 49 (2.91%) Accessibility
6 44 (2.62%) GRC
7 24 (1.43%) PMO
8 22 (1.31%) PCI DSS
9 21 (1.25%) NCSC
10 17 (1.01%) Cyber Essentials
10 17 (1.01%) SLA
11 14 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 12 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 12 (0.71%) PERC
12 12 (0.71%) WCAG
13 11 (0.65%) HIPAA
14 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 9 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
15 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 95 (5.65%) Active Directory
2 64 (3.81%) Docker
3 56 (3.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.25%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.59%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.59%) NFS
6 8 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.48%) vSphere
7 6 (0.36%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
10 3 (0.18%) XenApp
10 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) KVM
11 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
12 1 (0.059%) iptables
Systems Management
1 114 (6.78%) Kubernetes
2 45 (2.68%) Ansible
3 39 (2.32%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.55%) Grafana
5 23 (1.37%) SCCM
6 20 (1.19%) NetBackup
7 18 (1.07%) Prometheus
8 17 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.77%) Puppet
10 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.59%) Progress Chef
12 7 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.36%) Kibana
14 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
14 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
14 5 (0.30%) QRadar
14 5 (0.30%) SCOM
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
16 3 (0.18%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 343 (20.40%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.23%) ServiceNow
3 67 (3.99%) Oracle
4 66 (3.93%) Google
5 62 (3.69%) Cisco
6 58 (3.45%) VMware
7 47 (2.80%) Databricks
8 38 (2.26%) Splunk
9 37 (2.20%) SAP
10 32 (1.90%) Salesforce
11 25 (1.49%) Zscaler
12 22 (1.31%) Red Hat
12 22 (1.31%) Workday
13 21 (1.25%) CyberArk
14 19 (1.13%) IBM
14 19 (1.13%) NetApp
15 16 (0.95%) Citrix
16 15 (0.89%) F5
17 14 (0.83%) Dell
17 14 (0.83%) Veritas