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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 75 89
Rank change year-on-year -8 +14 -4
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,697 1,069 956
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 3.24% 2.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.68% 3.58% 2.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 885 508 516
10th Percentile £284 £298 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £484 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.36% -3.25% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £461 £475
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.89% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 52 19
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £18.34
25th Percentile £15.72 £13.60 £20.88
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.63 £26.68
Median % change year-on-year +14.24% -41.44% -13.24%
75th Percentile £25.00 £20.40 £55.79
90th Percentile £35.22 £36.32 £70.52
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £24.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -36.46% -0.50%

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 46,112 29,840 32,750
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.46% 85.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,098 18,520 20,299
10th Percentile £325 £300 £312
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
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 3,038 1,780 1,507
10th Percentile £13.87 £14.23 £14.70
25th Percentile £17.38 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.50 £45.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +76.89% -47.37% +8.65%

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 10 September 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 10 September 2026.

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 10 September 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 -10 1,419 £500 +2.04% 819
UK excluding London -2 942 £450 -2.44% 522
London -21 611 £525 +2.69% 377
Work from Home +15 490 £500 +8.40% 341
North of England +7 330 £470 +4.44% 142
South East +1 204 £483 -7.38% 144
Yorkshire +4 163 £475 -5.00% 42
Midlands -4 153 £450 -5.26% 99
North West +13 149 £475 +8.26% 85
Scotland -14 122 £428 -5.00% 18
West Midlands -1 120 £450 -10.00% 71
South West -18 80 £425 +6.25% 70
East Midlands -3 33 £441 +26.00% 28
East of England -20 30 £525 +10.53% 41
Wales +1 22 £413 - 17
North East -53 19 £463 +15.63% 19
Northern Ireland +6 15 £110 -81.63% 4
Channel Islands -3 2 £600 -17.24% 1

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 (3.89%) SharePoint
2 42 (2.47%) Confluence
3 23 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
4 17 (1.00%) Apache Spark
5 11 (0.65%) Apache
6 9 (0.53%) CMS
6 9 (0.53%) IIS
7 8 (0.47%) SAS
8 5 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (0.29%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.29%) WordPress
9 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.18%) CICS
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) Drupal
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
12 1 (0.059%) Moodle
12 1 (0.059%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 45 (2.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (2.53%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.059%) Maya
8 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.41%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.29%) 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 Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 1 (0.059%) Odoo
8 1 (0.059%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.059%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.059%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.059%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 383 (22.57%) Azure
2 303 (17.86%) AWS
3 135 (7.96%) Microsoft 365
4 133 (7.84%) GCP
5 86 (5.07%) Power Platform
6 84 (4.95%) Entra ID
7 78 (4.60%) SaaS
8 65 (3.83%) GitHub
9 63 (3.71%) Azure DevOps
10 55 (3.24%) Microsoft Purview
11 53 (3.12%) Serverless
12 36 (2.12%) Microsoft Copilot
13 28 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
13 28 (1.65%) GitHub Actions
13 28 (1.65%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.53%) OpenShift
14 26 (1.53%) PowerApps
15 25 (1.47%) Power Automate
16 21 (1.24%) Amazon S3
17 20 (1.18%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 92 (5.42%) Network Security
2 61 (3.59%) Firewall
3 39 (2.30%) DNS
4 34 (2.00%) VPN
5 29 (1.71%) DHCP
6 25 (1.47%) TCP/IP
7 22 (1.30%) WAN
8 18 (1.06%) Cisco IPT
8 18 (1.06%) LAN
9 16 (0.94%) SAN
10 15 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.82%) SSL
11 14 (0.82%) Wireless
12 11 (0.65%) HTTP
12 11 (0.65%) MPLS
12 11 (0.65%) VoIP
13 9 (0.53%) Intrusion Detection
13 9 (0.53%) NAS
14 8 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
15 7 (0.41%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (3.77%) Power BI
2 49 (2.89%) Metadata
3 41 (2.42%) Relational Database
4 39 (2.30%) PostgreSQL
5 37 (2.18%) SQL Server
6 32 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
7 23 (1.36%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.24%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.24%) MySQL
9 17 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
10 16 (0.94%) Big Data
11 14 (0.82%) MongoDB
12 13 (0.77%) BigQuery
12 13 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
13 11 (0.65%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.53%) DynamoDB
14 9 (0.53%) Redis
15 8 (0.47%) Azure SQL Database
16 7 (0.41%) RDBMS
16 7 (0.41%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 86 (5.07%) JIRA
2 68 (4.01%) Git
3 54 (3.18%) Jenkins
4 30 (1.77%) GitLab
5 17 (1.00%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Maven
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.47%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.29%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.29%) ERwin
9 5 (0.29%) Postman
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
10 4 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
10 4 (0.24%) Vite
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
General
1 644 (37.95%) Social Skills
2 370 (21.80%) Finance
3 256 (15.09%) Legal
4 209 (12.32%) Analytical Skills
5 206 (12.14%) Public Sector
6 114 (6.72%) Banking
7 79 (4.66%) Organisational Skills
8 77 (4.54%) Documentation Skills
9 40 (2.36%) Influencing Skills
9 40 (2.36%) Local Government
9 40 (2.36%) Retail
10 32 (1.89%) Front Office
10 32 (1.89%) Law
10 32 (1.89%) Presentation Skills
11 28 (1.65%) Marketing
12 24 (1.41%) Police
12 24 (1.41%) Telecoms
13 23 (1.36%) Billing
14 22 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
15 16 (0.94%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 246 (14.50%) Architect
2 171 (10.08%) Analyst
3 143 (8.43%) Lead
4 127 (7.48%) Developer
5 124 (7.31%) Senior
6 88 (5.19%) Consultant
7 79 (4.66%) Project Manager
8 71 (4.18%) Business Analyst
9 67 (3.95%) Solutions Architect
10 65 (3.83%) Security Architect
11 48 (2.83%) Administrator
12 37 (2.18%) Security Engineer
13 36 (2.12%) Support Engineer
14 31 (1.83%) Data Analyst
14 31 (1.83%) Java Developer
15 29 (1.71%) Data Engineer
16 28 (1.65%) Information Officer
17 27 (1.59%) IT Support
18 26 (1.53%) DevOps Engineer
18 26 (1.53%) Information Governance Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (5.42%) Terraform
2 85 (5.01%) REST
3 41 (2.42%) React
4 36 (2.12%) Kafka
5 35 (2.06%) OAuth
5 35 (2.06%) Spring
6 34 (2.00%) JSON
7 33 (1.94%) Spring Boot
8 32 (1.89%) CSS
8 32 (1.89%) HTML
9 29 (1.71%) Middleware
9 29 (1.71%) RESTful
10 23 (1.36%) .NET
11 21 (1.24%) Node.js
12 20 (1.18%) OpenID
13 19 (1.12%) OAuth2
14 16 (0.94%) CSS3
14 16 (0.94%) HTML5
15 15 (0.88%) GraphQL
15 15 (0.88%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 721 (42.49%) Data Protection Act
2 106 (6.25%) Management Information System
3 93 (5.48%) Product Ownership
4 92 (5.42%) Cloud Native
5 86 (5.07%) Onboarding
6 51 (3.01%) Data Centre
6 51 (3.01%) Distributed Systems
7 43 (2.53%) Security Posture
8 40 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
8 40 (2.36%) Virtual Team
9 39 (2.30%) Freedom of Information
10 29 (1.71%) NHS
11 28 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
12 27 (1.59%) Operational Technology
13 25 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
14 23 (1.36%) AI Agents
15 21 (1.24%) Mobile App
16 20 (1.18%) Data Structures
17 19 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
17 19 (1.12%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 133 (7.84%) Windows
2 83 (4.89%) Linux
3 34 (2.00%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.94%) Android
5 32 (1.89%) Apple iOS
6 28 (1.65%) Unix
7 23 (1.36%) Mac OS
8 18 (1.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 16 (0.94%) Windows 10
10 10 (0.59%) zOS
11 4 (0.24%) VMS
12 3 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.12%) AIX
13 2 (0.12%) CentOS
13 2 (0.12%) HPUX
13 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.059%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 363 (21.39%) Stakeholder Management
2 320 (18.86%) Agile
3 291 (17.15%) Continuous Improvement
3 291 (17.15%) Problem-Solving
4 242 (14.26%) CI/CD
5 228 (13.44%) DevOps
6 222 (13.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 219 (12.91%) AI
8 217 (12.79%) Cybersecurity
9 212 (12.49%) Migration
10 161 (9.49%) Decision-Making
11 157 (9.25%) Roadmaps
12 148 (8.72%) Data Governance
13 146 (8.60%) Risk Management
14 145 (8.54%) Information Security
15 143 (8.43%) Analytics
16 142 (8.37%) Infrastructure as Code
16 142 (8.37%) Validation
17 115 (6.78%) Test Automation
18 113 (6.66%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 211 (12.43%) Python
2 162 (9.55%) SQL
3 98 (5.77%) Java
4 57 (3.36%) JavaScript
5 55 (3.24%) PowerShell
6 34 (2.00%) Bash
7 26 (1.53%) TypeScript
8 20 (1.18%) Go
9 18 (1.06%) C#
10 16 (0.94%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.88%) Kotlin
12 14 (0.82%) Bicep
13 12 (0.71%) Perl
14 10 (0.59%) C++
15 9 (0.53%) C
16 8 (0.47%) Scala
16 8 (0.47%) VB
17 7 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
17 7 (0.41%) Shell Script
17 7 (0.41%) VB6
Qualifications
1 269 (15.85%) Security Cleared
2 195 (11.49%) SC Cleared
3 109 (6.42%) Degree
4 88 (5.19%) CISSP
5 64 (3.77%) DV Cleared
6 56 (3.30%) CISM
7 41 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
8 39 (2.30%) Cisco Certification
9 33 (1.94%) Azure Certification
10 31 (1.83%) PMI Certification
11 28 (1.65%) PMP
12 24 (1.41%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.36%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 20 (1.18%) AWS Certification
15 19 (1.12%) CCSP
16 13 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
17 11 (0.65%) CCNP
17 11 (0.65%) CISA
17 11 (0.65%) CRISC
18 10 (0.59%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 248 (14.61%) GDPR
2 111 (6.54%) Data Quality
3 103 (6.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (4.60%) NIST
4 78 (4.60%) QA
5 48 (2.83%) Accessibility
6 47 (2.77%) GRC
7 25 (1.47%) PCI DSS
8 24 (1.41%) PMO
9 20 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials
10 19 (1.12%) NCSC
11 17 (1.00%) SLA
12 13 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 12 (0.71%) PERC
13 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.65%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.65%) WCAG
15 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 9 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
16 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 90 (5.30%) Active Directory
2 62 (3.65%) Docker
3 59 (3.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.24%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.71%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (0.59%) vSphere
7 8 (0.47%) NFS
8 7 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.29%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.18%) Time Sharing Option
12 2 (0.12%) Firmware
12 2 (0.12%) GPFS
12 2 (0.12%) ISA Server
12 2 (0.12%) KVM
12 2 (0.12%) Varnish
12 2 (0.12%) XenApp
12 2 (0.12%) XenDesktop
13 1 (0.059%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 112 (6.60%) Kubernetes
2 46 (2.71%) Ansible
3 40 (2.36%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (1.41%) SCCM
5 21 (1.24%) Grafana
6 16 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.88%) NetBackup
8 14 (0.82%) Prometheus
9 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
9 12 (0.71%) Puppet
10 10 (0.59%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.35%) Kibana
12 5 (0.29%) CA Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.29%) CASB
12 5 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (0.29%) PingFederate
12 5 (0.29%) QRadar
12 5 (0.29%) SCOM
13 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 351 (20.68%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.19%) ServiceNow
3 72 (4.24%) Oracle
4 66 (3.89%) Cisco
4 66 (3.89%) Google
5 60 (3.54%) VMware
6 44 (2.59%) Databricks
7 40 (2.36%) Splunk
8 34 (2.00%) SAP
9 33 (1.94%) Salesforce
10 27 (1.59%) Zscaler
11 22 (1.30%) Workday
12 21 (1.24%) IBM
13 20 (1.18%) CyberArk
13 20 (1.18%) Red Hat
14 16 (0.94%) F5
15 15 (0.88%) Dell
16 14 (0.82%) Citrix
16 14 (0.82%) NetApp
17 12 (0.71%) Veritas