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

6 months to
4 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 85 87
Rank change year-on-year +13 +2 +4
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,657 902 1,063
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.21% 2.86% 2.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.78% 3.15% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 906 435 563
10th Percentile £300 £263 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £700 £688 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £455 £470 £475
% change year-on-year -3.19% -1.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 36 106
10th Percentile £15.27 £14.78 £12.38
25th Percentile £16.62 £15.13 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £23.00 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.17% +17.95% -46.24%
75th Percentile £33.53 £32.73 £27.50
90th Percentile £37.55 £36.74 £41.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £15.25 £19.50
% change year-on-year +39.34% -21.79% -35.00%

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 43,890 28,628 37,028
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.04% 90.75% 85.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,271 18,064 23,618
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.98% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £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 2,636 1,406 2,527
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.46 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.66 £38.12
% change year-on-year +80.45% -35.31% +8.91%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 +9 1,397 £500 +2.56% 460
UK excluding London +11 922 £455 -3.19% 318
London +14 612 £525 +5.00% 194
Work from Home +23 467 £500 +6.67% 202
North of England +13 314 £475 - 86
South East +23 200 £483 -10.06% 77
Yorkshire -7 174 £475 -5.00% 29
Midlands -7 143 £469 -6.25% 70
Scotland +1 135 £425 -5.56% 12
North West +30 133 £489 +15.00% 46
West Midlands -19 102 £475 -9.52% 44
South West -1 69 £425 +6.25% 49
East of England +2 44 £500 -4.76% 15
East Midlands +8 41 £447 +19.60% 26
Wales -9 15 £388 +30.80% 13
Northern Ireland +5 10 £104 -78.86% 6
North East -49 9 £450 +9.09% 13

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 60 (3.62%) SharePoint
2 58 (3.50%) Confluence
3 25 (1.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.09%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.97%) Apache Airflow
6 10 (0.60%) Apache
7 6 (0.36%) CMS
7 6 (0.36%) IIS
8 5 (0.30%) SAS
8 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
9 3 (0.18%) nginx
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.12%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.12%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 45 (2.72%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.30%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.060%) Maya
9 1 (0.060%) Trello
9 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Aladdin
3 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.36%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.30%) SAP GRC
6 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
7 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
7 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
8 2 (0.12%) Distributed Ledger
8 2 (0.12%) R3 Corda
8 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
9 1 (0.060%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 355 (21.42%) Azure
2 261 (15.75%) AWS
3 135 (8.15%) GCP
4 115 (6.94%) Microsoft 365
5 88 (5.31%) Entra ID
5 88 (5.31%) Power Platform
6 69 (4.16%) SaaS
7 65 (3.92%) GitHub
8 58 (3.50%) Microsoft Purview
9 49 (2.96%) Azure DevOps
10 45 (2.72%) OpenShift
11 35 (2.11%) Serverless
12 34 (2.05%) Microsoft Copilot
13 26 (1.57%) OneDrive
14 24 (1.45%) Power Automate
14 24 (1.45%) PowerApps
15 22 (1.33%) AWS Lambda
15 22 (1.33%) Snowflake
16 21 (1.27%) Amazon S3
17 20 (1.21%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 89 (5.37%) Network Security
2 51 (3.08%) Firewall
3 34 (2.05%) VPN
4 32 (1.93%) SAN
5 30 (1.81%) DNS
6 25 (1.51%) TCP/IP
7 23 (1.39%) DHCP
7 23 (1.39%) WAN
8 20 (1.21%) NAS
9 17 (1.03%) LAN
10 14 (0.84%) MPLS
11 13 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
12 12 (0.72%) HTTP
13 11 (0.66%) SSL
14 10 (0.60%) Wireless
15 8 (0.48%) VLAN
16 7 (0.42%) Cisco IPT
16 7 (0.42%) Cisco Nexus
16 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
16 7 (0.42%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.16%) Power BI
2 40 (2.41%) SQL Server
3 37 (2.23%) Metadata
3 37 (2.23%) PostgreSQL
4 29 (1.75%) Relational Database
5 25 (1.51%) Data Warehouse
6 22 (1.33%) Data Lake
6 22 (1.33%) MySQL
7 21 (1.27%) NoSQL
8 20 (1.21%) Big Data
8 20 (1.21%) MongoDB
9 18 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
10 13 (0.78%) Oracle Database
11 11 (0.66%) BigQuery
12 10 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
12 10 (0.60%) RDBMS
12 10 (0.60%) Tableau
13 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
14 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
14 8 (0.48%) Ingres
Development Applications
1 96 (5.79%) JIRA
2 72 (4.35%) Git
3 57 (3.44%) Jenkins
4 36 (2.17%) GitLab
5 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
6 9 (0.54%) Postman
6 9 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
7 8 (0.48%) Maven
8 7 (0.42%) JUnit
8 7 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (0.36%) Flyway
9 6 (0.36%) Gradle
9 6 (0.36%) SpecFlow
10 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.30%) ERwin
11 4 (0.24%) Selenium
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) SonarQube
12 3 (0.18%) TestNG
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 554 (33.43%) Social Skills
2 377 (22.75%) Finance
3 243 (14.67%) Legal
4 198 (11.95%) Analytical Skills
5 163 (9.84%) Public Sector
6 117 (7.06%) Banking
7 68 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
8 65 (3.92%) Organisational Skills
9 35 (2.11%) Local Government
9 35 (2.11%) Telecoms
10 32 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
10 32 (1.93%) Retail
11 29 (1.75%) Law
12 27 (1.63%) Front Office
13 24 (1.45%) Marketing
14 22 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
15 20 (1.21%) Pharmaceutical
15 20 (1.21%) Police
16 16 (0.97%) Financial Institution
17 15 (0.91%) Billing
Job Titles
1 231 (13.94%) Architect
2 154 (9.29%) Analyst
3 125 (7.54%) Developer
4 123 (7.42%) Lead
5 121 (7.30%) Senior
6 93 (5.61%) Consultant
7 88 (5.31%) Project Manager
8 70 (4.22%) Business Analyst
9 65 (3.92%) Solutions Architect
10 52 (3.14%) Security Architect
11 44 (2.66%) Data Engineer
12 42 (2.53%) Security Engineer
13 40 (2.41%) Network Engineer
14 39 (2.35%) Java Developer
15 34 (2.05%) Administrator
16 29 (1.75%) Technical Architect
17 28 (1.69%) Support Engineer
18 27 (1.63%) Data Analyst
19 26 (1.57%) IT Support
20 25 (1.51%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (4.83%) REST
2 55 (3.32%) React
3 38 (2.29%) Spring
4 35 (2.11%) Middleware
5 33 (1.99%) CSS
6 32 (1.93%) HTML
6 32 (1.93%) RESTful
6 32 (1.93%) Spring Boot
7 29 (1.75%) Kafka
8 28 (1.69%) OAuth
9 27 (1.63%) JSON
10 26 (1.57%) .NET
11 19 (1.15%) HTML5
12 18 (1.09%) CSS3
12 18 (1.09%) Jest
12 18 (1.09%) Node.js
12 18 (1.09%) PySpark
12 18 (1.09%) Redux
13 17 (1.03%) OpenID
14 15 (0.91%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 740 (44.66%) Data Protection Act
2 94 (5.67%) Cloud Native
3 89 (5.37%) Product Ownership
4 74 (4.47%) Onboarding
5 56 (3.38%) Management Information System
6 47 (2.84%) Data Centre
7 46 (2.78%) Legacy Systems
8 41 (2.47%) Distributed Systems
9 38 (2.29%) Security Posture
10 37 (2.23%) Virtual Team
11 25 (1.51%) Hybrid Cloud
11 25 (1.51%) NHS
12 24 (1.45%) Operational Technology
13 22 (1.33%) Replication
13 22 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
14 19 (1.15%) Data Structures
14 19 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
15 18 (1.09%) Enterprise Storage
15 18 (1.09%) Mobile App
16 16 (0.97%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 124 (7.48%) Windows
2 81 (4.89%) Linux
3 30 (1.81%) Unix
4 27 (1.63%) Windows Server
5 26 (1.57%) Android
6 25 (1.51%) Apple iOS
7 23 (1.39%) Mac OS
8 19 (1.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.78%) VMS
10 12 (0.72%) Windows 10
11 6 (0.36%) CoreOS
11 6 (0.36%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.36%) zOS
12 2 (0.12%) Rocky
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.060%) CentOS
13 1 (0.060%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.060%) Solaris
13 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 304 (18.35%) Agile
2 294 (17.74%) Problem-Solving
3 281 (16.96%) Stakeholder Management
4 256 (15.45%) Continuous Improvement
5 237 (14.30%) Migration
6 228 (13.76%) DevOps
7 225 (13.58%) CI/CD
8 181 (10.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 176 (10.62%) AI
10 149 (8.99%) Cybersecurity
11 145 (8.75%) Roadmaps
12 142 (8.57%) Decision-Making
13 134 (8.09%) Analytics
14 129 (7.79%) Information Security
15 125 (7.54%) Risk Management
16 121 (7.30%) Data Governance
17 116 (7.00%) Validation
18 112 (6.76%) Infrastructure as Code
19 100 (6.04%) Data Modelling
20 98 (5.91%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 224 (13.52%) Python
2 171 (10.32%) SQL
3 122 (7.36%) Java
4 66 (3.98%) JavaScript
5 57 (3.44%) PowerShell
6 45 (2.72%) Bash
7 33 (1.99%) TypeScript
8 28 (1.69%) C#
9 19 (1.15%) Bicep
10 16 (0.97%) Go
11 12 (0.72%) Kotlin
12 11 (0.66%) Perl
13 10 (0.60%) Apex Code
13 10 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
14 8 (0.48%) Scala
14 8 (0.48%) VB
15 7 (0.42%) C++
15 7 (0.42%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.42%) VB6
16 6 (0.36%) ActionScript
Qualifications
1 245 (14.79%) Security Cleared
2 183 (11.04%) SC Cleared
3 132 (7.97%) Degree
4 74 (4.47%) CISSP
5 62 (3.74%) DV Cleared
6 38 (2.29%) CISM
7 36 (2.17%) Cisco Certification
8 35 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
9 32 (1.93%) Azure Certification
9 32 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
10 27 (1.63%) PMI Certification
11 25 (1.51%) AWS Certification
12 23 (1.39%) PMP
13 19 (1.15%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 19 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (1.03%) CCSP
14 17 (1.03%) Master's Degree
15 12 (0.72%) CCNP
16 9 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 9 (0.54%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 249 (15.03%) GDPR
2 98 (5.91%) Data Quality
3 86 (5.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (5.13%) NIST
5 76 (4.59%) QA
6 46 (2.78%) GRC
7 41 (2.47%) Accessibility
8 27 (1.63%) PCI DSS
9 23 (1.39%) PMO
10 19 (1.15%) NCSC
10 19 (1.15%) SOC 2
11 18 (1.09%) SLA
12 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
13 10 (0.60%) HIPAA
14 9 (0.54%) Disclosure Scotland
14 9 (0.54%) WCAG
15 7 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials
16 6 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 5 (0.30%) PERC
System Software
1 82 (4.95%) Active Directory
2 69 (4.16%) Docker
3 57 (3.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.09%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.91%) NFS
6 14 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.78%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.72%) vSphere
9 8 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
10 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
11 6 (0.36%) KVM
12 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
13 3 (0.18%) IAG
13 3 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
13 3 (0.18%) XenApp
13 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
14 2 (0.12%) GPFS
14 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
15 1 (0.060%) iptables
Systems Management
1 117 (7.06%) Kubernetes
2 91 (5.49%) Terraform
3 60 (3.62%) Ansible
4 40 (2.41%) Microsoft Intune
5 39 (2.35%) Grafana
6 30 (1.81%) NetBackup
7 28 (1.69%) Prometheus
8 22 (1.33%) SCCM
8 22 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.97%) 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%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.24%) Foglight
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
15 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 292 (17.62%) Microsoft
2 76 (4.59%) Oracle
3 74 (4.47%) ServiceNow
4 65 (3.92%) Google
5 58 (3.50%) VMware
6 54 (3.26%) Cisco
7 50 (3.02%) Databricks
8 40 (2.41%) SAP
9 38 (2.29%) Splunk
10 33 (1.99%) Red Hat
11 25 (1.51%) Salesforce
12 23 (1.39%) Veritas
13 20 (1.21%) NetApp
13 20 (1.21%) Zscaler
14 19 (1.15%) Workday
15 16 (0.97%) Commvault
15 16 (0.97%) CyberArk
16 15 (0.91%) Citrix
16 15 (0.91%) F5
17 14 (0.84%) Dell