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

6 months to
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 95 77
Rank change year-on-year +22 -18 +32
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,309 811 1,193
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.34% 2.60% 2.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.84% 2.91% 3.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 692 404 682
10th Percentile £276 £267 £206
25th Percentile £400 £388 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £500 £498
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% +0.50% -5.24%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 21 77
10th Percentile £13.13 £16.25 £11.98
25th Percentile £16.50 £22.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.15% +39.19% -70.00%
75th Percentile £23.12 £34.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £42.50 £65.00 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.61 £29.62 £21.00
% change year-on-year -30.42% +41.02% -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 34,126 27,826 38,980
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.15% 89.30% 87.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,616 16,956 25,656
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £497 £500
% change year-on-year -3.47% -0.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,067 860 2,108
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.45
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +9.38%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.55 £61.31
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £30.88 £35.50
% change year-on-year -19.03% -13.03% +18.89%

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 6 February 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 6 February 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 6 February 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 +27 1,115 £500 - 382
UK excluding London +16 700 £450 -5.26% 307
London +21 542 £525 +2.44% 142
Work from Home +7 298 £500 - 185
North of England -16 203 £463 -2.63% 76
South East +15 159 £490 +0.51% 87
Yorkshire +4 118 £487 -9.40% 18
Scotland +13 117 £400 -15.79% 19
Midlands +7 106 £450 -5.26% 57
North West -28 69 £436 -8.21% 53
West Midlands -6 64 £475 -6.17% 37
South West +6 49 £475 -2.56% 42
East of England +3 45 £314 -37.25% 23
East Midlands +5 42 £438 -2.78% 20
North East -22 17 £400 -11.11% 5
Wales +4 15 £375 -26.83% 11
Northern Ireland - 10 £500 - 2

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 57 (4.35%) Confluence
2 30 (2.29%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (0.69%) CMS
6 8 (0.61%) Apache
6 8 (0.61%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.23%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.23%) Hyperledger
8 3 (0.23%) SAS
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.15%) CICS
9 2 (0.15%) Drupal
9 2 (0.15%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.15%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.076%) Mule
10 1 (0.076%) nginx
Applications
1 51 (3.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.53%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.31%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.23%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.23%) Sketch
8 2 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.15%) InVision
8 2 (0.15%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.076%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.076%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.076%) Blender
9 1 (0.076%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.076%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.076%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 13 (0.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.84%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (0.69%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.23%) Distributed Ledger
5 3 (0.23%) Fidessa
5 3 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (0.23%) R3 Corda
5 3 (0.23%) ResourceLink
5 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.15%) assyst
6 2 (0.15%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.15%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.15%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 240 (18.33%) Azure
2 209 (15.97%) AWS
3 98 (7.49%) GCP
4 68 (5.19%) Microsoft 365
4 68 (5.19%) Power Platform
5 56 (4.28%) Serverless
6 53 (4.05%) Entra ID
7 50 (3.82%) GitHub
8 45 (3.44%) Azure DevOps
9 42 (3.21%) AWS Lambda
10 40 (3.06%) SaaS
11 39 (2.98%) Amazon S3
12 29 (2.22%) Snowflake
13 28 (2.14%) AWS CloudFormation
14 26 (1.99%) Power Automate
15 24 (1.83%) Microsoft Purview
16 23 (1.76%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (1.68%) OpenShift
17 22 (1.68%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 21 (1.60%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.28%) Firewall
2 34 (2.60%) Network Security
3 24 (1.83%) SAN
4 19 (1.45%) LAN
4 19 (1.45%) MPLS
5 18 (1.38%) VPN
6 16 (1.22%) DNS
6 16 (1.22%) WAN
7 15 (1.15%) NAS
8 14 (1.07%) Cisco IPT
8 14 (1.07%) TCP/IP
9 9 (0.69%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.61%) BGP
10 8 (0.61%) SSH
10 8 (0.61%) VLAN
11 7 (0.53%) DHCP
11 7 (0.53%) HTTP
11 7 (0.53%) Internet
12 6 (0.46%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (4.20%) Power BI
2 37 (2.83%) SQL Server
3 34 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.68%) NoSQL
5 20 (1.53%) Data Warehouse
5 20 (1.53%) Metadata
5 20 (1.53%) Relational Database
6 17 (1.30%) MongoDB
6 17 (1.30%) MySQL
7 16 (1.22%) DynamoDB
8 14 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
8 14 (1.07%) Tableau
9 13 (0.99%) Data Lake
10 12 (0.92%) Amazon Aurora
11 11 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
12 10 (0.76%) Oracle Database
13 9 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
14 8 (0.61%) Big Data
14 8 (0.61%) Hadoop
14 8 (0.61%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 98 (7.49%) JIRA
2 50 (3.82%) Git
3 46 (3.51%) Jenkins
4 31 (2.37%) GitLab
5 11 (0.84%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.76%) JUnit
7 6 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.38%) Gradle
8 5 (0.38%) Maven
8 5 (0.38%) NUnit
8 5 (0.38%) Team Foundation Server
9 4 (0.31%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.31%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.31%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.31%) Fiddler
10 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio
11 2 (0.15%) ChangeMan
11 2 (0.15%) IntelliJ
11 2 (0.15%) Liquibase
11 2 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
General
1 432 (33.00%) Social Skills
2 273 (20.86%) Finance
3 166 (12.68%) Analytical Skills
4 138 (10.54%) Public Sector
5 112 (8.56%) Banking
6 105 (8.02%) Legal
7 48 (3.67%) Organisational Skills
8 41 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
9 37 (2.83%) Telecoms
10 34 (2.60%) Marketing
11 30 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
12 22 (1.68%) Law
12 22 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
13 21 (1.60%) Front Office
14 19 (1.45%) Manufacturing
15 18 (1.38%) Local Government
16 13 (0.99%) Police
17 12 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 12 (0.92%) Retail
18 10 (0.76%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 158 (12.07%) Analyst
2 135 (10.31%) Developer
3 134 (10.24%) Architect
4 97 (7.41%) Lead
5 71 (5.42%) Senior
6 69 (5.27%) Business Analyst
7 65 (4.97%) Consultant
8 62 (4.74%) Project Manager
9 45 (3.44%) Solutions Architect
10 36 (2.75%) Administrator
11 32 (2.44%) Data Engineer
12 30 (2.29%) Security Engineer
13 29 (2.22%) Data Analyst
14 24 (1.83%) Network Engineer
15 22 (1.68%) Automation Engineer
15 22 (1.68%) Data Protection Officer
15 22 (1.68%) Support Engineer
16 21 (1.60%) Java Developer
16 21 (1.60%) Security Architect
17 20 (1.53%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (4.51%) REST
2 43 (3.28%) React
3 36 (2.75%) .NET
4 34 (2.60%) Node.js
5 29 (2.22%) RESTful
6 25 (1.91%) Spring
7 23 (1.76%) Kafka
8 22 (1.68%) OAuth
9 21 (1.60%) Spring Boot
10 19 (1.45%) Middleware
11 16 (1.22%) PySpark
11 16 (1.22%) SOAP
12 15 (1.15%) HTML
12 15 (1.15%) Oracle Fusion
13 14 (1.07%) .NET Core
13 14 (1.07%) Playwright
14 13 (0.99%) SAML
15 12 (0.92%) AngularJS
16 10 (0.76%) Jest
17 9 (0.69%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 654 (49.96%) Data Protection Act
2 55 (4.20%) Management Information System
2 55 (4.20%) Product Ownership
3 54 (4.13%) Cloud Native
4 52 (3.97%) Onboarding
5 31 (2.37%) NHS
6 29 (2.22%) Distributed Systems
7 27 (2.06%) Freedom of Information
8 23 (1.76%) Data Structures
9 21 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
10 18 (1.38%) Data Centre
10 18 (1.38%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 18 (1.38%) Security Posture
11 17 (1.30%) CMDB
12 16 (1.22%) Replication
12 16 (1.22%) Virtual Team
13 15 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
14 13 (0.99%) AI Agents
14 13 (0.99%) Enterprise Software
14 13 (0.99%) Insider Threat
Operating Systems
1 93 (7.10%) Windows
2 69 (5.27%) Linux
3 24 (1.83%) Unix
4 17 (1.30%) Windows Server
5 16 (1.22%) Mac OS
6 13 (0.99%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (0.53%) Android
8 7 (0.53%) VMS
8 7 (0.53%) zOS
9 5 (0.38%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.31%) AIX
10 4 (0.31%) Solaris
11 3 (0.23%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.15%) CoreOS
13 1 (0.076%) CentOS
13 1 (0.076%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.076%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 237 (18.11%) Problem-Solving
2 230 (17.57%) Agile
3 220 (16.81%) Stakeholder Management
4 179 (13.67%) Migration
5 162 (12.38%) CI/CD
6 155 (11.84%) DevOps
7 138 (10.54%) Continuous Improvement
8 129 (9.85%) Cybersecurity
9 127 (9.70%) Analytics
10 122 (9.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 121 (9.24%) AI
11 121 (9.24%) Roadmaps
12 108 (8.25%) Project Management
13 105 (8.02%) Information Security
14 100 (7.64%) Risk Management
15 82 (6.26%) Microservices
16 81 (6.19%) Test Automation
17 79 (6.04%) Decision-Making
18 76 (5.81%) Incident Response
19 75 (5.73%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 219 (16.73%) Python
2 165 (12.61%) SQL
3 84 (6.42%) Java
4 69 (5.27%) JavaScript
5 63 (4.81%) PowerShell
6 53 (4.05%) C#
7 46 (3.51%) Bash
8 36 (2.75%) TypeScript
9 16 (1.22%) Bicep
10 13 (0.99%) C++
10 13 (0.99%) Shell Script
11 11 (0.84%) Perl
12 8 (0.61%) PL/SQL
13 6 (0.46%) ActionScript
13 6 (0.46%) ActionScript 2.0
13 6 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
13 6 (0.46%) PHP
14 5 (0.38%) Scala
15 4 (0.31%) Go
15 4 (0.31%) R
Qualifications
1 172 (13.14%) Security Cleared
2 127 (9.70%) SC Cleared
3 118 (9.01%) Degree
4 45 (3.44%) DV Cleared
5 32 (2.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 30 (2.29%) CISSP
7 25 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
8 24 (1.83%) CISM
9 23 (1.76%) AWS Certification
10 22 (1.68%) Master's Degree
11 17 (1.30%) PMI Certification
12 15 (1.15%) PMP
13 13 (0.99%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (0.99%) CTC Cleared
14 12 (0.92%) Azure Certification
14 12 (0.92%) CRISC
15 10 (0.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 10 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
16 9 (0.69%) A+ Certification
17 8 (0.61%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 226 (17.27%) GDPR
2 93 (7.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 80 (6.11%) NIST
4 59 (4.51%) Data Quality
5 47 (3.59%) QA
6 30 (2.29%) PCI DSS
7 28 (2.14%) Accessibility
8 21 (1.60%) GRC
9 19 (1.45%) PMO
10 16 (1.22%) NCSC
11 14 (1.07%) Disclosure Scotland
12 13 (0.99%) SLA
13 12 (0.92%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.84%) PERC
14 11 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 9 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.61%) SOC 2
17 6 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
17 6 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
17 6 (0.46%) HIPAA
System Software
1 59 (4.51%) Docker
2 55 (4.20%) Active Directory
3 51 (3.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.76%) NFS
6 7 (0.53%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.38%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.38%) vSphere
9 3 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.15%) KVM
10 2 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.076%) Firmware
11 1 (0.076%) HDFS
11 1 (0.076%) IAG
11 1 (0.076%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.076%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.076%) UAG
Systems Management
1 79 (6.04%) Terraform
2 69 (5.27%) Kubernetes
3 55 (4.20%) Ansible
4 28 (2.14%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (1.91%) NetBackup
6 24 (1.83%) Grafana
7 21 (1.60%) SCCM
8 20 (1.53%) Prometheus
9 9 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.61%) Oracle RMAN
10 8 (0.61%) Puppet
11 6 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.46%) RSA Archer
11 6 (0.46%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.31%) Control-M
12 4 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (0.23%) Kibana
13 3 (0.23%) PingFederate
13 3 (0.23%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 198 (15.13%) Microsoft
2 66 (5.04%) Oracle
3 60 (4.58%) Google
4 53 (4.05%) VMware
5 39 (2.98%) Cisco
6 38 (2.90%) Databricks
6 38 (2.90%) ServiceNow
7 36 (2.75%) SAP
8 30 (2.29%) Salesforce
9 24 (1.83%) Red Hat
10 22 (1.68%) Citrix
11 20 (1.53%) Veritas
12 18 (1.38%) IBM
13 17 (1.30%) Commvault
14 15 (1.15%) F5
15 13 (0.99%) Splunk
16 12 (0.92%) Adobe
17 11 (0.84%) Informatica
17 11 (0.84%) NetApp
17 11 (0.84%) Veeam