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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 89 89
Rank change year-on-year +18 0 +6
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,541 784 1,047
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.15% 2.69% 2.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.72% 2.96% 2.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 848 400 553
10th Percentile £296 £252 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £489 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.15% -2.25% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £601
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £451
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 32 108
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.78 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.35 £17.66 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £25.75 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.09% +22.62% -56.71%
75th Percentile £33.75 £32.73 £27.59
90th Percentile £48.00 £36.95 £41.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £24.50 £19.50
% change year-on-year -13.27% +25.64% -47.67%

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 41,434 26,510 36,773
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.66% 90.99% 85.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,895 16,942 23,625
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,481 1,120 2,526
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.97 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.98% -23.38% -0.11%
75th Percentile £67.84 £57.50 £60.71
90th Percentile £81.05 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1 June 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 +30 1,320 £497 -0.64% 498
UK excluding London +19 848 £450 -5.26% 316
London +31 595 £525 +0.96% 235
Work from Home +28 405 £500 +3.90% 222
North of England +1 278 £475 - 77
South East +25 179 £478 -11.41% 85
Yorkshire -11 158 £475 -8.43% 30
Midlands +4 130 £450 -10.00% 58
Scotland +4 125 £425 -7.10% 25
North West +7 112 £475 +15.15% 34
West Midlands -14 89 £468 -10.95% 36
South West +4 66 £410 +2.50% 38
East of England +5 51 £475 -9.52% 18
East Midlands +1 41 £438 +17.06% 22
Wales -6 11 £363 -12.12% 12
Northern Ireland +8 9 £104 -78.86% 8
North East -37 8 £400 -3.03% 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 56 (3.63%) Confluence
2 51 (3.31%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 16 (1.04%) Apache Spark
5 13 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 9 (0.58%) Apache
7 6 (0.39%) CMS
8 5 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (0.32%) SAS
9 3 (0.19%) Drupal
9 3 (0.19%) IIS
9 3 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.13%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.13%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.13%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 51 (3.31%) Microsoft Office
2 46 (2.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.26%) UserZoom
7 3 (0.19%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.065%) Maya
9 1 (0.065%) Trello
9 1 (0.065%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.65%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.32%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.32%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.19%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.19%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.065%) Endur
8 1 (0.065%) Loan IQ
Cloud Services
1 321 (20.83%) Azure
2 256 (16.61%) AWS
3 132 (8.57%) GCP
4 100 (6.49%) Microsoft 365
5 86 (5.58%) Entra ID
6 83 (5.39%) Power Platform
7 65 (4.22%) SaaS
8 61 (3.96%) GitHub
9 48 (3.11%) Microsoft Purview
9 48 (3.11%) OpenShift
10 44 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
11 38 (2.47%) Serverless
12 27 (1.75%) Microsoft Copilot
13 25 (1.62%) AWS Lambda
14 23 (1.49%) Snowflake
15 22 (1.43%) OneDrive
16 21 (1.36%) Amazon S3
16 21 (1.36%) AWS CloudFormation
16 21 (1.36%) Power Automate
17 20 (1.30%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 72 (4.67%) Network Security
2 44 (2.86%) Firewall
3 39 (2.53%) SAN
4 29 (1.88%) VPN
5 27 (1.75%) NAS
6 23 (1.49%) DNS
7 22 (1.43%) TCP/IP
8 21 (1.36%) WAN
9 18 (1.17%) LAN
10 17 (1.10%) MPLS
11 15 (0.97%) DHCP
12 14 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
13 11 (0.71%) Fibre Channel
14 9 (0.58%) HTTP
14 9 (0.58%) iSCSI
14 9 (0.58%) VLAN
15 8 (0.52%) SD-WAN
15 8 (0.52%) SSL
15 8 (0.52%) Wireless
16 7 (0.45%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.48%) Power BI
2 37 (2.40%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (2.21%) Metadata
4 32 (2.08%) SQL Server
5 27 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
6 23 (1.49%) MongoDB
6 23 (1.49%) MySQL
7 21 (1.36%) Data Lake
8 20 (1.30%) Amazon RDS
8 20 (1.30%) Relational Database
9 19 (1.23%) Big Data
9 19 (1.23%) NoSQL
10 13 (0.84%) DynamoDB
11 12 (0.78%) Oracle Database
11 12 (0.78%) Tableau
12 10 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 9 (0.58%) BigQuery
13 9 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
14 8 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 7 (0.45%) Redis
Development Applications
1 91 (5.91%) JIRA
2 66 (4.28%) Git
3 63 (4.09%) Jenkins
4 36 (2.34%) GitLab
5 9 (0.58%) SpecFlow
6 8 (0.52%) JUnit
6 8 (0.52%) Postman
7 7 (0.45%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.39%) Flyway
8 6 (0.39%) Maven
9 5 (0.32%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.32%) Gradle
10 4 (0.26%) ERwin
10 4 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
11 3 (0.19%) Katalon Studio
11 3 (0.19%) Selenium
11 3 (0.19%) TestNG
11 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.13%) REST Assured
General
1 487 (31.60%) Social Skills
2 357 (23.17%) Finance
3 200 (12.98%) Legal
4 174 (11.29%) Analytical Skills
5 141 (9.15%) Public Sector
6 120 (7.79%) Banking
7 66 (4.28%) Documentation Skills
8 64 (4.15%) Organisational Skills
9 40 (2.60%) Telecoms
10 30 (1.95%) Front Office
10 30 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.82%) Local Government
11 28 (1.82%) Retail
12 26 (1.69%) Law
12 26 (1.69%) Marketing
13 25 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
14 18 (1.17%) Pharmaceutical
14 18 (1.17%) Police
15 12 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 12 (0.78%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 211 (13.69%) Architect
2 143 (9.28%) Analyst
3 125 (8.11%) Developer
4 116 (7.53%) Lead
5 107 (6.94%) Senior
6 93 (6.04%) Consultant
7 83 (5.39%) Project Manager
8 68 (4.41%) Business Analyst
9 59 (3.83%) Solutions Architect
10 43 (2.79%) Security Architect
11 41 (2.66%) Java Developer
11 41 (2.66%) Network Engineer
12 40 (2.60%) Security Engineer
13 37 (2.40%) Data Engineer
14 34 (2.21%) Administrator
15 28 (1.82%) Technical Architect
16 26 (1.69%) Data Analyst
17 23 (1.49%) Python Developer
17 23 (1.49%) Support Engineer
18 22 (1.43%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (4.93%) REST
2 58 (3.76%) React
3 38 (2.47%) Spring
4 34 (2.21%) Spring Boot
5 33 (2.14%) Middleware
6 31 (2.01%) HTML
7 30 (1.95%) CSS
7 30 (1.95%) Kafka
7 30 (1.95%) RESTful
8 27 (1.75%) .NET
9 26 (1.69%) OAuth
10 25 (1.62%) JSON
11 21 (1.36%) Jest
11 21 (1.36%) Node.js
12 18 (1.17%) HTML5
12 18 (1.17%) Redux
13 17 (1.10%) OpenID
13 17 (1.10%) Spring MVC
14 16 (1.04%) CSS3
14 16 (1.04%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 716 (46.46%) Data Protection Act
2 90 (5.84%) Cloud Native
3 77 (5.00%) Product Ownership
4 71 (4.61%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.31%) Management Information System
6 40 (2.60%) Distributed Systems
6 40 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
7 38 (2.47%) Data Centre
8 31 (2.01%) Security Posture
9 27 (1.75%) NHS
9 27 (1.75%) Replication
10 26 (1.69%) Virtual Team
11 23 (1.49%) Enterprise Storage
11 23 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
12 21 (1.36%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 20 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
14 18 (1.17%) Operational Technology
15 17 (1.10%) Derivative
15 17 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
16 16 (1.04%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 113 (7.33%) Windows
2 79 (5.13%) Linux
3 34 (2.21%) Unix
4 23 (1.49%) Android
4 23 (1.49%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.36%) Mac OS
6 20 (1.30%) Apple iOS
7 17 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.84%) VMS
8 13 (0.84%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.58%) zOS
10 7 (0.45%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.39%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.13%) Rocky
12 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.065%) CentOS
13 1 (0.065%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.065%) Solaris
13 1 (0.065%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 290 (18.82%) Agile
2 260 (16.87%) Stakeholder Management
3 252 (16.35%) Problem-Solving
4 241 (15.64%) Migration
5 234 (15.18%) Continuous Improvement
6 220 (14.28%) CI/CD
7 215 (13.95%) DevOps
8 149 (9.67%) AI
8 149 (9.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 142 (9.21%) Roadmaps
10 135 (8.76%) Analytics
11 131 (8.50%) Decision-Making
12 130 (8.44%) Cybersecurity
13 123 (7.98%) Risk Management
14 116 (7.53%) Information Security
15 105 (6.81%) Infrastructure as Code
16 102 (6.62%) Data Governance
17 100 (6.49%) Test Automation
18 99 (6.42%) Validation
19 97 (6.29%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 218 (14.15%) Python
2 166 (10.77%) SQL
3 135 (8.76%) Java
4 72 (4.67%) JavaScript
5 59 (3.83%) PowerShell
6 42 (2.73%) Bash
7 38 (2.47%) C#
8 32 (2.08%) TypeScript
9 20 (1.30%) Bicep
10 15 (0.97%) Perl
11 14 (0.91%) C++
12 12 (0.78%) Go
13 11 (0.71%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.65%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.58%) Apex Code
15 9 (0.58%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.52%) ActionScript
16 8 (0.52%) Scala
17 7 (0.45%) PL/SQL
18 6 (0.39%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 204 (13.24%) Security Cleared
2 151 (9.80%) SC Cleared
3 136 (8.83%) Degree
4 71 (4.61%) CISSP
5 52 (3.37%) DV Cleared
6 39 (2.53%) CISM
7 34 (2.21%) Computer Science Degree
8 31 (2.01%) Azure Certification
9 30 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
9 30 (1.95%) PMI Certification
10 26 (1.69%) PMP
11 25 (1.62%) BPSS Clearance
12 22 (1.43%) Master's Degree
13 21 (1.36%) AWS Certification
14 18 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (1.04%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.91%) CCSP
17 11 (0.71%) CRISC
18 10 (0.65%) CCNP
18 10 (0.65%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (15.83%) GDPR
2 90 (5.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 89 (5.78%) NIST
4 78 (5.06%) Data Quality
5 61 (3.96%) QA
6 37 (2.40%) Accessibility
6 37 (2.40%) GRC
7 23 (1.49%) PCI DSS
8 21 (1.36%) PMO
9 20 (1.30%) SLA
10 19 (1.23%) SOC 2
11 16 (1.04%) NCSC
12 13 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
13 10 (0.65%) WCAG
14 8 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
15 7 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
15 7 (0.45%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.39%) COBIT
17 5 (0.32%) NIST 800
System Software
1 79 (5.13%) Active Directory
2 67 (4.35%) Docker
3 53 (3.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.30%) NFS
5 18 (1.17%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (0.71%) vSphere
8 8 (0.52%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.45%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.39%) KVM
11 4 (0.26%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.19%) IAG
12 3 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.19%) XenApp
12 3 (0.19%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.13%) GPFS
13 2 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.065%) iptables
Systems Management
1 118 (7.66%) Kubernetes
2 90 (5.84%) Terraform
3 67 (4.35%) Ansible
4 45 (2.92%) Grafana
5 40 (2.60%) Microsoft Intune
6 31 (2.01%) NetBackup
6 31 (2.01%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.36%) SCCM
7 21 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.84%) Puppet
9 12 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 10 (0.65%) Jamf Pro
11 7 (0.45%) Kibana
11 7 (0.45%) SnapMirror
12 5 (0.32%) Control-M
12 5 (0.32%) Oracle RMAN
12 5 (0.32%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 4 (0.26%) CA Single Sign-On
13 4 (0.26%) Foglight
13 4 (0.26%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 256 (16.61%) Microsoft
2 75 (4.87%) Oracle
3 65 (4.22%) Google
4 59 (3.83%) ServiceNow
5 54 (3.50%) Databricks
5 54 (3.50%) VMware
6 50 (3.24%) Cisco
7 44 (2.86%) SAP
8 32 (2.08%) Splunk
9 31 (2.01%) Red Hat
10 26 (1.69%) NetApp
10 26 (1.69%) Veritas
11 23 (1.49%) Salesforce
12 21 (1.36%) Citrix
13 20 (1.30%) IBM
14 15 (0.97%) Commvault
14 15 (0.97%) F5
14 15 (0.97%) Workday
14 15 (0.97%) Zscaler
15 14 (0.91%) Informatica