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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 85 94
Rank change year-on-year +5 +9 -10
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,669 949 974
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.15% 2.90% 2.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.70% 3.21% 2.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 916 466 529
10th Percentile £313 £272 £202
25th Percentile £400 £368 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £605
90th Percentile £700 £688 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £467 £475
% change year-on-year -0.43% -1.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 45 66
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £16.46 £14.78 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.30 £17.00 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +25.29% -17.07% -50.05%
75th Percentile £33.75 £29.00 £28.75
90th Percentile £38.00 £34.70 £62.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £15.25 £19.50
% change year-on-year +39.34% -21.79% -36.59%

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 45,072 29,587 34,698
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.08% 90.43% 85.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,942 18,578 22,301
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,665 1,596 2,086
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.02 £17.33 £17.31
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.80 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +83.17% -40.00% -1.45%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +8 1,417 £500 +5.26% 457
UK excluding London +10 921 £465 -0.43% 300
London +11 619 £525 +5.00% 196
Work from Home +17 490 £500 +6.67% 164
North of England +16 324 £475 +3.26% 79
South East +20 207 £475 -10.55% 87
Yorkshire -1 180 £475 -5.00% 29
Midlands -4 147 £470 -6.00% 59
North West +15 136 £488 +14.71% 45
Scotland -2 121 £425 -8.36% 10
West Midlands -18 110 £473 -5.40% 35
South West -8 69 £425 +6.25% 37
East Midlands +9 37 £447 +23.31% 24
East of England +1 35 £538 +13.16% 24
Wales -7 18 £413 +39.24% 8
North East -54 10 £456 +10.61% 6
Northern Ireland 0 9 £104 -78.86% 4

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 (3.36%) SharePoint
2 55 (3.30%) Confluence
3 24 (1.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.14%) Apache Spark
5 18 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
6 12 (0.72%) 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%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 38 (2.28%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.060%) Maya
8 1 (0.060%) Trello
8 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
3 6 (0.36%) Aladdin
3 6 (0.36%) NEC Housing
3 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.060%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.060%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 368 (22.05%) Azure
2 283 (16.96%) AWS
3 144 (8.63%) GCP
4 115 (6.89%) Microsoft 365
5 92 (5.51%) Power Platform
6 88 (5.27%) Entra ID
7 69 (4.13%) SaaS
8 67 (4.01%) GitHub
9 58 (3.48%) Microsoft Purview
10 54 (3.24%) Azure DevOps
11 45 (2.70%) Serverless
12 41 (2.46%) OpenShift
13 33 (1.98%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.56%) AWS Lambda
14 26 (1.56%) OneDrive
15 23 (1.38%) Amazon S3
15 23 (1.38%) PowerApps
15 23 (1.38%) Snowflake
16 22 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
16 22 (1.32%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 87 (5.21%) Network Security
2 53 (3.18%) Firewall
3 34 (2.04%) VPN
4 27 (1.62%) DNS
4 27 (1.62%) SAN
5 22 (1.32%) DHCP
5 22 (1.32%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.26%) WAN
7 16 (0.96%) LAN
8 15 (0.90%) NAS
8 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
9 13 (0.78%) HTTP
9 13 (0.78%) SSL
10 11 (0.66%) Cisco IPT
11 10 (0.60%) MPLS
11 10 (0.60%) Wireless
12 8 (0.48%) Intrusion Detection
12 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
13 7 (0.42%) Cisco Nexus
13 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (4.37%) Power BI
2 44 (2.64%) Metadata
3 43 (2.58%) PostgreSQL
4 41 (2.46%) SQL Server
5 32 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
5 32 (1.92%) Relational Database
6 26 (1.56%) Data Lake
7 24 (1.44%) MySQL
7 24 (1.44%) NoSQL
8 20 (1.20%) Big Data
9 19 (1.14%) MongoDB
10 18 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (0.84%) BigQuery
11 14 (0.84%) Oracle Database
12 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
13 11 (0.66%) Tableau
14 10 (0.60%) DynamoDB
15 9 (0.54%) Ingres
15 9 (0.54%) RDBMS
16 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 95 (5.69%) JIRA
2 67 (4.01%) Git
3 64 (3.83%) Jenkins
4 34 (2.04%) GitLab
5 11 (0.66%) Maven
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (0.54%) Postman
8 8 (0.48%) Team Foundation Server
9 7 (0.42%) Gradle
9 7 (0.42%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.36%) Flyway
10 6 (0.36%) JUnit
10 6 (0.36%) Selenium
10 6 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
11 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
11 5 (0.30%) ERwin
11 5 (0.30%) SpecFlow
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
General
1 567 (33.97%) Social Skills
2 360 (21.57%) Finance
3 253 (15.16%) Legal
4 193 (11.56%) Analytical Skills
5 178 (10.67%) Public Sector
6 118 (7.07%) Banking
7 69 (4.13%) Documentation Skills
8 63 (3.77%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (2.10%) Local Government
10 35 (2.10%) Retail
11 33 (1.98%) Telecoms
12 28 (1.68%) Marketing
13 27 (1.62%) Law
14 24 (1.44%) Front Office
15 21 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
15 21 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
16 20 (1.20%) Billing
16 20 (1.20%) Police
17 17 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 241 (14.44%) Architect
2 152 (9.11%) Analyst
3 137 (8.21%) Lead
4 130 (7.79%) Developer
5 126 (7.55%) Senior
6 98 (5.87%) Consultant
7 86 (5.15%) Project Manager
8 66 (3.95%) Business Analyst
8 66 (3.95%) Solutions Architect
9 54 (3.24%) Security Architect
10 43 (2.58%) Data Engineer
11 42 (2.52%) Security Engineer
12 38 (2.28%) Java Developer
13 37 (2.22%) Administrator
14 33 (1.98%) Network Engineer
15 30 (1.80%) Support Engineer
15 30 (1.80%) Technical Architect
16 28 (1.68%) Data Analyst
16 28 (1.68%) IT Support
17 25 (1.50%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (5.45%) REST
2 52 (3.12%) React
3 39 (2.34%) Spring
4 38 (2.28%) Middleware
5 36 (2.16%) CSS
6 35 (2.10%) JSON
7 34 (2.04%) HTML
7 34 (2.04%) Spring Boot
8 33 (1.98%) Kafka
9 29 (1.74%) OAuth
9 29 (1.74%) RESTful
10 23 (1.38%) .NET
11 20 (1.20%) Node.js
12 19 (1.14%) CSS3
12 19 (1.14%) HTML5
13 18 (1.08%) Redux
14 17 (1.02%) Jest
14 17 (1.02%) OpenID
15 16 (0.96%) GraphQL
16 15 (0.90%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 747 (44.76%) Data Protection Act
2 93 (5.57%) Cloud Native
2 93 (5.57%) Product Ownership
3 75 (4.49%) Onboarding
4 62 (3.71%) Management Information System
5 48 (2.88%) Data Centre
6 47 (2.82%) Legacy Systems
7 46 (2.76%) Distributed Systems
8 42 (2.52%) Virtual Team
9 37 (2.22%) Security Posture
10 25 (1.50%) Operational Technology
11 24 (1.44%) Replication
12 23 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
12 23 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
13 22 (1.32%) NHS
14 21 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
15 20 (1.20%) Mobile App
16 19 (1.14%) Enterprise Storage
17 17 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
17 17 (1.02%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 128 (7.67%) Windows
2 79 (4.73%) Linux
3 29 (1.74%) Apple iOS
4 28 (1.68%) Android
5 27 (1.62%) Unix
6 26 (1.56%) Windows Server
7 24 (1.44%) Mac OS
8 18 (1.08%) 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%) Solaris
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%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 316 (18.93%) Agile
2 300 (17.97%) Problem-Solving
2 300 (17.97%) Stakeholder Management
3 259 (15.52%) Continuous Improvement
4 242 (14.50%) DevOps
5 234 (14.02%) CI/CD
6 228 (13.66%) Migration
7 203 (12.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 190 (11.38%) AI
9 157 (9.41%) Cybersecurity
10 153 (9.17%) Decision-Making
11 151 (9.05%) Roadmaps
12 148 (8.87%) Analytics
13 141 (8.45%) Data Governance
14 123 (7.37%) Validation
15 122 (7.31%) Risk Management
16 120 (7.19%) Information Security
17 114 (6.83%) Data Modelling
18 113 (6.77%) Infrastructure as Code
19 100 (5.99%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 214 (12.82%) Python
2 172 (10.31%) SQL
3 114 (6.83%) Java
4 65 (3.89%) JavaScript
5 55 (3.30%) PowerShell
6 42 (2.52%) Bash
7 32 (1.92%) TypeScript
8 26 (1.56%) C#
9 17 (1.02%) Go
10 16 (0.96%) Bicep
11 13 (0.78%) Apex Code
11 13 (0.78%) Kotlin
12 10 (0.60%) Perl
13 9 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
13 9 (0.54%) VB
14 8 (0.48%) Scala
14 8 (0.48%) VB6
15 7 (0.42%) C++
16 6 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 253 (15.16%) Security Cleared
2 190 (11.38%) SC Cleared
3 121 (7.25%) Degree
4 78 (4.67%) CISSP
5 59 (3.54%) DV Cleared
6 45 (2.70%) CISM
7 37 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (1.92%) Azure Certification
8 32 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
9 29 (1.74%) PMI Certification
10 26 (1.56%) PMP
11 25 (1.50%) AWS Certification
12 17 (1.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 17 (1.02%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (0.90%) CCSP
14 13 (0.78%) Master's Degree
15 10 (0.60%) CCNP
15 10 (0.60%) CISA
16 9 (0.54%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 252 (15.10%) GDPR
2 98 (5.87%) Data Quality
3 84 (5.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (4.91%) QA
5 77 (4.61%) NIST
6 47 (2.82%) GRC
7 43 (2.58%) Accessibility
8 27 (1.62%) PMO
9 22 (1.32%) PCI DSS
10 20 (1.20%) NCSC
10 20 (1.20%) SLA
11 16 (0.96%) SOC 2
12 13 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.72%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.66%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.66%) WCAG
15 10 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.60%) PERC
16 8 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 6 (0.36%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 84 (5.03%) Active Directory
2 68 (4.07%) Docker
3 56 (3.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.96%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.90%) NFS
6 14 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (0.84%) vSphere
7 10 (0.60%) Hyper-V
8 7 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.36%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.30%) KVM
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) IAG
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 117 (7.01%) Kubernetes
2 89 (5.33%) Terraform
3 57 (3.42%) Ansible
4 42 (2.52%) Microsoft Intune
5 35 (2.10%) Grafana
6 29 (1.74%) NetBackup
7 23 (1.38%) Prometheus
8 21 (1.26%) SCCM
9 19 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.96%) Puppet
11 14 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.42%) Kibana
13 7 (0.42%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.36%) SnapMirror
15 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
15 5 (0.30%) QRadar
16 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
16 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 295 (17.68%) Microsoft
2 80 (4.79%) ServiceNow
3 78 (4.67%) Oracle
4 64 (3.83%) Google
5 57 (3.42%) VMware
6 54 (3.24%) Cisco
7 52 (3.12%) Databricks
8 41 (2.46%) SAP
9 36 (2.16%) Splunk
10 32 (1.92%) Red Hat
11 28 (1.68%) Salesforce
12 23 (1.38%) Workday
12 23 (1.38%) Zscaler
13 22 (1.32%) NetApp
14 21 (1.26%) Veritas
15 19 (1.14%) CyberArk
16 16 (0.96%) Citrix
17 15 (0.90%) Commvault
17 15 (0.90%) IBM
18 13 (0.78%) Dell