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

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 75 88
Rank change year-on-year -10 +13 -4
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,682 1,071 983
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.07% 3.25% 2.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.63% 3.59% 2.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 881 506 520
10th Percentile £263 £296 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £489 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.30% -2.25% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £688 £675 £714
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £460 £475
% change year-on-year -2.17% -3.16% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 53 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.25 £13.60 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -45.22% +10.85%
75th Percentile £24.50 £20.40 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £36.16 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +13.02%

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 46,340 29,830 33,021
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.48% 90.53% 85.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,136 18,534 20,247
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £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 £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,159 1,812 1,459
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.23 £14.96
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -1.91%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.22% -47.67% +1.18%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -12 1,399 £500 +1.83% 1,631
UK excluding London -2 941 £450 -2.17% 969
London -27 590 £525 +0.96% 768
Work from Home +15 476 £500 +5.26% 621
North of England +5 334 £463 +2.78% 276
South East +3 199 £475 -8.30% 244
Yorkshire +7 167 £475 -5.00% 88
Midlands +4 160 £450 -5.26% 145
North West +11 146 £454 +3.36% 158
West Midlands +3 128 £450 -10.00% 101
Scotland -6 121 £438 +2.94% 70
South West -14 74 £425 +6.25% 87
East Midlands -6 32 £435 +8.75% 44
East of England -15 31 £503 +5.79% 106
North East -55 22 £463 +15.63% 34
Wales -2 21 £413 - 31
Northern Ireland +3 15 £110 -81.63% 22
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 -17.24% 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 68 (4.04%) SharePoint
2 40 (2.38%) Confluence
3 23 (1.37%) Apache Airflow
4 22 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
5 17 (1.01%) Apache Spark
6 11 (0.65%) IIS
7 10 (0.59%) Apache
7 10 (0.59%) CMS
7 10 (0.59%) SAS
8 6 (0.36%) WordPress
9 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
10 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.18%) CICS
11 3 (0.18%) nginx
11 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.12%) Drupal
12 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
13 1 (0.059%) Cloud Foundry
13 1 (0.059%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 46 (2.73%) Microsoft Excel
1 46 (2.73%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
3 8 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
5 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.059%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.059%) Maya
5 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.48%) SAP MDG
4 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
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%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.059%) Eloqua
8 1 (0.059%) Maximo
8 1 (0.059%) Sage 50
8 1 (0.059%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 379 (22.53%) Azure
2 308 (18.31%) AWS
3 136 (8.09%) GCP
4 132 (7.85%) Microsoft 365
5 81 (4.82%) Entra ID
6 80 (4.76%) Power Platform
7 76 (4.52%) SaaS
8 67 (3.98%) Azure DevOps
9 62 (3.69%) GitHub
10 55 (3.27%) Microsoft Purview
11 48 (2.85%) Serverless
12 39 (2.32%) Microsoft Copilot
13 27 (1.61%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.55%) AWS Lambda
14 26 (1.55%) GitHub Actions
14 26 (1.55%) OpenShift
15 22 (1.31%) Power Automate
15 22 (1.31%) PowerApps
16 20 (1.19%) Amazon S3
16 20 (1.19%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 92 (5.47%) Network Security
2 62 (3.69%) Firewall
3 36 (2.14%) DNS
3 36 (2.14%) VPN
4 26 (1.55%) DHCP
5 25 (1.49%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.25%) WAN
7 19 (1.13%) Cisco IPT
8 17 (1.01%) LAN
9 15 (0.89%) SAN
10 14 (0.83%) SSL
10 14 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.77%) Wireless
12 11 (0.65%) MPLS
12 11 (0.65%) VoIP
13 10 (0.59%) HTTP
14 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
14 9 (0.54%) NAS
15 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
16 7 (0.42%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (3.57%) Power BI
2 53 (3.15%) Metadata
3 43 (2.56%) Relational Database
4 36 (2.14%) PostgreSQL
5 33 (1.96%) SQL Server
6 30 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.43%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.31%) Data Lake
9 21 (1.25%) MySQL
10 19 (1.13%) BigQuery
11 16 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
12 15 (0.89%) Big Data
13 13 (0.77%) MongoDB
14 12 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
15 9 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
15 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
15 9 (0.54%) Oracle Database
16 8 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
16 8 (0.48%) Redis
17 7 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 86 (5.11%) JIRA
2 69 (4.10%) Git
3 58 (3.45%) Jenkins
4 27 (1.61%) GitLab
5 18 (1.07%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Maven
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.59%) Postman
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) ERwin
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 655 (38.94%) Social Skills
2 362 (21.52%) Finance
3 249 (14.80%) Legal
4 213 (12.66%) Analytical Skills
5 212 (12.60%) Public Sector
6 118 (7.02%) Banking
7 78 (4.64%) Documentation Skills
8 76 (4.52%) Organisational Skills
9 44 (2.62%) Influencing Skills
10 43 (2.56%) Local Government
11 40 (2.38%) Retail
12 36 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
13 32 (1.90%) Law
14 29 (1.72%) Marketing
15 27 (1.61%) Front Office
16 24 (1.43%) Telecoms
17 22 (1.31%) Billing
17 22 (1.31%) Police
18 21 (1.25%) Pharmaceutical
19 15 (0.89%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 253 (15.04%) Architect
2 169 (10.05%) Analyst
3 142 (8.44%) Lead
4 129 (7.67%) Senior
5 121 (7.19%) Developer
6 82 (4.88%) Consultant
7 74 (4.40%) Project Manager
8 69 (4.10%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (3.98%) Business Analyst
10 60 (3.57%) Security Architect
11 46 (2.73%) Administrator
12 44 (2.62%) Security Engineer
13 36 (2.14%) Support Engineer
14 33 (1.96%) Data Analyst
15 32 (1.90%) Information Officer
16 30 (1.78%) Java Developer
17 28 (1.66%) Data Engineer
17 28 (1.66%) Information Governance Officer
17 28 (1.66%) Network Engineer
18 26 (1.55%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (5.65%) Terraform
2 93 (5.53%) REST
3 41 (2.44%) Kafka
4 38 (2.26%) OAuth
4 38 (2.26%) React
5 37 (2.20%) JSON
5 37 (2.20%) Spring
6 35 (2.08%) Spring Boot
7 32 (1.90%) HTML
8 30 (1.78%) CSS
8 30 (1.78%) Middleware
9 27 (1.61%) RESTful
10 24 (1.43%) .NET
10 24 (1.43%) OAuth2
11 21 (1.25%) Node.js
11 21 (1.25%) OpenID
12 16 (0.95%) HTML5
12 16 (0.95%) SOAP
13 15 (0.89%) CSS3
13 15 (0.89%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 703 (41.80%) Data Protection Act
2 117 (6.96%) Management Information System
3 100 (5.95%) Product Ownership
4 95 (5.65%) Onboarding
5 90 (5.35%) Cloud Native
6 56 (3.33%) Data Centre
6 56 (3.33%) Distributed Systems
7 41 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
7 41 (2.44%) Security Posture
8 40 (2.38%) Freedom of Information
8 40 (2.38%) Virtual Team
9 32 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (1.78%) Self-Motivation
11 29 (1.72%) NHS
12 28 (1.66%) Operational Technology
13 23 (1.37%) AI Agents
14 22 (1.31%) Mobile App
15 21 (1.25%) Data Structures
15 21 (1.25%) Private Cloud
16 19 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 129 (7.67%) Windows
2 80 (4.76%) Linux
3 34 (2.02%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.90%) Android
4 32 (1.90%) Apple iOS
5 28 (1.66%) Unix
6 22 (1.31%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (0.83%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.48%) zOS
10 4 (0.24%) VMS
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) HPUX
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.059%) MVS
12 1 (0.059%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 383 (22.77%) Stakeholder Management
2 324 (19.26%) Agile
3 292 (17.36%) Problem-Solving
4 286 (17.00%) Continuous Improvement
5 245 (14.57%) CI/CD
6 230 (13.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 227 (13.50%) AI
8 224 (13.32%) Cybersecurity
9 219 (13.02%) Migration
10 217 (12.90%) DevOps
11 166 (9.87%) Decision-Making
12 161 (9.57%) Roadmaps
13 157 (9.33%) Risk Management
14 153 (9.10%) Information Security
15 147 (8.74%) Data Governance
16 146 (8.68%) Analytics
17 141 (8.38%) Infrastructure as Code
17 141 (8.38%) Validation
18 123 (7.31%) Test Automation
19 110 (6.54%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 212 (12.60%) Python
2 169 (10.05%) SQL
3 99 (5.89%) Java
4 57 (3.39%) PowerShell
5 56 (3.33%) JavaScript
6 33 (1.96%) Bash
7 27 (1.61%) TypeScript
8 24 (1.43%) Go
9 18 (1.07%) C#
10 15 (0.89%) Apex Code
10 15 (0.89%) Bicep
10 15 (0.89%) Kotlin
10 15 (0.89%) Scala
11 12 (0.71%) Perl
12 9 (0.54%) C
12 9 (0.54%) C++
13 8 (0.48%) VB
14 7 (0.42%) VB6
15 6 (0.36%) R
15 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 276 (16.41%) Security Cleared
2 203 (12.07%) SC Cleared
3 111 (6.60%) Degree
4 86 (5.11%) CISSP
5 63 (3.75%) DV Cleared
6 53 (3.15%) CISM
7 47 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
8 43 (2.56%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (1.90%) Azure Certification
10 29 (1.72%) PMI Certification
11 27 (1.61%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 27 (1.61%) PMP
12 25 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.37%) CCSP
14 19 (1.13%) AWS Certification
15 12 (0.71%) CISA
15 12 (0.71%) CRISC
16 11 (0.65%) CCNP
16 11 (0.65%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 242 (14.39%) GDPR
2 114 (6.78%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 76 (4.52%) NIST
5 71 (4.22%) QA
6 53 (3.15%) GRC
7 47 (2.79%) Accessibility
8 27 (1.61%) PCI DSS
9 21 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
9 21 (1.25%) PMO
10 20 (1.19%) NCSC
11 14 (0.83%) SLA
12 13 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.65%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.65%) PERC
14 11 (0.65%) WCAG
15 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
16 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 84 (4.99%) Active Directory
2 67 (3.98%) Docker
3 57 (3.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.07%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.65%) Hyper-V
5 11 (0.65%) vSphere
6 10 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.36%) NFS
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) ISA Server
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.18%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
11 2 (0.12%) XenApp
11 2 (0.12%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.059%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.059%) KVM
12 1 (0.059%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 115 (6.84%) Kubernetes
2 46 (2.73%) Ansible
3 38 (2.26%) Microsoft Intune
4 27 (1.61%) Grafana
5 21 (1.25%) SCCM
6 14 (0.83%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.77%) Kibana
7 13 (0.77%) NetBackup
8 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.71%) Progress Chef
9 11 (0.65%) Puppet
10 7 (0.42%) CASB
11 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
12 5 (0.30%) QRadar
12 5 (0.30%) SCOM
13 4 (0.24%) Control-M
Vendors
1 359 (21.34%) Microsoft
2 95 (5.65%) ServiceNow
3 76 (4.52%) Google
4 69 (4.10%) Cisco
5 68 (4.04%) Oracle
6 58 (3.45%) VMware
7 46 (2.73%) Splunk
8 43 (2.56%) Databricks
9 36 (2.14%) SAP
10 32 (1.90%) Salesforce
11 28 (1.66%) Zscaler
12 22 (1.31%) Workday
13 21 (1.25%) CyberArk
14 19 (1.13%) IBM
15 18 (1.07%) F5
16 17 (1.01%) Dell
16 17 (1.01%) Red Hat
17 14 (0.83%) MuleSoft
18 13 (0.77%) Dynatrace
18 13 (0.77%) NetApp