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 14 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 101 81
Rank change year-on-year +27 -20 +21
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,419 769 1,111
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.29% 2.61% 2.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.82% 2.89% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 769 406 616
10th Percentile £280 £263 £200
25th Percentile £400 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
90th Percentile £691 £692 £714
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 23 109
10th Percentile £15.78 £16.85 £12.45
25th Percentile £16.92 £24.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £30.00 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.97% +53.85% -70.45%
75th Percentile £24.33 £33.78 £27.00
90th Percentile £46.15 £59.40 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £30.50 £19.50
% change year-on-year -32.09% +56.38% -70.45%

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 37,150 26,655 38,571
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.07% 90.32% 86.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,527 17,023 25,087
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £612 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,218 906 2,334
10th Percentile £14.88 £15.39 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £31.65
% change year-on-year -15.38% +2.69% -9.57%

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 14 March 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 14 March 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 14 March 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 1,212 £500 - 357
UK excluding London +22 756 £450 -5.26% 269
London +26 577 £525 +1.94% 143
Work from Home +21 343 £500 +2.56% 141
North of England -6 231 £475 - 77
South East +23 182 £482 +1.37% 77
Yorkshire -8 135 £490 -6.71% 28
Scotland +18 118 £407 -11.04% 12
Midlands -3 107 £448 -8.21% 43
North West -12 88 £450 -3.74% 48
West Midlands -29 67 £500 -1.23% 26
South West +8 51 £500 +33.33% 30
East of England +8 49 £450 -25.00% 27
East Midlands -2 40 £437 +5.88% 17
Wales -2 14 £375 -11.76% 3
North East -27 9 £400 -15.79% 1
Northern Ireland - 8 £500 - 1

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 59 (4.16%) Confluence
2 37 (2.61%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
5 10 (0.70%) Apache Spark
6 9 (0.63%) Apache
7 4 (0.28%) CMS
8 3 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.21%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.21%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.14%) Drupal
9 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.14%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.14%) SAS
9 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.070%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 54 (3.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (3.03%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.070%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.070%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.070%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.070%) Blender
8 1 (0.070%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.070%) InVision
8 1 (0.070%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.070%) Sketch
8 1 (0.070%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.85%) Aladdin
1 12 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.35%) NEC Housing
3 5 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (0.28%) ResourceLink
4 4 (0.28%) SAP GRC
4 4 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 3 (0.21%) Distributed Ledger
5 3 (0.21%) Fidessa
5 3 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.21%) R3 Corda
6 2 (0.14%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.14%) Workfront
7 1 (0.070%) Loan IQ
Cloud Services
1 282 (19.87%) Azure
2 230 (16.21%) AWS
3 119 (8.39%) GCP
4 77 (5.43%) Microsoft 365
4 77 (5.43%) Power Platform
5 68 (4.79%) Entra ID
6 62 (4.37%) GitHub
7 59 (4.16%) Serverless
8 52 (3.66%) SaaS
9 44 (3.10%) AWS Lambda
10 43 (3.03%) Amazon S3
11 39 (2.75%) Azure DevOps
12 38 (2.68%) Microsoft Purview
13 36 (2.54%) OpenShift
14 32 (2.26%) Snowflake
15 30 (2.11%) AWS CloudFormation
16 26 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
17 24 (1.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 21 (1.48%) Amazon EC2
18 21 (1.48%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 47 (3.31%) Firewall
1 47 (3.31%) Network Security
2 35 (2.47%) SAN
3 23 (1.62%) VPN
4 21 (1.48%) NAS
5 19 (1.34%) DNS
5 19 (1.34%) MPLS
6 18 (1.27%) LAN
6 18 (1.27%) WAN
7 16 (1.13%) Cisco IPT
8 14 (0.99%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.78%) SD-WAN
10 10 (0.70%) BGP
10 10 (0.70%) HTTP
10 10 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
11 9 (0.63%) DHCP
11 9 (0.63%) Fibre Channel
11 9 (0.63%) VLAN
12 8 (0.56%) IPv4
12 8 (0.56%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.86%) Power BI
2 40 (2.82%) PostgreSQL
3 36 (2.54%) SQL Server
4 31 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
5 28 (1.97%) Metadata
6 20 (1.41%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.41%) Relational Database
7 18 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
8 17 (1.20%) Data Lake
8 17 (1.20%) DynamoDB
8 17 (1.20%) MySQL
9 16 (1.13%) MongoDB
10 14 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (0.92%) Tableau
12 12 (0.85%) Amazon Aurora
12 12 (0.85%) Oracle Database
13 10 (0.70%) Big Data
14 9 (0.63%) BigQuery
14 9 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
14 9 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 96 (6.77%) JIRA
2 64 (4.51%) Git
2 64 (4.51%) Jenkins
3 38 (2.68%) GitLab
4 12 (0.85%) SpecFlow
5 11 (0.78%) JUnit
6 10 (0.70%) Sonatype Nexus
7 8 (0.56%) Gradle
8 7 (0.49%) Maven
9 6 (0.42%) NUnit
10 5 (0.35%) Postman
10 5 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
11 4 (0.28%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.28%) Fiddler
11 4 (0.28%) Flyway
12 3 (0.21%) IntelliJ
12 3 (0.21%) MSI
12 3 (0.21%) Selenium
12 3 (0.21%) webpack
General
1 450 (31.71%) Social Skills
2 309 (21.78%) Finance
3 189 (13.32%) Analytical Skills
4 148 (10.43%) Legal
5 143 (10.08%) Public Sector
6 116 (8.17%) Banking
7 57 (4.02%) Organisational Skills
8 45 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
9 42 (2.96%) Telecoms
10 30 (2.11%) Marketing
11 28 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (1.90%) Presentation Skills
13 24 (1.69%) Front Office
14 21 (1.48%) Law
14 21 (1.48%) Local Government
15 17 (1.20%) Police
16 15 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 14 (0.99%) Manufacturing
17 14 (0.99%) Retail
18 12 (0.85%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 189 (13.32%) Architect
2 153 (10.78%) Analyst
3 109 (7.68%) Developer
3 109 (7.68%) Lead
4 81 (5.71%) Senior
5 72 (5.07%) Consultant
6 67 (4.72%) Business Analyst
6 67 (4.72%) Project Manager
7 57 (4.02%) Solutions Architect
8 37 (2.61%) Data Engineer
8 37 (2.61%) Security Engineer
9 34 (2.40%) Network Engineer
10 32 (2.26%) Security Architect
11 30 (2.11%) Technical Architect
12 29 (2.04%) Administrator
13 26 (1.83%) Data Analyst
14 24 (1.69%) Java Developer
15 23 (1.62%) Automation Engineer
16 22 (1.55%) Data Protection Officer
17 21 (1.48%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (4.58%) REST
2 49 (3.45%) React
3 35 (2.47%) .NET
4 34 (2.40%) Node.js
5 29 (2.04%) Kafka
6 27 (1.90%) Middleware
6 27 (1.90%) Spring
7 26 (1.83%) RESTful
8 22 (1.55%) OAuth
8 22 (1.55%) Spring Boot
9 18 (1.27%) Oracle Fusion
10 17 (1.20%) Playwright
11 16 (1.13%) HTML
11 16 (1.13%) PySpark
12 14 (0.99%) .NET Core
13 13 (0.92%) Jest
14 12 (0.85%) JSON
15 11 (0.78%) AngularJS
15 11 (0.78%) CSS
16 10 (0.70%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 687 (48.41%) Data Protection Act
2 77 (5.43%) Cloud Native
3 65 (4.58%) Product Ownership
4 58 (4.09%) Onboarding
5 53 (3.74%) Management Information System
6 31 (2.18%) Legacy Systems
7 29 (2.04%) Distributed Systems
7 29 (2.04%) NHS
7 29 (2.04%) Security Posture
8 28 (1.97%) Data Centre
9 27 (1.90%) Hybrid Cloud
10 26 (1.83%) Replication
11 23 (1.62%) Freedom of Information
12 20 (1.41%) Data Structures
12 20 (1.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 18 (1.27%) Enterprise Storage
14 14 (0.99%) Insider Threat
15 13 (0.92%) AI Agents
15 13 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
16 12 (0.85%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 101 (7.12%) Windows
2 71 (5.00%) Linux
3 25 (1.76%) Unix
4 22 (1.55%) Windows Server
5 17 (1.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.92%) VMS
7 12 (0.85%) Mac OS
8 11 (0.78%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.56%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.49%) Data ONTAP
10 7 (0.49%) zOS
11 6 (0.42%) Android
11 6 (0.42%) CoreOS
12 4 (0.28%) AIX
12 4 (0.28%) Solaris
13 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.070%) CentOS
14 1 (0.070%) Rocky
14 1 (0.070%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 250 (17.62%) Problem-Solving
2 240 (16.91%) Stakeholder Management
3 237 (16.70%) Agile
4 217 (15.29%) Migration
5 193 (13.60%) CI/CD
6 182 (12.83%) DevOps
7 171 (12.05%) Continuous Improvement
8 144 (10.15%) Cybersecurity
9 141 (9.94%) Analytics
10 138 (9.73%) Roadmaps
11 132 (9.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 125 (8.81%) AI
13 117 (8.25%) Information Security
14 116 (8.17%) Risk Management
15 102 (7.19%) Decision-Making
16 98 (6.91%) Project Management
17 96 (6.77%) Data Governance
18 95 (6.69%) Test Automation
19 91 (6.41%) Infrastructure as Code
20 90 (6.34%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 229 (16.14%) Python
2 178 (12.54%) SQL
3 103 (7.26%) Java
4 68 (4.79%) JavaScript
5 65 (4.58%) PowerShell
6 53 (3.74%) C#
7 39 (2.75%) Bash
8 38 (2.68%) TypeScript
9 19 (1.34%) Bicep
10 12 (0.85%) Perl
11 11 (0.78%) C++
12 10 (0.70%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.56%) ActionScript
13 8 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
14 7 (0.49%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.42%) ActionScript 2.0
16 5 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 5 (0.35%) Go
17 4 (0.28%) Groovy
17 4 (0.28%) Scala
Qualifications
1 193 (13.60%) Security Cleared
2 138 (9.73%) SC Cleared
3 127 (8.95%) Degree
4 50 (3.52%) DV Cleared
5 49 (3.45%) CISSP
6 37 (2.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 34 (2.40%) CISM
8 28 (1.97%) AWS Certification
9 26 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 23 (1.62%) PMI Certification
11 22 (1.55%) Master's Degree
12 21 (1.48%) PMP
13 20 (1.41%) Azure Certification
14 19 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
15 16 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
16 14 (0.99%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 14 (0.99%) CTC Cleared
17 12 (0.85%) CRISC
18 11 (0.78%) CCSP
19 10 (0.70%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 256 (18.04%) GDPR
2 93 (6.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 92 (6.48%) NIST
4 71 (5.00%) Data Quality
5 57 (4.02%) QA
6 32 (2.26%) Accessibility
7 31 (2.18%) PCI DSS
8 25 (1.76%) GRC
8 25 (1.76%) PMO
9 22 (1.55%) SLA
10 17 (1.20%) NCSC
11 16 (1.13%) SOC 2
12 15 (1.06%) Disclosure Scotland
13 13 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.85%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.78%) PERC
16 9 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
17 7 (0.49%) HIPAA
18 6 (0.42%) COBIT
18 6 (0.42%) WCAG
System Software
1 73 (5.14%) Docker
2 65 (4.58%) Active Directory
3 56 (3.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.13%) NFS
4 16 (1.13%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (0.70%) vSphere
7 9 (0.63%) Hyper-V
8 8 (0.56%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.35%) KVM
9 5 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.21%) IAG
11 3 (0.21%) Microsoft App-V
11 3 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.14%) Time Sharing Option
13 1 (0.070%) iptables
13 1 (0.070%) UAG
13 1 (0.070%) XenApp
13 1 (0.070%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 102 (7.19%) Kubernetes
2 98 (6.91%) Terraform
3 68 (4.79%) Ansible
4 35 (2.47%) Grafana
5 32 (2.26%) NetBackup
6 30 (2.11%) Microsoft Intune
7 27 (1.90%) Prometheus
8 17 (1.20%) SCCM
9 16 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (1.06%) Puppet
11 8 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.49%) SnapMirror
13 6 (0.42%) EMC NetWorker
13 6 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
13 6 (0.42%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.35%) Control-M
14 5 (0.35%) RSA Archer
14 5 (0.35%) vCenter Server
15 4 (0.28%) Foglight
15 4 (0.28%) Kibana
Vendors
1 214 (15.08%) Microsoft
2 69 (4.86%) Oracle
3 64 (4.51%) Google
4 58 (4.09%) VMware
5 52 (3.66%) Databricks
6 45 (3.17%) ServiceNow
7 43 (3.03%) Cisco
8 40 (2.82%) SAP
9 33 (2.33%) Salesforce
10 32 (2.26%) Red Hat
11 23 (1.62%) Veritas
12 21 (1.48%) Commvault
13 20 (1.41%) Citrix
13 20 (1.41%) NetApp
14 19 (1.34%) F5
14 19 (1.34%) IBM
15 15 (1.06%) Veeam
16 14 (0.99%) Adobe
16 14 (0.99%) Splunk
17 12 (0.85%) Workday