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 27 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 78 89
Rank change year-on-year -4 +11 -7
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,669 1,055 956
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 3.22% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.68% 3.56% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 882 522 521
10th Percentile £305 £300 £200
25th Percentile £400 £400 £353
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £479 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -4.25% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £599 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £466 £475
% change year-on-year -0.64% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 96 46 28
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 £16.52
25th Percentile £15.72 £14.57 £21.06
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.50 £26.84
Median % change year-on-year +8.18% -38.52% -36.38%
75th Percentile £28.40 £20.40 £31.82
90th Percentile £35.38 £35.67 £69.84
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% -20.63%

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 45,399 29,629 33,143
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.55% 90.46% 85.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,782 18,436 20,950
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,881 1,773 1,687
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.87 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +6.25%

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 27 August 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 27 August 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 27 August 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 -5 1,403 £500 +2.56% 1,367
UK excluding London 0 914 £463 -0.64% 819
London -10 615 £525 +2.94% 670
Work from Home +14 482 £500 +5.26% 636
North of England +13 331 £475 +4.68% 242
South East +10 195 £483 -6.03% 196
Yorkshire +1 170 £475 -5.00% 72
North West +14 147 £500 +11.86% 134
Midlands -7 143 £473 -2.97% 122
Scotland -3 119 £428 -6.30% 47
West Midlands -10 112 £473 -5.40% 76
South West -19 75 £425 +6.25% 101
East of England -10 32 £538 +13.16% 88
East Midlands -3 31 £441 +26.00% 46
Wales -6 19 £413 +39.24% 16
North East -51 15 £463 +15.63% 38
Northern Ireland +1 13 £110 -81.63% 17

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 64 (3.83%) SharePoint
2 43 (2.58%) Confluence
3 23 (1.38%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.14%) Apache Spark
5 18 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.78%) 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%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) Drupal
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
12 1 (0.060%) CICS
12 1 (0.060%) Moodle
Applications
1 46 (2.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.52%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.060%) Maya
7 1 (0.060%) Trello
7 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Aladdin
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 388 (23.25%) Azure
2 295 (17.68%) AWS
3 140 (8.39%) GCP
4 126 (7.55%) Microsoft 365
5 94 (5.63%) Power Platform
6 88 (5.27%) Entra ID
7 79 (4.73%) SaaS
8 63 (3.77%) Azure DevOps
9 62 (3.71%) GitHub
10 57 (3.42%) Serverless
11 56 (3.36%) Microsoft Purview
12 35 (2.10%) Microsoft Copilot
13 31 (1.86%) AWS Lambda
14 28 (1.68%) OneDrive
14 28 (1.68%) OpenShift
15 27 (1.62%) PowerApps
16 25 (1.50%) Power Automate
17 24 (1.44%) Amazon S3
17 24 (1.44%) GitHub Actions
17 24 (1.44%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 94 (5.63%) Network Security
2 61 (3.65%) Firewall
3 38 (2.28%) DNS
4 36 (2.16%) VPN
5 29 (1.74%) DHCP
6 24 (1.44%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.26%) SAN
7 21 (1.26%) WAN
8 18 (1.08%) Cisco IPT
9 17 (1.02%) LAN
10 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.84%) SSL
11 14 (0.84%) Wireless
12 13 (0.78%) NAS
13 11 (0.66%) MPLS
13 11 (0.66%) VoIP
14 10 (0.60%) HTTP
15 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
16 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
17 7 (0.42%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (4.25%) Power BI
2 52 (3.12%) Metadata
3 39 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
4 36 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
4 36 (2.16%) SQL Server
5 29 (1.74%) Relational Database
6 27 (1.62%) NoSQL
7 22 (1.32%) Data Lake
8 20 (1.20%) Big Data
9 19 (1.14%) MySQL
10 18 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
11 17 (1.02%) MongoDB
12 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
13 11 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (0.66%) BigQuery
13 11 (0.66%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
14 9 (0.54%) Redis
15 8 (0.48%) Tableau
16 7 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 81 (4.85%) JIRA
2 61 (3.65%) Git
3 55 (3.30%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.86%) GitLab
5 10 (0.60%) Maven
6 9 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Selenium
8 6 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) Flyway
9 5 (0.30%) Gradle
9 5 (0.30%) Postman
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 613 (36.73%) Social Skills
2 363 (21.75%) Finance
3 252 (15.10%) Legal
4 208 (12.46%) Analytical Skills
5 199 (11.92%) Public Sector
6 110 (6.59%) Banking
7 75 (4.49%) Documentation Skills
8 73 (4.37%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.46%) Retail
10 39 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
11 37 (2.22%) Local Government
12 33 (1.98%) Law
13 31 (1.86%) Front Office
14 30 (1.80%) Telecoms
15 28 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
16 24 (1.44%) Marketing
17 22 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
18 21 (1.26%) Billing
18 21 (1.26%) Police
19 16 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 247 (14.80%) Architect
2 166 (9.95%) Analyst
3 146 (8.75%) Lead
4 126 (7.55%) Developer
5 120 (7.19%) Senior
6 87 (5.21%) Consultant
7 80 (4.79%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.01%) Business Analyst
9 66 (3.95%) Solutions Architect
10 59 (3.54%) Security Architect
11 40 (2.40%) Administrator
12 39 (2.34%) Security Engineer
13 34 (2.04%) Data Engineer
14 33 (1.98%) Support Engineer
15 31 (1.86%) Java Developer
16 28 (1.68%) Data Analyst
16 28 (1.68%) Information Officer
16 28 (1.68%) Network Engineer
17 27 (1.62%) IT Support
18 26 (1.56%) Information Governance Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (5.33%) Terraform
2 88 (5.27%) REST
3 40 (2.40%) React
4 36 (2.16%) Spring
5 35 (2.10%) JSON
6 34 (2.04%) Kafka
6 34 (2.04%) OAuth
7 33 (1.98%) Spring Boot
8 31 (1.86%) CSS
8 31 (1.86%) HTML
8 31 (1.86%) Middleware
9 27 (1.62%) RESTful
10 25 (1.50%) .NET
11 21 (1.26%) Node.js
12 19 (1.14%) OpenID
13 18 (1.08%) OAuth2
14 16 (0.96%) GraphQL
15 15 (0.90%) CSS3
15 15 (0.90%) HTML5
16 14 (0.84%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 725 (43.44%) Data Protection Act
2 98 (5.87%) Cloud Native
3 93 (5.57%) Product Ownership
4 86 (5.15%) Management Information System
5 79 (4.73%) Onboarding
6 52 (3.12%) Data Centre
7 50 (3.00%) Distributed Systems
8 41 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.40%) Virtual Team
10 38 (2.28%) Security Posture
11 34 (2.04%) Freedom of Information
12 27 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
13 26 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
13 26 (1.56%) NHS
14 24 (1.44%) Operational Technology
15 23 (1.38%) Replication
16 21 (1.26%) AI Agents
16 21 (1.26%) Mobile App
17 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
17 19 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 132 (7.91%) Windows
2 82 (4.91%) Linux
3 30 (1.80%) Android
3 30 (1.80%) Apple iOS
4 29 (1.74%) Windows Server
5 28 (1.68%) Unix
6 22 (1.32%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.96%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.48%) VMS
9 8 (0.48%) zOS
10 3 (0.18%) Solaris
10 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) HPUX
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.060%) CoreOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 347 (20.79%) Stakeholder Management
2 304 (18.21%) Agile
3 292 (17.50%) Problem-Solving
4 273 (16.36%) Continuous Improvement
5 237 (14.20%) DevOps
6 233 (13.96%) CI/CD
7 217 (13.00%) Migration
8 215 (12.88%) AI
9 210 (12.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 196 (11.74%) Cybersecurity
11 159 (9.53%) Data Governance
12 158 (9.47%) Decision-Making
13 156 (9.35%) Roadmaps
14 150 (8.99%) Analytics
15 140 (8.39%) Information Security
16 135 (8.09%) Risk Management
17 129 (7.73%) Infrastructure as Code
18 126 (7.55%) Validation
19 119 (7.13%) Data Modelling
20 104 (6.23%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 204 (12.22%) Python
2 160 (9.59%) SQL
3 104 (6.23%) Java
4 56 (3.36%) PowerShell
5 55 (3.30%) JavaScript
6 37 (2.22%) Bash
7 26 (1.56%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.14%) C#
8 19 (1.14%) Go
9 15 (0.90%) Apex Code
9 15 (0.90%) Bicep
9 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
10 12 (0.72%) Perl
11 10 (0.60%) C++
12 8 (0.48%) C
12 8 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
12 8 (0.48%) Scala
12 8 (0.48%) VB
13 7 (0.42%) VB6
14 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 257 (15.40%) Security Cleared
2 191 (11.44%) SC Cleared
3 108 (6.47%) Degree
4 80 (4.79%) CISSP
5 57 (3.42%) DV Cleared
6 49 (2.94%) CISM
7 39 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
8 34 (2.04%) Azure Certification
9 31 (1.86%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (1.86%) PMI Certification
10 29 (1.74%) PMP
11 26 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
12 23 (1.38%) AWS Certification
13 17 (1.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 17 (1.02%) Microsoft Certification
14 14 (0.84%) CCSP
15 10 (0.60%) CCNP
15 10 (0.60%) Master's Degree
16 9 (0.54%) CEH
16 9 (0.54%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 252 (15.10%) GDPR
2 108 (6.47%) Data Quality
3 97 (5.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (4.49%) NIST
4 75 (4.49%) QA
5 48 (2.88%) Accessibility
6 44 (2.64%) GRC
7 25 (1.50%) PMO
8 20 (1.20%) NCSC
8 20 (1.20%) PCI DSS
9 17 (1.02%) SLA
10 16 (0.96%) Cyber Essentials
11 12 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 12 (0.72%) PERC
11 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
12 11 (0.66%) WCAG
13 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 9 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
14 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 94 (5.63%) Active Directory
2 64 (3.83%) Docker
3 57 (3.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.60%) NFS
7 9 (0.54%) vSphere
8 7 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.36%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) KVM
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) Firmware
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
1 114 (6.83%) Kubernetes
2 46 (2.76%) Ansible
3 39 (2.34%) Microsoft Intune
4 27 (1.62%) Grafana
5 23 (1.38%) SCCM
6 22 (1.32%) NetBackup
7 18 (1.08%) Prometheus
8 17 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.84%) Puppet
10 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
12 7 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.36%) Kibana
14 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
14 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
14 5 (0.30%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) Istio
15 4 (0.24%) SCOM
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 342 (20.49%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.27%) ServiceNow
3 67 (4.01%) Oracle
4 64 (3.83%) Google
5 60 (3.59%) Cisco
6 59 (3.54%) VMware
7 47 (2.82%) Databricks
8 36 (2.16%) SAP
8 36 (2.16%) Splunk
9 29 (1.74%) Salesforce
10 25 (1.50%) Zscaler
11 23 (1.38%) Red Hat
12 22 (1.32%) Workday
13 21 (1.26%) CyberArk
14 19 (1.14%) IBM
14 19 (1.14%) NetApp
15 16 (0.96%) Citrix
15 16 (0.96%) F5
16 15 (0.90%) Dell
16 15 (0.90%) Veritas