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

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 86 91
Rank change year-on-year +6 +5 -4
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,662 938 998
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.15% 2.87% 2.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.70% 3.18% 2.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 912 461 540
10th Percentile £313 £275 £205
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 £601
90th Percentile £700 £688 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £467 £475
% change year-on-year -0.16% -1.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 42 70
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 £15.39
25th Percentile £16.56 £14.78 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £19.00 £19.75
Median % change year-on-year +12.37% -3.80% -51.88%
75th Percentile £33.75 £30.50 £28.75
90th Percentile £38.15 £34.82 £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 44,871 29,543 34,928
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.02% 90.39% 85.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,803 18,563 22,435
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% -4.46%
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 2,660 1,589 2,131
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.20 £13.46
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.44 £17.25
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -6.98%
75th Percentile £68.13 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £69.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +82.83% -39.15% -1.95%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +6 1,410 £500 +5.26% 521
UK excluding London +11 920 £466 -0.16% 358
London +6 613 £525 +5.00% 211
Work from Home +19 488 £500 +9.29% 184
North of England +18 322 £475 +3.26% 96
South East +26 207 £475 -10.55% 96
Yorkshire +2 179 £475 -5.00% 35
Midlands -4 148 £470 -6.00% 66
North West +23 135 £488 +14.71% 54
Scotland +2 121 £425 -8.36% 18
West Midlands -20 110 £473 -5.40% 40
South West -15 69 £425 +6.25% 49
East Midlands +13 38 £447 +23.31% 26
East of England 0 35 £538 +13.16% 30
Wales -7 18 £413 +39.24% 9
North East -47 10 £456 +10.61% 8
Northern Ireland +3 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 (3.37%) SharePoint
2 55 (3.31%) 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 (2.29%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (2.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 3 (0.18%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.060%) Maya
9 1 (0.060%) Trello
9 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%) Actimize
8 1 (0.060%) Odoo
8 1 (0.060%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.060%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 368 (22.14%) Azure
2 281 (16.91%) AWS
3 143 (8.60%) GCP
4 114 (6.86%) Microsoft 365
5 91 (5.48%) Power Platform
6 87 (5.23%) Entra ID
7 69 (4.15%) SaaS
8 67 (4.03%) GitHub
9 58 (3.49%) Microsoft Purview
10 54 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
11 45 (2.71%) Serverless
12 41 (2.47%) OpenShift
13 33 (1.99%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.56%) AWS Lambda
14 26 (1.56%) OneDrive
15 23 (1.38%) Amazon S3
15 23 (1.38%) PowerApps
16 22 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
16 22 (1.32%) Power Automate
16 22 (1.32%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 87 (5.23%) Network Security
2 53 (3.19%) Firewall
3 34 (2.05%) VPN
4 27 (1.62%) DNS
5 26 (1.56%) SAN
6 22 (1.32%) DHCP
6 22 (1.32%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.26%) WAN
8 16 (0.96%) LAN
9 15 (0.90%) NAS
9 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
10 13 (0.78%) HTTP
10 13 (0.78%) SSL
11 11 (0.66%) Cisco IPT
12 10 (0.60%) MPLS
12 10 (0.60%) Wireless
13 8 (0.48%) Intrusion Detection
13 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
14 7 (0.42%) Cisco Nexus
14 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.33%) Power BI
2 44 (2.65%) Metadata
3 43 (2.59%) PostgreSQL
4 41 (2.47%) SQL Server
5 32 (1.93%) Relational Database
6 31 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
7 26 (1.56%) Data Lake
8 24 (1.44%) MySQL
8 24 (1.44%) NoSQL
9 20 (1.20%) Big Data
10 19 (1.14%) MongoDB
11 18 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
12 14 (0.84%) BigQuery
12 14 (0.84%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.66%) Tableau
15 10 (0.60%) DynamoDB
16 9 (0.54%) Ingres
16 9 (0.54%) RDBMS
17 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 95 (5.72%) JIRA
2 67 (4.03%) Git
3 64 (3.85%) Jenkins
4 34 (2.05%) 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%) Visual Studio
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 564 (33.94%) Social Skills
2 358 (21.54%) Finance
3 253 (15.22%) Legal
4 192 (11.55%) Analytical Skills
5 178 (10.71%) Public Sector
6 118 (7.10%) Banking
7 68 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
8 63 (3.79%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (2.11%) Local Government
10 35 (2.11%) Retail
11 33 (1.99%) 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%) Police
15 21 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
16 20 (1.20%) Billing
17 17 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 238 (14.32%) Architect
2 152 (9.15%) Analyst
3 137 (8.24%) Lead
4 130 (7.82%) Developer
5 125 (7.52%) Senior
6 98 (5.90%) Consultant
7 85 (5.11%) Project Manager
8 66 (3.97%) Business Analyst
9 65 (3.91%) Solutions Architect
10 54 (3.25%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.53%) Data Engineer
11 42 (2.53%) Security Engineer
12 38 (2.29%) Java Developer
13 37 (2.23%) Administrator
14 33 (1.99%) Network Engineer
15 30 (1.81%) Technical Architect
16 29 (1.74%) Support Engineer
17 28 (1.68%) Data Analyst
18 27 (1.62%) IT Support
19 25 (1.50%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (5.48%) REST
2 52 (3.13%) React
3 39 (2.35%) Spring
4 38 (2.29%) Middleware
5 36 (2.17%) CSS
6 35 (2.11%) JSON
7 34 (2.05%) HTML
7 34 (2.05%) Spring Boot
8 33 (1.99%) 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
1 745 (44.83%) Data Protection Act
2 93 (5.60%) Cloud Native
2 93 (5.60%) Product Ownership
3 74 (4.45%) Onboarding
4 62 (3.73%) Management Information System
5 48 (2.89%) Data Centre
6 47 (2.83%) Legacy Systems
7 46 (2.77%) Distributed Systems
8 42 (2.53%) Virtual Team
9 37 (2.23%) 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 18 (1.08%) Enterprise Storage
17 17 (1.02%) Data Structures
18 16 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 128 (7.70%) Windows
2 79 (4.75%) Linux
3 28 (1.68%) Apple iOS
4 27 (1.62%) Android
4 27 (1.62%) Unix
5 26 (1.56%) Windows Server
6 24 (1.44%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.78%) VMS
9 12 (0.72%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.36%) CoreOS
10 6 (0.36%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (0.36%) zOS
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.060%) AIX
12 1 (0.060%) HPUX
12 1 (0.060%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 317 (19.07%) Agile
2 299 (17.99%) Problem-Solving
3 298 (17.93%) Stakeholder Management
4 258 (15.52%) Continuous Improvement
5 242 (14.56%) DevOps
6 233 (14.02%) CI/CD
7 227 (13.66%) Migration
8 202 (12.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 190 (11.43%) AI
10 156 (9.39%) Cybersecurity
11 151 (9.09%) Decision-Making
12 150 (9.03%) Roadmaps
13 148 (8.90%) Analytics
14 140 (8.42%) Data Governance
15 122 (7.34%) Risk Management
15 122 (7.34%) Validation
16 120 (7.22%) Information Security
17 113 (6.80%) Data Modelling
17 113 (6.80%) Infrastructure as Code
18 100 (6.02%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 214 (12.88%) Python
2 171 (10.29%) SQL
3 114 (6.86%) Java
4 65 (3.91%) JavaScript
5 55 (3.31%) PowerShell
6 42 (2.53%) Bash
7 32 (1.93%) 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%) Groovy
17 5 (0.30%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 252 (15.16%) Security Cleared
2 189 (11.37%) SC Cleared
3 120 (7.22%) Degree
4 78 (4.69%) CISSP
5 59 (3.55%) DV Cleared
6 45 (2.71%) CISM
7 37 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (1.93%) Azure Certification
8 32 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
8 32 (1.93%) 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 (15.16%) GDPR
2 98 (5.90%) Data Quality
3 83 (4.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (4.93%) QA
5 77 (4.63%) NIST
6 47 (2.83%) GRC
7 43 (2.59%) 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 83 (4.99%) Active Directory
2 68 (4.09%) Docker
3 57 (3.43%) 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 11 (0.66%) 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 (7.04%) Kubernetes
2 89 (5.35%) Terraform
3 57 (3.43%) Ansible
4 42 (2.53%) Microsoft Intune
5 35 (2.11%) 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
1 294 (17.69%) Microsoft
2 80 (4.81%) ServiceNow
3 78 (4.69%) Oracle
4 64 (3.85%) Google
5 58 (3.49%) VMware
6 53 (3.19%) Cisco
7 51 (3.07%) Databricks
8 41 (2.47%) SAP
9 36 (2.17%) Splunk
10 31 (1.87%) 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