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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 76 89
Rank change year-on-year -9 +13 -3
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,654 1,048 964
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.10% 3.18% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 3.52% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 883 524 520
10th Percentile £311 £289 £200
25th Percentile £400 £397 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £486 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.83% -2.75% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £596 £625
90th Percentile £700 £684 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £468 £475
% change year-on-year +0.53% -1.58% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 44 50
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £15.86 £14.48 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.50 £16.50 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +24.24% -19.51% -56.17%
75th Percentile £33.22 £27.37 £28.75
90th Percentile £35.76 £33.87 £67.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.27 £15.25 £18.11
% change year-on-year +32.92% -15.79% -42.51%

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 45,278 29,786 33,285
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.80% 90.49% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,840 18,586 21,275
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £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 2,823 1,710 1,832
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.31 £18.46
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -39.40% -2.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £74.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +13.33%

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 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 14 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 14 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 -4 1,409 £500 +1.83% 1,114
UK excluding London +2 900 £470 +0.53% 624
London -7 625 £525 +5.00% 578
Work from Home +9 484 £500 +5.26% 495
North of England +11 331 £475 - 160
South East +6 198 £494 -4.63% 168
Yorkshire -2 177 £475 -5.00% 53
North West +20 144 £475 +7.10% 86
Midlands -4 137 £472 -5.70% 99
Scotland -6 113 £430 -5.75% 34
West Midlands -19 105 £473 -5.40% 67
South West -27 68 £425 +6.25% 80
East of England -1 35 £550 +15.79% 72
East Midlands -3 32 £459 +31.00% 32
Wales -8 18 £413 +39.24% 18
Northern Ireland +4 11 £104 -82.55% 7
North East -56 11 £463 +12.12% 21

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 (3.39%) SharePoint
2 50 (3.02%) Confluence
3 25 (1.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
4 19 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 12 (0.73%) Apache
6 6 (0.36%) CMS
6 6 (0.36%) IIS
6 6 (0.36%) SAS
7 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.18%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) nginx
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) WordPress
11 1 (0.060%) Moodle
11 1 (0.060%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 42 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (2.42%) 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 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.24%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.18%) SAP GRC
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 378 (22.85%) Azure
2 280 (16.93%) AWS
3 144 (8.71%) GCP
4 119 (7.19%) Microsoft 365
5 95 (5.74%) Power Platform
6 82 (4.96%) Entra ID
7 76 (4.59%) SaaS
8 66 (3.99%) GitHub
9 61 (3.69%) Microsoft Purview
10 59 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
11 52 (3.14%) Serverless
12 38 (2.30%) Microsoft Copilot
13 33 (2.00%) OpenShift
14 29 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
15 27 (1.63%) OneDrive
16 26 (1.57%) GitHub Actions
17 25 (1.51%) PowerApps
18 24 (1.45%) Amazon S3
19 23 (1.39%) Power Automate
20 22 (1.33%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 91 (5.50%) Network Security
2 59 (3.57%) Firewall
3 37 (2.24%) DNS
4 35 (2.12%) VPN
5 28 (1.69%) DHCP
6 23 (1.39%) SAN
6 23 (1.39%) TCP/IP
7 20 (1.21%) WAN
8 16 (0.97%) LAN
9 15 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (0.85%) NAS
11 13 (0.79%) Cisco IPT
11 13 (0.79%) SSL
12 12 (0.73%) Wireless
13 11 (0.67%) HTTP
14 10 (0.60%) MPLS
14 10 (0.60%) VoIP
15 9 (0.54%) Cisco Nexus
15 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
16 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (4.47%) Power BI
2 50 (3.02%) Metadata
3 41 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (2.30%) SQL Server
5 37 (2.24%) Data Warehouse
6 28 (1.69%) Relational Database
7 24 (1.45%) Data Lake
7 24 (1.45%) NoSQL
8 20 (1.21%) Big Data
9 19 (1.15%) MySQL
10 18 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
11 16 (0.97%) MongoDB
12 15 (0.91%) BigQuery
13 12 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.67%) Oracle Database
15 10 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
16 9 (0.54%) Redis
16 9 (0.54%) Tableau
17 8 (0.48%) DynamoDB
17 8 (0.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 86 (5.20%) JIRA
2 64 (3.87%) Git
3 61 (3.69%) Jenkins
4 34 (2.06%) GitLab
5 11 (0.67%) Maven
6 9 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) Postman
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (0.36%) Flyway
9 6 (0.36%) Gradle
9 6 (0.36%) Selenium
9 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
10 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.30%) ERwin
10 5 (0.30%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.18%) SpecFlow
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 586 (35.43%) Social Skills
2 364 (22.01%) Finance
3 248 (14.99%) Legal
4 204 (12.33%) Analytical Skills
5 179 (10.82%) Public Sector
6 117 (7.07%) Banking
7 74 (4.47%) Documentation Skills
8 66 (3.99%) Organisational Skills
9 40 (2.42%) Retail
10 37 (2.24%) Local Government
11 35 (2.12%) Influencing Skills
12 31 (1.87%) Law
13 30 (1.81%) Telecoms
14 28 (1.69%) Front Office
14 28 (1.69%) Marketing
15 25 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
16 22 (1.33%) Billing
16 22 (1.33%) Pharmaceutical
16 22 (1.33%) Police
17 16 (0.97%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 250 (15.11%) Architect
2 157 (9.49%) Analyst
3 137 (8.28%) Lead
4 125 (7.56%) Developer
5 122 (7.38%) Senior
6 89 (5.38%) Consultant
7 79 (4.78%) Project Manager
8 69 (4.17%) Business Analyst
9 65 (3.93%) Solutions Architect
10 52 (3.14%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.54%) Security Engineer
12 39 (2.36%) Administrator
12 39 (2.36%) Data Engineer
13 33 (2.00%) Java Developer
13 33 (2.00%) Support Engineer
14 32 (1.93%) Network Engineer
15 30 (1.81%) Technical Architect
16 29 (1.75%) Data Analyst
17 28 (1.69%) IT Support
18 24 (1.45%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (5.38%) REST
2 42 (2.54%) React
3 37 (2.24%) JSON
4 36 (2.18%) Kafka
4 36 (2.18%) Spring
5 35 (2.12%) Middleware
6 32 (1.93%) Spring Boot
7 31 (1.87%) CSS
8 29 (1.75%) HTML
8 29 (1.75%) OAuth
9 27 (1.63%) RESTful
10 24 (1.45%) .NET
11 20 (1.21%) Node.js
12 17 (1.03%) OpenID
13 16 (0.97%) OAuth2
14 15 (0.91%) CSS3
14 15 (0.91%) GraphQL
14 15 (0.91%) HTML5
15 13 (0.79%) Jest
15 13 (0.79%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 734 (44.38%) Data Protection Act
2 92 (5.56%) Product Ownership
3 90 (5.44%) Cloud Native
4 76 (4.59%) Management Information System
4 76 (4.59%) Onboarding
5 53 (3.20%) Data Centre
6 48 (2.90%) Distributed Systems
7 42 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
7 42 (2.54%) Virtual Team
8 38 (2.30%) Security Posture
9 28 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
10 24 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
10 24 (1.45%) Operational Technology
11 23 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
11 23 (1.39%) NHS
11 23 (1.39%) Replication
12 21 (1.27%) AI Agents
12 21 (1.27%) Freedom of Information
12 21 (1.27%) Mobile App
13 20 (1.21%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 127 (7.68%) Windows
2 82 (4.96%) Linux
3 31 (1.87%) Android
3 31 (1.87%) Apple iOS
4 29 (1.75%) Unix
5 28 (1.69%) Windows Server
6 23 (1.39%) Mac OS
7 19 (1.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (0.85%) Windows 10
9 10 (0.60%) VMS
10 7 (0.42%) zOS
11 3 (0.18%) CoreOS
11 3 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Rocky
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 314 (18.98%) Stakeholder Management
2 306 (18.50%) Agile
3 293 (17.71%) Problem-Solving
4 263 (15.90%) Continuous Improvement
5 239 (14.45%) DevOps
6 235 (14.21%) CI/CD
7 217 (13.12%) Migration
8 216 (13.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 208 (12.58%) AI
10 176 (10.64%) Cybersecurity
11 161 (9.73%) Roadmaps
12 156 (9.43%) Analytics
12 156 (9.43%) Data Governance
13 152 (9.19%) Decision-Making
14 130 (7.86%) Risk Management
15 122 (7.38%) Information Security
16 120 (7.26%) Data Modelling
16 120 (7.26%) Infrastructure as Code
17 119 (7.19%) Validation
18 106 (6.41%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 210 (12.70%) Python
2 165 (9.98%) SQL
3 108 (6.53%) Java
4 61 (3.69%) PowerShell
5 55 (3.33%) JavaScript
6 41 (2.48%) Bash
7 26 (1.57%) TypeScript
8 21 (1.27%) C#
9 18 (1.09%) Go
10 15 (0.91%) Bicep
11 14 (0.85%) Apex Code
11 14 (0.85%) Kotlin
12 13 (0.79%) Perl
13 11 (0.67%) C++
14 8 (0.48%) Scala
14 8 (0.48%) VB
15 7 (0.42%) C
15 7 (0.42%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.42%) VB6
16 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 247 (14.93%) Security Cleared
2 188 (11.37%) SC Cleared
3 114 (6.89%) Degree
4 81 (4.90%) CISSP
5 58 (3.51%) DV Cleared
6 52 (3.14%) CISM
7 35 (2.12%) Azure Certification
8 34 (2.06%) BPSS Clearance
9 31 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
10 30 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
11 29 (1.75%) PMI Certification
12 26 (1.57%) PMP
13 19 (1.15%) AWS Certification
13 19 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
14 14 (0.85%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 12 (0.73%) CCSP
16 11 (0.67%) CCNP
16 11 (0.67%) Master's Degree
17 9 (0.54%) CEH
18 8 (0.48%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 250 (15.11%) GDPR
2 104 (6.29%) Data Quality
3 89 (5.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (4.72%) NIST
5 76 (4.59%) QA
6 45 (2.72%) Accessibility
7 42 (2.54%) GRC
8 23 (1.39%) PMO
9 21 (1.27%) PCI DSS
10 19 (1.15%) NCSC
10 19 (1.15%) SLA
11 13 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 12 (0.73%) HIPAA
12 12 (0.73%) SOC 2
13 11 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
13 11 (0.67%) PERC
13 11 (0.67%) WCAG
14 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
14 9 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 91 (5.50%) Active Directory
2 63 (3.81%) Docker
3 55 (3.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.09%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.73%) NFS
6 11 (0.67%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.60%) vSphere
8 8 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
10 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
11 4 (0.24%) KVM
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) Firmware
13 2 (0.12%) IAG
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 115 (6.95%) Kubernetes
2 92 (5.56%) Terraform
3 51 (3.08%) Ansible
4 41 (2.48%) Microsoft Intune
5 31 (1.87%) Grafana
6 24 (1.45%) NetBackup
7 23 (1.39%) SCCM
8 19 (1.15%) Prometheus
9 18 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.91%) Puppet
11 13 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
13 8 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.42%) Kibana
15 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
15 5 (0.30%) QRadar
16 4 (0.24%) Cisco CUCM
16 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.24%) SCOM
16 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 322 (19.47%) Microsoft
2 89 (5.38%) ServiceNow
3 74 (4.47%) Oracle
4 67 (4.05%) Google
5 57 (3.45%) Cisco
6 56 (3.39%) VMware
7 50 (3.02%) Databricks
8 39 (2.36%) SAP
9 35 (2.12%) Splunk
10 30 (1.81%) Salesforce
11 27 (1.63%) Red Hat
12 25 (1.51%) Workday
13 23 (1.39%) Zscaler
14 22 (1.33%) CyberArk
14 22 (1.33%) NetApp
15 17 (1.03%) Citrix
15 17 (1.03%) F5
15 17 (1.03%) IBM
15 17 (1.03%) Veritas
16 15 (0.91%) Dell