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

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 74 81
Rank change year-on-year -10 +7 +2
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,660 1,104 994
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.05% 3.34% 2.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.61% 3.69% 3.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 846 535 525
10th Percentile £263 £289 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £609
90th Percentile £688 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £454 £475
% change year-on-year -0.83% -4.47% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 110 56 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.06 £13.60 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.50 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +8.18% -40.73% +15.15%
75th Percentile £24.12 £20.48 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £31.43 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +19.05%

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 45,930 29,887 32,659
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.45% 90.55% 85.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,618 18,553 19,727
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 £635 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,299 1,876 1,335
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.31 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.12 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.25 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.09% -39.40% -2.35%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.22 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.60 £65.00 £74.26
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +73.52% -48.10% +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 5 October 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 5 October 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 5 October 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 -16 1,375 £500 - 1,883
UK excluding London -4 923 £450 -0.83% 1,191
London -33 580 £525 - 835
Work from Home +8 462 £500 +11.11% 812
North of England +10 333 £459 +1.94% 330
South East -11 198 £475 -5.94% 296
Yorkshire +18 167 £475 -5.00% 130
Midlands +4 159 £450 -5.26% 177
North West +8 145 £450 +2.27% 165
West Midlands +5 129 £450 -10.00% 96
Scotland -13 117 £450 +5.88% 87
South West -19 62 £500 +25.00% 105
East of England -14 34 £503 +5.79% 104
East Midlands -4 30 £435 +8.75% 81
North East -43 22 £463 +15.63% 37
Wales -8 18 £413 +11.86% 47
Northern Ireland +3 16 £115 -83.57% 46
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 -17.24% 5

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 71 (4.28%) SharePoint
2 33 (1.99%) Confluence
3 26 (1.57%) Apache Airflow
4 24 (1.45%) Microsoft Exchange
5 19 (1.14%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.78%) Apache
6 13 (0.78%) IIS
7 12 (0.72%) CMS
8 10 (0.60%) SAS
9 7 (0.42%) WordPress
10 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.24%) nginx
12 3 (0.18%) CICS
12 3 (0.18%) Jupyter
13 2 (0.12%) Drupal
13 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
14 1 (0.060%) Moodle
14 1 (0.060%) MQSeries
14 1 (0.060%) WebSphere
Applications
1 52 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
2 49 (2.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (0.42%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 1 (0.060%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.060%) Maya
7 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.54%) SAP MDG
3 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
4 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
6 2 (0.12%) Cloudability
6 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 1 (0.060%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.060%) Eloqua
7 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.060%) Sage 50
7 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
7 1 (0.060%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 368 (22.17%) Azure
2 292 (17.59%) AWS
3 137 (8.25%) Microsoft 365
4 130 (7.83%) GCP
5 79 (4.76%) Power Platform
6 77 (4.64%) SaaS
7 75 (4.52%) Entra ID
8 63 (3.80%) Azure DevOps
9 57 (3.43%) GitHub
10 53 (3.19%) Microsoft Purview
11 48 (2.89%) Serverless
12 40 (2.41%) Microsoft Copilot
13 30 (1.81%) OneDrive
14 25 (1.51%) AWS Lambda
14 25 (1.51%) GitHub Actions
15 23 (1.39%) OpenShift
15 23 (1.39%) Snowflake
16 21 (1.27%) Amazon S3
16 21 (1.27%) Power Automate
16 21 (1.27%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 94 (5.66%) Network Security
2 64 (3.86%) Firewall
3 36 (2.17%) DNS
3 36 (2.17%) VPN
4 27 (1.63%) TCP/IP
5 24 (1.45%) DHCP
6 21 (1.27%) WAN
7 20 (1.20%) LAN
8 19 (1.14%) Cisco IPT
9 15 (0.90%) MPLS
9 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (0.84%) SAN
11 12 (0.72%) Wireless
12 11 (0.66%) VoIP
13 10 (0.60%) HTTP
13 10 (0.60%) Unified Communications
14 9 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
14 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
14 9 (0.54%) NAS
14 9 (0.54%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (3.49%) Power BI
2 52 (3.13%) Metadata
3 41 (2.47%) Relational Database
4 36 (2.17%) PostgreSQL
5 31 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
6 30 (1.81%) SQL Server
7 24 (1.45%) NoSQL
8 23 (1.39%) BigQuery
8 23 (1.39%) Data Lake
9 16 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (0.90%) Big Data
11 13 (0.78%) MongoDB
12 10 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
12 10 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
13 9 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
13 9 (0.54%) Oracle Database
14 8 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
14 8 (0.48%) DynamoDB
14 8 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
14 8 (0.48%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 75 (4.52%) JIRA
2 69 (4.16%) Git
3 59 (3.55%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.57%) GitLab
5 18 (1.08%) Selenium
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.60%) Postman
7 9 (0.54%) Maven
8 6 (0.36%) 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%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Mockito
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 667 (40.18%) Social Skills
2 356 (21.45%) Finance
3 249 (15.00%) Legal
4 220 (13.25%) Public Sector
5 217 (13.07%) Analytical Skills
6 116 (6.99%) Banking
7 84 (5.06%) Organisational Skills
8 72 (4.34%) Documentation Skills
9 45 (2.71%) Influencing Skills
9 45 (2.71%) Local Government
10 40 (2.41%) Presentation Skills
11 37 (2.23%) Retail
12 28 (1.69%) Law
12 28 (1.69%) Telecoms
13 26 (1.57%) Marketing
14 24 (1.45%) Front Office
15 22 (1.33%) Pharmaceutical
16 21 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 21 (1.27%) Police
17 19 (1.14%) Billing
Job Titles
1 246 (14.82%) Architect
2 174 (10.48%) Analyst
3 135 (8.13%) Lead
4 123 (7.41%) Senior
5 99 (5.96%) Developer
6 74 (4.46%) Consultant
7 70 (4.22%) Business Analyst
7 70 (4.22%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.04%) Solutions Architect
9 59 (3.55%) Security Architect
10 56 (3.37%) Administrator
11 45 (2.71%) Security Engineer
12 38 (2.29%) Information Officer
13 37 (2.23%) Support Engineer
14 35 (2.11%) Information Governance Officer
15 33 (1.99%) Data Analyst
16 30 (1.81%) Data Engineer
17 28 (1.69%) Network Engineer
18 27 (1.63%) Data Architect
19 26 (1.57%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (6.20%) Terraform
2 91 (5.48%) REST
3 42 (2.53%) Kafka
4 35 (2.11%) JSON
5 34 (2.05%) OAuth
6 33 (1.99%) Middleware
7 25 (1.51%) RESTful
8 24 (1.45%) React
9 23 (1.39%) .NET
10 21 (1.27%) OAuth2
10 21 (1.27%) Spring
11 20 (1.20%) HTML
11 20 (1.20%) Node.js
11 20 (1.20%) Spring Boot
12 17 (1.02%) CSS
13 15 (0.90%) OpenID
13 15 (0.90%) SOAP
14 14 (0.84%) YAML
15 13 (0.78%) OpenAPI
15 13 (0.78%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 679 (40.90%) Data Protection Act
2 134 (8.07%) Management Information System
3 99 (5.96%) Product Ownership
4 92 (5.54%) Onboarding
5 90 (5.42%) Cloud Native
6 62 (3.73%) Data Centre
7 58 (3.49%) Distributed Systems
8 45 (2.71%) Freedom of Information
9 42 (2.53%) Legacy Systems
10 39 (2.35%) Security Posture
11 34 (2.05%) Virtual Team
12 30 (1.81%) NHS
13 29 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
14 28 (1.69%) AI Agents
14 28 (1.69%) Data Structures
14 28 (1.69%) Operational Technology
14 28 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
15 21 (1.27%) Private Cloud
16 19 (1.14%) Cyber Threat
16 19 (1.14%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 132 (7.95%) Windows
2 82 (4.94%) Linux
3 38 (2.29%) Windows Server
4 31 (1.87%) Apple iOS
5 29 (1.75%) Android
5 29 (1.75%) Unix
6 22 (1.33%) Mac OS
7 15 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.72%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.48%) zOS
10 2 (0.12%) AIX
10 2 (0.12%) CentOS
10 2 (0.12%) HPUX
10 2 (0.12%) Solaris
10 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.12%) VMS
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.060%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 407 (24.52%) Stakeholder Management
2 317 (19.10%) Agile
3 293 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
4 286 (17.23%) Continuous Improvement
5 245 (14.76%) CI/CD
6 242 (14.58%) AI
7 229 (13.80%) Cybersecurity
8 227 (13.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 217 (13.07%) Migration
10 206 (12.41%) DevOps
11 170 (10.24%) Roadmaps
12 163 (9.82%) Decision-Making
13 160 (9.64%) Information Security
14 157 (9.46%) Risk Management
15 153 (9.22%) Data Governance
16 148 (8.92%) Infrastructure as Code
17 141 (8.49%) Analytics
18 137 (8.25%) Validation
19 120 (7.23%) Test Automation
20 119 (7.17%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 210 (12.65%) Python
2 164 (9.88%) SQL
3 77 (4.64%) Java
4 63 (3.80%) PowerShell
5 43 (2.59%) JavaScript
6 34 (2.05%) Bash
7 28 (1.69%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.51%) Go
9 20 (1.20%) C#
10 18 (1.08%) Bicep
11 16 (0.96%) Scala
12 13 (0.78%) Apex Code
12 13 (0.78%) Kotlin
13 12 (0.72%) Perl
14 9 (0.54%) C
15 8 (0.48%) C++
16 7 (0.42%) COBOL
16 7 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
16 7 (0.42%) VB
16 7 (0.42%) VB6
Qualifications
1 273 (16.45%) Security Cleared
2 203 (12.23%) SC Cleared
3 120 (7.23%) Degree
4 80 (4.82%) CISSP
5 59 (3.55%) DV Cleared
6 51 (3.07%) BPSS Clearance
7 50 (3.01%) CISM
8 45 (2.71%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (1.75%) PMI Certification
10 28 (1.69%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 28 (1.69%) Azure Certification
11 27 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
12 26 (1.57%) CCSP
12 26 (1.57%) PMP
13 18 (1.08%) AWS Certification
14 14 (0.84%) CRISC
15 13 (0.78%) CISA
16 12 (0.72%) CCNP
16 12 (0.72%) Master's Degree
16 12 (0.72%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 238 (14.34%) GDPR
2 121 (7.29%) Data Quality
3 100 (6.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 74 (4.46%) NIST
5 66 (3.98%) QA
6 51 (3.07%) GRC
7 49 (2.95%) Accessibility
8 31 (1.87%) PCI DSS
9 23 (1.39%) NCSC
10 21 (1.27%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (1.20%) PMO
12 14 (0.84%) SLA
13 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 11 (0.66%) PERC
14 11 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.66%) WCAG
15 10 (0.60%) HIPAA
15 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
16 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 80 (4.82%) Active Directory
2 69 (4.16%) Docker
3 61 (3.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (1.02%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.78%) vSphere
6 12 (0.72%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.30%) ISA Server
8 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) NFS
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.12%) GPFS
10 2 (0.12%) IAG
10 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.060%) Firmware
11 1 (0.060%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.060%) OpenSSH
11 1 (0.060%) Varnish
11 1 (0.060%) XenApp
11 1 (0.060%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 114 (6.87%) Kubernetes
2 49 (2.95%) Ansible
3 38 (2.29%) Microsoft Intune
4 31 (1.87%) Grafana
5 21 (1.27%) SCCM
6 16 (0.96%) Prometheus
7 15 (0.90%) Kibana
8 13 (0.78%) Progress Chef
9 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
9 12 (0.72%) NetBackup
10 11 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.60%) Puppet
12 8 (0.48%) CASB
13 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
13 5 (0.30%) QRadar
13 5 (0.30%) SCOM
14 4 (0.24%) Control-M
14 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
15 3 (0.18%) Istio
15 3 (0.18%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 374 (22.53%) Microsoft
2 90 (5.42%) ServiceNow
3 88 (5.30%) Google
4 72 (4.34%) Cisco
5 62 (3.73%) VMware
6 61 (3.67%) Oracle
7 47 (2.83%) Databricks
8 43 (2.59%) Splunk
9 40 (2.41%) SAP
10 29 (1.75%) Salesforce
11 27 (1.63%) Zscaler
12 19 (1.14%) IBM
12 19 (1.14%) Workday
13 17 (1.02%) CyberArk
13 17 (1.02%) F5
14 16 (0.96%) Red Hat
15 15 (0.90%) Dell
15 15 (0.90%) Dynatrace
16 14 (0.84%) MuleSoft
17 13 (0.78%) SolarWinds