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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 73 86
Rank change year-on-year -10 +13 -8
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,690 1,105 1,006
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.34% 2.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.64% 3.68% 3.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 863 535 528
10th Percentile £254 £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 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £458 £475
% change year-on-year -1.64% -3.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 110 53 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.06 £13.60 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -45.22% +15.15%
75th Percentile £24.12 £20.40 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £33.49 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.68 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +15.90% -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 46,382 30,011 32,696
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.49% 90.62% 85.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,976 18,637 19,780
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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £734 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,269 1,869 1,352
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.17 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.96% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.02 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.86% -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 2 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 2 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 2 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 1,399 £500 - 1,910
UK excluding London -5 940 £450 -1.64% 1,172
London -30 592 £525 - 881
Work from Home +13 468 £500 +11.11% 768
North of England +12 342 £463 +2.78% 331
South East -7 198 £468 -7.43% 283
Yorkshire +13 173 £475 -5.00% 132
Midlands +1 161 £450 -5.26% 171
North West +8 148 £450 +2.27% 173
West Midlands +9 130 £450 -10.00% 101
Scotland -12 121 £450 +5.88% 89
South West -16 63 £488 +21.88% 115
East of England -16 33 £500 +5.26% 111
East Midlands -7 31 £435 +8.75% 70
North East -49 22 £463 +15.63% 27
Wales -5 20 £413 +11.86% 42
Northern Ireland +7 16 £115 -83.57% 32
Channel Islands -4 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 70 (4.14%) SharePoint
2 35 (2.07%) Confluence
3 27 (1.60%) Apache Airflow
4 25 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
5 18 (1.07%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.77%) IIS
7 12 (0.71%) Apache
7 12 (0.71%) CMS
8 10 (0.59%) SAS
9 7 (0.41%) WordPress
10 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.18%) CICS
12 3 (0.18%) nginx
13 2 (0.12%) Drupal
13 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
14 1 (0.059%) MQSeries
14 1 (0.059%) NetWeaver
14 1 (0.059%) Tomcat
Applications
1 53 (3.14%) Microsoft Office
2 48 (2.84%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
8 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.059%) Maya
8 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.53%) 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%) Endur
6 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 1 (0.059%) Oracle Assets
7 1 (0.059%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.059%) SAP BRIM
7 1 (0.059%) SAP CX
7 1 (0.059%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 374 (22.13%) Azure
2 299 (17.69%) AWS
3 140 (8.28%) Microsoft 365
4 134 (7.93%) GCP
5 77 (4.56%) SaaS
6 76 (4.50%) Entra ID
7 75 (4.44%) Power Platform
8 63 (3.73%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (3.49%) GitHub
10 55 (3.25%) Microsoft Purview
11 48 (2.84%) Serverless
12 40 (2.37%) Microsoft Copilot
13 29 (1.72%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.54%) AWS Lambda
15 25 (1.48%) GitHub Actions
16 24 (1.42%) OpenShift
16 24 (1.42%) Snowflake
17 22 (1.30%) Power Automate
18 21 (1.24%) Amazon S3
18 21 (1.24%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 94 (5.56%) Network Security
2 64 (3.79%) Firewall
3 37 (2.19%) VPN
4 35 (2.07%) DNS
5 27 (1.60%) TCP/IP
6 24 (1.42%) DHCP
7 21 (1.24%) WAN
8 20 (1.18%) LAN
9 19 (1.12%) Cisco IPT
10 15 (0.89%) MPLS
10 15 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.83%) SAN
12 12 (0.71%) Wireless
13 11 (0.65%) VoIP
14 10 (0.59%) HTTP
14 10 (0.59%) Unified Communications
15 9 (0.53%) Cisco ISE
15 9 (0.53%) Internet
15 9 (0.53%) Intrusion Detection
15 9 (0.53%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (3.31%) Power BI
2 51 (3.02%) Metadata
3 42 (2.49%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
5 32 (1.89%) SQL Server
6 24 (1.42%) BigQuery
6 24 (1.42%) NoSQL
7 22 (1.30%) Data Lake
8 17 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
9 15 (0.89%) Big Data
10 13 (0.77%) MongoDB
11 10 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
11 10 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
11 10 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
12 9 (0.53%) Oracle Database
13 8 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
13 8 (0.47%) DynamoDB
13 8 (0.47%) MySQL
14 7 (0.41%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 79 (4.67%) JIRA
2 69 (4.08%) Git
3 59 (3.49%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.54%) GitLab
5 18 (1.07%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.59%) Postman
7 9 (0.53%) 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%) ERwin
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
1 676 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 361 (21.36%) Finance
3 251 (14.85%) Legal
4 221 (13.08%) Analytical Skills
5 218 (12.90%) Public Sector
6 121 (7.16%) Banking
7 86 (5.09%) Organisational Skills
8 73 (4.32%) Documentation Skills
9 45 (2.66%) Influencing Skills
9 45 (2.66%) Local Government
10 41 (2.43%) Presentation Skills
11 39 (2.31%) Retail
12 28 (1.66%) Law
13 27 (1.60%) Front Office
13 27 (1.60%) Marketing
13 27 (1.60%) Telecoms
14 23 (1.36%) Pharmaceutical
15 21 (1.24%) Police
16 20 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 19 (1.12%) Billing
Job Titles
1 250 (14.79%) Architect
2 175 (10.36%) Analyst
3 135 (7.99%) Lead
4 125 (7.40%) Senior
5 102 (6.04%) Developer
6 79 (4.67%) Consultant
7 76 (4.50%) Project Manager
8 71 (4.20%) Business Analyst
9 68 (4.02%) Solutions Architect
10 59 (3.49%) Security Architect
11 56 (3.31%) Administrator
12 46 (2.72%) Security Engineer
13 38 (2.25%) Information Officer
14 37 (2.19%) Support Engineer
15 35 (2.07%) Information Governance Officer
16 33 (1.95%) Data Analyst
17 31 (1.83%) Data Engineer
18 28 (1.66%) Network Engineer
19 27 (1.60%) Data Architect
20 25 (1.48%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (6.04%) Terraform
2 91 (5.38%) REST
3 41 (2.43%) Kafka
4 35 (2.07%) JSON
5 34 (2.01%) OAuth
6 32 (1.89%) Middleware
7 26 (1.54%) React
8 25 (1.48%) RESTful
9 24 (1.42%) .NET
10 22 (1.30%) Spring
11 21 (1.24%) Node.js
11 21 (1.24%) OAuth2
11 21 (1.24%) Spring Boot
12 20 (1.18%) HTML
13 18 (1.07%) CSS
14 15 (0.89%) OpenID
14 15 (0.89%) SOAP
15 14 (0.83%) YAML
16 13 (0.77%) Lightning Web Components
16 13 (0.77%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 705 (41.72%) Data Protection Act
2 133 (7.87%) Management Information System
3 101 (5.98%) Product Ownership
4 96 (5.68%) Onboarding
5 94 (5.56%) Cloud Native
6 63 (3.73%) Data Centre
7 58 (3.43%) Distributed Systems
8 45 (2.66%) Freedom of Information
9 43 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
10 42 (2.49%) Security Posture
11 38 (2.25%) Virtual Team
12 32 (1.89%) NHS
13 30 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
14 28 (1.66%) Operational Technology
14 28 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
15 27 (1.60%) AI Agents
15 27 (1.60%) Data Structures
16 23 (1.36%) Mobile App
17 21 (1.24%) Private Cloud
18 19 (1.12%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 135 (7.99%) Windows
2 81 (4.79%) Linux
3 38 (2.25%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.95%) Apple iOS
5 32 (1.89%) Android
6 29 (1.72%) Unix
7 22 (1.30%) Mac OS
8 15 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 14 (0.83%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.47%) zOS
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) HPUX
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) VMS
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.059%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 408 (24.14%) Stakeholder Management
2 324 (19.17%) Agile
3 298 (17.63%) Problem-Solving
4 284 (16.80%) Continuous Improvement
5 248 (14.67%) CI/CD
6 241 (14.26%) AI
7 230 (13.61%) Cybersecurity
8 229 (13.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 219 (12.96%) Migration
10 209 (12.37%) DevOps
11 172 (10.18%) Roadmaps
12 166 (9.82%) Decision-Making
13 160 (9.47%) Information Security
14 156 (9.23%) Risk Management
15 151 (8.93%) Data Governance
16 148 (8.76%) Infrastructure as Code
17 144 (8.52%) Analytics
18 139 (8.22%) Validation
19 122 (7.22%) Test Automation
20 121 (7.16%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 214 (12.66%) Python
2 165 (9.76%) SQL
3 78 (4.62%) Java
4 62 (3.67%) PowerShell
5 45 (2.66%) JavaScript
6 34 (2.01%) Bash
7 28 (1.66%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.48%) Go
9 19 (1.12%) C#
10 18 (1.07%) Bicep
11 17 (1.01%) Scala
12 15 (0.89%) Kotlin
13 14 (0.83%) Apex Code
14 12 (0.71%) Perl
15 9 (0.53%) C
16 8 (0.47%) C++
16 8 (0.47%) VB
17 7 (0.41%) COBOL
17 7 (0.41%) VB6
18 6 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 272 (16.09%) Security Cleared
2 202 (11.95%) SC Cleared
3 117 (6.92%) Degree
4 83 (4.91%) CISSP
5 59 (3.49%) DV Cleared
6 51 (3.02%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (3.02%) CISM
7 46 (2.72%) Cisco Certification
8 30 (1.78%) PMI Certification
9 29 (1.72%) Azure Certification
10 28 (1.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 27 (1.60%) PMP
12 26 (1.54%) CCSP
12 26 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
13 18 (1.07%) AWS Certification
14 14 (0.83%) CRISC
15 13 (0.77%) CCNP
15 13 (0.77%) CISA
16 12 (0.71%) Master's Degree
16 12 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 240 (14.20%) GDPR
2 119 (7.04%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 76 (4.50%) NIST
5 67 (3.96%) QA
6 52 (3.08%) GRC
7 50 (2.96%) Accessibility
8 30 (1.78%) PCI DSS
9 23 (1.36%) NCSC
10 21 (1.24%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (1.18%) PMO
12 14 (0.83%) SLA
13 13 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.65%) PERC
15 11 (0.65%) WCAG
16 10 (0.59%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
17 9 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 81 (4.79%) Active Directory
2 70 (4.14%) Docker
3 60 (3.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (1.01%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.77%) vSphere
6 12 (0.71%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.59%) 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 (0.059%) Firmware
11 1 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.059%) OpenSSH
11 1 (0.059%) Varnish
11 1 (0.059%) XenApp
11 1 (0.059%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 115 (6.80%) Kubernetes
2 49 (2.90%) Ansible
3 40 (2.37%) Microsoft Intune
4 30 (1.78%) Grafana
5 21 (1.24%) SCCM
6 15 (0.89%) Kibana
6 15 (0.89%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
7 12 (0.71%) NetBackup
7 12 (0.71%) Progress Chef
7 12 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.59%) Puppet
9 8 (0.47%) CASB
10 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
10 5 (0.30%) QRadar
10 5 (0.30%) SCOM
11 4 (0.24%) Control-M
11 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
12 3 (0.18%) Istio
12 3 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 378 (22.37%) Microsoft
2 91 (5.38%) ServiceNow
3 88 (5.21%) Google
4 73 (4.32%) Cisco
5 63 (3.73%) Oracle
6 61 (3.61%) VMware
7 47 (2.78%) Databricks
8 44 (2.60%) Splunk
9 39 (2.31%) SAP
10 30 (1.78%) Salesforce
11 28 (1.66%) Zscaler
12 20 (1.18%) IBM
12 20 (1.18%) Workday
13 18 (1.07%) F5
14 17 (1.01%) CyberArk
15 15 (0.89%) Dell
15 15 (0.89%) Red Hat
16 14 (0.83%) Dynatrace
16 14 (0.83%) MuleSoft
17 13 (0.77%) Citrix