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

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 74 83
Rank change year-on-year -11 +9 +5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,714 1,101 992
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.12% 3.34% 2.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.69% 3.70% 3.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 874 539 516
10th Percentile £263 £289 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £609
90th Percentile £688 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £465 £475
% change year-on-year -3.23% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 114 57 16
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.06
25th Percentile £14.05 £13.60 £21.13
Median hourly rate £17.85 £17.00 £25.84
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -34.21% +7.67%
75th Percentile £24.50 £20.71 £38.98
90th Percentile £34.58 £30.74 £70.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.68 £16.00 £24.00
% change year-on-year +10.47% -33.33% +14.29%

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 46,512 29,792 32,258
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.69% 90.47% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,938 18,529 19,417
10th Percentile £325 £294 £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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,382 1,881 1,250
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.03
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.54 £65.14 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -7.83%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -18 1,417 £500 - 1,169
UK excluding London -1 955 £450 -3.23% 651
London -29 592 £525 - 574
Work from Home +10 473 £500 +11.11% 526
North of England +10 357 £463 +0.54% 195
South East -5 200 £471 -7.60% 148
Yorkshire +13 181 £477 -7.02% 87
Midlands +4 158 £450 -5.26% 91
North West +8 150 £450 +2.27% 96
West Midlands +2 128 £450 -10.00% 49
Scotland -9 121 £450 +5.88% 49
South West -10 62 £500 +16.28% 62
East of England -14 36 £503 +5.79% 51
East Midlands -4 30 £435 +8.75% 42
North East -40 27 £463 +19.35% 13
Wales -10 19 £413 - 24
Northern Ireland +3 16 £115 -83.57% 35
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 -17.24% 1

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 75 (4.38%) SharePoint
2 36 (2.10%) Confluence
3 29 (1.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.58%) Apache Airflow
5 19 (1.11%) Apache Spark
6 14 (0.82%) Apache
7 13 (0.76%) IIS
8 11 (0.64%) CMS
8 11 (0.64%) SAS
9 6 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.35%) WordPress
10 5 (0.29%) nginx
10 5 (0.29%) Tuxedo
11 3 (0.18%) CICS
11 3 (0.18%) Jupyter
12 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
12 2 (0.12%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.12%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.12%) WebSphere
13 1 (0.058%) Drupal
Applications
1 55 (3.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 54 (3.15%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.41%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.23%) UserZoom
8 1 (0.058%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.058%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.058%) Maya
8 1 (0.058%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 14 (0.82%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.53%) SAP MDG
4 5 (0.29%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.23%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Cloudability
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 1 (0.058%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.058%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.058%) Raiser’s Edge
8 1 (0.058%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.058%) Siebel CRM
8 1 (0.058%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 381 (22.23%) Azure
2 299 (17.44%) AWS
3 147 (8.58%) Microsoft 365
4 131 (7.64%) GCP
5 81 (4.73%) Power Platform
6 77 (4.49%) Entra ID
7 73 (4.26%) SaaS
8 66 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
9 62 (3.62%) GitHub
10 57 (3.33%) Microsoft Purview
11 50 (2.92%) Serverless
12 40 (2.33%) Microsoft Copilot
13 32 (1.87%) OneDrive
14 28 (1.63%) Snowflake
15 27 (1.58%) GitHub Actions
16 24 (1.40%) AWS Lambda
16 24 (1.40%) OpenShift
17 21 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
17 21 (1.23%) Power Automate
17 21 (1.23%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 94 (5.48%) Network Security
2 66 (3.85%) Firewall
3 39 (2.28%) VPN
4 36 (2.10%) DNS
5 30 (1.75%) TCP/IP
6 25 (1.46%) DHCP
7 22 (1.28%) LAN
7 22 (1.28%) WAN
8 20 (1.17%) Cisco IPT
9 15 (0.88%) SAN
10 14 (0.82%) MPLS
10 14 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.76%) VoIP
11 13 (0.76%) Wireless
12 12 (0.70%) HTTP
12 12 (0.70%) SSL
13 11 (0.64%) NAS
13 11 (0.64%) Unified Communications
14 10 (0.58%) Cisco ISE
14 10 (0.58%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (3.38%) Power BI
2 54 (3.15%) Metadata
3 41 (2.39%) Relational Database
4 39 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
5 38 (2.22%) SQL Server
6 29 (1.69%) Data Warehouse
7 23 (1.34%) BigQuery
7 23 (1.34%) Data Lake
7 23 (1.34%) NoSQL
8 16 (0.93%) Amazon RDS
8 16 (0.93%) MongoDB
9 15 (0.88%) Big Data
10 11 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
10 11 (0.64%) Oracle Database
11 10 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
12 9 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.47%) DynamoDB
13 8 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
13 8 (0.47%) MySQL
13 8 (0.47%) Redis
Development Applications
1 81 (4.73%) JIRA
2 73 (4.26%) Git
3 61 (3.56%) Jenkins
4 27 (1.58%) GitLab
5 19 (1.11%) Selenium
6 11 (0.64%) Maven
7 10 (0.58%) Oracle Forms
7 10 (0.58%) Postman
8 6 (0.35%) Cypress.io
8 6 (0.35%) Gradle
8 6 (0.35%) JUnit
8 6 (0.35%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
9 4 (0.23%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.23%) Mockito
9 4 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.18%) ERwin
10 3 (0.18%) Mocha
10 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
General
1 708 (41.31%) Social Skills
2 374 (21.82%) Finance
3 263 (15.34%) Legal
4 229 (13.36%) Public Sector
5 228 (13.30%) Analytical Skills
6 120 (7.00%) Banking
7 89 (5.19%) Organisational Skills
8 72 (4.20%) Documentation Skills
9 50 (2.92%) Influencing Skills
10 45 (2.63%) Local Government
11 41 (2.39%) Presentation Skills
12 36 (2.10%) Retail
13 32 (1.87%) Marketing
14 29 (1.69%) Law
15 28 (1.63%) Telecoms
16 23 (1.34%) Front Office
17 22 (1.28%) Police
18 21 (1.23%) Pharmaceutical
19 20 (1.17%) Billing
20 19 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 256 (14.94%) Architect
2 171 (9.98%) Analyst
3 140 (8.17%) Lead
4 126 (7.35%) Senior
5 102 (5.95%) Developer
6 75 (4.38%) Project Manager
7 72 (4.20%) Solutions Architect
8 69 (4.03%) Consultant
9 68 (3.97%) Business Analyst
10 63 (3.68%) Security Architect
11 58 (3.38%) Administrator
12 43 (2.51%) Security Engineer
13 40 (2.33%) Information Officer
14 37 (2.16%) Information Governance Officer
15 36 (2.10%) Support Engineer
16 33 (1.93%) Data Engineer
17 32 (1.87%) Data Analyst
18 28 (1.63%) Data Architect
19 27 (1.58%) Network Engineer
20 26 (1.52%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (6.48%) Terraform
2 99 (5.78%) REST
3 46 (2.68%) Kafka
4 38 (2.22%) OAuth
5 37 (2.16%) JSON
5 37 (2.16%) Middleware
6 28 (1.63%) RESTful
7 26 (1.52%) React
8 25 (1.46%) .NET
9 24 (1.40%) Node.js
9 24 (1.40%) OAuth2
10 23 (1.34%) Spring
11 22 (1.28%) Spring Boot
12 20 (1.17%) HTML
13 18 (1.05%) CSS
14 17 (0.99%) OpenID
15 15 (0.88%) OpenAPI
15 15 (0.88%) SOAP
15 15 (0.88%) Swagger
16 14 (0.82%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 707 (41.25%) Data Protection Act
2 143 (8.34%) Management Information System
3 106 (6.18%) Product Ownership
4 95 (5.54%) Cloud Native
5 90 (5.25%) Onboarding
6 63 (3.68%) Data Centre
6 63 (3.68%) Distributed Systems
7 47 (2.74%) Freedom of Information
8 44 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
9 41 (2.39%) Security Posture
10 37 (2.16%) Virtual Team
11 33 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
12 32 (1.87%) Data Structures
13 31 (1.81%) AI Agents
14 28 (1.63%) NHS
14 28 (1.63%) Operational Technology
15 27 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
16 21 (1.23%) Private Cloud
17 19 (1.11%) Mobile App
17 19 (1.11%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 137 (7.99%) Windows
2 87 (5.08%) Linux
3 39 (2.28%) Windows Server
4 33 (1.93%) Apple iOS
5 31 (1.81%) Android
6 30 (1.75%) Unix
7 22 (1.28%) macOS
8 17 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.70%) Windows 10
10 9 (0.53%) 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 (0.058%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 448 (26.14%) Stakeholder Management
2 336 (19.60%) Agile
3 301 (17.56%) Problem-Solving
4 299 (17.44%) Continuous Improvement
5 262 (15.29%) CI/CD
6 244 (14.24%) AI
7 241 (14.06%) Cybersecurity
8 230 (13.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 225 (13.13%) Migration
10 214 (12.49%) DevOps
11 186 (10.85%) Roadmaps
12 164 (9.57%) Decision-Making
13 162 (9.45%) Information Security
14 160 (9.33%) Risk Management
15 157 (9.16%) Infrastructure as Code
16 149 (8.69%) Analytics
17 148 (8.63%) Data Governance
18 142 (8.28%) Validation
19 131 (7.64%) Test Automation
20 124 (7.23%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 215 (12.54%) Python
2 169 (9.86%) SQL
3 81 (4.73%) Java
4 65 (3.79%) PowerShell
5 47 (2.74%) JavaScript
6 35 (2.04%) Bash
7 30 (1.75%) TypeScript
8 28 (1.63%) Go
9 21 (1.23%) Bicep
10 20 (1.17%) C#
11 16 (0.93%) Scala
12 13 (0.76%) Apex Code
12 13 (0.76%) Kotlin
13 12 (0.70%) Perl
14 9 (0.53%) C
14 9 (0.53%) Kusto Query Language
15 8 (0.47%) C++
15 8 (0.47%) VB
16 7 (0.41%) COBOL
16 7 (0.41%) VB6
Qualifications
1 288 (16.80%) Security Cleared
2 216 (12.60%) SC Cleared
3 122 (7.12%) Degree
4 82 (4.78%) CISSP
5 60 (3.50%) DV Cleared
6 55 (3.21%) BPSS Clearance
7 52 (3.03%) CISM
8 44 (2.57%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (1.98%) PMI Certification
10 30 (1.75%) PMP
11 27 (1.58%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 27 (1.58%) Azure Certification
11 27 (1.58%) Computer Science Degree
12 25 (1.46%) CCSP
13 20 (1.17%) AWS Certification
14 14 (0.82%) CRISC
15 13 (0.76%) CISA
16 12 (0.70%) CCNP
16 12 (0.70%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 238 (13.89%) GDPR
2 121 (7.06%) Data Quality
3 106 (6.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 72 (4.20%) NIST
4 72 (4.20%) QA
5 56 (3.27%) Accessibility
6 51 (2.98%) GRC
7 32 (1.87%) PCI DSS
8 27 (1.58%) NCSC
9 26 (1.52%) Cyber Essentials
10 20 (1.17%) PMO
11 16 (0.93%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 15 (0.88%) SLA
13 12 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.64%) PERC
14 11 (0.64%) WCAG
15 10 (0.58%) HIPAA
16 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
16 9 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 8 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 82 (4.78%) Active Directory
2 70 (4.08%) Docker
3 63 (3.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (0.88%) Virtual Desktop
4 15 (0.88%) vSphere
5 14 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (0.70%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.29%) ISA Server
9 4 (0.23%) NFS
9 4 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.12%) GPFS
10 2 (0.12%) IAG
10 2 (0.12%) KVM
10 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.058%) Firmware
11 1 (0.058%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.058%) OpenSSH
11 1 (0.058%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.058%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 119 (6.94%) Kubernetes
2 50 (2.92%) Ansible
3 39 (2.28%) Microsoft Intune
4 34 (1.98%) Grafana
5 20 (1.17%) SCCM
6 15 (0.88%) Kibana
6 15 (0.88%) Prometheus
7 13 (0.76%) Jamf Pro
7 13 (0.76%) NetBackup
7 13 (0.76%) Progress Chef
8 12 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
9 10 (0.58%) Puppet
10 8 (0.47%) CASB
11 5 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
11 5 (0.29%) QRadar
11 5 (0.29%) SCOM
11 5 (0.29%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.23%) Control-M
12 4 (0.23%) EMC NetWorker
13 3 (0.18%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 394 (22.99%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.13%) Google
3 87 (5.08%) ServiceNow
4 76 (4.43%) Cisco
5 68 (3.97%) Oracle
5 68 (3.97%) VMware
6 50 (2.92%) Databricks
7 47 (2.74%) SAP
8 41 (2.39%) Splunk
9 30 (1.75%) Salesforce
10 27 (1.58%) Zscaler
11 23 (1.34%) IBM
12 18 (1.05%) Workday
13 17 (0.99%) CyberArk
13 17 (0.99%) Dell
13 17 (0.99%) Dynatrace
13 17 (0.99%) F5
13 17 (0.99%) Red Hat
14 14 (0.82%) MuleSoft
15 13 (0.76%) OpenAI