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

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 91 89
Rank change year-on-year +19 -2 +6
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,550 782 1,045
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.17% 2.71% 2.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.74% 2.98% 2.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 850 396 549
10th Percentile £285 £260 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £491 £496 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.96% -0.80% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £594 £600
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 72 32 108
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.78 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.46 £15.13 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.86 £25.75 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.12% +22.62% -52.84%
75th Percentile £33.75 £32.73 £27.59
90th Percentile £47.08 £36.95 £41.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.35 £22.00 £19.50
% change year-on-year -2.95% +12.82% -38.10%

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 41,432 26,234 36,612
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.66% 91.00% 85.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,858 16,712 23,486
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £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 2,493 1,127 2,523
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.71 £27.64 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.50% -24.27% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.84 £56.25 £60.75
90th Percentile £81.24 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +8.91%

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 4 June 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 4 June 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 4 June 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 +29 1,324 £498 -0.32% 497
UK excluding London +16 847 £450 -5.26% 322
London +34 602 £525 - 220
Work from Home +32 414 £500 +2.56% 208
North of England +1 280 £475 - 82
South East +24 178 £475 -9.52% 85
Yorkshire -13 156 £475 -8.43% 27
Midlands -8 129 £450 -10.00% 68
Scotland +1 127 £425 -7.10% 22
North West +20 116 £475 +6.26% 44
West Midlands -19 88 £468 -10.95% 47
South West 0 66 £410 +2.50% 33
East of England +3 48 £488 -7.14% 23
East Midlands +2 41 £438 +17.06% 21
Wales -10 11 £363 -12.12% 10
Northern Ireland +10 9 £104 -78.86% 6
North East -38 8 £400 -3.03% 11

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 55 (3.55%) Confluence
2 51 (3.29%) SharePoint
3 26 (1.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (1.10%) Apache Spark
5 13 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 9 (0.58%) Apache
7 6 (0.39%) CMS
8 5 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (0.32%) SAS
9 4 (0.26%) IIS
10 3 (0.19%) Drupal
10 3 (0.19%) nginx
11 2 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
11 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
11 2 (0.13%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.13%) NetWeaver
11 2 (0.13%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
11 2 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 46 (2.97%) Microsoft Office
2 43 (2.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.26%) UserZoom
7 3 (0.19%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.065%) Maya
9 1 (0.065%) Trello
9 1 (0.065%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.65%) Aladdin
2 10 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.32%) NEC Housing
3 5 (0.32%) SAP GRC
4 4 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
4 4 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
5 3 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.19%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.19%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.13%) R3 Corda
6 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.065%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 325 (20.97%) Azure
2 259 (16.71%) AWS
3 131 (8.45%) GCP
4 102 (6.58%) Microsoft 365
5 86 (5.55%) Entra ID
6 83 (5.35%) Power Platform
7 66 (4.26%) SaaS
8 61 (3.94%) GitHub
9 49 (3.16%) Microsoft Purview
10 44 (2.84%) OpenShift
11 43 (2.77%) Azure DevOps
12 37 (2.39%) Serverless
13 28 (1.81%) Microsoft Copilot
14 25 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
15 23 (1.48%) Snowflake
16 22 (1.42%) OneDrive
17 21 (1.35%) Amazon S3
17 21 (1.35%) AWS CloudFormation
17 21 (1.35%) Power Automate
18 20 (1.29%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 74 (4.77%) Network Security
2 45 (2.90%) Firewall
3 34 (2.19%) SAN
4 30 (1.94%) VPN
5 24 (1.55%) DNS
6 23 (1.48%) TCP/IP
7 22 (1.42%) NAS
8 20 (1.29%) WAN
9 17 (1.10%) LAN
9 17 (1.10%) MPLS
10 16 (1.03%) DHCP
11 14 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (0.58%) HTTP
12 9 (0.58%) VLAN
13 8 (0.52%) SSL
13 8 (0.52%) Wireless
14 7 (0.45%) BGP
14 7 (0.45%) Cisco Nexus
14 7 (0.45%) Fibre Channel
14 7 (0.45%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (4.39%) Power BI
2 37 (2.39%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (2.26%) Metadata
4 32 (2.06%) SQL Server
5 27 (1.74%) Data Warehouse
6 23 (1.48%) MongoDB
6 23 (1.48%) MySQL
7 21 (1.35%) Data Lake
8 20 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
9 19 (1.23%) Big Data
9 19 (1.23%) NoSQL
9 19 (1.23%) Relational Database
10 13 (0.84%) DynamoDB
11 12 (0.77%) Oracle Database
11 12 (0.77%) Tableau
12 10 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
12 10 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
13 9 (0.58%) BigQuery
14 8 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 7 (0.45%) Redis
Development Applications
1 91 (5.87%) JIRA
2 66 (4.26%) Git
3 63 (4.06%) Jenkins
4 39 (2.52%) GitLab
5 9 (0.58%) SpecFlow
6 8 (0.52%) JUnit
6 8 (0.52%) Postman
7 7 (0.45%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.39%) Flyway
8 6 (0.39%) Maven
9 5 (0.32%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.32%) Gradle
10 4 (0.26%) ERwin
10 4 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
11 3 (0.19%) Katalon Studio
11 3 (0.19%) Selenium
11 3 (0.19%) TestNG
11 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.13%) REST Assured
General
1 497 (32.06%) Social Skills
2 357 (23.03%) Finance
3 203 (13.10%) Legal
4 172 (11.10%) Analytical Skills
5 146 (9.42%) Public Sector
6 118 (7.61%) Banking
7 65 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
8 61 (3.94%) Organisational Skills
9 39 (2.52%) Telecoms
10 30 (1.94%) Front Office
10 30 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
11 29 (1.87%) Local Government
12 28 (1.81%) Retail
13 27 (1.74%) Law
14 26 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
15 25 (1.61%) Marketing
16 18 (1.16%) Pharmaceutical
16 18 (1.16%) Police
17 12 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 12 (0.77%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 213 (13.74%) Architect
2 143 (9.23%) Analyst
3 127 (8.19%) Developer
4 118 (7.61%) Lead
5 108 (6.97%) Senior
6 93 (6.00%) Consultant
7 84 (5.42%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.32%) Business Analyst
9 60 (3.87%) Solutions Architect
10 43 (2.77%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.71%) Java Developer
11 42 (2.71%) Network Engineer
12 41 (2.65%) Security Engineer
13 37 (2.39%) Data Engineer
14 32 (2.06%) Administrator
15 28 (1.81%) Technical Architect
16 26 (1.68%) Data Analyst
17 25 (1.61%) Support Engineer
18 23 (1.48%) Python Developer
19 22 (1.42%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (5.03%) REST
2 58 (3.74%) React
3 38 (2.45%) Spring
4 34 (2.19%) Spring Boot
5 33 (2.13%) Middleware
6 31 (2.00%) HTML
7 30 (1.94%) CSS
7 30 (1.94%) Kafka
7 30 (1.94%) RESTful
8 27 (1.74%) .NET
9 26 (1.68%) OAuth
10 25 (1.61%) JSON
11 21 (1.35%) Jest
11 21 (1.35%) Node.js
12 18 (1.16%) HTML5
12 18 (1.16%) Redux
13 17 (1.10%) OpenID
13 17 (1.10%) PySpark
13 17 (1.10%) Spring MVC
14 16 (1.03%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 723 (46.65%) Data Protection Act
2 90 (5.81%) Cloud Native
3 77 (4.97%) Product Ownership
4 70 (4.52%) Onboarding
5 53 (3.42%) Management Information System
6 40 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
7 39 (2.52%) Data Centre
7 39 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
8 32 (2.06%) Security Posture
9 28 (1.81%) Virtual Team
10 27 (1.74%) NHS
11 23 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
12 22 (1.42%) Replication
13 21 (1.35%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 20 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
15 19 (1.23%) Enterprise Storage
16 18 (1.16%) Operational Technology
17 17 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
18 16 (1.03%) Derivative
18 16 (1.03%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 119 (7.68%) Windows
2 79 (5.10%) Linux
3 34 (2.19%) Unix
4 23 (1.48%) Android
4 23 (1.48%) Mac OS
4 23 (1.48%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.35%) Apple iOS
6 17 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.90%) Windows 10
8 12 (0.77%) VMS
9 8 (0.52%) zOS
10 6 (0.39%) CoreOS
10 6 (0.39%) Data ONTAP
11 2 (0.13%) Rocky
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.065%) CentOS
12 1 (0.065%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.065%) Solaris
12 1 (0.065%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 293 (18.90%) Agile
2 260 (16.77%) Problem-Solving
2 260 (16.77%) Stakeholder Management
3 238 (15.35%) Continuous Improvement
3 238 (15.35%) Migration
4 223 (14.39%) CI/CD
5 216 (13.94%) DevOps
6 156 (10.06%) AI
7 151 (9.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 141 (9.10%) Roadmaps
9 135 (8.71%) Analytics
10 130 (8.39%) Cybersecurity
10 130 (8.39%) Decision-Making
11 121 (7.81%) Risk Management
12 117 (7.55%) Information Security
13 106 (6.84%) Infrastructure as Code
14 104 (6.71%) Data Governance
15 101 (6.52%) Validation
16 100 (6.45%) Test Automation
17 96 (6.19%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 218 (14.06%) Python
2 166 (10.71%) SQL
3 137 (8.84%) Java
4 72 (4.65%) JavaScript
5 58 (3.74%) PowerShell
6 42 (2.71%) Bash
7 38 (2.45%) C#
8 32 (2.06%) TypeScript
9 20 (1.29%) Bicep
10 15 (0.97%) Perl
11 14 (0.90%) C++
12 12 (0.77%) Go
13 11 (0.71%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.65%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.58%) Apex Code
15 9 (0.58%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.52%) ActionScript
16 8 (0.52%) Scala
17 7 (0.45%) PL/SQL
18 6 (0.39%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 207 (13.35%) Security Cleared
2 153 (9.87%) SC Cleared
3 136 (8.77%) Degree
4 73 (4.71%) CISSP
5 51 (3.29%) DV Cleared
6 40 (2.58%) CISM
7 34 (2.19%) Computer Science Degree
8 31 (2.00%) Azure Certification
8 31 (2.00%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (2.00%) PMI Certification
9 27 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
9 27 (1.74%) PMP
10 22 (1.42%) AWS Certification
10 22 (1.42%) Master's Degree
11 18 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
12 17 (1.10%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 15 (0.97%) CCSP
14 12 (0.77%) CRISC
15 10 (0.65%) CCNP
16 9 (0.58%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 249 (16.06%) GDPR
2 92 (5.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 88 (5.68%) NIST
4 79 (5.10%) Data Quality
5 61 (3.94%) QA
6 37 (2.39%) Accessibility
6 37 (2.39%) GRC
7 24 (1.55%) PCI DSS
8 20 (1.29%) PMO
9 19 (1.23%) SLA
9 19 (1.23%) SOC 2
10 17 (1.10%) NCSC
11 14 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 10 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
12 10 (0.65%) WCAG
13 8 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
13 8 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
13 8 (0.52%) HIPAA
14 6 (0.39%) COBIT
15 5 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 80 (5.16%) Active Directory
2 67 (4.32%) Docker
3 53 (3.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (1.23%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.97%) NFS
6 13 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (0.71%) vSphere
8 8 (0.52%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.45%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.39%) KVM
11 4 (0.26%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.19%) IAG
12 3 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.19%) XenApp
12 3 (0.19%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.13%) GPFS
13 2 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.065%) iptables
Systems Management
1 114 (7.35%) Kubernetes
2 90 (5.81%) Terraform
3 67 (4.32%) Ansible
4 45 (2.90%) Grafana
5 41 (2.65%) Microsoft Intune
6 31 (2.00%) NetBackup
6 31 (2.00%) Prometheus
7 22 (1.42%) SCCM
8 20 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.84%) Puppet
10 12 (0.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
12 7 (0.45%) Kibana
13 6 (0.39%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.32%) Control-M
14 5 (0.32%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.26%) CA Single Sign-On
15 4 (0.26%) Foglight
15 4 (0.26%) Progress Chef
15 4 (0.26%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 258 (16.65%) Microsoft
2 77 (4.97%) Oracle
3 64 (4.13%) Google
4 60 (3.87%) ServiceNow
5 55 (3.55%) Databricks
6 54 (3.48%) VMware
7 50 (3.23%) Cisco
8 42 (2.71%) SAP
9 33 (2.13%) Splunk
10 31 (2.00%) Red Hat
11 26 (1.68%) Veritas
12 23 (1.48%) Salesforce
13 22 (1.42%) Citrix
14 21 (1.35%) NetApp
15 16 (1.03%) Zscaler
16 15 (0.97%) Commvault
16 15 (0.97%) F5
16 15 (0.97%) IBM
16 15 (0.97%) Workday
17 14 (0.90%) Informatica