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

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 98 83
Rank change year-on-year +22 -15 +19
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,456 759 1,096
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.25% 2.61% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.79% 2.88% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 801 393 611
10th Percentile £300 £263 £213
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £690 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £459
% change year-on-year -5.26% +3.49% -5.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 28 108
10th Percentile £15.72 £17.83 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.79 £23.38 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.12 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.87% +49.31% -70.45%
75th Percentile £25.50 £33.59 £27.13
90th Percentile £59.50 £45.40 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.12 £19.50
% change year-on-year -28.87% +49.31% -70.45%

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 38,381 26,317 38,146
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.55% 90.50% 86.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,335 17,078 24,751
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £635 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.51% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,256 968 2,345
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.77
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.12 £15.89
Median hourly rate £35.77 £31.76 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.61% -2.28% -10.41%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £70.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £30.62 £31.50
% change year-on-year +14.32% -2.81% -12.50%

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 3 April 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 3 April 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 3 April 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 +24 1,245 £500 - 369
UK excluding London +18 783 £450 -5.26% 290
London +22 580 £525 +1.45% 130
Work from Home +27 373 £500 - 149
North of England 0 248 £487 +2.58% 83
South East +27 182 £495 -4.81% 76
Yorkshire -9 144 £500 -4.76% 26
Scotland +14 118 £405 -13.38% 13
Midlands -15 107 £450 -10.00% 53
North West -4 96 £488 +7.14% 52
West Midlands -36 66 £500 -2.44% 26
South West +13 65 £425 +9.68% 30
East of England -4 47 £450 -20.00% 33
East Midlands -2 41 £438 +6.06% 27
Wales +3 16 £375 -11.76% 5
North East -24 9 £400 -15.79% 5
Northern Ireland 0 4 £500 +1.63% 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 56 (3.85%) Confluence
2 35 (2.40%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.55%) Apache
5 8 (0.55%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.21%) CMS
7 3 (0.21%) Ethereum
7 3 (0.21%) Hyperledger
7 3 (0.21%) nginx
8 2 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.14%) Drupal
8 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.14%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
8 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.069%) Mule
9 1 (0.069%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 54 (3.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (2.61%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.069%) Blender
9 1 (0.069%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.069%) InVision
9 1 (0.069%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.069%) Sketch
9 1 (0.069%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.82%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.76%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.34%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
5 5 (0.34%) SAP GRC
6 4 (0.27%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.27%) ResourceLink
6 4 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 3 (0.21%) Distributed Ledger
7 3 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.21%) R3 Corda
8 2 (0.14%) Fidessa
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle FAH
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
8 2 (0.14%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.14%) Workfront
9 1 (0.069%) Loan IQ
Cloud Services
1 296 (20.33%) Azure
2 242 (16.62%) AWS
3 132 (9.07%) GCP
4 81 (5.56%) Power Platform
5 79 (5.43%) Microsoft 365
6 74 (5.08%) Entra ID
7 65 (4.46%) GitHub
8 50 (3.43%) Serverless
9 49 (3.37%) SaaS
10 42 (2.88%) Microsoft Purview
11 39 (2.68%) OpenShift
12 37 (2.54%) Azure DevOps
13 34 (2.34%) AWS Lambda
14 31 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
15 30 (2.06%) Amazon S3
15 30 (2.06%) Snowflake
16 24 (1.65%) GitHub Actions
17 21 (1.44%) PaaS
18 20 (1.37%) Microsoft Copilot
18 20 (1.37%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 51 (3.50%) Network Security
2 37 (2.54%) Firewall
2 37 (2.54%) SAN
3 25 (1.72%) VPN
4 23 (1.58%) NAS
5 20 (1.37%) WAN
6 18 (1.24%) DNS
6 18 (1.24%) LAN
6 18 (1.24%) MPLS
7 15 (1.03%) Cisco IPT
8 13 (0.89%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.76%) Fibre Channel
9 11 (0.76%) SD-WAN
9 11 (0.76%) VLAN
10 10 (0.69%) DHCP
10 10 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
11 9 (0.62%) BGP
11 9 (0.62%) iSCSI
12 8 (0.55%) IPv4
12 8 (0.55%) IPv6
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (4.88%) Power BI
2 36 (2.47%) Metadata
3 35 (2.40%) PostgreSQL
4 34 (2.34%) SQL Server
5 31 (2.13%) MySQL
6 27 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
7 22 (1.51%) Relational Database
8 20 (1.37%) Data Lake
9 18 (1.24%) DynamoDB
10 17 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
10 17 (1.17%) MongoDB
10 17 (1.17%) NoSQL
11 14 (0.96%) Azure SQL Database
12 13 (0.89%) Big Data
12 13 (0.89%) Tableau
13 12 (0.82%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 8 (0.55%) Aerospike
15 8 (0.55%) BigQuery
15 8 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 87 (5.98%) JIRA
2 62 (4.26%) Jenkins
3 61 (4.19%) Git
4 38 (2.61%) GitLab
5 12 (0.82%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.69%) JUnit
7 9 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.48%) Maven
9 6 (0.41%) NUnit
10 5 (0.34%) Flyway
10 5 (0.34%) Gradle
10 5 (0.34%) Postman
10 5 (0.34%) Team Foundation Server
11 4 (0.27%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.27%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.27%) Liquibase
12 3 (0.21%) IntelliJ
12 3 (0.21%) Selenium
12 3 (0.21%) TestNG
12 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio
General
1 449 (30.84%) Social Skills
2 331 (22.73%) Finance
3 185 (12.71%) Analytical Skills
4 170 (11.68%) Legal
5 138 (9.48%) Public Sector
6 117 (8.04%) Banking
7 58 (3.98%) Organisational Skills
8 52 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
9 40 (2.75%) Telecoms
10 33 (2.27%) Marketing
11 29 (1.99%) Front Office
11 29 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (1.85%) Law
13 26 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
14 25 (1.72%) Local Government
15 20 (1.37%) Retail
16 18 (1.24%) Police
17 13 (0.89%) Manufacturing
18 11 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 11 (0.76%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 188 (12.91%) Architect
2 153 (10.51%) Analyst
3 121 (8.31%) Developer
4 115 (7.90%) Lead
5 96 (6.59%) Senior
6 81 (5.56%) Consultant
7 70 (4.81%) Project Manager
8 66 (4.53%) Business Analyst
9 54 (3.71%) Solutions Architect
10 38 (2.61%) Java Developer
11 36 (2.47%) Data Engineer
11 36 (2.47%) Security Architect
12 35 (2.40%) Security Engineer
13 32 (2.20%) Administrator
13 32 (2.20%) Network Engineer
14 31 (2.13%) Technical Architect
15 26 (1.79%) Data Analyst
16 24 (1.65%) Data Protection Officer
17 21 (1.44%) Python Developer
18 20 (1.37%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (4.40%) REST
2 59 (4.05%) React
3 42 (2.88%) Spring
4 37 (2.54%) Spring Boot
5 36 (2.47%) .NET
6 31 (2.13%) Node.js
7 30 (2.06%) Kafka
8 28 (1.92%) Middleware
9 27 (1.85%) RESTful
10 26 (1.79%) HTML
11 25 (1.72%) OAuth
12 23 (1.58%) Jest
13 22 (1.51%) CSS
14 18 (1.24%) HTML5
14 18 (1.24%) Redux
15 17 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
15 17 (1.17%) Spring MVC
16 16 (1.10%) CSS3
16 16 (1.10%) Playwright
17 15 (1.03%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 678 (46.57%) Data Protection Act
2 79 (5.43%) Cloud Native
3 67 (4.60%) Onboarding
3 67 (4.60%) Product Ownership
4 51 (3.50%) Management Information System
5 34 (2.34%) NHS
6 30 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
6 30 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
6 30 (2.06%) Replication
6 30 (2.06%) Security Posture
7 29 (1.99%) Hybrid Cloud
8 27 (1.85%) Data Centre
9 22 (1.51%) Enterprise Storage
10 21 (1.44%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 20 (1.37%) Freedom of Information
12 17 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
13 15 (1.03%) Data Structures
13 15 (1.03%) Operational Technology
13 15 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
14 14 (0.96%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 98 (6.73%) Windows
2 70 (4.81%) Linux
3 22 (1.51%) Unix
4 19 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (1.24%) Windows Server
6 15 (1.03%) VMS
7 13 (0.89%) Windows 10
8 12 (0.82%) Mac OS
9 10 (0.69%) Android
9 10 (0.69%) Apple iOS
10 8 (0.55%) zOS
11 7 (0.48%) Data ONTAP
12 6 (0.41%) CoreOS
13 5 (0.34%) Solaris
14 4 (0.27%) AIX
15 2 (0.14%) Rocky
15 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
16 1 (0.069%) CentOS
16 1 (0.069%) Oracle Linux
16 1 (0.069%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 254 (17.45%) Problem-Solving
2 247 (16.96%) Stakeholder Management
3 244 (16.76%) Agile
4 220 (15.11%) Migration
5 200 (13.74%) CI/CD
6 196 (13.46%) DevOps
7 186 (12.77%) Continuous Improvement
8 145 (9.96%) Cybersecurity
9 143 (9.82%) Analytics
10 137 (9.41%) Roadmaps
11 133 (9.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 128 (8.79%) AI
13 124 (8.52%) Risk Management
14 109 (7.49%) Decision-Making
15 105 (7.21%) Information Security
16 102 (7.01%) Data Governance
16 102 (7.01%) Infrastructure as Code
17 96 (6.59%) Project Management
18 94 (6.46%) Test Automation
19 92 (6.32%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 212 (14.56%) Python
2 186 (12.77%) SQL
3 123 (8.45%) Java
4 69 (4.74%) JavaScript
5 57 (3.91%) PowerShell
6 53 (3.64%) C#
7 40 (2.75%) Bash
8 37 (2.54%) TypeScript
9 18 (1.24%) Bicep
10 12 (0.82%) C++
11 11 (0.76%) Perl
12 10 (0.69%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.55%) ActionScript
13 8 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
13 8 (0.55%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.41%) ActionScript 2.0
15 5 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 5 (0.34%) Groovy
16 4 (0.27%) Go
16 4 (0.27%) R
Qualifications
1 199 (13.67%) Security Cleared
2 142 (9.75%) SC Cleared
3 124 (8.52%) Degree
4 58 (3.98%) CISSP
5 53 (3.64%) DV Cleared
6 35 (2.40%) CISM
7 33 (2.27%) Computer Science Degree
8 27 (1.85%) PMI Certification
9 26 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
10 25 (1.72%) AWS Certification
10 25 (1.72%) Azure Certification
11 24 (1.65%) PMP
12 23 (1.58%) Cisco Certification
13 21 (1.44%) Master's Degree
14 20 (1.37%) Microsoft Certification
15 14 (0.96%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 12 (0.82%) CCSP
16 12 (0.82%) CTC Cleared
17 10 (0.69%) CCNP
18 9 (0.62%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 265 (18.20%) GDPR
2 96 (6.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 94 (6.46%) NIST
4 69 (4.74%) Data Quality
5 62 (4.26%) QA
6 32 (2.20%) PCI DSS
7 29 (1.99%) GRC
8 27 (1.85%) Accessibility
9 26 (1.79%) PMO
10 24 (1.65%) SLA
11 18 (1.24%) NCSC
12 17 (1.17%) SOC 2
13 14 (0.96%) Disclosure Scotland
14 12 (0.82%) PERC
15 10 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 9 (0.62%) NIST 800
17 8 (0.55%) HIPAA
18 7 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
19 6 (0.41%) COBIT
20 5 (0.34%) WCAG
System Software
1 71 (4.88%) Active Directory
2 70 (4.81%) Docker
3 54 (3.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (1.30%) NFS
4 19 (1.30%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.62%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.62%) VMware NSX
6 9 (0.62%) vSphere
7 5 (0.34%) KVM
7 5 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
8 4 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
9 3 (0.21%) IAG
9 3 (0.21%) Time Sharing Option
10 2 (0.14%) Firmware
10 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
10 2 (0.14%) XenApp
10 2 (0.14%) XenDesktop
11 1 (0.069%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 109 (7.49%) Kubernetes
2 103 (7.07%) Terraform
3 66 (4.53%) Ansible
4 37 (2.54%) Grafana
5 30 (2.06%) Microsoft Intune
5 30 (2.06%) NetBackup
6 23 (1.58%) Prometheus
7 20 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
8 19 (1.30%) SCCM
9 15 (1.03%) Puppet
10 10 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 7 (0.48%) SnapMirror
12 5 (0.34%) Control-M
12 5 (0.34%) EMC NetWorker
12 5 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
12 5 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
12 5 (0.34%) RSA Archer
13 4 (0.27%) CA Single Sign-On
13 4 (0.27%) Foglight
13 4 (0.27%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 227 (15.59%) Microsoft
2 72 (4.95%) Oracle
3 66 (4.53%) Google
4 55 (3.78%) VMware
5 51 (3.50%) Databricks
6 45 (3.09%) ServiceNow
7 44 (3.02%) Cisco
8 40 (2.75%) SAP
9 36 (2.47%) Salesforce
10 33 (2.27%) Red Hat
11 24 (1.65%) NetApp
12 22 (1.51%) Veritas
13 21 (1.44%) Commvault
14 20 (1.37%) Citrix
14 20 (1.37%) F5
15 19 (1.30%) IBM
16 16 (1.10%) Splunk
16 16 (1.10%) Veeam
17 15 (1.03%) Adobe
18 13 (0.89%) CyberArk