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 12 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 99 83
Rank change year-on-year +23 -16 +24
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,298 800 1,155
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.26% 2.58% 2.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.75% 2.89% 2.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 685 401 649
10th Percentile £275 £270 £206
25th Percentile £399 £388 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% +2.56% -7.14%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £488 £450
% change year-on-year -7.69% +8.33% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 21 76
10th Percentile £13.13 £16.25 £11.98
25th Percentile £16.47 £22.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.15% +39.19% -70.00%
75th Percentile £23.56 £34.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £41.35 £65.00 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.62 £21.00
% change year-on-year -30.07% +41.02% -70.00%

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 34,652 27,713 38,573
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.01% 89.46% 87.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,939 16,970 25,283
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £408 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £498 £500
% change year-on-year -4.06% -0.35% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,087 853 2,111
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.28
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.05 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -1.71% +1.74%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.51 £35.00
% change year-on-year -20.18% -9.97% +9.38%

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 12 February 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 12 February 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 12 February 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 1,102 £500 - 326
UK excluding London +18 700 £450 -7.69% 266
London +21 528 £525 +1.94% 122
Work from Home +13 299 £490 -2.00% 176
North of England -16 203 £460 -3.16% 66
South East +14 161 £490 +0.51% 85
Scotland +18 117 £405 -14.84% 14
Yorkshire -2 116 £480 -12.73% 16
Midlands +8 109 £448 -8.21% 47
North West -23 71 £435 -8.53% 46
West Midlands -13 65 £475 -7.32% 32
East of England +4 45 £314 -37.25% 20
South West +1 45 £500 +2.56% 33
East Midlands +11 44 £437 -2.94% 15
North East -24 17 £400 -11.11% 4
Wales +4 14 £375 -26.83% 8
Northern Ireland - 10 £500 -

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 58 (4.47%) Confluence
2 30 (2.31%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.62%) Apache
5 8 (0.62%) Apache Spark
6 7 (0.54%) CMS
7 4 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.23%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.23%) Hyperledger
8 3 (0.23%) SAS
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.15%) Drupal
9 2 (0.15%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.15%) nginx
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.15%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.077%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.077%) Luigi
Applications
1 50 (3.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (3.24%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.31%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.23%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.23%) Sketch
8 2 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.15%) InVision
8 2 (0.15%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.077%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.077%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.077%) Blender
9 1 (0.077%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.077%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.077%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 13 (1.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.85%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (0.69%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.31%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.23%) Distributed Ledger
5 3 (0.23%) Fidessa
5 3 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (0.23%) R3 Corda
5 3 (0.23%) ResourceLink
5 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.15%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.15%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.077%) BambooHR
Cloud Services
1 243 (18.72%) Azure
2 213 (16.41%) AWS
3 98 (7.55%) GCP
4 62 (4.78%) Microsoft 365
5 61 (4.70%) Power Platform
6 56 (4.31%) Serverless
7 54 (4.16%) GitHub
8 51 (3.93%) Entra ID
9 44 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (3.24%) AWS Lambda
10 42 (3.24%) SaaS
11 40 (3.08%) Amazon S3
12 29 (2.23%) AWS CloudFormation
12 29 (2.23%) Snowflake
13 24 (1.85%) GitHub Actions
14 23 (1.77%) Microsoft Purview
14 23 (1.77%) OpenShift
14 23 (1.77%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 21 (1.62%) OCI
16 20 (1.54%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.31%) Firewall
2 35 (2.70%) Network Security
3 25 (1.93%) SAN
4 19 (1.46%) LAN
4 19 (1.46%) MPLS
5 18 (1.39%) VPN
6 16 (1.23%) DNS
6 16 (1.23%) NAS
6 16 (1.23%) WAN
7 14 (1.08%) Cisco IPT
7 14 (1.08%) TCP/IP
8 9 (0.69%) SD-WAN
8 9 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
9 8 (0.62%) BGP
9 8 (0.62%) HTTP
9 8 (0.62%) SSH
9 8 (0.62%) VLAN
10 7 (0.54%) DHCP
10 7 (0.54%) Internet
11 6 (0.46%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (4.31%) Power BI
2 35 (2.70%) PostgreSQL
2 35 (2.70%) SQL Server
3 23 (1.77%) NoSQL
4 21 (1.62%) Relational Database
5 20 (1.54%) Data Warehouse
5 20 (1.54%) Metadata
6 19 (1.46%) MySQL
7 18 (1.39%) MongoDB
8 17 (1.31%) DynamoDB
9 15 (1.16%) Tableau
10 14 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
11 13 (1.00%) Data Lake
12 12 (0.92%) Amazon Aurora
13 11 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
14 10 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
14 10 (0.77%) Oracle Database
15 8 (0.62%) Big Data
15 8 (0.62%) Hadoop
15 8 (0.62%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 97 (7.47%) JIRA
2 54 (4.16%) Git
3 48 (3.70%) Jenkins
4 31 (2.39%) GitLab
5 11 (0.85%) JUnit
5 11 (0.85%) SpecFlow
6 6 (0.46%) Gradle
6 6 (0.46%) Maven
6 6 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.39%) NUnit
7 5 (0.39%) Team Foundation Server
8 4 (0.31%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.31%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.31%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.23%) Cypress.io
9 3 (0.23%) Postman
9 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.15%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.15%) Katalon Studio
10 2 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
General
1 425 (32.74%) Social Skills
2 274 (21.11%) Finance
3 167 (12.87%) Analytical Skills
4 129 (9.94%) Public Sector
5 115 (8.86%) Banking
6 112 (8.63%) Legal
7 49 (3.78%) Organisational Skills
8 42 (3.24%) Documentation Skills
9 37 (2.85%) Telecoms
10 32 (2.47%) Marketing
11 27 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
12 22 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
13 21 (1.62%) Law
14 19 (1.46%) Front Office
15 18 (1.39%) Local Government
16 17 (1.31%) Manufacturing
17 13 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 13 (1.00%) Police
18 12 (0.92%) Retail
19 10 (0.77%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 157 (12.10%) Analyst
2 142 (10.94%) Architect
3 124 (9.55%) Developer
4 98 (7.55%) Lead
5 70 (5.39%) Senior
6 69 (5.32%) Business Analyst
7 64 (4.93%) Consultant
8 61 (4.70%) Project Manager
9 49 (3.78%) Solutions Architect
10 36 (2.77%) Administrator
11 30 (2.31%) Data Analyst
11 30 (2.31%) Security Engineer
12 28 (2.16%) Data Engineer
13 25 (1.93%) Security Architect
14 24 (1.85%) Java Developer
14 24 (1.85%) Network Engineer
15 23 (1.77%) Automation Engineer
16 22 (1.69%) Data Protection Officer
17 21 (1.62%) Python Developer
17 21 (1.62%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (4.47%) REST
2 45 (3.47%) React
3 36 (2.77%) .NET
4 33 (2.54%) Node.js
5 29 (2.23%) RESTful
6 27 (2.08%) Spring
7 23 (1.77%) Kafka
7 23 (1.77%) Spring Boot
8 21 (1.62%) OAuth
9 17 (1.31%) Middleware
10 16 (1.23%) HTML
10 16 (1.23%) PySpark
11 15 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
12 14 (1.08%) .NET Core
12 14 (1.08%) Playwright
13 13 (1.00%) SAML
14 12 (0.92%) AngularJS
14 12 (0.92%) Jest
14 12 (0.92%) SOAP
15 9 (0.69%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 649 (50.00%) Data Protection Act
2 58 (4.47%) Cloud Native
3 57 (4.39%) Product Ownership
4 54 (4.16%) Management Information System
5 53 (4.08%) Onboarding
6 31 (2.39%) NHS
7 30 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
8 26 (2.00%) Freedom of Information
9 24 (1.85%) Legacy Systems
10 23 (1.77%) Data Structures
11 20 (1.54%) Data Centre
12 19 (1.46%) Security Posture
13 18 (1.39%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 15 (1.16%) Replication
15 14 (1.08%) Hybrid Cloud
16 13 (1.00%) Insider Threat
17 12 (0.92%) AI Agents
17 12 (0.92%) CMDB
17 12 (0.92%) Enterprise Software
18 11 (0.85%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 94 (7.24%) Windows
2 67 (5.16%) Linux
3 25 (1.93%) Unix
4 18 (1.39%) Windows Server
5 16 (1.23%) Mac OS
6 12 (0.92%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (0.54%) Android
9 6 (0.46%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.46%) VMS
9 6 (0.46%) zOS
10 4 (0.31%) AIX
10 4 (0.31%) Solaris
11 3 (0.23%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.15%) CoreOS
13 1 (0.077%) CentOS
13 1 (0.077%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.077%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 229 (17.64%) Problem-Solving
2 223 (17.18%) Agile
3 219 (16.87%) Stakeholder Management
4 185 (14.25%) Migration
5 165 (12.71%) CI/CD
6 158 (12.17%) DevOps
7 142 (10.94%) Continuous Improvement
8 130 (10.02%) Cybersecurity
9 121 (9.32%) Analytics
10 120 (9.24%) AI
10 120 (9.24%) Roadmaps
11 119 (9.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 105 (8.09%) Information Security
13 102 (7.86%) Project Management
14 100 (7.70%) Risk Management
15 84 (6.47%) Microservices
15 84 (6.47%) Test Automation
16 82 (6.32%) Decision-Making
17 76 (5.86%) Incident Response
18 75 (5.78%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 216 (16.64%) Python
2 166 (12.79%) SQL
3 89 (6.86%) Java
4 68 (5.24%) JavaScript
5 60 (4.62%) PowerShell
6 55 (4.24%) C#
7 41 (3.16%) Bash
8 36 (2.77%) TypeScript
9 17 (1.31%) Bicep
10 13 (1.00%) C++
10 13 (1.00%) Shell Script
11 12 (0.92%) Perl
12 8 (0.62%) PL/SQL
13 6 (0.46%) ActionScript
13 6 (0.46%) ActionScript 2.0
13 6 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
13 6 (0.46%) PHP
14 4 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 4 (0.31%) Go
14 4 (0.31%) Scala
Qualifications
1 168 (12.94%) Security Cleared
2 124 (9.55%) SC Cleared
3 119 (9.17%) Degree
4 46 (3.54%) DV Cleared
5 33 (2.54%) CISSP
5 33 (2.54%) Computer Science Degree
6 27 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
7 26 (2.00%) AWS Certification
8 24 (1.85%) CISM
9 22 (1.69%) Master's Degree
10 18 (1.39%) PMI Certification
11 16 (1.23%) PMP
12 15 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (1.08%) Azure Certification
14 13 (1.00%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 13 (1.00%) CTC Cleared
15 12 (0.92%) CRISC
16 10 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
17 9 (0.69%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 9 (0.69%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (17.26%) GDPR
2 91 (7.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 78 (6.01%) NIST
4 63 (4.85%) Data Quality
5 50 (3.85%) QA
6 30 (2.31%) PCI DSS
7 27 (2.08%) Accessibility
8 21 (1.62%) GRC
9 19 (1.46%) PMO
10 14 (1.08%) Disclosure Scotland
10 14 (1.08%) NCSC
11 13 (1.00%) SLA
12 11 (0.85%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.77%) PERC
14 8 (0.62%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
16 6 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
16 6 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 6 (0.46%) HIPAA
System Software
1 63 (4.85%) Docker
2 53 (4.08%) Active Directory
3 49 (3.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.77%) NFS
6 7 (0.54%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.39%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.39%) vSphere
8 3 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.15%) KVM
9 2 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.077%) Firmware
10 1 (0.077%) HDFS
10 1 (0.077%) IAG
10 1 (0.077%) ISA Server
10 1 (0.077%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.077%) UAG
Systems Management
1 81 (6.24%) Terraform
2 76 (5.86%) Kubernetes
3 55 (4.24%) Ansible
4 27 (2.08%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (2.00%) Grafana
6 25 (1.93%) NetBackup
7 22 (1.69%) Prometheus
8 20 (1.54%) SCCM
9 10 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
10 9 (0.69%) Puppet
11 8 (0.62%) Oracle RMAN
12 6 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.46%) RSA Archer
13 5 (0.39%) Control-M
13 5 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
13 5 (0.39%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
15 3 (0.23%) Kibana
15 3 (0.23%) PingFederate
15 3 (0.23%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 191 (14.71%) Microsoft
2 66 (5.08%) Oracle
3 56 (4.31%) Google
4 51 (3.93%) VMware
5 40 (3.08%) Databricks
6 39 (3.00%) Cisco
7 36 (2.77%) SAP
8 34 (2.62%) ServiceNow
9 30 (2.31%) Salesforce
10 24 (1.85%) Red Hat
11 21 (1.62%) Citrix
12 20 (1.54%) Veritas
13 18 (1.39%) IBM
14 16 (1.23%) Commvault
15 15 (1.16%) F5
16 13 (1.00%) Adobe
16 13 (1.00%) Splunk
17 11 (0.85%) CyberArk
17 11 (0.85%) Informatica
17 11 (0.85%) OneTrust