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 7 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 73 86 82
Rank change year-on-year +13 -4 +21
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,231 968 1,211
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.39% 2.71% 2.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.82% 3.10% 3.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 610 509 708
10th Percentile £305 £262 £213
25th Percentile £400 £388 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.26%
75th Percentile £600 £609 £600
90th Percentile £675 £715 £716
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -12.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 20 14
10th Percentile £12.63 £16.23 £17.24
25th Percentile £15.13 £19.22 £18.06
Median hourly rate £20.40 £24.50 £22.12
Median % change year-on-year -16.73% +10.76% -57.87%
75th Percentile £20.79 £29.42 £37.25
90th Percentile £40.46 £37.96 £44.23
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.40 £24.50 £19.50
% change year-on-year -16.73% +25.64% -72.14%

All Process and 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 32,247 31,236 40,271
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.88% 87.47% 88.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,285 18,990 26,947
10th Percentile £300 £308 £310
25th Percentile £405 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,090 1,084 1,559
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.25 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.19 £18.94
Median hourly rate £25.13 £33.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.86% -22.35% +21.43%
75th Percentile £45.46 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £74.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -30.37% -23.53% +30.77%

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 7 December 2025.

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 7 December 2025.

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 7 December 2025. 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 +20 1,050 £500 - 714
UK excluding London +3 637 £450 -10.00% 690
London +20 533 £525 +5.00% 132
Work from Home +9 293 £490 -2.00% 334
North of England -13 182 £450 -5.26% 131
South East +17 151 £506 +1.25% 202
Scotland +1 103 £400 -15.79% 38
Yorkshire -8 90 £500 - 55
Midlands +9 89 £450 -12.20% 128
North West -11 72 £425 -10.53% 67
West Midlands +4 66 £475 -7.32% 68
South West -5 47 £525 -22.22% 91
East of England 0 34 £463 -3.04% 79
East Midlands -2 23 £402 -11.45% 52
North East -8 21 £419 -1.47% 9
Wales +4 16 £400 -5.88% 16
Northern Ireland - 16 £500 - 14
Channel Islands -2 2 £725 -

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 63 (5.12%) Confluence
2 34 (2.76%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.97%) CMS
5 11 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.65%) Apache
7 7 (0.57%) Apache Spark
8 6 (0.49%) nginx
9 5 (0.41%) CICS
10 3 (0.24%) SAS
11 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 1 (0.081%) Ethereum
12 1 (0.081%) Hyperledger
12 1 (0.081%) Luigi
12 1 (0.081%) OpenEdge
12 1 (0.081%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.081%) SharePoint Server
12 1 (0.081%) Tomcat
12 1 (0.081%) WebSphere
Applications
1 60 (4.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (2.84%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.81%) Chatbot
4 9 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
6 6 (0.49%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.24%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.24%) Sketch
8 2 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.16%) InVision
8 2 (0.16%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.081%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.081%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.081%) Blender
9 1 (0.081%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.081%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.081%) SPSS
9 1 (0.081%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (0.89%) Oracle EBS
2 10 (0.81%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.41%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.32%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.32%) VisionPLUS
6 3 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
6 3 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.16%) assyst
7 2 (0.16%) Fidessa
7 2 (0.16%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.081%) BambooHR
8 1 (0.081%) Distributed Ledger
8 1 (0.081%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.081%) R3 Corda
8 1 (0.081%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.081%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.081%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 254 (20.63%) Azure
2 232 (18.85%) AWS
3 99 (8.04%) GCP
4 73 (5.93%) Power Platform
5 67 (5.44%) Microsoft 365
6 51 (4.14%) Serverless
7 50 (4.06%) GitHub
8 42 (3.41%) Entra ID
9 41 (3.33%) AWS Lambda
10 40 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
11 39 (3.17%) Amazon S3
12 36 (2.92%) SaaS
13 28 (2.27%) Power Automate
14 27 (2.19%) AWS CloudFormation
15 25 (2.03%) Snowflake
16 21 (1.71%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 20 (1.62%) Azure Monitor
18 19 (1.54%) Amazon EC2
18 19 (1.54%) Microsoft Purview
18 19 (1.54%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 54 (4.39%) Firewall
2 33 (2.68%) Network Security
3 16 (1.30%) DNS
4 15 (1.22%) VPN
4 15 (1.22%) WAN
5 14 (1.14%) SSH
6 13 (1.06%) Cisco IPT
7 12 (0.97%) LAN
7 12 (0.97%) MPLS
8 10 (0.81%) DHCP
8 10 (0.81%) HTTP
8 10 (0.81%) SAN
9 9 (0.73%) SD-WAN
10 8 (0.65%) BGP
10 8 (0.65%) Wireshark
11 7 (0.57%) TCP/IP
11 7 (0.57%) Wireless
12 6 (0.49%) Internet
12 6 (0.49%) NAS
12 6 (0.49%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (4.55%) Power BI
2 39 (3.17%) SQL Server
3 32 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (1.95%) NoSQL
4 24 (1.95%) Relational Database
5 18 (1.46%) Tableau
6 17 (1.38%) Amazon RDS
7 16 (1.30%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (1.22%) Metadata
9 13 (1.06%) MongoDB
10 12 (0.97%) Amazon Aurora
10 12 (0.97%) MySQL
11 11 (0.89%) Data Lake
11 11 (0.89%) DynamoDB
12 9 (0.73%) Amazon Athena
12 9 (0.73%) Oracle Database
12 9 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.65%) Big Data
14 7 (0.57%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.57%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 110 (8.94%) JIRA
2 40 (3.25%) Git
3 37 (3.01%) Jenkins
4 30 (2.44%) GitLab
5 7 (0.57%) JUnit
5 7 (0.57%) Postman
6 6 (0.49%) SpecFlow
7 5 (0.41%) Fiddler
8 4 (0.32%) ChangeMan
8 4 (0.32%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.32%) Gradle
8 4 (0.32%) Metasploit
8 4 (0.32%) NUnit
8 4 (0.32%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.24%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.24%) Burp Suite
9 3 (0.24%) CircleCI
9 3 (0.24%) Maven
9 3 (0.24%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 418 (33.96%) Social Skills
2 248 (20.15%) Finance
3 149 (12.10%) Analytical Skills
4 126 (10.24%) Public Sector
5 99 (8.04%) Banking
6 91 (7.39%) Legal
7 37 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
8 36 (2.92%) Marketing
9 34 (2.76%) Organisational Skills
10 29 (2.36%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (2.27%) Telecoms
12 23 (1.87%) Law
12 23 (1.87%) Manufacturing
13 17 (1.38%) Front Office
14 16 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
15 15 (1.22%) Financial Institution
15 15 (1.22%) Local Government
16 13 (1.06%) Retail
17 12 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 11 (0.89%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 172 (13.97%) Analyst
2 130 (10.56%) Developer
3 124 (10.07%) Architect
4 85 (6.90%) Lead
5 71 (5.77%) Business Analyst
6 61 (4.96%) Senior
7 60 (4.87%) Consultant
8 52 (4.22%) Project Manager
9 38 (3.09%) Data Analyst
9 38 (3.09%) Security Engineer
10 36 (2.92%) Solutions Architect
11 35 (2.84%) Administrator
12 29 (2.36%) Data Engineer
13 25 (2.03%) Security Architect
13 25 (2.03%) Support Engineer
14 21 (1.71%) Data Protection Officer
15 20 (1.62%) Automation Engineer
16 19 (1.54%) Information Officer
16 19 (1.54%) Network Engineer
17 18 (1.46%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (4.14%) REST
2 33 (2.68%) RESTful
3 30 (2.44%) .NET
4 29 (2.36%) React
5 28 (2.27%) OAuth
6 24 (1.95%) Node.js
7 23 (1.87%) SOAP
8 22 (1.79%) HTML
9 21 (1.71%) Spring
10 20 (1.62%) Kafka
11 16 (1.30%) Middleware
12 14 (1.14%) AngularJS
13 13 (1.06%) JSON
13 13 (1.06%) LangChain
13 13 (1.06%) Spring Boot
14 12 (0.97%) .NET Core
14 12 (0.97%) OAuth2
15 11 (0.89%) SAML
15 11 (0.89%) XML
16 9 (0.73%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 635 (51.58%) Data Protection Act
2 49 (3.98%) Product Ownership
3 48 (3.90%) Cloud Native
4 46 (3.74%) Onboarding
5 45 (3.66%) Management Information System
6 32 (2.60%) Freedom of Information
7 29 (2.36%) Distributed Systems
8 25 (2.03%) NHS
9 23 (1.87%) Data Centre
10 22 (1.79%) Data Structures
11 21 (1.71%) Security Posture
12 20 (1.62%) Replication
13 19 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
13 19 (1.54%) Virtual Team
14 16 (1.30%) CMDB
15 15 (1.22%) Public Cloud
16 13 (1.06%) Derivative
16 13 (1.06%) Enterprise Software
16 13 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
16 13 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 87 (7.07%) Windows
2 57 (4.63%) Linux
3 19 (1.54%) Unix
4 13 (1.06%) Mac OS
4 13 (1.06%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.73%) Android
5 9 (0.73%) Windows 10
6 8 (0.65%) zOS
7 6 (0.49%) AIX
7 6 (0.49%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.49%) Solaris
8 5 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.41%) VMS
9 2 (0.16%) CentOS
9 2 (0.16%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.081%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.081%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 212 (17.22%) Problem-Solving
2 202 (16.41%) Agile
3 177 (14.38%) Stakeholder Management
4 169 (13.73%) DevOps
5 161 (13.08%) CI/CD
6 148 (12.02%) Migration
7 139 (11.29%) Cybersecurity
8 130 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 113 (9.18%) AI
10 111 (9.02%) Analytics
11 102 (8.29%) Continuous Improvement
12 101 (8.20%) Project Management
13 95 (7.72%) Roadmaps
14 93 (7.55%) Information Security
15 92 (7.47%) Risk Management
16 77 (6.26%) Microservices
17 73 (5.93%) Business Intelligence
17 73 (5.93%) Test Automation
18 72 (5.85%) Data Governance
19 70 (5.69%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 228 (18.52%) Python
2 154 (12.51%) SQL
3 65 (5.28%) Java
4 61 (4.96%) PowerShell
5 59 (4.79%) Bash
6 58 (4.71%) JavaScript
7 44 (3.57%) C#
8 28 (2.27%) TypeScript
9 13 (1.06%) C++
10 11 (0.89%) Go
11 8 (0.65%) PHP
11 8 (0.65%) PromQL
11 8 (0.65%) Shell Script
12 7 (0.57%) R
13 6 (0.49%) Kotlin
13 6 (0.49%) Perl
13 6 (0.49%) PL/SQL
14 5 (0.41%) Bicep
14 5 (0.41%) COBOL
15 4 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 144 (11.70%) Security Cleared
2 113 (9.18%) Degree
3 103 (8.37%) SC Cleared
4 43 (3.49%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (2.52%) DV Cleared
6 27 (2.19%) AWS Certification
7 26 (2.11%) CISSP
8 22 (1.79%) CISM
9 16 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
10 15 (1.22%) BPSS Clearance
11 14 (1.14%) Master's Degree
12 13 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
13 12 (0.97%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 11 (0.89%) Azure Certification
14 11 (0.89%) CISA
14 11 (0.89%) PMI Certification
14 11 (0.89%) PMP
15 10 (0.81%) A+ Certification
15 10 (0.81%) CCNP
16 8 (0.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (18.20%) GDPR
2 84 (6.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 73 (5.93%) NIST
4 48 (3.90%) QA
5 47 (3.82%) Data Quality
6 24 (1.95%) PCI DSS
7 22 (1.79%) Accessibility
7 22 (1.79%) Cyber Essentials
8 19 (1.54%) PMO
9 18 (1.46%) GRC
10 17 (1.38%) NCSC
11 15 (1.22%) PERC
12 11 (0.89%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 11 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 11 (0.89%) NIST 800
13 9 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
13 9 (0.73%) Disclosure Scotland
13 9 (0.73%) EU AI Act
13 9 (0.73%) SLA
14 8 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 55 (4.47%) Docker
2 54 (4.39%) Active Directory
3 43 (3.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.06%) Virtual Desktop
5 7 (0.57%) NFS
6 6 (0.49%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.24%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.24%) vSphere
9 2 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.081%) Firmware
10 1 (0.081%) HDFS
10 1 (0.081%) ISA Server
10 1 (0.081%) KVM
10 1 (0.081%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 1 (0.081%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.081%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 65 (5.28%) Terraform
2 57 (4.63%) Kubernetes
3 41 (3.33%) Ansible
4 25 (2.03%) NetBackup
5 24 (1.95%) Microsoft Intune
6 21 (1.71%) Grafana
6 21 (1.71%) Prometheus
7 19 (1.54%) SCCM
8 11 (0.89%) Oracle RMAN
9 8 (0.65%) Puppet
10 6 (0.49%) RSA Archer
11 5 (0.41%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.32%) CA Endevor
12 4 (0.32%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
12 4 (0.32%) Kibana
13 3 (0.24%) Data Guard
13 3 (0.24%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.24%) Nmap
13 3 (0.24%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 194 (15.76%) Microsoft
2 56 (4.55%) Google
3 47 (3.82%) Oracle
3 47 (3.82%) VMware
4 41 (3.33%) Cisco
5 37 (3.01%) ServiceNow
6 33 (2.68%) Salesforce
7 29 (2.36%) SAP
8 27 (2.19%) Databricks
8 27 (2.19%) IBM
9 21 (1.71%) Veritas
10 18 (1.46%) Commvault
10 18 (1.46%) F5
10 18 (1.46%) Red Hat
11 17 (1.38%) Citrix
12 15 (1.22%) CyberArk
13 13 (1.06%) Juniper
13 13 (1.06%) OneTrust
13 13 (1.06%) Splunk
14 12 (0.97%) NetApp