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 10 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 103 81
Rank change year-on-year +28 -22 +21
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,382 755 1,125
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.26% 2.55% 2.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.78% 2.83% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 747 396 621
10th Percentile £279 £266 £200
25th Percentile £400 £375 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
90th Percentile £689 £697 £715
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 22 110
10th Percentile £15.11 £16.55 £12.48
25th Percentile £17.05 £24.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.62 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.07% +51.87% -70.45%
75th Percentile £24.19 £33.18 £26.92
90th Percentile £40.60 £62.20 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £19.50
% change year-on-year -29.15% +49.90% -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 36,537 26,694 38,745
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.12% 90.29% 86.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,174 17,018 25,183
10th Percentile £313 £306 £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 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -2.28% -1.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,160 902 2,347
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.51 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £77.10 £71.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.55 £31.76 £31.80
% change year-on-year -16.40% -0.13% -9.14%

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 10 March 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 10 March 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 10 March 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 +32 1,180 £500 - 432
UK excluding London +18 735 £450 -5.26% 340
London +35 563 £525 +5.00% 109
Work from Home +23 332 £500 +2.56% 191
North of England -6 225 £475 -2.51% 92
South East +18 172 £478 +0.53% 95
Yorkshire -4 129 £487 -8.33% 28
Scotland +11 113 £407 -4.24% 15
Midlands -2 109 £450 -7.69% 53
North West -16 82 £435 -8.53% 60
West Midlands -24 66 £500 -1.23% 32
South West +8 48 £500 +26.98% 36
East of England 0 48 £450 -25.00% 41
East Midlands -1 43 £438 +6.06% 21
Wales +5 15 £375 -11.76% 11
North East -20 15 £400 -15.79% 5
Northern Ireland - 9 £500 - 3

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 59 (4.27%) Confluence
2 34 (2.46%) SharePoint
3 18 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
5 11 (0.80%) Apache Spark
6 9 (0.65%) Apache
7 5 (0.36%) CMS
8 3 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.22%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.22%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.14%) Drupal
9 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.14%) nginx
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.14%) SAS
9 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.072%) NetWeaver
10 1 (0.072%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 51 (3.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (3.11%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.43%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.22%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.22%) Sketch
6 2 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
6 2 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.14%) InVision
6 2 (0.14%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.072%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.072%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.072%) Blender
7 1 (0.072%) CINEMA 4D
7 1 (0.072%) Final Cut Pro
7 1 (0.072%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.72%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
4 8 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
5 5 (0.36%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.29%) SAP GRC
7 3 (0.22%) Distributed Ledger
7 3 (0.22%) Fidessa
7 3 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.22%) R3 Corda
7 3 (0.22%) ResourceLink
7 3 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.14%) ION MarketView
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle FAH
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
8 2 (0.14%) Workfront
9 1 (0.072%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 270 (19.54%) Azure
2 227 (16.43%) AWS
3 115 (8.32%) GCP
4 75 (5.43%) Microsoft 365
5 73 (5.28%) Power Platform
6 66 (4.78%) Entra ID
7 60 (4.34%) GitHub
8 56 (4.05%) Serverless
9 48 (3.47%) SaaS
10 44 (3.18%) AWS Lambda
11 43 (3.11%) Amazon S3
12 38 (2.75%) Azure DevOps
13 36 (2.60%) Microsoft Purview
14 35 (2.53%) OpenShift
15 32 (2.32%) Snowflake
16 30 (2.17%) AWS CloudFormation
17 24 (1.74%) GitHub Actions
18 23 (1.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 21 (1.52%) Azure AKS
19 21 (1.52%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 45 (3.26%) Firewall
2 40 (2.89%) Network Security
3 34 (2.46%) SAN
4 21 (1.52%) NAS
4 21 (1.52%) VPN
5 19 (1.37%) MPLS
6 17 (1.23%) LAN
6 17 (1.23%) WAN
7 16 (1.16%) Cisco IPT
7 16 (1.16%) DNS
8 14 (1.01%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.80%) SD-WAN
10 10 (0.72%) BGP
11 9 (0.65%) Fibre Channel
11 9 (0.65%) HTTP
11 9 (0.65%) VLAN
11 9 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
12 8 (0.58%) IPv4
12 8 (0.58%) IPv6
12 8 (0.58%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (4.78%) Power BI
2 38 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (2.46%) SQL Server
4 29 (2.10%) Data Warehouse
5 27 (1.95%) Metadata
6 20 (1.45%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.45%) Relational Database
7 17 (1.23%) DynamoDB
7 17 (1.23%) MySQL
8 16 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
8 16 (1.16%) Data Lake
8 16 (1.16%) MongoDB
9 14 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
9 14 (1.01%) Tableau
10 12 (0.87%) Amazon Aurora
10 12 (0.87%) Oracle Database
11 11 (0.80%) Big Data
12 9 (0.65%) BigQuery
13 8 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 96 (6.95%) JIRA
2 64 (4.63%) Git
3 61 (4.41%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.53%) GitLab
5 12 (0.87%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.72%) JUnit
7 9 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
8 8 (0.58%) Gradle
9 7 (0.51%) Maven
10 6 (0.43%) NUnit
10 6 (0.43%) Postman
11 5 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
12 4 (0.29%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.29%) Cypress.io
12 4 (0.29%) Fiddler
13 3 (0.22%) CircleCI
13 3 (0.22%) IntelliJ
13 3 (0.22%) Katalon Studio
13 3 (0.22%) Liquibase
13 3 (0.22%) MSI
General
1 441 (31.91%) Social Skills
2 297 (21.49%) Finance
3 181 (13.10%) Analytical Skills
4 139 (10.06%) Legal
4 139 (10.06%) Public Sector
5 116 (8.39%) Banking
6 53 (3.84%) Organisational Skills
7 45 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
8 41 (2.97%) Telecoms
9 31 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
10 30 (2.17%) Marketing
11 26 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
12 21 (1.52%) Front Office
13 19 (1.37%) Law
13 19 (1.37%) Local Government
14 15 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 15 (1.09%) Police
15 14 (1.01%) Manufacturing
15 14 (1.01%) Retail
16 12 (0.87%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 179 (12.95%) Architect
2 149 (10.78%) Analyst
3 112 (8.10%) Developer
4 104 (7.53%) Lead
5 78 (5.64%) Senior
6 73 (5.28%) Consultant
7 66 (4.78%) Business Analyst
8 65 (4.70%) Project Manager
9 53 (3.84%) Solutions Architect
10 38 (2.75%) Security Engineer
11 37 (2.68%) Data Engineer
12 32 (2.32%) Network Engineer
13 29 (2.10%) Technical Architect
14 27 (1.95%) Security Architect
15 26 (1.88%) Administrator
15 26 (1.88%) Data Analyst
16 24 (1.74%) Java Developer
17 23 (1.66%) Automation Engineer
18 20 (1.45%) Data Protection Officer
18 20 (1.45%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (4.56%) REST
2 49 (3.55%) React
3 36 (2.60%) .NET
4 33 (2.39%) Node.js
5 29 (2.10%) Kafka
6 27 (1.95%) Spring
7 26 (1.88%) Middleware
8 25 (1.81%) RESTful
9 22 (1.59%) Spring Boot
10 20 (1.45%) OAuth
11 18 (1.30%) Oracle Fusion
12 17 (1.23%) Playwright
12 17 (1.23%) PySpark
13 15 (1.09%) HTML
14 14 (1.01%) .NET Core
15 12 (0.87%) AngularJS
15 12 (0.87%) Jest
15 12 (0.87%) JSON
16 11 (0.80%) SAML
17 10 (0.72%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 678 (49.06%) Data Protection Act
2 67 (4.85%) Cloud Native
3 63 (4.56%) Product Ownership
4 58 (4.20%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.69%) Management Information System
6 30 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
7 28 (2.03%) Distributed Systems
7 28 (2.03%) NHS
8 26 (1.88%) Data Centre
8 26 (1.88%) Hybrid Cloud
9 25 (1.81%) Replication
10 23 (1.66%) Security Posture
11 21 (1.52%) Freedom of Information
12 20 (1.45%) Data Structures
12 20 (1.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 18 (1.30%) Enterprise Storage
14 14 (1.01%) Insider Threat
15 12 (0.87%) AI Agents
15 12 (0.87%) Mobile App
15 12 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 100 (7.24%) Windows
2 67 (4.85%) Linux
3 25 (1.81%) Unix
4 19 (1.37%) Windows Server
5 17 (1.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (1.16%) Mac OS
7 13 (0.94%) VMS
8 12 (0.87%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.58%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.51%) Android
10 7 (0.51%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.43%) CoreOS
11 6 (0.43%) zOS
12 4 (0.29%) AIX
12 4 (0.29%) Solaris
13 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.072%) CentOS
14 1 (0.072%) Rocky
14 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (18.02%) Problem-Solving
2 244 (17.66%) Stakeholder Management
3 228 (16.50%) Agile
4 210 (15.20%) Migration
5 188 (13.60%) CI/CD
6 174 (12.59%) DevOps
7 165 (11.94%) Continuous Improvement
8 140 (10.13%) Roadmaps
9 139 (10.06%) Analytics
10 134 (9.70%) Cybersecurity
11 129 (9.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 125 (9.04%) AI
13 113 (8.18%) Information Security
14 112 (8.10%) Risk Management
15 98 (7.09%) Project Management
16 97 (7.02%) Decision-Making
17 92 (6.66%) Test Automation
18 91 (6.58%) Data Governance
19 87 (6.30%) Microservices
20 84 (6.08%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 227 (16.43%) Python
2 174 (12.59%) SQL
3 101 (7.31%) Java
4 69 (4.99%) PowerShell
5 66 (4.78%) JavaScript
6 54 (3.91%) C#
7 44 (3.18%) Bash
8 37 (2.68%) TypeScript
9 19 (1.37%) Bicep
10 12 (0.87%) Perl
11 11 (0.80%) C++
12 10 (0.72%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.58%) ActionScript
14 7 (0.51%) Kusto Query Language
14 7 (0.51%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.43%) ActionScript 2.0
15 6 (0.43%) PHP
16 5 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 5 (0.36%) Go
17 4 (0.29%) Scala
Qualifications
1 190 (13.75%) Security Cleared
2 136 (9.84%) SC Cleared
3 125 (9.04%) Degree
4 49 (3.55%) DV Cleared
5 43 (3.11%) CISSP
6 36 (2.60%) Computer Science Degree
7 30 (2.17%) CISM
8 29 (2.10%) AWS Certification
9 26 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
10 23 (1.66%) Master's Degree
11 21 (1.52%) PMI Certification
12 19 (1.37%) Azure Certification
12 19 (1.37%) PMP
13 18 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
14 16 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
15 14 (1.01%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 14 (1.01%) CRISC
15 14 (1.01%) CTC Cleared
16 11 (0.80%) CCSP
17 10 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 246 (17.80%) GDPR
2 95 (6.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 90 (6.51%) NIST
4 67 (4.85%) Data Quality
5 57 (4.12%) QA
6 31 (2.24%) PCI DSS
7 30 (2.17%) Accessibility
8 25 (1.81%) GRC
9 24 (1.74%) PMO
10 19 (1.37%) SLA
11 17 (1.23%) NCSC
12 15 (1.09%) SOC 2
13 14 (1.01%) Disclosure Scotland
13 14 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.87%) NIST 800
15 10 (0.72%) PERC
16 7 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
16 7 (0.51%) HIPAA
17 6 (0.43%) COBIT
17 6 (0.43%) WCAG
System Software
1 69 (4.99%) Docker
2 65 (4.70%) Active Directory
3 55 (3.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (1.09%) NFS
6 12 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.72%) vSphere
8 7 (0.51%) Hyper-V
9 6 (0.43%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.29%) KVM
10 4 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.22%) IAG
11 3 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
11 3 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.072%) Firmware
12 1 (0.072%) ISA Server
12 1 (0.072%) UAG
12 1 (0.072%) XenApp
12 1 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 97 (7.02%) Kubernetes
2 95 (6.87%) Terraform
3 67 (4.85%) Ansible
4 36 (2.60%) Grafana
5 32 (2.32%) Microsoft Intune
6 30 (2.17%) NetBackup
7 27 (1.95%) Prometheus
8 21 (1.52%) SCCM
9 15 (1.09%) Puppet
10 13 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.51%) SnapMirror
13 6 (0.43%) EMC NetWorker
13 6 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
14 5 (0.36%) Control-M
14 5 (0.36%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.36%) RSA Archer
14 5 (0.36%) vCenter Server
15 4 (0.29%) Kibana
16 3 (0.22%) Argo
Vendors
1 210 (15.20%) Microsoft
2 67 (4.85%) Oracle
3 63 (4.56%) Google
4 57 (4.12%) VMware
5 50 (3.62%) Databricks
6 44 (3.18%) ServiceNow
7 41 (2.97%) Cisco
8 38 (2.75%) SAP
9 33 (2.39%) Salesforce
10 31 (2.24%) Red Hat
11 24 (1.74%) Citrix
12 21 (1.52%) Commvault
12 21 (1.52%) Veritas
13 20 (1.45%) NetApp
14 19 (1.37%) F5
15 18 (1.30%) IBM
16 16 (1.16%) Adobe
17 15 (1.09%) Veeam
18 14 (1.01%) Splunk
19 11 (0.80%) Meraki