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 26 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 77 90
Rank change year-on-year -2 +13 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,661 1,053 949
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.10% 3.22% 2.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.66% 3.56% 2.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 883 526 521
10th Percentile £305 £296 £200
25th Percentile £400 £400 £353
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £484 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.36% -3.25% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £599 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £467 £475
% change year-on-year -0.96% -1.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 43 29
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 £16.06
25th Percentile £15.72 £14.19 £19.38
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.56% -36.00% -40.74%
75th Percentile £28.80 £20.40 £28.75
90th Percentile £35.41 £34.78 £69.79
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% -20.63%

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 45,367 29,590 33,147
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.44% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,794 18,422 20,982
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,879 1,766 1,695
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.97 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.06 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.26% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +6.25%

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 26 August 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 26 August 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 26 August 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 -6 1,398 £500 +2.04% 536
UK excluding London 0 909 £463 -0.96% 366
London -14 611 £525 +2.94% 191
Work from Home +20 479 £500 +5.26% 215
North of England +7 329 £475 +3.26% 119
South East +7 197 £483 -5.29% 68
Yorkshire +5 170 £475 -5.00% 41
North West +12 146 £500 +11.86% 60
Midlands -5 142 £462 -5.33% 68
Scotland -7 116 £428 -6.30% 14
West Midlands -20 111 £473 -5.40% 42
South West -21 74 £425 +6.25% 53
East of England -11 32 £538 +13.16% 45
East Midlands -2 31 £441 +26.00% 26
Wales -6 19 £413 +39.24% 8
North East -52 14 £463 +15.63% 19
Northern Ireland +1 13 £110 -81.63% 2

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 (3.79%) SharePoint
2 43 (2.59%) Confluence
3 24 (1.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.14%) Apache Spark
5 18 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.78%) Apache
7 6 (0.36%) CMS
7 6 (0.36%) IIS
7 6 (0.36%) SAS
8 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
9 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) Drupal
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
12 1 (0.060%) CICS
12 1 (0.060%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 46 (2.77%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.53%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.060%) Maya
7 1 (0.060%) Trello
7 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Aladdin
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
8 1 (0.060%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 387 (23.30%) Azure
2 291 (17.52%) AWS
3 140 (8.43%) GCP
4 127 (7.65%) Microsoft 365
5 95 (5.72%) Power Platform
6 87 (5.24%) Entra ID
7 79 (4.76%) SaaS
8 62 (3.73%) Azure DevOps
8 62 (3.73%) GitHub
9 56 (3.37%) Microsoft Purview
9 56 (3.37%) Serverless
10 35 (2.11%) Microsoft Copilot
11 30 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
12 28 (1.69%) OneDrive
12 28 (1.69%) OpenShift
13 27 (1.63%) PowerApps
14 25 (1.51%) Power Automate
15 24 (1.44%) Amazon S3
15 24 (1.44%) GitHub Actions
16 23 (1.38%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 94 (5.66%) Network Security
2 61 (3.67%) Firewall
3 38 (2.29%) DNS
4 37 (2.23%) VPN
5 29 (1.75%) DHCP
6 24 (1.44%) TCP/IP
7 22 (1.32%) WAN
8 21 (1.26%) SAN
9 18 (1.08%) Cisco IPT
10 17 (1.02%) LAN
11 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
12 14 (0.84%) SSL
12 14 (0.84%) Wireless
13 13 (0.78%) NAS
14 11 (0.66%) MPLS
14 11 (0.66%) VoIP
15 10 (0.60%) HTTP
16 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
17 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
17 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.33%) Power BI
2 52 (3.13%) Metadata
3 39 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
4 36 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
4 36 (2.17%) SQL Server
5 29 (1.75%) Relational Database
6 26 (1.57%) NoSQL
7 22 (1.32%) Data Lake
8 20 (1.20%) Big Data
9 19 (1.14%) MySQL
10 18 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
11 17 (1.02%) MongoDB
12 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
13 11 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (0.66%) BigQuery
13 11 (0.66%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
14 9 (0.54%) Redis
15 8 (0.48%) Tableau
16 7 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 81 (4.88%) JIRA
2 61 (3.67%) Git
3 55 (3.31%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.87%) GitLab
5 10 (0.60%) Maven
6 9 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Selenium
8 6 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) Flyway
9 5 (0.30%) Gradle
9 5 (0.30%) Postman
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 610 (36.72%) Social Skills
2 361 (21.73%) Finance
3 253 (15.23%) Legal
4 209 (12.58%) Analytical Skills
5 197 (11.86%) Public Sector
6 109 (6.56%) Banking
7 75 (4.52%) Documentation Skills
8 73 (4.39%) Organisational Skills
9 42 (2.53%) Retail
10 39 (2.35%) Influencing Skills
11 37 (2.23%) Local Government
12 33 (1.99%) Law
13 30 (1.81%) Front Office
13 30 (1.81%) Telecoms
14 26 (1.57%) Presentation Skills
15 24 (1.44%) Marketing
16 22 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
17 21 (1.26%) Billing
17 21 (1.26%) Police
18 16 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 247 (14.87%) Architect
2 163 (9.81%) Analyst
3 146 (8.79%) Lead
4 125 (7.53%) Developer
5 121 (7.28%) Senior
6 87 (5.24%) Consultant
7 80 (4.82%) Project Manager
8 66 (3.97%) Solutions Architect
9 65 (3.91%) Business Analyst
10 60 (3.61%) Security Architect
11 40 (2.41%) Administrator
11 40 (2.41%) Security Engineer
12 34 (2.05%) Data Engineer
13 33 (1.99%) Support Engineer
14 30 (1.81%) Java Developer
15 29 (1.75%) Network Engineer
16 28 (1.69%) Data Analyst
17 27 (1.63%) Information Officer
17 27 (1.63%) IT Support
18 26 (1.57%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (5.30%) Terraform
2 87 (5.24%) REST
3 40 (2.41%) React
4 36 (2.17%) Spring
5 35 (2.11%) JSON
6 34 (2.05%) OAuth
7 33 (1.99%) Kafka
7 33 (1.99%) Spring Boot
8 31 (1.87%) CSS
8 31 (1.87%) HTML
8 31 (1.87%) Middleware
9 26 (1.57%) RESTful
10 24 (1.44%) .NET
11 21 (1.26%) Node.js
12 19 (1.14%) OpenID
13 18 (1.08%) OAuth2
14 15 (0.90%) CSS3
14 15 (0.90%) GraphQL
14 15 (0.90%) HTML5
15 14 (0.84%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 718 (43.23%) Data Protection Act
2 95 (5.72%) Cloud Native
3 93 (5.60%) Product Ownership
4 86 (5.18%) Management Information System
5 77 (4.64%) Onboarding
6 52 (3.13%) Data Centre
7 48 (2.89%) Distributed Systems
8 41 (2.47%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.41%) Virtual Team
10 38 (2.29%) Security Posture
11 33 (1.99%) Freedom of Information
12 28 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
13 26 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
13 26 (1.57%) NHS
14 25 (1.51%) Operational Technology
15 23 (1.38%) Replication
16 21 (1.26%) Mobile App
17 20 (1.20%) AI Agents
18 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
18 19 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 132 (7.95%) Windows
2 82 (4.94%) Linux
3 30 (1.81%) Android
3 30 (1.81%) Apple iOS
4 29 (1.75%) Windows Server
5 28 (1.69%) Unix
6 22 (1.32%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.96%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.48%) VMS
9 8 (0.48%) zOS
10 3 (0.18%) Solaris
10 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) HPUX
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.060%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 342 (20.59%) Stakeholder Management
2 301 (18.12%) Agile
3 292 (17.58%) Problem-Solving
4 273 (16.44%) Continuous Improvement
5 235 (14.15%) DevOps
6 229 (13.79%) CI/CD
7 217 (13.06%) Migration
8 213 (12.82%) AI
9 211 (12.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 195 (11.74%) Cybersecurity
11 160 (9.63%) Data Governance
12 156 (9.39%) Roadmaps
13 155 (9.33%) Decision-Making
14 151 (9.09%) Analytics
15 140 (8.43%) Information Security
16 135 (8.13%) Risk Management
17 126 (7.59%) Infrastructure as Code
18 125 (7.53%) Validation
19 119 (7.16%) Data Modelling
20 103 (6.20%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 202 (12.16%) Python
2 160 (9.63%) SQL
3 102 (6.14%) Java
4 55 (3.31%) JavaScript
4 55 (3.31%) PowerShell
5 37 (2.23%) Bash
6 26 (1.57%) TypeScript
7 19 (1.14%) Go
8 18 (1.08%) C#
9 15 (0.90%) Apex Code
9 15 (0.90%) Bicep
9 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
10 12 (0.72%) Perl
11 10 (0.60%) C++
12 8 (0.48%) C
12 8 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
12 8 (0.48%) Scala
12 8 (0.48%) VB
13 7 (0.42%) VB6
14 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 257 (15.47%) Security Cleared
2 190 (11.44%) SC Cleared
3 107 (6.44%) Degree
4 80 (4.82%) CISSP
5 58 (3.49%) DV Cleared
6 49 (2.95%) CISM
7 39 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
8 33 (1.99%) Azure Certification
9 31 (1.87%) Cisco Certification
10 30 (1.81%) PMI Certification
11 28 (1.69%) PMP
12 26 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
13 22 (1.32%) AWS Certification
14 18 (1.08%) Microsoft Certification
15 17 (1.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.84%) CCSP
17 10 (0.60%) CCNP
17 10 (0.60%) Master's Degree
18 9 (0.54%) CEH
18 9 (0.54%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (15.29%) GDPR
2 108 (6.50%) Data Quality
3 97 (5.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 77 (4.64%) NIST
5 75 (4.52%) QA
6 48 (2.89%) Accessibility
7 44 (2.65%) GRC
8 25 (1.51%) PMO
9 20 (1.20%) NCSC
9 20 (1.20%) PCI DSS
10 18 (1.08%) SLA
11 16 (0.96%) Cyber Essentials
12 12 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 12 (0.72%) PERC
12 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.66%) WCAG
14 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 9 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
15 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 93 (5.60%) Active Directory
2 63 (3.79%) Docker
3 57 (3.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.60%) NFS
7 9 (0.54%) vSphere
8 7 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) KVM
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) Firmware
13 2 (0.12%) GPFS
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 111 (6.68%) Kubernetes
2 46 (2.77%) Ansible
3 39 (2.35%) Microsoft Intune
4 27 (1.63%) Grafana
5 23 (1.38%) SCCM
6 22 (1.32%) NetBackup
7 18 (1.08%) Prometheus
8 17 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.84%) Puppet
10 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
12 7 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.36%) Kibana
14 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
14 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
14 5 (0.30%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) Istio
15 4 (0.24%) SCOM
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 343 (20.65%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.30%) ServiceNow
3 66 (3.97%) Oracle
4 64 (3.85%) Google
5 60 (3.61%) Cisco
6 59 (3.55%) VMware
7 47 (2.83%) Databricks
8 36 (2.17%) SAP
8 36 (2.17%) Splunk
9 29 (1.75%) Salesforce
10 25 (1.51%) Zscaler
11 23 (1.38%) Red Hat
12 22 (1.32%) Workday
13 21 (1.26%) CyberArk
14 19 (1.14%) IBM
14 19 (1.14%) NetApp
15 16 (0.96%) Citrix
15 16 (0.96%) F5
16 15 (0.90%) Dell
16 15 (0.90%) Veritas