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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 100 86
Rank change year-on-year +26 -14 +18
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,432 747 1,095
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.26% 2.57% 2.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.80% 2.84% 2.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 781 388 613
10th Percentile £300 £257 £206
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £696 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -3.16% +5.56% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 26 109
10th Percentile £15.75 £17.38 £12.45
25th Percentile £16.88 £21.63 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £28.44 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -27.17% +45.82% -70.45%
75th Percentile £25.50 £33.18 £27.00
90th Percentile £54.30 £51.00 £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 37,733 26,318 38,291
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.81% 90.56% 86.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,910 17,091 24,889
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 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £746
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.89% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,221 949 2,344
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.19 £12.85
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.45 £16.00
Median hourly rate £34.50 £32.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.81% -1.54% -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £58.69
90th Percentile £76.00 £76.25 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £31.52 £31.80
% change year-on-year -4.82% -0.88% -12.28%

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 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 26 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 26 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 +28 1,228 £500 - 369
UK excluding London +18 761 £460 -3.16% 290
London +33 580 £525 +5.00% 130
Work from Home +21 363 £500 +2.30% 149
North of England -1 237 £484 +1.79% 83
South East +23 179 £495 -2.99% 76
Yorkshire -8 140 £496 -4.34% 26
Scotland +15 114 £407 -12.85% 13
Midlands -7 107 £450 -10.00% 53
North West -6 89 £475 +4.40% 52
West Midlands -30 68 £500 -2.44% 26
South West +14 58 £450 +20.00% 30
East of England +7 50 £450 -25.00% 33
East Midlands -5 39 £438 +6.06% 27
Wales -2 13 £388 -8.82% 5
North East -23 9 £400 -15.79% 5
Northern Ireland - 7 £500 - 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 55 (3.84%) Confluence
2 35 (2.44%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.40%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
4 9 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.56%) Apache
6 3 (0.21%) CMS
6 3 (0.21%) Ethereum
6 3 (0.21%) Hyperledger
6 3 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.14%) Drupal
7 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
7 2 (0.14%) nginx
7 2 (0.14%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
7 2 (0.14%) SAS
7 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.070%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 57 (3.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.93%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.070%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.070%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.070%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.070%) Blender
8 1 (0.070%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.070%) InVision
8 1 (0.070%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.070%) Sketch
8 1 (0.070%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.84%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.35%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.28%) ResourceLink
6 4 (0.28%) SAP GRC
6 4 (0.28%) 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%) Workfront
9 1 (0.070%) BambooHR
9 1 (0.070%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 294 (20.53%) Azure
2 234 (16.34%) AWS
3 122 (8.52%) GCP
4 79 (5.52%) Power Platform
5 78 (5.45%) Microsoft 365
6 73 (5.10%) Entra ID
7 65 (4.54%) GitHub
8 54 (3.77%) Serverless
9 50 (3.49%) SaaS
10 41 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
10 41 (2.86%) Microsoft Purview
11 38 (2.65%) AWS Lambda
12 37 (2.58%) OpenShift
13 34 (2.37%) Amazon S3
14 31 (2.16%) AWS CloudFormation
14 31 (2.16%) Snowflake
15 25 (1.75%) GitHub Actions
16 23 (1.61%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 21 (1.47%) PaaS
18 20 (1.40%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 50 (3.49%) Network Security
2 35 (2.44%) Firewall
2 35 (2.44%) SAN
3 23 (1.61%) VPN
4 21 (1.47%) NAS
5 19 (1.33%) WAN
6 18 (1.26%) DNS
6 18 (1.26%) LAN
6 18 (1.26%) MPLS
7 15 (1.05%) Cisco IPT
8 13 (0.91%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.77%) SD-WAN
10 10 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
11 9 (0.63%) BGP
11 9 (0.63%) DHCP
11 9 (0.63%) Fibre Channel
11 9 (0.63%) VLAN
12 8 (0.56%) HTTP
12 8 (0.56%) IPv4
12 8 (0.56%) IPv6
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (4.89%) Power BI
2 38 (2.65%) PostgreSQL
3 36 (2.51%) SQL Server
4 31 (2.16%) Metadata
5 28 (1.96%) Data Warehouse
6 24 (1.68%) MySQL
7 22 (1.54%) Relational Database
8 18 (1.26%) NoSQL
9 17 (1.19%) Data Lake
9 17 (1.19%) DynamoDB
9 17 (1.19%) MongoDB
10 16 (1.12%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (0.98%) Tableau
12 12 (0.84%) Big Data
12 12 (0.84%) Oracle Database
13 9 (0.63%) Amazon Aurora
13 9 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 8 (0.56%) Aerospike
14 8 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 90 (6.28%) JIRA
2 65 (4.54%) Jenkins
3 61 (4.26%) Git
4 39 (2.72%) GitLab
5 12 (0.84%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.70%) JUnit
6 10 (0.70%) Sonatype Nexus
7 8 (0.56%) Maven
8 7 (0.49%) Gradle
9 6 (0.42%) NUnit
10 5 (0.35%) Bitbucket
10 5 (0.35%) Flyway
10 5 (0.35%) Postman
10 5 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
11 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.28%) Liquibase
12 3 (0.21%) Fiddler
12 3 (0.21%) IntelliJ
12 3 (0.21%) Selenium
12 3 (0.21%) TestNG
General
1 445 (31.08%) Social Skills
2 326 (22.77%) Finance
3 187 (13.06%) Analytical Skills
4 163 (11.38%) Legal
5 139 (9.71%) Public Sector
6 117 (8.17%) Banking
7 62 (4.33%) Organisational Skills
8 48 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
9 40 (2.79%) Telecoms
10 32 (2.23%) Marketing
11 29 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (1.96%) Presentation Skills
13 27 (1.89%) Front Office
14 22 (1.54%) Law
14 22 (1.54%) Local Government
15 18 (1.26%) Police
16 16 (1.12%) Retail
17 13 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 12 (0.84%) Manufacturing
19 10 (0.70%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 193 (13.48%) Architect
2 148 (10.34%) Analyst
3 117 (8.17%) Developer
4 111 (7.75%) Lead
5 92 (6.42%) Senior
6 75 (5.24%) Consultant
7 69 (4.82%) Project Manager
8 65 (4.54%) Business Analyst
9 58 (4.05%) Solutions Architect
10 37 (2.58%) Data Engineer
11 35 (2.44%) Security Architect
11 35 (2.44%) Security Engineer
12 33 (2.30%) Java Developer
13 32 (2.23%) Administrator
13 32 (2.23%) Network Engineer
14 30 (2.09%) Technical Architect
15 26 (1.82%) Data Analyst
16 22 (1.54%) Automation Engineer
17 21 (1.47%) Data Protection Officer
17 21 (1.47%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (4.47%) REST
2 54 (3.77%) React
3 37 (2.58%) .NET
4 34 (2.37%) Spring
5 32 (2.23%) Node.js
6 31 (2.16%) Spring Boot
7 30 (2.09%) Kafka
8 28 (1.96%) Middleware
9 26 (1.82%) RESTful
10 21 (1.47%) OAuth
11 20 (1.40%) HTML
12 19 (1.33%) Jest
13 17 (1.19%) Oracle Fusion
13 17 (1.19%) Playwright
14 16 (1.12%) CSS
15 15 (1.05%) .NET Core
15 15 (1.05%) PySpark
16 14 (0.98%) JSON
17 13 (0.91%) AngularJS
17 13 (0.91%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 682 (47.63%) Data Protection Act
2 79 (5.52%) Cloud Native
3 67 (4.68%) Product Ownership
4 64 (4.47%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.56%) Management Information System
6 31 (2.16%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
7 30 (2.09%) NHS
8 28 (1.96%) Hybrid Cloud
8 28 (1.96%) Replication
9 26 (1.82%) Data Centre
9 26 (1.82%) Security Posture
10 21 (1.47%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 21 (1.47%) Freedom of Information
11 20 (1.40%) Enterprise Storage
12 17 (1.19%) Data Structures
13 14 (0.98%) Derivative
13 14 (0.98%) Insider Threat
13 14 (0.98%) Operational Technology
14 13 (0.91%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 97 (6.77%) Windows
2 71 (4.96%) Linux
3 22 (1.54%) Unix
4 20 (1.40%) Windows Server
5 19 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.91%) VMS
7 12 (0.84%) Mac OS
7 12 (0.84%) Windows 10
8 9 (0.63%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.56%) Android
9 8 (0.56%) zOS
10 7 (0.49%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.42%) CoreOS
12 5 (0.35%) Solaris
13 4 (0.28%) AIX
14 2 (0.14%) Rocky
14 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
15 1 (0.070%) CentOS
15 1 (0.070%) Oracle Linux
15 1 (0.070%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 253 (17.67%) Problem-Solving
2 241 (16.83%) Agile
3 239 (16.69%) Stakeholder Management
4 217 (15.15%) Migration
5 201 (14.04%) CI/CD
6 194 (13.55%) DevOps
7 181 (12.64%) Continuous Improvement
8 143 (9.99%) Analytics
8 143 (9.99%) Cybersecurity
9 140 (9.78%) Roadmaps
10 129 (9.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 127 (8.87%) AI
12 116 (8.10%) Risk Management
13 109 (7.61%) Decision-Making
14 107 (7.47%) Information Security
15 100 (6.98%) Data Governance
15 100 (6.98%) Test Automation
16 98 (6.84%) Infrastructure as Code
17 93 (6.49%) Microservices
17 93 (6.49%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 214 (14.94%) Python
2 181 (12.64%) SQL
3 115 (8.03%) Java
4 67 (4.68%) JavaScript
5 58 (4.05%) PowerShell
6 54 (3.77%) C#
7 41 (2.86%) Bash
8 38 (2.65%) TypeScript
9 18 (1.26%) Bicep
10 12 (0.84%) C++
11 11 (0.77%) Perl
12 9 (0.63%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.56%) ActionScript
13 8 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
13 8 (0.56%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.42%) ActionScript 2.0
14 6 (0.42%) Groovy
15 5 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 5 (0.35%) Go
16 4 (0.28%) R
Qualifications
1 200 (13.97%) Security Cleared
2 142 (9.92%) SC Cleared
3 127 (8.87%) Degree
4 55 (3.84%) DV Cleared
5 50 (3.49%) CISSP
6 33 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
7 31 (2.16%) CISM
8 29 (2.03%) AWS Certification
9 28 (1.96%) PMI Certification
10 26 (1.82%) Azure Certification
10 26 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
11 24 (1.68%) PMP
12 21 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
12 21 (1.47%) Master's Degree
13 20 (1.40%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (1.05%) CTC Cleared
15 12 (0.84%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 12 (0.84%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 11 (0.77%) CCSP
16 11 (0.77%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (17.74%) GDPR
2 94 (6.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 94 (6.56%) NIST
3 70 (4.89%) Data Quality
4 61 (4.26%) QA
5 31 (2.16%) PCI DSS
6 27 (1.89%) Accessibility
6 27 (1.89%) PMO
7 26 (1.82%) GRC
8 24 (1.68%) SLA
9 18 (1.26%) NCSC
10 17 (1.19%) SOC 2
11 14 (0.98%) Disclosure Scotland
12 12 (0.84%) PERC
13 11 (0.77%) NIST 800
13 11 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 8 (0.56%) HIPAA
15 7 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
16 6 (0.42%) COBIT
17 5 (0.35%) WCAG
System Software
1 70 (4.89%) Docker
2 65 (4.54%) Active Directory
3 54 (3.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (1.33%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (1.19%) NFS
6 12 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.63%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.63%) VMware NSX
7 9 (0.63%) vSphere
8 5 (0.35%) KVM
8 5 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.21%) IAG
10 3 (0.21%) Time Sharing Option
11 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
11 2 (0.14%) XenApp
11 2 (0.14%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.070%) Firmware
12 1 (0.070%) UAG
Systems Management
1 103 (7.19%) Terraform
2 102 (7.12%) Kubernetes
3 71 (4.96%) Ansible
4 37 (2.58%) Grafana
5 31 (2.16%) NetBackup
6 29 (2.03%) Microsoft Intune
7 27 (1.89%) Prometheus
8 19 (1.33%) SCCM
9 17 (1.19%) Puppet
10 15 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.49%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 7 (0.49%) SnapMirror
12 6 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
13 5 (0.35%) Control-M
13 5 (0.35%) EMC NetWorker
13 5 (0.35%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.35%) RSA Archer
14 4 (0.28%) Foglight
14 4 (0.28%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 4 (0.28%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 221 (15.43%) Microsoft
2 70 (4.89%) Oracle
3 64 (4.47%) Google
4 55 (3.84%) VMware
5 51 (3.56%) Databricks
6 43 (3.00%) ServiceNow
7 41 (2.86%) Cisco
8 40 (2.79%) SAP
9 35 (2.44%) Red Hat
9 35 (2.44%) Salesforce
10 24 (1.68%) NetApp
11 22 (1.54%) Commvault
11 22 (1.54%) Veritas
12 21 (1.47%) Citrix
13 19 (1.33%) F5
14 18 (1.26%) IBM
15 16 (1.12%) Splunk
15 16 (1.12%) Veeam
16 13 (0.91%) Adobe
16 13 (0.91%) CyberArk