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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 69 89 91
Rank change year-on-year +20 +2 +3
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,590 826 1,032
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.17% 2.79% 2.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.73% 3.06% 2.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 875 406 543
10th Percentile £300 £263 £214
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £598
90th Percentile £700 £681 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £451
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 34 107
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.78 £12.40
25th Percentile £16.59 £15.13 £16.06
Median hourly rate £22.13 £22.00 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.60% +12.82% -56.21%
75th Percentile £33.75 £32.32 £27.67
90th Percentile £43.38 £36.84 £41.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.35 £17.38 £19.50
% change year-on-year +22.88% -10.90% -38.10%

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 42,574 26,968 37,058
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.80% 91.03% 85.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,549 17,103 23,600
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £506 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -3.62% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,556 1,231 2,598
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.01
Median hourly rate £43.96 £26.32 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +67.02% -29.21% +6.23%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +76.94% -34.02% +17.29%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 16 June 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 +16 1,351 £500 - 504
UK excluding London +14 871 £450 -5.26% 342
London +18 610 £525 +5.00% 226
Work from Home +29 432 £500 +5.26% 211
North of England +8 290 £475 - 88
South East +22 189 £475 -9.52% 96
Yorkshire -7 162 £475 -9.52% 28
Scotland +4 133 £425 -5.56% 26
Midlands -9 131 £450 -10.00% 52
North West +18 119 £488 +8.70% 46
West Midlands -21 91 £473 -9.90% 31
South West +3 66 £425 +6.25% 48
East of England +2 45 £488 -7.14% 26
East Midlands 0 40 £438 +17.06% 21
Wales -9 11 £363 +22.36% 8
Northern Ireland +6 9 £104 -78.86% 8
North East -46 9 £425 +1.49% 14

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 57 (3.58%) Confluence
1 57 (3.58%) SharePoint
2 26 (1.64%) Microsoft Exchange
3 17 (1.07%) Apache Spark
4 15 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.50%) Apache
6 6 (0.38%) IIS
7 5 (0.31%) CMS
7 5 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 5 (0.31%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.25%) SAS
9 3 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.13%) Drupal
10 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.13%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.13%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 44 (2.77%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.88%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.25%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.25%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.063%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.063%) Maya
8 1 (0.063%) Trello
8 1 (0.063%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.57%) Aladdin
3 6 (0.38%) NEC Housing
3 6 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
4 5 (0.31%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.25%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.19%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.19%) SAP Payroll
6 3 (0.19%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.13%) Sonata
7 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 340 (21.38%) Azure
2 263 (16.54%) AWS
3 129 (8.11%) GCP
4 104 (6.54%) Microsoft 365
5 84 (5.28%) Power Platform
6 82 (5.16%) Entra ID
7 67 (4.21%) GitHub
8 63 (3.96%) SaaS
9 50 (3.14%) Microsoft Purview
10 44 (2.77%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (2.70%) OpenShift
12 32 (2.01%) Serverless
13 29 (1.82%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.64%) OneDrive
15 24 (1.51%) Snowflake
16 23 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
16 23 (1.45%) Power Automate
17 22 (1.38%) Amazon S3
18 21 (1.32%) AWS CloudFormation
19 20 (1.26%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 82 (5.16%) Network Security
2 47 (2.96%) Firewall
3 33 (2.08%) SAN
3 33 (2.08%) VPN
4 27 (1.70%) DNS
4 27 (1.70%) TCP/IP
5 21 (1.32%) NAS
6 20 (1.26%) WAN
7 19 (1.19%) DHCP
8 17 (1.07%) MPLS
9 15 (0.94%) LAN
9 15 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
10 11 (0.69%) SSL
11 9 (0.57%) HTTP
11 9 (0.57%) VLAN
12 8 (0.50%) Wireless
13 7 (0.44%) BGP
13 7 (0.44%) Cisco Nexus
13 7 (0.44%) Ethernet
13 7 (0.44%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (4.28%) Power BI
2 40 (2.52%) PostgreSQL
2 40 (2.52%) SQL Server
3 37 (2.33%) Metadata
4 26 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
4 26 (1.64%) Relational Database
5 24 (1.51%) MySQL
6 22 (1.38%) MongoDB
7 20 (1.26%) Data Lake
8 19 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
8 19 (1.19%) Big Data
8 19 (1.19%) NoSQL
9 13 (0.82%) DynamoDB
9 13 (0.82%) Oracle Database
10 11 (0.69%) Tableau
11 10 (0.63%) BigQuery
11 10 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
11 10 (0.63%) RDBMS
12 8 (0.50%) Ingres
12 8 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 99 (6.23%) JIRA
2 76 (4.78%) Git
3 65 (4.09%) Jenkins
4 39 (2.45%) GitLab
5 9 (0.57%) Team Foundation Server
6 8 (0.50%) JUnit
6 8 (0.50%) Postman
6 8 (0.50%) SpecFlow
7 7 (0.44%) Maven
7 7 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
7 7 (0.44%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.38%) Flyway
9 5 (0.31%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.31%) ERwin
9 5 (0.31%) Gradle
10 4 (0.25%) Selenium
11 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.19%) TestNG
11 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 520 (32.70%) Social Skills
2 365 (22.96%) Finance
3 222 (13.96%) Legal
4 183 (11.51%) Analytical Skills
5 152 (9.56%) Public Sector
6 114 (7.17%) Banking
7 66 (4.15%) Documentation Skills
8 59 (3.71%) Organisational Skills
9 38 (2.39%) Telecoms
10 31 (1.95%) Local Government
11 30 (1.89%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (1.76%) Law
12 28 (1.76%) Retail
13 27 (1.70%) Front Office
14 26 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
15 24 (1.51%) Marketing
16 20 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
16 20 (1.26%) Police
17 13 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 12 (0.75%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 214 (13.46%) Architect
2 146 (9.18%) Analyst
3 124 (7.80%) Developer
4 117 (7.36%) Lead
5 116 (7.30%) Senior
6 95 (5.97%) Consultant
7 85 (5.35%) Project Manager
8 68 (4.28%) Business Analyst
9 64 (4.03%) Solutions Architect
10 45 (2.83%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.64%) Network Engineer
12 41 (2.58%) Java Developer
13 40 (2.52%) Data Engineer
14 39 (2.45%) Security Engineer
15 32 (2.01%) Administrator
16 27 (1.70%) Data Analyst
17 26 (1.64%) Support Engineer
17 26 (1.64%) Technical Architect
18 24 (1.51%) IT Support
19 23 (1.45%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (5.03%) REST
2 55 (3.46%) React
3 40 (2.52%) Spring
4 36 (2.26%) Spring Boot
5 32 (2.01%) Kafka
6 31 (1.95%) Middleware
7 30 (1.89%) CSS
7 30 (1.89%) HTML
8 29 (1.82%) RESTful
9 26 (1.64%) OAuth
10 25 (1.57%) JSON
11 24 (1.51%) .NET
12 21 (1.32%) Node.js
13 20 (1.26%) Jest
14 18 (1.13%) PySpark
15 17 (1.07%) HTML5
15 17 (1.07%) OpenID
15 17 (1.07%) Redux
15 17 (1.07%) Spring MVC
16 16 (1.01%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 726 (45.66%) Data Protection Act
2 92 (5.79%) Cloud Native
3 84 (5.28%) Product Ownership
4 73 (4.59%) Onboarding
5 56 (3.52%) Management Information System
6 44 (2.77%) Legacy Systems
7 42 (2.64%) Data Centre
8 41 (2.58%) Distributed Systems
9 34 (2.14%) Security Posture
10 29 (1.82%) Virtual Team
11 26 (1.64%) NHS
12 23 (1.45%) Hybrid Cloud
13 22 (1.38%) Replication
14 21 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
15 20 (1.26%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 20 (1.26%) Operational Technology
16 18 (1.13%) Enterprise Storage
17 17 (1.07%) Data Structures
17 17 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
18 16 (1.01%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 121 (7.61%) Windows
2 79 (4.97%) Linux
3 33 (2.08%) Unix
4 25 (1.57%) Windows Server
5 24 (1.51%) Android
6 23 (1.45%) Apple iOS
7 22 (1.38%) Mac OS
8 18 (1.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.75%) VMS
10 9 (0.57%) Windows 10
11 6 (0.38%) CoreOS
11 6 (0.38%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.38%) zOS
12 2 (0.13%) Rocky
12 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.063%) CentOS
13 1 (0.063%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.063%) Solaris
13 1 (0.063%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 306 (19.25%) Agile
2 274 (17.23%) Problem-Solving
3 263 (16.54%) Stakeholder Management
4 241 (15.16%) Migration
5 239 (15.03%) Continuous Improvement
6 225 (14.15%) CI/CD
7 216 (13.58%) DevOps
8 168 (10.57%) AI
9 157 (9.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 144 (9.06%) Roadmaps
11 143 (8.99%) Cybersecurity
12 135 (8.49%) Analytics
13 133 (8.36%) Decision-Making
14 119 (7.48%) Information Security
14 119 (7.48%) Risk Management
15 111 (6.98%) Data Governance
16 110 (6.92%) Validation
17 104 (6.54%) Infrastructure as Code
18 100 (6.29%) Test Automation
19 98 (6.16%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 220 (13.84%) Python
2 174 (10.94%) SQL
3 136 (8.55%) Java
4 70 (4.40%) JavaScript
5 54 (3.40%) PowerShell
6 38 (2.39%) Bash
7 35 (2.20%) C#
8 31 (1.95%) TypeScript
9 17 (1.07%) Bicep
10 15 (0.94%) Perl
11 13 (0.82%) Go
12 11 (0.69%) C++
12 11 (0.69%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.63%) Apex Code
13 10 (0.63%) Kusto Query Language
14 8 (0.50%) ActionScript
14 8 (0.50%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.50%) VB
15 7 (0.44%) PL/SQL
15 7 (0.44%) VB6
Qualifications
1 218 (13.71%) Security Cleared
2 162 (10.19%) SC Cleared
3 138 (8.68%) Degree
4 72 (4.53%) CISSP
5 51 (3.21%) DV Cleared
6 39 (2.45%) CISM
7 34 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
8 32 (2.01%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (1.95%) PMI Certification
10 30 (1.89%) Azure Certification
11 27 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
11 27 (1.70%) PMP
12 22 (1.38%) AWS Certification
12 22 (1.38%) Master's Degree
13 18 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (1.07%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 15 (0.94%) CCSP
16 12 (0.75%) CRISC
17 10 (0.63%) CCNP
18 9 (0.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 252 (15.85%) GDPR
2 94 (5.91%) Data Quality
3 89 (5.60%) NIST
4 88 (5.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 72 (4.53%) QA
6 41 (2.58%) GRC
7 39 (2.45%) Accessibility
8 26 (1.64%) PCI DSS
9 20 (1.26%) PMO
9 20 (1.26%) SLA
10 19 (1.19%) SOC 2
11 17 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 16 (1.01%) NCSC
13 10 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
13 10 (0.63%) WCAG
14 9 (0.57%) HIPAA
15 8 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
16 7 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
17 6 (0.38%) COBIT
18 5 (0.31%) NIST 800
System Software
1 77 (4.84%) Active Directory
2 68 (4.28%) Docker
3 52 (3.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
5 14 (0.88%) NFS
5 14 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (0.75%) vSphere
7 10 (0.63%) Hyper-V
8 8 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.44%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.38%) KVM
11 4 (0.25%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.19%) IAG
12 3 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.19%) XenApp
12 3 (0.19%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.13%) GPFS
13 2 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
14 1 (0.063%) iptables
Systems Management
1 114 (7.17%) Kubernetes
2 86 (5.41%) Terraform
3 67 (4.21%) Ansible
4 46 (2.89%) Grafana
5 37 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
6 31 (1.95%) NetBackup
6 31 (1.95%) Prometheus
7 18 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (1.07%) SCCM
9 14 (0.88%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.82%) Puppet
11 12 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.44%) Kibana
13 6 (0.38%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.31%) Control-M
14 5 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.25%) CA Single Sign-On
15 4 (0.25%) Foglight
15 4 (0.25%) Progress Chef
15 4 (0.25%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 264 (16.60%) Microsoft
2 83 (5.22%) Oracle
3 69 (4.34%) ServiceNow
4 59 (3.71%) Google
5 55 (3.46%) Databricks
6 53 (3.33%) VMware
7 52 (3.27%) Cisco
8 42 (2.64%) SAP
9 34 (2.14%) Splunk
10 32 (2.01%) Red Hat
11 26 (1.64%) Veritas
12 24 (1.51%) Salesforce
13 20 (1.26%) NetApp
14 17 (1.07%) Citrix
14 17 (1.07%) Workday
14 17 (1.07%) Zscaler
15 16 (1.01%) Commvault
16 15 (0.94%) F5
17 14 (0.88%) Informatica
18 13 (0.82%) Dell