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

6 months to
5 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 74 89
Rank change year-on-year -8 +15 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,675 1,054 949
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.10% 3.24% 2.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.67% 3.58% 2.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 872 505 518
10th Percentile £300 £290 £204
25th Percentile £400 £400 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £465 £475
% change year-on-year -3.23% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 102 51 20
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £18.55
25th Percentile £15.73 £13.60 £21.06
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.00 £27.09
Median % change year-on-year +11.56% -40.94% -11.90%
75th Percentile £27.25 £20.40 £49.94
90th Percentile £35.22 £36.48 £70.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +3.65%

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 45,646 29,409 32,455
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.41% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,910 18,256 20,327
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 2,932 1,750 1,541
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.20 £14.41
25th Percentile £17.72 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.88
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -41.35% +3.33%
75th Percentile £67.85 £45.79 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.03 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +87.80% -47.37% +12.13%

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 5 September 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 5 September 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 5 September 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 -8 1,402 £500 +2.56% 1,110
UK excluding London +3 928 £450 -3.23% 688
London -24 603 £525 +3.96% 520
Work from Home +17 483 £500 +5.82% 468
North of England +10 329 £475 +5.56% 184
South East +5 201 £483 -6.76% 174
Yorkshire +5 164 £475 -5.00% 56
Midlands +1 151 £450 -5.26% 119
North West +11 146 £498 +13.07% 108
Scotland -14 120 £428 -5.00% 29
West Midlands -5 119 £462 -7.70% 78
South West -14 77 £425 +6.25% 84
East Midlands -5 32 £441 +26.00% 41
East of England -15 28 £525 +10.53% 68
Wales -5 21 £413 - 21
North East -45 20 £463 +15.63% 23
Northern Ireland +6 15 £110 -81.63% 18

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 65 (3.88%) SharePoint
2 41 (2.45%) Confluence
3 23 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.13%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.01%) Apache Spark
6 12 (0.72%) Apache
7 9 (0.54%) IIS
8 7 (0.42%) CMS
9 6 (0.36%) SAS
10 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.18%) CICS
12 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.18%) WordPress
13 2 (0.12%) Drupal
13 2 (0.12%) nginx
13 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
14 1 (0.060%) Moodle
14 1 (0.060%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 45 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (2.45%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.060%) Maya
8 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 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Endur
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 1 (0.060%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.060%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 384 (22.93%) Azure
2 306 (18.27%) AWS
3 139 (8.30%) GCP
4 131 (7.82%) Microsoft 365
5 88 (5.25%) Power Platform
6 85 (5.07%) Entra ID
7 79 (4.72%) SaaS
8 63 (3.76%) Azure DevOps
8 63 (3.76%) GitHub
9 56 (3.34%) Serverless
10 55 (3.28%) Microsoft Purview
11 35 (2.09%) Microsoft Copilot
12 31 (1.85%) AWS Lambda
13 29 (1.73%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.55%) GitHub Actions
14 26 (1.55%) OpenShift
14 26 (1.55%) PowerApps
15 25 (1.49%) Power Automate
16 24 (1.43%) Amazon S3
17 22 (1.31%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 93 (5.55%) Network Security
2 60 (3.58%) Firewall
3 38 (2.27%) DNS
4 35 (2.09%) VPN
5 29 (1.73%) DHCP
6 25 (1.49%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.25%) WAN
8 17 (1.01%) Cisco IPT
8 17 (1.01%) LAN
9 16 (0.96%) SAN
10 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.84%) SSL
11 14 (0.84%) Wireless
12 11 (0.66%) HTTP
12 11 (0.66%) MPLS
12 11 (0.66%) VoIP
13 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
13 9 (0.54%) NAS
14 7 (0.42%) Cisco Nexus
14 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (3.94%) Power BI
2 50 (2.99%) Metadata
3 39 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (2.27%) Relational Database
5 37 (2.21%) SQL Server
6 32 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (1.49%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.25%) Data Lake
8 21 (1.25%) MySQL
9 20 (1.19%) Big Data
10 17 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (0.84%) MongoDB
12 13 (0.78%) BigQuery
12 13 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.60%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
14 9 (0.54%) Redis
15 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
16 7 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
16 7 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 85 (5.07%) JIRA
2 65 (3.88%) Git
3 54 (3.22%) Jenkins
4 30 (1.79%) GitLab
5 14 (0.84%) Selenium
6 10 (0.60%) Maven
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) Postman
9 5 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
10 4 (0.24%) Vite
11 3 (0.18%) Flyway
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 637 (38.03%) Social Skills
2 362 (21.61%) Finance
3 252 (15.04%) Legal
4 211 (12.60%) Analytical Skills
5 203 (12.12%) Public Sector
6 113 (6.75%) Banking
7 79 (4.72%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (4.42%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.45%) Influencing Skills
10 40 (2.39%) Retail
11 38 (2.27%) Local Government
12 32 (1.91%) Front Office
12 32 (1.91%) Law
13 31 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
14 28 (1.67%) Telecoms
15 26 (1.55%) Marketing
16 23 (1.37%) Billing
16 23 (1.37%) Police
17 22 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
18 16 (0.96%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 252 (15.04%) Architect
2 169 (10.09%) Analyst
3 143 (8.54%) Lead
4 125 (7.46%) Developer
5 122 (7.28%) Senior
6 83 (4.96%) Consultant
7 78 (4.66%) Project Manager
8 71 (4.24%) Solutions Architect
9 70 (4.18%) Business Analyst
10 64 (3.82%) Security Architect
11 43 (2.57%) Administrator
12 38 (2.27%) Security Engineer
13 35 (2.09%) Support Engineer
14 32 (1.91%) Data Engineer
15 31 (1.85%) Java Developer
16 30 (1.79%) Data Analyst
17 28 (1.67%) Information Officer
18 27 (1.61%) IT Support
19 26 (1.55%) Information Governance Officer
20 25 (1.49%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (5.37%) Terraform
2 84 (5.01%) REST
3 41 (2.45%) React
4 36 (2.15%) Kafka
4 36 (2.15%) Spring
5 35 (2.09%) OAuth
6 34 (2.03%) JSON
7 33 (1.97%) Middleware
7 33 (1.97%) Spring Boot
8 32 (1.91%) CSS
8 32 (1.91%) HTML
9 29 (1.73%) RESTful
10 22 (1.31%) .NET
11 21 (1.25%) Node.js
12 20 (1.19%) OpenID
13 19 (1.13%) OAuth2
14 16 (0.96%) CSS3
14 16 (0.96%) HTML5
15 15 (0.90%) GraphQL
15 15 (0.90%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 717 (42.81%) Data Protection Act
2 97 (5.79%) Management Information System
3 95 (5.67%) Cloud Native
4 94 (5.61%) Product Ownership
5 84 (5.01%) Onboarding
6 53 (3.16%) Data Centre
7 52 (3.10%) Distributed Systems
8 42 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.39%) Security Posture
9 40 (2.39%) Virtual Team
10 37 (2.21%) Freedom of Information
11 28 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
11 28 (1.67%) Operational Technology
12 27 (1.61%) NHS
13 25 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
14 21 (1.25%) AI Agents
15 20 (1.19%) Data Structures
15 20 (1.19%) Mobile App
16 19 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
16 19 (1.13%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 135 (8.06%) Windows
2 82 (4.90%) Linux
3 35 (2.09%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.91%) Android
5 31 (1.85%) Apple iOS
6 29 (1.73%) Unix
7 23 (1.37%) Mac OS
8 17 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 16 (0.96%) Windows 10
10 10 (0.60%) zOS
11 4 (0.24%) VMS
12 3 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.12%) AIX
13 2 (0.12%) CentOS
13 2 (0.12%) HPUX
13 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.060%) Rocky
14 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 359 (21.43%) Stakeholder Management
2 317 (18.93%) Agile
3 289 (17.25%) Problem-Solving
4 285 (17.01%) Continuous Improvement
5 242 (14.45%) CI/CD
6 225 (13.43%) DevOps
7 218 (13.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 215 (12.84%) Migration
9 213 (12.72%) AI
10 212 (12.66%) Cybersecurity
11 158 (9.43%) Decision-Making
12 157 (9.37%) Roadmaps
13 156 (9.31%) Data Governance
14 146 (8.72%) Analytics
15 144 (8.60%) Information Security
16 140 (8.36%) Validation
17 138 (8.24%) Risk Management
18 136 (8.12%) Infrastructure as Code
19 116 (6.93%) Data Modelling
20 110 (6.57%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 206 (12.30%) Python
2 162 (9.67%) SQL
3 100 (5.97%) Java
4 57 (3.40%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.34%) PowerShell
6 34 (2.03%) Bash
7 26 (1.55%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.13%) Go
9 17 (1.01%) C#
10 16 (0.96%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
12 14 (0.84%) Bicep
13 12 (0.72%) Perl
14 10 (0.60%) C++
15 8 (0.48%) C
15 8 (0.48%) Scala
15 8 (0.48%) VB
16 7 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
16 7 (0.42%) VB6
17 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 266 (15.88%) Security Cleared
2 196 (11.70%) SC Cleared
3 109 (6.51%) Degree
4 86 (5.13%) CISSP
5 61 (3.64%) DV Cleared
6 54 (3.22%) CISM
7 40 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
8 38 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (2.03%) Azure Certification
10 30 (1.79%) PMI Certification
11 27 (1.61%) PMP
12 26 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.37%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 23 (1.37%) AWS Certification
14 19 (1.13%) CCSP
15 14 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.66%) CCNP
16 11 (0.66%) CISA
16 11 (0.66%) CRISC
17 10 (0.60%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (14.51%) GDPR
2 111 (6.63%) Data Quality
3 103 (6.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (4.72%) NIST
5 78 (4.66%) QA
6 47 (2.81%) GRC
7 46 (2.75%) Accessibility
8 24 (1.43%) PCI DSS
8 24 (1.43%) PMO
9 18 (1.07%) Cyber Essentials
10 17 (1.01%) NCSC
10 17 (1.01%) SLA
11 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 13 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
12 11 (0.66%) PERC
12 11 (0.66%) WCAG
13 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 9 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
14 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 90 (5.37%) Active Directory
2 66 (3.94%) Docker
3 58 (3.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.25%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.54%) vSphere
7 8 (0.48%) NFS
8 7 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.30%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.18%) Time Sharing Option
11 3 (0.18%) XenApp
11 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
12 2 (0.12%) Firmware
12 2 (0.12%) GPFS
12 2 (0.12%) ISA Server
12 2 (0.12%) KVM
12 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 115 (6.87%) Kubernetes
2 45 (2.69%) Ansible
3 41 (2.45%) Microsoft Intune
4 25 (1.49%) Grafana
4 25 (1.49%) SCCM
5 18 (1.07%) Prometheus
6 16 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.90%) NetBackup
8 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.72%) Puppet
9 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
10 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (0.36%) Kibana
11 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.30%) CASB
11 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
11 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
11 5 (0.30%) QRadar
11 5 (0.30%) SCOM
12 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 347 (20.72%) Microsoft
2 87 (5.19%) ServiceNow
3 69 (4.12%) Oracle
4 67 (4.00%) Google
5 64 (3.82%) Cisco
6 59 (3.52%) VMware
7 45 (2.69%) Databricks
8 40 (2.39%) Splunk
9 35 (2.09%) SAP
10 33 (1.97%) Salesforce
11 26 (1.55%) Zscaler
12 22 (1.31%) Workday
13 21 (1.25%) IBM
14 20 (1.19%) CyberArk
15 19 (1.13%) Red Hat
16 16 (0.96%) Citrix
16 16 (0.96%) F5
17 15 (0.90%) Dell
17 15 (0.90%) NetApp
18 12 (0.72%) Veritas