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

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 85 86
Rank change year-on-year +7 +1 -1
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,672 935 1,013
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.17% 2.86% 2.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.73% 3.17% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 916 460 547
10th Percentile £313 £274 £204
25th Percentile £400 £373 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £594 £600
90th Percentile £700 £688 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £469 £475
% change year-on-year -1.12% -1.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 43 77
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 £15.39
25th Percentile £16.56 £14.78 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £19.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.37% -9.52% -48.83%
75th Percentile £33.75 £31.38 £28.75
90th Percentile £38.15 £34.78 £58.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £15.25 £19.50
% change year-on-year +39.34% -21.79% -36.59%

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 44,826 29,510 35,120
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.34% 85.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,774 18,532 22,551
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,642 1,578 2,152
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £13.25
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.46 £17.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £39.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -36.33% -7.06%
75th Percentile £68.55 £50.94 £62.76
90th Percentile £83.00 £69.13 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +84.88% -39.15% -1.45%

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 23 July 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 23 July 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 23 July 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 +9 1,416 £500 +4.44% 453
UK excluding London +15 924 £464 -1.12% 302
London +5 619 £525 +5.00% 194
Work from Home +15 485 £500 +6.67% 157
North of England +13 322 £475 +1.60% 79
South East +18 207 £475 -11.55% 90
Yorkshire -1 177 £480 -4.00% 25
Midlands -2 148 £470 -6.00% 58
North West +23 137 £475 +11.76% 49
Scotland +7 124 £425 -8.36% 14
West Midlands -19 110 £473 -5.40% 35
South West -11 69 £425 +6.25% 38
East Midlands +10 38 £447 +19.20% 23
East of England -6 35 £538 +13.16% 25
Wales -8 18 £413 +39.24% 5
Northern Ireland +6 10 £104 -78.86% 3
North East -50 10 £456 +10.61% 6

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 58 (3.47%) SharePoint
2 56 (3.35%) Confluence
3 24 (1.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.14%) Apache Spark
5 18 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
6 12 (0.72%) 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%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
11 2 (0.12%) Camunda
11 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 40 (2.39%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (2.21%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
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%) Trello
8 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
3 6 (0.36%) Aladdin
3 6 (0.36%) NEC Housing
3 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) iTrent
8 1 (0.060%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.060%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 370 (22.13%) Azure
2 277 (16.57%) AWS
3 144 (8.61%) GCP
4 119 (7.12%) Microsoft 365
5 93 (5.56%) Power Platform
6 88 (5.26%) Entra ID
7 69 (4.13%) SaaS
8 66 (3.95%) GitHub
9 58 (3.47%) Microsoft Purview
10 53 (3.17%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (2.57%) Serverless
12 41 (2.45%) OpenShift
13 34 (2.03%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (1.56%) AWS Lambda
14 26 (1.56%) OneDrive
15 25 (1.50%) PowerApps
16 24 (1.44%) Amazon S3
16 24 (1.44%) Power Automate
17 22 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (1.32%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 87 (5.20%) Network Security
2 54 (3.23%) Firewall
3 35 (2.09%) VPN
4 28 (1.67%) DNS
5 27 (1.61%) SAN
6 24 (1.44%) TCP/IP
7 22 (1.32%) DHCP
7 22 (1.32%) WAN
8 17 (1.02%) LAN
9 16 (0.96%) NAS
10 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.78%) HTTP
11 13 (0.78%) SSL
12 11 (0.66%) Cisco IPT
13 10 (0.60%) MPLS
13 10 (0.60%) Wireless
14 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
14 8 (0.48%) Intrusion Detection
14 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
15 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.31%) Power BI
2 44 (2.63%) Metadata
3 43 (2.57%) PostgreSQL
4 40 (2.39%) SQL Server
5 32 (1.91%) Relational Database
6 31 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
7 26 (1.56%) Data Lake
8 24 (1.44%) MySQL
8 24 (1.44%) NoSQL
9 20 (1.20%) Big Data
10 19 (1.14%) MongoDB
11 18 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
12 14 (0.84%) BigQuery
12 14 (0.84%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.66%) Tableau
15 10 (0.60%) DynamoDB
16 9 (0.54%) Ingres
16 9 (0.54%) RDBMS
17 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 98 (5.86%) JIRA
2 69 (4.13%) Git
3 63 (3.77%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.09%) GitLab
5 12 (0.72%) Maven
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (0.54%) Postman
8 8 (0.48%) Gradle
8 8 (0.48%) Team Foundation Server
9 7 (0.42%) JUnit
9 7 (0.42%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.36%) Flyway
10 6 (0.36%) Selenium
11 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
11 5 (0.30%) ERwin
11 5 (0.30%) SpecFlow
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) TestNG
12 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 568 (33.97%) Social Skills
2 363 (21.71%) Finance
3 257 (15.37%) Legal
4 196 (11.72%) Analytical Skills
5 174 (10.41%) Public Sector
6 118 (7.06%) Banking
7 70 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
8 63 (3.77%) Organisational Skills
9 38 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (2.09%) Local Government
10 35 (2.09%) Retail
11 34 (2.03%) Telecoms
12 28 (1.67%) Marketing
13 27 (1.61%) Law
14 25 (1.50%) Front Office
15 21 (1.26%) Billing
15 21 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
15 21 (1.26%) Police
15 21 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
16 17 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 236 (14.11%) Architect
2 157 (9.39%) Analyst
3 136 (8.13%) Lead
4 130 (7.78%) Developer
5 126 (7.54%) Senior
6 98 (5.86%) Consultant
7 85 (5.08%) Project Manager
8 71 (4.25%) Business Analyst
9 64 (3.83%) Solutions Architect
10 54 (3.23%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.51%) Data Engineer
11 42 (2.51%) Security Engineer
12 39 (2.33%) Administrator
12 39 (2.33%) Java Developer
13 34 (2.03%) Network Engineer
14 29 (1.73%) Support Engineer
14 29 (1.73%) Technical Architect
15 28 (1.67%) Data Analyst
15 28 (1.67%) IT Support
16 25 (1.50%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (5.38%) REST
2 52 (3.11%) React
3 39 (2.33%) Spring
4 37 (2.21%) Middleware
5 35 (2.09%) JSON
6 34 (2.03%) CSS
6 34 (2.03%) Spring Boot
7 33 (1.97%) Kafka
8 32 (1.91%) HTML
9 29 (1.73%) RESTful
10 27 (1.61%) OAuth
11 23 (1.38%) .NET
12 20 (1.20%) Node.js
13 19 (1.14%) CSS3
13 19 (1.14%) HTML5
14 18 (1.08%) Redux
15 17 (1.02%) Jest
16 16 (0.96%) GraphQL
17 15 (0.90%) OpenID
17 15 (0.90%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 753 (45.04%) Data Protection Act
2 93 (5.56%) Cloud Native
3 92 (5.50%) Product Ownership
4 75 (4.49%) Onboarding
5 62 (3.71%) Management Information System
6 47 (2.81%) Data Centre
6 47 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
7 45 (2.69%) Distributed Systems
8 43 (2.57%) Virtual Team
9 37 (2.21%) Security Posture
10 25 (1.50%) Operational Technology
11 24 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
11 24 (1.44%) Replication
12 23 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
13 20 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
13 20 (1.20%) Mobile App
13 20 (1.20%) NHS
14 19 (1.14%) Enterprise Storage
15 17 (1.02%) Data Structures
16 16 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 127 (7.60%) Windows
2 79 (4.72%) Linux
3 28 (1.67%) Android
3 28 (1.67%) Apple iOS
4 27 (1.61%) Unix
5 26 (1.56%) Windows Server
6 24 (1.44%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.78%) VMS
9 12 (0.72%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.36%) CoreOS
10 6 (0.36%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (0.36%) zOS
11 2 (0.12%) Rocky
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.060%) CentOS
12 1 (0.060%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 318 (19.02%) Agile
2 302 (18.06%) Problem-Solving
3 296 (17.70%) Stakeholder Management
4 258 (15.43%) Continuous Improvement
5 239 (14.29%) DevOps
6 229 (13.70%) CI/CD
6 229 (13.70%) Migration
7 202 (12.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 191 (11.42%) AI
9 156 (9.33%) Cybersecurity
10 152 (9.09%) Decision-Making
11 151 (9.03%) Roadmaps
12 148 (8.85%) Analytics
13 137 (8.19%) Data Governance
14 122 (7.30%) Validation
15 121 (7.24%) Information Security
15 121 (7.24%) Risk Management
16 112 (6.70%) Data Modelling
16 112 (6.70%) Infrastructure as Code
17 98 (5.86%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 213 (12.74%) Python
2 169 (10.11%) SQL
3 115 (6.88%) Java
4 63 (3.77%) JavaScript
5 55 (3.29%) PowerShell
6 43 (2.57%) Bash
7 32 (1.91%) TypeScript
8 26 (1.56%) C#
9 17 (1.02%) Go
10 16 (0.96%) Bicep
11 13 (0.78%) Apex Code
11 13 (0.78%) Kotlin
12 9 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
12 9 (0.54%) Perl
12 9 (0.54%) VB
13 8 (0.48%) Scala
13 8 (0.48%) VB6
14 7 (0.42%) C++
15 6 (0.36%) Groovy
16 5 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 249 (14.89%) Security Cleared
2 186 (11.12%) SC Cleared
3 121 (7.24%) Degree
4 78 (4.67%) CISSP
5 59 (3.53%) DV Cleared
6 45 (2.69%) CISM
7 37 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
8 33 (1.97%) Azure Certification
8 33 (1.97%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
10 28 (1.67%) PMI Certification
11 25 (1.50%) AWS Certification
11 25 (1.50%) PMP
12 19 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
13 17 (1.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 15 (0.90%) CCSP
15 13 (0.78%) Master's Degree
16 11 (0.66%) CCNP
17 10 (0.60%) CISA
18 9 (0.54%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 253 (15.13%) GDPR
2 99 (5.92%) Data Quality
3 83 (4.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 83 (4.96%) QA
4 77 (4.61%) NIST
5 46 (2.75%) GRC
6 43 (2.57%) Accessibility
7 27 (1.61%) PMO
8 22 (1.32%) PCI DSS
9 20 (1.20%) NCSC
9 20 (1.20%) SLA
10 16 (0.96%) SOC 2
11 13 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 12 (0.72%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.66%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.66%) WCAG
14 10 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
14 10 (0.60%) PERC
15 8 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 6 (0.36%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 84 (5.02%) Active Directory
2 66 (3.95%) Docker
3 56 (3.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.96%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.90%) NFS
6 14 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.78%) vSphere
8 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.36%) VMware NSX
11 5 (0.30%) KVM
11 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
13 3 (0.18%) IAG
13 3 (0.18%) XenApp
13 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
14 2 (0.12%) GPFS
14 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
14 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 117 (7.00%) Kubernetes
2 88 (5.26%) Terraform
3 59 (3.53%) Ansible
4 43 (2.57%) Microsoft Intune
5 35 (2.09%) Grafana
6 29 (1.73%) NetBackup
7 24 (1.44%) Prometheus
8 22 (1.32%) SCCM
9 19 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.96%) Puppet
11 14 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
12 11 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.42%) Kibana
13 7 (0.42%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.36%) SnapMirror
15 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
15 5 (0.30%) QRadar
16 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
16 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 300 (17.94%) Microsoft
2 80 (4.78%) ServiceNow
3 78 (4.67%) Oracle
4 65 (3.89%) Google
5 57 (3.41%) VMware
6 54 (3.23%) Cisco
7 50 (2.99%) Databricks
8 41 (2.45%) SAP
9 36 (2.15%) Splunk
10 32 (1.91%) Red Hat
11 28 (1.67%) Salesforce
12 23 (1.38%) Workday
12 23 (1.38%) Zscaler
13 22 (1.32%) NetApp
14 21 (1.26%) Veritas
15 18 (1.08%) CyberArk
16 16 (0.96%) Citrix
17 15 (0.90%) Commvault
17 15 (0.90%) IBM
18 14 (0.84%) Dell