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

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 73 85
Rank change year-on-year -12 +12 +1
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,696 1,099 993
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 3.32% 2.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.68% 3.67% 3.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 872 533 523
10th Percentile £263 £289 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £458 £475
% change year-on-year -1.64% -3.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 112 56 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.05 £13.60 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.50 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +8.18% -40.73% +15.15%
75th Percentile £24.25 £20.71 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £31.43 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.50 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +14.75% -39.00% +19.05%

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 46,126 29,916 32,545
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.50% 85.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,740 18,573 19,640
10th Percentile £325 £295 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,322 1,863 1,307
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.63% -7.56%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.21 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.95 £65.23 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.32 £42.50
% change year-on-year +68.05% -47.49% -

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 8 October 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 8 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Protection in the UK

Data Protection
Top 18 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 8 October 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 -13 1,406 £500 - 1,848
UK excluding London +1 950 £450 -1.64% 1,093
London -33 588 £525 - 849
Work from Home +6 467 £500 +11.11% 735
North of England +16 348 £463 +2.78% 324
South East -1 201 £475 -5.94% 247
Yorkshire +10 175 £475 -6.17% 132
Midlands +4 161 £450 -5.26% 161
North West +14 148 £450 +2.27% 165
West Midlands +8 129 £450 -10.00% 88
Scotland -7 121 £450 +5.88% 85
South West -18 62 £500 +17.65% 101
East of England -24 36 £503 +5.79% 95
East Midlands -4 32 £435 +8.75% 73
North East -42 26 £456 +14.06% 28
Wales -1 19 £413 +11.86% 40
Northern Ireland +8 16 £115 -83.57% 41
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 -17.24% 5

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 72 (4.25%) SharePoint
2 34 (2.00%) Confluence
3 27 (1.59%) Apache Airflow
4 26 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
5 19 (1.12%) Apache Spark
6 14 (0.83%) Apache
7 13 (0.77%) IIS
8 11 (0.65%) CMS
9 10 (0.59%) SAS
10 6 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.35%) WordPress
11 5 (0.29%) nginx
11 5 (0.29%) Tuxedo
12 3 (0.18%) CICS
12 3 (0.18%) Jupyter
13 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
13 2 (0.12%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.12%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.12%) WebSphere
14 1 (0.059%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 54 (3.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 53 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.41%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
8 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.059%) Maya
8 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.53%) SAP MDG
4 5 (0.29%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Cloudability
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 1 (0.059%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.059%) FastStats
8 1 (0.059%) Raiser’s Edge
8 1 (0.059%) Sage 50
8 1 (0.059%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.059%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 378 (22.29%) Azure
2 296 (17.45%) AWS
3 141 (8.31%) Microsoft 365
4 131 (7.72%) GCP
5 81 (4.78%) Power Platform
6 79 (4.66%) Entra ID
7 74 (4.36%) SaaS
8 67 (3.95%) Azure DevOps
9 60 (3.54%) GitHub
10 54 (3.18%) Microsoft Purview
11 51 (3.01%) Serverless
12 40 (2.36%) Microsoft Copilot
13 30 (1.77%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.53%) GitHub Actions
14 26 (1.53%) Snowflake
15 25 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
16 22 (1.30%) OpenShift
16 22 (1.30%) Power Automate
17 21 (1.24%) Azure Monitor
17 21 (1.24%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 96 (5.66%) Network Security
2 65 (3.83%) Firewall
3 37 (2.18%) VPN
4 36 (2.12%) DNS
5 28 (1.65%) TCP/IP
6 25 (1.47%) DHCP
7 22 (1.30%) WAN
8 21 (1.24%) LAN
9 20 (1.18%) Cisco IPT
10 15 (0.88%) MPLS
10 15 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.83%) SAN
12 13 (0.77%) Wireless
13 11 (0.65%) HTTP
13 11 (0.65%) SSL
13 11 (0.65%) Unified Communications
13 11 (0.65%) VoIP
14 10 (0.59%) Cisco ISE
15 9 (0.53%) Internet
15 9 (0.53%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (3.42%) Power BI
2 54 (3.18%) Metadata
3 41 (2.42%) Relational Database
4 38 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
5 35 (2.06%) SQL Server
6 29 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.42%) NoSQL
8 23 (1.36%) BigQuery
9 22 (1.30%) Data Lake
10 16 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
11 15 (0.88%) Big Data
12 14 (0.83%) MongoDB
13 11 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (0.65%) Oracle Database
14 10 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
15 9 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
15 9 (0.53%) Redis
16 8 (0.47%) DynamoDB
16 8 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
16 8 (0.47%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 78 (4.60%) JIRA
2 73 (4.30%) Git
3 60 (3.54%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.53%) GitLab
5 19 (1.12%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Maven
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.59%) Postman
7 6 (0.35%) Cypress.io
7 6 (0.35%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
8 5 (0.29%) Gradle
8 5 (0.29%) JUnit
9 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.24%) Mockito
10 3 (0.18%) ERwin
10 3 (0.18%) Mocha
10 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
General
1 698 (41.16%) Social Skills
2 371 (21.88%) Finance
3 256 (15.09%) Legal
4 224 (13.21%) Public Sector
5 222 (13.09%) Analytical Skills
6 120 (7.08%) Banking
7 89 (5.25%) Organisational Skills
8 71 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
9 48 (2.83%) Influencing Skills
10 44 (2.59%) Local Government
11 40 (2.36%) Presentation Skills
12 37 (2.18%) Retail
13 29 (1.71%) Law
13 29 (1.71%) Telecoms
14 28 (1.65%) Marketing
15 23 (1.36%) Front Office
16 22 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
16 22 (1.30%) Police
17 21 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 20 (1.18%) Billing
Job Titles
1 253 (14.92%) Architect
2 175 (10.32%) Analyst
3 139 (8.20%) Lead
4 124 (7.31%) Senior
5 100 (5.90%) Developer
6 75 (4.42%) Project Manager
7 72 (4.25%) Business Analyst
8 71 (4.19%) Consultant
9 70 (4.13%) Solutions Architect
10 63 (3.71%) Security Architect
11 57 (3.36%) Administrator
12 44 (2.59%) Security Engineer
13 41 (2.42%) Information Officer
14 38 (2.24%) Information Governance Officer
15 36 (2.12%) Support Engineer
16 33 (1.95%) Data Engineer
17 32 (1.89%) Data Analyst
18 28 (1.65%) Network Engineer
19 27 (1.59%) Data Architect
20 26 (1.53%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (6.43%) Terraform
2 96 (5.66%) REST
3 45 (2.65%) Kafka
4 38 (2.24%) OAuth
5 36 (2.12%) JSON
6 35 (2.06%) Middleware
7 28 (1.65%) RESTful
8 25 (1.47%) React
9 24 (1.42%) .NET
9 24 (1.42%) Node.js
9 24 (1.42%) OAuth2
10 22 (1.30%) Spring
11 21 (1.24%) Spring Boot
12 20 (1.18%) HTML
13 18 (1.06%) CSS
14 17 (1.00%) OpenID
15 15 (0.88%) SOAP
16 14 (0.83%) OpenAPI
16 14 (0.83%) Swagger
16 14 (0.83%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 697 (41.10%) Data Protection Act
2 141 (8.31%) Management Information System
3 103 (6.07%) Product Ownership
4 93 (5.48%) Cloud Native
5 92 (5.42%) Onboarding
6 63 (3.71%) Data Centre
7 61 (3.60%) Distributed Systems
8 46 (2.71%) Freedom of Information
9 45 (2.65%) Legacy Systems
10 41 (2.42%) Security Posture
11 33 (1.95%) Virtual Team
12 32 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
13 31 (1.83%) Data Structures
14 29 (1.71%) AI Agents
14 29 (1.71%) NHS
15 28 (1.65%) Operational Technology
15 28 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
16 21 (1.24%) Private Cloud
17 20 (1.18%) Public Cloud
18 19 (1.12%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 134 (7.90%) Windows
2 83 (4.89%) Linux
3 39 (2.30%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.89%) Apple iOS
5 30 (1.77%) Unix
6 29 (1.71%) Android
7 22 (1.30%) Mac OS
8 16 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.71%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.47%) zOS
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) HPUX
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) VMS
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.059%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 433 (25.53%) Stakeholder Management
2 328 (19.34%) Agile
3 296 (17.45%) Continuous Improvement
3 296 (17.45%) Problem-Solving
4 258 (15.21%) CI/CD
5 241 (14.21%) Cybersecurity
6 240 (14.15%) AI
7 232 (13.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 223 (13.15%) Migration
9 215 (12.68%) DevOps
10 181 (10.67%) Roadmaps
11 166 (9.79%) Decision-Making
12 164 (9.67%) Risk Management
13 163 (9.61%) Information Security
14 155 (9.14%) Infrastructure as Code
15 151 (8.90%) Data Governance
16 146 (8.61%) Analytics
17 138 (8.14%) Validation
18 128 (7.55%) Test Automation
19 122 (7.19%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 212 (12.50%) Python
2 165 (9.73%) SQL
3 78 (4.60%) Java
4 63 (3.71%) PowerShell
5 47 (2.77%) JavaScript
6 35 (2.06%) Bash
7 30 (1.77%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.59%) Go
9 21 (1.24%) Bicep
10 20 (1.18%) C#
11 16 (0.94%) Scala
12 13 (0.77%) Apex Code
12 13 (0.77%) Kotlin
13 12 (0.71%) Perl
14 9 (0.53%) C
15 8 (0.47%) C++
15 8 (0.47%) Kusto Query Language
15 8 (0.47%) VB
16 7 (0.41%) COBOL
16 7 (0.41%) VB6
Qualifications
1 283 (16.69%) Security Cleared
2 212 (12.50%) SC Cleared
3 121 (7.13%) Degree
4 84 (4.95%) CISSP
5 60 (3.54%) DV Cleared
6 55 (3.24%) BPSS Clearance
7 53 (3.13%) CISM
8 45 (2.65%) Cisco Certification
9 33 (1.95%) PMI Certification
10 30 (1.77%) PMP
11 28 (1.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 28 (1.65%) Azure Certification
12 27 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
13 26 (1.53%) CCSP
14 19 (1.12%) AWS Certification
15 14 (0.83%) CRISC
16 13 (0.77%) CISA
17 12 (0.71%) CCNP
17 12 (0.71%) Master's Degree
18 9 (0.53%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 240 (14.15%) GDPR
2 122 (7.19%) Data Quality
3 107 (6.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (4.42%) NIST
5 69 (4.07%) QA
6 52 (3.07%) Accessibility
6 52 (3.07%) GRC
7 32 (1.89%) PCI DSS
8 26 (1.53%) NCSC
9 25 (1.47%) Cyber Essentials
10 20 (1.18%) PMO
11 15 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 14 (0.83%) SLA
13 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.65%) PERC
14 11 (0.65%) WCAG
15 10 (0.59%) HIPAA
16 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
16 9 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 9 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 82 (4.83%) Active Directory
2 71 (4.19%) Docker
3 62 (3.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
5 14 (0.83%) vSphere
6 13 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.71%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.29%) ISA Server
8 5 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.18%) NFS
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) IAG
11 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.059%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.059%) Firmware
12 1 (0.059%) KVM
12 1 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.059%) OpenSSH
12 1 (0.059%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 117 (6.90%) Kubernetes
2 49 (2.89%) Ansible
3 38 (2.24%) Microsoft Intune
4 34 (2.00%) Grafana
5 20 (1.18%) SCCM
6 16 (0.94%) Prometheus
7 15 (0.88%) Kibana
8 13 (0.77%) NetBackup
8 13 (0.77%) Progress Chef
9 12 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
9 12 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.59%) Puppet
11 8 (0.47%) CASB
12 5 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (0.29%) QRadar
12 5 (0.29%) SCOM
13 4 (0.24%) Control-M
13 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
14 3 (0.18%) EMC NetWorker
14 3 (0.18%) Istio
Vendors
1 386 (22.76%) Microsoft
2 89 (5.25%) ServiceNow
3 88 (5.19%) Google
4 75 (4.42%) Cisco
5 67 (3.95%) Oracle
6 65 (3.83%) VMware
7 48 (2.83%) Databricks
8 43 (2.54%) SAP
9 42 (2.48%) Splunk
10 30 (1.77%) Salesforce
11 27 (1.59%) Zscaler
12 21 (1.24%) IBM
13 18 (1.06%) CyberArk
13 18 (1.06%) Dynatrace
13 18 (1.06%) Workday
14 17 (1.00%) F5
15 16 (0.94%) Dell
16 15 (0.88%) Red Hat
17 14 (0.83%) MuleSoft
18 13 (0.77%) SolarWinds