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

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 93 85
Rank change year-on-year +23 -8 +10
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,530 796 1,076
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.19% 2.73% 2.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.78% 3.00% 2.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 843 400 579
10th Percentile £300 £257 £230
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £576 £603
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £478
% change year-on-year -5.26% -0.52% +0.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 31 108
10th Percentile £14.49 £16.25 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.53 £27.64 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.10% +31.62% -60.00%
75th Percentile £33.26 £32.95 £27.59
90th Percentile £48.75 £37.00 £41.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.76 £29.12 £19.50
% change year-on-year -28.70% +49.31% -56.21%

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 40,526 26,506 36,695
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.38% 90.99% 86.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,448 17,044 23,613
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,394 1,081 2,430
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.30 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £18.20 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.41 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +49.60% -21.13% +0.06%
75th Percentile £67.49 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.43 £37.50
% change year-on-year +76.96% -32.19% +7.14%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 +24 1,315 £493 -1.35% 409
UK excluding London +13 829 £450 -5.26% 278
London +27 601 £525 +5.00% 177
Work from Home +23 391 £500 +2.56% 141
North of England -4 269 £480 +1.05% 70
South East +8 182 £475 -5.00% 76
Yorkshire -6 157 £480 -5.19% 30
Midlands +2 134 £450 -10.00% 57
Scotland +4 122 £425 -8.60% 17
North West +6 104 £493 +19.39% 31
West Midlands -14 88 £459 -12.62% 37
South West -9 62 £410 +2.50% 28
East of England -1 48 £475 -11.63% 23
East Midlands +7 46 £437 +5.37% 20
Wales -3 11 £375 -9.09% 7
North East -35 9 £400 -4.48% 10
Northern Ireland +2 3 £389 -21.04% 3

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 56 (3.66%) Confluence
2 46 (3.01%) SharePoint
3 25 (1.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (0.98%) Apache Spark
5 13 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (0.46%) Apache
7 6 (0.39%) CMS
8 5 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (0.33%) SAS
9 3 (0.20%) Drupal
9 3 (0.20%) IIS
9 3 (0.20%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.13%) Ethereum
10 2 (0.13%) Hyperledger
10 2 (0.13%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.13%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.13%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 48 (3.14%) Microsoft Office
2 47 (3.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.33%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.20%) UserZoom
8 2 (0.13%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.065%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.065%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.065%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.065%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.065%) Blender
9 1 (0.065%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.065%) Maya
9 1 (0.065%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.065%) Trello
9 1 (0.065%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.78%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.33%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.33%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.26%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.20%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.13%) R3 Corda
7 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.065%) Endur
8 1 (0.065%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 310 (20.26%) Azure
2 253 (16.54%) AWS
3 131 (8.56%) GCP
4 91 (5.95%) Microsoft 365
5 86 (5.62%) Power Platform
6 79 (5.16%) Entra ID
7 69 (4.51%) GitHub
8 64 (4.18%) SaaS
9 49 (3.20%) Microsoft Purview
10 46 (3.01%) Azure DevOps
11 45 (2.94%) OpenShift
12 42 (2.75%) Serverless
13 29 (1.90%) Amazon S3
13 29 (1.90%) AWS Lambda
14 26 (1.70%) Microsoft Copilot
15 25 (1.63%) GitHub Actions
16 24 (1.57%) Amazon ECS
16 24 (1.57%) AWS CloudFormation
17 23 (1.50%) Snowflake
18 22 (1.44%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 62 (4.05%) Network Security
2 41 (2.68%) Firewall
3 38 (2.48%) SAN
4 26 (1.70%) NAS
4 26 (1.70%) VPN
5 21 (1.37%) DNS
6 19 (1.24%) MPLS
6 19 (1.24%) TCP/IP
6 19 (1.24%) WAN
7 18 (1.18%) LAN
8 13 (0.85%) DHCP
8 13 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
9 11 (0.72%) Fibre Channel
10 9 (0.59%) iSCSI
10 9 (0.59%) VLAN
11 7 (0.46%) BGP
11 7 (0.46%) Cisco Nexus
11 7 (0.46%) Ethernet
11 7 (0.46%) HTTP
11 7 (0.46%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.71%) Power BI
2 38 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
3 33 (2.16%) Metadata
3 33 (2.16%) SQL Server
4 31 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
5 28 (1.83%) MySQL
6 26 (1.70%) Relational Database
7 23 (1.50%) MongoDB
8 20 (1.31%) Big Data
9 19 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
10 18 (1.18%) Data Lake
10 18 (1.18%) NoSQL
11 13 (0.85%) DynamoDB
11 13 (0.85%) Oracle Database
11 13 (0.85%) Tableau
12 12 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
13 10 (0.65%) Amazon Aurora
13 10 (0.65%) BigQuery
13 10 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 92 (6.01%) JIRA
2 69 (4.51%) Git
3 66 (4.31%) Jenkins
4 38 (2.48%) GitLab
5 12 (0.78%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.65%) JUnit
7 8 (0.52%) Postman
7 8 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.39%) Maven
8 6 (0.39%) NUnit
9 5 (0.33%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.33%) Flyway
9 5 (0.33%) Team Foundation Server
10 4 (0.26%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.26%) Gradle
10 4 (0.26%) Selenium
11 3 (0.20%) Katalon Studio
11 3 (0.20%) Liquibase
11 3 (0.20%) TestNG
11 3 (0.20%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 471 (30.78%) Social Skills
2 354 (23.14%) Finance
3 189 (12.35%) Legal
4 177 (11.57%) Analytical Skills
5 131 (8.56%) Public Sector
6 121 (7.91%) Banking
7 61 (3.99%) Organisational Skills
8 59 (3.86%) Documentation Skills
9 42 (2.75%) Telecoms
10 31 (2.03%) Front Office
10 31 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.83%) Local Government
11 28 (1.83%) Marketing
12 27 (1.76%) Presentation Skills
13 24 (1.57%) Law
13 24 (1.57%) Retail
14 19 (1.24%) Police
15 14 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
16 12 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 10 (0.65%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 201 (13.14%) Architect
2 145 (9.48%) Analyst
3 132 (8.63%) Developer
4 114 (7.45%) Senior
5 113 (7.39%) Lead
6 95 (6.21%) Consultant
7 82 (5.36%) Project Manager
8 69 (4.51%) Business Analyst
9 58 (3.79%) Solutions Architect
10 43 (2.81%) Java Developer
10 43 (2.81%) Security Architect
11 39 (2.55%) Network Engineer
11 39 (2.55%) Security Engineer
12 38 (2.48%) Data Engineer
13 36 (2.35%) Administrator
14 28 (1.83%) Technical Architect
15 27 (1.76%) Data Analyst
16 24 (1.57%) Support Engineer
17 22 (1.44%) Python Developer
18 20 (1.31%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (5.03%) REST
2 60 (3.92%) React
3 40 (2.61%) Spring
4 36 (2.35%) Kafka
4 36 (2.35%) Spring Boot
5 35 (2.29%) .NET
6 33 (2.16%) RESTful
7 31 (2.03%) HTML
7 31 (2.03%) Middleware
8 30 (1.96%) CSS
9 28 (1.83%) Node.js
9 28 (1.83%) OAuth
10 24 (1.57%) JSON
11 22 (1.44%) Jest
12 18 (1.18%) HTML5
12 18 (1.18%) OAuth2
12 18 (1.18%) Redux
13 17 (1.11%) Playwright
13 17 (1.11%) Spring MVC
14 16 (1.05%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 729 (47.65%) Data Protection Act
2 96 (6.27%) Cloud Native
3 74 (4.84%) Product Ownership
4 65 (4.25%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.33%) Management Information System
6 45 (2.94%) Distributed Systems
7 36 (2.35%) Legacy Systems
8 34 (2.22%) Data Centre
9 31 (2.03%) Security Posture
10 29 (1.90%) Replication
11 28 (1.83%) NHS
12 26 (1.70%) Virtual Team
13 25 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
14 23 (1.50%) Enterprise Storage
14 23 (1.50%) Self-Motivation
15 21 (1.37%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 19 (1.24%) Freedom of Information
17 17 (1.11%) Derivative
18 16 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
18 16 (1.05%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 106 (6.93%) Windows
2 78 (5.10%) Linux
3 31 (2.03%) Unix
4 22 (1.44%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.31%) Android
6 19 (1.24%) Apple iOS
7 18 (1.18%) Mac OS
8 17 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.85%) VMS
9 13 (0.85%) Windows 10
10 9 (0.59%) zOS
11 7 (0.46%) Data ONTAP
12 6 (0.39%) CoreOS
13 2 (0.13%) Rocky
13 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.065%) CentOS
14 1 (0.065%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.065%) Solaris
14 1 (0.065%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 294 (19.22%) Agile
2 256 (16.73%) Stakeholder Management
3 253 (16.54%) Problem-Solving
4 234 (15.29%) Migration
5 224 (14.64%) CI/CD
6 219 (14.31%) DevOps
7 218 (14.25%) Continuous Improvement
8 146 (9.54%) AI
9 141 (9.22%) Analytics
10 139 (9.08%) Roadmaps
11 134 (8.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 126 (8.24%) Decision-Making
13 118 (7.71%) Cybersecurity
14 117 (7.65%) Risk Management
15 111 (7.25%) Information Security
16 109 (7.12%) Infrastructure as Code
17 102 (6.67%) Test Automation
18 98 (6.41%) Data Governance
19 97 (6.34%) Microservices
19 97 (6.34%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 217 (14.18%) Python
2 176 (11.50%) SQL
3 129 (8.43%) Java
4 79 (5.16%) JavaScript
5 57 (3.73%) PowerShell
6 48 (3.14%) C#
7 40 (2.61%) Bash
8 35 (2.29%) TypeScript
9 20 (1.31%) Bicep
10 15 (0.98%) C++
11 13 (0.85%) Perl
12 10 (0.65%) Kusto Query Language
13 9 (0.59%) Go
13 9 (0.59%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.59%) PL/SQL
13 9 (0.59%) Scala
13 9 (0.59%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.52%) ActionScript
15 7 (0.46%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.46%) R
Qualifications
1 208 (13.59%) Security Cleared
2 151 (9.87%) SC Cleared
3 126 (8.24%) Degree
4 64 (4.18%) CISSP
5 53 (3.46%) DV Cleared
6 35 (2.29%) CISM
7 32 (2.09%) Computer Science Degree
8 30 (1.96%) Cisco Certification
8 30 (1.96%) PMI Certification
9 29 (1.90%) Azure Certification
10 28 (1.83%) PMP
11 27 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
12 21 (1.37%) AWS Certification
12 21 (1.37%) Master's Degree
13 19 (1.24%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (1.05%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 14 (0.92%) CCSP
16 11 (0.72%) CTC Cleared
17 10 (0.65%) CCNP
17 10 (0.65%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (15.88%) GDPR
2 91 (5.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 91 (5.95%) NIST
3 73 (4.77%) Data Quality
4 67 (4.38%) QA
5 36 (2.35%) Accessibility
6 34 (2.22%) GRC
7 25 (1.63%) PCI DSS
8 21 (1.37%) PMO
9 20 (1.31%) SLA
10 19 (1.24%) SOC 2
11 16 (1.05%) NCSC
12 13 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.65%) WCAG
14 9 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
15 8 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
16 7 (0.46%) HIPAA
16 7 (0.46%) PERC
17 6 (0.39%) COBIT
18 5 (0.33%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 75 (4.90%) Active Directory
1 75 (4.90%) Docker
2 52 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (1.31%) NFS
4 17 (1.11%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (0.72%) vSphere
7 9 (0.59%) Hyper-V
8 7 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.46%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.39%) KVM
10 4 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.26%) Time Sharing Option
11 3 (0.20%) IAG
11 3 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.20%) XenApp
11 3 (0.20%) XenDesktop
12 2 (0.13%) GPFS
12 2 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.065%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 116 (7.58%) Kubernetes
2 97 (6.34%) Terraform
3 66 (4.31%) Ansible
4 49 (3.20%) Grafana
5 36 (2.35%) Microsoft Intune
6 31 (2.03%) Prometheus
7 28 (1.83%) NetBackup
8 21 (1.37%) SCCM
9 20 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.85%) Puppet
11 11 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
12 7 (0.46%) Kibana
12 7 (0.46%) SnapMirror
13 5 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.33%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 4 (0.26%) CA Single Sign-On
14 4 (0.26%) Control-M
14 4 (0.26%) Foglight
14 4 (0.26%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 243 (15.88%) Microsoft
2 75 (4.90%) Oracle
3 64 (4.18%) Google
4 56 (3.66%) ServiceNow
5 53 (3.46%) Databricks
5 53 (3.46%) VMware
6 48 (3.14%) Cisco
7 42 (2.75%) SAP
8 31 (2.03%) Red Hat
9 29 (1.90%) Splunk
10 26 (1.70%) NetApp
11 23 (1.50%) IBM
11 23 (1.50%) Salesforce
11 23 (1.50%) Veritas
12 20 (1.31%) Citrix
13 16 (1.05%) Commvault
13 16 (1.05%) Workday
14 15 (0.98%) F5
15 14 (0.92%) Dell
15 14 (0.92%) Informatica