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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 75 85
Rank change year-on-year -9 +10 -3
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,665 1,092 1,011
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.06% 3.33% 2.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.63% 3.67% 3.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 852 526 530
10th Percentile £260 £291 £212
25th Percentile £400 £400 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -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 107 52 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.16 £13.54 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -45.22% +10.85%
75th Percentile £24.44 £20.48 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £34.27 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +13.02%

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 45,850 29,737 32,777
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.30% 90.62% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,722 18,491 19,844
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,198 1,854 1,372
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.25 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.07% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.72 £65.00 £74.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +1.18%

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 28 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 28 September 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 28 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 -15 1,380 £500 +1.83% 1,463
UK excluding London -2 930 £450 -1.64% 895
London -30 581 £525 - 647
Work from Home +10 459 £500 +11.11% 589
North of England +9 333 £463 +2.78% 278
South East +2 195 £465 -8.92% 207
Yorkshire +11 166 £475 -5.00% 103
Midlands +10 161 £450 -5.26% 138
North West +4 146 £450 +2.56% 152
West Midlands +8 129 £450 -10.00% 83
Scotland -14 120 £450 +5.88% 59
South West -19 67 £463 +15.63% 75
East of England -11 33 £500 +5.26% 75
East Midlands -7 32 £435 +8.75% 55
North East -45 22 £463 +15.63% 26
Wales -7 20 £413 +11.86% 30
Northern Ireland +4 15 £110 -84.36% 36
Channel Islands -3 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 68 (4.08%) SharePoint
2 36 (2.16%) Confluence
3 24 (1.44%) Apache Airflow
4 23 (1.38%) Microsoft Exchange
5 18 (1.08%) Apache Spark
6 12 (0.72%) Apache
6 12 (0.72%) CMS
6 12 (0.72%) IIS
7 10 (0.60%) SAS
8 7 (0.42%) WordPress
9 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
10 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.24%) nginx
11 3 (0.18%) CICS
12 2 (0.12%) Drupal
12 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
13 1 (0.060%) Cloud Foundry
13 1 (0.060%) Moodle
13 1 (0.060%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 50 (3.00%) Microsoft Office
2 44 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.42%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 1 (0.060%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.060%) Maya
7 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.48%) SAP MDG
3 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
4 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
6 2 (0.12%) Endur
6 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 1 (0.060%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
7 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.060%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
7 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 372 (22.34%) Azure
2 294 (17.66%) AWS
3 134 (8.05%) Microsoft 365
4 131 (7.87%) GCP
5 76 (4.56%) Entra ID
6 75 (4.50%) Power Platform
6 75 (4.50%) SaaS
7 63 (3.78%) Azure DevOps
8 59 (3.54%) GitHub
9 55 (3.30%) Microsoft Purview
10 46 (2.76%) Serverless
11 38 (2.28%) Microsoft Copilot
12 27 (1.62%) OneDrive
12 27 (1.62%) OpenShift
13 25 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
14 24 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
15 22 (1.32%) Power Automate
15 22 (1.32%) Snowflake
16 21 (1.26%) PowerApps
17 20 (1.20%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 92 (5.53%) Network Security
2 64 (3.84%) Firewall
3 36 (2.16%) VPN
4 35 (2.10%) DNS
5 26 (1.56%) TCP/IP
6 25 (1.50%) DHCP
7 21 (1.26%) WAN
8 19 (1.14%) Cisco IPT
8 19 (1.14%) LAN
9 16 (0.96%) SAN
10 14 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.78%) MPLS
12 12 (0.72%) Wireless
13 11 (0.66%) SSL
14 10 (0.60%) HTTP
14 10 (0.60%) NAS
14 10 (0.60%) VoIP
15 9 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
15 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
15 9 (0.54%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (3.36%) Power BI
2 51 (3.06%) Metadata
3 41 (2.46%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
5 32 (1.92%) SQL Server
6 24 (1.44%) NoSQL
7 22 (1.32%) BigQuery
7 22 (1.32%) Data Lake
8 16 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
9 14 (0.84%) Big Data
10 13 (0.78%) MongoDB
11 12 (0.72%) MySQL
12 11 (0.66%) Oracle Reports
13 10 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
14 9 (0.54%) Oracle Database
15 8 (0.48%) Amazon Redshift
15 8 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
16 7 (0.42%) Amazon Aurora
16 7 (0.42%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 80 (4.80%) JIRA
2 68 (4.08%) Git
3 56 (3.36%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.56%) GitLab
5 18 (1.08%) Selenium
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.60%) Postman
7 9 (0.54%) Maven
8 6 (0.36%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) ERwin
11 3 (0.18%) Mockito
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 663 (39.82%) Social Skills
2 356 (21.38%) Finance
3 248 (14.89%) Legal
4 218 (13.09%) Analytical Skills
5 214 (12.85%) Public Sector
6 118 (7.09%) Banking
7 80 (4.80%) Organisational Skills
8 72 (4.32%) Documentation Skills
9 46 (2.76%) Influencing Skills
9 46 (2.76%) Local Government
10 40 (2.40%) Presentation Skills
11 38 (2.28%) Retail
12 32 (1.92%) Law
13 28 (1.68%) Marketing
14 27 (1.62%) Front Office
15 25 (1.50%) Telecoms
16 22 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
17 21 (1.26%) Police
18 18 (1.08%) Billing
19 16 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 248 (14.89%) Architect
2 168 (10.09%) Analyst
3 135 (8.11%) Lead
4 127 (7.63%) Senior
5 104 (6.25%) Developer
6 78 (4.68%) Consultant
7 76 (4.56%) Project Manager
8 67 (4.02%) Business Analyst
9 66 (3.96%) Solutions Architect
10 57 (3.42%) Security Architect
11 51 (3.06%) Administrator
12 44 (2.64%) Security Engineer
13 37 (2.22%) Information Officer
14 36 (2.16%) Support Engineer
15 33 (1.98%) Information Governance Officer
16 32 (1.92%) Data Analyst
17 30 (1.80%) Data Engineer
18 28 (1.68%) Network Engineer
19 27 (1.62%) Data Architect
20 25 (1.50%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (5.89%) Terraform
2 92 (5.53%) REST
3 40 (2.40%) Kafka
4 35 (2.10%) JSON
4 35 (2.10%) OAuth
5 32 (1.92%) Middleware
6 28 (1.68%) React
7 25 (1.50%) RESTful
7 25 (1.50%) Spring
8 24 (1.44%) HTML
9 23 (1.38%) .NET
9 23 (1.38%) Spring Boot
10 22 (1.32%) CSS
10 22 (1.32%) OAuth2
11 20 (1.20%) Node.js
12 17 (1.02%) OpenID
13 16 (0.96%) SOAP
14 13 (0.78%) GraphQL
14 13 (0.78%) Swagger
14 13 (0.78%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 691 (41.50%) Data Protection Act
2 126 (7.57%) Management Information System
3 100 (6.01%) Product Ownership
4 94 (5.65%) Onboarding
5 91 (5.47%) Cloud Native
6 61 (3.66%) Data Centre
7 57 (3.42%) Distributed Systems
8 44 (2.64%) Legacy Systems
9 43 (2.58%) Freedom of Information
10 40 (2.40%) Security Posture
11 38 (2.28%) Virtual Team
12 31 (1.86%) NHS
13 30 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
13 30 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
14 28 (1.68%) Operational Technology
15 25 (1.50%) Data Structures
16 24 (1.44%) AI Agents
17 23 (1.38%) Mobile App
18 21 (1.26%) Private Cloud
19 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 128 (7.69%) Windows
2 80 (4.80%) Linux
3 35 (2.10%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.92%) Apple iOS
5 31 (1.86%) Android
6 29 (1.74%) Unix
7 22 (1.32%) Mac OS
8 16 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 14 (0.84%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.48%) zOS
11 4 (0.24%) VMS
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) CentOS
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.060%) MVS
13 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 398 (23.90%) Stakeholder Management
2 319 (19.16%) Agile
3 292 (17.54%) Problem-Solving
4 285 (17.12%) Continuous Improvement
5 243 (14.59%) CI/CD
6 233 (13.99%) AI
7 226 (13.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 225 (13.51%) Cybersecurity
9 221 (13.27%) Migration
10 209 (12.55%) DevOps
11 167 (10.03%) Roadmaps
12 165 (9.91%) Decision-Making
13 160 (9.61%) Risk Management
14 159 (9.55%) Information Security
15 149 (8.95%) Data Governance
16 147 (8.83%) Infrastructure as Code
17 142 (8.53%) Analytics
18 140 (8.41%) Validation
19 119 (7.15%) Information Governance
20 118 (7.09%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 209 (12.55%) Python
2 165 (9.91%) SQL
3 81 (4.86%) Java
4 61 (3.66%) PowerShell
5 48 (2.88%) JavaScript
6 33 (1.98%) Bash
7 28 (1.68%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.50%) Go
9 18 (1.08%) Bicep
9 18 (1.08%) C#
10 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
10 15 (0.90%) Scala
11 14 (0.84%) Apex Code
12 12 (0.72%) Perl
13 9 (0.54%) C
14 8 (0.48%) C++
14 8 (0.48%) VB
15 7 (0.42%) COBOL
15 7 (0.42%) VB6
16 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 272 (16.34%) Security Cleared
2 200 (12.01%) SC Cleared
3 113 (6.79%) Degree
4 84 (5.05%) CISSP
5 60 (3.60%) DV Cleared
6 51 (3.06%) CISM
7 48 (2.88%) BPSS Clearance
8 46 (2.76%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (1.74%) Azure Certification
9 29 (1.74%) PMI Certification
10 28 (1.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 27 (1.62%) PMP
12 25 (1.50%) CCSP
12 25 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
13 17 (1.02%) AWS Certification
14 13 (0.78%) CCNP
14 13 (0.78%) CRISC
15 12 (0.72%) CISA
16 11 (0.66%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 239 (14.35%) GDPR
2 118 (7.09%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 74 (4.44%) NIST
5 70 (4.20%) QA
6 52 (3.12%) GRC
7 49 (2.94%) Accessibility
8 29 (1.74%) PCI DSS
9 22 (1.32%) NCSC
10 21 (1.26%) Cyber Essentials
11 19 (1.14%) PMO
12 14 (0.84%) SLA
13 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.66%) PERC
15 11 (0.66%) WCAG
16 10 (0.60%) HIPAA
17 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
17 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 9 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 79 (4.74%) Active Directory
2 68 (4.08%) Docker
3 60 (3.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (1.02%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.78%) vSphere
6 12 (0.72%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.36%) NFS
9 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.24%) ISA Server
10 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) IAG
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
11 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.060%) KVM
12 1 (0.060%) OpenSSH
12 1 (0.060%) XenApp
12 1 (0.060%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 116 (6.97%) Kubernetes
2 48 (2.88%) Ansible
3 38 (2.28%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.56%) Grafana
5 20 (1.20%) SCCM
6 13 (0.78%) Kibana
6 13 (0.78%) NetBackup
6 13 (0.78%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
7 12 (0.72%) Progress Chef
8 11 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
9 10 (0.60%) Puppet
10 7 (0.42%) CASB
11 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
11 5 (0.30%) QRadar
11 5 (0.30%) SCOM
12 4 (0.24%) Control-M
12 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
13 3 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.18%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 367 (22.04%) Microsoft
2 89 (5.35%) ServiceNow
3 83 (4.98%) Google
4 70 (4.20%) Cisco
5 63 (3.78%) Oracle
6 61 (3.66%) VMware
7 46 (2.76%) Databricks
8 43 (2.58%) Splunk
9 36 (2.16%) SAP
10 30 (1.80%) Salesforce
11 28 (1.68%) Zscaler
12 21 (1.26%) Workday
13 20 (1.20%) IBM
14 17 (1.02%) CyberArk
14 17 (1.02%) Dell
14 17 (1.02%) F5
15 16 (0.96%) Red Hat
16 14 (0.84%) Dynatrace
16 14 (0.84%) MuleSoft
17 12 (0.72%) SolarWinds