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

6 months to
25 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 100 81
Rank change year-on-year +23 -19 +29
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,351 773 1,132
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.27% 2.54% 2.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.77% 2.82% 2.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 713 388 626
10th Percentile £275 £270 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £376
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £706
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £488 £450
% change year-on-year -7.69% +8.33% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 23 97
10th Percentile £13.13 £16.85 £12.25
25th Percentile £16.85 £24.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £30.00 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.97% +53.85% -72.14%
75th Percentile £24.19 £33.78 £25.00
90th Percentile £43.89 £60.82 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.23 £19.50
% change year-on-year -29.15% +49.90% -72.14%

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 35,855 27,377 38,366
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.81% 89.88% 87.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,757 16,975 25,075
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -2.28% -1.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,138 862 2,184
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.96 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.94 £33.00 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year -21.39% -0.20% -5.53%
75th Percentile £61.18 £63.75 £59.93
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.23 £71.97
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -21.41% -8.57% -

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 25 February 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 25 February 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 25 February 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 +31 1,156 £500 - 308
UK excluding London +21 722 £450 -7.69% 256
London +22 555 £525 +1.69% 118
Work from Home +23 319 £500 - 141
North of England -3 219 £470 -5.91% 61
South East +14 166 £475 -3.06% 95
Yorkshire +5 126 £487 -11.45% 17
Scotland +12 115 £405 -12.54% 12
Midlands +4 106 £450 -5.26% 40
North West -22 79 £433 -8.84% 42
West Midlands -17 63 £500 - 26
South West +3 50 £500 +2.56% 29
East of England +7 47 £350 -30.00% 16
East Midlands +4 43 £438 +6.06% 14
North East -25 15 £400 -15.79% 2
Wales +4 14 £375 -26.83% 5
Northern Ireland - 9 £500 - 1

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 (4.81%) Confluence
2 31 (2.29%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (0.67%) Apache Spark
6 7 (0.52%) Apache
7 5 (0.37%) CMS
8 4 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
9 3 (0.22%) Ethereum
9 3 (0.22%) Hyperledger
9 3 (0.22%) SAS
10 2 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.15%) Drupal
10 2 (0.15%) GeoServer
10 2 (0.15%) nginx
10 2 (0.15%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.15%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.074%) Mule
Applications
1 51 (3.77%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (3.18%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.52%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.22%) AutoCAD
8 3 (0.22%) Sketch
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.15%) InVision
9 2 (0.15%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.074%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.074%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.074%) Blender
10 1 (0.074%) CINEMA 4D
10 1 (0.074%) Final Cut Pro
10 1 (0.074%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 13 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.74%) Aladdin
3 9 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.67%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.37%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.30%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.22%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.22%) Fidessa
6 3 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.22%) R3 Corda
6 3 (0.22%) ResourceLink
6 3 (0.22%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.15%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.074%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 246 (18.21%) Azure
2 218 (16.14%) AWS
3 104 (7.70%) GCP
4 68 (5.03%) Microsoft 365
5 64 (4.74%) Power Platform
6 58 (4.29%) GitHub
7 55 (4.07%) Entra ID
8 53 (3.92%) Serverless
9 44 (3.26%) SaaS
10 42 (3.11%) AWS Lambda
11 41 (3.03%) Amazon S3
12 37 (2.74%) Azure DevOps
13 31 (2.29%) AWS CloudFormation
13 31 (2.29%) OpenShift
14 29 (2.15%) Microsoft Purview
14 29 (2.15%) Snowflake
15 24 (1.78%) GitHub Actions
16 23 (1.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 20 (1.48%) Amazon EC2
17 20 (1.48%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.18%) Firewall
2 39 (2.89%) Network Security
3 29 (2.15%) SAN
4 19 (1.41%) MPLS
5 18 (1.33%) LAN
5 18 (1.33%) VPN
6 17 (1.26%) NAS
7 15 (1.11%) Cisco IPT
7 15 (1.11%) DNS
7 15 (1.11%) WAN
8 14 (1.04%) TCP/IP
9 9 (0.67%) BGP
9 9 (0.67%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.59%) HTTP
10 8 (0.59%) SSH
10 8 (0.59%) VLAN
11 6 (0.44%) Fibre Channel
11 6 (0.44%) Internet
11 6 (0.44%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (4.44%) Power BI
2 36 (2.66%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (2.59%) SQL Server
4 24 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
5 23 (1.70%) Metadata
6 19 (1.41%) Relational Database
7 18 (1.33%) NoSQL
8 17 (1.26%) DynamoDB
8 17 (1.26%) MySQL
9 16 (1.18%) Data Lake
10 15 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (1.11%) MongoDB
10 15 (1.11%) Tableau
11 12 (0.89%) Amazon Aurora
12 10 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
12 10 (0.74%) BigQuery
12 10 (0.74%) Oracle Database
13 9 (0.67%) Oracle Reports
14 8 (0.59%) Big Data
14 8 (0.59%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 101 (7.48%) JIRA
2 57 (4.22%) Jenkins
3 56 (4.15%) Git
4 33 (2.44%) GitLab
5 13 (0.96%) SpecFlow
6 11 (0.81%) JUnit
7 7 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.44%) Gradle
8 6 (0.44%) Maven
8 6 (0.44%) NUnit
9 5 (0.37%) Postman
9 5 (0.37%) Team Foundation Server
10 4 (0.30%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.30%) CircleCI
10 4 (0.30%) Fiddler
11 3 (0.22%) Cypress.io
11 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.22%) webpack
12 2 (0.15%) DBeaver
12 2 (0.15%) Selenium
General
1 437 (32.35%) Social Skills
2 290 (21.47%) Finance
3 174 (12.88%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (9.92%) Public Sector
5 120 (8.88%) Legal
6 119 (8.81%) Banking
7 52 (3.85%) Organisational Skills
8 43 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
9 36 (2.66%) Telecoms
10 33 (2.44%) Marketing
11 30 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
13 21 (1.55%) Front Office
14 20 (1.48%) Local Government
15 16 (1.18%) Law
16 15 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 15 (1.11%) Police
17 14 (1.04%) Manufacturing
18 13 (0.96%) Investment Banking
19 12 (0.89%) Retail
Job Titles
1 160 (11.84%) Architect
2 157 (11.62%) Analyst
3 114 (8.44%) Developer
4 96 (7.11%) Lead
5 79 (5.85%) Senior
6 75 (5.55%) Consultant
7 74 (5.48%) Business Analyst
8 65 (4.81%) Project Manager
9 48 (3.55%) Solutions Architect
10 33 (2.44%) Data Engineer
10 33 (2.44%) Security Engineer
11 31 (2.29%) Administrator
12 30 (2.22%) Data Analyst
13 27 (2.00%) Network Engineer
13 27 (2.00%) Security Architect
14 25 (1.85%) Java Developer
15 24 (1.78%) Automation Engineer
16 23 (1.70%) Technical Architect
17 22 (1.63%) Software Engineer
17 22 (1.63%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (4.44%) REST
2 48 (3.55%) React
3 34 (2.52%) .NET
4 32 (2.37%) Node.js
5 28 (2.07%) Kafka
6 27 (2.00%) RESTful
6 27 (2.00%) Spring
7 22 (1.63%) Spring Boot
8 21 (1.55%) Middleware
9 20 (1.48%) OAuth
10 18 (1.33%) Oracle Fusion
11 17 (1.26%) PySpark
12 16 (1.18%) Playwright
13 15 (1.11%) HTML
14 13 (0.96%) .NET Core
14 13 (0.96%) AngularJS
15 12 (0.89%) Jest
15 12 (0.89%) SAML
16 10 (0.74%) CSS
16 10 (0.74%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 677 (50.11%) Data Protection Act
2 61 (4.52%) Cloud Native
3 58 (4.29%) Product Ownership
4 55 (4.07%) Onboarding
5 53 (3.92%) Management Information System
6 32 (2.37%) NHS
7 30 (2.22%) Distributed Systems
8 28 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
9 22 (1.63%) Data Structures
9 22 (1.63%) Freedom of Information
9 22 (1.63%) Security Posture
10 20 (1.48%) Data Centre
10 20 (1.48%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 20 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
11 17 (1.26%) Replication
12 14 (1.04%) Enterprise Storage
13 13 (0.96%) AI Agents
13 13 (0.96%) Insider Threat
14 12 (0.89%) Algorithms
14 12 (0.89%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 95 (7.03%) Windows
2 63 (4.66%) Linux
3 25 (1.85%) Unix
4 18 (1.33%) Windows Server
5 17 (1.26%) Mac OS
6 14 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (0.89%) Windows 10
8 9 (0.67%) VMS
9 8 (0.59%) Android
9 8 (0.59%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.44%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.37%) CoreOS
11 5 (0.37%) zOS
12 4 (0.30%) AIX
12 4 (0.30%) Solaris
13 1 (0.074%) CentOS
13 1 (0.074%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.074%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 238 (17.62%) Stakeholder Management
2 237 (17.54%) Problem-Solving
3 228 (16.88%) Agile
4 194 (14.36%) Migration
5 177 (13.10%) CI/CD
6 163 (12.07%) DevOps
7 157 (11.62%) Continuous Improvement
8 134 (9.92%) Analytics
9 133 (9.84%) Cybersecurity
10 132 (9.77%) Roadmaps
11 126 (9.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 120 (8.88%) AI
13 115 (8.51%) Risk Management
14 109 (8.07%) Information Security
15 103 (7.62%) Project Management
16 91 (6.74%) Decision-Making
17 89 (6.59%) Test Automation
18 86 (6.37%) Microservices
19 82 (6.07%) Incident Response
20 78 (5.77%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 225 (16.65%) Python
2 169 (12.51%) SQL
3 94 (6.96%) Java
4 68 (5.03%) JavaScript
5 64 (4.74%) PowerShell
6 55 (4.07%) C#
7 41 (3.03%) Bash
8 39 (2.89%) TypeScript
9 17 (1.26%) Bicep
10 13 (0.96%) Perl
11 12 (0.89%) C++
12 11 (0.81%) Shell Script
13 7 (0.52%) ActionScript
13 7 (0.52%) Kusto Query Language
14 6 (0.44%) ActionScript 2.0
14 6 (0.44%) PHP
14 6 (0.44%) PL/SQL
15 4 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.30%) Go
15 4 (0.30%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 174 (12.88%) Security Cleared
2 127 (9.40%) SC Cleared
3 123 (9.10%) Degree
4 44 (3.26%) DV Cleared
5 42 (3.11%) CISSP
6 36 (2.66%) Computer Science Degree
7 29 (2.15%) CISM
8 27 (2.00%) AWS Certification
9 26 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
10 24 (1.78%) Master's Degree
11 19 (1.41%) PMI Certification
12 18 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
13 17 (1.26%) PMP
14 16 (1.18%) Azure Certification
15 14 (1.04%) CRISC
16 13 (0.96%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 13 (0.96%) CTC Cleared
17 11 (0.81%) CCSP
18 10 (0.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 10 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 226 (16.73%) GDPR
2 93 (6.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 87 (6.44%) NIST
4 68 (5.03%) Data Quality
5 52 (3.85%) QA
6 32 (2.37%) PCI DSS
7 27 (2.00%) Accessibility
8 24 (1.78%) GRC
9 22 (1.63%) PMO
10 16 (1.18%) SLA
11 15 (1.11%) NCSC
12 14 (1.04%) Disclosure Scotland
13 12 (0.89%) NIST 800
13 12 (0.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.89%) SOC 2
14 10 (0.74%) PERC
15 8 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
16 7 (0.52%) HIPAA
17 5 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
17 5 (0.37%) WCAG
System Software
1 65 (4.81%) Docker
2 55 (4.07%) Active Directory
3 51 (3.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.18%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.96%) NFS
6 9 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.59%) vSphere
8 6 (0.44%) Hyper-V
9 5 (0.37%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.22%) KVM
10 3 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.15%) IAG
11 2 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.074%) Firmware
12 1 (0.074%) HDFS
12 1 (0.074%) ISA Server
12 1 (0.074%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.074%) UAG
Systems Management
1 90 (6.66%) Terraform
2 87 (6.44%) Kubernetes
3 63 (4.66%) Ansible
4 30 (2.22%) Grafana
5 29 (2.15%) Microsoft Intune
6 25 (1.85%) NetBackup
7 23 (1.70%) Prometheus
8 20 (1.48%) SCCM
9 13 (0.96%) Puppet
10 12 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
12 6 (0.44%) RSA Archer
12 6 (0.44%) SnapMirror
13 5 (0.37%) Control-M
13 5 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.37%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.30%) EMC NetWorker
14 4 (0.30%) Kibana
15 3 (0.22%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 193 (14.29%) Microsoft
2 67 (4.96%) Oracle
3 58 (4.29%) Google
4 52 (3.85%) VMware
5 46 (3.40%) Databricks
6 41 (3.03%) Cisco
6 41 (3.03%) ServiceNow
7 35 (2.59%) SAP
8 34 (2.52%) Salesforce
9 28 (2.07%) Red Hat
10 22 (1.63%) Citrix
11 20 (1.48%) Veritas
12 18 (1.33%) Commvault
12 18 (1.33%) IBM
13 16 (1.18%) F5
14 15 (1.11%) NetApp
15 14 (1.04%) Adobe
15 14 (1.04%) Splunk
16 12 (0.89%) Veeam
17 11 (0.81%) Informatica