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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 73 83
Rank change year-on-year -9 +10 +3
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,698 1,099 986
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.09% 3.33% 2.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.66% 3.68% 3.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 868 535 519
10th Percentile £263 £289 £209
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 £605
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 111 55 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.05 £13.60 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.00 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +11.56% -42.53% +15.15%
75th Percentile £24.27 £20.56 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £32.11 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -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 46,438 29,893 32,352
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.54% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,948 18,567 19,512
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 3,331 1,864 1,314
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.35 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.08 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.87 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.56% -39.40% -2.92%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.20 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.00 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.13 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +70.85% -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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -15 1,405 £500 - 1,854
UK excluding London +1 949 £450 -1.64% 1,116
London -32 590 £525 - 850
Work from Home +11 475 £500 +11.11% 720
North of England +13 339 £459 +1.94% 323
South East -5 203 £475 -5.94% 275
Yorkshire +12 169 £475 -5.00% 135
Midlands +10 165 £450 -5.26% 164
North West +14 146 £450 +2.27% 163
West Midlands +10 132 £450 -10.00% 92
Scotland -7 122 £450 +5.88% 80
South West -24 62 £500 +25.00% 94
East of England -13 36 £503 +5.79% 104
East Midlands -8 33 £500 +25.00% 72
North East -43 25 £463 +15.63% 26
Wales -4 20 £413 +11.86% 37
Northern Ireland +5 16 £115 -83.57% 39
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 71 (4.18%) SharePoint
2 33 (1.94%) Confluence
3 27 (1.59%) Apache Airflow
4 26 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
5 19 (1.12%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.77%) Apache
6 13 (0.77%) IIS
7 12 (0.71%) CMS
8 10 (0.59%) SAS
9 7 (0.41%) WordPress
10 6 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.29%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.24%) nginx
13 3 (0.18%) CICS
13 3 (0.18%) Jupyter
14 2 (0.12%) Drupal
14 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
15 1 (0.059%) Cloud Foundry
15 1 (0.059%) Moodle
15 1 (0.059%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 54 (3.18%) Microsoft Office
2 51 (3.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 1 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.059%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.059%) Maya
7 1 (0.059%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.53%) SAP MDG
3 5 (0.29%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.29%) 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%) Cloudability
6 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 1 (0.059%) Actimize
7 1 (0.059%) assyst
7 1 (0.059%) Maximo
7 1 (0.059%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.059%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.059%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 379 (22.32%) Azure
2 300 (17.67%) AWS
3 139 (8.19%) Microsoft 365
4 132 (7.77%) GCP
5 83 (4.89%) Power Platform
6 79 (4.65%) Entra ID
6 79 (4.65%) SaaS
7 68 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
8 60 (3.53%) GitHub
9 55 (3.24%) Microsoft Purview
10 51 (3.00%) Serverless
11 40 (2.36%) Microsoft Copilot
12 30 (1.77%) OneDrive
13 26 (1.53%) Snowflake
14 25 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
14 25 (1.47%) GitHub Actions
15 23 (1.35%) OpenShift
16 22 (1.30%) Power Automate
17 21 (1.24%) Azure Monitor
17 21 (1.24%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 96 (5.65%) Network Security
2 65 (3.83%) Firewall
3 36 (2.12%) DNS
3 36 (2.12%) VPN
4 27 (1.59%) TCP/IP
5 24 (1.41%) DHCP
6 21 (1.24%) WAN
7 20 (1.18%) Cisco IPT
7 20 (1.18%) LAN
8 15 (0.88%) MPLS
8 15 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
9 14 (0.82%) SAN
10 12 (0.71%) Wireless
11 11 (0.65%) VoIP
12 10 (0.59%) HTTP
12 10 (0.59%) SSL
12 10 (0.59%) Unified Communications
13 9 (0.53%) Cisco ISE
13 9 (0.53%) Intrusion Detection
13 9 (0.53%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (3.53%) Power BI
2 55 (3.24%) Metadata
3 43 (2.53%) Relational Database
4 39 (2.30%) PostgreSQL
5 33 (1.94%) SQL Server
6 31 (1.83%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (1.41%) NoSQL
8 23 (1.35%) BigQuery
8 23 (1.35%) Data Lake
9 16 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (0.88%) Big Data
11 13 (0.77%) MongoDB
12 12 (0.71%) Oracle Database
13 11 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
14 10 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
14 10 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
15 8 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
15 8 (0.47%) DynamoDB
15 8 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
15 8 (0.47%) Redis
Development Applications
1 78 (4.59%) JIRA
2 71 (4.18%) Git
3 59 (3.47%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.53%) GitLab
5 18 (1.06%) Selenium
6 10 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.59%) Postman
7 9 (0.53%) Maven
8 6 (0.35%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.29%) 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
1 689 (40.58%) Social Skills
2 367 (21.61%) Finance
3 255 (15.02%) Legal
4 229 (13.49%) Public Sector
5 222 (13.07%) Analytical Skills
6 120 (7.07%) Banking
7 87 (5.12%) Organisational Skills
8 72 (4.24%) Documentation Skills
9 46 (2.71%) Influencing Skills
10 45 (2.65%) Local Government
11 40 (2.36%) Presentation Skills
12 38 (2.24%) Retail
13 29 (1.71%) Law
13 29 (1.71%) Telecoms
14 27 (1.59%) Marketing
15 23 (1.35%) Front Office
16 22 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 22 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
16 22 (1.30%) Police
17 20 (1.18%) Billing
Job Titles
1 254 (14.96%) Architect
2 177 (10.42%) Analyst
3 135 (7.95%) Lead
4 128 (7.54%) Senior
5 101 (5.95%) Developer
6 75 (4.42%) Consultant
7 74 (4.36%) Project Manager
8 72 (4.24%) Business Analyst
9 69 (4.06%) Solutions Architect
10 62 (3.65%) Security Architect
11 55 (3.24%) Administrator
12 46 (2.71%) Security Engineer
13 39 (2.30%) Information Officer
14 37 (2.18%) Support Engineer
15 36 (2.12%) Information Governance Officer
16 32 (1.88%) Data Analyst
16 32 (1.88%) Data Engineer
17 28 (1.65%) Data Architect
17 28 (1.65%) Network Engineer
18 26 (1.53%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (6.30%) Terraform
2 96 (5.65%) REST
3 44 (2.59%) Kafka
4 36 (2.12%) JSON
4 36 (2.12%) OAuth
5 35 (2.06%) Middleware
6 26 (1.53%) RESTful
7 24 (1.41%) .NET
7 24 (1.41%) React
8 23 (1.35%) OAuth2
9 22 (1.30%) Node.js
9 22 (1.30%) Spring
10 21 (1.24%) Spring Boot
11 20 (1.18%) HTML
12 17 (1.00%) CSS
13 16 (0.94%) OpenID
14 15 (0.88%) SOAP
15 14 (0.82%) OpenAPI
15 14 (0.82%) Swagger
15 14 (0.82%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 698 (41.11%) Data Protection Act
2 140 (8.24%) Management Information System
3 99 (5.83%) Product Ownership
4 95 (5.59%) Onboarding
5 91 (5.36%) Cloud Native
6 62 (3.65%) Data Centre
7 61 (3.59%) Distributed Systems
8 47 (2.77%) Legacy Systems
9 45 (2.65%) Freedom of Information
10 41 (2.41%) Security Posture
11 34 (2.00%) Virtual Team
12 31 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
13 30 (1.77%) Data Structures
14 29 (1.71%) NHS
14 29 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
15 28 (1.65%) AI Agents
15 28 (1.65%) Operational Technology
16 21 (1.24%) Private Cloud
17 20 (1.18%) Public Cloud
18 19 (1.12%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 136 (8.01%) Windows
2 86 (5.06%) Linux
3 40 (2.36%) Windows Server
4 31 (1.83%) Apple iOS
5 29 (1.71%) Android
5 29 (1.71%) Unix
6 22 (1.30%) Mac OS
7 16 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.71%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.47%) zOS
10 2 (0.12%) AIX
10 2 (0.12%) CentOS
10 2 (0.12%) HPUX
10 2 (0.12%) Solaris
10 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.12%) VMS
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.059%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 426 (25.09%) Stakeholder Management
2 326 (19.20%) Agile
3 296 (17.43%) Problem-Solving
4 292 (17.20%) Continuous Improvement
5 255 (15.02%) CI/CD
6 243 (14.31%) AI
7 238 (14.02%) Cybersecurity
8 231 (13.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 228 (13.43%) Migration
10 217 (12.78%) DevOps
11 177 (10.42%) Roadmaps
12 167 (9.84%) Decision-Making
13 165 (9.72%) Information Security
14 162 (9.54%) Risk Management
15 154 (9.07%) Data Governance
16 153 (9.01%) Infrastructure as Code
17 146 (8.60%) Analytics
18 140 (8.24%) Validation
19 123 (7.24%) Test Automation
20 120 (7.07%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 213 (12.54%) Python
2 168 (9.89%) SQL
3 79 (4.65%) Java
4 64 (3.77%) PowerShell
5 45 (2.65%) 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%) VB
16 7 (0.41%) COBOL
16 7 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
16 7 (0.41%) VB6
Qualifications
1 284 (16.73%) Security Cleared
2 212 (12.49%) SC Cleared
3 122 (7.18%) Degree
4 83 (4.89%) CISSP
5 60 (3.53%) DV Cleared
6 54 (3.18%) BPSS Clearance
7 52 (3.06%) CISM
8 46 (2.71%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (1.88%) PMI Certification
10 30 (1.77%) Azure Certification
11 29 (1.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 29 (1.71%) PMP
12 27 (1.59%) CCSP
12 27 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
13 19 (1.12%) AWS Certification
14 14 (0.82%) CRISC
15 13 (0.77%) CISA
16 12 (0.71%) CCNP
16 12 (0.71%) Master's Degree
16 12 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 245 (14.43%) GDPR
2 123 (7.24%) Data Quality
3 108 (6.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 76 (4.48%) NIST
5 68 (4.00%) QA
6 53 (3.12%) Accessibility
6 53 (3.12%) GRC
7 32 (1.88%) 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 (0.82%) SLA
13 12 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.65%) PERC
14 11 (0.65%) WCAG
15 10 (0.59%) HIPAA
15 10 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 9 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
16 9 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 83 (4.89%) Active Directory
2 71 (4.18%) Docker
3 63 (3.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (1.00%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.77%) vSphere
6 12 (0.71%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.29%) ISA Server
7 5 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.24%) NFS
8 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.12%) GPFS
9 2 (0.12%) IAG
9 2 (0.12%) KVM
9 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.059%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.059%) Firmware
10 1 (0.059%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.059%) Time Sharing Option
10 1 (0.059%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 116 (6.83%) Kubernetes
2 49 (2.89%) Ansible
3 38 (2.24%) Microsoft Intune
4 34 (2.00%) Grafana
5 21 (1.24%) 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
10 11 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.59%) Puppet
12 8 (0.47%) CASB
13 5 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
13 5 (0.29%) QRadar
13 5 (0.29%) SCOM
14 4 (0.24%) Control-M
14 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
15 3 (0.18%) Istio
15 3 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 384 (22.61%) Microsoft
2 91 (5.36%) ServiceNow
3 89 (5.24%) Google
4 73 (4.30%) Cisco
5 65 (3.83%) Oracle
5 65 (3.83%) VMware
6 48 (2.83%) Databricks
7 43 (2.53%) Splunk
8 42 (2.47%) SAP
9 30 (1.77%) Salesforce
10 27 (1.59%) Zscaler
11 20 (1.18%) IBM
12 19 (1.12%) Workday
13 18 (1.06%) Dynatrace
14 17 (1.00%) CyberArk
14 17 (1.00%) F5
14 17 (1.00%) Red Hat
15 16 (0.94%) Dell
16 14 (0.82%) MuleSoft
17 13 (0.77%) SolarWinds