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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 79 91
Rank change year-on-year -5 +12 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,640 1,011 957
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.07% 3.07% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.62% 3.39% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 877 500 516
10th Percentile £313 £289 £200
25th Percentile £402 £379 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £589 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £466 £475
% change year-on-year +1.83% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 46 50
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £15.79 £14.78 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.75 £17.00 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +22.06% -17.07% -50.05%
75th Percentile £33.64 £27.91 £28.75
90th Percentile £37.11 £34.66 £67.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.27 £15.25 £18.11
% change year-on-year +32.92% -15.79% -41.11%

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 45,312 29,789 33,296
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.84% 90.47% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,886 18,626 21,285
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £421 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,829 1,693 1,837
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.30 £18.35
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -38.57% -1.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.74 £42.50
% change year-on-year +93.36% -46.51% +17.24%

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 11 August 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 11 August 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 11 August 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 -3 1,400 £500 +3.63% 872
UK excluding London +5 883 £474 +1.83% 538
London -9 629 £525 +5.00% 402
Work from Home +16 478 £500 +5.54% 342
North of England +12 323 £475 +2.04% 150
South East +8 197 £495 -5.71% 144
Yorkshire -4 172 £475 -5.00% 51
North West +25 141 £483 +10.29% 81
Midlands -16 132 £473 -5.40% 100
Scotland -6 109 £438 -2.78% 26
West Midlands -27 100 £473 -7.71% 73
South West -16 68 £425 +6.25% 62
East of England -2 35 £550 +15.79% 46
East Midlands +7 32 £459 +31.00% 27
Wales -4 18 £413 +39.24% 16
Northern Ireland +5 11 £104 -78.86% 6
North East -54 11 £463 +12.12% 18

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 53 (3.23%) SharePoint
2 52 (3.17%) Confluence
3 25 (1.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.16%) Apache Airflow
4 19 (1.16%) Apache Spark
5 12 (0.73%) Apache
6 6 (0.37%) CMS
6 6 (0.37%) IIS
6 6 (0.37%) SAS
7 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.18%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Camunda
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) WordPress
11 1 (0.061%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.061%) nginx
Applications
1 40 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (2.38%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.061%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.061%) Maya
8 1 (0.061%) Trello
8 1 (0.061%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
5 5 (0.30%) NEC Housing
6 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.18%) SAP GRC
7 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
8 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
8 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
8 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 1 (0.061%) Bloomberg TOMS
9 1 (0.061%) Eloqua
9 1 (0.061%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.061%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 373 (22.74%) Azure
2 277 (16.89%) AWS
3 142 (8.66%) GCP
4 116 (7.07%) Microsoft 365
5 94 (5.73%) Power Platform
6 84 (5.12%) Entra ID
7 74 (4.51%) SaaS
8 63 (3.84%) GitHub
9 62 (3.78%) Microsoft Purview
10 56 (3.41%) Azure DevOps
11 47 (2.87%) Serverless
12 36 (2.20%) Microsoft Copilot
13 35 (2.13%) OpenShift
14 28 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
15 26 (1.59%) OneDrive
16 25 (1.52%) PowerApps
17 23 (1.40%) Amazon S3
17 23 (1.40%) Power Automate
17 23 (1.40%) Snowflake
18 22 (1.34%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 92 (5.61%) Network Security
2 58 (3.54%) Firewall
3 37 (2.26%) DNS
4 34 (2.07%) VPN
5 28 (1.71%) DHCP
6 24 (1.46%) SAN
7 23 (1.40%) TCP/IP
8 20 (1.22%) WAN
9 16 (0.98%) LAN
10 15 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.85%) NAS
12 13 (0.79%) Cisco IPT
12 13 (0.79%) SSL
13 12 (0.73%) Wireless
14 11 (0.67%) HTTP
15 10 (0.61%) MPLS
16 9 (0.55%) Cisco Nexus
16 9 (0.55%) Intrusion Detection
16 9 (0.55%) VoIP
17 8 (0.49%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (4.45%) Power BI
2 47 (2.87%) Metadata
3 38 (2.32%) Data Warehouse
3 38 (2.32%) PostgreSQL
3 38 (2.32%) SQL Server
4 28 (1.71%) Relational Database
5 24 (1.46%) Data Lake
6 22 (1.34%) NoSQL
7 20 (1.22%) Big Data
8 19 (1.16%) MySQL
9 17 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (0.91%) BigQuery
10 15 (0.91%) MongoDB
11 12 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
12 11 (0.67%) Oracle Database
13 9 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
13 9 (0.55%) Tableau
14 8 (0.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 7 (0.43%) Ingres
15 7 (0.43%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 88 (5.37%) JIRA
2 63 (3.84%) Git
2 63 (3.84%) Jenkins
3 34 (2.07%) GitLab
4 10 (0.61%) Maven
5 9 (0.55%) Oracle Forms
6 8 (0.49%) Postman
7 7 (0.43%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.37%) Flyway
8 6 (0.37%) Gradle
8 6 (0.37%) Selenium
8 6 (0.37%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) JUnit
10 4 (0.24%) SpecFlow
11 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 580 (35.37%) Social Skills
2 356 (21.71%) Finance
3 246 (15.00%) Legal
4 198 (12.07%) Analytical Skills
5 175 (10.67%) Public Sector
6 111 (6.77%) Banking
7 69 (4.21%) Documentation Skills
8 63 (3.84%) Organisational Skills
9 39 (2.38%) Retail
10 37 (2.26%) Local Government
11 36 (2.20%) Influencing Skills
12 31 (1.89%) Law
13 30 (1.83%) Telecoms
14 28 (1.71%) Front Office
15 27 (1.65%) Marketing
16 23 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
17 22 (1.34%) Pharmaceutical
18 21 (1.28%) Billing
18 21 (1.28%) Police
19 16 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 244 (14.88%) Architect
2 152 (9.27%) Analyst
3 140 (8.54%) Lead
4 123 (7.50%) Developer
5 122 (7.44%) Senior
6 92 (5.61%) Consultant
7 83 (5.06%) Project Manager
8 65 (3.96%) Business Analyst
8 65 (3.96%) Solutions Architect
9 53 (3.23%) Security Architect
10 42 (2.56%) Security Engineer
11 41 (2.50%) Data Engineer
12 40 (2.44%) Administrator
13 33 (2.01%) Java Developer
14 32 (1.95%) Support Engineer
15 31 (1.89%) Network Engineer
16 30 (1.83%) Technical Architect
17 29 (1.77%) Data Analyst
18 28 (1.71%) IT Support
19 24 (1.46%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (5.24%) REST
2 42 (2.56%) React
3 35 (2.13%) Spring
4 34 (2.07%) Middleware
5 33 (2.01%) JSON
6 32 (1.95%) Kafka
7 31 (1.89%) CSS
7 31 (1.89%) Spring Boot
8 29 (1.77%) HTML
8 29 (1.77%) OAuth
9 26 (1.59%) RESTful
10 24 (1.46%) .NET
11 18 (1.10%) Node.js
12 17 (1.04%) OpenID
13 15 (0.91%) CSS3
13 15 (0.91%) GraphQL
13 15 (0.91%) HTML5
13 15 (0.91%) OAuth2
14 13 (0.79%) Elastic Stack
14 13 (0.79%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 722 (44.02%) Data Protection Act
2 93 (5.67%) Cloud Native
3 89 (5.43%) Product Ownership
4 75 (4.57%) Onboarding
5 73 (4.45%) Management Information System
6 50 (3.05%) Data Centre
7 45 (2.74%) Distributed Systems
8 42 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
9 41 (2.50%) Virtual Team
10 39 (2.38%) Security Posture
11 27 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
12 24 (1.46%) NHS
12 24 (1.46%) Operational Technology
13 23 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
13 23 (1.40%) Replication
14 21 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
14 21 (1.28%) Mobile App
15 19 (1.16%) AI Agents
15 19 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
15 19 (1.16%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 127 (7.74%) Windows
2 81 (4.94%) Linux
3 31 (1.89%) Android
3 31 (1.89%) Apple iOS
4 29 (1.77%) Unix
5 27 (1.65%) Windows Server
6 23 (1.40%) Mac OS
7 19 (1.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (0.85%) Windows 10
9 11 (0.67%) VMS
10 7 (0.43%) zOS
11 4 (0.24%) CoreOS
11 4 (0.24%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.12%) AIX
13 2 (0.12%) HPUX
13 2 (0.12%) Rocky
13 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 309 (18.84%) Stakeholder Management
2 308 (18.78%) Agile
3 293 (17.87%) Problem-Solving
4 259 (15.79%) Continuous Improvement
5 236 (14.39%) DevOps
6 230 (14.02%) CI/CD
7 215 (13.11%) Migration
7 215 (13.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 204 (12.44%) AI
9 168 (10.24%) Cybersecurity
10 156 (9.51%) Analytics
11 153 (9.33%) Data Governance
12 152 (9.27%) Roadmaps
13 150 (9.15%) Decision-Making
14 135 (8.23%) Risk Management
15 123 (7.50%) Information Security
16 117 (7.13%) Data Modelling
17 115 (7.01%) Infrastructure as Code
18 114 (6.95%) Validation
19 104 (6.34%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 209 (12.74%) Python
2 164 (10.00%) SQL
3 107 (6.52%) Java
4 59 (3.60%) PowerShell
5 55 (3.35%) JavaScript
6 43 (2.62%) Bash
7 26 (1.59%) TypeScript
8 22 (1.34%) C#
9 17 (1.04%) Go
10 14 (0.85%) Kotlin
11 13 (0.79%) Apex Code
11 13 (0.79%) Bicep
11 13 (0.79%) Perl
12 11 (0.67%) C++
13 8 (0.49%) Scala
13 8 (0.49%) VB
14 7 (0.43%) C
14 7 (0.43%) VB6
15 6 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
16 5 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 250 (15.24%) Security Cleared
2 190 (11.59%) SC Cleared
3 113 (6.89%) Degree
4 84 (5.12%) CISSP
5 57 (3.48%) DV Cleared
6 50 (3.05%) CISM
7 34 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
8 33 (2.01%) Azure Certification
9 32 (1.95%) Computer Science Degree
10 31 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
11 30 (1.83%) PMI Certification
12 27 (1.65%) PMP
13 20 (1.22%) AWS Certification
14 19 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.98%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.85%) CCSP
17 12 (0.73%) Master's Degree
18 10 (0.61%) CCNP
18 10 (0.61%) CISA
19 9 (0.55%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 250 (15.24%) GDPR
2 99 (6.04%) Data Quality
3 91 (5.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (4.82%) NIST
5 75 (4.57%) QA
6 46 (2.80%) GRC
7 41 (2.50%) Accessibility
8 25 (1.52%) PMO
9 23 (1.40%) PCI DSS
10 20 (1.22%) SLA
11 19 (1.16%) NCSC
12 14 (0.85%) SOC 2
13 13 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.73%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.67%) PERC
15 11 (0.67%) WCAG
16 9 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 8 (0.49%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 92 (5.61%) Active Directory
2 63 (3.84%) Docker
3 53 (3.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.10%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.79%) NFS
6 10 (0.61%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.61%) vSphere
7 9 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.43%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) KVM
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) Firmware
13 2 (0.12%) IAG
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 111 (6.77%) Kubernetes
2 86 (5.24%) Terraform
3 53 (3.23%) Ansible
4 42 (2.56%) Microsoft Intune
5 31 (1.89%) Grafana
6 26 (1.59%) NetBackup
7 23 (1.40%) SCCM
8 19 (1.16%) Prometheus
8 19 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (1.04%) Puppet
10 13 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.61%) Progress Chef
12 8 (0.49%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.43%) Kibana
14 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.30%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.24%) SCOM
15 4 (0.24%) SnapMirror
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 315 (19.21%) Microsoft
2 84 (5.12%) ServiceNow
3 73 (4.45%) Oracle
4 65 (3.96%) Google
5 54 (3.29%) Cisco
5 54 (3.29%) VMware
6 51 (3.11%) Databricks
7 38 (2.32%) SAP
8 35 (2.13%) Splunk
9 29 (1.77%) Red Hat
9 29 (1.77%) Salesforce
10 25 (1.52%) Workday
11 23 (1.40%) CyberArk
11 23 (1.40%) Zscaler
12 22 (1.34%) NetApp
13 19 (1.16%) Veritas
14 17 (1.04%) Citrix
15 16 (0.98%) F5
15 16 (0.98%) IBM
16 15 (0.91%) Dell