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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 98 82
Rank change year-on-year +19 -16 +21
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,336 792 1,140
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.26% 2.58% 2.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.76% 2.87% 2.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 708 402 642
10th Percentile £275 £263 £207
25th Percentile £400 £388 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.60% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £589 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £699 £711
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 22 85
10th Percentile £13.13 £16.55 £12.10
25th Percentile £16.85 £22.94 £15.39
Median hourly rate £20.71 £30.02 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -31.01% +53.94% -72.14%
75th Percentile £24.19 £33.96 £25.00
90th Percentile £42.50 £62.91 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £28.29 £19.50
% change year-on-year -26.79% +45.08% -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 35,563 27,597 38,882
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.83% 89.79% 87.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,526 17,059 25,424
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 £480 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -2.54% -1.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,133 855 2,176
10th Percentile £14.62 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.77 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.71% -7.14% -
75th Percentile £60.46 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £75.00 £73.27
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.29 £35.00
% change year-on-year -19.62% -10.60% -

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +27 1,142 £500 - 323
UK excluding London +18 710 £450 -5.26% 268
London +26 554 £525 +1.69% 124
Work from Home +16 312 £500 - 165
North of England -10 212 £460 -3.16% 58
South East +17 161 £463 -5.37% 94
Yorkshire -5 120 £475 -10.59% 14
Scotland +16 115 £402 -8.06% 11
Midlands +11 107 £449 -5.53% 48
North West -23 78 £435 -8.53% 41
West Midlands -17 62 £500 - 31
South West +6 49 £500 +2.56% 34
East of England +8 47 £350 -30.00% 18
East Midlands +9 45 £438 +6.06% 17
North East -30 15 £400 -15.79% 3
Wales +4 14 £375 -26.83% 6
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 62 (4.64%) Confluence
2 30 (2.25%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
4 9 (0.67%) Apache Spark
5 7 (0.52%) Apache
6 5 (0.37%) CMS
7 4 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.22%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.22%) Hyperledger
8 3 (0.22%) SAS
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.15%) Drupal
9 2 (0.15%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.15%) nginx
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle Application Server
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.15%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.075%) Anypoint
Applications
1 50 (3.74%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (3.22%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.52%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.45%) 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 (0.075%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.075%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.075%) Blender
10 1 (0.075%) CINEMA 4D
10 1 (0.075%) Final Cut Pro
10 1 (0.075%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 12 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.75%) 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 (0.075%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 245 (18.34%) Azure
2 217 (16.24%) AWS
3 100 (7.49%) GCP
4 66 (4.94%) Microsoft 365
5 65 (4.87%) Power Platform
6 57 (4.27%) GitHub
7 56 (4.19%) Entra ID
8 54 (4.04%) Serverless
9 44 (3.29%) SaaS
10 42 (3.14%) AWS Lambda
11 41 (3.07%) Amazon S3
12 37 (2.77%) Azure DevOps
13 31 (2.32%) AWS CloudFormation
14 29 (2.17%) Snowflake
15 27 (2.02%) Microsoft Purview
15 27 (2.02%) OpenShift
16 24 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (1.72%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 20 (1.50%) Amazon EC2
19 19 (1.42%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.22%) Firewall
2 37 (2.77%) Network Security
3 27 (2.02%) SAN
4 19 (1.42%) LAN
4 19 (1.42%) MPLS
4 19 (1.42%) VPN
5 17 (1.27%) NAS
6 16 (1.20%) DNS
6 16 (1.20%) WAN
7 14 (1.05%) Cisco IPT
7 14 (1.05%) TCP/IP
8 9 (0.67%) BGP
8 9 (0.67%) SD-WAN
8 9 (0.67%) VLAN
8 9 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
9 8 (0.60%) HTTP
9 8 (0.60%) SSH
10 7 (0.52%) DHCP
11 6 (0.45%) Ethernet
11 6 (0.45%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (4.57%) Power BI
2 34 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
3 33 (2.47%) SQL Server
4 23 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
5 21 (1.57%) Metadata
6 20 (1.50%) NoSQL
7 19 (1.42%) Relational Database
8 17 (1.27%) DynamoDB
8 17 (1.27%) MySQL
9 16 (1.20%) Data Lake
10 15 (1.12%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (1.12%) MongoDB
10 15 (1.12%) Tableau
11 12 (0.90%) Amazon Aurora
12 10 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
12 10 (0.75%) Oracle Database
13 9 (0.67%) Oracle Reports
14 8 (0.60%) Big Data
14 8 (0.60%) BigQuery
14 8 (0.60%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 97 (7.26%) JIRA
2 55 (4.12%) Git
2 55 (4.12%) Jenkins
3 33 (2.47%) GitLab
4 13 (0.97%) SpecFlow
5 11 (0.82%) JUnit
6 7 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.45%) Gradle
7 6 (0.45%) Maven
7 6 (0.45%) NUnit
8 5 (0.37%) Postman
8 5 (0.37%) Team Foundation Server
9 4 (0.30%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.30%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.30%) Fiddler
10 3 (0.22%) Cypress.io
10 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.22%) webpack
11 2 (0.15%) DBeaver
11 2 (0.15%) Liquibase
General
1 443 (33.16%) Social Skills
2 286 (21.41%) Finance
3 173 (12.95%) Analytical Skills
4 136 (10.18%) Public Sector
5 120 (8.98%) Legal
6 115 (8.61%) Banking
7 52 (3.89%) Organisational Skills
8 41 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
9 37 (2.77%) Telecoms
10 34 (2.54%) Marketing
11 30 (2.25%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (1.87%) Presentation Skills
13 21 (1.57%) Front Office
13 21 (1.57%) Local Government
14 16 (1.20%) Manufacturing
15 15 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 15 (1.12%) Law
16 14 (1.05%) Police
17 13 (0.97%) Investment Banking
17 13 (0.97%) Retail
Job Titles
1 158 (11.83%) Analyst
1 158 (11.83%) Architect
2 116 (8.68%) Developer
3 95 (7.11%) Lead
4 75 (5.61%) Senior
5 73 (5.46%) Business Analyst
6 70 (5.24%) Consultant
7 66 (4.94%) Project Manager
8 50 (3.74%) Solutions Architect
9 32 (2.40%) Administrator
10 31 (2.32%) Data Analyst
10 31 (2.32%) Data Engineer
10 31 (2.32%) Security Engineer
11 26 (1.95%) Security Architect
12 25 (1.87%) Java Developer
12 25 (1.87%) Network Engineer
13 24 (1.80%) Automation Engineer
14 23 (1.72%) Data Protection Officer
14 23 (1.72%) Technical Architect
15 21 (1.57%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (4.49%) REST
2 48 (3.59%) React
3 34 (2.54%) .NET
4 32 (2.40%) Node.js
5 29 (2.17%) RESTful
6 27 (2.02%) Kafka
6 27 (2.02%) Spring
7 22 (1.65%) Spring Boot
8 20 (1.50%) Middleware
8 20 (1.50%) OAuth
9 18 (1.35%) Oracle Fusion
10 17 (1.27%) PySpark
11 16 (1.20%) Playwright
12 15 (1.12%) HTML
13 13 (0.97%) .NET Core
13 13 (0.97%) AngularJS
14 12 (0.90%) Jest
14 12 (0.90%) SAML
15 10 (0.75%) CSS
15 10 (0.75%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 667 (49.93%) Data Protection Act
2 61 (4.57%) Cloud Native
3 57 (4.27%) Product Ownership
4 56 (4.19%) Management Information System
4 56 (4.19%) Onboarding
5 33 (2.47%) NHS
6 30 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
7 28 (2.10%) Legacy Systems
8 22 (1.65%) Freedom of Information
8 22 (1.65%) Security Posture
9 21 (1.57%) Data Structures
10 20 (1.50%) Data Centre
10 20 (1.50%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 17 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
12 15 (1.12%) Replication
13 14 (1.05%) AI Agents
14 13 (0.97%) Insider Threat
15 12 (0.90%) Algorithms
15 12 (0.90%) Derivative
15 12 (0.90%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 97 (7.26%) Windows
2 62 (4.64%) Linux
3 24 (1.80%) Unix
4 19 (1.42%) Windows Server
5 17 (1.27%) Mac OS
6 12 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (0.90%) Windows 10
7 7 (0.52%) Android
7 7 (0.52%) Apple iOS
7 7 (0.52%) VMS
8 5 (0.37%) zOS
9 4 (0.30%) AIX
9 4 (0.30%) Data ONTAP
9 4 (0.30%) Solaris
10 3 (0.22%) CoreOS
11 1 (0.075%) CentOS
11 1 (0.075%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.075%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 239 (17.89%) Problem-Solving
2 236 (17.66%) Stakeholder Management
3 224 (16.77%) Agile
4 191 (14.30%) Migration
5 174 (13.02%) CI/CD
6 160 (11.98%) DevOps
7 157 (11.75%) Continuous Improvement
8 132 (9.88%) Cybersecurity
9 131 (9.81%) Analytics
10 128 (9.58%) Roadmaps
11 124 (9.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 122 (9.13%) AI
13 113 (8.46%) Risk Management
14 109 (8.16%) Information Security
15 104 (7.78%) Project Management
16 89 (6.66%) Decision-Making
17 88 (6.59%) Test Automation
18 85 (6.36%) Microservices
19 81 (6.06%) Business Intelligence
19 81 (6.06%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 223 (16.69%) Python
2 168 (12.57%) SQL
3 93 (6.96%) Java
4 67 (5.01%) JavaScript
5 61 (4.57%) PowerShell
6 55 (4.12%) C#
7 40 (2.99%) Bash
8 39 (2.92%) TypeScript
9 17 (1.27%) Bicep
10 13 (0.97%) Perl
11 12 (0.90%) Shell Script
12 11 (0.82%) C++
13 7 (0.52%) ActionScript
13 7 (0.52%) Kusto Query Language
14 6 (0.45%) ActionScript 2.0
14 6 (0.45%) PHP
14 6 (0.45%) PL/SQL
15 4 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 4 (0.30%) Go
15 4 (0.30%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 169 (12.65%) Security Cleared
2 124 (9.28%) Degree
2 124 (9.28%) SC Cleared
3 42 (3.14%) DV Cleared
4 38 (2.84%) CISSP
5 36 (2.69%) Computer Science Degree
6 27 (2.02%) AWS Certification
7 26 (1.95%) BPSS Clearance
7 26 (1.95%) CISM
8 24 (1.80%) Master's Degree
9 19 (1.42%) PMI Certification
10 17 (1.27%) Cisco Certification
10 17 (1.27%) PMP
11 16 (1.20%) Azure Certification
12 14 (1.05%) CRISC
13 13 (0.97%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 13 (0.97%) CTC Cleared
14 11 (0.82%) CCSP
15 10 (0.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 10 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 225 (16.84%) GDPR
2 91 (6.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 82 (6.14%) NIST
4 67 (5.01%) Data Quality
5 52 (3.89%) QA
6 32 (2.40%) PCI DSS
7 27 (2.02%) Accessibility
8 23 (1.72%) GRC
9 22 (1.65%) PMO
10 15 (1.12%) NCSC
10 15 (1.12%) SLA
11 14 (1.05%) Disclosure Scotland
12 12 (0.90%) NIST 800
12 12 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 12 (0.90%) SOC 2
13 10 (0.75%) PERC
14 8 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
15 6 (0.45%) HIPAA
16 5 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
16 5 (0.37%) WCAG
System Software
1 64 (4.79%) Docker
2 56 (4.19%) Active Directory
3 49 (3.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.20%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.82%) NFS
6 7 (0.52%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.45%) vSphere
8 5 (0.37%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.22%) KVM
9 3 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.15%) IAG
10 2 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.075%) Firmware
11 1 (0.075%) HDFS
11 1 (0.075%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.075%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.075%) UAG
Systems Management
1 88 (6.59%) Terraform
2 84 (6.29%) Kubernetes
3 60 (4.49%) Ansible
4 28 (2.10%) Grafana
4 28 (2.10%) Microsoft Intune
5 24 (1.80%) NetBackup
6 23 (1.72%) Prometheus
7 20 (1.50%) SCCM
8 12 (0.90%) Puppet
8 12 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 6 (0.45%) Jamf Pro
9 6 (0.45%) RSA Archer
10 5 (0.37%) Control-M
10 5 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
10 5 (0.37%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.30%) EMC NetWorker
11 4 (0.30%) Kibana
11 4 (0.30%) SnapMirror
12 3 (0.22%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 193 (14.45%) Microsoft
2 64 (4.79%) Oracle
3 56 (4.19%) Google
4 51 (3.82%) VMware
5 45 (3.37%) Databricks
6 41 (3.07%) ServiceNow
7 39 (2.92%) Cisco
8 36 (2.69%) SAP
9 34 (2.54%) Salesforce
10 25 (1.87%) Red Hat
11 22 (1.65%) Citrix
12 19 (1.42%) Veritas
13 18 (1.35%) IBM
14 17 (1.27%) Commvault
14 17 (1.27%) F5
15 14 (1.05%) Splunk
16 13 (0.97%) Adobe
17 11 (0.82%) Informatica
17 11 (0.82%) NetApp
17 11 (0.82%) OneTrust