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 17 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 87 81
Rank change year-on-year +11 -6 +28
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,237 855 1,145
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.32% 2.69% 2.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.78% 3.03% 3.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 635 436 667
10th Percentile £276 £265 £200
25th Percentile £400 £388 £339
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £490 £450
% change year-on-year -8.16% +8.89% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 18 32
10th Percentile £13.31 £16.19 £14.50
25th Percentile £16.50 £21.19 £17.41
Median hourly rate £20.61 £25.93 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.52% +23.45% -70.00%
75th Percentile £20.79 £35.90 £26.08
90th Percentile £42.50 £65.00 £43.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.45 £27.35 £21.00
% change year-on-year -25.23% +30.24% -70.00%

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 32,749 28,251 37,925
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.79% 88.81% 87.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,723 17,176 25,071
10th Percentile £304 £306 £304
25th Percentile £406 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £739 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,987 905 1,714
10th Percentile £14.52 £15.62 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.75 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -18.75% +16.65%
75th Percentile £56.38 £62.50 £64.50
90th Percentile £69.25 £74.82 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.00 £30.78 £41.00
% change year-on-year -22.03% -24.93% +41.38%

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 17 January 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 17 January 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 17 January 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 +21 1,073 £500 - 507
UK excluding London +3 635 £450 -8.16% 469
London +16 539 £525 +5.00% 108
Work from Home +11 282 £490 -2.00% 149
North of England -20 191 £454 -9.16% 94
South East +15 146 £500 - 135
Yorkshire +1 104 £484 -7.90% 39
Scotland +2 97 £400 -15.79% 22
Midlands +13 93 £450 -11.11% 77
North West -28 71 £438 -7.89% 41
West Midlands -6 59 £475 -7.32% 38
South West +1 46 £513 +5.13% 59
East of England +9 43 £450 -10.00% 67
East Midlands -1 34 £402 -10.67% 37
North East -19 17 £394 -17.11% 14
Wales +3 12 £400 -5.88% 20
Northern Ireland - 11 £500 - 6

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 61 (4.93%) Confluence
2 27 (2.18%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.13%) CMS
4 13 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.65%) Apache
7 6 (0.49%) Apache Spark
8 5 (0.40%) CICS
8 5 (0.40%) nginx
9 3 (0.24%) Ethereum
9 3 (0.24%) Hyperledger
9 3 (0.24%) SAS
9 3 (0.24%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.16%) Drupal
10 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
10 2 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
Applications
1 55 (4.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (3.23%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (0.57%) Chatbot
4 7 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.49%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.24%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.24%) Sketch
6 3 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.16%) InVision
7 2 (0.16%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.081%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.081%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.081%) Blender
8 1 (0.081%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.081%) Final Cut Pro
8 1 (0.081%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 12 (0.97%) Oracle EBS
1 12 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.65%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.32%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 4 (0.32%) Oracle Receivables
3 4 (0.32%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 4 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
3 4 (0.32%) VisionPLUS
4 3 (0.24%) Distributed Ledger
4 3 (0.24%) Fidessa
4 3 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
4 3 (0.24%) Oracle FAH
4 3 (0.24%) Oracle General Ledger
4 3 (0.24%) R3 Corda
4 3 (0.24%) ResourceLink
5 2 (0.16%) assyst
5 2 (0.16%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 236 (19.08%) Azure
2 203 (16.41%) AWS
3 89 (7.19%) GCP
4 72 (5.82%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.01%) Microsoft 365
6 58 (4.69%) Serverless
7 49 (3.96%) GitHub
8 47 (3.80%) Entra ID
9 45 (3.64%) AWS Lambda
10 44 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
11 40 (3.23%) SaaS
12 37 (2.99%) Amazon S3
13 29 (2.34%) Snowflake
14 27 (2.18%) Power Automate
15 25 (2.02%) AWS CloudFormation
16 23 (1.86%) GitHub Actions
17 21 (1.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 20 (1.62%) Microsoft Purview
19 19 (1.54%) OCI
20 18 (1.46%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 47 (3.80%) Firewall
2 30 (2.43%) Network Security
3 18 (1.46%) LAN
3 18 (1.46%) MPLS
4 17 (1.37%) SAN
5 15 (1.21%) VPN
5 15 (1.21%) WAN
6 14 (1.13%) DNS
7 13 (1.05%) Cisco IPT
8 12 (0.97%) NAS
8 12 (0.97%) SSH
9 11 (0.89%) TCP/IP
10 9 (0.73%) BGP
10 9 (0.73%) SD-WAN
11 8 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
12 7 (0.57%) HTTP
12 7 (0.57%) VLAN
12 7 (0.57%) Wireless
13 6 (0.49%) DHCP
13 6 (0.49%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (4.69%) Power BI
2 35 (2.83%) SQL Server
3 34 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (1.86%) Data Warehouse
4 23 (1.86%) Relational Database
5 22 (1.78%) NoSQL
6 18 (1.46%) Metadata
7 15 (1.21%) MySQL
8 14 (1.13%) DynamoDB
8 14 (1.13%) Tableau
9 13 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
9 13 (1.05%) MongoDB
9 13 (1.05%) Oracle Reports
10 12 (0.97%) Amazon Aurora
11 10 (0.81%) Data Lake
12 9 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.65%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 8 (0.65%) Oracle Database
14 7 (0.57%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.57%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 105 (8.49%) JIRA
2 48 (3.88%) Jenkins
3 45 (3.64%) Git
4 33 (2.67%) GitLab
5 10 (0.81%) SpecFlow
6 9 (0.73%) JUnit
7 5 (0.40%) NUnit
7 5 (0.40%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.32%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.32%) ChangeMan
8 4 (0.32%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.32%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.32%) Fiddler
8 4 (0.32%) Gradle
8 4 (0.32%) Maven
9 3 (0.24%) Postman
9 3 (0.24%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.16%) Katalon Studio
10 2 (0.16%) Liquibase
10 2 (0.16%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 415 (33.55%) Social Skills
2 252 (20.37%) Finance
3 157 (12.69%) Analytical Skills
4 130 (10.51%) Public Sector
5 106 (8.57%) Banking
6 90 (7.28%) Legal
7 40 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
8 37 (2.99%) Marketing
9 36 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
10 34 (2.75%) Telecoms
11 29 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
12 24 (1.94%) Law
13 22 (1.78%) Manufacturing
13 22 (1.78%) Presentation Skills
14 17 (1.37%) Front Office
15 16 (1.29%) Local Government
16 13 (1.05%) Retail
17 12 (0.97%) Financial Institution
18 11 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 10 (0.81%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 154 (12.45%) Analyst
2 141 (11.40%) Developer
3 126 (10.19%) Architect
4 92 (7.44%) Lead
5 65 (5.25%) Business Analyst
6 62 (5.01%) Consultant
6 62 (5.01%) Senior
7 60 (4.85%) Project Manager
8 37 (2.99%) Solutions Architect
9 35 (2.83%) Security Engineer
10 34 (2.75%) Administrator
11 31 (2.51%) Data Analyst
12 28 (2.26%) Data Engineer
13 24 (1.94%) Automation Engineer
14 23 (1.86%) Network Engineer
15 22 (1.78%) Security Architect
15 22 (1.78%) Support Engineer
16 20 (1.62%) Data Protection Officer
16 20 (1.62%) Software Engineer
17 19 (1.54%) Information Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (4.85%) REST
2 37 (2.99%) .NET
3 34 (2.75%) React
4 31 (2.51%) Node.js
5 30 (2.43%) RESTful
6 27 (2.18%) OAuth
7 24 (1.94%) Spring
8 23 (1.86%) Kafka
9 21 (1.70%) HTML
9 21 (1.70%) SOAP
10 19 (1.54%) Spring Boot
11 16 (1.29%) Middleware
12 15 (1.21%) .NET Core
12 15 (1.21%) Oracle Fusion
13 13 (1.05%) AngularJS
14 12 (0.97%) OAuth2
14 12 (0.97%) Playwright
14 12 (0.97%) SAML
14 12 (0.97%) XML
15 10 (0.81%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 621 (50.20%) Data Protection Act
2 55 (4.45%) Cloud Native
3 53 (4.28%) Product Ownership
4 52 (4.20%) Management Information System
5 51 (4.12%) Onboarding
6 30 (2.43%) Distributed Systems
7 28 (2.26%) NHS
8 27 (2.18%) Freedom of Information
9 20 (1.62%) Data Structures
10 19 (1.54%) Security Posture
11 17 (1.37%) CMDB
11 17 (1.37%) Data Centre
12 16 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
12 16 (1.29%) Replication
13 15 (1.21%) Virtual Team
14 14 (1.13%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 13 (1.05%) AI Agents
15 13 (1.05%) Derivative
16 12 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
16 12 (0.97%) Insider Threat
Operating Systems
1 89 (7.19%) Windows
2 59 (4.77%) Linux
3 25 (2.02%) Unix
4 15 (1.21%) Mac OS
5 13 (1.05%) Windows 10
5 13 (1.05%) Windows Server
6 10 (0.81%) zOS
7 8 (0.65%) Android
8 7 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.49%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.49%) Solaris
10 5 (0.40%) AIX
10 5 (0.40%) VMS
11 1 (0.081%) CentOS
11 1 (0.081%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.081%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.081%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 224 (18.11%) Problem-Solving
2 220 (17.78%) Agile
3 207 (16.73%) Stakeholder Management
4 160 (12.93%) DevOps
5 158 (12.77%) Migration
6 156 (12.61%) CI/CD
7 130 (10.51%) Cybersecurity
8 127 (10.27%) Analytics
9 120 (9.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 116 (9.38%) Continuous Improvement
11 113 (9.14%) AI
12 111 (8.97%) Roadmaps
13 104 (8.41%) Information Security
14 100 (8.08%) Risk Management
15 99 (8.00%) Project Management
16 84 (6.79%) Microservices
17 79 (6.39%) Business Intelligence
17 79 (6.39%) Test Automation
18 73 (5.90%) Incident Response
19 70 (5.66%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 217 (17.54%) Python
2 161 (13.02%) SQL
3 81 (6.55%) Java
4 65 (5.25%) JavaScript
5 60 (4.85%) PowerShell
6 57 (4.61%) C#
7 46 (3.72%) Bash
8 30 (2.43%) TypeScript
9 17 (1.37%) C++
10 12 (0.97%) Bicep
11 11 (0.89%) Shell Script
12 8 (0.65%) Perl
12 8 (0.65%) PHP
12 8 (0.65%) PL/SQL
13 5 (0.40%) COBOL
13 5 (0.40%) Kotlin
13 5 (0.40%) Scala
14 4 (0.32%) ActionScript 2.0
14 4 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 4 (0.32%) R
Qualifications
1 161 (13.02%) Security Cleared
2 119 (9.62%) SC Cleared
3 113 (9.14%) Degree
4 39 (3.15%) DV Cleared
5 37 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
6 30 (2.43%) CISSP
7 24 (1.94%) CISM
8 21 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (1.70%) Master's Degree
9 20 (1.62%) AWS Certification
10 18 (1.46%) PMI Certification
11 17 (1.37%) PMP
12 16 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
13 12 (0.97%) Azure Certification
13 12 (0.97%) CTC Cleared
14 11 (0.89%) CRISC
15 10 (0.81%) A+ Certification
16 9 (0.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 9 (0.73%) CCSP
16 9 (0.73%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 217 (17.54%) GDPR
2 90 (7.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 76 (6.14%) NIST
4 49 (3.96%) Data Quality
5 37 (2.99%) QA
6 28 (2.26%) PCI DSS
7 27 (2.18%) Accessibility
8 18 (1.46%) PMO
9 15 (1.21%) GRC
9 15 (1.21%) NCSC
10 14 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
11 13 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 13 (1.05%) SLA
12 11 (0.89%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.89%) PERC
13 10 (0.81%) Disclosure Scotland
14 8 (0.65%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 7 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
16 6 (0.49%) EU AI Act
16 6 (0.49%) HIPAA
System Software
1 58 (4.69%) Docker
2 56 (4.53%) Active Directory
3 42 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.29%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (0.65%) NFS
6 6 (0.49%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.32%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.16%) KVM
8 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.081%) Firmware
9 1 (0.081%) HDFS
9 1 (0.081%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.081%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.081%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.081%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.081%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.081%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 72 (5.82%) Terraform
2 60 (4.85%) Kubernetes
3 53 (4.28%) Ansible
4 26 (2.10%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (2.02%) NetBackup
6 20 (1.62%) SCCM
7 19 (1.54%) Grafana
8 17 (1.37%) Prometheus
9 8 (0.65%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.57%) Puppet
11 6 (0.49%) RSA Archer
11 6 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.40%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.32%) CA Endevor
13 4 (0.32%) EMC NetWorker
13 4 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
14 3 (0.24%) Control-M
14 3 (0.24%) Data Guard
14 3 (0.24%) Kibana
14 3 (0.24%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 190 (15.36%) Microsoft
2 60 (4.85%) Oracle
3 57 (4.61%) Google
4 44 (3.56%) VMware
5 38 (3.07%) Cisco
6 36 (2.91%) Salesforce
6 36 (2.91%) ServiceNow
7 35 (2.83%) SAP
8 33 (2.67%) Databricks
9 22 (1.78%) Citrix
9 22 (1.78%) IBM
9 22 (1.78%) Red Hat
9 22 (1.78%) Veritas
10 17 (1.37%) F5
11 16 (1.29%) Commvault
12 11 (0.89%) Adobe
12 11 (0.89%) CyberArk
12 11 (0.89%) OneTrust
12 11 (0.89%) Veeam
12 11 (0.89%) Workday