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 4 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 75 90
Rank change year-on-year -9 +15 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,663 1,050 948
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.10% 3.25% 2.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.66% 3.59% 2.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 867 504 520
10th Percentile £300 £295 £205
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £479 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -4.25% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £465 £478
% change year-on-year -3.23% -2.62% +0.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 51 21
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £18.75
25th Percentile £15.72 £13.60 £21.25
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.56% -41.82% -10.57%
75th Percentile £28.00 £20.40 £44.08
90th Percentile £35.22 £36.48 £70.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +3.65%

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 45,398 29,222 32,553
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.44% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,773 18,158 20,413
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £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 £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,911 1,744 1,558
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.20 £14.41
25th Percentile £17.72 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.84 £46.01 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.18 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +87.80% -47.37% +12.13%

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 4 September 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 4 September 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 4 September 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 -9 1,393 £500 +2.30% 1,419
UK excluding London +2 920 £450 -3.23% 853
London -23 602 £525 +2.94% 706
Work from Home +15 480 £500 +5.54% 637
North of England +12 325 £475 +5.56% 241
South East +3 198 £483 -6.76% 194
Yorkshire +5 162 £475 -5.00% 75
Midlands +4 151 £450 -5.26% 140
North West +22 144 £500 +13.64% 141
West Midlands 0 119 £462 -7.70% 94
Scotland -9 119 £428 -5.00% 57
South West -20 77 £425 +6.25% 103
East Midlands -8 32 £441 +26.00% 46
East of England -10 28 £525 +10.53% 82
Wales -3 21 £413 - 24
North East -43 20 £463 +15.63% 29
Northern Ireland +6 15 £110 -81.63% 22

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 (3.91%) SharePoint
2 41 (2.47%) Confluence
3 23 (1.38%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.02%) Apache Spark
6 12 (0.72%) Apache
7 8 (0.48%) IIS
8 6 (0.36%) CMS
8 6 (0.36%) SAS
9 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
10 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.18%) CICS
11 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.12%) Drupal
12 2 (0.12%) nginx
12 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
12 2 (0.12%) WordPress
13 1 (0.060%) Moodle
13 1 (0.060%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 45 (2.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 40 (2.41%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.060%) Maya
8 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) Endur
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
8 1 (0.060%) Odoo
8 1 (0.060%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.060%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 381 (22.91%) Azure
2 304 (18.28%) AWS
3 138 (8.30%) GCP
4 131 (7.88%) Microsoft 365
5 88 (5.29%) Power Platform
6 85 (5.11%) Entra ID
7 79 (4.75%) SaaS
8 63 (3.79%) GitHub
9 62 (3.73%) Azure DevOps
10 56 (3.37%) Serverless
11 55 (3.31%) Microsoft Purview
12 35 (2.10%) Microsoft Copilot
13 31 (1.86%) AWS Lambda
14 29 (1.74%) OneDrive
15 26 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
15 26 (1.56%) PowerApps
16 25 (1.50%) OpenShift
16 25 (1.50%) Power Automate
17 24 (1.44%) Amazon S3
18 22 (1.32%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 92 (5.53%) Network Security
2 60 (3.61%) Firewall
3 37 (2.22%) DNS
4 35 (2.10%) VPN
5 29 (1.74%) DHCP
6 25 (1.50%) TCP/IP
7 20 (1.20%) WAN
8 17 (1.02%) Cisco IPT
8 17 (1.02%) LAN
9 16 (0.96%) SAN
10 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.84%) SSL
11 14 (0.84%) Wireless
12 11 (0.66%) HTTP
12 11 (0.66%) MPLS
12 11 (0.66%) VoIP
13 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
13 9 (0.54%) NAS
14 7 (0.42%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (3.97%) Power BI
2 50 (3.01%) Metadata
3 39 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
4 37 (2.22%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.22%) SQL Server
5 32 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
6 25 (1.50%) NoSQL
7 21 (1.26%) Data Lake
7 21 (1.26%) MySQL
8 20 (1.20%) Big Data
9 17 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
10 14 (0.84%) MongoDB
11 13 (0.78%) BigQuery
11 13 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
12 10 (0.60%) Oracle Database
13 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
13 9 (0.54%) Redis
14 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
15 7 (0.42%) RDBMS
15 7 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 85 (5.11%) JIRA
2 63 (3.79%) Git
3 54 (3.25%) Jenkins
4 30 (1.80%) GitLab
5 13 (0.78%) Selenium
6 10 (0.60%) Maven
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) Postman
9 5 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
10 4 (0.24%) Vite
11 3 (0.18%) Mocha
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
General
1 635 (38.18%) Social Skills
2 360 (21.65%) Finance
3 250 (15.03%) Legal
4 209 (12.57%) Analytical Skills
5 203 (12.21%) Public Sector
6 112 (6.73%) Banking
7 78 (4.69%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (4.45%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.47%) Influencing Skills
10 40 (2.41%) Retail
11 37 (2.22%) Local Government
12 32 (1.92%) Front Office
12 32 (1.92%) Law
13 31 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
14 28 (1.68%) Telecoms
15 25 (1.50%) Marketing
16 23 (1.38%) Billing
16 23 (1.38%) Police
17 22 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
18 16 (0.96%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 248 (14.91%) Architect
2 167 (10.04%) Analyst
3 143 (8.60%) Lead
4 125 (7.52%) Developer
5 121 (7.28%) Senior
6 83 (4.99%) Consultant
7 78 (4.69%) Project Manager
8 71 (4.27%) Solutions Architect
9 70 (4.21%) Business Analyst
10 63 (3.79%) Security Architect
11 41 (2.47%) Administrator
12 37 (2.22%) Security Engineer
13 34 (2.04%) Support Engineer
14 32 (1.92%) Data Engineer
15 31 (1.86%) Java Developer
16 30 (1.80%) Data Analyst
17 28 (1.68%) Information Officer
18 27 (1.62%) IT Support
19 26 (1.56%) Information Governance Officer
20 25 (1.50%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (5.29%) Terraform
2 84 (5.05%) REST
3 41 (2.47%) React
4 36 (2.16%) Spring
5 35 (2.10%) OAuth
6 34 (2.04%) JSON
6 34 (2.04%) Kafka
7 33 (1.98%) Middleware
7 33 (1.98%) Spring Boot
8 32 (1.92%) CSS
8 32 (1.92%) HTML
9 29 (1.74%) RESTful
10 22 (1.32%) .NET
11 21 (1.26%) Node.js
12 20 (1.20%) OpenID
13 19 (1.14%) OAuth2
14 16 (0.96%) CSS3
14 16 (0.96%) HTML5
15 15 (0.90%) GraphQL
15 15 (0.90%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 714 (42.93%) Data Protection Act
2 95 (5.71%) Cloud Native
2 95 (5.71%) Management Information System
3 91 (5.47%) Product Ownership
4 82 (4.93%) Onboarding
5 52 (3.13%) Data Centre
6 50 (3.01%) Distributed Systems
7 42 (2.53%) Legacy Systems
8 40 (2.41%) Virtual Team
9 39 (2.35%) Security Posture
10 37 (2.22%) Freedom of Information
11 28 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
12 27 (1.62%) NHS
12 27 (1.62%) Operational Technology
13 25 (1.50%) Self-Motivation
14 21 (1.26%) AI Agents
15 20 (1.20%) Data Structures
15 20 (1.20%) Mobile App
16 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
17 18 (1.08%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 132 (7.94%) Windows
2 78 (4.69%) Linux
3 33 (1.98%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.92%) Android
5 31 (1.86%) Apple iOS
6 29 (1.74%) Unix
7 22 (1.32%) Mac OS
8 16 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.96%) Windows 10
9 10 (0.60%) zOS
10 4 (0.24%) VMS
11 3 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) CentOS
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.060%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 359 (21.59%) Stakeholder Management
2 314 (18.88%) Agile
3 289 (17.38%) Problem-Solving
4 283 (17.02%) Continuous Improvement
5 238 (14.31%) CI/CD
6 224 (13.47%) DevOps
7 217 (13.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 214 (12.87%) Migration
9 212 (12.75%) AI
10 208 (12.51%) Cybersecurity
11 158 (9.50%) Decision-Making
12 156 (9.38%) Data Governance
13 155 (9.32%) Roadmaps
14 146 (8.78%) Analytics
15 143 (8.60%) Information Security
16 139 (8.36%) Validation
17 137 (8.24%) Risk Management
18 132 (7.94%) Infrastructure as Code
19 116 (6.98%) Data Modelling
20 108 (6.49%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 204 (12.27%) Python
2 161 (9.68%) SQL
3 100 (6.01%) Java
4 57 (3.43%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.37%) PowerShell
6 33 (1.98%) Bash
7 26 (1.56%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.14%) Go
9 17 (1.02%) C#
10 16 (0.96%) Apex Code
11 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
12 14 (0.84%) Bicep
13 12 (0.72%) Perl
14 10 (0.60%) C++
15 8 (0.48%) C
15 8 (0.48%) Scala
15 8 (0.48%) VB
16 7 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
16 7 (0.42%) VB6
17 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 264 (15.87%) Security Cleared
2 195 (11.73%) SC Cleared
3 107 (6.43%) Degree
4 85 (5.11%) CISSP
5 60 (3.61%) DV Cleared
6 53 (3.19%) CISM
7 40 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
8 36 (2.16%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (2.04%) Azure Certification
10 30 (1.80%) PMI Certification
11 27 (1.62%) PMP
12 26 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.38%) AWS Certification
14 22 (1.32%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 18 (1.08%) CCSP
16 14 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
17 11 (0.66%) CRISC
18 10 (0.60%) CCNP
18 10 (0.60%) CISA
18 10 (0.60%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 241 (14.49%) GDPR
2 111 (6.67%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (4.69%) NIST
4 78 (4.69%) QA
5 46 (2.77%) GRC
6 45 (2.71%) Accessibility
7 24 (1.44%) PMO
8 23 (1.38%) PCI DSS
9 18 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
10 17 (1.02%) NCSC
10 17 (1.02%) SLA
11 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 13 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
12 11 (0.66%) PERC
12 11 (0.66%) WCAG
13 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 9 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
14 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 89 (5.35%) Active Directory
2 65 (3.91%) Docker
3 54 (3.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.60%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.48%) NFS
6 8 (0.48%) vSphere
7 7 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.30%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.18%) Time Sharing Option
11 3 (0.18%) XenApp
11 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
12 2 (0.12%) Firmware
12 2 (0.12%) GPFS
12 2 (0.12%) KVM
12 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.12%) Varnish
13 1 (0.060%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 112 (6.73%) Kubernetes
2 44 (2.65%) Ansible
3 41 (2.47%) Microsoft Intune
4 25 (1.50%) Grafana
5 24 (1.44%) SCCM
6 18 (1.08%) Prometheus
7 16 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.90%) NetBackup
9 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
9 12 (0.72%) Puppet
10 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.36%) Kibana
12 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (0.30%) PingFederate
12 5 (0.30%) QRadar
12 5 (0.30%) SCOM
13 4 (0.24%) CASB
13 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 345 (20.75%) Microsoft
2 87 (5.23%) ServiceNow
3 69 (4.15%) Oracle
4 64 (3.85%) Google
5 61 (3.67%) Cisco
6 55 (3.31%) VMware
7 44 (2.65%) Databricks
8 38 (2.29%) Splunk
9 35 (2.10%) SAP
10 33 (1.98%) Salesforce
11 25 (1.50%) Zscaler
12 22 (1.32%) Workday
13 21 (1.26%) IBM
14 20 (1.20%) CyberArk
15 19 (1.14%) Red Hat
16 16 (0.96%) Citrix
17 15 (0.90%) Dell
17 15 (0.90%) F5
17 15 (0.90%) NetApp
18 12 (0.72%) Veritas