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 1 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 73 87 82
Rank change year-on-year +14 -5 +24
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,224 972 1,212
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.43% 2.70% 2.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.85% 3.10% 3.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 599 513 708
10th Percentile £304 £263 £213
25th Percentile £400 £388 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.68%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £600
90th Percentile £675 £725 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £454 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -9.25% +11.11% -12.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 19 15
10th Percentile £12.63 £16.21 £17.28
25th Percentile £14.50 £19.06 £18.13
Median hourly rate £20.40 £24.50 £23.24
Median % change year-on-year -16.73% +5.42% -55.73%
75th Percentile £20.79 £29.62 £36.65
90th Percentile £40.46 £38.64 £44.12
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.40 £24.75 £20.25
% change year-on-year -17.58% +22.22% -71.07%

All Process and 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 31,830 31,370 40,452
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.08% 87.18% 88.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,997 18,966 27,094
10th Percentile £300 £310 £310
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.59% -3.00%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £744 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,072 1,117 1,558
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.22 £14.33
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.24 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £33.00 £43.42
Median % change year-on-year -23.79% -23.99% +24.04%
75th Percentile £45.46 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £32.50 £43.90
% change year-on-year -30.37% -25.97% +36.12%

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 1 December 2025.

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 1 December 2025.

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 1 December 2025. 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 +16 1,043 £500 - 348
UK excluding London -3 629 £454 -9.25% 313
London +24 536 £525 +5.00% 108
Work from Home +9 294 £490 -2.00% 165
North of England -13 178 £450 -9.91% 36
South East +18 144 £514 +2.80% 101
Scotland +2 104 £400 -15.79% 15
Midlands +11 93 £450 -12.20% 60
Yorkshire -9 84 £513 +2.50% 11
North West -16 74 £431 -12.39% 21
West Midlands +10 68 £475 -8.43% 33
South West +10 47 £525 -22.22% 72
East of England -5 31 £475 +8.57% 27
East Midlands +6 25 £402 -11.06% 26
North East -12 20 £388 -8.82% 4
Wales -2 17 £400 +116.22% 9
Northern Ireland - 16 £500 - 1
Channel Islands -2 2 £725 -

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 64 (5.23%) Confluence
2 33 (2.70%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.98%) CMS
5 11 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.65%) Apache
7 7 (0.57%) Apache Spark
8 6 (0.49%) nginx
9 5 (0.41%) CICS
10 3 (0.25%) SAS
11 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 1 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.082%) Cloud Foundry
12 1 (0.082%) Ethereum
12 1 (0.082%) Hyperledger
12 1 (0.082%) Luigi
12 1 (0.082%) OpenEdge
12 1 (0.082%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.082%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 58 (4.74%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (2.45%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.82%) Chatbot
3 10 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.49%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.25%) Sketch
8 2 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.16%) InVision
8 2 (0.16%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.082%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.082%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.082%) Blender
9 1 (0.082%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.082%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.082%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.082%) SPSS
9 1 (0.082%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (0.90%) Oracle EBS
2 9 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.41%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.33%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.33%) VisionPLUS
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle EBS R12
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.16%) assyst
7 2 (0.16%) Fidessa
7 2 (0.16%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.082%) BambooHR
8 1 (0.082%) Distributed Ledger
8 1 (0.082%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.082%) R3 Corda
8 1 (0.082%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.082%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.082%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 250 (20.42%) Azure
2 231 (18.87%) AWS
3 99 (8.09%) GCP
4 74 (6.05%) Power Platform
5 66 (5.39%) Microsoft 365
6 53 (4.33%) GitHub
7 49 (4.00%) Serverless
8 42 (3.43%) Amazon S3
8 42 (3.43%) Entra ID
9 41 (3.35%) AWS Lambda
10 39 (3.19%) Azure DevOps
11 36 (2.94%) SaaS
12 28 (2.29%) Power Automate
13 27 (2.21%) AWS CloudFormation
14 24 (1.96%) Snowflake
15 21 (1.72%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 20 (1.63%) PowerApps
17 19 (1.55%) Amazon EC2
17 19 (1.55%) Microsoft Purview
18 18 (1.47%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 53 (4.33%) Firewall
2 32 (2.61%) Network Security
3 17 (1.39%) DNS
4 16 (1.31%) WAN
5 14 (1.14%) SSH
5 14 (1.14%) VPN
6 11 (0.90%) Cisco IPT
6 11 (0.90%) LAN
6 11 (0.90%) MPLS
7 10 (0.82%) DHCP
7 10 (0.82%) HTTP
7 10 (0.82%) SD-WAN
8 9 (0.74%) BGP
9 8 (0.65%) Wireshark
10 7 (0.57%) TCP/IP
10 7 (0.57%) Wireless
11 6 (0.49%) Cisco Nexus
11 6 (0.49%) Internet
11 6 (0.49%) VLAN
12 5 (0.41%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (4.58%) Power BI
2 39 (3.19%) SQL Server
3 35 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (1.88%) Relational Database
5 22 (1.80%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.63%) Amazon RDS
7 19 (1.55%) Tableau
8 16 (1.31%) Metadata
9 15 (1.23%) Data Warehouse
10 12 (0.98%) Amazon Athena
10 12 (0.98%) Amazon Aurora
10 12 (0.98%) MongoDB
11 11 (0.90%) Data Lake
11 11 (0.90%) DynamoDB
11 11 (0.90%) MySQL
12 9 (0.74%) Oracle Database
12 9 (0.74%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.65%) Big Data
14 7 (0.57%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.57%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 110 (8.99%) JIRA
2 39 (3.19%) Git
3 37 (3.02%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.86%) GitLab
5 8 (0.65%) JUnit
6 7 (0.57%) Postman
7 6 (0.49%) SpecFlow
8 5 (0.41%) Fiddler
9 4 (0.33%) ChangeMan
9 4 (0.33%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.33%) Gradle
9 4 (0.33%) Metasploit
9 4 (0.33%) NUnit
9 4 (0.33%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.25%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.25%) Burp Suite
10 3 (0.25%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.25%) Maven
10 3 (0.25%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 424 (34.64%) Social Skills
2 245 (20.02%) Finance
3 150 (12.25%) Analytical Skills
4 125 (10.21%) Public Sector
5 97 (7.92%) Banking
6 85 (6.94%) Legal
7 36 (2.94%) Marketing
8 34 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
9 31 (2.53%) Organisational Skills
10 29 (2.37%) Influencing Skills
11 27 (2.21%) Telecoms
12 23 (1.88%) Manufacturing
13 22 (1.80%) Law
14 17 (1.39%) Front Office
14 17 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
15 15 (1.23%) Financial Institution
15 15 (1.23%) Local Government
15 15 (1.23%) Retail
16 13 (1.06%) Aerospace
17 12 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 178 (14.54%) Analyst
2 127 (10.38%) Developer
3 121 (9.89%) Architect
4 86 (7.03%) Lead
5 73 (5.96%) Business Analyst
6 61 (4.98%) Senior
7 60 (4.90%) Consultant
8 52 (4.25%) Project Manager
9 40 (3.27%) Security Engineer
10 38 (3.10%) Data Analyst
11 36 (2.94%) Administrator
12 34 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
13 29 (2.37%) Data Engineer
14 25 (2.04%) Security Architect
15 23 (1.88%) Support Engineer
16 21 (1.72%) Automation Engineer
17 20 (1.63%) Information Officer
18 19 (1.55%) Information Governance Officer
18 19 (1.55%) Network Engineer
18 19 (1.55%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (4.33%) REST
2 33 (2.70%) RESTful
3 30 (2.45%) React
4 29 (2.37%) .NET
4 29 (2.37%) OAuth
5 24 (1.96%) SOAP
6 23 (1.88%) HTML
7 22 (1.80%) Spring
8 21 (1.72%) Node.js
9 20 (1.63%) Kafka
10 16 (1.31%) Middleware
11 14 (1.14%) AngularJS
12 13 (1.06%) JSON
12 13 (1.06%) LangChain
12 13 (1.06%) Spring Boot
13 12 (0.98%) OAuth2
14 11 (0.90%) .NET Core
14 11 (0.90%) SAML
14 11 (0.90%) XML
15 10 (0.82%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 636 (51.96%) Data Protection Act
2 47 (3.84%) Product Ownership
3 46 (3.76%) Cloud Native
3 46 (3.76%) Onboarding
4 44 (3.59%) Management Information System
5 32 (2.61%) Freedom of Information
6 27 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
7 25 (2.04%) NHS
8 23 (1.88%) Data Centre
9 22 (1.80%) Data Structures
9 22 (1.80%) Security Posture
10 20 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
10 20 (1.63%) Virtual Team
11 16 (1.31%) CMDB
12 15 (1.23%) Public Cloud
12 15 (1.23%) Replication
13 14 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
14 13 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
14 13 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
15 12 (0.98%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 87 (7.11%) Windows
2 58 (4.74%) Linux
3 20 (1.63%) Unix
4 13 (1.06%) Mac OS
4 13 (1.06%) Windows Server
5 11 (0.90%) Android
6 9 (0.74%) Windows 10
7 7 (0.57%) zOS
8 6 (0.49%) AIX
8 6 (0.49%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.49%) Solaris
9 5 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.33%) VMS
11 2 (0.16%) CentOS
11 2 (0.16%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.082%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 216 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
2 201 (16.42%) Agile
3 173 (14.13%) Stakeholder Management
4 166 (13.56%) DevOps
5 160 (13.07%) CI/CD
6 146 (11.93%) Cybersecurity
7 145 (11.85%) Migration
8 133 (10.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 112 (9.15%) AI
10 109 (8.91%) Analytics
11 100 (8.17%) Continuous Improvement
12 98 (8.01%) Project Management
13 93 (7.60%) Information Security
13 93 (7.60%) Roadmaps
14 87 (7.11%) Risk Management
15 74 (6.05%) Test Automation
16 73 (5.96%) Business Intelligence
16 73 (5.96%) Data Governance
16 73 (5.96%) Microservices
17 70 (5.72%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 230 (18.79%) Python
2 150 (12.25%) SQL
3 66 (5.39%) Java
4 60 (4.90%) Bash
4 60 (4.90%) PowerShell
5 58 (4.74%) JavaScript
6 45 (3.68%) C#
7 26 (2.12%) TypeScript
8 13 (1.06%) C++
9 11 (0.90%) Go
10 10 (0.82%) Shell Script
11 8 (0.65%) PHP
11 8 (0.65%) PromQL
12 7 (0.57%) Kotlin
12 7 (0.57%) R
13 6 (0.49%) Perl
13 6 (0.49%) PL/SQL
14 5 (0.41%) Bicep
14 5 (0.41%) COBOL
15 4 (0.33%) Scala
Qualifications
1 137 (11.19%) Security Cleared
2 113 (9.23%) Degree
3 97 (7.92%) SC Cleared
4 45 (3.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (2.53%) AWS Certification
6 28 (2.29%) DV Cleared
7 26 (2.12%) CISSP
8 22 (1.80%) CISM
9 18 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
10 17 (1.39%) Master's Degree
11 15 (1.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 13 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (0.90%) Azure Certification
13 11 (0.90%) BPSS Clearance
13 11 (0.90%) CCNP
13 11 (0.90%) CISA
13 11 (0.90%) PMI Certification
13 11 (0.90%) PMP
14 10 (0.82%) A+ Certification
15 8 (0.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 221 (18.06%) GDPR
2 84 (6.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 72 (5.88%) NIST
4 48 (3.92%) QA
5 46 (3.76%) Data Quality
6 22 (1.80%) Accessibility
6 22 (1.80%) Cyber Essentials
6 22 (1.80%) PCI DSS
7 19 (1.55%) GRC
8 18 (1.47%) PMO
9 17 (1.39%) NCSC
10 13 (1.06%) PERC
11 11 (0.90%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 11 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 11 (0.90%) NIST 800
12 9 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
12 9 (0.74%) Disclosure Scotland
13 8 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 8 (0.65%) SLA
14 7 (0.57%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 56 (4.58%) Docker
2 54 (4.41%) Active Directory
3 42 (3.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (0.98%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.49%) VMware NSX
6 4 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.25%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.25%) vSphere
8 2 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.16%) NFS
8 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.082%) Firmware
9 1 (0.082%) HDFS
9 1 (0.082%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.082%) KVM
9 1 (0.082%) Veritas Cluster Server
9 1 (0.082%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.082%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 67 (5.47%) Terraform
2 55 (4.49%) Kubernetes
3 43 (3.51%) Ansible
4 25 (2.04%) NetBackup
5 23 (1.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 20 (1.63%) Grafana
6 20 (1.63%) Prometheus
7 19 (1.55%) SCCM
8 11 (0.90%) Oracle RMAN
9 8 (0.65%) Puppet
10 6 (0.49%) RSA Archer
11 5 (0.41%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.33%) CA Endevor
12 4 (0.33%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.33%) Jamf Pro
12 4 (0.33%) Kibana
13 3 (0.25%) Data Guard
13 3 (0.25%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.25%) Nmap
Vendors
1 191 (15.60%) Microsoft
2 55 (4.49%) Google
3 46 (3.76%) Oracle
3 46 (3.76%) VMware
4 42 (3.43%) Cisco
5 36 (2.94%) Salesforce
5 36 (2.94%) ServiceNow
6 27 (2.21%) Databricks
6 27 (2.21%) SAP
7 25 (2.04%) IBM
8 21 (1.72%) Veritas
9 19 (1.55%) Red Hat
10 18 (1.47%) Commvault
10 18 (1.47%) F5
11 17 (1.39%) Citrix
12 15 (1.23%) CyberArk
13 14 (1.14%) Juniper
14 13 (1.06%) OneTrust
14 13 (1.06%) Splunk
15 11 (0.90%) Pega