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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 77 91
Rank change year-on-year -4 +14 -8
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,667 1,041 950
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 3.18% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.67% 3.51% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 873 514 519
10th Percentile £301 £295 £200
25th Percentile £400 £391 £354
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £462 £465 £475
% change year-on-year -0.65% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 99 47 24
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 £18.94
25th Percentile £15.72 £14.05 £22.19
Median hourly rate £17.85 £16.00 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year +11.56% -41.28% -34.52%
75th Percentile £28.80 £20.40 £38.98
90th Percentile £35.28 £35.51 £70.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% -18.70%

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 45,369 29,617 32,996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.56% 90.44% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,730 18,446 20,728
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 2,902 1,758 1,607
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.78 £17.30 £18.82
Median hourly rate £41.09 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.39% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.88 £47.09 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +92.49% -47.37% +14.67%

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 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 1 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 1 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 -6 1,396 £500 +2.56% 1,436
UK excluding London +3 912 £462 -0.65% 860
London -15 612 £525 +2.94% 725
Work from Home +22 482 £500 +5.54% 641
North of England +11 326 £475 +5.56% 238
South East +9 197 £475 -8.30% 194
Yorkshire +4 163 £475 -5.00% 71
North West +9 145 £500 +13.64% 133
Midlands -4 144 £462 -2.84% 133
Scotland -8 120 £428 -2.73% 58
West Midlands -12 112 £473 -5.40% 89
South West -13 75 £425 +6.25% 104
East Midlands -1 32 £441 +26.00% 44
East of England -12 30 £550 +15.79% 89
Wales -6 19 £413 +39.24% 28
North East -49 19 £463 +15.63% 36
Northern Ireland +5 14 £110 -81.63% 26

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 63 (3.78%) SharePoint
2 42 (2.52%) Confluence
3 23 (1.38%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
4 18 (1.08%) Apache Spark
5 13 (0.78%) Apache
6 6 (0.36%) CMS
6 6 (0.36%) IIS
6 6 (0.36%) SAS
7 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
7 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) CICS
10 2 (0.12%) Drupal
10 2 (0.12%) nginx
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) WordPress
11 1 (0.060%) Luigi
Applications
1 45 (2.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (2.46%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.060%) Maya
7 1 (0.060%) Trello
7 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
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.060%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.060%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 386 (23.16%) Azure
2 303 (18.18%) AWS
3 138 (8.28%) GCP
4 126 (7.56%) Microsoft 365
5 89 (5.34%) Power Platform
6 84 (5.04%) Entra ID
7 79 (4.74%) SaaS
8 64 (3.84%) Azure DevOps
8 64 (3.84%) GitHub
9 58 (3.48%) Serverless
10 56 (3.36%) Microsoft Purview
11 35 (2.10%) Microsoft Copilot
12 32 (1.92%) AWS Lambda
13 28 (1.68%) OneDrive
14 26 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
14 26 (1.56%) OpenShift
14 26 (1.56%) PowerApps
15 25 (1.50%) Amazon S3
15 25 (1.50%) Power Automate
16 22 (1.32%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 91 (5.46%) Network Security
2 61 (3.66%) Firewall
3 37 (2.22%) DNS
4 36 (2.16%) VPN
5 29 (1.74%) DHCP
6 24 (1.44%) TCP/IP
7 21 (1.26%) WAN
8 17 (1.02%) Cisco IPT
8 17 (1.02%) LAN
8 17 (1.02%) SAN
9 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (0.84%) SSL
10 14 (0.84%) Wireless
11 11 (0.66%) HTTP
11 11 (0.66%) MPLS
11 11 (0.66%) VoIP
12 10 (0.60%) NAS
13 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
14 7 (0.42%) Cisco Nexus
14 7 (0.42%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (4.02%) Power BI
2 52 (3.12%) Metadata
3 40 (2.40%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (2.28%) SQL Server
5 34 (2.04%) Relational Database
6 32 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
7 27 (1.62%) NoSQL
8 22 (1.32%) Data Lake
9 21 (1.26%) MySQL
10 20 (1.20%) Big Data
11 18 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
12 15 (0.90%) MongoDB
13 13 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.72%) BigQuery
15 10 (0.60%) DynamoDB
16 9 (0.54%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.54%) Redis
17 8 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
18 7 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
18 7 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 82 (4.92%) JIRA
2 64 (3.84%) Git
3 57 (3.42%) Jenkins
4 31 (1.86%) GitLab
5 10 (0.60%) Maven
5 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
5 10 (0.60%) Selenium
6 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
8 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.30%) ERwin
8 5 (0.30%) Postman
8 5 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.24%) Flyway
9 4 (0.24%) Gradle
9 4 (0.24%) JUnit
9 4 (0.24%) Vite
10 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.18%) Mocha
General
1 625 (37.49%) Social Skills
2 363 (21.78%) Finance
3 249 (14.94%) Legal
4 210 (12.60%) Analytical Skills
5 202 (12.12%) Public Sector
6 109 (6.54%) Banking
7 78 (4.68%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (4.44%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.46%) Retail
10 39 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
11 37 (2.22%) Local Government
12 32 (1.92%) Front Office
13 31 (1.86%) Law
13 31 (1.86%) Telecoms
14 29 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
15 25 (1.50%) Marketing
16 23 (1.38%) Billing
16 23 (1.38%) Police
17 21 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
18 16 (0.96%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 249 (14.94%) Architect
2 169 (10.14%) Analyst
3 142 (8.52%) Lead
4 127 (7.62%) Developer
5 123 (7.38%) Senior
6 84 (5.04%) Consultant
7 80 (4.80%) Project Manager
8 71 (4.26%) Business Analyst
9 68 (4.08%) Solutions Architect
10 61 (3.66%) Security Architect
11 42 (2.52%) Administrator
12 38 (2.28%) Security Engineer
13 33 (1.98%) Data Engineer
13 33 (1.98%) Support Engineer
14 31 (1.86%) Java Developer
15 30 (1.80%) Data Analyst
16 28 (1.68%) Information Officer
17 27 (1.62%) IT Support
17 27 (1.62%) Network Engineer
18 26 (1.56%) Information Governance Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (5.40%) Terraform
2 86 (5.16%) REST
3 41 (2.46%) React
4 36 (2.16%) Spring
5 35 (2.10%) Kafka
5 35 (2.10%) OAuth
6 34 (2.04%) JSON
7 33 (1.98%) Spring Boot
8 32 (1.92%) CSS
8 32 (1.92%) HTML
8 32 (1.92%) Middleware
9 29 (1.74%) RESTful
10 24 (1.44%) .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%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 715 (42.89%) Data Protection Act
2 96 (5.76%) Cloud Native
3 91 (5.46%) Product Ownership
4 90 (5.40%) Management Information System
5 80 (4.80%) Onboarding
6 51 (3.06%) Distributed Systems
7 50 (3.00%) Data Centre
8 43 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.40%) Security Posture
9 40 (2.40%) Virtual Team
10 36 (2.16%) Freedom of Information
11 27 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
11 27 (1.62%) Operational Technology
11 27 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
12 26 (1.56%) NHS
13 21 (1.26%) AI Agents
14 19 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
14 19 (1.14%) Data Structures
15 18 (1.08%) Hybrid Cloud
15 18 (1.08%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 131 (7.86%) Windows
2 78 (4.68%) Linux
3 31 (1.86%) Windows Server
4 30 (1.80%) Android
4 30 (1.80%) Apple iOS
5 28 (1.68%) Unix
6 22 (1.32%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.96%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.42%) zOS
10 5 (0.30%) VMS
11 3 (0.18%) Solaris
11 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) CentOS
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Rocky
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 354 (21.24%) Stakeholder Management
2 311 (18.66%) Agile
3 290 (17.40%) Problem-Solving
4 278 (16.68%) Continuous Improvement
5 241 (14.46%) CI/CD
6 234 (14.04%) DevOps
7 216 (12.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 215 (12.90%) AI
9 214 (12.84%) Migration
10 203 (12.18%) Cybersecurity
11 160 (9.60%) Decision-Making
12 159 (9.54%) Data Governance
13 157 (9.42%) Roadmaps
14 149 (8.94%) Analytics
15 138 (8.28%) Information Security
16 137 (8.22%) Risk Management
17 134 (8.04%) Infrastructure as Code
18 131 (7.86%) Validation
19 116 (6.96%) Data Modelling
20 105 (6.30%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 207 (12.42%) Python
2 159 (9.54%) SQL
3 101 (6.06%) Java
4 56 (3.36%) JavaScript
4 56 (3.36%) PowerShell
5 35 (2.10%) Bash
6 27 (1.62%) TypeScript
7 19 (1.14%) C#
7 19 (1.14%) Go
8 16 (0.96%) Apex Code
9 14 (0.84%) Bicep
9 14 (0.84%) Kotlin
10 12 (0.72%) Perl
11 10 (0.60%) C++
12 8 (0.48%) C
12 8 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
12 8 (0.48%) Scala
12 8 (0.48%) VB
13 7 (0.42%) VB6
14 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 260 (15.60%) Security Cleared
2 191 (11.46%) SC Cleared
3 107 (6.42%) Degree
4 84 (5.04%) CISSP
5 58 (3.48%) DV Cleared
6 53 (3.18%) CISM
7 40 (2.40%) BPSS Clearance
8 34 (2.04%) Azure Certification
8 34 (2.04%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (1.86%) PMI Certification
10 29 (1.74%) PMP
11 27 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
12 23 (1.38%) AWS Certification
13 20 (1.20%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 17 (1.02%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.96%) CCSP
16 11 (0.66%) CRISC
17 10 (0.60%) CCNP
17 10 (0.60%) Master's Degree
18 9 (0.54%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 246 (14.76%) GDPR
2 108 (6.48%) Data Quality
3 101 (6.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (4.68%) NIST
5 74 (4.44%) QA
6 47 (2.82%) Accessibility
7 44 (2.64%) GRC
8 23 (1.38%) PMO
9 22 (1.32%) PCI DSS
10 18 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
10 18 (1.08%) SLA
11 17 (1.02%) NCSC
12 14 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 11 (0.66%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.66%) PERC
14 11 (0.66%) WCAG
15 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 9 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
16 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 89 (5.34%) Active Directory
2 65 (3.90%) Docker
3 54 (3.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.60%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.54%) NFS
7 7 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.42%) vSphere
8 6 (0.36%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
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%) Samba
Systems Management
1 113 (6.78%) Kubernetes
2 43 (2.58%) Ansible
3 40 (2.40%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.56%) Grafana
5 24 (1.44%) SCCM
6 18 (1.08%) NetBackup
6 18 (1.08%) Prometheus
7 16 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.78%) Puppet
9 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
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%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 3 (0.18%) CASB
Vendors
1 343 (20.58%) Microsoft
2 89 (5.34%) ServiceNow
3 66 (3.96%) Oracle
4 64 (3.84%) Google
5 61 (3.66%) Cisco
6 55 (3.30%) VMware
7 46 (2.76%) Databricks
8 37 (2.22%) 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%) Red Hat
14 20 (1.20%) CyberArk
15 18 (1.08%) IBM
16 16 (0.96%) Citrix
17 15 (0.90%) NetApp
18 14 (0.84%) Dell
18 14 (0.84%) F5
18 14 (0.84%) Veritas