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

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 83 93
Rank change year-on-year +4 +10 -6
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,635 962 954
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.09% 2.93% 2.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.63% 3.24% 2.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 892 475 517
10th Percentile £313 £271 £200
25th Percentile £402 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £613
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £467 £478
% change year-on-year +1.28% -2.20% +0.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 44 59
10th Percentile £13.93 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £16.50 £14.48 £16.06
Median hourly rate £21.35 £16.50 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.39% -17.50% -57.24%
75th Percentile £33.75 £28.19 £28.75
90th Percentile £37.85 £34.74 £63.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £15.25 £19.50
% change year-on-year +39.34% -21.79% -38.10%

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 45,002 29,684 34,056
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.96% 90.46% 85.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,855 18,648 21,888
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £734 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,714 1,621 1,980
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £13.69
25th Percentile £19.89 £17.33 £17.74
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.57 £40.33
% change year-on-year +86.55% -41.56% -

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 30 July 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 30 July 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 30 July 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 +2 1,391 £500 +5.26% 522
UK excluding London +9 885 £473 +1.28% 352
London +4 623 £525 +5.00% 217
Work from Home +10 481 £500 +7.53% 184
North of England +11 316 £485 +4.19% 85
South East +9 198 £482 -10.34% 107
Yorkshire +1 174 £495 -1.00% 27
Midlands -13 137 £470 -6.00% 68
North West +14 134 £481 +11.59% 48
Scotland -2 113 £425 -8.11% 11
West Midlands -31 102 £473 -9.90% 43
South West -12 67 £425 +6.25% 45
East Midlands +10 35 £449 +23.72% 25
East of England +3 35 £550 +15.79% 33
Wales -6 19 £413 +39.24% 8
Northern Ireland -3 10 £104 -78.86% 5
North East -57 10 £456 +10.61% 10

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 55 (3.36%) SharePoint
2 53 (3.24%) Confluence
3 24 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
4 18 (1.10%) Apache Spark
5 12 (0.73%) Apache
6 6 (0.37%) CMS
6 6 (0.37%) IIS
6 6 (0.37%) SAS
7 5 (0.31%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.12%) Camunda
10 2 (0.12%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.12%) nginx
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 38 (2.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (2.26%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
3 9 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.061%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.061%) Maya
7 1 (0.061%) Trello
7 1 (0.061%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 10 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
1 10 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
3 6 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.31%) Aladdin
4 5 (0.31%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) SAP GRC
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
6 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.061%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.061%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.061%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.061%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 371 (22.69%) Azure
2 275 (16.82%) AWS
3 142 (8.69%) GCP
4 117 (7.16%) Microsoft 365
5 91 (5.57%) Power Platform
6 85 (5.20%) Entra ID
7 71 (4.34%) SaaS
8 66 (4.04%) GitHub
9 59 (3.61%) Microsoft Purview
10 55 (3.36%) Azure DevOps
11 45 (2.75%) Serverless
12 39 (2.39%) OpenShift
13 35 (2.14%) Microsoft Copilot
14 27 (1.65%) OneDrive
15 25 (1.53%) AWS Lambda
15 25 (1.53%) PowerApps
16 24 (1.47%) Power Automate
17 23 (1.41%) Amazon S3
18 22 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
19 21 (1.28%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 88 (5.38%) Network Security
2 55 (3.36%) Firewall
3 32 (1.96%) VPN
4 29 (1.77%) DNS
5 25 (1.53%) SAN
6 23 (1.41%) DHCP
7 22 (1.35%) TCP/IP
8 20 (1.22%) WAN
9 15 (0.92%) LAN
10 14 (0.86%) NAS
10 14 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.80%) SSL
12 12 (0.73%) HTTP
13 11 (0.67%) Cisco IPT
13 11 (0.67%) Wireless
14 10 (0.61%) MPLS
15 9 (0.55%) Intrusion Detection
16 8 (0.49%) SD-WAN
17 7 (0.43%) Cisco Nexus
17 7 (0.43%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.40%) Power BI
2 43 (2.63%) Metadata
3 41 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (2.32%) SQL Server
5 34 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
6 31 (1.90%) Relational Database
7 25 (1.53%) Data Lake
8 24 (1.47%) NoSQL
9 22 (1.35%) MySQL
10 21 (1.28%) Big Data
11 18 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
11 18 (1.10%) MongoDB
12 14 (0.86%) BigQuery
13 12 (0.73%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.67%) Tableau
15 10 (0.61%) DynamoDB
16 8 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
16 8 (0.49%) Ingres
16 8 (0.49%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 92 (5.63%) JIRA
2 65 (3.98%) Git
3 63 (3.85%) Jenkins
4 33 (2.02%) GitLab
5 11 (0.67%) Maven
6 10 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (0.55%) Postman
8 7 (0.43%) Gradle
8 7 (0.43%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.43%) Team Foundation Server
9 6 (0.37%) Flyway
9 6 (0.37%) JUnit
9 6 (0.37%) Selenium
9 6 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
10 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.31%) ERwin
11 4 (0.24%) SpecFlow
12 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.18%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 556 (34.01%) Social Skills
2 359 (21.96%) Finance
3 251 (15.35%) Legal
4 190 (11.62%) Analytical Skills
5 169 (10.34%) Public Sector
6 113 (6.91%) Banking
7 67 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
8 60 (3.67%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (2.14%) Retail
11 34 (2.08%) Local Government
12 31 (1.90%) Telecoms
13 30 (1.83%) Law
14 28 (1.71%) Marketing
15 26 (1.59%) Front Office
16 21 (1.28%) Billing
16 21 (1.28%) Pharmaceutical
16 21 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
17 20 (1.22%) Police
18 15 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 239 (14.62%) Architect
2 149 (9.11%) Analyst
3 137 (8.38%) Lead
4 130 (7.95%) Developer
5 119 (7.28%) Senior
6 93 (5.69%) Consultant
7 86 (5.26%) Project Manager
8 65 (3.98%) Business Analyst
9 61 (3.73%) Solutions Architect
10 54 (3.30%) Security Architect
11 44 (2.69%) Security Engineer
12 43 (2.63%) Data Engineer
13 37 (2.26%) Java Developer
14 36 (2.20%) Administrator
15 32 (1.96%) Network Engineer
16 30 (1.83%) Support Engineer
16 30 (1.83%) Technical Architect
17 29 (1.77%) Data Analyst
18 27 (1.65%) IT Support
19 25 (1.53%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (5.50%) REST
2 49 (3.00%) React
3 36 (2.20%) Spring
4 35 (2.14%) JSON
5 34 (2.08%) CSS
5 34 (2.08%) Middleware
6 33 (2.02%) Kafka
7 32 (1.96%) HTML
7 32 (1.96%) Spring Boot
8 28 (1.71%) OAuth
8 28 (1.71%) RESTful
9 23 (1.41%) .NET
10 19 (1.16%) Node.js
11 17 (1.04%) CSS3
11 17 (1.04%) HTML5
12 16 (0.98%) OpenID
13 15 (0.92%) GraphQL
13 15 (0.92%) Redux
14 14 (0.86%) OAuth2
14 14 (0.86%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 730 (44.65%) Data Protection Act
2 92 (5.63%) Product Ownership
3 91 (5.57%) Cloud Native
4 74 (4.53%) Onboarding
5 63 (3.85%) Management Information System
6 48 (2.94%) Data Centre
7 46 (2.81%) Distributed Systems
7 46 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
8 42 (2.57%) Virtual Team
9 39 (2.39%) Security Posture
10 24 (1.47%) Operational Technology
10 24 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
11 23 (1.41%) NHS
11 23 (1.41%) Replication
12 22 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
12 22 (1.35%) Hybrid Cloud
13 20 (1.22%) Mobile App
14 18 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
15 17 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
16 16 (0.98%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 125 (7.65%) Windows
2 74 (4.53%) Linux
3 29 (1.77%) Apple iOS
4 28 (1.71%) Android
5 26 (1.59%) Unix
5 26 (1.59%) Windows Server
6 24 (1.47%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.80%) VMS
8 13 (0.80%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.37%) CoreOS
9 6 (0.37%) Data ONTAP
9 6 (0.37%) zOS
10 2 (0.12%) Rocky
10 2 (0.12%) Solaris
10 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.061%) AIX
11 1 (0.061%) CentOS
11 1 (0.061%) HPUX
11 1 (0.061%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 309 (18.90%) Agile
2 296 (18.10%) Stakeholder Management
3 295 (18.04%) Problem-Solving
4 258 (15.78%) Continuous Improvement
5 238 (14.56%) DevOps
6 228 (13.94%) CI/CD
7 215 (13.15%) Migration
8 206 (12.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 194 (11.87%) AI
10 163 (9.97%) Cybersecurity
11 149 (9.11%) Analytics
12 148 (9.05%) Decision-Making
12 148 (9.05%) Roadmaps
13 142 (8.69%) Data Governance
14 125 (7.65%) Risk Management
15 120 (7.34%) Information Security
16 119 (7.28%) Validation
17 115 (7.03%) Data Modelling
18 111 (6.79%) Infrastructure as Code
19 101 (6.18%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 211 (12.91%) Python
2 166 (10.15%) SQL
3 113 (6.91%) Java
4 60 (3.67%) JavaScript
5 58 (3.55%) PowerShell
6 43 (2.63%) Bash
7 29 (1.77%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.53%) C#
9 17 (1.04%) Go
10 14 (0.86%) Bicep
10 14 (0.86%) Kotlin
11 13 (0.80%) Apex Code
12 9 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
12 9 (0.55%) Perl
12 9 (0.55%) VB
13 8 (0.49%) C++
13 8 (0.49%) Scala
13 8 (0.49%) VB6
14 6 (0.37%) Groovy
15 5 (0.31%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 248 (15.17%) Security Cleared
2 186 (11.38%) SC Cleared
3 116 (7.09%) Degree
4 82 (5.02%) CISSP
5 58 (3.55%) DV Cleared
6 48 (2.94%) CISM
7 34 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
7 34 (2.08%) Computer Science Degree
8 33 (2.02%) Azure Certification
9 32 (1.96%) Cisco Certification
10 30 (1.83%) PMI Certification
11 27 (1.65%) PMP
12 24 (1.47%) AWS Certification
13 18 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (1.04%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 15 (0.92%) CCSP
16 12 (0.73%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.61%) CCNP
17 10 (0.61%) CISA
18 9 (0.55%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 250 (15.29%) GDPR
2 96 (5.87%) Data Quality
3 86 (5.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 82 (5.02%) QA
5 80 (4.89%) NIST
6 43 (2.63%) GRC
7 41 (2.51%) Accessibility
8 26 (1.59%) PMO
9 21 (1.28%) PCI DSS
10 20 (1.22%) NCSC
10 20 (1.22%) SLA
11 14 (0.86%) SOC 2
12 13 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.73%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.67%) WCAG
15 10 (0.61%) PERC
16 8 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 7 (0.43%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 84 (5.14%) Active Directory
2 66 (4.04%) Docker
3 52 (3.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (1.04%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.92%) NFS
6 14 (0.86%) vSphere
7 13 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (0.55%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.37%) VMware NSX
11 5 (0.31%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.24%) KVM
12 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
13 3 (0.18%) IAG
13 3 (0.18%) XenApp
13 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
14 2 (0.12%) Firmware
14 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
14 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 115 (7.03%) Kubernetes
2 86 (5.26%) Terraform
3 55 (3.36%) Ansible
4 42 (2.57%) Microsoft Intune
5 33 (2.02%) Grafana
6 27 (1.65%) NetBackup
7 21 (1.28%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.28%) SCCM
8 18 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.98%) Puppet
10 14 (0.86%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.43%) Kibana
12 7 (0.43%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.37%) SnapMirror
14 5 (0.31%) CA Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.31%) QRadar
15 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
15 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 296 (18.10%) Microsoft
2 81 (4.95%) ServiceNow
3 74 (4.53%) Oracle
4 65 (3.98%) Google
5 53 (3.24%) VMware
6 50 (3.06%) Cisco
6 50 (3.06%) Databricks
7 40 (2.45%) SAP
8 33 (2.02%) Splunk
9 31 (1.90%) Red Hat
10 28 (1.71%) Salesforce
11 24 (1.47%) Workday
12 23 (1.41%) Zscaler
13 22 (1.35%) NetApp
14 21 (1.28%) Veritas
15 20 (1.22%) CyberArk
16 15 (0.92%) Citrix
16 15 (0.92%) IBM
17 13 (0.80%) Commvault
17 13 (0.80%) Dell