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 19 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 75 88 86
Rank change year-on-year +13 -2 +18
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,221 946 1,220
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.42% 2.61% 2.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.81% 3.02% 2.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 601 506 715
10th Percentile £289 £234 £215
25th Percentile £400 £381 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.26%
75th Percentile £600 £607 £612
90th Percentile £675 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -3.16% +5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 14 16
10th Percentile £12.63 £17.33 £17.31
25th Percentile £14.50 £19.72 £18.19
Median hourly rate £18.82 £24.00 £23.62
Median % change year-on-year -21.58% +1.61% -55.01%
75th Percentile £20.71 £29.60 £34.45
90th Percentile £40.46 £42.04 £44.02
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.82 £24.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -21.58% +14.29% -69.42%

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 32,049 31,289 41,011
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.77% 86.33% 88.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,064 18,819 27,584
10th Percentile £300 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,120 1,102 1,587
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.11 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.14 £19.03
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +27.14%
75th Percentile £45.00 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £33.54 £44.50
% change year-on-year -31.43% -24.63% +50.85%

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 19 November 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 19 November 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 19 November 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 +14 1,036 £500 - 628
UK excluding London +10 638 £460 -3.16% 415
London +18 526 £525 +5.00% 273
Work from Home +15 295 £490 -2.00% 268
North of England -12 179 £450 -6.25% 61
South East +24 140 £522 +3.01% 124
Scotland +2 106 £400 -14.67% 28
Midlands +18 101 £450 - 67
Yorkshire -10 88 £513 +2.50% 20
West Midlands +11 75 £500 +11.11% 45
North West -21 71 £425 -11.46% 35
South West +6 45 £523 -8.13% 89
East of England -10 30 £475 +40.74% 37
East Midlands -1 26 £400 -11.11% 21
Wales +7 20 £400 +116.22% 10
North East -8 20 £388 -7.46% 6
Northern Ireland - 17 £500 - 7
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 (5.24%) Confluence
2 34 (2.78%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 14 (1.15%) CMS
5 12 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
6 9 (0.74%) Apache
7 6 (0.49%) nginx
8 5 (0.41%) Apache Spark
8 5 (0.41%) CICS
9 3 (0.25%) SAS
10 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
11 1 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.082%) Cloud Foundry
11 1 (0.082%) Ethereum
11 1 (0.082%) Hyperledger
11 1 (0.082%) Luigi
11 1 (0.082%) OpenEdge
11 1 (0.082%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.082%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 60 (4.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (2.62%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.90%) Chatbot
3 11 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.82%) Spreadsheet
5 7 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.41%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.25%) Sketch
8 2 (0.16%) InVision
9 1 (0.082%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.082%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.082%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.082%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.082%) Photoshop
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%) VisionPLUS
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle EBS R12
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.16%) Aladdin
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%) Oracle Internet Expenses
8 1 (0.082%) R3 Corda
8 1 (0.082%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.082%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 254 (20.80%) Azure
2 223 (18.26%) AWS
3 96 (7.86%) GCP
4 72 (5.90%) Power Platform
5 68 (5.57%) Microsoft 365
6 52 (4.26%) GitHub
7 44 (3.60%) Entra ID
7 44 (3.60%) Serverless
8 38 (3.11%) Azure DevOps
9 37 (3.03%) AWS Lambda
10 36 (2.95%) Amazon S3
11 32 (2.62%) SaaS
12 28 (2.29%) Power Automate
13 27 (2.21%) AWS CloudFormation
14 22 (1.80%) Snowflake
15 20 (1.64%) PowerApps
15 20 (1.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 18 (1.47%) Amazon EC2
16 18 (1.47%) Azure Monitor
17 17 (1.39%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 57 (4.67%) Firewall
2 31 (2.54%) Network Security
3 19 (1.56%) WAN
4 16 (1.31%) DNS
5 15 (1.23%) VPN
6 14 (1.15%) SSH
7 11 (0.90%) Cisco IPT
7 11 (0.90%) LAN
7 11 (0.90%) MPLS
7 11 (0.90%) SD-WAN
8 10 (0.82%) HTTP
9 9 (0.74%) DHCP
10 8 (0.66%) BGP
10 8 (0.66%) Wireshark
11 7 (0.57%) TCP/IP
11 7 (0.57%) VLAN
11 7 (0.57%) Wireless
12 6 (0.49%) Cisco Nexus
13 5 (0.41%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 5 (0.41%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (4.42%) Power BI
2 41 (3.36%) SQL Server
3 37 (3.03%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (1.80%) NoSQL
5 21 (1.72%) Amazon RDS
6 18 (1.47%) Relational Database
7 17 (1.39%) Tableau
8 16 (1.31%) Metadata
9 13 (1.06%) Amazon Athena
10 11 (0.90%) Data Lake
10 11 (0.90%) Data Warehouse
10 11 (0.90%) DynamoDB
10 11 (0.90%) MongoDB
11 8 (0.66%) Amazon Aurora
11 8 (0.66%) MySQL
11 8 (0.66%) Oracle Database
11 8 (0.66%) Oracle Reports
12 7 (0.57%) Hadoop
12 7 (0.57%) Power Query
13 6 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 107 (8.76%) JIRA
2 38 (3.11%) Git
3 30 (2.46%) GitLab
3 30 (2.46%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.82%) Postman
5 9 (0.74%) Metasploit
6 8 (0.66%) Burp Suite
6 8 (0.66%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.49%) JUnit
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%) SpecFlow
10 3 (0.25%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.25%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.25%) Maven
10 3 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.25%) Visual Studio
11 2 (0.16%) PyCharm
General
1 421 (34.48%) Social Skills
2 241 (19.74%) Finance
3 144 (11.79%) Analytical Skills
4 125 (10.24%) Public Sector
5 100 (8.19%) Banking
6 83 (6.80%) Legal
7 36 (2.95%) Marketing
8 32 (2.62%) Documentation Skills
9 31 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
10 27 (2.21%) Influencing Skills
11 26 (2.13%) Telecoms
12 24 (1.97%) Law
12 24 (1.97%) Manufacturing
13 20 (1.64%) Retail
14 19 (1.56%) Front Office
15 17 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
16 16 (1.31%) Aerospace
17 15 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 14 (1.15%) Financial Institution
18 14 (1.15%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 186 (15.23%) Analyst
2 123 (10.07%) Developer
3 118 (9.66%) Architect
4 90 (7.37%) Lead
5 77 (6.31%) Business Analyst
6 56 (4.59%) Consultant
7 54 (4.42%) Senior
8 51 (4.18%) Project Manager
9 43 (3.52%) Security Engineer
10 39 (3.19%) Administrator
11 38 (3.11%) Data Analyst
12 33 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
13 29 (2.38%) Data Engineer
14 25 (2.05%) Security Architect
14 25 (2.05%) Support Engineer
15 22 (1.80%) Information Officer
16 21 (1.72%) Automation Engineer
16 21 (1.72%) Information Governance Officer
16 21 (1.72%) Network Engineer
17 19 (1.56%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (3.85%) REST
2 30 (2.46%) React
3 29 (2.38%) RESTful
4 26 (2.13%) .NET
5 25 (2.05%) OAuth
5 25 (2.05%) SOAP
6 24 (1.97%) HTML
7 19 (1.56%) Spring
8 16 (1.31%) Node.js
9 15 (1.23%) Middleware
10 14 (1.15%) AngularJS
10 14 (1.15%) JSON
11 13 (1.06%) XML
12 12 (0.98%) Kafka
12 12 (0.98%) LangChain
13 11 (0.90%) CSS
13 11 (0.90%) SAML
14 10 (0.82%) Spring Boot
15 9 (0.74%) OAuth2
16 8 (0.66%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 629 (51.52%) Data Protection Act
2 47 (3.85%) Onboarding
3 44 (3.60%) Management Information System
4 42 (3.44%) Product Ownership
5 38 (3.11%) Cloud Native
6 29 (2.38%) Freedom of Information
7 25 (2.05%) NHS
8 24 (1.97%) Data Centre
9 22 (1.80%) Security Posture
10 21 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
11 20 (1.64%) Data Structures
11 20 (1.64%) Virtual Team
12 17 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
13 16 (1.31%) CMDB
14 14 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
14 14 (1.15%) Public Cloud
14 14 (1.15%) Replication
15 13 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
16 12 (0.98%) Derivative
16 12 (0.98%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 90 (7.37%) Windows
2 63 (5.16%) Linux
3 22 (1.80%) Unix
4 15 (1.23%) Windows Server
5 13 (1.06%) Mac OS
6 11 (0.90%) Android
7 9 (0.74%) Windows 10
8 7 (0.57%) zOS
9 6 (0.49%) AIX
9 6 (0.49%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.49%) Solaris
10 4 (0.33%) VMS
11 3 (0.25%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.16%) CentOS
13 1 (0.082%) Amazon Linux
13 1 (0.082%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 204 (16.71%) Problem-Solving
2 190 (15.56%) Agile
3 171 (14.00%) Stakeholder Management
4 159 (13.02%) DevOps
5 158 (12.94%) Cybersecurity
6 155 (12.69%) CI/CD
7 143 (11.71%) Migration
8 136 (11.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 111 (9.09%) AI
10 103 (8.44%) Continuous Improvement
11 100 (8.19%) Analytics
12 97 (7.94%) Information Security
13 96 (7.86%) Project Management
14 87 (7.13%) Risk Management
14 87 (7.13%) Roadmaps
15 73 (5.98%) Test Automation
16 72 (5.90%) Data Governance
17 70 (5.73%) Incident Response
17 70 (5.73%) Infrastructure as Code
18 68 (5.57%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 235 (19.25%) Python
2 142 (11.63%) SQL
3 67 (5.49%) Bash
4 61 (5.00%) PowerShell
5 60 (4.91%) Java
6 54 (4.42%) JavaScript
7 41 (3.36%) C#
8 23 (1.88%) TypeScript
9 12 (0.98%) C++
10 11 (0.90%) Shell Script
11 10 (0.82%) Go
12 8 (0.66%) PromQL
13 7 (0.57%) Kotlin
13 7 (0.57%) Perl
13 7 (0.57%) PHP
13 7 (0.57%) R
14 5 (0.41%) Bicep
14 5 (0.41%) COBOL
15 4 (0.33%) PL/SQL
15 4 (0.33%) Swift
Qualifications
1 135 (11.06%) Security Cleared
2 121 (9.91%) Degree
3 99 (8.11%) SC Cleared
4 48 (3.93%) Computer Science Degree
5 30 (2.46%) AWS Certification
6 27 (2.21%) DV Cleared
7 26 (2.13%) CISSP
8 22 (1.80%) CISM
9 18 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
9 18 (1.47%) Master's Degree
10 16 (1.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 14 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
12 12 (0.98%) Azure Certification
13 11 (0.90%) BPSS Clearance
13 11 (0.90%) CCNP
13 11 (0.90%) CISA
14 10 (0.82%) A+ Certification
14 10 (0.82%) PMI Certification
15 9 (0.74%) OSCP
15 9 (0.74%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 226 (18.51%) GDPR
2 83 (6.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 71 (5.81%) NIST
4 46 (3.77%) Data Quality
5 41 (3.36%) QA
6 28 (2.29%) Cyber Essentials
7 24 (1.97%) GRC
8 22 (1.80%) Accessibility
8 22 (1.80%) NCSC
8 22 (1.80%) PCI DSS
9 17 (1.39%) PMO
10 16 (1.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 11 (0.90%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.90%) PERC
12 10 (0.82%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 9 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
13 9 (0.74%) Disclosure Scotland
13 9 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 8 (0.66%) COBIT
14 8 (0.66%) SLA
System Software
1 58 (4.75%) Active Directory
2 47 (3.85%) Docker
3 42 (3.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (0.98%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.49%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.25%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (0.25%) vSphere
7 2 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
7 2 (0.16%) NFS
7 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.082%) Firmware
8 1 (0.082%) HDFS
8 1 (0.082%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.082%) KVM
8 1 (0.082%) Veritas Cluster Server
8 1 (0.082%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.082%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 62 (5.08%) Terraform
2 51 (4.18%) Kubernetes
3 43 (3.52%) Ansible
4 25 (2.05%) NetBackup
5 24 (1.97%) Microsoft Intune
6 19 (1.56%) Prometheus
7 18 (1.47%) SCCM
8 16 (1.31%) Grafana
9 11 (0.90%) Oracle RMAN
10 8 (0.66%) Nmap
10 8 (0.66%) Puppet
11 6 (0.49%) RSA Archer
12 5 (0.41%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 4 (0.33%) CA Endevor
13 4 (0.33%) Kibana
14 3 (0.25%) Data Guard
14 3 (0.25%) EMC NetWorker
14 3 (0.25%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 192 (15.72%) Microsoft
2 52 (4.26%) Google
3 46 (3.77%) VMware
4 45 (3.69%) Oracle
5 43 (3.52%) Cisco
6 34 (2.78%) Salesforce
6 34 (2.78%) ServiceNow
7 27 (2.21%) SAP
8 25 (2.05%) IBM
9 23 (1.88%) Databricks
10 21 (1.72%) Veritas
11 20 (1.64%) Red Hat
12 19 (1.56%) F5
13 18 (1.47%) Commvault
14 16 (1.31%) Citrix
15 15 (1.23%) CyberArk
16 14 (1.15%) Juniper
16 14 (1.15%) Splunk
17 13 (1.06%) OneTrust
18 11 (0.90%) Fortinet