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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 76 92
Rank change year-on-year -6 +16 -6
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,657 1,046 957
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.09% 3.19% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 3.52% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 883 522 515
10th Percentile £306 £293 £200
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £486 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.83% -2.75% -6.98%
75th Percentile £600 £595 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £468 £475
% change year-on-year -0.27% -1.58% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 44 44
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.08 -
25th Percentile £15.86 £14.48 £16.06
Median hourly rate £18.18 £16.50 £23.75
Median % change year-on-year +10.15% -30.53% -43.71%
75th Percentile £33.22 £27.37 £28.75
90th Percentile £35.65 £33.87 £69.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £20.50
% change year-on-year +17.05% -25.61% -34.92%

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 45,377 29,691 33,202
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.71% 90.48% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,881 18,495 21,183
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% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,839 1,731 1,775
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.38 £17.30 £18.15
Median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +65.23% -38.57% +0.61%
75th Percentile £68.00 £49.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.30 £42.50
% change year-on-year +88.67% -45.18% +18.88%

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 August 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 19 August 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 19 August 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 -4 1,407 £500 +2.30% 955
UK excluding London +1 910 £466 -0.27% 680
London -8 615 £525 +5.00% 417
Work from Home +12 478 £500 +5.26% 471
North of England +13 335 £475 +1.01% 194
South East +2 194 £483 -6.03% 162
Yorkshire +3 176 £475 -5.00% 57
North West +15 146 £495 +10.74% 106
Midlands -3 142 £472 -0.74% 95
Scotland -7 115 £430 -7.28% 58
West Midlands -21 109 £473 -5.40% 60
South West -23 71 £425 +6.25% 79
East of England -9 35 £550 +15.79% 70
East Midlands +1 33 £447 +27.71% 34
Wales -8 18 £413 +39.24% 17
North East -48 14 £463 +12.12% 31
Northern Ireland +5 11 £104 -82.55% 13

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 59 (3.56%) SharePoint
2 47 (2.84%) Confluence
3 26 (1.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 20 (1.21%) Apache Spark
5 19 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (0.78%) Apache
7 6 (0.36%) CMS
7 6 (0.36%) IIS
7 6 (0.36%) SAS
8 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
9 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.12%) NetWeaver
11 2 (0.12%) nginx
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
12 1 (0.060%) CICS
12 1 (0.060%) Drupal
Applications
1 43 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.53%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.30%) 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%) Trello
8 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 12 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.24%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.18%) SAP GRC
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%) 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
1 382 (23.05%) Azure
2 289 (17.44%) AWS
3 147 (8.87%) GCP
4 124 (7.48%) Microsoft 365
5 94 (5.67%) Power Platform
6 83 (5.01%) Entra ID
7 77 (4.65%) SaaS
8 64 (3.86%) GitHub
9 60 (3.62%) Microsoft Purview
10 59 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
11 53 (3.20%) Serverless
12 37 (2.23%) Microsoft Copilot
13 32 (1.93%) OpenShift
14 30 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
15 27 (1.63%) OneDrive
16 26 (1.57%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (1.57%) PowerApps
17 25 (1.51%) Amazon S3
18 24 (1.45%) Power Automate
19 22 (1.33%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 93 (5.61%) Network Security
2 57 (3.44%) Firewall
3 38 (2.29%) DNS
4 36 (2.17%) VPN
5 29 (1.75%) DHCP
6 24 (1.45%) TCP/IP
7 22 (1.33%) SAN
8 21 (1.27%) WAN
9 16 (0.97%) LAN
10 15 (0.91%) Cisco IPT
10 15 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (0.84%) SSL
11 14 (0.84%) Wireless
12 13 (0.78%) NAS
13 11 (0.66%) HTTP
13 11 (0.66%) MPLS
14 10 (0.60%) VoIP
15 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
16 8 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
16 8 (0.48%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.35%) Power BI
2 54 (3.26%) Metadata
3 42 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
4 39 (2.35%) SQL Server
5 36 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
6 28 (1.69%) Relational Database
7 26 (1.57%) NoSQL
8 24 (1.45%) Data Lake
9 20 (1.21%) Big Data
10 19 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
10 19 (1.15%) MySQL
11 17 (1.03%) MongoDB
12 14 (0.84%) BigQuery
13 12 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
14 11 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
15 10 (0.60%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.54%) DynamoDB
16 9 (0.54%) Redis
17 8 (0.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 8 (0.48%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 83 (5.01%) JIRA
2 63 (3.80%) Git
3 60 (3.62%) Jenkins
4 34 (2.05%) GitLab
5 11 (0.66%) Maven
6 9 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.48%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Flyway
8 6 (0.36%) Gradle
8 6 (0.36%) Postman
8 6 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.30%) ERwin
9 5 (0.30%) JUnit
9 5 (0.30%) Selenium
10 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.18%) Mocha
10 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 587 (35.43%) Social Skills
2 364 (21.97%) Finance
3 250 (15.09%) Legal
4 207 (12.49%) Analytical Skills
5 188 (11.35%) Public Sector
6 114 (6.88%) Banking
7 76 (4.59%) Documentation Skills
8 70 (4.22%) Organisational Skills
9 41 (2.47%) Retail
10 38 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
11 36 (2.17%) Local Government
12 32 (1.93%) Law
13 31 (1.87%) Telecoms
14 27 (1.63%) Front Office
14 27 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
15 25 (1.51%) Marketing
16 22 (1.33%) Billing
16 22 (1.33%) Pharmaceutical
16 22 (1.33%) Police
17 16 (0.97%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 244 (14.73%) Architect
2 158 (9.54%) Analyst
3 142 (8.57%) Lead
4 125 (7.54%) Developer
5 123 (7.42%) Senior
6 86 (5.19%) Consultant
7 79 (4.77%) Project Manager
8 65 (3.92%) Business Analyst
8 65 (3.92%) Solutions Architect
9 54 (3.26%) Security Architect
10 43 (2.60%) Security Engineer
11 39 (2.35%) Administrator
12 38 (2.29%) Data Engineer
13 34 (2.05%) Support Engineer
14 30 (1.81%) Java Developer
14 30 (1.81%) Network Engineer
15 29 (1.75%) Data Analyst
16 28 (1.69%) IT Support
17 26 (1.57%) Technical Architect
18 25 (1.51%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (5.37%) REST
2 41 (2.47%) React
3 36 (2.17%) JSON
3 36 (2.17%) Spring
4 33 (1.99%) Kafka
4 33 (1.99%) Middleware
4 33 (1.99%) Spring Boot
5 31 (1.87%) CSS
5 31 (1.87%) OAuth
6 30 (1.81%) HTML
7 27 (1.63%) RESTful
8 24 (1.45%) .NET
9 22 (1.33%) Node.js
10 17 (1.03%) OAuth2
10 17 (1.03%) OpenID
11 15 (0.91%) CSS3
11 15 (0.91%) GraphQL
11 15 (0.91%) HTML5
12 14 (0.84%) Jest
12 14 (0.84%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 725 (43.75%) Data Protection Act
2 92 (5.55%) Cloud Native
2 92 (5.55%) Product Ownership
3 82 (4.95%) Management Information System
4 76 (4.59%) Onboarding
5 52 (3.14%) Data Centre
6 48 (2.90%) Distributed Systems
7 41 (2.47%) Legacy Systems
7 41 (2.47%) Virtual Team
8 39 (2.35%) Security Posture
9 28 (1.69%) Freedom of Information
10 27 (1.63%) NHS
10 27 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
11 25 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
11 25 (1.51%) Replication
12 24 (1.45%) Operational Technology
13 23 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
14 22 (1.33%) Mobile App
15 21 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
16 20 (1.21%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 129 (7.79%) Windows
2 83 (5.01%) Linux
3 32 (1.93%) Apple iOS
4 31 (1.87%) Android
5 28 (1.69%) Unix
5 28 (1.69%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.33%) Mac OS
7 20 (1.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.97%) Windows 10
9 10 (0.60%) VMS
10 7 (0.42%) zOS
11 3 (0.18%) CoreOS
11 3 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.18%) Solaris
11 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Rocky
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 324 (19.55%) Stakeholder Management
2 304 (18.35%) Agile
3 289 (17.44%) Problem-Solving
4 267 (16.11%) Continuous Improvement
5 238 (14.36%) DevOps
6 235 (14.18%) CI/CD
7 217 (13.10%) Migration
8 215 (12.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 209 (12.61%) AI
10 182 (10.98%) Cybersecurity
11 161 (9.72%) Roadmaps
12 160 (9.66%) Data Governance
13 156 (9.41%) Decision-Making
14 150 (9.05%) Analytics
15 131 (7.91%) Information Security
15 131 (7.91%) Risk Management
16 125 (7.54%) Infrastructure as Code
17 122 (7.36%) Data Modelling
18 121 (7.30%) Validation
19 100 (6.04%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 206 (12.43%) Python
2 162 (9.78%) SQL
3 104 (6.28%) Java
4 60 (3.62%) PowerShell
5 56 (3.38%) JavaScript
6 40 (2.41%) Bash
7 27 (1.63%) TypeScript
8 20 (1.21%) C#
9 19 (1.15%) Go
10 15 (0.91%) Bicep
11 14 (0.84%) Apex Code
11 14 (0.84%) Kotlin
12 12 (0.72%) Perl
13 11 (0.66%) C++
14 8 (0.48%) C
14 8 (0.48%) Scala
14 8 (0.48%) VB
15 7 (0.42%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.42%) VB6
16 6 (0.36%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 250 (15.09%) Security Cleared
2 188 (11.35%) SC Cleared
3 109 (6.58%) Degree
4 81 (4.89%) CISSP
5 58 (3.50%) DV Cleared
6 51 (3.08%) CISM
7 35 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
8 34 (2.05%) Azure Certification
9 32 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
10 28 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
10 28 (1.69%) PMI Certification
11 26 (1.57%) PMP
12 21 (1.27%) AWS Certification
13 18 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (0.97%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 14 (0.84%) CCSP
16 11 (0.66%) CCNP
16 11 (0.66%) Master's Degree
17 8 (0.48%) CISA
17 8 (0.48%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 250 (15.09%) GDPR
2 108 (6.52%) Data Quality
3 93 (5.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (4.77%) NIST
5 76 (4.59%) QA
6 47 (2.84%) Accessibility
7 44 (2.66%) GRC
8 23 (1.39%) PMO
9 20 (1.21%) NCSC
9 20 (1.21%) PCI DSS
10 19 (1.15%) SLA
11 12 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
11 12 (0.72%) HIPAA
11 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 11 (0.66%) PERC
12 11 (0.66%) SOC 2
12 11 (0.66%) WCAG
13 9 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 9 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 92 (5.55%) Active Directory
2 64 (3.86%) Docker
3 58 (3.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (1.21%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.72%) NFS
6 11 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 11 (0.66%) vSphere
7 8 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.24%) KVM
11 4 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
12 3 (0.18%) XenApp
12 3 (0.18%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.12%) Firmware
13 2 (0.12%) IAG
13 2 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 113 (6.82%) Kubernetes
2 93 (5.61%) Terraform
3 49 (2.96%) Ansible
4 41 (2.47%) Microsoft Intune
5 29 (1.75%) Grafana
6 24 (1.45%) SCCM
7 23 (1.39%) NetBackup
8 18 (1.09%) Prometheus
9 17 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.91%) Puppet
11 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.60%) Progress Chef
13 8 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.36%) Kibana
15 5 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
15 5 (0.30%) QRadar
16 4 (0.24%) Cisco CUCM
16 4 (0.24%) Istio
16 4 (0.24%) PingFederate
16 4 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 332 (20.04%) Microsoft
2 85 (5.13%) ServiceNow
3 70 (4.22%) Oracle
4 69 (4.16%) Google
5 60 (3.62%) VMware
6 58 (3.50%) Cisco
7 51 (3.08%) Databricks
8 38 (2.29%) SAP
9 34 (2.05%) Splunk
10 29 (1.75%) Salesforce
11 26 (1.57%) Red Hat
12 24 (1.45%) Zscaler
13 23 (1.39%) NetApp
13 23 (1.39%) Workday
14 22 (1.33%) CyberArk
15 17 (1.03%) F5
15 17 (1.03%) IBM
16 16 (0.97%) Citrix
16 16 (0.97%) Veritas
17 14 (0.84%) Dell