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

6 months to
2 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 73 86 84
Rank change year-on-year +13 -2 +23
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,238 969 1,208
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.44% 2.72% 2.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.86% 3.11% 3.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 608 511 704
10th Percentile £307 £264 £213
25th Percentile £400 £388 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.26%
75th Percentile £600 £611 £600
90th Percentile £675 £725 £714
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 32,041 31,135 40,262
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.06% 87.25% 88.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,133 18,828 26,941
10th Percentile £300 £310 £310
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
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 2,077 1,103 1,555
10th Percentile £14.58 £15.22 £14.38
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.22 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £33.00 £43.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.79% -24.14% +24.29%
75th Percentile £45.46 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.85 £32.50 £43.83
% change year-on-year -29.69% -25.84% +37.15%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 +15 1,053 £500 - 420
UK excluding London +1 637 £454 -9.25% 377
London +29 539 £525 +5.00% 140
Work from Home +12 295 £490 -2.00% 200
North of England -21 180 £450 -9.91% 70
South East +20 148 £510 +0.74% 135
Scotland +3 105 £400 -15.79% 15
Midlands +20 93 £450 -12.20% 63
Yorkshire -8 85 £513 +2.50% 24
North West -22 75 £425 -13.66% 42
West Midlands +5 67 £475 -8.43% 36
South West +7 48 £525 -22.22% 61
East of England -4 31 £475 +8.57% 29
East Midlands +4 26 £402 -11.06% 26
North East -10 21 £419 -1.47% 4
Wales +1 17 £400 +31.15% 11
Northern Ireland - 16 £500 - 2
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 (5.17%) Confluence
2 33 (2.67%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.97%) CMS
5 11 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (0.65%) Apache
7 7 (0.57%) Apache Spark
8 6 (0.48%) nginx
9 5 (0.40%) CICS
10 3 (0.24%) SAS
11 2 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 1 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
12 1 (0.081%) Ethereum
12 1 (0.081%) Hyperledger
12 1 (0.081%) Luigi
12 1 (0.081%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.081%) SharePoint Server
12 1 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 58 (4.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (2.42%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.81%) Chatbot
3 10 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.48%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.24%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.24%) 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 (0.081%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.081%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.081%) Blender
9 1 (0.081%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.081%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.081%) SPSS
9 1 (0.081%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (0.89%) Oracle EBS
2 9 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.40%) ResourceLink
5 4 (0.32%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.32%) VisionPLUS
6 3 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
6 3 (0.24%) 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 (0.081%) Endur
8 1 (0.081%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.081%) Oracle Financials
8 1 (0.081%) R3 Corda
8 1 (0.081%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.081%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.081%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 254 (20.52%) Azure
2 234 (18.90%) AWS
3 99 (8.00%) GCP
4 74 (5.98%) Power Platform
5 67 (5.41%) Microsoft 365
6 54 (4.36%) GitHub
7 50 (4.04%) Serverless
8 42 (3.39%) Amazon S3
8 42 (3.39%) Entra ID
9 41 (3.31%) AWS Lambda
10 40 (3.23%) Azure DevOps
11 36 (2.91%) SaaS
12 28 (2.26%) Power Automate
13 27 (2.18%) AWS CloudFormation
14 25 (2.02%) Snowflake
15 21 (1.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 20 (1.62%) Microsoft Purview
16 20 (1.62%) PowerApps
17 19 (1.53%) Amazon EC2
17 19 (1.53%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 53 (4.28%) Firewall
2 32 (2.58%) Network Security
3 17 (1.37%) DNS
4 15 (1.21%) WAN
5 14 (1.13%) SSH
5 14 (1.13%) VPN
6 13 (1.05%) MPLS
7 12 (0.97%) Cisco IPT
8 11 (0.89%) LAN
9 10 (0.81%) DHCP
9 10 (0.81%) HTTP
10 9 (0.73%) BGP
10 9 (0.73%) SD-WAN
11 8 (0.65%) Wireshark
12 7 (0.57%) TCP/IP
12 7 (0.57%) Wireless
13 6 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
13 6 (0.48%) Internet
13 6 (0.48%) VLAN
14 5 (0.40%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (4.52%) Power BI
2 40 (3.23%) SQL Server
3 35 (2.83%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (1.86%) NoSQL
4 23 (1.86%) Relational Database
5 20 (1.62%) Amazon RDS
6 19 (1.53%) Tableau
7 17 (1.37%) Metadata
8 16 (1.29%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (1.05%) MongoDB
10 12 (0.97%) Amazon Athena
10 12 (0.97%) Amazon Aurora
10 12 (0.97%) Data Lake
10 12 (0.97%) MySQL
11 11 (0.89%) DynamoDB
12 9 (0.73%) Oracle Database
12 9 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.65%) Big Data
14 7 (0.57%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.57%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 111 (8.97%) JIRA
2 41 (3.31%) Git
3 38 (3.07%) Jenkins
4 36 (2.91%) GitLab
5 8 (0.65%) JUnit
6 7 (0.57%) Postman
7 6 (0.48%) SpecFlow
8 5 (0.40%) Fiddler
9 4 (0.32%) ChangeMan
9 4 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.32%) Gradle
9 4 (0.32%) Metasploit
9 4 (0.32%) NUnit
9 4 (0.32%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.24%) Burp Suite
10 3 (0.24%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.24%) Maven
10 3 (0.24%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 426 (34.41%) Social Skills
2 246 (19.87%) Finance
3 149 (12.04%) Analytical Skills
4 126 (10.18%) Public Sector
5 98 (7.92%) Banking
6 87 (7.03%) Legal
7 37 (2.99%) Marketing
8 34 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
9 31 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
10 30 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (2.26%) Telecoms
12 23 (1.86%) Law
12 23 (1.86%) Manufacturing
13 18 (1.45%) Front Office
14 17 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
15 15 (1.21%) Financial Institution
15 15 (1.21%) Local Government
15 15 (1.21%) Retail
16 13 (1.05%) Aerospace
17 12 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 178 (14.38%) Analyst
2 130 (10.50%) Developer
3 125 (10.10%) Architect
4 87 (7.03%) Lead
5 73 (5.90%) Business Analyst
6 62 (5.01%) Senior
7 60 (4.85%) Consultant
8 52 (4.20%) Project Manager
9 39 (3.15%) Security Engineer
10 38 (3.07%) Data Analyst
11 37 (2.99%) Administrator
12 35 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
13 29 (2.34%) Data Engineer
14 26 (2.10%) Security Architect
15 25 (2.02%) Support Engineer
16 21 (1.70%) Automation Engineer
17 20 (1.62%) Information Officer
18 19 (1.53%) Information Governance Officer
18 19 (1.53%) Network Engineer
18 19 (1.53%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (4.28%) REST
2 34 (2.75%) RESTful
3 30 (2.42%) .NET
3 30 (2.42%) React
4 29 (2.34%) OAuth
5 24 (1.94%) SOAP
6 23 (1.86%) HTML
6 23 (1.86%) Node.js
7 22 (1.78%) Spring
8 21 (1.70%) Kafka
9 16 (1.29%) Middleware
10 14 (1.13%) AngularJS
11 13 (1.05%) JSON
11 13 (1.05%) LangChain
11 13 (1.05%) Spring Boot
12 12 (0.97%) OAuth2
13 11 (0.89%) .NET Core
13 11 (0.89%) SAML
13 11 (0.89%) XML
14 10 (0.81%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 642 (51.86%) Data Protection Act
2 48 (3.88%) Product Ownership
3 47 (3.80%) Cloud Native
4 46 (3.72%) Onboarding
5 45 (3.63%) Management Information System
6 32 (2.58%) Freedom of Information
7 28 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
8 25 (2.02%) NHS
9 23 (1.86%) Data Centre
10 22 (1.78%) Data Structures
10 22 (1.78%) Security Posture
11 20 (1.62%) Virtual Team
12 19 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
13 16 (1.29%) CMDB
14 15 (1.21%) Public Cloud
14 15 (1.21%) Replication
15 14 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
16 13 (1.05%) Hybrid Cloud
16 13 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
17 12 (0.97%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 87 (7.03%) Windows
2 58 (4.68%) Linux
3 20 (1.62%) Unix
4 13 (1.05%) Mac OS
4 13 (1.05%) Windows Server
5 11 (0.89%) Android
6 9 (0.73%) Windows 10
7 7 (0.57%) zOS
8 6 (0.48%) AIX
8 6 (0.48%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.48%) Solaris
9 5 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.32%) VMS
11 2 (0.16%) CentOS
11 2 (0.16%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.081%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 216 (17.45%) Problem-Solving
2 204 (16.48%) Agile
3 173 (13.97%) Stakeholder Management
4 168 (13.57%) DevOps
5 163 (13.17%) CI/CD
6 147 (11.87%) Migration
7 145 (11.71%) Cybersecurity
8 135 (10.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 113 (9.13%) AI
10 110 (8.89%) Analytics
11 102 (8.24%) Continuous Improvement
12 98 (7.92%) Project Management
13 93 (7.51%) Information Security
13 93 (7.51%) Roadmaps
14 89 (7.19%) Risk Management
15 77 (6.22%) Microservices
16 75 (6.06%) Test Automation
17 74 (5.98%) Data Governance
18 73 (5.90%) Business Intelligence
19 71 (5.74%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 231 (18.66%) Python
2 153 (12.36%) SQL
3 67 (5.41%) Java
4 60 (4.85%) Bash
4 60 (4.85%) JavaScript
4 60 (4.85%) PowerShell
5 46 (3.72%) C#
6 28 (2.26%) TypeScript
7 13 (1.05%) C++
8 11 (0.89%) Go
9 10 (0.81%) Shell Script
10 8 (0.65%) PHP
10 8 (0.65%) PromQL
11 7 (0.57%) Kotlin
11 7 (0.57%) R
12 6 (0.48%) Perl
12 6 (0.48%) PL/SQL
13 5 (0.40%) Bicep
13 5 (0.40%) COBOL
14 4 (0.32%) Scala
Qualifications
1 142 (11.47%) Security Cleared
2 113 (9.13%) Degree
3 101 (8.16%) SC Cleared
4 45 (3.63%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (2.50%) AWS Certification
6 29 (2.34%) DV Cleared
7 26 (2.10%) CISSP
8 22 (1.78%) CISM
9 18 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
10 17 (1.37%) Master's Degree
11 15 (1.21%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 15 (1.21%) BPSS Clearance
12 13 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (0.89%) Azure Certification
13 11 (0.89%) CCNP
13 11 (0.89%) CISA
13 11 (0.89%) PMI Certification
13 11 (0.89%) PMP
14 10 (0.81%) A+ Certification
15 8 (0.65%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 225 (18.17%) GDPR
2 84 (6.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 72 (5.82%) NIST
4 48 (3.88%) QA
5 47 (3.80%) Data Quality
6 23 (1.86%) PCI DSS
7 22 (1.78%) Accessibility
7 22 (1.78%) Cyber Essentials
8 19 (1.53%) GRC
9 18 (1.45%) PMO
10 17 (1.37%) NCSC
11 14 (1.13%) PERC
12 11 (0.89%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 11 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 11 (0.89%) NIST 800
13 9 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
13 9 (0.73%) Disclosure Scotland
14 8 (0.65%) EU AI Act
14 8 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 8 (0.65%) SLA
System Software
1 57 (4.60%) Docker
2 54 (4.36%) Active Directory
3 42 (3.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.05%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.48%) VMware NSX
6 4 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.24%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.24%) vSphere
8 2 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.16%) NFS
8 2 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.081%) Firmware
9 1 (0.081%) HDFS
9 1 (0.081%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.081%) KVM
9 1 (0.081%) Veritas Cluster Server
9 1 (0.081%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.081%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 67 (5.41%) Terraform
2 55 (4.44%) Kubernetes
3 43 (3.47%) Ansible
4 25 (2.02%) NetBackup
5 23 (1.86%) Microsoft Intune
6 21 (1.70%) Grafana
6 21 (1.70%) Prometheus
7 19 (1.53%) SCCM
8 11 (0.89%) Oracle RMAN
9 8 (0.65%) Puppet
10 6 (0.48%) RSA Archer
11 5 (0.40%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.32%) CA Endevor
12 4 (0.32%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
12 4 (0.32%) Kibana
13 3 (0.24%) Data Guard
13 3 (0.24%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.24%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 192 (15.51%) Microsoft
2 55 (4.44%) Google
3 47 (3.80%) Oracle
4 46 (3.72%) VMware
5 42 (3.39%) Cisco
6 36 (2.91%) Salesforce
6 36 (2.91%) ServiceNow
7 27 (2.18%) Databricks
7 27 (2.18%) SAP
8 25 (2.02%) IBM
9 21 (1.70%) Veritas
10 19 (1.53%) Red Hat
11 18 (1.45%) Commvault
11 18 (1.45%) F5
12 17 (1.37%) Citrix
13 15 (1.21%) CyberArk
14 14 (1.13%) Juniper
15 13 (1.05%) OneTrust
15 13 (1.05%) Splunk
16 11 (0.89%) Pega