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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 75 86
Rank change year-on-year -8 +11 -3
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,674 1,089 1,005
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.06% 3.34% 2.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.63% 3.69% 3.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 861 525 527
10th Percentile £256 £290 £212
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £454 £475
% change year-on-year -0.83% -4.47% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 52 17
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.63 £19.13
25th Percentile £14.12 £13.54 £22.50
Median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -45.22% +10.85%
75th Percentile £24.33 £20.48 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.75 £34.27 £70.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.85 £15.25 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.05% -39.00% +13.02%

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 46,073 29,551 32,512
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.35% 90.64% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,867 18,364 19,652
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,200 1,847 1,359
10th Percentile £13.74 £14.25 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.30 £20.06
Median hourly rate £39.75 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.05% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £65.88 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +1.18%

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 29 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 29 September 2026.

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 29 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 -16 1,388 £500 +1.63% 1,489
UK excluding London -5 931 £450 -0.83% 915
London -34 588 £525 - 651
Work from Home +11 461 £500 +11.11% 608
North of England +9 334 £463 +2.78% 279
South East -7 195 £468 -8.33% 216
Yorkshire +12 167 £475 -5.00% 105
Midlands +7 161 £450 -5.26% 136
North West +12 146 £450 +2.56% 149
West Midlands +9 129 £450 -10.00% 84
Scotland -17 120 £450 +5.88% 63
South West -21 67 £463 +15.63% 79
East of England -17 33 £500 +5.26% 79
East Midlands -9 32 £435 +8.75% 52
North East -46 22 £463 +15.63% 27
Wales -6 20 £413 +11.86% 30
Northern Ireland +4 15 £110 -84.36% 33
Channel Islands -3 2 £600 -17.24% 5

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 68 (4.06%) SharePoint
2 36 (2.15%) Confluence
3 26 (1.55%) Apache Airflow
4 23 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
5 18 (1.08%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.78%) IIS
7 12 (0.72%) Apache
7 12 (0.72%) CMS
8 10 (0.60%) SAS
9 7 (0.42%) WordPress
10 5 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.30%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.24%) Jupyter
11 4 (0.24%) nginx
12 3 (0.18%) CICS
13 2 (0.12%) Drupal
13 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
14 1 (0.060%) MQSeries
14 1 (0.060%) NetWeaver
14 1 (0.060%) WebSphere
Applications
1 50 (2.99%) Microsoft Office
2 46 (2.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.42%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.24%) UserZoom
7 1 (0.060%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.060%) InfoPath
7 1 (0.060%) Maya
7 1 (0.060%) Zemax
Business Applications
1 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
1 11 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.54%) SAP MDG
3 5 (0.30%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
4 4 (0.24%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
6 2 (0.12%) Cloudability
6 2 (0.12%) Endur
6 2 (0.12%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.12%) Sonata
7 1 (0.060%) Actimize
7 1 (0.060%) assyst
7 1 (0.060%) Maximo
7 1 (0.060%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.060%) Misys Midas
Cloud Services
1 375 (22.40%) Azure
2 297 (17.74%) AWS
3 135 (8.06%) Microsoft 365
4 134 (8.00%) GCP
5 77 (4.60%) Entra ID
6 76 (4.54%) Power Platform
6 76 (4.54%) SaaS
7 63 (3.76%) Azure DevOps
8 59 (3.52%) GitHub
9 55 (3.29%) Microsoft Purview
10 46 (2.75%) Serverless
11 39 (2.33%) Microsoft Copilot
12 27 (1.61%) OneDrive
12 27 (1.61%) OpenShift
13 25 (1.49%) GitHub Actions
14 24 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
15 23 (1.37%) Snowflake
16 22 (1.31%) Power Automate
17 21 (1.25%) PowerApps
18 20 (1.19%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 93 (5.56%) Network Security
2 64 (3.82%) Firewall
3 36 (2.15%) VPN
4 35 (2.09%) DNS
5 26 (1.55%) TCP/IP
6 25 (1.49%) DHCP
7 21 (1.25%) WAN
8 19 (1.14%) Cisco IPT
8 19 (1.14%) LAN
9 16 (0.96%) SAN
10 15 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (0.78%) MPLS
12 12 (0.72%) Wireless
13 11 (0.66%) SSL
13 11 (0.66%) VoIP
14 10 (0.60%) HTTP
14 10 (0.60%) NAS
14 10 (0.60%) Unified Communications
15 9 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
15 9 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (3.41%) Power BI
2 52 (3.11%) Metadata
3 41 (2.45%) Relational Database
4 37 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
5 32 (1.91%) SQL Server
6 24 (1.43%) NoSQL
7 23 (1.37%) BigQuery
8 22 (1.31%) Data Lake
9 16 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
10 14 (0.84%) Big Data
11 13 (0.78%) MongoDB
12 12 (0.72%) MySQL
13 11 (0.66%) Oracle Reports
14 10 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
15 9 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
15 9 (0.54%) Oracle Database
16 8 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
17 7 (0.42%) DynamoDB
17 7 (0.42%) Redis
Development Applications
1 80 (4.78%) JIRA
2 69 (4.12%) Git
3 57 (3.41%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.55%) GitLab
5 18 (1.08%) Selenium
6 10 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.60%) Postman
7 9 (0.54%) Maven
8 6 (0.36%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.24%) Gradle
10 4 (0.24%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) ERwin
11 3 (0.18%) Mockito
11 3 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Vite
General
1 668 (39.90%) Social Skills
2 359 (21.45%) Finance
3 252 (15.05%) Legal
4 221 (13.20%) Analytical Skills
5 215 (12.84%) Public Sector
6 120 (7.17%) Banking
7 80 (4.78%) Organisational Skills
8 72 (4.30%) Documentation Skills
9 47 (2.81%) Local Government
10 46 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
11 40 (2.39%) Presentation Skills
12 38 (2.27%) Retail
13 31 (1.85%) Law
14 28 (1.67%) Marketing
15 27 (1.61%) Front Office
16 26 (1.55%) Telecoms
17 22 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
18 21 (1.25%) Police
19 19 (1.14%) Billing
20 17 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 249 (14.87%) Architect
2 173 (10.33%) Analyst
3 135 (8.06%) Lead
4 128 (7.65%) Senior
5 104 (6.21%) Developer
6 79 (4.72%) Consultant
7 76 (4.54%) Project Manager
8 69 (4.12%) Business Analyst
9 66 (3.94%) Solutions Architect
10 58 (3.46%) Security Architect
11 51 (3.05%) Administrator
12 46 (2.75%) Security Engineer
13 38 (2.27%) Information Officer
14 36 (2.15%) Support Engineer
15 34 (2.03%) Information Governance Officer
16 33 (1.97%) Data Analyst
17 30 (1.79%) Data Engineer
18 28 (1.67%) Network Engineer
19 27 (1.61%) Data Architect
20 25 (1.49%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (5.85%) Terraform
2 92 (5.50%) REST
3 40 (2.39%) Kafka
4 36 (2.15%) OAuth
5 35 (2.09%) JSON
6 33 (1.97%) Middleware
7 28 (1.67%) React
8 25 (1.49%) RESTful
8 25 (1.49%) Spring
9 24 (1.43%) HTML
10 23 (1.37%) .NET
10 23 (1.37%) Spring Boot
11 22 (1.31%) CSS
11 22 (1.31%) OAuth2
12 20 (1.19%) Node.js
13 17 (1.02%) OpenID
14 16 (0.96%) SOAP
15 13 (0.78%) GraphQL
15 13 (0.78%) Swagger
15 13 (0.78%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 693 (41.40%) Data Protection Act
2 127 (7.59%) Management Information System
3 101 (6.03%) Product Ownership
4 95 (5.68%) Onboarding
5 92 (5.50%) Cloud Native
6 63 (3.76%) Data Centre
7 57 (3.41%) Distributed Systems
8 45 (2.69%) Freedom of Information
9 44 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
10 40 (2.39%) Security Posture
11 38 (2.27%) Virtual Team
12 31 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
13 30 (1.79%) NHS
14 29 (1.73%) Self-Motivation
15 28 (1.67%) Operational Technology
16 27 (1.61%) Data Structures
17 24 (1.43%) AI Agents
18 23 (1.37%) Mobile App
19 21 (1.25%) Private Cloud
20 19 (1.14%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 130 (7.77%) Windows
2 81 (4.84%) Linux
3 36 (2.15%) Windows Server
4 32 (1.91%) Apple iOS
5 31 (1.85%) Android
6 29 (1.73%) Unix
7 22 (1.31%) Mac OS
8 16 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 14 (0.84%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.48%) zOS
11 4 (0.24%) VMS
12 2 (0.12%) AIX
12 2 (0.12%) CentOS
12 2 (0.12%) HPUX
12 2 (0.12%) Solaris
12 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.060%) MVS
13 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 401 (23.95%) Stakeholder Management
2 321 (19.18%) Agile
3 295 (17.62%) Problem-Solving
4 287 (17.14%) Continuous Improvement
5 244 (14.58%) CI/CD
6 235 (14.04%) AI
7 227 (13.56%) Cybersecurity
8 226 (13.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 222 (13.26%) Migration
10 209 (12.49%) DevOps
11 167 (9.98%) Roadmaps
12 166 (9.92%) Decision-Making
13 160 (9.56%) Information Security
14 159 (9.50%) Risk Management
15 152 (9.08%) Data Governance
16 147 (8.78%) Infrastructure as Code
17 143 (8.54%) Analytics
18 140 (8.36%) Validation
19 120 (7.17%) Information Governance
20 119 (7.11%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 210 (12.54%) Python
2 167 (9.98%) SQL
3 81 (4.84%) Java
4 61 (3.64%) PowerShell
5 48 (2.87%) JavaScript
6 33 (1.97%) Bash
7 28 (1.67%) TypeScript
8 25 (1.49%) Go
9 18 (1.08%) Bicep
9 18 (1.08%) C#
10 16 (0.96%) Scala
11 15 (0.90%) Kotlin
12 14 (0.84%) Apex Code
13 12 (0.72%) Perl
14 9 (0.54%) C
15 8 (0.48%) C++
15 8 (0.48%) VB
16 7 (0.42%) COBOL
16 7 (0.42%) VB6
17 6 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 273 (16.31%) Security Cleared
2 201 (12.01%) SC Cleared
3 115 (6.87%) Degree
4 85 (5.08%) CISSP
5 60 (3.58%) DV Cleared
6 52 (3.11%) CISM
7 48 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
8 47 (2.81%) Cisco Certification
9 30 (1.79%) PMI Certification
10 29 (1.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 29 (1.73%) Azure Certification
11 27 (1.61%) PMP
12 26 (1.55%) CCSP
13 25 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
14 18 (1.08%) AWS Certification
15 13 (0.78%) CCNP
15 13 (0.78%) CISA
15 13 (0.78%) CRISC
16 11 (0.66%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.60%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 241 (14.40%) GDPR
2 120 (7.17%) Data Quality
3 102 (6.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 76 (4.54%) NIST
5 70 (4.18%) QA
6 53 (3.17%) GRC
7 49 (2.93%) Accessibility
8 30 (1.79%) PCI DSS
9 22 (1.31%) NCSC
10 21 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
11 19 (1.14%) PMO
12 14 (0.84%) SLA
13 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 12 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.66%) PERC
15 11 (0.66%) WCAG
16 10 (0.60%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 9 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
17 9 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 80 (4.78%) Active Directory
2 69 (4.12%) Docker
3 60 (3.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (1.02%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.78%) vSphere
6 12 (0.72%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.36%) NFS
9 5 (0.30%) ISA Server
9 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.12%) GPFS
11 2 (0.12%) IAG
11 2 (0.12%) Varnish
11 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.060%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.060%) OpenSSH
12 1 (0.060%) XenApp
12 1 (0.060%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 116 (6.93%) Kubernetes
2 48 (2.87%) Ansible
3 38 (2.27%) Microsoft Intune
4 27 (1.61%) Grafana
5 20 (1.19%) SCCM
6 14 (0.84%) Kibana
7 13 (0.78%) NetBackup
7 13 (0.78%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.72%) Progress Chef
9 11 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.60%) Puppet
11 8 (0.48%) CASB
12 5 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (0.30%) QRadar
12 5 (0.30%) SCOM
13 4 (0.24%) Control-M
13 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
14 3 (0.18%) Istio
14 3 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 371 (22.16%) Microsoft
2 90 (5.38%) ServiceNow
3 85 (5.08%) Google
4 72 (4.30%) Cisco
5 63 (3.76%) Oracle
6 61 (3.64%) VMware
7 47 (2.81%) Databricks
8 44 (2.63%) Splunk
9 37 (2.21%) SAP
10 30 (1.79%) Salesforce
11 28 (1.67%) Zscaler
12 21 (1.25%) Workday
13 20 (1.19%) IBM
14 18 (1.08%) F5
15 17 (1.02%) CyberArk
15 17 (1.02%) Dell
16 16 (0.96%) Red Hat
17 14 (0.84%) Dynatrace
17 14 (0.84%) MuleSoft
18 12 (0.72%) SolarWinds