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

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 101 87
Rank change year-on-year +25 -14 +14
Contract jobs citing Data Protection 1,452 750 1,088
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.24% 2.58% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.79% 2.85% 2.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 800 389 610
10th Percentile £300 £263 £213
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £691 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £453
% change year-on-year -5.26% +4.97% -7.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 28 108
10th Percentile £15.72 £17.83 £12.43
25th Percentile £16.93 £23.38 £16.06
Median hourly rate £20.71 £29.12 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.87% +49.31% -70.45%
75th Percentile £25.50 £33.59 £27.13
90th Percentile £58.50 £45.40 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.71 £29.12 £19.50
% change year-on-year -28.87% +49.31% -70.45%

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 38,313 26,307 38,195
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.58% 90.51% 86.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,289 17,086 24,815
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £635 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,251 967 2,341
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.00 £12.82
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.24 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £32.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.94% -1.54% -11.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.85 £31.08 £31.65
% change year-on-year +12.13% -1.80% -12.39%

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 April 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 2 April 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 2 April 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 +27 1,244 £500 - 369
UK excluding London +20 777 £450 -5.26% 290
London +33 582 £525 +1.45% 130
Work from Home +34 371 £500 +0.05% 149
North of England -5 245 £487 +2.58% 83
South East +23 182 £495 -4.72% 76
Yorkshire -8 143 £500 -3.61% 26
Scotland +15 116 £405 -13.33% 13
Midlands -11 107 £450 -10.00% 53
North West +4 94 £488 +7.14% 52
West Midlands -30 67 £500 -2.44% 26
South West +15 64 £425 +9.68% 30
East of England 0 48 £450 -20.00% 33
East Midlands -6 40 £438 +6.06% 27
Wales +1 15 £375 -11.76% 5
North East -24 9 £400 -15.79% 5
Northern Ireland +3 4 £500 +1.63% 1

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 58 (3.99%) Confluence
2 35 (2.41%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.55%) Apache
5 8 (0.55%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.21%) CMS
7 3 (0.21%) Ethereum
7 3 (0.21%) Hyperledger
7 3 (0.21%) nginx
8 2 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.14%) Drupal
8 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.14%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
8 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.069%) Mule
9 1 (0.069%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 55 (3.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (2.62%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.14%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.069%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.069%) Blender
9 1 (0.069%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.069%) InVision
9 1 (0.069%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.069%) Sketch
9 1 (0.069%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.83%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.76%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.34%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
5 5 (0.34%) SAP GRC
6 4 (0.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 4 (0.28%) ResourceLink
6 4 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 3 (0.21%) Distributed Ledger
7 3 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.21%) R3 Corda
8 2 (0.14%) Fidessa
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle FAH
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
8 2 (0.14%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.14%) Workfront
9 1 (0.069%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 293 (20.18%) Azure
2 238 (16.39%) AWS
3 130 (8.95%) GCP
4 81 (5.58%) Power Platform
5 78 (5.37%) Microsoft 365
6 73 (5.03%) Entra ID
7 65 (4.48%) GitHub
8 50 (3.44%) Serverless
9 49 (3.37%) SaaS
10 41 (2.82%) Microsoft Purview
11 39 (2.69%) OpenShift
12 38 (2.62%) Azure DevOps
13 34 (2.34%) AWS Lambda
14 31 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
14 31 (2.13%) Snowflake
15 30 (2.07%) Amazon S3
16 24 (1.65%) GitHub Actions
17 21 (1.45%) PaaS
18 20 (1.38%) Azure AKS
18 20 (1.38%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 50 (3.44%) Network Security
2 37 (2.55%) SAN
3 36 (2.48%) Firewall
4 24 (1.65%) VPN
5 23 (1.58%) NAS
6 20 (1.38%) WAN
7 18 (1.24%) DNS
7 18 (1.24%) LAN
7 18 (1.24%) MPLS
8 15 (1.03%) Cisco IPT
9 13 (0.90%) TCP/IP
10 11 (0.76%) Fibre Channel
10 11 (0.76%) SD-WAN
10 11 (0.76%) VLAN
11 10 (0.69%) DHCP
11 10 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (0.62%) BGP
12 9 (0.62%) iSCSI
13 8 (0.55%) IPv4
13 8 (0.55%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (4.89%) Power BI
2 36 (2.48%) Metadata
3 35 (2.41%) PostgreSQL
4 33 (2.27%) SQL Server
5 31 (2.13%) MySQL
6 27 (1.86%) Data Warehouse
7 22 (1.52%) Relational Database
8 19 (1.31%) Data Lake
9 18 (1.24%) DynamoDB
10 17 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
10 17 (1.17%) MongoDB
10 17 (1.17%) NoSQL
11 14 (0.96%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (0.96%) Tableau
12 13 (0.90%) Big Data
13 12 (0.83%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 8 (0.55%) Aerospike
15 8 (0.55%) BigQuery
15 8 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 90 (6.20%) JIRA
2 63 (4.34%) Jenkins
3 61 (4.20%) Git
4 39 (2.69%) GitLab
5 12 (0.83%) SpecFlow
6 10 (0.69%) JUnit
7 9 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.48%) Maven
9 6 (0.41%) NUnit
10 5 (0.34%) Flyway
10 5 (0.34%) Gradle
10 5 (0.34%) Postman
10 5 (0.34%) Team Foundation Server
11 4 (0.28%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.28%) Liquibase
12 3 (0.21%) IntelliJ
12 3 (0.21%) Selenium
12 3 (0.21%) TestNG
12 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio
General
1 453 (31.20%) Social Skills
2 328 (22.59%) Finance
3 185 (12.74%) Analytical Skills
4 170 (11.71%) Legal
5 141 (9.71%) Public Sector
6 117 (8.06%) Banking
7 60 (4.13%) Organisational Skills
8 51 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
9 40 (2.75%) Telecoms
10 33 (2.27%) Marketing
11 30 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (1.86%) Front Office
12 27 (1.86%) Law
12 27 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
13 25 (1.72%) Local Government
14 20 (1.38%) Retail
15 18 (1.24%) Police
16 13 (0.90%) Manufacturing
17 11 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 10 (0.69%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 189 (13.02%) Architect
2 152 (10.47%) Analyst
3 121 (8.33%) Developer
4 113 (7.78%) Lead
5 96 (6.61%) Senior
6 78 (5.37%) Consultant
7 69 (4.75%) Project Manager
8 66 (4.55%) Business Analyst
9 54 (3.72%) Solutions Architect
10 38 (2.62%) Java Developer
11 37 (2.55%) Data Engineer
11 37 (2.55%) Security Architect
12 35 (2.41%) Security Engineer
13 32 (2.20%) Administrator
13 32 (2.20%) Network Engineer
13 32 (2.20%) Technical Architect
14 26 (1.79%) Data Analyst
15 24 (1.65%) Data Protection Officer
16 22 (1.52%) Automation Engineer
17 21 (1.45%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (4.41%) REST
2 59 (4.06%) React
3 42 (2.89%) Spring
4 37 (2.55%) .NET
4 37 (2.55%) Spring Boot
5 32 (2.20%) Node.js
6 30 (2.07%) Kafka
7 28 (1.93%) Middleware
8 27 (1.86%) RESTful
9 26 (1.79%) HTML
10 25 (1.72%) OAuth
11 23 (1.58%) Jest
12 22 (1.52%) CSS
13 18 (1.24%) HTML5
13 18 (1.24%) Redux
14 17 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
14 17 (1.17%) Spring MVC
15 16 (1.10%) CSS3
15 16 (1.10%) Playwright
16 15 (1.03%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 669 (46.07%) Data Protection Act
2 78 (5.37%) Cloud Native
3 70 (4.82%) Product Ownership
4 66 (4.55%) Onboarding
5 51 (3.51%) Management Information System
6 34 (2.34%) NHS
7 30 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.07%) Replication
8 29 (2.00%) Hybrid Cloud
8 29 (2.00%) Legacy Systems
8 29 (2.00%) Security Posture
9 26 (1.79%) Data Centre
10 22 (1.52%) Enterprise Storage
11 21 (1.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 21 (1.45%) Freedom of Information
12 16 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
13 15 (1.03%) Data Structures
13 15 (1.03%) Operational Technology
13 15 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
14 14 (0.96%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 97 (6.68%) Windows
2 70 (4.82%) Linux
3 22 (1.52%) Unix
4 19 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 19 (1.31%) Windows Server
5 15 (1.03%) VMS
6 13 (0.90%) Windows 10
7 12 (0.83%) Mac OS
8 9 (0.62%) Android
8 9 (0.62%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.55%) zOS
10 7 (0.48%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.41%) CoreOS
12 5 (0.34%) Solaris
13 4 (0.28%) AIX
14 2 (0.14%) Rocky
14 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
15 1 (0.069%) CentOS
15 1 (0.069%) Oracle Linux
15 1 (0.069%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 253 (17.42%) Problem-Solving
2 246 (16.94%) Agile
2 246 (16.94%) Stakeholder Management
3 221 (15.22%) Migration
4 201 (13.84%) CI/CD
5 200 (13.77%) DevOps
6 185 (12.74%) Continuous Improvement
7 144 (9.92%) Cybersecurity
8 143 (9.85%) Analytics
9 137 (9.44%) Roadmaps
10 132 (9.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 127 (8.75%) AI
12 126 (8.68%) Risk Management
13 110 (7.58%) Decision-Making
14 107 (7.37%) Information Security
15 102 (7.02%) Data Governance
15 102 (7.02%) Infrastructure as Code
16 96 (6.61%) Test Automation
17 94 (6.47%) Project Management
18 92 (6.34%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 214 (14.74%) Python
2 187 (12.88%) SQL
3 124 (8.54%) Java
4 70 (4.82%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.86%) PowerShell
6 53 (3.65%) C#
7 41 (2.82%) Bash
8 37 (2.55%) TypeScript
9 18 (1.24%) Bicep
10 12 (0.83%) C++
11 11 (0.76%) Perl
12 10 (0.69%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.55%) ActionScript
13 8 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
13 8 (0.55%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.41%) ActionScript 2.0
15 5 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 5 (0.34%) Groovy
16 4 (0.28%) R
16 4 (0.28%) Scala
Qualifications
1 201 (13.84%) Security Cleared
2 143 (9.85%) SC Cleared
3 126 (8.68%) Degree
4 57 (3.93%) CISSP
5 54 (3.72%) DV Cleared
6 34 (2.34%) CISM
7 33 (2.27%) Computer Science Degree
8 28 (1.93%) PMI Certification
9 26 (1.79%) Azure Certification
9 26 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
10 25 (1.72%) AWS Certification
11 24 (1.65%) PMP
12 22 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
13 21 (1.45%) Master's Degree
14 20 (1.38%) Microsoft Certification
15 14 (0.96%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 13 (0.90%) CTC Cleared
17 12 (0.83%) CCSP
18 9 (0.62%) CCNP
18 9 (0.62%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 264 (18.18%) GDPR
2 96 (6.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 93 (6.40%) NIST
4 69 (4.75%) Data Quality
5 62 (4.27%) QA
6 32 (2.20%) PCI DSS
7 29 (2.00%) GRC
8 26 (1.79%) Accessibility
8 26 (1.79%) PMO
9 24 (1.65%) SLA
10 18 (1.24%) NCSC
11 17 (1.17%) SOC 2
12 14 (0.96%) Disclosure Scotland
13 12 (0.83%) PERC
14 11 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 9 (0.62%) NIST 800
16 8 (0.55%) HIPAA
17 7 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
18 6 (0.41%) COBIT
19 5 (0.34%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 70 (4.82%) Docker
2 69 (4.75%) Active Directory
3 54 (3.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (1.31%) NFS
4 19 (1.31%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.62%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.62%) VMware NSX
6 9 (0.62%) vSphere
7 5 (0.34%) KVM
7 5 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
8 4 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
9 3 (0.21%) IAG
9 3 (0.21%) Time Sharing Option
10 2 (0.14%) Firmware
10 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
10 2 (0.14%) XenApp
10 2 (0.14%) XenDesktop
11 1 (0.069%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 109 (7.51%) Kubernetes
2 103 (7.09%) Terraform
3 68 (4.68%) Ansible
4 37 (2.55%) Grafana
5 32 (2.20%) NetBackup
6 29 (2.00%) Microsoft Intune
7 23 (1.58%) Prometheus
8 20 (1.38%) Single Sign-On
9 19 (1.31%) SCCM
10 16 (1.10%) Puppet
11 10 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.48%) SnapMirror
13 5 (0.34%) Control-M
13 5 (0.34%) EMC NetWorker
13 5 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
13 5 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.34%) RSA Archer
14 4 (0.28%) CA Single Sign-On
14 4 (0.28%) Foglight
14 4 (0.28%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 227 (15.63%) Microsoft
2 71 (4.89%) Oracle
3 66 (4.55%) Google
4 55 (3.79%) VMware
5 51 (3.51%) Databricks
6 46 (3.17%) ServiceNow
7 43 (2.96%) Cisco
8 40 (2.75%) SAP
9 35 (2.41%) Red Hat
9 35 (2.41%) Salesforce
10 24 (1.65%) NetApp
11 23 (1.58%) Commvault
11 23 (1.58%) Veritas
12 21 (1.45%) Citrix
13 19 (1.31%) F5
14 18 (1.24%) IBM
15 16 (1.10%) Splunk
15 16 (1.10%) Veeam
16 15 (1.03%) Adobe
17 13 (0.90%) CyberArk