GDPR Contract Job Trends

General Data Protection Regulation EU 2016/679 (GDPR)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring GDPR skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 20 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 163 191
Rank change year-on-year +46 +28 +87
Contract jobs citing GDPR 1,010 502 542
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.18% 1.71% 1.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 12.88% 11.04% 8.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 668 302 283
10th Percentile £363 £315 £312
25th Percentile £450 £438 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £526 £533 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% +6.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £627 £641 £638
90th Percentile £738 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £485
% change year-on-year +2.50% +3.04% -2.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 22 49
10th Percentile £13.46 £15.34 £11.06
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.29 £11.95
Median hourly rate £24.19 £27.50 £21.73
Median % change year-on-year -12.02% +26.53% -27.57%
75th Percentile £34.65 £33.55 £27.50
90th Percentile £61.40 £86.88 £34.21
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £27.35 £25.00
% change year-on-year -15.90% +9.40% +31.58%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

GDPR falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 7,841 4,549 6,273
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.95% 15.45% 14.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,071 2,925 3,972
10th Percentile £334 £263 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £630
90th Percentile £700 £720 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% +4.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 442 174 378
10th Percentile £14.02 £17.89 £10.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.14 £13.00
Median hourly rate £31.25 £32.96 £20.49
Median % change year-on-year -5.19% +60.90% -46.09%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £81.00 £82.90 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.50 £34.06 £17.72
% change year-on-year +1.31% +92.18% -49.37%

GDPR
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing GDPR relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

GDPR job vacancy trend in the UK

GDPR
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GDPR.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GDPR

GDPR
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing GDPR over the 6 months to 20 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for GDPR in the UK

GDPR
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GDPR.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GDPR

GDPR
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing GDPR over the 6 months to 20 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for GDPR in the UK

GDPR
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 GDPR within the UK over the 6 months to 20 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 +40 908 £535 +1.81% 613
UK excluding London +41 499 £513 +2.50% 501
London +36 431 £550 -2.65% 205
Work from Home +66 322 £550 - 283
South East +28 178 £550 +7.32% 159
North of England +16 133 £550 +4.76% 109
Midlands -13 86 £475 +3.04% 83
Yorkshire -6 64 £550 +4.76% 39
North West -12 59 £513 -2.38% 58
West Midlands -34 51 £492 +3.58% 46
South West -17 38 £500 +25.00% 53
Scotland +21 35 £358 -28.40% 20
East Midlands -2 35 £447 +29.38% 37
East of England -26 28 £625 +19.05% 71
North East -9 11 £508 +9.84% 14
Northern Ireland +1 3 £500 - 7
Wales -8 2 £550 +57.14% 10

GDPR
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 45 (4.46%) SharePoint
2 41 (4.06%) Confluence
3 40 (3.96%) Microsoft Exchange
4 39 (3.86%) Apache Spark
5 27 (2.67%) Apache
6 17 (1.68%) Apache Airflow
7 10 (0.99%) TPMS
8 7 (0.69%) SAS
9 5 (0.50%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.50%) Appian
9 5 (0.50%) Camunda
10 3 (0.30%) CMS
10 3 (0.30%) Exchange Server 2013
11 2 (0.20%) Alfresco
11 2 (0.20%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.20%) GeoServer
12 1 (0.099%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.099%) Moodle
12 1 (0.099%) NetWeaver
12 1 (0.099%) WordPress
Applications
1 38 (3.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (2.38%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.59%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.099%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.099%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.099%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.099%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.099%) InDesign
7 1 (0.099%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 18 (1.78%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.89%) Salesforce CRM
4 7 (0.69%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.50%) BambooHR
5 5 (0.50%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 3 (0.30%) ResourceLink
6 3 (0.30%) SAP GRC
6 3 (0.30%) Workday HCM
7 2 (0.20%) Actimize
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
7 2 (0.20%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.20%) SAP HCM
7 2 (0.20%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.20%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.099%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.099%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.099%) Orchard Housing
8 1 (0.099%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 386 (38.22%) Azure
2 291 (28.81%) AWS
3 162 (16.04%) GCP
4 143 (14.16%) Power Platform
5 88 (8.71%) Microsoft 365
6 84 (8.32%) Entra ID
7 63 (6.24%) Microsoft Purview
8 55 (5.45%) AWS CloudFormation
9 44 (4.36%) Collibra
9 44 (4.36%) SaaS
10 43 (4.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 40 (3.96%) Azure Data Factory
12 35 (3.47%) Amazon S3
13 32 (3.17%) Azure DevOps
14 31 (3.07%) Serverless
15 28 (2.77%) OneDrive
16 26 (2.57%) GitHub
16 26 (2.57%) Snowflake
17 23 (2.28%) Azure Sentinel
18 20 (1.98%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 67 (6.63%) Firewall
2 46 (4.55%) Network Security
3 31 (3.07%) DNS
4 27 (2.67%) DHCP
4 27 (2.67%) VPN
5 18 (1.78%) SSL
5 18 (1.78%) Wireless
6 16 (1.58%) Kerberos
7 15 (1.49%) Cisco IPT
8 11 (1.09%) WAN
9 10 (0.99%) IPv4
9 10 (0.99%) IPv6
9 10 (0.99%) LAN
9 10 (0.99%) SD-WAN
9 10 (0.99%) SMS
9 10 (0.99%) SNMP
9 10 (0.99%) SSH
10 8 (0.79%) HTTP
11 7 (0.69%) WLAN
12 6 (0.59%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 134 (13.27%) Power BI
2 67 (6.63%) Data Lake
3 59 (5.84%) Metadata
4 58 (5.74%) Data Warehouse
5 31 (3.07%) SQL Server
6 28 (2.77%) BigQuery
6 28 (2.77%) Tableau
7 26 (2.57%) Amazon Athena
8 24 (2.38%) NoSQL
9 22 (2.18%) Big Data
10 20 (1.98%) Amazon Redshift
10 20 (1.98%) Relational Database
11 18 (1.78%) Mixpanel
11 18 (1.78%) OLAP
11 18 (1.78%) OLTP
12 16 (1.58%) Azure SQL Database
13 14 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
14 9 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
14 9 (0.89%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 56 (5.54%) JIRA
2 35 (3.47%) Git
3 20 (1.98%) GitLab
4 18 (1.78%) Burp Suite
5 17 (1.68%) Metasploit
6 11 (1.09%) Jenkins
7 7 (0.69%) ERwin
7 7 (0.69%) PowerDesigner
8 5 (0.50%) Postman
9 4 (0.40%) Charles Proxy
9 4 (0.40%) REST Assured
9 4 (0.40%) Selenium
10 3 (0.30%) Jaeger
10 3 (0.30%) Robot Framework
11 2 (0.20%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
11 2 (0.20%) Fiddler
12 1 (0.099%) Artifactory
12 1 (0.099%) Hudson
12 1 (0.099%) Zephyr
General
1 380 (37.62%) Social Skills
2 301 (29.80%) Finance
3 168 (16.63%) Analytical Skills
4 150 (14.85%) Legal
5 137 (13.56%) Public Sector
6 83 (8.22%) Documentation Skills
7 62 (6.14%) Marketing
8 58 (5.74%) Banking
9 34 (3.37%) Retail
10 21 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
10 21 (2.08%) Presentation Skills
11 20 (1.98%) Law
12 19 (1.88%) Telecoms
13 17 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
13 17 (1.68%) Local Government
14 16 (1.58%) Financial Institution
15 12 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 11 (1.09%) Electronics
16 11 (1.09%) Military
17 8 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 191 (18.91%) Architect
2 112 (11.09%) Lead
3 111 (10.99%) Analyst
4 60 (5.94%) Senior
5 58 (5.74%) Consultant
6 57 (5.64%) Project Manager
6 57 (5.64%) Solutions Architect
7 56 (5.54%) Business Analyst
8 55 (5.45%) Data Engineer
9 38 (3.76%) Security Engineer
10 36 (3.56%) Security Architect
11 31 (3.07%) Data Architect
12 30 (2.97%) Data Analyst
13 25 (2.48%) Administrator
13 25 (2.48%) Microsoft 365 Architect
14 23 (2.28%) Developer
15 22 (2.18%) Security Manager
16 21 (2.08%) Principal Engineer
17 18 (1.78%) Migration Manager
18 17 (1.68%) Migration Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (4.75%) LDAP
2 47 (4.65%) Kafka
3 43 (4.26%) REST
4 39 (3.86%) Middleware
5 37 (3.66%) OAuth
6 33 (3.27%) SAML
7 21 (2.08%) PySpark
8 19 (1.88%) Great Expectations
9 18 (1.78%) JSON
10 17 (1.68%) HTML
10 17 (1.68%) Microsoft Graph
11 16 (1.58%) .NET
11 16 (1.58%) SOAP
12 15 (1.49%) CSS
12 15 (1.49%) OpenID
13 14 (1.39%) Node.js
13 14 (1.39%) OAuth2
14 12 (1.19%) Oracle Fusion
15 10 (0.99%) Spark Streaming
15 10 (0.99%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 78 (7.72%) Cloud Native
2 66 (6.53%) Management Information System
3 51 (5.05%) Security Posture
4 50 (4.95%) Onboarding
5 46 (4.55%) Data Protection Act
6 44 (4.36%) Product Ownership
7 41 (4.06%) Legacy Systems
8 28 (2.77%) Analytical Mindset
9 26 (2.57%) Data Centre
10 25 (2.48%) Hybrid Cloud
11 23 (2.28%) Marketing Technology
12 22 (2.18%) Replication
13 21 (2.08%) NHS
14 20 (1.98%) Data Structures
14 20 (1.98%) Freedom of Information
15 13 (1.29%) Public Cloud
16 12 (1.19%) BYOD
16 12 (1.19%) Distributed Computing
16 12 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
17 11 (1.09%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 88 (8.71%) Windows
2 36 (3.56%) Linux
3 28 (2.77%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.59%) Mac OS
4 6 (0.59%) Windows 10
5 5 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.30%) Android
6 3 (0.30%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.20%) Solaris
7 2 (0.20%) Unix
7 2 (0.20%) VMS
8 1 (0.099%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 273 (27.03%) Data Protection
2 264 (26.14%) Stakeholder Management
3 226 (22.38%) Agile
4 222 (21.98%) Data Governance
5 192 (19.01%) Analytics
5 192 (19.01%) Cybersecurity
5 192 (19.01%) Migration
6 187 (18.51%) CI/CD
7 181 (17.92%) DevOps
8 157 (15.54%) Problem-Solving
9 155 (15.35%) Business Intelligence
10 154 (15.25%) Data Modelling
11 140 (13.86%) Roadmaps
12 139 (13.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 130 (12.87%) AI
13 130 (12.87%) Risk Management
14 124 (12.28%) Continuous Improvement
15 123 (12.18%) ETL
15 123 (12.18%) Information Security
16 122 (12.08%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 199 (19.70%) SQL
2 171 (16.93%) Python
3 109 (10.79%) PowerShell
4 41 (4.06%) Java
5 35 (3.47%) C#
6 25 (2.48%) JavaScript
7 24 (2.38%) Bash
8 14 (1.39%) Kusto Query Language
9 13 (1.29%) Bicep
10 10 (0.99%) TypeScript
11 9 (0.89%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.69%) R
13 6 (0.59%) Shell Script
14 5 (0.50%) Apex Code
14 5 (0.50%) Go
15 4 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 3 (0.30%) T-SQL
17 2 (0.20%) Perl
17 2 (0.20%) PHP
17 2 (0.20%) Scala
Qualifications
1 170 (16.83%) Security Cleared
2 138 (13.66%) SC Cleared
3 115 (11.39%) CISSP
4 114 (11.29%) Degree
5 81 (8.02%) CISM
6 42 (4.16%) PMI Certification
7 39 (3.86%) PMP
8 35 (3.47%) Azure Certification
9 34 (3.37%) Cisco Certification
10 29 (2.87%) AWS Certification
11 28 (2.77%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 26 (2.57%) Computer Science Degree
13 19 (1.88%) CCSP
14 18 (1.78%) Master's Degree
15 17 (1.68%) Microsoft Certification
16 16 (1.58%) CHECK Team Member
17 14 (1.39%) CREST Certified
17 14 (1.39%) Cyber Scheme
18 13 (1.29%) DV Cleared
19 12 (1.19%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 260 (25.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 190 (18.81%) NIST
3 137 (13.56%) Data Quality
4 126 (12.48%) PCI DSS
5 80 (7.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 49 (4.85%) QA
7 41 (4.06%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 41 (4.06%) GRC
8 37 (3.66%) SOC 2
9 34 (3.37%) HIPAA
10 31 (3.07%) NCSC
11 27 (2.67%) PERC
11 27 (2.67%) PMO
12 26 (2.57%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (1.98%) Accessibility
14 17 (1.68%) MiFID
15 13 (1.29%) FINRA
16 12 (1.19%) EU AI Act
16 12 (1.19%) Solvency II
17 10 (0.99%) SLA
System Software
1 91 (9.01%) Active Directory
2 42 (4.16%) Docker
3 13 (1.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.40%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.099%) Firmware
8 1 (0.099%) IAG
8 1 (0.099%) NDS
8 1 (0.099%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 1 (0.099%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 91 (9.01%) Terraform
2 66 (6.53%) Kubernetes
3 41 (4.06%) Single Sign-On
4 20 (1.98%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 17 (1.68%) Microsoft Intune
6 16 (1.58%) Ansible
6 16 (1.58%) Nmap
7 13 (1.29%) Grafana
8 10 (0.99%) Prometheus
9 8 (0.79%) SCCM
10 5 (0.50%) QRadar
10 5 (0.50%) RSA Archer
11 4 (0.40%) CA Single Sign-On
11 4 (0.40%) PingFederate
12 3 (0.30%) Data Guard
12 3 (0.30%) Istio
12 3 (0.30%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 3 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
12 3 (0.30%) Rancher
13 2 (0.20%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 233 (23.07%) Microsoft
2 84 (8.32%) Google
3 69 (6.83%) Databricks
4 52 (5.15%) ServiceNow
5 51 (5.05%) CyberArk
6 49 (4.85%) Salesforce
7 47 (4.65%) Oracle
8 46 (4.55%) SAP
9 30 (2.97%) Workday
10 27 (2.67%) BeyondTrust
11 24 (2.38%) Adobe
12 23 (2.28%) Informatica
12 23 (2.28%) Okta
12 23 (2.28%) Splunk
13 16 (1.58%) Cisco
13 16 (1.58%) OneTrust
14 15 (1.49%) Tealium
15 14 (1.39%) VMware
16 13 (1.29%) Fortinet
16 13 (1.29%) MuleSoft