Data Protection Job Trends

Data Protection
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Data Protection skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 160 203 246
Rank change year-on-year +43 +43 +15
Permanent jobs citing Data Protection 1,466 756 758
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.24% 1.54% 1.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.68% 1.73% 1.30%
Number of salaries quoted 879 454 406
10th Percentile £31,750 £31,250 £32,500
25th Percentile £40,328 £36,650 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -12.50% +2.03%
75th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,125 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £47,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +5.26% -13.64% +1.85%

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 permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 87,115 43,732 58,410
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.39% 88.90% 82.19%
Number of salaries quoted 59,537 24,546 31,188
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,250 £32,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £43,997
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £78,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%

Data Protection
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Data Protection relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Data Protection job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Protection
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Protection.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Protection

Data Protection
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Data Protection over the 6 months to 14 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Data Protection in the UK

Data Protection
Top 18 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Data Protection within the UK over the 6 months to 14 October 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +61 1,313 £55,000 +6.00% 1,165
UK excluding London +63 921 £50,000 +5.26% 644
Work from Home +97 495 £60,000 +20.00% 523
London +19 464 £65,000 -3.51% 575
North of England +56 269 £50,000 - 190
South East +49 242 £45,000 - 148
Midlands +46 157 £52,500 +1.18% 91
North West +39 149 £45,000 -10.00% 95
West Midlands +28 102 £53,600 -8.72% 49
South West -13 90 £49,375 +27.64% 62
Yorkshire +24 88 £40,000 -33.33% 82
East of England +9 80 £45,000 +38.46% 50
East Midlands -3 55 £45,000 +12.50% 42
Wales -33 45 £58,750 +117.59% 24
North East -46 32 £80,500 +40.00% 14
Scotland +15 22 £74,830 +15.12% 49
Northern Ireland - 20 £74,830 - 34
Channel Islands - 1 £45,000 - 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
1 129 (8.80%) SharePoint
2 46 (3.14%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (0.82%) WordPress
4 7 (0.48%) Apache Spark
5 6 (0.41%) Apache
5 6 (0.41%) Confluence
6 5 (0.34%) IIS
7 4 (0.27%) CMS
8 2 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.14%) nginx
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.068%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.068%) Documentum
9 1 (0.068%) Moodle
9 1 (0.068%) Oracle Coherence
9 1 (0.068%) WebSphere
Applications
1 91 (6.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 74 (5.05%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.77%) Spreadsheet
4 13 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.34%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.34%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.27%) Acrobat
6 4 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.14%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.068%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.068%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.068%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.068%) Elementor
8 1 (0.068%) InDesign
8 1 (0.068%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.068%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 13 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (0.82%) Raiser’s Edge
3 8 (0.55%) SystmOne
4 7 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
5 5 (0.34%) Shopify
6 4 (0.27%) iTrent
6 4 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
7 3 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
7 3 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
7 3 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.20%) SAP HR
7 3 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
7 3 (0.20%) Workday HCM
8 2 (0.14%) Dynamics GP
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
9 1 (0.068%) BambooHR
9 1 (0.068%) Infor CloudSuite
9 1 (0.068%) SAP CO
9 1 (0.068%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.068%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 313 (21.35%) Azure
2 261 (17.80%) Microsoft 365
3 184 (12.55%) AWS
4 140 (9.55%) Power Platform
5 111 (7.57%) Entra ID
6 108 (7.37%) SaaS
7 83 (5.66%) Microsoft Copilot
8 74 (5.05%) Microsoft Purview
9 60 (4.09%) Power Automate
10 56 (3.82%) Serverless
11 54 (3.68%) GCP
12 52 (3.55%) PowerApps
13 50 (3.41%) OneDrive
14 49 (3.34%) Copilot Studio
15 36 (2.46%) AWS Lambda
16 35 (2.39%) Cloud Computing
17 33 (2.25%) AWS CloudFormation
18 26 (1.77%) Amazon ECS
18 26 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
19 22 (1.50%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 64 (4.37%) Network Security
2 45 (3.07%) DNS
3 44 (3.00%) Firewall
4 40 (2.73%) VPN
5 38 (2.59%) DHCP
6 26 (1.77%) TCP/IP
6 26 (1.77%) Wi-Fi
7 24 (1.64%) VLAN
8 20 (1.36%) Wireless
9 17 (1.16%) Internet
10 14 (0.95%) Cisco IPT
10 14 (0.95%) LAN
11 12 (0.82%) SSL
12 11 (0.75%) WAN
13 6 (0.41%) Broadband
13 6 (0.41%) Fibre Channel
13 6 (0.41%) iSCSI
14 5 (0.34%) VoIP
15 4 (0.27%) Intranet
15 4 (0.27%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (6.07%) Power BI
2 52 (3.55%) Metadata
3 41 (2.80%) Data Warehouse
3 41 (2.80%) SQL Server
4 27 (1.84%) Relational Database
5 20 (1.36%) Power Query
6 19 (1.30%) PostgreSQL
7 16 (1.09%) Azure SQL Database
7 16 (1.09%) MySQL
7 16 (1.09%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 15 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
8 15 (1.02%) Tableau
9 14 (0.95%) Data Lake
10 13 (0.89%) NoSQL
11 12 (0.82%) DynamoDB
11 12 (0.82%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 11 (0.75%) MongoDB
13 10 (0.68%) MariaDB
14 9 (0.61%) Snowflake Schema
14 9 (0.61%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 33 (2.25%) Git
2 16 (1.09%) JIRA
3 11 (0.75%) Claude Code
4 9 (0.61%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.20%) GitLab
6 2 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.14%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.14%) Fiddler
6 2 (0.14%) git-flow
6 2 (0.14%) MLflow
6 2 (0.14%) Mocha
6 2 (0.14%) Postman
7 1 (0.068%) Ant
7 1 (0.068%) Appium
7 1 (0.068%) Flyway
7 1 (0.068%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.068%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.068%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.068%) Visual Studio Code
7 1 (0.068%) Yeoman
General
1 571 (38.95%) Social Skills
2 332 (22.65%) Finance
3 273 (18.62%) Legal
4 256 (17.46%) Analytical Skills
5 167 (11.39%) Public Sector
6 151 (10.30%) Organisational Skills
7 148 (10.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 136 (9.28%) Law
9 119 (8.12%) Influencing Skills
10 115 (7.84%) Retail
11 93 (6.34%) Marketing
12 47 (3.21%) Manufacturing
13 37 (2.52%) Local Government
14 36 (2.46%) Banking
15 32 (2.18%) Aerospace
16 22 (1.50%) Telecoms
17 20 (1.36%) Documentation Skills
17 20 (1.36%) Fire and Rescue
18 19 (1.30%) Financial Institution
18 19 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 160 (10.91%) Architect
2 157 (10.71%) Senior
3 113 (7.71%) Lead
4 87 (5.93%) Analyst
5 78 (5.32%) Data Manager
6 59 (4.02%) Developer
7 52 (3.55%) Consultant
8 49 (3.34%) IT Manager
9 46 (3.14%) Data Protection Manager
10 45 (3.07%) IT Support
11 39 (2.66%) Business Manager
12 37 (2.52%) Governance Manager
12 37 (2.52%) Sales Manager
12 37 (2.52%) Service Manager
12 37 (2.52%) Technical Architect
13 36 (2.46%) Information Manager
13 36 (2.46%) Security Architect
14 34 (2.32%) Administrator
14 34 (2.32%) Data Protection Officer
15 33 (2.25%) Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (3.82%) Terraform
2 45 (3.07%) REST
3 31 (2.11%) HTML
4 23 (1.57%) OpenID
5 22 (1.50%) AWS CDK
5 22 (1.50%) OAuth
6 20 (1.36%) SAML
7 18 (1.23%) Node.js
8 17 (1.16%) CSS
8 17 (1.16%) Microsoft Graph
9 16 (1.09%) Middleware
10 15 (1.02%) React
11 14 (0.95%) SOAP
12 13 (0.89%) LDAP
13 12 (0.82%) .NET
13 12 (0.82%) ModSecurity
13 12 (0.82%) SPFx
14 11 (0.75%) JSON
14 11 (0.75%) Model Context Protocol
15 9 (0.61%) HTML5 Canvas
Miscellaneous
1 198 (13.51%) Management Information System
2 134 (9.14%) Onboarding
3 108 (7.37%) Data Protection Act
4 66 (4.50%) Enterprise Software
5 62 (4.23%) Product Ownership
6 61 (4.16%) Security Posture
7 59 (4.02%) Cloud Native
8 56 (3.82%) Self-Motivation
9 46 (3.14%) Driving Licence
10 40 (2.73%) Social Media
11 39 (2.66%) Virtual Team
12 36 (2.46%) Data Centre
13 34 (2.32%) Freedom of Information
14 32 (2.18%) AI Agents
15 29 (1.98%) NHS
16 28 (1.91%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 24 (1.64%) Cyber Threat
17 24 (1.64%) Life Science
18 19 (1.30%) Enterprise Cloud
18 19 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 110 (7.50%) Windows
2 29 (1.98%) Windows Server
3 25 (1.71%) macOS
4 22 (1.50%) Linux
5 6 (0.41%) Android
5 6 (0.41%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.34%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
7 3 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.14%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.068%) AIX
9 1 (0.068%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 381 (25.99%) Continuous Improvement
2 360 (24.56%) Cybersecurity
3 342 (23.33%) AI
4 319 (21.76%) Problem-Solving
5 294 (20.05%) Stakeholder Management
6 282 (19.24%) Information Security
7 226 (15.42%) Agile
8 217 (14.80%) Risk Management
9 210 (14.32%) Decision-Making
10 197 (13.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 157 (10.71%) Roadmaps
12 154 (10.50%) Collaborative Working
13 145 (9.89%) Service Delivery
14 143 (9.75%) Analytics
15 131 (8.94%) CRM
15 131 (8.94%) Incident Response
16 129 (8.80%) Data Governance
17 118 (8.05%) Information Governance
18 112 (7.64%) Business Continuity
19 110 (7.50%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 107 (7.30%) Python
2 103 (7.03%) SQL
3 58 (3.96%) PowerShell
4 50 (3.41%) JavaScript
5 33 (2.25%) Java
6 26 (1.77%) C#
6 26 (1.77%) PHP
7 21 (1.43%) Ruby
8 20 (1.36%) Bash
9 19 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 18 (1.23%) TypeScript
11 14 (0.95%) Perl
12 9 (0.61%) Bicep
13 7 (0.48%) COBOL
14 4 (0.27%) R
15 3 (0.20%) Go
15 3 (0.20%) T-SQL
16 2 (0.14%) Kusto Query Language
17 1 (0.068%) VBA
17 1 (0.068%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 189 (12.89%) Degree
2 140 (9.55%) Security Cleared
3 122 (8.32%) CISSP
4 90 (6.14%) CISM
5 82 (5.59%) SC Cleared
6 52 (3.55%) AWS Certification
7 51 (3.48%) DBS Check
8 46 (3.14%) Microsoft Certification
9 45 (3.07%) Azure Certification
10 39 (2.66%) Computer Science Degree
11 33 (2.25%) Cisco Certification
12 31 (2.11%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 28 (1.91%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 27 (1.84%) CCSP
15 26 (1.77%) DV Cleared
16 23 (1.57%) CRISC
17 20 (1.36%) TOGAF Certification
18 19 (1.30%) ACCA
18 19 (1.30%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
19 18 (1.23%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 414 (28.24%) GDPR
2 200 (13.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 126 (8.59%) Data Quality
4 112 (7.64%) NIST
5 86 (5.87%) Cyber Essentials
6 65 (4.43%) GRC
7 63 (4.30%) Accessibility
8 50 (3.41%) QA
9 46 (3.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 30 (2.05%) NCSC
11 29 (1.98%) PCI DSS
12 26 (1.77%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 22 (1.50%) SOC 2
14 21 (1.43%) ISO 22301
14 21 (1.43%) ISO 9001
14 21 (1.43%) SLA
15 13 (0.89%) COBIT
16 12 (0.82%) NIST 800
17 10 (0.68%) HIPAA
18 9 (0.61%) PMO
System Software
1 78 (5.32%) Active Directory
2 28 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (1.23%) Docker
3 18 (1.23%) Hyper-V
4 17 (1.16%) vSphere
5 13 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.41%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 6 (0.41%) Virtual Servers
7 3 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.14%) UAG
8 2 (0.14%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.068%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.068%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 56 (3.82%) Microsoft Intune
2 25 (1.71%) Single Sign-On
3 24 (1.64%) Kubernetes
4 9 (0.61%) Nessus
5 7 (0.48%) Ansible
6 6 (0.41%) Avamar
6 6 (0.41%) Dell DRAC
6 6 (0.41%) EMC NetWorker
6 6 (0.41%) EMC VPLEX
6 6 (0.41%) VxRail
7 5 (0.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 5 (0.34%) Autotask
7 5 (0.34%) Grafana
7 5 (0.34%) NetBackup
7 5 (0.34%) Puppet
7 5 (0.34%) SCCM
8 4 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.20%) Failover Clustering
9 3 (0.20%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 446 (30.42%) Microsoft
2 32 (2.18%) VMware
3 31 (2.11%) Oracle
4 29 (1.98%) Google
4 29 (1.98%) Salesforce
5 22 (1.50%) OpenAI
6 20 (1.36%) Cisco
6 20 (1.36%) Informatica
7 16 (1.09%) YouTube
8 15 (1.02%) SAP
9 14 (0.95%) Okta
9 14 (0.95%) OneTrust
10 13 (0.89%) Adobe
10 13 (0.89%) ForgeRock
10 13 (0.89%) Veeam
11 12 (0.82%) Databricks
11 12 (0.82%) ServiceNow
12 10 (0.68%) Infor
12 10 (0.68%) Xero
13 9 (0.61%) NetApp