GDPR Job Trends

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

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring GDPR skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 164 218
Rank change year-on-year +31 +54 +47
Permanent jobs citing GDPR 1,048 939 801
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.74% 1.75% 1.44%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 13.29% 10.85% 9.93%
Number of salaries quoted 681 475 627
10th Percentile £30,750 £31,250 £27,965
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £35,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £65,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +18.18% -
75th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £73,750
90th Percentile £105,000 £97,500 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,000 £55,000 £52,000
% change year-on-year -18.18% +5.77% +4.00%

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 permanent job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 7,886 8,652 8,068
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 13.08% 16.14% 14.55%
Number of salaries quoted 4,393 3,845 5,891
10th Percentile £30,370 £32,000 £30,318
25th Percentile £41,250 £43,750 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,500 £60,000 £57,643
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% +4.09% +0.25%
75th Percentile £78,750 £78,750 £75,415
90th Percentile £95,000 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -

GDPR
Job Vacancy Trend

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

GDPR job vacancy trend in the UK

GDPR
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GDPR.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GDPR

GDPR
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing GDPR over the 6 months to 15 January 2026.

Salary histogram for GDPR in the UK

GDPR
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing GDPR within the UK over the 6 months to 15 January 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 +29 901 £62,500 -3.61% 509
UK excluding London +17 531 £45,000 -18.18% 444
London +71 405 £77,500 - 139
Work from Home +34 307 £70,000 +7.69% 275
South East +16 173 £40,000 -38.46% 165
North of England -35 109 £45,000 +18.62% 85
Midlands +54 106 £50,529 -10.17% 71
West Midlands +23 54 £56,250 -2.17% 45
East Midlands +25 53 £45,000 +12.50% 26
North West -20 53 £46,000 +26.03% 45
Yorkshire -16 52 £45,000 -14.29% 31
East of England +19 51 £61,250 -0.41% 68
South West -11 44 £42,500 -34.62% 35
Scotland +17 36 £53,750 +7.50% 11
Wales +4 12 £62,500 +16.28% 18
North East +2 4 £70,000 +85.59% 9

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 54 (5.15%) SharePoint
2 23 (2.19%) CMS
3 16 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (1.05%) WordPress
5 9 (0.86%) Apache Spark
6 7 (0.67%) Anypoint
6 7 (0.67%) Confluence
7 3 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.29%) Umbraco
8 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.095%) concrete5
9 1 (0.095%) PowerFactory
9 1 (0.095%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 91 (8.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 63 (6.01%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.38%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.29%) Revit
7 2 (0.19%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.095%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.095%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (1.24%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (1.15%) Salesforce CRM
3 11 (1.05%) SAP S/4HANA
4 10 (0.95%) Shopify
4 10 (0.95%) Workday HCM
5 9 (0.86%) iTrent
6 5 (0.48%) SAP HCM
6 5 (0.48%) SAP HR
6 5 (0.48%) SAP Payroll
7 4 (0.38%) Dynamics NAV
7 4 (0.38%) Raiser’s Edge
7 4 (0.38%) SAP GRC
8 3 (0.29%) Magento
8 3 (0.29%) ResourceLink
8 3 (0.29%) Yoast SEO
9 2 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
10 1 (0.095%) Carpe Diem
10 1 (0.095%) NEC Housing
10 1 (0.095%) NetSuite
10 1 (0.095%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 326 (31.11%) Azure
2 169 (16.13%) AWS
3 158 (15.08%) Microsoft 365
4 87 (8.30%) Power Platform
5 80 (7.63%) SaaS
6 72 (6.87%) Entra ID
7 67 (6.39%) GCP
8 48 (4.58%) GitHub
9 45 (4.29%) Azure DevOps
10 39 (3.72%) GitHub Actions
11 34 (3.24%) Azure Data Factory
12 29 (2.77%) Microsoft Purview
13 26 (2.48%) Azure Logic Apps
14 24 (2.29%) Azure Monitor
15 23 (2.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 22 (2.10%) Serverless
17 21 (2.00%) Amazon SageMaker
17 21 (2.00%) Azure AI
17 21 (2.00%) Vertex AI
18 20 (1.91%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 97 (9.26%) Firewall
2 40 (3.82%) DNS
3 37 (3.53%) Network Security
3 37 (3.53%) VPN
4 33 (3.15%) SMS
5 31 (2.96%) WAN
6 25 (2.39%) DHCP
6 25 (2.39%) TCP/IP
7 15 (1.43%) VLAN
7 15 (1.43%) Wi-Fi
8 14 (1.34%) CHAP
9 13 (1.24%) SD-WAN
10 11 (1.05%) LAN
11 9 (0.86%) Intrusion Detection
12 8 (0.76%) SAN
12 8 (0.76%) Wireless
13 7 (0.67%) DMZ
14 6 (0.57%) SSL
15 5 (0.48%) Internet
16 3 (0.29%) SCCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 80 (7.63%) Power BI
2 50 (4.77%) Data Warehouse
3 33 (3.15%) Metadata
4 30 (2.86%) SQL Server
5 27 (2.58%) Data Lake
6 26 (2.48%) Relational Database
7 19 (1.81%) Tableau
8 16 (1.53%) BigQuery
9 13 (1.24%) Azure SQL Database
9 13 (1.24%) Oracle Database
9 13 (1.24%) PostgreSQL
10 11 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
11 9 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
11 9 (0.86%) Big Data
11 9 (0.86%) Power Query
11 9 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 8 (0.76%) Apache Hive
12 8 (0.76%) Hadoop
12 8 (0.76%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 7 (0.67%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 25 (2.39%) JIRA
2 18 (1.72%) Git
3 14 (1.34%) Jenkins
4 12 (1.15%) ERwin
5 7 (0.67%) Visual Studio
6 5 (0.48%) Cypress.io
6 5 (0.48%) Visual Studio Code
7 4 (0.38%) Burp Suite
8 3 (0.29%) GitLab
8 3 (0.29%) Metasploit
9 2 (0.19%) Crashlytics
10 1 (0.095%) Android Studio
10 1 (0.095%) ER Studio
10 1 (0.095%) MLflow
10 1 (0.095%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.095%) Vite
10 1 (0.095%) webpack
10 1 (0.095%) Xcode
General
1 387 (36.93%) Social Skills
2 331 (31.58%) Finance
3 186 (17.75%) Analytical Skills
4 139 (13.26%) Legal
5 132 (12.60%) Marketing
6 117 (11.16%) Retail
7 91 (8.68%) Law
8 70 (6.68%) Banking
9 66 (6.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 57 (5.44%) Organisational Skills
11 55 (5.25%) Public Sector
12 39 (3.72%) Manufacturing
13 36 (3.44%) Telecoms
14 35 (3.34%) Pharmaceutical
15 34 (3.24%) Influencing Skills
16 29 (2.77%) Financial Institution
17 25 (2.39%) Presentation Skills
18 17 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
19 15 (1.43%) Electronics
20 10 (0.95%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 144 (13.74%) Senior
2 117 (11.16%) Lead
3 82 (7.82%) Analyst
4 73 (6.97%) Architect
5 58 (5.53%) IT Manager
6 57 (5.44%) IT Support
7 46 (4.39%) Data Engineer
8 40 (3.82%) Developer
9 39 (3.72%) Security Manager
10 38 (3.63%) Data Architect
11 34 (3.24%) CRM Executive
12 32 (3.05%) Consultant
12 32 (3.05%) Security Analyst
12 32 (3.05%) Support Engineer
13 29 (2.77%) Administrator
14 26 (2.48%) Head of IT
15 25 (2.39%) IT Engineer
15 25 (2.39%) Senior Manager
16 22 (2.10%) Head of Security
16 22 (2.10%) Integration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (3.34%) RESTful
2 29 (2.77%) HTML
3 28 (2.67%) CSS
4 27 (2.58%) OAuth
5 23 (2.19%) JSON
6 20 (1.91%) REST
7 18 (1.72%) OAuth2
8 17 (1.62%) SAML
9 16 (1.53%) SOAP
10 14 (1.34%) .NET
11 13 (1.24%) Kafka
11 13 (1.24%) Web Services
12 10 (0.95%) Node.js
12 10 (0.95%) XML
13 9 (0.86%) ADO
13 9 (0.86%) EDI
13 9 (0.86%) Middleware
13 9 (0.86%) YAML
14 8 (0.76%) jQuery
14 8 (0.76%) Spark Streaming
Miscellaneous
1 92 (8.78%) Onboarding
2 87 (8.30%) Management Information System
3 58 (5.53%) Security Posture
4 37 (3.53%) Cloud Native
5 35 (3.34%) Data Protection Act
6 34 (3.24%) Driving Licence
7 30 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
8 28 (2.67%) Life Science
9 21 (2.00%) Pharmacovigilance
10 20 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
10 20 (1.91%) NHS
10 20 (1.91%) Social Media
11 19 (1.81%) Data Structures
11 19 (1.81%) e-Learning
12 18 (1.72%) Cyber Threat
12 18 (1.72%) Data Centre
12 18 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
13 17 (1.62%) PKI
14 15 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
14 15 (1.43%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 84 (8.02%) Windows
2 41 (3.91%) Windows Server
3 37 (3.53%) Linux
4 16 (1.53%) VMS
5 12 (1.15%) Mac OS
5 12 (1.15%) Unix
6 11 (1.05%) Android
7 8 (0.76%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.67%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.38%) Windows Server 2016
9 4 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.19%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.095%) AIX
11 1 (0.095%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 266 (25.38%) Analytics
2 257 (24.52%) Cybersecurity
3 224 (21.37%) Problem-Solving
4 222 (21.18%) Data Protection
5 183 (17.46%) Continuous Improvement
6 166 (15.84%) Data Governance
7 164 (15.65%) Information Security
8 145 (13.84%) Incident Response
9 136 (12.98%) Roadmaps
10 133 (12.69%) CRM
11 130 (12.40%) Risk Management
12 117 (11.16%) DevOps
13 110 (10.50%) CI/CD
14 109 (10.40%) Decision-Making
14 109 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 106 (10.11%) Agile
15 106 (10.11%) AI
16 104 (9.92%) Stakeholder Management
17 100 (9.54%) Business Intelligence
18 96 (9.16%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 109 (10.40%) Python
2 95 (9.06%) SQL
3 62 (5.92%) PowerShell
4 41 (3.91%) JavaScript
5 26 (2.48%) Bash
6 22 (2.10%) C#
7 21 (2.00%) Java
8 20 (1.91%) Bicep
9 15 (1.43%) Scala
10 10 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 10 (0.95%) Kusto Query Language
11 9 (0.86%) Perl
12 7 (0.67%) T-SQL
12 7 (0.67%) TypeScript
13 6 (0.57%) PHP
14 5 (0.48%) ABAP
14 5 (0.48%) Kotlin
14 5 (0.48%) Shell Script
15 3 (0.29%) Go
16 2 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 211 (20.13%) Degree
2 128 (12.21%) CISSP
3 81 (7.73%) CISM
4 57 (5.44%) DBS Check
5 52 (4.96%) Security Cleared
6 50 (4.77%) Computer Science Degree
7 48 (4.58%) CISA
8 36 (3.44%) Cisco Certification
8 36 (3.44%) Microsoft Certification
9 34 (3.24%) Master's Degree
9 34 (3.24%) SC Cleared
10 25 (2.39%) Azure Certification
11 21 (2.00%) AWS Certification
12 20 (1.91%) CREST Certified
13 19 (1.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 19 (1.81%) CGEIT
13 19 (1.81%) FFIEC
13 19 (1.81%) PMI Certification
14 18 (1.72%) PMP
15 17 (1.62%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 268 (25.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 174 (16.60%) NIST
3 110 (10.50%) Cyber Essentials
4 90 (8.59%) PCI DSS
5 76 (7.25%) Data Quality
6 65 (6.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 55 (5.25%) GRC
8 53 (5.06%) SOC 2
9 45 (4.29%) Accessibility
10 40 (3.82%) NCSC
11 39 (3.72%) HIPAA
12 34 (3.24%) QA
13 33 (3.15%) EU AI Act
14 30 (2.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 23 (2.19%) PSD2
16 22 (2.10%) Solvency II
17 18 (1.72%) COBIT
18 17 (1.62%) California Consumer Privacy Act
19 14 (1.34%) PERC
19 14 (1.34%) SOC 3
System Software
1 83 (7.92%) Active Directory
2 37 (3.53%) Docker
3 22 (2.10%) Hyper-V
4 19 (1.81%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (0.95%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.76%) HDFS
7 6 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.38%) Firmware
9 3 (0.29%) vSphere
10 1 (0.095%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.095%) Squid
10 1 (0.095%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 59 (5.63%) Terraform
2 42 (4.01%) Kubernetes
3 38 (3.63%) Microsoft Intune
4 32 (3.05%) Ansible
5 24 (2.29%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (1.43%) Prometheus
7 13 (1.24%) CASB
8 8 (0.76%) Red Hat Satellite
9 7 (0.67%) SCCM
9 7 (0.67%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 6 (0.57%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.57%) Grafana
11 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.38%) Puppet
12 3 (0.29%) ArcSight ESM
12 3 (0.29%) Nessus
12 3 (0.29%) Nmap
12 3 (0.29%) Proxmox
12 3 (0.29%) QRadar
13 2 (0.19%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 263 (25.10%) Microsoft
2 75 (7.16%) Salesforce
3 50 (4.77%) Google
4 43 (4.10%) SAP
5 36 (3.44%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
6 35 (3.34%) Oracle
7 33 (3.15%) ServiceNow
8 32 (3.05%) Databricks
9 31 (2.96%) Workday
10 26 (2.48%) VMware
11 24 (2.29%) Veeam
12 19 (1.81%) MuleSoft
13 14 (1.34%) Ab Initio
13 14 (1.34%) Cisco
13 14 (1.34%) Talend
14 13 (1.24%) HubSpot
14 13 (1.24%) IBM
14 13 (1.24%) Informatica
15 11 (1.05%) Apple
15 11 (1.05%) IFS