The study was conducted by Go DPO, partner of the Henley Data Protection Officer Programme, in relation to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into force on 25 May 2018.

Darren Verrian, CEO, Go DPO said: “This headline figure of 7,000 DPOs isn’t a wild exaggeration and if anything is an under-estimate of the actual requirement as many banks and insurance companies employ more than one senior manager to fulfil the requirements of a DPO whose role can involve handling millions of customer and client accounts.

“Our conservative calculations are based on figures published by the BIS at the end of last year and exclude 33,000 medium-sized companies that employ 50-249 employees, many of which will also need to appoint a DPO.”

Henley Business School has launched an executive education DPO Programme.

Mike Davis, head of open programmes at Henley Business School, said: “What the underlying figures for the recruitment and training of a DPO conceal is the vast amount of changes to data processing policies, processes and procedures that must be undertaken as a matter of urgency to protect business continuity in one of the biggest shake-ups in data protection for over two decades.”