Thought Leadership Job Trends

Thought Leadership
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Thought Leadership skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 298 261 409
Rank change year-on-year -37 +148 -149
Permanent jobs citing Thought Leadership 580 553 652
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.62% 1.24% 0.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.85% 1.34% 0.73%
Number of salaries quoted 245 150 411
10th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £35,000
25th Percentile £62,500 £58,125 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £82,000 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +9.33% -9.09%
75th Percentile £100,000 £102,813 £99,875
90th Percentile £115,000 £120,000 £130,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £71,250 £71,991 £77,500
% change year-on-year -1.03% -7.11% +10.71%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Thought Leadership 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 68,264 41,362 89,059
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 72.88% 92.48% 81.88%
Number of salaries quoted 46,974 22,138 63,125
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,822 £29,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £39,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £91,991
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -9.09%

Thought Leadership
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Thought Leadership job vacancy trend in the UK

Thought Leadership
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Thought Leadership.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Thought Leadership

Thought Leadership
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Thought Leadership over the 6 months to 18 June 2026.

Salary histogram for Thought Leadership in the UK

Thought Leadership
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Thought Leadership within the UK over the 6 months to 18 June 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 -44 526 £80,000 - 391
London -15 319 £83,750 -2.90% 283
UK excluding London -67 203 £71,250 -1.03% 138
Work from Home +6 133 £70,000 -15.15% 146
North of England -19 74 £90,000 +5.88% 35
North West +17 48 £95,000 +0.38% 24
East of England - 46 £60,100 - 7
Midlands -14 34 £80,000 +56.10% 13
South East -95 29 £37,500 -42.31% 45
Yorkshire -29 19 £83,420 +11.23% 6
West Midlands -21 18 £80,000 +56.10% 5
East Midlands -9 16 £50,000 - 8
South West -54 10 £59,750 -27.58% 17
Scotland +4 7 £95,000 - 12
North East -43 7 £100,000 +71.67% 5
Wales - 3 £55,000 - 4

Thought Leadership
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 14 (2.41%) Palantir Foundry
2 9 (1.55%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (0.86%) CMS
4 4 (0.69%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.69%) Confluence
5 2 (0.34%) IIS
5 2 (0.34%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.34%) Umbraco
5 2 (0.34%) WordPress
6 1 (0.17%) Apache
6 1 (0.17%) Drupal
6 1 (0.17%) nginx
Applications
1 10 (1.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 4 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.52%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.34%) Adobe XD
4 2 (0.34%) InVision
4 2 (0.34%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.34%) Sketch
5 1 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.17%) Siemens NX
5 1 (0.17%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (3.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.86%) SAP MDG
4 4 (0.69%) SAP MDG-F
5 3 (0.52%) Elite 3E
5 3 (0.52%) SAP MDG-BP
6 2 (0.34%) Distributed Ledger
6 2 (0.34%) SAP CO
6 2 (0.34%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.34%) SAP FI/CO
7 1 (0.17%) Magento
7 1 (0.17%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.17%) SAP MDG-M
7 1 (0.17%) SAP MDG-S
7 1 (0.17%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 111 (19.14%) AWS
2 79 (13.62%) Azure
3 60 (10.34%) SaaS
4 48 (8.28%) GCP
5 32 (5.52%) Snowflake
6 21 (3.62%) AWS CloudFormation
7 18 (3.10%) Serverless
8 13 (2.24%) Power Platform
9 11 (1.90%) PaaS
10 9 (1.55%) GitHub
11 7 (1.21%) Azure AI
11 7 (1.21%) Cloud Computing
11 7 (1.21%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (1.21%) SuccessFactors
12 6 (1.03%) Amazon EKS
12 6 (1.03%) Microsoft Purview
13 5 (0.86%) Amazon Bedrock
13 5 (0.86%) Azure DevOps
14 4 (0.69%) Amazon ECS
14 4 (0.69%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 17 (2.93%) Firewall
2 7 (1.21%) Intrusion Detection
2 7 (1.21%) Network Security
2 7 (1.21%) Wireless
3 6 (1.03%) Cisco ISE
3 6 (1.03%) SD-WAN
3 6 (1.03%) WAN
3 6 (1.03%) WebEx
4 5 (0.86%) Broadband
5 4 (0.69%) Cisco Wireless
5 4 (0.69%) LAN
5 4 (0.69%) WLAN
6 3 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (0.34%) Cisco IPT
7 2 (0.34%) SSL
7 2 (0.34%) Tactical Data Link
8 1 (0.17%) Bluetooth
8 1 (0.17%) Internet
8 1 (0.17%) LoRaWAN
8 1 (0.17%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (5.17%) Data Warehouse
2 28 (4.83%) Data Lake
3 17 (2.93%) NoSQL
4 11 (1.90%) Power BI
5 7 (1.21%) Big Data
6 5 (0.86%) Metadata
7 4 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.69%) Delta Lake
8 3 (0.52%) Data Mining
8 3 (0.52%) Tableau
9 2 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
9 2 (0.34%) Hadoop
9 2 (0.34%) Semantic Layer
9 2 (0.34%) SQL Server
10 1 (0.17%) Data Vault
10 1 (0.17%) Redis
10 1 (0.17%) SAP BW
10 1 (0.17%) SAP Data Services
10 1 (0.17%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 16 (2.76%) Cucumber
2 15 (2.59%) GitLab
3 6 (1.03%) MLflow
4 4 (0.69%) JIRA
5 3 (0.52%) Git
6 2 (0.34%) Axure RP
6 2 (0.34%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.34%) rollup.js
7 1 (0.17%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.17%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.17%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.17%) Gatling
7 1 (0.17%) JMeter
7 1 (0.17%) Maven
7 1 (0.17%) Selenium
7 1 (0.17%) Vagrant
General
1 204 (35.17%) Finance
2 156 (26.90%) Social Skills
3 102 (17.59%) Marketing
4 99 (17.07%) Analytical Skills
5 80 (13.79%) Public Sector
6 61 (10.52%) Presentation Skills
7 57 (9.83%) Retail
8 43 (7.41%) Banking
9 37 (6.38%) Legal
10 36 (6.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 30 (5.17%) Influencing Skills
12 20 (3.45%) Financial Institution
13 18 (3.10%) Brand Awareness
14 16 (2.76%) Law
15 12 (2.07%) Manufacturing
15 12 (2.07%) Telecoms
16 11 (1.90%) Organisational Skills
17 10 (1.72%) Aerospace
18 9 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
19 8 (1.38%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 147 (25.34%) Senior
2 91 (15.69%) Architect
3 85 (14.66%) Consultant
4 72 (12.41%) Lead
5 60 (10.34%) Account Executive
6 58 (10.00%) Sales Executive
7 44 (7.59%) Senior Manager
8 40 (6.90%) Business Development Executive
9 39 (6.72%) Senior Sales Executive
10 34 (5.86%) Senior Account Executive
11 33 (5.69%) Business Sales Executive
11 33 (5.69%) Sales Account Executive
12 24 (4.14%) Data Management Specialist
12 24 (4.14%) Java Engineer
12 24 (4.14%) Product Specialist
12 24 (4.14%) Senior Consultant
13 23 (3.97%) Senior Architect
14 22 (3.79%) Business Architect
14 22 (3.79%) Business Consultant
15 21 (3.62%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.79%) Kafka
1 22 (3.79%) Spring
1 22 (3.79%) Spring Boot
2 6 (1.03%) REST
2 6 (1.03%) SOAP
2 6 (1.03%) XML
3 5 (0.86%) LangChain
3 5 (0.86%) OAuth
3 5 (0.86%) OAuth2
4 4 (0.69%) Flutter
4 4 (0.69%) LangGraph
4 4 (0.69%) PySpark
4 4 (0.69%) PyTorch
4 4 (0.69%) React
4 4 (0.69%) TensorFlow
4 4 (0.69%) VML
5 3 (0.52%) CSS
5 3 (0.52%) HTML
6 2 (0.34%) RabbitMQ
6 2 (0.34%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 55 (9.48%) Cloud Native
2 42 (7.24%) Enterprise Software
3 22 (3.79%) Blog
3 22 (3.79%) e-Learning
4 19 (3.28%) Distributed Systems
5 18 (3.10%) Management Information System
5 18 (3.10%) Product Ownership
6 17 (2.93%) AI Agents
6 17 (2.93%) Life Science
7 16 (2.76%) Onboarding
7 16 (2.76%) Public Cloud
8 14 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
8 14 (2.41%) Web Conferencing
9 12 (2.07%) Legacy Applications
10 11 (1.90%) Data Fabric
10 11 (1.90%) Greenfield Project
11 10 (1.72%) Social Media
12 9 (1.55%) Enterprise Cloud
12 9 (1.55%) Security Posture
13 8 (1.38%) Podcast
Operating Systems
1 5 (0.86%) Windows
2 4 (0.69%) Linux
3 1 (0.17%) VMS
3 1 (0.17%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (31.21%) Business Development
2 170 (29.31%) AI
3 165 (28.45%) Decision-Making
4 146 (25.17%) Mentoring
5 128 (22.07%) Roadmaps
6 126 (21.72%) Analytics
7 97 (16.72%) Agile
8 75 (12.93%) Stakeholder Management
9 74 (12.76%) Problem-Solving
10 70 (12.07%) Workshop Facilitation
11 69 (11.90%) Business Strategy
12 64 (11.03%) DevOps
13 61 (10.52%) Continuous Improvement
13 61 (10.52%) Strategic Thinking
14 60 (10.34%) B2B
15 59 (10.17%) Cybersecurity
16 56 (9.66%) Coaching
17 54 (9.31%) CI/CD
18 50 (8.62%) Collaborative Culture
18 50 (8.62%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 47 (8.10%) Java
2 41 (7.07%) Python
3 27 (4.66%) SQL
4 10 (1.72%) R
5 5 (0.86%) Kotlin
6 4 (0.69%) C#
6 4 (0.69%) Go
6 4 (0.69%) PowerShell
7 2 (0.34%) ABAP
7 2 (0.34%) Bicep
7 2 (0.34%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.34%) Scala
8 1 (0.17%) PHP
Qualifications
1 141 (24.31%) Degree
2 68 (11.72%) Security Cleared
3 36 (6.21%) SC Cleared
4 22 (3.79%) AWS Certification
5 21 (3.62%) CISSP
6 20 (3.45%) CISM
6 20 (3.45%) Master's Degree
7 18 (3.10%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 15 (2.59%) Azure Certification
9 14 (2.41%) DV Cleared
10 11 (1.90%) DBS Check
11 10 (1.72%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
12 9 (1.55%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 9 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
12 9 (1.55%) CRISC
13 8 (1.38%) MBA
14 7 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
14 7 (1.21%) GSEC
14 7 (1.21%) PhD
15 6 (1.03%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (5.69%) GRC
2 23 (3.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 21 (3.62%) NIST
4 18 (3.10%) Accessibility
5 14 (2.41%) Data Quality
5 14 (2.41%) JSP 440
6 13 (2.24%) GDPR
7 10 (1.72%) QA
8 9 (1.55%) EU AI Act
8 9 (1.55%) PCI DSS
9 8 (1.38%) Basel III
9 8 (1.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 7 (1.21%) Government Security Classifications
10 7 (1.21%) SLA
11 6 (1.03%) GxP
12 3 (0.52%) IFRS
13 2 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
13 2 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
13 2 (0.34%) GAAP
13 2 (0.34%) NIST 800
System Software
1 15 (2.59%) Docker
2 6 (1.03%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 18 (3.10%) Kubernetes
2 15 (2.59%) Terraform
3 10 (1.72%) Ansible
4 5 (0.86%) Puppet
5 4 (0.69%) Argo
6 3 (0.52%) Progress Chef
7 2 (0.34%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 2 (0.34%) RSA Archer
7 2 (0.34%) Salt
8 1 (0.17%) Amdocs OSS
8 1 (0.17%) Consul
8 1 (0.17%) EMC NetWorker
8 1 (0.17%) Grafana
8 1 (0.17%) Packer
Vendors
1 96 (16.55%) Dell
2 52 (8.97%) Microsoft
3 37 (6.38%) SAP
4 34 (5.86%) Databricks
5 25 (4.31%) Informatica
6 24 (4.14%) Denodo
6 24 (4.14%) Teradata
7 22 (3.79%) Salesforce
7 22 (3.79%) ServiceNow
8 19 (3.28%) Google
9 15 (2.59%) Foundry
10 14 (2.41%) Oracle
10 14 (2.41%) Palantir
11 13 (2.24%) HubSpot
12 6 (1.03%) Aruba
12 6 (1.03%) Cisco
12 6 (1.03%) Cognizant
12 6 (1.03%) Fortinet
12 6 (1.03%) Juniper
12 6 (1.03%) OpenAI