IT Strategy Contract Job Trends in England

IT/Technology Strategy
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring IT Strategy skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 7 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 334 273 279
Rank change year-on-year -61 +6 +64
Contract jobs citing IT Strategy 214 234 291
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.68% 0.86% 0.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.77% 0.96% 0.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 142 125 210
10th Percentile £461 £482 £413
25th Percentile £500 £538 £492
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £641 £638 £625
Median % change year-on-year +0.56% +2.00% -0.79%
75th Percentile £775 £750 £750
90th Percentile £944 £825 £841
UK median daily rate £647 £630 £625
% change year-on-year +2.75% +0.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 2
10th Percentile £71.20 - £51.88
25th Percentile £73.00 - £52.81
Median hourly rate £79.50 £37.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +114.86% -34.22% +232.15%
75th Percentile £84.50 - £60.31
90th Percentile £85.40 - £61.63
UK median hourly rate £75.00 £37.00 £56.25
% change year-on-year +102.70% -34.22% +232.15%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

IT Strategy falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 27,971 24,304 31,711
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.38% 88.87% 87.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,863 14,942 21,444
10th Percentile £304 £310 £306
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £645 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,750 794 1,430
10th Percentile £15.21 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.96 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +27.14%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +21.43%

IT Strategy
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

IT Strategy job vacancy trend in England

IT Strategy
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing IT Strategy.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing IT Strategy

IT Strategy
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing IT Strategy in England over the 6 months to 7 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for IT Strategy in England

IT Strategy
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing IT Strategy.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing IT Strategy

IT Strategy
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing IT Strategy within the England region over the 6 months to 7 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +8 118 £673 -3.86% 82
North of England -45 41 £492 -16.08% 50
North West -29 25 £534 -7.13% 25
Yorkshire -38 16 £481 -12.27% 21
Midlands -60 16 £525 -20.75% 16
East of England -12 12 £650 +20.37% 7
South East -53 12 £544 -13.69% 54
West Midlands -51 11 £513 -18.00% 10
South West -14 7 £675 +8.00% 13
East Midlands -27 5 £625 -19.35% 6
IT Strategy
UK

IT Strategy
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 7 (3.27%) SAS
2 6 (2.80%) Confluence
2 6 (2.80%) SharePoint
3 5 (2.34%) Jupyter
4 4 (1.87%) CMS
4 4 (1.87%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.47%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.47%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.47%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.93%) Endur
1 2 (0.93%) SAP MM
1 2 (0.93%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.47%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.47%) ION Anvil
2 1 (0.47%) SAP CO
2 1 (0.47%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.47%) SAP FI/CO
2 1 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 63 (29.44%) Azure
2 56 (26.17%) AWS
3 34 (15.89%) GCP
4 15 (7.01%) Entra ID
5 14 (6.54%) Microsoft 365
6 9 (4.21%) SaaS
7 8 (3.74%) Power Platform
8 5 (2.34%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.87%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (1.87%) Cloud Computing
10 3 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (1.40%) Azure Pipelines
10 3 (1.40%) OneDrive
10 3 (1.40%) Serverless
10 3 (1.40%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 2 (0.93%) AWS Direct Connect
11 2 (0.93%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 2 (0.93%) Azure DevOps
11 2 (0.93%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (0.93%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 15 (7.01%) Firewall
2 7 (3.27%) DHCP
2 7 (3.27%) DNS
3 6 (2.80%) Network Security
3 6 (2.80%) Wi-Fi
4 5 (2.34%) VPN
5 4 (1.87%) SD-WAN
5 4 (1.87%) WAN
6 3 (1.40%) BGP
6 3 (1.40%) EIGRP
6 3 (1.40%) IPv4
6 3 (1.40%) IPv6
6 3 (1.40%) LAN
6 3 (1.40%) MPLS
6 3 (1.40%) OSPF
6 3 (1.40%) TCP/IP
6 3 (1.40%) VLAN
6 3 (1.40%) VXLAN
6 3 (1.40%) Wireless
6 3 (1.40%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.27%) Data Warehouse
2 6 (2.80%) Power BI
3 5 (2.34%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.87%) NoSQL
4 4 (1.87%) SQL Server
5 3 (1.40%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.93%) Metadata
6 2 (0.93%) MongoDB
6 2 (0.93%) NonStop SQL
7 1 (0.47%) Big Data
7 1 (0.47%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.47%) Looker
7 1 (0.47%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.47%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 7 (3.27%) JIRA
2 6 (2.80%) Git
2 6 (2.80%) Jaeger
3 4 (1.87%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.93%) GoCD
4 2 (0.93%) SonarQube
4 2 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.93%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.47%) CircleCI
5 1 (0.47%) GitLab
5 1 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.47%) Postman
General
1 71 (33.18%) Finance
2 68 (31.78%) Social Skills
3 34 (15.89%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (12.15%) Public Sector
5 16 (7.48%) Influencing Skills
6 15 (7.01%) Financial Institution
7 12 (5.61%) Banking
7 12 (5.61%) Telecoms
8 10 (4.67%) Legal
9 5 (2.34%) Aerospace
9 5 (2.34%) Back Office
9 5 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.87%) Retail
11 3 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (1.40%) Marketing
11 3 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.93%) Law
12 2 (0.93%) Local Government
12 2 (0.93%) Publishing
13 1 (0.47%) Military
Job Titles
1 93 (43.46%) Architect
2 34 (15.89%) Solutions Architect
3 25 (11.68%) Senior
4 23 (10.75%) Lead
5 19 (8.88%) Security Architect
6 16 (7.48%) Analyst
7 12 (5.61%) Enterprise Architect
7 12 (5.61%) Product Owner
8 11 (5.14%) Consultant
8 11 (5.14%) Developer
8 11 (5.14%) Lead Architect
9 10 (4.67%) Technical Architect
10 9 (4.21%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
11 8 (3.74%) Senior Architect
12 7 (3.27%) Project Manager
13 6 (2.80%) Business Analyst
13 6 (2.80%) Full-Stack Engineer
13 6 (2.80%) Head of IT
13 6 (2.80%) Senior Manager
13 6 (2.80%) Senior Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (4.67%) REST
2 8 (3.74%) Kafka
2 8 (3.74%) Middleware
3 6 (2.80%) OpenTelemetry
3 6 (2.80%) Spring Boot
4 5 (2.34%) .NET
4 5 (2.34%) NumPy
4 5 (2.34%) Pandas
4 5 (2.34%) Plotly
4 5 (2.34%) Web Services
5 4 (1.87%) SailPoint
6 3 (1.40%) JSON
6 3 (1.40%) OAuth
6 3 (1.40%) Oracle Fusion
6 3 (1.40%) React
6 3 (1.40%) scikit-learn
6 3 (1.40%) SciPy
6 3 (1.40%) Statsmodels
7 2 (0.93%) .NET Core
7 2 (0.93%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 31 (14.49%) Product Ownership
2 14 (6.54%) Management Information System
3 10 (4.67%) Onboarding
4 8 (3.74%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (3.27%) Credit Risk
5 7 (3.27%) Cyber Threat
5 7 (3.27%) Data Centre
6 6 (2.80%) Distributed Systems
7 5 (2.34%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (2.34%) Operational Technology
7 5 (2.34%) Security Posture
7 5 (2.34%) Taxonomies
7 5 (2.34%) Virtual Team
8 4 (1.87%) Algorithms
8 4 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.87%) Mobile App
8 4 (1.87%) PKI
8 4 (1.87%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.87%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 15 (7.01%) Windows
2 11 (5.14%) Linux
3 8 (3.74%) Mac OS
3 8 (3.74%) Windows 10
4 3 (1.40%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.47%) Android
5 1 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.47%) Solaris
5 1 (0.47%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (63.08%) Technology Strategy
2 77 (35.98%) Roadmaps
3 55 (25.70%) Enterprise Architecture
4 53 (24.77%) Stakeholder Management
5 52 (24.30%) Business Strategy
6 45 (21.03%) Agile
7 44 (20.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 43 (20.09%) Cybersecurity
9 38 (17.76%) Decision-Making
10 33 (15.42%) Problem-Solving
11 32 (14.95%) Analytics
12 29 (13.55%) Continuous Improvement
12 29 (13.55%) Identity Access Management
13 27 (12.62%) CI/CD
14 26 (12.15%) DevOps
15 24 (11.21%) Technical Leadership
16 23 (10.75%) TOGAF
17 22 (10.28%) ITIL
17 22 (10.28%) Microservices
18 20 (9.35%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 21 (9.81%) Python
2 17 (7.94%) SQL
3 16 (7.48%) PowerShell
4 12 (5.61%) Bash
4 12 (5.61%) Java
5 10 (4.67%) R
6 8 (3.74%) Rust
7 6 (2.80%) C#
8 3 (1.40%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.93%) C
9 2 (0.93%) C++
9 2 (0.93%) Go
10 1 (0.47%) Bicep
10 1 (0.47%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.47%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.47%) Perl
10 1 (0.47%) Swift
10 1 (0.47%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.47%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 32 (14.95%) Security Cleared
2 26 (12.15%) Degree
3 25 (11.68%) SC Cleared
4 12 (5.61%) AWS Certification
5 11 (5.14%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (4.67%) Azure Certification
7 7 (3.27%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (2.80%) CISSP
9 5 (2.34%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (1.87%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (1.87%) DV Cleared
11 3 (1.40%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 3 (1.40%) CCIE
11 3 (1.40%) CCIE Security
11 3 (1.40%) CCNP
11 3 (1.40%) CCSP
11 3 (1.40%) TOGAF Certification
11 3 (1.40%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 2 (0.93%) JNCIE
12 2 (0.93%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (9.35%) GDPR
2 16 (7.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (4.21%) NIST
4 6 (2.80%) Cyber Essentials
5 5 (2.34%) EU AI Act
6 4 (1.87%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (1.87%) Def Stans
6 4 (1.87%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.93%) COBIT
7 2 (0.93%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.93%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.93%) QA
7 2 (0.93%) SLA
8 1 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.47%) GAMP
8 1 (0.47%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.47%) MiFID
8 1 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 19 (8.88%) Active Directory
2 17 (7.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (7.48%) Docker
4 7 (3.27%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.40%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 17 (7.94%) Kubernetes
2 12 (5.61%) Terraform
3 11 (5.14%) Microsoft Intune
4 10 (4.67%) Ansible
4 10 (4.67%) SCCM
5 7 (3.27%) Grafana
5 7 (3.27%) Prometheus
6 6 (2.80%) Kiali
7 2 (0.93%) rkt
8 1 (0.47%) Red Hat Satellite
8 1 (0.47%) SCOM
8 1 (0.47%) SCOrch
8 1 (0.47%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 38 (17.76%) Microsoft
2 26 (12.15%) VMware
3 14 (6.54%) Splunk
4 10 (4.67%) Salesforce
5 9 (4.21%) Oracle
6 8 (3.74%) Citrix
6 8 (3.74%) CyberArk
6 8 (3.74%) Darktrace
6 8 (3.74%) Google
7 7 (3.27%) Pega
7 7 (3.27%) SAP
8 4 (1.87%) Cisco
8 4 (1.87%) Dataiku
9 3 (1.40%) F5
9 3 (1.40%) Fortinet
9 3 (1.40%) Meraki
9 3 (1.40%) ServiceNow
9 3 (1.40%) SolarWinds
9 3 (1.40%) Temenos
9 3 (1.40%) Workday