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 1 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 346 289 282
Rank change year-on-year -57 -7 +60
Contract jobs citing IT Strategy 224 204 289
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.63% 0.80% 0.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.73% 0.89% 0.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 149 106 201
10th Percentile £413 £413 £400
25th Percentile £481 £525 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £638 £575
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% +10.87% -8.73%
75th Percentile £725 £750 £713
90th Percentile £893 £825 £800
UK median daily rate £600 £630 £589
% change year-on-year -4.76% +6.96% -5.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £26.52 - £51.25
Median hourly rate £74.50 £37.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +101.35% -29.52% +210.01%
75th Percentile £80.00 - £53.75
90th Percentile £83.60 - -
UK median hourly rate £74.50 £37.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year +101.35% -29.52% +210.01%

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 30,846 23,044 33,123
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.12% 90.26% 87.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,757 14,550 21,943
10th Percentile £313 £307 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £617 £638 £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 1,917 778 2,099
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.50 £13.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £28.55 £35.00 £34.21
Median % change year-on-year -18.43% +2.31% -2.92%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £59.94
90th Percentile £73.41 £75.73 £72.07
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% -1.52% -5.71%

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 1 March 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing IT Strategy in England over the 6 months to 1 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for IT Strategy in England

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 1 March 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 -15 115 £662 -5.43% 74
North of England -49 47 £492 -22.82% 21
North West -40 29 £526 -17.45% 13
Midlands -53 19 £525 -13.51% 15
South East -50 18 £588 -6.75% 61
Yorkshire -52 18 £481 -8.33% 7
West Midlands -52 12 £525 -13.51% 8
East of England -21 11 £650 +20.37% 5
East Midlands -21 7 £625 +59.85% 7
South West -34 6 £675 +3.85% 14
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 (3.13%) SAS
1 7 (3.13%) SharePoint
2 6 (2.68%) Confluence
3 5 (2.23%) Jupyter
4 4 (1.79%) CMS
5 3 (1.34%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.89%) Apache
6 2 (0.89%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.45%) OpenStack
Applications
1 3 (1.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.45%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (1.34%) SAP CO
1 3 (1.34%) SAP FI
1 3 (1.34%) SAP FI/CO
1 3 (1.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.89%) SAP MM
2 2 (0.89%) Workday HCM
3 1 (0.45%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 71 (31.70%) Azure
2 64 (28.57%) AWS
3 33 (14.73%) GCP
4 18 (8.04%) SaaS
5 13 (5.80%) Microsoft 365
6 11 (4.91%) Entra ID
7 9 (4.02%) Power Platform
8 5 (2.23%) AWS CloudFormation
8 5 (2.23%) IaaS
8 5 (2.23%) PaaS
9 4 (1.79%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (1.79%) Cloud Computing
10 3 (1.34%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (1.34%) Azure Pipelines
10 3 (1.34%) OneDrive
10 3 (1.34%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 2 (0.89%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (0.89%) Dynamics 365
11 2 (0.89%) iPaaS
11 2 (0.89%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 18 (8.04%) Firewall
2 8 (3.57%) Network Security
3 7 (3.13%) DHCP
3 7 (3.13%) DNS
4 6 (2.68%) VPN
4 6 (2.68%) Wi-Fi
5 5 (2.23%) LAN
5 5 (2.23%) WAN
6 4 (1.79%) SD-WAN
6 4 (1.79%) Wireless
7 3 (1.34%) BGP
7 3 (1.34%) EIGRP
7 3 (1.34%) IPv4
7 3 (1.34%) IPv6
7 3 (1.34%) MPLS
7 3 (1.34%) OSPF
7 3 (1.34%) TCP/IP
7 3 (1.34%) VLAN
7 3 (1.34%) VXLAN
7 3 (1.34%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (3.57%) Data Warehouse
1 8 (3.57%) Power BI
2 5 (2.23%) Relational Database
3 4 (1.79%) Data Lake
4 3 (1.34%) Metadata
4 3 (1.34%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.89%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
6 1 (0.45%) Looker
6 1 (0.45%) Metadata Repository
6 1 (0.45%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.45%) NonStop SQL
6 1 (0.45%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (3.57%) Jaeger
1 8 (3.57%) JIRA
2 5 (2.23%) Git
3 3 (1.34%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.89%) GoCD
4 2 (0.89%) Postman
4 2 (0.89%) SonarQube
4 2 (0.89%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.89%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.45%) GitLab
General
1 72 (32.14%) Finance
1 72 (32.14%) Social Skills
2 35 (15.63%) Analytical Skills
3 30 (13.39%) Public Sector
4 18 (8.04%) Influencing Skills
5 17 (7.59%) Banking
6 13 (5.80%) Financial Institution
7 11 (4.91%) Telecoms
8 8 (3.57%) Legal
9 6 (2.68%) Aerospace
10 5 (2.23%) Marketing
11 4 (1.79%) Back Office
11 4 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (1.79%) Retail
12 3 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (1.34%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.89%) Publishing
14 1 (0.45%) Front Office
14 1 (0.45%) Law
Job Titles
1 96 (42.86%) Architect
2 35 (15.63%) Solutions Architect
3 32 (14.29%) Senior
4 20 (8.93%) Lead
5 18 (8.04%) Analyst
6 12 (5.36%) Technical Architect
7 11 (4.91%) Enterprise Architect
8 10 (4.46%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
9 9 (4.02%) Developer
9 9 (4.02%) Lead Architect
9 9 (4.02%) Product Owner
9 9 (4.02%) Security Architect
10 8 (3.57%) Business Analyst
10 8 (3.57%) Full-Stack Engineer
10 8 (3.57%) IT Manager
10 8 (3.57%) Project Manager
11 7 (3.13%) Network Architect
11 7 (3.13%) Senior Architect
12 6 (2.68%) Business Architect
12 6 (2.68%) Head of IT
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (4.91%) Middleware
1 11 (4.91%) REST
2 10 (4.46%) Kafka
3 8 (3.57%) OpenTelemetry
3 8 (3.57%) Spring Boot
4 5 (2.23%) NumPy
4 5 (2.23%) Pandas
4 5 (2.23%) Plotly
4 5 (2.23%) Web Services
5 4 (1.79%) .NET
5 4 (1.79%) SailPoint
6 3 (1.34%) JSON
6 3 (1.34%) OAuth
6 3 (1.34%) Oracle Fusion
6 3 (1.34%) React
6 3 (1.34%) scikit-learn
6 3 (1.34%) SciPy
6 3 (1.34%) SOAP
6 3 (1.34%) Statsmodels
7 2 (0.89%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 29 (12.95%) Product Ownership
2 18 (8.04%) Management Information System
3 12 (5.36%) Data Centre
3 12 (5.36%) Distributed Systems
4 10 (4.46%) Cloud Native
4 10 (4.46%) Onboarding
5 8 (3.57%) Public Cloud
6 7 (3.13%) Credit Risk
6 7 (3.13%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (2.68%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (2.68%) PKI
7 6 (2.68%) Taxonomies
8 5 (2.23%) Cyber Threat
8 5 (2.23%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (2.23%) Security Posture
8 5 (2.23%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.79%) Algorithms
9 4 (1.79%) Mobile App
9 4 (1.79%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.79%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 16 (7.14%) Linux
2 14 (6.25%) Windows
3 6 (2.68%) Mac OS
3 6 (2.68%) Windows 10
4 2 (0.89%) Unix
4 2 (0.89%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.45%) Android
5 1 (0.45%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.45%) Solaris
5 1 (0.45%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (65.18%) Technology Strategy
2 79 (35.27%) Roadmaps
3 64 (28.57%) Enterprise Architecture
4 58 (25.89%) Stakeholder Management
5 53 (23.66%) Business Strategy
6 49 (21.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 48 (21.43%) Agile
8 42 (18.75%) Cybersecurity
9 37 (16.52%) Continuous Improvement
10 33 (14.73%) Analytics
11 32 (14.29%) Decision-Making
11 32 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
12 30 (13.39%) CI/CD
13 28 (12.50%) DevOps
13 28 (12.50%) Identity Access Management
13 28 (12.50%) TOGAF
14 25 (11.16%) Technical Leadership
15 24 (10.71%) Data Modelling
15 24 (10.71%) ITIL
15 24 (10.71%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 23 (10.27%) Python
2 21 (9.38%) SQL
3 13 (5.80%) Java
3 13 (5.80%) PowerShell
4 10 (4.46%) Bash
4 10 (4.46%) Rust
5 9 (4.02%) R
6 4 (1.79%) C#
6 4 (1.79%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.89%) Go
8 1 (0.45%) Bicep
8 1 (0.45%) C
8 1 (0.45%) C++
8 1 (0.45%) Kotlin
8 1 (0.45%) Objective-C
8 1 (0.45%) Perl
8 1 (0.45%) Swift
8 1 (0.45%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 45 (20.09%) Security Cleared
2 32 (14.29%) Degree
2 32 (14.29%) SC Cleared
3 12 (5.36%) AWS Certification
4 10 (4.46%) Azure Certification
4 10 (4.46%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (4.02%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (2.68%) Cisco Certification
7 5 (2.23%) CCNP
7 5 (2.23%) CISSP
7 5 (2.23%) DV Cleared
7 5 (2.23%) TOGAF Certification
8 4 (1.79%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (1.34%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 3 (1.34%) CCIE
9 3 (1.34%) CCIE Security
9 3 (1.34%) CCSP
9 3 (1.34%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (1.34%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 2 (0.89%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (8.93%) GDPR
2 12 (5.36%) NIST
3 11 (4.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (3.13%) Cyber Essentials
4 7 (3.13%) NCSC
5 5 (2.23%) EU AI Act
6 4 (1.79%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (1.79%) Def Stans
7 3 (1.34%) Data Quality
7 3 (1.34%) PCI DSS
7 3 (1.34%) QA
7 3 (1.34%) SLA
8 2 (0.89%) PMO
9 1 (0.45%) GRC
9 1 (0.45%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.45%) ITGC
9 1 (0.45%) PSD2
9 1 (0.45%) RMADS
9 1 (0.45%) TARGET2
System Software
1 17 (7.59%) Docker
1 17 (7.59%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (6.70%) Active Directory
3 7 (3.13%) Hyper-V
4 4 (1.79%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 19 (8.48%) Kubernetes
2 11 (4.91%) Terraform
3 9 (4.02%) Ansible
3 9 (4.02%) Grafana
4 8 (3.57%) Kiali
4 8 (3.57%) Prometheus
5 7 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
5 7 (3.13%) SCCM
6 2 (0.89%) rkt
7 1 (0.45%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.45%) Kibana
7 1 (0.45%) Red Hat Satellite
7 1 (0.45%) SCOM
7 1 (0.45%) SCOrch
7 1 (0.45%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 36 (16.07%) Microsoft
2 27 (12.05%) VMware
3 13 (5.80%) Salesforce
4 12 (5.36%) Splunk
5 11 (4.91%) Oracle
6 10 (4.46%) SAP
7 9 (4.02%) Google
8 7 (3.13%) Cisco
8 7 (3.13%) Pega
9 6 (2.68%) Citrix
10 5 (2.23%) F5
10 5 (2.23%) Palo Alto
11 4 (1.79%) CyberArk
11 4 (1.79%) Darktrace
11 4 (1.79%) Dataiku
11 4 (1.79%) Dynatrace
11 4 (1.79%) Temenos
12 3 (1.34%) Fortinet
12 3 (1.34%) Juniper
12 3 (1.34%) Meraki