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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 372 313 281
Rank change year-on-year -59 -32 +28
Contract jobs citing IT Strategy 276 214 261
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.59% 0.77% 0.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.70% 0.84% 0.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 167 127 155
10th Percentile £476 £452 £450
25th Percentile £525 £500 £523
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £750 £738 £775
90th Percentile £875 £825 £850
UK median daily rate £620 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.29% -7.65% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 2
10th Percentile - - £18.33
25th Percentile £98.82 - £21.44
Median hourly rate £99.41 £17.79 £26.75
Median % change year-on-year +458.80% -33.50% -28.36%
75th Percentile £100.00 - £31.94
90th Percentile - - £34.98
UK median hourly rate £99.41 £16.56 £26.75
% change year-on-year +500.30% -38.09% -28.36%

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 39,476 25,411 27,744
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.80% 90.93% 86.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,882 16,117 16,935
10th Percentile £325 £295 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £642
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,976 1,567 1,167
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.50 £17.87 £20.50
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.47 £45.75 £67.01
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.35 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £37.87 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +50.56% -39.40% -2.92%

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 October 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 October 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 -56 141 £650 -2.26% 578
North of England -63 40 £600 +19.90% 172
South East -53 32 £670 +12.61% 142
South West -19 28 £638 +24.39% 50
Yorkshire -20 22 £579 -19.86% 62
North West -48 18 £613 +22.60% 96
Midlands -45 17 £613 +24.49% 67
West Midlands -42 13 £600 +23.08% 36
East of England -26 11 £510 -23.02% 67
East Midlands -23 4 £675 +37.20% 31
North East - 1 £625 - 15
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 4 (1.45%) Confluence
2 3 (1.09%) CMS
2 3 (1.09%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.09%) Sitecore CMS
3 1 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.36%) Apache
3 1 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.36%) Appian
3 1 (0.36%) IIS
3 1 (0.36%) Mendix
3 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.36%) MQSeries
Applications
1 5 (1.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 5 (1.81%) MS Visio
2 4 (1.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (2.17%) SAP CO
1 6 (2.17%) SAP FI
1 6 (2.17%) SAP FI/CO
2 4 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (1.09%) Remedy AR System
3 3 (1.09%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (1.09%) SAP HR
4 2 (0.72%) SAP HCM
4 2 (0.72%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.36%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.36%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 82 (29.71%) Azure
2 46 (16.67%) AWS
3 28 (10.14%) GCP
4 23 (8.33%) Microsoft 365
5 22 (7.97%) SaaS
6 15 (5.43%) Power Platform
7 14 (5.07%) Entra ID
8 13 (4.71%) PaaS
9 10 (3.62%) IaaS
9 10 (3.62%) Microsoft Copilot
10 8 (2.90%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (2.90%) SuccessFactors
11 7 (2.54%) Serverless
12 6 (2.17%) GitHub
13 4 (1.45%) Datadog
13 4 (1.45%) Snowflake
14 3 (1.09%) Azure Functions
14 3 (1.09%) Dynamics 365
14 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Purview
14 3 (1.09%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 19 (6.88%) Firewall
2 11 (3.99%) DHCP
2 11 (3.99%) DNS
3 7 (2.54%) LAN
3 7 (2.54%) TCP/IP
3 7 (2.54%) VLAN
3 7 (2.54%) WAN
4 6 (2.17%) VPN
4 6 (2.17%) VSAN
4 6 (2.17%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (1.45%) Radio Access Network
5 4 (1.45%) SAN
6 3 (1.09%) BGP
6 3 (1.09%) Cisco Nexus
6 3 (1.09%) OSPF
7 2 (0.72%) 4G
7 2 (0.72%) MPLS
7 2 (0.72%) Network Security
7 2 (0.72%) SSL
7 2 (0.72%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.90%) Metadata
1 8 (2.90%) NoSQL
2 7 (2.54%) Data Lake
2 7 (2.54%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.81%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (1.45%) GIS
4 4 (1.45%) Power BI
5 2 (0.72%) Delta Lake
5 2 (0.72%) EDRMS
5 2 (0.72%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.36%) Apache Iceberg
6 1 (0.36%) Ataccama
6 1 (0.36%) Data Vault
6 1 (0.36%) Electronic Patient Records
6 1 (0.36%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.36%) MySQL
6 1 (0.36%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.36%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.36%) Stardog
Development Applications
1 6 (2.17%) JIRA
2 4 (1.45%) Chocolatey
3 2 (0.72%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.36%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.36%) Eclipse
4 1 (0.36%) ER Studio
4 1 (0.36%) IntelliJ
4 1 (0.36%) JMeter
4 1 (0.36%) JUnit
4 1 (0.36%) Maven
4 1 (0.36%) Postman
4 1 (0.36%) PowerDesigner
4 1 (0.36%) REST Assured
4 1 (0.36%) Selenium
4 1 (0.36%) SoapUI
4 1 (0.36%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.36%) TestNG
4 1 (0.36%) TestRail
General
1 97 (35.14%) Social Skills
2 74 (26.81%) Finance
3 46 (16.67%) Public Sector
4 37 (13.41%) Analytical Skills
5 32 (11.59%) Banking
6 29 (10.51%) Influencing Skills
7 15 (5.43%) Marketing
8 13 (4.71%) Military
9 11 (3.99%) Legal
9 11 (3.99%) Telecoms
10 8 (2.90%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
11 7 (2.54%) Retail
12 6 (2.17%) Financial Institution
12 6 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (1.81%) Local Government
14 4 (1.45%) Aerospace
15 3 (1.09%) Corporate Banking
15 3 (1.09%) Private Banking
15 3 (1.09%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 127 (46.01%) Architect
2 46 (16.67%) Solutions Architect
3 42 (15.22%) Lead
4 40 (14.49%) Enterprise Architect
5 31 (11.23%) Senior
6 19 (6.88%) Technical Architect
7 17 (6.16%) Senior Architect
8 11 (3.99%) Consultant
8 11 (3.99%) Principal Engineer
9 9 (3.26%) Data Architect
9 9 (3.26%) Senior Enterprise Architect
10 8 (2.90%) Analyst
10 8 (2.90%) Lead Architect
10 8 (2.90%) Project Manager
11 7 (2.54%) Business Analyst
11 7 (2.54%) IT Director
11 7 (2.54%) IT Manager
11 7 (2.54%) Network Manager
12 6 (2.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 6 (2.17%) SAP Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (5.80%) Terraform
2 12 (4.35%) REST
3 10 (3.62%) Middleware
4 9 (3.26%) .NET
4 9 (3.26%) SOAP
5 7 (2.54%) Kafka
6 5 (1.81%) Microsoft Graph
6 5 (1.81%) Node.js
7 4 (1.45%) Next.js
8 3 (1.09%) AngularJS
9 2 (0.72%) CSS
9 2 (0.72%) EDI
9 2 (0.72%) GraphQL
9 2 (0.72%) HTML
9 2 (0.72%) Lightning Web Components
9 2 (0.72%) OAuth
9 2 (0.72%) React
9 2 (0.72%) RESTful
10 1 (0.36%) Spring Boot
10 1 (0.36%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 26 (9.42%) Cloud Native
1 26 (9.42%) Product Ownership
2 13 (4.71%) Distributed Systems
3 11 (3.99%) Data Centre
4 10 (3.62%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (3.26%) AI Agents
5 9 (3.26%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (2.90%) Hybrid Cloud
6 8 (2.90%) Onboarding
6 8 (2.90%) Virtual Team
7 7 (2.54%) CMDB
7 7 (2.54%) PKI
8 6 (2.17%) Operational Technology
9 5 (1.81%) Cyber Threat
9 5 (1.81%) Low-Code
9 5 (1.81%) Management Information System
9 5 (1.81%) Public Cloud
9 5 (1.81%) Security Posture
10 4 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 11 (3.99%) Windows
2 9 (3.26%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 223 (80.80%) Technology Strategy
2 141 (51.09%) Roadmaps
3 100 (36.23%) Stakeholder Management
4 88 (31.88%) Enterprise Architecture
5 69 (25.00%) AI
6 65 (23.55%) Cybersecurity
7 63 (22.83%) Agile
8 55 (19.93%) Technical Leadership
9 50 (18.12%) Decision-Making
10 48 (17.39%) Architecture Governance
10 48 (17.39%) Continuous Improvement
11 46 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
11 46 (16.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 44 (15.94%) DevOps
13 42 (15.22%) Business Strategy
13 42 (15.22%) TOGAF
14 40 (14.49%) Risk Management
15 37 (13.41%) CI/CD
15 37 (13.41%) Migration
16 36 (13.04%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 20 (7.25%) Python
2 14 (5.07%) SQL
3 12 (4.35%) Java
4 9 (3.26%) PowerShell
5 8 (2.90%) Bash
6 7 (2.54%) JavaScript
7 6 (2.17%) TypeScript
8 4 (1.45%) C#
8 4 (1.45%) Go
9 2 (0.72%) Apex Code
9 2 (0.72%) Korn
10 1 (0.36%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 56 (20.29%) Security Cleared
2 40 (14.49%) SC Cleared
3 32 (11.59%) Degree
4 18 (6.52%) Computer Science Degree
4 18 (6.52%) DV Cleared
4 18 (6.52%) TOGAF Certification
5 15 (5.43%) Azure Certification
6 5 (1.81%) CISSP
7 4 (1.45%) CISM
7 4 (1.45%) PMI Certification
7 4 (1.45%) PMP
7 4 (1.45%) VCAP
8 3 (1.09%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.09%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (1.09%) ISACA
8 3 (1.09%) Master's Degree
8 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (1.09%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 2 (0.72%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.72%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (4.35%) PMO
2 8 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (2.54%) GDPR
4 6 (2.17%) NCSC
4 6 (2.17%) SLA
5 5 (1.81%) Data Quality
5 5 (1.81%) QA
6 4 (1.45%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.45%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 3 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.72%) COBIT
8 2 (0.72%) GRC
8 2 (0.72%) NIST
9 1 (0.36%) HL7
9 1 (0.36%) ITGC
9 1 (0.36%) PSD2
9 1 (0.36%) SEPA
System Software
1 15 (5.43%) Active Directory
1 15 (5.43%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (4.35%) Docker
3 7 (2.54%) Hyper-V
3 7 (2.54%) VMware NSX
4 5 (1.81%) vSphere
5 2 (0.72%) Firmware
5 2 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 17 (6.16%) Kubernetes
2 10 (3.62%) Microsoft Intune
3 9 (3.26%) Ansible
4 4 (1.45%) SCCM
4 4 (1.45%) VxRail
5 1 (0.36%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 57 (20.65%) Microsoft
2 23 (8.33%) SAP
3 18 (6.52%) ServiceNow
3 18 (6.52%) VMware
4 14 (5.07%) Google
5 9 (3.26%) Salesforce
6 8 (2.90%) BiZZdesign
6 8 (2.90%) Databricks
7 7 (2.54%) Oracle
7 7 (2.54%) Workday
8 4 (1.45%) AppDynamics
8 4 (1.45%) Dynatrace
8 4 (1.45%) Murex
8 4 (1.45%) Sitecore
8 4 (1.45%) Tenable
9 3 (1.09%) BMC
9 3 (1.09%) NetApp
9 3 (1.09%) Remedy
9 3 (1.09%) Temenos
9 3 (1.09%) Zscaler