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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 379 317 290
Rank change year-on-year -62 -27 +13
Contract jobs citing IT Strategy 275 219 261
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.59% 0.78% 0.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.70% 0.86% 0.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 164 128 156
10th Percentile £475 £450 £450
25th Percentile £525 £500 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £644
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -2.91% -0.96%
75th Percentile £750 £738 £775
90th Percentile £875 £825 £847
UK median daily rate £600 £600 £650
% change year-on-year - -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 2 3
10th Percentile - £26.01 £19.02
25th Percentile £98.82 £38.34 £23.19
Median hourly rate £99.41 £58.90 £30.12
Median % change year-on-year +68.79% +95.53% -19.34%
75th Percentile £100.00 £79.45 £33.56
90th Percentile - £91.78 £35.62
UK median hourly rate £99.41 £17.79 £30.12
% change year-on-year +458.80% -40.94% -19.34%

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 39,431 25,424 27,856
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.70% 90.99% 86.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,955 16,149 17,033
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £512 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.64% -2.57% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,897 1,546 1,199
10th Percentile £13.87 £14.42 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.87 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £46.55 £67.01
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +55.07% -40.82% -

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 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 1 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 -66 138 £650 -2.26% 479
North of England -63 43 £579 +15.80% 180
South East -48 32 £660 +10.92% 107
South West -12 27 £675 +31.71% 72
Yorkshire -26 22 £559 -22.63% 53
North West -53 20 £600 +20.97% 113
Midlands -49 18 £613 +23.49% 57
West Midlands -33 13 £600 +20.00% 37
East of England -29 11 £510 -23.02% 61
East Midlands -20 5 £675 +37.20% 20
North East - 2 £625 - 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 3 (1.09%) Confluence
2 2 (0.73%) SharePoint
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 4 (1.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 4 (1.45%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (2.18%) SAP CO
1 6 (2.18%) SAP FI
1 6 (2.18%) 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 (0.73%) SAP HCM
4 2 (0.73%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.36%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.36%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 78 (28.36%) Azure
2 47 (17.09%) AWS
3 28 (10.18%) GCP
4 26 (9.45%) SaaS
5 22 (8.00%) Microsoft 365
6 15 (5.45%) PaaS
7 14 (5.09%) Entra ID
7 14 (5.09%) Power Platform
8 11 (4.00%) IaaS
9 10 (3.64%) Microsoft Copilot
10 8 (2.91%) SuccessFactors
11 7 (2.55%) Serverless
12 6 (2.18%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (1.82%) GitHub
14 4 (1.45%) Datadog
14 4 (1.45%) Snowflake
15 3 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
15 3 (1.09%) Azure Functions
15 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Purview
15 3 (1.09%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 19 (6.91%) Firewall
2 11 (4.00%) DHCP
2 11 (4.00%) DNS
3 7 (2.55%) LAN
3 7 (2.55%) TCP/IP
3 7 (2.55%) VLAN
3 7 (2.55%) WAN
4 6 (2.18%) VPN
4 6 (2.18%) VSAN
4 6 (2.18%) 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 (0.73%) 4G
7 2 (0.73%) 5G
7 2 (0.73%) MPLS
7 2 (0.73%) Network Security
7 2 (0.73%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.91%) NoSQL
2 7 (2.55%) Data Lake
2 7 (2.55%) Metadata
2 7 (2.55%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.82%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (1.45%) GIS
5 3 (1.09%) Power BI
6 2 (0.73%) Delta Lake
6 2 (0.73%) EDRMS
6 2 (0.73%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.36%) Apache Iceberg
7 1 (0.36%) Ataccama
7 1 (0.36%) Data Vault
7 1 (0.36%) Electronic Patient Records
7 1 (0.36%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.36%) MySQL
7 1 (0.36%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.36%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.36%) Stardog
Development Applications
1 5 (1.82%) JIRA
2 4 (1.45%) Chocolatey
3 2 (0.73%) 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 99 (36.00%) Social Skills
2 75 (27.27%) Finance
3 46 (16.73%) Public Sector
4 38 (13.82%) Analytical Skills
5 31 (11.27%) Banking
6 29 (10.55%) Influencing Skills
7 12 (4.36%) Legal
7 12 (4.36%) Marketing
7 12 (4.36%) Military
8 11 (4.00%) Telecoms
9 9 (3.27%) Presentation Skills
10 7 (2.55%) Financial Institution
10 7 (2.55%) Organisational Skills
11 6 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.82%) Local Government
12 5 (1.82%) Retail
13 4 (1.45%) Aerospace
13 4 (1.45%) Corporate Banking
14 3 (1.09%) Billing
14 3 (1.09%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 125 (45.45%) Architect
2 48 (17.45%) Solutions Architect
3 39 (14.18%) Enterprise Architect
3 39 (14.18%) Lead
4 27 (9.82%) Senior
5 18 (6.55%) Technical Architect
6 13 (4.73%) Senior Architect
7 11 (4.00%) Consultant
7 11 (4.00%) Principal Engineer
8 8 (2.91%) Data Architect
8 8 (2.91%) Project Manager
9 7 (2.55%) Analyst
9 7 (2.55%) Azure Engineer
9 7 (2.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 7 (2.55%) IT Director
9 7 (2.55%) IT Manager
9 7 (2.55%) Lead Architect
9 7 (2.55%) Network Manager
9 7 (2.55%) Senior Enterprise Architect
10 6 (2.18%) SAP PMO Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (5.82%) Terraform
2 12 (4.36%) REST
3 10 (3.64%) Middleware
4 9 (3.27%) SOAP
5 7 (2.55%) Kafka
6 6 (2.18%) .NET
7 5 (1.82%) Microsoft Graph
7 5 (1.82%) Node.js
8 3 (1.09%) AngularJS
9 2 (0.73%) CSS
9 2 (0.73%) EDI
9 2 (0.73%) GraphQL
9 2 (0.73%) HTML
9 2 (0.73%) Lightning Web Components
9 2 (0.73%) OAuth
9 2 (0.73%) React
9 2 (0.73%) RESTful
10 1 (0.36%) AWS CDK
10 1 (0.36%) LangChain
10 1 (0.36%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 27 (9.82%) Product Ownership
2 25 (9.09%) Cloud Native
3 13 (4.73%) Distributed Systems
4 11 (4.00%) Data Centre
5 10 (3.64%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (3.27%) AI Agents
6 9 (3.27%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (3.27%) Virtual Team
7 8 (2.91%) Hybrid Cloud
7 8 (2.91%) Onboarding
8 7 (2.55%) CMDB
8 7 (2.55%) Operational Technology
8 7 (2.55%) PKI
9 5 (1.82%) Cyber Threat
9 5 (1.82%) Management Information System
9 5 (1.82%) Public Cloud
9 5 (1.82%) Security Posture
10 4 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 4 (1.45%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 11 (4.00%) Windows
2 9 (3.27%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 220 (80.00%) Technology Strategy
2 135 (49.09%) Roadmaps
3 97 (35.27%) Stakeholder Management
4 87 (31.64%) Enterprise Architecture
5 69 (25.09%) AI
6 66 (24.00%) Cybersecurity
7 60 (21.82%) Agile
8 55 (20.00%) Technical Leadership
9 51 (18.55%) Decision-Making
10 49 (17.82%) Continuous Improvement
11 48 (17.45%) Problem-Solving
12 47 (17.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 46 (16.73%) Architecture Governance
14 43 (15.64%) DevOps
14 43 (15.64%) TOGAF
15 41 (14.91%) Business Strategy
15 41 (14.91%) Risk Management
16 38 (13.82%) Migration
17 36 (13.09%) Microservices
18 35 (12.73%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 20 (7.27%) Python
2 13 (4.73%) SQL
3 12 (4.36%) Java
4 9 (3.27%) PowerShell
5 8 (2.91%) Bash
6 7 (2.55%) JavaScript
7 6 (2.18%) TypeScript
8 4 (1.45%) C#
8 4 (1.45%) Go
9 2 (0.73%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.36%) Bicep
10 1 (0.36%) Korn
Qualifications
1 56 (20.36%) Security Cleared
2 41 (14.91%) SC Cleared
3 29 (10.55%) Degree
4 19 (6.91%) DV Cleared
5 18 (6.55%) TOGAF Certification
6 15 (5.45%) Azure Certification
6 15 (5.45%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.82%) CISSP
8 4 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (1.45%) CISM
8 4 (1.45%) Microsoft Certification
8 4 (1.45%) PMI Certification
8 4 (1.45%) PMP
8 4 (1.45%) VCAP
9 3 (1.09%) AWS Certification
9 3 (1.09%) CCNP
9 3 (1.09%) ISACA
9 3 (1.09%) Master's Degree
9 3 (1.09%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
10 2 (0.73%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (4.36%) PMO
2 8 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (2.55%) GDPR
3 7 (2.55%) NCSC
4 6 (2.18%) SLA
5 5 (1.82%) Data Quality
5 5 (1.82%) QA
6 4 (1.45%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.45%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 3 (1.09%) NIST
7 3 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.73%) COBIT
8 2 (0.73%) GRC
9 1 (0.36%) HL7
9 1 (0.36%) ITGC
9 1 (0.36%) PSD2
9 1 (0.36%) SEPA
System Software
1 15 (5.45%) Active Directory
1 15 (5.45%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (4.36%) Docker
3 8 (2.91%) VMware NSX
4 7 (2.55%) Hyper-V
5 5 (1.82%) vSphere
6 2 (0.73%) Firmware
6 2 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 17 (6.18%) Kubernetes
2 10 (3.64%) Microsoft Intune
3 9 (3.27%) Ansible
4 4 (1.45%) SCCM
4 4 (1.45%) VxRail
5 1 (0.36%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 56 (20.36%) Microsoft
2 24 (8.73%) SAP
3 19 (6.91%) VMware
4 17 (6.18%) ServiceNow
5 15 (5.45%) Google
6 9 (3.27%) Salesforce
7 8 (2.91%) BiZZdesign
7 8 (2.91%) Databricks
8 6 (2.18%) Oracle
8 6 (2.18%) Workday
9 4 (1.45%) AppDynamics
9 4 (1.45%) Dynatrace
9 4 (1.45%) Tenable
10 3 (1.09%) BMC
10 3 (1.09%) Cisco
10 3 (1.09%) F5
10 3 (1.09%) MuleSoft
10 3 (1.09%) NetApp
10 3 (1.09%) Remedy
10 3 (1.09%) Zscaler