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

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 327 271 286
Rank change year-on-year -56 +15 +64
Contract jobs citing IT Strategy 216 230 293
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.68% 0.85% 0.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.77% 0.96% 0.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 141 121 211
10th Percentile £461 £482 £400
25th Percentile £500 £533 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £630 £600
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% +5.00% -5.14%
75th Percentile £775 £750 £747
90th Percentile £950 £825 £838
UK median daily rate £625 £629 £625
% change year-on-year -0.64% +0.65% -0.79%
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 £79.50 £37.00 £56.25
% change year-on-year +114.86% -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 28,047 24,036 31,494
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.31% 89.14% 87.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,899 14,761 21,230
10th Percentile £304 £310 £305
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £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 1,744 772 1,471
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.54 £14.18
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.50 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.75 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -27.63% -18.24% +21.43%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.84 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.59 £75.00 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -19.75% +15.71%

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 15 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 15 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 +8 119 £675 -3.57% 59
North of England -37 41 £492 -16.08% 47
North West -28 24 £531 -7.70% 26
Midlands -53 18 £525 -16.00% 9
Yorkshire -34 17 £481 -12.27% 16
West Midlands -45 13 £525 -15.83% 5
South East -48 12 £544 -13.69% 64
East of England -13 11 £650 +20.37% 9
South West -31 6 £675 +8.00% 14
East Midlands -29 5 £625 -19.35% 4
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 (3.24%) Confluence
1 7 (3.24%) SAS
2 5 (2.31%) Jupyter
2 5 (2.31%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.85%) CMS
4 3 (1.39%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.93%) Apache
5 2 (0.93%) WebLogic
6 1 (0.46%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 2 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.46%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.93%) SAP MM
1 2 (0.93%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.46%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.46%) Endur
2 1 (0.46%) ION Anvil
2 1 (0.46%) SAP CO
2 1 (0.46%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.46%) SAP FI/CO
2 1 (0.46%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 66 (30.56%) Azure
2 59 (27.31%) AWS
3 34 (15.74%) GCP
4 14 (6.48%) Entra ID
5 13 (6.02%) Microsoft 365
5 13 (6.02%) SaaS
6 8 (3.70%) Power Platform
7 5 (2.31%) AWS CloudFormation
7 5 (2.31%) Dynamics 365
8 4 (1.85%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 4 (1.85%) Cloud Computing
9 3 (1.39%) Azure Pipelines
9 3 (1.39%) OneDrive
9 3 (1.39%) Serverless
9 3 (1.39%) Snowflake
9 3 (1.39%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 2 (0.93%) AWS Direct Connect
10 2 (0.93%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 2 (0.93%) Azure Monitor
10 2 (0.93%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (7.41%) Firewall
2 7 (3.24%) DHCP
2 7 (3.24%) DNS
2 7 (3.24%) Network Security
3 6 (2.78%) Wi-Fi
4 5 (2.31%) VPN
5 4 (1.85%) SD-WAN
5 4 (1.85%) WAN
6 3 (1.39%) BGP
6 3 (1.39%) EIGRP
6 3 (1.39%) IPv4
6 3 (1.39%) IPv6
6 3 (1.39%) LAN
6 3 (1.39%) MPLS
6 3 (1.39%) OSPF
6 3 (1.39%) TCP/IP
6 3 (1.39%) VLAN
6 3 (1.39%) VXLAN
6 3 (1.39%) Wireless
6 3 (1.39%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.24%) Data Warehouse
2 6 (2.78%) Power BI
3 5 (2.31%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.85%) NoSQL
5 3 (1.39%) Data Lake
5 3 (1.39%) SQL Server
6 2 (0.93%) Metadata
6 2 (0.93%) NonStop SQL
7 1 (0.46%) Big Data
7 1 (0.46%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.46%) Looker
7 1 (0.46%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.46%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 8 (3.70%) JIRA
2 7 (3.24%) Jaeger
3 6 (2.78%) Git
4 4 (1.85%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.93%) GoCD
5 2 (0.93%) SonarQube
5 2 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.93%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.46%) GitLab
6 1 (0.46%) Postman
General
1 73 (33.80%) Finance
2 68 (31.48%) Social Skills
3 33 (15.28%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (12.04%) Public Sector
5 18 (8.33%) Influencing Skills
6 16 (7.41%) Financial Institution
7 12 (5.56%) Banking
8 11 (5.09%) Legal
8 11 (5.09%) Telecoms
9 5 (2.31%) Aerospace
9 5 (2.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (2.31%) Marketing
10 4 (1.85%) Back Office
10 4 (1.85%) Retail
11 3 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.93%) Law
12 2 (0.93%) Publishing
13 1 (0.46%) Front Office
13 1 (0.46%) Military
Job Titles
1 93 (43.06%) Architect
2 34 (15.74%) Solutions Architect
3 26 (12.04%) Senior
4 23 (10.65%) Lead
5 18 (8.33%) Security Architect
6 16 (7.41%) Analyst
7 13 (6.02%) Product Owner
8 12 (5.56%) Enterprise Architect
9 11 (5.09%) Developer
10 10 (4.63%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
10 10 (4.63%) Consultant
10 10 (4.63%) Lead Architect
11 8 (3.70%) Senior Architect
11 8 (3.70%) Technical Architect
12 7 (3.24%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 7 (3.24%) Project Manager
13 6 (2.78%) Business Analyst
13 6 (2.78%) Head of IT
13 6 (2.78%) Senior Manager
13 6 (2.78%) Senior Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (4.63%) REST
2 9 (4.17%) Kafka
2 9 (4.17%) Middleware
3 7 (3.24%) OpenTelemetry
3 7 (3.24%) Spring Boot
4 5 (2.31%) .NET
4 5 (2.31%) NumPy
4 5 (2.31%) Pandas
4 5 (2.31%) Plotly
4 5 (2.31%) Web Services
5 4 (1.85%) SailPoint
6 3 (1.39%) OAuth
6 3 (1.39%) Oracle Fusion
6 3 (1.39%) React
6 3 (1.39%) scikit-learn
6 3 (1.39%) SciPy
6 3 (1.39%) Statsmodels
7 2 (0.93%) .NET Core
7 2 (0.93%) LangGraph
7 2 (0.93%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 31 (14.35%) Product Ownership
2 15 (6.94%) Management Information System
3 10 (4.63%) Onboarding
4 9 (4.17%) Distributed Systems
5 8 (3.70%) Cloud Native
6 7 (3.24%) Credit Risk
6 7 (3.24%) Data Centre
7 6 (2.78%) Cyber Threat
7 6 (2.78%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (2.31%) Operational Technology
8 5 (2.31%) PKI
8 5 (2.31%) Security Posture
8 5 (2.31%) Taxonomies
8 5 (2.31%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.85%) Algorithms
9 4 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.85%) Mobile App
9 4 (1.85%) Public Cloud
9 4 (1.85%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 16 (7.41%) Windows
2 14 (6.48%) Linux
3 8 (3.70%) Mac OS
3 8 (3.70%) Windows 10
4 2 (0.93%) Unix
4 2 (0.93%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.46%) Android
5 1 (0.46%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.46%) Solaris
5 1 (0.46%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (62.50%) Technology Strategy
2 76 (35.19%) Roadmaps
3 57 (26.39%) Enterprise Architecture
4 54 (25.00%) Business Strategy
4 54 (25.00%) Stakeholder Management
5 47 (21.76%) Agile
6 45 (20.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 43 (19.91%) Cybersecurity
8 38 (17.59%) Decision-Making
9 35 (16.20%) Analytics
10 33 (15.28%) Problem-Solving
11 31 (14.35%) Continuous Improvement
12 30 (13.89%) CI/CD
12 30 (13.89%) Identity Access Management
13 27 (12.50%) DevOps
14 26 (12.04%) TOGAF
15 25 (11.57%) Technical Leadership
16 23 (10.65%) Data Modelling
17 22 (10.19%) Machine Learning
17 22 (10.19%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 21 (9.72%) Python
2 20 (9.26%) SQL
3 15 (6.94%) PowerShell
4 12 (5.56%) Bash
4 12 (5.56%) Java
5 10 (4.63%) R
6 9 (4.17%) Rust
7 5 (2.31%) C#
8 3 (1.39%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.93%) C
9 2 (0.93%) C++
9 2 (0.93%) Go
10 1 (0.46%) Bicep
10 1 (0.46%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.46%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.46%) Perl
10 1 (0.46%) Swift
10 1 (0.46%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 35 (16.20%) Security Cleared
2 27 (12.50%) Degree
2 27 (12.50%) SC Cleared
3 12 (5.56%) AWS Certification
4 11 (5.09%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (4.63%) Azure Certification
6 7 (3.24%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (3.24%) CISSP
7 5 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
7 5 (2.31%) DV Cleared
7 5 (2.31%) TOGAF Certification
8 4 (1.85%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (1.39%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 3 (1.39%) CCIE
9 3 (1.39%) CCIE Security
9 3 (1.39%) CCNP
9 3 (1.39%) CCSP
9 3 (1.39%) CISM
9 3 (1.39%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 2 (0.93%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (10.19%) GDPR
2 16 (7.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (4.17%) NIST
4 6 (2.78%) Cyber Essentials
5 5 (2.31%) EU AI Act
6 4 (1.85%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (1.85%) Def Stans
6 4 (1.85%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.93%) COBIT
7 2 (0.93%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.93%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.93%) NCSC
7 2 (0.93%) QA
7 2 (0.93%) SLA
8 1 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.46%) GAMP
8 1 (0.46%) GRC
8 1 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.46%) PMO
8 1 (0.46%) SOC 2
System Software
1 18 (8.33%) Active Directory
2 17 (7.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (7.41%) Docker
4 7 (3.24%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.39%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 18 (8.33%) Kubernetes
2 12 (5.56%) Terraform
3 10 (4.63%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (4.17%) Ansible
4 9 (4.17%) SCCM
5 7 (3.24%) Grafana
5 7 (3.24%) Kiali
5 7 (3.24%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.93%) rkt
7 1 (0.46%) Red Hat Satellite
7 1 (0.46%) SCOM
7 1 (0.46%) SCOrch
7 1 (0.46%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 37 (17.13%) Microsoft
2 26 (12.04%) VMware
3 15 (6.94%) Splunk
4 10 (4.63%) Oracle
4 10 (4.63%) Salesforce
5 8 (3.70%) Citrix
5 8 (3.70%) CyberArk
5 8 (3.70%) Darktrace
5 8 (3.70%) Google
6 7 (3.24%) Pega
6 7 (3.24%) SAP
7 4 (1.85%) Cisco
7 4 (1.85%) Dataiku
7 4 (1.85%) Dynatrace
8 3 (1.39%) F5
8 3 (1.39%) Fortinet
8 3 (1.39%) Meraki
8 3 (1.39%) Palo Alto
8 3 (1.39%) SolarWinds
8 3 (1.39%) Temenos