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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 351 303 270
Rank change year-on-year -48 -33 +80
Contract jobs citing IT Strategy 235 170 312
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.59% 0.69% 0.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.70% 0.76% 0.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 149 95 219
10th Percentile £413 £413 £400
25th Percentile £463 £525 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £630 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.73% +5.00% -4.00%
75th Percentile £725 £750 £738
90th Percentile £950 £800 £852
UK median daily rate £560 £625 £600
% change year-on-year -10.40% +4.17% -2.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 2
10th Percentile £26.52 - £32.23
25th Percentile £37.39 - £35.40
Median hourly rate £74.75 £100.00 £41.31
Median % change year-on-year -25.25% +142.07% +230.61%
75th Percentile £84.50 - £47.84
90th Percentile £94.25 - £51.39
UK median hourly rate £74.75 £100.00 £41.31
% change year-on-year -25.25% +142.07% +228.51%

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 33,718 22,322 32,052
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.24% 91.07% 86.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,550 14,669 21,082
10th Percentile £315 £310 £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 £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £521 £525
% change year-on-year -4.03% -0.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,104 894 2,218
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.84 £12.85
25th Percentile £20.32 £18.51 £15.86
Median hourly rate £41.94 £31.64 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.55% -9.60% -9.09%
75th Percentile £67.25 £64.31 £58.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.18 £72.33
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £30.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +25.00% -14.29% -6.67%

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 21 April 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 21 April 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 21 April 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 -37 118 £606 -10.19% 122
North of England -45 42 £485 -19.17% 54
South East -49 31 £639 -1.73% 49
Midlands -51 23 £525 -15.66% 27
Yorkshire -47 21 £481 +35.26% 12
North West -46 20 £496 -9.82% 39
West Midlands -53 14 £525 -15.66% 15
East Midlands - 9 £536 - 12
East of England -32 8 £650 +4.00% 12
South West -32 6 £675 +8.00% 18
North East -15 1 - - 3
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 6 (2.55%) Confluence
1 6 (2.55%) SharePoint
2 5 (2.13%) SAS
3 3 (1.28%) CMS
3 3 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.85%) Apache
4 2 (0.85%) Camunda
4 2 (0.85%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.43%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.43%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.43%) nginx
5 1 (0.43%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.43%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.43%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (1.28%) SAP CO
1 3 (1.28%) SAP FI
1 3 (1.28%) SAP FI/CO
1 3 (1.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.85%) SAP MM
2 2 (0.85%) Workday HCM
3 1 (0.43%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 76 (32.34%) Azure
2 58 (24.68%) AWS
3 28 (11.91%) SaaS
4 26 (11.06%) GCP
5 21 (8.94%) Microsoft 365
6 12 (5.11%) IaaS
7 10 (4.26%) PaaS
8 8 (3.40%) Entra ID
9 6 (2.55%) Power Platform
10 5 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (1.28%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 3 (1.28%) Google Gemini
11 3 (1.28%) OneDrive
11 3 (1.28%) Snowflake
11 3 (1.28%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 2 (0.85%) AWS Direct Connect
12 2 (0.85%) Dynamics 365
12 2 (0.85%) iPaaS
12 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Purview
12 2 (0.85%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 17 (7.23%) Firewall
2 12 (5.11%) LAN
3 9 (3.83%) WAN
4 8 (3.40%) Network Security
5 7 (2.98%) DHCP
5 7 (2.98%) DNS
6 6 (2.55%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (2.13%) VPN
8 4 (1.70%) BGP
8 4 (1.70%) OSPF
8 4 (1.70%) SD-WAN
8 4 (1.70%) VLAN
8 4 (1.70%) VSAN
8 4 (1.70%) VXLAN
8 4 (1.70%) Wireless
9 3 (1.28%) EIGRP
9 3 (1.28%) IPv4
9 3 (1.28%) IPv6
9 3 (1.28%) MPLS
9 3 (1.28%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
2 5 (2.13%) Power BI
3 3 (1.28%) Metadata
4 2 (0.85%) Data Lake
4 2 (0.85%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (0.85%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.85%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.85%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.43%) Looker
5 1 (0.43%) Metadata Repository
5 1 (0.43%) NonStop SQL
5 1 (0.43%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.43%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (3.40%) Jaeger
1 8 (3.40%) JIRA
2 2 (0.85%) Postman
3 1 (0.43%) Git
3 1 (0.43%) GitLab
3 1 (0.43%) Jenkins
General
1 78 (33.19%) Finance
2 73 (31.06%) Social Skills
3 34 (14.47%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (13.19%) Public Sector
5 19 (8.09%) Banking
6 16 (6.81%) Financial Institution
6 16 (6.81%) Influencing Skills
7 13 (5.53%) Legal
8 8 (3.40%) Retail
9 7 (2.98%) Telecoms
10 6 (2.55%) Aerospace
11 5 (2.13%) Corporate Banking
11 5 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (1.70%) Documentation Skills
13 3 (1.28%) Marketing
14 2 (0.85%) Aviation
14 2 (0.85%) Back Office
14 2 (0.85%) Local Government
14 2 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 93 (39.57%) Architect
2 28 (11.91%) Senior
2 28 (11.91%) Solutions Architect
3 21 (8.94%) Technical Architect
4 18 (7.66%) Lead
5 17 (7.23%) Analyst
6 11 (4.68%) Enterprise Architect
6 11 (4.68%) Network Architect
6 11 (4.68%) Product Owner
7 8 (3.40%) Business Analyst
7 8 (3.40%) Full-Stack Engineer
8 7 (2.98%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
8 7 (2.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 7 (2.98%) IT Manager
8 7 (2.98%) Project Manager
9 6 (2.55%) Consultant
9 6 (2.55%) Head of IT
9 6 (2.55%) Lead Architect
9 6 (2.55%) Senior Architect
9 6 (2.55%) Senior Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (7.23%) Middleware
2 9 (3.83%) Kafka
3 8 (3.40%) OpenTelemetry
3 8 (3.40%) REST
3 8 (3.40%) Spring Boot
4 4 (1.70%) AngularJS
5 3 (1.28%) .NET
5 3 (1.28%) LangGraph
5 3 (1.28%) OAuth
5 3 (1.28%) React
5 3 (1.28%) SOAP
6 2 (0.85%) CrewAI
6 2 (0.85%) JSON
6 2 (0.85%) Model Context Protocol
6 2 (0.85%) RESTful
6 2 (0.85%) SAML
6 2 (0.85%) SAP Fiori
6 2 (0.85%) Vue
7 1 (0.43%) GreenSock GSAP
7 1 (0.43%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 24 (10.21%) Product Ownership
2 16 (6.81%) Cloud Native
2 16 (6.81%) Public Cloud
3 14 (5.96%) Management Information System
4 13 (5.53%) Data Centre
4 13 (5.53%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (4.26%) Onboarding
6 8 (3.40%) PKI
7 7 (2.98%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (2.98%) Virtual Team
8 6 (2.55%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (2.13%) Credit Risk
9 5 (2.13%) Cyber Threat
9 5 (2.13%) Operational Technology
10 4 (1.70%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (1.70%) SCADA
11 3 (1.28%) AI Agents
11 3 (1.28%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 3 (1.28%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 23 (9.79%) Linux
2 19 (8.09%) Windows
3 5 (2.13%) Mac OS
3 5 (2.13%) Windows 10
4 3 (1.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.85%) Solaris
5 2 (0.85%) Unix
5 2 (0.85%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.43%) Android
6 1 (0.43%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.43%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 163 (69.36%) Technology Strategy
2 85 (36.17%) Roadmaps
3 61 (25.96%) Enterprise Architecture
4 60 (25.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 54 (22.98%) Stakeholder Management
6 52 (22.13%) Business Strategy
7 50 (21.28%) Agile
8 43 (18.30%) Cybersecurity
9 42 (17.87%) Continuous Improvement
10 37 (15.74%) Decision-Making
10 37 (15.74%) DevOps
11 34 (14.47%) Analytics
12 33 (14.04%) CI/CD
13 32 (13.62%) AI
13 32 (13.62%) Problem-Solving
14 30 (12.77%) Microservices
14 30 (12.77%) Migration
15 29 (12.34%) TOGAF
16 26 (11.06%) Data Modelling
16 26 (11.06%) Technology Roadmap
Programming Languages
1 23 (9.79%) Python
2 17 (7.23%) SQL
3 15 (6.38%) Java
4 11 (4.68%) PowerShell
5 9 (3.83%) Bash
6 8 (3.40%) Rust
7 5 (2.13%) R
8 4 (1.70%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.43%) C
9 1 (0.43%) C#
9 1 (0.43%) C++
9 1 (0.43%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.43%) Objective-C
9 1 (0.43%) Perl
9 1 (0.43%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.43%) Swift
9 1 (0.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 51 (21.70%) Security Cleared
2 36 (15.32%) SC Cleared
3 29 (12.34%) Degree
4 11 (4.68%) AWS Certification
4 11 (4.68%) DV Cleared
5 9 (3.83%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (3.40%) Cisco Certification
7 7 (2.98%) Azure Certification
7 7 (2.98%) CCNP
8 6 (2.55%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (2.13%) CISSP
9 5 (2.13%) TOGAF Certification
10 4 (1.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (1.70%) MCSE
10 4 (1.70%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (1.28%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 3 (1.28%) CCIE
11 3 (1.28%) CCIE Security
11 3 (1.28%) CCSP
11 3 (1.28%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (8.09%) GDPR
2 16 (6.81%) NIST
3 11 (4.68%) NCSC
4 9 (3.83%) Cyber Essentials
4 9 (3.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (1.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 4 (1.70%) Def Stans
6 3 (1.28%) Data Quality
6 3 (1.28%) PCI DSS
6 3 (1.28%) QA
6 3 (1.28%) SLA
7 2 (0.85%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.85%) PMO
7 2 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.43%) GRC
8 1 (0.43%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.43%) ITGC
8 1 (0.43%) PSD2
8 1 (0.43%) RMADS
8 1 (0.43%) TARGET2
System Software
1 20 (8.51%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (5.96%) Docker
3 12 (5.11%) Active Directory
4 8 (3.40%) VMware NSX
5 7 (2.98%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.70%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 16 (6.81%) Kubernetes
2 10 (4.26%) Ansible
3 9 (3.83%) Grafana
3 9 (3.83%) Terraform
4 8 (3.40%) Kiali
4 8 (3.40%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.55%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (2.55%) SCCM
6 1 (0.43%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.43%) Kibana
6 1 (0.43%) Oracle RMAN
6 1 (0.43%) Red Hat Satellite
6 1 (0.43%) SCOM
6 1 (0.43%) SCOrch
6 1 (0.43%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 42 (17.87%) Microsoft
2 32 (13.62%) VMware
3 15 (6.38%) Cisco
4 13 (5.53%) SAP
5 10 (4.26%) Google
5 10 (4.26%) Oracle
6 9 (3.83%) F5
7 8 (3.40%) Splunk
8 7 (2.98%) Palo Alto
8 7 (2.98%) Salesforce
9 6 (2.55%) Juniper
10 5 (2.13%) Citrix
10 5 (2.13%) MuleSoft
10 5 (2.13%) Pega
10 5 (2.13%) ServiceNow
11 4 (1.70%) Workday
12 3 (1.28%) HP
12 3 (1.28%) Meraki
12 3 (1.28%) OpenAI
12 3 (1.28%) SolarWinds