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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 338 269 267
Rank change year-on-year -69 -2 +84
Contract jobs citing IT Strategy 210 229 300
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.68% 0.86% 0.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.77% 0.96% 0.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 138 120 216
10th Percentile £460 £482 £406
25th Percentile £500 £536 £489
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £631 £634 £619
Median % change year-on-year -0.39% +2.42% -1.79%
75th Percentile £775 £752 £750
90th Percentile £950 £825 £838
UK median daily rate £625 £630 £625
% change year-on-year -0.79% +0.80% -
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 27,375 23,793 32,010
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.27% 89.07% 87.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,424 14,594 21,607
10th Percentile £304 £310 £305
25th Percentile £410 £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 1,725 761 1,484
10th Percentile £15.13 £15.53 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.88 £20.30 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.03% -20.00% +21.43%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.86 £75.00 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.25 £40.50
% change year-on-year -22.00% -20.38% +16.41%

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 12 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 12 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 +16 116 £673 -3.86% 61
North of England -43 41 £492 -16.08% 45
North West -35 24 £531 -7.70% 22
Yorkshire -26 17 £481 -12.27% 19
Midlands -63 16 £525 -16.00% 17
South East -48 12 £544 -13.69% 64
East of England -12 11 £650 +20.37% 9
West Midlands -48 11 £513 -17.84% 11
South West -30 6 £675 +8.00% 15
East Midlands -22 5 £625 -19.35% 6
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 (3.33%) SAS
2 6 (2.86%) Confluence
3 5 (2.38%) Jupyter
3 5 (2.38%) SharePoint
4 4 (1.90%) CMS
5 3 (1.43%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.48%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 2 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.48%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.95%) SAP MM
1 2 (0.95%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.48%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.48%) Endur
2 1 (0.48%) ION Anvil
2 1 (0.48%) SAP CO
2 1 (0.48%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.48%) SAP FI/CO
2 1 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 62 (29.52%) Azure
2 55 (26.19%) AWS
3 34 (16.19%) GCP
4 14 (6.67%) Entra ID
5 13 (6.19%) Microsoft 365
6 10 (4.76%) SaaS
7 8 (3.81%) Power Platform
8 5 (2.38%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.90%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (1.90%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (1.90%) Cloud Computing
10 3 (1.43%) Azure Pipelines
10 3 (1.43%) OneDrive
10 3 (1.43%) Serverless
10 3 (1.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 2 (0.95%) AWS Direct Connect
11 2 (0.95%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 2 (0.95%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (0.95%) Microsoft Purview
11 2 (0.95%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 16 (7.62%) Firewall
2 7 (3.33%) DHCP
2 7 (3.33%) DNS
3 6 (2.86%) Network Security
3 6 (2.86%) Wi-Fi
4 5 (2.38%) VPN
5 4 (1.90%) SD-WAN
5 4 (1.90%) WAN
6 3 (1.43%) BGP
6 3 (1.43%) EIGRP
6 3 (1.43%) IPv4
6 3 (1.43%) IPv6
6 3 (1.43%) LAN
6 3 (1.43%) MPLS
6 3 (1.43%) OSPF
6 3 (1.43%) TCP/IP
6 3 (1.43%) VLAN
6 3 (1.43%) VXLAN
6 3 (1.43%) Wireless
6 3 (1.43%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.33%) Data Warehouse
2 6 (2.86%) Power BI
3 5 (2.38%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.90%) NoSQL
5 3 (1.43%) Data Lake
5 3 (1.43%) SQL Server
6 2 (0.95%) Metadata
6 2 (0.95%) NonStop SQL
7 1 (0.48%) Big Data
7 1 (0.48%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.48%) Looker
7 1 (0.48%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.48%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 7 (3.33%) Jaeger
1 7 (3.33%) JIRA
2 6 (2.86%) Git
3 4 (1.90%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.95%) GoCD
4 2 (0.95%) SonarQube
4 2 (0.95%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.95%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.48%) GitLab
5 1 (0.48%) Postman
General
1 71 (33.81%) Finance
2 68 (32.38%) Social Skills
3 33 (15.71%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (11.90%) Public Sector
5 17 (8.10%) Influencing Skills
6 16 (7.62%) Financial Institution
7 12 (5.71%) Banking
8 11 (5.24%) Telecoms
9 10 (4.76%) Legal
10 5 (2.38%) Aerospace
10 5 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.90%) Back Office
11 4 (1.90%) Marketing
11 4 (1.90%) Retail
12 3 (1.43%) Documentation Skills
12 3 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.95%) Law
13 2 (0.95%) Publishing
14 1 (0.48%) Front Office
14 1 (0.48%) Military
Job Titles
1 90 (42.86%) Architect
2 34 (16.19%) Solutions Architect
3 25 (11.90%) Senior
4 22 (10.48%) Lead
5 18 (8.57%) Security Architect
6 16 (7.62%) Analyst
7 12 (5.71%) Enterprise Architect
7 12 (5.71%) Product Owner
8 11 (5.24%) Developer
9 10 (4.76%) Consultant
9 10 (4.76%) Lead Architect
10 9 (4.29%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
11 8 (3.81%) Technical Architect
12 7 (3.33%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 7 (3.33%) Project Manager
12 7 (3.33%) Senior Architect
13 6 (2.86%) Business Analyst
13 6 (2.86%) Head of IT
13 6 (2.86%) Senior Manager
13 6 (2.86%) Senior Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (4.76%) REST
2 9 (4.29%) Kafka
2 9 (4.29%) Middleware
3 7 (3.33%) OpenTelemetry
3 7 (3.33%) Spring Boot
4 5 (2.38%) .NET
4 5 (2.38%) NumPy
4 5 (2.38%) Pandas
4 5 (2.38%) Plotly
4 5 (2.38%) Web Services
5 4 (1.90%) SailPoint
6 3 (1.43%) OAuth
6 3 (1.43%) Oracle Fusion
6 3 (1.43%) scikit-learn
6 3 (1.43%) SciPy
6 3 (1.43%) Statsmodels
7 2 (0.95%) .NET Core
7 2 (0.95%) React
7 2 (0.95%) RESTful
7 2 (0.95%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 30 (14.29%) Product Ownership
2 15 (7.14%) Management Information System
3 10 (4.76%) Onboarding
4 8 (3.81%) Distributed Systems
5 7 (3.33%) Credit Risk
5 7 (3.33%) Data Centre
6 6 (2.86%) Cloud Native
6 6 (2.86%) Cyber Threat
6 6 (2.86%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (2.38%) Operational Technology
7 5 (2.38%) Security Posture
7 5 (2.38%) Taxonomies
7 5 (2.38%) Virtual Team
8 4 (1.90%) Algorithms
8 4 (1.90%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.90%) Mobile App
8 4 (1.90%) PKI
8 4 (1.90%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.90%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 14 (6.67%) Windows
2 12 (5.71%) Linux
3 8 (3.81%) Mac OS
3 8 (3.81%) Windows 10
4 2 (0.95%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.48%) Android
5 1 (0.48%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.48%) Solaris
5 1 (0.48%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (62.86%) Technology Strategy
2 73 (34.76%) Roadmaps
3 55 (26.19%) Enterprise Architecture
4 53 (25.24%) Business Strategy
4 53 (25.24%) Stakeholder Management
5 45 (21.43%) Agile
6 43 (20.48%) Cybersecurity
6 43 (20.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 38 (18.10%) Decision-Making
8 33 (15.71%) Analytics
9 32 (15.24%) Problem-Solving
10 30 (14.29%) Identity Access Management
11 29 (13.81%) Continuous Improvement
12 26 (12.38%) CI/CD
12 26 (12.38%) DevOps
13 25 (11.90%) Technical Leadership
14 23 (10.95%) TOGAF
15 22 (10.48%) Microservices
16 21 (10.00%) Computer Science
16 21 (10.00%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 21 (10.00%) Python
2 18 (8.57%) SQL
3 15 (7.14%) PowerShell
4 12 (5.71%) Bash
4 12 (5.71%) Java
5 10 (4.76%) R
6 9 (4.29%) Rust
7 5 (2.38%) C#
8 3 (1.43%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.95%) C
9 2 (0.95%) C++
9 2 (0.95%) Go
10 1 (0.48%) Bicep
10 1 (0.48%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.48%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.48%) Perl
10 1 (0.48%) Swift
10 1 (0.48%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 31 (14.76%) Security Cleared
2 27 (12.86%) Degree
3 24 (11.43%) SC Cleared
4 12 (5.71%) AWS Certification
5 11 (5.24%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (4.76%) Azure Certification
7 7 (3.33%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (2.86%) CISSP
9 5 (2.38%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (1.90%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (1.90%) DV Cleared
11 3 (1.43%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 3 (1.43%) CCIE
11 3 (1.43%) CCIE Security
11 3 (1.43%) CCNP
11 3 (1.43%) CCSP
11 3 (1.43%) TOGAF Certification
11 3 (1.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 2 (0.95%) JNCIE
12 2 (0.95%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (10.00%) GDPR
2 16 (7.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (4.29%) NIST
4 6 (2.86%) Cyber Essentials
5 5 (2.38%) EU AI Act
6 4 (1.90%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (1.90%) Def Stans
6 4 (1.90%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.95%) COBIT
7 2 (0.95%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.95%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.95%) QA
7 2 (0.95%) SLA
8 1 (0.48%) GAMP
8 1 (0.48%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.48%) MiFID
8 1 (0.48%) PMO
8 1 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 18 (8.57%) Active Directory
2 17 (8.10%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (7.62%) Docker
4 7 (3.33%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.43%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 16 (7.62%) Kubernetes
2 11 (5.24%) Terraform
3 10 (4.76%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (4.29%) Ansible
4 9 (4.29%) SCCM
5 7 (3.33%) Grafana
5 7 (3.33%) Kiali
5 7 (3.33%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.95%) rkt
7 1 (0.48%) Red Hat Satellite
7 1 (0.48%) SCOM
7 1 (0.48%) SCOrch
7 1 (0.48%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 36 (17.14%) Microsoft
2 26 (12.38%) VMware
3 15 (7.14%) Splunk
4 10 (4.76%) Salesforce
5 8 (3.81%) Citrix
5 8 (3.81%) CyberArk
5 8 (3.81%) Darktrace
5 8 (3.81%) Google
5 8 (3.81%) Oracle
6 7 (3.33%) Pega
6 7 (3.33%) SAP
7 4 (1.90%) Cisco
7 4 (1.90%) Dataiku
8 3 (1.43%) F5
8 3 (1.43%) Fortinet
8 3 (1.43%) Meraki
8 3 (1.43%) Palo Alto
8 3 (1.43%) SolarWinds
8 3 (1.43%) Temenos
9 2 (0.95%) Dynatrace