Business Strategy Contract Job Trends in the North of England

Business Strategy
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring Business Strategy skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 4 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 115 129 140
Rank change year-on-year +14 +11 +28
Contract jobs citing Business Strategy 97 34 46
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 2.05% 0.99% 0.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.32% 1.14% 1.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 17 34
10th Percentile £344 £396 £373
25th Percentile £405 £463 £506
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £596
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% -11.98% +8.44%
75th Percentile £600 £622 £625
90th Percentile £750 £721 £768
England median daily rate £550 £575 £588
% change year-on-year -4.35% -2.20% -2.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 4 0
10th Percentile £35.43 £30.98 -
25th Percentile £42.44 £31.33 -
Median hourly rate £58.25 £34.26 -
Median % change year-on-year +70.02% - -
75th Percentile £77.44 £41.73 -
90th Percentile £86.48 £50.25 -
England median hourly rate £54.00 £39.75 £63.50
% change year-on-year +35.85% -37.40% -1.74%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North of England

Business 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 the North of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 4,178 2,991 4,105
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 88.26% 87.30% 87.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,778 1,709 2,724
10th Percentile £224 £263 £295
25th Percentile £363 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.63% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £638 £669 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 256 139 196
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.00 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.08 £17.60
Median hourly rate £31.43 £27.13 £28.72
Median % change year-on-year +15.87% -5.55% +27.64%
75th Percentile £55.00 £45.34 £46.18
90th Percentile £69.25 £66.24 £62.88
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.90
% change year-on-year -28.14% -20.27% +23.66%

Business Strategy
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Business Strategy relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England.

Business Strategy job vacancy trend in the North of England

Business Strategy
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Business Strategy.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Business Strategy

Business Strategy
Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Business Strategy in the North of England over the 6 months to 4 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Business Strategy in the North of England

Business Strategy
Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Business Strategy.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Business Strategy

Business Strategy
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Business Strategy in the North of England over the 6 months to 4 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Business Strategy in the North of England

Business Strategy
Contract Job Locations in the North of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Business Strategy within the North of England region over the 6 months to 4 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
North West +10 64 £455 -9.90% 71
Yorkshire -6 42 £488 -11.36% 56
North East - 5 £435 - 10
Business Strategy
England

Business Strategy
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of 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 2 (2.06%) Confluence
2 1 (1.03%) Apache
2 1 (1.03%) SAS
2 1 (1.03%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (4.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (2.06%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (4.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (2.06%) SAP ERP
3 1 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (1.03%) NetSuite
3 1 (1.03%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 25 (25.77%) Azure
2 22 (22.68%) AWS
3 20 (20.62%) GCP
4 6 (6.19%) Entra ID
5 5 (5.15%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (4.12%) SaaS
7 1 (1.03%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (1.03%) Amazon EC2
7 1 (1.03%) Amazon S3
7 1 (1.03%) GitHub
7 1 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (1.03%) OCI
7 1 (1.03%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 20 (20.62%) DNS
1 20 (20.62%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
1 20 (20.62%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
1 20 (20.62%) Network Security
2 19 (19.59%) DMZ
3 11 (11.34%) Firewall
4 4 (4.12%) ATM
5 3 (3.09%) Kerberos
6 1 (1.03%) BIG-IP
6 1 (1.03%) Cisco ASA
6 1 (1.03%) Cisco Firepower
6 1 (1.03%) Cisco ISE
6 1 (1.03%) DHCP
6 1 (1.03%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (6.19%) SQL Server
2 3 (3.09%) Hadoop
2 3 (3.09%) Impala
3 2 (2.06%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (1.03%) EDRMS
4 1 (1.03%) MySQL
4 1 (1.03%) Power Query
4 1 (1.03%) Redis
4 1 (1.03%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 6 (6.19%) Jaeger
2 4 (4.12%) JIRA
3 1 (1.03%) Git
3 1 (1.03%) Jenkins
General
1 33 (34.02%) Banking
1 33 (34.02%) Social Skills
2 26 (26.80%) Finance
3 16 (16.49%) Analytical Skills
4 14 (14.43%) Investment Banking
5 7 (7.22%) Influencing Skills
6 6 (6.19%) Financial Institution
6 6 (6.19%) Presentation Skills
7 3 (3.09%) Pharmaceutical
8 2 (2.06%) Billing
8 2 (2.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (2.06%) Law
8 2 (2.06%) Legal
8 2 (2.06%) Mandarin Language
8 2 (2.06%) Manufacturing
8 2 (2.06%) Marketing
9 1 (1.03%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (1.03%) Public Sector
9 1 (1.03%) Retail
Job Titles
1 33 (34.02%) Architect
2 16 (16.49%) Solutions Architect
3 14 (14.43%) Operations Engineer
4 13 (13.40%) Senior
5 7 (7.22%) Analyst
5 7 (7.22%) Domain Architect
5 7 (7.22%) Lead
5 7 (7.22%) Network Architect
5 7 (7.22%) Senior Architect
5 7 (7.22%) Senior Network Architect
6 6 (6.19%) Applications Architect
6 6 (6.19%) Full-Stack Engineer
6 6 (6.19%) NetBackup Engineer
7 5 (5.15%) Project Manager
8 4 (4.12%) Business Architect
8 4 (4.12%) Data Analyst
8 4 (4.12%) Governance Manager
8 4 (4.12%) Senior Full-Stack Engineer
9 3 (3.09%) Change Manager
9 3 (3.09%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (10.31%) Middleware
2 8 (8.25%) Kafka
3 6 (6.19%) OpenTelemetry
3 6 (6.19%) Spring Boot
4 4 (4.12%) REST
4 4 (4.12%) Web Services
5 3 (3.09%) LDAP
5 3 (3.09%) OAuth
5 3 (3.09%) OpenID
5 3 (3.09%) SAML
6 1 (1.03%) .NET
6 1 (1.03%) AngularJS
6 1 (1.03%) Bootstrap
6 1 (1.03%) HTML
6 1 (1.03%) Laravel
6 1 (1.03%) Node.js
6 1 (1.03%) RabbitMQ
6 1 (1.03%) React
6 1 (1.03%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 22 (22.68%) Management Information System
2 7 (7.22%) Product Ownership
3 6 (6.19%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (5.15%) Onboarding
4 5 (5.15%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 4 (4.12%) PACS
5 4 (4.12%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (3.09%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (3.09%) IoT
7 2 (2.06%) Cloud Native
7 2 (2.06%) Public Cloud
8 1 (1.03%) AI Agents
8 1 (1.03%) Credit Risk
8 1 (1.03%) Mobile App
8 1 (1.03%) RSA SecurID
Operating Systems
1 11 (11.34%) Linux
2 3 (3.09%) Mac OS
2 3 (3.09%) Windows
2 3 (3.09%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (24.74%) Stakeholder Management
2 22 (22.68%) Enterprise Architecture
3 19 (19.59%) Load Balancing
3 19 (19.59%) Roadmaps
4 16 (16.49%) Agile
5 14 (14.43%) Design Patterns
6 13 (13.40%) Analytics
6 13 (13.40%) Data Protection
7 12 (12.37%) IT Strategy
7 12 (12.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 11 (11.34%) Microservices
8 11 (11.34%) Migration
9 10 (10.31%) Containerisation
9 10 (10.31%) Data Modelling
10 9 (9.28%) CI/CD
10 9 (9.28%) Problem-Solving
10 9 (9.28%) Strategic Thinking
10 9 (9.28%) Technical Leadership
11 8 (8.25%) Application Security
11 8 (8.25%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 12 (12.37%) Python
2 9 (9.28%) Bash
2 9 (9.28%) PowerShell
2 9 (9.28%) SQL
3 7 (7.22%) Java
4 6 (6.19%) Rust
5 4 (4.12%) R
6 1 (1.03%) C#
6 1 (1.03%) JavaScript
6 1 (1.03%) PHP
6 1 (1.03%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 12 (12.37%) Degree
2 9 (9.28%) Security Cleared
3 7 (7.22%) SC Cleared
4 4 (4.12%) Azure Certification
5 3 (3.09%) DBS Check
5 3 (3.09%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (2.06%) ACCA
6 2 (2.06%) AWS Certification
6 2 (2.06%) BC Cleared
6 2 (2.06%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (2.06%) CBAP
6 2 (2.06%) CIMA
6 2 (2.06%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (2.06%) CSPO
6 2 (2.06%) SAP Certification
6 2 (2.06%) TOGAF Certification
7 1 (1.03%) APMG
7 1 (1.03%) IIBA
7 1 (1.03%) PMI Certification
7 1 (1.03%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (7.22%) GDPR
2 4 (4.12%) ISO 8583
3 3 (3.09%) ISO 20022
3 3 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (2.06%) PCI DSS
4 2 (2.06%) QA
5 1 (1.03%) Data Quality
5 1 (1.03%) PSD2
5 1 (1.03%) SEPA
System Software
1 29 (29.90%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (15.46%) Docker
3 6 (6.19%) Active Directory
4 1 (1.03%) VMware NSX
4 1 (1.03%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 10 (10.31%) Kubernetes
2 6 (6.19%) Grafana
2 6 (6.19%) Kiali
2 6 (6.19%) NetBackup
2 6 (6.19%) Oracle RMAN
2 6 (6.19%) Prometheus
3 3 (3.09%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 3 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (3.09%) SCCM
4 1 (1.03%) Ansible
4 1 (1.03%) Terraform
Vendors
1 29 (29.90%) VMware
2 20 (20.62%) F5
3 13 (13.40%) Google
4 12 (12.37%) Microsoft
5 8 (8.25%) Oracle
6 6 (6.19%) CyberArk
6 6 (6.19%) Splunk
6 6 (6.19%) Veritas
7 5 (5.15%) SAP
8 3 (3.09%) Citrix
8 3 (3.09%) MuleSoft
9 2 (2.06%) IBM
9 2 (2.06%) IBM Sterling
9 2 (2.06%) Planview
9 2 (2.06%) Temenos
10 1 (1.03%) Cisco
10 1 (1.03%) Epicor
10 1 (1.03%) NetScout
10 1 (1.03%) Red Hat
10 1 (1.03%) Salesforce