Strategic Thinking Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Strategic Thinking
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring Strategic Thinking skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 97 99 114
Rank change year-on-year +2 +15 +32
Contract jobs citing Strategic Thinking 30 23 25
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 1.44% 1.15% 1.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.64% 1.29% 1.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 11 10 9
10th Percentile £438 £529 £46
25th Percentile £471 £575 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £595 £588 £485
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% +21.13% +8.99%
75th Percentile £708 £925 £675
90th Percentile £773 £1,025 £700
South East median daily rate £642 £575 £625
% change year-on-year +11.73% -7.96% +13.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £26.00 £60.82
Median hourly rate - £27.00 £61.65
Median % change year-on-year - -56.20% -
75th Percentile - £28.00 £62.47
90th Percentile - - -
South East median hourly rate - £27.50 £61.65
% change year-on-year - -55.39% +472.64%

All Process and Methodology Skills
Thames Valley

Strategic Thinking 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 Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,826 1,786 2,271
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 87.70% 88.94% 91.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,191 1,046 1,459
10th Percentile £268 £293 £213
25th Percentile £400 £409 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £613
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £515 £523
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.44% +1.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 138 54 104
10th Percentile £15.01 £18.92 £18.95
25th Percentile £17.63 £29.75 £25.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £56.75 £49.87
Median % change year-on-year -55.68% +13.80% +137.45%
75th Percentile £57.25 £63.00 £64.63
90th Percentile £89.63 £69.03 £74.37
South East median hourly rate £22.27 £50.00 £53.94
% change year-on-year -55.47% -7.31% +43.85%

Strategic Thinking
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Strategic Thinking relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Strategic Thinking job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Strategic Thinking
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Strategic Thinking.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Strategic Thinking

Strategic Thinking
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Strategic Thinking in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 16 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Strategic Thinking in the Thames Valley

Strategic Thinking
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Strategic Thinking.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Strategic Thinking

Strategic Thinking
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Strategic Thinking within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 16 December 2025. 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
Berkshire -8 22 £595 +1.28% 6
Oxfordshire -9 5 £500 +17.65% 3
Buckinghamshire +8 3 £640 +4.07% 2
Strategic Thinking
South East

Strategic Thinking
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 (20.00%) OpenStack
2 1 (3.33%) Appian
2 1 (3.33%) CMS
2 1 (3.33%) Confluence
2 1 (3.33%) Drupal
2 1 (3.33%) SharePoint
2 1 (3.33%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (3.33%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (3.33%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (10.00%) SAP Oil and Gas
2 2 (6.67%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (3.33%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (3.33%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 11 (36.67%) AWS
1 11 (36.67%) Azure
2 5 (16.67%) Entra ID
3 4 (13.33%) GCP
4 1 (3.33%) Dynamics 365
4 1 (3.33%) Tricentis Tosca
4 1 (3.33%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 6 (20.00%) BGP
1 6 (20.00%) LAN
1 6 (20.00%) MPLS
1 6 (20.00%) WAN
2 3 (10.00%) Firewall
2 3 (10.00%) Network Security
3 1 (3.33%) Intranet
3 1 (3.33%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.33%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 1 (3.33%) Cucumber
1 1 (3.33%) GitLab
1 1 (3.33%) JIRA
1 1 (3.33%) Robot Framework
1 1 (3.33%) Selenium
1 1 (3.33%) SonarQube
General
1 11 (36.67%) Social Skills
2 8 (26.67%) Finance
3 6 (20.00%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (16.67%) Manufacturing
5 4 (13.33%) Organisational Skills
6 3 (10.00%) Public Sector
7 2 (6.67%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (6.67%) Telecoms
8 1 (3.33%) Banking
8 1 (3.33%) Front Office
8 1 (3.33%) Marketing
8 1 (3.33%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (3.33%) Publishing
8 1 (3.33%) Retail
Job Titles
1 13 (43.33%) Architect
2 6 (20.00%) IP Architect
2 6 (20.00%) IP Specialist
2 6 (20.00%) Project Manager
3 4 (13.33%) Security Architect
4 3 (10.00%) Lead
5 2 (6.67%) Analyst
5 2 (6.67%) Business Analyst
5 2 (6.67%) Change Manager
5 2 (6.67%) Enterprise Architect
5 2 (6.67%) Project Manager - SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (3.33%) CRM Project Manager
6 1 (3.33%) Data Centre Manager
6 1 (3.33%) Data Manager
6 1 (3.33%) Junior
6 1 (3.33%) Junior Project Manager
6 1 (3.33%) Operations Manager
6 1 (3.33%) Release Manager
6 1 (3.33%) Senior Manager
6 1 (3.33%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (23.33%) NETCONF
1 7 (23.33%) YANG
2 6 (20.00%) REST
3 2 (6.67%) SailPoint
4 1 (3.33%) Jinja
4 1 (3.33%) JSON
4 1 (3.33%) RESTful
4 1 (3.33%) Spring
4 1 (3.33%) Spring Boot
4 1 (3.33%) Vue
4 1 (3.33%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 10 (33.33%) Cloud Native
2 9 (30.00%) Hybrid Cloud
3 4 (13.33%) Life Science
3 4 (13.33%) Renewable Energy
4 3 (10.00%) Cloud Security Posture
4 3 (10.00%) Enterprise Software
4 3 (10.00%) Public Cloud
4 3 (10.00%) Security Posture
5 2 (6.67%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (6.67%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (3.33%) Data Centre
6 1 (3.33%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (3.33%) Educational Technology
6 1 (3.33%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1 (3.33%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (53.33%) Roadmaps
2 12 (40.00%) Agile
2 12 (40.00%) TOGAF
3 11 (36.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 10 (33.33%) Problem-Solving
5 8 (26.67%) Enterprise Architecture
5 8 (26.67%) Microservices
5 8 (26.67%) Stakeholder Management
6 7 (23.33%) DevOps
7 6 (20.00%) CI/CD
7 6 (20.00%) Mentoring
7 6 (20.00%) Network Architecture
7 6 (20.00%) Network Design
7 6 (20.00%) Network Segmentation
7 6 (20.00%) Network Virtualisation
8 5 (16.67%) Business Strategy
8 5 (16.67%) Infrastructure as Code
8 5 (16.67%) PRINCE2
9 4 (13.33%) Critical Thinking
9 4 (13.33%) DevSecOps
Programming Languages
1 7 (23.33%) Python
2 2 (6.67%) JavaScript
3 1 (3.33%) C#
3 1 (3.33%) Java
Qualifications
1 10 (33.33%) Cisco Certification
2 7 (23.33%) Security Cleared
3 6 (20.00%) CCIE
3 6 (20.00%) JNCIE
4 4 (13.33%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 4 (13.33%) AWS Certification
4 4 (13.33%) CCSP
4 4 (13.33%) CISSP
5 3 (10.00%) Azure Certification
5 3 (10.00%) DV Cleared
6 2 (6.67%) SC Cleared
7 1 (3.33%) BC Cleared
7 1 (3.33%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (3.33%) Degree
7 1 (3.33%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (13.33%) GDPR
1 4 (13.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 4 (13.33%) NIST
1 4 (13.33%) PCI DSS
1 4 (13.33%) PSD2
2 2 (6.67%) COBIT
2 2 (6.67%) PMBOK
3 1 (3.33%) Accessibility
System Software
1 5 (16.67%) Docker
Systems Management
1 7 (23.33%) Ansible
2 4 (13.33%) Kubernetes
3 2 (6.67%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (3.33%) Terraform
Vendors
1 4 (13.33%) Microsoft
2 3 (10.00%) SAP
3 2 (6.67%) CyberArk
3 2 (6.67%) Salesforce
4 1 (3.33%) Cisco
4 1 (3.33%) HubSpot
4 1 (3.33%) Red Hat
4 1 (3.33%) Veracode