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 30 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 85 111 119
Rank change year-on-year +26 +8 +31
Contract jobs citing Strategic Thinking 35 19 22
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 1.95% 0.89% 0.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.18% 1.02% 0.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 14 9 8
10th Percentile £420 £516 £46
25th Percentile £467 - £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £610 £575 £513
Median % change year-on-year +6.09% +12.20% -6.82%
75th Percentile £649 £1,025 £681
90th Percentile £772 - £700
South East median daily rate £633 £575 £619
% change year-on-year +10.00% -7.11% +12.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £27.00 -
South East median hourly rate - £27.00 -

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 1,607 1,864 2,394
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 89.53% 87.06% 90.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,007 1,069 1,582
10th Percentile £269 £300 £246
25th Percentile £400 £409 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £509 £501
Median % change year-on-year -1.67% +1.50% +0.20%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £625
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
South East median daily rate £500 £511 £520
% change year-on-year -2.06% -1.83% +1.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 69 98
10th Percentile £14.75 £18.00 £16.36
25th Percentile £15.91 £27.75 £24.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £57.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.26% +15.00% +159.74%
75th Percentile £36.89 £63.00 £65.96
90th Percentile £71.65 £74.97 £75.67
South East median hourly rate £20.71 £58.17 £51.76
% change year-on-year -64.40% +12.39% +39.40%

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 30 October 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 30 October 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 +22 25 £610 +3.83% 74
Oxfordshire -5 7 £500 +17.65% 13
Buckinghamshire - 3 £640 - 4
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 (17.14%) OpenStack
2 1 (2.86%) Appian
2 1 (2.86%) CMS
2 1 (2.86%) Confluence
2 1 (2.86%) Drupal
2 1 (2.86%) SharePoint
2 1 (2.86%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (2.86%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (14.29%) SAP Oil and Gas
2 2 (5.71%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (2.86%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (2.86%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 11 (31.43%) AWS
1 11 (31.43%) Azure
2 5 (14.29%) Entra ID
3 4 (11.43%) GCP
4 1 (2.86%) Cloud Computing
4 1 (2.86%) Dynamics 365
4 1 (2.86%) Tricentis Tosca
4 1 (2.86%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 6 (17.14%) BGP
1 6 (17.14%) LAN
1 6 (17.14%) MPLS
1 6 (17.14%) WAN
2 3 (8.57%) Firewall
2 3 (8.57%) Network Security
3 1 (2.86%) Intranet
3 1 (2.86%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.86%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 1 (2.86%) Cucumber
1 1 (2.86%) GitLab
1 1 (2.86%) JIRA
1 1 (2.86%) Robot Framework
1 1 (2.86%) Selenium
1 1 (2.86%) SonarQube
General
1 14 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 10 (28.57%) Finance
3 7 (20.00%) Manufacturing
4 6 (17.14%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (17.14%) Organisational Skills
5 3 (8.57%) Public Sector
6 2 (5.71%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (5.71%) Local Government
6 2 (5.71%) Telecoms
7 1 (2.86%) Banking
7 1 (2.86%) Front Office
7 1 (2.86%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (2.86%) Retail
Job Titles
1 15 (42.86%) Architect
2 6 (17.14%) IP Architect
2 6 (17.14%) IP Specialist
3 5 (14.29%) Project Manager
4 4 (11.43%) Change Manager
4 4 (11.43%) Enterprise Architect
4 4 (11.43%) Security Architect
5 3 (8.57%) Analyst
5 3 (8.57%) Lead
5 3 (8.57%) SAP Change Manager
5 3 (8.57%) SAP Manager
6 2 (5.71%) Business Analyst
6 2 (5.71%) Cutover Manager
6 2 (5.71%) Planning Manager
6 2 (5.71%) Project Manager - SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (5.71%) Release Manager
7 1 (2.86%) Data Centre Technician
7 1 (2.86%) Head of Development
7 1 (2.86%) Principal Engineer
7 1 (2.86%) Salesforce Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (20.00%) NETCONF
1 7 (20.00%) YANG
2 6 (17.14%) REST
3 2 (5.71%) SailPoint
4 1 (2.86%) Jinja
4 1 (2.86%) JSON
4 1 (2.86%) Middleware
4 1 (2.86%) RESTful
4 1 (2.86%) Spring
4 1 (2.86%) Spring Boot
4 1 (2.86%) Vue
4 1 (2.86%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 10 (28.57%) Cloud Native
2 9 (25.71%) Hybrid Cloud
3 6 (17.14%) Life Science
3 6 (17.14%) Renewable Energy
4 4 (11.43%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (8.57%) Cloud Security Posture
5 3 (8.57%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (8.57%) Public Cloud
5 3 (8.57%) Security Posture
6 1 (2.86%) Data Centre
6 1 (2.86%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (2.86%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (2.86%) Educational Technology
6 1 (2.86%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.86%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (42.86%) Problem-Solving
1 15 (42.86%) Roadmaps
2 14 (40.00%) Agile
3 12 (34.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 12 (34.29%) TOGAF
4 11 (31.43%) Stakeholder Management
5 10 (28.57%) Enterprise Architecture
6 8 (22.86%) Microservices
7 7 (20.00%) DevOps
7 7 (20.00%) Network Design
8 6 (17.14%) CI/CD
8 6 (17.14%) Critical Thinking
8 6 (17.14%) Mentoring
8 6 (17.14%) Migration
8 6 (17.14%) Network Architecture
8 6 (17.14%) Network Segmentation
8 6 (17.14%) Network Virtualisation
8 6 (17.14%) PRINCE2
8 6 (17.14%) Time Management
9 5 (14.29%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 7 (20.00%) Python
2 2 (5.71%) JavaScript
3 1 (2.86%) C#
3 1 (2.86%) Java
Qualifications
1 10 (28.57%) Cisco Certification
2 7 (20.00%) Security Cleared
3 6 (17.14%) CCIE
3 6 (17.14%) JNCIE
4 4 (11.43%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 4 (11.43%) AWS Certification
4 4 (11.43%) CCSP
4 4 (11.43%) CISSP
5 3 (8.57%) Azure Certification
5 3 (8.57%) DV Cleared
6 2 (5.71%) SC Cleared
7 1 (2.86%) BC Cleared
7 1 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (2.86%) Degree
7 1 (2.86%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (14.29%) GDPR
2 4 (11.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (11.43%) NIST
2 4 (11.43%) PCI DSS
2 4 (11.43%) PSD2
3 2 (5.71%) Accessibility
3 2 (5.71%) COBIT
3 2 (5.71%) PMBOK
System Software
1 5 (14.29%) Docker
Systems Management
1 7 (20.00%) Ansible
2 4 (11.43%) Kubernetes
3 2 (5.71%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (2.86%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (14.29%) SAP
2 4 (11.43%) Microsoft
3 2 (5.71%) CyberArk
3 2 (5.71%) Salesforce
4 1 (2.86%) Cisco
4 1 (2.86%) HubSpot
4 1 (2.86%) Red Hat
4 1 (2.86%) Veracode