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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 77 108 121
Rank change year-on-year +31 +13 +19
Contract jobs citing Strategic Thinking 33 18 21
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 2.01% 0.80% 0.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.22% 0.94% 0.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 9 13
10th Percentile £440 £516 £395
25th Percentile £528 - £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £633 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +4.55% -
75th Percentile £680 £1,025 £700
90th Percentile £772 - -
South East median daily rate £625 £575 £650
% change year-on-year +8.70% -11.54% +20.93%
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 1,488 1,918 2,491
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 90.79% 85.40% 90.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 908 1,069 1,665
10th Percentile £270 £281 £275
25th Percentile £400 £413 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £523
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.39% +4.50%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £625
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £518
% change year-on-year -2.44% -1.14% +1.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 96 88 88
10th Percentile £14.20 £17.75 £16.36
25th Percentile £15.13 £30.31 £24.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £59.47 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -57.71% +18.95% +163.16%
75th Percentile £49.28 £70.39 £66.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £86.49 £75.08
South East median hourly rate £21.00 £57.35 £52.50
% change year-on-year -63.38% +9.24% +64.53%

Strategic Thinking
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Job postings citing Strategic Thinking as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Job vacancy trend for Strategic Thinking 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 18 September 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 18 September 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 +20 23 £625 +6.38% 63
Oxfordshire +2 8 - - 12
Buckinghamshire - 2 £640 - 8
Strategic Thinking
South East

Strategic Thinking
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the Thames Valley by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 6 (18.18%) OpenStack
2 1 (3.03%) Appian
2 1 (3.03%) CMS
2 1 (3.03%) Drupal
2 1 (3.03%) SharePoint
2 1 (3.03%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (3.03%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 7 (21.21%) SAP Oil and Gas
2 3 (9.09%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (3.03%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (3.03%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 12 (36.36%) Azure
2 11 (33.33%) AWS
3 4 (12.12%) GCP
4 3 (9.09%) Entra ID
5 1 (3.03%) Azure Logic Apps
5 1 (3.03%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (3.03%) Cloud Computing
5 1 (3.03%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (3.03%) Power Automate
5 1 (3.03%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 6 (18.18%) BGP
1 6 (18.18%) LAN
1 6 (18.18%) MPLS
1 6 (18.18%) WAN
2 3 (9.09%) Firewall
2 3 (9.09%) Network Security
3 1 (3.03%) Intranet
3 1 (3.03%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.03%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 1 (3.03%) Cucumber
1 1 (3.03%) GitLab
1 1 (3.03%) Robot Framework
1 1 (3.03%) Selenium
1 1 (3.03%) SonarQube
General
1 15 (45.45%) Social Skills
2 11 (33.33%) Finance
3 9 (27.27%) Manufacturing
4 8 (24.24%) Organisational Skills
5 3 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (6.06%) Local Government
6 2 (6.06%) Public Sector
6 2 (6.06%) Telecoms
7 1 (3.03%) Banking
7 1 (3.03%) Front Office
7 1 (3.03%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (3.03%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (3.03%) Retail
Job Titles
1 14 (42.42%) Architect
2 6 (18.18%) IP Architect
2 6 (18.18%) IP Specialist
3 5 (15.15%) Lead
4 4 (12.12%) Change Manager
4 4 (12.12%) Security Architect
5 3 (9.09%) Enterprise Architect
5 3 (9.09%) Project Manager
5 3 (9.09%) SAP Change Manager
5 3 (9.09%) SAP Manager
6 2 (6.06%) Cutover Manager
6 2 (6.06%) Planning Manager
6 2 (6.06%) Project Manager - SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (6.06%) Release Manager
7 1 (3.03%) Azure Consultant
7 1 (3.03%) Data Technician
7 1 (3.03%) Dynamics 365 Architect
7 1 (3.03%) SIEM Consultant
7 1 (3.03%) SOC Consultant
7 1 (3.03%) User Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (21.21%) NETCONF
1 7 (21.21%) YANG
2 6 (18.18%) REST
3 1 (3.03%) Jinja
3 1 (3.03%) JSON
3 1 (3.03%) Middleware
3 1 (3.03%) RESTful
3 1 (3.03%) Spring
3 1 (3.03%) Spring Boot
3 1 (3.03%) Vue
3 1 (3.03%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 10 (30.30%) Cloud Native
2 9 (27.27%) Hybrid Cloud
3 8 (24.24%) Life Science
3 8 (24.24%) Renewable Energy
4 6 (18.18%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (9.09%) Cloud Security Posture
5 3 (9.09%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (9.09%) Public Cloud
5 3 (9.09%) Security Posture
6 1 (3.03%) Data Centre
6 1 (3.03%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (3.03%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1 (3.03%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (42.42%) Agile
1 14 (42.42%) Problem-Solving
2 13 (39.39%) Roadmaps
3 11 (33.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 11 (33.33%) Stakeholder Management
3 11 (33.33%) TOGAF
4 9 (27.27%) Enterprise Architecture
5 8 (24.24%) Critical Thinking
5 8 (24.24%) Microservices
5 8 (24.24%) Time Management
6 7 (21.21%) DevOps
6 7 (21.21%) Network Design
7 6 (18.18%) Change Management
7 6 (18.18%) CI/CD
7 6 (18.18%) Migration
7 6 (18.18%) Network Architecture
7 6 (18.18%) Network Segmentation
7 6 (18.18%) Network Virtualisation
8 5 (15.15%) Cloud Security
8 5 (15.15%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 8 (24.24%) Python
2 2 (6.06%) JavaScript
3 1 (3.03%) C#
3 1 (3.03%) Java
3 1 (3.03%) Kusto Query Language
3 1 (3.03%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 10 (30.30%) Cisco Certification
2 6 (18.18%) CCIE
2 6 (18.18%) JNCIE
3 5 (15.15%) CISSP
3 5 (15.15%) Security Cleared
4 4 (12.12%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 4 (12.12%) AWS Certification
4 4 (12.12%) CCSP
5 3 (9.09%) Azure Certification
6 2 (6.06%) DV Cleared
6 2 (6.06%) SC Cleared
7 1 (3.03%) BC Cleared
7 1 (3.03%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (3.03%) GCFA
7 1 (3.03%) GCIH
7 1 (3.03%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (18.18%) GDPR
2 5 (15.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (15.15%) NIST
3 4 (12.12%) PCI DSS
3 4 (12.12%) PSD2
4 2 (6.06%) Accessibility
4 2 (6.06%) PMBOK
5 1 (3.03%) COBIT
System Software
1 5 (15.15%) Docker
Systems Management
1 7 (21.21%) Ansible
2 4 (12.12%) Kubernetes
3 1 (3.03%) Terraform
Vendors
1 7 (21.21%) SAP
2 3 (9.09%) Microsoft
3 1 (3.03%) Cisco
3 1 (3.03%) HubSpot
3 1 (3.03%) Red Hat
3 1 (3.03%) Salesforce
3 1 (3.03%) Veracode