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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 77 105
Rank change year-on-year -55 +28 +11
Contract jobs citing Strategic Thinking 20 35 17
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 0.65% 2.12% 0.75%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.81% 2.33% 0.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 12 9
10th Percentile £391 £440 £516
25th Percentile £531 £528 -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £663 £633 £575
Median % change year-on-year +4.74% +10.00% +16.16%
75th Percentile £707 £680 £1,025
90th Percentile £763 £772 -
South East median daily rate £611 £610 £575
% change year-on-year +0.20% +6.09% -7.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 0
10th Percentile £81.30 - -
25th Percentile £81.75 - -
Median hourly rate £97.23 - -
75th Percentile £102.50 - -
90th Percentile £103.25 - -
South East median hourly rate £90.37 - -

All Process & 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 2,482 1,500 1,922
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 80.32% 90.91% 85.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,565 909 1,078
10th Percentile £325 £292 £296
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% -1.44%
75th Percentile £610 £598 £625
90th Percentile £713 £651 £688
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £515
% change year-on-year +5.00% -2.82% -0.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 238 99 88
10th Percentile £13.09 £14.20 £15.77
25th Percentile £16.38 £15.12 £31.60
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £60.53
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -58.45% +21.06%
75th Percentile £83.52 £44.68 £70.39
90th Percentile £104.00 £78.00 £87.46
South East median hourly rate £52.43 £21.39 £57.35
% change year-on-year +145.09% -62.70% +9.24%

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 12 September 2026.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Strategic Thinking in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 12 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Strategic Thinking in the Thames Valley

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 12 September 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
Berkshire -34 17 £700 +12.00% 36
Buckinghamshire -32 3 £599 -6.48% 17
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 (30.00%) OpenStack
2 1 (5.00%) Apache
2 1 (5.00%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (5.00%) Apache Superset
Business Applications
1 2 (10.00%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 11 (55.00%) Azure
2 8 (40.00%) AWS
3 3 (15.00%) Power Platform
4 2 (10.00%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (10.00%) GCP
5 1 (5.00%) Azure Data Factory
5 1 (5.00%) OpenShift
5 1 (5.00%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 6 (30.00%) BGP
1 6 (30.00%) MPLS
2 5 (25.00%) LAN
2 5 (25.00%) WAN
3 1 (5.00%) Ethernet VPN
3 1 (5.00%) IPv4
3 1 (5.00%) IPv6
3 1 (5.00%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (5.00%) Data Warehouse
1 1 (5.00%) Metadata
1 1 (5.00%) Power BI
General
1 11 (55.00%) Social Skills
2 6 (30.00%) Analytical Skills
2 6 (30.00%) Influencing Skills
3 5 (25.00%) Aerospace
4 3 (15.00%) Finance
5 2 (10.00%) Legal
6 1 (5.00%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (5.00%) Public Sector
6 1 (5.00%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 10 (50.00%) Architect
2 6 (30.00%) Lead
2 6 (30.00%) Network Architect
3 5 (25.00%) IP Architect
4 2 (10.00%) Enterprise Architect
4 2 (10.00%) Lead Architect
4 2 (10.00%) Lead Enterprise Architect
4 2 (10.00%) Product Owner
5 1 (5.00%) Analyst
5 1 (5.00%) Business Analyst
5 1 (5.00%) Business Architect
5 1 (5.00%) IT Consultant
5 1 (5.00%) IT Manager
5 1 (5.00%) IT Services Manager
5 1 (5.00%) IT Strategy Consultant
5 1 (5.00%) Lead Business Analyst
5 1 (5.00%) Senior IT Manager
5 1 (5.00%) Senior Service Manager
5 1 (5.00%) Service Manager
5 1 (5.00%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (30.00%) NETCONF
1 6 (30.00%) REST
1 6 (30.00%) YANG
2 1 (5.00%) OpenConfig
2 1 (5.00%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 6 (30.00%) Hybrid Cloud
2 5 (25.00%) Cloud Native
3 2 (10.00%) CMDB
3 2 (10.00%) Product Ownership
4 1 (5.00%) Data Centre
4 1 (5.00%) Enterprise Cloud
4 1 (5.00%) Operational Technology
4 1 (5.00%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (5.00%) TM Forum
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (60.00%) Roadmaps
2 10 (50.00%) Enterprise Architecture
3 9 (45.00%) DevOps
3 9 (45.00%) TOGAF
4 8 (40.00%) Agile
4 8 (40.00%) Continuous Improvement
4 8 (40.00%) Stakeholder Management
5 7 (35.00%) Problem-Solving
6 6 (30.00%) Mentoring
6 6 (30.00%) Network Architecture
7 5 (25.00%) ITIL
7 5 (25.00%) Microservices
7 5 (25.00%) Network Design
7 5 (25.00%) Network Segmentation
7 5 (25.00%) Network Virtualisation
7 5 (25.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 4 (20.00%) Business Strategy
8 4 (20.00%) Decision-Making
8 4 (20.00%) ITSM
8 4 (20.00%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 9 (45.00%) Python
2 2 (10.00%) SQL
3 1 (5.00%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 9 (45.00%) SC Cleared
1 9 (45.00%) Security Cleared
2 6 (30.00%) CCIE
2 6 (30.00%) Cisco Certification
2 6 (30.00%) JNCIE
3 2 (10.00%) CISSP
3 2 (10.00%) Computer Science Degree
3 2 (10.00%) Degree
3 2 (10.00%) TOGAF Certification
4 1 (5.00%) AWS Certification
4 1 (5.00%) Azure Certification
4 1 (5.00%) CCIE Service Provider
4 1 (5.00%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (10.00%) Data Quality
System Software
1 1 (5.00%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (35.00%) Ansible
2 2 (10.00%) Kubernetes
3 1 (5.00%) Grafana
Vendors
1 4 (20.00%) Microsoft
2 3 (15.00%) ServiceNow
3 2 (10.00%) Google
3 2 (10.00%) SAP
4 1 (5.00%) Cisco
4 1 (5.00%) Databricks
4 1 (5.00%) VMware