Critical Thinking Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Critical Thinking
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Critical Thinking 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 250 266 326
Rank change year-on-year +16 +60 +32
Contract jobs citing Critical Thinking 150 82 80
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.83% 0.58% 0.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.97% 0.66% 0.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 97 58 62
10th Percentile £311 £275 £261
25th Percentile £454 £361 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £688 £504 £519
Median % change year-on-year +36.54% -2.94% +9.21%
75th Percentile £738 £620 £629
90th Percentile £764 £725 £744
UK median daily rate £565 £515 £500
% change year-on-year +9.71% +3.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 4
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £34.13 £20.50
Median hourly rate £41.94 £35.25 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.98% +67.86% -
75th Percentile - £36.38 £22.13
90th Percentile - - £23.26
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £39.13 £21.00
% change year-on-year +7.19% +86.31% -32.26%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Critical 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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 15,526 12,425 17,030
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 85.43% 87.52% 87.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,532 7,257 10,936
10th Percentile £221 £240 £250
25th Percentile £375 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,708 713 1,244
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £17.49
Median hourly rate £23.83 £30.45 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.76% -31.57% +39.45%
75th Percentile £53.75 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.75 £73.75 £77.35
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +21.43%

Critical Thinking
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Critical Thinking relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Critical Thinking job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Critical Thinking
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Critical Thinking.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Critical Thinking in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 4 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Critical Thinking in the UK excluding London

Critical Thinking
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Critical Thinking.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Critical Thinking within the UK excluding London 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
South West +32 65 £725 +14.62% 23
North of England -41 26 £500 -6.45% 29
South East -15 22 £240 -39.24% 42
Scotland +12 21 £450 -10.00% 4
Yorkshire -43 14 £725 +31.82% 15
North West -16 11 £402 -10.67% 12
Midlands -38 8 £450 +28.57% 17
West Midlands -39 5 £400 +15.94% 10
Northern Ireland -6 4 £425 - 4
East of England -13 4 £480 +50.79% 17
East Midlands -22 3 £478 -34.14% 6
Wales -3 2 £295 -28.50% 2
North East - 1 £500 - 4
Critical Thinking
UK

Critical Thinking
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 46 (30.67%) Confluence
2 15 (10.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (4.67%) SharePoint
4 5 (3.33%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.67%) CMS
5 1 (0.67%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 53 (35.33%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (24.67%) Microsoft Project
3 6 (4.00%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (2.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.67%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.67%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (2.00%) SAP Oil and Gas
2 2 (1.33%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.67%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 15 (10.00%) Azure
2 7 (4.67%) AWS
2 7 (4.67%) Microsoft 365
3 6 (4.00%) Snowflake
4 4 (2.67%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (2.67%) Entra ID
4 4 (2.67%) Power Platform
5 3 (2.00%) Azure Functions
5 3 (2.00%) GitHub
5 3 (2.00%) Serverless
6 2 (1.33%) Azure API Management
6 2 (1.33%) Azure Monitor
6 2 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (1.33%) PowerApps
6 2 (1.33%) SaaS
7 1 (0.67%) Azure AKS
7 1 (0.67%) Azure Logic Apps
7 1 (0.67%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (0.67%) Miro
7 1 (0.67%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 13 (8.67%) Firewall
2 9 (6.00%) Skype
3 7 (4.67%) DHCP
3 7 (4.67%) DNS
4 6 (4.00%) Unified Communications
5 4 (2.67%) TCP/IP
6 2 (1.33%) BGP
6 2 (1.33%) OSPF
6 2 (1.33%) SSL
7 1 (0.67%) Cisco IOS
7 1 (0.67%) Cisco Nexus
7 1 (0.67%) DMVPN
7 1 (0.67%) Intranet
7 1 (0.67%) Network Security
7 1 (0.67%) VLAN
7 1 (0.67%) VoIP
7 1 (0.67%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.33%) BigQuery
1 5 (3.33%) Metadata
2 4 (2.67%) Power BI
3 3 (2.00%) Tableau
4 2 (1.33%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (1.33%) Qlik Sense
5 1 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.67%) Big Data
5 1 (0.67%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.67%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.67%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.67%) SAP HANA
5 1 (0.67%) Snowflake Schema
5 1 (0.67%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 47 (31.33%) JIRA
2 14 (9.33%) Jenkins
3 7 (4.67%) Bitbucket
4 5 (3.33%) Jaeger
5 2 (1.33%) Git
6 1 (0.67%) GitLab
6 1 (0.67%) Gradle
6 1 (0.67%) Maven
6 1 (0.67%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 104 (69.33%) Social Skills
2 85 (56.67%) Analytical Skills
3 36 (24.00%) Military
4 33 (22.00%) Finance
5 24 (16.00%) Public Sector
6 11 (7.33%) Banking
7 10 (6.67%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (6.00%) Organisational Skills
9 6 (4.00%) Financial Institution
9 6 (4.00%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (3.33%) Investment Banking
10 5 (3.33%) Manufacturing
11 2 (1.33%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (1.33%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (1.33%) Retail
11 2 (1.33%) Retail Banking
12 1 (0.67%) Front Office
12 1 (0.67%) Law
12 1 (0.67%) Legal
Job Titles
1 33 (22.00%) Architect
2 30 (20.00%) Service Architect
3 29 (19.33%) Analyst
4 13 (8.67%) Senior
5 11 (7.33%) Data Analyst
6 9 (6.00%) Business Analyst
7 8 (5.33%) Python Engineer
7 8 (5.33%) Wintel Engineer
8 7 (4.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 6 (4.00%) Azure Engineer
9 6 (4.00%) Platform Engineer
9 6 (4.00%) Programme Manager
9 6 (4.00%) Technical Manager
10 5 (3.33%) Automation Engineer
10 5 (3.33%) Designer
10 5 (3.33%) Full-Stack Engineer
10 5 (3.33%) Project Manager
10 5 (3.33%) Technical Programme Manager
11 4 (2.67%) Cloud Platform Engineer
11 4 (2.67%) Senior Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (6.00%) OpenTelemetry
2 8 (5.33%) FastAPI
2 8 (5.33%) Middleware
3 7 (4.67%) REST
4 5 (3.33%) Kafka
4 5 (3.33%) Microsoft Graph
4 5 (3.33%) Spring Boot
5 4 (2.67%) SOAP
5 4 (2.67%) Web Services
6 3 (2.00%) Flask
7 2 (1.33%) .NET
7 2 (1.33%) .NET Core
7 2 (1.33%) .NET Framework
7 2 (1.33%) ARM Templates
7 2 (1.33%) ASP.NET
7 2 (1.33%) GraphQL
7 2 (1.33%) OAuth
7 2 (1.33%) OAuth2
7 2 (1.33%) OpenID
7 2 (1.33%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 33 (22.00%) Product Ownership
2 12 (8.00%) Management Information System
3 10 (6.67%) PKI
4 9 (6.00%) Cyber Threat
5 7 (4.67%) Distributed Systems
6 6 (4.00%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (2.67%) Life Science
7 4 (2.67%) Renewable Energy
8 3 (2.00%) Cloud Native
8 3 (2.00%) Data Structures
8 3 (2.00%) Mobile App
8 3 (2.00%) Onboarding
9 2 (1.33%) Derivative
9 2 (1.33%) Hybrid Cloud
9 2 (1.33%) Linux Command Line
10 1 (0.67%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (0.67%) Equities
10 1 (0.67%) FMCG
10 1 (0.67%) Freedom of Information
10 1 (0.67%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 19 (12.67%) Windows
2 18 (12.00%) Linux
3 16 (10.67%) Windows Server
4 5 (3.33%) Windows 10
4 5 (3.33%) Windows Server 2012
5 3 (2.00%) Android
5 3 (2.00%) Apple iOS
5 3 (2.00%) CentOS
5 3 (2.00%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (49.33%) Agile
2 56 (37.33%) Problem-Solving
3 48 (32.00%) Analytical Thinking
4 45 (30.00%) Service Management
5 41 (27.33%) ITIL
6 34 (22.67%) Acceptance Criteria
6 34 (22.67%) Knowledge Transfer
6 34 (22.67%) Service Design
7 31 (20.67%) TOGAF
8 30 (20.00%) Business Continuity
8 30 (20.00%) Security Patching
9 29 (19.33%) Computer Science
10 26 (17.33%) Stakeholder Management
11 22 (14.67%) Data Modelling
12 20 (13.33%) AI
13 18 (12.00%) CI/CD
14 17 (11.33%) Cybersecurity
15 15 (10.00%) Analytics
15 15 (10.00%) Data Governance
16 14 (9.33%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 31 (20.67%) SQL
2 26 (17.33%) Python
3 17 (11.33%) PowerShell
4 14 (9.33%) Java
5 11 (7.33%) JavaScript
6 6 (4.00%) PHP
7 5 (3.33%) Rust
7 5 (3.33%) TypeScript
8 3 (2.00%) Perl
8 3 (2.00%) PromQL
9 2 (1.33%) Bash
9 2 (1.33%) C#
10 1 (0.67%) Groovy
10 1 (0.67%) R
Qualifications
1 74 (49.33%) Degree
2 72 (48.00%) Security Cleared
3 67 (44.67%) SC Cleared
4 30 (20.00%) TOGAF Certification
5 13 (8.67%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (8.00%) MCSE
7 8 (5.33%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (4.67%) CCNP
8 7 (4.67%) Master's Degree
9 6 (4.00%) APMP
9 6 (4.00%) CCNA
9 6 (4.00%) CISSP
9 6 (4.00%) ITIL Certification
10 5 (3.33%) CISM
10 5 (3.33%) CompTIA Security+
10 5 (3.33%) DV Cleared
10 5 (3.33%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 4 (2.67%) Computer Science Degree
11 4 (2.67%) DBS Check
11 4 (2.67%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.33%) Data Quality
2 6 (4.00%) Accessibility
3 5 (3.33%) QA
4 4 (2.67%) PMO
5 2 (1.33%) PMBOK
5 2 (1.33%) SLA
6 1 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.67%) COBIT
6 1 (0.67%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.67%) GMP
6 1 (0.67%) GxP
6 1 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 1 (0.67%) NIST
6 1 (0.67%) NIST 800
System Software
1 19 (12.67%) Active Directory
2 13 (8.67%) Docker
3 10 (6.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (3.33%) Microsoft Virtual Server
4 5 (3.33%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 30 (20.00%) OPNET
2 9 (6.00%) Grafana
2 9 (6.00%) Kubernetes
2 9 (6.00%) Prometheus
3 8 (5.33%) WSUS
4 5 (3.33%) Kiali
4 5 (3.33%) SCCM
4 5 (3.33%) Terraform
5 4 (2.67%) Ansible
6 3 (2.00%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (1.33%) PowerCLI
8 1 (0.67%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.67%) Puppet
8 1 (0.67%) RSA Archer
8 1 (0.67%) SCOM
Vendors
1 39 (26.00%) Atlassian
2 34 (22.67%) ServiceNow
3 30 (20.00%) Remedy
4 28 (18.67%) Microsoft
5 14 (9.33%) Splunk
6 11 (7.33%) VMware
7 8 (5.33%) SolarWinds
7 8 (5.33%) Veeam
8 7 (4.67%) Cisco
8 7 (4.67%) Oracle
9 5 (3.33%) SAP
10 4 (2.67%) Teradata
11 3 (2.00%) PagerDuty
11 3 (2.00%) Red Hat
12 2 (1.33%) Workday
13 1 (0.67%) Alteryx
13 1 (0.67%) AppDynamics
13 1 (0.67%) Databricks
13 1 (0.67%) Rapid7
13 1 (0.67%) Sage