Critical Thinking Contracts in the UK excluding London

Critical Thinking
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Critical Thinking skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Critical Thinking over the 6 months leading up to 16 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 242 269 309
Rank change year-on-year +27 +40 +13
Contract jobs citing Critical Thinking 102 121 131
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.79% 0.60% 0.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.88% 0.71% 0.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 61 88 109
10th Percentile £321 £265 £307
25th Percentile £490 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £531 £480
Median % change year-on-year +3.53% +10.68% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £575
90th Percentile £725 £641 £730
UK median daily rate £550 £525 £500
% change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 5 7
10th Percentile - £25.20 £14.13
25th Percentile - £25.36 £20.22
Median hourly rate - £35.00 £20.71
Median % change year-on-year - +69.04% -70.01%
75th Percentile - - £21.47
90th Percentile - £65.00 £21.67
UK median hourly rate £95.00 £26.00 £21.67
% change year-on-year +265.38% +19.98% -63.75%

All Process and 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 11,649 17,108 20,638
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 90.51% 84.43% 89.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,262 10,200 14,248
10th Percentile £235 £250 £255
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +5.04%
75th Percentile £581 £600 £600
90th Percentile £656 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -1.90% -4.55% +3.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 838 2,053 1,261
10th Percentile £14.10 £12.31 £10.75
25th Percentile £17.26 £15.25 £15.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.93% +7.14% +75.00%
75th Percentile £63.66 £61.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.82 £73.71
UK median hourly rate £28.00 £36.05 £36.00
% change year-on-year -22.32% +0.13% +40.19%

Critical Thinking
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Critical Thinking as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Critical Thinking in the UK excluding London

Critical Thinking
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Critical Thinking in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Critical Thinking in the UK excluding London

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 16 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Critical Thinking in the UK excluding London

Critical Thinking
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Critical Thinking in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Critical Thinking in the UK excluding London

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 16 May 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
South West +66 43 £569 +5.81% 26
Scotland +17 19 £490 +8.89% 19
South East +43 13 £563 +4.65% 99
North of England +7 10 £507 -12.44% 64
East of England +24 8 £500 - 37
Yorkshire +17 7 £507 -22.00% 9
Midlands -9 5 £463 +69.72% 30
West Midlands +4 3 £463 -23.81% 20
North West -6 3 £544 -0.73% 50
Northern Ireland -6 3 £675 +107.69% 5
East Midlands -7 2 - - 10
Wales -9 1 £413 -31.25% 12
Critical Thinking
UK

Critical Thinking
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 23 (22.55%) Confluence
2 9 (8.82%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (6.86%) SAS
4 4 (3.92%) Skype for Business
5 3 (2.94%) SharePoint
6 2 (1.96%) Apache
7 1 (0.98%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.98%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.98%) CMS
7 1 (0.98%) JBoss
7 1 (0.98%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.98%) WebSphere
Applications
1 25 (24.51%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (6.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (6.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (1.96%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.98%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (7.84%) SAP Oil and Gas
2 6 (5.88%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 14 (13.73%) Cloud Computing
2 9 (8.82%) AWS
2 9 (8.82%) Azure
3 7 (6.86%) Adobe Analytics
4 6 (5.88%) GCP
4 6 (5.88%) Power Platform
5 4 (3.92%) Power Automate
6 2 (1.96%) dbt
6 2 (1.96%) GitHub
7 1 (0.98%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (0.98%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (0.98%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 9 (8.82%) Skype
2 7 (6.86%) VPN
3 5 (4.90%) DHCP
3 5 (4.90%) DNS
3 5 (4.90%) Unified Communications
4 3 (2.94%) BGP
5 2 (1.96%) Cisco ASA
5 2 (1.96%) Firewall
5 2 (1.96%) iSCSI
5 2 (1.96%) OSPF
5 2 (1.96%) SAN
6 1 (0.98%) Cisco ISE
6 1 (0.98%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.98%) VLAN
6 1 (0.98%) VoIP
6 1 (0.98%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (9.80%) Data Warehouse
2 9 (8.82%) Relational Database
3 6 (5.88%) Power BI
4 4 (3.92%) Metadata
5 2 (1.96%) Tableau
6 1 (0.98%) Big Data
6 1 (0.98%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.98%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.98%) Data Vault
6 1 (0.98%) GIS
6 1 (0.98%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.98%) Looker
6 1 (0.98%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.98%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 23 (22.55%) JIRA
2 5 (4.90%) Bitbucket
3 3 (2.94%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.98%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 1 (0.98%) Git
4 1 (0.98%) Hudson
4 1 (0.98%) SonarQube
General
1 82 (80.39%) Social Skills
2 49 (48.04%) Finance
3 44 (43.14%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (22.55%) Public Sector
5 20 (19.61%) Banking
6 12 (11.76%) Investment Banking
7 11 (10.78%) Organisational Skills
8 9 (8.82%) Manufacturing
8 9 (8.82%) Marketing
9 6 (5.88%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (5.88%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (3.92%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (1.96%) Automotive
11 2 (1.96%) Front Office
11 2 (1.96%) Military
12 1 (0.98%) Billing
12 1 (0.98%) Dutch Language
12 1 (0.98%) Electronics
12 1 (0.98%) German Language
12 1 (0.98%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 12 (11.76%) Virtualisation Engineer
2 11 (10.78%) Lead
3 10 (9.80%) Analyst
4 9 (8.82%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
4 9 (8.82%) JavaScript Engineer
4 9 (8.82%) Python Engineer
5 8 (7.84%) Architect
5 8 (7.84%) Project Manager
5 8 (7.84%) Senior
6 7 (6.86%) Analytics Manager
6 7 (6.86%) Coordinator
6 7 (6.86%) Data Analytics Manager
6 7 (6.86%) Data Manager
6 7 (6.86%) Insight Manager
6 7 (6.86%) Security Assurance Coordinator
6 7 (6.86%) Strategy Manager
7 6 (5.88%) Business Analyst
7 6 (5.88%) Solutions Architect
8 5 (4.90%) SAP Manager
9 4 (3.92%) Training Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (11.76%) Flash
2 3 (2.94%) PySpark
3 2 (1.96%) AngularJS
3 2 (1.96%) JMS
3 2 (1.96%) Kafka
3 2 (1.96%) REST
3 2 (1.96%) Spring
4 1 (0.98%) Ajax
4 1 (0.98%) CSS
4 1 (0.98%) CSS3
4 1 (0.98%) HTML
4 1 (0.98%) HTML5
4 1 (0.98%) JAX-WS
4 1 (0.98%) jQuery
4 1 (0.98%) JSP
4 1 (0.98%) NumPy
4 1 (0.98%) RESTful
4 1 (0.98%) Servlets
4 1 (0.98%) SOAP
4 1 (0.98%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 16 (15.69%) Distributed Systems
1 16 (15.69%) Management Information System
2 12 (11.76%) Clustering
3 11 (10.78%) PKI
4 8 (7.84%) Data Centre
4 8 (7.84%) Life Science
4 8 (7.84%) Renewable Energy
5 5 (4.90%) Cloud Native
5 5 (4.90%) PMI
5 5 (4.90%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (3.92%) e-Learning
6 4 (3.92%) Learning Management System
7 3 (2.94%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (2.94%) Educational Technology
7 3 (2.94%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.98%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.98%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.98%) Private Cloud
8 1 (0.98%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 14 (13.73%) Windows
2 13 (12.75%) Windows Server
3 9 (8.82%) Windows Server 2012
4 8 (7.84%) Windows 10
5 3 (2.94%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (1.96%) Linux
6 2 (1.96%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (49.02%) Problem-Solving
2 45 (44.12%) Agile
3 23 (22.55%) Waterfall
4 22 (21.57%) Service Management
5 21 (20.59%) System Testing
6 20 (19.61%) Project Management
7 19 (18.63%) Machine Learning
8 18 (17.65%) Data Security
8 18 (17.65%) Decision-Making
8 18 (17.65%) NsoIT
9 17 (16.67%) Artificial Intelligence
9 17 (16.67%) Time Management
10 16 (15.69%) Computer Science
10 16 (15.69%) Migration
10 16 (15.69%) Stakeholder Management
10 16 (15.69%) Validation
11 15 (14.71%) Continuous Improvement
11 15 (14.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 15 (14.71%) Risk Management
12 14 (13.73%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 23 (22.55%) SQL
2 19 (18.63%) Python
3 15 (14.71%) Java
4 13 (12.75%) JavaScript
5 12 (11.76%) TypeScript
6 8 (7.84%) PowerShell
6 8 (7.84%) R
7 1 (0.98%) JCL
7 1 (0.98%) REXX
Qualifications
1 33 (32.35%) Degree
2 31 (30.39%) SC Cleared
2 31 (30.39%) Security Cleared
3 16 (15.69%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 15 (14.71%) Cisco Certification
5 13 (12.75%) Master's Degree
6 12 (11.76%) CCNA
7 11 (10.78%) DV Cleared
7 11 (10.78%) Microsoft Certification
8 9 (8.82%) MCSE
9 6 (5.88%) AWS Certification
9 6 (5.88%) MCSA
10 5 (4.90%) PMI Certification
11 4 (3.92%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (3.92%) Azure Certification
11 4 (3.92%) CCNP
12 3 (2.94%) CESG Certified Professional
12 3 (2.94%) CISA
12 3 (2.94%) CISSP
13 2 (1.96%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (8.82%) PMO
2 7 (6.86%) JSP 440
2 7 (6.86%) RMADS
3 4 (3.92%) Data Quality
3 4 (3.92%) PMBOK
4 3 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.96%) GDPR
6 1 (0.98%) Accessibility
System Software
1 16 (15.69%) VMware Infrastructure
2 13 (12.75%) VMware ESXi
3 12 (11.76%) VMware NSX
4 9 (8.82%) Active Directory
5 3 (2.94%) Hyper-V
5 3 (2.94%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 3 (2.94%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.98%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 14 (13.73%) vCenter Server
2 7 (6.86%) WSUS
3 3 (2.94%) Ansible
3 3 (2.94%) SCOM
4 2 (1.96%) Terraform
5 1 (0.98%) FortiGate
5 1 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.98%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 20 (19.61%) Microsoft
2 18 (17.65%) Atlassian
3 16 (15.69%) Cisco
3 16 (15.69%) VMware
4 9 (8.82%) SAP
5 8 (7.84%) Adobe
6 7 (6.86%) Teradata
7 4 (3.92%) SolarWinds
7 4 (3.92%) Veeam
8 3 (2.94%) Fortinet
9 2 (1.96%) IBM
10 1 (0.98%) Citrix
10 1 (0.98%) Dell
10 1 (0.98%) Google
10 1 (0.98%) HP
10 1 (0.98%) Infoblox
10 1 (0.98%) Oracle
10 1 (0.98%) ServiceNow
10 1 (0.98%) Sitecore
10 1 (0.98%) Sybase