Analytical Mindset Contract Job Trends

Analytical Mindset
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Analytical Mindset in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Analytical Mindset over the 6 months leading up to 31 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 292 407 399
Rank change year-on-year +115 -8 +191
Contract jobs citing Analytical Mindset 338 133 209
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.87% 0.42% 0.47%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.56% 1.30% 1.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 237 81 118
10th Percentile £296 £225 £150
25th Percentile £371 £263 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +11.11% -8.16%
75th Percentile £581 £588 £575
90th Percentile £675 £625 £639
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £401
% change year-on-year - +12.36% +127.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 3 47
10th Percentile - - £14.00
25th Percentile £18.25 £11.75 £15.75
Median hourly rate £30.00 £13.50 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year +122.22% -22.86% -72.00%
75th Percentile £66.00 £28.50 £20.63
90th Percentile £78.50 £36.45 £25.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £13.50 £17.50
% change year-on-year +381.48% -22.86% -21.03%

All Generic Skills
UK

Analytical Mindset falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 13,195 10,232 13,771
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.06% 32.54% 30.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,334 6,079 8,979
10th Percentile £275 £263 £253
25th Percentile £405 £407 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.82%
75th Percentile £625 £656 £650
90th Percentile £738 £769 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 624 312 773
10th Percentile £15.00 £19.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.27 £23.60 £17.25
Median hourly rate £28.50 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.56% - +56.18%
75th Percentile £63.03 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £35.65
% change year-on-year -15.38% -8.84% +70.33%

Analytical Mindset
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Analytical Mindset relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Analytical Mindset job vacancy trend in the UK

Analytical Mindset
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Analytical Mindset.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Analytical Mindset

Analytical Mindset
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Analytical Mindset over the 6 months to 31 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Analytical Mindset in the UK

Analytical Mindset
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Analytical Mindset.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Analytical Mindset

Analytical Mindset
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Analytical Mindset over the 6 months to 31 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Analytical Mindset in the UK

Analytical Mindset
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Analytical Mindset within the UK over the 6 months to 31 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
England +94 302 £475 -5.00% 215
London +54 158 £500 -9.09% 68
UK excluding London +30 148 £450 - 191
Work from Home +64 105 £425 +14.79% 114
South East +19 57 £380 -1.94% 67
Midlands -12 34 £420 - 33
North of England -46 23 £550 +66.67% 32
West Midlands -23 21 £466 - 21
East Midlands -10 13 £378 - 12
Scotland +15 12 £475 +5.56% 8
East of England -15 11 £603 +20.63% 21
Yorkshire -39 11 £563 +90.68% 15
South West -17 9 £513 +20.59% 28
North West -33 9 £550 +57.14% 16
Wales - 6 £588 - 5
North East - 4 £550 - 1

Analytical Mindset
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 22 (6.51%) Confluence
2 7 (2.07%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.48%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.59%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 2 (0.59%) Anypoint
4 2 (0.59%) CMS
5 1 (0.30%) Apache
5 1 (0.30%) Camunda
5 1 (0.30%) SAS
Applications
1 53 (15.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (2.96%) MS Visio
3 8 (2.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (2.07%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.89%) Navisworks
5 3 (0.89%) Revit
6 2 (0.59%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 2 (0.59%) Autodesk Smoke
6 2 (0.59%) ProjectWise
6 2 (0.59%) Sketch
6 2 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.30%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.30%) Notion
7 1 (0.30%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (3.25%) NetSuite
2 5 (1.48%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (1.48%) Shopify
3 4 (1.18%) Payment Gateway
3 4 (1.18%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 2 (0.59%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.59%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.59%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.30%) Bloomberg TOMS
5 1 (0.30%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.30%) IntelliMatch
5 1 (0.30%) Maximo
5 1 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.30%) SAP EHS
5 1 (0.30%) Summit
5 1 (0.30%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 51 (15.09%) Azure
2 38 (11.24%) AWS
3 36 (10.65%) Power Platform
4 12 (3.55%) GitHub
5 11 (3.25%) GCP
6 10 (2.96%) Contentsquare
6 10 (2.96%) SaaS
7 9 (2.66%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (2.37%) Dynamics 365
9 6 (1.78%) Azure Data Factory
9 6 (1.78%) Collibra
10 5 (1.48%) Snowflake
11 4 (1.18%) Alation
11 4 (1.18%) Cloud Computing
11 4 (1.18%) GitHub Copilot
11 4 (1.18%) Lucidchart
12 3 (0.89%) Adobe Analytics
12 3 (0.89%) ChatGPT
12 3 (0.89%) Google Analytics
12 3 (0.89%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 22 (6.51%) DNS
2 18 (5.33%) TCP/IP
3 14 (4.14%) Network Security
3 14 (4.14%) VLAN
4 13 (3.85%) SAN
5 11 (3.25%) DHCP
6 9 (2.66%) Firewall
6 9 (2.66%) HTTP
6 9 (2.66%) SSL
7 5 (1.48%) BGP
7 5 (1.48%) FTP
7 5 (1.48%) LAN
7 5 (1.48%) SMTP
8 3 (0.89%) Software-Defined Networking
9 2 (0.59%) MPLS
9 2 (0.59%) SMS
9 2 (0.59%) SNMP
9 2 (0.59%) TACACS
9 2 (0.59%) WAN
10 1 (0.30%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (10.65%) Power BI
2 12 (3.55%) Data Warehouse
3 9 (2.66%) Tableau
4 8 (2.37%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
4 8 (2.37%) SQL Server
5 6 (1.78%) Data Lake
5 6 (1.78%) NoSQL
6 5 (1.48%) BigQuery
6 5 (1.48%) Electronic Patient Records
6 5 (1.48%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (1.18%) Big Data
7 4 (1.18%) Metadata
8 3 (0.89%) Data Mart
8 3 (0.89%) Neo4j
9 2 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.59%) Looker
9 2 (0.59%) MSDE
9 2 (0.59%) Power Query
9 2 (0.59%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.59%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 33 (9.76%) JIRA
2 5 (1.48%) Git
3 3 (0.89%) Bitbucket
3 3 (0.89%) Visual Website Optimizer
4 2 (0.59%) IntelliJ
4 2 (0.59%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.59%) MLflow
4 2 (0.59%) MSBuild
4 2 (0.59%) PyCharm
4 2 (0.59%) SonarQube
4 2 (0.59%) Team Foundation Server
4 2 (0.59%) Visual Studio
4 2 (0.59%) Visual Studio Code
5 1 (0.30%) Claude Code
5 1 (0.30%) Eclipse
5 1 (0.30%) JMeter
5 1 (0.30%) Locust
General
1 337 (99.70%) Analytical Skills
2 173 (51.18%) Social Skills
3 123 (36.39%) Finance
4 31 (9.17%) Public Sector
5 29 (8.58%) Banking
6 25 (7.40%) Marketing
7 18 (5.33%) Legal
8 17 (5.03%) Manufacturing
9 12 (3.55%) Financial Institution
9 12 (3.55%) Organisational Skills
10 11 (3.25%) Investment Banking
11 10 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
11 10 (2.96%) Publishing
12 9 (2.66%) Retail
12 9 (2.66%) Telecoms
13 8 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
14 7 (2.07%) Electronics
15 5 (1.48%) Back Office
15 5 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 5 (1.48%) Military
Job Titles
1 81 (23.96%) Analyst
2 38 (11.24%) Business Analyst
3 26 (7.69%) Lead
4 21 (6.21%) Data Analyst
5 20 (5.92%) Senior
6 16 (4.73%) Consultant
7 15 (4.44%) Developer
8 14 (4.14%) Support Engineer
9 13 (3.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 12 (3.55%) Field Engineer
10 12 (3.55%) Field Service Engineer
10 12 (3.55%) Product Manager
11 11 (3.25%) Architect
11 11 (3.25%) Infrastructure Support
11 11 (3.25%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
11 11 (3.25%) Project Leader
12 10 (2.96%) IT Engineer
12 10 (2.96%) Project Manager
13 9 (2.66%) Senior Analyst
14 7 (2.07%) Operations Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.37%) JSON
2 7 (2.07%) LDAP
2 7 (2.07%) PyTorch
3 6 (1.78%) REST
3 6 (1.78%) scikit-learn
3 6 (1.78%) TensorFlow
4 4 (1.18%) EDI
4 4 (1.18%) HTML
4 4 (1.18%) Node.js
4 4 (1.18%) Pandas
4 4 (1.18%) PySpark
4 4 (1.18%) XML
4 4 (1.18%) YAML
5 3 (0.89%) .NET
5 3 (0.89%) Dask
5 3 (0.89%) Google JAX
5 3 (0.89%) JAX
5 3 (0.89%) LightGBM
5 3 (0.89%) Middleware
5 3 (0.89%) XGBoost
Miscellaneous
1 21 (6.21%) Management Information System
1 21 (6.21%) Product Ownership
2 17 (5.03%) Data Centre
3 8 (2.37%) Onboarding
3 8 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
4 7 (2.07%) Derivative
5 6 (1.78%) Hybrid Cloud
5 6 (1.78%) NHS
6 5 (1.48%) CSOC
6 5 (1.48%) Cyber Threat
6 5 (1.48%) Cyberattack
6 5 (1.48%) PMI
6 5 (1.48%) Security Operations Centre
7 4 (1.18%) Algorithms
7 4 (1.18%) Fixed Income
7 4 (1.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 4 (1.18%) Social Media
8 3 (0.89%) Digital Media
8 3 (0.89%) FMCG
8 3 (0.89%) Media Streaming
Operating Systems
1 33 (9.76%) Windows
2 26 (7.69%) Linux
3 8 (2.37%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.59%) VMS
6 1 (0.30%) Unix
6 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (41.42%) Problem-Solving
2 100 (29.59%) Agile
3 91 (26.92%) Stakeholder Management
4 65 (19.23%) Continuous Improvement
4 65 (19.23%) Decision-Making
4 65 (19.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 53 (15.68%) Analytics
6 49 (14.50%) Roadmaps
7 48 (14.20%) Business Intelligence
8 37 (10.95%) Data Governance
9 35 (10.36%) Actionable Insight
10 34 (10.06%) Risk Management
11 32 (9.47%) ITIL
12 31 (9.17%) AI
13 29 (8.58%) Change Management
13 29 (8.58%) Visualisation
14 28 (8.28%) User Experience
14 28 (8.28%) Validation
15 26 (7.69%) Data Analysis
15 26 (7.69%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 84 (24.85%) SQL
2 45 (13.31%) Python
3 26 (7.69%) PowerShell
4 12 (3.55%) Java
5 11 (3.25%) C#
6 7 (2.07%) TypeScript
7 5 (1.48%) Bash
7 5 (1.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 4 (1.18%) JavaScript
9 3 (0.89%) Korn
9 3 (0.89%) VBA
10 2 (0.59%) BeanShell
10 2 (0.59%) C++
10 2 (0.59%) Go
10 2 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.59%) R
10 2 (0.59%) RPG
10 2 (0.59%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.30%) Bicep
11 1 (0.30%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 58 (17.16%) Degree
2 48 (14.20%) Security Cleared
3 36 (10.65%) SC Cleared
4 22 (6.51%) Microsoft Certification
4 22 (6.51%) Network+ Certification
5 16 (4.73%) PMI Certification
6 15 (4.44%) Master's Degree
7 14 (4.14%) DV Cleared
8 13 (3.85%) Cisco Certification
9 12 (3.55%) PMP
10 11 (3.25%) A+ Certification
10 11 (3.25%) Azure Certification
10 11 (3.25%) CCNA
10 11 (3.25%) MCSE
10 11 (3.25%) Server+ Certification
11 10 (2.96%) Computer Science Degree
12 6 (1.78%) CBAP
12 6 (1.78%) CSPO
13 5 (1.48%) CISSP
14 4 (1.18%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (10.36%) Data Quality
2 30 (8.88%) GDPR
3 28 (8.28%) QA
4 10 (2.96%) Accessibility
5 9 (2.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 8 (2.37%) SLA
7 5 (1.48%) NIST
7 5 (1.48%) PMO
8 4 (1.18%) HIPAA
8 4 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (1.18%) MiFID
8 4 (1.18%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.89%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.89%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.89%) ISO 19650
9 3 (0.89%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.59%) EMIR
10 2 (0.59%) GRC
10 2 (0.59%) WCAG
11 1 (0.30%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 13 (3.85%) Hyper-V
1 13 (3.85%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (3.25%) Active Directory
3 9 (2.66%) Docker
4 4 (1.18%) NDS
4 4 (1.18%) NetIQ eDirectory
5 3 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.59%) KVM
6 2 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.30%) Xen
Systems Management
1 11 (3.25%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.66%) Ansible
3 8 (2.37%) Terraform
4 4 (1.18%) SCCM
4 4 (1.18%) SCOM
4 4 (1.18%) vCenter Server
5 2 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.59%) vRealize
6 1 (0.30%) Kibana
6 1 (0.30%) Suricata
Vendors
1 55 (16.27%) Microsoft
2 26 (7.69%) SAP
3 17 (5.03%) VMware
4 16 (4.73%) ServiceNow
5 14 (4.14%) Adobe
6 13 (3.85%) Oracle
7 11 (3.25%) Dell
7 11 (3.25%) Salesforce
8 10 (2.96%) Google
9 9 (2.66%) Databricks
10 6 (1.78%) Informatica
11 5 (1.48%) BMC
11 5 (1.48%) Murex
12 4 (1.18%) CyberArk
12 4 (1.18%) NetIQ
12 4 (1.18%) Sparx
12 4 (1.18%) Splunk
13 3 (0.89%) Amplitude
13 3 (0.89%) Dynatrace
13 3 (0.89%) Zuora