Creative Thinking Contracts

Creative Thinking
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Creative Thinking skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Creative 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 433 432 472
Rank change year-on-year -1 +40 +69
Contract jobs citing Creative Thinking 88 142 236
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.30% 0.33% 0.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.33% 0.39% 0.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 58 85 158
10th Percentile £329 £313 £400
25th Percentile £410 £419 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -6.82% +10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £638
90th Percentile £770 £638 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £430 £514 £550
% change year-on-year -16.30% -6.59% +22.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 10 7
10th Percentile £21.85 £15.28 £26.63
25th Percentile £26.13 £18.25 £36.13
Median hourly rate £30.53 £19.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +56.54% -61.00% +195.33%
75th Percentile £32.05 £54.76 £62.50
90th Percentile - £63.75 £71.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.05 £45.01 £50.00
% change year-on-year -28.79% -9.99% +195.33%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Creative 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,555 36,687 51,295
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.98% 86.22% 89.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,047 23,611 35,552
10th Percentile £305 £300 £325
25th Percentile £410 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -4.55% +3.77%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +5.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,084 2,428 1,693
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.75 £10.77
25th Percentile £18.13 £16.00 £16.13
Median hourly rate £28.00 £36.05 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.32% +0.13% +40.19%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -32.93% +7.14% +75.00%

Creative Thinking
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Creative Thinking as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Creative Thinking in the UK

Creative Thinking
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Creative Thinking.

Daily rate trend for Creative Thinking in the UK

Creative Thinking
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Creative Thinking over the 6 months to 16 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Creative Thinking in the UK

Creative Thinking
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Creative Thinking.

Hourly rate trend for Creative Thinking in the UK

Creative Thinking
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Creative Thinking over the 6 months to 16 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Creative Thinking in the UK

Creative Thinking
Top 14 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Creative Thinking within the UK 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
England +14 77 £525 +5.00% 593
London +15 54 £538 +10.82% 376
UK excluding London +7 23 £430 -16.30% 287
Work from Home +6 20 £549 +4.48% 229
South East +40 6 £1,050 +102.41% 95
North of England +8 6 £410 -31.67% 75
North West +3 5 £410 -33.06% 48
East of England +24 3 £600 +23.08% 34
Scotland +7 3 £250 -54.55% 32
South West +27 2 £513 -14.58% 24
Northern Ireland -7 2 £450 -12.20% 4
Yorkshire +10 1 £225 -35.71% 20
West Midlands +8 1 - - 15
Midlands +6 1 - - 30

Creative Thinking
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 5 (5.68%) CMS
1 5 (5.68%) Confluence
2 4 (4.55%) SharePoint
Applications
1 12 (13.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 6 (6.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (5.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 4 (4.55%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (3.41%) Acrobat
6 1 (1.14%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (1.14%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (1.14%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (1.14%) Adobe XD
6 1 (1.14%) Camtasia
6 1 (1.14%) CINEMA 4D
6 1 (1.14%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (1.14%) MS Visio
6 1 (1.14%) Photoshop
6 1 (1.14%) Sketch
6 1 (1.14%) SketchUp
6 1 (1.14%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 2 (2.27%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.14%) SAP HCM
2 1 (1.14%) SAP Payroll
2 1 (1.14%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 11 (12.50%) AWS
2 10 (11.36%) Power Platform
3 7 (7.95%) Azure
3 7 (7.95%) Figma
4 4 (4.55%) Dynamics 365
5 2 (2.27%) Azure Functions
5 2 (2.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 2 (2.27%) GCP
5 2 (2.27%) Power Automate
5 2 (2.27%) SaaS
5 2 (2.27%) Serverless
5 2 (2.27%) Snowflake
6 1 (1.14%) Amazon EKS
6 1 (1.14%) Azure AKS
6 1 (1.14%) Azure Monitor
6 1 (1.14%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (1.14%) GitHub
6 1 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (1.14%) IBM Watson
6 1 (1.14%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.27%) BIG-IP
1 2 (2.27%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
1 2 (2.27%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
1 2 (2.27%) Firewall
1 2 (2.27%) NGFW
1 2 (2.27%) VXLAN
1 2 (2.27%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (2.27%) Wireshark
2 1 (1.14%) Internet
2 1 (1.14%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (9.09%) Power BI
2 4 (4.55%) Data Warehouse
2 4 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 2 (2.27%) NoSQL
3 2 (2.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 2 (2.27%) Tableau
4 1 (1.14%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (1.14%) BusinessObjects
4 1 (1.14%) Crystal Reports
4 1 (1.14%) Data Lake
4 1 (1.14%) Delta Lake
4 1 (1.14%) MongoDB
4 1 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (1.14%) SAP Data Services
4 1 (1.14%) Spotfire
4 1 (1.14%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 6 (6.82%) JIRA
2 5 (5.68%) Git
2 5 (5.68%) REST Assured
3 4 (4.55%) Postman
4 1 (1.14%) Balsamiq
4 1 (1.14%) GitLab
4 1 (1.14%) Jenkins
4 1 (1.14%) MLflow
4 1 (1.14%) Selenium
General
1 48 (54.55%) Social Skills
2 34 (38.64%) Analytical Skills
3 21 (23.86%) Finance
4 13 (14.77%) Marketing
5 11 (12.50%) Public Sector
6 6 (6.82%) Presentation Skills
7 5 (5.68%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (4.55%) Automotive
8 4 (4.55%) Banking
8 4 (4.55%) Legal
8 4 (4.55%) Local Government
9 3 (3.41%) Financial Institution
9 3 (3.41%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (2.27%) Brand Awareness
10 2 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (2.27%) Manufacturing
11 1 (1.14%) Advertising
11 1 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (1.14%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (1.14%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 12 (13.64%) Designer
2 11 (12.50%) Analyst
3 9 (10.23%) Lead
4 7 (7.95%) Project Manager
4 7 (7.95%) Senior
5 6 (6.82%) Business Analyst
6 4 (4.55%) QA Tester
6 4 (4.55%) Tester
6 4 (4.55%) Visual Designer
7 3 (3.41%) Architect
7 3 (3.41%) Developer
7 3 (3.41%) Java Engineer
7 3 (3.41%) Performance Engineer
7 3 (3.41%) Product Manager
7 3 (3.41%) Solutions Architect
7 3 (3.41%) Technical Analyst
7 3 (3.41%) UX Designer
8 2 (2.27%) Administrator
8 2 (2.27%) Senior Manager
8 2 (2.27%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.68%) Gherkin
2 3 (3.41%) .NET
2 3 (3.41%) .NET Framework
2 3 (3.41%) Entity Framework
3 2 (2.27%) EDI
3 2 (2.27%) REST
3 2 (2.27%) RESTful
4 1 (1.14%) .NET Core
4 1 (1.14%) AngularJS
4 1 (1.14%) ASP.NET
4 1 (1.14%) ASP.NET Web API
4 1 (1.14%) Dapper ORM
4 1 (1.14%) Django
4 1 (1.14%) Flask
4 1 (1.14%) GraphQL
4 1 (1.14%) Pandas
4 1 (1.14%) PySpark
4 1 (1.14%) Spring
4 1 (1.14%) WinForms
4 1 (1.14%) WS-I
Miscellaneous
1 8 (9.09%) Enterprise Software
2 7 (7.95%) Algorithms
2 7 (7.95%) Product Ownership
2 7 (7.95%) Social Media
3 6 (6.82%) Self-Motivation
4 5 (5.68%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (4.55%) Data Structures
5 4 (4.55%) Learning Management System
5 4 (4.55%) Life Science
5 4 (4.55%) Mobile App
6 3 (3.41%) Distributed Systems
6 3 (3.41%) e-Learning
6 3 (3.41%) Hedge funds
6 3 (3.41%) Management Information System
7 2 (2.27%) Educational Technology
7 2 (2.27%) Greenfield Project
7 2 (2.27%) Onboarding
7 2 (2.27%) PKI
7 2 (2.27%) Podcast
7 2 (2.27%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 4 (4.55%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (46.59%) Problem-Solving
2 32 (36.36%) Agile
3 19 (21.59%) Strategic Thinking
4 15 (17.05%) Project Management
5 13 (14.77%) Collaborative Working
6 11 (12.50%) Scrum
7 10 (11.36%) Change Management
8 9 (10.23%) Analytics
8 9 (10.23%) Decision-Making
8 9 (10.23%) Test Automation
9 8 (9.09%) Artificial Intelligence
9 8 (9.09%) Business Analysis
9 8 (9.09%) Prototyping
9 8 (9.09%) Storytelling
9 8 (9.09%) User Experience
10 7 (7.95%) Business Intelligence
10 7 (7.95%) Migration
10 7 (7.95%) Product Management
10 7 (7.95%) Validation
10 7 (7.95%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 17 (19.32%) Python
2 8 (9.09%) Java
2 8 (9.09%) SQL
3 6 (6.82%) C#
4 3 (3.41%) C
4 3 (3.41%) C++
5 2 (2.27%) JavaScript
5 2 (2.27%) PowerShell
6 1 (1.14%) Bash
6 1 (1.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 1 (1.14%) R
6 1 (1.14%) TypeScript
6 1 (1.14%) VB
6 1 (1.14%) VB6
Qualifications
1 19 (21.59%) Degree
2 6 (6.82%) SC Cleared
2 6 (6.82%) Security Cleared
3 4 (4.55%) IIBA
3 4 (4.55%) ISEB
3 4 (4.55%) Master's Degree
4 3 (3.41%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (1.14%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (15.91%) QA
2 7 (7.95%) Data Quality
3 6 (6.82%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.14%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (1.14%) GDPR
4 1 (1.14%) IFRS
4 1 (1.14%) IFRS 17
4 1 (1.14%) PMO
4 1 (1.14%) Solvency II
System Software
1 4 (4.55%) Docker
2 1 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 3 (3.41%) Terraform
2 2 (2.27%) Ansible
2 2 (2.27%) Kubernetes
3 1 (1.14%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 10 (11.36%) Microsoft
2 7 (7.95%) Adobe
2 7 (7.95%) Databricks
3 4 (4.55%) SAP
4 2 (2.27%) Arista
4 2 (2.27%) Aruba
4 2 (2.27%) BMC
4 2 (2.27%) F5
4 2 (2.27%) Facebook
4 2 (2.27%) Instagram
4 2 (2.27%) NetScout
4 2 (2.27%) Palo Alto
5 1 (1.14%) Cegedim Rx
5 1 (1.14%) Foundry
5 1 (1.14%) Google
5 1 (1.14%) Informatica
5 1 (1.14%) Palantir
5 1 (1.14%) Qualtrics
5 1 (1.14%) ServiceNow
5 1 (1.14%) Siemens