Data Strategy Contracts

Data Strategy
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Data Strategy skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Data Strategy over the 6 months leading up to 23 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 309 345 404
Rank change year-on-year +36 +59 +117
Contract jobs citing Data Strategy 242 252 299
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.81% 0.58% 0.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.89% 0.68% 0.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 187 217
10th Percentile £381 £450 £450
25th Percentile £466 £525 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £675 £601
Median % change year-on-year -18.52% +12.41% -3.92%
75th Percentile £669 £781 £738
90th Percentile £781 £925 £780
UK excluding London median daily rate £519 £650 £650
% change year-on-year -20.19% - +5.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 10
10th Percentile £36.78 - £34.77
25th Percentile £53.31 £60.50 £35.00
Median hourly rate £72.75 £61.00 £47.63
Median % change year-on-year +19.26% +28.08% -
75th Percentile £82.25 £61.50 £65.63
90th Percentile - - £66.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.50 £61.00 £63.00
% change year-on-year +31.97% -3.17% -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Data Strategy 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 27,318 37,049 49,725
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 91.00% 84.91% 89.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,274 23,584 34,309
10th Percentile £300 £300 £325
25th Percentile £406 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £502 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% -4.55% +1.85%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,292 2,612 1,701
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.70 £11.50
25th Percentile £17.75 £16.06 £15.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.93% +7.14% +34.62%
75th Percentile £55.00 £61.30 £64.50
90th Percentile £72.50 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.08 £38.12 £32.50
% change year-on-year -34.22% +17.29% +54.76%

Data Strategy
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Data Strategy as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Data Strategy in the UK

Data Strategy
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Data Strategy.

Daily rate trend for Data Strategy in the UK

Data Strategy
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Strategy over the 6 months to 23 June 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Data Strategy in the UK

Data Strategy
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Data Strategy.

Hourly rate trend for Data Strategy in the UK

Data Strategy
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Strategy over the 6 months to 23 June 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Strategy in the UK

Data Strategy
Top 16 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Data Strategy within the UK over the 6 months to 23 June 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 +56 217 £575 -14.81% 1,889
London +45 131 £600 -17.24% 916
UK excluding London +33 84 £519 -20.19% 1,071
Work from Home +29 78 £575 -9.80% 825
North of England +11 25 £450 -18.18% 292
Midlands +13 19 £475 -5.00% 164
South East +43 18 £550 -18.52% 253
West Midlands +15 12 £513 +2.50% 97
North West -8 12 £450 -18.18% 151
Yorkshire +5 11 £400 -50.00% 110
South West +40 10 £513 -21.15% 126
East of England +27 9 £575 -4.17% 126
Scotland +1 7 £525 -24.05% 68
East Midlands +8 6 £400 -20.00% 67
North East +4 4 £700 - 31
Northern Ireland - 1 £525 - 19

Data Strategy
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 13 (5.37%) Apache Airflow
2 11 (4.55%) Apache Spark
3 6 (2.48%) SharePoint
4 5 (2.07%) Confluence
5 3 (1.24%) Apache
6 1 (0.41%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.41%) Luigi
6 1 (0.41%) SAS
Applications
1 11 (4.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.41%) CATIA
3 1 (0.41%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.41%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 5 (2.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.65%) SAP BPC
3 2 (0.83%) iTrent
3 2 (0.83%) SAP MDG
3 2 (0.83%) Unit4 Business World
4 1 (0.41%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.41%) Endur
4 1 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.41%) SAP Oil and Gas
4 1 (0.41%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 65 (26.86%) Azure
2 55 (22.73%) AWS
3 40 (16.53%) Power Platform
4 31 (12.81%) Snowflake
5 27 (11.16%) GCP
6 17 (7.02%) Azure Data Factory
7 11 (4.55%) Serverless
8 10 (4.13%) Amazon S3
9 9 (3.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 8 (3.31%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (2.89%) SaaS
12 6 (2.48%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (2.07%) AWS CloudFormation
13 5 (2.07%) dbt
13 5 (2.07%) GitHub
14 4 (1.65%) Azure AKS
14 4 (1.65%) Azure Machine Learning
14 4 (1.65%) Cloud Computing
14 4 (1.65%) GitHub Actions
15 3 (1.24%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.65%) WAN
2 2 (0.83%) LAN
2 2 (0.83%) SD-WAN
3 1 (0.41%) 5G
3 1 (0.41%) Firewall
3 1 (0.41%) Internet
3 1 (0.41%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (28.51%) Data Warehouse
2 40 (16.53%) Power BI
3 27 (11.16%) Data Lake
4 26 (10.74%) Metadata
5 24 (9.92%) Big Data
6 17 (7.02%) NoSQL
6 17 (7.02%) Relational Database
7 14 (5.79%) PostgreSQL
8 12 (4.96%) Amazon Redshift
8 12 (4.96%) SQL Server
8 12 (4.96%) Tableau
9 10 (4.13%) BigQuery
9 10 (4.13%) Data Mining
9 10 (4.13%) RDBMS
10 9 (3.72%) Amazon Athena
10 9 (3.72%) Azure SQL Database
10 9 (3.72%) Data Vault
11 8 (3.31%) Amazon RDS
12 7 (2.89%) Delta Lake
13 6 (2.48%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 15 (6.20%) ERwin
2 7 (2.89%) ER Studio
3 6 (2.48%) JIRA
4 4 (1.65%) Jenkins
5 3 (1.24%) GitLab
5 3 (1.24%) Maven
6 2 (0.83%) Git
6 2 (0.83%) MLflow
6 2 (0.83%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.41%) LSMW
7 1 (0.41%) PowerDesigner
General
1 70 (28.93%) Social Skills
2 64 (26.45%) Finance
3 41 (16.94%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (9.09%) Public Sector
5 13 (5.37%) Presentation Skills
6 11 (4.55%) Banking
7 9 (3.72%) Influencing Skills
7 9 (3.72%) Local Government
7 9 (3.72%) Marketing
8 8 (3.31%) Retail
9 7 (2.89%) Financial Institution
9 7 (2.89%) Pharmaceutical
10 6 (2.48%) Back Office
10 6 (2.48%) Front Office
10 6 (2.48%) Investment Banking
10 6 (2.48%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.65%) Police
12 3 (1.24%) Manufacturing
12 3 (1.24%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 59 (24.38%) Architect
2 44 (18.18%) Data Architect
3 41 (16.94%) Lead
4 35 (14.46%) Analyst
5 33 (13.64%) Senior
6 32 (13.22%) Data Engineer
7 21 (8.68%) Data Analyst
8 16 (6.61%) Data Modeller
9 14 (5.79%) Data Manager
10 13 (5.37%) Business Analyst
11 11 (4.55%) Senior Data Engineer
12 8 (3.31%) Azure Architect
12 8 (3.31%) Consultant
13 7 (2.89%) Cloud Architect
13 7 (2.89%) Data Business Analyst
13 7 (2.89%) Data Migration Lead
13 7 (2.89%) Head of Engineering
13 7 (2.89%) Project Manager
13 7 (2.89%) Senior Manager
14 6 (2.48%) Head of Analytics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (5.79%) Kafka
2 5 (2.07%) Web Services
3 4 (1.65%) Middleware
4 3 (1.24%) ARM Templates
4 3 (1.24%) Hibernate
4 3 (1.24%) JPA
4 3 (1.24%) Spring
4 3 (1.24%) Spring Boot
5 2 (0.83%) JSON
5 2 (0.83%) Node.js
5 2 (0.83%) Plotly
5 2 (0.83%) PySpark
5 2 (0.83%) pytest
5 2 (0.83%) PyTorch
5 2 (0.83%) RabbitMQ
5 2 (0.83%) React
5 2 (0.83%) REST
5 2 (0.83%) WSDL
5 2 (0.83%) XML
6 1 (0.41%) ODBC
Miscellaneous
1 18 (7.44%) Data Structures
1 18 (7.44%) Legacy Systems
2 9 (3.72%) Management Information System
3 7 (2.89%) Onboarding
3 7 (2.89%) Reference Data
4 5 (2.07%) Data Fabric
4 5 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
4 5 (2.07%) FMCG
4 5 (2.07%) Life Science
4 5 (2.07%) Virtual Team
5 4 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
5 4 (1.65%) Cloud Native
5 4 (1.65%) Public Cloud
6 3 (1.24%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (1.24%) Low-Code
6 3 (1.24%) Renewable Energy
7 2 (0.83%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (0.83%) IoT
8 1 (0.41%) SCADA
8 1 (0.41%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 4 (1.65%) Linux
2 3 (1.24%) Unix
2 3 (1.24%) Windows
3 1 (0.41%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (40.50%) Data Governance
2 92 (38.02%) Data Modelling
3 87 (35.95%) Analytics
4 68 (28.10%) Data Architecture
5 62 (25.62%) Business Intelligence
6 53 (21.90%) ETL
7 48 (19.83%) Migration
7 48 (19.83%) Problem-Solving
8 47 (19.42%) Data Management
9 43 (17.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 43 (17.77%) Stakeholder Management
10 40 (16.53%) Agile
11 39 (16.12%) Data Science
12 36 (14.88%) Artificial Intelligence
13 35 (14.46%) Decision-Making
13 35 (14.46%) Machine Learning
14 32 (13.22%) Data Engineering
15 31 (12.81%) Roadmaps
16 30 (12.40%) Data Integration
16 30 (12.40%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 80 (33.06%) SQL
2 49 (20.25%) Python
3 9 (3.72%) T-SQL
4 8 (3.31%) Java
5 7 (2.89%) R
6 4 (1.65%) JavaScript
7 3 (1.24%) Bicep
7 3 (1.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 3 (1.24%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.83%) Bash
8 2 (0.83%) C#
8 2 (0.83%) PowerShell
8 2 (0.83%) Scala
8 2 (0.83%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.41%) ABAP
9 1 (0.41%) Apex Code
9 1 (0.41%) C++
9 1 (0.41%) MATLAB
9 1 (0.41%) PHP
Qualifications
1 24 (9.92%) Security Cleared
2 22 (9.09%) Degree
3 18 (7.44%) SC Cleared
4 7 (2.89%) Azure Certification
5 6 (2.48%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (2.07%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (1.65%) DV Cleared
8 3 (1.24%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.24%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.83%) CISM
9 2 (0.83%) CISSP
10 1 (0.41%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.41%) CISA
10 1 (0.41%) CTC Cleared
10 1 (0.41%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.41%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.41%) PMP
10 1 (0.41%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (25.62%) Data Quality
2 21 (8.68%) GDPR
3 11 (4.55%) QA
4 9 (3.72%) Accessibility
5 5 (2.07%) Actionable Recommendations
6 3 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.83%) PMO
7 2 (0.83%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.41%) Basel III
8 1 (0.41%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.41%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.41%) GRC
8 1 (0.41%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.41%) NIST
System Software
1 5 (2.07%) Docker
2 2 (0.83%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 11 (4.55%) Terraform
2 4 (1.65%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.41%) Kubeflow
3 1 (0.41%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 31 (12.81%) Microsoft
2 26 (10.74%) Databricks
3 22 (9.09%) SAP
4 20 (8.26%) Google
5 9 (3.72%) Oracle
6 8 (3.31%) Informatica
7 5 (2.07%) Salesforce
8 3 (1.24%) Atlassian
8 3 (1.24%) ServiceNow
8 3 (1.24%) Teradata
9 2 (0.83%) Alteryx
9 2 (0.83%) Ariba
9 2 (0.83%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.83%) Foundry
9 2 (0.83%) MuleSoft
9 2 (0.83%) Palantir
9 2 (0.83%) Sparx
9 2 (0.83%) Talend
9 2 (0.83%) TSYS
9 2 (0.83%) Workday