Decision-Making Contract Job Trends

Decision-Making
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Decision-Making skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 48 67
Rank change year-on-year +18 +19 +15
Contract jobs citing Decision-Making 3,002 1,520 1,161
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.63% 4.58% 2.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.63% 5.07% 3.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,879 922 695
10th Percentile £363 £325 £285
25th Percentile £425 £409 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £625 £630
90th Percentile £775 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £490
% change year-on-year +2.56% -0.41% -6.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 60 89
10th Percentile £16.00 £17.48 £10.95
25th Percentile £23.73 £22.14 £11.07
Median hourly rate £50.00 £31.20 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +60.26% +94.27% -65.00%
75th Percentile £74.00 £48.31 £48.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.30 £58.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £22.14 £16.06
% change year-on-year +148.42% +37.86% -66.82%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Decision-Making 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 45,268 29,990 33,185
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.86% 90.46% 85.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,853 18,764 21,291
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £729 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,826 1,696 1,837
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.89 £17.30 £18.35
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -38.57% -3.67%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +13.33%

Decision-Making
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Decision-Making relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Decision-Making job vacancy trend in the UK

Decision-Making
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Decision-Making.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Decision-Making

Decision-Making
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Decision-Making over the 6 months to 10 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Decision-Making in the UK

Decision-Making
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Decision-Making.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Decision-Making

Decision-Making
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Decision-Making over the 6 months to 10 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Decision-Making in the UK

Decision-Making
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Decision-Making within the UK over the 6 months to 10 August 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 +18 2,644 £525 +2.14% 3,735
UK excluding London +17 1,380 £500 +2.56% 2,158
London +18 1,350 £550 +4.76% 1,946
Work from Home +28 939 £505 +1.00% 1,468
South East +12 337 £525 - 682
North of England 0 307 £500 +5.26% 548
Midlands +9 295 £489 +15.00% 348
West Midlands +5 220 £477 +0.42% 212
South West +10 205 £494 -5.50% 227
North West +4 158 £500 +10.38% 315
Yorkshire -20 119 £496 +3.87% 162
Scotland +7 109 £450 -3.95% 121
East of England +28 99 £550 - 167
East Midlands +10 73 £500 +38.89% 136
Wales +5 33 £563 +69.85% 61
North East -19 32 £463 -11.90% 72
Northern Ireland +12 10 £342 -45.28% 31
Channel Islands +1 1 - -

Decision-Making
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 97 (3.23%) Confluence
2 71 (2.37%) SharePoint
3 44 (1.47%) Apache Airflow
4 39 (1.30%) Apache Spark
5 22 (0.73%) Apache
6 18 (0.60%) SAS
7 15 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
8 10 (0.33%) CMS
9 8 (0.27%) Jupyter
10 6 (0.20%) nginx
11 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.13%) HCL Notes
11 4 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.100%) Mendix
12 3 (0.100%) Palantir Foundry
12 3 (0.100%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.100%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.067%) Camunda
13 2 (0.067%) WordPress
14 1 (0.033%) WebSphere
Applications
1 219 (7.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 76 (2.53%) Microsoft Office
3 68 (2.27%) Microsoft Project
4 66 (2.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 26 (0.87%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.57%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.20%) Trello
9 4 (0.13%) CPLEX
10 3 (0.100%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 3 (0.100%) AutoCAD
11 1 (0.033%) CATIA
11 1 (0.033%) InDesign
11 1 (0.033%) InVision
11 1 (0.033%) PlantUML
11 1 (0.033%) Simulink
11 1 (0.033%) Sketch
11 1 (0.033%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 53 (1.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.60%) Primavera
3 10 (0.33%) iTrent
4 9 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 8 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
6 7 (0.23%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 6 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.17%) BambooHR
8 5 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.17%) SAP ERP
8 5 (0.17%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.13%) Aladdin
9 4 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.13%) SAP FI
9 4 (0.13%) SAP MDG
10 3 (0.100%) Integrated Workplace Management System
10 3 (0.100%) Loan IQ
10 3 (0.100%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 547 (18.22%) Azure
2 441 (14.69%) AWS
3 431 (14.36%) Power Platform
4 176 (5.86%) GCP
5 121 (4.03%) SaaS
6 82 (2.73%) Azure DevOps
7 81 (2.70%) Snowflake
8 62 (2.07%) Serverless
9 61 (2.03%) Entra ID
10 58 (1.93%) GitHub
11 57 (1.90%) Azure Data Factory
12 55 (1.83%) Amazon S3
13 52 (1.73%) dbt
14 47 (1.57%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 43 (1.43%) Microsoft 365
15 43 (1.43%) Power Automate
16 40 (1.33%) Dynamics 365
17 35 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
18 34 (1.13%) PowerApps
19 30 (1.00%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 31 (1.03%) Network Security
2 29 (0.97%) Firewall
2 29 (0.97%) WAN
3 26 (0.87%) DNS
4 24 (0.80%) TCP/IP
5 23 (0.77%) VPN
6 15 (0.50%) Ethernet
7 13 (0.43%) SD-WAN
8 12 (0.40%) VLAN
9 11 (0.37%) DHCP
9 11 (0.37%) LAN
10 10 (0.33%) Broadband
11 7 (0.23%) Intrusion Detection
12 6 (0.20%) 5G
12 6 (0.20%) BGP
12 6 (0.20%) IPv4
12 6 (0.20%) IPv6
12 6 (0.20%) MPLS
12 6 (0.20%) OSPF
12 6 (0.20%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 416 (13.86%) Power BI
2 151 (5.03%) Data Warehouse
3 110 (3.66%) Metadata
4 108 (3.60%) Tableau
5 55 (1.83%) BigQuery
6 51 (1.70%) Data Lake
7 46 (1.53%) Power Query
8 42 (1.40%) Relational Database
9 36 (1.20%) Big Data
9 36 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
10 34 (1.13%) NoSQL
11 33 (1.10%) Looker
12 32 (1.07%) SQL Server
13 25 (0.83%) Delta Lake
14 24 (0.80%) Star Schema
15 23 (0.77%) Amazon Redshift
16 22 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
17 19 (0.63%) Snowflake Schema
18 17 (0.57%) Oracle Database
19 16 (0.53%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 171 (5.70%) JIRA
2 77 (2.56%) Git
3 48 (1.60%) Jenkins
4 26 (0.87%) GitLab
5 12 (0.40%) SonarQube
6 10 (0.33%) JUnit
6 10 (0.33%) Mockito
7 9 (0.30%) Bitbucket Server
7 9 (0.30%) DbUnit
7 9 (0.30%) jMock
7 9 (0.30%) Maven
8 8 (0.27%) Claude Code
9 7 (0.23%) ERwin
9 7 (0.23%) MLflow
10 5 (0.17%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.13%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.100%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.100%) Team Foundation Server
12 3 (0.100%) VTune
12 3 (0.100%) Xcode
General
1 1,129 (37.61%) Social Skills
2 904 (30.11%) Finance
3 735 (24.48%) Analytical Skills
4 498 (16.59%) Public Sector
5 207 (6.90%) Banking
6 205 (6.83%) Influencing Skills
7 128 (4.26%) Retail
8 123 (4.10%) Organisational Skills
9 114 (3.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 114 (3.80%) Marketing
10 97 (3.23%) Legal
11 90 (3.00%) Presentation Skills
12 64 (2.13%) Manufacturing
13 61 (2.03%) Documentation Skills
14 59 (1.97%) Local Government
15 58 (1.93%) Telecoms
16 35 (1.17%) Financial Institution
17 33 (1.10%) Investment Banking
18 27 (0.90%) Billing
19 26 (0.87%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 495 (16.49%) Analyst
2 401 (13.36%) Senior
3 353 (11.76%) Lead
4 334 (11.13%) Architect
5 194 (6.46%) Business Analyst
6 187 (6.23%) Data Engineer
7 170 (5.66%) Project Manager
8 160 (5.33%) Data Analyst
9 151 (5.03%) Developer
10 101 (3.36%) Consultant
10 101 (3.36%) Senior Manager
11 82 (2.73%) Solutions Architect
12 76 (2.53%) Data Scientist
13 75 (2.50%) Product Manager
14 74 (2.47%) Senior Analyst
15 69 (2.30%) Data Architect
16 67 (2.23%) Product Owner
17 64 (2.13%) Technical Architect
18 59 (1.97%) Programme Manager
19 58 (1.93%) Senior Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (2.10%) REST
2 49 (1.63%) Kafka
3 48 (1.60%) React
4 45 (1.50%) PySpark
5 39 (1.30%) Oracle Fusion
6 36 (1.20%) .NET
6 36 (1.20%) Pandas
7 32 (1.07%) Node.js
8 31 (1.03%) AngularJS
9 28 (0.93%) Middleware
9 28 (0.93%) RESTful
9 28 (0.93%) Spring
9 28 (0.93%) Spring Boot
10 27 (0.90%) JSON
11 21 (0.70%) NumPy
12 20 (0.67%) scikit-learn
13 18 (0.60%) HTML
13 18 (0.60%) SOAP
14 15 (0.50%) RabbitMQ
15 14 (0.47%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 218 (7.26%) Product Ownership
2 164 (5.46%) Cloud Native
3 122 (4.06%) Onboarding
4 94 (3.13%) Management Information System
5 68 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
6 63 (2.10%) Data Protection Act
6 63 (2.10%) Virtual Team
7 60 (2.00%) Data Structures
7 60 (2.00%) Distributed Systems
8 56 (1.87%) AI Agents
9 53 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
10 47 (1.57%) Operational Technology
11 38 (1.27%) NHS
12 37 (1.23%) PMI
13 35 (1.17%) Data Centre
13 35 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
14 32 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
15 30 (1.00%) Security Posture
16 29 (0.97%) CMDB
17 25 (0.83%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 59 (1.97%) Windows
2 41 (1.37%) Linux
3 18 (0.60%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.50%) Unix
5 11 (0.37%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.33%) Mac OS
7 8 (0.27%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.20%) Android
9 4 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.100%) CentOS
10 3 (0.100%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.067%) Solaris
11 2 (0.067%) VMS
11 2 (0.067%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.033%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 836 (27.85%) Stakeholder Management
2 824 (27.45%) Agile
3 712 (23.72%) Continuous Improvement
4 684 (22.78%) Analytics
5 603 (20.09%) Problem-Solving
6 585 (19.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 546 (18.19%) AI
8 482 (16.06%) Business Intelligence
9 471 (15.69%) Roadmaps
10 400 (13.32%) Data Modelling
11 316 (10.53%) DevOps
12 314 (10.46%) CI/CD
13 297 (9.89%) Migration
14 295 (9.83%) Actionable Insight
15 288 (9.59%) Data Governance
16 277 (9.23%) Data-Driven Decision Making
17 275 (9.16%) Data Pipeline
18 265 (8.83%) Validation
19 256 (8.53%) Risk Management
20 255 (8.49%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 520 (17.32%) SQL
2 432 (14.39%) Python
3 117 (3.90%) Java
4 69 (2.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 59 (1.97%) TypeScript
6 51 (1.70%) JavaScript
7 39 (1.30%) R
8 27 (0.90%) C#
9 24 (0.80%) PowerShell
10 14 (0.47%) Bash
11 13 (0.43%) Kotlin
11 13 (0.43%) T-SQL
12 10 (0.33%) C++
12 10 (0.33%) VBA
13 9 (0.30%) Bicep
13 9 (0.30%) PL/SQL
14 7 (0.23%) Ruby
15 6 (0.20%) Scala
15 6 (0.20%) SPARQL
16 5 (0.17%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 625 (20.82%) Security Cleared
2 474 (15.79%) SC Cleared
3 259 (8.63%) Degree
4 112 (3.73%) DV Cleared
5 104 (3.46%) BPSS Clearance
6 94 (3.13%) PMI Certification
7 86 (2.86%) PMP
8 50 (1.67%) ACCA
9 45 (1.50%) Azure Certification
10 41 (1.37%) CIMA
11 38 (1.27%) CISSP
11 38 (1.27%) Master's Degree
12 31 (1.03%) Computer Science Degree
13 30 (1.00%) CISM
14 26 (0.87%) AWS Certification
15 20 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
16 16 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
17 15 (0.50%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 13 (0.43%) CISA
19 12 (0.40%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 398 (13.26%) Data Quality
2 173 (5.76%) PMO
3 172 (5.73%) QA
4 106 (3.53%) GDPR
5 101 (3.36%) Accessibility
6 57 (1.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 51 (1.70%) NIST
8 45 (1.50%) GRC
9 38 (1.27%) Actionable Recommendations
10 31 (1.03%) NCSC
11 24 (0.80%) SLA
12 14 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 9 (0.30%) COREP
13 9 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials
13 9 (0.30%) FINREP
13 9 (0.30%) IFRS
13 9 (0.30%) WCAG
14 7 (0.23%) ISO 20022
14 7 (0.23%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 92 (3.06%) Docker
2 42 (1.40%) Active Directory
3 20 (0.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.40%) IAG
6 10 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.23%) Postfix
8 4 (0.13%) Firmware
8 4 (0.13%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.13%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.13%) vSphere
9 3 (0.100%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.100%) Squid
9 3 (0.100%) VirtualBox
10 2 (0.067%) Microsoft App-V
10 2 (0.067%) NFS
11 1 (0.033%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.033%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.033%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 110 (3.66%) Terraform
2 109 (3.63%) Kubernetes
3 38 (1.27%) Ansible
4 19 (0.63%) Grafana
4 19 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
5 14 (0.47%) Prometheus
6 10 (0.33%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.23%) SCCM
8 6 (0.20%) Kibana
8 6 (0.20%) WSUS
9 5 (0.17%) Control-M
10 4 (0.13%) Argo
10 4 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.13%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.100%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.100%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.100%) Istio
11 3 (0.100%) RSA Archer
12 2 (0.067%) Packer
12 2 (0.067%) PaperCut
Vendors
1 425 (14.16%) Microsoft
2 153 (5.10%) SAP
3 137 (4.56%) Databricks
4 110 (3.66%) Oracle
5 101 (3.36%) ServiceNow
6 97 (3.23%) Google
7 79 (2.63%) Salesforce
8 40 (1.33%) Workday
9 28 (0.93%) VMware
10 27 (0.90%) Ariba
11 26 (0.87%) Adobe
12 25 (0.83%) Atlassian
13 19 (0.63%) Siemens
14 18 (0.60%) Cisco
14 18 (0.60%) Zscaler
15 15 (0.50%) OpenAI
16 13 (0.43%) Informatica
16 13 (0.43%) Splunk
17 12 (0.40%) IBM
18 11 (0.37%) Dynatrace