Strategic Thinking Contracts

Strategic Thinking
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Strategic Thinking skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Strategic Thinking over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 241 308 380
Rank change year-on-year +67 +72 +18
Contract jobs citing Strategic Thinking 327 318 370
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.12% 0.73% 0.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.23% 0.85% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 194 161 250
10th Percentile £313 £425 £410
25th Percentile £450 £513 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £546 £582 £600
Median % change year-on-year -6.27% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £650 £688 £697
90th Percentile £775 £825 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £537 £594 £550
% change year-on-year -9.60% +7.95% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 27 5
10th Percentile £44.23 £34.80 -
25th Percentile £47.00 £63.75 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.00 £70.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.71% +211.11% -48.28%
75th Percentile £77.62 £72.50 £31.50
90th Percentile £96.64 - £65.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.25 £70.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year -28.21% +211.11% -57.94%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Strategic 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 26,551 37,621 53,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.82% 86.30% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,137 24,254 37,244
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.86% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £744 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.80% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,437 1,746
10th Percentile £14.70 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.50 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.31% -4.83% +49.20%
75th Percentile £62.00 £59.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.94 £36.50 £36.00
% change year-on-year -23.45% +1.39% +80.00%

Strategic Thinking
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Strategic Thinking in the UK

Strategic Thinking
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Strategic Thinking in the UK

Strategic Thinking
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Strategic Thinking over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Strategic Thinking in the UK

Strategic Thinking
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Strategic Thinking in the UK

Strategic Thinking
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Strategic Thinking over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Strategic Thinking in the UK

Strategic Thinking
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Strategic Thinking within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 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 +61 278 £550 -4.35% 1,137
London +58 156 £550 - 759
UK excluding London +54 142 £537 -9.60% 419
Work from Home +30 99 £550 -5.74% 501
North of England +45 43 £438 -31.16% 128
South East +58 38 £615 +11.82% 105
North West +18 28 £410 -31.67% 88
South West -1 20 £563 -4.26% 52
Scotland +17 18 £492 -23.84% 32
Midlands +24 13 £464 -22.71% 52
Yorkshire +25 12 £400 - 26
West Midlands +12 8 £550 -8.29% 30
East Midlands +14 5 £450 -5.26% 21
East of England +36 4 £800 - 37
Wales +7 3 £306 -32.00% 12
North East +1 3 £550 -29.03% 14
Northern Ireland -6 3 £450 -12.20% 10

Strategic 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 8 (2.45%) Confluence
1 8 (2.45%) IBM Domino
2 7 (2.14%) NetWeaver
2 7 (2.14%) SAP EP
2 7 (2.14%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.22%) SAS
4 2 (0.61%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.61%) Appian
5 1 (0.31%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.31%) CICS
5 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.31%) nginx
5 1 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.31%) Traefik
Applications
1 13 (3.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.83%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.53%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (1.22%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.31%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.31%) Sketch
6 1 (0.31%) SketchUp
6 1 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.31%) Trello
6 1 (0.31%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 8 (2.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (2.14%) SAP CRM
2 7 (2.14%) SAP Oil and Gas
3 4 (1.22%) Maximo
4 2 (0.61%) Sprinklr
4 2 (0.61%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.31%) SAP EWM
5 1 (0.31%) SAP GTS
5 1 (0.31%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.31%) SAP Travel Management
5 1 (0.31%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 42 (12.84%) AWS
2 26 (7.95%) Azure
2 26 (7.95%) Power Platform
3 12 (3.67%) GCP
4 10 (3.06%) Figma
4 10 (3.06%) SaaS
5 9 (2.75%) SuccessFactors
6 8 (2.45%) Microsoft 365
7 5 (1.53%) Amazon S3
7 5 (1.53%) Serverless
8 4 (1.22%) AWS CloudFormation
8 4 (1.22%) Entra ID
8 4 (1.22%) Power Automate
9 3 (0.92%) Asana
9 3 (0.92%) ChatGPT
9 3 (0.92%) OCI
9 3 (0.92%) PaaS
9 3 (0.92%) Snowflake
10 2 (0.61%) Akamai
10 2 (0.61%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.14%) WAN
2 6 (1.83%) Firewall
2 6 (1.83%) SD-WAN
3 5 (1.53%) TCP/IP
3 5 (1.53%) VPN
4 4 (1.22%) Wireless
5 3 (0.92%) BGP
5 3 (0.92%) LAN
5 3 (0.92%) MPLS
5 3 (0.92%) Network Security
5 3 (0.92%) OSPF
5 3 (0.92%) VLAN
6 2 (0.61%) Cisco ISE
6 2 (0.61%) DNS
7 1 (0.31%) HTTP
7 1 (0.31%) MQTT
7 1 (0.31%) NGFW
7 1 (0.31%) SMS
7 1 (0.31%) Structured Cabling
7 1 (0.31%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (7.03%) Power BI
2 21 (6.42%) Tableau
3 14 (4.28%) Data Warehouse
4 7 (2.14%) Amazon Redshift
4 7 (2.14%) MongoDB
5 6 (1.83%) RDBMS
5 6 (1.83%) Relational Database
5 6 (1.83%) SQL Server
6 5 (1.53%) Data Mart
6 5 (1.53%) Data Vault
6 5 (1.53%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (1.22%) BigQuery
7 4 (1.22%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 4 (1.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 4 (1.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 3 (0.92%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.92%) Data Mining
8 3 (0.92%) Hadoop
8 3 (0.92%) Looker
8 3 (0.92%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 15 (4.59%) JIRA
2 4 (1.22%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.61%) GitLab
4 1 (0.31%) Cucumber
4 1 (0.31%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.31%) Gatling
4 1 (0.31%) Git
4 1 (0.31%) JMeter
4 1 (0.31%) REST Assured
4 1 (0.31%) Selenium
4 1 (0.31%) SpecFlow
4 1 (0.31%) Subversion
General
1 172 (52.60%) Social Skills
2 106 (32.42%) Analytical Skills
3 84 (25.69%) Finance
4 41 (12.54%) Banking
5 32 (9.79%) Public Sector
6 31 (9.48%) Influencing Skills
7 28 (8.56%) Marketing
8 19 (5.81%) Presentation Skills
9 17 (5.20%) Legal
9 17 (5.20%) Organisational Skills
10 15 (4.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (4.28%) Manufacturing
12 10 (3.06%) Retail
12 10 (3.06%) Telecoms
13 8 (2.45%) Financial Institution
14 5 (1.53%) Advertising
14 5 (1.53%) Investment Banking
14 5 (1.53%) Law
15 4 (1.22%) Front Office
15 4 (1.22%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 52 (15.90%) Architect
2 44 (13.46%) Lead
3 35 (10.70%) Project Manager
4 24 (7.34%) Senior
5 23 (7.03%) Designer
6 18 (5.50%) Analyst
7 16 (4.89%) Solutions Architect
8 15 (4.59%) Developer
9 13 (3.98%) Business Analyst
10 12 (3.67%) Product Manager
11 11 (3.36%) Technical Architect
12 10 (3.06%) Coordinator
12 10 (3.06%) Delivery Manager
13 9 (2.75%) Consultant
13 9 (2.75%) Senior Designer
13 9 (2.75%) Technical Manager
14 8 (2.45%) CRM Coordinator
14 8 (2.45%) Enterprise Architect
14 8 (2.45%) Product Owner
14 8 (2.45%) Technical Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (2.14%) REST
1 7 (2.14%) SAP Fiori
1 7 (2.14%) SAP PI
1 7 (2.14%) SAPUI5
2 5 (1.53%) Akka
2 5 (1.53%) Play Framework
3 4 (1.22%) HTML
3 4 (1.22%) SOAP
4 3 (0.92%) ARM Templates
4 3 (0.92%) CSS
4 3 (0.92%) Django
4 3 (0.92%) Kafka
4 3 (0.92%) Oracle Fusion
4 3 (0.92%) SailPoint
5 2 (0.61%) 802.1X
5 2 (0.61%) cloud-init
5 2 (0.61%) htmx
5 2 (0.61%) Lightning Web Components
5 2 (0.61%) OAuth
5 2 (0.61%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 16 (4.89%) Self-Motivation
2 15 (4.59%) Product Ownership
3 11 (3.36%) Social Media
4 10 (3.06%) Life Science
5 8 (2.45%) Mobile App
5 8 (2.45%) Onboarding
5 8 (2.45%) Renewable Energy
5 8 (2.45%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 6 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
6 6 (1.83%) Management Information System
7 5 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.53%) Credit Risk
7 5 (1.53%) Security Posture
8 4 (1.22%) CCTV
8 4 (1.22%) FMCG
8 4 (1.22%) Greenfield Project
8 4 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
8 4 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.22%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.22%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 8 (2.45%) Linux
2 5 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 5 (1.53%) Unix
2 5 (1.53%) Windows
3 3 (0.92%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.61%) AIX
4 2 (0.61%) CentOS
4 2 (0.61%) Oracle Linux
5 1 (0.31%) Android
5 1 (0.31%) Mac OS X
5 1 (0.31%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 130 (39.76%) Problem-Solving
2 96 (29.36%) Agile
3 74 (22.63%) Stakeholder Management
4 69 (21.10%) Decision-Making
5 61 (18.65%) Project Management
6 51 (15.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 50 (15.29%) Continuous Improvement
8 49 (14.98%) Roadmaps
9 48 (14.68%) Risk Management
10 42 (12.84%) Change Management
11 35 (10.70%) User Experience
12 30 (9.17%) Migration
13 29 (8.87%) Analytics
13 29 (8.87%) Scrum
14 28 (8.56%) Business Intelligence
15 25 (7.65%) Visualisation
16 24 (7.34%) CI/CD
16 24 (7.34%) CRM
16 24 (7.34%) Data Management
17 23 (7.03%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 27 (8.26%) SQL
2 25 (7.65%) Python
3 13 (3.98%) Java
4 7 (2.14%) ABAP
4 7 (2.14%) PowerShell
5 6 (1.83%) Bash
6 5 (1.53%) Scala
7 4 (1.22%) C#
7 4 (1.22%) JavaScript
7 4 (1.22%) R
7 4 (1.22%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.61%) Apex Code
8 2 (0.61%) Go
8 2 (0.61%) Perl
9 1 (0.31%) C++
9 1 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.31%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 45 (13.76%) Degree
2 39 (11.93%) Security Cleared
3 30 (9.17%) SC Cleared
4 20 (6.12%) PMI Certification
5 19 (5.81%) PMP
6 10 (3.06%) CISSP
6 10 (3.06%) Master's Degree
7 9 (2.75%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
9 7 (2.14%) CISM
10 6 (1.83%) AWS Certification
10 6 (1.83%) DV Cleared
11 5 (1.53%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (1.22%) ITIL Certification
13 3 (0.92%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 3 (0.92%) CRISC
13 3 (0.92%) TOGAF Certification
14 2 (0.61%) Azure Certification
14 2 (0.61%) JNCIE
14 2 (0.61%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (6.12%) GDPR
2 18 (5.50%) QA
3 14 (4.28%) Accessibility
4 12 (3.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 12 (3.67%) NIST
5 8 (2.45%) Data Quality
6 6 (1.83%) HIPAA
7 5 (1.53%) PMO
8 4 (1.22%) NCSC
8 4 (1.22%) PMBOK
8 4 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.92%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.61%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.61%) GRC
11 1 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.31%) IFRS
11 1 (0.31%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.31%) SEPA
System Software
1 6 (1.83%) Active Directory
2 4 (1.22%) Docker
3 3 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.31%) Firmware
4 1 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.31%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 8 (2.45%) Terraform
2 7 (2.14%) Kubernetes
3 5 (1.53%) Kibana
4 2 (0.61%) Ansible
4 2 (0.61%) Packer
4 2 (0.61%) Progress Chef
4 2 (0.61%) Puppet
4 2 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.31%) Consul
5 1 (0.31%) FortiGate
5 1 (0.31%) Grafana
5 1 (0.31%) HAProxy
5 1 (0.31%) Istio
5 1 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
5 1 (0.31%) linkerd
5 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.31%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.31%) Rancher
5 1 (0.31%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 32 (9.79%) Microsoft
2 23 (7.03%) SAP
3 12 (3.67%) Google
4 10 (3.06%) Salesforce
5 9 (2.75%) Cisco
5 9 (2.75%) Oracle
6 8 (2.45%) Ariba
7 7 (2.14%) Adobe
7 7 (2.14%) Facebook
8 6 (1.83%) Okta
9 5 (1.53%) Palo Alto
9 5 (1.53%) ServiceNow
10 4 (1.22%) Blue Prism
10 4 (1.22%) Instagram
11 3 (0.92%) ForgeRock
11 3 (0.92%) Fortinet
11 3 (0.92%) Marketo
11 3 (0.92%) Pega
11 3 (0.92%) Splunk
11 3 (0.92%) Workday