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 13 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 226 293 369
Rank change year-on-year +67 +76 +34
Contract jobs citing Strategic Thinking 336 327 370
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.16% 0.76% 0.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.27% 0.88% 0.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 207 165 249
10th Percentile £313 £425 £410
25th Percentile £450 £506 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £600
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £675 £688 £700
90th Percentile £775 £821 £789
UK excluding London median daily rate £540 £588 £551
% change year-on-year -8.17% +6.62% -8.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 29 2
10th Percentile £45.64 £35.56 £27.38
25th Percentile £47.38 £63.75 £36.56
Median hourly rate £50.75 £70.00 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year -27.50% +30.23% +23.56%
75th Percentile £66.07 £72.50 £71.56
90th Percentile £97.11 - £81.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.25 £70.00 -
% change year-on-year -28.21% - -

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 26,416 37,097 52,247
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.93% 86.26% 89.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,973 23,888 36,212
10th Percentile £306 £300 £325
25th Percentile £410 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -4.55% +3.77%
75th Percentile £627 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.40% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,082 2,438 1,719
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.15 £16.00 £16.23
Median hourly rate £28.30 £36.50 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.48% +1.39% +40.19%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.23 £38.06 £35.00
% change year-on-year -33.72% +8.74% +75.00%

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 13 May 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 13 May 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 13 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 +70 284 £550 -4.35% 1,648
London +50 157 £550 - 1,085
UK excluding London +42 147 £540 -8.17% 843
Work from Home +33 104 £550 -5.50% 825
North of England +37 42 £453 -28.80% 223
South East +63 39 £615 +18.84% 287
North West +26 27 £465 -22.50% 161
South West +2 24 £588 - 63
Scotland +13 18 £496 -23.22% 116
Midlands +21 15 £456 -23.96% 98
Yorkshire +23 10 £400 - 44
West Midlands +15 9 £501 -16.58% 55
East Midlands +14 6 £450 -5.26% 36
North East -4 5 £550 -29.03% 18
East of England +26 4 £800 - 56
Wales +6 3 £306 -32.00% 11
Northern Ireland -6 3 £450 -12.20% 11

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 9 (2.68%) Confluence
2 8 (2.38%) IBM Domino
2 8 (2.38%) SharePoint
3 7 (2.08%) NetWeaver
3 7 (2.08%) SAP EP
4 4 (1.19%) SAS
5 2 (0.60%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.30%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.30%) CICS
6 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.30%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 12 (3.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.49%) Chatbot
5 4 (1.19%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.30%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.30%) Sketch
6 1 (0.30%) SketchUp
6 1 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.30%) Trello
6 1 (0.30%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 9 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (2.38%) SAP Oil and Gas
3 7 (2.08%) SAP CRM
4 4 (1.19%) Maximo
5 2 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.60%) Sprinklr
5 2 (0.60%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.30%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.30%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.30%) SAP GTS
6 1 (0.30%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.30%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.30%) SAP Travel Management
6 1 (0.30%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.30%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 44 (13.10%) AWS
2 28 (8.33%) Azure
3 27 (8.04%) Power Platform
4 13 (3.87%) GCP
4 13 (3.87%) SaaS
5 11 (3.27%) Figma
6 9 (2.68%) SuccessFactors
7 8 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
8 5 (1.49%) Amazon S3
8 5 (1.49%) Serverless
9 4 (1.19%) Power Automate
10 3 (0.89%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (0.89%) ChatGPT
10 3 (0.89%) Entra ID
10 3 (0.89%) PaaS
10 3 (0.89%) Smartsheet
10 3 (0.89%) Snowflake
11 2 (0.60%) Akamai
11 2 (0.60%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (0.60%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.08%) WAN
2 6 (1.79%) Firewall
2 6 (1.79%) SD-WAN
3 5 (1.49%) VPN
4 4 (1.19%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.19%) Wireless
5 3 (0.89%) BGP
5 3 (0.89%) LAN
5 3 (0.89%) MPLS
5 3 (0.89%) Network Security
5 3 (0.89%) OSPF
5 3 (0.89%) VLAN
6 2 (0.60%) Cisco ISE
6 2 (0.60%) Internet
7 1 (0.30%) Intranet
7 1 (0.30%) MQTT
7 1 (0.30%) NGFW
7 1 (0.30%) SMS
7 1 (0.30%) Structured Cabling
7 1 (0.30%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (7.14%) Power BI
2 19 (5.65%) Tableau
3 15 (4.46%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (2.38%) SQL Server
5 7 (2.08%) Amazon Redshift
6 6 (1.79%) MongoDB
6 6 (1.79%) RDBMS
6 6 (1.79%) Relational Database
7 5 (1.49%) Data Mart
7 5 (1.49%) Data Vault
7 5 (1.49%) PostgreSQL
8 4 (1.19%) BigQuery
8 4 (1.19%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 4 (1.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (1.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.89%) Hadoop
9 3 (0.89%) Looker
9 3 (0.89%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.60%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.60%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 15 (4.46%) JIRA
2 3 (0.89%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.30%) Cucumber
3 1 (0.30%) Cypress.io
3 1 (0.30%) Gatling
3 1 (0.30%) Git
3 1 (0.30%) GitLab
3 1 (0.30%) JMeter
3 1 (0.30%) REST Assured
3 1 (0.30%) Selenium
3 1 (0.30%) SpecFlow
3 1 (0.30%) Subversion
General
1 181 (53.87%) Social Skills
2 110 (32.74%) Analytical Skills
3 93 (27.68%) Finance
4 41 (12.20%) Banking
5 34 (10.12%) Influencing Skills
6 33 (9.82%) Public Sector
7 29 (8.63%) Marketing
8 22 (6.55%) Presentation Skills
9 20 (5.95%) Legal
10 19 (5.65%) Organisational Skills
11 16 (4.76%) Manufacturing
12 14 (4.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 9 (2.68%) Retail
14 8 (2.38%) Telecoms
15 7 (2.08%) Investment Banking
16 6 (1.79%) Financial Institution
16 6 (1.79%) Front Office
17 5 (1.49%) Advertising
17 5 (1.49%) Documentation Skills
17 5 (1.49%) Law
Job Titles
1 57 (16.96%) Architect
2 44 (13.10%) Lead
3 36 (10.71%) Project Manager
4 26 (7.74%) Senior
5 21 (6.25%) Designer
6 19 (5.65%) Analyst
7 15 (4.46%) Developer
7 15 (4.46%) Enterprise Architect
7 15 (4.46%) Solutions Architect
8 13 (3.87%) Business Analyst
8 13 (3.87%) Product Manager
9 11 (3.27%) Delivery Manager
9 11 (3.27%) Technical Manager
10 10 (2.98%) Consultant
10 10 (2.98%) Coordinator
10 10 (2.98%) Technical Architect
11 9 (2.68%) Change Manager
12 8 (2.38%) SAP Architect
12 8 (2.38%) Security Architect
12 8 (2.38%) Senior Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (2.08%) REST
1 7 (2.08%) SAP Fiori
1 7 (2.08%) SAP PI
1 7 (2.08%) SAPUI5
2 5 (1.49%) Akka
2 5 (1.49%) Play Framework
3 4 (1.19%) SOAP
4 3 (0.89%) ARM Templates
4 3 (0.89%) Django
4 3 (0.89%) SailPoint
5 2 (0.60%) 802.1X
5 2 (0.60%) EDI
5 2 (0.60%) HTML
5 2 (0.60%) htmx
5 2 (0.60%) Kafka
5 2 (0.60%) LDAP
5 2 (0.60%) OAuth
5 2 (0.60%) OpenID
5 2 (0.60%) Oracle Fusion
5 2 (0.60%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 17 (5.06%) Self-Motivation
2 13 (3.87%) Product Ownership
3 11 (3.27%) Life Science
3 11 (3.27%) Onboarding
4 10 (2.98%) Social Media
5 9 (2.68%) Renewable Energy
6 8 (2.38%) Mobile App
7 7 (2.08%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 6 (1.79%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (1.79%) Management Information System
9 5 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
9 5 (1.49%) Credit Risk
9 5 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.49%) Security Posture
10 4 (1.19%) CCTV
10 4 (1.19%) FMCG
10 4 (1.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 4 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (1.19%) Public Cloud
11 3 (0.89%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 7 (2.08%) Linux
2 5 (1.49%) Windows
3 4 (1.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 4 (1.19%) Unix
4 3 (0.89%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.60%) AIX
5 2 (0.60%) Oracle Linux
6 1 (0.30%) Android
6 1 (0.30%) CentOS
6 1 (0.30%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.30%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (39.58%) Problem-Solving
2 97 (28.87%) Agile
3 77 (22.92%) Decision-Making
4 76 (22.62%) Stakeholder Management
5 62 (18.45%) Project Management
6 54 (16.07%) Continuous Improvement
7 53 (15.77%) Risk Management
8 52 (15.48%) Roadmaps
9 51 (15.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 43 (12.80%) Change Management
11 36 (10.71%) User Experience
12 33 (9.82%) Business Intelligence
13 30 (8.93%) Migration
14 28 (8.33%) Analytics
14 28 (8.33%) Business Strategy
15 26 (7.74%) Scrum
16 25 (7.44%) Mentoring
16 25 (7.44%) Visualisation
17 24 (7.14%) Data Management
17 24 (7.14%) Enterprise Architecture
Programming Languages
1 30 (8.93%) SQL
2 27 (8.04%) Python
3 14 (4.17%) Java
4 7 (2.08%) ABAP
4 7 (2.08%) PowerShell
5 5 (1.49%) Bash
5 5 (1.49%) Scala
6 4 (1.19%) C#
6 4 (1.19%) R
6 4 (1.19%) T-SQL
7 2 (0.60%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.60%) Perl
8 1 (0.30%) Apex Code
8 1 (0.30%) C++
8 1 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.30%) Go
8 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.30%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 47 (13.99%) Degree
2 44 (13.10%) Security Cleared
3 34 (10.12%) SC Cleared
4 18 (5.36%) PMI Certification
5 17 (5.06%) PMP
6 12 (3.57%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (3.57%) Master's Degree
7 10 (2.98%) CISSP
8 8 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (2.38%) DV Cleared
9 7 (2.08%) CISM
10 5 (1.49%) AWS Certification
10 5 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (1.19%) ITIL Certification
12 3 (0.89%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.89%) CRISC
12 3 (0.89%) SAP Certification
12 3 (0.89%) TOGAF Certification
13 2 (0.60%) Azure Certification
13 2 (0.60%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (5.36%) GDPR
1 18 (5.36%) NIST
2 14 (4.17%) Accessibility
3 13 (3.87%) QA
4 12 (3.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 10 (2.98%) Data Quality
6 6 (1.79%) HIPAA
7 5 (1.49%) PMO
8 4 (1.19%) PMBOK
8 4 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.89%) NCSC
9 3 (0.89%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.30%) IFRS
11 1 (0.30%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.30%) ITGC
11 1 (0.30%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.30%) SEPA
System Software
1 6 (1.79%) Active Directory
2 4 (1.19%) Docker
3 3 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.30%) Firmware
4 1 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.30%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 7 (2.08%) Terraform
2 6 (1.79%) Kubernetes
3 5 (1.49%) Kibana
4 2 (0.60%) Ansible
4 2 (0.60%) Progress Chef
4 2 (0.60%) Puppet
4 2 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.30%) FortiGate
5 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.30%) Packer
Vendors
1 36 (10.71%) Microsoft
2 28 (8.33%) SAP
3 13 (3.87%) Google
4 10 (2.98%) Salesforce
5 9 (2.68%) Oracle
6 8 (2.38%) Ariba
7 7 (2.08%) Adobe
7 7 (2.08%) Cisco
8 6 (1.79%) ServiceNow
9 5 (1.49%) Facebook
9 5 (1.49%) Okta
9 5 (1.49%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.89%) ForgeRock
10 3 (0.89%) Fortinet
10 3 (0.89%) Instagram
10 3 (0.89%) Pega
10 3 (0.89%) Workday
11 2 (0.60%) Dell KACE
11 2 (0.60%) Meraki
11 2 (0.60%) Ubiquiti