Thought Leadership Contracts

Thought Leadership
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Thought Leadership skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Thought Leadership over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 399 452 403
Rank change year-on-year +53 -49 +17
Contract jobs citing Thought Leadership 122 130 334
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.42% 0.30% 0.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.46% 0.35% 0.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 69 79 163
10th Percentile £443 £320 £406
25th Percentile £500 £426 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £572 £570 £595
Median % change year-on-year +0.35% -4.20% -8.46%
75th Percentile £725 £694 £706
90th Percentile £888 £778 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £535 £550 £625
% change year-on-year -2.73% -12.00% +2.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 5 2
10th Percentile - £40.15 £71.25
25th Percentile - £45.25 £72.38
Median hourly rate - £52.50 £75.50
Median % change year-on-year - -30.46% +130.53%
75th Percentile - £58.75 £77.38
90th Percentile - £72.10 £77.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £81.00 £75.50
% change year-on-year - +7.28% -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Thought Leadership 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 26,594 37,597 53,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.84% 86.31% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,149 24,227 37,238
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,443 1,746
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%
75th Percentile £60.38 £59.98 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
% change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%

Thought Leadership
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Thought Leadership as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Thought Leadership in the UK

Thought Leadership
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Thought Leadership.

Daily rate trend for Thought Leadership in the UK

Thought Leadership
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Thought Leadership over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Thought Leadership in the UK

Thought Leadership
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Thought Leadership.

Hourly rate trend for Thought Leadership in the UK

Thought Leadership
Top 13 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Thought Leadership within the UK over the 6 months to 1 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 +49 102 £550 -4.60% 1,170
London +30 56 £650 +13.54% 770
UK excluding London +65 49 £535 -2.73% 538
Work from Home +27 25 £620 +3.25% 640
South West +59 16 £538 +13.16% 45
South East +52 13 £550 +11.11% 187
North of England +12 7 £613 +6.24% 134
Scotland +13 6 £572 +47.61% 58
Midlands +12 5 £500 -16.67% 70
West Midlands +12 5 £500 -16.67% 45
Yorkshire +9 4 £606 - 42
North West +9 3 £613 +6.24% 77
East of England +31 2 £600 - 44

Thought Leadership
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 6 (4.92%) Apache Spark
2 5 (4.10%) Apache
3 3 (2.46%) nginx
4 2 (1.64%) Appian
5 1 (0.82%) Confluence
5 1 (0.82%) SAS
Applications
1 5 (4.10%) Microsoft Excel
1 5 (4.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.82%) Adobe XD
2 1 (0.82%) Trello
Business Applications
1 6 (4.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (3.28%) SAP PP
3 1 (0.82%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.82%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.82%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 10 (8.20%) PaaS
1 10 (8.20%) SaaS
2 9 (7.38%) AWS
3 7 (5.74%) Azure
4 5 (4.10%) Matillion
5 4 (3.28%) GCP
6 3 (2.46%) OpenShift
6 3 (2.46%) Power Platform
6 3 (2.46%) Snowflake
6 3 (2.46%) SuccessFactors
7 2 (1.64%) Amazon EC2
7 2 (1.64%) Amazon EMR
7 2 (1.64%) Amazon S3
7 2 (1.64%) AWS Elastic Beanstalk
7 2 (1.64%) AWS Lambda
7 2 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (1.64%) Route 53
7 2 (1.64%) Serverless
8 1 (0.82%) Entra ID
8 1 (0.82%) Google Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 9 (7.38%) PBX
1 9 (7.38%) VoIP
2 4 (3.28%) DNS
3 3 (2.46%) Firewall
4 2 (1.64%) BIG-IP
4 2 (1.64%) Cisco Nexus
4 2 (1.64%) DHCP
4 2 (1.64%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
4 2 (1.64%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 2 (1.64%) Network Security
4 2 (1.64%) SD-WAN
4 2 (1.64%) Wireless
4 2 (1.64%) Wireshark
5 1 (0.82%) 4G
5 1 (0.82%) 5G
5 1 (0.82%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (0.82%) VPN
5 1 (0.82%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (5.74%) Big Data
1 7 (5.74%) Hadoop
2 5 (4.10%) Data Warehouse
3 4 (3.28%) Tableau
4 3 (2.46%) Apache Hive
5 2 (1.64%) Amazon Aurora
5 2 (1.64%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (1.64%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (1.64%) Data Lake
5 2 (1.64%) Impala
5 2 (1.64%) Looker
5 2 (1.64%) Metadata
5 2 (1.64%) Power BI
5 2 (1.64%) Spotfire
6 1 (0.82%) BusinessObjects
6 1 (0.82%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.82%) Data Vault
6 1 (0.82%) DTS
6 1 (0.82%) Pentaho
6 1 (0.82%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 4 (3.28%) Jenkins
2 3 (2.46%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 2 (1.64%) JIRA
4 1 (0.82%) Appium
4 1 (0.82%) Axure RP
4 1 (0.82%) Balsamiq
4 1 (0.82%) Cucumber
4 1 (0.82%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.82%) ERwin
4 1 (0.82%) Git
4 1 (0.82%) Selenium
4 1 (0.82%) TestNG
General
1 38 (31.15%) Finance
2 29 (23.77%) Social Skills
3 22 (18.03%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (13.11%) Telecoms
5 13 (10.66%) Marketing
6 12 (9.84%) Retail
7 9 (7.38%) Legal
8 7 (5.74%) Banking
9 5 (4.10%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (4.10%) Manufacturing
9 5 (4.10%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (3.28%) Public Sector
11 3 (2.46%) Back Office
12 2 (1.64%) Advertising
12 2 (1.64%) French Language
12 2 (1.64%) German Language
12 2 (1.64%) Investment Banking
12 2 (1.64%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.82%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 39 (31.97%) Architect
2 17 (13.93%) Senior
3 14 (11.48%) Solutions Architect
4 13 (10.66%) Consultant
5 7 (5.74%) Applications Architect
6 6 (4.92%) Developer
6 6 (4.92%) Security Consultant
7 5 (4.10%) Data Engineer
7 5 (4.10%) Enterprise Architect
7 5 (4.10%) Information Security Consultant
7 5 (4.10%) Product Manager
8 4 (3.28%) Analyst
8 4 (3.28%) Cloud Architect
8 4 (3.28%) Project Manager
8 4 (3.28%) Senior Developer
8 4 (3.28%) ServiceNow Developer
9 3 (2.46%) Business Analyst
9 3 (2.46%) Data Architect
9 3 (2.46%) Marketing Manager
9 3 (2.46%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (4.92%) XML
2 5 (4.10%) JSON
2 5 (4.10%) REST
2 5 (4.10%) SOAP
2 5 (4.10%) Web Services
3 4 (3.28%) CSS
3 4 (3.28%) HTML
4 3 (2.46%) Elastic Stack
4 3 (2.46%) YAML
5 2 (1.64%) LDAP
5 2 (1.64%) SAP Fiori
5 2 (1.64%) SAPUI5
6 1 (0.82%) ATL
6 1 (0.82%) HTML5
6 1 (0.82%) Kafka
6 1 (0.82%) Middleware
6 1 (0.82%) Node.js
6 1 (0.82%) Playwright
6 1 (0.82%) SailPoint
6 1 (0.82%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 8 (6.56%) Blackberry
1 8 (6.56%) Video Conferencing
2 7 (5.74%) Enterprise Software
2 7 (5.74%) IoT
2 7 (5.74%) Product Ownership
3 6 (4.92%) Blockchain
3 6 (4.92%) Data Structures
3 6 (4.92%) Security Posture
4 5 (4.10%) Management Information System
5 4 (3.28%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (3.28%) Life Science
5 4 (3.28%) Onboarding
5 4 (3.28%) Social Media
6 3 (2.46%) Data Centre
7 2 (1.64%) Digital Wallet
7 2 (1.64%) Distributed Architecture
7 2 (1.64%) Mobile App
7 2 (1.64%) Reinsurance
8 1 (0.82%) Cloud Native
8 1 (0.82%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 4 (3.28%) Linux
2 1 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 1 (0.82%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (31.15%) Roadmaps
2 30 (24.59%) Problem-Solving
3 26 (21.31%) Agile
3 26 (21.31%) Analytics
4 19 (15.57%) Migration
5 18 (14.75%) Project Management
6 17 (13.93%) Decision-Making
6 17 (13.93%) Mentoring
6 17 (13.93%) Stakeholder Management
7 15 (12.30%) Cost Reduction
8 14 (11.48%) Customer Requirements
9 13 (10.66%) Risk Management
10 12 (9.84%) Enterprise Architecture
10 12 (9.84%) Product Roadmap
11 11 (9.02%) Architectural Design
11 11 (9.02%) Coaching
11 11 (9.02%) DevOps
11 11 (9.02%) Microservices
11 11 (9.02%) Root Cause Analysis
11 11 (9.02%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 10 (8.20%) JavaScript
2 7 (5.74%) Java
3 6 (4.92%) Python
4 5 (4.10%) SQL
5 2 (1.64%) PowerShell
5 2 (1.64%) Scala
6 1 (0.82%) Kotlin
6 1 (0.82%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.82%) Swift
Qualifications
1 27 (22.13%) Security Cleared
2 20 (16.39%) SC Cleared
3 15 (12.30%) Degree
3 15 (12.30%) DV Cleared
4 8 (6.56%) CCNP
4 8 (6.56%) Cisco Certification
4 8 (6.56%) CISSP
4 8 (6.56%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 7 (5.74%) CISM
5 7 (5.74%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (4.10%) CRISC
7 3 (2.46%) Master's Degree
8 2 (1.64%) CEH
8 2 (1.64%) PMI Certification
8 2 (1.64%) PMP
8 2 (1.64%) SAP Certification
9 1 (0.82%) IIBA
9 1 (0.82%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (7.38%) GDPR
1 9 (7.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 9 (7.38%) NIST
2 8 (6.56%) PCI DSS
3 5 (4.10%) HIPAA
3 5 (4.10%) SOC 2
4 3 (2.46%) Accessibility
4 3 (2.46%) Data Quality
5 2 (1.64%) MiFID
5 2 (1.64%) PSD2
5 2 (1.64%) QA
5 2 (1.64%) SLA
6 1 (0.82%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.82%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (0.82%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.82%) NCSC
6 1 (0.82%) PMO
6 1 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.82%) WCAG
System Software
1 9 (7.38%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (2.46%) Docker
3 2 (1.64%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.82%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 3 (2.46%) Ansible
1 3 (2.46%) Grafana
1 3 (2.46%) HAProxy
1 3 (2.46%) Kubernetes
1 3 (2.46%) Prometheus
1 3 (2.46%) Terraform
2 2 (1.64%) OPNET
Vendors
1 13 (10.66%) Cisco
2 11 (9.02%) F5
2 11 (9.02%) Microsoft
2 11 (9.02%) Nokia
2 11 (9.02%) Palo Alto
3 9 (7.38%) Ericsson
3 9 (7.38%) Juniper
3 9 (7.38%) SAP
3 9 (7.38%) ServiceNow
3 9 (7.38%) VMware
4 8 (6.56%) Avaya
4 8 (6.56%) Ribbon
5 5 (4.10%) Salesforce
6 4 (3.28%) Google
7 3 (2.46%) Adobe
7 3 (2.46%) CyberArk
7 3 (2.46%) Informatica
7 3 (2.46%) TOWER Software
8 2 (1.64%) Blue Prism
8 2 (1.64%) Meraki