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 23 August 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 427 443 458
Rank change year-on-year +16 +15 -33
DemandTrendContract jobs citing Thought Leadership 128 121 210
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.39% 0.31% 0.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.43% 0.37% 0.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 74 66 112
10th Percentile £359 £323 £328
25th Percentile £425 £426 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £528 £585
Median % change year-on-year +0.47% -9.83% -13.33%
75th Percentile £744 £688 £741
90th Percentile £875 £838 £875
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £538 £693
% change year-on-year -6.98% -22.44% +10.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 8
10th Percentile £44.50 - £59.85
25th Percentile £44.88 - £75.30
Median hourly rate £49.00 £16.85 £78.00
Median % change year-on-year +190.80% -78.40% +92.59%
75th Percentile £63.13 £35.30 £85.99
90th Percentile £69.50 £46.37 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £49.00 £16.85 £78.00
% change year-on-year +190.80% -78.40% +29.33%

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.

DemandTrendContract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 29,886 33,092 45,801
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.49% 85.34% 89.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,598 21,034 31,382
10th Percentile £300 £310 £320
25th Percentile £402 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,762 1,726 1,531
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £18.00 £18.92
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.50 £42.19
Median % change year-on-year -37.90% -4.01% +56.38%
75th Percentile £47.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £42.05 £37.50
% change year-on-year -46.18% +12.12% +70.45%

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
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Thought Leadership.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Thought Leadership

Thought Leadership
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Thought Leadership over the 6 months to 23 August 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Thought Leadership in the UK

Thought Leadership
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Thought Leadership.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Thought Leadership

Thought Leadership
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Thought Leadership over the 6 months to 23 August 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Thought Leadership in the UK

Thought Leadership
Top 15 DemandTrendContract 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 23 August 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
DemandTrendContract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +14 106 £535 +1.42% 929
UK excluding London +29 68 £500 -6.98% 422
London -7 45 £550 +4.76% 638
Work from Home -6 26 £450 -15.89% 379
South West +44 23 £475 -28.30% 31
South East +14 13 £539 +23.09% 202
North of England -15 12 £762 +21.88% 89
North West +2 11 £762 +32.48% 60
Midlands -5 9 £500 -24.53% 33
Wales - 8 £375 - 6
West Midlands -5 6 £500 -24.67% 20
East of England - 4 £383 - 21
East Midlands -2 2 £425 -45.16% 13
Scotland -9 2 £525 +40.00% 37
Yorkshire -14 1 - - 25

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 9 (7.03%) Oracle Service Bus
1 9 (7.03%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 9 (7.03%) WebLogic
2 5 (3.91%) Confluence
3 2 (1.56%) Apache Spark
3 2 (1.56%) Appian
3 2 (1.56%) CMS
4 1 (0.78%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.78%) Apache
4 1 (0.78%) CICS
4 1 (0.78%) Headless CMS
4 1 (0.78%) nginx
4 1 (0.78%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.78%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.78%) WebSphere Application Server
4 1 (0.78%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (1.56%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (7.03%) Oracle BPM
2 6 (4.69%) SAP PP
2 6 (4.69%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (3.13%) Endur
4 2 (1.56%) Aladdin
5 1 (0.78%) Exchequer
5 1 (0.78%) SAP CO
5 1 (0.78%) SAP FI
5 1 (0.78%) SAP FI/CO
5 1 (0.78%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 14 (10.94%) AWS
2 13 (10.16%) GCP
2 13 (10.16%) PaaS
2 13 (10.16%) SaaS
3 12 (9.38%) Snowflake
4 11 (8.59%) Matillion
5 8 (6.25%) Azure
6 5 (3.91%) IaaS
6 5 (3.91%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (3.13%) Entra ID
7 4 (3.13%) OpenShift
8 3 (2.34%) Serverless
9 2 (1.56%) Tricentis Tosca
10 1 (0.78%) Apigee
10 1 (0.78%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.78%) Figma
10 1 (0.78%) GitHub
10 1 (0.78%) Google Analytics
10 1 (0.78%) Power Platform
10 1 (0.78%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 9 (7.03%) PBX
1 9 (7.03%) VoIP
2 3 (2.34%) Network Security
3 2 (1.56%) Firewall
4 1 (0.78%) 4G
4 1 (0.78%) 5G
4 1 (0.78%) Cisco Nexus
4 1 (0.78%) DNS
4 1 (0.78%) FCoE
4 1 (0.78%) Fibre Channel
4 1 (0.78%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (0.78%) iSCSI
4 1 (0.78%) LAN
4 1 (0.78%) Multicast
4 1 (0.78%) NAS
4 1 (0.78%) SAN
4 1 (0.78%) SSH
4 1 (0.78%) VPN
4 1 (0.78%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (5.47%) Oracle Database
2 6 (4.69%) Data Warehouse
3 4 (3.13%) Big Data
4 3 (2.34%) Data Lake
4 3 (2.34%) MongoDB
4 3 (2.34%) NoSQL
5 2 (1.56%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.78%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.78%) Data Vault
6 1 (0.78%) DTS
6 1 (0.78%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.78%) Metadata
6 1 (0.78%) Oracle Database 12c
6 1 (0.78%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.78%) Power BI
6 1 (0.78%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (4.69%) JIRA
2 4 (3.13%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.56%) Cucumber
3 2 (1.56%) GitLab
3 2 (1.56%) Robot Framework
3 2 (1.56%) Selenium
3 2 (1.56%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.78%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 1 (0.78%) Git
4 1 (0.78%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.78%) Spinnaker
General
1 42 (32.81%) Social Skills
2 28 (21.88%) Finance
3 20 (15.63%) Influencing Skills
4 18 (14.06%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (14.06%) Marketing
4 18 (14.06%) Telecoms
5 10 (7.81%) Back Office
6 7 (5.47%) Legal
7 6 (4.69%) Manufacturing
7 6 (4.69%) Public Sector
8 5 (3.91%) Banking
8 5 (3.91%) Presentation Skills
8 5 (3.91%) Retail
9 4 (3.13%) Pharmaceutical
10 3 (2.34%) Automotive
11 2 (1.56%) French Language
11 2 (1.56%) Front Office
11 2 (1.56%) German Language
11 2 (1.56%) Law
11 2 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 45 (35.16%) Architect
2 26 (20.31%) Consultant
3 18 (14.06%) Senior
4 10 (7.81%) Applications Architect
5 9 (7.03%) Solutions Architect
6 8 (6.25%) Oracle Consultant
7 6 (4.69%) Data Engineer
7 6 (4.69%) Enterprise Architect
7 6 (4.69%) Lead
7 6 (4.69%) Senior Architect
8 5 (3.91%) Data Architect
8 5 (3.91%) Designer
8 5 (3.91%) Oracle SOA Consultant
8 5 (3.91%) Security Architect
8 5 (3.91%) SOA Consultant
9 4 (3.13%) Data Consultant
9 4 (3.13%) Project Manager
9 4 (3.13%) SAP Consultant
9 4 (3.13%) Security Consultant
9 4 (3.13%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (11.72%) JSON
2 13 (10.16%) Swagger
3 12 (9.38%) XML
4 10 (7.81%) OAuth
4 10 (7.81%) OAuth2
4 10 (7.81%) OpenAPI
4 10 (7.81%) REST
4 10 (7.81%) SOAP
5 9 (7.03%) XSD
6 4 (3.13%) Middleware
6 4 (3.13%) Oracle Fusion
6 4 (3.13%) React
7 2 (1.56%) CSS
7 2 (1.56%) HTML
7 2 (1.56%) Jinja
7 2 (1.56%) Kafka
7 2 (1.56%) SailPoint
7 2 (1.56%) Spring
7 2 (1.56%) Spring Boot
7 2 (1.56%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 15 (11.72%) Product Ownership
2 10 (7.81%) Virtual Team
3 9 (7.03%) Cloud Native
4 8 (6.25%) Blackberry
4 8 (6.25%) Video Conferencing
5 6 (4.69%) IoT
6 5 (3.91%) Analytical Mindset
6 5 (3.91%) Cyberattack
6 5 (3.91%) Life Science
7 4 (3.13%) Blockchain
7 4 (3.13%) Data Structures
7 4 (3.13%) Management Information System
7 4 (3.13%) Onboarding
8 3 (2.34%) Grid Computing
8 3 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (2.34%) Security Posture
8 3 (2.34%) Social Media
9 2 (1.56%) e-Learning
9 2 (1.56%) EPoS
9 2 (1.56%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 9 (7.03%) Windows
2 4 (3.13%) Linux
2 4 (3.13%) Mac OS
2 4 (3.13%) Windows 10
3 2 (1.56%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.78%) MVS
4 1 (0.78%) Solaris
4 1 (0.78%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (38.28%) Roadmaps
2 43 (33.59%) Problem-Solving
3 39 (30.47%) Agile
4 21 (16.41%) DevOps
4 21 (16.41%) Migration
5 20 (15.63%) Analytics
5 20 (15.63%) Mentoring
6 19 (14.84%) Stakeholder Management
7 18 (14.06%) CI/CD
7 18 (14.06%) Decision-Making
7 18 (14.06%) IT Strategy
8 17 (13.28%) Artificial Intelligence
8 17 (13.28%) Project Planning
8 17 (13.28%) Validation
9 16 (12.50%) Cost Reduction
9 16 (12.50%) Enterprise Architecture
9 16 (12.50%) Microservices
10 15 (11.72%) Business Strategy
11 14 (10.94%) Coaching
11 14 (10.94%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 12 (9.38%) SQL
2 9 (7.03%) Java
2 9 (7.03%) PL/SQL
3 7 (5.47%) Python
4 5 (3.91%) JavaScript
5 3 (2.34%) Bash
5 3 (2.34%) C#
5 3 (2.34%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 25 (19.53%) Security Cleared
2 22 (17.19%) Degree
3 21 (16.41%) SC Cleared
4 12 (9.38%) DV Cleared
5 8 (6.25%) CCNP
5 8 (6.25%) Cisco Certification
5 8 (6.25%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 6 (4.69%) CISSP
6 6 (4.69%) Master's Degree
7 5 (3.91%) CISM
7 5 (3.91%) Microsoft Certification
8 4 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (2.34%) Citrix Certification
9 3 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (2.34%) CRISC
10 1 (0.78%) CISA
10 1 (0.78%) GIAC
10 1 (0.78%) GSEC
10 1 (0.78%) SAP Certification
10 1 (0.78%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (7.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (7.03%) GDPR
3 6 (4.69%) NIST
4 4 (3.13%) PCI DSS
4 4 (3.13%) QA
5 3 (2.34%) Data Quality
5 3 (2.34%) HIPAA
5 3 (2.34%) SOC 2
6 2 (1.56%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.78%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.78%) GRC
7 1 (0.78%) NCSC
7 1 (0.78%) PMO
7 1 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.78%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (10.94%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (5.47%) Docker
3 4 (3.13%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.56%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.56%) Virtual Desktop
4 2 (1.56%) Virtual Servers
5 1 (0.78%) KVM
5 1 (0.78%) NFS
5 1 (0.78%) SRDF
5 1 (0.78%) Veritas Cluster Server
5 1 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.78%) Xen
Systems Management
1 8 (6.25%) Terraform
2 7 (5.47%) Ansible
3 6 (4.69%) Kubernetes
3 6 (4.69%) SCCM
4 5 (3.91%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.78%) Grafana
5 1 (0.78%) HAProxy
5 1 (0.78%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.78%) Puppet
Vendors
1 15 (11.72%) Microsoft
2 14 (10.94%) VMware
3 12 (9.38%) Cisco
4 11 (8.59%) Oracle
5 10 (7.81%) F5
6 9 (7.03%) Ericsson
6 9 (7.03%) Juniper
6 9 (7.03%) Nokia
6 9 (7.03%) Palo Alto
7 8 (6.25%) Avaya
7 8 (6.25%) Ribbon
8 7 (5.47%) SAP
9 4 (3.13%) Citrix
9 4 (3.13%) Google
10 3 (2.34%) Hitachi
10 3 (2.34%) ServiceNow
11 2 (1.56%) Adobe
11 2 (1.56%) Okta
11 2 (1.56%) Veracode
11 2 (1.56%) Workday