Strategic Thinking Job Trends in England

Strategic Thinking
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in England requiring Strategic Thinking skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 218 134 279
Rank change year-on-year -84 +145 +128
Permanent jobs citing Strategic Thinking 688 873 829
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.89% 2.35% 1.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.18% 2.52% 1.17%
Number of salaries quoted 360 385 607
10th Percentile £50,000 £47,500 £38,162
25th Percentile £62,500 £50,967 £49,425
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £65,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +23.08% -7.14% -
75th Percentile £97,500 £85,800 £84,964
90th Percentile £120,000 £115,000 £105,000
UK median annual salary £78,177 £65,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +20.27% - -7.14%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Strategic Thinking falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 58,111 34,588 70,802
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 75.51% 93.07% 85.92%
Number of salaries quoted 36,574 20,539 53,747
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £78,750 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £103,750 £93,750
UK median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -10.51%

Strategic Thinking
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Strategic Thinking relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

Strategic Thinking job vacancy trend in England

Strategic Thinking
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Strategic Thinking.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Strategic Thinking

Strategic Thinking
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Strategic Thinking in England over the 6 months to 18 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Strategic Thinking in England

Strategic Thinking
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Strategic Thinking within the England region over the 6 months to 18 April 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London -22 294 £90,000 +12.50% 175
South East -92 117 £80,000 +33.33% 65
North of England -40 103 £70,466 +4.96% 47
Midlands -25 77 £70,000 +27.27% 25
North West -12 60 £70,000 - 27
West Midlands -10 51 £70,000 +6.87% 17
South West -45 48 £69,263 +15.44% 17
East of England -92 34 £80,000 +56.96% 17
Yorkshire -67 29 £70,932 +36.70% 17
East Midlands -51 26 £61,500 +14.42% 8
North East -24 14 £90,000 +9.09% 4
Strategic Thinking
UK

Strategic Thinking
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 11 (1.60%) Microsoft Exchange
1 11 (1.60%) Palantir Foundry
2 8 (1.16%) Confluence
3 6 (0.87%) Apache Spark
4 5 (0.73%) CMS
4 5 (0.73%) IIS
5 3 (0.44%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
6 2 (0.29%) WordPress
7 1 (0.15%) Apache
Applications
1 13 (1.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 11 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.02%) Maya
4 4 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.15%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.02%) Salesforce CRM
3 5 (0.73%) Payment Gateway
4 4 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.15%) Exchequer
6 1 (0.15%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.15%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.15%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.15%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.15%) Raiser’s Edge
6 1 (0.15%) SAP MDG
6 1 (0.15%) SAP MDG-F
6 1 (0.15%) SAP MDG-M
6 1 (0.15%) SAP MDG-S
Cloud Services
1 96 (13.95%) Azure
2 70 (10.17%) AWS
3 69 (10.03%) SaaS
4 38 (5.52%) Power Platform
5 37 (5.38%) GCP
6 36 (5.23%) Microsoft 365
7 27 (3.92%) Entra ID
8 12 (1.74%) Serverless
9 10 (1.45%) Figma
10 8 (1.16%) OCI
11 7 (1.02%) Azure Data Factory
11 7 (1.02%) Cloud Computing
11 7 (1.02%) Snowflake
12 6 (0.87%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 6 (0.87%) Dynamics 365
12 6 (0.87%) PaaS
13 5 (0.73%) Adobe Analytics
13 5 (0.73%) Amazon EMR
13 5 (0.73%) GitHub
13 5 (0.73%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.91%) WAN
2 17 (2.47%) Firewall
3 15 (2.18%) Broadband
4 14 (2.03%) LAN
4 14 (2.03%) Network Security
5 12 (1.74%) Internet
5 12 (1.74%) Wireless
6 10 (1.45%) VPN
7 9 (1.31%) TCP/IP
8 8 (1.16%) DNS
9 7 (1.02%) LTE
9 7 (1.02%) OSPF
9 7 (1.02%) SD-WAN
10 6 (0.87%) DHCP
10 6 (0.87%) RTP
10 6 (0.87%) SMTP
10 6 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
11 5 (0.73%) EIGRP
11 5 (0.73%) POP3
11 5 (0.73%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (4.51%) Power BI
2 22 (3.20%) Tableau
3 14 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
4 11 (1.60%) Big Data
4 11 (1.60%) MongoDB
4 11 (1.60%) NoSQL
5 10 (1.45%) Data Lake
5 10 (1.45%) Hadoop
5 10 (1.45%) PostgreSQL
6 8 (1.16%) SQL Server
7 7 (1.02%) Metadata
7 7 (1.02%) MySQL
8 6 (0.87%) Neo4j
9 5 (0.73%) Apache Cassandra
9 5 (0.73%) Data Mining
9 5 (0.73%) DataStage
9 5 (0.73%) DynamoDB
9 5 (0.73%) Pentaho
9 5 (0.73%) RDBMS
9 5 (0.73%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 13 (1.89%) JIRA
2 9 (1.31%) Selenium
3 7 (1.02%) Postman
4 6 (0.87%) JMeter
5 5 (0.73%) Cypress.io
5 5 (0.73%) Git
6 4 (0.58%) Appium
6 4 (0.58%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.58%) REST Assured
7 3 (0.44%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.29%) GitLab
8 2 (0.29%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.15%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 285 (41.42%) Social Skills
2 258 (37.50%) Finance
3 211 (30.67%) Analytical Skills
4 90 (13.08%) Marketing
5 78 (11.34%) Retail
6 76 (11.05%) Law
7 68 (9.88%) Legal
8 65 (9.45%) Public Sector
9 64 (9.30%) Presentation Skills
10 62 (9.01%) Banking
11 58 (8.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 44 (6.40%) Games
13 36 (5.23%) Influencing Skills
13 36 (5.23%) Manufacturing
14 29 (4.22%) Financial Institution
15 21 (3.05%) Automotive
16 19 (2.76%) Telecoms
17 17 (2.47%) Local Government
18 15 (2.18%) Pharmaceutical
19 12 (1.74%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 133 (19.33%) Senior
2 115 (16.72%) Architect
3 75 (10.90%) Lead
4 48 (6.98%) Senior Manager
5 41 (5.96%) Senior Architect
6 37 (5.38%) Consultant
7 34 (4.94%) Solutions Architect
8 29 (4.22%) Product Manager
9 24 (3.49%) Business Manager
10 22 (3.20%) Analyst
10 22 (3.20%) Commercial Manager
11 21 (3.05%) Development Manager
12 20 (2.91%) Business Development Manager
13 19 (2.76%) IT Manager
14 16 (2.33%) Business Analyst
14 16 (2.33%) Service Manager
15 15 (2.18%) Account Manager
15 15 (2.18%) Technical Architect
16 14 (2.03%) Head of IT
17 13 (1.89%) Sales Executive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (1.60%) .NET
2 9 (1.31%) React
3 8 (1.16%) Playwright
4 7 (1.02%) HEVC
4 7 (1.02%) Oracle Fusion
4 7 (1.02%) REST
5 5 (0.73%) Play Framework
5 5 (0.73%) Spring
6 4 (0.58%) AngularJS
6 4 (0.58%) JBoss Seam
6 4 (0.58%) Kafka
7 3 (0.44%) EDI
7 3 (0.44%) PyTorch
7 3 (0.44%) Spring Boot
7 3 (0.44%) Symfony
7 3 (0.44%) TensorFlow
7 3 (0.44%) Unity (Game Engine)
7 3 (0.44%) Web Services
7 3 (0.44%) WebGL
8 2 (0.29%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 53 (7.70%) Self-Motivation
2 43 (6.25%) Product Ownership
3 33 (4.80%) Management Information System
4 25 (3.63%) Onboarding
5 20 (2.91%) Virtual Team
6 19 (2.76%) Distributed Systems
7 17 (2.47%) Analytical Mindset
8 16 (2.33%) Security Posture
9 14 (2.03%) Cloud Native
9 14 (2.03%) Hybrid Cloud
9 14 (2.03%) Life Science
10 13 (1.89%) Data Centre
11 12 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
12 10 (1.45%) Data Structures
12 10 (1.45%) Public Cloud
13 9 (1.31%) Blog
14 8 (1.16%) Algorithms
14 8 (1.16%) CMDB
14 8 (1.16%) e-Learning
14 8 (1.16%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 14 (2.03%) Windows
2 10 (1.45%) Windows Server
3 6 (0.87%) Linux
4 4 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.44%) Android
5 3 (0.44%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.15%) CentOS
6 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 194 (28.20%) Problem-Solving
2 181 (26.31%) Roadmaps
3 174 (25.29%) Agile
3 174 (25.29%) Continuous Improvement
4 156 (22.67%) AI
5 146 (21.22%) Decision-Making
6 135 (19.62%) Stakeholder Management
7 105 (15.26%) Analytics
8 99 (14.39%) Business Development
9 96 (13.95%) Risk Management
10 93 (13.52%) Mentoring
11 87 (12.65%) Project Management
12 81 (11.77%) IT Strategy
13 72 (10.47%) Cybersecurity
14 68 (9.88%) Technology Strategy
15 67 (9.74%) Business Strategy
16 56 (8.14%) Customer Experience
16 56 (8.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 54 (7.85%) B2B
17 54 (7.85%) Technology Roadmap
Programming Languages
1 51 (7.41%) Python
2 34 (4.94%) Java
3 27 (3.92%) SQL
4 12 (1.74%) PowerShell
5 7 (1.02%) C#
6 6 (0.87%) PHP
6 6 (0.87%) Scala
6 6 (0.87%) TypeScript
7 5 (0.73%) JavaScript
7 5 (0.73%) R
8 4 (0.58%) Bash
9 3 (0.44%) Go
9 3 (0.44%) Kotlin
10 2 (0.29%) VBA
11 1 (0.15%) Apex Code
11 1 (0.15%) C++
11 1 (0.15%) Korn
11 1 (0.15%) SHACL
11 1 (0.15%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.15%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 130 (18.90%) Degree
2 38 (5.52%) Master's Degree
3 27 (3.92%) CISSP
4 22 (3.20%) CISM
5 21 (3.05%) Cisco Certification
5 21 (3.05%) Security Cleared
6 18 (2.62%) PMI Certification
7 17 (2.47%) PMP
8 14 (2.03%) Computer Science Degree
8 14 (2.03%) Microsoft Certification
9 13 (1.89%) ACCA
9 13 (1.89%) SC Cleared
10 12 (1.74%) Azure Certification
11 10 (1.45%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 10 (1.45%) CCNA
11 10 (1.45%) CCSP
11 10 (1.45%) DBS Check
12 9 (1.31%) MBA
13 7 (1.02%) CCNP
14 6 (0.87%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (6.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 32 (4.65%) Accessibility
3 28 (4.07%) QA
4 26 (3.78%) GDPR
5 24 (3.49%) NIST
6 18 (2.62%) Cyber Essentials
7 16 (2.33%) Data Quality
8 15 (2.18%) GRC
9 10 (1.45%) PMO
10 9 (1.31%) EU AI Act
11 8 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 19770
12 7 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 7 (1.02%) PCI DSS
13 6 (0.87%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (0.73%) COBIT
15 3 (0.44%) ISO 20022
15 3 (0.44%) NCSC
15 3 (0.44%) SLA
15 3 (0.44%) SOC 2
16 2 (0.29%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 22 (3.20%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.89%) Docker
3 9 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.73%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.44%) vSphere
6 1 (0.15%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 20 (2.91%) Kubernetes
2 8 (1.16%) Terraform
3 6 (0.87%) Ansible
4 5 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.44%) Autotask
7 1 (0.15%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.15%) Kibana
7 1 (0.15%) Plesk
7 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Satellite
7 1 (0.15%) SCCM
7 1 (0.15%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 79 (11.48%) Microsoft
2 24 (3.49%) Oracle
2 24 (3.49%) ServiceNow
3 18 (2.62%) NEC
4 16 (2.33%) SAP
5 15 (2.18%) Databricks
6 14 (2.03%) Salesforce
7 12 (1.74%) Anaplan
7 12 (1.74%) Genesys
7 12 (1.74%) Verint
8 11 (1.60%) Cisco
8 11 (1.60%) Foundry
8 11 (1.60%) Palantir
9 9 (1.31%) BT
10 7 (1.02%) VMware
10 7 (1.02%) Xero
11 6 (0.87%) SolarWinds
12 5 (0.73%) Adobe
12 5 (0.73%) Informatica
12 5 (0.73%) Red Hat