Critical Thinking Job Trends in the North West

Critical Thinking
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Critical Thinking skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 3 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 147 180 170
Rank change year-on-year +33 -10 +73
Permanent jobs citing Critical Thinking 30 32 17
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 0.48% 0.62% 0.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.59% 0.69% 0.48%
Number of salaries quoted 26 12 13
10th Percentile £26,250 £48,661 £41,350
25th Percentile £28,590 £54,871 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £75,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -30.00% +50.00% -
75th Percentile £65,313 £77,500 £82,548
90th Percentile £71,250 - -
England median annual salary £52,500 £63,675 £65,000
% change year-on-year -17.55% -2.04% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

Critical 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 the North West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 5,110 4,671 3,576
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 82.50% 90.38% 89.83%
Number of salaries quoted 2,464 2,286 2,752
10th Percentile £28,000 £32,500 £31,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £40,988
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,000 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -3.70% -1.82%
75th Percentile £65,000 £66,354 £70,000
90th Percentile £81,250 £80,000 £82,548
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

Critical Thinking
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Critical Thinking relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Critical Thinking job vacancy trend in the North West

Critical Thinking
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Critical Thinking.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Critical Thinking in the North West over the 6 months to 3 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Critical Thinking in the North West

Critical Thinking
Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Critical Thinking within the North West region over the 6 months to 3 January 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
Cheshire -1 13 £60,000 - 2
Lancashire +19 7 £26,500 -46.29% 4
Manchester -8 5 £50,000 -33.33% 2
Merseyside +1 4 £55,000 +10.00% 1
Cumbria - 1 £82,500 -
Critical Thinking
England

Critical Thinking
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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:

Applications
1 9 (30.00%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (13.33%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 6 (20.00%) Power Platform
2 4 (13.33%) AWS
2 4 (13.33%) GCP
2 4 (13.33%) Snowflake
3 3 (10.00%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (6.67%) Firebase
4 2 (6.67%) SaaS
5 1 (3.33%) Azure
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.33%) Firewall
1 1 (3.33%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (20.00%) Power BI
2 4 (13.33%) Amazon Redshift
2 4 (13.33%) BigQuery
2 4 (13.33%) Looker
2 4 (13.33%) Tableau
General
1 8 (26.67%) Social Skills
2 7 (23.33%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (16.67%) Finance
4 2 (6.67%) Law
4 2 (6.67%) Retail
5 1 (3.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (3.33%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 10 (33.33%) Support Engineer
2 9 (30.00%) Senior
3 7 (23.33%) IT Engineer
3 7 (23.33%) IT Support
3 7 (23.33%) IT Support Engineer
3 7 (23.33%) Technical Engineer
3 7 (23.33%) Technical Support
3 7 (23.33%) Technical Support Engineer
4 5 (16.67%) Analyst
4 5 (16.67%) Backend Developer
4 5 (16.67%) Developer
4 5 (16.67%) Senior Backend Developer
4 5 (16.67%) Senior Developer
5 4 (13.33%) Data Analyst
5 4 (13.33%) Senior Analyst
5 4 (13.33%) Senior Data Analyst
6 3 (10.00%) Desktop Engineer
6 3 (10.00%) Desktop Support
6 3 (10.00%) Desktop Support Engineer
7 2 (6.67%) Consultant
Miscellaneous
1 7 (23.33%) IoT
2 3 (10.00%) CMDB
2 3 (10.00%) Mobile App
3 2 (6.67%) Product Ownership
3 2 (6.67%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (3.33%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 12 (40.00%) Windows
2 7 (23.33%) Mac OS
2 7 (23.33%) Windows 10
3 2 (6.67%) Android
4 1 (3.33%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (73.33%) Problem-Solving
2 13 (43.33%) Customer Service
3 9 (30.00%) Agile
3 9 (30.00%) ERP
4 6 (20.00%) Business Intelligence
4 6 (20.00%) Data Science
4 6 (20.00%) Data Visualisation
4 6 (20.00%) Decision-Making
4 6 (20.00%) E-Commerce
4 6 (20.00%) Mentoring
4 6 (20.00%) Statistical Analysis
4 6 (20.00%) Visualisation
5 5 (16.67%) Collaborative Culture
5 5 (16.67%) Computer Science
5 5 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
5 5 (16.67%) DevOps
5 5 (16.67%) Product Roadmap
5 5 (16.67%) Project Delivery
5 5 (16.67%) Roadmaps
6 4 (13.33%) Economics
Programming Languages
1 13 (43.33%) SQL
2 7 (23.33%) PL/SQL
2 7 (23.33%) VBScript
3 6 (20.00%) Python
4 5 (16.67%) Elixir
4 5 (16.67%) Go
4 5 (16.67%) Ruby
5 2 (6.67%) Java
5 2 (6.67%) Kotlin
5 2 (6.67%) R
Qualifications
1 9 (30.00%) Degree
2 4 (13.33%) Master's Degree
3 2 (6.67%) SC Cleared
3 2 (6.67%) Security Cleared
4 1 (3.33%) CISSP
4 1 (3.33%) CompTIA Security+
4 1 (3.33%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (3.33%) DBS Check
4 1 (3.33%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (16.67%) QA
2 4 (13.33%) SLA
3 2 (6.67%) Accessibility
3 2 (6.67%) Data Quality
4 1 (3.33%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 7 (23.33%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (10.00%) Active Directory
Vendors
1 11 (36.67%) Microsoft
2 7 (23.33%) Veeam
2 7 (23.33%) VMware
3 4 (13.33%) Google
3 4 (13.33%) HubSpot