Critical Thinking Job Trends in the South West

Critical Thinking
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Critical Thinking skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 177 153 191
Rank change year-on-year -24 +38 +44
Permanent jobs citing Critical Thinking 8 40 24
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 0.16% 0.93% 0.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.22% 1.10% 0.60%
Number of salaries quoted 8 17 20
10th Percentile £44,225 £37,950 £39,500
25th Percentile £46,063 £50,000 £46,306
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £70,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% +21.74% -37.61%
75th Percentile £60,000 £80,000 £74,475
90th Percentile £64,500 £95,500 £86,154
England median annual salary £52,500 £62,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -16.00% -3.85% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
South 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 South West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 3,635 3,643 4,000
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 72.48% 84.45% 91.35%
Number of salaries quoted 2,465 1,869 3,032
10th Percentile £27,750 £30,000 £30,775
25th Percentile £33,750 £40,000 £41,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +1.85% +6.32%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £67,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £82,500
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 South West

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

Critical Thinking job vacancy trend in the South West

Critical Thinking
Salary Trend in the South West

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

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

Critical Thinking
Salary Histogram in the South West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Critical Thinking in the South West over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Critical Thinking in the South West

Critical Thinking
Job Locations in the South 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 South West region over the 6 months to 1 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
Devon 0 3 £46,000 -34.29% 1
Bristol -15 3 £60,000 -9.43% 3
Gloucestershire +19 2 £60,000 -25.00% 2
Critical Thinking
England

Critical Thinking
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South 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:

Application Platforms
1 1 (12.50%) BizTalk Server
Cloud Services
1 4 (50.00%) Azure
2 3 (37.50%) AWS
3 2 (25.00%) Azure App Service
3 2 (25.00%) Entra ID
3 2 (25.00%) Serverless
4 1 (12.50%) Azure Logic Apps
4 1 (12.50%) Boomi
4 1 (12.50%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 1 (12.50%) Internet
General
1 6 (75.00%) Analytical Skills
2 2 (25.00%) Social Skills
3 1 (12.50%) Retail
Job Titles
1 3 (37.50%) Developer
1 3 (37.50%) Senior
1 3 (37.50%) Senior Software Engineer
1 3 (37.50%) Software Engineer
2 2 (25.00%) Software Developer
3 1 (12.50%) Administrator
3 1 (12.50%) Data Integration Developer
3 1 (12.50%) ICT Manager
3 1 (12.50%) Integration Developer
3 1 (12.50%) Middleware Developer
3 1 (12.50%) Service Manager
3 1 (12.50%) Systems Manager
3 1 (12.50%) Virtualisation Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (25.00%) .NET
1 2 (25.00%) .NET Core
1 2 (25.00%) Blazor
2 1 (12.50%) .NET Framework
2 1 (12.50%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 3 (37.50%) Self-Motivation
2 2 (25.00%) Analytical Mindset
3 1 (12.50%) Public Cloud
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (87.50%) Problem-Solving
2 3 (37.50%) Software Engineering
3 2 (25.00%) Application Security
3 2 (25.00%) B2B
3 2 (25.00%) CI/CD
3 2 (25.00%) Clean Code
3 2 (25.00%) Continuous Improvement
3 2 (25.00%) DevOps
3 2 (25.00%) OWASP
3 2 (25.00%) Roadmaps
3 2 (25.00%) SDLC
4 1 (12.50%) API Management
4 1 (12.50%) CAD
4 1 (12.50%) Collaborative Culture
4 1 (12.50%) Customer Service
4 1 (12.50%) Data Analysis
4 1 (12.50%) Decision-Making
4 1 (12.50%) ITIL
4 1 (12.50%) PRINCE2
4 1 (12.50%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 3 (37.50%) SQL
2 1 (12.50%) C#
2 1 (12.50%) PowerShell
2 1 (12.50%) Python
Qualifications
1 4 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 1 (12.50%) AWS Certification
2 1 (12.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
2 1 (12.50%) CCNA
2 1 (12.50%) Cisco Certification
2 1 (12.50%) CompTIA Security+
2 1 (12.50%) Degree
2 1 (12.50%) DV Cleared
2 1 (12.50%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (12.50%) GDPR
System Software
1 1 (12.50%) Active Directory
1 1 (12.50%) Hyper-V
1 1 (12.50%) KVM
1 1 (12.50%) VMware Infrastructure
1 1 (12.50%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 1 (12.50%) Ansible
1 1 (12.50%) Terraform
Vendors
1 2 (25.00%) Microsoft
2 1 (12.50%) Cisco
2 1 (12.50%) Google
2 1 (12.50%) MuleSoft
2 1 (12.50%) VMware