Strategic Thinking Job Trends in the South West

Strategic Thinking
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Strategic Thinking skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 31 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 134 136 192
Rank change year-on-year +2 +56 +62
Permanent jobs citing Strategic Thinking 50 64 28
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 1.00% 1.48% 0.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.37% 1.75% 0.70%
Number of salaries quoted 38 38 20
10th Percentile £50,125 £51,476 £39,748
25th Percentile £68,894 £54,439 £46,176
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £56,810 £59,778
Median % change year-on-year +32.02% -4.96% -8.03%
75th Percentile £80,000 £72,500 £68,733
90th Percentile £83,250 £93,750 £82,875
England median annual salary £75,000 £67,500 £70,000
% change year-on-year +11.11% -3.57% -3.45%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South West

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 the South West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 3,638 3,658 3,989
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 72.60% 84.34% 91.34%
Number of salaries quoted 2,464 1,879 3,024
10th Percentile £27,750 £30,000 £31,000
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% +7.49%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £67,781
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%

Strategic Thinking
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Strategic Thinking job vacancy trend in the South West

Strategic Thinking
Salary Trend in the South West

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

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

Strategic Thinking
Salary Histogram in the South West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Strategic Thinking in the South West over the 6 months to 31 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Strategic Thinking in the South West

Strategic 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 Strategic Thinking within the South West region over the 6 months to 31 December 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Bristol +15 21 £70,000 +57.30% 29
Dorset +8 21 £75,000 +37.77% 13
Wiltshire +8 4 £74,683 -19.26% 10
Devon +4 2 £110,000 +62.96% 20
Somerset -19 2 £57,110 +0.53% 10
Strategic Thinking
England

Strategic 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:

Cloud Services
1 4 (8.00%) Power Platform
1 4 (8.00%) SaaS
2 3 (6.00%) Azure
3 1 (2.00%) AWS
3 1 (2.00%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (8.00%) Unified Communications
2 2 (4.00%) BGP
2 2 (4.00%) Firewall
2 2 (4.00%) Network Security
2 2 (4.00%) OSPF
2 2 (4.00%) SNMP
2 2 (4.00%) SSH
2 2 (4.00%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (8.00%) Power BI
2 2 (4.00%) Tableau
3 1 (2.00%) Metadata
3 1 (2.00%) Power Query
General
1 33 (66.00%) Social Skills
2 21 (42.00%) Local Government
3 8 (16.00%) Finance
4 6 (12.00%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (10.00%) Presentation Skills
6 4 (8.00%) Retail
7 2 (4.00%) Games
7 2 (4.00%) Legal
7 2 (4.00%) Marketing
7 2 (4.00%) Police
7 2 (4.00%) Public Sector
8 1 (2.00%) Banking
8 1 (2.00%) Financial Institution
8 1 (2.00%) Humanities
8 1 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (2.00%) Law
8 1 (2.00%) Manufacturing
8 1 (2.00%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 21 (42.00%) Technical Director
2 7 (14.00%) Architect
3 6 (12.00%) Senior
4 4 (8.00%) Consultant
4 4 (8.00%) Lead
5 3 (6.00%) Head of Design
5 3 (6.00%) Recruitment Consultant
5 3 (6.00%) Senior Manager
5 3 (6.00%) Solutions Architect
5 3 (6.00%) Trainee
5 3 (6.00%) Trainee Consultant
5 3 (6.00%) Trainee Recruitment Consultant
6 2 (4.00%) Enterprise Architect
6 2 (4.00%) Enterprise Information Architect
6 2 (4.00%) Enterprise Security Architect
6 2 (4.00%) Information Architect
6 2 (4.00%) Information Security Architect
6 2 (4.00%) Security Architect
6 2 (4.00%) Senior Architect
6 2 (4.00%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (6.00%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 2 (4.00%) Driving Licence
1 2 (4.00%) Self-Motivation
1 2 (4.00%) Virtual Team
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (52.00%) Project Management
2 25 (50.00%) Business Strategy
3 24 (48.00%) Due Diligence
4 23 (46.00%) Collaborative Working
5 21 (42.00%) Feasibility Study
5 21 (42.00%) Risk Management
6 11 (22.00%) AI
7 9 (18.00%) Decision-Making
8 8 (16.00%) Problem-Solving
9 7 (14.00%) Analytics
10 6 (12.00%) Business Development
10 6 (12.00%) Continuous Improvement
10 6 (12.00%) Customer Experience
10 6 (12.00%) Mentoring
11 5 (10.00%) Collaborative Culture
11 5 (10.00%) Cost Reduction
11 5 (10.00%) Service Delivery
11 5 (10.00%) Stakeholder Management
12 4 (8.00%) Business Intelligence
12 4 (8.00%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 2 (4.00%) SQL
2 1 (2.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
2 1 (2.00%) Python
2 1 (2.00%) R
2 1 (2.00%) VBA
Qualifications
1 27 (54.00%) Degree
2 3 (6.00%) TOGAF Certification
3 2 (4.00%) CISM
3 2 (4.00%) CISSP
3 2 (4.00%) DBS Check
3 2 (4.00%) PMI Certification
3 2 (4.00%) PMP
4 1 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (2.00%) DV Cleared
4 1 (2.00%) Numerate Degree
4 1 (2.00%) SC Cleared
4 1 (2.00%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (8.00%) Accessibility
2 2 (4.00%) GRC
3 1 (2.00%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (2.00%) Data Quality
Vendors
1 3 (6.00%) Oracle
2 2 (4.00%) Anaplan
2 2 (4.00%) CheckPoint
2 2 (4.00%) Cisco
2 2 (4.00%) Genesys
2 2 (4.00%) ServiceNow
2 2 (4.00%) SolarWinds
2 2 (4.00%) Verint
3 1 (2.00%) Databricks
3 1 (2.00%) Microsoft