Data Strategy Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Data Strategy
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Data Strategy skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 355 329 309
Rank change year-on-year -26 -20 +42
Permanent jobs citing Data Strategy 338 249 418
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.43% 0.72% 0.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.61% 0.82% 0.90%
Number of salaries quoted 245 113 247
10th Percentile £46,250 £47,350 £44,863
25th Percentile £58,750 £56,250 £60,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £70,000 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -6.67% +14.77%
75th Percentile £90,000 £87,500 £97,500
90th Percentile £112,500 £105,000 £110,000
UK median annual salary £80,000 £85,000 £85,000
% change year-on-year -5.88% - +13.33%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Data Strategy 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 UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 55,038 30,334 46,537
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.39% 87.27% 78.38%
Number of salaries quoted 38,742 16,516 29,114
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £86,250 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%

Data Strategy
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Data Strategy relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Data Strategy job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Data Strategy
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Data Strategy.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Data Strategy

Data Strategy
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Data Strategy in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 18 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Data Strategy in the UK excluding London

Data Strategy
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Data Strategy within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 18 August 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
North of England +23 109 £70,000 -1.75% 29
South East -76 63 £75,000 -9.09% 33
North West +39 58 £70,000 -1.75% 18
Midlands -9 57 £70,000 +7.69% 5
South West -37 53 £80,000 - 14
West Midlands 0 37 £69,973 -0.04% 2
Scotland +10 29 £100,000 +45.45% 6
Yorkshire -27 26 £60,000 -11.76% 9
North East -41 25 £85,000 -15.00% 2
East of England -17 23 £86,725 +65.19% 2
East Midlands -23 20 £70,000 +7.69% 3
Wales -58 6 £47,500 -20.17% 2
Data Strategy
UK

Data Strategy
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 17 (5.03%) Apache
2 11 (3.25%) Apache Spark
3 10 (2.96%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.89%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.59%) IIS
6 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 12 (3.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.89%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 7 (2.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.59%) Workday HCM
3 1 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.30%) Dynamics GP
3 1 (0.30%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 94 (27.81%) Azure
2 76 (22.49%) Power Platform
3 52 (15.38%) AWS
4 31 (9.17%) GCP
5 28 (8.28%) Azure Data Factory
6 21 (6.21%) Snowflake
7 18 (5.33%) Microsoft Purview
8 17 (5.03%) dbt
9 14 (4.14%) GitHub
10 13 (3.85%) GitHub Actions
11 12 (3.55%) Serverless
12 10 (2.96%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (2.96%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 9 (2.66%) Collibra
14 8 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
15 7 (2.07%) Amazon S3
15 7 (2.07%) Dataform
15 7 (2.07%) Google Analytics
15 7 (2.07%) Google Tag Manager
16 5 (1.48%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.18%) Broadband
2 2 (0.59%) MQTT
3 1 (0.30%) ATM
3 1 (0.30%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (22.49%) Power BI
2 43 (12.72%) Metadata
3 38 (11.24%) Data Warehouse
4 35 (10.36%) Data Lake
5 25 (7.40%) Tableau
6 18 (5.33%) Looker
7 15 (4.44%) BigQuery
7 15 (4.44%) NoSQL
7 15 (4.44%) SQL Server
8 12 (3.55%) MongoDB
9 11 (3.25%) Semantic Layer
10 9 (2.66%) Amazon Redshift
10 9 (2.66%) Azure SQL Database
11 7 (2.07%) PostgreSQL
11 7 (2.07%) Power Query
12 6 (1.78%) Delta Lake
12 6 (1.78%) Metabase
12 6 (1.78%) QlikView
12 6 (1.78%) Relational Database
13 5 (1.48%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 11 (3.25%) Jenkins
2 8 (2.37%) Git
3 7 (2.07%) JIRA
4 6 (1.78%) GitLab
5 4 (1.18%) Cypress.io
5 4 (1.18%) ERwin
5 4 (1.18%) Postman
5 4 (1.18%) REST Assured
5 4 (1.18%) Selenium
5 4 (1.18%) Zephyr
6 3 (0.89%) JUnit
6 3 (0.89%) MLflow
6 3 (0.89%) Newman
6 3 (0.89%) TestRail
7 1 (0.30%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.30%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.30%) ER Studio
7 1 (0.30%) Gatling
7 1 (0.30%) JMeter
7 1 (0.30%) Pa11y
General
1 80 (23.67%) Social Skills
2 74 (21.89%) Analytical Skills
3 58 (17.16%) Public Sector
4 57 (16.86%) Finance
5 39 (11.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 25 (7.40%) Influencing Skills
7 23 (6.80%) Manufacturing
8 17 (5.03%) Marketing
9 16 (4.73%) Retail
10 14 (4.14%) Law
11 13 (3.85%) Pharmaceutical
12 11 (3.25%) Legal
13 7 (2.07%) Aerospace
14 4 (1.18%) Automotive
14 4 (1.18%) Fire and Rescue
14 4 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
15 3 (0.89%) Advertising
15 3 (0.89%) Banking
15 3 (0.89%) Local Government
15 3 (0.89%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 115 (34.02%) Architect
2 110 (32.54%) Data Architect
3 58 (17.16%) Data Engineer
4 55 (16.27%) Senior
5 48 (14.20%) Lead
6 35 (10.36%) Data Manager
7 19 (5.62%) Senior Architect
7 19 (5.62%) Senior Data Architect
8 18 (5.33%) Lead Architect
8 18 (5.33%) Lead Data Architect
9 15 (4.44%) Analyst
9 15 (4.44%) Business Intelligence Manager
10 14 (4.14%) Consultant
10 14 (4.14%) Data Consultant
11 13 (3.85%) Technology Director
12 12 (3.55%) Data Analyst
12 12 (3.55%) Data Governance Analyst
12 12 (3.55%) Data Governance Manager
12 12 (3.55%) Governance Manager
12 12 (3.55%) Senior Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (3.25%) Kafka
2 10 (2.96%) Apache NiFi
3 8 (2.37%) Node.js
4 7 (2.07%) PySpark
4 7 (2.07%) Spring Boot
5 6 (1.78%) Spring
6 4 (1.18%) Middleware
6 4 (1.18%) Playwright
6 4 (1.18%) Ruby on Rails
7 3 (0.89%) .NET
7 3 (0.89%) Jest
7 3 (0.89%) React
8 2 (0.59%) EDI
8 2 (0.59%) JSON
8 2 (0.59%) pgvector
9 1 (0.30%) GraphQL
9 1 (0.30%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 35 (10.36%) Cloud Native
2 17 (5.03%) Management Information System
3 14 (4.14%) Data Structures
4 10 (2.96%) Marketing Technology
5 6 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (1.78%) Public Cloud
5 6 (1.78%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (1.48%) Algorithms
6 5 (1.48%) Derivative
6 5 (1.48%) Distributed Computing
6 5 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (1.18%) Cyberattack
7 4 (1.18%) Data Centre
7 4 (1.18%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (0.89%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (0.89%) Life Science
8 3 (0.89%) Mainframe
8 3 (0.89%) Reference Data
8 3 (0.89%) Robotics
9 2 (0.59%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 4 (1.18%) Windows
2 2 (0.59%) Linux
2 2 (0.59%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (40.53%) Analytics
1 137 (40.53%) Data Governance
2 135 (39.94%) Data Modelling
3 122 (36.09%) Data Architecture
4 115 (34.02%) AI
5 98 (28.99%) Business Intelligence
6 96 (28.40%) Roadmaps
7 94 (27.81%) Decision-Making
8 87 (25.74%) Data Engineering
9 65 (19.23%) Agile
10 63 (18.64%) ETL
11 58 (17.16%) Mentoring
12 53 (15.68%) Data Integration
13 52 (15.38%) Data Pipeline
14 50 (14.79%) Data Management
15 45 (13.31%) Problem-Solving
15 45 (13.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 45 (13.31%) Stakeholder Management
16 44 (13.02%) Machine Learning
17 42 (12.43%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 93 (27.51%) SQL
2 63 (18.64%) Python
3 15 (4.44%) Java
4 13 (3.85%) R
5 10 (2.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 8 (2.37%) Groovy
7 6 (1.78%) Julia
8 4 (1.18%) Ruby
8 4 (1.18%) T-SQL
9 3 (0.89%) Scala
10 2 (0.59%) Bicep
11 1 (0.30%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 51 (15.09%) Degree
2 31 (9.17%) Security Cleared
3 23 (6.80%) DV Cleared
4 20 (5.92%) Computer Science Degree
5 14 (4.14%) SC Cleared
6 12 (3.55%) BPSS Clearance
7 11 (3.25%) Master's Degree
8 9 (2.66%) Azure Certification
8 9 (2.66%) DBS Check
9 7 (2.07%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (1.78%) CIPD
11 4 (1.18%) CITP
11 4 (1.18%) ISTQB
11 4 (1.18%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 4 (1.18%) SAP Certification
11 4 (1.18%) TOGAF Certification
12 3 (0.89%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.89%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 1 (0.30%) PMI Certification
13 1 (0.30%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 104 (30.77%) Data Quality
2 35 (10.36%) GDPR
3 20 (5.92%) Accessibility
4 4 (1.18%) WCAG
5 3 (0.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.89%) QA
6 2 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 2 (0.59%) IFRS
6 2 (0.59%) IFRS 17
6 2 (0.59%) NIST
6 2 (0.59%) PMO
6 2 (0.59%) Solvency II
7 1 (0.30%) GRC
7 1 (0.30%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 1 (0.30%) PERC
7 1 (0.30%) SLA
System Software
1 8 (2.37%) Docker
2 3 (0.89%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 12 (3.55%) Terraform
2 6 (1.78%) Kubernetes
3 5 (1.48%) Ansible
4 3 (0.89%) Argo
4 3 (0.89%) Grafana
4 3 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.89%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 53 (15.68%) Microsoft
2 32 (9.47%) Databricks
3 22 (6.51%) Salesforce
4 11 (3.25%) Oracle
4 11 (3.25%) SAP
5 10 (2.96%) Google
6 8 (2.37%) Informatica
7 6 (1.78%) SYSPRO
8 3 (0.89%) BiZZdesign
8 3 (0.89%) Dynatrace
8 3 (0.89%) Splunk
9 2 (0.59%) Meraki
9 2 (0.59%) OpenAI
9 2 (0.59%) Planon
9 2 (0.59%) Workday
10 1 (0.30%) Infor