Thought Leadership Job Trends

Thought Leadership
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Thought Leadership skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 286 289 345
Rank change year-on-year +3 +56 -83
Permanent jobs citing Thought Leadership 544 429 750
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.66% 1.05% 0.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.86% 1.13% 0.94%
Number of salaries quoted 197 140 492
10th Percentile £39,400 £47,250 £42,550
25th Percentile £61,250 £68,438 £60,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £87,500 £80,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.57% +9.38% -6.43%
75th Percentile £97,500 £110,000 £100,064
90th Percentile £116,000 £130,125 £130,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £87,500 £80,000
% change year-on-year -20.00% +9.38% +3.23%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Thought Leadership 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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 63,076 38,012 79,454
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 76.08% 92.99% 86.12%
Number of salaries quoted 38,955 22,518 58,781
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,035
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -7.41% +8.00% -8.26%

Thought Leadership
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Thought Leadership relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Thought Leadership job vacancy trend in the UK

Thought Leadership
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Thought Leadership.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Thought Leadership

Thought Leadership
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Thought Leadership over the 6 months to 9 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Thought Leadership in the UK

Thought Leadership
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Thought Leadership within the UK over the 6 months to 9 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
England -5 478 £80,000 -8.57% 403
London +46 310 £85,000 -5.56% 243
UK excluding London -87 170 £70,000 -20.00% 286
Work from Home -7 105 £68,750 -23.18% 124
North of England -84 48 £80,000 -15.47% 54
East of England +10 44 £70,000 -28.02% 9
South East -70 43 £47,500 -33.33% 157
North West -43 37 £80,000 -15.47% 26
Scotland -19 12 £80,000 -20.00% 11
Midlands -44 11 £72,500 -3.33% 30
South West -26 9 £56,000 -37.78% 22
Yorkshire -58 9 £90,000 +20.00% 21
West Midlands -28 8 £75,000 - 25
East Midlands - 3 £50,000 - 5
Wales - 3 £55,000 - 3
North East -33 2 - - 8

Thought Leadership
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 10 (1.84%) Palantir Foundry
2 8 (1.47%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (1.10%) IIS
4 5 (0.92%) CMS
5 4 (0.74%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (0.74%) WordPress
6 3 (0.55%) Confluence
7 1 (0.18%) Apache
7 1 (0.18%) Drupal
7 1 (0.18%) nginx
7 1 (0.18%) SharePoint
Applications
1 14 (2.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 8 (1.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.92%) Adobe XD
3 5 (0.92%) InVision
3 5 (0.92%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.92%) Sketch
4 4 (0.74%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 4 (0.74%) Maya
5 2 (0.37%) Adobe Illustrator
5 2 (0.37%) Elementor
5 2 (0.37%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.37%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.18%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.18%) Trello
Business Applications
1 16 (2.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.55%) Elite 3E
3 3 (0.55%) SAP MDG
4 2 (0.37%) SAP SCM
4 2 (0.37%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.18%) Distributed Ledger
5 1 (0.18%) Endur
5 1 (0.18%) Magento
5 1 (0.18%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.18%) SAP CO
5 1 (0.18%) SAP FI
5 1 (0.18%) SAP IBP
5 1 (0.18%) SAP MDG-F
5 1 (0.18%) SAP MDG-M
5 1 (0.18%) SAP MDG-S
5 1 (0.18%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.18%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 87 (15.99%) AWS
2 61 (11.21%) Azure
3 46 (8.46%) SaaS
4 43 (7.90%) GCP
5 42 (7.72%) Snowflake
6 10 (1.84%) AWS CloudFormation
7 9 (1.65%) Cloud Computing
7 9 (1.65%) Serverless
8 8 (1.47%) GitHub
8 8 (1.47%) Power Platform
9 7 (1.29%) Dynamics 365
9 7 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
10 6 (1.10%) Azure AI
10 6 (1.10%) dbt
10 6 (1.10%) OCI
11 5 (0.92%) Azure Machine Learning
11 5 (0.92%) Figma
11 5 (0.92%) Matillion
11 5 (0.92%) Microsoft 365
12 4 (0.74%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 13 (2.39%) Firewall
2 7 (1.29%) Intrusion Detection
2 7 (1.29%) Network Security
3 4 (0.74%) SD-WAN
3 4 (0.74%) WAN
3 4 (0.74%) Wireless
4 3 (0.55%) Cisco ISE
4 3 (0.55%) WebEx
4 3 (0.55%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (0.37%) Broadband
5 2 (0.37%) Cisco IPT
5 2 (0.37%) LAN
5 2 (0.37%) SSL
5 2 (0.37%) Tactical Data Link
6 1 (0.18%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.18%) Cisco Wireless
6 1 (0.18%) LoRaWAN
6 1 (0.18%) WLAN
6 1 (0.18%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (6.25%) Data Warehouse
2 29 (5.33%) Data Lake
3 13 (2.39%) NoSQL
4 8 (1.47%) Tableau
5 7 (1.29%) Big Data
6 6 (1.10%) Hadoop
6 6 (1.10%) Metadata
6 6 (1.10%) Power BI
7 5 (0.92%) Data Mining
8 4 (0.74%) SAP HANA
9 3 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.55%) BigQuery
9 3 (0.55%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.37%) Looker
10 2 (0.37%) SAP Data Services
10 2 (0.37%) Semantic Layer
10 2 (0.37%) SQL Server
11 1 (0.18%) MongoDB
11 1 (0.18%) SAP BW
11 1 (0.18%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 7 (1.29%) GitLab
2 6 (1.10%) Cucumber
2 6 (1.10%) MLflow
3 5 (0.92%) Axure RP
4 4 (0.74%) Git
4 4 (0.74%) JIRA
5 3 (0.55%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.18%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.18%) ER Studio
6 1 (0.18%) ERwin
6 1 (0.18%) Gatling
6 1 (0.18%) JMeter
6 1 (0.18%) PowerDesigner
6 1 (0.18%) rollup.js
6 1 (0.18%) Selenium
6 1 (0.18%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.18%) Vagrant
General
1 185 (34.01%) Finance
2 130 (23.90%) Social Skills
3 91 (16.73%) Analytical Skills
4 90 (16.54%) Marketing
5 67 (12.32%) Presentation Skills
5 67 (12.32%) Public Sector
6 49 (9.01%) Retail
7 36 (6.62%) Legal
8 30 (5.51%) Influencing Skills
9 28 (5.15%) Banking
9 28 (5.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 27 (4.96%) Pharmaceutical
11 26 (4.78%) Law
12 20 (3.68%) Financial Institution
13 17 (3.13%) Games
14 16 (2.94%) Aerospace
15 13 (2.39%) Brand Awareness
16 11 (2.02%) Manufacturing
17 10 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
18 9 (1.65%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 131 (24.08%) Senior
2 81 (14.89%) Architect
3 78 (14.34%) Consultant
4 66 (12.13%) Lead
5 61 (11.21%) Account Executive
6 60 (11.03%) Sales Executive
7 42 (7.72%) Senior Sales Executive
8 38 (6.99%) Business Development Executive
9 34 (6.25%) Senior Account Executive
10 33 (6.07%) Business Sales Executive
10 33 (6.07%) Sales Account Executive
11 28 (5.15%) Business Architect
11 28 (5.15%) Senior Manager
12 26 (4.78%) Product Specialist
13 25 (4.60%) Senior Architect
14 24 (4.41%) Data Management Specialist
14 24 (4.41%) Senior Consultant
15 22 (4.04%) Business Consultant
16 19 (3.49%) Business Manager
16 19 (3.49%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (2.39%) Kafka
2 12 (2.21%) Spring
2 12 (2.21%) Spring Boot
3 7 (1.29%) CSS
3 7 (1.29%) HTML
4 6 (1.10%) REST
4 6 (1.10%) SOAP
5 5 (0.92%) OAuth
5 5 (0.92%) OAuth2
5 5 (0.92%) Play Framework
5 5 (0.92%) PyTorch
5 5 (0.92%) React
5 5 (0.92%) TensorFlow
6 4 (0.74%) Flutter
6 4 (0.74%) LangChain
6 4 (0.74%) XML
7 3 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
7 3 (0.55%) PySpark
7 3 (0.55%) VML
8 2 (0.37%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 34 (6.25%) Life Science
2 30 (5.51%) Cloud Native
3 29 (5.33%) Blog
4 26 (4.78%) Enterprise Software
5 22 (4.04%) Self-Motivation
6 15 (2.76%) AI Agents
7 14 (2.57%) Management Information System
8 13 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
8 13 (2.39%) e-Learning
8 13 (2.39%) Onboarding
8 13 (2.39%) Social Media
8 13 (2.39%) Web Conferencing
9 12 (2.21%) Product Ownership
10 11 (2.02%) Podcast
11 10 (1.84%) Algorithms
12 9 (1.65%) Data Fabric
13 8 (1.47%) Security Posture
13 8 (1.47%) Virtual Team
14 7 (1.29%) Legacy Applications
14 7 (1.29%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 3 (0.55%) Windows
2 2 (0.37%) Linux
3 1 (0.18%) Android
3 1 (0.18%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.18%) VMS
3 1 (0.18%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 184 (33.82%) AI
2 164 (30.15%) Decision-Making
3 160 (29.41%) Business Development
4 127 (23.35%) Analytics
5 112 (20.59%) Roadmaps
6 106 (19.49%) Mentoring
7 103 (18.93%) Agile
8 75 (13.79%) Business Strategy
8 75 (13.79%) Workshop Facilitation
9 74 (13.60%) Problem-Solving
10 65 (11.95%) Stakeholder Management
11 64 (11.76%) Cybersecurity
11 64 (11.76%) Strategic Thinking
12 63 (11.58%) Use Case
13 60 (11.03%) B2B
14 57 (10.48%) Data Science
14 57 (10.48%) Generative AI
15 55 (10.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 53 (9.74%) Machine Learning
17 49 (9.01%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 38 (6.99%) Python
2 36 (6.62%) Java
3 22 (4.04%) SQL
4 7 (1.29%) R
5 6 (1.10%) JavaScript
6 5 (0.92%) C#
6 5 (0.92%) Kotlin
6 5 (0.92%) Scala
7 4 (0.74%) Go
8 3 (0.55%) PowerShell
9 1 (0.18%) ABAP
9 1 (0.18%) Bash
9 1 (0.18%) PHP
9 1 (0.18%) Ruby
9 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 158 (29.04%) Degree
2 65 (11.95%) Security Cleared
3 42 (7.72%) SC Cleared
4 41 (7.54%) Master's Degree
5 24 (4.41%) PhD
6 20 (3.68%) CISSP
7 18 (3.31%) CISM
8 15 (2.76%) Azure Certification
9 13 (2.39%) AWS Certification
10 11 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
11 10 (1.84%) DBS Check
11 10 (1.84%) DV Cleared
12 9 (1.65%) CRISC
12 9 (1.65%) MBA
13 8 (1.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 7 (1.29%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 7 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
14 7 (1.29%) GSEC
14 7 (1.29%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
15 6 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (4.60%) Accessibility
2 24 (4.41%) GRC
3 19 (3.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 19 (3.49%) NIST
4 18 (3.31%) GxP
5 11 (2.02%) Data Quality
5 11 (2.02%) QA
6 9 (1.65%) EU AI Act
6 9 (1.65%) JSP 440
7 7 (1.29%) GDPR
7 7 (1.29%) Government Security Classifications
7 7 (1.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 6 (1.10%) Actionable Recommendations
9 5 (0.92%) SLA
9 5 (0.92%) WCAG
10 3 (0.55%) IFRS
10 3 (0.55%) NCSC
10 3 (0.55%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.37%) NIST 800
System Software
1 9 (1.65%) Docker
2 4 (0.74%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 15 (2.76%) Terraform
2 13 (2.39%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.65%) Ansible
4 5 (0.92%) Puppet
5 3 (0.55%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.37%) Argo
6 2 (0.37%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 2 (0.37%) RSA Archer
6 2 (0.37%) Salt
7 1 (0.18%) Consul
7 1 (0.18%) Grafana
7 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.18%) Packer
Vendors
1 96 (17.65%) Dell
2 38 (6.99%) Databricks
3 37 (6.80%) SAP
4 35 (6.43%) Microsoft
5 26 (4.78%) Informatica
6 25 (4.60%) Google
7 24 (4.41%) Denodo
7 24 (4.41%) Teradata
8 20 (3.68%) Oracle
9 18 (3.31%) ServiceNow
10 17 (3.13%) Salesforce
11 13 (2.39%) HubSpot
12 12 (2.21%) Cognizant
13 11 (2.02%) Foundry
14 10 (1.84%) Palantir
15 9 (1.65%) Adobe
16 7 (1.29%) Workday
17 6 (1.10%) IBM
17 6 (1.10%) OpenAI
18 5 (0.92%) BT