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 4 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 290 393 307
Rank change year-on-year +103 -86 -71
Permanent jobs citing Thought Leadership 485 311 729
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.68% 0.68% 0.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.87% 0.73% 1.05%
Number of salaries quoted 166 115 487
10th Percentile £46,375 £53,750 £43,450
25th Percentile £61,250 £72,500 £63,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £90,000 £80,000
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% +12.50% -11.11%
75th Percentile £97,500 £110,000 £100,000
90th Percentile £119,563 £126,500 £120,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £89,500 £79,632
% change year-on-year -21.79% +12.39% -0.46%

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 56,068 42,498 69,118
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.66% 93.26% 87.85%
Number of salaries quoted 33,637 21,727 52,919
10th Percentile £29,087 £32,750 £29,290
25th Percentile £38,750 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,125 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 +74 414 £80,000 -8.05% 351
London +104 263 £86,500 -3.89% 140
UK excluding London +25 158 £70,000 -21.79% 238
Work from Home +32 93 £80,000 -5.88% 164
South East -3 47 £62,500 -12.28% 70
North of England -28 41 £77,500 -4.02% 66
North West -2 33 £72,500 -19.95% 36
East of England +20 31 £60,100 -32.85% 29
Scotland -14 17 £80,000 -20.00% 8
South West -10 10 £53,750 -31.75% 30
Midlands -10 10 £62,500 -16.67% 26
West Midlands +9 6 £75,000 - 16
Yorkshire -38 6 £90,000 +44.00% 24
East Midlands - 4 £50,000 - 10
North East -14 2 - - 6
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 1

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 8 (1.65%) Apache Airflow
2 6 (1.24%) CMS
3 5 (1.03%) IIS
3 5 (1.03%) WordPress
4 2 (0.41%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.41%) Confluence
4 2 (0.41%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.21%) CICS
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.21%) WebSphere
Applications
1 12 (2.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 9 (1.86%) Maya
3 8 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (1.03%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 5 (1.03%) Adobe XD
4 5 (1.03%) InVision
4 5 (1.03%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.03%) Sketch
5 3 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
5 3 (0.62%) Elementor
5 3 (0.62%) Photoshop
6 2 (0.41%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.21%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 14 (2.89%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (1.86%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (1.65%) Endur
4 4 (0.82%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.62%) Elite 3E
5 3 (0.62%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.41%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.41%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.41%) SAP SCM
6 2 (0.41%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.21%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.21%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.21%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.21%) SAP FI/CO
7 1 (0.21%) SAP IBP
7 1 (0.21%) SAP PLM
7 1 (0.21%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 72 (14.85%) AWS
2 55 (11.34%) Azure
3 44 (9.07%) SaaS
4 28 (5.77%) GCP
5 27 (5.57%) Snowflake
6 12 (2.47%) GitHub
7 11 (2.27%) Power Platform
8 10 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (1.86%) Cloud Computing
10 8 (1.65%) dbt
11 6 (1.24%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (1.24%) Matillion
11 6 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
11 6 (1.24%) OCI
11 6 (1.24%) SuccessFactors
12 5 (1.03%) Figma
12 5 (1.03%) Google Ads
13 4 (0.82%) Alation
13 4 (0.82%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.65%) Firewall
2 4 (0.82%) Intrusion Detection
2 4 (0.82%) Network Security
2 4 (0.82%) WAN
3 3 (0.62%) SD-WAN
3 3 (0.62%) Wireless
4 2 (0.41%) Cisco ISE
4 2 (0.41%) LAN
4 2 (0.41%) Tactical Data Link
4 2 (0.41%) WebEx
4 2 (0.41%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (0.21%) BGP
5 1 (0.21%) Broadband
5 1 (0.21%) MPLS
5 1 (0.21%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (4.12%) Data Warehouse
2 18 (3.71%) NoSQL
3 10 (2.06%) Big Data
3 10 (2.06%) Tableau
4 9 (1.86%) Data Lake
4 9 (1.86%) Power BI
5 7 (1.44%) Hadoop
5 7 (1.44%) Metadata
6 6 (1.24%) BigQuery
7 5 (1.03%) Data Mining
8 4 (0.82%) DataStage
8 4 (0.82%) QlikView
8 4 (0.82%) SAP HANA
9 2 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.41%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.41%) Looker
9 2 (0.41%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.41%) SAP Data Services
9 2 (0.41%) SQL Server
10 1 (0.21%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 11 (2.27%) ERwin
2 6 (1.24%) GitLab
3 5 (1.03%) Axure RP
3 5 (1.03%) Cucumber
3 5 (1.03%) JIRA
3 5 (1.03%) MLflow
4 4 (0.82%) ER Studio
4 4 (0.82%) PowerDesigner
5 1 (0.21%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.21%) Git
5 1 (0.21%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.21%) Selenium
5 1 (0.21%) SonarQube
General
1 193 (39.79%) Finance
2 126 (25.98%) Social Skills
3 100 (20.62%) Analytical Skills
4 88 (18.14%) Marketing
5 57 (11.75%) Public Sector
6 49 (10.10%) Law
7 46 (9.48%) Legal
7 46 (9.48%) Presentation Skills
8 41 (8.45%) Retail
9 34 (7.01%) Pharmaceutical
10 33 (6.80%) Games
11 31 (6.39%) Banking
12 26 (5.36%) Influencing Skills
13 18 (3.71%) Financial Institution
13 18 (3.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 12 (2.47%) Aerospace
15 11 (2.27%) Publishing
16 8 (1.65%) Manufacturing
16 8 (1.65%) Telecoms
17 6 (1.24%) Brand Awareness
Job Titles
1 93 (19.18%) Senior
2 85 (17.53%) Lead
3 73 (15.05%) Architect
4 63 (12.99%) Consultant
5 44 (9.07%) Account Executive
6 31 (6.39%) Sales Executive
7 28 (5.77%) Senior Sales Executive
8 21 (4.33%) Senior Manager
9 20 (4.12%) Business Architect
9 20 (4.12%) Business Development Executive
9 20 (4.12%) Senior Consultant
10 19 (3.92%) Solutions Architect
11 18 (3.71%) Business Sales Executive
11 18 (3.71%) Sales Account Executive
11 18 (3.71%) Senior Account Executive
12 17 (3.51%) Data Architect
12 17 (3.51%) Senior Architect
13 16 (3.30%) Business Consultant
14 14 (2.89%) Business Manager
14 14 (2.89%) Marketing Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (2.27%) REST
1 11 (2.27%) Spring
1 11 (2.27%) Spring Boot
2 9 (1.86%) React
3 7 (1.44%) CSS
3 7 (1.44%) HTML
4 6 (1.24%) Kafka
4 6 (1.24%) SOAP
5 5 (1.03%) OAuth
5 5 (1.03%) OAuth2
5 5 (1.03%) Play Framework
5 5 (1.03%) PyTorch
5 5 (1.03%) TensorFlow
6 3 (0.62%) .NET
6 3 (0.62%) AngularJS
6 3 (0.62%) Flutter
6 3 (0.62%) Oracle Fusion
7 2 (0.41%) ASP.NET
7 2 (0.41%) Middleware
7 2 (0.41%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 41 (8.45%) Life Science
2 33 (6.80%) Self-Motivation
3 29 (5.98%) Enterprise Software
4 26 (5.36%) Blog
5 22 (4.54%) Cloud Native
6 20 (4.12%) Algorithms
7 16 (3.30%) Onboarding
7 16 (3.30%) Social Media
8 15 (3.09%) Management Information System
9 13 (2.68%) Product Ownership
9 13 (2.68%) Web Conferencing
10 12 (2.47%) Data Structures
11 11 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
12 10 (2.06%) AI Agents
12 10 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
13 9 (1.86%) Credit Risk
13 9 (1.86%) e-Learning
14 8 (1.65%) NHS
14 8 (1.65%) Podcast
15 7 (1.44%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 2 (0.41%) Windows
2 1 (0.21%) Android
2 1 (0.21%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.21%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (35.26%) AI
2 138 (28.45%) Analytics
3 129 (26.60%) Roadmaps
4 124 (25.57%) Business Development
4 124 (25.57%) Decision-Making
5 116 (23.92%) Agile
6 89 (18.35%) Mentoring
7 78 (16.08%) Business Strategy
8 75 (15.46%) Problem-Solving
9 73 (15.05%) Stakeholder Management
10 65 (13.40%) Computer Science
10 65 (13.40%) Generative AI
11 61 (12.58%) B2B
12 60 (12.37%) Cybersecurity
12 60 (12.37%) Machine Learning
13 59 (12.16%) Data Science
14 57 (11.75%) Workshop Facilitation
15 53 (10.93%) Strategic Thinking
16 50 (10.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 50 (10.31%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 36 (7.42%) Python
2 25 (5.15%) SQL
3 24 (4.95%) Java
4 11 (2.27%) JavaScript
5 6 (1.24%) C#
5 6 (1.24%) R
6 5 (1.03%) Kotlin
6 5 (1.03%) PowerShell
6 5 (1.03%) Scala
7 3 (0.62%) Go
8 1 (0.21%) ABAP
8 1 (0.21%) Bash
8 1 (0.21%) Ruby
8 1 (0.21%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 139 (28.66%) Degree
2 65 (13.40%) Master's Degree
3 50 (10.31%) Security Cleared
4 43 (8.87%) PhD
5 32 (6.60%) SC Cleared
6 22 (4.54%) Computer Science Degree
7 15 (3.09%) CISSP
8 14 (2.89%) CISM
9 12 (2.47%) DBS Check
10 10 (2.06%) PMI Certification
10 10 (2.06%) PMP
11 9 (1.86%) AWS Certification
12 8 (1.65%) Azure Certification
12 8 (1.65%) MBA
13 6 (1.24%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 6 (1.24%) DV Cleared
13 6 (1.24%) TOGAF Certification
14 5 (1.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 5 (1.03%) CRISC
14 5 (1.03%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (5.57%) GxP
2 19 (3.92%) Accessibility
3 14 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 12 (2.47%) NIST
4 12 (2.47%) QA
5 11 (2.27%) GRC
6 10 (2.06%) GDPR
6 10 (2.06%) PMO
7 9 (1.86%) Data Quality
8 8 (1.65%) EMIR
9 6 (1.24%) Actionable Recommendations
9 6 (1.24%) WCAG
10 5 (1.03%) JSP 440
11 4 (0.82%) EU AI Act
11 4 (0.82%) Government Security Classifications
11 4 (0.82%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 4 (0.82%) SLA
12 2 (0.41%) NCSC
12 2 (0.41%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.41%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 4 (0.82%) Docker
2 3 (0.62%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.21%) RACF
Systems Management
1 16 (3.30%) Terraform
2 5 (1.03%) Kubernetes
3 3 (0.62%) Ansible
3 3 (0.62%) Grafana
4 2 (0.41%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
4 2 (0.41%) RSA Archer
5 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.21%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 46 (9.48%) Dell
2 31 (6.39%) SAP
3 29 (5.98%) Microsoft
4 21 (4.33%) Google
4 21 (4.33%) Oracle
5 19 (3.92%) Databricks
6 14 (2.89%) HubSpot
7 13 (2.68%) ServiceNow
8 11 (2.27%) Salesforce
9 10 (2.06%) Adobe
9 10 (2.06%) IBM
10 8 (1.65%) Informatica
10 8 (1.65%) OpenLink
11 6 (1.24%) Cognizant
11 6 (1.24%) Workday
12 5 (1.03%) BT
13 4 (0.82%) Denodo
13 4 (0.82%) Teradata
14 3 (0.62%) Instagram
14 3 (0.62%) OpenAI