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 27 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 283 395 300
Rank change year-on-year +112 -95 -64
Permanent jobs citing Thought Leadership 484 308 726
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.69% 0.65% 0.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.88% 0.70% 1.09%
Number of salaries quoted 162 112 481
10th Percentile £45,475 £56,250 £45,000
25th Percentile £61,250 £72,500 £63,750
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 £119,613 £121,125 £120,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £89,500 £79,632
% change year-on-year -21.79% +12.39% +0.80%

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 55,039 44,035 66,669
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.92% 92.97% 88.39%
Number of salaries quoted 32,968 22,033 51,326
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,750 £29,487
25th Percentile £38,541 £45,651 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,001 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £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 27 February 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 27 February 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 +108 412 £80,000 -7.51% 173
London +90 262 £86,500 -3.89% 97
UK excluding London +22 157 £70,000 -21.79% 152
Work from Home +37 91 £80,000 -5.14% 60
South East +13 47 £62,500 -12.28% 77
North of England -11 41 £75,000 - 38
North West +1 34 £70,000 -19.08% 18
East of England +22 31 £60,100 -32.85% 4
Scotland -24 17 £80,000 -20.00% 5
South West +2 10 £53,750 -31.75% 14
Midlands -1 9 £75,000 - 14
West Midlands +11 6 £75,000 - 8
Yorkshire -37 5 £90,000 +44.00% 13
East Midlands - 3 £50,000 - 6
North East -5 2 - - 7
Northern Ireland - 2 - -

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%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.41%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.21%) CICS
5 1 (0.21%) WebSphere
Applications
1 11 (2.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 10 (2.07%) Maya
3 8 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
4 6 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
5 5 (1.03%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 5 (1.03%) Adobe XD
5 5 (1.03%) InVision
5 5 (1.03%) Sketch
6 4 (0.83%) Photoshop
7 3 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
7 3 (0.62%) Elementor
8 2 (0.41%) MS Visio
9 1 (0.21%) Chatbot
9 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 (0.83%) 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 75 (15.50%) AWS
2 57 (11.78%) Azure
3 41 (8.47%) SaaS
4 29 (5.99%) GCP
5 27 (5.58%) Snowflake
6 12 (2.48%) GitHub
7 11 (2.27%) Power Platform
8 10 (2.07%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (1.86%) Cloud Computing
10 8 (1.65%) dbt
11 7 (1.45%) OCI
12 6 (1.24%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.24%) Matillion
12 6 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
12 6 (1.24%) SuccessFactors
13 5 (1.03%) Figma
13 5 (1.03%) Google Ads
14 4 (0.83%) Alation
14 4 (0.83%) Cloud Composer
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.65%) Firewall
2 4 (0.83%) Intrusion Detection
2 4 (0.83%) Network Security
2 4 (0.83%) 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 21 (4.34%) Data Warehouse
2 19 (3.93%) NoSQL
3 10 (2.07%) Big Data
3 10 (2.07%) Tableau
4 9 (1.86%) Data Lake
4 9 (1.86%) Power BI
5 7 (1.45%) Hadoop
5 7 (1.45%) Metadata
6 6 (1.24%) BigQuery
7 5 (1.03%) Data Mining
8 4 (0.83%) DataStage
8 4 (0.83%) QlikView
8 4 (0.83%) SAP HANA
9 3 (0.62%) MongoDB
9 3 (0.62%) SQL Server
10 2 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.41%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.41%) DynamoDB
10 2 (0.41%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.41%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 13 (2.69%) 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 (0.83%) ER Studio
4 4 (0.83%) 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
1 194 (40.08%) Finance
2 128 (26.45%) Social Skills
3 100 (20.66%) Analytical Skills
4 86 (17.77%) Marketing
5 57 (11.78%) Public Sector
6 51 (10.54%) Law
7 46 (9.50%) Legal
8 44 (9.09%) Presentation Skills
9 40 (8.26%) Retail
10 36 (7.44%) Pharmaceutical
11 34 (7.02%) Games
12 30 (6.20%) Banking
13 25 (5.17%) Influencing Skills
14 17 (3.51%) Financial Institution
14 17 (3.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 12 (2.48%) Aerospace
15 12 (2.48%) Publishing
16 8 (1.65%) Manufacturing
16 8 (1.65%) Telecoms
17 6 (1.24%) Brand Awareness
Job Titles
1 90 (18.60%) Senior
2 88 (18.18%) Lead
3 76 (15.70%) Architect
4 60 (12.40%) Consultant
5 44 (9.09%) Account Executive
6 30 (6.20%) Sales Executive
7 27 (5.58%) Senior Sales Executive
8 20 (4.13%) Business Architect
8 20 (4.13%) Senior Manager
9 19 (3.93%) Business Development Executive
9 19 (3.93%) Data Architect
9 19 (3.93%) Senior Consultant
9 19 (3.93%) Solutions Architect
10 18 (3.72%) Business Sales Executive
10 18 (3.72%) Sales Account Executive
10 18 (3.72%) Senior Account Executive
10 18 (3.72%) Senior Architect
11 15 (3.10%) Business Consultant
11 15 (3.10%) Lead Architect
12 14 (2.89%) Marketing Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (2.48%) REST
1 12 (2.48%) Spring
2 11 (2.27%) Spring Boot
3 9 (1.86%) React
4 7 (1.45%) CSS
4 7 (1.45%) HTML
5 6 (1.24%) Kafka
5 6 (1.24%) OAuth
5 6 (1.24%) SOAP
6 5 (1.03%) OAuth2
6 5 (1.03%) Play Framework
6 5 (1.03%) PyTorch
6 5 (1.03%) TensorFlow
7 4 (0.83%) .NET
7 4 (0.83%) AngularJS
8 3 (0.62%) Oracle Fusion
9 2 (0.41%) .NET Framework
9 2 (0.41%) JSON
9 2 (0.41%) Node.js
9 2 (0.41%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 43 (8.88%) Life Science
2 33 (6.82%) Self-Motivation
3 30 (6.20%) Enterprise Software
4 24 (4.96%) Blog
5 23 (4.75%) Cloud Native
6 20 (4.13%) Algorithms
7 16 (3.31%) Management Information System
8 15 (3.10%) Onboarding
8 15 (3.10%) Social Media
9 14 (2.89%) Data Structures
9 14 (2.89%) Product Ownership
10 13 (2.69%) Legacy Systems
11 11 (2.27%) Web Conferencing
12 10 (2.07%) AI Agents
12 10 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
13 9 (1.86%) Credit Risk
14 8 (1.65%) e-Learning
14 8 (1.65%) NHS
14 8 (1.65%) Virtual Team
15 7 (1.45%) Podcast
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.21%) Android
1 1 (0.21%) Apple iOS
1 1 (0.21%) VMS
1 1 (0.21%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 169 (34.92%) AI
2 139 (28.72%) Analytics
3 131 (27.07%) Roadmaps
4 121 (25.00%) Business Development
4 121 (25.00%) Decision-Making
5 119 (24.59%) Agile
6 91 (18.80%) Mentoring
7 82 (16.94%) Business Strategy
8 77 (15.91%) Problem-Solving
9 75 (15.50%) Stakeholder Management
10 69 (14.26%) Computer Science
11 67 (13.84%) Generative AI
12 63 (13.02%) Data Science
13 61 (12.60%) Machine Learning
14 60 (12.40%) Cybersecurity
15 57 (11.78%) B2B
15 57 (11.78%) Workshop Facilitation
16 51 (10.54%) Use Case
17 50 (10.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 50 (10.33%) Strategic Thinking
Programming Languages
1 36 (7.44%) Python
2 26 (5.37%) SQL
3 25 (5.17%) Java
4 12 (2.48%) JavaScript
5 6 (1.24%) C#
5 6 (1.24%) Kotlin
5 6 (1.24%) R
5 6 (1.24%) Scala
6 4 (0.83%) PowerShell
7 2 (0.41%) Go
8 1 (0.21%) ABAP
8 1 (0.21%) Bash
8 1 (0.21%) Ruby
8 1 (0.21%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 143 (29.55%) Degree
2 67 (13.84%) Master's Degree
3 49 (10.12%) Security Cleared
4 45 (9.30%) PhD
5 31 (6.40%) SC Cleared
6 23 (4.75%) Computer Science Degree
7 15 (3.10%) CISSP
8 14 (2.89%) CISM
9 12 (2.48%) DBS Check
10 10 (2.07%) AWS Certification
10 10 (2.07%) PMI Certification
10 10 (2.07%) PMP
11 9 (1.86%) Azure Certification
12 7 (1.45%) 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 29 (5.99%) GxP
2 18 (3.72%) Accessibility
3 14 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 12 (2.48%) GDPR
4 12 (2.48%) NIST
5 11 (2.27%) GRC
5 11 (2.27%) QA
6 10 (2.07%) 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 (0.83%) Government Security Classifications
11 4 (0.83%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.62%) EU AI Act
12 3 (0.62%) SLA
13 2 (0.41%) NCSC
13 2 (0.41%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.41%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 4 (0.83%) Docker
2 2 (0.41%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.21%) RACF
Systems Management
1 16 (3.31%) 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 (9.50%) Dell
2 30 (6.20%) Microsoft
2 30 (6.20%) SAP
3 22 (4.55%) Oracle
4 21 (4.34%) Google
5 19 (3.93%) Databricks
6 13 (2.69%) HubSpot
6 13 (2.69%) ServiceNow
7 11 (2.27%) Salesforce
8 10 (2.07%) Adobe
8 10 (2.07%) IBM
9 8 (1.65%) Informatica
9 8 (1.65%) OpenLink
10 6 (1.24%) Cognizant
10 6 (1.24%) Workday
11 5 (1.03%) BT
12 4 (0.83%) Denodo
12 4 (0.83%) Teradata
13 3 (0.62%) Facebook
13 3 (0.62%) MuleSoft