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 22 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 302 422 246
Rank change year-on-year +120 -176 -21
Permanent jobs citing Thought Leadership 422 322 651
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.71% 0.57% 1.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.86% 0.64% 1.44%
Number of salaries quoted 139 136 380
10th Percentile £43,500 £53,750 £63,750
25th Percentile £61,250 £70,625 £75,208
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £82,500 £84,335 £82,500
Median % change year-on-year -2.18% +2.22% -8.33%
75th Percentile £113,750 £105,625 £100,000
90th Percentile £136,500 £110,625 £117,236
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £85,000 £79,632
% change year-on-year -23.53% +6.74% +6.18%

All Process and 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 48,803 50,313 45,263
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 82.65% 89.69% 93.72%
Number of salaries quoted 28,630 25,271 34,729
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £32,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -3.23%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £49,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -10.91% +4.76% -2.78%

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 22 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Thought Leadership in the UK

Thought Leadership
Top 17 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 22 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
England +154 381 £82,500 -2.00% 480
London +128 277 £100,000 +18.11% 323
UK excluding London +9 110 £65,000 -23.53% 215
Work from Home +30 64 £80,000 -4.97% 178
South East +40 39 £42,500 -41.38% 108
North of England +25 21 £82,000 -5.20% 59
North West +39 17 £78,750 -13.05% 31
Scotland -17 16 £68,500 -31.50% 5
South West +10 12 £61,920 -22.60% 22
Midlands +23 10 £101,250 +55.77% 17
East of England +6 9 £45,500 -49.30% 9
West Midlands +32 7 £75,000 +15.38% 14
Yorkshire -11 2 £97,500 +56.00% 11
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 2
North East - 2 - - 17
East Midlands -5 1 £100,000 +5.26% 3
Wales - 1 £47,500 -

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 11 (2.61%) Apache Spark
2 7 (1.66%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (1.18%) CMS
3 5 (1.18%) IIS
3 5 (1.18%) WordPress
4 3 (0.71%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 2 (0.47%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.24%) CICS
6 1 (0.24%) Confluence
6 1 (0.24%) WebSphere
Applications
1 15 (3.55%) Maya
2 9 (2.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (1.66%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 4 (0.95%) Photoshop
6 3 (0.71%) Adobe Illustrator
6 3 (0.71%) Adobe XD
6 3 (0.71%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.71%) Elementor
6 3 (0.71%) InVision
6 3 (0.71%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 27 (6.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (2.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (1.90%) Endur
4 6 (1.42%) SAP SCM
5 4 (0.95%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.71%) Payment Gateway
6 3 (0.71%) SAP ERP
6 3 (0.71%) SAP PP
7 2 (0.47%) SAP APO
7 2 (0.47%) SAP CO
7 2 (0.47%) SAP EWM
7 2 (0.47%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.47%) SAP FI/CO
7 2 (0.47%) SAP IBP
7 2 (0.47%) SAP QM
7 2 (0.47%) SAP WM
7 2 (0.47%) Shopify
8 1 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.24%) SAP FSCM
8 1 (0.24%) SAP LE
Cloud Services
1 95 (22.51%) AWS
2 71 (16.82%) Azure
3 31 (7.35%) SaaS
4 28 (6.64%) GCP
5 25 (5.92%) Amazon Bedrock
5 25 (5.92%) Vertex AI
6 24 (5.69%) Snowflake
7 17 (4.03%) Power Platform
8 15 (3.55%) GitHub
9 14 (3.32%) Cloud Computing
10 13 (3.08%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (2.84%) OCI
12 11 (2.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 9 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
13 9 (2.13%) Serverless
14 7 (1.66%) dbt
15 6 (1.42%) Matillion
16 5 (1.18%) GitHub Actions
16 5 (1.18%) Google Ads
16 5 (1.18%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.47%) LAN
1 2 (0.47%) WAN
2 1 (0.24%) BGP
2 1 (0.24%) DNS
2 1 (0.24%) Firewall
2 1 (0.24%) MPLS
2 1 (0.24%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.24%) Software-Defined Networking
2 1 (0.24%) SSH
2 1 (0.24%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.24%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (8.06%) NoSQL
2 30 (7.11%) Data Warehouse
3 19 (4.50%) Big Data
4 18 (4.27%) Metadata
5 17 (4.03%) Hadoop
6 16 (3.79%) Power BI
7 11 (2.61%) Amazon Redshift
7 11 (2.61%) Tableau
8 6 (1.42%) BigQuery
9 5 (1.18%) Data Lake
9 5 (1.18%) Data Mining
9 5 (1.18%) MongoDB
10 4 (0.95%) DataStage
10 4 (0.95%) QlikView
11 3 (0.71%) DynamoDB
11 3 (0.71%) Relational Database
11 3 (0.71%) SAP HANA
11 3 (0.71%) SQL Server
12 2 (0.47%) Looker
12 2 (0.47%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 15 (3.55%) ERwin
2 6 (1.42%) JIRA
3 4 (0.95%) ER Studio
3 4 (0.95%) MLflow
3 4 (0.95%) PowerDesigner
4 3 (0.71%) Axure RP
5 2 (0.47%) Git
5 2 (0.47%) GitLab
5 2 (0.47%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.24%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.24%) Vite
General
1 152 (36.02%) Finance
2 127 (30.09%) Social Skills
3 116 (27.49%) Analytical Skills
4 99 (23.46%) Law
5 76 (18.01%) Marketing
6 54 (12.80%) Games
7 36 (8.53%) Banking
7 36 (8.53%) Retail
8 33 (7.82%) Pharmaceutical
9 31 (7.35%) Public Sector
10 30 (7.11%) Presentation Skills
11 25 (5.92%) Legal
12 18 (4.27%) Influencing Skills
13 12 (2.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 10 (2.37%) Dutch Language
14 10 (2.37%) French Language
15 9 (2.13%) Aerospace
15 9 (2.13%) Billing
15 9 (2.13%) Financial Institution
15 9 (2.13%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 92 (21.80%) Lead
2 75 (17.77%) Architect
3 70 (16.59%) Senior
4 67 (15.88%) Consultant
5 42 (9.95%) Senior Consultant
6 26 (6.16%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 25 (5.92%) Gen AI Consultant
8 24 (5.69%) Lead Architect
8 24 (5.69%) Solutions Architect
9 19 (4.50%) Data Architect
9 19 (4.50%) IT Manager
10 16 (3.79%) Marketing Manager
11 14 (3.32%) Product Lead
12 13 (3.08%) Senior Manager
13 12 (2.84%) Account Executive
13 12 (2.84%) Data Scientist
14 11 (2.61%) Lead Data Architect
14 11 (2.61%) SAP Consultant
15 10 (2.37%) Business Architect
15 10 (2.37%) IT Services Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (6.40%) LangChain
2 18 (4.27%) React
3 15 (3.55%) REST
4 11 (2.61%) Kafka
5 10 (2.37%) AngularJS
6 8 (1.90%) .NET
7 7 (1.66%) Vue
8 5 (1.18%) ASP.NET
8 5 (1.18%) JSON
8 5 (1.18%) Play Framework
8 5 (1.18%) XML
9 4 (0.95%) CSS
9 4 (0.95%) HTML
9 4 (0.95%) SAP Fiori
10 3 (0.71%) .NET Framework
10 3 (0.71%) Middleware
10 3 (0.71%) Oracle Fusion
10 3 (0.71%) SAPUI5
11 2 (0.47%) Node.js
11 2 (0.47%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 44 (10.43%) Algorithms
2 38 (9.00%) Legacy Systems
3 31 (7.35%) Self-Motivation
4 29 (6.87%) Life Science
4 29 (6.87%) Product Ownership
5 25 (5.92%) Enterprise Software
6 19 (4.50%) Social Media
7 17 (4.03%) Blog
7 17 (4.03%) Virtual Team
8 15 (3.55%) Cloud Native
8 15 (3.55%) Management Information System
9 14 (3.32%) FMCG
10 12 (2.84%) Data Structures
11 10 (2.37%) Blockchain
11 10 (2.37%) Onboarding
12 8 (1.90%) Credit Risk
12 8 (1.90%) Web Conferencing
13 7 (1.66%) Low-Code
13 7 (1.66%) Podcast
14 5 (1.18%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.24%) Android
1 1 (0.24%) Apple iOS
1 1 (0.24%) Linux
1 1 (0.24%) Solaris
1 1 (0.24%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 186 (44.08%) AI
2 149 (35.31%) Analytics
3 134 (31.75%) Roadmaps
4 128 (30.33%) Agile
5 98 (23.22%) Machine Learning
6 91 (21.56%) Business Strategy
6 91 (21.56%) Computer Science
7 86 (20.38%) Business Development
8 79 (18.72%) Generative AI
8 79 (18.72%) Stakeholder Management
9 76 (18.01%) Decision-Making
10 74 (17.54%) Problem-Solving
11 71 (16.82%) IT Strategy
12 68 (16.11%) Mentoring
13 60 (14.22%) Data Science
14 58 (13.74%) DevOps
15 57 (13.51%) Enterprise Architecture
16 55 (13.03%) Project Management
17 53 (12.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 47 (11.14%) Data Strategy
Programming Languages
1 55 (13.03%) Python
2 31 (7.35%) SQL
3 20 (4.74%) JavaScript
4 9 (2.13%) Java
5 8 (1.90%) C#
6 6 (1.42%) Scala
7 5 (1.18%) R
8 3 (0.71%) PowerShell
9 2 (0.47%) Bash
9 2 (0.47%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.24%) ABAP
10 1 (0.24%) Bourne shell
10 1 (0.24%) C-shell
10 1 (0.24%) Go
10 1 (0.24%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.24%) Perl
10 1 (0.24%) Ruby
10 1 (0.24%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 168 (39.81%) Degree
2 81 (19.19%) Master's Degree
3 57 (13.51%) PhD
4 47 (11.14%) Computer Science Degree
5 25 (5.92%) Security Cleared
6 16 (3.79%) SC Cleared
7 11 (2.61%) TOGAF Certification
8 10 (2.37%) PMI Certification
8 10 (2.37%) PMP
9 9 (2.13%) CISSP
10 8 (1.90%) Azure Certification
10 8 (1.90%) CISM
10 8 (1.90%) DBS Check
10 8 (1.90%) MBA
11 6 (1.42%) SAP Certification
12 4 (0.95%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.95%) CISA
13 3 (0.71%) BPSS Clearance
13 3 (0.71%) Cisco Certification
13 3 (0.71%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (5.69%) GxP
2 18 (4.27%) QA
3 17 (4.03%) Data Quality
4 16 (3.79%) GDPR
5 11 (2.61%) Accessibility
6 10 (2.37%) PMO
7 8 (1.90%) Actionable Recommendations
7 8 (1.90%) EMIR
7 8 (1.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 8 (1.90%) SLA
8 6 (1.42%) NIST
9 4 (0.95%) WCAG
10 3 (0.71%) NCSC
11 2 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 2 (0.47%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.47%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.24%) GMP
12 1 (0.24%) GRC
System Software
1 7 (1.66%) Docker
2 1 (0.24%) RACF
2 1 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (0.24%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 20 (4.74%) Terraform
2 8 (1.90%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.95%) Ansible
4 2 (0.47%) Grafana
5 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle ZFS
5 1 (0.24%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 43 (10.19%) Google
2 32 (7.58%) Microsoft
2 32 (7.58%) SAP
3 29 (6.87%) Databricks
4 20 (4.74%) Oracle
5 11 (2.61%) Adobe
6 8 (1.90%) OpenLink
7 7 (1.66%) Dell
8 6 (1.42%) Cognizant
8 6 (1.42%) OpenAI
8 6 (1.42%) ServiceNow
9 5 (1.18%) BT
9 5 (1.18%) HubSpot
9 5 (1.18%) IBM
9 5 (1.18%) Salesforce
10 4 (0.95%) Informatica
11 3 (0.71%) Atlassian
11 3 (0.71%) Facebook
11 3 (0.71%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.71%) Splunk