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

6 months to
9 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 257 474 263
Rank change year-on-year +217 -211 -46
Permanent jobs citing Thought Leadership 559 317 731
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.12% 0.44% 1.29%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.26% 0.53% 1.37%
Number of salaries quoted 153 157 390
10th Percentile £40,000 £48,750 £56,219
25th Percentile £58,750 £65,000 £68,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £80,000 £80,674
Median % change year-on-year - -0.84% -3.38%
75th Percentile £107,500 £97,500 £96,717
90th Percentile £122,500 £110,000 £117,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £80,000 £79,632
% change year-on-year -18.75% +0.46% +9.84%

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 44,296 59,619 53,355
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 89.01% 82.18% 94.14%
Number of salaries quoted 24,598 32,082 40,930
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £43,750 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £98,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £52,500 £54,000
% change year-on-year -9.52% -2.78% +2.86%

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 October 2025.

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 October 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 +233 522 £77,500 -0.64% 488
London +188 375 £98,000 +22.50% 317
UK excluding London +91 156 £65,000 -18.75% 242
Work from Home +70 97 £65,000 -18.75% 286
South East +90 78 £42,500 -45.16% 114
North of England +26 24 £76,250 +22.00% 62
Midlands +33 18 £67,500 +3.85% 19
Scotland -8 17 £74,500 -25.50% 17
North West +6 15 £71,250 +16.33% 47
West Midlands +31 14 £65,000 - 15
South West +42 11 £63,840 -20.20% 18
Yorkshire +25 9 £85,000 +36.00% 13
East of England -4 5 £45,000 -40.98% 13
East Midlands +23 2 £100,000 +5.26% 4
Northern Ireland - 2 - -
Wales - 1 £47,500 - 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 14 (2.50%) Apache Spark
2 7 (1.25%) CMS
2 7 (1.25%) WordPress
3 6 (1.07%) Confluence
3 6 (1.07%) nginx
4 4 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (0.72%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.36%) CICS
6 2 (0.36%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.36%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.18%) WebLogic
Applications
1 18 (3.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (2.33%) Maya
2 13 (2.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (0.72%) Chatbot
3 4 (0.72%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.36%) Adobe After Effects
4 2 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 2 (0.36%) Adobe Premiere
4 2 (0.36%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.18%) Adobe Illustrator
5 1 (0.18%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.18%) Elementor
Business Applications
1 29 (5.19%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.79%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (1.25%) Endur
4 6 (1.07%) NetSuite
4 6 (1.07%) SAP SCM
5 4 (0.72%) Payment Gateway
5 4 (0.72%) SAP EWM
6 3 (0.54%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.54%) SAP ERP
6 3 (0.54%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.54%) SAP FI/CO
6 3 (0.54%) SAP FSCM
6 3 (0.54%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.54%) SAP PP
7 2 (0.36%) SAP APO
7 2 (0.36%) SAP IBP
7 2 (0.36%) SAP MM
7 2 (0.36%) SAP Oil and Gas
7 2 (0.36%) SAP QM
7 2 (0.36%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 124 (22.18%) Azure
2 101 (18.07%) AWS
3 34 (6.08%) GCP
4 32 (5.72%) SaaS
5 25 (4.47%) Amazon Bedrock
5 25 (4.47%) Vertex AI
6 23 (4.11%) Power Platform
7 18 (3.22%) GitHub
8 16 (2.86%) Cloud Computing
9 15 (2.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 15 (2.68%) Snowflake
10 14 (2.50%) Serverless
11 12 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
12 9 (1.61%) OCI
13 6 (1.07%) Azure Machine Learning
13 6 (1.07%) IaaS
13 6 (1.07%) OpenShift
14 5 (0.89%) AWS CloudFormation
14 5 (0.89%) AWS Lambda
14 5 (0.89%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.97%) DNS
2 6 (1.07%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
2 6 (1.07%) Network Security
3 2 (0.36%) Internet
4 1 (0.18%) ATM
4 1 (0.18%) BGP
4 1 (0.18%) Firewall
4 1 (0.18%) LAN
4 1 (0.18%) MPLS
4 1 (0.18%) Software-Defined Networking
4 1 (0.18%) SSH
4 1 (0.18%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.18%) WAN
4 1 (0.18%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (7.51%) Data Lake
2 32 (5.72%) NoSQL
3 27 (4.83%) Data Warehouse
4 24 (4.29%) Metadata
5 21 (3.76%) Power BI
6 19 (3.40%) Big Data
7 14 (2.50%) Amazon Redshift
7 14 (2.50%) Hadoop
8 5 (0.89%) Tableau
9 4 (0.72%) BigQuery
9 4 (0.72%) MongoDB
10 3 (0.54%) DataStage
10 3 (0.54%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.54%) QlikView
10 3 (0.54%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.54%) SQL Server
11 2 (0.36%) DB2
11 2 (0.36%) Looker
11 2 (0.36%) Power Query
11 2 (0.36%) PowerPivot
Development Applications
1 15 (2.68%) JIRA
2 14 (2.50%) ERwin
3 7 (1.25%) GitLab
4 3 (0.54%) eCATT
4 3 (0.54%) ER Studio
4 3 (0.54%) MLflow
4 3 (0.54%) PowerDesigner
5 1 (0.18%) Axure RP
5 1 (0.18%) Balsamiq
5 1 (0.18%) Git
5 1 (0.18%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.18%) VersaTest
5 1 (0.18%) Vite
5 1 (0.18%) WaveMaker
General
1 207 (37.03%) Analytical Skills
2 200 (35.78%) Social Skills
3 189 (33.81%) Law
4 170 (30.41%) Finance
5 112 (20.04%) Marketing
6 65 (11.63%) Retail
7 59 (10.55%) Games
8 53 (9.48%) Influencing Skills
9 44 (7.87%) Banking
10 42 (7.51%) Presentation Skills
11 35 (6.26%) Public Sector
12 23 (4.11%) Advertising
12 23 (4.11%) Legal
13 16 (2.86%) Pharmaceutical
14 15 (2.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 14 (2.50%) Manufacturing
16 13 (2.33%) Publishing
17 10 (1.79%) Dutch Language
17 10 (1.79%) French Language
18 8 (1.43%) Billing
Job Titles
1 149 (26.65%) Senior
2 96 (17.17%) Lead
3 84 (15.03%) Architect
4 65 (11.63%) Consultant
5 48 (8.59%) Solutions Architect
6 43 (7.69%) Senior Consultant
7 30 (5.37%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 25 (4.47%) Account Executive
8 25 (4.47%) Gen AI Consultant
8 25 (4.47%) Senior Architect
8 25 (4.47%) ServiceNow Architect
9 24 (4.29%) Senior Solutions Architect
10 22 (3.94%) Lead Architect
11 20 (3.58%) Product Lead
12 18 (3.22%) IT Manager
13 16 (2.86%) Data Architect
13 16 (2.86%) Data Scientist
14 15 (2.68%) Senior Manager
15 13 (2.33%) Account Manager
15 13 (2.33%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (4.65%) LangChain
2 20 (3.58%) REST
3 16 (2.86%) React
4 13 (2.33%) Kafka
5 10 (1.79%) AngularJS
6 8 (1.43%) .NET
7 7 (1.25%) Vue
8 6 (1.07%) CSS
9 5 (0.89%) ASP.NET
9 5 (0.89%) JSON
9 5 (0.89%) SOAP
9 5 (0.89%) Web Services
9 5 (0.89%) XML
10 4 (0.72%) Hugging Face
10 4 (0.72%) Middleware
10 4 (0.72%) SAP Fiori
11 3 (0.54%) .NET Framework
11 3 (0.54%) Oracle Fusion
11 3 (0.54%) SAPUI5
12 2 (0.36%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 52 (9.30%) Algorithms
2 51 (9.12%) Analytical Mindset
3 47 (8.41%) Product Ownership
4 44 (7.87%) Legacy Systems
5 30 (5.37%) FMCG
6 29 (5.19%) Enterprise Software
6 29 (5.19%) Self-Motivation
7 24 (4.29%) Virtual Team
8 21 (3.76%) Social Media
9 18 (3.22%) Cloud Native
9 18 (3.22%) Onboarding
10 17 (3.04%) Management Information System
11 15 (2.68%) Digital Media
11 15 (2.68%) Life Science
12 14 (2.50%) Public Cloud
13 13 (2.33%) Blog
14 12 (2.15%) Data Structures
15 11 (1.97%) Web Conferencing
16 10 (1.79%) Blockchain
17 7 (1.25%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.18%) Linux
1 1 (0.18%) Solaris
1 1 (0.18%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 218 (39.00%) Roadmaps
2 213 (38.10%) AI
3 206 (36.85%) Analytics
4 174 (31.13%) Agile
5 151 (27.01%) Problem-Solving
6 138 (24.69%) Machine Learning
7 123 (22.00%) Business Strategy
8 104 (18.60%) Decision-Making
9 98 (17.53%) Project Management
10 95 (16.99%) Business Development
10 95 (16.99%) Computer Science
11 91 (16.28%) Stakeholder Management
12 85 (15.21%) Data Science
13 79 (14.13%) DevOps
14 77 (13.77%) Mentoring
15 75 (13.42%) IT Strategy
16 71 (12.70%) Coaching
17 68 (12.16%) Generative AI
18 65 (11.63%) Strategic Roadmap
19 58 (10.38%) Data Analytics
Programming Languages
1 71 (12.70%) Python
2 36 (6.44%) SQL
3 27 (4.83%) JavaScript
4 12 (2.15%) Java
5 6 (1.07%) C#
6 4 (0.72%) C++
7 3 (0.54%) PowerShell
7 3 (0.54%) R
8 2 (0.36%) Scala
9 1 (0.18%) Bash
9 1 (0.18%) Bicep
9 1 (0.18%) Bourne shell
9 1 (0.18%) COBOL
9 1 (0.18%) C-shell
9 1 (0.18%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.18%) Perl
9 1 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 202 (36.14%) Degree
2 68 (12.16%) Master's Degree
3 67 (11.99%) Computer Science Degree
4 50 (8.94%) PhD
5 16 (2.86%) Security Cleared
6 12 (2.15%) PMI Certification
7 10 (1.79%) PMP
7 10 (1.79%) SC Cleared
8 9 (1.61%) TOGAF Certification
9 8 (1.43%) Azure Certification
9 8 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.25%) CISSP
10 7 (1.25%) MBA
11 6 (1.07%) CCNA
11 6 (1.07%) CCNP
12 5 (0.89%) APMG
12 5 (0.89%) AWS Certification
12 5 (0.89%) CISM
12 5 (0.89%) DBS Check
13 4 (0.72%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (6.08%) QA
2 29 (5.19%) Data Quality
3 23 (4.11%) GDPR
4 14 (2.50%) Accessibility
5 12 (2.15%) GxP
6 10 (1.79%) PMO
7 8 (1.43%) SLA
8 7 (1.25%) EMIR
9 6 (1.07%) WCAG
10 4 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 4 (0.72%) P3O
11 3 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.54%) NIST
11 3 (0.54%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.36%) GRC
13 1 (0.18%) NCSC
13 1 (0.18%) PCI DSS
13 1 (0.18%) SOC 2
System Software
1 7 (1.25%) Docker
2 2 (0.36%) RACF
3 1 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.18%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 24 (4.29%) Terraform
2 13 (2.33%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.72%) Ansible
4 3 (0.54%) Grafana
4 3 (0.54%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle ZFS
5 1 (0.18%) VxRail
Vendors
1 52 (9.30%) Google
2 37 (6.62%) SAP
3 33 (5.90%) Microsoft
3 33 (5.90%) ServiceNow
4 27 (4.83%) Adobe
5 25 (4.47%) Databricks
6 21 (3.76%) TikTok
7 20 (3.58%) Oracle
8 17 (3.04%) Dell
9 12 (2.15%) Salesforce
10 9 (1.61%) OpenAI
11 8 (1.43%) Foundry
12 7 (1.25%) F5
12 7 (1.25%) OpenLink
12 7 (1.25%) Splunk
13 6 (1.07%) Palantir
14 5 (0.89%) IBM
14 5 (0.89%) Pinterest
14 5 (0.89%) Snapchat
15 4 (0.72%) Facebook