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

6 months to
11 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 270 468 266
Rank change year-on-year +198 -202 -40
Permanent jobs citing Thought Leadership 496 296 663
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.95% 0.44% 1.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.10% 0.53% 1.32%
Number of salaries quoted 148 141 369
10th Percentile £39,925 £48,750 £62,500
25th Percentile £58,750 £65,000 £75,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £80,000 £82,500
Median % change year-on-year - -3.03% -2.94%
75th Percentile £112,500 £100,000 £97,290
90th Percentile £122,500 £110,000 £117,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £62,500 £80,000 £79,632
% change year-on-year -21.88% +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 45,079 55,610 50,082
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 86.73% 82.82% 93.85%
Number of salaries quoted 26,713 28,851 38,354
10th Percentile £28,250 £34,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £35,500 £45,000 £43,800
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £98,425
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,000 £54,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -12.96% +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 11 November 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 11 November 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 +206 467 £80,000 +2.56% 705
London +183 335 £100,000 +18.57% 386
UK excluding London +74 134 £62,500 -21.88% 313
Work from Home +56 78 £52,500 -36.36% 314
South East +71 65 £35,000 -54.84% 128
North of England +39 21 £65,000 +8.33% 80
North West +39 18 £56,250 -8.16% 46
Midlands +49 15 £87,500 +34.62% 38
West Midlands +39 11 £67,500 +3.85% 27
Scotland -19 11 £68,500 -31.50% 22
South West +26 10 £61,920 -22.60% 22
East of England +2 9 £45,500 -49.30% 18
Yorkshire +6 3 £75,000 +36.36% 18
East Midlands +27 2 £100,000 +50.94% 11
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 5
Wales - 1 £47,500 - 3

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 (2.82%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.01%) WordPress
3 4 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (0.81%) CMS
3 4 (0.81%) nginx
3 4 (0.81%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.40%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.20%) CICS
5 1 (0.20%) Confluence
5 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.20%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.20%) WebSphere
Applications
1 12 (2.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (2.22%) Maya
2 11 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (1.41%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.01%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 4 (0.81%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.81%) Photoshop
6 3 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
6 3 (0.60%) Elementor
7 2 (0.40%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.40%) Adobe Premiere
Business Applications
1 32 (6.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.41%) Endur
3 6 (1.21%) SAP SCM
4 4 (0.81%) Payment Gateway
4 4 (0.81%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.60%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.60%) SAP ERP
5 3 (0.60%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.60%) SAP FI/CO
5 3 (0.60%) SAP IBP
5 3 (0.60%) SAP MDG
5 3 (0.60%) SAP PP
6 2 (0.40%) SAP APO
6 2 (0.40%) SAP FSCM
6 2 (0.40%) SAP MM
6 2 (0.40%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 2 (0.40%) SAP QM
6 2 (0.40%) SAP WM
6 2 (0.40%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 109 (21.98%) Azure
2 94 (18.95%) AWS
3 37 (7.46%) GCP
4 34 (6.85%) SaaS
5 25 (5.04%) Amazon Bedrock
5 25 (5.04%) Vertex AI
6 22 (4.44%) Power Platform
7 14 (2.82%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 14 (2.82%) Cloud Computing
7 14 (2.82%) GitHub
7 14 (2.82%) Snowflake
8 13 (2.62%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (2.02%) Serverless
10 9 (1.81%) OCI
11 6 (1.21%) Azure Machine Learning
12 5 (1.01%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
12 5 (1.01%) Google Ads
12 5 (1.01%) Google Gemini
12 5 (1.01%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.01%) DNS
2 4 (0.81%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
2 4 (0.81%) Network Security
3 1 (0.20%) BGP
3 1 (0.20%) Firewall
3 1 (0.20%) LAN
3 1 (0.20%) MPLS
3 1 (0.20%) Software-Defined Networking
3 1 (0.20%) SSH
3 1 (0.20%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.20%) WAN
3 1 (0.20%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (6.25%) Data Lake
2 30 (6.05%) NoSQL
3 29 (5.85%) Data Warehouse
4 26 (5.24%) Metadata
5 21 (4.23%) Power BI
6 17 (3.43%) Big Data
7 14 (2.82%) Hadoop
8 13 (2.62%) Amazon Redshift
9 6 (1.21%) Tableau
10 5 (1.01%) BigQuery
11 4 (0.81%) DataStage
11 4 (0.81%) MongoDB
11 4 (0.81%) QlikView
12 3 (0.60%) DynamoDB
12 3 (0.60%) Looker
12 3 (0.60%) Relational Database
12 3 (0.60%) SQL Server
13 2 (0.40%) Oracle Reports
14 1 (0.20%) DB2
14 1 (0.20%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 15 (3.02%) ERwin
2 10 (2.02%) JIRA
3 5 (1.01%) GitLab
4 4 (0.81%) ER Studio
4 4 (0.81%) PowerDesigner
5 3 (0.60%) eCATT
5 3 (0.60%) MLflow
6 1 (0.20%) Git
6 1 (0.20%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.20%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.20%) Vite
6 1 (0.20%) WaveMaker
General
1 171 (34.48%) Social Skills
2 165 (33.27%) Analytical Skills
3 162 (32.66%) Finance
4 150 (30.24%) Law
5 104 (20.97%) Marketing
6 50 (10.08%) Retail
7 49 (9.88%) Games
8 46 (9.27%) Presentation Skills
9 45 (9.07%) Influencing Skills
10 37 (7.46%) Banking
11 31 (6.25%) Public Sector
12 24 (4.84%) Legal
13 23 (4.64%) Pharmaceutical
14 20 (4.03%) Advertising
15 15 (3.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 13 (2.62%) Manufacturing
17 10 (2.02%) Publishing
18 9 (1.81%) Financial Institution
19 8 (1.61%) Billing
19 8 (1.61%) Dutch Language
Job Titles
1 122 (24.60%) Senior
2 94 (18.95%) Lead
3 81 (16.33%) Architect
4 60 (12.10%) Consultant
5 41 (8.27%) Senior Consultant
6 40 (8.06%) Solutions Architect
7 26 (5.24%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 25 (5.04%) Gen AI Consultant
9 23 (4.64%) Account Executive
10 22 (4.44%) Lead Architect
11 20 (4.03%) Product Lead
12 18 (3.63%) Data Architect
13 16 (3.23%) IT Manager
13 16 (3.23%) Marketing Manager
13 16 (3.23%) Senior Architect
14 15 (3.02%) Data Scientist
14 15 (3.02%) Senior Manager
14 15 (3.02%) ServiceNow Architect
15 14 (2.82%) Senior Solutions Architect
16 12 (2.42%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (5.24%) LangChain
2 16 (3.23%) React
3 15 (3.02%) REST
4 13 (2.62%) Kafka
5 10 (2.02%) AngularJS
6 8 (1.61%) .NET
7 7 (1.41%) Vue
8 6 (1.21%) Oracle Fusion
9 5 (1.01%) ASP.NET
9 5 (1.01%) Hugging Face
9 5 (1.01%) JSON
9 5 (1.01%) XML
10 4 (0.81%) Middleware
11 3 (0.60%) .NET Framework
11 3 (0.60%) SAP Fiori
11 3 (0.60%) SAPUI5
12 2 (0.40%) Node.js
12 2 (0.40%) PyTorch
12 2 (0.40%) TensorFlow
13 1 (0.20%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 47 (9.48%) Algorithms
2 41 (8.27%) Product Ownership
3 38 (7.66%) Analytical Mindset
3 38 (7.66%) Legacy Systems
4 31 (6.25%) Self-Motivation
5 25 (5.04%) Enterprise Software
5 25 (5.04%) FMCG
6 24 (4.84%) Virtual Team
7 23 (4.64%) Life Science
8 18 (3.63%) Management Information System
8 18 (3.63%) Onboarding
9 17 (3.43%) Social Media
10 13 (2.62%) Blog
10 13 (2.62%) Cloud Native
11 11 (2.22%) Data Structures
11 11 (2.22%) Digital Media
12 8 (1.61%) Blockchain
12 8 (1.61%) Public Cloud
12 8 (1.61%) Web Conferencing
13 7 (1.41%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.20%) Android
1 1 (0.20%) Apple iOS
1 1 (0.20%) Linux
1 1 (0.20%) Solaris
1 1 (0.20%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 201 (40.52%) AI
2 188 (37.90%) Analytics
3 187 (37.70%) Roadmaps
4 147 (29.64%) Agile
5 131 (26.41%) Machine Learning
6 111 (22.38%) Problem-Solving
7 99 (19.96%) Business Strategy
8 97 (19.56%) Decision-Making
9 95 (19.15%) Computer Science
10 89 (17.94%) Business Development
11 80 (16.13%) Generative AI
12 79 (15.93%) Data Science
13 75 (15.12%) Stakeholder Management
14 73 (14.72%) DevOps
14 73 (14.72%) Project Management
15 70 (14.11%) IT Strategy
16 69 (13.91%) Mentoring
17 57 (11.49%) Enterprise Architecture
18 54 (10.89%) B2B
19 51 (10.28%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 60 (12.10%) Python
2 31 (6.25%) SQL
3 17 (3.43%) JavaScript
4 10 (2.02%) Java
5 6 (1.21%) C#
6 4 (0.81%) C++
7 3 (0.60%) PowerShell
8 2 (0.40%) Bash
8 2 (0.40%) Scala
9 1 (0.20%) Bicep
9 1 (0.20%) Bourne shell
9 1 (0.20%) C-shell
9 1 (0.20%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.20%) Perl
9 1 (0.20%) R
9 1 (0.20%) Ruby
9 1 (0.20%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.20%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 179 (36.09%) Degree
2 72 (14.52%) Master's Degree
3 59 (11.90%) Computer Science Degree
4 55 (11.09%) PhD
5 14 (2.82%) Security Cleared
6 9 (1.81%) SC Cleared
6 9 (1.81%) TOGAF Certification
7 8 (1.61%) Azure Certification
7 8 (1.61%) PMI Certification
7 8 (1.61%) PMP
8 7 (1.41%) CISSP
8 7 (1.41%) DBS Check
9 6 (1.21%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (1.21%) SAP Certification
10 5 (1.01%) CISM
10 5 (1.01%) MBA
11 4 (0.81%) AWS Certification
11 4 (0.81%) CCNA
11 4 (0.81%) CCNP
11 4 (0.81%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (6.05%) Data Quality
1 30 (6.05%) QA
2 22 (4.44%) GDPR
3 20 (4.03%) GxP
4 10 (2.02%) PMO
5 9 (1.81%) Accessibility
6 8 (1.61%) SLA
7 7 (1.41%) EMIR
8 4 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.60%) NIST
10 2 (0.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.40%) GRC
10 2 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.40%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.40%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.20%) Basel III
11 1 (0.20%) GMP
11 1 (0.20%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 7 (1.41%) Docker
2 1 (0.20%) RACF
2 1 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (0.20%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 24 (4.84%) Terraform
2 12 (2.42%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.81%) Ansible
4 2 (0.40%) Grafana
5 1 (0.20%) Oracle ZFS
5 1 (0.20%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.20%) VxRail
Vendors
1 49 (9.88%) Google
2 39 (7.86%) SAP
3 34 (6.85%) Microsoft
4 27 (5.44%) Databricks
5 22 (4.44%) Oracle
6 18 (3.63%) Adobe
7 17 (3.43%) ServiceNow
8 15 (3.02%) Dell
9 10 (2.02%) TikTok
10 9 (1.81%) OpenAI
11 8 (1.61%) Foundry
12 7 (1.41%) OpenLink
13 6 (1.21%) Palantir
14 5 (1.01%) F5
14 5 (1.01%) HubSpot
14 5 (1.01%) IBM
14 5 (1.01%) Salesforce
15 4 (0.81%) Facebook
15 4 (0.81%) Informatica
15 4 (0.81%) Splunk