Thought Leadership Job Trends

Thought Leadership
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Thought Leadership skills. It covers vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 246 464 267
Rank change year-on-year +218 -197 -39
Permanent jobs citing Thought Leadership 607 363 780
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 1.23% 0.47% 1.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.39% 0.57% 1.36%
Number of salaries quoted 154 187 403
10th Percentile £44,125 £47,500 £56,219
25th Percentile £57,813 £64,375 £67,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £80,000 £80,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -0.62%
75th Percentile £105,000 £97,500 £95,000
90th Percentile £120,000 £115,000 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £80,000 £79,632
% change year-on-year -18.75% +0.46% +11.76%

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 43,797 63,176 57,561
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 88.73% 81.14% 94.37%
Number of salaries quoted 24,693 35,881 43,260
10th Percentile £28,500 £32,000 £32,750
25th Percentile £36,250 £42,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £95,000 £100,000
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

Job postings citing Thought Leadership as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Thought Leadership 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 17 September 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 17 September 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 +231 567 £77,500 -1.90% 625
London +208 385 £90,000 +12.50% 413
UK excluding London +106 189 £65,000 -18.75% 333
South East +114 109 £43,750 -39.66% 154
Work from Home +88 107 £65,000 -18.75% 263
North of England +39 27 £84,000 +46.09% 52
Midlands +45 20 £66,250 +1.92% 31
North West +28 18 £84,000 +46.09% 37
Scotland +54 17 £80,000 -20.00% 34
West Midlands +44 17 £61,250 -5.77% 20
South West +55 11 £80,000 - 26
Yorkshire +16 9 £85,000 - 12
Channel Islands - 2 £78,750 -
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 2
East Midlands +28 1 - - 10
Wales - 1 £47,500 - 6

Thought Leadership
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 17 (2.80%) Apache Spark
2 7 (1.15%) CMS
2 7 (1.15%) WordPress
3 6 (0.99%) Confluence
3 6 (0.99%) nginx
4 4 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.49%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 2 (0.33%) CICS
6 2 (0.33%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.16%) Apache
7 1 (0.16%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.16%) WebLogic
Applications
1 18 (2.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (2.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (1.81%) Maya
4 6 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.66%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.33%) Adobe After Effects
6 2 (0.33%) Adobe Premiere
6 2 (0.33%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.16%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 31 (5.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.98%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (1.15%) NetSuite
4 6 (0.99%) SAP SCM
5 4 (0.66%) SAP EWM
6 3 (0.49%) Payment Gateway
6 3 (0.49%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.49%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.49%) SAP FI/CO
6 3 (0.49%) SAP FSCM
6 3 (0.49%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 3 (0.49%) SAP PP
7 2 (0.33%) SAP APO
7 2 (0.33%) SAP IBP
7 2 (0.33%) SAP MM
7 2 (0.33%) SAP QM
7 2 (0.33%) Shopify
8 1 (0.16%) Oracle BPM
8 1 (0.16%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.16%) SAP LE
Cloud Services
1 124 (20.43%) Azure
2 101 (16.64%) AWS
3 42 (6.92%) GCP
4 26 (4.28%) SaaS
5 25 (4.12%) Amazon Bedrock
5 25 (4.12%) Vertex AI
6 24 (3.95%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 23 (3.79%) Power Platform
8 20 (3.29%) Cloud Computing
9 17 (2.80%) Serverless
10 15 (2.47%) Snowflake
11 14 (2.31%) GitHub
11 14 (2.31%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 8 (1.32%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (1.15%) IaaS
13 7 (1.15%) Microsoft 365
13 7 (1.15%) OCI
14 6 (0.99%) AWS Lambda
14 6 (0.99%) AWS Step Functions
14 6 (0.99%) Matillion
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.81%) DNS
2 8 (1.32%) Network Security
3 6 (0.99%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 3 (0.49%) Internet
4 3 (0.49%) TCP/IP
4 3 (0.49%) VPN
5 2 (0.33%) BGP
5 2 (0.33%) Firewall
6 1 (0.16%) ATM
6 1 (0.16%) SSH
6 1 (0.16%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (6.43%) Data Lake
2 37 (6.10%) NoSQL
3 24 (3.95%) Data Warehouse
3 24 (3.95%) Metadata
4 21 (3.46%) Amazon Redshift
5 20 (3.29%) Big Data
5 20 (3.29%) Power BI
6 17 (2.80%) Hadoop
7 9 (1.48%) BigQuery
8 5 (0.82%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.66%) SQL Server
10 3 (0.49%) MongoDB
10 3 (0.49%) Power Query
10 3 (0.49%) PowerPivot
11 2 (0.33%) DB2
11 2 (0.33%) DynamoDB
11 2 (0.33%) Looker
11 2 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
11 2 (0.33%) PostgreSQL
11 2 (0.33%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 15 (2.47%) JIRA
2 12 (1.98%) ERwin
3 7 (1.15%) GitLab
4 3 (0.49%) eCATT
5 2 (0.33%) Axure RP
5 2 (0.33%) Balsamiq
5 2 (0.33%) MLflow
6 1 (0.16%) Git
6 1 (0.16%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.16%) VersaTest
6 1 (0.16%) Vite
6 1 (0.16%) WaveMaker
General
1 236 (38.88%) Social Skills
2 224 (36.90%) Law
3 222 (36.57%) Analytical Skills
4 190 (31.30%) Finance
5 118 (19.44%) Marketing
6 70 (11.53%) Retail
7 57 (9.39%) Games
8 54 (8.90%) Influencing Skills
9 45 (7.41%) Presentation Skills
10 42 (6.92%) Public Sector
11 40 (6.59%) Banking
12 26 (4.28%) Advertising
13 20 (3.29%) Legal
14 17 (2.80%) Pharmaceutical
15 16 (2.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 14 (2.31%) Publishing
17 13 (2.14%) Manufacturing
18 10 (1.65%) Dutch Language
18 10 (1.65%) French Language
19 9 (1.48%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 163 (26.85%) Senior
2 114 (18.78%) Lead
3 108 (17.79%) Architect
4 68 (11.20%) Consultant
5 52 (8.57%) Solutions Architect
6 47 (7.74%) Senior Consultant
7 32 (5.27%) Senior Architect
8 31 (5.11%) Senior Solutions Architect
8 31 (5.11%) ServiceNow Architect
9 29 (4.78%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 26 (4.28%) Account Executive
11 25 (4.12%) Gen AI Consultant
12 24 (3.95%) Enterprise Architect
12 24 (3.95%) Lead Architect
13 19 (3.13%) Product Lead
14 17 (2.80%) Data Architect
14 17 (2.80%) Data Scientist
15 16 (2.64%) Senior Manager
16 15 (2.47%) IT Manager
16 15 (2.47%) Lead Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (5.27%) REST
2 26 (4.28%) LangChain
3 20 (3.29%) SOAP
4 17 (2.80%) Kafka
5 16 (2.64%) Middleware
6 14 (2.31%) Lightning Web Components
6 14 (2.31%) React
7 10 (1.65%) .NET
8 9 (1.48%) CSS
9 8 (1.32%) AngularJS
9 8 (1.32%) SAP Fiori
10 7 (1.15%) Web Services
10 7 (1.15%) XML
11 6 (0.99%) JSON
11 6 (0.99%) Vue
12 5 (0.82%) ASP.NET
12 5 (0.82%) HTML
13 3 (0.49%) .NET Framework
13 3 (0.49%) Oracle Fusion
13 3 (0.49%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 57 (9.39%) Product Ownership
2 53 (8.73%) Algorithms
3 52 (8.57%) Analytical Mindset
4 47 (7.74%) Legacy Systems
5 37 (6.10%) FMCG
6 36 (5.93%) Enterprise Software
7 25 (4.12%) Virtual Team
8 21 (3.46%) Self-Motivation
9 19 (3.13%) Social Media
10 18 (2.97%) Data Structures
10 18 (2.97%) Public Cloud
11 17 (2.80%) Cloud Native
11 17 (2.80%) Digital Media
11 17 (2.80%) Onboarding
12 14 (2.31%) Life Science
13 13 (2.14%) Management Information System
14 10 (1.65%) Blockchain
14 10 (1.65%) Blog
15 9 (1.48%) Private Cloud
16 8 (1.32%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.16%) Linux
1 1 (0.16%) Solaris
1 1 (0.16%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 242 (39.87%) Roadmaps
2 211 (34.76%) Analytics
2 211 (34.76%) Artificial Intelligence
3 196 (32.29%) Agile
4 175 (28.83%) Problem-Solving
5 141 (23.23%) Machine Learning
6 136 (22.41%) Business Strategy
7 117 (19.28%) Decision-Making
8 116 (19.11%) Project Management
9 109 (17.96%) Stakeholder Management
10 103 (16.97%) Computer Science
11 97 (15.98%) DevOps
12 93 (15.32%) Business Development
13 86 (14.17%) Continuous Improvement
14 85 (14.00%) Data Science
15 78 (12.85%) Coaching
16 76 (12.52%) Technical Leadership
17 75 (12.36%) Mentoring
18 70 (11.53%) IT Strategy
19 65 (10.71%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 75 (12.36%) Python
2 40 (6.59%) SQL
3 30 (4.94%) JavaScript
4 14 (2.31%) Apex Code
5 13 (2.14%) Java
6 9 (1.48%) C#
7 4 (0.66%) C++
7 4 (0.66%) R
8 3 (0.49%) TypeScript
9 2 (0.33%) PowerShell
9 2 (0.33%) Scala
10 1 (0.16%) Bash
10 1 (0.16%) Bicep
10 1 (0.16%) Bourne shell
10 1 (0.16%) COBOL
10 1 (0.16%) C-shell
10 1 (0.16%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.16%) Perl
10 1 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 223 (36.74%) Degree
2 76 (12.52%) Computer Science Degree
2 76 (12.52%) Master's Degree
3 48 (7.91%) PhD
4 23 (3.79%) Security Cleared
5 17 (2.80%) SC Cleared
6 11 (1.81%) TOGAF Certification
7 10 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (1.48%) CISSP
9 8 (1.32%) CCNP
9 8 (1.32%) MBA
9 8 (1.32%) PMI Certification
10 6 (0.99%) AWS Certification
10 6 (0.99%) CCNA
10 6 (0.99%) CISM
11 5 (0.82%) APMG
11 5 (0.82%) Azure Certification
11 5 (0.82%) CRISC
11 5 (0.82%) Microsoft Certification
11 5 (0.82%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (7.25%) Data Quality
2 34 (5.60%) QA
3 24 (3.95%) GDPR
4 17 (2.80%) Accessibility
5 11 (1.81%) GxP
6 10 (1.65%) PMO
7 7 (1.15%) SLA
7 7 (1.15%) WCAG
8 5 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.82%) NIST
9 4 (0.66%) P3O
10 3 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (0.49%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.33%) COBIT
11 2 (0.33%) EMIR
11 2 (0.33%) GRC
12 1 (0.16%) MiFID
12 1 (0.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 8 (1.32%) Docker
2 2 (0.33%) RACF
3 1 (0.16%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.16%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 19 (3.13%) Terraform
2 17 (2.80%) Kubernetes
3 3 (0.49%) Ansible
4 2 (0.33%) FortiGate
4 2 (0.33%) Grafana
4 2 (0.33%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.16%) HP UCMDB
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle ZFS
5 1 (0.16%) Puppet
5 1 (0.16%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.16%) VxRail
Vendors
1 60 (9.88%) Google
2 48 (7.91%) SAP
3 44 (7.25%) Microsoft
4 39 (6.43%) ServiceNow
5 32 (5.27%) Adobe
6 30 (4.94%) Databricks
7 29 (4.78%) Salesforce
8 26 (4.28%) TikTok
9 19 (3.13%) Dell
10 18 (2.97%) Oracle
11 14 (2.31%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
12 11 (1.81%) IBM
13 9 (1.48%) OpenAI
14 8 (1.32%) Foundry
15 6 (0.99%) F5
15 6 (0.99%) Palantir
15 6 (0.99%) Splunk
16 5 (0.82%) Pinterest
16 5 (0.82%) Snapchat
17 3 (0.49%) Workday