Critical Thinking Contracts

Critical Thinking
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Critical Thinking skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Critical Thinking over the 6 months to 18 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
18 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 347 399 451
Rank change year-on-year +52 +52 +2
Contract jobs citing Critical Thinking 227 308 455
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.53% 0.54% 0.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.62% 0.60% 0.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 148 213 290
10th Percentile £255 £361 £350
25th Percentile £404 £419 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £611
90th Percentile £750 £800 £708
UK excluding London median daily rate £531 £480 £480
% change year-on-year +10.68% - +6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 21 4
10th Percentile £24.27 £19.00 £46.63
25th Percentile £25.29 £20.22 £48.31
Median hourly rate £26.00 £21.67 £59.78
Median % change year-on-year +19.98% -63.75% +39.01%
75th Percentile £35.00 £41.50 £69.05
90th Percentile £50.00 £50.42 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £20.71 £69.05
% change year-on-year +69.04% -70.01% +60.58%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Critical Thinking is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 36,673 51,121 79,325
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.13% 89.77% 90.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,631 35,432 55,673
10th Percentile £300 £325 £344
25th Percentile £413 £438 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +3.77% +7.07%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £480
% change year-on-year - +4.17% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,440 1,683 1,892
10th Percentile £12.75 £10.63 £12.50
25th Percentile £15.99 £16.01 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.05 £36.00 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +0.13% +40.19% +7.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £49.54
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +7.14% +75.00% -4.99%

Critical Thinking
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Critical Thinking as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Critical Thinking in the UK

Critical Thinking
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Critical Thinking.

Daily rate trend for Critical Thinking in the UK

Critical Thinking
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Critical Thinking over the 6 months to 18 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Critical Thinking in the UK

Critical Thinking
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Critical Thinking.

Hourly rate trend for Critical Thinking in the UK

Critical Thinking
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Critical Thinking over the 6 months to 18 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Critical Thinking in the UK

Critical Thinking
Top 16 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Critical Thinking within the UK over the 6 months to 18 May 2024. 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +42 190 £525 +6.49% 251
UK excluding London +48 121 £531 +10.68% 145
London +40 81 £569 +1.11% 119
Work from Home +53 67 £475 -2.26% 111
Midlands +31 28 £273 -22.14% 25
South East +19 21 £538 +27.22% 39
North of England +19 21 £579 +19.14% 37
East Midlands +28 18 £269 -10.71% 13
South West -5 18 £538 -2.27% 22
North West +10 17 £548 +12.76% 20
Wales +28 12 £600 +9.09% 1
Scotland +40 11 £450 - 12
West Midlands +19 10 £607 +73.43% 12
East of England - 9 £500 - 12
Yorkshire +13 4 £650 +13.04% 9
Northern Ireland - 1 £325 -

Critical Thinking
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 27 (11.89%) Confluence
2 23 (10.13%) SharePoint
3 22 (9.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (3.52%) SAS
5 3 (1.32%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (1.32%) Jupyter
5 3 (1.32%) nginx
6 1 (0.44%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 22 (9.69%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (7.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (3.52%) Acrobat
4 4 (1.76%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.88%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.44%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.44%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 4 (1.76%) Oracle Cash Management
1 4 (1.76%) Oracle Receivables
1 4 (1.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (1.32%) SAP SD
3 2 (0.88%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.44%) Distributed Ledger
4 1 (0.44%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.44%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.44%) SAP CO
4 1 (0.44%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.44%) SAP FI/CO
4 1 (0.44%) SAP MM
4 1 (0.44%) SAP SCM
4 1 (0.44%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 33 (14.54%) Azure
2 14 (6.17%) Azure DevOps
3 12 (5.29%) AWS
4 10 (4.41%) Azure AKS
4 10 (4.41%) Power Platform
5 9 (3.96%) GCP
6 8 (3.52%) PaaS
7 7 (3.08%) Azure App Service
7 7 (3.08%) Microsoft 365
8 4 (1.76%) Azure Monitor
8 4 (1.76%) Cloud Computing
8 4 (1.76%) IaaS
8 4 (1.76%) OCI
8 4 (1.76%) Power Automate
8 4 (1.76%) PowerApps
8 4 (1.76%) SaaS
9 3 (1.32%) Azure Machine Learning
9 3 (1.32%) CloudBees
9 3 (1.32%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 2 (0.88%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 24 (10.57%) DNS
2 18 (7.93%) DHCP
3 7 (3.08%) Firewall
3 7 (3.08%) VSAN
4 5 (2.20%) Intranet
4 5 (2.20%) TCP/IP
4 5 (2.20%) VPN
5 4 (1.76%) HTTP
5 4 (1.76%) Internet
5 4 (1.76%) Kerberos
5 4 (1.76%) SSH
6 3 (1.32%) Skype
7 1 (0.44%) BGP
7 1 (0.44%) Cisco Nexus
7 1 (0.44%) LAN
7 1 (0.44%) OSPF
7 1 (0.44%) SD-WAN
7 1 (0.44%) SSL
7 1 (0.44%) Unified Communications
7 1 (0.44%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (3.96%) MongoDB
1 9 (3.96%) Power BI
2 8 (3.52%) Relational Database
3 7 (3.08%) KDB
4 5 (2.20%) SQL Server
5 4 (1.76%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (1.76%) SAP HANA
6 3 (1.32%) Apache Cassandra
6 3 (1.32%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (1.32%) ClickHouse
6 3 (1.32%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.88%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.88%) Big Data
7 2 (0.88%) Geospatial Data
7 2 (0.88%) Hadoop
7 2 (0.88%) Snowflake Schema
7 2 (0.88%) Tableau
8 1 (0.44%) MySQL
8 1 (0.44%) QlikView
8 1 (0.44%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 31 (13.66%) JIRA
2 7 (3.08%) Git
3 4 (1.76%) Cypress.io
4 3 (1.32%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.88%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.88%) Gradle
5 2 (0.88%) IntelliJ
5 2 (0.88%) Selenium
5 2 (0.88%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.44%) Balsamiq
6 1 (0.44%) GoCD
6 1 (0.44%) JUnit
6 1 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.44%) Toad
General
1 163 (71.81%) Social Skills
2 103 (45.37%) Analytical Skills
3 57 (25.11%) Finance
4 24 (10.57%) Public Sector
5 22 (9.69%) Organisational Skills
6 18 (7.93%) Military
7 17 (7.49%) Marketing
8 14 (6.17%) Presentation Skills
9 12 (5.29%) Telecoms
10 9 (3.96%) Banking
10 9 (3.96%) French Language
11 8 (3.52%) Local Government
12 7 (3.08%) Front Office
12 7 (3.08%) German Language
12 7 (3.08%) Influencing Skills
13 6 (2.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 4 (1.76%) Legal
15 3 (1.32%) Manufacturing
15 3 (1.32%) Spanish Language
16 2 (0.88%) Arabic Language
Job Titles
1 48 (21.15%) Analyst
2 33 (14.54%) Senior
3 27 (11.89%) Developer
4 18 (7.93%) Project Manager
5 17 (7.49%) Test Engineer
6 16 (7.05%) Integration Engineer
6 16 (7.05%) Test and Integration Engineer
7 12 (5.29%) Business Analyst
7 12 (5.29%) Senior Manager
8 10 (4.41%) Java Developer
9 9 (3.96%) Senior Analyst
10 8 (3.52%) Bid Manager
10 8 (3.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 8 (3.52%) Senior Bid Manager
10 8 (3.52%) Software Engineer
11 7 (3.08%) Architect
11 7 (3.08%) Electronic Trading Developer
11 7 (3.08%) Electronic Trading Java Developer
11 7 (3.08%) Incident Manager
11 7 (3.08%) SAP Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (6.17%) .NET
2 10 (4.41%) Spring
3 9 (3.96%) React
4 8 (3.52%) HTML
4 8 (3.52%) LDAP
5 7 (3.08%) JSON
5 7 (3.08%) Node.js
6 6 (2.64%) CSS
6 6 (2.64%) RESTful
7 5 (2.20%) AngularJS
7 5 (2.20%) Flash
7 5 (2.20%) YAML
8 4 (1.76%) scikit-learn
9 3 (1.32%) Apache Beam
9 3 (1.32%) Kafka
9 3 (1.32%) Keycloak
9 3 (1.32%) OAuth
9 3 (1.32%) OpenID
9 3 (1.32%) Regular Expression
9 3 (1.32%) XACML
Miscellaneous
1 23 (10.13%) Self-Motivation
2 22 (9.69%) PKI
3 15 (6.61%) Product Ownership
4 13 (5.73%) Management Information System
5 12 (5.29%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (4.85%) Virtual Team
7 9 (3.96%) Algorithms
8 7 (3.08%) Data Structures
8 7 (3.08%) Derivative
8 7 (3.08%) Fixed Income
9 5 (2.20%) Clustering
10 4 (1.76%) Renewable Energy
11 3 (1.32%) Cyber Kill Chain
11 3 (1.32%) Operational Technology
12 2 (0.88%) Blockchain
12 2 (0.88%) Distributed Applications
12 2 (0.88%) FMCG
12 2 (0.88%) Low-Code
12 2 (0.88%) Security Operations Centre
12 2 (0.88%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 26 (11.45%) Windows
2 20 (8.81%) Windows Server
2 20 (8.81%) Windows Server 2012
3 16 (7.05%) Linux
4 5 (2.20%) Windows 10
5 3 (1.32%) Android
6 2 (0.88%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.88%) CentOS
7 1 (0.44%) Unix
7 1 (0.44%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 125 (55.07%) Problem-Solving
2 83 (36.56%) Agile
3 48 (21.15%) Project Management
4 36 (15.86%) Decision-Making
5 30 (13.22%) Computer Science
6 29 (12.78%) DevOps
7 28 (12.33%) Stakeholder Management
7 28 (12.33%) Time Management
8 27 (11.89%) Continuous Improvement
9 26 (11.45%) Analytical Thinking
10 24 (10.57%) Risk Management
11 18 (7.93%) Business Analysis
11 18 (7.93%) CI/CD
11 18 (7.93%) Test Scripting
12 17 (7.49%) Cybersecurity
12 17 (7.49%) Incident Management
12 17 (7.49%) People Management
12 17 (7.49%) PRINCE2
12 17 (7.49%) Regression Testing
12 17 (7.49%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 43 (18.94%) SQL
2 23 (10.13%) Java
3 18 (7.93%) C#
4 17 (7.49%) Python
5 14 (6.17%) JavaScript
6 12 (5.29%) TypeScript
7 10 (4.41%) Bicep
7 10 (4.41%) PowerShell
8 3 (1.32%) Go
8 3 (1.32%) Groovy
8 3 (1.32%) Perl
8 3 (1.32%) R
8 3 (1.32%) Ruby
8 3 (1.32%) Scala
9 2 (0.88%) PHP
10 1 (0.44%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.44%) VB
Qualifications
1 63 (27.75%) Degree
2 43 (18.94%) Security Cleared
3 42 (18.50%) SC Cleared
4 23 (10.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 20 (8.81%) MCSE
5 20 (8.81%) Microsoft Certification
6 17 (7.49%) MCSA
7 15 (6.61%) HNC
7 15 (6.61%) HND
8 14 (6.17%) Master's Degree
9 11 (4.85%) PMI Certification
9 11 (4.85%) PMP
10 8 (3.52%) Computer Science Degree
11 7 (3.08%) Cisco Certification
12 6 (2.64%) CCNA
12 6 (2.64%) ITIL Certification
13 5 (2.20%) Postgraduate
14 4 (1.76%) Chartered Engineer
15 3 (1.32%) CIMA
15 3 (1.32%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (7.05%) QA
2 7 (3.08%) PMO
3 5 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (2.20%) SLA
4 3 (1.32%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 3 (1.32%) NIST
4 3 (1.32%) PCI DSS
5 2 (0.88%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.44%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.44%) HAZOP
6 1 (0.44%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 25 (11.01%) Active Directory
1 25 (11.01%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (3.08%) VMware NSX
3 6 (2.64%) VMware ESXi
4 5 (2.20%) Docker
4 5 (2.20%) Hyper-V
5 4 (1.76%) NFS
6 3 (1.32%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 1 (0.44%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 6 (2.64%) Terraform
1 6 (2.64%) vCenter Server
2 4 (1.76%) Ansible
2 4 (1.76%) Single Sign-On
3 3 (1.32%) Grafana
3 3 (1.32%) PingFederate
3 3 (1.32%) WSUS
4 2 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.44%) FortiGate
5 1 (0.44%) Nessus
5 1 (0.44%) Nmap
5 1 (0.44%) SCCM
5 1 (0.44%) SCOM
Vendors
1 56 (24.67%) Microsoft
2 26 (11.45%) VMware
3 19 (8.37%) SAP
4 10 (4.41%) Adobe
4 10 (4.41%) Oracle
5 7 (3.08%) Atlassian
5 7 (3.08%) Cisco
5 7 (3.08%) ION Trading
6 5 (2.20%) ServiceNow
7 4 (1.76%) Databricks
8 3 (1.32%) Ping Identity
8 3 (1.32%) Salesforce
9 2 (0.88%) Cadence
9 2 (0.88%) Conga
9 2 (0.88%) DocuSign
9 2 (0.88%) ESRI
9 2 (0.88%) Google
9 2 (0.88%) Ivanti
9 2 (0.88%) Red Hat
9 2 (0.88%) Teradata