Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £615, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 June 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,367 2,867 4,464
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.00% 9.91% 10.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.92% 10.73% 11.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,543 1,848 2,858
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £537 £556
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -3.85% -0.88%
75th Percentile £725 £715 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 138 31 96
10th Percentile £46.00 £52.50 £58.75
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.25 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £82.25 £85.99
90th Percentile £97.88 £87.50 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £73.31 £70.00
% change year-on-year -11.34% +4.73% -

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 45,020 26,719 39,975
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.34% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,415 17,307 25,875
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,003 1,068 2,841
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £28.08 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.04% -25.13% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £59.23 £61.60
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.72 £40.00
% change year-on-year +74.96% -35.70% -5.88%

Architect
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Architect' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Architect job vacancy trend in the UK

Architect
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Architect job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Architect job vacancies in the UK

Architect
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Architect over the 6 months to 2 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Architect in the UK

Architect
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Architect job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Architect job vacancies in the UK

Architect
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Architect over the 6 months to 2 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Architect in the UK

Architect
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Architect within the UK over the 6 months to 2 June 2026. 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 +7 4,569 £620 -0.80% 2,016
UK excluding London +9 2,377 £613 +2.08% 1,164
London +4 2,226 £625 -3.85% 964
Work from Home +3 1,452 £600 - 953
South East +4 676 £625 +2.04% 301
North of England +4 674 £600 - 336
Midlands +1 435 £600 +0.17% 127
North West +6 372 £608 +5.74% 193
West Midlands +2 311 £620 +3.33% 97
Yorkshire +6 254 £552 -7.96% 91
South West 0 239 £650 +8.33% 180
East of England +20 202 £575 -4.17% 85
Scotland +17 151 £650 +4.00% 71
East Midlands +2 118 £571 +8.60% 30
North East +6 55 £575 -4.17% 53
Wales -2 32 £600 +25.00% 49
Northern Ireland +8 7 £475 -28.30% 23
Channel Islands - 3 £575 - 2

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 June 2026, Architect contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Architect in the job title.

1 1,620 (30.18%) Security Cleared
2 1,327 (24.73%) Azure
3 1,204 (22.43%) SC Cleared
4 1,161 (21.63%) AWS
5 741 (13.81%) Migration
6 737 (13.73%) Roadmaps
7 703 (13.10%) Microsoft
8 624 (11.63%) Stakeholder Management
9 610 (11.37%) DevOps
10 609 (11.35%) Agile
11 574 (10.69%) CI/CD
12 539 (10.04%) Enterprise Architecture
13 511 (9.52%) AI
14 506 (9.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 498 (9.28%) Data Modelling
16 494 (9.20%) Technical Leadership
17 475 (8.85%) Integration Patterns
18 441 (8.22%) Data Architecture
19 437 (8.14%) Architectural Patterns
20 418 (7.79%) Analytics
21 415 (7.73%) GCP
22 410 (7.64%) Microservices
23 407 (7.58%) TOGAF
24 361 (6.73%) Problem-Solving
25 352 (6.56%) Architectural Design
26 332 (6.19%) Infrastructure as Code
26 332 (6.19%) Python
27 322 (6.00%) Security Architecture
28 311 (5.79%) Cybersecurity
29 308 (5.74%) SAP

Architect Skill Set
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
1 120 (2.24%) SharePoint
2 80 (1.49%) Confluence
3 52 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (0.58%) Apache Spark
5 30 (0.56%) SAS
6 29 (0.54%) Apache
7 21 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.32%) Anypoint
8 17 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
9 16 (0.30%) Appian
10 15 (0.28%) CMS
10 15 (0.28%) nginx
10 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.24%) OpenStack
12 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
13 9 (0.17%) Camunda
14 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
15 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
15 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 23 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 18 (0.34%) MS Visio
3 13 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.24%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.13%) Revit
5 6 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.075%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.056%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.056%) Windchill
8 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 137 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.75%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 20 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.32%) SAP ERP
6 14 (0.26%) Teamcenter
7 13 (0.24%) Workday HCM
8 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
9 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
10 8 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
10 8 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
11 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
12 6 (0.11%) SAP EWM
12 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
12 6 (0.11%) SAP SD
13 5 (0.093%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,327 (24.73%) Azure
2 1,161 (21.63%) AWS
3 415 (7.73%) GCP
4 237 (4.42%) Power Platform
5 202 (3.76%) Serverless
6 183 (3.41%) Entra ID
7 179 (3.34%) SaaS
8 131 (2.44%) Microsoft 365
9 129 (2.40%) GitHub
10 114 (2.12%) PaaS
11 107 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
12 101 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
13 99 (1.84%) AWS Lambda
14 85 (1.58%) Amazon S3
14 85 (1.58%) IaaS
14 85 (1.58%) Snowflake
15 75 (1.40%) Amazon EKS
16 72 (1.34%) OpenShift
17 68 (1.27%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 65 (1.21%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 214 (3.99%) Firewall
2 182 (3.39%) Network Security
3 122 (2.27%) WAN
4 117 (2.18%) DNS
4 117 (2.18%) VPN
5 86 (1.60%) LAN
6 65 (1.21%) SD-WAN
7 41 (0.76%) DHCP
8 39 (0.73%) BGP
9 32 (0.60%) SAN
9 32 (0.60%) Wireless
10 31 (0.58%) OSPF
10 31 (0.58%) VLAN
11 30 (0.56%) TCP/IP
12 29 (0.54%) MPLS
12 29 (0.54%) NAS
13 25 (0.47%) Structured Cabling
14 23 (0.43%) NX-OS
14 23 (0.43%) VXLAN
15 21 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (3.19%) Power BI
2 142 (2.65%) Metadata
3 138 (2.57%) Data Lake
4 133 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
5 72 (1.34%) NoSQL
5 72 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
5 72 (1.34%) SQL Server
6 44 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
7 40 (0.75%) Big Data
7 40 (0.75%) Tableau
8 36 (0.67%) Oracle Database
9 32 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
10 30 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
11 28 (0.52%) BigQuery
12 25 (0.47%) Delta Lake
13 24 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
14 21 (0.39%) Relational Database
15 20 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
15 20 (0.37%) DynamoDB
15 20 (0.37%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 95 (1.77%) JIRA
2 92 (1.71%) Jenkins
3 58 (1.08%) Git
4 47 (0.88%) GitLab
5 22 (0.41%) ERwin
6 13 (0.24%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.19%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.17%) Bitbucket
8 9 (0.17%) Postman
9 8 (0.15%) MLflow
10 7 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
12 5 (0.093%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.093%) JMeter
12 5 (0.093%) JUnit
12 5 (0.093%) Maven
12 5 (0.093%) PowerDesigner
13 4 (0.075%) Snyk
13 4 (0.075%) Terragrunt
General
1 1,005 (18.73%) Social Skills
2 806 (15.02%) Finance
3 584 (10.88%) Public Sector
4 304 (5.66%) Banking
5 264 (4.92%) Analytical Skills
6 169 (3.15%) Retail
7 151 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
8 131 (2.44%) Legal
9 114 (2.12%) Influencing Skills
10 94 (1.75%) Telecoms
11 90 (1.68%) Manufacturing
12 60 (1.12%) Law
13 56 (1.04%) Military
14 52 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
15 50 (0.93%) Marketing
16 48 (0.89%) Billing
17 46 (0.86%) Financial Institution
18 39 (0.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 38 (0.71%) Aerospace
20 35 (0.65%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 263 (4.90%) REST
2 203 (3.78%) Middleware
3 139 (2.59%) SOAP
4 134 (2.50%) .NET
5 110 (2.05%) Kafka
6 95 (1.77%) OpenID
7 94 (1.75%) OAuth
8 92 (1.71%) LDAP
9 73 (1.36%) SAML
10 57 (1.06%) React
11 56 (1.04%) OAuth2
12 53 (0.99%) Oracle Fusion
13 49 (0.91%) RESTful
14 43 (0.80%) SailPoint
15 40 (0.75%) JSON
16 39 (0.73%) AngularJS
17 37 (0.69%) Web Services
18 32 (0.60%) Node.js
19 30 (0.56%) PySpark
20 27 (0.50%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 450 (8.38%) Cloud Native
2 189 (3.52%) Data Centre
3 145 (2.70%) Management Information System
4 142 (2.65%) Onboarding
5 137 (2.55%) Product Ownership
6 124 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
7 122 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
8 121 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
9 107 (1.99%) Hybrid Cloud
10 93 (1.73%) Public Cloud
11 92 (1.71%) Security Posture
12 85 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
13 82 (1.53%) Operational Technology
14 79 (1.47%) CMDB
15 66 (1.23%) AI Agents
16 45 (0.84%) Data Structures
17 44 (0.82%) Private Cloud
18 42 (0.78%) Mainframe
18 42 (0.78%) NHS
19 41 (0.76%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 157 (2.93%) Windows
2 107 (1.99%) Linux
3 41 (0.76%) Windows Server
4 35 (0.65%) Android
4 35 (0.65%) Apple iOS
5 27 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (0.41%) Unix
7 11 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
7 11 (0.20%) zOS
8 10 (0.19%) VMS
8 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.15%) Mac OS
9 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.11%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.11%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.093%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.075%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.075%) Solaris
13 3 (0.056%) CentOS
13 3 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 741 (13.81%) Migration
2 737 (13.73%) Roadmaps
3 624 (11.63%) Stakeholder Management
4 610 (11.37%) DevOps
5 609 (11.35%) Agile
6 574 (10.69%) CI/CD
7 539 (10.04%) Enterprise Architecture
8 511 (9.52%) AI
9 506 (9.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 498 (9.28%) Data Modelling
11 494 (9.20%) Technical Leadership
12 475 (8.85%) Integration Patterns
13 441 (8.22%) Data Architecture
14 437 (8.14%) Architectural Patterns
15 418 (7.79%) Analytics
16 410 (7.64%) Microservices
17 407 (7.58%) TOGAF
18 361 (6.73%) Problem-Solving
19 352 (6.56%) Architectural Design
20 332 (6.19%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 332 (6.19%) Python
2 276 (5.14%) SQL
3 220 (4.10%) Java
4 168 (3.13%) PowerShell
5 98 (1.83%) JavaScript
6 63 (1.17%) C#
7 58 (1.08%) Bicep
8 43 (0.80%) TypeScript
9 39 (0.73%) Bash
10 22 (0.41%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.39%) Ruby
12 20 (0.37%) PL/SQL
13 15 (0.28%) Scala
14 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) Shell Script
18 6 (0.11%) ABAP
18 6 (0.11%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,620 (30.18%) Security Cleared
2 1,204 (22.43%) SC Cleared
3 293 (5.46%) DV Cleared
4 194 (3.61%) Degree
5 118 (2.20%) Azure Certification
6 117 (2.18%) CISSP
7 107 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
8 106 (1.98%) AWS Certification
9 102 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
10 85 (1.58%) TOGAF Certification
11 83 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
12 64 (1.19%) CISM
13 54 (1.01%) CCNP
14 51 (0.95%) Master's Degree
15 44 (0.82%) Microsoft Certification
16 40 (0.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 38 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 26 (0.48%) CCSP
19 19 (0.35%) CCIE
19 19 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 196 (3.65%) NIST
2 171 (3.19%) GDPR
3 149 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 147 (2.74%) Data Quality
5 112 (2.09%) NCSC
6 72 (1.34%) QA
7 41 (0.76%) GRC
8 39 (0.73%) PCI DSS
9 34 (0.63%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 23 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
11 23 (0.43%) NIST 800
12 21 (0.39%) SEPA
13 19 (0.35%) HL7
14 18 (0.34%) COBIT
14 18 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.24%) FINRA
16 13 (0.24%) IFRS
16 13 (0.24%) SLA
System Software
1 194 (3.61%) Active Directory
2 107 (1.99%) Docker
3 102 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.30%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.56%) vSphere
6 23 (0.43%) Hyper-V
7 20 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
8 12 (0.22%) Varnish
8 12 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
10 9 (0.17%) NFS
10 9 (0.17%) Squid
10 9 (0.17%) vCloud
11 7 (0.13%) Postfix
12 5 (0.093%) RACF
13 4 (0.075%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.075%) Firmware
13 4 (0.075%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.056%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 266 (4.96%) Terraform
2 245 (4.56%) Kubernetes
3 112 (2.09%) Ansible
4 52 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
5 51 (0.95%) Grafana
6 39 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (0.73%) Prometheus
7 33 (0.61%) FortiGate
8 28 (0.52%) vCenter Server
9 18 (0.34%) Argo
9 18 (0.34%) SCCM
10 16 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.22%) Istio
12 8 (0.15%) Progress Chef
13 7 (0.13%) Consul
13 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
13 7 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
13 7 (0.13%) Puppet
14 5 (0.093%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.093%) Endace
Vendors
1 703 (13.10%) Microsoft
2 308 (5.74%) SAP
3 294 (5.48%) ServiceNow
4 241 (4.49%) Oracle
5 223 (4.16%) Databricks
6 185 (3.45%) VMware
7 176 (3.28%) Salesforce
8 140 (2.61%) Cisco
9 121 (2.25%) Google
10 88 (1.64%) CyberArk
11 80 (1.49%) MuleSoft
12 69 (1.29%) Splunk
13 55 (1.02%) Palo Alto
14 48 (0.89%) Red Hat
15 46 (0.86%) Workday
16 43 (0.80%) OpenAI
17 42 (0.78%) Sparx
18 41 (0.76%) IBM
19 40 (0.75%) BeyondTrust
20 39 (0.73%) Juniper