Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £620, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 April 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +3 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,829 2,934 4,487
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.79% 10.09% 10.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.71% 10.87% 10.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,192 1,929 2,897
10th Percentile £463 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £545 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £603 £623 £650
% change year-on-year -3.21% -4.23% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 114 36 47
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.00 £50.32
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £68.75 £83.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.67% -17.66% +19.29%
75th Percentile £88.00 £80.15 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.50 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £83.77
% change year-on-year -1.70% -13.45% +19.66%

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 41,235 26,984 41,032
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.11% 92.84% 92.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,697 17,742 26,885
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.80% -1.00% -3.67%
75th Percentile £613 £629 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,576 945 2,527
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.07 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.75 £20.85 £16.25
Median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +18.86% -1.20% -25.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £71.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £31.76 £33.00
% change year-on-year +25.94% -3.76% -21.25%

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 April 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 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Architect in the UK

Architect
Top 17 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 April 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 +2 4,145 £625 - 1,077
UK excluding London +8 2,277 £603 -3.21% 761
London -1 1,887 £625 -3.85% 476
Work from Home 0 1,349 £620 +1.64% 523
South East +3 701 £625 - 256
North of England +5 594 £600 - 194
Midlands -1 399 £575 -4.17% 95
North West +7 339 £610 +1.67% 100
West Midlands -2 300 £600 -0.46% 69
South West +1 280 £700 +14.29% 98
Yorkshire +6 232 £558 -10.72% 70
East of England +19 179 £545 -9.17% 71
Scotland +15 134 £650 +4.00% 35
East Midlands -3 95 £525 -6.25% 26
North East +4 32 £575 -7.95% 28
Wales +1 28 £550 -3.51% 24
Northern Ireland +7 11 £500 -26.47% 4

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 April 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 1,544 (31.97%) Security Cleared
2 1,194 (24.73%) Azure
3 1,091 (22.59%) SC Cleared
4 1,030 (21.33%) AWS
5 695 (14.39%) Roadmaps
6 673 (13.94%) Microsoft
7 636 (13.17%) Migration
8 620 (12.84%) Agile
9 558 (11.56%) Stakeholder Management
10 546 (11.31%) DevOps
11 504 (10.44%) CI/CD
12 502 (10.40%) Enterprise Architecture
13 472 (9.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 461 (9.55%) Data Modelling
15 449 (9.30%) Technical Leadership
16 446 (9.24%) TOGAF
17 417 (8.64%) AI
18 415 (8.59%) Analytics
19 396 (8.20%) GCP
20 390 (8.08%) Problem-Solving
21 386 (7.99%) Integration Patterns
22 380 (7.87%) Data Architecture
23 366 (7.58%) Architectural Patterns
24 360 (7.45%) Microservices
24 360 (7.45%) Python
25 334 (6.92%) DV Cleared
26 326 (6.75%) Architectural Design
27 288 (5.96%) Security Architecture
28 285 (5.90%) Terraform
29 282 (5.84%) ServiceNow

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
1 122 (2.53%) Confluence
2 121 (2.51%) SharePoint
3 64 (1.33%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (0.72%) SAS
5 26 (0.54%) CMS
6 25 (0.52%) Apache Spark
7 21 (0.43%) Apache
8 18 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
9 17 (0.35%) Anypoint
10 16 (0.33%) Appian
10 16 (0.33%) ArcGIS
11 15 (0.31%) WebLogic
12 14 (0.29%) nginx
13 11 (0.23%) OpenStack
14 10 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 7 (0.14%) Camunda
15 7 (0.14%) Ethereum
15 7 (0.14%) Hyperledger
15 7 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 7 (0.14%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 49 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (0.50%) Microsoft Excel
5 19 (0.39%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.041%) PlantUML
7 2 (0.041%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.041%) Windchill
8 1 (0.021%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.021%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.021%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.021%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 127 (2.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 49 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
4 21 (0.43%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.35%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.33%) SAP ERP
7 13 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
8 12 (0.25%) SAP EWM
9 11 (0.23%) NetSuite
10 10 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 10 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.21%) SAP PM
11 9 (0.19%) Maximo
11 9 (0.19%) Teamcenter
12 8 (0.17%) SAP PP
13 7 (0.14%) R3 Corda
13 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
13 7 (0.14%) SAP QM
14 6 (0.12%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 1,194 (24.73%) Azure
2 1,030 (21.33%) AWS
3 396 (8.20%) GCP
4 204 (4.22%) Power Platform
5 172 (3.56%) Entra ID
6 171 (3.54%) Serverless
7 156 (3.23%) SaaS
8 144 (2.98%) Microsoft 365
9 114 (2.36%) GitHub
10 113 (2.34%) IaaS
11 101 (2.09%) PaaS
12 100 (2.07%) Azure DevOps
13 97 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
14 89 (1.84%) AWS Lambda
15 80 (1.66%) OpenShift
16 74 (1.53%) AWS CloudFormation
17 73 (1.51%) Microsoft Purview
18 71 (1.47%) Amazon S3
19 69 (1.43%) Snowflake
19 69 (1.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 239 (4.95%) Firewall
2 172 (3.56%) Network Security
3 141 (2.92%) WAN
4 131 (2.71%) DNS
5 130 (2.69%) VPN
6 87 (1.80%) LAN
7 80 (1.66%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.81%) BGP
8 39 (0.81%) DHCP
9 32 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
10 31 (0.64%) OSPF
11 30 (0.62%) MPLS
11 30 (0.62%) TCP/IP
12 27 (0.56%) SAN
12 27 (0.56%) VLAN
13 25 (0.52%) Wireless
14 22 (0.46%) VXLAN
15 20 (0.41%) Kerberos
16 19 (0.39%) NAS
17 18 (0.37%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (3.25%) Power BI
2 154 (3.19%) Data Warehouse
3 144 (2.98%) Metadata
4 114 (2.36%) Data Lake
5 82 (1.70%) SQL Server
6 61 (1.26%) PostgreSQL
7 60 (1.24%) NoSQL
8 51 (1.06%) Tableau
9 50 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
10 45 (0.93%) Oracle Database
11 41 (0.85%) Big Data
12 29 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
13 25 (0.52%) Relational Database
14 24 (0.50%) Delta Lake
15 23 (0.48%) BigQuery
15 23 (0.48%) DynamoDB
15 23 (0.48%) GIS
16 22 (0.46%) Metadata Repository
17 21 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
17 21 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 137 (2.84%) JIRA
2 96 (1.99%) Jenkins
3 49 (1.01%) Git
3 49 (1.01%) GitLab
4 25 (0.52%) ERwin
5 11 (0.23%) Bitbucket
5 11 (0.23%) SonarQube
6 10 (0.21%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.19%) MLflow
8 6 (0.12%) Postman
8 6 (0.12%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.10%) Cucumber
9 5 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
9 5 (0.10%) Selenium
9 5 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.083%) Maven
10 4 (0.083%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.083%) Snyk
10 4 (0.083%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.062%) ER Studio
General
1 1,024 (21.21%) Social Skills
2 738 (15.28%) Finance
3 556 (11.51%) Public Sector
4 323 (6.69%) Analytical Skills
5 280 (5.80%) Banking
6 159 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
7 116 (2.40%) Influencing Skills
8 115 (2.38%) Legal
9 99 (2.05%) Retail
10 87 (1.80%) Military
11 81 (1.68%) Telecoms
12 73 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
13 65 (1.35%) Marketing
14 64 (1.33%) Manufacturing
15 63 (1.30%) Law
16 47 (0.97%) Financial Institution
17 34 (0.70%) Billing
18 33 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 31 (0.64%) Investment Banking
20 29 (0.60%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 239 (4.95%) REST
2 181 (3.75%) Middleware
3 121 (2.51%) SOAP
4 103 (2.13%) .NET
5 102 (2.11%) Kafka
6 82 (1.70%) OpenID
7 79 (1.64%) LDAP
8 74 (1.53%) OAuth
9 61 (1.26%) SAML
10 57 (1.18%) JSON
11 52 (1.08%) React
12 46 (0.95%) AngularJS
12 46 (0.95%) OAuth2
13 44 (0.91%) RESTful
14 36 (0.75%) Web Services
15 35 (0.72%) SailPoint
16 30 (0.62%) Spring
17 27 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
17 27 (0.56%) PySpark
18 25 (0.52%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 375 (7.77%) Cloud Native
2 163 (3.38%) Data Centre
3 154 (3.19%) Product Ownership
4 127 (2.63%) Onboarding
5 110 (2.28%) Enterprise Software
6 106 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
7 99 (2.05%) Management Information System
8 95 (1.97%) Distributed Systems
8 95 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
9 92 (1.91%) Public Cloud
10 89 (1.84%) PKI
11 80 (1.66%) Security Posture
12 68 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
13 67 (1.39%) Operational Technology
14 64 (1.33%) CMDB
15 51 (1.06%) AI Agents
15 51 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
16 45 (0.93%) Data Structures
16 45 (0.93%) NHS
17 41 (0.85%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 190 (3.93%) Windows
2 127 (2.63%) Linux
3 46 (0.95%) Windows Server
4 35 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 30 (0.62%) Android
5 30 (0.62%) Apple iOS
6 17 (0.35%) Unix
7 15 (0.31%) Windows 10
7 15 (0.31%) Windows 7
8 14 (0.29%) VMS
8 14 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
9 11 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
10 10 (0.21%) zOS
11 9 (0.19%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.062%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.062%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.041%) CentOS
14 1 (0.021%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.021%) Solaris
14 1 (0.021%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 695 (14.39%) Roadmaps
2 636 (13.17%) Migration
3 620 (12.84%) Agile
4 558 (11.56%) Stakeholder Management
5 546 (11.31%) DevOps
6 504 (10.44%) CI/CD
7 502 (10.40%) Enterprise Architecture
8 472 (9.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 461 (9.55%) Data Modelling
10 449 (9.30%) Technical Leadership
11 446 (9.24%) TOGAF
12 417 (8.64%) AI
13 415 (8.59%) Analytics
14 390 (8.08%) Problem-Solving
15 386 (7.99%) Integration Patterns
16 380 (7.87%) Data Architecture
17 366 (7.58%) Architectural Patterns
18 360 (7.45%) Microservices
19 326 (6.75%) Architectural Design
20 288 (5.96%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 360 (7.45%) Python
2 258 (5.34%) SQL
3 190 (3.93%) PowerShell
4 189 (3.91%) Java
5 71 (1.47%) JavaScript
6 64 (1.33%) C#
7 43 (0.89%) Bicep
8 42 (0.87%) Bash
9 31 (0.64%) TypeScript
10 22 (0.46%) Ruby
11 19 (0.39%) Apex Code
12 18 (0.37%) PL/SQL
13 13 (0.27%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.27%) Scala
14 11 (0.23%) R
15 9 (0.19%) ABAP
15 9 (0.19%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.17%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,544 (31.97%) Security Cleared
2 1,091 (22.59%) SC Cleared
3 334 (6.92%) DV Cleared
4 207 (4.29%) Degree
5 126 (2.61%) CISSP
6 121 (2.51%) TOGAF Certification
7 120 (2.48%) Azure Certification
8 115 (2.38%) AWS Certification
9 88 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
9 88 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
10 75 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
11 70 (1.45%) CISM
12 55 (1.14%) Master's Degree
13 53 (1.10%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 52 (1.08%) CCNP
14 52 (1.08%) Microsoft Certification
15 34 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 33 (0.68%) ISEB
16 33 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
17 31 (0.64%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 193 (4.00%) GDPR
2 184 (3.81%) NIST
3 155 (3.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 154 (3.19%) Data Quality
5 104 (2.15%) NCSC
6 68 (1.41%) QA
7 58 (1.20%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.83%) COBIT
9 33 (0.68%) GRC
10 31 (0.64%) Accessibility
11 29 (0.60%) ISO 20022
12 27 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.41%) JSP 440
14 19 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 18 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 18 (0.37%) NIST 800
16 17 (0.35%) HL7
17 15 (0.31%) SEPA
18 14 (0.29%) HIPAA
18 14 (0.29%) MiFID
System Software
1 197 (4.08%) Active Directory
2 123 (2.55%) Docker
3 108 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 74 (1.53%) VMware NSX
5 37 (0.77%) vSphere
6 24 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.35%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 13 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
10 11 (0.23%) Varnish
11 10 (0.21%) vCloud
12 9 (0.19%) Squid
13 7 (0.14%) BitLocker
13 7 (0.14%) NFS
14 5 (0.10%) Postfix
14 5 (0.10%) RACF
15 4 (0.083%) Firmware
16 3 (0.062%) IAG
16 3 (0.062%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 285 (5.90%) Terraform
2 245 (5.07%) Kubernetes
3 122 (2.53%) Ansible
4 57 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (0.81%) Grafana
7 34 (0.70%) vCenter Server
8 32 (0.66%) FortiGate
9 30 (0.62%) OPNET
10 26 (0.54%) Prometheus
11 22 (0.46%) SCCM
12 19 (0.39%) Argo
13 18 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 14 (0.29%) WMI
15 11 (0.23%) Istio
16 7 (0.14%) Consul
16 7 (0.14%) Puppet
17 6 (0.12%) Kibana
18 5 (0.10%) HAProxy
18 5 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 673 (13.94%) Microsoft
2 282 (5.84%) ServiceNow
3 272 (5.63%) SAP
4 200 (4.14%) VMware
5 199 (4.12%) Oracle
6 190 (3.93%) Salesforce
7 171 (3.54%) Databricks
8 141 (2.92%) Cisco
9 112 (2.32%) Google
10 91 (1.88%) CyberArk
11 68 (1.41%) MuleSoft
12 66 (1.37%) Palo Alto
13 65 (1.35%) Splunk
14 59 (1.22%) Red Hat
15 51 (1.06%) IBM
15 51 (1.06%) Remedy
16 49 (1.01%) Workday
17 48 (0.99%) Atlassian
17 48 (0.99%) Sparx
18 46 (0.95%) Centrify