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 3 June 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,373 2,840 4,467
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.00% 9.87% 10.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.92% 10.69% 11.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,541 1,830 2,861
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% -1.22%
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 139 30 96
10th Percentile £46.00 £51.15 £58.75
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.38 £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 £97.75 £88.61 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £73.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -11.26% +4.64% -

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 45,089 26,570 40,007
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.35% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,438 17,201 25,885
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £504 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -4.00% -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 3,017 1,072 2,851
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.85 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.79% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £59.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.23 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.39% -36.94% -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 3 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 3 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 3 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 +8 4,569 £620 -0.80% 1,949
UK excluding London +10 2,374 £613 +2.08% 1,092
London +5 2,232 £625 -3.85% 944
Work from Home +4 1,458 £600 - 882
North of England +4 678 £600 - 322
South East +4 669 £625 +1.63% 280
Midlands +1 434 £600 +0.17% 123
North West +6 373 £608 +5.74% 175
West Midlands 0 310 £620 +3.33% 95
Yorkshire +7 256 £555 -7.58% 93
South West -1 237 £650 +8.33% 161
East of England +20 201 £575 -4.17% 79
Scotland +18 152 £650 +4.00% 60
East Midlands +1 118 £571 +8.60% 28
North East +5 56 £575 -4.17% 55
Wales -2 33 £600 +25.00% 53
Northern Ireland +8 7 £475 -28.30% 21
Channel Islands - 3 £575 - 2

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 3 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 1,627 (30.28%) Security Cleared
2 1,332 (24.79%) Azure
3 1,211 (22.54%) SC Cleared
4 1,166 (21.70%) AWS
5 747 (13.90%) Migration
6 739 (13.75%) Roadmaps
7 703 (13.08%) Microsoft
8 628 (11.69%) Stakeholder Management
9 616 (11.46%) Agile
10 610 (11.35%) DevOps
11 576 (10.72%) CI/CD
12 538 (10.01%) Enterprise Architecture
13 514 (9.57%) AI
14 507 (9.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 498 (9.27%) Data Modelling
16 497 (9.25%) Technical Leadership
17 477 (8.88%) Integration Patterns
18 442 (8.23%) Data Architecture
19 438 (8.15%) Architectural Patterns
20 426 (7.93%) Analytics
21 413 (7.69%) GCP
22 406 (7.56%) Microservices
22 406 (7.56%) TOGAF
23 362 (6.74%) Problem-Solving
24 352 (6.55%) Architectural Design
25 333 (6.20%) Infrastructure as Code
26 332 (6.18%) Python
27 323 (6.01%) Security Architecture
28 312 (5.81%) Cybersecurity
29 308 (5.73%) Event-Driven

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 (2.23%) SharePoint
2 80 (1.49%) Confluence
3 52 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (0.65%) SAS
5 31 (0.58%) Apache Spark
6 29 (0.54%) Apache
7 20 (0.37%) 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 12 (0.22%) 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
4 12 (0.22%) Microsoft Office
5 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.13%) Revit
6 6 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.074%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.056%) Windchill
9 2 (0.037%) Microsoft Project
10 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 136 (2.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.73%) 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 12 (0.22%) Workday HCM
8 11 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
8 11 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
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 GRC
12 6 (0.11%) SAP SD
13 5 (0.093%) Maximo
13 5 (0.093%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,332 (24.79%) Azure
2 1,166 (21.70%) AWS
3 413 (7.69%) GCP
4 241 (4.49%) Power Platform
5 204 (3.80%) Serverless
6 182 (3.39%) Entra ID
7 180 (3.35%) SaaS
8 131 (2.44%) Microsoft 365
9 127 (2.36%) GitHub
10 116 (2.16%) PaaS
11 107 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
12 101 (1.88%) AWS Lambda
12 101 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
13 87 (1.62%) Amazon S3
14 86 (1.60%) IaaS
15 85 (1.58%) Snowflake
16 75 (1.40%) Amazon EKS
17 69 (1.28%) OpenShift
18 67 (1.25%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 65 (1.21%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 212 (3.95%) Firewall
2 182 (3.39%) Network Security
3 122 (2.27%) WAN
4 117 (2.18%) VPN
5 115 (2.14%) DNS
6 86 (1.60%) LAN
7 65 (1.21%) SD-WAN
8 41 (0.76%) DHCP
9 39 (0.73%) BGP
10 32 (0.60%) SAN
10 32 (0.60%) Wireless
11 31 (0.58%) OSPF
11 31 (0.58%) VLAN
12 30 (0.56%) TCP/IP
13 29 (0.54%) MPLS
13 29 (0.54%) NAS
14 25 (0.47%) Structured Cabling
15 23 (0.43%) NX-OS
15 23 (0.43%) VXLAN
16 21 (0.39%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 176 (3.28%) Power BI
2 143 (2.66%) Metadata
3 140 (2.61%) Data Lake
4 137 (2.55%) 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 (0.74%) Big Data
7 40 (0.74%) Tableau
8 36 (0.67%) Oracle Database
9 32 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
9 32 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
10 28 (0.52%) BigQuery
11 25 (0.47%) Delta Lake
12 24 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
13 22 (0.41%) Amazon Athena
14 21 (0.39%) Relational Database
15 20 (0.37%) DynamoDB
15 20 (0.37%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 96 (1.79%) JIRA
2 90 (1.68%) Jenkins
3 57 (1.06%) Git
4 46 (0.86%) 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 (0.074%) Sonatype Nexus
13 4 (0.074%) Terragrunt
General
1 1,008 (18.76%) Social Skills
2 807 (15.02%) Finance
3 591 (11.00%) Public Sector
4 305 (5.68%) Banking
5 265 (4.93%) Analytical Skills
6 171 (3.18%) Retail
7 150 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
8 133 (2.48%) Legal
9 112 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
10 93 (1.73%) Telecoms
11 91 (1.69%) Manufacturing
12 60 (1.12%) Law
13 54 (1.01%) Military
14 51 (0.95%) 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
1 264 (4.91%) REST
2 204 (3.80%) Middleware
3 138 (2.57%) SOAP
4 134 (2.49%) .NET
5 110 (2.05%) Kafka
6 94 (1.75%) OAuth
6 94 (1.75%) OpenID
7 92 (1.71%) LDAP
8 72 (1.34%) SAML
9 57 (1.06%) React
10 55 (1.02%) OAuth2
10 55 (1.02%) Oracle Fusion
11 49 (0.91%) RESTful
12 43 (0.80%) SailPoint
13 40 (0.74%) JSON
14 39 (0.73%) AngularJS
15 37 (0.69%) Web Services
16 32 (0.60%) Node.js
16 32 (0.60%) PySpark
17 28 (0.52%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 452 (8.41%) Cloud Native
2 189 (3.52%) Data Centre
3 148 (2.75%) Management Information System
4 144 (2.68%) 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
9 106 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
10 94 (1.75%) Security Posture
11 93 (1.73%) Public Cloud
12 87 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
13 82 (1.53%) Operational Technology
14 80 (1.49%) CMDB
15 67 (1.25%) AI Agents
16 45 (0.84%) Data Structures
17 43 (0.80%) Private Cloud
18 42 (0.78%) Enterprise Cloud
18 42 (0.78%) Mainframe
18 42 (0.78%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 156 (2.90%) Windows
2 104 (1.94%) Linux
3 40 (0.74%) 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%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.17%) VMS
10 8 (0.15%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.11%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.11%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.093%) Data ONTAP
13 4 (0.074%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.074%) Solaris
14 3 (0.056%) CentOS
14 3 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 747 (13.90%) Migration
2 739 (13.75%) Roadmaps
3 628 (11.69%) Stakeholder Management
4 616 (11.46%) Agile
5 610 (11.35%) DevOps
6 576 (10.72%) CI/CD
7 538 (10.01%) Enterprise Architecture
8 514 (9.57%) AI
9 507 (9.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 498 (9.27%) Data Modelling
11 497 (9.25%) Technical Leadership
12 477 (8.88%) Integration Patterns
13 442 (8.23%) Data Architecture
14 438 (8.15%) Architectural Patterns
15 426 (7.93%) Analytics
16 406 (7.56%) Microservices
16 406 (7.56%) TOGAF
17 362 (6.74%) Problem-Solving
18 352 (6.55%) Architectural Design
19 333 (6.20%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 332 (6.18%) Python
2 277 (5.16%) SQL
3 222 (4.13%) Java
4 166 (3.09%) PowerShell
5 97 (1.81%) JavaScript
6 64 (1.19%) C#
7 58 (1.08%) Bicep
8 43 (0.80%) TypeScript
9 38 (0.71%) 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%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 6 (0.11%) Go
Qualifications
1 1,627 (30.28%) Security Cleared
2 1,211 (22.54%) SC Cleared
3 292 (5.43%) DV Cleared
4 195 (3.63%) Degree
5 118 (2.20%) Azure Certification
5 118 (2.20%) CISSP
6 109 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
7 107 (1.99%) AWS Certification
8 103 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
9 85 (1.58%) TOGAF Certification
10 83 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
11 65 (1.21%) CISM
12 54 (1.01%) CCNP
13 51 (0.95%) Master's Degree
14 43 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
15 41 (0.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 37 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 26 (0.48%) CCSP
18 20 (0.37%) DBS Check
19 19 (0.35%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (3.63%) NIST
2 172 (3.20%) GDPR
3 151 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 150 (2.79%) Data Quality
5 111 (2.07%) NCSC
6 72 (1.34%) QA
7 41 (0.76%) GRC
8 40 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 34 (0.63%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 23 (0.43%) NIST 800
12 22 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.39%) SEPA
14 19 (0.35%) HL7
15 18 (0.34%) COBIT
15 18 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
16 14 (0.26%) SLA
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
17 13 (0.24%) IFRS
System Software
1 193 (3.59%) Active Directory
2 106 (1.97%) 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 19 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 12 (0.22%) Varnish
8 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 11 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
10 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.17%) NFS
11 9 (0.17%) Squid
11 9 (0.17%) vCloud
12 7 (0.13%) Postfix
13 5 (0.093%) RACF
14 4 (0.074%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.074%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.056%) IAG
15 3 (0.056%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 266 (4.95%) Terraform
2 245 (4.56%) Kubernetes
3 110 (2.05%) Ansible
4 51 (0.95%) Grafana
4 51 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
5 39 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
5 39 (0.73%) Prometheus
6 33 (0.61%) FortiGate
7 28 (0.52%) vCenter Server
8 18 (0.34%) Argo
8 18 (0.34%) SCCM
9 15 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.22%) Istio
11 8 (0.15%) Progress Chef
12 7 (0.13%) Consul
12 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
12 7 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
12 7 (0.13%) Puppet
13 5 (0.093%) EMC VPLEX
13 5 (0.093%) Endace
Vendors
1 703 (13.08%) Microsoft
2 307 (5.71%) SAP
3 292 (5.43%) ServiceNow
4 243 (4.52%) Oracle
5 224 (4.17%) Databricks
6 185 (3.44%) 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 70 (1.30%) Splunk
13 55 (1.02%) Palo Alto
14 47 (0.87%) Red Hat
15 45 (0.84%) Workday
16 42 (0.78%) IBM
16 42 (0.78%) OpenAI
17 41 (0.76%) Sparx
18 40 (0.74%) BeyondTrust
19 39 (0.73%) Juniper