Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £618, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 September 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 20 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,179 2,936 3,777
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.26% 8.90% 9.84%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.21% 9.77% 10.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,094 1,902 2,296
10th Percentile £481 £463 £481
25th Percentile £525 £525 £544
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £618 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £775 £786 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -1.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 15 67
10th Percentile £44.20 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £59.68 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.17 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.62% - -0.25%
75th Percentile £80.00 £83.75 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.17 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -2.62% - -6.67%

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 50,616 30,052 35,689
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 91.07% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,900 18,989 21,757
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,913 1,614 1,619
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.84
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.30 £20.88
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.70 £51.65 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.95 £69.65 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.90
% change year-on-year +69.02% -42.72% +0.34%

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 25 September 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 25 September 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 25 September 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 5,137 £620 -0.80% 4,610
London +6 2,641 £625 -2.34% 2,682
UK excluding London +7 2,584 £620 +3.33% 2,070
Work from Home +6 1,661 £600 - 1,843
South East +2 730 £625 +4.17% 577
North of England +4 684 £591 -1.46% 511
Midlands +3 440 £626 +8.87% 290
North West +7 377 £599 +4.16% 283
South West +2 346 £638 -1.92% 236
West Midlands +2 329 £650 +8.33% 222
Yorkshire +16 244 £555 -9.39% 173
Scotland +21 190 £625 +2.67% 211
East of England +8 162 £616 +10.29% 155
East Midlands +5 106 £600 +20.00% 68
North East -3 62 £600 -17.24% 55
Wales +2 44 £645 +3.20% 33
Channel Islands -3 8 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +3 2 - - 67

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 September 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 1,947 (31.51%) Security Cleared
2 1,594 (25.80%) Azure
3 1,464 (23.69%) SC Cleared
4 1,298 (21.01%) AWS
5 1,157 (18.72%) Stakeholder Management
6 969 (15.68%) Roadmaps
7 891 (14.42%) Migration
8 837 (13.55%) Microsoft
9 798 (12.91%) Enterprise Architecture
10 790 (12.79%) Technical Leadership
11 784 (12.69%) AI
12 675 (10.92%) Agile
13 652 (10.55%) DevOps
14 636 (10.29%) Data Modelling
15 630 (10.20%) Data Architecture
16 624 (10.10%) CI/CD
17 621 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 582 (9.42%) Integration Patterns
19 533 (8.63%) Analytics
20 496 (8.03%) GCP
21 493 (7.98%) Security Architecture
22 485 (7.85%) TOGAF
23 472 (7.64%) Architectural Patterns
24 430 (6.96%) Event-Driven
25 411 (6.65%) Data Governance
26 398 (6.44%) Microservices
27 390 (6.31%) Decision-Making
28 389 (6.30%) Architecture Governance
28 389 (6.30%) DV Cleared
29 381 (6.17%) Infrastructure as Code

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 78 (1.26%) SAS
2 71 (1.15%) SharePoint
3 63 (1.02%) Confluence
4 47 (0.76%) Apache
5 44 (0.71%) Apache Spark
6 36 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
7 34 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
8 24 (0.39%) CMS
9 21 (0.34%) Palantir Foundry
10 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.11%) Documentum
11 7 (0.11%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.097%) Appian
12 6 (0.097%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.097%) Headless CMS
12 6 (0.097%) IIS
12 6 (0.097%) JBoss
13 5 (0.081%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.065%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.065%) Camunda
Applications
1 22 (0.36%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.15%) Revit
6 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.11%) Navisworks
8 6 (0.097%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.032%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.032%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.016%) Notion
10 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
10 1 (0.016%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 180 (2.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 44 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 33 (0.53%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
5 16 (0.26%) Teamcenter
6 15 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
6 15 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
8 13 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
9 12 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.19%) SAP ERP
10 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 7 (0.11%) Maximo
13 7 (0.11%) Oracle Retail
14 6 (0.097%) SAP FI
14 6 (0.097%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 1,594 (25.80%) Azure
2 1,298 (21.01%) AWS
3 496 (8.03%) GCP
4 301 (4.87%) Power Platform
5 235 (3.80%) SaaS
6 216 (3.50%) Entra ID
7 195 (3.16%) Serverless
8 147 (2.38%) GitHub
9 137 (2.22%) Dynamics 365
10 135 (2.18%) Microsoft 365
11 129 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
12 120 (1.94%) Snowflake
13 98 (1.59%) PaaS
14 90 (1.46%) AWS Lambda
15 82 (1.33%) Amazon S3
16 75 (1.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 71 (1.15%) IaaS
18 69 (1.12%) OCI
19 66 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
20 65 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 163 (2.64%) Firewall
2 146 (2.36%) Network Security
3 101 (1.63%) WAN
4 76 (1.23%) VPN
5 73 (1.18%) DNS
6 64 (1.04%) LAN
7 50 (0.81%) BGP
7 50 (0.81%) SD-WAN
8 40 (0.65%) MPLS
9 39 (0.63%) DHCP
10 34 (0.55%) TCP/IP
11 30 (0.49%) VLAN
12 28 (0.45%) VXLAN
13 26 (0.42%) SAN
14 25 (0.40%) NX-OS
15 22 (0.36%) Wireless
16 20 (0.32%) BIG-IP
16 20 (0.32%) NAS
16 20 (0.32%) OSPF
17 19 (0.31%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 238 (3.85%) Metadata
2 212 (3.43%) Data Lake
3 196 (3.17%) Data Warehouse
4 184 (2.98%) Power BI
5 67 (1.08%) NoSQL
6 49 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
6 49 (0.79%) BigQuery
7 48 (0.78%) SQL Server
8 47 (0.76%) PostgreSQL
9 42 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
10 40 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
11 39 (0.63%) Delta Lake
12 37 (0.60%) Oracle Database
13 33 (0.53%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 31 (0.50%) Big Data
14 31 (0.50%) Semantic Layer
15 28 (0.45%) Relational Database
16 23 (0.37%) Star Schema
16 23 (0.37%) Tableau
17 22 (0.36%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 87 (1.41%) JIRA
2 76 (1.23%) Git
3 63 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 49 (0.79%) GitLab
5 15 (0.24%) ERwin
6 13 (0.21%) Claude Code
6 13 (0.21%) Postman
7 10 (0.16%) MSI
7 10 (0.16%) RStudio
8 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
9 6 (0.097%) Rational DOORS
9 6 (0.097%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.097%) Storybook
10 5 (0.081%) Artifactory
10 5 (0.081%) ER Studio
10 5 (0.081%) Hudson
10 5 (0.081%) MLflow
10 5 (0.081%) Selenium
11 4 (0.065%) Maven
General
1 1,256 (20.33%) Social Skills
2 868 (14.05%) Finance
3 722 (11.68%) Public Sector
4 315 (5.10%) Banking
5 287 (4.64%) Analytical Skills
6 274 (4.43%) Retail
7 175 (2.83%) Influencing Skills
8 157 (2.54%) Manufacturing
9 139 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
10 135 (2.18%) Telecoms
11 109 (1.76%) Legal
12 75 (1.21%) Marketing
13 64 (1.04%) Billing
14 62 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 61 (0.99%) Aerospace
16 52 (0.84%) Military
17 46 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
18 37 (0.60%) Aviation
18 37 (0.60%) Local Government
18 37 (0.60%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 305 (4.94%) REST
2 267 (4.32%) Terraform
3 174 (2.82%) Kafka
4 173 (2.80%) Middleware
5 139 (2.25%) SOAP
6 126 (2.04%) OAuth
7 125 (2.02%) .NET
8 80 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
9 72 (1.17%) JSON
10 65 (1.05%) OpenID
10 65 (1.05%) SAML
11 62 (1.00%) OAuth2
12 54 (0.87%) LDAP
13 52 (0.84%) RESTful
14 47 (0.76%) PySpark
15 46 (0.74%) XML
16 41 (0.66%) .NET Framework
17 37 (0.60%) React
17 37 (0.60%) SailPoint
18 36 (0.58%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 518 (8.38%) Cloud Native
2 200 (3.24%) Data Centre
3 185 (2.99%) Onboarding
4 176 (2.85%) Management Information System
5 153 (2.48%) Product Ownership
6 145 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
6 145 (2.35%) Hybrid Cloud
7 140 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
8 138 (2.23%) AI Agents
8 138 (2.23%) Legacy Systems
9 104 (1.68%) CMDB
10 94 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
11 93 (1.51%) Public Cloud
12 88 (1.42%) Operational Technology
13 80 (1.29%) Enterprise Cloud
14 68 (1.10%) Private Cloud
15 65 (1.05%) Data Structures
16 60 (0.97%) Security Posture
17 53 (0.86%) Taxonomies
18 50 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 127 (2.06%) Windows
2 101 (1.63%) Linux
3 50 (0.81%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (0.36%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
7 8 (0.13%) Android
7 8 (0.13%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.097%) zOS
9 5 (0.081%) Solaris
10 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.065%) VMS
11 3 (0.049%) CentOS
12 2 (0.032%) HPUX
12 2 (0.032%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.032%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.032%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.016%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,157 (18.72%) Stakeholder Management
2 969 (15.68%) Roadmaps
3 891 (14.42%) Migration
4 798 (12.91%) Enterprise Architecture
5 790 (12.79%) Technical Leadership
6 784 (12.69%) AI
7 675 (10.92%) Agile
8 652 (10.55%) DevOps
9 636 (10.29%) Data Modelling
10 630 (10.20%) Data Architecture
11 624 (10.10%) CI/CD
12 621 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 582 (9.42%) Integration Patterns
14 533 (8.63%) Analytics
15 493 (7.98%) Security Architecture
16 485 (7.85%) TOGAF
17 472 (7.64%) Architectural Patterns
18 430 (6.96%) Event-Driven
19 411 (6.65%) Data Governance
20 398 (6.44%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 261 (4.22%) SQL
2 255 (4.13%) Python
3 250 (4.05%) Java
4 126 (2.04%) JavaScript
5 110 (1.78%) PowerShell
6 55 (0.89%) TypeScript
7 52 (0.84%) C#
8 46 (0.74%) Bash
8 46 (0.74%) Bicep
9 31 (0.50%) Apex Code
10 25 (0.40%) ABAP
11 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 16 (0.26%) Shell Script
12 11 (0.18%) Groovy
12 11 (0.18%) R
13 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
14 9 (0.15%) C++
14 9 (0.15%) Ruby
14 9 (0.15%) Rust
15 8 (0.13%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,947 (31.51%) Security Cleared
2 1,464 (23.69%) SC Cleared
3 389 (6.30%) DV Cleared
4 174 (2.82%) BPSS Clearance
5 165 (2.67%) Degree
6 152 (2.46%) CISSP
7 122 (1.97%) AWS Certification
8 121 (1.96%) Azure Certification
9 106 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
10 91 (1.47%) TOGAF Certification
11 73 (1.18%) CISM
12 66 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
13 47 (0.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 47 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
14 45 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 43 (0.70%) CCNP
16 38 (0.61%) CCSP
17 31 (0.50%) Master's Degree
18 24 (0.39%) CISA
19 22 (0.36%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 270 (4.37%) Data Quality
2 225 (3.64%) NIST
3 191 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 159 (2.57%) GDPR
5 130 (2.10%) NCSC
6 84 (1.36%) GRC
7 55 (0.89%) QA
8 40 (0.65%) Accessibility
9 39 (0.63%) PCI DSS
10 32 (0.52%) NIST 800
11 27 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 24 (0.39%) SLA
13 21 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.34%) IFRS
13 21 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 21 (0.34%) SEPA
14 20 (0.32%) ISO 20022
14 20 (0.32%) JSP 440
15 15 (0.24%) ISO 19650
16 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 194 (3.14%) Active Directory
2 112 (1.81%) Docker
3 88 (1.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 48 (0.78%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
6 23 (0.37%) vSphere
7 20 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 19 (0.31%) Hyper-V
9 15 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.081%) NFS
11 4 (0.065%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.065%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.065%) KVM
11 4 (0.065%) Postfix
11 4 (0.065%) Varnish
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.049%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.049%) SRDF
12 3 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 301 (4.87%) Kubernetes
2 107 (1.73%) Ansible
3 47 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
4 45 (0.73%) Grafana
5 38 (0.61%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.29%) Argo
8 15 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
10 11 (0.18%) WMI
11 10 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 9 (0.15%) CASB
12 9 (0.15%) vCenter Server
13 8 (0.13%) Istio
13 8 (0.13%) SCCM
14 7 (0.11%) NetBackup
15 6 (0.097%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.097%) Puppet
16 5 (0.081%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.081%) VxRail
Vendors
1 837 (13.55%) Microsoft
2 349 (5.65%) SAP
3 309 (5.00%) ServiceNow
4 297 (4.81%) Oracle
5 290 (4.69%) Databricks
6 207 (3.35%) Salesforce
7 205 (3.32%) Google
8 149 (2.41%) Cisco
9 144 (2.33%) VMware
10 83 (1.34%) CyberArk
11 77 (1.25%) MuleSoft
12 59 (0.95%) IBM
13 52 (0.84%) Palo Alto
14 51 (0.83%) Workday
15 49 (0.79%) Foundry
16 41 (0.66%) Informatica
17 40 (0.65%) Splunk
18 38 (0.61%) Adobe
18 38 (0.61%) Red Hat
19 37 (0.60%) Pega