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 18 March 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 16 14
Rank change year-on-year +2 -2 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,585 2,992 4,409
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.60% 10.21% 9.91%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.53% 10.98% 10.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,020 1,936 2,835
10th Percentile £463 £476 £500
25th Percentile £513 £547 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £720 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £800 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 35 43
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.95 £50.92
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year -1.70% -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £89.00 £83.63 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £73.31 £78.90
% change year-on-year -2.78% -7.08% +12.71%

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 39,756 27,258 41,316
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.88% 92.98% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,823 17,712 27,111
10th Percentile £313 £300 £273
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.02%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £485
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.06% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,465 888 2,497
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.25 £12.96
25th Percentile £19.10 £21.04 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.91 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.49% - -23.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.95
90th Percentile £75.92 £77.28 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +7.69% - -18.75%

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 18 March 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 18 March 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 18 March 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 +1 3,923 £625 - 1,031
UK excluding London +6 2,201 £600 -4.00% 773
London -1 1,757 £625 -3.85% 421
Work from Home 0 1,278 £610 -2.40% 464
South East +4 673 £625 - 266
North of England +1 573 £600 - 180
Midlands 0 384 £575 -4.17% 96
North West +1 324 £603 +0.42% 85
West Midlands -2 287 £600 -3.42% 60
South West 0 268 £700 +14.29% 112
Yorkshire +9 226 £563 -6.25% 72
East of England +12 165 £528 -15.50% 71
Scotland +21 146 £650 +4.00% 32
East Midlands -5 93 £513 -7.66% 36
North East -1 31 £625 - 27
Wales +6 27 £538 -0.46% 27
Northern Ireland +7 11 £500 -26.47% 7

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 March 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 1,455 (31.73%) Security Cleared
2 1,174 (25.61%) Azure
3 1,032 (22.51%) SC Cleared
4 977 (21.31%) AWS
5 666 (14.53%) Roadmaps
6 638 (13.91%) Microsoft
7 596 (13.00%) Migration
8 582 (12.69%) Agile
9 557 (12.15%) Stakeholder Management
10 519 (11.32%) DevOps
11 482 (10.51%) Enterprise Architecture
12 473 (10.32%) CI/CD
13 446 (9.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 441 (9.62%) Data Modelling
15 435 (9.49%) TOGAF
16 416 (9.07%) Technical Leadership
17 395 (8.62%) AI
18 390 (8.51%) Analytics
19 380 (8.29%) Problem-Solving
20 374 (8.16%) GCP
21 369 (8.05%) Data Architecture
22 352 (7.68%) Integration Patterns
23 343 (7.48%) Python
24 336 (7.33%) Architectural Patterns
25 333 (7.26%) Microservices
26 308 (6.72%) DV Cleared
27 282 (6.15%) Architectural Design
27 282 (6.15%) Terraform
28 263 (5.74%) Cybersecurity
29 260 (5.67%) 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
1 121 (2.64%) Confluence
1 121 (2.64%) SharePoint
2 65 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
3 34 (0.74%) SAS
4 25 (0.55%) CMS
5 24 (0.52%) Apache Spark
6 19 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.37%) Apache
8 16 (0.35%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.35%) ArcGIS
9 15 (0.33%) Appian
9 15 (0.33%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.28%) nginx
11 11 (0.24%) OpenStack
12 10 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 9 (0.20%) Smallworld
14 7 (0.15%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.15%) Hyperledger
14 7 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.15%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (1.09%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
3 29 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 25 (0.55%) Microsoft Excel
5 21 (0.46%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.15%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.044%) PlantUML
8 1 (0.022%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.022%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.022%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.022%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.022%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.022%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 119 (2.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (0.98%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.50%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 18 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
6 15 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
7 12 (0.26%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.24%) NetSuite
9 10 (0.22%) SAP ERP
9 10 (0.22%) SAP PM
10 9 (0.20%) Maximo
10 9 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
10 9 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
11 8 (0.17%) Teamcenter
12 7 (0.15%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.15%) SAP PP
13 6 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
13 6 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
13 6 (0.13%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 1,174 (25.61%) Azure
2 977 (21.31%) AWS
3 374 (8.16%) GCP
4 182 (3.97%) Power Platform
5 165 (3.60%) Serverless
6 164 (3.58%) Entra ID
7 147 (3.21%) SaaS
8 144 (3.14%) Microsoft 365
9 107 (2.33%) IaaS
10 105 (2.29%) GitHub
11 96 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
12 93 (2.03%) PaaS
13 87 (1.90%) AWS Lambda
14 76 (1.66%) AWS CloudFormation
14 76 (1.66%) OpenShift
15 75 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
16 74 (1.61%) Microsoft Purview
17 73 (1.59%) Amazon S3
18 69 (1.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 69 (1.50%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 232 (5.06%) Firewall
2 166 (3.62%) Network Security
3 137 (2.99%) WAN
4 119 (2.60%) VPN
5 117 (2.55%) DNS
6 82 (1.79%) LAN
7 79 (1.72%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.85%) BGP
9 34 (0.74%) DHCP
10 32 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
11 29 (0.63%) OSPF
12 27 (0.59%) MPLS
13 26 (0.57%) TCP/IP
14 23 (0.50%) SAN
14 23 (0.50%) VXLAN
15 22 (0.48%) VLAN
15 22 (0.48%) Wireless
16 21 (0.46%) Kerberos
17 20 (0.44%) Internet
18 18 (0.39%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (3.40%) Data Warehouse
2 142 (3.10%) Metadata
3 135 (2.94%) Power BI
4 102 (2.22%) Data Lake
5 81 (1.77%) SQL Server
6 70 (1.53%) PostgreSQL
7 58 (1.26%) NoSQL
8 52 (1.13%) Azure SQL Database
9 50 (1.09%) Tableau
10 43 (0.94%) Oracle Database
11 37 (0.81%) Big Data
12 31 (0.68%) Amazon Redshift
13 26 (0.57%) GIS
14 23 (0.50%) Amazon Athena
14 23 (0.50%) Delta Lake
14 23 (0.50%) Relational Database
15 22 (0.48%) DynamoDB
16 21 (0.46%) Amazon Aurora
16 21 (0.46%) Metadata Repository
17 19 (0.41%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 131 (2.86%) JIRA
2 96 (2.09%) Jenkins
3 52 (1.13%) GitLab
4 48 (1.05%) Git
5 24 (0.52%) ERwin
6 11 (0.24%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.22%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.17%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.17%) MLflow
9 6 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.11%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.11%) Postman
10 5 (0.11%) Selenium
11 4 (0.087%) PowerDesigner
11 4 (0.087%) Snyk
11 4 (0.087%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.087%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.065%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.065%) Maven
General
1 1,010 (22.03%) Social Skills
2 701 (15.29%) Finance
3 551 (12.02%) Public Sector
4 319 (6.96%) Analytical Skills
5 258 (5.63%) Banking
6 152 (3.32%) Documentation Skills
7 104 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
8 103 (2.25%) Legal
9 88 (1.92%) Retail
10 86 (1.88%) Military
11 85 (1.85%) Telecoms
12 76 (1.66%) Presentation Skills
13 67 (1.46%) Marketing
14 60 (1.31%) Manufacturing
15 43 (0.94%) Law
16 39 (0.85%) Financial Institution
17 37 (0.81%) Billing
18 36 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 30 (0.65%) Investment Banking
20 23 (0.50%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 228 (4.97%) REST
2 169 (3.69%) Middleware
3 121 (2.64%) SOAP
4 94 (2.05%) .NET
4 94 (2.05%) Kafka
5 81 (1.77%) OpenID
6 77 (1.68%) LDAP
7 75 (1.64%) OAuth
8 66 (1.44%) SAML
9 50 (1.09%) JSON
10 46 (1.00%) React
11 45 (0.98%) OAuth2
12 43 (0.94%) AngularJS
13 37 (0.81%) RESTful
14 33 (0.72%) SailPoint
15 31 (0.68%) Web Services
16 29 (0.63%) Oracle Fusion
17 28 (0.61%) Spring
18 27 (0.59%) Node.js
19 26 (0.57%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 358 (7.81%) Cloud Native
2 157 (3.42%) Data Centre
3 147 (3.21%) Product Ownership
4 122 (2.66%) Onboarding
5 115 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
6 104 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
7 92 (2.01%) PKI
8 90 (1.96%) Hybrid Cloud
9 88 (1.92%) Management Information System
10 87 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
11 82 (1.79%) Public Cloud
12 75 (1.64%) Security Posture
13 69 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
14 61 (1.33%) CMDB
15 60 (1.31%) Operational Technology
16 46 (1.00%) AI Agents
16 46 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
17 44 (0.96%) Data Structures
18 41 (0.89%) NHS
19 34 (0.74%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 183 (3.99%) Windows
2 120 (2.62%) Linux
3 42 (0.92%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 28 (0.61%) Android
5 28 (0.61%) Apple iOS
6 16 (0.35%) Windows 7
7 15 (0.33%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.28%) VMS
9 12 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (0.24%) Unix
11 10 (0.22%) zOS
12 9 (0.20%) Mac OS
12 9 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.087%) Ubuntu
14 3 (0.065%) Windows Server 2012
15 2 (0.044%) CentOS
16 1 (0.022%) Data ONTAP
16 1 (0.022%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.022%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 666 (14.53%) Roadmaps
2 596 (13.00%) Migration
3 582 (12.69%) Agile
4 557 (12.15%) Stakeholder Management
5 519 (11.32%) DevOps
6 482 (10.51%) Enterprise Architecture
7 473 (10.32%) CI/CD
8 446 (9.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 441 (9.62%) Data Modelling
10 435 (9.49%) TOGAF
11 416 (9.07%) Technical Leadership
12 395 (8.62%) AI
13 390 (8.51%) Analytics
14 380 (8.29%) Problem-Solving
15 369 (8.05%) Data Architecture
16 352 (7.68%) Integration Patterns
17 336 (7.33%) Architectural Patterns
18 333 (7.26%) Microservices
19 282 (6.15%) Architectural Design
20 263 (5.74%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 343 (7.48%) Python
2 251 (5.47%) SQL
3 184 (4.01%) PowerShell
4 160 (3.49%) Java
5 64 (1.40%) C#
6 63 (1.37%) JavaScript
7 43 (0.94%) Bicep
8 39 (0.85%) Bash
9 30 (0.65%) TypeScript
10 20 (0.44%) PL/SQL
11 19 (0.41%) Apex Code
12 15 (0.33%) Ruby
13 14 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
14 12 (0.26%) Kotlin
14 12 (0.26%) R
14 12 (0.26%) Scala
15 10 (0.22%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.17%) PHP
16 8 (0.17%) VB
17 7 (0.15%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,455 (31.73%) Security Cleared
2 1,032 (22.51%) SC Cleared
3 308 (6.72%) DV Cleared
4 208 (4.54%) Degree
5 123 (2.68%) AWS Certification
6 121 (2.64%) Azure Certification
6 121 (2.64%) CISSP
6 121 (2.64%) TOGAF Certification
7 83 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
7 83 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
8 79 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
9 73 (1.59%) CISM
10 61 (1.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 55 (1.20%) Master's Degree
12 52 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
13 49 (1.07%) CCNP
14 32 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 32 (0.70%) ITIL Certification
15 31 (0.68%) CCIE
16 30 (0.65%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 196 (4.27%) GDPR
2 165 (3.60%) NIST
3 154 (3.36%) Data Quality
4 139 (3.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 100 (2.18%) NCSC
6 60 (1.31%) PCI DSS
6 60 (1.31%) QA
7 38 (0.83%) COBIT
8 35 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 32 (0.70%) GRC
10 28 (0.61%) ISO 20022
11 25 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.44%) JSP 440
13 18 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 15 (0.33%) HIPAA
14 15 (0.33%) MiFID
15 14 (0.31%) HL7
16 13 (0.28%) FINRA
16 13 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 13 (0.28%) SEPA
System Software
1 188 (4.10%) Active Directory
2 123 (2.68%) Docker
3 102 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 68 (1.48%) VMware NSX
5 37 (0.81%) vSphere
6 24 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
7 15 (0.33%) Hyper-V
8 14 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
9 11 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.20%) Varnish
11 8 (0.17%) Squid
11 8 (0.17%) vCloud
12 7 (0.15%) BitLocker
13 5 (0.11%) RACF
14 4 (0.087%) Firmware
14 4 (0.087%) NFS
15 3 (0.065%) Ceph
15 3 (0.065%) IAG
15 3 (0.065%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 282 (6.15%) Terraform
2 232 (5.06%) Kubernetes
3 118 (2.57%) Ansible
4 57 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 35 (0.76%) Grafana
7 32 (0.70%) FortiGate
7 32 (0.70%) vCenter Server
8 30 (0.65%) OPNET
9 28 (0.61%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.48%) SCCM
11 18 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 18 (0.39%) Argo
12 15 (0.33%) WMI
13 10 (0.22%) Istio
14 7 (0.15%) Consul
15 6 (0.13%) Kibana
15 6 (0.13%) Puppet
16 5 (0.11%) Progress Chef
17 4 (0.087%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 638 (13.91%) Microsoft
2 255 (5.56%) ServiceNow
3 246 (5.37%) SAP
4 201 (4.38%) Oracle
5 184 (4.01%) VMware
6 181 (3.95%) Salesforce
7 148 (3.23%) Databricks
8 132 (2.88%) Cisco
9 108 (2.36%) Google
10 90 (1.96%) CyberArk
11 71 (1.55%) MuleSoft
12 67 (1.46%) Palo Alto
13 63 (1.37%) Splunk
14 54 (1.18%) Red Hat
15 50 (1.09%) Remedy
16 49 (1.07%) Atlassian
16 49 (1.07%) Centrify
16 49 (1.07%) Workday
17 45 (0.98%) IBM
18 44 (0.96%) Sparx