Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £617, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 May 2026.

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

6 months to
25 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,342 2,848 4,389
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.03% 9.89% 10.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.95% 10.72% 11.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,545 1,838 2,812
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £560
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £617 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% -3.85% -0.76%
75th Percentile £725 £713 £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 134 31 92
10th Percentile £46.00 £52.50 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.13 £85.65
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.50 £88.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -

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 44,687 26,578 39,544
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.29% 92.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,302 17,300 25,745
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -2.78%
75th Percentile £618 £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 2,943 1,012 2,737
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.82
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.97 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.98% -23.38% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.13 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £26.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +65.90% -34.16% -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 25 May 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 May 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 25 May 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 4,568 £620 -0.80% 960
UK excluding London +9 2,393 £613 +2.08% 603
London +4 2,200 £625 -3.85% 470
Work from Home +2 1,416 £600 - 485
South East +6 697 £625 - 160
North of England +5 663 £600 - 172
Midlands +2 435 £600 +0.08% 64
North West +5 371 £609 +4.46% 93
West Midlands -2 311 £620 +3.33% 44
South West 0 257 £650 +8.33% 81
Yorkshire +6 249 £557 -7.25% 48
East of England +18 202 £575 -4.17% 42
Scotland +16 143 £650 +4.00% 44
East Midlands +1 118 £550 +2.42% 20
North East +6 51 £575 -4.17% 32
Wales -2 30 £600 +25.00% 39
Northern Ireland +6 7 £475 -28.30% 8

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 May 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 1,621 (30.34%) Security Cleared
2 1,288 (24.11%) Azure
3 1,190 (22.28%) SC Cleared
4 1,121 (20.98%) AWS
5 718 (13.44%) Roadmaps
6 708 (13.25%) Migration
7 691 (12.94%) Microsoft
8 603 (11.29%) Agile
9 594 (11.12%) DevOps
10 589 (11.03%) Stakeholder Management
11 564 (10.56%) CI/CD
12 531 (9.94%) Enterprise Architecture
13 493 (9.23%) AI
14 492 (9.21%) Data Modelling
15 477 (8.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 471 (8.82%) Technical Leadership
17 464 (8.69%) Integration Patterns
18 429 (8.03%) Data Architecture
19 427 (7.99%) Architectural Patterns
20 415 (7.77%) Analytics
21 402 (7.53%) GCP
21 402 (7.53%) Microservices
21 402 (7.53%) TOGAF
22 349 (6.53%) Problem-Solving
23 340 (6.36%) Architectural Design
24 324 (6.07%) Python
25 311 (5.82%) Infrastructure as Code
26 310 (5.80%) SAP
26 310 (5.80%) Security Architecture
27 309 (5.78%) DV Cleared

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 (2.25%) SharePoint
2 90 (1.68%) Confluence
3 50 (0.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (0.56%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.54%) Apache
6 28 (0.52%) SAS
7 20 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.30%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.30%) Appian
8 16 (0.30%) CMS
9 15 (0.28%) nginx
9 15 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
9 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
10 12 (0.22%) OpenStack
11 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
11 9 (0.17%) Camunda
12 8 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
14 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 26 (0.49%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 18 (0.34%) MS Visio
4 15 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
5 12 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
7 4 (0.075%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.056%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.056%) Windchill
9 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 138 (2.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (0.77%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 18 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.32%) SAP ERP
6 15 (0.28%) Teamcenter
6 15 (0.28%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
8 9 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.15%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
9 8 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.13%) SAP EWM
10 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
11 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
11 6 (0.11%) SAP SD
12 5 (0.094%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 1,288 (24.11%) Azure
2 1,121 (20.98%) AWS
3 402 (7.53%) GCP
4 233 (4.36%) Power Platform
5 190 (3.56%) Serverless
6 185 (3.46%) Entra ID
7 175 (3.28%) SaaS
8 127 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
9 122 (2.28%) GitHub
10 113 (2.12%) PaaS
11 107 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
12 100 (1.87%) Dynamics 365
13 92 (1.72%) AWS Lambda
14 84 (1.57%) IaaS
15 82 (1.54%) Snowflake
16 80 (1.50%) Amazon S3
17 72 (1.35%) OpenShift
18 69 (1.29%) Amazon EKS
19 68 (1.27%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 66 (1.24%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 207 (3.87%) Firewall
2 175 (3.28%) Network Security
3 121 (2.27%) WAN
4 114 (2.13%) VPN
5 112 (2.10%) DNS
6 84 (1.57%) LAN
7 66 (1.24%) SD-WAN
8 41 (0.77%) BGP
9 37 (0.69%) DHCP
10 31 (0.58%) OSPF
10 31 (0.58%) Wireless
11 30 (0.56%) VLAN
12 29 (0.54%) SAN
13 28 (0.52%) MPLS
14 27 (0.51%) TCP/IP
15 26 (0.49%) NAS
16 23 (0.43%) Structured Cabling
17 22 (0.41%) NX-OS
18 21 (0.39%) BIG-IP
18 21 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (3.18%) Power BI
2 138 (2.58%) Metadata
3 137 (2.56%) Data Lake
4 131 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
5 74 (1.39%) SQL Server
6 69 (1.29%) PostgreSQL
7 67 (1.25%) NoSQL
8 48 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
9 43 (0.80%) Tableau
10 40 (0.75%) Big Data
11 35 (0.66%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.54%) Delta Lake
14 28 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
14 28 (0.52%) BigQuery
15 23 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
16 22 (0.41%) Relational Database
17 21 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
18 20 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
18 20 (0.37%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 104 (1.95%) JIRA
2 95 (1.78%) Jenkins
3 58 (1.09%) Git
4 48 (0.90%) GitLab
5 23 (0.43%) ERwin
6 15 (0.28%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.21%) Artifactory
7 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.21%) MLflow
8 9 (0.17%) Postman
9 7 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 6 (0.11%) Hudson
10 6 (0.11%) Selenium
11 5 (0.094%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.094%) JMeter
11 5 (0.094%) JUnit
11 5 (0.094%) Maven
11 5 (0.094%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.094%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.075%) MSI
General
1 980 (18.35%) Social Skills
2 800 (14.98%) Finance
3 573 (10.73%) Public Sector
4 300 (5.62%) Banking
5 263 (4.92%) Analytical Skills
6 163 (3.05%) Retail
7 146 (2.73%) Documentation Skills
8 130 (2.43%) Legal
9 117 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
10 97 (1.82%) Telecoms
11 88 (1.65%) Manufacturing
12 67 (1.25%) Military
13 60 (1.12%) Law
14 53 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
15 50 (0.94%) Billing
15 50 (0.94%) Marketing
16 45 (0.84%) Financial Institution
17 36 (0.67%) Aerospace
18 35 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 35 (0.66%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 251 (4.70%) REST
2 205 (3.84%) Middleware
3 131 (2.45%) SOAP
4 127 (2.38%) .NET
5 107 (2.00%) Kafka
6 91 (1.70%) LDAP
7 90 (1.68%) OpenID
8 89 (1.67%) OAuth
9 68 (1.27%) SAML
10 54 (1.01%) React
11 52 (0.97%) OAuth2
12 49 (0.92%) Oracle Fusion
12 49 (0.92%) RESTful
13 43 (0.80%) SailPoint
14 39 (0.73%) JSON
15 37 (0.69%) AngularJS
15 37 (0.69%) Web Services
16 32 (0.60%) PySpark
17 30 (0.56%) Node.js
18 26 (0.49%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 431 (8.07%) Cloud Native
2 183 (3.43%) Data Centre
3 143 (2.68%) Onboarding
4 138 (2.58%) Product Ownership
5 135 (2.53%) Management Information System
6 120 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
7 115 (2.15%) Enterprise Software
8 113 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
9 100 (1.87%) Hybrid Cloud
10 93 (1.74%) Public Cloud
11 88 (1.65%) Security Posture
12 84 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
13 81 (1.52%) Operational Technology
14 73 (1.37%) CMDB
15 64 (1.20%) AI Agents
16 46 (0.86%) Data Structures
17 43 (0.80%) Private Cloud
18 42 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
19 41 (0.77%) Mainframe
19 41 (0.77%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 154 (2.88%) Windows
2 106 (1.98%) Linux
3 35 (0.66%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.64%) Android
4 34 (0.64%) Apple iOS
5 23 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (0.43%) Unix
6 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
6 11 (0.21%) zOS
7 10 (0.19%) VMS
7 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.11%) Windows 7
11 3 (0.056%) CentOS
11 3 (0.056%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.056%) Solaris
11 3 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.037%) AIX
12 2 (0.037%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 718 (13.44%) Roadmaps
2 708 (13.25%) Migration
3 603 (11.29%) Agile
4 594 (11.12%) DevOps
5 589 (11.03%) Stakeholder Management
6 564 (10.56%) CI/CD
7 531 (9.94%) Enterprise Architecture
8 493 (9.23%) AI
9 492 (9.21%) Data Modelling
10 477 (8.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 471 (8.82%) Technical Leadership
12 464 (8.69%) Integration Patterns
13 429 (8.03%) Data Architecture
14 427 (7.99%) Architectural Patterns
15 415 (7.77%) Analytics
16 402 (7.53%) Microservices
16 402 (7.53%) TOGAF
17 349 (6.53%) Problem-Solving
18 340 (6.36%) Architectural Design
19 311 (5.82%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 324 (6.07%) Python
2 270 (5.05%) SQL
3 211 (3.95%) Java
4 160 (3.00%) PowerShell
5 85 (1.59%) JavaScript
6 61 (1.14%) C#
7 53 (0.99%) Bicep
8 41 (0.77%) TypeScript
9 33 (0.62%) Bash
10 22 (0.41%) PL/SQL
11 20 (0.37%) Apex Code
11 20 (0.37%) Ruby
12 16 (0.30%) Scala
13 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.15%) VBA
16 7 (0.13%) Shell Script
17 6 (0.11%) ABAP
17 6 (0.11%) R
Qualifications
1 1,621 (30.34%) Security Cleared
2 1,190 (22.28%) SC Cleared
3 309 (5.78%) DV Cleared
4 196 (3.67%) Degree
5 113 (2.12%) CISSP
6 112 (2.10%) Azure Certification
7 105 (1.97%) BPSS Clearance
8 103 (1.93%) AWS Certification
9 96 (1.80%) Cisco Certification
10 94 (1.76%) TOGAF Certification
11 80 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
12 62 (1.16%) CISM
13 52 (0.97%) Master's Degree
14 50 (0.94%) CCNP
15 44 (0.82%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 42 (0.79%) Microsoft Certification
17 39 (0.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 25 (0.47%) CCSP
19 19 (0.36%) CCIE
19 19 (0.36%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 190 (3.56%) NIST
2 169 (3.16%) GDPR
3 144 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 142 (2.66%) Data Quality
5 115 (2.15%) NCSC
6 67 (1.25%) QA
7 40 (0.75%) PCI DSS
8 39 (0.73%) GRC
9 34 (0.64%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 25 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.39%) NIST 800
12 21 (0.39%) SEPA
13 18 (0.34%) COBIT
13 18 (0.34%) HL7
13 18 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 13 (0.24%) FINRA
14 13 (0.24%) MiFID
14 13 (0.24%) SLA
15 12 (0.22%) PSD2
System Software
1 194 (3.63%) Active Directory
2 104 (1.95%) Docker
3 96 (1.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 71 (1.33%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
5 29 (0.54%) vSphere
6 22 (0.41%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.22%) Varnish
7 12 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
8 10 (0.19%) vCloud
9 9 (0.17%) NFS
9 9 (0.17%) Squid
10 7 (0.13%) Postfix
11 5 (0.094%) RACF
12 4 (0.075%) BitLocker
12 4 (0.075%) Firmware
12 4 (0.075%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.056%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 259 (4.85%) Terraform
2 236 (4.42%) Kubernetes
3 108 (2.02%) Ansible
4 51 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
5 47 (0.88%) Grafana
6 38 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
7 35 (0.66%) Prometheus
8 33 (0.62%) FortiGate
9 28 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 17 (0.32%) Argo
10 17 (0.32%) SCCM
11 15 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.24%) Istio
13 12 (0.22%) OPNET
14 8 (0.15%) Puppet
15 7 (0.13%) Consul
15 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
15 7 (0.13%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.13%) WMI
16 6 (0.11%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 691 (12.94%) Microsoft
2 310 (5.80%) SAP
3 304 (5.69%) ServiceNow
4 233 (4.36%) Oracle
5 211 (3.95%) Databricks
6 184 (3.44%) Salesforce
7 183 (3.43%) VMware
8 134 (2.51%) Cisco
9 115 (2.15%) Google
10 91 (1.70%) CyberArk
11 82 (1.54%) MuleSoft
12 64 (1.20%) Splunk
13 50 (0.94%) Palo Alto
13 50 (0.94%) Workday
14 49 (0.92%) Red Hat
15 43 (0.80%) OpenAI
16 42 (0.79%) Sparx
17 40 (0.75%) BeyondTrust
17 40 (0.75%) IBM
18 38 (0.71%) Ariba