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 29 May 2026.

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

6 months to
29 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 5,384 2,854 4,452
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.01% 9.93% 10.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.92% 10.75% 11.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,556 1,837 2,853
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £537 £558
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £617 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% -3.85% -0.76%
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 138 30 95
10th Percentile £46.00 £51.15 £58.50
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 £81.69 £85.65
90th Percentile £97.88 £85.70 £89.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.91 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.84% +4.15% -

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 45,155 26,550 39,743
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.33% 92.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,543 17,231 25,865
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -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 3,003 1,045 2,776
10th Percentile £15.01 £14.00 £12.81
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.99 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +51.84% -24.72% -17.38%
75th Percentile £66.38 £59.90 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.61 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +73.38% -37.13% -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 29 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 29 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 29 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 4,597 £620 -0.80% 666
UK excluding London +9 2,389 £613 +2.08% 506
London +4 2,238 £625 -3.85% 277
Work from Home +3 1,441 £600 - 340
South East +5 686 £625 +1.63% 163
North of England +5 668 £600 - 142
Midlands 0 435 £600 +0.08% 59
North West +5 371 £608 +4.29% 76
West Midlands 0 313 £620 +3.33% 44
Yorkshire +8 252 £550 -8.33% 39
South West -2 249 £650 +8.33% 60
East of England +20 204 £575 -4.17% 30
Scotland +15 151 £650 +4.00% 25
East Midlands +1 116 £560 +6.46% 15
North East +6 52 £575 -4.17% 29
Wales -3 31 £600 +25.00% 34
Northern Ireland +7 7 £475 -28.30% 2

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 29 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 1,635 (30.37%) Security Cleared
2 1,328 (24.67%) Azure
3 1,209 (22.46%) SC Cleared
4 1,160 (21.55%) AWS
5 738 (13.71%) Migration
5 738 (13.71%) Roadmaps
6 706 (13.11%) Microsoft
7 620 (11.52%) Stakeholder Management
8 611 (11.35%) Agile
9 609 (11.31%) DevOps
10 568 (10.55%) CI/CD
11 540 (10.03%) Enterprise Architecture
12 508 (9.44%) AI
13 501 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 497 (9.23%) Data Modelling
15 488 (9.06%) Technical Leadership
16 473 (8.79%) Integration Patterns
17 442 (8.21%) Data Architecture
18 437 (8.12%) Architectural Patterns
19 417 (7.75%) Analytics
20 414 (7.69%) TOGAF
21 412 (7.65%) GCP
22 408 (7.58%) Microservices
23 357 (6.63%) Problem-Solving
24 351 (6.52%) Architectural Design
25 335 (6.22%) Python
26 330 (6.13%) Infrastructure as Code
27 323 (6.00%) Security Architecture
28 312 (5.79%) Cybersecurity
29 308 (5.72%) SAP

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 (2.25%) SharePoint
2 86 (1.60%) Confluence
3 52 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (0.58%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.54%) Apache
6 28 (0.52%) SAS
7 20 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.32%) Anypoint
8 17 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
9 16 (0.30%) Appian
9 16 (0.30%) CMS
10 15 (0.28%) nginx
10 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.24%) 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 24 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 20 (0.37%) MS Visio
3 18 (0.33%) Microsoft Office
4 14 (0.26%) Microsoft Excel
5 8 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
7 6 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.074%) Chatbot
9 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
9 3 (0.056%) Windchill
10 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 136 (2.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (0.78%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 21 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
5 18 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
6 17 (0.32%) SAP ERP
7 15 (0.28%) Workday HCM
8 14 (0.26%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
10 9 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
10 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
11 8 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
12 7 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
12 7 (0.13%) SAP EWM
12 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
13 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
13 6 (0.11%) SAP SD
14 5 (0.093%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,328 (24.67%) Azure
2 1,160 (21.55%) AWS
3 412 (7.65%) GCP
4 237 (4.40%) Power Platform
5 201 (3.73%) Serverless
6 190 (3.53%) Entra ID
7 179 (3.32%) SaaS
8 131 (2.43%) Microsoft 365
9 128 (2.38%) GitHub
10 115 (2.14%) PaaS
11 106 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
12 101 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
13 98 (1.82%) AWS Lambda
14 86 (1.60%) IaaS
15 84 (1.56%) Amazon S3
15 84 (1.56%) Snowflake
16 74 (1.37%) Amazon EKS
17 72 (1.34%) OpenShift
18 71 (1.32%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 67 (1.24%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 215 (3.99%) Firewall
2 180 (3.34%) Network Security
3 123 (2.28%) WAN
4 119 (2.21%) VPN
5 117 (2.17%) DNS
6 87 (1.62%) LAN
7 66 (1.23%) SD-WAN
8 41 (0.76%) DHCP
9 40 (0.74%) BGP
10 32 (0.59%) OSPF
10 32 (0.59%) SAN
10 32 (0.59%) Wireless
11 31 (0.58%) VLAN
12 30 (0.56%) MPLS
12 30 (0.56%) TCP/IP
13 29 (0.54%) NAS
14 24 (0.45%) Structured Cabling
15 23 (0.43%) NX-OS
15 23 (0.43%) VXLAN
16 22 (0.41%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (3.18%) Power BI
2 142 (2.64%) Metadata
3 139 (2.58%) Data Lake
4 133 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
5 72 (1.34%) NoSQL
5 72 (1.34%) SQL Server
6 71 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
7 44 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
8 41 (0.76%) Tableau
9 40 (0.74%) Big Data
10 35 (0.65%) Oracle Database
11 31 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
12 30 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
13 28 (0.52%) BigQuery
14 25 (0.46%) Delta Lake
15 24 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
16 21 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
16 21 (0.39%) Relational Database
17 20 (0.37%) DynamoDB
17 20 (0.37%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 100 (1.86%) JIRA
2 92 (1.71%) Jenkins
3 57 (1.06%) Git
4 47 (0.87%) 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 1,001 (18.59%) Social Skills
2 806 (14.97%) Finance
3 582 (10.81%) Public Sector
4 304 (5.65%) Banking
5 265 (4.92%) Analytical Skills
6 166 (3.08%) Retail
7 152 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
8 131 (2.43%) Legal
9 114 (2.12%) Influencing Skills
10 95 (1.76%) Telecoms
11 89 (1.65%) Manufacturing
12 63 (1.17%) Military
13 60 (1.11%) Law
14 52 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
15 50 (0.93%) Marketing
16 47 (0.87%) Billing
17 46 (0.85%) Financial Institution
18 37 (0.69%) Aerospace
19 36 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 35 (0.65%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 259 (4.81%) REST
2 199 (3.70%) Middleware
3 136 (2.53%) SOAP
4 132 (2.45%) .NET
5 110 (2.04%) Kafka
6 93 (1.73%) OpenID
7 91 (1.69%) LDAP
7 91 (1.69%) OAuth
8 71 (1.32%) SAML
9 57 (1.06%) React
10 54 (1.00%) OAuth2
11 51 (0.95%) Oracle Fusion
12 49 (0.91%) RESTful
13 43 (0.80%) SailPoint
14 38 (0.71%) AngularJS
14 38 (0.71%) JSON
15 37 (0.69%) Web Services
16 32 (0.59%) Node.js
17 30 (0.56%) PySpark
18 27 (0.50%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 450 (8.36%) Cloud Native
2 189 (3.51%) Data Centre
3 143 (2.66%) Management Information System
4 142 (2.64%) Onboarding
5 141 (2.62%) Product Ownership
6 123 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
7 121 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
8 120 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
9 107 (1.99%) Hybrid Cloud
10 94 (1.75%) Public Cloud
11 92 (1.71%) Security Posture
12 85 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
13 82 (1.52%) Operational Technology
14 78 (1.45%) CMDB
15 66 (1.23%) AI Agents
16 45 (0.84%) Data Structures
17 44 (0.82%) Private Cloud
18 41 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
18 41 (0.76%) Mainframe
18 41 (0.76%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 158 (2.93%) Windows
2 108 (2.01%) Linux
3 41 (0.76%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.63%) Android
4 34 (0.63%) 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%) VMS
8 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
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
1 738 (13.71%) Migration
1 738 (13.71%) Roadmaps
2 620 (11.52%) Stakeholder Management
3 611 (11.35%) Agile
4 609 (11.31%) DevOps
5 568 (10.55%) CI/CD
6 540 (10.03%) Enterprise Architecture
7 508 (9.44%) AI
8 501 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 497 (9.23%) Data Modelling
10 488 (9.06%) Technical Leadership
11 473 (8.79%) Integration Patterns
12 442 (8.21%) Data Architecture
13 437 (8.12%) Architectural Patterns
14 417 (7.75%) Analytics
15 414 (7.69%) TOGAF
16 408 (7.58%) Microservices
17 357 (6.63%) Problem-Solving
18 351 (6.52%) Architectural Design
19 330 (6.13%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 335 (6.22%) Python
2 277 (5.14%) SQL
3 217 (4.03%) Java
4 167 (3.10%) PowerShell
5 96 (1.78%) JavaScript
6 63 (1.17%) C#
7 58 (1.08%) Bicep
8 42 (0.78%) TypeScript
9 38 (0.71%) Bash
10 21 (0.39%) Apex Code
10 21 (0.39%) Ruby
11 20 (0.37%) PL/SQL
12 15 (0.28%) 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 1,635 (30.37%) Security Cleared
2 1,209 (22.46%) SC Cleared
3 302 (5.61%) DV Cleared
4 199 (3.70%) Degree
5 119 (2.21%) CISSP
6 118 (2.19%) Azure Certification
7 110 (2.04%) AWS Certification
8 107 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
9 103 (1.91%) Cisco Certification
10 90 (1.67%) TOGAF Certification
11 80 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
12 66 (1.23%) CISM
13 55 (1.02%) CCNP
14 51 (0.95%) Master's Degree
15 45 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
16 43 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 40 (0.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 26 (0.48%) CCSP
19 20 (0.37%) CCIE
19 20 (0.37%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 196 (3.64%) NIST
2 173 (3.21%) GDPR
3 148 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 146 (2.71%) Data Quality
5 115 (2.14%) NCSC
6 72 (1.34%) QA
7 39 (0.72%) GRC
7 39 (0.72%) PCI DSS
8 34 (0.63%) Accessibility
9 29 (0.54%) ISO 20022
10 27 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
11 22 (0.41%) NIST 800
12 21 (0.39%) SEPA
13 18 (0.33%) COBIT
13 18 (0.33%) HL7
13 18 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.24%) FINRA
15 13 (0.24%) IFRS
15 13 (0.24%) SLA
System Software
1 194 (3.60%) Active Directory
2 106 (1.97%) Docker
3 101 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.30%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.56%) vSphere
6 26 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
7 23 (0.43%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.22%) Varnish
8 12 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 10 (0.19%) vCloud
10 9 (0.17%) NFS
10 9 (0.17%) Squid
11 7 (0.13%) Postfix
12 5 (0.093%) RACF
13 4 (0.074%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.074%) Firmware
13 4 (0.074%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.056%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 272 (5.05%) Terraform
2 240 (4.46%) Kubernetes
3 112 (2.08%) Ansible
4 52 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
5 51 (0.95%) Grafana
6 39 (0.72%) Prometheus
7 38 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
8 33 (0.61%) FortiGate
9 29 (0.54%) vCenter Server
10 18 (0.33%) Argo
11 17 (0.32%) SCCM
12 15 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 12 (0.22%) Istio
14 8 (0.15%) OPNET
14 8 (0.15%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.13%) Consul
15 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
15 7 (0.13%) Puppet
16 6 (0.11%) Jamf Pro
16 6 (0.11%) WMI
Vendors
1 706 (13.11%) Microsoft
2 308 (5.72%) SAP
3 296 (5.50%) ServiceNow
4 240 (4.46%) Oracle
5 218 (4.05%) Databricks
6 186 (3.45%) VMware
7 179 (3.32%) Salesforce
8 141 (2.62%) Cisco
9 121 (2.25%) Google
10 91 (1.69%) CyberArk
11 80 (1.49%) MuleSoft
12 69 (1.28%) Splunk
13 55 (1.02%) Palo Alto
14 49 (0.91%) Workday
15 47 (0.87%) Red Hat
16 44 (0.82%) Sparx
17 42 (0.78%) OpenAI
18 40 (0.74%) BeyondTrust
18 40 (0.74%) IBM
18 40 (0.74%) Juniper