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 17 June 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +8 -6 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,529 2,887 4,565
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.99% 9.73% 10.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.90% 10.54% 11.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,639 1,854 2,920
10th Percentile £463 £463 £490
25th Percentile £515 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £719 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £615 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.50% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 146 29 98
10th Percentile £47.70 £49.79 £59.25
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 £82.25 £86.66
90th Percentile £97.50 £89.71 £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 46,477 27,381 40,501
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.25% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,258 17,617 25,961
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £624 £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 3,104 1,172 2,957
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.87 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.86 £17.75 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.61 £27.45 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.85% -26.80% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.45%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 +7 4,702 £620 -0.80% 1,979
UK excluding London +10 2,465 £615 +2.50% 1,219
London +4 2,281 £625 -3.85% 936
Work from Home +4 1,500 £600 - 961
North of England +7 695 £600 - 326
South East +5 695 £625 +4.08% 290
Midlands +2 442 £600 +0.17% 142
North West +3 367 £611 +1.83% 165
West Midlands 0 314 £625 +4.17% 98
Yorkshire +8 269 £558 -7.00% 94
South West -1 262 £645 +5.31% 186
East of England +22 211 £575 -4.17% 106
Scotland +11 159 £650 +4.00% 92
East Midlands +4 122 £575 +13.30% 44
North East +8 66 £575 -4.17% 68
Wales 0 32 £600 +25.65% 49
Northern Ireland +7 7 £475 -28.30% 41
Channel Islands 0 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 17 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 1,659 (30.01%) Security Cleared
2 1,360 (24.60%) Azure
3 1,251 (22.63%) SC Cleared
4 1,179 (21.32%) AWS
5 781 (14.13%) Migration
6 769 (13.91%) Roadmaps
7 721 (13.04%) Microsoft
8 669 (12.10%) Stakeholder Management
9 643 (11.63%) Agile
10 626 (11.32%) DevOps
11 595 (10.76%) CI/CD
12 569 (10.29%) Enterprise Architecture
13 562 (10.16%) AI
14 526 (9.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 523 (9.46%) Technical Leadership
16 520 (9.40%) Data Modelling
17 505 (9.13%) Integration Patterns
18 466 (8.43%) Data Architecture
19 451 (8.16%) Architectural Patterns
20 441 (7.98%) Analytics
21 426 (7.70%) TOGAF
22 417 (7.54%) Microservices
23 405 (7.33%) GCP
24 365 (6.60%) Problem-Solving
25 359 (6.49%) Architectural Design
26 341 (6.17%) Infrastructure as Code
27 340 (6.15%) Security Architecture
28 333 (6.02%) Cybersecurity
29 326 (5.90%) Event-Driven
30 323 (5.84%) Python

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
1 118 (2.13%) SharePoint
2 84 (1.52%) Confluence
3 54 (0.98%) Microsoft Exchange
4 45 (0.81%) SAS
5 32 (0.58%) Apache Spark
6 30 (0.54%) Apache
7 23 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
8 18 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
9 16 (0.29%) Appian
10 15 (0.27%) CMS
10 15 (0.27%) nginx
10 15 (0.27%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.24%) Anypoint
12 12 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 10 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 9 (0.16%) ArcGIS
14 9 (0.16%) Camunda
15 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
16 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
16 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 23 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 18 (0.33%) MS Visio
3 13 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 9 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
6 7 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.054%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.054%) Windchill
8 1 (0.018%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.018%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.018%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 146 (2.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.71%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
5 17 (0.31%) SAP ERP
6 15 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
6 15 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
7 13 (0.24%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
10 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 7 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
11 7 (0.13%) SAP MDG
11 7 (0.13%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.11%) Maximo
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Retail
12 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
13 5 (0.090%) SAP CRM
13 5 (0.090%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,360 (24.60%) Azure
2 1,179 (21.32%) AWS
3 405 (7.33%) GCP
4 262 (4.74%) Power Platform
5 204 (3.69%) Serverless
6 185 (3.35%) Entra ID
7 182 (3.29%) SaaS
8 138 (2.50%) Microsoft 365
9 134 (2.42%) GitHub
10 117 (2.12%) PaaS
11 108 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
12 106 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
13 98 (1.77%) AWS Lambda
14 91 (1.65%) Snowflake
15 89 (1.61%) IaaS
16 83 (1.50%) Amazon S3
17 66 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
18 65 (1.18%) Azure Data Factory
18 65 (1.18%) OpenShift
19 64 (1.16%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 207 (3.74%) Firewall
2 182 (3.29%) Network Security
3 119 (2.15%) WAN
4 118 (2.13%) VPN
5 113 (2.04%) DNS
6 79 (1.43%) LAN
7 65 (1.18%) SD-WAN
8 41 (0.74%) BGP
9 40 (0.72%) DHCP
10 33 (0.60%) Wireless
11 32 (0.58%) MPLS
11 32 (0.58%) TCP/IP
11 32 (0.58%) VLAN
12 31 (0.56%) OSPF
13 29 (0.52%) SAN
14 27 (0.49%) NAS
15 25 (0.45%) Structured Cabling
16 22 (0.40%) IPsec
17 21 (0.38%) BIG-IP
17 21 (0.38%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 186 (3.36%) Power BI
2 155 (2.80%) Data Lake
3 149 (2.69%) Metadata
4 146 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
5 76 (1.37%) NoSQL
6 70 (1.27%) PostgreSQL
7 67 (1.21%) SQL Server
8 47 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
9 41 (0.74%) Big Data
10 37 (0.67%) Oracle Database
11 36 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
11 36 (0.65%) Tableau
12 31 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
13 30 (0.54%) BigQuery
14 29 (0.52%) Delta Lake
15 24 (0.43%) MongoDB
15 24 (0.43%) Relational Database
16 22 (0.40%) Amazon Athena
16 22 (0.40%) Amazon Aurora
17 20 (0.36%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 106 (1.92%) JIRA
2 89 (1.61%) Jenkins
3 64 (1.16%) Git
4 42 (0.76%) GitLab
5 22 (0.40%) ERwin
6 12 (0.22%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.18%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.16%) Bitbucket
8 9 (0.16%) Postman
9 8 (0.14%) MLflow
10 7 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
12 5 (0.090%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.090%) JMeter
12 5 (0.090%) JUnit
12 5 (0.090%) Maven
12 5 (0.090%) PowerDesigner
13 4 (0.072%) Snyk
13 4 (0.072%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,027 (18.57%) Social Skills
2 848 (15.34%) Finance
3 615 (11.12%) Public Sector
4 311 (5.62%) Banking
5 271 (4.90%) Analytical Skills
6 188 (3.40%) Retail
7 151 (2.73%) Documentation Skills
8 138 (2.50%) Legal
9 122 (2.21%) Influencing Skills
10 97 (1.75%) Manufacturing
11 95 (1.72%) Telecoms
12 58 (1.05%) Law
13 50 (0.90%) Marketing
14 48 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
15 47 (0.85%) Billing
15 47 (0.85%) Military
16 46 (0.83%) Financial Institution
17 42 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (0.72%) Aerospace
19 35 (0.63%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 266 (4.81%) REST
2 204 (3.69%) Middleware
3 133 (2.41%) .NET
4 130 (2.35%) SOAP
5 113 (2.04%) Kafka
6 99 (1.79%) OAuth
7 95 (1.72%) OpenID
8 80 (1.45%) LDAP
9 76 (1.37%) SAML
10 63 (1.14%) Oracle Fusion
11 60 (1.09%) OAuth2
12 58 (1.05%) React
13 55 (0.99%) RESTful
14 45 (0.81%) SailPoint
15 43 (0.78%) JSON
16 39 (0.71%) AngularJS
17 38 (0.69%) Web Services
18 34 (0.61%) Node.js
19 29 (0.52%) GraphQL
20 28 (0.51%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 462 (8.36%) Cloud Native
2 185 (3.35%) Data Centre
3 160 (2.89%) Management Information System
4 143 (2.59%) Onboarding
4 143 (2.59%) Product Ownership
5 128 (2.32%) Legacy Systems
6 126 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
7 120 (2.17%) Enterprise Software
8 110 (1.99%) Hybrid Cloud
9 93 (1.68%) Public Cloud
10 91 (1.65%) Operational Technology
11 89 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
12 84 (1.52%) Security Posture
13 83 (1.50%) CMDB
14 79 (1.43%) AI Agents
15 49 (0.89%) Enterprise Cloud
16 45 (0.81%) Data Structures
17 44 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
17 44 (0.80%) NHS
18 41 (0.74%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 150 (2.71%) Windows
2 96 (1.74%) Linux
3 43 (0.78%) Windows Server
4 37 (0.67%) Android
5 36 (0.65%) Apple iOS
6 23 (0.42%) Unix
7 18 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (0.18%) zOS
9 9 (0.16%) VMS
9 9 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.11%) Windows 10
12 5 (0.090%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.090%) Mac OS
12 5 (0.090%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.090%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.072%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.072%) Solaris
14 3 (0.054%) AIX
14 3 (0.054%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 781 (14.13%) Migration
2 769 (13.91%) Roadmaps
3 669 (12.10%) Stakeholder Management
4 643 (11.63%) Agile
5 626 (11.32%) DevOps
6 595 (10.76%) CI/CD
7 569 (10.29%) Enterprise Architecture
8 562 (10.16%) AI
9 526 (9.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 523 (9.46%) Technical Leadership
11 520 (9.40%) Data Modelling
12 505 (9.13%) Integration Patterns
13 466 (8.43%) Data Architecture
14 451 (8.16%) Architectural Patterns
15 441 (7.98%) Analytics
16 426 (7.70%) TOGAF
17 417 (7.54%) Microservices
18 365 (6.60%) Problem-Solving
19 359 (6.49%) Architectural Design
20 341 (6.17%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 323 (5.84%) Python
2 276 (4.99%) SQL
3 240 (4.34%) Java
4 149 (2.69%) PowerShell
5 104 (1.88%) JavaScript
6 65 (1.18%) C#
7 58 (1.05%) Bicep
8 44 (0.80%) TypeScript
9 36 (0.65%) Bash
10 24 (0.43%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.40%) Ruby
12 15 (0.27%) Scala
13 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
14 12 (0.22%) PL/SQL
15 11 (0.20%) Kusto Query Language
16 9 (0.16%) T-SQL
17 8 (0.14%) Shell Script
17 8 (0.14%) VBA
18 7 (0.13%) ABAP
18 7 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,659 (30.01%) Security Cleared
2 1,251 (22.63%) SC Cleared
3 291 (5.26%) DV Cleared
4 193 (3.49%) Degree
5 120 (2.17%) Azure Certification
6 118 (2.13%) CISSP
7 112 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
8 111 (2.01%) AWS Certification
9 102 (1.84%) Cisco Certification
10 83 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
11 82 (1.48%) TOGAF Certification
12 64 (1.16%) CISM
13 49 (0.89%) CCNP
14 48 (0.87%) Master's Degree
15 46 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
16 43 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 37 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 27 (0.49%) CCSP
19 22 (0.40%) DBS Check
20 19 (0.34%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 201 (3.64%) NIST
2 184 (3.33%) GDPR
3 159 (2.88%) Data Quality
4 153 (2.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 118 (2.13%) NCSC
6 68 (1.23%) QA
7 43 (0.78%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.72%) GRC
9 33 (0.60%) Accessibility
10 30 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 24 (0.43%) NIST 800
11 24 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.40%) SEPA
13 20 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
14 19 (0.34%) COBIT
15 18 (0.33%) HL7
16 16 (0.29%) IFRS
17 14 (0.25%) HIPAA
18 13 (0.24%) FINRA
18 13 (0.24%) MiFID
System Software
1 181 (3.27%) Active Directory
2 106 (1.92%) Docker
3 94 (1.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 64 (1.16%) VMware NSX
5 28 (0.51%) vSphere
6 24 (0.43%) Hyper-V
6 24 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (0.22%) Varnish
9 11 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.16%) NFS
11 9 (0.16%) Squid
12 8 (0.14%) vCloud
13 7 (0.13%) Postfix
14 5 (0.090%) RACF
15 4 (0.072%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.072%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.054%) EMC RecoverPoint
16 3 (0.054%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 267 (4.83%) Terraform
2 250 (4.52%) Kubernetes
3 115 (2.08%) Ansible
4 51 (0.92%) Grafana
5 49 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
6 40 (0.72%) Prometheus
7 38 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
8 32 (0.58%) FortiGate
9 26 (0.47%) vCenter Server
10 21 (0.38%) Argo
11 16 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 14 (0.25%) SCCM
13 11 (0.20%) Istio
14 9 (0.16%) Jamf Pro
15 8 (0.14%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.13%) Consul
16 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
16 7 (0.13%) Puppet
17 5 (0.090%) EMC VPLEX
18 4 (0.072%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 721 (13.04%) Microsoft
2 321 (5.81%) SAP
3 299 (5.41%) ServiceNow
4 250 (4.52%) Oracle
5 229 (4.14%) Databricks
6 179 (3.24%) Salesforce
7 175 (3.17%) VMware
8 140 (2.53%) Cisco
9 119 (2.15%) Google
10 75 (1.36%) CyberArk
11 72 (1.30%) MuleSoft
12 63 (1.14%) Splunk
13 54 (0.98%) Palo Alto
14 52 (0.94%) Red Hat
15 45 (0.81%) OpenAI
16 44 (0.80%) Workday
17 42 (0.76%) IBM
18 41 (0.74%) Sparx
19 39 (0.71%) Ariba
19 39 (0.71%) Foundry