Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £615, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 27 August 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,001 2,975 3,941
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.18% 9.08% 10.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.09% 9.96% 10.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,978 1,915 2,539
10th Percentile £479 £468 £485
25th Percentile £525 £536 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £645
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -3.10% -0.77%
75th Percentile £700 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £646
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.12% -0.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 18 74
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.75 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.31% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £77.31 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.36 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -3.89%

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 49,647 29,883 36,109
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.47% 91.23% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,658 18,862 22,923
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,547 1,583 1,920
10th Percentile £14.99 £13.66 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.08 £19.50
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -1.44%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.93 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.20 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%

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 27 August 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 27 August 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 27 August 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 5,024 £620 -0.80% 3,288
London +7 2,584 £625 -2.72% 1,968
UK excluding London +8 2,504 £620 +3.33% 1,572
Work from Home +4 1,599 £600 - 1,342
South East 0 730 £625 +4.17% 390
North of England +6 704 £600 - 402
Midlands +2 410 £626 +8.87% 184
North West +6 409 £600 +2.78% 232
South West 0 314 £650 +1.56% 227
West Midlands 0 297 £650 +8.33% 120
Yorkshire +7 232 £600 -2.04% 124
Scotland +23 166 £625 - 162
East of England +11 150 £604 +9.07% 115
East Midlands +4 106 £600 +16.50% 64
North East -5 65 £600 -14.29% 46
Wales +3 43 £633 +1.20% 24
Northern Ireland +3 5 £475 -32.14% 73
Channel Islands -4 3 £575 -22.56% 2

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 27 August 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 1,852 (30.86%) Security Cleared
2 1,547 (25.78%) Azure
3 1,394 (23.23%) SC Cleared
4 1,306 (21.76%) AWS
5 970 (16.16%) Stakeholder Management
6 898 (14.96%) Roadmaps
7 855 (14.25%) Migration
8 809 (13.48%) Microsoft
9 757 (12.61%) Enterprise Architecture
10 755 (12.58%) AI
11 673 (11.21%) Technical Leadership
12 671 (11.18%) Agile
13 634 (10.56%) DevOps
14 624 (10.40%) Data Modelling
15 622 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 619 (10.31%) CI/CD
17 582 (9.70%) Integration Patterns
18 578 (9.63%) Data Architecture
19 520 (8.67%) Analytics
20 481 (8.02%) GCP
21 477 (7.95%) Architectural Patterns
22 474 (7.90%) TOGAF
23 455 (7.58%) Security Architecture
24 412 (6.87%) Event-Driven
25 400 (6.67%) Microservices
26 390 (6.50%) Data Governance
27 377 (6.28%) Infrastructure as Code
28 369 (6.15%) Cybersecurity
29 361 (6.02%) Decision-Making
30 355 (5.92%) 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 79 (1.32%) SAS
1 79 (1.32%) SharePoint
2 68 (1.13%) Confluence
3 44 (0.73%) Apache
4 42 (0.70%) Apache Spark
5 33 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
6 29 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
7 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
8 19 (0.32%) CMS
9 18 (0.30%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.12%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.12%) Camunda
10 7 (0.12%) Documentum
11 6 (0.100%) Appian
12 5 (0.083%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.067%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.067%) NetWeaver
13 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
14 3 (0.050%) JBoss
14 3 (0.050%) Tomcat
Applications
1 23 (0.38%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.033%) Windchill
7 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.017%) Notion
7 1 (0.017%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 166 (2.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.60%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 35 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 21 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 13 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 13 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
9 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.20%) SAP ERP
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
10 10 (0.17%) SAP MDG
11 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 7 (0.12%) SAP MM
14 6 (0.100%) SAP CO
14 6 (0.100%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,547 (25.78%) Azure
2 1,306 (21.76%) AWS
3 481 (8.02%) GCP
4 308 (5.13%) Power Platform
5 224 (3.73%) Entra ID
6 222 (3.70%) SaaS
7 208 (3.47%) Serverless
8 145 (2.42%) GitHub
9 143 (2.38%) Dynamics 365
10 122 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
11 121 (2.02%) Microsoft 365
12 113 (1.88%) Snowflake
13 109 (1.82%) PaaS
14 99 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
15 87 (1.45%) Amazon S3
16 76 (1.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 75 (1.25%) IaaS
18 69 (1.15%) Azure Data Factory
19 65 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
20 64 (1.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 179 (2.98%) Firewall
2 159 (2.65%) Network Security
3 106 (1.77%) WAN
4 92 (1.53%) VPN
5 80 (1.33%) DNS
6 74 (1.23%) LAN
7 51 (0.85%) SD-WAN
8 49 (0.82%) BGP
9 39 (0.65%) DHCP
10 37 (0.62%) MPLS
10 37 (0.62%) TCP/IP
11 29 (0.48%) VLAN
12 28 (0.47%) VXLAN
13 27 (0.45%) SAN
14 24 (0.40%) OSPF
15 22 (0.37%) NAS
16 21 (0.35%) NX-OS
16 21 (0.35%) Radio Access Network
17 20 (0.33%) Structured Cabling
17 20 (0.33%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 210 (3.50%) Power BI
2 202 (3.37%) Data Lake
3 192 (3.20%) Metadata
4 181 (3.02%) Data Warehouse
5 78 (1.30%) NoSQL
6 53 (0.88%) SQL Server
7 50 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
8 48 (0.80%) Azure SQL Database
9 45 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
9 45 (0.75%) BigQuery
9 45 (0.75%) Delta Lake
10 43 (0.72%) Big Data
11 39 (0.65%) Oracle Database
12 38 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.48%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 25 (0.42%) Relational Database
14 25 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
15 23 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
15 23 (0.38%) GIS
16 22 (0.37%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 84 (1.40%) JIRA
2 81 (1.35%) Git
3 56 (0.93%) Jenkins
4 36 (0.60%) GitLab
5 19 (0.32%) ERwin
6 12 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.13%) RStudio
9 7 (0.12%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.12%) MLflow
9 7 (0.12%) MSI
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 7 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.100%) Hudson
10 6 (0.100%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.100%) Storybook
11 5 (0.083%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.083%) Maven
11 5 (0.083%) PowerDesigner
General
1 1,175 (19.58%) Social Skills
2 867 (14.45%) Finance
3 691 (11.51%) Public Sector
4 307 (5.12%) Banking
5 306 (5.10%) Analytical Skills
6 258 (4.30%) Retail
7 154 (2.57%) Influencing Skills
8 138 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
9 136 (2.27%) Telecoms
10 134 (2.23%) Manufacturing
11 112 (1.87%) Legal
12 68 (1.13%) Marketing
13 62 (1.03%) Billing
14 57 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 46 (0.77%) Law
15 46 (0.77%) Military
16 45 (0.75%) Aerospace
17 39 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
18 38 (0.63%) Financial Institution
19 37 (0.62%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 294 (4.90%) REST
2 266 (4.43%) Terraform
3 188 (3.13%) Middleware
4 141 (2.35%) Kafka
5 132 (2.20%) SOAP
6 129 (2.15%) OAuth
7 127 (2.12%) .NET
8 69 (1.15%) Oracle Fusion
9 68 (1.13%) OpenID
9 68 (1.13%) SAML
10 66 (1.10%) JSON
11 62 (1.03%) OAuth2
12 47 (0.78%) PySpark
13 46 (0.77%) RESTful
14 41 (0.68%) React
14 41 (0.68%) XML
15 38 (0.63%) LDAP
15 38 (0.63%) SailPoint
16 37 (0.62%) .NET Framework
17 35 (0.58%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 530 (8.83%) Cloud Native
2 200 (3.33%) Data Centre
3 175 (2.92%) Management Information System
4 160 (2.67%) Onboarding
5 146 (2.43%) Product Ownership
6 144 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
7 141 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
8 140 (2.33%) AI Agents
9 139 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
10 138 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
11 103 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
12 97 (1.62%) CMDB
13 89 (1.48%) Public Cloud
14 82 (1.37%) Operational Technology
15 80 (1.33%) Enterprise Cloud
16 65 (1.08%) Security Posture
17 57 (0.95%) Data Structures
18 53 (0.88%) Private Cloud
19 48 (0.80%) IoT
20 44 (0.73%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 120 (2.00%) Windows
2 108 (1.80%) Linux
3 46 (0.77%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.35%) Unix
6 18 (0.30%) Android
6 18 (0.30%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.13%) zOS
9 7 (0.12%) VMS
10 5 (0.083%) Solaris
11 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.067%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.050%) CentOS
12 3 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.050%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
13 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 970 (16.16%) Stakeholder Management
2 898 (14.96%) Roadmaps
3 855 (14.25%) Migration
4 757 (12.61%) Enterprise Architecture
5 755 (12.58%) AI
6 673 (11.21%) Technical Leadership
7 671 (11.18%) Agile
8 634 (10.56%) DevOps
9 624 (10.40%) Data Modelling
10 622 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 619 (10.31%) CI/CD
12 582 (9.70%) Integration Patterns
13 578 (9.63%) Data Architecture
14 520 (8.67%) Analytics
15 477 (7.95%) Architectural Patterns
16 474 (7.90%) TOGAF
17 455 (7.58%) Security Architecture
18 412 (6.87%) Event-Driven
19 400 (6.67%) Microservices
20 390 (6.50%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 282 (4.70%) Python
2 275 (4.58%) SQL
3 274 (4.57%) Java
4 127 (2.12%) JavaScript
5 106 (1.77%) PowerShell
6 53 (0.88%) Bicep
7 49 (0.82%) C#
8 47 (0.78%) Bash
8 47 (0.78%) TypeScript
9 30 (0.50%) Apex Code
10 20 (0.33%) Ruby
11 16 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 16 (0.27%) Shell Script
12 14 (0.23%) ABAP
12 14 (0.23%) Kotlin
13 11 (0.18%) C++
13 11 (0.18%) Groovy
13 11 (0.18%) R
14 10 (0.17%) PL/SQL
14 10 (0.17%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,852 (30.86%) Security Cleared
2 1,394 (23.23%) SC Cleared
3 349 (5.82%) DV Cleared
4 167 (2.78%) Degree
5 145 (2.42%) CISSP
6 131 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
7 127 (2.12%) Azure Certification
8 121 (2.02%) AWS Certification
9 98 (1.63%) Cisco Certification
10 81 (1.35%) TOGAF Certification
11 71 (1.18%) CISM
11 71 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
12 47 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
13 44 (0.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 41 (0.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 41 (0.68%) CCNP
15 33 (0.55%) Master's Degree
16 31 (0.52%) CCSP
17 22 (0.37%) CISA
17 22 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 242 (4.03%) Data Quality
2 224 (3.73%) NIST
3 179 (2.98%) GDPR
4 177 (2.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 119 (1.98%) NCSC
6 78 (1.30%) GRC
7 54 (0.90%) QA
8 41 (0.68%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.65%) Accessibility
10 32 (0.53%) NIST 800
11 30 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 25 (0.42%) SLA
13 21 (0.35%) SEPA
14 20 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
14 20 (0.33%) IFRS
15 19 (0.32%) ISO 20022
15 19 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 16 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
16 16 (0.27%) JSP 440
17 14 (0.23%) HL7
System Software
1 175 (2.92%) Active Directory
2 117 (1.95%) Docker
3 81 (1.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (0.70%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.37%) Hyper-V
7 20 (0.33%) vSphere
8 19 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
10 7 (0.12%) NFS
11 6 (0.100%) Varnish
12 5 (0.083%) Postfix
12 5 (0.083%) vCloud
13 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.067%) KVM
14 3 (0.050%) Ceph
14 3 (0.050%) IAG
14 3 (0.050%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.050%) SRDF
15 2 (0.033%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 295 (4.92%) Kubernetes
2 103 (1.72%) Ansible
3 51 (0.85%) Grafana
4 46 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.70%) Prometheus
6 27 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.32%) Argo
8 16 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.23%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.17%) Istio
11 8 (0.13%) WMI
12 7 (0.12%) FortiGate
12 7 (0.12%) SCCM
13 6 (0.100%) CASB
13 6 (0.100%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.083%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.083%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.083%) MOM
15 4 (0.067%) Cisco CUCM
Vendors
1 809 (13.48%) Microsoft
2 355 (5.92%) SAP
3 303 (5.05%) Oracle
3 303 (5.05%) ServiceNow
4 288 (4.80%) Databricks
5 194 (3.23%) Salesforce
6 181 (3.02%) Google
7 144 (2.40%) Cisco
8 137 (2.28%) VMware
9 72 (1.20%) MuleSoft
10 64 (1.07%) CyberArk
11 63 (1.05%) IBM
12 54 (0.90%) Workday
13 52 (0.87%) Palo Alto
14 46 (0.77%) Foundry
15 43 (0.72%) Ariba
16 42 (0.70%) Adobe
17 40 (0.67%) Red Hat
18 38 (0.63%) OpenAI
18 38 (0.63%) Sparx