Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 February 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,852 3,199 4,418
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.87% 10.29% 9.78%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.79% 11.07% 10.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,576 1,935 2,876
10th Percentile £460 £478 £500
25th Percentile £513 £549 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £726 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 34 49
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.78 £59.45
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.63 £61.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £70.00 £78.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% -10.26% +11.43%
75th Percentile £90.09 £80.03 £87.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.98 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.50 £71.25 £80.00
% change year-on-year +1.75% -10.94% +14.29%

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 35,711 28,902 42,066
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.50% 92.95% 93.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,518 17,719 27,795
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £405 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £717 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £476 £490
% change year-on-year -0.21% -2.86% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,166 840 2,312
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.89 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.57 £21.25 £16.67
Median hourly rate £29.82 £33.77 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.69% -3.51% -
75th Percentile £61.25 £63.38 £61.51
90th Percentile £71.25 £75.00 £72.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £32.13 £35.95
% change year-on-year -12.85% -10.63% +8.94%

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 7 February 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 7 February 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 7 February 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 -2 3,309 £625 - 967
UK excluding London +1 1,876 £600 -4.00% 691
London -2 1,466 £630 -3.08% 439
Work from Home -4 1,103 £625 - 500
South East +9 576 £625 - 253
North of England -2 467 £575 -4.17% 160
Midlands -2 326 £573 -4.50% 106
North West -5 263 £575 -4.17% 86
South West 0 248 £707 +13.08% 69
West Midlands -4 238 £600 -1.15% 78
Yorkshire -1 188 £563 -2.00% 48
East of England +13 137 £550 -12.00% 49
Scotland +9 126 £650 +4.00% 50
East Midlands -4 86 £480 -14.33% 28
Wales +6 31 £600 +5.26% 8
North East -15 21 £625 -1.96% 27
Northern Ireland +1 8 £500 -26.47% 9

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 7 February 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 1,172 (30.43%) Security Cleared
2 1,013 (26.30%) Azure
3 843 (21.88%) SC Cleared
4 807 (20.95%) AWS
5 571 (14.82%) Microsoft
6 557 (14.46%) Roadmaps
7 516 (13.40%) Stakeholder Management
8 515 (13.37%) Agile
9 483 (12.54%) Migration
10 438 (11.37%) DevOps
11 437 (11.34%) Enterprise Architecture
12 389 (10.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 382 (9.92%) Data Modelling
14 376 (9.76%) CI/CD
15 373 (9.68%) Technical Leadership
16 372 (9.66%) TOGAF
17 342 (8.88%) Problem-Solving
18 331 (8.59%) Analytics
19 321 (8.33%) AI
20 309 (8.02%) GCP
21 308 (8.00%) Python
22 304 (7.89%) Data Architecture
23 276 (7.17%) Microservices
24 258 (6.70%) Integration Patterns
25 245 (6.36%) Terraform
26 243 (6.31%) DV Cleared
27 232 (6.02%) Architectural Design
28 231 (6.00%) Architectural Patterns
29 225 (5.84%) Cybersecurity
30 217 (5.63%) Data Governance

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
1 107 (2.78%) Confluence
2 92 (2.39%) SharePoint
3 58 (1.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (0.78%) SAS
5 25 (0.65%) CMS
6 20 (0.52%) Apache Spark
7 18 (0.47%) Apache
7 18 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
7 18 (0.47%) OpenStack
8 16 (0.42%) Anypoint
9 14 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 11 (0.29%) Appian
10 11 (0.29%) ArcGIS
11 9 (0.23%) nginx
11 9 (0.23%) Smallworld
12 7 (0.18%) Ethereum
12 7 (0.18%) GeoServer
12 7 (0.18%) Hyperledger
12 7 (0.18%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 51 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 30 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (0.42%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.16%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.052%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.026%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.026%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.026%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.026%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.026%) Revit
7 1 (0.026%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.026%) Trello
Business Applications
1 102 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.06%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.57%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.44%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
7 12 (0.31%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.29%) SAP EWM
9 10 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
10 9 (0.23%) SAP ERP
10 9 (0.23%) SAP PM
11 8 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.21%) SAP CO
11 8 (0.21%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.18%) Maximo
12 7 (0.18%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.18%) SAP FI
13 6 (0.16%) Distributed Ledger
13 6 (0.16%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,013 (26.30%) Azure
2 807 (20.95%) AWS
3 309 (8.02%) GCP
4 149 (3.87%) Serverless
5 142 (3.69%) Power Platform
5 142 (3.69%) SaaS
6 128 (3.32%) Microsoft 365
7 118 (3.06%) Entra ID
8 86 (2.23%) AWS Lambda
8 86 (2.23%) Azure DevOps
9 85 (2.21%) IaaS
10 79 (2.05%) GitHub
11 76 (1.97%) Amazon S3
12 75 (1.95%) Microsoft Purview
13 69 (1.79%) PaaS
14 66 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
14 66 (1.71%) OpenShift
15 65 (1.69%) AWS CloudFormation
16 64 (1.66%) Azure Data Factory
16 64 (1.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 198 (5.14%) Firewall
2 128 (3.32%) WAN
3 121 (3.14%) Network Security
4 102 (2.65%) DNS
5 100 (2.60%) VPN
6 78 (2.02%) LAN
7 68 (1.77%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.99%) BGP
9 30 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (0.73%) DHCP
10 28 (0.73%) MPLS
11 26 (0.67%) TCP/IP
12 23 (0.60%) OSPF
13 21 (0.55%) Kerberos
13 21 (0.55%) SAN
14 20 (0.52%) Internet
15 19 (0.49%) SSL
15 19 (0.49%) VSAN
16 18 (0.47%) IPsec
17 17 (0.44%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (3.71%) Data Warehouse
2 119 (3.09%) Metadata
3 100 (2.60%) Power BI
4 89 (2.31%) Data Lake
5 68 (1.77%) SQL Server
6 61 (1.58%) PostgreSQL
7 51 (1.32%) Tableau
8 38 (0.99%) Amazon Redshift
8 38 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
9 36 (0.93%) NoSQL
10 33 (0.86%) Oracle Database
11 32 (0.83%) DynamoDB
12 25 (0.65%) Amazon Athena
13 22 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
13 22 (0.57%) Big Data
13 22 (0.57%) Relational Database
14 21 (0.55%) Amazon Aurora
14 21 (0.55%) Redis
15 20 (0.52%) GIS
16 18 (0.47%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 125 (3.25%) JIRA
2 87 (2.26%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.19%) GitLab
4 31 (0.80%) Git
5 22 (0.57%) ERwin
6 9 (0.23%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.23%) Bitbucket
7 8 (0.21%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.16%) Postman
9 5 (0.13%) MSI
9 5 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.13%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.13%) Selenium
10 4 (0.10%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.10%) MLflow
10 4 (0.10%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.10%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.078%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.078%) JUnit
11 3 (0.078%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 936 (24.30%) Social Skills
2 598 (15.52%) Finance
3 457 (11.86%) Public Sector
4 272 (7.06%) Analytical Skills
5 219 (5.69%) Banking
6 131 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
7 102 (2.65%) Legal
8 95 (2.47%) Influencing Skills
9 77 (2.00%) Military
10 76 (1.97%) Telecoms
11 74 (1.92%) Presentation Skills
12 72 (1.87%) Retail
13 69 (1.79%) Marketing
14 57 (1.48%) Manufacturing
15 39 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 37 (0.96%) Billing
17 27 (0.70%) Law
18 25 (0.65%) Financial Institution
19 20 (0.52%) Aerospace
20 19 (0.49%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 201 (5.22%) REST
2 116 (3.01%) SOAP
3 114 (2.96%) Middleware
4 86 (2.23%) .NET
5 75 (1.95%) LDAP
6 74 (1.92%) Kafka
7 73 (1.90%) OpenID
8 64 (1.66%) OAuth
9 63 (1.64%) SAML
10 50 (1.30%) JSON
11 38 (0.99%) OAuth2
12 37 (0.96%) RESTful
13 35 (0.91%) AngularJS
13 35 (0.91%) React
14 31 (0.80%) SailPoint
15 30 (0.78%) PySpark
16 29 (0.75%) Oracle Fusion
17 27 (0.70%) Web Services
18 26 (0.67%) Node.js
19 22 (0.57%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 280 (7.27%) Cloud Native
2 135 (3.50%) Product Ownership
3 118 (3.06%) Data Centre
4 115 (2.99%) Onboarding
5 100 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
6 92 (2.39%) Enterprise Software
7 86 (2.23%) PKI
8 77 (2.00%) Hybrid Cloud
9 67 (1.74%) Management Information System
9 67 (1.74%) Security Posture
10 63 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
11 62 (1.61%) Public Cloud
12 54 (1.40%) Operational Technology
13 48 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
14 47 (1.22%) CMDB
15 43 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
16 40 (1.04%) NHS
17 34 (0.88%) Data Structures
18 32 (0.83%) AI Agents
19 28 (0.73%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 165 (4.28%) Windows
2 104 (2.70%) Linux
3 42 (1.09%) Windows Server
4 31 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.47%) Windows 7
6 16 (0.42%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.34%) Unix
8 12 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
8 12 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
9 11 (0.29%) Android
9 11 (0.29%) Apple iOS
10 9 (0.23%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.23%) VMS
11 6 (0.16%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.13%) zOS
13 4 (0.10%) CentOS
14 2 (0.052%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.026%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.026%) Solaris
15 1 (0.026%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 557 (14.46%) Roadmaps
2 516 (13.40%) Stakeholder Management
3 515 (13.37%) Agile
4 483 (12.54%) Migration
5 438 (11.37%) DevOps
6 437 (11.34%) Enterprise Architecture
7 389 (10.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 382 (9.92%) Data Modelling
9 376 (9.76%) CI/CD
10 373 (9.68%) Technical Leadership
11 372 (9.66%) TOGAF
12 342 (8.88%) Problem-Solving
13 331 (8.59%) Analytics
14 321 (8.33%) AI
15 304 (7.89%) Data Architecture
16 276 (7.17%) Microservices
17 258 (6.70%) Integration Patterns
18 232 (6.02%) Architectural Design
19 231 (6.00%) Architectural Patterns
20 225 (5.84%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 308 (8.00%) Python
2 204 (5.30%) SQL
3 177 (4.60%) PowerShell
4 132 (3.43%) Java
5 55 (1.43%) JavaScript
6 54 (1.40%) C#
7 36 (0.93%) Bicep
8 35 (0.91%) Bash
9 33 (0.86%) TypeScript
10 20 (0.52%) PL/SQL
11 15 (0.39%) Apex Code
12 14 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.34%) R
14 10 (0.26%) Ruby
14 10 (0.26%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.21%) PHP
15 8 (0.21%) Scala
15 8 (0.21%) VB
16 7 (0.18%) Korn
16 7 (0.18%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,172 (30.43%) Security Cleared
2 843 (21.88%) SC Cleared
3 243 (6.31%) DV Cleared
4 188 (4.88%) Degree
5 103 (2.67%) AWS Certification
6 101 (2.62%) TOGAF Certification
7 100 (2.60%) CISSP
8 94 (2.44%) Azure Certification
9 70 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
10 68 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
11 59 (1.53%) Cisco Certification
11 59 (1.53%) Microsoft Certification
12 57 (1.48%) Master's Degree
13 55 (1.43%) CISM
14 51 (1.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 36 (0.93%) CCNP
16 31 (0.80%) CCIE
17 30 (0.78%) ISEB
17 30 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
18 17 (0.44%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 174 (4.52%) GDPR
2 134 (3.48%) NIST
3 123 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 116 (3.01%) Data Quality
5 78 (2.02%) NCSC
6 56 (1.45%) QA
7 48 (1.25%) PCI DSS
8 34 (0.88%) COBIT
9 31 (0.80%) Accessibility
9 31 (0.80%) GRC
10 22 (0.57%) HIPAA
11 21 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 21 (0.55%) JSP 440
12 20 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.47%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 16 (0.42%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 15 (0.39%) MiFID
16 12 (0.31%) FINRA
17 11 (0.29%) SLA
18 10 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 161 (4.18%) Active Directory
2 114 (2.96%) Docker
3 87 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 57 (1.48%) VMware NSX
5 35 (0.91%) vSphere
6 23 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
7 15 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
8 13 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.31%) Hyper-V
10 11 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
11 7 (0.18%) BitLocker
12 6 (0.16%) Squid
12 6 (0.16%) Varnish
13 5 (0.13%) RACF
14 4 (0.10%) NFS
14 4 (0.10%) vCloud
15 3 (0.078%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
15 3 (0.078%) Ceph
15 3 (0.078%) Firmware
15 3 (0.078%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 245 (6.36%) Terraform
2 186 (4.83%) Kubernetes
3 106 (2.75%) Ansible
4 63 (1.64%) Single Sign-On
5 31 (0.80%) OPNET
6 29 (0.75%) FortiGate
7 27 (0.70%) vCenter Server
8 24 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
8 24 (0.62%) SCCM
9 21 (0.55%) Grafana
10 19 (0.49%) Prometheus
11 18 (0.47%) WMI
12 15 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.39%) Argo
13 8 (0.21%) Istio
14 6 (0.16%) Kibana
15 5 (0.13%) Consul
15 5 (0.13%) Puppet
16 4 (0.10%) Data Guard
16 4 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 571 (14.82%) Microsoft
2 214 (5.56%) ServiceNow
3 213 (5.53%) SAP
4 181 (4.70%) Oracle
5 177 (4.60%) Salesforce
6 151 (3.92%) VMware
7 120 (3.12%) Databricks
8 114 (2.96%) Cisco
9 107 (2.78%) Google
10 94 (2.44%) CyberArk
11 65 (1.69%) Palo Alto
11 65 (1.69%) Splunk
12 59 (1.53%) MuleSoft
13 49 (1.27%) Centrify
14 47 (1.22%) Atlassian
15 45 (1.17%) Red Hat
15 45 (1.17%) Remedy
16 44 (1.14%) OpenAI
17 43 (1.12%) Workday
18 40 (1.04%) Sparx