Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £619, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 August 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,021 3,008 3,943
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.17% 9.12% 10.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.09% 10.00% 10.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,986 1,935 2,557
10th Percentile £481 £470 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £619 £625 £648
Median % change year-on-year -0.96% -3.55% -0.31%
75th Percentile £710 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £807
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £643
% change year-on-year +3.33% -6.61% -1.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 18 74
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
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 £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 49,814 30,093 36,057
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.45% 91.25% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,857 19,013 23,018
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% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £728 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,530 1,571 1,954
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.69 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.62 £17.30 £19.52
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.93 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +8.65%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 5,053 £620 -0.80% 717
London +7 2,595 £625 -3.29% 331
UK excluding London +6 2,509 £620 +3.33% 485
Work from Home +4 1,604 £600 - 372
South East +1 743 £625 +4.17% 166
North of England +4 697 £600 - 140
Midlands 0 415 £625 +8.70% 54
North West +5 407 £600 - 74
South West -2 316 £643 +0.39% 78
West Midlands -1 299 £640 +6.58% 41
Yorkshire +6 226 £594 -5.00% 49
Scotland +20 157 £625 +0.60% 23
East of England +15 152 £604 +8.83% 17
East Midlands +6 109 £600 +16.50% 13
North East -6 66 £588 -16.07% 17
Wales +3 43 £633 +1.20% 10
Northern Ireland +4 5 £475 -32.14% 4
Channel Islands -3 3 £575 -22.56% 2

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 23 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 1,859 (30.88%) Security Cleared
2 1,544 (25.64%) Azure
3 1,390 (23.09%) SC Cleared
4 1,317 (21.87%) AWS
5 936 (15.55%) Stakeholder Management
6 896 (14.88%) Roadmaps
7 864 (14.35%) Migration
8 804 (13.35%) Microsoft
9 748 (12.42%) AI
10 742 (12.32%) Enterprise Architecture
11 670 (11.13%) Agile
11 670 (11.13%) Technical Leadership
12 635 (10.55%) DevOps
13 629 (10.45%) CI/CD
14 623 (10.35%) Data Modelling
14 623 (10.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 587 (9.75%) Integration Patterns
16 575 (9.55%) Data Architecture
17 529 (8.79%) Analytics
18 486 (8.07%) GCP
19 475 (7.89%) TOGAF
20 474 (7.87%) Architectural Patterns
21 454 (7.54%) Security Architecture
22 410 (6.81%) Event-Driven
23 401 (6.66%) Microservices
24 380 (6.31%) Data Governance
24 380 (6.31%) Infrastructure as Code
25 368 (6.11%) Cybersecurity
26 361 (6.00%) Decision-Making
27 356 (5.91%) 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 84 (1.40%) SharePoint
2 78 (1.30%) SAS
3 66 (1.10%) Confluence
4 45 (0.75%) Apache
5 43 (0.71%) Apache Spark
6 34 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
7 29 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
9 20 (0.33%) CMS
10 18 (0.30%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 7 (0.12%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.12%) Camunda
11 7 (0.12%) Documentum
12 6 (0.100%) Appian
13 4 (0.066%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.066%) NetWeaver
13 4 (0.066%) nginx
13 4 (0.066%) SAP EP
14 3 (0.050%) Drupal
Applications
1 21 (0.35%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.12%) Revit
6 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.050%) Windchill
8 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
8 1 (0.017%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 159 (2.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 35 (0.58%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
4 17 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
5 15 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
5 15 (0.25%) Teamcenter
6 14 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
6 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
7 12 (0.20%) SAP ERP
8 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
9 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
9 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
10 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
11 7 (0.12%) SAP MM
11 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.100%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.100%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,544 (25.64%) Azure
2 1,317 (21.87%) AWS
3 486 (8.07%) GCP
4 311 (5.17%) Power Platform
5 221 (3.67%) SaaS
6 215 (3.57%) Entra ID
7 209 (3.47%) Serverless
8 146 (2.42%) GitHub
9 140 (2.33%) Dynamics 365
10 121 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
11 120 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
12 116 (1.93%) PaaS
12 116 (1.93%) Snowflake
13 100 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
14 87 (1.44%) Amazon S3
15 80 (1.33%) IaaS
16 77 (1.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 70 (1.16%) Azure Data Factory
18 67 (1.11%) OCI
19 65 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 187 (3.11%) Firewall
2 164 (2.72%) Network Security
3 107 (1.78%) WAN
4 97 (1.61%) VPN
5 88 (1.46%) DNS
6 76 (1.26%) LAN
7 52 (0.86%) SD-WAN
8 49 (0.81%) BGP
9 42 (0.70%) DHCP
10 38 (0.63%) TCP/IP
11 37 (0.61%) MPLS
12 31 (0.51%) VLAN
13 30 (0.50%) SAN
13 30 (0.50%) VXLAN
14 25 (0.42%) NAS
14 25 (0.42%) NX-OS
15 24 (0.40%) OSPF
15 24 (0.40%) Wireless
16 23 (0.38%) Structured Cabling
17 21 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 213 (3.54%) Power BI
2 206 (3.42%) Data Lake
3 186 (3.09%) Metadata
4 185 (3.07%) Data Warehouse
5 78 (1.30%) NoSQL
6 60 (1.00%) SQL Server
7 53 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
8 51 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
9 46 (0.76%) Delta Lake
10 45 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
10 45 (0.75%) BigQuery
11 43 (0.71%) Big Data
12 38 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
12 38 (0.63%) Oracle Database
13 29 (0.48%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 25 (0.42%) Relational Database
15 24 (0.40%) Semantic Layer
16 23 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
16 23 (0.38%) GIS
16 23 (0.38%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 82 (1.36%) JIRA
2 81 (1.35%) Git
3 57 (0.95%) Jenkins
4 36 (0.60%) GitLab
5 20 (0.33%) ERwin
6 12 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.13%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.12%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.12%) MLflow
9 7 (0.12%) MSI
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
10 6 (0.100%) Hudson
10 6 (0.100%) RStudio
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 1,165 (19.35%) Social Skills
2 874 (14.52%) Finance
3 691 (11.48%) Public Sector
4 314 (5.22%) Banking
5 313 (5.20%) Analytical Skills
6 263 (4.37%) Retail
7 153 (2.54%) Influencing Skills
8 141 (2.34%) Documentation Skills
9 134 (2.23%) Telecoms
10 133 (2.21%) Manufacturing
11 113 (1.88%) Legal
12 68 (1.13%) Marketing
13 65 (1.08%) Billing
14 59 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 47 (0.78%) Law
15 47 (0.78%) Military
16 46 (0.76%) Aerospace
17 43 (0.71%) Financial Institution
18 40 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
19 37 (0.61%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 299 (4.97%) REST
2 271 (4.50%) Terraform
3 190 (3.16%) Middleware
4 144 (2.39%) Kafka
5 130 (2.16%) SOAP
6 128 (2.13%) .NET
7 127 (2.11%) OAuth
8 72 (1.20%) Oracle Fusion
9 68 (1.13%) SAML
10 67 (1.11%) OpenID
11 65 (1.08%) JSON
12 63 (1.05%) OAuth2
13 47 (0.78%) PySpark
13 47 (0.78%) RESTful
14 42 (0.70%) React
15 39 (0.65%) XML
16 38 (0.63%) SailPoint
17 37 (0.61%) .NET Framework
17 37 (0.61%) LDAP
18 35 (0.58%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 528 (8.77%) Cloud Native
2 205 (3.40%) Data Centre
3 179 (2.97%) Management Information System
4 160 (2.66%) Onboarding
5 149 (2.47%) Product Ownership
6 145 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
7 143 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
8 141 (2.34%) Hybrid Cloud
9 136 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
10 135 (2.24%) AI Agents
11 103 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
12 90 (1.49%) CMDB
13 85 (1.41%) Public Cloud
14 82 (1.36%) Operational Technology
15 78 (1.30%) Enterprise Cloud
16 66 (1.10%) Security Posture
17 60 (1.00%) Data Structures
18 51 (0.85%) Private Cloud
19 48 (0.80%) IoT
20 44 (0.73%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 127 (2.11%) Windows
2 105 (1.74%) Linux
3 49 (0.81%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (0.37%) Android
5 22 (0.37%) Apple iOS
5 22 (0.37%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
7 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
7 8 (0.13%) zOS
8 7 (0.12%) VMS
9 5 (0.083%) Solaris
10 4 (0.066%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.066%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.066%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.066%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.050%) CentOS
12 2 (0.033%) HPUX
12 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 936 (15.55%) Stakeholder Management
2 896 (14.88%) Roadmaps
3 864 (14.35%) Migration
4 748 (12.42%) AI
5 742 (12.32%) Enterprise Architecture
6 670 (11.13%) Agile
6 670 (11.13%) Technical Leadership
7 635 (10.55%) DevOps
8 629 (10.45%) CI/CD
9 623 (10.35%) Data Modelling
9 623 (10.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 587 (9.75%) Integration Patterns
11 575 (9.55%) Data Architecture
12 529 (8.79%) Analytics
13 475 (7.89%) TOGAF
14 474 (7.87%) Architectural Patterns
15 454 (7.54%) Security Architecture
16 410 (6.81%) Event-Driven
17 401 (6.66%) Microservices
18 380 (6.31%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 289 (4.80%) SQL
2 283 (4.70%) Python
3 271 (4.50%) Java
4 130 (2.16%) JavaScript
5 111 (1.84%) PowerShell
6 53 (0.88%) Bicep
7 51 (0.85%) C#
8 48 (0.80%) Bash
9 47 (0.78%) TypeScript
10 31 (0.51%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.35%) Ruby
12 17 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 17 (0.28%) Shell Script
13 13 (0.22%) ABAP
13 13 (0.22%) Kotlin
14 12 (0.20%) C++
15 11 (0.18%) Groovy
15 11 (0.18%) PL/SQL
15 11 (0.18%) R
16 10 (0.17%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,859 (30.88%) Security Cleared
2 1,390 (23.09%) SC Cleared
3 356 (5.91%) DV Cleared
4 166 (2.76%) Degree
5 149 (2.47%) CISSP
6 128 (2.13%) Azure Certification
7 122 (2.03%) AWS Certification
7 122 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
8 105 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
9 81 (1.35%) TOGAF Certification
10 73 (1.21%) CISM
11 70 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
12 47 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 46 (0.76%) CCNP
14 45 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
15 42 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 33 (0.55%) CCSP
16 33 (0.55%) Master's Degree
17 22 (0.37%) CISA
17 22 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 239 (3.97%) Data Quality
2 222 (3.69%) NIST
3 181 (3.01%) GDPR
4 175 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 121 (2.01%) NCSC
6 79 (1.31%) GRC
7 56 (0.93%) QA
8 42 (0.70%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.65%) Accessibility
10 33 (0.55%) NIST 800
11 30 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 21 (0.35%) IFRS
12 21 (0.35%) SEPA
12 21 (0.35%) SLA
13 20 (0.33%) ISO 20022
14 19 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
15 16 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
15 16 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 16 (0.27%) JSP 440
16 14 (0.23%) HL7
System Software
1 174 (2.89%) Active Directory
2 118 (1.96%) Docker
3 80 (1.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 43 (0.71%) 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 8 (0.13%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Varnish
12 6 (0.100%) Postfix
12 6 (0.100%) vCloud
13 4 (0.066%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.066%) KVM
13 4 (0.066%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.050%) Ceph
14 3 (0.050%) IAG
14 3 (0.050%) SRDF
15 2 (0.033%) zsh
Systems Management
1 296 (4.92%) Kubernetes
2 105 (1.74%) Ansible
3 53 (0.88%) Grafana
4 45 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
5 44 (0.73%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.51%) 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 9 (0.15%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.13%) WMI
13 7 (0.12%) SCCM
14 6 (0.100%) CASB
14 6 (0.100%) HAProxy
14 6 (0.100%) NetBackup
15 5 (0.083%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.083%) MOM
15 5 (0.083%) Puppet
Vendors
1 804 (13.35%) Microsoft
2 346 (5.75%) SAP
3 309 (5.13%) Oracle
4 299 (4.97%) ServiceNow
5 282 (4.68%) Databricks
6 194 (3.22%) Salesforce
7 181 (3.01%) Google
8 147 (2.44%) Cisco
9 143 (2.38%) VMware
10 70 (1.16%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.05%) IBM
12 62 (1.03%) CyberArk
13 54 (0.90%) Workday
14 53 (0.88%) Palo Alto
15 46 (0.76%) Foundry
16 43 (0.71%) Adobe
17 41 (0.68%) Ariba
18 40 (0.66%) Red Hat
19 38 (0.63%) Informatica
20 37 (0.61%) Sparx