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 1 June 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,379 2,882 4,457
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.99% 9.89% 10.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.91% 10.71% 11.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,555 1,856 2,855
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £537 £556
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -3.85% -1.07%
75th Percentile £725 £715 £738
90th Percentile £789 £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 31 96
10th Percentile £46.00 £52.50 £58.75
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.25 £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 £85.99
90th Percentile £97.88 £87.50 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £73.31 £70.00
% change year-on-year -11.34% +4.73% -

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 45,172 26,906 39,903
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.35% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,538 17,432 25,857
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £409
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 3,009 1,072 2,824
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.79% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £59.23 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.80 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £25.32 £40.00
% change year-on-year +72.55% -36.70% -6.98%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 4,580 £620 -0.80% 1,713
UK excluding London +9 2,380 £613 +2.08% 989
London +4 2,234 £625 -3.85% 839
Work from Home +3 1,454 £600 - 798
South East +4 677 £625 +2.04% 273
North of England +4 672 £600 - 263
Midlands +1 436 £600 +0.17% 115
North West +6 371 £608 +5.74% 154
West Midlands +2 312 £620 +3.33% 86
Yorkshire +6 253 £552 -7.96% 67
South West +1 241 £650 +8.33% 157
East of England +19 202 £575 -4.17% 69
Scotland +15 152 £650 +4.00% 61
East Midlands +2 118 £571 +8.60% 29
North East +6 55 £575 -4.17% 43
Wales -1 32 £600 +25.00% 37
Northern Ireland +8 7 £475 -28.30% 22
Channel Islands - 3 £575 - 2

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 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 1,623 (30.17%) Security Cleared
2 1,331 (24.74%) Azure
3 1,207 (22.44%) SC Cleared
4 1,162 (21.60%) AWS
5 741 (13.78%) Migration
6 738 (13.72%) Roadmaps
7 704 (13.09%) Microsoft
8 625 (11.62%) Stakeholder Management
9 612 (11.38%) DevOps
10 610 (11.34%) Agile
11 574 (10.67%) CI/CD
12 542 (10.08%) Enterprise Architecture
13 510 (9.48%) AI
14 507 (9.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 499 (9.28%) Data Modelling
16 494 (9.18%) Technical Leadership
17 477 (8.87%) Integration Patterns
18 443 (8.24%) Data Architecture
19 438 (8.14%) Architectural Patterns
20 419 (7.79%) Analytics
21 416 (7.73%) GCP
22 412 (7.66%) TOGAF
23 410 (7.62%) Microservices
24 361 (6.71%) Problem-Solving
25 353 (6.56%) Architectural Design
26 335 (6.23%) Python
27 332 (6.17%) Infrastructure as Code
28 324 (6.02%) Security Architecture
29 312 (5.80%) Cybersecurity
30 308 (5.73%) 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 82 (1.52%) Confluence
3 52 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (0.58%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.54%) Apache
5 29 (0.54%) SAS
6 21 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.32%) Anypoint
7 17 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
8 16 (0.30%) Appian
8 16 (0.30%) CMS
9 15 (0.28%) nginx
9 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.24%) OpenStack
11 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 9 (0.17%) Camunda
13 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
14 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
14 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 24 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 20 (0.37%) MS Visio
3 14 (0.26%) Microsoft Office
4 13 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
5 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.13%) Revit
6 6 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.074%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.074%) Microsoft Project
8 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.056%) Windchill
9 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 137 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (0.76%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 20 (0.37%) 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 IBP
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
13 6 (0.11%) SAP EWM
13 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
13 6 (0.11%) SAP SD
14 5 (0.093%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,331 (24.74%) Azure
2 1,162 (21.60%) AWS
3 416 (7.73%) GCP
4 236 (4.39%) Power Platform
5 203 (3.77%) Serverless
6 183 (3.40%) Entra ID
7 179 (3.33%) SaaS
8 131 (2.44%) Microsoft 365
9 129 (2.40%) GitHub
10 114 (2.12%) PaaS
11 107 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
12 100 (1.86%) Dynamics 365
13 99 (1.84%) AWS Lambda
14 85 (1.58%) Amazon S3
14 85 (1.58%) IaaS
14 85 (1.58%) Snowflake
15 75 (1.39%) Amazon EKS
16 72 (1.34%) OpenShift
17 68 (1.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 65 (1.21%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 215 (4.00%) Firewall
2 183 (3.40%) Network Security
3 123 (2.29%) WAN
4 118 (2.19%) VPN
5 117 (2.18%) 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%) TCP/IP
13 29 (0.54%) MPLS
13 29 (0.54%) NAS
14 25 (0.46%) Structured Cabling
15 23 (0.43%) NX-OS
15 23 (0.43%) VXLAN
16 22 (0.41%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (3.16%) Power BI
2 142 (2.64%) Metadata
3 138 (2.57%) Data Lake
4 133 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
5 72 (1.34%) NoSQL
5 72 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
5 72 (1.34%) SQL Server
6 44 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
7 40 (0.74%) Big Data
7 40 (0.74%) Tableau
8 36 (0.67%) Oracle Database
9 32 (0.59%) Amazon RDS
10 30 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
11 28 (0.52%) BigQuery
12 25 (0.46%) Delta Lake
13 24 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
14 21 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
14 21 (0.39%) Relational Database
15 20 (0.37%) DynamoDB
15 20 (0.37%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 96 (1.78%) JIRA
2 92 (1.71%) Jenkins
3 58 (1.08%) 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 1,005 (18.68%) Social Skills
2 810 (15.06%) Finance
3 583 (10.84%) Public Sector
4 305 (5.67%) Banking
5 265 (4.93%) Analytical Skills
6 167 (3.10%) Retail
7 151 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
8 132 (2.45%) Legal
9 114 (2.12%) Influencing Skills
10 94 (1.75%) Telecoms
11 90 (1.67%) Manufacturing
12 60 (1.12%) Law
13 58 (1.08%) Military
14 52 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
15 50 (0.93%) Marketing
16 49 (0.91%) Billing
17 46 (0.86%) Financial Institution
18 39 (0.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 38 (0.71%) Aerospace
20 35 (0.65%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 263 (4.89%) REST
2 201 (3.74%) Middleware
3 139 (2.58%) SOAP
4 134 (2.49%) .NET
5 110 (2.04%) Kafka
6 95 (1.77%) OpenID
7 94 (1.75%) OAuth
8 92 (1.71%) LDAP
9 73 (1.36%) SAML
10 57 (1.06%) React
11 56 (1.04%) OAuth2
12 53 (0.99%) Oracle Fusion
13 49 (0.91%) RESTful
14 43 (0.80%) SailPoint
15 40 (0.74%) JSON
16 38 (0.71%) AngularJS
17 37 (0.69%) Web Services
18 32 (0.59%) Node.js
19 30 (0.56%) PySpark
20 27 (0.50%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 451 (8.38%) Cloud Native
2 189 (3.51%) Data Centre
3 145 (2.70%) Management Information System
4 141 (2.62%) Onboarding
5 138 (2.57%) Product Ownership
6 124 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
7 122 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
8 121 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
9 107 (1.99%) Hybrid Cloud
10 93 (1.73%) Public Cloud
11 92 (1.71%) Security Posture
12 85 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
13 83 (1.54%) Operational Technology
14 79 (1.47%) CMDB
15 66 (1.23%) AI Agents
16 45 (0.84%) Data Structures
17 44 (0.82%) Private Cloud
18 42 (0.78%) Mainframe
18 42 (0.78%) NHS
19 41 (0.76%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 158 (2.94%) Windows
2 107 (1.99%) Linux
3 41 (0.76%) Windows Server
4 35 (0.65%) Android
4 35 (0.65%) 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%) Mac OS
9 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.11%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.11%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.093%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.074%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.074%) Solaris
13 3 (0.056%) CentOS
13 3 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 741 (13.78%) Migration
2 738 (13.72%) Roadmaps
3 625 (11.62%) Stakeholder Management
4 612 (11.38%) DevOps
5 610 (11.34%) Agile
6 574 (10.67%) CI/CD
7 542 (10.08%) Enterprise Architecture
8 510 (9.48%) AI
9 507 (9.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 499 (9.28%) Data Modelling
11 494 (9.18%) Technical Leadership
12 477 (8.87%) Integration Patterns
13 443 (8.24%) Data Architecture
14 438 (8.14%) Architectural Patterns
15 419 (7.79%) Analytics
16 412 (7.66%) TOGAF
17 410 (7.62%) Microservices
18 361 (6.71%) Problem-Solving
19 353 (6.56%) Architectural Design
20 332 (6.17%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 335 (6.23%) Python
2 276 (5.13%) SQL
3 220 (4.09%) Java
4 168 (3.12%) PowerShell
5 98 (1.82%) JavaScript
6 63 (1.17%) C#
7 58 (1.08%) Bicep
8 42 (0.78%) TypeScript
9 39 (0.73%) Bash
10 22 (0.41%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.39%) Ruby
12 20 (0.37%) PL/SQL
13 15 (0.28%) Scala
14 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) Shell Script
18 6 (0.11%) ABAP
18 6 (0.11%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,623 (30.17%) Security Cleared
2 1,207 (22.44%) SC Cleared
3 293 (5.45%) DV Cleared
4 195 (3.63%) Degree
5 119 (2.21%) Azure Certification
6 117 (2.18%) CISSP
7 107 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
8 106 (1.97%) AWS Certification
9 103 (1.91%) Cisco Certification
10 86 (1.60%) TOGAF Certification
11 83 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
12 64 (1.19%) CISM
13 55 (1.02%) CCNP
14 51 (0.95%) Master's Degree
15 45 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
16 40 (0.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 38 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 26 (0.48%) CCSP
19 20 (0.37%) CCIE
20 19 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 197 (3.66%) NIST
2 172 (3.20%) GDPR
3 149 (2.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 146 (2.71%) Data Quality
5 113 (2.10%) NCSC
6 72 (1.34%) QA
7 41 (0.76%) GRC
8 39 (0.73%) PCI DSS
9 34 (0.63%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 23 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
11 23 (0.43%) NIST 800
12 21 (0.39%) SEPA
13 19 (0.35%) HL7
14 18 (0.33%) COBIT
14 18 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.24%) FINRA
16 13 (0.24%) IFRS
16 13 (0.24%) SLA
System Software
1 194 (3.61%) Active Directory
2 107 (1.99%) Docker
3 102 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.30%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.56%) vSphere
6 23 (0.43%) Hyper-V
7 20 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
8 12 (0.22%) Varnish
8 12 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
10 9 (0.17%) NFS
10 9 (0.17%) Squid
10 9 (0.17%) vCloud
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%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 267 (4.96%) Terraform
2 245 (4.55%) Kubernetes
3 113 (2.10%) Ansible
4 52 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
5 51 (0.95%) Grafana
6 39 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (0.73%) Prometheus
7 33 (0.61%) FortiGate
8 28 (0.52%) vCenter Server
9 18 (0.33%) Argo
9 18 (0.33%) SCCM
10 16 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.22%) Istio
12 8 (0.15%) Progress Chef
13 7 (0.13%) Consul
13 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
13 7 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
13 7 (0.13%) Puppet
14 5 (0.093%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.093%) Endace
Vendors
1 704 (13.09%) Microsoft
2 308 (5.73%) SAP
3 297 (5.52%) ServiceNow
4 242 (4.50%) Oracle
5 223 (4.15%) Databricks
6 185 (3.44%) VMware
7 178 (3.31%) Salesforce
8 141 (2.62%) Cisco
9 121 (2.25%) Google
10 88 (1.64%) CyberArk
11 80 (1.49%) MuleSoft
12 69 (1.28%) Splunk
13 55 (1.02%) Palo Alto
14 48 (0.89%) Red Hat
14 48 (0.89%) Workday
15 43 (0.80%) OpenAI
15 43 (0.80%) Sparx
16 40 (0.74%) BeyondTrust
16 40 (0.74%) IBM
16 40 (0.74%) Juniper