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 19 August 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,949 2,999 3,954
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.11% 9.14% 10.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.01% 10.02% 10.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,945 1,927 2,574
10th Percentile £481 £473 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £711 £707 £738
90th Percentile £788 £787 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% -
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 £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £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% -3.34%

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 49,538 29,942 36,126
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.48% 91.24% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,723 18,896 23,187
10th Percentile £325 £281 £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 £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,497 1,549 1,984
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.59 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.60 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.95
% change year-on-year +68.19% -42.78% +17.20%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +7 5,005 £620 -0.80% 1,464
London +7 2,552 £625 -3.85% 783
UK excluding London +7 2,494 £620 +3.33% 884
Work from Home +4 1,586 £600 - 692
South East +2 741 £625 +4.17% 238
North of England +4 692 £600 - 248
Midlands +1 412 £625 +8.70% 95
North West +7 400 £600 - 134
South West -3 312 £625 -2.34% 118
West Midlands -1 296 £627 +4.42% 73
Yorkshire +7 229 £600 0.00% 77
East of England +12 160 £602 +8.47% 51
Scotland +17 150 £648 +3.60% 86
East Midlands +6 109 £600 +18.23% 22
North East -6 65 £600 -14.29% 39
Wales +5 42 £633 +1.20% 14
Northern Ireland +9 5 £475 -32.14% 39
Channel Islands -3 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 19 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 1,837 (30.88%) Security Cleared
2 1,519 (25.53%) Azure
3 1,366 (22.96%) SC Cleared
4 1,297 (21.80%) AWS
5 904 (15.20%) Stakeholder Management
6 876 (14.73%) Roadmaps
7 836 (14.05%) Migration
8 790 (13.28%) Microsoft
9 730 (12.27%) Enterprise Architecture
10 727 (12.22%) AI
11 660 (11.09%) Agile
12 642 (10.79%) Technical Leadership
13 621 (10.44%) DevOps
14 615 (10.34%) CI/CD
15 613 (10.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 611 (10.27%) Data Modelling
17 574 (9.65%) Integration Patterns
18 568 (9.55%) Data Architecture
19 521 (8.76%) Analytics
20 479 (8.05%) TOGAF
21 475 (7.98%) GCP
22 460 (7.73%) Architectural Patterns
23 444 (7.46%) Security Architecture
24 401 (6.74%) Event-Driven
25 399 (6.71%) Microservices
26 377 (6.34%) Infrastructure as Code
27 369 (6.20%) Cybersecurity
28 363 (6.10%) Data Governance
29 358 (6.02%) DV Cleared
30 354 (5.95%) Problem-Solving

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 83 (1.40%) SharePoint
2 77 (1.29%) SAS
3 65 (1.09%) Confluence
4 45 (0.76%) Apache
5 43 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 27 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
6 27 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
7 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
8 19 (0.32%) CMS
9 18 (0.30%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.12%) Appian
10 7 (0.12%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.12%) Camunda
10 7 (0.12%) Documentum
11 5 (0.084%) NetWeaver
12 4 (0.067%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.067%) nginx
12 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
13 3 (0.050%) Drupal
Applications
1 22 (0.37%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.24%) 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%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.050%) Windchill
8 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 162 (2.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
8 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) SAP ERP
9 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
10 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 7 (0.12%) SAP MM
12 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.10%) Endur
13 6 (0.10%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,519 (25.53%) Azure
2 1,297 (21.80%) AWS
3 475 (7.98%) GCP
4 305 (5.13%) Power Platform
5 215 (3.61%) SaaS
6 206 (3.46%) Entra ID
7 203 (3.41%) Serverless
8 147 (2.47%) GitHub
9 134 (2.25%) Dynamics 365
10 117 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
10 117 (1.97%) Microsoft 365
11 115 (1.93%) PaaS
12 112 (1.88%) Snowflake
13 100 (1.68%) AWS Lambda
14 86 (1.45%) Amazon S3
15 80 (1.34%) IaaS
16 72 (1.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 68 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
18 67 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
19 66 (1.11%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 188 (3.16%) Firewall
2 166 (2.79%) Network Security
3 106 (1.78%) WAN
4 100 (1.68%) VPN
5 91 (1.53%) DNS
6 77 (1.29%) LAN
7 51 (0.86%) SD-WAN
8 47 (0.79%) BGP
9 42 (0.71%) DHCP
10 39 (0.66%) MPLS
11 38 (0.64%) TCP/IP
12 33 (0.55%) VLAN
13 30 (0.50%) SAN
14 29 (0.49%) VXLAN
15 26 (0.44%) Wireless
16 25 (0.42%) NAS
16 25 (0.42%) NX-OS
17 24 (0.40%) OSPF
18 23 (0.39%) Structured Cabling
19 21 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 209 (3.51%) Power BI
2 203 (3.41%) Data Lake
3 182 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
4 177 (2.98%) Metadata
5 76 (1.28%) NoSQL
6 58 (0.97%) SQL Server
7 51 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
8 50 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
9 46 (0.77%) BigQuery
10 45 (0.76%) Big Data
11 43 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
12 41 (0.69%) Delta Lake
13 37 (0.62%) Oracle Database
14 36 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
15 28 (0.47%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
16 23 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
16 23 (0.39%) GIS
16 23 (0.39%) MongoDB
16 23 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
17 22 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 81 (1.36%) JIRA
2 80 (1.34%) Git
3 58 (0.97%) Jenkins
4 36 (0.61%) GitLab
5 21 (0.35%) ERwin
6 11 (0.18%) 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%) Postman
9 7 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) MLflow
10 6 (0.10%) MSI
10 6 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.10%) Storybook
11 5 (0.084%) Maven
12 4 (0.067%) ER Studio
12 4 (0.067%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,140 (19.16%) Social Skills
2 868 (14.59%) Finance
3 676 (11.36%) Public Sector
4 312 (5.24%) Banking
5 306 (5.14%) Analytical Skills
6 257 (4.32%) Retail
7 151 (2.54%) Influencing Skills
8 141 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
9 133 (2.24%) Telecoms
10 132 (2.22%) Manufacturing
11 110 (1.85%) Legal
12 67 (1.13%) Marketing
13 58 (0.97%) Billing
14 57 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 47 (0.79%) Law
16 46 (0.77%) Aerospace
16 46 (0.77%) Financial Institution
16 46 (0.77%) Military
17 39 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
18 37 (0.62%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 291 (4.89%) REST
2 197 (3.31%) Middleware
3 143 (2.40%) Kafka
4 128 (2.15%) SOAP
5 126 (2.12%) .NET
6 125 (2.10%) OAuth
7 71 (1.19%) Oracle Fusion
8 66 (1.11%) SAML
9 65 (1.09%) OpenID
10 64 (1.08%) JSON
11 62 (1.04%) OAuth2
12 47 (0.79%) RESTful
13 43 (0.72%) React
14 41 (0.69%) PySpark
15 40 (0.67%) SailPoint
16 37 (0.62%) LDAP
16 37 (0.62%) XML
17 36 (0.61%) .NET Framework
18 35 (0.59%) GraphQL
19 34 (0.57%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 517 (8.69%) Cloud Native
2 204 (3.43%) Data Centre
3 176 (2.96%) Management Information System
4 153 (2.57%) Onboarding
5 146 (2.45%) Product Ownership
6 144 (2.42%) Hybrid Cloud
7 143 (2.40%) Distributed Systems
7 143 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
8 134 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
9 129 (2.17%) AI Agents
10 104 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
11 88 (1.48%) CMDB
12 86 (1.45%) Operational Technology
13 84 (1.41%) Public Cloud
14 76 (1.28%) Enterprise Cloud
15 67 (1.13%) Security Posture
16 60 (1.01%) Data Structures
17 51 (0.86%) Private Cloud
18 46 (0.77%) IoT
19 44 (0.74%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 132 (2.22%) Windows
2 105 (1.77%) Linux
3 49 (0.82%) Windows Server
4 26 (0.44%) Android
4 26 (0.44%) Apple iOS
5 23 (0.39%) Unix
6 22 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.13%) zOS
9 7 (0.12%) VMS
10 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.084%) Solaris
10 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.050%) CentOS
13 2 (0.034%) HPUX
13 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.034%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 904 (15.20%) Stakeholder Management
2 876 (14.73%) Roadmaps
3 836 (14.05%) Migration
4 730 (12.27%) Enterprise Architecture
5 727 (12.22%) AI
6 660 (11.09%) Agile
7 642 (10.79%) Technical Leadership
8 621 (10.44%) DevOps
9 615 (10.34%) CI/CD
10 613 (10.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 611 (10.27%) Data Modelling
12 574 (9.65%) Integration Patterns
13 568 (9.55%) Data Architecture
14 521 (8.76%) Analytics
15 479 (8.05%) TOGAF
16 460 (7.73%) Architectural Patterns
17 444 (7.46%) Security Architecture
18 401 (6.74%) Event-Driven
19 399 (6.71%) Microservices
20 377 (6.34%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 282 (4.74%) SQL
2 277 (4.66%) Python
3 270 (4.54%) Java
4 128 (2.15%) JavaScript
5 110 (1.85%) PowerShell
6 54 (0.91%) Bicep
7 50 (0.84%) Bash
7 50 (0.84%) C#
8 45 (0.76%) TypeScript
9 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
10 21 (0.35%) Ruby
11 17 (0.29%) Shell Script
12 16 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 13 (0.22%) ABAP
13 13 (0.22%) C++
13 13 (0.22%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.18%) Groovy
14 11 (0.18%) PL/SQL
15 10 (0.17%) Scala
16 9 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,837 (30.88%) Security Cleared
2 1,366 (22.96%) SC Cleared
3 358 (6.02%) DV Cleared
4 164 (2.76%) Degree
5 151 (2.54%) CISSP
6 127 (2.13%) Azure Certification
7 121 (2.03%) AWS Certification
8 119 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
9 104 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
10 82 (1.38%) TOGAF Certification
11 76 (1.28%) CISM
12 69 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 44 (0.74%) CCNP
14 44 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
15 41 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 34 (0.57%) CCSP
17 32 (0.54%) Master's Degree
18 21 (0.35%) CISA
18 21 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 223 (3.75%) Data Quality
2 219 (3.68%) NIST
3 181 (3.04%) GDPR
4 172 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 124 (2.08%) NCSC
6 77 (1.29%) GRC
7 56 (0.94%) QA
8 43 (0.72%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.66%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.52%) NIST 800
11 30 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 21 (0.35%) IFRS
12 21 (0.35%) SEPA
13 20 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
14 19 (0.32%) ISO 20022
15 17 (0.29%) SLA
16 16 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
16 16 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 15 (0.25%) HL7
17 15 (0.25%) JSP 440
System Software
1 175 (2.94%) Active Directory
2 119 (2.00%) Docker
3 82 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 46 (0.77%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
6 23 (0.39%) vSphere
7 22 (0.37%) Hyper-V
8 18 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.13%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Varnish
12 6 (0.10%) Postfix
12 6 (0.10%) vCloud
13 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.067%) IAG
13 4 (0.067%) KVM
13 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.050%) Ceph
14 3 (0.050%) SRDF
15 2 (0.034%) zsh
Systems Management
1 295 (4.96%) Kubernetes
2 273 (4.59%) Terraform
3 107 (1.80%) Ansible
4 53 (0.89%) Grafana
5 45 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
6 44 (0.74%) Prometheus
7 35 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.34%) Argo
9 16 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 16 (0.27%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.18%) Istio
12 10 (0.17%) FortiGate
13 7 (0.12%) SCCM
13 7 (0.12%) WMI
14 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
14 6 (0.10%) NetBackup
15 5 (0.084%) CASB
15 5 (0.084%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.084%) Puppet
Vendors
1 790 (13.28%) Microsoft
2 351 (5.90%) SAP
3 305 (5.13%) Oracle
4 301 (5.06%) ServiceNow
5 267 (4.49%) Databricks
6 194 (3.26%) Salesforce
7 174 (2.92%) Google
8 149 (2.50%) VMware
9 145 (2.44%) Cisco
10 69 (1.16%) MuleSoft
11 64 (1.08%) IBM
12 63 (1.06%) CyberArk
13 53 (0.89%) Workday
14 51 (0.86%) Palo Alto
15 45 (0.76%) Foundry
16 44 (0.74%) Ariba
17 41 (0.69%) Adobe
18 40 (0.67%) Red Hat
19 39 (0.66%) Splunk
20 37 (0.62%) Sparx