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 15 July 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 17 12
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,847 3,146 4,381
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.11% 9.69% 10.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.01% 10.56% 11.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,826 2,034 2,838
10th Percentile £473 £468 £488
25th Percentile £525 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £715 £738
90th Percentile £788 £790 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 22 94
10th Percentile £46.00 £40.31 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.75 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £68.75 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.45% -1.79% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £85.50 £85.65
90th Percentile £96.36 £99.86 £88.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -

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 48,692 29,793 39,772
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.54% 91.81% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,483 18,982 25,593
10th Percentile £325 £288 £288
25th Percentile £419 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,276 1,398 2,720
10th Percentile £15.93 £13.75 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.35 £17.44 £17.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £26.45 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +70.13% -33.88% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £56.19 £63.41
90th Percentile £80.07 £73.75 £73.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +81.13% -37.13% +6.67%

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 15 July 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 15 July 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 15 July 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 4,908 £616 -1.44% 1,333
UK excluding London +9 2,523 £620 +3.33% 804
London +5 2,444 £618 -5.00% 669
Work from Home +4 1,622 £600 - 695
North of England +7 725 £600 - 211
South East +1 720 £625 +4.17% 216
Midlands 0 420 £620 +7.83% 120
North West +5 387 £608 +1.33% 115
West Midlands -4 301 £626 +4.33% 90
South West -1 283 £625 - 104
Yorkshire +9 272 £600 - 56
East of England +14 188 £600 - 60
Scotland +11 175 £650 +4.00% 71
East Midlands +6 111 £600 +20.00% 30
North East 0 74 £575 -13.21% 40
Wales +5 35 £600 +25.00% 20
Northern Ireland +5 7 £475 -32.14% 15
Channel Islands 0 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 15 July 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 1,748 (29.90%) Security Cleared
2 1,439 (24.61%) Azure
3 1,312 (22.44%) SC Cleared
4 1,292 (22.10%) AWS
5 856 (14.64%) Roadmaps
6 810 (13.85%) Migration
7 752 (12.86%) Stakeholder Management
8 741 (12.67%) Microsoft
9 690 (11.80%) Agile
10 668 (11.42%) AI
11 646 (11.05%) DevOps
12 638 (10.91%) Enterprise Architecture
13 616 (10.54%) CI/CD
14 586 (10.02%) Data Modelling
15 560 (9.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 560 (9.58%) Technical Leadership
16 544 (9.30%) Integration Patterns
17 528 (9.03%) Data Architecture
18 495 (8.47%) TOGAF
19 492 (8.41%) Analytics
20 488 (8.35%) Architectural Patterns
21 449 (7.68%) Microservices
22 433 (7.41%) GCP
23 385 (6.58%) Security Architecture
24 375 (6.41%) Problem-Solving
25 367 (6.28%) Event-Driven
26 365 (6.24%) Architectural Design
26 365 (6.24%) Infrastructure as Code
27 361 (6.17%) Cybersecurity
28 340 (5.81%) 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
1 100 (1.71%) SharePoint
2 80 (1.37%) Confluence
3 60 (1.03%) SAS
4 42 (0.72%) Microsoft Exchange
5 39 (0.67%) Apache
6 38 (0.65%) Apache Spark
7 30 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.38%) CMS
8 22 (0.38%) Palantir Foundry
9 21 (0.36%) Appian
10 14 (0.24%) nginx
11 12 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 12 (0.21%) WebLogic
12 10 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 9 (0.15%) Anypoint
13 9 (0.15%) Camunda
14 8 (0.14%) ArcGIS
15 7 (0.12%) Documentum
15 7 (0.12%) JBoss
15 7 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 22 (0.38%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.17%) Chatbot
3 10 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.051%) PlantUML
6 3 (0.051%) Windchill
7 1 (0.017%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 152 (2.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.60%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
5 21 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 18 (0.31%) SAP ERP
7 16 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 15 (0.26%) Teamcenter
9 12 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
9 12 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.14%) Maximo
12 8 (0.14%) NetSuite
12 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.14%) SAP MDG
13 7 (0.12%) SAP GRC
14 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
14 6 (0.10%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,439 (24.61%) Azure
2 1,292 (22.10%) AWS
3 433 (7.41%) GCP
4 285 (4.87%) Power Platform
5 208 (3.56%) Serverless
6 205 (3.51%) SaaS
7 203 (3.47%) Entra ID
8 137 (2.34%) GitHub
9 126 (2.15%) PaaS
10 124 (2.12%) Microsoft 365
11 120 (2.05%) Dynamics 365
12 110 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
13 103 (1.76%) Snowflake
14 99 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
15 95 (1.62%) IaaS
16 88 (1.51%) Amazon S3
17 72 (1.23%) OpenShift
18 70 (1.20%) Amazon EKS
19 67 (1.15%) AWS CloudFormation
19 67 (1.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 226 (3.87%) Firewall
2 194 (3.32%) Network Security
3 119 (2.04%) VPN
4 116 (1.98%) DNS
5 111 (1.90%) WAN
6 80 (1.37%) LAN
7 59 (1.01%) SD-WAN
8 51 (0.87%) BGP
8 51 (0.87%) TCP/IP
9 46 (0.79%) DHCP
10 39 (0.67%) MPLS
11 38 (0.65%) VLAN
12 33 (0.56%) OSPF
12 33 (0.56%) Wireless
13 29 (0.50%) IPsec
13 29 (0.50%) SAN
14 27 (0.46%) NAS
15 25 (0.43%) Structured Cabling
16 24 (0.41%) VXLAN
17 23 (0.39%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 196 (3.35%) Power BI
2 176 (3.01%) Data Lake
3 172 (2.94%) Metadata
4 166 (2.84%) Data Warehouse
5 78 (1.33%) NoSQL
6 64 (1.09%) SQL Server
7 63 (1.08%) PostgreSQL
8 50 (0.86%) Big Data
9 46 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
10 42 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
10 42 (0.72%) Oracle Database
11 38 (0.65%) BigQuery
12 29 (0.50%) Amazon Redshift
13 28 (0.48%) Delta Lake
14 27 (0.46%) Relational Database
15 24 (0.41%) Elasticsearch
16 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
16 23 (0.39%) MongoDB
16 23 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
16 23 (0.39%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 107 (1.83%) JIRA
2 80 (1.37%) Jenkins
3 75 (1.28%) Git
4 36 (0.62%) GitLab
5 25 (0.43%) ERwin
6 12 (0.21%) SonarQube
7 9 (0.15%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.15%) Bitbucket
8 8 (0.14%) MLflow
8 8 (0.14%) Postman
8 8 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (0.10%) Cypress.io
9 6 (0.10%) Hudson
9 6 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
9 6 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
9 6 (0.10%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.086%) Claude Code
10 5 (0.086%) Maven
10 5 (0.086%) Selenium
11 4 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 1,091 (18.66%) Social Skills
2 893 (15.27%) Finance
3 663 (11.34%) Public Sector
4 340 (5.81%) Banking
5 308 (5.27%) Analytical Skills
6 229 (3.92%) Retail
7 154 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
8 142 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
9 122 (2.09%) Telecoms
10 121 (2.07%) Legal
11 108 (1.85%) Manufacturing
12 60 (1.03%) Billing
13 59 (1.01%) Marketing
14 51 (0.87%) Financial Institution
15 49 (0.84%) Military
16 45 (0.77%) Law
17 41 (0.70%) Aerospace
17 41 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
18 38 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 31 (0.53%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 280 (4.79%) REST
2 209 (3.57%) Middleware
3 139 (2.38%) .NET
4 128 (2.19%) Kafka
5 124 (2.12%) SOAP
6 111 (1.90%) OAuth
7 90 (1.54%) OpenID
8 73 (1.25%) SAML
9 68 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
10 60 (1.03%) OAuth2
11 56 (0.96%) React
12 51 (0.87%) LDAP
12 51 (0.87%) RESTful
13 49 (0.84%) JSON
14 48 (0.82%) SailPoint
15 40 (0.68%) Web Services
16 37 (0.63%) Node.js
16 37 (0.63%) PySpark
17 36 (0.62%) .NET Framework
18 35 (0.60%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 496 (8.48%) Cloud Native
2 207 (3.54%) Data Centre
3 166 (2.84%) Management Information System
4 163 (2.79%) Onboarding
5 149 (2.55%) Product Ownership
6 144 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
7 136 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
8 132 (2.26%) Hybrid Cloud
9 114 (1.95%) Enterprise Software
10 96 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
11 93 (1.59%) Operational Technology
12 91 (1.56%) AI Agents
12 91 (1.56%) Public Cloud
13 86 (1.47%) CMDB
14 65 (1.11%) Security Posture
15 62 (1.06%) Enterprise Cloud
16 49 (0.84%) Data Structures
17 47 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
17 47 (0.80%) IoT
18 46 (0.79%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 142 (2.43%) Windows
2 100 (1.71%) Linux
3 47 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.58%) Android
5 33 (0.56%) Apple iOS
6 25 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (0.38%) Unix
8 12 (0.21%) zOS
9 8 (0.14%) VMS
10 6 (0.10%) AIX
10 6 (0.10%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.086%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.086%) Windows Server 2016
12 4 (0.068%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.068%) Mac OS
13 3 (0.051%) CentOS
13 3 (0.051%) Solaris
13 3 (0.051%) Windows 10
14 2 (0.034%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 856 (14.64%) Roadmaps
2 810 (13.85%) Migration
3 752 (12.86%) Stakeholder Management
4 690 (11.80%) Agile
5 668 (11.42%) AI
6 646 (11.05%) DevOps
7 638 (10.91%) Enterprise Architecture
8 616 (10.54%) CI/CD
9 586 (10.02%) Data Modelling
10 560 (9.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 560 (9.58%) Technical Leadership
11 544 (9.30%) Integration Patterns
12 528 (9.03%) Data Architecture
13 495 (8.47%) TOGAF
14 492 (8.41%) Analytics
15 488 (8.35%) Architectural Patterns
16 449 (7.68%) Microservices
17 385 (6.58%) Security Architecture
18 375 (6.41%) Problem-Solving
19 367 (6.28%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 312 (5.34%) Python
2 282 (4.82%) SQL
3 269 (4.60%) Java
4 122 (2.09%) JavaScript
5 104 (1.78%) PowerShell
6 67 (1.15%) C#
7 57 (0.97%) Bicep
8 47 (0.80%) Bash
9 45 (0.77%) TypeScript
10 29 (0.50%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.38%) Ruby
12 12 (0.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 12 (0.21%) Scala
13 11 (0.19%) ABAP
13 11 (0.19%) Kotlin
13 11 (0.19%) PL/SQL
14 10 (0.17%) Go
14 10 (0.17%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.15%) C++
15 9 (0.15%) R
Qualifications
1 1,748 (29.90%) Security Cleared
2 1,312 (22.44%) SC Cleared
3 325 (5.56%) DV Cleared
4 199 (3.40%) Degree
5 140 (2.39%) CISSP
6 133 (2.27%) AWS Certification
7 127 (2.17%) Azure Certification
8 116 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
9 112 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
10 90 (1.54%) TOGAF Certification
11 82 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
12 66 (1.13%) CISM
13 53 (0.91%) CCNP
14 49 (0.84%) Master's Degree
15 46 (0.79%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 45 (0.77%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 40 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
18 31 (0.53%) CCSP
19 23 (0.39%) CCIE
20 22 (0.38%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 199 (3.40%) NIST
2 183 (3.13%) Data Quality
3 181 (3.10%) GDPR
4 149 (2.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 126 (2.15%) NCSC
6 62 (1.06%) QA
7 55 (0.94%) GRC
8 43 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.67%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.53%) NIST 800
11 29 (0.50%) ISO 20022
12 28 (0.48%) SEPA
13 26 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 20 (0.34%) IFRS
15 19 (0.32%) HL7
16 18 (0.31%) COBIT
16 18 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
17 14 (0.24%) HIPAA
18 11 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
19 10 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 168 (2.87%) Active Directory
2 124 (2.12%) Docker
3 90 (1.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 58 (0.99%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 23 (0.39%) vSphere
7 20 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.15%) Squid
10 9 (0.15%) Varnish
11 8 (0.14%) NFS
12 7 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
12 7 (0.12%) Postfix
13 6 (0.10%) vCloud
14 4 (0.068%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.068%) IAG
14 4 (0.068%) RACF
14 4 (0.068%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.051%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 296 (5.06%) Kubernetes
2 287 (4.91%) Terraform
3 114 (1.95%) Ansible
4 60 (1.03%) Grafana
5 54 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
6 48 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
6 48 (0.82%) Prometheus
7 22 (0.38%) Argo
8 21 (0.36%) vCenter Server
9 18 (0.31%) FortiGate
10 16 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
11 15 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 11 (0.19%) Istio
13 10 (0.17%) SCCM
14 8 (0.14%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.12%) Consul
15 7 (0.12%) HAProxy
15 7 (0.12%) Puppet
16 6 (0.10%) CASB
16 6 (0.10%) EMC VPLEX
Vendors
1 741 (12.67%) Microsoft
2 340 (5.81%) SAP
3 307 (5.25%) ServiceNow
4 280 (4.79%) Oracle
5 241 (4.12%) Databricks
6 186 (3.18%) Salesforce
7 161 (2.75%) VMware
8 140 (2.39%) Google
9 134 (2.29%) Cisco
10 68 (1.16%) MuleSoft
11 66 (1.13%) CyberArk
12 64 (1.09%) Splunk
13 53 (0.91%) IBM
14 52 (0.89%) Red Hat
15 48 (0.82%) Palo Alto
16 45 (0.77%) Workday
17 44 (0.75%) Ariba
18 43 (0.74%) Foundry
19 41 (0.70%) OpenAI
20 40 (0.68%) F5