Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £618, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 July 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 17 13
Rank change year-on-year +6 -4 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,894 3,120 4,116
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.13% 9.54% 10.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.02% 10.41% 10.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,852 2,029 2,674
10th Percentile £475 £463 £488
25th Percentile £525 £531 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £618 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £711 £708 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £824
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £649
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.55% -0.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 19 85
10th Percentile £46.00 £37.19 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £86.50 £85.65
90th Percentile £96.36 £100.00 £89.20
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 49,051 29,963 37,757
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 91.58% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,625 19,061 24,462
10th Percentile £328 £285 £300
25th Percentile £420 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.05%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,310 1,445 2,320
10th Percentile £15.75 £13.71 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £18.24
Median hourly rate £42.85 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +70.39% -39.40% -5.26%
75th Percentile £67.88 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £73.75 £74.59
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +8.04%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 4,956 £620 -0.80% 1,754
London +6 2,513 £623 -4.23% 1,017
UK excluding London +7 2,492 £620 +3.33% 837
Work from Home +5 1,628 £600 - 691
South East 0 722 £638 +6.25% 257
North of England +7 721 £600 - 212
Midlands -3 412 £621 +8.00% 122
North West +3 396 £600 - 109
West Midlands -4 302 £626 +4.33% 90
South West -2 286 £618 -1.20% 107
Yorkshire +6 257 £600 - 62
East of England +17 171 £600 +5.49% 58
Scotland +7 169 £650 +4.00% 52
East Midlands +7 104 £600 +20.00% 31
North East +1 76 £600 -14.29% 42
Wales +1 33 £600 +11.11% 19
Northern Ireland +6 7 £475 -32.14% 20
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56% 1

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 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 1,794 (30.44%) Security Cleared
2 1,467 (24.89%) Azure
3 1,359 (23.06%) SC Cleared
4 1,313 (22.28%) AWS
5 879 (14.91%) Roadmaps
6 816 (13.84%) Migration
7 796 (13.51%) Stakeholder Management
8 744 (12.62%) Microsoft
9 696 (11.81%) AI
10 692 (11.74%) Agile
11 676 (11.47%) Enterprise Architecture
12 633 (10.74%) DevOps
13 615 (10.43%) CI/CD
14 607 (10.30%) Data Modelling
15 590 (10.01%) Technical Leadership
16 571 (9.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 566 (9.60%) Data Architecture
18 561 (9.52%) Integration Patterns
19 522 (8.86%) Analytics
20 496 (8.42%) TOGAF
21 491 (8.33%) Architectural Patterns
22 454 (7.70%) GCP
23 431 (7.31%) Microservices
24 406 (6.89%) Security Architecture
25 378 (6.41%) Problem-Solving
26 375 (6.36%) Event-Driven
27 359 (6.09%) Infrastructure as Code
28 358 (6.07%) Cybersecurity
29 353 (5.99%) Architectural Design
30 352 (5.97%) 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 97 (1.65%) SharePoint
2 76 (1.29%) SAS
3 67 (1.14%) Confluence
4 49 (0.83%) Apache Spark
5 48 (0.81%) Apache
6 39 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
7 33 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
9 19 (0.32%) CMS
10 14 (0.24%) Appian
10 14 (0.24%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.19%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 10 (0.17%) nginx
13 7 (0.12%) Documentum
13 7 (0.12%) WebLogic
14 6 (0.10%) Camunda
14 6 (0.10%) NetWeaver
15 5 (0.085%) JBoss
15 5 (0.085%) SAP EP
Applications
1 20 (0.34%) MS Visio
2 12 (0.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.14%) Chatbot
3 8 (0.14%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.12%) Revit
4 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.051%) PlantUML
5 3 (0.051%) Windchill
6 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 158 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 34 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 20 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.27%) SAP ERP
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
9 11 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.14%) Maximo
12 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.14%) SAP MDG
13 7 (0.12%) SAP GRC
13 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
14 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,467 (24.89%) Azure
2 1,313 (22.28%) AWS
3 454 (7.70%) GCP
4 286 (4.85%) Power Platform
5 209 (3.55%) Entra ID
6 203 (3.44%) SaaS
7 196 (3.33%) Serverless
8 139 (2.36%) GitHub
9 126 (2.14%) PaaS
10 123 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
11 120 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
12 108 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
13 107 (1.82%) Snowflake
14 98 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
15 93 (1.58%) IaaS
16 90 (1.53%) Amazon S3
17 69 (1.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 66 (1.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 65 (1.10%) Amazon EKS
20 64 (1.09%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 208 (3.53%) Firewall
2 194 (3.29%) Network Security
3 108 (1.83%) WAN
4 106 (1.80%) VPN
5 101 (1.71%) DNS
6 80 (1.36%) LAN
7 52 (0.88%) SD-WAN
8 46 (0.78%) BGP
9 45 (0.76%) TCP/IP
10 43 (0.73%) DHCP
11 39 (0.66%) MPLS
12 36 (0.61%) VLAN
13 33 (0.56%) Wireless
14 31 (0.53%) SAN
15 29 (0.49%) OSPF
16 27 (0.46%) IPsec
16 27 (0.46%) NAS
17 25 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
18 24 (0.41%) VXLAN
19 22 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 200 (3.39%) Power BI
2 189 (3.21%) Data Lake
3 187 (3.17%) Metadata
4 181 (3.07%) Data Warehouse
5 79 (1.34%) NoSQL
6 61 (1.03%) PostgreSQL
7 60 (1.02%) SQL Server
8 54 (0.92%) Big Data
9 44 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
10 43 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
11 42 (0.71%) BigQuery
12 38 (0.64%) Oracle Database
13 35 (0.59%) Delta Lake
14 32 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
15 26 (0.44%) GIS
16 24 (0.41%) MongoDB
16 24 (0.41%) Relational Database
16 24 (0.41%) Semantic Layer
17 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
18 22 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 92 (1.56%) JIRA
2 75 (1.27%) Git
3 68 (1.15%) Jenkins
4 35 (0.59%) GitLab
5 26 (0.44%) ERwin
6 9 (0.15%) Artifactory
7 8 (0.14%) Cypress.io
7 8 (0.14%) MLflow
7 8 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.12%) Postman
8 7 (0.12%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.10%) Claude Code
9 6 (0.10%) Hudson
9 6 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
9 6 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.085%) Maven
10 5 (0.085%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.085%) Storybook
11 4 (0.068%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.068%) Selenium
General
1 1,101 (18.68%) Social Skills
2 879 (14.91%) Finance
3 670 (11.37%) Public Sector
4 335 (5.68%) Banking
5 307 (5.21%) Analytical Skills
6 240 (4.07%) Retail
7 144 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
8 136 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
9 132 (2.24%) Telecoms
10 115 (1.95%) Legal
11 114 (1.93%) Manufacturing
12 62 (1.05%) Marketing
13 54 (0.92%) Billing
14 53 (0.90%) Financial Institution
15 48 (0.81%) Law
15 48 (0.81%) Military
16 46 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 42 (0.71%) Aerospace
18 41 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
19 30 (0.51%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 281 (4.77%) REST
2 213 (3.61%) Middleware
3 142 (2.41%) Kafka
4 131 (2.22%) .NET
5 124 (2.10%) SOAP
6 110 (1.87%) OAuth
7 71 (1.20%) Oracle Fusion
8 65 (1.10%) OpenID
9 59 (1.00%) OAuth2
10 57 (0.97%) SAML
11 55 (0.93%) React
12 54 (0.92%) JSON
13 51 (0.87%) RESTful
14 48 (0.81%) SailPoint
15 40 (0.68%) PySpark
16 38 (0.64%) Web Services
17 37 (0.63%) .NET Framework
18 35 (0.59%) LDAP
19 34 (0.58%) GraphQL
19 34 (0.58%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 491 (8.33%) Cloud Native
2 201 (3.41%) Data Centre
3 175 (2.97%) Management Information System
4 149 (2.53%) Onboarding
5 147 (2.49%) Legacy Systems
6 144 (2.44%) Product Ownership
7 140 (2.38%) Hybrid Cloud
8 139 (2.36%) Distributed Systems
9 116 (1.97%) Enterprise Software
10 111 (1.88%) AI Agents
11 98 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
12 92 (1.56%) Operational Technology
13 89 (1.51%) Public Cloud
14 83 (1.41%) CMDB
15 68 (1.15%) Enterprise Cloud
16 66 (1.12%) Security Posture
17 56 (0.95%) Data Structures
18 51 (0.87%) Private Cloud
19 47 (0.80%) IoT
20 46 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 130 (2.21%) Windows
2 101 (1.71%) Linux
3 44 (0.75%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.56%) Android
5 32 (0.54%) Apple iOS
6 24 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (0.37%) Unix
8 12 (0.20%) zOS
9 8 (0.14%) AIX
9 8 (0.14%) VMS
10 6 (0.10%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.085%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.085%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.068%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.068%) Solaris
12 4 (0.068%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.051%) Mac OS
14 2 (0.034%) CentOS
15 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2008
15 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 879 (14.91%) Roadmaps
2 816 (13.84%) Migration
3 796 (13.51%) Stakeholder Management
4 696 (11.81%) AI
5 692 (11.74%) Agile
6 676 (11.47%) Enterprise Architecture
7 633 (10.74%) DevOps
8 615 (10.43%) CI/CD
9 607 (10.30%) Data Modelling
10 590 (10.01%) Technical Leadership
11 571 (9.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 566 (9.60%) Data Architecture
13 561 (9.52%) Integration Patterns
14 522 (8.86%) Analytics
15 496 (8.42%) TOGAF
16 491 (8.33%) Architectural Patterns
17 431 (7.31%) Microservices
18 406 (6.89%) Security Architecture
19 378 (6.41%) Problem-Solving
20 375 (6.36%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 297 (5.04%) Python
2 280 (4.75%) SQL
3 270 (4.58%) Java
4 131 (2.22%) JavaScript
5 102 (1.73%) PowerShell
6 63 (1.07%) C#
7 58 (0.98%) Bicep
8 52 (0.88%) Bash
9 47 (0.80%) TypeScript
10 32 (0.54%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.36%) Ruby
12 14 (0.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (0.20%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.19%) ABAP
14 11 (0.19%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.19%) Scala
15 10 (0.17%) C++
15 10 (0.17%) R
16 9 (0.15%) PL/SQL
17 8 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,794 (30.44%) Security Cleared
2 1,359 (23.06%) SC Cleared
3 338 (5.73%) DV Cleared
4 196 (3.33%) Degree
5 148 (2.51%) CISSP
6 130 (2.21%) Azure Certification
7 129 (2.19%) AWS Certification
8 113 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
9 107 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
10 91 (1.54%) TOGAF Certification
11 81 (1.37%) Computer Science Degree
12 72 (1.22%) CISM
13 52 (0.88%) CCNP
14 49 (0.83%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 45 (0.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 45 (0.76%) Master's Degree
15 45 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
16 34 (0.58%) CCSP
17 24 (0.41%) DBS Check
18 21 (0.36%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 205 (3.48%) Data Quality
2 193 (3.27%) NIST
3 188 (3.19%) GDPR
4 146 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 117 (1.99%) NCSC
6 68 (1.15%) GRC
7 63 (1.07%) QA
8 42 (0.71%) PCI DSS
9 41 (0.70%) Accessibility
10 30 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 29 (0.49%) NIST 800
12 23 (0.39%) ISO 20022
13 22 (0.37%) SEPA
14 21 (0.36%) IFRS
15 20 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
16 19 (0.32%) HL7
17 14 (0.24%) COBIT
17 14 (0.24%) HIPAA
18 13 (0.22%) SLA
19 12 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 168 (2.85%) Active Directory
2 123 (2.09%) Docker
3 86 (1.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 54 (0.92%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 26 (0.44%) vSphere
7 20 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.14%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Varnish
12 6 (0.10%) Postfix
12 6 (0.10%) vCloud
13 5 (0.085%) IAG
13 5 (0.085%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.068%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.068%) RACF
14 4 (0.068%) Sendmail
14 4 (0.068%) Squid
15 3 (0.051%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 295 (5.01%) Kubernetes
2 277 (4.70%) Terraform
3 109 (1.85%) Ansible
4 57 (0.97%) Grafana
5 47 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
6 46 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
7 45 (0.76%) Prometheus
8 24 (0.41%) Argo
9 22 (0.37%) vCenter Server
10 16 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.24%) FortiGate
12 12 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 11 (0.19%) Istio
14 7 (0.12%) SCCM
15 6 (0.10%) CASB
15 6 (0.10%) EMC VPLEX
15 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.085%) MOM
16 5 (0.085%) Progress Chef
17 4 (0.068%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 744 (12.62%) Microsoft
2 348 (5.90%) SAP
3 306 (5.19%) ServiceNow
4 292 (4.95%) Oracle
5 258 (4.38%) Databricks
6 184 (3.12%) Salesforce
7 160 (2.71%) VMware
8 152 (2.58%) Google
9 132 (2.24%) Cisco
10 63 (1.07%) IBM
11 62 (1.05%) MuleSoft
12 57 (0.97%) CyberArk
13 53 (0.90%) Palo Alto
14 52 (0.88%) Splunk
15 51 (0.87%) Workday
16 48 (0.81%) Ariba
17 46 (0.78%) Foundry
17 46 (0.78%) Red Hat
18 41 (0.70%) OpenAI
19 38 (0.64%) Informatica