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 24 August 2026.

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

6 months to
24 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 5,997 3,008 3,949
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.18% 9.12% 10.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.09% 9.99% 10.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,971 1,935 2,555
10th Percentile £481 £470 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £618 £625 £646
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% -3.25% -0.62%
75th Percentile £706 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £640
% change year-on-year +3.33% -6.21% -1.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 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 £77.25 £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% -3.89%

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 49,592 30,105 36,124
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.25% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,685 19,016 22,990
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% -1.87%
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 3,534 1,573 1,935
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.69 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.67 £17.30 £19.59
Median hourly rate £42.13 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.50% -41.51% -1.71%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.49 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 5,028 £620 -0.80% 686
London +7 2,582 £625 -3.29% 319
UK excluding London +8 2,500 £620 +3.33% 461
Work from Home +4 1,596 £600 - 357
South East 0 738 £625 +4.17% 165
North of England +4 695 £600 - 123
Midlands 0 414 £625 +8.70% 51
North West +5 407 £600 - 64
South West -2 314 £645 +0.78% 77
West Midlands -1 299 £644 +7.33% 37
Yorkshire +8 224 £594 -5.00% 44
Scotland +19 158 £625 +0.60% 19
East of England +14 152 £604 +8.83% 20
East Midlands +6 108 £600 +16.50% 14
North East -4 66 £588 -16.07% 15
Wales +4 43 £633 +1.20% 10
Northern Ireland +5 5 £475 -32.14% 5
Channel Islands -3 3 £575 -22.56% 2

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 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 1,844 (30.75%) Security Cleared
2 1,541 (25.70%) Azure
3 1,382 (23.04%) SC Cleared
4 1,311 (21.86%) AWS
5 931 (15.52%) Stakeholder Management
6 885 (14.76%) Roadmaps
7 859 (14.32%) Migration
8 802 (13.37%) Microsoft
9 746 (12.44%) AI
10 736 (12.27%) Enterprise Architecture
11 668 (11.14%) Technical Leadership
12 664 (11.07%) Agile
13 634 (10.57%) DevOps
14 628 (10.47%) CI/CD
15 621 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 617 (10.29%) Data Modelling
17 583 (9.72%) Integration Patterns
18 574 (9.57%) Data Architecture
19 526 (8.77%) Analytics
20 485 (8.09%) GCP
21 470 (7.84%) Architectural Patterns
21 470 (7.84%) TOGAF
22 451 (7.52%) Security Architecture
23 410 (6.84%) Event-Driven
24 400 (6.67%) Microservices
25 380 (6.34%) Infrastructure as Code
26 379 (6.32%) Data Governance
27 367 (6.12%) Cybersecurity
28 360 (6.00%) Decision-Making
29 351 (5.85%) 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 82 (1.37%) SharePoint
2 78 (1.30%) SAS
3 66 (1.10%) Confluence
4 45 (0.75%) Apache
5 43 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 34 (0.57%) 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 (0.10%) Appian
13 4 (0.067%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.067%) NetWeaver
13 4 (0.067%) nginx
13 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
14 3 (0.050%) ThingWorx
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
1 160 (2.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 35 (0.58%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
4 17 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
5 15 (0.25%) Teamcenter
6 14 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
6 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
6 14 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
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%) SAP IBP
10 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
10 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
11 7 (0.12%) SAP MM
11 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.10%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,541 (25.70%) Azure
2 1,311 (21.86%) AWS
3 485 (8.09%) GCP
4 310 (5.17%) Power Platform
5 220 (3.67%) SaaS
6 214 (3.57%) Entra ID
7 209 (3.49%) Serverless
8 146 (2.43%) GitHub
9 141 (2.35%) Dynamics 365
10 121 (2.02%) Microsoft 365
11 120 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
12 116 (1.93%) Snowflake
13 115 (1.92%) PaaS
14 100 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
15 87 (1.45%) Amazon S3
16 79 (1.32%) IaaS
17 77 (1.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 70 (1.17%) Azure Data Factory
19 65 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
20 64 (1.07%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 185 (3.08%) Firewall
2 162 (2.70%) Network Security
3 106 (1.77%) WAN
4 96 (1.60%) VPN
5 86 (1.43%) DNS
6 74 (1.23%) LAN
7 51 (0.85%) SD-WAN
8 49 (0.82%) BGP
9 42 (0.70%) DHCP
10 38 (0.63%) TCP/IP
11 37 (0.62%) MPLS
12 31 (0.52%) 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
16 23 (0.38%) Structured Cabling
17 22 (0.37%) Wireless
18 21 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 212 (3.54%) Power BI
2 206 (3.44%) Data Lake
3 184 (3.07%) Data Warehouse
3 184 (3.07%) Metadata
4 78 (1.30%) NoSQL
5 56 (0.93%) SQL Server
6 53 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
7 50 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
8 46 (0.77%) Delta Lake
9 45 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
10 44 (0.73%) BigQuery
11 43 (0.72%) 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 (1.37%) 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 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) RStudio
10 6 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.10%) Storybook
11 5 (0.083%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.083%) Maven
11 5 (0.083%) PowerDesigner
General
1 1,157 (19.29%) Social Skills
2 866 (14.44%) Finance
3 684 (11.41%) Public Sector
4 314 (5.24%) Banking
5 311 (5.19%) Analytical Skills
6 261 (4.35%) Retail
7 153 (2.55%) Influencing Skills
8 141 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
9 134 (2.23%) Manufacturing
10 133 (2.22%) Telecoms
11 112 (1.87%) Legal
12 68 (1.13%) Marketing
13 65 (1.08%) Billing
14 59 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 46 (0.77%) Aerospace
15 46 (0.77%) Law
16 45 (0.75%) Military
17 41 (0.68%) Financial Institution
18 39 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
19 37 (0.62%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 296 (4.94%) REST
2 269 (4.49%) Terraform
3 187 (3.12%) Middleware
4 144 (2.40%) Kafka
5 131 (2.18%) SOAP
6 128 (2.13%) .NET
7 127 (2.12%) OAuth
8 69 (1.15%) Oracle Fusion
9 68 (1.13%) SAML
10 67 (1.12%) 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 40 (0.67%) XML
16 38 (0.63%) SailPoint
17 37 (0.62%) .NET Framework
17 37 (0.62%) LDAP
18 35 (0.58%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 527 (8.79%) Cloud Native
2 204 (3.40%) Data Centre
3 179 (2.98%) Management Information System
4 160 (2.67%) Onboarding
5 147 (2.45%) Product Ownership
6 145 (2.42%) Distributed Systems
7 143 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
8 141 (2.35%) Hybrid Cloud
9 136 (2.27%) AI Agents
9 136 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
10 102 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
11 90 (1.50%) CMDB
12 84 (1.40%) Public Cloud
13 82 (1.37%) Operational Technology
14 78 (1.30%) Enterprise Cloud
15 64 (1.07%) Security Posture
16 59 (0.98%) Data Structures
17 51 (0.85%) Private Cloud
18 47 (0.78%) IoT
19 44 (0.73%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 123 (2.05%) Windows
2 105 (1.75%) Linux
3 48 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (0.37%) Unix
6 21 (0.35%) Android
6 21 (0.35%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.13%) zOS
9 7 (0.12%) VMS
10 5 (0.083%) Solaris
11 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.067%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.050%) CentOS
13 2 (0.033%) HPUX
13 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 931 (15.52%) Stakeholder Management
2 885 (14.76%) Roadmaps
3 859 (14.32%) Migration
4 746 (12.44%) AI
5 736 (12.27%) Enterprise Architecture
6 668 (11.14%) Technical Leadership
7 664 (11.07%) Agile
8 634 (10.57%) DevOps
9 628 (10.47%) CI/CD
10 621 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 617 (10.29%) Data Modelling
12 583 (9.72%) Integration Patterns
13 574 (9.57%) Data Architecture
14 526 (8.77%) Analytics
15 470 (7.84%) Architectural Patterns
15 470 (7.84%) TOGAF
16 451 (7.52%) Security Architecture
17 410 (6.84%) Event-Driven
18 400 (6.67%) Microservices
19 380 (6.34%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 286 (4.77%) SQL
2 283 (4.72%) Python
3 272 (4.54%) Java
4 129 (2.15%) JavaScript
5 108 (1.80%) PowerShell
6 53 (0.88%) Bicep
7 50 (0.83%) C#
8 48 (0.80%) Bash
9 47 (0.78%) TypeScript
10 31 (0.52%) 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%) R
16 10 (0.17%) PL/SQL
16 10 (0.17%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,844 (30.75%) Security Cleared
2 1,382 (23.04%) SC Cleared
3 351 (5.85%) DV Cleared
4 166 (2.77%) Degree
5 147 (2.45%) CISSP
6 128 (2.13%) Azure Certification
7 123 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
8 121 (2.02%) AWS Certification
9 104 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
10 81 (1.35%) TOGAF Certification
11 71 (1.18%) CISM
12 70 (1.17%) Computer Science Degree
13 46 (0.77%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 46 (0.77%) CCNP
14 45 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
15 42 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 33 (0.55%) Master's Degree
17 32 (0.53%) CCSP
18 22 (0.37%) CISA
18 22 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 238 (3.97%) Data Quality
2 221 (3.69%) NIST
3 180 (3.00%) GDPR
4 174 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 120 (2.00%) NCSC
6 79 (1.32%) GRC
7 55 (0.92%) 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%) JSP 440
16 15 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 14 (0.23%) HL7
System Software
1 173 (2.88%) Active Directory
2 118 (1.97%) Docker
3 80 (1.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 43 (0.72%) 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 (0.10%) Postfix
13 5 (0.083%) vCloud
14 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.067%) KVM
14 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.050%) Ceph
15 3 (0.050%) IAG
15 3 (0.050%) SRDF
16 2 (0.033%) zsh
Systems Management
1 296 (4.94%) Kubernetes
2 105 (1.75%) Ansible
3 53 (0.88%) Grafana
4 45 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
5 44 (0.73%) Prometheus
6 30 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.32%) Argo
8 16 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.22%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.17%) Istio
12 9 (0.15%) FortiGate
13 8 (0.13%) WMI
14 7 (0.12%) SCCM
15 6 (0.10%) CASB
15 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
15 6 (0.10%) NetBackup
16 5 (0.083%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.083%) MOM
16 5 (0.083%) Puppet
Vendors
1 802 (13.37%) Microsoft
2 348 (5.80%) SAP
3 303 (5.05%) Oracle
4 298 (4.97%) ServiceNow
5 282 (4.70%) Databricks
6 195 (3.25%) Salesforce
7 180 (3.00%) Google
8 145 (2.42%) Cisco
9 141 (2.35%) VMware
10 70 (1.17%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.05%) IBM
12 62 (1.03%) CyberArk
13 55 (0.92%) Workday
14 53 (0.88%) Palo Alto
15 46 (0.77%) Foundry
16 43 (0.72%) Adobe
17 41 (0.68%) Ariba
18 40 (0.67%) Red Hat
19 38 (0.63%) Informatica
20 37 (0.62%) Sparx