Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £622, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 August 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,952 3,055 3,924
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.14% 9.28% 10.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.04% 10.16% 10.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,933 1,977 2,550
10th Percentile £481 £470 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £622 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.56% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £701 £738
90th Percentile £788 £783 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £623 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.75% -7.69% +0.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 18 78
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 £72.24 £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% -

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 49,431 30,083 36,174
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.55% 91.36% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,700 19,069 23,306
10th Percentile £328 £282 £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 £625 £638
90th Percentile £729 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,475 1,511 2,026
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.08 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.99% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.08 £45.00
% change year-on-year +69.49% -44.28% +28.57%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 5,016 £625 - 2,691
London +8 2,587 £625 -3.85% 1,557
UK excluding London +6 2,474 £623 +3.75% 1,272
Work from Home +4 1,598 £600 - 1,056
South East 0 732 £626 +4.33% 361
North of England +3 687 £600 - 300
Midlands -1 416 £625 +8.70% 152
North West +6 390 £600 - 158
West Midlands -3 306 £627 +4.42% 103
South West -2 300 £625 -2.34% 182
Yorkshire +3 234 £600 0.00% 104
East of England +14 162 £600 +8.11% 110
Scotland +13 153 £650 +4.63% 102
East Midlands +8 103 £600 +18.23% 49
North East -4 65 £600 -15.79% 38
Wales +7 40 £640 +2.40% 26
Northern Ireland +9 6 £475 -32.14% 44
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 11 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 1,831 (30.76%) Security Cleared
2 1,492 (25.07%) Azure
3 1,379 (23.17%) SC Cleared
4 1,293 (21.72%) AWS
5 854 (14.35%) Stakeholder Management
6 853 (14.33%) Roadmaps
7 828 (13.91%) Migration
8 753 (12.65%) Microsoft
9 737 (12.38%) AI
10 703 (11.81%) Enterprise Architecture
11 656 (11.02%) Agile
12 628 (10.55%) DevOps
13 616 (10.35%) Technical Leadership
14 613 (10.30%) Data Modelling
15 608 (10.22%) CI/CD
16 593 (9.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 577 (9.69%) Data Architecture
17 577 (9.69%) Integration Patterns
18 523 (8.79%) Analytics
19 496 (8.33%) TOGAF
20 467 (7.85%) Architectural Patterns
21 456 (7.66%) GCP
22 428 (7.19%) Security Architecture
23 409 (6.87%) Microservices
24 390 (6.55%) Event-Driven
25 362 (6.08%) Infrastructure as Code
26 361 (6.07%) Problem-Solving
27 360 (6.05%) Data Governance
28 358 (6.01%) Cybersecurity
29 342 (5.75%) 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 89 (1.50%) SharePoint
2 77 (1.29%) SAS
3 65 (1.09%) Confluence
4 44 (0.74%) Apache
5 42 (0.71%) Apache Spark
6 32 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
7 26 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
8 23 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.30%) CMS
10 17 (0.29%) OpenStack
11 9 (0.15%) Appian
11 9 (0.15%) ArcGIS
12 7 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 7 (0.12%) Camunda
12 7 (0.12%) Documentum
13 5 (0.084%) NetWeaver
13 5 (0.084%) nginx
14 4 (0.067%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
15 3 (0.050%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 21 (0.35%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.15%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.084%) Microsoft Office
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
1 157 (2.64%) 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%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 13 (0.22%) SAP ERP
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 11 (0.18%) NetSuite
11 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 10 (0.17%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
13 7 (0.12%) Maximo
13 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
14 6 (0.10%) Endur
14 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,492 (25.07%) Azure
2 1,293 (21.72%) AWS
3 456 (7.66%) GCP
4 295 (4.96%) Power Platform
5 207 (3.48%) SaaS
6 204 (3.43%) Entra ID
7 190 (3.19%) Serverless
8 140 (2.35%) GitHub
9 128 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
10 120 (2.02%) Microsoft 365
11 119 (2.00%) PaaS
12 114 (1.92%) Azure DevOps
13 107 (1.80%) Snowflake
14 94 (1.58%) AWS Lambda
15 84 (1.41%) Amazon S3
15 84 (1.41%) IaaS
16 66 (1.11%) OCI
17 64 (1.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 62 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
19 60 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 200 (3.36%) Firewall
2 179 (3.01%) Network Security
3 106 (1.78%) WAN
4 104 (1.75%) VPN
5 91 (1.53%) DNS
6 78 (1.31%) LAN
7 51 (0.86%) SD-WAN
8 46 (0.77%) BGP
9 42 (0.71%) DHCP
10 38 (0.64%) MPLS
10 38 (0.64%) TCP/IP
11 36 (0.60%) VLAN
12 32 (0.54%) SAN
13 29 (0.49%) Wireless
14 27 (0.45%) NAS
15 26 (0.44%) OSPF
16 25 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
16 25 (0.42%) VXLAN
17 22 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
17 22 (0.37%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 203 (3.41%) Power BI
2 198 (3.33%) Data Lake
3 175 (2.94%) Metadata
4 174 (2.92%) Data Warehouse
5 78 (1.31%) NoSQL
6 52 (0.87%) SQL Server
7 50 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
8 46 (0.77%) Big Data
9 45 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
10 43 (0.72%) BigQuery
11 42 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
12 38 (0.64%) Delta Lake
12 38 (0.64%) Oracle Database
13 32 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
14 25 (0.42%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 25 (0.42%) GIS
14 25 (0.42%) MongoDB
14 25 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
15 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
16 22 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 82 (1.38%) JIRA
2 77 (1.29%) Git
3 59 (0.99%) Jenkins
4 33 (0.55%) GitLab
5 23 (0.39%) ERwin
6 11 (0.18%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.13%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.13%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 7 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) Maven
10 6 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.10%) Storybook
11 5 (0.084%) MLflow
11 5 (0.084%) MSI
12 4 (0.067%) ER Studio
12 4 (0.067%) Snyk
General
1 1,125 (18.90%) Social Skills
2 872 (14.65%) Finance
3 668 (11.22%) Public Sector
4 324 (5.44%) Banking
5 302 (5.07%) Analytical Skills
6 255 (4.28%) Retail
7 151 (2.54%) Influencing Skills
8 133 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
9 132 (2.22%) Telecoms
10 129 (2.17%) Manufacturing
11 115 (1.93%) Legal
12 64 (1.08%) Marketing
13 56 (0.94%) Billing
14 51 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 50 (0.84%) Financial Institution
16 46 (0.77%) Law
16 46 (0.77%) Military
17 41 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
18 39 (0.66%) Aerospace
19 35 (0.59%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 283 (4.75%) REST
2 205 (3.44%) Middleware
3 143 (2.40%) Kafka
4 132 (2.22%) .NET
5 124 (2.08%) SOAP
6 119 (2.00%) OAuth
7 74 (1.24%) Oracle Fusion
8 65 (1.09%) OpenID
9 62 (1.04%) OAuth2
10 61 (1.02%) SAML
11 60 (1.01%) JSON
12 51 (0.86%) RESTful
13 49 (0.82%) React
14 39 (0.66%) PySpark
14 39 (0.66%) SailPoint
15 37 (0.62%) .NET Framework
16 36 (0.60%) XML
17 35 (0.59%) GraphQL
18 32 (0.54%) Node.js
19 31 (0.52%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 503 (8.45%) Cloud Native
2 202 (3.39%) Data Centre
3 182 (3.06%) Management Information System
4 150 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
5 148 (2.49%) Onboarding
5 148 (2.49%) Product Ownership
6 142 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
7 140 (2.35%) Hybrid Cloud
8 131 (2.20%) AI Agents
9 126 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
10 99 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
11 91 (1.53%) Operational Technology
12 87 (1.46%) Public Cloud
13 82 (1.38%) CMDB
14 71 (1.19%) Enterprise Cloud
15 67 (1.13%) Security Posture
16 61 (1.02%) Data Structures
17 49 (0.82%) Private Cloud
18 46 (0.77%) Taxonomies
19 45 (0.76%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 129 (2.17%) Windows
2 103 (1.73%) Linux
3 48 (0.81%) Windows Server
4 28 (0.47%) Android
4 28 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 21 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.35%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
6 9 (0.15%) zOS
7 7 (0.12%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.12%) VMS
8 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
8 5 (0.084%) Solaris
8 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
9 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.034%) CentOS
10 2 (0.034%) HPUX
10 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 854 (14.35%) Stakeholder Management
2 853 (14.33%) Roadmaps
3 828 (13.91%) Migration
4 737 (12.38%) AI
5 703 (11.81%) Enterprise Architecture
6 656 (11.02%) Agile
7 628 (10.55%) DevOps
8 616 (10.35%) Technical Leadership
9 613 (10.30%) Data Modelling
10 608 (10.22%) CI/CD
11 593 (9.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 577 (9.69%) Data Architecture
12 577 (9.69%) Integration Patterns
13 523 (8.79%) Analytics
14 496 (8.33%) TOGAF
15 467 (7.85%) Architectural Patterns
16 428 (7.19%) Security Architecture
17 409 (6.87%) Microservices
18 390 (6.55%) Event-Driven
19 362 (6.08%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 275 (4.62%) Python
2 272 (4.57%) Java
3 269 (4.52%) SQL
4 132 (2.22%) JavaScript
5 101 (1.70%) PowerShell
6 59 (0.99%) C#
7 53 (0.89%) Bicep
8 49 (0.82%) Bash
9 47 (0.79%) TypeScript
10 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.35%) Ruby
12 18 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 16 (0.27%) Shell Script
14 13 (0.22%) C++
15 12 (0.20%) Kotlin
16 11 (0.18%) ABAP
17 10 (0.17%) Groovy
17 10 (0.17%) Scala
18 9 (0.15%) PL/SQL
18 9 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,831 (30.76%) Security Cleared
2 1,379 (23.17%) SC Cleared
3 341 (5.73%) DV Cleared
4 169 (2.84%) Degree
5 148 (2.49%) CISSP
6 129 (2.17%) Azure Certification
7 126 (2.12%) AWS Certification
8 113 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
9 108 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
10 94 (1.58%) TOGAF Certification
11 75 (1.26%) Computer Science Degree
12 71 (1.19%) CISM
13 48 (0.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 46 (0.77%) CCNP
15 43 (0.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 41 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
17 34 (0.57%) CCSP
18 31 (0.52%) Master's Degree
19 21 (0.35%) CCNA
19 21 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 212 (3.56%) Data Quality
2 206 (3.46%) NIST
3 186 (3.13%) GDPR
4 166 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 119 (2.00%) NCSC
6 76 (1.28%) GRC
7 61 (1.02%) QA
8 42 (0.71%) PCI DSS
9 40 (0.67%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.52%) NIST 800
10 31 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.40%) ISO 20022
11 24 (0.40%) SEPA
12 21 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.35%) IFRS
13 17 (0.29%) HL7
14 15 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
14 15 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 15 (0.25%) SLA
15 13 (0.22%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 163 (2.74%) Active Directory
2 124 (2.08%) Docker
3 80 (1.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 47 (0.79%) VMware NSX
5 28 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
6 21 (0.35%) Hyper-V
6 21 (0.35%) vSphere
7 18 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 13 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.13%) NFS
10 7 (0.12%) Varnish
11 6 (0.10%) Postfix
11 6 (0.10%) vCloud
12 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 4 (0.067%) IAG
12 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.050%) KVM
13 3 (0.050%) SRDF
14 2 (0.034%) Firmware
14 2 (0.034%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 299 (5.02%) Kubernetes
2 267 (4.49%) Terraform
3 102 (1.71%) Ansible
4 51 (0.86%) Grafana
5 44 (0.74%) Prometheus
6 41 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
7 39 (0.66%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.34%) Argo
9 16 (0.27%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 11 (0.18%) FortiGate
12 11 (0.18%) Istio
13 7 (0.12%) SCCM
14 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
15 5 (0.084%) CASB
15 5 (0.084%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.084%) MOM
15 5 (0.084%) NetBackup
15 5 (0.084%) WMI
Vendors
1 753 (12.65%) Microsoft
2 342 (5.75%) SAP
3 305 (5.12%) ServiceNow
4 302 (5.07%) Oracle
5 259 (4.35%) Databricks
6 193 (3.24%) Salesforce
7 157 (2.64%) Google
8 145 (2.44%) VMware
9 137 (2.30%) Cisco
10 70 (1.18%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.06%) IBM
12 57 (0.96%) CyberArk
13 54 (0.91%) Workday
14 53 (0.89%) Palo Alto
15 45 (0.76%) Foundry
16 44 (0.74%) Ariba
17 42 (0.71%) Splunk
18 38 (0.64%) Red Hat
19 37 (0.62%) Sparx
20 36 (0.60%) Adobe