Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 January 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,539 3,135 4,185
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.49% 9.86% 9.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.38% 10.62% 10.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,391 1,872 2,743
10th Percentile £461 £485 £500
25th Percentile £517 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £738 £725
90th Percentile £794 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 30 35
10th Percentile £58.69 £59.83 £58.85
25th Percentile £65.00 £66.00 £65.63
Median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +15.61% -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.26 £81.83 £81.56
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +15.61% -5.27% +9.33%

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 34,093 29,528 40,309
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.39% 92.82% 93.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,578 18,084 26,785
10th Percentile £300 £288 £279
25th Percentile £405 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £477 £500
% change year-on-year -0.42% -4.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,999 895 1,806
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.68 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.22 £18.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £41.37
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -21.43% +18.19%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £64.52
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.20
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.47% +52.41%

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 17 January 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 17 January 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 17 January 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 -2 3,080 £625 - 864
UK excluding London -1 1,714 £600 -4.00% 714
London -3 1,371 £648 -0.38% 287
Work from Home -3 1,031 £615 -1.60% 412
South East +10 554 £600 -4.00% 246
North of England -7 423 £570 -5.00% 152
Midlands -2 298 £575 -4.17% 83
North West -4 255 £575 -4.17% 81
South West 0 239 £710 +13.60% 97
West Midlands -2 221 £590 -2.86% 45
Yorkshire -10 160 £558 -7.00% 47
East of England +3 105 £525 -16.00% 94
Scotland -2 93 £650 +4.00% 32
East Midlands -4 76 £505 -12.17% 37
Wales +3 29 £625 +2.04% 30
North East -24 8 £588 +2.17% 24
Northern Ireland -7 5 £500 -16.67% 8
Channel Islands - 2 £625 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 17 January 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 1,108 (31.31%) Security Cleared
2 965 (27.27%) Azure
3 792 (22.38%) SC Cleared
4 744 (21.02%) AWS
5 526 (14.86%) Microsoft
6 502 (14.18%) Roadmaps
7 468 (13.22%) Agile
7 468 (13.22%) Stakeholder Management
8 432 (12.21%) Migration
9 387 (10.94%) Enterprise Architecture
10 380 (10.74%) DevOps
11 379 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 357 (10.09%) Technical Leadership
12 357 (10.09%) TOGAF
13 353 (9.97%) Data Modelling
14 333 (9.41%) CI/CD
15 329 (9.30%) Problem-Solving
16 288 (8.14%) Analytics
16 288 (8.14%) GCP
17 284 (8.02%) AI
17 284 (8.02%) Python
18 254 (7.18%) Data Architecture
19 240 (6.78%) Microservices
20 239 (6.75%) Integration Patterns
21 238 (6.73%) DV Cleared
22 233 (6.58%) Terraform
23 223 (6.30%) Mentoring
24 215 (6.08%) Architectural Design
25 213 (6.02%) SAP
26 200 (5.65%) Security Architecture

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
1 101 (2.85%) Confluence
2 81 (2.29%) SharePoint
3 50 (1.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.71%) SAS
5 20 (0.57%) OpenStack
6 18 (0.51%) CMS
7 15 (0.42%) Apache
8 14 (0.40%) Apache Spark
9 13 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
9 13 (0.37%) ArcGIS
10 12 (0.34%) Anypoint
11 9 (0.25%) Smallworld
12 7 (0.20%) Ethereum
12 7 (0.20%) GeoServer
12 7 (0.20%) Hyperledger
12 7 (0.20%) WebLogic
13 6 (0.17%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.17%) Tomcat
14 5 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
15 4 (0.11%) Mule
Applications
1 47 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
3 31 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
4 30 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (0.48%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.17%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.085%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.085%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.028%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.028%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.028%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.028%) Revit
8 1 (0.028%) Trello
Business Applications
1 107 (3.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 31 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.65%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.51%) Salesforce CRM
6 14 (0.40%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.37%) SAP CO
7 13 (0.37%) SAP PM
8 12 (0.34%) Maximo
8 12 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
8 12 (0.34%) SAP FI
9 11 (0.31%) SAP FI/CO
10 9 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.25%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.23%) SAP PP
11 8 (0.23%) Teamcenter
12 7 (0.20%) Distributed Ledger
12 7 (0.20%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 965 (27.27%) Azure
2 744 (21.02%) AWS
3 288 (8.14%) GCP
4 139 (3.93%) SaaS
5 136 (3.84%) Power Platform
5 136 (3.84%) Serverless
6 123 (3.48%) Microsoft 365
7 111 (3.14%) Entra ID
8 84 (2.37%) GitHub
9 83 (2.35%) AWS Lambda
10 79 (2.23%) Azure DevOps
10 79 (2.23%) IaaS
11 76 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
12 71 (2.01%) Microsoft Purview
13 66 (1.86%) Amazon S3
14 64 (1.81%) PaaS
15 61 (1.72%) AWS CloudFormation
16 59 (1.67%) Azure Data Factory
17 57 (1.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 51 (1.44%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 190 (5.37%) Firewall
2 134 (3.79%) WAN
3 105 (2.97%) Network Security
4 89 (2.51%) VPN
5 86 (2.43%) LAN
6 83 (2.35%) DNS
7 71 (2.01%) SD-WAN
8 37 (1.05%) BGP
9 30 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
10 27 (0.76%) MPLS
11 26 (0.73%) Internet
12 24 (0.68%) DHCP
13 22 (0.62%) SAN
14 21 (0.59%) VSAN
15 20 (0.57%) OSPF
16 16 (0.45%) VLAN
17 15 (0.42%) IPsec
17 15 (0.42%) SSL
18 14 (0.40%) Kerberos
18 14 (0.40%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (3.36%) Data Warehouse
2 95 (2.68%) Power BI
3 88 (2.49%) Metadata
4 77 (2.18%) Data Lake
5 65 (1.84%) PostgreSQL
6 54 (1.53%) SQL Server
7 46 (1.30%) Tableau
8 42 (1.19%) Amazon Redshift
9 38 (1.07%) DynamoDB
10 36 (1.02%) NoSQL
11 33 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
12 28 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
13 27 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
13 27 (0.76%) Oracle Database
14 26 (0.73%) Redis
14 26 (0.73%) Relational Database
15 25 (0.71%) Amazon Aurora
16 21 (0.59%) Delta Lake
16 21 (0.59%) GIS
17 19 (0.54%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 118 (3.33%) JIRA
2 79 (2.23%) Jenkins
3 43 (1.22%) GitLab
4 41 (1.16%) Git
5 19 (0.54%) ERwin
6 9 (0.25%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.17%) Maven
7 6 (0.17%) MSI
7 6 (0.17%) Postman
8 5 (0.14%) Gradle
8 5 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
8 5 (0.14%) SonarLint
9 4 (0.11%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.11%) MLflow
9 4 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
9 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.085%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.085%) Selenium
10 3 (0.085%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 896 (25.32%) Social Skills
2 558 (15.77%) Finance
3 434 (12.26%) Public Sector
4 259 (7.32%) Analytical Skills
5 195 (5.51%) Banking
6 96 (2.71%) Legal
7 93 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
8 79 (2.23%) Telecoms
9 75 (2.12%) Retail
10 72 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
10 72 (2.03%) Military
11 69 (1.95%) Marketing
12 68 (1.92%) Presentation Skills
13 65 (1.84%) Manufacturing
14 43 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 33 (0.93%) Billing
16 32 (0.90%) Financial Institution
17 24 (0.68%) Law
18 22 (0.62%) Back Office
18 22 (0.62%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 179 (5.06%) REST
2 105 (2.97%) SOAP
3 102 (2.88%) Middleware
4 75 (2.12%) .NET
5 64 (1.81%) Kafka
6 54 (1.53%) OAuth
7 52 (1.47%) LDAP
8 49 (1.38%) JSON
9 42 (1.19%) SAML
10 41 (1.16%) OpenID
10 41 (1.16%) RESTful
11 31 (0.88%) OAuth2
11 31 (0.88%) PySpark
12 30 (0.85%) React
13 28 (0.79%) AngularJS
13 28 (0.79%) Spring Boot
14 27 (0.76%) Oracle Fusion
15 26 (0.73%) SailPoint
16 24 (0.68%) Node.js
16 24 (0.68%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 262 (7.40%) Cloud Native
2 132 (3.73%) Product Ownership
3 117 (3.31%) Data Centre
4 101 (2.85%) Legacy Systems
5 95 (2.68%) Onboarding
6 89 (2.51%) PKI
7 83 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
8 80 (2.26%) Hybrid Cloud
9 67 (1.89%) Security Posture
10 60 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
11 57 (1.61%) Management Information System
11 57 (1.61%) Public Cloud
12 54 (1.53%) Operational Technology
13 43 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
14 41 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
15 39 (1.10%) CMDB
16 37 (1.05%) Data Structures
16 37 (1.05%) NHS
17 33 (0.93%) SCADA
18 31 (0.88%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 163 (4.61%) Windows
2 105 (2.97%) Linux
3 42 (1.19%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.48%) Windows 10
5 17 (0.48%) Windows 7
5 17 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
7 12 (0.34%) Unix
8 9 (0.25%) VMS
9 7 (0.20%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.17%) Android
10 6 (0.17%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.17%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.14%) zOS
12 4 (0.11%) CentOS
13 3 (0.085%) Solaris
13 3 (0.085%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.028%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 502 (14.18%) Roadmaps
2 468 (13.22%) Agile
2 468 (13.22%) Stakeholder Management
3 432 (12.21%) Migration
4 387 (10.94%) Enterprise Architecture
5 380 (10.74%) DevOps
6 379 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 357 (10.09%) Technical Leadership
7 357 (10.09%) TOGAF
8 353 (9.97%) Data Modelling
9 333 (9.41%) CI/CD
10 329 (9.30%) Problem-Solving
11 288 (8.14%) Analytics
12 284 (8.02%) AI
13 254 (7.18%) Data Architecture
14 240 (6.78%) Microservices
15 239 (6.75%) Integration Patterns
16 223 (6.30%) Mentoring
17 215 (6.08%) Architectural Design
18 200 (5.65%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 284 (8.02%) Python
2 177 (5.00%) SQL
3 164 (4.63%) PowerShell
4 130 (3.67%) Java
5 54 (1.53%) JavaScript
6 41 (1.16%) C#
7 35 (0.99%) TypeScript
8 31 (0.88%) Bicep
9 29 (0.82%) Bash
10 22 (0.62%) Apex Code
11 19 (0.54%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
12 11 (0.31%) R
13 10 (0.28%) T-SQL
14 9 (0.25%) ABAP
14 9 (0.25%) Ruby
15 8 (0.23%) PHP
16 7 (0.20%) Korn
16 7 (0.20%) Scala
16 7 (0.20%) VB
Qualifications
1 1,108 (31.31%) Security Cleared
2 792 (22.38%) SC Cleared
3 238 (6.73%) DV Cleared
4 174 (4.92%) Degree
5 106 (3.00%) CISSP
6 101 (2.85%) AWS Certification
7 99 (2.80%) TOGAF Certification
8 91 (2.57%) Azure Certification
9 64 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
10 62 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
11 59 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
12 58 (1.64%) Microsoft Certification
13 54 (1.53%) CISM
14 48 (1.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 44 (1.24%) Master's Degree
16 36 (1.02%) CCNP
17 33 (0.93%) CCIE
18 25 (0.71%) ISEB
18 25 (0.71%) ITIL Certification
19 21 (0.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (4.63%) GDPR
2 138 (3.90%) NIST
3 125 (3.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 105 (2.97%) Data Quality
5 70 (1.98%) NCSC
6 58 (1.64%) QA
7 53 (1.50%) PCI DSS
8 29 (0.82%) COBIT
9 27 (0.76%) Accessibility
10 25 (0.71%) JSP 440
11 23 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 22 (0.62%) GRC
12 22 (0.62%) HIPAA
13 21 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.45%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 16 (0.45%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 14 (0.40%) ISO 20022
16 12 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 11 (0.31%) MiFID
17 11 (0.31%) SLA
System Software
1 157 (4.44%) Active Directory
2 119 (3.36%) Docker
3 97 (2.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 44 (1.24%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.90%) vSphere
6 22 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
7 19 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
8 16 (0.45%) Hyper-V
9 15 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.20%) NFS
11 6 (0.17%) BitLocker
11 6 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
11 6 (0.17%) Varnish
12 5 (0.14%) Lustre
12 5 (0.14%) Postfix
13 4 (0.11%) Dovecot
13 4 (0.11%) vCloud
14 3 (0.085%) Ceph
14 3 (0.085%) GPFS
14 3 (0.085%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 233 (6.58%) Terraform
2 170 (4.80%) Kubernetes
3 101 (2.85%) Ansible
4 47 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.93%) OPNET
6 24 (0.68%) SCCM
6 24 (0.68%) vCenter Server
7 22 (0.62%) FortiGate
8 18 (0.51%) Microsoft Intune
8 18 (0.51%) WMI
9 14 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 11 (0.31%) Prometheus
11 10 (0.28%) Argo
11 10 (0.28%) Grafana
12 6 (0.17%) Istio
12 6 (0.17%) Kibana
12 6 (0.17%) Puppet
13 4 (0.11%) Data Guard
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle RMAN
14 3 (0.085%) Endace
Vendors
1 526 (14.86%) Microsoft
2 213 (6.02%) SAP
3 197 (5.57%) ServiceNow
4 182 (5.14%) Salesforce
5 164 (4.63%) Oracle
6 158 (4.46%) VMware
7 119 (3.36%) Cisco
8 104 (2.94%) Databricks
9 85 (2.40%) Google
10 82 (2.32%) CyberArk
11 65 (1.84%) Palo Alto
12 56 (1.58%) MuleSoft
13 49 (1.38%) Centrify
14 47 (1.33%) Splunk
15 43 (1.22%) Remedy
15 43 (1.22%) Workday
16 42 (1.19%) Atlassian
17 39 (1.10%) OpenAI
17 39 (1.10%) Sparx
18 35 (0.99%) Pega