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 20 January 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,563 3,109 4,229
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.56% 9.94% 9.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.45% 10.71% 10.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,402 1,859 2,769
10th Percentile £460 £485 £500
25th Percentile £515 £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 47 30 37
10th Percentile £49.40 £59.83 £59.65
25th Percentile £65.00 £66.00 £61.25
Median hourly rate £80.00 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +10.34% -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £91.92 £81.83 £85.65
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £78.00
% change year-on-year +15.61% -7.05% +11.43%

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 34,080 29,041 40,349
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.42% 92.85% 93.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,578 17,726 26,798
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,009 879 1,867
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £13.87
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.75
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.28
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -19.30% +15.07%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +41.67%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 3,102 £625 - 897
UK excluding London 0 1,733 £600 -4.00% 765
London -2 1,377 £645 -0.77% 295
Work from Home -3 1,028 £615 -1.60% 458
South East +11 556 £600 -4.00% 253
North of England -6 427 £570 -5.00% 169
Midlands -2 305 £575 -4.17% 85
North West -5 258 £575 -4.17% 88
South West 0 237 £710 +13.60% 96
West Midlands -4 224 £590 -3.89% 45
Yorkshire -8 160 £555 -7.50% 51
East of England +5 110 £525 -16.00% 88
Scotland -3 95 £650 +4.00% 58
East Midlands -3 79 £509 -11.52% 38
Wales -1 30 £625 +2.04% 35
North East -25 9 £625 +4.23% 30
Northern Ireland -6 5 £500 -16.67% 8
Channel Islands - 2 £625 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 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 1,107 (31.07%) Security Cleared
2 954 (26.78%) Azure
3 789 (22.14%) SC Cleared
4 738 (20.71%) AWS
5 522 (14.65%) Microsoft
6 504 (14.15%) Roadmaps
7 469 (13.16%) Stakeholder Management
8 465 (13.05%) Agile
9 436 (12.24%) Migration
10 388 (10.89%) Enterprise Architecture
11 380 (10.67%) DevOps
11 380 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 359 (10.08%) Technical Leadership
13 358 (10.05%) TOGAF
14 355 (9.96%) Data Modelling
15 333 (9.35%) CI/CD
16 328 (9.21%) Problem-Solving
17 292 (8.20%) Analytics
18 290 (8.14%) AI
19 286 (8.03%) Python
20 282 (7.91%) GCP
21 254 (7.13%) Data Architecture
22 243 (6.82%) Integration Patterns
23 241 (6.76%) DV Cleared
23 241 (6.76%) Microservices
24 231 (6.48%) Terraform
25 221 (6.20%) Mentoring
26 215 (6.03%) Architectural Design
27 214 (6.01%) SAP
28 203 (5.70%) 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
1 103 (2.89%) Confluence
2 83 (2.33%) SharePoint
3 51 (1.43%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.70%) SAS
5 20 (0.56%) OpenStack
6 18 (0.51%) CMS
7 15 (0.42%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.42%) Apache
8 14 (0.39%) Apache Spark
9 13 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
9 13 (0.36%) ArcGIS
10 9 (0.25%) Smallworld
11 7 (0.20%) Ethereum
11 7 (0.20%) GeoServer
11 7 (0.20%) Hyperledger
11 7 (0.20%) Skype for Business
11 7 (0.20%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.17%) Tomcat
13 5 (0.14%) Mule
13 5 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 48 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 32 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
3 31 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
4 19 (0.53%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.11%) Siemens NX
6 3 (0.084%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.084%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.028%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.028%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.028%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.028%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.028%) Revit
7 1 (0.028%) Trello
Business Applications
1 109 (3.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 32 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.65%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.51%) Salesforce CRM
6 15 (0.42%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.36%) SAP CO
7 13 (0.36%) 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 (0.22%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.22%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.20%) Distributed Ledger
12 7 (0.20%) R3 Corda
13 6 (0.17%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 954 (26.78%) Azure
2 738 (20.71%) AWS
3 282 (7.91%) GCP
4 139 (3.90%) SaaS
5 136 (3.82%) Serverless
6 135 (3.79%) Power Platform
7 120 (3.37%) Microsoft 365
8 110 (3.09%) Entra ID
9 83 (2.33%) AWS Lambda
10 80 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
10 80 (2.25%) GitHub
11 76 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
11 76 (2.13%) IaaS
12 70 (1.96%) Microsoft Purview
13 68 (1.91%) Amazon S3
14 62 (1.74%) AWS CloudFormation
14 62 (1.74%) PaaS
15 59 (1.66%) Azure Data Factory
16 57 (1.60%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 53 (1.49%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 195 (5.47%) Firewall
2 137 (3.85%) WAN
3 108 (3.03%) Network Security
4 93 (2.61%) VPN
5 89 (2.50%) LAN
6 86 (2.41%) DNS
7 73 (2.05%) SD-WAN
8 41 (1.15%) BGP
9 31 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
10 27 (0.76%) MPLS
11 26 (0.73%) Internet
12 25 (0.70%) DHCP
13 24 (0.67%) OSPF
14 22 (0.62%) SAN
15 21 (0.59%) VSAN
16 17 (0.48%) VLAN
17 15 (0.42%) IPsec
17 15 (0.42%) SSL
18 14 (0.39%) Kerberos
18 14 (0.39%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (3.34%) Data Warehouse
2 95 (2.67%) Power BI
3 87 (2.44%) Metadata
4 77 (2.16%) Data Lake
5 64 (1.80%) PostgreSQL
6 53 (1.49%) SQL Server
7 46 (1.29%) Tableau
8 42 (1.18%) Amazon Redshift
9 38 (1.07%) DynamoDB
10 36 (1.01%) NoSQL
11 33 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
12 28 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
12 28 (0.79%) Oracle Database
13 26 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
13 26 (0.73%) Redis
13 26 (0.73%) Relational Database
14 25 (0.70%) Amazon Aurora
15 21 (0.59%) Delta Lake
15 21 (0.59%) GIS
16 18 (0.51%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 117 (3.28%) JIRA
2 80 (2.25%) Jenkins
3 42 (1.18%) GitLab
4 40 (1.12%) Git
5 19 (0.53%) 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 (0.084%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.084%) Selenium
10 3 (0.084%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 892 (25.04%) Social Skills
2 564 (15.83%) Finance
3 434 (12.18%) Public Sector
4 260 (7.30%) Analytical Skills
5 199 (5.59%) Banking
6 96 (2.69%) Legal
7 95 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
8 79 (2.22%) Telecoms
9 76 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
10 75 (2.10%) Retail
11 72 (2.02%) Military
12 68 (1.91%) Marketing
13 67 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
14 62 (1.74%) Manufacturing
15 42 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 34 (0.95%) Billing
17 31 (0.87%) Financial Institution
18 24 (0.67%) Law
19 22 (0.62%) Back Office
20 21 (0.59%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 180 (5.05%) REST
2 104 (2.92%) Middleware
2 104 (2.92%) SOAP
3 75 (2.10%) .NET
4 64 (1.80%) Kafka
5 56 (1.57%) OAuth
6 54 (1.52%) LDAP
7 49 (1.38%) JSON
8 45 (1.26%) OpenID
9 44 (1.23%) SAML
10 42 (1.18%) RESTful
11 33 (0.93%) OAuth2
12 30 (0.84%) PySpark
13 28 (0.79%) AngularJS
13 28 (0.79%) Spring Boot
14 27 (0.76%) Oracle Fusion
15 26 (0.73%) React
15 26 (0.73%) SailPoint
16 23 (0.65%) Lightning Web Components
16 23 (0.65%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 263 (7.38%) Cloud Native
2 131 (3.68%) Product Ownership
3 119 (3.34%) Data Centre
4 100 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
5 97 (2.72%) Onboarding
6 89 (2.50%) PKI
7 84 (2.36%) Enterprise Software
8 77 (2.16%) Hybrid Cloud
9 66 (1.85%) Security Posture
10 60 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
11 59 (1.66%) Public Cloud
12 56 (1.57%) Management Information System
13 54 (1.52%) Operational Technology
14 44 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
15 41 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
16 39 (1.09%) CMDB
17 38 (1.07%) NHS
18 37 (1.04%) Data Structures
19 35 (0.98%) SCADA
20 31 (0.87%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 165 (4.63%) Windows
2 108 (3.03%) Linux
3 45 (1.26%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.51%) Windows 10
5 18 (0.51%) Windows 7
6 17 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
8 12 (0.34%) Unix
9 9 (0.25%) VMS
10 7 (0.20%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.17%) Android
11 6 (0.17%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.17%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.14%) zOS
13 4 (0.11%) CentOS
14 3 (0.084%) Solaris
14 3 (0.084%) Windows Server 2008
15 2 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
16 1 (0.028%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 504 (14.15%) Roadmaps
2 469 (13.16%) Stakeholder Management
3 465 (13.05%) Agile
4 436 (12.24%) Migration
5 388 (10.89%) Enterprise Architecture
6 380 (10.67%) DevOps
6 380 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 359 (10.08%) Technical Leadership
8 358 (10.05%) TOGAF
9 355 (9.96%) Data Modelling
10 333 (9.35%) CI/CD
11 328 (9.21%) Problem-Solving
12 292 (8.20%) Analytics
13 290 (8.14%) AI
14 254 (7.13%) Data Architecture
15 243 (6.82%) Integration Patterns
16 241 (6.76%) Microservices
17 221 (6.20%) Mentoring
18 215 (6.03%) Architectural Design
19 203 (5.70%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 286 (8.03%) Python
2 177 (4.97%) SQL
3 166 (4.66%) PowerShell
4 127 (3.56%) Java
5 53 (1.49%) JavaScript
6 41 (1.15%) C#
7 32 (0.90%) TypeScript
8 29 (0.81%) Bash
8 29 (0.81%) Bicep
9 21 (0.59%) Apex Code
10 19 (0.53%) PL/SQL
11 11 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
11 11 (0.31%) R
12 10 (0.28%) T-SQL
13 9 (0.25%) ABAP
13 9 (0.25%) Ruby
14 8 (0.22%) PHP
14 8 (0.22%) VB
15 7 (0.20%) Scala
15 7 (0.20%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,107 (31.07%) Security Cleared
2 789 (22.14%) SC Cleared
3 241 (6.76%) DV Cleared
4 174 (4.88%) Degree
5 104 (2.92%) CISSP
6 102 (2.86%) AWS Certification
7 99 (2.78%) TOGAF Certification
8 90 (2.53%) Azure Certification
9 64 (1.80%) Cisco Certification
10 62 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
10 62 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
11 58 (1.63%) Microsoft Certification
12 53 (1.49%) CISM
13 48 (1.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 44 (1.23%) Master's Degree
15 37 (1.04%) CCNP
16 34 (0.95%) CCIE
17 25 (0.70%) ISEB
17 25 (0.70%) ITIL Certification
18 20 (0.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 163 (4.57%) GDPR
2 139 (3.90%) NIST
3 124 (3.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 105 (2.95%) Data Quality
5 70 (1.96%) NCSC
6 56 (1.57%) QA
7 53 (1.49%) PCI DSS
8 29 (0.81%) COBIT
9 27 (0.76%) Accessibility
10 24 (0.67%) JSP 440
11 22 (0.62%) GRC
11 22 (0.62%) HIPAA
12 21 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 18 (0.51%) ISO 20022
15 16 (0.45%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 16 (0.45%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 12 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 11 (0.31%) MiFID
17 11 (0.31%) SLA
System Software
1 159 (4.46%) Active Directory
2 117 (3.28%) Docker
3 100 (2.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 47 (1.32%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.90%) vSphere
6 22 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
7 19 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
8 16 (0.45%) Hyper-V
9 14 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.20%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.20%) NFS
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 (0.084%) Ceph
14 3 (0.084%) GPFS
14 3 (0.084%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 231 (6.48%) Terraform
2 171 (4.80%) Kubernetes
3 104 (2.92%) Ansible
4 47 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.93%) OPNET
6 25 (0.70%) SCCM
7 24 (0.67%) vCenter Server
8 22 (0.62%) FortiGate
9 18 (0.51%) Microsoft Intune
9 18 (0.51%) WMI
10 17 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 10 (0.28%) Argo
11 10 (0.28%) Prometheus
12 9 (0.25%) Grafana
13 6 (0.17%) Istio
13 6 (0.17%) Kibana
13 6 (0.17%) Puppet
14 4 (0.11%) Data Guard
14 4 (0.11%) Oracle RMAN
15 3 (0.084%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 522 (14.65%) Microsoft
2 214 (6.01%) SAP
3 201 (5.64%) ServiceNow
4 181 (5.08%) Salesforce
5 166 (4.66%) Oracle
6 161 (4.52%) VMware
7 120 (3.37%) Cisco
8 107 (3.00%) Databricks
9 84 (2.36%) CyberArk
10 82 (2.30%) Google
11 65 (1.82%) Palo Alto
12 58 (1.63%) MuleSoft
13 49 (1.38%) Centrify
13 49 (1.38%) Splunk
14 45 (1.26%) Remedy
15 44 (1.23%) Workday
16 42 (1.18%) Atlassian
17 39 (1.09%) OpenAI
17 39 (1.09%) Sparx
18 37 (1.04%) Juniper