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 18 December 2025.

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

6 months to
18 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 17 17
Rank change year-on-year -3 0 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,361 3,334 4,099
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.19% 9.75% 9.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.10% 10.51% 9.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,277 2,003 2,752
10th Percentile £462 £489 £500
25th Percentile £522 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £719 £736 £725
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £635
% change year-on-year -4.00% -1.57% -2.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 23 34
10th Percentile £62.00 £60.30 £60.00
25th Percentile £66.13 £62.00 £72.00
Median hourly rate £83.82 £70.00 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +19.74% -8.53% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.89 £85.39 £82.33
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £92.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.82 £66.00 £77.27
% change year-on-year +27.00% -14.58% +10.38%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 33,289 31,718 41,239
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.98% 92.78% 93.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,068 19,534 27,738
10th Percentile £290 £300 £288
25th Percentile £404 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £644
90th Percentile £720 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £489 £500
% change year-on-year -2.86% -2.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,959 999 1,468
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.52 £15.14
25th Percentile £18.19 £21.22 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.47 £34.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.09% -23.60% +48.33%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.84 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.46 £72.55 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -27.78% +80.76%

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 18 December 2025.

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 18 December 2025.

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 18 December 2025. 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 2,918 £625 - 1,561
UK excluding London -3 1,586 £600 -4.00% 1,419
London -2 1,333 £630 +0.80% 363
Work from Home -4 1,045 £609 -2.62% 638
South East +6 528 £600 -4.00% 439
North of England -7 383 £600 -2.77% 268
South West +1 256 £700 +12.00% 167
Midlands -4 242 £575 -4.17% 258
North West -6 229 £599 -3.43% 142
West Midlands -9 186 £582 -3.04% 150
Yorkshire -19 136 £600 +2.13% 109
Scotland -10 86 £600 -4.00% 81
East of England -11 85 £553 -7.92% 184
East Midlands -4 56 £519 -9.78% 98
Wales +1 25 £625 +0.40% 39
North East -9 19 £700 +16.74% 18
Northern Ireland -10 6 £550 -8.33% 17
Channel Islands - 2 £625 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 December 2025, 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 1,061 (31.57%) Security Cleared
2 934 (27.79%) Azure
3 745 (22.17%) SC Cleared
4 744 (22.14%) AWS
5 533 (15.86%) Roadmaps
6 502 (14.94%) Microsoft
7 471 (14.01%) Agile
8 462 (13.75%) Stakeholder Management
9 399 (11.87%) Migration
10 386 (11.48%) Enterprise Architecture
10 386 (11.48%) TOGAF
11 374 (11.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 360 (10.71%) DevOps
13 356 (10.59%) Data Modelling
14 334 (9.94%) Problem-Solving
15 331 (9.85%) CI/CD
16 319 (9.49%) Technical Leadership
17 275 (8.18%) AI
18 269 (8.00%) Analytics
19 268 (7.97%) GCP
20 267 (7.94%) Microservices
21 266 (7.91%) Python
21 266 (7.91%) Terraform
22 245 (7.29%) Data Architecture
23 228 (6.78%) DV Cleared
24 217 (6.46%) Firewall
24 217 (6.46%) Mentoring
25 208 (6.19%) ITIL
26 205 (6.10%) Integration Patterns
27 202 (6.01%) 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 89 (2.65%) Confluence
2 56 (1.67%) SharePoint
3 35 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.71%) SAS
5 20 (0.60%) CMS
5 20 (0.60%) OpenStack
6 18 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.45%) Apache
7 15 (0.45%) Apache Spark
8 14 (0.42%) ArcGIS
9 13 (0.39%) WebLogic
10 12 (0.36%) Anypoint
11 8 (0.24%) Mule
12 7 (0.21%) Smallworld
12 7 (0.21%) WebSphere
13 5 (0.15%) Ethereum
13 5 (0.15%) GeoServer
13 5 (0.15%) Hyperledger
13 5 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.12%) Jupyter
Applications
1 45 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
3 21 (0.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (0.62%) MS Visio
4 18 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (0.33%) Siemens NX
6 3 (0.089%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.089%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.030%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.030%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.030%) Revit
7 1 (0.030%) Trello
Business Applications
1 92 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (1.04%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
4 25 (0.74%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.54%) Maximo
6 17 (0.51%) Salesforce CRM
7 16 (0.48%) SAP PM
8 14 (0.42%) NetSuite
9 13 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
9 13 (0.39%) SAP CO
9 13 (0.39%) Teamcenter
10 12 (0.36%) SAP FI
11 11 (0.33%) SAP FI/CO
12 10 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
13 9 (0.27%) Endur
13 9 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
14 8 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
14 8 (0.24%) SAP EWM
14 8 (0.24%) SAP PP
15 7 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 934 (27.79%) Azure
2 744 (22.14%) AWS
3 268 (7.97%) GCP
4 145 (4.31%) SaaS
5 137 (4.08%) Power Platform
6 126 (3.75%) Serverless
7 115 (3.42%) Entra ID
8 97 (2.89%) Microsoft 365
9 90 (2.68%) GitHub
10 85 (2.53%) IaaS
11 83 (2.47%) Dynamics 365
12 78 (2.32%) AWS Lambda
13 74 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
14 68 (2.02%) PaaS
15 63 (1.87%) Amazon S3
16 62 (1.84%) AWS CloudFormation
17 61 (1.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 59 (1.76%) Snowflake
19 57 (1.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 55 (1.64%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 217 (6.46%) Firewall
2 113 (3.36%) WAN
3 101 (3.01%) Network Security
4 97 (2.89%) LAN
5 85 (2.53%) VPN
6 79 (2.35%) DNS
7 71 (2.11%) SD-WAN
8 43 (1.28%) Wi-Fi
9 35 (1.04%) BGP
10 29 (0.86%) SAN
11 26 (0.77%) DHCP
11 26 (0.77%) MPLS
12 25 (0.74%) Cisco Nexus
13 23 (0.68%) VSAN
14 20 (0.60%) Internet
15 19 (0.57%) SSL
16 16 (0.48%) OSPF
16 16 (0.48%) VLAN
17 14 (0.42%) NAS
18 13 (0.39%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (3.69%) Data Warehouse
2 93 (2.77%) Power BI
3 85 (2.53%) Metadata
4 77 (2.29%) Data Lake
5 69 (2.05%) PostgreSQL
6 62 (1.84%) SQL Server
7 40 (1.19%) Amazon Redshift
8 39 (1.16%) NoSQL
9 35 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
10 32 (0.95%) Tableau
11 31 (0.92%) DynamoDB
11 31 (0.92%) Oracle Database
12 27 (0.80%) MongoDB
13 26 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
13 26 (0.77%) Relational Database
14 24 (0.71%) Amazon Athena
15 23 (0.68%) Delta Lake
16 22 (0.65%) BigQuery
17 20 (0.60%) Data Vault
17 20 (0.60%) GIS
Development Applications
1 111 (3.30%) JIRA
2 77 (2.29%) Jenkins
3 57 (1.70%) Git
4 44 (1.31%) GitLab
5 18 (0.54%) ERwin
6 14 (0.42%) Oracle Forms
7 12 (0.36%) CircleCI
8 9 (0.27%) SonarQube
9 8 (0.24%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.18%) Bitbucket
10 6 (0.18%) Maven
10 6 (0.18%) MLflow
11 5 (0.15%) Gradle
11 5 (0.15%) MSI
11 5 (0.15%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.15%) SonarLint
11 5 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.12%) Postman
12 4 (0.12%) Terragrunt
13 3 (0.089%) ER Studio
General
1 907 (26.99%) Social Skills
2 532 (15.83%) Finance
3 421 (12.53%) Public Sector
4 276 (8.21%) Analytical Skills
5 184 (5.47%) Banking
6 99 (2.95%) Telecoms
7 85 (2.53%) Retail
8 80 (2.38%) Documentation Skills
9 73 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
10 72 (2.14%) Legal
10 72 (2.14%) Manufacturing
10 72 (2.14%) Marketing
10 72 (2.14%) Military
10 72 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
11 41 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 34 (1.01%) Financial Institution
13 31 (0.92%) Billing
14 27 (0.80%) Back Office
15 22 (0.65%) Aerospace
16 20 (0.60%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (4.49%) REST
2 95 (2.83%) Middleware
3 92 (2.74%) SOAP
4 78 (2.32%) .NET
5 61 (1.81%) Kafka
6 59 (1.76%) JSON
7 51 (1.52%) OAuth
8 47 (1.40%) RESTful
9 41 (1.22%) SAML
10 33 (0.98%) React
11 32 (0.95%) Lightning Web Components
11 32 (0.95%) PySpark
12 30 (0.89%) AngularJS
12 30 (0.89%) Node.js
13 29 (0.86%) LDAP
13 29 (0.86%) OAuth2
14 28 (0.83%) OpenID
14 28 (0.83%) Oracle Fusion
14 28 (0.83%) Web Services
15 27 (0.80%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 253 (7.53%) Cloud Native
2 139 (4.14%) Product Ownership
3 128 (3.81%) Legacy Systems
4 125 (3.72%) Data Centre
5 89 (2.65%) Hybrid Cloud
6 87 (2.59%) Onboarding
7 82 (2.44%) PKI
8 57 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
9 55 (1.64%) Management Information System
10 51 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
11 47 (1.40%) Operational Technology
12 45 (1.34%) CMDB
13 43 (1.28%) Public Cloud
14 42 (1.25%) Security Posture
14 42 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
15 39 (1.16%) NHS
16 38 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
17 32 (0.95%) Private Cloud
18 30 (0.89%) Data Structures
18 30 (0.89%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 144 (4.28%) Windows
2 105 (3.12%) Linux
3 48 (1.43%) Windows Server
4 30 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
6 16 (0.48%) Unix
7 15 (0.45%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.39%) Windows 7
9 10 (0.30%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.27%) VMS
11 8 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
12 6 (0.18%) Ubuntu
13 5 (0.15%) Android
13 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
14 3 (0.089%) CentOS
14 3 (0.089%) Solaris
14 3 (0.089%) Windows Server 2008
14 3 (0.089%) zOS
15 1 (0.030%) MVS
15 1 (0.030%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 533 (15.86%) Roadmaps
2 471 (14.01%) Agile
3 462 (13.75%) Stakeholder Management
4 399 (11.87%) Migration
5 386 (11.48%) Enterprise Architecture
5 386 (11.48%) TOGAF
6 374 (11.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 360 (10.71%) DevOps
8 356 (10.59%) Data Modelling
9 334 (9.94%) Problem-Solving
10 331 (9.85%) CI/CD
11 319 (9.49%) Technical Leadership
12 275 (8.18%) AI
13 269 (8.00%) Analytics
14 267 (7.94%) Microservices
15 245 (7.29%) Data Architecture
16 217 (6.46%) Mentoring
17 208 (6.19%) ITIL
18 205 (6.10%) Integration Patterns
19 202 (6.01%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 266 (7.91%) Python
2 170 (5.06%) SQL
3 148 (4.40%) Java
4 122 (3.63%) PowerShell
5 57 (1.70%) JavaScript
6 53 (1.58%) TypeScript
7 48 (1.43%) C#
8 35 (1.04%) Bash
8 35 (1.04%) Bicep
9 29 (0.86%) Apex Code
10 17 (0.51%) R
11 15 (0.45%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.33%) C
13 10 (0.30%) C++
14 9 (0.27%) ABAP
15 8 (0.24%) Ruby
16 7 (0.21%) Korn
17 6 (0.18%) DataWeave
17 6 (0.18%) PHP
18 5 (0.15%) Go
Qualifications
1 1,061 (31.57%) Security Cleared
2 745 (22.17%) SC Cleared
3 228 (6.78%) DV Cleared
4 194 (5.77%) Degree
5 121 (3.60%) CISSP
6 113 (3.36%) AWS Certification
7 103 (3.06%) Azure Certification
8 95 (2.83%) TOGAF Certification
9 73 (2.17%) Computer Science Degree
10 69 (2.05%) Cisco Certification
11 65 (1.93%) Microsoft Certification
12 52 (1.55%) CISM
13 49 (1.46%) Master's Degree
14 48 (1.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 48 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
15 39 (1.16%) CCNP
16 36 (1.07%) CCIE
17 25 (0.74%) ISEB
17 25 (0.74%) ITIL Certification
18 21 (0.62%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 168 (5.00%) GDPR
2 140 (4.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 133 (3.96%) NIST
4 102 (3.03%) Data Quality
5 64 (1.90%) NCSC
6 58 (1.73%) QA
7 51 (1.52%) PCI DSS
8 31 (0.92%) COBIT
9 30 (0.89%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 26 (0.77%) Accessibility
11 24 (0.71%) HIPAA
11 24 (0.71%) JSP 440
12 22 (0.65%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 21 (0.62%) GRC
14 20 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
15 14 (0.42%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 14 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 12 (0.36%) SLA
17 11 (0.33%) ISO 20022
18 10 (0.30%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 139 (4.14%) Active Directory
2 127 (3.78%) Docker
3 97 (2.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.10%) vSphere
5 36 (1.07%) VMware NSX
6 22 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
7 18 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
8 16 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
9 13 (0.39%) Hyper-V
10 12 (0.36%) NFS
11 5 (0.15%) Lustre
12 4 (0.12%) Dovecot
12 4 (0.12%) Postfix
12 4 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 3 (0.089%) BitLocker
13 3 (0.089%) Ceph
13 3 (0.089%) GPFS
13 3 (0.089%) KVM
13 3 (0.089%) Oracle RAC
14 2 (0.060%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 266 (7.91%) Terraform
2 198 (5.89%) Kubernetes
3 102 (3.03%) Ansible
4 46 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.98%) OPNET
6 26 (0.77%) Prometheus
7 24 (0.71%) Grafana
7 24 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
8 21 (0.62%) SCCM
9 19 (0.57%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 14 (0.42%) WMI
12 10 (0.30%) Argo
13 6 (0.18%) FortiGate
13 6 (0.18%) Kibana
14 3 (0.089%) Istio
14 3 (0.089%) Puppet
14 3 (0.089%) Rancher
14 3 (0.089%) RSA Archer
14 3 (0.089%) vRealize
Vendors
1 502 (14.94%) Microsoft
2 200 (5.95%) SAP
3 195 (5.80%) ServiceNow
4 177 (5.27%) Oracle
4 177 (5.27%) Salesforce
5 152 (4.52%) VMware
6 125 (3.72%) Cisco
7 98 (2.92%) Databricks
8 81 (2.41%) Google
9 59 (1.76%) CyberArk
10 56 (1.67%) Fortinet
11 54 (1.61%) Palo Alto
11 54 (1.61%) Splunk
12 50 (1.49%) Workday
13 48 (1.43%) MuleSoft
13 48 (1.43%) Remedy
14 43 (1.28%) IBM
15 39 (1.16%) Atlassian
15 39 (1.16%) Pega
16 38 (1.13%) Juniper