Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £616, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 July 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 17 12
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,885 3,147 4,334
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.12% 9.67% 10.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.02% 10.55% 11.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,852 2,041 2,802
10th Percentile £475 £463 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £616 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.44% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 22 94
10th Percentile £47.70 £40.31 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.75 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £68.75 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.45% -1.79% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £85.50 £85.65
90th Percentile £96.36 £99.86 £88.00
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 48,955 29,836 39,186
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.53% 91.66% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,608 19,006 25,297
10th Percentile £325 £285 £288
25th Percentile £420 £400 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,284 1,415 2,570
10th Percentile £15.82 £13.75 £13.25
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £17.50
Median hourly rate £43.69 £25.30 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +72.69% -36.75% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £55.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.72
% change year-on-year +78.93% -38.24% +4.34%

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 July 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 18 July 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 18 July 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 4,942 £618 -1.20% 1,036
UK excluding London +7 2,507 £620 +3.33% 578
London +5 2,483 £620 -4.62% 554
Work from Home +3 1,630 £600 -0.46% 464
North of England +7 722 £600 - 150
South East 0 716 £630 +5.00% 182
Midlands -2 415 £620 +7.83% 82
North West +1 384 £610 +1.67% 82
West Midlands -3 299 £626 +4.25% 58
South West -1 288 £625 +0.24% 72
Yorkshire +9 267 £600 - 37
East of England +19 185 £600 - 44
Scotland +9 172 £650 +4.00% 35
East Midlands +6 109 £600 +20.00% 24
North East +4 79 £600 -15.79% 31
Wales +2 32 £600 +11.11% 14
Northern Ireland +4 7 £475 -32.14% 8
Channel Islands +1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 July 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 1,772 (30.11%) Security Cleared
2 1,457 (24.76%) Azure
3 1,334 (22.67%) SC Cleared
4 1,303 (22.14%) AWS
5 871 (14.80%) Roadmaps
6 809 (13.75%) Migration
7 779 (13.24%) Stakeholder Management
8 743 (12.63%) Microsoft
9 692 (11.76%) Agile
10 682 (11.59%) AI
11 659 (11.20%) Enterprise Architecture
12 640 (10.88%) DevOps
13 615 (10.45%) CI/CD
14 601 (10.21%) Data Modelling
15 572 (9.72%) Technical Leadership
16 570 (9.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 549 (9.33%) Integration Patterns
18 545 (9.26%) Data Architecture
19 500 (8.50%) Analytics
20 499 (8.48%) TOGAF
21 492 (8.36%) Architectural Patterns
22 443 (7.53%) Microservices
23 440 (7.48%) GCP
24 393 (6.68%) Security Architecture
25 383 (6.51%) Problem-Solving
26 368 (6.25%) Event-Driven
27 366 (6.22%) Infrastructure as Code
28 365 (6.20%) Architectural Design
29 362 (6.15%) Cybersecurity
30 345 (5.86%) 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 99 (1.68%) SharePoint
2 74 (1.26%) Confluence
3 64 (1.09%) SAS
4 43 (0.73%) Apache
5 42 (0.71%) Apache Spark
6 41 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
7 32 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.37%) CMS
8 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.31%) Appian
10 15 (0.25%) nginx
11 13 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 10 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 10 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.17%) WebLogic
13 9 (0.15%) Camunda
14 7 (0.12%) Anypoint
14 7 (0.12%) Documentum
15 6 (0.10%) JBoss
15 6 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 22 (0.37%) MS Visio
2 14 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.17%) Chatbot
5 9 (0.15%) Microsoft Office
6 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.12%) Revit
6 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.051%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.051%) Windchill
8 1 (0.017%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 155 (2.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 34 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
5 21 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
6 17 (0.29%) SAP ERP
7 16 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
7 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
8 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) NetSuite
11 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.14%) Maximo
12 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.14%) SAP MDG
13 7 (0.12%) SAP GRC
14 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
14 6 (0.10%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,457 (24.76%) Azure
2 1,303 (22.14%) AWS
3 440 (7.48%) GCP
4 286 (4.86%) Power Platform
5 212 (3.60%) SaaS
6 204 (3.47%) Entra ID
7 202 (3.43%) Serverless
8 137 (2.33%) GitHub
9 128 (2.18%) PaaS
10 122 (2.07%) Microsoft 365
11 120 (2.04%) Dynamics 365
12 107 (1.82%) Azure DevOps
12 107 (1.82%) Snowflake
13 99 (1.68%) AWS Lambda
14 95 (1.61%) IaaS
15 89 (1.51%) Amazon S3
16 71 (1.21%) OpenShift
17 68 (1.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 67 (1.14%) Amazon EKS
18 67 (1.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 220 (3.74%) Firewall
2 195 (3.31%) Network Security
3 115 (1.95%) VPN
4 112 (1.90%) DNS
5 109 (1.85%) WAN
6 80 (1.36%) LAN
7 56 (0.95%) SD-WAN
8 50 (0.85%) BGP
8 50 (0.85%) TCP/IP
9 44 (0.75%) DHCP
10 39 (0.66%) MPLS
11 37 (0.63%) VLAN
12 33 (0.56%) OSPF
12 33 (0.56%) Wireless
13 30 (0.51%) SAN
14 28 (0.48%) IPsec
15 27 (0.46%) NAS
16 25 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
17 23 (0.39%) VXLAN
18 21 (0.36%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 198 (3.36%) Power BI
2 182 (3.09%) Data Lake
3 180 (3.06%) Metadata
4 171 (2.91%) Data Warehouse
5 78 (1.33%) NoSQL
6 64 (1.09%) SQL Server
7 61 (1.04%) PostgreSQL
8 51 (0.87%) Big Data
9 46 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
10 41 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
11 40 (0.68%) Oracle Database
12 39 (0.66%) BigQuery
13 30 (0.51%) Delta Lake
14 29 (0.49%) Amazon Redshift
15 25 (0.42%) GIS
15 25 (0.42%) Relational Database
16 24 (0.41%) Elasticsearch
16 24 (0.41%) MongoDB
16 24 (0.41%) Semantic Layer
17 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 100 (1.70%) JIRA
2 75 (1.27%) Jenkins
3 73 (1.24%) Git
4 34 (0.58%) GitLab
5 26 (0.44%) ERwin
6 12 (0.20%) SonarQube
7 9 (0.15%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.15%) Bitbucket
8 8 (0.14%) MLflow
8 8 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
9 7 (0.12%) Cypress.io
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
10 6 (0.10%) Claude Code
10 6 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
10 6 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.085%) Maven
11 5 (0.085%) REST Assured
12 4 (0.068%) ER Studio
12 4 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 1,103 (18.74%) Social Skills
2 894 (15.19%) Finance
3 669 (11.37%) Public Sector
4 341 (5.79%) Banking
5 315 (5.35%) Analytical Skills
6 234 (3.98%) Retail
7 158 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
8 144 (2.45%) Influencing Skills
9 128 (2.18%) Telecoms
10 120 (2.04%) Legal
11 109 (1.85%) Manufacturing
12 60 (1.02%) Marketing
13 58 (0.99%) Billing
14 51 (0.87%) Financial Institution
15 50 (0.85%) Military
16 45 (0.76%) Law
17 43 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
18 42 (0.71%) Aerospace
19 39 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 31 (0.53%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 283 (4.81%) REST
2 209 (3.55%) Middleware
3 136 (2.31%) .NET
4 134 (2.28%) Kafka
5 125 (2.12%) SOAP
6 114 (1.94%) OAuth
7 87 (1.48%) OpenID
8 72 (1.22%) Oracle Fusion
9 71 (1.21%) SAML
10 61 (1.04%) OAuth2
11 57 (0.97%) React
12 52 (0.88%) JSON
12 52 (0.88%) RESTful
13 50 (0.85%) LDAP
14 47 (0.80%) SailPoint
15 40 (0.68%) Web Services
16 38 (0.65%) PySpark
17 37 (0.63%) Node.js
18 36 (0.61%) .NET Framework
19 35 (0.59%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 494 (8.39%) Cloud Native
2 204 (3.47%) Data Centre
3 172 (2.92%) Management Information System
4 161 (2.74%) Onboarding
5 148 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
5 148 (2.51%) Product Ownership
6 134 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
6 134 (2.28%) Hybrid Cloud
7 111 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
8 101 (1.72%) AI Agents
9 96 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
10 92 (1.56%) Operational Technology
11 88 (1.50%) CMDB
12 87 (1.48%) Public Cloud
13 64 (1.09%) Enterprise Cloud
13 64 (1.09%) Security Posture
14 51 (0.87%) Data Structures
15 48 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
16 46 (0.78%) IoT
16 46 (0.78%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 138 (2.34%) Windows
2 103 (1.75%) Linux
3 46 (0.78%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.58%) Android
5 33 (0.56%) Apple iOS
6 25 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 21 (0.36%) Unix
8 12 (0.20%) zOS
9 8 (0.14%) AIX
9 8 (0.14%) VMS
10 6 (0.10%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.085%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.085%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.068%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.068%) Mac OS
12 4 (0.068%) Solaris
12 4 (0.068%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.034%) CentOS
13 2 (0.034%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.017%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 871 (14.80%) Roadmaps
2 809 (13.75%) Migration
3 779 (13.24%) Stakeholder Management
4 692 (11.76%) Agile
5 682 (11.59%) AI
6 659 (11.20%) Enterprise Architecture
7 640 (10.88%) DevOps
8 615 (10.45%) CI/CD
9 601 (10.21%) Data Modelling
10 572 (9.72%) Technical Leadership
11 570 (9.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 549 (9.33%) Integration Patterns
13 545 (9.26%) Data Architecture
14 500 (8.50%) Analytics
15 499 (8.48%) TOGAF
16 492 (8.36%) Architectural Patterns
17 443 (7.53%) Microservices
18 393 (6.68%) Security Architecture
19 383 (6.51%) Problem-Solving
20 368 (6.25%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 311 (5.28%) Python
2 287 (4.88%) SQL
3 267 (4.54%) Java
4 125 (2.12%) JavaScript
5 103 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 67 (1.14%) C#
7 58 (0.99%) Bicep
8 48 (0.82%) Bash
9 45 (0.76%) TypeScript
10 29 (0.49%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.37%) Ruby
12 12 (0.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 12 (0.20%) Scala
12 12 (0.20%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.19%) ABAP
13 11 (0.19%) Kotlin
13 11 (0.19%) PL/SQL
14 10 (0.17%) Go
15 9 (0.15%) C++
15 9 (0.15%) R
Qualifications
1 1,772 (30.11%) Security Cleared
2 1,334 (22.67%) SC Cleared
3 332 (5.64%) DV Cleared
4 199 (3.38%) Degree
5 147 (2.50%) CISSP
6 131 (2.23%) Azure Certification
7 130 (2.21%) AWS Certification
8 116 (1.97%) Cisco Certification
9 108 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
10 92 (1.56%) TOGAF Certification
11 82 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
12 71 (1.21%) CISM
13 53 (0.90%) CCNP
14 50 (0.85%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 48 (0.82%) Master's Degree
16 43 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 43 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
17 35 (0.59%) CCSP
18 23 (0.39%) CCIE
19 22 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 203 (3.45%) NIST
2 197 (3.35%) Data Quality
3 186 (3.16%) GDPR
4 154 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 126 (2.14%) NCSC
6 63 (1.07%) QA
7 62 (1.05%) GRC
8 41 (0.70%) Accessibility
8 41 (0.70%) PCI DSS
9 30 (0.51%) NIST 800
10 29 (0.49%) ISO 20022
11 28 (0.48%) SEPA
12 26 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 20 (0.34%) IFRS
14 19 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
14 19 (0.32%) HL7
15 18 (0.31%) COBIT
16 14 (0.24%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.20%) SLA
18 11 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 170 (2.89%) Active Directory
2 126 (2.14%) Docker
3 89 (1.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 58 (0.99%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 24 (0.41%) vSphere
7 20 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
9 10 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.15%) Squid
11 8 (0.14%) NFS
12 7 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
12 7 (0.12%) Varnish
13 6 (0.10%) Postfix
13 6 (0.10%) vCloud
14 5 (0.085%) IAG
15 4 (0.068%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 4 (0.068%) RACF
15 4 (0.068%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.051%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 299 (5.08%) Kubernetes
2 287 (4.88%) Terraform
3 113 (1.92%) Ansible
4 61 (1.04%) Grafana
5 54 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
6 49 (0.83%) Prometheus
7 47 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
8 22 (0.37%) Argo
8 22 (0.37%) vCenter Server
9 18 (0.31%) FortiGate
10 16 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
11 15 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 10 (0.17%) Istio
13 8 (0.14%) SCCM
14 7 (0.12%) Consul
15 6 (0.10%) CASB
15 6 (0.10%) EMC VPLEX
15 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.085%) MOM
16 5 (0.085%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 743 (12.63%) Microsoft
2 345 (5.86%) SAP
3 313 (5.32%) ServiceNow
4 287 (4.88%) Oracle
5 252 (4.28%) Databricks
6 184 (3.13%) Salesforce
7 162 (2.75%) VMware
8 139 (2.36%) Google
9 132 (2.24%) Cisco
10 66 (1.12%) CyberArk
11 65 (1.10%) MuleSoft
12 62 (1.05%) Splunk
13 58 (0.99%) IBM
14 53 (0.90%) Red Hat
15 49 (0.83%) Ariba
15 49 (0.83%) Workday
16 48 (0.82%) Palo Alto
17 44 (0.75%) Foundry
18 40 (0.68%) OpenAI
19 39 (0.66%) F5