Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £620, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 April 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +5 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,100 2,893 4,488
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.98% 9.79% 10.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.89% 10.57% 11.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,345 1,903 2,878
10th Percentile £463 £480 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.52%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £610 £603 £650
% change year-on-year +1.20% -7.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 120 38 67
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.60 £59.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £69.72 £68.75 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.41% -14.06% +14.29%
75th Percentile £83.25 £80.44 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.58 £90.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £80.00
% change year-on-year -1.70% -9.38% +14.29%

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 42,897 27,359 40,498
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.62% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,528 17,903 26,435
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,745 1,021 2,635
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £29.23 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year +45.40% -17.66% -21.11%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.43 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £28.75 £37.50
% change year-on-year +53.04% -23.33% -11.76%

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 24 April 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 24 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Architect in the UK

Architect
Top 17 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 24 April 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 +5 4,355 £625 - 736
UK excluding London +8 2,354 £610 +1.20% 534
London +3 2,018 £625 -3.85% 285
Work from Home +3 1,398 £600 -0.25% 386
South East +4 702 £625 - 147
North of England +6 621 £600 - 123
Midlands +3 405 £580 -3.42% 102
North West +9 364 £605 +0.83% 67
South West +1 299 £693 +15.42% 79
West Midlands 0 298 £605 +0.83% 73
Yorkshire +6 230 £558 -8.90% 38
East of England +18 197 £563 -6.25% 57
Scotland +16 138 £650 +4.00% 7
East Midlands -3 101 £513 -6.82% 29
North East +3 36 £575 -7.95% 18
Wales -10 24 £600 +25.00% 22
Northern Ireland +9 10 £488 -26.42% 9

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 April 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 1,600 (31.37%) Security Cleared
2 1,215 (23.82%) Azure
3 1,146 (22.47%) SC Cleared
4 1,077 (21.12%) AWS
5 721 (14.14%) Roadmaps
6 694 (13.61%) Microsoft
7 676 (13.25%) Migration
8 634 (12.43%) Agile
9 571 (11.20%) Stakeholder Management
10 564 (11.06%) DevOps
11 535 (10.49%) CI/CD
12 525 (10.29%) Enterprise Architecture
13 476 (9.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 463 (9.08%) Technical Leadership
15 460 (9.02%) AI
16 459 (9.00%) Data Modelling
17 437 (8.57%) TOGAF
18 428 (8.39%) Analytics
19 424 (8.31%) Integration Patterns
20 394 (7.73%) GCP
21 389 (7.63%) Data Architecture
22 380 (7.45%) Architectural Patterns
22 380 (7.45%) Problem-Solving
23 369 (7.24%) Microservices
24 352 (6.90%) Python
25 335 (6.57%) Architectural Design
26 328 (6.43%) DV Cleared
27 312 (6.12%) ServiceNow
28 308 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
29 293 (5.75%) 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
1 127 (2.49%) SharePoint
2 108 (2.12%) Confluence
3 62 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (0.57%) SAS
5 25 (0.49%) Apache
5 25 (0.49%) Apache Spark
6 22 (0.43%) CMS
7 18 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.31%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.31%) Appian
9 15 (0.29%) nginx
9 15 (0.29%) WebLogic
10 14 (0.27%) ArcGIS
11 11 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 10 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 10 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.14%) Camunda
13 7 (0.14%) Ethereum
13 7 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.14%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 48 (0.94%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
3 24 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
5 17 (0.33%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.12%) Navisworks
6 6 (0.12%) Revit
7 4 (0.078%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.059%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.039%) PlantUML
9 2 (0.039%) Windchill
10 1 (0.020%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.020%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.020%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.020%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 124 (2.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (0.90%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
4 20 (0.39%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 15 (0.29%) SAP ERP
7 13 (0.25%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.24%) SAP EWM
9 11 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
10 10 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 9 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
12 8 (0.16%) SAP PP
13 7 (0.14%) Maximo
13 7 (0.14%) NetSuite
13 7 (0.14%) R3 Corda
13 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
13 7 (0.14%) SAP PM
13 7 (0.14%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,215 (23.82%) Azure
2 1,077 (21.12%) AWS
3 394 (7.73%) GCP
4 217 (4.25%) Power Platform
5 184 (3.61%) Serverless
6 183 (3.59%) Entra ID
7 166 (3.25%) SaaS
8 141 (2.76%) Microsoft 365
9 116 (2.27%) GitHub
10 108 (2.12%) PaaS
11 106 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
12 105 (2.06%) IaaS
13 99 (1.94%) Azure DevOps
14 92 (1.80%) AWS Lambda
15 80 (1.57%) Amazon S3
15 80 (1.57%) OpenShift
16 75 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
16 75 (1.47%) Snowflake
17 70 (1.37%) Microsoft Purview
18 68 (1.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 220 (4.31%) Firewall
2 175 (3.43%) Network Security
3 133 (2.61%) WAN
4 120 (2.35%) VPN
5 117 (2.29%) DNS
6 85 (1.67%) LAN
7 74 (1.45%) SD-WAN
8 37 (0.73%) BGP
9 33 (0.65%) DHCP
10 29 (0.57%) OSPF
10 29 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
11 27 (0.53%) TCP/IP
12 26 (0.51%) MPLS
12 26 (0.51%) VLAN
13 24 (0.47%) SAN
14 21 (0.41%) NAS
14 21 (0.41%) Wireless
15 20 (0.39%) BIG-IP
15 20 (0.39%) VXLAN
16 19 (0.37%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (3.18%) Power BI
2 139 (2.73%) Metadata
3 137 (2.69%) Data Warehouse
4 128 (2.51%) Data Lake
5 82 (1.61%) SQL Server
6 66 (1.29%) NoSQL
7 60 (1.18%) PostgreSQL
8 54 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
9 48 (0.94%) Tableau
10 38 (0.75%) Big Data
11 37 (0.73%) Amazon Redshift
11 37 (0.73%) Oracle Database
12 27 (0.53%) Delta Lake
13 26 (0.51%) Relational Database
14 25 (0.49%) BigQuery
15 23 (0.45%) Amazon Athena
15 23 (0.45%) DynamoDB
16 22 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
16 22 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
16 22 (0.43%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 122 (2.39%) JIRA
2 90 (1.76%) Jenkins
3 53 (1.04%) Git
4 48 (0.94%) GitLab
5 21 (0.41%) ERwin
6 13 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.22%) MLflow
8 10 (0.20%) Artifactory
9 6 (0.12%) Postman
9 6 (0.12%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.098%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.098%) JUnit
10 5 (0.098%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.098%) Selenium
10 5 (0.098%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.078%) Snyk
11 4 (0.078%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.059%) Claude Code
12 3 (0.059%) ER Studio
General
1 1,012 (19.84%) Social Skills
2 765 (15.00%) Finance
3 566 (11.10%) Public Sector
4 317 (6.22%) Analytical Skills
5 296 (5.80%) Banking
6 152 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
7 132 (2.59%) Retail
8 117 (2.29%) Legal
9 113 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
10 90 (1.76%) Military
11 86 (1.69%) Telecoms
12 72 (1.41%) Manufacturing
13 71 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
14 63 (1.24%) Law
15 62 (1.22%) Marketing
16 44 (0.86%) Financial Institution
17 35 (0.69%) Investment Banking
18 34 (0.67%) Billing
19 31 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 29 (0.57%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 248 (4.86%) REST
2 185 (3.63%) Middleware
3 131 (2.57%) SOAP
4 116 (2.27%) .NET
5 109 (2.14%) Kafka
6 88 (1.73%) OpenID
7 85 (1.67%) LDAP
8 80 (1.57%) OAuth
9 61 (1.20%) SAML
10 57 (1.12%) JSON
11 52 (1.02%) React
12 47 (0.92%) OAuth2
13 43 (0.84%) RESTful
14 40 (0.78%) Oracle Fusion
15 39 (0.76%) AngularJS
16 38 (0.75%) Web Services
17 37 (0.73%) SailPoint
18 32 (0.63%) Spring
19 30 (0.59%) PySpark
20 28 (0.55%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 416 (8.16%) Cloud Native
2 166 (3.25%) Data Centre
3 146 (2.86%) Product Ownership
4 135 (2.65%) Onboarding
5 123 (2.41%) Management Information System
6 121 (2.37%) Legacy Systems
7 116 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
8 107 (2.10%) Distributed Systems
9 98 (1.92%) Hybrid Cloud
10 97 (1.90%) Public Cloud
11 81 (1.59%) Security Posture
12 79 (1.55%) PKI
13 74 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
14 72 (1.41%) CMDB
15 65 (1.27%) Operational Technology
16 52 (1.02%) AI Agents
17 46 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
18 45 (0.88%) Private Cloud
19 44 (0.86%) NHS
20 43 (0.84%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 180 (3.53%) Windows
2 119 (2.33%) Linux
3 41 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 32 (0.63%) Android
4 32 (0.63%) Apple iOS
4 32 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.33%) Unix
6 14 (0.27%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.25%) VMS
8 12 (0.24%) Windows 7
8 12 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
9 11 (0.22%) zOS
10 9 (0.18%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.059%) CentOS
11 3 (0.059%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.059%) Solaris
11 3 (0.059%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.039%) AIX
12 2 (0.039%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 721 (14.14%) Roadmaps
2 676 (13.25%) Migration
3 634 (12.43%) Agile
4 571 (11.20%) Stakeholder Management
5 564 (11.06%) DevOps
6 535 (10.49%) CI/CD
7 525 (10.29%) Enterprise Architecture
8 476 (9.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 463 (9.08%) Technical Leadership
10 460 (9.02%) AI
11 459 (9.00%) Data Modelling
12 437 (8.57%) TOGAF
13 428 (8.39%) Analytics
14 424 (8.31%) Integration Patterns
15 389 (7.63%) Data Architecture
16 380 (7.45%) Architectural Patterns
16 380 (7.45%) Problem-Solving
17 369 (7.24%) Microservices
18 335 (6.57%) Architectural Design
19 308 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 352 (6.90%) Python
2 271 (5.31%) SQL
3 206 (4.04%) Java
4 186 (3.65%) PowerShell
5 80 (1.57%) JavaScript
6 68 (1.33%) C#
7 47 (0.92%) Bicep
8 37 (0.73%) Bash
9 34 (0.67%) TypeScript
10 22 (0.43%) Ruby
11 18 (0.35%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.33%) Apex Code
13 16 (0.31%) Scala
14 13 (0.25%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.20%) R
15 10 (0.20%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.20%) T-SQL
16 9 (0.18%) ABAP
17 8 (0.16%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,600 (31.37%) Security Cleared
2 1,146 (22.47%) SC Cleared
3 328 (6.43%) DV Cleared
4 212 (4.16%) Degree
5 129 (2.53%) TOGAF Certification
6 126 (2.47%) Azure Certification
7 116 (2.27%) AWS Certification
8 115 (2.25%) CISSP
9 91 (1.78%) Cisco Certification
10 89 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
11 85 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
12 63 (1.24%) CISM
13 55 (1.08%) Master's Degree
14 53 (1.04%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 50 (0.98%) CCNP
15 50 (0.98%) Microsoft Certification
16 35 (0.69%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 33 (0.65%) ISEB
17 33 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
18 25 (0.49%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 188 (3.69%) GDPR
1 188 (3.69%) NIST
2 152 (2.98%) Data Quality
3 150 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 104 (2.04%) NCSC
5 62 (1.22%) QA
6 48 (0.94%) PCI DSS
7 41 (0.80%) COBIT
8 33 (0.65%) GRC
9 32 (0.63%) ISO 20022
10 28 (0.55%) Accessibility
11 25 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.39%) SEPA
13 18 (0.35%) HL7
13 18 (0.35%) NIST 800
13 18 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 17 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 16 (0.31%) JSP 440
16 14 (0.27%) SLA
17 13 (0.25%) HIPAA
System Software
1 198 (3.88%) Active Directory
2 114 (2.24%) Docker
3 102 (2.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 71 (1.39%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.65%) vSphere
6 25 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.33%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.22%) Varnish
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
11 10 (0.20%) vCloud
12 9 (0.18%) Squid
13 8 (0.16%) NFS
14 7 (0.14%) BitLocker
15 5 (0.098%) Postfix
15 5 (0.098%) RACF
16 4 (0.078%) Firmware
17 3 (0.059%) IAG
17 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 281 (5.51%) Terraform
2 240 (4.71%) Kubernetes
3 111 (2.18%) Ansible
4 53 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.82%) Grafana
6 40 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.65%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.59%) OPNET
8 30 (0.59%) vCenter Server
9 29 (0.57%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.43%) SCCM
11 17 (0.33%) Argo
12 16 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 12 (0.24%) Istio
14 11 (0.22%) WMI
15 8 (0.16%) Puppet
16 7 (0.14%) Consul
17 6 (0.12%) Kibana
18 5 (0.098%) HAProxy
18 5 (0.098%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 694 (13.61%) Microsoft
2 312 (6.12%) ServiceNow
3 291 (5.71%) SAP
4 212 (4.16%) Oracle
5 195 (3.82%) VMware
6 191 (3.75%) Salesforce
7 185 (3.63%) Databricks
8 133 (2.61%) Cisco
9 113 (2.22%) Google
10 85 (1.67%) CyberArk
11 69 (1.35%) MuleSoft
12 64 (1.25%) Splunk
13 57 (1.12%) Red Hat
14 56 (1.10%) Workday
15 54 (1.06%) Palo Alto
16 48 (0.94%) IBM
16 48 (0.94%) Remedy
17 47 (0.92%) Sparx
18 46 (0.90%) Ariba
18 46 (0.90%) OpenAI