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 7 May 2026.

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

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +5 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,248 2,884 4,452
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.00% 9.85% 10.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.93% 10.64% 11.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,450 1,882 2,841
10th Percentile £463 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -0.42%
75th Percentile £725 £714 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 131 36 85
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.00 £58.50
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.77% +1.79% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.00 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.64 £91.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.91 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.84% +4.15% -

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 43,991 27,101 40,252
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.23% 92.53% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,021 17,685 26,221
10th Percentile £316 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,853 1,051 2,676
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.69 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.66% -20.55% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.50 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £28.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +60.71% -30.00% -5.11%

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 7 May 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 7 May 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 7 May 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 +6 4,490 £625 - 1,234
UK excluding London +8 2,399 £613 +2.08% 880
London +3 2,115 £625 -1.38% 484
Work from Home +4 1,421 £600 - 594
South East +5 714 £625 - 217
North of England +3 627 £600 - 217
Midlands 0 430 £596 -0.69% 126
North West +4 356 £609 +1.50% 122
West Midlands -2 314 £610 +1.71% 76
South West +1 298 £700 +16.67% 123
Yorkshire +8 235 £555 -7.58% 61
East of England +20 202 £563 -6.25% 93
Scotland +12 141 £650 +4.00% 40
East Midlands -2 110 £531 -1.62% 50
North East +10 44 £575 -7.95% 34
Wales -12 22 £600 +25.00% 51
Northern Ireland +8 9 £475 -28.30% 20

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 7 May 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 1,610 (30.68%) Security Cleared
2 1,250 (23.82%) Azure
3 1,157 (22.05%) SC Cleared
4 1,093 (20.83%) AWS
5 724 (13.80%) Roadmaps
6 695 (13.24%) Microsoft
7 684 (13.03%) Migration
8 627 (11.95%) Agile
9 574 (10.94%) DevOps
9 574 (10.94%) Stakeholder Management
10 552 (10.52%) CI/CD
11 526 (10.02%) Enterprise Architecture
12 491 (9.36%) AI
13 464 (8.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 462 (8.80%) Data Modelling
15 459 (8.75%) Technical Leadership
16 442 (8.42%) TOGAF
17 437 (8.33%) Integration Patterns
18 432 (8.23%) Analytics
19 398 (7.58%) Architectural Patterns
19 398 (7.58%) GCP
20 395 (7.53%) Data Architecture
21 382 (7.28%) Microservices
22 366 (6.97%) Problem-Solving
23 352 (6.71%) Python
24 337 (6.42%) Architectural Design
25 334 (6.36%) DV Cleared
26 321 (6.12%) ServiceNow
27 312 (5.95%) SAP
28 309 (5.89%) Infrastructure as Code

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
1 125 (2.38%) SharePoint
2 110 (2.10%) Confluence
3 57 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (0.55%) Apache
5 28 (0.53%) Apache Spark
6 25 (0.48%) SAS
7 19 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
7 19 (0.36%) CMS
8 16 (0.30%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.30%) Appian
9 15 (0.29%) nginx
9 15 (0.29%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.25%) OpenStack
10 13 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 12 (0.23%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 8 (0.15%) Camunda
14 7 (0.13%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.13%) Hyperledger
14 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 45 (0.86%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
3 20 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
7 4 (0.076%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.057%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.057%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.038%) Windchill
10 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 139 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 50 (0.95%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
4 19 (0.36%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
6 16 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
7 15 (0.29%) SAP ERP
8 14 (0.27%) Teamcenter
9 11 (0.21%) SAP EWM
10 10 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
10 10 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
10 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
11 9 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
12 8 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
12 8 (0.15%) SAP MDG
12 8 (0.15%) SAP PP
12 8 (0.15%) SAP QM
13 7 (0.13%) R3 Corda
13 7 (0.13%) SAP PM
14 6 (0.11%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 1,250 (23.82%) Azure
2 1,093 (20.83%) AWS
3 398 (7.58%) GCP
4 227 (4.33%) Power Platform
5 185 (3.53%) Serverless
6 181 (3.45%) Entra ID
7 168 (3.20%) SaaS
8 138 (2.63%) Microsoft 365
9 120 (2.29%) GitHub
10 111 (2.12%) PaaS
11 103 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
11 103 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
12 91 (1.73%) IaaS
13 90 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
14 79 (1.51%) Amazon S3
15 78 (1.49%) Snowflake
16 77 (1.47%) OpenShift
17 72 (1.37%) AWS CloudFormation
18 69 (1.31%) Microsoft Purview
19 65 (1.24%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 212 (4.04%) Firewall
2 175 (3.33%) Network Security
3 125 (2.38%) WAN
4 116 (2.21%) VPN
5 112 (2.13%) DNS
6 84 (1.60%) LAN
7 68 (1.30%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.74%) BGP
9 30 (0.57%) DHCP
10 29 (0.55%) OSPF
11 28 (0.53%) TCP/IP
12 27 (0.51%) MPLS
13 25 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
14 24 (0.46%) SAN
15 23 (0.44%) VLAN
16 22 (0.42%) Wireless
17 21 (0.40%) NAS
18 20 (0.38%) BIG-IP
18 20 (0.38%) VXLAN
19 18 (0.34%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (3.22%) Power BI
2 137 (2.61%) Metadata
3 132 (2.52%) Data Lake
4 128 (2.44%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.43%) SQL Server
6 64 (1.22%) NoSQL
7 63 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
8 53 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.80%) Tableau
10 39 (0.74%) Big Data
11 35 (0.67%) Oracle Database
12 32 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
13 30 (0.57%) Delta Lake
14 27 (0.51%) BigQuery
15 24 (0.46%) Relational Database
16 23 (0.44%) GIS
17 22 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
17 22 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
17 22 (0.42%) DynamoDB
17 22 (0.42%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 124 (2.36%) JIRA
2 91 (1.73%) Jenkins
3 64 (1.22%) Git
4 53 (1.01%) GitLab
5 22 (0.42%) ERwin
6 15 (0.29%) Artifactory
6 15 (0.29%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.21%) MLflow
8 9 (0.17%) Postman
9 6 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
9 6 (0.11%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.095%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.095%) JUnit
10 5 (0.095%) Maven
10 5 (0.095%) MSI
10 5 (0.095%) Selenium
10 5 (0.095%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.076%) Hudson
11 4 (0.076%) Terragrunt
General
1 998 (19.02%) Social Skills
2 777 (14.81%) Finance
3 557 (10.61%) Public Sector
4 293 (5.58%) Banking
5 286 (5.45%) Analytical Skills
6 148 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
7 139 (2.65%) Retail
8 128 (2.44%) Legal
9 113 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
10 94 (1.79%) Telecoms
11 86 (1.64%) Military
12 83 (1.58%) Manufacturing
13 67 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
14 63 (1.20%) Law
15 62 (1.18%) Marketing
16 51 (0.97%) Billing
17 43 (0.82%) Financial Institution
18 36 (0.69%) Investment Banking
19 35 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 31 (0.59%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 246 (4.69%) REST
2 200 (3.81%) Middleware
3 130 (2.48%) SOAP
4 118 (2.25%) .NET
5 112 (2.13%) Kafka
6 87 (1.66%) OpenID
7 85 (1.62%) LDAP
8 81 (1.54%) OAuth
9 62 (1.18%) SAML
10 51 (0.97%) React
11 50 (0.95%) OAuth2
12 44 (0.84%) JSON
13 43 (0.82%) Oracle Fusion
13 43 (0.82%) RESTful
14 42 (0.80%) SailPoint
15 39 (0.74%) AngularJS
16 37 (0.71%) Web Services
17 31 (0.59%) Node.js
17 31 (0.59%) PySpark
18 29 (0.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 422 (8.04%) Cloud Native
2 172 (3.28%) Data Centre
3 149 (2.84%) Product Ownership
4 136 (2.59%) Onboarding
5 130 (2.48%) Management Information System
6 115 (2.19%) Legacy Systems
7 112 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
8 108 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
9 102 (1.94%) Hybrid Cloud
10 98 (1.87%) Public Cloud
11 88 (1.68%) Security Posture
12 78 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
13 77 (1.47%) Operational Technology
14 71 (1.35%) CMDB
15 63 (1.20%) AI Agents
16 57 (1.09%) PKI
17 45 (0.86%) Data Structures
18 43 (0.82%) NHS
18 43 (0.82%) Private Cloud
19 41 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 174 (3.32%) Windows
2 118 (2.25%) Linux
3 38 (0.72%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.63%) Android
4 33 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 30 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (0.44%) Unix
7 14 (0.27%) VMS
8 11 (0.21%) Windows 10
8 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (0.21%) zOS
9 9 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.17%) Windows 7
10 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.057%) CentOS
11 3 (0.057%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.057%) Solaris
11 3 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.038%) AIX
12 2 (0.038%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 724 (13.80%) Roadmaps
2 684 (13.03%) Migration
3 627 (11.95%) Agile
4 574 (10.94%) DevOps
4 574 (10.94%) Stakeholder Management
5 552 (10.52%) CI/CD
6 526 (10.02%) Enterprise Architecture
7 491 (9.36%) AI
8 464 (8.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 462 (8.80%) Data Modelling
10 459 (8.75%) Technical Leadership
11 442 (8.42%) TOGAF
12 437 (8.33%) Integration Patterns
13 432 (8.23%) Analytics
14 398 (7.58%) Architectural Patterns
15 395 (7.53%) Data Architecture
16 382 (7.28%) Microservices
17 366 (6.97%) Problem-Solving
18 337 (6.42%) Architectural Design
19 309 (5.89%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 352 (6.71%) Python
2 276 (5.26%) SQL
3 206 (3.93%) Java
4 171 (3.26%) PowerShell
5 81 (1.54%) JavaScript
6 66 (1.26%) C#
7 50 (0.95%) Bicep
8 39 (0.74%) Bash
9 35 (0.67%) TypeScript
10 23 (0.44%) PL/SQL
10 23 (0.44%) Ruby
11 19 (0.36%) Apex Code
12 17 (0.32%) Scala
13 13 (0.25%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
14 11 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) ABAP
16 8 (0.15%) PHP
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,610 (30.68%) Security Cleared
2 1,157 (22.05%) SC Cleared
3 334 (6.36%) DV Cleared
4 215 (4.10%) Degree
5 130 (2.48%) TOGAF Certification
6 121 (2.31%) Azure Certification
7 117 (2.23%) CISSP
8 109 (2.08%) AWS Certification
9 99 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
10 92 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
11 85 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
12 61 (1.16%) CISM
13 58 (1.11%) Master's Degree
14 48 (0.91%) CCNP
14 48 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
15 46 (0.88%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 37 (0.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 23 (0.44%) CCIE
17 23 (0.44%) CCSP
17 23 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 190 (3.62%) NIST
2 185 (3.53%) GDPR
3 150 (2.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 149 (2.84%) Data Quality
5 107 (2.04%) NCSC
6 65 (1.24%) QA
7 47 (0.90%) PCI DSS
8 36 (0.69%) GRC
9 30 (0.57%) ISO 20022
10 28 (0.53%) COBIT
10 28 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
11 26 (0.50%) Accessibility
12 21 (0.40%) SEPA
13 18 (0.34%) NIST 800
14 17 (0.32%) HL7
14 17 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 13 (0.25%) FINRA
15 13 (0.25%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.25%) MiFID
16 12 (0.23%) PSD2
System Software
1 198 (3.77%) Active Directory
2 109 (2.08%) Docker
3 97 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 74 (1.41%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.61%) vSphere
6 28 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
7 20 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (0.34%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 12 (0.23%) Varnish
11 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 10 (0.19%) vCloud
12 9 (0.17%) NFS
12 9 (0.17%) Squid
13 6 (0.11%) Postfix
14 5 (0.095%) RACF
15 4 (0.076%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.076%) Firmware
15 4 (0.076%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.057%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 277 (5.28%) Terraform
2 239 (4.55%) Kubernetes
3 109 (2.08%) Ansible
4 51 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
5 43 (0.82%) Grafana
6 42 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.63%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.57%) OPNET
8 30 (0.57%) Prometheus
8 30 (0.57%) vCenter Server
9 21 (0.40%) SCCM
10 18 (0.34%) Argo
11 14 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.23%) Istio
13 11 (0.21%) WMI
14 8 (0.15%) Puppet
15 7 (0.13%) Consul
16 6 (0.11%) HAProxy
16 6 (0.11%) Kibana
16 6 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 695 (13.24%) Microsoft
2 321 (6.12%) ServiceNow
3 312 (5.95%) SAP
4 221 (4.21%) Oracle
5 198 (3.77%) Salesforce
6 194 (3.70%) Databricks
6 194 (3.70%) VMware
7 131 (2.50%) Cisco
8 113 (2.15%) Google
9 89 (1.70%) CyberArk
10 76 (1.45%) MuleSoft
11 68 (1.30%) Splunk
12 53 (1.01%) Red Hat
12 53 (1.01%) Workday
13 52 (0.99%) Sparx
14 51 (0.97%) Palo Alto
15 47 (0.90%) Remedy
16 45 (0.86%) IBM
17 44 (0.84%) Atlassian
17 44 (0.84%) OpenAI