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 22 January 2026.

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

6 months to
22 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 3,609 3,165 4,207
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.55% 9.98% 9.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.44% 10.75% 10.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,427 1,899 2,752
10th Percentile £460 £485 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £738 £725
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 30 38
10th Percentile £49.40 £59.83 £59.18
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 £91.01 £81.83 £85.64
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.41 £72.50 £77.27
% change year-on-year +15.05% -6.17% +10.38%

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 34,562 29,431 40,133
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.43% 92.83% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,880 18,000 26,627
10th Percentile £300 £289 £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 £478 £500
% change year-on-year -0.58% -4.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,053 885 1,927
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £13.50
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.72
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -18.75% +14.29%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £62.96
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £74.37
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.41
% change year-on-year -22.62% -19.58% +34.71%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 3,137 £625 - 979
UK excluding London 0 1,758 £600 -4.00% 836
London -2 1,391 £650 - 336
Work from Home -4 1,034 £625 - 537
South East +8 564 £600 -4.00% 277
North of England -5 436 £570 -5.00% 190
Midlands -4 299 £574 -4.33% 87
North West -5 262 £575 -4.17% 105
South West -1 239 £710 +13.60% 97
West Midlands -4 212 £600 -3.42% 47
Yorkshire -11 163 £550 -8.33% 57
East of England +6 119 £525 -16.00% 96
Scotland 0 97 £650 +4.00% 75
East Midlands -1 85 £500 -13.79% 37
Wales 0 31 £625 +2.04% 34
North East -23 11 £575 -4.11% 28
Northern Ireland -10 5 £500 -16.67% 9
Channel Islands - 2 £625 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 22 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 1,113 (30.84%) Security Cleared
2 969 (26.85%) Azure
3 797 (22.08%) SC Cleared
4 751 (20.81%) AWS
5 528 (14.63%) Microsoft
6 511 (14.16%) Roadmaps
7 485 (13.44%) Stakeholder Management
8 476 (13.19%) Agile
9 447 (12.39%) Migration
10 398 (11.03%) DevOps
11 395 (10.94%) Enterprise Architecture
12 386 (10.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 365 (10.11%) TOGAF
14 363 (10.06%) Technical Leadership
15 361 (10.00%) Data Modelling
16 347 (9.61%) CI/CD
17 334 (9.25%) Problem-Solving
18 300 (8.31%) AI
19 296 (8.20%) Analytics
20 294 (8.15%) Python
21 287 (7.95%) GCP
22 261 (7.23%) Data Architecture
23 251 (6.95%) Microservices
24 244 (6.76%) Integration Patterns
25 238 (6.59%) DV Cleared
26 229 (6.35%) Terraform
27 222 (6.15%) Mentoring
28 220 (6.10%) Architectural Design
29 216 (5.99%) SAP
30 208 (5.76%) Cybersecurity

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
1 102 (2.83%) Confluence
2 84 (2.33%) SharePoint
3 52 (1.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.69%) SAS
5 21 (0.58%) CMS
5 21 (0.58%) OpenStack
6 16 (0.44%) 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 (0.19%) Ethereum
11 7 (0.19%) GeoServer
11 7 (0.19%) Hyperledger
11 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
11 7 (0.19%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.17%) Mule
12 6 (0.17%) Tomcat
13 5 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 48 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
3 31 (0.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 31 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (0.50%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.11%) Siemens NX
6 3 (0.083%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.083%) 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
1 110 (3.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 32 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.64%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.50%) Salesforce CRM
6 15 (0.42%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
7 13 (0.36%) SAP CO
8 12 (0.33%) Maximo
8 12 (0.33%) SAP FI
8 12 (0.33%) SAP PM
9 11 (0.30%) SAP FI/CO
10 9 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
10 9 (0.25%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.22%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.22%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.19%) Distributed Ledger
12 7 (0.19%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.19%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 969 (26.85%) Azure
2 751 (20.81%) AWS
3 287 (7.95%) GCP
4 138 (3.82%) Power Platform
5 137 (3.80%) Serverless
6 129 (3.57%) SaaS
7 124 (3.44%) Microsoft 365
8 113 (3.13%) Entra ID
9 83 (2.30%) AWS Lambda
9 83 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
10 76 (2.11%) Dynamics 365
10 76 (2.11%) GitHub
10 76 (2.11%) IaaS
11 71 (1.97%) Microsoft Purview
12 68 (1.88%) Amazon S3
13 64 (1.77%) AWS CloudFormation
14 62 (1.72%) PaaS
15 59 (1.63%) Azure Data Factory
16 58 (1.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 58 (1.61%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 196 (5.43%) Firewall
2 136 (3.77%) WAN
3 109 (3.02%) Network Security
4 93 (2.58%) VPN
5 86 (2.38%) LAN
6 85 (2.36%) DNS
7 72 (2.00%) SD-WAN
8 41 (1.14%) BGP
9 31 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (0.78%) MPLS
11 25 (0.69%) DHCP
12 23 (0.64%) OSPF
13 22 (0.61%) Internet
13 22 (0.61%) SAN
14 21 (0.58%) VSAN
15 17 (0.47%) VLAN
16 15 (0.42%) IPsec
16 15 (0.42%) SSL
16 15 (0.42%) TCP/IP
17 14 (0.39%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 121 (3.35%) Data Warehouse
2 97 (2.69%) Power BI
3 89 (2.47%) Metadata
4 81 (2.24%) Data Lake
5 60 (1.66%) PostgreSQL
6 56 (1.55%) SQL Server
7 47 (1.30%) Tableau
8 42 (1.16%) Amazon Redshift
9 41 (1.14%) NoSQL
10 38 (1.05%) DynamoDB
11 34 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
12 28 (0.78%) Amazon Athena
12 28 (0.78%) Oracle Database
13 26 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
13 26 (0.72%) Redis
13 26 (0.72%) Relational Database
14 25 (0.69%) Amazon Aurora
15 21 (0.58%) Delta Lake
15 21 (0.58%) GIS
16 18 (0.50%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 116 (3.21%) JIRA
2 83 (2.30%) Jenkins
3 41 (1.14%) GitLab
4 39 (1.08%) 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 (0.083%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.083%) Selenium
10 3 (0.083%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 891 (24.69%) Social Skills
2 580 (16.07%) Finance
3 440 (12.19%) Public Sector
4 269 (7.45%) Analytical Skills
5 204 (5.65%) Banking
6 104 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
7 97 (2.69%) Legal
8 80 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
9 79 (2.19%) Telecoms
10 76 (2.11%) Retail
11 72 (2.00%) Military
12 69 (1.91%) Presentation Skills
13 68 (1.88%) Marketing
14 62 (1.72%) Manufacturing
15 42 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 37 (1.03%) Billing
17 31 (0.86%) Financial Institution
18 24 (0.67%) Law
19 22 (0.61%) Back Office
20 21 (0.58%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 185 (5.13%) REST
2 107 (2.96%) Middleware
3 106 (2.94%) SOAP
4 81 (2.24%) .NET
5 65 (1.80%) Kafka
6 59 (1.63%) LDAP
7 58 (1.61%) OAuth
8 52 (1.44%) OpenID
9 50 (1.39%) SAML
10 49 (1.36%) JSON
11 42 (1.16%) RESTful
12 35 (0.97%) OAuth2
13 31 (0.86%) AngularJS
13 31 (0.86%) PySpark
14 29 (0.80%) React
15 28 (0.78%) Spring Boot
16 27 (0.75%) Oracle Fusion
17 25 (0.69%) SailPoint
18 24 (0.67%) Node.js
19 23 (0.64%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 273 (7.56%) Cloud Native
2 133 (3.69%) Product Ownership
3 119 (3.30%) Data Centre
4 103 (2.85%) Legacy Systems
5 101 (2.80%) Onboarding
6 89 (2.47%) PKI
7 87 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
8 78 (2.16%) Hybrid Cloud
9 66 (1.83%) Security Posture
10 60 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
11 59 (1.63%) Public Cloud
12 58 (1.61%) Management Information System
13 54 (1.50%) Operational Technology
14 44 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
15 41 (1.14%) CMDB
15 41 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
16 38 (1.05%) NHS
17 37 (1.03%) Data Structures
18 31 (0.86%) Private Cloud
19 29 (0.80%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 160 (4.43%) Windows
2 105 (2.91%) Linux
3 43 (1.19%) Windows Server
4 31 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.50%) Windows 10
5 18 (0.50%) Windows 7
6 15 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
8 12 (0.33%) Unix
9 9 (0.25%) VMS
10 8 (0.22%) Mac OS
11 7 (0.19%) Android
11 7 (0.19%) Apple iOS
12 6 (0.17%) Ubuntu
13 5 (0.14%) zOS
14 4 (0.11%) CentOS
15 3 (0.083%) Solaris
15 3 (0.083%) Windows Server 2008
16 2 (0.055%) Windows Server 2012
17 1 (0.028%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 511 (14.16%) Roadmaps
2 485 (13.44%) Stakeholder Management
3 476 (13.19%) Agile
4 447 (12.39%) Migration
5 398 (11.03%) DevOps
6 395 (10.94%) Enterprise Architecture
7 386 (10.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 365 (10.11%) TOGAF
9 363 (10.06%) Technical Leadership
10 361 (10.00%) Data Modelling
11 347 (9.61%) CI/CD
12 334 (9.25%) Problem-Solving
13 300 (8.31%) AI
14 296 (8.20%) Analytics
15 261 (7.23%) Data Architecture
16 251 (6.95%) Microservices
17 244 (6.76%) Integration Patterns
18 222 (6.15%) Mentoring
19 220 (6.10%) Architectural Design
20 208 (5.76%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 294 (8.15%) Python
2 181 (5.02%) SQL
3 168 (4.66%) PowerShell
4 128 (3.55%) Java
5 53 (1.47%) JavaScript
6 45 (1.25%) C#
7 32 (0.89%) TypeScript
8 30 (0.83%) Bicep
9 29 (0.80%) Bash
10 21 (0.58%) PL/SQL
11 20 (0.55%) Apex Code
12 12 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
13 11 (0.30%) R
14 10 (0.28%) Ruby
14 10 (0.28%) T-SQL
15 9 (0.25%) ABAP
16 8 (0.22%) PHP
16 8 (0.22%) Scala
16 8 (0.22%) VB
17 7 (0.19%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,113 (30.84%) Security Cleared
2 797 (22.08%) SC Cleared
3 238 (6.59%) DV Cleared
4 176 (4.88%) Degree
5 106 (2.94%) AWS Certification
6 103 (2.85%) CISSP
7 100 (2.77%) TOGAF Certification
8 92 (2.55%) Azure Certification
9 64 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
9 64 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
10 61 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
11 57 (1.58%) Microsoft Certification
12 53 (1.47%) CISM
13 49 (1.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 46 (1.27%) Master's Degree
15 36 (1.00%) CCNP
16 34 (0.94%) CCIE
17 26 (0.72%) ISEB
17 26 (0.72%) ITIL Certification
18 20 (0.55%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 166 (4.60%) GDPR
2 145 (4.02%) NIST
3 131 (3.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 106 (2.94%) Data Quality
5 76 (2.11%) NCSC
6 56 (1.55%) QA
7 53 (1.47%) PCI DSS
8 30 (0.83%) Accessibility
8 30 (0.83%) COBIT
9 25 (0.69%) GRC
10 24 (0.67%) JSP 440
11 22 (0.61%) HIPAA
12 21 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.53%) ISO 20022
14 17 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 16 (0.44%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 16 (0.44%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 12 (0.33%) MiFID
16 12 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 11 (0.30%) PSD2
System Software
1 155 (4.29%) Active Directory
2 121 (3.35%) Docker
3 85 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 48 (1.33%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.83%) vSphere
6 22 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
8 16 (0.44%) Hyper-V
9 14 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.19%) BitLocker
11 6 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
11 6 (0.17%) Varnish
12 5 (0.14%) Lustre
12 5 (0.14%) NFS
13 4 (0.11%) vCloud
14 3 (0.083%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 3 (0.083%) Ceph
14 3 (0.083%) Firmware
14 3 (0.083%) GPFS
14 3 (0.083%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 229 (6.35%) Terraform
2 180 (4.99%) Kubernetes
3 102 (2.83%) Ansible
4 49 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.91%) OPNET
6 25 (0.69%) SCCM
7 24 (0.67%) vCenter Server
8 22 (0.61%) FortiGate
9 19 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
10 18 (0.50%) WMI
11 17 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 10 (0.28%) Argo
12 10 (0.28%) Prometheus
13 9 (0.25%) Grafana
14 6 (0.17%) Istio
14 6 (0.17%) Kibana
14 6 (0.17%) Puppet
15 4 (0.11%) Data Guard
15 4 (0.11%) Oracle RMAN
16 3 (0.083%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 528 (14.63%) Microsoft
2 216 (5.99%) SAP
3 203 (5.62%) ServiceNow
4 180 (4.99%) Salesforce
5 168 (4.66%) Oracle
6 140 (3.88%) VMware
7 118 (3.27%) Cisco
8 110 (3.05%) Databricks
9 89 (2.47%) CyberArk
10 83 (2.30%) Google
11 65 (1.80%) Palo Alto
12 55 (1.52%) MuleSoft
13 54 (1.50%) Splunk
14 49 (1.36%) Centrify
15 44 (1.22%) Remedy
15 44 (1.22%) Workday
16 42 (1.16%) Atlassian
17 40 (1.11%) OpenAI
17 40 (1.11%) Sparx
18 36 (1.00%) Juniper