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 20 July 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 17 12
Rank change year-on-year +7 -5 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,880 3,164 4,249
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.14% 9.65% 10.18%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.04% 10.52% 10.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,849 2,055 2,751
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 177 22 89
10th Percentile £46.00 £40.31 £59.50
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 £88.40
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 48,848 30,065 38,836
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.55% 91.66% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,490 19,139 25,111
10th Percentile £325 £285 £291
25th Percentile £420 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £737 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,297 1,430 2,509
10th Percentile £15.79 £13.75 £13.25
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £17.80
Median hourly rate £43.69 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.72% -37.13% -6.98%
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 £40.94
% change year-on-year +78.93% -38.57% +3.51%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 4,938 £618 -1.20% 1,067
UK excluding London +7 2,500 £620 +3.33% 577
London +6 2,487 £620 -4.62% 584
Work from Home +4 1,628 £600 -0.41% 478
North of England +7 721 £600 - 152
South East 0 717 £633 +5.42% 183
Midlands -1 413 £620 +7.83% 82
North West +4 385 £610 +1.88% 83
West Midlands -4 300 £625 +4.17% 58
South West -4 285 £625 - 70
Yorkshire +8 266 £600 - 38
East of England +20 184 £600 - 42
Scotland +9 171 £650 +4.00% 35
East Midlands +5 107 £600 +20.00% 24
North East +2 78 £600 -15.79% 31
Wales 0 32 £600 +11.11% 14
Northern Ireland +6 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 20 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 1,778 (30.24%) Security Cleared
2 1,458 (24.80%) Azure
3 1,341 (22.81%) SC Cleared
4 1,297 (22.06%) AWS
5 868 (14.76%) Roadmaps
6 803 (13.66%) Migration
7 773 (13.15%) Stakeholder Management
8 744 (12.65%) Microsoft
9 688 (11.70%) Agile
10 684 (11.63%) AI
11 660 (11.22%) Enterprise Architecture
12 637 (10.83%) DevOps
13 612 (10.41%) CI/CD
14 597 (10.15%) Data Modelling
15 569 (9.68%) Technical Leadership
16 566 (9.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 544 (9.25%) Data Architecture
18 543 (9.23%) Integration Patterns
19 500 (8.50%) Analytics
20 494 (8.40%) TOGAF
21 488 (8.30%) Architectural Patterns
22 439 (7.47%) GCP
23 438 (7.45%) Microservices
24 389 (6.62%) Security Architecture
25 381 (6.48%) Problem-Solving
26 366 (6.22%) Event-Driven
27 362 (6.16%) Cybersecurity
28 361 (6.14%) Infrastructure as Code
29 360 (6.12%) Architectural Design
30 342 (5.82%) 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 98 (1.67%) SharePoint
2 72 (1.22%) Confluence
3 68 (1.16%) 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 17 (0.29%) Appian
10 15 (0.26%) nginx
11 13 (0.22%) OpenStack
12 11 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 10 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 10 (0.17%) WebLogic
14 9 (0.15%) Camunda
15 7 (0.12%) Documentum
16 6 (0.10%) JBoss
16 6 (0.10%) NetWeaver
16 6 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 20 (0.34%) MS Visio
2 12 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.17%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.14%) 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%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 154 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.60%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.56%) 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%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.14%) Maximo
12 8 (0.14%) NetSuite
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 1,458 (24.80%) Azure
2 1,297 (22.06%) AWS
3 439 (7.47%) GCP
4 287 (4.88%) Power Platform
5 209 (3.55%) SaaS
6 207 (3.52%) Entra ID
7 201 (3.42%) Serverless
8 137 (2.33%) GitHub
9 127 (2.16%) PaaS
10 123 (2.09%) Microsoft 365
11 119 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
12 106 (1.80%) Azure DevOps
13 105 (1.79%) Snowflake
14 98 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
15 95 (1.62%) IaaS
16 86 (1.46%) Amazon S3
17 70 (1.19%) OpenShift
18 67 (1.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 66 (1.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 65 (1.11%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 213 (3.62%) Firewall
2 189 (3.21%) Network Security
3 111 (1.89%) VPN
4 109 (1.85%) DNS
5 104 (1.77%) WAN
6 77 (1.31%) LAN
7 52 (0.88%) SD-WAN
8 50 (0.85%) TCP/IP
9 46 (0.78%) BGP
10 43 (0.73%) DHCP
11 39 (0.66%) MPLS
12 36 (0.61%) VLAN
13 33 (0.56%) Wireless
14 30 (0.51%) SAN
15 29 (0.49%) OSPF
16 28 (0.48%) IPsec
17 27 (0.46%) NAS
18 25 (0.43%) Structured Cabling
19 23 (0.39%) VXLAN
20 21 (0.36%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 199 (3.38%) Power BI
2 183 (3.11%) Data Lake
3 180 (3.06%) Metadata
4 172 (2.93%) 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 26 (0.44%) GIS
16 25 (0.43%) Relational Database
17 24 (0.41%) Elasticsearch
17 24 (0.41%) MongoDB
17 24 (0.41%) Semantic Layer
18 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 100 (1.70%) JIRA
2 74 (1.26%) 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%) Selenium
12 4 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 1,094 (18.61%) Social Skills
2 884 (15.03%) Finance
3 666 (11.33%) Public Sector
4 335 (5.70%) Banking
5 312 (5.31%) Analytical Skills
6 233 (3.96%) Retail
7 157 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
8 142 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
9 130 (2.21%) Telecoms
10 120 (2.04%) Legal
11 108 (1.84%) Manufacturing
12 61 (1.04%) Marketing
13 58 (0.99%) Billing
14 51 (0.87%) Financial Institution
15 50 (0.85%) Military
16 45 (0.77%) 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
1 280 (4.76%) REST
2 208 (3.54%) Middleware
3 136 (2.31%) .NET
4 134 (2.28%) Kafka
5 124 (2.11%) SOAP
6 112 (1.90%) OAuth
7 84 (1.43%) OpenID
8 72 (1.22%) Oracle Fusion
9 70 (1.19%) SAML
10 59 (1.00%) OAuth2
11 57 (0.97%) React
12 52 (0.88%) JSON
13 51 (0.87%) RESTful
14 49 (0.83%) LDAP
15 47 (0.80%) SailPoint
16 40 (0.68%) Web Services
17 38 (0.65%) PySpark
18 37 (0.63%) Node.js
19 36 (0.61%) .NET Framework
20 35 (0.60%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 491 (8.35%) Cloud Native
2 199 (3.38%) Data Centre
3 172 (2.93%) Management Information System
4 159 (2.70%) Onboarding
5 148 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
5 148 (2.52%) Product Ownership
6 134 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
7 133 (2.26%) Hybrid Cloud
8 112 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
9 102 (1.73%) AI Agents
10 95 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
11 92 (1.56%) Operational Technology
12 87 (1.48%) CMDB
13 85 (1.45%) Public Cloud
14 64 (1.09%) Enterprise Cloud
14 64 (1.09%) Security Posture
15 51 (0.87%) Data Structures
16 47 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
17 46 (0.78%) IoT
17 46 (0.78%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 134 (2.28%) Windows
2 100 (1.70%) Linux
3 43 (0.73%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.58%) Android
5 33 (0.56%) Apple iOS
6 25 (0.43%) 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
14 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 868 (14.76%) Roadmaps
2 803 (13.66%) Migration
3 773 (13.15%) Stakeholder Management
4 688 (11.70%) Agile
5 684 (11.63%) AI
6 660 (11.22%) Enterprise Architecture
7 637 (10.83%) DevOps
8 612 (10.41%) CI/CD
9 597 (10.15%) Data Modelling
10 569 (9.68%) Technical Leadership
11 566 (9.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 544 (9.25%) Data Architecture
13 543 (9.23%) Integration Patterns
14 500 (8.50%) Analytics
15 494 (8.40%) TOGAF
16 488 (8.30%) Architectural Patterns
17 438 (7.45%) Microservices
18 389 (6.62%) Security Architecture
19 381 (6.48%) Problem-Solving
20 366 (6.22%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 308 (5.24%) Python
2 286 (4.86%) SQL
3 267 (4.54%) Java
4 125 (2.13%) JavaScript
5 102 (1.73%) PowerShell
6 67 (1.14%) C#
7 58 (0.99%) Bicep
8 48 (0.82%) Bash
9 45 (0.77%) TypeScript
10 28 (0.48%) 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 1,778 (30.24%) Security Cleared
2 1,341 (22.81%) SC Cleared
3 330 (5.61%) DV Cleared
4 198 (3.37%) Degree
5 147 (2.50%) CISSP
6 131 (2.23%) Azure Certification
7 128 (2.18%) AWS Certification
8 115 (1.96%) Cisco Certification
9 107 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
10 92 (1.56%) TOGAF Certification
11 82 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
12 71 (1.21%) CISM
13 52 (0.88%) 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 (0.60%) CCSP
18 22 (0.37%) CCIE
18 22 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 203 (3.45%) NIST
2 197 (3.35%) Data Quality
3 187 (3.18%) GDPR
4 154 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 125 (2.13%) NCSC
6 66 (1.12%) GRC
7 63 (1.07%) QA
8 42 (0.71%) PCI DSS
9 41 (0.70%) Accessibility
10 30 (0.51%) NIST 800
11 26 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 25 (0.43%) ISO 20022
13 24 (0.41%) SEPA
14 20 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
14 20 (0.34%) IFRS
15 19 (0.32%) HL7
16 18 (0.31%) COBIT
17 14 (0.24%) HIPAA
18 12 (0.20%) SLA
19 11 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 168 (2.86%) Active Directory
2 126 (2.14%) Docker
3 86 (1.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 55 (0.94%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 24 (0.41%) vSphere
7 20 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.26%) 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 (5.09%) Kubernetes
2 282 (4.80%) Terraform
3 110 (1.87%) Ansible
4 61 (1.04%) Grafana
5 54 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
6 49 (0.83%) Prometheus
7 48 (0.82%) 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 12 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 10 (0.17%) Istio
13 7 (0.12%) Consul
13 7 (0.12%) SCCM
14 6 (0.10%) CASB
14 6 (0.10%) EMC VPLEX
14 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
15 5 (0.085%) MOM
15 5 (0.085%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 744 (12.65%) Microsoft
2 342 (5.82%) SAP
3 310 (5.27%) ServiceNow
4 289 (4.91%) Oracle
5 249 (4.23%) Databricks
6 183 (3.11%) Salesforce
7 159 (2.70%) VMware
8 139 (2.36%) Google
9 131 (2.23%) Cisco
10 65 (1.11%) CyberArk
11 63 (1.07%) MuleSoft
12 62 (1.05%) Splunk
13 59 (1.00%) IBM
14 52 (0.88%) Red Hat
15 49 (0.83%) Ariba
15 49 (0.83%) Palo Alto
16 48 (0.82%) Workday
17 44 (0.75%) Foundry
18 40 (0.68%) OpenAI
19 37 (0.63%) Sparx