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 15 April 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +4 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,983 2,900 4,472
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.87% 9.90% 10.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.78% 10.69% 11.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,290 1,917 2,894
10th Percentile £463 £481 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.66%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £606 £619 £650
% change year-on-year -2.10% -4.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 37 53
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.30 £53.45
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £70.64 £70.00 £83.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.91% -16.17% +19.29%
75th Percentile £84.75 £80.59 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.61 £94.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £83.77
% change year-on-year -1.70% -13.45% +19.66%

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 42,306 27,128 40,399
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 92.60% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,259 17,804 26,404
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% -1.43% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £627 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,679 980 2,578
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.65 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.26 £19.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.86 £31.42 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.20% -10.22% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.25 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.25 £75.58 £72.47
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.69 £30.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +42.28% -14.29% -17.38%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 4,265 £625 - 912
UK excluding London +8 2,318 £606 -2.10% 630
London +1 1,968 £625 -3.85% 398
Work from Home +3 1,379 £610 +0.49% 421
South East +4 700 £625 - 175
North of England +5 614 £600 - 141
Midlands -1 397 £575 -4.17% 108
North West +6 358 £610 +1.67% 75
West Midlands -3 303 £600 -0.21% 77
South West +2 288 £700 +16.67% 102
Yorkshire +5 230 £558 -7.00% 52
East of England +19 188 £563 -6.25% 64
Scotland +13 136 £650 +4.00% 20
East Midlands -2 90 £513 -8.48% 31
North East +1 35 £575 -7.95% 16
Wales 0 29 £588 -2.08% 27
Northern Ireland +7 11 £500 -24.53% 8

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 15 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 1,608 (32.27%) Security Cleared
2 1,196 (24.00%) Azure
3 1,146 (23.00%) SC Cleared
4 1,042 (20.91%) AWS
5 699 (14.03%) Roadmaps
6 683 (13.71%) Microsoft
7 659 (13.22%) Migration
8 616 (12.36%) Agile
9 556 (11.16%) Stakeholder Management
10 551 (11.06%) DevOps
11 520 (10.44%) CI/CD
12 509 (10.21%) Enterprise Architecture
13 477 (9.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 466 (9.35%) Data Modelling
15 450 (9.03%) Technical Leadership
16 445 (8.93%) TOGAF
17 441 (8.85%) AI
18 425 (8.53%) Analytics
19 415 (8.33%) Integration Patterns
20 387 (7.77%) Data Architecture
20 387 (7.77%) GCP
21 382 (7.67%) Problem-Solving
22 368 (7.39%) Architectural Patterns
23 363 (7.28%) Microservices
24 352 (7.06%) Python
25 339 (6.80%) DV Cleared
26 335 (6.72%) Architectural Design
27 297 (5.96%) ServiceNow
28 292 (5.86%) Security Architecture
29 288 (5.78%) 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
1 124 (2.49%) SharePoint
2 109 (2.19%) Confluence
3 65 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (0.68%) SAS
5 25 (0.50%) Apache Spark
6 24 (0.48%) CMS
7 21 (0.42%) Apache
8 18 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
9 17 (0.34%) Anypoint
10 16 (0.32%) Appian
11 15 (0.30%) WebLogic
12 14 (0.28%) ArcGIS
12 14 (0.28%) nginx
13 11 (0.22%) OpenStack
14 10 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 9 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
16 7 (0.14%) Camunda
16 7 (0.14%) Ethereum
16 7 (0.14%) Hyperledger
16 7 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 48 (0.96%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
3 24 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.40%) Microsoft Excel
5 17 (0.34%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.040%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.040%) PlantUML
7 2 (0.040%) Revit
7 2 (0.040%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.040%) Windchill
8 1 (0.020%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.020%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.020%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.020%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 126 (2.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 50 (1.00%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
4 21 (0.42%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.28%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
9 12 (0.24%) SAP EWM
9 12 (0.24%) Teamcenter
10 10 (0.20%) NetSuite
10 10 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
10 10 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.20%) SAP PM
11 8 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
11 8 (0.16%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.14%) Maximo
12 7 (0.14%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
12 7 (0.14%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,196 (24.00%) Azure
2 1,042 (20.91%) AWS
3 387 (7.77%) GCP
4 211 (4.23%) Power Platform
5 177 (3.55%) Entra ID
6 170 (3.41%) Serverless
7 163 (3.27%) SaaS
8 142 (2.85%) Microsoft 365
9 115 (2.31%) IaaS
10 113 (2.27%) GitHub
11 105 (2.11%) PaaS
12 100 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
12 100 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
13 87 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
14 84 (1.69%) OpenShift
15 72 (1.44%) Amazon S3
15 72 (1.44%) AWS CloudFormation
15 72 (1.44%) Microsoft Purview
16 69 (1.38%) Snowflake
17 67 (1.34%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 237 (4.76%) Firewall
2 174 (3.49%) Network Security
3 141 (2.83%) WAN
4 128 (2.57%) DNS
5 124 (2.49%) VPN
6 89 (1.79%) LAN
7 79 (1.59%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.76%) BGP
9 36 (0.72%) DHCP
10 31 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
11 30 (0.60%) MPLS
11 30 (0.60%) OSPF
12 28 (0.56%) SAN
13 27 (0.54%) TCP/IP
13 27 (0.54%) VLAN
14 25 (0.50%) Wireless
15 22 (0.44%) VXLAN
16 20 (0.40%) NAS
17 19 (0.38%) BIG-IP
17 19 (0.38%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (3.21%) Power BI
2 146 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
2 146 (2.93%) Metadata
3 120 (2.41%) Data Lake
4 82 (1.65%) SQL Server
5 62 (1.24%) NoSQL
5 62 (1.24%) PostgreSQL
6 50 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
7 49 (0.98%) Tableau
8 42 (0.84%) Oracle Database
9 41 (0.82%) Big Data
10 33 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
11 25 (0.50%) Delta Lake
12 24 (0.48%) BigQuery
12 24 (0.48%) Relational Database
13 23 (0.46%) DynamoDB
14 22 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
14 22 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
15 21 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
15 21 (0.42%) Metadata Repository
Development Applications
1 125 (2.51%) JIRA
2 95 (1.91%) Jenkins
3 51 (1.02%) Git
4 47 (0.94%) GitLab
5 21 (0.42%) ERwin
6 13 (0.26%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket
8 10 (0.20%) Artifactory
9 9 (0.18%) MLflow
10 6 (0.12%) Postman
10 6 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.10%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.10%) JUnit
11 5 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.10%) Selenium
11 5 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.080%) Maven
12 4 (0.080%) Snyk
12 4 (0.080%) Terragrunt
13 3 (0.060%) Claude Code
General
1 1,017 (20.41%) Social Skills
2 748 (15.01%) Finance
3 567 (11.38%) Public Sector
4 322 (6.46%) Analytical Skills
5 284 (5.70%) Banking
6 162 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
7 120 (2.41%) Retail
8 117 (2.35%) Influencing Skills
9 114 (2.29%) Legal
10 89 (1.79%) Military
11 81 (1.63%) Telecoms
12 72 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
13 68 (1.36%) Manufacturing
14 64 (1.28%) Marketing
15 63 (1.26%) Law
16 44 (0.88%) Financial Institution
17 34 (0.68%) Billing
18 32 (0.64%) Investment Banking
19 31 (0.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 30 (0.60%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 242 (4.86%) REST
2 184 (3.69%) Middleware
3 123 (2.47%) SOAP
4 109 (2.19%) .NET
5 104 (2.09%) Kafka
6 81 (1.63%) OpenID
7 80 (1.61%) LDAP
8 73 (1.46%) OAuth
9 60 (1.20%) SAML
10 55 (1.10%) JSON
11 51 (1.02%) React
12 45 (0.90%) OAuth2
13 42 (0.84%) AngularJS
13 42 (0.84%) RESTful
14 37 (0.74%) Oracle Fusion
14 37 (0.74%) SailPoint
14 37 (0.74%) Web Services
15 32 (0.64%) Spring
16 31 (0.62%) PySpark
17 24 (0.48%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 388 (7.79%) Cloud Native
2 172 (3.45%) Data Centre
3 143 (2.87%) Product Ownership
4 128 (2.57%) Onboarding
5 112 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
5 112 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
6 110 (2.21%) Management Information System
7 100 (2.01%) Distributed Systems
8 96 (1.93%) Hybrid Cloud
9 94 (1.89%) Public Cloud
10 85 (1.71%) PKI
11 80 (1.61%) Security Posture
12 70 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
13 69 (1.38%) CMDB
14 67 (1.34%) Operational Technology
15 51 (1.02%) AI Agents
16 50 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
17 49 (0.98%) Data Structures
18 46 (0.92%) Private Cloud
19 44 (0.88%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 185 (3.71%) Windows
2 122 (2.45%) Linux
3 45 (0.90%) Windows Server
4 32 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 31 (0.62%) Android
5 31 (0.62%) Apple iOS
6 17 (0.34%) Unix
7 14 (0.28%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.26%) VMS
8 13 (0.26%) Windows 7
9 12 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
10 10 (0.20%) zOS
11 9 (0.18%) Mac OS
11 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.060%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.060%) Solaris
12 3 (0.060%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.040%) AIX
13 2 (0.040%) CentOS
14 1 (0.020%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 699 (14.03%) Roadmaps
2 659 (13.22%) Migration
3 616 (12.36%) Agile
4 556 (11.16%) Stakeholder Management
5 551 (11.06%) DevOps
6 520 (10.44%) CI/CD
7 509 (10.21%) Enterprise Architecture
8 477 (9.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 466 (9.35%) Data Modelling
10 450 (9.03%) Technical Leadership
11 445 (8.93%) TOGAF
12 441 (8.85%) AI
13 425 (8.53%) Analytics
14 415 (8.33%) Integration Patterns
15 387 (7.77%) Data Architecture
16 382 (7.67%) Problem-Solving
17 368 (7.39%) Architectural Patterns
18 363 (7.28%) Microservices
19 335 (6.72%) Architectural Design
20 292 (5.86%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 352 (7.06%) Python
2 260 (5.22%) SQL
3 200 (4.01%) Java
4 189 (3.79%) PowerShell
5 71 (1.42%) JavaScript
6 65 (1.30%) C#
7 43 (0.86%) Bash
7 43 (0.86%) Bicep
8 28 (0.56%) TypeScript
9 22 (0.44%) Ruby
10 18 (0.36%) Apex Code
10 18 (0.36%) PL/SQL
11 15 (0.30%) Scala
12 13 (0.26%) Kotlin
13 12 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.20%) R
14 10 (0.20%) T-SQL
15 9 (0.18%) ABAP
15 9 (0.18%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.16%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,608 (32.27%) Security Cleared
2 1,146 (23.00%) SC Cleared
3 339 (6.80%) DV Cleared
4 206 (4.13%) Degree
5 122 (2.45%) Azure Certification
6 121 (2.43%) CISSP
6 121 (2.43%) TOGAF Certification
7 116 (2.33%) AWS Certification
8 95 (1.91%) Cisco Certification
9 88 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
10 77 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
11 64 (1.28%) CISM
12 54 (1.08%) CCNP
13 52 (1.04%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 52 (1.04%) Master's Degree
14 51 (1.02%) Microsoft Certification
15 39 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 33 (0.66%) ISEB
16 33 (0.66%) ITIL Certification
17 30 (0.60%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (3.89%) GDPR
2 191 (3.83%) NIST
3 157 (3.15%) Data Quality
4 152 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 103 (2.07%) NCSC
6 66 (1.32%) QA
7 55 (1.10%) PCI DSS
8 41 (0.82%) COBIT
9 35 (0.70%) GRC
10 30 (0.60%) Accessibility
10 30 (0.60%) ISO 20022
11 25 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.40%) JSP 440
12 20 (0.40%) NIST 800
13 19 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 18 (0.36%) HL7
14 18 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 15 (0.30%) SEPA
16 14 (0.28%) MiFID
17 13 (0.26%) PSD2
System Software
1 199 (3.99%) Active Directory
2 117 (2.35%) Docker
3 111 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 78 (1.57%) VMware NSX
5 38 (0.76%) vSphere
6 25 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 16 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 11 (0.22%) Varnish
10 10 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
10 10 (0.20%) vCloud
11 9 (0.18%) Squid
12 8 (0.16%) NFS
13 7 (0.14%) BitLocker
14 5 (0.10%) Postfix
14 5 (0.10%) RACF
15 4 (0.080%) Firmware
16 3 (0.060%) IAG
16 3 (0.060%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 280 (5.62%) Terraform
2 240 (4.82%) Kubernetes
3 118 (2.37%) Ansible
4 54 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
5 41 (0.82%) Grafana
6 40 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
7 35 (0.70%) vCenter Server
8 32 (0.64%) FortiGate
9 30 (0.60%) OPNET
10 28 (0.56%) Prometheus
11 22 (0.44%) Argo
11 22 (0.44%) SCCM
12 20 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 12 (0.24%) WMI
14 11 (0.22%) Istio
15 7 (0.14%) Consul
15 7 (0.14%) Puppet
16 6 (0.12%) Kibana
17 5 (0.10%) Endace
17 5 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 683 (13.71%) Microsoft
2 297 (5.96%) ServiceNow
3 282 (5.66%) SAP
4 209 (4.19%) Oracle
5 202 (4.05%) VMware
6 198 (3.97%) Salesforce
7 177 (3.55%) Databricks
8 137 (2.75%) Cisco
9 111 (2.23%) Google
10 86 (1.73%) CyberArk
11 69 (1.38%) MuleSoft
12 65 (1.30%) Splunk
13 62 (1.24%) Palo Alto
14 61 (1.22%) Red Hat
15 51 (1.02%) Workday
16 50 (1.00%) Remedy
17 49 (0.98%) Sparx
18 47 (0.94%) Atlassian
19 46 (0.92%) Ariba
19 46 (0.92%) IBM