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 21 July 2026.

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

6 months to
21 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 5,872 3,130 4,211
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.14% 9.60% 10.19%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.03% 10.48% 10.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,844 2,032 2,728
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 178 22 88
10th Percentile £46.00 £40.31 £59.25
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 £88.60
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 48,798 29,864 38,453
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.56% 91.64% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,431 18,992 24,873
10th Percentile £325 £285 £293
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 £735 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,294 1,429 2,439
10th Percentile £15.81 £13.75 £13.49
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £18.00
Median hourly rate £44.10 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +75.33% -37.13% -6.98%
75th Percentile £67.84 £55.00 £64.25
90th Percentile £80.17 £73.75 £74.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £41.81
% change year-on-year +78.93% -39.85% +5.65%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 4,934 £618 -1.20% 1,735
UK excluding London +7 2,493 £620 +3.33% 826
London +6 2,492 £620 -4.62% 1,003
Work from Home +5 1,617 £600 -0.08% 733
North of England +7 720 £600 - 226
South East -1 714 £636 +6.04% 243
Midlands -1 413 £620 +7.83% 106
North West +3 385 £608 +1.33% 124
West Midlands -2 300 £625 +4.17% 75
South West -2 285 £625 - 110
Yorkshire +7 264 £600 - 63
East of England +16 180 £600 - 59
Scotland +6 172 £650 +4.00% 62
East Midlands +5 107 £600 +20.00% 30
North East +1 79 £600 -15.79% 39
Wales -1 32 £600 +11.11% 19
Northern Ireland +5 7 £475 -32.14% 12
Channel Islands +1 3 £575 -22.56% 1

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 21 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 1,774 (30.21%) Security Cleared
2 1,459 (24.85%) Azure
3 1,339 (22.80%) SC Cleared
4 1,301 (22.16%) AWS
5 866 (14.75%) Roadmaps
6 800 (13.62%) Migration
7 769 (13.10%) Stakeholder Management
8 743 (12.65%) Microsoft
9 684 (11.65%) Agile
9 684 (11.65%) AI
10 659 (11.22%) Enterprise Architecture
11 636 (10.83%) DevOps
12 613 (10.44%) CI/CD
13 599 (10.20%) Data Modelling
14 571 (9.72%) Technical Leadership
15 564 (9.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 549 (9.35%) Data Architecture
17 548 (9.33%) Integration Patterns
18 505 (8.60%) Analytics
19 494 (8.41%) TOGAF
20 489 (8.33%) Architectural Patterns
21 446 (7.60%) GCP
22 436 (7.43%) Microservices
23 392 (6.68%) Security Architecture
24 377 (6.42%) Problem-Solving
25 372 (6.34%) Event-Driven
26 364 (6.20%) Cybersecurity
27 361 (6.15%) Infrastructure as Code
28 356 (6.06%) Architectural Design
29 340 (5.79%) Data Governance

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 96 (1.63%) SharePoint
2 72 (1.23%) Confluence
3 69 (1.18%) SAS
4 43 (0.73%) Apache
5 42 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 40 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
7 32 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
9 20 (0.34%) CMS
10 16 (0.27%) Appian
11 15 (0.26%) nginx
12 13 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 11 (0.19%) ArcGIS
14 10 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 10 (0.17%) WebLogic
15 9 (0.15%) Camunda
16 7 (0.12%) Documentum
17 6 (0.10%) JBoss
17 6 (0.10%) NetWeaver
18 5 (0.085%) Tomcat
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
1 153 (2.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.58%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
5 20 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.27%) SAP ERP
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
9 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
11 8 (0.14%) Maximo
11 8 (0.14%) NetSuite
11 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.14%) SAP MDG
12 7 (0.12%) SAP GRC
13 6 (0.10%) Endur
13 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,459 (24.85%) Azure
2 1,301 (22.16%) AWS
3 446 (7.60%) GCP
4 286 (4.87%) Power Platform
5 208 (3.54%) Entra ID
5 208 (3.54%) SaaS
6 199 (3.39%) Serverless
7 137 (2.33%) GitHub
8 127 (2.16%) PaaS
9 120 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
10 119 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
11 106 (1.81%) Azure DevOps
11 106 (1.81%) Snowflake
12 98 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
13 95 (1.62%) IaaS
14 86 (1.46%) Amazon S3
15 68 (1.16%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 68 (1.16%) OpenShift
16 66 (1.12%) Amazon EKS
16 66 (1.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 212 (3.61%) Firewall
2 192 (3.27%) Network Security
3 110 (1.87%) VPN
4 108 (1.84%) DNS
5 103 (1.75%) WAN
6 76 (1.29%) LAN
7 52 (0.89%) SD-WAN
8 49 (0.83%) TCP/IP
9 45 (0.77%) BGP
10 43 (0.73%) DHCP
11 38 (0.65%) 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 22 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 198 (3.37%) Power BI
2 184 (3.13%) Data Lake
3 180 (3.07%) Metadata
4 175 (2.98%) Data Warehouse
5 76 (1.29%) NoSQL
6 62 (1.06%) PostgreSQL
6 62 (1.06%) SQL Server
7 51 (0.87%) Big Data
8 46 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
9 41 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
10 40 (0.68%) BigQuery
10 40 (0.68%) Oracle Database
11 31 (0.53%) Delta Lake
12 30 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
13 26 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
13 26 (0.44%) GIS
14 25 (0.43%) Relational Database
15 24 (0.41%) MongoDB
15 24 (0.41%) Semantic Layer
16 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 100 (1.70%) JIRA
2 75 (1.28%) Git
2 75 (1.28%) Jenkins
3 34 (0.58%) GitLab
4 26 (0.44%) ERwin
5 12 (0.20%) SonarQube
6 9 (0.15%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.15%) Bitbucket
7 8 (0.14%) Cypress.io
7 8 (0.14%) MLflow
7 8 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 6 (0.10%) Claude Code
9 6 (0.10%) Hudson
9 6 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
9 6 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.085%) Maven
10 5 (0.085%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.085%) Storybook
11 4 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 1,088 (18.53%) Social Skills
2 880 (14.99%) Finance
3 662 (11.27%) Public Sector
4 332 (5.65%) Banking
5 308 (5.25%) Analytical Skills
6 234 (3.99%) Retail
7 152 (2.59%) Documentation Skills
8 142 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
9 131 (2.23%) Telecoms
10 119 (2.03%) Legal
11 109 (1.86%) Manufacturing
12 61 (1.04%) Marketing
13 57 (0.97%) Billing
14 51 (0.87%) Financial Institution
15 49 (0.83%) Military
16 45 (0.77%) Law
17 42 (0.72%) Aerospace
18 41 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
19 39 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 30 (0.51%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 280 (4.77%) REST
2 208 (3.54%) Middleware
3 136 (2.32%) Kafka
4 135 (2.30%) .NET
5 125 (2.13%) SOAP
6 113 (1.92%) OAuth
7 81 (1.38%) OpenID
8 73 (1.24%) Oracle Fusion
9 69 (1.18%) SAML
10 59 (1.00%) OAuth2
11 56 (0.95%) React
12 53 (0.90%) JSON
13 51 (0.87%) RESTful
14 48 (0.82%) LDAP
14 48 (0.82%) SailPoint
15 40 (0.68%) Web Services
16 37 (0.63%) .NET Framework
16 37 (0.63%) PySpark
17 35 (0.60%) Node.js
18 34 (0.58%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 490 (8.34%) Cloud Native
2 199 (3.39%) Data Centre
3 171 (2.91%) Management Information System
4 157 (2.67%) Onboarding
5 148 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
6 147 (2.50%) Product Ownership
7 136 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
8 134 (2.28%) Hybrid Cloud
9 111 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
10 104 (1.77%) AI Agents
11 95 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
12 93 (1.58%) Operational Technology
13 85 (1.45%) CMDB
13 85 (1.45%) Public Cloud
14 64 (1.09%) Enterprise Cloud
14 64 (1.09%) Security Posture
15 52 (0.89%) Data Structures
16 47 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
16 47 (0.80%) Private Cloud
17 46 (0.78%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 132 (2.25%) Windows
2 101 (1.72%) Linux
3 43 (0.73%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.58%) Android
5 33 (0.56%) Apple iOS
6 24 (0.41%) 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
1 866 (14.75%) Roadmaps
2 800 (13.62%) Migration
3 769 (13.10%) Stakeholder Management
4 684 (11.65%) Agile
4 684 (11.65%) AI
5 659 (11.22%) Enterprise Architecture
6 636 (10.83%) DevOps
7 613 (10.44%) CI/CD
8 599 (10.20%) Data Modelling
9 571 (9.72%) Technical Leadership
10 564 (9.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 549 (9.35%) Data Architecture
12 548 (9.33%) Integration Patterns
13 505 (8.60%) Analytics
14 494 (8.41%) TOGAF
15 489 (8.33%) Architectural Patterns
16 436 (7.43%) Microservices
17 392 (6.68%) Security Architecture
18 377 (6.42%) Problem-Solving
19 372 (6.34%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 304 (5.18%) Python
2 286 (4.87%) SQL
3 268 (4.56%) Java
4 126 (2.15%) JavaScript
5 99 (1.69%) PowerShell
6 65 (1.11%) C#
7 59 (1.00%) Bicep
8 48 (0.82%) Bash
9 46 (0.78%) TypeScript
10 30 (0.51%) 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 1,774 (30.21%) Security Cleared
2 1,339 (22.80%) SC Cleared
3 330 (5.62%) DV Cleared
4 197 (3.35%) Degree
5 147 (2.50%) CISSP
6 131 (2.23%) Azure Certification
7 129 (2.20%) AWS Certification
8 114 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
9 106 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
10 91 (1.55%) TOGAF Certification
11 81 (1.38%) Computer Science Degree
12 71 (1.21%) CISM
13 52 (0.89%) CCNP
14 50 (0.85%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 47 (0.80%) Master's Degree
16 44 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 43 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
18 35 (0.60%) CCSP
19 22 (0.37%) DBS Check
20 21 (0.36%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 203 (3.46%) NIST
2 197 (3.35%) Data Quality
3 188 (3.20%) GDPR
4 154 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 124 (2.11%) NCSC
6 65 (1.11%) GRC
7 63 (1.07%) QA
8 43 (0.73%) PCI DSS
9 42 (0.72%) Accessibility
10 30 (0.51%) NIST 800
11 28 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 24 (0.41%) ISO 20022
13 23 (0.39%) SEPA
14 20 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
14 20 (0.34%) IFRS
15 19 (0.32%) HL7
16 17 (0.29%) COBIT
17 15 (0.26%) HIPAA
18 12 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
18 12 (0.20%) SLA
System Software
1 169 (2.88%) Active Directory
2 128 (2.18%) Docker
3 87 (1.48%) 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
1 301 (5.13%) Kubernetes
2 284 (4.84%) Terraform
3 109 (1.86%) Ansible
4 62 (1.06%) Grafana
5 53 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
6 50 (0.85%) Prometheus
7 47 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
8 22 (0.37%) Argo
8 22 (0.37%) vCenter Server
9 19 (0.32%) 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
1 743 (12.65%) Microsoft
2 340 (5.79%) SAP
3 309 (5.26%) ServiceNow
4 291 (4.96%) Oracle
5 249 (4.24%) Databricks
6 185 (3.15%) Salesforce
7 160 (2.72%) VMware
8 143 (2.44%) Google
9 132 (2.25%) Cisco
10 65 (1.11%) MuleSoft
11 64 (1.09%) CyberArk
12 60 (1.02%) IBM
12 60 (1.02%) Splunk
13 51 (0.87%) Palo Alto
13 51 (0.87%) Red Hat
14 49 (0.83%) Ariba
14 49 (0.83%) Workday
15 44 (0.75%) Foundry
16 39 (0.66%) OpenAI
17 37 (0.63%) F5