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 20 August 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,963 2,997 3,957
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.14% 9.13% 10.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.05% 10.00% 10.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,953 1,926 2,573
10th Percentile £481 £473 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £712 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £784 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £649
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.55% -0.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 18 74
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.36 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -3.34%

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 49,489 29,958 36,053
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.49% 91.24% 92.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,683 18,934 23,125
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,498 1,546 1,979
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.63 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.62 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.38%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.90
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.71% +17.07%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 +8 5,015 £620 -0.80% 1,121
London +7 2,566 £625 -3.85% 547
UK excluding London +7 2,497 £620 +3.33% 691
Work from Home +4 1,584 £600 - 472
South East +1 739 £625 +4.17% 202
North of England +5 695 £600 - 195
Midlands 0 411 £625 +8.70% 87
North West +6 405 £600 - 92
South West -2 313 £638 -0.39% 96
West Midlands -1 295 £640 +6.58% 69
Yorkshire +4 226 £594 -1.04% 76
East of England +16 158 £602 +8.47% 38
Scotland +19 153 £635 +1.60% 48
East Midlands +5 109 £600 +18.23% 18
North East -3 66 £588 -16.07% 27
Wales +5 42 £633 +1.20% 12
Northern Ireland +8 5 £475 -32.14% 16
Channel Islands -4 3 £575 -22.56% 4

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 August 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 1,836 (30.79%) Security Cleared
2 1,526 (25.59%) Azure
3 1,371 (22.99%) SC Cleared
4 1,299 (21.78%) AWS
5 915 (15.34%) Stakeholder Management
6 884 (14.82%) Roadmaps
7 844 (14.15%) Migration
8 790 (13.25%) Microsoft
9 733 (12.29%) Enterprise Architecture
10 732 (12.28%) AI
11 658 (11.03%) Agile
12 651 (10.92%) Technical Leadership
13 621 (10.41%) DevOps
14 619 (10.38%) CI/CD
15 618 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 612 (10.26%) Data Modelling
17 580 (9.73%) Integration Patterns
18 564 (9.46%) Data Architecture
19 524 (8.79%) Analytics
20 477 (8.00%) GCP
21 472 (7.92%) TOGAF
22 462 (7.75%) Architectural Patterns
23 443 (7.43%) Security Architecture
24 404 (6.78%) Event-Driven
25 400 (6.71%) Microservices
26 377 (6.32%) Infrastructure as Code
27 366 (6.14%) Cybersecurity
27 366 (6.14%) Data Governance
28 357 (5.99%) Decision-Making
28 357 (5.99%) DV Cleared

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 83 (1.39%) SharePoint
2 77 (1.29%) SAS
3 64 (1.07%) Confluence
4 45 (0.75%) Apache
5 43 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 30 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
7 27 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
9 19 (0.32%) CMS
10 18 (0.30%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 7 (0.12%) Appian
11 7 (0.12%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.12%) Camunda
11 7 (0.12%) Documentum
12 4 (0.067%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.067%) NetWeaver
12 4 (0.067%) nginx
12 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
13 3 (0.050%) Drupal
Applications
1 21 (0.35%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.12%) Revit
6 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.050%) Windchill
8 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
8 1 (0.017%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 160 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 34 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
6 15 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
6 15 (0.25%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) SAP ERP
9 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
10 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 7 (0.12%) SAP MM
12 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.10%) Endur
13 6 (0.10%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,526 (25.59%) Azure
2 1,299 (21.78%) AWS
3 477 (8.00%) GCP
4 305 (5.11%) Power Platform
5 217 (3.64%) SaaS
6 211 (3.54%) Entra ID
7 205 (3.44%) Serverless
8 145 (2.43%) GitHub
9 135 (2.26%) Dynamics 365
10 117 (1.96%) Microsoft 365
11 116 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
11 116 (1.95%) PaaS
12 111 (1.86%) Snowflake
13 99 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
14 87 (1.46%) Amazon S3
15 81 (1.36%) IaaS
16 72 (1.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 67 (1.12%) Azure Data Factory
18 66 (1.11%) GitHub Actions
18 66 (1.11%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 186 (3.12%) Firewall
2 166 (2.78%) Network Security
3 106 (1.78%) WAN
4 98 (1.64%) VPN
5 90 (1.51%) DNS
6 77 (1.29%) LAN
7 50 (0.84%) SD-WAN
8 47 (0.79%) BGP
9 42 (0.70%) DHCP
10 39 (0.65%) MPLS
11 38 (0.64%) TCP/IP
12 33 (0.55%) VLAN
13 30 (0.50%) SAN
14 29 (0.49%) VXLAN
15 25 (0.42%) NAS
15 25 (0.42%) NX-OS
16 24 (0.40%) OSPF
16 24 (0.40%) Wireless
17 23 (0.39%) Structured Cabling
18 21 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 209 (3.50%) Power BI
2 202 (3.39%) Data Lake
3 181 (3.04%) Data Warehouse
4 176 (2.95%) Metadata
5 76 (1.27%) NoSQL
6 59 (0.99%) SQL Server
7 50 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
7 50 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
8 45 (0.75%) BigQuery
8 45 (0.75%) Delta Lake
9 44 (0.74%) Big Data
10 43 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
11 37 (0.62%) Oracle Database
12 36 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
13 28 (0.47%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 24 (0.40%) MongoDB
15 23 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
15 23 (0.39%) GIS
15 23 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
16 22 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 80 (1.34%) Git
1 80 (1.34%) JIRA
2 57 (0.96%) Jenkins
3 36 (0.60%) GitLab
4 20 (0.34%) ERwin
5 12 (0.20%) Claude Code
6 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 8 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.13%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.12%) Artifactory
8 7 (0.12%) Postman
8 7 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
9 6 (0.10%) Hudson
9 6 (0.10%) MLflow
9 6 (0.10%) MSI
9 6 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (0.10%) Storybook
10 5 (0.084%) Maven
10 5 (0.084%) RStudio
11 4 (0.067%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,149 (19.27%) Social Skills
2 868 (14.56%) Finance
3 682 (11.44%) Public Sector
4 312 (5.23%) Banking
5 308 (5.17%) Analytical Skills
6 259 (4.34%) Retail
7 150 (2.52%) Influencing Skills
8 141 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
9 134 (2.25%) Telecoms
10 132 (2.21%) Manufacturing
11 112 (1.88%) Legal
12 68 (1.14%) Marketing
13 61 (1.02%) Billing
14 57 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 47 (0.79%) Law
15 47 (0.79%) Military
16 46 (0.77%) Aerospace
17 45 (0.75%) Financial Institution
18 40 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
19 37 (0.62%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 297 (4.98%) REST
2 273 (4.58%) Terraform
3 193 (3.24%) Middleware
4 143 (2.40%) Kafka
5 129 (2.16%) SOAP
6 126 (2.11%) .NET
6 126 (2.11%) OAuth
7 71 (1.19%) Oracle Fusion
8 67 (1.12%) SAML
9 66 (1.11%) OpenID
10 64 (1.07%) JSON
11 63 (1.06%) OAuth2
12 47 (0.79%) RESTful
13 44 (0.74%) PySpark
14 42 (0.70%) React
15 38 (0.64%) SailPoint
16 37 (0.62%) LDAP
16 37 (0.62%) XML
17 36 (0.60%) .NET Framework
18 35 (0.59%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 518 (8.69%) Cloud Native
2 204 (3.42%) Data Centre
3 176 (2.95%) Management Information System
4 158 (2.65%) Onboarding
5 145 (2.43%) Product Ownership
6 144 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
6 144 (2.41%) Hybrid Cloud
7 142 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
8 136 (2.28%) Enterprise Software
9 130 (2.18%) AI Agents
10 104 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
11 88 (1.48%) CMDB
12 83 (1.39%) Operational Technology
12 83 (1.39%) Public Cloud
13 76 (1.27%) Enterprise Cloud
14 67 (1.12%) Security Posture
15 60 (1.01%) Data Structures
16 51 (0.86%) Private Cloud
17 46 (0.77%) IoT
18 44 (0.74%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 129 (2.16%) Windows
2 104 (1.74%) Linux
3 49 (0.82%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.42%) Android
4 25 (0.42%) Apple iOS
5 22 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (0.37%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
7 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
7 8 (0.13%) zOS
8 7 (0.12%) VMS
9 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
9 5 (0.084%) Solaris
9 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.050%) CentOS
12 2 (0.034%) HPUX
12 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.034%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 915 (15.34%) Stakeholder Management
2 884 (14.82%) Roadmaps
3 844 (14.15%) Migration
4 733 (12.29%) Enterprise Architecture
5 732 (12.28%) AI
6 658 (11.03%) Agile
7 651 (10.92%) Technical Leadership
8 621 (10.41%) DevOps
9 619 (10.38%) CI/CD
10 618 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 612 (10.26%) Data Modelling
12 580 (9.73%) Integration Patterns
13 564 (9.46%) Data Architecture
14 524 (8.79%) Analytics
15 472 (7.92%) TOGAF
16 462 (7.75%) Architectural Patterns
17 443 (7.43%) Security Architecture
18 404 (6.78%) Event-Driven
19 400 (6.71%) Microservices
20 377 (6.32%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 284 (4.76%) SQL
2 280 (4.70%) Python
3 268 (4.49%) Java
4 128 (2.15%) JavaScript
5 112 (1.88%) PowerShell
6 54 (0.91%) Bicep
7 50 (0.84%) C#
8 49 (0.82%) Bash
9 46 (0.77%) TypeScript
10 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.35%) Ruby
12 17 (0.29%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 13 (0.22%) ABAP
14 13 (0.22%) Kotlin
15 12 (0.20%) C++
16 11 (0.18%) Groovy
16 11 (0.18%) PL/SQL
17 10 (0.17%) R
17 10 (0.17%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,836 (30.79%) Security Cleared
2 1,371 (22.99%) SC Cleared
3 357 (5.99%) DV Cleared
4 165 (2.77%) Degree
5 149 (2.50%) CISSP
6 127 (2.13%) Azure Certification
7 120 (2.01%) AWS Certification
7 120 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
8 104 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
9 81 (1.36%) TOGAF Certification
10 74 (1.24%) CISM
11 69 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
12 48 (0.80%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 44 (0.74%) CCNP
13 44 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
14 41 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 34 (0.57%) CCSP
16 33 (0.55%) Master's Degree
17 21 (0.35%) CISA
17 21 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 228 (3.82%) Data Quality
2 219 (3.67%) NIST
3 180 (3.02%) GDPR
4 171 (2.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 120 (2.01%) NCSC
6 77 (1.29%) GRC
7 56 (0.94%) QA
8 42 (0.70%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.65%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.52%) NIST 800
11 30 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 21 (0.35%) IFRS
12 21 (0.35%) SEPA
13 20 (0.34%) SLA
14 19 (0.32%) ISO 20022
15 18 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials
16 16 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
16 16 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 15 (0.25%) HL7
17 15 (0.25%) JSP 440
System Software
1 172 (2.88%) Active Directory
2 119 (2.00%) Docker
3 82 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 45 (0.75%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.37%) vSphere
7 18 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.13%) NFS
10 7 (0.12%) Varnish
11 6 (0.10%) Postfix
11 6 (0.10%) vCloud
12 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 4 (0.067%) KVM
12 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.050%) Ceph
13 3 (0.050%) IAG
13 3 (0.050%) SRDF
14 2 (0.034%) Squid
Systems Management
1 296 (4.96%) Kubernetes
2 106 (1.78%) Ansible
3 53 (0.89%) Grafana
4 45 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
5 44 (0.74%) Prometheus
6 34 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.32%) Argo
8 16 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.25%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.17%) FortiGate
11 10 (0.17%) Istio
12 7 (0.12%) SCCM
12 7 (0.12%) WMI
13 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
13 6 (0.10%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.084%) CASB
14 5 (0.084%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.084%) MOM
14 5 (0.084%) Puppet
Vendors
1 790 (13.25%) Microsoft
2 347 (5.82%) SAP
3 305 (5.11%) Oracle
4 300 (5.03%) ServiceNow
5 271 (4.54%) Databricks
6 195 (3.27%) Salesforce
7 176 (2.95%) Google
8 147 (2.47%) VMware
9 145 (2.43%) Cisco
10 69 (1.16%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.06%) IBM
12 62 (1.04%) CyberArk
13 53 (0.89%) Workday
14 52 (0.87%) Palo Alto
15 45 (0.75%) Foundry
16 42 (0.70%) Adobe
16 42 (0.70%) Ariba
17 40 (0.67%) Red Hat
18 38 (0.64%) Splunk
19 37 (0.62%) Sparx