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 10 October 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 20 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,099 2,943 3,727
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.17% 8.88% 9.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.14% 9.78% 10.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,025 1,919 2,206
10th Percentile £481 £462 £475
25th Percentile £531 £525 £531
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £780 £787 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £622 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.67% -4.00% -2.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted 200 15 63
10th Percentile £40.00 £59.37 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.38 £62.50
Median hourly rate £69.50 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.14% +3.57% -3.34%
75th Percentile £82.50 £91.25 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £98.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.33 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -5.75% +3.57% -6.67%

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 50,251 30,087 35,271
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.06% 90.83% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,471 18,979 21,309
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.75% -1.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,065 1,640 1,482
10th Percentile £14.31 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £42.03
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -40.16% -5.55%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £68.00 £74.37
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.91
% change year-on-year +66.84% -41.74% -3.03%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 10 October 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 5,057 £621 -0.68% 4,441
London +7 2,594 £625 -3.85% 2,591
UK excluding London +7 2,557 £622 +3.67% 1,986
Work from Home +6 1,651 £600 - 1,732
South East 0 728 £625 +4.17% 528
North of England +3 658 £600 - 460
Midlands +7 454 £628 +9.26% 266
North West +1 346 £597 +3.74% 240
South West +5 344 £625 -3.85% 201
West Midlands +9 338 £650 +8.33% 204
Yorkshire +13 241 £600 - 161
Scotland +22 190 £625 +4.38% 242
East of England +5 149 £614 +10.70% 181
East Midlands +7 111 £600 +20.00% 62
North East +1 74 £625 -15.25% 59
Wales +9 44 £640 +2.40% 53
Channel Islands +1 12 £700 -5.72%
Northern Ireland +7 3 - - 62

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 October 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 1,939 (31.79%) Security Cleared
2 1,585 (25.99%) Azure
3 1,460 (23.94%) SC Cleared
4 1,264 (20.72%) AWS
5 1,210 (19.84%) Stakeholder Management
6 1,010 (16.56%) Roadmaps
7 890 (14.59%) Migration
8 838 (13.74%) Microsoft
9 818 (13.41%) Enterprise Architecture
10 789 (12.94%) AI
11 772 (12.66%) Technical Leadership
12 650 (10.66%) Agile
13 636 (10.43%) DevOps
14 629 (10.31%) Data Architecture
15 616 (10.10%) Data Modelling
16 613 (10.05%) CI/CD
17 607 (9.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 557 (9.13%) Integration Patterns
19 516 (8.46%) Analytics
20 497 (8.15%) Security Architecture
21 492 (8.07%) GCP
22 484 (7.94%) TOGAF
23 472 (7.74%) Architectural Patterns
24 428 (7.02%) Event-Driven
25 414 (6.79%) Data Governance
26 412 (6.76%) Architecture Governance
27 393 (6.44%) Decision-Making
28 390 (6.39%) Cybersecurity
28 390 (6.39%) DV Cleared
29 386 (6.33%) Microservices

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 78 (1.28%) SAS
2 65 (1.07%) SharePoint
3 60 (0.98%) Confluence
4 46 (0.75%) Apache
5 45 (0.74%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
6 35 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
7 25 (0.41%) CMS
8 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
9 16 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
10 7 (0.11%) Documentum
10 7 (0.11%) IIS
10 7 (0.11%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.098%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.098%) Headless CMS
11 6 (0.098%) JBoss
12 5 (0.082%) Appian
12 5 (0.082%) nginx
12 5 (0.082%) SAP EP
13 4 (0.066%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 26 (0.43%) MS Visio
2 19 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 8 (0.13%) Revit
7 6 (0.098%) Navisworks
8 5 (0.082%) Spreadsheet
9 3 (0.049%) Gliffy
10 2 (0.033%) AutoCAD
11 1 (0.016%) Notion
11 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
11 1 (0.016%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 196 (3.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 52 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 33 (0.54%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 18 (0.30%) SAP MM
5 17 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
7 15 (0.25%) SAP MDG
7 15 (0.25%) Teamcenter
8 14 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 14 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
9 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
10 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
10 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 12 (0.20%) SAP CO
10 12 (0.20%) SAP FI
11 11 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
12 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
13 9 (0.15%) Workday HCM
14 8 (0.13%) SAP ERP
14 8 (0.13%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,585 (25.99%) Azure
2 1,264 (20.72%) AWS
3 492 (8.07%) GCP
4 295 (4.84%) Power Platform
5 236 (3.87%) SaaS
6 222 (3.64%) Entra ID
7 184 (3.02%) Serverless
8 155 (2.54%) GitHub
9 143 (2.34%) Microsoft 365
10 138 (2.26%) Azure DevOps
11 130 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
12 112 (1.84%) Snowflake
13 90 (1.48%) PaaS
14 83 (1.36%) AWS Lambda
15 79 (1.30%) Amazon S3
16 76 (1.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 71 (1.16%) OCI
18 65 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
18 65 (1.07%) IaaS
19 64 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 158 (2.59%) Firewall
2 148 (2.43%) Network Security
3 98 (1.61%) WAN
4 77 (1.26%) VPN
5 70 (1.15%) DNS
6 60 (0.98%) LAN
7 48 (0.79%) BGP
7 48 (0.79%) SD-WAN
8 40 (0.66%) MPLS
9 34 (0.56%) DHCP
10 32 (0.52%) TCP/IP
11 28 (0.46%) VXLAN
12 25 (0.41%) VLAN
13 23 (0.38%) NX-OS
14 20 (0.33%) SAN
14 20 (0.33%) Wireless
15 19 (0.31%) Internet
15 19 (0.31%) NGFW
15 19 (0.31%) VoIP
16 18 (0.30%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 246 (4.03%) Metadata
2 204 (3.34%) Data Lake
3 199 (3.26%) Data Warehouse
4 173 (2.84%) Power BI
5 64 (1.05%) NoSQL
6 51 (0.84%) SQL Server
7 47 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
7 47 (0.77%) BigQuery
8 46 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
8 46 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
9 42 (0.69%) Oracle Database
10 40 (0.66%) Delta Lake
11 35 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
12 32 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 29 (0.48%) Semantic Layer
14 28 (0.46%) Big Data
15 24 (0.39%) Relational Database
15 24 (0.39%) SAP HANA
16 23 (0.38%) Amazon Aurora
16 23 (0.38%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 87 (1.43%) JIRA
2 75 (1.23%) Git
3 65 (1.07%) Jenkins
4 49 (0.80%) GitLab
5 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
5 14 (0.23%) ERwin
6 13 (0.21%) Postman
7 11 (0.18%) MSI
8 10 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
8 10 (0.16%) RStudio
9 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.098%) Storybook
11 5 (0.082%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.082%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.082%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.082%) Selenium
12 4 (0.066%) Hudson
12 4 (0.066%) JMeter
12 4 (0.066%) Maven
12 4 (0.066%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,253 (20.54%) Social Skills
2 871 (14.28%) Finance
3 732 (12.00%) Public Sector
4 305 (5.00%) Banking
5 277 (4.54%) Analytical Skills
6 249 (4.08%) Retail
7 175 (2.87%) Influencing Skills
8 167 (2.74%) Manufacturing
9 143 (2.34%) Telecoms
10 135 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
11 109 (1.79%) Legal
12 77 (1.26%) Marketing
13 68 (1.11%) Aerospace
14 64 (1.05%) Billing
15 58 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 51 (0.84%) Military
17 46 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
18 41 (0.67%) Local Government
18 41 (0.67%) Police
19 36 (0.59%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 303 (4.97%) REST
2 268 (4.39%) Terraform
3 177 (2.90%) Kafka
4 164 (2.69%) Middleware
5 133 (2.18%) SOAP
6 127 (2.08%) OAuth
7 114 (1.87%) .NET
8 81 (1.33%) Oracle Fusion
9 69 (1.13%) OpenID
10 66 (1.08%) JSON
11 65 (1.07%) SAML
12 63 (1.03%) OAuth2
13 55 (0.90%) LDAP
14 48 (0.79%) RESTful
15 44 (0.72%) PySpark
15 44 (0.72%) XML
16 42 (0.69%) JWT
17 40 (0.66%) Swagger
18 39 (0.64%) SAP Fiori
19 38 (0.62%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 512 (8.39%) Cloud Native
2 190 (3.12%) Data Centre
3 188 (3.08%) Onboarding
4 168 (2.75%) Management Information System
5 152 (2.49%) Enterprise Software
6 150 (2.46%) Product Ownership
7 145 (2.38%) Hybrid Cloud
8 143 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
9 141 (2.31%) AI Agents
10 139 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
11 96 (1.57%) CMDB
12 95 (1.56%) Operational Technology
13 93 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
14 90 (1.48%) Public Cloud
15 76 (1.25%) Enterprise Cloud
16 70 (1.15%) Private Cloud
17 63 (1.03%) Data Structures
18 57 (0.93%) Security Posture
19 56 (0.92%) Taxonomies
20 51 (0.84%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 129 (2.12%) Windows
2 101 (1.66%) Linux
3 49 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.34%) Unix
6 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.11%) AIX
7 7 (0.11%) Android
7 7 (0.11%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.098%) zOS
9 4 (0.066%) Alpine Linux
9 4 (0.066%) VMS
10 3 (0.049%) CentOS
10 3 (0.049%) Solaris
10 3 (0.049%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.033%) Data ONTAP
11 2 (0.033%) HPUX
11 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
12 1 (0.016%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,210 (19.84%) Stakeholder Management
2 1,010 (16.56%) Roadmaps
3 890 (14.59%) Migration
4 818 (13.41%) Enterprise Architecture
5 789 (12.94%) AI
6 772 (12.66%) Technical Leadership
7 650 (10.66%) Agile
8 636 (10.43%) DevOps
9 629 (10.31%) Data Architecture
10 616 (10.10%) Data Modelling
11 613 (10.05%) CI/CD
12 607 (9.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 557 (9.13%) Integration Patterns
14 516 (8.46%) Analytics
15 497 (8.15%) Security Architecture
16 484 (7.94%) TOGAF
17 472 (7.74%) Architectural Patterns
18 428 (7.02%) Event-Driven
19 414 (6.79%) Data Governance
20 412 (6.76%) Architecture Governance
Programming Languages
1 256 (4.20%) SQL
2 244 (4.00%) Java
3 233 (3.82%) Python
4 115 (1.89%) JavaScript
5 111 (1.82%) PowerShell
6 55 (0.90%) TypeScript
7 52 (0.85%) Bicep
7 52 (0.85%) C#
8 44 (0.72%) Bash
9 29 (0.48%) Apex Code
10 27 (0.44%) ABAP
11 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 14 (0.23%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.18%) Groovy
13 11 (0.18%) R
14 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
15 9 (0.15%) C++
15 9 (0.15%) Rust
16 8 (0.13%) Go
16 8 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 1,939 (31.79%) Security Cleared
2 1,460 (23.94%) SC Cleared
3 390 (6.39%) DV Cleared
4 202 (3.31%) BPSS Clearance
5 162 (2.66%) Degree
6 151 (2.48%) CISSP
7 125 (2.05%) AWS Certification
8 123 (2.02%) Azure Certification
9 102 (1.67%) Cisco Certification
10 96 (1.57%) TOGAF Certification
11 73 (1.20%) CISM
12 66 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.79%) Microsoft Certification
14 46 (0.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 40 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 40 (0.66%) CCNP
16 37 (0.61%) CCSP
17 29 (0.48%) Master's Degree
18 24 (0.39%) CCIE
19 22 (0.36%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 278 (4.56%) Data Quality
2 219 (3.59%) NIST
3 192 (3.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 152 (2.49%) GDPR
5 137 (2.25%) NCSC
6 79 (1.30%) GRC
7 49 (0.80%) QA
8 45 (0.74%) Accessibility
9 40 (0.66%) PCI DSS
10 28 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (0.43%) NIST 800
12 25 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 24 (0.39%) SLA
14 22 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
15 20 (0.33%) SEPA
16 19 (0.31%) JSP 440
17 18 (0.30%) IFRS
17 18 (0.30%) ISO 20022
18 14 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
18 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 184 (3.02%) Active Directory
2 110 (1.80%) Docker
3 86 (1.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (0.69%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
6 20 (0.33%) vSphere
7 19 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 17 (0.28%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.082%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.066%) KVM
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (0.049%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.033%) IAG
13 2 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.033%) SRDF
13 2 (0.033%) Varnish
13 2 (0.033%) zsh
Systems Management
1 302 (4.95%) Kubernetes
2 100 (1.64%) Ansible
3 50 (0.82%) Grafana
4 47 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
5 36 (0.59%) Prometheus
6 34 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.25%) Argo
8 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.20%) WMI
11 11 (0.18%) CASB
11 11 (0.18%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.13%) Istio
12 8 (0.13%) SCCM
13 6 (0.098%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.098%) Puppet
13 6 (0.098%) vCenter Server
14 5 (0.082%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.082%) VxRail
15 4 (0.066%) Cisco CUCM
Vendors
1 838 (13.74%) Microsoft
2 364 (5.97%) SAP
3 302 (4.95%) Oracle
4 282 (4.62%) ServiceNow
5 275 (4.51%) Databricks
6 214 (3.51%) Google
7 192 (3.15%) Salesforce
8 149 (2.44%) Cisco
9 135 (2.21%) VMware
10 82 (1.34%) CyberArk
11 76 (1.25%) MuleSoft
12 59 (0.97%) IBM
13 51 (0.84%) Palo Alto
14 50 (0.82%) Workday
15 45 (0.74%) Foundry
16 42 (0.69%) Splunk
17 40 (0.66%) OpenAI
18 39 (0.64%) Ariba
18 39 (0.64%) Red Hat
19 38 (0.62%) Adobe