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 25 June 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +6 -6 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,632 2,883 4,520
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.07% 9.57% 10.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.98% 10.38% 11.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,718 1,850 2,907
10th Percentile £463 £463 £493
25th Percentile £515 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £616 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.44% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £724 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £617 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.83% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 151 21 97
10th Percentile £46.00 £38.96 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £67.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.70% -3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.63 £85.50 £87.00
90th Percentile £97.50 £98.56 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -7.14% - -

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 47,005 27,763 40,488
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.37% 92.19% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,579 17,831 26,014
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £415 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.80% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,151 1,202 2,914
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.79 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.44 £16.38
Median hourly rate £43.50 £27.13 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.37% -27.67% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.75 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +77.93% -37.13% -

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 25 June 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 25 June 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 25 June 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 4,785 £618 -1.20% 743
UK excluding London +9 2,498 £617 +2.83% 571
London +5 2,332 £625 -3.85% 322
Work from Home +4 1,536 £600 - 368
South East +5 710 £625 +2.46% 170
North of England +7 709 £600 - 164
Midlands +2 434 £613 +5.20% 64
North West +4 374 £610 +2.95% 90
West Midlands +2 311 £625 +4.17% 53
South West 0 279 £643 +4.90% 71
Yorkshire +9 274 £558 -7.00% 39
East of England +26 201 £600 - 40
Scotland +11 161 £650 +4.00% 36
East Midlands +5 117 £575 +15.00% 11
North East +10 68 £575 -8.00% 37
Wales +3 34 £620 +30.53% 26
Northern Ireland +5 7 £475 -28.30% 12
Channel Islands 0 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 June 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 1,681 (29.85%) Security Cleared
2 1,404 (24.93%) Azure
3 1,268 (22.51%) SC Cleared
4 1,233 (21.89%) AWS
5 794 (14.10%) Roadmaps
6 790 (14.03%) Migration
7 739 (13.12%) Microsoft
8 703 (12.48%) Stakeholder Management
9 648 (11.51%) Agile
10 636 (11.29%) DevOps
11 605 (10.74%) CI/CD
12 602 (10.69%) AI
13 587 (10.42%) Enterprise Architecture
14 539 (9.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 539 (9.57%) Technical Leadership
15 532 (9.45%) Data Modelling
16 522 (9.27%) Integration Patterns
17 485 (8.61%) Data Architecture
18 467 (8.29%) Architectural Patterns
19 459 (8.15%) Analytics
20 446 (7.92%) TOGAF
21 432 (7.67%) GCP
22 429 (7.62%) Microservices
23 372 (6.61%) Problem-Solving
24 360 (6.39%) Architectural Design
25 354 (6.29%) Infrastructure as Code
26 351 (6.23%) Security Architecture
27 340 (6.04%) Event-Driven
28 337 (5.98%) Cybersecurity
29 326 (5.79%) Python

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
1 118 (2.10%) SharePoint
2 87 (1.54%) Confluence
3 52 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
4 46 (0.82%) SAS
5 32 (0.57%) Apache Spark
6 31 (0.55%) Apache
7 24 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 19 (0.34%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.32%) Appian
9 18 (0.32%) CMS
10 15 (0.27%) WebLogic
11 14 (0.25%) nginx
12 11 (0.20%) Anypoint
13 10 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 9 (0.16%) Camunda
14 9 (0.16%) OpenStack
15 8 (0.14%) ArcGIS
16 7 (0.12%) Tomcat
17 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
17 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 21 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 19 (0.34%) MS Visio
3 11 (0.20%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 9 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
6 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.12%) Revit
6 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.053%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.053%) Windchill
8 1 (0.018%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.018%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.018%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 150 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.69%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
5 18 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 18 (0.32%) SAP ERP
6 16 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
7 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
9 9 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 7 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
11 7 (0.12%) SAP MDG
11 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.11%) Maximo
12 6 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
12 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
13 5 (0.089%) Oracle Receivables
13 5 (0.089%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 1,404 (24.93%) Azure
2 1,233 (21.89%) AWS
3 432 (7.67%) GCP
4 273 (4.85%) Power Platform
5 207 (3.68%) Serverless
6 190 (3.37%) SaaS
7 188 (3.34%) Entra ID
8 141 (2.50%) GitHub
9 137 (2.43%) Microsoft 365
10 120 (2.13%) PaaS
11 113 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
12 109 (1.94%) Dynamics 365
13 102 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
14 96 (1.70%) Snowflake
15 90 (1.60%) IaaS
16 88 (1.56%) Amazon S3
17 70 (1.24%) Amazon EKS
17 70 (1.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 67 (1.19%) AWS CloudFormation
19 65 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 222 (3.94%) Firewall
2 188 (3.34%) Network Security
3 124 (2.20%) DNS
4 120 (2.13%) VPN
4 120 (2.13%) WAN
5 84 (1.49%) LAN
6 68 (1.21%) SD-WAN
7 46 (0.82%) DHCP
8 45 (0.80%) TCP/IP
9 43 (0.76%) BGP
10 37 (0.66%) VLAN
11 35 (0.62%) MPLS
12 34 (0.60%) OSPF
13 33 (0.59%) Wireless
14 29 (0.51%) SAN
15 27 (0.48%) NAS
16 25 (0.44%) IPsec
16 25 (0.44%) Structured Cabling
17 24 (0.43%) BIG-IP
18 21 (0.37%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 192 (3.41%) Power BI
2 161 (2.86%) Metadata
3 159 (2.82%) Data Lake
4 150 (2.66%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.33%) NoSQL
6 68 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
7 65 (1.15%) SQL Server
8 47 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
9 44 (0.78%) Big Data
10 39 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
11 36 (0.64%) BigQuery
12 35 (0.62%) Oracle Database
13 30 (0.53%) Tableau
14 29 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
14 29 (0.51%) Delta Lake
15 28 (0.50%) Relational Database
16 25 (0.44%) MongoDB
17 21 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
17 21 (0.37%) Electronic Patient Records
18 20 (0.36%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 112 (1.99%) JIRA
2 90 (1.60%) Jenkins
3 66 (1.17%) Git
4 40 (0.71%) GitLab
5 26 (0.46%) ERwin
6 12 (0.21%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.18%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.16%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.14%) MLflow
9 8 (0.14%) Postman
10 7 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
11 6 (0.11%) Sonatype Nexus
12 5 (0.089%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.089%) JMeter
12 5 (0.089%) JUnit
12 5 (0.089%) Maven
12 5 (0.089%) Oracle Forms
12 5 (0.089%) PowerDesigner
General
1 1,055 (18.73%) Social Skills
2 870 (15.45%) Finance
3 638 (11.33%) Public Sector
4 324 (5.75%) Banking
5 286 (5.08%) Analytical Skills
6 207 (3.68%) Retail
7 154 (2.73%) Documentation Skills
8 138 (2.45%) Legal
9 130 (2.31%) Influencing Skills
10 103 (1.83%) Manufacturing
11 98 (1.74%) Telecoms
12 55 (0.98%) Law
13 54 (0.96%) Military
14 49 (0.87%) Financial Institution
14 49 (0.87%) Marketing
15 48 (0.85%) Billing
16 42 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
17 38 (0.67%) Aerospace
17 38 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 34 (0.60%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 268 (4.76%) REST
2 208 (3.69%) Middleware
3 137 (2.43%) .NET
4 127 (2.25%) SOAP
5 118 (2.10%) Kafka
6 99 (1.76%) OAuth
7 95 (1.69%) OpenID
8 76 (1.35%) SAML
9 69 (1.23%) LDAP
10 65 (1.15%) Oracle Fusion
11 59 (1.05%) OAuth2
12 58 (1.03%) React
13 54 (0.96%) RESTful
14 48 (0.85%) SailPoint
15 46 (0.82%) JSON
16 38 (0.67%) AngularJS
16 38 (0.67%) Web Services
17 36 (0.64%) Node.js
18 32 (0.57%) .NET Framework
18 32 (0.57%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 482 (8.56%) Cloud Native
2 196 (3.48%) Data Centre
3 164 (2.91%) Management Information System
4 152 (2.70%) Onboarding
5 149 (2.65%) Product Ownership
6 133 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
7 131 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
8 124 (2.20%) Hybrid Cloud
9 113 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
10 94 (1.67%) Public Cloud
11 89 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
12 88 (1.56%) Operational Technology
13 82 (1.46%) AI Agents
14 81 (1.44%) CMDB
15 76 (1.35%) Security Posture
16 49 (0.87%) Enterprise Cloud
17 47 (0.83%) Data Structures
18 46 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
19 44 (0.78%) NHS
19 44 (0.78%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 156 (2.77%) Windows
2 97 (1.72%) Linux
3 44 (0.78%) Windows Server
4 37 (0.66%) Android
5 36 (0.64%) Apple iOS
6 25 (0.44%) Unix
7 16 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (0.18%) zOS
9 7 (0.12%) VMS
9 7 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.089%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.089%) Mac OS
11 5 (0.089%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.089%) Windows 10
11 5 (0.089%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.071%) AIX
12 4 (0.071%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.071%) Solaris
13 2 (0.036%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 794 (14.10%) Roadmaps
2 790 (14.03%) Migration
3 703 (12.48%) Stakeholder Management
4 648 (11.51%) Agile
5 636 (11.29%) DevOps
6 605 (10.74%) CI/CD
7 602 (10.69%) AI
8 587 (10.42%) Enterprise Architecture
9 539 (9.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 539 (9.57%) Technical Leadership
10 532 (9.45%) Data Modelling
11 522 (9.27%) Integration Patterns
12 485 (8.61%) Data Architecture
13 467 (8.29%) Architectural Patterns
14 459 (8.15%) Analytics
15 446 (7.92%) TOGAF
16 429 (7.62%) Microservices
17 372 (6.61%) Problem-Solving
18 360 (6.39%) Architectural Design
19 354 (6.29%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 326 (5.79%) Python
2 275 (4.88%) SQL
3 249 (4.42%) Java
4 133 (2.36%) PowerShell
5 107 (1.90%) JavaScript
6 67 (1.19%) C#
7 58 (1.03%) Bicep
8 44 (0.78%) TypeScript
9 42 (0.75%) Bash
10 24 (0.43%) Apex Code
11 23 (0.41%) Ruby
12 14 (0.25%) Scala
13 13 (0.23%) Kotlin
14 12 (0.21%) PL/SQL
15 10 (0.18%) ABAP
15 10 (0.18%) Kusto Query Language
16 9 (0.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 8 (0.14%) C++
17 8 (0.14%) Shell Script
17 8 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,681 (29.85%) Security Cleared
2 1,268 (22.51%) SC Cleared
3 296 (5.26%) DV Cleared
4 196 (3.48%) Degree
5 120 (2.13%) CISSP
6 119 (2.11%) Azure Certification
7 115 (2.04%) AWS Certification
8 114 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
9 107 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
10 80 (1.42%) Computer Science Degree
11 79 (1.40%) TOGAF Certification
12 62 (1.10%) CISM
13 54 (0.96%) CCNP
14 48 (0.85%) Master's Degree
15 43 (0.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 42 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
17 40 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 28 (0.50%) CCSP
19 22 (0.39%) CCIE
19 22 (0.39%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 197 (3.50%) NIST
2 183 (3.25%) GDPR
3 170 (3.02%) Data Quality
4 153 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 126 (2.24%) NCSC
6 70 (1.24%) QA
7 45 (0.80%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.71%) GRC
9 35 (0.62%) Accessibility
10 27 (0.48%) ISO 20022
11 24 (0.43%) NIST 800
11 24 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.43%) SEPA
12 19 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
12 19 (0.34%) HL7
13 18 (0.32%) COBIT
13 18 (0.32%) IFRS
14 14 (0.25%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 11 (0.20%) MiFID
System Software
1 175 (3.11%) Active Directory
2 109 (1.94%) Docker
3 92 (1.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 63 (1.12%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.46%) vSphere
6 25 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
7 23 (0.41%) Hyper-V
8 17 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.21%) Varnish
10 9 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
10 9 (0.16%) Squid
10 9 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
11 8 (0.14%) NFS
12 7 (0.12%) Postfix
12 7 (0.12%) vCloud
13 4 (0.071%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.071%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.071%) IAG
13 4 (0.071%) RACF
13 4 (0.071%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 283 (5.02%) Terraform
2 260 (4.62%) Kubernetes
3 115 (2.04%) Ansible
4 50 (0.89%) Grafana
4 50 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
5 41 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (0.69%) Prometheus
7 30 (0.53%) FortiGate
8 24 (0.43%) vCenter Server
9 21 (0.37%) Argo
10 16 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 14 (0.25%) SCCM
12 12 (0.21%) Istio
13 11 (0.20%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.14%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.12%) Consul
15 7 (0.12%) HAProxy
15 7 (0.12%) Puppet
16 6 (0.11%) EMC VPLEX
17 4 (0.071%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 739 (13.12%) Microsoft
2 324 (5.75%) SAP
3 300 (5.33%) ServiceNow
4 255 (4.53%) Oracle
5 235 (4.17%) Databricks
6 182 (3.23%) Salesforce
7 171 (3.04%) VMware
8 139 (2.47%) Cisco
9 137 (2.43%) Google
10 72 (1.28%) CyberArk
11 69 (1.23%) MuleSoft
12 63 (1.12%) Splunk
13 57 (1.01%) Palo Alto
14 50 (0.89%) Red Hat
15 49 (0.87%) IBM
16 48 (0.85%) OpenAI
17 43 (0.76%) Workday
18 41 (0.73%) Sparx
19 40 (0.71%) Foundry
20 38 (0.67%) F5