Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 8 March 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,415 3,058 4,441
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.42% 10.17% 9.95%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.33% 10.95% 10.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,924 1,944 2,860
10th Percentile £462 £478 £500
25th Percentile £513 £547 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.52%
75th Percentile £725 £738 £738
90th Percentile £800 £800 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £623 £650
% change year-on-year -3.61% -4.23% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 32 43
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.43 £53.45
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £84.75 £81.00 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.33 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £80.00
% change year-on-year -1.70% -9.38% +14.29%

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 38,954 27,938 41,468
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.91% 92.92% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,406 17,829 27,199
10th Percentile £310 £294 £270
25th Percentile £409 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.40%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £485
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.06% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,403 873 2,490
10th Percentile £14.67 £15.66 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £34.50 £33.40 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.29% +2.77% -19.93%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £71.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.17 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +2.06% - -15.58%

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 8 March 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 8 March 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 8 March 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 +1 3,784 £625 - 857
UK excluding London +7 2,117 £600 -3.61% 616
London -1 1,700 £630 -3.08% 374
Work from Home -2 1,226 £620 -0.80% 391
South East +5 655 £625 - 230
North of England -2 527 £586 -2.42% 121
Midlands -5 379 £576 -3.96% 82
North West -1 287 £600 - 74
West Midlands -2 282 £600 -1.15% 49
South West -1 261 £702 +12.24% 92
Yorkshire +4 219 £563 -2.00% 32
East of England +15 164 £550 -12.00% 48
Scotland +18 139 £650 +4.00% 26
East Midlands +1 93 £519 -7.37% 31
Wales +6 30 £575 +6.48% 22
North East -2 27 £625 - 17
Northern Ireland +2 9 £500 -26.47% 3

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 8 March 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 1,388 (31.44%) Security Cleared
2 1,133 (25.66%) Azure
3 994 (22.51%) SC Cleared
4 932 (21.11%) AWS
5 644 (14.59%) Roadmaps
6 620 (14.04%) Microsoft
7 573 (12.98%) Migration
8 561 (12.71%) Agile
9 559 (12.66%) Stakeholder Management
10 501 (11.35%) DevOps
11 473 (10.71%) Enterprise Architecture
12 440 (9.97%) CI/CD
13 432 (9.78%) TOGAF
14 427 (9.67%) Data Modelling
15 411 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 392 (8.88%) Technical Leadership
17 388 (8.79%) Analytics
18 379 (8.58%) AI
19 370 (8.38%) Problem-Solving
20 358 (8.11%) Data Architecture
21 355 (8.04%) GCP
22 331 (7.50%) Python
23 328 (7.43%) Integration Patterns
24 314 (7.11%) Microservices
25 298 (6.75%) Architectural Patterns
26 289 (6.55%) DV Cleared
27 272 (6.16%) Terraform
28 262 (5.93%) Architectural Design
29 252 (5.71%) ServiceNow
30 250 (5.66%) Cybersecurity

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
1 119 (2.70%) Confluence
2 117 (2.65%) SharePoint
3 63 (1.43%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (0.75%) SAS
5 24 (0.54%) Apache Spark
6 23 (0.52%) CMS
7 19 (0.43%) Apache
7 19 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.39%) WebLogic
9 16 (0.36%) Anypoint
10 15 (0.34%) Appian
10 15 (0.34%) ArcGIS
11 14 (0.32%) OpenStack
12 13 (0.29%) nginx
13 9 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 9 (0.20%) Smallworld
14 7 (0.16%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.16%) Hyperledger
14 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 26 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
5 20 (0.45%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.16%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.045%) PlantUML
8 1 (0.023%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.023%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.023%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.023%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.023%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 118 (2.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (0.95%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.52%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
7 14 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
8 12 (0.27%) NetSuite
9 11 (0.25%) SAP ERP
9 11 (0.25%) SAP EWM
10 10 (0.23%) SAP PM
11 9 (0.20%) Maximo
11 9 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
12 8 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
13 7 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
13 7 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
13 7 (0.16%) R3 Corda
13 7 (0.16%) SAP PP
13 7 (0.16%) Teamcenter
14 6 (0.14%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,133 (25.66%) Azure
2 932 (21.11%) AWS
3 355 (8.04%) GCP
4 171 (3.87%) Power Platform
5 158 (3.58%) Serverless
6 152 (3.44%) Entra ID
7 150 (3.40%) SaaS
8 143 (3.24%) Microsoft 365
9 104 (2.36%) IaaS
10 95 (2.15%) GitHub
11 89 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
12 88 (1.99%) PaaS
13 87 (1.97%) AWS Lambda
14 76 (1.72%) Microsoft Purview
15 75 (1.70%) AWS CloudFormation
16 74 (1.68%) Amazon S3
17 72 (1.63%) OpenShift
18 70 (1.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 69 (1.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 68 (1.54%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 225 (5.10%) Firewall
2 147 (3.33%) Network Security
3 126 (2.85%) WAN
4 119 (2.70%) DNS
5 112 (2.54%) VPN
6 75 (1.70%) LAN
7 71 (1.61%) SD-WAN
8 42 (0.95%) BGP
9 35 (0.79%) DHCP
10 32 (0.72%) MPLS
11 30 (0.68%) OSPF
12 29 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
13 26 (0.59%) VLAN
14 25 (0.57%) TCP/IP
15 22 (0.50%) VXLAN
16 21 (0.48%) SAN
17 20 (0.45%) IPsec
17 20 (0.45%) VSAN
17 20 (0.45%) Wireless
18 19 (0.43%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (3.71%) Data Warehouse
2 137 (3.10%) Metadata
3 123 (2.79%) Power BI
4 100 (2.27%) Data Lake
5 82 (1.86%) SQL Server
6 67 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
7 51 (1.16%) Tableau
8 48 (1.09%) Azure SQL Database
9 46 (1.04%) NoSQL
10 39 (0.88%) Oracle Database
11 35 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
12 30 (0.68%) Big Data
13 26 (0.59%) DynamoDB
14 25 (0.57%) GIS
15 24 (0.54%) Amazon Athena
15 24 (0.54%) Relational Database
16 21 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
16 21 (0.48%) Delta Lake
16 21 (0.48%) Metadata Repository
17 19 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 131 (2.97%) JIRA
2 91 (2.06%) Jenkins
3 50 (1.13%) GitLab
4 41 (0.93%) Git
5 22 (0.50%) ERwin
6 11 (0.25%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.18%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.18%) MLflow
9 6 (0.14%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.11%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.11%) Postman
10 5 (0.11%) Selenium
11 4 (0.091%) PowerDesigner
11 4 (0.091%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.091%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.068%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.068%) Maven
12 3 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 988 (22.38%) Social Skills
2 674 (15.27%) Finance
3 534 (12.10%) Public Sector
4 302 (6.84%) Analytical Skills
5 245 (5.55%) Banking
6 144 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
7 100 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
8 98 (2.22%) Legal
9 88 (1.99%) Retail
10 81 (1.83%) Military
10 81 (1.83%) Telecoms
11 78 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
12 69 (1.56%) Marketing
13 62 (1.40%) Manufacturing
14 39 (0.88%) Financial Institution
14 39 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 36 (0.82%) Billing
16 30 (0.68%) Law
17 27 (0.61%) Investment Banking
18 21 (0.48%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 219 (4.96%) REST
2 164 (3.71%) Middleware
3 118 (2.67%) SOAP
4 95 (2.15%) .NET
5 84 (1.90%) Kafka
6 80 (1.81%) OpenID
7 76 (1.72%) LDAP
8 72 (1.63%) OAuth
9 66 (1.49%) SAML
10 50 (1.13%) JSON
11 44 (1.00%) OAuth2
12 43 (0.97%) React
13 40 (0.91%) AngularJS
14 38 (0.86%) RESTful
15 34 (0.77%) Oracle Fusion
16 33 (0.75%) SailPoint
17 31 (0.70%) PySpark
18 27 (0.61%) Node.js
18 27 (0.61%) Web Services
19 22 (0.50%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 318 (7.20%) Cloud Native
2 143 (3.24%) Product Ownership
3 142 (3.22%) Data Centre
4 123 (2.79%) Onboarding
5 118 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
6 99 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
7 92 (2.08%) PKI
8 86 (1.95%) Hybrid Cloud
9 81 (1.83%) Public Cloud
10 78 (1.77%) Management Information System
11 76 (1.72%) Distributed Systems
12 68 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
12 68 (1.54%) Security Posture
13 64 (1.45%) Operational Technology
14 53 (1.20%) CMDB
15 46 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
16 44 (1.00%) Data Structures
17 43 (0.97%) AI Agents
18 35 (0.79%) NHS
19 33 (0.75%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 180 (4.08%) Windows
2 115 (2.60%) Linux
3 39 (0.88%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (0.54%) Android
5 24 (0.54%) Apple iOS
6 16 (0.36%) Windows 7
7 15 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.29%) Unix
9 12 (0.27%) VMS
10 11 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.23%) zOS
12 9 (0.20%) Mac OS
13 6 (0.14%) Ubuntu
14 4 (0.091%) CentOS
15 3 (0.068%) Windows Server 2012
16 1 (0.023%) Data ONTAP
16 1 (0.023%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.023%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 644 (14.59%) Roadmaps
2 573 (12.98%) Migration
3 561 (12.71%) Agile
4 559 (12.66%) Stakeholder Management
5 501 (11.35%) DevOps
6 473 (10.71%) Enterprise Architecture
7 440 (9.97%) CI/CD
8 432 (9.78%) TOGAF
9 427 (9.67%) Data Modelling
10 411 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 392 (8.88%) Technical Leadership
12 388 (8.79%) Analytics
13 379 (8.58%) AI
14 370 (8.38%) Problem-Solving
15 358 (8.11%) Data Architecture
16 328 (7.43%) Integration Patterns
17 314 (7.11%) Microservices
18 298 (6.75%) Architectural Patterns
19 262 (5.93%) Architectural Design
20 250 (5.66%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 331 (7.50%) Python
2 237 (5.37%) SQL
3 183 (4.14%) PowerShell
4 142 (3.22%) Java
5 64 (1.45%) JavaScript
6 62 (1.40%) C#
7 40 (0.91%) Bicep
8 37 (0.84%) Bash
9 34 (0.77%) TypeScript
10 20 (0.45%) PL/SQL
11 19 (0.43%) Apex Code
12 14 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.29%) R
13 13 (0.29%) Ruby
14 10 (0.23%) Kotlin
14 10 (0.23%) T-SQL
15 9 (0.20%) Scala
16 8 (0.18%) PHP
16 8 (0.18%) VB
17 7 (0.16%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,388 (31.44%) Security Cleared
2 994 (22.51%) SC Cleared
3 289 (6.55%) DV Cleared
4 205 (4.64%) Degree
5 122 (2.76%) TOGAF Certification
6 120 (2.72%) AWS Certification
7 117 (2.65%) Azure Certification
7 117 (2.65%) CISSP
8 80 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
9 79 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
10 77 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
11 63 (1.43%) CISM
12 59 (1.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 57 (1.29%) Master's Degree
13 57 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
14 49 (1.11%) CCNP
15 33 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
16 30 (0.68%) CCIE
16 30 (0.68%) ISEB
17 29 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 183 (4.14%) GDPR
2 147 (3.33%) Data Quality
3 144 (3.26%) NIST
4 125 (2.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 90 (2.04%) NCSC
6 62 (1.40%) QA
7 58 (1.31%) PCI DSS
8 35 (0.79%) COBIT
9 34 (0.77%) Accessibility
10 33 (0.75%) GRC
11 27 (0.61%) ISO 20022
12 25 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.45%) JSP 440
14 18 (0.41%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 16 (0.36%) HIPAA
16 15 (0.34%) MiFID
17 14 (0.32%) California Consumer Privacy Act
17 14 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 13 (0.29%) FINRA
19 12 (0.27%) PSD2
System Software
1 183 (4.14%) Active Directory
2 127 (2.88%) Docker
3 93 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.59%) VMware NSX
5 37 (0.84%) vSphere
6 21 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
8 13 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 11 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
10 9 (0.20%) Varnish
11 8 (0.18%) Squid
12 7 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 7 (0.16%) vCloud
13 6 (0.14%) NFS
14 5 (0.11%) RACF
15 4 (0.091%) Firmware
16 3 (0.068%) Ceph
16 3 (0.068%) IAG
16 3 (0.068%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 272 (6.16%) Terraform
2 221 (5.01%) Kubernetes
3 115 (2.60%) Ansible
4 56 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
6 32 (0.72%) FortiGate
7 30 (0.68%) OPNET
7 30 (0.68%) vCenter Server
8 27 (0.61%) Grafana
9 23 (0.52%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.50%) SCCM
11 17 (0.39%) Argo
12 16 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 15 (0.34%) WMI
14 10 (0.23%) Istio
15 7 (0.16%) Consul
16 6 (0.14%) Kibana
16 6 (0.14%) Puppet
17 5 (0.11%) Progress Chef
18 4 (0.091%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 620 (14.04%) Microsoft
2 252 (5.71%) ServiceNow
3 241 (5.46%) SAP
4 200 (4.53%) Oracle
5 182 (4.12%) Salesforce
6 177 (4.01%) VMware
7 142 (3.22%) Databricks
8 129 (2.92%) Cisco
9 108 (2.45%) Google
10 92 (2.08%) CyberArk
11 68 (1.54%) MuleSoft
12 65 (1.47%) Splunk
13 64 (1.45%) Palo Alto
14 51 (1.16%) Red Hat
15 49 (1.11%) Centrify
15 49 (1.11%) Remedy
15 49 (1.11%) Workday
16 48 (1.09%) Atlassian
17 42 (0.95%) IBM
18 41 (0.93%) Sparx