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 20 September 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 15 16
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 -1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 2,933 3,812 4,733
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 8.91% 9.89% 9.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.79% 10.65% 10.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,891 2,344 3,250
10th Percentile £463 £485 £500
25th Percentile £525 £544 £567
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £627 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.32% -3.54% -
75th Percentile £713 £738 £738
90th Percentile £787 £800 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £638
% change year-on-year -4.00% -1.96% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 71 68
10th Percentile £33.64 £60.00 £56.30
25th Percentile £61.88 £61.88 £66.63
Median hourly rate £70.00 £70.00 £71.09
Median % change year-on-year - -1.53% +7.71%
75th Percentile £83.75 £85.13 £80.00
90th Percentile £100.00 £90.00 £83.57
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.25 £70.00 £75.00
% change year-on-year +1.79% -6.67% +25.00%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 29,964 35,807 47,071
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.07% 92.94% 94.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,916 22,003 32,212
10th Percentile £278 £300 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,585 1,672 1,513
10th Percentile £13.75 £14.73 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.29 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -41.51% -3.37% +71.15%
75th Percentile £52.16 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £43.83
% change year-on-year -44.11% +2.68% +99.20%

Architect
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Architect in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Architect 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 September 2025.

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 September 2025.

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 September 2025. 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 -3 2,507 £625 -0.79% 1,053
London -2 1,282 £650 - 514
UK excluding London -8 1,219 £600 -4.00% 798
Work from Home -4 1,014 £600 -4.00% 557
South East +1 353 £600 -6.25% 288
North of England -16 306 £600 -4.00% 177
Midlands -9 216 £575 -4.17% 90
North West -13 199 £593 -5.20% 99
South West -8 176 £650 - 76
West Midlands -5 146 £600 -4.76% 58
Yorkshire -29 92 £600 +3.45% 55
East of England -3 78 £555 -7.50% 40
Scotland -20 73 £625 -4.21% 101
East Midlands -5 69 £503 -8.64% 30
Wales +7 22 £625 +4.17% 20
North East -5 16 £725 +11.54% 24
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -
Northern Ireland -13 2 £788 +31.25% 14

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 September 2025, Architect contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Architect in the job title.

1 815 (27.79%) Azure
2 784 (26.73%) Social Skills
3 783 (26.70%) Security Cleared
4 726 (24.75%) AWS
5 544 (18.55%) SC Cleared
6 539 (18.38%) Finance
7 459 (15.65%) Microsoft
8 450 (15.34%) Roadmaps
9 399 (13.60%) Agile
10 391 (13.33%) Stakeholder Management
11 364 (12.41%) Problem-Solving
12 362 (12.34%) Migration
13 341 (11.63%) DevOps
14 330 (11.25%) Public Sector
15 320 (10.91%) CI/CD
16 316 (10.77%) TOGAF
17 297 (10.13%) Enterprise Architecture
18 292 (9.96%) Data Modelling
19 279 (9.51%) Microservices
20 278 (9.48%) GCP
21 246 (8.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 238 (8.11%) Technical Leadership
23 224 (7.64%) Python
24 217 (7.40%) Banking
25 212 (7.23%) Analytical Skills
26 211 (7.19%) Security Architecture
27 207 (7.06%) Cybersecurity
28 206 (7.02%) Analytics
28 206 (7.02%) Data Architecture
28 206 (7.02%) Terraform

Architect Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 51 (1.74%) Confluence
2 37 (1.26%) SharePoint
3 30 (1.02%) Apache Spark
4 27 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
5 24 (0.82%) OpenStack
6 23 (0.78%) Apache
6 23 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
7 14 (0.48%) WebLogic
8 12 (0.41%) SAS
9 11 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 11 (0.38%) CMS
10 9 (0.31%) Anypoint
10 9 (0.31%) Mule
11 8 (0.27%) Jupyter
11 8 (0.27%) WebSphere
12 5 (0.17%) Camunda
12 5 (0.17%) CICS
13 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.14%) nginx
13 4 (0.14%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 34 (1.16%) MS Visio
2 18 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.48%) Siemens NX
4 13 (0.44%) Microsoft Excel
5 8 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.24%) Microsoft Office
7 4 (0.14%) Fusion 360
8 3 (0.10%) Revit
8 3 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.068%) Chatbot
9 2 (0.068%) Trello
10 1 (0.034%) FrameMaker
10 1 (0.034%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 93 (3.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.61%) Payment Gateway
3 18 (0.61%) Teamcenter
4 16 (0.55%) Maximo
5 14 (0.48%) Salesforce CRM
6 13 (0.44%) Endur
7 12 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
8 11 (0.38%) SAP CO
8 11 (0.38%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 11 (0.38%) Workday HCM
9 10 (0.34%) SAP FI
9 10 (0.34%) SAP PM
10 9 (0.31%) SAP FI/CO
11 8 (0.27%) SAP ERP
11 8 (0.27%) SAP MDG
11 8 (0.27%) SAP PS
12 7 (0.24%) Aladdin
12 7 (0.24%) NetSuite
12 7 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 815 (27.79%) Azure
2 726 (24.75%) AWS
3 278 (9.48%) GCP
4 156 (5.32%) SaaS
5 139 (4.74%) Serverless
6 133 (4.53%) Power Platform
7 102 (3.48%) Amazon S3
8 101 (3.44%) Entra ID
9 98 (3.34%) GitHub
10 86 (2.93%) Microsoft 365
11 82 (2.80%) Azure DevOps
12 81 (2.76%) AWS Lambda
13 77 (2.63%) PaaS
14 68 (2.32%) Dynamics 365
14 68 (2.32%) IaaS
15 64 (2.18%) Snowflake
16 59 (2.01%) GitHub Actions
17 50 (1.70%) AWS CloudFormation
18 49 (1.67%) Azure Data Factory
19 48 (1.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 191 (6.51%) Firewall
2 106 (3.61%) Network Security
3 96 (3.27%) WAN
4 90 (3.07%) LAN
5 67 (2.28%) VPN
6 59 (2.01%) SD-WAN
7 49 (1.67%) DNS
8 34 (1.16%) BGP
9 31 (1.06%) Wi-Fi
10 26 (0.89%) Cisco Nexus
11 24 (0.82%) SSL
12 22 (0.75%) MPLS
13 19 (0.65%) SAN
14 18 (0.61%) Fibre Channel
14 18 (0.61%) iSCSI
14 18 (0.61%) VSAN
15 17 (0.58%) DHCP
16 16 (0.55%) Internet
17 14 (0.48%) 4G
17 14 (0.48%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 99 (3.38%) Data Warehouse
2 84 (2.86%) Power BI
3 72 (2.45%) Data Lake
4 70 (2.39%) SQL Server
5 63 (2.15%) NoSQL
6 58 (1.98%) Metadata
7 52 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
8 51 (1.74%) Big Data
9 39 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
9 39 (1.33%) BigQuery
10 36 (1.23%) MongoDB
11 35 (1.19%) DynamoDB
12 33 (1.13%) Amazon Redshift
13 26 (0.89%) Oracle Database
13 26 (0.89%) SAP HANA
14 25 (0.85%) Relational Database
15 24 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
16 23 (0.78%) Delta Lake
16 23 (0.78%) GIS
17 19 (0.65%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 79 (2.69%) JIRA
2 72 (2.45%) Jenkins
3 50 (1.70%) Git
4 37 (1.26%) GitLab
5 24 (0.82%) CircleCI
6 19 (0.65%) ERwin
7 11 (0.38%) Oracle Forms
7 11 (0.38%) SonarQube
8 10 (0.34%) Maven
9 8 (0.27%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.27%) ER Studio
9 8 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.24%) Gradle
11 6 (0.20%) Artifactory
12 5 (0.17%) MSI
12 5 (0.17%) Rational DOORS
12 5 (0.17%) SonarLint
12 5 (0.17%) Storybook
13 4 (0.14%) MLflow
13 4 (0.14%) Postman
General
1 784 (26.73%) Social Skills
2 539 (18.38%) Finance
3 330 (11.25%) Public Sector
4 217 (7.40%) Banking
5 212 (7.23%) Analytical Skills
6 90 (3.07%) Telecoms
7 86 (2.93%) Retail
8 71 (2.42%) Legal
9 68 (2.32%) Documentation Skills
10 60 (2.05%) Manufacturing
10 60 (2.05%) Marketing
11 57 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
11 57 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
12 39 (1.33%) Financial Institution
13 38 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 31 (1.06%) Back Office
15 29 (0.99%) Military
16 25 (0.85%) Aerospace
17 24 (0.82%) Pharmaceutical
18 22 (0.75%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (3.61%) REST
2 100 (3.41%) Kafka
3 86 (2.93%) .NET
4 85 (2.90%) Middleware
5 72 (2.45%) Web Services
6 64 (2.18%) SOAP
7 54 (1.84%) RESTful
8 45 (1.53%) React
9 42 (1.43%) OAuth
10 34 (1.16%) JSON
11 32 (1.09%) RabbitMQ
12 31 (1.06%) Lightning Web Components
12 31 (1.06%) SAML
13 28 (0.95%) Spring Boot
14 26 (0.89%) AngularJS
15 24 (0.82%) LDAP
15 24 (0.82%) Node.js
16 23 (0.78%) Visualforce
16 23 (0.78%) XML
17 22 (0.75%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 205 (6.99%) Cloud Native
2 118 (4.02%) Data Centre
3 114 (3.89%) Legacy Systems
4 103 (3.51%) Product Ownership
5 85 (2.90%) Onboarding
6 76 (2.59%) Hybrid Cloud
7 62 (2.11%) Management Information System
8 57 (1.94%) Public Cloud
9 53 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
10 47 (1.60%) Operational Technology
11 43 (1.47%) Security Posture
12 36 (1.23%) SCADA
13 34 (1.16%) Security Operations Centre
14 33 (1.13%) Distributed Systems
15 31 (1.06%) CMDB
16 30 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
16 30 (1.02%) NHS
16 30 (1.02%) Private Cloud
17 29 (0.99%) IoT
18 28 (0.95%) CSOC
Operating Systems
1 151 (5.15%) Windows
2 105 (3.58%) Linux
3 53 (1.81%) Windows Server
4 26 (0.89%) Unix
5 24 (0.82%) Windows Server 2019
6 20 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (0.55%) Android
7 16 (0.55%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.34%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.24%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.20%) Solaris
11 5 (0.17%) VMS
11 5 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
12 4 (0.14%) CentOS
13 3 (0.10%) HPUX
13 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.10%) zOS
14 2 (0.068%) Debian
14 2 (0.068%) Ubuntu
14 2 (0.068%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 450 (15.34%) Roadmaps
2 399 (13.60%) Agile
3 391 (13.33%) Stakeholder Management
4 364 (12.41%) Problem-Solving
5 362 (12.34%) Migration
6 341 (11.63%) DevOps
7 320 (10.91%) CI/CD
8 316 (10.77%) TOGAF
9 297 (10.13%) Enterprise Architecture
10 292 (9.96%) Data Modelling
11 279 (9.51%) Microservices
12 246 (8.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (8.11%) Technical Leadership
14 211 (7.19%) Security Architecture
15 207 (7.06%) Cybersecurity
16 206 (7.02%) Analytics
16 206 (7.02%) Data Architecture
17 194 (6.61%) Artificial Intelligence
18 188 (6.41%) Data Governance
19 175 (5.97%) Architectural Design
Programming Languages
1 224 (7.64%) Python
2 189 (6.44%) Java
3 174 (5.93%) SQL
4 76 (2.59%) PowerShell
5 68 (2.32%) JavaScript
6 58 (1.98%) C#
6 58 (1.98%) TypeScript
7 38 (1.30%) Bicep
8 27 (0.92%) Apex Code
9 22 (0.75%) Bash
10 18 (0.61%) C++
11 17 (0.58%) Go
12 16 (0.55%) Kotlin
13 14 (0.48%) Scala
14 12 (0.41%) C
14 12 (0.41%) R
15 9 (0.31%) PL/SQL
16 8 (0.27%) PHP
17 7 (0.24%) Groovy
17 7 (0.24%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 783 (26.70%) Security Cleared
2 544 (18.55%) SC Cleared
3 159 (5.42%) DV Cleared
4 143 (4.88%) Degree
5 102 (3.48%) Azure Certification
6 95 (3.24%) CISSP
7 91 (3.10%) AWS Certification
8 61 (2.08%) Cisco Certification
9 58 (1.98%) Microsoft Certification
10 57 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
11 45 (1.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 45 (1.53%) TOGAF Certification
12 39 (1.33%) BPSS Clearance
13 38 (1.30%) Master's Degree
14 36 (1.23%) CISM
15 26 (0.89%) CCIE
16 25 (0.85%) CCNP
17 20 (0.68%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 17 (0.58%) MCSE
19 16 (0.55%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (4.84%) GDPR
2 136 (4.64%) NIST
3 127 (4.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 73 (2.49%) Data Quality
5 51 (1.74%) NCSC
6 43 (1.47%) QA
7 36 (1.23%) PCI DSS
8 32 (1.09%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 25 (0.85%) HIPAA
10 23 (0.78%) Accessibility
11 21 (0.72%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 16 (0.55%) GRC
13 14 (0.48%) SLA
14 13 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 13 (0.44%) SOC 2
15 12 (0.41%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
17 8 (0.27%) JSP 440
18 7 (0.24%) COBIT
18 7 (0.24%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 127 (4.33%) Active Directory
2 107 (3.65%) Docker
3 88 (3.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 34 (1.16%) vSphere
5 26 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (0.61%) NFS
7 17 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
8 16 (0.55%) VMware NSX
9 13 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
10 12 (0.41%) Hyper-V
11 5 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 4 (0.14%) Dovecot
12 4 (0.14%) Postfix
13 3 (0.10%) KVM
13 3 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
14 2 (0.068%) GPFS
14 2 (0.068%) OpenAM
14 2 (0.068%) OpenIDM
14 2 (0.068%) vCloud
14 2 (0.068%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 206 (7.02%) Terraform
2 195 (6.65%) Kubernetes
3 72 (2.45%) Ansible
4 45 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
5 36 (1.23%) Prometheus
6 33 (1.13%) Microsoft Intune
7 30 (1.02%) Grafana
8 14 (0.48%) SCCM
9 6 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.17%) Puppet
10 5 (0.17%) vCenter Server
10 5 (0.17%) WMI
11 4 (0.14%) FortiGate
11 4 (0.14%) OPNET
12 3 (0.10%) Control-M
12 3 (0.10%) Jamf Pro
12 3 (0.10%) Kibana
13 2 (0.068%) Data Guard
13 2 (0.068%) Nagios
13 2 (0.068%) SCOM
Vendors
1 459 (15.65%) Microsoft
2 201 (6.85%) SAP
3 157 (5.35%) Oracle
4 131 (4.47%) VMware
5 129 (4.40%) Salesforce
6 121 (4.13%) ServiceNow
7 120 (4.09%) Google
8 117 (3.99%) Cisco
9 95 (3.24%) Databricks
10 75 (2.56%) Splunk
11 50 (1.70%) Fortinet
12 45 (1.53%) MuleSoft
13 39 (1.33%) IBM
14 33 (1.13%) OpenAI
15 29 (0.99%) Informatica
15 29 (0.99%) Workday
16 27 (0.92%) NetApp
17 26 (0.89%) F5
17 26 (0.89%) Juniper
18 25 (0.85%) Citrix