Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £618, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 September 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -4 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,156 2,897 3,748
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.28% 8.92% 9.86%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.23% 9.80% 10.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,089 1,873 2,300
10th Percentile £480 £463 £485
25th Percentile £525 £525 £540
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £618 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -1.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 14 68
10th Percentile £46.00 £32.76 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.56 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -2.78%
75th Percentile £78.75 £85.63 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.41 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -5.39% +1.79% -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 50,343 29,565 35,332
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 91.03% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,778 18,648 21,690
10th Percentile £325 £278 £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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,866 1,577 1,631
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.29 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.80 £51.80 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.79 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.11 £43.90
% change year-on-year +69.26% -42.80% +0.34%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 September 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 +9 5,130 £620 -0.80% 4,405
London +7 2,635 £625 -2.84% 2,470
UK excluding London +7 2,575 £620 +3.33% 2,059
Work from Home +5 1,649 £600 - 1,766
South East +4 734 £625 +4.17% 581
North of England +3 684 £595 -0.83% 510
Midlands +3 436 £626 +8.87% 296
North West +7 377 £600 +2.78% 289
South West +3 346 £638 -1.92% 227
West Midlands +1 324 £650 +8.33% 216
Yorkshire +16 243 £555 -7.54% 164
Scotland +26 184 £625 - 220
East of England +9 160 £622 +12.07% 135
East Midlands +5 107 £600 +19.40% 80
North East +3 63 £600 -18.64% 57
Wales +3 42 £633 +1.20% 35
Channel Islands -3 8 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +5 2 - - 63

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 22 September 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 1,933 (31.40%) Security Cleared
2 1,577 (25.62%) Azure
3 1,446 (23.49%) SC Cleared
4 1,292 (20.99%) AWS
5 1,144 (18.58%) Stakeholder Management
6 955 (15.51%) Roadmaps
7 885 (14.38%) Migration
8 838 (13.61%) Microsoft
9 795 (12.91%) Enterprise Architecture
10 781 (12.69%) AI
11 780 (12.67%) Technical Leadership
12 671 (10.90%) Agile
13 642 (10.43%) DevOps
14 623 (10.12%) Data Modelling
15 621 (10.09%) CI/CD
16 618 (10.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 613 (9.96%) Data Architecture
18 575 (9.34%) Integration Patterns
19 536 (8.71%) Analytics
20 493 (8.01%) GCP
20 493 (8.01%) Security Architecture
20 493 (8.01%) TOGAF
21 473 (7.68%) Architectural Patterns
22 415 (6.74%) Event-Driven
23 402 (6.53%) Data Governance
24 401 (6.51%) Microservices
25 392 (6.37%) DV Cleared
26 386 (6.27%) Decision-Making
27 379 (6.16%) Architecture Governance
27 379 (6.16%) Infrastructure as Code

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 79 (1.28%) SAS
2 71 (1.15%) SharePoint
3 61 (0.99%) Confluence
4 46 (0.75%) Apache
5 43 (0.70%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
7 34 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
8 24 (0.39%) CMS
9 21 (0.34%) Palantir Foundry
10 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.11%) Documentum
11 7 (0.11%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.097%) Appian
12 6 (0.097%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.097%) Headless CMS
12 6 (0.097%) JBoss
13 5 (0.081%) IIS
13 5 (0.081%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.065%) Camunda
14 4 (0.065%) Jupyter
Applications
1 22 (0.36%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.15%) Revit
6 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.11%) Navisworks
8 6 (0.097%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.032%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.032%) Windchill
10 1 (0.016%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.016%) Notion
10 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 175 (2.84%) SAP S/4HANA
2 44 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 34 (0.55%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
4 17 (0.28%) Teamcenter
5 15 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
5 15 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
5 15 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
6 14 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
7 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.21%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
12 7 (0.11%) Maximo
12 7 (0.11%) Oracle Retail
13 6 (0.097%) SAP CO
13 6 (0.097%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,577 (25.62%) Azure
2 1,292 (20.99%) AWS
3 493 (8.01%) GCP
4 302 (4.91%) Power Platform
5 239 (3.88%) SaaS
6 217 (3.53%) Entra ID
7 196 (3.18%) Serverless
8 148 (2.40%) GitHub
9 143 (2.32%) Dynamics 365
10 131 (2.13%) Microsoft 365
11 128 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
12 120 (1.95%) Snowflake
13 103 (1.67%) PaaS
14 90 (1.46%) AWS Lambda
15 81 (1.32%) Amazon S3
16 76 (1.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 73 (1.19%) IaaS
18 70 (1.14%) OCI
19 66 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
20 65 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 161 (2.62%) Firewall
2 146 (2.37%) Network Security
3 101 (1.64%) WAN
4 76 (1.23%) VPN
5 73 (1.19%) DNS
6 66 (1.07%) LAN
7 49 (0.80%) SD-WAN
8 47 (0.76%) BGP
9 40 (0.65%) MPLS
10 39 (0.63%) DHCP
11 34 (0.55%) TCP/IP
12 29 (0.47%) VLAN
13 27 (0.44%) VXLAN
14 25 (0.41%) SAN
15 24 (0.39%) NX-OS
16 21 (0.34%) Wireless
17 20 (0.32%) BIG-IP
18 19 (0.31%) NAS
18 19 (0.31%) NGFW
18 19 (0.31%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 230 (3.74%) Metadata
2 214 (3.48%) Data Lake
3 194 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
4 189 (3.07%) Power BI
5 66 (1.07%) NoSQL
6 52 (0.84%) BigQuery
7 49 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
7 49 (0.80%) SQL Server
8 46 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
9 41 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
10 40 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
10 40 (0.65%) Delta Lake
11 37 (0.60%) Oracle Database
12 33 (0.54%) Big Data
13 32 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 31 (0.50%) Semantic Layer
15 27 (0.44%) Relational Database
16 22 (0.36%) GIS
16 22 (0.36%) Star Schema
16 22 (0.36%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 85 (1.38%) JIRA
2 78 (1.27%) Git
3 62 (1.01%) Jenkins
4 47 (0.76%) GitLab
5 15 (0.24%) ERwin
6 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 13 (0.21%) Postman
8 10 (0.16%) RStudio
9 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
9 9 (0.15%) MSI
9 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
10 6 (0.097%) Hudson
10 6 (0.097%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.097%) Storybook
11 5 (0.081%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.081%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.081%) MLflow
11 5 (0.081%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.081%) Selenium
12 4 (0.065%) Maven
General
1 1,248 (20.27%) Social Skills
2 875 (14.21%) Finance
3 707 (11.48%) Public Sector
4 315 (5.12%) Banking
5 289 (4.69%) Analytical Skills
6 275 (4.47%) Retail
7 172 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
8 153 (2.49%) Manufacturing
9 140 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
10 132 (2.14%) Telecoms
11 113 (1.84%) Legal
12 72 (1.17%) Marketing
13 64 (1.04%) Billing
14 60 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 58 (0.94%) Aerospace
16 52 (0.84%) Military
17 43 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
18 37 (0.60%) Aviation
18 37 (0.60%) Police
19 36 (0.58%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 294 (4.78%) REST
2 263 (4.27%) Terraform
3 173 (2.81%) Middleware
4 166 (2.70%) Kafka
5 135 (2.19%) SOAP
6 124 (2.01%) .NET
6 124 (2.01%) OAuth
7 79 (1.28%) Oracle Fusion
8 70 (1.14%) JSON
9 64 (1.04%) SAML
10 63 (1.02%) OpenID
11 62 (1.01%) OAuth2
12 53 (0.86%) LDAP
13 48 (0.78%) PySpark
14 46 (0.75%) RESTful
14 46 (0.75%) XML
15 40 (0.65%) .NET Framework
15 40 (0.65%) SailPoint
16 37 (0.60%) React
17 36 (0.58%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 513 (8.33%) Cloud Native
2 201 (3.27%) Data Centre
3 182 (2.96%) Onboarding
4 175 (2.84%) Management Information System
5 149 (2.42%) Product Ownership
6 142 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
7 141 (2.29%) Hybrid Cloud
8 140 (2.27%) AI Agents
9 139 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
10 138 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
11 103 (1.67%) CMDB
12 93 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
13 92 (1.49%) Public Cloud
14 89 (1.45%) Operational Technology
15 82 (1.33%) Enterprise Cloud
16 67 (1.09%) Private Cloud
17 63 (1.02%) Security Posture
18 60 (0.97%) Data Structures
19 51 (0.83%) Taxonomies
20 47 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 128 (2.08%) Windows
2 103 (1.67%) Linux
3 52 (0.84%) Windows Server
4 24 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (0.37%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
7 8 (0.13%) Android
7 8 (0.13%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.097%) zOS
9 5 (0.081%) Solaris
10 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.065%) VMS
11 3 (0.049%) CentOS
12 2 (0.032%) HPUX
12 2 (0.032%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.032%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.032%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.016%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,144 (18.58%) Stakeholder Management
2 955 (15.51%) Roadmaps
3 885 (14.38%) Migration
4 795 (12.91%) Enterprise Architecture
5 781 (12.69%) AI
6 780 (12.67%) Technical Leadership
7 671 (10.90%) Agile
8 642 (10.43%) DevOps
9 623 (10.12%) Data Modelling
10 621 (10.09%) CI/CD
11 618 (10.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 613 (9.96%) Data Architecture
13 575 (9.34%) Integration Patterns
14 536 (8.71%) Analytics
15 493 (8.01%) Security Architecture
15 493 (8.01%) TOGAF
16 473 (7.68%) Architectural Patterns
17 415 (6.74%) Event-Driven
18 402 (6.53%) Data Governance
19 401 (6.51%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 261 (4.24%) SQL
2 260 (4.22%) Python
3 257 (4.17%) Java
4 128 (2.08%) JavaScript
5 110 (1.79%) PowerShell
6 56 (0.91%) TypeScript
7 52 (0.84%) C#
8 46 (0.75%) Bash
9 44 (0.71%) Bicep
10 31 (0.50%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.36%) ABAP
12 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (0.26%) Shell Script
13 14 (0.23%) Ruby
14 11 (0.18%) Groovy
14 11 (0.18%) R
15 10 (0.16%) C++
15 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.15%) Rust
17 8 (0.13%) Go
Qualifications
1 1,933 (31.40%) Security Cleared
2 1,446 (23.49%) SC Cleared
3 392 (6.37%) DV Cleared
4 170 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
5 166 (2.70%) Degree
6 154 (2.50%) CISSP
7 120 (1.95%) AWS Certification
8 119 (1.93%) Azure Certification
9 108 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
10 90 (1.46%) TOGAF Certification
11 72 (1.17%) CISM
12 66 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
13 49 (0.80%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 48 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
15 44 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 43 (0.70%) CCNP
17 37 (0.60%) CCSP
18 31 (0.50%) Master's Degree
19 24 (0.39%) CISA
20 22 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 262 (4.26%) Data Quality
2 230 (3.74%) NIST
3 193 (3.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 159 (2.58%) GDPR
5 124 (2.01%) NCSC
6 84 (1.36%) GRC
7 58 (0.94%) QA
8 40 (0.65%) Accessibility
8 40 (0.65%) PCI DSS
9 32 (0.52%) NIST 800
10 29 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.39%) SLA
12 21 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.34%) IFRS
12 21 (0.34%) SEPA
13 20 (0.32%) ISO 20022
13 20 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 19 (0.31%) JSP 440
15 15 (0.24%) ISO 19650
16 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 194 (3.15%) Active Directory
2 110 (1.79%) Docker
3 84 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 46 (0.75%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
6 23 (0.37%) vSphere
7 20 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 19 (0.31%) Hyper-V
9 16 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.081%) NFS
11 4 (0.065%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.065%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.065%) KVM
11 4 (0.065%) Postfix
11 4 (0.065%) Varnish
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.049%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.049%) vCloud
12 3 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 298 (4.84%) Kubernetes
2 106 (1.72%) Ansible
3 49 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
4 46 (0.75%) Grafana
5 38 (0.62%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.29%) Argo
8 15 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.16%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.16%) WMI
11 9 (0.15%) CASB
11 9 (0.15%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.13%) Istio
12 8 (0.13%) SCCM
13 7 (0.11%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.097%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.097%) Puppet
15 5 (0.081%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.081%) vRealize
Vendors
1 838 (13.61%) Microsoft
2 351 (5.70%) SAP
3 314 (5.10%) ServiceNow
4 307 (4.99%) Oracle
5 293 (4.76%) Databricks
6 207 (3.36%) Salesforce
7 204 (3.31%) Google
8 149 (2.42%) Cisco
9 143 (2.32%) VMware
10 87 (1.41%) CyberArk
11 78 (1.27%) MuleSoft
12 59 (0.96%) IBM
13 53 (0.86%) Workday
14 50 (0.81%) Palo Alto
15 49 (0.80%) Foundry
16 42 (0.68%) Splunk
17 41 (0.67%) Informatica
18 39 (0.63%) Red Hat
19 37 (0.60%) OpenAI
20 36 (0.58%) Sparx