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 5 October 2026.

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

6 months to
5 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 6,088 2,925 3,713
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.19% 8.86% 9.77%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.15% 9.76% 10.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,024 1,901 2,222
10th Percentile £481 £463 £475
25th Percentile £531 £525 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £785 £778 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -2.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 13 65
10th Percentile £40.00 £58.74 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median hourly rate £68.50 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.52% +3.57% -2.78%
75th Percentile £82.50 £95.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £99.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.33% +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 50,097 29,975 35,353
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.11% 90.82% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,425 18,913 21,413
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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,996 1,630 1,535
10th Percentile £14.42 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.61 £17.26 £20.63
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £74.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.74 £25.04 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.69% -41.77% -2.05%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 +8 5,045 £622 -0.56% 4,700
London +7 2,590 £625 -3.85% 2,737
UK excluding London +7 2,546 £620 +3.33% 2,099
Work from Home +6 1,631 £600 - 1,866
South East +1 720 £625 +4.17% 583
North of England +4 666 £600 - 499
Midlands +6 446 £627 +8.96% 278
North West +4 361 £599 +4.16% 260
South West +7 341 £638 -1.92% 228
West Midlands +8 334 £650 +8.33% 211
Yorkshire +14 241 £600 -2.04% 169
Scotland +18 186 £625 +4.17% 205
East of England +8 154 £620 +10.96% 197
East Midlands +6 107 £600 +20.00% 67
North East 0 67 £625 -15.25% 70
Wales +9 43 £633 +1.20% 55
Channel Islands 0 12 £700 -5.72%
Northern Ireland +4 2 - - 63

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 5 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 1,916 (31.47%) Security Cleared
2 1,563 (25.67%) Azure
3 1,442 (23.69%) SC Cleared
4 1,259 (20.68%) AWS
5 1,180 (19.38%) Stakeholder Management
6 979 (16.08%) Roadmaps
7 879 (14.44%) Migration
8 821 (13.49%) Microsoft
9 799 (13.12%) Enterprise Architecture
10 789 (12.96%) AI
11 774 (12.71%) Technical Leadership
12 647 (10.63%) Agile
13 626 (10.28%) DevOps
14 622 (10.22%) Data Architecture
15 615 (10.10%) Data Modelling
16 606 (9.95%) CI/CD
16 606 (9.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 557 (9.15%) Integration Patterns
18 515 (8.46%) Analytics
19 496 (8.15%) Security Architecture
20 495 (8.13%) GCP
21 475 (7.80%) TOGAF
22 455 (7.47%) Architectural Patterns
23 423 (6.95%) Event-Driven
24 401 (6.59%) Data Governance
25 398 (6.54%) Architecture Governance
26 393 (6.46%) Decision-Making
27 387 (6.36%) DV Cleared
28 382 (6.27%) Microservices
29 377 (6.19%) 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 77 (1.26%) SAS
2 65 (1.07%) SharePoint
3 59 (0.97%) Confluence
4 45 (0.74%) Apache Spark
5 44 (0.72%) Apache
6 36 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
7 34 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
8 25 (0.41%) CMS
9 18 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
10 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.11%) Documentum
11 7 (0.11%) IIS
11 7 (0.11%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.099%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.099%) Headless CMS
12 6 (0.099%) JBoss
13 5 (0.082%) Appian
13 5 (0.082%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.066%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.049%) nginx
Applications
1 24 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 17 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 8 (0.13%) Revit
7 6 (0.099%) Navisworks
8 5 (0.082%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.033%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.033%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.016%) Notion
10 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
10 1 (0.016%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 188 (3.09%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (0.77%) Dynamics CRM
3 31 (0.51%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
4 17 (0.28%) SAP MM
5 16 (0.26%) Teamcenter
6 15 (0.25%) SAP MDG
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
8 13 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) SAP CO
11 9 (0.15%) SAP FI
11 9 (0.15%) Workday HCM
12 8 (0.13%) SAP ERP
12 8 (0.13%) SAP FI/CO
12 8 (0.13%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,563 (25.67%) Azure
2 1,259 (20.68%) AWS
3 495 (8.13%) GCP
4 286 (4.70%) Power Platform
5 232 (3.81%) SaaS
6 217 (3.56%) Entra ID
7 182 (2.99%) Serverless
8 148 (2.43%) GitHub
9 136 (2.23%) Microsoft 365
10 128 (2.10%) Azure DevOps
11 126 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
12 111 (1.82%) Snowflake
13 88 (1.45%) PaaS
14 82 (1.35%) AWS Lambda
15 77 (1.26%) Amazon S3
16 75 (1.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 73 (1.20%) OCI
18 64 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
18 64 (1.05%) IaaS
19 63 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 157 (2.58%) Firewall
2 147 (2.41%) Network Security
3 98 (1.61%) WAN
4 74 (1.22%) VPN
5 65 (1.07%) DNS
6 61 (1.00%) LAN
7 48 (0.79%) BGP
8 47 (0.77%) SD-WAN
9 40 (0.66%) MPLS
10 33 (0.54%) DHCP
11 31 (0.51%) TCP/IP
12 28 (0.46%) VXLAN
13 25 (0.41%) VLAN
14 23 (0.38%) NX-OS
15 22 (0.36%) SAN
16 19 (0.31%) NGFW
16 19 (0.31%) VoIP
16 19 (0.31%) Wireless
17 18 (0.30%) OSPF
18 17 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 234 (3.84%) Metadata
2 204 (3.35%) Data Lake
3 193 (3.17%) Data Warehouse
4 169 (2.78%) Power BI
5 64 (1.05%) NoSQL
6 47 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
6 47 (0.77%) SQL Server
7 45 (0.74%) BigQuery
7 45 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
8 42 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
9 40 (0.66%) Delta Lake
10 38 (0.62%) Oracle Database
11 37 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
12 31 (0.51%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 29 (0.48%) Big Data
14 28 (0.46%) Semantic Layer
15 24 (0.39%) MongoDB
15 24 (0.39%) SAP HANA
16 23 (0.38%) GIS
16 23 (0.38%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 84 (1.38%) JIRA
2 76 (1.25%) Git
3 63 (1.03%) 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 (0.099%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.099%) 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
General
1 1,226 (20.14%) Social Skills
2 861 (14.14%) Finance
3 718 (11.79%) Public Sector
4 305 (5.01%) Banking
5 274 (4.50%) Analytical Skills
6 257 (4.22%) Retail
7 173 (2.84%) Influencing Skills
8 164 (2.69%) Manufacturing
9 141 (2.32%) Telecoms
10 133 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
11 108 (1.77%) Legal
12 77 (1.26%) Marketing
13 64 (1.05%) Billing
14 63 (1.03%) Aerospace
15 59 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 50 (0.82%) Military
17 44 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
18 39 (0.64%) Local Government
19 37 (0.61%) Aviation
20 36 (0.59%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 295 (4.85%) REST
2 252 (4.14%) Terraform
3 173 (2.84%) Kafka
4 166 (2.73%) Middleware
5 132 (2.17%) SOAP
6 125 (2.05%) OAuth
7 114 (1.87%) .NET
8 85 (1.40%) Oracle Fusion
9 65 (1.07%) JSON
9 65 (1.07%) OpenID
10 64 (1.05%) SAML
11 61 (1.00%) OAuth2
12 54 (0.89%) LDAP
13 46 (0.76%) RESTful
14 45 (0.74%) PySpark
15 44 (0.72%) XML
16 39 (0.64%) .NET Framework
16 39 (0.64%) SailPoint
17 38 (0.62%) JWT
17 38 (0.62%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 512 (8.41%) Cloud Native
2 198 (3.25%) Data Centre
3 184 (3.02%) Onboarding
4 164 (2.69%) Management Information System
5 146 (2.40%) Enterprise Software
5 146 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
6 145 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
7 142 (2.33%) AI Agents
8 141 (2.32%) Product Ownership
9 134 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
10 100 (1.64%) CMDB
11 92 (1.51%) Operational Technology
12 91 (1.49%) Public Cloud
13 89 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
14 77 (1.26%) Enterprise Cloud
15 74 (1.22%) Private Cloud
16 64 (1.05%) Data Structures
17 59 (0.97%) Security Posture
18 53 (0.87%) Taxonomies
19 49 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 126 (2.07%) Windows
2 99 (1.63%) Linux
3 48 (0.79%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.34%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
7 8 (0.13%) Android
7 8 (0.13%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.099%) zOS
9 5 (0.082%) Solaris
10 4 (0.066%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.066%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.066%) VMS
11 3 (0.049%) CentOS
12 2 (0.033%) HPUX
12 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.016%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,180 (19.38%) Stakeholder Management
2 979 (16.08%) Roadmaps
3 879 (14.44%) Migration
4 799 (13.12%) Enterprise Architecture
5 789 (12.96%) AI
6 774 (12.71%) Technical Leadership
7 647 (10.63%) Agile
8 626 (10.28%) DevOps
9 622 (10.22%) Data Architecture
10 615 (10.10%) Data Modelling
11 606 (9.95%) CI/CD
11 606 (9.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 557 (9.15%) Integration Patterns
13 515 (8.46%) Analytics
14 496 (8.15%) Security Architecture
15 475 (7.80%) TOGAF
16 455 (7.47%) Architectural Patterns
17 423 (6.95%) Event-Driven
18 401 (6.59%) Data Governance
19 398 (6.54%) Architecture Governance
Programming Languages
1 250 (4.11%) SQL
2 241 (3.96%) Java
3 233 (3.83%) Python
4 114 (1.87%) JavaScript
5 109 (1.79%) PowerShell
6 52 (0.85%) C#
6 52 (0.85%) TypeScript
7 45 (0.74%) Bash
8 43 (0.71%) Bicep
9 30 (0.49%) 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 1,916 (31.47%) Security Cleared
2 1,442 (23.69%) SC Cleared
3 387 (6.36%) DV Cleared
4 189 (3.10%) BPSS Clearance
5 159 (2.61%) Degree
6 149 (2.45%) CISSP
7 122 (2.00%) AWS Certification
8 119 (1.95%) Azure Certification
9 104 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
10 88 (1.45%) TOGAF Certification
11 74 (1.22%) CISM
12 64 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.79%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 46 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
15 41 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 40 (0.66%) CCNP
17 39 (0.64%) CCSP
18 28 (0.46%) Master's Degree
19 24 (0.39%) CCIE
20 23 (0.38%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 266 (4.37%) Data Quality
2 222 (3.65%) NIST
3 188 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 154 (2.53%) GDPR
5 134 (2.20%) NCSC
6 81 (1.33%) GRC
7 51 (0.84%) QA
8 42 (0.69%) Accessibility
9 40 (0.66%) PCI DSS
10 28 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (0.43%) NIST 800
12 24 (0.39%) SLA
13 23 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 20 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
14 20 (0.33%) JSP 440
14 20 (0.33%) SEPA
15 18 (0.30%) IFRS
15 18 (0.30%) ISO 20022
16 15 (0.25%) ISO 19650
17 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 187 (3.07%) Active Directory
2 107 (1.76%) Docker
3 84 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (0.69%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.36%) vSphere
7 19 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (0.30%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.082%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.066%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.066%) KVM
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.049%) NFS
12 3 (0.049%) SRDF
12 3 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.033%) IAG
13 2 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.033%) zsh
Systems Management
1 295 (4.85%) Kubernetes
2 101 (1.66%) Ansible
3 46 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
4 44 (0.72%) Grafana
5 37 (0.61%) Prometheus
6 30 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (0.28%) Argo
8 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.20%) WMI
11 11 (0.18%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.16%) CASB
13 8 (0.13%) Istio
13 8 (0.13%) SCCM
13 8 (0.13%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.11%) NetBackup
15 6 (0.099%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.099%) Puppet
16 5 (0.082%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.082%) VxRail
Vendors
1 821 (13.49%) Microsoft
2 358 (5.88%) SAP
3 298 (4.89%) Oracle
4 290 (4.76%) ServiceNow
5 272 (4.47%) Databricks
6 213 (3.50%) Google
7 196 (3.22%) Salesforce
8 148 (2.43%) Cisco
9 133 (2.18%) VMware
10 84 (1.38%) CyberArk
11 77 (1.26%) MuleSoft
12 55 (0.90%) IBM
13 53 (0.87%) Palo Alto
14 52 (0.85%) Workday
15 45 (0.74%) Foundry
16 41 (0.67%) Splunk
17 39 (0.64%) Ariba
17 39 (0.64%) Red Hat
18 37 (0.61%) Adobe
18 37 (0.61%) Informatica