Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £617, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 May 2026.

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

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,349 2,828 4,373
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.01% 9.89% 10.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.93% 10.71% 11.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,545 1,826 2,793
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £558
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £617 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% -3.85% -1.10%
75th Percentile £725 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 134 31 89
10th Percentile £46.00 £52.50 £59.50
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.13 £85.65
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.50 £88.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -

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 44,842 26,406 39,383
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.30% 92.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,414 17,194 25,665
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -2.82%
75th Percentile £617 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,942 1,004 2,685
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.81
25th Percentile £20.36 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.59 £27.97 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.31% -23.38% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.44 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £26.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.04% -33.75% -5.88%

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 23 May 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 23 May 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 23 May 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 4,574 £620 -0.80% 1,066
UK excluding London +9 2,399 £613 +2.08% 681
London +4 2,196 £625 -3.85% 505
Work from Home +3 1,426 £600 - 535
South East +5 699 £625 - 170
North of England +2 664 £600 - 197
Midlands +1 435 £600 +0.17% 77
North West +6 371 £609 +4.28% 108
West Midlands -2 311 £620 +3.33% 53
South West +1 262 £653 +8.75% 88
Yorkshire +5 249 £557 -7.25% 52
East of England +21 203 £569 -5.21% 55
Scotland +14 140 £650 +4.00% 50
East Midlands -1 118 £550 +2.42% 24
North East +7 52 £575 -4.17% 39
Wales -2 30 £600 +25.00% 43
Northern Ireland +5 7 £475 -28.30% 10

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 23 May 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 1,627 (30.42%) Security Cleared
2 1,286 (24.04%) Azure
3 1,197 (22.38%) SC Cleared
4 1,125 (21.03%) AWS
5 721 (13.48%) Roadmaps
6 708 (13.24%) Migration
7 690 (12.90%) Microsoft
8 605 (11.31%) Agile
9 596 (11.14%) DevOps
10 591 (11.05%) Stakeholder Management
11 567 (10.60%) CI/CD
12 535 (10.00%) Enterprise Architecture
13 493 (9.22%) AI
14 492 (9.20%) Data Modelling
15 477 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 476 (8.90%) Technical Leadership
17 465 (8.69%) Integration Patterns
18 428 (8.00%) Data Architecture
19 426 (7.96%) Architectural Patterns
20 416 (7.78%) Analytics
21 406 (7.59%) TOGAF
22 402 (7.52%) GCP
22 402 (7.52%) Microservices
23 349 (6.52%) Problem-Solving
24 343 (6.41%) Architectural Design
25 326 (6.09%) Python
26 315 (5.89%) Infrastructure as Code
27 311 (5.81%) DV Cleared
27 311 (5.81%) SAP
28 310 (5.80%) Security Architecture

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
1 121 (2.26%) SharePoint
2 93 (1.74%) Confluence
3 51 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (0.56%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.54%) Apache
6 28 (0.52%) SAS
7 20 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.30%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.30%) Appian
8 16 (0.30%) CMS
9 15 (0.28%) nginx
9 15 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
9 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.24%) OpenStack
11 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
11 9 (0.17%) Camunda
12 8 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 7 (0.13%) NetWeaver
13 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 29 (0.54%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 18 (0.34%) MS Visio
4 15 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
4 15 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.13%) Revit
6 4 (0.075%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.056%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.056%) Windchill
8 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 138 (2.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.75%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 18 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.32%) SAP ERP
6 15 (0.28%) Teamcenter
6 15 (0.28%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
8 9 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.15%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
9 8 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.13%) SAP EWM
10 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
11 6 (0.11%) SAP CRM
11 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
11 6 (0.11%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 1,286 (24.04%) Azure
2 1,125 (21.03%) AWS
3 402 (7.52%) GCP
4 234 (4.37%) Power Platform
5 193 (3.61%) Serverless
6 185 (3.46%) Entra ID
7 173 (3.23%) SaaS
8 128 (2.39%) Microsoft 365
9 126 (2.36%) GitHub
10 111 (2.08%) PaaS
11 107 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
12 102 (1.91%) Dynamics 365
13 95 (1.78%) AWS Lambda
14 82 (1.53%) IaaS
14 82 (1.53%) Snowflake
15 80 (1.50%) Amazon S3
16 73 (1.36%) OpenShift
17 69 (1.29%) Amazon EKS
18 68 (1.27%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 67 (1.25%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 208 (3.89%) Firewall
2 174 (3.25%) Network Security
3 120 (2.24%) WAN
4 114 (2.13%) DNS
4 114 (2.13%) VPN
5 83 (1.55%) LAN
6 65 (1.22%) SD-WAN
7 40 (0.75%) BGP
8 37 (0.69%) DHCP
9 31 (0.58%) Wireless
10 30 (0.56%) OSPF
11 29 (0.54%) SAN
11 29 (0.54%) VLAN
12 27 (0.50%) MPLS
12 27 (0.50%) TCP/IP
13 26 (0.49%) NAS
14 23 (0.43%) Structured Cabling
15 22 (0.41%) NX-OS
16 21 (0.39%) BIG-IP
16 21 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (3.20%) Power BI
2 138 (2.58%) Metadata
3 137 (2.56%) Data Lake
4 131 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
5 74 (1.38%) SQL Server
6 69 (1.29%) PostgreSQL
7 68 (1.27%) NoSQL
8 48 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
9 43 (0.80%) Tableau
10 40 (0.75%) Big Data
11 35 (0.65%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.54%) Delta Lake
14 28 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
14 28 (0.52%) BigQuery
15 23 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
16 22 (0.41%) Relational Database
17 21 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
17 21 (0.39%) MongoDB
18 20 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 107 (2.00%) JIRA
2 96 (1.79%) Jenkins
3 62 (1.16%) Git
4 49 (0.92%) GitLab
5 23 (0.43%) ERwin
6 15 (0.28%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.21%) Artifactory
7 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.21%) MLflow
8 9 (0.17%) Postman
9 7 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 6 (0.11%) Hudson
10 6 (0.11%) Selenium
11 5 (0.093%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.093%) JMeter
11 5 (0.093%) JUnit
11 5 (0.093%) Maven
11 5 (0.093%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.093%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.075%) MSI
General
1 986 (18.43%) Social Skills
2 802 (14.99%) Finance
3 573 (10.71%) Public Sector
4 300 (5.61%) Banking
5 267 (4.99%) Analytical Skills
6 161 (3.01%) Retail
7 147 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
8 130 (2.43%) Legal
9 118 (2.21%) Influencing Skills
10 97 (1.81%) Telecoms
11 88 (1.65%) Manufacturing
12 71 (1.33%) Military
13 60 (1.12%) Law
14 54 (1.01%) Presentation Skills
15 51 (0.95%) Marketing
16 50 (0.93%) Billing
17 45 (0.84%) Financial Institution
18 36 (0.67%) Aerospace
18 36 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 35 (0.65%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 251 (4.69%) REST
2 205 (3.83%) Middleware
3 131 (2.45%) SOAP
4 127 (2.37%) .NET
5 108 (2.02%) Kafka
6 90 (1.68%) LDAP
7 89 (1.66%) OpenID
8 88 (1.65%) OAuth
9 67 (1.25%) SAML
10 54 (1.01%) React
11 51 (0.95%) OAuth2
12 49 (0.92%) Oracle Fusion
12 49 (0.92%) RESTful
13 43 (0.80%) SailPoint
14 39 (0.73%) JSON
15 37 (0.69%) Web Services
16 36 (0.67%) AngularJS
17 31 (0.58%) PySpark
18 30 (0.56%) Node.js
19 26 (0.49%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 429 (8.02%) Cloud Native
2 183 (3.42%) Data Centre
3 143 (2.67%) Onboarding
4 141 (2.64%) Product Ownership
5 136 (2.54%) Management Information System
6 120 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
7 115 (2.15%) Enterprise Software
8 113 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
9 98 (1.83%) Hybrid Cloud
10 93 (1.74%) Public Cloud
11 88 (1.65%) Security Posture
12 84 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
13 81 (1.51%) Operational Technology
14 73 (1.36%) CMDB
15 63 (1.18%) AI Agents
16 46 (0.86%) Data Structures
17 44 (0.82%) Private Cloud
18 42 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
19 41 (0.77%) Mainframe
19 41 (0.77%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 154 (2.88%) Windows
2 109 (2.04%) Linux
3 35 (0.65%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.64%) Android
4 34 (0.64%) Apple iOS
5 23 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (0.43%) Unix
6 11 (0.21%) VMS
6 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
6 11 (0.21%) zOS
7 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.11%) Windows 7
11 3 (0.056%) CentOS
11 3 (0.056%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.056%) Solaris
11 3 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.037%) AIX
12 2 (0.037%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 721 (13.48%) Roadmaps
2 708 (13.24%) Migration
3 605 (11.31%) Agile
4 596 (11.14%) DevOps
5 591 (11.05%) Stakeholder Management
6 567 (10.60%) CI/CD
7 535 (10.00%) Enterprise Architecture
8 493 (9.22%) AI
9 492 (9.20%) Data Modelling
10 477 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 476 (8.90%) Technical Leadership
12 465 (8.69%) Integration Patterns
13 428 (8.00%) Data Architecture
14 426 (7.96%) Architectural Patterns
15 416 (7.78%) Analytics
16 406 (7.59%) TOGAF
17 402 (7.52%) Microservices
18 349 (6.52%) Problem-Solving
19 343 (6.41%) Architectural Design
20 315 (5.89%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 326 (6.09%) Python
2 270 (5.05%) SQL
3 212 (3.96%) Java
4 161 (3.01%) PowerShell
5 85 (1.59%) JavaScript
6 61 (1.14%) C#
7 53 (0.99%) Bicep
8 40 (0.75%) TypeScript
9 34 (0.64%) Bash
10 23 (0.43%) Ruby
11 22 (0.41%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.36%) Apex Code
13 16 (0.30%) Scala
14 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) ABAP
17 7 (0.13%) Shell Script
18 6 (0.11%) R
Qualifications
1 1,627 (30.42%) Security Cleared
2 1,197 (22.38%) SC Cleared
3 311 (5.81%) DV Cleared
4 199 (3.72%) Degree
5 114 (2.13%) CISSP
6 112 (2.09%) Azure Certification
7 107 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
8 103 (1.93%) AWS Certification
9 97 (1.81%) TOGAF Certification
10 96 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
11 80 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
12 63 (1.18%) CISM
13 52 (0.97%) Master's Degree
14 50 (0.93%) CCNP
15 44 (0.82%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 42 (0.79%) Microsoft Certification
17 39 (0.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 25 (0.47%) CCSP
19 19 (0.36%) CCIE
19 19 (0.36%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 190 (3.55%) NIST
2 168 (3.14%) GDPR
3 144 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 142 (2.65%) Data Quality
5 114 (2.13%) NCSC
6 68 (1.27%) QA
7 40 (0.75%) PCI DSS
8 39 (0.73%) GRC
9 34 (0.64%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 25 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.39%) SEPA
13 20 (0.37%) NIST 800
14 18 (0.34%) COBIT
14 18 (0.34%) HL7
14 18 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 13 (0.24%) FINRA
15 13 (0.24%) MiFID
15 13 (0.24%) SLA
16 12 (0.22%) PSD2
System Software
1 193 (3.61%) Active Directory
2 104 (1.94%) Docker
3 96 (1.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 71 (1.33%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
5 29 (0.54%) vSphere
6 22 (0.41%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (0.22%) Varnish
8 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 10 (0.19%) vCloud
10 9 (0.17%) NFS
10 9 (0.17%) Squid
11 7 (0.13%) Postfix
12 5 (0.093%) RACF
13 4 (0.075%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.075%) Firmware
13 4 (0.075%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.056%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 263 (4.92%) Terraform
2 240 (4.49%) Kubernetes
3 108 (2.02%) Ansible
4 51 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
5 47 (0.88%) Grafana
6 38 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
7 35 (0.65%) Prometheus
8 33 (0.62%) FortiGate
9 28 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 17 (0.32%) Argo
10 17 (0.32%) SCCM
11 15 (0.28%) OPNET
12 14 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.24%) Istio
14 8 (0.15%) Puppet
15 7 (0.13%) Consul
15 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
15 7 (0.13%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.13%) WMI
16 6 (0.11%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 690 (12.90%) Microsoft
2 311 (5.81%) SAP
3 309 (5.78%) ServiceNow
4 233 (4.36%) Oracle
5 211 (3.94%) Databricks
6 183 (3.42%) VMware
7 182 (3.40%) Salesforce
8 134 (2.51%) Cisco
9 115 (2.15%) Google
10 91 (1.70%) CyberArk
11 82 (1.53%) MuleSoft
12 63 (1.18%) Splunk
13 50 (0.93%) Palo Alto
13 50 (0.93%) Workday
14 49 (0.92%) Red Hat
15 42 (0.79%) OpenAI
16 41 (0.77%) Sparx
17 40 (0.75%) BeyondTrust
17 40 (0.75%) IBM
18 39 (0.73%) Ariba