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 29 November 2025.

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

6 months to
29 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 15 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 +2 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,208 3,556 4,249
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.90% 9.76% 9.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.79% 10.51% 9.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,172 2,114 2,886
10th Percentile £462 £485 £500
25th Percentile £525 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £738 £725
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £630
% change year-on-year -4.00% -0.79% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 24 42
10th Percentile £62.75 £60.45 £57.50
25th Percentile £76.25 £62.25 £70.35
Median hourly rate £85.00 £68.75 £75.67
Median % change year-on-year +23.64% -9.14% +8.10%
75th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £80.00
90th Percentile £96.50 £95.25 £88.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.00 £67.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +25.93% -11.80% +9.33%

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 32,783 33,839 42,964
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.95% 92.83% 93.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,795 20,464 29,004
10th Percentile £281 £300 £290
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £649
90th Percentile £725 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £494 £500
% change year-on-year -3.85% -1.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,905 1,235 1,530
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.22 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.89 £20.63 £19.08
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +48.33%
75th Percentile £57.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £33.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -23.79% -25.84% +78.00%

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 29 November 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 29 November 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 29 November 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 -4 2,771 £625 - 751
UK excluding London -6 1,517 £600 -4.00% 640
London -3 1,265 £630 +0.80% 310
Work from Home -4 1,032 £615 -1.60% 344
South East +3 483 £600 -4.00% 320
North of England -7 369 £600 -3.23% 68
South West 0 251 £693 +6.54% 79
Midlands -7 229 £575 -4.17% 86
North West -9 219 £598 -3.63% 37
West Midlands -9 168 £600 - 60
Yorkshire -17 131 £613 +4.26% 20
Scotland -8 91 £600 -4.00% 39
East of England -5 83 £553 -7.92% 42
East Midlands +1 61 £500 -13.04% 25
Wales -1 23 £625 +0.40% 13
North East -4 20 £700 +12.13% 11
Northern Ireland -7 6 £550 -8.33% 6
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 29 November 2025, 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.

1 980 (30.55%) Security Cleared
2 915 (28.52%) Azure
3 724 (22.57%) AWS
4 670 (20.89%) SC Cleared
5 505 (15.74%) Roadmaps
6 494 (15.40%) Microsoft
7 458 (14.28%) Agile
8 448 (13.97%) Stakeholder Management
9 389 (12.13%) Migration
10 381 (11.88%) TOGAF
11 374 (11.66%) Enterprise Architecture
12 359 (11.19%) DevOps
13 357 (11.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 351 (10.94%) Data Modelling
15 347 (10.82%) CI/CD
16 326 (10.16%) Problem-Solving
17 307 (9.57%) Technical Leadership
18 273 (8.51%) GCP
19 271 (8.45%) Microservices
20 266 (8.29%) AI
21 257 (8.01%) Terraform
22 253 (7.89%) Python
23 251 (7.82%) Analytics
24 238 (7.42%) Data Architecture
25 222 (6.92%) DV Cleared
26 215 (6.70%) Mentoring
27 211 (6.58%) Data Governance
28 206 (6.42%) Firewall
29 205 (6.39%) Security Architecture
30 200 (6.23%) 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 94 (2.93%) Confluence
2 52 (1.62%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.87%) SAS
5 20 (0.62%) Apache Spark
6 19 (0.59%) Apache
7 17 (0.53%) CMS
8 16 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.50%) OpenStack
9 15 (0.47%) ArcGIS
10 13 (0.41%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.28%) Anypoint
11 9 (0.28%) Mule
12 7 (0.22%) Smallworld
12 7 (0.22%) WebSphere
13 6 (0.19%) Ethereum
13 6 (0.19%) Hyperledger
14 5 (0.16%) GeoServer
14 5 (0.16%) Jupyter
15 4 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 38 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
3 24 (0.75%) MS Visio
4 21 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
5 19 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 11 (0.34%) Siemens NX
7 4 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.094%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.031%) FrameMaker
9 1 (0.031%) Fusion 360
9 1 (0.031%) Revit
9 1 (0.031%) Trello
Business Applications
1 88 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.94%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 20 (0.62%) Salesforce CRM
5 19 (0.59%) Workday HCM
6 18 (0.56%) Maximo
6 18 (0.56%) Payment Gateway
7 14 (0.44%) SAP PM
8 13 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
8 13 (0.41%) SAP CO
8 13 (0.41%) Teamcenter
9 12 (0.37%) NetSuite
9 12 (0.37%) SAP FI
10 11 (0.34%) SAP FI/CO
11 9 (0.28%) Endur
12 8 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
13 7 (0.22%) Aladdin
13 7 (0.22%) Distributed Ledger
13 7 (0.22%) SAP ERP
14 6 (0.19%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 915 (28.52%) Azure
2 724 (22.57%) AWS
3 273 (8.51%) GCP
4 149 (4.64%) SaaS
5 142 (4.43%) Power Platform
6 120 (3.74%) Serverless
7 99 (3.09%) Entra ID
8 94 (2.93%) Microsoft 365
9 87 (2.71%) GitHub
10 85 (2.65%) IaaS
11 81 (2.52%) Dynamics 365
12 74 (2.31%) AWS Lambda
13 70 (2.18%) PaaS
14 67 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
15 61 (1.90%) Amazon S3
16 60 (1.87%) Snowflake
17 58 (1.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 56 (1.75%) Azure Data Factory
19 52 (1.62%) Microsoft Purview
20 49 (1.53%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 206 (6.42%) Firewall
2 103 (3.21%) Network Security
3 101 (3.15%) WAN
4 88 (2.74%) LAN
5 78 (2.43%) VPN
6 69 (2.15%) SD-WAN
7 68 (2.12%) DNS
8 40 (1.25%) Wi-Fi
9 37 (1.15%) BGP
10 27 (0.84%) SAN
11 25 (0.78%) Cisco Nexus
11 25 (0.78%) DHCP
11 25 (0.78%) MPLS
12 21 (0.65%) SSL
12 21 (0.65%) VSAN
13 19 (0.59%) Internet
14 17 (0.53%) VLAN
15 15 (0.47%) iSCSI
15 15 (0.47%) OSPF
16 14 (0.44%) Fibre Channel
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (3.71%) Data Warehouse
2 96 (2.99%) Power BI
3 89 (2.77%) Metadata
4 77 (2.40%) Data Lake
5 65 (2.03%) PostgreSQL
6 62 (1.93%) SQL Server
7 42 (1.31%) NoSQL
8 41 (1.28%) Amazon Redshift
9 31 (0.97%) Azure SQL Database
9 31 (0.97%) BigQuery
10 30 (0.94%) DynamoDB
10 30 (0.94%) MongoDB
11 28 (0.87%) Oracle Database
12 26 (0.81%) Big Data
12 26 (0.81%) Tableau
13 25 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
13 25 (0.78%) Relational Database
14 23 (0.72%) Delta Lake
15 22 (0.69%) Amazon Athena
16 19 (0.59%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 118 (3.68%) JIRA
2 73 (2.28%) Jenkins
3 56 (1.75%) Git
4 39 (1.22%) GitLab
5 22 (0.69%) ERwin
6 14 (0.44%) CircleCI
7 12 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.25%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.25%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.22%) MLflow
10 6 (0.19%) Bitbucket
10 6 (0.19%) Maven
11 5 (0.16%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.16%) Gradle
11 5 (0.16%) MSI
11 5 (0.16%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.16%) SonarLint
11 5 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
13 3 (0.094%) TeamCity
General
1 871 (27.15%) Social Skills
2 540 (16.83%) Finance
3 405 (12.62%) Public Sector
4 264 (8.23%) Analytical Skills
5 192 (5.99%) Banking
6 95 (2.96%) Telecoms
7 82 (2.56%) Retail
8 81 (2.52%) Documentation Skills
9 70 (2.18%) Influencing Skills
9 70 (2.18%) Legal
10 69 (2.15%) Manufacturing
10 69 (2.15%) Marketing
10 69 (2.15%) Presentation Skills
11 53 (1.65%) Military
12 44 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 39 (1.22%) Financial Institution
14 30 (0.94%) Billing
15 26 (0.81%) Back Office
16 23 (0.72%) Aerospace
17 21 (0.65%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (4.74%) REST
2 92 (2.87%) Middleware
3 81 (2.52%) .NET
4 80 (2.49%) SOAP
5 68 (2.12%) Kafka
6 61 (1.90%) JSON
7 56 (1.75%) OAuth
8 53 (1.65%) RESTful
9 46 (1.43%) SAML
10 39 (1.22%) Lightning Web Components
10 39 (1.22%) React
11 38 (1.18%) AngularJS
11 38 (1.18%) Web Services
12 34 (1.06%) OAuth2
13 32 (1.00%) Node.js
14 31 (0.97%) OpenID
14 31 (0.97%) RabbitMQ
15 28 (0.87%) Oracle Fusion
15 28 (0.87%) PySpark
16 27 (0.84%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 253 (7.89%) Cloud Native
2 141 (4.40%) Product Ownership
3 129 (4.02%) Legacy Systems
4 109 (3.40%) Data Centre
5 86 (2.68%) Hybrid Cloud
6 84 (2.62%) Onboarding
7 75 (2.34%) PKI
8 59 (1.84%) Management Information System
9 49 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
10 48 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
11 44 (1.37%) Operational Technology
12 43 (1.34%) CMDB
13 42 (1.31%) Public Cloud
14 41 (1.28%) NHS
14 41 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
15 39 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
16 33 (1.03%) Security Posture
17 29 (0.90%) Data Structures
18 27 (0.84%) SCADA
19 26 (0.81%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 134 (4.18%) Windows
2 95 (2.96%) Linux
3 52 (1.62%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.72%) Windows Server 2019
5 21 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (0.53%) Unix
7 12 (0.37%) Windows 7
8 11 (0.34%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.28%) VMS
10 7 (0.22%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.19%) Android
11 6 (0.19%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.16%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.094%) Solaris
13 3 (0.094%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.062%) CentOS
14 2 (0.062%) zOS
15 1 (0.031%) MVS
15 1 (0.031%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 505 (15.74%) Roadmaps
2 458 (14.28%) Agile
3 448 (13.97%) Stakeholder Management
4 389 (12.13%) Migration
5 381 (11.88%) TOGAF
6 374 (11.66%) Enterprise Architecture
7 359 (11.19%) DevOps
8 357 (11.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 351 (10.94%) Data Modelling
10 347 (10.82%) CI/CD
11 326 (10.16%) Problem-Solving
12 307 (9.57%) Technical Leadership
13 271 (8.45%) Microservices
14 266 (8.29%) AI
15 251 (7.82%) Analytics
16 238 (7.42%) Data Architecture
17 215 (6.70%) Mentoring
18 211 (6.58%) Data Governance
19 205 (6.39%) Security Architecture
20 200 (6.23%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 253 (7.89%) Python
2 164 (5.11%) SQL
3 160 (4.99%) Java
4 100 (3.12%) PowerShell
5 63 (1.96%) JavaScript
6 59 (1.84%) TypeScript
7 48 (1.50%) C#
8 33 (1.03%) Apex Code
9 32 (1.00%) Bash
9 32 (1.00%) Bicep
10 17 (0.53%) R
11 14 (0.44%) C++
12 13 (0.41%) C
13 11 (0.34%) PL/SQL
14 9 (0.28%) ABAP
15 8 (0.25%) Korn
16 7 (0.22%) Go
16 7 (0.22%) Ruby
16 7 (0.22%) Scala
17 6 (0.19%) DataWeave
Qualifications
1 980 (30.55%) Security Cleared
2 670 (20.89%) SC Cleared
3 222 (6.92%) DV Cleared
4 178 (5.55%) Degree
5 122 (3.80%) CISSP
6 104 (3.24%) Azure Certification
7 103 (3.21%) AWS Certification
8 81 (2.52%) TOGAF Certification
9 67 (2.09%) Cisco Certification
10 66 (2.06%) Microsoft Certification
11 64 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
12 52 (1.62%) CISM
13 49 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
14 43 (1.34%) Master's Degree
15 42 (1.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 35 (1.09%) CCNP
17 34 (1.06%) CCIE
18 25 (0.78%) ISEB
19 22 (0.69%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 22 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (5.46%) GDPR
2 139 (4.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 132 (4.11%) NIST
4 98 (3.05%) Data Quality
5 58 (1.81%) NCSC
6 53 (1.65%) PCI DSS
7 48 (1.50%) QA
8 33 (1.03%) COBIT
9 30 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 27 (0.84%) Accessibility
11 26 (0.81%) HIPAA
12 25 (0.78%) GRC
13 24 (0.75%) JSP 440
14 23 (0.72%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 15 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
15 15 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 13 (0.41%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 12 (0.37%) NIST 800
17 12 (0.37%) SOC 2
18 10 (0.31%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 126 (3.93%) Docker
2 122 (3.80%) Active Directory
3 94 (2.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (1.18%) vSphere
5 30 (0.94%) VMware NSX
6 25 (0.78%) VMware ESXi
7 16 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
8 15 (0.47%) NFS
9 14 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
10 13 (0.41%) Hyper-V
11 4 (0.12%) Dovecot
11 4 (0.12%) Postfix
11 4 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 3 (0.094%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.094%) KVM
13 2 (0.062%) GPFS
13 2 (0.062%) Lustre
13 2 (0.062%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.031%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 1 (0.031%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 257 (8.01%) Terraform
2 196 (6.11%) Kubernetes
3 95 (2.96%) Ansible
4 54 (1.68%) Single Sign-On
5 29 (0.90%) Prometheus
6 26 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.81%) OPNET
7 23 (0.72%) Grafana
8 17 (0.53%) SCCM
9 16 (0.50%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.37%) WMI
12 9 (0.28%) Argo
13 4 (0.12%) FortiGate
13 4 (0.12%) SCOM
14 3 (0.094%) Istio
14 3 (0.094%) Puppet
14 3 (0.094%) RSA Archer
14 3 (0.094%) vRealize
15 2 (0.062%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 494 (15.40%) Microsoft
2 190 (5.92%) SAP
3 186 (5.80%) ServiceNow
4 171 (5.33%) Salesforce
5 170 (5.30%) Oracle
6 148 (4.61%) VMware
7 126 (3.93%) Cisco
8 100 (3.12%) Databricks
9 96 (2.99%) Google
10 54 (1.68%) Splunk
11 53 (1.65%) Fortinet
12 50 (1.56%) Palo Alto
13 44 (1.37%) Workday
14 43 (1.34%) Remedy
15 42 (1.31%) IBM
15 42 (1.31%) MuleSoft
16 38 (1.18%) CyberArk
16 38 (1.18%) F5
17 36 (1.12%) OpenAI
17 36 (1.12%) Pega