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 13 February 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,015 3,213 4,377
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.04% 10.38% 9.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.96% 11.16% 10.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,682 1,960 2,818
10th Percentile £458 £480 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £731 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 32 44
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.43 £52.54
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +1.75% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £90.09 £81.00 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.33 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.50 £72.50 £78.37
% change year-on-year - -7.49% +11.96%

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 36,628 28,781 41,506
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.57% 92.94% 93.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,025 17,777 27,347
10th Percentile £300 £290 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £476 £477 £490
% change year-on-year -0.21% -2.65% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,228 824 2,299
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.94 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.86 £21.25 £16.40
Median hourly rate £30.00 £33.52 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.50% -4.23% -2.23%
75th Percentile £61.94 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £72.51 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year -6.80% -9.26% -

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 13 February 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 13 February 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 13 February 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 0 3,445 £625 - 872
UK excluding London +1 1,950 £600 -4.00% 651
London -2 1,532 £630 -3.08% 376
Work from Home -4 1,135 £625 - 452
South East +8 597 £625 - 265
North of England -3 485 £575 -4.17% 154
Midlands -2 344 £573 -4.58% 91
North West -7 274 £579 -3.50% 87
West Midlands 0 255 £600 -1.15% 63
South West 0 249 £708 +13.20% 55
Yorkshire -6 192 £563 -2.17% 42
East of England +12 147 £550 -13.73% 45
Scotland +9 132 £650 +4.00% 40
East Midlands -6 87 £480 -16.57% 28
Wales +3 32 £600 +5.26% 7
North East -11 24 £625 -1.96% 27
Northern Ireland -2 8 £500 -26.47% 5

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 13 February 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 1,235 (30.76%) Security Cleared
2 1,063 (26.48%) Azure
3 889 (22.14%) SC Cleared
4 852 (21.22%) AWS
5 587 (14.62%) Microsoft
6 580 (14.45%) Roadmaps
7 537 (13.37%) Agile
8 530 (13.20%) Stakeholder Management
9 509 (12.68%) Migration
10 457 (11.38%) Enterprise Architecture
11 456 (11.36%) DevOps
12 407 (10.14%) Data Modelling
13 398 (9.91%) TOGAF
14 397 (9.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 391 (9.74%) CI/CD
16 384 (9.56%) Technical Leadership
17 355 (8.84%) Problem-Solving
18 349 (8.69%) Analytics
19 340 (8.47%) AI
20 325 (8.09%) GCP
21 324 (8.07%) Data Architecture
22 320 (7.97%) Python
23 287 (7.15%) Microservices
24 277 (6.90%) Integration Patterns
25 257 (6.40%) DV Cleared
26 253 (6.30%) Terraform
27 252 (6.28%) Architectural Patterns
28 239 (5.95%) Architectural Design
29 233 (5.80%) Cybersecurity
30 229 (5.70%) Data Governance

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
1 111 (2.76%) Confluence
2 95 (2.37%) SharePoint
3 58 (1.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (0.82%) SAS
5 26 (0.65%) CMS
6 24 (0.60%) Apache Spark
7 19 (0.47%) Apache
7 19 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.42%) OpenStack
9 16 (0.40%) Anypoint
10 15 (0.37%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.32%) Appian
11 13 (0.32%) ArcGIS
12 12 (0.30%) nginx
13 9 (0.22%) Smallworld
14 7 (0.17%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.17%) GeoServer
14 7 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.17%) Sitecore CMS
14 7 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 51 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.80%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 30 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (0.37%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.025%) ArchiCAD
6 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.025%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.025%) OrCAD
6 1 (0.025%) Revit
6 1 (0.025%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.025%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.025%) Trello
Business Applications
1 108 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.02%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 27 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.55%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
7 12 (0.30%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.27%) SAP EWM
9 10 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.25%) SAP ERP
9 10 (0.25%) SAP PM
10 9 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.20%) Maximo
11 8 (0.20%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.17%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.17%) SAP CO
13 6 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
13 6 (0.15%) Remedy ITSM
13 6 (0.15%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,063 (26.48%) Azure
2 852 (21.22%) AWS
3 325 (8.09%) GCP
4 151 (3.76%) Serverless
5 149 (3.71%) Power Platform
6 141 (3.51%) SaaS
7 132 (3.29%) Microsoft 365
8 128 (3.19%) Entra ID
9 91 (2.27%) Azure DevOps
10 87 (2.17%) AWS Lambda
10 87 (2.17%) IaaS
11 85 (2.12%) GitHub
12 79 (1.97%) Amazon S3
13 73 (1.82%) Microsoft Purview
13 73 (1.82%) PaaS
14 69 (1.72%) AWS CloudFormation
14 69 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
15 67 (1.67%) OpenShift
16 66 (1.64%) Azure Data Factory
17 65 (1.62%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 207 (5.16%) Firewall
2 129 (3.21%) Network Security
3 128 (3.19%) WAN
4 105 (2.62%) DNS
5 103 (2.57%) VPN
6 78 (1.94%) LAN
7 67 (1.67%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.95%) BGP
9 30 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
10 29 (0.72%) DHCP
10 29 (0.72%) MPLS
11 26 (0.65%) TCP/IP
12 24 (0.60%) OSPF
13 22 (0.55%) SAN
14 20 (0.50%) Kerberos
15 19 (0.47%) Internet
15 19 (0.47%) IPsec
15 19 (0.47%) VSAN
16 18 (0.45%) SSL
16 18 (0.45%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (3.71%) Data Warehouse
2 125 (3.11%) Metadata
3 106 (2.64%) Power BI
4 93 (2.32%) Data Lake
5 71 (1.77%) SQL Server
6 63 (1.57%) PostgreSQL
7 52 (1.30%) Tableau
8 41 (1.02%) NoSQL
9 38 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
9 38 (0.95%) Oracle Database
10 37 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
11 32 (0.80%) DynamoDB
12 26 (0.65%) Amazon Athena
12 26 (0.65%) Big Data
13 23 (0.57%) Relational Database
14 22 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
14 22 (0.55%) GIS
15 21 (0.52%) Amazon Aurora
15 21 (0.52%) Redis
16 19 (0.47%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 130 (3.24%) JIRA
2 91 (2.27%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.15%) GitLab
4 34 (0.85%) Git
5 23 (0.57%) ERwin
6 10 (0.25%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.22%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.22%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.17%) MLflow
9 6 (0.15%) Postman
10 5 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.12%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.12%) Selenium
11 4 (0.100%) Cucumber
11 4 (0.100%) MSI
11 4 (0.100%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.100%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.075%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.075%) Sonatype Nexus
12 3 (0.075%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 963 (23.99%) Social Skills
2 633 (15.77%) Finance
3 473 (11.78%) Public Sector
4 282 (7.02%) Analytical Skills
5 226 (5.63%) Banking
6 132 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
7 103 (2.57%) Legal
8 97 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
9 77 (1.92%) Military
10 76 (1.89%) Telecoms
11 75 (1.87%) Retail
12 74 (1.84%) Presentation Skills
13 69 (1.72%) Marketing
14 59 (1.47%) Manufacturing
15 39 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 37 (0.92%) Billing
17 27 (0.67%) Law
18 25 (0.62%) Financial Institution
19 21 (0.52%) Aerospace
20 20 (0.50%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 208 (5.18%) REST
2 128 (3.19%) Middleware
3 117 (2.91%) SOAP
4 88 (2.19%) .NET
5 79 (1.97%) Kafka
6 76 (1.89%) LDAP
6 76 (1.89%) OpenID
7 66 (1.64%) SAML
8 65 (1.62%) OAuth
9 50 (1.25%) JSON
10 40 (1.00%) OAuth2
11 38 (0.95%) React
12 37 (0.92%) AngularJS
12 37 (0.92%) RESTful
13 35 (0.87%) SailPoint
14 33 (0.82%) PySpark
15 32 (0.80%) Oracle Fusion
16 28 (0.70%) Web Services
17 26 (0.65%) Node.js
18 23 (0.57%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 294 (7.32%) Cloud Native
2 137 (3.41%) Product Ownership
3 124 (3.09%) Data Centre
4 113 (2.81%) Onboarding
5 103 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
6 97 (2.42%) Enterprise Software
7 89 (2.22%) PKI
8 83 (2.07%) Hybrid Cloud
9 71 (1.77%) Management Information System
10 66 (1.64%) Security Posture
11 65 (1.62%) Distributed Systems
12 63 (1.57%) Public Cloud
13 56 (1.39%) Operational Technology
14 49 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
15 48 (1.20%) CMDB
16 44 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
17 41 (1.02%) NHS
18 37 (0.92%) Data Structures
19 33 (0.82%) AI Agents
19 33 (0.82%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 169 (4.21%) Windows
2 107 (2.67%) Linux
3 43 (1.07%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.45%) Windows 7
6 16 (0.40%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.32%) Unix
8 12 (0.30%) Android
8 12 (0.30%) Apple iOS
8 12 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
8 12 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
9 10 (0.25%) VMS
10 9 (0.22%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.15%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.15%) zOS
12 4 (0.100%) CentOS
13 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.025%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.025%) SUSE
14 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 580 (14.45%) Roadmaps
2 537 (13.37%) Agile
3 530 (13.20%) Stakeholder Management
4 509 (12.68%) Migration
5 457 (11.38%) Enterprise Architecture
6 456 (11.36%) DevOps
7 407 (10.14%) Data Modelling
8 398 (9.91%) TOGAF
9 397 (9.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 391 (9.74%) CI/CD
11 384 (9.56%) Technical Leadership
12 355 (8.84%) Problem-Solving
13 349 (8.69%) Analytics
14 340 (8.47%) AI
15 324 (8.07%) Data Architecture
16 287 (7.15%) Microservices
17 277 (6.90%) Integration Patterns
18 252 (6.28%) Architectural Patterns
19 239 (5.95%) Architectural Design
20 233 (5.80%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 320 (7.97%) Python
2 214 (5.33%) SQL
3 177 (4.41%) PowerShell
4 133 (3.31%) Java
5 59 (1.47%) JavaScript
6 56 (1.39%) C#
7 37 (0.92%) Bicep
8 35 (0.87%) Bash
9 34 (0.85%) TypeScript
10 20 (0.50%) PL/SQL
11 15 (0.37%) Apex Code
12 14 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.32%) R
14 10 (0.25%) Ruby
14 10 (0.25%) T-SQL
15 9 (0.22%) Scala
16 8 (0.20%) PHP
16 8 (0.20%) VB
17 7 (0.17%) Korn
17 7 (0.17%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,235 (30.76%) Security Cleared
2 889 (22.14%) SC Cleared
3 257 (6.40%) DV Cleared
4 200 (4.98%) Degree
5 110 (2.74%) AWS Certification
6 109 (2.71%) CISSP
6 109 (2.71%) TOGAF Certification
7 98 (2.44%) Azure Certification
8 73 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
8 73 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
9 68 (1.69%) Cisco Certification
10 60 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
11 59 (1.47%) Master's Degree
12 58 (1.44%) CISM
13 56 (1.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 41 (1.02%) CCNP
15 32 (0.80%) CCIE
16 31 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
17 30 (0.75%) ISEB
18 21 (0.52%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (4.48%) GDPR
2 140 (3.49%) NIST
3 128 (3.19%) Data Quality
3 128 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (1.97%) NCSC
5 58 (1.44%) QA
6 50 (1.25%) PCI DSS
7 34 (0.85%) COBIT
8 32 (0.80%) Accessibility
9 31 (0.77%) GRC
10 23 (0.57%) ISO 20022
11 21 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
11 21 (0.52%) JSP 440
12 20 (0.50%) HIPAA
13 18 (0.45%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 16 (0.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 15 (0.37%) MiFID
16 12 (0.30%) FINRA
16 12 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 11 (0.27%) SEPA
System Software
1 171 (4.26%) Active Directory
2 123 (3.06%) Docker
3 91 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 61 (1.52%) VMware NSX
5 36 (0.90%) vSphere
6 24 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
7 15 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 13 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
10 7 (0.17%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.17%) Squid
11 6 (0.15%) Varnish
12 5 (0.12%) RACF
12 5 (0.12%) vCloud
13 4 (0.100%) NFS
14 3 (0.075%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 3 (0.075%) Ceph
14 3 (0.075%) Firmware
14 3 (0.075%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 253 (6.30%) Terraform
2 199 (4.96%) Kubernetes
3 107 (2.67%) Ansible
4 65 (1.62%) Single Sign-On
5 31 (0.77%) OPNET
6 30 (0.75%) FortiGate
7 29 (0.72%) vCenter Server
8 26 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
9 23 (0.57%) Grafana
9 23 (0.57%) SCCM
10 20 (0.50%) Prometheus
11 18 (0.45%) WMI
12 17 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 16 (0.40%) Argo
14 8 (0.20%) Istio
15 6 (0.15%) Consul
15 6 (0.15%) Kibana
16 5 (0.12%) Puppet
17 4 (0.100%) Data Guard
17 4 (0.100%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 587 (14.62%) Microsoft
2 224 (5.58%) SAP
3 223 (5.55%) ServiceNow
4 190 (4.73%) Oracle
5 181 (4.51%) Salesforce
6 160 (3.99%) VMware
7 132 (3.29%) Databricks
8 115 (2.86%) Cisco
9 105 (2.62%) Google
10 95 (2.37%) CyberArk
11 67 (1.67%) Palo Alto
12 61 (1.52%) MuleSoft
12 61 (1.52%) Splunk
13 49 (1.22%) Centrify
13 49 (1.22%) Red Hat
14 48 (1.20%) Atlassian
15 46 (1.15%) Remedy
15 46 (1.15%) Workday
16 44 (1.10%) OpenAI
17 40 (1.00%) Sparx