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 18 May 2026.

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

6 months to
18 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 5,298 2,892 4,414
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.05% 9.84% 10.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.97% 10.65% 11.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,505 1,867 2,814
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £560
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.14%
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 137 33 90
10th Percentile £48.04 £53.10 £59.75
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.31
Median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% - -
75th Percentile £78.75 £80.00 £87.35
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.50 £90.20
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 44,273 27,145 39,538
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.37% 92.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,095 17,684 25,719
10th Percentile £325 £293 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.82%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,901 1,049 2,672
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.82
25th Percentile £20.31 £18.13 £16.29
Median hourly rate £43.00 £28.15 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.75% -22.88% -18.89%
75th Percentile £67.25 £61.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £27.13 £40.00
% change year-on-year +65.90% -32.19% -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 18 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 18 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 18 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 4,545 £622 -0.48% 1,011
UK excluding London +9 2,395 £613 +2.08% 685
London +4 2,165 £625 -3.85% 450
Work from Home +3 1,415 £600 - 500
South East +6 707 £625 - 179
North of England +4 648 £600 - 184
Midlands +1 431 £600 - 87
North West +6 364 £610 +3.61% 99
West Midlands 0 311 £620 +3.33% 59
South West +1 282 £675 +12.50% 92
Yorkshire +5 242 £558 -7.00% 52
East of England +23 202 £575 -11.54% 59
Scotland +12 136 £650 +4.00% 42
East Midlands -2 114 £545 - 28
North East +9 50 £575 -8.00% 35
Wales -9 23 £600 +25.00% 45
Northern Ireland +7 8 £475 -28.30% 8

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 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 1,613 (30.45%) Security Cleared
2 1,263 (23.84%) Azure
3 1,177 (22.22%) SC Cleared
4 1,100 (20.76%) AWS
5 723 (13.65%) Roadmaps
6 695 (13.12%) Microsoft
7 690 (13.02%) Migration
8 612 (11.55%) Agile
9 584 (11.02%) DevOps
10 577 (10.89%) Stakeholder Management
11 549 (10.36%) CI/CD
12 534 (10.08%) Enterprise Architecture
13 490 (9.25%) AI
14 477 (9.00%) Data Modelling
15 460 (8.68%) Technical Leadership
16 457 (8.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 446 (8.42%) Integration Patterns
18 434 (8.19%) TOGAF
19 417 (7.87%) Data Architecture
20 413 (7.80%) Analytics
21 410 (7.74%) Architectural Patterns
22 398 (7.51%) GCP
23 385 (7.27%) Microservices
24 351 (6.63%) Problem-Solving
25 346 (6.53%) Architectural Design
26 327 (6.17%) Python
27 318 (6.00%) DV Cleared
28 316 (5.96%) SAP
29 311 (5.87%) ServiceNow
30 308 (5.81%) 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
1 122 (2.30%) SharePoint
2 99 (1.87%) Confluence
3 53 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (0.55%) Apache Spark
5 28 (0.53%) Apache
6 22 (0.42%) SAS
7 18 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
7 18 (0.34%) CMS
8 16 (0.30%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.30%) Appian
9 15 (0.28%) nginx
9 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.25%) OpenStack
10 13 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 9 (0.17%) Camunda
13 7 (0.13%) NetWeaver
13 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 36 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
3 20 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (0.34%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
7 4 (0.076%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.057%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.057%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.057%) Windchill
9 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 139 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (0.77%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
4 17 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
4 17 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
4 17 (0.32%) SAP ERP
5 16 (0.30%) Workday HCM
6 15 (0.28%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
8 9 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
8 9 (0.17%) SAP EWM
8 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.13%) SAP BRIM
10 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
11 6 (0.11%) NetSuite
11 6 (0.11%) SAP CRM
11 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 1,263 (23.84%) Azure
2 1,100 (20.76%) AWS
3 398 (7.51%) GCP
4 229 (4.32%) Power Platform
5 187 (3.53%) Entra ID
6 181 (3.42%) Serverless
7 169 (3.19%) SaaS
8 127 (2.40%) Microsoft 365
9 117 (2.21%) GitHub
10 107 (2.02%) PaaS
11 105 (1.98%) Azure DevOps
12 102 (1.93%) Dynamics 365
13 85 (1.60%) AWS Lambda
14 81 (1.53%) Snowflake
15 80 (1.51%) Amazon S3
15 80 (1.51%) IaaS
16 76 (1.43%) OpenShift
17 68 (1.28%) Microsoft Purview
18 67 (1.26%) AWS CloudFormation
19 63 (1.19%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 209 (3.94%) Firewall
2 170 (3.21%) Network Security
3 121 (2.28%) WAN
4 115 (2.17%) VPN
5 113 (2.13%) DNS
6 85 (1.60%) LAN
7 63 (1.19%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.74%) BGP
9 36 (0.68%) DHCP
10 29 (0.55%) OSPF
11 28 (0.53%) SAN
11 28 (0.53%) TCP/IP
11 28 (0.53%) VLAN
12 27 (0.51%) Wireless
13 25 (0.47%) MPLS
13 25 (0.47%) NAS
14 23 (0.43%) Wi-Fi
15 21 (0.40%) BIG-IP
15 21 (0.40%) NX-OS
16 20 (0.38%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (3.19%) Power BI
2 135 (2.55%) Metadata
3 131 (2.47%) Data Lake
4 127 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
5 74 (1.40%) SQL Server
6 66 (1.25%) NoSQL
7 63 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
8 49 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
9 43 (0.81%) Tableau
10 39 (0.74%) Big Data
11 34 (0.64%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.55%) Delta Lake
14 28 (0.53%) BigQuery
15 22 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
15 22 (0.42%) MongoDB
15 22 (0.42%) Relational Database
16 21 (0.40%) Electronic Patient Records
17 20 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
17 20 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 114 (2.15%) JIRA
2 87 (1.64%) Jenkins
3 60 (1.13%) Git
4 50 (0.94%) GitLab
5 23 (0.43%) ERwin
6 15 (0.28%) SonarQube
7 13 (0.25%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.21%) MLflow
9 9 (0.17%) Postman
10 6 (0.11%) Hudson
10 6 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.11%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.094%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.094%) JUnit
11 5 (0.094%) Maven
11 5 (0.094%) Selenium
11 5 (0.094%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.076%) Snyk
12 4 (0.076%) Terragrunt
General
1 978 (18.46%) Social Skills
2 787 (14.85%) Finance
3 556 (10.49%) Public Sector
4 294 (5.55%) Banking
5 270 (5.10%) Analytical Skills
6 154 (2.91%) Retail
7 150 (2.83%) Documentation Skills
8 135 (2.55%) Legal
9 114 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
10 95 (1.79%) Telecoms
11 88 (1.66%) Manufacturing
12 76 (1.43%) Military
13 61 (1.15%) Law
14 59 (1.11%) Marketing
14 59 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
15 52 (0.98%) Billing
16 44 (0.83%) Financial Institution
17 35 (0.66%) Aerospace
17 35 (0.66%) Investment Banking
18 33 (0.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 243 (4.59%) REST
2 203 (3.83%) Middleware
3 130 (2.45%) SOAP
4 121 (2.28%) .NET
5 110 (2.08%) Kafka
6 87 (1.64%) LDAP
7 86 (1.62%) OpenID
8 84 (1.59%) OAuth
9 64 (1.21%) SAML
10 52 (0.98%) React
11 49 (0.92%) OAuth2
12 47 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
13 44 (0.83%) SailPoint
14 43 (0.81%) RESTful
15 38 (0.72%) JSON
16 37 (0.70%) Web Services
17 35 (0.66%) AngularJS
18 31 (0.59%) PySpark
19 28 (0.53%) Node.js
20 23 (0.43%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 423 (7.98%) Cloud Native
2 181 (3.42%) Data Centre
3 146 (2.76%) Product Ownership
4 138 (2.60%) Onboarding
5 131 (2.47%) Management Information System
6 115 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
7 114 (2.15%) Distributed Systems
8 112 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
9 96 (1.81%) Public Cloud
10 95 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
11 87 (1.64%) Security Posture
12 81 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
12 81 (1.53%) Operational Technology
13 69 (1.30%) CMDB
14 62 (1.17%) AI Agents
15 47 (0.89%) Data Structures
16 44 (0.83%) PKI
17 42 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
17 42 (0.79%) Private Cloud
18 39 (0.74%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 157 (2.96%) Windows
2 110 (2.08%) Linux
3 35 (0.66%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.62%) Android
4 33 (0.62%) Apple iOS
5 25 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (0.43%) Unix
7 14 (0.26%) VMS
8 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (0.21%) zOS
9 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
11 7 (0.13%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.057%) CentOS
12 3 (0.057%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.057%) Solaris
12 3 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.038%) AIX
13 2 (0.038%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 723 (13.65%) Roadmaps
2 690 (13.02%) Migration
3 612 (11.55%) Agile
4 584 (11.02%) DevOps
5 577 (10.89%) Stakeholder Management
6 549 (10.36%) CI/CD
7 534 (10.08%) Enterprise Architecture
8 490 (9.25%) AI
9 477 (9.00%) Data Modelling
10 460 (8.68%) Technical Leadership
11 457 (8.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 446 (8.42%) Integration Patterns
13 434 (8.19%) TOGAF
14 417 (7.87%) Data Architecture
15 413 (7.80%) Analytics
16 410 (7.74%) Architectural Patterns
17 385 (7.27%) Microservices
18 351 (6.63%) Problem-Solving
19 346 (6.53%) Architectural Design
20 308 (5.81%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 327 (6.17%) Python
2 270 (5.10%) SQL
3 203 (3.83%) Java
4 158 (2.98%) PowerShell
5 84 (1.59%) JavaScript
6 62 (1.17%) C#
7 51 (0.96%) Bicep
8 34 (0.64%) Bash
9 32 (0.60%) TypeScript
10 22 (0.42%) PL/SQL
10 22 (0.42%) Ruby
11 18 (0.34%) Apex Code
12 16 (0.30%) Scala
13 13 (0.25%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
14 11 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) ABAP
17 7 (0.13%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,613 (30.45%) Security Cleared
2 1,177 (22.22%) SC Cleared
3 318 (6.00%) DV Cleared
4 202 (3.81%) Degree
5 120 (2.27%) Azure Certification
6 116 (2.19%) TOGAF Certification
7 113 (2.13%) CISSP
8 111 (2.10%) AWS Certification
9 104 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
10 94 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
11 80 (1.51%) Computer Science Degree
12 60 (1.13%) CISM
13 53 (1.00%) Master's Degree
14 50 (0.94%) CCNP
15 46 (0.87%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 44 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
17 37 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 23 (0.43%) CCSP
19 21 (0.40%) ITIL Certification
20 20 (0.38%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 190 (3.59%) NIST
2 168 (3.17%) GDPR
3 144 (2.72%) Data Quality
4 142 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 109 (2.06%) NCSC
6 66 (1.25%) QA
7 41 (0.77%) PCI DSS
8 38 (0.72%) GRC
9 32 (0.60%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 28 (0.53%) COBIT
12 25 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.40%) SEPA
14 20 (0.38%) NIST 800
15 18 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 17 (0.32%) HL7
17 13 (0.25%) FINRA
17 13 (0.25%) MiFID
18 12 (0.23%) HIPAA
18 12 (0.23%) PSD2
System Software
1 196 (3.70%) Active Directory
2 104 (1.96%) Docker
3 92 (1.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 72 (1.36%) VMware NSX
5 28 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
5 28 (0.53%) vSphere
6 20 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
7 17 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
9 11 (0.21%) Varnish
10 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
10 10 (0.19%) vCloud
11 9 (0.17%) NFS
11 9 (0.17%) Squid
12 6 (0.11%) Postfix
13 5 (0.094%) RACF
14 4 (0.076%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.076%) Firmware
14 4 (0.076%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.057%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 260 (4.91%) Terraform
2 226 (4.27%) Kubernetes
3 105 (1.98%) Ansible
4 51 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
5 41 (0.77%) Grafana
6 37 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.62%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.57%) Prometheus
9 28 (0.53%) vCenter Server
10 21 (0.40%) OPNET
11 17 (0.32%) SCCM
12 16 (0.30%) Argo
13 13 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 12 (0.23%) Istio
15 8 (0.15%) Puppet
15 8 (0.15%) WMI
16 7 (0.13%) Consul
17 6 (0.11%) HAProxy
17 6 (0.11%) Kibana
17 6 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 695 (13.12%) Microsoft
2 316 (5.96%) SAP
3 311 (5.87%) ServiceNow
4 226 (4.27%) Oracle
5 208 (3.93%) Databricks
6 185 (3.49%) Salesforce
6 185 (3.49%) VMware
7 134 (2.53%) Cisco
8 111 (2.10%) Google
9 88 (1.66%) CyberArk
10 81 (1.53%) MuleSoft
11 64 (1.21%) Splunk
12 51 (0.96%) Palo Alto
12 51 (0.96%) Workday
13 50 (0.94%) Red Hat
14 45 (0.85%) OpenAI
15 42 (0.79%) Sparx
16 40 (0.76%) BeyondTrust
17 39 (0.74%) Citrix
17 39 (0.74%) IBM