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 13 June 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -6 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,483 2,871 4,562
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.96% 9.73% 10.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.86% 10.54% 11.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,619 1,844 2,914
10th Percentile £463 £463 £495
25th Percentile £515 £536 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.07%
75th Percentile £725 £716 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 145 30 97
10th Percentile £47.36 £51.15 £59.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.38 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £82.25 £87.00
90th Percentile £97.50 £88.61 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £73.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -11.26% +4.64% -

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 46,221 27,241 40,562
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.39% 92.30% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,120 17,531 26,073
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -2.42%
75th Percentile £623 £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 3,085 1,148 2,936
10th Percentile £15.24 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.79 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £27.70 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.10% -26.13% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £61.81
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +76.94% -37.13% -4.94%

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 June 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 June 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 13 June 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 +7 4,667 £620 -0.80% 968
UK excluding London +10 2,449 £613 +2.08% 674
London +4 2,262 £625 -3.85% 421
Work from Home +4 1,488 £600 - 498
North of England +6 692 £600 - 205
South East +6 692 £625 +2.46% 197
Midlands +2 437 £600 +2.17% 75
North West +4 369 £608 +1.33% 102
West Midlands -1 309 £623 +3.75% 61
Yorkshire +10 266 £555 -7.54% 56
South West -1 257 £650 +6.12% 106
East of England +21 210 £575 -4.17% 39
Scotland +12 160 £650 +4.00% 31
East Midlands +3 122 £574 +13.10% 14
North East +7 64 £575 -4.17% 48
Wales 0 33 £600 +25.65% 23
Northern Ireland +6 7 £475 -28.30% 8
Channel Islands - 3 £575 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 13 June 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 1,661 (30.29%) Security Cleared
2 1,357 (24.75%) Azure
3 1,248 (22.76%) SC Cleared
4 1,173 (21.39%) AWS
5 764 (13.93%) Migration
6 754 (13.75%) Roadmaps
7 714 (13.02%) Microsoft
8 654 (11.93%) Stakeholder Management
9 641 (11.69%) Agile
10 624 (11.38%) DevOps
11 590 (10.76%) CI/CD
12 557 (10.16%) AI
13 550 (10.03%) Enterprise Architecture
14 528 (9.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 519 (9.47%) Technical Leadership
16 514 (9.37%) Data Modelling
17 497 (9.06%) Integration Patterns
18 461 (8.41%) Data Architecture
19 447 (8.15%) Architectural Patterns
20 438 (7.99%) Analytics
21 421 (7.68%) TOGAF
22 415 (7.57%) Microservices
23 410 (7.48%) GCP
24 366 (6.68%) Problem-Solving
25 352 (6.42%) Architectural Design
26 340 (6.20%) Infrastructure as Code
26 340 (6.20%) Security Architecture
27 334 (6.09%) Cybersecurity
28 327 (5.96%) Python
29 322 (5.87%) Event-Driven

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
1 118 (2.15%) SharePoint
2 84 (1.53%) Confluence
3 53 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 38 (0.69%) SAS
5 31 (0.57%) Apache Spark
6 29 (0.53%) Apache
7 22 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
8 18 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
9 16 (0.29%) Appian
9 16 (0.29%) CMS
10 15 (0.27%) nginx
10 15 (0.27%) WebLogic
11 14 (0.26%) Anypoint
12 12 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 10 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 9 (0.16%) ArcGIS
14 9 (0.16%) Camunda
15 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
16 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
16 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 23 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 18 (0.33%) MS Visio
3 13 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (0.20%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.16%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
6 7 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.055%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.055%) Windchill
8 1 (0.018%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.018%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.018%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 138 (2.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.71%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
5 17 (0.31%) SAP ERP
6 16 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
7 15 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 13 (0.24%) Teamcenter
9 11 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 8 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
10 8 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.15%) SAP IBP
11 7 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 6 (0.11%) Maximo
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Retail
12 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
12 6 (0.11%) Workday HCM
13 5 (0.091%) SAP CRM
13 5 (0.091%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,357 (24.75%) Azure
2 1,173 (21.39%) AWS
3 410 (7.48%) GCP
4 256 (4.67%) Power Platform
5 203 (3.70%) Serverless
6 183 (3.34%) Entra ID
7 179 (3.26%) SaaS
8 134 (2.44%) Microsoft 365
9 132 (2.41%) GitHub
10 116 (2.12%) PaaS
11 109 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
12 106 (1.93%) Dynamics 365
13 99 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
14 93 (1.70%) Snowflake
15 88 (1.60%) IaaS
16 84 (1.53%) Amazon S3
17 68 (1.24%) Amazon EKS
17 68 (1.24%) Azure Data Factory
18 66 (1.20%) OpenShift
19 63 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 208 (3.79%) Firewall
2 185 (3.37%) Network Security
3 123 (2.24%) WAN
4 116 (2.12%) VPN
5 115 (2.10%) DNS
6 81 (1.48%) LAN
7 67 (1.22%) SD-WAN
8 41 (0.75%) DHCP
9 40 (0.73%) BGP
10 33 (0.60%) Wireless
11 32 (0.58%) SAN
11 32 (0.58%) TCP/IP
11 32 (0.58%) VLAN
12 31 (0.57%) OSPF
13 30 (0.55%) MPLS
14 29 (0.53%) NAS
15 25 (0.46%) Structured Cabling
16 22 (0.40%) IPsec
16 22 (0.40%) VXLAN
17 21 (0.38%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 184 (3.36%) Power BI
2 153 (2.79%) Data Lake
3 148 (2.70%) Metadata
4 141 (2.57%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.37%) NoSQL
6 70 (1.28%) SQL Server
7 68 (1.24%) PostgreSQL
8 45 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
9 41 (0.75%) Big Data
10 36 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
10 36 (0.66%) Tableau
11 35 (0.64%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.53%) BigQuery
13 29 (0.53%) Delta Lake
14 24 (0.44%) MongoDB
14 24 (0.44%) Relational Database
15 22 (0.40%) Amazon Athena
15 22 (0.40%) Amazon Aurora
15 22 (0.40%) GIS
Development Applications
1 105 (1.92%) JIRA
2 88 (1.60%) Jenkins
3 64 (1.17%) Git
4 43 (0.78%) GitLab
5 21 (0.38%) ERwin
6 12 (0.22%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.18%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.16%) Bitbucket
8 9 (0.16%) Postman
9 8 (0.15%) MLflow
10 7 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
12 5 (0.091%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.091%) JMeter
12 5 (0.091%) JUnit
12 5 (0.091%) Maven
12 5 (0.091%) PowerDesigner
13 4 (0.073%) Snyk
13 4 (0.073%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,020 (18.60%) Social Skills
2 832 (15.17%) Finance
3 606 (11.05%) Public Sector
4 309 (5.64%) Banking
5 266 (4.85%) Analytical Skills
6 185 (3.37%) Retail
7 150 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
8 131 (2.39%) Legal
9 116 (2.12%) Influencing Skills
10 97 (1.77%) Manufacturing
11 94 (1.71%) Telecoms
12 58 (1.06%) Law
13 50 (0.91%) Marketing
14 48 (0.88%) Military
15 47 (0.86%) Billing
15 47 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
16 46 (0.84%) Financial Institution
17 41 (0.75%) Aerospace
17 41 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 36 (0.66%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 273 (4.98%) REST
2 206 (3.76%) Middleware
3 137 (2.50%) SOAP
4 135 (2.46%) .NET
5 113 (2.06%) Kafka
6 98 (1.79%) OAuth
7 94 (1.71%) OpenID
8 87 (1.59%) LDAP
9 76 (1.39%) SAML
10 60 (1.09%) Oracle Fusion
11 59 (1.08%) OAuth2
12 58 (1.06%) React
13 54 (0.98%) RESTful
14 44 (0.80%) SailPoint
15 42 (0.77%) JSON
16 39 (0.71%) AngularJS
17 38 (0.69%) Web Services
18 34 (0.62%) Node.js
19 31 (0.57%) PySpark
20 28 (0.51%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 457 (8.33%) Cloud Native
2 186 (3.39%) Data Centre
3 159 (2.90%) Management Information System
4 144 (2.63%) Onboarding
5 142 (2.59%) Product Ownership
6 126 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
6 126 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
6 126 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
7 110 (2.01%) Hybrid Cloud
8 93 (1.70%) Public Cloud
9 90 (1.64%) Operational Technology
10 89 (1.62%) Security Posture
11 88 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
12 82 (1.50%) CMDB
13 77 (1.40%) AI Agents
14 48 (0.88%) Enterprise Cloud
15 45 (0.82%) Data Structures
16 44 (0.80%) NHS
17 43 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
17 43 (0.78%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 150 (2.74%) Windows
2 97 (1.77%) Linux
3 44 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 36 (0.66%) Android
4 36 (0.66%) Apple iOS
5 22 (0.40%) Unix
6 19 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
8 10 (0.18%) zOS
9 9 (0.16%) VMS
10 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.11%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.11%) Windows 10
12 5 (0.091%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.091%) Mac OS
12 5 (0.091%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.073%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.073%) Solaris
14 3 (0.055%) AIX
14 3 (0.055%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 764 (13.93%) Migration
2 754 (13.75%) Roadmaps
3 654 (11.93%) Stakeholder Management
4 641 (11.69%) Agile
5 624 (11.38%) DevOps
6 590 (10.76%) CI/CD
7 557 (10.16%) AI
8 550 (10.03%) Enterprise Architecture
9 528 (9.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 519 (9.47%) Technical Leadership
11 514 (9.37%) Data Modelling
12 497 (9.06%) Integration Patterns
13 461 (8.41%) Data Architecture
14 447 (8.15%) Architectural Patterns
15 438 (7.99%) Analytics
16 421 (7.68%) TOGAF
17 415 (7.57%) Microservices
18 366 (6.68%) Problem-Solving
19 352 (6.42%) Architectural Design
20 340 (6.20%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 327 (5.96%) Python
2 274 (5.00%) SQL
3 238 (4.34%) Java
4 153 (2.79%) PowerShell
5 102 (1.86%) JavaScript
6 65 (1.19%) C#
7 57 (1.04%) Bicep
8 44 (0.80%) TypeScript
9 34 (0.62%) Bash
10 24 (0.44%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.40%) Ruby
12 15 (0.27%) Scala
13 14 (0.26%) PL/SQL
14 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.20%) Kusto Query Language
15 11 (0.20%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) ABAP
17 7 (0.13%) C++
17 7 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,661 (30.29%) Security Cleared
2 1,248 (22.76%) SC Cleared
3 295 (5.38%) DV Cleared
4 194 (3.54%) Degree
5 119 (2.17%) Azure Certification
6 117 (2.13%) CISSP
7 112 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
8 110 (2.01%) AWS Certification
9 103 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
10 84 (1.53%) Computer Science Degree
11 82 (1.50%) TOGAF Certification
12 64 (1.17%) CISM
13 50 (0.91%) CCNP
14 48 (0.88%) Master's Degree
15 45 (0.82%) Microsoft Certification
16 43 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 37 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 27 (0.49%) CCSP
19 21 (0.38%) DBS Check
20 19 (0.35%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 203 (3.70%) NIST
2 181 (3.30%) GDPR
3 151 (2.75%) Data Quality
3 151 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 115 (2.10%) NCSC
5 71 (1.29%) QA
6 43 (0.78%) PCI DSS
7 40 (0.73%) GRC
8 32 (0.58%) Accessibility
9 30 (0.55%) ISO 20022
10 23 (0.42%) NIST 800
11 22 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.40%) SEPA
12 21 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.35%) COBIT
14 18 (0.33%) HL7
15 16 (0.29%) IFRS
16 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
17 13 (0.24%) MiFID
System Software
1 187 (3.41%) Active Directory
2 104 (1.90%) Docker
3 97 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 64 (1.17%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.53%) vSphere
6 24 (0.44%) Hyper-V
6 24 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
7 18 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (0.22%) Varnish
8 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 9 (0.16%) NFS
9 9 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
9 9 (0.16%) Squid
10 8 (0.15%) vCloud
11 7 (0.13%) Postfix
12 5 (0.091%) RACF
13 4 (0.073%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.073%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.055%) IAG
14 3 (0.055%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 264 (4.81%) Terraform
2 245 (4.47%) Kubernetes
3 113 (2.06%) Ansible
4 51 (0.93%) Grafana
5 49 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
6 40 (0.73%) Prometheus
7 38 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
8 32 (0.58%) FortiGate
9 27 (0.49%) vCenter Server
10 20 (0.36%) Argo
11 16 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.27%) SCCM
13 11 (0.20%) Istio
14 9 (0.16%) Jamf Pro
15 8 (0.15%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.13%) Consul
16 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
16 7 (0.13%) Puppet
17 5 (0.091%) EMC VPLEX
18 4 (0.073%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 714 (13.02%) Microsoft
2 311 (5.67%) SAP
3 294 (5.36%) ServiceNow
4 247 (4.50%) Oracle
5 232 (4.23%) Databricks
6 180 (3.28%) VMware
7 177 (3.23%) Salesforce
8 141 (2.57%) Cisco
9 119 (2.17%) Google
10 82 (1.50%) CyberArk
11 72 (1.31%) MuleSoft
12 64 (1.17%) Splunk
13 55 (1.00%) Palo Alto
14 52 (0.95%) Red Hat
15 44 (0.80%) OpenAI
16 42 (0.77%) IBM
16 42 (0.77%) Workday
17 41 (0.75%) Sparx
18 38 (0.69%) Foundry
19 37 (0.67%) Ariba