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 26 January 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,643 3,173 4,326
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.66% 10.14% 9.77%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.56% 10.92% 10.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,468 1,897 2,820
10th Percentile £461 £484 £500
25th Percentile £515 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £737 £731
90th Percentile £800 £799 £778
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 33 42
10th Percentile £49.40 £60.30 £57.53
25th Percentile £62.00 £66.00 £61.25
Median hourly rate £78.34 £70.00 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +11.91% -8.53% +9.33%
75th Percentile £90.09 £80.59 £86.66
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.16 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £71.25 £78.37
% change year-on-year +14.39% -9.09% +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 34,502 29,046 41,229
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.46% 92.85% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,791 17,729 27,311
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £480 £495
% change year-on-year -0.52% -3.03% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,057 865 2,093
10th Percentile £14.41 £15.95 £13.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.25
Median hourly rate £28.88 £32.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.14% -13.33% +8.49%
75th Percentile £61.18 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.26 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -12.70% -21.25% +33.33%

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 26 January 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 26 January 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 26 January 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 -2 3,169 £625 - 1,070
UK excluding London 0 1,773 £600 -4.00% 955
London -1 1,406 £643 -1.04% 338
Work from Home -3 1,033 £625 - 613
South East +9 563 £600 -4.00% 308
North of England -5 431 £570 -5.00% 208
Midlands -2 309 £575 -4.17% 97
North West -8 256 £575 -4.17% 106
South West -1 246 £710 +13.60% 103
West Midlands -5 221 £600 -3.23% 47
Yorkshire -7 163 £554 -5.70% 68
East of England +9 124 £528 -15.50% 112
Scotland 0 99 £650 +4.00% 101
East Midlands -2 86 £500 -13.79% 48
Wales +2 31 £625 +2.04% 38
North East -25 12 £575 -7.89% 34
Northern Ireland -9 5 £500 -16.67% 13

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 26 January 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 1,115 (30.61%) Security Cleared
2 973 (26.71%) Azure
3 798 (21.91%) SC Cleared
4 758 (20.81%) AWS
5 535 (14.69%) Microsoft
6 526 (14.44%) Roadmaps
7 489 (13.42%) Stakeholder Management
8 481 (13.20%) Agile
9 450 (12.35%) Migration
10 408 (11.20%) DevOps
10 408 (11.20%) Enterprise Architecture
11 389 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 365 (10.02%) Data Modelling
12 365 (10.02%) TOGAF
13 362 (9.94%) Technical Leadership
14 351 (9.63%) CI/CD
15 334 (9.17%) Problem-Solving
16 306 (8.40%) AI
17 298 (8.18%) Python
18 296 (8.13%) Analytics
19 292 (8.02%) GCP
20 266 (7.30%) Data Architecture
21 252 (6.92%) Microservices
22 249 (6.84%) Integration Patterns
23 234 (6.42%) Terraform
24 230 (6.31%) DV Cleared
25 224 (6.15%) Architectural Design
26 215 (5.90%) Cybersecurity
27 214 (5.87%) Mentoring
27 214 (5.87%) SAP

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
1 105 (2.88%) Confluence
2 83 (2.28%) SharePoint
3 53 (1.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.69%) SAS
5 23 (0.63%) CMS
6 20 (0.55%) OpenStack
7 16 (0.44%) Apache
8 15 (0.41%) Anypoint
8 15 (0.41%) Apache Spark
9 13 (0.36%) ArcGIS
10 12 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
11 10 (0.27%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.25%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.19%) Appian
13 7 (0.19%) Ethereum
13 7 (0.19%) GeoServer
13 7 (0.19%) Hyperledger
13 7 (0.19%) nginx
13 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
13 7 (0.19%) Tomcat
Applications
1 48 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
3 31 (0.85%) Microsoft Excel
4 30 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.16%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.082%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.055%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.027%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.027%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.027%) FrameMaker
9 1 (0.027%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.027%) Revit
9 1 (0.027%) Trello
Business Applications
1 107 (2.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 29 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.60%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.47%) Salesforce CRM
6 15 (0.41%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
7 13 (0.36%) SAP CO
8 12 (0.33%) Maximo
8 12 (0.33%) SAP FI
8 12 (0.33%) SAP PM
9 11 (0.30%) SAP FI/CO
10 9 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
10 9 (0.25%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.22%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.22%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.19%) Distributed Ledger
12 7 (0.19%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.19%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 973 (26.71%) Azure
2 758 (20.81%) AWS
3 292 (8.02%) GCP
4 144 (3.95%) Serverless
5 140 (3.84%) Power Platform
6 134 (3.68%) SaaS
7 121 (3.32%) Microsoft 365
8 108 (2.96%) Entra ID
9 87 (2.39%) AWS Lambda
10 83 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
11 78 (2.14%) GitHub
12 77 (2.11%) IaaS
13 73 (2.00%) Microsoft Purview
14 72 (1.98%) Amazon S3
15 71 (1.95%) Dynamics 365
16 64 (1.76%) OpenShift
17 63 (1.73%) AWS CloudFormation
17 63 (1.73%) PaaS
18 61 (1.67%) Azure Data Factory
19 58 (1.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 195 (5.35%) Firewall
2 131 (3.60%) WAN
3 105 (2.88%) Network Security
4 95 (2.61%) VPN
5 91 (2.50%) DNS
6 80 (2.20%) LAN
7 70 (1.92%) SD-WAN
8 39 (1.07%) BGP
9 30 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (0.77%) MPLS
11 25 (0.69%) DHCP
12 22 (0.60%) Internet
12 22 (0.60%) SAN
13 21 (0.58%) OSPF
13 21 (0.58%) VSAN
14 20 (0.55%) TCP/IP
15 17 (0.47%) VLAN
16 16 (0.44%) IPsec
17 15 (0.41%) SSL
18 14 (0.38%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (3.29%) Data Warehouse
2 98 (2.69%) Power BI
3 89 (2.44%) Metadata
4 80 (2.20%) Data Lake
5 61 (1.67%) PostgreSQL
6 58 (1.59%) SQL Server
7 47 (1.29%) Tableau
8 42 (1.15%) NoSQL
9 41 (1.13%) Amazon Redshift
10 38 (1.04%) DynamoDB
11 36 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
12 29 (0.80%) Oracle Database
13 28 (0.77%) Amazon Athena
14 26 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
14 26 (0.71%) Redis
14 26 (0.71%) Relational Database
15 25 (0.69%) Amazon Aurora
16 21 (0.58%) Delta Lake
16 21 (0.58%) GIS
17 20 (0.55%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 123 (3.38%) JIRA
2 88 (2.42%) Jenkins
3 40 (1.10%) GitLab
4 38 (1.04%) Git
5 19 (0.52%) ERwin
6 14 (0.38%) SonarQube
7 9 (0.25%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.25%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.16%) Maven
8 6 (0.16%) MSI
8 6 (0.16%) Postman
9 5 (0.14%) Gradle
9 5 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.14%) SonarLint
10 4 (0.11%) MLflow
10 4 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.082%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.082%) Selenium
11 3 (0.082%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 908 (24.92%) Social Skills
2 577 (15.84%) Finance
3 438 (12.02%) Public Sector
4 263 (7.22%) Analytical Skills
5 204 (5.60%) Banking
6 116 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
7 101 (2.77%) Legal
8 89 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
9 76 (2.09%) Retail
9 76 (2.09%) Telecoms
10 73 (2.00%) Military
11 72 (1.98%) Presentation Skills
12 67 (1.84%) Marketing
13 61 (1.67%) Manufacturing
14 40 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 38 (1.04%) Billing
16 28 (0.77%) Financial Institution
17 24 (0.66%) Law
18 22 (0.60%) Back Office
19 20 (0.55%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 187 (5.13%) REST
2 108 (2.96%) SOAP
3 106 (2.91%) Middleware
4 81 (2.22%) .NET
5 70 (1.92%) LDAP
6 65 (1.78%) OpenID
7 63 (1.73%) Kafka
8 59 (1.62%) OAuth
9 58 (1.59%) SAML
10 49 (1.35%) JSON
11 43 (1.18%) RESTful
12 33 (0.91%) OAuth2
13 32 (0.88%) AngularJS
14 30 (0.82%) PySpark
15 28 (0.77%) Oracle Fusion
15 28 (0.77%) React
15 28 (0.77%) Spring Boot
16 25 (0.69%) SailPoint
17 24 (0.66%) Node.js
17 24 (0.66%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 277 (7.60%) Cloud Native
2 137 (3.76%) Product Ownership
3 117 (3.21%) Data Centre
4 110 (3.02%) Onboarding
5 105 (2.88%) Legacy Systems
6 89 (2.44%) PKI
7 84 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
8 74 (2.03%) Hybrid Cloud
9 65 (1.78%) Security Posture
10 59 (1.62%) Distributed Systems
10 59 (1.62%) Management Information System
11 58 (1.59%) Public Cloud
12 55 (1.51%) Operational Technology
13 44 (1.21%) CMDB
14 42 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
15 41 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
16 38 (1.04%) NHS
17 36 (0.99%) Data Structures
18 29 (0.80%) AI Agents
18 29 (0.80%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 160 (4.39%) Windows
2 104 (2.85%) Linux
3 43 (1.18%) Windows Server
4 31 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.49%) Windows 10
5 18 (0.49%) Windows 7
6 15 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
8 12 (0.33%) Unix
9 9 (0.25%) VMS
10 8 (0.22%) Mac OS
11 7 (0.19%) Android
11 7 (0.19%) Apple iOS
12 6 (0.16%) Ubuntu
13 5 (0.14%) zOS
14 4 (0.11%) CentOS
15 3 (0.082%) Solaris
15 3 (0.082%) Windows Server 2008
16 2 (0.055%) Windows Server 2012
17 1 (0.027%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 526 (14.44%) Roadmaps
2 489 (13.42%) Stakeholder Management
3 481 (13.20%) Agile
4 450 (12.35%) Migration
5 408 (11.20%) DevOps
5 408 (11.20%) Enterprise Architecture
6 389 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 365 (10.02%) Data Modelling
7 365 (10.02%) TOGAF
8 362 (9.94%) Technical Leadership
9 351 (9.63%) CI/CD
10 334 (9.17%) Problem-Solving
11 306 (8.40%) AI
12 296 (8.13%) Analytics
13 266 (7.30%) Data Architecture
14 252 (6.92%) Microservices
15 249 (6.84%) Integration Patterns
16 224 (6.15%) Architectural Design
17 215 (5.90%) Cybersecurity
18 214 (5.87%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 298 (8.18%) Python
2 190 (5.22%) SQL
3 168 (4.61%) PowerShell
4 130 (3.57%) Java
5 54 (1.48%) JavaScript
6 46 (1.26%) C#
7 31 (0.85%) TypeScript
8 29 (0.80%) Bash
8 29 (0.80%) Bicep
9 21 (0.58%) PL/SQL
10 19 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 12 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
11 12 (0.33%) R
12 10 (0.27%) Ruby
12 10 (0.27%) T-SQL
13 9 (0.25%) ABAP
14 8 (0.22%) PHP
14 8 (0.22%) Scala
14 8 (0.22%) VB
15 7 (0.19%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,115 (30.61%) Security Cleared
2 798 (21.91%) SC Cleared
3 230 (6.31%) DV Cleared
4 177 (4.86%) Degree
5 102 (2.80%) AWS Certification
5 102 (2.80%) TOGAF Certification
6 100 (2.74%) CISSP
7 92 (2.53%) Azure Certification
8 65 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
9 64 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
10 58 (1.59%) Microsoft Certification
11 57 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
12 52 (1.43%) CISM
13 49 (1.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 47 (1.29%) Master's Degree
15 32 (0.88%) CCIE
15 32 (0.88%) CCNP
16 29 (0.80%) ISEB
17 28 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
18 17 (0.47%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (4.45%) GDPR
2 147 (4.04%) NIST
3 132 (3.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 107 (2.94%) Data Quality
5 84 (2.31%) NCSC
6 56 (1.54%) QA
7 49 (1.35%) PCI DSS
8 33 (0.91%) COBIT
9 30 (0.82%) Accessibility
10 27 (0.74%) GRC
11 24 (0.66%) JSP 440
12 22 (0.60%) HIPAA
13 21 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
14 19 (0.52%) ISO 20022
15 17 (0.47%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 14 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
17 13 (0.36%) MiFID
18 12 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 12 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
19 10 (0.27%) SLA
System Software
1 155 (4.25%) Active Directory
2 120 (3.29%) Docker
3 85 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 49 (1.35%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.82%) vSphere
6 22 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
8 16 (0.44%) Hyper-V
9 14 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
11 7 (0.19%) BitLocker
12 6 (0.16%) Varnish
13 5 (0.14%) Lustre
13 5 (0.14%) NFS
13 5 (0.14%) Squid
14 4 (0.11%) vCloud
15 3 (0.082%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
15 3 (0.082%) Ceph
15 3 (0.082%) Firmware
15 3 (0.082%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 234 (6.42%) Terraform
2 189 (5.19%) Kubernetes
3 99 (2.72%) Ansible
4 55 (1.51%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.91%) OPNET
6 27 (0.74%) FortiGate
7 25 (0.69%) SCCM
8 24 (0.66%) vCenter Server
9 18 (0.49%) Prometheus
9 18 (0.49%) WMI
10 17 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 17 (0.47%) Microsoft Intune
11 16 (0.44%) Grafana
12 10 (0.27%) Argo
13 7 (0.19%) Istio
14 6 (0.16%) Kibana
14 6 (0.16%) Puppet
15 5 (0.14%) Consul
16 4 (0.11%) Data Guard
16 4 (0.11%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 535 (14.69%) Microsoft
2 214 (5.87%) SAP
3 207 (5.68%) ServiceNow
4 185 (5.08%) Salesforce
5 174 (4.78%) Oracle
6 140 (3.84%) VMware
7 114 (3.13%) Cisco
8 108 (2.96%) Databricks
9 94 (2.58%) CyberArk
10 86 (2.36%) Google
11 63 (1.73%) Palo Alto
12 59 (1.62%) Splunk
13 57 (1.56%) MuleSoft
14 49 (1.35%) Centrify
15 47 (1.29%) Atlassian
16 42 (1.15%) Workday
17 41 (1.13%) Remedy
18 40 (1.10%) Sparx
19 39 (1.07%) OpenAI
20 38 (1.04%) Red Hat