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 21 May 2026.

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

6 months to
21 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 5,338 2,876 4,402
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.06% 9.88% 10.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.98% 10.70% 11.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,537 1,861 2,807
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% -1.52%
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 131 34 91
10th Percentile £46.00 £53.40 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.75 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% - -
75th Percentile £78.75 £79.59 £87.23
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.50 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -8.77% +1.79% -

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 44,544 26,886 39,472
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.37% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,258 17,494 25,719
10th Percentile £325 £293 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -3.23%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £489
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.86% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,901 1,057 2,674
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £27.99 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.50% -23.32% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.50 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £26.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +70.88% -34.16% -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 21 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 21 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 21 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 4,561 £620 -0.80% 1,010
UK excluding London +9 2,405 £613 +2.08% 710
London +4 2,178 £625 -3.85% 455
Work from Home +3 1,428 £600 - 494
South East +6 701 £625 - 190
North of England +4 656 £600 - 184
Midlands +2 435 £600 - 85
North West +6 370 £608 +5.01% 98
West Midlands -2 312 £620 +3.33% 54
South West +1 274 £675 +12.50% 93
Yorkshire +7 244 £555 -7.58% 49
East of England +20 202 £569 -9.00% 64
Scotland +16 141 £650 +6.12% 51
East Midlands 0 117 £550 +2.42% 31
North East +8 50 £575 -4.17% 39
Wales -1 30 £600 +25.00% 45
Northern Ireland +4 8 £475 -28.30% 10

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 21 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 1,628 (30.50%) Security Cleared
2 1,274 (23.87%) Azure
3 1,197 (22.42%) SC Cleared
4 1,117 (20.93%) AWS
5 733 (13.73%) Roadmaps
6 695 (13.02%) Migration
7 688 (12.89%) Microsoft
8 606 (11.35%) Agile
9 592 (11.09%) DevOps
10 586 (10.98%) Stakeholder Management
11 564 (10.57%) CI/CD
12 537 (10.06%) Enterprise Architecture
13 494 (9.25%) AI
14 492 (9.22%) Data Modelling
15 473 (8.86%) Technical Leadership
16 471 (8.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 459 (8.60%) Integration Patterns
18 426 (7.98%) Data Architecture
19 419 (7.85%) Architectural Patterns
20 418 (7.83%) TOGAF
21 415 (7.77%) Analytics
22 402 (7.53%) GCP
22 402 (7.53%) Microservices
23 352 (6.59%) Architectural Design
24 350 (6.56%) Problem-Solving
25 328 (6.14%) Python
26 313 (5.86%) SAP
27 311 (5.83%) DV Cleared
28 310 (5.81%) ServiceNow
29 309 (5.79%) 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 (2.29%) SharePoint
2 95 (1.78%) Confluence
3 52 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (0.56%) Apache Spark
5 28 (0.52%) Apache
6 27 (0.51%) SAS
7 20 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.30%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.30%) Appian
8 16 (0.30%) CMS
9 15 (0.28%) nginx
9 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
10 14 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
11 13 (0.24%) OpenStack
12 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 9 (0.17%) Camunda
13 8 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 7 (0.13%) NetWeaver
14 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 32 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 18 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
3 18 (0.34%) MS Visio
4 15 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
5 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.13%) Revit
6 4 (0.075%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.056%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.056%) Windchill
8 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 138 (2.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.75%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 17 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
4 17 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
4 17 (0.32%) SAP ERP
5 15 (0.28%) Teamcenter
5 15 (0.28%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
7 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.15%) Oracle Receivables
8 8 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.13%) SAP BRIM
9 7 (0.13%) SAP EWM
9 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
10 6 (0.11%) SAP CRM
10 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
10 6 (0.11%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 1,274 (23.87%) Azure
2 1,117 (20.93%) AWS
3 402 (7.53%) GCP
4 235 (4.40%) Power Platform
5 190 (3.56%) Serverless
6 184 (3.45%) Entra ID
7 175 (3.28%) SaaS
8 128 (2.40%) Microsoft 365
9 127 (2.38%) GitHub
10 110 (2.06%) PaaS
11 108 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
12 102 (1.91%) Dynamics 365
13 93 (1.74%) AWS Lambda
14 81 (1.52%) IaaS
14 81 (1.52%) Snowflake
15 80 (1.50%) Amazon S3
16 72 (1.35%) OpenShift
17 68 (1.27%) Amazon EKS
17 68 (1.27%) Microsoft Purview
18 67 (1.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 207 (3.88%) Firewall
2 171 (3.20%) Network Security
3 119 (2.23%) WAN
4 114 (2.14%) VPN
5 113 (2.12%) DNS
6 82 (1.54%) LAN
7 64 (1.20%) SD-WAN
8 40 (0.75%) BGP
9 37 (0.69%) DHCP
10 30 (0.56%) OSPF
10 30 (0.56%) Wireless
11 29 (0.54%) VLAN
12 28 (0.52%) SAN
13 27 (0.51%) TCP/IP
14 26 (0.49%) MPLS
15 25 (0.47%) NAS
16 22 (0.41%) NX-OS
17 21 (0.39%) BIG-IP
17 21 (0.39%) Structured Cabling
17 21 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (3.20%) Power BI
2 140 (2.62%) Metadata
3 134 (2.51%) Data Lake
4 127 (2.38%) Data Warehouse
5 74 (1.39%) SQL Server
6 69 (1.29%) PostgreSQL
7 68 (1.27%) NoSQL
8 48 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
9 43 (0.81%) Tableau
10 40 (0.75%) Big Data
11 35 (0.66%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.54%) Delta Lake
14 28 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
14 28 (0.52%) BigQuery
15 24 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
16 22 (0.41%) Relational Database
17 21 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
17 21 (0.39%) MongoDB
18 20 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 110 (2.06%) JIRA
2 95 (1.78%) Jenkins
3 61 (1.14%) Git
4 49 (0.92%) GitLab
5 23 (0.43%) ERwin
6 15 (0.28%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.21%) Artifactory
7 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.21%) MLflow
8 9 (0.17%) Postman
9 7 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 6 (0.11%) Hudson
10 6 (0.11%) Selenium
11 5 (0.094%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.094%) JMeter
11 5 (0.094%) JUnit
11 5 (0.094%) Maven
11 5 (0.094%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.094%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.075%) Terragrunt
General
1 983 (18.42%) Social Skills
2 798 (14.95%) Finance
3 568 (10.64%) Public Sector
4 296 (5.55%) Banking
5 270 (5.06%) Analytical Skills
6 159 (2.98%) Retail
7 146 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
8 137 (2.57%) Legal
9 115 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
10 94 (1.76%) Telecoms
11 86 (1.61%) Manufacturing
12 72 (1.35%) Military
13 60 (1.12%) Law
14 55 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
15 52 (0.97%) Marketing
16 49 (0.92%) Billing
17 45 (0.84%) Financial Institution
18 36 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 35 (0.66%) Aerospace
19 35 (0.66%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 252 (4.72%) REST
2 204 (3.82%) Middleware
3 133 (2.49%) SOAP
4 123 (2.30%) .NET
5 110 (2.06%) Kafka
6 88 (1.65%) LDAP
7 87 (1.63%) OpenID
8 86 (1.61%) OAuth
9 65 (1.22%) SAML
10 54 (1.01%) React
11 50 (0.94%) Oracle Fusion
12 49 (0.92%) OAuth2
12 49 (0.92%) RESTful
13 43 (0.81%) SailPoint
14 39 (0.73%) JSON
15 37 (0.69%) Web Services
16 36 (0.67%) AngularJS
17 31 (0.58%) PySpark
18 30 (0.56%) Node.js
19 25 (0.47%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 427 (8.00%) Cloud Native
2 181 (3.39%) Data Centre
3 143 (2.68%) Product Ownership
4 141 (2.64%) Onboarding
5 135 (2.53%) Management Information System
6 118 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
7 114 (2.14%) Enterprise Software
8 112 (2.10%) Legacy Systems
9 96 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
10 94 (1.76%) Public Cloud
11 88 (1.65%) Security Posture
12 83 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
13 81 (1.52%) Operational Technology
14 73 (1.37%) CMDB
15 63 (1.18%) AI Agents
16 47 (0.88%) Data Structures
17 44 (0.82%) Private Cloud
18 43 (0.81%) PKI
19 42 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
20 40 (0.75%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 155 (2.90%) Windows
2 109 (2.04%) Linux
3 35 (0.66%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.62%) Android
4 33 (0.62%) Apple iOS
5 23 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (0.43%) Unix
6 11 (0.21%) VMS
6 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
6 11 (0.21%) zOS
7 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.13%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.056%) CentOS
10 3 (0.056%) Data ONTAP
10 3 (0.056%) Solaris
10 3 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.037%) AIX
11 2 (0.037%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 733 (13.73%) Roadmaps
2 695 (13.02%) Migration
3 606 (11.35%) Agile
4 592 (11.09%) DevOps
5 586 (10.98%) Stakeholder Management
6 564 (10.57%) CI/CD
7 537 (10.06%) Enterprise Architecture
8 494 (9.25%) AI
9 492 (9.22%) Data Modelling
10 473 (8.86%) Technical Leadership
11 471 (8.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 459 (8.60%) Integration Patterns
13 426 (7.98%) Data Architecture
14 419 (7.85%) Architectural Patterns
15 418 (7.83%) TOGAF
16 415 (7.77%) Analytics
17 402 (7.53%) Microservices
18 352 (6.59%) Architectural Design
19 350 (6.56%) Problem-Solving
20 309 (5.79%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 328 (6.14%) Python
2 270 (5.06%) SQL
3 210 (3.93%) Java
4 161 (3.02%) PowerShell
5 85 (1.59%) JavaScript
6 61 (1.14%) C#
7 50 (0.94%) Bicep
8 40 (0.75%) TypeScript
9 34 (0.64%) Bash
10 22 (0.41%) PL/SQL
10 22 (0.41%) Ruby
11 19 (0.36%) Apex Code
12 16 (0.30%) Scala
13 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.15%) Shell Script
15 8 (0.15%) VBA
16 7 (0.13%) ABAP
17 6 (0.11%) R
Qualifications
1 1,628 (30.50%) Security Cleared
2 1,197 (22.42%) SC Cleared
3 311 (5.83%) DV Cleared
4 202 (3.78%) Degree
5 112 (2.10%) Azure Certification
6 111 (2.08%) CISSP
7 106 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
8 102 (1.91%) TOGAF Certification
9 100 (1.87%) AWS Certification
10 94 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
11 81 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
12 60 (1.12%) CISM
13 53 (0.99%) Master's Degree
14 50 (0.94%) CCNP
15 43 (0.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 42 (0.79%) Microsoft Certification
17 37 (0.69%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 23 (0.43%) CCSP
19 21 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
20 19 (0.36%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 189 (3.54%) NIST
2 167 (3.13%) GDPR
3 143 (2.68%) Data Quality
4 141 (2.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 111 (2.08%) NCSC
6 67 (1.26%) QA
7 40 (0.75%) PCI DSS
8 38 (0.71%) GRC
9 33 (0.62%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 28 (0.52%) COBIT
12 25 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.39%) SEPA
14 20 (0.37%) NIST 800
15 18 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 17 (0.32%) HL7
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
17 13 (0.24%) MiFID
18 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
18 12 (0.22%) PSD2
System Software
1 192 (3.60%) Active Directory
2 105 (1.97%) Docker
3 95 (1.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 71 (1.33%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
6 28 (0.52%) vSphere
7 21 (0.39%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.21%) Varnish
9 11 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
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 (0.075%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.075%) Firmware
14 4 (0.075%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.056%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 258 (4.83%) Terraform
2 242 (4.53%) Kubernetes
3 106 (1.99%) Ansible
4 50 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
5 48 (0.90%) Grafana
6 38 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
7 36 (0.67%) Prometheus
8 33 (0.62%) FortiGate
9 28 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 18 (0.34%) OPNET
11 17 (0.32%) Argo
11 17 (0.32%) SCCM
12 12 (0.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.22%) Istio
13 8 (0.15%) Puppet
13 8 (0.15%) WMI
14 7 (0.13%) Consul
15 6 (0.11%) HAProxy
15 6 (0.11%) Jamf Pro
15 6 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 688 (12.89%) Microsoft
2 313 (5.86%) SAP
3 310 (5.81%) ServiceNow
4 234 (4.38%) Oracle
5 208 (3.90%) Databricks
6 183 (3.43%) VMware
7 182 (3.41%) Salesforce
8 133 (2.49%) Cisco
9 114 (2.14%) Google
10 91 (1.70%) CyberArk
11 82 (1.54%) MuleSoft
12 63 (1.18%) Splunk
13 51 (0.96%) Workday
14 50 (0.94%) Palo Alto
15 48 (0.90%) Red Hat
16 42 (0.79%) OpenAI
17 41 (0.77%) Sparx
18 40 (0.75%) Ariba
18 40 (0.75%) BeyondTrust
19 39 (0.73%) IBM