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 1 August 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,944 3,084 3,988
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.15% 9.38% 10.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.04% 10.25% 10.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,904 1,994 2,592
10th Percentile £475 £466 £485
25th Percentile £525 £526 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £701 £738
90th Percentile £788 £780 £820
UK excluding London median daily rate £623 £600 £646
% change year-on-year +3.75% -7.12% -0.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 19 79
10th Percentile £46.00 £37.19 £59.50
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £86.50 £85.13
90th Percentile £96.36 £100.00 £90.00
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 49,377 30,074 36,691
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.62% 91.44% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,758 19,109 23,758
10th Percentile £331 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,409 1,479 2,147
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.69 £14.13
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £19.22
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £42.91
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.39% +0.96%
75th Percentile £67.84 £54.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.35 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +11.69%

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 1 August 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 1 August 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 1 August 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 5,018 £622 -0.56% 2,162
London +8 2,563 £625 -3.85% 1,244
UK excluding London +7 2,493 £623 +3.75% 1,049
Work from Home +5 1,625 £600 - 883
North of England +9 724 £600 - 244
South East 0 723 £633 +5.42% 319
Midlands -2 411 £625 +8.70% 128
North West +5 395 £600 - 122
West Midlands -3 305 £627 +4.42% 91
South West 0 298 £625 -2.34% 146
Yorkshire +12 259 £600 - 88
East of England +16 165 £600 +8.11% 77
Scotland +10 156 £650 +4.00% 78
East Midlands +5 99 £600 +20.00% 37
North East +1 77 £600 -14.29% 36
Wales +5 34 £620 +14.81% 42
Northern Ireland +4 7 £475 -32.14% 27
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 August 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 1,817 (30.57%) Security Cleared
2 1,489 (25.05%) Azure
3 1,371 (23.07%) SC Cleared
4 1,307 (21.99%) AWS
5 871 (14.65%) Roadmaps
6 826 (13.90%) Stakeholder Management
7 807 (13.58%) Migration
8 745 (12.53%) Microsoft
9 710 (11.94%) AI
10 697 (11.73%) Enterprise Architecture
11 682 (11.47%) Agile
12 627 (10.55%) DevOps
13 619 (10.41%) CI/CD
14 604 (10.16%) Technical Leadership
15 602 (10.13%) Data Modelling
16 584 (9.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 575 (9.67%) Integration Patterns
18 563 (9.47%) Data Architecture
19 523 (8.80%) Analytics
20 493 (8.29%) TOGAF
21 481 (8.09%) Architectural Patterns
22 453 (7.62%) GCP
23 424 (7.13%) Microservices
24 419 (7.05%) Security Architecture
25 385 (6.48%) Event-Driven
26 370 (6.22%) Problem-Solving
27 358 (6.02%) Cybersecurity
28 356 (5.99%) Infrastructure as Code
29 354 (5.96%) Data Governance
30 344 (5.79%) Decision-Making

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 94 (1.58%) SharePoint
2 77 (1.30%) SAS
3 70 (1.18%) Confluence
4 47 (0.79%) Apache
5 46 (0.77%) Apache Spark
6 34 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
7 29 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
8 24 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.30%) CMS
10 15 (0.25%) OpenStack
11 12 (0.20%) Appian
12 11 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 10 (0.17%) nginx
14 7 (0.12%) Documentum
15 6 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 6 (0.10%) Camunda
15 6 (0.10%) NetWeaver
16 5 (0.084%) JBoss
16 5 (0.084%) SAP EP
17 4 (0.067%) Tomcat
Applications
1 19 (0.32%) MS Visio
2 12 (0.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
4 7 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.12%) Revit
4 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.050%) PlantUML
5 3 (0.050%) Windchill
6 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 158 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.57%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 24 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
5 18 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.24%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.13%) Maximo
12 8 (0.13%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
13 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
14 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
14 6 (0.10%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 1,489 (25.05%) Azure
2 1,307 (21.99%) AWS
3 453 (7.62%) GCP
4 284 (4.78%) Power Platform
5 210 (3.53%) SaaS
6 209 (3.52%) Entra ID
7 198 (3.33%) Serverless
8 142 (2.39%) GitHub
9 127 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
10 126 (2.12%) PaaS
11 115 (1.93%) Microsoft 365
12 112 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
13 107 (1.80%) Snowflake
14 97 (1.63%) AWS Lambda
15 92 (1.55%) IaaS
16 87 (1.46%) Amazon S3
17 64 (1.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 64 (1.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 62 (1.04%) Amazon EKS
18 62 (1.04%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 204 (3.43%) Firewall
2 185 (3.11%) Network Security
3 109 (1.83%) WAN
4 107 (1.80%) VPN
5 99 (1.67%) DNS
6 80 (1.35%) LAN
7 52 (0.87%) SD-WAN
8 45 (0.76%) BGP
9 44 (0.74%) TCP/IP
10 42 (0.71%) DHCP
11 37 (0.62%) MPLS
12 36 (0.61%) VLAN
13 32 (0.54%) SAN
14 31 (0.52%) Wireless
15 28 (0.47%) OSPF
16 27 (0.45%) NAS
17 25 (0.42%) IPsec
17 25 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
17 25 (0.42%) VXLAN
18 22 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 198 (3.33%) Power BI
2 188 (3.16%) Data Lake
3 175 (2.94%) Data Warehouse
4 167 (2.81%) Metadata
5 75 (1.26%) NoSQL
6 58 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
7 54 (0.91%) SQL Server
8 51 (0.86%) Big Data
9 42 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.71%) BigQuery
10 41 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
11 38 (0.64%) Oracle Database
12 37 (0.62%) Delta Lake
13 33 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
14 26 (0.44%) GIS
15 24 (0.40%) Amazon Athena
15 24 (0.40%) MongoDB
15 24 (0.40%) Relational Database
15 24 (0.40%) Semantic Layer
16 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 90 (1.51%) JIRA
2 78 (1.31%) Git
3 68 (1.14%) Jenkins
4 35 (0.59%) GitLab
5 24 (0.40%) ERwin
6 9 (0.15%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.15%) SonarQube
7 8 (0.13%) Claude Code
7 8 (0.13%) Cypress.io
7 8 (0.13%) MLflow
7 8 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.12%) Maven
8 7 (0.12%) Postman
8 7 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
9 6 (0.10%) Hudson
9 6 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.084%) Storybook
11 4 (0.067%) ER Studio
11 4 (0.067%) REST Assured
11 4 (0.067%) Snyk
General
1 1,115 (18.76%) Social Skills
2 889 (14.96%) Finance
3 675 (11.36%) Public Sector
4 335 (5.64%) Banking
5 304 (5.11%) Analytical Skills
6 245 (4.12%) Retail
7 149 (2.51%) Influencing Skills
8 139 (2.34%) Documentation Skills
9 132 (2.22%) Telecoms
10 119 (2.00%) Manufacturing
11 111 (1.87%) Legal
12 62 (1.04%) Marketing
13 56 (0.94%) Billing
14 52 (0.87%) Financial Institution
15 49 (0.82%) Military
16 47 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 46 (0.77%) Law
18 41 (0.69%) Aerospace
19 39 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
20 33 (0.56%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 280 (4.71%) REST
2 212 (3.57%) Middleware
3 141 (2.37%) Kafka
4 127 (2.14%) .NET
5 121 (2.04%) SOAP
6 120 (2.02%) OAuth
7 73 (1.23%) Oracle Fusion
8 71 (1.19%) OpenID
9 65 (1.09%) OAuth2
10 64 (1.08%) SAML
11 57 (0.96%) JSON
12 51 (0.86%) React
13 47 (0.79%) RESTful
14 46 (0.77%) SailPoint
15 41 (0.69%) PySpark
16 37 (0.62%) Web Services
17 34 (0.57%) .NET Framework
18 33 (0.56%) GraphQL
18 33 (0.56%) Node.js
18 33 (0.56%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 501 (8.43%) Cloud Native
2 197 (3.31%) Data Centre
3 180 (3.03%) Management Information System
4 148 (2.49%) Legacy Systems
4 148 (2.49%) Product Ownership
5 146 (2.46%) Onboarding
6 144 (2.42%) Distributed Systems
7 141 (2.37%) Hybrid Cloud
8 121 (2.04%) AI Agents
9 119 (2.00%) Enterprise Software
10 98 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
11 91 (1.53%) Operational Technology
12 88 (1.48%) Public Cloud
13 81 (1.36%) CMDB
14 67 (1.13%) Enterprise Cloud
15 64 (1.08%) Security Posture
16 58 (0.98%) Data Structures
17 51 (0.86%) Private Cloud
18 46 (0.77%) IoT
18 46 (0.77%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 129 (2.17%) Windows
2 103 (1.73%) Linux
3 46 (0.77%) Windows Server
4 30 (0.50%) Android
5 29 (0.49%) Apple iOS
6 24 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (0.37%) Unix
8 11 (0.19%) zOS
9 9 (0.15%) AIX
10 8 (0.13%) VMS
11 7 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.084%) Solaris
12 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.034%) CentOS
14 2 (0.034%) HPUX
14 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
15 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 871 (14.65%) Roadmaps
2 826 (13.90%) Stakeholder Management
3 807 (13.58%) Migration
4 710 (11.94%) AI
5 697 (11.73%) Enterprise Architecture
6 682 (11.47%) Agile
7 627 (10.55%) DevOps
8 619 (10.41%) CI/CD
9 604 (10.16%) Technical Leadership
10 602 (10.13%) Data Modelling
11 584 (9.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 575 (9.67%) Integration Patterns
13 563 (9.47%) Data Architecture
14 523 (8.80%) Analytics
15 493 (8.29%) TOGAF
16 481 (8.09%) Architectural Patterns
17 424 (7.13%) Microservices
18 419 (7.05%) Security Architecture
19 385 (6.48%) Event-Driven
20 370 (6.22%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 291 (4.90%) Python
2 276 (4.64%) SQL
3 269 (4.53%) Java
4 135 (2.27%) JavaScript
5 100 (1.68%) PowerShell
6 59 (0.99%) C#
7 57 (0.96%) Bicep
8 52 (0.87%) Bash
9 44 (0.74%) TypeScript
10 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.35%) Ruby
12 14 (0.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 14 (0.24%) Shell Script
13 12 (0.20%) C++
13 12 (0.20%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.19%) ABAP
14 11 (0.19%) Scala
15 9 (0.15%) Groovy
15 9 (0.15%) PL/SQL
15 9 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,817 (30.57%) Security Cleared
2 1,371 (23.07%) SC Cleared
3 337 (5.67%) DV Cleared
4 185 (3.11%) Degree
5 151 (2.54%) CISSP
6 130 (2.19%) AWS Certification
7 126 (2.12%) Azure Certification
8 113 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
8 113 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
9 94 (1.58%) TOGAF Certification
10 79 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
11 72 (1.21%) CISM
12 51 (0.86%) CCNP
13 49 (0.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 46 (0.77%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 43 (0.72%) Microsoft Certification
16 38 (0.64%) Master's Degree
17 35 (0.59%) CCSP
18 22 (0.37%) CCNA
19 21 (0.35%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 205 (3.45%) Data Quality
2 203 (3.42%) NIST
3 184 (3.10%) GDPR
4 158 (2.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 119 (2.00%) NCSC
6 73 (1.23%) GRC
7 60 (1.01%) QA
8 42 (0.71%) Accessibility
8 42 (0.71%) PCI DSS
9 30 (0.50%) NIST 800
9 30 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
10 23 (0.39%) ISO 20022
10 23 (0.39%) SEPA
11 21 (0.35%) IFRS
12 17 (0.29%) HL7
13 15 (0.25%) SLA
14 14 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
14 14 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 13 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 167 (2.81%) Active Directory
2 126 (2.12%) Docker
3 83 (1.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 53 (0.89%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
6 25 (0.42%) vSphere
7 20 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 17 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.13%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Varnish
12 6 (0.10%) Postfix
12 6 (0.10%) vCloud
13 5 (0.084%) IAG
14 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
14 4 (0.067%) Squid
15 3 (0.050%) KVM
15 3 (0.050%) RACF
15 3 (0.050%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 302 (5.08%) Kubernetes
2 276 (4.64%) Terraform
3 107 (1.80%) Ansible
4 57 (0.96%) Grafana
5 46 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
6 45 (0.76%) Prometheus
7 41 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
8 25 (0.42%) Argo
9 21 (0.35%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.22%) FortiGate
13 10 (0.17%) Istio
14 8 (0.13%) SCCM
15 6 (0.10%) CASB
15 6 (0.10%) EMC VPLEX
15 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.084%) MOM
16 5 (0.084%) NetBackup
17 4 (0.067%) Puppet
Vendors
1 745 (12.53%) Microsoft
2 344 (5.79%) SAP
3 307 (5.16%) ServiceNow
4 300 (5.05%) Oracle
5 259 (4.36%) Databricks
6 191 (3.21%) Salesforce
7 153 (2.57%) VMware
8 146 (2.46%) Google
9 134 (2.25%) Cisco
10 64 (1.08%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.06%) IBM
12 58 (0.98%) CyberArk
13 55 (0.93%) Palo Alto
13 55 (0.93%) Workday
14 47 (0.79%) Ariba
14 47 (0.79%) Foundry
15 46 (0.77%) Red Hat
16 45 (0.76%) Splunk
17 39 (0.66%) OpenAI
18 37 (0.62%) Fortinet