Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £618, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 June 2026.

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

6 months to
11 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 5,475 2,872 4,552
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.97% 9.78% 10.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.89% 10.59% 11.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,608 1,849 2,909
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £514 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £618 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% -3.85% -0.76%
75th Percentile £725 £719 £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 142 30 97
10th Percentile £49.40 £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 46,065 27,116 40,535
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.32% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,032 17,461 26,079
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.55% -4.76% -2.60%
75th Percentile £621 £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 3,078 1,132 2,932
10th Percentile £15.13 £13.87 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.79 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.70 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.23% -26.13% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -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 11 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 11 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 11 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 4,656 £620 -0.80% 797
UK excluding London +10 2,444 £613 +2.08% 572
London +4 2,259 £625 -3.85% 329
Work from Home +4 1,493 £600 - 426
South East +6 694 £625 +0.40% 161
North of England +6 690 £600 - 189
Midlands +1 440 £600 +2.17% 64
North West +4 371 £608 +1.33% 91
West Midlands +2 312 £621 +3.54% 53
Yorkshire +8 264 £555 -7.54% 50
South West -1 253 £648 +5.71% 72
East of England +21 207 £575 -4.17% 35
Scotland +11 159 £650 +4.00% 29
East Midlands +2 122 £573 +12.91% 11
North East +7 62 £575 - 49
Wales +1 33 £600 +25.65% 24
Northern Ireland +8 7 £475 -28.30% 5
Channel Islands - 3 £575 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 11 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 1,660 (30.32%) Security Cleared
2 1,357 (24.79%) Azure
3 1,246 (22.76%) SC Cleared
4 1,183 (21.61%) AWS
5 761 (13.90%) Migration
6 747 (13.64%) Roadmaps
7 713 (13.02%) Microsoft
8 639 (11.67%) Stakeholder Management
9 627 (11.45%) Agile
10 622 (11.36%) DevOps
11 586 (10.70%) CI/CD
12 550 (10.05%) Enterprise Architecture
13 541 (9.88%) AI
14 531 (9.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 516 (9.42%) Technical Leadership
16 500 (9.13%) Data Modelling
17 490 (8.95%) Integration Patterns
18 452 (8.26%) Data Architecture
19 444 (8.11%) Architectural Patterns
20 431 (7.87%) Analytics
21 423 (7.73%) TOGAF
22 412 (7.53%) Microservices
23 410 (7.49%) GCP
24 364 (6.65%) Problem-Solving
25 355 (6.48%) Architectural Design
26 338 (6.17%) Infrastructure as Code
27 336 (6.14%) Security Architecture
28 330 (6.03%) Cybersecurity
29 328 (5.99%) Python
30 320 (5.84%) 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
1 119 (2.17%) SharePoint
2 84 (1.53%) Confluence
3 53 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (0.68%) SAS
5 31 (0.57%) Apache Spark
6 29 (0.53%) Apache
7 21 (0.38%) 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 13 (0.24%) 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 8 (0.15%) 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
1 137 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.73%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.46%) 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 10 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 8 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
11 8 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 7 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 7 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.11%) Maximo
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Retail
13 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
14 5 (0.091%) NetSuite
14 5 (0.091%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,357 (24.79%) Azure
2 1,183 (21.61%) AWS
3 410 (7.49%) GCP
4 248 (4.53%) Power Platform
5 201 (3.67%) Serverless
6 187 (3.42%) Entra ID
7 183 (3.34%) SaaS
8 137 (2.50%) Microsoft 365
9 128 (2.34%) GitHub
10 119 (2.17%) PaaS
11 107 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
12 103 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
13 99 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
14 91 (1.66%) IaaS
15 88 (1.61%) Snowflake
16 84 (1.53%) Amazon S3
17 69 (1.26%) Amazon EKS
18 68 (1.24%) OpenShift
19 66 (1.21%) Azure Data Factory
20 62 (1.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 210 (3.84%) Firewall
2 184 (3.36%) Network Security
3 123 (2.25%) WAN
4 117 (2.14%) VPN
5 115 (2.10%) DNS
6 82 (1.50%) LAN
7 68 (1.24%) 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%) MPLS
12 31 (0.57%) OSPF
13 29 (0.53%) NAS
14 25 (0.46%) Structured Cabling
15 22 (0.40%) IPsec
15 22 (0.40%) NX-OS
15 22 (0.40%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 179 (3.27%) Power BI
2 146 (2.67%) Data Lake
3 144 (2.63%) Metadata
4 132 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.37%) NoSQL
6 70 (1.28%) SQL Server
7 69 (1.26%) PostgreSQL
8 44 (0.80%) Azure SQL Database
9 41 (0.75%) Big Data
10 36 (0.66%) Oracle Database
10 36 (0.66%) Tableau
11 35 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
12 30 (0.55%) Amazon Redshift
13 28 (0.51%) BigQuery
13 28 (0.51%) Delta Lake
14 24 (0.44%) MongoDB
15 23 (0.42%) Amazon Aurora
16 22 (0.40%) Amazon Athena
16 22 (0.40%) Relational Database
17 21 (0.38%) GIS
Development Applications
1 102 (1.86%) JIRA
2 88 (1.61%) Jenkins
3 63 (1.15%) Git
4 44 (0.80%) 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 1,019 (18.61%) Social Skills
2 821 (15.00%) Finance
3 606 (11.07%) Public Sector
4 309 (5.64%) Banking
5 265 (4.84%) Analytical Skills
6 183 (3.34%) Retail
7 149 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
8 134 (2.45%) Legal
9 117 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
10 97 (1.77%) Telecoms
11 95 (1.74%) Manufacturing
12 60 (1.10%) Law
13 51 (0.93%) Military
14 49 (0.89%) Marketing
15 47 (0.86%) Billing
15 47 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
16 46 (0.84%) Financial Institution
17 41 (0.75%) Aerospace
18 39 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 36 (0.66%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 271 (4.95%) REST
2 204 (3.73%) Middleware
3 137 (2.50%) SOAP
4 136 (2.48%) .NET
5 112 (2.05%) Kafka
6 100 (1.83%) OAuth
7 97 (1.77%) OpenID
8 92 (1.68%) LDAP
9 79 (1.44%) SAML
10 59 (1.08%) OAuth2
10 59 (1.08%) Oracle Fusion
10 59 (1.08%) React
11 54 (0.99%) RESTful
12 46 (0.84%) SailPoint
13 43 (0.79%) JSON
14 40 (0.73%) AngularJS
15 39 (0.71%) Web Services
16 34 (0.62%) Node.js
17 29 (0.53%) PySpark
18 28 (0.51%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 459 (8.38%) Cloud Native
2 192 (3.51%) Data Centre
3 156 (2.85%) Management Information System
4 142 (2.59%) Onboarding
5 139 (2.54%) Product Ownership
6 127 (2.32%) Legacy Systems
7 124 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
7 124 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
8 110 (2.01%) Hybrid Cloud
9 94 (1.72%) Public Cloud
10 91 (1.66%) Security Posture
11 89 (1.63%) Operational Technology
12 88 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
13 79 (1.44%) CMDB
14 74 (1.35%) AI Agents
15 46 (0.84%) Enterprise Cloud
16 45 (0.82%) Data Structures
17 44 (0.80%) NHS
17 44 (0.80%) Private Cloud
18 41 (0.75%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 151 (2.76%) Windows
2 98 (1.79%) Linux
3 43 (0.79%) Windows Server
4 36 (0.66%) Android
4 36 (0.66%) Apple iOS
5 22 (0.40%) Unix
6 20 (0.37%) 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 10
10 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
12 6 (0.11%) Ubuntu
13 5 (0.091%) Data ONTAP
13 5 (0.091%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.073%) Alpine Linux
14 4 (0.073%) Solaris
15 3 (0.055%) AIX
15 3 (0.055%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 761 (13.90%) Migration
2 747 (13.64%) Roadmaps
3 639 (11.67%) Stakeholder Management
4 627 (11.45%) Agile
5 622 (11.36%) DevOps
6 586 (10.70%) CI/CD
7 550 (10.05%) Enterprise Architecture
8 541 (9.88%) AI
9 531 (9.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 516 (9.42%) Technical Leadership
11 500 (9.13%) Data Modelling
12 490 (8.95%) Integration Patterns
13 452 (8.26%) Data Architecture
14 444 (8.11%) Architectural Patterns
15 431 (7.87%) Analytics
16 423 (7.73%) TOGAF
17 412 (7.53%) Microservices
18 364 (6.65%) Problem-Solving
19 355 (6.48%) Architectural Design
20 338 (6.17%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 328 (5.99%) Python
2 272 (4.97%) SQL
3 237 (4.33%) Java
4 158 (2.89%) PowerShell
5 101 (1.84%) JavaScript
6 65 (1.19%) C#
7 56 (1.02%) Bicep
8 44 (0.80%) TypeScript
9 36 (0.66%) Bash
10 22 (0.40%) Apex Code
10 22 (0.40%) Ruby
11 15 (0.27%) PL/SQL
11 15 (0.27%) Scala
12 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
13 11 (0.20%) Kusto Query Language
13 11 (0.20%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.15%) VBA
15 7 (0.13%) ABAP
15 7 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.13%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,660 (30.32%) Security Cleared
2 1,246 (22.76%) SC Cleared
3 292 (5.33%) DV Cleared
4 195 (3.56%) Degree
5 119 (2.17%) Azure Certification
5 119 (2.17%) CISSP
6 112 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
7 109 (1.99%) AWS Certification
8 104 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
9 84 (1.53%) TOGAF Certification
10 83 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
11 65 (1.19%) CISM
12 51 (0.93%) CCNP
13 47 (0.86%) Master's Degree
14 45 (0.82%) Microsoft Certification
15 43 (0.79%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 35 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 27 (0.49%) CCSP
18 20 (0.37%) DBS Check
19 19 (0.35%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 204 (3.73%) NIST
2 178 (3.25%) GDPR
3 156 (2.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 149 (2.72%) Data Quality
5 115 (2.10%) NCSC
6 70 (1.28%) QA
7 43 (0.79%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.73%) GRC
9 32 (0.58%) Accessibility
10 30 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 23 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 22 (0.40%) SEPA
13 21 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
14 20 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 19 (0.35%) COBIT
16 18 (0.33%) HL7
17 15 (0.27%) IFRS
18 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
19 13 (0.24%) FINRA
19 13 (0.24%) MiFID
System Software
1 191 (3.49%) Active Directory
2 105 (1.92%) Docker
3 103 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 67 (1.22%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.55%) vSphere
6 25 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 23 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
8 17 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.22%) Varnish
9 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.16%) NFS
10 9 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
10 9 (0.16%) Squid
11 8 (0.15%) vCloud
12 7 (0.13%) Postfix
13 5 (0.091%) RACF
14 4 (0.073%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.073%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.055%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 3 (0.055%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 261 (4.77%) Terraform
2 247 (4.51%) Kubernetes
3 112 (2.05%) Ansible
4 51 (0.93%) Grafana
4 51 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.73%) Prometheus
6 39 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
7 34 (0.62%) FortiGate
8 27 (0.49%) vCenter Server
9 20 (0.37%) Argo
10 17 (0.31%) SCCM
11 16 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.22%) Istio
13 9 (0.16%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.15%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.13%) Consul
15 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
15 7 (0.13%) Puppet
16 5 (0.091%) EMC VPLEX
17 4 (0.073%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 713 (13.02%) Microsoft
2 311 (5.68%) SAP
3 289 (5.28%) ServiceNow
4 249 (4.55%) Oracle
5 230 (4.20%) Databricks
6 186 (3.40%) VMware
7 175 (3.20%) Salesforce
8 143 (2.61%) Cisco
9 123 (2.25%) Google
10 85 (1.55%) CyberArk
11 75 (1.37%) MuleSoft
12 66 (1.21%) Splunk
13 55 (1.00%) Palo Alto
14 53 (0.97%) Red Hat
15 44 (0.80%) OpenAI
16 43 (0.79%) Workday
17 42 (0.77%) IBM
17 42 (0.77%) Sparx
18 38 (0.69%) Ariba
18 38 (0.69%) BeyondTrust