Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £615, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 August 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 14
Rank change year-on-year +8 -4 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,025 2,989 3,890
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.21% 9.07% 10.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.12% 9.94% 10.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,994 1,924 2,481
10th Percentile £479 £470 £485
25th Percentile £525 £531 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £640
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -2.27% -1.62%
75th Percentile £700 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £638
% change year-on-year +3.33% -5.88% -1.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 18 73
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £66.50 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.28% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.50 £87.00 £85.00
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% -4.00%

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 49,691 30,076 35,928
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.26% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,638 19,002 22,670
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £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 3,580 1,568 1,839
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.73 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.00 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.96%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.78 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.41 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £44.04
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.89% +13.95%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 +8 5,041 £620 -0.80% 2,171
London +7 2,586 £625 -3.85% 1,353
UK excluding London +8 2,524 £620 +3.33% 1,005
Work from Home +4 1,614 £600 - 899
South East +1 735 £625 +4.17% 286
North of England +5 702 £600 - 245
Midlands +2 415 £626 +8.87% 127
North West +5 413 £600 +4.35% 143
South West +2 322 £645 +0.58% 131
West Midlands +2 304 £647 +7.83% 83
Yorkshire +10 226 £588 -4.08% 82
Scotland +24 168 £625 +0.60% 104
East of England +16 151 £605 +9.16% 74
East Midlands +3 104 £600 +16.50% 44
North East -3 65 £600 -14.29% 20
Wales +6 43 £633 +1.20% 11
Channel Islands -3 5 £625 -15.82% 2
Northern Ireland +4 4 £488 -30.36% 34

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 31 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 1,874 (31.10%) Security Cleared
2 1,545 (25.64%) Azure
3 1,409 (23.39%) SC Cleared
4 1,310 (21.74%) AWS
5 994 (16.50%) Stakeholder Management
6 905 (15.02%) Roadmaps
7 859 (14.26%) Migration
8 811 (13.46%) Microsoft
9 765 (12.70%) Enterprise Architecture
10 757 (12.56%) AI
11 694 (11.52%) Technical Leadership
12 674 (11.19%) Agile
13 631 (10.47%) DevOps
14 630 (10.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 621 (10.31%) Data Modelling
16 611 (10.14%) CI/CD
17 583 (9.68%) Data Architecture
18 573 (9.51%) Integration Patterns
19 512 (8.50%) Analytics
20 483 (8.02%) GCP
21 479 (7.95%) Architectural Patterns
21 479 (7.95%) TOGAF
22 471 (7.82%) Security Architecture
23 410 (6.80%) Event-Driven
24 397 (6.59%) Microservices
25 392 (6.51%) Data Governance
26 376 (6.24%) Cybersecurity
27 369 (6.12%) Infrastructure as Code
28 361 (5.99%) Decision-Making
29 357 (5.93%) DV Cleared

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 79 (1.31%) SAS
1 79 (1.31%) SharePoint
2 69 (1.15%) Confluence
3 44 (0.73%) Apache
4 42 (0.70%) Apache Spark
5 33 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
6 29 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
7 23 (0.38%) CMS
8 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.30%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.12%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.12%) Documentum
11 6 (0.100%) Appian
11 6 (0.100%) Camunda
12 5 (0.083%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.066%) Headless CMS
13 4 (0.066%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.066%) NetWeaver
13 4 (0.066%) SAP EP
14 3 (0.050%) Drupal
Applications
1 20 (0.33%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.033%) Windchill
7 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.017%) Notion
7 1 (0.017%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 165 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
3 36 (0.60%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 19 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 18 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 13 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
9 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.20%) SAP ERP
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
10 10 (0.17%) SAP MDG
11 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 7 (0.12%) Maximo
14 6 (0.100%) SAP CO
14 6 (0.100%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,545 (25.64%) Azure
2 1,310 (21.74%) AWS
3 483 (8.02%) GCP
4 306 (5.08%) Power Platform
5 224 (3.72%) Entra ID
5 224 (3.72%) SaaS
6 211 (3.50%) Serverless
7 146 (2.42%) GitHub
8 143 (2.37%) Dynamics 365
9 126 (2.09%) Microsoft 365
10 122 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
11 111 (1.84%) Snowflake
12 103 (1.71%) PaaS
13 99 (1.64%) AWS Lambda
14 87 (1.44%) Amazon S3
15 71 (1.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 71 (1.18%) IaaS
16 66 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
17 65 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
18 63 (1.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 178 (2.95%) Firewall
2 163 (2.71%) Network Security
3 107 (1.78%) WAN
4 96 (1.59%) VPN
5 80 (1.33%) DNS
6 75 (1.24%) LAN
7 51 (0.85%) SD-WAN
8 49 (0.81%) BGP
9 39 (0.65%) DHCP
10 38 (0.63%) MPLS
11 37 (0.61%) TCP/IP
12 30 (0.50%) VLAN
13 27 (0.45%) SAN
13 27 (0.45%) VXLAN
14 24 (0.40%) OSPF
15 22 (0.37%) NAS
16 21 (0.35%) NX-OS
16 21 (0.35%) Radio Access Network
17 20 (0.33%) Wireless
18 19 (0.32%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 207 (3.44%) Power BI
2 203 (3.37%) Data Lake
3 200 (3.32%) Metadata
4 179 (2.97%) Data Warehouse
5 77 (1.28%) NoSQL
6 50 (0.83%) SQL Server
7 47 (0.78%) PostgreSQL
8 46 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
8 46 (0.76%) BigQuery
9 45 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
10 44 (0.73%) Delta Lake
11 41 (0.68%) Big Data
12 40 (0.66%) Oracle Database
13 38 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
14 29 (0.48%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 26 (0.43%) Semantic Layer
16 25 (0.41%) Relational Database
17 23 (0.38%) GIS
17 23 (0.38%) MongoDB
17 23 (0.38%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 84 (1.39%) JIRA
2 78 (1.29%) Git
3 58 (0.96%) Jenkins
4 38 (0.63%) GitLab
5 18 (0.30%) ERwin
6 12 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.13%) MSI
8 8 (0.13%) RStudio
9 7 (0.12%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.12%) MLflow
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 7 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.100%) Hudson
10 6 (0.100%) Storybook
11 5 (0.083%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.083%) Maven
11 5 (0.083%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.066%) PowerDesigner
General
1 1,190 (19.75%) Social Skills
2 865 (14.36%) Finance
3 694 (11.52%) Public Sector
4 310 (5.15%) Banking
5 302 (5.01%) Analytical Skills
6 258 (4.28%) Retail
7 159 (2.64%) Influencing Skills
8 144 (2.39%) Documentation Skills
9 137 (2.27%) Telecoms
10 134 (2.22%) Manufacturing
11 113 (1.88%) Legal
12 69 (1.15%) Marketing
13 61 (1.01%) Billing
14 57 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 47 (0.78%) Military
16 45 (0.75%) Aerospace
17 44 (0.73%) Law
18 38 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
19 36 (0.60%) Financial Institution
19 36 (0.60%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 295 (4.90%) REST
2 266 (4.41%) Terraform
3 183 (3.04%) Middleware
4 143 (2.37%) Kafka
5 130 (2.16%) SOAP
6 126 (2.09%) .NET
6 126 (2.09%) OAuth
7 70 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
8 68 (1.13%) SAML
9 67 (1.11%) JSON
9 67 (1.11%) OpenID
10 60 (1.00%) OAuth2
11 48 (0.80%) PySpark
12 46 (0.76%) RESTful
13 42 (0.70%) LDAP
13 42 (0.70%) XML
14 39 (0.65%) React
14 39 (0.65%) SailPoint
15 37 (0.61%) .NET Framework
16 36 (0.60%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 534 (8.86%) Cloud Native
2 200 (3.32%) Data Centre
3 178 (2.95%) Management Information System
4 160 (2.66%) Onboarding
5 143 (2.37%) Enterprise Software
5 143 (2.37%) Product Ownership
6 142 (2.36%) Hybrid Cloud
7 140 (2.32%) AI Agents
7 140 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
8 136 (2.26%) Legacy Systems
9 101 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
10 95 (1.58%) CMDB
11 86 (1.43%) Public Cloud
12 85 (1.41%) Operational Technology
13 79 (1.31%) Enterprise Cloud
14 68 (1.13%) Security Posture
15 57 (0.95%) Data Structures
16 53 (0.88%) Private Cloud
17 48 (0.80%) IoT
18 43 (0.71%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 122 (2.02%) Windows
2 107 (1.78%) Linux
3 46 (0.76%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (0.37%) Unix
6 17 (0.28%) Android
6 17 (0.28%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.12%) VMS
9 7 (0.12%) zOS
10 5 (0.083%) Solaris
11 4 (0.066%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.066%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.050%) CentOS
12 3 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.050%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
13 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 994 (16.50%) Stakeholder Management
2 905 (15.02%) Roadmaps
3 859 (14.26%) Migration
4 765 (12.70%) Enterprise Architecture
5 757 (12.56%) AI
6 694 (11.52%) Technical Leadership
7 674 (11.19%) Agile
8 631 (10.47%) DevOps
9 630 (10.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 621 (10.31%) Data Modelling
11 611 (10.14%) CI/CD
12 583 (9.68%) Data Architecture
13 573 (9.51%) Integration Patterns
14 512 (8.50%) Analytics
15 479 (7.95%) Architectural Patterns
15 479 (7.95%) TOGAF
16 471 (7.82%) Security Architecture
17 410 (6.80%) Event-Driven
18 397 (6.59%) Microservices
19 392 (6.51%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 282 (4.68%) Python
2 275 (4.56%) SQL
3 272 (4.51%) Java
4 127 (2.11%) JavaScript
5 110 (1.83%) PowerShell
6 52 (0.86%) C#
7 51 (0.85%) Bicep
8 49 (0.81%) Bash
8 49 (0.81%) TypeScript
9 31 (0.51%) Apex Code
10 18 (0.30%) Ruby
11 16 (0.27%) Shell Script
12 15 (0.25%) ABAP
12 15 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 14 (0.23%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.18%) C++
14 11 (0.18%) Groovy
14 11 (0.18%) R
15 10 (0.17%) PL/SQL
15 10 (0.17%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,874 (31.10%) Security Cleared
2 1,409 (23.39%) SC Cleared
3 357 (5.93%) DV Cleared
4 168 (2.79%) Degree
5 150 (2.49%) CISSP
6 135 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
7 124 (2.06%) Azure Certification
8 123 (2.04%) AWS Certification
9 102 (1.69%) Cisco Certification
10 84 (1.39%) TOGAF Certification
11 75 (1.24%) CISM
12 72 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
14 46 (0.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 42 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 42 (0.70%) CCNP
16 33 (0.55%) CCSP
17 32 (0.53%) Master's Degree
18 22 (0.37%) CISA
18 22 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (4.05%) Data Quality
2 231 (3.83%) NIST
3 184 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 178 (2.95%) GDPR
5 122 (2.02%) NCSC
6 77 (1.28%) GRC
7 54 (0.90%) QA
8 43 (0.71%) PCI DSS
9 41 (0.68%) Accessibility
10 32 (0.53%) NIST 800
11 30 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 25 (0.41%) SLA
13 21 (0.35%) SEPA
14 20 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
14 20 (0.33%) IFRS
15 19 (0.32%) ISO 20022
15 19 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 17 (0.28%) JSP 440
17 16 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
18 14 (0.23%) HL7
System Software
1 180 (2.99%) Active Directory
2 117 (1.94%) Docker
3 80 (1.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 44 (0.73%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.37%) vSphere
7 19 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.12%) NFS
10 6 (0.100%) Varnish
11 5 (0.083%) Postfix
11 5 (0.083%) vCloud
12 4 (0.066%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 4 (0.066%) KVM
13 3 (0.050%) Ceph
13 3 (0.050%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.050%) SRDF
14 2 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
14 2 (0.033%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 294 (4.88%) Kubernetes
2 105 (1.74%) Ansible
3 50 (0.83%) Grafana
4 48 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.70%) Prometheus
6 27 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.32%) Argo
8 16 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.23%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.17%) Istio
11 9 (0.15%) WMI
12 8 (0.13%) FortiGate
13 7 (0.12%) SCCM
14 6 (0.100%) CASB
14 6 (0.100%) NetBackup
15 5 (0.083%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.083%) HAProxy
15 5 (0.083%) MOM
16 4 (0.066%) Puppet
Vendors
1 811 (13.46%) Microsoft
2 349 (5.79%) SAP
3 304 (5.05%) Oracle
4 302 (5.01%) ServiceNow
5 285 (4.73%) Databricks
6 194 (3.22%) Salesforce
7 185 (3.07%) Google
8 147 (2.44%) Cisco
9 138 (2.29%) VMware
10 73 (1.21%) MuleSoft
11 68 (1.13%) CyberArk
12 63 (1.05%) IBM
13 53 (0.88%) Palo Alto
13 53 (0.88%) Workday
14 48 (0.80%) Foundry
15 43 (0.71%) Ariba
16 42 (0.70%) Adobe
17 40 (0.66%) Red Hat
18 39 (0.65%) Informatica
19 38 (0.63%) Sparx