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 29 August 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,039 2,990 3,887
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.20% 9.07% 10.09%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.12% 9.95% 10.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,007 1,925 2,488
10th Percentile £478 £470 £485
25th Percentile £525 £531 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £640
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -2.34% -1.54%
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 49,838 30,062 35,859
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.47% 91.24% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,768 18,992 22,689
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 £621 £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 3,565 1,567 1,847
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.75 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.04 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £44.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.84% +10.00%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 5,056 £620 -0.80% 2,997
London +7 2,593 £625 -3.85% 1,842
UK excluding London +7 2,527 £620 +3.33% 1,438
Work from Home +4 1,614 £600 - 1,242
South East 0 740 £625 +4.17% 354
North of England +5 705 £600 - 358
Midlands +2 416 £625 +8.70% 177
North West +4 413 £600 +4.35% 214
South West +2 318 £648 +0.97% 209
West Midlands +1 304 £644 +7.33% 112
Yorkshire +10 229 £588 -4.08% 108
Scotland +20 166 £625 +0.60% 151
East of England +16 152 £604 +9.07% 110
East Midlands +4 105 £600 +16.50% 65
North East -4 65 £600 -14.29% 36
Wales +6 43 £633 +1.20% 19
Northern Ireland +4 4 £488 -30.36% 67
Channel Islands -3 4 £600 -19.19% 2

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 29 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 1,872 (31.00%) Security Cleared
2 1,557 (25.78%) Azure
3 1,409 (23.33%) SC Cleared
4 1,318 (21.82%) AWS
5 989 (16.38%) Stakeholder Management
6 912 (15.10%) Roadmaps
7 863 (14.29%) Migration
8 818 (13.55%) Microsoft
9 767 (12.70%) Enterprise Architecture
10 762 (12.62%) AI
11 693 (11.48%) Technical Leadership
12 675 (11.18%) Agile
13 634 (10.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 632 (10.47%) DevOps
15 627 (10.38%) Data Modelling
16 617 (10.22%) CI/CD
17 584 (9.67%) Data Architecture
18 576 (9.54%) Integration Patterns
19 517 (8.56%) Analytics
20 483 (8.00%) GCP
21 481 (7.96%) Architectural Patterns
21 481 (7.96%) TOGAF
22 469 (7.77%) Security Architecture
23 411 (6.81%) Event-Driven
24 398 (6.59%) Microservices
25 395 (6.54%) Data Governance
26 375 (6.21%) Cybersecurity
27 374 (6.19%) Infrastructure as Code
28 362 (5.99%) Decision-Making
29 356 (5.90%) 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 80 (1.32%) SharePoint
2 79 (1.31%) SAS
3 69 (1.14%) Confluence
4 44 (0.73%) Apache
5 42 (0.70%) Apache Spark
6 34 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
7 29 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.36%) Palantir Foundry
9 21 (0.35%) CMS
10 18 (0.30%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.12%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.12%) Documentum
12 6 (0.099%) Appian
12 6 (0.099%) Camunda
13 5 (0.083%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.066%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.066%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.066%) NetWeaver
14 4 (0.066%) SAP EP
15 3 (0.050%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 22 (0.36%) 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
1 166 (2.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 36 (0.60%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
4 17 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
5 16 (0.26%) Teamcenter
6 14 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
6 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
7 13 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
8 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) SAP ERP
9 11 (0.18%) SAP MDG
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 7 (0.12%) Maximo
13 7 (0.12%) SAP MM
14 6 (0.099%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,557 (25.78%) Azure
2 1,318 (21.82%) AWS
3 483 (8.00%) GCP
4 309 (5.12%) Power Platform
5 226 (3.74%) Entra ID
5 226 (3.74%) SaaS
6 210 (3.48%) Serverless
7 147 (2.43%) GitHub
8 143 (2.37%) Dynamics 365
9 127 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
10 121 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
11 111 (1.84%) Snowflake
12 108 (1.79%) PaaS
13 99 (1.64%) AWS Lambda
14 88 (1.46%) Amazon S3
15 75 (1.24%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 75 (1.24%) IaaS
16 68 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
17 66 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
18 65 (1.08%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 180 (2.98%) Firewall
2 167 (2.77%) Network Security
3 108 (1.79%) WAN
4 96 (1.59%) VPN
5 80 (1.32%) DNS
6 75 (1.24%) LAN
7 52 (0.86%) SD-WAN
8 50 (0.83%) BGP
9 39 (0.65%) DHCP
10 38 (0.63%) MPLS
11 37 (0.61%) TCP/IP
12 31 (0.51%) VLAN
13 28 (0.46%) VXLAN
14 27 (0.45%) SAN
15 25 (0.41%) OSPF
16 22 (0.36%) NAS
17 21 (0.35%) NX-OS
17 21 (0.35%) Radio Access Network
18 20 (0.33%) Wireless
19 19 (0.31%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 209 (3.46%) Power BI
2 203 (3.36%) Data Lake
3 201 (3.33%) Metadata
4 181 (3.00%) Data Warehouse
5 78 (1.29%) NoSQL
6 51 (0.84%) SQL Server
7 49 (0.81%) PostgreSQL
8 48 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
9 46 (0.76%) BigQuery
10 45 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
11 44 (0.73%) Delta Lake
12 43 (0.71%) Big Data
13 40 (0.66%) Oracle Database
14 38 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
15 29 (0.48%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
16 26 (0.43%) Semantic Layer
17 25 (0.41%) Relational Database
18 23 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
18 23 (0.38%) GIS
18 23 (0.38%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 84 (1.39%) JIRA
2 80 (1.32%) Git
3 58 (0.96%) Jenkins
4 38 (0.63%) GitLab
5 19 (0.31%) ERwin
6 12 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.13%) RStudio
9 7 (0.12%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.12%) MLflow
9 7 (0.12%) MSI
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 7 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.099%) Hudson
10 6 (0.099%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.099%) Storybook
11 5 (0.083%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.083%) Maven
11 5 (0.083%) PowerDesigner
General
1 1,193 (19.75%) Social Skills
2 872 (14.44%) Finance
3 695 (11.51%) Public Sector
4 311 (5.15%) Banking
5 304 (5.03%) Analytical Skills
6 259 (4.29%) Retail
7 161 (2.67%) Influencing Skills
8 143 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
9 138 (2.29%) Telecoms
10 134 (2.22%) Manufacturing
11 115 (1.90%) Legal
12 68 (1.13%) Marketing
13 61 (1.01%) Billing
14 57 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 48 (0.79%) Military
16 46 (0.76%) Law
17 45 (0.75%) Aerospace
18 39 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
19 37 (0.61%) Financial Institution
19 37 (0.61%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 293 (4.85%) REST
2 268 (4.44%) Terraform
3 185 (3.06%) Middleware
4 143 (2.37%) Kafka
5 131 (2.17%) SOAP
6 127 (2.10%) .NET
7 126 (2.09%) OAuth
8 70 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
9 68 (1.13%) SAML
10 67 (1.11%) JSON
10 67 (1.11%) OpenID
11 60 (0.99%) OAuth2
12 48 (0.79%) PySpark
13 46 (0.76%) RESTful
14 42 (0.70%) XML
15 40 (0.66%) LDAP
15 40 (0.66%) React
16 39 (0.65%) SailPoint
17 38 (0.63%) .NET Framework
18 36 (0.60%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 534 (8.84%) Cloud Native
2 202 (3.34%) Data Centre
3 178 (2.95%) Management Information System
4 162 (2.68%) Onboarding
5 145 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
6 144 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
7 143 (2.37%) Product Ownership
8 142 (2.35%) AI Agents
8 142 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
9 139 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
10 102 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
11 95 (1.57%) CMDB
12 87 (1.44%) Public Cloud
13 85 (1.41%) Operational Technology
14 80 (1.32%) Enterprise Cloud
15 68 (1.13%) Security Posture
16 58 (0.96%) Data Structures
17 53 (0.88%) Private Cloud
18 48 (0.79%) IoT
19 43 (0.71%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 121 (2.00%) Windows
2 107 (1.77%) Linux
3 46 (0.76%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (0.36%) 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
1 989 (16.38%) Stakeholder Management
2 912 (15.10%) Roadmaps
3 863 (14.29%) Migration
4 767 (12.70%) Enterprise Architecture
5 762 (12.62%) AI
6 693 (11.48%) Technical Leadership
7 675 (11.18%) Agile
8 634 (10.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 632 (10.47%) DevOps
10 627 (10.38%) Data Modelling
11 617 (10.22%) CI/CD
12 584 (9.67%) Data Architecture
13 576 (9.54%) Integration Patterns
14 517 (8.56%) Analytics
15 481 (7.96%) Architectural Patterns
15 481 (7.96%) TOGAF
16 469 (7.77%) Security Architecture
17 411 (6.81%) Event-Driven
18 398 (6.59%) Microservices
19 395 (6.54%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 285 (4.72%) Python
2 278 (4.60%) SQL
3 273 (4.52%) Java
4 127 (2.10%) JavaScript
5 109 (1.80%) PowerShell
6 52 (0.86%) Bicep
7 51 (0.84%) C#
8 49 (0.81%) Bash
8 49 (0.81%) TypeScript
9 30 (0.50%) Apex Code
10 20 (0.33%) Ruby
11 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 16 (0.26%) Shell Script
12 15 (0.25%) ABAP
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 1,872 (31.00%) Security Cleared
2 1,409 (23.33%) SC Cleared
3 356 (5.90%) DV Cleared
4 170 (2.82%) Degree
5 150 (2.48%) CISSP
6 134 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
7 128 (2.12%) 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 73 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.79%) 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 (0.36%) CISA
18 22 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 245 (4.06%) Data Quality
2 229 (3.79%) NIST
3 182 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 179 (2.96%) GDPR
5 122 (2.02%) NCSC
6 77 (1.28%) GRC
7 54 (0.89%) 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 (0.31%) ISO 20022
15 19 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 17 (0.28%) JSP 440
17 16 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
18 14 (0.23%) HL7
System Software
1 179 (2.96%) Active Directory
2 119 (1.97%) Docker
3 82 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 44 (0.73%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.36%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.36%) vSphere
7 19 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.12%) NFS
10 6 (0.099%) 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%) IAG
13 3 (0.050%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.050%) SRDF
14 2 (0.033%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 297 (4.92%) Kubernetes
2 106 (1.76%) Ansible
3 51 (0.84%) Grafana
4 48 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.70%) Prometheus
6 27 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.31%) Argo
8 16 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.23%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.17%) Istio
11 8 (0.13%) FortiGate
11 8 (0.13%) WMI
12 7 (0.12%) SCCM
13 6 (0.099%) CASB
13 6 (0.099%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.083%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.083%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.083%) MOM
15 4 (0.066%) Cisco CUCM
Vendors
1 818 (13.55%) Microsoft
2 353 (5.85%) SAP
3 307 (5.08%) Oracle
4 302 (5.00%) ServiceNow
5 288 (4.77%) Databricks
6 194 (3.21%) Salesforce
7 183 (3.03%) Google
8 150 (2.48%) Cisco
9 140 (2.32%) VMware
10 72 (1.19%) MuleSoft
11 67 (1.11%) CyberArk
12 64 (1.06%) IBM
13 54 (0.89%) Workday
14 53 (0.88%) Palo Alto
15 48 (0.79%) Foundry
16 43 (0.71%) Ariba
17 42 (0.70%) Adobe
18 40 (0.66%) OpenAI
18 40 (0.66%) Red Hat
19 39 (0.65%) Informatica