Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 17 14
Rank change year-on-year -2 -3 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,491 3,118 4,113
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.44% 9.86% 9.68%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.34% 10.64% 10.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,368 1,859 2,694
10th Percentile £461 £485 £500
25th Percentile £519 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £738 £725
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 30 35
10th Percentile £61.40 £59.83 £58.85
25th Percentile £65.25 £66.00 £65.63
Median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +15.61% -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £94.52 £81.83 £81.56
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +15.61% -5.27% +9.33%

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 33,773 29,297 39,613
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.35% 92.69% 93.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,365 17,961 26,425
10th Percentile £300 £288 £280
25th Percentile £405 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £477 £500
% change year-on-year -0.42% -4.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,972 883 1,665
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.51 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £18.93
Median hourly rate £26.30 £32.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.08% -23.53% +25.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.37 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.08 £45.00
% change year-on-year -19.08% -30.93% +55.17%

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 14 January 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 14 January 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 14 January 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 -2 3,036 £625 - 830
UK excluding London -1 1,683 £600 -4.00% 671
London -3 1,359 £650 - 301
Work from Home -3 1,021 £618 -1.20% 400
South East +9 548 £606 -3.00% 235
North of England -7 407 £575 -6.83% 154
Midlands -3 290 £573 -4.58% 73
North West -2 249 £575 -5.29% 80
South West 0 242 £710 +13.60% 82
West Midlands -3 214 £582 -4.16% 39
Yorkshire -13 150 £563 -9.27% 52
East of England +6 103 £525 -17.65% 84
Scotland -1 93 £626 +0.16% 36
East Midlands +1 76 £500 -13.04% 32
Wales -2 27 £625 +0.81% 28
North East -24 8 £588 -2.02% 23
Northern Ireland -9 5 £500 -16.67% 5
Channel Islands - 2 £625 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 14 January 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 1,108 (31.74%) Security Cleared
2 952 (27.27%) Azure
3 796 (22.80%) SC Cleared
4 737 (21.11%) AWS
5 522 (14.95%) Microsoft
6 503 (14.41%) Roadmaps
7 468 (13.41%) Agile
8 454 (13.00%) Stakeholder Management
9 423 (12.12%) Migration
10 385 (11.03%) Enterprise Architecture
11 382 (10.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 368 (10.54%) DevOps
13 359 (10.28%) Data Modelling
14 357 (10.23%) TOGAF
15 353 (10.11%) Technical Leadership
16 336 (9.62%) Problem-Solving
17 325 (9.31%) CI/CD
18 282 (8.08%) Analytics
19 279 (7.99%) Python
20 277 (7.93%) AI
21 273 (7.82%) GCP
22 253 (7.25%) Data Architecture
23 242 (6.93%) Integration Patterns
24 237 (6.79%) Microservices
25 236 (6.76%) DV Cleared
26 233 (6.67%) Terraform
27 226 (6.47%) Mentoring
28 211 (6.04%) Architectural Design
29 205 (5.87%) Data Governance
29 205 (5.87%) SAP

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 95 (2.72%) Confluence
2 79 (2.26%) SharePoint
3 48 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.72%) SAS
5 20 (0.57%) OpenStack
6 19 (0.54%) CMS
7 15 (0.43%) Apache
8 14 (0.40%) Apache Spark
9 13 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
9 13 (0.37%) ArcGIS
10 12 (0.34%) Anypoint
11 9 (0.26%) Smallworld
12 7 (0.20%) GeoServer
13 6 (0.17%) Ethereum
13 6 (0.17%) Hyperledger
14 5 (0.14%) Mule
14 5 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
14 5 (0.14%) Skype for Business
14 5 (0.14%) WebLogic
15 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 47 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.86%) Microsoft Excel
4 28 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 18 (0.52%) MS Visio
6 9 (0.26%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.086%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.086%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.029%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.029%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.029%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.029%) Revit
8 1 (0.029%) Trello
Business Applications
1 98 (2.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 31 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.66%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.52%) Salesforce CRM
6 14 (0.40%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.37%) SAP CO
7 13 (0.37%) SAP PM
8 12 (0.34%) Maximo
8 12 (0.34%) SAP FI
9 11 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
9 11 (0.32%) SAP FI/CO
9 11 (0.32%) Teamcenter
10 9 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.26%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.23%) SAP PP
12 6 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
12 6 (0.17%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 952 (27.27%) Azure
2 737 (21.11%) AWS
3 273 (7.82%) GCP
4 138 (3.95%) Power Platform
4 138 (3.95%) SaaS
5 129 (3.70%) Serverless
6 118 (3.38%) Microsoft 365
7 104 (2.98%) Entra ID
8 84 (2.41%) GitHub
9 83 (2.38%) AWS Lambda
10 77 (2.21%) IaaS
11 76 (2.18%) Azure DevOps
12 75 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
13 70 (2.01%) Microsoft Purview
14 67 (1.92%) Amazon S3
15 62 (1.78%) PaaS
16 60 (1.72%) AWS CloudFormation
17 58 (1.66%) Azure Data Factory
18 56 (1.60%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 51 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 192 (5.50%) Firewall
2 130 (3.72%) WAN
3 106 (3.04%) Network Security
4 90 (2.58%) VPN
5 86 (2.46%) LAN
6 78 (2.23%) DNS
7 69 (1.98%) SD-WAN
8 36 (1.03%) BGP
9 30 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
10 27 (0.77%) MPLS
11 25 (0.72%) Internet
12 22 (0.63%) DHCP
12 22 (0.63%) SAN
13 21 (0.60%) VSAN
14 20 (0.57%) OSPF
15 15 (0.43%) SSL
15 15 (0.43%) VLAN
16 14 (0.40%) IPsec
16 14 (0.40%) Kerberos
17 13 (0.37%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (3.41%) Data Warehouse
2 98 (2.81%) Power BI
3 87 (2.49%) Metadata
4 81 (2.32%) Data Lake
5 63 (1.80%) PostgreSQL
6 54 (1.55%) SQL Server
7 43 (1.23%) Tableau
8 42 (1.20%) Amazon Redshift
9 35 (1.00%) DynamoDB
10 34 (0.97%) NoSQL
11 33 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
12 28 (0.80%) Amazon Athena
13 26 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
14 25 (0.72%) Redis
15 24 (0.69%) Amazon Aurora
15 24 (0.69%) Oracle Database
15 24 (0.69%) Relational Database
16 22 (0.63%) Delta Lake
17 21 (0.60%) Data Vault
17 21 (0.60%) GIS
Development Applications
1 110 (3.15%) JIRA
2 77 (2.21%) Jenkins
3 42 (1.20%) GitLab
4 41 (1.17%) Git
5 20 (0.57%) ERwin
6 9 (0.26%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.26%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.17%) Maven
7 6 (0.17%) MSI
8 5 (0.14%) Gradle
8 5 (0.14%) MLflow
8 5 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
8 5 (0.14%) SonarLint
8 5 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (0.11%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.11%) Postman
9 4 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
9 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.086%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.086%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 890 (25.49%) Social Skills
2 544 (15.58%) Finance
3 433 (12.40%) Public Sector
4 261 (7.48%) Analytical Skills
5 189 (5.41%) Banking
6 94 (2.69%) Documentation Skills
6 94 (2.69%) Legal
7 83 (2.38%) Telecoms
8 75 (2.15%) Retail
9 73 (2.09%) Marketing
9 73 (2.09%) Military
10 68 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
10 68 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
11 66 (1.89%) Manufacturing
12 44 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 32 (0.92%) Financial Institution
14 31 (0.89%) Billing
15 23 (0.66%) Back Office
15 23 (0.66%) Law
16 22 (0.63%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 176 (5.04%) REST
2 109 (3.12%) SOAP
3 103 (2.95%) Middleware
4 74 (2.12%) .NET
5 63 (1.80%) Kafka
6 54 (1.55%) OAuth
7 51 (1.46%) JSON
7 51 (1.46%) LDAP
8 43 (1.23%) RESTful
9 41 (1.17%) SAML
10 37 (1.06%) OpenID
11 35 (1.00%) React
12 31 (0.89%) OAuth2
13 30 (0.86%) PySpark
14 29 (0.83%) AngularJS
14 29 (0.83%) Node.js
15 28 (0.80%) Spring Boot
16 27 (0.77%) Lightning Web Components
16 27 (0.77%) Oracle Fusion
17 25 (0.72%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 251 (7.19%) Cloud Native
2 129 (3.70%) Product Ownership
3 118 (3.38%) Data Centre
4 103 (2.95%) Legacy Systems
5 89 (2.55%) Onboarding
5 89 (2.55%) PKI
6 81 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
7 77 (2.21%) Hybrid Cloud
8 66 (1.89%) Security Posture
9 59 (1.69%) Management Information System
10 56 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
11 54 (1.55%) Operational Technology
12 52 (1.49%) Public Cloud
13 42 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
14 41 (1.17%) CMDB
14 41 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
15 38 (1.09%) Data Structures
16 33 (0.95%) NHS
16 33 (0.95%) SCADA
17 31 (0.89%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 160 (4.58%) Windows
2 107 (3.07%) Linux
3 44 (1.26%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.46%) Windows 10
5 16 (0.46%) Windows 7
5 16 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
6 14 (0.40%) Unix
7 12 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
8 10 (0.29%) VMS
9 6 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.17%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.14%) Android
10 5 (0.14%) Apple iOS
11 4 (0.11%) zOS
12 3 (0.086%) CentOS
12 3 (0.086%) Solaris
12 3 (0.086%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.029%) MVS
13 1 (0.029%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 503 (14.41%) Roadmaps
2 468 (13.41%) Agile
3 454 (13.00%) Stakeholder Management
4 423 (12.12%) Migration
5 385 (11.03%) Enterprise Architecture
6 382 (10.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 368 (10.54%) DevOps
8 359 (10.28%) Data Modelling
9 357 (10.23%) TOGAF
10 353 (10.11%) Technical Leadership
11 336 (9.62%) Problem-Solving
12 325 (9.31%) CI/CD
13 282 (8.08%) Analytics
14 277 (7.93%) AI
15 253 (7.25%) Data Architecture
16 242 (6.93%) Integration Patterns
17 237 (6.79%) Microservices
18 226 (6.47%) Mentoring
19 211 (6.04%) Architectural Design
20 205 (5.87%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 279 (7.99%) Python
2 173 (4.96%) SQL
3 162 (4.64%) PowerShell
4 127 (3.64%) Java
5 57 (1.63%) JavaScript
6 42 (1.20%) C#
7 37 (1.06%) TypeScript
8 29 (0.83%) Bash
9 28 (0.80%) Bicep
10 26 (0.74%) Apex Code
11 19 (0.54%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.32%) R
13 10 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
13 10 (0.29%) T-SQL
14 9 (0.26%) ABAP
14 9 (0.26%) Ruby
15 7 (0.20%) Korn
15 7 (0.20%) PHP
16 6 (0.17%) C
16 6 (0.17%) C++
Qualifications
1 1,108 (31.74%) Security Cleared
2 796 (22.80%) SC Cleared
3 236 (6.76%) DV Cleared
4 183 (5.24%) Degree
5 110 (3.15%) CISSP
6 100 (2.86%) TOGAF Certification
7 99 (2.84%) AWS Certification
8 97 (2.78%) Azure Certification
9 67 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
10 66 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
11 60 (1.72%) Microsoft Certification
12 54 (1.55%) CISM
13 48 (1.37%) Master's Degree
14 47 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
15 46 (1.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 38 (1.09%) CCNP
17 33 (0.95%) CCIE
18 25 (0.72%) ISEB
18 25 (0.72%) ITIL Certification
19 21 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 169 (4.84%) GDPR
2 137 (3.92%) NIST
3 126 (3.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 109 (3.12%) Data Quality
5 68 (1.95%) NCSC
6 58 (1.66%) QA
7 50 (1.43%) PCI DSS
8 29 (0.83%) COBIT
9 27 (0.77%) Accessibility
10 26 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 25 (0.72%) JSP 440
12 22 (0.63%) GRC
13 21 (0.60%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 21 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.60%) HIPAA
14 16 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 14 (0.40%) ISO 20022
16 13 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 11 (0.32%) PSD2
17 11 (0.32%) SLA
System Software
1 149 (4.27%) Active Directory
2 117 (3.35%) Docker
3 95 (2.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (1.20%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.92%) vSphere
6 19 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
7 18 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
8 16 (0.46%) Hyper-V
9 15 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.20%) NFS
11 6 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
12 5 (0.14%) BitLocker
12 5 (0.14%) Lustre
13 4 (0.11%) Dovecot
13 4 (0.11%) Postfix
13 4 (0.11%) Varnish
13 4 (0.11%) vCloud
14 3 (0.086%) Ceph
14 3 (0.086%) Firmware
14 3 (0.086%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 233 (6.67%) Terraform
2 164 (4.70%) Kubernetes
3 103 (2.95%) Ansible
4 46 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.95%) OPNET
6 24 (0.69%) vCenter Server
7 22 (0.63%) SCCM
8 21 (0.60%) FortiGate
9 18 (0.52%) WMI
10 17 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
11 14 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.34%) Prometheus
13 11 (0.32%) Grafana
14 10 (0.29%) Argo
15 6 (0.17%) Kibana
16 4 (0.11%) Data Guard
16 4 (0.11%) Istio
16 4 (0.11%) Oracle RMAN
17 3 (0.086%) Karpenter
17 3 (0.086%) Puppet
Vendors
1 522 (14.95%) Microsoft
2 205 (5.87%) SAP
3 196 (5.61%) ServiceNow
4 185 (5.30%) Salesforce
5 161 (4.61%) Oracle
6 156 (4.47%) VMware
7 120 (3.44%) Cisco
8 106 (3.04%) Databricks
9 81 (2.32%) CyberArk
10 76 (2.18%) Google
11 67 (1.92%) Palo Alto
12 55 (1.58%) MuleSoft
13 49 (1.40%) Centrify
14 46 (1.32%) Splunk
15 45 (1.29%) Workday
16 44 (1.26%) Remedy
17 40 (1.15%) Atlassian
18 39 (1.12%) Sparx
19 38 (1.09%) OpenAI
20 37 (1.06%) Fortinet