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 9 April 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +3 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,975 2,913 4,492
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.87% 9.97% 10.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.78% 10.75% 11.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,281 1,930 2,905
10th Percentile £463 £480 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £823
UK excluding London median daily rate £608 £620 £650
% change year-on-year -1.94% -4.62% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 37 50
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.30 £50.47
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £70.00 £82.38
Median % change year-on-year +1.81% -15.03% +17.69%
75th Percentile £85.00 £80.59 £87.51
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.61 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £83.77
% change year-on-year -1.70% -13.45% +19.66%

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 42,236 27,096 40,842
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 92.72% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,288 17,831 26,727
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £407 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,660 965 2,571
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.00 £20.26 £16.25
Median hourly rate £40.54 £31.76 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.64% -9.26% -21.40%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £30.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.73% -13.00% -16.97%

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 9 April 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 9 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Architect in the UK

Architect
Top 17 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 9 April 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 +3 4,267 £625 - 1,077
UK excluding London +8 2,313 £608 -1.94% 761
London 0 1,973 £625 -3.85% 476
Work from Home +3 1,382 £611 -0.33% 523
South East +4 704 £625 - 256
North of England +4 609 £600 - 194
Midlands -4 399 £575 -4.17% 95
North West +8 354 £610 +1.67% 100
West Midlands -1 299 £600 -0.46% 69
South West +2 288 £700 +16.67% 98
Yorkshire +4 231 £563 -6.25% 70
East of England +20 186 £550 -8.33% 71
Scotland +15 136 £650 +4.00% 35
East Midlands -3 96 £519 -8.59% 26
North East +3 33 £575 -7.95% 28
Wales -5 29 £563 -6.25% 24
Northern Ireland +6 11 £500 -26.47% 4

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 April 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 1,600 (32.16%) Security Cleared
2 1,206 (24.24%) Azure
3 1,139 (22.89%) SC Cleared
4 1,049 (21.09%) AWS
5 717 (14.41%) Roadmaps
6 686 (13.79%) Microsoft
7 661 (13.29%) Migration
8 619 (12.44%) Agile
9 568 (11.42%) Stakeholder Management
10 554 (11.14%) DevOps
11 518 (10.41%) CI/CD
12 516 (10.37%) Enterprise Architecture
13 480 (9.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 471 (9.47%) Data Modelling
15 455 (9.15%) Technical Leadership
16 451 (9.07%) TOGAF
17 428 (8.60%) AI
18 426 (8.56%) Analytics
19 410 (8.24%) Integration Patterns
20 389 (7.82%) Data Architecture
21 388 (7.80%) GCP
22 386 (7.76%) Problem-Solving
23 372 (7.48%) Architectural Patterns
24 362 (7.28%) Microservices
25 357 (7.18%) Python
26 340 (6.83%) DV Cleared
27 336 (6.75%) Architectural Design
28 298 (5.99%) Security Architecture
29 297 (5.97%) ServiceNow
30 290 (5.83%) Infrastructure as Code

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
1 124 (2.49%) SharePoint
2 114 (2.29%) Confluence
3 65 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (0.64%) SAS
5 26 (0.52%) CMS
6 24 (0.48%) Apache Spark
7 21 (0.42%) Apache
8 17 (0.34%) Anypoint
8 17 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
9 16 (0.32%) Appian
9 16 (0.32%) ArcGIS
10 15 (0.30%) WebLogic
11 14 (0.28%) nginx
12 11 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 10 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 8 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
15 7 (0.14%) Camunda
15 7 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 7 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
15 7 (0.14%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 49 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.46%) Microsoft Excel
5 18 (0.36%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.040%) PlantUML
7 2 (0.040%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.040%) Windchill
8 1 (0.020%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.020%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.020%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.020%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.020%) Revit
8 1 (0.020%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 130 (2.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 50 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
4 21 (0.42%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
6 17 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
7 16 (0.32%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
9 12 (0.24%) SAP EWM
10 11 (0.22%) NetSuite
10 11 (0.22%) Teamcenter
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 10 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
11 10 (0.20%) SAP PM
12 9 (0.18%) Maximo
13 8 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
13 8 (0.16%) SAP PP
14 7 (0.14%) R3 Corda
14 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
14 7 (0.14%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,206 (24.24%) Azure
2 1,049 (21.09%) AWS
3 388 (7.80%) GCP
4 206 (4.14%) Power Platform
5 177 (3.56%) Entra ID
6 174 (3.50%) Serverless
7 165 (3.32%) SaaS
8 143 (2.87%) Microsoft 365
9 116 (2.33%) IaaS
10 113 (2.27%) GitHub
11 107 (2.15%) PaaS
12 102 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
13 100 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
14 88 (1.77%) AWS Lambda
15 83 (1.67%) OpenShift
16 75 (1.51%) AWS CloudFormation
17 71 (1.43%) Microsoft Purview
17 71 (1.43%) Snowflake
18 70 (1.41%) Amazon S3
19 69 (1.39%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 242 (4.86%) Firewall
2 175 (3.52%) Network Security
3 142 (2.85%) WAN
4 130 (2.61%) DNS
4 130 (2.61%) VPN
5 87 (1.75%) LAN
6 79 (1.59%) SD-WAN
7 39 (0.78%) BGP
8 38 (0.76%) DHCP
9 31 (0.62%) OSPF
9 31 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
10 30 (0.60%) MPLS
10 30 (0.60%) TCP/IP
11 29 (0.58%) SAN
12 27 (0.54%) VLAN
13 25 (0.50%) Wireless
14 22 (0.44%) VXLAN
15 21 (0.42%) NAS
16 19 (0.38%) BIG-IP
16 19 (0.38%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (3.18%) Power BI
2 145 (2.91%) Data Warehouse
3 143 (2.87%) Metadata
4 118 (2.37%) Data Lake
5 82 (1.65%) SQL Server
6 61 (1.23%) NoSQL
6 61 (1.23%) PostgreSQL
7 51 (1.03%) Tableau
8 49 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.84%) Oracle Database
10 41 (0.82%) Big Data
11 30 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
12 25 (0.50%) BigQuery
13 24 (0.48%) Delta Lake
14 23 (0.46%) DynamoDB
14 23 (0.46%) GIS
14 23 (0.46%) Relational Database
15 22 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
15 22 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
16 21 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 130 (2.61%) JIRA
2 96 (1.93%) Jenkins
3 50 (1.01%) Git
4 47 (0.94%) GitLab
5 25 (0.50%) ERwin
6 13 (0.26%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket
8 10 (0.20%) Artifactory
9 9 (0.18%) MLflow
10 6 (0.12%) Postman
10 6 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.10%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.10%) JUnit
11 5 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.10%) Selenium
11 5 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.080%) Maven
12 4 (0.080%) Rational DOORS
12 4 (0.080%) Snyk
12 4 (0.080%) Terragrunt
General
1 1,035 (20.80%) Social Skills
2 762 (15.32%) Finance
3 568 (11.42%) Public Sector
4 322 (6.47%) Analytical Skills
5 290 (5.83%) Banking
6 160 (3.22%) Documentation Skills
7 117 (2.35%) Legal
8 116 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
9 113 (2.27%) Retail
10 89 (1.79%) Military
11 84 (1.69%) Telecoms
12 75 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
13 66 (1.33%) Manufacturing
14 65 (1.31%) Marketing
15 63 (1.27%) Law
16 47 (0.94%) Financial Institution
17 35 (0.70%) Billing
18 34 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 33 (0.66%) Investment Banking
20 30 (0.60%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (4.90%) REST
2 186 (3.74%) Middleware
3 123 (2.47%) SOAP
4 108 (2.17%) .NET
5 105 (2.11%) Kafka
6 82 (1.65%) OpenID
7 80 (1.61%) LDAP
8 75 (1.51%) OAuth
9 61 (1.23%) SAML
10 57 (1.15%) JSON
11 52 (1.05%) React
12 46 (0.92%) OAuth2
13 44 (0.88%) RESTful
14 43 (0.86%) AngularJS
15 37 (0.74%) Web Services
16 36 (0.72%) SailPoint
17 34 (0.68%) Oracle Fusion
18 32 (0.64%) Spring
19 30 (0.60%) PySpark
20 24 (0.48%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 382 (7.68%) Cloud Native
2 173 (3.48%) Data Centre
3 154 (3.10%) Product Ownership
4 129 (2.59%) Onboarding
5 112 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
6 111 (2.23%) Legacy Systems
7 105 (2.11%) Management Information System
8 100 (2.01%) Distributed Systems
9 98 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
10 93 (1.87%) Public Cloud
11 87 (1.75%) PKI
12 84 (1.69%) Security Posture
13 70 (1.41%) CMDB
13 70 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
14 67 (1.35%) Operational Technology
15 51 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
16 49 (0.98%) AI Agents
17 48 (0.96%) Data Structures
18 47 (0.94%) NHS
18 47 (0.94%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 187 (3.76%) Windows
2 123 (2.47%) Linux
3 45 (0.90%) Windows Server
4 31 (0.62%) Android
4 31 (0.62%) Apple iOS
4 31 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.34%) Unix
6 15 (0.30%) VMS
7 14 (0.28%) Windows 10
7 14 (0.28%) Windows 7
8 12 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
9 10 (0.20%) zOS
10 9 (0.18%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.060%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.060%) Solaris
11 3 (0.060%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.040%) AIX
12 2 (0.040%) CentOS
13 1 (0.020%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 717 (14.41%) Roadmaps
2 661 (13.29%) Migration
3 619 (12.44%) Agile
4 568 (11.42%) Stakeholder Management
5 554 (11.14%) DevOps
6 518 (10.41%) CI/CD
7 516 (10.37%) Enterprise Architecture
8 480 (9.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 471 (9.47%) Data Modelling
10 455 (9.15%) Technical Leadership
11 451 (9.07%) TOGAF
12 428 (8.60%) AI
13 426 (8.56%) Analytics
14 410 (8.24%) Integration Patterns
15 389 (7.82%) Data Architecture
16 386 (7.76%) Problem-Solving
17 372 (7.48%) Architectural Patterns
18 362 (7.28%) Microservices
19 336 (6.75%) Architectural Design
20 298 (5.99%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 357 (7.18%) Python
2 262 (5.27%) SQL
3 196 (3.94%) Java
4 192 (3.86%) PowerShell
5 73 (1.47%) JavaScript
6 67 (1.35%) C#
7 45 (0.90%) Bicep
8 43 (0.86%) Bash
9 30 (0.60%) TypeScript
10 22 (0.44%) Ruby
11 18 (0.36%) Apex Code
11 18 (0.36%) PL/SQL
12 13 (0.26%) Kotlin
12 13 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
12 13 (0.26%) Scala
13 10 (0.20%) R
14 9 (0.18%) ABAP
14 9 (0.18%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.18%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.16%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,600 (32.16%) Security Cleared
2 1,139 (22.89%) SC Cleared
3 340 (6.83%) DV Cleared
4 209 (4.20%) Degree
5 123 (2.47%) Azure Certification
6 122 (2.45%) CISSP
7 121 (2.43%) TOGAF Certification
8 115 (2.31%) AWS Certification
9 92 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
10 90 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
11 76 (1.53%) Computer Science Degree
12 64 (1.29%) CISM
13 54 (1.09%) CCNP
14 53 (1.07%) Master's Degree
14 53 (1.07%) Microsoft Certification
15 52 (1.05%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 36 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 33 (0.66%) ISEB
17 33 (0.66%) ITIL Certification
18 30 (0.60%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 197 (3.96%) GDPR
2 190 (3.82%) NIST
3 156 (3.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 153 (3.08%) Data Quality
5 104 (2.09%) NCSC
6 70 (1.41%) QA
7 57 (1.15%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.80%) COBIT
9 33 (0.66%) GRC
10 30 (0.60%) Accessibility
11 29 (0.58%) ISO 20022
12 27 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.38%) JSP 440
13 19 (0.38%) NIST 800
14 18 (0.36%) HL7
14 18 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 18 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 15 (0.30%) SEPA
16 14 (0.28%) MiFID
17 13 (0.26%) HIPAA
System Software
1 202 (4.06%) Active Directory
2 119 (2.39%) Docker
3 111 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 78 (1.57%) VMware NSX
5 38 (0.76%) vSphere
6 25 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
7 18 (0.36%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.22%) Varnish
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
11 10 (0.20%) vCloud
12 9 (0.18%) Squid
13 8 (0.16%) NFS
14 7 (0.14%) BitLocker
15 5 (0.10%) Postfix
15 5 (0.10%) RACF
16 4 (0.080%) Firmware
17 3 (0.060%) IAG
17 3 (0.060%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 285 (5.73%) Terraform
2 242 (4.86%) Kubernetes
3 119 (2.39%) Ansible
4 56 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.80%) Grafana
5 40 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
6 35 (0.70%) vCenter Server
7 32 (0.64%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.60%) OPNET
9 27 (0.54%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.44%) Argo
10 22 (0.44%) SCCM
11 20 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.26%) WMI
13 11 (0.22%) Istio
14 7 (0.14%) Consul
14 7 (0.14%) Puppet
15 6 (0.12%) Kibana
16 5 (0.10%) Endace
16 5 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 686 (13.79%) Microsoft
2 297 (5.97%) ServiceNow
3 281 (5.65%) SAP
4 206 (4.14%) Oracle
5 205 (4.12%) VMware
6 197 (3.96%) Salesforce
7 177 (3.56%) Databricks
8 142 (2.85%) Cisco
9 109 (2.19%) Google
10 86 (1.73%) CyberArk
11 70 (1.41%) MuleSoft
12 66 (1.33%) Palo Alto
12 66 (1.33%) Splunk
13 60 (1.21%) Red Hat
14 51 (1.03%) IBM
15 50 (1.01%) Remedy
15 50 (1.01%) Workday
16 49 (0.98%) Sparx
17 47 (0.94%) Atlassian
18 45 (0.90%) Ariba