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 25 April 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +5 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,112 2,890 4,485
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.96% 9.79% 10.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.88% 10.57% 11.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,355 1,905 2,877
10th Percentile £463 £480 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.52%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £610 £608 £650
% change year-on-year +0.41% -6.54% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 121 38 68
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.60 £59.25
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £69.44 £68.75 £77.70
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -11.52% +11.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £80.44 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.58 £90.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.36 £72.50 £80.00
% change year-on-year -2.96% -9.38% +14.29%

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 43,041 27,334 40,483
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.61% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,619 17,888 26,425
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £408 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £517 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.29% -1.52% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,759 1,027 2,641
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £29.07 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year +46.84% -18.11% -21.11%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £28.75 £37.50
% change year-on-year +56.52% -23.33% -11.76%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +5 4,370 £625 - 744
UK excluding London +8 2,367 £610 +0.41% 532
London +3 2,020 £625 -3.85% 294
Work from Home +3 1,401 £600 -0.41% 410
South East +4 706 £625 - 143
North of England +6 627 £600 - 129
Midlands +3 408 £581 -3.17% 104
North West +9 368 £604 +0.63% 73
West Midlands -1 299 £607 +1.08% 77
South West +1 298 £693 +15.42% 78
Yorkshire +8 231 £558 -8.90% 37
East of England +17 199 £563 -6.25% 50
Scotland +14 137 £650 +4.00% 7
East Midlands -3 103 £525 -4.55% 27
North East +2 37 £575 -7.95% 19
Wales -7 24 £600 +17.65% 23
Northern Ireland +10 10 £488 -26.42% 9

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 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 1,601 (31.32%) Security Cleared
2 1,218 (23.83%) Azure
3 1,146 (22.42%) SC Cleared
4 1,078 (21.09%) AWS
5 721 (14.10%) Roadmaps
6 690 (13.50%) Microsoft
7 677 (13.24%) Migration
8 632 (12.36%) Agile
9 566 (11.07%) Stakeholder Management
10 563 (11.01%) DevOps
11 537 (10.50%) CI/CD
12 524 (10.25%) Enterprise Architecture
13 472 (9.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 463 (9.06%) Data Modelling
14 463 (9.06%) Technical Leadership
15 462 (9.04%) AI
16 437 (8.55%) TOGAF
17 427 (8.35%) Analytics
18 425 (8.31%) Integration Patterns
19 394 (7.71%) GCP
20 387 (7.57%) Data Architecture
21 380 (7.43%) Architectural Patterns
22 378 (7.39%) Problem-Solving
23 374 (7.32%) Microservices
24 353 (6.91%) Python
25 335 (6.55%) Architectural Design
26 330 (6.46%) DV Cleared
27 314 (6.14%) ServiceNow
28 309 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
29 295 (5.77%) 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
1 125 (2.45%) SharePoint
2 107 (2.09%) Confluence
3 61 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (0.57%) SAS
5 25 (0.49%) Apache
5 25 (0.49%) Apache Spark
6 20 (0.39%) CMS
7 18 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.31%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.31%) Appian
9 15 (0.29%) nginx
9 15 (0.29%) WebLogic
10 14 (0.27%) ArcGIS
11 12 (0.23%) OpenStack
12 10 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 10 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
13 7 (0.14%) Camunda
13 7 (0.14%) Ethereum
13 7 (0.14%) Hyperledger
13 7 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 48 (0.94%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
3 24 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
5 17 (0.33%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.12%) Navisworks
6 6 (0.12%) Revit
7 4 (0.078%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.059%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.039%) PlantUML
9 2 (0.039%) Windchill
10 1 (0.020%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.020%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.020%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.020%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 124 (2.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (0.88%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.45%) Payment Gateway
4 21 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
5 20 (0.39%) Workday HCM
6 16 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
7 15 (0.29%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.25%) Teamcenter
9 12 (0.23%) SAP EWM
10 11 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
12 9 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
13 8 (0.16%) SAP PP
14 7 (0.14%) Maximo
14 7 (0.14%) NetSuite
14 7 (0.14%) R3 Corda
14 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
14 7 (0.14%) SAP PM
14 7 (0.14%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,218 (23.83%) Azure
2 1,078 (21.09%) AWS
3 394 (7.71%) GCP
4 216 (4.23%) Power Platform
5 183 (3.58%) Serverless
6 182 (3.56%) Entra ID
7 167 (3.27%) SaaS
8 139 (2.72%) Microsoft 365
9 116 (2.27%) GitHub
10 108 (2.11%) PaaS
11 106 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
12 104 (2.03%) IaaS
13 98 (1.92%) Azure DevOps
14 91 (1.78%) AWS Lambda
15 80 (1.56%) Amazon S3
15 80 (1.56%) OpenShift
16 75 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
16 75 (1.47%) Snowflake
17 69 (1.35%) Microsoft Purview
18 68 (1.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 220 (4.30%) Firewall
2 175 (3.42%) Network Security
3 133 (2.60%) WAN
4 120 (2.35%) VPN
5 117 (2.29%) DNS
6 86 (1.68%) LAN
7 73 (1.43%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.74%) BGP
9 33 (0.65%) DHCP
10 29 (0.57%) OSPF
10 29 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
11 27 (0.53%) MPLS
11 27 (0.53%) TCP/IP
12 26 (0.51%) VLAN
13 24 (0.47%) SAN
14 21 (0.41%) NAS
14 21 (0.41%) Wireless
15 20 (0.39%) BIG-IP
15 20 (0.39%) VXLAN
16 19 (0.37%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (3.17%) Power BI
2 140 (2.74%) Metadata
3 135 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
4 127 (2.48%) Data Lake
5 80 (1.56%) SQL Server
6 65 (1.27%) NoSQL
7 60 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
8 54 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
9 48 (0.94%) Tableau
10 38 (0.74%) Big Data
11 37 (0.72%) Amazon Redshift
11 37 (0.72%) Oracle Database
12 27 (0.53%) Delta Lake
13 25 (0.49%) BigQuery
13 25 (0.49%) Relational Database
14 23 (0.45%) Amazon Athena
14 23 (0.45%) DynamoDB
15 22 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
15 22 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
15 22 (0.43%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 119 (2.33%) JIRA
2 90 (1.76%) Jenkins
3 56 (1.10%) Git
4 48 (0.94%) GitLab
5 21 (0.41%) ERwin
6 13 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.22%) MLflow
8 10 (0.20%) Artifactory
9 6 (0.12%) Postman
9 6 (0.12%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.098%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.098%) JUnit
10 5 (0.098%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.098%) Selenium
10 5 (0.098%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.078%) Snyk
11 4 (0.078%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.059%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.059%) MSI
General
1 1,011 (19.78%) Social Skills
2 767 (15.00%) Finance
3 566 (11.07%) Public Sector
4 315 (6.16%) Analytical Skills
5 295 (5.77%) Banking
6 152 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
7 133 (2.60%) Retail
8 118 (2.31%) Legal
9 113 (2.21%) Influencing Skills
10 89 (1.74%) Military
11 86 (1.68%) Telecoms
12 72 (1.41%) Manufacturing
13 70 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
14 63 (1.23%) Law
14 63 (1.23%) Marketing
15 44 (0.86%) Financial Institution
16 40 (0.78%) Billing
17 35 (0.68%) Investment Banking
18 31 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 29 (0.57%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 252 (4.93%) REST
2 185 (3.62%) Middleware
3 131 (2.56%) SOAP
4 116 (2.27%) .NET
5 110 (2.15%) Kafka
6 89 (1.74%) OpenID
7 85 (1.66%) LDAP
8 81 (1.58%) OAuth
9 62 (1.21%) SAML
10 55 (1.08%) JSON
11 51 (1.00%) React
12 48 (0.94%) OAuth2
13 43 (0.84%) RESTful
14 41 (0.80%) Oracle Fusion
15 38 (0.74%) AngularJS
15 38 (0.74%) Web Services
16 37 (0.72%) SailPoint
17 32 (0.63%) Spring
18 31 (0.61%) Node.js
19 30 (0.59%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 417 (8.16%) Cloud Native
2 165 (3.23%) Data Centre
3 146 (2.86%) Product Ownership
4 135 (2.64%) Onboarding
5 123 (2.41%) Management Information System
6 119 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
7 115 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
8 107 (2.09%) Distributed Systems
9 98 (1.92%) Hybrid Cloud
10 97 (1.90%) Public Cloud
11 81 (1.58%) Security Posture
12 78 (1.53%) PKI
13 74 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
14 73 (1.43%) CMDB
15 66 (1.29%) Operational Technology
16 52 (1.02%) AI Agents
17 45 (0.88%) Private Cloud
18 44 (0.86%) NHS
18 44 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
19 43 (0.84%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 180 (3.52%) Windows
2 120 (2.35%) Linux
3 41 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 32 (0.63%) Android
4 32 (0.63%) Apple iOS
4 32 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.33%) Unix
6 14 (0.27%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.25%) VMS
8 12 (0.23%) Windows 7
8 12 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
9 11 (0.22%) zOS
10 9 (0.18%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.059%) CentOS
11 3 (0.059%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.059%) Solaris
11 3 (0.059%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.039%) AIX
12 2 (0.039%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 721 (14.10%) Roadmaps
2 677 (13.24%) Migration
3 632 (12.36%) Agile
4 566 (11.07%) Stakeholder Management
5 563 (11.01%) DevOps
6 537 (10.50%) CI/CD
7 524 (10.25%) Enterprise Architecture
8 472 (9.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 463 (9.06%) Data Modelling
9 463 (9.06%) Technical Leadership
10 462 (9.04%) AI
11 437 (8.55%) TOGAF
12 427 (8.35%) Analytics
13 425 (8.31%) Integration Patterns
14 387 (7.57%) Data Architecture
15 380 (7.43%) Architectural Patterns
16 378 (7.39%) Problem-Solving
17 374 (7.32%) Microservices
18 335 (6.55%) Architectural Design
19 309 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 353 (6.91%) Python
2 271 (5.30%) SQL
3 206 (4.03%) Java
4 185 (3.62%) PowerShell
5 83 (1.62%) JavaScript
6 67 (1.31%) C#
7 47 (0.92%) Bicep
8 37 (0.72%) Bash
9 34 (0.67%) TypeScript
10 22 (0.43%) Ruby
11 19 (0.37%) Apex Code
12 18 (0.35%) PL/SQL
13 16 (0.31%) Scala
14 13 (0.25%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.20%) ABAP
15 10 (0.20%) R
15 10 (0.20%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.20%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.16%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,601 (31.32%) Security Cleared
2 1,146 (22.42%) SC Cleared
3 330 (6.46%) DV Cleared
4 211 (4.13%) Degree
5 129 (2.52%) TOGAF Certification
6 125 (2.45%) Azure Certification
7 116 (2.27%) AWS Certification
8 115 (2.25%) CISSP
9 92 (1.80%) Cisco Certification
10 90 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
11 84 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
12 63 (1.23%) CISM
13 56 (1.10%) Master's Degree
14 53 (1.04%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 50 (0.98%) CCNP
16 48 (0.94%) Microsoft Certification
17 35 (0.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 33 (0.65%) ISEB
18 33 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
19 26 (0.51%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 192 (3.76%) GDPR
2 189 (3.70%) NIST
3 150 (2.93%) Data Quality
4 149 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 105 (2.05%) NCSC
6 62 (1.21%) QA
7 51 (1.00%) PCI DSS
8 41 (0.80%) COBIT
9 33 (0.65%) GRC
10 32 (0.63%) ISO 20022
11 28 (0.55%) Accessibility
12 26 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.39%) SEPA
14 18 (0.35%) HL7
14 18 (0.35%) NIST 800
14 18 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 16 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 15 (0.29%) JSP 440
17 14 (0.27%) SLA
18 13 (0.25%) HIPAA
System Software
1 197 (3.85%) Active Directory
2 114 (2.23%) Docker
3 103 (2.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 72 (1.41%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.65%) vSphere
6 25 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.33%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.27%) 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 (0.098%) Postfix
15 5 (0.098%) RACF
16 4 (0.078%) Firmware
17 3 (0.059%) IAG
17 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 281 (5.50%) Terraform
2 240 (4.69%) Kubernetes
3 112 (2.19%) Ansible
4 53 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.82%) Grafana
6 40 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.65%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.59%) OPNET
8 30 (0.59%) vCenter Server
9 29 (0.57%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.43%) SCCM
11 17 (0.33%) Argo
12 16 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 12 (0.23%) Istio
14 11 (0.22%) WMI
15 8 (0.16%) Puppet
16 7 (0.14%) Consul
17 6 (0.12%) Kibana
18 5 (0.098%) Endace
18 5 (0.098%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 690 (13.50%) Microsoft
2 314 (6.14%) ServiceNow
3 295 (5.77%) SAP
4 215 (4.21%) Oracle
5 196 (3.83%) Salesforce
5 196 (3.83%) VMware
6 185 (3.62%) Databricks
7 133 (2.60%) Cisco
8 113 (2.21%) Google
9 85 (1.66%) CyberArk
10 69 (1.35%) MuleSoft
11 64 (1.25%) Splunk
12 57 (1.12%) Red Hat
13 55 (1.08%) Workday
14 53 (1.04%) Palo Alto
15 48 (0.94%) IBM
15 48 (0.94%) Remedy
16 47 (0.92%) Sparx
17 46 (0.90%) Ariba
18 44 (0.86%) Atlassian