Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £617, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 June 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -6 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,612 2,887 4,526
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.05% 9.63% 10.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.96% 10.46% 11.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,705 1,849 2,906
10th Percentile £463 £463 £493
25th Percentile £515 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £617 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £719 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £616 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.67% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 151 29 97
10th Percentile £46.00 £49.79 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.63 £82.25 £87.00
90th Percentile £97.50 £89.71 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £73.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -11.26% +4.64% -

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 46,904 27,610 40,551
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.14% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,521 17,729 25,983
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £414 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.60% -1.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,134 1,203 2,979
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.85 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.44 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.25 £27.38 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.99% -27.00% -14.77%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.23%

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 23 June 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 23 June 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 23 June 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 +7 4,773 £620 -0.80% 910
UK excluding London +9 2,496 £616 +2.67% 599
London +4 2,320 £625 -3.85% 451
Work from Home +4 1,528 £600 - 433
South East +6 706 £625 +4.08% 177
North of England +6 702 £600 - 170
Midlands +2 440 £613 +4.30% 74
North West +4 374 £610 +2.31% 93
West Midlands 0 313 £625 +4.17% 60
South West +2 276 £645 +5.31% 71
Yorkshire +7 267 £558 -7.00% 44
East of England +21 210 £600 - 42
Scotland +11 159 £650 +4.00% 37
East Midlands +7 121 £575 +15.00% 14
North East +8 68 £575 -8.00% 35
Wales 0 34 £620 +30.53% 24
Northern Ireland +4 7 £475 -28.30% 14
Channel Islands 0 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 23 June 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 1,671 (29.78%) Security Cleared
2 1,389 (24.75%) Azure
3 1,260 (22.45%) SC Cleared
4 1,210 (21.56%) AWS
5 792 (14.11%) Migration
6 790 (14.08%) Roadmaps
7 736 (13.11%) Microsoft
8 695 (12.38%) Stakeholder Management
9 643 (11.46%) Agile
10 638 (11.37%) DevOps
11 603 (10.74%) CI/CD
12 591 (10.53%) AI
13 583 (10.39%) Enterprise Architecture
14 532 (9.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 532 (9.48%) Technical Leadership
15 530 (9.44%) Data Modelling
16 519 (9.25%) Integration Patterns
17 477 (8.50%) Data Architecture
18 465 (8.29%) Architectural Patterns
19 449 (8.00%) Analytics
20 438 (7.80%) TOGAF
21 426 (7.59%) Microservices
22 419 (7.47%) GCP
23 372 (6.63%) Problem-Solving
24 364 (6.49%) Architectural Design
25 350 (6.24%) Security Architecture
26 348 (6.20%) Infrastructure as Code
27 335 (5.97%) Cybersecurity
28 333 (5.93%) Event-Driven
29 323 (5.76%) Python

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
1 119 (2.12%) SharePoint
2 89 (1.59%) Confluence
3 52 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (0.84%) SAS
5 32 (0.57%) Apache Spark
6 30 (0.53%) Apache
7 23 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
8 19 (0.34%) Palantir Foundry
9 17 (0.30%) Appian
9 17 (0.30%) CMS
10 15 (0.27%) WebLogic
11 14 (0.25%) nginx
12 12 (0.21%) Anypoint
13 10 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 9 (0.16%) ArcGIS
14 9 (0.16%) Camunda
14 9 (0.16%) OpenStack
15 7 (0.12%) Tomcat
16 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
16 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 24 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 19 (0.34%) MS Visio
3 14 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 9 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
6 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.12%) Revit
6 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.053%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.053%) Windchill
8 1 (0.018%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.018%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.018%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 148 (2.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.69%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
5 18 (0.32%) SAP ERP
6 16 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
6 16 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
7 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
9 9 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 7 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
11 7 (0.12%) SAP MDG
11 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.11%) Maximo
12 6 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
12 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
13 5 (0.089%) NetSuite
13 5 (0.089%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,389 (24.75%) Azure
2 1,210 (21.56%) AWS
3 419 (7.47%) GCP
4 268 (4.78%) Power Platform
5 204 (3.64%) Serverless
6 189 (3.37%) SaaS
7 183 (3.26%) Entra ID
8 137 (2.44%) GitHub
9 135 (2.41%) Microsoft 365
10 117 (2.08%) PaaS
11 112 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
12 106 (1.89%) Dynamics 365
13 99 (1.76%) AWS Lambda
14 93 (1.66%) Snowflake
15 89 (1.59%) Amazon S3
15 89 (1.59%) IaaS
16 69 (1.23%) Amazon EKS
17 68 (1.21%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 66 (1.18%) AWS CloudFormation
19 65 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 220 (3.92%) Firewall
2 183 (3.26%) Network Security
3 120 (2.14%) DNS
4 118 (2.10%) VPN
5 116 (2.07%) WAN
6 79 (1.41%) LAN
7 66 (1.18%) SD-WAN
8 45 (0.80%) DHCP
9 43 (0.77%) TCP/IP
10 41 (0.73%) BGP
11 35 (0.62%) VLAN
12 33 (0.59%) MPLS
12 33 (0.59%) Wireless
13 32 (0.57%) OSPF
14 29 (0.52%) SAN
15 27 (0.48%) NAS
16 25 (0.45%) Structured Cabling
17 23 (0.41%) IPsec
18 22 (0.39%) BIG-IP
19 21 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 189 (3.37%) Power BI
2 157 (2.80%) Metadata
3 154 (2.74%) Data Lake
4 149 (2.66%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.34%) NoSQL
6 68 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
7 65 (1.16%) SQL Server
8 47 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.75%) Big Data
10 39 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
11 36 (0.64%) Oracle Database
12 33 (0.59%) Tableau
13 31 (0.55%) BigQuery
14 30 (0.53%) Delta Lake
15 29 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
16 27 (0.48%) Relational Database
17 25 (0.45%) MongoDB
18 21 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
18 21 (0.37%) Electronic Patient Records
19 20 (0.36%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 114 (2.03%) JIRA
2 89 (1.59%) Jenkins
3 64 (1.14%) Git
4 40 (0.71%) GitLab
5 26 (0.46%) ERwin
6 12 (0.21%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.18%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.16%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.14%) MLflow
9 8 (0.14%) Postman
10 7 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
12 5 (0.089%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.089%) JMeter
12 5 (0.089%) JUnit
12 5 (0.089%) Maven
12 5 (0.089%) Oracle Forms
12 5 (0.089%) PowerDesigner
13 4 (0.071%) Snyk
General
1 1,045 (18.62%) Social Skills
2 871 (15.52%) Finance
3 637 (11.35%) Public Sector
4 324 (5.77%) Banking
5 284 (5.06%) Analytical Skills
6 201 (3.58%) Retail
7 154 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
8 140 (2.49%) Legal
9 124 (2.21%) Influencing Skills
10 102 (1.82%) Manufacturing
11 95 (1.69%) Telecoms
12 57 (1.02%) Law
13 54 (0.96%) Military
14 48 (0.86%) Marketing
15 47 (0.84%) Billing
15 47 (0.84%) Financial Institution
16 43 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
17 40 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (0.69%) Aerospace
19 35 (0.62%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 266 (4.74%) REST
2 207 (3.69%) Middleware
3 135 (2.41%) .NET
4 125 (2.23%) SOAP
5 115 (2.05%) Kafka
6 98 (1.75%) OAuth
7 95 (1.69%) OpenID
8 76 (1.35%) SAML
9 71 (1.27%) LDAP
10 65 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
11 59 (1.05%) OAuth2
12 58 (1.03%) React
13 54 (0.96%) RESTful
14 47 (0.84%) SailPoint
15 46 (0.82%) JSON
16 38 (0.68%) AngularJS
16 38 (0.68%) Web Services
17 34 (0.61%) Node.js
18 31 (0.55%) .NET Framework
18 31 (0.55%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 477 (8.50%) Cloud Native
2 190 (3.39%) Data Centre
3 163 (2.90%) Management Information System
4 151 (2.69%) Product Ownership
5 149 (2.66%) Onboarding
6 133 (2.37%) Legacy Systems
7 130 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
8 120 (2.14%) Hybrid Cloud
9 113 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
10 93 (1.66%) Public Cloud
11 90 (1.60%) Operational Technology
12 87 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
13 82 (1.46%) CMDB
14 80 (1.43%) AI Agents
15 78 (1.39%) Security Posture
16 49 (0.87%) Enterprise Cloud
17 46 (0.82%) Data Structures
17 46 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
18 44 (0.78%) NHS
19 42 (0.75%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 156 (2.78%) Windows
2 99 (1.76%) Linux
3 43 (0.77%) Windows Server
4 37 (0.66%) Android
5 36 (0.64%) Apple iOS
6 25 (0.45%) Unix
7 17 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (0.18%) zOS
9 8 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.12%) VMS
11 6 (0.11%) Windows 10
11 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.089%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.089%) Mac OS
12 5 (0.089%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.089%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.071%) AIX
13 4 (0.071%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.071%) Solaris
14 2 (0.036%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 792 (14.11%) Migration
2 790 (14.08%) Roadmaps
3 695 (12.38%) Stakeholder Management
4 643 (11.46%) Agile
5 638 (11.37%) DevOps
6 603 (10.74%) CI/CD
7 591 (10.53%) AI
8 583 (10.39%) Enterprise Architecture
9 532 (9.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 532 (9.48%) Technical Leadership
10 530 (9.44%) Data Modelling
11 519 (9.25%) Integration Patterns
12 477 (8.50%) Data Architecture
13 465 (8.29%) Architectural Patterns
14 449 (8.00%) Analytics
15 438 (7.80%) TOGAF
16 426 (7.59%) Microservices
17 372 (6.63%) Problem-Solving
18 364 (6.49%) Architectural Design
19 350 (6.24%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 323 (5.76%) Python
2 276 (4.92%) SQL
3 245 (4.37%) Java
4 138 (2.46%) PowerShell
5 105 (1.87%) JavaScript
6 66 (1.18%) C#
7 58 (1.03%) Bicep
8 44 (0.78%) TypeScript
9 41 (0.73%) Bash
10 24 (0.43%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.37%) Ruby
12 14 (0.25%) Scala
13 13 (0.23%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.23%) PL/SQL
14 11 (0.20%) Kusto Query Language
15 9 (0.16%) ABAP
16 8 (0.14%) C++
16 8 (0.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 8 (0.14%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,671 (29.78%) Security Cleared
2 1,260 (22.45%) SC Cleared
3 293 (5.22%) DV Cleared
4 194 (3.46%) Degree
5 120 (2.14%) CISSP
6 119 (2.12%) Azure Certification
7 113 (2.01%) AWS Certification
7 113 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
8 105 (1.87%) Cisco Certification
9 81 (1.44%) Computer Science Degree
10 80 (1.43%) TOGAF Certification
11 62 (1.10%) CISM
12 52 (0.93%) CCNP
13 49 (0.87%) Master's Degree
14 43 (0.77%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 42 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
16 40 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 28 (0.50%) CCSP
18 22 (0.39%) DBS Check
19 20 (0.36%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 198 (3.53%) NIST
2 183 (3.26%) GDPR
3 170 (3.03%) Data Quality
4 152 (2.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 123 (2.19%) NCSC
6 67 (1.19%) QA
7 44 (0.78%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.71%) GRC
9 35 (0.62%) Accessibility
10 27 (0.48%) ISO 20022
11 24 (0.43%) NIST 800
11 24 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.41%) SEPA
13 20 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
14 19 (0.34%) HL7
15 18 (0.32%) COBIT
16 17 (0.30%) IFRS
17 14 (0.25%) HIPAA
18 13 (0.23%) FINRA
18 13 (0.23%) MiFID
System Software
1 173 (3.08%) Active Directory
2 107 (1.91%) Docker
3 94 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 64 (1.14%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.48%) vSphere
6 24 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
7 23 (0.41%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.21%) Varnish
10 10 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.16%) Squid
11 9 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
12 8 (0.14%) NFS
13 7 (0.12%) Postfix
13 7 (0.12%) vCloud
14 4 (0.071%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.071%) IAG
14 4 (0.071%) RACF
14 4 (0.071%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.053%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 277 (4.94%) Terraform
2 258 (4.60%) Kubernetes
3 115 (2.05%) Ansible
4 50 (0.89%) Grafana
4 50 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
5 39 (0.69%) Prometheus
6 38 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
7 31 (0.55%) FortiGate
8 25 (0.45%) vCenter Server
9 20 (0.36%) Argo
10 16 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.23%) SCCM
12 11 (0.20%) Istio
13 9 (0.16%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.14%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.12%) Consul
15 7 (0.12%) HAProxy
15 7 (0.12%) Puppet
16 5 (0.089%) EMC VPLEX
17 4 (0.071%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 736 (13.11%) Microsoft
2 320 (5.70%) SAP
3 298 (5.31%) ServiceNow
4 256 (4.56%) Oracle
5 231 (4.12%) Databricks
6 181 (3.23%) Salesforce
7 175 (3.12%) VMware
8 138 (2.46%) Cisco
9 130 (2.32%) Google
10 70 (1.25%) CyberArk
10 70 (1.25%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.12%) Splunk
12 57 (1.02%) Palo Alto
13 51 (0.91%) Red Hat
14 48 (0.86%) OpenAI
15 46 (0.82%) IBM
16 44 (0.78%) Workday
17 41 (0.73%) Sparx
18 40 (0.71%) Foundry
19 38 (0.68%) Ariba