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 16 July 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 17 12
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,851 3,141 4,378
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.12% 9.67% 10.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.01% 10.54% 11.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,832 2,030 2,840
10th Percentile £475 £463 £488
25th Percentile £525 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £715 £738
90th Percentile £788 £790 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 22 94
10th Percentile £46.00 £40.31 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.75 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £68.75 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.45% -1.79% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £85.50 £85.65
90th Percentile £96.36 £99.86 £88.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -

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 48,701 29,792 39,645
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.54% 91.70% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,482 18,952 25,549
10th Percentile £325 £287 £288
25th Percentile £419 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,274 1,409 2,702
10th Percentile £15.93 £13.75 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.27 £17.30 £17.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £26.21 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +71.69% -34.48% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £55.49 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.04 £74.00 £73.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +81.13% -37.13% +6.67%

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 16 July 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 16 July 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 16 July 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 4,909 £616 -1.40% 1,142
UK excluding London +8 2,511 £620 +3.33% 664
London +5 2,450 £618 -5.00% 580
Work from Home +4 1,627 £600 -0.08% 534
South East +1 719 £626 +4.25% 188
North of England +6 718 £600 - 182
Midlands 0 419 £620 +7.83% 97
North West +4 384 £610 +1.67% 108
West Midlands -3 300 £626 +4.33% 75
South West -1 285 £625 - 92
Yorkshire +8 267 £600 - 40
East of England +16 188 £600 - 44
Scotland +7 172 £650 +4.00% 45
East Midlands +4 111 £600 +20.00% 22
North East 0 75 £588 -16.07% 34
Wales +7 33 £600 +25.00% 16
Northern Ireland +4 7 £475 -32.14% 10
Channel Islands +1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 July 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 1,761 (30.10%) Security Cleared
2 1,441 (24.63%) Azure
3 1,325 (22.65%) SC Cleared
4 1,290 (22.05%) AWS
5 858 (14.66%) Roadmaps
6 809 (13.83%) Migration
7 761 (13.01%) Stakeholder Management
8 744 (12.72%) Microsoft
9 689 (11.78%) Agile
10 672 (11.49%) AI
11 644 (11.01%) Enterprise Architecture
12 640 (10.94%) DevOps
13 611 (10.44%) CI/CD
14 589 (10.07%) Data Modelling
15 565 (9.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 562 (9.61%) Technical Leadership
17 544 (9.30%) Integration Patterns
18 530 (9.06%) Data Architecture
19 495 (8.46%) Analytics
20 494 (8.44%) TOGAF
21 488 (8.34%) Architectural Patterns
22 445 (7.61%) Microservices
23 430 (7.35%) GCP
24 391 (6.68%) Security Architecture
25 379 (6.48%) Problem-Solving
26 366 (6.26%) Architectural Design
27 365 (6.24%) Event-Driven
28 364 (6.22%) Cybersecurity
29 362 (6.19%) Infrastructure as Code
30 348 (5.95%) 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
1 100 (1.71%) SharePoint
2 76 (1.30%) Confluence
3 62 (1.06%) SAS
4 42 (0.72%) Microsoft Exchange
5 40 (0.68%) Apache
6 39 (0.67%) Apache Spark
7 31 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.38%) CMS
8 22 (0.38%) Palantir Foundry
9 21 (0.36%) Appian
10 14 (0.24%) nginx
11 12 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 12 (0.21%) WebLogic
12 10 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 9 (0.15%) Anypoint
13 9 (0.15%) ArcGIS
13 9 (0.15%) Camunda
14 7 (0.12%) Documentum
14 7 (0.12%) JBoss
14 7 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 22 (0.38%) MS Visio
2 14 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.17%) Chatbot
3 10 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.051%) PlantUML
6 3 (0.051%) Windchill
7 1 (0.017%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 158 (2.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.60%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
5 21 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
6 18 (0.31%) SAP ERP
7 16 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 15 (0.26%) Teamcenter
9 12 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
9 12 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) NetSuite
11 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.14%) Maximo
12 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.14%) SAP MDG
13 7 (0.12%) SAP GRC
14 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
14 6 (0.10%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,441 (24.63%) Azure
2 1,290 (22.05%) AWS
3 430 (7.35%) GCP
4 285 (4.87%) Power Platform
5 210 (3.59%) SaaS
6 205 (3.50%) Entra ID
7 200 (3.42%) Serverless
8 136 (2.32%) GitHub
9 129 (2.20%) PaaS
10 123 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
11 119 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
12 108 (1.85%) Azure DevOps
13 103 (1.76%) Snowflake
14 97 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
14 97 (1.66%) IaaS
15 87 (1.49%) Amazon S3
16 72 (1.23%) OpenShift
17 68 (1.16%) Amazon EKS
18 67 (1.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 65 (1.11%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 226 (3.86%) Firewall
2 193 (3.30%) Network Security
3 117 (2.00%) VPN
4 116 (1.98%) DNS
5 110 (1.88%) WAN
6 80 (1.37%) LAN
7 58 (0.99%) SD-WAN
8 51 (0.87%) TCP/IP
9 50 (0.85%) BGP
10 46 (0.79%) DHCP
11 39 (0.67%) MPLS
12 38 (0.65%) VLAN
13 33 (0.56%) OSPF
13 33 (0.56%) Wireless
14 29 (0.50%) IPsec
14 29 (0.50%) SAN
15 27 (0.46%) NAS
16 25 (0.43%) Structured Cabling
17 23 (0.39%) BIG-IP
17 23 (0.39%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 197 (3.37%) Power BI
2 181 (3.09%) Data Lake
3 173 (2.96%) Metadata
4 166 (2.84%) Data Warehouse
5 77 (1.32%) NoSQL
6 64 (1.09%) SQL Server
7 62 (1.06%) PostgreSQL
8 51 (0.87%) Big Data
9 46 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
10 42 (0.72%) Oracle Database
11 40 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
12 38 (0.65%) BigQuery
13 29 (0.50%) Amazon Redshift
14 28 (0.48%) Delta Lake
14 28 (0.48%) Relational Database
15 24 (0.41%) Elasticsearch
15 24 (0.41%) GIS
15 24 (0.41%) MongoDB
16 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
16 23 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 103 (1.76%) JIRA
2 77 (1.32%) Jenkins
3 74 (1.26%) Git
4 35 (0.60%) GitLab
5 25 (0.43%) ERwin
6 12 (0.21%) SonarQube
7 9 (0.15%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.15%) Bitbucket
8 8 (0.14%) MLflow
8 8 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
10 6 (0.10%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
10 6 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.10%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.085%) Claude Code
11 5 (0.085%) Maven
11 5 (0.085%) Selenium
12 4 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 1,093 (18.68%) Social Skills
2 893 (15.26%) Finance
3 666 (11.38%) Public Sector
4 336 (5.74%) Banking
5 308 (5.26%) Analytical Skills
6 230 (3.93%) Retail
7 158 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
8 142 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
9 124 (2.12%) Telecoms
10 122 (2.09%) Legal
11 108 (1.85%) Manufacturing
12 59 (1.01%) Billing
12 59 (1.01%) Marketing
13 51 (0.87%) Financial Institution
14 49 (0.84%) Military
15 45 (0.77%) Law
16 41 (0.70%) Aerospace
16 41 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
17 39 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 31 (0.53%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 282 (4.82%) REST
2 210 (3.59%) Middleware
3 138 (2.36%) .NET
4 131 (2.24%) Kafka
5 125 (2.14%) SOAP
6 110 (1.88%) OAuth
7 89 (1.52%) OpenID
8 72 (1.23%) SAML
9 69 (1.18%) Oracle Fusion
10 59 (1.01%) OAuth2
11 56 (0.96%) React
12 51 (0.87%) LDAP
12 51 (0.87%) RESTful
13 50 (0.85%) JSON
14 48 (0.82%) SailPoint
15 40 (0.68%) Web Services
16 37 (0.63%) Node.js
16 37 (0.63%) PySpark
17 36 (0.62%) .NET Framework
18 35 (0.60%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 494 (8.44%) Cloud Native
2 206 (3.52%) Data Centre
3 167 (2.85%) Management Information System
4 163 (2.79%) Onboarding
5 146 (2.50%) Product Ownership
6 143 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
7 135 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
8 129 (2.20%) Hybrid Cloud
9 113 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
10 96 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
11 94 (1.61%) AI Agents
12 93 (1.59%) Operational Technology
13 89 (1.52%) Public Cloud
14 88 (1.50%) CMDB
15 65 (1.11%) Security Posture
16 62 (1.06%) Enterprise Cloud
17 49 (0.84%) Data Structures
18 46 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
18 46 (0.79%) IoT
19 45 (0.77%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 142 (2.43%) Windows
2 100 (1.71%) Linux
3 47 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.58%) Android
5 33 (0.56%) Apple iOS
6 25 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (0.38%) Unix
8 11 (0.19%) zOS
9 8 (0.14%) VMS
10 6 (0.10%) AIX
10 6 (0.10%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.085%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.085%) Windows Server 2016
12 4 (0.068%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.068%) Mac OS
13 3 (0.051%) CentOS
13 3 (0.051%) Solaris
13 3 (0.051%) Windows 10
14 2 (0.034%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 858 (14.66%) Roadmaps
2 809 (13.83%) Migration
3 761 (13.01%) Stakeholder Management
4 689 (11.78%) Agile
5 672 (11.49%) AI
6 644 (11.01%) Enterprise Architecture
7 640 (10.94%) DevOps
8 611 (10.44%) CI/CD
9 589 (10.07%) Data Modelling
10 565 (9.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 562 (9.61%) Technical Leadership
12 544 (9.30%) Integration Patterns
13 530 (9.06%) Data Architecture
14 495 (8.46%) Analytics
15 494 (8.44%) TOGAF
16 488 (8.34%) Architectural Patterns
17 445 (7.61%) Microservices
18 391 (6.68%) Security Architecture
19 379 (6.48%) Problem-Solving
20 366 (6.26%) Architectural Design
Programming Languages
1 311 (5.32%) Python
2 283 (4.84%) SQL
3 268 (4.58%) Java
4 123 (2.10%) JavaScript
5 104 (1.78%) PowerShell
6 67 (1.15%) C#
7 58 (0.99%) Bicep
8 47 (0.80%) Bash
9 44 (0.75%) TypeScript
10 29 (0.50%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.38%) Ruby
12 12 (0.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 12 (0.21%) Scala
13 11 (0.19%) ABAP
13 11 (0.19%) Kotlin
13 11 (0.19%) PL/SQL
14 10 (0.17%) Go
14 10 (0.17%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.15%) C++
15 9 (0.15%) R
Qualifications
1 1,761 (30.10%) Security Cleared
2 1,325 (22.65%) SC Cleared
3 326 (5.57%) DV Cleared
4 198 (3.38%) Degree
5 144 (2.46%) CISSP
6 130 (2.22%) AWS Certification
6 130 (2.22%) Azure Certification
7 115 (1.97%) Cisco Certification
8 113 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
9 91 (1.56%) TOGAF Certification
10 82 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
11 69 (1.18%) CISM
12 53 (0.91%) CCNP
13 49 (0.84%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 48 (0.82%) Master's Degree
15 43 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 43 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
16 34 (0.58%) CCSP
17 23 (0.39%) CCIE
18 22 (0.38%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 203 (3.47%) NIST
2 189 (3.23%) Data Quality
3 184 (3.14%) GDPR
4 153 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 128 (2.19%) NCSC
6 63 (1.08%) QA
7 59 (1.01%) GRC
8 40 (0.68%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.67%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.53%) NIST 800
11 29 (0.50%) ISO 20022
12 28 (0.48%) SEPA
13 26 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 20 (0.34%) IFRS
15 19 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
15 19 (0.32%) HL7
16 18 (0.31%) COBIT
17 13 (0.22%) HIPAA
18 12 (0.21%) SLA
19 10 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 172 (2.94%) Active Directory
2 123 (2.10%) Docker
3 90 (1.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 58 (0.99%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
6 23 (0.39%) vSphere
7 20 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.15%) Squid
10 9 (0.15%) Varnish
11 8 (0.14%) NFS
12 7 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
12 7 (0.12%) Postfix
13 6 (0.10%) vCloud
14 5 (0.085%) IAG
15 4 (0.068%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 4 (0.068%) RACF
15 4 (0.068%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.051%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 293 (5.01%) Kubernetes
2 285 (4.87%) Terraform
3 112 (1.91%) Ansible
4 60 (1.03%) Grafana
5 54 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
6 48 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
6 48 (0.82%) Prometheus
7 22 (0.38%) Argo
8 21 (0.36%) vCenter Server
9 18 (0.31%) FortiGate
10 16 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
11 15 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 10 (0.17%) Istio
12 10 (0.17%) SCCM
13 7 (0.12%) Consul
13 7 (0.12%) HAProxy
14 6 (0.10%) CASB
14 6 (0.10%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.085%) MOM
15 5 (0.085%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 744 (12.72%) Microsoft
2 348 (5.95%) SAP
3 311 (5.32%) ServiceNow
4 284 (4.85%) Oracle
5 245 (4.19%) Databricks
6 186 (3.18%) Salesforce
7 161 (2.75%) VMware
8 137 (2.34%) Google
9 134 (2.29%) Cisco
10 68 (1.16%) MuleSoft
11 66 (1.13%) CyberArk
12 63 (1.08%) Splunk
13 55 (0.94%) IBM
14 52 (0.89%) Red Hat
15 49 (0.84%) Ariba
16 48 (0.82%) Palo Alto
17 45 (0.77%) Workday
18 44 (0.75%) Foundry
19 41 (0.70%) OpenAI
20 40 (0.68%) F5