Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £621, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 August 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,963 3,074 3,967
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.16% 9.35% 10.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.06% 10.23% 10.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,940 1,990 2,572
10th Percentile £476 £470 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £621 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.68% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £703 £738
90th Percentile £788 £787 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £623 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.75% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 178 18 77
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 £59.00
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 £73.25 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.36 £100.00 £90.00
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 49,463 30,049 36,264
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.60% 91.45% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,748 19,085 23,408
10th Percentile £329 £283 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,453 1,494 2,053
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.62 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £42.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.99% -41.51% -
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.83 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.10 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.95
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.78% +15.89%

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 7 August 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 7 August 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 7 August 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 5,032 £625 - 2,665
London +8 2,592 £625 -3.85% 1,584
UK excluding London +6 2,480 £623 +3.75% 1,235
Work from Home +4 1,604 £600 - 1,030
South East 0 729 £630 +5.00% 339
North of England +1 698 £600 - 293
Midlands -1 419 £625 +8.70% 150
North West +4 396 £600 - 150
West Midlands -1 311 £635 +5.83% 99
South West -1 296 £625 -2.34% 172
Yorkshire +5 236 £600 - 111
East of England +14 162 £600 +8.11% 107
Scotland +11 155 £650 +4.00% 112
East Midlands +6 101 £600 +16.50% 51
North East -3 68 £600 -15.79% 32
Wales +8 37 £640 +6.67% 26
Northern Ireland +8 6 £475 -32.14% 42
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 7 August 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 1,835 (30.77%) Security Cleared
2 1,506 (25.26%) Azure
3 1,383 (23.19%) SC Cleared
4 1,311 (21.99%) AWS
5 859 (14.41%) Roadmaps
6 847 (14.20%) Stakeholder Management
7 825 (13.84%) Migration
8 746 (12.51%) Microsoft
9 734 (12.31%) AI
10 701 (11.76%) Enterprise Architecture
11 667 (11.19%) Agile
12 629 (10.55%) DevOps
13 616 (10.33%) CI/CD
14 613 (10.28%) Technical Leadership
15 612 (10.26%) Data Modelling
16 590 (9.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 583 (9.78%) Integration Patterns
18 571 (9.58%) Data Architecture
19 528 (8.85%) Analytics
20 504 (8.45%) TOGAF
21 477 (8.00%) Architectural Patterns
22 462 (7.75%) GCP
23 431 (7.23%) Security Architecture
24 415 (6.96%) Microservices
25 394 (6.61%) Event-Driven
26 362 (6.07%) Cybersecurity
26 362 (6.07%) Problem-Solving
27 361 (6.05%) Data Governance
28 359 (6.02%) Infrastructure as Code
29 345 (5.79%) DV Cleared

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 89 (1.49%) SharePoint
2 79 (1.32%) SAS
3 70 (1.17%) Confluence
4 45 (0.75%) Apache
5 44 (0.74%) Apache Spark
6 32 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
7 26 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
8 23 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.30%) CMS
10 16 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.17%) Appian
13 8 (0.13%) nginx
14 7 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 7 (0.12%) Camunda
14 7 (0.12%) Documentum
15 5 (0.084%) NetWeaver
16 4 (0.067%) JBoss
16 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
16 4 (0.067%) Tomcat
Applications
1 21 (0.35%) MS Visio
2 13 (0.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.15%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.084%) Microsoft Office
7 3 (0.050%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.050%) Windchill
8 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 158 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.60%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 34 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.23%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
9 11 (0.18%) NetSuite
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
11 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
13 7 (0.12%) Maximo
13 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
14 6 (0.10%) Endur
14 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,506 (25.26%) Azure
2 1,311 (21.99%) AWS
3 462 (7.75%) GCP
4 292 (4.90%) Power Platform
5 210 (3.52%) Entra ID
6 205 (3.44%) SaaS
7 194 (3.25%) Serverless
8 142 (2.38%) GitHub
9 126 (2.11%) Dynamics 365
10 121 (2.03%) PaaS
11 118 (1.98%) Microsoft 365
12 115 (1.93%) Azure DevOps
13 108 (1.81%) Snowflake
14 96 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
15 88 (1.48%) Amazon S3
16 85 (1.43%) IaaS
17 66 (1.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 64 (1.07%) OCI
19 63 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
20 61 (1.02%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 203 (3.40%) Firewall
2 184 (3.09%) Network Security
3 107 (1.79%) WAN
4 106 (1.78%) VPN
5 93 (1.56%) DNS
6 78 (1.31%) LAN
7 52 (0.87%) SD-WAN
8 45 (0.75%) BGP
9 42 (0.70%) DHCP
10 39 (0.65%) MPLS
10 39 (0.65%) TCP/IP
11 36 (0.60%) VLAN
12 32 (0.54%) SAN
13 30 (0.50%) Wireless
14 27 (0.45%) NAS
14 27 (0.45%) OSPF
15 25 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
15 25 (0.42%) VXLAN
16 22 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
16 22 (0.37%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 203 (3.40%) Power BI
2 199 (3.34%) Data Lake
3 175 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
4 171 (2.87%) Metadata
5 79 (1.32%) NoSQL
6 53 (0.89%) SQL Server
7 51 (0.86%) PostgreSQL
8 48 (0.80%) Big Data
9 45 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
10 44 (0.74%) BigQuery
11 43 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
12 40 (0.67%) Oracle Database
13 38 (0.64%) Delta Lake
14 32 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
15 26 (0.44%) GIS
15 26 (0.44%) MongoDB
16 25 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
17 24 (0.40%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
18 23 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
18 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 87 (1.46%) JIRA
2 78 (1.31%) Git
3 61 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 29 (0.49%) GitLab
5 23 (0.39%) ERwin
6 11 (0.18%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.15%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.13%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.13%) MLflow
9 7 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 7 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
9 7 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) Maven
10 6 (0.10%) Storybook
11 5 (0.084%) MSI
12 4 (0.067%) ER Studio
12 4 (0.067%) Snyk
General
1 1,118 (18.75%) Social Skills
2 884 (14.82%) Finance
3 675 (11.32%) Public Sector
4 327 (5.48%) Banking
5 303 (5.08%) Analytical Skills
6 256 (4.29%) Retail
7 149 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
8 132 (2.21%) Telecoms
9 130 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
10 126 (2.11%) Manufacturing
11 114 (1.91%) Legal
12 63 (1.06%) Marketing
13 56 (0.94%) Billing
14 50 (0.84%) Financial Institution
15 49 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 46 (0.77%) Law
16 46 (0.77%) Military
17 41 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
18 40 (0.67%) Aerospace
19 34 (0.57%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 282 (4.73%) REST
2 209 (3.50%) Middleware
3 144 (2.41%) Kafka
4 131 (2.20%) .NET
5 122 (2.05%) SOAP
6 121 (2.03%) OAuth
7 74 (1.24%) Oracle Fusion
8 68 (1.14%) OpenID
9 64 (1.07%) OAuth2
9 64 (1.07%) SAML
10 58 (0.97%) JSON
11 51 (0.86%) RESTful
12 49 (0.82%) React
13 42 (0.70%) SailPoint
14 41 (0.69%) PySpark
15 36 (0.60%) .NET Framework
15 36 (0.60%) XML
16 35 (0.59%) GraphQL
17 32 (0.54%) Node.js
18 31 (0.52%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 509 (8.54%) Cloud Native
2 200 (3.35%) Data Centre
3 180 (3.02%) Management Information System
4 150 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
5 149 (2.50%) Product Ownership
6 146 (2.45%) Onboarding
7 144 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
8 142 (2.38%) Hybrid Cloud
9 128 (2.15%) AI Agents
10 125 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
11 101 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
12 90 (1.51%) Operational Technology
13 88 (1.48%) Public Cloud
14 81 (1.36%) CMDB
15 70 (1.17%) Enterprise Cloud
16 67 (1.12%) Security Posture
17 60 (1.01%) Data Structures
18 51 (0.86%) Private Cloud
19 46 (0.77%) Taxonomies
20 45 (0.75%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 130 (2.18%) Windows
2 103 (1.73%) Linux
3 47 (0.79%) Windows Server
4 29 (0.49%) Android
4 29 (0.49%) Apple iOS
5 22 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (0.37%) Unix
6 10 (0.17%) zOS
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) VMS
9 7 (0.12%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.084%) Solaris
10 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.034%) CentOS
12 2 (0.034%) HPUX
12 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 859 (14.41%) Roadmaps
2 847 (14.20%) Stakeholder Management
3 825 (13.84%) Migration
4 734 (12.31%) AI
5 701 (11.76%) Enterprise Architecture
6 667 (11.19%) Agile
7 629 (10.55%) DevOps
8 616 (10.33%) CI/CD
9 613 (10.28%) Technical Leadership
10 612 (10.26%) Data Modelling
11 590 (9.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 583 (9.78%) Integration Patterns
13 571 (9.58%) Data Architecture
14 528 (8.85%) Analytics
15 504 (8.45%) TOGAF
16 477 (8.00%) Architectural Patterns
17 431 (7.23%) Security Architecture
18 415 (6.96%) Microservices
19 394 (6.61%) Event-Driven
20 362 (6.07%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 285 (4.78%) Python
2 272 (4.56%) SQL
3 270 (4.53%) Java
4 136 (2.28%) JavaScript
5 100 (1.68%) PowerShell
6 60 (1.01%) C#
7 53 (0.89%) Bicep
8 49 (0.82%) Bash
9 47 (0.79%) TypeScript
10 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.35%) Ruby
12 16 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (0.27%) Shell Script
13 13 (0.22%) C++
14 12 (0.20%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.18%) Scala
16 10 (0.17%) ABAP
16 10 (0.17%) Groovy
17 9 (0.15%) PL/SQL
17 9 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,835 (30.77%) Security Cleared
2 1,383 (23.19%) SC Cleared
3 345 (5.79%) DV Cleared
4 178 (2.99%) Degree
5 153 (2.57%) CISSP
6 130 (2.18%) AWS Certification
6 130 (2.18%) Azure Certification
7 115 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
8 113 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
9 97 (1.63%) TOGAF Certification
10 77 (1.29%) Computer Science Degree
11 74 (1.24%) CISM
12 50 (0.84%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 49 (0.82%) CCNP
14 46 (0.77%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 42 (0.70%) Microsoft Certification
16 35 (0.59%) CCSP
17 33 (0.55%) Master's Degree
18 22 (0.37%) CCNA
19 21 (0.35%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 213 (3.57%) Data Quality
2 207 (3.47%) NIST
3 185 (3.10%) GDPR
4 164 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 119 (2.00%) NCSC
6 75 (1.26%) GRC
7 62 (1.04%) QA
8 44 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 40 (0.67%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.52%) NIST 800
10 31 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (0.39%) ISO 20022
11 23 (0.39%) SEPA
12 22 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.35%) IFRS
14 17 (0.29%) HL7
15 15 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
16 14 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 14 (0.23%) SLA
17 13 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 169 (2.83%) Active Directory
2 129 (2.16%) Docker
3 79 (1.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 48 (0.80%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
6 21 (0.35%) vSphere
7 20 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 17 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.13%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Varnish
11 7 (0.12%) vCloud
12 6 (0.10%) Postfix
13 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.067%) IAG
13 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.050%) KVM
14 3 (0.050%) Squid
14 3 (0.050%) SRDF
15 2 (0.034%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 304 (5.10%) Kubernetes
2 270 (4.53%) Terraform
3 101 (1.69%) Ansible
4 53 (0.89%) Grafana
5 45 (0.75%) Prometheus
6 43 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
7 40 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
8 21 (0.35%) Argo
9 18 (0.30%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.20%) FortiGate
13 11 (0.18%) Istio
14 7 (0.12%) SCCM
15 6 (0.10%) CASB
15 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.084%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.084%) MOM
16 5 (0.084%) NetBackup
16 5 (0.084%) WMI
Vendors
1 746 (12.51%) Microsoft
2 341 (5.72%) SAP
3 307 (5.15%) ServiceNow
4 304 (5.10%) Oracle
5 264 (4.43%) Databricks
6 192 (3.22%) Salesforce
7 153 (2.57%) Google
8 147 (2.47%) VMware
9 135 (2.26%) Cisco
10 70 (1.17%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.06%) IBM
12 57 (0.96%) CyberArk
13 54 (0.91%) Palo Alto
13 54 (0.91%) Workday
14 45 (0.75%) Foundry
15 44 (0.74%) Ariba
16 43 (0.72%) Splunk
17 40 (0.67%) Red Hat
18 38 (0.64%) Sparx
19 37 (0.62%) OpenAI