Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 November 2025.

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

6 months to
26 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 15 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 +2 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,214 3,593 4,223
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.92% 9.85% 9.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.80% 10.61% 9.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,167 2,131 2,873
10th Percentile £463 £485 £500
25th Percentile £525 £543 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £738 £725
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £630
% change year-on-year -4.00% -0.79% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 27 42
10th Percentile £61.73 £59.30 £57.50
25th Percentile £76.88 £62.00 £70.35
Median hourly rate £85.00 £70.00 £75.67
Median % change year-on-year +21.43% -7.49% +8.10%
75th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £80.00
90th Percentile £97.25 £97.50 £88.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.00 £70.00 £76.53
% change year-on-year +21.43% -8.53% +9.33%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 32,789 33,852 42,781
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.97% 92.81% 93.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,761 20,450 28,928
10th Percentile £281 £300 £290
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £494 £500
% change year-on-year -3.75% -1.30% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,925 1,256 1,520
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.22 £15.24
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.69 £19.17
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.75
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.79% +49.17%
75th Percentile £56.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.16 £74.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +82.00%

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 26 November 2025.

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 26 November 2025.

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 26 November 2025. 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 -4 2,770 £625 - 1,012
UK excluding London -6 1,494 £600 -4.00% 806
London -2 1,283 £643 +2.92% 371
Work from Home -4 1,053 £625 - 509
South East +3 467 £600 -4.00% 379
North of England -9 369 £600 - 99
South West +1 245 £690 +6.15% 101
Midlands -8 228 £575 -4.17% 109
North West -9 218 £588 -1.96% 59
West Midlands -13 166 £588 -2.08% 78
Yorkshire -14 133 £613 +5.60% 30
Scotland -8 91 £600 -4.00% 53
East of England -6 83 £553 -7.92% 54
East Midlands -2 62 £500 -9.09% 30
Wales -6 23 £625 +0.40% 16
North East -6 19 £700 +12.13% 10
Northern Ireland -8 6 £550 -8.33% 11
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 26 November 2025, 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.

1 981 (30.52%) Security Cleared
2 919 (28.59%) Azure
3 736 (22.90%) AWS
4 681 (21.19%) SC Cleared
5 514 (15.99%) Roadmaps
6 501 (15.59%) Microsoft
7 452 (14.06%) Agile
8 447 (13.91%) Stakeholder Management
9 393 (12.23%) Migration
10 384 (11.95%) TOGAF
11 373 (11.61%) Enterprise Architecture
12 356 (11.08%) DevOps
13 352 (10.95%) Data Modelling
13 352 (10.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 346 (10.77%) CI/CD
15 330 (10.27%) Problem-Solving
16 309 (9.61%) Technical Leadership
17 280 (8.71%) Microservices
18 269 (8.37%) GCP
19 262 (8.15%) AI
20 260 (8.09%) Terraform
21 251 (7.81%) Analytics
21 251 (7.81%) Python
22 240 (7.47%) Data Architecture
23 214 (6.66%) DV Cleared
23 214 (6.66%) Mentoring
24 213 (6.63%) Data Governance
25 212 (6.60%) Cybersecurity
25 212 (6.60%) Firewall
26 209 (6.50%) Security Architecture

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 91 (2.83%) Confluence
2 52 (1.62%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.21%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.87%) SAS
5 23 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 18 (0.56%) Apache
7 17 (0.53%) CMS
8 16 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.50%) OpenStack
9 15 (0.47%) ArcGIS
10 13 (0.40%) WebLogic
11 10 (0.31%) Anypoint
11 10 (0.31%) Mule
12 7 (0.22%) Ethereum
12 7 (0.22%) Hyperledger
12 7 (0.22%) Smallworld
12 7 (0.22%) WebSphere
13 5 (0.16%) GeoServer
13 5 (0.16%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.12%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 31 (0.96%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
2 24 (0.75%) MS Visio
3 21 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
4 19 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (0.34%) Siemens NX
6 4 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.093%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.031%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.031%) Fusion 360
8 1 (0.031%) Revit
8 1 (0.031%) Trello
Business Applications
1 87 (2.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.93%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 20 (0.62%) Salesforce CRM
5 19 (0.59%) Payment Gateway
5 19 (0.59%) Workday HCM
6 18 (0.56%) Maximo
7 14 (0.44%) SAP PM
8 13 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
8 13 (0.40%) SAP CO
9 12 (0.37%) SAP FI
9 12 (0.37%) Teamcenter
10 11 (0.34%) NetSuite
10 11 (0.34%) SAP FI/CO
11 9 (0.28%) Endur
12 8 (0.25%) Distributed Ledger
12 8 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
13 7 (0.22%) R3 Corda
13 7 (0.22%) SAP ERP
14 6 (0.19%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 919 (28.59%) Azure
2 736 (22.90%) AWS
3 269 (8.37%) GCP
4 158 (4.92%) SaaS
5 147 (4.57%) Power Platform
6 123 (3.83%) Serverless
7 100 (3.11%) Entra ID
8 98 (3.05%) Microsoft 365
9 94 (2.92%) GitHub
10 86 (2.68%) IaaS
11 84 (2.61%) Dynamics 365
12 74 (2.30%) AWS Lambda
13 70 (2.18%) PaaS
14 69 (2.15%) Amazon S3
14 69 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
15 60 (1.87%) Snowflake
16 58 (1.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 57 (1.77%) Azure Data Factory
18 52 (1.62%) GitHub Actions
18 52 (1.62%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 212 (6.60%) Firewall
2 107 (3.33%) Network Security
2 107 (3.33%) WAN
3 93 (2.89%) LAN
4 78 (2.43%) VPN
5 71 (2.21%) SD-WAN
6 69 (2.15%) DNS
7 43 (1.34%) Wi-Fi
8 34 (1.06%) BGP
9 30 (0.93%) SAN
10 26 (0.81%) DHCP
11 25 (0.78%) Cisco Nexus
11 25 (0.78%) MPLS
12 23 (0.72%) SSL
13 21 (0.65%) VSAN
14 18 (0.56%) Internet
15 17 (0.53%) VLAN
16 15 (0.47%) OSPF
17 14 (0.44%) Fibre Channel
17 14 (0.44%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (3.80%) Data Warehouse
2 98 (3.05%) Power BI
3 91 (2.83%) Metadata
4 81 (2.52%) Data Lake
5 64 (1.99%) PostgreSQL
6 59 (1.84%) SQL Server
7 44 (1.37%) NoSQL
8 39 (1.21%) Amazon Redshift
9 32 (1.00%) MongoDB
10 30 (0.93%) Big Data
10 30 (0.93%) BigQuery
10 30 (0.93%) DynamoDB
11 28 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
11 28 (0.87%) Oracle Database
12 25 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
13 24 (0.75%) Relational Database
13 24 (0.75%) Tableau
14 22 (0.68%) Amazon Athena
15 20 (0.62%) GIS
16 19 (0.59%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 118 (3.67%) JIRA
2 72 (2.24%) Jenkins
3 54 (1.68%) Git
4 39 (1.21%) GitLab
5 23 (0.72%) ERwin
6 21 (0.65%) CircleCI
7 11 (0.34%) Oracle Forms
8 9 (0.28%) SonarQube
9 8 (0.25%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.19%) Bitbucket
10 6 (0.19%) Maven
11 5 (0.16%) Gradle
11 5 (0.16%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.16%) SonarLint
11 5 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.12%) ER Studio
12 4 (0.12%) MLflow
12 4 (0.12%) MSI
12 4 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
13 3 (0.093%) TeamCity
General
1 882 (27.44%) Social Skills
2 558 (17.36%) Finance
3 396 (12.32%) Public Sector
4 265 (8.25%) Analytical Skills
5 196 (6.10%) Banking
6 93 (2.89%) Telecoms
7 86 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
7 86 (2.68%) Retail
8 73 (2.27%) Marketing
9 71 (2.21%) Legal
10 70 (2.18%) Presentation Skills
11 68 (2.12%) Manufacturing
12 66 (2.05%) Influencing Skills
13 52 (1.62%) Military
14 47 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 41 (1.28%) Financial Institution
16 26 (0.81%) Back Office
16 26 (0.81%) Billing
17 24 (0.75%) Aerospace
18 21 (0.65%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (4.73%) REST
2 93 (2.89%) Middleware
3 79 (2.46%) .NET
3 79 (2.46%) SOAP
4 71 (2.21%) Kafka
5 59 (1.84%) JSON
6 57 (1.77%) OAuth
7 52 (1.62%) RESTful
8 46 (1.43%) SAML
9 40 (1.24%) React
9 40 (1.24%) Web Services
10 39 (1.21%) Lightning Web Components
11 38 (1.18%) AngularJS
12 35 (1.09%) Node.js
12 35 (1.09%) OAuth2
13 32 (1.00%) OpenID
14 31 (0.96%) RabbitMQ
15 28 (0.87%) Spring Boot
16 26 (0.81%) Oracle Fusion
16 26 (0.81%) Visualforce
Miscellaneous
1 247 (7.69%) Cloud Native
2 141 (4.39%) Product Ownership
3 129 (4.01%) Legacy Systems
4 108 (3.36%) Data Centre
5 89 (2.77%) Onboarding
6 86 (2.68%) Hybrid Cloud
7 75 (2.33%) PKI
8 61 (1.90%) Management Information System
9 50 (1.56%) Distributed Systems
10 49 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
11 46 (1.43%) Public Cloud
12 45 (1.40%) Operational Technology
13 42 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
14 41 (1.28%) CMDB
14 41 (1.28%) NHS
15 39 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
16 35 (1.09%) Security Posture
17 28 (0.87%) SCADA
18 27 (0.84%) Data Structures
19 25 (0.78%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 140 (4.36%) Windows
2 97 (3.02%) Linux
3 53 (1.65%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.72%) Windows Server 2019
5 21 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (0.56%) Unix
7 12 (0.37%) Windows 7
8 11 (0.34%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.28%) Android
9 9 (0.28%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.28%) VMS
10 8 (0.25%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.16%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.093%) Solaris
13 3 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.062%) CentOS
14 2 (0.062%) zOS
15 1 (0.031%) MVS
15 1 (0.031%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 514 (15.99%) Roadmaps
2 452 (14.06%) Agile
3 447 (13.91%) Stakeholder Management
4 393 (12.23%) Migration
5 384 (11.95%) TOGAF
6 373 (11.61%) Enterprise Architecture
7 356 (11.08%) DevOps
8 352 (10.95%) Data Modelling
8 352 (10.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 346 (10.77%) CI/CD
10 330 (10.27%) Problem-Solving
11 309 (9.61%) Technical Leadership
12 280 (8.71%) Microservices
13 262 (8.15%) AI
14 251 (7.81%) Analytics
15 240 (7.47%) Data Architecture
16 214 (6.66%) Mentoring
17 213 (6.63%) Data Governance
18 212 (6.60%) Cybersecurity
19 209 (6.50%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 251 (7.81%) Python
2 169 (5.26%) Java
3 162 (5.04%) SQL
4 100 (3.11%) PowerShell
5 67 (2.08%) TypeScript
6 63 (1.96%) JavaScript
7 49 (1.52%) C#
8 33 (1.03%) Apex Code
8 33 (1.03%) Bash
9 32 (1.00%) Bicep
10 17 (0.53%) R
11 14 (0.44%) C++
11 14 (0.44%) Kotlin
12 12 (0.37%) C
13 9 (0.28%) ABAP
13 9 (0.28%) PL/SQL
14 8 (0.25%) Korn
15 7 (0.22%) Go
15 7 (0.22%) Ruby
16 6 (0.19%) PHP
Qualifications
1 981 (30.52%) Security Cleared
2 681 (21.19%) SC Cleared
3 214 (6.66%) DV Cleared
4 177 (5.51%) Degree
5 127 (3.95%) CISSP
6 109 (3.39%) Azure Certification
7 102 (3.17%) AWS Certification
8 78 (2.43%) TOGAF Certification
9 71 (2.21%) Cisco Certification
10 68 (2.12%) Microsoft Certification
11 64 (1.99%) Computer Science Degree
12 55 (1.71%) CISM
13 51 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
14 43 (1.34%) Master's Degree
15 41 (1.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 36 (1.12%) CCNP
17 34 (1.06%) CCIE
18 25 (0.78%) ISEB
19 23 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 23 (0.72%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 178 (5.54%) GDPR
2 139 (4.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 136 (4.23%) NIST
4 99 (3.08%) Data Quality
5 59 (1.84%) NCSC
6 53 (1.65%) PCI DSS
7 47 (1.46%) QA
8 33 (1.03%) COBIT
9 29 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 28 (0.87%) Accessibility
11 26 (0.81%) HIPAA
12 25 (0.78%) GRC
13 23 (0.72%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 23 (0.72%) JSP 440
14 17 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 15 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
16 13 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 13 (0.40%) NIST 800
17 12 (0.37%) SOC 2
18 10 (0.31%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 124 (3.86%) Docker
2 122 (3.80%) Active Directory
3 94 (2.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (1.18%) vSphere
5 29 (0.90%) VMware NSX
6 24 (0.75%) VMware ESXi
7 16 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.44%) NFS
9 13 (0.40%) Hyper-V
10 9 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.12%) Dovecot
11 4 (0.12%) Postfix
11 4 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 3 (0.093%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.093%) KVM
13 2 (0.062%) GPFS
13 2 (0.062%) Lustre
13 2 (0.062%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.031%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 1 (0.031%) Xen
Systems Management
1 260 (8.09%) Terraform
2 199 (6.19%) Kubernetes
3 93 (2.89%) Ansible
4 54 (1.68%) Single Sign-On
5 36 (1.12%) Prometheus
6 30 (0.93%) Grafana
7 28 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
8 23 (0.72%) OPNET
9 17 (0.53%) SCCM
10 16 (0.50%) vCenter Server
11 14 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 11 (0.34%) WMI
13 9 (0.28%) Argo
14 4 (0.12%) FortiGate
14 4 (0.12%) SCOM
15 3 (0.093%) Istio
15 3 (0.093%) Jamf Pro
15 3 (0.093%) Puppet
15 3 (0.093%) RSA Archer
16 2 (0.062%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 501 (15.59%) Microsoft
2 190 (5.91%) SAP
3 170 (5.29%) ServiceNow
4 167 (5.20%) Oracle
5 162 (5.04%) Salesforce
6 146 (4.54%) VMware
7 128 (3.98%) Cisco
8 96 (2.99%) Databricks
9 94 (2.92%) Google
10 62 (1.93%) Splunk
11 56 (1.74%) Fortinet
12 50 (1.56%) Palo Alto
13 43 (1.34%) IBM
14 42 (1.31%) MuleSoft
14 42 (1.31%) Workday
15 40 (1.24%) Remedy
16 38 (1.18%) F5
17 37 (1.15%) CyberArk
17 37 (1.15%) Pega
18 36 (1.12%) OpenAI