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 31 March 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +3 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,807 2,946 4,502
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.80% 10.13% 10.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.73% 10.92% 10.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,177 1,940 2,905
10th Percentile £463 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £601 £621 £650
% change year-on-year -3.22% -4.42% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 37 47
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.30 £50.32
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £70.00 £83.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.81% -16.17% +19.29%
75th Percentile £90.09 £80.59 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.61 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £83.77
% change year-on-year -1.70% -13.45% +19.66%

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 40,988 26,987 41,095
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.05% 92.82% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,540 17,745 26,925
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.67%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,566 944 2,532
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.02 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.72 £20.92 £16.25
Median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +18.86% -1.20% -25.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.91 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £31.88 £32.90
% change year-on-year +25.47% -3.09% -21.32%

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 31 March 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 31 March 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 31 March 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 +2 4,125 £625 - 1,077
UK excluding London +8 2,280 £601 -3.22% 761
London -1 1,865 £625 -3.85% 476
Work from Home 0 1,338 £620 +0.90% 523
South East +4 701 £625 - 256
North of England +5 597 £600 - 194
Midlands 0 398 £575 -4.17% 95
North West +7 337 £610 +1.67% 100
West Midlands -2 298 £600 -0.50% 69
South West +1 281 £700 +15.46% 98
Yorkshire +7 236 £558 -10.72% 70
East of England +17 180 £545 -12.80% 71
Scotland +14 135 £650 +4.00% 35
East Midlands 0 96 £525 -7.49% 26
North East +5 33 £575 -7.95% 28
Wales +2 28 £550 -3.51% 24
Northern Ireland +6 11 £500 -26.47% 4

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 31 March 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 1,537 (31.97%) Security Cleared
2 1,179 (24.53%) Azure
3 1,089 (22.65%) SC Cleared
4 1,023 (21.28%) AWS
5 693 (14.42%) Roadmaps
6 672 (13.98%) Microsoft
7 626 (13.02%) Migration
8 608 (12.65%) Agile
9 554 (11.52%) Stakeholder Management
10 541 (11.25%) DevOps
11 508 (10.57%) Enterprise Architecture
12 500 (10.40%) CI/CD
13 475 (9.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 454 (9.44%) Data Modelling
15 449 (9.34%) TOGAF
16 441 (9.17%) Technical Leadership
17 420 (8.74%) AI
18 411 (8.55%) Analytics
19 391 (8.13%) GCP
20 389 (8.09%) Problem-Solving
21 383 (7.97%) Data Architecture
22 380 (7.91%) Integration Patterns
23 362 (7.53%) Architectural Patterns
24 358 (7.45%) Python
25 353 (7.34%) Microservices
26 327 (6.80%) DV Cleared
27 325 (6.76%) Architectural Design
28 285 (5.93%) Security Architecture
28 285 (5.93%) Terraform
29 284 (5.91%) Cybersecurity

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 (2.60%) Confluence
2 120 (2.50%) SharePoint
3 64 (1.33%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (0.73%) SAS
5 26 (0.54%) CMS
6 25 (0.52%) Apache Spark
7 19 (0.40%) Apache
8 18 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
9 17 (0.35%) Anypoint
10 16 (0.33%) ArcGIS
11 15 (0.31%) Appian
11 15 (0.31%) WebLogic
12 14 (0.29%) nginx
13 11 (0.23%) OpenStack
14 10 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 7 (0.15%) Ethereum
15 7 (0.15%) Hyperledger
15 7 (0.15%) NetWeaver
15 7 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 7 (0.15%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (1.04%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
3 29 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 25 (0.52%) Microsoft Excel
5 20 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.042%) PlantUML
7 2 (0.042%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.042%) Windchill
8 1 (0.021%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.021%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.021%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.021%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 126 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (1.00%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 26 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 21 (0.44%) Workday HCM
5 19 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
6 18 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
7 15 (0.31%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
9 12 (0.25%) SAP EWM
10 11 (0.23%) NetSuite
11 10 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
11 10 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
11 10 (0.21%) SAP PM
12 9 (0.19%) Maximo
12 9 (0.19%) Teamcenter
13 8 (0.17%) SAP PP
14 7 (0.15%) R3 Corda
14 7 (0.15%) SAP CRM
14 7 (0.15%) SAP QM
15 6 (0.12%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 1,179 (24.53%) Azure
2 1,023 (21.28%) AWS
3 391 (8.13%) GCP
4 203 (4.22%) Power Platform
5 170 (3.54%) Entra ID
6 169 (3.52%) Serverless
7 155 (3.22%) SaaS
8 144 (3.00%) Microsoft 365
9 114 (2.37%) GitHub
10 110 (2.29%) IaaS
11 101 (2.10%) Azure DevOps
12 98 (2.04%) PaaS
13 97 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
14 86 (1.79%) AWS Lambda
15 80 (1.66%) OpenShift
16 74 (1.54%) AWS CloudFormation
16 74 (1.54%) Microsoft Purview
17 69 (1.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 69 (1.44%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 68 (1.41%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 236 (4.91%) Firewall
2 171 (3.56%) Network Security
3 141 (2.93%) WAN
4 128 (2.66%) VPN
5 126 (2.62%) DNS
6 87 (1.81%) LAN
7 81 (1.69%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.81%) BGP
9 37 (0.77%) DHCP
10 32 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
11 31 (0.64%) OSPF
12 29 (0.60%) MPLS
12 29 (0.60%) TCP/IP
13 26 (0.54%) SAN
13 26 (0.54%) VLAN
14 24 (0.50%) Wireless
15 22 (0.46%) VXLAN
16 21 (0.44%) Kerberos
17 18 (0.37%) Internet
17 18 (0.37%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (3.27%) Power BI
2 154 (3.20%) Data Warehouse
3 142 (2.95%) Metadata
4 110 (2.29%) Data Lake
5 82 (1.71%) SQL Server
6 64 (1.33%) PostgreSQL
7 60 (1.25%) NoSQL
8 51 (1.06%) Tableau
9 50 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
10 46 (0.96%) Oracle Database
11 41 (0.85%) Big Data
12 28 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
13 24 (0.50%) Delta Lake
13 24 (0.50%) Relational Database
14 23 (0.48%) DynamoDB
14 23 (0.48%) GIS
15 22 (0.46%) BigQuery
16 21 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
16 21 (0.44%) Metadata Repository
16 21 (0.44%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 139 (2.89%) JIRA
2 95 (1.98%) Jenkins
3 48 (1.00%) Git
3 48 (1.00%) GitLab
4 25 (0.52%) ERwin
5 11 (0.23%) Bitbucket
5 11 (0.23%) SonarQube
6 10 (0.21%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.19%) MLflow
8 6 (0.12%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.10%) Cucumber
9 5 (0.10%) Postman
9 5 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
9 5 (0.10%) Rational DOORS
9 5 (0.10%) Selenium
9 5 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.083%) Maven
10 4 (0.083%) Snyk
10 4 (0.083%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.062%) ER Studio
General
1 1,017 (21.16%) Social Skills
2 742 (15.44%) Finance
3 559 (11.63%) Public Sector
4 326 (6.78%) Analytical Skills
5 282 (5.87%) Banking
6 157 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
7 115 (2.39%) Influencing Skills
8 111 (2.31%) Legal
9 96 (2.00%) Retail
10 87 (1.81%) Military
11 83 (1.73%) Telecoms
12 73 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
13 64 (1.33%) Marketing
14 63 (1.31%) Law
15 62 (1.29%) Manufacturing
16 48 (1.00%) Financial Institution
17 34 (0.71%) Billing
18 33 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 31 (0.64%) Investment Banking
20 28 (0.58%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 237 (4.93%) REST
2 180 (3.74%) Middleware
3 118 (2.45%) SOAP
4 100 (2.08%) Kafka
5 98 (2.04%) .NET
6 82 (1.71%) OpenID
7 79 (1.64%) LDAP
8 74 (1.54%) OAuth
9 62 (1.29%) SAML
10 55 (1.14%) JSON
11 51 (1.06%) React
12 45 (0.94%) AngularJS
12 45 (0.94%) OAuth2
13 42 (0.87%) RESTful
14 35 (0.73%) SailPoint
14 35 (0.73%) Web Services
15 30 (0.62%) Spring
16 28 (0.58%) Oracle Fusion
17 27 (0.56%) PySpark
18 24 (0.50%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 375 (7.80%) Cloud Native
2 163 (3.39%) Data Centre
3 154 (3.20%) Product Ownership
4 129 (2.68%) Onboarding
5 110 (2.29%) Enterprise Software
6 106 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
7 98 (2.04%) Management Information System
8 97 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
8 97 (2.02%) Hybrid Cloud
9 89 (1.85%) Public Cloud
10 88 (1.83%) PKI
11 79 (1.64%) Security Posture
12 71 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
13 67 (1.39%) Operational Technology
14 63 (1.31%) CMDB
15 51 (1.06%) AI Agents
16 50 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
17 45 (0.94%) Data Structures
18 41 (0.85%) Private Cloud
19 40 (0.83%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 187 (3.89%) Windows
2 126 (2.62%) Linux
3 44 (0.92%) Windows Server
4 35 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 30 (0.62%) Android
5 30 (0.62%) Apple iOS
6 15 (0.31%) Unix
6 15 (0.31%) Windows 10
6 15 (0.31%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
8 13 (0.27%) VMS
9 11 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
10 10 (0.21%) zOS
11 9 (0.19%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.062%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.062%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.042%) CentOS
14 1 (0.021%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.021%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.021%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 693 (14.42%) Roadmaps
2 626 (13.02%) Migration
3 608 (12.65%) Agile
4 554 (11.52%) Stakeholder Management
5 541 (11.25%) DevOps
6 508 (10.57%) Enterprise Architecture
7 500 (10.40%) CI/CD
8 475 (9.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 454 (9.44%) Data Modelling
10 449 (9.34%) TOGAF
11 441 (9.17%) Technical Leadership
12 420 (8.74%) AI
13 411 (8.55%) Analytics
14 389 (8.09%) Problem-Solving
15 383 (7.97%) Data Architecture
16 380 (7.91%) Integration Patterns
17 362 (7.53%) Architectural Patterns
18 353 (7.34%) Microservices
19 325 (6.76%) Architectural Design
20 285 (5.93%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 358 (7.45%) Python
2 258 (5.37%) SQL
3 189 (3.93%) PowerShell
4 185 (3.85%) Java
5 67 (1.39%) JavaScript
6 62 (1.29%) C#
7 41 (0.85%) Bash
7 41 (0.85%) Bicep
8 30 (0.62%) TypeScript
9 21 (0.44%) Ruby
10 18 (0.37%) Apex Code
10 18 (0.37%) PL/SQL
11 13 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
11 13 (0.27%) Scala
12 12 (0.25%) Kotlin
13 11 (0.23%) R
14 9 (0.19%) ABAP
14 9 (0.19%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.17%) PHP
15 8 (0.17%) VB
Qualifications
1 1,537 (31.97%) Security Cleared
2 1,089 (22.65%) SC Cleared
3 327 (6.80%) DV Cleared
4 210 (4.37%) Degree
5 130 (2.70%) CISSP
6 122 (2.54%) TOGAF Certification
7 119 (2.48%) Azure Certification
8 115 (2.39%) AWS Certification
9 88 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 87 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
11 75 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
12 74 (1.54%) CISM
13 56 (1.16%) Master's Degree
14 54 (1.12%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 52 (1.08%) Microsoft Certification
16 50 (1.04%) CCNP
17 35 (0.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 34 (0.71%) ITIL Certification
19 33 (0.69%) ISEB
20 31 (0.64%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (4.06%) GDPR
2 181 (3.77%) NIST
3 153 (3.18%) Data Quality
3 153 (3.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 103 (2.14%) NCSC
5 67 (1.39%) QA
6 60 (1.25%) PCI DSS
7 41 (0.85%) COBIT
8 33 (0.69%) GRC
9 31 (0.64%) Accessibility
9 31 (0.64%) ISO 20022
10 28 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
11 20 (0.42%) JSP 440
12 19 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 18 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 17 (0.35%) NIST 800
15 16 (0.33%) HL7
16 15 (0.31%) SEPA
17 14 (0.29%) HIPAA
17 14 (0.29%) MiFID
System Software
1 194 (4.04%) Active Directory
2 125 (2.60%) Docker
3 108 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 73 (1.52%) VMware NSX
5 37 (0.77%) vSphere
6 24 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.35%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.19%) Squid
11 9 (0.19%) Varnish
11 9 (0.19%) vCloud
12 7 (0.15%) BitLocker
13 5 (0.10%) NFS
13 5 (0.10%) RACF
14 4 (0.083%) Firmware
15 3 (0.062%) Ceph
15 3 (0.062%) Postfix
15 3 (0.062%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 285 (5.93%) Terraform
2 243 (5.06%) Kubernetes
3 123 (2.56%) Ansible
4 58 (1.21%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (0.81%) Grafana
7 33 (0.69%) vCenter Server
8 32 (0.67%) FortiGate
9 30 (0.62%) OPNET
10 26 (0.54%) Prometheus
11 22 (0.46%) SCCM
12 19 (0.40%) Argo
13 18 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 14 (0.29%) WMI
15 11 (0.23%) Istio
16 7 (0.15%) Consul
16 7 (0.15%) Puppet
17 6 (0.12%) Kibana
18 5 (0.10%) Endace
18 5 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 672 (13.98%) Microsoft
2 278 (5.78%) ServiceNow
3 271 (5.64%) SAP
4 205 (4.26%) Oracle
5 198 (4.12%) VMware
6 184 (3.83%) Salesforce
7 166 (3.45%) Databricks
8 142 (2.95%) Cisco
9 112 (2.33%) Google
10 95 (1.98%) CyberArk
11 70 (1.46%) MuleSoft
12 69 (1.44%) Palo Alto
13 66 (1.37%) Splunk
14 59 (1.23%) Red Hat
15 52 (1.08%) IBM
16 51 (1.06%) Remedy
17 50 (1.04%) Workday
18 49 (1.02%) Atlassian
18 49 (1.02%) Centrify
19 47 (0.98%) Sparx