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 5 December 2025.

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

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 15 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 +2 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,273 3,538 4,161
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.97% 9.79% 9.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.86% 10.55% 9.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,223 2,114 2,825
10th Percentile £462 £484 £500
25th Percentile £525 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £737 £725
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £610 £625 £627
% change year-on-year -2.40% -0.32% -3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 24 36
10th Percentile £63.50 £60.45 £58.75
25th Percentile £66.25 £62.25 £71.50
Median hourly rate £83.82 £68.75 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +21.92% -10.17% +9.33%
75th Percentile £95.00 £86.21 £80.78
90th Percentile - £89.25 £91.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.82 £67.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +24.18% -11.80% +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 33,199 33,522 42,042
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.96% 92.79% 93.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,096 20,434 28,329
10th Percentile £285 £300 £294
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 £645
90th Percentile £723 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,922 1,156 1,511
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.42 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.97 £20.75 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.45% +39.68%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.20 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £73.66 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +78.00%

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 5 December 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 5 December 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 5 December 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 -3 2,835 £625 - 955
UK excluding London -4 1,555 £610 -2.40% 817
London -2 1,291 £630 +0.80% 303
Work from Home -4 1,032 £609 -2.51% 427
South East +4 508 £600 -4.00% 311
North of England -8 369 £600 -1.17% 175
South West +2 262 £700 +11.82% 89
Midlands -7 232 £575 -4.17% 120
North West -8 219 £600 -1.17% 93
West Midlands -12 175 £588 -2.08% 84
Yorkshire -14 131 £600 +2.13% 62
Scotland -9 91 £600 -4.38% 36
East of England -9 84 £551 -8.13% 77
East Midlands 0 57 £500 -9.09% 34
Wales -5 23 £625 +0.40% 16
North East -3 20 £700 +12.13% 21
Northern Ireland -7 6 £550 -8.33% 11
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 5 December 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 1,003 (30.64%) Security Cleared
2 912 (27.86%) Azure
3 727 (22.21%) AWS
4 689 (21.05%) SC Cleared
5 515 (15.73%) Roadmaps
6 491 (15.00%) Microsoft
7 472 (14.42%) Agile
8 448 (13.69%) Stakeholder Management
9 395 (12.07%) TOGAF
10 389 (11.89%) Migration
11 382 (11.67%) Enterprise Architecture
12 361 (11.03%) DevOps
13 357 (10.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 351 (10.72%) Data Modelling
15 341 (10.42%) CI/CD
16 324 (9.90%) Problem-Solving
17 305 (9.32%) Technical Leadership
18 272 (8.31%) Microservices
19 271 (8.28%) AI
20 268 (8.19%) GCP
21 256 (7.82%) Analytics
21 256 (7.82%) Terraform
22 253 (7.73%) Python
23 242 (7.39%) Data Architecture
24 227 (6.94%) DV Cleared
25 215 (6.57%) Mentoring
26 209 (6.39%) Data Governance
27 207 (6.32%) ITIL
27 207 (6.32%) Security Architecture
28 203 (6.20%) ServiceNow

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
1 102 (3.12%) Confluence
2 55 (1.68%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.82%) SAS
5 19 (0.58%) Apache
5 19 (0.58%) Apache Spark
6 18 (0.55%) CMS
7 17 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.52%) OpenStack
8 14 (0.43%) ArcGIS
9 13 (0.40%) WebLogic
10 9 (0.27%) Anypoint
10 9 (0.27%) Mule
11 7 (0.21%) WebSphere
12 6 (0.18%) Ethereum
12 6 (0.18%) Hyperledger
12 6 (0.18%) Smallworld
13 5 (0.15%) GeoServer
13 5 (0.15%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.12%) Documentum
Applications
1 45 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (1.04%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (0.79%) MS Visio
4 22 (0.67%) Microsoft Excel
5 20 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.31%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.092%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.092%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.031%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.031%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.031%) Revit
8 1 (0.031%) Trello
Business Applications
1 90 (2.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
2 33 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.70%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.61%) Salesforce CRM
5 18 (0.55%) Maximo
5 18 (0.55%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.49%) SAP PM
7 13 (0.40%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
7 13 (0.40%) SAP CO
8 12 (0.37%) SAP FI
8 12 (0.37%) Teamcenter
9 11 (0.34%) SAP FI/CO
10 9 (0.27%) Endur
11 8 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.24%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.24%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.21%) Aladdin
12 7 (0.21%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 912 (27.86%) Azure
2 727 (22.21%) AWS
3 268 (8.19%) GCP
4 148 (4.52%) SaaS
5 142 (4.34%) Power Platform
6 119 (3.64%) Serverless
7 107 (3.27%) Entra ID
8 92 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
9 85 (2.60%) IaaS
10 83 (2.54%) GitHub
11 81 (2.47%) Dynamics 365
12 73 (2.23%) AWS Lambda
13 70 (2.14%) PaaS
14 64 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
15 60 (1.83%) Amazon S3
15 60 (1.83%) Snowflake
16 59 (1.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 55 (1.68%) AWS CloudFormation
17 55 (1.68%) Azure Data Factory
18 53 (1.62%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 202 (6.17%) Firewall
2 104 (3.18%) WAN
3 99 (3.02%) Network Security
4 90 (2.75%) LAN
5 78 (2.38%) VPN
6 70 (2.14%) DNS
6 70 (2.14%) SD-WAN
7 39 (1.19%) Wi-Fi
8 36 (1.10%) BGP
9 26 (0.79%) MPLS
9 26 (0.79%) SAN
10 25 (0.76%) Cisco Nexus
10 25 (0.76%) DHCP
11 22 (0.67%) SSL
12 21 (0.64%) VSAN
13 19 (0.58%) Internet
14 17 (0.52%) VLAN
15 16 (0.49%) OSPF
16 14 (0.43%) iSCSI
17 13 (0.40%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (3.57%) Data Warehouse
2 96 (2.93%) Power BI
3 91 (2.78%) Metadata
4 75 (2.29%) Data Lake
5 65 (1.99%) PostgreSQL
6 61 (1.86%) SQL Server
7 42 (1.28%) NoSQL
8 39 (1.19%) Amazon Redshift
9 30 (0.92%) DynamoDB
9 30 (0.92%) MongoDB
10 29 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
10 29 (0.89%) Tableau
11 27 (0.82%) BigQuery
11 27 (0.82%) Oracle Database
12 25 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
12 25 (0.76%) Big Data
12 25 (0.76%) Relational Database
13 23 (0.70%) Delta Lake
14 22 (0.67%) Amazon Athena
15 19 (0.58%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 124 (3.79%) JIRA
2 72 (2.20%) Jenkins
3 58 (1.77%) Git
4 40 (1.22%) GitLab
5 20 (0.61%) ERwin
6 12 (0.37%) CircleCI
6 12 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.24%) Artifactory
7 8 (0.24%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.21%) MLflow
9 6 (0.18%) Bitbucket
9 6 (0.18%) Maven
10 5 (0.15%) ER Studio
10 5 (0.15%) Gradle
10 5 (0.15%) MSI
10 5 (0.15%) Rational DOORS
10 5 (0.15%) SonarLint
10 5 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.092%) Postman
11 3 (0.092%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 880 (26.89%) Social Skills
2 550 (16.80%) Finance
3 415 (12.68%) Public Sector
4 271 (8.28%) Analytical Skills
5 194 (5.93%) Banking
6 96 (2.93%) Telecoms
7 82 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
7 82 (2.51%) Retail
8 72 (2.20%) Influencing Skills
8 72 (2.20%) Legal
9 70 (2.14%) Manufacturing
9 70 (2.14%) Marketing
10 69 (2.11%) Presentation Skills
11 65 (1.99%) Military
12 45 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 39 (1.19%) Financial Institution
14 32 (0.98%) Billing
15 26 (0.79%) Back Office
16 22 (0.67%) Aerospace
17 21 (0.64%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (4.64%) REST
2 93 (2.84%) Middleware
3 82 (2.51%) SOAP
4 81 (2.47%) .NET
5 63 (1.92%) Kafka
6 61 (1.86%) JSON
7 56 (1.71%) OAuth
8 52 (1.59%) RESTful
9 46 (1.41%) SAML
10 39 (1.19%) Lightning Web Components
10 39 (1.19%) Web Services
11 38 (1.16%) AngularJS
11 38 (1.16%) React
12 34 (1.04%) OAuth2
13 31 (0.95%) Node.js
13 31 (0.95%) OpenID
13 31 (0.95%) RabbitMQ
14 28 (0.86%) Oracle Fusion
15 27 (0.82%) Spring Boot
16 26 (0.79%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 255 (7.79%) Cloud Native
2 151 (4.61%) Product Ownership
3 128 (3.91%) Legacy Systems
4 111 (3.39%) Data Centre
5 85 (2.60%) Hybrid Cloud
6 84 (2.57%) Onboarding
7 77 (2.35%) PKI
8 59 (1.80%) Management Information System
9 49 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
11 46 (1.41%) Operational Technology
12 44 (1.34%) CMDB
13 42 (1.28%) Public Cloud
14 41 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
15 40 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
15 40 (1.22%) NHS
16 32 (0.98%) Security Posture
17 31 (0.95%) Data Structures
18 29 (0.89%) SCADA
19 27 (0.82%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 136 (4.16%) Windows
2 99 (3.02%) Linux
3 52 (1.59%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.67%) Windows Server 2019
5 21 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (0.52%) Unix
7 12 (0.37%) Windows 7
8 11 (0.34%) Windows 10
9 10 (0.31%) VMS
10 6 (0.18%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.15%) Android
11 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.15%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.092%) Solaris
12 3 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.061%) CentOS
13 2 (0.061%) zOS
14 1 (0.031%) MVS
14 1 (0.031%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 515 (15.73%) Roadmaps
2 472 (14.42%) Agile
3 448 (13.69%) Stakeholder Management
4 395 (12.07%) TOGAF
5 389 (11.89%) Migration
6 382 (11.67%) Enterprise Architecture
7 361 (11.03%) DevOps
8 357 (10.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 351 (10.72%) Data Modelling
10 341 (10.42%) CI/CD
11 324 (9.90%) Problem-Solving
12 305 (9.32%) Technical Leadership
13 272 (8.31%) Microservices
14 271 (8.28%) AI
15 256 (7.82%) Analytics
16 242 (7.39%) Data Architecture
17 215 (6.57%) Mentoring
18 209 (6.39%) Data Governance
19 207 (6.32%) ITIL
19 207 (6.32%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 253 (7.73%) Python
2 162 (4.95%) SQL
3 156 (4.77%) Java
4 99 (3.02%) PowerShell
5 65 (1.99%) JavaScript
6 57 (1.74%) TypeScript
7 47 (1.44%) C#
8 33 (1.01%) Apex Code
9 32 (0.98%) Bicep
10 30 (0.92%) Bash
11 19 (0.58%) R
12 14 (0.43%) C++
13 13 (0.40%) C
14 11 (0.34%) PL/SQL
15 9 (0.27%) ABAP
16 8 (0.24%) Korn
17 7 (0.21%) Go
17 7 (0.21%) Ruby
17 7 (0.21%) Scala
18 6 (0.18%) DataWeave
Qualifications
1 1,003 (30.64%) Security Cleared
2 689 (21.05%) SC Cleared
3 227 (6.94%) DV Cleared
4 189 (5.77%) Degree
5 121 (3.70%) CISSP
6 110 (3.36%) AWS Certification
7 100 (3.06%) Azure Certification
8 89 (2.72%) TOGAF Certification
9 67 (2.05%) Cisco Certification
10 65 (1.99%) Computer Science Degree
10 65 (1.99%) Microsoft Certification
11 52 (1.59%) CISM
12 49 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
13 48 (1.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 44 (1.34%) Master's Degree
15 36 (1.10%) CCNP
16 35 (1.07%) CCIE
17 25 (0.76%) ISEB
18 22 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
19 21 (0.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (5.35%) GDPR
2 137 (4.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 131 (4.00%) NIST
4 97 (2.96%) Data Quality
5 64 (1.96%) NCSC
6 53 (1.62%) PCI DSS
7 50 (1.53%) QA
8 33 (1.01%) COBIT
9 30 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 26 (0.79%) Accessibility
11 25 (0.76%) GRC
11 25 (0.76%) HIPAA
12 24 (0.73%) JSP 440
13 23 (0.70%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 20 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
15 15 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 13 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 11 (0.34%) NIST 800
17 11 (0.34%) SOC 2
18 10 (0.31%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 126 (3.85%) Docker
2 121 (3.70%) Active Directory
3 89 (2.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.10%) vSphere
5 30 (0.92%) VMware NSX
6 23 (0.70%) VMware ESXi
7 19 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
8 17 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.43%) NFS
10 13 (0.40%) Hyper-V
11 5 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 4 (0.12%) Dovecot
12 4 (0.12%) Postfix
13 3 (0.092%) BitLocker
13 3 (0.092%) KVM
13 3 (0.092%) Lustre
14 2 (0.061%) GPFS
14 2 (0.061%) Oracle RAC
15 1 (0.031%) Varnish
15 1 (0.031%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 256 (7.82%) Terraform
2 193 (5.90%) Kubernetes
3 96 (2.93%) Ansible
4 54 (1.65%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.01%) OPNET
6 25 (0.76%) Prometheus
7 24 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
8 22 (0.67%) Grafana
9 17 (0.52%) SCCM
9 17 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.40%) WMI
12 9 (0.27%) Argo
13 4 (0.12%) SCOM
14 3 (0.092%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.092%) Istio
14 3 (0.092%) Puppet
14 3 (0.092%) RSA Archer
14 3 (0.092%) vRealize
15 2 (0.061%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 491 (15.00%) Microsoft
2 203 (6.20%) ServiceNow
3 193 (5.90%) SAP
4 176 (5.38%) Salesforce
5 167 (5.10%) Oracle
6 143 (4.37%) VMware
7 121 (3.70%) Cisco
8 98 (2.99%) Databricks
9 90 (2.75%) Google
10 53 (1.62%) Fortinet
11 52 (1.59%) Splunk
12 51 (1.56%) Remedy
13 50 (1.53%) Palo Alto
14 49 (1.50%) Workday
15 42 (1.28%) IBM
16 41 (1.25%) MuleSoft
17 40 (1.22%) CyberArk
18 39 (1.19%) Atlassian
18 39 (1.19%) F5
19 36 (1.10%) Pega