Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £617, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 June 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 17 12
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,635 2,907 4,451
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.05% 9.52% 10.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.96% 10.33% 11.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,708 1,870 2,860
10th Percentile £469 £468 £490
25th Percentile £520 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £617 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% -3.85% -0.38%
75th Percentile £725 £724 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 154 21 96
10th Percentile £47.02 £38.96 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £67.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.70% -3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.69 £85.50 £85.99
90th Percentile £97.16 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -9.72% +2.86% -

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 47,123 28,128 40,377
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.40% 92.07% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,580 18,010 25,933
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £415 £401 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,165 1,254 2,874
10th Percentile £15.50 £13.76 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.14 £17.31 £16.50
Median hourly rate £43.61 £27.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.50% -28.00% -14.50%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

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 28 June 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 28 June 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 28 June 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 4,780 £620 -0.80% 1,081
UK excluding London +9 2,482 £620 +3.33% 738
London +6 2,343 £625 -3.85% 515
Work from Home +3 1,529 £600 -0.25% 520
North of England +8 709 £600 - 192
South East +5 703 £625 +4.08% 206
Midlands +2 428 £614 +4.11% 99
North West +5 378 £611 +1.83% 107
West Midlands +2 308 £625 +4.17% 83
South West +1 279 £640 +5.57% 105
Yorkshire +9 270 £575 -4.17% 49
East of England +23 196 £600 - 48
Scotland +11 161 £650 +4.00% 53
East Midlands +7 114 £575 +15.00% 15
North East +9 68 £575 -8.00% 38
Wales 0 34 £620 +29.17% 30
Northern Ireland +4 7 £475 -32.14% 18
Channel Islands 0 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 28 June 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 1,684 (29.88%) Security Cleared
2 1,399 (24.83%) Azure
3 1,269 (22.52%) SC Cleared
4 1,229 (21.81%) AWS
5 803 (14.25%) Roadmaps
6 789 (14.00%) Migration
7 737 (13.08%) Microsoft
8 706 (12.53%) Stakeholder Management
9 661 (11.73%) Agile
10 631 (11.20%) DevOps
11 613 (10.88%) AI
12 601 (10.67%) CI/CD
13 589 (10.45%) Enterprise Architecture
14 540 (9.58%) Data Modelling
14 540 (9.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 538 (9.55%) Technical Leadership
16 520 (9.23%) Integration Patterns
17 490 (8.70%) Data Architecture
18 468 (8.31%) Architectural Patterns
19 461 (8.18%) Analytics
20 448 (7.95%) TOGAF
21 429 (7.61%) Microservices
22 426 (7.56%) GCP
23 375 (6.65%) Problem-Solving
24 358 (6.35%) Architectural Design
25 356 (6.32%) Infrastructure as Code
25 356 (6.32%) Security Architecture
26 343 (6.09%) Event-Driven
27 339 (6.02%) Cybersecurity
28 329 (5.84%) 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
1 115 (2.04%) SharePoint
2 85 (1.51%) Confluence
3 51 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (0.83%) SAS
5 33 (0.59%) Apache
6 32 (0.57%) Apache Spark
7 26 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
8 20 (0.35%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.32%) Appian
9 18 (0.32%) CMS
10 15 (0.27%) WebLogic
11 14 (0.25%) nginx
12 10 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 10 (0.18%) Anypoint
12 10 (0.18%) OpenStack
13 9 (0.16%) Camunda
14 7 (0.12%) ArcGIS
14 7 (0.12%) Tomcat
15 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
15 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 21 (0.37%) MS Visio
2 20 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.18%) Chatbot
3 10 (0.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.12%) Revit
4 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.053%) PlantUML
5 3 (0.053%) Windchill
6 1 (0.018%) ArchiCAD
6 1 (0.018%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.018%) Notion
6 1 (0.018%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 151 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (0.67%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 26 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
5 18 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 18 (0.32%) SAP ERP
6 16 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
7 14 (0.25%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
9 10 (0.18%) Oracle Retail
9 10 (0.18%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 7 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
11 7 (0.12%) SAP MDG
11 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.11%) Maximo
12 6 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
12 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
13 5 (0.089%) Endur
13 5 (0.089%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,399 (24.83%) Azure
2 1,229 (21.81%) AWS
3 426 (7.56%) GCP
4 270 (4.79%) Power Platform
5 208 (3.69%) Serverless
6 196 (3.48%) SaaS
7 194 (3.44%) Entra ID
8 139 (2.47%) GitHub
9 134 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
10 122 (2.17%) PaaS
11 111 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
12 110 (1.95%) Dynamics 365
13 102 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
14 96 (1.70%) Snowflake
15 92 (1.63%) IaaS
16 90 (1.60%) Amazon S3
17 70 (1.24%) Amazon EKS
18 69 (1.22%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 67 (1.19%) AWS CloudFormation
20 66 (1.17%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 225 (3.99%) Firewall
2 192 (3.41%) Network Security
3 125 (2.22%) DNS
4 122 (2.17%) WAN
5 121 (2.15%) VPN
6 82 (1.46%) LAN
7 69 (1.22%) SD-WAN
8 47 (0.83%) DHCP
8 47 (0.83%) TCP/IP
9 45 (0.80%) BGP
10 39 (0.69%) VLAN
11 36 (0.64%) MPLS
12 34 (0.60%) OSPF
13 33 (0.59%) Wireless
14 29 (0.51%) SAN
15 27 (0.48%) NAS
16 25 (0.44%) IPsec
16 25 (0.44%) Structured Cabling
17 24 (0.43%) BIG-IP
18 22 (0.39%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 189 (3.35%) Power BI
2 164 (2.91%) Metadata
3 160 (2.84%) Data Lake
4 154 (2.73%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.33%) NoSQL
6 67 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
7 64 (1.14%) SQL Server
8 46 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
9 45 (0.80%) Big Data
10 39 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
11 37 (0.66%) BigQuery
12 36 (0.64%) Oracle Database
13 29 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.51%) Delta Lake
13 29 (0.51%) Tableau
14 27 (0.48%) Relational Database
15 24 (0.43%) MongoDB
16 22 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
17 21 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
17 21 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 110 (1.95%) JIRA
2 88 (1.56%) Jenkins
3 68 (1.21%) Git
4 39 (0.69%) GitLab
5 26 (0.46%) ERwin
6 12 (0.21%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.18%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.16%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.14%) MLflow
9 8 (0.14%) Postman
10 7 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
11 6 (0.11%) Sonatype Nexus
12 5 (0.089%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.089%) JMeter
12 5 (0.089%) Maven
12 5 (0.089%) Oracle Forms
13 4 (0.071%) Snyk
General
1 1,058 (18.78%) Social Skills
2 881 (15.63%) Finance
3 641 (11.38%) Public Sector
4 325 (5.77%) Banking
5 294 (5.22%) Analytical Skills
6 212 (3.76%) Retail
7 156 (2.77%) Documentation Skills
8 136 (2.41%) Legal
9 132 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
10 104 (1.85%) Manufacturing
11 99 (1.76%) Telecoms
12 53 (0.94%) Law
13 52 (0.92%) Military
14 51 (0.91%) Marketing
15 50 (0.89%) Billing
16 49 (0.87%) Financial Institution
17 42 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
18 39 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 38 (0.67%) Aerospace
20 34 (0.60%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 268 (4.76%) REST
2 207 (3.67%) Middleware
3 136 (2.41%) .NET
4 124 (2.20%) SOAP
5 119 (2.11%) Kafka
6 100 (1.77%) OAuth
7 95 (1.69%) OpenID
8 76 (1.35%) SAML
9 67 (1.19%) Oracle Fusion
10 63 (1.12%) LDAP
11 60 (1.06%) OAuth2
12 56 (0.99%) React
13 53 (0.94%) RESTful
14 48 (0.85%) SailPoint
15 46 (0.82%) JSON
16 38 (0.67%) AngularJS
16 38 (0.67%) Web Services
17 36 (0.64%) Node.js
18 33 (0.59%) .NET Framework
19 32 (0.57%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 484 (8.59%) Cloud Native
2 201 (3.57%) Data Centre
3 166 (2.95%) Management Information System
4 152 (2.70%) Onboarding
5 148 (2.63%) Product Ownership
6 136 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
7 130 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
8 126 (2.24%) Hybrid Cloud
9 106 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
10 92 (1.63%) Public Cloud
11 90 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
12 87 (1.54%) Operational Technology
13 83 (1.47%) CMDB
14 82 (1.46%) AI Agents
15 73 (1.30%) Security Posture
16 51 (0.91%) Enterprise Cloud
17 48 (0.85%) Data Structures
18 46 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
19 45 (0.80%) Private Cloud
20 44 (0.78%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 155 (2.75%) Windows
2 95 (1.69%) Linux
3 45 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 36 (0.64%) Android
5 35 (0.62%) Apple iOS
6 25 (0.44%) Unix
7 16 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (0.18%) zOS
9 8 (0.14%) VMS
10 7 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.089%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.089%) Mac OS
12 5 (0.089%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.089%) Windows 10
12 5 (0.089%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.071%) AIX
13 4 (0.071%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.071%) Solaris
14 2 (0.035%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 803 (14.25%) Roadmaps
2 789 (14.00%) Migration
3 706 (12.53%) Stakeholder Management
4 661 (11.73%) Agile
5 631 (11.20%) DevOps
6 613 (10.88%) AI
7 601 (10.67%) CI/CD
8 589 (10.45%) Enterprise Architecture
9 540 (9.58%) Data Modelling
9 540 (9.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 538 (9.55%) Technical Leadership
11 520 (9.23%) Integration Patterns
12 490 (8.70%) Data Architecture
13 468 (8.31%) Architectural Patterns
14 461 (8.18%) Analytics
15 448 (7.95%) TOGAF
16 429 (7.61%) Microservices
17 375 (6.65%) Problem-Solving
18 358 (6.35%) Architectural Design
19 356 (6.32%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 318 (5.64%) Python
2 278 (4.93%) SQL
3 249 (4.42%) Java
4 126 (2.24%) PowerShell
5 107 (1.90%) JavaScript
6 67 (1.19%) C#
7 60 (1.06%) Bicep
8 45 (0.80%) Bash
9 43 (0.76%) TypeScript
10 27 (0.48%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.39%) Ruby
12 13 (0.23%) Scala
13 12 (0.21%) Kotlin
13 12 (0.21%) PL/SQL
14 10 (0.18%) ABAP
15 9 (0.16%) C++
15 9 (0.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 9 (0.16%) Kusto Query Language
15 9 (0.16%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,684 (29.88%) Security Cleared
2 1,269 (22.52%) SC Cleared
3 302 (5.36%) DV Cleared
4 198 (3.51%) Degree
5 123 (2.18%) CISSP
6 119 (2.11%) Azure Certification
7 118 (2.09%) AWS Certification
8 112 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
9 109 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
10 81 (1.44%) Computer Science Degree
11 79 (1.40%) TOGAF Certification
12 64 (1.14%) CISM
13 54 (0.96%) CCNP
14 48 (0.85%) Master's Degree
15 44 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 42 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
17 41 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 29 (0.51%) CCSP
19 23 (0.41%) CCIE
20 22 (0.39%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 197 (3.50%) NIST
2 181 (3.21%) GDPR
3 171 (3.03%) Data Quality
4 153 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 125 (2.22%) NCSC
6 70 (1.24%) QA
7 46 (0.82%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.71%) GRC
9 37 (0.66%) Accessibility
10 27 (0.48%) ISO 20022
11 25 (0.44%) NIST 800
12 24 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 24 (0.43%) SEPA
13 19 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.34%) HL7
13 19 (0.34%) IFRS
14 18 (0.32%) COBIT
15 14 (0.25%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
16 11 (0.20%) PSD2
System Software
1 171 (3.03%) Active Directory
2 110 (1.95%) Docker
3 92 (1.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 63 (1.12%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
6 26 (0.46%) vSphere
7 22 (0.39%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.20%) Varnish
10 9 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
10 9 (0.16%) Squid
10 9 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
11 8 (0.14%) NFS
12 7 (0.12%) Postfix
12 7 (0.12%) vCloud
13 4 (0.071%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.071%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.071%) IAG
13 4 (0.071%) RACF
13 4 (0.071%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 284 (5.04%) Terraform
2 264 (4.69%) Kubernetes
3 112 (1.99%) Ansible
4 52 (0.92%) Grafana
4 52 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
5 44 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
6 41 (0.73%) Prometheus
7 30 (0.53%) FortiGate
8 24 (0.43%) vCenter Server
9 21 (0.37%) Argo
10 16 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 14 (0.25%) SCCM
12 12 (0.21%) Istio
12 12 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.14%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.12%) Consul
14 7 (0.12%) HAProxy
14 7 (0.12%) Puppet
15 6 (0.11%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.089%) CASB
Vendors
1 737 (13.08%) Microsoft
2 329 (5.84%) SAP
3 301 (5.34%) ServiceNow
4 259 (4.60%) Oracle
5 236 (4.19%) Databricks
6 186 (3.30%) Salesforce
7 171 (3.03%) VMware
8 140 (2.48%) Cisco
9 137 (2.43%) Google
10 69 (1.22%) MuleSoft
11 67 (1.19%) CyberArk
12 64 (1.14%) Splunk
13 59 (1.05%) Palo Alto
14 49 (0.87%) IBM
15 48 (0.85%) Red Hat
16 45 (0.80%) OpenAI
17 44 (0.78%) Workday
18 40 (0.71%) Ariba
18 40 (0.71%) Foundry
18 40 (0.71%) Sparx