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 6 August 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 13
Rank change year-on-year +9 -6 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,956 3,076 3,972
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.17% 9.35% 10.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.06% 10.22% 10.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,938 1,987 2,576
10th Percentile £475 £469 £488
25th Percentile £525 £533 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £701 £738
90th Percentile £788 £776 £815
UK excluding London median daily rate £623 £600 £647
% change year-on-year +3.75% -7.26% -0.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 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 49,373 30,106 36,347
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.62% 91.47% 92.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,709 19,120 23,460
10th Percentile £328 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,448 1,496 2,067
10th Percentile £15.13 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.89 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £25.15 £43.90
% change year-on-year +73.20% -42.71% +17.07%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 5,024 £625 - 2,677
London +8 2,588 £625 -3.85% 1,571
UK excluding London +7 2,476 £623 +3.75% 1,264
Work from Home +4 1,605 £600 - 1,048
South East 0 727 £630 +5.00% 347
North of England +3 697 £600 - 302
Midlands -1 421 £625 +8.70% 155
North West +3 397 £600 +4.35% 151
West Midlands -2 313 £635 +5.83% 107
South West -3 293 £625 -2.34% 178
Yorkshire +3 234 £600 - 118
East of England +19 162 £600 +8.11% 106
Scotland +15 155 £650 +4.00% 106
East Midlands +8 101 £600 +16.50% 48
North East -3 68 £600 -15.79% 34
Wales +7 37 £640 +18.52% 32
Northern Ireland +7 6 £475 -32.14% 47
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 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 1,836 (30.83%) Security Cleared
2 1,499 (25.17%) Azure
3 1,385 (23.25%) SC Cleared
4 1,311 (22.01%) AWS
5 864 (14.51%) Roadmaps
6 841 (14.12%) Stakeholder Management
7 822 (13.80%) Migration
8 745 (12.51%) Microsoft
9 728 (12.22%) AI
10 695 (11.67%) Enterprise Architecture
11 669 (11.23%) Agile
12 627 (10.53%) DevOps
13 612 (10.28%) CI/CD
14 611 (10.26%) Technical Leadership
15 609 (10.22%) Data Modelling
16 585 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 578 (9.70%) Integration Patterns
18 570 (9.57%) Data Architecture
19 527 (8.85%) Analytics
20 498 (8.36%) TOGAF
21 477 (8.01%) Architectural Patterns
22 460 (7.72%) GCP
23 426 (7.15%) Security Architecture
24 415 (6.97%) Microservices
25 392 (6.58%) Event-Driven
26 363 (6.09%) Problem-Solving
27 360 (6.04%) Cybersecurity
27 360 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
28 354 (5.94%) Data Governance
29 344 (5.78%) 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 91 (1.53%) SharePoint
2 79 (1.33%) SAS
3 70 (1.18%) Confluence
4 45 (0.76%) 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 17 (0.29%) CMS
10 16 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.17%) Appian
12 10 (0.17%) nginx
13 7 (0.12%) Documentum
14 6 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 6 (0.10%) Camunda
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
1 156 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.60%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 24 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
5 17 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 15 (0.25%) SAP ERP
8 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 11 (0.18%) NetSuite
11 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
12 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
12 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
13 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
14 7 (0.12%) Maximo
14 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
15 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
15 6 (0.10%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,499 (25.17%) Azure
2 1,311 (22.01%) AWS
3 460 (7.72%) GCP
4 289 (4.85%) Power Platform
5 209 (3.51%) Entra ID
6 204 (3.43%) SaaS
7 196 (3.29%) Serverless
8 143 (2.40%) GitHub
9 125 (2.10%) Dynamics 365
10 121 (2.03%) PaaS
11 117 (1.96%) Microsoft 365
12 113 (1.90%) Azure DevOps
13 108 (1.81%) Snowflake
14 98 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
15 88 (1.48%) Amazon S3
16 85 (1.43%) IaaS
17 64 (1.07%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 64 (1.07%) OCI
18 63 (1.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 61 (1.02%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 201 (3.37%) Firewall
2 183 (3.07%) Network Security
3 107 (1.80%) VPN
3 107 (1.80%) WAN
4 95 (1.60%) DNS
5 78 (1.31%) LAN
6 52 (0.87%) SD-WAN
7 45 (0.76%) BGP
8 42 (0.71%) DHCP
9 41 (0.69%) TCP/IP
10 38 (0.64%) MPLS
11 36 (0.60%) VLAN
12 32 (0.54%) SAN
13 31 (0.52%) 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
1 201 (3.37%) Power BI
2 197 (3.31%) Data Lake
3 178 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
4 169 (2.84%) Metadata
5 79 (1.33%) NoSQL
6 52 (0.87%) PostgreSQL
7 51 (0.86%) SQL Server
8 48 (0.81%) Big Data
9 44 (0.74%) BigQuery
10 43 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
10 43 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
11 40 (0.67%) Oracle Database
12 38 (0.64%) Delta Lake
13 32 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
14 26 (0.44%) GIS
14 26 (0.44%) MongoDB
15 24 (0.40%) Semantic Layer
16 23 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
16 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
16 23 (0.39%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 87 (1.46%) JIRA
2 79 (1.33%) Git
3 61 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 30 (0.50%) 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%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.067%) Snyk
General
1 1,108 (18.60%) Social Skills
2 882 (14.81%) Finance
3 675 (11.33%) Public Sector
4 328 (5.51%) Banking
5 303 (5.09%) Analytical Skills
6 254 (4.26%) Retail
7 148 (2.48%) Influencing Skills
8 132 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
8 132 (2.22%) Telecoms
9 123 (2.07%) Manufacturing
10 115 (1.93%) Legal
11 63 (1.06%) Marketing
12 56 (0.94%) Billing
13 50 (0.84%) Financial Institution
14 47 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 47 (0.79%) Military
15 46 (0.77%) Law
16 42 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
17 40 (0.67%) Aerospace
18 34 (0.57%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 280 (4.70%) REST
2 209 (3.51%) Middleware
3 143 (2.40%) Kafka
4 129 (2.17%) .NET
5 122 (2.05%) SOAP
6 121 (2.03%) OAuth
7 74 (1.24%) Oracle Fusion
8 69 (1.16%) OpenID
9 64 (1.07%) OAuth2
9 64 (1.07%) SAML
10 57 (0.96%) JSON
11 51 (0.86%) RESTful
12 49 (0.82%) React
13 43 (0.72%) SailPoint
14 41 (0.69%) PySpark
15 35 (0.59%) .NET Framework
15 35 (0.59%) GraphQL
15 35 (0.59%) XML
16 32 (0.54%) Node.js
17 31 (0.52%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 507 (8.51%) Cloud Native
2 197 (3.31%) Data Centre
3 180 (3.02%) Management Information System
4 148 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
4 148 (2.48%) Product Ownership
5 146 (2.45%) Onboarding
6 145 (2.43%) Distributed Systems
7 141 (2.37%) Hybrid Cloud
8 125 (2.10%) AI Agents
9 123 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
10 98 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
11 90 (1.51%) Operational Technology
12 88 (1.48%) Public Cloud
13 81 (1.36%) CMDB
14 69 (1.16%) Enterprise Cloud
15 67 (1.12%) Security Posture
16 60 (1.01%) Data Structures
17 50 (0.84%) Private Cloud
18 48 (0.81%) IoT
19 45 (0.76%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 129 (2.17%) Windows
2 104 (1.75%) Linux
3 47 (0.79%) Windows Server
4 29 (0.49%) Android
4 29 (0.49%) Apple iOS
5 23 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (0.37%) Unix
7 10 (0.17%) zOS
8 9 (0.15%) AIX
9 8 (0.13%) VMS
10 7 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.084%) Solaris
11 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.034%) CentOS
13 2 (0.034%) HPUX
13 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 864 (14.51%) Roadmaps
2 841 (14.12%) Stakeholder Management
3 822 (13.80%) Migration
4 728 (12.22%) AI
5 695 (11.67%) Enterprise Architecture
6 669 (11.23%) Agile
7 627 (10.53%) DevOps
8 612 (10.28%) CI/CD
9 611 (10.26%) Technical Leadership
10 609 (10.22%) Data Modelling
11 585 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 578 (9.70%) Integration Patterns
13 570 (9.57%) Data Architecture
14 527 (8.85%) Analytics
15 498 (8.36%) TOGAF
16 477 (8.01%) Architectural Patterns
17 426 (7.15%) Security Architecture
18 415 (6.97%) Microservices
19 392 (6.58%) Event-Driven
20 363 (6.09%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 285 (4.79%) Python
2 271 (4.55%) SQL
3 270 (4.53%) Java
4 135 (2.27%) JavaScript
5 101 (1.70%) PowerShell
6 59 (0.99%) C#
7 55 (0.92%) Bicep
8 50 (0.84%) Bash
9 45 (0.76%) TypeScript
10 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.35%) Ruby
12 15 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 13 (0.22%) C++
14 12 (0.20%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.18%) Scala
16 10 (0.17%) ABAP
17 9 (0.15%) Groovy
17 9 (0.15%) PL/SQL
17 9 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,836 (30.83%) Security Cleared
2 1,385 (23.25%) SC Cleared
3 344 (5.78%) DV Cleared
4 180 (3.02%) Degree
5 151 (2.54%) CISSP
6 130 (2.18%) AWS Certification
7 128 (2.15%) Azure Certification
8 115 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
9 113 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
10 95 (1.60%) TOGAF Certification
11 78 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
12 73 (1.23%) CISM
13 50 (0.84%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 49 (0.82%) CCNP
15 46 (0.77%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 42 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
17 35 (0.59%) CCSP
18 33 (0.55%) Master's Degree
19 22 (0.37%) CCNA
20 21 (0.35%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 210 (3.53%) Data Quality
2 205 (3.44%) NIST
3 186 (3.12%) GDPR
4 163 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 119 (2.00%) NCSC
6 73 (1.23%) GRC
7 62 (1.04%) QA
8 45 (0.76%) PCI DSS
9 40 (0.67%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 30 (0.50%) NIST 800
12 23 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
12 23 (0.39%) ISO 20022
12 23 (0.39%) SEPA
13 21 (0.35%) IFRS
14 17 (0.29%) HL7
15 14 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
15 14 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 14 (0.24%) SLA
16 13 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 169 (2.84%) Active Directory
2 128 (2.15%) Docker
3 79 (1.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 48 (0.81%) 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
13 4 (0.067%) Squid
14 3 (0.050%) KVM
14 3 (0.050%) SRDF
15 2 (0.034%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 305 (5.12%) Kubernetes
2 273 (4.58%) Terraform
3 102 (1.71%) Ansible
4 54 (0.91%) Grafana
5 46 (0.77%) Prometheus
6 44 (0.74%) 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 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.22%) 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
1 745 (12.51%) Microsoft
2 339 (5.69%) SAP
3 306 (5.14%) ServiceNow
4 304 (5.10%) Oracle
5 261 (4.38%) Databricks
6 192 (3.22%) Salesforce
7 153 (2.57%) Google
8 146 (2.45%) VMware
9 134 (2.25%) Cisco
10 69 (1.16%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.06%) IBM
12 57 (0.96%) CyberArk
13 54 (0.91%) Palo Alto
13 54 (0.91%) Workday
14 45 (0.76%) Foundry
15 44 (0.74%) Ariba
16 43 (0.72%) Splunk
17 42 (0.71%) Red Hat
18 38 (0.64%) Sparx
19 37 (0.62%) OpenAI