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 May 2026.

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

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,383 2,824 4,437
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.02% 9.86% 10.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.94% 10.68% 11.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,557 1,821 2,851
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £537 £561
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £617 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% -3.85% -0.76%
75th Percentile £725 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 139 30 93
10th Percentile £46.00 £51.15 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.38 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.69 £85.65
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.70 £88.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.91 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.84% +4.15% -

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 45,082 26,443 39,660
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.30% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,504 17,178 25,818
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,000 1,028 2,760
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.80
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.09 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.97 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.98% -23.38% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.63 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.61 £25.30 £40.00
% change year-on-year +72.35% -36.75% -5.88%

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 May 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 May 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 28 May 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 +8 4,600 £620 -0.80% 1,657
UK excluding London +10 2,400 £613 +2.08% 944
London +5 2,229 £625 -3.85% 820
Work from Home +3 1,434 £600 - 793
South East +6 696 £625 +1.63% 251
North of England +4 668 £600 - 258
Midlands 0 436 £600 +0.17% 108
North West +6 371 £608 +4.29% 141
West Midlands 0 314 £620 +3.33% 76
Yorkshire +6 253 £550 -8.33% 72
South West +2 252 £650 +8.33% 137
East of England +19 203 £575 -4.17% 59
Scotland +14 149 £650 +4.00% 62
East Midlands +1 116 £560 +6.46% 32
North East +5 52 £575 -4.17% 47
Wales -5 31 £600 +25.00% 56
Northern Ireland +7 7 £475 -28.30% 21

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 28 May 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 1,628 (30.24%) Security Cleared
2 1,324 (24.60%) Azure
3 1,201 (22.31%) SC Cleared
4 1,149 (21.34%) AWS
5 735 (13.65%) Roadmaps
6 730 (13.56%) Migration
7 707 (13.13%) Microsoft
8 611 (11.35%) Stakeholder Management
9 610 (11.33%) Agile
10 604 (11.22%) DevOps
11 564 (10.48%) CI/CD
12 537 (9.98%) Enterprise Architecture
13 506 (9.40%) AI
14 498 (9.25%) Data Modelling
15 495 (9.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 484 (8.99%) Technical Leadership
17 469 (8.71%) Integration Patterns
18 439 (8.16%) Data Architecture
19 431 (8.01%) Architectural Patterns
20 416 (7.73%) Analytics
21 411 (7.64%) GCP
21 411 (7.64%) TOGAF
22 407 (7.56%) Microservices
23 358 (6.65%) Problem-Solving
24 347 (6.45%) Architectural Design
25 329 (6.11%) Python
26 322 (5.98%) Infrastructure as Code
27 316 (5.87%) Security Architecture
28 308 (5.72%) SAP
29 305 (5.67%) 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
1 121 (2.25%) SharePoint
2 86 (1.60%) Confluence
3 52 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (0.59%) Apache Spark
5 30 (0.56%) Apache
6 28 (0.52%) SAS
7 20 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.30%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.30%) Appian
8 16 (0.30%) CMS
9 15 (0.28%) nginx
9 15 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
9 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.24%) OpenStack
11 9 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
11 9 (0.17%) Camunda
12 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
13 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
13 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 23 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 20 (0.37%) MS Visio
4 14 (0.26%) Microsoft Excel
5 9 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
7 6 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.074%) Chatbot
9 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
9 3 (0.056%) Windchill
10 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 135 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (0.80%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 21 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
5 18 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
6 17 (0.32%) SAP ERP
7 15 (0.28%) Workday HCM
8 14 (0.26%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
10 9 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
10 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
11 8 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
12 7 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
12 7 (0.13%) SAP EWM
12 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
13 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
13 6 (0.11%) SAP SD
14 5 (0.093%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,324 (24.60%) Azure
2 1,149 (21.34%) AWS
3 411 (7.64%) GCP
4 237 (4.40%) Power Platform
5 200 (3.72%) Serverless
6 189 (3.51%) Entra ID
7 177 (3.29%) SaaS
8 130 (2.42%) Microsoft 365
9 124 (2.30%) GitHub
10 114 (2.12%) PaaS
11 107 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
12 101 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
13 97 (1.80%) AWS Lambda
14 86 (1.60%) IaaS
15 84 (1.56%) Amazon S3
16 83 (1.54%) Snowflake
17 73 (1.36%) OpenShift
18 72 (1.34%) Amazon EKS
19 70 (1.30%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 67 (1.24%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 213 (3.96%) Firewall
2 177 (3.29%) Network Security
3 124 (2.30%) WAN
4 117 (2.17%) VPN
5 116 (2.15%) DNS
6 88 (1.63%) LAN
7 66 (1.23%) SD-WAN
8 41 (0.76%) BGP
9 40 (0.74%) DHCP
10 32 (0.59%) OSPF
10 32 (0.59%) SAN
10 32 (0.59%) Wireless
11 31 (0.58%) VLAN
12 30 (0.56%) MPLS
13 29 (0.54%) NAS
13 29 (0.54%) TCP/IP
14 24 (0.45%) Structured Cabling
15 23 (0.43%) NX-OS
15 23 (0.43%) VXLAN
16 22 (0.41%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 172 (3.20%) Power BI
2 141 (2.62%) Metadata
3 140 (2.60%) Data Lake
4 134 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
5 76 (1.41%) SQL Server
6 71 (1.32%) NoSQL
6 71 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
7 50 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
8 42 (0.78%) Tableau
9 40 (0.74%) Big Data
10 35 (0.65%) Oracle Database
11 32 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
12 31 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
13 28 (0.52%) BigQuery
14 26 (0.48%) Delta Lake
15 24 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
16 22 (0.41%) Relational Database
17 21 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
18 20 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
18 20 (0.37%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 100 (1.86%) JIRA
2 92 (1.71%) Jenkins
3 55 (1.02%) Git
4 47 (0.87%) GitLab
5 23 (0.43%) ERwin
6 13 (0.24%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.19%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.17%) Bitbucket
8 9 (0.17%) Postman
9 8 (0.15%) MLflow
10 7 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
12 5 (0.093%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.093%) JMeter
12 5 (0.093%) JUnit
12 5 (0.093%) Maven
12 5 (0.093%) PowerDesigner
13 4 (0.074%) Sonatype Nexus
13 4 (0.074%) Terragrunt
General
1 999 (18.56%) Social Skills
2 804 (14.94%) Finance
3 581 (10.79%) Public Sector
4 302 (5.61%) Banking
5 266 (4.94%) Analytical Skills
6 165 (3.07%) Retail
7 150 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
8 131 (2.43%) Legal
9 116 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
10 98 (1.82%) Telecoms
11 90 (1.67%) Manufacturing
12 64 (1.19%) Military
13 60 (1.11%) Law
14 52 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
15 50 (0.93%) Marketing
16 49 (0.91%) Billing
17 46 (0.85%) Financial Institution
18 36 (0.67%) Aerospace
18 36 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 35 (0.65%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 260 (4.83%) REST
2 198 (3.68%) Middleware
3 136 (2.53%) SOAP
4 133 (2.47%) .NET
5 109 (2.02%) Kafka
6 91 (1.69%) LDAP
7 90 (1.67%) OpenID
8 88 (1.63%) OAuth
9 68 (1.26%) SAML
10 56 (1.04%) React
11 52 (0.97%) Oracle Fusion
12 51 (0.95%) OAuth2
12 51 (0.95%) RESTful
13 43 (0.80%) SailPoint
14 40 (0.74%) JSON
15 37 (0.69%) AngularJS
15 37 (0.69%) Web Services
16 32 (0.59%) Node.js
17 30 (0.56%) PySpark
18 27 (0.50%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 448 (8.32%) Cloud Native
2 188 (3.49%) Data Centre
3 143 (2.66%) Onboarding
4 141 (2.62%) Management Information System
5 140 (2.60%) Product Ownership
6 122 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
6 122 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
7 120 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
8 109 (2.02%) Hybrid Cloud
9 94 (1.75%) Public Cloud
10 91 (1.69%) Security Posture
11 84 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
12 81 (1.50%) Operational Technology
13 77 (1.43%) CMDB
14 66 (1.23%) AI Agents
15 46 (0.85%) Data Structures
16 45 (0.84%) Private Cloud
17 42 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
18 41 (0.76%) Mainframe
18 41 (0.76%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 156 (2.90%) Windows
2 106 (1.97%) Linux
3 38 (0.71%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.63%) Android
4 34 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 25 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (0.41%) Unix
7 11 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
7 11 (0.20%) zOS
8 10 (0.19%) VMS
8 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.11%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.093%) Data ONTAP
13 4 (0.074%) Solaris
13 4 (0.074%) Ubuntu
14 3 (0.056%) AIX
14 3 (0.056%) CentOS
14 3 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 735 (13.65%) Roadmaps
2 730 (13.56%) Migration
3 611 (11.35%) Stakeholder Management
4 610 (11.33%) Agile
5 604 (11.22%) DevOps
6 564 (10.48%) CI/CD
7 537 (9.98%) Enterprise Architecture
8 506 (9.40%) AI
9 498 (9.25%) Data Modelling
10 495 (9.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 484 (8.99%) Technical Leadership
12 469 (8.71%) Integration Patterns
13 439 (8.16%) Data Architecture
14 431 (8.01%) Architectural Patterns
15 416 (7.73%) Analytics
16 411 (7.64%) TOGAF
17 407 (7.56%) Microservices
18 358 (6.65%) Problem-Solving
19 347 (6.45%) Architectural Design
20 322 (5.98%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 329 (6.11%) Python
2 280 (5.20%) SQL
3 215 (3.99%) Java
4 161 (2.99%) PowerShell
5 93 (1.73%) JavaScript
6 63 (1.17%) C#
7 56 (1.04%) Bicep
8 42 (0.78%) TypeScript
9 34 (0.63%) Bash
10 21 (0.39%) Apex Code
11 20 (0.37%) PL/SQL
11 20 (0.37%) Ruby
12 16 (0.30%) Scala
13 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
15 8 (0.15%) VBA
16 7 (0.13%) Shell Script
17 6 (0.11%) ABAP
17 6 (0.11%) R
Qualifications
1 1,628 (30.24%) Security Cleared
2 1,201 (22.31%) SC Cleared
3 302 (5.61%) DV Cleared
4 200 (3.72%) Degree
5 118 (2.19%) Azure Certification
6 116 (2.15%) CISSP
7 107 (1.99%) AWS Certification
7 107 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
8 102 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
9 93 (1.73%) TOGAF Certification
10 81 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
11 65 (1.21%) CISM
12 55 (1.02%) CCNP
13 51 (0.95%) Master's Degree
14 46 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
15 43 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 39 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 25 (0.46%) CCSP
18 20 (0.37%) CCIE
18 20 (0.37%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (3.62%) NIST
2 172 (3.20%) GDPR
3 148 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 146 (2.71%) Data Quality
5 115 (2.14%) NCSC
6 71 (1.32%) QA
7 41 (0.76%) PCI DSS
8 39 (0.72%) GRC
9 34 (0.63%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 27 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.39%) NIST 800
12 21 (0.39%) SEPA
13 18 (0.33%) COBIT
13 18 (0.33%) HL7
13 18 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.24%) FINRA
15 13 (0.24%) IFRS
15 13 (0.24%) SLA
System Software
1 197 (3.66%) Active Directory
2 108 (2.01%) Docker
3 100 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.30%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
5 30 (0.56%) vSphere
6 23 (0.43%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.22%) Varnish
7 12 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
8 10 (0.19%) vCloud
9 9 (0.17%) NFS
9 9 (0.17%) Squid
10 7 (0.13%) Postfix
11 5 (0.093%) RACF
12 4 (0.074%) BitLocker
12 4 (0.074%) Firmware
12 4 (0.074%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.056%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 264 (4.90%) Terraform
2 241 (4.48%) Kubernetes
3 108 (2.01%) Ansible
4 52 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
5 51 (0.95%) Grafana
6 39 (0.72%) Prometheus
7 38 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
8 33 (0.61%) FortiGate
9 29 (0.54%) vCenter Server
10 18 (0.33%) Argo
11 17 (0.32%) SCCM
12 15 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 12 (0.22%) Istio
14 9 (0.17%) OPNET
15 8 (0.15%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.13%) Consul
16 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
16 7 (0.13%) Puppet
17 6 (0.11%) Jamf Pro
17 6 (0.11%) WMI
Vendors
1 707 (13.13%) Microsoft
2 308 (5.72%) SAP
3 302 (5.61%) ServiceNow
4 239 (4.44%) Oracle
5 218 (4.05%) Databricks
6 185 (3.44%) VMware
7 184 (3.42%) Salesforce
8 141 (2.62%) Cisco
9 120 (2.23%) Google
10 91 (1.69%) CyberArk
11 80 (1.49%) MuleSoft
12 67 (1.24%) Splunk
13 53 (0.98%) Palo Alto
14 50 (0.93%) Workday
15 48 (0.89%) Red Hat
16 45 (0.84%) Sparx
17 42 (0.78%) OpenAI
18 40 (0.74%) BeyondTrust
18 40 (0.74%) IBM
18 40 (0.74%) Juniper