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 16 September 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -4 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,102 2,943 3,795
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.24% 8.93% 9.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.18% 9.81% 10.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,053 1,896 2,346
10th Percentile £481 £463 £485
25th Percentile £525 £525 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £630
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -0.79% -3.08%
75th Percentile £700 £715 £738
90th Percentile £785 £788 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £626
% change year-on-year +3.33% -4.15% -1.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 178 15 69
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.17 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.62% - -1.53%
75th Percentile £78.75 £83.75 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -6.67% +1.79% -6.67%

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 50,111 30,002 35,564
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 91.08% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,702 18,956 21,934
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,778 1,570 1,684
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.27 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -2.01%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +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 16 September 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 16 September 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 16 September 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 5,101 £620 -0.80% 5,299
London +7 2,616 £625 -3.85% 3,081
UK excluding London +7 2,554 £620 +3.33% 2,401
Work from Home +6 1,639 £600 - 2,190
South East +3 737 £625 +4.17% 617
North of England +4 686 £599 -0.18% 611
Midlands +2 427 £626 +9.34% 331
North West +6 385 £600 +2.78% 367
South West +1 341 £638 -1.92% 272
West Midlands +1 315 £644 +7.51% 239
Yorkshire +9 239 £563 -6.21% 186
Scotland +23 174 £625 - 279
East of England +11 160 £622 +12.07% 177
East Midlands +6 107 £600 +18.81% 92
North East -3 63 £600 -15.79% 60
Wales +3 42 £633 +1.20% 27
Channel Islands -4 7 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +2 2 - - 95

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 September 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 1,914 (31.37%) Security Cleared
2 1,550 (25.40%) Azure
3 1,436 (23.53%) SC Cleared
4 1,284 (21.04%) AWS
5 1,113 (18.24%) Stakeholder Management
6 942 (15.44%) Roadmaps
7 868 (14.22%) Migration
8 833 (13.65%) Microsoft
9 795 (13.03%) Enterprise Architecture
10 772 (12.65%) AI
11 766 (12.55%) Technical Leadership
12 665 (10.90%) Agile
13 633 (10.37%) DevOps
14 630 (10.32%) Data Modelling
15 620 (10.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 609 (9.98%) CI/CD
17 607 (9.95%) Data Architecture
18 574 (9.41%) Integration Patterns
19 526 (8.62%) Analytics
20 496 (8.13%) TOGAF
21 495 (8.11%) Security Architecture
22 483 (7.92%) GCP
23 464 (7.60%) Architectural Patterns
24 409 (6.70%) Event-Driven
25 403 (6.60%) Microservices
26 401 (6.57%) Data Governance
27 385 (6.31%) Architecture Governance
28 379 (6.21%) DV Cleared
29 376 (6.16%) Cybersecurity
29 376 (6.16%) Decision-Making

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 80 (1.31%) SAS
2 71 (1.16%) SharePoint
3 60 (0.98%) Confluence
4 45 (0.74%) Apache
5 40 (0.66%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
7 34 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
8 23 (0.38%) CMS
9 22 (0.36%) Palantir Foundry
10 16 (0.26%) OpenStack
11 9 (0.15%) NetWeaver
12 7 (0.11%) Documentum
12 7 (0.11%) SAP EP
13 6 (0.098%) Appian
13 6 (0.098%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.082%) Camunda
14 5 (0.082%) Headless CMS
15 4 (0.066%) IIS
15 4 (0.066%) Jupyter
15 4 (0.066%) nginx
Applications
1 18 (0.29%) MS Visio
2 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
4 8 (0.13%) Revit
5 7 (0.11%) Navisworks
6 6 (0.098%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.033%) Windchill
8 1 (0.016%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.016%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.016%) Notion
8 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 168 (2.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 33 (0.54%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.28%) Teamcenter
5 16 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
5 16 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
5 16 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
6 15 (0.25%) SAP ERP
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
8 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.20%) SAP MDG
10 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 7 (0.11%) Maximo
13 7 (0.11%) SAP CRM
14 6 (0.098%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,550 (25.40%) Azure
2 1,284 (21.04%) AWS
3 483 (7.92%) GCP
4 301 (4.93%) Power Platform
5 235 (3.85%) SaaS
6 213 (3.49%) Entra ID
7 196 (3.21%) Serverless
8 146 (2.39%) Dynamics 365
9 143 (2.34%) GitHub
10 134 (2.20%) Microsoft 365
11 124 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
12 116 (1.90%) Snowflake
13 101 (1.66%) PaaS
14 90 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
15 80 (1.31%) Amazon S3
16 73 (1.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 70 (1.15%) OCI
18 69 (1.13%) IaaS
19 64 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
19 64 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 161 (2.64%) Firewall
2 148 (2.43%) Network Security
3 99 (1.62%) WAN
4 81 (1.33%) VPN
5 76 (1.25%) DNS
6 68 (1.11%) LAN
7 47 (0.77%) SD-WAN
8 45 (0.74%) BGP
9 40 (0.66%) MPLS
10 37 (0.61%) DHCP
11 36 (0.59%) TCP/IP
12 29 (0.48%) VLAN
13 26 (0.43%) SAN
14 25 (0.41%) VXLAN
15 21 (0.34%) Wireless
16 20 (0.33%) BIG-IP
16 20 (0.33%) NAS
16 20 (0.33%) NX-OS
16 20 (0.33%) OSPF
17 19 (0.31%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 218 (3.57%) Metadata
2 211 (3.46%) Data Lake
3 191 (3.13%) Power BI
4 187 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
5 66 (1.08%) NoSQL
6 50 (0.82%) BigQuery
6 50 (0.82%) SQL Server
7 48 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
8 47 (0.77%) PostgreSQL
9 40 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
9 40 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
9 40 (0.66%) Delta Lake
10 37 (0.61%) Oracle Database
11 35 (0.57%) Big Data
12 32 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 30 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
14 26 (0.43%) Relational Database
15 22 (0.36%) MongoDB
16 21 (0.34%) Snowflake Schema
16 21 (0.34%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 83 (1.36%) JIRA
2 73 (1.20%) Git
3 61 (1.00%) Jenkins
4 41 (0.67%) GitLab
5 18 (0.29%) ERwin
6 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.15%) MSI
7 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
7 9 (0.15%) RStudio
8 8 (0.13%) Postman
9 7 (0.11%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.11%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.098%) Hudson
10 6 (0.098%) Storybook
11 5 (0.082%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.082%) Maven
11 5 (0.082%) MLflow
11 5 (0.082%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.082%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,239 (20.30%) Social Skills
2 878 (14.39%) Finance
3 696 (11.41%) Public Sector
4 318 (5.21%) Banking
5 291 (4.77%) Analytical Skills
6 274 (4.49%) Retail
7 171 (2.80%) Influencing Skills
8 149 (2.44%) Manufacturing
9 139 (2.28%) Documentation Skills
10 131 (2.15%) Telecoms
11 117 (1.92%) Legal
12 72 (1.18%) Marketing
13 64 (1.05%) Billing
14 59 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 55 (0.90%) Military
16 54 (0.88%) Aerospace
17 41 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
18 37 (0.61%) Law
18 37 (0.61%) Police
19 36 (0.59%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 292 (4.79%) REST
2 257 (4.21%) Terraform
3 178 (2.92%) Middleware
4 157 (2.57%) Kafka
5 137 (2.25%) SOAP
6 125 (2.05%) .NET
7 119 (1.95%) OAuth
8 74 (1.21%) Oracle Fusion
9 70 (1.15%) JSON
10 65 (1.07%) OpenID
11 64 (1.05%) SAML
12 58 (0.95%) OAuth2
13 55 (0.90%) LDAP
14 48 (0.79%) PySpark
15 46 (0.75%) XML
16 45 (0.74%) RESTful
17 40 (0.66%) .NET Framework
17 40 (0.66%) SailPoint
18 38 (0.62%) React
19 34 (0.56%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 510 (8.36%) Cloud Native
2 190 (3.11%) Data Centre
3 175 (2.87%) Management Information System
3 175 (2.87%) Onboarding
4 149 (2.44%) Product Ownership
5 145 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
6 141 (2.31%) AI Agents
6 141 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
7 140 (2.29%) Hybrid Cloud
8 135 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
9 97 (1.59%) CMDB
10 94 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
11 92 (1.51%) Operational Technology
12 87 (1.43%) Public Cloud
13 80 (1.31%) Enterprise Cloud
14 66 (1.08%) Private Cloud
15 59 (0.97%) Security Posture
16 58 (0.95%) Data Structures
17 47 (0.77%) Taxonomies
18 46 (0.75%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 124 (2.03%) Windows
2 104 (1.70%) Linux
3 50 (0.82%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (0.39%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
6 9 (0.15%) Android
6 9 (0.15%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.098%) zOS
9 5 (0.082%) Solaris
10 4 (0.066%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.066%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.066%) VMS
11 3 (0.049%) CentOS
12 2 (0.033%) HPUX
12 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.033%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,113 (18.24%) Stakeholder Management
2 942 (15.44%) Roadmaps
3 868 (14.22%) Migration
4 795 (13.03%) Enterprise Architecture
5 772 (12.65%) AI
6 766 (12.55%) Technical Leadership
7 665 (10.90%) Agile
8 633 (10.37%) DevOps
9 630 (10.32%) Data Modelling
10 620 (10.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 609 (9.98%) CI/CD
12 607 (9.95%) Data Architecture
13 574 (9.41%) Integration Patterns
14 526 (8.62%) Analytics
15 496 (8.13%) TOGAF
16 495 (8.11%) Security Architecture
17 464 (7.60%) Architectural Patterns
18 409 (6.70%) Event-Driven
19 403 (6.60%) Microservices
20 401 (6.57%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 262 (4.29%) Python
1 262 (4.29%) SQL
2 261 (4.28%) Java
3 129 (2.11%) JavaScript
4 109 (1.79%) PowerShell
5 54 (0.88%) TypeScript
6 50 (0.82%) C#
7 47 (0.77%) Bash
8 43 (0.70%) Bicep
9 33 (0.54%) Apex Code
10 23 (0.38%) ABAP
11 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 16 (0.26%) Ruby
11 16 (0.26%) Shell Script
12 11 (0.18%) Groovy
12 11 (0.18%) R
13 10 (0.16%) C++
13 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
14 9 (0.15%) Rust
15 7 (0.11%) BeanShell
Qualifications
1 1,914 (31.37%) Security Cleared
2 1,436 (23.53%) SC Cleared
3 379 (6.21%) DV Cleared
4 164 (2.69%) Degree
5 156 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
6 154 (2.52%) CISSP
7 117 (1.92%) Azure Certification
8 113 (1.85%) AWS Certification
9 108 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
10 90 (1.47%) TOGAF Certification
11 71 (1.16%) CISM
12 66 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
13 50 (0.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 48 (0.79%) Microsoft Certification
15 42 (0.69%) CCNP
16 40 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 37 (0.61%) CCSP
18 31 (0.51%) Master's Degree
19 24 (0.39%) CISA
20 22 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 253 (4.15%) Data Quality
2 232 (3.80%) NIST
3 197 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 162 (2.65%) GDPR
5 121 (1.98%) NCSC
6 82 (1.34%) GRC
7 61 (1.00%) QA
8 41 (0.67%) PCI DSS
9 38 (0.62%) Accessibility
10 33 (0.54%) NIST 800
11 32 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 24 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
12 24 (0.39%) SLA
13 22 (0.36%) SEPA
14 21 (0.34%) IFRS
14 21 (0.34%) ISO 20022
15 18 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 18 (0.29%) JSP 440
16 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
16 14 (0.23%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 186 (3.05%) Active Directory
2 109 (1.79%) Docker
3 82 (1.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 45 (0.74%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.36%) vSphere
7 20 (0.33%) Hyper-V
8 18 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 15 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.098%) NFS
11 4 (0.066%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.066%) KVM
11 4 (0.066%) Postfix
11 4 (0.066%) Varnish
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.049%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.049%) SRDF
12 3 (0.049%) vCloud
13 2 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 297 (4.87%) Kubernetes
2 103 (1.69%) Ansible
3 50 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
4 47 (0.77%) Grafana
5 38 (0.62%) Prometheus
6 28 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.29%) Argo
8 14 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 11 (0.18%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.16%) WMI
11 9 (0.15%) FortiGate
11 9 (0.15%) Istio
12 8 (0.13%) CASB
13 7 (0.11%) NetBackup
13 7 (0.11%) SCCM
14 6 (0.098%) Puppet
15 5 (0.082%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.082%) Progress Chef
16 4 (0.066%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 833 (13.65%) Microsoft
2 354 (5.80%) SAP
3 307 (5.03%) ServiceNow
4 305 (5.00%) Oracle
5 290 (4.75%) Databricks
6 206 (3.38%) Salesforce
7 195 (3.20%) Google
8 149 (2.44%) Cisco
9 143 (2.34%) VMware
10 84 (1.38%) CyberArk
11 77 (1.26%) MuleSoft
12 62 (1.02%) IBM
13 55 (0.90%) Workday
14 53 (0.87%) Palo Alto
15 50 (0.82%) Foundry
16 40 (0.66%) Informatica
17 39 (0.64%) Ariba
18 38 (0.62%) Adobe
19 36 (0.59%) OpenAI
19 36 (0.59%) Splunk