Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £616, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 August 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,995 2,980 3,946
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.18% 9.10% 10.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.09% 9.98% 10.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,972 1,915 2,551
10th Percentile £481 £469 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £616 £625 £646
Median % change year-on-year -1.42% -3.25% -0.62%
75th Percentile £706 £705 £738
90th Percentile £788 £787 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £640
% change year-on-year +3.33% -6.21% -1.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 18 74
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
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 £75.25 £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% -3.34%

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 49,605 29,863 36,126
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.47% 91.22% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,683 18,859 22,977
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
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 3,539 1,568 1,933
10th Percentile £14.99 £13.64 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.21 £19.50
Median hourly rate £41.92 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.68% -41.51% -1.58%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +8 5,022 £620 -0.80% 1,325
London +7 2,585 £625 -2.72% 722
UK excluding London +8 2,495 £620 +3.33% 729
Work from Home +4 1,598 £600 - 673
South East 0 733 £625 +4.17% 159
North of England +4 691 £600 - 205
Midlands +1 414 £625 +8.70% 84
North West +6 405 £600 +0.84% 121
South West +1 315 £648 +1.17% 128
West Midlands 0 300 £644 +7.33% 59
Yorkshire +7 222 £600 -4.00% 63
Scotland +21 161 £625 +0.60% 68
East of England +14 152 £604 +8.83% 44
East Midlands +6 107 £600 +16.50% 25
North East -4 66 £588 -16.07% 22
Wales +4 43 £633 +1.20% 14
Northern Ireland +4 5 £475 -32.14% 34
Channel Islands -3 3 £575 -22.56% 3

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 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 1,840 (30.69%) Security Cleared
2 1,547 (25.80%) Azure
3 1,381 (23.04%) SC Cleared
4 1,312 (21.88%) AWS
5 942 (15.71%) Stakeholder Management
6 893 (14.90%) Roadmaps
7 859 (14.33%) Migration
8 807 (13.46%) Microsoft
9 751 (12.53%) AI
10 744 (12.41%) Enterprise Architecture
11 669 (11.16%) Technical Leadership
12 665 (11.09%) Agile
13 632 (10.54%) DevOps
14 626 (10.44%) CI/CD
15 623 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 619 (10.33%) Data Modelling
17 587 (9.79%) Integration Patterns
18 572 (9.54%) Data Architecture
19 527 (8.79%) Analytics
20 484 (8.07%) GCP
21 472 (7.87%) Architectural Patterns
22 469 (7.82%) TOGAF
23 453 (7.56%) Security Architecture
24 410 (6.84%) Event-Driven
25 399 (6.66%) Microservices
26 381 (6.36%) Data Governance
27 379 (6.32%) Infrastructure as Code
28 370 (6.17%) Cybersecurity
29 359 (5.99%) Decision-Making
30 351 (5.85%) 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 79 (1.32%) SharePoint
2 78 (1.30%) SAS
3 65 (1.08%) Confluence
4 45 (0.75%) Apache
5 43 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 33 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
7 29 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
9 19 (0.32%) CMS
10 18 (0.30%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.12%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.12%) Camunda
11 7 (0.12%) Documentum
12 6 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 6 (0.10%) Appian
13 4 (0.067%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.067%) NetWeaver
13 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
14 3 (0.050%) Drupal
14 3 (0.050%) Tomcat
Applications
1 21 (0.35%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.12%) Revit
6 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.050%) Windchill
8 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
8 1 (0.017%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 161 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 35 (0.58%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
4 17 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
5 14 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
5 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
5 14 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.23%) Teamcenter
6 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
6 12 (0.20%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
8 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
8 9 (0.15%) SAP MDG
9 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
10 7 (0.12%) SAP MM
10 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
11 6 (0.10%) Maximo
11 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,547 (25.80%) Azure
2 1,312 (21.88%) AWS
3 484 (8.07%) GCP
4 310 (5.17%) Power Platform
5 221 (3.69%) SaaS
6 219 (3.65%) Entra ID
7 211 (3.52%) Serverless
8 145 (2.42%) GitHub
9 143 (2.39%) Dynamics 365
10 121 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
10 121 (2.02%) Microsoft 365
11 117 (1.95%) Snowflake
12 112 (1.87%) PaaS
13 100 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
14 86 (1.43%) Amazon S3
15 77 (1.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 77 (1.28%) IaaS
16 70 (1.17%) Azure Data Factory
17 65 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
18 64 (1.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 184 (3.07%) Firewall
2 161 (2.69%) Network Security
3 106 (1.77%) WAN
4 95 (1.58%) VPN
5 83 (1.38%) DNS
6 74 (1.23%) LAN
7 51 (0.85%) SD-WAN
8 49 (0.82%) BGP
9 41 (0.68%) DHCP
10 37 (0.62%) MPLS
10 37 (0.62%) TCP/IP
11 30 (0.50%) VLAN
11 30 (0.50%) VXLAN
12 29 (0.48%) SAN
13 24 (0.40%) NAS
13 24 (0.40%) NX-OS
13 24 (0.40%) OSPF
14 22 (0.37%) Structured Cabling
15 21 (0.35%) Radio Access Network
15 21 (0.35%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 212 (3.54%) Power BI
2 206 (3.44%) Data Lake
3 185 (3.09%) Metadata
4 182 (3.04%) Data Warehouse
5 78 (1.30%) NoSQL
6 56 (0.93%) SQL Server
7 53 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
8 49 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
9 46 (0.77%) Delta Lake
10 45 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
10 45 (0.75%) BigQuery
11 43 (0.72%) Big Data
12 38 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
12 38 (0.63%) Oracle Database
13 29 (0.48%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 25 (0.42%) Relational Database
14 25 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
15 23 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
15 23 (0.38%) GIS
15 23 (0.38%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 81 (1.35%) Git
1 81 (1.35%) JIRA
2 57 (0.95%) Jenkins
3 36 (0.60%) GitLab
4 20 (0.33%) ERwin
5 12 (0.20%) Claude Code
6 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 8 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
8 7 (0.12%) Artifactory
8 7 (0.12%) MLflow
8 7 (0.12%) MSI
8 7 (0.12%) Postman
8 7 (0.12%) RStudio
8 7 (0.12%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.10%) Hudson
9 6 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (0.10%) Storybook
10 5 (0.083%) ER Studio
10 5 (0.083%) Maven
10 5 (0.083%) PowerDesigner
General
1 1,159 (19.33%) Social Skills
2 866 (14.45%) Finance
3 688 (11.48%) Public Sector
4 311 (5.19%) Banking
5 310 (5.17%) Analytical Skills
6 261 (4.35%) Retail
7 154 (2.57%) Influencing Skills
8 137 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
9 136 (2.27%) Manufacturing
10 135 (2.25%) Telecoms
11 112 (1.87%) Legal
12 68 (1.13%) Marketing
13 65 (1.08%) Billing
14 59 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 46 (0.77%) Aerospace
15 46 (0.77%) Law
16 45 (0.75%) Military
17 39 (0.65%) Financial Institution
17 39 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
18 37 (0.62%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 298 (4.97%) REST
2 267 (4.45%) Terraform
3 188 (3.14%) Middleware
4 144 (2.40%) Kafka
5 132 (2.20%) SOAP
6 128 (2.14%) .NET
6 128 (2.14%) OAuth
7 69 (1.15%) Oracle Fusion
8 68 (1.13%) SAML
9 67 (1.12%) OpenID
10 65 (1.08%) JSON
11 63 (1.05%) OAuth2
12 47 (0.78%) PySpark
13 46 (0.77%) RESTful
14 41 (0.68%) React
15 40 (0.67%) XML
16 39 (0.65%) SailPoint
17 37 (0.62%) .NET Framework
17 37 (0.62%) LDAP
18 35 (0.58%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 529 (8.82%) Cloud Native
2 204 (3.40%) Data Centre
3 179 (2.99%) Management Information System
4 160 (2.67%) Onboarding
5 146 (2.44%) Product Ownership
6 145 (2.42%) Distributed Systems
7 143 (2.39%) Hybrid Cloud
7 143 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
8 138 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
9 137 (2.29%) AI Agents
10 102 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
11 93 (1.55%) CMDB
12 84 (1.40%) Public Cloud
13 83 (1.38%) Operational Technology
14 79 (1.32%) Enterprise Cloud
15 64 (1.07%) Security Posture
16 58 (0.97%) Data Structures
17 52 (0.87%) Private Cloud
18 48 (0.80%) IoT
19 43 (0.72%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 122 (2.04%) Windows
2 105 (1.75%) Linux
3 48 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (0.37%) Unix
6 20 (0.33%) Android
6 20 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.12%) VMS
9 7 (0.12%) zOS
10 5 (0.083%) Solaris
11 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.067%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.050%) CentOS
13 2 (0.033%) HPUX
13 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 942 (15.71%) Stakeholder Management
2 893 (14.90%) Roadmaps
3 859 (14.33%) Migration
4 751 (12.53%) AI
5 744 (12.41%) Enterprise Architecture
6 669 (11.16%) Technical Leadership
7 665 (11.09%) Agile
8 632 (10.54%) DevOps
9 626 (10.44%) CI/CD
10 623 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 619 (10.33%) Data Modelling
12 587 (9.79%) Integration Patterns
13 572 (9.54%) Data Architecture
14 527 (8.79%) Analytics
15 472 (7.87%) Architectural Patterns
16 469 (7.82%) TOGAF
17 453 (7.56%) Security Architecture
18 410 (6.84%) Event-Driven
19 399 (6.66%) Microservices
20 381 (6.36%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 285 (4.75%) SQL
2 284 (4.74%) Python
3 273 (4.55%) Java
4 128 (2.14%) JavaScript
5 107 (1.78%) PowerShell
6 53 (0.88%) Bicep
7 51 (0.85%) C#
8 48 (0.80%) Bash
9 47 (0.78%) TypeScript
10 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.35%) Ruby
12 17 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 17 (0.28%) Shell Script
13 13 (0.22%) ABAP
13 13 (0.22%) Kotlin
14 12 (0.20%) C++
15 11 (0.18%) Groovy
15 11 (0.18%) R
16 10 (0.17%) PL/SQL
16 10 (0.17%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,840 (30.69%) Security Cleared
2 1,381 (23.04%) SC Cleared
3 347 (5.79%) DV Cleared
4 165 (2.75%) Degree
5 148 (2.47%) CISSP
6 128 (2.14%) Azure Certification
7 124 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
8 121 (2.02%) AWS Certification
9 103 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
10 81 (1.35%) TOGAF Certification
11 72 (1.20%) CISM
12 69 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
13 46 (0.77%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 45 (0.75%) CCNP
14 45 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
15 42 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 33 (0.55%) Master's Degree
17 32 (0.53%) CCSP
18 22 (0.37%) CISA
18 22 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 238 (3.97%) Data Quality
2 225 (3.75%) NIST
3 180 (3.00%) GDPR
4 177 (2.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 120 (2.00%) NCSC
6 78 (1.30%) GRC
7 55 (0.92%) QA
8 42 (0.70%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.65%) Accessibility
10 33 (0.55%) NIST 800
11 31 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 21 (0.35%) IFRS
12 21 (0.35%) SEPA
12 21 (0.35%) SLA
13 20 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.33%) ISO 20022
14 16 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
14 16 (0.27%) JSP 440
15 15 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 14 (0.23%) HL7
System Software
1 175 (2.92%) Active Directory
2 118 (1.97%) Docker
3 79 (1.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (0.70%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.37%) Hyper-V
7 20 (0.33%) vSphere
8 19 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.13%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Varnish
12 6 (0.10%) Postfix
13 5 (0.083%) vCloud
14 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.067%) KVM
14 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.050%) Ceph
15 3 (0.050%) IAG
15 3 (0.050%) SRDF
16 2 (0.033%) zsh
Systems Management
1 294 (4.90%) Kubernetes
2 105 (1.75%) Ansible
3 52 (0.87%) Grafana
4 44 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
5 43 (0.72%) Prometheus
6 29 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.32%) Argo
8 16 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.22%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.17%) Istio
12 8 (0.13%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.13%) WMI
13 7 (0.12%) SCCM
14 6 (0.10%) CASB
14 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
14 6 (0.10%) NetBackup
15 5 (0.083%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.083%) MOM
15 5 (0.083%) Puppet
Vendors
1 807 (13.46%) Microsoft
2 351 (5.85%) SAP
3 302 (5.04%) Oracle
4 300 (5.00%) ServiceNow
5 286 (4.77%) Databricks
6 196 (3.27%) Salesforce
7 180 (3.00%) Google
8 145 (2.42%) Cisco
9 138 (2.30%) VMware
10 71 (1.18%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.05%) CyberArk
11 63 (1.05%) IBM
12 55 (0.92%) Workday
13 53 (0.88%) Palo Alto
14 46 (0.77%) Foundry
15 43 (0.72%) Ariba
16 42 (0.70%) Adobe
17 39 (0.65%) Red Hat
18 37 (0.62%) Informatica
18 37 (0.62%) Sparx