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 May 2026.

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

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +5 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,224 2,870 4,424
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.97% 9.79% 10.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.89% 10.58% 11.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,432 1,876 2,823
10th Percentile £463 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -0.76%
75th Percentile £725 £715 £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 129 35 83
10th Percentile £48.72 £53.70 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.42 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.67 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £73.31 £70.00
% change year-on-year -11.34% +4.73% -

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 43,929 27,125 40,035
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 92.53% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,003 17,719 26,065
10th Percentile £318 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £514 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% -2.10% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,852 1,052 2,665
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £44.00 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.72% -20.55% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.25 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £28.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +62.36% -30.00% -4.76%

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 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 6 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 6 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 +6 4,463 £625 - 1,194
UK excluding London +8 2,397 £613 +2.08% 819
London +6 2,091 £625 -2.34% 495
Work from Home +3 1,415 £600 - 550
South East +5 711 £625 - 197
North of England +5 623 £600 - 206
Midlands +3 431 £591 -1.52% 125
North West +5 355 £609 +1.50% 115
West Midlands -2 314 £608 +1.33% 76
South West +2 299 £698 +16.25% 118
Yorkshire +4 234 £555 -7.58% 52
East of England +21 202 £563 -6.25% 83
Scotland +12 141 £650 +4.00% 33
East Midlands -2 111 £525 -2.78% 49
North East +6 42 £575 -7.95% 39
Wales -11 24 £600 +25.00% 46
Northern Ireland +7 9 £475 -28.30% 18

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 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 1,601 (30.65%) Security Cleared
2 1,249 (23.91%) Azure
3 1,148 (21.98%) SC Cleared
4 1,092 (20.90%) AWS
5 721 (13.80%) Roadmaps
6 698 (13.36%) Microsoft
7 683 (13.07%) Migration
8 627 (12.00%) Agile
9 574 (10.99%) DevOps
10 573 (10.97%) Stakeholder Management
11 553 (10.59%) CI/CD
12 525 (10.05%) Enterprise Architecture
13 487 (9.32%) AI
14 466 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 463 (8.86%) Data Modelling
16 460 (8.81%) Technical Leadership
17 440 (8.42%) TOGAF
18 438 (8.38%) Integration Patterns
19 432 (8.27%) Analytics
20 399 (7.64%) Architectural Patterns
21 397 (7.60%) GCP
22 396 (7.58%) Data Architecture
23 378 (7.24%) Microservices
24 364 (6.97%) Problem-Solving
25 352 (6.74%) Python
26 336 (6.43%) Architectural Design
27 333 (6.37%) DV Cleared
28 318 (6.09%) ServiceNow
29 312 (5.97%) SAP
30 307 (5.88%) Infrastructure as Code

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
1 125 (2.39%) SharePoint
2 111 (2.12%) Confluence
3 57 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (0.56%) Apache Spark
5 28 (0.54%) Apache
6 25 (0.48%) SAS
7 19 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
7 19 (0.36%) CMS
8 16 (0.31%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.31%) Appian
9 15 (0.29%) nginx
9 15 (0.29%) WebLogic
10 14 (0.27%) Palantir Foundry
11 13 (0.25%) OpenStack
12 12 (0.23%) ArcGIS
13 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 8 (0.15%) Camunda
15 7 (0.13%) Ethereum
15 7 (0.13%) Hyperledger
15 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 45 (0.86%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
3 20 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (0.33%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
7 4 (0.077%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.057%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.057%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.038%) Windchill
10 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 138 (2.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 49 (0.94%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
4 19 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
4 19 (0.36%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 15 (0.29%) SAP ERP
7 14 (0.27%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.21%) SAP EWM
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
10 9 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
11 8 (0.15%) SAP MDG
11 8 (0.15%) SAP PP
11 8 (0.15%) SAP QM
12 7 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
12 7 (0.13%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.13%) SAP PM
13 6 (0.11%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 1,249 (23.91%) Azure
2 1,092 (20.90%) AWS
3 397 (7.60%) GCP
4 226 (4.33%) Power Platform
5 187 (3.58%) Serverless
6 181 (3.46%) Entra ID
7 168 (3.22%) SaaS
8 140 (2.68%) Microsoft 365
9 119 (2.28%) GitHub
10 111 (2.12%) PaaS
11 102 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
11 102 (1.95%) Dynamics 365
12 92 (1.76%) AWS Lambda
13 90 (1.72%) IaaS
14 80 (1.53%) Amazon S3
15 79 (1.51%) Snowflake
16 77 (1.47%) OpenShift
17 73 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
18 69 (1.32%) Microsoft Purview
19 66 (1.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 213 (4.08%) Firewall
2 173 (3.31%) Network Security
3 125 (2.39%) WAN
4 114 (2.18%) VPN
5 111 (2.12%) DNS
6 83 (1.59%) LAN
7 68 (1.30%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.75%) BGP
9 30 (0.57%) DHCP
10 29 (0.56%) OSPF
11 28 (0.54%) TCP/IP
12 26 (0.50%) MPLS
13 24 (0.46%) SAN
13 24 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
14 23 (0.44%) VLAN
15 21 (0.40%) NAS
15 21 (0.40%) Wireless
16 20 (0.38%) BIG-IP
16 20 (0.38%) VXLAN
17 18 (0.34%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (3.24%) Power BI
2 137 (2.62%) Metadata
3 132 (2.53%) Data Lake
4 130 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.44%) SQL Server
6 64 (1.23%) NoSQL
7 63 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
8 53 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.80%) Tableau
10 39 (0.75%) Big Data
11 35 (0.67%) Oracle Database
12 33 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
13 30 (0.57%) Delta Lake
14 27 (0.52%) BigQuery
15 25 (0.48%) Relational Database
16 23 (0.44%) DynamoDB
16 23 (0.44%) GIS
17 22 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
17 22 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
17 22 (0.42%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 125 (2.39%) JIRA
2 89 (1.70%) Jenkins
3 62 (1.19%) Git
4 52 (1.00%) GitLab
5 21 (0.40%) ERwin
6 15 (0.29%) Artifactory
7 14 (0.27%) SonarQube
8 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.21%) MLflow
9 9 (0.17%) Postman
10 6 (0.11%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.096%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.096%) JUnit
11 5 (0.096%) MSI
11 5 (0.096%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.096%) Selenium
11 5 (0.096%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.077%) Hudson
12 4 (0.077%) Maven
12 4 (0.077%) Terragrunt
General
1 994 (19.03%) Social Skills
2 775 (14.84%) Finance
3 555 (10.62%) Public Sector
4 290 (5.55%) Banking
5 287 (5.49%) Analytical Skills
6 147 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
7 139 (2.66%) Retail
8 126 (2.41%) Legal
9 112 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
10 91 (1.74%) Telecoms
11 86 (1.65%) Military
12 83 (1.59%) Manufacturing
13 67 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
14 63 (1.21%) Law
15 62 (1.19%) Marketing
16 50 (0.96%) Billing
17 43 (0.82%) Financial Institution
18 35 (0.67%) Investment Banking
19 33 (0.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 30 (0.57%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 241 (4.61%) REST
2 195 (3.73%) Middleware
3 126 (2.41%) SOAP
4 116 (2.22%) .NET
5 109 (2.09%) Kafka
6 87 (1.67%) OpenID
7 85 (1.63%) LDAP
8 80 (1.53%) OAuth
9 62 (1.19%) SAML
10 52 (1.00%) React
11 49 (0.94%) OAuth2
12 45 (0.86%) JSON
13 43 (0.82%) Oracle Fusion
13 43 (0.82%) RESTful
14 41 (0.78%) SailPoint
15 39 (0.75%) AngularJS
16 36 (0.69%) Web Services
17 32 (0.61%) Node.js
18 31 (0.59%) PySpark
19 29 (0.56%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 420 (8.04%) Cloud Native
2 169 (3.24%) Data Centre
3 148 (2.83%) Product Ownership
4 136 (2.60%) Onboarding
5 131 (2.51%) Management Information System
6 114 (2.18%) Legacy Systems
7 112 (2.14%) Enterprise Software
8 106 (2.03%) Distributed Systems
9 100 (1.91%) Hybrid Cloud
10 97 (1.86%) Public Cloud
11 89 (1.70%) Security Posture
12 76 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
12 76 (1.45%) Operational Technology
13 68 (1.30%) CMDB
14 59 (1.13%) AI Agents
14 59 (1.13%) PKI
15 45 (0.86%) Data Structures
16 44 (0.84%) NHS
16 44 (0.84%) Private Cloud
17 41 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 174 (3.33%) Windows
2 117 (2.24%) Linux
3 38 (0.73%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.63%) Android
4 33 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 30 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (0.42%) Unix
7 13 (0.25%) VMS
8 11 (0.21%) Windows 10
8 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (0.21%) zOS
9 9 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.17%) Windows 7
10 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.057%) CentOS
11 3 (0.057%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.057%) Solaris
11 3 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.038%) AIX
12 2 (0.038%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 721 (13.80%) Roadmaps
2 683 (13.07%) Migration
3 627 (12.00%) Agile
4 574 (10.99%) DevOps
5 573 (10.97%) Stakeholder Management
6 553 (10.59%) CI/CD
7 525 (10.05%) Enterprise Architecture
8 487 (9.32%) AI
9 466 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 463 (8.86%) Data Modelling
11 460 (8.81%) Technical Leadership
12 440 (8.42%) TOGAF
13 438 (8.38%) Integration Patterns
14 432 (8.27%) Analytics
15 399 (7.64%) Architectural Patterns
16 396 (7.58%) Data Architecture
17 378 (7.24%) Microservices
18 364 (6.97%) Problem-Solving
19 336 (6.43%) Architectural Design
20 307 (5.88%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 352 (6.74%) Python
2 277 (5.30%) SQL
3 207 (3.96%) Java
4 171 (3.27%) PowerShell
5 77 (1.47%) JavaScript
6 65 (1.24%) C#
7 49 (0.94%) Bicep
8 37 (0.71%) Bash
9 35 (0.67%) TypeScript
10 23 (0.44%) PL/SQL
11 22 (0.42%) Ruby
12 19 (0.36%) Apex Code
13 17 (0.33%) Scala
14 13 (0.25%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.19%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 9 (0.17%) ABAP
17 8 (0.15%) R
17 8 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,601 (30.65%) Security Cleared
2 1,148 (21.98%) SC Cleared
3 333 (6.37%) DV Cleared
4 218 (4.17%) Degree
5 129 (2.47%) TOGAF Certification
6 120 (2.30%) Azure Certification
7 117 (2.24%) CISSP
8 109 (2.09%) AWS Certification
9 98 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
10 93 (1.78%) Cisco Certification
11 87 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
12 62 (1.19%) CISM
13 58 (1.11%) Master's Degree
14 49 (0.94%) CCNP
15 47 (0.90%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 47 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
16 37 (0.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 24 (0.46%) CCIE
18 23 (0.44%) CCSP
18 23 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 191 (3.66%) NIST
2 187 (3.58%) GDPR
3 151 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 149 (2.85%) Data Quality
5 107 (2.05%) NCSC
6 64 (1.23%) QA
7 48 (0.92%) PCI DSS
8 35 (0.67%) GRC
9 29 (0.56%) ISO 20022
10 28 (0.54%) COBIT
10 28 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
11 27 (0.52%) Accessibility
12 20 (0.38%) SEPA
13 18 (0.34%) NIST 800
14 17 (0.33%) HL7
14 17 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 13 (0.25%) FINRA
15 13 (0.25%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.25%) MiFID
16 12 (0.23%) SLA
System Software
1 198 (3.79%) Active Directory
2 109 (2.09%) Docker
3 98 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 73 (1.40%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.61%) vSphere
6 28 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
7 20 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (0.34%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.21%) Varnish
11 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 10 (0.19%) vCloud
12 9 (0.17%) Squid
13 8 (0.15%) NFS
14 5 (0.096%) Postfix
14 5 (0.096%) RACF
15 4 (0.077%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.077%) Firmware
16 3 (0.057%) IAG
16 3 (0.057%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 278 (5.32%) Terraform
2 237 (4.54%) Kubernetes
3 108 (2.07%) Ansible
4 51 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
5 43 (0.82%) Grafana
6 42 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.63%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.57%) OPNET
8 30 (0.57%) Prometheus
8 30 (0.57%) vCenter Server
9 21 (0.40%) SCCM
10 17 (0.33%) Argo
11 14 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.23%) Istio
13 11 (0.21%) WMI
14 8 (0.15%) Puppet
15 7 (0.13%) Consul
16 6 (0.11%) Kibana
17 5 (0.096%) Endace
17 5 (0.096%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 698 (13.36%) Microsoft
2 318 (6.09%) ServiceNow
3 312 (5.97%) SAP
4 221 (4.23%) Oracle
5 199 (3.81%) Salesforce
6 195 (3.73%) Databricks
7 194 (3.71%) VMware
8 130 (2.49%) Cisco
9 113 (2.16%) Google
10 87 (1.67%) CyberArk
11 74 (1.42%) MuleSoft
12 68 (1.30%) Splunk
13 53 (1.01%) Red Hat
13 53 (1.01%) Workday
14 52 (1.00%) Palo Alto
15 51 (0.98%) Sparx
16 47 (0.90%) Remedy
17 45 (0.86%) IBM
18 44 (0.84%) Ariba
18 44 (0.84%) Atlassian