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 20 May 2026.

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

6 months to
20 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 5,320 2,871 4,414
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.05% 9.84% 10.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.97% 10.66% 11.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,523 1,857 2,815
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £560
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.44%
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 131 33 91
10th Percentile £46.00 £53.10 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% - -
75th Percentile £78.75 £80.00 £87.23
90th Percentile £95.00 £85.50 £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 44,449 26,943 39,487
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.37% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,215 17,536 25,722
10th Percentile £325 £293 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -3.23%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,895 1,057 2,674
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.31 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £28.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.45% -23.29% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.13 £61.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £77.80 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £27.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +62.96% -32.50% -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 20 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 20 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 20 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 4,543 £620 -0.80% 1,025
UK excluding London +9 2,395 £613 +2.08% 693
London +4 2,172 £625 -3.85% 461
Work from Home +3 1,424 £600 - 528
South East +6 698 £625 - 190
North of England +5 657 £600 - 177
Midlands 0 426 £600 - 87
North West +6 370 £609 +4.46% 98
West Midlands 0 305 £620 +3.33% 57
South West +1 275 £675 +12.50% 95
Yorkshire +6 245 £557 -7.25% 48
East of England +23 202 £569 -9.00% 61
Scotland +14 141 £650 +6.12% 41
East Midlands 0 115 £548 +1.67% 30
North East +6 50 £575 -8.00% 33
Wales -2 30 £600 +25.00% 44
Northern Ireland +3 8 £475 -28.30% 9

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 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 1,616 (30.38%) Security Cleared
2 1,270 (23.87%) Azure
3 1,185 (22.27%) SC Cleared
4 1,102 (20.71%) AWS
5 723 (13.59%) Roadmaps
6 697 (13.10%) Microsoft
7 693 (13.03%) Migration
8 601 (11.30%) Agile
9 588 (11.05%) DevOps
10 581 (10.92%) Stakeholder Management
11 558 (10.49%) CI/CD
12 534 (10.04%) Enterprise Architecture
13 489 (9.19%) AI
14 482 (9.06%) Data Modelling
15 463 (8.70%) Technical Leadership
16 462 (8.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 456 (8.57%) Integration Patterns
18 420 (7.89%) Data Architecture
19 419 (7.88%) TOGAF
20 414 (7.78%) Architectural Patterns
21 412 (7.74%) Analytics
22 400 (7.52%) GCP
23 399 (7.50%) Microservices
24 351 (6.60%) Architectural Design
24 351 (6.60%) Problem-Solving
25 327 (6.15%) Python
26 314 (5.90%) SAP
27 312 (5.86%) DV Cleared
28 310 (5.83%) ServiceNow
29 307 (5.77%) 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
1 124 (2.33%) SharePoint
2 95 (1.79%) Confluence
3 53 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (0.56%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.55%) Apache
6 22 (0.41%) SAS
7 18 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.32%) CMS
9 16 (0.30%) Anypoint
9 16 (0.30%) Appian
10 15 (0.28%) nginx
10 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.24%) OpenStack
11 13 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
12 9 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 9 (0.17%) Camunda
13 7 (0.13%) NetWeaver
13 7 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
13 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 33 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 19 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (0.34%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
7 4 (0.075%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.056%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.056%) Windchill
9 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 136 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (0.77%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 17 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
4 17 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
4 17 (0.32%) SAP ERP
5 15 (0.28%) Teamcenter
5 15 (0.28%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
7 9 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
7 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
8 8 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.13%) SAP BRIM
9 7 (0.13%) SAP EWM
9 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
10 6 (0.11%) NetSuite
10 6 (0.11%) SAP CRM
10 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 1,270 (23.87%) Azure
2 1,102 (20.71%) AWS
3 400 (7.52%) GCP
4 232 (4.36%) Power Platform
5 187 (3.52%) Serverless
6 186 (3.50%) Entra ID
7 173 (3.25%) SaaS
8 130 (2.44%) Microsoft 365
9 122 (2.29%) GitHub
10 108 (2.03%) PaaS
11 107 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
12 102 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
13 90 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
14 80 (1.50%) Amazon S3
14 80 (1.50%) IaaS
15 79 (1.48%) Snowflake
16 74 (1.39%) OpenShift
17 69 (1.30%) Microsoft Purview
18 66 (1.24%) AWS CloudFormation
19 64 (1.20%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 206 (3.87%) Firewall
2 170 (3.20%) Network Security
3 119 (2.24%) WAN
4 113 (2.12%) DNS
5 112 (2.11%) VPN
6 83 (1.56%) LAN
7 63 (1.18%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.73%) BGP
9 37 (0.70%) DHCP
10 29 (0.55%) OSPF
10 29 (0.55%) VLAN
10 29 (0.55%) Wireless
11 28 (0.53%) SAN
12 26 (0.49%) TCP/IP
13 25 (0.47%) MPLS
13 25 (0.47%) NAS
14 22 (0.41%) NX-OS
14 22 (0.41%) Wi-Fi
15 21 (0.39%) BIG-IP
15 21 (0.39%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (3.20%) Power BI
2 138 (2.59%) Metadata
3 133 (2.50%) Data Lake
4 125 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
5 73 (1.37%) SQL Server
6 68 (1.28%) NoSQL
7 67 (1.26%) PostgreSQL
8 49 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
9 43 (0.81%) Tableau
10 40 (0.75%) Big Data
11 34 (0.64%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.55%) Delta Lake
14 28 (0.53%) BigQuery
15 26 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
16 22 (0.41%) Amazon Aurora
16 22 (0.41%) Relational Database
17 21 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
17 21 (0.39%) MongoDB
18 20 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 110 (2.07%) JIRA
2 92 (1.73%) Jenkins
3 61 (1.15%) Git
4 50 (0.94%) GitLab
5 23 (0.43%) ERwin
6 15 (0.28%) SonarQube
7 12 (0.23%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.21%) MLflow
9 10 (0.19%) Bitbucket
10 9 (0.17%) Postman
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) REST Assured
12 5 (0.094%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.094%) JUnit
12 5 (0.094%) Maven
12 5 (0.094%) PowerDesigner
12 5 (0.094%) Selenium
12 5 (0.094%) Sonatype Nexus
13 4 (0.075%) MSI
13 4 (0.075%) Terragrunt
General
1 983 (18.48%) Social Skills
2 798 (15.00%) Finance
3 558 (10.49%) Public Sector
4 294 (5.53%) Banking
5 269 (5.06%) Analytical Skills
6 157 (2.95%) Retail
7 146 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
8 138 (2.59%) Legal
9 111 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
10 95 (1.79%) Telecoms
11 87 (1.64%) Manufacturing
12 72 (1.35%) Military
13 61 (1.15%) Law
14 57 (1.07%) Marketing
15 55 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
16 50 (0.94%) Billing
17 44 (0.83%) Financial Institution
18 35 (0.66%) Investment Banking
19 34 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 33 (0.62%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (4.70%) REST
2 206 (3.87%) Middleware
3 133 (2.50%) SOAP
4 124 (2.33%) .NET
5 110 (2.07%) Kafka
6 87 (1.64%) LDAP
7 86 (1.62%) OpenID
8 84 (1.58%) OAuth
9 63 (1.18%) SAML
10 54 (1.02%) React
11 49 (0.92%) Oracle Fusion
12 48 (0.90%) OAuth2
13 47 (0.88%) RESTful
14 43 (0.81%) SailPoint
15 38 (0.71%) JSON
16 37 (0.70%) Web Services
17 36 (0.68%) AngularJS
18 31 (0.58%) PySpark
19 29 (0.55%) Node.js
20 23 (0.43%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 421 (7.91%) Cloud Native
2 180 (3.38%) Data Centre
3 144 (2.71%) Product Ownership
4 140 (2.63%) Onboarding
5 135 (2.54%) Management Information System
6 117 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
7 113 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
8 112 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
9 95 (1.79%) Public Cloud
10 92 (1.73%) Hybrid Cloud
11 87 (1.64%) Security Posture
12 83 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
13 81 (1.52%) Operational Technology
14 72 (1.35%) CMDB
15 62 (1.17%) AI Agents
16 47 (0.88%) Data Structures
17 43 (0.81%) PKI
18 42 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
18 42 (0.79%) Private Cloud
19 40 (0.75%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 158 (2.97%) Windows
2 110 (2.07%) Linux
3 37 (0.70%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.62%) Android
4 33 (0.62%) Apple iOS
5 23 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (0.43%) Unix
6 12 (0.23%) VMS
7 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
7 11 (0.21%) zOS
8 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.13%) Windows 7
11 3 (0.056%) CentOS
11 3 (0.056%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.056%) Solaris
11 3 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.038%) AIX
12 2 (0.038%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 723 (13.59%) Roadmaps
2 693 (13.03%) Migration
3 601 (11.30%) Agile
4 588 (11.05%) DevOps
5 581 (10.92%) Stakeholder Management
6 558 (10.49%) CI/CD
7 534 (10.04%) Enterprise Architecture
8 489 (9.19%) AI
9 482 (9.06%) Data Modelling
10 463 (8.70%) Technical Leadership
11 462 (8.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 456 (8.57%) Integration Patterns
13 420 (7.89%) Data Architecture
14 419 (7.88%) TOGAF
15 414 (7.78%) Architectural Patterns
16 412 (7.74%) Analytics
17 399 (7.50%) Microservices
18 351 (6.60%) Architectural Design
18 351 (6.60%) Problem-Solving
19 307 (5.77%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 327 (6.15%) Python
2 271 (5.09%) SQL
3 206 (3.87%) Java
4 161 (3.03%) PowerShell
5 84 (1.58%) JavaScript
6 63 (1.18%) C#
7 50 (0.94%) Bicep
8 36 (0.68%) TypeScript
9 34 (0.64%) Bash
10 22 (0.41%) PL/SQL
10 22 (0.41%) Ruby
11 18 (0.34%) Apex Code
12 16 (0.30%) Scala
13 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
15 9 (0.17%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) ABAP
18 6 (0.11%) R
Qualifications
1 1,616 (30.38%) Security Cleared
2 1,185 (22.27%) SC Cleared
3 312 (5.86%) DV Cleared
4 199 (3.74%) Degree
5 114 (2.14%) Azure Certification
6 112 (2.11%) CISSP
7 105 (1.97%) BPSS Clearance
8 104 (1.95%) TOGAF Certification
9 103 (1.94%) AWS Certification
10 93 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
11 79 (1.48%) Computer Science Degree
12 60 (1.13%) CISM
13 53 (1.00%) Master's Degree
14 49 (0.92%) CCNP
15 46 (0.86%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 43 (0.81%) Microsoft Certification
17 37 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 23 (0.43%) CCSP
19 21 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
20 19 (0.36%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 189 (3.55%) NIST
2 166 (3.12%) GDPR
3 143 (2.69%) Data Quality
4 141 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 109 (2.05%) NCSC
6 67 (1.26%) QA
7 39 (0.73%) PCI DSS
8 38 (0.71%) GRC
9 33 (0.62%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 28 (0.53%) COBIT
12 25 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.39%) SEPA
14 20 (0.38%) NIST 800
15 18 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 17 (0.32%) HL7
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
17 13 (0.24%) MiFID
18 12 (0.23%) HIPAA
18 12 (0.23%) SLA
System Software
1 194 (3.65%) Active Directory
2 105 (1.97%) Docker
3 94 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.32%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
6 28 (0.53%) vSphere
7 21 (0.39%) Hyper-V
8 18 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.21%) Varnish
9 11 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
10 10 (0.19%) vCloud
11 9 (0.17%) NFS
11 9 (0.17%) Squid
12 6 (0.11%) Postfix
13 5 (0.094%) RACF
14 4 (0.075%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.075%) Firmware
14 4 (0.075%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.056%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 260 (4.89%) Terraform
2 233 (4.38%) Kubernetes
3 108 (2.03%) Ansible
4 50 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
5 46 (0.86%) Grafana
6 38 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
7 34 (0.64%) Prometheus
8 33 (0.62%) FortiGate
9 28 (0.53%) vCenter Server
10 18 (0.34%) OPNET
11 17 (0.32%) SCCM
12 16 (0.30%) Argo
13 12 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 12 (0.23%) Istio
14 8 (0.15%) Puppet
14 8 (0.15%) WMI
15 7 (0.13%) Consul
16 6 (0.11%) Jamf Pro
16 6 (0.11%) Kibana
16 6 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 697 (13.10%) Microsoft
2 314 (5.90%) SAP
3 310 (5.83%) ServiceNow
4 230 (4.32%) Oracle
5 206 (3.87%) Databricks
6 184 (3.46%) Salesforce
7 182 (3.42%) VMware
8 131 (2.46%) Cisco
9 112 (2.11%) Google
10 89 (1.67%) CyberArk
11 82 (1.54%) MuleSoft
12 63 (1.18%) Splunk
13 51 (0.96%) Workday
14 49 (0.92%) Palo Alto
14 49 (0.92%) Red Hat
15 43 (0.81%) OpenAI
16 42 (0.79%) Sparx
17 40 (0.75%) Ariba
17 40 (0.75%) BeyondTrust
18 37 (0.70%) Citrix