Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £615, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 5 June 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,399 2,849 4,450
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.99% 9.85% 10.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.91% 10.66% 11.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,554 1,829 2,847
10th Percentile £463 £467 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £558
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -3.85% -1.22%
75th Percentile £725 £719 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £612 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.00% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 141 30 96
10th Percentile £46.00 £51.15 £58.75
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 £82.25 £85.99
90th Percentile £97.50 £88.61 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £73.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -11.26% +4.64% -

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 45,342 26,733 39,846
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.39% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,608 17,258 25,745
10th Percentile £325 £287 £280
25th Percentile £413 £404 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.40% -4.67% -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 3,029 1,088 2,850
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.69 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.69 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +56.04% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.75 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -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 5 June 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 5 June 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 5 June 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 4,591 £620 -0.80% 1,992
UK excluding London +10 2,392 £612 +2.00% 1,120
London +5 2,239 £625 -3.85% 961
Work from Home +3 1,465 £600 - 894
North of England +5 679 £600 - 341
South East +5 677 £625 +1.63% 280
Midlands +1 438 £600 +1.78% 128
North West +6 372 £608 +3.93% 183
West Midlands -1 312 £620 +3.33% 96
Yorkshire +10 256 £555 -7.58% 98
South West -2 238 £650 +7.22% 159
East of England +19 203 £575 -4.17% 86
Scotland +14 154 £650 +4.00% 63
East Midlands 0 120 £573 +11.21% 32
North East +6 58 £575 -4.17% 61
Wales -3 33 £600 +25.65% 48
Northern Ireland +9 7 £475 -28.30% 22
Channel Islands - 3 £575 - 2

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 5 June 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 1,633 (30.25%) Security Cleared
2 1,338 (24.78%) Azure
3 1,215 (22.50%) SC Cleared
4 1,171 (21.69%) AWS
5 752 (13.93%) Migration
6 739 (13.69%) Roadmaps
7 706 (13.08%) Microsoft
8 629 (11.65%) Stakeholder Management
9 623 (11.54%) Agile
10 614 (11.37%) DevOps
11 577 (10.69%) CI/CD
12 537 (9.95%) Enterprise Architecture
13 518 (9.59%) AI
14 513 (9.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 503 (9.32%) Technical Leadership
16 498 (9.22%) Data Modelling
17 478 (8.85%) Integration Patterns
18 444 (8.22%) Data Architecture
19 438 (8.11%) Architectural Patterns
20 426 (7.89%) Analytics
21 413 (7.65%) GCP
22 411 (7.61%) Microservices
23 406 (7.52%) TOGAF
24 362 (6.70%) Problem-Solving
25 351 (6.50%) Architectural Design
26 334 (6.19%) Infrastructure as Code
27 332 (6.15%) Python
28 324 (6.00%) Security Architecture
29 315 (5.83%) Cybersecurity
30 311 (5.76%) Event-Driven

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
1 118 (2.19%) SharePoint
2 79 (1.46%) Confluence
3 52 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
4 36 (0.67%) SAS
5 31 (0.57%) Apache Spark
6 29 (0.54%) Apache
7 20 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
8 18 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
9 17 (0.31%) Anypoint
10 16 (0.30%) Appian
10 16 (0.30%) CMS
11 15 (0.28%) nginx
11 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
12 12 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
14 9 (0.17%) Camunda
15 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
16 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
16 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 23 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 18 (0.33%) MS Visio
3 13 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (0.20%) Microsoft Office
5 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.13%) Revit
5 7 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.074%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.056%) Windchill
8 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.019%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 138 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (0.70%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 17 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.31%) SAP ERP
6 14 (0.26%) Teamcenter
7 12 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 11 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
9 10 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
9 10 (0.19%) Workday HCM
10 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
11 8 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
11 8 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
12 6 (0.11%) SAP SD
13 5 (0.093%) Maximo
13 5 (0.093%) SAP CRM
13 5 (0.093%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,338 (24.78%) Azure
2 1,171 (21.69%) AWS
3 413 (7.65%) GCP
4 243 (4.50%) Power Platform
5 202 (3.74%) Serverless
6 182 (3.37%) Entra ID
7 180 (3.33%) SaaS
8 131 (2.43%) Microsoft 365
9 127 (2.35%) GitHub
10 122 (2.26%) PaaS
11 109 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
12 102 (1.89%) Dynamics 365
13 101 (1.87%) AWS Lambda
14 92 (1.70%) IaaS
15 86 (1.59%) Amazon S3
16 85 (1.57%) Snowflake
17 73 (1.35%) Amazon EKS
18 71 (1.32%) OpenShift
19 67 (1.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 66 (1.22%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 212 (3.93%) Firewall
2 182 (3.37%) Network Security
3 121 (2.24%) WAN
4 118 (2.19%) VPN
5 116 (2.15%) DNS
6 85 (1.57%) LAN
7 65 (1.20%) SD-WAN
8 41 (0.76%) DHCP
9 39 (0.72%) BGP
10 32 (0.59%) SAN
11 31 (0.57%) OSPF
11 31 (0.57%) VLAN
11 31 (0.57%) Wireless
12 30 (0.56%) TCP/IP
13 29 (0.54%) MPLS
13 29 (0.54%) NAS
14 25 (0.46%) Structured Cabling
15 23 (0.43%) NX-OS
15 23 (0.43%) VXLAN
16 21 (0.39%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 176 (3.26%) Power BI
2 142 (2.63%) Metadata
3 140 (2.59%) Data Lake
4 136 (2.52%) Data Warehouse
5 72 (1.33%) NoSQL
5 72 (1.33%) SQL Server
6 71 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
7 44 (0.81%) Azure SQL Database
8 40 (0.74%) Big Data
9 38 (0.70%) Tableau
10 36 (0.67%) Oracle Database
11 32 (0.59%) Amazon RDS
12 31 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
13 28 (0.52%) BigQuery
14 25 (0.46%) Delta Lake
15 23 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
16 21 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
16 21 (0.39%) Relational Database
17 20 (0.37%) DynamoDB
17 20 (0.37%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 95 (1.76%) JIRA
2 90 (1.67%) Jenkins
3 59 (1.09%) Git
4 46 (0.85%) GitLab
5 22 (0.41%) 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%) Snyk
13 4 (0.074%) Terragrunt
General
1 1,012 (18.74%) Social Skills
2 806 (14.93%) Finance
3 593 (10.98%) Public Sector
4 305 (5.65%) Banking
5 261 (4.83%) Analytical Skills
6 175 (3.24%) Retail
7 152 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
8 132 (2.44%) Legal
9 113 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
10 96 (1.78%) Telecoms
11 95 (1.76%) Manufacturing
12 59 (1.09%) Law
13 51 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
14 50 (0.93%) Military
15 49 (0.91%) Marketing
16 48 (0.89%) Billing
17 46 (0.85%) Financial Institution
18 39 (0.72%) Aerospace
19 38 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 35 (0.65%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 267 (4.95%) REST
2 203 (3.76%) Middleware
3 136 (2.52%) .NET
3 136 (2.52%) SOAP
4 110 (2.04%) Kafka
5 95 (1.76%) OAuth
6 94 (1.74%) OpenID
7 91 (1.69%) LDAP
8 72 (1.33%) SAML
9 57 (1.06%) Oracle Fusion
9 57 (1.06%) React
10 56 (1.04%) OAuth2
11 50 (0.93%) RESTful
12 43 (0.80%) SailPoint
13 41 (0.76%) JSON
14 39 (0.72%) AngularJS
15 37 (0.69%) Web Services
16 32 (0.59%) Node.js
16 32 (0.59%) PySpark
17 28 (0.52%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 453 (8.39%) Cloud Native
2 190 (3.52%) Data Centre
3 149 (2.76%) Management Information System
4 142 (2.63%) Onboarding
5 135 (2.50%) Product Ownership
6 124 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
6 124 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
7 122 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
8 108 (2.00%) Hybrid Cloud
9 94 (1.74%) Security Posture
10 91 (1.69%) Public Cloud
11 87 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
12 84 (1.56%) Operational Technology
13 80 (1.48%) CMDB
14 69 (1.28%) AI Agents
15 45 (0.83%) Data Structures
16 44 (0.81%) Private Cloud
17 43 (0.80%) NHS
18 42 (0.78%) Enterprise Cloud
19 41 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 156 (2.89%) Windows
2 106 (1.96%) Linux
3 40 (0.74%) Windows Server
4 35 (0.65%) Android
4 35 (0.65%) Apple iOS
5 26 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (0.41%) Unix
7 11 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
8 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.19%) zOS
9 9 (0.17%) VMS
10 8 (0.15%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.11%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.11%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.093%) Data ONTAP
13 4 (0.074%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.074%) Solaris
14 3 (0.056%) CentOS
14 3 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 752 (13.93%) Migration
2 739 (13.69%) Roadmaps
3 629 (11.65%) Stakeholder Management
4 623 (11.54%) Agile
5 614 (11.37%) DevOps
6 577 (10.69%) CI/CD
7 537 (9.95%) Enterprise Architecture
8 518 (9.59%) AI
9 513 (9.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 503 (9.32%) Technical Leadership
11 498 (9.22%) Data Modelling
12 478 (8.85%) Integration Patterns
13 444 (8.22%) Data Architecture
14 438 (8.11%) Architectural Patterns
15 426 (7.89%) Analytics
16 411 (7.61%) Microservices
17 406 (7.52%) TOGAF
18 362 (6.70%) Problem-Solving
19 351 (6.50%) Architectural Design
20 334 (6.19%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 332 (6.15%) Python
2 277 (5.13%) SQL
3 226 (4.19%) Java
4 165 (3.06%) PowerShell
5 99 (1.83%) JavaScript
6 65 (1.20%) C#
7 58 (1.07%) Bicep
8 43 (0.80%) TypeScript
9 38 (0.70%) Bash
10 22 (0.41%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.39%) Ruby
12 19 (0.35%) PL/SQL
13 15 (0.28%) Scala
14 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) ABAP
17 7 (0.13%) Shell Script
18 6 (0.11%) Perl
Qualifications
1 1,633 (30.25%) Security Cleared
2 1,215 (22.50%) SC Cleared
3 294 (5.45%) DV Cleared
4 192 (3.56%) Degree
5 119 (2.20%) CISSP
6 118 (2.19%) Azure Certification
7 109 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
8 106 (1.96%) AWS Certification
9 104 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
10 84 (1.56%) TOGAF Certification
11 82 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
12 66 (1.22%) CISM
13 54 (1.00%) CCNP
14 50 (0.93%) Master's Degree
15 43 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
16 42 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 36 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 27 (0.50%) CCSP
19 20 (0.37%) DBS Check
20 19 (0.35%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 198 (3.67%) NIST
2 173 (3.20%) GDPR
3 150 (2.78%) Data Quality
3 150 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 110 (2.04%) NCSC
5 71 (1.32%) QA
6 42 (0.78%) PCI DSS
7 40 (0.74%) GRC
8 34 (0.63%) Accessibility
9 30 (0.56%) ISO 20022
10 23 (0.43%) NIST 800
11 22 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
11 22 (0.41%) SEPA
12 19 (0.35%) COBIT
12 19 (0.35%) HL7
13 18 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
14 14 (0.26%) IFRS
15 13 (0.24%) FINRA
15 13 (0.24%) MiFID
System Software
1 193 (3.57%) Active Directory
2 107 (1.98%) Docker
3 104 (1.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.30%) VMware NSX
5 31 (0.57%) vSphere
6 23 (0.43%) Hyper-V
7 19 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 12 (0.22%) Varnish
8 12 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 9 (0.17%) NFS
9 9 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
9 9 (0.17%) Squid
9 9 (0.17%) vCloud
10 7 (0.13%) Postfix
11 5 (0.093%) RACF
12 4 (0.074%) BitLocker
12 4 (0.074%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.056%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 3 (0.056%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 266 (4.93%) Terraform
2 247 (4.57%) Kubernetes
3 111 (2.06%) Ansible
4 51 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
5 49 (0.91%) Grafana
6 39 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (0.72%) Prometheus
7 33 (0.61%) FortiGate
8 28 (0.52%) vCenter Server
9 18 (0.33%) Argo
9 18 (0.33%) SCCM
10 15 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.22%) Istio
12 8 (0.15%) Progress Chef
13 7 (0.13%) Consul
13 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
13 7 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
13 7 (0.13%) Puppet
14 5 (0.093%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.093%) Endace
Vendors
1 706 (13.08%) Microsoft
2 309 (5.72%) SAP
3 287 (5.32%) ServiceNow
4 242 (4.48%) Oracle
5 226 (4.19%) Databricks
6 187 (3.46%) VMware
7 176 (3.26%) Salesforce
8 141 (2.61%) Cisco
9 121 (2.24%) Google
10 87 (1.61%) CyberArk
11 79 (1.46%) MuleSoft
12 71 (1.32%) Splunk
13 55 (1.02%) Palo Alto
14 49 (0.91%) Red Hat
15 43 (0.80%) Workday
16 42 (0.78%) OpenAI
17 41 (0.76%) IBM
18 40 (0.74%) Sparx
19 39 (0.72%) BeyondTrust
19 39 (0.72%) Juniper