Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 March 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,409 3,029 4,448
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.44% 10.18% 9.95%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.35% 10.95% 10.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,920 1,947 2,869
10th Percentile £462 £479 £500
25th Percentile £513 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.52%
75th Percentile £725 £738 £738
90th Percentile £800 £800 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £621 £650
% change year-on-year -3.42% -4.42% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 32 45
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.43 £51.32
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £84.75 £81.00 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.33 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £77.64
% change year-on-year -1.70% -6.61% +10.91%

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 38,836 27,659 41,539
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.95% 92.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,338 17,830 27,237
10th Percentile £310 £294 £270
25th Percentile £409 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,391 872 2,505
10th Percentile £14.82 £15.81 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £34.95 £33.75 £32.69
Median % change year-on-year +3.54% +3.24% -20.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £32.50 £32.90
% change year-on-year +3.08% -1.20% -17.30%

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 9 March 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 9 March 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 9 March 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 +1 3,779 £625 - 939
UK excluding London +7 2,117 £600 -3.42% 785
London -2 1,696 £630 -3.08% 337
Work from Home 0 1,223 £620 -0.80% 472
South East +5 657 £625 - 269
North of England -2 528 £579 -3.50% 155
Midlands -3 379 £576 -3.96% 103
North West 0 289 £600 - 90
West Midlands -1 282 £600 -1.15% 56
South West 0 260 £700 +12.00% 116
Yorkshire +8 218 £560 -2.40% 44
East of England +12 162 £550 -12.00% 68
Scotland +19 139 £650 +4.00% 51
East Midlands -1 93 £519 -7.37% 44
Wales +9 30 £575 +6.48% 27
North East -5 27 £625 - 23
Northern Ireland +4 9 £500 -26.47% 7

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 March 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 1,390 (31.53%) Security Cleared
2 1,129 (25.61%) Azure
3 995 (22.57%) SC Cleared
4 926 (21.00%) AWS
5 645 (14.63%) Roadmaps
6 618 (14.02%) Microsoft
7 571 (12.95%) Migration
8 559 (12.68%) Agile
8 559 (12.68%) Stakeholder Management
9 499 (11.32%) DevOps
10 473 (10.73%) Enterprise Architecture
11 438 (9.93%) CI/CD
12 432 (9.80%) TOGAF
13 422 (9.57%) Data Modelling
14 411 (9.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 391 (8.87%) Technical Leadership
16 386 (8.75%) Analytics
17 379 (8.60%) AI
18 367 (8.32%) Problem-Solving
19 354 (8.03%) Data Architecture
19 354 (8.03%) GCP
20 329 (7.46%) Python
21 327 (7.42%) Integration Patterns
22 314 (7.12%) Microservices
23 299 (6.78%) Architectural Patterns
24 290 (6.58%) DV Cleared
25 272 (6.17%) Terraform
26 261 (5.92%) Architectural Design
27 252 (5.72%) ServiceNow
28 250 (5.67%) Cybersecurity

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
1 119 (2.70%) Confluence
2 116 (2.63%) SharePoint
3 63 (1.43%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (0.75%) SAS
5 24 (0.54%) Apache Spark
6 23 (0.52%) CMS
7 19 (0.43%) Apache
7 19 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.39%) WebLogic
9 16 (0.36%) Anypoint
10 15 (0.34%) Appian
10 15 (0.34%) ArcGIS
11 13 (0.29%) nginx
12 10 (0.23%) OpenStack
13 9 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 9 (0.20%) Smallworld
14 7 (0.16%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
14 7 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 26 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
5 20 (0.45%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.16%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.045%) PlantUML
8 1 (0.023%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.023%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.023%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.023%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.023%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 119 (2.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (0.95%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (0.52%) Workday HCM
4 17 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
5 16 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
6 14 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
7 12 (0.27%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.25%) SAP ERP
8 11 (0.25%) SAP EWM
9 10 (0.23%) SAP PM
10 9 (0.20%) Maximo
10 9 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
12 7 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
12 7 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
12 7 (0.16%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.16%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.16%) Teamcenter
13 6 (0.14%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,129 (25.61%) Azure
2 926 (21.00%) AWS
3 354 (8.03%) GCP
4 170 (3.86%) Power Platform
5 156 (3.54%) Serverless
6 152 (3.45%) Entra ID
7 149 (3.38%) SaaS
8 143 (3.24%) Microsoft 365
9 104 (2.36%) IaaS
10 95 (2.15%) GitHub
11 89 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
12 88 (2.00%) PaaS
13 85 (1.93%) AWS Lambda
14 75 (1.70%) AWS CloudFormation
15 74 (1.68%) Microsoft Purview
16 72 (1.63%) Amazon S3
16 72 (1.63%) OpenShift
17 69 (1.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 68 (1.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 68 (1.54%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 221 (5.01%) Firewall
2 147 (3.33%) Network Security
3 126 (2.86%) WAN
4 115 (2.61%) DNS
5 112 (2.54%) VPN
6 75 (1.70%) LAN
7 71 (1.61%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.86%) BGP
9 31 (0.70%) DHCP
10 29 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
11 28 (0.64%) MPLS
12 26 (0.59%) OSPF
13 25 (0.57%) TCP/IP
14 22 (0.50%) VLAN
14 22 (0.50%) VXLAN
15 21 (0.48%) SAN
16 20 (0.45%) Wireless
17 19 (0.43%) Kerberos
17 19 (0.43%) SSL
18 18 (0.41%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (3.70%) Data Warehouse
2 136 (3.08%) Metadata
3 122 (2.77%) Power BI
4 100 (2.27%) Data Lake
5 82 (1.86%) SQL Server
6 66 (1.50%) PostgreSQL
7 51 (1.16%) Tableau
8 48 (1.09%) Azure SQL Database
9 45 (1.02%) NoSQL
10 39 (0.88%) Oracle Database
11 33 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
12 30 (0.68%) Big Data
13 26 (0.59%) DynamoDB
14 25 (0.57%) GIS
15 24 (0.54%) Amazon Athena
15 24 (0.54%) Relational Database
16 21 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
16 21 (0.48%) Delta Lake
16 21 (0.48%) Metadata Repository
17 19 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 131 (2.97%) JIRA
2 91 (2.06%) Jenkins
3 50 (1.13%) GitLab
4 41 (0.93%) Git
5 22 (0.50%) ERwin
6 11 (0.25%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.18%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.18%) MLflow
9 6 (0.14%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.11%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.11%) Postman
10 5 (0.11%) Selenium
11 4 (0.091%) PowerDesigner
11 4 (0.091%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.091%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.068%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.068%) Maven
12 3 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 984 (22.32%) Social Skills
2 673 (15.26%) Finance
3 534 (12.11%) Public Sector
4 302 (6.85%) Analytical Skills
5 245 (5.56%) Banking
6 144 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
7 100 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
8 98 (2.22%) Legal
9 88 (2.00%) Retail
10 81 (1.84%) Military
10 81 (1.84%) Telecoms
11 78 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
12 67 (1.52%) Marketing
13 62 (1.41%) Manufacturing
14 39 (0.88%) Financial Institution
15 38 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 36 (0.82%) Billing
17 30 (0.68%) Law
18 27 (0.61%) Investment Banking
19 21 (0.48%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 218 (4.94%) REST
2 163 (3.70%) Middleware
3 117 (2.65%) SOAP
4 94 (2.13%) .NET
5 84 (1.91%) Kafka
6 80 (1.81%) OpenID
7 76 (1.72%) LDAP
8 71 (1.61%) OAuth
9 65 (1.47%) SAML
10 50 (1.13%) JSON
11 44 (1.00%) OAuth2
12 43 (0.98%) React
13 40 (0.91%) AngularJS
14 38 (0.86%) RESTful
15 34 (0.77%) Oracle Fusion
15 34 (0.77%) SailPoint
16 30 (0.68%) PySpark
17 27 (0.61%) Node.js
17 27 (0.61%) Web Services
18 22 (0.50%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 318 (7.21%) Cloud Native
2 142 (3.22%) Data Centre
2 142 (3.22%) Product Ownership
3 124 (2.81%) Onboarding
4 118 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
5 99 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
6 93 (2.11%) PKI
7 86 (1.95%) Hybrid Cloud
8 81 (1.84%) Public Cloud
9 77 (1.75%) Management Information System
10 75 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
11 68 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
11 68 (1.54%) Security Posture
12 60 (1.36%) Operational Technology
13 53 (1.20%) CMDB
14 46 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
15 44 (1.00%) Data Structures
16 43 (0.98%) AI Agents
17 35 (0.79%) NHS
18 33 (0.75%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 178 (4.04%) Windows
2 114 (2.59%) Linux
3 37 (0.84%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (0.54%) Android
5 24 (0.54%) Apple iOS
6 16 (0.36%) Windows 7
7 15 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.29%) Unix
9 12 (0.27%) VMS
10 11 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.23%) zOS
12 9 (0.20%) Mac OS
13 8 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
14 6 (0.14%) Ubuntu
15 4 (0.091%) CentOS
16 3 (0.068%) Windows Server 2012
17 1 (0.023%) Data ONTAP
17 1 (0.023%) Kali Linux
17 1 (0.023%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 645 (14.63%) Roadmaps
2 571 (12.95%) Migration
3 559 (12.68%) Agile
3 559 (12.68%) Stakeholder Management
4 499 (11.32%) DevOps
5 473 (10.73%) Enterprise Architecture
6 438 (9.93%) CI/CD
7 432 (9.80%) TOGAF
8 422 (9.57%) Data Modelling
9 411 (9.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 391 (8.87%) Technical Leadership
11 386 (8.75%) Analytics
12 379 (8.60%) AI
13 367 (8.32%) Problem-Solving
14 354 (8.03%) Data Architecture
15 327 (7.42%) Integration Patterns
16 314 (7.12%) Microservices
17 299 (6.78%) Architectural Patterns
18 261 (5.92%) Architectural Design
19 250 (5.67%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 329 (7.46%) Python
2 234 (5.31%) SQL
3 183 (4.15%) PowerShell
4 141 (3.20%) Java
5 64 (1.45%) JavaScript
6 62 (1.41%) C#
7 40 (0.91%) Bicep
8 37 (0.84%) Bash
9 34 (0.77%) TypeScript
10 20 (0.45%) PL/SQL
11 18 (0.41%) Apex Code
12 14 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.29%) R
13 13 (0.29%) Ruby
14 10 (0.23%) Kotlin
14 10 (0.23%) T-SQL
15 9 (0.20%) Scala
16 8 (0.18%) PHP
16 8 (0.18%) VB
17 7 (0.16%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,390 (31.53%) Security Cleared
2 995 (22.57%) SC Cleared
3 290 (6.58%) DV Cleared
4 204 (4.63%) Degree
5 122 (2.77%) TOGAF Certification
6 120 (2.72%) AWS Certification
7 117 (2.65%) CISSP
8 116 (2.63%) Azure Certification
9 80 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
11 76 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
12 63 (1.43%) CISM
13 59 (1.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 56 (1.27%) Master's Degree
15 55 (1.25%) Microsoft Certification
16 49 (1.11%) CCNP
17 33 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
18 30 (0.68%) CCIE
18 30 (0.68%) ISEB
19 29 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (4.08%) GDPR
2 146 (3.31%) Data Quality
3 144 (3.27%) NIST
4 124 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 90 (2.04%) NCSC
6 62 (1.41%) QA
7 58 (1.32%) PCI DSS
8 35 (0.79%) COBIT
9 33 (0.75%) Accessibility
9 33 (0.75%) GRC
10 27 (0.61%) ISO 20022
11 25 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.45%) JSP 440
13 18 (0.41%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 16 (0.36%) HIPAA
15 15 (0.34%) MiFID
16 14 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 13 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
17 13 (0.29%) FINRA
18 12 (0.27%) PSD2
System Software
1 182 (4.13%) Active Directory
2 123 (2.79%) Docker
3 93 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 68 (1.54%) VMware NSX
5 35 (0.79%) vSphere
6 21 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
9 11 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.20%) Varnish
11 8 (0.18%) Squid
12 7 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 7 (0.16%) vCloud
13 5 (0.11%) RACF
14 4 (0.091%) Firmware
14 4 (0.091%) NFS
15 3 (0.068%) Ceph
15 3 (0.068%) IAG
15 3 (0.068%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 272 (6.17%) Terraform
2 221 (5.01%) Kubernetes
3 115 (2.61%) Ansible
4 55 (1.25%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
6 32 (0.73%) FortiGate
7 30 (0.68%) OPNET
7 30 (0.68%) vCenter Server
8 27 (0.61%) Grafana
9 23 (0.52%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.50%) SCCM
11 17 (0.39%) Argo
12 16 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 15 (0.34%) WMI
14 10 (0.23%) Istio
15 7 (0.16%) Consul
16 6 (0.14%) Kibana
16 6 (0.14%) Puppet
17 5 (0.11%) Progress Chef
18 4 (0.091%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 618 (14.02%) Microsoft
2 252 (5.72%) ServiceNow
3 240 (5.44%) SAP
4 200 (4.54%) Oracle
5 181 (4.11%) Salesforce
6 175 (3.97%) VMware
7 142 (3.22%) Databricks
8 129 (2.93%) Cisco
9 107 (2.43%) Google
10 92 (2.09%) CyberArk
11 68 (1.54%) MuleSoft
12 64 (1.45%) Palo Alto
12 64 (1.45%) Splunk
13 51 (1.16%) Red Hat
14 49 (1.11%) Centrify
14 49 (1.11%) Remedy
14 49 (1.11%) Workday
15 48 (1.09%) Atlassian
16 43 (0.98%) IBM
17 41 (0.93%) Sparx