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 2 December 2025.

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

6 months to
2 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 15 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 +2 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,226 3,490 4,190
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.97% 9.78% 9.22%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.86% 10.54% 9.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,180 2,085 2,841
10th Percentile £462 £485 £500
25th Percentile £525 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £738 £725
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £609 £625 £628
% change year-on-year -2.56% -0.48% -3.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 23 37
10th Percentile £63.50 £60.30 £57.50
25th Percentile £66.25 £62.00 £70.00
Median hourly rate £83.82 £67.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +24.18% -11.80% +9.33%
75th Percentile £95.00 £86.64 £80.00
90th Percentile - £89.50 £90.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.82 £66.75 £76.53
% change year-on-year +25.57% -12.78% +9.33%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 32,727 33,118 42,499
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.97% 92.81% 93.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,756 20,117 28,647
10th Percentile £284 £300 £294
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £645
90th Percentile £724 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -4.14% -0.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,905 1,179 1,517
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.32 £15.21
25th Percentile £17.96 £20.63 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.45% +44.26%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.61 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +78.00%

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025. 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 -4 2,790 £625 - 1,272
UK excluding London -4 1,533 £609 -2.56% 1,065
London -3 1,270 £630 - 423
Work from Home -4 1,026 £614 -1.76% 852
South East +4 495 £600 -4.00% 485
North of England -7 368 £600 -2.32% 186
South West +3 257 £700 +7.69% 116
Midlands -7 229 £575 -4.17% 133
North West -8 219 £600 -2.32% 107
West Midlands -12 170 £600 - 84
Yorkshire -15 130 £606 +3.19% 62
Scotland -10 90 £600 -4.00% 38
East of England -5 83 £553 -7.92% 98
East Midlands -3 59 £500 -9.09% 47
Wales -4 23 £625 +0.40% 26
North East -4 20 £700 +12.13% 17
Northern Ireland -8 6 £550 -8.33% 5
Channel Islands - 6 £743 - 1

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 December 2025, 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.

1 994 (30.81%) Security Cleared
2 905 (28.05%) Azure
3 721 (22.35%) AWS
4 681 (21.11%) SC Cleared
5 506 (15.69%) Roadmaps
6 488 (15.13%) Microsoft
7 464 (14.38%) Agile
8 445 (13.79%) Stakeholder Management
9 386 (11.97%) Migration
10 384 (11.90%) TOGAF
11 371 (11.50%) Enterprise Architecture
12 358 (11.10%) DevOps
13 355 (11.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 345 (10.69%) Data Modelling
15 339 (10.51%) CI/CD
16 321 (9.95%) Problem-Solving
17 301 (9.33%) Technical Leadership
18 269 (8.34%) Microservices
19 267 (8.28%) GCP
20 264 (8.18%) AI
21 255 (7.90%) Terraform
22 250 (7.75%) Analytics
22 250 (7.75%) Python
23 239 (7.41%) Data Architecture
24 227 (7.04%) DV Cleared
25 210 (6.51%) Mentoring
26 207 (6.42%) Data Governance
27 205 (6.35%) Security Architecture
28 202 (6.26%) Cybersecurity
28 202 (6.26%) Firewall

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 99 (3.07%) Confluence
2 52 (1.61%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.21%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.84%) SAS
5 20 (0.62%) Apache Spark
6 19 (0.59%) Apache
7 17 (0.53%) CMS
8 16 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.50%) OpenStack
9 14 (0.43%) ArcGIS
10 13 (0.40%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.28%) Anypoint
11 9 (0.28%) Mule
12 7 (0.22%) WebSphere
13 6 (0.19%) Ethereum
13 6 (0.19%) Hyperledger
13 6 (0.19%) Smallworld
14 5 (0.15%) GeoServer
14 5 (0.15%) Jupyter
15 4 (0.12%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 42 (1.30%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.96%) Microsoft Project
3 24 (0.74%) MS Visio
4 22 (0.68%) Microsoft Excel
5 19 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.31%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.093%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.093%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.031%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.031%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.031%) Revit
8 1 (0.031%) Trello
Business Applications
1 89 (2.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 30 (0.93%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 20 (0.62%) Salesforce CRM
5 19 (0.59%) Workday HCM
6 18 (0.56%) Maximo
6 18 (0.56%) Payment Gateway
7 15 (0.46%) SAP PM
8 13 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 13 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
8 13 (0.40%) SAP CO
9 12 (0.37%) SAP FI
9 12 (0.37%) Teamcenter
10 11 (0.34%) SAP FI/CO
11 9 (0.28%) Endur
12 8 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
13 7 (0.22%) Aladdin
13 7 (0.22%) SAP ERP
13 7 (0.22%) SAP EWM
13 7 (0.22%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 905 (28.05%) Azure
2 721 (22.35%) AWS
3 267 (8.28%) GCP
4 148 (4.59%) SaaS
5 140 (4.34%) Power Platform
6 119 (3.69%) Serverless
7 106 (3.29%) Entra ID
8 93 (2.88%) Microsoft 365
9 85 (2.63%) IaaS
10 83 (2.57%) GitHub
11 82 (2.54%) Dynamics 365
12 73 (2.26%) AWS Lambda
13 70 (2.17%) PaaS
14 65 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
15 61 (1.89%) Amazon S3
16 60 (1.86%) Snowflake
17 57 (1.77%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 54 (1.67%) AWS CloudFormation
18 54 (1.67%) Azure Data Factory
19 52 (1.61%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 202 (6.26%) Firewall
2 102 (3.16%) WAN
3 99 (3.07%) Network Security
4 88 (2.73%) LAN
5 77 (2.39%) VPN
6 69 (2.14%) SD-WAN
7 68 (2.11%) DNS
8 39 (1.21%) Wi-Fi
9 36 (1.12%) BGP
10 26 (0.81%) MPLS
10 26 (0.81%) SAN
11 25 (0.77%) Cisco Nexus
11 25 (0.77%) DHCP
12 22 (0.68%) SSL
13 21 (0.65%) VSAN
14 19 (0.59%) Internet
15 17 (0.53%) VLAN
16 15 (0.46%) OSPF
17 14 (0.43%) iSCSI
18 13 (0.40%) Fibre Channel
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (3.60%) Data Warehouse
2 94 (2.91%) Power BI
3 88 (2.73%) Metadata
4 74 (2.29%) Data Lake
5 65 (2.01%) PostgreSQL
6 61 (1.89%) SQL Server
7 42 (1.30%) NoSQL
8 39 (1.21%) Amazon Redshift
9 30 (0.93%) DynamoDB
9 30 (0.93%) MongoDB
10 29 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
11 28 (0.87%) BigQuery
12 27 (0.84%) Oracle Database
12 27 (0.84%) Tableau
13 25 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
13 25 (0.77%) Big Data
13 25 (0.77%) Relational Database
14 23 (0.71%) Delta Lake
15 22 (0.68%) Amazon Athena
16 19 (0.59%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 122 (3.78%) JIRA
2 71 (2.20%) Jenkins
3 56 (1.74%) Git
4 39 (1.21%) GitLab
5 20 (0.62%) ERwin
6 12 (0.37%) CircleCI
6 12 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.25%) Artifactory
7 8 (0.25%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.22%) MLflow
9 6 (0.19%) Bitbucket
9 6 (0.19%) Maven
10 5 (0.15%) ER Studio
10 5 (0.15%) Gradle
10 5 (0.15%) MSI
10 5 (0.15%) Rational DOORS
10 5 (0.15%) SonarLint
10 5 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.093%) Postman
11 3 (0.093%) PowerDesigner
General
1 867 (26.88%) Social Skills
2 543 (16.83%) Finance
3 409 (12.68%) Public Sector
4 267 (8.28%) Analytical Skills
5 191 (5.92%) Banking
6 95 (2.94%) Telecoms
7 82 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
7 82 (2.54%) Retail
8 70 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
8 70 (2.17%) Manufacturing
9 69 (2.14%) Legal
9 69 (2.14%) Marketing
10 68 (2.11%) Presentation Skills
11 58 (1.80%) Military
12 43 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 39 (1.21%) Financial Institution
14 30 (0.93%) Billing
15 26 (0.81%) Back Office
16 22 (0.68%) Aerospace
17 19 (0.59%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (4.65%) REST
2 90 (2.79%) Middleware
3 80 (2.48%) .NET
4 79 (2.45%) SOAP
5 65 (2.01%) Kafka
6 61 (1.89%) JSON
7 56 (1.74%) OAuth
8 52 (1.61%) RESTful
9 46 (1.43%) SAML
10 39 (1.21%) Lightning Web Components
10 39 (1.21%) Web Services
11 38 (1.18%) AngularJS
11 38 (1.18%) React
12 34 (1.05%) OAuth2
13 31 (0.96%) Node.js
13 31 (0.96%) OpenID
13 31 (0.96%) RabbitMQ
14 27 (0.84%) Oracle Fusion
14 27 (0.84%) Spring Boot
15 26 (0.81%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 253 (7.84%) Cloud Native
2 144 (4.46%) Product Ownership
3 129 (4.00%) Legacy Systems
4 109 (3.38%) Data Centre
5 84 (2.60%) Hybrid Cloud
6 83 (2.57%) Onboarding
7 78 (2.42%) PKI
8 59 (1.83%) Management Information System
9 49 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
11 45 (1.39%) Operational Technology
12 43 (1.33%) CMDB
13 42 (1.30%) Public Cloud
14 41 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
15 40 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
15 40 (1.24%) NHS
16 32 (0.99%) Security Posture
17 31 (0.96%) Data Structures
18 28 (0.87%) SCADA
19 26 (0.81%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 135 (4.18%) Windows
2 96 (2.98%) Linux
3 51 (1.58%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.68%) Windows Server 2019
5 21 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (0.53%) Unix
7 12 (0.37%) Windows 7
8 11 (0.34%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.28%) VMS
10 7 (0.22%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.19%) Android
11 6 (0.19%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.15%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.093%) Solaris
13 3 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.062%) CentOS
14 2 (0.062%) zOS
15 1 (0.031%) MVS
15 1 (0.031%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 506 (15.69%) Roadmaps
2 464 (14.38%) Agile
3 445 (13.79%) Stakeholder Management
4 386 (11.97%) Migration
5 384 (11.90%) TOGAF
6 371 (11.50%) Enterprise Architecture
7 358 (11.10%) DevOps
8 355 (11.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 345 (10.69%) Data Modelling
10 339 (10.51%) CI/CD
11 321 (9.95%) Problem-Solving
12 301 (9.33%) Technical Leadership
13 269 (8.34%) Microservices
14 264 (8.18%) AI
15 250 (7.75%) Analytics
16 239 (7.41%) Data Architecture
17 210 (6.51%) Mentoring
18 207 (6.42%) Data Governance
19 205 (6.35%) Security Architecture
20 202 (6.26%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 250 (7.75%) Python
2 161 (4.99%) SQL
3 157 (4.87%) Java
4 99 (3.07%) PowerShell
5 63 (1.95%) JavaScript
6 57 (1.77%) TypeScript
7 47 (1.46%) C#
8 33 (1.02%) Apex Code
9 32 (0.99%) Bicep
10 31 (0.96%) Bash
11 19 (0.59%) R
12 14 (0.43%) C++
13 13 (0.40%) C
14 11 (0.34%) PL/SQL
15 9 (0.28%) ABAP
16 8 (0.25%) Korn
17 7 (0.22%) Go
17 7 (0.22%) Ruby
17 7 (0.22%) Scala
18 6 (0.19%) DataWeave
Qualifications
1 994 (30.81%) Security Cleared
2 681 (21.11%) SC Cleared
3 227 (7.04%) DV Cleared
4 184 (5.70%) Degree
5 123 (3.81%) CISSP
6 108 (3.35%) AWS Certification
7 99 (3.07%) Azure Certification
8 86 (2.67%) TOGAF Certification
9 66 (2.05%) Cisco Certification
10 64 (1.98%) Computer Science Degree
11 63 (1.95%) Microsoft Certification
12 54 (1.67%) CISM
13 51 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
14 47 (1.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 44 (1.36%) Master's Degree
16 35 (1.08%) CCNP
17 34 (1.05%) CCIE
18 25 (0.77%) ISEB
19 22 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
20 21 (0.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (5.36%) GDPR
2 138 (4.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 133 (4.12%) NIST
4 97 (3.01%) Data Quality
5 62 (1.92%) NCSC
6 53 (1.64%) PCI DSS
7 49 (1.52%) QA
8 33 (1.02%) COBIT
9 30 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 26 (0.81%) Accessibility
11 25 (0.77%) HIPAA
12 24 (0.74%) GRC
12 24 (0.74%) JSP 440
13 23 (0.71%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 19 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
15 15 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 13 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 12 (0.37%) NIST 800
17 12 (0.37%) SOC 2
18 10 (0.31%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 125 (3.87%) Docker
2 121 (3.75%) Active Directory
3 90 (2.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.12%) vSphere
5 30 (0.93%) VMware NSX
6 23 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
7 18 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
8 16 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.43%) NFS
10 13 (0.40%) Hyper-V
11 4 (0.12%) Dovecot
11 4 (0.12%) Postfix
11 4 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 3 (0.093%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.093%) KVM
13 2 (0.062%) GPFS
13 2 (0.062%) Lustre
13 2 (0.062%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.031%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 1 (0.031%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 255 (7.90%) Terraform
2 191 (5.92%) Kubernetes
3 93 (2.88%) Ansible
4 54 (1.67%) Single Sign-On
5 30 (0.93%) OPNET
6 26 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.81%) Prometheus
7 21 (0.65%) Grafana
8 17 (0.53%) SCCM
8 17 (0.53%) vCenter Server
9 14 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 13 (0.40%) WMI
11 9 (0.28%) Argo
12 4 (0.12%) SCOM
13 3 (0.093%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.093%) Istio
13 3 (0.093%) Puppet
13 3 (0.093%) RSA Archer
13 3 (0.093%) vRealize
14 2 (0.062%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 488 (15.13%) Microsoft
2 192 (5.95%) SAP
3 191 (5.92%) ServiceNow
4 171 (5.30%) Salesforce
5 165 (5.11%) Oracle
6 145 (4.49%) VMware
7 120 (3.72%) Cisco
8 98 (3.04%) Databricks
9 92 (2.85%) Google
10 53 (1.64%) Fortinet
10 53 (1.64%) Splunk
11 50 (1.55%) Palo Alto
12 47 (1.46%) Remedy
13 45 (1.39%) Workday
14 42 (1.30%) IBM
15 41 (1.27%) CyberArk
15 41 (1.27%) MuleSoft
16 38 (1.18%) F5
17 36 (1.12%) Atlassian
17 36 (1.12%) Pega