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 3 October 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 20 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,157 2,931 3,726
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.22% 8.84% 9.80%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.18% 9.73% 10.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,069 1,905 2,234
10th Percentile £481 £463 £480
25th Percentile £530 £525 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £715 £738
90th Percentile £785 £783 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -2.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 14 66
10th Percentile £40.00 £59.05 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.44 £61.56
Median hourly rate £68.50 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.52% +3.57% -2.78%
75th Percentile £80.00 £95.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -6.67%

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 50,556 30,128 35,360
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.16% 90.91% 92.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,767 19,028 21,436
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £636 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,987 1,619 1,546
10th Percentile £14.45 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.78 £17.27 £20.75
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.96
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.45% -3.47%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.31 £74.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.00 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.50% -41.69% -2.27%

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 3 October 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 3 October 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 3 October 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 5,105 £620 -0.80% 4,642
London +7 2,625 £625 -3.40% 2,696
UK excluding London +7 2,570 £620 +3.33% 2,128
Work from Home +6 1,649 £600 - 1,870
South East +3 723 £625 +4.17% 586
North of England +2 678 £600 - 497
Midlands +4 448 £627 +8.96% 286
North West +4 368 £598 +4.00% 269
South West +4 346 £638 -1.92% 254
West Midlands +6 335 £650 +8.33% 213
Yorkshire +14 245 £600 -1.03% 170
Scotland +20 188 £625 +4.17% 215
East of England +6 155 £618 +9.89% 186
East Midlands +3 108 £600 +20.00% 73
North East -3 68 £625 -15.25% 58
Wales +6 44 £640 +2.40% 42
Channel Islands 0 11 £700 -5.72% 1
Northern Ireland +4 2 - - 71

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 3 October 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 1,944 (31.57%) Security Cleared
2 1,580 (25.66%) Azure
3 1,464 (23.78%) SC Cleared
4 1,275 (20.71%) AWS
5 1,189 (19.31%) Stakeholder Management
6 994 (16.14%) Roadmaps
7 891 (14.47%) Migration
8 831 (13.50%) Microsoft
9 804 (13.06%) Enterprise Architecture
10 798 (12.96%) AI
11 779 (12.65%) Technical Leadership
12 653 (10.61%) Agile
13 636 (10.33%) DevOps
14 626 (10.17%) Data Architecture
15 623 (10.12%) Data Modelling
16 616 (10.00%) CI/CD
17 613 (9.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 568 (9.23%) Integration Patterns
19 524 (8.51%) Analytics
20 499 (8.10%) Security Architecture
21 496 (8.06%) GCP
22 481 (7.81%) TOGAF
23 462 (7.50%) Architectural Patterns
24 427 (6.94%) Event-Driven
25 406 (6.59%) Data Governance
26 399 (6.48%) Architecture Governance
27 395 (6.42%) Decision-Making
28 388 (6.30%) DV Cleared
29 387 (6.29%) Microservices
30 380 (6.17%) 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 77 (1.25%) SAS
2 67 (1.09%) SharePoint
3 59 (0.96%) Confluence
4 45 (0.73%) Apache Spark
5 44 (0.71%) Apache
6 36 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
7 34 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
8 25 (0.41%) CMS
9 19 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
10 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.11%) Documentum
11 7 (0.11%) IIS
11 7 (0.11%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.097%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.097%) Headless CMS
12 6 (0.097%) JBoss
13 5 (0.081%) Appian
13 5 (0.081%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.065%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.049%) nginx
Applications
1 24 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 17 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.15%) Chatbot
5 9 (0.15%) Revit
6 7 (0.11%) Navisworks
7 5 (0.081%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.032%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.032%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.016%) Notion
9 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
9 1 (0.016%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 189 (3.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.52%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
4 17 (0.28%) Teamcenter
5 16 (0.26%) SAP MM
6 15 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
8 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
9 12 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) SAP CO
11 9 (0.15%) SAP FI
11 9 (0.15%) Workday HCM
12 8 (0.13%) SAP ERP
12 8 (0.13%) SAP FI/CO
12 8 (0.13%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,580 (25.66%) Azure
2 1,275 (20.71%) AWS
3 496 (8.06%) GCP
4 288 (4.68%) Power Platform
5 237 (3.85%) SaaS
6 218 (3.54%) Entra ID
7 185 (3.00%) Serverless
8 148 (2.40%) GitHub
9 135 (2.19%) Microsoft 365
10 130 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
11 128 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
12 113 (1.84%) Snowflake
13 92 (1.49%) PaaS
14 82 (1.33%) AWS Lambda
15 77 (1.25%) Amazon S3
16 76 (1.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 75 (1.22%) OCI
18 66 (1.07%) IaaS
19 65 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
20 63 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 161 (2.61%) Firewall
2 149 (2.42%) Network Security
3 100 (1.62%) WAN
4 74 (1.20%) VPN
5 65 (1.06%) DNS
6 62 (1.01%) LAN
7 48 (0.78%) BGP
8 47 (0.76%) SD-WAN
9 40 (0.65%) MPLS
10 33 (0.54%) DHCP
11 31 (0.50%) TCP/IP
12 28 (0.45%) VXLAN
13 25 (0.41%) VLAN
14 23 (0.37%) NX-OS
14 23 (0.37%) SAN
15 20 (0.32%) NGFW
16 19 (0.31%) VoIP
16 19 (0.31%) Wireless
17 18 (0.29%) OSPF
18 17 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 236 (3.83%) Metadata
2 207 (3.36%) Data Lake
3 194 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
4 171 (2.78%) Power BI
5 64 (1.04%) NoSQL
6 48 (0.78%) SQL Server
7 47 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
8 46 (0.75%) BigQuery
8 46 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
9 42 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
10 40 (0.65%) Delta Lake
11 38 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
11 38 (0.62%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.50%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 29 (0.47%) Big Data
14 28 (0.45%) Semantic Layer
15 24 (0.39%) MongoDB
15 24 (0.39%) SAP HANA
16 23 (0.37%) GIS
16 23 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 84 (1.36%) JIRA
2 76 (1.23%) Git
3 62 (1.01%) Jenkins
4 49 (0.80%) GitLab
5 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
5 14 (0.23%) ERwin
6 13 (0.21%) Postman
7 11 (0.18%) MSI
8 10 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
8 10 (0.16%) RStudio
9 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.097%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.097%) Storybook
11 5 (0.081%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.081%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.081%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.081%) Selenium
12 4 (0.065%) Hudson
12 4 (0.065%) JMeter
12 4 (0.065%) Maven
General
1 1,241 (20.16%) Social Skills
2 874 (14.20%) Finance
3 729 (11.84%) Public Sector
4 310 (5.03%) Banking
5 275 (4.47%) Analytical Skills
6 265 (4.30%) Retail
7 176 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
8 164 (2.66%) Manufacturing
9 140 (2.27%) Telecoms
10 135 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
11 110 (1.79%) Legal
12 77 (1.25%) Marketing
13 64 (1.04%) Aerospace
13 64 (1.04%) Billing
14 60 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 52 (0.84%) Military
16 45 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
17 39 (0.63%) Local Government
18 37 (0.60%) Aviation
19 36 (0.58%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 301 (4.89%) REST
2 254 (4.13%) Terraform
3 175 (2.84%) Kafka
4 169 (2.74%) Middleware
5 135 (2.19%) SOAP
6 127 (2.06%) OAuth
7 117 (1.90%) .NET
8 86 (1.40%) Oracle Fusion
9 66 (1.07%) OpenID
10 65 (1.06%) JSON
10 65 (1.06%) SAML
11 62 (1.01%) OAuth2
12 55 (0.89%) LDAP
13 47 (0.76%) RESTful
14 46 (0.75%) PySpark
15 44 (0.71%) XML
16 40 (0.65%) .NET Framework
16 40 (0.65%) SailPoint
17 38 (0.62%) JWT
17 38 (0.62%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 519 (8.43%) Cloud Native
2 199 (3.23%) Data Centre
3 186 (3.02%) Onboarding
4 169 (2.74%) Management Information System
5 148 (2.40%) Enterprise Software
5 148 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
6 145 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
7 144 (2.34%) Product Ownership
8 142 (2.31%) AI Agents
9 136 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
10 102 (1.66%) CMDB
11 94 (1.53%) Public Cloud
12 92 (1.49%) Operational Technology
13 91 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
14 79 (1.28%) Enterprise Cloud
15 75 (1.22%) Private Cloud
16 66 (1.07%) Data Structures
17 61 (0.99%) Security Posture
18 53 (0.86%) Taxonomies
19 50 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 128 (2.08%) Windows
2 101 (1.64%) Linux
3 49 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.34%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
7 8 (0.13%) Android
7 8 (0.13%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.097%) zOS
9 5 (0.081%) Solaris
9 5 (0.081%) VMS
10 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.049%) CentOS
12 2 (0.032%) HPUX
12 2 (0.032%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.032%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.032%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.016%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,189 (19.31%) Stakeholder Management
2 994 (16.14%) Roadmaps
3 891 (14.47%) Migration
4 804 (13.06%) Enterprise Architecture
5 798 (12.96%) AI
6 779 (12.65%) Technical Leadership
7 653 (10.61%) Agile
8 636 (10.33%) DevOps
9 626 (10.17%) Data Architecture
10 623 (10.12%) Data Modelling
11 616 (10.00%) CI/CD
12 613 (9.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 568 (9.23%) Integration Patterns
14 524 (8.51%) Analytics
15 499 (8.10%) Security Architecture
16 481 (7.81%) TOGAF
17 462 (7.50%) Architectural Patterns
18 427 (6.94%) Event-Driven
19 406 (6.59%) Data Governance
20 399 (6.48%) Architecture Governance
Programming Languages
1 254 (4.13%) SQL
2 245 (3.98%) Java
3 235 (3.82%) Python
4 114 (1.85%) JavaScript
5 110 (1.79%) PowerShell
6 52 (0.84%) C#
7 51 (0.83%) TypeScript
8 45 (0.73%) Bash
9 44 (0.71%) Bicep
10 30 (0.49%) Apex Code
11 27 (0.44%) ABAP
12 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 14 (0.23%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.18%) Groovy
14 11 (0.18%) R
15 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.15%) C++
16 9 (0.15%) Rust
17 8 (0.13%) Go
17 8 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 1,944 (31.57%) Security Cleared
2 1,464 (23.78%) SC Cleared
3 388 (6.30%) DV Cleared
4 190 (3.09%) BPSS Clearance
5 162 (2.63%) Degree
6 151 (2.45%) CISSP
7 123 (2.00%) AWS Certification
8 120 (1.95%) Azure Certification
9 106 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
10 91 (1.48%) TOGAF Certification
11 74 (1.20%) CISM
12 65 (1.06%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 46 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
15 42 (0.68%) CCNP
16 41 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 39 (0.63%) CCSP
18 28 (0.45%) Master's Degree
19 24 (0.39%) CCIE
19 24 (0.39%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 268 (4.35%) Data Quality
2 224 (3.64%) NIST
3 189 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 156 (2.53%) GDPR
5 135 (2.19%) NCSC
6 83 (1.35%) GRC
7 52 (0.84%) QA
8 43 (0.70%) Accessibility
9 40 (0.65%) PCI DSS
10 28 (0.45%) NIST 800
10 28 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.39%) SLA
12 23 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 20 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.32%) JSP 440
13 20 (0.32%) SEPA
14 18 (0.29%) IFRS
14 18 (0.29%) ISO 20022
15 16 (0.26%) ISO 19650
16 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 190 (3.09%) Active Directory
2 107 (1.74%) Docker
3 86 (1.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 46 (0.75%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.36%) vSphere
7 19 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (0.29%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.081%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.065%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.065%) KVM
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.049%) NFS
12 3 (0.049%) SRDF
12 3 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.032%) Postfix
13 2 (0.032%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 295 (4.79%) Kubernetes
2 101 (1.64%) Ansible
3 48 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
4 44 (0.71%) Grafana
5 37 (0.60%) Prometheus
6 30 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.29%) Argo
8 15 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.19%) WMI
11 11 (0.18%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.16%) CASB
13 8 (0.13%) Istio
13 8 (0.13%) SCCM
13 8 (0.13%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.11%) NetBackup
15 6 (0.097%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.097%) Puppet
16 5 (0.081%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.081%) VxRail
Vendors
1 831 (13.50%) Microsoft
2 360 (5.85%) SAP
3 301 (4.89%) Oracle
4 296 (4.81%) ServiceNow
5 276 (4.48%) Databricks
6 213 (3.46%) Google
7 198 (3.22%) Salesforce
8 149 (2.42%) Cisco
9 138 (2.24%) VMware
10 85 (1.38%) CyberArk
11 77 (1.25%) MuleSoft
12 55 (0.89%) IBM
13 53 (0.86%) Palo Alto
14 52 (0.84%) Workday
15 46 (0.75%) Foundry
16 42 (0.68%) Splunk
17 39 (0.63%) Red Hat
18 38 (0.62%) Adobe
18 38 (0.62%) Ariba
18 38 (0.62%) Informatica