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 1 December 2025.

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

6 months to
1 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 3,194 3,512 4,208
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.94% 9.76% 9.22%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.83% 10.52% 9.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,162 2,096 2,858
10th Percentile £462 £485 £500
25th Percentile £525 £548 £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 £607 £625 £627
% change year-on-year -2.96% -0.32% -3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 23 37
10th Percentile £62.75 £60.30 £57.50
25th Percentile £70.63 £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 £85.00 £66.75 £76.53
% change year-on-year +27.34% -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 32,486 33,393 42,696
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.92% 92.81% 93.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,605 20,273 28,801
10th Percentile £281 £300 £293
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 £647
90th Percentile £723 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £497 £500
% change year-on-year -4.43% -0.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,896 1,201 1,522
10th Percentile £14.15 £15.25 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.75 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.27% +43.93%
75th Percentile £57.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £73.75 £77.49
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 1 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 1 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 1 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 2,761 £625 - 847
UK excluding London -4 1,517 £607 -2.96% 668
London -3 1,257 £630 - 328
Work from Home -4 1,020 £614 -1.76% 446
South East +4 487 £600 -4.00% 306
North of England -11 365 £600 -2.77% 121
South West +2 256 £696 +7.12% 76
Midlands -8 227 £578 -3.67% 90
North West -8 217 £599 -2.98% 62
West Midlands -13 168 £600 - 66
Yorkshire -18 129 £606 +3.19% 41
Scotland -9 90 £600 -4.00% 26
East of England -6 81 £553 -7.92% 50
East Midlands +3 59 £500 -9.09% 23
Wales -5 23 £625 +0.40% 9
North East -5 20 £700 +12.13% 18
Northern Ireland -9 6 £550 -8.33% 4
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 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.

1 982 (30.75%) Security Cleared
2 898 (28.12%) Azure
3 712 (22.29%) AWS
4 674 (21.10%) SC Cleared
5 500 (15.65%) Roadmaps
6 486 (15.22%) Microsoft
7 457 (14.31%) Agile
8 443 (13.87%) Stakeholder Management
9 382 (11.96%) Migration
9 382 (11.96%) TOGAF
10 366 (11.46%) Enterprise Architecture
11 355 (11.11%) DevOps
12 353 (11.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 342 (10.71%) Data Modelling
14 338 (10.58%) CI/CD
15 318 (9.96%) Problem-Solving
16 300 (9.39%) Technical Leadership
17 267 (8.36%) GCP
17 267 (8.36%) Microservices
18 262 (8.20%) AI
19 250 (7.83%) Terraform
20 248 (7.76%) Analytics
20 248 (7.76%) Python
21 235 (7.36%) Data Architecture
22 223 (6.98%) DV Cleared
23 210 (6.57%) Mentoring
24 205 (6.42%) Data Governance
25 204 (6.39%) Firewall
25 204 (6.39%) Security Architecture
26 200 (6.26%) 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 97 (3.04%) Confluence
2 52 (1.63%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.85%) SAS
5 20 (0.63%) 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 (0.44%) ArcGIS
10 13 (0.41%) 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 (0.16%) GeoServer
14 5 (0.16%) Jupyter
15 4 (0.13%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 41 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
3 24 (0.75%) MS Visio
4 21 (0.66%) Microsoft Excel
5 19 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.31%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.094%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.094%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.031%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.031%) Revit
8 1 (0.031%) Trello
Business Applications
1 89 (2.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
3 29 (0.91%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 20 (0.63%) Salesforce CRM
5 19 (0.59%) Workday HCM
6 18 (0.56%) Maximo
6 18 (0.56%) Payment Gateway
7 15 (0.47%) SAP PM
8 13 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
8 13 (0.41%) SAP CO
9 12 (0.38%) NetSuite
9 12 (0.38%) SAP FI
9 12 (0.38%) 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
1 898 (28.12%) Azure
2 712 (22.29%) AWS
3 267 (8.36%) GCP
4 148 (4.63%) SaaS
5 139 (4.35%) Power Platform
6 119 (3.73%) Serverless
7 100 (3.13%) Entra ID
8 93 (2.91%) Microsoft 365
9 84 (2.63%) IaaS
10 83 (2.60%) GitHub
11 81 (2.54%) Dynamics 365
12 73 (2.29%) AWS Lambda
13 69 (2.16%) PaaS
14 65 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
15 61 (1.91%) Amazon S3
16 60 (1.88%) Snowflake
17 57 (1.78%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 54 (1.69%) Azure Data Factory
19 52 (1.63%) Microsoft Purview
20 49 (1.53%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 204 (6.39%) Firewall
2 102 (3.19%) WAN
3 99 (3.10%) Network Security
4 88 (2.76%) LAN
5 76 (2.38%) VPN
6 69 (2.16%) SD-WAN
7 68 (2.13%) DNS
8 39 (1.22%) Wi-Fi
9 36 (1.13%) BGP
10 26 (0.81%) SAN
11 25 (0.78%) Cisco Nexus
11 25 (0.78%) DHCP
11 25 (0.78%) MPLS
12 21 (0.66%) SSL
12 21 (0.66%) VSAN
13 19 (0.59%) Internet
14 17 (0.53%) VLAN
15 15 (0.47%) OSPF
16 14 (0.44%) iSCSI
17 13 (0.41%) Fibre Channel
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (3.60%) Data Warehouse
2 93 (2.91%) Power BI
3 87 (2.72%) Metadata
4 73 (2.29%) Data Lake
5 65 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
6 61 (1.91%) SQL Server
7 42 (1.31%) NoSQL
8 39 (1.22%) Amazon Redshift
9 30 (0.94%) DynamoDB
9 30 (0.94%) MongoDB
10 29 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
11 28 (0.88%) BigQuery
12 27 (0.85%) Oracle Database
13 26 (0.81%) Tableau
14 25 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
14 25 (0.78%) Big Data
14 25 (0.78%) Relational Database
15 23 (0.72%) Delta Lake
16 22 (0.69%) Amazon Athena
17 19 (0.59%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 120 (3.76%) JIRA
2 71 (2.22%) Jenkins
3 56 (1.75%) Git
4 39 (1.22%) GitLab
5 20 (0.63%) ERwin
6 12 (0.38%) CircleCI
6 12 (0.38%) 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 (0.16%) ER Studio
10 5 (0.16%) Gradle
10 5 (0.16%) MSI
10 5 (0.16%) Rational DOORS
10 5 (0.16%) SonarLint
10 5 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.094%) Postman
11 3 (0.094%) PowerDesigner
General
1 861 (26.96%) Social Skills
2 537 (16.81%) Finance
3 404 (12.65%) Public Sector
4 264 (8.27%) Analytical Skills
5 191 (5.98%) Banking
6 94 (2.94%) Telecoms
7 81 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (2.54%) Retail
8 69 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
8 69 (2.16%) Legal
8 69 (2.16%) Manufacturing
8 69 (2.16%) Marketing
9 68 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
10 57 (1.78%) Military
11 43 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 39 (1.22%) Financial Institution
13 30 (0.94%) Billing
14 26 (0.81%) Back Office
15 22 (0.69%) Aerospace
16 19 (0.59%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (4.70%) REST
2 90 (2.82%) Middleware
3 79 (2.47%) .NET
3 79 (2.47%) SOAP
4 65 (2.04%) Kafka
5 61 (1.91%) JSON
6 56 (1.75%) OAuth
7 52 (1.63%) RESTful
8 46 (1.44%) SAML
9 39 (1.22%) Lightning Web Components
10 38 (1.19%) AngularJS
10 38 (1.19%) React
10 38 (1.19%) Web Services
11 34 (1.06%) OAuth2
12 31 (0.97%) Node.js
12 31 (0.97%) OpenID
12 31 (0.97%) RabbitMQ
13 27 (0.85%) Oracle Fusion
13 27 (0.85%) Spring Boot
14 26 (0.81%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 252 (7.89%) Cloud Native
2 142 (4.45%) Product Ownership
3 129 (4.04%) Legacy Systems
4 108 (3.38%) Data Centre
5 84 (2.63%) Hybrid Cloud
6 82 (2.57%) Onboarding
7 76 (2.38%) PKI
8 59 (1.85%) Management Information System
9 49 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.47%) Enterprise Software
11 45 (1.41%) Operational Technology
12 43 (1.35%) CMDB
13 42 (1.31%) Public Cloud
14 41 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
15 40 (1.25%) NHS
16 39 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
17 32 (1.00%) Security Posture
18 29 (0.91%) Data Structures
19 28 (0.88%) SCADA
20 26 (0.81%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 134 (4.20%) Windows
2 96 (3.01%) Linux
3 51 (1.60%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
5 21 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (0.53%) Unix
7 12 (0.38%) 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 (0.16%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.094%) Solaris
13 3 (0.094%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.063%) CentOS
14 2 (0.063%) zOS
15 1 (0.031%) MVS
15 1 (0.031%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 500 (15.65%) Roadmaps
2 457 (14.31%) Agile
3 443 (13.87%) Stakeholder Management
4 382 (11.96%) Migration
4 382 (11.96%) TOGAF
5 366 (11.46%) Enterprise Architecture
6 355 (11.11%) DevOps
7 353 (11.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 342 (10.71%) Data Modelling
9 338 (10.58%) CI/CD
10 318 (9.96%) Problem-Solving
11 300 (9.39%) Technical Leadership
12 267 (8.36%) Microservices
13 262 (8.20%) AI
14 248 (7.76%) Analytics
15 235 (7.36%) Data Architecture
16 210 (6.57%) Mentoring
17 205 (6.42%) Data Governance
18 204 (6.39%) Security Architecture
19 200 (6.26%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 248 (7.76%) Python
2 159 (4.98%) SQL
3 156 (4.88%) Java
4 98 (3.07%) PowerShell
5 63 (1.97%) JavaScript
6 57 (1.78%) TypeScript
7 47 (1.47%) C#
8 33 (1.03%) Apex Code
9 32 (1.00%) Bicep
10 31 (0.97%) Bash
11 17 (0.53%) R
12 14 (0.44%) C++
13 13 (0.41%) 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
1 982 (30.75%) Security Cleared
2 674 (21.10%) SC Cleared
3 223 (6.98%) DV Cleared
4 180 (5.64%) Degree
5 121 (3.79%) CISSP
6 103 (3.22%) AWS Certification
7 99 (3.10%) Azure Certification
8 84 (2.63%) TOGAF Certification
9 66 (2.07%) Cisco Certification
10 64 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
11 63 (1.97%) Microsoft Certification
12 52 (1.63%) CISM
13 48 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
14 43 (1.35%) Master's Degree
15 42 (1.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 35 (1.10%) CCNP
17 34 (1.06%) CCIE
18 25 (0.78%) ISEB
19 22 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
20 21 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 171 (5.35%) GDPR
2 137 (4.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 131 (4.10%) NIST
4 95 (2.97%) Data Quality
5 57 (1.78%) NCSC
6 53 (1.66%) PCI DSS
7 48 (1.50%) QA
8 33 (1.03%) COBIT
9 30 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 26 (0.81%) Accessibility
11 25 (0.78%) HIPAA
12 24 (0.75%) GRC
12 24 (0.75%) JSP 440
13 23 (0.72%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 15 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 13 (0.41%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 12 (0.38%) NIST 800
16 12 (0.38%) SOC 2
17 10 (0.31%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 125 (3.91%) Docker
2 120 (3.76%) Active Directory
3 90 (2.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.13%) vSphere
5 30 (0.94%) VMware NSX
6 23 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
7 16 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.44%) NFS
9 13 (0.41%) Hyper-V
10 12 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.13%) Dovecot
11 4 (0.13%) Postfix
11 4 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 3 (0.094%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.094%) KVM
13 2 (0.063%) GPFS
13 2 (0.063%) Lustre
13 2 (0.063%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.031%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 1 (0.031%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 250 (7.83%) Terraform
2 191 (5.98%) Kubernetes
3 93 (2.91%) Ansible
4 54 (1.69%) Single Sign-On
5 29 (0.91%) OPNET
6 26 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (0.81%) Prometheus
7 21 (0.66%) Grafana
8 17 (0.53%) SCCM
9 16 (0.50%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.38%) WMI
12 9 (0.28%) Argo
13 4 (0.13%) SCOM
14 3 (0.094%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.094%) Istio
14 3 (0.094%) Puppet
14 3 (0.094%) RSA Archer
14 3 (0.094%) vRealize
15 2 (0.063%) AirWatch
Vendors
1 486 (15.22%) Microsoft
2 190 (5.95%) SAP
3 189 (5.92%) ServiceNow
4 169 (5.29%) Salesforce
5 163 (5.10%) Oracle
6 144 (4.51%) VMware
7 122 (3.82%) Cisco
8 98 (3.07%) Databricks
9 92 (2.88%) Google
10 53 (1.66%) Fortinet
10 53 (1.66%) Splunk
11 50 (1.57%) Palo Alto
12 46 (1.44%) Remedy
13 45 (1.41%) Workday
14 42 (1.31%) IBM
15 41 (1.28%) MuleSoft
16 38 (1.19%) CyberArk
17 37 (1.16%) F5
18 36 (1.13%) Pega
19 35 (1.10%) Atlassian