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 1 May 2026.

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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +5 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,180 2,878 4,465
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.96% 9.83% 10.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.87% 10.63% 11.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,407 1,884 2,858
10th Percentile £463 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.52%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £601 £650
% change year-on-year +1.91% -7.54% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 123 35 80
10th Percentile £49.40 £53.70 £59.75
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.21% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £83.00 £81.42 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.67 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £73.31 £70.00
% change year-on-year -5.88% +4.73% -

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 43,629 27,082 40,416
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.55% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,928 17,690 26,310
10th Percentile £315 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £492
% change year-on-year +3.16% -3.46% -1.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,807 1,034 2,664
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.15 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £44.00 £29.00 £36.42
Median % change year-on-year +51.72% -20.37% -19.07%
75th Percentile £66.00 £62.50 £60.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £28.00 £39.55
% change year-on-year +62.36% -29.20% -6.94%

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 May 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 1 May 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 1 May 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 +6 4,423 £625 - 897
UK excluding London +8 2,381 £613 +1.91% 546
London +4 2,063 £625 -2.72% 424
Work from Home +2 1,410 £600 - 450
South East +5 710 £625 - 149
North of England +3 617 £600 - 129
Midlands +1 420 £600 - 90
North West +4 356 £610 +1.67% 83
West Midlands -2 309 £613 +2.08% 63
South West 0 302 £698 +16.25% 81
Yorkshire +6 232 £557 -9.14% 26
East of England +21 201 £563 -6.25% 48
Scotland +10 140 £650 +4.00% 15
East Midlands -2 105 £525 -4.55% 27
North East +1 38 £575 -7.95% 20
Wales -8 24 £600 +17.65% 26
Northern Ireland +11 10 £488 -26.42% 15

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 May 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 1,603 (30.95%) Security Cleared
2 1,225 (23.65%) Azure
3 1,152 (22.24%) SC Cleared
4 1,073 (20.71%) AWS
5 725 (14.00%) Roadmaps
6 699 (13.49%) Microsoft
7 687 (13.26%) Migration
8 621 (11.99%) Agile
9 562 (10.85%) Stakeholder Management
10 559 (10.79%) DevOps
11 542 (10.46%) CI/CD
12 523 (10.10%) Enterprise Architecture
13 479 (9.25%) AI
14 468 (9.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 459 (8.86%) Data Modelling
16 457 (8.82%) Technical Leadership
17 438 (8.46%) Integration Patterns
18 437 (8.44%) TOGAF
19 428 (8.26%) Analytics
20 393 (7.59%) Data Architecture
21 390 (7.53%) Architectural Patterns
22 388 (7.49%) GCP
23 371 (7.16%) Microservices
24 369 (7.12%) Problem-Solving
25 351 (6.78%) Python
26 332 (6.41%) Architectural Design
26 332 (6.41%) DV Cleared
27 317 (6.12%) ServiceNow
28 310 (5.98%) SAP
29 305 (5.89%) Infrastructure as Code

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
1 123 (2.37%) SharePoint
2 105 (2.03%) Confluence
3 60 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.54%) Apache
5 26 (0.50%) Apache Spark
5 26 (0.50%) SAS
6 20 (0.39%) CMS
7 18 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.31%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.31%) Appian
9 15 (0.29%) nginx
9 15 (0.29%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 12 (0.23%) ArcGIS
11 12 (0.23%) OpenStack
12 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 8 (0.15%) Camunda
14 7 (0.14%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.14%) Hyperledger
14 7 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 48 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
3 19 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.14%) Revit
7 4 (0.077%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.058%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.058%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.039%) Windchill
10 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 134 (2.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (0.93%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 20 (0.39%) Workday HCM
5 19 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
6 16 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
7 15 (0.29%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.25%) Teamcenter
9 11 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
9 11 (0.21%) SAP EWM
10 10 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
10 10 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
11 9 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
12 8 (0.15%) SAP PP
12 8 (0.15%) SAP QM
13 7 (0.14%) Maximo
13 7 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
13 7 (0.14%) R3 Corda
13 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
13 7 (0.14%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 1,225 (23.65%) Azure
2 1,073 (20.71%) AWS
3 388 (7.49%) GCP
4 221 (4.27%) Power Platform
5 185 (3.57%) Serverless
6 180 (3.47%) Entra ID
7 164 (3.17%) SaaS
8 138 (2.66%) Microsoft 365
9 116 (2.24%) GitHub
10 107 (2.07%) PaaS
11 104 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
12 98 (1.89%) IaaS
13 95 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
14 90 (1.74%) AWS Lambda
15 77 (1.49%) Amazon S3
16 76 (1.47%) OpenShift
17 74 (1.43%) Snowflake
18 73 (1.41%) AWS CloudFormation
19 69 (1.33%) Microsoft Purview
20 66 (1.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 217 (4.19%) Firewall
2 175 (3.38%) Network Security
3 135 (2.61%) WAN
4 121 (2.34%) VPN
5 114 (2.20%) DNS
6 90 (1.74%) LAN
7 74 (1.43%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.73%) BGP
9 33 (0.64%) DHCP
10 29 (0.56%) OSPF
10 29 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
11 28 (0.54%) TCP/IP
12 27 (0.52%) MPLS
13 26 (0.50%) VLAN
14 22 (0.42%) SAN
15 21 (0.41%) Wireless
16 20 (0.39%) BIG-IP
16 20 (0.39%) VXLAN
17 19 (0.37%) NAS
18 18 (0.35%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (3.20%) Power BI
2 137 (2.64%) Metadata
3 133 (2.57%) Data Lake
4 132 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
5 76 (1.47%) SQL Server
6 65 (1.25%) NoSQL
7 63 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
8 53 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.81%) Tableau
10 39 (0.75%) Big Data
11 36 (0.69%) Oracle Database
12 32 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
13 27 (0.52%) Delta Lake
14 26 (0.50%) BigQuery
15 25 (0.48%) Relational Database
16 23 (0.44%) DynamoDB
17 22 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
17 22 (0.42%) Electronic Patient Records
17 22 (0.42%) GIS
17 22 (0.42%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 117 (2.26%) JIRA
2 89 (1.72%) Jenkins
3 59 (1.14%) Git
4 48 (0.93%) GitLab
5 21 (0.41%) ERwin
6 13 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.21%) MLflow
8 10 (0.19%) Artifactory
9 6 (0.12%) Postman
9 6 (0.12%) REST Assured
9 6 (0.12%) Selenium
10 5 (0.097%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.097%) JUnit
10 5 (0.097%) MSI
10 5 (0.097%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.097%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.077%) Hudson
11 4 (0.077%) Snyk
11 4 (0.077%) Terragrunt
General
1 990 (19.11%) Social Skills
2 766 (14.79%) Finance
3 557 (10.75%) Public Sector
4 303 (5.85%) Analytical Skills
5 289 (5.58%) Banking
6 148 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
7 137 (2.64%) Retail
8 123 (2.37%) Legal
9 112 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
10 90 (1.74%) Telecoms
11 89 (1.72%) Military
12 77 (1.49%) Manufacturing
13 66 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
14 63 (1.22%) Law
15 61 (1.18%) Marketing
16 49 (0.95%) Billing
17 43 (0.83%) Financial Institution
18 35 (0.68%) Investment Banking
19 32 (0.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 28 (0.54%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (4.73%) REST
2 191 (3.69%) Middleware
3 129 (2.49%) SOAP
4 116 (2.24%) .NET
5 108 (2.08%) Kafka
6 87 (1.68%) OpenID
7 85 (1.64%) LDAP
8 79 (1.53%) OAuth
9 62 (1.20%) SAML
10 51 (0.98%) React
11 50 (0.97%) JSON
12 46 (0.89%) OAuth2
13 43 (0.83%) RESTful
14 42 (0.81%) Oracle Fusion
15 41 (0.79%) SailPoint
16 38 (0.73%) AngularJS
17 36 (0.69%) Web Services
18 32 (0.62%) Node.js
19 30 (0.58%) PySpark
20 29 (0.56%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 420 (8.11%) Cloud Native
2 167 (3.22%) Data Centre
3 146 (2.82%) Product Ownership
4 136 (2.63%) Onboarding
5 130 (2.51%) Management Information System
6 116 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
7 112 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
8 106 (2.05%) Distributed Systems
9 99 (1.91%) Public Cloud
10 98 (1.89%) Hybrid Cloud
11 87 (1.68%) Security Posture
12 76 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
13 75 (1.45%) Operational Technology
14 69 (1.33%) PKI
15 68 (1.31%) CMDB
16 56 (1.08%) AI Agents
17 44 (0.85%) Data Structures
17 44 (0.85%) NHS
18 43 (0.83%) Private Cloud
19 41 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 178 (3.44%) Windows
2 118 (2.28%) Linux
3 39 (0.75%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.64%) Android
4 33 (0.64%) Apple iOS
5 31 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (0.33%) Unix
7 14 (0.27%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.25%) VMS
9 12 (0.23%) Windows 7
9 12 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (0.21%) zOS
11 9 (0.17%) Mac OS
11 9 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.058%) CentOS
12 3 (0.058%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.058%) Solaris
12 3 (0.058%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.039%) AIX
13 2 (0.039%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 725 (14.00%) Roadmaps
2 687 (13.26%) Migration
3 621 (11.99%) Agile
4 562 (10.85%) Stakeholder Management
5 559 (10.79%) DevOps
6 542 (10.46%) CI/CD
7 523 (10.10%) Enterprise Architecture
8 479 (9.25%) AI
9 468 (9.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 459 (8.86%) Data Modelling
11 457 (8.82%) Technical Leadership
12 438 (8.46%) Integration Patterns
13 437 (8.44%) TOGAF
14 428 (8.26%) Analytics
15 393 (7.59%) Data Architecture
16 390 (7.53%) Architectural Patterns
17 371 (7.16%) Microservices
18 369 (7.12%) Problem-Solving
19 332 (6.41%) Architectural Design
20 305 (5.89%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 351 (6.78%) Python
2 273 (5.27%) SQL
3 206 (3.98%) Java
4 179 (3.46%) PowerShell
5 78 (1.51%) JavaScript
6 65 (1.25%) C#
7 49 (0.95%) Bicep
8 36 (0.69%) Bash
9 35 (0.68%) TypeScript
10 22 (0.42%) Ruby
11 19 (0.37%) Apex Code
12 18 (0.35%) PL/SQL
13 16 (0.31%) Scala
14 13 (0.25%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.19%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 9 (0.17%) ABAP
17 8 (0.15%) PHP
17 8 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,603 (30.95%) Security Cleared
2 1,152 (22.24%) SC Cleared
3 332 (6.41%) DV Cleared
4 220 (4.25%) Degree
5 130 (2.51%) TOGAF Certification
6 122 (2.36%) Azure Certification
7 113 (2.18%) CISSP
8 110 (2.12%) AWS Certification
9 93 (1.80%) Cisco Certification
10 90 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
11 87 (1.68%) Computer Science Degree
12 63 (1.22%) CISM
13 57 (1.10%) Master's Degree
14 51 (0.98%) CCNP
15 49 (0.95%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 48 (0.93%) Microsoft Certification
17 35 (0.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 33 (0.64%) ISEB
18 33 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
19 26 (0.50%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 186 (3.59%) GDPR
1 186 (3.59%) NIST
2 149 (2.88%) Data Quality
3 146 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 107 (2.07%) NCSC
5 64 (1.24%) QA
6 46 (0.89%) PCI DSS
7 41 (0.79%) COBIT
8 34 (0.66%) GRC
9 29 (0.56%) ISO 20022
10 28 (0.54%) Accessibility
11 27 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
12 19 (0.37%) SEPA
13 18 (0.35%) HL7
13 18 (0.35%) NIST 800
13 18 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 17 (0.33%) JSP 440
15 16 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 14 (0.27%) SLA
17 13 (0.25%) FINRA
System Software
1 197 (3.80%) Active Directory
2 108 (2.08%) Docker
3 97 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 72 (1.39%) VMware NSX
5 31 (0.60%) vSphere
6 25 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
7 20 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
8 17 (0.33%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.21%) Varnish
11 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 10 (0.19%) vCloud
12 9 (0.17%) Squid
13 8 (0.15%) NFS
14 7 (0.14%) BitLocker
15 5 (0.097%) Postfix
15 5 (0.097%) RACF
16 4 (0.077%) Firmware
17 3 (0.058%) IAG
17 3 (0.058%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 274 (5.29%) Terraform
2 237 (4.58%) Kubernetes
3 108 (2.08%) Ansible
4 51 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
5 43 (0.83%) Grafana
6 40 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.64%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.58%) OPNET
8 30 (0.58%) Prometheus
9 29 (0.56%) vCenter Server
10 24 (0.46%) SCCM
11 16 (0.31%) Argo
12 14 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 12 (0.23%) Istio
14 11 (0.21%) WMI
15 8 (0.15%) Puppet
16 7 (0.14%) Consul
17 6 (0.12%) Kibana
18 5 (0.097%) Endace
18 5 (0.097%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 699 (13.49%) Microsoft
2 317 (6.12%) ServiceNow
3 310 (5.98%) SAP
4 214 (4.13%) Oracle
5 194 (3.75%) Salesforce
6 192 (3.71%) VMware
7 191 (3.69%) Databricks
8 134 (2.59%) Cisco
9 111 (2.14%) Google
10 86 (1.66%) CyberArk
11 69 (1.33%) MuleSoft
12 65 (1.25%) Splunk
13 55 (1.06%) Workday
14 54 (1.04%) Palo Alto
15 53 (1.02%) Red Hat
16 50 (0.97%) Sparx
17 48 (0.93%) Remedy
18 46 (0.89%) Ariba
18 46 (0.89%) IBM
19 45 (0.87%) OpenAI