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 16 October 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 20 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -6 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,163 2,933 3,725
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.14% 8.82% 9.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.12% 9.70% 10.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,064 1,932 2,192
10th Percentile £490 £459 £475
25th Percentile £531 £525 £530
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £715 £738
90th Percentile £780 £788 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £622 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.71% -4.00% -1.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 203 16 59
10th Percentile £40.00 £59.68 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £65.31 £61.88
Median hourly rate £70.00 £77.75 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.97% +11.07% -5.30%
75th Percentile £91.31 £94.06 £82.79
90th Percentile £96.00 £97.50 £90.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.50 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.14% +3.57% -7.49%

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 50,844 30,247 34,978
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.93% 90.91% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,853 19,090 21,121
10th Percentile £325 £277 £300
25th Percentile £425 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,177 1,669 1,428
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.80 £15.05
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.06 £25.15 £41.08
Median % change year-on-year +63.24% -38.77% -8.72%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.32 £25.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year +61.28% -39.76% -6.74%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +7 5,091 £625 - 639
London +7 2,625 £625 -2.95% 274
UK excluding London +7 2,575 £622 +3.71% 450
Work from Home +6 1,664 £600 -0.41% 358
South East -1 735 £626 +4.33% 149
North of England +3 660 £600 - 82
Midlands +7 450 £627 +8.96% 70
South West +5 346 £638 -1.92% 81
North West +1 341 £598 +4.08% 40
West Midlands +9 335 £644 +7.37% 57
Yorkshire +9 243 £600 -2.04% 25
Scotland +17 207 £610 +2.09% 32
East of England +3 140 £622 +12.07% 25
East Midlands +4 110 £600 +20.00% 13
North East +7 79 £625 -15.25% 17
Wales +8 44 £625 - 11
Channel Islands +1 12 £700 -5.72%
Northern Ireland +6 4 - - 4

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 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 1,965 (31.88%) Security Cleared
2 1,618 (26.25%) Azure
3 1,480 (24.01%) SC Cleared
4 1,285 (20.85%) AWS
5 1,248 (20.25%) Stakeholder Management
6 1,044 (16.94%) Roadmaps
7 910 (14.77%) Migration
8 861 (13.97%) Microsoft
9 841 (13.65%) Enterprise Architecture
10 801 (13.00%) AI
11 792 (12.85%) Technical Leadership
12 660 (10.71%) Agile
13 649 (10.53%) DevOps
14 643 (10.43%) Data Architecture
15 625 (10.14%) Data Modelling
16 623 (10.11%) CI/CD
17 620 (10.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 574 (9.31%) Integration Patterns
19 526 (8.53%) Analytics
20 504 (8.18%) GCP
21 503 (8.16%) Security Architecture
22 495 (8.03%) TOGAF
23 488 (7.92%) Architectural Patterns
24 450 (7.30%) Event-Driven
25 425 (6.90%) Architecture Governance
26 423 (6.86%) Data Governance
27 403 (6.54%) Decision-Making
28 398 (6.46%) DV Cleared
28 398 (6.46%) Microservices
29 394 (6.39%) 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 75 (1.22%) SAS
2 65 (1.05%) SharePoint
3 62 (1.01%) Confluence
4 45 (0.73%) Apache
5 44 (0.71%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
7 34 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
8 25 (0.41%) CMS
9 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
10 16 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
11 8 (0.13%) IIS
12 7 (0.11%) Documentum
12 7 (0.11%) NetWeaver
13 6 (0.097%) ArcGIS
13 6 (0.097%) Headless CMS
13 6 (0.097%) JBoss
14 5 (0.081%) Appian
14 5 (0.081%) nginx
14 5 (0.081%) SAP EP
15 4 (0.065%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 28 (0.45%) MS Visio
2 21 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 16 (0.26%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.11%) Revit
7 5 (0.081%) Navisworks
7 5 (0.081%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.049%) Gliffy
9 2 (0.032%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.032%) Windchill
10 1 (0.016%) Notion
10 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 194 (3.15%) SAP S/4HANA
2 55 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
3 33 (0.54%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 19 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
5 18 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
5 18 (0.29%) SAP MM
6 16 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
7 15 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 15 (0.24%) Teamcenter
8 14 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
9 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
10 12 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
10 12 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
10 12 (0.19%) SAP CO
10 12 (0.19%) SAP FI
11 11 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
12 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
12 10 (0.16%) Workday HCM
13 8 (0.13%) SAP ERP
13 8 (0.13%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,618 (26.25%) Azure
2 1,285 (20.85%) AWS
3 504 (8.18%) GCP
4 294 (4.77%) Power Platform
5 241 (3.91%) SaaS
6 226 (3.67%) Entra ID
7 181 (2.94%) Serverless
8 156 (2.53%) GitHub
9 145 (2.35%) Azure DevOps
9 145 (2.35%) Microsoft 365
10 130 (2.11%) Dynamics 365
11 112 (1.82%) Snowflake
12 94 (1.53%) PaaS
13 79 (1.28%) AWS Lambda
13 79 (1.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 75 (1.22%) Amazon S3
14 75 (1.22%) OCI
15 67 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
16 66 (1.07%) IaaS
17 65 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 159 (2.58%) Firewall
2 153 (2.48%) Network Security
3 101 (1.64%) WAN
4 79 (1.28%) VPN
5 73 (1.18%) DNS
6 62 (1.01%) LAN
7 49 (0.80%) BGP
8 48 (0.78%) SD-WAN
9 39 (0.63%) MPLS
10 35 (0.57%) DHCP
11 32 (0.52%) TCP/IP
12 28 (0.45%) VXLAN
13 25 (0.41%) VLAN
14 23 (0.37%) NX-OS
14 23 (0.37%) Wireless
15 21 (0.34%) Internet
16 20 (0.32%) SAN
17 19 (0.31%) NGFW
18 18 (0.29%) OSPF
18 18 (0.29%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 248 (4.02%) Metadata
2 209 (3.39%) Data Lake
3 208 (3.37%) Data Warehouse
4 176 (2.86%) Power BI
5 62 (1.01%) NoSQL
6 58 (0.94%) SQL Server
7 50 (0.81%) BigQuery
8 48 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
8 48 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
9 46 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
10 43 (0.70%) Oracle Database
11 40 (0.65%) Delta Lake
12 32 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
12 32 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 31 (0.50%) Semantic Layer
14 27 (0.44%) Big Data
15 25 (0.41%) Relational Database
16 24 (0.39%) MongoDB
16 24 (0.39%) SAP HANA
17 23 (0.37%) GIS
Development Applications
1 93 (1.51%) JIRA
2 74 (1.20%) Git
3 63 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 47 (0.76%) GitLab
5 15 (0.24%) ERwin
6 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
6 14 (0.23%) 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%) Storybook
11 5 (0.081%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.081%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.081%) JMeter
11 5 (0.081%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.081%) Selenium
12 4 (0.065%) MLflow
12 4 (0.065%) REST Assured
12 4 (0.065%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,286 (20.87%) Social Skills
2 908 (14.73%) Finance
3 747 (12.12%) Public Sector
4 319 (5.18%) Banking
5 282 (4.58%) Analytical Skills
6 247 (4.01%) Retail
7 178 (2.89%) Influencing Skills
8 168 (2.73%) Manufacturing
9 145 (2.35%) Telecoms
10 138 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
11 110 (1.78%) Legal
12 79 (1.28%) Marketing
13 71 (1.15%) Aerospace
14 64 (1.04%) Billing
15 58 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (0.84%) Military
17 46 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
18 42 (0.68%) Local Government
19 41 (0.67%) Police
20 36 (0.58%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 308 (5.00%) REST
2 277 (4.49%) Terraform
3 180 (2.92%) Kafka
4 169 (2.74%) Middleware
5 134 (2.17%) SOAP
6 127 (2.06%) OAuth
7 114 (1.85%) .NET
8 78 (1.27%) Oracle Fusion
9 72 (1.17%) OpenID
10 67 (1.09%) SAML
11 66 (1.07%) JSON
12 61 (0.99%) OAuth2
13 54 (0.88%) LDAP
14 49 (0.80%) RESTful
15 44 (0.71%) XML
16 43 (0.70%) JWT
16 43 (0.70%) PySpark
17 40 (0.65%) Swagger
18 39 (0.63%) SAP Fiori
19 37 (0.60%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 529 (8.58%) Cloud Native
2 198 (3.21%) Data Centre
2 198 (3.21%) Onboarding
3 170 (2.76%) Management Information System
4 153 (2.48%) Enterprise Software
4 153 (2.48%) Product Ownership
5 151 (2.45%) AI Agents
6 147 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
7 144 (2.34%) Hybrid Cloud
8 143 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
9 99 (1.61%) Operational Technology
10 95 (1.54%) CMDB
10 95 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
11 91 (1.48%) Public Cloud
12 76 (1.23%) Enterprise Cloud
13 70 (1.14%) Private Cloud
14 65 (1.05%) Data Structures
15 62 (1.01%) Taxonomies
16 60 (0.97%) Security Posture
17 50 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 136 (2.21%) Windows
2 105 (1.70%) Linux
3 50 (0.81%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 23 (0.37%) Unix
5 9 (0.15%) Ubuntu
6 8 (0.13%) AIX
7 7 (0.11%) Android
7 7 (0.11%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.081%) Alpine Linux
8 5 (0.081%) zOS
9 4 (0.065%) Solaris
9 4 (0.065%) VMS
10 3 (0.049%) CentOS
10 3 (0.049%) macOS
10 3 (0.049%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.032%) Data ONTAP
11 2 (0.032%) HPUX
11 2 (0.032%) OpenWrt
12 1 (0.016%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,248 (20.25%) Stakeholder Management
2 1,044 (16.94%) Roadmaps
3 910 (14.77%) Migration
4 841 (13.65%) Enterprise Architecture
5 801 (13.00%) AI
6 792 (12.85%) Technical Leadership
7 660 (10.71%) Agile
8 649 (10.53%) DevOps
9 643 (10.43%) Data Architecture
10 625 (10.14%) Data Modelling
11 623 (10.11%) CI/CD
12 620 (10.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 574 (9.31%) Integration Patterns
14 526 (8.53%) Analytics
15 503 (8.16%) Security Architecture
16 495 (8.03%) TOGAF
17 488 (7.92%) Architectural Patterns
18 450 (7.30%) Event-Driven
19 425 (6.90%) Architecture Governance
20 423 (6.86%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 259 (4.20%) SQL
2 244 (3.96%) Java
3 233 (3.78%) Python
4 114 (1.85%) JavaScript
4 114 (1.85%) PowerShell
5 58 (0.94%) TypeScript
6 55 (0.89%) Bicep
7 54 (0.88%) C#
8 44 (0.71%) Bash
9 30 (0.49%) Apex Code
10 27 (0.44%) ABAP
11 18 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 13 (0.21%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.18%) Groovy
13 11 (0.18%) R
14 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
15 9 (0.15%) C++
15 9 (0.15%) Rust
16 8 (0.13%) Go
16 8 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 1,965 (31.88%) Security Cleared
2 1,480 (24.01%) SC Cleared
3 398 (6.46%) DV Cleared
4 207 (3.36%) BPSS Clearance
5 159 (2.58%) Degree
6 156 (2.53%) CISSP
7 128 (2.08%) AWS Certification
8 121 (1.96%) Azure Certification
9 107 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
10 97 (1.57%) TOGAF Certification
11 74 (1.20%) CISM
12 61 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
13 49 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
14 48 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 40 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 40 (0.65%) CCNP
16 37 (0.60%) CCSP
17 27 (0.44%) CCIE
17 27 (0.44%) Master's Degree
18 21 (0.34%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 288 (4.67%) Data Quality
2 219 (3.55%) NIST
3 196 (3.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 156 (2.53%) GDPR
5 136 (2.21%) NCSC
6 77 (1.25%) GRC
7 52 (0.84%) QA
8 45 (0.73%) Accessibility
9 43 (0.70%) PCI DSS
10 28 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 27 (0.44%) SLA
12 25 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 25 (0.41%) NIST 800
13 23 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
14 20 (0.32%) SEPA
15 19 (0.31%) JSP 440
16 18 (0.29%) IFRS
17 17 (0.28%) ISO 20022
18 15 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
19 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 187 (3.03%) Active Directory
2 117 (1.90%) Docker
3 89 (1.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 41 (0.67%) VMware NSX
5 31 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
6 21 (0.34%) vSphere
7 20 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 19 (0.31%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.081%) ISA Server
10 5 (0.081%) KVM
11 4 (0.065%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (0.049%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.032%) IAG
13 2 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.032%) NFS
13 2 (0.032%) Postfix
13 2 (0.032%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 312 (5.06%) Kubernetes
2 100 (1.62%) Ansible
3 49 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
4 48 (0.78%) Grafana
5 34 (0.55%) Microsoft Intune
5 34 (0.55%) Prometheus
6 16 (0.26%) Argo
7 14 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.19%) WMI
9 11 (0.18%) CASB
9 11 (0.18%) FortiGate
9 11 (0.18%) Istio
10 9 (0.15%) SCCM
11 6 (0.097%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.097%) Puppet
11 6 (0.097%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.081%) NetBackup
12 5 (0.081%) VxRail
13 4 (0.065%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 861 (13.97%) Microsoft
2 367 (5.95%) SAP
3 311 (5.05%) Oracle
4 286 (4.64%) ServiceNow
5 281 (4.56%) Databricks
6 221 (3.59%) Google
7 197 (3.20%) Salesforce
8 151 (2.45%) Cisco
9 137 (2.22%) VMware
10 85 (1.38%) CyberArk
11 78 (1.27%) MuleSoft
12 58 (0.94%) IBM
13 52 (0.84%) Palo Alto
13 52 (0.84%) Workday
14 46 (0.75%) Foundry
15 44 (0.71%) Splunk
16 42 (0.68%) OpenAI
17 40 (0.65%) Red Hat
18 39 (0.63%) Fortinet
19 38 (0.62%) Adobe