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 13 August 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,932 3,043 3,921
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.12% 9.24% 10.07%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.01% 10.11% 10.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,918 1,966 2,552
10th Percentile £481 £473 £488
25th Percentile £525 £536 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £703 £738
90th Percentile £788 £787 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £622 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.67% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 18 78
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.36 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -

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 49,387 30,089 36,178
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.56% 91.36% 92.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,655 19,063 23,293
10th Percentile £328 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,474 1,522 2,032
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.18
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.26 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.31 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.21% -41.51% +2.38%
75th Percentile £67.96 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.61 £25.11 £45.00
% change year-on-year +73.66% -44.20% +25.00%

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 13 August 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 13 August 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 13 August 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 4,995 £623 -0.40% 2,695
London +8 2,570 £625 -3.85% 1,592
UK excluding London +5 2,466 £622 +3.67% 1,257
Work from Home +4 1,596 £600 - 1,041
South East 0 726 £625 +4.17% 344
North of England +4 694 £600 - 306
Midlands -1 416 £625 +8.70% 149
North West +5 399 £600 - 163
West Midlands -1 303 £626 +4.38% 99
South West -3 298 £625 -2.34% 192
Yorkshire +2 232 £600 0.00% 105
East of England +12 155 £600 +8.11% 100
Scotland +14 152 £650 +4.00% 101
East Midlands +7 106 £600 +16.50% 50
North East -5 65 £600 -15.79% 38
Wales +6 40 £640 +2.40% 26
Northern Ireland +10 6 £475 -32.14% 46
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 13 August 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 1,816 (30.61%) Security Cleared
2 1,499 (25.27%) Azure
3 1,367 (23.04%) SC Cleared
4 1,292 (21.78%) AWS
5 868 (14.63%) Stakeholder Management
6 861 (14.51%) Roadmaps
7 826 (13.92%) Migration
8 758 (12.78%) Microsoft
9 731 (12.32%) AI
10 712 (12.00%) Enterprise Architecture
11 659 (11.11%) Agile
12 625 (10.54%) DevOps
13 624 (10.52%) Technical Leadership
14 613 (10.33%) CI/CD
15 609 (10.27%) Data Modelling
16 600 (10.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 578 (9.74%) Integration Patterns
18 573 (9.66%) Data Architecture
19 519 (8.75%) Analytics
20 488 (8.23%) TOGAF
21 465 (7.84%) Architectural Patterns
22 464 (7.82%) GCP
23 432 (7.28%) Security Architecture
24 405 (6.83%) Microservices
25 389 (6.56%) Event-Driven
26 362 (6.10%) Infrastructure as Code
27 360 (6.07%) Data Governance
28 358 (6.04%) Cybersecurity
29 357 (6.02%) Problem-Solving
30 341 (5.75%) Decision-Making

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 88 (1.48%) SharePoint
2 77 (1.30%) SAS
3 67 (1.13%) Confluence
4 44 (0.74%) Apache
5 40 (0.67%) Apache Spark
6 31 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
7 27 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.30%) OpenStack
10 17 (0.29%) CMS
11 9 (0.15%) ArcGIS
12 8 (0.13%) Appian
13 7 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 7 (0.12%) Camunda
13 7 (0.12%) Documentum
14 5 (0.084%) NetWeaver
14 5 (0.084%) nginx
15 4 (0.067%) Jupyter
15 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
16 3 (0.051%) JBoss
Applications
1 21 (0.35%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.15%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.084%) Microsoft Office
7 3 (0.051%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.051%) Windchill
8 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 155 (2.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 32 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 16 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
5 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
6 15 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
8 13 (0.22%) SAP ERP
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
10 11 (0.19%) NetSuite
11 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 10 (0.17%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
13 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
14 6 (0.10%) Endur
14 6 (0.10%) Maximo
14 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,499 (25.27%) Azure
2 1,292 (21.78%) AWS
3 464 (7.82%) GCP
4 294 (4.96%) Power Platform
5 211 (3.56%) SaaS
6 202 (3.41%) Entra ID
7 194 (3.27%) Serverless
8 144 (2.43%) GitHub
9 127 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
10 121 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
11 118 (1.99%) PaaS
12 115 (1.94%) Azure DevOps
13 113 (1.90%) Snowflake
14 96 (1.62%) AWS Lambda
15 85 (1.43%) Amazon S3
15 85 (1.43%) IaaS
16 65 (1.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 64 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
18 63 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
18 63 (1.06%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 195 (3.29%) Firewall
2 175 (2.95%) Network Security
3 105 (1.77%) WAN
4 102 (1.72%) VPN
5 90 (1.52%) DNS
6 78 (1.31%) LAN
7 50 (0.84%) SD-WAN
8 47 (0.79%) BGP
9 41 (0.69%) DHCP
10 38 (0.64%) MPLS
10 38 (0.64%) TCP/IP
11 35 (0.59%) VLAN
12 31 (0.52%) SAN
13 28 (0.47%) Wireless
14 26 (0.44%) NAS
14 26 (0.44%) OSPF
14 26 (0.44%) VXLAN
15 24 (0.40%) Structured Cabling
16 22 (0.37%) NX-OS
17 20 (0.34%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 202 (3.41%) Power BI
2 200 (3.37%) Data Lake
3 180 (3.03%) Data Warehouse
4 178 (3.00%) Metadata
5 77 (1.30%) NoSQL
6 52 (0.88%) SQL Server
7 50 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
8 45 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
8 45 (0.76%) Big Data
9 44 (0.74%) BigQuery
10 43 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
11 38 (0.64%) Delta Lake
12 37 (0.62%) Oracle Database
13 35 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
14 26 (0.44%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 25 (0.42%) GIS
16 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
16 23 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
17 22 (0.37%) MongoDB
17 22 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 83 (1.40%) JIRA
2 77 (1.30%) Git
3 60 (1.01%) Jenkins
4 34 (0.57%) GitLab
5 23 (0.39%) ERwin
6 11 (0.19%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.13%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.13%) Postman
8 8 (0.13%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) Maven
10 6 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.10%) Storybook
11 5 (0.084%) MLflow
11 5 (0.084%) MSI
12 4 (0.067%) ER Studio
12 4 (0.067%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,130 (19.05%) Social Skills
2 862 (14.53%) Finance
3 669 (11.28%) Public Sector
4 325 (5.48%) Banking
5 303 (5.11%) Analytical Skills
6 256 (4.32%) Retail
7 152 (2.56%) Influencing Skills
8 136 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
9 134 (2.26%) Telecoms
10 129 (2.17%) Manufacturing
11 114 (1.92%) Legal
12 67 (1.13%) Marketing
13 57 (0.96%) Billing
14 51 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 50 (0.84%) Financial Institution
16 46 (0.78%) Law
16 46 (0.78%) Military
17 42 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
18 39 (0.66%) Aerospace
19 36 (0.61%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 289 (4.87%) REST
2 203 (3.42%) Middleware
3 139 (2.34%) Kafka
4 129 (2.17%) .NET
5 126 (2.12%) SOAP
6 121 (2.04%) OAuth
7 71 (1.20%) Oracle Fusion
8 66 (1.11%) OpenID
9 62 (1.05%) JSON
9 62 (1.05%) OAuth2
10 61 (1.03%) SAML
11 51 (0.86%) RESTful
12 46 (0.78%) React
13 39 (0.66%) PySpark
13 39 (0.66%) SailPoint
14 36 (0.61%) .NET Framework
14 36 (0.61%) XML
15 35 (0.59%) GraphQL
16 31 (0.52%) JWT
16 31 (0.52%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 500 (8.43%) Cloud Native
2 205 (3.46%) Data Centre
3 179 (3.02%) Management Information System
4 148 (2.49%) Product Ownership
5 147 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
6 146 (2.46%) Onboarding
7 142 (2.39%) Hybrid Cloud
8 141 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
9 132 (2.23%) AI Agents
10 125 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
11 107 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
12 90 (1.52%) Operational Technology
13 87 (1.47%) CMDB
13 87 (1.47%) Public Cloud
14 71 (1.20%) Enterprise Cloud
15 67 (1.13%) Security Posture
16 60 (1.01%) Data Structures
17 50 (0.84%) Private Cloud
18 46 (0.78%) IoT
19 45 (0.76%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 129 (2.17%) Windows
2 103 (1.74%) Linux
3 47 (0.79%) Windows Server
4 28 (0.47%) Android
4 28 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 21 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.35%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
6 9 (0.15%) zOS
7 7 (0.12%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.12%) VMS
8 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
8 5 (0.084%) Solaris
8 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
9 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.034%) CentOS
10 2 (0.034%) HPUX
10 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 868 (14.63%) Stakeholder Management
2 861 (14.51%) Roadmaps
3 826 (13.92%) Migration
4 731 (12.32%) AI
5 712 (12.00%) Enterprise Architecture
6 659 (11.11%) Agile
7 625 (10.54%) DevOps
8 624 (10.52%) Technical Leadership
9 613 (10.33%) CI/CD
10 609 (10.27%) Data Modelling
11 600 (10.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 578 (9.74%) Integration Patterns
13 573 (9.66%) Data Architecture
14 519 (8.75%) Analytics
15 488 (8.23%) TOGAF
16 465 (7.84%) Architectural Patterns
17 432 (7.28%) Security Architecture
18 405 (6.83%) Microservices
19 389 (6.56%) Event-Driven
20 362 (6.10%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 276 (4.65%) Python
2 273 (4.60%) Java
2 273 (4.60%) SQL
3 132 (2.23%) JavaScript
4 103 (1.74%) PowerShell
5 55 (0.93%) C#
6 53 (0.89%) Bicep
7 49 (0.83%) Bash
8 46 (0.78%) TypeScript
9 34 (0.57%) Apex Code
10 21 (0.35%) Ruby
11 17 (0.29%) Shell Script
12 16 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 13 (0.22%) C++
13 13 (0.22%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.19%) ABAP
14 11 (0.19%) Groovy
15 10 (0.17%) Scala
16 9 (0.15%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,816 (30.61%) Security Cleared
2 1,367 (23.04%) SC Cleared
3 341 (5.75%) DV Cleared
4 169 (2.85%) Degree
5 150 (2.53%) CISSP
6 128 (2.16%) Azure Certification
7 124 (2.09%) AWS Certification
8 117 (1.97%) BPSS Clearance
9 105 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
10 90 (1.52%) TOGAF Certification
11 73 (1.23%) CISM
12 71 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
13 47 (0.79%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 44 (0.74%) CCNP
15 42 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 41 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
17 33 (0.56%) CCSP
18 31 (0.52%) Master's Degree
19 21 (0.35%) CISA
19 21 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 217 (3.66%) Data Quality
2 208 (3.51%) NIST
3 186 (3.14%) GDPR
4 166 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 117 (1.97%) NCSC
6 76 (1.28%) GRC
7 61 (1.03%) QA
8 43 (0.72%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.66%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.52%) NIST 800
10 31 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
11 22 (0.37%) ISO 20022
11 22 (0.37%) SEPA
12 21 (0.35%) IFRS
13 17 (0.29%) HL7
14 16 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
15 15 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 15 (0.25%) SLA
16 13 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 161 (2.71%) Active Directory
2 122 (2.06%) Docker
3 82 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 47 (0.79%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.37%) Hyper-V
7 21 (0.35%) vSphere
8 18 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 13 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.13%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Varnish
12 6 (0.10%) Postfix
12 6 (0.10%) vCloud
13 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.067%) IAG
13 4 (0.067%) KVM
13 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.051%) Ceph
14 3 (0.051%) SRDF
15 2 (0.034%) Squid
Systems Management
1 299 (5.04%) Kubernetes
2 267 (4.50%) Terraform
3 104 (1.75%) Ansible
4 51 (0.86%) Grafana
5 44 (0.74%) Prometheus
6 43 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
7 37 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.34%) Argo
9 16 (0.27%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
11 13 (0.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 11 (0.19%) FortiGate
12 11 (0.19%) Istio
13 7 (0.12%) SCCM
14 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
15 5 (0.084%) CASB
15 5 (0.084%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.084%) MOM
15 5 (0.084%) NetBackup
15 5 (0.084%) WMI
Vendors
1 758 (12.78%) Microsoft
2 341 (5.75%) SAP
3 306 (5.16%) ServiceNow
4 300 (5.06%) Oracle
5 259 (4.37%) Databricks
6 196 (3.30%) Salesforce
7 161 (2.71%) Google
8 147 (2.48%) VMware
9 138 (2.33%) Cisco
10 71 (1.20%) MuleSoft
11 64 (1.08%) IBM
12 57 (0.96%) CyberArk
13 52 (0.88%) Palo Alto
14 51 (0.86%) Workday
15 45 (0.76%) Foundry
16 43 (0.72%) Ariba
17 42 (0.71%) Splunk
18 39 (0.66%) Red Hat
19 38 (0.64%) Adobe
20 37 (0.62%) Sparx