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 7 December 2025.

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

6 months to
7 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 16 17
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,258 3,486 4,210
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.98% 9.76% 9.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.88% 10.53% 9.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,216 2,083 2,857
10th Percentile £463 £480 £500
25th Percentile £525 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £725 £725
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £625 £627
% change year-on-year -2.00% -0.32% -3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 24 36
10th Percentile £63.50 £60.45 £58.75
25th Percentile £66.25 £62.25 £71.50
Median hourly rate £83.82 £68.75 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +21.92% -10.17% +9.33%
75th Percentile £95.00 £86.21 £80.78
90th Percentile - £89.25 £91.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.82 £67.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +24.18% -11.80% +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 32,988 33,120 42,501
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.93% 92.74% 93.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,924 20,243 28,641
10th Percentile £285 £300 £294
25th Percentile £403 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £645
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,924 1,136 1,517
10th Percentile £14.22 £15.36 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.75 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.75 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.63% -21.02% +40.98%
75th Percentile £56.81 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.75 £73.66 £77.50
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 7 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 7 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 7 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 2,819 £625 - 1,919
UK excluding London -3 1,546 £613 -2.00% 1,753
London 0 1,284 £634 +1.40% 392
Work from Home -4 1,022 £613 -1.96% 956
South East +4 509 £600 -4.00% 545
North of England -7 368 £600 - 381
South West +2 259 £700 +12.00% 188
Midlands -8 228 £581 -3.17% 301
North West -7 218 £599 -0.21% 197
West Midlands -13 175 £588 -2.08% 176
Yorkshire -19 131 £600 +1.48% 150
Scotland -6 90 £600 -4.00% 73
East of England -8 83 £553 -7.92% 223
East Midlands -5 53 £515 -6.36% 110
Wales -2 23 £625 - 45
North East -1 20 £700 +12.13% 35
Northern Ireland -10 6 £550 -8.33% 28
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 7 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 1,004 (30.82%) Security Cleared
2 905 (27.78%) Azure
3 717 (22.01%) AWS
4 694 (21.30%) SC Cleared
5 510 (15.65%) Roadmaps
6 485 (14.89%) Microsoft
7 465 (14.27%) Agile
8 445 (13.66%) Stakeholder Management
9 392 (12.03%) TOGAF
10 391 (12.00%) Migration
11 376 (11.54%) Enterprise Architecture
12 355 (10.90%) DevOps
12 355 (10.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 348 (10.68%) Data Modelling
14 338 (10.37%) CI/CD
15 321 (9.85%) Problem-Solving
16 301 (9.24%) Technical Leadership
17 269 (8.26%) AI
17 269 (8.26%) Microservices
18 267 (8.20%) GCP
19 255 (7.83%) Analytics
19 255 (7.83%) Terraform
20 248 (7.61%) Python
21 240 (7.37%) Data Architecture
22 228 (7.00%) DV Cleared
23 213 (6.54%) Mentoring
24 208 (6.38%) Security Architecture
25 205 (6.29%) Data Governance
25 205 (6.29%) ITIL
26 204 (6.26%) Firewall

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 (2.98%) Confluence
2 55 (1.69%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.86%) SAS
5 18 (0.55%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.55%) CMS
6 17 (0.52%) Apache
6 17 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.52%) OpenStack
7 14 (0.43%) ArcGIS
8 13 (0.40%) WebLogic
9 8 (0.25%) Anypoint
9 8 (0.25%) Mule
10 7 (0.21%) WebSphere
11 6 (0.18%) Ethereum
11 6 (0.18%) Hyperledger
11 6 (0.18%) Smallworld
12 5 (0.15%) GeoServer
12 5 (0.15%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 44 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (1.01%) Microsoft Project
3 25 (0.77%) MS Visio
4 21 (0.64%) Microsoft Excel
5 19 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.31%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.092%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.092%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.031%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.031%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.031%) Revit
8 1 (0.031%) Trello
Business Applications
1 89 (2.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 32 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
4 27 (0.83%) Workday HCM
5 20 (0.61%) Salesforce CRM
6 18 (0.55%) Maximo
7 16 (0.49%) SAP PM
8 13 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 13 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
8 13 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
8 13 (0.40%) SAP CO
9 12 (0.37%) SAP FI
9 12 (0.37%) Teamcenter
10 11 (0.34%) SAP FI/CO
11 9 (0.28%) Endur
12 8 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
12 8 (0.25%) SAP EWM
12 8 (0.25%) SAP PP
13 7 (0.21%) Aladdin
13 7 (0.21%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 905 (27.78%) Azure
2 717 (22.01%) AWS
3 267 (8.20%) GCP
4 149 (4.57%) SaaS
5 140 (4.30%) Power Platform
6 120 (3.68%) Serverless
7 105 (3.22%) Entra ID
8 92 (2.82%) Microsoft 365
9 85 (2.61%) IaaS
10 83 (2.55%) GitHub
11 79 (2.42%) Dynamics 365
12 73 (2.24%) AWS Lambda
13 69 (2.12%) PaaS
14 63 (1.93%) Azure DevOps
15 61 (1.87%) Amazon S3
16 60 (1.84%) Snowflake
17 58 (1.78%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 55 (1.69%) AWS CloudFormation
19 54 (1.66%) Azure Data Factory
20 51 (1.57%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 204 (6.26%) Firewall
2 103 (3.16%) WAN
3 97 (2.98%) Network Security
4 89 (2.73%) LAN
5 78 (2.39%) VPN
6 70 (2.15%) DNS
6 70 (2.15%) SD-WAN
7 39 (1.20%) Wi-Fi
8 36 (1.10%) BGP
9 26 (0.80%) MPLS
9 26 (0.80%) SAN
10 25 (0.77%) Cisco Nexus
10 25 (0.77%) DHCP
11 22 (0.68%) SSL
12 21 (0.64%) VSAN
13 19 (0.58%) Internet
14 17 (0.52%) VLAN
15 16 (0.49%) OSPF
16 14 (0.43%) iSCSI
17 13 (0.40%) Fibre Channel
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (3.59%) Data Warehouse
2 95 (2.92%) Power BI
3 90 (2.76%) Metadata
4 74 (2.27%) Data Lake
5 66 (2.03%) PostgreSQL
6 60 (1.84%) SQL Server
7 42 (1.29%) NoSQL
8 40 (1.23%) Amazon Redshift
9 30 (0.92%) DynamoDB
9 30 (0.92%) MongoDB
10 29 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
10 29 (0.89%) Tableau
11 28 (0.86%) Oracle Database
12 26 (0.80%) BigQuery
13 25 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
13 25 (0.77%) Relational Database
14 24 (0.74%) Big Data
15 23 (0.71%) Amazon Athena
15 23 (0.71%) Delta Lake
16 19 (0.58%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 119 (3.65%) JIRA
2 72 (2.21%) Jenkins
3 58 (1.78%) Git
4 41 (1.26%) GitLab
5 19 (0.58%) ERwin
6 12 (0.37%) CircleCI
6 12 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.25%) Artifactory
7 8 (0.25%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.21%) MLflow
9 6 (0.18%) Bitbucket
9 6 (0.18%) Maven
10 5 (0.15%) Gradle
10 5 (0.15%) MSI
10 5 (0.15%) Rational DOORS
10 5 (0.15%) SonarLint
10 5 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.12%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.092%) Postman
12 3 (0.092%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 870 (26.70%) Social Skills
2 549 (16.85%) Finance
3 415 (12.74%) Public Sector
4 270 (8.29%) Analytical Skills
5 188 (5.77%) Banking
6 96 (2.95%) Telecoms
7 81 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (2.49%) Retail
8 71 (2.18%) Influencing Skills
9 70 (2.15%) Marketing
10 69 (2.12%) Presentation Skills
11 68 (2.09%) Legal
11 68 (2.09%) Manufacturing
12 65 (2.00%) Military
13 45 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 38 (1.17%) Financial Institution
15 32 (0.98%) Billing
16 26 (0.80%) Back Office
17 21 (0.64%) Aerospace
17 21 (0.64%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 146 (4.48%) REST
2 92 (2.82%) Middleware
3 82 (2.52%) SOAP
4 74 (2.27%) .NET
5 63 (1.93%) Kafka
6 61 (1.87%) JSON
7 55 (1.69%) OAuth
8 51 (1.57%) RESTful
9 45 (1.38%) SAML
10 39 (1.20%) Lightning Web Components
11 38 (1.17%) Web Services
12 33 (1.01%) AngularJS
12 33 (1.01%) OAuth2
13 32 (0.98%) React
14 31 (0.95%) Node.js
14 31 (0.95%) RabbitMQ
15 30 (0.92%) OpenID
16 28 (0.86%) Oracle Fusion
17 27 (0.83%) Spring Boot
18 26 (0.80%) Visualforce
Miscellaneous
1 253 (7.77%) Cloud Native
2 150 (4.60%) Product Ownership
3 129 (3.96%) Legacy Systems
4 108 (3.31%) Data Centre
5 84 (2.58%) Hybrid Cloud
6 83 (2.55%) Onboarding
7 77 (2.36%) PKI
8 58 (1.78%) Management Information System
9 48 (1.47%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
11 46 (1.41%) Operational Technology
12 44 (1.35%) CMDB
13 42 (1.29%) Public Cloud
14 41 (1.26%) Self-Motivation
15 40 (1.23%) NHS
16 39 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
17 33 (1.01%) Security Posture
18 31 (0.95%) Data Structures
19 29 (0.89%) SCADA
20 27 (0.83%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 135 (4.14%) Windows
2 98 (3.01%) Linux
3 52 (1.60%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 22 (0.68%) Windows Server 2019
5 17 (0.52%) Unix
6 12 (0.37%) Windows 7
7 11 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.31%) VMS
9 6 (0.18%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.15%) Android
10 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.15%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.092%) Solaris
11 3 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (0.092%) zOS
12 2 (0.061%) CentOS
13 1 (0.031%) MVS
13 1 (0.031%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 510 (15.65%) Roadmaps
2 465 (14.27%) Agile
3 445 (13.66%) Stakeholder Management
4 392 (12.03%) TOGAF
5 391 (12.00%) Migration
6 376 (11.54%) Enterprise Architecture
7 355 (10.90%) DevOps
7 355 (10.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 348 (10.68%) Data Modelling
9 338 (10.37%) CI/CD
10 321 (9.85%) Problem-Solving
11 301 (9.24%) Technical Leadership
12 269 (8.26%) AI
12 269 (8.26%) Microservices
13 255 (7.83%) Analytics
14 240 (7.37%) Data Architecture
15 213 (6.54%) Mentoring
16 208 (6.38%) Security Architecture
17 205 (6.29%) Data Governance
17 205 (6.29%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 248 (7.61%) Python
2 163 (5.00%) SQL
3 152 (4.67%) Java
4 99 (3.04%) PowerShell
5 64 (1.96%) JavaScript
6 53 (1.63%) TypeScript
7 46 (1.41%) C#
8 33 (1.01%) Apex Code
8 33 (1.01%) Bicep
9 30 (0.92%) Bash
10 19 (0.58%) R
11 14 (0.43%) C++
12 13 (0.40%) C
13 12 (0.37%) PL/SQL
14 9 (0.28%) ABAP
15 8 (0.25%) Korn
16 7 (0.21%) Go
16 7 (0.21%) Ruby
17 6 (0.18%) DataWeave
17 6 (0.18%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,004 (30.82%) Security Cleared
2 694 (21.30%) SC Cleared
3 228 (7.00%) DV Cleared
4 189 (5.80%) Degree
5 122 (3.74%) CISSP
6 111 (3.41%) AWS Certification
7 100 (3.07%) Azure Certification
8 89 (2.73%) TOGAF Certification
9 68 (2.09%) Cisco Certification
10 66 (2.03%) Computer Science Degree
11 65 (2.00%) Microsoft Certification
12 53 (1.63%) CISM
13 49 (1.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 46 (1.41%) BPSS Clearance
15 45 (1.38%) Master's Degree
16 36 (1.10%) CCNP
17 35 (1.07%) CCIE
18 25 (0.77%) ISEB
19 22 (0.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 22 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 176 (5.40%) GDPR
2 136 (4.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 131 (4.02%) NIST
4 95 (2.92%) Data Quality
5 64 (1.96%) NCSC
6 53 (1.63%) PCI DSS
7 50 (1.53%) QA
8 33 (1.01%) COBIT
9 30 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 25 (0.77%) Accessibility
10 25 (0.77%) HIPAA
11 24 (0.74%) GRC
11 24 (0.74%) JSP 440
12 23 (0.71%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 20 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.43%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 14 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.34%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.34%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.31%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 126 (3.87%) Docker
2 120 (3.68%) Active Directory
3 87 (2.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.10%) vSphere
5 30 (0.92%) VMware NSX
6 23 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
7 18 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 17 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.43%) NFS
10 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
11 5 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 4 (0.12%) Dovecot
12 4 (0.12%) Postfix
13 3 (0.092%) BitLocker
13 3 (0.092%) KVM
13 3 (0.092%) Lustre
13 3 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
14 2 (0.061%) GPFS
15 1 (0.031%) Ceph
15 1 (0.031%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 255 (7.83%) Terraform
2 193 (5.92%) Kubernetes
3 96 (2.95%) Ansible
4 53 (1.63%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.01%) OPNET
6 25 (0.77%) Prometheus
7 23 (0.71%) Grafana
8 21 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
9 17 (0.52%) SCCM
9 17 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.40%) WMI
12 9 (0.28%) Argo
13 4 (0.12%) SCOM
14 3 (0.092%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.092%) Istio
14 3 (0.092%) Puppet
14 3 (0.092%) RSA Archer
14 3 (0.092%) vRealize
15 2 (0.061%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 485 (14.89%) Microsoft
2 202 (6.20%) ServiceNow
3 190 (5.83%) SAP
4 176 (5.40%) Salesforce
5 171 (5.25%) Oracle
6 141 (4.33%) VMware
7 121 (3.71%) Cisco
8 95 (2.92%) Databricks
9 88 (2.70%) Google
10 53 (1.63%) Fortinet
10 53 (1.63%) Workday
11 52 (1.60%) Splunk
12 51 (1.57%) Remedy
13 50 (1.53%) Palo Alto
14 43 (1.32%) IBM
15 41 (1.26%) CyberArk
16 40 (1.23%) MuleSoft
17 39 (1.20%) Atlassian
18 37 (1.14%) F5
19 36 (1.10%) Pega