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 18 January 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,531 3,139 4,181
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.51% 9.89% 9.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.40% 10.65% 10.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,383 1,879 2,742
10th Percentile £461 £485 £500
25th Percentile £516 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £738 £725
90th Percentile £799 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 30 33
10th Percentile £52.89 £59.83 £58.05
25th Percentile £65.00 £66.00 £61.25
Median hourly rate £83.00 £72.50 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +14.48% -5.27% +9.33%
75th Percentile £93.75 £81.83 £83.11
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.82 £72.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +15.61% -5.27% +9.33%

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 33,942 29,468 40,286
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.41% 92.82% 93.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,457 18,028 26,771
10th Percentile £300 £296 £279
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £616 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,003 894 1,815
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.91 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £18.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.69
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -20.13% +19.68%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £64.45
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £75.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +46.55%

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 18 January 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 18 January 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 18 January 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 -3 3,071 £625 - 840
UK excluding London 0 1,716 £600 -4.00% 684
London -2 1,363 £650 - 284
Work from Home -3 1,026 £615 -1.60% 400
South East +11 556 £600 -4.00% 242
North of England -6 421 £570 -5.00% 149
Midlands -2 299 £575 -4.17% 76
North West -4 253 £575 -4.17% 79
South West 0 236 £710 +13.60% 86
West Midlands -2 222 £588 -4.24% 39
Yorkshire -8 160 £558 -7.00% 48
East of England +5 108 £525 -16.00% 92
Scotland 0 93 £650 +4.00% 28
East Midlands -1 76 £505 -12.17% 36
Wales +3 30 £625 +2.04% 30
North East -28 8 £588 -2.02% 22
Northern Ireland -9 5 £500 -16.67% 8
Channel Islands - 2 £625 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 January 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 1,107 (31.35%) Security Cleared
2 956 (27.07%) Azure
3 790 (22.37%) SC Cleared
4 735 (20.82%) AWS
5 521 (14.76%) Microsoft
6 501 (14.19%) Roadmaps
7 466 (13.20%) Stakeholder Management
8 463 (13.11%) Agile
9 430 (12.18%) Migration
10 385 (10.90%) Enterprise Architecture
11 378 (10.71%) DevOps
12 377 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 357 (10.11%) TOGAF
14 355 (10.05%) Technical Leadership
15 350 (9.91%) Data Modelling
16 330 (9.35%) CI/CD
17 326 (9.23%) Problem-Solving
18 288 (8.16%) Analytics
19 285 (8.07%) AI
20 283 (8.01%) GCP
20 283 (8.01%) Python
21 252 (7.14%) Data Architecture
22 239 (6.77%) DV Cleared
23 238 (6.74%) Integration Patterns
24 236 (6.68%) Microservices
25 228 (6.46%) Terraform
26 218 (6.17%) Mentoring
27 212 (6.00%) Architectural Design
28 211 (5.98%) SAP
29 199 (5.64%) 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
1 101 (2.86%) Confluence
2 81 (2.29%) SharePoint
3 50 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.71%) SAS
5 20 (0.57%) OpenStack
6 18 (0.51%) CMS
7 15 (0.42%) Apache
8 14 (0.40%) Apache Spark
9 13 (0.37%) Anypoint
9 13 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
9 13 (0.37%) ArcGIS
10 9 (0.25%) Smallworld
11 7 (0.20%) Ethereum
11 7 (0.20%) GeoServer
11 7 (0.20%) Hyperledger
11 7 (0.20%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.17%) Skype for Business
12 6 (0.17%) Tomcat
13 5 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.11%) Mule
Applications
1 47 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
3 31 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
4 30 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (0.48%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.14%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.085%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.085%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.028%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.028%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.028%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.028%) Revit
8 1 (0.028%) Trello
Business Applications
1 108 (3.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 31 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.65%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.51%) Salesforce CRM
6 14 (0.40%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.37%) SAP CO
7 13 (0.37%) SAP PM
8 12 (0.34%) Maximo
8 12 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
8 12 (0.34%) SAP FI
9 11 (0.31%) SAP FI/CO
10 9 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.25%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.23%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.20%) Distributed Ledger
12 7 (0.20%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.20%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 956 (27.07%) Azure
2 735 (20.82%) AWS
3 283 (8.01%) GCP
4 138 (3.91%) SaaS
5 135 (3.82%) Power Platform
5 135 (3.82%) Serverless
6 120 (3.40%) Microsoft 365
7 110 (3.12%) Entra ID
8 82 (2.32%) AWS Lambda
9 80 (2.27%) GitHub
10 79 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
11 78 (2.21%) IaaS
12 75 (2.12%) Dynamics 365
13 70 (1.98%) Microsoft Purview
14 65 (1.84%) Amazon S3
15 63 (1.78%) PaaS
16 60 (1.70%) AWS CloudFormation
17 59 (1.67%) Azure Data Factory
18 57 (1.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 52 (1.47%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 189 (5.35%) Firewall
2 132 (3.74%) WAN
3 103 (2.92%) Network Security
4 89 (2.52%) VPN
5 86 (2.44%) LAN
6 83 (2.35%) DNS
7 69 (1.95%) SD-WAN
8 37 (1.05%) BGP
9 30 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
10 27 (0.76%) MPLS
11 26 (0.74%) Internet
12 24 (0.68%) DHCP
13 22 (0.62%) SAN
14 21 (0.59%) VSAN
15 20 (0.57%) OSPF
16 16 (0.45%) VLAN
17 15 (0.42%) IPsec
17 15 (0.42%) SSL
18 14 (0.40%) Kerberos
18 14 (0.40%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (3.37%) Data Warehouse
2 95 (2.69%) Power BI
3 87 (2.46%) Metadata
4 77 (2.18%) Data Lake
5 64 (1.81%) PostgreSQL
6 53 (1.50%) SQL Server
7 46 (1.30%) Tableau
8 42 (1.19%) Amazon Redshift
9 38 (1.08%) DynamoDB
10 36 (1.02%) NoSQL
11 33 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
12 28 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
12 28 (0.79%) Oracle Database
13 26 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
13 26 (0.74%) Redis
13 26 (0.74%) Relational Database
14 25 (0.71%) Amazon Aurora
15 21 (0.59%) Delta Lake
15 21 (0.59%) GIS
16 18 (0.51%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 118 (3.34%) JIRA
2 79 (2.24%) Jenkins
3 42 (1.19%) GitLab
4 40 (1.13%) Git
5 19 (0.54%) ERwin
6 9 (0.25%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.17%) Maven
7 6 (0.17%) MSI
7 6 (0.17%) Postman
8 5 (0.14%) Gradle
8 5 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
8 5 (0.14%) SonarLint
9 4 (0.11%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.11%) MLflow
9 4 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
9 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.085%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.085%) Selenium
10 3 (0.085%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 888 (25.15%) Social Skills
2 558 (15.80%) Finance
3 430 (12.18%) Public Sector
4 258 (7.31%) Analytical Skills
5 193 (5.47%) Banking
6 96 (2.72%) Legal
7 94 (2.66%) Documentation Skills
8 79 (2.24%) Telecoms
9 75 (2.12%) Retail
10 73 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
11 72 (2.04%) Military
12 69 (1.95%) Marketing
13 67 (1.90%) Presentation Skills
14 63 (1.78%) Manufacturing
15 42 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 34 (0.96%) Billing
17 32 (0.91%) Financial Institution
18 24 (0.68%) Law
19 22 (0.62%) Back Office
20 21 (0.59%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 179 (5.07%) REST
2 105 (2.97%) SOAP
3 102 (2.89%) Middleware
4 75 (2.12%) .NET
5 64 (1.81%) Kafka
6 54 (1.53%) OAuth
7 53 (1.50%) LDAP
8 49 (1.39%) JSON
9 43 (1.22%) SAML
10 42 (1.19%) OpenID
11 41 (1.16%) RESTful
12 31 (0.88%) OAuth2
13 30 (0.85%) PySpark
14 28 (0.79%) AngularJS
14 28 (0.79%) Spring Boot
15 27 (0.76%) Oracle Fusion
16 26 (0.74%) React
16 26 (0.74%) SailPoint
17 23 (0.65%) Lightning Web Components
17 23 (0.65%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 261 (7.39%) Cloud Native
2 131 (3.71%) Product Ownership
3 114 (3.23%) Data Centre
4 100 (2.83%) Legacy Systems
5 96 (2.72%) Onboarding
6 89 (2.52%) PKI
7 84 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
8 78 (2.21%) Hybrid Cloud
9 67 (1.90%) Security Posture
10 60 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
11 57 (1.61%) Management Information System
11 57 (1.61%) Public Cloud
12 54 (1.53%) Operational Technology
13 43 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
14 41 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
15 40 (1.13%) CMDB
16 38 (1.08%) NHS
17 37 (1.05%) Data Structures
18 33 (0.93%) SCADA
19 31 (0.88%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 161 (4.56%) Windows
2 105 (2.97%) Linux
3 42 (1.19%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.48%) Windows 10
5 17 (0.48%) Windows 7
5 17 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
7 12 (0.34%) Unix
8 9 (0.25%) VMS
9 7 (0.20%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.17%) Android
10 6 (0.17%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.17%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.14%) zOS
12 4 (0.11%) CentOS
13 3 (0.085%) Solaris
13 3 (0.085%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.028%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 501 (14.19%) Roadmaps
2 466 (13.20%) Stakeholder Management
3 463 (13.11%) Agile
4 430 (12.18%) Migration
5 385 (10.90%) Enterprise Architecture
6 378 (10.71%) DevOps
7 377 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 357 (10.11%) TOGAF
9 355 (10.05%) Technical Leadership
10 350 (9.91%) Data Modelling
11 330 (9.35%) CI/CD
12 326 (9.23%) Problem-Solving
13 288 (8.16%) Analytics
14 285 (8.07%) AI
15 252 (7.14%) Data Architecture
16 238 (6.74%) Integration Patterns
17 236 (6.68%) Microservices
18 218 (6.17%) Mentoring
19 212 (6.00%) Architectural Design
20 199 (5.64%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 283 (8.01%) Python
2 176 (4.98%) SQL
3 164 (4.64%) PowerShell
4 127 (3.60%) Java
5 53 (1.50%) JavaScript
6 41 (1.16%) C#
7 32 (0.91%) TypeScript
8 31 (0.88%) Bicep
9 29 (0.82%) Bash
10 22 (0.62%) Apex Code
11 19 (0.54%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
12 11 (0.31%) R
13 10 (0.28%) T-SQL
14 9 (0.25%) ABAP
14 9 (0.25%) Ruby
15 8 (0.23%) PHP
16 7 (0.20%) Korn
16 7 (0.20%) Scala
16 7 (0.20%) VB
Qualifications
1 1,107 (31.35%) Security Cleared
2 790 (22.37%) SC Cleared
3 239 (6.77%) DV Cleared
4 173 (4.90%) Degree
5 105 (2.97%) CISSP
6 100 (2.83%) AWS Certification
7 99 (2.80%) TOGAF Certification
8 91 (2.58%) Azure Certification
9 64 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
10 62 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
11 60 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
12 58 (1.64%) Microsoft Certification
13 54 (1.53%) CISM
14 48 (1.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 44 (1.25%) Master's Degree
16 36 (1.02%) CCNP
17 33 (0.93%) CCIE
18 25 (0.71%) ISEB
18 25 (0.71%) ITIL Certification
19 21 (0.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (4.64%) GDPR
2 139 (3.94%) NIST
3 125 (3.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 105 (2.97%) Data Quality
5 70 (1.98%) NCSC
6 56 (1.59%) QA
7 53 (1.50%) PCI DSS
8 29 (0.82%) COBIT
9 27 (0.76%) Accessibility
10 25 (0.71%) JSP 440
11 22 (0.62%) GRC
11 22 (0.62%) HIPAA
11 22 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 21 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.45%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 16 (0.45%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 14 (0.40%) ISO 20022
15 12 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 11 (0.31%) MiFID
16 11 (0.31%) SLA
System Software
1 156 (4.42%) Active Directory
2 118 (3.34%) Docker
3 97 (2.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 44 (1.25%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.91%) vSphere
6 22 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
7 19 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
8 16 (0.45%) Hyper-V
9 15 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.20%) NFS
11 6 (0.17%) BitLocker
11 6 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
11 6 (0.17%) Varnish
12 5 (0.14%) Lustre
12 5 (0.14%) Postfix
13 4 (0.11%) Dovecot
13 4 (0.11%) vCloud
14 3 (0.085%) Ceph
14 3 (0.085%) GPFS
14 3 (0.085%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 228 (6.46%) Terraform
2 171 (4.84%) Kubernetes
3 101 (2.86%) Ansible
4 47 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.93%) OPNET
6 24 (0.68%) SCCM
6 24 (0.68%) vCenter Server
7 22 (0.62%) FortiGate
8 18 (0.51%) Microsoft Intune
8 18 (0.51%) WMI
9 14 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 10 (0.28%) Argo
10 10 (0.28%) Prometheus
11 9 (0.25%) Grafana
12 6 (0.17%) Istio
12 6 (0.17%) Kibana
12 6 (0.17%) Puppet
13 4 (0.11%) Data Guard
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle RMAN
14 3 (0.085%) Karpenter
Vendors
1 521 (14.76%) Microsoft
2 211 (5.98%) SAP
3 198 (5.61%) ServiceNow
4 182 (5.15%) Salesforce
5 166 (4.70%) Oracle
6 158 (4.47%) VMware
7 119 (3.37%) Cisco
8 104 (2.95%) Databricks
9 83 (2.35%) CyberArk
9 83 (2.35%) Google
10 65 (1.84%) Palo Alto
11 57 (1.61%) MuleSoft
12 49 (1.39%) Centrify
13 48 (1.36%) Splunk
14 43 (1.22%) Remedy
14 43 (1.22%) Workday
15 42 (1.19%) Atlassian
16 39 (1.10%) OpenAI
16 39 (1.10%) Sparx
17 35 (0.99%) Fortinet