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 19 June 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +8 -6 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,579 2,891 4,568
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.04% 9.69% 10.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.95% 10.51% 11.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,674 1,856 2,928
10th Percentile £463 £463 £490
25th Percentile £515 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £719 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £617 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.83% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 148 29 98
10th Percentile £48.38 £49.79 £59.25
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 £78.75 £82.25 £86.66
90th Percentile £97.50 £89.71 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £73.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -11.26% +4.64% -

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 46,676 27,509 40,765
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.24% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,368 17,700 26,113
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,110 1,183 2,977
10th Percentile £15.24 £13.88 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.92 £17.47 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.69 £27.21 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.57% -27.44% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.45%

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 19 June 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 19 June 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 19 June 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 4,735 £620 -0.80% 935
UK excluding London +9 2,479 £617 +2.83% 631
London +6 2,304 £625 -3.85% 425
Work from Home +4 1,515 £600 - 452
South East +5 699 £625 +4.17% 201
North of England +7 696 £600 - 178
Midlands +1 441 £613 +3.90% 80
North West +3 370 £610 +2.95% 92
West Midlands -2 312 £625 +4.17% 66
South West +2 270 £643 +4.90% 82
Yorkshire +8 267 £558 -7.00% 51
East of England +21 210 £575 -4.17% 40
Scotland +12 160 £650 +4.00% 30
East Midlands +6 123 £575 +15.00% 14
North East +8 66 £575 -8.00% 36
Wales -1 34 £620 +30.53% 23
Northern Ireland +5 7 £475 -28.30% 7
Channel Islands +1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 19 June 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 1,665 (29.84%) Security Cleared
2 1,373 (24.61%) Azure
3 1,255 (22.50%) SC Cleared
4 1,192 (21.37%) AWS
5 786 (14.09%) Migration
6 778 (13.95%) Roadmaps
7 719 (12.89%) Microsoft
8 680 (12.19%) Stakeholder Management
9 645 (11.56%) Agile
10 631 (11.31%) DevOps
11 597 (10.70%) CI/CD
12 579 (10.38%) Enterprise Architecture
13 576 (10.32%) AI
14 534 (9.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 526 (9.43%) Data Modelling
16 524 (9.39%) Technical Leadership
17 514 (9.21%) Integration Patterns
18 469 (8.41%) Data Architecture
19 457 (8.19%) Architectural Patterns
20 447 (8.01%) Analytics
21 432 (7.74%) TOGAF
22 422 (7.56%) Microservices
23 411 (7.37%) GCP
24 366 (6.56%) Problem-Solving
25 360 (6.45%) Architectural Design
26 349 (6.26%) Security Architecture
27 340 (6.09%) Infrastructure as Code
28 331 (5.93%) Cybersecurity
28 331 (5.93%) Event-Driven
29 324 (5.81%) SAP

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
1 119 (2.13%) SharePoint
2 89 (1.60%) Confluence
3 52 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (0.84%) SAS
5 33 (0.59%) Apache Spark
6 30 (0.54%) Apache
7 23 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
8 18 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
9 16 (0.29%) Appian
9 16 (0.29%) CMS
10 15 (0.27%) WebLogic
11 14 (0.25%) nginx
12 13 (0.23%) Anypoint
13 11 (0.20%) OpenStack
14 10 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 9 (0.16%) ArcGIS
15 9 (0.16%) Camunda
16 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
17 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
17 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 23 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 18 (0.32%) MS Visio
3 13 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.18%) Chatbot
4 10 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
5 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.13%) Revit
5 7 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.054%) PlantUML
6 3 (0.054%) Windchill
7 1 (0.018%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.018%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.018%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 149 (2.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.72%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
5 18 (0.32%) SAP ERP
6 16 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
7 15 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
8 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
9 11 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 9 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 8 (0.14%) Oracle Retail
11 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
12 7 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
12 7 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
12 7 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 7 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.11%) Maximo
13 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
14 5 (0.090%) SAP CRM
14 5 (0.090%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 1,373 (24.61%) Azure
2 1,192 (21.37%) AWS
3 411 (7.37%) GCP
4 266 (4.77%) Power Platform
5 204 (3.66%) Serverless
6 185 (3.32%) SaaS
7 184 (3.30%) Entra ID
8 137 (2.46%) GitHub
8 137 (2.46%) Microsoft 365
9 117 (2.10%) PaaS
10 109 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
11 107 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
12 98 (1.76%) AWS Lambda
13 93 (1.67%) Snowflake
14 90 (1.61%) IaaS
15 85 (1.52%) Amazon S3
16 69 (1.24%) Amazon EKS
17 66 (1.18%) GitHub Actions
17 66 (1.18%) OpenShift
18 62 (1.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 207 (3.71%) Firewall
2 180 (3.23%) Network Security
3 117 (2.10%) VPN
4 116 (2.08%) WAN
5 111 (1.99%) DNS
6 78 (1.40%) LAN
7 63 (1.13%) SD-WAN
8 40 (0.72%) DHCP
9 39 (0.70%) BGP
10 33 (0.59%) Wireless
11 32 (0.57%) TCP/IP
11 32 (0.57%) VLAN
12 30 (0.54%) MPLS
13 29 (0.52%) OSPF
13 29 (0.52%) SAN
14 27 (0.48%) NAS
15 25 (0.45%) Structured Cabling
16 22 (0.39%) IPsec
17 21 (0.38%) BIG-IP
17 21 (0.38%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 189 (3.39%) Power BI
2 154 (2.76%) Data Lake
2 154 (2.76%) Metadata
3 147 (2.63%) Data Warehouse
4 75 (1.34%) NoSQL
5 69 (1.24%) PostgreSQL
6 64 (1.15%) SQL Server
7 48 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
8 43 (0.77%) Big Data
9 37 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
9 37 (0.66%) Oracle Database
10 34 (0.61%) Tableau
11 30 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
11 30 (0.54%) BigQuery
12 29 (0.52%) Delta Lake
13 26 (0.47%) Relational Database
14 24 (0.43%) MongoDB
15 21 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
15 21 (0.38%) Amazon Aurora
16 20 (0.36%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 112 (2.01%) JIRA
2 91 (1.63%) Jenkins
3 64 (1.15%) Git
4 43 (0.77%) GitLab
5 26 (0.47%) ERwin
6 12 (0.22%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.18%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.16%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.14%) MLflow
9 8 (0.14%) Postman
10 7 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
12 5 (0.090%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.090%) JMeter
12 5 (0.090%) JUnit
12 5 (0.090%) Maven
12 5 (0.090%) PowerDesigner
13 4 (0.072%) Oracle Forms
13 4 (0.072%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,040 (18.64%) Social Skills
2 868 (15.56%) Finance
3 632 (11.33%) Public Sector
4 317 (5.68%) Banking
5 273 (4.89%) Analytical Skills
6 199 (3.57%) Retail
7 153 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
8 137 (2.46%) Legal
9 123 (2.20%) Influencing Skills
10 102 (1.83%) Manufacturing
11 95 (1.70%) Telecoms
12 58 (1.04%) Law
13 50 (0.90%) Marketing
13 50 (0.90%) Military
14 47 (0.84%) Billing
15 46 (0.82%) Financial Institution
16 45 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
17 41 (0.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (0.70%) Aerospace
19 35 (0.63%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 268 (4.80%) REST
2 207 (3.71%) Middleware
3 135 (2.42%) .NET
4 129 (2.31%) SOAP
5 116 (2.08%) Kafka
6 99 (1.77%) OAuth
7 95 (1.70%) OpenID
8 77 (1.38%) LDAP
9 76 (1.36%) SAML
10 64 (1.15%) Oracle Fusion
11 60 (1.08%) OAuth2
12 57 (1.02%) React
13 54 (0.97%) RESTful
14 46 (0.82%) SailPoint
15 45 (0.81%) JSON
16 38 (0.68%) AngularJS
16 38 (0.68%) Web Services
17 34 (0.61%) Node.js
18 30 (0.54%) .NET Framework
19 29 (0.52%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 468 (8.39%) Cloud Native
2 188 (3.37%) Data Centre
3 163 (2.92%) Management Information System
4 147 (2.63%) Product Ownership
5 143 (2.56%) Onboarding
6 130 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
7 126 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
8 119 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
9 116 (2.08%) Hybrid Cloud
10 93 (1.67%) Public Cloud
11 90 (1.61%) Operational Technology
12 88 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
13 83 (1.49%) Security Posture
14 81 (1.45%) AI Agents
15 80 (1.43%) CMDB
16 49 (0.88%) Enterprise Cloud
17 46 (0.82%) Data Structures
17 46 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
18 43 (0.77%) NHS
19 41 (0.73%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 151 (2.71%) Windows
2 96 (1.72%) Linux
3 43 (0.77%) Windows Server
4 37 (0.66%) Android
5 36 (0.65%) Apple iOS
6 24 (0.43%) Unix
7 18 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (0.18%) zOS
9 9 (0.16%) VMS
9 9 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.11%) Windows 10
12 5 (0.090%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.090%) Mac OS
12 5 (0.090%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.090%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.072%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.072%) Solaris
14 3 (0.054%) AIX
14 3 (0.054%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 786 (14.09%) Migration
2 778 (13.95%) Roadmaps
3 680 (12.19%) Stakeholder Management
4 645 (11.56%) Agile
5 631 (11.31%) DevOps
6 597 (10.70%) CI/CD
7 579 (10.38%) Enterprise Architecture
8 576 (10.32%) AI
9 534 (9.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 526 (9.43%) Data Modelling
11 524 (9.39%) Technical Leadership
12 514 (9.21%) Integration Patterns
13 469 (8.41%) Data Architecture
14 457 (8.19%) Architectural Patterns
15 447 (8.01%) Analytics
16 432 (7.74%) TOGAF
17 422 (7.56%) Microservices
18 366 (6.56%) Problem-Solving
19 360 (6.45%) Architectural Design
20 349 (6.26%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 319 (5.72%) Python
2 276 (4.95%) SQL
3 241 (4.32%) Java
4 141 (2.53%) PowerShell
5 104 (1.86%) JavaScript
6 66 (1.18%) C#
7 58 (1.04%) Bicep
8 43 (0.77%) TypeScript
9 36 (0.65%) Bash
10 24 (0.43%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.38%) Ruby
12 15 (0.27%) Scala
13 13 (0.23%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.23%) PL/SQL
14 11 (0.20%) Kusto Query Language
15 9 (0.16%) ABAP
16 8 (0.14%) C++
16 8 (0.14%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.14%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) R
Qualifications
1 1,665 (29.84%) Security Cleared
2 1,255 (22.50%) SC Cleared
3 293 (5.25%) DV Cleared
4 194 (3.48%) Degree
5 120 (2.15%) CISSP
6 117 (2.10%) Azure Certification
7 113 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
8 109 (1.95%) AWS Certification
9 103 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
10 82 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
11 79 (1.42%) TOGAF Certification
12 64 (1.15%) CISM
13 49 (0.88%) CCNP
14 48 (0.86%) Master's Degree
15 44 (0.79%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 41 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
17 37 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 28 (0.50%) CCSP
19 22 (0.39%) DBS Check
20 19 (0.34%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 198 (3.55%) NIST
2 182 (3.26%) GDPR
3 163 (2.92%) Data Quality
4 153 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 119 (2.13%) NCSC
6 67 (1.20%) QA
7 43 (0.77%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.72%) GRC
9 35 (0.63%) Accessibility
10 28 (0.50%) ISO 20022
11 24 (0.43%) NIST 800
11 24 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.41%) SEPA
13 20 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
14 18 (0.32%) COBIT
14 18 (0.32%) HL7
15 16 (0.29%) IFRS
16 14 (0.25%) HIPAA
17 13 (0.23%) FINRA
17 13 (0.23%) MiFID
System Software
1 180 (3.23%) Active Directory
2 105 (1.88%) Docker
3 95 (1.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 64 (1.15%) VMware NSX
5 28 (0.50%) vSphere
6 24 (0.43%) Hyper-V
6 24 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (0.22%) Varnish
9 11 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.16%) NFS
11 9 (0.16%) Squid
12 8 (0.14%) vCloud
13 7 (0.13%) Postfix
14 5 (0.090%) RACF
15 4 (0.072%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.072%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.054%) IAG
16 3 (0.054%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 268 (4.80%) Terraform
2 251 (4.50%) Kubernetes
3 115 (2.06%) Ansible
4 50 (0.90%) Grafana
5 49 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
6 39 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (0.70%) Prometheus
7 32 (0.57%) FortiGate
8 26 (0.47%) vCenter Server
9 20 (0.36%) Argo
10 16 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 14 (0.25%) SCCM
12 11 (0.20%) Istio
13 9 (0.16%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.14%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.13%) Consul
15 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
15 7 (0.13%) Puppet
16 5 (0.090%) EMC VPLEX
17 4 (0.072%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 719 (12.89%) Microsoft
2 324 (5.81%) SAP
3 299 (5.36%) ServiceNow
4 254 (4.55%) Oracle
5 230 (4.12%) Databricks
6 183 (3.28%) Salesforce
7 175 (3.14%) VMware
8 137 (2.46%) Cisco
9 120 (2.15%) Google
10 73 (1.31%) CyberArk
11 72 (1.29%) MuleSoft
12 63 (1.13%) Splunk
13 54 (0.97%) Palo Alto
14 53 (0.95%) Red Hat
15 46 (0.82%) IBM
15 46 (0.82%) OpenAI
16 44 (0.79%) Workday
17 42 (0.75%) Sparx
18 40 (0.72%) Ariba
19 39 (0.70%) Foundry