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 September 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -4 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,177 2,941 3,814
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.26% 8.93% 9.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.20% 9.80% 10.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,102 1,901 2,350
10th Percentile £481 £463 £485
25th Percentile £525 £525 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £630
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -0.79% -3.08%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £780 £778 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 15 69
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.17 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.62% - -1.53%
75th Percentile £78.75 £83.75 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.66 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -6.44% +1.79% -6.67%

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 50,612 30,015 35,830
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.27% 91.09% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,983 18,953 22,040
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £626 £623 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,861 1,585 1,681
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +2.86%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 5,148 £620 -0.80% 4,922
London +7 2,641 £625 -3.85% 2,733
UK excluding London +7 2,585 £620 +3.33% 2,289
Work from Home +6 1,661 £600 - 1,941
South East +2 743 £625 +4.17% 656
North of England +3 682 £597 -0.58% 563
Midlands +1 437 £626 +8.87% 320
North West +7 379 £600 +4.35% 316
South West +3 350 £638 -1.92% 235
West Midlands +3 324 £647 +7.96% 232
Yorkshire +16 239 £559 -6.88% 182
Scotland +26 183 £625 - 241
East of England +12 162 £619 +11.55% 180
East Midlands +5 108 £600 +18.81% 88
North East -8 63 £600 -15.79% 65
Wales +3 42 £633 +1.20% 31
Channel Islands -4 7 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +3 2 - - 73

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 19 September 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 1,944 (31.47%) Security Cleared
2 1,581 (25.59%) Azure
3 1,457 (23.59%) SC Cleared
4 1,297 (21.00%) AWS
5 1,142 (18.49%) Stakeholder Management
6 960 (15.54%) Roadmaps
7 885 (14.33%) Migration
8 845 (13.68%) Microsoft
9 799 (12.94%) Enterprise Architecture
10 786 (12.72%) AI
11 778 (12.60%) Technical Leadership
12 676 (10.94%) Agile
13 647 (10.47%) DevOps
14 628 (10.17%) Data Modelling
15 625 (10.12%) CI/CD
16 621 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 611 (9.89%) Data Architecture
18 578 (9.36%) Integration Patterns
19 536 (8.68%) Analytics
20 506 (8.19%) TOGAF
21 497 (8.05%) Security Architecture
22 491 (7.95%) GCP
23 473 (7.66%) Architectural Patterns
24 414 (6.70%) Event-Driven
25 406 (6.57%) Microservices
26 405 (6.56%) Data Governance
27 393 (6.36%) DV Cleared
28 385 (6.23%) Decision-Making
29 382 (6.18%) Architecture Governance
30 380 (6.15%) 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 79 (1.28%) SAS
2 71 (1.15%) SharePoint
3 62 (1.00%) Confluence
4 45 (0.73%) Apache
5 41 (0.66%) Apache Spark
6 34 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
6 34 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
7 23 (0.37%) CMS
8 21 (0.34%) Palantir Foundry
9 16 (0.26%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.11%) Documentum
10 7 (0.11%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.097%) Appian
11 6 (0.097%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.097%) JBoss
12 5 (0.081%) Headless CMS
12 5 (0.081%) IIS
12 5 (0.081%) SAP EP
13 4 (0.065%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.065%) Camunda
Applications
1 23 (0.37%) MS Visio
2 16 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.15%) Revit
6 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.11%) Navisworks
8 6 (0.097%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.032%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.032%) Windchill
10 1 (0.016%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.016%) Notion
10 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 171 (2.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
3 34 (0.55%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
4 17 (0.28%) Teamcenter
5 16 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
6 15 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
6 15 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
7 14 (0.23%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
9 12 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
10 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 7 (0.11%) Maximo
13 7 (0.11%) Oracle Retail
14 6 (0.097%) SAP CO
14 6 (0.097%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,581 (25.59%) Azure
2 1,297 (21.00%) AWS
3 491 (7.95%) GCP
4 307 (4.97%) Power Platform
5 240 (3.89%) SaaS
6 221 (3.58%) Entra ID
7 197 (3.19%) Serverless
8 149 (2.41%) Dynamics 365
8 149 (2.41%) GitHub
9 134 (2.17%) Microsoft 365
10 131 (2.12%) Azure DevOps
11 117 (1.89%) Snowflake
12 103 (1.67%) PaaS
13 92 (1.49%) AWS Lambda
14 83 (1.34%) Amazon S3
15 74 (1.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 73 (1.18%) IaaS
17 70 (1.13%) OCI
18 66 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
19 64 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 162 (2.62%) Firewall
2 150 (2.43%) Network Security
3 100 (1.62%) WAN
4 78 (1.26%) VPN
5 76 (1.23%) DNS
6 68 (1.10%) LAN
7 48 (0.78%) SD-WAN
8 46 (0.74%) BGP
9 41 (0.66%) MPLS
10 39 (0.63%) DHCP
11 36 (0.58%) TCP/IP
12 29 (0.47%) VLAN
13 27 (0.44%) VXLAN
14 25 (0.40%) SAN
15 24 (0.39%) NX-OS
16 21 (0.34%) Wireless
17 20 (0.32%) BIG-IP
18 19 (0.31%) NAS
18 19 (0.31%) NGFW
18 19 (0.31%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 226 (3.66%) Metadata
2 215 (3.48%) Data Lake
3 193 (3.12%) Power BI
4 191 (3.09%) Data Warehouse
5 66 (1.07%) NoSQL
6 52 (0.84%) BigQuery
7 49 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
7 49 (0.79%) SQL Server
8 46 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
9 41 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
9 41 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
10 40 (0.65%) Delta Lake
11 37 (0.60%) Oracle Database
12 34 (0.55%) Big Data
13 32 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 30 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
15 27 (0.44%) Relational Database
16 22 (0.36%) GIS
16 22 (0.36%) Star Schema
16 22 (0.36%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 88 (1.42%) JIRA
2 80 (1.30%) Git
3 63 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 46 (0.74%) GitLab
5 16 (0.26%) ERwin
6 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 13 (0.21%) Postman
8 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 9 (0.15%) MSI
8 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
8 9 (0.15%) RStudio
9 7 (0.11%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.097%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.097%) Hudson
10 6 (0.097%) Rational DOORS
10 6 (0.097%) Storybook
11 5 (0.081%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.081%) MLflow
11 5 (0.081%) Selenium
11 5 (0.081%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,252 (20.27%) Social Skills
2 887 (14.36%) Finance
3 712 (11.53%) Public Sector
4 318 (5.15%) Banking
5 291 (4.71%) Analytical Skills
6 273 (4.42%) Retail
7 172 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
8 152 (2.46%) Manufacturing
9 142 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
10 134 (2.17%) Telecoms
11 115 (1.86%) Legal
12 74 (1.20%) Marketing
13 64 (1.04%) Billing
14 60 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 59 (0.96%) Aerospace
16 53 (0.86%) Military
17 42 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
18 37 (0.60%) Police
19 36 (0.58%) Aviation
19 36 (0.58%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 300 (4.86%) REST
2 264 (4.27%) Terraform
3 180 (2.91%) Middleware
4 165 (2.67%) Kafka
5 139 (2.25%) SOAP
6 127 (2.06%) OAuth
7 125 (2.02%) .NET
8 77 (1.25%) Oracle Fusion
9 74 (1.20%) JSON
10 66 (1.07%) OpenID
10 66 (1.07%) SAML
11 63 (1.02%) OAuth2
12 56 (0.91%) LDAP
13 48 (0.78%) PySpark
14 47 (0.76%) XML
15 46 (0.74%) RESTful
16 40 (0.65%) .NET Framework
16 40 (0.65%) SailPoint
17 38 (0.62%) React
18 37 (0.60%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 518 (8.39%) Cloud Native
2 201 (3.25%) Data Centre
3 184 (2.98%) Onboarding
4 179 (2.90%) Management Information System
5 151 (2.44%) Product Ownership
6 144 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
7 142 (2.30%) AI Agents
8 141 (2.28%) Hybrid Cloud
9 139 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
10 138 (2.23%) Legacy Systems
11 101 (1.64%) CMDB
12 95 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
13 91 (1.47%) Public Cloud
14 89 (1.44%) Operational Technology
15 82 (1.33%) Enterprise Cloud
16 65 (1.05%) Private Cloud
17 63 (1.02%) Security Posture
18 61 (0.99%) Data Structures
19 49 (0.79%) Taxonomies
20 46 (0.74%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 129 (2.09%) Windows
2 106 (1.72%) Linux
3 52 (0.84%) Windows Server
4 24 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 24 (0.39%) Unix
5 9 (0.15%) AIX
5 9 (0.15%) Android
5 9 (0.15%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.097%) zOS
8 5 (0.081%) Solaris
9 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
9 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
9 4 (0.065%) VMS
10 3 (0.049%) CentOS
11 2 (0.032%) HPUX
11 2 (0.032%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.032%) OpenWrt
11 2 (0.032%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.016%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,142 (18.49%) Stakeholder Management
2 960 (15.54%) Roadmaps
3 885 (14.33%) Migration
4 799 (12.94%) Enterprise Architecture
5 786 (12.72%) AI
6 778 (12.60%) Technical Leadership
7 676 (10.94%) Agile
8 647 (10.47%) DevOps
9 628 (10.17%) Data Modelling
10 625 (10.12%) CI/CD
11 621 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 611 (9.89%) Data Architecture
13 578 (9.36%) Integration Patterns
14 536 (8.68%) Analytics
15 506 (8.19%) TOGAF
16 497 (8.05%) Security Architecture
17 473 (7.66%) Architectural Patterns
18 414 (6.70%) Event-Driven
19 406 (6.57%) Microservices
20 405 (6.56%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 263 (4.26%) Python
1 263 (4.26%) SQL
2 262 (4.24%) Java
3 129 (2.09%) JavaScript
4 112 (1.81%) PowerShell
5 56 (0.91%) TypeScript
6 52 (0.84%) C#
7 47 (0.76%) Bash
8 44 (0.71%) Bicep
9 32 (0.52%) Apex Code
10 21 (0.34%) ABAP
11 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 16 (0.26%) Shell Script
12 14 (0.23%) Ruby
13 11 (0.18%) Groovy
13 11 (0.18%) R
14 10 (0.16%) C++
14 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
15 9 (0.15%) Rust
16 8 (0.13%) Go
Qualifications
1 1,944 (31.47%) Security Cleared
2 1,457 (23.59%) SC Cleared
3 393 (6.36%) DV Cleared
4 169 (2.74%) Degree
5 165 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
6 158 (2.56%) CISSP
7 120 (1.94%) AWS Certification
7 120 (1.94%) Azure Certification
8 109 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
9 93 (1.51%) TOGAF Certification
10 74 (1.20%) CISM
11 68 (1.10%) Computer Science Degree
12 50 (0.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 48 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
14 44 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 43 (0.70%) CCNP
16 38 (0.62%) CCSP
17 32 (0.52%) Master's Degree
18 24 (0.39%) CISA
19 22 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 260 (4.21%) Data Quality
2 234 (3.79%) NIST
3 199 (3.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 164 (2.66%) GDPR
5 125 (2.02%) NCSC
6 84 (1.36%) GRC
7 61 (0.99%) QA
8 40 (0.65%) Accessibility
8 40 (0.65%) PCI DSS
9 33 (0.53%) NIST 800
10 32 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.39%) SLA
12 23 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
13 22 (0.36%) SEPA
14 21 (0.34%) IFRS
14 21 (0.34%) ISO 20022
15 20 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 19 (0.31%) JSP 440
17 15 (0.24%) ISO 19650
18 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 194 (3.14%) Active Directory
2 112 (1.81%) Docker
3 83 (1.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 47 (0.76%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
6 23 (0.37%) vSphere
7 19 (0.31%) Hyper-V
8 18 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 16 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.081%) NFS
11 4 (0.065%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.065%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.065%) KVM
11 4 (0.065%) Postfix
11 4 (0.065%) Varnish
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.049%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.049%) vCloud
12 3 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 301 (4.87%) Kubernetes
2 107 (1.73%) Ansible
3 51 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
4 48 (0.78%) Grafana
5 39 (0.63%) Prometheus
6 30 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (0.28%) Argo
8 15 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.16%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.16%) WMI
11 9 (0.15%) CASB
11 9 (0.15%) FortiGate
11 9 (0.15%) Istio
12 7 (0.11%) NetBackup
12 7 (0.11%) Puppet
12 7 (0.11%) SCCM
13 6 (0.097%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.081%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.081%) vRealize
Vendors
1 845 (13.68%) Microsoft
2 354 (5.73%) SAP
3 318 (5.15%) ServiceNow
4 307 (4.97%) Oracle
5 292 (4.73%) Databricks
6 210 (3.40%) Salesforce
7 202 (3.27%) Google
8 151 (2.44%) Cisco
9 145 (2.35%) VMware
10 88 (1.42%) CyberArk
11 81 (1.31%) MuleSoft
12 62 (1.00%) IBM
13 56 (0.91%) Workday
14 50 (0.81%) Palo Alto
15 49 (0.79%) Foundry
16 43 (0.70%) Splunk
17 41 (0.66%) Informatica
18 39 (0.63%) Adobe
18 39 (0.63%) Red Hat
19 36 (0.58%) Ariba