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 5 August 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 13
Rank change year-on-year +9 -6 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,942 3,075 3,977
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.17% 9.35% 10.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.06% 10.22% 10.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,926 1,986 2,582
10th Percentile £475 £468 £488
25th Percentile £525 £530 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £701 £738
90th Percentile £788 £779 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £622 £600 £646
% change year-on-year +3.67% -7.12% -0.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 178 19 77
10th Percentile £46.00 £37.19 £59.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £86.50 £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 49,279 30,093 36,428
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.64% 91.45% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,675 19,115 23,531
10th Percentile £330 £282 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,419 1,494 2,063
10th Percentile £15.23 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.14 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.99 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.10 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.10 £25.15 £43.90
% change year-on-year +75.33% -42.71% +17.07%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 +7 5,011 £623 -0.40% 2,788
London +9 2,586 £625 -3.85% 1,620
UK excluding London +6 2,462 £622 +3.67% 1,326
Work from Home +5 1,608 £600 - 1,118
South East 0 720 £630 +5.00% 361
North of England +4 695 £600 - 311
Midlands -1 420 £625 +8.70% 174
North West +7 394 £600 - 158
West Midlands -2 314 £627 +4.42% 123
South West -1 292 £625 -2.34% 194
Yorkshire +5 235 £600 - 120
East of England +17 162 £600 +8.11% 108
Scotland +10 153 £650 +4.00% 107
East Midlands +8 99 £600 +18.23% 51
North East 0 68 £600 -14.29% 34
Wales +4 36 £640 +18.52% 33
Northern Ireland +8 6 £475 -32.14% 48
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 5 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 1,831 (30.81%) Security Cleared
2 1,493 (25.13%) Azure
3 1,383 (23.27%) SC Cleared
4 1,302 (21.91%) AWS
5 862 (14.51%) Roadmaps
6 830 (13.97%) Stakeholder Management
7 817 (13.75%) Migration
8 742 (12.49%) Microsoft
9 724 (12.18%) AI
10 689 (11.60%) Enterprise Architecture
11 666 (11.21%) Agile
12 626 (10.54%) DevOps
13 612 (10.30%) Data Modelling
14 611 (10.28%) CI/CD
15 606 (10.20%) Technical Leadership
16 588 (9.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 578 (9.73%) Integration Patterns
18 569 (9.58%) Data Architecture
19 527 (8.87%) Analytics
20 495 (8.33%) TOGAF
21 477 (8.03%) Architectural Patterns
22 456 (7.67%) GCP
23 425 (7.15%) Security Architecture
24 415 (6.98%) Microservices
25 391 (6.58%) Event-Driven
26 364 (6.13%) Problem-Solving
27 361 (6.08%) Cybersecurity
28 360 (6.06%) Infrastructure as Code
29 356 (5.99%) Data Governance
30 342 (5.76%) DV Cleared

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 92 (1.55%) SharePoint
2 79 (1.33%) SAS
3 70 (1.18%) Confluence
4 45 (0.76%) Apache
5 44 (0.74%) Apache Spark
6 32 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
7 26 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
8 23 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
9 17 (0.29%) CMS
10 15 (0.25%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.19%) Appian
11 11 (0.19%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.17%) nginx
13 7 (0.12%) Documentum
14 6 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 6 (0.10%) Camunda
15 5 (0.084%) NetWeaver
16 4 (0.067%) JBoss
16 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
16 4 (0.067%) Tomcat
Applications
1 21 (0.35%) MS Visio
2 13 (0.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.20%) 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 (0.050%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.050%) 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 36 (0.61%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 24 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
5 17 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.24%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
9 11 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
11 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
13 7 (0.12%) Maximo
13 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
14 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
14 6 (0.10%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 1,493 (25.13%) Azure
2 1,302 (21.91%) AWS
3 456 (7.67%) GCP
4 290 (4.88%) Power Platform
5 210 (3.53%) Entra ID
6 204 (3.43%) SaaS
7 196 (3.30%) Serverless
8 142 (2.39%) GitHub
9 125 (2.10%) Dynamics 365
10 120 (2.02%) PaaS
11 117 (1.97%) Microsoft 365
12 113 (1.90%) Azure DevOps
13 107 (1.80%) Snowflake
14 98 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
15 87 (1.46%) Amazon S3
16 85 (1.43%) IaaS
17 64 (1.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 64 (1.08%) OCI
18 63 (1.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 62 (1.04%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 201 (3.38%) Firewall
2 182 (3.06%) Network Security
3 107 (1.80%) VPN
3 107 (1.80%) WAN
4 94 (1.58%) DNS
5 78 (1.31%) LAN
6 52 (0.88%) SD-WAN
7 44 (0.74%) BGP
8 41 (0.69%) DHCP
8 41 (0.69%) TCP/IP
9 37 (0.62%) MPLS
10 36 (0.61%) VLAN
11 32 (0.54%) SAN
12 31 (0.52%) Wireless
13 27 (0.45%) NAS
13 27 (0.45%) OSPF
14 25 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
15 24 (0.40%) VXLAN
16 22 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
16 22 (0.37%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 202 (3.40%) Power BI
2 197 (3.32%) Data Lake
3 179 (3.01%) Data Warehouse
4 172 (2.89%) Metadata
5 78 (1.31%) NoSQL
6 52 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
7 51 (0.86%) SQL Server
8 49 (0.82%) Big Data
9 44 (0.74%) BigQuery
10 43 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
10 43 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
11 40 (0.67%) Oracle Database
12 38 (0.64%) Delta Lake
13 32 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
14 26 (0.44%) GIS
14 26 (0.44%) MongoDB
15 24 (0.40%) Semantic Layer
16 23 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
16 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
16 23 (0.39%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 87 (1.46%) JIRA
2 79 (1.33%) Git
3 61 (1.03%) Jenkins
4 30 (0.50%) GitLab
5 23 (0.39%) ERwin
6 11 (0.19%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.13%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.13%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.13%) MLflow
9 7 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 7 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
9 7 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) Maven
11 5 (0.084%) Storybook
12 4 (0.067%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.067%) ER Studio
12 4 (0.067%) Snyk
General
1 1,107 (18.63%) Social Skills
2 881 (14.83%) Finance
3 673 (11.33%) Public Sector
4 329 (5.54%) Banking
5 304 (5.12%) Analytical Skills
6 254 (4.27%) Retail
7 148 (2.49%) Influencing Skills
8 131 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
8 131 (2.20%) Telecoms
9 121 (2.04%) Manufacturing
10 113 (1.90%) Legal
11 63 (1.06%) Marketing
12 56 (0.94%) Billing
13 50 (0.84%) Financial Institution
14 47 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 47 (0.79%) Military
15 46 (0.77%) Law
16 41 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
17 39 (0.66%) Aerospace
18 34 (0.57%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 276 (4.64%) REST
2 208 (3.50%) Middleware
3 142 (2.39%) Kafka
4 128 (2.15%) .NET
5 119 (2.00%) OAuth
5 119 (2.00%) SOAP
6 73 (1.23%) Oracle Fusion
7 69 (1.16%) OpenID
8 63 (1.06%) OAuth2
8 63 (1.06%) SAML
9 55 (0.93%) JSON
10 50 (0.84%) RESTful
11 49 (0.82%) React
12 43 (0.72%) SailPoint
13 41 (0.69%) PySpark
14 35 (0.59%) .NET Framework
14 35 (0.59%) GraphQL
15 33 (0.56%) XML
16 32 (0.54%) Node.js
17 31 (0.52%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 506 (8.52%) Cloud Native
2 196 (3.30%) Data Centre
3 181 (3.05%) Management Information System
4 148 (2.49%) Product Ownership
5 147 (2.47%) Legacy Systems
6 146 (2.46%) Onboarding
7 143 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
8 142 (2.39%) Hybrid Cloud
9 125 (2.10%) AI Agents
10 121 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
11 98 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
12 90 (1.51%) Operational Technology
13 88 (1.48%) Public Cloud
14 81 (1.36%) CMDB
15 68 (1.14%) Enterprise Cloud
16 67 (1.13%) Security Posture
17 59 (0.99%) Data Structures
18 50 (0.84%) Private Cloud
19 48 (0.81%) IoT
20 45 (0.76%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 126 (2.12%) Windows
2 102 (1.72%) Linux
3 46 (0.77%) Windows Server
4 29 (0.49%) Android
4 29 (0.49%) Apple iOS
5 23 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (0.37%) Unix
7 10 (0.17%) zOS
8 9 (0.15%) AIX
9 8 (0.13%) VMS
10 7 (0.12%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.084%) Solaris
11 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.034%) CentOS
13 2 (0.034%) HPUX
13 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 862 (14.51%) Roadmaps
2 830 (13.97%) Stakeholder Management
3 817 (13.75%) Migration
4 724 (12.18%) AI
5 689 (11.60%) Enterprise Architecture
6 666 (11.21%) Agile
7 626 (10.54%) DevOps
8 612 (10.30%) Data Modelling
9 611 (10.28%) CI/CD
10 606 (10.20%) Technical Leadership
11 588 (9.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 578 (9.73%) Integration Patterns
13 569 (9.58%) Data Architecture
14 527 (8.87%) Analytics
15 495 (8.33%) TOGAF
16 477 (8.03%) Architectural Patterns
17 425 (7.15%) Security Architecture
18 415 (6.98%) Microservices
19 391 (6.58%) Event-Driven
20 364 (6.13%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 283 (4.76%) Python
2 271 (4.56%) SQL
3 267 (4.49%) Java
4 133 (2.24%) JavaScript
5 99 (1.67%) PowerShell
6 58 (0.98%) C#
7 55 (0.93%) Bicep
8 50 (0.84%) Bash
9 44 (0.74%) TypeScript
10 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.35%) Ruby
12 15 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 12 (0.20%) C++
13 12 (0.20%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.19%) Scala
15 10 (0.17%) ABAP
16 9 (0.15%) Groovy
16 9 (0.15%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,831 (30.81%) Security Cleared
2 1,383 (23.27%) SC Cleared
3 342 (5.76%) DV Cleared
4 182 (3.06%) Degree
5 151 (2.54%) CISSP
6 130 (2.19%) AWS Certification
7 129 (2.17%) Azure Certification
8 113 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
9 112 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
10 95 (1.60%) TOGAF Certification
11 79 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
12 73 (1.23%) CISM
13 50 (0.84%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 49 (0.82%) CCNP
15 46 (0.77%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 42 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
17 35 (0.59%) CCSP
17 35 (0.59%) Master's Degree
18 22 (0.37%) CCNA
19 21 (0.35%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 210 (3.53%) Data Quality
2 205 (3.45%) NIST
3 185 (3.11%) GDPR
4 163 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 119 (2.00%) NCSC
6 73 (1.23%) GRC
7 62 (1.04%) QA
8 44 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 41 (0.69%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 30 (0.50%) NIST 800
12 23 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
12 23 (0.39%) ISO 20022
12 23 (0.39%) SEPA
13 21 (0.35%) IFRS
14 17 (0.29%) HL7
15 14 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
15 14 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 14 (0.24%) SLA
16 13 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 169 (2.84%) Active Directory
2 126 (2.12%) Docker
3 78 (1.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 48 (0.81%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
6 21 (0.35%) vSphere
7 20 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 17 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.13%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Varnish
12 6 (0.10%) Postfix
12 6 (0.10%) vCloud
13 5 (0.084%) IAG
14 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
14 4 (0.067%) Squid
15 3 (0.050%) KVM
15 3 (0.050%) SRDF
16 2 (0.034%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 302 (5.08%) Kubernetes
2 274 (4.61%) Terraform
3 101 (1.70%) Ansible
4 53 (0.89%) Grafana
5 45 (0.76%) Prometheus
6 44 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
7 40 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
8 21 (0.35%) Argo
9 17 (0.29%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.22%) FortiGate
13 11 (0.19%) Istio
14 7 (0.12%) SCCM
15 6 (0.10%) CASB
15 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.084%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.084%) MOM
16 5 (0.084%) NetBackup
17 4 (0.067%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 742 (12.49%) Microsoft
2 338 (5.69%) SAP
3 304 (5.12%) ServiceNow
4 302 (5.08%) Oracle
5 262 (4.41%) Databricks
6 192 (3.23%) Salesforce
7 152 (2.56%) Google
8 144 (2.42%) VMware
9 133 (2.24%) Cisco
10 67 (1.13%) MuleSoft
11 62 (1.04%) IBM
12 58 (0.98%) CyberArk
13 54 (0.91%) Palo Alto
14 53 (0.89%) Workday
15 45 (0.76%) Foundry
16 44 (0.74%) Ariba
17 43 (0.72%) Splunk
18 42 (0.71%) Red Hat
19 38 (0.64%) Sparx
20 37 (0.62%) OpenAI