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 4 April 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +3 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,886 2,947 4,493
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.82% 10.08% 10.18%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.73% 10.87% 10.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,223 1,940 2,903
10th Percentile £463 £480 £500
25th Percentile £513 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.52%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £815
UK excluding London median daily rate £603 £619 £650
% change year-on-year -2.59% -4.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 117 37 50
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.30 £50.47
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £70.00 £82.38
Median % change year-on-year +1.81% -15.03% +17.69%
75th Percentile £85.00 £80.59 £87.51
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.61 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £83.77
% change year-on-year -1.70% -13.45% +19.66%

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 41,646 27,118 40,940
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.22% 92.78% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,966 17,841 26,815
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.31%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.53% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,596 956 2,534
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.91 £20.26 £16.25
Median hourly rate £40.00 £32.00 £33.78
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -5.26% -24.15%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £71.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.50 £31.29 £34.61
% change year-on-year +32.63% -9.58% -18.32%

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 4 April 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 4 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Architect in the UK

Architect
Top 17 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 4 April 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 4,196 £625 - 1,077
UK excluding London +8 2,294 £603 -2.59% 761
London -1 1,922 £625 -3.85% 476
Work from Home +1 1,363 £615 +0.41% 523
South East +4 702 £625 - 256
North of England +5 602 £600 - 194
Midlands -4 398 £575 -4.17% 95
North West +8 343 £610 +1.67% 100
West Midlands -3 297 £600 - 69
South West +3 286 £695 +15.83% 98
Yorkshire +9 235 £558 -7.00% 70
East of England +17 180 £550 -8.33% 71
Scotland +15 135 £650 +4.00% 35
East Midlands -4 97 £525 -5.41% 26
North East +4 33 £575 -7.95% 28
Wales -5 29 £563 -6.25% 24
Northern Ireland +3 11 £500 -26.47% 4

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 4 April 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 1,565 (32.03%) Security Cleared
2 1,203 (24.62%) Azure
3 1,108 (22.68%) SC Cleared
4 1,041 (21.31%) AWS
5 710 (14.53%) Roadmaps
6 678 (13.88%) Microsoft
7 647 (13.24%) Migration
8 619 (12.67%) Agile
9 564 (11.54%) Stakeholder Management
10 552 (11.30%) DevOps
11 512 (10.48%) CI/CD
12 510 (10.44%) Enterprise Architecture
13 479 (9.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 466 (9.54%) Data Modelling
15 452 (9.25%) Technical Leadership
16 450 (9.21%) TOGAF
17 424 (8.68%) AI
18 422 (8.64%) Analytics
19 396 (8.10%) Integration Patterns
20 390 (7.98%) GCP
21 388 (7.94%) Problem-Solving
22 383 (7.84%) Data Architecture
23 371 (7.59%) Architectural Patterns
24 364 (7.45%) Microservices
25 357 (7.31%) Python
26 336 (6.88%) DV Cleared
27 328 (6.71%) Architectural Design
28 291 (5.96%) Security Architecture
29 286 (5.85%) ServiceNow
30 284 (5.81%) Infrastructure as Code

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
1 123 (2.52%) SharePoint
2 119 (2.44%) Confluence
3 64 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (0.65%) SAS
5 26 (0.53%) CMS
6 25 (0.51%) Apache Spark
7 21 (0.43%) Apache
8 18 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
9 17 (0.35%) Anypoint
10 16 (0.33%) Appian
10 16 (0.33%) ArcGIS
11 15 (0.31%) WebLogic
12 14 (0.29%) nginx
13 11 (0.23%) OpenStack
14 10 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 7 (0.14%) Camunda
15 7 (0.14%) Ethereum
15 7 (0.14%) Hyperledger
15 7 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 7 (0.14%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 49 (1.00%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.47%) Microsoft Excel
5 18 (0.37%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.041%) PlantUML
7 2 (0.041%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.041%) Windchill
8 1 (0.020%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.020%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.020%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.020%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.020%) Revit
8 1 (0.020%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 130 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 50 (1.02%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
4 21 (0.43%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
6 17 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
7 16 (0.33%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
9 12 (0.25%) SAP EWM
10 11 (0.23%) NetSuite
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 10 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
11 10 (0.20%) SAP PM
11 10 (0.20%) Teamcenter
12 9 (0.18%) Maximo
13 8 (0.16%) SAP PP
14 7 (0.14%) R3 Corda
14 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
14 7 (0.14%) SAP QM
15 6 (0.12%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 1,203 (24.62%) Azure
2 1,041 (21.31%) AWS
3 390 (7.98%) GCP
4 206 (4.22%) Power Platform
5 174 (3.56%) Serverless
6 172 (3.52%) Entra ID
7 160 (3.27%) SaaS
8 143 (2.93%) Microsoft 365
9 115 (2.35%) IaaS
10 112 (2.29%) GitHub
11 105 (2.15%) PaaS
12 102 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
13 100 (2.05%) Dynamics 365
14 89 (1.82%) AWS Lambda
15 81 (1.66%) OpenShift
16 75 (1.53%) AWS CloudFormation
17 73 (1.49%) Microsoft Purview
18 71 (1.45%) Amazon S3
18 71 (1.45%) Snowflake
19 69 (1.41%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 239 (4.89%) Firewall
2 174 (3.56%) Network Security
3 143 (2.93%) WAN
4 131 (2.68%) DNS
5 130 (2.66%) VPN
6 88 (1.80%) LAN
7 80 (1.64%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.80%) BGP
8 39 (0.80%) DHCP
9 32 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
10 31 (0.63%) OSPF
11 30 (0.61%) MPLS
11 30 (0.61%) TCP/IP
12 27 (0.55%) SAN
12 27 (0.55%) VLAN
13 25 (0.51%) Wireless
14 22 (0.45%) VXLAN
15 19 (0.39%) BIG-IP
15 19 (0.39%) Internet
15 19 (0.39%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (3.25%) Power BI
2 151 (3.09%) Data Warehouse
3 145 (2.97%) Metadata
4 117 (2.39%) Data Lake
5 83 (1.70%) SQL Server
6 61 (1.25%) PostgreSQL
7 60 (1.23%) NoSQL
8 50 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
8 50 (1.02%) Tableau
9 42 (0.86%) Oracle Database
10 41 (0.84%) Big Data
11 30 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
12 24 (0.49%) Delta Lake
12 24 (0.49%) Relational Database
13 23 (0.47%) BigQuery
13 23 (0.47%) DynamoDB
13 23 (0.47%) GIS
14 22 (0.45%) Electronic Patient Records
15 21 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
15 21 (0.43%) Metadata Repository
Development Applications
1 134 (2.74%) JIRA
2 96 (1.96%) Jenkins
3 49 (1.00%) Git
4 47 (0.96%) GitLab
5 25 (0.51%) ERwin
6 11 (0.23%) Bitbucket
6 11 (0.23%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.20%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.18%) MLflow
9 6 (0.12%) Postman
9 6 (0.12%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.10%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.10%) Selenium
10 5 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.082%) Maven
11 4 (0.082%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.082%) Snyk
11 4 (0.082%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.061%) ER Studio
General
1 1,031 (21.10%) Social Skills
2 747 (15.29%) Finance
3 563 (11.52%) Public Sector
4 321 (6.57%) Analytical Skills
5 281 (5.75%) Banking
6 160 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
7 118 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
8 117 (2.39%) Legal
9 106 (2.17%) Retail
10 89 (1.82%) Military
11 82 (1.68%) Telecoms
12 73 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
13 65 (1.33%) Manufacturing
13 65 (1.33%) Marketing
14 63 (1.29%) Law
15 48 (0.98%) Financial Institution
16 34 (0.70%) Billing
17 33 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 32 (0.65%) Investment Banking
19 31 (0.63%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (5.01%) REST
2 184 (3.77%) Middleware
3 124 (2.54%) SOAP
4 104 (2.13%) .NET
4 104 (2.13%) Kafka
5 82 (1.68%) OpenID
6 80 (1.64%) LDAP
7 75 (1.53%) OAuth
8 61 (1.25%) SAML
9 57 (1.17%) JSON
10 54 (1.11%) React
11 46 (0.94%) AngularJS
11 46 (0.94%) OAuth2
12 45 (0.92%) RESTful
13 37 (0.76%) Web Services
14 36 (0.74%) SailPoint
15 30 (0.61%) Spring
16 28 (0.57%) Oracle Fusion
16 28 (0.57%) PySpark
17 25 (0.51%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 381 (7.80%) Cloud Native
2 165 (3.38%) Data Centre
3 153 (3.13%) Product Ownership
4 128 (2.62%) Onboarding
5 113 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
6 108 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
7 104 (2.13%) Management Information System
8 97 (1.99%) Distributed Systems
8 97 (1.99%) Hybrid Cloud
9 93 (1.90%) Public Cloud
10 87 (1.78%) PKI
11 82 (1.68%) Security Posture
12 70 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
13 67 (1.37%) Operational Technology
14 66 (1.35%) CMDB
15 51 (1.04%) AI Agents
15 51 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
16 47 (0.96%) Data Structures
17 45 (0.92%) NHS
18 42 (0.86%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 188 (3.85%) Windows
2 126 (2.58%) Linux
3 45 (0.92%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 30 (0.61%) Android
5 30 (0.61%) Apple iOS
6 17 (0.35%) Unix
7 15 (0.31%) VMS
8 14 (0.29%) Windows 10
8 14 (0.29%) Windows 7
9 12 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
10 10 (0.20%) zOS
11 9 (0.18%) Mac OS
11 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.061%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.061%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.041%) CentOS
14 1 (0.020%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.020%) Solaris
14 1 (0.020%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 710 (14.53%) Roadmaps
2 647 (13.24%) Migration
3 619 (12.67%) Agile
4 564 (11.54%) Stakeholder Management
5 552 (11.30%) DevOps
6 512 (10.48%) CI/CD
7 510 (10.44%) Enterprise Architecture
8 479 (9.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 466 (9.54%) Data Modelling
10 452 (9.25%) Technical Leadership
11 450 (9.21%) TOGAF
12 424 (8.68%) AI
13 422 (8.64%) Analytics
14 396 (8.10%) Integration Patterns
15 388 (7.94%) Problem-Solving
16 383 (7.84%) Data Architecture
17 371 (7.59%) Architectural Patterns
18 364 (7.45%) Microservices
19 328 (6.71%) Architectural Design
20 291 (5.96%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 357 (7.31%) Python
2 262 (5.36%) SQL
3 191 (3.91%) Java
4 190 (3.89%) PowerShell
5 71 (1.45%) JavaScript
6 64 (1.31%) C#
7 44 (0.90%) Bicep
8 42 (0.86%) Bash
9 31 (0.63%) TypeScript
10 22 (0.45%) Ruby
11 19 (0.39%) Apex Code
12 18 (0.37%) PL/SQL
13 13 (0.27%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.27%) Scala
14 10 (0.20%) R
15 9 (0.18%) ABAP
15 9 (0.18%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.18%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.16%) VB
Qualifications
1 1,565 (32.03%) Security Cleared
2 1,108 (22.68%) SC Cleared
3 336 (6.88%) DV Cleared
4 209 (4.28%) Degree
5 125 (2.56%) CISSP
6 123 (2.52%) TOGAF Certification
7 120 (2.46%) Azure Certification
8 115 (2.35%) AWS Certification
9 90 (1.84%) Cisco Certification
10 89 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
11 76 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
12 68 (1.39%) CISM
13 55 (1.13%) Master's Degree
14 54 (1.11%) CCNP
15 52 (1.06%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 52 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
16 34 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 33 (0.68%) ISEB
17 33 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
18 31 (0.63%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (3.99%) GDPR
2 186 (3.81%) NIST
3 156 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 155 (3.17%) Data Quality
5 105 (2.15%) NCSC
6 69 (1.41%) QA
7 58 (1.19%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.82%) COBIT
9 33 (0.68%) GRC
10 31 (0.63%) Accessibility
11 29 (0.59%) ISO 20022
12 27 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.41%) JSP 440
13 20 (0.41%) NIST 800
14 19 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 18 (0.37%) HL7
15 18 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 15 (0.31%) SEPA
17 14 (0.29%) HIPAA
17 14 (0.29%) MiFID
System Software
1 197 (4.03%) Active Directory
2 123 (2.52%) Docker
3 109 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 78 (1.60%) VMware NSX
5 36 (0.74%) vSphere
6 25 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.35%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.23%) Varnish
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
11 10 (0.20%) vCloud
12 9 (0.18%) Squid
13 7 (0.14%) BitLocker
13 7 (0.14%) NFS
14 5 (0.10%) Postfix
14 5 (0.10%) RACF
15 4 (0.082%) Firmware
16 3 (0.061%) IAG
16 3 (0.061%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 284 (5.81%) Terraform
2 246 (5.03%) Kubernetes
3 119 (2.44%) Ansible
4 58 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (0.80%) Grafana
7 33 (0.68%) vCenter Server
8 32 (0.65%) FortiGate
9 30 (0.61%) OPNET
10 26 (0.53%) Prometheus
11 22 (0.45%) SCCM
12 20 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 20 (0.41%) Argo
13 13 (0.27%) WMI
14 11 (0.23%) Istio
15 7 (0.14%) Consul
15 7 (0.14%) Puppet
16 6 (0.12%) Kibana
17 5 (0.10%) HAProxy
17 5 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 678 (13.88%) Microsoft
2 286 (5.85%) ServiceNow
3 276 (5.65%) SAP
4 202 (4.13%) VMware
5 199 (4.07%) Oracle
6 192 (3.93%) Salesforce
7 175 (3.58%) Databricks
8 142 (2.91%) Cisco
9 108 (2.21%) Google
10 90 (1.84%) CyberArk
11 68 (1.39%) MuleSoft
12 65 (1.33%) Palo Alto
12 65 (1.33%) Splunk
13 59 (1.21%) Red Hat
14 51 (1.04%) IBM
15 50 (1.02%) Remedy
16 49 (1.00%) Sparx
16 49 (1.00%) Workday
17 48 (0.98%) Atlassian
18 45 (0.92%) Ariba