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 8 May 2026.

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

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +5 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,231 2,874 4,439
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.02% 9.88% 10.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.95% 10.67% 11.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,440 1,870 2,829
10th Percentile £463 £470 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -0.76%
75th Percentile £725 £715 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 132 36 87
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.00 £59.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.77% +1.79% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.00 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.64 £90.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.91 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.84% +4.15% -

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 43,778 26,928 40,006
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 92.53% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,907 17,551 26,037
10th Percentile £319 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,831 1,044 2,664
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £44.00 £28.75 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.04% -21.23% -18.89%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.59 £27.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +65.76% -31.25% -5.35%

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 8 May 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 8 May 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 8 May 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 +6 4,478 £623 -0.40% 1,016
UK excluding London +8 2,385 £613 +2.08% 664
London +3 2,115 £625 -2.34% 456
Work from Home +3 1,417 £600 - 517
South East +5 708 £625 - 167
North of England +4 629 £593 -1.25% 186
Midlands +1 431 £600 - 92
North West +3 359 £608 +1.33% 111
West Midlands +2 314 £613 +2.08% 66
South West +1 293 £695 +15.83% 89
Yorkshire +10 233 £550 -8.33% 48
East of England +20 199 £563 -6.25% 50
Scotland +7 136 £650 +4.00% 32
East Midlands -1 111 £538 -0.46% 26
North East +7 45 £575 -8.00% 27
Wales -8 23 £625 +30.21% 40
Northern Ireland +10 9 £475 -28.30% 12

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 8 May 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 1,608 (30.74%) Security Cleared
2 1,238 (23.67%) Azure
3 1,160 (22.18%) SC Cleared
4 1,090 (20.84%) AWS
5 720 (13.76%) Roadmaps
6 691 (13.21%) Microsoft
7 683 (13.06%) Migration
8 628 (12.01%) Agile
9 579 (11.07%) Stakeholder Management
10 576 (11.01%) DevOps
11 552 (10.55%) CI/CD
12 524 (10.02%) Enterprise Architecture
13 487 (9.31%) AI
14 464 (8.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 460 (8.79%) Data Modelling
16 456 (8.72%) Technical Leadership
17 438 (8.37%) Integration Patterns
18 434 (8.30%) TOGAF
19 426 (8.14%) Analytics
20 403 (7.70%) Architectural Patterns
21 397 (7.59%) GCP
22 391 (7.47%) Data Architecture
22 391 (7.47%) Microservices
23 364 (6.96%) Problem-Solving
24 348 (6.65%) Python
25 338 (6.46%) Architectural Design
26 330 (6.31%) DV Cleared
27 319 (6.10%) ServiceNow
28 310 (5.93%) SAP
29 307 (5.87%) 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
1 124 (2.37%) SharePoint
2 110 (2.10%) Confluence
3 57 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.54%) Apache
5 27 (0.52%) Apache Spark
6 25 (0.48%) SAS
7 19 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
8 18 (0.34%) CMS
9 16 (0.31%) Anypoint
9 16 (0.31%) Appian
10 15 (0.29%) nginx
10 15 (0.29%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.25%) OpenStack
11 13 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
12 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 10 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 8 (0.15%) Camunda
14 7 (0.13%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.13%) Hyperledger
14 7 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 45 (0.86%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
3 20 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
7 4 (0.076%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.057%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.057%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.038%) Windchill
10 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 140 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (0.92%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
4 19 (0.36%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
5 16 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 15 (0.29%) SAP ERP
7 14 (0.27%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.21%) SAP EWM
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
10 9 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
11 8 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
11 8 (0.15%) SAP MDG
11 8 (0.15%) SAP PM
11 8 (0.15%) SAP QM
12 7 (0.13%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.13%) SAP PP
13 6 (0.11%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 1,238 (23.67%) Azure
2 1,090 (20.84%) AWS
3 397 (7.59%) GCP
4 228 (4.36%) Power Platform
5 182 (3.48%) Entra ID
5 182 (3.48%) Serverless
6 168 (3.21%) SaaS
7 133 (2.54%) Microsoft 365
8 118 (2.26%) GitHub
9 108 (2.06%) PaaS
10 103 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
11 102 (1.95%) Dynamics 365
12 87 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
13 85 (1.62%) IaaS
14 79 (1.51%) Amazon S3
15 78 (1.49%) OpenShift
15 78 (1.49%) Snowflake
16 70 (1.34%) AWS CloudFormation
17 68 (1.30%) Microsoft Purview
18 64 (1.22%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 211 (4.03%) Firewall
2 174 (3.33%) Network Security
3 123 (2.35%) WAN
4 114 (2.18%) VPN
5 109 (2.08%) DNS
6 84 (1.61%) LAN
7 66 (1.26%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.75%) BGP
9 31 (0.59%) DHCP
10 29 (0.55%) OSPF
11 28 (0.54%) TCP/IP
12 27 (0.52%) MPLS
13 25 (0.48%) SAN
13 25 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
14 23 (0.44%) VLAN
14 23 (0.44%) Wireless
15 22 (0.42%) NAS
16 21 (0.40%) BIG-IP
17 20 (0.38%) VXLAN
18 18 (0.34%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (3.23%) Power BI
2 137 (2.62%) Metadata
3 130 (2.49%) Data Lake
4 128 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
5 74 (1.41%) SQL Server
6 66 (1.26%) NoSQL
7 64 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
8 54 (1.03%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.80%) Tableau
10 39 (0.75%) Big Data
11 34 (0.65%) Oracle Database
12 32 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.55%) Delta Lake
14 27 (0.52%) BigQuery
15 23 (0.44%) MongoDB
15 23 (0.44%) Relational Database
16 22 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
17 21 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
17 21 (0.40%) Electronic Patient Records
18 20 (0.38%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 122 (2.33%) JIRA
2 90 (1.72%) Jenkins
3 63 (1.20%) Git
4 53 (1.01%) GitLab
5 23 (0.44%) ERwin
6 15 (0.29%) SonarQube
7 14 (0.27%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.21%) MLflow
9 9 (0.17%) Postman
10 6 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.11%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.096%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.096%) JUnit
11 5 (0.096%) Maven
11 5 (0.096%) Selenium
11 5 (0.096%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.076%) Hudson
12 4 (0.076%) Snyk
12 4 (0.076%) Terragrunt
General
1 1,004 (19.19%) Social Skills
2 778 (14.87%) Finance
3 554 (10.59%) Public Sector
4 294 (5.62%) Banking
5 284 (5.43%) Analytical Skills
6 148 (2.83%) Documentation Skills
7 139 (2.66%) Retail
8 128 (2.45%) Legal
9 113 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
10 94 (1.80%) Telecoms
11 85 (1.62%) Military
12 81 (1.55%) Manufacturing
13 66 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
14 63 (1.20%) Law
15 61 (1.17%) Marketing
16 51 (0.97%) Billing
17 43 (0.82%) Financial Institution
18 36 (0.69%) Investment Banking
19 35 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 31 (0.59%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (4.68%) REST
2 200 (3.82%) Middleware
3 130 (2.49%) SOAP
4 121 (2.31%) .NET
5 112 (2.14%) Kafka
6 86 (1.64%) LDAP
6 86 (1.64%) OpenID
7 80 (1.53%) OAuth
8 61 (1.17%) SAML
9 52 (0.99%) React
10 49 (0.94%) OAuth2
11 46 (0.88%) Oracle Fusion
12 43 (0.82%) JSON
12 43 (0.82%) RESTful
12 43 (0.82%) SailPoint
13 39 (0.75%) AngularJS
14 38 (0.73%) Web Services
15 30 (0.57%) Node.js
15 30 (0.57%) PySpark
16 29 (0.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 424 (8.11%) Cloud Native
2 173 (3.31%) Data Centre
3 151 (2.89%) Product Ownership
4 139 (2.66%) Onboarding
5 130 (2.49%) Management Information System
6 114 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
6 114 (2.18%) Legacy Systems
7 113 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
8 98 (1.87%) Public Cloud
9 97 (1.85%) Hybrid Cloud
10 86 (1.64%) Security Posture
11 80 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
12 76 (1.45%) Operational Technology
13 70 (1.34%) CMDB
14 63 (1.20%) AI Agents
15 56 (1.07%) PKI
16 45 (0.86%) Data Structures
17 43 (0.82%) Private Cloud
18 41 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
19 40 (0.76%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 168 (3.21%) Windows
2 117 (2.24%) Linux
3 35 (0.67%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.63%) Android
4 33 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 30 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (0.44%) Unix
7 14 (0.27%) VMS
8 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (0.21%) zOS
9 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
10 9 (0.17%) Windows 7
11 8 (0.15%) Mac OS
11 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.057%) CentOS
12 3 (0.057%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.057%) Solaris
12 3 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.038%) AIX
13 2 (0.038%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 720 (13.76%) Roadmaps
2 683 (13.06%) Migration
3 628 (12.01%) Agile
4 579 (11.07%) Stakeholder Management
5 576 (11.01%) DevOps
6 552 (10.55%) CI/CD
7 524 (10.02%) Enterprise Architecture
8 487 (9.31%) AI
9 464 (8.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 460 (8.79%) Data Modelling
11 456 (8.72%) Technical Leadership
12 438 (8.37%) Integration Patterns
13 434 (8.30%) TOGAF
14 426 (8.14%) Analytics
15 403 (7.70%) Architectural Patterns
16 391 (7.47%) Data Architecture
16 391 (7.47%) Microservices
17 364 (6.96%) Problem-Solving
18 338 (6.46%) Architectural Design
19 307 (5.87%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 348 (6.65%) Python
2 280 (5.35%) SQL
3 208 (3.98%) Java
4 164 (3.14%) PowerShell
5 82 (1.57%) JavaScript
6 65 (1.24%) C#
7 51 (0.97%) Bicep
8 36 (0.69%) Bash
9 35 (0.67%) TypeScript
10 23 (0.44%) PL/SQL
10 23 (0.44%) Ruby
11 19 (0.36%) Apex Code
12 16 (0.31%) Scala
13 13 (0.25%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
14 11 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) ABAP
16 8 (0.15%) PHP
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,608 (30.74%) Security Cleared
2 1,160 (22.18%) SC Cleared
3 330 (6.31%) DV Cleared
4 215 (4.11%) Degree
5 126 (2.41%) TOGAF Certification
6 119 (2.27%) Azure Certification
7 112 (2.14%) CISSP
8 110 (2.10%) AWS Certification
9 100 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
10 92 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
11 86 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
12 59 (1.13%) CISM
13 57 (1.09%) Master's Degree
14 48 (0.92%) CCNP
15 47 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
16 46 (0.88%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 37 (0.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 23 (0.44%) CCSP
18 23 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
19 22 (0.42%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 190 (3.63%) NIST
2 178 (3.40%) GDPR
3 149 (2.85%) Data Quality
4 147 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 108 (2.06%) NCSC
6 65 (1.24%) QA
7 45 (0.86%) PCI DSS
8 37 (0.71%) GRC
9 30 (0.57%) ISO 20022
10 28 (0.54%) COBIT
11 27 (0.52%) Accessibility
12 25 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.40%) SEPA
14 19 (0.36%) NIST 800
15 17 (0.32%) HL7
15 17 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 13 (0.25%) FINRA
16 13 (0.25%) MiFID
17 12 (0.23%) PSD2
17 12 (0.23%) SLA
System Software
1 198 (3.79%) Active Directory
2 110 (2.10%) Docker
3 97 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 73 (1.40%) VMware NSX
5 31 (0.59%) vSphere
6 27 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
7 20 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (0.34%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 12 (0.23%) Varnish
11 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 10 (0.19%) vCloud
12 9 (0.17%) NFS
12 9 (0.17%) Squid
13 6 (0.11%) Postfix
14 5 (0.096%) RACF
15 4 (0.076%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.076%) Firmware
15 4 (0.076%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.057%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 272 (5.20%) Terraform
2 240 (4.59%) Kubernetes
3 106 (2.03%) Ansible
4 50 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
5 43 (0.82%) Grafana
6 38 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.63%) FortiGate
8 31 (0.59%) Prometheus
9 30 (0.57%) OPNET
10 29 (0.55%) vCenter Server
11 18 (0.34%) SCCM
12 17 (0.32%) Argo
13 13 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 12 (0.23%) Istio
15 10 (0.19%) WMI
16 8 (0.15%) Puppet
17 7 (0.13%) Consul
18 6 (0.11%) HAProxy
18 6 (0.11%) Kibana
18 6 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 691 (13.21%) Microsoft
2 319 (6.10%) ServiceNow
3 310 (5.93%) SAP
4 224 (4.28%) Oracle
5 195 (3.73%) Databricks
5 195 (3.73%) Salesforce
6 193 (3.69%) VMware
7 130 (2.49%) Cisco
8 113 (2.16%) Google
9 88 (1.68%) CyberArk
10 78 (1.49%) MuleSoft
11 67 (1.28%) Splunk
12 52 (0.99%) Red Hat
12 52 (0.99%) Workday
13 51 (0.97%) Palo Alto
14 50 (0.96%) Sparx
15 47 (0.90%) Remedy
16 44 (0.84%) Atlassian
16 44 (0.84%) OpenAI
17 43 (0.82%) IBM