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 29 April 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +5 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,160 2,854 4,443
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.96% 9.78% 10.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.87% 10.57% 11.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,389 1,876 2,843
10th Percentile £463 £479 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £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 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £610 £650
% change year-on-year +0.41% -6.15% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 123 36 77
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.00 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £69.00 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.16% +1.79% -
75th Percentile £83.00 £81.00 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.64 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.44 £72.91 £75.00
% change year-on-year -4.75% -2.79% +7.14%

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 43,468 27,008 40,187
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.57% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,813 17,658 26,169
10th Percentile £315 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £407 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £491
% change year-on-year +3.16% -3.27% -1.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,818 1,032 2,646
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.43 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.69 £29.15 £35.96
Median % change year-on-year +49.88% -18.93% -20.10%
75th Percentile £65.88 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.23 £28.75 £37.75
% change year-on-year +57.32% -23.84% -11.18%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 +6 4,416 £625 - 703
UK excluding London +8 2,392 £613 +0.41% 477
London +4 2,048 £625 -3.85% 308
Work from Home +3 1,407 £600 -0.25% 365
South East +4 714 £625 - 128
North of England +6 630 £600 - 123
Midlands 0 414 £590 -1.73% 81
North West +9 365 £605 +0.83% 79
West Midlands -1 305 £610 +1.71% 55
South West +1 303 £693 +15.42% 65
Yorkshire +7 237 £558 -8.90% 25
East of England +18 201 £563 -6.25% 40
Scotland +10 138 £650 +4.00% 14
East Midlands -2 103 £525 -4.55% 26
North East +4 37 £575 -7.95% 19
Wales -11 25 £600 +17.65% 20
Northern Ireland +10 10 £488 -26.42% 14

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 29 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 1,602 (31.05%) Security Cleared
2 1,221 (23.66%) Azure
3 1,147 (22.23%) SC Cleared
4 1,078 (20.89%) AWS
5 721 (13.97%) Roadmaps
6 693 (13.43%) Microsoft
7 689 (13.35%) Migration
8 623 (12.07%) Agile
9 563 (10.91%) Stakeholder Management
10 559 (10.83%) DevOps
11 540 (10.47%) CI/CD
12 522 (10.12%) Enterprise Architecture
13 471 (9.13%) AI
14 467 (9.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 463 (8.97%) Data Modelling
16 462 (8.95%) Technical Leadership
17 434 (8.41%) TOGAF
18 431 (8.35%) Integration Patterns
19 424 (8.22%) Analytics
20 392 (7.60%) GCP
21 387 (7.50%) Architectural Patterns
21 387 (7.50%) Data Architecture
22 375 (7.27%) Problem-Solving
23 371 (7.19%) Microservices
24 350 (6.78%) Python
25 332 (6.43%) Architectural Design
25 332 (6.43%) DV Cleared
26 317 (6.14%) ServiceNow
27 306 (5.93%) Infrastructure as Code
28 305 (5.91%) 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
1 123 (2.38%) SharePoint
2 106 (2.05%) Confluence
3 60 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.54%) SAS
5 26 (0.50%) Apache
5 26 (0.50%) Apache Spark
6 20 (0.39%) CMS
7 18 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.31%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.31%) Appian
9 15 (0.29%) nginx
9 15 (0.29%) WebLogic
10 14 (0.27%) ArcGIS
11 13 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
12 12 (0.23%) OpenStack
13 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 7 (0.14%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.14%) Hyperledger
14 7 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
14 7 (0.14%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 48 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
5 16 (0.31%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.14%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.14%) Revit
7 4 (0.078%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.058%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.039%) PlantUML
9 2 (0.039%) Windchill
10 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 129 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (0.91%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.45%) Payment Gateway
4 20 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.39%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 15 (0.29%) SAP ERP
7 13 (0.25%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
8 11 (0.21%) SAP EWM
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
10 9 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
11 8 (0.16%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.14%) Maximo
12 7 (0.14%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
12 7 (0.14%) SAP PM
12 7 (0.14%) SAP QM
13 6 (0.12%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 1,221 (23.66%) Azure
2 1,078 (20.89%) AWS
3 392 (7.60%) GCP
4 214 (4.15%) Power Platform
5 183 (3.55%) Serverless
6 179 (3.47%) Entra ID
7 162 (3.14%) SaaS
8 138 (2.67%) Microsoft 365
9 116 (2.25%) GitHub
10 107 (2.07%) PaaS
11 105 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
12 99 (1.92%) IaaS
13 96 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
14 90 (1.74%) AWS Lambda
15 80 (1.55%) OpenShift
16 78 (1.51%) Amazon S3
17 74 (1.43%) Snowflake
18 72 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
19 68 (1.32%) Microsoft Purview
20 66 (1.28%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 223 (4.32%) Firewall
2 176 (3.41%) Network Security
3 135 (2.62%) WAN
4 121 (2.34%) VPN
5 115 (2.23%) DNS
6 88 (1.71%) LAN
7 74 (1.43%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.74%) BGP
9 33 (0.64%) DHCP
10 29 (0.56%) OSPF
10 29 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
11 27 (0.52%) MPLS
11 27 (0.52%) TCP/IP
12 26 (0.50%) VLAN
13 24 (0.47%) SAN
14 21 (0.41%) BIG-IP
14 21 (0.41%) NAS
14 21 (0.41%) Wireless
15 20 (0.39%) VXLAN
16 18 (0.35%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 161 (3.12%) Power BI
2 138 (2.67%) Metadata
3 133 (2.58%) Data Warehouse
4 127 (2.46%) Data Lake
5 79 (1.53%) SQL Server
6 63 (1.22%) NoSQL
7 62 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
8 53 (1.03%) Azure SQL Database
9 45 (0.87%) Tableau
10 39 (0.76%) Big Data
11 37 (0.72%) Oracle Database
12 33 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
13 27 (0.52%) Delta Lake
14 26 (0.50%) BigQuery
14 26 (0.50%) Relational Database
15 23 (0.45%) DynamoDB
16 22 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
16 22 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
16 22 (0.43%) GIS
16 22 (0.43%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 118 (2.29%) JIRA
2 89 (1.72%) Jenkins
3 56 (1.09%) Git
4 48 (0.93%) GitLab
5 21 (0.41%) ERwin
6 13 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.21%) MLflow
8 10 (0.19%) Artifactory
9 6 (0.12%) Postman
9 6 (0.12%) REST Assured
9 6 (0.12%) Selenium
10 5 (0.097%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.097%) JUnit
10 5 (0.097%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.097%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.078%) Hudson
11 4 (0.078%) MSI
11 4 (0.078%) Snyk
11 4 (0.078%) Terragrunt
General
1 998 (19.34%) Social Skills
2 770 (14.92%) Finance
3 564 (10.93%) Public Sector
4 310 (6.01%) Analytical Skills
5 294 (5.70%) Banking
6 147 (2.85%) Documentation Skills
7 135 (2.62%) Retail
8 121 (2.34%) Legal
9 113 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
10 89 (1.72%) Military
11 87 (1.69%) Telecoms
12 74 (1.43%) Manufacturing
13 69 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
14 63 (1.22%) Law
15 62 (1.20%) Marketing
16 45 (0.87%) Billing
17 44 (0.85%) Financial Institution
18 36 (0.70%) Investment Banking
19 32 (0.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 28 (0.54%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 248 (4.81%) REST
2 188 (3.64%) Middleware
3 131 (2.54%) SOAP
4 116 (2.25%) .NET
5 109 (2.11%) Kafka
6 89 (1.72%) OpenID
7 85 (1.65%) LDAP
8 81 (1.57%) OAuth
9 63 (1.22%) SAML
10 51 (0.99%) React
11 50 (0.97%) JSON
12 48 (0.93%) OAuth2
13 43 (0.83%) RESTful
14 41 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
15 39 (0.76%) SailPoint
16 38 (0.74%) Web Services
17 37 (0.72%) AngularJS
18 32 (0.62%) Node.js
19 31 (0.60%) Spring
20 30 (0.58%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 415 (8.04%) Cloud Native
2 166 (3.22%) Data Centre
3 145 (2.81%) Product Ownership
4 136 (2.64%) Onboarding
5 129 (2.50%) Management Information System
6 118 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
7 114 (2.21%) Enterprise Software
8 106 (2.05%) Distributed Systems
9 100 (1.94%) Hybrid Cloud
9 100 (1.94%) Public Cloud
10 84 (1.63%) Security Posture
11 76 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
12 73 (1.41%) CMDB
13 72 (1.40%) PKI
14 71 (1.38%) Operational Technology
15 52 (1.01%) AI Agents
16 44 (0.85%) Private Cloud
17 43 (0.83%) Data Structures
17 43 (0.83%) NHS
18 39 (0.76%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 178 (3.45%) Windows
2 120 (2.33%) Linux
3 39 (0.76%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.64%) Android
4 33 (0.64%) Apple iOS
5 32 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (0.33%) Unix
7 14 (0.27%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.25%) VMS
9 12 (0.23%) Windows 7
9 12 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (0.21%) zOS
11 9 (0.17%) Mac OS
11 9 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.058%) CentOS
12 3 (0.058%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.058%) Solaris
12 3 (0.058%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.039%) AIX
13 2 (0.039%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 721 (13.97%) Roadmaps
2 689 (13.35%) Migration
3 623 (12.07%) Agile
4 563 (10.91%) Stakeholder Management
5 559 (10.83%) DevOps
6 540 (10.47%) CI/CD
7 522 (10.12%) Enterprise Architecture
8 471 (9.13%) AI
9 467 (9.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 463 (8.97%) Data Modelling
11 462 (8.95%) Technical Leadership
12 434 (8.41%) TOGAF
13 431 (8.35%) Integration Patterns
14 424 (8.22%) Analytics
15 387 (7.50%) Architectural Patterns
15 387 (7.50%) Data Architecture
16 375 (7.27%) Problem-Solving
17 371 (7.19%) Microservices
18 332 (6.43%) Architectural Design
19 306 (5.93%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 350 (6.78%) Python
2 269 (5.21%) SQL
3 206 (3.99%) Java
4 180 (3.49%) PowerShell
5 82 (1.59%) JavaScript
6 67 (1.30%) C#
7 47 (0.91%) Bicep
8 36 (0.70%) Bash
9 33 (0.64%) TypeScript
10 22 (0.43%) Ruby
11 19 (0.37%) Apex Code
12 18 (0.35%) PL/SQL
13 16 (0.31%) Scala
14 13 (0.25%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.19%) R
15 10 (0.19%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 9 (0.17%) ABAP
17 8 (0.16%) VB
Qualifications
1 1,602 (31.05%) Security Cleared
2 1,147 (22.23%) SC Cleared
3 332 (6.43%) DV Cleared
4 215 (4.17%) Degree
5 129 (2.50%) TOGAF Certification
6 123 (2.38%) Azure Certification
7 115 (2.23%) CISSP
8 112 (2.17%) AWS Certification
9 94 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
10 91 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
11 86 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
12 64 (1.24%) CISM
13 56 (1.09%) Master's Degree
14 51 (0.99%) CCNP
15 50 (0.97%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 46 (0.89%) Microsoft Certification
17 36 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 33 (0.64%) ISEB
18 33 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
19 26 (0.50%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 191 (3.70%) GDPR
2 188 (3.64%) NIST
3 150 (2.91%) Data Quality
4 148 (2.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 106 (2.05%) NCSC
6 63 (1.22%) QA
7 50 (0.97%) PCI DSS
8 41 (0.79%) COBIT
9 35 (0.68%) GRC
10 30 (0.58%) ISO 20022
11 28 (0.54%) Accessibility
12 26 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.37%) SEPA
14 18 (0.35%) HL7
14 18 (0.35%) NIST 800
14 18 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 16 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 16 (0.31%) JSP 440
16 13 (0.25%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.25%) MiFID
System Software
1 195 (3.78%) Active Directory
2 112 (2.17%) Docker
3 103 (2.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 73 (1.41%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.64%) vSphere
6 25 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
7 19 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 17 (0.33%) Hyper-V
9 14 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.21%) Varnish
11 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 10 (0.19%) vCloud
12 9 (0.17%) Squid
13 8 (0.16%) NFS
14 7 (0.14%) BitLocker
15 5 (0.097%) Postfix
15 5 (0.097%) RACF
16 4 (0.078%) Firmware
17 3 (0.058%) IAG
17 3 (0.058%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 275 (5.33%) Terraform
2 238 (4.61%) Kubernetes
3 110 (2.13%) Ansible
4 51 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.81%) Grafana
6 40 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.64%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.58%) OPNET
8 30 (0.58%) vCenter Server
9 29 (0.56%) Prometheus
10 23 (0.45%) SCCM
11 17 (0.33%) Argo
12 14 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 12 (0.23%) Istio
14 11 (0.21%) WMI
15 8 (0.16%) Puppet
16 7 (0.14%) Consul
17 6 (0.12%) Kibana
18 5 (0.097%) HAProxy
18 5 (0.097%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 693 (13.43%) Microsoft
2 317 (6.14%) ServiceNow
3 305 (5.91%) SAP
4 216 (4.19%) Oracle
5 197 (3.82%) VMware
6 193 (3.74%) Salesforce
7 185 (3.59%) Databricks
8 135 (2.62%) Cisco
9 113 (2.19%) Google
10 85 (1.65%) CyberArk
11 68 (1.32%) MuleSoft
12 64 (1.24%) Splunk
13 57 (1.10%) Red Hat
14 55 (1.07%) Palo Alto
14 55 (1.07%) Workday
15 49 (0.95%) Sparx
16 48 (0.93%) IBM
16 48 (0.93%) Remedy
17 46 (0.89%) Ariba
18 44 (0.85%) Atlassian