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 16 May 2026.

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

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,299 2,859 4,399
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.03% 9.81% 10.34%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.95% 10.62% 11.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,504 1,847 2,794
10th Percentile £463 £463 £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 £713 £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 134 33 89
10th Percentile £49.40 £53.10 £59.50
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% - -
75th Percentile £78.75 £80.00 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.50 £90.40
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 44,326 26,919 39,482
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.29% 92.40% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,149 17,544 25,684
10th Percentile £320 £295 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +4.74% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,891 1,039 2,653
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.31 £18.20 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £28.18 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.47% -22.79% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.38 £61.38 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £27.35 £40.00
% change year-on-year +64.53% -31.63% -5.88%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +8 4,543 £621 -0.68% 1,026
UK excluding London +9 2,394 £613 +2.08% 698
London +4 2,163 £625 -3.85% 449
Work from Home +3 1,425 £600 - 860
South East +5 707 £625 - 180
North of England +3 647 £600 - 182
Midlands +1 431 £600 - 91
North West +6 365 £610 +2.95% 99
West Midlands -1 310 £620 +3.33% 62
South West 0 284 £680 +13.25% 89
Yorkshire +8 242 £558 -7.00% 50
East of England +22 201 £575 -11.54% 67
Scotland +11 135 £650 +4.00% 40
East Midlands 0 115 £545 - 29
North East +7 48 £563 -10.00% 35
Wales -8 23 £600 +25.65% 51
Northern Ireland +7 8 £475 -28.30% 9

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 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 1,615 (30.48%) Security Cleared
2 1,265 (23.87%) Azure
3 1,178 (22.23%) SC Cleared
4 1,105 (20.85%) AWS
5 731 (13.80%) Roadmaps
6 699 (13.19%) Microsoft
7 697 (13.15%) Migration
8 616 (11.62%) Agile
9 586 (11.06%) DevOps
10 581 (10.96%) Stakeholder Management
11 551 (10.40%) CI/CD
12 536 (10.12%) Enterprise Architecture
13 492 (9.28%) AI
14 476 (8.98%) Data Modelling
15 464 (8.76%) Technical Leadership
16 462 (8.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 447 (8.44%) Integration Patterns
18 439 (8.28%) TOGAF
19 418 (7.89%) Analytics
20 415 (7.83%) Data Architecture
21 413 (7.79%) Architectural Patterns
22 399 (7.53%) GCP
23 385 (7.27%) Microservices
24 355 (6.70%) Problem-Solving
25 347 (6.55%) Architectural Design
26 330 (6.23%) Python
27 318 (6.00%) DV Cleared
27 318 (6.00%) ServiceNow
28 316 (5.96%) SAP
29 311 (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
1 123 (2.32%) SharePoint
2 104 (1.96%) Confluence
3 55 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (0.55%) Apache Spark
5 28 (0.53%) Apache
6 22 (0.42%) SAS
7 18 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
7 18 (0.34%) CMS
8 16 (0.30%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.30%) Appian
9 15 (0.28%) nginx
9 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.25%) OpenStack
10 13 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 9 (0.17%) Camunda
13 7 (0.13%) NetWeaver
13 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 40 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
3 20 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (0.34%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
7 4 (0.075%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.057%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.057%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.057%) Windchill
9 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 139 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.75%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
4 17 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
4 17 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
4 17 (0.32%) SAP ERP
5 16 (0.30%) Workday HCM
6 15 (0.28%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
8 9 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
8 9 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
8 9 (0.17%) SAP EWM
8 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
9 7 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.13%) SAP BRIM
9 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
10 6 (0.11%) NetSuite
10 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
10 6 (0.11%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 1,265 (23.87%) Azure
2 1,105 (20.85%) AWS
3 399 (7.53%) GCP
4 230 (4.34%) Power Platform
5 189 (3.57%) Entra ID
6 183 (3.45%) Serverless
7 169 (3.19%) SaaS
8 130 (2.45%) Microsoft 365
9 118 (2.23%) GitHub
10 107 (2.02%) PaaS
11 105 (1.98%) Azure DevOps
12 102 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
13 87 (1.64%) AWS Lambda
14 81 (1.53%) Amazon S3
14 81 (1.53%) Snowflake
15 80 (1.51%) IaaS
16 77 (1.45%) OpenShift
17 68 (1.28%) AWS CloudFormation
17 68 (1.28%) Microsoft Purview
18 63 (1.19%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 212 (4.00%) Firewall
2 171 (3.23%) Network Security
3 122 (2.30%) WAN
4 115 (2.17%) VPN
5 113 (2.13%) DNS
6 85 (1.60%) LAN
7 64 (1.21%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.74%) BGP
9 36 (0.68%) DHCP
10 29 (0.55%) OSPF
10 29 (0.55%) SAN
11 28 (0.53%) TCP/IP
11 28 (0.53%) VLAN
12 27 (0.51%) Wireless
13 26 (0.49%) MPLS
13 26 (0.49%) NAS
14 23 (0.43%) Wi-Fi
15 21 (0.40%) BIG-IP
15 21 (0.40%) NX-OS
16 20 (0.38%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (3.21%) Power BI
2 137 (2.59%) Metadata
3 131 (2.47%) Data Lake
4 127 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
5 74 (1.40%) SQL Server
6 67 (1.26%) NoSQL
7 64 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
8 49 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
9 43 (0.81%) Tableau
10 39 (0.74%) Big Data
11 34 (0.64%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.55%) Delta Lake
14 28 (0.53%) BigQuery
15 23 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
16 22 (0.42%) MongoDB
16 22 (0.42%) Relational Database
17 21 (0.40%) Electronic Patient Records
18 20 (0.38%) DynamoDB
18 20 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 118 (2.23%) JIRA
2 88 (1.66%) Jenkins
3 60 (1.13%) Git
4 51 (0.96%) GitLab
5 23 (0.43%) ERwin
6 15 (0.28%) SonarQube
7 13 (0.25%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.21%) MLflow
9 9 (0.17%) Postman
10 6 (0.11%) Hudson
10 6 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.11%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.094%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.094%) JUnit
11 5 (0.094%) Maven
11 5 (0.094%) Selenium
11 5 (0.094%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.075%) Snyk
12 4 (0.075%) Terragrunt
General
1 990 (18.68%) Social Skills
2 789 (14.89%) Finance
3 558 (10.53%) Public Sector
4 299 (5.64%) Banking
5 275 (5.19%) Analytical Skills
6 153 (2.89%) Retail
7 150 (2.83%) Documentation Skills
8 134 (2.53%) Legal
9 114 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
10 95 (1.79%) Telecoms
11 85 (1.60%) Manufacturing
12 80 (1.51%) Military
13 61 (1.15%) Law
13 61 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
14 60 (1.13%) Marketing
15 53 (1.00%) Billing
16 44 (0.83%) Financial Institution
17 36 (0.68%) Investment Banking
18 34 (0.64%) Aerospace
18 34 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 243 (4.59%) REST
2 204 (3.85%) Middleware
3 131 (2.47%) SOAP
4 121 (2.28%) .NET
5 110 (2.08%) Kafka
6 87 (1.64%) LDAP
7 86 (1.62%) OpenID
8 84 (1.59%) OAuth
9 64 (1.21%) SAML
10 52 (0.98%) React
11 49 (0.92%) OAuth2
12 47 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
13 44 (0.83%) RESTful
13 44 (0.83%) SailPoint
14 39 (0.74%) JSON
15 37 (0.70%) Web Services
16 35 (0.66%) AngularJS
17 31 (0.59%) PySpark
18 29 (0.55%) Node.js
19 23 (0.43%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 426 (8.04%) Cloud Native
2 181 (3.42%) Data Centre
3 151 (2.85%) Product Ownership
4 139 (2.62%) Onboarding
5 133 (2.51%) Management Information System
6 115 (2.17%) Distributed Systems
6 115 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
7 112 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
8 96 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
8 96 (1.81%) Public Cloud
9 87 (1.64%) Security Posture
10 81 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
10 81 (1.53%) Operational Technology
11 70 (1.32%) CMDB
12 63 (1.19%) AI Agents
13 47 (0.89%) Data Structures
14 45 (0.85%) PKI
15 42 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
15 42 (0.79%) Private Cloud
16 40 (0.75%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 157 (2.96%) Windows
2 113 (2.13%) Linux
3 35 (0.66%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.62%) Android
4 33 (0.62%) Apple iOS
5 26 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (0.43%) Unix
7 14 (0.26%) VMS
8 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (0.21%) zOS
9 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
11 7 (0.13%) Windows 7
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
1 731 (13.80%) Roadmaps
2 697 (13.15%) Migration
3 616 (11.62%) Agile
4 586 (11.06%) DevOps
5 581 (10.96%) Stakeholder Management
6 551 (10.40%) CI/CD
7 536 (10.12%) Enterprise Architecture
8 492 (9.28%) AI
9 476 (8.98%) Data Modelling
10 464 (8.76%) Technical Leadership
11 462 (8.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 447 (8.44%) Integration Patterns
13 439 (8.28%) TOGAF
14 418 (7.89%) Analytics
15 415 (7.83%) Data Architecture
16 413 (7.79%) Architectural Patterns
17 385 (7.27%) Microservices
18 355 (6.70%) Problem-Solving
19 347 (6.55%) Architectural Design
20 311 (5.87%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 330 (6.23%) Python
2 272 (5.13%) SQL
3 205 (3.87%) Java
4 158 (2.98%) PowerShell
5 85 (1.60%) JavaScript
6 63 (1.19%) C#
7 51 (0.96%) Bicep
8 35 (0.66%) Bash
9 32 (0.60%) TypeScript
10 22 (0.42%) PL/SQL
10 22 (0.42%) Ruby
11 18 (0.34%) Apex Code
12 16 (0.30%) 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%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,615 (30.48%) Security Cleared
2 1,178 (22.23%) SC Cleared
3 318 (6.00%) DV Cleared
4 207 (3.91%) Degree
5 120 (2.26%) Azure Certification
5 120 (2.26%) TOGAF Certification
6 115 (2.17%) CISSP
7 112 (2.11%) AWS Certification
8 103 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
9 95 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
10 80 (1.51%) Computer Science Degree
11 61 (1.15%) CISM
12 54 (1.02%) Master's Degree
13 51 (0.96%) CCNP
14 47 (0.89%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 44 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
16 37 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 23 (0.43%) CCSP
18 21 (0.40%) CCIE
18 21 (0.40%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 192 (3.62%) NIST
2 169 (3.19%) GDPR
3 145 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 144 (2.72%) Data Quality
5 109 (2.06%) NCSC
6 66 (1.25%) QA
7 42 (0.79%) PCI DSS
8 39 (0.74%) GRC
9 33 (0.62%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 28 (0.53%) COBIT
12 25 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.40%) NIST 800
13 21 (0.40%) SEPA
14 18 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 17 (0.32%) HL7
16 13 (0.25%) FINRA
16 13 (0.25%) MiFID
17 12 (0.23%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.23%) PSD2
System Software
1 196 (3.70%) Active Directory
2 105 (1.98%) Docker
3 93 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 72 (1.36%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.55%) vSphere
6 28 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
7 20 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
8 17 (0.32%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.21%) 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 (0.094%) RACF
15 4 (0.075%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.075%) Firmware
15 4 (0.075%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.057%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 262 (4.94%) Terraform
2 231 (4.36%) Kubernetes
3 104 (1.96%) Ansible
4 51 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
5 41 (0.77%) Grafana
6 37 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.62%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.57%) Prometheus
9 28 (0.53%) vCenter Server
10 25 (0.47%) OPNET
11 17 (0.32%) SCCM
12 16 (0.30%) Argo
13 13 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 12 (0.23%) Istio
15 8 (0.15%) Puppet
15 8 (0.15%) WMI
16 7 (0.13%) Consul
17 6 (0.11%) HAProxy
17 6 (0.11%) Kibana
17 6 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 699 (13.19%) Microsoft
2 318 (6.00%) ServiceNow
3 316 (5.96%) SAP
4 227 (4.28%) Oracle
5 210 (3.96%) Databricks
6 187 (3.53%) VMware
7 185 (3.49%) Salesforce
8 136 (2.57%) Cisco
9 111 (2.09%) Google
10 88 (1.66%) CyberArk
11 81 (1.53%) MuleSoft
12 64 (1.21%) Splunk
13 52 (0.98%) Palo Alto
14 51 (0.96%) Red Hat
14 51 (0.96%) Workday
15 45 (0.85%) OpenAI
16 42 (0.79%) Remedy
17 41 (0.77%) Sparx
18 40 (0.75%) BeyondTrust
19 39 (0.74%) IBM