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 6 October 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 20 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,117 2,909 3,673
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.19% 8.86% 9.75%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.15% 9.76% 10.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,047 1,892 2,193
10th Percentile £481 £463 £475
25th Percentile £531 £525 £534
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £786 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £622 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.67% -4.00% -2.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 13 63
10th Percentile £40.00 £58.74 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median hourly rate £68.33 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.75% +3.57% -3.34%
75th Percentile £82.50 £95.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £99.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -6.67%

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 50,334 29,798 35,032
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.11% 90.81% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,572 18,806 21,176
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £620 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,026 1,619 1,521
10th Percentile £14.45 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.76 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £74.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.74 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.44% -41.69% -2.16%

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 6 October 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 6 October 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 6 October 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 5,070 £622 -0.56% 4,707
London +7 2,605 £625 -3.85% 2,737
UK excluding London +6 2,553 £622 +3.67% 2,124
Work from Home +5 1,649 £600 - 1,864
South East +1 722 £625 +4.17% 582
North of England +3 669 £600 - 500
Midlands +5 449 £627 +8.96% 280
North West +3 361 £599 +4.25% 259
South West +4 342 £638 -1.92% 227
West Midlands +7 336 £650 +8.33% 212
Yorkshire +13 240 £600 -2.04% 171
Scotland +19 185 £625 +4.17% 221
East of England +5 154 £620 +10.96% 198
East Midlands +7 108 £600 +20.00% 68
North East +5 71 £625 -15.25% 70
Wales +8 43 £633 +1.20% 62
Channel Islands 0 12 £700 -5.72%
Northern Ireland +6 2 - - 63

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 October 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 1,929 (31.54%) Security Cleared
2 1,578 (25.80%) Azure
3 1,456 (23.80%) SC Cleared
4 1,266 (20.70%) AWS
5 1,198 (19.58%) Stakeholder Management
6 999 (16.33%) Roadmaps
7 894 (14.62%) Migration
8 835 (13.65%) Microsoft
9 805 (13.16%) Enterprise Architecture
10 797 (13.03%) AI
11 778 (12.72%) Technical Leadership
12 650 (10.63%) Agile
13 639 (10.45%) DevOps
14 630 (10.30%) Data Architecture
15 621 (10.15%) Data Modelling
16 618 (10.10%) CI/CD
17 612 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 564 (9.22%) Integration Patterns
19 525 (8.58%) Analytics
20 500 (8.17%) Security Architecture
21 497 (8.12%) GCP
22 483 (7.90%) TOGAF
23 458 (7.49%) Architectural Patterns
24 430 (7.03%) Event-Driven
25 409 (6.69%) Data Governance
26 406 (6.64%) Architecture Governance
27 393 (6.42%) Decision-Making
28 386 (6.31%) DV Cleared
28 386 (6.31%) Microservices
29 385 (6.29%) Cybersecurity

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 77 (1.26%) SAS
2 65 (1.06%) SharePoint
3 59 (0.96%) Confluence
4 45 (0.74%) Apache Spark
5 44 (0.72%) Apache
6 36 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
6 36 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
7 25 (0.41%) CMS
8 18 (0.29%) Palantir Foundry
9 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.11%) Documentum
10 7 (0.11%) IIS
10 7 (0.11%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.098%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.098%) Headless CMS
11 6 (0.098%) JBoss
12 5 (0.082%) Appian
12 5 (0.082%) SAP EP
13 4 (0.065%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.049%) Drupal
Applications
1 24 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 17 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 8 (0.13%) Revit
7 6 (0.098%) Navisworks
8 5 (0.082%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.033%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.033%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.016%) Notion
10 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
10 1 (0.016%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 193 (3.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.52%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 18 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
4 18 (0.29%) SAP MM
5 15 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
5 15 (0.25%) SAP MDG
5 15 (0.25%) Teamcenter
6 14 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
8 12 (0.20%) SAP CO
8 12 (0.20%) SAP FI
9 11 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
10 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) Workday HCM
12 8 (0.13%) SAP ERP
12 8 (0.13%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,578 (25.80%) Azure
2 1,266 (20.70%) AWS
3 497 (8.12%) GCP
4 291 (4.76%) Power Platform
5 240 (3.92%) SaaS
6 228 (3.73%) Entra ID
7 186 (3.04%) Serverless
8 156 (2.55%) GitHub
9 139 (2.27%) Microsoft 365
10 136 (2.22%) Azure DevOps
11 126 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
12 112 (1.83%) Snowflake
13 90 (1.47%) PaaS
14 83 (1.36%) AWS Lambda
15 78 (1.28%) Amazon S3
16 77 (1.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 73 (1.19%) OCI
18 66 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
19 65 (1.06%) IaaS
20 64 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 160 (2.62%) Firewall
2 150 (2.45%) Network Security
3 100 (1.63%) WAN
4 76 (1.24%) VPN
5 67 (1.10%) DNS
6 62 (1.01%) LAN
7 49 (0.80%) SD-WAN
8 48 (0.78%) BGP
9 40 (0.65%) MPLS
10 34 (0.56%) DHCP
11 32 (0.52%) TCP/IP
12 28 (0.46%) VXLAN
13 25 (0.41%) VLAN
14 23 (0.38%) NX-OS
15 22 (0.36%) SAN
16 20 (0.33%) Wireless
17 19 (0.31%) NGFW
17 19 (0.31%) VoIP
18 18 (0.29%) OSPF
18 18 (0.29%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 239 (3.91%) Metadata
2 207 (3.38%) Data Lake
3 196 (3.20%) Data Warehouse
4 171 (2.80%) Power BI
5 64 (1.05%) NoSQL
6 50 (0.82%) SQL Server
7 48 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
8 47 (0.77%) PostgreSQL
9 46 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
10 45 (0.74%) BigQuery
11 41 (0.67%) Delta Lake
12 40 (0.65%) Oracle Database
13 37 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
14 31 (0.51%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 29 (0.47%) Big Data
15 29 (0.47%) Semantic Layer
16 25 (0.41%) Relational Database
17 24 (0.39%) MongoDB
17 24 (0.39%) SAP HANA
18 23 (0.38%) GIS
Development Applications
1 86 (1.41%) JIRA
2 76 (1.24%) Git
3 63 (1.03%) Jenkins
4 49 (0.80%) GitLab
5 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
5 14 (0.23%) ERwin
6 13 (0.21%) Postman
7 11 (0.18%) MSI
8 10 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
8 10 (0.16%) RStudio
9 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.098%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.098%) Storybook
11 5 (0.082%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.082%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.082%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.082%) Selenium
12 4 (0.065%) Hudson
12 4 (0.065%) JMeter
12 4 (0.065%) Maven
General
1 1,242 (20.30%) Social Skills
2 870 (14.22%) Finance
3 731 (11.95%) Public Sector
4 308 (5.04%) Banking
5 275 (4.50%) Analytical Skills
6 257 (4.20%) Retail
7 173 (2.83%) Influencing Skills
8 167 (2.73%) Manufacturing
9 142 (2.32%) Telecoms
10 134 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
11 110 (1.80%) Legal
12 77 (1.26%) Marketing
13 65 (1.06%) Billing
14 64 (1.05%) Aerospace
15 59 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 50 (0.82%) Military
17 45 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
18 40 (0.65%) Police
19 39 (0.64%) Local Government
20 36 (0.59%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 300 (4.90%) REST
2 260 (4.25%) Terraform
3 174 (2.84%) Kafka
4 168 (2.75%) Middleware
5 132 (2.16%) SOAP
6 127 (2.08%) OAuth
7 115 (1.88%) .NET
8 85 (1.39%) Oracle Fusion
9 67 (1.10%) OpenID
10 66 (1.08%) JSON
11 65 (1.06%) SAML
12 63 (1.03%) OAuth2
13 55 (0.90%) LDAP
14 46 (0.75%) PySpark
14 46 (0.75%) RESTful
15 44 (0.72%) XML
16 40 (0.65%) JWT
17 39 (0.64%) .NET Framework
17 39 (0.64%) SailPoint
17 39 (0.64%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 516 (8.44%) Cloud Native
2 198 (3.24%) Data Centre
3 184 (3.01%) Onboarding
4 171 (2.80%) Management Information System
5 152 (2.48%) Enterprise Software
6 149 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
7 147 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
8 142 (2.32%) AI Agents
8 142 (2.32%) Product Ownership
9 137 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
10 100 (1.63%) CMDB
11 93 (1.52%) Operational Technology
12 92 (1.50%) Public Cloud
13 90 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
14 78 (1.28%) Enterprise Cloud
15 75 (1.23%) Private Cloud
16 65 (1.06%) Data Structures
17 59 (0.96%) Security Posture
18 53 (0.87%) Taxonomies
19 49 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 127 (2.08%) Windows
2 99 (1.62%) Linux
3 48 (0.78%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.34%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
7 8 (0.13%) Android
7 8 (0.13%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.098%) zOS
9 5 (0.082%) Solaris
10 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.065%) VMS
11 3 (0.049%) CentOS
11 3 (0.049%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.033%) HPUX
12 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.016%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,198 (19.58%) Stakeholder Management
2 999 (16.33%) Roadmaps
3 894 (14.62%) Migration
4 805 (13.16%) Enterprise Architecture
5 797 (13.03%) AI
6 778 (12.72%) Technical Leadership
7 650 (10.63%) Agile
8 639 (10.45%) DevOps
9 630 (10.30%) Data Architecture
10 621 (10.15%) Data Modelling
11 618 (10.10%) CI/CD
12 612 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 564 (9.22%) Integration Patterns
14 525 (8.58%) Analytics
15 500 (8.17%) Security Architecture
16 483 (7.90%) TOGAF
17 458 (7.49%) Architectural Patterns
18 430 (7.03%) Event-Driven
19 409 (6.69%) Data Governance
20 406 (6.64%) Architecture Governance
Programming Languages
1 255 (4.17%) SQL
2 244 (3.99%) Java
3 234 (3.83%) Python
4 115 (1.88%) JavaScript
5 109 (1.78%) PowerShell
6 53 (0.87%) TypeScript
7 52 (0.85%) C#
8 50 (0.82%) Bicep
9 45 (0.74%) Bash
10 30 (0.49%) Apex Code
11 27 (0.44%) ABAP
12 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 14 (0.23%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.18%) Groovy
14 11 (0.18%) R
15 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.15%) C++
16 9 (0.15%) Rust
17 8 (0.13%) Go
17 8 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 1,929 (31.54%) Security Cleared
2 1,456 (23.80%) SC Cleared
3 386 (6.31%) DV Cleared
4 191 (3.12%) BPSS Clearance
5 159 (2.60%) Degree
6 152 (2.48%) CISSP
7 125 (2.04%) Azure Certification
8 123 (2.01%) AWS Certification
9 106 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
10 91 (1.49%) TOGAF Certification
11 74 (1.21%) CISM
12 64 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
13 49 (0.80%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 48 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
15 41 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 41 (0.67%) CCNP
16 40 (0.65%) CCSP
17 28 (0.46%) Master's Degree
18 24 (0.39%) CCIE
19 23 (0.38%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 272 (4.45%) Data Quality
2 223 (3.65%) NIST
3 190 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 157 (2.57%) GDPR
5 136 (2.22%) NCSC
6 81 (1.32%) GRC
7 51 (0.83%) QA
8 43 (0.70%) Accessibility
9 40 (0.65%) PCI DSS
10 29 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (0.43%) NIST 800
12 24 (0.39%) SLA
13 23 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 21 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
15 20 (0.33%) JSP 440
15 20 (0.33%) SEPA
16 18 (0.29%) IFRS
16 18 (0.29%) ISO 20022
17 15 (0.25%) ISO 19650
18 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 188 (3.07%) Active Directory
2 109 (1.78%) Docker
3 88 (1.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (0.69%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.36%) vSphere
7 19 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (0.29%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.082%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.065%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.065%) KVM
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.049%) NFS
12 3 (0.049%) SRDF
12 3 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.033%) IAG
13 2 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.033%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 302 (4.94%) Kubernetes
2 101 (1.65%) Ansible
3 50 (0.82%) Grafana
4 47 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
5 37 (0.60%) Prometheus
6 32 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (0.28%) Argo
8 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.20%) WMI
11 11 (0.18%) CASB
11 11 (0.18%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.13%) Istio
12 8 (0.13%) SCCM
12 8 (0.13%) vCenter Server
13 7 (0.11%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.098%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.098%) Puppet
15 5 (0.082%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.082%) VxRail
Vendors
1 835 (13.65%) Microsoft
2 364 (5.95%) SAP
3 301 (4.92%) Oracle
4 290 (4.74%) ServiceNow
5 275 (4.50%) Databricks
6 215 (3.51%) Google
7 197 (3.22%) Salesforce
8 151 (2.47%) Cisco
9 137 (2.24%) VMware
10 84 (1.37%) CyberArk
11 77 (1.26%) MuleSoft
12 56 (0.92%) IBM
13 54 (0.88%) Palo Alto
14 52 (0.85%) Workday
15 46 (0.75%) Foundry
16 41 (0.67%) Splunk
17 40 (0.65%) Ariba
18 39 (0.64%) Red Hat
19 38 (0.62%) Adobe
19 38 (0.62%) OpenAI