Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 5 February 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,877 3,175 4,370
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.90% 10.20% 9.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.82% 10.97% 10.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,593 1,919 2,845
10th Percentile £460 £479 £500
25th Percentile £515 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £737 £738
90th Percentile £793 £799 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 33 49
10th Percentile £49.40 £60.30 £59.45
25th Percentile £60.00 £66.00 £61.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £70.00 £78.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% -10.26% +11.43%
75th Percentile £90.09 £80.59 £87.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.16 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.50 £71.25 £80.00
% change year-on-year +1.75% -10.94% +14.29%

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 35,817 28,937 41,417
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.49% 92.92% 93.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,569 17,745 27,379
10th Percentile £300 £292 £275
25th Percentile £405 £408 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £477 £490
% change year-on-year -0.42% -2.65% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,156 846 2,282
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.92 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.57 £21.25 £16.54
Median hourly rate £30.00 £33.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -5.71% -
75th Percentile £61.31 £62.50 £61.52
90th Percentile £71.25 £75.00 £72.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £32.13 £35.98
% change year-on-year -12.85% -10.69% +10.69%

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 5 February 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 5 February 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 5 February 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 -1 3,337 £625 - 1,044
UK excluding London +1 1,899 £600 -4.00% 777
London -1 1,467 £630 -3.08% 447
Work from Home -4 1,110 £625 - 585
South East +8 578 £625 - 269
North of England -1 484 £575 -4.17% 177
Midlands -4 325 £573 -4.50% 122
North West -5 276 £575 -4.17% 101
South West 0 257 £707 +13.08% 85
West Midlands -4 238 £600 -0.79% 93
Yorkshire -4 192 £563 -4.26% 46
East of England +11 137 £550 -12.00% 54
Scotland +11 122 £650 +4.00% 58
East Midlands -5 85 £468 -16.52% 29
Wales +10 32 £613 - 11
North East -12 21 £625 -3.85% 30
Northern Ireland -2 7 £500 -26.47% 14

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 5 February 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 1,174 (30.28%) Security Cleared
2 1,027 (26.49%) Azure
3 843 (21.74%) SC Cleared
4 817 (21.07%) AWS
5 573 (14.78%) Microsoft
6 562 (14.50%) Roadmaps
7 526 (13.57%) Stakeholder Management
8 519 (13.39%) Agile
9 487 (12.56%) Migration
10 443 (11.43%) Enterprise Architecture
11 441 (11.37%) DevOps
12 398 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 385 (9.93%) CI/CD
13 385 (9.93%) Data Modelling
14 383 (9.88%) TOGAF
15 381 (9.83%) Technical Leadership
16 350 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
17 330 (8.51%) AI
18 325 (8.38%) Analytics
19 317 (8.18%) GCP
20 314 (8.10%) Python
21 303 (7.82%) Data Architecture
22 282 (7.27%) Microservices
23 264 (6.81%) Integration Patterns
24 251 (6.47%) Terraform
25 243 (6.27%) DV Cleared
26 237 (6.11%) Architectural Design
27 229 (5.91%) Architectural Patterns
27 229 (5.91%) Cybersecurity
28 221 (5.70%) Mentoring

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
1 107 (2.76%) Confluence
2 89 (2.30%) SharePoint
3 60 (1.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (0.80%) SAS
5 25 (0.64%) CMS
6 21 (0.54%) Apache
6 21 (0.54%) Apache Spark
7 19 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
7 19 (0.49%) OpenStack
8 16 (0.41%) Anypoint
9 14 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 11 (0.28%) ArcGIS
11 10 (0.26%) Appian
12 9 (0.23%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.18%) Ethereum
13 7 (0.18%) GeoServer
13 7 (0.18%) Hyperledger
13 7 (0.18%) nginx
13 7 (0.18%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 51 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 30 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.052%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.026%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.026%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.026%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.026%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.026%) Revit
7 1 (0.026%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.026%) Trello
Business Applications
1 104 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.06%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 30 (0.77%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.57%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 16 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
6 15 (0.39%) NetSuite
7 11 (0.28%) SAP EWM
8 9 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 9 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 9 (0.23%) SAP PM
9 8 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
9 8 (0.21%) SAP CO
9 8 (0.21%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.21%) SAP PP
10 7 (0.18%) Distributed Ledger
10 7 (0.18%) Maximo
10 7 (0.18%) R3 Corda
10 7 (0.18%) SAP FI
11 6 (0.15%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 1,027 (26.49%) Azure
2 817 (21.07%) AWS
3 317 (8.18%) GCP
4 154 (3.97%) Serverless
5 146 (3.77%) Power Platform
5 146 (3.77%) SaaS
6 128 (3.30%) Microsoft 365
7 120 (3.10%) Entra ID
8 90 (2.32%) AWS Lambda
9 86 (2.22%) Azure DevOps
10 85 (2.19%) IaaS
11 83 (2.14%) GitHub
12 76 (1.96%) Microsoft Purview
13 75 (1.93%) Amazon S3
14 73 (1.88%) PaaS
15 72 (1.86%) Dynamics 365
16 66 (1.70%) OpenShift
17 65 (1.68%) AWS CloudFormation
18 64 (1.65%) Azure Data Factory
19 61 (1.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 201 (5.18%) Firewall
2 129 (3.33%) WAN
3 122 (3.15%) Network Security
4 101 (2.61%) DNS
5 99 (2.55%) VPN
6 79 (2.04%) LAN
7 70 (1.81%) SD-WAN
8 39 (1.01%) BGP
9 30 (0.77%) Wi-Fi
10 29 (0.75%) DHCP
10 29 (0.75%) MPLS
11 24 (0.62%) TCP/IP
12 23 (0.59%) OSPF
13 21 (0.54%) Internet
13 21 (0.54%) IPsec
13 21 (0.54%) Kerberos
13 21 (0.54%) SAN
13 21 (0.54%) VSAN
14 19 (0.49%) SSL
15 17 (0.44%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 139 (3.59%) Data Warehouse
2 116 (2.99%) Metadata
3 100 (2.58%) Power BI
4 85 (2.19%) Data Lake
5 69 (1.78%) SQL Server
6 68 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
7 50 (1.29%) Tableau
8 44 (1.13%) NoSQL
9 40 (1.03%) Amazon Redshift
9 40 (1.03%) DynamoDB
10 38 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
11 34 (0.88%) Oracle Database
12 27 (0.70%) Amazon Athena
12 27 (0.70%) Amazon Aurora
12 27 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
12 27 (0.70%) Relational Database
13 26 (0.67%) Redis
14 22 (0.57%) Big Data
15 21 (0.54%) MySQL
16 20 (0.52%) GIS
Development Applications
1 126 (3.25%) JIRA
2 95 (2.45%) Jenkins
3 45 (1.16%) GitLab
4 38 (0.98%) Git
5 22 (0.57%) ERwin
6 14 (0.36%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.26%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.23%) Bitbucket
9 7 (0.18%) Maven
10 6 (0.15%) Postman
11 5 (0.13%) Gradle
11 5 (0.13%) MSI
11 5 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
11 5 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.13%) Selenium
11 5 (0.13%) SonarLint
12 4 (0.10%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.10%) MLflow
12 4 (0.10%) Rational DOORS
12 4 (0.10%) Terragrunt
General
1 950 (24.50%) Social Skills
2 609 (15.71%) Finance
3 460 (11.86%) Public Sector
4 278 (7.17%) Analytical Skills
5 219 (5.65%) Banking
6 131 (3.38%) Documentation Skills
7 105 (2.71%) Legal
8 93 (2.40%) Influencing Skills
9 78 (2.01%) Telecoms
10 76 (1.96%) Military
11 74 (1.91%) Retail
12 73 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
13 71 (1.83%) Marketing
14 59 (1.52%) Manufacturing
15 39 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 38 (0.98%) Billing
17 28 (0.72%) Financial Institution
18 27 (0.70%) Law
19 23 (0.59%) Back Office
20 20 (0.52%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 201 (5.18%) REST
2 116 (2.99%) SOAP
3 114 (2.94%) Middleware
4 90 (2.32%) .NET
5 74 (1.91%) LDAP
6 73 (1.88%) Kafka
7 72 (1.86%) OpenID
8 65 (1.68%) OAuth
9 63 (1.62%) SAML
10 51 (1.32%) JSON
11 45 (1.16%) RESTful
12 39 (1.01%) OAuth2
13 35 (0.90%) AngularJS
14 34 (0.88%) React
15 30 (0.77%) SailPoint
16 29 (0.75%) PySpark
17 28 (0.72%) Oracle Fusion
18 27 (0.70%) Spring Boot
18 27 (0.70%) Web Services
19 26 (0.67%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 287 (7.40%) Cloud Native
2 141 (3.64%) Product Ownership
3 124 (3.20%) Data Centre
4 117 (3.02%) Onboarding
5 104 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
6 91 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
7 90 (2.32%) PKI
8 76 (1.96%) Hybrid Cloud
9 68 (1.75%) Management Information System
10 67 (1.73%) Security Posture
11 63 (1.62%) Distributed Systems
11 63 (1.62%) Public Cloud
12 59 (1.52%) Operational Technology
13 47 (1.21%) CMDB
14 46 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
15 44 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
16 40 (1.03%) NHS
17 34 (0.88%) Data Structures
18 32 (0.83%) AI Agents
18 32 (0.83%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 170 (4.38%) Windows
2 107 (2.76%) Linux
3 43 (1.11%) Windows Server
4 32 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.46%) Windows 10
5 18 (0.46%) Windows 7
6 15 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (0.34%) Unix
7 13 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (0.28%) Android
8 11 (0.28%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.23%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.23%) VMS
10 6 (0.15%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.13%) zOS
12 4 (0.10%) CentOS
13 3 (0.077%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.052%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.026%) Kali Linux
15 1 (0.026%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 562 (14.50%) Roadmaps
2 526 (13.57%) Stakeholder Management
3 519 (13.39%) Agile
4 487 (12.56%) Migration
5 443 (11.43%) Enterprise Architecture
6 441 (11.37%) DevOps
7 398 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 385 (9.93%) CI/CD
8 385 (9.93%) Data Modelling
9 383 (9.88%) TOGAF
10 381 (9.83%) Technical Leadership
11 350 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
12 330 (8.51%) AI
13 325 (8.38%) Analytics
14 303 (7.82%) Data Architecture
15 282 (7.27%) Microservices
16 264 (6.81%) Integration Patterns
17 237 (6.11%) Architectural Design
18 229 (5.91%) Architectural Patterns
18 229 (5.91%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 314 (8.10%) Python
2 206 (5.31%) SQL
3 176 (4.54%) PowerShell
4 141 (3.64%) Java
5 57 (1.47%) JavaScript
6 53 (1.37%) C#
7 34 (0.88%) Bash
7 34 (0.88%) Bicep
8 33 (0.85%) TypeScript
9 20 (0.52%) PL/SQL
10 15 (0.39%) Apex Code
11 14 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
11 14 (0.36%) R
12 10 (0.26%) Ruby
12 10 (0.26%) T-SQL
13 8 (0.21%) PHP
13 8 (0.21%) Scala
13 8 (0.21%) VB
14 7 (0.18%) Korn
14 7 (0.18%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,174 (30.28%) Security Cleared
2 843 (21.74%) SC Cleared
3 243 (6.27%) DV Cleared
4 188 (4.85%) Degree
5 105 (2.71%) AWS Certification
6 102 (2.63%) TOGAF Certification
7 101 (2.61%) CISSP
8 94 (2.42%) Azure Certification
9 70 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
10 67 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
11 61 (1.57%) Cisco Certification
12 59 (1.52%) Microsoft Certification
13 56 (1.44%) Master's Degree
14 54 (1.39%) CISM
15 51 (1.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 36 (0.93%) CCNP
17 32 (0.83%) CCIE
18 30 (0.77%) ISEB
18 30 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
19 18 (0.46%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 174 (4.49%) GDPR
2 144 (3.71%) NIST
3 128 (3.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 117 (3.02%) Data Quality
5 86 (2.22%) NCSC
6 56 (1.44%) QA
7 50 (1.29%) PCI DSS
8 34 (0.88%) COBIT
9 31 (0.80%) Accessibility
9 31 (0.80%) GRC
10 24 (0.62%) JSP 440
11 23 (0.59%) HIPAA
12 21 (0.54%) ISO 20022
13 19 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
14 18 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 16 (0.41%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 15 (0.39%) MiFID
17 12 (0.31%) FINRA
17 12 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 11 (0.28%) SLA
System Software
1 164 (4.23%) Active Directory
2 122 (3.15%) Docker
3 91 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 57 (1.47%) VMware NSX
5 35 (0.90%) vSphere
6 23 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
8 14 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
9 13 (0.34%) Hyper-V
10 12 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
11 7 (0.18%) BitLocker
12 6 (0.15%) Varnish
13 5 (0.13%) Lustre
13 5 (0.13%) RACF
13 5 (0.13%) Squid
14 4 (0.10%) NFS
14 4 (0.10%) vCloud
15 3 (0.077%) Ceph
15 3 (0.077%) Firmware
15 3 (0.077%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 251 (6.47%) Terraform
2 192 (4.95%) Kubernetes
3 106 (2.73%) Ansible
4 63 (1.62%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.85%) OPNET
6 29 (0.75%) vCenter Server
7 28 (0.72%) FortiGate
8 25 (0.64%) SCCM
9 24 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
10 20 (0.52%) Grafana
11 18 (0.46%) Prometheus
11 18 (0.46%) WMI
12 17 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 15 (0.39%) Argo
14 8 (0.21%) Istio
15 6 (0.15%) Kibana
16 5 (0.13%) Consul
16 5 (0.13%) Puppet
17 4 (0.10%) Data Guard
17 4 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 573 (14.78%) Microsoft
2 219 (5.65%) SAP
3 217 (5.60%) ServiceNow
4 183 (4.72%) Oracle
5 180 (4.64%) Salesforce
6 155 (4.00%) VMware
7 119 (3.07%) Databricks
8 113 (2.91%) Cisco
9 107 (2.76%) Google
10 94 (2.42%) CyberArk
11 67 (1.73%) Splunk
12 65 (1.68%) Palo Alto
13 59 (1.52%) MuleSoft
14 49 (1.26%) Centrify
15 48 (1.24%) Atlassian
16 45 (1.16%) Remedy
17 44 (1.13%) OpenAI
18 43 (1.11%) Red Hat
18 43 (1.11%) Workday
19 40 (1.03%) Sparx