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 26 March 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +4 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,743 2,938 4,479
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.79% 10.11% 10.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.72% 10.88% 10.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,130 1,927 2,891
10th Percentile £463 £476 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £623 £650
% change year-on-year -3.61% -4.23% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 110 35 46
10th Percentile £49.40 £56.60 £51.51
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £70.00 £82.38
Median % change year-on-year +1.81% -15.03% +17.69%
75th Percentile £89.82 £81.42 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.67 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £83.77
% change year-on-year -1.70% -13.45% +19.66%

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 40,460 27,000 41,116
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.01% 92.90% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,246 17,765 26,949
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.68% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,509 917 2,520
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £37.20 £32.50 £32.95
Median % change year-on-year +14.46% -1.36% -24.26%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.25 £72.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £31.76 £32.90
% change year-on-year +18.07% -3.45% -21.30%

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 26 March 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 26 March 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 26 March 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 +2 4,070 £625 - 1,077
UK excluding London +8 2,262 £600 -3.61% 761
London 0 1,832 £625 -3.85% 476
Work from Home +1 1,317 £620 -0.80% 523
South East +5 702 £625 - 256
North of England +5 587 £600 - 194
Midlands 0 396 £575 -4.17% 95
North West +6 332 £605 +0.83% 100
West Midlands -2 296 £600 -0.21% 69
South West +1 278 £700 +14.29% 98
Yorkshire +10 231 £558 -7.00% 70
East of England +16 175 £540 -13.60% 71
Scotland +17 136 £650 +4.00% 35
East Midlands -2 96 £525 -6.25% 26
North East +5 33 £575 -7.95% 28
Wales 0 27 £538 -5.70% 24
Northern Ireland +3 11 £500 -26.47% 4

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 26 March 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 1,517 (31.98%) Security Cleared
2 1,185 (24.98%) Azure
3 1,073 (22.62%) SC Cleared
4 1,011 (21.32%) AWS
5 691 (14.57%) Roadmaps
6 662 (13.96%) Microsoft
7 620 (13.07%) Migration
8 604 (12.73%) Agile
9 555 (11.70%) Stakeholder Management
10 536 (11.30%) DevOps
11 509 (10.73%) Enterprise Architecture
12 498 (10.50%) CI/CD
13 468 (9.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 449 (9.47%) Data Modelling
15 448 (9.45%) TOGAF
16 436 (9.19%) Technical Leadership
17 416 (8.77%) AI
18 405 (8.54%) Analytics
19 393 (8.29%) GCP
20 392 (8.26%) Problem-Solving
21 378 (7.97%) Data Architecture
22 374 (7.89%) Integration Patterns
23 358 (7.55%) Architectural Patterns
24 356 (7.51%) Python
25 353 (7.44%) Microservices
26 324 (6.83%) DV Cleared
27 315 (6.64%) Architectural Design
28 286 (6.03%) Terraform
29 281 (5.92%) Security Architecture
30 279 (5.88%) 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
1 123 (2.59%) Confluence
2 120 (2.53%) SharePoint
3 64 (1.35%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (0.74%) SAS
5 25 (0.53%) CMS
6 24 (0.51%) Apache Spark
7 18 (0.38%) Apache
7 18 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.36%) Anypoint
9 16 (0.34%) ArcGIS
10 15 (0.32%) Appian
10 15 (0.32%) WebLogic
11 14 (0.30%) nginx
12 11 (0.23%) OpenStack
13 10 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 9 (0.19%) Smallworld
15 7 (0.15%) Ethereum
15 7 (0.15%) NetWeaver
15 7 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 7 (0.15%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 25 (0.53%) Microsoft Excel
5 21 (0.44%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.042%) PlantUML
7 2 (0.042%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.042%) Windchill
8 1 (0.021%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.021%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.021%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.021%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 125 (2.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.48%) Workday HCM
5 19 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
6 18 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
8 13 (0.27%) SAP ERP
9 12 (0.25%) SAP EWM
10 11 (0.23%) NetSuite
11 10 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
11 10 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
11 10 (0.21%) SAP PM
12 9 (0.19%) Maximo
12 9 (0.19%) Teamcenter
13 8 (0.17%) SAP PP
14 7 (0.15%) R3 Corda
14 7 (0.15%) SAP CRM
14 7 (0.15%) SAP QM
15 6 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 1,185 (24.98%) Azure
2 1,011 (21.32%) AWS
3 393 (8.29%) GCP
4 191 (4.03%) Power Platform
5 174 (3.67%) Entra ID
6 169 (3.56%) Serverless
7 150 (3.16%) SaaS
8 144 (3.04%) Microsoft 365
9 110 (2.32%) GitHub
10 107 (2.26%) IaaS
11 100 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
12 95 (2.00%) PaaS
13 88 (1.86%) Dynamics 365
14 87 (1.83%) AWS Lambda
15 81 (1.71%) OpenShift
16 74 (1.56%) AWS CloudFormation
16 74 (1.56%) Microsoft Purview
17 73 (1.54%) Amazon S3
18 72 (1.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 70 (1.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 235 (4.95%) Firewall
2 172 (3.63%) Network Security
3 140 (2.95%) WAN
4 127 (2.68%) VPN
5 123 (2.59%) DNS
6 86 (1.81%) LAN
7 81 (1.71%) SD-WAN
8 40 (0.84%) BGP
9 34 (0.72%) DHCP
10 32 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
11 31 (0.65%) OSPF
12 28 (0.59%) MPLS
13 27 (0.57%) TCP/IP
14 24 (0.51%) SAN
14 24 (0.51%) VLAN
15 23 (0.48%) Kerberos
15 23 (0.48%) VXLAN
15 23 (0.48%) Wireless
16 19 (0.40%) VSAN
17 18 (0.38%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (3.25%) Data Warehouse
2 146 (3.08%) Power BI
3 142 (2.99%) Metadata
4 108 (2.28%) Data Lake
5 82 (1.73%) SQL Server
6 64 (1.35%) PostgreSQL
7 57 (1.20%) NoSQL
8 50 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
8 50 (1.05%) Tableau
9 45 (0.95%) Oracle Database
10 40 (0.84%) Big Data
11 28 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
12 26 (0.55%) GIS
13 24 (0.51%) Delta Lake
14 22 (0.46%) Relational Database
15 21 (0.44%) BigQuery
15 21 (0.44%) DynamoDB
15 21 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
15 21 (0.44%) Metadata Repository
15 21 (0.44%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 136 (2.87%) JIRA
2 95 (2.00%) Jenkins
3 50 (1.05%) GitLab
4 48 (1.01%) Git
5 25 (0.53%) ERwin
6 11 (0.23%) Bitbucket
6 11 (0.23%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.21%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.17%) MLflow
9 6 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.11%) Postman
10 5 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.11%) Selenium
10 5 (0.11%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.084%) Maven
11 4 (0.084%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.084%) Snyk
11 4 (0.084%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.063%) ER Studio
General
1 1,025 (21.61%) Social Skills
2 732 (15.43%) Finance
3 554 (11.68%) Public Sector
4 326 (6.87%) Analytical Skills
5 276 (5.82%) Banking
6 154 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
7 113 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
8 109 (2.30%) Legal
9 94 (1.98%) Retail
10 87 (1.83%) Military
11 84 (1.77%) Telecoms
12 74 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
13 65 (1.37%) Marketing
14 60 (1.27%) Manufacturing
15 56 (1.18%) Law
16 44 (0.93%) Financial Institution
17 34 (0.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 33 (0.70%) Billing
19 30 (0.63%) Investment Banking
20 25 (0.53%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 233 (4.91%) REST
2 175 (3.69%) Middleware
3 118 (2.49%) SOAP
4 98 (2.07%) .NET
5 97 (2.05%) Kafka
6 84 (1.77%) OpenID
7 79 (1.67%) LDAP
8 78 (1.64%) OAuth
9 66 (1.39%) SAML
10 54 (1.14%) JSON
11 50 (1.05%) React
12 47 (0.99%) OAuth2
13 45 (0.95%) AngularJS
14 38 (0.80%) RESTful
15 35 (0.74%) SailPoint
16 33 (0.70%) Web Services
17 30 (0.63%) Spring
18 28 (0.59%) Oracle Fusion
19 26 (0.55%) PySpark
20 24 (0.51%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 373 (7.86%) Cloud Native
2 164 (3.46%) Data Centre
3 152 (3.20%) Product Ownership
4 130 (2.74%) Onboarding
5 115 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
6 109 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
7 98 (2.07%) Management Information System
8 95 (2.00%) Hybrid Cloud
9 94 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
10 92 (1.94%) PKI
11 88 (1.86%) Public Cloud
12 79 (1.67%) Security Posture
13 70 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
14 66 (1.39%) Operational Technology
15 62 (1.31%) CMDB
16 50 (1.05%) AI Agents
16 50 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
17 44 (0.93%) Data Structures
18 41 (0.86%) Private Cloud
19 40 (0.84%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 191 (4.03%) Windows
2 131 (2.76%) Linux
3 45 (0.95%) Windows Server
4 35 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 29 (0.61%) Android
5 29 (0.61%) Apple iOS
6 16 (0.34%) Windows 7
7 15 (0.32%) Unix
7 15 (0.32%) Windows 10
8 14 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
9 13 (0.27%) VMS
10 11 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.21%) zOS
12 9 (0.19%) Mac OS
13 4 (0.084%) Ubuntu
14 3 (0.063%) Windows Server 2012
15 2 (0.042%) CentOS
16 1 (0.021%) Data ONTAP
16 1 (0.021%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.021%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 691 (14.57%) Roadmaps
2 620 (13.07%) Migration
3 604 (12.73%) Agile
4 555 (11.70%) Stakeholder Management
5 536 (11.30%) DevOps
6 509 (10.73%) Enterprise Architecture
7 498 (10.50%) CI/CD
8 468 (9.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 449 (9.47%) Data Modelling
10 448 (9.45%) TOGAF
11 436 (9.19%) Technical Leadership
12 416 (8.77%) AI
13 405 (8.54%) Analytics
14 392 (8.26%) Problem-Solving
15 378 (7.97%) Data Architecture
16 374 (7.89%) Integration Patterns
17 358 (7.55%) Architectural Patterns
18 353 (7.44%) Microservices
19 315 (6.64%) Architectural Design
20 281 (5.92%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 356 (7.51%) Python
2 254 (5.36%) SQL
3 189 (3.98%) PowerShell
4 184 (3.88%) Java
5 64 (1.35%) C#
6 62 (1.31%) JavaScript
7 42 (0.89%) Bicep
8 41 (0.86%) Bash
9 29 (0.61%) TypeScript
10 21 (0.44%) Ruby
11 19 (0.40%) Apex Code
12 18 (0.38%) PL/SQL
13 13 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.27%) Scala
14 12 (0.25%) Kotlin
14 12 (0.25%) R
15 9 (0.19%) ABAP
15 9 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.17%) PHP
16 8 (0.17%) VB
Qualifications
1 1,517 (31.98%) Security Cleared
2 1,073 (22.62%) SC Cleared
3 324 (6.83%) DV Cleared
4 212 (4.47%) Degree
5 129 (2.72%) CISSP
6 123 (2.59%) TOGAF Certification
7 122 (2.57%) Azure Certification
8 117 (2.47%) AWS Certification
9 88 (1.86%) Cisco Certification
10 86 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
11 79 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
12 73 (1.54%) CISM
13 58 (1.22%) Master's Degree
14 55 (1.16%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 53 (1.12%) Microsoft Certification
16 50 (1.05%) CCNP
17 36 (0.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 34 (0.72%) ITIL Certification
19 33 (0.70%) ISEB
20 31 (0.65%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 199 (4.20%) GDPR
2 179 (3.77%) NIST
3 154 (3.25%) Data Quality
4 152 (3.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 103 (2.17%) NCSC
6 67 (1.41%) QA
7 61 (1.29%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.84%) COBIT
9 32 (0.67%) GRC
10 31 (0.65%) Accessibility
11 30 (0.63%) ISO 20022
12 27 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.42%) JSP 440
14 19 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 18 (0.38%) HIPAA
15 18 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 16 (0.34%) HL7
16 16 (0.34%) NIST 800
17 15 (0.32%) SEPA
18 14 (0.30%) MiFID
System Software
1 196 (4.13%) Active Directory
2 127 (2.68%) Docker
3 109 (2.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 73 (1.54%) VMware NSX
5 37 (0.78%) vSphere
6 24 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.19%) Squid
11 9 (0.19%) Varnish
11 9 (0.19%) vCloud
12 7 (0.15%) BitLocker
13 5 (0.11%) NFS
13 5 (0.11%) RACF
14 4 (0.084%) Firmware
15 3 (0.063%) Ceph
15 3 (0.063%) IAG
15 3 (0.063%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 286 (6.03%) Terraform
2 243 (5.12%) Kubernetes
3 125 (2.64%) Ansible
4 61 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.84%) Grafana
6 39 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
7 34 (0.72%) vCenter Server
8 33 (0.70%) FortiGate
9 30 (0.63%) OPNET
9 30 (0.63%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.46%) SCCM
11 19 (0.40%) Argo
12 18 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 15 (0.32%) WMI
14 11 (0.23%) Istio
15 7 (0.15%) Consul
15 7 (0.15%) Puppet
16 6 (0.13%) Kibana
17 5 (0.11%) Endace
17 5 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 662 (13.96%) Microsoft
2 271 (5.71%) ServiceNow
3 267 (5.63%) SAP
4 209 (4.41%) Oracle
5 197 (4.15%) VMware
6 181 (3.82%) Salesforce
7 157 (3.31%) Databricks
8 140 (2.95%) Cisco
9 110 (2.32%) Google
10 96 (2.02%) CyberArk
11 71 (1.50%) MuleSoft
12 70 (1.48%) Palo Alto
13 67 (1.41%) Splunk
14 60 (1.27%) Red Hat
15 54 (1.14%) Workday
16 51 (1.08%) Remedy
17 50 (1.05%) IBM
18 49 (1.03%) Atlassian
18 49 (1.03%) Centrify
19 47 (0.99%) Sparx