Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £615, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 4 June 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,382 2,845 4,444
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.00% 9.87% 10.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.91% 10.68% 11.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,541 1,830 2,845
10th Percentile £463 £470 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £558
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -3.85% -1.22%
75th Percentile £725 £716 £738
90th Percentile £790 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £612 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.00% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 141 30 96
10th Percentile £46.00 £51.15 £58.75
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.38 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £82.25 £85.99
90th Percentile £97.50 £88.61 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £73.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -11.26% +4.64% -

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 45,181 26,628 39,798
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.36% 92.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,497 17,201 25,733
10th Percentile £325 £287 £280
25th Percentile £413 £404 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £504 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -4.00% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,016 1,081 2,844
10th Percentile £15.03 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.80 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.70 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.48% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.75 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -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 4 June 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 4 June 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 4 June 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 4,576 £620 -0.80% 2,011
UK excluding London +9 2,380 £612 +2.00% 1,125
London +5 2,235 £625 -3.85% 969
Work from Home +4 1,463 £600 - 909
North of England +3 678 £600 - 343
South East +4 672 £625 +1.63% 270
Midlands +1 435 £600 +0.17% 131
North West +6 371 £608 +4.11% 183
West Midlands 0 310 £620 +3.33% 98
Yorkshire +8 256 £555 -7.58% 100
South West -3 236 £650 +7.22% 169
East of England +19 203 £575 -4.17% 86
Scotland +12 153 £650 +4.00% 65
East Midlands 0 119 £573 +8.84% 33
North East +5 58 £575 -4.17% 61
Wales -3 33 £600 +25.00% 48
Northern Ireland +10 7 £475 -28.30% 21
Channel Islands - 3 £575 - 2

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 4 June 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 1,629 (30.27%) Security Cleared
2 1,337 (24.84%) Azure
3 1,213 (22.54%) SC Cleared
4 1,168 (21.70%) AWS
5 749 (13.92%) Migration
6 738 (13.71%) Roadmaps
7 704 (13.08%) Microsoft
8 628 (11.67%) Stakeholder Management
9 622 (11.56%) Agile
10 614 (11.41%) DevOps
11 576 (10.70%) CI/CD
12 536 (9.96%) Enterprise Architecture
13 517 (9.61%) AI
14 512 (9.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 501 (9.31%) Technical Leadership
16 497 (9.23%) Data Modelling
17 478 (8.88%) Integration Patterns
18 444 (8.25%) Data Architecture
19 437 (8.12%) Architectural Patterns
20 426 (7.92%) Analytics
21 413 (7.67%) GCP
22 410 (7.62%) Microservices
23 403 (7.49%) TOGAF
24 361 (6.71%) Problem-Solving
25 351 (6.52%) Architectural Design
26 333 (6.19%) Infrastructure as Code
27 332 (6.17%) Python
28 323 (6.00%) Security Architecture
29 313 (5.82%) Cybersecurity
30 309 (5.74%) Event-Driven

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
1 119 (2.21%) SharePoint
2 79 (1.47%) Confluence
3 52 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (0.69%) SAS
5 31 (0.58%) Apache Spark
6 29 (0.54%) Apache
7 20 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
8 18 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
9 17 (0.32%) Anypoint
10 16 (0.30%) Appian
11 15 (0.28%) CMS
11 15 (0.28%) nginx
11 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
12 12 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
14 9 (0.17%) Camunda
15 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
16 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
16 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 23 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 18 (0.33%) MS Visio
3 13 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (0.20%) Microsoft Office
5 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.13%) Revit
5 7 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.074%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.056%) Windchill
8 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.019%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 137 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (0.71%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 21 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
5 17 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.32%) SAP ERP
6 14 (0.26%) Teamcenter
7 11 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
7 11 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
7 11 (0.20%) Workday HCM
8 10 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
9 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
10 8 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
11 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
12 6 (0.11%) SAP SD
13 5 (0.093%) Oracle Retail
13 5 (0.093%) SAP CRM
13 5 (0.093%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 1,337 (24.84%) Azure
2 1,168 (21.70%) AWS
3 413 (7.67%) GCP
4 242 (4.50%) Power Platform
5 204 (3.79%) Serverless
6 181 (3.36%) Entra ID
7 178 (3.31%) SaaS
8 131 (2.43%) Microsoft 365
9 128 (2.38%) GitHub
10 118 (2.19%) PaaS
11 110 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
12 102 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
13 101 (1.88%) AWS Lambda
14 88 (1.64%) IaaS
15 87 (1.62%) Amazon S3
16 85 (1.58%) Snowflake
17 74 (1.37%) Amazon EKS
18 70 (1.30%) OpenShift
19 67 (1.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 65 (1.21%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 212 (3.94%) Firewall
2 182 (3.38%) Network Security
3 121 (2.25%) WAN
4 117 (2.17%) VPN
5 116 (2.16%) DNS
6 85 (1.58%) LAN
7 65 (1.21%) SD-WAN
8 41 (0.76%) DHCP
9 39 (0.72%) BGP
10 32 (0.59%) SAN
11 31 (0.58%) OSPF
11 31 (0.58%) VLAN
11 31 (0.58%) Wireless
12 30 (0.56%) TCP/IP
13 29 (0.54%) MPLS
13 29 (0.54%) NAS
14 25 (0.46%) Structured Cabling
15 23 (0.43%) NX-OS
15 23 (0.43%) VXLAN
16 21 (0.39%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 175 (3.25%) Power BI
2 141 (2.62%) Metadata
3 140 (2.60%) Data Lake
4 137 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
5 72 (1.34%) NoSQL
5 72 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
5 72 (1.34%) SQL Server
6 44 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
7 40 (0.74%) Big Data
8 38 (0.71%) Tableau
9 36 (0.67%) Oracle Database
10 32 (0.59%) Amazon RDS
10 32 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
11 28 (0.52%) BigQuery
12 25 (0.46%) Delta Lake
13 24 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
14 22 (0.41%) Amazon Athena
15 21 (0.39%) Relational Database
16 20 (0.37%) DynamoDB
16 20 (0.37%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 95 (1.77%) JIRA
2 90 (1.67%) Jenkins
3 59 (1.10%) Git
4 46 (0.85%) GitLab
5 22 (0.41%) ERwin
6 13 (0.24%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.19%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.17%) Bitbucket
8 9 (0.17%) Postman
9 8 (0.15%) MLflow
10 7 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
12 5 (0.093%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.093%) JMeter
12 5 (0.093%) JUnit
12 5 (0.093%) Maven
12 5 (0.093%) PowerDesigner
13 4 (0.074%) Snyk
13 4 (0.074%) Terragrunt
General
1 1,009 (18.75%) Social Skills
2 804 (14.94%) Finance
3 591 (10.98%) Public Sector
4 305 (5.67%) Banking
5 263 (4.89%) Analytical Skills
6 172 (3.20%) Retail
7 151 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
8 132 (2.45%) Legal
9 113 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
10 96 (1.78%) Telecoms
11 92 (1.71%) Manufacturing
12 59 (1.10%) Law
13 52 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
14 51 (0.95%) Military
15 50 (0.93%) Marketing
16 47 (0.87%) Billing
17 46 (0.85%) Financial Institution
18 39 (0.72%) Aerospace
19 37 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 35 (0.65%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 267 (4.96%) REST
2 203 (3.77%) Middleware
3 137 (2.55%) SOAP
4 135 (2.51%) .NET
5 110 (2.04%) Kafka
6 94 (1.75%) OAuth
6 94 (1.75%) OpenID
7 92 (1.71%) LDAP
8 72 (1.34%) SAML
9 57 (1.06%) React
10 56 (1.04%) Oracle Fusion
11 55 (1.02%) OAuth2
12 50 (0.93%) RESTful
13 43 (0.80%) SailPoint
14 40 (0.74%) JSON
15 39 (0.72%) AngularJS
16 37 (0.69%) Web Services
17 32 (0.59%) Node.js
17 32 (0.59%) PySpark
18 28 (0.52%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 453 (8.42%) Cloud Native
2 189 (3.51%) Data Centre
3 148 (2.75%) Management Information System
4 142 (2.64%) Onboarding
5 134 (2.49%) Product Ownership
6 124 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
7 123 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
8 121 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
9 106 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
10 94 (1.75%) Security Posture
11 93 (1.73%) Public Cloud
12 87 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
13 82 (1.52%) Operational Technology
14 80 (1.49%) CMDB
15 69 (1.28%) AI Agents
16 45 (0.84%) Data Structures
17 44 (0.82%) Private Cloud
18 42 (0.78%) Enterprise Cloud
18 42 (0.78%) Mainframe
18 42 (0.78%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 158 (2.94%) Windows
2 104 (1.93%) Linux
3 40 (0.74%) Windows Server
4 35 (0.65%) Android
4 35 (0.65%) Apple iOS
5 27 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (0.41%) Unix
7 11 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
7 11 (0.20%) zOS
8 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
9 9 (0.17%) VMS
10 8 (0.15%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.11%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.11%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.093%) Data ONTAP
13 4 (0.074%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.074%) Solaris
14 3 (0.056%) AIX
14 3 (0.056%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 749 (13.92%) Migration
2 738 (13.71%) Roadmaps
3 628 (11.67%) Stakeholder Management
4 622 (11.56%) Agile
5 614 (11.41%) DevOps
6 576 (10.70%) CI/CD
7 536 (9.96%) Enterprise Architecture
8 517 (9.61%) AI
9 512 (9.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 501 (9.31%) Technical Leadership
11 497 (9.23%) Data Modelling
12 478 (8.88%) Integration Patterns
13 444 (8.25%) Data Architecture
14 437 (8.12%) Architectural Patterns
15 426 (7.92%) Analytics
16 410 (7.62%) Microservices
17 403 (7.49%) TOGAF
18 361 (6.71%) Problem-Solving
19 351 (6.52%) Architectural Design
20 333 (6.19%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 332 (6.17%) Python
2 278 (5.17%) SQL
3 225 (4.18%) Java
4 166 (3.08%) PowerShell
5 98 (1.82%) JavaScript
6 65 (1.21%) C#
7 58 (1.08%) Bicep
8 43 (0.80%) TypeScript
9 38 (0.71%) Bash
10 22 (0.41%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.39%) Ruby
12 20 (0.37%) PL/SQL
13 15 (0.28%) Scala
14 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) ABAP
17 7 (0.13%) Shell Script
18 6 (0.11%) Perl
Qualifications
1 1,629 (30.27%) Security Cleared
2 1,213 (22.54%) SC Cleared
3 294 (5.46%) DV Cleared
4 193 (3.59%) Degree
5 119 (2.21%) CISSP
6 118 (2.19%) Azure Certification
7 109 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
8 107 (1.99%) AWS Certification
9 104 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
10 84 (1.56%) TOGAF Certification
11 83 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
12 66 (1.23%) CISM
13 54 (1.00%) CCNP
14 51 (0.95%) Master's Degree
15 43 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
16 42 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 37 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 27 (0.50%) CCSP
19 20 (0.37%) DBS Check
20 19 (0.35%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 196 (3.64%) NIST
2 172 (3.20%) GDPR
3 150 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 149 (2.77%) Data Quality
5 110 (2.04%) NCSC
6 72 (1.34%) QA
7 42 (0.78%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.74%) GRC
9 34 (0.63%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 23 (0.43%) NIST 800
12 22 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.39%) SEPA
14 19 (0.35%) COBIT
14 19 (0.35%) HL7
15 18 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
16 14 (0.26%) IFRS
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
17 13 (0.24%) SLA
System Software
1 193 (3.59%) Active Directory
2 106 (1.97%) Docker
3 103 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.30%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.56%) vSphere
6 23 (0.43%) Hyper-V
7 19 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 12 (0.22%) Varnish
8 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 11 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
10 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.17%) NFS
11 9 (0.17%) Squid
11 9 (0.17%) vCloud
12 7 (0.13%) Postfix
13 5 (0.093%) RACF
14 4 (0.074%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.074%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.056%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 3 (0.056%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 266 (4.94%) Terraform
2 248 (4.61%) Kubernetes
3 110 (2.04%) Ansible
4 51 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
5 50 (0.93%) Grafana
6 39 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (0.72%) Prometheus
7 33 (0.61%) FortiGate
8 28 (0.52%) vCenter Server
9 18 (0.33%) Argo
9 18 (0.33%) SCCM
10 15 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.22%) Istio
12 8 (0.15%) Progress Chef
13 7 (0.13%) Consul
13 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
13 7 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
13 7 (0.13%) Puppet
14 5 (0.093%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.093%) Endace
Vendors
1 704 (13.08%) Microsoft
2 308 (5.72%) SAP
3 288 (5.35%) ServiceNow
4 243 (4.52%) Oracle
5 225 (4.18%) Databricks
6 186 (3.46%) VMware
7 176 (3.27%) Salesforce
8 141 (2.62%) Cisco
9 121 (2.25%) Google
10 88 (1.64%) CyberArk
11 80 (1.49%) MuleSoft
12 71 (1.32%) Splunk
13 55 (1.02%) Palo Alto
14 48 (0.89%) Red Hat
15 44 (0.82%) Workday
16 42 (0.78%) IBM
16 42 (0.78%) OpenAI
17 40 (0.74%) BeyondTrust
17 40 (0.74%) Sparx
18 39 (0.72%) Juniper