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 19 November 2025.

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

6 months to
19 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 15 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 +2 0
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,151 3,574 4,269
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.83% 9.86% 9.22%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.70% 10.62% 9.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,131 2,114 2,912
10th Percentile £463 £485 £500
25th Percentile £525 £544 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £738 £725
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £633
% change year-on-year -4.00% -1.19% -2.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 27 43
10th Percentile £61.20 £59.30 £51.92
25th Percentile £70.00 £61.25 £63.13
Median hourly rate £83.82 £70.00 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.74% -6.67% +7.14%
75th Percentile £95.00 £87.50 £80.00
90th Percentile £98.00 £97.50 £85.42
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.82 £70.00 £76.53
% change year-on-year +19.74% -8.53% +9.33%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 32,472 33,653 43,373
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.95% 92.85% 93.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,595 20,286 29,396
10th Percentile £279 £300 £290
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £648
90th Percentile £725 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,912 1,252 1,544
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.22 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.50 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.14% -20.00% +55.71%
75th Percentile £55.12 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.14 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +86.55%

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 19 November 2025.

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 19 November 2025.

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 19 November 2025. 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 -4 2,718 £625 - 1,744
UK excluding London -7 1,452 £600 -4.00% 1,136
London -2 1,270 £650 +1.88% 691
Work from Home -4 1,037 £625 - 1,085
South East +1 449 £600 -4.00% 490
North of England -9 363 £600 - 182
Midlands -7 229 £575 -4.37% 142
South West -2 220 £675 +3.85% 145
North West -9 217 £588 -1.96% 115
West Midlands -14 161 £582 -6.92% 92
Yorkshire -19 129 £613 +5.60% 58
Scotland -11 92 £575 -8.00% 55
East of England -5 88 £553 -7.92% 102
East Midlands -2 67 £500 -9.09% 48
Wales 0 23 £625 +0.81% 24
North East -6 18 £713 +18.82% 9
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -
Northern Ireland -13 5 £550 -8.33% 14

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 19 November 2025, 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.

1 934 (29.64%) Security Cleared
2 906 (28.75%) Azure
3 755 (23.96%) AWS
4 644 (20.44%) SC Cleared
5 488 (15.49%) Microsoft
6 484 (15.36%) Roadmaps
7 435 (13.81%) Stakeholder Management
8 422 (13.39%) Agile
9 389 (12.35%) Migration
10 350 (11.11%) TOGAF
11 349 (11.08%) CI/CD
12 348 (11.04%) DevOps
13 346 (10.98%) Data Modelling
14 345 (10.95%) Enterprise Architecture
15 343 (10.89%) Problem-Solving
16 341 (10.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 295 (9.36%) Technical Leadership
18 275 (8.73%) Microservices
19 272 (8.63%) GCP
20 258 (8.19%) Python
20 258 (8.19%) Terraform
21 253 (8.03%) AI
22 242 (7.68%) Analytics
23 236 (7.49%) Data Architecture
24 216 (6.85%) Firewall
25 213 (6.76%) Cybersecurity
25 213 (6.76%) Security Architecture
26 209 (6.63%) Data Governance
27 205 (6.51%) DV Cleared
28 203 (6.44%) 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 79 (2.51%) Confluence
2 47 (1.49%) SharePoint
3 36 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.83%) SAS
5 25 (0.79%) Apache Spark
6 17 (0.54%) Apache
6 17 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
7 16 (0.51%) CMS
8 15 (0.48%) ArcGIS
8 15 (0.48%) OpenStack
9 13 (0.41%) WebLogic
10 10 (0.32%) Anypoint
10 10 (0.32%) Mule
11 7 (0.22%) Ethereum
11 7 (0.22%) Hyperledger
11 7 (0.22%) WebSphere
12 6 (0.19%) Smallworld
13 5 (0.16%) GeoServer
13 5 (0.16%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.13%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 25 (0.79%) MS Visio
2 21 (0.67%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (0.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (0.38%) Siemens NX
6 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.095%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.063%) Fusion 360
9 1 (0.032%) FrameMaker
9 1 (0.032%) Revit
9 1 (0.032%) Trello
Business Applications
1 92 (2.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 27 (0.86%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 21 (0.67%) Payment Gateway
5 19 (0.60%) Salesforce CRM
5 19 (0.60%) Workday HCM
6 18 (0.57%) Maximo
7 14 (0.44%) Teamcenter
8 13 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
8 13 (0.41%) SAP PM
9 12 (0.38%) SAP CO
10 11 (0.35%) SAP FI
11 10 (0.32%) NetSuite
11 10 (0.32%) SAP FI/CO
12 9 (0.29%) Endur
13 8 (0.25%) Distributed Ledger
14 7 (0.22%) Dynamics AX
14 7 (0.22%) R3 Corda
14 7 (0.22%) SAP ERP
15 6 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 906 (28.75%) Azure
2 755 (23.96%) AWS
3 272 (8.63%) GCP
4 158 (5.01%) SaaS
5 146 (4.63%) Power Platform
6 134 (4.25%) Serverless
7 99 (3.14%) Entra ID
8 96 (3.05%) Microsoft 365
9 91 (2.89%) GitHub
10 87 (2.76%) IaaS
11 81 (2.57%) Amazon S3
12 80 (2.54%) AWS Lambda
12 80 (2.54%) Dynamics 365
13 72 (2.28%) PaaS
14 69 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
15 64 (2.03%) Snowflake
16 57 (1.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 56 (1.78%) Azure Data Factory
18 51 (1.62%) Microsoft Purview
19 50 (1.59%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 216 (6.85%) Firewall
2 109 (3.46%) Network Security
3 105 (3.33%) WAN
4 92 (2.92%) LAN
5 75 (2.38%) VPN
6 71 (2.25%) SD-WAN
7 68 (2.16%) DNS
8 40 (1.27%) Wi-Fi
9 35 (1.11%) BGP
10 30 (0.95%) SAN
11 27 (0.86%) DHCP
12 25 (0.79%) Cisco Nexus
12 25 (0.79%) MPLS
12 25 (0.79%) SSL
13 21 (0.67%) Internet
13 21 (0.67%) VSAN
14 17 (0.54%) VLAN
15 15 (0.48%) Fibre Channel
15 15 (0.48%) iSCSI
15 15 (0.48%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (3.81%) Data Warehouse
2 96 (3.05%) Power BI
3 86 (2.73%) Metadata
4 77 (2.44%) Data Lake
5 64 (2.03%) PostgreSQL
6 60 (1.90%) SQL Server
7 47 (1.49%) NoSQL
8 40 (1.27%) Amazon Redshift
9 37 (1.17%) DynamoDB
10 32 (1.02%) MongoDB
11 31 (0.98%) Big Data
12 30 (0.95%) BigQuery
13 29 (0.92%) Oracle Database
14 26 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
14 26 (0.83%) Relational Database
15 25 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
16 24 (0.76%) Tableau
17 22 (0.70%) Amazon Athena
18 20 (0.63%) GIS
19 19 (0.60%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 107 (3.40%) JIRA
2 74 (2.35%) Jenkins
3 52 (1.65%) Git
4 37 (1.17%) GitLab
5 23 (0.73%) ERwin
6 21 (0.67%) CircleCI
7 11 (0.35%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.25%) Maven
8 8 (0.25%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.22%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.22%) Gradle
9 7 (0.22%) Rational DOORS
10 5 (0.16%) SonarLint
11 4 (0.13%) ER Studio
11 4 (0.13%) MLflow
11 4 (0.13%) MSI
11 4 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
12 3 (0.095%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.095%) TeamCity
General
1 861 (27.32%) Social Skills
2 560 (17.77%) Finance
3 389 (12.35%) Public Sector
4 257 (8.16%) Analytical Skills
5 197 (6.25%) Banking
6 92 (2.92%) Telecoms
7 90 (2.86%) Retail
8 80 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
9 68 (2.16%) Presentation Skills
10 67 (2.13%) Manufacturing
10 67 (2.13%) Marketing
11 63 (2.00%) Legal
12 61 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
13 46 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 41 (1.30%) Financial Institution
14 41 (1.30%) Military
15 27 (0.86%) Aerospace
15 27 (0.86%) Back Office
16 25 (0.79%) Billing
17 23 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 154 (4.89%) REST
2 91 (2.89%) Middleware
3 80 (2.54%) .NET
4 79 (2.51%) SOAP
5 74 (2.35%) Kafka
6 59 (1.87%) JSON
7 56 (1.78%) OAuth
8 55 (1.75%) RESTful
9 47 (1.49%) SAML
10 42 (1.33%) Web Services
11 40 (1.27%) React
12 39 (1.24%) Lightning Web Components
13 38 (1.21%) AngularJS
14 35 (1.11%) Node.js
15 34 (1.08%) OAuth2
16 32 (1.02%) OpenID
17 31 (0.98%) RabbitMQ
18 29 (0.92%) Spring Boot
19 26 (0.83%) Oracle Fusion
19 26 (0.83%) Visualforce
Miscellaneous
1 246 (7.81%) Cloud Native
2 132 (4.19%) Product Ownership
3 131 (4.16%) Legacy Systems
4 112 (3.55%) Data Centre
5 93 (2.95%) Onboarding
6 84 (2.67%) Hybrid Cloud
7 72 (2.28%) PKI
8 60 (1.90%) Management Information System
9 49 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
10 47 (1.49%) Distributed Systems
11 45 (1.43%) Public Cloud
12 44 (1.40%) Operational Technology
13 41 (1.30%) NHS
14 40 (1.27%) CMDB
14 40 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
15 37 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
16 35 (1.11%) Security Posture
17 29 (0.92%) SCADA
18 27 (0.86%) Greenfield Project
18 27 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 144 (4.57%) Windows
2 98 (3.11%) Linux
3 54 (1.71%) Windows Server
4 24 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
5 23 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (0.54%) Unix
7 12 (0.38%) Android
7 12 (0.38%) Apple iOS
7 12 (0.38%) Windows 10
8 11 (0.35%) Windows 7
9 9 (0.29%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.16%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.16%) VMS
12 3 (0.095%) Solaris
12 3 (0.095%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.063%) CentOS
13 2 (0.063%) zOS
14 1 (0.032%) MVS
14 1 (0.032%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 484 (15.36%) Roadmaps
2 435 (13.81%) Stakeholder Management
3 422 (13.39%) Agile
4 389 (12.35%) Migration
5 350 (11.11%) TOGAF
6 349 (11.08%) CI/CD
7 348 (11.04%) DevOps
8 346 (10.98%) Data Modelling
9 345 (10.95%) Enterprise Architecture
10 343 (10.89%) Problem-Solving
11 341 (10.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 295 (9.36%) Technical Leadership
13 275 (8.73%) Microservices
14 253 (8.03%) AI
15 242 (7.68%) Analytics
16 236 (7.49%) Data Architecture
17 213 (6.76%) Cybersecurity
17 213 (6.76%) Security Architecture
18 209 (6.63%) Data Governance
19 203 (6.44%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 258 (8.19%) Python
2 176 (5.59%) Java
3 165 (5.24%) SQL
4 102 (3.24%) PowerShell
5 72 (2.28%) JavaScript
6 67 (2.13%) TypeScript
7 47 (1.49%) C#
8 33 (1.05%) Apex Code
9 32 (1.02%) Bash
10 31 (0.98%) Bicep
11 17 (0.54%) R
12 15 (0.48%) C++
13 14 (0.44%) Kotlin
14 12 (0.38%) C
15 9 (0.29%) Go
15 9 (0.29%) PL/SQL
15 9 (0.29%) Scala
16 8 (0.25%) ABAP
16 8 (0.25%) Korn
17 6 (0.19%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 934 (29.64%) Security Cleared
2 644 (20.44%) SC Cleared
3 205 (6.51%) DV Cleared
4 165 (5.24%) Degree
5 125 (3.97%) CISSP
6 105 (3.33%) Azure Certification
7 98 (3.11%) AWS Certification
8 72 (2.28%) Cisco Certification
9 68 (2.16%) Microsoft Certification
10 64 (2.03%) Computer Science Degree
11 62 (1.97%) TOGAF Certification
12 54 (1.71%) CISM
13 52 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
14 42 (1.33%) Master's Degree
15 40 (1.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 36 (1.14%) CCNP
17 34 (1.08%) CCIE
18 24 (0.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 19 (0.60%) CCSP
19 19 (0.60%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (5.71%) GDPR
2 142 (4.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 136 (4.32%) NIST
4 97 (3.08%) Data Quality
5 60 (1.90%) NCSC
6 54 (1.71%) PCI DSS
7 46 (1.46%) QA
8 29 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 28 (0.89%) Accessibility
10 27 (0.86%) HIPAA
11 26 (0.83%) GRC
12 24 (0.76%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 23 (0.73%) COBIT
13 23 (0.73%) JSP 440
14 17 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 16 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
16 14 (0.44%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 13 (0.41%) NIST 800
18 12 (0.38%) SOC 2
19 11 (0.35%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 124 (3.94%) Docker
2 122 (3.87%) Active Directory
3 98 (3.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 40 (1.27%) vSphere
5 29 (0.92%) VMware NSX
6 26 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
7 15 (0.48%) NFS
8 13 (0.41%) Hyper-V
9 9 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
9 9 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (0.13%) Dovecot
10 4 (0.13%) Postfix
10 4 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 3 (0.095%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.095%) KVM
12 2 (0.063%) GPFS
12 2 (0.063%) Lustre
12 2 (0.063%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.032%) Xen
Systems Management
1 258 (8.19%) Terraform
2 196 (6.22%) Kubernetes
3 90 (2.86%) Ansible
4 56 (1.78%) Single Sign-On
5 36 (1.14%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.92%) Grafana
8 17 (0.54%) SCCM
9 16 (0.51%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.41%) OPNET
12 10 (0.32%) WMI
13 9 (0.29%) Argo
14 5 (0.16%) FortiGate
15 4 (0.13%) SCOM
16 3 (0.095%) Jamf Pro
16 3 (0.095%) RSA Archer
17 2 (0.063%) Microsoft Clustering
17 2 (0.063%) Puppet
17 2 (0.063%) vRealize
Vendors
1 488 (15.49%) Microsoft
2 193 (6.13%) SAP
3 170 (5.40%) Oracle
4 159 (5.05%) Salesforce
5 155 (4.92%) ServiceNow
6 149 (4.73%) VMware
7 130 (4.13%) Cisco
8 94 (2.98%) Databricks
8 94 (2.98%) Google
9 65 (2.06%) Splunk
10 56 (1.78%) Fortinet
11 50 (1.59%) Palo Alto
12 44 (1.40%) IBM
13 43 (1.36%) MuleSoft
14 41 (1.30%) Workday
15 39 (1.24%) F5
16 37 (1.17%) CyberArk
17 36 (1.14%) Juniper
18 35 (1.11%) OpenAI
19 34 (1.08%) Pega