Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £618, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 July 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 17 13
Rank change year-on-year +7 -4 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,918 3,113 4,073
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.20% 9.51% 10.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.08% 10.38% 10.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,873 2,022 2,646
10th Percentile £475 £463 £488
25th Percentile £525 £526 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £618 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.12% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £711 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £823
UK excluding London median daily rate £622 £600 £647
% change year-on-year +3.67% -7.26% -0.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 19 82
10th Percentile £46.00 £37.19 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £86.50 £85.19
90th Percentile £96.36 £100.00 £89.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -

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 48,972 29,978 37,340
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.64% 91.54% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,547 19,070 24,184
10th Percentile £331 £285 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,337 1,464 2,247
10th Percentile £15.75 £13.71 £13.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £18.32
Median hourly rate £43.50 £25.15 £42.03
Median % change year-on-year +72.96% -40.16% -2.97%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.02 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +8.59%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 +7 4,987 £620 -0.80% 1,670
London +7 2,535 £625 -3.85% 1,000
UK excluding London +6 2,501 £622 +3.67% 761
Work from Home +5 1,625 £600 - 667
South East 0 728 £638 +6.25% 245
North of England +5 722 £600 - 185
Midlands -3 411 £622 +8.17% 107
North West +4 396 £600 - 100
West Midlands -4 302 £626 +4.38% 84
South West -1 291 £625 - 99
Yorkshire +8 257 £600 - 55
East of England +14 172 £600 +5.49% 59
Scotland +10 165 £650 +4.00% 49
East Midlands +5 102 £600 +20.00% 23
North East +1 77 £600 -14.29% 32
Wales +2 33 £600 +11.11% 13
Northern Ireland +4 7 £475 -32.14% 15
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56% 1

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 28 July 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 1,811 (30.60%) Security Cleared
2 1,466 (24.77%) Azure
3 1,369 (23.13%) SC Cleared
4 1,309 (22.12%) AWS
5 872 (14.73%) Roadmaps
6 810 (13.69%) Migration
7 803 (13.57%) Stakeholder Management
8 740 (12.50%) Microsoft
9 691 (11.68%) AI
10 690 (11.66%) Agile
11 684 (11.56%) Enterprise Architecture
12 626 (10.58%) DevOps
13 615 (10.39%) CI/CD
14 608 (10.27%) Data Modelling
15 592 (10.00%) Technical Leadership
16 569 (9.61%) Integration Patterns
17 568 (9.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 566 (9.56%) Data Architecture
19 522 (8.82%) Analytics
20 497 (8.40%) TOGAF
21 490 (8.28%) Architectural Patterns
22 450 (7.60%) GCP
23 430 (7.27%) Microservices
24 408 (6.89%) Security Architecture
25 378 (6.39%) Event-Driven
26 376 (6.35%) Problem-Solving
27 357 (6.03%) Infrastructure as Code
28 351 (5.93%) Data Governance
29 350 (5.91%) Cybersecurity
30 348 (5.88%) SAP

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 96 (1.62%) SharePoint
2 80 (1.35%) SAS
3 68 (1.15%) Confluence
4 46 (0.78%) Apache
4 46 (0.78%) Apache Spark
5 37 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
6 31 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
7 23 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
8 19 (0.32%) CMS
9 15 (0.25%) OpenStack
10 14 (0.24%) Appian
11 11 (0.19%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.17%) nginx
13 9 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 7 (0.12%) Documentum
15 6 (0.10%) Camunda
15 6 (0.10%) NetWeaver
16 5 (0.084%) JBoss
16 5 (0.084%) SAP EP
17 4 (0.068%) Tomcat
Applications
1 21 (0.35%) MS Visio
2 12 (0.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.14%) Chatbot
3 8 (0.14%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.12%) Revit
4 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.051%) PlantUML
5 3 (0.051%) Windchill
6 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 158 (2.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.57%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 18 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 15 (0.25%) SAP ERP
8 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
10 11 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 11 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
11 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
12 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
13 8 (0.14%) Maximo
13 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
13 8 (0.14%) SAP MDG
14 7 (0.12%) SAP GRC
14 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
15 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,466 (24.77%) Azure
2 1,309 (22.12%) AWS
3 450 (7.60%) GCP
4 281 (4.75%) Power Platform
5 204 (3.45%) Entra ID
6 201 (3.40%) SaaS
7 195 (3.30%) Serverless
8 140 (2.37%) GitHub
9 127 (2.15%) PaaS
10 123 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
11 116 (1.96%) Microsoft 365
12 109 (1.84%) Azure DevOps
13 107 (1.81%) Snowflake
14 97 (1.64%) AWS Lambda
15 93 (1.57%) IaaS
16 88 (1.49%) Amazon S3
17 69 (1.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 64 (1.08%) Amazon EKS
18 64 (1.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 62 (1.05%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 205 (3.46%) Firewall
2 192 (3.24%) Network Security
3 108 (1.82%) WAN
4 106 (1.79%) VPN
5 100 (1.69%) DNS
6 79 (1.33%) LAN
7 52 (0.88%) SD-WAN
8 45 (0.76%) BGP
9 44 (0.74%) TCP/IP
10 42 (0.71%) DHCP
11 38 (0.64%) MPLS
12 36 (0.61%) VLAN
13 32 (0.54%) Wireless
14 31 (0.52%) SAN
15 28 (0.47%) OSPF
16 27 (0.46%) NAS
17 25 (0.42%) IPsec
17 25 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
18 24 (0.41%) VXLAN
19 22 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 199 (3.36%) Power BI
2 188 (3.18%) Data Lake
3 183 (3.09%) Metadata
4 181 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
5 78 (1.32%) NoSQL
6 61 (1.03%) PostgreSQL
7 60 (1.01%) SQL Server
8 52 (0.88%) Big Data
9 44 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
10 43 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
11 42 (0.71%) BigQuery
12 37 (0.63%) Oracle Database
13 35 (0.59%) Delta Lake
14 31 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
15 26 (0.44%) GIS
16 24 (0.41%) MongoDB
16 24 (0.41%) Relational Database
16 24 (0.41%) Semantic Layer
17 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
18 22 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 90 (1.52%) JIRA
2 75 (1.27%) Git
3 69 (1.17%) Jenkins
4 35 (0.59%) GitLab
5 27 (0.46%) ERwin
6 9 (0.15%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.15%) SonarQube
7 8 (0.14%) Cypress.io
7 8 (0.14%) MLflow
7 8 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.12%) Maven
8 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 6 (0.10%) Claude Code
9 6 (0.10%) Hudson
9 6 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
9 6 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.084%) Storybook
11 4 (0.068%) ER Studio
11 4 (0.068%) REST Assured
11 4 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 1,100 (18.59%) Social Skills
2 878 (14.84%) Finance
3 677 (11.44%) Public Sector
4 334 (5.64%) Banking
5 309 (5.22%) Analytical Skills
6 242 (4.09%) Retail
7 148 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
8 137 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
9 133 (2.25%) Telecoms
10 115 (1.94%) Manufacturing
11 114 (1.93%) Legal
12 62 (1.05%) Marketing
13 55 (0.93%) Billing
14 53 (0.90%) Financial Institution
15 49 (0.83%) Military
16 48 (0.81%) Law
17 46 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 42 (0.71%) Aerospace
18 42 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
19 31 (0.52%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 279 (4.71%) REST
2 213 (3.60%) Middleware
3 142 (2.40%) Kafka
4 127 (2.15%) .NET
5 121 (2.04%) SOAP
6 115 (1.94%) OAuth
7 72 (1.22%) Oracle Fusion
8 67 (1.13%) OpenID
9 61 (1.03%) OAuth2
10 60 (1.01%) SAML
11 55 (0.93%) JSON
12 53 (0.90%) React
13 49 (0.83%) RESTful
14 46 (0.78%) SailPoint
15 40 (0.68%) PySpark
16 37 (0.63%) Web Services
17 35 (0.59%) .NET Framework
17 35 (0.59%) GraphQL
18 34 (0.57%) Node.js
19 32 (0.54%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 494 (8.35%) Cloud Native
2 201 (3.40%) Data Centre
3 179 (3.02%) Management Information System
4 148 (2.50%) Onboarding
5 147 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
6 146 (2.47%) Product Ownership
7 142 (2.40%) Distributed Systems
8 139 (2.35%) Hybrid Cloud
9 116 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
10 112 (1.89%) AI Agents
11 98 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
12 91 (1.54%) Public Cloud
13 90 (1.52%) Operational Technology
14 83 (1.40%) CMDB
15 68 (1.15%) Enterprise Cloud
16 64 (1.08%) Security Posture
17 56 (0.95%) Data Structures
18 52 (0.88%) Private Cloud
19 47 (0.79%) IoT
20 46 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 130 (2.20%) Windows
2 101 (1.71%) Linux
3 45 (0.76%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.56%) Android
5 32 (0.54%) Apple iOS
6 24 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (0.37%) Unix
8 12 (0.20%) zOS
9 8 (0.14%) AIX
9 8 (0.14%) VMS
10 6 (0.10%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.068%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.068%) Solaris
12 4 (0.068%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.051%) Mac OS
14 2 (0.034%) CentOS
15 1 (0.017%) Windows 10
15 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 872 (14.73%) Roadmaps
2 810 (13.69%) Migration
3 803 (13.57%) Stakeholder Management
4 691 (11.68%) AI
5 690 (11.66%) Agile
6 684 (11.56%) Enterprise Architecture
7 626 (10.58%) DevOps
8 615 (10.39%) CI/CD
9 608 (10.27%) Data Modelling
10 592 (10.00%) Technical Leadership
11 569 (9.61%) Integration Patterns
12 568 (9.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 566 (9.56%) Data Architecture
14 522 (8.82%) Analytics
15 497 (8.40%) TOGAF
16 490 (8.28%) Architectural Patterns
17 430 (7.27%) Microservices
18 408 (6.89%) Security Architecture
19 378 (6.39%) Event-Driven
20 376 (6.35%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 291 (4.92%) Python
2 276 (4.66%) SQL
3 270 (4.56%) Java
4 133 (2.25%) JavaScript
5 100 (1.69%) PowerShell
6 60 (1.01%) C#
7 56 (0.95%) Bicep
8 52 (0.88%) Bash
9 45 (0.76%) TypeScript
10 32 (0.54%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.35%) Ruby
12 14 (0.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (0.20%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.19%) ABAP
14 11 (0.19%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.19%) Scala
15 10 (0.17%) C++
16 9 (0.15%) PL/SQL
17 8 (0.14%) R
17 8 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,811 (30.60%) Security Cleared
2 1,369 (23.13%) SC Cleared
3 342 (5.78%) DV Cleared
4 193 (3.26%) Degree
5 147 (2.48%) CISSP
6 129 (2.18%) AWS Certification
7 128 (2.16%) Azure Certification
8 113 (1.91%) Cisco Certification
9 108 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
10 91 (1.54%) TOGAF Certification
11 80 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
12 71 (1.20%) CISM
13 52 (0.88%) CCNP
14 49 (0.83%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 46 (0.78%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 44 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
17 43 (0.73%) Master's Degree
18 34 (0.57%) CCSP
19 22 (0.37%) DBS Check
20 21 (0.35%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 204 (3.45%) Data Quality
2 192 (3.24%) NIST
3 183 (3.09%) GDPR
4 145 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 118 (1.99%) NCSC
6 71 (1.20%) GRC
7 62 (1.05%) QA
8 42 (0.71%) Accessibility
9 40 (0.68%) PCI DSS
10 30 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 29 (0.49%) NIST 800
12 25 (0.42%) ISO 20022
12 25 (0.42%) SEPA
13 21 (0.35%) IFRS
14 20 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
15 18 (0.30%) HL7
16 15 (0.25%) SLA
17 14 (0.24%) HIPAA
17 14 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 13 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 163 (2.75%) Active Directory
2 124 (2.10%) Docker
3 84 (1.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 53 (0.90%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
5 26 (0.44%) vSphere
6 20 (0.34%) Hyper-V
7 16 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.14%) NFS
10 7 (0.12%) Varnish
11 6 (0.10%) Postfix
11 6 (0.10%) vCloud
12 5 (0.084%) IAG
13 4 (0.068%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.068%) Sendmail
13 4 (0.068%) Squid
14 3 (0.051%) KVM
14 3 (0.051%) RACF
14 3 (0.051%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 299 (5.05%) Kubernetes
2 276 (4.66%) Terraform
3 107 (1.81%) Ansible
4 57 (0.96%) Grafana
5 45 (0.76%) Prometheus
6 44 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
6 44 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
7 26 (0.44%) Argo
8 22 (0.37%) vCenter Server
9 15 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.24%) FortiGate
11 12 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 11 (0.19%) Istio
13 8 (0.14%) SCCM
14 6 (0.10%) CASB
14 6 (0.10%) EMC VPLEX
14 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
15 5 (0.084%) MOM
16 4 (0.068%) NetBackup
16 4 (0.068%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 740 (12.50%) Microsoft
2 348 (5.88%) SAP
3 306 (5.17%) ServiceNow
4 295 (4.98%) Oracle
5 262 (4.43%) Databricks
6 183 (3.09%) Salesforce
7 158 (2.67%) VMware
8 148 (2.50%) Google
9 133 (2.25%) Cisco
10 64 (1.08%) IBM
11 63 (1.06%) MuleSoft
12 57 (0.96%) CyberArk
13 53 (0.90%) Palo Alto
14 51 (0.86%) Workday
15 47 (0.79%) Ariba
15 47 (0.79%) Foundry
16 46 (0.78%) Red Hat
16 46 (0.78%) Splunk
17 40 (0.68%) OpenAI
18 38 (0.64%) Informatica