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 11 September 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -4 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,129 2,962 3,857
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.23% 8.97% 10.00%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.16% 9.85% 10.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,064 1,897 2,400
10th Percentile £475 £463 £485
25th Percentile £525 £525 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £638
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -1.96% -1.92%
75th Percentile £700 £710 £738
90th Percentile £785 £779 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £622 £600 £630
% change year-on-year +3.67% -4.76% -1.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 18 71
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £66.66 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.06% +3.57% -0.12%
75th Percentile £78.75 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -6.67%

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 50,390 30,066 35,884
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.29% 91.06% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,936 18,964 22,304
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £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 3,743 1,564 1,744
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.69 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.07 £17.06 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.60 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%

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 11 September 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 11 September 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 11 September 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 5,115 £620 -0.80% 3,008
London +7 2,609 £625 -2.95% 1,815
UK excluding London +8 2,575 £622 +3.67% 1,378
Work from Home +5 1,639 £600 - 1,323
South East +1 739 £625 +4.17% 414
North of England +6 707 £600 - 319
Midlands +2 425 £626 +9.34% 164
North West +9 414 £600 +4.35% 167
South West +1 339 £640 -0.62% 156
West Midlands +1 318 £650 +8.51% 109
Yorkshire +10 230 £575 -4.17% 122
Scotland +22 177 £625 +0.60% 143
East of England +10 158 £616 +11.04% 127
East Midlands +4 102 £600 +19.40% 54
North East -5 64 £600 -15.79% 30
Wales +1 42 £633 +1.20% 11
Channel Islands -3 6 £663 -10.77% 4
Northern Ireland +1 3 £475 -28.30% 51

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 11 September 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 1,904 (31.07%) Security Cleared
2 1,580 (25.78%) Azure
3 1,423 (23.22%) SC Cleared
4 1,318 (21.50%) AWS
5 1,084 (17.69%) Stakeholder Management
6 941 (15.35%) Roadmaps
7 865 (14.11%) Migration
8 840 (13.71%) Microsoft
9 787 (12.84%) Enterprise Architecture
10 774 (12.63%) AI
11 754 (12.30%) Technical Leadership
12 677 (11.05%) Agile
13 640 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 639 (10.43%) Data Modelling
14 639 (10.43%) DevOps
15 617 (10.07%) CI/CD
16 595 (9.71%) Data Architecture
17 589 (9.61%) Integration Patterns
18 524 (8.55%) Analytics
19 504 (8.22%) Security Architecture
20 501 (8.17%) GCP
21 494 (8.06%) TOGAF
22 481 (7.85%) Architectural Patterns
23 421 (6.87%) Event-Driven
24 409 (6.67%) Microservices
25 399 (6.51%) Data Governance
26 381 (6.22%) Cybersecurity
27 378 (6.17%) Architecture Governance
28 376 (6.13%) Decision-Making
28 376 (6.13%) DV Cleared

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 (1.29%) SAS
2 73 (1.19%) SharePoint
3 63 (1.03%) Confluence
4 46 (0.75%) Apache
5 40 (0.65%) Apache Spark
6 34 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
6 34 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
7 24 (0.39%) CMS
8 22 (0.36%) Palantir Foundry
9 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
10 8 (0.13%) NetWeaver
11 7 (0.11%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.11%) Documentum
12 6 (0.098%) Appian
12 6 (0.098%) SAP EP
13 5 (0.082%) Camunda
13 5 (0.082%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.065%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.065%) Jupyter
15 3 (0.049%) Drupal
Applications
1 19 (0.31%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.13%) Revit
6 7 (0.11%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.033%) Windchill
8 1 (0.016%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.016%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.016%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.016%) Notion
8 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 169 (2.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
3 35 (0.57%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 19 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
5 17 (0.28%) Teamcenter
6 15 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
6 15 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
6 15 (0.24%) SAP ERP
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) SAP MDG
9 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
11 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.098%) Maximo
12 6 (0.098%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.098%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,580 (25.78%) Azure
2 1,318 (21.50%) AWS
3 501 (8.17%) GCP
4 307 (5.01%) Power Platform
5 237 (3.87%) SaaS
6 220 (3.59%) Entra ID
7 204 (3.33%) Serverless
8 151 (2.46%) Dynamics 365
9 147 (2.40%) GitHub
10 132 (2.15%) Microsoft 365
11 127 (2.07%) Azure DevOps
12 116 (1.89%) Snowflake
13 106 (1.73%) PaaS
14 95 (1.55%) AWS Lambda
15 83 (1.35%) Amazon S3
16 73 (1.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 71 (1.16%) IaaS
18 67 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
18 67 (1.09%) OCI
19 63 (1.03%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 176 (2.87%) Firewall
2 163 (2.66%) Network Security
3 110 (1.79%) WAN
4 88 (1.44%) VPN
5 78 (1.27%) DNS
6 75 (1.22%) LAN
7 55 (0.90%) SD-WAN
8 45 (0.73%) BGP
9 40 (0.65%) DHCP
9 40 (0.65%) MPLS
10 37 (0.60%) TCP/IP
11 30 (0.49%) VLAN
12 28 (0.46%) SAN
13 25 (0.41%) VXLAN
14 22 (0.36%) NAS
14 22 (0.36%) Wireless
15 21 (0.34%) OSPF
16 20 (0.33%) NX-OS
17 19 (0.31%) NGFW
17 19 (0.31%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 214 (3.49%) Metadata
2 205 (3.34%) Data Lake
3 198 (3.23%) Power BI
4 182 (2.97%) Data Warehouse
5 68 (1.11%) NoSQL
6 51 (0.83%) SQL Server
7 49 (0.80%) BigQuery
8 48 (0.78%) PostgreSQL
9 47 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
10 40 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
10 40 (0.65%) Delta Lake
11 39 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
11 39 (0.64%) Oracle Database
12 36 (0.59%) Big Data
13 30 (0.49%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 30 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
14 25 (0.41%) Relational Database
15 24 (0.39%) MongoDB
16 22 (0.36%) GIS
16 22 (0.36%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 85 (1.39%) JIRA
2 76 (1.24%) Git
3 63 (1.03%) Jenkins
4 40 (0.65%) GitLab
5 18 (0.29%) ERwin
6 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.15%) MSI
7 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.13%) RStudio
9 7 (0.11%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.11%) Postman
9 7 (0.11%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.098%) Hudson
10 6 (0.098%) Storybook
11 5 (0.082%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.082%) Maven
11 5 (0.082%) MLflow
11 5 (0.082%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.082%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,240 (20.23%) Social Skills
2 882 (14.39%) Finance
3 697 (11.37%) Public Sector
4 324 (5.29%) Banking
5 306 (4.99%) Analytical Skills
6 268 (4.37%) Retail
7 165 (2.69%) Influencing Skills
8 145 (2.37%) Manufacturing
9 143 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
10 134 (2.19%) Telecoms
11 116 (1.89%) Legal
12 73 (1.19%) Marketing
13 65 (1.06%) Billing
14 58 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 57 (0.93%) Military
16 48 (0.78%) Aerospace
17 43 (0.70%) Law
18 41 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
19 37 (0.60%) Police
20 36 (0.59%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 304 (4.96%) REST
2 259 (4.23%) Terraform
3 175 (2.86%) Middleware
4 155 (2.53%) Kafka
5 140 (2.28%) SOAP
6 126 (2.06%) .NET
6 126 (2.06%) OAuth
7 73 (1.19%) Oracle Fusion
8 70 (1.14%) JSON
9 67 (1.09%) OpenID
10 66 (1.08%) SAML
11 60 (0.98%) OAuth2
12 52 (0.85%) LDAP
13 48 (0.78%) PySpark
14 47 (0.77%) RESTful
15 46 (0.75%) XML
16 39 (0.64%) React
16 39 (0.64%) SailPoint
17 38 (0.62%) .NET Framework
18 35 (0.57%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 530 (8.65%) Cloud Native
2 196 (3.20%) Data Centre
3 177 (2.89%) Management Information System
4 174 (2.84%) Onboarding
5 149 (2.43%) Product Ownership
6 144 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
7 142 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
7 142 (2.32%) Hybrid Cloud
8 141 (2.30%) AI Agents
9 134 (2.19%) Legacy Systems
10 100 (1.63%) CMDB
11 94 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
12 90 (1.47%) Operational Technology
13 89 (1.45%) Public Cloud
14 80 (1.31%) Enterprise Cloud
15 66 (1.08%) Security Posture
16 62 (1.01%) Private Cloud
17 58 (0.95%) Data Structures
18 48 (0.78%) Taxonomies
19 46 (0.75%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 126 (2.06%) Windows
2 108 (1.76%) Linux
3 52 (0.85%) Windows Server
4 26 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (0.39%) Unix
6 13 (0.21%) Android
6 13 (0.21%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.098%) zOS
10 5 (0.082%) Solaris
11 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.065%) VMS
12 3 (0.049%) CentOS
12 3 (0.049%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.049%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.033%) HPUX
13 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,084 (17.69%) Stakeholder Management
2 941 (15.35%) Roadmaps
3 865 (14.11%) Migration
4 787 (12.84%) Enterprise Architecture
5 774 (12.63%) AI
6 754 (12.30%) Technical Leadership
7 677 (11.05%) Agile
8 640 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 639 (10.43%) Data Modelling
9 639 (10.43%) DevOps
10 617 (10.07%) CI/CD
11 595 (9.71%) Data Architecture
12 589 (9.61%) Integration Patterns
13 524 (8.55%) Analytics
14 504 (8.22%) Security Architecture
15 494 (8.06%) TOGAF
16 481 (7.85%) Architectural Patterns
17 421 (6.87%) Event-Driven
18 409 (6.67%) Microservices
19 399 (6.51%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 270 (4.41%) Python
2 269 (4.39%) Java
3 268 (4.37%) SQL
4 129 (2.10%) JavaScript
5 110 (1.79%) PowerShell
6 52 (0.85%) TypeScript
7 51 (0.83%) C#
8 49 (0.80%) Bash
9 46 (0.75%) Bicep
10 33 (0.54%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.36%) ABAP
12 18 (0.29%) Ruby
13 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 16 (0.26%) Shell Script
14 12 (0.20%) C++
15 11 (0.18%) Groovy
15 11 (0.18%) R
16 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
17 9 (0.15%) Rust
17 9 (0.15%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,904 (31.07%) Security Cleared
2 1,423 (23.22%) SC Cleared
3 376 (6.13%) DV Cleared
4 164 (2.68%) Degree
5 161 (2.63%) CISSP
6 151 (2.46%) BPSS Clearance
7 116 (1.89%) Azure Certification
8 112 (1.83%) AWS Certification
9 107 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
10 87 (1.42%) TOGAF Certification
11 78 (1.27%) CISM
12 64 (1.04%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 47 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
15 44 (0.72%) CCNP
16 39 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 35 (0.57%) CCSP
18 32 (0.52%) Master's Degree
19 23 (0.38%) CISA
20 22 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 256 (4.18%) Data Quality
2 240 (3.92%) NIST
3 192 (3.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 168 (2.74%) GDPR
5 125 (2.04%) NCSC
6 82 (1.34%) GRC
7 61 (1.00%) QA
8 40 (0.65%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.64%) Accessibility
10 32 (0.52%) NIST 800
10 32 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (0.41%) SLA
12 23 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
13 22 (0.36%) SEPA
14 21 (0.34%) IFRS
14 21 (0.34%) ISO 20022
15 19 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 18 (0.29%) JSP 440
17 16 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
18 15 (0.24%) HL7
System Software
1 185 (3.02%) Active Directory
2 113 (1.84%) Docker
3 81 (1.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 45 (0.73%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
6 24 (0.39%) vSphere
7 22 (0.36%) Hyper-V
8 19 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.098%) NFS
11 4 (0.065%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.065%) KVM
11 4 (0.065%) Postfix
11 4 (0.065%) Varnish
11 4 (0.065%) vCloud
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.049%) SRDF
13 2 (0.033%) IAG
13 2 (0.033%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 299 (4.88%) Kubernetes
2 105 (1.71%) Ansible
3 50 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
4 47 (0.77%) Grafana
5 39 (0.64%) Prometheus
6 28 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.29%) Argo
8 16 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.20%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.16%) WMI
12 9 (0.15%) Istio
13 8 (0.13%) CASB
13 8 (0.13%) FortiGate
14 7 (0.11%) SCCM
15 6 (0.098%) NetBackup
15 6 (0.098%) Puppet
16 5 (0.082%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.082%) Progress Chef
17 4 (0.065%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 840 (13.71%) Microsoft
2 358 (5.84%) SAP
3 309 (5.04%) ServiceNow
4 308 (5.03%) Oracle
5 290 (4.73%) Databricks
6 201 (3.28%) Salesforce
7 190 (3.10%) Google
8 150 (2.45%) Cisco
9 144 (2.35%) VMware
10 79 (1.29%) CyberArk
11 78 (1.27%) MuleSoft
12 61 (1.00%) IBM
13 55 (0.90%) Workday
14 54 (0.88%) Palo Alto
15 52 (0.85%) Foundry
16 42 (0.69%) Informatica
17 41 (0.67%) Ariba
18 40 (0.65%) Adobe
19 37 (0.60%) Sparx
20 36 (0.59%) OpenAI