Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £617, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 May 2026.

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

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,245 2,870 4,416
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.04% 9.83% 10.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.97% 10.63% 11.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,456 1,865 2,809
10th Percentile £463 £467 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £617 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% -3.85% -0.76%
75th Percentile £725 £716 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £601 £650
% change year-on-year +2.00% -7.62% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 134 36 89
10th Percentile £47.02 £54.00 £59.50
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.77% +1.79% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.00 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.64 £90.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.91 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.84% +4.15% -

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 43,836 26,998 39,901
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.28% 92.47% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,861 17,609 25,964
10th Percentile £319 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.07% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +4.21% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,872 1,048 2,673
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.34 £16.30
Median hourly rate £44.00 £28.60 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.85% -23.73% -16.67%
75th Percentile £66.63 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 £27.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +65.65% -31.25% -5.73%

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 12 May 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 12 May 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 12 May 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 4,500 £620 -0.80% 1,019
UK excluding London +8 2,392 £613 +2.00% 676
London +4 2,124 £625 -3.85% 447
Work from Home +3 1,410 £600 - 521
South East +5 710 £625 - 181
North of England +1 634 £600 - 185
Midlands +2 438 £600 - 86
North West +5 360 £610 +2.31% 102
West Midlands 0 320 £613 +2.08% 54
South West +2 292 £693 +15.42% 87
Yorkshire +6 235 £550 -8.33% 53
East of England +19 200 £569 -5.21% 60
Scotland +11 130 £650 +4.00% 27
East Midlands -2 112 £538 -1.38% 32
North East +8 47 £575 -8.00% 30
Wales -9 23 £625 +30.21% 45
Northern Ireland +10 8 £475 -28.30% 11

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 12 May 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 1,601 (30.52%) Security Cleared
2 1,237 (23.58%) Azure
3 1,159 (22.10%) SC Cleared
4 1,089 (20.76%) AWS
5 715 (13.63%) Roadmaps
6 685 (13.06%) Microsoft
6 685 (13.06%) Migration
7 624 (11.90%) Agile
8 576 (10.98%) DevOps
9 574 (10.94%) Stakeholder Management
10 545 (10.39%) CI/CD
11 524 (9.99%) Enterprise Architecture
12 488 (9.30%) AI
13 464 (8.85%) Data Modelling
14 457 (8.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 451 (8.60%) Technical Leadership
16 438 (8.35%) TOGAF
17 432 (8.24%) Integration Patterns
18 419 (7.99%) Analytics
19 405 (7.72%) Architectural Patterns
20 399 (7.61%) Data Architecture
21 398 (7.59%) GCP
22 386 (7.36%) Microservices
23 361 (6.88%) Problem-Solving
24 343 (6.54%) Architectural Design
25 339 (6.46%) Python
26 322 (6.14%) DV Cleared
27 314 (5.99%) ServiceNow
28 312 (5.95%) SAP
29 306 (5.83%) Infrastructure as Code

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
1 127 (2.42%) SharePoint
2 109 (2.08%) Confluence
3 57 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.53%) Apache
5 27 (0.51%) Apache Spark
6 24 (0.46%) SAS
7 19 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
8 18 (0.34%) CMS
9 16 (0.31%) Anypoint
9 16 (0.31%) Appian
10 15 (0.29%) nginx
10 15 (0.29%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.25%) OpenStack
11 13 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
12 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 10 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 8 (0.15%) Camunda
14 7 (0.13%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.13%) Hyperledger
14 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 44 (0.84%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
3 20 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
7 4 (0.076%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.057%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.057%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.038%) Windchill
10 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 139 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (0.86%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
4 19 (0.36%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
5 16 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 15 (0.29%) SAP ERP
6 15 (0.29%) Teamcenter
7 11 (0.21%) SAP EWM
8 10 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
8 10 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
8 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
10 8 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
10 8 (0.15%) SAP MDG
10 8 (0.15%) SAP PM
10 8 (0.15%) SAP QM
11 7 (0.13%) R3 Corda
11 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
11 7 (0.13%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 1,237 (23.58%) Azure
2 1,089 (20.76%) AWS
3 398 (7.59%) GCP
4 229 (4.37%) Power Platform
5 186 (3.55%) Entra ID
6 181 (3.45%) Serverless
7 167 (3.18%) SaaS
8 134 (2.55%) Microsoft 365
9 116 (2.21%) GitHub
10 108 (2.06%) PaaS
11 103 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
12 100 (1.91%) Dynamics 365
13 86 (1.64%) AWS Lambda
14 80 (1.53%) Amazon S3
14 80 (1.53%) IaaS
14 80 (1.53%) Snowflake
15 77 (1.47%) OpenShift
16 69 (1.32%) AWS CloudFormation
17 67 (1.28%) Microsoft Purview
18 63 (1.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 209 (3.98%) Firewall
2 173 (3.30%) Network Security
3 120 (2.29%) WAN
4 113 (2.15%) VPN
5 108 (2.06%) DNS
6 83 (1.58%) LAN
7 64 (1.22%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.74%) BGP
9 31 (0.59%) DHCP
10 29 (0.55%) OSPF
11 28 (0.53%) TCP/IP
12 25 (0.48%) MPLS
12 25 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
13 24 (0.46%) SAN
14 23 (0.44%) VLAN
14 23 (0.44%) Wireless
15 21 (0.40%) BIG-IP
15 21 (0.40%) NAS
16 20 (0.38%) VXLAN
17 18 (0.34%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (3.24%) Power BI
2 137 (2.61%) Metadata
3 128 (2.44%) Data Lake
4 126 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
5 72 (1.37%) SQL Server
6 65 (1.24%) NoSQL
7 63 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
8 50 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.80%) Tableau
10 39 (0.74%) Big Data
11 34 (0.65%) Oracle Database
12 32 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.55%) Delta Lake
14 28 (0.53%) BigQuery
15 23 (0.44%) Relational Database
16 22 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
16 22 (0.42%) MongoDB
17 21 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
17 21 (0.40%) Electronic Patient Records
17 21 (0.40%) GIS
Development Applications
1 121 (2.31%) JIRA
2 88 (1.68%) Jenkins
3 61 (1.16%) Git
4 51 (0.97%) GitLab
5 23 (0.44%) ERwin
6 15 (0.29%) SonarQube
7 13 (0.25%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.21%) MLflow
9 9 (0.17%) Postman
10 6 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.11%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.095%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.095%) JUnit
11 5 (0.095%) Maven
11 5 (0.095%) Selenium
11 5 (0.095%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.076%) Hudson
12 4 (0.076%) Snyk
12 4 (0.076%) Terragrunt
General
1 1,001 (19.08%) Social Skills
2 785 (14.97%) Finance
3 556 (10.60%) Public Sector
4 291 (5.55%) Banking
5 280 (5.34%) Analytical Skills
6 147 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
7 141 (2.69%) Retail
8 129 (2.46%) Legal
9 113 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
10 94 (1.79%) Telecoms
11 84 (1.60%) Manufacturing
11 84 (1.60%) Military
12 63 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
13 62 (1.18%) Law
14 60 (1.14%) Marketing
15 52 (0.99%) Billing
16 43 (0.82%) Financial Institution
17 36 (0.69%) Investment Banking
18 34 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 32 (0.61%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 237 (4.52%) REST
2 200 (3.81%) Middleware
3 129 (2.46%) SOAP
4 121 (2.31%) .NET
5 111 (2.12%) Kafka
6 86 (1.64%) LDAP
7 85 (1.62%) OpenID
8 82 (1.56%) OAuth
9 62 (1.18%) SAML
10 51 (0.97%) React
11 49 (0.93%) OAuth2
12 47 (0.90%) Oracle Fusion
13 44 (0.84%) SailPoint
14 43 (0.82%) RESTful
15 38 (0.72%) JSON
15 38 (0.72%) Web Services
16 36 (0.69%) AngularJS
17 30 (0.57%) PySpark
18 28 (0.53%) Node.js
19 25 (0.48%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 423 (8.06%) Cloud Native
2 177 (3.37%) Data Centre
3 150 (2.86%) Product Ownership
4 141 (2.69%) Onboarding
5 130 (2.48%) Management Information System
6 115 (2.19%) Legacy Systems
7 114 (2.17%) Distributed Systems
8 110 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
9 97 (1.85%) Public Cloud
10 95 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
11 87 (1.66%) Security Posture
12 80 (1.53%) Operational Technology
13 78 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
14 68 (1.30%) CMDB
15 62 (1.18%) AI Agents
16 50 (0.95%) PKI
17 47 (0.90%) Data Structures
18 43 (0.82%) Private Cloud
19 41 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
20 39 (0.74%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 163 (3.11%) Windows
2 117 (2.23%) Linux
3 35 (0.67%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.63%) Android
4 33 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 30 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (0.44%) Unix
7 14 (0.27%) VMS
8 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (0.21%) zOS
9 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.15%) Windows 7
10 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.057%) CentOS
12 3 (0.057%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.057%) Solaris
12 3 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.038%) AIX
13 2 (0.038%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 715 (13.63%) Roadmaps
2 685 (13.06%) Migration
3 624 (11.90%) Agile
4 576 (10.98%) DevOps
5 574 (10.94%) Stakeholder Management
6 545 (10.39%) CI/CD
7 524 (9.99%) Enterprise Architecture
8 488 (9.30%) AI
9 464 (8.85%) Data Modelling
10 457 (8.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 451 (8.60%) Technical Leadership
12 438 (8.35%) TOGAF
13 432 (8.24%) Integration Patterns
14 419 (7.99%) Analytics
15 405 (7.72%) Architectural Patterns
16 399 (7.61%) Data Architecture
17 386 (7.36%) Microservices
18 361 (6.88%) Problem-Solving
19 343 (6.54%) Architectural Design
20 306 (5.83%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 339 (6.46%) Python
2 275 (5.24%) SQL
3 204 (3.89%) Java
4 158 (3.01%) PowerShell
5 83 (1.58%) JavaScript
6 63 (1.20%) C#
7 50 (0.95%) Bicep
8 35 (0.67%) Bash
9 32 (0.61%) TypeScript
10 23 (0.44%) PL/SQL
10 23 (0.44%) Ruby
11 20 (0.38%) Apex Code
12 16 (0.31%) Scala
13 13 (0.25%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
14 11 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) ABAP
16 8 (0.15%) PHP
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,601 (30.52%) Security Cleared
2 1,159 (22.10%) SC Cleared
3 322 (6.14%) DV Cleared
4 210 (4.00%) Degree
5 126 (2.40%) TOGAF Certification
6 119 (2.27%) Azure Certification
7 116 (2.21%) CISSP
8 112 (2.14%) AWS Certification
9 103 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
10 93 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
11 80 (1.53%) Computer Science Degree
12 62 (1.18%) CISM
13 55 (1.05%) Master's Degree
14 47 (0.90%) CCNP
15 46 (0.88%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 45 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
17 39 (0.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 24 (0.46%) CCSP
19 23 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
20 21 (0.40%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 190 (3.62%) NIST
2 176 (3.36%) GDPR
3 147 (2.80%) Data Quality
4 146 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 108 (2.06%) NCSC
6 66 (1.26%) QA
7 45 (0.86%) PCI DSS
8 37 (0.71%) GRC
9 29 (0.55%) Accessibility
9 29 (0.55%) ISO 20022
10 28 (0.53%) COBIT
11 25 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.40%) SEPA
13 20 (0.38%) NIST 800
14 17 (0.32%) HL7
14 17 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 13 (0.25%) FINRA
15 13 (0.25%) MiFID
16 12 (0.23%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.23%) PSD2
System Software
1 197 (3.76%) Active Directory
2 105 (2.00%) Docker
3 93 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 72 (1.37%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.55%) vSphere
6 28 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
7 20 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
8 17 (0.32%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 12 (0.23%) Varnish
11 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 10 (0.19%) vCloud
12 9 (0.17%) NFS
12 9 (0.17%) Squid
13 6 (0.11%) Postfix
14 5 (0.095%) RACF
15 4 (0.076%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.076%) Firmware
15 4 (0.076%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.057%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 266 (5.07%) Terraform
2 232 (4.42%) Kubernetes
3 106 (2.02%) Ansible
4 51 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
5 41 (0.78%) Grafana
6 38 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.63%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.57%) Prometheus
9 29 (0.55%) OPNET
10 28 (0.53%) vCenter Server
11 17 (0.32%) SCCM
12 16 (0.31%) Argo
13 13 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 12 (0.23%) Istio
15 9 (0.17%) WMI
16 8 (0.15%) Puppet
17 7 (0.13%) Consul
18 6 (0.11%) HAProxy
18 6 (0.11%) Kibana
18 6 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 685 (13.06%) Microsoft
2 314 (5.99%) ServiceNow
3 312 (5.95%) SAP
4 225 (4.29%) Oracle
5 197 (3.76%) Databricks
6 193 (3.68%) Salesforce
7 188 (3.58%) VMware
8 126 (2.40%) Cisco
9 114 (2.17%) Google
10 88 (1.68%) CyberArk
11 80 (1.53%) MuleSoft
12 67 (1.28%) Splunk
13 52 (0.99%) Palo Alto
13 52 (0.99%) Workday
14 51 (0.97%) Red Hat
15 47 (0.90%) Sparx
16 46 (0.88%) Remedy
17 44 (0.84%) OpenAI
18 43 (0.82%) Atlassian
18 43 (0.82%) IBM