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 9 July 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 17 12
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,839 3,118 4,400
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.12% 9.65% 10.14%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.03% 10.50% 10.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,830 2,013 2,845
10th Percentile £473 £475 £489
25th Percentile £525 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -3.85% -1.07%
75th Percentile £715 £719 £738
90th Percentile £788 £797 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 172 22 95
10th Percentile £46.34 £40.31 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.75 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £67.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.70% -3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £85.50 £85.65
90th Percentile £96.36 £99.86 £88.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -9.72% +2.86% -

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 48,533 29,683 40,331
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.47% 91.90% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,422 18,950 25,979
10th Percentile £325 £288 £286
25th Percentile £419 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.50% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,255 1,354 2,780
10th Percentile £15.93 £13.75 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.33 £16.65
Median hourly rate £43.50 £26.39 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.87% -29.64% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.87 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.10 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% +0.50%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 4,916 £617 -1.28% 1,123
UK excluding London +9 2,551 £620 +3.33% 635
London +5 2,417 £620 -4.62% 590
Work from Home +5 1,606 £600 -0.50% 541
North of England +7 743 £600 - 147
South East +1 721 £628 +4.67% 193
Midlands 0 432 £620 +7.83% 79
North West +6 399 £608 +1.33% 94
West Midlands 0 311 £625 +4.17% 63
Yorkshire +11 278 £600 - 34
South West -2 278 £625 - 99
East of England +19 196 £600 - 49
Scotland +12 170 £650 +4.00% 47
East Midlands +6 114 £588 +17.50% 16
North East +2 74 £575 -13.21% 19
Wales +5 37 £600 +25.00% 22
Northern Ireland +9 7 £475 -32.14% 9
Channel Islands 0 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 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 1,753 (30.02%) Security Cleared
2 1,454 (24.90%) Azure
3 1,311 (22.45%) SC Cleared
4 1,279 (21.90%) AWS
5 846 (14.49%) Roadmaps
6 809 (13.86%) Migration
7 757 (12.96%) Microsoft
8 750 (12.84%) Stakeholder Management
9 700 (11.99%) Agile
10 666 (11.41%) AI
11 651 (11.15%) DevOps
12 631 (10.81%) Enterprise Architecture
13 623 (10.67%) CI/CD
14 574 (9.83%) Data Modelling
15 567 (9.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 566 (9.69%) Technical Leadership
17 536 (9.18%) Integration Patterns
18 524 (8.97%) Data Architecture
19 489 (8.37%) TOGAF
20 486 (8.32%) Architectural Patterns
21 484 (8.29%) Analytics
22 449 (7.69%) Microservices
23 435 (7.45%) GCP
24 385 (6.59%) Security Architecture
25 383 (6.56%) Problem-Solving
26 368 (6.30%) Infrastructure as Code
27 362 (6.20%) Event-Driven
28 361 (6.18%) Architectural Design
29 360 (6.17%) Cybersecurity
30 341 (5.84%) 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
1 107 (1.83%) SharePoint
2 81 (1.39%) Confluence
3 54 (0.92%) SAS
4 49 (0.84%) Microsoft Exchange
5 36 (0.62%) Apache
6 35 (0.60%) Apache Spark
7 29 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
8 21 (0.36%) Appian
8 21 (0.36%) CMS
8 21 (0.36%) Palantir Foundry
9 15 (0.26%) WebLogic
10 14 (0.24%) nginx
11 11 (0.19%) OpenStack
12 10 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 9 (0.15%) Anypoint
13 9 (0.15%) Camunda
14 7 (0.12%) ArcGIS
14 7 (0.12%) Documentum
14 7 (0.12%) JBoss
14 7 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 22 (0.38%) MS Visio
2 17 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.19%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (0.17%) Chatbot
4 10 (0.17%) Microsoft Excel
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.051%) PlantUML
6 3 (0.051%) Windchill
7 1 (0.017%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 152 (2.60%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.62%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
5 21 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 18 (0.31%) SAP ERP
7 16 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 15 (0.26%) Teamcenter
9 12 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
10 10 (0.17%) Oracle Retail
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 8 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.14%) SAP MDG
12 7 (0.12%) Maximo
12 7 (0.12%) NetSuite
13 6 (0.10%) Endur
13 6 (0.10%) SAP GRC
13 6 (0.10%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,454 (24.90%) Azure
2 1,279 (21.90%) AWS
3 435 (7.45%) GCP
4 283 (4.85%) Power Platform
5 210 (3.60%) Serverless
6 205 (3.51%) SaaS
7 202 (3.46%) Entra ID
8 144 (2.47%) GitHub
9 132 (2.26%) Microsoft 365
10 131 (2.24%) PaaS
11 120 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
12 118 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
13 102 (1.75%) Snowflake
14 98 (1.68%) AWS Lambda
15 97 (1.66%) IaaS
16 85 (1.46%) Amazon S3
17 70 (1.20%) Amazon EKS
17 70 (1.20%) OpenShift
18 67 (1.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 66 (1.13%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 235 (4.02%) Firewall
2 195 (3.34%) Network Security
3 125 (2.14%) VPN
4 123 (2.11%) DNS
5 118 (2.02%) WAN
6 84 (1.44%) LAN
7 64 (1.10%) SD-WAN
8 50 (0.86%) TCP/IP
9 48 (0.82%) DHCP
10 47 (0.80%) BGP
11 40 (0.69%) VLAN
12 37 (0.63%) MPLS
13 33 (0.57%) OSPF
13 33 (0.57%) Wireless
14 29 (0.50%) SAN
15 28 (0.48%) IPsec
16 27 (0.46%) NAS
17 25 (0.43%) Structured Cabling
18 24 (0.41%) BIG-IP
19 22 (0.38%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 196 (3.36%) Power BI
2 172 (2.95%) Metadata
3 171 (2.93%) Data Lake
4 162 (2.77%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.28%) NoSQL
6 65 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
7 64 (1.10%) SQL Server
8 50 (0.86%) Big Data
9 47 (0.80%) Azure SQL Database
10 40 (0.69%) Oracle Database
11 39 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
12 38 (0.65%) BigQuery
13 28 (0.48%) Relational Database
14 27 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
14 27 (0.46%) Delta Lake
15 25 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
15 25 (0.43%) Tableau
16 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
16 23 (0.39%) MongoDB
17 21 (0.36%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 110 (1.88%) JIRA
2 83 (1.42%) Jenkins
3 75 (1.28%) Git
4 37 (0.63%) GitLab
5 25 (0.43%) ERwin
6 12 (0.21%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.17%) Postman
8 9 (0.15%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.15%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.14%) MLflow
9 8 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.10%) Cypress.io
11 6 (0.10%) Hudson
11 6 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
11 6 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
11 6 (0.10%) Selenium
12 5 (0.086%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.086%) JMeter
12 5 (0.086%) Maven
General
1 1,101 (18.86%) Social Skills
2 894 (15.31%) Finance
3 668 (11.44%) Public Sector
4 340 (5.82%) Banking
5 310 (5.31%) Analytical Skills
6 231 (3.96%) Retail
7 160 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
8 141 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
9 129 (2.21%) Legal
10 111 (1.90%) Telecoms
11 106 (1.82%) Manufacturing
12 60 (1.03%) Billing
13 58 (0.99%) Marketing
14 51 (0.87%) Financial Institution
14 51 (0.87%) Military
15 48 (0.82%) Law
16 41 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
17 40 (0.69%) Aerospace
18 37 (0.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 33 (0.57%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 278 (4.76%) REST
2 206 (3.53%) Middleware
3 137 (2.35%) .NET
4 125 (2.14%) Kafka
5 121 (2.07%) SOAP
6 109 (1.87%) OAuth
7 95 (1.63%) OpenID
8 74 (1.27%) SAML
9 68 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
10 63 (1.08%) OAuth2
11 56 (0.96%) React
12 53 (0.91%) LDAP
13 52 (0.89%) RESTful
14 51 (0.87%) SailPoint
15 48 (0.82%) JSON
16 39 (0.67%) Web Services
17 37 (0.63%) Node.js
18 36 (0.62%) AngularJS
19 35 (0.60%) .NET Framework
20 34 (0.58%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 500 (8.56%) Cloud Native
2 206 (3.53%) Data Centre
3 167 (2.86%) Management Information System
4 166 (2.84%) Onboarding
5 147 (2.52%) Product Ownership
6 143 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
7 133 (2.28%) Hybrid Cloud
8 127 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
9 111 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
10 96 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
11 92 (1.58%) Public Cloud
12 90 (1.54%) AI Agents
12 90 (1.54%) Operational Technology
13 87 (1.49%) CMDB
14 66 (1.13%) Security Posture
15 60 (1.03%) Enterprise Cloud
16 49 (0.84%) Data Structures
17 48 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
18 47 (0.80%) NHS
19 45 (0.77%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 153 (2.62%) Windows
2 102 (1.75%) Linux
3 48 (0.82%) Windows Server
4 35 (0.60%) Android
5 34 (0.58%) Apple iOS
6 25 (0.43%) Unix
7 23 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (0.19%) zOS
9 8 (0.14%) VMS
10 6 (0.10%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.086%) AIX
11 5 (0.086%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.086%) Mac OS
11 5 (0.086%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.069%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.069%) Solaris
12 4 (0.069%) Windows 10
13 3 (0.051%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 846 (14.49%) Roadmaps
2 809 (13.86%) Migration
3 750 (12.84%) Stakeholder Management
4 700 (11.99%) Agile
5 666 (11.41%) AI
6 651 (11.15%) DevOps
7 631 (10.81%) Enterprise Architecture
8 623 (10.67%) CI/CD
9 574 (9.83%) Data Modelling
10 567 (9.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 566 (9.69%) Technical Leadership
12 536 (9.18%) Integration Patterns
13 524 (8.97%) Data Architecture
14 489 (8.37%) TOGAF
15 486 (8.32%) Architectural Patterns
16 484 (8.29%) Analytics
17 449 (7.69%) Microservices
18 385 (6.59%) Security Architecture
19 383 (6.56%) Problem-Solving
20 368 (6.30%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 312 (5.34%) Python
2 286 (4.90%) SQL
3 263 (4.50%) Java
4 118 (2.02%) JavaScript
5 113 (1.94%) PowerShell
6 67 (1.15%) C#
7 62 (1.06%) Bicep
8 47 (0.80%) TypeScript
9 46 (0.79%) Bash
10 28 (0.48%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.38%) Ruby
12 14 (0.24%) Scala
13 12 (0.21%) PL/SQL
14 11 (0.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 11 (0.19%) Kotlin
15 10 (0.17%) ABAP
16 9 (0.15%) C++
16 9 (0.15%) R
16 9 (0.15%) Shell Script
17 8 (0.14%) Go
Qualifications
1 1,753 (30.02%) Security Cleared
2 1,311 (22.45%) SC Cleared
3 325 (5.57%) DV Cleared
4 202 (3.46%) Degree
5 137 (2.35%) CISSP
6 129 (2.21%) AWS Certification
7 126 (2.16%) Azure Certification
8 117 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
9 114 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
10 88 (1.51%) TOGAF Certification
11 83 (1.42%) Computer Science Degree
12 67 (1.15%) CISM
13 55 (0.94%) CCNP
14 50 (0.86%) Master's Degree
15 46 (0.79%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 44 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 43 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
18 30 (0.51%) CCSP
19 24 (0.41%) CCIE
20 22 (0.38%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 203 (3.48%) NIST
2 185 (3.17%) GDPR
3 180 (3.08%) Data Quality
4 155 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 127 (2.18%) NCSC
6 66 (1.13%) QA
7 46 (0.79%) GRC
8 45 (0.77%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.67%) Accessibility
10 30 (0.51%) NIST 800
11 28 (0.48%) ISO 20022
12 26 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 26 (0.45%) SEPA
13 20 (0.34%) IFRS
14 19 (0.33%) HL7
15 18 (0.31%) COBIT
15 18 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
16 15 (0.26%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.21%) JSP 440
18 11 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 171 (2.93%) Active Directory
2 122 (2.09%) Docker
3 93 (1.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 61 (1.04%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
6 25 (0.43%) vSphere
7 21 (0.36%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.17%) Varnish
11 9 (0.15%) Squid
12 8 (0.14%) NFS
12 8 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
13 7 (0.12%) Postfix
13 7 (0.12%) vCloud
14 4 (0.069%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.069%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.069%) IAG
14 4 (0.069%) RACF
14 4 (0.069%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 293 (5.02%) Terraform
2 291 (4.98%) Kubernetes
3 113 (1.94%) Ansible
4 59 (1.01%) Grafana
5 55 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
6 48 (0.82%) Prometheus
7 47 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
8 23 (0.39%) vCenter Server
9 22 (0.38%) Argo
9 22 (0.38%) FortiGate
10 16 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 15 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
12 14 (0.24%) SCCM
13 12 (0.21%) Istio
14 8 (0.14%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.12%) Consul
15 7 (0.12%) HAProxy
15 7 (0.12%) Puppet
16 6 (0.10%) CASB
16 6 (0.10%) EMC VPLEX
Vendors
1 757 (12.96%) Microsoft
2 341 (5.84%) SAP
3 310 (5.31%) ServiceNow
4 278 (4.76%) Oracle
5 244 (4.18%) Databricks
6 187 (3.20%) Salesforce
7 168 (2.88%) VMware
8 143 (2.45%) Google
9 138 (2.36%) Cisco
10 69 (1.18%) MuleSoft
11 64 (1.10%) CyberArk
11 64 (1.10%) Splunk
12 52 (0.89%) Palo Alto
12 52 (0.89%) Red Hat
13 50 (0.86%) IBM
14 43 (0.74%) Ariba
14 43 (0.74%) Foundry
14 43 (0.74%) OpenAI
14 43 (0.74%) Workday
15 40 (0.69%) F5