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 18 September 2026.

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

6 months to
18 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 6,133 2,941 3,814
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.27% 8.93% 9.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.21% 9.80% 10.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,070 1,901 2,350
10th Percentile £481 £463 £485
25th Percentile £525 £525 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £630
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -0.79% -3.08%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £780 £778 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 15 69
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.17 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.62% - -1.53%
75th Percentile £78.75 £83.75 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -6.67% +1.79% -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 50,223 30,015 35,830
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 91.09% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,737 18,953 22,040
10th Percentile £325 £278 £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 £626 £623 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,829 1,585 1,681
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +2.86%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 5,112 £620 -0.80% 4,860
London +7 2,630 £625 -3.85% 2,680
UK excluding London +7 2,558 £620 +3.33% 2,256
Work from Home +6 1,645 £600 - 1,910
South East +2 740 £625 +4.17% 649
North of England +3 674 £591 -1.46% 570
Midlands +1 432 £626 +8.87% 310
North West +7 375 £599 +4.25% 319
South West +3 343 £638 -1.92% 225
West Midlands +3 319 £644 +7.42% 221
Yorkshire +15 236 £559 -6.88% 186
Scotland +26 180 £625 - 237
East of England +10 159 £619 +11.55% 172
East Midlands +6 108 £600 +18.81% 89
North East -7 62 £600 -15.79% 65
Wales +3 42 £633 +1.20% 30
Channel Islands -4 7 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +3 2 - - 71

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 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 1,926 (31.40%) Security Cleared
2 1,570 (25.60%) Azure
3 1,444 (23.54%) SC Cleared
4 1,287 (20.98%) AWS
5 1,133 (18.47%) Stakeholder Management
6 954 (15.56%) Roadmaps
7 878 (14.32%) Migration
8 837 (13.65%) Microsoft
9 797 (13.00%) Enterprise Architecture
10 781 (12.73%) AI
11 768 (12.52%) Technical Leadership
12 673 (10.97%) Agile
13 639 (10.42%) DevOps
14 626 (10.21%) Data Modelling
15 620 (10.11%) CI/CD
16 619 (10.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 610 (9.95%) Data Architecture
18 576 (9.39%) Integration Patterns
19 533 (8.69%) Analytics
20 503 (8.20%) TOGAF
21 491 (8.01%) Security Architecture
22 487 (7.94%) GCP
23 467 (7.61%) Architectural Patterns
24 414 (6.75%) Event-Driven
25 405 (6.60%) Data Governance
26 403 (6.57%) Microservices
27 388 (6.33%) DV Cleared
28 382 (6.23%) Decision-Making
29 381 (6.21%) Architecture Governance
30 374 (6.10%) Cybersecurity

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 71 (1.16%) SharePoint
3 62 (1.01%) Confluence
4 45 (0.73%) Apache
5 40 (0.65%) Apache Spark
6 34 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
6 34 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
7 23 (0.38%) CMS
8 21 (0.34%) Palantir Foundry
9 16 (0.26%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.11%) Documentum
10 7 (0.11%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.098%) Appian
11 6 (0.098%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.082%) Headless CMS
12 5 (0.082%) JBoss
12 5 (0.082%) SAP EP
13 4 (0.065%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.065%) Camunda
13 4 (0.065%) Jupyter
Applications
1 23 (0.38%) MS Visio
2 16 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.15%) Revit
6 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.11%) Navisworks
8 6 (0.098%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.033%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.033%) Windchill
10 1 (0.016%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.016%) Notion
10 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 171 (2.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
3 34 (0.55%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
4 17 (0.28%) Teamcenter
5 16 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
6 15 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
6 15 (0.24%) SAP MDG
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
7 14 (0.23%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
10 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 7 (0.11%) Maximo
13 7 (0.11%) Oracle Retail
14 6 (0.098%) SAP CO
14 6 (0.098%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,570 (25.60%) Azure
2 1,287 (20.98%) AWS
3 487 (7.94%) GCP
4 304 (4.96%) Power Platform
5 239 (3.90%) SaaS
6 221 (3.60%) Entra ID
7 197 (3.21%) Serverless
8 148 (2.41%) GitHub
9 147 (2.40%) Dynamics 365
10 133 (2.17%) Microsoft 365
11 131 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
12 117 (1.91%) Snowflake
13 101 (1.65%) PaaS
14 92 (1.50%) AWS Lambda
15 83 (1.35%) Amazon S3
16 74 (1.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 70 (1.14%) IaaS
17 70 (1.14%) OCI
18 66 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
19 64 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 160 (2.61%) Firewall
2 147 (2.40%) Network Security
3 99 (1.61%) WAN
4 78 (1.27%) VPN
5 75 (1.22%) DNS
6 68 (1.11%) LAN
7 47 (0.77%) SD-WAN
8 46 (0.75%) BGP
9 40 (0.65%) MPLS
10 38 (0.62%) DHCP
11 36 (0.59%) TCP/IP
12 29 (0.47%) VLAN
13 27 (0.44%) VXLAN
14 25 (0.41%) SAN
15 24 (0.39%) NX-OS
16 21 (0.34%) Wireless
17 20 (0.33%) BIG-IP
18 19 (0.31%) NAS
18 19 (0.31%) NGFW
18 19 (0.31%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 226 (3.68%) Metadata
2 212 (3.46%) Data Lake
3 191 (3.11%) Power BI
4 188 (3.07%) Data Warehouse
5 66 (1.08%) NoSQL
6 51 (0.83%) BigQuery
7 49 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
7 49 (0.80%) SQL Server
8 46 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
9 41 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
9 41 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
10 40 (0.65%) Delta Lake
11 36 (0.59%) Oracle Database
12 34 (0.55%) Big Data
13 32 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 30 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
15 27 (0.44%) Relational Database
16 22 (0.36%) GIS
16 22 (0.36%) Star Schema
17 21 (0.34%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 88 (1.43%) JIRA
2 80 (1.30%) Git
3 63 (1.03%) Jenkins
4 45 (0.73%) GitLab
5 16 (0.26%) ERwin
6 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 13 (0.21%) Postman
8 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 9 (0.15%) MSI
8 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
8 9 (0.15%) RStudio
9 7 (0.11%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.098%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.098%) Hudson
10 6 (0.098%) Rational DOORS
10 6 (0.098%) Storybook
11 5 (0.082%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.082%) MLflow
11 5 (0.082%) Selenium
11 5 (0.082%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,242 (20.25%) Social Skills
2 883 (14.40%) Finance
3 708 (11.54%) Public Sector
4 318 (5.19%) Banking
5 288 (4.70%) Analytical Skills
6 273 (4.45%) Retail
7 171 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
8 151 (2.46%) Manufacturing
9 141 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
10 133 (2.17%) Telecoms
11 115 (1.88%) Legal
12 74 (1.21%) Marketing
13 64 (1.04%) Billing
14 60 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 56 (0.91%) Aerospace
16 53 (0.86%) Military
17 41 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
18 37 (0.60%) Police
19 36 (0.59%) Aviation
19 36 (0.59%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 299 (4.88%) REST
2 261 (4.26%) Terraform
3 180 (2.93%) Middleware
4 164 (2.67%) Kafka
5 138 (2.25%) SOAP
6 125 (2.04%) .NET
7 123 (2.01%) OAuth
8 76 (1.24%) Oracle Fusion
9 74 (1.21%) JSON
10 65 (1.06%) OpenID
10 65 (1.06%) SAML
11 61 (0.99%) OAuth2
12 55 (0.90%) LDAP
13 48 (0.78%) PySpark
14 47 (0.77%) XML
15 46 (0.75%) RESTful
16 40 (0.65%) .NET Framework
16 40 (0.65%) SailPoint
17 38 (0.62%) React
18 35 (0.57%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 514 (8.38%) Cloud Native
2 197 (3.21%) Data Centre
3 181 (2.95%) Onboarding
4 176 (2.87%) Management Information System
5 151 (2.46%) Product Ownership
6 143 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
7 142 (2.32%) AI Agents
8 140 (2.28%) Hybrid Cloud
9 139 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
10 138 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
11 100 (1.63%) CMDB
12 95 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
13 89 (1.45%) Public Cloud
14 87 (1.42%) Operational Technology
15 82 (1.34%) Enterprise Cloud
16 63 (1.03%) Security Posture
17 62 (1.01%) Private Cloud
18 61 (0.99%) Data Structures
19 49 (0.80%) Taxonomies
20 46 (0.75%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 126 (2.05%) Windows
2 102 (1.66%) Linux
3 50 (0.82%) Windows Server
4 24 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 24 (0.39%) Unix
5 9 (0.15%) AIX
5 9 (0.15%) Android
5 9 (0.15%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.098%) zOS
8 5 (0.082%) Solaris
9 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
9 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
9 4 (0.065%) VMS
10 3 (0.049%) CentOS
11 2 (0.033%) HPUX
11 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
11 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.016%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,133 (18.47%) Stakeholder Management
2 954 (15.56%) Roadmaps
3 878 (14.32%) Migration
4 797 (13.00%) Enterprise Architecture
5 781 (12.73%) AI
6 768 (12.52%) Technical Leadership
7 673 (10.97%) Agile
8 639 (10.42%) DevOps
9 626 (10.21%) Data Modelling
10 620 (10.11%) CI/CD
11 619 (10.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 610 (9.95%) Data Architecture
13 576 (9.39%) Integration Patterns
14 533 (8.69%) Analytics
15 503 (8.20%) TOGAF
16 491 (8.01%) Security Architecture
17 467 (7.61%) Architectural Patterns
18 414 (6.75%) Event-Driven
19 405 (6.60%) Data Governance
20 403 (6.57%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 262 (4.27%) SQL
2 261 (4.26%) Python
3 257 (4.19%) Java
4 129 (2.10%) JavaScript
5 110 (1.79%) PowerShell
6 56 (0.91%) TypeScript
7 50 (0.82%) C#
8 47 (0.77%) Bash
9 44 (0.72%) Bicep
10 32 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.34%) ABAP
12 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (0.26%) Shell Script
13 14 (0.23%) Ruby
14 11 (0.18%) Groovy
14 11 (0.18%) R
15 10 (0.16%) C++
15 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.15%) Rust
17 8 (0.13%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,926 (31.40%) Security Cleared
2 1,444 (23.54%) SC Cleared
3 388 (6.33%) DV Cleared
4 165 (2.69%) Degree
5 164 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
6 156 (2.54%) CISSP
7 120 (1.96%) Azure Certification
8 119 (1.94%) AWS Certification
9 107 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
10 93 (1.52%) TOGAF Certification
11 73 (1.19%) CISM
12 68 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
13 49 (0.80%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 48 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
15 44 (0.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 42 (0.68%) CCNP
17 37 (0.60%) CCSP
18 32 (0.52%) Master's Degree
19 23 (0.38%) CISA
20 22 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 260 (4.24%) Data Quality
2 231 (3.77%) NIST
3 198 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 163 (2.66%) GDPR
5 123 (2.01%) NCSC
6 83 (1.35%) GRC
7 61 (0.99%) QA
8 40 (0.65%) Accessibility
9 39 (0.64%) PCI DSS
10 33 (0.54%) NIST 800
11 32 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 24 (0.39%) SLA
13 23 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
14 22 (0.36%) SEPA
15 21 (0.34%) IFRS
15 21 (0.34%) ISO 20022
16 20 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 18 (0.29%) JSP 440
18 15 (0.24%) ISO 19650
19 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 192 (3.13%) Active Directory
2 112 (1.83%) Docker
3 82 (1.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 47 (0.77%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
6 23 (0.38%) vSphere
7 19 (0.31%) Hyper-V
8 18 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 15 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.082%) NFS
11 4 (0.065%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.065%) KVM
11 4 (0.065%) Postfix
11 4 (0.065%) Varnish
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.049%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.049%) SRDF
12 3 (0.049%) vCloud
13 2 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 300 (4.89%) Kubernetes
2 107 (1.74%) Ansible
3 51 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
4 48 (0.78%) Grafana
5 39 (0.64%) Prometheus
6 30 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (0.28%) Argo
8 14 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 10 (0.16%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.16%) WMI
10 9 (0.15%) FortiGate
10 9 (0.15%) Istio
11 8 (0.13%) CASB
12 7 (0.11%) NetBackup
12 7 (0.11%) Puppet
12 7 (0.11%) SCCM
13 6 (0.098%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.082%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.082%) vRealize
Vendors
1 837 (13.65%) Microsoft
2 354 (5.77%) SAP
3 317 (5.17%) ServiceNow
4 305 (4.97%) Oracle
5 290 (4.73%) Databricks
6 210 (3.42%) Salesforce
7 199 (3.24%) Google
8 150 (2.45%) Cisco
9 144 (2.35%) VMware
10 88 (1.43%) CyberArk
11 81 (1.32%) MuleSoft
12 62 (1.01%) IBM
13 56 (0.91%) Workday
14 50 (0.82%) Palo Alto
15 49 (0.80%) Foundry
16 41 (0.67%) Informatica
17 39 (0.64%) Adobe
17 39 (0.64%) Splunk
18 37 (0.60%) Red Hat
19 36 (0.59%) Ariba