Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 December 2025.

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

6 months to
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 15 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 +2 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,270 3,520 4,187
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.97% 9.78% 9.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.87% 10.54% 9.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,225 2,104 2,843
10th Percentile £462 £483 £500
25th Percentile £525 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £725 £725
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £625 £627
% change year-on-year -2.00% -0.32% -3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 24 36
10th Percentile £63.50 £60.45 £58.75
25th Percentile £66.25 £62.25 £71.50
Median hourly rate £83.82 £68.75 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +21.92% -10.17% +9.33%
75th Percentile £95.00 £86.21 £80.78
90th Percentile - £89.25 £91.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.82 £67.50 £76.53
% change year-on-year +24.18% -11.80% +9.33%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 33,145 33,385 42,274
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.93% 92.77% 93.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,040 20,359 28,495
10th Percentile £285 £300 £294
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £645
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,927 1,147 1,515
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.36 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.88 £20.75 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.27% +39.88%
75th Percentile £57.25 £63.93 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +78.00%

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 6 December 2025.

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 6 December 2025.

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 6 December 2025. 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 -4 2,829 £625 - 1,069
UK excluding London -3 1,551 £613 -2.00% 911
London -1 1,290 £630 +0.80% 327
Work from Home -4 1,026 £613 -1.96% 700
South East +4 508 £600 -4.00% 334
North of England -7 369 £600 -2.77% 193
South West +3 260 £700 +12.00% 99
Midlands -8 230 £575 -4.17% 136
North West -8 219 £600 -2.32% 101
West Midlands -14 175 £588 -2.08% 93
Yorkshire -15 131 £600 +1.48% 71
Scotland -7 91 £600 -4.00% 41
East of England -4 84 £551 -8.13% 94
East Midlands -2 55 £503 -8.64% 40
Wales -5 23 £625 - 20
North East 0 20 £700 +12.13% 22
Northern Ireland -8 6 £550 -8.33% 13
Channel Islands - 6 £743 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 December 2025, 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 1,004 (30.70%) Security Cleared
2 910 (27.83%) Azure
3 723 (22.11%) AWS
4 693 (21.19%) SC Cleared
5 515 (15.75%) Roadmaps
6 492 (15.05%) Microsoft
7 471 (14.40%) Agile
8 448 (13.70%) Stakeholder Management
9 392 (11.99%) Migration
9 392 (11.99%) TOGAF
10 379 (11.59%) Enterprise Architecture
11 359 (10.98%) DevOps
12 358 (10.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 349 (10.67%) Data Modelling
14 340 (10.40%) CI/CD
15 327 (10.00%) Problem-Solving
16 306 (9.36%) Technical Leadership
17 270 (8.26%) AI
17 270 (8.26%) Microservices
18 267 (8.17%) GCP
19 256 (7.83%) Terraform
20 255 (7.80%) Analytics
21 254 (7.77%) Python
22 240 (7.34%) Data Architecture
23 227 (6.94%) DV Cleared
24 215 (6.57%) Mentoring
25 208 (6.36%) Data Governance
26 207 (6.33%) Security Architecture
27 206 (6.30%) ITIL
27 206 (6.30%) ServiceNow

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
1 101 (3.09%) Confluence
2 56 (1.71%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.86%) SAS
5 18 (0.55%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.55%) CMS
6 17 (0.52%) Apache
6 17 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.52%) OpenStack
7 14 (0.43%) ArcGIS
8 13 (0.40%) WebLogic
9 8 (0.24%) Anypoint
9 8 (0.24%) Mule
10 7 (0.21%) WebSphere
11 6 (0.18%) Ethereum
11 6 (0.18%) Hyperledger
11 6 (0.18%) Smallworld
12 5 (0.15%) GeoServer
12 5 (0.15%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 44 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (1.04%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (0.80%) MS Visio
4 21 (0.64%) Microsoft Excel
5 20 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.31%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.092%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.092%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.031%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.031%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.031%) Revit
8 1 (0.031%) Trello
Business Applications
1 90 (2.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
2 33 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.73%) Workday HCM
4 20 (0.61%) Salesforce CRM
5 18 (0.55%) Maximo
6 16 (0.49%) SAP PM
7 15 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
8 13 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 13 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
8 13 (0.40%) SAP CO
9 12 (0.37%) SAP FI
9 12 (0.37%) Teamcenter
10 11 (0.34%) SAP FI/CO
11 9 (0.28%) Endur
12 8 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
12 8 (0.24%) SAP EWM
12 8 (0.24%) SAP PP
13 7 (0.21%) Distributed Ledger
13 7 (0.21%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 910 (27.83%) Azure
2 723 (22.11%) AWS
3 267 (8.17%) GCP
4 149 (4.56%) SaaS
5 141 (4.31%) Power Platform
6 120 (3.67%) Serverless
7 105 (3.21%) Entra ID
8 92 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
9 85 (2.60%) IaaS
10 83 (2.54%) GitHub
11 82 (2.51%) Dynamics 365
12 73 (2.23%) AWS Lambda
13 70 (2.14%) PaaS
14 65 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
15 61 (1.87%) Amazon S3
16 60 (1.83%) Snowflake
17 58 (1.77%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 55 (1.68%) AWS CloudFormation
19 54 (1.65%) Azure Data Factory
20 52 (1.59%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 203 (6.21%) Firewall
2 103 (3.15%) WAN
3 98 (3.00%) Network Security
4 89 (2.72%) LAN
5 78 (2.39%) VPN
6 70 (2.14%) DNS
6 70 (2.14%) SD-WAN
7 39 (1.19%) Wi-Fi
8 36 (1.10%) BGP
9 26 (0.80%) MPLS
9 26 (0.80%) SAN
10 25 (0.76%) Cisco Nexus
10 25 (0.76%) DHCP
11 22 (0.67%) SSL
12 21 (0.64%) VSAN
13 19 (0.58%) Internet
14 17 (0.52%) VLAN
15 16 (0.49%) OSPF
16 14 (0.43%) iSCSI
17 13 (0.40%) Fibre Channel
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (3.58%) Data Warehouse
2 95 (2.91%) Power BI
3 91 (2.78%) Metadata
4 74 (2.26%) Data Lake
5 66 (2.02%) PostgreSQL
6 61 (1.87%) SQL Server
7 42 (1.28%) NoSQL
8 40 (1.22%) Amazon Redshift
9 30 (0.92%) DynamoDB
9 30 (0.92%) MongoDB
10 29 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
10 29 (0.89%) Tableau
11 28 (0.86%) Oracle Database
12 26 (0.80%) BigQuery
13 25 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
13 25 (0.76%) Relational Database
14 24 (0.73%) Big Data
15 23 (0.70%) Amazon Athena
15 23 (0.70%) Delta Lake
16 19 (0.58%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 123 (3.76%) JIRA
2 72 (2.20%) Jenkins
3 58 (1.77%) Git
4 41 (1.25%) GitLab
5 19 (0.58%) ERwin
6 12 (0.37%) CircleCI
6 12 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (0.24%) Artifactory
7 8 (0.24%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.21%) MLflow
9 6 (0.18%) Bitbucket
9 6 (0.18%) Maven
10 5 (0.15%) Gradle
10 5 (0.15%) MSI
10 5 (0.15%) Rational DOORS
10 5 (0.15%) SonarLint
10 5 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.12%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.092%) Postman
12 3 (0.092%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 879 (26.88%) Social Skills
2 550 (16.82%) Finance
3 415 (12.69%) Public Sector
4 274 (8.38%) Analytical Skills
5 191 (5.84%) Banking
6 96 (2.94%) Telecoms
7 82 (2.51%) Retail
8 81 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
9 71 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
9 71 (2.17%) Legal
9 71 (2.17%) Marketing
10 70 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
11 69 (2.11%) Manufacturing
12 66 (2.02%) Military
13 45 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 38 (1.16%) Financial Institution
15 32 (0.98%) Billing
16 26 (0.80%) Back Office
17 22 (0.67%) Aerospace
18 21 (0.64%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (4.65%) REST
2 92 (2.81%) Middleware
3 82 (2.51%) SOAP
4 80 (2.45%) .NET
5 63 (1.93%) Kafka
6 61 (1.87%) JSON
7 56 (1.71%) OAuth
8 52 (1.59%) RESTful
9 46 (1.41%) SAML
10 39 (1.19%) Lightning Web Components
11 38 (1.16%) AngularJS
11 38 (1.16%) React
11 38 (1.16%) Web Services
12 34 (1.04%) OAuth2
13 31 (0.95%) Node.js
13 31 (0.95%) OpenID
13 31 (0.95%) RabbitMQ
14 28 (0.86%) Oracle Fusion
15 27 (0.83%) Spring Boot
16 26 (0.80%) Visualforce
Miscellaneous
1 255 (7.80%) Cloud Native
2 151 (4.62%) Product Ownership
3 129 (3.94%) Legacy Systems
4 109 (3.33%) Data Centre
5 84 (2.57%) Hybrid Cloud
6 83 (2.54%) Onboarding
7 77 (2.35%) PKI
8 59 (1.80%) Management Information System
9 48 (1.47%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
11 46 (1.41%) Operational Technology
12 44 (1.35%) CMDB
13 42 (1.28%) Public Cloud
14 41 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
15 40 (1.22%) NHS
16 39 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
17 32 (0.98%) Security Posture
18 31 (0.95%) Data Structures
19 29 (0.89%) SCADA
20 27 (0.83%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 135 (4.13%) Windows
2 98 (3.00%) Linux
3 52 (1.59%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 22 (0.67%) Windows Server 2019
5 17 (0.52%) Unix
6 12 (0.37%) Windows 7
7 11 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.31%) VMS
9 6 (0.18%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.15%) Android
10 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.15%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.092%) Solaris
11 3 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (0.092%) zOS
12 2 (0.061%) CentOS
13 1 (0.031%) MVS
13 1 (0.031%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 515 (15.75%) Roadmaps
2 471 (14.40%) Agile
3 448 (13.70%) Stakeholder Management
4 392 (11.99%) Migration
4 392 (11.99%) TOGAF
5 379 (11.59%) Enterprise Architecture
6 359 (10.98%) DevOps
7 358 (10.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 349 (10.67%) Data Modelling
9 340 (10.40%) CI/CD
10 327 (10.00%) Problem-Solving
11 306 (9.36%) Technical Leadership
12 270 (8.26%) AI
12 270 (8.26%) Microservices
13 255 (7.80%) Analytics
14 240 (7.34%) Data Architecture
15 215 (6.57%) Mentoring
16 208 (6.36%) Data Governance
17 207 (6.33%) Security Architecture
18 206 (6.30%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 254 (7.77%) Python
2 164 (5.02%) SQL
3 156 (4.77%) Java
4 100 (3.06%) PowerShell
5 65 (1.99%) JavaScript
6 57 (1.74%) TypeScript
7 48 (1.47%) C#
8 33 (1.01%) Apex Code
8 33 (1.01%) Bicep
9 30 (0.92%) Bash
10 19 (0.58%) R
11 14 (0.43%) C++
12 13 (0.40%) C
13 12 (0.37%) PL/SQL
14 9 (0.28%) ABAP
15 8 (0.24%) Korn
16 7 (0.21%) Go
16 7 (0.21%) Ruby
17 6 (0.18%) DataWeave
17 6 (0.18%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,004 (30.70%) Security Cleared
2 693 (21.19%) SC Cleared
3 227 (6.94%) DV Cleared
4 189 (5.78%) Degree
5 121 (3.70%) CISSP
6 111 (3.39%) AWS Certification
7 101 (3.09%) Azure Certification
8 89 (2.72%) TOGAF Certification
9 67 (2.05%) Cisco Certification
10 66 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
11 65 (1.99%) Microsoft Certification
12 52 (1.59%) CISM
13 49 (1.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 48 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
15 45 (1.38%) Master's Degree
16 36 (1.10%) CCNP
17 35 (1.07%) CCIE
18 25 (0.76%) ISEB
19 22 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
20 21 (0.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 176 (5.38%) GDPR
2 137 (4.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 131 (4.01%) NIST
4 95 (2.91%) Data Quality
5 64 (1.96%) NCSC
6 53 (1.62%) PCI DSS
7 50 (1.53%) QA
8 33 (1.01%) COBIT
9 30 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 26 (0.80%) Accessibility
11 25 (0.76%) HIPAA
12 24 (0.73%) GRC
12 24 (0.73%) JSP 440
13 23 (0.70%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 20 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
15 14 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 13 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 11 (0.34%) NIST 800
17 11 (0.34%) SOC 2
18 10 (0.31%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 126 (3.85%) Docker
2 122 (3.73%) Active Directory
3 88 (2.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (1.10%) vSphere
5 30 (0.92%) VMware NSX
6 23 (0.70%) VMware ESXi
7 19 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
8 17 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.43%) NFS
10 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
11 5 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 4 (0.12%) Dovecot
12 4 (0.12%) Postfix
13 3 (0.092%) BitLocker
13 3 (0.092%) KVM
13 3 (0.092%) Lustre
13 3 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
14 2 (0.061%) GPFS
15 1 (0.031%) Ceph
15 1 (0.031%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 256 (7.83%) Terraform
2 193 (5.90%) Kubernetes
3 96 (2.94%) Ansible
4 54 (1.65%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (1.01%) OPNET
6 25 (0.76%) Prometheus
7 23 (0.70%) Grafana
8 22 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
9 17 (0.52%) SCCM
9 17 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.40%) WMI
12 9 (0.28%) Argo
13 4 (0.12%) SCOM
14 3 (0.092%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.092%) Istio
14 3 (0.092%) Puppet
14 3 (0.092%) RSA Archer
14 3 (0.092%) vRealize
15 2 (0.061%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 492 (15.05%) Microsoft
2 206 (6.30%) ServiceNow
3 191 (5.84%) SAP
4 176 (5.38%) Salesforce
5 169 (5.17%) Oracle
6 142 (4.34%) VMware
7 121 (3.70%) Cisco
8 96 (2.94%) Databricks
9 88 (2.69%) Google
10 53 (1.62%) Fortinet
11 52 (1.59%) Splunk
12 51 (1.56%) Remedy
13 50 (1.53%) Palo Alto
13 50 (1.53%) Workday
14 43 (1.31%) IBM
15 41 (1.25%) CyberArk
16 40 (1.22%) MuleSoft
17 39 (1.19%) Atlassian
18 38 (1.16%) F5
19 36 (1.10%) Pega