Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £618, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 September 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 20 15
Rank change year-on-year +10 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,190 2,905 3,704
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.28% 8.88% 9.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.23% 9.76% 10.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,111 1,878 2,266
10th Percentile £480 £463 £483
25th Percentile £525 £525 £543
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £618 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -1.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 14 67
10th Percentile £46.00 £32.76 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.56 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -2.78%
75th Percentile £79.06 £85.63 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.33% +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 50,606 29,766 35,027
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 91.04% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,920 18,783 21,484
10th Percentile £325 £276 £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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £733 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,907 1,587 1,616
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.79
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.30 £20.69
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.70 £51.65 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.65 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.08 £43.97
% change year-on-year +69.49% -42.97% +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 23 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 23 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 23 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 +9 5,156 £620 -0.80% 4,372
London +7 2,656 £625 -2.72% 2,462
UK excluding London +7 2,583 £620 +3.33% 2,038
Work from Home +7 1,659 £600 - 1,771
South East +2 736 £625 +4.17% 585
North of England +1 685 £591 -1.46% 503
Midlands +3 438 £626 +8.91% 283
North West +7 377 £600 +4.35% 280
South West +1 345 £638 -1.92% 225
West Midlands +2 327 £650 +8.33% 215
Yorkshire +10 243 £555 -8.49% 165
Scotland +29 188 £625 - 210
East of England +7 160 £622 +12.07% 136
East Midlands +4 106 £600 +19.40% 68
North East +1 64 £600 -18.64% 58
Wales +4 44 £645 +3.20% 34
Channel Islands -3 8 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +4 2 - - 70

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 23 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 1,946 (31.44%) Security Cleared
2 1,591 (25.70%) Azure
3 1,457 (23.54%) SC Cleared
4 1,306 (21.10%) AWS
5 1,154 (18.64%) Stakeholder Management
6 968 (15.64%) Roadmaps
7 894 (14.44%) Migration
8 844 (13.63%) Microsoft
9 801 (12.94%) Enterprise Architecture
10 787 (12.71%) AI
10 787 (12.71%) Technical Leadership
11 678 (10.95%) Agile
12 652 (10.53%) DevOps
13 630 (10.18%) CI/CD
14 629 (10.16%) Data Modelling
15 625 (10.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 619 (10.00%) Data Architecture
17 582 (9.40%) Integration Patterns
18 538 (8.69%) Analytics
19 499 (8.06%) Security Architecture
20 495 (8.00%) GCP
21 493 (7.96%) TOGAF
22 477 (7.71%) Architectural Patterns
23 424 (6.85%) Event-Driven
24 406 (6.56%) Data Governance
25 403 (6.51%) Microservices
26 394 (6.37%) DV Cleared
27 389 (6.28%) Decision-Making
28 387 (6.25%) Architecture Governance
29 382 (6.17%) 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 79 (1.28%) SAS
2 71 (1.15%) SharePoint
3 63 (1.02%) Confluence
4 46 (0.74%) Apache
5 43 (0.69%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
7 34 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
8 24 (0.39%) CMS
9 21 (0.34%) Palantir Foundry
10 17 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.11%) Documentum
11 7 (0.11%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.097%) Appian
12 6 (0.097%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.097%) Headless CMS
12 6 (0.097%) IIS
12 6 (0.097%) JBoss
13 5 (0.081%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.065%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.065%) Camunda
Applications
1 22 (0.36%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.24%) 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 (0.097%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.032%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.032%) Gliffy
9 2 (0.032%) Windchill
10 1 (0.016%) Notion
10 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 179 (2.89%) SAP S/4HANA
2 44 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 35 (0.57%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
4 17 (0.27%) Teamcenter
5 15 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
5 15 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
5 15 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
6 14 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
7 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.21%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
12 7 (0.11%) Maximo
12 7 (0.11%) Oracle Retail
13 6 (0.097%) SAP CO
13 6 (0.097%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,591 (25.70%) Azure
2 1,306 (21.10%) AWS
3 495 (8.00%) GCP
4 304 (4.91%) Power Platform
5 241 (3.89%) SaaS
6 220 (3.55%) Entra ID
7 196 (3.17%) Serverless
8 149 (2.41%) GitHub
9 142 (2.29%) Dynamics 365
10 134 (2.16%) Microsoft 365
11 129 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
12 122 (1.97%) Snowflake
13 104 (1.68%) PaaS
14 90 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
15 82 (1.32%) Amazon S3
16 77 (1.24%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 74 (1.20%) IaaS
18 70 (1.13%) OCI
19 66 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
19 66 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 162 (2.62%) Firewall
2 149 (2.41%) Network Security
3 101 (1.63%) WAN
4 77 (1.24%) VPN
5 73 (1.18%) DNS
6 66 (1.07%) LAN
7 49 (0.79%) SD-WAN
8 47 (0.76%) BGP
9 40 (0.65%) MPLS
10 39 (0.63%) DHCP
11 34 (0.55%) TCP/IP
12 29 (0.47%) VLAN
13 27 (0.44%) VXLAN
14 26 (0.42%) SAN
15 24 (0.39%) NX-OS
16 21 (0.34%) Wireless
17 20 (0.32%) BIG-IP
17 20 (0.32%) NAS
18 19 (0.31%) NGFW
18 19 (0.31%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 230 (3.72%) Metadata
2 215 (3.47%) Data Lake
3 193 (3.12%) Data Warehouse
4 188 (3.04%) Power BI
5 67 (1.08%) NoSQL
6 52 (0.84%) BigQuery
7 49 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
7 49 (0.79%) SQL Server
8 47 (0.76%) PostgreSQL
9 42 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
10 40 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
10 40 (0.65%) Delta Lake
11 37 (0.60%) Oracle Database
12 33 (0.53%) Big Data
13 32 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 31 (0.50%) Semantic Layer
15 27 (0.44%) Relational Database
16 22 (0.36%) Amazon Aurora
16 22 (0.36%) Snowflake Schema
16 22 (0.36%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 87 (1.41%) JIRA
2 78 (1.26%) Git
3 62 (1.00%) Jenkins
4 47 (0.76%) GitLab
5 15 (0.24%) ERwin
6 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 13 (0.21%) Postman
8 10 (0.16%) MSI
8 10 (0.16%) RStudio
9 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
9 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
10 6 (0.097%) Hudson
10 6 (0.097%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.097%) Storybook
11 5 (0.081%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.081%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.081%) MLflow
11 5 (0.081%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.081%) Selenium
12 4 (0.065%) Maven
General
1 1,257 (20.31%) Social Skills
2 882 (14.25%) Finance
3 711 (11.49%) Public Sector
4 316 (5.11%) Banking
5 288 (4.65%) Analytical Skills
6 275 (4.44%) Retail
7 174 (2.81%) Influencing Skills
8 153 (2.47%) Manufacturing
9 142 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
10 132 (2.13%) Telecoms
11 113 (1.83%) Legal
12 74 (1.20%) Marketing
13 64 (1.03%) Billing
14 60 (0.97%) Aerospace
14 60 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 52 (0.84%) Military
16 45 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
17 37 (0.60%) Aviation
17 37 (0.60%) Police
18 36 (0.58%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 301 (4.86%) REST
2 266 (4.30%) Terraform
3 173 (2.79%) Middleware
4 170 (2.75%) Kafka
5 137 (2.21%) SOAP
6 126 (2.04%) OAuth
7 124 (2.00%) .NET
8 79 (1.28%) Oracle Fusion
9 70 (1.13%) JSON
10 66 (1.07%) OpenID
11 65 (1.05%) SAML
12 62 (1.00%) OAuth2
13 54 (0.87%) LDAP
14 48 (0.78%) PySpark
15 46 (0.74%) RESTful
15 46 (0.74%) XML
16 40 (0.65%) .NET Framework
16 40 (0.65%) SailPoint
17 37 (0.60%) JWT
17 37 (0.60%) React
Miscellaneous
1 519 (8.38%) Cloud Native
2 202 (3.26%) Data Centre
3 185 (2.99%) Onboarding
4 176 (2.84%) Management Information System
5 152 (2.46%) Product Ownership
6 145 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
7 144 (2.33%) Hybrid Cloud
8 142 (2.29%) Distributed Systems
9 140 (2.26%) AI Agents
10 138 (2.23%) Legacy Systems
11 104 (1.68%) CMDB
12 94 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
13 92 (1.49%) Public Cloud
14 88 (1.42%) Operational Technology
15 82 (1.32%) Enterprise Cloud
16 67 (1.08%) Private Cloud
17 62 (1.00%) Data Structures
17 62 (1.00%) Security Posture
18 51 (0.82%) Taxonomies
19 47 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 130 (2.10%) Windows
2 104 (1.68%) Linux
3 52 (0.84%) Windows Server
4 24 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 24 (0.39%) Unix
5 9 (0.15%) AIX
6 8 (0.13%) Android
6 8 (0.13%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.097%) zOS
8 5 (0.081%) Solaris
9 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
9 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
9 4 (0.065%) VMS
10 3 (0.048%) CentOS
11 2 (0.032%) HPUX
11 2 (0.032%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.032%) OpenWrt
11 2 (0.032%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.016%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,154 (18.64%) Stakeholder Management
2 968 (15.64%) Roadmaps
3 894 (14.44%) Migration
4 801 (12.94%) Enterprise Architecture
5 787 (12.71%) AI
5 787 (12.71%) Technical Leadership
6 678 (10.95%) Agile
7 652 (10.53%) DevOps
8 630 (10.18%) CI/CD
9 629 (10.16%) Data Modelling
10 625 (10.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 619 (10.00%) Data Architecture
12 582 (9.40%) Integration Patterns
13 538 (8.69%) Analytics
14 499 (8.06%) Security Architecture
15 493 (7.96%) TOGAF
16 477 (7.71%) Architectural Patterns
17 424 (6.85%) Event-Driven
18 406 (6.56%) Data Governance
19 403 (6.51%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 263 (4.25%) SQL
2 261 (4.22%) Python
3 258 (4.17%) Java
4 128 (2.07%) JavaScript
5 113 (1.83%) PowerShell
6 56 (0.90%) TypeScript
7 52 (0.84%) C#
8 46 (0.74%) Bash
9 45 (0.73%) Bicep
10 31 (0.50%) Apex Code
11 24 (0.39%) 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%) Go
Qualifications
1 1,946 (31.44%) Security Cleared
2 1,457 (23.54%) SC Cleared
3 394 (6.37%) DV Cleared
4 171 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
5 166 (2.68%) Degree
6 156 (2.52%) CISSP
7 121 (1.95%) AWS Certification
7 121 (1.95%) Azure Certification
8 109 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
9 90 (1.45%) TOGAF Certification
10 73 (1.18%) CISM
11 66 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
12 50 (0.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 48 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
14 44 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 43 (0.69%) CCNP
16 38 (0.61%) CCSP
17 31 (0.50%) Master's Degree
18 24 (0.39%) CISA
19 22 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 263 (4.25%) Data Quality
2 231 (3.73%) NIST
3 193 (3.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 160 (2.58%) GDPR
5 127 (2.05%) NCSC
6 84 (1.36%) GRC
7 58 (0.94%) QA
8 40 (0.65%) Accessibility
8 40 (0.65%) PCI DSS
9 32 (0.52%) NIST 800
10 29 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.39%) SLA
12 21 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.34%) IFRS
12 21 (0.34%) SEPA
13 20 (0.32%) ISO 20022
13 20 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 20 (0.32%) JSP 440
14 15 (0.24%) ISO 19650
15 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 197 (3.18%) Active Directory
2 110 (1.78%) Docker
3 86 (1.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 47 (0.76%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
6 23 (0.37%) vSphere
7 20 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 19 (0.31%) Hyper-V
9 16 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.081%) NFS
11 4 (0.065%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.065%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.065%) KVM
11 4 (0.065%) Postfix
11 4 (0.065%) Varnish
12 3 (0.048%) Ceph
12 3 (0.048%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.048%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.048%) SRDF
12 3 (0.048%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 300 (4.85%) Kubernetes
2 107 (1.73%) Ansible
3 49 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
4 46 (0.74%) Grafana
5 38 (0.61%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.29%) Argo
8 15 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
10 11 (0.18%) WMI
11 10 (0.16%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.15%) CASB
12 9 (0.15%) FortiGate
13 8 (0.13%) Istio
13 8 (0.13%) SCCM
14 7 (0.11%) NetBackup
15 6 (0.097%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.097%) Puppet
16 5 (0.081%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.081%) vRealize
Vendors
1 844 (13.63%) Microsoft
2 353 (5.70%) SAP
3 315 (5.09%) ServiceNow
4 307 (4.96%) Oracle
5 295 (4.77%) Databricks
6 209 (3.38%) Salesforce
7 203 (3.28%) Google
8 149 (2.41%) Cisco
9 145 (2.34%) VMware
10 88 (1.42%) CyberArk
11 78 (1.26%) MuleSoft
12 59 (0.95%) IBM
13 53 (0.86%) Workday
14 50 (0.81%) Palo Alto
15 49 (0.79%) Foundry
16 43 (0.69%) Splunk
17 41 (0.66%) Informatica
18 39 (0.63%) Red Hat
19 37 (0.60%) Adobe
19 37 (0.60%) Pega