Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £621, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 August 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,943 3,090 3,911
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.14% 9.32% 10.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.04% 10.20% 10.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,926 2,000 2,550
10th Percentile £478 £470 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £621 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.68% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £703 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £622 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.67% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 18 77
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £72.24 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.36 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -

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 49,375 30,298 36,046
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.56% 91.39% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,671 19,217 23,307
10th Percentile £328 £283 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,467 1,516 2,023
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.72 £17.21 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.63 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.11 £45.00
% change year-on-year +69.26% -44.20% +20.00%

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 10 August 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 10 August 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 10 August 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 5,010 £625 - 2,847
London +8 2,584 £625 -3.85% 1,676
UK excluding London +6 2,468 £622 +3.67% 1,335
Work from Home +4 1,601 £600 - 1,151
South East 0 729 £625 +4.17% 362
North of England +5 687 £600 - 316
Midlands 0 415 £625 +8.70% 164
North West +6 391 £600 - 173
West Midlands -2 308 £631 +5.13% 112
South West -4 300 £625 -2.34% 188
Yorkshire +2 232 £600 0.00% 105
East of England +18 161 £600 +8.11% 112
Scotland +17 153 £650 +4.63% 120
East Midlands +8 100 £600 +16.50% 52
North East -4 66 £600 -15.79% 38
Wales +3 39 £633 +1.20% 26
Northern Ireland +9 6 £475 -32.14% 52
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 August 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 1,831 (30.81%) Security Cleared
2 1,490 (25.07%) Azure
3 1,386 (23.32%) SC Cleared
4 1,300 (21.87%) AWS
5 854 (14.37%) Roadmaps
6 846 (14.24%) Stakeholder Management
7 829 (13.95%) Migration
8 749 (12.60%) Microsoft
9 733 (12.33%) AI
10 704 (11.85%) Enterprise Architecture
11 655 (11.02%) Agile
12 630 (10.60%) DevOps
13 613 (10.31%) CI/CD
14 611 (10.28%) Data Modelling
15 609 (10.25%) Technical Leadership
16 590 (9.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 582 (9.79%) Integration Patterns
18 571 (9.61%) Data Architecture
19 525 (8.83%) Analytics
20 496 (8.35%) TOGAF
21 471 (7.93%) Architectural Patterns
22 458 (7.71%) GCP
23 427 (7.18%) Security Architecture
24 412 (6.93%) Microservices
25 393 (6.61%) Event-Driven
26 360 (6.06%) Data Governance
26 360 (6.06%) Problem-Solving
27 359 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
28 353 (5.94%) Cybersecurity
29 343 (5.77%) 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 89 (1.50%) SharePoint
2 77 (1.30%) SAS
3 66 (1.11%) Confluence
4 45 (0.76%) Apache
5 44 (0.74%) Apache Spark
6 32 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
7 25 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
8 23 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.30%) CMS
10 16 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.19%) ArcGIS
12 9 (0.15%) Appian
13 7 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 7 (0.12%) Camunda
13 7 (0.12%) Documentum
14 6 (0.10%) nginx
15 5 (0.084%) NetWeaver
16 4 (0.067%) Jupyter
16 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
17 3 (0.050%) Tomcat
Applications
1 21 (0.35%) MS Visio
2 14 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.15%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.084%) Microsoft Office
7 3 (0.050%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.050%) Windchill
8 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 158 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.24%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
9 11 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
10 10 (0.17%) SAP IBP
11 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
13 7 (0.12%) Maximo
13 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
14 6 (0.10%) Endur
14 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,490 (25.07%) Azure
2 1,300 (21.87%) AWS
3 458 (7.71%) GCP
4 292 (4.91%) Power Platform
5 208 (3.50%) Entra ID
6 207 (3.48%) SaaS
7 193 (3.25%) Serverless
8 141 (2.37%) GitHub
9 127 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
10 120 (2.02%) PaaS
11 119 (2.00%) Microsoft 365
12 114 (1.92%) Azure DevOps
13 107 (1.80%) Snowflake
14 96 (1.62%) AWS Lambda
15 87 (1.46%) Amazon S3
16 85 (1.43%) IaaS
17 65 (1.09%) OCI
18 64 (1.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 61 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
19 61 (1.03%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 200 (3.37%) Firewall
2 180 (3.03%) Network Security
3 107 (1.80%) WAN
4 106 (1.78%) VPN
5 92 (1.55%) DNS
6 78 (1.31%) LAN
7 52 (0.87%) SD-WAN
8 47 (0.79%) BGP
9 42 (0.71%) DHCP
10 39 (0.66%) MPLS
10 39 (0.66%) TCP/IP
11 36 (0.61%) VLAN
12 32 (0.54%) SAN
13 30 (0.50%) Wireless
14 27 (0.45%) NAS
14 27 (0.45%) OSPF
15 26 (0.44%) VXLAN
16 25 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
17 22 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
17 22 (0.37%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 202 (3.40%) Power BI
2 197 (3.31%) Data Lake
3 172 (2.89%) Data Warehouse
3 172 (2.89%) Metadata
4 79 (1.33%) NoSQL
5 52 (0.87%) SQL Server
6 50 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
7 48 (0.81%) Big Data
8 45 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
9 44 (0.74%) BigQuery
10 43 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
11 39 (0.66%) Oracle Database
12 38 (0.64%) Delta Lake
13 32 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
14 26 (0.44%) GIS
15 25 (0.42%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 25 (0.42%) MongoDB
15 25 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
16 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
17 22 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 83 (1.40%) JIRA
2 79 (1.33%) Git
3 59 (0.99%) Jenkins
4 32 (0.54%) GitLab
5 22 (0.37%) ERwin
6 11 (0.19%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.15%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.13%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 7 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
9 7 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) Maven
10 6 (0.10%) Storybook
11 5 (0.084%) MLflow
11 5 (0.084%) MSI
12 4 (0.067%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.067%) Snyk
General
1 1,117 (18.80%) Social Skills
2 873 (14.69%) Finance
3 669 (11.26%) Public Sector
4 324 (5.45%) Banking
5 300 (5.05%) Analytical Skills
6 259 (4.36%) Retail
7 150 (2.52%) Influencing Skills
8 131 (2.20%) Telecoms
9 130 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
10 129 (2.17%) Manufacturing
11 114 (1.92%) Legal
12 63 (1.06%) Marketing
13 56 (0.94%) Billing
14 50 (0.84%) Financial Institution
15 49 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 46 (0.77%) Law
16 46 (0.77%) Military
17 41 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
18 39 (0.66%) Aerospace
19 35 (0.59%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 283 (4.76%) REST
2 207 (3.48%) Middleware
3 143 (2.41%) Kafka
4 132 (2.22%) .NET
5 122 (2.05%) SOAP
6 120 (2.02%) OAuth
7 74 (1.25%) Oracle Fusion
8 67 (1.13%) OpenID
9 63 (1.06%) OAuth2
9 63 (1.06%) SAML
10 60 (1.01%) JSON
11 51 (0.86%) RESTful
12 49 (0.82%) React
13 40 (0.67%) PySpark
14 39 (0.66%) SailPoint
15 37 (0.62%) .NET Framework
16 36 (0.61%) XML
17 35 (0.59%) GraphQL
18 32 (0.54%) Node.js
19 31 (0.52%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 502 (8.45%) Cloud Native
2 201 (3.38%) Data Centre
3 181 (3.05%) Management Information System
4 149 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
5 147 (2.47%) Product Ownership
6 146 (2.46%) Onboarding
7 143 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
8 140 (2.36%) Hybrid Cloud
9 131 (2.20%) AI Agents
10 124 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
11 101 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
12 90 (1.51%) Operational Technology
13 87 (1.46%) Public Cloud
14 82 (1.38%) CMDB
15 71 (1.19%) Enterprise Cloud
16 67 (1.13%) Security Posture
17 60 (1.01%) Data Structures
18 49 (0.82%) Private Cloud
19 46 (0.77%) Taxonomies
20 45 (0.76%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 131 (2.20%) Windows
2 103 (1.73%) Linux
3 48 (0.81%) Windows Server
4 29 (0.49%) Android
4 29 (0.49%) Apple iOS
5 21 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.35%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
6 9 (0.15%) zOS
7 8 (0.13%) VMS
8 7 (0.12%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
9 5 (0.084%) Solaris
9 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.034%) CentOS
11 2 (0.034%) HPUX
11 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 854 (14.37%) Roadmaps
2 846 (14.24%) Stakeholder Management
3 829 (13.95%) Migration
4 733 (12.33%) AI
5 704 (11.85%) Enterprise Architecture
6 655 (11.02%) Agile
7 630 (10.60%) DevOps
8 613 (10.31%) CI/CD
9 611 (10.28%) Data Modelling
10 609 (10.25%) Technical Leadership
11 590 (9.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 582 (9.79%) Integration Patterns
13 571 (9.61%) Data Architecture
14 525 (8.83%) Analytics
15 496 (8.35%) TOGAF
16 471 (7.93%) Architectural Patterns
17 427 (7.18%) Security Architecture
18 412 (6.93%) Microservices
19 393 (6.61%) Event-Driven
20 360 (6.06%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 279 (4.69%) Python
2 271 (4.56%) Java
3 268 (4.51%) SQL
4 133 (2.24%) JavaScript
5 100 (1.68%) PowerShell
6 59 (0.99%) C#
7 53 (0.89%) Bicep
8 49 (0.82%) Bash
9 47 (0.79%) TypeScript
10 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.35%) Ruby
12 17 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 16 (0.27%) Shell Script
14 13 (0.22%) C++
15 12 (0.20%) Kotlin
16 11 (0.19%) Scala
17 10 (0.17%) ABAP
17 10 (0.17%) Groovy
18 9 (0.15%) PL/SQL
18 9 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,831 (30.81%) Security Cleared
2 1,386 (23.32%) SC Cleared
3 337 (5.67%) DV Cleared
4 171 (2.88%) Degree
5 146 (2.46%) CISSP
6 130 (2.19%) Azure Certification
7 128 (2.15%) AWS Certification
8 113 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
9 109 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
10 94 (1.58%) TOGAF Certification
11 76 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
12 71 (1.19%) CISM
13 48 (0.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 47 (0.79%) CCNP
15 45 (0.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 42 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
17 34 (0.57%) CCSP
18 33 (0.56%) Master's Degree
19 22 (0.37%) CCNA
20 21 (0.35%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 212 (3.57%) Data Quality
2 201 (3.38%) NIST
3 183 (3.08%) GDPR
4 163 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 119 (2.00%) NCSC
6 76 (1.28%) GRC
7 62 (1.04%) QA
8 42 (0.71%) PCI DSS
9 40 (0.67%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.52%) NIST 800
10 31 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.40%) ISO 20022
11 24 (0.40%) SEPA
12 21 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.35%) IFRS
13 17 (0.29%) HL7
14 15 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
15 14 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 14 (0.24%) SLA
16 13 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 165 (2.78%) Active Directory
2 126 (2.12%) Docker
3 81 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 47 (0.79%) VMware NSX
5 28 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.37%) Hyper-V
7 20 (0.34%) vSphere
8 18 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.13%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Varnish
12 6 (0.10%) Postfix
12 6 (0.10%) vCloud
13 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.067%) IAG
13 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.050%) KVM
14 3 (0.050%) Squid
14 3 (0.050%) SRDF
15 2 (0.034%) zsh
Systems Management
1 302 (5.08%) Kubernetes
2 267 (4.49%) Terraform
3 102 (1.72%) Ansible
4 52 (0.87%) Grafana
5 45 (0.76%) Prometheus
6 42 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
7 40 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.34%) Argo
9 16 (0.27%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.20%) FortiGate
13 11 (0.19%) Istio
14 7 (0.12%) SCCM
15 6 (0.10%) CASB
15 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.084%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.084%) MOM
16 5 (0.084%) NetBackup
16 5 (0.084%) WMI
Vendors
1 749 (12.60%) Microsoft
2 343 (5.77%) SAP
3 306 (5.15%) ServiceNow
4 302 (5.08%) Oracle
5 259 (4.36%) Databricks
6 192 (3.23%) Salesforce
7 155 (2.61%) Google
8 146 (2.46%) VMware
9 137 (2.31%) Cisco
10 70 (1.18%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.06%) IBM
12 56 (0.94%) CyberArk
13 54 (0.91%) Palo Alto
14 53 (0.89%) Workday
15 45 (0.76%) Foundry
16 44 (0.74%) Ariba
17 42 (0.71%) Splunk
18 39 (0.66%) Red Hat
19 37 (0.62%) Sparx
20 36 (0.61%) OpenAI