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 11 February 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,951 3,193 4,384
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.95% 10.37% 9.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.87% 11.16% 10.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,644 1,944 2,831
10th Percentile £458 £480 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £734 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 32 44
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.43 £52.54
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +1.75% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £90.09 £81.00 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.33 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.50 £72.50 £78.37
% change year-on-year - -7.49% +11.96%

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 36,337 28,613 41,534
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.55% 92.96% 93.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,892 17,630 27,389
10th Percentile £300 £290 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £479 £489
% change year-on-year -0.84% -2.04% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,207 829 2,294
10th Percentile £14.57 £15.91 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £16.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £33.54 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.55% -4.17% -2.51%
75th Percentile £62.05 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £72.20 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year -6.80% -9.26% -

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 11 February 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 11 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Architect in the UK

Architect
Top 17 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 11 February 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 -1 3,396 £625 - 851
UK excluding London 0 1,928 £600 -4.00% 624
London -2 1,501 £630 -3.08% 376
Work from Home -4 1,124 £625 - 450
South East +10 590 £625 - 248
North of England -3 482 £575 -4.17% 143
Midlands -2 339 £573 -4.58% 93
North West -7 273 £577 -3.83% 82
South West 0 251 £706 +12.96% 58
West Midlands -2 249 £600 -1.15% 67
Yorkshire -4 190 £563 -2.17% 38
East of England +14 140 £550 -13.73% 40
Scotland +10 129 £650 +4.00% 41
East Midlands -4 88 £492 -13.30% 26
Wales +8 32 £600 +5.26% 7
North East -11 24 £625 -1.96% 25
Northern Ireland -1 8 £500 -26.47% 5

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 11 February 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 1,207 (30.55%) Security Cleared
2 1,052 (26.63%) Azure
3 867 (21.94%) SC Cleared
4 837 (21.18%) AWS
5 585 (14.81%) Microsoft
6 573 (14.50%) Roadmaps
7 533 (13.49%) Agile
8 526 (13.31%) Stakeholder Management
9 497 (12.58%) Migration
10 448 (11.34%) DevOps
10 448 (11.34%) Enterprise Architecture
11 397 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 396 (10.02%) Data Modelling
13 390 (9.87%) TOGAF
14 389 (9.85%) CI/CD
15 384 (9.72%) Technical Leadership
16 351 (8.88%) Problem-Solving
17 343 (8.68%) Analytics
18 329 (8.33%) AI
19 321 (8.12%) Python
20 320 (8.10%) GCP
21 310 (7.85%) Data Architecture
22 282 (7.14%) Microservices
23 271 (6.86%) Integration Patterns
24 255 (6.45%) DV Cleared
25 253 (6.40%) Terraform
26 246 (6.23%) Architectural Patterns
27 236 (5.97%) Architectural Design
28 232 (5.87%) Cybersecurity
29 224 (5.67%) Data Governance

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
1 112 (2.83%) Confluence
2 93 (2.35%) SharePoint
3 58 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (0.84%) SAS
5 25 (0.63%) CMS
6 22 (0.56%) Apache Spark
7 20 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
8 19 (0.48%) Apache
9 17 (0.43%) OpenStack
10 16 (0.40%) Anypoint
11 15 (0.38%) WebLogic
12 13 (0.33%) ArcGIS
13 12 (0.30%) Appian
13 12 (0.30%) nginx
14 9 (0.23%) Smallworld
15 7 (0.18%) Ethereum
15 7 (0.18%) GeoServer
15 7 (0.18%) Hyperledger
15 7 (0.18%) Skype for Business
16 6 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 51 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.81%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.76%) Microsoft Excel
3 30 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (0.38%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.051%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.025%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.025%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.025%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.025%) Revit
7 1 (0.025%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.025%) Trello
Business Applications
1 106 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (1.06%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 26 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.56%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
7 12 (0.30%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.28%) SAP EWM
9 10 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.25%) SAP ERP
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
10 9 (0.23%) SAP PM
11 8 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.20%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.18%) Maximo
12 7 (0.18%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.18%) SAP CO
13 6 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
13 6 (0.15%) Oracle SCM
13 6 (0.15%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,052 (26.63%) Azure
2 837 (21.18%) AWS
3 320 (8.10%) GCP
4 153 (3.87%) Serverless
5 146 (3.70%) Power Platform
6 140 (3.54%) SaaS
7 130 (3.29%) Microsoft 365
8 126 (3.19%) Entra ID
9 89 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
10 88 (2.23%) AWS Lambda
11 87 (2.20%) IaaS
12 84 (2.13%) GitHub
13 80 (2.02%) Amazon S3
14 75 (1.90%) Microsoft Purview
15 71 (1.80%) PaaS
16 68 (1.72%) AWS CloudFormation
17 67 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
17 67 (1.70%) OpenShift
18 66 (1.67%) Azure Data Factory
18 66 (1.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 204 (5.16%) Firewall
2 129 (3.26%) WAN
3 127 (3.21%) Network Security
4 104 (2.63%) DNS
5 102 (2.58%) VPN
6 78 (1.97%) LAN
7 68 (1.72%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.99%) BGP
9 29 (0.73%) MPLS
9 29 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (0.71%) DHCP
11 27 (0.68%) TCP/IP
12 24 (0.61%) OSPF
13 21 (0.53%) Kerberos
13 21 (0.53%) SAN
14 19 (0.48%) Internet
14 19 (0.48%) IPsec
14 19 (0.48%) SSL
14 19 (0.48%) VSAN
15 17 (0.43%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (3.75%) Data Warehouse
2 121 (3.06%) Metadata
3 104 (2.63%) Power BI
4 93 (2.35%) Data Lake
5 69 (1.75%) SQL Server
6 63 (1.59%) PostgreSQL
7 52 (1.32%) Tableau
8 38 (0.96%) Amazon Redshift
8 38 (0.96%) Azure SQL Database
8 38 (0.96%) NoSQL
9 37 (0.94%) Oracle Database
10 33 (0.84%) DynamoDB
11 27 (0.68%) Amazon Athena
12 24 (0.61%) Big Data
13 23 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
13 23 (0.58%) Relational Database
14 22 (0.56%) GIS
15 21 (0.53%) Amazon Aurora
15 21 (0.53%) Redis
16 19 (0.48%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 130 (3.29%) JIRA
2 91 (2.30%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.16%) GitLab
4 33 (0.84%) Git
5 23 (0.58%) ERwin
6 10 (0.25%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.23%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.18%) MLflow
9 6 (0.15%) Postman
10 5 (0.13%) MSI
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.13%) Selenium
11 4 (0.10%) Cucumber
11 4 (0.10%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.10%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.076%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.076%) Sonatype Nexus
12 3 (0.076%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 954 (24.15%) Social Skills
2 620 (15.69%) Finance
3 469 (11.87%) Public Sector
4 279 (7.06%) Analytical Skills
5 224 (5.67%) Banking
6 132 (3.34%) Documentation Skills
7 103 (2.61%) Legal
8 96 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
9 77 (1.95%) Military
10 76 (1.92%) Telecoms
11 75 (1.90%) Retail
12 74 (1.87%) Presentation Skills
13 69 (1.75%) Marketing
14 59 (1.49%) Manufacturing
15 39 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 37 (0.94%) Billing
17 27 (0.68%) Law
18 24 (0.61%) Financial Institution
19 21 (0.53%) Aerospace
20 19 (0.48%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 205 (5.19%) REST
2 120 (3.04%) Middleware
3 117 (2.96%) SOAP
4 86 (2.18%) .NET
5 76 (1.92%) LDAP
5 76 (1.92%) OpenID
6 75 (1.90%) Kafka
7 67 (1.70%) OAuth
8 66 (1.67%) SAML
9 50 (1.27%) JSON
10 40 (1.01%) OAuth2
11 37 (0.94%) RESTful
12 35 (0.89%) AngularJS
12 35 (0.89%) React
12 35 (0.89%) SailPoint
13 32 (0.81%) PySpark
14 29 (0.73%) Oracle Fusion
15 28 (0.71%) Web Services
16 26 (0.66%) Node.js
17 22 (0.56%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 292 (7.39%) Cloud Native
2 137 (3.47%) Product Ownership
3 120 (3.04%) Data Centre
4 113 (2.86%) Onboarding
5 101 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
6 94 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
7 88 (2.23%) PKI
8 81 (2.05%) Hybrid Cloud
9 67 (1.70%) Management Information System
9 67 (1.70%) Security Posture
10 65 (1.65%) Distributed Systems
11 63 (1.59%) Public Cloud
12 55 (1.39%) Operational Technology
13 51 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
14 47 (1.19%) CMDB
15 44 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
16 40 (1.01%) NHS
17 35 (0.89%) Data Structures
18 33 (0.84%) AI Agents
18 33 (0.84%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 170 (4.30%) Windows
2 106 (2.68%) Linux
3 43 (1.09%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.46%) Windows 7
6 16 (0.40%) Windows 10
7 14 (0.35%) Unix
8 12 (0.30%) Android
8 12 (0.30%) Apple iOS
8 12 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
8 12 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
9 10 (0.25%) VMS
10 9 (0.23%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.15%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.15%) zOS
12 4 (0.10%) CentOS
13 2 (0.051%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.025%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.025%) SUSE
14 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 573 (14.50%) Roadmaps
2 533 (13.49%) Agile
3 526 (13.31%) Stakeholder Management
4 497 (12.58%) Migration
5 448 (11.34%) DevOps
5 448 (11.34%) Enterprise Architecture
6 397 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 396 (10.02%) Data Modelling
8 390 (9.87%) TOGAF
9 389 (9.85%) CI/CD
10 384 (9.72%) Technical Leadership
11 351 (8.88%) Problem-Solving
12 343 (8.68%) Analytics
13 329 (8.33%) AI
14 310 (7.85%) Data Architecture
15 282 (7.14%) Microservices
16 271 (6.86%) Integration Patterns
17 246 (6.23%) Architectural Patterns
18 236 (5.97%) Architectural Design
19 232 (5.87%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 321 (8.12%) Python
2 211 (5.34%) SQL
3 178 (4.51%) PowerShell
4 132 (3.34%) Java
5 59 (1.49%) JavaScript
6 55 (1.39%) C#
7 36 (0.91%) Bash
7 36 (0.91%) Bicep
8 33 (0.84%) TypeScript
9 20 (0.51%) PL/SQL
10 15 (0.38%) Apex Code
11 14 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
12 13 (0.33%) R
13 10 (0.25%) Ruby
13 10 (0.25%) T-SQL
14 9 (0.23%) Scala
15 8 (0.20%) PHP
15 8 (0.20%) VB
16 7 (0.18%) ABAP
16 7 (0.18%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,207 (30.55%) Security Cleared
2 867 (21.94%) SC Cleared
3 255 (6.45%) DV Cleared
4 198 (5.01%) Degree
5 108 (2.73%) AWS Certification
5 108 (2.73%) CISSP
6 106 (2.68%) TOGAF Certification
7 96 (2.43%) Azure Certification
8 73 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
9 70 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
10 65 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
11 61 (1.54%) Microsoft Certification
12 59 (1.49%) Master's Degree
13 58 (1.47%) CISM
14 55 (1.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 39 (0.99%) CCNP
16 32 (0.81%) CCIE
17 30 (0.76%) ISEB
17 30 (0.76%) ITIL Certification
18 20 (0.51%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 178 (4.51%) GDPR
2 141 (3.57%) NIST
3 127 (3.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 121 (3.06%) Data Quality
5 79 (2.00%) NCSC
6 57 (1.44%) QA
7 50 (1.27%) PCI DSS
8 34 (0.86%) COBIT
9 31 (0.78%) Accessibility
9 31 (0.78%) GRC
10 22 (0.56%) HIPAA
11 21 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
11 21 (0.53%) ISO 20022
11 21 (0.53%) JSP 440
12 18 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 16 (0.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 15 (0.38%) MiFID
15 12 (0.30%) FINRA
16 11 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 11 (0.28%) SLA
System Software
1 169 (4.28%) Active Directory
2 120 (3.04%) Docker
3 90 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 60 (1.52%) VMware NSX
5 36 (0.91%) vSphere
6 23 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
7 15 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
8 13 (0.33%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
10 7 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.18%) Squid
11 6 (0.15%) Varnish
12 5 (0.13%) RACF
12 5 (0.13%) vCloud
13 4 (0.10%) NFS
14 3 (0.076%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 3 (0.076%) Ceph
14 3 (0.076%) Firmware
14 3 (0.076%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 253 (6.40%) Terraform
2 193 (4.88%) Kubernetes
3 108 (2.73%) Ansible
4 65 (1.65%) Single Sign-On
5 31 (0.78%) OPNET
6 30 (0.76%) FortiGate
7 29 (0.73%) vCenter Server
8 25 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
9 24 (0.61%) SCCM
10 23 (0.58%) Grafana
11 20 (0.51%) Prometheus
12 18 (0.46%) WMI
13 16 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 16 (0.40%) Argo
14 8 (0.20%) Istio
15 6 (0.15%) Consul
15 6 (0.15%) Kibana
16 5 (0.13%) Puppet
17 4 (0.10%) Data Guard
17 4 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 585 (14.81%) Microsoft
2 220 (5.57%) SAP
3 219 (5.54%) ServiceNow
4 187 (4.73%) Oracle
5 179 (4.53%) Salesforce
6 158 (4.00%) VMware
7 129 (3.26%) Databricks
8 116 (2.94%) Cisco
9 107 (2.71%) Google
10 95 (2.40%) CyberArk
11 66 (1.67%) Palo Alto
12 62 (1.57%) Splunk
13 59 (1.49%) MuleSoft
14 49 (1.24%) Centrify
14 49 (1.24%) Red Hat
15 48 (1.21%) Atlassian
16 46 (1.16%) OpenAI
16 46 (1.16%) Remedy
17 44 (1.11%) Workday
18 41 (1.04%) Sparx