Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £615, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 August 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,009 2,967 3,926
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.18% 9.07% 10.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.09% 9.94% 10.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,989 1,906 2,531
10th Percentile £480 £468 £485
25th Percentile £525 £535 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £646
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -3.25% -0.62%
75th Percentile £700 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £640
% change year-on-year +3.33% -6.25% -1.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 18 74
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.75 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.31% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £77.31 £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% -3.89%

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 49,702 29,842 36,074
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.23% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,679 18,834 22,885
10th Percentile £325 £280 £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 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,561 1,567 1,910
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.72 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.08 £19.50
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -0.73%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 5,031 £620 -0.80% 2,472
London +7 2,586 £625 -3.85% 1,487
UK excluding London +7 2,510 £620 +3.33% 1,167
Work from Home +3 1,604 £600 - 965
South East 0 732 £625 +4.17% 313
North of England +2 704 £600 - 300
Midlands +1 412 £626 +8.78% 142
North West +6 411 £600 +2.78% 167
South West +2 314 £650 +1.56% 169
West Midlands -1 299 £650 +8.33% 84
Yorkshire +10 230 £588 -4.08% 102
Scotland +21 166 £625 +0.60% 107
East of England +14 152 £604 +9.07% 86
East Midlands +3 106 £600 +16.50% 58
North East -5 65 £600 -14.29% 31
Wales +4 43 £633 +1.20% 15
Northern Ireland +5 4 £488 -30.36% 43
Channel Islands -3 4 £600 -19.19% 2

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 28 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 1,859 (30.94%) Security Cleared
2 1,548 (25.76%) Azure
3 1,402 (23.33%) SC Cleared
4 1,311 (21.82%) AWS
5 974 (16.21%) Stakeholder Management
6 906 (15.08%) Roadmaps
7 857 (14.26%) Migration
8 812 (13.51%) Microsoft
9 758 (12.61%) AI
10 757 (12.60%) Enterprise Architecture
11 678 (11.28%) Technical Leadership
12 672 (11.18%) Agile
13 630 (10.48%) DevOps
14 625 (10.40%) Data Modelling
15 624 (10.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 616 (10.25%) CI/CD
17 579 (9.64%) Data Architecture
18 576 (9.59%) Integration Patterns
19 517 (8.60%) Analytics
20 481 (8.00%) GCP
21 477 (7.94%) Architectural Patterns
21 477 (7.94%) TOGAF
22 461 (7.67%) Security Architecture
23 409 (6.81%) Event-Driven
24 398 (6.62%) Microservices
25 393 (6.54%) Data Governance
26 373 (6.21%) Cybersecurity
26 373 (6.21%) Infrastructure as Code
27 357 (5.94%) Decision-Making
28 354 (5.89%) 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 79 (1.31%) SAS
1 79 (1.31%) SharePoint
2 68 (1.13%) Confluence
3 44 (0.73%) Apache
4 42 (0.70%) Apache Spark
5 33 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
6 29 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
7 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
8 19 (0.32%) CMS
9 18 (0.30%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.12%) ArcGIS
10 7 (0.12%) Documentum
11 6 (0.100%) Appian
11 6 (0.100%) Camunda
12 5 (0.083%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.067%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.067%) NetWeaver
13 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
14 3 (0.050%) Anypoint
14 3 (0.050%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 22 (0.37%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.033%) Windchill
7 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.017%) Notion
7 1 (0.017%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 166 (2.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 36 (0.60%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 21 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
4 17 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
4 17 (0.28%) Teamcenter
5 14 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
5 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
6 13 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
7 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
7 12 (0.20%) SAP ERP
8 11 (0.18%) SAP MDG
9 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
11 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
12 7 (0.12%) Maximo
12 7 (0.12%) SAP MM
13 6 (0.100%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,548 (25.76%) Azure
2 1,311 (21.82%) AWS
3 481 (8.00%) GCP
4 308 (5.13%) Power Platform
5 224 (3.73%) Entra ID
6 222 (3.69%) SaaS
7 208 (3.46%) Serverless
8 146 (2.43%) GitHub
9 143 (2.38%) Dynamics 365
10 124 (2.06%) Microsoft 365
11 120 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
12 111 (1.85%) Snowflake
13 108 (1.80%) PaaS
14 99 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
15 88 (1.46%) Amazon S3
16 75 (1.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 75 (1.25%) IaaS
17 68 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
18 66 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
19 64 (1.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 179 (2.98%) Firewall
2 163 (2.71%) Network Security
3 105 (1.75%) WAN
4 93 (1.55%) VPN
5 80 (1.33%) DNS
6 74 (1.23%) LAN
7 50 (0.83%) SD-WAN
8 48 (0.80%) BGP
9 39 (0.65%) DHCP
10 37 (0.62%) TCP/IP
11 36 (0.60%) MPLS
12 29 (0.48%) VLAN
13 27 (0.45%) SAN
13 27 (0.45%) VXLAN
14 23 (0.38%) OSPF
15 22 (0.37%) NAS
16 21 (0.35%) Radio Access Network
17 20 (0.33%) NX-OS
17 20 (0.33%) Wireless
18 19 (0.32%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 209 (3.48%) Power BI
2 203 (3.38%) Data Lake
3 195 (3.25%) Metadata
4 181 (3.01%) Data Warehouse
5 78 (1.30%) NoSQL
6 52 (0.87%) SQL Server
7 49 (0.82%) PostgreSQL
8 48 (0.80%) Azure SQL Database
9 46 (0.77%) BigQuery
10 45 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
11 44 (0.73%) Delta Lake
12 43 (0.72%) Big Data
13 39 (0.65%) Oracle Database
14 38 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
15 29 (0.48%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
16 26 (0.43%) Semantic Layer
17 25 (0.42%) Relational Database
18 23 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
18 23 (0.38%) GIS
18 23 (0.38%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 83 (1.38%) JIRA
2 80 (1.33%) Git
3 58 (0.97%) Jenkins
4 37 (0.62%) GitLab
5 19 (0.32%) ERwin
6 12 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.13%) RStudio
9 7 (0.12%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.12%) MLflow
9 7 (0.12%) MSI
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 7 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.100%) Hudson
10 6 (0.100%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.100%) Storybook
11 5 (0.083%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.083%) Maven
11 5 (0.083%) PowerDesigner
General
1 1,178 (19.60%) Social Skills
2 870 (14.48%) Finance
3 687 (11.43%) Public Sector
4 311 (5.18%) Banking
5 304 (5.06%) Analytical Skills
6 258 (4.29%) Retail
7 157 (2.61%) Influencing Skills
8 139 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
9 137 (2.28%) Telecoms
10 134 (2.23%) Manufacturing
11 112 (1.86%) Legal
12 68 (1.13%) Marketing
13 61 (1.02%) Billing
14 56 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 47 (0.78%) Military
16 46 (0.77%) Law
17 45 (0.75%) Aerospace
18 39 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
19 37 (0.62%) Financial Institution
19 37 (0.62%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 291 (4.84%) REST
2 267 (4.44%) Terraform
3 184 (3.06%) Middleware
4 142 (2.36%) Kafka
5 130 (2.16%) SOAP
6 127 (2.11%) .NET
7 125 (2.08%) OAuth
8 70 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
9 67 (1.11%) OpenID
9 67 (1.11%) SAML
10 66 (1.10%) JSON
11 60 (1.00%) OAuth2
12 48 (0.80%) PySpark
13 45 (0.75%) RESTful
14 41 (0.68%) XML
15 40 (0.67%) React
16 38 (0.63%) .NET Framework
16 38 (0.63%) LDAP
16 38 (0.63%) SailPoint
17 35 (0.58%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 531 (8.84%) Cloud Native
2 199 (3.31%) Data Centre
3 178 (2.96%) Management Information System
4 160 (2.66%) Onboarding
5 145 (2.41%) Hybrid Cloud
6 143 (2.38%) Product Ownership
7 141 (2.35%) AI Agents
7 141 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
8 139 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
8 139 (2.31%) Legacy Systems
9 102 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
10 95 (1.58%) CMDB
11 87 (1.45%) Public Cloud
12 82 (1.36%) Operational Technology
13 80 (1.33%) Enterprise Cloud
14 67 (1.11%) Security Posture
15 58 (0.97%) Data Structures
16 53 (0.88%) Private Cloud
17 48 (0.80%) IoT
18 44 (0.73%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 121 (2.01%) Windows
2 107 (1.78%) Linux
3 46 (0.77%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (0.37%) Unix
6 17 (0.28%) Android
6 17 (0.28%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.13%) zOS
9 7 (0.12%) VMS
10 5 (0.083%) Solaris
11 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.067%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.050%) CentOS
12 3 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.050%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
13 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 974 (16.21%) Stakeholder Management
2 906 (15.08%) Roadmaps
3 857 (14.26%) Migration
4 758 (12.61%) AI
5 757 (12.60%) Enterprise Architecture
6 678 (11.28%) Technical Leadership
7 672 (11.18%) Agile
8 630 (10.48%) DevOps
9 625 (10.40%) Data Modelling
10 624 (10.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 616 (10.25%) CI/CD
12 579 (9.64%) Data Architecture
13 576 (9.59%) Integration Patterns
14 517 (8.60%) Analytics
15 477 (7.94%) Architectural Patterns
15 477 (7.94%) TOGAF
16 461 (7.67%) Security Architecture
17 409 (6.81%) Event-Driven
18 398 (6.62%) Microservices
19 393 (6.54%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 282 (4.69%) Python
2 278 (4.63%) SQL
3 273 (4.54%) Java
4 126 (2.10%) JavaScript
5 108 (1.80%) PowerShell
6 52 (0.87%) Bicep
7 50 (0.83%) C#
8 49 (0.82%) Bash
9 48 (0.80%) TypeScript
10 30 (0.50%) Apex Code
11 20 (0.33%) Ruby
12 16 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (0.27%) Shell Script
13 15 (0.25%) ABAP
14 14 (0.23%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.18%) C++
15 11 (0.18%) Groovy
15 11 (0.18%) R
16 10 (0.17%) PL/SQL
16 10 (0.17%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,859 (30.94%) Security Cleared
2 1,402 (23.33%) SC Cleared
3 350 (5.82%) DV Cleared
4 169 (2.81%) Degree
5 149 (2.48%) CISSP
6 132 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
7 127 (2.11%) Azure Certification
8 122 (2.03%) AWS Certification
9 100 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
10 83 (1.38%) TOGAF Certification
11 75 (1.25%) CISM
12 72 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
14 46 (0.77%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 41 (0.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 41 (0.68%) CCNP
16 33 (0.55%) CCSP
17 32 (0.53%) Master's Degree
18 22 (0.37%) CISA
18 22 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (4.06%) Data Quality
2 226 (3.76%) NIST
3 179 (2.98%) GDPR
3 179 (2.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 120 (2.00%) NCSC
5 77 (1.28%) GRC
6 54 (0.90%) QA
7 43 (0.72%) PCI DSS
8 39 (0.65%) Accessibility
9 32 (0.53%) NIST 800
10 30 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (0.42%) SLA
12 21 (0.35%) SEPA
13 20 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.33%) IFRS
14 19 (0.32%) ISO 20022
14 19 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 16 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
15 16 (0.27%) JSP 440
16 14 (0.23%) HL7
System Software
1 175 (2.91%) Active Directory
2 118 (1.96%) Docker
3 82 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 44 (0.73%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.37%) vSphere
7 19 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.12%) NFS
10 6 (0.100%) Varnish
11 5 (0.083%) Postfix
11 5 (0.083%) vCloud
12 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 4 (0.067%) KVM
13 3 (0.050%) Ceph
13 3 (0.050%) IAG
13 3 (0.050%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.050%) SRDF
14 2 (0.033%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 296 (4.93%) Kubernetes
2 103 (1.71%) Ansible
3 51 (0.85%) Grafana
4 48 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.70%) Prometheus
6 27 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.32%) Argo
8 16 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.23%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.17%) Istio
11 8 (0.13%) WMI
12 7 (0.12%) FortiGate
12 7 (0.12%) SCCM
13 6 (0.100%) CASB
13 6 (0.100%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.083%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.083%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.083%) MOM
15 4 (0.067%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 812 (13.51%) Microsoft
2 354 (5.89%) SAP
3 304 (5.06%) Oracle
4 302 (5.03%) ServiceNow
5 287 (4.78%) Databricks
6 194 (3.23%) Salesforce
7 182 (3.03%) Google
8 144 (2.40%) Cisco
9 139 (2.31%) VMware
10 71 (1.18%) MuleSoft
11 64 (1.07%) CyberArk
12 63 (1.05%) IBM
13 54 (0.90%) Workday
14 53 (0.88%) Palo Alto
15 47 (0.78%) Foundry
16 43 (0.72%) Ariba
17 42 (0.70%) Adobe
18 40 (0.67%) Red Hat
19 39 (0.65%) OpenAI
20 38 (0.63%) Sparx