Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £620, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 August 2026.

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

6 months to
17 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 5,941 3,050 3,931
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.10% 9.21% 10.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.00% 10.09% 10.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,930 1,964 2,576
10th Percentile £481 £472 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £787 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £648
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.41% -0.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 18 74
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 £73.25 £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 49,505 30,216 36,013
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 91.29% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,709 19,089 23,205
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
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 3,494 1,545 1,999
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.96 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +21.62%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 +8 5,009 £620 -0.80% 739
London +7 2,548 £625 -3.85% 337
UK excluding London +6 2,498 £620 +3.33% 508
Work from Home +4 1,588 £600 - 362
South East +1 737 £625 +4.17% 173
North of England +5 700 £600 - 129
Midlands 0 415 £625 +7.57% 60
North West +7 402 £600 - 69
South West -3 313 £625 -2.34% 82
West Midlands -2 302 £627 +4.42% 44
Yorkshire +5 235 £588 -2.08% 42
East of England +13 159 £600 +8.11% 26
Scotland +16 149 £648 +3.60% 24
East Midlands +4 106 £600 +16.50% 16
North East -5 65 £600 -14.29% 18
Wales +4 41 £640 +2.40% 13
Northern Ireland +7 5 £475 -32.14% 8
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 17 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 1,835 (30.89%) Security Cleared
2 1,513 (25.47%) Azure
3 1,368 (23.03%) SC Cleared
4 1,294 (21.78%) AWS
5 885 (14.90%) Stakeholder Management
6 868 (14.61%) Roadmaps
7 833 (14.02%) Migration
8 786 (13.23%) Microsoft
9 728 (12.25%) Enterprise Architecture
10 724 (12.19%) AI
11 656 (11.04%) Agile
12 640 (10.77%) Technical Leadership
13 617 (10.39%) DevOps
14 609 (10.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 607 (10.22%) CI/CD
16 605 (10.18%) Data Modelling
17 576 (9.70%) Integration Patterns
18 571 (9.61%) Data Architecture
19 520 (8.75%) Analytics
20 484 (8.15%) TOGAF
21 468 (7.88%) GCP
22 465 (7.83%) Architectural Patterns
23 438 (7.37%) Security Architecture
24 398 (6.70%) Microservices
25 391 (6.58%) Event-Driven
26 372 (6.26%) Infrastructure as Code
27 368 (6.19%) Cybersecurity
28 361 (6.08%) Data Governance
29 357 (6.01%) Problem-Solving
30 352 (5.92%) Decision-Making

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 87 (1.46%) SharePoint
2 77 (1.30%) SAS
3 67 (1.13%) Confluence
4 45 (0.76%) Apache
5 43 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 31 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
7 27 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
9 19 (0.32%) CMS
10 18 (0.30%) OpenStack
11 8 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 7 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 7 (0.12%) Appian
12 7 (0.12%) Camunda
12 7 (0.12%) Documentum
13 5 (0.084%) NetWeaver
14 4 (0.067%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.067%) nginx
14 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
15 3 (0.050%) Drupal
Applications
1 21 (0.35%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.050%) PlantUML
6 3 (0.050%) Windchill
7 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 159 (2.68%) 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%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
8 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) SAP ERP
9 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
11 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.10%) Endur
13 6 (0.10%) Maximo
13 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,513 (25.47%) Azure
2 1,294 (21.78%) AWS
3 468 (7.88%) GCP
4 301 (5.07%) Power Platform
5 211 (3.55%) SaaS
6 205 (3.45%) Entra ID
7 199 (3.35%) Serverless
8 144 (2.42%) GitHub
9 132 (2.22%) Dynamics 365
10 123 (2.07%) Microsoft 365
11 118 (1.99%) PaaS
12 115 (1.94%) Azure DevOps
13 112 (1.89%) Snowflake
14 97 (1.63%) AWS Lambda
15 85 (1.43%) Amazon S3
16 82 (1.38%) IaaS
17 69 (1.16%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 66 (1.11%) OCI
19 65 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
20 64 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 190 (3.20%) Firewall
2 167 (2.81%) Network Security
3 104 (1.75%) WAN
4 102 (1.72%) VPN
5 90 (1.51%) DNS
6 77 (1.30%) LAN
7 50 (0.84%) SD-WAN
8 46 (0.77%) BGP
9 42 (0.71%) DHCP
10 39 (0.66%) MPLS
11 38 (0.64%) TCP/IP
12 33 (0.56%) VLAN
13 30 (0.50%) SAN
14 28 (0.47%) VXLAN
15 26 (0.44%) Wireless
16 25 (0.42%) NAS
17 24 (0.40%) NX-OS
17 24 (0.40%) OSPF
18 23 (0.39%) Structured Cabling
19 20 (0.34%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 205 (3.45%) Power BI
2 200 (3.37%) Data Lake
3 178 (3.00%) Data Warehouse
4 175 (2.95%) Metadata
5 76 (1.28%) NoSQL
6 54 (0.91%) SQL Server
7 50 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
8 47 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
9 46 (0.77%) BigQuery
10 45 (0.76%) Big Data
11 43 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
12 39 (0.66%) Delta Lake
13 38 (0.64%) Oracle Database
14 36 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
15 28 (0.47%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
16 24 (0.40%) GIS
17 23 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
17 23 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
18 22 (0.37%) MongoDB
18 22 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 84 (1.41%) JIRA
2 79 (1.33%) Git
3 58 (0.98%) Jenkins
4 36 (0.61%) GitLab
5 21 (0.35%) ERwin
6 11 (0.19%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.13%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.12%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 7 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) MSI
10 6 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.10%) Storybook
11 5 (0.084%) Maven
11 5 (0.084%) MLflow
12 4 (0.067%) ER Studio
12 4 (0.067%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,132 (19.05%) Social Skills
2 862 (14.51%) Finance
3 675 (11.36%) Public Sector
4 316 (5.32%) Banking
5 304 (5.12%) Analytical Skills
6 254 (4.28%) Retail
7 151 (2.54%) Influencing Skills
8 139 (2.34%) Documentation Skills
9 132 (2.22%) Telecoms
10 130 (2.19%) Manufacturing
11 112 (1.89%) Legal
12 66 (1.11%) Marketing
13 58 (0.98%) Billing
14 55 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 48 (0.81%) Financial Institution
16 47 (0.79%) Military
17 46 (0.77%) Aerospace
17 46 (0.77%) Law
18 38 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
19 36 (0.61%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 287 (4.83%) REST
2 199 (3.35%) Middleware
3 141 (2.37%) Kafka
4 126 (2.12%) SOAP
5 124 (2.09%) .NET
5 124 (2.09%) OAuth
6 71 (1.20%) Oracle Fusion
7 65 (1.09%) SAML
8 64 (1.08%) JSON
8 64 (1.08%) OpenID
9 61 (1.03%) OAuth2
10 48 (0.81%) RESTful
11 44 (0.74%) React
12 39 (0.66%) PySpark
12 39 (0.66%) SailPoint
13 37 (0.62%) XML
14 36 (0.61%) .NET Framework
15 35 (0.59%) GraphQL
16 34 (0.57%) LDAP
17 33 (0.56%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 510 (8.58%) Cloud Native
2 204 (3.43%) Data Centre
3 179 (3.01%) Management Information System
4 152 (2.56%) Onboarding
5 148 (2.49%) Product Ownership
6 145 (2.44%) Hybrid Cloud
7 144 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
8 142 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
9 129 (2.17%) AI Agents
9 129 (2.17%) Enterprise Software
10 105 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
11 88 (1.48%) CMDB
11 88 (1.48%) Operational Technology
12 87 (1.46%) Public Cloud
13 76 (1.28%) Enterprise Cloud
14 67 (1.13%) Security Posture
15 60 (1.01%) Data Structures
16 51 (0.86%) Private Cloud
17 45 (0.76%) IoT
18 44 (0.74%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 134 (2.26%) Windows
2 105 (1.77%) Linux
3 48 (0.81%) Windows Server
4 28 (0.47%) Android
4 28 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 23 (0.39%) Unix
6 21 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) zOS
9 7 (0.12%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.12%) VMS
10 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.084%) Solaris
10 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.034%) CentOS
12 2 (0.034%) HPUX
12 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.034%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 885 (14.90%) Stakeholder Management
2 868 (14.61%) Roadmaps
3 833 (14.02%) Migration
4 728 (12.25%) Enterprise Architecture
5 724 (12.19%) AI
6 656 (11.04%) Agile
7 640 (10.77%) Technical Leadership
8 617 (10.39%) DevOps
9 609 (10.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 607 (10.22%) CI/CD
11 605 (10.18%) Data Modelling
12 576 (9.70%) Integration Patterns
13 571 (9.61%) Data Architecture
14 520 (8.75%) Analytics
15 484 (8.15%) TOGAF
16 465 (7.83%) Architectural Patterns
17 438 (7.37%) Security Architecture
18 398 (6.70%) Microservices
19 391 (6.58%) Event-Driven
20 372 (6.26%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 274 (4.61%) Python
2 273 (4.60%) SQL
3 270 (4.54%) Java
4 129 (2.17%) JavaScript
5 107 (1.80%) PowerShell
6 54 (0.91%) Bicep
7 50 (0.84%) Bash
8 49 (0.82%) C#
9 45 (0.76%) TypeScript
10 30 (0.50%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.35%) Ruby
12 17 (0.29%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 13 (0.22%) C++
14 13 (0.22%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.19%) ABAP
15 11 (0.19%) Groovy
15 11 (0.19%) PL/SQL
16 10 (0.17%) Scala
17 9 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,835 (30.89%) Security Cleared
2 1,368 (23.03%) SC Cleared
3 352 (5.92%) DV Cleared
4 163 (2.74%) Degree
5 148 (2.49%) CISSP
6 127 (2.14%) Azure Certification
7 122 (2.05%) AWS Certification
8 120 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
9 103 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
10 85 (1.43%) TOGAF Certification
11 73 (1.23%) CISM
12 68 (1.14%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 43 (0.72%) CCNP
14 43 (0.72%) Microsoft Certification
15 42 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 34 (0.57%) CCSP
17 31 (0.52%) Master's Degree
18 21 (0.35%) CISA
18 21 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 217 (3.65%) Data Quality
2 214 (3.60%) NIST
3 182 (3.06%) GDPR
4 170 (2.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 123 (2.07%) NCSC
6 77 (1.30%) GRC
7 59 (0.99%) QA
8 44 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 38 (0.64%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.52%) NIST 800
10 31 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.35%) IFRS
12 21 (0.35%) SEPA
13 19 (0.32%) ISO 20022
14 16 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
14 16 (0.27%) HL7
14 16 (0.27%) JSP 440
15 15 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 15 (0.25%) SLA
System Software
1 173 (2.91%) Active Directory
2 117 (1.97%) Docker
3 84 (1.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 48 (0.81%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.37%) vSphere
7 18 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.13%) NFS
10 7 (0.12%) Varnish
11 6 (0.10%) Postfix
11 6 (0.10%) vCloud
12 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 4 (0.067%) IAG
12 4 (0.067%) KVM
12 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.050%) Ceph
13 3 (0.050%) SRDF
14 2 (0.034%) Squid
Systems Management
1 293 (4.93%) Kubernetes
2 268 (4.51%) Terraform
3 106 (1.78%) Ansible
4 51 (0.86%) Grafana
5 44 (0.74%) Prometheus
6 43 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
7 39 (0.66%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.34%) Argo
9 16 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 16 (0.27%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.19%) Istio
12 10 (0.17%) FortiGate
13 7 (0.12%) SCCM
14 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
14 6 (0.10%) WMI
15 5 (0.084%) CASB
15 5 (0.084%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.084%) MOM
15 5 (0.084%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 786 (13.23%) Microsoft
2 345 (5.81%) SAP
3 304 (5.12%) Oracle
3 304 (5.12%) ServiceNow
4 263 (4.43%) Databricks
5 194 (3.27%) Salesforce
6 171 (2.88%) Google
7 151 (2.54%) VMware
8 142 (2.39%) Cisco
9 69 (1.16%) MuleSoft
10 62 (1.04%) IBM
11 61 (1.03%) CyberArk
12 53 (0.89%) Workday
13 52 (0.88%) Palo Alto
14 45 (0.76%) Foundry
15 43 (0.72%) Ariba
16 40 (0.67%) Red Hat
17 39 (0.66%) Adobe
17 39 (0.66%) Splunk
18 37 (0.62%) Sparx