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 24 June 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -6 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,626 2,883 4,516
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.05% 9.60% 10.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.96% 10.42% 11.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,717 1,849 2,901
10th Percentile £463 £463 £490
25th Percentile £515 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £719 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £616 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.67% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 151 27 96
10th Percentile £46.00 £47.08 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% - -
75th Percentile £78.63 £77.75 £87.12
90th Percentile £97.50 £91.92 £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 47,021 27,678 40,406
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.16% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,598 17,771 25,926
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £414 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,150 1,209 2,937
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.84 £12.84
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.44 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.38 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.08% -27.00% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £74.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +76.94% -37.13% -

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 24 June 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 24 June 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 24 June 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 4,786 £618 -1.20% 737
UK excluding London +9 2,501 £616 +2.67% 565
London +5 2,329 £625 -3.85% 325
Work from Home +4 1,527 £600 - 377
South East +6 710 £625 +4.08% 171
North of England +6 705 £600 - 162
Midlands +3 439 £613 +3.90% 64
North West +4 374 £610 +2.31% 94
West Midlands +1 313 £625 +4.17% 52
South West +1 278 £645 +5.31% 68
Yorkshire +9 270 £558 -7.00% 40
East of England +27 206 £600 - 40
Scotland +11 160 £650 +4.00% 37
East Midlands +8 120 £575 +15.00% 12
North East +10 68 £575 -8.00% 30
Wales +2 34 £620 +30.53% 25
Northern Ireland +4 7 £475 -28.30% 10
Channel Islands 0 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 June 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 1,679 (29.84%) Security Cleared
2 1,397 (24.83%) Azure
3 1,265 (22.48%) SC Cleared
4 1,223 (21.74%) AWS
5 791 (14.06%) Roadmaps
6 790 (14.04%) Migration
7 739 (13.14%) Microsoft
8 699 (12.42%) Stakeholder Management
9 649 (11.54%) Agile
10 639 (11.36%) DevOps
11 606 (10.77%) CI/CD
12 598 (10.63%) AI
13 585 (10.40%) Enterprise Architecture
14 535 (9.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 534 (9.49%) Technical Leadership
16 531 (9.44%) Data Modelling
17 519 (9.23%) Integration Patterns
18 482 (8.57%) Data Architecture
19 465 (8.27%) Architectural Patterns
20 453 (8.05%) Analytics
21 441 (7.84%) TOGAF
22 426 (7.57%) GCP
23 425 (7.55%) Microservices
24 373 (6.63%) Problem-Solving
25 366 (6.51%) Architectural Design
26 352 (6.26%) Infrastructure as Code
27 350 (6.22%) Security Architecture
28 336 (5.97%) Event-Driven
29 335 (5.95%) Cybersecurity
30 326 (5.79%) Python

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
1 119 (2.12%) SharePoint
2 89 (1.58%) Confluence
3 53 (0.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (0.84%) SAS
5 32 (0.57%) Apache Spark
6 31 (0.55%) Apache
7 24 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 19 (0.34%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.32%) Appian
10 17 (0.30%) CMS
11 15 (0.27%) WebLogic
12 14 (0.25%) nginx
13 11 (0.20%) Anypoint
14 10 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 9 (0.16%) Camunda
15 9 (0.16%) OpenStack
16 8 (0.14%) ArcGIS
17 7 (0.12%) Tomcat
18 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
18 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 24 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 19 (0.34%) MS Visio
3 14 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 9 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
6 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.12%) Revit
6 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.053%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.053%) Windchill
8 1 (0.018%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.018%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.018%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 147 (2.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (0.68%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
5 18 (0.32%) SAP ERP
6 17 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
7 16 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
8 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
9 11 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 9 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
10 9 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
12 7 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
12 7 (0.12%) SAP MDG
12 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.11%) Maximo
13 6 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
13 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
14 5 (0.089%) NetSuite
14 5 (0.089%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 1,397 (24.83%) Azure
2 1,223 (21.74%) AWS
3 426 (7.57%) GCP
4 269 (4.78%) Power Platform
5 205 (3.64%) Serverless
6 189 (3.36%) SaaS
7 186 (3.31%) Entra ID
8 139 (2.47%) GitHub
9 136 (2.42%) Microsoft 365
10 118 (2.10%) PaaS
11 112 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
12 106 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
13 100 (1.78%) AWS Lambda
14 95 (1.69%) Snowflake
15 89 (1.58%) Amazon S3
15 89 (1.58%) IaaS
16 69 (1.23%) Amazon EKS
16 69 (1.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 67 (1.19%) AWS CloudFormation
18 65 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 221 (3.93%) Firewall
2 186 (3.31%) Network Security
3 123 (2.19%) DNS
4 118 (2.10%) VPN
5 117 (2.08%) WAN
6 80 (1.42%) LAN
7 67 (1.19%) SD-WAN
8 46 (0.82%) DHCP
9 44 (0.78%) TCP/IP
10 42 (0.75%) BGP
11 36 (0.64%) VLAN
12 34 (0.60%) MPLS
13 33 (0.59%) OSPF
13 33 (0.59%) Wireless
14 29 (0.52%) SAN
15 27 (0.48%) NAS
16 25 (0.44%) Structured Cabling
17 24 (0.43%) IPsec
18 23 (0.41%) BIG-IP
19 21 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 190 (3.38%) Power BI
2 159 (2.83%) Metadata
3 156 (2.77%) Data Lake
4 149 (2.65%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.33%) NoSQL
6 68 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
7 65 (1.16%) SQL Server
8 47 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.75%) Big Data
10 39 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
11 36 (0.64%) BigQuery
11 36 (0.64%) Oracle Database
12 33 (0.59%) Tableau
13 30 (0.53%) Delta Lake
14 29 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
15 28 (0.50%) Relational Database
16 25 (0.44%) MongoDB
17 21 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
17 21 (0.37%) Electronic Patient Records
18 20 (0.36%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 114 (2.03%) JIRA
2 89 (1.58%) Jenkins
3 65 (1.16%) Git
4 40 (0.71%) GitLab
5 26 (0.46%) ERwin
6 12 (0.21%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.18%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.16%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.14%) MLflow
9 8 (0.14%) Postman
10 7 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
12 5 (0.089%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.089%) JMeter
12 5 (0.089%) JUnit
12 5 (0.089%) Maven
12 5 (0.089%) Oracle Forms
12 5 (0.089%) PowerDesigner
12 5 (0.089%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,052 (18.70%) Social Skills
2 874 (15.54%) Finance
3 640 (11.38%) Public Sector
4 326 (5.79%) Banking
5 287 (5.10%) Analytical Skills
6 204 (3.63%) Retail
7 155 (2.76%) Documentation Skills
8 139 (2.47%) Legal
9 127 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
10 103 (1.83%) Manufacturing
11 95 (1.69%) Telecoms
12 56 (1.00%) Law
13 54 (0.96%) Military
14 48 (0.85%) Financial Institution
14 48 (0.85%) Marketing
15 47 (0.84%) Billing
16 43 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
17 38 (0.68%) Aerospace
17 38 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 35 (0.62%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 267 (4.75%) REST
2 208 (3.70%) Middleware
3 136 (2.42%) .NET
4 126 (2.24%) SOAP
5 115 (2.04%) Kafka
6 98 (1.74%) OAuth
7 95 (1.69%) OpenID
8 75 (1.33%) SAML
9 70 (1.24%) LDAP
10 65 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
11 59 (1.05%) OAuth2
12 58 (1.03%) React
13 54 (0.96%) RESTful
14 47 (0.84%) SailPoint
15 46 (0.82%) JSON
16 38 (0.68%) AngularJS
16 38 (0.68%) Web Services
17 34 (0.60%) Node.js
18 32 (0.57%) .NET Framework
19 31 (0.55%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 479 (8.51%) Cloud Native
2 192 (3.41%) Data Centre
3 163 (2.90%) Management Information System
4 152 (2.70%) Product Ownership
5 150 (2.67%) Onboarding
6 133 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
7 131 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
8 122 (2.17%) Hybrid Cloud
9 112 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
10 93 (1.65%) Public Cloud
11 88 (1.56%) Operational Technology
12 87 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
13 82 (1.46%) AI Agents
14 81 (1.44%) CMDB
15 78 (1.39%) Security Posture
16 49 (0.87%) Enterprise Cloud
17 47 (0.84%) Data Structures
17 47 (0.84%) Greenfield Project
18 44 (0.78%) NHS
19 43 (0.76%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 159 (2.83%) Windows
2 99 (1.76%) Linux
3 44 (0.78%) Windows Server
4 37 (0.66%) Android
5 36 (0.64%) Apple iOS
6 25 (0.44%) Unix
7 17 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (0.18%) zOS
9 8 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
10 7 (0.12%) VMS
11 6 (0.11%) Windows 10
11 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.089%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.089%) Mac OS
12 5 (0.089%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.089%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.071%) AIX
13 4 (0.071%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.071%) Solaris
14 2 (0.036%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 791 (14.06%) Roadmaps
2 790 (14.04%) Migration
3 699 (12.42%) Stakeholder Management
4 649 (11.54%) Agile
5 639 (11.36%) DevOps
6 606 (10.77%) CI/CD
7 598 (10.63%) AI
8 585 (10.40%) Enterprise Architecture
9 535 (9.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 534 (9.49%) Technical Leadership
11 531 (9.44%) Data Modelling
12 519 (9.23%) Integration Patterns
13 482 (8.57%) Data Architecture
14 465 (8.27%) Architectural Patterns
15 453 (8.05%) Analytics
16 441 (7.84%) TOGAF
17 425 (7.55%) Microservices
18 373 (6.63%) Problem-Solving
19 366 (6.51%) Architectural Design
20 352 (6.26%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 326 (5.79%) Python
2 277 (4.92%) SQL
3 246 (4.37%) Java
4 138 (2.45%) PowerShell
5 106 (1.88%) JavaScript
6 66 (1.17%) C#
7 58 (1.03%) Bicep
8 44 (0.78%) TypeScript
9 42 (0.75%) Bash
10 24 (0.43%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.39%) Ruby
12 14 (0.25%) Scala
13 13 (0.23%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.23%) PL/SQL
14 11 (0.20%) Kusto Query Language
15 9 (0.16%) ABAP
16 8 (0.14%) C++
16 8 (0.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 8 (0.14%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,679 (29.84%) Security Cleared
2 1,265 (22.48%) SC Cleared
3 295 (5.24%) DV Cleared
4 195 (3.47%) Degree
5 121 (2.15%) CISSP
6 118 (2.10%) Azure Certification
7 114 (2.03%) AWS Certification
8 113 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
9 106 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
10 81 (1.44%) Computer Science Degree
11 80 (1.42%) TOGAF Certification
12 62 (1.10%) CISM
13 53 (0.94%) CCNP
14 49 (0.87%) Master's Degree
15 43 (0.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 42 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
17 40 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 28 (0.50%) CCSP
19 22 (0.39%) DBS Check
20 21 (0.37%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 196 (3.48%) NIST
2 183 (3.25%) GDPR
3 171 (3.04%) Data Quality
4 151 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 124 (2.20%) NCSC
6 68 (1.21%) QA
7 45 (0.80%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.71%) GRC
9 35 (0.62%) Accessibility
10 27 (0.48%) ISO 20022
11 24 (0.43%) NIST 800
11 24 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.41%) SEPA
13 19 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.34%) HL7
14 18 (0.32%) COBIT
14 18 (0.32%) IFRS
15 14 (0.25%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.23%) FINRA
16 13 (0.23%) MiFID
System Software
1 173 (3.08%) Active Directory
2 108 (1.92%) Docker
3 92 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 63 (1.12%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.48%) vSphere
6 25 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
7 23 (0.41%) Hyper-V
8 17 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.21%) Varnish
10 10 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.16%) Squid
11 9 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
12 8 (0.14%) NFS
13 7 (0.12%) Postfix
13 7 (0.12%) vCloud
14 4 (0.071%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.071%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.071%) IAG
14 4 (0.071%) RACF
14 4 (0.071%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 280 (4.98%) Terraform
2 259 (4.60%) Kubernetes
3 116 (2.06%) Ansible
4 50 (0.89%) Grafana
4 50 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
5 39 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
5 39 (0.69%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.55%) FortiGate
7 25 (0.44%) vCenter Server
8 20 (0.36%) Argo
9 16 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 13 (0.23%) SCCM
11 12 (0.21%) Istio
12 10 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.14%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.12%) Consul
14 7 (0.12%) HAProxy
14 7 (0.12%) Puppet
15 6 (0.11%) EMC VPLEX
16 4 (0.071%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 739 (13.14%) Microsoft
2 319 (5.67%) SAP
3 299 (5.31%) ServiceNow
4 258 (4.59%) Oracle
5 232 (4.12%) Databricks
6 183 (3.25%) Salesforce
7 172 (3.06%) VMware
8 140 (2.49%) Cisco
9 134 (2.38%) Google
10 71 (1.26%) CyberArk
11 70 (1.24%) MuleSoft
12 63 (1.12%) Splunk
13 58 (1.03%) Palo Alto
14 51 (0.91%) Red Hat
15 48 (0.85%) IBM
15 48 (0.85%) OpenAI
16 43 (0.76%) Workday
17 40 (0.71%) Foundry
17 40 (0.71%) Sparx
18 38 (0.68%) Ariba