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 29 January 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,724 3,196 4,271
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.68% 10.15% 9.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.58% 10.93% 10.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,516 1,911 2,784
10th Percentile £461 £485 £500
25th Percentile £514 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £737 £736
90th Percentile £793 £799 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 33 44
10th Percentile £49.40 £60.30 £58.08
25th Percentile £63.25 £66.00 £61.25
Median hourly rate £75.84 £70.00 £77.27
Median % change year-on-year +8.34% -9.40% +10.38%
75th Percentile £90.09 £80.59 £87.13
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.16 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.00 £71.25 £79.37
% change year-on-year +12.28% -10.23% +13.39%

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 35,199 29,243 40,804
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.46% 92.89% 93.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,208 17,871 27,021
10th Percentile £300 £293 £275
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £477 £495
% change year-on-year -0.47% -3.59% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,087 861 2,102
10th Percentile £14.41 £16.00 £13.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.22
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% -13.33% +7.14%
75th Percentile £61.18 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.51 £40.00
% change year-on-year -12.73% -21.23% +33.33%

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 29 January 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 29 January 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 29 January 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 -2 3,220 £625 - 1,046
UK excluding London 0 1,810 £600 -4.00% 902
London -1 1,427 £640 -1.54% 352
Work from Home -2 1,063 £625 - 612
South East +9 559 £613 -2.00% 303
North of England -3 446 £570 -5.00% 203
Midlands -4 320 £574 -4.33% 103
North West -6 264 £575 -4.17% 108
South West 0 248 £709 +13.40% 98
West Midlands -4 229 £600 -1.15% 58
Yorkshire -8 170 £554 -7.67% 67
East of England +12 127 £531 -15.00% 94
Scotland +5 110 £650 +4.00% 76
East Midlands -4 89 £480 -16.57% 44
Wales +1 31 £625 +2.04% 32
North East -26 12 £575 -7.89% 28
Northern Ireland -9 5 £500 -16.67% 15

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 29 January 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 1,143 (30.69%) Security Cleared
2 999 (26.83%) Azure
3 816 (21.91%) SC Cleared
4 789 (21.19%) AWS
5 551 (14.80%) Microsoft
6 535 (14.37%) Roadmaps
7 510 (13.69%) Stakeholder Management
8 491 (13.18%) Agile
9 471 (12.65%) Migration
10 420 (11.28%) DevOps
11 417 (11.20%) Enterprise Architecture
12 395 (10.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 374 (10.04%) Data Modelling
13 374 (10.04%) Technical Leadership
14 373 (10.02%) TOGAF
15 361 (9.69%) CI/CD
16 345 (9.26%) Problem-Solving
17 319 (8.57%) AI
18 307 (8.24%) Analytics
19 304 (8.16%) GCP
20 303 (8.14%) Python
21 276 (7.41%) Data Architecture
22 262 (7.04%) Microservices
23 252 (6.77%) Integration Patterns
24 241 (6.47%) Terraform
25 237 (6.36%) DV Cleared
26 234 (6.28%) Architectural Design
27 226 (6.07%) Cybersecurity
28 219 (5.88%) Mentoring
29 214 (5.75%) 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
1 106 (2.85%) Confluence
2 85 (2.28%) SharePoint
3 55 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.70%) SAS
5 24 (0.64%) CMS
6 21 (0.56%) OpenStack
7 19 (0.51%) Apache
8 18 (0.48%) Apache Spark
9 16 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
10 15 (0.40%) Anypoint
11 14 (0.38%) WebLogic
12 13 (0.35%) ArcGIS
13 9 (0.24%) Smallworld
14 8 (0.21%) Appian
15 7 (0.19%) Ethereum
15 7 (0.19%) GeoServer
15 7 (0.19%) Hyperledger
15 7 (0.19%) nginx
15 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
15 7 (0.19%) Tomcat
Applications
1 49 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
3 31 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
4 30 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.43%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.16%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.081%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.054%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.027%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.027%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.027%) FrameMaker
9 1 (0.027%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.027%) Revit
9 1 (0.027%) Trello
Business Applications
1 103 (2.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (1.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 30 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.59%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.46%) Salesforce CRM
6 15 (0.40%) NetSuite
6 15 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
7 12 (0.32%) SAP PM
8 9 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
8 9 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
8 9 (0.24%) SAP CO
8 9 (0.24%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.24%) SAP EWM
9 8 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
9 8 (0.21%) SAP FI
9 8 (0.21%) SAP PP
10 7 (0.19%) Distributed Ledger
10 7 (0.19%) Maximo
10 7 (0.19%) R3 Corda
10 7 (0.19%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 999 (26.83%) Azure
2 789 (21.19%) AWS
3 304 (8.16%) GCP
4 146 (3.92%) Power Platform
5 145 (3.89%) Serverless
6 138 (3.71%) SaaS
7 126 (3.38%) Microsoft 365
8 116 (3.11%) Entra ID
9 87 (2.34%) AWS Lambda
10 85 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
11 79 (2.12%) GitHub
12 78 (2.09%) IaaS
13 75 (2.01%) Microsoft Purview
14 73 (1.96%) Amazon S3
14 73 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
15 65 (1.75%) PaaS
16 64 (1.72%) AWS CloudFormation
17 61 (1.64%) Azure Data Factory
18 58 (1.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 58 (1.56%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 200 (5.37%) Firewall
2 131 (3.52%) WAN
3 109 (2.93%) Network Security
4 96 (2.58%) VPN
5 92 (2.47%) DNS
6 81 (2.18%) LAN
7 70 (1.88%) SD-WAN
8 40 (1.07%) BGP
9 30 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
10 29 (0.78%) MPLS
11 26 (0.70%) DHCP
12 22 (0.59%) Internet
12 22 (0.59%) OSPF
12 22 (0.59%) SAN
13 21 (0.56%) TCP/IP
13 21 (0.56%) VSAN
14 18 (0.48%) IPsec
14 18 (0.48%) Kerberos
15 17 (0.46%) VLAN
16 16 (0.43%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (3.36%) Data Warehouse
2 100 (2.69%) Power BI
3 99 (2.66%) Metadata
4 83 (2.23%) Data Lake
5 65 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
6 64 (1.72%) SQL Server
7 49 (1.32%) Tableau
8 45 (1.21%) NoSQL
9 42 (1.13%) Amazon Redshift
10 38 (1.02%) DynamoDB
11 36 (0.97%) Azure SQL Database
12 32 (0.86%) Oracle Database
13 28 (0.75%) Amazon Athena
14 26 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
14 26 (0.70%) Redis
14 26 (0.70%) Relational Database
15 25 (0.67%) Amazon Aurora
16 21 (0.56%) Delta Lake
16 21 (0.56%) GIS
17 20 (0.54%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 126 (3.38%) JIRA
2 90 (2.42%) Jenkins
3 41 (1.10%) GitLab
4 38 (1.02%) Git
5 21 (0.56%) ERwin
6 14 (0.38%) SonarQube
7 9 (0.24%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.24%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.16%) Maven
8 6 (0.16%) MSI
8 6 (0.16%) Postman
9 5 (0.13%) Gradle
9 5 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.13%) SonarLint
10 4 (0.11%) MLflow
10 4 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.11%) Selenium
10 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.081%) Cucumber
11 3 (0.081%) REST Assured
General
1 924 (24.81%) Social Skills
2 589 (15.82%) Finance
3 447 (12.00%) Public Sector
4 270 (7.25%) Analytical Skills
5 212 (5.69%) Banking
6 119 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
7 104 (2.79%) Legal
8 89 (2.39%) Influencing Skills
9 77 (2.07%) Telecoms
10 76 (2.04%) Retail
11 74 (1.99%) Military
12 72 (1.93%) Presentation Skills
13 71 (1.91%) Marketing
14 61 (1.64%) Manufacturing
15 41 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 38 (1.02%) Billing
17 26 (0.70%) Financial Institution
18 25 (0.67%) Law
19 22 (0.59%) Back Office
20 20 (0.54%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 192 (5.16%) REST
2 112 (3.01%) SOAP
3 109 (2.93%) Middleware
4 86 (2.31%) .NET
5 74 (1.99%) LDAP
6 68 (1.83%) OpenID
7 67 (1.80%) Kafka
8 61 (1.64%) OAuth
9 60 (1.61%) SAML
10 48 (1.29%) JSON
11 47 (1.26%) RESTful
12 35 (0.94%) OAuth2
13 33 (0.89%) AngularJS
14 31 (0.83%) React
15 30 (0.81%) PySpark
16 28 (0.75%) Oracle Fusion
16 28 (0.75%) SailPoint
17 27 (0.73%) Spring Boot
18 25 (0.67%) Node.js
19 24 (0.64%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 274 (7.36%) Cloud Native
2 141 (3.79%) Product Ownership
3 120 (3.22%) Data Centre
4 113 (3.03%) Onboarding
5 107 (2.87%) Legacy Systems
6 89 (2.39%) PKI
7 86 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
8 74 (1.99%) Hybrid Cloud
9 66 (1.77%) Security Posture
10 63 (1.69%) Management Information System
11 61 (1.64%) Public Cloud
12 59 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
13 57 (1.53%) Operational Technology
14 45 (1.21%) CMDB
14 45 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
15 41 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
16 39 (1.05%) NHS
17 37 (0.99%) Data Structures
18 31 (0.83%) Private Cloud
19 30 (0.81%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 165 (4.43%) Windows
2 106 (2.85%) Linux
3 43 (1.15%) Windows Server
4 31 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.48%) Windows 10
5 18 (0.48%) Windows 7
6 15 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (0.35%) Unix
7 13 (0.35%) Windows Server 2016
8 10 (0.27%) Android
8 10 (0.27%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.24%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.24%) VMS
10 6 (0.16%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.13%) zOS
12 4 (0.11%) CentOS
13 3 (0.081%) Solaris
13 3 (0.081%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.054%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.027%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 535 (14.37%) Roadmaps
2 510 (13.69%) Stakeholder Management
3 491 (13.18%) Agile
4 471 (12.65%) Migration
5 420 (11.28%) DevOps
6 417 (11.20%) Enterprise Architecture
7 395 (10.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 374 (10.04%) Data Modelling
8 374 (10.04%) Technical Leadership
9 373 (10.02%) TOGAF
10 361 (9.69%) CI/CD
11 345 (9.26%) Problem-Solving
12 319 (8.57%) AI
13 307 (8.24%) Analytics
14 276 (7.41%) Data Architecture
15 262 (7.04%) Microservices
16 252 (6.77%) Integration Patterns
17 234 (6.28%) Architectural Design
18 226 (6.07%) Cybersecurity
19 219 (5.88%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 303 (8.14%) Python
2 197 (5.29%) SQL
3 172 (4.62%) PowerShell
4 137 (3.68%) Java
5 55 (1.48%) JavaScript
6 50 (1.34%) C#
7 33 (0.89%) TypeScript
8 31 (0.83%) Bicep
9 29 (0.78%) Bash
10 20 (0.54%) PL/SQL
11 19 (0.51%) Apex Code
12 13 (0.35%) R
13 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.27%) Ruby
14 10 (0.27%) T-SQL
15 9 (0.24%) ABAP
16 8 (0.21%) PHP
16 8 (0.21%) Scala
16 8 (0.21%) VB
17 7 (0.19%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,143 (30.69%) Security Cleared
2 816 (21.91%) SC Cleared
3 237 (6.36%) DV Cleared
4 181 (4.86%) Degree
5 103 (2.77%) AWS Certification
5 103 (2.77%) CISSP
6 102 (2.74%) TOGAF Certification
7 94 (2.52%) Azure Certification
8 67 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
9 65 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
10 60 (1.61%) Microsoft Certification
11 58 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
12 55 (1.48%) CISM
13 51 (1.37%) Master's Degree
14 49 (1.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 33 (0.89%) CCNP
16 32 (0.86%) CCIE
17 29 (0.78%) ISEB
17 29 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
18 17 (0.46%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (4.48%) GDPR
2 149 (4.00%) NIST
3 133 (3.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 112 (3.01%) Data Quality
5 85 (2.28%) NCSC
6 57 (1.53%) QA
7 50 (1.34%) PCI DSS
8 34 (0.91%) COBIT
9 30 (0.81%) Accessibility
10 28 (0.75%) GRC
11 24 (0.64%) JSP 440
12 22 (0.59%) HIPAA
13 21 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
14 20 (0.54%) ISO 20022
15 17 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 14 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 14 (0.38%) MiFID
17 12 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 11 (0.30%) FINRA
19 10 (0.27%) Def Stans
System Software
1 162 (4.35%) Active Directory
2 123 (3.30%) Docker
3 87 (2.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 50 (1.34%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.81%) vSphere
6 23 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
8 16 (0.43%) Hyper-V
9 14 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
10 12 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
11 7 (0.19%) BitLocker
12 6 (0.16%) Varnish
13 5 (0.13%) Lustre
13 5 (0.13%) NFS
13 5 (0.13%) Squid
14 4 (0.11%) vCloud
15 3 (0.081%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
15 3 (0.081%) Ceph
15 3 (0.081%) Firmware
15 3 (0.081%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 241 (6.47%) Terraform
2 190 (5.10%) Kubernetes
3 101 (2.71%) Ansible
4 58 (1.56%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.89%) OPNET
6 27 (0.73%) FortiGate
7 25 (0.67%) SCCM
8 24 (0.64%) vCenter Server
9 22 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
10 18 (0.48%) Prometheus
10 18 (0.48%) WMI
11 17 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 16 (0.43%) Grafana
13 10 (0.27%) Argo
14 8 (0.21%) Istio
15 6 (0.16%) Kibana
15 6 (0.16%) Puppet
16 5 (0.13%) Consul
17 4 (0.11%) Data Guard
17 4 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 551 (14.80%) Microsoft
2 214 (5.75%) SAP
3 209 (5.61%) ServiceNow
4 185 (4.97%) Salesforce
5 183 (4.91%) Oracle
6 145 (3.89%) VMware
7 114 (3.06%) Cisco
8 109 (2.93%) Databricks
9 97 (2.60%) Google
10 95 (2.55%) CyberArk
11 65 (1.75%) Splunk
12 64 (1.72%) Palo Alto
13 58 (1.56%) MuleSoft
14 49 (1.32%) Centrify
15 47 (1.26%) Atlassian
16 42 (1.13%) Remedy
16 42 (1.13%) Workday
17 41 (1.10%) Sparx
18 40 (1.07%) OpenAI
19 38 (1.02%) Red Hat