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 13 September 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 14
Rank change year-on-year +8 -4 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,116 2,949 3,869
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.25% 8.96% 10.04%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.18% 9.84% 10.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,064 1,892 2,403
10th Percentile £481 £463 £485
25th Percentile £525 £525 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £635
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -1.57% -2.31%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £785 £787 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £623 £600 £630
% change year-on-year +3.75% -4.76% -1.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 174 17 71
10th Percentile £46.00 £35.42 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £66.66 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.06% +3.57% -1.53%
75th Percentile £78.75 £87.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -6.67%

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 50,200 29,979 35,866
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.34% 91.08% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,804 18,923 22,265
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £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 3,754 1,564 1,727
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.27 £17.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.13 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.50% -41.51% -0.76%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.93 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +10.86%

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 13 September 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 13 September 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 13 September 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 5,113 £622 -0.48% 3,417
London +7 2,608 £625 -2.72% 2,065
UK excluding London +8 2,576 £623 +3.75% 1,496
Work from Home +5 1,639 £600 - 1,569
South East +2 739 £625 +4.17% 444
North of England +6 707 £600 - 352
Midlands +1 426 £626 +9.11% 200
North West +7 411 £600 +4.35% 194
South West +4 338 £639 -1.35% 158
West Midlands +2 317 £650 +8.42% 145
Yorkshire +16 234 £575 -4.17% 124
Scotland +20 177 £625 - 156
East of England +10 158 £622 +12.07% 128
East Midlands +2 104 £600 +20.00% 54
North East -4 63 £600 -15.79% 34
Wales +1 42 £633 +1.20% 12
Channel Islands -4 7 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +1 2 - - 54

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 13 September 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 1,902 (31.10%) Security Cleared
2 1,565 (25.59%) Azure
3 1,423 (23.27%) SC Cleared
4 1,297 (21.21%) AWS
5 1,092 (17.85%) Stakeholder Management
6 936 (15.30%) Roadmaps
7 862 (14.09%) Migration
8 838 (13.70%) Microsoft
9 788 (12.88%) Enterprise Architecture
10 773 (12.64%) AI
11 761 (12.44%) Technical Leadership
12 666 (10.89%) Agile
13 634 (10.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 633 (10.35%) DevOps
15 632 (10.33%) Data Modelling
16 608 (9.94%) CI/CD
17 600 (9.81%) Data Architecture
18 578 (9.45%) Integration Patterns
19 525 (8.58%) Analytics
20 496 (8.11%) Security Architecture
21 493 (8.06%) TOGAF
22 490 (8.01%) GCP
23 471 (7.70%) Architectural Patterns
24 410 (6.70%) Event-Driven
25 401 (6.56%) Microservices
26 400 (6.54%) Data Governance
27 379 (6.20%) Architecture Governance
27 379 (6.20%) DV Cleared
28 377 (6.16%) Cybersecurity
29 372 (6.08%) 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 79 (1.29%) SAS
2 72 (1.18%) SharePoint
3 61 (1.00%) Confluence
4 45 (0.74%) Apache
5 39 (0.64%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
7 34 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
8 23 (0.38%) CMS
9 22 (0.36%) Palantir Foundry
10 16 (0.26%) OpenStack
11 8 (0.13%) NetWeaver
12 7 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 7 (0.11%) Documentum
13 6 (0.098%) Appian
13 6 (0.098%) SAP EP
14 5 (0.082%) Camunda
14 5 (0.082%) Headless CMS
15 4 (0.065%) IIS
15 4 (0.065%) Jupyter
15 4 (0.065%) nginx
Applications
1 19 (0.31%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.13%) Revit
6 7 (0.11%) Navisworks
7 6 (0.098%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.033%) Windchill
9 1 (0.016%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.016%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.016%) Notion
9 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 168 (2.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 34 (0.56%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 17 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
4 17 (0.28%) Teamcenter
5 16 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
6 15 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
6 15 (0.25%) SAP ERP
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) SAP MDG
9 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
11 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.098%) Maximo
12 6 (0.098%) SAP CO
12 6 (0.098%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,565 (25.59%) Azure
2 1,297 (21.21%) AWS
3 490 (8.01%) GCP
4 308 (5.04%) Power Platform
5 234 (3.83%) SaaS
6 220 (3.60%) Entra ID
7 199 (3.25%) Serverless
8 150 (2.45%) Dynamics 365
9 143 (2.34%) GitHub
10 133 (2.17%) Microsoft 365
11 125 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
12 115 (1.88%) Snowflake
13 103 (1.68%) PaaS
14 93 (1.52%) AWS Lambda
15 81 (1.32%) Amazon S3
16 73 (1.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 71 (1.16%) IaaS
18 67 (1.10%) OCI
19 66 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
20 64 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 170 (2.78%) Firewall
2 158 (2.58%) Network Security
3 107 (1.75%) WAN
4 87 (1.42%) VPN
5 76 (1.24%) DNS
6 74 (1.21%) LAN
7 54 (0.88%) SD-WAN
8 45 (0.74%) BGP
9 40 (0.65%) MPLS
10 38 (0.62%) DHCP
11 36 (0.59%) TCP/IP
12 30 (0.49%) VLAN
13 27 (0.44%) SAN
14 25 (0.41%) VXLAN
15 22 (0.36%) Wireless
16 21 (0.34%) NAS
16 21 (0.34%) OSPF
17 20 (0.33%) NX-OS
18 19 (0.31%) NGFW
18 19 (0.31%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 215 (3.52%) Metadata
2 208 (3.40%) Data Lake
3 198 (3.24%) Power BI
4 184 (3.01%) Data Warehouse
5 68 (1.11%) NoSQL
6 51 (0.83%) SQL Server
7 49 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
7 49 (0.80%) BigQuery
8 48 (0.78%) PostgreSQL
9 40 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
9 40 (0.65%) Delta Lake
10 39 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
11 37 (0.60%) Oracle Database
12 35 (0.57%) Big Data
13 30 (0.49%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 30 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
14 26 (0.43%) Relational Database
15 23 (0.38%) MongoDB
16 22 (0.36%) GIS
16 22 (0.36%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 83 (1.36%) JIRA
2 73 (1.19%) Git
3 63 (1.03%) Jenkins
4 41 (0.67%) GitLab
5 18 (0.29%) ERwin
6 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.15%) MSI
7 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.13%) RStudio
9 7 (0.11%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.11%) Postman
9 7 (0.11%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.098%) Hudson
10 6 (0.098%) Storybook
11 5 (0.082%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.082%) Maven
11 5 (0.082%) MLflow
11 5 (0.082%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.082%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,232 (20.14%) Social Skills
2 879 (14.37%) Finance
3 692 (11.31%) Public Sector
4 322 (5.26%) Banking
5 297 (4.86%) Analytical Skills
6 267 (4.37%) Retail
7 165 (2.70%) Influencing Skills
8 145 (2.37%) Manufacturing
9 140 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
10 130 (2.13%) Telecoms
11 116 (1.90%) Legal
12 72 (1.18%) Marketing
13 64 (1.05%) Billing
14 58 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 55 (0.90%) Military
16 49 (0.80%) Aerospace
17 42 (0.69%) Law
18 41 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
19 37 (0.60%) Police
20 36 (0.59%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 299 (4.89%) REST
2 260 (4.25%) Terraform
3 174 (2.84%) Middleware
4 154 (2.52%) Kafka
5 138 (2.26%) SOAP
6 127 (2.08%) .NET
7 125 (2.04%) OAuth
8 74 (1.21%) Oracle Fusion
9 70 (1.14%) JSON
10 66 (1.08%) OpenID
10 66 (1.08%) SAML
11 59 (0.96%) OAuth2
12 54 (0.88%) LDAP
13 47 (0.77%) PySpark
14 46 (0.75%) XML
15 45 (0.74%) RESTful
16 40 (0.65%) .NET Framework
17 39 (0.64%) React
17 39 (0.64%) SailPoint
18 34 (0.56%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 520 (8.50%) Cloud Native
2 191 (3.12%) Data Centre
3 175 (2.86%) Management Information System
4 170 (2.78%) Onboarding
5 149 (2.44%) Product Ownership
6 143 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
7 142 (2.32%) Hybrid Cloud
8 140 (2.29%) AI Agents
9 137 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
10 134 (2.19%) Legacy Systems
11 96 (1.57%) CMDB
12 94 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
13 89 (1.46%) Operational Technology
14 88 (1.44%) Public Cloud
15 81 (1.32%) Enterprise Cloud
16 62 (1.01%) Private Cloud
17 61 (1.00%) Security Posture
18 57 (0.93%) Data Structures
19 47 (0.77%) Taxonomies
20 45 (0.74%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 126 (2.06%) Windows
2 104 (1.70%) Linux
3 52 (0.85%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (0.39%) Unix
6 11 (0.18%) Android
6 11 (0.18%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.098%) zOS
10 5 (0.082%) Solaris
11 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.065%) VMS
12 3 (0.049%) CentOS
13 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
13 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
13 2 (0.033%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.033%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,092 (17.85%) Stakeholder Management
2 936 (15.30%) Roadmaps
3 862 (14.09%) Migration
4 788 (12.88%) Enterprise Architecture
5 773 (12.64%) AI
6 761 (12.44%) Technical Leadership
7 666 (10.89%) Agile
8 634 (10.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 633 (10.35%) DevOps
10 632 (10.33%) Data Modelling
11 608 (9.94%) CI/CD
12 600 (9.81%) Data Architecture
13 578 (9.45%) Integration Patterns
14 525 (8.58%) Analytics
15 496 (8.11%) Security Architecture
16 493 (8.06%) TOGAF
17 471 (7.70%) Architectural Patterns
18 410 (6.70%) Event-Driven
19 401 (6.56%) Microservices
20 400 (6.54%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 265 (4.33%) SQL
2 263 (4.30%) Python
3 262 (4.28%) Java
4 130 (2.13%) JavaScript
5 110 (1.80%) PowerShell
6 54 (0.88%) TypeScript
7 51 (0.83%) C#
8 47 (0.77%) Bash
9 46 (0.75%) Bicep
10 33 (0.54%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.36%) ABAP
12 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (0.26%) Ruby
12 16 (0.26%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.18%) Groovy
13 11 (0.18%) R
14 10 (0.16%) C++
14 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
15 9 (0.15%) Rust
16 7 (0.11%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,902 (31.10%) Security Cleared
2 1,423 (23.27%) SC Cleared
3 379 (6.20%) DV Cleared
4 165 (2.70%) Degree
5 155 (2.53%) CISSP
6 151 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
7 119 (1.95%) Azure Certification
8 112 (1.83%) AWS Certification
9 107 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
10 87 (1.42%) TOGAF Certification
11 73 (1.19%) CISM
12 66 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 47 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
15 44 (0.72%) CCNP
16 40 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 35 (0.57%) CCSP
18 32 (0.52%) Master's Degree
19 24 (0.39%) CISA
20 22 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 256 (4.19%) Data Quality
2 241 (3.94%) NIST
3 195 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 163 (2.67%) GDPR
5 123 (2.01%) NCSC
6 82 (1.34%) GRC
7 61 (1.00%) QA
8 41 (0.67%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.64%) Accessibility
10 32 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 31 (0.51%) NIST 800
12 24 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
12 24 (0.39%) SLA
13 22 (0.36%) SEPA
14 21 (0.34%) IFRS
14 21 (0.34%) ISO 20022
15 19 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 18 (0.29%) JSP 440
17 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
17 14 (0.23%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 185 (3.02%) Active Directory
2 112 (1.83%) Docker
3 80 (1.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 44 (0.72%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.36%) vSphere
7 21 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 19 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 15 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.098%) NFS
11 4 (0.065%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.065%) KVM
11 4 (0.065%) Postfix
11 4 (0.065%) Varnish
11 4 (0.065%) vCloud
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.049%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.049%) SRDF
13 2 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 298 (4.87%) Kubernetes
2 103 (1.68%) Ansible
3 50 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
4 46 (0.75%) Grafana
5 38 (0.62%) Prometheus
6 28 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.29%) Argo
8 16 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.20%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.16%) WMI
12 9 (0.15%) CASB
12 9 (0.15%) Istio
13 8 (0.13%) FortiGate
14 7 (0.11%) SCCM
15 6 (0.098%) NetBackup
15 6 (0.098%) Puppet
16 5 (0.082%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.082%) Progress Chef
17 4 (0.065%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 838 (13.70%) Microsoft
2 354 (5.79%) SAP
3 306 (5.00%) Oracle
3 306 (5.00%) ServiceNow
4 287 (4.69%) Databricks
5 201 (3.29%) Salesforce
6 194 (3.17%) Google
7 151 (2.47%) Cisco
8 142 (2.32%) VMware
9 81 (1.32%) CyberArk
10 78 (1.28%) MuleSoft
11 61 (1.00%) IBM
12 55 (0.90%) Workday
13 54 (0.88%) Palo Alto
14 51 (0.83%) Foundry
15 41 (0.67%) Informatica
16 40 (0.65%) Adobe
17 39 (0.64%) Ariba
18 36 (0.59%) OpenAI
18 36 (0.59%) Sparx