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 4 March 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,343 3,085 4,373
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.31% 10.27% 9.88%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.22% 11.06% 10.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,879 1,939 2,811
10th Percentile £460 £477 £500
25th Percentile £513 £547 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £738 £738
90th Percentile £800 £800 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 32 43
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.43 £53.45
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £85.00 £81.00 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.33 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £80.00
% change year-on-year -1.70% -9.38% +14.29%

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 38,703 27,889 41,142
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.84% 92.83% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,288 17,682 27,029
10th Percentile £310 £288 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,374 845 2,408
10th Percentile £14.64 £16.25 £13.05
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.25
Median hourly rate £33.50 £34.00 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.47% - -16.05%
75th Percentile £64.00 £64.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.40 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year - -7.14% -10.88%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 4 March 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 0 3,732 £625 - 1,096
UK excluding London +4 2,091 £600 -4.00% 809
London -1 1,671 £630 -3.08% 435
Work from Home -2 1,200 £623 -0.40% 553
South East +6 641 £625 - 290
North of England -2 519 £579 -3.50% 152
Midlands -2 376 £575 -4.17% 120
North West -2 281 £600 - 96
West Midlands -3 281 £600 -1.15% 68
South West 0 262 £703 +12.48% 94
Yorkshire +4 217 £563 -1.83% 41
East of England +14 162 £550 -12.00% 72
Scotland +14 136 £650 +4.00% 55
East Midlands -4 92 £513 -6.82% 51
Wales +7 31 £600 +11.11% 27
North East -8 26 £625 - 18
Northern Ireland +4 10 £500 -26.47% 13

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 4 March 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 1,364 (31.41%) Security Cleared
2 1,117 (25.72%) Azure
3 974 (22.43%) SC Cleared
4 917 (21.11%) AWS
5 631 (14.53%) Roadmaps
6 620 (14.28%) Microsoft
7 561 (12.92%) Stakeholder Management
8 560 (12.89%) Migration
9 553 (12.73%) Agile
10 485 (11.17%) DevOps
11 473 (10.89%) Enterprise Architecture
12 430 (9.90%) TOGAF
13 429 (9.88%) CI/CD
14 424 (9.76%) Data Modelling
15 411 (9.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 390 (8.98%) Technical Leadership
17 381 (8.77%) Analytics
18 372 (8.57%) Problem-Solving
19 371 (8.54%) AI
20 357 (8.22%) Data Architecture
21 352 (8.10%) GCP
22 328 (7.55%) Python
23 319 (7.35%) Integration Patterns
24 306 (7.05%) Microservices
25 290 (6.68%) DV Cleared
26 283 (6.52%) Architectural Patterns
27 266 (6.12%) Terraform
28 255 (5.87%) Architectural Design
29 252 (5.80%) ServiceNow
30 248 (5.71%) Cybersecurity

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
1 113 (2.60%) Confluence
2 112 (2.58%) SharePoint
3 64 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (0.76%) SAS
5 23 (0.53%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.53%) CMS
6 19 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.39%) Apache
7 17 (0.39%) WebLogic
8 16 (0.37%) Anypoint
9 15 (0.35%) Appian
9 15 (0.35%) ArcGIS
9 15 (0.35%) OpenStack
10 13 (0.30%) nginx
11 9 (0.21%) Smallworld
12 8 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 7 (0.16%) Ethereum
13 7 (0.16%) Hyperledger
13 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (1.15%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 25 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
5 18 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.16%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.046%) PlantUML
8 1 (0.023%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.023%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.023%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.023%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.023%) Trello
8 1 (0.023%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 117 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (0.94%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.53%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
7 14 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
8 12 (0.28%) NetSuite
9 11 (0.25%) SAP ERP
9 11 (0.25%) SAP EWM
10 10 (0.23%) SAP PM
11 9 (0.21%) Maximo
11 9 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
12 8 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
13 7 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
13 7 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
13 7 (0.16%) R3 Corda
13 7 (0.16%) SAP PP
13 7 (0.16%) Teamcenter
14 6 (0.14%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 1,117 (25.72%) Azure
2 917 (21.11%) AWS
3 352 (8.10%) GCP
4 167 (3.85%) Power Platform
5 153 (3.52%) Serverless
6 151 (3.48%) Entra ID
7 149 (3.43%) SaaS
8 146 (3.36%) Microsoft 365
9 102 (2.35%) IaaS
10 92 (2.12%) GitHub
11 90 (2.07%) Azure DevOps
12 86 (1.98%) AWS Lambda
12 86 (1.98%) PaaS
13 77 (1.77%) Microsoft Purview
14 75 (1.73%) Amazon S3
15 73 (1.68%) AWS CloudFormation
16 71 (1.63%) OpenShift
17 70 (1.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 69 (1.59%) Azure Data Factory
19 66 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 229 (5.27%) Firewall
2 148 (3.41%) Network Security
3 126 (2.90%) WAN
4 119 (2.74%) DNS
5 109 (2.51%) VPN
6 74 (1.70%) LAN
7 71 (1.63%) SD-WAN
8 40 (0.92%) BGP
9 35 (0.81%) DHCP
10 31 (0.71%) MPLS
11 29 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
12 28 (0.64%) OSPF
13 26 (0.60%) VLAN
14 25 (0.58%) TCP/IP
15 22 (0.51%) SAN
15 22 (0.51%) Wireless
16 20 (0.46%) IPsec
16 20 (0.46%) Kerberos
16 20 (0.46%) VSAN
16 20 (0.46%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (3.78%) Data Warehouse
2 134 (3.09%) Metadata
3 120 (2.76%) Power BI
4 100 (2.30%) Data Lake
5 82 (1.89%) SQL Server
6 69 (1.59%) PostgreSQL
7 50 (1.15%) Tableau
8 47 (1.08%) Azure SQL Database
9 45 (1.04%) NoSQL
10 39 (0.90%) Oracle Database
11 34 (0.78%) Amazon Redshift
12 30 (0.69%) Big Data
13 27 (0.62%) DynamoDB
14 24 (0.55%) GIS
14 24 (0.55%) Relational Database
15 22 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
16 21 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
16 21 (0.48%) Metadata Repository
17 20 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
17 20 (0.46%) Redis
Development Applications
1 131 (3.02%) JIRA
2 91 (2.10%) Jenkins
3 48 (1.11%) GitLab
4 38 (0.87%) Git
5 22 (0.51%) ERwin
6 11 (0.25%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.18%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.16%) MLflow
10 6 (0.14%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.12%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
11 5 (0.12%) Postman
11 5 (0.12%) Selenium
12 4 (0.092%) PowerDesigner
12 4 (0.092%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.092%) Terragrunt
13 3 (0.069%) ER Studio
13 3 (0.069%) Maven
13 3 (0.069%) Snyk
General
1 987 (22.73%) Social Skills
2 668 (15.38%) Finance
3 515 (11.86%) Public Sector
4 300 (6.91%) Analytical Skills
5 243 (5.60%) Banking
6 141 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
7 101 (2.33%) Legal
8 97 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
9 87 (2.00%) Retail
10 81 (1.87%) Military
10 81 (1.87%) Telecoms
11 79 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
12 69 (1.59%) Marketing
13 60 (1.38%) Manufacturing
14 38 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 36 (0.83%) Billing
16 35 (0.81%) Financial Institution
17 29 (0.67%) Law
18 25 (0.58%) Investment Banking
19 20 (0.46%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 215 (4.95%) REST
2 159 (3.66%) Middleware
3 118 (2.72%) SOAP
4 97 (2.23%) .NET
5 84 (1.93%) Kafka
6 80 (1.84%) OpenID
7 76 (1.75%) LDAP
8 71 (1.63%) OAuth
9 65 (1.50%) SAML
10 51 (1.17%) JSON
11 45 (1.04%) OAuth2
12 43 (0.99%) React
13 41 (0.94%) RESTful
14 40 (0.92%) AngularJS
15 35 (0.81%) Oracle Fusion
16 34 (0.78%) SailPoint
17 30 (0.69%) PySpark
18 28 (0.64%) Web Services
19 25 (0.58%) Node.js
20 22 (0.51%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 312 (7.18%) Cloud Native
2 144 (3.32%) Product Ownership
3 141 (3.25%) Data Centre
4 123 (2.83%) Onboarding
5 117 (2.69%) Legacy Systems
6 99 (2.28%) Enterprise Software
7 93 (2.14%) PKI
8 88 (2.03%) Hybrid Cloud
9 78 (1.80%) Management Information System
10 75 (1.73%) Public Cloud
11 69 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
12 67 (1.54%) Security Posture
13 65 (1.50%) Operational Technology
14 63 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
15 53 (1.22%) CMDB
16 45 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
17 44 (1.01%) Data Structures
18 42 (0.97%) AI Agents
19 36 (0.83%) NHS
20 33 (0.76%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 180 (4.14%) Windows
2 113 (2.60%) Linux
3 40 (0.92%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.48%) Android
5 21 (0.48%) Apple iOS
6 17 (0.39%) Windows 7
7 15 (0.35%) Windows 10
8 14 (0.32%) Unix
9 12 (0.28%) VMS
10 11 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
12 9 (0.21%) Mac OS
12 9 (0.21%) zOS
13 6 (0.14%) Ubuntu
14 4 (0.092%) CentOS
15 3 (0.069%) Windows Server 2012
16 1 (0.023%) Data ONTAP
16 1 (0.023%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.023%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 631 (14.53%) Roadmaps
2 561 (12.92%) Stakeholder Management
3 560 (12.89%) Migration
4 553 (12.73%) Agile
5 485 (11.17%) DevOps
6 473 (10.89%) Enterprise Architecture
7 430 (9.90%) TOGAF
8 429 (9.88%) CI/CD
9 424 (9.76%) Data Modelling
10 411 (9.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 390 (8.98%) Technical Leadership
12 381 (8.77%) Analytics
13 372 (8.57%) Problem-Solving
14 371 (8.54%) AI
15 357 (8.22%) Data Architecture
16 319 (7.35%) Integration Patterns
17 306 (7.05%) Microservices
18 283 (6.52%) Architectural Patterns
19 255 (5.87%) Architectural Design
20 248 (5.71%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 328 (7.55%) Python
2 235 (5.41%) SQL
3 182 (4.19%) PowerShell
4 140 (3.22%) Java
5 66 (1.52%) JavaScript
6 63 (1.45%) C#
7 38 (0.87%) Bicep
8 37 (0.85%) Bash
9 34 (0.78%) TypeScript
10 20 (0.46%) PL/SQL
11 19 (0.44%) Apex Code
12 14 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.30%) R
13 13 (0.30%) Ruby
14 10 (0.23%) T-SQL
15 9 (0.21%) Scala
16 8 (0.18%) PHP
16 8 (0.18%) VB
17 7 (0.16%) Shell Script
17 7 (0.16%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,364 (31.41%) Security Cleared
2 974 (22.43%) SC Cleared
3 290 (6.68%) DV Cleared
4 205 (4.72%) Degree
5 122 (2.81%) TOGAF Certification
6 121 (2.79%) CISSP
7 114 (2.62%) AWS Certification
8 112 (2.58%) Azure Certification
9 81 (1.87%) Cisco Certification
10 76 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
11 74 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
12 63 (1.45%) CISM
13 57 (1.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 57 (1.31%) Master's Degree
13 57 (1.31%) Microsoft Certification
14 49 (1.13%) CCNP
15 33 (0.76%) ITIL Certification
16 32 (0.74%) CCIE
17 30 (0.69%) ISEB
18 28 (0.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 183 (4.21%) GDPR
2 142 (3.27%) NIST
3 139 (3.20%) Data Quality
4 122 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 92 (2.12%) NCSC
6 61 (1.40%) QA
7 55 (1.27%) PCI DSS
8 35 (0.81%) COBIT
9 33 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 33 (0.76%) GRC
10 27 (0.62%) ISO 20022
11 25 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.48%) JSP 440
13 18 (0.41%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 16 (0.37%) HIPAA
15 15 (0.35%) MiFID
16 14 (0.32%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 14 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 13 (0.30%) FINRA
18 12 (0.28%) PSD2
System Software
1 184 (4.24%) Active Directory
2 128 (2.95%) Docker
3 93 (2.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.61%) VMware NSX
5 37 (0.85%) vSphere
6 22 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
8 11 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
9 8 (0.18%) Squid
10 7 (0.16%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.16%) Varnish
10 7 (0.16%) vCloud
11 5 (0.12%) NFS
11 5 (0.12%) RACF
12 4 (0.092%) Firmware
13 3 (0.069%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 3 (0.069%) Ceph
13 3 (0.069%) IAG
Systems Management
1 266 (6.12%) Terraform
2 217 (5.00%) Kubernetes
3 114 (2.62%) Ansible
4 58 (1.34%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 34 (0.78%) FortiGate
7 30 (0.69%) OPNET
7 30 (0.69%) vCenter Server
8 26 (0.60%) Grafana
9 22 (0.51%) Prometheus
9 22 (0.51%) SCCM
10 17 (0.39%) Argo
11 16 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 16 (0.37%) WMI
12 9 (0.21%) Istio
13 7 (0.16%) Consul
14 6 (0.14%) Kibana
14 6 (0.14%) Puppet
15 5 (0.12%) Progress Chef
16 4 (0.092%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 620 (14.28%) Microsoft
2 252 (5.80%) ServiceNow
3 238 (5.48%) SAP
4 203 (4.67%) Oracle
5 183 (4.21%) Salesforce
6 178 (4.10%) VMware
7 140 (3.22%) Databricks
8 131 (3.02%) Cisco
9 107 (2.46%) Google
10 93 (2.14%) CyberArk
11 67 (1.54%) Palo Alto
12 66 (1.52%) MuleSoft
12 66 (1.52%) Splunk
13 50 (1.15%) Red Hat
13 50 (1.15%) Workday
14 49 (1.13%) Centrify
14 49 (1.13%) Remedy
15 47 (1.08%) Atlassian
16 42 (0.97%) IBM
17 40 (0.92%) Sparx