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 2 October 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 20 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,162 2,916 3,738
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.22% 8.80% 9.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.18% 9.68% 10.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,074 1,898 2,249
10th Percentile £481 £463 £480
25th Percentile £528 £525 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £715 £738
90th Percentile £780 £787 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 14 66
10th Percentile £40.00 £59.05 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.44 £61.56
Median hourly rate £68.50 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.52% +3.57% -2.78%
75th Percentile £80.00 £95.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.17 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -4.33% +1.79% -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 50,598 30,120 35,393
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.17% 90.94% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,800 19,028 21,472
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 £631 £623 £638
90th Percentile £734 £725 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,975 1,619 1,553
10th Percentile £14.45 £13.75 £14.88
25th Percentile £19.78 £17.30 £20.75
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £68.31 £74.97
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.87 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.97% -41.69% -1.88%

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 2 October 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 2 October 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 2 October 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 5,108 £620 -0.80% 4,614
London +8 2,628 £625 -3.85% 2,700
UK excluding London +6 2,574 £620 +3.33% 2,135
Work from Home +6 1,650 £600 - 1,858
South East +1 722 £625 +4.17% 568
North of England +4 682 £600 - 502
Midlands +2 448 £628 +9.26% 282
North West +5 372 £598 +4.00% 276
South West +4 346 £638 -1.92% 250
West Midlands +4 335 £650 +8.33% 204
Yorkshire +15 245 £600 -2.04% 168
Scotland +15 190 £625 +4.38% 217
East of England +7 154 £620 +10.96% 189
East Midlands +5 108 £600 +20.00% 78
North East 0 68 £625 -15.25% 58
Wales +4 44 £640 +2.40% 66
Channel Islands 0 11 £700 -5.72% 1
Northern Ireland +7 2 - - 69

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 October 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 1,941 (31.50%) Security Cleared
2 1,586 (25.74%) Azure
3 1,462 (23.73%) SC Cleared
4 1,277 (20.72%) AWS
5 1,182 (19.18%) Stakeholder Management
6 991 (16.08%) Roadmaps
7 891 (14.46%) Migration
8 831 (13.49%) Microsoft
9 802 (13.02%) Enterprise Architecture
10 798 (12.95%) AI
11 784 (12.72%) Technical Leadership
12 655 (10.63%) Agile
13 644 (10.45%) DevOps
14 627 (10.18%) Data Architecture
15 626 (10.16%) Data Modelling
16 620 (10.06%) CI/CD
17 611 (9.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 572 (9.28%) Integration Patterns
19 525 (8.52%) Analytics
20 496 (8.05%) Security Architecture
21 495 (8.03%) GCP
22 482 (7.82%) TOGAF
23 461 (7.48%) Architectural Patterns
24 427 (6.93%) Event-Driven
25 406 (6.59%) Data Governance
26 402 (6.52%) Architecture Governance
27 398 (6.46%) Decision-Making
28 391 (6.35%) Microservices
29 387 (6.28%) DV Cleared
30 380 (6.17%) 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 77 (1.25%) SAS
2 67 (1.09%) SharePoint
3 59 (0.96%) Confluence
4 45 (0.73%) Apache Spark
5 44 (0.71%) Apache
6 36 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
7 34 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
8 25 (0.41%) CMS
9 19 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
10 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.11%) Documentum
11 7 (0.11%) IIS
11 7 (0.11%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.097%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.097%) Headless CMS
12 6 (0.097%) JBoss
13 5 (0.081%) Appian
13 5 (0.081%) SAP EP
14 4 (0.065%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.049%) nginx
Applications
1 24 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 17 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.15%) Chatbot
5 9 (0.15%) Revit
6 7 (0.11%) Navisworks
7 5 (0.081%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.032%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.032%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.016%) Notion
9 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
9 1 (0.016%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 187 (3.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.52%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
4 17 (0.28%) Teamcenter
5 15 (0.24%) SAP MDG
6 14 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
6 14 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
6 14 (0.23%) SAP MM
7 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
9 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) SAP CO
10 9 (0.15%) SAP ERP
10 9 (0.15%) SAP FI
10 9 (0.15%) Workday HCM
11 8 (0.13%) SAP FI/CO
12 7 (0.11%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 1,586 (25.74%) Azure
2 1,277 (20.72%) AWS
3 495 (8.03%) GCP
4 289 (4.69%) Power Platform
5 235 (3.81%) SaaS
6 218 (3.54%) Entra ID
7 191 (3.10%) Serverless
8 149 (2.42%) GitHub
9 135 (2.19%) Microsoft 365
10 132 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
11 131 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
12 114 (1.85%) Snowflake
13 92 (1.49%) PaaS
14 86 (1.40%) AWS Lambda
15 81 (1.31%) Amazon S3
16 75 (1.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 75 (1.22%) OCI
17 66 (1.07%) IaaS
18 64 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
18 64 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 160 (2.60%) Firewall
2 147 (2.39%) Network Security
3 100 (1.62%) WAN
4 74 (1.20%) VPN
5 65 (1.05%) DNS
6 62 (1.01%) LAN
7 48 (0.78%) BGP
8 47 (0.76%) SD-WAN
9 40 (0.65%) MPLS
10 33 (0.54%) DHCP
11 31 (0.50%) TCP/IP
12 28 (0.45%) VXLAN
13 25 (0.41%) VLAN
14 23 (0.37%) NX-OS
14 23 (0.37%) SAN
15 19 (0.31%) NGFW
15 19 (0.31%) VoIP
15 19 (0.31%) Wireless
16 18 (0.29%) OSPF
17 17 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 236 (3.83%) Metadata
2 209 (3.39%) Data Lake
3 194 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
4 171 (2.78%) Power BI
5 64 (1.04%) NoSQL
6 49 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
7 47 (0.76%) SQL Server
8 46 (0.75%) BigQuery
8 46 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
9 42 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
10 39 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
10 39 (0.63%) Delta Lake
11 38 (0.62%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.50%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 29 (0.47%) Big Data
14 28 (0.45%) Semantic Layer
15 24 (0.39%) MongoDB
15 24 (0.39%) Relational Database
15 24 (0.39%) SAP HANA
16 23 (0.37%) GIS
Development Applications
1 84 (1.36%) JIRA
2 76 (1.23%) Git
3 62 (1.01%) Jenkins
4 50 (0.81%) GitLab
5 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
5 14 (0.23%) ERwin
6 13 (0.21%) Postman
7 11 (0.18%) MSI
8 10 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
8 10 (0.16%) RStudio
9 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.097%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.097%) Storybook
11 5 (0.081%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.081%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.081%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.081%) Selenium
12 4 (0.065%) Hudson
12 4 (0.065%) JMeter
12 4 (0.065%) Maven
General
1 1,240 (20.12%) Social Skills
2 865 (14.04%) Finance
3 728 (11.81%) Public Sector
4 305 (4.95%) Banking
5 276 (4.48%) Analytical Skills
6 267 (4.33%) Retail
7 177 (2.87%) Influencing Skills
8 165 (2.68%) Manufacturing
9 139 (2.26%) Telecoms
10 135 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
11 110 (1.79%) Legal
12 78 (1.27%) Marketing
13 65 (1.05%) Aerospace
14 64 (1.04%) Billing
15 61 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (0.84%) Military
17 45 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
18 39 (0.63%) Local Government
19 37 (0.60%) Aviation
20 36 (0.58%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 302 (4.90%) REST
2 258 (4.19%) Terraform
3 175 (2.84%) Kafka
4 170 (2.76%) Middleware
5 136 (2.21%) SOAP
6 127 (2.06%) OAuth
7 120 (1.95%) .NET
8 85 (1.38%) Oracle Fusion
9 66 (1.07%) OpenID
10 65 (1.05%) JSON
10 65 (1.05%) SAML
11 62 (1.01%) OAuth2
12 55 (0.89%) LDAP
13 48 (0.78%) RESTful
14 46 (0.75%) PySpark
15 44 (0.71%) XML
16 41 (0.67%) .NET Framework
17 39 (0.63%) SailPoint
18 38 (0.62%) JWT
18 38 (0.62%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 523 (8.49%) Cloud Native
2 198 (3.21%) Data Centre
3 186 (3.02%) Onboarding
4 169 (2.74%) Management Information System
5 148 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
6 147 (2.39%) Enterprise Software
7 146 (2.37%) Legacy Systems
7 146 (2.37%) Product Ownership
8 141 (2.29%) AI Agents
9 135 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
10 101 (1.64%) CMDB
11 92 (1.49%) Operational Technology
12 91 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
12 91 (1.48%) Public Cloud
13 79 (1.28%) Enterprise Cloud
14 74 (1.20%) Private Cloud
15 65 (1.05%) Data Structures
16 62 (1.01%) Security Posture
17 53 (0.86%) Taxonomies
18 51 (0.83%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 130 (2.11%) Windows
2 101 (1.64%) Linux
3 50 (0.81%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.34%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
7 8 (0.13%) Android
7 8 (0.13%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.097%) VMS
8 6 (0.097%) zOS
9 5 (0.081%) Solaris
10 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.049%) CentOS
12 2 (0.032%) HPUX
12 2 (0.032%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.032%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.032%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.016%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,182 (19.18%) Stakeholder Management
2 991 (16.08%) Roadmaps
3 891 (14.46%) Migration
4 802 (13.02%) Enterprise Architecture
5 798 (12.95%) AI
6 784 (12.72%) Technical Leadership
7 655 (10.63%) Agile
8 644 (10.45%) DevOps
9 627 (10.18%) Data Architecture
10 626 (10.16%) Data Modelling
11 620 (10.06%) CI/CD
12 611 (9.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 572 (9.28%) Integration Patterns
14 525 (8.52%) Analytics
15 496 (8.05%) Security Architecture
16 482 (7.82%) TOGAF
17 461 (7.48%) Architectural Patterns
18 427 (6.93%) Event-Driven
19 406 (6.59%) Data Governance
20 402 (6.52%) Architecture Governance
Programming Languages
1 255 (4.14%) SQL
2 248 (4.02%) Java
3 237 (3.85%) Python
4 116 (1.88%) JavaScript
5 110 (1.79%) PowerShell
6 54 (0.88%) C#
7 52 (0.84%) TypeScript
8 46 (0.75%) Bicep
9 45 (0.73%) Bash
10 32 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 27 (0.44%) ABAP
12 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 14 (0.23%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.18%) Groovy
14 11 (0.18%) R
15 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.15%) C++
16 9 (0.15%) Rust
17 8 (0.13%) Go
17 8 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 1,941 (31.50%) Security Cleared
2 1,462 (23.73%) SC Cleared
3 387 (6.28%) DV Cleared
4 190 (3.08%) BPSS Clearance
5 164 (2.66%) Degree
6 150 (2.43%) CISSP
7 122 (1.98%) AWS Certification
8 120 (1.95%) Azure Certification
9 105 (1.70%) Cisco Certification
10 92 (1.49%) TOGAF Certification
11 73 (1.18%) CISM
12 66 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 46 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
15 41 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 41 (0.67%) CCNP
16 39 (0.63%) CCSP
17 28 (0.45%) Master's Degree
18 24 (0.39%) CISA
19 23 (0.37%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 268 (4.35%) Data Quality
2 222 (3.60%) NIST
3 189 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 156 (2.53%) GDPR
5 133 (2.16%) NCSC
6 83 (1.35%) GRC
7 52 (0.84%) QA
8 43 (0.70%) Accessibility
9 41 (0.67%) PCI DSS
10 28 (0.45%) NIST 800
10 28 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.39%) SLA
12 23 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 20 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.32%) JSP 440
13 20 (0.32%) SEPA
14 18 (0.29%) IFRS
14 18 (0.29%) ISO 20022
15 16 (0.26%) ISO 19650
16 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 191 (3.10%) Active Directory
2 108 (1.75%) Docker
3 84 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 45 (0.73%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.36%) vSphere
7 20 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (0.29%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.081%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.065%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.065%) KVM
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.049%) NFS
12 3 (0.049%) SRDF
12 3 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.032%) Postfix
13 2 (0.032%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 295 (4.79%) Kubernetes
2 101 (1.64%) Ansible
3 47 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
4 44 (0.71%) Grafana
5 37 (0.60%) Prometheus
6 30 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.29%) Argo
8 15 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.19%) WMI
11 11 (0.18%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.16%) CASB
13 8 (0.13%) Istio
13 8 (0.13%) SCCM
13 8 (0.13%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.11%) NetBackup
15 6 (0.097%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.097%) Puppet
16 5 (0.081%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.081%) VxRail
Vendors
1 831 (13.49%) Microsoft
2 359 (5.83%) SAP
3 300 (4.87%) Oracle
4 295 (4.79%) ServiceNow
5 278 (4.51%) Databricks
6 212 (3.44%) Google
7 201 (3.26%) Salesforce
8 147 (2.39%) Cisco
9 135 (2.19%) VMware
10 84 (1.36%) CyberArk
11 77 (1.25%) MuleSoft
12 55 (0.89%) IBM
13 52 (0.84%) Palo Alto
13 52 (0.84%) Workday
14 47 (0.76%) Foundry
15 42 (0.68%) Splunk
16 39 (0.63%) Red Hat
17 38 (0.62%) Adobe
17 38 (0.62%) Informatica
17 38 (0.62%) OpenAI