Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £618, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 June 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -6 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,476 2,868 4,544
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.96% 9.74% 10.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.86% 10.55% 11.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,612 1,844 2,906
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £537 £556
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £618 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% -3.85% -0.99%
75th Percentile £725 £719 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 143 30 97
10th Percentile £49.40 £51.15 £59.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.38 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £82.25 £87.00
90th Percentile £97.50 £88.61 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £73.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -11.26% +4.64% -

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 46,156 27,173 40,538
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.35% 92.32% 92.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,087 17,480 26,089
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.68% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,077 1,137 2,938
10th Percentile £15.19 £13.94 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.79 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.64 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.57% -26.29% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £61.71
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -4.76%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 4,657 £620 -0.80% 773
UK excluding London +10 2,440 £613 +2.08% 548
London +3 2,260 £625 -3.85% 348
Work from Home +4 1,491 £600 - 368
South East +6 689 £625 +2.46% 163
North of England +7 688 £600 - 170
Midlands +2 439 £600 +2.17% 59
North West +3 369 £608 +1.33% 83
West Midlands 0 311 £623 +3.75% 49
Yorkshire +11 264 £555 -7.58% 46
South West 0 256 £650 +6.12% 81
East of England +20 208 £575 -4.17% 33
Scotland +13 159 £650 +4.00% 26
East Midlands +2 122 £574 +13.10% 10
North East +3 62 £575 -4.17% 42
Wales -1 33 £600 +25.65% 19
Northern Ireland +6 7 £475 -28.30% 6
Channel Islands - 3 £575 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 12 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 1,662 (30.35%) Security Cleared
2 1,354 (24.73%) Azure
3 1,250 (22.83%) SC Cleared
4 1,178 (21.51%) AWS
5 760 (13.88%) Migration
6 748 (13.66%) Roadmaps
7 710 (12.97%) Microsoft
8 648 (11.83%) Stakeholder Management
9 633 (11.56%) Agile
10 623 (11.38%) DevOps
11 589 (10.76%) CI/CD
12 551 (10.06%) AI
13 550 (10.04%) Enterprise Architecture
14 528 (9.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 515 (9.40%) Technical Leadership
16 507 (9.26%) Data Modelling
17 494 (9.02%) Integration Patterns
18 458 (8.36%) Data Architecture
19 446 (8.14%) Architectural Patterns
20 433 (7.91%) Analytics
21 422 (7.71%) TOGAF
22 413 (7.54%) Microservices
23 411 (7.51%) GCP
24 364 (6.65%) Problem-Solving
25 353 (6.45%) Architectural Design
26 340 (6.21%) Infrastructure as Code
27 335 (6.12%) Security Architecture
28 329 (6.01%) Cybersecurity
29 327 (5.97%) Python
30 322 (5.88%) Event-Driven

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 (2.17%) SharePoint
2 84 (1.53%) Confluence
3 53 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (0.68%) SAS
5 31 (0.57%) Apache Spark
6 29 (0.53%) Apache
7 21 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
8 18 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
9 16 (0.29%) Appian
9 16 (0.29%) CMS
10 15 (0.27%) nginx
10 15 (0.27%) WebLogic
11 14 (0.26%) Anypoint
12 12 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 10 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 9 (0.16%) ArcGIS
14 9 (0.16%) Camunda
15 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
16 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
16 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 23 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 18 (0.33%) MS Visio
3 13 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (0.20%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.16%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
6 7 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.055%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.055%) Windchill
8 1 (0.018%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.018%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.018%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 137 (2.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.71%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
5 17 (0.31%) SAP ERP
6 16 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
7 15 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 13 (0.24%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
9 10 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
10 8 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.15%) SAP IBP
11 7 (0.13%) SAP MDG
11 7 (0.13%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.11%) Maximo
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Retail
12 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
13 5 (0.091%) SAP CRM
13 5 (0.091%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,354 (24.73%) Azure
2 1,178 (21.51%) AWS
3 411 (7.51%) GCP
4 253 (4.62%) Power Platform
5 201 (3.67%) Serverless
6 181 (3.31%) Entra ID
7 179 (3.27%) SaaS
8 133 (2.43%) Microsoft 365
9 131 (2.39%) GitHub
10 116 (2.12%) PaaS
11 107 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
12 104 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
13 99 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
14 90 (1.64%) Snowflake
15 88 (1.61%) IaaS
16 84 (1.53%) Amazon S3
17 68 (1.24%) Amazon EKS
18 67 (1.22%) OpenShift
19 66 (1.21%) Azure Data Factory
20 63 (1.15%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 210 (3.83%) Firewall
2 184 (3.36%) Network Security
3 122 (2.23%) WAN
4 117 (2.14%) VPN
5 115 (2.10%) DNS
6 81 (1.48%) LAN
7 67 (1.22%) SD-WAN
8 41 (0.75%) DHCP
9 40 (0.73%) BGP
10 33 (0.60%) Wireless
11 32 (0.58%) SAN
11 32 (0.58%) TCP/IP
11 32 (0.58%) VLAN
12 31 (0.57%) MPLS
12 31 (0.57%) OSPF
13 29 (0.53%) NAS
14 25 (0.46%) Structured Cabling
15 22 (0.40%) NX-OS
15 22 (0.40%) VXLAN
16 21 (0.38%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 182 (3.32%) Power BI
2 149 (2.72%) Data Lake
3 145 (2.65%) Metadata
4 136 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.37%) NoSQL
6 70 (1.28%) SQL Server
7 67 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
8 43 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
9 41 (0.75%) Big Data
10 36 (0.66%) Tableau
11 35 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
11 35 (0.64%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.53%) BigQuery
14 28 (0.51%) Delta Lake
15 24 (0.44%) MongoDB
16 23 (0.42%) Relational Database
17 22 (0.40%) Amazon Athena
17 22 (0.40%) Amazon Aurora
17 22 (0.40%) GIS
Development Applications
1 105 (1.92%) JIRA
2 90 (1.64%) Jenkins
3 63 (1.15%) Git
4 43 (0.79%) GitLab
5 21 (0.38%) ERwin
6 12 (0.22%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.18%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.16%) Bitbucket
8 9 (0.16%) Postman
9 8 (0.15%) MLflow
10 7 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
12 5 (0.091%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.091%) JMeter
12 5 (0.091%) JUnit
12 5 (0.091%) Maven
12 5 (0.091%) PowerDesigner
13 4 (0.073%) Snyk
13 4 (0.073%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,018 (18.59%) Social Skills
2 826 (15.08%) Finance
3 610 (11.14%) Public Sector
4 307 (5.61%) Banking
5 264 (4.82%) Analytical Skills
6 183 (3.34%) Retail
7 151 (2.76%) Documentation Skills
8 131 (2.39%) Legal
9 117 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
10 97 (1.77%) Telecoms
11 94 (1.72%) Manufacturing
12 58 (1.06%) Law
13 50 (0.91%) Marketing
13 50 (0.91%) Military
14 46 (0.84%) Billing
14 46 (0.84%) Financial Institution
14 46 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
15 41 (0.75%) Aerospace
16 39 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 36 (0.66%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 272 (4.97%) REST
2 203 (3.71%) Middleware
3 138 (2.52%) SOAP
4 136 (2.48%) .NET
5 113 (2.06%) Kafka
6 98 (1.79%) OAuth
7 95 (1.73%) OpenID
8 89 (1.63%) LDAP
9 77 (1.41%) SAML
10 59 (1.08%) OAuth2
10 59 (1.08%) Oracle Fusion
10 59 (1.08%) React
11 54 (0.99%) RESTful
12 44 (0.80%) SailPoint
13 42 (0.77%) JSON
14 40 (0.73%) AngularJS
15 38 (0.69%) Web Services
16 34 (0.62%) Node.js
17 30 (0.55%) PySpark
18 28 (0.51%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 458 (8.36%) Cloud Native
2 190 (3.47%) Data Centre
3 158 (2.89%) Management Information System
4 144 (2.63%) Onboarding
5 141 (2.57%) Product Ownership
6 126 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
7 125 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
8 123 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
9 108 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
10 94 (1.72%) Public Cloud
11 90 (1.64%) Security Posture
12 89 (1.63%) Operational Technology
13 88 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
14 79 (1.44%) CMDB
15 77 (1.41%) AI Agents
16 47 (0.86%) Enterprise Cloud
17 45 (0.82%) Data Structures
18 44 (0.80%) NHS
19 43 (0.79%) Private Cloud
20 42 (0.77%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 148 (2.70%) Windows
2 97 (1.77%) Linux
3 43 (0.79%) Windows Server
4 36 (0.66%) Android
4 36 (0.66%) Apple iOS
5 22 (0.40%) Unix
6 19 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
8 10 (0.18%) zOS
9 9 (0.16%) VMS
10 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.11%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.11%) Windows 10
12 5 (0.091%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.091%) Mac OS
12 5 (0.091%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.073%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.073%) Solaris
14 3 (0.055%) AIX
14 3 (0.055%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 760 (13.88%) Migration
2 748 (13.66%) Roadmaps
3 648 (11.83%) Stakeholder Management
4 633 (11.56%) Agile
5 623 (11.38%) DevOps
6 589 (10.76%) CI/CD
7 551 (10.06%) AI
8 550 (10.04%) Enterprise Architecture
9 528 (9.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 515 (9.40%) Technical Leadership
11 507 (9.26%) Data Modelling
12 494 (9.02%) Integration Patterns
13 458 (8.36%) Data Architecture
14 446 (8.14%) Architectural Patterns
15 433 (7.91%) Analytics
16 422 (7.71%) TOGAF
17 413 (7.54%) Microservices
18 364 (6.65%) Problem-Solving
19 353 (6.45%) Architectural Design
20 340 (6.21%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 327 (5.97%) Python
2 271 (4.95%) SQL
3 237 (4.33%) Java
4 153 (2.79%) PowerShell
5 102 (1.86%) JavaScript
6 65 (1.19%) C#
7 55 (1.00%) Bicep
8 44 (0.80%) TypeScript
9 34 (0.62%) Bash
10 23 (0.42%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.40%) Ruby
12 15 (0.27%) Scala
13 14 (0.26%) PL/SQL
14 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.20%) Kusto Query Language
15 11 (0.20%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) ABAP
17 7 (0.13%) C++
17 7 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,662 (30.35%) Security Cleared
2 1,250 (22.83%) SC Cleared
3 294 (5.37%) DV Cleared
4 192 (3.51%) Degree
5 118 (2.15%) Azure Certification
5 118 (2.15%) CISSP
6 111 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
7 110 (2.01%) AWS Certification
8 103 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
9 83 (1.52%) TOGAF Certification
10 82 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
11 65 (1.19%) CISM
12 50 (0.91%) CCNP
13 47 (0.86%) Master's Degree
14 44 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
15 43 (0.79%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 36 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 27 (0.49%) CCSP
18 21 (0.38%) DBS Check
19 19 (0.35%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 204 (3.73%) NIST
2 178 (3.25%) GDPR
3 153 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 150 (2.74%) Data Quality
5 117 (2.14%) NCSC
6 69 (1.26%) QA
7 43 (0.79%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.73%) GRC
9 32 (0.58%) Accessibility
10 30 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 22 (0.40%) NIST 800
11 22 (0.40%) SEPA
12 21 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 19 (0.35%) COBIT
14 18 (0.33%) HL7
15 16 (0.29%) IFRS
16 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
17 13 (0.24%) MiFID
System Software
1 185 (3.38%) Active Directory
2 104 (1.90%) Docker
3 100 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 66 (1.21%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.53%) vSphere
6 25 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 23 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
8 17 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.22%) Varnish
9 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.16%) NFS
10 9 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
10 9 (0.16%) Squid
11 8 (0.15%) vCloud
12 7 (0.13%) Postfix
13 5 (0.091%) RACF
14 4 (0.073%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.073%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.055%) IAG
15 3 (0.055%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 262 (4.78%) Terraform
2 247 (4.51%) Kubernetes
3 112 (2.05%) Ansible
4 51 (0.93%) Grafana
5 49 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
6 40 (0.73%) Prometheus
7 38 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
8 34 (0.62%) FortiGate
9 27 (0.49%) vCenter Server
10 20 (0.37%) Argo
11 16 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.27%) SCCM
13 11 (0.20%) Istio
14 9 (0.16%) Jamf Pro
15 8 (0.15%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.13%) Consul
16 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
16 7 (0.13%) Puppet
17 5 (0.091%) EMC VPLEX
18 4 (0.073%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 710 (12.97%) Microsoft
2 309 (5.64%) SAP
3 293 (5.35%) ServiceNow
4 246 (4.49%) Oracle
5 231 (4.22%) Databricks
6 183 (3.34%) VMware
7 178 (3.25%) Salesforce
8 142 (2.59%) Cisco
9 119 (2.17%) Google
10 82 (1.50%) CyberArk
11 74 (1.35%) MuleSoft
12 65 (1.19%) Splunk
13 55 (1.00%) Palo Alto
14 52 (0.95%) Red Hat
15 44 (0.80%) OpenAI
16 43 (0.79%) Workday
17 42 (0.77%) IBM
18 41 (0.75%) Sparx
19 38 (0.69%) Foundry
20 37 (0.68%) Juniper