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 4 October 2026.

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

6 months to
4 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 6,119 2,937 3,723
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.20% 8.85% 9.80%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.16% 9.74% 10.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,041 1,907 2,226
10th Percentile £481 £463 £475
25th Percentile £531 £525 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £780 £776 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.33% -4.00% -2.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 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 £81.25 £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 50,330 30,144 35,336
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.12% 90.83% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,591 19,030 21,429
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 £636 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £741
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,999 1,630 1,541
10th Percentile £14.42 £13.75 £14.99
25th Percentile £19.77 £17.30 £20.75
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.91
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.39% -3.57%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.19 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.28 £74.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.74 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.44% -41.69% -2.82%

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 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 4 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 4 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 5,071 £620 -0.80% 4,731
London +7 2,606 £625 -3.40% 2,735
UK excluding London +7 2,556 £620 +3.33% 2,234
Work from Home +6 1,639 £600 - 2,036
South East +1 721 £625 +4.17% 584
North of England +2 672 £600 - 506
Midlands +6 446 £627 +8.96% 285
North West +5 364 £599 +4.16% 264
South West +6 343 £638 -1.92% 247
West Midlands +5 334 £650 +8.33% 211
Yorkshire +13 244 £600 -2.04% 168
Scotland +19 187 £625 +4.17% 271
East of England +8 155 £618 +10.63% 202
East Midlands +6 107 £600 +20.00% 74
North East -2 67 £625 -15.25% 76
Wales +4 44 £640 +2.40% 75
Channel Islands 0 11 £700 -5.72%
Northern Ireland +4 2 - - 80

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 4 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 1,927 (31.49%) Security Cleared
2 1,569 (25.64%) Azure
3 1,452 (23.73%) SC Cleared
4 1,267 (20.71%) AWS
5 1,183 (19.33%) Stakeholder Management
6 986 (16.11%) Roadmaps
7 884 (14.45%) Migration
8 826 (13.50%) Microsoft
9 799 (13.06%) Enterprise Architecture
10 793 (12.96%) AI
11 775 (12.67%) Technical Leadership
12 650 (10.62%) Agile
13 630 (10.30%) DevOps
14 624 (10.20%) Data Architecture
15 619 (10.12%) Data Modelling
16 611 (9.99%) CI/CD
17 608 (9.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 564 (9.22%) Integration Patterns
19 520 (8.50%) Analytics
20 497 (8.12%) Security Architecture
21 495 (8.09%) GCP
22 475 (7.76%) TOGAF
23 459 (7.50%) Architectural Patterns
24 424 (6.93%) Event-Driven
25 403 (6.59%) Data Governance
26 398 (6.50%) Architecture Governance
27 393 (6.42%) Decision-Making
28 388 (6.34%) DV Cleared
29 383 (6.26%) Microservices
30 378 (6.18%) 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 (1.26%) SAS
2 66 (1.08%) SharePoint
3 59 (0.96%) Confluence
4 45 (0.74%) Apache Spark
5 44 (0.72%) Apache
6 36 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
7 34 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
8 25 (0.41%) CMS
9 18 (0.29%) Palantir Foundry
10 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.11%) Documentum
11 7 (0.11%) IIS
11 7 (0.11%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.098%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.098%) Headless CMS
12 6 (0.098%) JBoss
13 5 (0.082%) Appian
13 5 (0.082%) 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
6 8 (0.13%) Revit
7 6 (0.098%) Navisworks
8 5 (0.082%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.033%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.033%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.016%) Notion
10 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
10 1 (0.016%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 187 (3.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (0.77%) Dynamics CRM
3 31 (0.51%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
5 16 (0.26%) SAP MM
5 16 (0.26%) Teamcenter
6 15 (0.25%) SAP MDG
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
8 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) SAP CO
11 9 (0.15%) SAP FI
11 9 (0.15%) Workday HCM
12 8 (0.13%) SAP ERP
12 8 (0.13%) SAP FI/CO
12 8 (0.13%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,569 (25.64%) Azure
2 1,267 (20.71%) AWS
3 495 (8.09%) GCP
4 287 (4.69%) Power Platform
5 234 (3.82%) SaaS
6 218 (3.56%) Entra ID
7 183 (2.99%) Serverless
8 148 (2.42%) GitHub
9 135 (2.21%) Microsoft 365
10 129 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
11 128 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
12 112 (1.83%) Snowflake
13 90 (1.47%) PaaS
14 81 (1.32%) AWS Lambda
15 76 (1.24%) Amazon S3
16 75 (1.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 75 (1.23%) OCI
17 64 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
17 64 (1.05%) IaaS
18 63 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 158 (2.58%) Firewall
2 148 (2.42%) Network Security
3 98 (1.60%) WAN
4 74 (1.21%) VPN
5 65 (1.06%) DNS
6 61 (1.00%) LAN
7 48 (0.78%) BGP
8 47 (0.77%) SD-WAN
9 40 (0.65%) MPLS
10 33 (0.54%) DHCP
11 31 (0.51%) TCP/IP
12 28 (0.46%) VXLAN
13 25 (0.41%) VLAN
14 23 (0.38%) NX-OS
14 23 (0.38%) 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%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 234 (3.82%) Metadata
2 205 (3.35%) Data Lake
3 193 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
4 170 (2.78%) Power BI
5 64 (1.05%) NoSQL
6 48 (0.78%) SQL Server
7 46 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
8 45 (0.74%) BigQuery
8 45 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
9 42 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
10 40 (0.65%) Delta Lake
11 38 (0.62%) Oracle Database
12 37 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
13 31 (0.51%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 29 (0.47%) Big Data
15 28 (0.46%) Semantic Layer
16 24 (0.39%) MongoDB
16 24 (0.39%) SAP HANA
17 23 (0.38%) GIS
17 23 (0.38%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 84 (1.37%) JIRA
2 76 (1.24%) Git
3 62 (1.01%) Jenkins
4 49 (0.80%) 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 (0.098%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.098%) Storybook
11 5 (0.082%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.082%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.082%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.082%) Selenium
12 4 (0.065%) Hudson
12 4 (0.065%) JMeter
12 4 (0.065%) Maven
General
1 1,232 (20.13%) Social Skills
2 866 (14.15%) Finance
3 722 (11.80%) Public Sector
4 309 (5.05%) Banking
5 274 (4.48%) Analytical Skills
6 259 (4.23%) Retail
7 173 (2.83%) Influencing Skills
8 164 (2.68%) Manufacturing
9 140 (2.29%) Telecoms
10 134 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
11 110 (1.80%) Legal
12 77 (1.26%) Marketing
13 64 (1.05%) Billing
14 62 (1.01%) Aerospace
15 60 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 51 (0.83%) Military
17 45 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
18 39 (0.64%) Local Government
19 37 (0.60%) Aviation
20 36 (0.59%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 298 (4.87%) REST
2 252 (4.12%) Terraform
3 173 (2.83%) Kafka
4 168 (2.75%) Middleware
5 134 (2.19%) SOAP
6 126 (2.06%) OAuth
7 116 (1.90%) .NET
8 85 (1.39%) Oracle Fusion
9 65 (1.06%) JSON
9 65 (1.06%) OpenID
10 64 (1.05%) SAML
11 61 (1.00%) OAuth2
12 54 (0.88%) LDAP
13 47 (0.77%) RESTful
14 45 (0.74%) PySpark
15 44 (0.72%) XML
16 40 (0.65%) .NET Framework
16 40 (0.65%) SailPoint
17 38 (0.62%) JWT
17 38 (0.62%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 515 (8.42%) Cloud Native
2 198 (3.24%) Data Centre
3 185 (3.02%) Onboarding
4 167 (2.73%) Management Information System
5 147 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
6 146 (2.39%) Enterprise Software
7 144 (2.35%) Legacy Systems
8 142 (2.32%) AI Agents
9 141 (2.30%) Product Ownership
10 135 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
11 100 (1.63%) CMDB
12 92 (1.50%) Operational Technology
13 91 (1.49%) Public Cloud
14 90 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
15 77 (1.26%) Enterprise Cloud
16 74 (1.21%) Private Cloud
17 66 (1.08%) Data Structures
18 60 (0.98%) Security Posture
19 53 (0.87%) Taxonomies
20 49 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 127 (2.08%) Windows
2 100 (1.63%) Linux
3 49 (0.80%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.38%) 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 (0.098%) zOS
9 5 (0.082%) Solaris
9 5 (0.082%) VMS
10 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.049%) CentOS
12 2 (0.033%) HPUX
12 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.016%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,183 (19.33%) Stakeholder Management
2 986 (16.11%) Roadmaps
3 884 (14.45%) Migration
4 799 (13.06%) Enterprise Architecture
5 793 (12.96%) AI
6 775 (12.67%) Technical Leadership
7 650 (10.62%) Agile
8 630 (10.30%) DevOps
9 624 (10.20%) Data Architecture
10 619 (10.12%) Data Modelling
11 611 (9.99%) CI/CD
12 608 (9.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 564 (9.22%) Integration Patterns
14 520 (8.50%) Analytics
15 497 (8.12%) Security Architecture
16 475 (7.76%) TOGAF
17 459 (7.50%) Architectural Patterns
18 424 (6.93%) Event-Driven
19 403 (6.59%) Data Governance
20 398 (6.50%) Architecture Governance
Programming Languages
1 252 (4.12%) SQL
2 243 (3.97%) Java
3 234 (3.82%) Python
4 114 (1.86%) JavaScript
5 109 (1.78%) PowerShell
6 52 (0.85%) C#
7 51 (0.83%) TypeScript
8 45 (0.74%) Bash
9 43 (0.70%) Bicep
10 30 (0.49%) 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 1,927 (31.49%) Security Cleared
2 1,452 (23.73%) SC Cleared
3 388 (6.34%) DV Cleared
4 190 (3.11%) BPSS Clearance
5 159 (2.60%) Degree
6 149 (2.44%) CISSP
7 122 (1.99%) AWS Certification
8 119 (1.94%) Azure Certification
9 104 (1.70%) Cisco Certification
10 88 (1.44%) TOGAF Certification
11 74 (1.21%) CISM
12 64 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 46 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
15 41 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 40 (0.65%) CCNP
17 39 (0.64%) CCSP
18 28 (0.46%) Master's Degree
19 24 (0.39%) CCIE
20 23 (0.38%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 267 (4.36%) Data Quality
2 223 (3.64%) NIST
3 188 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 156 (2.55%) GDPR
5 135 (2.21%) NCSC
6 82 (1.34%) GRC
7 52 (0.85%) QA
8 42 (0.69%) Accessibility
9 40 (0.65%) PCI DSS
10 28 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 27 (0.44%) NIST 800
12 24 (0.39%) SLA
13 23 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 20 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
14 20 (0.33%) JSP 440
14 20 (0.33%) SEPA
15 18 (0.29%) IFRS
15 18 (0.29%) ISO 20022
16 15 (0.25%) ISO 19650
17 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 189 (3.09%) Active Directory
2 107 (1.75%) Docker
3 84 (1.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 43 (0.70%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.36%) vSphere
7 19 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (0.29%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.082%) 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 (0.033%) IAG
13 2 (0.033%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.033%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 294 (4.80%) Kubernetes
2 101 (1.65%) Ansible
3 48 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
4 44 (0.72%) Grafana
5 37 (0.60%) Prometheus
6 30 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (0.28%) Argo
8 14 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 12 (0.20%) WMI
10 11 (0.18%) FortiGate
11 10 (0.16%) CASB
12 8 (0.13%) Istio
12 8 (0.13%) SCCM
12 8 (0.13%) vCenter Server
13 7 (0.11%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.098%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.098%) Puppet
15 5 (0.082%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.082%) VxRail
Vendors
1 826 (13.50%) Microsoft
2 358 (5.85%) SAP
3 300 (4.90%) Oracle
4 293 (4.79%) ServiceNow
5 273 (4.46%) Databricks
6 213 (3.48%) Google
7 197 (3.22%) Salesforce
8 148 (2.42%) Cisco
9 134 (2.19%) VMware
10 85 (1.39%) CyberArk
11 77 (1.26%) MuleSoft
12 55 (0.90%) IBM
13 53 (0.87%) Palo Alto
14 52 (0.85%) Workday
15 45 (0.74%) Foundry
16 42 (0.69%) Splunk
17 39 (0.64%) Red Hat
18 38 (0.62%) Adobe
18 38 (0.62%) Ariba
19 37 (0.60%) Informatica