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 24 March 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +2 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,695 2,946 4,448
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.71% 10.11% 10.05%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.65% 10.88% 10.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,098 1,929 2,860
10th Percentile £463 £477 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £800 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 109 34 46
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.78 £51.51
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.75 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £82.38
Median % change year-on-year +0.03% -13.51% +17.69%
75th Percentile £90.09 £81.83 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.70 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £83.77
% change year-on-year -1.70% -13.45% +19.66%

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 40,297 27,081 41,111
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.96% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,161 17,787 26,923
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £411 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £724 £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 2,500 900 2,514
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.20 £12.88
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.70 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.92% - -24.42%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.34 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.71 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +12.94% - -21.53%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +2 4,027 £625 - 1,059
UK excluding London +9 2,250 £600 -4.00% 746
London 0 1,804 £625 -3.85% 473
Work from Home +1 1,302 £615 -1.60% 548
South East +5 694 £625 - 253
North of England +5 587 £600 - 191
Midlands -1 394 £575 -4.17% 90
North West +7 334 £604 +0.63% 106
West Midlands -1 294 £600 -1.23% 71
South West +1 278 £700 +14.29% 97
Yorkshire +6 229 £563 -6.25% 65
East of England +18 170 £540 -16.92% 66
Scotland +14 139 £650 +4.00% 33
East Midlands -1 96 £519 -6.53% 19
North East -3 32 £575 -8.00% 23
Wales +3 27 £538 -5.70% 25
Northern Ireland +3 11 £500 -26.47% 5

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 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 1,499 (31.93%) Security Cleared
2 1,178 (25.09%) Azure
3 1,060 (22.58%) SC Cleared
4 995 (21.19%) AWS
5 687 (14.63%) Roadmaps
6 659 (14.04%) Microsoft
7 611 (13.01%) Migration
8 597 (12.72%) Agile
9 553 (11.78%) Stakeholder Management
10 528 (11.25%) DevOps
11 505 (10.76%) Enterprise Architecture
12 488 (10.39%) CI/CD
13 465 (9.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 452 (9.63%) TOGAF
15 451 (9.61%) Data Modelling
16 433 (9.22%) Technical Leadership
17 411 (8.75%) AI
18 398 (8.48%) Analytics
19 388 (8.26%) Problem-Solving
20 383 (8.16%) GCP
21 377 (8.03%) Data Architecture
22 366 (7.80%) Integration Patterns
23 351 (7.48%) Python
24 348 (7.41%) Architectural Patterns
25 344 (7.33%) Microservices
26 322 (6.86%) DV Cleared
27 311 (6.62%) Architectural Design
28 283 (6.03%) Terraform
29 280 (5.96%) Security Architecture
30 278 (5.92%) 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
1 122 (2.60%) Confluence
2 118 (2.51%) SharePoint
3 64 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (0.75%) SAS
5 25 (0.53%) CMS
6 24 (0.51%) Apache Spark
7 18 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.36%) Anypoint
8 17 (0.36%) Apache
9 16 (0.34%) ArcGIS
10 15 (0.32%) Appian
10 15 (0.32%) WebLogic
11 14 (0.30%) nginx
12 11 (0.23%) OpenStack
13 10 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 9 (0.19%) Smallworld
15 7 (0.15%) Ethereum
15 7 (0.15%) NetWeaver
15 7 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 7 (0.15%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (1.06%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 25 (0.53%) Microsoft Excel
5 22 (0.47%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.15%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.043%) PlantUML
8 1 (0.021%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.021%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.021%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.021%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.021%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.021%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 118 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (0.98%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.49%) Workday HCM
5 19 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
6 17 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
8 13 (0.28%) SAP ERP
9 12 (0.26%) SAP EWM
10 11 (0.23%) NetSuite
11 10 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
11 10 (0.21%) SAP PM
12 9 (0.19%) Maximo
12 9 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
13 8 (0.17%) Teamcenter
14 7 (0.15%) R3 Corda
14 7 (0.15%) SAP CRM
14 7 (0.15%) SAP PP
15 6 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
15 6 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,178 (25.09%) Azure
2 995 (21.19%) AWS
3 383 (8.16%) GCP
4 193 (4.11%) Power Platform
5 169 (3.60%) Entra ID
6 167 (3.56%) Serverless
7 146 (3.11%) SaaS
8 145 (3.09%) Microsoft 365
9 107 (2.28%) GitHub
10 106 (2.26%) IaaS
11 101 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
12 92 (1.96%) PaaS
13 89 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
14 86 (1.83%) AWS Lambda
15 80 (1.70%) OpenShift
16 74 (1.58%) AWS CloudFormation
16 74 (1.58%) Microsoft Purview
17 72 (1.53%) Amazon S3
18 71 (1.51%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 70 (1.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 236 (5.03%) Firewall
2 170 (3.62%) Network Security
3 137 (2.92%) WAN
4 125 (2.66%) VPN
5 122 (2.60%) DNS
6 85 (1.81%) LAN
7 78 (1.66%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.81%) BGP
9 34 (0.72%) DHCP
10 32 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
11 29 (0.62%) OSPF
12 28 (0.60%) MPLS
12 28 (0.60%) TCP/IP
13 24 (0.51%) SAN
14 23 (0.49%) Kerberos
14 23 (0.49%) VXLAN
15 22 (0.47%) VLAN
15 22 (0.47%) Wireless
16 19 (0.40%) Internet
16 19 (0.40%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (3.34%) Data Warehouse
2 145 (3.09%) Power BI
3 142 (3.02%) Metadata
4 106 (2.26%) Data Lake
5 83 (1.77%) SQL Server
6 66 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
7 57 (1.21%) NoSQL
8 50 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
8 50 (1.06%) Tableau
9 45 (0.96%) Oracle Database
10 37 (0.79%) Big Data
11 29 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
12 26 (0.55%) GIS
13 24 (0.51%) Delta Lake
14 22 (0.47%) DynamoDB
15 21 (0.45%) Electronic Patient Records
15 21 (0.45%) Metadata Repository
15 21 (0.45%) Relational Database
16 20 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
16 20 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 135 (2.88%) JIRA
2 96 (2.04%) Jenkins
3 51 (1.09%) GitLab
4 48 (1.02%) Git
5 25 (0.53%) ERwin
6 12 (0.26%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 10 (0.21%) Artifactory
9 8 (0.17%) MLflow
10 6 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.11%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.11%) Postman
11 5 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.11%) Selenium
11 5 (0.11%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.085%) Maven
12 4 (0.085%) Oracle Forms
12 4 (0.085%) Rational DOORS
12 4 (0.085%) Snyk
12 4 (0.085%) Terragrunt
General
1 1,019 (21.70%) Social Skills
2 722 (15.38%) Finance
3 557 (11.86%) Public Sector
4 321 (6.84%) Analytical Skills
5 271 (5.77%) Banking
6 153 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
7 111 (2.36%) Influencing Skills
8 108 (2.30%) Legal
9 89 (1.90%) Military
10 87 (1.85%) Retail
11 86 (1.83%) Telecoms
12 74 (1.58%) Presentation Skills
13 67 (1.43%) Marketing
14 59 (1.26%) Manufacturing
15 52 (1.11%) Law
16 44 (0.94%) Financial Institution
17 34 (0.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 33 (0.70%) Billing
19 31 (0.66%) Investment Banking
20 25 (0.53%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 229 (4.88%) REST
2 176 (3.75%) Middleware
3 119 (2.53%) SOAP
4 96 (2.04%) .NET
4 96 (2.04%) Kafka
5 84 (1.79%) OpenID
6 79 (1.68%) LDAP
7 77 (1.64%) OAuth
8 66 (1.41%) SAML
9 52 (1.11%) JSON
10 48 (1.02%) React
11 47 (1.00%) OAuth2
12 43 (0.92%) AngularJS
13 38 (0.81%) RESTful
14 34 (0.72%) SailPoint
15 31 (0.66%) Web Services
16 29 (0.62%) Spring
17 27 (0.58%) Oracle Fusion
18 26 (0.55%) PySpark
19 24 (0.51%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 369 (7.86%) Cloud Native
2 159 (3.39%) Data Centre
3 152 (3.24%) Product Ownership
4 127 (2.71%) Onboarding
5 116 (2.47%) Legacy Systems
6 109 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
7 97 (2.07%) Management Information System
8 95 (2.02%) PKI
9 94 (2.00%) Hybrid Cloud
10 93 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
11 86 (1.83%) Public Cloud
12 79 (1.68%) Security Posture
13 69 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
14 67 (1.43%) Operational Technology
15 60 (1.28%) CMDB
16 49 (1.04%) AI Agents
17 48 (1.02%) Self-Motivation
18 45 (0.96%) Data Structures
19 41 (0.87%) NHS
20 40 (0.85%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 187 (3.98%) Windows
2 126 (2.68%) Linux
3 45 (0.96%) Windows Server
4 35 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 29 (0.62%) Android
5 29 (0.62%) Apple iOS
6 16 (0.34%) Windows 7
7 15 (0.32%) Windows 10
8 14 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
9 13 (0.28%) VMS
10 12 (0.26%) Unix
11 11 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
12 10 (0.21%) zOS
13 9 (0.19%) Mac OS
14 4 (0.085%) Ubuntu
15 3 (0.064%) Windows Server 2012
16 2 (0.043%) CentOS
17 1 (0.021%) Data ONTAP
17 1 (0.021%) Solaris
17 1 (0.021%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 687 (14.63%) Roadmaps
2 611 (13.01%) Migration
3 597 (12.72%) Agile
4 553 (11.78%) Stakeholder Management
5 528 (11.25%) DevOps
6 505 (10.76%) Enterprise Architecture
7 488 (10.39%) CI/CD
8 465 (9.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 452 (9.63%) TOGAF
10 451 (9.61%) Data Modelling
11 433 (9.22%) Technical Leadership
12 411 (8.75%) AI
13 398 (8.48%) Analytics
14 388 (8.26%) Problem-Solving
15 377 (8.03%) Data Architecture
16 366 (7.80%) Integration Patterns
17 348 (7.41%) Architectural Patterns
18 344 (7.33%) Microservices
19 311 (6.62%) Architectural Design
20 280 (5.96%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 351 (7.48%) Python
2 251 (5.35%) SQL
3 188 (4.00%) PowerShell
4 179 (3.81%) Java
5 64 (1.36%) C#
6 62 (1.32%) JavaScript
7 42 (0.89%) Bicep
8 41 (0.87%) Bash
9 28 (0.60%) TypeScript
10 20 (0.43%) Apex Code
11 19 (0.40%) Ruby
12 18 (0.38%) PL/SQL
13 13 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
14 12 (0.26%) Kotlin
14 12 (0.26%) R
14 12 (0.26%) Scala
15 9 (0.19%) ABAP
15 9 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.17%) PHP
16 8 (0.17%) VB
Qualifications
1 1,499 (31.93%) Security Cleared
2 1,060 (22.58%) SC Cleared
3 322 (6.86%) DV Cleared
4 212 (4.52%) Degree
5 127 (2.71%) CISSP
6 124 (2.64%) TOGAF Certification
7 121 (2.58%) Azure Certification
8 119 (2.53%) AWS Certification
9 86 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
10 81 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
11 80 (1.70%) Computer Science Degree
12 74 (1.58%) CISM
13 57 (1.21%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 57 (1.21%) Master's Degree
14 52 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
15 49 (1.04%) CCNP
16 35 (0.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 34 (0.72%) ITIL Certification
18 33 (0.70%) ISEB
19 31 (0.66%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 200 (4.26%) GDPR
2 172 (3.66%) NIST
3 154 (3.28%) Data Quality
4 148 (3.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 102 (2.17%) NCSC
6 68 (1.45%) QA
7 60 (1.28%) PCI DSS
8 41 (0.87%) COBIT
9 32 (0.68%) Accessibility
9 32 (0.68%) GRC
10 29 (0.62%) ISO 20022
11 28 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.43%) JSP 440
13 18 (0.38%) HIPAA
13 18 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 16 (0.34%) HL7
14 16 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 15 (0.32%) MiFID
16 14 (0.30%) SEPA
17 13 (0.28%) FINRA
System Software
1 192 (4.09%) Active Directory
2 125 (2.66%) Docker
3 106 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 71 (1.51%) VMware NSX
5 37 (0.79%) vSphere
6 24 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
7 16 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 14 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
9 11 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.19%) Squid
10 9 (0.19%) Varnish
10 9 (0.19%) vCloud
11 7 (0.15%) BitLocker
12 5 (0.11%) NFS
12 5 (0.11%) RACF
13 4 (0.085%) Firmware
14 3 (0.064%) Ceph
14 3 (0.064%) IAG
14 3 (0.064%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 283 (6.03%) Terraform
2 238 (5.07%) Kubernetes
3 123 (2.62%) Ansible
4 58 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
6 38 (0.81%) Grafana
7 34 (0.72%) vCenter Server
8 33 (0.70%) FortiGate
9 30 (0.64%) OPNET
10 29 (0.62%) Prometheus
11 22 (0.47%) SCCM
12 19 (0.40%) Argo
13 18 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 15 (0.32%) WMI
15 11 (0.23%) Istio
16 7 (0.15%) Consul
16 7 (0.15%) Puppet
17 6 (0.13%) Kibana
18 5 (0.11%) Endace
18 5 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 659 (14.04%) Microsoft
2 262 (5.58%) ServiceNow
3 257 (5.47%) SAP
4 207 (4.41%) Oracle
5 192 (4.09%) VMware
6 182 (3.88%) Salesforce
7 151 (3.22%) Databricks
8 138 (2.94%) Cisco
9 109 (2.32%) Google
10 92 (1.96%) CyberArk
11 72 (1.53%) MuleSoft
12 70 (1.49%) Palo Alto
13 67 (1.43%) Splunk
14 59 (1.26%) Red Hat
15 51 (1.09%) Remedy
15 51 (1.09%) Workday
16 49 (1.04%) Atlassian
16 49 (1.04%) Centrify
17 48 (1.02%) IBM
18 45 (0.96%) Sparx