Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £617, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 May 2026.

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

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 15 11
Rank change year-on-year +4 -4 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,263 2,872 4,423
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.03% 9.85% 10.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.95% 10.64% 11.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,468 1,868 2,813
10th Percentile £463 £467 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £617 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.28% -3.85% -1.14%
75th Percentile £725 £715 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 134 36 88
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.00 £59.25
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £71.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.77% +1.79% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.00 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.64 £90.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.91 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.84% +4.15% -

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 44,026 26,985 39,997
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 92.51% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,063 17,602 26,016
10th Percentile £319 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.68% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,846 1,048 2,675
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.28
Median hourly rate £44.00 £28.68 £36.65
Median % change year-on-year +53.44% -21.76% -18.56%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.74
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.68 £27.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.12% -31.25% -5.88%

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 9 May 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 9 May 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 9 May 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 +6 4,506 £620 -0.80% 948
UK excluding London +8 2,399 £613 +2.08% 623
London +3 2,131 £625 -2.72% 415
Work from Home +4 1,428 £600 - 496
South East +4 713 £625 - 166
North of England +3 631 £593 -1.25% 165
Midlands +1 433 £600 - 91
North West +4 361 £608 +1.33% 99
West Midlands -1 316 £613 +2.08% 61
South West +1 295 £693 +15.42% 82
Yorkshire +6 233 £550 -8.33% 41
East of England +17 200 £563 -6.25% 51
Scotland +12 137 £650 +4.00% 28
East Midlands -1 111 £538 -0.46% 30
North East +6 45 £575 -8.00% 25
Wales -9 24 £625 +30.21% 34
Northern Ireland +10 9 £475 -28.30% 11

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 May 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 1,620 (30.78%) Security Cleared
2 1,246 (23.67%) Azure
3 1,169 (22.21%) SC Cleared
4 1,097 (20.84%) AWS
5 727 (13.81%) Roadmaps
6 694 (13.19%) Microsoft
7 687 (13.05%) Migration
8 631 (11.99%) Agile
9 584 (11.10%) DevOps
10 582 (11.06%) Stakeholder Management
11 556 (10.56%) CI/CD
12 529 (10.05%) Enterprise Architecture
13 490 (9.31%) AI
14 465 (8.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 462 (8.78%) Data Modelling
16 457 (8.68%) Technical Leadership
17 440 (8.36%) Integration Patterns
17 440 (8.36%) TOGAF
18 428 (8.13%) Analytics
19 407 (7.73%) Architectural Patterns
20 402 (7.64%) GCP
21 394 (7.49%) Data Architecture
21 394 (7.49%) Microservices
22 366 (6.95%) Problem-Solving
23 349 (6.63%) Python
24 341 (6.48%) Architectural Design
25 332 (6.31%) DV Cleared
26 319 (6.06%) ServiceNow
27 312 (5.93%) SAP
28 309 (5.87%) Security Architecture

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
1 124 (2.36%) SharePoint
2 110 (2.09%) Confluence
3 57 (1.08%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.53%) Apache
5 27 (0.51%) Apache Spark
6 25 (0.48%) SAS
7 19 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
8 18 (0.34%) CMS
9 16 (0.30%) Anypoint
9 16 (0.30%) Appian
10 15 (0.29%) nginx
10 15 (0.29%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.25%) OpenStack
11 13 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
12 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 10 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 8 (0.15%) Camunda
14 7 (0.13%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.13%) Hyperledger
14 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 45 (0.86%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
3 20 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
7 4 (0.076%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.057%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.057%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.038%) Windchill
10 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 141 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (0.91%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
4 19 (0.36%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
5 16 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 15 (0.29%) SAP ERP
6 15 (0.29%) Teamcenter
7 11 (0.21%) SAP EWM
8 10 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
8 10 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
8 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
10 8 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
10 8 (0.15%) SAP MDG
10 8 (0.15%) SAP PM
10 8 (0.15%) SAP QM
11 7 (0.13%) R3 Corda
11 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
11 7 (0.13%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 1,246 (23.67%) Azure
2 1,097 (20.84%) AWS
3 402 (7.64%) GCP
4 229 (4.35%) Power Platform
5 183 (3.48%) Entra ID
6 182 (3.46%) Serverless
7 168 (3.19%) SaaS
8 133 (2.53%) Microsoft 365
9 118 (2.24%) GitHub
10 108 (2.05%) PaaS
11 103 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
12 102 (1.94%) Dynamics 365
13 87 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
14 84 (1.60%) IaaS
15 79 (1.50%) Amazon S3
16 78 (1.48%) OpenShift
16 78 (1.48%) Snowflake
17 70 (1.33%) AWS CloudFormation
18 68 (1.29%) Microsoft Purview
19 64 (1.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 213 (4.05%) Firewall
2 175 (3.33%) Network Security
3 123 (2.34%) WAN
4 114 (2.17%) VPN
5 109 (2.07%) DNS
6 85 (1.62%) LAN
7 66 (1.25%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.74%) BGP
9 31 (0.59%) DHCP
10 29 (0.55%) OSPF
11 28 (0.53%) TCP/IP
12 27 (0.51%) MPLS
13 25 (0.48%) SAN
13 25 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
14 23 (0.44%) VLAN
14 23 (0.44%) Wireless
15 22 (0.42%) NAS
16 21 (0.40%) BIG-IP
17 20 (0.38%) VXLAN
18 18 (0.34%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (3.23%) Power BI
2 137 (2.60%) Metadata
3 130 (2.47%) Data Lake
4 128 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
5 74 (1.41%) SQL Server
6 66 (1.25%) NoSQL
7 64 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
8 54 (1.03%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.80%) Tableau
10 39 (0.74%) Big Data
11 34 (0.65%) Oracle Database
12 32 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.55%) Delta Lake
14 27 (0.51%) BigQuery
15 23 (0.44%) MongoDB
15 23 (0.44%) Relational Database
16 22 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
17 21 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
17 21 (0.40%) Electronic Patient Records
18 20 (0.38%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 122 (2.32%) JIRA
2 90 (1.71%) Jenkins
3 63 (1.20%) Git
4 53 (1.01%) GitLab
5 23 (0.44%) ERwin
6 15 (0.29%) SonarQube
7 14 (0.27%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.21%) MLflow
9 9 (0.17%) Postman
10 6 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.11%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.095%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.095%) JUnit
11 5 (0.095%) Maven
11 5 (0.095%) Selenium
11 5 (0.095%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.076%) Hudson
12 4 (0.076%) Snyk
12 4 (0.076%) Terragrunt
General
1 1,011 (19.21%) Social Skills
2 784 (14.90%) Finance
3 558 (10.60%) Public Sector
4 295 (5.61%) Banking
5 285 (5.42%) Analytical Skills
6 148 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
7 140 (2.66%) Retail
8 131 (2.49%) Legal
9 113 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
10 94 (1.79%) Telecoms
11 85 (1.62%) Military
12 81 (1.54%) Manufacturing
13 65 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
14 62 (1.18%) Law
15 61 (1.16%) Marketing
16 51 (0.97%) Billing
17 43 (0.82%) Financial Institution
18 36 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 36 (0.68%) Investment Banking
19 31 (0.59%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (4.66%) REST
2 200 (3.80%) Middleware
3 131 (2.49%) SOAP
4 123 (2.34%) .NET
5 112 (2.13%) Kafka
6 86 (1.63%) LDAP
6 86 (1.63%) OpenID
7 82 (1.56%) OAuth
8 63 (1.20%) SAML
9 52 (0.99%) React
10 49 (0.93%) OAuth2
11 47 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
12 44 (0.84%) SailPoint
13 43 (0.82%) RESTful
14 42 (0.80%) JSON
15 39 (0.74%) AngularJS
16 38 (0.72%) Web Services
17 30 (0.57%) Node.js
17 30 (0.57%) PySpark
18 29 (0.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 426 (8.09%) Cloud Native
2 174 (3.31%) Data Centre
3 152 (2.89%) Product Ownership
4 141 (2.68%) Onboarding
5 131 (2.49%) Management Information System
6 116 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
7 115 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
8 113 (2.15%) Enterprise Software
9 98 (1.86%) Public Cloud
10 97 (1.84%) Hybrid Cloud
11 88 (1.67%) Security Posture
12 82 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
13 77 (1.46%) Operational Technology
14 70 (1.33%) CMDB
15 63 (1.20%) AI Agents
16 58 (1.10%) PKI
17 45 (0.86%) Data Structures
18 43 (0.82%) Private Cloud
19 41 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
20 40 (0.76%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 167 (3.17%) Windows
2 118 (2.24%) Linux
3 35 (0.67%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.63%) Android
4 33 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 30 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (0.44%) Unix
7 14 (0.27%) VMS
8 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (0.21%) zOS
9 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
10 9 (0.17%) Windows 7
11 8 (0.15%) Mac OS
11 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.057%) CentOS
12 3 (0.057%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.057%) Solaris
12 3 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.038%) AIX
13 2 (0.038%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 727 (13.81%) Roadmaps
2 687 (13.05%) Migration
3 631 (11.99%) Agile
4 584 (11.10%) DevOps
5 582 (11.06%) Stakeholder Management
6 556 (10.56%) CI/CD
7 529 (10.05%) Enterprise Architecture
8 490 (9.31%) AI
9 465 (8.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 462 (8.78%) Data Modelling
11 457 (8.68%) Technical Leadership
12 440 (8.36%) Integration Patterns
12 440 (8.36%) TOGAF
13 428 (8.13%) Analytics
14 407 (7.73%) Architectural Patterns
15 394 (7.49%) Data Architecture
15 394 (7.49%) Microservices
16 366 (6.95%) Problem-Solving
17 341 (6.48%) Architectural Design
18 309 (5.87%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 349 (6.63%) Python
2 280 (5.32%) SQL
3 210 (3.99%) Java
4 163 (3.10%) PowerShell
5 82 (1.56%) JavaScript
6 65 (1.24%) C#
7 51 (0.97%) Bicep
8 37 (0.70%) Bash
9 35 (0.67%) TypeScript
10 23 (0.44%) PL/SQL
10 23 (0.44%) Ruby
11 20 (0.38%) Apex Code
12 16 (0.30%) Scala
13 13 (0.25%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
14 11 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) ABAP
16 8 (0.15%) PHP
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,620 (30.78%) Security Cleared
2 1,169 (22.21%) SC Cleared
3 332 (6.31%) DV Cleared
4 216 (4.10%) Degree
5 127 (2.41%) TOGAF Certification
6 120 (2.28%) Azure Certification
7 117 (2.22%) CISSP
8 112 (2.13%) AWS Certification
9 101 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
10 94 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
11 86 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
12 63 (1.20%) CISM
13 57 (1.08%) Master's Degree
14 48 (0.91%) CCNP
14 48 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
15 46 (0.87%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 39 (0.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 24 (0.46%) CCSP
18 23 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
19 22 (0.42%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (3.69%) NIST
2 180 (3.42%) GDPR
3 151 (2.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 149 (2.83%) Data Quality
5 109 (2.07%) NCSC
6 65 (1.24%) QA
7 46 (0.87%) PCI DSS
8 37 (0.70%) GRC
9 30 (0.57%) ISO 20022
10 28 (0.53%) COBIT
11 27 (0.51%) Accessibility
12 25 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.40%) SEPA
14 20 (0.38%) NIST 800
15 17 (0.32%) HL7
15 17 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 13 (0.25%) FINRA
16 13 (0.25%) MiFID
17 12 (0.23%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.23%) PSD2
System Software
1 199 (3.78%) Active Directory
2 110 (2.09%) Docker
3 97 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 73 (1.39%) VMware NSX
5 31 (0.59%) vSphere
6 27 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
7 20 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (0.34%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 12 (0.23%) Varnish
11 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 10 (0.19%) vCloud
12 9 (0.17%) NFS
12 9 (0.17%) Squid
13 6 (0.11%) Postfix
14 5 (0.095%) RACF
15 4 (0.076%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.076%) Firmware
15 4 (0.076%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.057%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 272 (5.17%) Terraform
2 240 (4.56%) Kubernetes
3 107 (2.03%) Ansible
4 51 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
5 43 (0.82%) Grafana
6 38 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.63%) FortiGate
8 31 (0.59%) Prometheus
9 30 (0.57%) OPNET
10 29 (0.55%) vCenter Server
11 18 (0.34%) SCCM
12 17 (0.32%) Argo
13 13 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 12 (0.23%) Istio
15 10 (0.19%) WMI
16 8 (0.15%) Puppet
17 7 (0.13%) Consul
18 6 (0.11%) HAProxy
18 6 (0.11%) Kibana
18 6 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 694 (13.19%) Microsoft
2 319 (6.06%) ServiceNow
3 312 (5.93%) SAP
4 226 (4.29%) Oracle
5 197 (3.74%) Databricks
6 196 (3.72%) Salesforce
7 193 (3.67%) VMware
8 130 (2.47%) Cisco
9 115 (2.19%) Google
10 89 (1.69%) CyberArk
11 80 (1.52%) MuleSoft
12 68 (1.29%) Splunk
13 52 (0.99%) Palo Alto
13 52 (0.99%) Red Hat
13 52 (0.99%) Workday
14 50 (0.95%) Sparx
15 47 (0.89%) Remedy
16 44 (0.84%) Atlassian
16 44 (0.84%) OpenAI
17 43 (0.82%) IBM