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 12 September 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,148 2,953 3,877
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.27% 8.95% 10.05%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.20% 9.82% 10.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,080 1,892 2,409
10th Percentile £481 £463 £485
25th Percentile £525 £525 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £635
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -1.57% -2.31%
75th Percentile £700 £712 £738
90th Percentile £785 £786 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £622 £600 £630
% change year-on-year +3.67% -4.76% -2.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 17 71
10th Percentile £46.00 £35.42 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £66.66 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.06% +3.57% -0.25%
75th Percentile £78.75 £87.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -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 50,382 30,069 35,903
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.35% 91.09% 93.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,936 18,968 22,276
10th Percentile £325 £280 £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 £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,746 1,571 1,738
10th Percentile £14.58 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.04 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -
75th Percentile £67.50 £52.33 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.88 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.59
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.83% +12.32%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 5,137 £620 -0.80% 3,223
London +7 2,621 £625 -2.95% 1,954
UK excluding London +7 2,585 £622 +3.67% 1,432
Work from Home +6 1,653 £600 - 1,475
South East +1 741 £625 +4.17% 432
North of England +5 710 £600 - 331
Midlands +2 427 £626 +9.11% 182
North West +8 413 £600 +4.35% 179
South West +3 343 £640 -0.78% 158
West Midlands +1 318 £650 +8.42% 127
Yorkshire +11 233 £575 -4.17% 122
Scotland +19 177 £625 - 147
East of England +11 157 £616 +11.04% 125
East Midlands +3 104 £600 +20.00% 54
North East -5 65 £600 -15.79% 30
Wales +1 42 £633 +1.20% 10
Channel Islands -3 7 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +1 2 - - 54

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 12 September 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 1,913 (31.12%) Security Cleared
2 1,580 (25.70%) Azure
3 1,433 (23.31%) SC Cleared
4 1,314 (21.37%) AWS
5 1,094 (17.79%) Stakeholder Management
6 941 (15.31%) Roadmaps
7 867 (14.10%) Migration
8 841 (13.68%) Microsoft
9 790 (12.85%) Enterprise Architecture
10 778 (12.65%) AI
11 764 (12.43%) Technical Leadership
12 677 (11.01%) Agile
13 641 (10.43%) DevOps
14 638 (10.38%) Data Modelling
15 637 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 620 (10.08%) CI/CD
17 601 (9.78%) Data Architecture
18 587 (9.55%) Integration Patterns
19 528 (8.59%) Analytics
20 504 (8.20%) Security Architecture
21 502 (8.17%) GCP
22 499 (8.12%) TOGAF
23 481 (7.82%) Architectural Patterns
24 419 (6.82%) Event-Driven
25 409 (6.65%) Microservices
26 400 (6.51%) Data Governance
27 384 (6.25%) Cybersecurity
28 383 (6.23%) Architecture Governance
29 378 (6.15%) DV Cleared
30 376 (6.12%) Decision-Making

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 79 (1.28%) SAS
2 73 (1.19%) SharePoint
3 62 (1.01%) Confluence
4 46 (0.75%) Apache
5 40 (0.65%) Apache Spark
6 35 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
7 34 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
8 24 (0.39%) CMS
9 22 (0.36%) Palantir Foundry
10 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 8 (0.13%) NetWeaver
12 7 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 7 (0.11%) Documentum
13 6 (0.098%) Appian
13 6 (0.098%) SAP EP
14 5 (0.081%) Camunda
14 5 (0.081%) Headless CMS
15 4 (0.065%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 4 (0.065%) Jupyter
15 4 (0.065%) nginx
Applications
1 19 (0.31%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.13%) Revit
6 7 (0.11%) Navisworks
7 6 (0.098%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.033%) Windchill
9 1 (0.016%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.016%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.016%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.016%) Notion
9 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 169 (2.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 35 (0.57%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 18 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
5 17 (0.28%) Teamcenter
6 16 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
7 15 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
7 15 (0.24%) SAP ERP
8 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
9 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.20%) SAP MDG
10 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.098%) Maximo
13 6 (0.098%) SAP CO
13 6 (0.098%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,580 (25.70%) Azure
2 1,314 (21.37%) AWS
3 502 (8.17%) GCP
4 309 (5.03%) Power Platform
5 237 (3.85%) SaaS
6 221 (3.59%) Entra ID
7 202 (3.29%) Serverless
8 150 (2.44%) Dynamics 365
9 145 (2.36%) GitHub
10 133 (2.16%) Microsoft 365
11 126 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
12 117 (1.90%) Snowflake
13 105 (1.71%) PaaS
14 95 (1.55%) AWS Lambda
15 82 (1.33%) Amazon S3
16 73 (1.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 71 (1.15%) IaaS
18 67 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
18 67 (1.09%) OCI
19 64 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 173 (2.81%) Firewall
2 164 (2.67%) Network Security
3 110 (1.79%) WAN
4 89 (1.45%) VPN
5 78 (1.27%) DNS
6 75 (1.22%) LAN
7 55 (0.89%) SD-WAN
8 45 (0.73%) BGP
9 40 (0.65%) DHCP
9 40 (0.65%) MPLS
10 37 (0.60%) TCP/IP
11 30 (0.49%) VLAN
12 28 (0.46%) SAN
13 25 (0.41%) VXLAN
14 22 (0.36%) NAS
14 22 (0.36%) Wireless
15 21 (0.34%) OSPF
16 20 (0.33%) NX-OS
17 19 (0.31%) NGFW
17 19 (0.31%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 217 (3.53%) Metadata
2 209 (3.40%) Data Lake
3 199 (3.24%) Power BI
4 185 (3.01%) Data Warehouse
5 69 (1.12%) NoSQL
6 51 (0.83%) SQL Server
7 49 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
7 49 (0.80%) BigQuery
7 49 (0.80%) PostgreSQL
8 40 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
8 40 (0.65%) Delta Lake
9 39 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
10 37 (0.60%) Oracle Database
11 36 (0.59%) Big Data
12 30 (0.49%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
12 30 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
13 26 (0.42%) Relational Database
14 24 (0.39%) MongoDB
15 22 (0.36%) GIS
15 22 (0.36%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 84 (1.37%) JIRA
2 75 (1.22%) Git
3 65 (1.06%) Jenkins
4 42 (0.68%) GitLab
5 18 (0.29%) ERwin
6 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.15%) MSI
7 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.13%) RStudio
9 7 (0.11%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.11%) Postman
9 7 (0.11%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.098%) Hudson
10 6 (0.098%) Storybook
11 5 (0.081%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.081%) Maven
11 5 (0.081%) MLflow
11 5 (0.081%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.081%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,242 (20.20%) Social Skills
2 887 (14.43%) Finance
3 699 (11.37%) Public Sector
4 323 (5.25%) Banking
5 303 (4.93%) Analytical Skills
6 267 (4.34%) Retail
7 167 (2.72%) Influencing Skills
8 145 (2.36%) Manufacturing
9 141 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
10 133 (2.16%) Telecoms
11 116 (1.89%) Legal
12 73 (1.19%) Marketing
13 65 (1.06%) Billing
14 58 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 56 (0.91%) Military
16 49 (0.80%) Aerospace
17 44 (0.72%) Law
18 41 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
19 37 (0.60%) Police
20 36 (0.59%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 302 (4.91%) REST
2 263 (4.28%) Terraform
3 176 (2.86%) Middleware
4 157 (2.55%) Kafka
5 138 (2.24%) SOAP
6 128 (2.08%) .NET
7 126 (2.05%) OAuth
8 74 (1.20%) Oracle Fusion
9 70 (1.14%) JSON
10 67 (1.09%) OpenID
11 66 (1.07%) SAML
12 60 (0.98%) OAuth2
13 53 (0.86%) LDAP
14 47 (0.76%) PySpark
15 46 (0.75%) RESTful
15 46 (0.75%) XML
16 41 (0.67%) React
17 40 (0.65%) .NET Framework
18 39 (0.63%) SailPoint
19 35 (0.57%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 534 (8.69%) Cloud Native
2 194 (3.16%) Data Centre
3 178 (2.90%) Management Information System
4 171 (2.78%) Onboarding
5 149 (2.42%) Product Ownership
6 144 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
7 142 (2.31%) AI Agents
7 142 (2.31%) Hybrid Cloud
8 141 (2.29%) Distributed Systems
9 135 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
10 98 (1.59%) CMDB
11 94 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
12 90 (1.46%) Operational Technology
13 88 (1.43%) Public Cloud
14 81 (1.32%) Enterprise Cloud
15 66 (1.07%) Security Posture
16 63 (1.02%) Private Cloud
17 58 (0.94%) Data Structures
18 48 (0.78%) Taxonomies
19 46 (0.75%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 126 (2.05%) Windows
2 106 (1.72%) Linux
3 52 (0.85%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (0.39%) Unix
6 12 (0.20%) Android
6 12 (0.20%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.098%) zOS
10 5 (0.081%) Solaris
11 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.065%) VMS
12 3 (0.049%) CentOS
13 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
13 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
13 2 (0.033%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.033%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,094 (17.79%) Stakeholder Management
2 941 (15.31%) Roadmaps
3 867 (14.10%) Migration
4 790 (12.85%) Enterprise Architecture
5 778 (12.65%) AI
6 764 (12.43%) Technical Leadership
7 677 (11.01%) Agile
8 641 (10.43%) DevOps
9 638 (10.38%) Data Modelling
10 637 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 620 (10.08%) CI/CD
12 601 (9.78%) Data Architecture
13 587 (9.55%) Integration Patterns
14 528 (8.59%) Analytics
15 504 (8.20%) Security Architecture
16 499 (8.12%) TOGAF
17 481 (7.82%) Architectural Patterns
18 419 (6.82%) Event-Driven
19 409 (6.65%) Microservices
20 400 (6.51%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 268 (4.36%) Python
2 267 (4.34%) Java
3 266 (4.33%) SQL
4 130 (2.11%) JavaScript
5 110 (1.79%) PowerShell
6 54 (0.88%) TypeScript
7 51 (0.83%) C#
8 48 (0.78%) Bash
9 46 (0.75%) Bicep
10 33 (0.54%) Apex Code
11 22 (0.36%) ABAP
12 17 (0.28%) Ruby
13 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 16 (0.26%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.18%) C++
14 11 (0.18%) Groovy
14 11 (0.18%) R
15 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.15%) Rust
16 9 (0.15%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,913 (31.12%) Security Cleared
2 1,433 (23.31%) SC Cleared
3 378 (6.15%) DV Cleared
4 167 (2.72%) Degree
5 160 (2.60%) CISSP
6 152 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
7 120 (1.95%) Azure Certification
8 113 (1.84%) AWS Certification
9 107 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
10 88 (1.43%) TOGAF Certification
11 78 (1.27%) CISM
12 66 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 47 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
15 44 (0.72%) CCNP
16 40 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 35 (0.57%) CCSP
18 32 (0.52%) Master's Degree
19 24 (0.39%) CISA
20 22 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 257 (4.18%) Data Quality
2 242 (3.94%) NIST
3 195 (3.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 171 (2.78%) GDPR
5 124 (2.02%) NCSC
6 82 (1.33%) GRC
7 61 (0.99%) QA
8 41 (0.67%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.63%) Accessibility
10 32 (0.52%) NIST 800
10 32 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (0.41%) SLA
12 24 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
13 22 (0.36%) SEPA
14 21 (0.34%) IFRS
14 21 (0.34%) ISO 20022
15 19 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 18 (0.29%) JSP 440
17 15 (0.24%) HL7
18 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 185 (3.01%) Active Directory
2 115 (1.87%) Docker
3 81 (1.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 45 (0.73%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.36%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.36%) vSphere
7 19 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 15 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.098%) NFS
10 4 (0.065%) EMC RecoverPoint
10 4 (0.065%) KVM
10 4 (0.065%) Postfix
10 4 (0.065%) Varnish
10 4 (0.065%) vCloud
11 3 (0.049%) Ceph
11 3 (0.049%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.049%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.049%) SRDF
12 2 (0.033%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 301 (4.90%) Kubernetes
2 104 (1.69%) Ansible
3 50 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
4 49 (0.80%) Grafana
5 41 (0.67%) Prometheus
6 28 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.29%) Argo
8 16 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.20%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.16%) WMI
12 9 (0.15%) CASB
12 9 (0.15%) Istio
13 8 (0.13%) FortiGate
14 7 (0.11%) SCCM
15 6 (0.098%) NetBackup
15 6 (0.098%) Puppet
16 5 (0.081%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.081%) Progress Chef
17 4 (0.065%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 841 (13.68%) Microsoft
2 359 (5.84%) SAP
3 309 (5.03%) ServiceNow
4 307 (4.99%) Oracle
5 289 (4.70%) Databricks
6 202 (3.29%) Salesforce
7 194 (3.16%) Google
8 151 (2.46%) Cisco
9 144 (2.34%) VMware
10 80 (1.30%) CyberArk
11 79 (1.28%) MuleSoft
12 61 (0.99%) IBM
13 55 (0.89%) Workday
14 54 (0.88%) Palo Alto
15 52 (0.85%) Foundry
16 41 (0.67%) Adobe
16 41 (0.67%) Ariba
16 41 (0.67%) Informatica
17 38 (0.62%) OpenAI
18 37 (0.60%) Sparx