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 17 September 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -4 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,163 2,943 3,795
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.28% 8.93% 9.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.21% 9.81% 10.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,092 1,896 2,346
10th Percentile £481 £463 £485
25th Percentile £525 £525 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £630
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -0.79% -3.08%
75th Percentile £700 £715 £738
90th Percentile £781 £788 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £626
% change year-on-year +3.33% -4.15% -1.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 15 69
10th Percentile £46.00 £33.64 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.17 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.62% - -1.53%
75th Percentile £78.75 £83.75 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.58 £71.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -6.55% +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 50,473 30,002 35,564
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.35% 91.08% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,930 18,956 21,934
10th Percentile £328 £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 £626 £621 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,805 1,570 1,684
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -2.01%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +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 17 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 17 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 17 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 5,147 £620 -0.80% 5,243
London +7 2,639 £625 -3.85% 2,899
UK excluding London +7 2,580 £620 +3.33% 2,433
Work from Home +7 1,651 £600 - 2,071
South East +3 745 £625 +4.17% 685
North of England +4 689 £598 -0.33% 606
Midlands +2 435 £626 +9.34% 345
North West +6 386 £600 +2.78% 341
South West +2 344 £638 -1.92% 246
West Midlands +1 321 £644 +7.51% 243
Yorkshire +10 240 £563 -6.25% 197
Scotland +24 178 £625 - 260
East of England +10 160 £622 +12.07% 189
East Midlands +7 109 £600 +18.81% 102
North East -2 64 £600 -15.79% 68
Wales +2 42 £633 +1.20% 31
Channel Islands -4 7 £700 -5.72% 4
Northern Ireland +1 2 - - 79

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 17 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 1,934 (31.38%) Security Cleared
2 1,570 (25.47%) Azure
3 1,449 (23.51%) SC Cleared
4 1,295 (21.01%) AWS
5 1,131 (18.35%) Stakeholder Management
6 952 (15.45%) Roadmaps
7 879 (14.26%) Migration
8 841 (13.65%) Microsoft
9 802 (13.01%) Enterprise Architecture
10 779 (12.64%) AI
11 773 (12.54%) Technical Leadership
12 675 (10.95%) Agile
13 643 (10.43%) DevOps
14 636 (10.32%) Data Modelling
15 628 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 619 (10.04%) CI/CD
17 612 (9.93%) Data Architecture
18 579 (9.39%) Integration Patterns
19 533 (8.65%) Analytics
20 505 (8.19%) Security Architecture
21 502 (8.15%) TOGAF
22 489 (7.93%) GCP
23 471 (7.64%) Architectural Patterns
24 415 (6.73%) Event-Driven
25 409 (6.64%) Microservices
26 403 (6.54%) Data Governance
27 387 (6.28%) Architecture Governance
28 386 (6.26%) DV Cleared
29 381 (6.18%) Cybersecurity
29 381 (6.18%) 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 80 (1.30%) SAS
2 72 (1.17%) SharePoint
3 60 (0.97%) Confluence
4 45 (0.73%) Apache
5 40 (0.65%) Apache Spark
6 36 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
7 34 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
8 23 (0.37%) CMS
9 22 (0.36%) Palantir Foundry
10 16 (0.26%) OpenStack
11 10 (0.16%) NetWeaver
12 8 (0.13%) SAP EP
13 7 (0.11%) Documentum
14 6 (0.097%) Appian
14 6 (0.097%) ArcGIS
15 5 (0.081%) Camunda
15 5 (0.081%) Headless CMS
16 4 (0.065%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 4 (0.065%) Jupyter
16 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 (0.097%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.032%) Windchill
9 1 (0.016%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.016%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.016%) Notion
9 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 170 (2.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
3 33 (0.54%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 17 (0.28%) Teamcenter
5 16 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
5 16 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
5 16 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
6 15 (0.24%) SAP ERP
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
7 14 (0.23%) SAP MDG
8 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
9 12 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
10 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.13%) SAP CRM
12 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 7 (0.11%) Maximo
14 6 (0.097%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,570 (25.47%) Azure
2 1,295 (21.01%) AWS
3 489 (7.93%) GCP
4 304 (4.93%) Power Platform
5 238 (3.86%) SaaS
6 215 (3.49%) Entra ID
7 198 (3.21%) Serverless
8 149 (2.42%) Dynamics 365
9 147 (2.39%) GitHub
10 135 (2.19%) Microsoft 365
11 127 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
12 116 (1.88%) Snowflake
13 102 (1.66%) PaaS
14 91 (1.48%) AWS Lambda
15 81 (1.31%) Amazon S3
16 73 (1.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 71 (1.15%) IaaS
18 70 (1.14%) OCI
19 65 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
20 64 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 162 (2.63%) Firewall
2 149 (2.42%) Network Security
3 99 (1.61%) WAN
4 81 (1.31%) VPN
5 77 (1.25%) DNS
6 68 (1.10%) LAN
7 47 (0.76%) BGP
7 47 (0.76%) SD-WAN
8 40 (0.65%) MPLS
9 38 (0.62%) DHCP
10 36 (0.58%) TCP/IP
11 29 (0.47%) VLAN
12 28 (0.45%) VXLAN
13 26 (0.42%) SAN
14 24 (0.39%) NX-OS
15 22 (0.36%) Wireless
16 20 (0.32%) BIG-IP
16 20 (0.32%) NAS
16 20 (0.32%) OSPF
17 19 (0.31%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 221 (3.59%) Metadata
2 211 (3.42%) Data Lake
3 192 (3.12%) Power BI
4 188 (3.05%) Data Warehouse
5 66 (1.07%) NoSQL
6 51 (0.83%) BigQuery
7 50 (0.81%) SQL Server
8 48 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
9 47 (0.76%) PostgreSQL
10 41 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
11 40 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
11 40 (0.65%) Delta Lake
12 37 (0.60%) Oracle Database
13 35 (0.57%) Big Data
14 32 (0.52%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 30 (0.49%) Semantic Layer
16 27 (0.44%) Relational Database
17 23 (0.37%) MongoDB
18 22 (0.36%) GIS
18 22 (0.36%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 85 (1.38%) JIRA
2 80 (1.30%) Git
3 62 (1.01%) Jenkins
4 43 (0.70%) GitLab
5 18 (0.29%) ERwin
6 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 10 (0.16%) Postman
8 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 9 (0.15%) MSI
8 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
8 9 (0.15%) RStudio
9 7 (0.11%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.11%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.097%) Hudson
10 6 (0.097%) 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 1,249 (20.27%) Social Skills
2 885 (14.36%) Finance
3 705 (11.44%) Public Sector
4 322 (5.22%) Banking
5 293 (4.75%) Analytical Skills
6 275 (4.46%) Retail
7 174 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
8 149 (2.42%) Manufacturing
9 141 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
10 133 (2.16%) Telecoms
11 118 (1.91%) Legal
12 75 (1.22%) Marketing
13 64 (1.04%) Billing
14 59 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 55 (0.89%) Aerospace
15 55 (0.89%) Military
16 41 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
17 38 (0.62%) Law
18 37 (0.60%) Police
19 36 (0.58%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 298 (4.84%) REST
2 260 (4.22%) Terraform
3 181 (2.94%) Middleware
4 160 (2.60%) Kafka
5 138 (2.24%) SOAP
6 126 (2.04%) .NET
7 122 (1.98%) OAuth
8 75 (1.22%) JSON
8 75 (1.22%) Oracle Fusion
9 65 (1.05%) OpenID
9 65 (1.05%) SAML
10 60 (0.97%) OAuth2
11 55 (0.89%) LDAP
12 48 (0.78%) PySpark
13 47 (0.76%) XML
14 45 (0.73%) RESTful
15 41 (0.67%) .NET Framework
16 40 (0.65%) SailPoint
17 38 (0.62%) React
18 35 (0.57%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 520 (8.44%) Cloud Native
2 195 (3.16%) Data Centre
3 180 (2.92%) Onboarding
4 175 (2.84%) Management Information System
5 151 (2.45%) Product Ownership
6 146 (2.37%) Enterprise Software
7 144 (2.34%) Distributed Systems
8 141 (2.29%) AI Agents
9 140 (2.27%) Hybrid Cloud
10 136 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
11 99 (1.61%) CMDB
12 95 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
13 93 (1.51%) Operational Technology
14 89 (1.44%) Public Cloud
15 80 (1.30%) Enterprise Cloud
16 66 (1.07%) Private Cloud
17 61 (0.99%) Data Structures
17 61 (0.99%) Security Posture
18 48 (0.78%) Taxonomies
19 46 (0.75%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 128 (2.08%) Windows
2 105 (1.70%) Linux
3 51 (0.83%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (0.39%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
6 9 (0.15%) Android
6 9 (0.15%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.097%) zOS
9 5 (0.081%) Solaris
10 4 (0.065%) Alpine Linux
10 4 (0.065%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.065%) VMS
11 3 (0.049%) CentOS
12 2 (0.032%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.032%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.032%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.032%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.032%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,131 (18.35%) Stakeholder Management
2 952 (15.45%) Roadmaps
3 879 (14.26%) Migration
4 802 (13.01%) Enterprise Architecture
5 779 (12.64%) AI
6 773 (12.54%) Technical Leadership
7 675 (10.95%) Agile
8 643 (10.43%) DevOps
9 636 (10.32%) Data Modelling
10 628 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 619 (10.04%) CI/CD
12 612 (9.93%) Data Architecture
13 579 (9.39%) Integration Patterns
14 533 (8.65%) Analytics
15 505 (8.19%) Security Architecture
16 502 (8.15%) TOGAF
17 471 (7.64%) Architectural Patterns
18 415 (6.73%) Event-Driven
19 409 (6.64%) Microservices
20 403 (6.54%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 268 (4.35%) Python
2 264 (4.28%) Java
2 264 (4.28%) SQL
3 129 (2.09%) JavaScript
4 111 (1.80%) PowerShell
5 54 (0.88%) TypeScript
6 50 (0.81%) C#
7 48 (0.78%) Bash
8 43 (0.70%) Bicep
9 33 (0.54%) Apex Code
10 24 (0.39%) ABAP
11 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 16 (0.26%) Ruby
11 16 (0.26%) Shell Script
12 11 (0.18%) Groovy
12 11 (0.18%) R
13 10 (0.16%) C++
13 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
14 9 (0.15%) Rust
15 8 (0.13%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,934 (31.38%) Security Cleared
2 1,449 (23.51%) SC Cleared
3 386 (6.26%) DV Cleared
4 167 (2.71%) Degree
5 158 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
6 156 (2.53%) CISSP
7 118 (1.91%) Azure Certification
8 115 (1.87%) AWS Certification
9 108 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
10 92 (1.49%) TOGAF Certification
11 73 (1.18%) CISM
12 68 (1.10%) Computer Science Degree
13 50 (0.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 48 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
15 42 (0.68%) CCNP
16 41 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 37 (0.60%) CCSP
18 32 (0.52%) Master's Degree
19 24 (0.39%) CISA
20 22 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 256 (4.15%) Data Quality
2 235 (3.81%) NIST
3 201 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 162 (2.63%) GDPR
5 124 (2.01%) NCSC
6 84 (1.36%) GRC
7 62 (1.01%) QA
8 41 (0.67%) PCI DSS
9 38 (0.62%) Accessibility
10 33 (0.54%) NIST 800
11 32 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 24 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
12 24 (0.39%) SLA
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 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
17 14 (0.23%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 188 (3.05%) Active Directory
2 112 (1.82%) Docker
3 85 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 48 (0.78%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
6 23 (0.37%) vSphere
7 20 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 18 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 15 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.097%) NFS
11 4 (0.065%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 4 (0.065%) KVM
11 4 (0.065%) Postfix
11 4 (0.065%) Varnish
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.049%) Sendmail
12 3 (0.049%) SRDF
12 3 (0.049%) vCloud
13 2 (0.032%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 298 (4.84%) Kubernetes
2 107 (1.74%) Ansible
3 50 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
4 48 (0.78%) Grafana
5 38 (0.62%) Prometheus
6 28 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.29%) Argo
8 14 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 11 (0.18%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.16%) WMI
11 9 (0.15%) FortiGate
11 9 (0.15%) Istio
12 8 (0.13%) CASB
13 7 (0.11%) NetBackup
13 7 (0.11%) SCCM
14 6 (0.097%) Puppet
15 5 (0.081%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.081%) Progress Chef
15 5 (0.081%) vRealize
Vendors
1 841 (13.65%) Microsoft
2 359 (5.83%) SAP
3 314 (5.09%) ServiceNow
4 309 (5.01%) Oracle
5 291 (4.72%) Databricks
6 211 (3.42%) Salesforce
7 197 (3.20%) Google
8 154 (2.50%) Cisco
9 146 (2.37%) VMware
10 85 (1.38%) CyberArk
11 81 (1.31%) MuleSoft
12 63 (1.02%) IBM
13 56 (0.91%) Workday
14 53 (0.86%) Palo Alto
15 50 (0.81%) Foundry
16 41 (0.67%) Informatica
17 39 (0.63%) Adobe
17 39 (0.63%) Ariba
17 39 (0.63%) Splunk
18 38 (0.62%) Red Hat