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 3 August 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,928 3,100 3,951
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.16% 9.36% 10.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.04% 10.24% 10.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,895 2,000 2,580
10th Percentile £475 £467 £488
25th Percentile £525 £530 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £701 £738
90th Percentile £788 £780 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £622 £600 £646
% change year-on-year +3.67% -7.12% -0.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 19 77
10th Percentile £46.00 £37.19 £59.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £86.50 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.36 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -

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 49,223 30,273 36,284
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.63% 91.43% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,638 19,224 23,532
10th Percentile £331 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £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 3,407 1,497 2,061
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.63 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +0.58%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.95 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £43.90
% change year-on-year +76.94% -42.71% +11.00%

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 3 August 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 3 August 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 3 August 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 +7 5,002 £622 -0.52% 2,161
London +8 2,567 £625 -3.85% 1,266
UK excluding London +7 2,471 £622 +3.67% 1,039
Work from Home +5 1,608 £600 - 899
South East 0 719 £630 +5.00% 322
North of England +6 707 £600 - 242
Midlands -3 412 £625 +8.70% 138
North West +6 393 £600 - 114
West Midlands -1 306 £627 +4.42% 99
South West 0 299 £625 -2.34% 132
Yorkshire +7 247 £600 - 92
East of England +19 163 £600 +8.11% 70
Scotland +12 153 £650 +4.00% 78
East Midlands +6 99 £600 +20.00% 39
North East +2 72 £600 -14.29% 37
Wales +3 35 £620 +14.81% 19
Northern Ireland +7 7 £475 -32.14% 47
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 3 August 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 1,820 (30.70%) Security Cleared
2 1,485 (25.05%) Azure
3 1,376 (23.21%) SC Cleared
4 1,297 (21.88%) AWS
5 863 (14.56%) Roadmaps
6 824 (13.90%) Stakeholder Management
7 803 (13.55%) Migration
8 740 (12.48%) Microsoft
9 709 (11.96%) AI
10 688 (11.61%) Enterprise Architecture
11 672 (11.34%) Agile
12 618 (10.43%) DevOps
13 607 (10.24%) CI/CD
14 601 (10.14%) Technical Leadership
15 599 (10.10%) Data Modelling
16 582 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 571 (9.63%) Integration Patterns
18 559 (9.43%) Data Architecture
19 520 (8.77%) Analytics
20 490 (8.27%) TOGAF
21 475 (8.01%) Architectural Patterns
22 450 (7.59%) GCP
23 418 (7.05%) Security Architecture
24 417 (7.03%) Microservices
25 383 (6.46%) Event-Driven
26 369 (6.22%) Problem-Solving
27 357 (6.02%) Cybersecurity
28 354 (5.97%) Infrastructure as Code
29 351 (5.92%) Data Governance
30 345 (5.82%) SAP

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 92 (1.55%) SharePoint
2 77 (1.30%) SAS
3 69 (1.16%) Confluence
4 46 (0.78%) Apache
5 45 (0.76%) Apache Spark
6 32 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
7 28 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
8 24 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.30%) CMS
10 15 (0.25%) OpenStack
11 11 (0.19%) Appian
11 11 (0.19%) ArcGIS
12 10 (0.17%) nginx
13 7 (0.12%) Documentum
14 6 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 6 (0.10%) Camunda
14 6 (0.10%) NetWeaver
15 5 (0.084%) JBoss
15 5 (0.084%) SAP EP
16 4 (0.067%) Tomcat
Applications
1 19 (0.32%) MS Visio
2 13 (0.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.084%) Microsoft Office
7 3 (0.051%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.051%) Windchill
8 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 159 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.57%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 24 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
5 18 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.24%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
9 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
11 8 (0.13%) Maximo
11 8 (0.13%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
13 6 (0.10%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 1,485 (25.05%) Azure
2 1,297 (21.88%) AWS
3 450 (7.59%) GCP
4 284 (4.79%) Power Platform
5 209 (3.53%) Entra ID
6 208 (3.51%) SaaS
7 196 (3.31%) Serverless
8 140 (2.36%) GitHub
9 126 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
10 123 (2.07%) PaaS
11 113 (1.91%) Microsoft 365
12 112 (1.89%) Azure DevOps
13 107 (1.80%) Snowflake
14 96 (1.62%) AWS Lambda
15 89 (1.50%) IaaS
16 85 (1.43%) Amazon S3
17 64 (1.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 63 (1.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 62 (1.05%) Amazon EKS
19 62 (1.05%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 203 (3.42%) Firewall
2 184 (3.10%) Network Security
3 109 (1.84%) WAN
4 106 (1.79%) VPN
5 97 (1.64%) DNS
6 80 (1.35%) LAN
7 52 (0.88%) SD-WAN
8 45 (0.76%) BGP
9 43 (0.73%) TCP/IP
10 41 (0.69%) DHCP
11 37 (0.62%) MPLS
12 36 (0.61%) VLAN
13 32 (0.54%) SAN
14 31 (0.52%) Wireless
15 28 (0.47%) OSPF
16 27 (0.46%) NAS
17 25 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
17 25 (0.42%) VXLAN
18 23 (0.39%) IPsec
19 22 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 198 (3.34%) Power BI
2 187 (3.15%) Data Lake
3 173 (2.92%) Data Warehouse
4 167 (2.82%) Metadata
5 75 (1.27%) NoSQL
6 56 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
7 53 (0.89%) SQL Server
8 50 (0.84%) Big Data
9 42 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.71%) BigQuery
10 41 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
11 38 (0.64%) Oracle Database
12 37 (0.62%) Delta Lake
13 32 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
14 26 (0.44%) GIS
15 24 (0.40%) MongoDB
15 24 (0.40%) Relational Database
15 24 (0.40%) Semantic Layer
16 23 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
16 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 88 (1.48%) JIRA
2 78 (1.32%) Git
3 65 (1.10%) Jenkins
4 33 (0.56%) GitLab
5 24 (0.40%) ERwin
6 9 (0.15%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.15%) SonarQube
7 8 (0.13%) Claude Code
7 8 (0.13%) Cypress.io
7 8 (0.13%) MLflow
7 8 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.12%) Postman
8 7 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
9 6 (0.10%) Hudson
9 6 (0.10%) Maven
9 6 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.084%) Storybook
11 4 (0.067%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.067%) ER Studio
11 4 (0.067%) Snyk
General
1 1,108 (18.69%) Social Skills
2 882 (14.88%) Finance
3 672 (11.34%) Public Sector
4 331 (5.58%) Banking
5 304 (5.13%) Analytical Skills
6 247 (4.17%) Retail
7 149 (2.51%) Influencing Skills
8 136 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
9 132 (2.23%) Telecoms
10 120 (2.02%) Manufacturing
11 110 (1.86%) Legal
12 62 (1.05%) Marketing
13 56 (0.94%) Billing
14 50 (0.84%) Financial Institution
15 48 (0.81%) Military
16 47 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 46 (0.78%) Law
18 40 (0.67%) Aerospace
19 39 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
20 33 (0.56%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 277 (4.67%) REST
2 210 (3.54%) Middleware
3 138 (2.33%) Kafka
4 127 (2.14%) .NET
5 119 (2.01%) SOAP
6 118 (1.99%) OAuth
7 73 (1.23%) Oracle Fusion
8 68 (1.15%) OpenID
9 63 (1.06%) OAuth2
10 62 (1.05%) SAML
11 56 (0.94%) JSON
12 51 (0.86%) React
13 47 (0.79%) RESTful
14 45 (0.76%) SailPoint
15 41 (0.69%) PySpark
16 34 (0.57%) .NET Framework
17 33 (0.56%) GraphQL
17 33 (0.56%) Node.js
17 33 (0.56%) Web Services
18 32 (0.54%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 499 (8.42%) Cloud Native
2 196 (3.31%) Data Centre
3 180 (3.04%) Management Information System
4 149 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
4 149 (2.51%) Product Ownership
5 145 (2.45%) Onboarding
6 143 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
7 140 (2.36%) Hybrid Cloud
8 121 (2.04%) AI Agents
9 118 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
10 96 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
11 90 (1.52%) Operational Technology
12 87 (1.47%) Public Cloud
13 81 (1.37%) CMDB
14 67 (1.13%) Enterprise Cloud
15 64 (1.08%) Security Posture
16 58 (0.98%) Data Structures
17 51 (0.86%) Private Cloud
18 46 (0.78%) IoT
19 45 (0.76%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 126 (2.13%) Windows
2 102 (1.72%) Linux
3 46 (0.78%) Windows Server
4 30 (0.51%) Android
5 29 (0.49%) Apple iOS
6 24 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (0.37%) Unix
8 10 (0.17%) zOS
9 9 (0.15%) AIX
10 8 (0.13%) VMS
11 7 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
12 5 (0.084%) Solaris
12 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.034%) CentOS
14 2 (0.034%) HPUX
14 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
15 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 863 (14.56%) Roadmaps
2 824 (13.90%) Stakeholder Management
3 803 (13.55%) Migration
4 709 (11.96%) AI
5 688 (11.61%) Enterprise Architecture
6 672 (11.34%) Agile
7 618 (10.43%) DevOps
8 607 (10.24%) CI/CD
9 601 (10.14%) Technical Leadership
10 599 (10.10%) Data Modelling
11 582 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 571 (9.63%) Integration Patterns
13 559 (9.43%) Data Architecture
14 520 (8.77%) Analytics
15 490 (8.27%) TOGAF
16 475 (8.01%) Architectural Patterns
17 418 (7.05%) Security Architecture
18 417 (7.03%) Microservices
19 383 (6.46%) Event-Driven
20 369 (6.22%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 287 (4.84%) Python
2 271 (4.57%) SQL
3 267 (4.50%) Java
4 134 (2.26%) JavaScript
5 98 (1.65%) PowerShell
6 58 (0.98%) C#
7 57 (0.96%) Bicep
8 51 (0.86%) Bash
9 44 (0.74%) TypeScript
10 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.35%) Ruby
12 14 (0.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 13 (0.22%) Shell Script
14 12 (0.20%) C++
14 12 (0.20%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.19%) ABAP
15 11 (0.19%) Scala
16 9 (0.15%) Groovy
16 9 (0.15%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,820 (30.70%) Security Cleared
2 1,376 (23.21%) SC Cleared
3 338 (5.70%) DV Cleared
4 183 (3.09%) Degree
5 150 (2.53%) CISSP
6 129 (2.18%) AWS Certification
7 125 (2.11%) Azure Certification
8 113 (1.91%) Cisco Certification
9 112 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
10 92 (1.55%) TOGAF Certification
11 79 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
12 72 (1.21%) CISM
13 51 (0.86%) CCNP
14 49 (0.83%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 46 (0.78%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 43 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
17 37 (0.62%) Master's Degree
18 35 (0.59%) CCSP
19 22 (0.37%) CCNA
20 21 (0.35%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 204 (3.44%) Data Quality
2 203 (3.42%) NIST
3 181 (3.05%) GDPR
4 158 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 119 (2.01%) NCSC
6 73 (1.23%) GRC
7 60 (1.01%) QA
8 42 (0.71%) Accessibility
8 42 (0.71%) PCI DSS
9 30 (0.51%) NIST 800
9 30 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
10 23 (0.39%) ISO 20022
10 23 (0.39%) SEPA
11 21 (0.35%) IFRS
12 17 (0.29%) HL7
13 15 (0.25%) SLA
14 14 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
14 14 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 13 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 167 (2.82%) Active Directory
2 126 (2.13%) Docker
3 82 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 51 (0.86%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 23 (0.39%) vSphere
7 20 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 17 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.13%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Varnish
12 6 (0.10%) Postfix
12 6 (0.10%) vCloud
13 5 (0.084%) IAG
14 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
14 4 (0.067%) Squid
15 3 (0.051%) KVM
15 3 (0.051%) SRDF
16 2 (0.034%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 299 (5.04%) Kubernetes
2 274 (4.62%) Terraform
3 105 (1.77%) Ansible
4 55 (0.93%) Grafana
5 45 (0.76%) Prometheus
6 44 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
7 41 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
8 23 (0.39%) Argo
9 19 (0.32%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.22%) FortiGate
13 10 (0.17%) Istio
14 8 (0.13%) SCCM
15 6 (0.10%) CASB
15 6 (0.10%) EMC VPLEX
15 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.084%) MOM
16 5 (0.084%) NetBackup
17 4 (0.067%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 740 (12.48%) Microsoft
2 345 (5.82%) SAP
3 305 (5.15%) ServiceNow
4 299 (5.04%) Oracle
5 259 (4.37%) Databricks
6 191 (3.22%) Salesforce
7 151 (2.55%) VMware
8 145 (2.45%) Google
9 134 (2.26%) Cisco
10 64 (1.08%) MuleSoft
11 61 (1.03%) IBM
12 58 (0.98%) CyberArk
13 55 (0.93%) Palo Alto
13 55 (0.93%) Workday
14 47 (0.79%) Ariba
14 47 (0.79%) Foundry
15 45 (0.76%) Red Hat
16 44 (0.74%) Splunk
17 38 (0.64%) OpenAI
18 37 (0.62%) Fortinet