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 20 June 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +8 -6 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,603 2,894 4,554
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.06% 9.69% 10.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.98% 10.51% 11.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,691 1,855 2,927
10th Percentile £463 £463 £490
25th Percentile £515 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £719 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £617 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.83% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 148 29 97
10th Percentile £48.38 £49.79 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £82.25 £87.00
90th Percentile £97.50 £89.71 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £73.25 £70.00
% change year-on-year -11.26% +4.64% -

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 46,784 27,533 40,775
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.37% 92.21% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,447 17,712 26,117
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £414 £402 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,114 1,185 2,993
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.91 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.50 £16.37
Median hourly rate £44.94 £27.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.40% -26.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -3.61%

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 20 June 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 20 June 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 20 June 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 4,761 £620 -0.80% 831
UK excluding London +9 2,491 £617 +2.83% 569
London +5 2,317 £625 -3.85% 386
Work from Home +4 1,522 £600 - 378
South East +5 706 £625 +4.17% 182
North of England +7 699 £600 - 156
Midlands +1 438 £613 +3.90% 66
North West +3 373 £610 +2.95% 82
West Midlands -1 311 £625 +4.17% 53
South West 0 274 £643 +4.90% 73
Yorkshire +7 267 £558 -7.00% 42
East of England +16 210 £588 -2.08% 38
Scotland +10 161 £650 +4.00% 25
East Midlands +6 121 £575 +15.00% 13
North East +7 66 £575 -8.00% 33
Wales +2 34 £620 +30.53% 23
Northern Ireland +5 7 £475 -28.30% 15
Channel Islands 0 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 June 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 1,675 (29.89%) Security Cleared
2 1,384 (24.70%) Azure
3 1,258 (22.45%) SC Cleared
4 1,202 (21.45%) AWS
5 788 (14.06%) Migration
6 786 (14.03%) Roadmaps
7 733 (13.08%) Microsoft
8 687 (12.26%) Stakeholder Management
9 650 (11.60%) Agile
10 636 (11.35%) DevOps
11 604 (10.78%) CI/CD
12 585 (10.44%) Enterprise Architecture
13 583 (10.41%) AI
14 538 (9.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 528 (9.42%) Data Modelling
16 527 (9.41%) Technical Leadership
17 512 (9.14%) Integration Patterns
18 475 (8.48%) Data Architecture
19 460 (8.21%) Architectural Patterns
20 447 (7.98%) Analytics
21 439 (7.84%) TOGAF
22 423 (7.55%) Microservices
23 415 (7.41%) GCP
24 369 (6.59%) Problem-Solving
25 361 (6.44%) Architectural Design
26 353 (6.30%) Security Architecture
27 344 (6.14%) Infrastructure as Code
28 334 (5.96%) Cybersecurity
29 331 (5.91%) Event-Driven
30 323 (5.76%) Python

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
1 121 (2.16%) SharePoint
2 89 (1.59%) Confluence
3 52 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (0.84%) SAS
5 33 (0.59%) Apache Spark
6 30 (0.54%) Apache
7 23 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
8 19 (0.34%) Palantir Foundry
9 17 (0.30%) Appian
9 17 (0.30%) CMS
10 15 (0.27%) WebLogic
11 14 (0.25%) nginx
12 13 (0.23%) Anypoint
13 11 (0.20%) OpenStack
14 10 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 9 (0.16%) ArcGIS
15 9 (0.16%) Camunda
16 7 (0.12%) Tomcat
17 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
17 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 24 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 19 (0.34%) MS Visio
3 14 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.18%) Chatbot
4 10 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.054%) PlantUML
6 3 (0.054%) Windchill
7 1 (0.018%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.018%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.018%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 149 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.71%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
5 18 (0.32%) SAP ERP
6 16 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
7 15 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
8 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
9 11 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 9 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
10 9 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
11 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
12 7 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
12 7 (0.12%) SAP MDG
12 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.11%) Maximo
13 6 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
13 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
14 5 (0.089%) SAP CRM
14 5 (0.089%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,384 (24.70%) Azure
2 1,202 (21.45%) AWS
3 415 (7.41%) GCP
4 265 (4.73%) Power Platform
5 205 (3.66%) Serverless
6 190 (3.39%) SaaS
7 184 (3.28%) Entra ID
8 138 (2.46%) GitHub
9 137 (2.45%) Microsoft 365
10 119 (2.12%) PaaS
11 111 (1.98%) Azure DevOps
12 107 (1.91%) Dynamics 365
13 99 (1.77%) AWS Lambda
14 94 (1.68%) Snowflake
15 91 (1.62%) IaaS
16 88 (1.57%) Amazon S3
17 69 (1.23%) Amazon EKS
18 67 (1.20%) OpenShift
19 66 (1.18%) GitHub Actions
20 65 (1.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 215 (3.84%) Firewall
2 185 (3.30%) Network Security
3 121 (2.16%) WAN
4 120 (2.14%) VPN
5 116 (2.07%) DNS
6 82 (1.46%) LAN
7 67 (1.20%) SD-WAN
8 42 (0.75%) DHCP
9 40 (0.71%) BGP
10 37 (0.66%) TCP/IP
11 35 (0.62%) VLAN
12 33 (0.59%) Wireless
13 32 (0.57%) MPLS
14 31 (0.55%) OSPF
15 29 (0.52%) SAN
16 27 (0.48%) NAS
17 25 (0.45%) Structured Cabling
18 24 (0.43%) IPsec
19 23 (0.41%) BIG-IP
20 21 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 188 (3.36%) Power BI
2 157 (2.80%) Metadata
3 153 (2.73%) Data Lake
4 148 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.34%) NoSQL
6 69 (1.23%) PostgreSQL
7 64 (1.14%) SQL Server
8 47 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
9 43 (0.77%) Big Data
10 37 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
11 36 (0.64%) Oracle Database
12 34 (0.61%) Tableau
13 30 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
13 30 (0.54%) BigQuery
14 29 (0.52%) Delta Lake
15 27 (0.48%) Relational Database
16 25 (0.45%) MongoDB
17 22 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
18 21 (0.37%) Amazon Aurora
18 21 (0.37%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 114 (2.03%) JIRA
2 92 (1.64%) Jenkins
3 64 (1.14%) Git
4 43 (0.77%) GitLab
5 26 (0.46%) ERwin
6 12 (0.21%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.18%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.16%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.14%) MLflow
9 8 (0.14%) Postman
10 7 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
12 5 (0.089%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.089%) JMeter
12 5 (0.089%) JUnit
12 5 (0.089%) Maven
12 5 (0.089%) Oracle Forms
12 5 (0.089%) PowerDesigner
13 4 (0.071%) Snyk
General
1 1,052 (18.78%) Social Skills
2 872 (15.56%) Finance
3 639 (11.40%) Public Sector
4 320 (5.71%) Banking
5 279 (4.98%) Analytical Skills
6 200 (3.57%) Retail
7 154 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
8 139 (2.48%) Legal
9 124 (2.21%) Influencing Skills
10 103 (1.84%) Manufacturing
11 95 (1.70%) Telecoms
12 58 (1.04%) Law
13 54 (0.96%) Military
14 47 (0.84%) Billing
14 47 (0.84%) Marketing
15 46 (0.82%) Financial Institution
16 45 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
17 40 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (0.70%) Aerospace
19 35 (0.62%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 268 (4.78%) REST
2 207 (3.69%) Middleware
3 135 (2.41%) .NET
4 128 (2.28%) SOAP
5 116 (2.07%) Kafka
6 99 (1.77%) OAuth
7 96 (1.71%) OpenID
8 77 (1.37%) SAML
9 75 (1.34%) LDAP
10 65 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
11 60 (1.07%) OAuth2
12 58 (1.04%) React
13 54 (0.96%) RESTful
14 47 (0.84%) SailPoint
15 45 (0.80%) JSON
16 39 (0.70%) Web Services
17 38 (0.68%) AngularJS
18 34 (0.61%) Node.js
19 31 (0.55%) .NET Framework
20 30 (0.54%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 474 (8.46%) Cloud Native
2 191 (3.41%) Data Centre
3 163 (2.91%) Management Information System
4 149 (2.66%) Product Ownership
5 146 (2.61%) Onboarding
6 132 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
7 127 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
8 120 (2.14%) Hybrid Cloud
9 118 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
10 94 (1.68%) Public Cloud
11 90 (1.61%) Operational Technology
12 89 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
13 82 (1.46%) CMDB
13 82 (1.46%) Security Posture
14 80 (1.43%) AI Agents
15 49 (0.87%) Enterprise Cloud
16 46 (0.82%) Data Structures
16 46 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
17 44 (0.79%) NHS
17 44 (0.79%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 155 (2.77%) Windows
2 98 (1.75%) Linux
3 44 (0.79%) Windows Server
4 37 (0.66%) Android
5 36 (0.64%) Apple iOS
6 25 (0.45%) Unix
7 18 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (0.18%) zOS
9 9 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.14%) VMS
11 7 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.11%) Windows 10
13 5 (0.089%) Data ONTAP
13 5 (0.089%) Mac OS
13 5 (0.089%) Ubuntu
13 5 (0.089%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.071%) Alpine Linux
14 4 (0.071%) Solaris
15 3 (0.054%) AIX
15 3 (0.054%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 788 (14.06%) Migration
2 786 (14.03%) Roadmaps
3 687 (12.26%) Stakeholder Management
4 650 (11.60%) Agile
5 636 (11.35%) DevOps
6 604 (10.78%) CI/CD
7 585 (10.44%) Enterprise Architecture
8 583 (10.41%) AI
9 538 (9.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 528 (9.42%) Data Modelling
11 527 (9.41%) Technical Leadership
12 512 (9.14%) Integration Patterns
13 475 (8.48%) Data Architecture
14 460 (8.21%) Architectural Patterns
15 447 (7.98%) Analytics
16 439 (7.84%) TOGAF
17 423 (7.55%) Microservices
18 369 (6.59%) Problem-Solving
19 361 (6.44%) Architectural Design
20 353 (6.30%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 323 (5.76%) Python
2 277 (4.94%) SQL
3 242 (4.32%) Java
4 140 (2.50%) PowerShell
5 103 (1.84%) JavaScript
6 66 (1.18%) C#
7 58 (1.04%) Bicep
8 44 (0.79%) TypeScript
9 38 (0.68%) Bash
10 24 (0.43%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.37%) Ruby
12 15 (0.27%) Scala
13 13 (0.23%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.23%) PL/SQL
14 11 (0.20%) Kusto Query Language
15 9 (0.16%) ABAP
16 8 (0.14%) C++
16 8 (0.14%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.14%) VBA
17 7 (0.12%) R
Qualifications
1 1,675 (29.89%) Security Cleared
2 1,258 (22.45%) SC Cleared
3 300 (5.35%) DV Cleared
4 195 (3.48%) Degree
5 121 (2.16%) CISSP
6 118 (2.11%) Azure Certification
7 113 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
8 112 (2.00%) AWS Certification
9 105 (1.87%) Cisco Certification
10 81 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
10 81 (1.45%) TOGAF Certification
11 63 (1.12%) CISM
12 52 (0.93%) CCNP
13 49 (0.87%) Master's Degree
14 43 (0.77%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 42 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
16 39 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 28 (0.50%) CCSP
18 22 (0.39%) DBS Check
19 20 (0.36%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 199 (3.55%) NIST
2 181 (3.23%) GDPR
3 166 (2.96%) Data Quality
4 153 (2.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 123 (2.20%) NCSC
6 68 (1.21%) QA
7 43 (0.77%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.71%) GRC
9 35 (0.62%) Accessibility
10 28 (0.50%) ISO 20022
11 24 (0.43%) NIST 800
11 24 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.41%) SEPA
13 20 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
14 19 (0.34%) HL7
15 18 (0.32%) COBIT
16 16 (0.29%) IFRS
17 14 (0.25%) HIPAA
18 13 (0.23%) FINRA
18 13 (0.23%) MiFID
System Software
1 178 (3.18%) Active Directory
2 106 (1.89%) Docker
3 97 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 67 (1.20%) VMware NSX
5 28 (0.50%) vSphere
6 24 (0.43%) Hyper-V
6 24 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (0.21%) Varnish
9 11 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
10 10 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
11 9 (0.16%) NFS
11 9 (0.16%) Squid
12 8 (0.14%) vCloud
13 7 (0.12%) Postfix
14 5 (0.089%) RACF
15 4 (0.071%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.071%) IAG
15 4 (0.071%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.054%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 270 (4.82%) Terraform
2 257 (4.59%) Kubernetes
3 116 (2.07%) Ansible
4 51 (0.91%) Grafana
5 49 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
6 40 (0.71%) Prometheus
7 39 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
8 33 (0.59%) FortiGate
9 26 (0.46%) vCenter Server
10 20 (0.36%) Argo
11 16 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 14 (0.25%) SCCM
13 11 (0.20%) Istio
14 9 (0.16%) Jamf Pro
15 8 (0.14%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.12%) Consul
16 7 (0.12%) HAProxy
16 7 (0.12%) Puppet
17 5 (0.089%) EMC VPLEX
18 4 (0.071%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 733 (13.08%) Microsoft
2 322 (5.75%) SAP
3 299 (5.34%) ServiceNow
4 255 (4.55%) Oracle
5 230 (4.10%) Databricks
6 182 (3.25%) Salesforce
7 179 (3.19%) VMware
8 143 (2.55%) Cisco
9 123 (2.20%) Google
10 72 (1.29%) CyberArk
11 70 (1.25%) MuleSoft
12 63 (1.12%) Splunk
13 59 (1.05%) Palo Alto
14 53 (0.95%) Red Hat
15 48 (0.86%) OpenAI
16 46 (0.82%) IBM
17 44 (0.79%) Workday
18 42 (0.75%) Sparx
19 40 (0.71%) Foundry
20 39 (0.70%) Ariba