Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £618, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 July 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 16 12
Rank change year-on-year +6 -4 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,888 3,138 4,211
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.16% 9.62% 10.19%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.06% 10.50% 10.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,856 2,041 2,729
10th Percentile £475 £468 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £618 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £625 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +4.17% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 22 88
10th Percentile £46.00 £40.31 £59.25
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.75 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £68.75 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.45% -1.79% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £85.50 £85.65
90th Percentile £96.36 £99.86 £88.60
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 48,829 29,898 38,441
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 91.63% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,477 19,026 24,867
10th Percentile £325 £283 £295
25th Percentile £420 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £730 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,287 1,429 2,436
10th Percentile £15.75 £13.75 £13.49
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £18.00
Median hourly rate £43.69 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.72% -37.13% -8.57%
75th Percentile £67.84 £55.00 £64.25
90th Percentile £80.52 £73.75 £74.47
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £41.81
% change year-on-year +78.93% -39.85% +4.53%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 July 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 4,946 £620 -0.80% 1,796
London +7 2,510 £620 -4.62% 1,050
UK excluding London +7 2,486 £625 +4.17% 838
Work from Home +4 1,622 £600 - 737
North of England +7 716 £600 - 218
South East 0 715 £638 +6.25% 248
Midlands -3 414 £620 +7.83% 111
North West +6 384 £608 +1.33% 115
West Midlands -4 305 £626 +4.33% 80
South West -4 285 £625 - 116
Yorkshire +9 263 £600 - 65
East of England +17 176 £600 - 63
Scotland +7 171 £650 +4.00% 61
East Midlands +7 103 £600 +20.00% 30
North East +3 77 £600 -15.79% 38
Wales -1 32 £600 +11.11% 19
Northern Ireland +7 7 £475 -32.14% 12
Channel Islands +1 3 £575 -22.56% 1

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 22 July 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 1,775 (30.15%) Security Cleared
2 1,463 (24.85%) Azure
3 1,340 (22.76%) SC Cleared
4 1,306 (22.18%) AWS
5 880 (14.95%) Roadmaps
6 801 (13.60%) Migration
7 777 (13.20%) Stakeholder Management
8 746 (12.67%) Microsoft
9 691 (11.74%) Agile
10 690 (11.72%) AI
11 671 (11.40%) Enterprise Architecture
12 635 (10.78%) DevOps
13 608 (10.33%) CI/CD
14 599 (10.17%) Data Modelling
15 575 (9.77%) Technical Leadership
16 569 (9.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 554 (9.41%) Data Architecture
18 552 (9.38%) Integration Patterns
19 510 (8.66%) Analytics
20 498 (8.46%) TOGAF
21 490 (8.32%) Architectural Patterns
22 450 (7.64%) GCP
23 434 (7.37%) Microservices
24 397 (6.74%) Security Architecture
25 380 (6.45%) Event-Driven
26 376 (6.39%) Problem-Solving
27 358 (6.08%) Cybersecurity
27 358 (6.08%) Infrastructure as Code
28 357 (6.06%) Architectural Design
29 348 (5.91%) 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 96 (1.63%) SharePoint
2 72 (1.22%) Confluence
3 70 (1.19%) SAS
4 46 (0.78%) Apache Spark
5 45 (0.76%) Apache
6 40 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
7 32 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
9 21 (0.36%) CMS
10 16 (0.27%) Appian
11 15 (0.25%) nginx
12 13 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 11 (0.19%) ArcGIS
14 10 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 10 (0.17%) WebLogic
15 8 (0.14%) Camunda
16 7 (0.12%) Documentum
17 6 (0.10%) JBoss
17 6 (0.10%) NetWeaver
18 5 (0.085%) SAP EP
Applications
1 20 (0.34%) MS Visio
2 12 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.19%) Chatbot
3 11 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
4 8 (0.14%) Microsoft Office
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.051%) PlantUML
6 3 (0.051%) Windchill
7 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 157 (2.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.58%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
5 20 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.27%) SAP ERP
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
9 10 (0.17%) NetSuite
9 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
11 8 (0.14%) Maximo
11 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.14%) SAP MDG
12 7 (0.12%) SAP GRC
12 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,463 (24.85%) Azure
2 1,306 (22.18%) AWS
3 450 (7.64%) GCP
4 284 (4.82%) Power Platform
5 208 (3.53%) Entra ID
5 208 (3.53%) SaaS
6 199 (3.38%) Serverless
7 139 (2.36%) GitHub
8 126 (2.14%) PaaS
9 119 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
9 119 (2.02%) Microsoft 365
10 106 (1.80%) Azure DevOps
11 105 (1.78%) Snowflake
12 98 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
13 94 (1.60%) IaaS
14 87 (1.48%) Amazon S3
15 68 (1.15%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 66 (1.12%) Amazon EKS
16 66 (1.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 65 (1.10%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 212 (3.60%) Firewall
2 194 (3.29%) Network Security
3 111 (1.89%) VPN
4 107 (1.82%) DNS
5 105 (1.78%) WAN
6 77 (1.31%) LAN
7 53 (0.90%) SD-WAN
8 50 (0.85%) TCP/IP
9 46 (0.78%) BGP
10 43 (0.73%) DHCP
11 39 (0.66%) MPLS
12 36 (0.61%) VLAN
13 33 (0.56%) Wireless
14 31 (0.53%) SAN
15 29 (0.49%) OSPF
16 28 (0.48%) IPsec
17 27 (0.46%) NAS
18 25 (0.42%) Structured Cabling
19 24 (0.41%) VXLAN
20 22 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 197 (3.35%) Power BI
2 182 (3.09%) Data Lake
3 181 (3.07%) Metadata
4 173 (2.94%) Data Warehouse
5 73 (1.24%) NoSQL
6 62 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
6 62 (1.05%) SQL Server
7 52 (0.88%) Big Data
8 45 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.71%) BigQuery
10 41 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
11 40 (0.68%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.53%) Delta Lake
13 30 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
14 26 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
14 26 (0.44%) GIS
15 25 (0.42%) Relational Database
16 24 (0.41%) MongoDB
16 24 (0.41%) Semantic Layer
17 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 100 (1.70%) JIRA
2 75 (1.27%) Git
3 74 (1.26%) Jenkins
4 35 (0.59%) GitLab
5 26 (0.44%) ERwin
6 12 (0.20%) SonarQube
7 9 (0.15%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.15%) Bitbucket
8 8 (0.14%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.14%) MLflow
8 8 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
10 6 (0.10%) Claude Code
10 6 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
10 6 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.085%) Maven
11 5 (0.085%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.085%) Storybook
12 4 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 1,094 (18.58%) Social Skills
2 880 (14.95%) Finance
3 659 (11.19%) Public Sector
4 337 (5.72%) Banking
5 304 (5.16%) Analytical Skills
6 238 (4.04%) Retail
7 149 (2.53%) Documentation Skills
8 145 (2.46%) Influencing Skills
9 134 (2.28%) Telecoms
10 119 (2.02%) Legal
11 112 (1.90%) Manufacturing
12 62 (1.05%) Marketing
13 56 (0.95%) Billing
14 52 (0.88%) Financial Institution
15 49 (0.83%) Military
16 45 (0.76%) Law
17 42 (0.71%) Aerospace
17 42 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
18 39 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 30 (0.51%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 281 (4.77%) REST
2 210 (3.57%) Middleware
3 138 (2.34%) Kafka
4 131 (2.22%) .NET
5 127 (2.16%) SOAP
6 112 (1.90%) OAuth
7 77 (1.31%) OpenID
8 73 (1.24%) Oracle Fusion
9 65 (1.10%) SAML
10 58 (0.99%) OAuth2
11 55 (0.93%) React
12 53 (0.90%) JSON
13 51 (0.87%) RESTful
14 48 (0.82%) SailPoint
15 45 (0.76%) LDAP
16 40 (0.68%) PySpark
17 39 (0.66%) Web Services
18 37 (0.63%) .NET Framework
19 34 (0.58%) GraphQL
19 34 (0.58%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 489 (8.31%) Cloud Native
2 201 (3.41%) Data Centre
3 172 (2.92%) Management Information System
4 155 (2.63%) Onboarding
5 148 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
6 147 (2.50%) Product Ownership
7 139 (2.36%) Hybrid Cloud
8 137 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
9 115 (1.95%) Enterprise Software
10 106 (1.80%) AI Agents
11 95 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
12 93 (1.58%) Operational Technology
13 89 (1.51%) Public Cloud
14 86 (1.46%) CMDB
15 66 (1.12%) Enterprise Cloud
16 64 (1.09%) Security Posture
17 55 (0.93%) Data Structures
18 50 (0.85%) Private Cloud
19 46 (0.78%) IoT
19 46 (0.78%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 133 (2.26%) Windows
2 102 (1.73%) Linux
3 44 (0.75%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.56%) Android
5 32 (0.54%) Apple iOS
6 24 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (0.37%) Unix
8 12 (0.20%) zOS
9 8 (0.14%) AIX
9 8 (0.14%) VMS
10 6 (0.10%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.085%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.085%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.068%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.068%) Solaris
12 4 (0.068%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.051%) Mac OS
14 2 (0.034%) CentOS
15 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2008
15 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 880 (14.95%) Roadmaps
2 801 (13.60%) Migration
3 777 (13.20%) Stakeholder Management
4 691 (11.74%) Agile
5 690 (11.72%) AI
6 671 (11.40%) Enterprise Architecture
7 635 (10.78%) DevOps
8 608 (10.33%) CI/CD
9 599 (10.17%) Data Modelling
10 575 (9.77%) Technical Leadership
11 569 (9.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 554 (9.41%) Data Architecture
13 552 (9.38%) Integration Patterns
14 510 (8.66%) Analytics
15 498 (8.46%) TOGAF
16 490 (8.32%) Architectural Patterns
17 434 (7.37%) Microservices
18 397 (6.74%) Security Architecture
19 380 (6.45%) Event-Driven
20 376 (6.39%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 302 (5.13%) Python
2 284 (4.82%) SQL
3 269 (4.57%) Java
4 129 (2.19%) JavaScript
5 100 (1.70%) PowerShell
6 64 (1.09%) C#
7 58 (0.99%) Bicep
8 49 (0.83%) Bash
9 46 (0.78%) TypeScript
10 32 (0.54%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.36%) Ruby
12 12 (0.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 12 (0.20%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.19%) ABAP
13 11 (0.19%) Kotlin
13 11 (0.19%) Scala
14 10 (0.17%) C++
14 10 (0.17%) Go
15 9 (0.15%) PL/SQL
15 9 (0.15%) R
Qualifications
1 1,775 (30.15%) Security Cleared
2 1,340 (22.76%) SC Cleared
3 332 (5.64%) DV Cleared
4 196 (3.33%) Degree
5 149 (2.53%) CISSP
6 131 (2.22%) Azure Certification
7 127 (2.16%) AWS Certification
8 114 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
9 108 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 91 (1.55%) TOGAF Certification
11 80 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
12 72 (1.22%) CISM
13 52 (0.88%) CCNP
14 50 (0.85%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 46 (0.78%) Master's Degree
16 44 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
17 43 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 35 (0.59%) CCSP
19 22 (0.37%) DBS Check
20 21 (0.36%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 200 (3.40%) Data Quality
2 198 (3.36%) NIST
3 186 (3.16%) GDPR
4 150 (2.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 122 (2.07%) NCSC
6 65 (1.10%) GRC
7 63 (1.07%) QA
8 42 (0.71%) PCI DSS
9 40 (0.68%) Accessibility
10 30 (0.51%) NIST 800
10 30 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.41%) ISO 20022
12 23 (0.39%) SEPA
13 21 (0.36%) IFRS
14 20 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
15 19 (0.32%) HL7
16 17 (0.29%) COBIT
17 14 (0.24%) HIPAA
18 12 (0.20%) SLA
19 11 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 169 (2.87%) Active Directory
2 125 (2.12%) Docker
3 87 (1.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 55 (0.93%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 26 (0.44%) vSphere
7 20 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 15 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.15%) Squid
11 8 (0.14%) NFS
12 7 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
12 7 (0.12%) Varnish
13 6 (0.10%) Postfix
13 6 (0.10%) vCloud
14 5 (0.085%) IAG
15 4 (0.068%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 4 (0.068%) RACF
15 4 (0.068%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.051%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 300 (5.10%) Kubernetes
2 280 (4.76%) Terraform
3 107 (1.82%) Ansible
4 62 (1.05%) Grafana
5 53 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
6 50 (0.85%) Prometheus
7 47 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
8 22 (0.37%) Argo
8 22 (0.37%) vCenter Server
9 19 (0.32%) FortiGate
10 16 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 10 (0.17%) Istio
13 7 (0.12%) Consul
13 7 (0.12%) SCCM
14 6 (0.10%) CASB
14 6 (0.10%) EMC VPLEX
14 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
15 5 (0.085%) MOM
15 5 (0.085%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 746 (12.67%) Microsoft
2 348 (5.91%) SAP
3 310 (5.26%) ServiceNow
4 295 (5.01%) Oracle
5 250 (4.25%) Databricks
6 189 (3.21%) Salesforce
7 161 (2.73%) VMware
8 148 (2.51%) Google
9 132 (2.24%) Cisco
10 65 (1.10%) MuleSoft
11 61 (1.04%) CyberArk
11 61 (1.04%) IBM
12 57 (0.97%) Splunk
13 52 (0.88%) Palo Alto
14 51 (0.87%) Red Hat
15 50 (0.85%) Workday
16 49 (0.83%) Ariba
17 44 (0.75%) Foundry
18 39 (0.66%) OpenAI
19 37 (0.63%) F5