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 14 August 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,915 3,043 3,924
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.08% 9.24% 10.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.97% 10.12% 10.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,914 1,964 2,556
10th Percentile £481 £475 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £787 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% +0.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 18 78
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
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 £73.25 £87.00 £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% -3.89%

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 49,408 30,056 36,163
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.54% 91.31% 92.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,654 19,017 23,287
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
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 3,477 1,528 2,029
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.59 £14.23
25th Percentile £20.69 £17.29 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +2.00%
75th Percentile £67.98 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.13 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +71.50% -44.11% +23.29%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 4,981 £622 -0.56% 2,663
London +7 2,546 £625 -3.85% 1,576
UK excluding London +6 2,471 £620 +3.33% 1,238
Work from Home +4 1,593 £600 - 1,050
South East 0 728 £625 +4.17% 340
North of England +4 699 £600 - 304
Midlands -1 415 £625 +8.70% 146
North West +7 403 £600 - 167
West Midlands -2 302 £627 +4.42% 99
South West -6 300 £625 -2.34% 189
Yorkshire +3 233 £600 0.00% 102
East of England +13 155 £600 +8.11% 93
Scotland +17 149 £648 +3.60% 103
East Midlands +4 106 £600 +16.50% 47
North East -5 65 £600 -15.79% 35
Wales +5 41 £640 +2.40% 27
Northern Ireland +8 5 £475 -32.14% 44
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 14 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 1,813 (30.65%) Security Cleared
2 1,499 (25.34%) Azure
3 1,360 (22.99%) SC Cleared
4 1,290 (21.81%) AWS
5 875 (14.79%) Stakeholder Management
6 865 (14.62%) Roadmaps
7 830 (14.03%) Migration
8 768 (12.98%) Microsoft
9 724 (12.24%) AI
10 721 (12.19%) Enterprise Architecture
11 661 (11.17%) Agile
12 628 (10.62%) Technical Leadership
13 618 (10.45%) DevOps
14 611 (10.33%) CI/CD
14 611 (10.33%) Data Modelling
15 605 (10.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 573 (9.69%) Integration Patterns
17 572 (9.67%) Data Architecture
18 516 (8.72%) Analytics
19 485 (8.20%) TOGAF
20 466 (7.88%) GCP
21 459 (7.76%) Architectural Patterns
22 430 (7.27%) Security Architecture
23 403 (6.81%) Microservices
24 389 (6.58%) Event-Driven
25 364 (6.15%) Infrastructure as Code
26 361 (6.10%) Data Governance
27 360 (6.09%) Problem-Solving
28 358 (6.05%) Cybersecurity
29 345 (5.83%) 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 88 (1.49%) SharePoint
2 77 (1.30%) SAS
3 67 (1.13%) Confluence
4 44 (0.74%) Apache
5 42 (0.71%) Apache Spark
6 31 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
7 27 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
8 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.30%) CMS
9 18 (0.30%) OpenStack
10 9 (0.15%) ArcGIS
11 8 (0.14%) Appian
12 7 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 7 (0.12%) Camunda
12 7 (0.12%) Documentum
13 5 (0.085%) NetWeaver
13 5 (0.085%) nginx
14 4 (0.068%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.068%) SAP EP
15 3 (0.051%) Anypoint
Applications
1 21 (0.36%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.15%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.12%) Revit
5 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.085%) Microsoft Office
7 3 (0.051%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.051%) Windchill
8 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 158 (2.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 15 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
8 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 14 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
9 13 (0.22%) SAP ERP
10 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
10 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 10 (0.17%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.14%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.14%) SAP MDG
13 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
14 6 (0.10%) Endur
14 6 (0.10%) Maximo
14 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,499 (25.34%) Azure
2 1,290 (21.81%) AWS
3 466 (7.88%) GCP
4 297 (5.02%) Power Platform
5 213 (3.60%) SaaS
6 203 (3.43%) Entra ID
7 198 (3.35%) Serverless
8 144 (2.43%) GitHub
9 130 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
10 122 (2.06%) Microsoft 365
11 118 (1.99%) PaaS
12 115 (1.94%) Azure DevOps
13 112 (1.89%) Snowflake
14 98 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
15 87 (1.47%) Amazon S3
16 84 (1.42%) IaaS
17 67 (1.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 65 (1.10%) OCI
19 64 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
20 63 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 191 (3.23%) Firewall
2 169 (2.86%) Network Security
3 105 (1.78%) WAN
4 101 (1.71%) VPN
5 90 (1.52%) DNS
6 78 (1.32%) LAN
7 50 (0.85%) SD-WAN
8 47 (0.79%) BGP
9 41 (0.69%) DHCP
10 38 (0.64%) MPLS
10 38 (0.64%) TCP/IP
11 34 (0.57%) VLAN
12 30 (0.51%) SAN
13 26 (0.44%) OSPF
13 26 (0.44%) VXLAN
13 26 (0.44%) Wireless
14 25 (0.42%) NAS
15 23 (0.39%) Structured Cabling
16 21 (0.36%) NX-OS
17 19 (0.32%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 204 (3.45%) Power BI
2 198 (3.35%) Data Lake
3 179 (3.03%) Data Warehouse
4 174 (2.94%) Metadata
5 76 (1.28%) NoSQL
6 52 (0.88%) SQL Server
7 50 (0.85%) PostgreSQL
8 46 (0.78%) BigQuery
9 45 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
9 45 (0.76%) Big Data
10 43 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
11 38 (0.64%) Delta Lake
12 37 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
12 37 (0.63%) Oracle Database
13 28 (0.47%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 25 (0.42%) GIS
15 23 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
15 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
15 23 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
16 22 (0.37%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 83 (1.40%) JIRA
2 79 (1.34%) Git
3 60 (1.01%) Jenkins
4 35 (0.59%) GitLab
5 23 (0.39%) ERwin
6 11 (0.19%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.14%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.14%) Postman
8 8 (0.14%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) Maven
10 6 (0.10%) MSI
10 6 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.10%) Storybook
11 5 (0.085%) MLflow
12 4 (0.068%) ER Studio
12 4 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 1,131 (19.12%) Social Skills
2 863 (14.59%) Finance
3 667 (11.28%) Public Sector
4 320 (5.41%) Banking
5 305 (5.16%) Analytical Skills
6 251 (4.24%) Retail
7 151 (2.55%) Influencing Skills
8 136 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
9 133 (2.25%) Telecoms
10 130 (2.20%) Manufacturing
11 112 (1.89%) Legal
12 67 (1.13%) Marketing
13 58 (0.98%) Billing
14 51 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 49 (0.83%) Financial Institution
16 46 (0.78%) Law
16 46 (0.78%) Military
17 41 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
18 40 (0.68%) Aerospace
19 36 (0.61%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 288 (4.87%) REST
2 200 (3.38%) Middleware
3 140 (2.37%) Kafka
4 126 (2.13%) .NET
4 126 (2.13%) SOAP
5 121 (2.05%) OAuth
6 70 (1.18%) Oracle Fusion
7 64 (1.08%) OpenID
8 62 (1.05%) JSON
8 62 (1.05%) SAML
9 61 (1.03%) OAuth2
10 49 (0.83%) RESTful
11 45 (0.76%) React
12 39 (0.66%) PySpark
13 38 (0.64%) SailPoint
14 36 (0.61%) .NET Framework
14 36 (0.61%) XML
15 34 (0.57%) GraphQL
16 32 (0.54%) JWT
17 31 (0.52%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 502 (8.49%) Cloud Native
2 204 (3.45%) Data Centre
3 177 (2.99%) Management Information System
4 149 (2.52%) Onboarding
5 148 (2.50%) Product Ownership
6 142 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
6 142 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
7 141 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
8 131 (2.21%) AI Agents
9 126 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
10 107 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
11 89 (1.50%) CMDB
12 88 (1.49%) Operational Technology
13 87 (1.47%) Public Cloud
14 74 (1.25%) Enterprise Cloud
15 67 (1.13%) Security Posture
16 60 (1.01%) Data Structures
17 50 (0.85%) Private Cloud
18 45 (0.76%) IoT
18 45 (0.76%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 130 (2.20%) Windows
2 104 (1.76%) Linux
3 47 (0.79%) Windows Server
4 28 (0.47%) Android
4 28 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 21 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.36%) Unix
6 9 (0.15%) AIX
6 9 (0.15%) zOS
7 7 (0.12%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.12%) VMS
8 5 (0.085%) Data ONTAP
8 5 (0.085%) Solaris
8 5 (0.085%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.068%) Alpine Linux
9 4 (0.068%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.034%) CentOS
10 2 (0.034%) HPUX
10 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 875 (14.79%) Stakeholder Management
2 865 (14.62%) Roadmaps
3 830 (14.03%) Migration
4 724 (12.24%) AI
5 721 (12.19%) Enterprise Architecture
6 661 (11.17%) Agile
7 628 (10.62%) Technical Leadership
8 618 (10.45%) DevOps
9 611 (10.33%) CI/CD
9 611 (10.33%) Data Modelling
10 605 (10.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 573 (9.69%) Integration Patterns
12 572 (9.67%) Data Architecture
13 516 (8.72%) Analytics
14 485 (8.20%) TOGAF
15 459 (7.76%) Architectural Patterns
16 430 (7.27%) Security Architecture
17 403 (6.81%) Microservices
18 389 (6.58%) Event-Driven
19 364 (6.15%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 276 (4.67%) Python
2 274 (4.63%) Java
2 274 (4.63%) SQL
3 132 (2.23%) JavaScript
4 105 (1.78%) PowerShell
5 53 (0.90%) Bicep
5 53 (0.90%) C#
6 50 (0.85%) Bash
7 46 (0.78%) TypeScript
8 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
9 21 (0.36%) Ruby
10 17 (0.29%) Shell Script
11 16 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 13 (0.22%) C++
12 13 (0.22%) Kotlin
13 11 (0.19%) ABAP
13 11 (0.19%) Groovy
13 11 (0.19%) PL/SQL
14 10 (0.17%) Scala
15 9 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,813 (30.65%) Security Cleared
2 1,360 (22.99%) SC Cleared
3 339 (5.73%) DV Cleared
4 169 (2.86%) Degree
5 147 (2.49%) CISSP
6 128 (2.16%) Azure Certification
7 121 (2.05%) AWS Certification
8 119 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
9 103 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
10 86 (1.45%) TOGAF Certification
11 72 (1.22%) CISM
12 71 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
13 46 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 43 (0.73%) CCNP
15 42 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 41 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
17 32 (0.54%) CCSP
18 31 (0.52%) Master's Degree
19 21 (0.36%) CISA
19 21 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 217 (3.67%) Data Quality
2 209 (3.53%) NIST
3 183 (3.09%) GDPR
4 167 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 117 (1.98%) NCSC
6 77 (1.30%) GRC
7 61 (1.03%) QA
8 42 (0.71%) PCI DSS
9 37 (0.63%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.52%) NIST 800
10 31 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
11 22 (0.37%) ISO 20022
11 22 (0.37%) SEPA
12 21 (0.36%) IFRS
13 17 (0.29%) HL7
14 16 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
15 15 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 15 (0.25%) SLA
16 13 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 164 (2.77%) Active Directory
2 118 (1.99%) Docker
3 83 (1.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 47 (0.79%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.37%) vSphere
7 18 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.14%) NFS
10 7 (0.12%) Varnish
11 6 (0.10%) Postfix
11 6 (0.10%) vCloud
12 4 (0.068%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 4 (0.068%) IAG
12 4 (0.068%) KVM
12 4 (0.068%) Sendmail
13 3 (0.051%) Ceph
13 3 (0.051%) SRDF
14 2 (0.034%) Squid
Systems Management
1 295 (4.99%) Kubernetes
2 268 (4.53%) Terraform
3 105 (1.78%) Ansible
4 51 (0.86%) Grafana
5 44 (0.74%) Prometheus
6 43 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
7 38 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.34%) Argo
9 16 (0.27%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 11 (0.19%) FortiGate
12 11 (0.19%) Istio
13 7 (0.12%) SCCM
14 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
14 6 (0.10%) WMI
15 5 (0.085%) CASB
15 5 (0.085%) EMC VPLEX
15 5 (0.085%) MOM
15 5 (0.085%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 768 (12.98%) Microsoft
2 345 (5.83%) SAP
3 305 (5.16%) ServiceNow
4 303 (5.12%) Oracle
5 261 (4.41%) Databricks
6 194 (3.28%) Salesforce
7 167 (2.82%) Google
8 149 (2.52%) VMware
9 137 (2.32%) Cisco
10 68 (1.15%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.07%) IBM
12 57 (0.96%) CyberArk
13 52 (0.88%) Workday
14 51 (0.86%) Palo Alto
15 45 (0.76%) Foundry
16 43 (0.73%) Ariba
17 40 (0.68%) Splunk
18 39 (0.66%) Adobe
18 39 (0.66%) Red Hat
19 37 (0.63%) Sparx