Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 February 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,865 3,189 4,393
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.87% 10.23% 9.81%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.79% 11.02% 10.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,584 1,930 2,862
10th Percentile £460 £480 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £735 £738
90th Percentile £793 £799 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 34 49
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.78 £59.45
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.63 £61.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £70.00 £78.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% -10.26% +11.43%
75th Percentile £90.09 £80.03 £87.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £86.98 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.50 £71.25 £80.00
% change year-on-year +1.75% -10.94% +14.29%

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 35,834 28,947 41,693
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.51% 92.90% 93.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,581 17,764 27,572
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £406 £408 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £477 £490
% change year-on-year -0.42% -2.65% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,159 838 2,289
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.98 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.54 £21.25 £16.54
Median hourly rate £29.65 £33.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.17% -5.71% -
75th Percentile £61.25 £62.64 £61.60
90th Percentile £71.00 £75.00 £73.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.77 £31.76 £36.00
% change year-on-year -12.56% -11.78% +10.77%

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 6 February 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 6 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Architect in the UK

Architect
Top 17 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 6 February 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 -2 3,321 £625 - 1,070
UK excluding London +1 1,888 £600 -4.00% 794
London -2 1,464 £630 -3.08% 459
Work from Home -4 1,105 £625 - 562
South East +10 573 £625 - 271
North of England -2 474 £575 -4.17% 190
Midlands -2 326 £573 -4.54% 119
North West -5 266 £577 -3.83% 110
South West 0 258 £706 +12.96% 85
West Midlands -3 239 £600 -1.15% 91
Yorkshire -2 192 £563 -4.26% 51
East of England +13 137 £550 -12.00% 55
Scotland +10 123 £650 +4.00% 64
East Midlands -5 85 £468 -16.52% 28
Wales +6 32 £613 - 11
North East -14 21 £625 -1.96% 31
Northern Ireland -4 8 £500 -26.47% 13

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 February 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 1,172 (30.32%) Security Cleared
2 1,018 (26.34%) Azure
3 842 (21.79%) SC Cleared
4 806 (20.85%) AWS
5 572 (14.80%) Microsoft
6 558 (14.44%) Roadmaps
7 522 (13.51%) Stakeholder Management
8 515 (13.32%) Agile
9 486 (12.57%) Migration
10 441 (11.41%) DevOps
11 437 (11.31%) Enterprise Architecture
12 397 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 386 (9.99%) Data Modelling
14 378 (9.78%) CI/CD
15 375 (9.70%) Technical Leadership
15 375 (9.70%) TOGAF
16 344 (8.90%) Problem-Solving
17 327 (8.46%) Analytics
18 324 (8.38%) AI
19 310 (8.02%) GCP
20 308 (7.97%) Python
21 306 (7.92%) Data Architecture
22 276 (7.14%) Microservices
23 259 (6.70%) Integration Patterns
24 244 (6.31%) DV Cleared
24 244 (6.31%) Terraform
25 230 (5.95%) Architectural Design
26 227 (5.87%) Architectural Patterns
27 225 (5.82%) Cybersecurity
28 220 (5.69%) 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
1 107 (2.77%) Confluence
2 90 (2.33%) SharePoint
3 60 (1.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (0.78%) SAS
5 25 (0.65%) CMS
6 20 (0.52%) Apache Spark
7 19 (0.49%) Apache
7 19 (0.49%) OpenStack
8 18 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
9 16 (0.41%) Anypoint
10 14 (0.36%) WebLogic
11 11 (0.28%) Appian
11 11 (0.28%) ArcGIS
12 9 (0.23%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.18%) Ethereum
13 7 (0.18%) GeoServer
13 7 (0.18%) Hyperledger
13 7 (0.18%) nginx
13 7 (0.18%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.16%) Mule
Applications
1 51 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 30 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.16%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.052%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.026%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.026%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.026%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.026%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.026%) Revit
7 1 (0.026%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.026%) Trello
Business Applications
1 104 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.06%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 30 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.57%) Workday HCM
5 16 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 16 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
6 15 (0.39%) NetSuite
7 11 (0.28%) SAP EWM
8 9 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 9 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 9 (0.23%) SAP PM
9 8 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
9 8 (0.21%) SAP CO
9 8 (0.21%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.21%) SAP PP
10 7 (0.18%) Maximo
10 7 (0.18%) R3 Corda
10 7 (0.18%) SAP FI
11 6 (0.16%) Distributed Ledger
11 6 (0.16%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 1,018 (26.34%) Azure
2 806 (20.85%) AWS
3 310 (8.02%) GCP
4 148 (3.83%) Serverless
5 146 (3.78%) Power Platform
6 143 (3.70%) SaaS
7 128 (3.31%) Microsoft 365
8 119 (3.08%) Entra ID
9 86 (2.23%) Azure DevOps
10 85 (2.20%) AWS Lambda
10 85 (2.20%) IaaS
11 79 (2.04%) GitHub
12 76 (1.97%) Microsoft Purview
13 75 (1.94%) Amazon S3
14 71 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
15 69 (1.79%) PaaS
16 66 (1.71%) OpenShift
17 65 (1.68%) AWS CloudFormation
18 64 (1.66%) Azure Data Factory
19 62 (1.60%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 199 (5.15%) Firewall
2 129 (3.34%) WAN
3 122 (3.16%) Network Security
4 100 (2.59%) DNS
5 99 (2.56%) VPN
6 79 (2.04%) LAN
7 68 (1.76%) SD-WAN
8 39 (1.01%) BGP
9 30 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
10 29 (0.75%) MPLS
11 28 (0.72%) DHCP
12 24 (0.62%) TCP/IP
13 23 (0.60%) OSPF
14 21 (0.54%) Internet
14 21 (0.54%) Kerberos
14 21 (0.54%) SAN
14 21 (0.54%) VSAN
15 19 (0.49%) IPsec
15 19 (0.49%) SSL
16 17 (0.44%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 139 (3.60%) Data Warehouse
2 119 (3.08%) Metadata
3 100 (2.59%) Power BI
4 85 (2.20%) Data Lake
5 68 (1.76%) SQL Server
6 61 (1.58%) PostgreSQL
7 51 (1.32%) Tableau
8 39 (1.01%) Amazon Redshift
9 38 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
10 37 (0.96%) NoSQL
11 33 (0.85%) DynamoDB
11 33 (0.85%) Oracle Database
12 26 (0.67%) Amazon Athena
13 23 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
13 23 (0.60%) Relational Database
14 22 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
14 22 (0.57%) Big Data
14 22 (0.57%) Redis
15 20 (0.52%) GIS
16 19 (0.49%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 126 (3.26%) JIRA
2 88 (2.28%) Jenkins
3 45 (1.16%) GitLab
4 31 (0.80%) Git
5 22 (0.57%) ERwin
6 10 (0.26%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.23%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.16%) Postman
9 5 (0.13%) MSI
9 5 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.13%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.13%) Selenium
10 4 (0.10%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.10%) MLflow
10 4 (0.10%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.10%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.078%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.078%) JUnit
11 3 (0.078%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 944 (24.42%) Social Skills
2 607 (15.71%) Finance
3 459 (11.88%) Public Sector
4 278 (7.19%) Analytical Skills
5 220 (5.69%) Banking
6 130 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
7 105 (2.72%) Legal
8 95 (2.46%) Influencing Skills
9 78 (2.02%) Telecoms
10 76 (1.97%) Military
11 74 (1.91%) Retail
12 73 (1.89%) Presentation Skills
13 71 (1.84%) Marketing
14 59 (1.53%) Manufacturing
15 39 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 38 (0.98%) Billing
17 27 (0.70%) Law
18 26 (0.67%) Financial Institution
19 21 (0.54%) Back Office
20 20 (0.52%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 202 (5.23%) REST
2 116 (3.00%) SOAP
3 114 (2.95%) Middleware
4 89 (2.30%) .NET
5 74 (1.91%) Kafka
5 74 (1.91%) LDAP
6 72 (1.86%) OpenID
7 64 (1.66%) OAuth
8 63 (1.63%) SAML
9 51 (1.32%) JSON
10 38 (0.98%) OAuth2
10 38 (0.98%) RESTful
11 35 (0.91%) AngularJS
11 35 (0.91%) React
12 30 (0.78%) SailPoint
13 29 (0.75%) Oracle Fusion
13 29 (0.75%) PySpark
14 27 (0.70%) Web Services
15 26 (0.67%) Node.js
16 21 (0.54%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 282 (7.30%) Cloud Native
2 135 (3.49%) Product Ownership
3 120 (3.10%) Data Centre
4 115 (2.98%) Onboarding
5 102 (2.64%) Legacy Systems
6 92 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
7 89 (2.30%) PKI
8 77 (1.99%) Hybrid Cloud
9 69 (1.79%) Management Information System
10 67 (1.73%) Security Posture
11 63 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
12 62 (1.60%) Public Cloud
13 54 (1.40%) Operational Technology
14 47 (1.22%) CMDB
14 47 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
15 44 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
16 40 (1.03%) NHS
17 34 (0.88%) Data Structures
18 32 (0.83%) AI Agents
19 31 (0.80%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 167 (4.32%) Windows
2 105 (2.72%) Linux
3 42 (1.09%) Windows Server
4 30 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.47%) Windows 10
5 18 (0.47%) Windows 7
6 14 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (0.34%) Unix
8 12 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
9 11 (0.28%) Android
9 11 (0.28%) Apple iOS
10 9 (0.23%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.23%) VMS
11 6 (0.16%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.13%) zOS
13 4 (0.10%) CentOS
14 3 (0.078%) Windows Server 2008
15 2 (0.052%) Windows Server 2012
16 1 (0.026%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.026%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 558 (14.44%) Roadmaps
2 522 (13.51%) Stakeholder Management
3 515 (13.32%) Agile
4 486 (12.57%) Migration
5 441 (11.41%) DevOps
6 437 (11.31%) Enterprise Architecture
7 397 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 386 (9.99%) Data Modelling
9 378 (9.78%) CI/CD
10 375 (9.70%) Technical Leadership
10 375 (9.70%) TOGAF
11 344 (8.90%) Problem-Solving
12 327 (8.46%) Analytics
13 324 (8.38%) AI
14 306 (7.92%) Data Architecture
15 276 (7.14%) Microservices
16 259 (6.70%) Integration Patterns
17 230 (5.95%) Architectural Design
18 227 (5.87%) Architectural Patterns
19 225 (5.82%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 308 (7.97%) Python
2 205 (5.30%) SQL
3 176 (4.55%) PowerShell
4 133 (3.44%) Java
5 57 (1.47%) JavaScript
6 53 (1.37%) C#
7 34 (0.88%) Bash
7 34 (0.88%) Bicep
8 33 (0.85%) TypeScript
9 20 (0.52%) PL/SQL
10 15 (0.39%) Apex Code
11 14 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
12 13 (0.34%) R
13 10 (0.26%) Ruby
13 10 (0.26%) T-SQL
14 8 (0.21%) PHP
14 8 (0.21%) Scala
14 8 (0.21%) VB
15 7 (0.18%) Korn
15 7 (0.18%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,172 (30.32%) Security Cleared
2 842 (21.79%) SC Cleared
3 244 (6.31%) DV Cleared
4 189 (4.89%) Degree
5 103 (2.66%) AWS Certification
6 101 (2.61%) TOGAF Certification
7 100 (2.59%) CISSP
8 95 (2.46%) Azure Certification
9 70 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
10 67 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
11 60 (1.55%) Cisco Certification
12 59 (1.53%) Microsoft Certification
13 58 (1.50%) Master's Degree
14 54 (1.40%) CISM
15 51 (1.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 36 (0.93%) CCNP
17 32 (0.83%) CCIE
18 30 (0.78%) ISEB
18 30 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
19 17 (0.44%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (4.48%) GDPR
2 142 (3.67%) NIST
3 126 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 118 (3.05%) Data Quality
5 86 (2.23%) NCSC
6 56 (1.45%) QA
7 48 (1.24%) PCI DSS
8 34 (0.88%) COBIT
9 31 (0.80%) Accessibility
9 31 (0.80%) GRC
10 24 (0.62%) JSP 440
11 22 (0.57%) HIPAA
12 21 (0.54%) ISO 20022
13 19 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
14 18 (0.47%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 16 (0.41%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 15 (0.39%) MiFID
17 12 (0.31%) FINRA
18 11 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 11 (0.28%) SLA
System Software
1 162 (4.19%) Active Directory
2 115 (2.98%) Docker
3 89 (2.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 57 (1.47%) VMware NSX
5 35 (0.91%) vSphere
6 23 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
8 13 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (0.31%) Hyper-V
10 11 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
11 7 (0.18%) BitLocker
12 6 (0.16%) Varnish
13 5 (0.13%) RACF
13 5 (0.13%) Squid
14 4 (0.10%) Lustre
14 4 (0.10%) NFS
14 4 (0.10%) vCloud
15 3 (0.078%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
15 3 (0.078%) Ceph
15 3 (0.078%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 244 (6.31%) Terraform
2 185 (4.79%) Kubernetes
3 106 (2.74%) Ansible
4 62 (1.60%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.85%) OPNET
6 29 (0.75%) vCenter Server
7 28 (0.72%) FortiGate
8 24 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
8 24 (0.62%) SCCM
9 20 (0.52%) Grafana
10 18 (0.47%) Prometheus
10 18 (0.47%) WMI
11 17 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.39%) Argo
13 8 (0.21%) Istio
14 6 (0.16%) Kibana
15 5 (0.13%) Consul
15 5 (0.13%) Puppet
16 4 (0.10%) Data Guard
16 4 (0.10%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 572 (14.80%) Microsoft
2 220 (5.69%) SAP
3 217 (5.61%) ServiceNow
4 182 (4.71%) Oracle
5 179 (4.63%) Salesforce
6 153 (3.96%) VMware
7 119 (3.08%) Databricks
8 113 (2.92%) Cisco
9 107 (2.77%) Google
10 94 (2.43%) CyberArk
11 66 (1.71%) Splunk
12 65 (1.68%) Palo Alto
13 59 (1.53%) MuleSoft
14 49 (1.27%) Centrify
15 48 (1.24%) Atlassian
16 45 (1.16%) Remedy
17 44 (1.14%) OpenAI
18 43 (1.11%) Red Hat
18 43 (1.11%) Workday
19 40 (1.03%) Sparx