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 26 June 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +6 -6 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,621 2,884 4,496
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.05% 9.53% 10.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.96% 10.35% 11.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,704 1,851 2,889
10th Percentile £465 £463 £490
25th Percentile £519 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £618 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 153 20 97
10th Percentile £46.68 £38.07 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.25 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £67.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.70% -3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £85.50 £87.00
90th Percentile £97.27 £98.70 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -7.14% - -

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 47,008 27,876 40,382
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.38% 92.16% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,552 17,889 25,942
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £415 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,155 1,223 2,887
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.76 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.08 £17.31 £16.58
Median hourly rate £43.61 £26.45 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.86% -29.47% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.37 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.65 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 4,770 £620 -0.80% 940
UK excluding London +10 2,483 £620 +3.33% 629
London +6 2,330 £625 -3.85% 461
Work from Home +3 1,532 £600 -0.04% 459
North of England +7 707 £600 - 172
South East +5 705 £625 +2.46% 184
Midlands +2 429 £613 +3.90% 77
North West +5 374 £612 +3.29% 93
West Midlands +2 309 £625 +4.17% 65
South West +3 279 £640 +4.49% 82
Yorkshire +10 272 £566 -5.75% 43
East of England +25 198 £600 - 45
Scotland +9 159 £650 +4.00% 45
East Midlands +7 114 £575 +15.00% 11
North East +11 68 £575 -8.00% 38
Wales +1 34 £620 +30.53% 24
Northern Ireland +6 7 £475 -32.14% 12
Channel Islands 0 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 26 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 1,676 (29.82%) Security Cleared
2 1,397 (24.85%) Azure
3 1,264 (22.49%) SC Cleared
4 1,226 (21.81%) AWS
5 796 (14.16%) Roadmaps
6 789 (14.04%) Migration
7 737 (13.11%) Microsoft
8 700 (12.45%) Stakeholder Management
9 654 (11.63%) Agile
10 625 (11.12%) DevOps
11 609 (10.83%) AI
12 598 (10.64%) CI/CD
13 589 (10.48%) Enterprise Architecture
14 540 (9.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 538 (9.57%) Technical Leadership
16 535 (9.52%) Data Modelling
17 521 (9.27%) Integration Patterns
18 486 (8.65%) Data Architecture
19 464 (8.25%) Architectural Patterns
20 457 (8.13%) Analytics
21 447 (7.95%) TOGAF
22 429 (7.63%) GCP
22 429 (7.63%) Microservices
23 376 (6.69%) Problem-Solving
24 356 (6.33%) Architectural Design
25 352 (6.26%) Infrastructure as Code
25 352 (6.26%) Security Architecture
26 341 (6.07%) Event-Driven
27 338 (6.01%) Cybersecurity
28 326 (5.80%) 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
1 116 (2.06%) SharePoint
2 85 (1.51%) Confluence
3 51 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (0.84%) SAS
5 32 (0.57%) Apache
5 32 (0.57%) Apache Spark
6 25 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.36%) Palantir Foundry
8 18 (0.32%) Appian
8 18 (0.32%) CMS
9 15 (0.27%) WebLogic
10 14 (0.25%) nginx
11 11 (0.20%) Anypoint
12 10 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 9 (0.16%) Camunda
13 9 (0.16%) OpenStack
14 7 (0.12%) ArcGIS
14 7 (0.12%) Tomcat
15 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
15 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 19 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 19 (0.34%) MS Visio
2 10 (0.18%) Chatbot
3 9 (0.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.12%) Revit
4 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.053%) PlantUML
5 3 (0.053%) Windchill
6 1 (0.018%) ArchiCAD
6 1 (0.018%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.018%) Notion
6 1 (0.018%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 151 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.69%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
5 18 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 18 (0.32%) SAP ERP
6 16 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
7 14 (0.25%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
9 9 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
10 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
11 7 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
11 7 (0.12%) SAP MDG
11 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.11%) Maximo
12 6 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
12 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
13 5 (0.089%) SAP CRM
13 5 (0.089%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,397 (24.85%) Azure
2 1,226 (21.81%) AWS
3 429 (7.63%) GCP
4 272 (4.84%) Power Platform
5 207 (3.68%) Serverless
6 194 (3.45%) SaaS
7 189 (3.36%) Entra ID
8 139 (2.47%) GitHub
9 135 (2.40%) Microsoft 365
10 120 (2.13%) PaaS
11 111 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
12 109 (1.94%) Dynamics 365
13 102 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
14 96 (1.71%) Snowflake
15 90 (1.60%) IaaS
16 88 (1.57%) Amazon S3
17 70 (1.25%) Amazon EKS
18 69 (1.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 67 (1.19%) AWS CloudFormation
20 65 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 221 (3.93%) Firewall
2 187 (3.33%) Network Security
3 124 (2.21%) DNS
4 119 (2.12%) VPN
5 118 (2.10%) WAN
6 81 (1.44%) LAN
7 68 (1.21%) SD-WAN
8 46 (0.82%) DHCP
9 45 (0.80%) TCP/IP
10 43 (0.76%) BGP
11 37 (0.66%) VLAN
12 35 (0.62%) MPLS
13 34 (0.60%) OSPF
14 33 (0.59%) Wireless
15 29 (0.52%) SAN
16 27 (0.48%) NAS
17 25 (0.44%) IPsec
17 25 (0.44%) Structured Cabling
18 24 (0.43%) BIG-IP
19 21 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 191 (3.40%) Power BI
2 160 (2.85%) Metadata
3 158 (2.81%) Data Lake
4 152 (2.70%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.33%) NoSQL
6 68 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
7 64 (1.14%) SQL Server
8 47 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
9 44 (0.78%) Big Data
10 39 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
11 37 (0.66%) BigQuery
12 35 (0.62%) Oracle Database
13 29 (0.52%) Delta Lake
14 28 (0.50%) Amazon Redshift
14 28 (0.50%) Relational Database
14 28 (0.50%) Tableau
15 24 (0.43%) MongoDB
16 22 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
17 20 (0.36%) Amazon Athena
17 20 (0.36%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 110 (1.96%) JIRA
2 89 (1.58%) Jenkins
3 68 (1.21%) Git
4 40 (0.71%) 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%) PowerDesigner
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
11 6 (0.11%) Sonatype Nexus
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
General
1 1,056 (18.79%) Social Skills
2 873 (15.53%) Finance
3 638 (11.35%) Public Sector
4 323 (5.75%) Banking
5 289 (5.14%) Analytical Skills
6 209 (3.72%) Retail
7 152 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
8 136 (2.42%) Legal
9 131 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
10 103 (1.83%) Manufacturing
11 98 (1.74%) Telecoms
12 54 (0.96%) Law
13 52 (0.93%) Military
14 50 (0.89%) Marketing
15 49 (0.87%) Billing
15 49 (0.87%) Financial Institution
16 42 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
17 39 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 38 (0.68%) Aerospace
19 34 (0.60%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 269 (4.79%) REST
2 206 (3.66%) Middleware
3 136 (2.42%) .NET
4 126 (2.24%) SOAP
5 118 (2.10%) Kafka
6 100 (1.78%) OAuth
7 95 (1.69%) OpenID
8 76 (1.35%) SAML
9 67 (1.19%) LDAP
10 66 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
11 60 (1.07%) OAuth2
12 56 (1.00%) React
13 53 (0.94%) RESTful
14 48 (0.85%) SailPoint
15 46 (0.82%) JSON
16 38 (0.68%) Web Services
17 37 (0.66%) AngularJS
18 36 (0.64%) Node.js
19 33 (0.59%) .NET Framework
20 32 (0.57%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 483 (8.59%) Cloud Native
2 197 (3.50%) Data Centre
3 165 (2.94%) Management Information System
4 152 (2.70%) Onboarding
5 146 (2.60%) Product Ownership
6 134 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
7 128 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
8 123 (2.19%) Hybrid Cloud
9 110 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
10 92 (1.64%) Public Cloud
11 90 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
12 87 (1.55%) Operational Technology
13 82 (1.46%) AI Agents
13 82 (1.46%) CMDB
14 75 (1.33%) Security Posture
15 49 (0.87%) Enterprise Cloud
16 47 (0.84%) Data Structures
17 46 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
18 44 (0.78%) NHS
18 44 (0.78%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 153 (2.72%) Windows
2 95 (1.69%) Linux
3 44 (0.78%) Windows Server
4 37 (0.66%) Android
5 36 (0.64%) Apple iOS
6 25 (0.44%) Unix
7 16 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (0.18%) zOS
9 7 (0.12%) VMS
9 7 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.089%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.089%) Mac OS
11 5 (0.089%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.089%) Windows 10
11 5 (0.089%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.071%) AIX
12 4 (0.071%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.071%) Solaris
13 2 (0.036%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 796 (14.16%) Roadmaps
2 789 (14.04%) Migration
3 700 (12.45%) Stakeholder Management
4 654 (11.63%) Agile
5 625 (11.12%) DevOps
6 609 (10.83%) AI
7 598 (10.64%) CI/CD
8 589 (10.48%) Enterprise Architecture
9 540 (9.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 538 (9.57%) Technical Leadership
11 535 (9.52%) Data Modelling
12 521 (9.27%) Integration Patterns
13 486 (8.65%) Data Architecture
14 464 (8.25%) Architectural Patterns
15 457 (8.13%) Analytics
16 447 (7.95%) TOGAF
17 429 (7.63%) Microservices
18 376 (6.69%) Problem-Solving
19 356 (6.33%) Architectural Design
20 352 (6.26%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 321 (5.71%) Python
2 278 (4.95%) SQL
3 249 (4.43%) Java
4 129 (2.29%) PowerShell
5 107 (1.90%) JavaScript
6 67 (1.19%) C#
7 58 (1.03%) Bicep
8 44 (0.78%) Bash
8 44 (0.78%) TypeScript
9 25 (0.44%) Apex Code
10 22 (0.39%) Ruby
11 14 (0.25%) Scala
12 13 (0.23%) Kotlin
13 12 (0.21%) PL/SQL
14 10 (0.18%) ABAP
15 9 (0.16%) C++
15 9 (0.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 9 (0.16%) Kusto Query Language
15 9 (0.16%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,676 (29.82%) Security Cleared
2 1,264 (22.49%) SC Cleared
3 298 (5.30%) DV Cleared
4 197 (3.50%) Degree
5 121 (2.15%) CISSP
6 118 (2.10%) Azure Certification
7 116 (2.06%) AWS Certification
8 113 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
9 106 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
10 80 (1.42%) Computer Science Degree
11 79 (1.41%) TOGAF Certification
12 63 (1.12%) CISM
13 53 (0.94%) CCNP
14 48 (0.85%) Master's Degree
15 43 (0.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 41 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
17 40 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 28 (0.50%) CCSP
19 22 (0.39%) CCIE
19 22 (0.39%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (3.47%) NIST
2 180 (3.20%) GDPR
3 169 (3.01%) Data Quality
4 152 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 126 (2.24%) NCSC
6 69 (1.23%) QA
7 45 (0.80%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.71%) GRC
9 36 (0.64%) Accessibility
10 27 (0.48%) ISO 20022
11 24 (0.43%) NIST 800
11 24 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.43%) SEPA
12 19 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
12 19 (0.34%) HL7
13 18 (0.32%) COBIT
13 18 (0.32%) IFRS
14 14 (0.25%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 11 (0.20%) PSD2
System Software
1 173 (3.08%) Active Directory
2 110 (1.96%) Docker
3 93 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 63 (1.12%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
5 26 (0.46%) vSphere
6 23 (0.41%) Hyper-V
7 17 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (0.21%) Varnish
9 9 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
9 9 (0.16%) Squid
9 9 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.14%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Postfix
11 7 (0.12%) vCloud
12 4 (0.071%) BitLocker
12 4 (0.071%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 4 (0.071%) IAG
12 4 (0.071%) RACF
12 4 (0.071%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 282 (5.02%) Terraform
2 261 (4.64%) Kubernetes
3 112 (1.99%) Ansible
4 51 (0.91%) Grafana
4 51 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.75%) Microsoft Intune
6 40 (0.71%) Prometheus
7 30 (0.53%) FortiGate
8 24 (0.43%) vCenter Server
9 21 (0.37%) Argo
10 16 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 14 (0.25%) SCCM
12 12 (0.21%) Istio
13 11 (0.20%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.14%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.12%) Consul
15 7 (0.12%) HAProxy
15 7 (0.12%) Puppet
16 6 (0.11%) EMC VPLEX
17 4 (0.071%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 737 (13.11%) Microsoft
2 326 (5.80%) SAP
3 300 (5.34%) ServiceNow
4 256 (4.55%) Oracle
5 235 (4.18%) Databricks
6 185 (3.29%) Salesforce
7 172 (3.06%) VMware
8 138 (2.46%) Cisco
9 136 (2.42%) Google
10 69 (1.23%) CyberArk
10 69 (1.23%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.12%) Splunk
12 57 (1.01%) Palo Alto
13 49 (0.87%) IBM
14 48 (0.85%) Red Hat
15 45 (0.80%) OpenAI
16 44 (0.78%) Workday
17 41 (0.73%) Foundry
17 41 (0.73%) Sparx
18 39 (0.69%) Ariba