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 27 May 2026.

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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +7 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,377 2,832 4,403
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.03% 9.91% 10.32%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.95% 10.74% 11.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,555 1,830 2,820
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £537 £560
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £618 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% -3.85% -0.76%
75th Percentile £725 £713 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £613 £600 £650
% change year-on-year +2.08% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 136 30 93
10th Percentile £46.00 £51.15 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.38 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £81.69 £85.65
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.70 £88.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.91 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.84% +4.15% -

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 44,984 26,371 39,600
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.30% 92.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,456 17,159 25,763
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,981 1,009 2,752
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.04 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.53 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.38% -24.58% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.50 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +70.97% -37.13% -5.88%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 27 May 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 4,599 £620 -0.80% 1,550
UK excluding London +9 2,403 £613 +2.08% 878
London +5 2,224 £625 -3.85% 785
Work from Home +3 1,432 £600 - 759
South East +6 702 £625 +0.60% 223
North of England +4 666 £600 - 236
Midlands +2 436 £600 +0.08% 102
North West +5 372 £608 +4.29% 127
West Midlands -1 314 £620 +3.33% 74
South West 0 254 £650 +8.33% 130
Yorkshire +10 252 £557 -7.25% 67
East of England +20 202 £575 -4.17% 56
Scotland +13 148 £650 +4.00% 65
East Midlands +1 116 £560 +6.46% 28
North East +5 50 £575 -4.17% 45
Wales -7 30 £600 +25.00% 51
Northern Ireland +6 7 £475 -28.30% 23

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 27 May 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 1,627 (30.26%) Security Cleared
2 1,317 (24.49%) Azure
3 1,198 (22.28%) SC Cleared
4 1,144 (21.28%) AWS
5 731 (13.59%) Roadmaps
6 724 (13.46%) Migration
7 703 (13.07%) Microsoft
8 605 (11.25%) Agile
9 603 (11.21%) Stakeholder Management
10 594 (11.05%) DevOps
11 564 (10.49%) CI/CD
12 532 (9.89%) Enterprise Architecture
13 506 (9.41%) AI
14 499 (9.28%) Data Modelling
15 490 (9.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 481 (8.95%) Technical Leadership
17 467 (8.69%) Integration Patterns
18 438 (8.15%) Data Architecture
19 429 (7.98%) Architectural Patterns
20 415 (7.72%) Analytics
21 411 (7.64%) GCP
22 408 (7.59%) TOGAF
23 405 (7.53%) Microservices
24 357 (6.64%) Problem-Solving
25 342 (6.36%) Architectural Design
26 327 (6.08%) Python
27 315 (5.86%) Infrastructure as Code
28 313 (5.82%) Security Architecture
29 309 (5.75%) SAP
30 307 (5.71%) DV Cleared

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
1 119 (2.21%) SharePoint
2 87 (1.62%) Confluence
3 50 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (0.60%) Apache Spark
5 30 (0.56%) Apache
6 28 (0.52%) SAS
7 20 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.30%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.30%) Appian
8 16 (0.30%) CMS
9 15 (0.28%) nginx
9 15 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
9 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.24%) OpenStack
11 9 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
11 9 (0.17%) Camunda
12 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
13 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
13 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 24 (0.45%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 20 (0.37%) MS Visio
3 14 (0.26%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.19%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.13%) Revit
6 6 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.074%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.056%) Windchill
9 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 136 (2.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (0.80%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 21 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
5 18 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
6 17 (0.32%) SAP ERP
7 15 (0.28%) Teamcenter
7 15 (0.28%) Workday HCM
8 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
9 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
10 8 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
11 7 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
11 7 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
11 7 (0.13%) SAP EWM
11 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
12 6 (0.11%) SAP SD
13 5 (0.093%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,317 (24.49%) Azure
2 1,144 (21.28%) AWS
3 411 (7.64%) GCP
4 237 (4.41%) Power Platform
5 194 (3.61%) Serverless
6 186 (3.46%) Entra ID
7 177 (3.29%) SaaS
8 128 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
9 123 (2.29%) GitHub
10 115 (2.14%) PaaS
11 105 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
12 101 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
13 94 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
14 86 (1.60%) IaaS
15 83 (1.54%) Snowflake
16 82 (1.53%) Amazon S3
17 72 (1.34%) OpenShift
18 70 (1.30%) Amazon EKS
19 69 (1.28%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 67 (1.25%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 211 (3.92%) Firewall
2 176 (3.27%) Network Security
3 124 (2.31%) WAN
4 116 (2.16%) VPN
5 115 (2.14%) DNS
6 88 (1.64%) LAN
7 66 (1.23%) SD-WAN
8 41 (0.76%) BGP
9 39 (0.73%) DHCP
10 32 (0.60%) OSPF
10 32 (0.60%) Wireless
11 31 (0.58%) VLAN
12 30 (0.56%) MPLS
12 30 (0.56%) SAN
13 28 (0.52%) TCP/IP
14 27 (0.50%) NAS
15 24 (0.45%) Structured Cabling
16 23 (0.43%) NX-OS
16 23 (0.43%) VXLAN
17 21 (0.39%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 172 (3.20%) Power BI
2 141 (2.62%) Metadata
3 138 (2.57%) Data Lake
4 132 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
5 75 (1.39%) SQL Server
6 71 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
7 70 (1.30%) NoSQL
8 48 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
9 42 (0.78%) Tableau
10 40 (0.74%) Big Data
11 35 (0.65%) Oracle Database
12 32 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
14 28 (0.52%) BigQuery
14 28 (0.52%) Delta Lake
15 24 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
16 22 (0.41%) Relational Database
17 21 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
18 20 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
18 20 (0.37%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 101 (1.88%) JIRA
2 92 (1.71%) Jenkins
3 56 (1.04%) Git
4 47 (0.87%) GitLab
5 23 (0.43%) ERwin
6 13 (0.24%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.19%) Artifactory
7 10 (0.19%) MLflow
8 9 (0.17%) Bitbucket
8 9 (0.17%) Postman
9 7 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 6 (0.11%) Hudson
10 6 (0.11%) Selenium
11 5 (0.093%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.093%) JMeter
11 5 (0.093%) JUnit
11 5 (0.093%) Maven
11 5 (0.093%) PowerDesigner
12 4 (0.074%) Snyk
12 4 (0.074%) Terragrunt
General
1 994 (18.49%) Social Skills
2 804 (14.95%) Finance
3 578 (10.75%) Public Sector
4 302 (5.62%) Banking
5 264 (4.91%) Analytical Skills
6 167 (3.11%) Retail
7 146 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
8 131 (2.44%) Legal
9 116 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
10 98 (1.82%) Telecoms
11 90 (1.67%) Manufacturing
12 65 (1.21%) Military
13 61 (1.13%) Law
14 52 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
15 50 (0.93%) Billing
15 50 (0.93%) Marketing
16 46 (0.86%) Financial Institution
17 36 (0.67%) Aerospace
17 36 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 35 (0.65%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 260 (4.84%) REST
2 202 (3.76%) Middleware
3 137 (2.55%) SOAP
4 132 (2.45%) .NET
5 109 (2.03%) Kafka
6 91 (1.69%) LDAP
7 90 (1.67%) OpenID
8 88 (1.64%) OAuth
9 68 (1.26%) SAML
10 56 (1.04%) React
11 52 (0.97%) Oracle Fusion
12 51 (0.95%) OAuth2
12 51 (0.95%) RESTful
13 43 (0.80%) SailPoint
14 39 (0.73%) JSON
15 37 (0.69%) AngularJS
15 37 (0.69%) Web Services
16 32 (0.60%) Node.js
16 32 (0.60%) PySpark
17 27 (0.50%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 440 (8.18%) Cloud Native
2 184 (3.42%) Data Centre
3 142 (2.64%) Onboarding
4 139 (2.59%) Management Information System
5 137 (2.55%) Product Ownership
6 122 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
7 120 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
8 119 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
9 105 (1.95%) Hybrid Cloud
10 94 (1.75%) Public Cloud
11 88 (1.64%) Security Posture
12 84 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
13 81 (1.51%) Operational Technology
14 75 (1.39%) CMDB
15 65 (1.21%) AI Agents
16 46 (0.86%) Data Structures
16 46 (0.86%) Private Cloud
17 42 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
18 41 (0.76%) Mainframe
18 41 (0.76%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 155 (2.88%) Windows
2 105 (1.95%) Linux
3 36 (0.67%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.63%) Android
4 34 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 23 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (0.41%) Unix
7 11 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
7 11 (0.20%) zOS
8 10 (0.19%) VMS
8 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.11%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.074%) Solaris
13 3 (0.056%) AIX
13 3 (0.056%) CentOS
13 3 (0.056%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.056%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.037%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 731 (13.59%) Roadmaps
2 724 (13.46%) Migration
3 605 (11.25%) Agile
4 603 (11.21%) Stakeholder Management
5 594 (11.05%) DevOps
6 564 (10.49%) CI/CD
7 532 (9.89%) Enterprise Architecture
8 506 (9.41%) AI
9 499 (9.28%) Data Modelling
10 490 (9.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 481 (8.95%) Technical Leadership
12 467 (8.69%) Integration Patterns
13 438 (8.15%) Data Architecture
14 429 (7.98%) Architectural Patterns
15 415 (7.72%) Analytics
16 408 (7.59%) TOGAF
17 405 (7.53%) Microservices
18 357 (6.64%) Problem-Solving
19 342 (6.36%) Architectural Design
20 315 (5.86%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 327 (6.08%) Python
2 277 (5.15%) SQL
3 216 (4.02%) Java
4 160 (2.98%) PowerShell
5 91 (1.69%) JavaScript
6 63 (1.17%) C#
7 53 (0.99%) Bicep
8 42 (0.78%) TypeScript
9 33 (0.61%) Bash
10 21 (0.39%) PL/SQL
11 20 (0.37%) Apex Code
11 20 (0.37%) Ruby
12 16 (0.30%) Scala
13 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
15 7 (0.13%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.13%) VBA
16 6 (0.11%) ABAP
16 6 (0.11%) R
Qualifications
1 1,627 (30.26%) Security Cleared
2 1,198 (22.28%) SC Cleared
3 307 (5.71%) DV Cleared
4 199 (3.70%) Degree
5 114 (2.12%) Azure Certification
5 114 (2.12%) CISSP
6 107 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
7 105 (1.95%) AWS Certification
8 101 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
9 94 (1.75%) TOGAF Certification
10 81 (1.51%) Computer Science Degree
11 63 (1.17%) CISM
12 54 (1.00%) CCNP
13 51 (0.95%) Master's Degree
14 44 (0.82%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 44 (0.82%) Microsoft Certification
15 39 (0.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 25 (0.46%) CCSP
17 20 (0.37%) CCIE
18 19 (0.35%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 191 (3.55%) NIST
2 169 (3.14%) GDPR
3 145 (2.70%) Data Quality
4 144 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 114 (2.12%) NCSC
6 71 (1.32%) QA
7 41 (0.76%) PCI DSS
8 39 (0.73%) GRC
9 34 (0.63%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 25 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.39%) NIST 800
12 21 (0.39%) SEPA
13 18 (0.33%) COBIT
13 18 (0.33%) HL7
13 18 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 13 (0.24%) FINRA
14 13 (0.24%) IFRS
14 13 (0.24%) MiFID
14 13 (0.24%) SLA
System Software
1 195 (3.63%) Active Directory
2 106 (1.97%) Docker
3 98 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 71 (1.32%) VMware NSX
5 31 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
6 29 (0.54%) vSphere
7 22 (0.41%) Hyper-V
8 12 (0.22%) Varnish
8 12 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
8 12 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 10 (0.19%) vCloud
10 9 (0.17%) NFS
10 9 (0.17%) Squid
11 7 (0.13%) Postfix
12 5 (0.093%) RACF
13 4 (0.074%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.074%) Firmware
13 4 (0.074%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.056%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 260 (4.84%) Terraform
2 238 (4.43%) Kubernetes
3 106 (1.97%) Ansible
4 51 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
5 50 (0.93%) Grafana
6 38 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
6 38 (0.71%) Prometheus
7 33 (0.61%) FortiGate
8 28 (0.52%) vCenter Server
9 17 (0.32%) Argo
9 17 (0.32%) SCCM
10 15 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.22%) Istio
12 10 (0.19%) OPNET
13 8 (0.15%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.13%) Consul
14 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
14 7 (0.13%) Puppet
14 7 (0.13%) WMI
15 6 (0.11%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 703 (13.07%) Microsoft
2 309 (5.75%) SAP
3 304 (5.65%) ServiceNow
4 241 (4.48%) Oracle
5 218 (4.05%) Databricks
6 185 (3.44%) Salesforce
6 185 (3.44%) VMware
7 139 (2.59%) Cisco
8 119 (2.21%) Google
9 92 (1.71%) CyberArk
10 82 (1.53%) MuleSoft
11 65 (1.21%) Splunk
12 52 (0.97%) Palo Alto
13 50 (0.93%) Workday
14 47 (0.87%) Red Hat
15 45 (0.84%) Sparx
16 44 (0.82%) OpenAI
17 40 (0.74%) BeyondTrust
17 40 (0.74%) IBM
17 40 (0.74%) Juniper