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 14 February 2026.

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

6 months to
14 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 4,053 3,203 4,397
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.10% 10.34% 9.81%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.02% 11.13% 10.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,706 1,949 2,835
10th Percentile £458 £475 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 32 44
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.43 £52.54
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +1.75% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £90.09 £81.00 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.33 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.50 £72.50 £78.37
% change year-on-year - -7.49% +11.96%

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 36,763 28,770 41,757
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.61% 92.92% 93.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,120 17,782 27,516
10th Percentile £303 £291 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +0.42% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,236 824 2,307
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.00 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £16.40
Median hourly rate £30.00 £33.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -5.71% -2.23%
75th Percentile £61.84 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £72.52 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year -6.80% -9.26% -

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 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 14 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 14 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 -1 3,476 £625 - 891
UK excluding London +2 1,961 £600 -4.00% 650
London -2 1,556 £630 -3.08% 377
Work from Home -3 1,138 £623 -0.40% 446
South East +9 599 £625 - 264
North of England -2 484 £575 -4.17% 148
Midlands -1 348 £573 -4.58% 89
North West -7 273 £577 -3.83% 87
West Midlands -2 258 £600 -0.79% 62
South West 0 248 £708 +13.20% 59
Yorkshire -3 192 £563 -2.17% 40
East of England +14 150 £550 -13.73% 45
Scotland +9 136 £650 +4.00% 43
East Midlands -2 88 £492 -13.30% 27
Wales +3 31 £600 +5.26% 7
North East -11 24 £625 -1.96% 23
Northern Ireland -1 9 £500 -26.47% 5

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 14 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 1,254 (30.94%) Security Cleared
2 1,070 (26.40%) Azure
3 907 (22.38%) SC Cleared
4 858 (21.17%) AWS
5 584 (14.41%) Roadmaps
6 583 (14.38%) Microsoft
7 537 (13.25%) Agile
8 533 (13.15%) Stakeholder Management
9 510 (12.58%) Migration
10 463 (11.42%) DevOps
11 459 (11.32%) Enterprise Architecture
12 405 (9.99%) Data Modelling
13 404 (9.97%) TOGAF
14 397 (9.80%) CI/CD
14 397 (9.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 384 (9.47%) Technical Leadership
16 353 (8.71%) Problem-Solving
17 351 (8.66%) Analytics
18 348 (8.59%) AI
19 330 (8.14%) GCP
20 326 (8.04%) Data Architecture
21 322 (7.94%) Python
22 288 (7.11%) Microservices
23 283 (6.98%) Integration Patterns
24 261 (6.44%) Architectural Patterns
24 261 (6.44%) DV Cleared
25 255 (6.29%) Terraform
26 238 (5.87%) Architectural Design
27 232 (5.72%) Cybersecurity
28 230 (5.67%) Data Governance

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
1 112 (2.76%) Confluence
2 95 (2.34%) SharePoint
3 57 (1.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (0.81%) SAS
5 24 (0.59%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.59%) CMS
6 18 (0.44%) Apache
6 18 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.42%) OpenStack
8 16 (0.39%) Anypoint
9 15 (0.37%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.32%) Appian
10 13 (0.32%) ArcGIS
11 12 (0.30%) nginx
12 9 (0.22%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.17%) Ethereum
13 7 (0.17%) Hyperledger
13 7 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.17%) Sitecore CMS
13 7 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 51 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 30 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (0.37%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.025%) ArchiCAD
6 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.025%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.025%) OrCAD
6 1 (0.025%) Revit
6 1 (0.025%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.025%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.025%) Trello
Business Applications
1 107 (2.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 25 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.54%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.39%) Salesforce CRM
7 12 (0.30%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.27%) SAP EWM
9 10 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.25%) SAP ERP
9 10 (0.25%) SAP PM
10 9 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.20%) Maximo
11 8 (0.20%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.17%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.17%) SAP CO
13 6 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
13 6 (0.15%) Oracle SCM
13 6 (0.15%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,070 (26.40%) Azure
2 858 (21.17%) AWS
3 330 (8.14%) GCP
4 151 (3.73%) Serverless
5 148 (3.65%) Power Platform
6 142 (3.50%) SaaS
7 131 (3.23%) Microsoft 365
8 129 (3.18%) Entra ID
9 91 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
10 88 (2.17%) IaaS
11 87 (2.15%) AWS Lambda
12 85 (2.10%) GitHub
13 79 (1.95%) Amazon S3
14 74 (1.83%) Microsoft Purview
15 73 (1.80%) PaaS
16 70 (1.73%) AWS CloudFormation
17 69 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
18 67 (1.65%) OpenShift
19 66 (1.63%) Azure Data Factory
20 65 (1.60%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 211 (5.21%) Firewall
2 134 (3.31%) Network Security
3 128 (3.16%) WAN
4 106 (2.62%) DNS
5 104 (2.57%) VPN
6 78 (1.92%) LAN
7 67 (1.65%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.94%) BGP
9 30 (0.74%) DHCP
9 30 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
10 29 (0.72%) MPLS
11 26 (0.64%) TCP/IP
12 24 (0.59%) OSPF
13 23 (0.57%) SAN
14 20 (0.49%) IPsec
14 20 (0.49%) Kerberos
15 19 (0.47%) Internet
15 19 (0.47%) SSL
15 19 (0.47%) VLAN
16 18 (0.44%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (3.75%) Data Warehouse
2 129 (3.18%) Metadata
3 105 (2.59%) Power BI
4 95 (2.34%) Data Lake
5 71 (1.75%) SQL Server
6 63 (1.55%) PostgreSQL
7 52 (1.28%) Tableau
8 42 (1.04%) NoSQL
9 38 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
9 38 (0.94%) Oracle Database
10 37 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
11 32 (0.79%) DynamoDB
12 26 (0.64%) Amazon Athena
12 26 (0.64%) Big Data
13 23 (0.57%) Relational Database
14 22 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
14 22 (0.54%) GIS
15 21 (0.52%) Amazon Aurora
15 21 (0.52%) Redis
16 19 (0.47%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 130 (3.21%) JIRA
2 91 (2.25%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.13%) GitLab
4 34 (0.84%) Git
5 23 (0.57%) ERwin
6 10 (0.25%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.22%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.22%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.17%) MLflow
9 6 (0.15%) Postman
10 5 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.12%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.12%) Selenium
11 4 (0.099%) Cucumber
11 4 (0.099%) MSI
11 4 (0.099%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.099%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.074%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.074%) Sonatype Nexus
12 3 (0.074%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 965 (23.81%) Social Skills
2 635 (15.67%) Finance
3 479 (11.82%) Public Sector
4 281 (6.93%) Analytical Skills
5 230 (5.67%) Banking
6 135 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
7 105 (2.59%) Legal
8 98 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
9 79 (1.95%) Retail
10 77 (1.90%) Military
10 77 (1.90%) Telecoms
11 75 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
12 69 (1.70%) Marketing
13 59 (1.46%) Manufacturing
14 39 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 37 (0.91%) Billing
16 25 (0.62%) Financial Institution
16 25 (0.62%) Law
17 21 (0.52%) Aerospace
17 21 (0.52%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 211 (5.21%) REST
2 132 (3.26%) Middleware
3 118 (2.91%) SOAP
4 92 (2.27%) .NET
5 80 (1.97%) Kafka
6 78 (1.92%) OpenID
7 76 (1.88%) LDAP
8 67 (1.65%) OAuth
8 67 (1.65%) SAML
9 51 (1.26%) JSON
10 42 (1.04%) OAuth2
11 39 (0.96%) React
11 39 (0.96%) RESTful
12 37 (0.91%) AngularJS
13 36 (0.89%) SailPoint
14 33 (0.81%) Oracle Fusion
14 33 (0.81%) PySpark
15 28 (0.69%) Web Services
16 26 (0.64%) Node.js
17 23 (0.57%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 296 (7.30%) Cloud Native
2 138 (3.40%) Product Ownership
3 126 (3.11%) Data Centre
4 113 (2.79%) Onboarding
5 108 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
6 98 (2.42%) Enterprise Software
7 89 (2.20%) PKI
8 83 (2.05%) Hybrid Cloud
9 74 (1.83%) Management Information System
10 66 (1.63%) Security Posture
11 65 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
12 63 (1.55%) Public Cloud
13 58 (1.43%) Operational Technology
14 49 (1.21%) CMDB
15 47 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
16 43 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
17 41 (1.01%) NHS
18 37 (0.91%) Data Structures
19 34 (0.84%) AI Agents
20 32 (0.79%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 167 (4.12%) Windows
2 105 (2.59%) Linux
3 41 (1.01%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.44%) Windows 7
6 15 (0.37%) Windows 10
7 12 (0.30%) Unix
7 12 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
7 12 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.25%) Android
8 10 (0.25%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.25%) VMS
9 9 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.15%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.15%) zOS
11 4 (0.099%) CentOS
12 2 (0.049%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.025%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.025%) Solaris
13 1 (0.025%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 584 (14.41%) Roadmaps
2 537 (13.25%) Agile
3 533 (13.15%) Stakeholder Management
4 510 (12.58%) Migration
5 463 (11.42%) DevOps
6 459 (11.32%) Enterprise Architecture
7 405 (9.99%) Data Modelling
8 404 (9.97%) TOGAF
9 397 (9.80%) CI/CD
9 397 (9.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 384 (9.47%) Technical Leadership
11 353 (8.71%) Problem-Solving
12 351 (8.66%) Analytics
13 348 (8.59%) AI
14 326 (8.04%) Data Architecture
15 288 (7.11%) Microservices
16 283 (6.98%) Integration Patterns
17 261 (6.44%) Architectural Patterns
18 238 (5.87%) Architectural Design
19 232 (5.72%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 322 (7.94%) Python
2 213 (5.26%) SQL
3 176 (4.34%) PowerShell
4 133 (3.28%) Java
5 59 (1.46%) C#
5 59 (1.46%) JavaScript
6 37 (0.91%) Bicep
7 35 (0.86%) Bash
8 34 (0.84%) TypeScript
9 20 (0.49%) PL/SQL
10 18 (0.44%) Apex Code
11 14 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
12 13 (0.32%) R
13 10 (0.25%) Ruby
13 10 (0.25%) T-SQL
14 9 (0.22%) Scala
15 8 (0.20%) PHP
15 8 (0.20%) VB
16 7 (0.17%) Korn
16 7 (0.17%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,254 (30.94%) Security Cleared
2 907 (22.38%) SC Cleared
3 261 (6.44%) DV Cleared
4 199 (4.91%) Degree
5 114 (2.81%) TOGAF Certification
6 113 (2.79%) AWS Certification
7 112 (2.76%) CISSP
8 100 (2.47%) Azure Certification
9 73 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
10 72 (1.78%) Computer Science Degree
11 70 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
12 59 (1.46%) CISM
12 59 (1.46%) Master's Degree
12 59 (1.46%) Microsoft Certification
13 56 (1.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 42 (1.04%) CCNP
15 32 (0.79%) CCIE
16 31 (0.76%) ITIL Certification
17 30 (0.74%) ISEB
18 22 (0.54%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 182 (4.49%) GDPR
2 139 (3.43%) NIST
3 127 (3.13%) Data Quality
3 127 (3.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (1.92%) NCSC
5 58 (1.43%) QA
6 51 (1.26%) PCI DSS
7 34 (0.84%) Accessibility
7 34 (0.84%) COBIT
8 31 (0.76%) GRC
9 23 (0.57%) ISO 20022
10 21 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
10 21 (0.52%) JSP 440
11 20 (0.49%) HIPAA
12 18 (0.44%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 15 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 15 (0.37%) MiFID
14 12 (0.30%) FINRA
14 12 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 170 (4.19%) Active Directory
2 127 (3.13%) Docker
3 90 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 61 (1.51%) VMware NSX
5 36 (0.89%) vSphere
6 24 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 13 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
10 7 (0.17%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.17%) Squid
11 6 (0.15%) Varnish
12 5 (0.12%) RACF
12 5 (0.12%) vCloud
13 4 (0.099%) NFS
14 3 (0.074%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 3 (0.074%) Ceph
14 3 (0.074%) Firmware
14 3 (0.074%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 255 (6.29%) Terraform
2 205 (5.06%) Kubernetes
3 107 (2.64%) Ansible
4 65 (1.60%) Single Sign-On
5 30 (0.74%) FortiGate
5 30 (0.74%) OPNET
6 28 (0.69%) vCenter Server
7 26 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
8 23 (0.57%) Grafana
8 23 (0.57%) SCCM
9 20 (0.49%) Prometheus
10 18 (0.44%) WMI
11 16 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 16 (0.39%) Argo
12 8 (0.20%) Istio
13 6 (0.15%) Consul
13 6 (0.15%) Kibana
14 5 (0.12%) Puppet
15 4 (0.099%) Data Guard
15 4 (0.099%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 583 (14.38%) Microsoft
2 227 (5.60%) ServiceNow
3 224 (5.53%) SAP
4 191 (4.71%) Oracle
5 184 (4.54%) Salesforce
6 160 (3.95%) VMware
7 132 (3.26%) Databricks
8 116 (2.86%) Cisco
9 105 (2.59%) Google
10 94 (2.32%) CyberArk
11 68 (1.68%) Palo Alto
12 64 (1.58%) MuleSoft
13 62 (1.53%) Splunk
14 49 (1.21%) Centrify
14 49 (1.21%) Red Hat
15 48 (1.18%) Atlassian
16 47 (1.16%) Workday
17 46 (1.13%) Remedy
18 45 (1.11%) OpenAI
19 40 (0.99%) Sparx