Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £615, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 May 2026.

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

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,404 2,882 4,462
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.00% 9.90% 10.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.91% 10.72% 11.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,569 1,856 2,858
10th Percentile £463 £463 £500
25th Percentile £513 £537 £558
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £615 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -3.85% -0.88%
75th Percentile £725 £715 £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 139 31 96
10th Percentile £46.00 £52.50 £58.75
25th Percentile £60.00 £64.25 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £82.25 £85.99
90th Percentile £97.75 £87.50 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £73.31 £70.00
% change year-on-year -11.34% +4.73% -

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 45,355 26,885 39,823
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.36% 92.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,657 17,423 25,822
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -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 3,017 1,065 2,805
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.82
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.88 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.18 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.82% -24.85% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £26.28 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.25% -34.30% -6.98%

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 31 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 31 May 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 31 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 4,606 £620 -0.80% 581
UK excluding London +9 2,394 £613 +2.08% 446
London +4 2,245 £625 -3.85% 238
Work from Home +3 1,458 £600 - 311
South East +4 686 £625 +1.63% 146
North of England +5 673 £600 - 122
Midlands +2 438 £600 +0.17% 53
North West +6 373 £608 +5.74% 66
West Midlands +1 314 £620 +3.33% 40
Yorkshire +5 253 £550 -8.33% 31
South West -2 242 £650 +8.33% 56
East of England +20 204 £575 -4.17% 26
Scotland +16 151 £650 +4.00% 22
East Midlands +1 118 £571 +8.60% 13
North East +9 54 £575 -4.17% 26
Wales -2 32 £600 +25.00% 25
Northern Ireland +10 7 £475 -28.30% 2
Channel Islands - 3 £575 -

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 31 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 1,633 (30.22%) Security Cleared
2 1,337 (24.74%) Azure
3 1,211 (22.41%) SC Cleared
4 1,170 (21.65%) AWS
5 746 (13.80%) Migration
6 744 (13.77%) Roadmaps
7 706 (13.06%) Microsoft
8 627 (11.60%) Stakeholder Management
9 616 (11.40%) Agile
10 615 (11.38%) DevOps
11 575 (10.64%) CI/CD
12 547 (10.12%) Enterprise Architecture
13 512 (9.47%) AI
14 509 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 502 (9.29%) Data Modelling
16 495 (9.16%) Technical Leadership
17 479 (8.86%) Integration Patterns
18 447 (8.27%) Data Architecture
19 439 (8.12%) Architectural Patterns
20 421 (7.79%) Analytics
21 416 (7.70%) GCP
22 414 (7.66%) TOGAF
23 412 (7.62%) Microservices
24 364 (6.74%) Problem-Solving
25 355 (6.57%) Architectural Design
26 337 (6.24%) Python
27 333 (6.16%) Infrastructure as Code
28 325 (6.01%) Security Architecture
29 314 (5.81%) Cybersecurity
30 310 (5.74%) 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
1 121 (2.24%) SharePoint
2 84 (1.55%) Confluence
3 52 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (0.57%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.54%) Apache
5 29 (0.54%) SAS
6 21 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.31%) Anypoint
7 17 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
8 16 (0.30%) Appian
8 16 (0.30%) CMS
9 15 (0.28%) nginx
9 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.24%) OpenStack
11 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 9 (0.17%) Camunda
13 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
14 6 (0.11%) NetWeaver
14 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 24 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 20 (0.37%) MS Visio
3 15 (0.28%) Microsoft Office
4 14 (0.26%) Microsoft Excel
5 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.13%) Revit
6 6 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.093%) Microsoft Project
8 4 (0.074%) Chatbot
9 3 (0.056%) PlantUML
9 3 (0.056%) Windchill
10 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
10 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
10 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 137 (2.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (0.78%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
4 21 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
5 18 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
6 17 (0.31%) SAP ERP
7 15 (0.28%) Workday HCM
8 14 (0.26%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
10 9 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
10 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
11 8 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
12 7 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
12 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
13 6 (0.11%) SAP EWM
13 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
13 6 (0.11%) SAP SD
14 5 (0.093%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,337 (24.74%) Azure
2 1,170 (21.65%) AWS
3 416 (7.70%) GCP
4 237 (4.39%) Power Platform
5 203 (3.76%) Serverless
6 189 (3.50%) Entra ID
7 179 (3.31%) SaaS
8 131 (2.42%) Microsoft 365
9 129 (2.39%) GitHub
10 115 (2.13%) PaaS
11 107 (1.98%) Azure DevOps
12 101 (1.87%) Dynamics 365
13 99 (1.83%) AWS Lambda
14 86 (1.59%) IaaS
15 85 (1.57%) Amazon S3
15 85 (1.57%) Snowflake
16 75 (1.39%) Amazon EKS
17 73 (1.35%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 72 (1.33%) OpenShift
19 67 (1.24%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 215 (3.98%) Firewall
2 183 (3.39%) Network Security
3 123 (2.28%) WAN
4 119 (2.20%) VPN
5 117 (2.17%) DNS
6 87 (1.61%) LAN
7 66 (1.22%) SD-WAN
8 41 (0.76%) DHCP
9 40 (0.74%) BGP
10 32 (0.59%) OSPF
10 32 (0.59%) SAN
10 32 (0.59%) Wireless
11 31 (0.57%) VLAN
12 30 (0.56%) MPLS
12 30 (0.56%) TCP/IP
13 29 (0.54%) NAS
14 25 (0.46%) Structured Cabling
15 23 (0.43%) NX-OS
15 23 (0.43%) VXLAN
16 22 (0.41%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (3.16%) Power BI
2 143 (2.65%) Metadata
3 139 (2.57%) Data Lake
4 133 (2.46%) Data Warehouse
5 72 (1.33%) NoSQL
5 72 (1.33%) PostgreSQL
5 72 (1.33%) SQL Server
6 44 (0.81%) Azure SQL Database
7 41 (0.76%) Tableau
8 40 (0.74%) Big Data
9 35 (0.65%) Oracle Database
10 32 (0.59%) Amazon RDS
11 30 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
12 28 (0.52%) BigQuery
13 25 (0.46%) Delta Lake
14 24 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
15 21 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
15 21 (0.39%) Relational Database
16 20 (0.37%) DynamoDB
16 20 (0.37%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 98 (1.81%) JIRA
2 92 (1.70%) Jenkins
3 58 (1.07%) Git
4 47 (0.87%) GitLab
5 22 (0.41%) ERwin
6 13 (0.24%) SonarQube
7 10 (0.19%) Artifactory
8 9 (0.17%) Bitbucket
8 9 (0.17%) Postman
9 8 (0.15%) MLflow
10 7 (0.13%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.11%) Hudson
11 6 (0.11%) Selenium
12 5 (0.093%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.093%) JMeter
12 5 (0.093%) JUnit
12 5 (0.093%) Maven
12 5 (0.093%) PowerDesigner
13 4 (0.074%) Snyk
13 4 (0.074%) Terragrunt
General
1 1,013 (18.75%) Social Skills
2 816 (15.10%) Finance
3 588 (10.88%) Public Sector
4 305 (5.64%) Banking
5 268 (4.96%) Analytical Skills
6 168 (3.11%) Retail
7 152 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
8 132 (2.44%) Legal
9 115 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
10 95 (1.76%) Telecoms
11 90 (1.67%) Manufacturing
12 60 (1.11%) Law
13 59 (1.09%) Military
14 52 (0.96%) Presentation Skills
15 50 (0.93%) Marketing
16 49 (0.91%) Billing
17 46 (0.85%) Financial Institution
18 39 (0.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 37 (0.68%) Aerospace
20 35 (0.65%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 263 (4.87%) REST
2 201 (3.72%) Middleware
3 139 (2.57%) SOAP
4 135 (2.50%) .NET
5 110 (2.04%) Kafka
6 95 (1.76%) OpenID
7 94 (1.74%) OAuth
8 92 (1.70%) LDAP
9 73 (1.35%) SAML
10 57 (1.05%) React
11 56 (1.04%) OAuth2
12 53 (0.98%) Oracle Fusion
13 49 (0.91%) RESTful
14 43 (0.80%) SailPoint
15 40 (0.74%) JSON
16 38 (0.70%) AngularJS
16 38 (0.70%) Web Services
17 32 (0.59%) Node.js
18 30 (0.56%) PySpark
19 27 (0.50%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 452 (8.36%) Cloud Native
2 190 (3.52%) Data Centre
3 145 (2.68%) Management Information System
4 142 (2.63%) Onboarding
5 140 (2.59%) Product Ownership
6 124 (2.29%) Distributed Systems
7 122 (2.26%) Legacy Systems
8 121 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
9 107 (1.98%) Hybrid Cloud
10 93 (1.72%) Public Cloud
11 92 (1.70%) Security Posture
12 86 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
13 83 (1.54%) Operational Technology
14 79 (1.46%) CMDB
15 66 (1.22%) AI Agents
16 47 (0.87%) Data Structures
17 44 (0.81%) Private Cloud
18 42 (0.78%) Mainframe
18 42 (0.78%) NHS
19 41 (0.76%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 158 (2.92%) Windows
2 107 (1.98%) Linux
3 41 (0.76%) Windows Server
4 35 (0.65%) Android
4 35 (0.65%) Apple iOS
5 27 (0.50%) 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%) Mac OS
9 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.11%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.11%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.093%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.074%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.074%) Solaris
13 3 (0.056%) AIX
13 3 (0.056%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 746 (13.80%) Migration
2 744 (13.77%) Roadmaps
3 627 (11.60%) Stakeholder Management
4 616 (11.40%) Agile
5 615 (11.38%) DevOps
6 575 (10.64%) CI/CD
7 547 (10.12%) Enterprise Architecture
8 512 (9.47%) AI
9 509 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 502 (9.29%) Data Modelling
11 495 (9.16%) Technical Leadership
12 479 (8.86%) Integration Patterns
13 447 (8.27%) Data Architecture
14 439 (8.12%) Architectural Patterns
15 421 (7.79%) Analytics
16 414 (7.66%) TOGAF
17 412 (7.62%) Microservices
18 364 (6.74%) Problem-Solving
19 355 (6.57%) Architectural Design
20 333 (6.16%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 337 (6.24%) Python
2 278 (5.14%) SQL
3 220 (4.07%) Java
4 168 (3.11%) PowerShell
5 98 (1.81%) JavaScript
6 63 (1.17%) C#
7 58 (1.07%) Bicep
8 42 (0.78%) TypeScript
9 39 (0.72%) Bash
10 22 (0.41%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.39%) Ruby
12 20 (0.37%) PL/SQL
13 15 (0.28%) Scala
14 13 (0.24%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) Shell Script
18 6 (0.11%) ABAP
18 6 (0.11%) R
Qualifications
1 1,633 (30.22%) Security Cleared
2 1,211 (22.41%) SC Cleared
3 298 (5.51%) DV Cleared
4 199 (3.68%) Degree
5 119 (2.20%) Azure Certification
5 119 (2.20%) CISSP
6 111 (2.05%) AWS Certification
7 110 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
8 103 (1.91%) Cisco Certification
9 88 (1.63%) TOGAF Certification
10 83 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
11 66 (1.22%) CISM
12 55 (1.02%) CCNP
13 52 (0.96%) Master's Degree
14 45 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
15 43 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 40 (0.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 26 (0.48%) CCSP
18 20 (0.37%) CCIE
18 20 (0.37%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 199 (3.68%) NIST
2 174 (3.22%) GDPR
3 150 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 148 (2.74%) Data Quality
5 118 (2.18%) NCSC
6 73 (1.35%) QA
7 41 (0.76%) GRC
8 39 (0.72%) PCI DSS
9 34 (0.63%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.54%) ISO 20022
11 27 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
12 23 (0.43%) NIST 800
13 21 (0.39%) SEPA
14 19 (0.35%) HL7
15 18 (0.33%) COBIT
15 18 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
17 13 (0.24%) IFRS
17 13 (0.24%) SLA
System Software
1 195 (3.61%) Active Directory
2 107 (1.98%) Docker
3 101 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.30%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.56%) vSphere
6 26 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
7 23 (0.43%) 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
1 272 (5.03%) Terraform
2 244 (4.52%) Kubernetes
3 112 (2.07%) Ansible
4 52 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
5 51 (0.94%) Grafana
6 39 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (0.72%) Prometheus
7 33 (0.61%) FortiGate
8 29 (0.54%) vCenter Server
9 18 (0.33%) Argo
9 18 (0.33%) SCCM
10 16 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.22%) Istio
12 8 (0.15%) Progress Chef
13 7 (0.13%) Consul
13 7 (0.13%) HAProxy
13 7 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
13 7 (0.13%) Puppet
14 6 (0.11%) WMI
15 5 (0.093%) OPNET
Vendors
1 706 (13.06%) Microsoft
2 310 (5.74%) SAP
3 298 (5.51%) ServiceNow
4 243 (4.50%) Oracle
5 223 (4.13%) Databricks
6 185 (3.42%) VMware
7 180 (3.33%) Salesforce
8 141 (2.61%) Cisco
9 121 (2.24%) Google
10 91 (1.68%) CyberArk
11 80 (1.48%) MuleSoft
12 69 (1.28%) Splunk
13 55 (1.02%) Palo Alto
14 48 (0.89%) Workday
15 47 (0.87%) Red Hat
16 44 (0.81%) Sparx
17 43 (0.80%) OpenAI
18 40 (0.74%) BeyondTrust
18 40 (0.74%) IBM
18 40 (0.74%) Juniper