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 10 March 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +4
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,438 3,011 4,450
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.46% 10.18% 9.95%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.37% 10.95% 10.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,931 1,935 2,871
10th Percentile £463 £481 £500
25th Percentile £513 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -1.52%
75th Percentile £725 £736 £738
90th Percentile £800 £800 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £623 £650
% change year-on-year -3.61% -4.23% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 99 32 45
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.43 £51.32
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £71.27 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +0.03% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £85.00 £81.00 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.33 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £77.64
% change year-on-year -1.70% -6.61% +10.91%

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 39,016 27,486 41,551
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.97% 92.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,419 17,729 27,243
10th Percentile £310 £293 £270
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.46%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.16% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,405 862 2,505
10th Percentile £14.91 £15.64 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £33.20 £32.69
Median % change year-on-year +5.42% +1.56% -22.84%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.10 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.75 £32.50 £32.70
% change year-on-year +3.85% -0.60% -18.26%

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 10 March 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 10 March 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 10 March 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 3,805 £625 - 886
UK excluding London +7 2,123 £600 -3.61% 672
London -1 1,712 £630 -3.08% 304
Work from Home -1 1,236 £615 -1.60% 470
South East +5 659 £625 - 224
North of England -1 534 £579 -3.50% 143
Midlands -3 380 £575 -4.17% 86
North West 0 291 £600 - 86
West Midlands -2 283 £600 -1.15% 51
South West -1 259 £700 +12.00% 102
Yorkshire +5 222 £563 -2.00% 37
East of England +13 162 £550 -12.00% 52
Scotland +17 138 £650 +4.00% 47
East Midlands -2 93 £519 -7.37% 33
Wales +12 29 £563 +4.17% 24
North East -7 27 £625 - 22
Northern Ireland +4 9 £500 -26.47% 5

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 March 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 1,399 (31.52%) Security Cleared
2 1,132 (25.51%) Azure
3 1,003 (22.60%) SC Cleared
4 930 (20.96%) AWS
5 649 (14.62%) Roadmaps
6 624 (14.06%) Microsoft
7 578 (13.02%) Migration
8 565 (12.73%) Agile
9 558 (12.57%) Stakeholder Management
10 504 (11.36%) DevOps
11 474 (10.68%) Enterprise Architecture
12 449 (10.12%) CI/CD
13 429 (9.67%) TOGAF
14 421 (9.49%) Data Modelling
15 413 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 399 (8.99%) Technical Leadership
17 387 (8.72%) Analytics
18 384 (8.65%) AI
19 373 (8.40%) Problem-Solving
20 360 (8.11%) Data Architecture
21 353 (7.95%) GCP
22 331 (7.46%) Integration Patterns
23 328 (7.39%) Python
24 319 (7.19%) Microservices
25 309 (6.96%) Architectural Patterns
26 290 (6.53%) DV Cleared
27 270 (6.08%) Terraform
28 268 (6.04%) Architectural Design
29 256 (5.77%) Data Governance
30 255 (5.75%) ServiceNow

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
1 118 (2.66%) Confluence
2 116 (2.61%) SharePoint
3 63 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (0.74%) SAS
5 24 (0.54%) Apache Spark
6 23 (0.52%) CMS
7 18 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.38%) Apache
9 16 (0.36%) Anypoint
10 15 (0.34%) Appian
10 15 (0.34%) ArcGIS
10 15 (0.34%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.29%) nginx
12 10 (0.23%) OpenStack
13 9 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 9 (0.20%) Smallworld
14 7 (0.16%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
14 7 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 26 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
5 20 (0.45%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.16%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.045%) PlantUML
8 1 (0.023%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.023%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.023%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.023%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.023%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 118 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (0.95%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (0.52%) Workday HCM
4 18 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 16 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
6 14 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
7 12 (0.27%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.25%) SAP EWM
9 10 (0.23%) SAP ERP
9 10 (0.23%) SAP PM
10 9 (0.20%) Maximo
10 9 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
12 7 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
12 7 (0.16%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.16%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.16%) Teamcenter
13 6 (0.14%) Distributed Ledger
13 6 (0.14%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,132 (25.51%) Azure
2 930 (20.96%) AWS
3 353 (7.95%) GCP
4 171 (3.85%) Power Platform
5 155 (3.49%) Serverless
6 154 (3.47%) Entra ID
7 145 (3.27%) SaaS
8 143 (3.22%) Microsoft 365
9 103 (2.32%) IaaS
10 98 (2.21%) GitHub
11 93 (2.10%) Azure DevOps
12 87 (1.96%) PaaS
13 84 (1.89%) AWS Lambda
14 75 (1.69%) Microsoft Purview
14 75 (1.69%) OpenShift
15 73 (1.64%) AWS CloudFormation
16 70 (1.58%) Amazon S3
17 69 (1.55%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 68 (1.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 67 (1.51%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 221 (4.98%) Firewall
2 148 (3.33%) Network Security
3 127 (2.86%) WAN
4 113 (2.55%) DNS
5 112 (2.52%) VPN
6 76 (1.71%) LAN
7 72 (1.62%) SD-WAN
8 38 (0.86%) BGP
9 31 (0.70%) DHCP
10 30 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
11 28 (0.63%) MPLS
12 26 (0.59%) OSPF
13 25 (0.56%) TCP/IP
14 22 (0.50%) VLAN
14 22 (0.50%) VXLAN
15 21 (0.47%) SAN
16 20 (0.45%) Wireless
17 19 (0.43%) Kerberos
18 18 (0.41%) Internet
18 18 (0.41%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (3.61%) Data Warehouse
2 137 (3.09%) Metadata
3 122 (2.75%) Power BI
4 101 (2.28%) Data Lake
5 83 (1.87%) SQL Server
6 68 (1.53%) PostgreSQL
7 51 (1.15%) Tableau
8 50 (1.13%) Azure SQL Database
8 50 (1.13%) NoSQL
9 40 (0.90%) Oracle Database
10 34 (0.77%) Big Data
11 30 (0.68%) Amazon Redshift
12 25 (0.56%) GIS
13 24 (0.54%) Delta Lake
13 24 (0.54%) DynamoDB
14 23 (0.52%) Relational Database
15 22 (0.50%) Amazon Athena
16 21 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
16 21 (0.47%) Metadata Repository
17 18 (0.41%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 130 (2.93%) JIRA
2 91 (2.05%) Jenkins
3 50 (1.13%) GitLab
4 44 (0.99%) Git
5 22 (0.50%) ERwin
6 11 (0.25%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.18%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.18%) MLflow
9 6 (0.14%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.11%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.11%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.11%) Postman
10 5 (0.11%) Selenium
11 4 (0.090%) PowerDesigner
11 4 (0.090%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.090%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.068%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.068%) Maven
12 3 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 984 (22.17%) Social Skills
2 678 (15.28%) Finance
3 531 (11.96%) Public Sector
4 307 (6.92%) Analytical Skills
5 250 (5.63%) Banking
6 145 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
7 102 (2.30%) Legal
8 100 (2.25%) Influencing Skills
9 88 (1.98%) Retail
10 85 (1.92%) Telecoms
11 81 (1.83%) Military
12 78 (1.76%) Presentation Skills
13 66 (1.49%) Marketing
14 62 (1.40%) Manufacturing
15 39 (0.88%) Financial Institution
16 38 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 36 (0.81%) Billing
18 30 (0.68%) Law
19 28 (0.63%) Investment Banking
20 21 (0.47%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 222 (5.00%) REST
2 166 (3.74%) Middleware
3 120 (2.70%) SOAP
4 95 (2.14%) .NET
5 87 (1.96%) Kafka
6 80 (1.80%) OpenID
7 76 (1.71%) LDAP
8 71 (1.60%) OAuth
9 65 (1.46%) SAML
10 50 (1.13%) JSON
11 44 (0.99%) OAuth2
12 43 (0.97%) React
13 41 (0.92%) AngularJS
14 39 (0.88%) RESTful
15 34 (0.77%) Oracle Fusion
15 34 (0.77%) SailPoint
16 30 (0.68%) Web Services
17 28 (0.63%) PySpark
18 27 (0.61%) Node.js
19 25 (0.56%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 322 (7.26%) Cloud Native
2 147 (3.31%) Data Centre
3 145 (3.27%) Product Ownership
4 127 (2.86%) Onboarding
5 118 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
6 99 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
7 92 (2.07%) PKI
8 85 (1.92%) Hybrid Cloud
9 81 (1.83%) Management Information System
10 80 (1.80%) Public Cloud
11 79 (1.78%) Distributed Systems
12 70 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
13 68 (1.53%) Security Posture
14 60 (1.35%) Operational Technology
15 56 (1.26%) CMDB
16 46 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
17 44 (0.99%) AI Agents
17 44 (0.99%) Data Structures
18 35 (0.79%) NHS
19 34 (0.77%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 178 (4.01%) Windows
2 112 (2.52%) Linux
3 37 (0.83%) Windows Server
4 32 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (0.54%) Android
5 24 (0.54%) Apple iOS
6 16 (0.36%) Windows 7
7 15 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 12 (0.27%) VMS
9 11 (0.25%) Unix
9 11 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
10 10 (0.23%) zOS
11 9 (0.20%) Mac OS
12 8 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.090%) Ubuntu
14 3 (0.068%) Windows Server 2012
15 2 (0.045%) CentOS
16 1 (0.023%) Data ONTAP
16 1 (0.023%) Solaris
16 1 (0.023%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 649 (14.62%) Roadmaps
2 578 (13.02%) Migration
3 565 (12.73%) Agile
4 558 (12.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 504 (11.36%) DevOps
6 474 (10.68%) Enterprise Architecture
7 449 (10.12%) CI/CD
8 429 (9.67%) TOGAF
9 421 (9.49%) Data Modelling
10 413 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 399 (8.99%) Technical Leadership
12 387 (8.72%) Analytics
13 384 (8.65%) AI
14 373 (8.40%) Problem-Solving
15 360 (8.11%) Data Architecture
16 331 (7.46%) Integration Patterns
17 319 (7.19%) Microservices
18 309 (6.96%) Architectural Patterns
19 268 (6.04%) Architectural Design
20 256 (5.77%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 328 (7.39%) Python
2 240 (5.41%) SQL
3 183 (4.12%) PowerShell
4 147 (3.31%) Java
5 64 (1.44%) JavaScript
6 62 (1.40%) C#
7 42 (0.95%) Bicep
8 36 (0.81%) Bash
9 34 (0.77%) TypeScript
10 20 (0.45%) PL/SQL
11 18 (0.41%) Apex Code
12 14 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.29%) R
13 13 (0.29%) Ruby
14 10 (0.23%) Kotlin
14 10 (0.23%) T-SQL
15 9 (0.20%) Scala
16 8 (0.18%) PHP
16 8 (0.18%) VB
17 7 (0.16%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,399 (31.52%) Security Cleared
2 1,003 (22.60%) SC Cleared
3 290 (6.53%) DV Cleared
4 207 (4.66%) Degree
5 124 (2.79%) TOGAF Certification
6 123 (2.77%) AWS Certification
7 120 (2.70%) Azure Certification
8 114 (2.57%) CISSP
9 81 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
9 81 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
10 78 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
11 64 (1.44%) CISM
12 59 (1.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 56 (1.26%) Master's Degree
13 56 (1.26%) Microsoft Certification
14 49 (1.10%) CCNP
15 33 (0.74%) ITIL Certification
16 30 (0.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 30 (0.68%) CCIE
16 30 (0.68%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 185 (4.17%) GDPR
2 149 (3.36%) Data Quality
3 148 (3.33%) NIST
4 130 (2.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 90 (2.03%) NCSC
6 63 (1.42%) QA
7 59 (1.33%) PCI DSS
8 36 (0.81%) COBIT
9 33 (0.74%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.70%) GRC
11 28 (0.63%) ISO 20022
12 25 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.45%) JSP 440
14 18 (0.41%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 16 (0.36%) HIPAA
16 15 (0.34%) MiFID
17 14 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 13 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
18 13 (0.29%) FINRA
18 13 (0.29%) SEPA
System Software
1 184 (4.15%) Active Directory
2 125 (2.82%) Docker
3 94 (2.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 68 (1.53%) VMware NSX
5 35 (0.79%) vSphere
6 21 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
9 11 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (0.20%) Varnish
11 8 (0.18%) Squid
12 7 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 7 (0.16%) vCloud
13 5 (0.11%) RACF
14 4 (0.090%) Firmware
14 4 (0.090%) NFS
15 3 (0.068%) Ceph
15 3 (0.068%) IAG
15 3 (0.068%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 270 (6.08%) Terraform
2 226 (5.09%) Kubernetes
3 113 (2.55%) Ansible
4 55 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
6 32 (0.72%) FortiGate
7 31 (0.70%) Grafana
8 30 (0.68%) OPNET
8 30 (0.68%) vCenter Server
9 25 (0.56%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.50%) SCCM
11 17 (0.38%) Argo
12 16 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 15 (0.34%) WMI
14 10 (0.23%) Istio
15 7 (0.16%) Consul
16 6 (0.14%) Kibana
16 6 (0.14%) Puppet
17 5 (0.11%) Progress Chef
18 4 (0.090%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 624 (14.06%) Microsoft
2 255 (5.75%) ServiceNow
3 241 (5.43%) SAP
4 199 (4.48%) Oracle
5 180 (4.06%) Salesforce
6 176 (3.97%) VMware
7 146 (3.29%) Databricks
8 130 (2.93%) Cisco
9 110 (2.48%) Google
10 92 (2.07%) CyberArk
11 68 (1.53%) MuleSoft
12 64 (1.44%) Palo Alto
13 62 (1.40%) Splunk
14 53 (1.19%) Red Hat
15 50 (1.13%) Workday
16 49 (1.10%) Centrify
16 49 (1.10%) Remedy
17 48 (1.08%) Atlassian
18 43 (0.97%) IBM
19 41 (0.92%) Sparx