Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £620, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 May 2026.

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

6 months to
15 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 5,275 2,857 4,400
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.06% 9.83% 10.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.98% 10.63% 11.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,485 1,851 2,797
10th Percentile £463 £468 £500
25th Percentile £513 £538 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -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 133 33 89
10th Percentile £49.40 £53.10 £59.50
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% - -
75th Percentile £78.75 £80.00 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.50 £90.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -

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 44,018 26,871 39,592
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.45% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,969 17,507 25,749
10th Percentile £320 £296 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £614 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +4.21% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,868 1,042 2,669
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.20 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.09 £28.60 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +50.66% -23.08% -17.38%
75th Percentile £66.50 £62.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.02
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £27.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +63.64% -31.25% -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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +8 4,524 £620 -0.80% 993
UK excluding London +9 2,382 £613 +2.08% 662
London +5 2,155 £625 -3.85% 445
Work from Home +3 1,420 £600 - 520
South East +4 703 £625 - 172
North of England +5 644 £600 - 172
Midlands +2 428 £600 - 89
North West +6 364 £610 +2.95% 91
West Midlands 0 309 £618 +2.92% 59
South West +1 285 £680 +13.25% 83
Yorkshire +7 241 £557 -7.25% 50
East of England +18 201 £575 -11.54% 61
Scotland +11 132 £650 +4.00% 41
East Midlands -3 113 £545 - 30
North East +5 47 £563 -10.00% 32
Wales -5 22 £625 +30.89% 45
Northern Ireland +4 8 £475 -28.30% 8

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 15 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 1,611 (30.54%) Security Cleared
2 1,258 (23.85%) Azure
3 1,174 (22.26%) SC Cleared
4 1,100 (20.85%) AWS
5 724 (13.73%) Roadmaps
6 695 (13.18%) Microsoft
7 691 (13.10%) Migration
8 616 (11.68%) Agile
9 584 (11.07%) DevOps
10 581 (11.01%) Stakeholder Management
11 548 (10.39%) CI/CD
12 531 (10.07%) Enterprise Architecture
13 489 (9.27%) AI
14 474 (8.99%) Data Modelling
15 462 (8.76%) Technical Leadership
16 458 (8.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 443 (8.40%) Integration Patterns
18 438 (8.30%) TOGAF
19 418 (7.92%) Analytics
20 411 (7.79%) Data Architecture
21 408 (7.73%) Architectural Patterns
22 396 (7.51%) GCP
23 384 (7.28%) Microservices
24 354 (6.71%) Problem-Solving
25 344 (6.52%) Architectural Design
26 330 (6.26%) Python
27 319 (6.05%) DV Cleared
28 316 (5.99%) ServiceNow
29 313 (5.93%) SAP
30 308 (5.84%) Infrastructure as Code

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
1 123 (2.33%) SharePoint
2 104 (1.97%) Confluence
3 55 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.53%) Apache
4 28 (0.53%) Apache Spark
5 22 (0.42%) SAS
6 18 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.32%) CMS
8 16 (0.30%) Anypoint
8 16 (0.30%) Appian
9 15 (0.28%) nginx
9 15 (0.28%) WebLogic
10 13 (0.25%) OpenStack
10 13 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 10 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 9 (0.17%) Camunda
13 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
13 7 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 41 (0.78%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
3 20 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (0.34%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
6 7 (0.13%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.13%) Revit
7 4 (0.076%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.057%) PlantUML
8 3 (0.057%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.057%) Windchill
9 1 (0.019%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.019%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.019%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.019%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 139 (2.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (0.76%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
4 17 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
4 17 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
4 17 (0.32%) SAP ERP
5 16 (0.30%) Workday HCM
6 15 (0.28%) Teamcenter
7 10 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
7 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
8 9 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
8 9 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
8 9 (0.17%) SAP EWM
8 9 (0.17%) SAP MDG
9 7 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.13%) SAP BRIM
9 7 (0.13%) SAP IBP
10 6 (0.11%) NetSuite
10 6 (0.11%) SAP GRC
10 6 (0.11%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 1,258 (23.85%) Azure
2 1,100 (20.85%) AWS
3 396 (7.51%) GCP
4 230 (4.36%) Power Platform
5 187 (3.55%) Entra ID
6 183 (3.47%) Serverless
7 166 (3.15%) SaaS
8 130 (2.46%) Microsoft 365
9 118 (2.24%) GitHub
10 105 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
10 105 (1.99%) PaaS
11 102 (1.93%) Dynamics 365
12 87 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
13 81 (1.54%) Amazon S3
13 81 (1.54%) Snowflake
14 78 (1.48%) IaaS
15 77 (1.46%) OpenShift
16 68 (1.29%) Microsoft Purview
17 67 (1.27%) AWS CloudFormation
18 63 (1.19%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 213 (4.04%) Firewall
2 170 (3.22%) Network Security
3 122 (2.31%) WAN
4 115 (2.18%) VPN
5 113 (2.14%) DNS
6 85 (1.61%) LAN
7 64 (1.21%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.74%) BGP
9 36 (0.68%) DHCP
10 29 (0.55%) OSPF
10 29 (0.55%) SAN
11 28 (0.53%) TCP/IP
11 28 (0.53%) VLAN
12 27 (0.51%) Wireless
13 26 (0.49%) MPLS
13 26 (0.49%) NAS
14 23 (0.44%) Wi-Fi
15 21 (0.40%) BIG-IP
15 21 (0.40%) NX-OS
16 20 (0.38%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (3.22%) Power BI
2 136 (2.58%) Metadata
3 129 (2.45%) Data Lake
4 127 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
5 73 (1.38%) SQL Server
6 66 (1.25%) NoSQL
7 64 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
8 49 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
9 43 (0.82%) Tableau
10 39 (0.74%) Big Data
11 34 (0.64%) Oracle Database
12 31 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
13 29 (0.55%) Delta Lake
14 28 (0.53%) BigQuery
15 23 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
16 22 (0.42%) MongoDB
16 22 (0.42%) Relational Database
17 21 (0.40%) Electronic Patient Records
18 20 (0.38%) DynamoDB
18 20 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 118 (2.24%) JIRA
2 88 (1.67%) Jenkins
3 60 (1.14%) Git
4 51 (0.97%) GitLab
5 23 (0.44%) ERwin
6 15 (0.28%) SonarQube
7 13 (0.25%) Artifactory
8 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.21%) MLflow
9 9 (0.17%) Postman
10 6 (0.11%) Hudson
10 6 (0.11%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.11%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.095%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.095%) JUnit
11 5 (0.095%) Maven
11 5 (0.095%) Selenium
11 5 (0.095%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.076%) Snyk
12 4 (0.076%) Terragrunt
General
1 985 (18.67%) Social Skills
2 784 (14.86%) Finance
3 555 (10.52%) Public Sector
4 295 (5.59%) Banking
5 274 (5.19%) Analytical Skills
6 150 (2.84%) Retail
7 149 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
8 133 (2.52%) Legal
9 114 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
10 94 (1.78%) Telecoms
11 84 (1.59%) Manufacturing
12 81 (1.54%) Military
13 62 (1.18%) Law
13 62 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
14 59 (1.12%) Marketing
15 53 (1.00%) Billing
16 44 (0.83%) Financial Institution
17 36 (0.68%) Investment Banking
18 34 (0.64%) Aerospace
18 34 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 243 (4.61%) REST
2 203 (3.85%) Middleware
3 131 (2.48%) SOAP
4 121 (2.29%) .NET
5 109 (2.07%) Kafka
6 87 (1.65%) LDAP
7 86 (1.63%) OpenID
8 84 (1.59%) OAuth
9 63 (1.19%) SAML
10 51 (0.97%) React
11 49 (0.93%) OAuth2
12 46 (0.87%) Oracle Fusion
13 44 (0.83%) RESTful
14 43 (0.82%) SailPoint
15 39 (0.74%) JSON
16 37 (0.70%) Web Services
17 35 (0.66%) AngularJS
18 31 (0.59%) PySpark
19 29 (0.55%) Node.js
20 23 (0.44%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 422 (8.00%) Cloud Native
2 180 (3.41%) Data Centre
3 149 (2.82%) Product Ownership
4 139 (2.64%) Onboarding
5 133 (2.52%) Management Information System
6 115 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
6 115 (2.18%) Legacy Systems
7 112 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
8 96 (1.82%) Public Cloud
9 95 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
10 87 (1.65%) Security Posture
11 81 (1.54%) Operational Technology
12 79 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
13 70 (1.33%) CMDB
14 63 (1.19%) AI Agents
15 47 (0.89%) Data Structures
15 47 (0.89%) PKI
16 42 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
16 42 (0.80%) Private Cloud
17 40 (0.76%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 158 (3.00%) Windows
2 112 (2.12%) Linux
3 35 (0.66%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.63%) Android
4 33 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 26 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (0.44%) Unix
7 14 (0.27%) VMS
8 11 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (0.21%) zOS
9 10 (0.19%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.15%) Windows 7
10 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.057%) CentOS
12 3 (0.057%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.057%) Solaris
12 3 (0.057%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.038%) AIX
13 2 (0.038%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 724 (13.73%) Roadmaps
2 691 (13.10%) Migration
3 616 (11.68%) Agile
4 584 (11.07%) DevOps
5 581 (11.01%) Stakeholder Management
6 548 (10.39%) CI/CD
7 531 (10.07%) Enterprise Architecture
8 489 (9.27%) AI
9 474 (8.99%) Data Modelling
10 462 (8.76%) Technical Leadership
11 458 (8.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 443 (8.40%) Integration Patterns
13 438 (8.30%) TOGAF
14 418 (7.92%) Analytics
15 411 (7.79%) Data Architecture
16 408 (7.73%) Architectural Patterns
17 384 (7.28%) Microservices
18 354 (6.71%) Problem-Solving
19 344 (6.52%) Architectural Design
20 308 (5.84%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 330 (6.26%) Python
2 271 (5.14%) SQL
3 204 (3.87%) Java
4 158 (3.00%) PowerShell
5 84 (1.59%) JavaScript
6 63 (1.19%) C#
7 50 (0.95%) Bicep
8 35 (0.66%) Bash
9 32 (0.61%) TypeScript
10 22 (0.42%) PL/SQL
10 22 (0.42%) Ruby
11 18 (0.34%) Apex Code
12 16 (0.30%) Scala
13 13 (0.25%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
14 11 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.19%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.15%) ABAP
16 8 (0.15%) VBA
17 7 (0.13%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,611 (30.54%) Security Cleared
2 1,174 (22.26%) SC Cleared
3 319 (6.05%) DV Cleared
4 208 (3.94%) Degree
5 121 (2.29%) TOGAF Certification
6 119 (2.26%) Azure Certification
7 115 (2.18%) CISSP
8 111 (2.10%) AWS Certification
9 102 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
10 95 (1.80%) Cisco Certification
11 80 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
12 61 (1.16%) CISM
13 54 (1.02%) Master's Degree
14 51 (0.97%) CCNP
15 46 (0.87%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 45 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
17 37 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 23 (0.44%) CCSP
19 21 (0.40%) CCIE
19 21 (0.40%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 192 (3.64%) NIST
2 168 (3.18%) GDPR
3 145 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 144 (2.73%) Data Quality
5 108 (2.05%) NCSC
6 66 (1.25%) QA
7 42 (0.80%) PCI DSS
8 39 (0.74%) GRC
9 32 (0.61%) Accessibility
10 29 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 28 (0.53%) COBIT
12 25 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.40%) NIST 800
13 21 (0.40%) SEPA
14 17 (0.32%) HL7
14 17 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 13 (0.25%) FINRA
15 13 (0.25%) MiFID
16 12 (0.23%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.23%) PSD2
System Software
1 197 (3.73%) Active Directory
2 105 (1.99%) Docker
3 93 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 72 (1.36%) VMware NSX
5 29 (0.55%) vSphere
6 28 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
7 20 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
8 17 (0.32%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.21%) Varnish
11 10 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 10 (0.19%) vCloud
12 9 (0.17%) NFS
12 9 (0.17%) Squid
13 6 (0.11%) Postfix
14 5 (0.095%) RACF
15 4 (0.076%) BitLocker
15 4 (0.076%) Firmware
15 4 (0.076%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.057%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 259 (4.91%) Terraform
2 229 (4.34%) Kubernetes
3 104 (1.97%) Ansible
4 51 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
5 41 (0.78%) Grafana
6 37 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.63%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.57%) Prometheus
9 28 (0.53%) vCenter Server
10 26 (0.49%) OPNET
11 17 (0.32%) SCCM
12 16 (0.30%) Argo
13 13 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 12 (0.23%) Istio
15 9 (0.17%) WMI
16 8 (0.15%) Puppet
17 7 (0.13%) Consul
18 6 (0.11%) HAProxy
18 6 (0.11%) Kibana
18 6 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 695 (13.18%) Microsoft
2 316 (5.99%) ServiceNow
3 313 (5.93%) SAP
4 225 (4.27%) Oracle
5 210 (3.98%) Databricks
6 188 (3.56%) VMware
7 184 (3.49%) Salesforce
8 135 (2.56%) Cisco
9 110 (2.09%) Google
10 87 (1.65%) CyberArk
11 81 (1.54%) MuleSoft
12 63 (1.19%) Splunk
13 52 (0.99%) Palo Alto
14 51 (0.97%) Red Hat
14 51 (0.97%) Workday
15 45 (0.85%) OpenAI
16 43 (0.82%) Remedy
17 41 (0.78%) Sparx
18 40 (0.76%) Atlassian
18 40 (0.76%) BeyondTrust