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 22 April 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +5 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,073 2,892 4,474
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.94% 9.82% 10.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.86% 10.60% 11.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,335 1,907 2,889
10th Percentile £463 £478 £500
25th Percentile £513 £546 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.81%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £610 £604 £650
% change year-on-year +0.99% -7.08% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 120 37 60
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.30 £57.48
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.94
Median hourly rate £69.72 £70.00 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.40% -12.50% +14.29%
75th Percentile £83.25 £80.59 £87.46
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.61 £90.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £80.00
% change year-on-year -1.70% -9.38% +14.29%

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 42,785 27,291 40,291
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.29% 92.62% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,469 17,875 26,294
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,747 1,005 2,616
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.41 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.87 £16.25
Median hourly rate £42.25 £30.20 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.90% -13.71% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.74 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.10 £75.40 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.85 £29.23 £36.50
% change year-on-year +50.00% -19.92% -15.12%

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 22 April 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 22 April 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 22 April 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 +5 4,330 £625 - 1,006
UK excluding London +8 2,338 £610 +0.99% 617
London +3 2,010 £625 -3.85% 459
Work from Home +3 1,393 £600 -0.04% 509
South East +4 705 £625 - 151
North of England +2 612 £600 - 161
Midlands -2 402 £578 -3.71% 115
North West +5 356 £609 +1.50% 105
West Midlands 0 303 £600 - 89
South West +1 296 £693 +15.42% 100
Yorkshire +7 229 £558 -7.00% 40
East of England +19 197 £563 -6.25% 54
Scotland +16 138 £650 +4.00% 8
East Midlands -3 94 £509 -7.50% 26
North East +1 36 £575 -7.95% 16
Wales -8 24 £600 +20.00% 22
Northern Ireland +7 10 £488 -26.42% 16

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 22 April 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 1,599 (31.52%) Security Cleared
2 1,213 (23.91%) Azure
3 1,143 (22.53%) SC Cleared
4 1,075 (21.19%) AWS
5 719 (14.17%) Roadmaps
6 685 (13.50%) Microsoft
7 676 (13.33%) Migration
8 624 (12.30%) Agile
9 571 (11.26%) Stakeholder Management
10 554 (10.92%) DevOps
11 534 (10.53%) CI/CD
12 520 (10.25%) Enterprise Architecture
13 475 (9.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 461 (9.09%) Data Modelling
15 459 (9.05%) Technical Leadership
16 455 (8.97%) AI
17 441 (8.69%) TOGAF
18 425 (8.38%) Analytics
19 421 (8.30%) Integration Patterns
20 397 (7.83%) GCP
21 387 (7.63%) Data Architecture
22 379 (7.47%) Problem-Solving
23 372 (7.33%) Architectural Patterns
24 366 (7.21%) Microservices
25 355 (7.00%) Python
26 339 (6.68%) Architectural Design
27 329 (6.49%) DV Cleared
28 311 (6.13%) ServiceNow
29 303 (5.97%) Infrastructure as Code
30 298 (5.87%) Security Architecture

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
1 127 (2.50%) SharePoint
2 108 (2.13%) Confluence
3 64 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (0.57%) SAS
5 27 (0.53%) Apache Spark
6 25 (0.49%) Apache
7 23 (0.45%) CMS
8 18 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
9 16 (0.32%) Anypoint
9 16 (0.32%) Appian
10 15 (0.30%) nginx
10 15 (0.30%) WebLogic
11 14 (0.28%) ArcGIS
12 11 (0.22%) OpenStack
13 10 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 10 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
14 7 (0.14%) Camunda
14 7 (0.14%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.14%) Hyperledger
14 7 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 48 (0.95%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
3 24 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
5 17 (0.34%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.079%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.059%) Navisworks
7 3 (0.059%) Revit
7 3 (0.059%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.039%) PlantUML
8 2 (0.039%) Windchill
9 1 (0.020%) ArchiCAD
9 1 (0.020%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.020%) OrCAD
9 1 (0.020%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 126 (2.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 49 (0.97%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 22 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.39%) Workday HCM
5 19 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.28%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.26%) Teamcenter
9 12 (0.24%) SAP EWM
10 11 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
12 8 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
12 8 (0.16%) SAP PM
12 8 (0.16%) SAP PP
13 7 (0.14%) Maximo
13 7 (0.14%) NetSuite
13 7 (0.14%) R3 Corda
13 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
13 7 (0.14%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,213 (23.91%) Azure
2 1,075 (21.19%) AWS
3 397 (7.83%) GCP
4 214 (4.22%) Power Platform
5 184 (3.63%) Serverless
6 183 (3.61%) Entra ID
7 165 (3.25%) SaaS
8 142 (2.80%) Microsoft 365
9 113 (2.23%) GitHub
10 107 (2.11%) IaaS
10 107 (2.11%) PaaS
11 103 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
12 97 (1.91%) Azure DevOps
13 92 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
14 80 (1.58%) Amazon S3
14 80 (1.58%) OpenShift
15 75 (1.48%) AWS CloudFormation
15 75 (1.48%) Snowflake
16 71 (1.40%) Microsoft Purview
17 70 (1.38%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 227 (4.47%) Firewall
2 177 (3.49%) Network Security
3 138 (2.72%) WAN
4 124 (2.44%) VPN
5 120 (2.37%) DNS
6 90 (1.77%) LAN
7 79 (1.56%) SD-WAN
8 41 (0.81%) BGP
9 36 (0.71%) DHCP
10 33 (0.65%) OSPF
11 31 (0.61%) MPLS
12 30 (0.59%) VLAN
13 29 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
14 26 (0.51%) TCP/IP
15 25 (0.49%) VXLAN
15 25 (0.49%) Wireless
16 24 (0.47%) SAN
17 21 (0.41%) NAS
18 19 (0.37%) BIG-IP
18 19 (0.37%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (3.09%) Power BI
2 141 (2.78%) Metadata
3 136 (2.68%) Data Warehouse
4 128 (2.52%) Data Lake
5 81 (1.60%) SQL Server
6 65 (1.28%) NoSQL
7 60 (1.18%) PostgreSQL
8 53 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
9 48 (0.95%) Tableau
10 40 (0.79%) Big Data
11 38 (0.75%) Oracle Database
12 37 (0.73%) Amazon Redshift
13 27 (0.53%) Delta Lake
13 27 (0.53%) Relational Database
14 25 (0.49%) BigQuery
15 23 (0.45%) Amazon Athena
15 23 (0.45%) DynamoDB
16 22 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
16 22 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
16 22 (0.43%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 122 (2.40%) JIRA
2 90 (1.77%) Jenkins
3 52 (1.03%) Git
4 48 (0.95%) GitLab
5 21 (0.41%) ERwin
6 13 (0.26%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket
7 11 (0.22%) MLflow
8 10 (0.20%) Artifactory
9 6 (0.12%) Postman
9 6 (0.12%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.099%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.099%) JUnit
10 5 (0.099%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.099%) Selenium
10 5 (0.099%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.079%) Snyk
11 4 (0.079%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.059%) Claude Code
12 3 (0.059%) ER Studio
General
1 1,017 (20.05%) Social Skills
2 764 (15.06%) Finance
3 572 (11.28%) Public Sector
4 322 (6.35%) Analytical Skills
5 290 (5.72%) Banking
6 156 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
7 127 (2.50%) Retail
8 116 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
9 115 (2.27%) Legal
10 91 (1.79%) Military
11 86 (1.70%) Telecoms
12 73 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
13 71 (1.40%) Manufacturing
14 64 (1.26%) Marketing
15 63 (1.24%) Law
16 44 (0.87%) Financial Institution
17 35 (0.69%) Investment Banking
18 34 (0.67%) Billing
19 30 (0.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 28 (0.55%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 247 (4.87%) REST
2 185 (3.65%) Middleware
3 130 (2.56%) SOAP
4 115 (2.27%) .NET
5 108 (2.13%) Kafka
6 88 (1.73%) OpenID
7 85 (1.68%) LDAP
8 80 (1.58%) OAuth
9 61 (1.20%) SAML
10 57 (1.12%) JSON
11 52 (1.03%) React
12 47 (0.93%) OAuth2
13 43 (0.85%) RESTful
14 41 (0.81%) Oracle Fusion
15 39 (0.77%) AngularJS
16 38 (0.75%) Web Services
17 37 (0.73%) SailPoint
18 32 (0.63%) Spring
19 30 (0.59%) PySpark
20 28 (0.55%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 407 (8.02%) Cloud Native
2 171 (3.37%) Data Centre
3 144 (2.84%) Product Ownership
4 134 (2.64%) Onboarding
5 122 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
6 119 (2.35%) Management Information System
7 117 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
8 107 (2.11%) Distributed Systems
9 98 (1.93%) Hybrid Cloud
10 97 (1.91%) Public Cloud
11 81 (1.60%) PKI
12 80 (1.58%) Security Posture
13 73 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
14 71 (1.40%) CMDB
15 66 (1.30%) Operational Technology
16 51 (1.01%) AI Agents
17 48 (0.95%) Self-Motivation
18 46 (0.91%) Private Cloud
19 44 (0.87%) NHS
20 42 (0.83%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 180 (3.55%) Windows
2 119 (2.35%) Linux
3 41 (0.81%) Windows Server
4 32 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 31 (0.61%) Android
5 31 (0.61%) Apple iOS
6 17 (0.34%) Unix
7 14 (0.28%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.26%) VMS
9 12 (0.24%) Windows 7
9 12 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (0.22%) zOS
11 9 (0.18%) Mac OS
11 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.059%) CentOS
12 3 (0.059%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.059%) Solaris
12 3 (0.059%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.039%) AIX
13 2 (0.039%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 719 (14.17%) Roadmaps
2 676 (13.33%) Migration
3 624 (12.30%) Agile
4 571 (11.26%) Stakeholder Management
5 554 (10.92%) DevOps
6 534 (10.53%) CI/CD
7 520 (10.25%) Enterprise Architecture
8 475 (9.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 461 (9.09%) Data Modelling
10 459 (9.05%) Technical Leadership
11 455 (8.97%) AI
12 441 (8.69%) TOGAF
13 425 (8.38%) Analytics
14 421 (8.30%) Integration Patterns
15 387 (7.63%) Data Architecture
16 379 (7.47%) Problem-Solving
17 372 (7.33%) Architectural Patterns
18 366 (7.21%) Microservices
19 339 (6.68%) Architectural Design
20 303 (5.97%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 355 (7.00%) Python
2 271 (5.34%) SQL
3 208 (4.10%) Java
4 187 (3.69%) PowerShell
5 79 (1.56%) JavaScript
6 68 (1.34%) C#
7 45 (0.89%) Bicep
8 37 (0.73%) Bash
9 33 (0.65%) TypeScript
10 22 (0.43%) Ruby
11 18 (0.35%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.34%) Apex Code
13 16 (0.32%) Scala
14 13 (0.26%) Kotlin
15 12 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
16 10 (0.20%) R
16 10 (0.20%) Shell Script
16 10 (0.20%) T-SQL
17 9 (0.18%) ABAP
18 8 (0.16%) VB
Qualifications
1 1,599 (31.52%) Security Cleared
2 1,143 (22.53%) SC Cleared
3 329 (6.49%) DV Cleared
4 214 (4.22%) Degree
5 129 (2.54%) Azure Certification
6 125 (2.46%) TOGAF Certification
7 121 (2.39%) AWS Certification
8 120 (2.37%) CISSP
9 96 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
10 91 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
11 83 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
12 61 (1.20%) CISM
13 55 (1.08%) Master's Degree
14 54 (1.06%) CCNP
15 53 (1.04%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 48 (0.95%) Microsoft Certification
17 40 (0.79%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 33 (0.65%) ISEB
18 33 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
19 30 (0.59%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (3.82%) GDPR
2 191 (3.77%) NIST
3 156 (3.08%) Data Quality
4 155 (3.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 104 (2.05%) NCSC
6 63 (1.24%) QA
7 55 (1.08%) PCI DSS
8 41 (0.81%) COBIT
9 34 (0.67%) GRC
10 32 (0.63%) ISO 20022
11 31 (0.61%) Accessibility
12 25 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.39%) SEPA
14 19 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 18 (0.35%) HL7
15 18 (0.35%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 18 (0.35%) NIST 800
16 17 (0.34%) JSP 440
17 14 (0.28%) HIPAA
17 14 (0.28%) SLA
System Software
1 199 (3.92%) Active Directory
2 113 (2.23%) Docker
3 106 (2.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 74 (1.46%) VMware NSX
5 33 (0.65%) vSphere
6 25 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 16 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 11 (0.22%) Varnish
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
11 10 (0.20%) vCloud
12 9 (0.18%) Squid
13 8 (0.16%) NFS
14 7 (0.14%) BitLocker
15 5 (0.099%) Postfix
15 5 (0.099%) RACF
16 4 (0.079%) Firmware
17 3 (0.059%) Ceph
17 3 (0.059%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 283 (5.58%) Terraform
2 238 (4.69%) Kubernetes
3 114 (2.25%) Ansible
4 51 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.83%) Grafana
6 40 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
7 32 (0.63%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.59%) OPNET
8 30 (0.59%) vCenter Server
9 29 (0.57%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.43%) SCCM
11 17 (0.34%) Argo
12 16 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 12 (0.24%) Istio
14 11 (0.22%) WMI
15 8 (0.16%) Puppet
16 7 (0.14%) Consul
17 6 (0.12%) Kibana
18 5 (0.099%) HAProxy
18 5 (0.099%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 685 (13.50%) Microsoft
2 311 (6.13%) ServiceNow
3 292 (5.76%) SAP
4 213 (4.20%) Oracle
5 198 (3.90%) VMware
6 190 (3.75%) Salesforce
7 185 (3.65%) Databricks
8 138 (2.72%) Cisco
9 112 (2.21%) Google
10 86 (1.70%) CyberArk
11 67 (1.32%) MuleSoft
12 64 (1.26%) Splunk
13 60 (1.18%) Palo Alto
14 57 (1.12%) Red Hat
15 54 (1.06%) Workday
16 49 (0.97%) IBM
17 48 (0.95%) Remedy
17 48 (0.95%) Sparx
18 46 (0.91%) Ariba
19 45 (0.89%) Atlassian