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 12 April 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 16 11
Rank change year-on-year +3 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,974 2,900 4,495
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.85% 9.91% 10.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.76% 10.70% 11.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,275 1,917 2,898
10th Percentile £463 £481 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -1.89%
75th Percentile £725 £725 £738
90th Percentile £800 £799 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £610 £615 £650
% change year-on-year -0.81% -5.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 116 37 52
10th Percentile £49.40 £54.30 £52.98
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £70.64 £70.00 £82.38
Median % change year-on-year +0.91% -15.03% +17.69%
75th Percentile £85.00 £80.59 £87.53
90th Percentile £97.50 £85.61 £94.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.27 £72.50 £83.77
% change year-on-year -1.70% -13.45% +19.66%

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 42,310 27,110 40,746
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.27% 92.64% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,286 17,809 26,634
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £407 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £629 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,662 974 2,583
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.84 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.09 £20.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.16 £31.51 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.61% -9.97% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.03 £72.26
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £30.10 £35.00
% change year-on-year +40.37% -14.00% -17.38%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 +3 4,262 £625 - 1,077
UK excluding London +8 2,308 £610 -0.81% 761
London +1 1,976 £625 -3.85% 476
Work from Home +3 1,375 £610 +0.25% 523
South East +4 701 £625 - 256
North of England +2 608 £600 - 194
Midlands -4 399 £576 -3.96% 95
North West +7 352 £610 +1.67% 100
West Midlands -4 302 £600 -0.41% 69
South West +2 284 £700 +16.67% 98
Yorkshire +6 230 £558 -7.00% 70
East of England +17 185 £556 -7.29% 71
Scotland +12 137 £650 +4.00% 35
East Midlands -5 93 £513 -9.69% 26
North East +2 35 £575 -7.95% 28
Wales 0 29 £588 -2.08% 24
Northern Ireland +6 11 £500 -24.53% 4

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 12 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 1,601 (32.19%) Security Cleared
2 1,204 (24.21%) Azure
3 1,140 (22.92%) SC Cleared
4 1,043 (20.97%) AWS
5 707 (14.21%) Roadmaps
6 684 (13.75%) Microsoft
7 660 (13.27%) Migration
8 618 (12.42%) Agile
9 563 (11.32%) Stakeholder Management
10 550 (11.06%) DevOps
11 515 (10.35%) CI/CD
12 513 (10.31%) Enterprise Architecture
13 481 (9.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 467 (9.39%) Data Modelling
15 454 (9.13%) Technical Leadership
16 447 (8.99%) TOGAF
17 433 (8.71%) AI
18 429 (8.62%) Analytics
19 414 (8.32%) Integration Patterns
20 390 (7.84%) Data Architecture
20 390 (7.84%) GCP
21 381 (7.66%) Problem-Solving
22 372 (7.48%) Architectural Patterns
23 365 (7.34%) Microservices
24 355 (7.14%) Python
25 339 (6.82%) DV Cleared
26 333 (6.69%) Architectural Design
27 296 (5.95%) Security Architecture
28 294 (5.91%) ServiceNow
29 288 (5.79%) 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
1 124 (2.49%) SharePoint
2 111 (2.23%) Confluence
3 65 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (0.64%) SAS
5 26 (0.52%) CMS
6 24 (0.48%) Apache Spark
7 21 (0.42%) Apache
8 18 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
9 17 (0.34%) Anypoint
10 16 (0.32%) Appian
10 16 (0.32%) ArcGIS
11 15 (0.30%) WebLogic
12 14 (0.28%) nginx
13 11 (0.22%) OpenStack
14 10 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 9 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
16 7 (0.14%) Camunda
16 7 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 7 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
16 7 (0.14%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 48 (0.97%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
3 25 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.42%) Microsoft Excel
5 17 (0.34%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.040%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.040%) PlantUML
7 2 (0.040%) Revit
7 2 (0.040%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.040%) Windchill
8 1 (0.020%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.020%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.020%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.020%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 129 (2.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 50 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 23 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
4 21 (0.42%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
6 17 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.28%) SAP ERP
8 13 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
9 12 (0.24%) SAP EWM
10 11 (0.22%) NetSuite
10 11 (0.22%) Teamcenter
11 10 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 10 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
11 10 (0.20%) SAP PM
12 9 (0.18%) Maximo
13 8 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
13 8 (0.16%) SAP PP
14 7 (0.14%) R3 Corda
14 7 (0.14%) SAP CRM
14 7 (0.14%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,204 (24.21%) Azure
2 1,043 (20.97%) AWS
3 390 (7.84%) GCP
4 208 (4.18%) Power Platform
5 178 (3.58%) Entra ID
6 171 (3.44%) Serverless
7 163 (3.28%) SaaS
8 142 (2.85%) Microsoft 365
9 116 (2.33%) IaaS
10 112 (2.25%) GitHub
11 106 (2.13%) PaaS
12 100 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
13 98 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
14 87 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
15 83 (1.67%) OpenShift
16 73 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
17 72 (1.45%) Microsoft Purview
18 71 (1.43%) Amazon S3
19 70 (1.41%) Snowflake
20 68 (1.37%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 239 (4.80%) Firewall
2 175 (3.52%) Network Security
3 141 (2.83%) WAN
4 129 (2.59%) DNS
5 126 (2.53%) VPN
6 88 (1.77%) LAN
7 78 (1.57%) SD-WAN
8 39 (0.78%) BGP
9 37 (0.74%) DHCP
10 31 (0.62%) OSPF
10 31 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
11 30 (0.60%) MPLS
12 28 (0.56%) SAN
12 28 (0.56%) TCP/IP
13 27 (0.54%) VLAN
14 25 (0.50%) Wireless
15 22 (0.44%) VXLAN
16 20 (0.40%) NAS
17 19 (0.38%) BIG-IP
17 19 (0.38%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (3.20%) Power BI
2 147 (2.96%) Data Warehouse
3 145 (2.92%) Metadata
4 118 (2.37%) Data Lake
5 82 (1.65%) SQL Server
6 62 (1.25%) PostgreSQL
7 60 (1.21%) NoSQL
8 49 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
8 49 (0.99%) Tableau
9 42 (0.84%) Oracle Database
10 41 (0.82%) Big Data
11 32 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
12 25 (0.50%) BigQuery
12 25 (0.50%) Delta Lake
13 24 (0.48%) Relational Database
14 23 (0.46%) DynamoDB
15 22 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
16 21 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
16 21 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
16 21 (0.42%) Metadata Repository
Development Applications
1 127 (2.55%) JIRA
2 95 (1.91%) Jenkins
3 50 (1.01%) Git
4 46 (0.92%) GitLab
5 21 (0.42%) ERwin
6 13 (0.26%) SonarQube
7 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket
8 10 (0.20%) Artifactory
9 9 (0.18%) MLflow
10 6 (0.12%) Postman
10 6 (0.12%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.10%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.10%) JUnit
11 5 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
11 5 (0.10%) Selenium
11 5 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.080%) Maven
12 4 (0.080%) Snyk
12 4 (0.080%) Terragrunt
13 3 (0.060%) ER Studio
General
1 1,028 (20.67%) Social Skills
2 757 (15.22%) Finance
3 568 (11.42%) Public Sector
4 322 (6.47%) Analytical Skills
5 287 (5.77%) Banking
6 162 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
7 117 (2.35%) Retail
8 116 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
8 116 (2.33%) Legal
9 89 (1.79%) Military
10 82 (1.65%) Telecoms
11 74 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
12 67 (1.35%) Manufacturing
13 64 (1.29%) Marketing
14 63 (1.27%) Law
15 44 (0.88%) Financial Institution
16 34 (0.68%) Billing
16 34 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 33 (0.66%) Investment Banking
18 30 (0.60%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (4.91%) REST
2 187 (3.76%) Middleware
3 124 (2.49%) SOAP
4 109 (2.19%) .NET
5 105 (2.11%) Kafka
6 82 (1.65%) OpenID
7 80 (1.61%) LDAP
8 75 (1.51%) OAuth
9 61 (1.23%) SAML
10 55 (1.11%) JSON
11 51 (1.03%) React
12 46 (0.92%) OAuth2
13 43 (0.86%) AngularJS
13 43 (0.86%) RESTful
14 37 (0.74%) Oracle Fusion
14 37 (0.74%) SailPoint
14 37 (0.74%) Web Services
15 32 (0.64%) Spring
16 30 (0.60%) PySpark
17 24 (0.48%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 385 (7.74%) Cloud Native
2 173 (3.48%) Data Centre
3 145 (2.92%) Product Ownership
4 130 (2.61%) Onboarding
5 112 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
5 112 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
6 109 (2.19%) Management Information System
7 100 (2.01%) Distributed Systems
8 97 (1.95%) Hybrid Cloud
9 94 (1.89%) Public Cloud
10 85 (1.71%) PKI
11 81 (1.63%) Security Posture
12 70 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
13 68 (1.37%) CMDB
14 67 (1.35%) Operational Technology
15 51 (1.03%) AI Agents
15 51 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
16 49 (0.99%) Data Structures
17 46 (0.92%) Private Cloud
18 44 (0.88%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 186 (3.74%) Windows
2 122 (2.45%) Linux
3 45 (0.90%) Windows Server
4 31 (0.62%) Android
4 31 (0.62%) Apple iOS
4 31 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.34%) Unix
6 14 (0.28%) VMS
6 14 (0.28%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.26%) Windows 7
8 12 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
9 10 (0.20%) zOS
10 9 (0.18%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.060%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.060%) Solaris
11 3 (0.060%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.040%) AIX
12 2 (0.040%) CentOS
13 1 (0.020%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 707 (14.21%) Roadmaps
2 660 (13.27%) Migration
3 618 (12.42%) Agile
4 563 (11.32%) Stakeholder Management
5 550 (11.06%) DevOps
6 515 (10.35%) CI/CD
7 513 (10.31%) Enterprise Architecture
8 481 (9.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 467 (9.39%) Data Modelling
10 454 (9.13%) Technical Leadership
11 447 (8.99%) TOGAF
12 433 (8.71%) AI
13 429 (8.62%) Analytics
14 414 (8.32%) Integration Patterns
15 390 (7.84%) Data Architecture
16 381 (7.66%) Problem-Solving
17 372 (7.48%) Architectural Patterns
18 365 (7.34%) Microservices
19 333 (6.69%) Architectural Design
20 296 (5.95%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 355 (7.14%) Python
2 262 (5.27%) SQL
3 197 (3.96%) Java
4 190 (3.82%) PowerShell
5 72 (1.45%) JavaScript
6 66 (1.33%) C#
7 43 (0.86%) Bash
7 43 (0.86%) Bicep
8 29 (0.58%) TypeScript
9 22 (0.44%) Ruby
10 19 (0.38%) Apex Code
11 18 (0.36%) PL/SQL
12 14 (0.28%) Scala
13 13 (0.26%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
14 10 (0.20%) R
15 9 (0.18%) ABAP
15 9 (0.18%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.18%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.16%) VB
Qualifications
1 1,601 (32.19%) Security Cleared
2 1,140 (22.92%) SC Cleared
3 339 (6.82%) DV Cleared
4 207 (4.16%) Degree
5 123 (2.47%) Azure Certification
6 122 (2.45%) CISSP
7 121 (2.43%) TOGAF Certification
8 116 (2.33%) AWS Certification
9 94 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
10 89 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
11 77 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
12 63 (1.27%) CISM
13 54 (1.09%) CCNP
14 52 (1.05%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 52 (1.05%) Master's Degree
15 51 (1.03%) Microsoft Certification
16 38 (0.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 33 (0.66%) ISEB
17 33 (0.66%) ITIL Certification
18 30 (0.60%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 196 (3.94%) GDPR
2 190 (3.82%) NIST
3 156 (3.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 155 (3.12%) Data Quality
5 103 (2.07%) NCSC
6 69 (1.39%) QA
7 56 (1.13%) PCI DSS
8 40 (0.80%) COBIT
9 33 (0.66%) GRC
10 29 (0.58%) ISO 20022
11 28 (0.56%) Accessibility
12 26 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.40%) JSP 440
14 19 (0.38%) NIST 800
14 19 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 18 (0.36%) HL7
15 18 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 15 (0.30%) SEPA
17 14 (0.28%) MiFID
18 13 (0.26%) PSD2
System Software
1 200 (4.02%) Active Directory
2 117 (2.35%) Docker
3 111 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 78 (1.57%) VMware NSX
5 38 (0.76%) vSphere
6 25 (0.50%) 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 (0.10%) Postfix
15 5 (0.10%) RACF
16 4 (0.080%) Firmware
17 3 (0.060%) IAG
17 3 (0.060%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 281 (5.65%) Terraform
2 241 (4.85%) Kubernetes
3 118 (2.37%) Ansible
4 56 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.80%) Grafana
5 40 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
6 35 (0.70%) vCenter Server
7 32 (0.64%) FortiGate
8 30 (0.60%) OPNET
9 27 (0.54%) Prometheus
10 22 (0.44%) Argo
10 22 (0.44%) SCCM
11 20 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 12 (0.24%) WMI
13 11 (0.22%) Istio
14 7 (0.14%) Consul
14 7 (0.14%) Puppet
15 6 (0.12%) Kibana
16 5 (0.10%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 684 (13.75%) Microsoft
2 294 (5.91%) ServiceNow
3 282 (5.67%) SAP
4 209 (4.20%) Oracle
5 203 (4.08%) VMware
6 198 (3.98%) Salesforce
7 177 (3.56%) Databricks
8 139 (2.79%) Cisco
9 112 (2.25%) Google
10 86 (1.73%) CyberArk
11 70 (1.41%) MuleSoft
12 65 (1.31%) Splunk
13 63 (1.27%) Palo Alto
14 60 (1.21%) Red Hat
15 51 (1.03%) Workday
16 50 (1.01%) Remedy
17 49 (0.99%) Sparx
18 48 (0.97%) IBM
19 47 (0.94%) Atlassian
20 45 (0.90%) Ariba