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 7 March 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 4,434 3,132 4,450
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.38% 10.22% 9.91%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.30% 11.01% 10.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,934 1,987 2,866
10th Percentile £462 £479 £500
25th Percentile £513 £548 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -0.46%
75th Percentile £725 £738 £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 95 32 43
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.43 £53.45
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £84.75 £81.00 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.33 £95.00
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 39,253 28,458 41,733
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.91% 92.86% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,589 18,093 27,411
10th Percentile £310 £293 £273
25th Percentile £409 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £485
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.06% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,404 876 2,465
10th Percentile £14.84 £16.17 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.89 £21.39 £16.25
Median hourly rate £34.50 £35.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.44% +6.06% -18.67%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.17 £32.50 £33.07
% change year-on-year +2.06% -1.71% -14.67%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 3,803 £625 - 912
UK excluding London +7 2,130 £600 -3.61% 677
London -1 1,703 £630 -3.08% 391
Work from Home -3 1,232 £620 -0.80% 468
South East +6 658 £625 - 242
North of England -2 527 £579 -3.50% 134
Midlands -3 382 £575 -4.17% 93
North West -2 287 £600 - 80
West Midlands +1 285 £600 -1.15% 55
South West 0 266 £703 +12.48% 95
Yorkshire +5 219 £563 -2.00% 37
East of England +15 164 £550 -12.00% 56
Scotland +18 139 £650 +4.00% 40
East Midlands -4 93 £513 -6.82% 35
Wales +10 31 £588 +8.80% 27
North East -5 27 £625 - 19
Northern Ireland +3 10 £500 -26.47% 4

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 7 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 1,392 (31.39%) Security Cleared
2 1,136 (25.62%) Azure
3 997 (22.49%) SC Cleared
4 936 (21.11%) AWS
5 651 (14.68%) Roadmaps
6 621 (14.01%) Microsoft
7 572 (12.90%) Migration
8 565 (12.74%) Agile
8 565 (12.74%) Stakeholder Management
9 502 (11.32%) DevOps
10 479 (10.80%) Enterprise Architecture
11 440 (9.92%) CI/CD
12 439 (9.90%) TOGAF
13 429 (9.68%) Data Modelling
14 417 (9.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 394 (8.89%) Technical Leadership
16 388 (8.75%) Analytics
17 380 (8.57%) AI
18 369 (8.32%) Problem-Solving
19 360 (8.12%) Data Architecture
20 355 (8.01%) GCP
21 334 (7.53%) Python
22 328 (7.40%) Integration Patterns
23 315 (7.10%) Microservices
24 299 (6.74%) Architectural Patterns
25 291 (6.56%) DV Cleared
26 272 (6.13%) Terraform
27 262 (5.91%) Architectural Design
28 253 (5.71%) Cybersecurity
28 253 (5.71%) 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
1 119 (2.68%) Confluence
2 117 (2.64%) SharePoint
3 63 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (0.74%) SAS
5 24 (0.54%) Apache Spark
6 23 (0.52%) CMS
7 19 (0.43%) Apache
7 19 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.38%) WebLogic
9 16 (0.36%) Anypoint
10 15 (0.34%) Appian
10 15 (0.34%) ArcGIS
10 15 (0.34%) OpenStack
11 13 (0.29%) nginx
12 9 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.20%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.16%) Ethereum
13 7 (0.16%) Hyperledger
13 7 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (0.70%) 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
1 119 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (0.95%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 24 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.52%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
7 14 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
8 12 (0.27%) NetSuite
9 11 (0.25%) SAP ERP
9 11 (0.25%) SAP EWM
10 10 (0.23%) SAP PM
11 9 (0.20%) Maximo
11 9 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
12 8 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
13 7 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
13 7 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
13 7 (0.16%) R3 Corda
13 7 (0.16%) SAP PP
13 7 (0.16%) Teamcenter
14 6 (0.14%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,136 (25.62%) Azure
2 936 (21.11%) AWS
3 355 (8.01%) GCP
4 172 (3.88%) Power Platform
5 158 (3.56%) Serverless
6 153 (3.45%) Entra ID
7 151 (3.41%) SaaS
8 143 (3.23%) Microsoft 365
9 104 (2.35%) IaaS
10 95 (2.14%) GitHub
11 89 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
12 88 (1.98%) PaaS
13 87 (1.96%) AWS Lambda
14 76 (1.71%) Microsoft Purview
15 75 (1.69%) AWS CloudFormation
16 74 (1.67%) Amazon S3
17 72 (1.62%) OpenShift
18 70 (1.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 69 (1.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 68 (1.53%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 229 (5.16%) Firewall
2 149 (3.36%) Network Security
3 130 (2.93%) WAN
4 121 (2.73%) DNS
5 114 (2.57%) VPN
6 77 (1.74%) LAN
7 73 (1.65%) SD-WAN
8 43 (0.97%) BGP
9 35 (0.79%) DHCP
10 33 (0.74%) MPLS
11 30 (0.68%) OSPF
12 29 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
13 26 (0.59%) VLAN
14 25 (0.56%) TCP/IP
15 22 (0.50%) VXLAN
15 22 (0.50%) Wireless
16 21 (0.47%) SAN
17 20 (0.45%) IPsec
17 20 (0.45%) Kerberos
17 20 (0.45%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (3.70%) Data Warehouse
2 138 (3.11%) Metadata
3 124 (2.80%) Power BI
4 100 (2.26%) Data Lake
5 82 (1.85%) SQL Server
6 68 (1.53%) PostgreSQL
7 51 (1.15%) Tableau
8 48 (1.08%) Azure SQL Database
9 46 (1.04%) NoSQL
10 39 (0.88%) Oracle Database
11 35 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
12 29 (0.65%) Big Data
13 27 (0.61%) DynamoDB
14 25 (0.56%) GIS
15 24 (0.54%) Amazon Athena
15 24 (0.54%) Relational Database
16 21 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
16 21 (0.47%) Delta Lake
16 21 (0.47%) Metadata Repository
17 19 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 131 (2.95%) JIRA
2 92 (2.07%) Jenkins
3 50 (1.13%) GitLab
4 41 (0.92%) 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
1 993 (22.40%) Social Skills
2 680 (15.34%) Finance
3 532 (12.00%) Public Sector
4 303 (6.83%) Analytical Skills
5 247 (5.57%) Banking
6 144 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
7 102 (2.30%) Legal
8 101 (2.28%) Influencing Skills
9 89 (2.01%) Retail
10 82 (1.85%) Telecoms
11 81 (1.83%) Military
12 78 (1.76%) Presentation Skills
13 69 (1.56%) Marketing
14 62 (1.40%) Manufacturing
15 41 (0.92%) Financial Institution
16 39 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 36 (0.81%) Billing
18 30 (0.68%) Law
19 27 (0.61%) Investment Banking
20 21 (0.47%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 220 (4.96%) REST
2 165 (3.72%) Middleware
3 119 (2.68%) SOAP
4 95 (2.14%) .NET
5 85 (1.92%) Kafka
6 81 (1.83%) OpenID
7 77 (1.74%) LDAP
8 74 (1.67%) OAuth
9 67 (1.51%) SAML
10 51 (1.15%) JSON
11 45 (1.01%) OAuth2
12 43 (0.97%) React
13 40 (0.90%) AngularJS
14 39 (0.88%) RESTful
15 35 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
16 34 (0.77%) SailPoint
17 31 (0.70%) PySpark
18 28 (0.63%) Web Services
19 27 (0.61%) Node.js
20 23 (0.52%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 322 (7.26%) Cloud Native
2 145 (3.27%) Product Ownership
3 144 (3.25%) Data Centre
4 124 (2.80%) Onboarding
5 118 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
6 100 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
7 92 (2.07%) PKI
8 89 (2.01%) Hybrid Cloud
9 81 (1.83%) Management Information System
10 80 (1.80%) Public Cloud
11 76 (1.71%) Distributed Systems
12 68 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
12 68 (1.53%) Security Posture
13 66 (1.49%) Operational Technology
14 53 (1.20%) CMDB
15 46 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
16 45 (1.01%) Data Structures
17 43 (0.97%) AI Agents
18 35 (0.79%) NHS
19 33 (0.74%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 181 (4.08%) Windows
2 115 (2.59%) Linux
3 39 (0.88%) Windows Server
4 34 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (0.52%) Android
5 23 (0.52%) Apple iOS
6 16 (0.36%) Windows 7
7 15 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 13 (0.29%) Unix
9 12 (0.27%) VMS
10 11 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
12 9 (0.20%) Mac OS
12 9 (0.20%) zOS
13 6 (0.14%) Ubuntu
14 4 (0.090%) CentOS
15 3 (0.068%) Windows Server 2012
16 1 (0.023%) Data ONTAP
16 1 (0.023%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.023%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 651 (14.68%) Roadmaps
2 572 (12.90%) Migration
3 565 (12.74%) Agile
3 565 (12.74%) Stakeholder Management
4 502 (11.32%) DevOps
5 479 (10.80%) Enterprise Architecture
6 440 (9.92%) CI/CD
7 439 (9.90%) TOGAF
8 429 (9.68%) Data Modelling
9 417 (9.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 394 (8.89%) Technical Leadership
11 388 (8.75%) Analytics
12 380 (8.57%) AI
13 369 (8.32%) Problem-Solving
14 360 (8.12%) Data Architecture
15 328 (7.40%) Integration Patterns
16 315 (7.10%) Microservices
17 299 (6.74%) Architectural Patterns
18 262 (5.91%) Architectural Design
19 253 (5.71%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 334 (7.53%) Python
2 238 (5.37%) SQL
3 183 (4.13%) PowerShell
4 143 (3.23%) Java
5 64 (1.44%) JavaScript
6 62 (1.40%) C#
7 40 (0.90%) Bicep
8 37 (0.83%) Bash
9 35 (0.79%) TypeScript
10 20 (0.45%) PL/SQL
11 19 (0.43%) 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%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,392 (31.39%) Security Cleared
2 997 (22.49%) SC Cleared
3 291 (6.56%) DV Cleared
4 207 (4.67%) Degree
5 124 (2.80%) TOGAF Certification
6 122 (2.75%) CISSP
7 120 (2.71%) AWS Certification
8 116 (2.62%) Azure Certification
9 84 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
11 77 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
12 64 (1.44%) CISM
13 59 (1.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 57 (1.29%) Master's Degree
14 57 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
15 51 (1.15%) CCNP
16 34 (0.77%) CCIE
17 33 (0.74%) ITIL Certification
18 30 (0.68%) ISEB
19 29 (0.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 182 (4.10%) GDPR
2 147 (3.32%) Data Quality
3 145 (3.27%) NIST
4 125 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 91 (2.05%) NCSC
6 62 (1.40%) QA
7 58 (1.31%) PCI DSS
8 35 (0.79%) COBIT
9 34 (0.77%) Accessibility
10 33 (0.74%) GRC
11 27 (0.61%) 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%) California Consumer Privacy Act
17 14 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 13 (0.29%) FINRA
19 12 (0.27%) PSD2
System Software
1 184 (4.15%) Active Directory
2 126 (2.84%) Docker
3 93 (2.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.58%) VMware NSX
5 37 (0.83%) vSphere
6 21 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
8 13 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 11 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
10 9 (0.20%) Varnish
11 8 (0.18%) Squid
12 7 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 7 (0.16%) vCloud
13 6 (0.14%) NFS
14 5 (0.11%) RACF
15 4 (0.090%) Firmware
16 3 (0.068%) Ceph
16 3 (0.068%) IAG
16 3 (0.068%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 272 (6.13%) Terraform
2 220 (4.96%) Kubernetes
3 117 (2.64%) Ansible
4 57 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
6 34 (0.77%) FortiGate
7 30 (0.68%) OPNET
7 30 (0.68%) vCenter Server
8 26 (0.59%) Grafana
9 22 (0.50%) Prometheus
9 22 (0.50%) SCCM
10 17 (0.38%) Argo
11 16 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.34%) WMI
13 10 (0.23%) Istio
14 7 (0.16%) Consul
15 6 (0.14%) Kibana
15 6 (0.14%) Puppet
16 5 (0.11%) Progress Chef
17 4 (0.090%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 621 (14.01%) Microsoft
2 253 (5.71%) ServiceNow
3 242 (5.46%) SAP
4 203 (4.58%) Oracle
5 183 (4.13%) Salesforce
6 178 (4.01%) VMware
7 142 (3.20%) Databricks
8 133 (3.00%) Cisco
9 108 (2.44%) Google
10 94 (2.12%) CyberArk
11 68 (1.53%) MuleSoft
12 67 (1.51%) Splunk
13 66 (1.49%) Palo Alto
14 51 (1.15%) Red Hat
15 50 (1.13%) Workday
16 49 (1.11%) Centrify
16 49 (1.11%) Remedy
17 48 (1.08%) Atlassian
18 42 (0.95%) IBM
19 41 (0.92%) Sparx