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 9 October 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 20 15
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +1
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,086 2,937 3,727
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.17% 8.86% 9.81%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.13% 9.75% 10.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,017 1,911 2,212
10th Percentile £481 £461 £475
25th Percentile £531 £525 £531
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £738
90th Percentile £785 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £622 £600 £625
% change year-on-year +3.67% -4.00% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 14 63
10th Percentile £40.00 £59.05 £60.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £63.44 £62.50
Median hourly rate £69.50 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.14% +3.57% -3.34%
75th Percentile £82.50 £93.13 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.00 £98.50 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.17 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -5.98% +3.57% -6.67%

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 50,176 30,117 35,319
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.07% 90.80% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,458 18,999 21,350
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,042 1,639 1,491
10th Percentile £14.32 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.36 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.57
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -39.49% -6.60%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £68.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.96
% change year-on-year +66.84% -41.80% -3.47%

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 9 October 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 9 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Architect in the UK

Architect
Top 18 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 9 October 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 +7 5,052 £620 -0.80% 4,627
London +8 2,591 £625 -3.40% 2,760
UK excluding London +7 2,552 £622 +3.67% 1,990
Work from Home +6 1,648 £600 - 1,772
South East 0 724 £625 +4.17% 510
North of England +3 660 £600 - 487
Midlands +6 453 £631 +9.65% 263
North West +1 347 £597 +3.74% 252
South West +5 344 £631 -2.88% 202
West Midlands +8 338 £650 +8.33% 203
Yorkshire +12 241 £600 - 174
Scotland +18 187 £625 +4.60% 237
East of England +7 151 £613 +10.36% 185
East Midlands +4 110 £600 +20.00% 60
North East 0 75 £625 -15.25% 61
Wales +10 43 £640 +2.40% 54
Channel Islands 0 12 £700 -5.72%
Northern Ireland +7 3 - - 59

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 October 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 1,925 (31.63%) Security Cleared
2 1,582 (25.99%) Azure
3 1,449 (23.81%) SC Cleared
4 1,264 (20.77%) AWS
5 1,207 (19.83%) Stakeholder Management
6 1,000 (16.43%) Roadmaps
7 887 (14.57%) Migration
8 838 (13.77%) Microsoft
9 811 (13.33%) Enterprise Architecture
10 788 (12.95%) AI
11 772 (12.68%) Technical Leadership
12 649 (10.66%) Agile
13 635 (10.43%) DevOps
14 629 (10.34%) Data Architecture
15 618 (10.15%) Data Modelling
16 614 (10.09%) CI/CD
17 606 (9.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 558 (9.17%) Integration Patterns
19 523 (8.59%) Analytics
20 498 (8.18%) GCP
21 495 (8.13%) Security Architecture
22 487 (8.00%) TOGAF
23 465 (7.64%) Architectural Patterns
24 430 (7.07%) Event-Driven
25 414 (6.80%) Data Governance
26 411 (6.75%) Architecture Governance
27 392 (6.44%) Decision-Making
28 389 (6.39%) Cybersecurity
28 389 (6.39%) Microservices
29 385 (6.33%) DV Cleared

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 77 (1.27%) SAS
2 64 (1.05%) SharePoint
3 59 (0.97%) Confluence
4 46 (0.76%) Apache
5 45 (0.74%) Apache Spark
6 36 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
7 35 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
8 25 (0.41%) CMS
9 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
9 17 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
10 7 (0.12%) Documentum
10 7 (0.12%) IIS
10 7 (0.12%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.099%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.099%) Headless CMS
11 6 (0.099%) JBoss
12 5 (0.082%) Appian
12 5 (0.082%) nginx
12 5 (0.082%) SAP EP
13 4 (0.066%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 25 (0.41%) MS Visio
2 18 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 8 (0.13%) Revit
7 6 (0.099%) Navisworks
8 5 (0.082%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.033%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.033%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.016%) Notion
10 1 (0.016%) PlantUML
10 1 (0.016%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 196 (3.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 51 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 32 (0.53%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 18 (0.30%) SAP MM
5 16 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
6 15 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
6 15 (0.25%) SAP MDG
6 15 (0.25%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 13 (0.21%) NetSuite
8 13 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
9 12 (0.20%) SAP CO
9 12 (0.20%) SAP FI
10 11 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
11 10 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
12 9 (0.15%) Workday HCM
13 8 (0.13%) Maximo
13 8 (0.13%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,582 (25.99%) Azure
2 1,264 (20.77%) AWS
3 498 (8.18%) GCP
4 296 (4.86%) Power Platform
5 236 (3.88%) SaaS
6 223 (3.66%) Entra ID
7 185 (3.04%) Serverless
8 154 (2.53%) GitHub
9 143 (2.35%) Microsoft 365
10 137 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
11 128 (2.10%) Dynamics 365
12 112 (1.84%) Snowflake
13 89 (1.46%) PaaS
14 84 (1.38%) AWS Lambda
15 79 (1.30%) Amazon S3
16 76 (1.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 71 (1.17%) OCI
18 65 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
18 65 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
18 65 (1.07%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 157 (2.58%) Firewall
2 149 (2.45%) Network Security
3 99 (1.63%) WAN
4 77 (1.27%) VPN
5 69 (1.13%) DNS
6 61 (1.00%) LAN
7 49 (0.81%) SD-WAN
8 48 (0.79%) BGP
9 40 (0.66%) MPLS
10 34 (0.56%) DHCP
11 32 (0.53%) TCP/IP
12 28 (0.46%) VXLAN
13 25 (0.41%) VLAN
14 23 (0.38%) NX-OS
15 20 (0.33%) SAN
15 20 (0.33%) Wireless
16 19 (0.31%) Internet
16 19 (0.31%) NGFW
16 19 (0.31%) VoIP
17 18 (0.30%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 244 (4.01%) Metadata
2 206 (3.38%) Data Lake
3 200 (3.29%) Data Warehouse
4 174 (2.86%) Power BI
5 64 (1.05%) NoSQL
6 50 (0.82%) SQL Server
7 47 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
7 47 (0.77%) BigQuery
8 46 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
9 45 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
10 41 (0.67%) Delta Lake
11 40 (0.66%) Oracle Database
12 37 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
13 31 (0.51%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 29 (0.48%) Semantic Layer
15 28 (0.46%) Big Data
16 25 (0.41%) Relational Database
17 24 (0.39%) SAP HANA
18 23 (0.38%) GIS
18 23 (0.38%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 85 (1.40%) JIRA
2 74 (1.22%) Git
3 65 (1.07%) Jenkins
4 49 (0.81%) GitLab
5 14 (0.23%) Claude Code
5 14 (0.23%) ERwin
6 13 (0.21%) Postman
7 11 (0.18%) MSI
8 10 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
8 10 (0.16%) RStudio
9 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.099%) Storybook
11 5 (0.082%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.082%) ER Studio
11 5 (0.082%) Rational DOORS
11 5 (0.082%) Selenium
12 4 (0.066%) Hudson
12 4 (0.066%) JMeter
12 4 (0.066%) Maven
12 4 (0.066%) MLflow
General
1 1,246 (20.47%) Social Skills
2 869 (14.28%) Finance
3 730 (11.99%) Public Sector
4 301 (4.95%) Banking
5 277 (4.55%) Analytical Skills
6 250 (4.11%) Retail
7 173 (2.84%) Influencing Skills
8 167 (2.74%) Manufacturing
9 143 (2.35%) Telecoms
10 137 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
11 110 (1.81%) Legal
12 77 (1.27%) Marketing
13 67 (1.10%) Aerospace
14 64 (1.05%) Billing
15 57 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 50 (0.82%) Military
17 46 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
18 42 (0.69%) Police
19 40 (0.66%) Local Government
20 36 (0.59%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 302 (4.96%) REST
2 265 (4.35%) Terraform
3 176 (2.89%) Kafka
4 165 (2.71%) Middleware
5 134 (2.20%) SOAP
6 127 (2.09%) OAuth
7 112 (1.84%) .NET
8 82 (1.35%) Oracle Fusion
9 67 (1.10%) OpenID
10 66 (1.08%) JSON
11 65 (1.07%) SAML
12 63 (1.04%) OAuth2
13 55 (0.90%) LDAP
14 48 (0.79%) RESTful
15 44 (0.72%) PySpark
15 44 (0.72%) XML
16 40 (0.66%) JWT
16 40 (0.66%) Swagger
17 39 (0.64%) SAP Fiori
18 36 (0.59%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 512 (8.41%) Cloud Native
2 191 (3.14%) Data Centre
3 184 (3.02%) Onboarding
4 171 (2.81%) Management Information System
5 153 (2.51%) Enterprise Software
6 149 (2.45%) Product Ownership
7 145 (2.38%) Hybrid Cloud
8 144 (2.37%) Legacy Systems
9 141 (2.32%) AI Agents
10 138 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
11 96 (1.58%) CMDB
12 94 (1.54%) Operational Technology
13 92 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
14 91 (1.50%) Public Cloud
15 76 (1.25%) Enterprise Cloud
16 70 (1.15%) Private Cloud
17 65 (1.07%) Data Structures
18 57 (0.94%) Security Posture
19 54 (0.89%) Taxonomies
20 50 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 129 (2.12%) Windows
2 100 (1.64%) Linux
3 49 (0.81%) Windows Server
4 23 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (0.35%) Unix
6 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.12%) AIX
7 7 (0.12%) Android
7 7 (0.12%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.099%) zOS
9 4 (0.066%) Alpine Linux
9 4 (0.066%) VMS
10 3 (0.049%) CentOS
10 3 (0.049%) Solaris
10 3 (0.049%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.033%) Data ONTAP
11 2 (0.033%) HPUX
11 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.033%) OpenWrt
12 1 (0.016%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,207 (19.83%) Stakeholder Management
2 1,000 (16.43%) Roadmaps
3 887 (14.57%) Migration
4 811 (13.33%) Enterprise Architecture
5 788 (12.95%) AI
6 772 (12.68%) Technical Leadership
7 649 (10.66%) Agile
8 635 (10.43%) DevOps
9 629 (10.34%) Data Architecture
10 618 (10.15%) Data Modelling
11 614 (10.09%) CI/CD
12 606 (9.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 558 (9.17%) Integration Patterns
14 523 (8.59%) Analytics
15 495 (8.13%) Security Architecture
16 487 (8.00%) TOGAF
17 465 (7.64%) Architectural Patterns
18 430 (7.07%) Event-Driven
19 414 (6.80%) Data Governance
20 411 (6.75%) Architecture Governance
Programming Languages
1 255 (4.19%) SQL
2 241 (3.96%) Java
3 231 (3.80%) Python
4 115 (1.89%) JavaScript
5 110 (1.81%) PowerShell
6 54 (0.89%) TypeScript
7 50 (0.82%) Bicep
8 49 (0.81%) C#
9 44 (0.72%) Bash
10 30 (0.49%) Apex Code
11 27 (0.44%) ABAP
12 16 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 14 (0.23%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.18%) Groovy
14 11 (0.18%) R
15 10 (0.16%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.15%) C++
16 9 (0.15%) Rust
17 8 (0.13%) Go
17 8 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 1,925 (31.63%) Security Cleared
2 1,449 (23.81%) SC Cleared
3 385 (6.33%) DV Cleared
4 200 (3.29%) BPSS Clearance
5 161 (2.65%) Degree
6 153 (2.51%) CISSP
7 125 (2.05%) AWS Certification
8 124 (2.04%) Azure Certification
9 104 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
10 96 (1.58%) TOGAF Certification
11 74 (1.22%) CISM
12 66 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.79%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 48 (0.79%) Microsoft Certification
14 40 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 40 (0.66%) CCNP
15 39 (0.64%) CCSP
16 28 (0.46%) Master's Degree
17 24 (0.39%) CCIE
18 23 (0.38%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 276 (4.53%) Data Quality
2 221 (3.63%) NIST
3 194 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 155 (2.55%) GDPR
5 138 (2.27%) NCSC
6 80 (1.31%) GRC
7 49 (0.81%) QA
8 45 (0.74%) Accessibility
9 40 (0.66%) PCI DSS
10 29 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (0.43%) NIST 800
12 24 (0.39%) SLA
13 23 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 22 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
15 20 (0.33%) JSP 440
15 20 (0.33%) SEPA
16 18 (0.30%) IFRS
16 18 (0.30%) ISO 20022
17 15 (0.25%) ISO 19650
18 14 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 184 (3.02%) Active Directory
2 108 (1.77%) Docker
3 86 (1.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (0.69%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
6 20 (0.33%) vSphere
7 19 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 17 (0.28%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.082%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.066%) KVM
12 3 (0.049%) Ceph
12 3 (0.049%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (0.049%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.033%) IAG
13 2 (0.033%) Postfix
13 2 (0.033%) SRDF
13 2 (0.033%) Varnish
13 2 (0.033%) zsh
Systems Management
1 300 (4.93%) Kubernetes
2 100 (1.64%) Ansible
3 50 (0.82%) Grafana
4 47 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
5 36 (0.59%) Prometheus
6 34 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.25%) Argo
8 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.20%) WMI
11 11 (0.18%) CASB
11 11 (0.18%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.13%) Istio
12 8 (0.13%) SCCM
13 6 (0.099%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.099%) Puppet
13 6 (0.099%) vCenter Server
14 5 (0.082%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.082%) VxRail
15 4 (0.066%) Cisco CUCM
Vendors
1 838 (13.77%) Microsoft
2 364 (5.98%) SAP
3 299 (4.91%) Oracle
4 281 (4.62%) ServiceNow
5 275 (4.52%) Databricks
6 216 (3.55%) Google
7 193 (3.17%) Salesforce
8 149 (2.45%) Cisco
9 135 (2.22%) VMware
10 83 (1.36%) CyberArk
11 76 (1.25%) MuleSoft
12 59 (0.97%) IBM
13 51 (0.84%) Palo Alto
13 51 (0.84%) Workday
14 44 (0.72%) Foundry
15 41 (0.67%) Splunk
16 40 (0.66%) Ariba
17 38 (0.62%) Adobe
17 38 (0.62%) OpenAI
17 38 (0.62%) Red Hat