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 12 February 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,982 3,215 4,350
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 10.00% 10.38% 9.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.92% 11.16% 10.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,655 1,964 2,803
10th Percentile £458 £480 £500
25th Percentile £513 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £730 £738
90th Percentile £788 £799 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 32 44
10th Percentile £49.40 £58.43 £52.54
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £71.25 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +1.75% -6.90% +9.33%
75th Percentile £90.09 £81.00 £87.53
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.33 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.50 £72.50 £78.37
% change year-on-year - -7.49% +11.96%

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 36,458 28,796 41,269
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.54% 92.96% 93.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,924 17,765 27,180
10th Percentile £300 £288 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £478 £489
% change year-on-year -0.52% -2.35% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,214 834 2,292
10th Percentile £14.53 £15.92 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £16.45
Median hourly rate £30.00 £34.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% -2.86% -2.23%
75th Percentile £62.44 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £32.13 £35.00
% change year-on-year -7.87% -8.20% -

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 February 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 February 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 February 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 3,419 £625 - 876
UK excluding London +1 1,937 £600 -4.00% 655
London -3 1,517 £630 -3.08% 374
Work from Home -3 1,128 £625 - 455
South East +10 593 £625 - 251
North of England -3 485 £575 -4.17% 152
Midlands -3 340 £571 -4.90% 97
North West -7 273 £579 -3.50% 90
South West 0 251 £706 +12.96% 63
West Midlands -2 251 £600 -1.15% 68
Yorkshire -3 193 £563 -6.25% 39
East of England +12 142 £550 -13.73% 42
Scotland +9 130 £650 +4.00% 48
East Midlands -5 87 £480 -15.46% 29
Wales +8 32 £600 +5.26% 7
North East -12 24 £625 -1.96% 25
Northern Ireland -2 8 £500 -26.47% 6

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 12 February 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 1,223 (30.71%) Security Cleared
2 1,061 (26.64%) Azure
3 880 (22.10%) SC Cleared
4 847 (21.27%) AWS
5 584 (14.67%) Microsoft
6 573 (14.39%) Roadmaps
7 537 (13.49%) Agile
8 527 (13.23%) Stakeholder Management
9 501 (12.58%) Migration
10 453 (11.38%) DevOps
11 452 (11.35%) Enterprise Architecture
12 398 (9.99%) Data Modelling
13 396 (9.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 396 (9.94%) TOGAF
14 391 (9.82%) CI/CD
15 385 (9.67%) Technical Leadership
16 356 (8.94%) Problem-Solving
17 346 (8.69%) Analytics
18 334 (8.39%) AI
19 325 (8.16%) GCP
20 320 (8.04%) Python
21 316 (7.94%) Data Architecture
22 284 (7.13%) Microservices
23 273 (6.86%) Integration Patterns
24 256 (6.43%) DV Cleared
25 250 (6.28%) Terraform
26 249 (6.25%) Architectural Patterns
27 236 (5.93%) Architectural Design
28 233 (5.85%) Cybersecurity
29 227 (5.70%) Data Governance

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
1 112 (2.81%) Confluence
2 94 (2.36%) SharePoint
3 58 (1.46%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (0.83%) SAS
5 26 (0.65%) CMS
6 24 (0.60%) Apache Spark
7 19 (0.48%) Apache
7 19 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.43%) OpenStack
9 16 (0.40%) Anypoint
10 15 (0.38%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.33%) ArcGIS
12 12 (0.30%) Appian
12 12 (0.30%) nginx
13 9 (0.23%) Smallworld
14 7 (0.18%) Ethereum
14 7 (0.18%) GeoServer
14 7 (0.18%) Hyperledger
14 7 (0.18%) Sitecore CMS
14 7 (0.18%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 51 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.80%) Microsoft Project
3 30 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 30 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (0.38%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.050%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.025%) ArchiCAD
7 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.025%) FrameMaker
7 1 (0.025%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.025%) Revit
7 1 (0.025%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.025%) Trello
Business Applications
1 106 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (1.05%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 26 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.55%) Workday HCM
5 17 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
7 12 (0.30%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.28%) SAP EWM
9 10 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.25%) SAP ERP
9 10 (0.25%) SAP PM
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.20%) Maximo
11 8 (0.20%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.18%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.18%) SAP CO
13 6 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
13 6 (0.15%) Remedy ITSM
13 6 (0.15%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 1,061 (26.64%) Azure
2 847 (21.27%) AWS
3 325 (8.16%) GCP
4 152 (3.82%) Serverless
5 148 (3.72%) Power Platform
6 141 (3.54%) SaaS
7 131 (3.29%) Microsoft 365
8 126 (3.16%) Entra ID
9 90 (2.26%) Azure DevOps
10 87 (2.18%) AWS Lambda
10 87 (2.18%) IaaS
11 84 (2.11%) GitHub
12 79 (1.98%) Amazon S3
13 74 (1.86%) Microsoft Purview
14 71 (1.78%) PaaS
15 67 (1.68%) AWS CloudFormation
15 67 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
15 67 (1.68%) OpenShift
16 66 (1.66%) Azure Data Factory
16 66 (1.66%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 204 (5.12%) Firewall
2 128 (3.21%) Network Security
2 128 (3.21%) WAN
3 104 (2.61%) DNS
4 103 (2.59%) VPN
5 78 (1.96%) LAN
6 67 (1.68%) SD-WAN
7 39 (0.98%) BGP
8 29 (0.73%) MPLS
8 29 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
9 28 (0.70%) DHCP
10 27 (0.68%) TCP/IP
11 24 (0.60%) OSPF
12 21 (0.53%) Kerberos
12 21 (0.53%) SAN
13 19 (0.48%) Internet
13 19 (0.48%) IPsec
13 19 (0.48%) SSL
13 19 (0.48%) VSAN
14 17 (0.43%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (3.72%) Data Warehouse
2 122 (3.06%) Metadata
3 106 (2.66%) Power BI
4 95 (2.39%) Data Lake
5 71 (1.78%) SQL Server
6 63 (1.58%) PostgreSQL
7 52 (1.31%) Tableau
8 40 (1.00%) NoSQL
9 38 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
9 38 (0.95%) Oracle Database
10 37 (0.93%) Amazon Redshift
11 32 (0.80%) DynamoDB
12 26 (0.65%) Amazon Athena
12 26 (0.65%) Big Data
13 23 (0.58%) Relational Database
14 22 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
14 22 (0.55%) GIS
15 21 (0.53%) Amazon Aurora
15 21 (0.53%) Redis
16 19 (0.48%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 131 (3.29%) JIRA
2 91 (2.29%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.16%) GitLab
4 33 (0.83%) Git
5 23 (0.58%) ERwin
6 10 (0.25%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.23%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.18%) MLflow
9 6 (0.15%) Postman
10 5 (0.13%) MSI
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
10 5 (0.13%) REST Assured
10 5 (0.13%) Selenium
11 4 (0.10%) Cucumber
11 4 (0.10%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.10%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.075%) ER Studio
12 3 (0.075%) Sonatype Nexus
12 3 (0.075%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 960 (24.11%) Social Skills
2 626 (15.72%) Finance
3 472 (11.85%) Public Sector
4 280 (7.03%) Analytical Skills
5 225 (5.65%) Banking
6 132 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
7 102 (2.56%) Legal
8 97 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
9 77 (1.93%) Military
10 76 (1.91%) Telecoms
11 75 (1.88%) Retail
12 74 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
13 69 (1.73%) Marketing
14 59 (1.48%) Manufacturing
15 39 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 37 (0.93%) Billing
17 27 (0.68%) Law
18 25 (0.63%) Financial Institution
19 21 (0.53%) Aerospace
20 20 (0.50%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 207 (5.20%) REST
2 125 (3.14%) Middleware
3 117 (2.94%) SOAP
4 89 (2.24%) .NET
5 77 (1.93%) Kafka
6 76 (1.91%) LDAP
6 76 (1.91%) OpenID
7 66 (1.66%) SAML
8 65 (1.63%) OAuth
9 50 (1.26%) JSON
10 40 (1.00%) OAuth2
11 38 (0.95%) React
12 37 (0.93%) AngularJS
12 37 (0.93%) RESTful
13 35 (0.88%) SailPoint
14 33 (0.83%) PySpark
15 29 (0.73%) Oracle Fusion
16 28 (0.70%) Web Services
17 27 (0.68%) Node.js
18 22 (0.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 294 (7.38%) Cloud Native
2 137 (3.44%) Product Ownership
3 122 (3.06%) Data Centre
4 113 (2.84%) Onboarding
5 103 (2.59%) Legacy Systems
6 96 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
7 89 (2.24%) PKI
8 81 (2.03%) Hybrid Cloud
9 69 (1.73%) Management Information System
10 67 (1.68%) Security Posture
11 65 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
12 63 (1.58%) Public Cloud
13 55 (1.38%) Operational Technology
14 50 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
15 48 (1.21%) CMDB
16 44 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
17 41 (1.03%) NHS
18 35 (0.88%) Data Structures
19 33 (0.83%) AI Agents
19 33 (0.83%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 169 (4.24%) Windows
2 105 (2.64%) Linux
3 43 (1.08%) Windows Server
4 33 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.45%) Windows 7
6 16 (0.40%) Windows 10
7 13 (0.33%) Unix
8 12 (0.30%) Android
8 12 (0.30%) Apple iOS
8 12 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
8 12 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
9 10 (0.25%) VMS
10 9 (0.23%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.15%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.15%) zOS
12 4 (0.10%) CentOS
13 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.025%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.025%) SUSE
14 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 573 (14.39%) Roadmaps
2 537 (13.49%) Agile
3 527 (13.23%) Stakeholder Management
4 501 (12.58%) Migration
5 453 (11.38%) DevOps
6 452 (11.35%) Enterprise Architecture
7 398 (9.99%) Data Modelling
8 396 (9.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 396 (9.94%) TOGAF
9 391 (9.82%) CI/CD
10 385 (9.67%) Technical Leadership
11 356 (8.94%) Problem-Solving
12 346 (8.69%) Analytics
13 334 (8.39%) AI
14 316 (7.94%) Data Architecture
15 284 (7.13%) Microservices
16 273 (6.86%) Integration Patterns
17 249 (6.25%) Architectural Patterns
18 236 (5.93%) Architectural Design
19 233 (5.85%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 320 (8.04%) Python
2 214 (5.37%) SQL
3 177 (4.45%) PowerShell
4 133 (3.34%) Java
5 59 (1.48%) JavaScript
6 57 (1.43%) C#
7 36 (0.90%) Bicep
8 35 (0.88%) Bash
9 34 (0.85%) TypeScript
10 20 (0.50%) PL/SQL
11 15 (0.38%) Apex Code
12 14 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
13 13 (0.33%) R
14 10 (0.25%) Ruby
14 10 (0.25%) T-SQL
15 9 (0.23%) Scala
16 8 (0.20%) PHP
16 8 (0.20%) VB
17 7 (0.18%) Korn
17 7 (0.18%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,223 (30.71%) Security Cleared
2 880 (22.10%) SC Cleared
3 256 (6.43%) DV Cleared
4 198 (4.97%) Degree
5 109 (2.74%) CISSP
6 108 (2.71%) AWS Certification
6 108 (2.71%) TOGAF Certification
7 98 (2.46%) Azure Certification
8 72 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
9 71 (1.78%) Computer Science Degree
10 66 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
11 61 (1.53%) Microsoft Certification
12 59 (1.48%) Master's Degree
13 58 (1.46%) CISM
14 56 (1.41%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 39 (0.98%) CCNP
16 32 (0.80%) CCIE
17 31 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
18 30 (0.75%) ISEB
19 21 (0.53%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (4.52%) GDPR
2 141 (3.54%) NIST
3 127 (3.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 123 (3.09%) Data Quality
5 81 (2.03%) NCSC
6 58 (1.46%) QA
7 50 (1.26%) PCI DSS
8 34 (0.85%) COBIT
9 31 (0.78%) Accessibility
9 31 (0.78%) GRC
10 21 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
10 21 (0.53%) ISO 20022
10 21 (0.53%) JSP 440
11 20 (0.50%) HIPAA
12 18 (0.45%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 16 (0.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 15 (0.38%) MiFID
15 12 (0.30%) FINRA
16 11 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 11 (0.28%) SLA
System Software
1 169 (4.24%) Active Directory
2 121 (3.04%) Docker
3 90 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 60 (1.51%) VMware NSX
5 36 (0.90%) vSphere
6 23 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
7 15 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
8 13 (0.33%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
10 7 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.18%) Squid
11 6 (0.15%) Varnish
12 5 (0.13%) RACF
12 5 (0.13%) vCloud
13 4 (0.10%) NFS
14 3 (0.075%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 3 (0.075%) Ceph
14 3 (0.075%) Firmware
14 3 (0.075%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 250 (6.28%) Terraform
2 196 (4.92%) Kubernetes
3 107 (2.69%) Ansible
4 65 (1.63%) Single Sign-On
5 31 (0.78%) OPNET
6 30 (0.75%) FortiGate
7 29 (0.73%) vCenter Server
8 25 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
9 23 (0.58%) Grafana
9 23 (0.58%) SCCM
10 20 (0.50%) Prometheus
11 18 (0.45%) WMI
12 16 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 16 (0.40%) Argo
13 8 (0.20%) Istio
14 6 (0.15%) Consul
14 6 (0.15%) Kibana
15 5 (0.13%) Puppet
16 4 (0.10%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 584 (14.67%) Microsoft
2 222 (5.58%) ServiceNow
3 221 (5.55%) SAP
4 188 (4.72%) Oracle
5 180 (4.52%) Salesforce
6 158 (3.97%) VMware
7 131 (3.29%) Databricks
8 115 (2.89%) Cisco
9 105 (2.64%) Google
10 95 (2.39%) CyberArk
11 66 (1.66%) Palo Alto
12 61 (1.53%) Splunk
13 59 (1.48%) MuleSoft
14 49 (1.23%) Centrify
14 49 (1.23%) Red Hat
15 48 (1.21%) Atlassian
16 46 (1.16%) Remedy
17 45 (1.13%) Workday
18 44 (1.10%) OpenAI
19 41 (1.03%) Sparx