Architect Contract Job Trends

Architect
UK

The median Architect daily rate in the UK is £613, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 September 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 6,014 2,959 3,887
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.21% 9.04% 10.07%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.12% 9.90% 10.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,983 1,904 2,477
10th Percentile £476 £470 £485
25th Percentile £525 £531 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £625 £638
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% -1.96% -1.92%
75th Percentile £700 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £638
% change year-on-year +3.33% -5.88% -1.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 18 73
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £66.66 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.06% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £87.00 £85.00
90th Percentile £96.36 £100.00 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -4.00%

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 49,606 29,880 35,937
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.25% 93.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,580 18,873 22,662
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,581 1,559 1,838
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.69 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.04 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.33 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.95
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.78% +11.13%

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 1 September 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 1 September 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 1 September 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 +8 5,029 £620 -0.80% 3,228
London +7 2,582 £625 -3.85% 1,983
UK excluding London +8 2,518 £620 +3.33% 1,529
Work from Home +4 1,612 £600 - 1,417
South East 0 726 £625 +4.17% 393
North of England +5 699 £600 - 378
Midlands +3 417 £625 +8.70% 178
North West +5 413 £600 +1.27% 238
South West +2 322 £645 +0.78% 204
West Midlands +1 307 £644 +7.42% 116
Yorkshire +9 225 £581 -5.10% 109
Scotland +23 169 £625 +0.60% 164
East of England +17 154 £611 +10.27% 116
East Midlands +3 104 £600 +16.50% 62
North East -8 63 £575 -19.30% 31
Wales +7 43 £633 +1.20% 18
Channel Islands -3 5 £625 -15.82% 3
Northern Ireland +5 4 £488 -30.36% 84

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 September 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 1,859 (30.91%) Security Cleared
2 1,545 (25.69%) Azure
3 1,398 (23.25%) SC Cleared
4 1,310 (21.78%) AWS
5 998 (16.59%) Stakeholder Management
6 907 (15.08%) Roadmaps
7 860 (14.30%) Migration
8 809 (13.45%) Microsoft
9 765 (12.72%) Enterprise Architecture
10 762 (12.67%) AI
11 700 (11.64%) Technical Leadership
12 671 (11.16%) Agile
13 630 (10.48%) DevOps
13 630 (10.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 626 (10.41%) Data Modelling
15 610 (10.14%) CI/CD
16 588 (9.78%) Data Architecture
17 574 (9.54%) Integration Patterns
18 514 (8.55%) Analytics
19 485 (8.06%) GCP
20 482 (8.01%) TOGAF
21 480 (7.98%) Architectural Patterns
22 471 (7.83%) Security Architecture
23 406 (6.75%) Event-Driven
24 399 (6.63%) Data Governance
25 394 (6.55%) Microservices
26 372 (6.19%) Cybersecurity
27 363 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
28 361 (6.00%) Decision-Making
29 350 (5.82%) 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 80 (1.33%) SharePoint
2 79 (1.31%) SAS
3 69 (1.15%) Confluence
4 44 (0.73%) Apache
5 42 (0.70%) Apache Spark
6 33 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
7 30 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
8 24 (0.40%) CMS
9 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
10 17 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 7 (0.12%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.12%) Documentum
12 6 (0.100%) Appian
12 6 (0.100%) Camunda
13 5 (0.083%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 5 (0.083%) Headless CMS
14 4 (0.067%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.067%) NetWeaver
14 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
15 3 (0.050%) JBoss
Applications
1 20 (0.33%) MS Visio
2 16 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.12%) Revit
6 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.033%) Windchill
8 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
8 1 (0.017%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 164 (2.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 35 (0.58%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 19 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 18 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
7 14 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 13 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
9 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
9 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.20%) SAP ERP
9 12 (0.20%) SAP MDG
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.13%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.100%) Maximo
13 6 (0.100%) SAP CO
13 6 (0.100%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,545 (25.69%) Azure
2 1,310 (21.78%) AWS
3 485 (8.06%) GCP
4 302 (5.02%) Power Platform
5 226 (3.76%) SaaS
6 220 (3.66%) Entra ID
7 210 (3.49%) Serverless
8 146 (2.43%) GitHub
9 145 (2.41%) Dynamics 365
10 126 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
11 123 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
12 113 (1.88%) Snowflake
13 101 (1.68%) PaaS
14 99 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
15 87 (1.45%) Amazon S3
16 72 (1.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 69 (1.15%) IaaS
18 66 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
19 65 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
20 63 (1.05%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 179 (2.98%) Firewall
2 159 (2.64%) Network Security
3 107 (1.78%) WAN
4 93 (1.55%) VPN
5 79 (1.31%) DNS
6 74 (1.23%) LAN
7 51 (0.85%) SD-WAN
8 49 (0.81%) BGP
9 39 (0.65%) DHCP
10 37 (0.62%) MPLS
10 37 (0.62%) TCP/IP
11 30 (0.50%) VLAN
12 28 (0.47%) SAN
13 27 (0.45%) VXLAN
14 24 (0.40%) OSPF
15 22 (0.37%) NAS
16 21 (0.35%) NX-OS
17 20 (0.33%) Radio Access Network
17 20 (0.33%) Wireless
18 19 (0.32%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 208 (3.46%) Metadata
2 202 (3.36%) Data Lake
3 201 (3.34%) Power BI
4 180 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
5 76 (1.26%) NoSQL
6 50 (0.83%) SQL Server
7 47 (0.78%) PostgreSQL
8 46 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
8 46 (0.76%) BigQuery
9 44 (0.73%) Delta Lake
10 42 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
11 41 (0.68%) Big Data
12 40 (0.67%) Oracle Database
13 39 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
14 29 (0.48%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 29 (0.48%) Semantic Layer
15 25 (0.42%) Relational Database
16 23 (0.38%) GIS
16 23 (0.38%) MongoDB
16 23 (0.38%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 85 (1.41%) JIRA
2 78 (1.30%) Git
3 58 (0.96%) Jenkins
4 38 (0.63%) GitLab
5 18 (0.30%) ERwin
6 12 (0.20%) Claude Code
7 10 (0.17%) Cypress.io
8 9 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
9 8 (0.13%) MSI
9 8 (0.13%) RStudio
10 7 (0.12%) Artifactory
10 7 (0.12%) MLflow
10 7 (0.12%) Postman
10 7 (0.12%) SonarQube
11 6 (0.100%) Hudson
11 6 (0.100%) Storybook
12 5 (0.083%) ER Studio
12 5 (0.083%) Maven
12 5 (0.083%) Sonatype Nexus
13 4 (0.067%) Selenium
General
1 1,195 (19.87%) Social Skills
2 870 (14.47%) Finance
3 690 (11.47%) Public Sector
4 310 (5.15%) Banking
5 305 (5.07%) Analytical Skills
6 258 (4.29%) Retail
7 163 (2.71%) Influencing Skills
8 146 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
9 138 (2.29%) Manufacturing
10 136 (2.26%) Telecoms
11 113 (1.88%) Legal
12 69 (1.15%) Marketing
13 63 (1.05%) Billing
14 57 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 48 (0.80%) Military
16 45 (0.75%) Aerospace
17 43 (0.71%) Law
18 37 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
19 36 (0.60%) Police
20 35 (0.58%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 295 (4.91%) REST
2 263 (4.37%) Terraform
3 182 (3.03%) Middleware
4 144 (2.39%) Kafka
5 130 (2.16%) SOAP
6 125 (2.08%) .NET
6 125 (2.08%) OAuth
7 70 (1.16%) Oracle Fusion
8 68 (1.13%) JSON
9 67 (1.11%) SAML
10 66 (1.10%) OpenID
11 59 (0.98%) OAuth2
12 48 (0.80%) PySpark
13 46 (0.76%) RESTful
14 44 (0.73%) LDAP
15 43 (0.71%) XML
16 39 (0.65%) React
16 39 (0.65%) SailPoint
17 37 (0.62%) .NET Framework
18 36 (0.60%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 530 (8.81%) Cloud Native
2 199 (3.31%) Data Centre
3 179 (2.98%) Management Information System
4 164 (2.73%) Onboarding
5 145 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
6 144 (2.39%) Product Ownership
7 142 (2.36%) Hybrid Cloud
8 140 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
9 139 (2.31%) AI Agents
10 135 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
11 98 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
12 94 (1.56%) CMDB
13 86 (1.43%) Operational Technology
14 84 (1.40%) Public Cloud
15 79 (1.31%) Enterprise Cloud
16 67 (1.11%) Security Posture
17 56 (0.93%) Data Structures
18 53 (0.88%) Private Cloud
19 48 (0.80%) IoT
20 46 (0.76%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 122 (2.03%) Windows
2 107 (1.78%) Linux
3 47 (0.78%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (0.37%) Unix
6 16 (0.27%) Android
6 16 (0.27%) Apple iOS
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.12%) zOS
10 5 (0.083%) Solaris
10 5 (0.083%) VMS
11 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.067%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.050%) CentOS
12 3 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.050%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.033%) HPUX
13 2 (0.033%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.033%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 998 (16.59%) Stakeholder Management
2 907 (15.08%) Roadmaps
3 860 (14.30%) Migration
4 765 (12.72%) Enterprise Architecture
5 762 (12.67%) AI
6 700 (11.64%) Technical Leadership
7 671 (11.16%) Agile
8 630 (10.48%) DevOps
8 630 (10.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 626 (10.41%) Data Modelling
10 610 (10.14%) CI/CD
11 588 (9.78%) Data Architecture
12 574 (9.54%) Integration Patterns
13 514 (8.55%) Analytics
14 482 (8.01%) TOGAF
15 480 (7.98%) Architectural Patterns
16 471 (7.83%) Security Architecture
17 406 (6.75%) Event-Driven
18 399 (6.63%) Data Governance
19 394 (6.55%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 282 (4.69%) Python
2 275 (4.57%) SQL
3 270 (4.49%) Java
4 128 (2.13%) JavaScript
5 108 (1.80%) PowerShell
6 53 (0.88%) C#
7 50 (0.83%) TypeScript
8 49 (0.81%) Bash
9 48 (0.80%) Bicep
10 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
11 18 (0.30%) Ruby
12 16 (0.27%) ABAP
12 16 (0.27%) Shell Script
13 15 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 11 (0.18%) C++
14 11 (0.18%) Groovy
14 11 (0.18%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.18%) R
15 10 (0.17%) PL/SQL
15 10 (0.17%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,859 (30.91%) Security Cleared
2 1,398 (23.25%) SC Cleared
3 350 (5.82%) DV Cleared
4 166 (2.76%) Degree
5 150 (2.49%) CISSP
6 139 (2.31%) BPSS Clearance
7 123 (2.05%) AWS Certification
8 120 (2.00%) Azure Certification
9 102 (1.70%) Cisco Certification
10 84 (1.40%) TOGAF Certification
11 75 (1.25%) CISM
12 72 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
14 46 (0.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 42 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 42 (0.70%) CCNP
16 33 (0.55%) CCSP
17 32 (0.53%) Master's Degree
18 22 (0.37%) CISA
18 22 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 245 (4.07%) Data Quality
2 233 (3.87%) NIST
3 186 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 175 (2.91%) GDPR
5 116 (1.93%) NCSC
6 77 (1.28%) GRC
7 55 (0.91%) QA
8 42 (0.70%) Accessibility
8 42 (0.70%) PCI DSS
9 32 (0.53%) NIST 800
10 31 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (0.42%) SLA
12 22 (0.37%) SEPA
13 21 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
14 20 (0.33%) IFRS
14 20 (0.33%) ISO 20022
15 18 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 17 (0.28%) JSP 440
17 16 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
18 14 (0.23%) HL7
System Software
1 177 (2.94%) Active Directory
2 116 (1.93%) Docker
3 80 (1.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 43 (0.71%) VMware NSX
5 32 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
6 23 (0.38%) Hyper-V
7 22 (0.37%) vSphere
8 19 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
10 7 (0.12%) NFS
11 6 (0.100%) Varnish
12 5 (0.083%) Postfix
13 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.067%) KVM
13 4 (0.067%) vCloud
14 3 (0.050%) Ceph
14 3 (0.050%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.050%) SRDF
15 2 (0.033%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 2 (0.033%) zsh
Systems Management
1 292 (4.86%) Kubernetes
2 105 (1.75%) Ansible
3 50 (0.83%) Grafana
4 48 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.70%) Prometheus
6 28 (0.47%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (0.32%) Argo
8 16 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.22%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.17%) Istio
12 9 (0.15%) WMI
13 8 (0.13%) FortiGate
14 7 (0.12%) SCCM
15 6 (0.100%) CASB
15 6 (0.100%) NetBackup
16 5 (0.083%) EMC VPLEX
16 5 (0.083%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.083%) MOM
17 4 (0.067%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 809 (13.45%) Microsoft
2 349 (5.80%) SAP
3 304 (5.05%) Oracle
4 300 (4.99%) ServiceNow
5 288 (4.79%) Databricks
6 196 (3.26%) Salesforce
7 185 (3.08%) Google
8 146 (2.43%) Cisco
9 137 (2.28%) VMware
10 73 (1.21%) MuleSoft
11 70 (1.16%) CyberArk
12 62 (1.03%) IBM
13 53 (0.88%) Palo Alto
13 53 (0.88%) Workday
14 48 (0.80%) Foundry
15 42 (0.70%) Adobe
15 42 (0.70%) Ariba
16 40 (0.67%) Informatica
16 40 (0.67%) Red Hat
17 38 (0.63%) OpenAI