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 18 August 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,948 3,016 3,940
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.11% 9.17% 10.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.01% 10.05% 10.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,939 1,937 2,573
10th Percentile £481 £470 £488
25th Percentile £525 £537 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £710 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £780 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £600 £649
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.55% -0.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 18 74
10th Percentile £46.00 £36.30 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £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% -3.89%

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 49,538 30,006 36,016
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.49% 91.28% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,704 18,935 23,189
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% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £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 3,506 1,542 1,988
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.56 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.69 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +3.61%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.83 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £44.02
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.87% +22.28%

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 18 August 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 18 August 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 18 August 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 5,015 £620 -0.80% 730
London +7 2,555 £625 -3.85% 326
UK excluding London +7 2,500 £620 +3.33% 517
Work from Home +4 1,592 £600 - 370
South East +1 738 £625 +4.17% 167
North of England +4 698 £600 - 128
Midlands 0 417 £625 +8.70% 62
North West +5 403 £600 - 64
South West -2 313 £625 -2.34% 83
West Midlands 0 301 £627 +4.42% 47
Yorkshire +4 232 £600 0.00% 44
East of England +13 159 £600 +8.11% 21
Scotland +19 149 £648 +3.60% 27
East Midlands +4 109 £600 +16.50% 15
North East -4 65 £600 -14.29% 20
Wales +3 42 £633 +1.20% 13
Northern Ireland +7 5 £475 -32.14% 20
Channel Islands -3 3 £575 -22.56%

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 August 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 1,838 (30.90%) Security Cleared
2 1,517 (25.50%) Azure
3 1,370 (23.03%) SC Cleared
4 1,298 (21.82%) AWS
5 892 (15.00%) Stakeholder Management
6 873 (14.68%) Roadmaps
7 831 (13.97%) Migration
8 790 (13.28%) Microsoft
9 730 (12.27%) Enterprise Architecture
10 726 (12.21%) AI
11 656 (11.03%) Agile
12 640 (10.76%) Technical Leadership
13 621 (10.44%) DevOps
14 614 (10.32%) CI/CD
15 612 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 608 (10.22%) Data Modelling
17 573 (9.63%) Integration Patterns
18 568 (9.55%) Data Architecture
19 522 (8.78%) Analytics
20 483 (8.12%) TOGAF
21 472 (7.94%) GCP
22 463 (7.78%) Architectural Patterns
23 441 (7.41%) Security Architecture
24 400 (6.72%) Microservices
25 396 (6.66%) Event-Driven
26 375 (6.30%) Infrastructure as Code
27 368 (6.19%) Cybersecurity
28 362 (6.09%) Data Governance
29 357 (6.00%) Problem-Solving
30 354 (5.95%) 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 85 (1.43%) SharePoint
2 77 (1.29%) SAS
3 66 (1.11%) Confluence
4 45 (0.76%) Apache
5 43 (0.72%) Apache Spark
6 27 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
6 27 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
7 22 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
8 19 (0.32%) CMS
9 18 (0.30%) OpenStack
10 8 (0.13%) ArcGIS
11 7 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 7 (0.12%) Appian
11 7 (0.12%) Camunda
11 7 (0.12%) Documentum
12 5 (0.084%) NetWeaver
13 4 (0.067%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.067%) nginx
13 4 (0.067%) SAP EP
14 3 (0.050%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 22 (0.37%) MS Visio
2 15 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.15%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.13%) Chatbot
6 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
6 7 (0.12%) Revit
6 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.050%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.050%) Windchill
8 1 (0.017%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 161 (2.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 17 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
8 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.20%) SAP ERP
9 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.15%) SAP IBP
11 8 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
11 8 (0.13%) SAP MDG
12 7 (0.12%) SAP MM
12 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
13 6 (0.10%) Maximo
13 6 (0.10%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,517 (25.50%) Azure
2 1,298 (21.82%) AWS
3 472 (7.94%) GCP
4 303 (5.09%) Power Platform
5 212 (3.56%) SaaS
6 205 (3.45%) Entra ID
7 201 (3.38%) Serverless
8 145 (2.44%) GitHub
9 134 (2.25%) Dynamics 365
10 120 (2.02%) Microsoft 365
11 119 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
12 116 (1.95%) PaaS
13 111 (1.87%) Snowflake
14 99 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
15 85 (1.43%) Amazon S3
16 81 (1.36%) IaaS
17 71 (1.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 67 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
19 65 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
19 65 (1.09%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 189 (3.18%) Firewall
2 166 (2.79%) Network Security
3 104 (1.75%) WAN
4 101 (1.70%) VPN
5 90 (1.51%) DNS
6 77 (1.29%) LAN
7 50 (0.84%) SD-WAN
8 46 (0.77%) BGP
9 42 (0.71%) DHCP
10 39 (0.66%) MPLS
11 38 (0.64%) TCP/IP
12 33 (0.55%) VLAN
13 30 (0.50%) SAN
14 29 (0.49%) VXLAN
15 26 (0.44%) Wireless
16 25 (0.42%) NAS
16 25 (0.42%) NX-OS
17 24 (0.40%) OSPF
18 23 (0.39%) Structured Cabling
19 21 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 207 (3.48%) Power BI
2 201 (3.38%) Data Lake
3 181 (3.04%) Data Warehouse
4 177 (2.98%) Metadata
5 75 (1.26%) NoSQL
6 57 (0.96%) SQL Server
7 50 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
8 49 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
9 46 (0.77%) BigQuery
10 45 (0.76%) Big Data
11 43 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
12 39 (0.66%) Delta Lake
13 38 (0.64%) Oracle Database
14 36 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
15 28 (0.47%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
16 24 (0.40%) GIS
17 23 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
17 23 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
18 22 (0.37%) MongoDB
18 22 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 83 (1.40%) JIRA
2 79 (1.33%) Git
3 58 (0.98%) Jenkins
4 36 (0.61%) GitLab
5 21 (0.35%) ERwin
6 11 (0.18%) Claude Code
7 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (0.13%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.12%) Artifactory
9 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 7 (0.12%) PowerDesigner
10 6 (0.10%) Hudson
10 6 (0.10%) MLflow
10 6 (0.10%) MSI
10 6 (0.10%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.10%) Storybook
11 5 (0.084%) Maven
12 4 (0.067%) ER Studio
12 4 (0.067%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,135 (19.08%) Social Skills
2 866 (14.56%) Finance
3 675 (11.35%) Public Sector
4 316 (5.31%) Banking
5 305 (5.13%) Analytical Skills
6 257 (4.32%) Retail
7 150 (2.52%) Influencing Skills
8 137 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
9 133 (2.24%) Telecoms
10 131 (2.20%) Manufacturing
11 110 (1.85%) Legal
12 67 (1.13%) Marketing
13 58 (0.98%) Billing
14 56 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 48 (0.81%) Financial Institution
16 47 (0.79%) Law
17 46 (0.77%) Aerospace
17 46 (0.77%) Military
18 38 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
19 37 (0.62%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 288 (4.84%) REST
2 199 (3.35%) Middleware
3 142 (2.39%) Kafka
4 127 (2.14%) SOAP
5 126 (2.12%) .NET
6 125 (2.10%) OAuth
7 71 (1.19%) Oracle Fusion
8 66 (1.11%) SAML
9 65 (1.09%) OpenID
10 64 (1.08%) JSON
11 62 (1.04%) OAuth2
12 48 (0.81%) RESTful
13 44 (0.74%) React
14 40 (0.67%) PySpark
14 40 (0.67%) SailPoint
15 37 (0.62%) .NET Framework
15 37 (0.62%) LDAP
15 37 (0.62%) XML
16 35 (0.59%) GraphQL
17 34 (0.57%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 514 (8.64%) Cloud Native
2 205 (3.45%) Data Centre
3 179 (3.01%) Management Information System
4 151 (2.54%) Onboarding
5 147 (2.47%) Product Ownership
6 145 (2.44%) Hybrid Cloud
7 143 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
8 142 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
9 131 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
10 130 (2.19%) AI Agents
11 105 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
12 88 (1.48%) CMDB
13 87 (1.46%) Operational Technology
14 86 (1.45%) Public Cloud
15 77 (1.29%) Enterprise Cloud
16 67 (1.13%) Security Posture
17 60 (1.01%) Data Structures
18 51 (0.86%) Private Cloud
19 45 (0.76%) IoT
20 44 (0.74%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 132 (2.22%) Windows
2 106 (1.78%) Linux
3 49 (0.82%) Windows Server
4 27 (0.45%) Android
4 27 (0.45%) Apple iOS
5 23 (0.39%) Unix
6 22 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (0.15%) AIX
8 8 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.13%) zOS
9 7 (0.12%) VMS
10 5 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.084%) Solaris
10 5 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.067%) Alpine Linux
11 4 (0.067%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.050%) CentOS
13 2 (0.034%) HPUX
13 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.034%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 892 (15.00%) Stakeholder Management
2 873 (14.68%) Roadmaps
3 831 (13.97%) Migration
4 730 (12.27%) Enterprise Architecture
5 726 (12.21%) AI
6 656 (11.03%) Agile
7 640 (10.76%) Technical Leadership
8 621 (10.44%) DevOps
9 614 (10.32%) CI/CD
10 612 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 608 (10.22%) Data Modelling
12 573 (9.63%) Integration Patterns
13 568 (9.55%) Data Architecture
14 522 (8.78%) Analytics
15 483 (8.12%) TOGAF
16 463 (7.78%) Architectural Patterns
17 441 (7.41%) Security Architecture
18 400 (6.72%) Microservices
19 396 (6.66%) Event-Driven
20 375 (6.30%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 278 (4.67%) SQL
2 276 (4.64%) Python
3 269 (4.52%) Java
4 129 (2.17%) JavaScript
5 109 (1.83%) PowerShell
6 54 (0.91%) Bicep
7 50 (0.84%) Bash
7 50 (0.84%) C#
8 45 (0.76%) TypeScript
9 31 (0.52%) Apex Code
10 21 (0.35%) Ruby
11 17 (0.29%) Shell Script
12 16 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 13 (0.22%) C++
13 13 (0.22%) Kotlin
14 12 (0.20%) ABAP
15 11 (0.18%) Groovy
15 11 (0.18%) PL/SQL
16 10 (0.17%) Scala
17 9 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,838 (30.90%) Security Cleared
2 1,370 (23.03%) SC Cleared
3 354 (5.95%) DV Cleared
4 163 (2.74%) Degree
5 149 (2.51%) CISSP
6 128 (2.15%) Azure Certification
7 122 (2.05%) AWS Certification
8 121 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
9 103 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
10 83 (1.40%) TOGAF Certification
11 74 (1.24%) CISM
12 68 (1.14%) Computer Science Degree
13 48 (0.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 44 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
15 43 (0.72%) CCNP
16 42 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 34 (0.57%) CCSP
18 31 (0.52%) Master's Degree
19 21 (0.35%) CISA
19 21 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 219 (3.68%) Data Quality
2 217 (3.65%) NIST
3 181 (3.04%) GDPR
4 172 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 123 (2.07%) NCSC
6 77 (1.29%) GRC
7 58 (0.98%) QA
8 44 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 39 (0.66%) Accessibility
10 31 (0.52%) NIST 800
10 31 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.35%) IFRS
12 21 (0.35%) SEPA
13 19 (0.32%) ISO 20022
14 16 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
15 15 (0.25%) HL7
15 15 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 15 (0.25%) JSP 440
15 15 (0.25%) SLA
System Software
1 175 (2.94%) Active Directory
2 118 (1.98%) Docker
3 83 (1.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 47 (0.79%) VMware NSX
5 31 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
6 23 (0.39%) vSphere
7 22 (0.37%) Hyper-V
8 18 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.13%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Varnish
12 6 (0.10%) Postfix
12 6 (0.10%) vCloud
13 4 (0.067%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 4 (0.067%) IAG
13 4 (0.067%) KVM
13 4 (0.067%) Sendmail
14 3 (0.050%) Ceph
14 3 (0.050%) SRDF
15 2 (0.034%) Squid
Systems Management
1 294 (4.94%) Kubernetes
2 271 (4.56%) Terraform
3 107 (1.80%) Ansible
4 52 (0.87%) Grafana
5 44 (0.74%) Prometheus
5 44 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
6 37 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
7 20 (0.34%) Argo
8 16 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 16 (0.27%) vCenter Server
9 15 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
10 11 (0.18%) Istio
11 10 (0.17%) FortiGate
12 7 (0.12%) SCCM
13 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
13 6 (0.10%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.10%) WMI
14 5 (0.084%) EMC VPLEX
14 5 (0.084%) MOM
14 5 (0.084%) Puppet
Vendors
1 790 (13.28%) Microsoft
2 349 (5.87%) SAP
3 304 (5.11%) Oracle
4 303 (5.09%) ServiceNow
5 264 (4.44%) Databricks
6 197 (3.31%) Salesforce
7 173 (2.91%) Google
8 150 (2.52%) VMware
9 144 (2.42%) Cisco
10 69 (1.16%) MuleSoft
11 63 (1.06%) CyberArk
12 62 (1.04%) IBM
13 53 (0.89%) Workday
14 52 (0.87%) Palo Alto
15 45 (0.76%) Foundry
16 44 (0.74%) Ariba
17 40 (0.67%) Adobe
17 40 (0.67%) Red Hat
18 39 (0.66%) Splunk
19 37 (0.62%) Sparx