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 25 January 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 3,655 3,193 4,314
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.65% 10.12% 9.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.55% 10.90% 10.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,474 1,907 2,817
10th Percentile £461 £485 £500
25th Percentile £515 £550 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -
75th Percentile £725 £738 £730
90th Percentile £800 £799 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 33 41
10th Percentile £49.40 £60.30 £57.25
25th Percentile £62.00 £66.00 £61.25
Median hourly rate £78.34 £70.00 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +11.91% -8.53% +9.33%
75th Percentile £90.09 £80.59 £85.65
90th Percentile £95.00 £87.16 £95.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £71.25 £78.00
% change year-on-year +14.39% -8.65% +11.43%

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 34,647 29,282 41,206
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.46% 92.85% 93.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,895 17,892 27,296
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £480 £498
% change year-on-year -0.42% -3.62% -0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,062 868 2,070
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £13.40
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.24 £17.54
Median hourly rate £28.50 £32.50 £37.88
Median % change year-on-year -12.31% -14.19% +11.40%
75th Percentile £61.18 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.13 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.21 £31.08 £40.00
% change year-on-year -12.45% -22.30% +35.59%

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 25 January 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 25 January 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 25 January 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 3,180 £625 - 1,133
UK excluding London 0 1,780 £600 -4.00% 1,017
London -1 1,410 £643 -1.15% 339
Work from Home -2 1,039 £625 - 610
South East +8 569 £606 -3.00% 326
North of England -6 433 £570 -5.00% 216
Midlands -3 308 £575 -4.17% 115
North West -8 257 £575 -4.17% 111
South West -1 247 £710 +13.60% 112
West Midlands -7 220 £600 -3.23% 53
Yorkshire -9 164 £554 -6.69% 70
East of England +12 123 £528 -15.50% 126
Scotland +4 99 £650 +4.00% 94
East Midlands -2 86 £500 -13.79% 58
Wales +2 31 £625 +2.04% 42
North East -24 12 £575 -7.89% 35
Northern Ireland -8 5 £500 -16.67% 15

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 January 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 1,119 (30.62%) Security Cleared
2 978 (26.76%) Azure
3 801 (21.92%) SC Cleared
4 765 (20.93%) AWS
5 535 (14.64%) Microsoft
6 531 (14.53%) Roadmaps
7 489 (13.38%) Stakeholder Management
8 482 (13.19%) Agile
9 449 (12.28%) Migration
10 409 (11.19%) Enterprise Architecture
11 408 (11.16%) DevOps
12 392 (10.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 370 (10.12%) TOGAF
14 365 (9.99%) Data Modelling
15 362 (9.90%) Technical Leadership
16 355 (9.71%) CI/CD
17 337 (9.22%) Problem-Solving
18 305 (8.34%) AI
19 297 (8.13%) Python
20 295 (8.07%) Analytics
20 295 (8.07%) GCP
21 266 (7.28%) Data Architecture
22 253 (6.92%) Microservices
23 248 (6.79%) Integration Patterns
24 235 (6.43%) Terraform
25 230 (6.29%) DV Cleared
26 228 (6.24%) Architectural Design
27 217 (5.94%) Mentoring
28 215 (5.88%) Cybersecurity
29 214 (5.85%) SAP

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
1 105 (2.87%) Confluence
2 83 (2.27%) SharePoint
3 53 (1.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.68%) SAS
5 23 (0.63%) CMS
6 21 (0.57%) OpenStack
7 15 (0.41%) Anypoint
7 15 (0.41%) Apache
8 14 (0.38%) Apache Spark
9 13 (0.36%) ArcGIS
10 12 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
11 10 (0.27%) WebLogic
12 9 (0.25%) Smallworld
13 7 (0.19%) Appian
13 7 (0.19%) Ethereum
13 7 (0.19%) GeoServer
13 7 (0.19%) Hyperledger
13 7 (0.19%) nginx
13 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
13 7 (0.19%) Tomcat
Applications
1 48 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
3 31 (0.85%) Microsoft Excel
4 30 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.44%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.16%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.082%) Siemens NX
7 3 (0.082%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.027%) ArchiCAD
8 1 (0.027%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.027%) FrameMaker
8 1 (0.027%) OrCAD
8 1 (0.027%) Revit
8 1 (0.027%) Trello
Business Applications
1 107 (2.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 29 (0.79%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.60%) Workday HCM
5 18 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
6 15 (0.41%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
7 13 (0.36%) SAP CO
8 12 (0.33%) Maximo
8 12 (0.33%) SAP FI
8 12 (0.33%) SAP PM
9 11 (0.30%) SAP FI/CO
10 9 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
10 9 (0.25%) SAP EWM
11 8 (0.22%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.22%) SAP PP
12 7 (0.19%) Distributed Ledger
12 7 (0.19%) R3 Corda
12 7 (0.19%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 978 (26.76%) Azure
2 765 (20.93%) AWS
3 295 (8.07%) GCP
4 144 (3.94%) Serverless
5 140 (3.83%) Power Platform
6 134 (3.67%) SaaS
7 121 (3.31%) Microsoft 365
8 111 (3.04%) Entra ID
9 87 (2.38%) AWS Lambda
10 83 (2.27%) Azure DevOps
11 77 (2.11%) GitHub
11 77 (2.11%) IaaS
12 73 (2.00%) Microsoft Purview
13 72 (1.97%) Amazon S3
14 71 (1.94%) Dynamics 365
15 64 (1.75%) AWS CloudFormation
15 64 (1.75%) OpenShift
16 63 (1.72%) PaaS
17 61 (1.67%) Azure Data Factory
18 58 (1.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 198 (5.42%) Firewall
2 131 (3.58%) WAN
3 108 (2.95%) Network Security
4 95 (2.60%) VPN
5 91 (2.49%) DNS
6 80 (2.19%) LAN
7 70 (1.92%) SD-WAN
8 39 (1.07%) BGP
9 30 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (0.77%) MPLS
11 25 (0.68%) DHCP
12 22 (0.60%) Internet
12 22 (0.60%) SAN
13 21 (0.57%) OSPF
13 21 (0.57%) VSAN
14 20 (0.55%) TCP/IP
15 17 (0.47%) VLAN
16 16 (0.44%) IPsec
17 15 (0.41%) SSL
18 14 (0.38%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (3.28%) Data Warehouse
2 98 (2.68%) Power BI
3 90 (2.46%) Metadata
4 80 (2.19%) Data Lake
5 61 (1.67%) PostgreSQL
6 58 (1.59%) SQL Server
7 47 (1.29%) Tableau
8 41 (1.12%) Amazon Redshift
8 41 (1.12%) NoSQL
9 38 (1.04%) DynamoDB
10 36 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
11 29 (0.79%) Oracle Database
12 28 (0.77%) Amazon Athena
13 26 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
13 26 (0.71%) Redis
13 26 (0.71%) Relational Database
14 25 (0.68%) Amazon Aurora
15 21 (0.57%) Delta Lake
15 21 (0.57%) GIS
16 20 (0.55%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 122 (3.34%) JIRA
2 88 (2.41%) Jenkins
3 40 (1.09%) GitLab
4 38 (1.04%) Git
5 19 (0.52%) ERwin
6 14 (0.38%) SonarQube
7 9 (0.25%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.25%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.16%) Maven
8 6 (0.16%) MSI
8 6 (0.16%) Postman
9 5 (0.14%) Gradle
9 5 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
9 5 (0.14%) SonarLint
10 4 (0.11%) MLflow
10 4 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
10 4 (0.11%) Terragrunt
11 3 (0.082%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.082%) Selenium
11 3 (0.082%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 908 (24.84%) Social Skills
2 584 (15.98%) Finance
3 439 (12.01%) Public Sector
4 267 (7.31%) Analytical Skills
5 206 (5.64%) Banking
6 117 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
7 101 (2.76%) Legal
8 89 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
9 77 (2.11%) Telecoms
10 76 (2.08%) Retail
11 73 (2.00%) Military
12 72 (1.97%) Presentation Skills
13 67 (1.83%) Marketing
14 61 (1.67%) Manufacturing
15 41 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 39 (1.07%) Billing
17 29 (0.79%) Financial Institution
18 24 (0.66%) Law
19 22 (0.60%) Back Office
20 20 (0.55%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 187 (5.12%) REST
2 108 (2.95%) SOAP
3 106 (2.90%) Middleware
4 81 (2.22%) .NET
5 70 (1.92%) LDAP
6 65 (1.78%) OpenID
7 63 (1.72%) Kafka
8 59 (1.61%) OAuth
9 58 (1.59%) SAML
10 49 (1.34%) JSON
11 43 (1.18%) RESTful
12 33 (0.90%) OAuth2
13 32 (0.88%) AngularJS
14 30 (0.82%) PySpark
15 28 (0.77%) Oracle Fusion
15 28 (0.77%) React
15 28 (0.77%) Spring Boot
16 25 (0.68%) SailPoint
17 24 (0.66%) Node.js
17 24 (0.66%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 281 (7.69%) Cloud Native
2 138 (3.78%) Product Ownership
3 117 (3.20%) Data Centre
4 110 (3.01%) Onboarding
5 105 (2.87%) Legacy Systems
6 89 (2.44%) PKI
7 87 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
8 77 (2.11%) Hybrid Cloud
9 68 (1.86%) Security Posture
10 61 (1.67%) Public Cloud
11 59 (1.61%) Distributed Systems
11 59 (1.61%) Management Information System
12 55 (1.50%) Operational Technology
13 44 (1.20%) CMDB
14 42 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
15 41 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
16 38 (1.04%) NHS
17 36 (0.98%) Data Structures
18 29 (0.79%) AI Agents
18 29 (0.79%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 160 (4.38%) Windows
2 106 (2.90%) Linux
3 43 (1.18%) Windows Server
4 31 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (0.49%) Windows 10
5 18 (0.49%) Windows 7
6 15 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
7 13 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
8 12 (0.33%) Unix
9 9 (0.25%) VMS
10 8 (0.22%) Mac OS
11 7 (0.19%) Android
11 7 (0.19%) Apple iOS
12 6 (0.16%) Ubuntu
13 5 (0.14%) zOS
14 4 (0.11%) CentOS
15 3 (0.082%) Solaris
15 3 (0.082%) Windows Server 2008
16 2 (0.055%) Windows Server 2012
17 1 (0.027%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 531 (14.53%) Roadmaps
2 489 (13.38%) Stakeholder Management
3 482 (13.19%) Agile
4 449 (12.28%) Migration
5 409 (11.19%) Enterprise Architecture
6 408 (11.16%) DevOps
7 392 (10.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 370 (10.12%) TOGAF
9 365 (9.99%) Data Modelling
10 362 (9.90%) Technical Leadership
11 355 (9.71%) CI/CD
12 337 (9.22%) Problem-Solving
13 305 (8.34%) AI
14 295 (8.07%) Analytics
15 266 (7.28%) Data Architecture
16 253 (6.92%) Microservices
17 248 (6.79%) Integration Patterns
18 228 (6.24%) Architectural Design
19 217 (5.94%) Mentoring
20 215 (5.88%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 297 (8.13%) Python
2 189 (5.17%) SQL
3 168 (4.60%) PowerShell
4 129 (3.53%) Java
5 54 (1.48%) JavaScript
6 46 (1.26%) C#
7 31 (0.85%) TypeScript
8 29 (0.79%) Bash
8 29 (0.79%) Bicep
9 21 (0.57%) PL/SQL
10 20 (0.55%) Apex Code
11 12 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
12 11 (0.30%) R
13 10 (0.27%) Ruby
13 10 (0.27%) T-SQL
14 9 (0.25%) ABAP
15 8 (0.22%) PHP
15 8 (0.22%) Scala
15 8 (0.22%) VB
16 7 (0.19%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,119 (30.62%) Security Cleared
2 801 (21.92%) SC Cleared
3 230 (6.29%) DV Cleared
4 177 (4.84%) Degree
5 106 (2.90%) AWS Certification
6 104 (2.85%) CISSP
7 102 (2.79%) TOGAF Certification
8 95 (2.60%) Azure Certification
9 65 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
10 64 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
11 61 (1.67%) Cisco Certification
12 58 (1.59%) Microsoft Certification
13 52 (1.42%) CISM
14 49 (1.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 47 (1.29%) Master's Degree
16 32 (0.88%) CCIE
16 32 (0.88%) CCNP
17 29 (0.79%) ISEB
18 28 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
19 21 (0.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (4.51%) GDPR
2 152 (4.16%) NIST
3 137 (3.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 107 (2.93%) Data Quality
5 84 (2.30%) NCSC
6 55 (1.50%) QA
7 53 (1.45%) PCI DSS
8 33 (0.90%) COBIT
9 30 (0.82%) Accessibility
10 27 (0.74%) GRC
11 24 (0.66%) JSP 440
12 22 (0.60%) HIPAA
13 21 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
14 19 (0.52%) ISO 20022
15 17 (0.47%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 14 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
17 13 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 13 (0.36%) MiFID
18 12 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
19 11 (0.30%) PSD2
System Software
1 155 (4.24%) Active Directory
2 122 (3.34%) Docker
3 85 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 49 (1.34%) VMware NSX
5 30 (0.82%) vSphere
6 22 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
7 17 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
8 16 (0.44%) Hyper-V
9 14 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
11 7 (0.19%) BitLocker
12 6 (0.16%) Varnish
13 5 (0.14%) Lustre
13 5 (0.14%) NFS
13 5 (0.14%) Squid
14 4 (0.11%) vCloud
15 3 (0.082%) Ceph
15 3 (0.082%) Firmware
15 3 (0.082%) GPFS
15 3 (0.082%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 235 (6.43%) Terraform
2 192 (5.25%) Kubernetes
3 99 (2.71%) Ansible
4 55 (1.50%) Single Sign-On
5 33 (0.90%) OPNET
6 27 (0.74%) FortiGate
7 25 (0.68%) SCCM
8 24 (0.66%) vCenter Server
9 18 (0.49%) Prometheus
9 18 (0.49%) WMI
10 17 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 17 (0.47%) Microsoft Intune
11 16 (0.44%) Grafana
12 10 (0.27%) Argo
13 7 (0.19%) Istio
14 6 (0.16%) Kibana
14 6 (0.16%) Puppet
15 5 (0.14%) Consul
16 4 (0.11%) Data Guard
16 4 (0.11%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 535 (14.64%) Microsoft
2 214 (5.85%) SAP
3 207 (5.66%) ServiceNow
4 186 (5.09%) Salesforce
5 174 (4.76%) Oracle
6 140 (3.83%) VMware
7 114 (3.12%) Cisco
8 109 (2.98%) Databricks
9 94 (2.57%) CyberArk
10 86 (2.35%) Google
11 63 (1.72%) Palo Alto
12 59 (1.61%) Splunk
13 57 (1.56%) MuleSoft
14 49 (1.34%) Centrify
15 47 (1.29%) Atlassian
16 42 (1.15%) Workday
17 41 (1.12%) Remedy
18 40 (1.09%) Sparx
19 39 (1.07%) OpenAI
20 38 (1.04%) Red Hat