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 29 July 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 18 13
Rank change year-on-year +8 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring an Architect 5,879 3,104 4,037
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.19% 9.46% 10.13%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.07% 10.34% 10.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,855 2,018 2,620
10th Percentile £475 £463 £488
25th Percentile £525 £532 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £713 £706 £738
90th Percentile £788 £788 £823
UK excluding London median daily rate £623 £600 £646
% change year-on-year +3.75% -7.12% -0.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 19 81
10th Percentile £46.00 £37.19 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £61.88 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £72.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £73.25 £86.50 £85.25
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% -

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 48,690 30,025 37,043
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.66% 91.50% 92.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,369 19,114 23,981
10th Percentile £331 £282 £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 £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 3,338 1,460 2,193
10th Percentile £15.50 £13.69 £14.05
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £19.09
Median hourly rate £43.61 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +73.38% -40.82% -1.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.10 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +7.50%

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 29 July 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 29 July 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 29 July 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 4,957 £620 -0.80% 1,653
London +7 2,531 £625 -3.85% 994
UK excluding London +7 2,468 £623 +3.75% 748
Work from Home +5 1,610 £600 - 659
South East 0 718 £630 +5.00% 245
North of England +6 716 £600 - 181
Midlands -2 403 £625 +8.70% 108
North West +3 391 £600 - 100
West Midlands -2 296 £635 +5.83% 85
South West -2 290 £625 - 92
Yorkshire +10 256 £600 - 50
East of England +13 167 £600 +5.49% 60
Scotland +8 159 £650 +4.00% 46
East Midlands +7 100 £600 +20.00% 23
North East -3 77 £600 -14.29% 32
Wales +1 32 £620 +14.81% 12
Northern Ireland +4 7 £475 -32.14% 14
Channel Islands -1 3 £575 -22.56% 1

Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 29 July 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 1,789 (30.43%) Security Cleared
2 1,465 (24.92%) Azure
3 1,352 (23.00%) SC Cleared
4 1,302 (22.15%) AWS
5 864 (14.70%) Roadmaps
6 801 (13.62%) Stakeholder Management
7 798 (13.57%) Migration
8 732 (12.45%) Microsoft
9 685 (11.65%) AI
10 677 (11.52%) Agile
11 674 (11.46%) Enterprise Architecture
12 617 (10.49%) DevOps
13 610 (10.38%) CI/CD
14 593 (10.09%) Data Modelling
15 589 (10.02%) Technical Leadership
16 570 (9.70%) Integration Patterns
17 568 (9.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 551 (9.37%) Data Architecture
19 515 (8.76%) Analytics
20 491 (8.35%) TOGAF
21 479 (8.15%) Architectural Patterns
22 445 (7.57%) GCP
23 423 (7.20%) Microservices
24 409 (6.96%) Security Architecture
25 376 (6.40%) Event-Driven
26 367 (6.24%) Problem-Solving
27 350 (5.95%) Infrastructure as Code
28 348 (5.92%) Cybersecurity
29 344 (5.85%) SAP
30 343 (5.83%) 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 94 (1.60%) SharePoint
2 76 (1.29%) SAS
3 67 (1.14%) Confluence
4 45 (0.77%) Apache Spark
5 44 (0.75%) Apache
6 35 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
7 29 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
8 23 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.31%) CMS
10 14 (0.24%) OpenStack
11 12 (0.20%) Appian
12 11 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 10 (0.17%) nginx
14 7 (0.12%) Documentum
15 6 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 6 (0.10%) Camunda
15 6 (0.10%) NetWeaver
16 5 (0.085%) JBoss
16 5 (0.085%) SAP EP
17 4 (0.068%) Tomcat
Applications
1 19 (0.32%) MS Visio
2 12 (0.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.14%) Chatbot
4 7 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.12%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.12%) Revit
4 7 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.051%) PlantUML
5 3 (0.051%) Windchill
6 1 (0.017%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.017%) Notion
Business Applications
1 158 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.58%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 33 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 24 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
5 18 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
6 16 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 16 (0.27%) Teamcenter
7 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 14 (0.24%) SAP ERP
8 12 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
12 8 (0.14%) Maximo
12 8 (0.14%) SAP IBP
12 8 (0.14%) SAP MDG
13 7 (0.12%) Workday HCM
14 6 (0.10%) SAP CO
14 6 (0.10%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 1,465 (24.92%) Azure
2 1,302 (22.15%) AWS
3 445 (7.57%) GCP
4 276 (4.69%) Power Platform
5 205 (3.49%) Entra ID
6 201 (3.42%) SaaS
7 198 (3.37%) Serverless
8 138 (2.35%) GitHub
9 125 (2.13%) PaaS
10 123 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
11 113 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
12 109 (1.85%) Azure DevOps
13 104 (1.77%) Snowflake
14 98 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
15 92 (1.56%) IaaS
16 88 (1.50%) Amazon S3
17 67 (1.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 64 (1.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 63 (1.07%) Amazon EKS
20 61 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 205 (3.49%) Firewall
2 188 (3.20%) Network Security
3 109 (1.85%) WAN
4 107 (1.82%) VPN
5 98 (1.67%) DNS
6 80 (1.36%) LAN
7 52 (0.88%) SD-WAN
8 45 (0.77%) BGP
9 44 (0.75%) TCP/IP
10 42 (0.71%) DHCP
11 38 (0.65%) MPLS
12 36 (0.61%) VLAN
13 31 (0.53%) SAN
13 31 (0.53%) Wireless
14 28 (0.48%) OSPF
15 27 (0.46%) NAS
16 25 (0.43%) IPsec
16 25 (0.43%) Structured Cabling
16 25 (0.43%) VXLAN
17 22 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 195 (3.32%) Power BI
2 188 (3.20%) Data Lake
3 172 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
4 169 (2.87%) Metadata
5 75 (1.28%) NoSQL
6 58 (0.99%) PostgreSQL
7 55 (0.94%) SQL Server
8 51 (0.87%) Big Data
9 44 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
10 42 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
11 41 (0.70%) BigQuery
12 35 (0.60%) Delta Lake
13 34 (0.58%) Oracle Database
14 31 (0.53%) Amazon Redshift
15 26 (0.44%) GIS
16 24 (0.41%) MongoDB
16 24 (0.41%) Relational Database
16 24 (0.41%) Semantic Layer
17 23 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
17 23 (0.39%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 89 (1.51%) JIRA
2 75 (1.28%) Git
3 68 (1.16%) Jenkins
4 35 (0.60%) GitLab
5 24 (0.41%) ERwin
6 9 (0.15%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.15%) SonarQube
7 8 (0.14%) Cypress.io
7 8 (0.14%) MLflow
7 8 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.12%) Claude Code
8 7 (0.12%) Maven
8 7 (0.12%) Postman
9 6 (0.10%) Hudson
9 6 (0.10%) Oracle Forms
9 6 (0.10%) PowerDesigner
10 5 (0.085%) Storybook
11 4 (0.068%) ER Studio
11 4 (0.068%) REST Assured
11 4 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 1,090 (18.54%) Social Skills
2 876 (14.90%) Finance
3 669 (11.38%) Public Sector
4 330 (5.61%) Banking
5 301 (5.12%) Analytical Skills
6 242 (4.12%) Retail
7 148 (2.52%) Influencing Skills
8 132 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
9 131 (2.23%) Telecoms
10 116 (1.97%) Manufacturing
11 111 (1.89%) Legal
12 58 (0.99%) Marketing
13 56 (0.95%) Billing
14 52 (0.88%) Financial Institution
15 49 (0.83%) Military
16 47 (0.80%) Law
17 46 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 41 (0.70%) Aerospace
18 41 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
19 32 (0.54%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 277 (4.71%) REST
2 211 (3.59%) Middleware
3 141 (2.40%) Kafka
4 126 (2.14%) .NET
5 120 (2.04%) SOAP
6 117 (1.99%) OAuth
7 72 (1.22%) Oracle Fusion
8 68 (1.16%) OpenID
9 62 (1.05%) OAuth2
10 61 (1.04%) SAML
11 56 (0.95%) JSON
12 52 (0.88%) React
13 47 (0.80%) RESTful
14 46 (0.78%) SailPoint
15 40 (0.68%) PySpark
16 37 (0.63%) Web Services
17 35 (0.60%) .NET Framework
18 33 (0.56%) GraphQL
18 33 (0.56%) Node.js
19 32 (0.54%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 494 (8.40%) Cloud Native
2 199 (3.38%) Data Centre
3 177 (3.01%) Management Information System
4 147 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
5 145 (2.47%) Onboarding
6 144 (2.45%) Product Ownership
7 143 (2.43%) Distributed Systems
8 140 (2.38%) Hybrid Cloud
9 114 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
10 113 (1.92%) AI Agents
11 97 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
12 90 (1.53%) Operational Technology
13 87 (1.48%) Public Cloud
14 82 (1.39%) CMDB
15 67 (1.14%) Enterprise Cloud
16 64 (1.09%) Security Posture
17 57 (0.97%) Data Structures
18 50 (0.85%) Private Cloud
19 48 (0.82%) IoT
20 47 (0.80%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 126 (2.14%) Windows
2 99 (1.68%) Linux
3 45 (0.77%) Windows Server
4 30 (0.51%) Android
5 29 (0.49%) Apple iOS
6 24 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (0.37%) Unix
8 12 (0.20%) zOS
9 8 (0.14%) AIX
9 8 (0.14%) VMS
10 6 (0.10%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.085%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.085%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.068%) Alpine Linux
12 4 (0.068%) Solaris
12 4 (0.068%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.034%) CentOS
13 2 (0.034%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.017%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.017%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 864 (14.70%) Roadmaps
2 801 (13.62%) Stakeholder Management
3 798 (13.57%) Migration
4 685 (11.65%) AI
5 677 (11.52%) Agile
6 674 (11.46%) Enterprise Architecture
7 617 (10.49%) DevOps
8 610 (10.38%) CI/CD
9 593 (10.09%) Data Modelling
10 589 (10.02%) Technical Leadership
11 570 (9.70%) Integration Patterns
12 568 (9.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 551 (9.37%) Data Architecture
14 515 (8.76%) Analytics
15 491 (8.35%) TOGAF
16 479 (8.15%) Architectural Patterns
17 423 (7.20%) Microservices
18 409 (6.96%) Security Architecture
19 376 (6.40%) Event-Driven
20 367 (6.24%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 290 (4.93%) Python
2 273 (4.64%) SQL
3 268 (4.56%) Java
4 134 (2.28%) JavaScript
5 100 (1.70%) PowerShell
6 60 (1.02%) C#
7 56 (0.95%) Bicep
8 52 (0.88%) Bash
9 45 (0.77%) TypeScript
10 31 (0.53%) Apex Code
11 21 (0.36%) Ruby
12 14 (0.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 13 (0.22%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.19%) ABAP
14 11 (0.19%) C++
14 11 (0.19%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.19%) Scala
15 9 (0.15%) Groovy
15 9 (0.15%) PL/SQL
16 8 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,789 (30.43%) Security Cleared
2 1,352 (23.00%) SC Cleared
3 335 (5.70%) DV Cleared
4 185 (3.15%) Degree
5 149 (2.53%) CISSP
6 129 (2.19%) AWS Certification
7 127 (2.16%) Azure Certification
8 114 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
9 110 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
10 92 (1.56%) TOGAF Certification
11 78 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
12 72 (1.22%) CISM
13 51 (0.87%) CCNP
14 50 (0.85%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 46 (0.78%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 43 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
17 38 (0.65%) Master's Degree
18 35 (0.60%) CCSP
19 22 (0.37%) CCNA
20 21 (0.36%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 201 (3.42%) Data Quality
2 193 (3.28%) NIST
3 180 (3.06%) GDPR
4 147 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 117 (1.99%) NCSC
6 70 (1.19%) GRC
7 61 (1.04%) QA
8 42 (0.71%) Accessibility
9 41 (0.70%) PCI DSS
10 30 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 29 (0.49%) NIST 800
12 24 (0.41%) ISO 20022
12 24 (0.41%) SEPA
13 21 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.36%) IFRS
14 17 (0.29%) HL7
15 15 (0.26%) SLA
16 14 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
16 14 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 12 (0.20%) HIPAA
System Software
1 162 (2.76%) Active Directory
2 123 (2.09%) Docker
3 83 (1.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 52 (0.88%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
6 25 (0.43%) vSphere
7 20 (0.34%) Hyper-V
8 17 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 8 (0.14%) NFS
11 7 (0.12%) Varnish
12 6 (0.10%) Postfix
12 6 (0.10%) vCloud
13 5 (0.085%) IAG
14 4 (0.068%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.068%) Sendmail
14 4 (0.068%) Squid
15 3 (0.051%) KVM
15 3 (0.051%) RACF
15 3 (0.051%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 298 (5.07%) Kubernetes
2 272 (4.63%) Terraform
3 106 (1.80%) Ansible
4 57 (0.97%) Grafana
5 46 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
6 45 (0.77%) Prometheus
7 41 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
8 25 (0.43%) Argo
9 21 (0.36%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
11 13 (0.22%) FortiGate
12 12 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 10 (0.17%) Istio
14 8 (0.14%) SCCM
15 6 (0.10%) CASB
15 6 (0.10%) EMC VPLEX
15 6 (0.10%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.085%) MOM
17 4 (0.068%) NetBackup
17 4 (0.068%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 732 (12.45%) Microsoft
2 344 (5.85%) SAP
3 306 (5.20%) ServiceNow
4 293 (4.98%) Oracle
5 258 (4.39%) Databricks
6 188 (3.20%) Salesforce
7 152 (2.59%) VMware
8 140 (2.38%) Google
9 134 (2.28%) Cisco
10 63 (1.07%) IBM
10 63 (1.07%) MuleSoft
11 57 (0.97%) CyberArk
12 54 (0.92%) Palo Alto
13 52 (0.88%) Workday
14 47 (0.80%) Ariba
15 46 (0.78%) Red Hat
16 45 (0.77%) Foundry
16 45 (0.77%) Splunk
17 38 (0.65%) OpenAI
18 37 (0.63%) Fortinet