Data Architect Contract Job Trends

Data Architect
UK

The median Data Architect daily rate in the UK is £600, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 May 2026.

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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 215 243 227
Rank change year-on-year +28 -16 +44
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 556 317 436
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.15% 1.09% 1.02%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.25% 1.18% 1.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 395 218 303
10th Percentile £456 £465 £490
25th Percentile £513 £513 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £592 £675
Median % change year-on-year +1.39% -12.33% -
75th Percentile £684 £700 £775
90th Percentile £788 £780 £908
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £563 £675
% change year-on-year +6.67% -16.67% +3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 5 9
10th Percentile - £48.38 £52.50
25th Percentile £46.00 £62.50 -
Median hourly rate £47.00 £80.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.25% +33.33% -9.09%
75th Percentile £64.00 £82.25 -
90th Percentile £69.04 £83.90 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £80.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year -41.61% +34.17% -9.09%

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 44,544 26,886 39,472
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.37% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,258 17,494 25,719
10th Percentile £325 £293 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -3.23%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £489
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.86% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,901 1,057 2,674
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £27.99 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.50% -23.32% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.50 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £26.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +70.88% -34.16% -5.88%

Data Architect
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Data Architect' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Data Architect job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Architect
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Architect job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Architect job vacancies in the UK

Data Architect
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Architect over the 6 months to 21 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Architect in the UK

Data Architect
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Architect job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Architect job vacancies in the UK

Data Architect
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Architect over the 6 months to 21 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Architect in the UK

Data Architect
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Data Architect within the UK over the 6 months to 21 May 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 +10 473 £600 - 126
London +17 266 £575 -4.17% 70
UK excluding London -10 208 £600 +6.67% 86
Work from Home -4 155 £600 - 53
Midlands -17 55 £613 +2.08% 11
West Midlands -23 47 £625 +4.17% 8
North of England -65 41 £600 +9.09% 23
South West -14 33 £725 +61.11% 11
East of England -3 29 £505 -20.78% 3
South East -46 29 £575 +4.55% 30
Scotland +3 23 £600 +11.42% 7
Yorkshire -42 21 £610 -7.92% 8
North West -44 16 £486 -7.52% 8
East Midlands -21 8 £613 - 3
North East -20 7 £550 -4.35% 7
Wales -7 3 £768 +225.21% 1

Data Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 21 May 2026, Data 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 Data Architect in the job title.

1 285 (51.26%) Data Architecture
2 253 (45.50%) Data Modelling
3 192 (34.53%) Analytics
4 191 (34.35%) Azure
5 143 (25.72%) Security Cleared
6 142 (25.54%) Data Governance
7 128 (23.02%) AWS
8 123 (22.12%) Databricks
8 123 (22.12%) Migration
9 115 (20.68%) SC Cleared
10 110 (19.78%) ETL
11 109 (19.60%) SQL
12 103 (18.53%) Business Intelligence
13 101 (18.17%) Metadata
14 89 (16.01%) AI
15 88 (15.83%) Data Warehouse
16 87 (15.65%) Data Quality
17 84 (15.11%) Microsoft
18 83 (14.93%) Data Integration
19 82 (14.75%) Data Lake
20 76 (13.67%) Data Pipeline
21 75 (13.49%) Data Management
22 73 (13.13%) Logical Data Model
23 72 (12.95%) Power Platform
24 69 (12.41%) Data Engineering
25 68 (12.23%) Integration Patterns
26 64 (11.51%) Power BI
27 62 (11.15%) Data Strategy
27 62 (11.15%) Roadmaps
28 61 (10.97%) Data Migration

Data 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 19 (3.42%) Apache Spark
2 14 (2.52%) SAS
3 12 (2.16%) Apache
3 12 (2.16%) SharePoint
4 11 (1.98%) Apache Airflow
5 10 (1.80%) Palantir Foundry
6 2 (0.36%) Alfresco
6 2 (0.36%) Confluence
7 1 (0.18%) Appian
7 1 (0.18%) Jupyter
Applications
1 3 (0.54%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 8 (1.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.54%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.36%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.18%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.18%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.18%) SAP MDM
4 1 (0.18%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 191 (34.35%) Azure
2 128 (23.02%) AWS
3 72 (12.95%) Power Platform
4 56 (10.07%) GCP
5 44 (7.91%) Azure Data Factory
6 43 (7.73%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 43 (7.73%) Snowflake
7 32 (5.76%) Microsoft Purview
8 30 (5.40%) Serverless
9 26 (4.68%) Amazon S3
10 24 (4.32%) AWS Lambda
11 20 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
12 19 (3.42%) dbt
13 16 (2.88%) Amazon Kinesis
14 15 (2.70%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 14 (2.52%) GitHub
16 12 (2.16%) AWS Step Functions
17 11 (1.98%) SaaS
18 10 (1.80%) Amazon MSK
18 10 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.72%) Firewall
2 2 (0.36%) BGP
2 2 (0.36%) DNS
2 2 (0.36%) DSL
2 2 (0.36%) OSPF
2 2 (0.36%) Structured Cabling
2 2 (0.36%) VXLAN
3 1 (0.18%) LAN
3 1 (0.18%) Network Security
3 1 (0.18%) Radio Access Network
3 1 (0.18%) SMS
3 1 (0.18%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 101 (18.17%) Metadata
2 88 (15.83%) Data Warehouse
3 82 (14.75%) Data Lake
4 64 (11.51%) Power BI
5 33 (5.94%) NoSQL
6 25 (4.50%) Amazon Redshift
6 25 (4.50%) PostgreSQL
6 25 (4.50%) SQL Server
7 21 (3.78%) Azure SQL Database
8 19 (3.42%) Tableau
9 18 (3.24%) Big Data
10 16 (2.88%) Delta Lake
11 15 (2.70%) Amazon Athena
12 14 (2.52%) Metadata Repository
12 14 (2.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 13 (2.34%) BigQuery
13 13 (2.34%) Data Vault
14 12 (2.16%) Star Schema
15 11 (1.98%) Apache Iceberg
16 10 (1.80%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 22 (3.96%) ERwin
2 6 (1.08%) GitLab
2 6 (1.08%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.72%) Git
4 3 (0.54%) ER Studio
5 1 (0.18%) Claude Code
5 1 (0.18%) MLflow
5 1 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 89 (16.01%) Social Skills
2 81 (14.57%) Finance
3 61 (10.97%) Public Sector
4 45 (8.09%) Analytical Skills
5 27 (4.86%) Retail
6 20 (3.60%) Banking
7 11 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (1.80%) Marketing
9 8 (1.44%) Financial Institution
10 7 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (1.08%) Local Government
12 5 (0.90%) Investment Banking
13 3 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.54%) Law
13 3 (0.54%) Legal
13 3 (0.54%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.36%) Military
14 2 (0.36%) Pharmaceutical
14 2 (0.36%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (5.76%) Kafka
2 16 (2.88%) PySpark
3 14 (2.52%) Oracle Fusion
4 9 (1.62%) Apache Avro
4 9 (1.62%) Protocol Buffers
5 7 (1.26%) .NET
5 7 (1.26%) Middleware
6 5 (0.90%) REST
7 4 (0.72%) FHIR
7 4 (0.72%) JSON
8 3 (0.54%) Lightning Web Components
8 3 (0.54%) SOAP
9 2 (0.36%) OpenTelemetry
9 2 (0.36%) Spark Streaming
9 2 (0.36%) XML
10 1 (0.18%) Apache Jena
10 1 (0.18%) GraphQL
10 1 (0.18%) Lambda Expressions
10 1 (0.18%) Spring Boot
10 1 (0.18%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 40 (7.19%) Cloud Native
2 30 (5.40%) Data Structures
3 19 (3.42%) Legacy Systems
4 17 (3.06%) Reference Data
5 15 (2.70%) Data Centre
6 14 (2.52%) NHS
7 11 (1.98%) Mainframe
8 10 (1.80%) IoT
9 9 (1.62%) Product Ownership
10 8 (1.44%) AI Agents
10 8 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
10 8 (1.44%) Greenfield Project
10 8 (1.44%) Management Information System
11 7 (1.26%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 6 (1.08%) Distributed Systems
12 6 (1.08%) PACS
12 6 (1.08%) Reinsurance
12 6 (1.08%) Taxonomies
13 5 (0.90%) Autonomous Agent
13 5 (0.90%) Data Fabric
Operating Systems
1 9 (1.62%) zOS
2 2 (0.36%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 285 (51.26%) Data Architecture
2 253 (45.50%) Data Modelling
3 192 (34.53%) Analytics
4 142 (25.54%) Data Governance
5 123 (22.12%) Migration
6 110 (19.78%) ETL
7 103 (18.53%) Business Intelligence
8 89 (16.01%) AI
9 83 (14.93%) Data Integration
10 76 (13.67%) Data Pipeline
11 75 (13.49%) Data Management
12 73 (13.13%) Logical Data Model
13 69 (12.41%) Data Engineering
14 68 (12.23%) Integration Patterns
15 62 (11.15%) Data Strategy
15 62 (11.15%) Roadmaps
16 61 (10.97%) Data Migration
17 60 (10.79%) Architectural Patterns
18 58 (10.43%) Physical Data Model
19 56 (10.07%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 109 (19.60%) SQL
2 57 (10.25%) Python
3 13 (2.34%) Java
4 9 (1.62%) Scala
5 8 (1.44%) T-SQL
6 6 (1.08%) PowerShell
7 5 (0.90%) Bicep
8 3 (0.54%) Apex Code
8 3 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (0.36%) Bash
9 2 (0.36%) COBOL
9 2 (0.36%) Kotlin
9 2 (0.36%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.36%) R
9 2 (0.36%) SPARQL
10 1 (0.18%) ANSI SQL
10 1 (0.18%) C++
10 1 (0.18%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.18%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 143 (25.72%) Security Cleared
2 115 (20.68%) SC Cleared
3 23 (4.14%) BPSS Clearance
4 21 (3.78%) Azure Certification
4 21 (3.78%) Degree
4 21 (3.78%) DV Cleared
5 15 (2.70%) Master's Degree
6 9 (1.62%) Microsoft Certification
6 9 (1.62%) TOGAF Certification
7 8 (1.44%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.26%) AWS Certification
9 4 (0.72%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.36%) VCAP
10 2 (0.36%) VCDX
11 1 (0.18%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.18%) MySQL Certification
11 1 (0.18%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.18%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (15.65%) Data Quality
2 24 (4.32%) GDPR
3 13 (2.34%) QA
4 8 (1.44%) Accessibility
5 7 (1.26%) ISO 20022
6 5 (0.90%) IFRS
6 5 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.72%) HL7
7 4 (0.72%) SNOMED CT
8 3 (0.54%) IFRS 17
8 3 (0.54%) Solvency II
9 2 (0.36%) CRD IV
9 2 (0.36%) FINREP
9 2 (0.36%) NIST
9 2 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.18%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.18%) GRC
10 1 (0.18%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.18%) NCSC
10 1 (0.18%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 4 (0.72%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (0.54%) Docker
3 2 (0.36%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.36%) VMware NSX
3 2 (0.36%) vSphere
4 1 (0.18%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 24 (4.32%) Terraform
2 7 (1.26%) Grafana
3 6 (1.08%) Kubernetes
3 6 (1.08%) Prometheus
4 5 (0.90%) Ansible
5 2 (0.36%) Argo
5 2 (0.36%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.18%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 123 (22.12%) Databricks
2 84 (15.11%) Microsoft
3 40 (7.19%) Oracle
4 22 (3.96%) Salesforce
5 20 (3.60%) SAP
6 18 (3.24%) Informatica
7 15 (2.70%) Talend
8 13 (2.34%) Foundry
9 12 (2.16%) Google
10 11 (1.98%) Confluent
11 10 (1.80%) Palantir
12 4 (0.72%) IBM
12 4 (0.72%) NVIDIA
12 4 (0.72%) Sparx
12 4 (0.72%) VMware
13 3 (0.54%) Cognos
13 3 (0.54%) Denodo
13 3 (0.54%) OpenAI
13 3 (0.54%) Remedy
14 2 (0.36%) Pure Storage