Data Architect Contract Job Trends

Data Architect
UK

The median Data Architect daily rate in the UK is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 September 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 183 280 285
Rank change year-on-year +97 +5 -12
Contract jobs requiring a Data Architect 817 303 318
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.51% 0.93% 0.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.63% 1.02% 0.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 592 189 221
10th Percentile £463 £454 £488
25th Percentile £533 £513 £531
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -7.41%
75th Percentile £688 £713 £750
90th Percentile £775 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £625 £575 £625
% change year-on-year +8.70% -8.00% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 2 10
10th Percentile - £41.31 £59.25
25th Percentile £46.00 £44.85 -
Median hourly rate £47.00 £51.98 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.58% -13.37% -1.23%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.37 -
90th Percentile - £64.65 £65.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £38.96 £60.00
% change year-on-year +20.64% -35.07% -16.67%

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 49,990 29,768 35,726
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.35% 91.07% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,655 18,799 22,146
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £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 3,750 1,555 1,711
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.69 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.27 £17.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -1.71%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.72 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +8.43%

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 14 September 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 14 September 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 14 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 +86 695 £625 +4.17% 571
London +53 375 £608 +1.29% 364
UK excluding London +67 312 £625 +8.70% 240
Work from Home +38 228 £631 +4.99% 231
Midlands +24 99 £627 -3.62% 45
West Midlands +13 79 £650 -3.70% 28
North of England -41 65 £650 +20.93% 50
South East -12 51 £613 -2.00% 59
South West -9 42 £694 +42.31% 29
Yorkshire -10 37 £675 +22.73% 16
East of England -5 34 £563 -4.26% 17
North West -44 26 £600 +14.29% 27
East Midlands 0 20 £606 +1.04% 17
Scotland -21 20 £633 +26.50% 30
North East - 5 £550 - 7
Wales - 1 £475 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 14 September 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.

1 411 (50.31%) Data Architecture
2 350 (42.84%) Data Modelling
3 292 (35.74%) Security Cleared
4 266 (32.56%) Azure
5 245 (29.99%) SC Cleared
6 237 (29.01%) Analytics
7 234 (28.64%) Data Governance
8 203 (24.85%) Migration
9 191 (23.38%) AWS
10 183 (22.40%) Databricks
11 167 (20.44%) Data Quality
12 163 (19.95%) AI
13 156 (19.09%) Metadata
14 136 (16.65%) Data Lake
14 136 (16.65%) Data Warehouse
15 134 (16.40%) Stakeholder Management
16 129 (15.79%) Business Intelligence
16 129 (15.79%) Integration Patterns
17 125 (15.30%) SQL
18 123 (15.06%) ETL
18 123 (15.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 121 (14.81%) Logical Data Model
20 112 (13.71%) Lakehouse
21 110 (13.46%) Data Strategy
22 105 (12.85%) Data Integration
23 96 (11.75%) Data Engineering
23 96 (11.75%) Roadmaps
24 93 (11.38%) Technical Leadership
25 92 (11.26%) Power Platform
26 89 (10.89%) Decision-Making

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 26 (3.18%) SAS
2 23 (2.82%) Apache Spark
3 22 (2.69%) Apache
4 19 (2.33%) Apache Airflow
5 18 (2.20%) Palantir Foundry
6 4 (0.49%) Confluence
6 4 (0.49%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.24%) Alfresco
7 2 (0.24%) PowerExchange
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Superset
8 1 (0.12%) JBoss
8 1 (0.12%) Jupyter
Applications
1 6 (0.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.12%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.73%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 4 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.24%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.24%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.12%) iTrent
4 1 (0.12%) Maximo
4 1 (0.12%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 266 (32.56%) Azure
2 191 (23.38%) AWS
3 92 (11.26%) Power Platform
4 84 (10.28%) GCP
5 71 (8.69%) Snowflake
6 54 (6.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 45 (5.51%) Azure Data Factory
8 33 (4.04%) dbt
9 30 (3.67%) Amazon S3
10 26 (3.18%) Serverless
11 24 (2.94%) Microsoft Purview
12 22 (2.69%) SaaS
13 21 (2.57%) AWS Lambda
14 19 (2.33%) Azure Databricks
15 16 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
16 12 (1.47%) Amazon EMR
16 12 (1.47%) Collibra
17 11 (1.35%) Amazon Kinesis
18 9 (1.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 8 (0.98%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.24%) DSL
1 2 (0.24%) Firewall
1 2 (0.24%) Network Security
1 2 (0.24%) SAN
1 2 (0.24%) VPN
2 1 (0.12%) BGP
2 1 (0.12%) OSPF
2 1 (0.12%) Radio Access Network
2 1 (0.12%) SMS
2 1 (0.12%) Structured Cabling
2 1 (0.12%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (19.09%) Metadata
2 136 (16.65%) Data Lake
2 136 (16.65%) Data Warehouse
3 86 (10.53%) Power BI
4 45 (5.51%) NoSQL
5 30 (3.67%) Amazon Redshift
6 28 (3.43%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 27 (3.30%) BigQuery
8 20 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
8 20 (2.45%) Semantic Layer
9 19 (2.33%) Azure SQL Database
10 17 (2.08%) Delta Lake
11 16 (1.96%) Base SAS
11 16 (1.96%) Data Vault
11 16 (1.96%) Snowflake Schema
12 15 (1.84%) SQL Server
13 14 (1.71%) Star Schema
13 14 (1.71%) Tableau
14 13 (1.59%) Big Data
14 13 (1.59%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 17 (2.08%) ERwin
2 10 (1.22%) Git
3 6 (0.73%) GitLab
4 5 (0.61%) ER Studio
5 4 (0.49%) JIRA
6 3 (0.37%) MLflow
6 3 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
7 2 (0.24%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.24%) RStudio
8 1 (0.12%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 170 (20.81%) Social Skills
2 140 (17.14%) Public Sector
3 124 (15.18%) Finance
4 63 (7.71%) Analytical Skills
5 35 (4.28%) Banking
6 34 (4.16%) Retail
7 30 (3.67%) Influencing Skills
8 16 (1.96%) Marketing
9 14 (1.71%) Police
10 13 (1.59%) Documentation Skills
11 10 (1.22%) Legal
12 8 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (0.73%) Local Government
15 5 (0.61%) Billing
15 5 (0.61%) Manufacturing
16 4 (0.49%) Financial Institution
16 4 (0.49%) Military
17 3 (0.37%) Investment Banking
18 2 (0.24%) General Ledger
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (3.55%) Kafka
2 28 (3.43%) Terraform
3 27 (3.30%) PySpark
4 20 (2.45%) Oracle Fusion
5 10 (1.22%) REST
6 7 (0.86%) JSON
7 6 (0.73%) FHIR
8 5 (0.61%) .NET
8 5 (0.61%) Apache NiFi
9 4 (0.49%) Apache Avro
9 4 (0.49%) Middleware
9 4 (0.49%) SOAP
10 3 (0.37%) LangChain
10 3 (0.37%) LangGraph
10 3 (0.37%) Spark Streaming
10 3 (0.37%) XML
11 2 (0.24%) AngularJS
11 2 (0.24%) Protocol Buffers
11 2 (0.24%) Spring
11 2 (0.24%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 60 (7.34%) Cloud Native
2 41 (5.02%) Data Structures
3 26 (3.18%) Legacy Systems
4 21 (2.57%) Reference Data
5 19 (2.33%) Onboarding
6 18 (2.20%) Management Information System
7 17 (2.08%) AI Agents
7 17 (2.08%) Data Centre
8 16 (1.96%) Data Fabric
9 14 (1.71%) Taxonomies
10 13 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (1.59%) Product Ownership
10 13 (1.59%) Reinsurance
11 11 (1.35%) NHS
12 10 (1.22%) Autonomous Agent
12 10 (1.22%) Replication
13 9 (1.10%) Clustering
13 9 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
13 9 (1.10%) IoT
14 8 (0.98%) Digital Media
Operating Systems
1 3 (0.37%) Linux
1 3 (0.37%) Windows
2 2 (0.24%) AIX
2 2 (0.24%) HPUX
2 2 (0.24%) Solaris
3 1 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 411 (50.31%) Data Architecture
2 350 (42.84%) Data Modelling
3 237 (29.01%) Analytics
4 234 (28.64%) Data Governance
5 203 (24.85%) Migration
6 163 (19.95%) AI
7 134 (16.40%) Stakeholder Management
8 129 (15.79%) Business Intelligence
8 129 (15.79%) Integration Patterns
9 123 (15.06%) ETL
9 123 (15.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 121 (14.81%) Logical Data Model
11 112 (13.71%) Lakehouse
12 110 (13.46%) Data Strategy
13 105 (12.85%) Data Integration
14 96 (11.75%) Data Engineering
14 96 (11.75%) Roadmaps
15 93 (11.38%) Technical Leadership
16 89 (10.89%) Decision-Making
17 88 (10.77%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 125 (15.30%) SQL
2 56 (6.85%) Python
3 17 (2.08%) Java
4 7 (0.86%) Bicep
4 7 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 5 (0.61%) R
6 4 (0.49%) Scala
7 3 (0.37%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.24%) Cypher
8 2 (0.24%) PL/SQL
8 2 (0.24%) PowerShell
8 2 (0.24%) SHACL
8 2 (0.24%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.24%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.12%) C++
9 1 (0.12%) COBOL
9 1 (0.12%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.12%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 292 (35.74%) Security Cleared
2 245 (29.99%) SC Cleared
3 34 (4.16%) BPSS Clearance
3 34 (4.16%) DV Cleared
4 12 (1.47%) AWS Certification
5 11 (1.35%) Azure Certification
6 7 (0.86%) DBS Check
7 6 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 6 (0.73%) Degree
8 4 (0.49%) TOGAF Certification
9 2 (0.24%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.12%) CISSP
10 1 (0.12%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.12%) Oracle Certification
10 1 (0.12%) SnowPro
10 1 (0.12%) VCAP
10 1 (0.12%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (20.44%) Data Quality
2 34 (4.16%) GDPR
3 13 (1.59%) Accessibility
4 10 (1.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (0.98%) NCSC
6 7 (0.86%) NIST
6 7 (0.86%) SNOMED CT
6 7 (0.86%) Solvency II
7 6 (0.73%) IFRS
8 5 (0.61%) IFRS 17
8 5 (0.61%) QA
9 4 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 3 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.37%) HL7
10 3 (0.37%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.24%) GRC
11 2 (0.24%) GxP
11 2 (0.24%) SLA
12 1 (0.12%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 3 (0.37%) Docker
2 2 (0.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.12%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (0.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (0.98%) Kubernetes
2 5 (0.61%) Grafana
3 4 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (0.37%) Ansible
4 3 (0.37%) Istio
4 3 (0.37%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.24%) Argo
5 2 (0.24%) NetBackup
6 1 (0.12%) Control-M
Vendors
1 183 (22.40%) Databricks
2 88 (10.77%) Microsoft
3 44 (5.39%) Oracle
4 25 (3.06%) Informatica
5 23 (2.82%) Google
6 21 (2.57%) Foundry
7 20 (2.45%) SAP
8 19 (2.33%) Palantir
9 16 (1.96%) Salesforce
10 13 (1.59%) Talend
11 10 (1.22%) Denodo
12 8 (0.98%) Sparx
13 7 (0.86%) IFS
14 5 (0.61%) OpenAI
14 5 (0.61%) ServiceNow
14 5 (0.61%) Teradata
15 4 (0.49%) IBM
15 4 (0.49%) NVIDIA
16 3 (0.37%) Confluent
16 3 (0.37%) Workday